Redlands Adventist Church Embroiled in Local Environmental Controversy
by AT News Team
Updated September 27
How difficult community involvement can be for a congregation is illustrated in the local conflict that the Redlands Seventh-day Adventist Church has become embroiled in. The church had two trees removed near the edge of property where a new annex is being constructed, redwoods that belong to the municipal government and are over 80 years old, according to the Redlands Daily Facts.
City officials responded very negatively when they found out about it. On September 6 a special meeting at city hall was convened to discuss the situation. It included “city manager N. Enrique Martinez, Quality of Life director Fred Cardenas, city attorney Dan McHugh, director of community development Oscar Orci, the city’s parks and field coordinator Erik Reeves, city code enforcement officer Robert Montaghami and public information officer Carl Baker,” the newspaper reported. A week later at a community forum Martinez was questioned by “passionate” residents as to what the city planned to do about it.
“I take it very, very seriously,” the city manager told the newspaper. “I can’t speak for the City Council, but the City Council has gone record since I’ve been here about how important the urban forest is to the city. It’s not just important for oxygen, but for economic development and beauty.” Cardenas said “quite a few ordinances were violated.” The newspaper reported that the replacement cost of the trees is estimated to be $27,000.
Pastor Zach Thorp has taken responsibility for the removal of the trees without getting permission from the municipality. “He said … the trees posed a safety hazard to traffic, because branches blocked the stop sign; pedestrians, because drivers could not see people waiting to cross [the street]; and churchgoers and passersby, because the tree was dying and, especially during and after storms, limbs could fall,” according to the newspaper.
The pastor is quoted, “We certainly value the trees in Redlands, and we’re wanting to put five large trees in there to landscape that boulevard, and give them adequate water so they can (be healthy), obviously at our cost. We’ll maintain the trees on a regular basis.” Evidently the plan violates a city code that requires 40 feet between trees, which means there is only room for two trees in the space in question.
The city government is deciding whether or not to pursue criminal or civil penalties, according to the newspaper. The next City Council session is scheduled for September 18 and Martinez has indicated that a full report will be made on the issue.
The pastor “has been cooperatives by all accounts, and stressed that he never meant to hurt anyone,” the newspaper reported. It quoted his apology, “we’re sorrowful for any sorrow that it’s caused anyone. We obviously want to be great neighbors.” The newspaper did not report on any neighbors who support the removal of the trees, although history indicates that there likely are some, perhaps even a majority.
Update
At a meeting of the city council on September 18, the pastor apologized to the neighbors and municipal representatives for the removal of the trees and assured them that the church would replace the trees. Sources have told Adventist Today that the company that did the removal failed to alert the pastor to the restrictions involved.
Sources familiar with the congregation and the town told Adventist Today that the Redlands Church is known to be a community church. Out of the 244 active members, 146 or nearly 60 percent live in the City of Redlands. This is a very different situation than most Adventist churches as shown in national surveys. In most Adventist congregations, the majority of the members do not live in the community where the church building is located.
In fact, the purpose of the current construction project is to create space for meeting community needs as well as for church activities, a source told Adventist Today. A large part of the new building is dedicated to rooms for the community to utilize for concerts, programs and social events.
The church most definitely should have consulted the city before taking such drastic actions; and yes, cutting down trees is drastic in most California cities.
They were on city property, and if they were traffic hazards, it should have been taken up with the city before taking such action.
Years ago when Fresno was building a new academy on a lovely old home site with many sycamore trees, someone started a fire in efforts to control overgrwon weeds, resulting in destroying many beautiful trees that took years to replace and give shade. California treasures its trees because they do not just "naturally" sprout and grow like in many areas.
Note of Clarification: An introductory blurb to this story incorrectly stated that the trees were removed from adjacent county land; they indeed appear to have been on city property, as stated in the body of the story.
If they were anything but Redwood trees it might not have caused a stir, but Redwoods are slow growing and long lived, and, unless there are compelling reasons to cut them down, why not leave them? They definitely should have consulted with the city and with tree experts. If there were branches that blocked the view so as to cause a safety hazard they could have been cut without damaging the trees. If there were visibility problems caused by the trees themselves, they could have explored other solutions. If one of the trees was really dieing, it seems that they could have easily gotten approval from the city to remove it. The bit about limbs falling is a lame excuse because all trees can lose limbs in a storm.
Clearly they should have explored this better before taking action.
As embarrassing as it was, many years ago our church board had a "fight" over whether or not to cut some trees down on church property (mostly birches and aspen). It was basically a "city landscape" mentality vs. those of us who lived in the woods. The country bumkins prevailed. 🙂 Vive la forêt!
It is my understanding that the trees were on a city easement. I wonder if it would have been an issue if the trees had been owned by the Redlands Church. It seems to me that the tree service that cut down the trees bears some responsibility as well.
I know that the pastor personally went door to door in the neighborhood to apologize for any distress it had caused and to assure the neighbors that the Church really wants to be a good neighbor. Some neighbors were very angry. Others were very cordial, and thanked him for cutting down the trees.
I am puzzled and annoyed that the last paragraph was included in the story. There is no evidence that Redlands church members do not live in the neighborhood. My daughter and son-in-law attend there, and they are certainly in the neighborhood. I think the vast majority of Redlands church members live in the local community. The writer of this story is just making up an issue to evoke an "Ugly American" image of Adventist churches in general, and the Redlands Church in particular, as insensitive to the local community.
Did the writer bother to call Pastor Thorp to find out what percentage of his congregation lived in the local community? No. Of course not! That might have spoiled the frame that the writer used to create a sulphuric context for the story. Even if the members did live outside the local area, so what? Please cite the survey that is referenced. Give us a reference for the "many cases" where members not living in the local community makes the church out of touch with local needs and attitudes. Tell us about the embarrassing conflicts. My suspicion is that the writer is just making up a lot of his material in the last paragraph.
The story is interesting and newsworthy, but the journalism is highly irresponsible. I think a retraction of that last paragraph, and an apology by the "AT News Team" is definitely called for.
I hope the church has a good lawyer because they're in a tough situation. Damages for the value of triess cut from the right-of-way owned by the city would be a non-issue or, at worst, minor in most communities. Where I live they might even have been thanked for doing it. But California is not known for common sense when it comes to the environment and violations of the law can result in severe penalties that do not exist in the law in most other states.
Which only shows that geography affects our lives in many ways. There is a saying that in Wyoming if a tree is spotted they build a fence around it and designate it a state park! Trees are especially valued in parts of California as they should be. Years ago, the central valley was almost denuded in places for housing but there are still towns who have treasured their ancient live oaks that offer shade and cooling from the summer heat. State laws have reasons to vary.
A couple of things to remember – First, from an ecological perspective, we are not talking about native trees. Redwoods are not native to Southern California, at least not to my knowledge.
Secondly, if this was my neighbor, who in good faith, cut down a tree on my property, thinking it was on his property, he would be liable to compensate me for the damages, and that would be it. It would not be a matter of political high moral dudgeon. Unfortunately politicians, whether they are local or national, love to jump on a moral high horse and make political hay whenever they can. I suspect there are many much more important issues that Redlands City officials should be addressing. But this apparently strikes them as low hanging fruit. So they seem to be making a much bigger deal out of it than is warranted. Thus, the story takes on a life of its own, quite independent of the provocation.
Why is it so difficult to simply say, "Here's the bill, folks," and move on?
It is difficult because you're dealing with California where environmental mangement is regulated from the insane asylum. I've managed projects on military installations in California where environmental regulations were involved. Oh, the painful stories I could tell you about the difficulty of dealing with those lunatics! So I am not hopeful of an easy outcome.
I think you've gotten to the crux of the matter here, William: environmental wackos; those who find more value in an insect than in a human being.
Just a minor footnote correcting my good friend Nate. Redwoods were native to southern Calfornia up to at the end of the Pleistocene about 10,000 years ago. They were found in the La Brea tar pits. As the climate warmed, they retreated northward. (Now I know that some of our fundamentlist friends can't accept the clear scientific evidence for this. But that's their problem. I thought the rest of us might like to know this piece of data)
Thanks, Erv. That's very interesting. Of course I knew that. That's why I used the word "are". lol
How else do you describe people who are in awe of an elephant when it trashes a forest, but condemn a man for logging? There needs to be a balance. The situation in Redlands probably should have been handled differently, but the city probably overreacted (as would be expected in "the land of tree huggers," where common sense is no longer a valued commodity.
C'mon Jean and William. Thank God for "whacko environmentalists", "tree huggers" etc. If it weren't for them, our rivers would be polluted, our soil eroded our air unfit to breathe. As for the elephant analogy, I have never heard of an elephant clear cutting sections of land. I don't want my state ending up like parts of eastern Europe and parts of China where profit was the only motive.
Such "wacko enviornmentalists" have been writing the ever-growing set of draconian laws in California for so long that they are now the primary reason why almost 800 more people move out of California each day than move into the state. The rivers and streams have been cleaned up. But admitting that would mean we don't need as many regulators or as much enforcement so they would lose their jobs.
Requiring a permit to remove a large tree is certainly not unique to Southern California. I live in New Jersey which has a lot of trees (compared to So Calif). Even most urban areas have many trees. My city requires a permit by the "Shade Tree Commission" to remove any tree above a certain trunk diameter. Reasons are both environmental and esthetic – the character of the neighborhood.
A few years ago a local owner of a large, 10+ acre, heavily forested, estate removed over a dozen large trees in order to straighten his driveway and was fined many thousands of dollars and required to replace them with mature trees.
I love our trees and if this makes me a "nut", I am proud of it. I happily rake (never blow) the leaves every fall and appreciate the cooling effect of their shade on my house. I may live in a "shady area" but want to preserve its character.
For a country dweller, the idea of a "Shade Tree Commission" sounds a bit comical. And this may be a bit off topic, but I'm glad I live in the woods where no town committee can tell me what trees I can or cannot cut, or how high I must mow my grass. I can even choose not to mow it for 3 weeks if I want to. But, in my part of the world, if one does not keep up with things, everything will revert to forest. It's a continual battle to keep my garden from being shaded too much. In that part of the yard, tomatoes win over trees. 🙂
Why are we so determined to make Southern California look like Wisconsin, which it hasn't since the year those mammoths got stuck in Erv's tar pits!?
Because Californians love the trees of Wisconsin, but hate the climate.
I think you've probably stated a profound truth, Elaine.
In construction of a recent paved parking area for our relatively new church in the Portland area of Oregon, the city ordained that only trees that grow in a vertical configuration (i.e., do not spread branches broadly) could be used to beautify and shade the parking area and its junctures with the thoroughfare. Apparently trees here, as in California, have a tendency to not only "migrate north" but also eventually send out branches that migrate directly into the fields of vision of motorists, pedestrians, and lest we forget, interloping skateboarders! The ordinance on what species of trees we could plant in our parking lot addressed issues of safety, and our church was happy to comply. Apparently this is a fairly recent requirement, however, and foliaged obstruction of stop signs and crosswalks, etc. does occur near older buildings in other areas of town. It would be interesting to do a bit of research down in Redlands and see if current regulations there would have permitted the planting of young redwoods in the spots in question, under current regulatory code. To be able to demonstrate that one's intent, however legally naive, was to comply with elements of the spirit of current regulations could be useful on several fronts in this apparently very public discussion.
Much ado about very little in the scheme of things. What else can one expect from the land of the lemons and the nuts??
I seem to recall that some very specific instructions were given to Mr. and Mrs. Adam on how to treat two significant trees in the midst of their property—trees which God reserved for His own domain. I suppose the new couple believed that disobeying the Lord in the matter of the Tree of Knowledge was "much ado about very little in the scheme of things?" Let us be reminded that what we see as trivial may actually be regarded by others as a significant test of responsible citizenship. The good folk in Redlands are learning, as Adam and Eve of old, that trees can teach us valuable lessons when we decide that we, and we alone, are final arbiters of how the trees will be used….
If you don't like either lemons or nuts, you can make fun of us 😉
California, as I'm sure other states, must constantly trim trees that obstruct overhead power lines as well as traffic signs. I have a large black walnut tree on my property, probably at least 150 years old according to long-time residents in this area. It has been drastically trimmed back over the years because of obstruction of power lines.
Many medians are planted with redwood trees, and I have a number on my rural property. Several counties in the central valley have done a better job of protecting the live oaks that provide such beauty and shade and there are many laws preventing the cutting of trees, thank God!