Urban foresters make pitch for job

Spokane will soon have a new person to speak for the trees.

Three candidates for the city’s new urban forester job met with members of the public Monday before a City Council meeting.

“It’s a very small step in a very long journey to establishing a healthy and adequate urban forestry program in the city of Spokane,” said Councilman Richard Rush.

The city’s urban forestry position was combined in 2007 with the city’s horticulture supervisor job. That same year, now-Mayor Mary Verner promised during her mayoral campaign to bring the urban forestry job back.

But the return of the position, which will pay in the range of $57,200 to $70,400, comes as the city prepares to deal with a $10 million deficit in 2011.

City Councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin said that having an urban forester is important, but it may be unwise to hire for the position when layoffs are a possibility.

“Is it wise to fill it now when we know that the economic condition of the city is going to be in worse shape in 2011 than it is right now?” McLaughlin said.

But Rush pointed to the city’s 2007 Matrix study. That report, which mostly focused on ways to cut costs, recommended spending $525,000 more on the urban forest to start a street-tree maintenance program.

“Previous generations did it for us,” Rush said. “Because of the age of our urban forest that responsibility is falling to us now.”

City spokeswoman Marlene Feist said Verner will make the final decision on the hire. The selection does not have to be approved by City Council.

A 1997 study of street and park trees in Spokane concluded that the “overall health of Spokane’s street trees is below average.” In 2007, the Matrix report said the quality of the city’s urban forest likely had decreased since 1997.

The finalists for the job, Chris Boza, Angel Spell and Mark Mead, work as urban foresters in other cities.

Boza, 51, of Chattaroy, has been the community forester for the city of Hayden, Idaho, for almost three years and is the former urban forester for the city of Chico, Calif. Boza, who has a bachelor’s in forestry from Michigan Technological University, said he would spend his first three months learning “everything he possibly could” about the city’s trees.

He said his top goal would be to develop a “long-term management program” for the forest.

Spell, 39, of Spokane, has been the urban forester for the city of Post Falls for almost three years. She previously was the urban forester for Hayden. Spell, who holds a bachelor’s in biology from the University of Colorado and a master’s in natural resource management from the University of Denver, said Spokane’s urban forest “has wonderful potential.”

Spokane’s street trees “need the same level of attention and care as our park trees,” Spell said. “They’ve lacked regular maintenance.”

Mead, 52, of Tacoma, is a senior urban forester overseeing park trees for the city of Seattle, where he has worked for 10 years. Mead, who holds forestry and kinesiology bachelor’s degrees from the University of Washington, said the city needs more structure in its urban forestry program.

“I really see this as an opportunity to build a program that will have a lot of community support,” Mead said.

Mead said Spokane’s urban forest “especially on the north side” needs “some help.” But, he added, “a lot of urban forests need help.”