NORTH SEATTLE - A neighborhood around Ingram High School is about to lose dozens of huge trees - and that has a lot of people who live there fighting mad.

The Seattle School District say the fir trees have to go to make way for new classrooms. They plan to have them cut down in a few weeks.

But neighbors say that's not true, and accuse the district of using legal tricks to keep them from having a say about it.

One of those neighbors, Steve Zemke, is leading a local community group that us trying to save the trees.

"These trees are over 75 years old - they were here 25 years before the school was built," he says. He calls them a neighborhood treasure.

He says the school district is making an end run by dropping its request for construction permits. That means neighbors don't have any legal recourse to stop the logging.

"And they're saying essentially, 'We don't have to comply with the city law ... and can do whatever we want,'" he says.

He said the school district is employing the same tactics as an "unscrupulous developer."

But the school district says cutting the trees down is necessary to make room for a new math wing on the school.

Peter Maier of the Seattle School District says, "The other alternatives are not as good."

He said has visited the site a number of times, and also said the opponents of the plan "have been listened to."

The district also says it is going to plant three trees for every tree they cut down.

But Zemke and his neighbors don't trust the school district.

They say that during a hearing over saving trees near Chief Sealth in West Seattle, the district's contractor started cutting back the trees even while the meeting was still going on next door.

But Maier says, "My understanding is that it was a mistake and the district stopped it."

The neighbors fighting the trees' removal got some unexpected support this week when Mayor Greg Nickels said he is "disappointed" in the district's decision to cut the trees.

But for now, at least, the school district said it is forging ahead with its plans to cut down the beloved trees no matter what the neighbors think.