Kicking Into Lorax Mode in Oakland
Hey, Oaklanders! Check out this shot of Lake Merritt, taken just hours ago on this beautiful grey day, and ask yourself: What will it look like when all the big trees are gone? No joke, it's happening. Remember when we passed Proposition DD, a $198 million dollar bond measure for our parks? Guess we shoulda read the fine print, because part of what we approved is a "Master Plan" for Lake Merritt which calls for the removal of nearly 300 trees, as the Oakland Tribune reported this past Sunday. (The online version of the article appears truncated at this time--nice job, Trib.)
Take a stroll around the lake and you'll find red-tagged trees everywhere you look. Some of them are coming down because they are dead or dying; others are so old and heavy they've become a safety risk; still others have to go to make way for widened and improved paths and jogways. But others seem to have been condemned for entirely arbitrary reasons. And we're not mollified by the city's plan to plant more trees than it cuts down: We know the difference between a tree that's stood for sixty or more years and a sapling that will need to be held up by wooden poles for its first five years.
Each condemned tree has a unique code on its red tag. Our favorite is LS86 (pictured here), which stands at the corner of Lakeshore and Brooklyn. We were never any good at identifying our arboreal species, so we can't tell you what kind of tree it is, but it's hella tall and we love it. Its red tag says the Oakland Tree Division is "accepting public input" until January 12, and provides a phone number for interested parties: (510) 615-5850. We feel a phone call coming on.