Estimated $3,700 in damage after weekend vandalism

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

Eighteen tulip trees planted last fall with the help of students were killed and two ballfields were damaged by a motorist in a pair of separate weekend attacks on Benicia city parks.

“I am very upset and disturbed about this atrocious act of vandalism,” said Mario Giuliani after learning of the destruction of the young trees.

Giuliani, of the Office of the Director of Parks and Community Services, has been involved in several of Benicia’s tree projects, from the city’s tree program that was approved Sept. 15, 2009, a year after the city approved its tree ordinance, to the city’s tree inventory, its Arbor Day celebration and its annual certification as a Tree City USA.

Beginning last October, city employees and members of Benicia High School Interact Club began planting 20 tulip trees throughout Southampton Park, on Panorama and Chelsea Hills drives.

That planting is part of the city’s plan to add 300 trees on property it maintains. It not only marked last October’s Benicia Arbor Day, the tree planting also maintained Benicia’s certification as a Tree City USA, a designation it has had since 2008.

The trees were bought with money from the Valero Benicia Refinery-Good Neighbor Steering Committee Valero Improvement Project Agreement Settlement. They were insured, but Giuliani said there’s a $5,000 deductible to have insurance pay for the trees’ replacements.

He said staff will meet to examine how to underwrite the cost of new trees, which are being ordered.

“It was deliberate,” Giuliani said. “It wasn’t some random act.”

Those young trees were staked so they would grow properly after planting, Theron Jones, park supervisor, said Monday. All 20 trees were thriving and about to bloom.

But eighteen of the trees, on two sides of the park, were killed when someone — using what Jones said may be commercial-grade loppers — cut through their trunks at the base.

“We got a phone call this morning about the vandalism,” he said Monday. “It’s devastating.”

He said the trees’ roots had been established. Spring growth was emerging, and Jones said the trees were ready to bloom. “They were just budding out. They were just getting ready to explode in color.”

From a distance, the trees looked fine Monday, because the stakes kept them from toppling after the trunks were sliced apart, Jones said.

Other witnesses reported hack marks gouged into some of the trees’ trunks.

Crews were expected to remove the dead trees before the end of the day Monday, Jones said.

The dead tulip trees are valued at between $140 to $150 each, for a total of $2,520 to $2,700, Jones said.

“It doesn’t make sense. I’m very disappointed,” he said.

In an unrelated incident, a motorist was charged Sunday with using his vehicle to tear up two ball fields at Community Park, 536 Rose Drive at Community Park Drive.

“We were fortunate,” Jones said of that incident. “There was not a lot of damage caused, and there won’t be any closures (of the fields).”

Benicia police Sgt. John Daley said Monday the driver was spotted about 6:45 a.m. Sunday by an employee of Benicia Parks and Community Services, who had arrived at that time to open the park.

Police arrived within two minutes after the employee called, according to a department news release, and they saw what Daley described as significant damage to two of the park’s ball fields.

Officers spotted the vehicle, described as a Jeep Wrangler with its lights on, traveling west in the nearby open space and going over a hill. Because of sloppy dirt road conditions, the police vehicles couldn’t chase the Jeep, Daley said.

Instead, officers stationed themselves at other points near Southampton and Lake Herman roads and tracked the Jeep as it traveled in the open space, he said.

About an hour later, two officers reached the driver and his passenger after they stopped in the unincorporated open space between Benicia and Vallejo, Daley said.

California Highway Patrol helped with the investigation, flying its helicopter from Napa Airport to the open space and ball fields and providing aerial photographs of the damage, Daley said.

Benicia police Cpl. Mark Menesini and Officer William Febel were among those participating in the investigation, Daley said.

Police arrested the driver, whom they identified as Luke Craig, 23, of Vallejo. During the arrest, police found an unloaded 9mm handgun in the Jeep’s glove compartment, Daley said.

Craig has been charged with felony vandalism; operating a vehicle on open space land, a misdemeanor violation of Benicia Municipal Code; and possession of a concealed firearm in a vehicle, a misdemeanor because guns must be in a locked container, not a glove compartment, Daley said.

The passenger also was detained, but later was released and not charged, he said.

Benicia prohibits driving on open space lands, Daley said. Through the city code, the City Council has said that such an act “is a threat to the safety of persons, causes damage to the natural drainage systems, interferes with the existing ecological systems, and erodes and scars the land by inhibiting natural growth,” he said.

Park employees told police the damage to the ball fields caused by the Jeep would be more than $1,000.

Daley said officials will seek restitution through the criminal justice system for the damage to the fields.