Trees scheduled to be removed within weeks
DOWNTOWN A green fluorescent flier sits in the window of a jewelry store on Fourth Street, advertising a campaign to save the ficus trees that stand outside.
“They’re beautiful and they help shade the street,” said William Bubar, owner of Bubar’s Jewelers on the corner of Fourth Street and Broadway.
The 62-year-old jewelry store, which predate the ficus trees on Second and Fourth streets, is on the growing list of downtown businesses showing their support for a grassroots effort to keep City Hall from uprooting the large, leafy specimens.
The Santa Monica Tree Savers formed a few weeks ago in response to the City Council’s authorization of an $8.2 million streetscape improvement project that in addition to beautifying Second and Fourth streets, would uproot a few dozen mature ficus trees.
The proposal has been controversial especially among the environmentalists in town but has gained a strong following from business owners as well as residents. The project presented in August to the City Council calls for the removal of 54 ficus trees, 23 of which were identified as diseased and would be turned to mulch while the remainder would be relocated to elsewhere in the city. Each uprooted tree would be replaced with two ginkgo biloba trees.
Eight businesses — all located on Fourth Street between Broadway and Santa Monica Boulevard — have posted the “Save These Trees” signs in their windows. Jerry Rubin, the activist leading the tree savers, said on Tuesday that he has yet to distribute the signs to north of Santa Monica Boulevard or on Second Street. He has gone to nearly every business to make his pitch against the trees’ removal.
“It’s just dumb,” said Dimitri Lebid, a travel associate at Hostelling International on Second Street. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Lebid, who considers himself to be an environmentally conscious individual, said he is considering chaining himself to a tree to show his support.
The flier went up a week ago at the Crossroads Trading Company, a clothing boutique on the east side of Fourth Street.
“We consider ourselves to be a green company and we wanted to support maintaining the visual aesthetics,” said store manager Christie Cook. “We support city (hall) and whatever they need to do, but at the same time, we love the trees.”
Not everyone wants such a sign in their window. Adamm Grittlefeld, who has owned Adamm’s Gallery at the same Fourth Street location for 27 years, said he supports the removal project, feeling the trees in their current state pose a maintenance, lighting and safety problem.
“They’re overgrown,” he said.
The fliers were also posted on nearly every ficus trees located on Second and Fourth streets Sunday night by the Tree Savers. Those signs were removed on Monday. On Sept. 21, a sign was posted on the trees in question, notifying the public the removal process would begin in approximately 14 days.
Some business owners are undecided on the issue. Steve Spill, who recently allowed the Tree Savers to meet at his Magicopolis theater on Fourth Street after they were shown their way out of the Santa Monica Place gallery the week before, has yet to determine whether he supports the environmental activists or City Hall’s plan.
Spill has learned about the plan from both perspectives. If the trees are healthy, he doesn’t see a reason to move them, but if they are ill and hard to maintain, he isn’t opposed to removing them.
“Jerry (Rubin) has said they’re not diseased and the city has said they are,”Spill said.“But nobody has said the reason to me.”
Estimated to cost $600,000, the tree removal is a small element of a much larger improvement plan.
The project, which covers Second and Fourth streets from Colorado Avenue to Wilshire Boulevard, would also beautify the two corridors, improving lighting, illuminating the remaining ficus trees and installing curb extensions.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 26, 2007. Read the original PDF.