TREE-SITTER REFUSES TO GIVE UP SUPPORTERS RALLY TO SAVE THREATENED OAK.

Byline: Kathleen Sweeney Staff Writer

STEVENSON RANCH - As darkness fell Friday on the second day of a raucous rally to save a centuries-old oak tree, the man perched in its limbs ignored pleas from sheriff's negotiators to come down.

Bewildered as about 200 people gathered at the base of the tree in Stevenson Ranch, officials planned their next step, acting on Los Angeles County orders to chop down the tree and widen to four lanes the canyon road it now shades.

``They will have to be prepared to come up and get me,'' said John Quigley, the tree sitter who wrapped his wrist in chain, prepared to tie himself to the tree.

County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, whose 5th District includes the fast-developing Stevenson Ranch subdivision, asked Sheriff Lee Baca to send in the crisis negotiating team, but the effort was futile.

Quigley will come down, he told sheriff's negotiators, if the county, the Sheriff's Department and local environmental groups devise a plan to save Santa Clarita's oldest oak from its demise.

Until then, supporters, some traveling from the San Fernando Valley, have brought him enough food to last for days.

``I have these trees in my yard,'' said Tamara Goldworthy, who drove through Friday afternoon traffic to bring chocolate chip cookies to Quigley and the few who have camped out at the tree. ``It's absolutely ignorant to destroy something that is 400 years old. It's disrespectful, ignorant and basically wrong.''

By late afternoon, Santa Clarita Valley sheriff's Capt. Don Rodriguez was meeting with Bill Ratazzi, president of John Laing Homes, the developer required to reconfigure bucolic Pico Canyon Road as a highway.

A few hours later, sheriff's deputies who were called to the tree to prepare to arrest Quigley and several others gathered at its base began to back off.

But the people - children, residents and out-of-towners - chanted, prayed and waved signs before a slew of television cameras, pressuring all sides to agree. Their success was marked by the reluctance of both the developer and the sheriff's department to make arrests.

``I think this is a great tree and we're here to save it,'' said Barbara Wampole, a tree supporter and member of Friends of the Santa Clara River. ``I think we are blessed to have people fight.''

It's up to the developer to decide if Quigley, 42, should be forced out of the tree and arrested. County firefighters already have refused to remove him because the situation is not an emergency.

``We're just putting it on hold,'' said Lt. Mike Dunkle of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. ``Let's sit back and see exactly what kind of plan we want to make, what kind of action we want to take and fully assess what we want to do.

``We're bound by the property owners' wishes. If he wants us to arrest them, we do.''

Desperate to prevent the oak tree from being chopped down, Quigley scaled the tree Nov. 1, hours after an agreement protecting the tree expired.

John Laing Homes, which will make the ultimate decision about the tree, needs to finish the road construction to complete its 279-home Southern Oaks development and retire about $7 million in road improvement bonds.

Despite calls from Santa Clarita officials and environmentalists to save the majestic oak tree - dubbed ``Old Glory'' - county officials ordered it removed Thursday to allow Pico Canyon Road to accommodate current and future development, including the proposed 21,600-home Newhall Ranch project.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color -- ran in SAC edition only) People gather near the old oak in an effort to save it from being cut down to make room for a four-lane highway.

(2 -- color -- ran in SAC edition only) Nina Rettke of Stevenson Ranch comforts her two sons Sasha and Misha. Both boys are 9.

(3 -- ran in SAC edition only) A sheriff's negotiator talks with Barbara Wampole and Karen McElhatton near the old oak tree.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer