OpinionCommentary TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2016
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5
What’s the Point? David Pisarra
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A tree dies in Santa Monica WHEN I WAS A KID GROWING UP IN
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tradeoffs. Money eaten up for such a basic necessity as shelter could be spent on education, healthcare, or better nutrition. As we have noted in previous columns, this is a problem in Santa Monica not only for low-income households, but increasingly for those earning moderate incomes as well. Like rent and transportation, healthcare is an expense few people can afford to forgo. The Affordable Care Act has expanded the number of people who have access to insurance and, as such, access to essential medical treatment. In Santa Monica, we are fortunate enough to have a thriving healthcare industry. While the cost of healthcare isn’t something our city can have direct control over, we can work with community partners like
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Judy Abdo, Daniel Shenise, Michael Folonis, Frederick Zimmerman, Sharon Klein-Hart, John Hart, Elena Christopoulos, Richard Brand, Jerry Rubin, Cynthia Rose, Ernie Powell, and Leslie Lambert for Santa Monica Forward. Read more columns at santamonicaforward.org.
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DAVID PISARRA is a family law attorney focusing on fathers’ rights and men’s issues in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He can be reached at dpisarra@pisarra.com or (310) 6649969.
UCLA and Providence Saint John’s to assure that they can adapt to the changing landscape of the healthcare industry. We can also work with them to make sure that access for all patients is possible, not only those with the most expensive insurance plans. And we can work with these community partners to help provide a safety net for the most vulnerable in our community. We, as a community, have been committed to striving for a more equitable and just city, region, and world. Making sure people are paid livable wages is essential to achieving these goals, but so too is addressing these other issues.
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good when they report to whoever they have to report to. The problem with this system is that there is a much higher mortality rate of the thin twiggy trees than if the team had purchased older more mature and planted them. I realize that fewer trees, that don’t die, means that the arboreal department would have to report different numbers which would make them look less effective. But that’s unless someone is asking what are the numbers of trees planted versus the number of trees that lived. Planting a young, immature tree, and then watching it die, may be good for budgets and personnel requisitions, but it seems to be contraindicated for the long term cost savings and benefits to the city as a whole. On Colorado Avenue between 11th and 14th almost all the trees on the south side of the street have died and need to be replaced. On Broadway between 12th and Euclid there are trees that are dead and have been for a while now. On Euclid between Pico and Michigan there are dead trees that need to be removed and replaced, and this situation is happening all across the city. I would hope that when they are finally replaced the arborist will order that older trees be purchased and planted. Not just because it would speed us to having a more mature tree canopy across the city, but because it is in fact cheaper and more effective in the long run. The difference in costs is only $100 - $150 a tree, but the difference in livability and survivability is tremendous. It does us no good to save money on planting a tree that is dead in a year. We’re just throwing money away. We need to have some common sense brought to the city’s tree plan, and I think it should start with purchasing older, more stable trees and properly caring for them so that our city continues to develop and enjoy the benefits of mature landscaping and trees.
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Northern California we lived in an area that had mature landscaping. Most of the homes had front yards with trees that we old enough and strong enough for a kid to climb in and play. Our front tree was a fruitless mulberry and I loved being able to climb up and “hide.” It was a common type of tree, for the neighborhood, put in mostly by the developers who built the homes on this block. Occasionally there were other types of trees, pines, and some weird weeping willow things, and then there was that type that put out little thorny bombs that we would use to throw at each other, and all of us dreaded stepping on in the summer in bare feet. Mature trees add to the value of a neighborhood, not just in their pleasure factor but in the aesthetics of the entire community. When you walk on the streets north of Montana and you enjoy the canopy of aged and fully matured trees it has a calming effect, but it also has an appreciation effect on the value of the homes. You can always tell new developments because they have these twiggy trees that are newly planted and the home looks outsized in relation to them. The better developers are smart enough to pay extra and plant a more mature tree. The difference in price is really quite nominal when you consider the impact of sales value, and marketability. What made me want to discuss all this is the fact that across the city, we have an arboreal team that has been penny wise and pound foolish in their purchasing of the city’s trees in my opinion. You may have noticed that we have many twigs that are quite dead that have been planted on city land. I think this is a shameful waste of time and resources and it is done, I assume, with the intention that we will save money on the individual tree costs. A smaller hole must be dug, which takes less time so the arboreal team can do more trees in a day. By purchasing a smaller tree the individual costs is lessened and therefore the budget can be stretched to allow for more trees to be reported as having been purchased and planted, which makes the department look
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