A leaked recording has prompted tree advocates to call for a pause on Whittier’s urban forest management plan, triggering the latest tension over the fate of the city’s iconic tree canopy.
The $800,000 urban forest plan became a flashpoint in the city’s tree preservation issues after the Whittier City Council voted last October to suspend, and later replace the city’s long-held Parkway Tree Manual manual, which offered protocols on protecting city trees.
Since then, preservationists have pushed back on the plan, decrying it’s cost and its backers, which they said include local business interests intent on felling healthy trees in the city’s main business district. They say there is no need to replace the Parkway Tree Manual for this new yet-unwritten plan, which city officials said will be more a policy document than a how-to on protecting and preserving Whittier’s urban canopy.
But as the city gears up for a series of workshops, the debate marches on.
The most recent issue is over whether otherwise “healthy” trees can be cut down if their roots are creating a sidewalk hazard in the city.
In a recording made during a stakeholders’ meeting on Aug. 17, Whittier City Manager Conal McNamara said the urban forest management plan will hinge on one word: “healthy.”
“What we are having disagreement with the (Whittier) Conservancy on is whether or not a healthy tree can be removed for liability purposes,” McNamara said at the meeting. “The majority of our trees are in good shape. So if we can all agree that a hazardous tree can be a healthy tree, I mean to say we could have saved $800,000 and a year and a half on this whole exercise, but we can’t. We can’t come to the table because they are going to sue us on that.”
“They” are environmental groups such as the Whittier Conservancy and www.SaveOurTreesWhittier.com, the grassroots group that released the recording. It has gathered 8,275 signatures on a petition calling for a transparent, community-driven process to protect the approximately 22,000 city-owned trees.
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, McNamara repeated comments he made at the Aug. 17 meeting, saying it’s no secret the issue at hand is healthy trees causing damage to public and private property.
“We have had millions of dollars in claims over the last 10 years associated with this, and really at the core of it is the Parkway Tree Manual,” he said.
The manual was first drafted in 1996 and last revised in 2015. It contains procedures for planting, and maintaining parkway trees, including a process on dealing with removal of healthy trees, which city officials criticized as long drawn out.
But tree advocates said blame for the trip-and-fall lawsuits, such as the October 2025 settlement for $7.5 million with a special education teacher, was due to the city’s negligence in repairing sidewalks.
Conny McCormack, founder of SaveOurTreesWhittier.com, said she tried to attend the stakeholders meeting on Aug. 17 but was turned away. She is calling for the council to reinstate the Parkway Tree Manual and cancel the contract with the firm hired to develop the new urban forest plan.
“The city manager’s attempt to explain why Whittier is spending $800,000 to insert one word into a new urban forest plan reeks of desperation,” McCormack said, adding only representatives from the Whittier Chamber of Commerce, the Whittier Uptown Association, and the Uptown Whittier Improvement Association were in the room to hear from Michael Baker International, the consulting firm hired to develop the Urban Forest Management Plan (UFMP).
McCormack said she has proof of a conflict of interest that should disqualify Michael Baker International (MBI) from producing the UFMP, since firstly, the firm has no experience developing a UFMP for a city, and its contract contains language she alleges manipulates the results of a community survey.
“MBI is totally compromised with the revelation of how they’re going to word the survey to frame the questions,” she added, saying the city should cancel the contract.
McNamara said the consulting team retained by the city has the staff and expertise necessary to prepare the plan and environmental impact report. Michael Baker International did not respond to a request for comment.
Resident Jim Sass, who worked in educational research and program evaluation until his retirement, also objects to this part of the city’s contract with MBI: “Carefully framed survey questions developed in coordination with the city would focus on public safety, risk management, and the necessity of tree removal rather than aesthetics or personal preferences.
“In all my years in doing research as a research professional, I’ve never once implemented a survey where the client told me what to find,” Sass said. “I worked for Los Angeles Unified School District for more than 10 years, both as an internal researcher and as a consultant and never once did they tell me what results to find. There is no integrity in this.”
All the players in Whittier’s long-standing tree debacle agree this latest branch of the battle began in November 2025, when the previous City Council suspended Whittier’s Tree Protection Ordinance and Parkway Tree Manual, giving the city manager sole authority to remove healthy trees without public notice or appeals process.
The Whittier Conservancy sued the city, alleging violations of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and that case is ongoing.
The conservancy was invited to the Aug. 17 meeting, and McNamara reported the group declined to attend.
Mary Gorman-Sullens, founding member and president of the Whittier Conservancy, said in a statement that the conservation group cannot provide copies of emails about the meeting due to ongoing litigation.
“However, we can summarize that in response to a City Manager invitation to stakeholder meeting regarding a UFMP, the Conservancy had a number of questions,”’ she said. “We asked that environmental stakeholders and those with expertise in urban forest management be included. We also informed the City that it would be premature for the Conservancy to attend such a meeting while we were still waiting for a response to our legal settlement proposal.”
Critics at the Aug. 25 City Council meeting said they find it hard to trust the process when the definition of the “stakeholders” is limited to the city administration’s sole discretion, an allegation McNamara pushed back on, saying if the City Council decreed, he would hold more meetings and invite whomever the council chose. Several residents called for McNamara’s resignation.
Councilmember Aida Macedo, one of three new lawmakers elected in a landslide race in April, said the limited scope of the invite-only meeting on Aug. 17 can be seen as suspect by the public.
“In my opinion, everybody’s a stakeholder, and I do think that we need to be more aggressive about bringing in the community’s voices and be overly inclusive.”
Several speakers at the meeting reminded the three new lawmakers that tree protection was a key campaign issue that propelled them into office.
“Show us you are different from your predecessors,” said resident Noah Larios. “Reinstate the Whittier Trees Protection ordinance and tree manual.”
Jim Rawitsch said he has worked on many projects over the years involving environmental impact reports and community input.
“I’m here tonight to say, you’re being hoodwinked,” Rawitsch said, decrying Michael Baker International’s no-bid contract and its price tag, as well as what he said was lack of input from environmental experts. “It sounds to me like you’re paying too much money to the wrong people for something we don’t need. Let’s put this contract on hold and ask all the questions that still need to be answered.”
Former state Sen. Martha Escutia, who teaches environmental justice at USC, submitted research she completed on what she said is the overwhelmingly positive return in investment on a mature tree canopy.
“I don’t know where in the world has a healthy tree been defined as a danger to society other than here in Whittier. I think that’s just outrageous,” she said. “We need to put a pause to this urban forest plan and analyze everything with time.”
“Do a little bit of digging,” Escutia told the council.
For his part. McNamara said since he was given control of tree removal in late October 2025, the city has removed 55 trees, 26 considered dead or emergency, and 29 deemed to be causing damage. It is a .25% loss out of about 22,000 trees in the city’s catalog.
“The narrative that we’re out there slicing down trees and killing them is just patently false,” he said.
Workshops about the urban forest management plan will be on Thursday, Sept. 17 at Ocean View Elementary School for District 4; Tuesday, Sept. 29 at Evergreen Elementary School for District 1; Wednesday, Sept. 30 at Whitwood Branch Library for District 3; and Thursday, Oct. 1 at Palm Park for District 2.
All meetings will start at 6 p.m.
“We are at the beginning of what will be a very robust public participation process and we encourage all residents to participate,” McNamara said.