by Timothy Rutt
A county official has shed some more light on how the locations were chosen for replacing downed trees in Altadena.
In our earlier story, we mapped out that most trees being replaced thru a county grant would be planted on the east side of Altadena. Altadena Heritage has urged the county to not only equalize the distribution, but devote some of those funds to putting trees on the West Woodbury Road parkway.
According to Sussy Nemer, field deputy for Supv. Michael D. Antonovich, the county offered a $100,000 grant to public agencies to plant trees in public property, in part to mitigate damage from the 2011 windstorm. The funds come from Proposition A of 1992 and “Baby A” of 1996, parks monies which in turn come from local property tax revenues.
The winner of the grant was the county Department of Public Works, which released a list of 208 locations where trees will be replaced.
On the list, 68 of the new trees will go to replace damage from the windstorm. The remainder will go to replace trees that have been removed for other reasons over the years -- disease, damage, safety, or a requests that residents have made, Nemer said. The list covers several years' worth of tree losses that were recorded by the DPW.
Mark Goldschmidt, president of Altadena Heritage, wrote to members of his organization that they’re looking for more balance in the allocation of trees. Altadena Heritage particularly wants to plant street trees along the parkway of west Woodbury Road, which is already undergoing a $1.2 million landscaping project on the medians, unrelated to the tree grant.
According to Nemer, there will be 71 new trees planted in the medians for that project. 43 existing trees will be removed, and eight existing trees will be moved to better locations. But there won’t be any new street trees planted along the parkway (the area nearest the sidewalk) as Altadena Heritage wants, Nemer said.
One of the reasons is that the jurisdiction is complicated -- while most of Woodbury Road is in Altadena and falls under county jurisdiction, some parts of it belong to the city of Pasadena, Nemer said. In addition, parkway trees weren’t included because of cost of the existing plan.
However, “if the community is interested in having more parkway trees, we can look into it,” Nemer said. “This grant isn’t the only opportunity for street trees.”
