Loomis council debates use of oak tree mitigation fund for public tree pruning; no ordinance change adopted

Council members spent more than an hour debating whether money collected under Loomis's oak tree mitigation rules should be spent on routine public-tree pruning or preserved for planting and long-term oak conservation.

"I don't think that we should be using money that was paid to keep our tree canopy... to just prune any old tree," said Council member Ring, who asked staff to research whether the ordinance's allowable uses should be narrowed before the next round of pruning. Ring sought either direction to staff or a future agenda item to reconsider the ordinance language.

Town staff and other council members responded that the current practice arose because the town lacks publicly owned land suitable for planting replacement oaks. A staff speaker said the ordinance and the mitigation formula were designed to provide predictability for developers and to reduce exposure to CEQA challenges.

Public commenters and several council members urged preserving the fund's original purpose. "The intent was to preserve oak trees," said Jean Wilson, a planning commissioner involved with prior ordinance work, who warned that trimming each year would quickly deplete the mitigation balance and leave no money for larger preservation projects.

Al Frangioni, Senior Director of Facilities for the Loomis Union School District, offered a possible path forward: the district is master-planning sites and could partner with the town to identify locations suitable for planting oaks, providing a place to implement the mitigation fund's original objectives.

Council members did not vote to amend the ordinance at the meeting. Several members said the topic will be raised as part of the general-plan process or could return as a future agenda item for a more focused staff report that clarifies allowable uses and options for protecting heritage oaks.

Next steps: The council directed staff to ensure the tree-fund/ordinance topic is highlighted in the general-plan review and to follow up on potential partnerships and implementation ideas without taking immediate legislative action.