No More Trees on the Chopping Block at Encino Park

Two Coast Live Oak trees have been chopped down at Encino Park on Ventura Boulevard in recent weeks.

"These gorgeous trees deserve better," Gregg Daniel wrote in an e-mail to Encino Patch. "I want to know why the city is cutting these trees down instead of trying to save them."

An official for the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks said the oak trees were a potential safety hazard to the public and that no other trees at the park were targeted for elimination.

Public information officer Andrea Epstein said the city parks department's Forestry Division, which maintains and inspects trees throughout the city, deemed the two at Encino Park in weakened conditions and hazardous.

“They are considered hazardous if the limbs might come down on people or cars, or they might be decayed,” Epstein said.

The larger of the two trees, which was cut down on May 9, was 50 to 75 years old and the smaller one was 35 to 50 years old, Epstein said.