The city of Long Beach is changing up its time cycle for cutting the trees around town. If that seems boring to you, then picture this: Under the new system, a baby born today could sooner reach third grade than somebody finally pruning the trees outside your home. 

That is one practical upshot of the city’s adopted 2027 budget, which will stretch the routine trimming cycle from six years to eight. A Sept. 14 memo from Public Works Director Joshua Hickman to the City Council explains why: The city’s tree program has been spending more money than it has.

Long Beach has about 126,000 trees, 94,000 of which are maintained by Public Works. These are the trees that line streets, sidewalks and medians, and are scattered throughout parks. A contractor in a good year trims about 15,000 trees, moving through 35 city grids and pruning every tree in each one. Under the new schedule, that falls to about 11,750.

The math is unforgiving. The grid-trimming budget has sat at $1.3 million since 2023, even as costs climbed as high as $2.2 million just in fiscal year 2025. Across the whole program, spending has consistently exceeded the budget by an average $700,000 for the last five fiscal years. The memo says the city came up with the cash from vacancy savings, one-time money and cuts elsewhere, an approach it now calls unsustainable. The longer cycle is expected to save about $500,000 a year.

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The people are stretched, too. The in-house tree team has 17 budgeted positions, down from 22 in 2010. Retirements have left one certified arborist where there were three. The city is hiring three tree trimmers and a supervisor.

That said, the city assures it can handle emergencies, like fallen trees and storm damage, within about a day. Safety problems, like broken limbs and blocked signals, typically get attention within one to two weeks. The annual budget for removing trees and stumps is just $65,000, and most of it goes to emergencies. Some areas face extra limits.

Acknowledging that people may not love the wait, the city included a position in the budget that is meant to liaise between homeowners or neighborhood associations and privately hired trimmers. The city is also exploring discounted or subsidized rates for residents who use its vendors. Details are promised in 2027.

There is a bright spot, if a slightly ironic one. The city’s Office of Climate Action and Sustainability plants about 1,000 parkway trees a year, free to residents who request them, with a waitlist of roughly two months. Residents can also get a no-fee permit to plant a tree at their own expense from the city’s approved list.

In other words, Long Beach can plant you a tree in about two months. Trimming it is another matter.

If you’ve got a tree problem, you can tell the city through the GoLB app, by calling 562-570-2700 or by emailing [email protected].

If you’d like to voice your opinion on this or any other city business, you can show up to Tuesday’s City Council meeting, email a public comment or call in. There are instructions on how to do that here. 

Quick sips of the latest news

  • Long Beach wants thousands more e-bikes ahead of the Olympics: The Public Works Department is asking the City Council to approve a contract that would replace its aging pedal-only bikeshare program with an electric system run by a new vendor. The system currently has 480 working bikes with 250 out of service. Citing data that shows riders prefer public e-bikes over traditional pedals, the city wants to move forward with a two-year, $25.6 million contract for eventually up to 2,500 total bikes citywide ahead of the 2028 Olympics. To read more about the city’s plan to electrify its public bike fleet, click here. 
  • Street sweepers MIA: Pressed by frustrated constituents, Councilmember Daryl Supernaw is asking the city to update the Council at the next meeting on street sweeping operations, including any staffing or equipment problems they’re experiencing that might be the source of some streets not seeing any cleanings for weeks at a time. In a Sept. 22 memo, Supernaw says his district residents are not seeing their roads swept for several weeks, and that the city no longer sends “open route” notifications to council offices. The lapse comes as the district, he said, is still dealing with inconsistent organic bin collection, a jump in West Nile virus cases and expects more leaf and pine needle droppings.
  • Anaheim Street is getting a makeover. Come hear the details: Long Beach will hold a public forum on Sept. 29, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the MacArthur Park Community Center (1321 E. Anaheim St.), to review its planned overhaul of Anaheim Street, one of the city’s busiest east-west corridors. The project, expected to start in early 2027 and finish in early 2028, will rehabilitate four miles of road from the LA River to Pacific Coast Highway. Planned safety upgrades include signal improvements at 20 locations, 13 new crosswalks, enhancements to 59 existing ones, controlled-access medians with pedestrian refuges, better transit access and drought-tolerant landscaping. Updates will be posted here. (If you want to know more about Long Beach’s long-term vision for major streets like this, read this excellent story.)
  • Will it be beautiful for Long Beach? Long Beach councilors are asking for a breakdown on how the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will affect people locally. The federal law, signed in July 2025, restructures Medicaid and food assistance by adding work requirements, more frequent eligibility checks and narrower noncitizen eligibility for Medi-Cal and CalFresh. An expected 1.1 million Californians could lose Medi-Cal coverage under the bill, including around 120,000 Long Beach residents, about 26% of the city’s population, according to our previous reporting. 
  • Here’s Tuesday’s City Council agenda — and a Zoom link to attend virtually. It starts at 5 p.m.
  • It’s that time of year: Long Beach Gives is back. It’s the city’s biggest fundraiser, typically drawing in millions for local nonprofits. Many rely on this yearly push to sustain them, so please, give generously.