BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Several Bakersfield City Council members are seeing red over the city’s green situation.

The City Council was asked to approve a contract to Rancho Tree Service, a utility vegetation management contractor, to provide tree inventory and assessment services. The contract was for $180,000, according to the agenda.

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According to city officials, those services would give the city’s Recreation and Parks Department data on tree locations, species, health and risk to help make decisions on when, where and how to plant trees.

Numerous community members, including members of the Sierra Club, attended the meeting to urge the City Council to spend the money on other means — like actually planting the trees.

They pointed out Bakersfield needs more trees as the city struggles with issues like heat disparity and air quality problems, which could lead to diseases.

Community members asked the City Council to make tree planting a budget priority over all other efforts suggested by the Recreation and Parks, asking to spend the $180,000 on planting trees instead.

A few individuals also raised concern about how the City Council members aren’t involved in developing a tree plan.

Ward 5 Councilmember Larry Koman said he was upset with this proposed contract. He said he doesn’t want to spend $180,000 on anything before city staff create a tree plan and address the public’s concerns.

He also suggested working with CSU Bakersfield or Bakersfield College to create a program where graduate students can count the trees instead of spending more money on research.

Ward 1 Councilmember Eric Arias said he was “increasingly frustrated” with the lack of updates regarding the tree plan.

Arias asked the Tree Advisory Group to provide updates on its progress to the Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods Committee every quarter. He also asked to use the $180,000 instead to plant more trees.

“We do not need an additional plan or inventory contract in order to understand that we frankly do not have enough trees in the city of Bakersfield,” said Arias.

Vice Mayor Manpreet Kaur asked to schedule meetings between the City Council and the Tree Advisory Group, as well as agencies that are already planting, to see how the city can get the trees and where to start.

Koman asked what the tree committee had been doing for the past year because, while the City Council has received memos in the past, there have been no public presentations showing their progress.

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“We’re not seeing the result and I’ve said this before that the city needs to move at the speed of life,” said Koman. “And it can’t take a year of committee meetings to not really have a plan what we’re gonna do.”

The City Council unanimously voted to not approve the contract. Ward 2 Councilmember Andrae Gonzales was absent.

The City Council is set to discuss how to spend the $180,000 at a later meeting.

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