COUPLE FINED $1 MILLION FOR CUTTING DOWN PROTECTED TREES – May 8

The Oakland California City Council voted 5–3 to fine a couple $915,135 – almost a million dollars – for illegally cutting down protected trees. Back in 2021, Matthew Bernard and Lynn Warner cut down 38 trees on their hillside lot, and a neighbor’s lot, and a city-owned lot, without permits, including mature oak trees worth up to $95,000 each. Officials said Mr. Bernard ignored repeated warnings not to do it. One of the council members who voted against the fine, Council Member Ken Houston, said he was worried that if the fine was too high, the couple wouldn’t have enough money to build a home on the property. Councilman Houston said, “He shouldn’t have cut those trees down, and he knew better, too. But then we got a vacant property that he has to develop … so I don’t want to bury him and drown him.”
* Mangled metaphors aside, THAT’S the guy I want on MY jury! “Sure, he’s guilty as hell, but maybe we’re being too mean.”
* If he didn’t have enough money left to build there, where oh where would they find another millionaire in California to buy the land?
* Maybe if you lived in OAK-land, you should think twice before cutting down the oak trees.
* If he had replanted new trees back when the legal problems started, the lot would be reforested by now.
* Most expensive firewood ever.