Incredibly as it may seem, it appears that a City of San Diego street crew just damaged the roots and branches of another Torrey Pine – this one near the corner of Greene Street and Ebers.
A city crew tore up the concrete and asphalt of a patch of Greene Street yesterday, Tuesday, October 10th. It was a city crew – not a contractor – a city crew from the General Services department.
And apparently, in the process, they managed to damage the roots of the Torrey Pine right there and even broke off one of its branches and possibly damaged another one.
Local neighbors brought this to the attention of the OB Rag – and these photos were taken around 12:45pm Tuesday. One of the neighbors who alerted the OB Rag was told by a city crew member that they were taking out the bump in the street.
An alert went out to OB’s Torrey Pine network, and a number of its members came by and checked out what had happened.
Coincidentally or not, the street repair is taking place right next to the woodframe construction project at the corner – the controversial structure that has upset neighbors and other OB residents for its failure to comply with and by the rules. In fact, there is a rally this Saturday, October 15th, at noon on this site in protest of the development.
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The city seems to be looking for any excuse to kill these things. A bump in the street? Lifting sidewalks, bla bla bla. We have a failing infrastructure and they’re out polishing doorknobs. Next year they’ll be repaving Newport over the top of our defective storm drain.
Glad to see The Rag was alerted to this, I just discovered it myself. I have jogged down Greene Street for many years and I can say that the “bump” they mentioned was not much more than that, a bump. On a narrow beach street where people drive 15 -20 miles per hour, this bump was not a hazard by any means. I wondered why they decided to to this when there are many other places that need attention. When I realized it was adjacent to the Torrey, I got suspicious. There were similar pavements replacements on Saratoga in front of the Torreys they killed there and there was a big patch adjacent to the tree that fell on Ingraham. I’m reminded of what Bruce Coons, Executive Directer of Save Our Heritage (SOHO) said at the last Peninsula Community Planning Board meeting that the city is waging a “war on trees.” This Torrey on Greene St. is not leaning and is clearly very healthy. We all need to watch this one closely.