By Desire Emmanuel with Agency Reports
A lawmaker in Oakland, United States, is currently fighting a battle on behalf of a Nigerian immigrant as she said it would be racist for the city to issue a $1 million fine to the man who chopped down 38 protected trees without permission.
The lawmaker, Carroll Fife, rushed to the defence of the immigrant, Doctor Matthew Bernard and his wife, Lynn Warner, during a debate over their illegal tree removal.
The couple’s undeveloped Oakland Hills lot was completely covered by trees in 2020, but now none remains on the property, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Bernard had 38 mature trees removed from his lot, an adjacent city property and from neighbours’ land in 2021 and 2022, city arborists said.
Environmental advocates have urged the council to levy the full $1 million fine to set a precedent for “people who continue to treat our land like trash.”
But Fife, during a hearing on Tuesday night, cited concerns about alleged systemic racism in the Oakland hills community.
“I have to express my confusion about how a black man should be the first to receive consequences for things that white people have been doing for centuries,” she told the city council hearing.
“The hills were built up for white Oaklanders, that nobody else had access to – not Asians, not Mexicans, not black people.”
Bernard, a physician who immigrated to the United States from Nigeria in 2001, told the council that he and Warner had wanted to build a family home on their Claremont Avenue property.
He said he chopped down the trees after an arborist advised they remove trees that were at a risk of falling or igniting during a wildfire.
He claimed he and his wife did everything in their willpower to respect the city’s laws – an allegation disputed by city arborists.
Councilmember, Janani Ramachandran, who has met with the couple, their neighbours and city arborists, is however pushing the city to issue the full $1 million fine.
He told Tuesday’s hearing it was “offensive that wildfire prevention is being used as an excuse to cut down trees” and argued that healthy oaks are ‘fire resistant.’
Ramachandran acknowledged it is ‘challenging’ being a newcomer in Oakland, and the US as a whole, and can be hard to develop property.
Fife and fellow council member, Ken Houston, however, argued that the city should take a cautious approach with its fine to ensure construction is completed.
“He shouldn’t have cut those trees down, and he knew better too,” Houston said. “But then we got a vacant property that he has to develop… so I don’t want to bury him and drown him.”
Fife echoed Houston, alleging that the property now needs to be developed more than ever since “there’s no oak trees to prevent against fire hazards.”
The initial vote over whether to levy a fine against the couple ended in a tie, with Fife, Houston and Council Member Rowena Brown opposing the motion.
Councilmembers Ramachandran, Kevin Jenkins, Charlene Wang and Zac Unger voted in favour. Noel Gallo was absent from the hearing, so he was counted as a no.
The council also voted on whether to impose a lesser fine of $411,000, but that too ended in a tie.
The Mayor of the city, Barbara Lee, has declined to break the tie vote, her spokesperson told the newspaper. The decision has now been deferred to the May 5 council meeting.
