Downtown Trees, Grown High and Mighty, Are Laid Low

The 20-year-old trees lining the downtown sidewalks along Harbor Boulevard started leaving this week--hacked up and hauled away on dump trucks.

“They were so beautiful,” said Kasheedah Abdullah, who walked past on her way to work as tree cutters chopped down the flowering floss silk trees.

Beverly Rotert, a 45-year-old Anaheim resident who passed the workers on her bicycle, sighed: “This is so sad.”

The City Council recently approved the removal project because many of the trees, which were planted in the 1970s, have grown so big that their roots are cracking the sidewalks. The cracks have created a hazard for shoppers and strollers along the street of shops, restaurants, taverns and salons.

Since 1992, four claims have been filed against the city by people who say they were injured when they tripped and fell on the uneven sidewalks. The city has paid at least $15,000 in settlements so far.

Eliminating the problem, city officials said, will reduce the number of claims and lawsuits that are filed.

Removing the trees was a tough decision but public safety has priority over beauty, council members said. Several residents and downtown business owners who wanted to keep the trees failed to persuade the council to reconsider its decision.

All but three of the trees--distinctive for their thorny, lime-green trunks and pink flowers that resemble orchids--will be replaced with pink tababuias, which have smaller trunks and roots that are not expected to lift the sidewalks.

“You don’t want the general public to be coming through here and tripping and falling,” said Frank Martin, a city construction inspector in charge of the project. “It’s too bad we can’t control roots better or make a rootless or deep-rooted tree.”