Altaville station's trees may fall

A 60-year-old redwood and three dozen oaks may be chopped down to make way for a wider driveway and new parking lot at the Altaville Cal Fire station.

The plan, part of a necessary $4 million modernization of the station, has drawn outcry from the fire station’s staff, Angels Camp planning commissioners, and State Sen. Dave Cox, whose district includes Calaveras County.
 

“It’s pretty ridiculous,” said Bob Lehmann, fire station chief, noting the full project will result in 46,000 square-feet of asphalt.

Lehmann, Cox and others have pushed to relocate a small parking lot that has been drawn in over the property’s lone redwood, which was planted at the dedication of the fire station in 1951.

Doing so would help them move the firefighters’ quarters closer, which would prevent firefighters from having to make a roughly 200-foot trip to their fire engines, saving time during night calls, said Lehmann.

It would mark a return to the original, 1999 plan for the upgrade, which appears to save the redwood and other trees.

“It seems to make perfect sense to everyone but the guys doing the plans,” he said. “They just drop a plan, a cookie cutter type of plan on the site.”

Lehman asked Cal Fire’s Department of General Services and the Technical Services Unit, both of which have been deeply involved in the project, what it would take to redraft the project, which still exists only on paper.

Their answer: Half a million dollars and a one-year delay.

“I know it doesn’t cost that much,” said Lehmann, who retires Wednesday. “They just don’t want to go back to the drawing board, in my opinion.”

A 2005 communication from the Technical Services Unit, by contrast, estimated a $5,200 cost for the redrawing.

Lehmann, who was not station chief at that time, said the option was not followed through at that time.

Moreover, architects with the Department of General Services advocated in 2005 for the shift, arguing it would save money and create a superior facility, according to a copy of comments on the plan provided by Lehmann.

The two divisions could not be reached by press time.

Lehmann is enthusiastic about the overall project, which will make the station, constructed in 1951, earthquake-safe, disabled-accessible and add a bathroom and a separate dorm to accommodate female firefighters.

It will also widen the driveway to convert the station to a drive-through format which, Lehmann said, is now a fire station standard.

But between the widened driveway (which eliminates seven trees), the relocated barracks (nine trees), the new parking lot (11 trees), he worries the fire station site will be irrevocably altered. 

While Cal Fire has complete authority over its own lands, the situation is reminiscent of other oak groves lost to development in Angels Camp, said Gary Croletto, county Planning Commission chairman.

Croletto, who describes himself as “not exactly a tree-hugger,” has long pushed for a tree ordinance in the county. Such a law would be irrelevant in this case, but Croletto hopes public opposition does the trick.

“Usually what happens is that, once the trees start falling and the chainsaws start going, people go, ‘Whoa, what’s happening?’ ” he said. “But then it’s too late.”