SANTA ANA : City OKs Private Trimmer for Tree

The Gillen family won.

The 70-year-old cedar tree in front of Doug and Deborah Gillen’s Wilshire Square home is in for a custom pruning after Santa Ana city officials agreed Friday to call off city crews and allow the family to arrange the trimming.

As long as the Gillens hire a professional to trim the 50-foot tree to city safety specifications, Santa Ana trimmers won’t try again to prune it, said James Ross, executive director of the Public Works Agency.

“We’re going to meet their requirements to get the branches off the road, but we’re not going to take the chain saws and skin it,” Doug Gillen said.

Twice in the last two weeks, city trimmers have tried to cut back the cedar deodar in the city-owned parkway in front of Gillen’s South Ross Street house.

But the Gillens used their cars and bodies to block the trimmers from approaching the tree, whose branches tower over the front yard of the family’s single-story house.

Doug Gillen, 43, said he and his family took the action after seeing what the trimmers were doing to the other trees in the neighborhood. The city’s trimmers were overzealous and destroyed the character of the street, Gillen said.

Gillen said he will pay a professional to trim the stately cedar. A city inspector will also be on hand to make sure the trimming meets city requirements, Ross said.

Ross said he agreed to let the Gillens arrange the trimming, though “it was, and remains, our feeling that (city trimmers) were doing quite a proper job.”