West Hollywood is a city full of beauty salons, manicurists and facialists. But we have to make sure our beautiful trees — an estimated 12,500 of them — also get the attention they deserve.
Yesterday the City of West Hollywood began its annual program of tree pruning, and work is expected to continue through February 2017.
The city’s contractor, West Coast Arborists, is beginning pruning work along Sunset Boulevard. During the coming weeks, crews will move to other commercial areas on Beverly Boulevard, Santa Monica Boulevard and other arterial streets. Following commercial area trimming, work will commence on residential streets. Each day, trimming will start at 8 a.m. and work will be finished by 3 p.m. Westbound lanes will not be affected by trimming activities until after 10 a.m. in order to minimize disruption to morning traffic.
The city will communicate to residents, businesses, and motorists in advance of pruning work, using several methods:
• “No parking” signs will be placed a minimum of 24 hours in advance of work. The signs will reflect scheduled trimming activities for each day and they will be broken down into two time segments: before noon and after noon. Parking spaces will be reopened as soon as possible after work is completed.
• Door hangers or postings on trees will be placed a minimum of 72 hours in advance of residential tree-trimming activities.
• Electronic message boards will be placed at strategic locations several days before trimming, as well as during trimming activities, in order to provide commuters with advance notice so they can plan route changes.
• Notification of trimming activity will be posted on the city’s website, on WeHoTV channels, and in the city’s social media.
For more information, please contact Scott Smith, the city’s urban forest and landscape maintenance supervisor, at (323) 848-6463 or via email at ssmith@weho.org. For people who are deaf or hearing impaired, call TTY (323) 848-6496.
Trees filter the toxins. Oxygen people! They have value and are beautiful. They don’t need to be trimmed so often like a bad hair cut that takes a year to recover. WE NEED MORE TREES, not less. But we can balance this out with having a mixture of Palm Springesque parkways etc. that consume less water but never give up on the trees that makes West Hollywood NOT Palm Springs. To give up trees in a congested, polluted, toxic air area is not a good idea. Don’t make this Manhattan. NYC sucks. Anyone who has lived there long enough knows… Read more »
@John Don’t fool yourself – trees are some of the most vicious lifeforms on the planet. Most people don’t realize this because trees do their damage so very slowly. But they are not simply these “pollution clearing” angels you’ve convinced yourself they are. They steal our water / they’ve done millions of dollars in property damage / they eat some of our pets / and (as this very article affirms) they cost WeHo so much money to upkeep, my friends and I often wonder to each other why we have allowed our city to keep trees this long, when most… Read more »
@Michael Exactly! We need to turn West Hollywood into a barren, ugly wasteland so our children who are alfalfa farmers – if any of them are – can use the water saved to grow an extra shipping container of alfalfa each year and ship it to either China or Saudi Arabia. They will thank us for destroying our cool, shady, healthy, pollution clearing trees for their $200 annual profit! We need to focus our entire public policy on making life for tens of millions of city dwellers as drab and boring and ugly and polluted as possible so we can… Read more »
In London and most other dignified cities around the globe in commercial and residential areas they take pride in their facades, sidewalks and are forever polishing their brass. We could use a perpetual neighborhood beautification contest……Call it “The Curb Appeal Award” and designate categories. You’ll be surprised how fast folks doing into action. Take that!
We need to destroy every tree, bush, and flower in WeHo and replace them with drought-friendly succulents, and – in some cases – moderate to low priced artificial greenery. I can practically hear our children thanking us from the future.
The issue with the sidewalk cleaning is that the City keeps insisting that the businesses along Santa Monica form a “Business Improvement District” (BID) to pay for banners, sidewalk cleaning and similar “services”. The business community has resisted, pointing out that keeping the public areas clean is normally the job of the municipality. So we have a stand off and even though we have the cash, the City would rather nickel and dime our local businesses than do what needs to be done. Sometimes I wonder why we even bothered incorporating as a City when we have to deal with… Read more »
Agreed, flowering Jacaranda trees and other fruit/berry bearing trees while lovely obviously create problems on sidewalks which is compounded by pet litter. With more foresight these could have been positioned in the medians that were created. If the city chooses to have them in place they should provide sidewalk steam cleaning.
The washing of the sidewalk under every Jacaranda tree needs to happen at least twice a year or the dirt of every sole who passes under them is left there! 🙂
KRN…I think they stopped cleaning the sidewalks due to the drought – but you’re right, they need to be cleaned…they’re disgusting.
When we were a “poor” City, we never felt tree trimming was necessarily an annual event. I know that many businesses want the trims trimmed to avoid blocking their signage. While the Drake Elms along Santa Monica are hardy enough to bear an annual trimming, I an not sure it is necessary or even healthy. But I do agree with KRN that power washing our sidewalks should be a priority. It is embarrassing for a City that is constantly reminding us that our budget is flush with cash would tolerate the condition of our sidewalks in our “pedestrian friendly” town.
I agree with the above comments, but what about pressure washing the sidewalks? Especially along the bars and restaurants along Santa Monica Blvd.?
The City, IMHO, should not trim the trees every year. Let them grow a bit. They hack them to bits every year. Part of what makes our City so nice is our tree canopy. Let them grow. I also agree with the above poster. It doesn’t seem like West Coast Arborists are very knowledgeable about tree trimming and/or shaping. The leave the trees looking like stumps.