WEEKEND EDITION
INSIDE SCOOP
COMMENTARY
HEALTH WORKERS OK STRIKE PAGE 3 PREHISTORIC PREJUDICE PAGE 4
MAY 24-25, 2008
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Volume 7 Issue 164
Santa Monica Daily Press CUTTING CALORIES? SEE PAGE 16
Carob tree removal plan moves forward
Since 2001: A news odyssey
THE GETTING LEGAL ISSUE
City Hall appeals injunction on jet ban
LIFESTYLE
BY MELODY HANATANI Daily Press Staff Writer
CITY HALL A group of declining carob trees that stirred some controversy last month after city officials unveiled a plan for the specimen’s removal will soon be on the outs. The City Council on Tuesday approved a $395,000 project that calls for the removal and replacement of approximately 300 carob trees that were identified in an independent study as posing a safety hazard to the public. The project drew the ire of several residents in the north of Montana Avenue neighborhood last month after city officials released the results of the study by HortScience, questioning whether all of the 300 carob trees in the report were really in declining health. While the 300 trees targeted for removal is spread throughout the city, a sizable portion comes from the north of Montana Avenue neighborhood. The tree proposal was unveiled in the midst of the ficus controversy in Downtown Santa Monica which came to a head last week when 23 of the shady specimens were removed from Second and Fourth streets. About seven ficus trees are awaiting relocation. “It’s always good to go the extra mile for the trees and to preserve our mature tree canopy,” Jerry Rubin, the leader of the Santa Monica Treesavers, said. While city officials initially proposed removing all 300 trees identified in the report, approximately 202 will be reassessed to see whether their status can be rectified by corrective pruning, according to Elaine Polachek, the community maintenance director. The report rated trees on a scale of one to 12, the latter posing an immediate threat to the public. The 98 trees that will be removed first have a risk rate of 10 or higher while the remaining 202 have a risk of eight or nine. “We are going to come back to the council for that plan and continue the community outreach process in the interim by going to the neighborhood groups,” Polacheck said. The reassessment came as a result of a community meeting earlier this month when several residents requested that city officials give the 202 trees another look. Some residents pointed out that the methodology used in the tree rating, based on aggregate scoring, could mean that a low failure risk tree could be removed simply because of its size. The rating system was based on three factors, each of which were ranked on a scale of SEE TREES PAGE 10
BY MELODY HANATANI Daily Press Staff Writer
CITY HALL One week after a U.S. District
SEE RIDE PAGE 13
SEE BAN PAGE 11
Alex Thompson news@smdp.com
GEARS OF THE UNKNOWN: Richtotheie (top), Alex Cantarero (left) and Morgan Strauss (right), who make up the core group of Crimanimalz, are contemplating what to do as their next move.
Worth doing again? BY DANIEL ARCHULETA Managing Editor
DOWNTOWN The members of Crimanimalz have an existential dilemma. The bicycle activists want to be defined by more than just their recent freeway bike rides that have drawn a considerable amount of media attention. Clips of their rides have generated nearly 100,000 views on
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a number of video sharing Web sites such as YouTube, LiveLeak and Vimeo, but the group wants to do more to raise awareness for their cause. The group has also received a number of messages via the Internet from fellow cyclists who laud their activities. There’s only one problem, they aren’t quite sure what cause they want to champion.
Court judge issued a preliminary injunction allowing commercial jets to operate at Santa Monica Airport, city officials are seeking to reverse the order, filing an appeal in the state appellate court on Friday. Judge George Wu ruled on May 16 that City Hall could not enforce a stoppage on categories C and D aircraft while the Federal Aviation Administration completes an internal review examining the legality of the ban. City Hall filed the application for a stay on the district court’s order at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. “The application argues that the city is likely to succeed on the merits of the case because the city — as airport proprietor — has the power to conform airport usage to airport facilities in order to protect safety,” Kate Vernez, the assistant to the city manager for governmental relations, said. In addition to the appeal, City Hall is also seeking the appellate court for a stay on the injunction during the appeal process. “We are confident of our legal position,” FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said. Both parties have been arguing for decades about runway safety issues at the general aviation airport, which is considered a reliever for LAX. The airport is unique in that there are homes located within 300 feet of both ends of the runway. Sunset Park residents have expressed concerns about the possibility of an aircraft one day overshooting the runway and landing on homes. The aviation agency has made several runway safety proposals in the past, including most recently a suggestion to install at 70knot Emergency Material Arresting System that would be designed to stop roughly 97 percent of operations at the airport and 90 percent of categories C and D jets — the for-
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