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A large tree branch recently fell in Sharon Heights, crushing the Mini Cooper parked beneath it.
The branch fell about a week after the Menlo Park city arborist denied a request to remove the tree, according to Sharon Heights resident Felicity Barringer.
Her husband had alerted the Sharon Heights Homeowners Association about the branch, located on Brent Court, and the risk it posed shortly after moving to the neighborhood earlier this year, she said in an email to The Almanac.
Barringer said she was told that the homeowners association was aware of the risk and had requested permission to remove the tree in March 2020. The city was said to have denied the association’s request in the week before the branch fell, she said.
The Almanac requested information and documents related to the tree removal request from the city but had not received a response as of The Almanac’s Wednesday press deadline.
The tree had one very large limb on one side but not the other – in other words, the threat of a falling branch wasn’t one you had to be a structural engineer to understand, Barringer said in a phone interview. “If there’s a really heavy weight on one side, and nothing on the other side, that’s going to be unstable,” she said.
Most people in the neighborhood chose not to park their vehicles under the tree, she noted.
The owner of the crushed vehicle was out of town, and nobody was hurt.
“We’re very happy nobody was injured or worse,” the car owner’s father, Tom Parker, said in a phone interview. “Cars can be replaced. People can’t.”
He said he hadn’t alerted his daughter about what had happened because he didn’t want to wreck her vacation.
Michael Babiak, president of the Sharon Heights Homeowners Association, declined to comment.
It looks like really bad carma, to me
Menlo Park really needs to find a new arborist. This is just another example of an unsafe tree being denied removal. Luckily no one was hurt this time, who knows what will happen next time. Maybe it’s time to find an arborist that actually knows how to do their job and puts safety above protecting dangerous trees?
This car meant the world to me. We had many adventures and trips together. I will miss my Mini Cooper dearly.