QUAKER CAMPUS february 22, 2024
Volume 22— Issue 10
The voice of Whittier College since 1914
Uptown Trees' Fate Decided Whittier Faced
With Flooding
Meylina Tran A & E EDITOR
Whittier plans to remove the ficus trees on Greenleaf Ave. Priscilla Corona STAFF WRITER Roughly 10 weeks ago, on Dec. 12, 2023, a decision was made by the Whittier City Council to put the Greenleaf Promenade Plan into action, a plan that has been in the works for years, which includes the cutting of mature ficus trees along Greenleaf Ave. This plan is said to stretch over three blocks, from Hadley to Wardman St., removing a total of 113 trees. On Feb. 20, a recent town meeting on the matter began with City Manager Brian Saeki opening with a presentation including the plan and the details which included images that showed the Uptown district in 1883. It was not until the 1960s when the first ficus trees were planted. On Oct. 1, 1987, the Whittier Narrows Earthquake struck, causing the city to think about the reconstruction of Uptown Whittier. In 2006, the Uptown Whittier Specifics plan was processed and approved in 2008, which prompted the discussion plan for the ficus trees on Greenleaf and Philadelphia St. While going through each section of what the plan included, Saeki mentioned what trees would replace the ones standing and stated that, “What we found to be most interesting in this section is the requirement to replace a mature tree with a 15 gallon tree. That's in the specific plan, absurd in our opinion, I think
keith durflinger / whittier daily news
we would all agree that is absurd.” Later in his presentation, he noted that instead of 15 gallon trees, they will be using a 24-72 inch box replacement instead. While there were roughly 50 speakers who spoke up and gave their opinion on the matter, there were two notable sides to this discussion. Some argued that the plan was necessary and that it was what the public needed, while others shared the same anger as the last meeting, arguing that this was not necessary and urged the Council to rethink their decisions. In a previous meeting on Jan. 23, the city councilmen made it clear that they would not be answering questions or taking any comments related to the Whittier Promenade Plan. That did not stop residents from making public comments displaying their anger and frustration for all to see, stating that the problem was that the council voted to implement this plan in the middle of December while people were distracted by the holidays. However, “they underestimated how [much] Whittier people care about trees and they tried to sneak this plan through during Christmas season,” Zolnekoff states in an interview with reporters. Zolnekoff mentions that, “The mayor was rather flustered, they were surprised, they were shocked and all these people showed up to tell them that they were making a mistake.” A mistake
indeed as over 200 people showed up to that meeting. During the interview Zolnekoff warns that, “City Hall is going to try to spin things tonight to make them look good. Reality is, they have not done anything to make themselves look good physically with the ficus trees, other than give them a trim here and there for the last 20 years.” According to Zolnekoff, when the Promenade Plan was originally discussed, the estimated cost was around $2.9 million and is now it is estimated to cost $20 million. Zolnekoff stated that 20 years ago he proposed that every other tree, or every third tree get removed. However, he claims that the Council ignored his idea and thought it simpler to remove 113 trees in all. “We have had city councils for the last 20 years who have been spending enormous amounts of money planning on Greenleaf, but not actually physically making changes on Greenleaf…There has been a…lack of leadership in our City Council for 20 years…If they had implemented their own plan, and done something with the trees for the past 20 years on a mass scale, we wouldn't be in a crisis today. [It feels like,] they've just spent more money on planning and right now it looks like $800,000 has been spent just on planning.” For more information about the visiting Uptown Whittier as it undergoes the Beautification Plan visit cityofwhittier.org.
City Council held a meeting concerning the fate of the trees on Feb. 20. Let's Talk About Trouble Funk — 10 Articles: Features: A & E: Mey & Em's Big Picture Breakdown — 12
sarah licon / quaker campus
Beginning early morning of Sunday Feb. 4, Los Angeles County experienced an unprecedented amount of rainfall—dubbed by meteorologists as an “atmospheric river”—which resulted in the catastrophic flooding of many LA County areas, including Whittier. With a combined average wind speed of 30 to 50 mph, approximately 8.72 inches of rainfall, and multiple flash flood warnings and flood advisory notices issued across Southern California, California Governor Gavin Newsom was forced to issue a State of Emergency by midday Feb. 4. Newsom advised all California residents to avoid non-essential travel during the peak of the storm on Sunday and Monday, either by vehicle or on foot. Conversely, Whittier College issued neither a statement about the ongoing storm nor a warning about potential flooding until 10:47 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 5, when the Dean of Students office declared that their office would work remotely after it experienced flooding. At 5:06 p.m. on Monday, Whittier College addressed the community in regards to the flooding, stating, “Due to anticipated continued heavy rain in our region overnight and into Tuesday, February 6, Whittier College will pivot to remote classes tomorrow [...] The campus will remain open and operational, including dining services, library, and housing.” Although in-person classes resumed on Wednesday, Feb. 6, the rainfall that swept down into the basement of Hoover forced a majority of the classes originally located there to relocate elsewhere. Flooding in the basement of Hoover is not an uncommon occurrence due to the location of stairs leading directly down into the basement from the outside. The College has made attempts to combat the near-constant flooding of the Hoover basement by installing a blockade of sandbags around
the perimeter of the stairway entrance and right in front of the double doors. These preventive measures, however, have not proven to be effective. In the aftermath of the flooding, centrifugal fans were placed at the entrance of the basement and in the preceding hallway to encourage air circulation and dry the carpets. As of now, the blockade of sandbags that were installed around the perimeter of the stairway entrance have since been removed. Turner Residence Hall also experienced flooding in the laundry room due to a ceiling leak. Residential Life issued a warning to all Turner residents via email: “There is a ceiling leak near the laundry room. The floor is flooded; please do not go into the laundry unless you absolutely have to, the floor is very slippery.” A follow-up email regarding the resolution of the ceiling leak, however, was not issued. Paige Meyer-Draffen, Co-Manager of KPOET Radio, commented on the how the flooding that occurred in the lower campus courtyard affected the KPOET office,“It stank, and truly—shoutout to Facilities for getting on it, but it did linger for a few days because [...] KPOET has no ventilation. There’s no windows that open; there’s one door, so we had to keep the door cracked and use a box fan to air it out [...] That was pretty rough.” NBC News reported that California is expected to experience another stormy week as two atmospheric rivers hit Northern California on Friday, Feb. 16, and Southern California on Sunday, Feb. 18, respectively. Flood watches in Southern California will go into effect from Sunday evening until Wednesday. As of now, the College has not shared an action plan in the event of further flooding. The Quaker Campus reached out to the College’s Facilities team in regards to how they plan on combating future heavy rainfall, but—as of yet—have not received an answer.
sarah licon / quaker campus Flooding has prompted the College to take precautions.
Index:
News — 1, 2, 3 | Campus Life — 4, 5, 6 | Opinions — 7, 8 Sports — 9 | Features — 10 | A & E — 11, 12