Menlo Park: 99 heritage trees face ax

I really hope the trees are not cut down. This complex has won awards for its landscaping in the past, and the oaks are beautiful reminders of what all of Sharon Heights must have looked like.

99 Heritage trees????? I just learned of this. It's egregious, and should be stopped! Why have an oak or any tree as the symbol of the Menlo Park when the City doesn't respect old-growth trees. Maybe the City should change its name to Menlo Plains. Time to stand up to this kind of irresponsible action, particularly since trees are on the front lines in the fight against climate change, and cutting them will release carbon dioxide into the air, and the trees won't be there to continue doing the job they do to remove it from the air we breath. In a drought like we are suffering through, it doesn't make sense to remove old trees and then replace them with younger trees requiring much more water. This is just stupid.

Tonight’s EQC meeting has been moved to the Oak Room in the City’s Recreation Center in order to accommodate more people. There will be signs up at the original room location.

Please come and speak for the trees.

Environmental Quality Commission? Don't you mean the Environmental Destruction Commission? For the longest time Menlo Park identified itself as a Tree City. Now, it calls itself the Home of Innovation. The definition of innovation is to have new ideas and methods. Clear cutting trees to put up buildings is the opposite of innovative -- it's an old idea whose time has passed. A tired, bad, old, wasteful idea.

Come on, City Council and Commission members. You can't insist on a more progressive way to develop around the natural topography? You're going to allow developers to cut down trees that are drought resistant and provide a canopy of shade that filters pollution, and have been standing for 200 or more years. They can make a profit without raping the land to squeeze every last cent out of it. What a loss for our community -- shameful.

I detest the removal of real heritage trees, which I see happening all over Menlo Park. Too often the city allows removal of native oaks for convenience or preference, rubber stamping recommendations for arborists who will of course recommend whatever the people paying them want.

But most of the so-called heritage trees cited in the article are low value trees. The Greenheart site has no trees of value anymore -- after the owners allowed the two large redwoods by El Camino to die. Most or perhaps all of the trees at Sharon Green aren't even native, with the most obvious being Monterey pines that are near the end of their lives anyway. The redwood on San Mateo is poorly situated, and never should have been planted so close to a residence.

You can easily check most of this out using street view on Google maps.

I agree with the spirit of the comments that precede mine, but I urge others to check out the facts before reacting so negatively. The real crimes against our trees aren't part of any of these plans, but rather the single instances all over the city that occur day in and day out.

Why do these things always get reported at the last minute? Couldn't this have been posted a few days in advance?

Some things never change in Menlo Park. Follow the trail cash from the City to the wood chipper. Have any Heritage trees ever survived a well funded applicant?

- I used to live in Menlo Park

What is the fate of the 99 trees?