Joy of Christmas

Brown, forlorn and definitely not merry, old Christmas trees still dot many Pasadena neighborhoods a month later, unsightly reminders of the bygone holiday season.

Carlos Teran noticed them as he walked to work from his home in the 1800 block of Corson Street, lying on curbs and in gutters, and complained to the city.

“There are a lot of them on Corson and on Villa Street,” he said, “and they don’t look good. If they want the city to look good, why not pick up all those trees?”

Teran is upset because he’s been ticketed twice for parking his car on his lawn, a practice city officials called unsightly. Now, he says, the city is creating something unsightly, and Teran wants it to remove the eyesores.

A random survey showed Corson and Villa are not the only streets littered with old Christmas trees. There are quite a few on South Grand Avenue, Palmetto Drive and Arroyo Boulevard, neighborhoods not normally associated with abandoned items.

Arlington Rodgers, a Department of Public Works administrator, said tree pickups are behind schedule, but should be completed by the end of next week.

“Nature, the wind storms after the Rose Parade, disrupted our schedule” by about a week, he said, as city crews scurried to remove downed trees, branches and palm fronds.

The department is trying to schedule the pickups schematically, he said, with a separate truck and crew gathering the trees on the same day as regular trash pickups.

“But there might be some stragglers out there,” Rodgers said.

The city is continuing its efforts even though curbside pickups officially ended Jan. 12. Rodgers said anyone who thinks they were overlooked may call public works at (626) 744-4087.

As for Teran, he said a city crew showed up Wednesday and removed trees from his curb and that of a neighbor, though others still await removal.

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