Education Matters:

My ideas for a better world at the beginning of each year are a bit like the prayers that I send up throughout the year — hopeful, often unrealistic and with only a vague feeling that anyone is listening. This year my thoughts turn more to local issues and ongoing dialogues that have most of us who live in the area listening quite well.

Tree trimming has made the local hit parade for the better part of the last year. Nobody contests the outrageousness of the fines levied against homeowners for lopping off a few oak branches, but there is another aspect of the whole issue that is, to my mind, equally outrageous.

Back when Oakmont IV was built and became Glendale’s undisputed No. 1 eyesore, and then when Oakmont V was proposed, a green light was given to the developer (essentially one family) to destroy literally hundreds of protected trees, including centuries-old oaks. I wondered then, as I do now, what special dispensation is given to developers that is denied individual homeowners? In asking the question of people who are closer to the decision-makers in our city, the consistent answer I got was, in so many words, developers have more clout.

Privately owned oaks are sacred and protected, but oaks standing in the way of a developer’s bulldozer are expendable. Does that make sense to anyone? Is it for the good of the community that such special allowances are granted? More development, in other words, is good for the area, and so we toss out the rules and ignore ordinances in deference to “growth,” which has unfortunately become a more sanctified (and profitable) notion than all the oak trees in the vicinity. This is patently absurd and leads me to No. 2 on my list of local concerns for the new year — more development.