Guest Opinion

LO Stewards want same rights as city

By Lauren Hughes On Behalf Of The Lo Stewards Board

, Mar 4, 2010

In last week’s Review, Ricardo Spaccarelli made a plea for the city to stop its plans to cut down a 100-year-old fir tree on the Luscher Farm property.

We found the city’s response, provided by the newly hired community affairs specialist, Christine Kirk, to be interesting.

Essentially, Ms. Kirk agrees with Mr. Spaccarelli that the tree is “magnificent” and “a beautiful iconic tree.” However, she goes on to explain that based on a certified arborist’s report and recommendation, the tree is a hazard and needs to be removed.

The city has made a decision that the tree presents a significant safety and liability issue and the city is exercising its property rights and stewardship responsibilities by removing the tree.

The LO Stewards board supports the city’s rights (and responsibility) to be good stewards of this public facility and ensure that the natural resources on it are well managed and cared for so that the property can be esthetically pleasing, usable, enjoyable and safe.

This right to use, enjoy and manage property is at the very heart of the “sensitive lands” issue. The deed altering land use restriction that the city has arbitrarily and capriciously applied to over 10 percent of the private residential properties in this community do not allow private property owners the same freedom of these sorts of stewardship decisions.

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