Commission
to Council: Delay Tree Removal
Downtown |
By Jorge Casuso
October 4 -- Lacking the
power to stop the axes before they
start felling Downtown trees Monday
morning, the Planning Commission Wednesday
night voted to recommend that the
City Council delay an $8.2 million
streetscape project.
The vote capped emotional testimony
from some three dozen residents who
flocked to the council chambers to
protest the City’s plans to
compost or relocate 75 mature ficus
and palm trees they say help fight
noise and pollution and make strolling
down shady 2nd and 4th streets a pleasure.
The liberal city that prides itself
on being a leader in sustainability
would tarnish its reputation if it
moves ahead with a plan opponents
have vowed to fight in the media spotlight,
some who testified warned.
“People aren’t just going
to lay over and let this happen,”
said John Quigley, an environmental
activist. “This could be a major
misstep and embarrassment for Santa
Monica.”
The City seems to be bracing for
demonstrators on Columbus Day next
Monday, when contractors are set to
begin removing trees.
“While we respect their right
to express their First Amendment views
and to demonstrate, we are hopeful
that those rights will be expressed
civilly and peacefully,” City
manager Lamont Ewell wrote in an
editorial.
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| Recreated image
of ficus trees along 2nd Street
with gingkos added. (Photos courtesy
of the City of Santa Monica) |
Council member Kevin McKeown, the
council’s liaison to the commission,
warned that it was unlikely his colleagues
would act to delay the plan, which
calls for composting 23 mature ficus
trees and planting 139 new gingko
trees, adding a total of 64 new trees.
“There is no City Council meeting
between now and Monday,” said
McKeown, who cast the lone dissenting
council vote. “I think it’s
very unlikely an emergency meeting
will be held” before Tuesday’s
scheduled council meeting.
To revisit the plan -- which has
been in the works for a decade --
a council member on the prevailing
side would need to place the item
on the agenda, an unlikely scenario,
since City staff has warned that changing
the project could jeopardize the earmarked
State and Federal Transportation funds,
McKeown said.
“I don’t know, since
the contract (with the contractor
hired by the City) has been signed,
that we can postpone the work,”
McKeown said. “Whatever you
do, you will have to act quickly.”
“The sense of urgency is very
strong,” McKeown said. “There’s
less than 100 hours before the trees
start to be removed.”
Residents from across the City, many
of them members of the newly-formed
Treesavers organization, used logic,
emotion and guilt to urge the commission
to take whatever action it could.
“We need to go the extra mile
for the trees and a Santa Monica win-win
solution,” said Jerry Rubin,
the head of Alliance for Survival,
who organized the Treesavers’
effort. “It’s not good
for the city. It’s not good
for our future tree policy.”
Several of the speakers opposed the
plan on aesthetic and environmental
grounds, noting that the mature ficus
trees, which they contend still have
more half their life span left, will
be replaced with much smaller ginko
trees that take long to grow and lose
their leaves in the winter.
“We’re a sustainable
city,” said Susan McCory. “We’re
going to take these beautiful trees
down, and we’re going to have
these dinky trees and a bunch of concrete.
. . I think we have to rethink his.”
Others made emotional pleas.
“I’m really heartsick,”
said Sally Silverstein, who has lived
in Santa Monica for 40 years. “We
should have our ficus trees as a landmark.
We have the Santa Monica pier, we
have the ocean and we have the ficus
trees.
“We need them,” she said.
“I hope you can save them.”
“A large number of Santa Monicans
are against this action,” another
speaker said. “This is another
step in Bayside’s vision of
Santa Monica as an extension of the
Third Street Promenade. The profits
loom large, but what happens when
Downtown Santa Monica is just a clone
of everywhere?”
Still others questioned the process
that led to the final plan.
“Give the people more time,”
Quigly said. “There hasn’t
been enough public input. This is
what democracy is for.”
In an editorial to the local press,
City Manager Lamont Ewell countered
“the tremendous amount of misleading
information about the project,”
including claims that public input
was limited and that the trees pose
no danger.
“Although the project design
has been thoroughly reviewed and discussed
in public forums before Council, the
Architectural Review Board and Landmarks
Commission over the past two years,
misinformation continues to abound
about the removal of 23 ficus trees,”
Ewell wrote.
“And while no one likes removing
trees, it makes sense to do so when
they have been identified as structurally
unsound or irreparably damaged,”
the City Manager wrote. “There
is no ‘cure’ for internal
decay and no corrective pruning treatment
for trees with damaged trunks or that
are off-balance and present a risk
to the public.”
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