COEUR d'ALENE - Mayor Steve Widmyer issued an apology to the Kootenai Environmental Alliance this week for a lack communication concerning tree removal on the dike road levee.

"This is a case of us spiking the ball before we got into the end zone," Widmyer told The Press on Wednesday.

The mayor said the city has been following a levee certification plan that has a three-step process for the removal of trees.

The first step, he said, was to identify the dead and diseased trees for removal. An arborist was hired by the city's engineering firm to identify those trees.

The arborist identified about 300 trees for removal in that stage, but the city still had two more steps that would involve tree removal the mayor said.

In fact, Widmyer said the city had to remove several more trees during the geo-technical analysis phase, and then again during the slope alignment process.

At the city council meeting Tuesday, the mayor explained the city began celebrating the fact that it was going to save 700 trees along the levee.

"We mis-communicated that," Widmyer said.

He said the city should have told the public that more trees were going to be removed in those stages.

"That should have been more clearly communicated to the KEA and other interested parties," he said. "In the future we will do better."