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# "Healthy" Is the Word Standing Between Whittier's Trees and the Chainsaw.
- URL: https://www.whittierinformed.com/healthy-is-the-word-standing-between-whittiers-trees-and-the-chainsaw/
- Published: 2026-08-26T00:11:42.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-26T06:09:37.000Z
- Description: No-bid contracts totaling $800k, a private meeting, and a recording of the city manager — here's what's driving Whittier's next move on trees.
- Author: Eddie Cota
- Tags: City Hall, Uptown Whittier, Ficus Trees, budget

A recording of Whittier's city manager speaking candidly behind closed doors on the city's tree policy is offering residents a rare, unfiltered look at what's driving one of the most consequential decisions facing Whittier's trees in years.

On Aug. 17, City Manager Conal McNamara spoke to a group of stakeholders invited by the city to an initial meeting on its new Urban Forest Management Plan (UFMP) — the document meant to replace Whittier's Parkway Tree Manual, the city's rulebook for planting, maintaining and removing trees on public property. The manual has been suspended since October 2025, when the City Council said its requirements were slowing down the removal of trees that posed a safety risk.

The meeting, held at the Whittier Police Department, was invitation-only. Conny McCormack, founder of Save Our Trees Whittier, tried to attend and was turned away at the door.

## What McNamara told the room

A recording of the meeting, later obtained and [posted publicly by Save Our Trees Whittier](https://saveourtreeswhittier.com/?ref=whittierinformed.com), captured McNamara telling the room what he described as the fundamental issue behind years of dispute over the city's trees.

> "Really, what we're going to get to when you get to brass tacks on this whole document, it's going to come down to one word, and that word is HEALTHY. What we are having disagreement with the Conservancy on \[is\] whether or not a healthy tree can be removed for liability purposes. 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. That's the reason we are here. At the end of the day, that one word HEALTHY is what this whole thing is going to be about."

McNamara did not respond to a request for comment on the recording or the context behind his remarks. 

### **Who was there?**

Public records obtained from the city and provided to Whittier Informed by McCormack show invitations to the Aug. 17 meeting went to three organizations: 

- the Whittier Chamber of Commerce
- the Whittier Uptown Association
- the Uptown Whittier Improvement Association
- along with Michael Baker International, the consulting firm hired to develop the UFMP.

The city also invited two leaders of the Whittier Conservancy, the environmental nonprofit currently suing the city over its tree policies. 

Whittier Informed reached out to a representative of the Whittier Conservancy, who confirmed they did not attend the meeting. 

### Sound familiar?

It's not the first time those business organizations have been early stakeholders in a fight over Whittier's trees. In December 2023, the City Council approved a redesign of Greenleaf Avenue that called for removing more than 100 mature trees from Uptown — a decision that set off [two years of protests](https://ktla.com/news/local-news/whittier-residents-outraged-over-plan-to-remove-ficus-trees-in-historic-district/?ref=whittierinformed.com), a petition signed by more than 8,000 residents, and a lawsuit from the Whittier Conservancy, and became a defining issue in the city's April 2026 election. 

The Chamber of Commerce, the Whittier Uptown Association and the Uptown Whittier Improvement Association each spoke in support of the Greenleaf project during the city's study sessions that took place in 2024.

Now, as the city begins developing its new tree policy, representatives of those same organizations were among the first stakeholders brought into the room.

### **Who wasn't there**

No certified arborists were invited. No landscape architects. No environmental groups beyond the Whittier Conservancy were invited. The nonprofit's decision not to attend may not be surprising, given its pending lawsuits against the city over the same tree policies now shaping the UFMP. 

That leaves a striking gap for a meeting meant to shape the future of Whittier's urban forest. Among the stakeholders in the room, only Michael Baker International, the city's paid consultant, brought professional expertise.

## **What the old Tree Manual actually says**

Whittier's 2016 Parkway Tree Manual generally required 30 days' notice before removing a healthy or diseased tree. Dead and hazardous trees were subject to shorter notice requirements, while trees deemed an imminent hazard could be removed immediately.

Most importantly, the manual excluded hazardous and emergency removals from its appeal process:

"Hazardous tree and emergency removals are not subject to the appeal process."

Yet a March 2026 staff report said the process "can result in a delay of over 90 days to remove a hazardous tree." The city's own Tree Manual, however, stated that hazardous tree removals were not subject to appeal.

That's why McNamara's repeated use of the word "healthy" on the recording matters: the disagreement isn't over removing dead or dangerous trees, which the old rules already allowed. It's over when a tree that remains healthy can be considered hazardous or a liability — and what review, if any, should come first.

[Parkway Tree Manual 2016The suspended rulebook governing how the city plants, maintains and removes trees on public propertyParkway Tree Manual 2016.pdf297 KBdownload-circle](https://www.whittierinformed.com/content/files/2026/08/Parkway-Tree-Manual-2016.pdf "Download")

## **How Whittier got here**

The City Council suspended the tree manual in October 2025, transferring authority over tree removal to the discretion of the city manager, who by ordinance must weigh preserving trees against public safety. Officials said the move was necessary to limit the city's liability exposure.

In a Nov. 25, 2025 letter, the general manager of the California Insurance Pool Authority, the city's insurance provider, recommended Whittier permanently eliminate the tree manual — warning that failure to do so would require the insurance pool's full board to review Whittier's continued participation in the pool.

There's also a dual role worth noting. Yolanda Martinez, Whittier's Director of Human Resources and Risk Management, is the same official who received CIPA's November 2025 letter. She also sits on CIPA's Board of Directors, representing the City of Whittier. 

McCormack has also pointed to research she says shows all 14 CIPA member cities maintain some form of tree-protection ordinance, raising the question of why Whittier's insurance provider urged this city specifically to eliminate its own. Whittier Informed has not independently verified this claim. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ac/cf/accfc1a2-ea62-48e2-b850-eeeee5053c41/content/images/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-25-133259-1.png)

A Nov. 25, 2025 letter from CIPA General Manager Janet Kiser recommending Whittier permanently eliminate its tree policy. (Source: California Insurance Pool Authority)

What started as a temporary suspension has since been extended into 2028, while the city works on a permanent replacement.

The Whittier Conservancy has sued over the decision, arguing in part that the council's votes to suspend the tree manual relied on closed-session discussion that was never disclosed to the public. The city disputes that. Multiple lawsuits are still pending.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ac/cf/accfc1a2-ea62-48e2-b850-eeeee5053c41/content/images/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-24-110338-1.png)

The Aug. 25, 2026 City Council agenda lists all three pending Whittier Conservancy lawsuits against the city under closed session. (Source: City of Whittier)

## **More than $800,000 in contracts**

On Jan. 27, the City Council approved a $369,538 contract with Michael Baker International to handle the environmental review for replacing the tree manual. A staff report said the firm was selected because it was already the city's on-call CEQA consultant. The same day, the council also approved a $200,000 contract with a law firm for outside litigation defense and a $50,000 contract with a communications firm to help manage public messaging on the issue. None of the three contracts went through a competitive bidding process, according to city staff reports.

Two months later, the council authorized Michael Baker another $194,595 — again with no bidding described — this time to write the Urban Forest Management Plan itself. That brought the firm's contract to $564,133\. Together, the four agreements authorized up to $814,133 in consulting, legal and communications work tied to the city's changes to its tree policies.

Michael Baker's June 2025 qualifications package submitted to Whittier lists years of environmental consulting work for the city, but Whittier Informed found no Urban Forest Management Plan among the projects identified in that submission. A staff report this spring said the firm's approach to the UFMP would mirror work it completed in Downey, San Fernando, Thousand Oaks and Long Beach.

### Carefully framed survey

Michael Baker's contract includes an optional package of community outreach — workshops, pop-up events, a citywide survey. The proposal is specific about how those questions could be framed.

Per the firm's own language, survey questions would be "carefully framed" in coordination with the city, to focus on "public safety, risk management, and the necessity of tree removals rather than aesthetics or personal preferences."

The results would help set the plan's goals and canopy targets. Michael Baker's proposal also floats bringing in groups like the Whittier Conservancy and CAL FIRE for outreach, but leaves the final call on who's actually included up to the city.

Michael Baker International’s representative did not respond to questions about whether it has previously developed a full Urban Forest Management Plan for any municipality, or about whether its proposed survey approach could shape results toward a predetermined outcome.

### A pattern with surveys

It's not the first time outreach numbers have been challenged in Whittier this year. [When a developer wanted to build a five-story storage facility near The Groves](https://www.whittierinformed.com/the-groves-is-running-out-of-parking-the-city-approved-a-new-bar-and-lost-its-backup-plan/), it told the Planning Commission it had talked to 426 residents and found 92% supportive, backed by 300-plus petition signatures.

Residents pushed back hard. The Groves HOA's board president said the developer's presentation to the board was never an actual board meeting, and the board never got a chance to weigh in. Others said the outreach was misleading — that petition signers had been asked to help save a dog park, a separate issue the project also addressed, not asked directly whether they supported a five-story storage building. The commission voted 3-0 to deny the project.

The two situations aren't the same — Michael Baker hasn't run its survey yet, and a developer's outreach for one project isn't the same as a citywide planning survey. But the Groves fight is a reminder that how a question gets asked can shape the answer people give, and how much residents can trust the results.

## **What happens next**

The plan isn't finished. The city says residents will get their turn, [starting with community workshops in every council district this fall](https://www.cityofwhittier.org/government/whittier-transparent/whittier-urban-forest-management-plan?ref=whittierinformed.com):

- **District 4**: Sept. 17, 6 p.m., Ocean View Elementary School
- **District 1**: Sept. 29, 6 p.m., Evergreen Elementary School
- **District 3**: Sept. 30, 6 p.m., Whittwood Branch Library
- **District 2**: Oct. 1, 6 p.m., Palm Park

The first of those meetings is three weeks away. As of publication, Whittier Informed found no public promotion of the dates — no posts on the city's official social media accounts and no mention on the city's homepage beyond the UFMP page itself, which is not easily accessible unless you know to look for it.

After that, the city says a council meeting will happen before the environmental review goes public for a 45-day comment period.

So the real questions raised by the Aug. 17 meeting aren't just about who was in the room that day. They're about what comes after: Who gets a say in Whittier's new tree rules? How will residents actually be asked what they want? And when safety and preservation collide, who decides whether a healthy tree comes down?

For McNamara, at least in his remarks that day, the answer came down to one word.

"At the end of the day," he said, "that one word HEALTHY is what this whole thing is going to be about."