NORTH COUNTY: MiraCosta College officials hope they have written the last paragraph in the two-year saga of the palm trees.

College trustees voted unanimously yesterday to declare 1,377 remaining trees surplus – 295 to be destroyed because of disease, 791 to be sold wholesale, 196 to be offered for retail sale and 95 to stay on campus for educational purposes.

“Now it's over,” Jim Austin, vice president for business and administrative services, said at the end of the board meeting.

“I hope it's a passage to get through this very, very unfortunate episode,” he said.

Trustee Judy Strattan said, “I've got to tell you this thing has divided the board and the campus.” She said it had ended the professional careers of several people.

Among them are the former head of the Horticulture Department, who pleaded guilty to grand theft for allowing her then-fiance to profit from the sale of the trees, which had been donated to the community college.

The investigation and ensuing campus conflict eventually brought down a dean, a vice president and the college president.

It and subsequent settlements with top administrators have cost more than $2 million and brought a warning to the board that the college could lose its accreditation if the turmoil on campus doesn't cease. –L.S.