City Council: Ginkgo in, community room out

They say a tree is known by its fruit – and the Sonoma City Council is now OK with that, because on Wednesday council members rescinded a previous vote to cut down a ginkgo tree that has been the target of community complaints over its malodorous, slippery fruit.

The council had on Jan. 29 voted 3-2 to remove the tree, one of five ginkgos on the Plaza, after city employees and several community members alleged the offending aroma – often compared to vomit or excrement – and messy seed droppings were a hazard and caused people to avoid the northeast corner of the Plaza. Two-thirds of the city Tree Committee echoed the sentiments of local arborists in agreeing that the Plaza’s three female ginkgos – the gender which bears the noxious fruit – should never have been planted and allowed to grow into adulthood in the first place.

But after a flurry of pro-ginkgo community feedback, Mayor Madolyn Agrimonti, who had originally voted with the majority to remove the single tree, asked for the council to revisit the matter. And at Wednesday’s meeting she reversed course, joining council members David Cook and Amy Harrington in voting to spare the maligned arbor.

In explaining her change of heart, Agrimonti described a Plaza gathering that took place following the Jan. 29 decision in which more than two-dozen ginkgo supporters called for alternative ways for dealing with the rank and squalor that didn’t involve tree removal.

“The timeliness of it made it seem like an 11th hour decision,” she said of the tree removal, which would have had to be carried out quickly, before bird-nesting season begins in earnest in late February.

Councilmember Gary Edwards, who along with Councilmember Rachel Hundley had also voted to remove the tree, took a broader view of the overall condition of the Plaza and said he still supported removing the tree and replacing it with something more beneficial.

Edwards said he visited the contested corner of the Plaza recently with Sonoma resident Tom Cannard, who was a child when he and his father Bob originally planted ginkgos at the site. “He doesn’t have a big issue with the tree coming out,” Edwards said of Cannard.

Hundley said she, too, still supports the original decision to remove the tree, but at this point was fine with taking a wait-and-see approach to the fruit-droppings next fall. “I think it is too late to address the tree this year,” she said. Hundley also voiced her concern that the council had “broadcast that we recognize there’s a hazard on the Plaza,” leaving the city “vulnerable” if it fails to mitigate the problem.

The council voted 4-1, with Edwards against, to rescind the prior decision to remove the tree and to study ways to mitigate the ill effects of ginkgo trees and monitor any complaints from residents.

While the ginkgo got a reprieve, the concept of a “community meeting room” met a different fate.

At the behest of Mayor Agrimonti, the council on Wednesday also took up consideration of changing the name of the meeting room used by the city council and other commissions from its long-held title of “Community Meeting Room” to “Council Chambers.” Agrimonti said “council chambers” is a more typical way to refer to the room where city council meetings take place.

The city staff report didn’t envision any major financial impact for the name change, but city officials estimated the ordering of multiple new signs at about $8,000 in materials and staff time.

The room was originally planned in 1981, it was referred to as “court council chambers.” But during a remodeling of the designs in 2007, the name and signage was revised to Community Meeting Room.

Councilmember Edwards, however, failed to see the necessity in changing the name of the room, saying he’d never had any trouble finding the location of the council meetings despite the council’s absence from the room name. “I have no intention of spending $8,000 to change the signs,” said Edwards.

Councilmember Hundley, meanwhile, said she preferred “community meeting room,” as it’s “more inclusive and democratic.”

They were in the minority, however, and the motion to change the name was approved 3-2.

Following the vote, Agrimonti expressed optimism that changing the signs will be worth it in the long run.

“It’ll say ‘city council chambers’ long after I’m gone,” she said. “So I think the cost is really minimal.”

Email Jason at jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.