After two earlier council attempts to decide what penalty to impose, Oakland’s City Council voted Tuesday to fine Matthew Bernard and Lynn Warner $915,135, following a finding by city staff that the landowners illegally cut down 38 protected trees in the Oakland hills.
The case centered on a hillside lot behind the Claremont Hotel and Club, which Emeryville residents Bernard and Warner purchased in 2019. City staff said that two years later they began felling trees without permits, and that the cuts included native live oaks, broad-leaf maples, buckeyes and other species.
According to city staff, Bernard repeatedly ignored warnings that he needed permits before cutting the trees, and some of the trees were said to be on neighboring properties. The city also said Bernard and Warner sought building permits to construct a single-family residence, but Oakland issued a notice of violation of the city’s Protected Trees Ordinance last year.
In materials submitted to the council, city staff said they calculated the value of each tree, from a small plum worth $750 to a mature coast live oak valued at $95,000, which they said brought the total to nearly $1 million. City staff also described the role trees play in hillside stability and community safety, including preventing fires, holding hillsides against erosion and debris flows, supporting biodiversity, cleaning the air and improving people’s mental health.
Bernard and Warner requested a public hearing, an option the city provides for people facing fines under its tree protection law. In his appearance before the council, Bernard said he tried to follow the city’s process in good faith and argued that some of the 38 trees were already cut down, diseased or dead.
City staff countered that the city gathered extensive evidence for the violations, including photographs of the lot before and after trees were cut, photos of people cutting trees on the property, detailed reports by the city’s arborist staff, and reports to police during responses while Bernard and others were cutting trees.
Before the council vote, environmental advocates said the fine was necessary to reinforce compliance. Arash Daneshzadeh, director of programs at the Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation, said unpenalized violations—especially in cases he described as egregious—send a message that compliance is optional, and he framed the issue as civic, public safety and equity, not only environmental.
Council members split on how to apply the ordinance. Before Tuesday’s vote, the council had been unable to resolve the matter during its first two attempts in December and April, and at an April 14 meeting a motion to impose the maximum fine did not pass after councilmembers Carroll Fife, Rowena Brown and Ken Houston voted no, with Gallo absent.
During the run-up to Tuesday’s meeting, Brown characterized Oakland’s Protected Trees Ordinance as “outdated” and said it felt unfair to impose such a large fine for tree removal the city might have permitted. She sought a reduction of roughly $300,000, arguing for a distinction between preventable loss and removal that could be “inevitable.”
Fife supported Brown’s proposal and tied the dispute to what she described as racially inequitable policies, making comparisons to the drug war, mass incarceration and colonization while noting that Bernard is Black and that his property is in an area where people of color were prohibited from living in the early 20th century.
But in the final vote, the majority of the council endorsed the fine. Ramachandran said Oakland must be “crystal clear” to anyone who comes into the city intending to violate its laws, warning that the penalty would follow. Jenkins also said Oakland needed to restore residents’ confidence that it will enforce its rules, asking Gallo and Houston to support the fine and questioning whether the council would stand behind the law.
In Tuesday’s decision, councilmembers Ramachandran, Noel Gallo, Kevin Jenkins, Zac Unger and Charlene Wang voted for the fine, while Brown, Fife and Houston voted no.