Tree Hazards Prove to Be a Hydra With Many Limbs

A tree limb crashes down on a camper top. A palm frond smashes onto the hood of a Ford Explorer. A windshield is shattered by a 30-foot branch hurtling toward Earth.

From one end of Ventura--a city of wide, tree-lined avenues--to the other, airborne branches from city-owned trees are denting cars, obstructing views and thunking onto roofs. Underground, powerful roots are heaving up sidewalks and cracking pipes.

Out of 41 small claims filed with the city since January, about a third involve damage caused by botanical mishaps.

Eucalyptus or palm, deciduous or coniferous--no tree is without hazard.

“I feel that the palm trees near the bridge are in need of trimming,” wrote resident Barbara Pletcher, whose hood was dented and antenna bent by a 2-foot frond that thudded onto her car, causing $600 in damage. “There is way too much frond on them and this could cause a very bad accident on Seaward.”

Another claimant, whose car broke down shortly after high winds blew a branch onto it at San Pablo Street, wrote: “The trees in this area are in poor condition. Some have rotted. Others have dead limbs and need trimming.” He sought $987 for repairs.

Arboreal claims against the city range from $184.07, for damage caused when a branch cut by a city tree trimming crew fell onto a chain-link fence, to $3,477 to repair a sewer pipe filled with a large root, pay for lawn damage and cover the cost of cleaning the clogged sewer line twice.

Last fiscal year, the city was hit with 23 tree-related claims. Seventeen of them were settled, according to City Atty. Bob Boehm.

“The mere fact that a tree or palm frond falls on someone’s car does not mean the city has legal liability for it,” Boehm said. “The city has responsibility for falling tree limbs and fronds only if it had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition.”

The city received about 1,000 tree-related calls last year.

City workers clip and snip as fast as they can to keep the leafy obstructions in check. Tim Downey, Ventura’s tree coordinator, schedules regular tree maintenance and responds to residents’ requests for additional services.

Ten city tree-crew members work on a tight year-round schedule. They are out pruning every day, except when they are doing planting or removal. Of course, there are always more branches.

“I’d love to have enough staff to trim every single tree in Ventura every single year,” Downey said.

But he cannot. Instead, the city trims in cycles. Trees are classified into short-, medium- and long-range cycles based on factors such as their growth rate and the strength of their wood.

Short-range cycle trees are trimmed every four years. They tend to be fast-growing or brittle. An example might be Ulmus parvifolia--commonly known as the Chinese elm.

Medium-range cycle trees are trimmed every seven years. One example would be Prunus cerasifera, or the purple leaf plum.

Long-range cycle trees are trimmed every 10 years. They are usually slow-growing and have very strong wood. An example would be Quercus ilex, or the holly oak.

Palm trees are a different story. Forced to make budget cutbacks after Proposition 13 passed in 1978, the city no longer trims palm trees regularly.

“Palms are left to grow, except where they are a public safety issue,” Downey said. But some residents are frustrated with the system, arguing it is reactive rather than preventive.

Mark Packard, who lives on South Ashwood Avenue, filed a claim with the city for several hundred dollars after a tree branch crashed onto his roof during a winter storm, damaging shingles and cracking a roof board.

“Trees have been falling over one by one for years now,” Packard said. “You’d think the city would have learned. But they wait until they fall over. Then they come.”

Others, like Daphne Dahl, say they are in a quandary about what to do: Dahl can’t get the city to cut the tree in front of her house. But she can’t cut it herself.

After she called numerous times about a precarious old tree that needed to be trimmed, one branch fell onto the sidewalk, she said. The city quickly cleaned that up but ignored her warnings that the tree was still unbalanced, she said. A week later, a second branch plummeted onto the roof of her car, causing $1,294 in damage.

The city agreed to pay half the cost of the repairs because of her warning calls but said she bore some responsibility too. If she was worried, officials asked, why did she continue to park under the tree?

“They respond quickly when they fall off,” she said. “But if we touch the trees, we can get fined.”

Downey confirmed that residents can be fined for trimming trees.

Residents must first obtain a permit, which Downey says costs about $15 and is usually granted within two working days.

But even then, residents cannot pull out a ladder and saw and do their own trimming.

“Someone could get hurt, and we could get stuck paying the medical bills,” Downey said.

Instead, they must hire a contractor, whose liability insurance would cover any accidents.

In some cases, vigilante tree clippers have taken matters into their own hands and begun to trim neighborhood trees themselves.

“My husband had to get out with his chain saw,” said Pletcher, who lives on Vista Del Mar Drive, adding that many neighbors have done the same. “The city cuts up around the high wires, but not down below.”

Mayor Jack Tingstrom suggested at one recent City Council meeting that residents of the Pierpont beach area who obtain permits and do their own palm tree maintenance be given a receipt acknowledging their labors as a donation to the city.

“People are spending a lot of money trimming city-owned trees,” Tingstrom said. “If they are doing that, they deserve a tax write-off.”

Still, despite the large number of tree claims for damages filed with the city, the dollar amount remains relatively small: All the claims combined only come to about $10,000 so far this year.

Tree problems are by no means unique to Ventura. Boehm recently moved from Chico, where the summer heat sometimes causes deciduous tree limbs to “literally explode off the trees.”

“It’s a recurrent problem with any city that has a lot of trees,” he said. “If there are no trees, there is no problem. But who wants to live in a city with no trees?”