Top bureaucrats inside Vancouver city hall secretly approved spending $2.1 million last summer to remove tens of thousands of Stanley Park trees due to the Hemlock looper moth outbreak. Deputy city manager Karen Levitt rubber stamped the emergency request on Aug. 8 from Colin Knight in the finance department… Knight estimated $2.02 million for euphemistic “operational treatments” between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31 on 39 hectares around the Stanley Park Causeway and Stanley Park Railway. During the same time period, “prescriptions” on 55 hectares around the railway, Prospect Point, Brockton Point, Vancouver Aquarium and the steep area above the seawall, for $55,000. …“It is the goal of this project to maximize the number of removals as part of this initial phase of a multi-year program to reduce the risk to public safety and potential for forest fires,” it said. “Any changes to the project phases, timelines and deliverables may be amended with prior Park Board approval.”