Tag Archives: Trees

City Council Candidates In Lock Step On Issues

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Same old blah blah blah. More taxes, change the tree policy, high cost desalinization, more development.

As the date comes near, I’ll be asking some tougher questions such as where they stand on the chicken control issue.

Four candidates for three four-year terms on the Pacific Grove City Council showed few areas of disagreement at a forum Tuesday at Chautauqua Hall that drew an audience of 50.

Incumbent Councilmen Ken Cuneo and Alan Cohen, and challengers Rudolph Fischer and Richard Ahart Jr., who will face off in the Nov.2 municipal election, answered written questions submitted by the audience on a number of city issues.

City Council Candidates In Lock Step On Issues

Tree Posse Gets Neutered

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Common sense comes to the tree policy – we can learn a lot from a ‘moron’.

Stumps Platt Park

The proposals include measures to give more discretion about tree pruning and removal to property owners, and allow them to have a tree expert determine whether a tree is sufficiently unhealthy to cut down, rather than leaving that decision up to city officials.

They also call for an end to criminal penalties and limit any penalties to civil fines.

Tree Posse Gets Neutered

Tree Posse Told To Back Off

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Killer tree

Resident that was once called a “moron” by the runaway mayor Dan Cort is authoring the revision in the city’s policy on tree removal.

“I want to be safe in my own yard,” said Del Monte Park-area resident Georgia Booth, who was a founder of Residents for Responsible Change and co-author of a proposed revision of the tree ordinance — which got a lot of votes from workshop participants. “Large canopy trees don’t belong in small Pacific Grove yards.”

Eliminating the two-for-one replacement requirement was a top vote-getter, as were proposals that property owners, not the city, decide when a hazardous tree should be removed, that no permit fee for it should be charged, and that property owners who plant a tree may remove it
without a permit.

Tree Posse Told To Back Off

Tree Removal Reform

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Remember the lady that Dan Cort called ‘moron’ over challenging the tree policy?

They argue that the city’s authority to regulate tree planting should be limited to the public spaces it owns and maintains: greenbelts and parks.

“From Eardley to First,” said resident Michael Clark, “is a solid hedge of trees. One of the treasures of the city is its views.”

Michael Clark is a bit blind – a low row of neatly trimmed oaks and one lopped eucalyptus fill the strip between those streets. Is Clark referring to the views of trees or the view from his vinyl clad windows?

Bobbit Tree

Ow!

Tree Removal Reform

Tree Cutting Could Have Caused Monarch Decline

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Butterfly Tree Stump

With our city on the job, the best they can come up with is spending about $80,000 on a shuttle bus to bring butterflies over from Santa Cruz.

A thinning canopy of trees may be a factor in the reduced numbers of monarch butterflies visiting the Pacific Grove sanctuary, two scientists told the City Council last week.

The council voted unanimously to direct City Manager Thomas Frutchey to convene a meeting of interested parties on the butterfly issue, engage Weiss to update and expand the sanctuary management plan, and direct the city’s Natural Resources Commission to oversee the plan update. No meeting date has been set.

Tree Cutting Could Have Caused Monarch Decline

Tree Gets Death Sentence For Crime Of Being There

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Lisa “Bare” Bennett sat out on this one.

Wallcot Pine Tree

A stately and apparently healthy Monterey pine towering over a Pacific Grove house will come down, the Pacific Grove City Council ruled 5-1 Wednesday.

Residents Stephen and Michaela Braveman sought removal of the tree that stands on the city right-of-way in front of their house at 239 Walcott St. after several Monterey pines in neighboring George Washington Park toppled during a storm in October.

The 30-year-old tree was examined by two former city foresters and both pronounced it healthy but in need of trimming, said city public works director Celia Perez Martinez.

Tree Gets Death Sentence For Crime Of Being There

Tree Rules Falling?

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Wtf Tree

the council heard a progress report on the city’s Beautification and Natural Resources Commission’s work toward modifying its tree ordinance.

Bennett said the proposed changes were reasonable, but “taken as a whole, they weaken the ordinance in favor of private property rights.”

Property owners, she said, have a responsibility to help the city preserve its urban forest.

Tree Rules Falling?

City Massacres Butterfly Trees, Butterflies A No Show

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There you go again, messing up Pacific Grove for the sake of the tourists.

Butterfly Tree Stump

“There was a concern that the trimming may have discouraged monarchs from coming to the grove,” said P.G. City Manager Tom Frutchey. “It’s a good hypothesis, but we don’t know the answer to it yet.”

The eucalyptus, which often shed limbs, were trimmed for the safety of visitors to the monarch grove sanctuary, Frutchey said.

City Massacres Butterfly Trees, Butterflies A No Show

Robert Down Trees Granted Visas To Stay

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The trees can stay but the school board needs to be reduced by a seat or two.

Four recently planted apple trees at Robert Down Elementary School — which parents planted two weeks ago during a school cleanup day without prior approval — will be allowed to stay, the Pacific Grove Unified School District board decided.

The day after the semi-dwarf trees were planted, a district official ordered them removed because their placement hadn’t received a prior OK from administrators or the school board.

Robert Down Trees Granted Visas To Stay