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Council Member Krishnan addresses concerns about tree maintenance and Parks Department contractors
1:31:09
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Council Member Shekar Krishnan expresses concerns about tree maintenance and care across the city, focusing on the Parks Department's use of contractors. He emphasizes the need for the Parks Department to expand its pool of contractors, citing issues with current contractors including criminal convictions. Matt Drury from the Parks Department responds, acknowledging the agency's efforts to expand contractor diversity.
- Krishnan highlights specific examples of problematic contractors, such as Dragonetti and Griffin Landscape, who have pleaded guilty to fraud charges.
- The discussion touches on the technical challenges of tree work and the importance of expanding the contractor pool.
- Krishnan warns against the "too big to fail" mindset with contractors and urges for faster expansion of the contractor pool.
Shekar Krishnan
1:31:09
Thank you so much, council member Holden.
1:31:11
You know, before I'm, turning it over to our to our council member Narcisse, you know, I just wanna echo again that, I mean, you're hearing these concerns because across the council, there's a real concern about, tree maintenance and care and, you know, the the the perception between what's happening on the ground, and, the way parks is approaching it.
1:31:31
One thing I will continue to say, is that parks really needs to expand the pool of contractors that you all work with.
1:31:37
And I've read this before at prior hearings, and, you know, we can cover it again at a in another hearing on on trees.
1:31:43
But I will just say the contractors that Parks worked with are not adequate.
1:31:47
You have we've at the last hearing, we talked about the Dragonetti contractor, plead guilty on felony fraud charges.
1:31:55
There's another contractor, that's, as well, Griffin Landscape, that's also plead guilty on fraud charges.
1:32:03
The contractors that Parks works with on this issue are problematic.
1:32:07
The pool is not big enough.
1:32:09
And when they have these criminal issues, and they're convicted of them, it affects their operations and business for obvious reasons, and that in turn affects the amount of tree care our city is getting.
1:32:19
And so Parks really needs to look at this and expand that pool of contractors that you all are using.
Matt Drury
1:32:23
We appreciate those sentiments, council member.
1:32:25
And, in fact, I think the agency has been been dedicated to expanding the pool of contractors, not just for tree work, but for but agency wide, and we're actually quite proud of our we've had great success in the MWE sphere and and others, and and everyone benefits when you can expand the universe of of folks willing to get in there and do the work.
1:32:40
It you know, specific to tree work, there are, you know, highly technical considerations and other challenges, but, you know, we are, dutifully focused on that and and open to further and you've been a great champion on that front, and we appreciate that.
Shekar Krishnan
1:32:51
Absolutely.
1:32:51
No.
1:32:51
And I and I and I appreciate that, and I'd like to see more of it too.
1:32:53
You know, I think one thing we have to get away is the mindset that any of these contractors are that their work is too essential.
1:32:59
I mean, they're sort of too big to fail.
1:33:01
We can't have that here because then we would keep relying on the same problematic contractors.
1:33:04
They're not expanding at at a quick enough pace, to broaden that pool.
1:33:08
So it's an issue we we need to keep working on.
1:33:11
I have a few more questions on, going back to to brush fires, but I'll turn it over to council member Narcis.
1:33:17
I also wanna recognize that council member Lee has joined us as well.