KSHB 41 reporter Isabella Ledonne covers issues surrounding government accountability and solutions. Share your story with Isabella.
High wind gusts two weeks ago put a spotlight on the need to address dead trees in Kansas City.
The combination of dead trees and high winds caused damage and left many without power.
On the corner of West 36th and Wyandotte streets, high winds knocked down a massive tree branch that hit a power box on an apartment building.
Residents didn't have power for a week.
Resident Alex Crowell explained his frustration with the city not removing the tree, claiming he's been contacting the 311 department since May 2023 with concerns about the dead tree.
"The city has known it's dead for about two years now at minimum," Crowell said. "Honestly, we're just feeling a little neglected."
When the city hadn't taken the tree down even after the building's power was knocked out, Crowell called KSHB 41 News.
"I'm just concerned that we'll have more damage from these trees," Crowell said. "I didn't have the confidence that they were following though on the original request."
KSHB 41 News emailed the city asking why there was a delay in removal of the tree.
We were told the tree would be removed by Friday, March 21.
"The Forestry Division assigned the tree for removal, but the process was delayed due to utilities in the area that required coordination before work could proceed," Assistant City Manager Melissa Kozakiewicz wrote. "Because the tree was declining but not completely dead, fully dead trees—considered higher priority for safety reasons—were addressed first. This case remained open longer than it should have, and the contractor has been directed to complete the removal by the end of the week."
But on Wednesday, March 26, the tree was still there.
"I'm not sure what they're waiting for to happen in order to cut down this tree," Shannon Underwood, a resident, said.
Underwood also sent a 311 request to remove the tree last week after her power was knocked out, but explained that didn't go far.
"I think within less than 10 minutes, the report had been canceled," Underwood said. "I received a note that there was a duplicate report."
Other neighbors reported the same issue with duplicate reports. That led Underwood to question the city's 311 reporting process.
"For problems that might have duplicate requests, how are requests flagged as important or need to be addressed?" Underwood asked.
KSHB 41 News called David Cornelius, the assistant director of neighborhood services who oversees 311 reporting operations. Cornelius explained the reports are delegated to specific departments, and each agency handles reports from there. In this case, it's the Forestry Department's responsibility to take care of the tree.
"The city's intake system puts those reports to go directly to the department and they have their own operations and work order systems that come into play on their end," Cornelius said. "If it's a duplicate, the report is closed and referred to the open one and they're going to keep that one open until the work is completed."
The 311 department has quarterly check-in's with each department to make sure reports are getting completed, but there are no other accountability measures.
"The expectation is that they will work on the report as soon as possible," Cornelius said. "We don't tell our departments what to do, but we make sure we review those open reports that have been sitting open and try to get some updates."
Duplicate reports aren't actually deleted, but residents are referred back to the already existing open report.
"I think it's not the best system because if multiple people are reporting it, it shows that it's a bigger issue," Underwood said.
Both Underwood and Crowell explained they still haven't heard from the Forestry Department, despite multiple calls.
On Wednesday, KSHB 41 News got some answers from the department's environmental manager about why there have been delays.
"There was delays in getting coordination between KCPNL (Evergy), our contractor and Parks in making the tree safe for removal," Stephen Van Rhein said. "It's a very large tree, it's close to a lot of power lines, so between those three factors, it extended our normal time for responding and removing the tree."
The Forestry Department aims to complete reports within 90 days, but Van Rhein explained this incident stayed open longer than it should have.
"It's one that kind of didn't get the attention and we weren't fast enough on this," Van Rhein said.
KC's Forestry Department oversees 200,000 trees and removes several thousand trees a year, prioritizing fully dead trees over declining trees. Van Rhein explained when Crowell first made a report on this tree, it was only declining. That status update pushed it to the back of the priority list for the next two years.
"We were working through the back load of other cases," Van Rhein said. "Moving forward, we're going to have a system of rechecking [old] cases that appear closed."
The department is now taking inventory of all 200,000 city trees to prevent more accidents from happening, like dead branches falling on power boxes.
Van Rhein explained he expects the contractor to be out on 36th Street removing the tree by the end of the week.
"I'm hoping we will improve our response time even better," Van Rhein said.
