Editor,
Currently City Hall wants to make the old pepper tree in front of City Hall safer. The current debate is how to do it.
I see a connection between our historic pepper tree at city hall and the Watts Towers. In 1959, Los Angeles City Hall wanted eliminate the Watts Towers because they were dangerous. The neighbors loved their towers. They lobbied hard to keep the towers. An engineer came up with a test to prove if the towers were safe or dangerous. They tied a cable from a construction crane to the towers then tried to pull the towers down. The towers won.
Now fast forward to 2017. There’s been a raging debate for months about this old pepper tree next to the City Hall front door. First there is the backstory: old trees versus the people of Laguna Beach. For a few years now there has been an effort to handle the threat from trees. Okay back to testing this old tree. Tie a rope around the most dangerous part of tree. Get a group of 15 or 20 people who desire to make the tree safer try their best to pull the tree apart. This could be a community event. One side praying and cheering for the tree. The other side praying and cheering for common sense and safety. Let’s do the rope puller test, bring your gloves.
Michael Hoag, Laguna Beach
