Protest Branching Out

Only God can make a tree, the old adage goes. But only L.A. can make it a star.

Like fans coming to pay homage to an idol, hundreds of families, dancers, musicians, Native Americans, and a guy who laid down a $100 offering, converged beneath the branches of an endangered old oak in Santa Clarita Saturday. They turned a narrow canyon road into a bizarre sideshow featuring a would-be actor and part-time teacher perched in the tree targeted to be bulldozed for a highway.

A group of girls in rhinestone-studded jumpsuits danced before the tree. A flutist and drummer softly played their music beneath its shade. Native Americans tied colorful ribbons to a nearby fence on land they believe is sacred. Passersby honked.

And scores of visitors just stood around gazing at the tree and John Quigley, the 27-year-old Pacific Palisades man who has been sitting in it for 16 days.

“This is a hands-on experience,” said David Krebs, who drove 55 miles from Anaheim for a Nature 101 lesson for his two children. Sure, they were also visiting nearby relatives, but being witness to a live act that is “saving the environment is important,” he said.

Meanwhile, leaders of the Santa Clarita environmental group that is staging the sit-in met with representatives of the developer who was told by Los Angeles County to cut it down. They called in a mediator to help them along.

The one issue they all agreed on Saturday is a news blackout on talk details. Even the location of their meeting was kept secret. Rumor had it that they were holed up in a booth at a nearby Coco’s restaurant. But they weren’t there.

“We have a very hopeful feeling as a result of the negotiations,” is all Lynne Plambeck, president of SCOPE, the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment, would say.

She visited Quigley after the meeting, telling him to hang in there. Quigley, a part-time environmental teacher the group recruited to the cause, said that the holidays are his slow time and he would be the tree’s live-in guardian for as long as it takes.

One sheriff’s deputy guarded the tree as fans pressed up against a chain-link fence erected around it for safety reasons. The tree and Quigley have become an overnight sensation as recent media reports heightened attention to its plight and his mission.

Parked cars lined Pico Canyon Road for more than a quarter of a mile. The crowds arrived in waves, at times throughout the day reaching about 200, then receding to a dozen or so.

Terry Santino, 50, of Yucaipa heard about the tree on the radio after the last call Saturday morning at a San Bernardino bar. He arrived in Santa Clarita at 4 a.m. in his 34-foot long Fleetwood Bounder motor home.

“I was born and raised in California and I’ve seen the land go,” he said. “There is no reason they can’t save the tree.”

The Sheriff’s Department decided against forcing Quigley down from his high perch. Too dangerous, they said. Besides, no one has made a trespassing complaint against him.

Will this highly publicized stint enhance his career?

“All I can think about right now is saving this tree,” he said Saturday via cell phone, at times acknowledging the onlookers gawking at him. “Hey, let me read this. It’s from kids and has a picture of a tree on it,” he said, holding a note. “Be strong, have faith in yourself and we hope you are home for Christmas,” wrote two girls.

Meanwhile, he sponge-bathes with buckets of water, eats well from donated food and instead of coming down for bathroom breaks, climbs high into branches for privacy and relieves himself in containers.

“It’s awkward, but I’m getting used to it,” Quigley said.

There is not enough room in the canyon for both a four-lane roadway and the tree, which sits perched near a 100-foot cliff. On the other side of the tree lies the Pico Canyon Road and hillside housing.

Los Angeles County had approved removal of the tree on land just outside Santa Clarita city limits to accommodate traffic for impending housing developments.

What the county and John Laing Homes, the developer of a neighboring subdivision who was going to build the road, underestimated was the wrath of Santa Clarita environmentalists.

This is a citizenry with deep oak tree roots.

The first ordinance passed by the newly incorporated City Council in 1987 was a moratorium prohibiting even the branch of an oak tree from being cut without permission.

The city logo features the graceful branches of an oak. The “Oak of the Golden Dream” stands as a historic landmark in nearby Placerita Canyon, the site where gold particles were discovered in 1842.

In modern days, the valley has linked its identity to its native oaks, naming schools, malls, streets and subdivisions after them. The Southern Oaks housing tract lies just across the road from the threatened tree. Avenue of the Oaks, Oakridge Lane and Oak Street are among the roads crisscrossing the valley. Golden Oak Adult School operates in Newhall. River Oaks Shopping Center sits in the heart of Valencia.

Developers typically charge homeowners thousands of dollars more for a new home with an oak tree on its lot.

“I think so much of this valley has been leveled that people are sick of it,” said tree visitor Carl Boyer, a former mayor who served on the city’s first council.

Before the Pico Canyon Road became a thoroughfare, it was a popular lovers lane up until the 1970s, the tree providing a romantic shelter.

One tree fan, Quigley said, told him how her husband proposed to her beneath the oak.