07-31-10, Bill Weisman Responds to Greg Wilkinson Regarding “The McFall Oak”

Mr. Weber,

The recent letter you posted from Greg Wilkinson regarding “The McFall Oak” in Deukmejian Wilderness Park is chock full of insults, but remarkably free of facts. The two most salient facts in this issue are:

1) Without Bob McFall there might not even be a Deukmejian Wilderness Park. He fought long and hard for Glendale to acquire the land, rather than have a developer turn it into a subdivision with hundreds of houses.

2) Bob McFall is directly responsible, while staffing Glendale's Emergency Operations Center during the Station Fire, for directing firefighters to save the historic oak that now bears his name. If not for Bob, that oak would have burned to a blackened skeleton.

I attended the re-opening ceremony for Deukmejian Wilderness Park on June 19th, when the plaque was unveiled. Most of the Glendale City Council were there, as well as the City Manager, most of the department heads, and many board and commission members. What were they thinking? That it was entirely reasonable and appropriate to have a plaque honoring Bob McFall for his many years of service to the city, and specifically for saving the oak.

I agree with Wilkinson that Los Angeles County firefighters Captain Tedmund Hall and Firefighter Specialist Arnaldo [note correct spelling and title] Quinones deserved to be honored and memorialized for their sacrifices. The responsibility for doing that belongs to Los Angeles County, for whom they worked and where they died, not the City of Glendale. To suggest that Glendale is somehow dishonoring these men is utterly ludicrous.

Lastly, while it is obvious that Wilkinson has a bee in his bonnet regarding pensions, that has nothing whatsoever to do with placing a plaque by an oak tree.

Bill Weisman

Glendale CA 91214