Archive for April, 2010

28 Apr

Community Voices Concerns with City Attorney

Posted by Martin-Fontana Parks Association in City of San Jose, Jeffrey Fontana Park, TJ Martin Park.

Several representatives from the community wrote a letter to the city attorney with some questions about PG&E’s authority to cut the trees from the park.

On April 28th, the attorney replied.  See his letter here:

SanJoseAttorneyResponseToCommunity_2010-04-28

20 Apr

Tree Data in TJ Martin & Jeffery Fontana Parks

Posted by saveourparktrees in Jeffrey Fontana Park, TJ Martin Park, Tree Data.

Information was gathered by the Community on many of the trees in Phase 1, which were scheduled to be cut down by PG&E on March 22, 2010.  These measurements basically agreed with  the  measurements  that PG&E had conducted. This was revealed on the April 5th Task Force Meeting with PG&E.  PG&E also agreed at that time that there was no imminent danger existing in the Parks due to tree to wire clearances.

20 Apr

April 20, Community Counter Proposal to PG&E

Posted by saveourparktrees in Uncategorized.

 The April 20th Counter Proposal: The Community representatives are split on what to do, but we finally agree to submit a counterproposal to PG&E. The essence of the proposal is:

a. The Community will allow PG&E to cut 13 of the 14 trees and prune, not cut one tree (Tree #13, the 40 year old Coastal Live Oak).

b. That PG&E plant 5 trees for each tree cut (this is based on the City’s requirement of Communities, e.g. townhouse developments of cut trees in their development).

See: PDF Document: “Community counter proposal #1, dated 4-20-10 to 4-5-10 Task Force Meeting”.

12 Apr

“Save our Trees” T-Shirts

Posted by Martin-Fontana Parks Association in Jeffrey Fontana Park, TJ Martin Park.

For those of you who want to buy your own “Save our Trees” T-shirt

just follow this link

5 Apr

April 5, Task Force Meeting with PG&E & City

Posted by saveourparktrees in City of San Jose, Events, Jeffrey Fontana Park, MFPA, Nancy Pyle, PG&E, TJ Martin Park, Tree Data. Tagged: , , .

On April 5, Councilmember Pyle convened the first Task Force Meeting. As it turned out, this was not a task force. It was a setup between PG&E and the City to tell the Community what PG&E was going to do. There were three good results and one bad result that came from this meeting:

a. PG&E would cut only 14 trees and trim 4 other trees. The new strategy is to slow the cutting speed to allow the parks to not have as unsightly appearance. But the answer is the same: 140 trees will be ultimately cut (approx. 30% of the trees in our two parks)

b. PG&E did agree to loosen it’s restriction on trees that are larger than 15 feet, if the trees were not in the middle zone between two towers.

c. PG&E agreed that the State Statute requiring  a minimum clearance 10 feet between tree and transmission line is the ruling authority.

d. The bad thing: PG&E would only give a $75 per tree allowance for each tree cut. This was to cover the cost of replacing each tree, planting it, and maintaining it for 3 years. The trees being replaced are over 25 years old (planted trees) and one tree is over 40 years old (Coastal Live Oak, native and indigenous, Tree #13).

Work  would begin in June with a reanalysis of the situation in the Fall.

No minutes were published from this meeting. Councilmember Pyle later published a piece in the Almaden Times (May 7 issue) announcing the “good news”.

1 Apr

San Jose – Heritage Tree Information

Posted by saveourparktrees in City of San Jose, Tree Data.

You can get an idea of what the City of San Jose says about Heritage Trees and where some of them are by clicking on this link.