Tree cutting opposition is growing

A petition to save a 60-year-old redwood and three dozen oaks next to the Altaville Grammar School from being chopped down has gained 600 signatures, organizers announced Tuesday.

The trees are to be felled to make way for the $4 million modernization of the Altaville Cal Fire Station, bringing it up to current code, adding space and putting in a wider driveway.
 

An emerging opposition group hopes to convince Cal Fire to changing the plans.

In addition to the petition, a Facebook group dedicated to the effort has 550 supporters, Tim Folendorf, one of the plan’s leading opponents, told the Angels Camp City Council Tuesday.

“They’re going to cut these trees down to make a parking lot,” said Folendorf, who is working with Angels Camp planning commissioners Wrenae Rowe and Gary Croletto.

The original 1999 plan for the remodel appears to save the redwood and several other trees, said Bob Lehmann, who recently retired as fire station chief and has been outspoken against the plan.

But subsequent versions of the plan put a parking lot over the redwood, which Lehmann believes was planted at the station’s 1951 dedication, and other trees.

Cal Fire’s Department of General Services, which handles the project, later told Lehmann that changing the plan would add one-year to the timeline and cost half a million dollars.

"That’s just absurd. That cannot be true,” said Russ Thomas, Calaveras County Board of Supervisors chairman. “If it is, it shows you why the state’s broke.”

The board will vote on sending a letter in support of preserving the trees at their meeting next week.

Angels Camp City Council members Craig Turco and Jack Lynch urged the organizers to call up the local television stations.

“It’s a disgrace, an absolute disgrace,” Lynch said. “I would recommend, not to be out of line, you get tree huggers in there in front of the camera.”