Agoura Hills Activist Stops Illegal Cutting of Oak Tree

Agoura Hills’ oak-tree consultant just happened to be driving by Tuesday when she saw a work crew cutting an oak with a chain saw next to the Ventura Freeway.

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh,’ ” Susan Kelsey said. “I couldn’t believe that it was happening right out there, right in front of me.

“You would expect by all the newspaper articles and all the talk around town that people would realize that oak trees are protected.”

Kelsey stopped the three workers from further damaging the oak, but not before it was “butchered,” she said.

A city permit is required for an oak tree to be removed or pruned, and no such permit had been issued, City Manager David N. Carmany said.

Violation of the city’s oak-tree ordinance is a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum $500 fine or six months in jail. Violators have been required to replace twice as many oaks as were removed, he said.

The oak in question was a mature tree about 175 years old, Kelsey said. Several limbs and “a lot of foliage” were removed and it is uncertain whether the oak will survive, she said.

The workers were doing landscaping work for Rubicon Properties, which owns a commercial building in the 28700 block of Canwood Street, said Barbara Williams, Rubicon property supervisor. The oak is next to the building on land the firm owns. The workers were not supposed to touch the tree and apparently did not know it was protected, she said.

Rubicon bought the building several weeks ago and hired landscapers “to go in and pull weeds out and plant it with grass and flowers, and I guess they got a little overzealous,” Williams said.

Kelsey said she could not determine whether the workers were removing the tree or trying to prune it. An oak’s chances of survival are reduced when major limbs are cut off, she said.

Had any pruning been done by a qualified tree surgeon with a tree permit, “this never would have happened,” Kelsey said.

While Kelsey was at the site, several Agoura Hills residents were calling City Hall about the cutting, said Carmany, who went to the site with two sheriff’s deputies after receiving the calls.

The city will probably take action against Rubicon, the landscaping company or both, Carmany said. The identity of the landscaping firm could not be determined Tuesday.