Business Must Pay $31,000 for Bulldozing 4 Chatsworth Oaks

A construction firm accused of bulldozing four massive oaks in Chatsworth last year pleaded guilty Thursday and agreed to pay fines and other penalties estimated at $31,000.

It was the first prosecution under a 1980 Los Angeles ordinance that makes it a misdemeanor to remove large oaks without a permit, said a spokesman for City Atty. James K. Hahn.

The four trees, which city officials said were nearly 300 years old, were among a dozen on three acres at 21826 Lassen St., just east of Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

According to reports, nearby merchants and passers-by angrily shouted in vain for crews to stop on April 16 as the trees were toppled in a cloud of dust and chopped up for firewood.

The guilty pleas were entered in Los Angeles Municipal Court by Frederick Goldberg, an attorney who represents the Jasin Co. and its principal owner, Jack Sinder. Jasin Co. is an Encino construction firm that owns the site where the trees were destroyed.

Charges are still pending in the case against Sinder, who officials say hired the contractor to fell the oaks in order to make way for a commercial development.

Deputy City. Atty. Keith W. Pritsker said he has agreed that, when the conditions of the sentence against Jasin Co. are fulfilled, he will move to dismiss the four charges against Sinder, who was not in court Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

Also facing four charges of violating the oak law is Robert Switzer, a Canoga Park grading contractor, who prosecutors say bulldozed the trees.

Switzer, who was not a party to the negotiated guilty pleas, is scheduled for arraignment in the case Feb. 6.

Each violation carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine.

As recommended by Pritsker and agreed to by Goldberg, Commissioner John Lasher ordered the Jasin Co. to pay $1,000 in fines and $700 in penalty assessments, and to place $10,000 into a trust fund to be administered by the city’s Public Works Department for the preservation and planting of oaks.

Lasher also ordered the firm to plant eight valley oaks, each a minimum of 15 feet tall, at the building site. Pritsker estimated that the trees would cost $20,000.

‘Especially Blatant’

Also, the firm must record a covenant binding future owners to maintain the eight new trees and replace any that die or are destroyed.

“The actions of the accused in this case were especially blatant in that they displayed no regard whatsoever for the city’s ordinance,” said Ted Goldstein, spokesman for Hahn.

The Oak Tree Coalition, a San Fernando Valley-based environmental group, lists the felled oaks as part of a grove at what once was the site of an early country store and stagecoach stop, said Helen Treend, the group’s president.

Before that, the grove was the site of an Indian encampment, Treend said.