The Trees In My Neighborhood Are Suicidal

A  huge branch recently fell off the tree in front of my house and landed on my front lawn. You can read about that jolly episode here. 

Last night, a similar fate befell my neighbor's tree:

Another branch broke and fell to the ground.  And by "branch," I actually mean half of the entire damn tree.  This is what's left of the fallen "branch."  At 11 p.m., a city truck arrived with a wood chipper. When I went to bed, two city employees were busy turning the fallen branches into tree dust.  And even though they had a big truck and a wood chipper, they could not remove the entire "branch."

I'm seeing a trend here, and I don't like it.  Did the trees on my block make a suicide pact? Did someone poison the trees?  Or maybe it's not that complicated.  Maybe the City of Pasadena is just not doing its job.

My neighbors and I do not own the trees that line our street. They are city trees, and it is the city's responsibility to maintain the trees and keep massive branches from landing on front lawns. 

Over the last six months, I have observed dozens of large branches lying in the streets of my neighborhood.  Why is this happening?  Wouldn't it be safer and cheaper to just maintain the damn trees and trim them when they get too big? Something tells me that the city employees working at 11 p.m. last night were not doing so as an act of charity.  They were getting paid overtime with my damn property taxes.

Here's the sad part: If I took matters into my own hands and hired someone to trim the city tree in front of my house, you know what would happen?  Some bureaucrat would go ape shit, send me a letter, and order me to pay a fine for damaging city property. 

I might need to start a new blog solely for the purpose of monitoring the trees of Pasadena.