Trees grow on Loma Drive, again, after being cut down 

by Kevin Cody

In early August, retired Los Angeles Police Officer Bill Hallett returned to his home on Loma Drive in Hermosa Beach to discover the three, large New Zealand Christmas trees in front of his next door neighbor’s house had been cut down.

The trees were in the city parkway.

But the city didn’t cut down the trees. And the next door neighbor didn’t cut down the trees. A neighbor across the street did, without the city’s or nextdoor neighbor’s permission. 

“When you go to a cemetery, you can always tell where there was a recent burial. About six feet of dirt is piled above the ground. That is what the southwest corner of 10th Street and Loma Avenue looks like right now,” Hallett told the City Council at its August 13 council meeting. 

“Those trees were a mecca to hummingbirds, and sparrows, and home to squirrels. They belonged to everybody in the city for people to enjoy. There were two hummingbird nests in the trees when I left town for a week. They went into the chipper.”

“Our city is becoming Cement City. Those trees on Loma were the only wildlife we had south of 10th Street. And now there’s none,” he said.

Hallett contended that the $500 citation issued to the neighbor who cut down the three trees was insufficient punishment for the crime. 

The council agreed.

John Vega, of West Coast Arborists, helps his crew lower a new New Zealand Christmas Tree into the ground where a previous tree was cut down.

“Honestly, I don’t think a $500 fine really even comes close to cutting it,” Councilmember Raymond Jackson said.

Mayor Pro Tem Rob Saemann asked to have a review of the fine amounts placed on a future council agenda.

Several Loma Drive neighbors joined Hallett in asking the council to replace the trees.

On the Thursday before Christmas, city workers, including Public Works Director Joseph SanClemente, showed up at Loma and 10th with three mature, 36-inch box New Zealand Christmas Trees. 

They were greeted by the neighbor who cut down the trees. She asked not to be identified because of potential litigation. In addition to the $500 citation, she said, the city is billing her $8,000 to replace the trees she cut down.

In a letter to the city Public Works Department she explained she cut down the trees because their jumbled roots presented a safety hazard, in particular, to her disabled, developmentally delayed cousin who lives in the house where the trees were. 

“There was no safe way to walk around the house without walking into the street. Our goal was to protect the safety of my cousin, our neighbors, friends, family and any strangers walking by. We thought we were doing a good thing, and protecting ourselves, and the city from a lawsuit from a fallen part of a tree, or a terrible traffic accident,” she wrote.

“We know we have one angry neighbor. However, so many neighbors are delighted about the trees [removal], and thank us every time they walk by. Others say how much safer the corner is and how much better visibility is when walking or driving.” 

Several neighbors showed up to protest the tree replanting.

“She [the neighbor who removed the trees] is the only one who has done anything to improve the neighborhood… The trees were disruptive, ugly, and a hazard to cars. They are a horrible, invasive species, and never should have been planted there in the first place,” Rich Gebele, who lives near the corner of 10th and Loma, told Public Works Director Joseph San Clemente.

Gebele pointed out the tent-style “Drive Carefully” signs neighbors put at the 9th and Loma intersection because the trees blocked drivers’ views.

Neighbor Susan Post told SanClemente about an article in the San Francisco Chronicle titled “New Zealand Christmas trees a scourge of San Francisco.” The article said the trees have invasive roots that tear up sidewalks and sewer pipes. She added the trees’ droppings are as messy as strawberry trees. 

SanClemente responded that the new trees would be planted with “root barriers” that cause the roots to grow down instead of outward, and that the trees were recommended by a professional arborist. ER