ENCINO : Hearing to Focus on Oak Tree’s Fate

A giant oak tree in the parking lot of an Encino mall has been given another two-week stay of execution by the Los Angeles Board of Public Works.

The oak, championed by some neighbors, will be the subject of a public hearing Nov. 5, board Vice President J. P. Ellman said Friday.

The Public Works Department had issued permits for removal of four oak trees near the Encino Town Center mall on Ventura Boulevard after inspectors found that they were in “poor and declining condition” and posed a safety risk.

Two of the centuries-old trees have been cut down, and another on the north side of Ventura Boulevard, across from the mall entrance, is dead and must also be cut down, Ellman said. But the fate of a tree in the mall’s parking lot is still out on a limb, so to speak.

“The trees are very valuable and people hate to see them go,” Ellman said. “We have to weigh public safety against the value of the trees.”

Joe Goldwine, who looks out at the tree from a window in his nearby condominium, believes it should be saved.

“I’m not really a tree activist,” Goldwine said. “But I look over at my tree, and when I see people wanting to tear it down, it disturbs me.”

Goldwine enlisted two arborists, and both said the tree was healthy.

City workers also have looked at the tree but want more time to study it, Ellman said. The two remaining trees were granted a two-week reprieve that ended Friday. The board decided to give city workers two more weeks to determine if the oak that is still alive should be saved.

“It’s alive. We’ve been told it’s diseased,” Ellman said. “The question is how far gone is it? Are there things that can be done to make it safe?”

Frank Nazarian, manager of the land the trees occupy, had asked for permission to remove the four trees after his company’s insurer paid $275,000 to a woman hospitalized after a limb from one of the trees fell and hit her in 1991.