I am a mycologist/conservation biologist and Oakland resident. I fully support holding Matthew Bernard accountable for the destruction of 38 protected Native trees on Claremont Ave.

The loss of this ecosystem is devastating. Those oaks, maples, buckeyes, and bay laurels — some hundreds of years old, provided food and habitat for native wildlife, held the hillside against erosion, retained soil moisture, and supported the fungal and microbial communities that sustain these forests. They are irreplaceable. What stands in their place now is stands of invasive thistle etc.— a fire hazard and an ecological dead zone.

The Oakland hills are already in a designated Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, upheld unanimously by this council last year. Native oaks are our best natural defense against drought, fire, and erosion. Destroying them and replacing them with flammable invasives puts the whole community at risk.

Mr. Bernard did this with full knowledge that it was illegal, ignored city staff, ignored police, and kept cutting onto neighboring properties and City land. This was contempt for life, for neighbors, and for this community.

The $915,135.40 fine should not be reduced. We can’t allow wealthy developers to treat our native biodiversity as a line item. I urge the Council and City Attorney to pursue criminal enforcement under O.M.C. 12.36.150C to set a precedent, and to protect the 6 trees still standing on this property.

Thank you for your service to our community.

landowners should be fined and not allowed to build on property.

Cutting down Oakland’s heritage trees without authorization is not a minor infraction—it’s permanent damage to our shared environment. These trees take decades to grow and minutes to destroy, and their loss affects the entire community.
The city must impose serious consequences: steep and impactful fines, mandatory mature tree replacement, and strict enforcement. Anything less signals that the rules don’t matter.
No one is above the law, especially wealthy people in the hills who think they aren’t part of the Oakland community,

As an Oakland resident I support assessing the fine, but the fine alone is far from enough.

$900,000 is more like selling a license than anything. In 2026, a million dollars is a rounding error for the very wealthy in the Bay Area. The owner should be forced to sell the property, if not banned entirely from purchasing property within the city. It is clear that they have no intention to use this place for anything other than their own benefit.

Oakland City Council, these property owners should be held accountable for violating tree ordinances. Clearing old growth oak forests not only destroys biodiversity and animal habitats, it also creates a fire hazard. Our laws exist to protect these irreplaceable local ecosystems. Please uphold and protect Oakland's natural spaces, a fine is simply not enough.

I am a resident of District 3 and ask the council supports this, alongside supporting further enforcement for tree protection. Not only are these trees narural beauties and environmental pillars, they are crucial infrastructure. Ensuring protected trees are conserved and not subject to pay-to-play municipal codes helps keep Oakland beautiful and resilient to flooding/soil erosion.

Please make these property owners pay for the damage they have done to our precious and dwindling native ecosystems in Oakland. It's not fair that these perpetrators can just pay a fine and continue to build, when they've destroyed some of the oldest trees and native habitat in Oakland. Where is the accountability for what has been done? Please, City Council, I implore you to hold these people accountable for their gross actions that hurt the biodiversity of the beautiful place we all call home and that will impact the greater community. We can't afford this, especially when the climate crisis is already at our doorstep.

As an Oakland resident, I love the natural beauty of our city and the trees are a hugely important part of that. Regulations are set in place to deter people from destroying trees and ecosystems that are important to the well being of our city and our people. By enforcing the regulations, it will show people who think they can do whatever they want to the natural environment without consequence that they are wrong. We must hold them accountable, and so I support this resolution.

I am an Oakland resident and work in the land management space. I write to entreat the council members to uphold the protected tree ordinance, which exists in order to conserve the valuable and unique local ecosystems of our city, and to hold these perpetrators accountable for their gross violations. These old growth, native trees which were wantonly destroyed were several hundred years old and are literally irreplaceable within our lifetimes. I would like to see the property owners forced to pay the fine AND to sell afterwards, without profit.

My name is Blanca, and I am a biologist from Oakland. I fully support holding the property owners accountable for killing mature, established oak trees. The loss of this invaluable ecosystem is devastating for our local biodiversity. The property owners clearly did this with no respect for life, for their neighbors, and for the greater community, and with no real knowledge of our local ecosystem and environment. With the threat of climate change at our doorsteps, conserving native ecosystems is of utmost importance. Oak trees provide food and habitat for native flora and fauna, provide shade and reduce temperatures, reduce pollution, protect from erosion, maintain moisture in the soil, and more. We need to protect them if we are to stand a chance against drought, fire, floods, and other climate change-induced catastrophes. We cannot allow wealthy developers to destroy our native biodiversity - it is irreplaceable. The property owners must be held accountable, and the land must be restored and protected from further development.

Agencies must be held accountable for the ecological violations that they have committed that are completely irreversible.

I am an Oakland resident and I implore the Council to set a precedent to protect the unique and irreplaceable ecology from the hands of wealthier developers. Without stricter protections we will lose an ecology that we CANNOT simply replant. It is your duty as Council members to think of not only our city today but the city we will leave to our children. Can you look your child in the eye and say, “sorry I let the rich destroy some of the oldest trees in Oakland.” Do the right thing.

i am an Oakland resident and I want to ensure the fine is charged, but a fine is not enough. The landowner should not be able to build on this land. If laws can be bypassed by a fee the offender can afford then the law is not preventing such egregious harm to our community. The landowner demolished some of the oldest trees in Oakland and ruined a native ecosystem. This will have detrimental effects on the neighboring community by increasing the risk of mudslides, fire and other disasters. It is so important to protect our very few remaining native habitats in Oakland.

We must hold individuals, developers, and investors accountable to the interests of our community. Deforesting our urban canopy should not be treated as a privilege for those who can afford it. Do the right thing for Oakland residents by halting construction on this lot until these penalties are paid IN FULL.

Oakland must protect our large trees and green spaces.

I work at the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a twenty year old organization dedicated to environmental justice. Last year, we collaborated with partners to plant hundreds of trees across the neighborhood. Trees are incredibly vital to our urban ecosystem, and many of our neighbors are asking for the cleaner air, health benefits, and ecological benefits of greener streets. Planting trees is great, but preserving our existing trees is even more important: large, old trees are the most beneficial to our health and our ecosystem. Cutting down trees should not be an individual's choice, because it affects our entire city.

Please hold this property owner accountable and set a precedent to protect Oakland's trees.

It is a slippery slope to denuded hills and huge ecological damage to no foster our urban forests.
If he had gone through the proper channels he wouldn’t have had this problem. He decided to go ahead without permits and engage in criminal behavior. He needs to be held accountable for his actions.

Please enforce our laws and fine Matthew Bernard just as you should any one else who illegally removes trees, Espeshally after repeated warnings.

My name is Brittany and I live in Oakland. I’m writing to urge you to vote on April 14th to hold the property owners who cut down dozens of protected trees accountable for their actions. I think it’s extremely important that our protected tree ordinance is fully enforced because the environmental benefits of trees extend far beyond property boundaries and the loss of trees affects everyone in our community. Trees provide shade, dampen noise pollution, mitigate particulate pollution, stabilize slopes, and reduce fire risk by retaining moisture and suppressing the growth of flammable invasive weeds. Native trees do all this and also sustain thousands of species of insects, fungi, birds, and other wildlife that makes Oakland such a beautiful and special place. Since the City of Oakland cut funding to tree care, everyone in Oakland relies on privately maintained trees to keep our environment livable. And since the majority of Oakland residents can’t afford to own enough land to grow and maintain many trees, the people who do own parcels of this land have a responsibility to the rest of us to keep our shared environment healthy.

Destroying a hillside of dozens of native trees was an immeasurably destructive act that has done irreversible damage to the other woodland plants and animals that lived there, in addition to eliminating the environmental benefits the forest provided freely to all of us. Please hold the offender accountable.

Thank you!

I am an Oakland resident. The city council must for YES to impose this fine and restrict all development of the damaged property.

It is completely unacceptable to adopt a policy of letting developers ask for forgiveness instead of permission, especially when destroying our ecosystem. Further, these developers should be prohibited from developing any other properties in the city of Oakland as they clearly have no regard for the quality of life for anyone living here, or the biodiversity of our unique home. These trees take decades to mature and cannot be replaced in your or my lifetime. This loss is huge already.

Any other vote signals to other developers that tree and environmental regulations are negotiable, and merely a formality to be ignored. Your authority as elected representatives is entirely undermined if you allow this behavior to go unchecked. Please do the right thing and impose this fine, restriction of permits, and lien on the property.

Thank you.

I live in Oakland and have been and have been investing significant time and money and time to transition my own property to native trees, shrubs, and plants. So I was horrified to learn about the property owner who blatantly violated Oakland's Protected Tree Ordinance. Their actions affect us all: increasing fire risk, landslide/mudslide risk, removing habitat for important local species, and making us more vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. Please apply the full penalty to these property owners. 1) They need to be held accountable for their genuinely egregious actions. 2) We need a precedent to dissuade other property owners from taking similar action.

To sum up: Make them pay for what they have done, because they have done something genuinely terrible, with real harm done to the people and animals of our community.

I live in Oakland and hold a degree in ecological conservation as it relates to built environments, fire, and restoration. The owners of this parcel have demonstrated a lack of regard to the protected trees, keystone species, city ordinances, neighbors, and last in-tact oak ecosystems in Oakland. This is a blatant disregard to the risks of deforestation, fires, and flooding in the Oakland hills. I ask that the city council respectfully set the precedence to hold anyone who disregards these city ordinances liable and accountable. Violations of protected tree ordinances should be taken seriously, and addressed with consequences. Property owners need to be held accountable, and I strongly urge for city council to amend their resolution to require property owners who violate this ordinance to invest resources in forest restoration on their property (or toward the greater oakland ecosystems). We will be in deeper trouble if we continue to let wealthy people break laws with no accountability or fines that sum up to a slap on the wrist. signed, a very concerned resident.