These trees are going to be killed

There are 3 magnificent eucs near 845 Alvarado road that are slated for death. Make no mistake, these are magnificent trees that have been gracing this corner for over 100 years. These trees actually stopped the spread of the 1991 fire. These trees provide essential raptor habitat, freshen the air, sway in the breeze, block wind, and pose no fire risk whatsoever. So, why are these trees slated for extermination?

The simple answer is that a 79 year old woman who lives nearby, Shelagh Broderson, doesn't like eucalyptus trees. Perhaps she was traumatized by the 1991 fire or perhaps she just doesn't like these inhabitants that have been here long before she graced the area with her presence. No, there's no fire risk or other risks to humans being cited. This is all about personal preference, and Shelagh along with a small group of like minded individuals are determined to exterminate these offending species no matter the cost, and no matter the effects on the environment, ecosystem, of how others might feel.

But it's more complicated than that. The real answer is that this is just the latest example of public lands being modified to suit the whims of a small group of "native plant" advocates who have managed to acquire an outsized level of influence in matters of vegetation in the Oakland/Berkeley hills.

Shelagh is part of a group of persons who participate in the Claremont Canyon Conservancy, a group that was formed several decades ago with a vague mission of doing good things for this area (and collecting as much money as possible), while their actual intent is nothing more than the removal of eucalyptus and monterey pine trees. While for a long time they attempted to make the claim that this was all in the interest of fire risk mitigation, in the course of multiple lawsuits challenging these programs, these assertions were struck down as being little more than conjecture. Actually, what became clear was that thre was no scientific basis for removing these two species, and in fact removal of these species actually increased fire risk. But that didn't matter to these folks.

How we got to this point is a more complicated story where these folks used any angle they could to achieve their nativist goals. They first started off with obtaining a state grant to fund a project on East Bay Regional Park District land higher up in Claremont Canyon. This turned into a major fiasco for the Park, who have since not allowed any other similar projects on theri land.

For a decade or so thse folks had a friend at UC by the name of Tom Klatt. Tom seemed to be the UC employee that nobody wanted, one who misused his position to advance a personal nativist agenda. Under his leadership UC paid to remove all the eucs and pines further up the canyon at signpost 21. Immediately after public money was spend to remove these trees on public land, members of the Claremont Conservancy showed up to begin planting redwoods and other species they deemed accepable. Clearly Tom was working in cahouts with the CCC to push for this program and then allow these people to make it the nativist paradise they dreamed of. Now this site in an overgrown mess of highly flammable vegetation that imperils all those who live in the area. But never mind, because if your house burns down because of a "native" species igniting that's just fine.

Hills Conservation Network held these folks back for the better part of 2 decades, but in the end UC was able to gain CEQA approvals to do whatever they wanted entirely because they obtained support from half a dozen local agencies and found a sympathetic appeals court. It must be made clear that not once did these folks win on the merits, rather, they were only able to prevail using their institutional clout and deep pockets.

Around the same time the city of Oakland had finally decided they needed to do an EIR for vegetation management. While this started off as a scientifically rigorous effort, it was taken over by the same group of nativist zealots with the help of councilmember Dan Kalb and then Janani Ramachandran. The result was multiple iterations that became increasingly less based on scientific rigor, instead becoming little more than a justification for what this group wanted. In the end HCN didn't have the funds to sue this EIR, so it was ratified by the city. Included in this plan/EIR was a very strange provision that called for the removal of Shelagh Brodersons' 3 dispised trees. Clearly there was no justification for this, and to its credit the EIR/plan listed this part of the plan as extremely low priority.....but these 3 trees became part of the plan.

So, now the city had a plan, but no money to implement. What to do? This is when David Kessler and Elizabeth Stage jumped in. Both UC retirees and associated with the Claremont Canyon Conservancy, they worked with concilmember Ramachandran to create a funding mechanism that would extract $80 million from hills residents over 20 years to fund doing what it was was that the nativists wanted on public land. With little organized opposition this measure passed and now the good citizens of Oakland are funding nativist work on public land for the forseeable future.

This was a brilliant move in that it was easy to get Ramachandran's support for yet another tax on Oakland residents while ensuring that her political future would be paid for by the nativists. A complete win-win for her.

But this wasn't enough to satisfy the Claremont Canyon Conservancy and Ms. Broderson. Since they now had legal cover to remove these 3 trees they initiated a public funding campaign to raise the money to do the work. After a year or so they managed to raise the requisite funds and now these magnificent trees will likely he gone while Ms. Broderson is still among the living.

So, what we have here is a group of people who moved to this area long after the trees were here. After the 1991 fire they needed a scapegoat, because it was politically unacceptable to blame the City of Oakland for their criminal negligence, when in fact this disastrous fire happened only because of City ineptude. So, what better than to use the '91 fire to fear monger in order to get funding to make public lands meet the standards of perhaps 20 persons...at the expense of everyone else and generations to come.

What's most unfortunate about this entire situation is that the people responsible for this environmental destruction are not young, and the damage they are doing will affect future generations far more than them. The hope was to hold them off long enough for them to be gone while the trees remained standing, but in the case of these 3 trees, it looks like that won't be the case.

In the end Ms. Broderson, Jon Kaufman (head of the CCC), David Kesslar, Elizabeth Stage and others associated with this effort will live long enough to destroy the beautiful environment that they chose to live in. Younger folks and subsequent generatons will wonder what happened to these beuatiful forests, but it won't matter as they will be gone and we will all be worse off for it.

One hell of a legacy.