The City of Euclid has been awarded a $50,000 Healthy Urban Tree Canopy grant to prune roughly 300 large street trees, Urban Forester Lathwell said at the Shade Tree Committee meeting on Aug. 21.

The grant “is a three-way agreement between the Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District, the vendor that is selected, and the city of Euclid,” Urban Forester Lathwell said, adding that work could begin this fall and must be completed by 2026.

Why it matters: the city’s street-tree inventory completed in 2024 shows a large backlog of removals, and the committee discussed both pruning and removals as part of efforts to manage aging and hazardous trees while balancing planting capacity.

Details from staff: Lathwell said the city is finalizing an application for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources urban forestry grant program; that application would be planning-focused and intended to continue work on the City’s Urban Forest Comprehensive Plan. She also reported that the Student Conservation Association has approached the city about serving as municipal partners for potential interns in upcoming seasons.

On removals, Lathwell said the city issued an RFP for the 2025 citywide street-tree removal program. “That is funding that is coming from the general fund from the city,” she said, and the RFP is expected to yield contractors to remove roughly 170 of the larger trees identified for removal. Lathwell added the city is coordinating smaller removals internally as staff time allows and cited a recent large limb failure on South Lake Shore as an example where inventory verification led to removal.

Inventory and planting capacity: committee members pressed staff on the scale of removals versus planting. Lathwell said the 2024 inventory identifies “over 700 trees that need removal,” including many smaller-diameter trees that likely died from lack of watering or deer damage. She noted some of the largest caliper trees in the inventory reach about 54 inches and that the city lacks capacity both to remove and to maintain a much larger planting program right now: “you don’t want to plant a whole bunch of trees if you can’t take care of them,” she said.

Partners and next steps: the pruning grant is set to be executed with the Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District and a selected vendor. The ODNR grant application and potential SCA internship partnership are still in development, and the RFP responses will determine contractors and schedules for removals.

Limitations and outstanding questions: committee members requested clearer definitions of what qualifies as a “large” tree for removal; Lathwell tied removals to the 2024 inventory and to safety or structural failure assessments. No formal vote or city policy change on removals was taken at the meeting.

What to watch: staff said the ODNR grant application will be submitted in the coming weeks and that the RFP process for removals is underway; completion of the pruning work is required by 2026.