Mailbag

City needs to rectify this tree fine issue

I was amazed to read of the amount of the city fine levied against Ann Collard for trimming 13 indigenous trees without a permit (Pruning leaves a fine mess,” Friday). How is it possible to arrive at an amount of $347,600 — almost $27,000 per tree, as a fair penalty for only trimming the trees, not removing, destroying or damaging them?

Regardless of what the company hired to do the trimming said regarding need for a permit, one was clearly required. But for a city agency to be able to assess a ruinous fine of that magnitude is beyond comprehension.

The City Council should immediately see to it that this situation is taken care of with some semblance of fairness and make it unacceptable for any city agency to take a similar action in the future.

I am pretty sure there’s not a voter in Glendale who would support a person running for a council seat if it were known that that person would allow any city agency to abuse a resident this way.

GENE GUSTAVSON

Glendale

Tree fines sound like fodder for tabloids

You know, it cracks me up to see those newspapers in the checkout line at the grocery store with headlines like “Anna Nicole and Hitler Faked Own Deaths! Wed in Argentina!” or “Elvis Clone Controlling Cheney’s Thoughts From Secret Graceland Bunker!” Then, just when you think you’ve seen it all, you pick up the paper and read a story about a homeowner fined nearly $350,000 for pruning trees (“Pruning leaves a fine mess,” Friday). And you say to yourself, “Do these people think we really believe this stuff!?”

GARY DURRETT

Glendale

When is a good time for recognition?

House Resolution 106 on recognition of the Armenian Genocide moves now from the Foreign Affairs Committee to the full House for a vote. As introduced by Rep. Adam Schiff and a large contingent of co-sponsors, there is a good likelihood of passage. Now that it has our City Council’s blessing (“Genocide resolution clears dais,” Wednesday), will it change anything?Already we are beginning to see backpedaling by some of these co-sponsors as Turkey makes its case as a strategic partner of the United States in hostile territory. I find it hard to accept just how malleable our moral convictions are when issues about human rights, ethnic cleansing and genocide conflict with the Bush administration’s self-declared practicalities of our strategic interests.