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# Fracas over ficus trees gains steam
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/fracas-over-ficus-trees-gains-steam/
- Published: 2006-02-18T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T17:17:08.000Z
- Author: Carolyn Sackariason
- Tags: Business, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Jeweler ready to chain himself to trees in order to save them*

FOURTH STREET — Merchants here are getting defensive in their fight to save dozens of trees that have lined this street for decades.

As City Hall moves forward with its plan to chop down half of the mature ficus trees as part of a streetscape redesign along Second and Fourth streets, merchants are organizing to save their coveted canopy.

Ken and Kia Salek, owners of Nobel Gems Inc., a jewelry store at 1412 Fourth St., in past weeks have gathered signatures for a petition from fellow merchants, urging the City Council to reverse its decision to replace the ficus with a less dense species, called a ginko tree. They’ve managed to get virtually every merchant along Fourth Street to sign their petition, which asks that the ficus be left alone.

The petition was submitted to City Hall, but no formal action has been taken on the merchants’ displeasure with cutting down the trees.

“I like the trees, they’ve been here a long time,” said Ken Salek, who has had his business on Fourth Street since 1983\. “Why cut down a 75-year-old tree? It’s not sensible.”

The City Council in October 2005 approved a plan to chop down 50 percent of the ficus trees along Second and Fourth streets as part of an effort to revitalize the pedestrian experience in downtown Santa Monica. For every ficus tree cut down, two ginkos will take its place.

“The thinking was really from two motivating facts: One, how dense the canopy is with the ficus and it does-n’t let any light go to the sidewalk,” said Kathleen Rawson, executive director of the Bayside District Corp., which manages downtown in conjunction with City Hall. “Second, they are nearing the end of their lifespan and are old, tearing up the sidewalk with their roots.”

Design architects anticipate that the ginko trees will lighten up the sidewalks and increase the visibility of nearby businesses, particularly the signs that hang over the storefronts. It’s thought that the ginko trees will allow enough light during the day, as well as provide shade when it’s needed.

In addition, modern lighting with a single-headed fixture pointing down at the sidewalks will replace existing cobra-headed street lights, intended to improve sidewalk visibility at night. Landscaped curb extensions at the six mid-block crosswalks also will be added to shorten the exposure of pedestrians to traffic while crossing the streets.

But for the Saleks, the ficus trees aren’t the problem on Fourth Street. They believe a better maintenance program, improving the sidewalks and additional lighting is more than enough to revitalize the area.

“We put up our signs after the trees were here,” Ken Salek said. “If I have bad business, it’s not the tree’s fault.”

The decision to replace the trees didn’t come without extensive discussion among the Bayside Board and the City Council, both of which had members who were for and against cutting the ficus trees down. For the Bayside board, the consensus seemed to be that improved lighting, like lampposts, were more of a necessity than eliminating the ficus trees. Regardless, the board recommended to the City Council that it approve the $3.5 million redesign plan. A compromise was reached by the City Council to cut down half and replace them with double the amount of foliage, albeit a smaller, more leafy tree.

Now, the project is in its design development phase and construction drawings are being created for a series of sidewalk improvements that will occur along both streets from Colorado Avenue to Wilshire Boulevard. Los Angeles-based Gunsul Frasca Partnership (ZGF), a well-regarded urban design firm, is spearheading the plan, which the City Council originally adopted by in 1997 but had been put off due to a lack of funding, officials said.

The plan calls for 80 ficus trees to remain and 54 of them to be cut down — 29 on Fourth Street and 25 on Second Street. Eight ficus trees will be relocated. The ficus trees will be replaced with 116 ginkos.

The Saleks say they were unaware of the plan until urban designers from ZGF were seen two weeks ago marking which trees should go. That’s when they began soliciting their neighbors to sign their petition.

But Rawson and Ellen Gelbard, a City Hall planner, say extensive community outreach was done in an effort for merchants and residents to speak out on the proposed development. Notices were sent out informing people of the community workshops held on the proposed project in April of 2005, and a letter was sent to all merchants in the area informing them of the Oct. 11, 2005 public hearing when the final decision was made by the City Council. Also, the Bayside Board discussed the plan in an open forum on several occasions, and the project was highlighted five times in the Bayside Beat, a downtown newsletter distributed monthly to all merchants.

“We were really trying to get people’s opinion,” Gelbard said. “It’s frustrating.”

She added that it’s imperative merchants understand that the amount of trees on Second and Fourth streets are doubling.

“The petition makes it sound like we are cutting down all of the trees,” Gelbard said. “We are adding two ginko trees for every one ficus tree.”

While merchants’ efforts to save the trees may be a little too late since the project is already underway, construction isn’t going to begin until early 2007, said Lisa Padilla, principal at ZGF.

If the City Council were to reconsider the tree issue, urban designers would have to go back to the drawing board, adding significant expense to the multi-million dollar plan that has been in the works on and off for nearly a decade.

“It affects everything we’ve laid out,” Padilla said. “(The trees are) pretty central in what we are designing for the streetscape.”

But Salek believes that the ficus trees are central to the Fourth Street ambiance.

“This is our street, our atmosphere,” he said. “As long as we are here, the trees will be here.

“I’m going to chain myself to one if I have to.”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/021806-02_01.jpg)

Merchants are petitioning City Hall not to proceed with plans to cut down ficus trees along Fourth and Second streets and replace them with smaller, leafy trees. (Photo: Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/021806-02_02.jpg)

The owners of Nobel Jems are spearheading an effort to convince the City Council not to alter the streetscape of Fourth Street by removing the canopy of ficus trees. (Photo: Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 18, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/021806.pdf?ref=smdp.com)