Ventura Opts to Uproot Its Ficuses : Trees: New plantings are the most controversial part of a $2.5-million downtown improvement project.

Spiky, towering palms interspersed with shorter, feathery locust trees will replace the squat ficus trees now lining California Street in downtown Ventura, the City Council has decided.

The council’s Monday night vote capped months of community Angst over the fate of the mushroom-looking trees, which have lined the city’s main thoroughfare since the 1950s. The council split 6 to 1, with Councilman Jim Monahan opposing because he thinks the project is a waste of money.

“It’s a painful but simple decision for me,” said Councilman Gary Tuttle as he prepared to vote to chop down the ficuses. “It is an investment in economic vitality.”

The tree question was the most controversial element of an improvement project for Main and California streets that the council approved Monday. The $2.5-million project includes installing old-fashioned street lamps, laying decorative brickwork and expanding the sidewalks to allow more pedestrian traffic.

City planners say they hope to begin construction in January and finish by April. By the time the city is through, the tristania conferta “Brisbane Boxes” trees on Main Street will also be replaced by palms and locust trees, and there will be 30% more trees on Main and California, planners say.

The council also considered planting palm trees only, or just leaving the ficus trees in place. But some council members worried that rows of palm trees alone would deprive pedestrians of shade as they walked along the downtown streets.

A majority of the council also agreed to rip out the ficuses because, when the sidewalks are expanded, the trees would grow right in the middle and impede pedestrians. City planners explained that ficuses do not transplant well. Many, they said, would die if moved just a few feet.

And the ficuses are disliked by many local merchants because their bushy tops obscure store signs and window banners. Adopting dramatic tones, some residents told the council that a vote against the ficuses was a vote for change.

“Tonight, the council holds in its hands the key to Ventura’s future,” said Tim O’Neil, who owns a consulting business on California Street. “Ventura, like all of us, cannot live in our past. Our future is calling.”

Other city residents, however, vehemently defended the ficuses’ right to continued existence on California Street.

“I think it’s a shame to destroy beautiful, healthy, existing trees,” said resident Donna Herbert. “I’d like somebody to point out a street in Ventura that is lined with palms that is attractive.”

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The ficus trees took root in Ventura in the early 1950s, when the city’s Soroptomist Club donated the mushroom-like vegetation for planting along California Street, said Richard Senate, the city’s unofficial historian.

Before that, palm trees lined the length of the street.

“In fact, at one time, Ventura was known as ‘The Palm City,’ ” Senate said, adding that the priests at the San Buenaventura Mission planted date palms all over the city in the 19th Century.