A friend of mine has been researching other cities when it comes to boulevard tree trimming, and the results are (not) surprising.
In Brookings they trim the city owned boulevard trees due to liability, and property owners are encouraged NOT to do it because of that liability.
Which got me thinking. If the city of Sioux Falls is responsible for the liability of the tree branches damaging vehicles (snowplows), why aren’t they responsible for trimming those trees? It’s like insuring your car, the insurance company insures the individual or individuals who drive and own the car and pay the insurance bill. So if the city is paying the liability insurance on the trees, and they own them, why aren’t they trimming them? Or fixing the sidewalks for that matter?
She also found out that Kansas City also trims boulevard trees and has basically the same policy of Brookings. Kansas city has approximately 500,000 people living in it’s core area, and 2.5 million in the metro area. If a city that is almost ten times the size of Sioux Falls has figured out how to budget for tree trimming, you would think we could. Oh that’s right, we need the money to build $170,000 crappers in McKennan Park instead.