Neighbors Fear Trees Along Picturesque Euclid Avenue In Upland Are At Risk Of Being Removed

UPLAND (CBSLA.com) — Lined with thousands of trees – some more than 100 years old – Euclid Avenue is one of the most picturesque streets in the Inland Empire.

"They are just revered by the people in this community and revered by people all over the area," said Rusty Cushing of Upland. "It's a really historic area and historic site."

But a closer look reveals an orange blemish on some of the historic trees.

Neighbors say the city marked 120 trees for removal without asking, consulting, or even notifying the people who love them so dearly.

Now, these neighbors are banding together, hanging lawn signs, fighting to keep any healthy trees they can.

"If a tree, and there's a really big if, really is diseased or really has a major problem, then yeah, it probably should be removed, but it has to be replaced," said Rick Rohn, another Upland resident.

"Take the money and spend it to save the trees rather than cut them down, it's pretty elementary," Cushing added.

City Manager Rod Butler admits they probably should have told people what their plans were but he insists the orange marks don't necessarily spell destruction.

"Not every single tree that had the orange dot was actually a tree that was a candidate for removal and we're going back now again and clarifying which ones may need to be removed because of disease or safety issues," Butler said.

The city hired an independent arborist to come through in a couple of weeks and evaluated each one of the trees along Euclid to see if it needs to be trimmed, treated for disease or removed.