How far — within the law — do you think the Treesavers should go to save the ficus trees on Second and Fourth streets? Here are your responses: “WHILE THE TREESAVERS HAVE THEIR hearts and minds in the right place, they ought to give up the battle. It is a waste of time. They can’t win in this city. The only thing this city’s administration cares about are the rapidly growing bum population and the ugly urbanization of this once lovely seaside community.”
“TREESAVERS SHOULD TAKE HEART AND go all the way to save our ficus trees. To remove them now is a willful waste of fine trees and taxpayer money.”
“I THINK TREESAVERS SHOULD GO AS far as they can... to annoy the council.”
“THE FICUS TREES ARE MAGNIFICENTLY stately and beautiful. More than I can say regarding the manmade structures that surround them. The Treesavers need the residents of Santa Monica to rally and make a statement regarding the assassination of these wonderful examples or God’s creation. The way for residents to make a statement is to e-mail City Hall and express their feelings. Keep in mind folks, we as taxpayers own the common area of the city. Those who control the common area of the city do not own the city nor do they own us.”
“ACTUALLY, IF THE POWERS THAT BE don’t appreciate the value of the ficus trees I think it is the duty of the Treesavers to go above the law to save the green contributors to our health.”
“I FEEL SO SORRY FOR THE TREESAVERS because the rotten cabbage heads on the City Council have already doomed their effort. What a noble cause to save the ficus trees, but their green has bumped into the city hall taxpayer spending green. Let’s face it, the mall is a disaster. The revamped Santa Monica Place, who cares? There is no vision for the central business district. I agree with doing all the Treesavers can do legally. Otherwise we will wind up with another City Hall sterile environment with one-lane streets, boring stores, geek head street performers and urine from the bums. At least the beautiful trees would have compensated for that.”
“TREESAVERS’ JERRY RUBIN NEEDS TO get a paying job instead of living off his family and wife’s income. Peace activist Jerry: All the buttons, bumper stickers, and onion skinned shorts don’t cut the mustard.”
“I THINK THEY SHOULD GO AS FAR AS they can. If they have to take it all the way to the United States Supreme Court, that’s a great objective. The three most spiritual things on this planet are whales, dolphins and trees. We as human beings must do everything possible to make sure their existence is kept on this planet earth.”
“AS THE GREAT POET JIMMY VINCENT once said, “ Trees, trees, trees, you’ve got to love trees.” So I admire the Treesavers. Power to the Treesavers.”
“THE SANTA MONICA TREESAVERS should go very far to save these ficus trees. They have been doing an excellent job to try to convince the city to reconsider the tree aspect of an otherwise good Second and Fourth street improvement plan. They’ve been gathering thousands of signatures. They’ve got virtually every community group to support Treesavers. Even most of the merchants on Second and Fourth streets want to see the trees remain and not relocated and unnecessarily destroyed. The city should work with Treesavers and the lawsuit is something that is important. It was extremely important that legal action was taken. If the Treesavers have to chain themselves to the trees after trying everything possible, the community will accept that in the same spirit as Ghandi and Martin Luther King. Everyone hopes that the city will do the right thing and not let it get to that point.”
“I HOPE IT WILL NOT BE NECESSARY FOR the Treesavers to resort to any action outside the law in order to protect not only the trees but the people they help. I hope the next person in charge out there has as much knowledge as Councilman Kevin McKeown about the importance of these trees to the atmosphere and will act accordingly.”
“THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO SAVE THOSE trees better keep a 24-hour-watch on them because knowing how sneaky these politicians are, they will have crews go out at 2 a.m. to cut them down.”
“THE TREESAVERS NEED TO UNDERSTAND that the ficus is the second most common tree in Santa Monica. The tree that we will replace those ficus trees on Second and Fourth streets with is ginkgo biloba, one of the rarest trees in the world. In fact they are an endangered species. What is an environmental group doing trying to block an endangered species from our town?”
“TREESAVERS SHOULD CONSCIENTIOUSLY pursue every means available by peaceful methods to save our beautiful trees. The momentum to do so has grown to a mighty force that includes a large majority of residents as well as visitors.”
“WHEN SIX OUT OF SEVEN councilmembers don’t care what most residents, businesses on second and Fourth streets and all of the neighborhood associations want, than who are these coun-cilmembers representing? Who is really behind this effort to remove these trees and who has taken control of this city? What is and what is not lawful when just one councilmember is representing the residents of this city?”
“I THINK THE TREESAVERS SHOULD DO as much as humanly possible to save the trees on Second and Fourth streets. We should applaud Jerry Rubin.”
“THE TREESAVERS SHOULD CHAIN themselves to trees, stop the bulldozers and they should start a recall campaign to get rid of all the people who sit on the council except for Kevin McKeown.”
“THE TREESAVERS MUST NOT GIVE UP until the council admits that the reasons for their actions were not valid.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 1, 2008. Read the original PDF.