A small group of people gathered at the base of the coastal redwood in Memorial Park on Friday afternoon, March 29, to pay their respects to the tree scheduled to be felled and to bemoan the city’s decision to carry that plan through.

The dozen or so folks, including clergy and members of a nature advocacy group fighting the city’s decision to eliminate the redwood and two nearby oaks, were led by the Rev. Casey Banks, pastor at Newberg First United Methodist Church.

Banks read from scripture, particularly passages speaking to man’s place in nature and nature’s place in man. She also spoke of the city’s unfortunate decision to fell the tree as its roots are uprooting a sidewalk and invading a stormwater pipe on nearby Blaine Street.

“Our nation has been a lot of conversations lately about what it means to be a living being, a full person, so I’ve been reflecting on this particular creation story and what it meant to be a full person is to have the breath of God breathed into you. And when we think about the trees it’s striking to me that as soon as God put the divine breath into human bodies, he went on to plant trees, because we need to keep breathing.”

God created the trees, she continued, so humans and plant species could constantly exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide in a symbiotic relationship.

“Back and forth so we sustain one another’s breath,” she said.

Banks was the first to mark the occasion by reading from a poem: “When I think about this tree, any tree, how quickly I discern how a tree’s life is all about giving while asking for nothing in return.”

A tearful Sue Delventhal, a member of the advocacy group Sustainable Solutions Group of the Newberg-Dundee Area, spoke to the impact losing the tree would have on the local ecology.

“I think the really important thing to know about trees is not only the sequestering of carbon, but also the soil it makes and the symbiotic relationship between fungus, microorganisms …,” she said. “So, not only are we losing the tree, we’re also destroying the soil and that’s really where all growth comes from — the soil.”

Former Newberg Mayor Rick Rogers speculated that the giant redwood was planted in Memorial Park and adjacent to a gazebo memorializing veterans for a reason.

“I can’t help but think this was planted to honor the people who served,” he said. “So, it’s hard to see because, honestly because of man’s failings we’re going to take down this tree …”

He countered city staff’s insistence that the wood on the gazebo is rotten and needed to come down. A local retired builder, he said, told the former mayor that the structure was sound.

Delventhal said her hope is that the controversy surrounding the tree’s imminent demise will be the impetus for the city to change its policies and procedures when it comes to heritage trees.

“My thoughts are that this tree sparked something that needed to be sparked and that is the way the city goes ahead and creates a tree plan, a tree policy and a tree list,” she said.

She questioned the city’s current list of trees suitable to be planted locally.

“Our tree list is ridiculous — it has 60 to 80 trees on it,” she said. “So many of them are not native. So many of them will not handle a warming climate.”

Delventhal called on the city to revise its tree list to better conform with its building codes and climate change. She suggested the list be trimmed to a half-dozen or so species better suited for the ecology of Newberg. She also suggested that rather than planting trees in narrow planter strips adjacent to streets, that the city plant native shrubbery and even some raised beds for produce.

The city says it must remove the tree as its roots have for years been damaging Blaine Street, as well as the sidewalk and an underground stormwater pipe located seven feet from the base of the tree. Although the park is maintained by the Chehelam Park and Recreation District, it is on city property.

“The city’s decision regarding the removal of trees is always out of necessity to act as responsible stewards to the entire community,” a city release prior to the event said. “The city recognizes that the removal of the remarkable coastal redwood in Memorial Park is not favored by some community members and that the removal of this tree will leave a hole in our community.”

The city originally planned to remove the tree in March but delayed the action to give people an opportunity to pay their respects. Pleas made to the city council in March failed to alter the city’s decision.