I urge members of the City Council to carefully rethink this issue as they ponder changing the protected-tree codes in the city.
JON F. THOMPSON
Glendale
Council needs to get its act together
For a smart City Council, it sometimes can be brain-dead.
I and others had to fight to save our fences because of a law passed in 1922. Four of the City Council members could see that the law was obsolete in 2006. All but one, of course. That was Councilman Bob Yousefian.
Now we are picking on people who need to trim their trees (“Pruning leaves a fine mess,” Oct. 19).
Across my street we have oak trees that are hanging out into the street.
Will the city be responsible if someone drives their RV into it, or a branch breaks off and hits someone’s car?
Please, City Council, wake up. Someone has got to trim these trees.
BOB TARALLO
La Crescenta
Taxes will keep going to fight hillside fires
In the recent book, “Wildfire and Americans,” Roger Kennedy, former director of the National Park Service, details how the country has arrived at the rash of staggeringly expensive fires.
He presents some guides for solutions but is short on what will happen before good sense is applied.
I will guess at what is coming. It seems that the expense of extinguishing wildland fires is growing rapidly — like wildfire, so to speak.
This means that “flatlanders” will be asked to provide much more tax revenues for protection of the hillside property of the lords and ladies of our time.
Rather than go through the rage stage, perhaps we should just roll over and save time by cheerfully surrendering most of the tax funds now scheduled for public projects that are pleasing to the peasantry.
Perhaps we should start spending now because our sacred public policy already favors construction in wildlands, and these policies are clearly pleasing to our elite. Look at the hills of Glendale for evidence.
EVAN RETSOFF
Glendale
