The Lafayette City Council, at a special meeting held Nov. 12, decided to sue the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) for failing to uphold a Tree Removal Agreement the utility signed in 2017.
On Tuesday, November 10, 2020, the City of Lafayette was informed by a representative of PG&E that the utility intended to begin to remove some 17 trees on East Bay Regional Park District property within the City of Lafayette. The utility indicated that the tree cutting could begin as early as Monday, November 16, 2020, along the Lafayette-Moraga Regional Trail and in the open space north of downtown Lafayette. PG&E anticipated that the tree removal work would take approximately three weeks to complete.
PG&E entered into a Tree Removal Agreement on January 23, 2017 with the City of Lafayette that stipulates the utility cannot cut or remove trees within Lafayette until all obligations in the agreement have been met. PG&E has not met its obligations under the agreement to “provide all information required by the City’s Tree Protection Regulations.” As such, the City Council has decided to move forward with a lawsuit to prevent PG&E from cutting or removing trees within Lafayette until such time as the utility meets its obligations under the 2017 Tree Removal Agreement.
The lawsuit was filed Friday, November 13, 2020, in Bankruptcy Court, in the Northern District of California.
You can read the City of Lafayette and PG&E Tree Removal Agreement here: https://www.lovelafayette.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=6389
You can download a pdf of this press release here: https://www.lovelafayette.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=6391