Get Involved - Save the Healthy Liquid Amber Trees

Thanks to all of you who have signed petition, and helped spread awareness. We have now surpassed 700 signatures supporting the preservation of Gibbons Drive’s healthy, mature trees while fixing sidewalk infrastructure. 

The response makes clear that there is substantial community concern about the future of these trees. But petition signatures alone are not enough. The next step is making sure Public Works and City Council hear directly from residents via email and in person (if possible) at upcoming City Council Sessions.

Make Your Voice Heard
There are three especially important ways you can help:

1. Email BOTH City Council and Public Works

We strongly encourage you to send one email addressed to both Public Works Director Erin Smith and the Alameda City Council. This ensures that both the department developing the plan and the Council members who will ultimately consider it hear directly from residents.

City Council: CITYCOUNCIL-List@alamedaca.gov
Public Works Director Erin Smith: esmith@alamedaca.gov

Your email does not need to be long or polished. A few sentences in your own words about why these trees matter to you can make a difference.

Some issues you may wish to raise include:

• Preserving healthy, mature trees as the default approach.
• Requiring Public Works to document a full list of feasible infrastructure fixes including examples like meandering sidewalks, curb bulb-outs, root pruning, alternative sidewalk materials, and other innovative solutions before removing a healthy, mature tree.
• Why Public Works is proposing to raise the Alameda Urban Tree Plan's five-year removal cap from 5% to 20%.
• Why we would cut down healthy, mature trees when the arborist's own assessment shows they've lived only 40-80% of their expected lifespan, with decades of life left.
• Why some sidewalk locations flagged for repair haven't been fixed in decades.
• Meaningful, two-way engagement with Public Works before the plan is finalized — not just a chance to comment after a draft is already set.

We have also attached sketches presented by Public Works at the community meeting on May 12, 2026. We believe these provide important context. Public Works now describes its approach as “preservation-first” and location-by-location, yet the City's own sketches depict the mature canopy progressively disappearing and being replaced over time.

We encourage residents to ask Public Works to explain how these sketches and the proposed 20% removal cap are consistent with a genuinely preservation-first, tree-by-tree approach.

2. Attend Upcoming Public Meetings and Make Public Comment

Public Works has identified two upcoming meetings:

October 12 — Planning Board
October 14 — Commission on Persons with Disabilities

Public Works expects to release its draft Plan at the end of September, with a goal of releasing it at least two weeks before the October 12 meeting.

We encourage residents to review the draft when it is released and attend these meetings to make public comment. We will share additional information as it becomes available.

What We’re Hearing From the Community
Our community survey has also produced strikingly consistent results:

75.6% selected preserving all healthy mature trees as their first choice, and another 17.4% preferred a maximum 5% removal cap. Together, more than 93% selected one of these two preservation-focused approaches.

Only 9.3% believed the community had been given sufficient opportunity by the City to provide input.

And nearly 90% of respondents living on Gibbons Drive said they would be willing to allow the sidewalk to move several feet into their own front yard if doing so would preserve a mature tree.

While this is not a randomized scientific survey, the direction of the feedback has been remarkably consistent: residents strongly favor preserving healthy mature trees, want to see the decision-making process the Public Works Department used to determine which infrastructure fixes are feasible at each tree location, and how each mature, healthy tree will be preserved while that infrastructure work is done.

What Happens Next Matters
We support making Gibbons Drive safe and accessible. We also believe those goals should be pursued with preservation of healthy mature trees as the default, and with removal occurring only after reasonable preservation alternatives have genuinely been exhausted.

These decisions could shape Gibbons Drive for generations. A young replacement tree cannot replace the canopy of a healthy mature tree in any meaningful near-term sense.

More than 700 signatures have gotten attention. Now we need residents to speak directly to Public Works and City Council before the decisions are made.

Thank you again for using your voice to help protect Alameda’s healthy, mature trees.