Menlo Park Planning and Council,
I am joining others that would like to insure that the hundreds and hundreds of trees in the Sharon Heights golf course are NOT REMOVED. What a crime to the climate, environment, and to biodiversity this would be. What would this teach our children?
The plans talks of sick redwoods and that they are ‘not native’. Yet out of hundreds of trees, only a few are viewed as in poor health while the vast majority (virtually all) are healthy and rated as heritage or significant.
About that Not Native statement - we have redwood trees through out the peninsula and Menlo Park that are hundreds of years old. In fact, as far back as written records exist for this area around Menlo Park, there is mention of the tall and stately redwoods. An example, it was Portola in the mid 1700s that named the Palo Alto’ redwood tree - already a tall tree and it later was used to name the town. So that is just mis-leading, redwoods have been in the area here and the ones in the nearby hills have been here for well over 1400 years, at least.
Project documents should not mis-lead the public nor City staff nor council members. You should reject attempts by developers to spin facts into other meanings just to ‘get their way’. The majority of those beautiful trees are healthy. They have created an important environment for all sorts of wildlife, insects, birds, animals, and all of the soil and microbs that live together in that symbiotic environment. Don’t destroy it.
What if the trees remain and the golf course renovations are directed to incorporate them in to a better new plan, rather than destroy them and all the value they bring to our area.
Please - put a stop to destroying this nature and instead focus on keeping it and changing the renovation design. Set an example that our children — your children and grand-children can be proud of.
Thank You,
Ron
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Ron Snow
SantaCruz/Alameda For Everyone (SAFE)
ronsnow@univpark.org
199 Stanford Ave
Menlo Park, CA 94025-6325 USA
Direct: 650-949-6658
