While the Santa Monica City Council held a budget study session inside, the Treesavers organization were outside of the city hall showing their discomfort about the ficus trees that were removed on May 16, on second and fourth streets.
The tree activists were holding a vigil from 5 p.m. on May 20, to 9 a.m. on May 21, outside the city hall, as a protest for the removal of 23 trees and the plan to relocate approximately another seven.
Karim Damji, a freshman from Santa Monica High School was the first youth that attended the vigil at the accorded time, 5 p.m.
“Hopefully I might stay the whole night,” Damji said.
He said the trees are part of Santa Monica landscape and did not need to be removed.
Damji’s sister, Salma was the one who told him about the vigil. She is a student at Santa Monica College and heard about the Treesavers movement in her Environmental Politics class.
She explained many students do not know too much about this movement.
“These people (Treesavers) are really dedicated,” she said. “This issue matters more to this people than to the city council.”
Damji was not sure about staying overnight, but she had attended one of the Treesavers meetings and explained she likes the movement.
“People are just being human centered,” she said, “When they forget they (the trees) are living and they have things living on them, that’s what really bothers me.”
Treesavers were in the city council to encourage the founding of a tree commission, which would advise the city council about tree concerns.
“Many cities have an effective tree commission,” said Jerry Rubin, leader of Santa Monica Treesavers. “Santa Monica will be well served by starting it.”
At the budget study the city council starts considering what projects they will invest money on.
“Tonight we are here to request if they can set aside money in the budget to do it,” Rubin said.
At the meeting, Elaine Polachek, community maintenance director recommended the City Council to set aside $395,000 for “removal and replacement of approximately 299 declining carob trees,” which is one of the most common species of trees in Santa Monica City.
Polachek explained that 97 of these 299 carop trees present a danger and need to be removed. This department is also going around Santa Monica neighborhoods lecturing about carop trees and explaining the community why they need to be removed.
Council member Ken Genser questioned Polachek about the rating system that they used to grade the danger of the trees. The rating, made by the company Hort Science, considers the health and internal conditions of the tree, the size of the part of the tree more likely to fall, and most important, the size of the “target” (the place) where if could fall. A tree has to add a total of 9 or 10 points to be graded as “severe risk” and be considered for replacement.
A Santa Monica resident, which name could not be verified, spoke the at public comment session. He said the removal of all those trees at the same time could have a big environmental impact.
“Trees give so much moisture to the air, they are like environmental nursing,” he said. He also said that the removal should be done one by one.
Rubin also spoke at this session requesting the council to bring an outside arborist to reevaluate the study of the trees considered for removal. He also said that there should be more community participation about the tree issues, which is why a tree commission is needed.
Treesavers are making more efforts to save the rest of the trees that are programmed to be removed, because they do not know if those trees could survive the relocation. They already have collected 10,000 signatures from people to stop the relocation of these trees. They do not want to see another event like the one that happened in the 16th.
Treesaver Marissa Rubin said it is hard to understand the actions of the city council towards the trees.
“There was a little kid on her way to school when the removal was happening,” she said, “and she started to cry when she saw that they were cutting the trees.”
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