City Light Official Promises Utility Will Not Remove Trees on Interurban Trail

A top official with Seattle City Light publicly agreed Tuesday night that the utility would not remove any trees along the Interurban Trail in Shoreline’s Westminster Triangle neighborhood, other than a few dying ones.

“I know to a lot of you, the big deal was tree removal, and we’re not going to do that,” said Phil West, the head of customer service for City Light, told an audience of about 20 at a meeting at State Rep. Cindy Ryu's offices on Aurora Ave. North.

about not having input before plans were put in place to remove about 40 trees from a stretch of the Interurban Trail from 145th St. to 155th St.

During that meeting City Light backed off its original plans to secure a contract for the work and pledged to work with the city of Shoreline and a citizen work group to form a plan of action. More details of what that will entail were discussed during hour-long meeting such as what is considered a dead or dying tree.

The next step is to formulate and update a written agreement with input from City Light, the city of Shoreline and a group of property owners from Westminster Triangle, which “could take awhile to negotiate,” West said.

Still, property owner Lance Young, who was behind the petition, said, “It sounds like you’re committed to what we want.”
“Yes,” responded West.

Young said afterward that he, “thought it was a good tone to the meeting” and was glad that the neighbors initial concern over the tree removal was addressed.

“We just need to get something in writing to get past this trust hurdle,” Young said. “The critical takeaway from this meeting is that Phil West promised he’d work cooperatively on wording to make a better agreement.”

Removal of the trees was originally considered this time because trimming compromises the health of the trees in the long run and isn’t as effective on conifers that grow straight up, according to City Light arborculturist Brent Schmidt.

Instead, though, City Light plans to do what’s it done in the past, which is trim trees every four years. The last time the trees were trimmed was in 2008. Trimming this time will likely take place in spring of next year, Schmidt said.

City Light may remove and replace a few dying trees, about five or so, West said.

Some minimal pruning was done a few weeks ago to clear a path for the power lines and remove immediate hazards for the winter storm season, West said.