Mighty Oaks Losing Battle : Environment: Two trees have been cut down in what the city and property owner say is in the interest of public safety. Neighbors protest.

Neighbors say it’s a clear-cut case of abuse. But city officials and a local property manager say four centuries-old oak trees must be removed in the interest of public safety.

It’s too late for debate in the case of two of the trees, which crews with chain saws reduced to stumps early Thursday. But two more are slated to die Sunday or Monday.

The Los Angeles Department of Public Works issued a permit for removal of the trees, all at or near the Encino Town Center mall at 17200 Ventura Blvd., after inspectors found that they were in “poor and declining condition” and posed a danger to the public.

Frank Nazarian, manager of the land the trees are on, said a limb from one of the ailing oaks fell in 1991 and landed on an elderly woman, hospitalizing her. He said his company’s insurers recently paid the woman a $275,000 settlement.

“I feel sorry that these trees have to go, but I have to do my job,” Nazarian said Thursday, above the howl of chain saws. “And if I don’t do it and something happens again, then I’m going to be (adjudged) negligent.”

Neighbors blame the poor condition of the trees on developers, whom they accuse of cutting limbs needlessly and choking the roots by surrounding the trees with asphalt.

Hazard or not, Encino resident Paula Davidson said she was outraged to see the trees go.

“This tree was gorgeous,” Davidson said, in seeming awe as workers cut another few feet from one once-mighty oak. “They said they were just going to trim the tree. I didn’t know they were totally going to remove it.”

Mike Scarr, manager of the nearby Beachhead Cafe, agreed that the tree was beautiful, but said he saw the wisdom in cutting it down.

“If it’s going to be a hazard to us, then cut it down,” Scarr said, noting that the restaurant’s patio had been beneath the tree’s branches.

In all, the public works permit approved the removal of two coast live oaks and two California valley oaks. The trees were 50 to 60 feet tall, and their trunks were 37 to 51 inches wide. The bureau also required the management company to replant four oaks in the area.

Next to go will be a 60-foot valley oak in a mall parking lot behind Joe Goldwine’s condominium, and a tree on the north side of Ventura Boulevard, across from the mall entrance.

“It’s going to break my wife’s heart,” Goldwine said after a shouting match with one of the workers cutting down the tree Thursday. “I’ve called all the way up to City Hall and nobody seems to care.”

Goldwine said he doesn’t buy the argument that the trees are a threat to public safety.

“So if someone gets run over on Ventura Boulevard, are we gonna just stop the traffic?” he asked.

But to make his point, Nazarian said he would leave the tree standing if Goldwine would sign a waiver releasing Nazarian’s management company and the city from liability.

Goldwine declined. “I don’t have the resources to do that. If I did, I probably would,” he said.

Goldwine also challenged the veracity of the city report and complained that neighbors weren’t consulted about the removal.

“I feel very betrayed,” he said. “They got this permit on Sept. 10 and they never said anything to us.”