Charges Possible in Sunland Case : City Leans on Builder for Felling Oaks

A Sunland developer has come under fire from Los Angeles officials for cutting down several oaks on his property.

Los Angeles Public Works Department officials said Thursday that they will meet next week with the city attorney’s office to discuss filing misdemeanor charges against Kris Rigdon.

Bill Kennedy, the department’s superintendent for street trees, said Rigdon cut down five oaks in the 8300 block of McGroarty Street in January without a permit. The removal was a violation of the city’s ordinance on oaks, which makes it illegal to mutilate or fell them without authorization.

The city’s public works board recommended last week to the city attorney’s office that charges be brought against Rigdon.

“The board is very aggressive in bringing forward people that illegally remove oak trees,” Kennedy said. “There are numerous cases where people have been prosecuted.”

Kennedy said public works investigators, after complaints from neighbors, went to the property where the trees had been cut. The investigators found stumps of seven California live oaks, plus a limb that had been severed from another oak, he said.

Rigdon said the trees that he removed were either dead or leaning against trees that he wanted to save.

“If I’m cited, I’ll be cited for cutting down dead or hazardous trees,” Rigdon said. He added that several other oaks on his property are ailing but said he wants to nurse them back to health rather than cut them.

Rigdon said he will fight any charges.

If convicted, he could be fined up to $500 and sentenced to a maximum of 6 months in jail.

A proposal by Rigdon to build 17 houses on 42 acres that he owns along McGroarty is scheduled to come before a planning division advisory committee next week. Several residents near the property are opposed to the development, contending that it will ruin the character of the community.