A Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge shot down a Gilroy woman’s attempt to prevent the city from cutting down 235 trees, which she says are healthy.
Judge Helen Williams sided with the city, saying that because some trees have fallen and damaged property, the city should be allowed to cut trees it deems dangerous.
Gilroy resident Camille McCormack invested $15,000 of her own money to fund a suit asking the city to stop cutting the trees. She hired an arborist, Moki Smith, to assess the trees the city was planning to fell and he found that only one was truly dead. The others could be revived with watering, fertilizer and trimming, he said.
However, that didn’t weigh in the judge’s decision. Williams agreed that cutting the trees could do irreparable harm to McCormack and the city, however, she didn’t grant the restraining order because she didn’t think McCormack could win the case in court. It’s a decision that shows how difficult it can be to get a preliminary injunction, said McCormack’s attorney, Laura Beaton.
McCormack’s suit also asked the court to stop the cutting because she said it was done as a violation of public records laws. The city council’s agenda item about the trees said only that it was considering tree maintenance, not a major purge of 235 of the city’s 18,000 trees.
“Although this description did not expressly state that ‘removal’ of 235 trees was included in the budget allocation being considered, the court concludes that in the circumstances of this case, the City substantially complied with notice requirements,” the judge wrote.
A bigger issue is the fact that the city used the same firm to decide whether the trees were healthy that was contracted to cut them down, something Beaton said violates state laws preventing contractual double dipping. The spirit of government code 1090 requires that if a consultant tells a city what to do, the city should then get bids from other contractors, Beaton said.
“It creates a perverse incentive,” she said. “Let me cut down the trees because they are all dangerous.”
The City Council voted to give West Coast Arborists $258,000 for emergency tree removal, citing health and safety concerns, the same firm that did the assessment.
The court ruled that West Coast Arborists, which had been on contract with the city to assess and maintain the city’s trees, gave the information to the city’s staff, which decided to then extend the company’s $250,000 annual contract by another $258,000 include the emergency tree cutting.
McCormack maintains after the suit that the city should have gotten a second opinion, “just as you would before having your gallbladder taken out.”
The city argued that the drought has stressed trees 200 trees around the city and 35 in Christmas Hill Park and made them a danger. It also pointed out that there were eight claims of damage from trees and branches in the city last year, each of which has a $50,000 deductible.
It asked to have the work done quickly—within 90 days—to prevent damage and while there is a break in the weather.
While the preliminary injunction was denied, McCormack could still continue with her suit, but she wasn’t sure if she would. She hopes her action brought attention to the plight of city’s trees and the public’s need to monitor the way the city is maintaining them.
She’s convinced that the city is taking shortcuts by cutting trees down, rather than taking the time and expense to water, fertilize and trim them.
“After two wars and a Great Depression people came to Gilroy to create opportunities,” the lifelong resident of 65 years said. “They built the parks and planted the trees. People who rolled up their sleeves. My mom and dad were two of those people. They loved the trees in Gilroy, we have to remain good stewards of that legacy and it makes me so upset that they will just come in and do this demolition.”
Added her sister, Carla, who chose her Gilroy home on Princevalle over one in Morgan Hill because of the greenery, “You can always rebuild a house, but you can’t rebuild a tree.”
