Toronto

Proving, yet again, that money does indeed grow on trees and city bureaucracies tend to grow like weeds in summer, the city’s budget committee approved $394,000 needed to keep six tree police officers on the job.

Those officers (at just shy of $100,000 a pop with benefits) will continue to “proactively” enforce the city’s tree bylaws, the committee heard. The city had earmarked $297,000 in January to kickstart the effort.

The latest expenditure is designed to fund the officers until February when plans call for the city to make seven such positions permanent at a cost of $696,000, notes the report to budget committee.

Asked what they are supposed to do, urban forestry director Jason Doyle told the committee they are to respond to complaints about developers or other residents not complying with the conditions of their building permits and either taking down trees or abusing them — and hopefully responding within 72 hours.

Geesh. If only the parks department could respond to complaints about rusty, corroded playground equipment within 72 weeks, let alone 72 hours.

I also have to ask whether the tree police have had a chance to take a look at the 15-20 mature trees slated for the axe in Ramsden Park to accommodate a $766,000 ramp proposed by the area’s councillor, Kristyn Wong-Tam.

Details, details.

Doyle said they are predicting 1,600 such complaints for 2017 and 1,850 in 2018 but carefully evaded a question about whether they’re actually tracking the complaints monthly.

The parks report crows that 833 or 938 complaints were investigated between January and June — which have resulted 300 stop work orders, 350 orders to comply and “contravention inspection fees” being applied in 745 cases. The new positions, according to the report, have allowed the city’s tree huggers to investigate 89% of complaints within eight days compared to 52% complaints looked into within 43 days in 2016.

“The program is full cost recovery ... the compliance fees cover the cost of employees,” Doyle said more than once.

When I dug farther (how’s that for a tree analogy) — no one on the committee asked this question, including budget chief Gary Crawford — I discovered that less than half of the $469,000 in fines applied from January to June have been paid to date.

(Violators face fines of $233.10 for a non-construction related contravention and $699.31 for a construction-related offences, including damage to those mostly pathetic looking street trees.)

“People have 90 days to pay the Contravention Inspection Fee so we expect to collect the full amount in the coming months,” said parks spokesman Matthew Cutler.

He added that they also have the power to add the “contravention inspection fees” to a property tax bill if those fined fail to pay up.

I’m a huge tree hugger and absolutely hate when I hear of builders, or city officials taking down trees without any thought of the consequences.

I’ve also written stories about the urban forestry department absolutely refusing to budge on trees, like the Norway Maple, that are invasive species and can be very destructive to a home’s foundation if the roots spread.

Most people can be trusted to do the right thing.

Cost recovery, or no cost recovery, the “contravention inspection fee” sounds to me like nothing more than yet another city cash grab — and a punitive one at that — to help build the parks department fiefdom and collect a little extra cash.

SLevy@postmedia.com