Here's the inimitable John Horgan parsing the Tom rhetoric. The serious question: "Is this the beginning of a raft of "eucanasia" now that the precedent has been set?" If the City can cut a troublesome heritage tree–why can't you? In the meantime, let's have some fun with the idea that this quote is from one of the councilmembers who VOTED TO CUT the tree down!

Where's Cotchett?
Column by John Horgan

ATTORNEYS, start your engines. Terry Nagel, the mayor of Burlingame, may have opened up a whole new and wonderful world of litigation for you in her bucolic community. As she and the rest of the Burlingame City Council discussed what to do about an intrusive eucalyptus tree that juts out into Easton Drive earlier this week, Nagel blurted out that there is what could well be a fresh body of potential arboreal law out there.

To wit, she mentioned something she called "the rights of trees." She actually used that phrase for all to hear, whether in person at City Hall or via the town's cable-TV setup. In other words, if you are a tree and you are threatened by the woodsman's ax or some other means of imminent harm, find a helpful barrister. Quick.

The towering euc in question whose fate has been debated endlessly for at least three years could be the first to file.

The council, with Nagel casting the deciding vote, agreed to have the annoying and potentially dangerous tree chopped down and replaced with something more attractive and more appropriate. It won't be another euc. The vote was 3-2.

However, passions have run quite high in this sensitive matter. Burlingame prides itself on its trees, no matter how problematic some of them may be.

Which means it won't be a surprise if someone brings in the likes of high-priced local litigator Joe Cotchett to represent the doomed Easton foliage in a last-ditch effort to save it from the smoking chain saw.

Nagel may have opened up a can of worms here. Let the depositions commence. Now here's the first question right out of the box: Was the guilty euc, prior to the impending "eucanasia," read its Miranda rights?

Actually, Nagel's venture into an anthropomorphic legal realm may not be all that far-fetched. Since the early 1970s, an entire, new body of creative environmental law has come down the pike, courtesy of Earth First, the Sierra Club, et al.

Still, the notion of constitutional "rights" for a leafy larch or yew conjures up immediate visions of "life, liberty and the pursuit of mulch."

The Founding Fathers must be doing 360s right about now. One can only wonder. And, in Burlingame, one continues to agonize.

– Written by Joe