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Category: Community News

Published on Wednesday, 28 December 2011 20:46

Written by Dianne Lawrence

When Beautiful Palms Go Missing, Local Brent Green Solves Mystery

The schoolyard night safety light shines brightly into my apartment from across the 10 freeway during the school week. This spring I noticed the light had become partially blocked by what appeared to be growing palm trees. By winter the bright light problem would be solved!  Then one night it was bright as ever.  Tree gone.

Turns out  “Canary Island Date Palms”  which line the Santa Monica freeway and belong to the public, were being stolen. Local star landscaper, Brent Green helped uncover the scam.

Brent noticed a private crew of about 20 workers along the Santa Monica Freeway (by Apple and Ridgely), digging up a huge palm, easily worth $20,000 or more. He knew something was wrong because Caltrans workers don’t work at 7 pm Friday night.  When Brent questioned the owner of the company he discovered that our city agency, Caltrans, was somehow involved. Brent contacted Joel Grover, who is an Investigative Reporter for NBC4 News. Brent worked closely with him on this story which became a featured news item on NBC4.  Jim Fowler, the Caltrans maintenance manager for the land along freeways in LA and Ventura counties insisted Caltrans had not given permission to remove the trees. The private crews hired to remove the palms worked for a non profit called “Global Trees, Inc.,” ….which had a letter from a Caltrans supervisor named Jose Escobedo. Fowler backtracked and admitted he knew Escobedo wrote the letter giving the private company authority to remove the palms.  When asked where they were, he replied “I believe they were sold. They ended up with a private company.” There is currently a state investigation into the thefts. TNN salutes Garden Hero Brent Green!

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