Volunteer Gardener Resigns After Old Tree Cut Down - The Missourian: Pacific News
Volunteer Gardener Resigns After Old Tree Cut Down
By Pauline Masson, Pacific Editor Posted: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 6:32 pm
After voluntarily tending the city park entrance planter for the past seven years, BJ Lawrence said she will do the work no longer.
In an e-mail addressed to Mayor Herb Adams, City Administrator Harold Selby, Park Board President Stephen Flannery III and Public Works Director Ben Boedges, Lawrence said officials will have to make other arrangements.
“I, BJ Lawrence, resign as volunteer gardener to the city park garden entrance,” the e-mail message said. “This being my seventh year having supplied the plants, the mulch, the pre-emergents and the labor all at no charge to the city of Pacific.”
The reason for the abrupt resignation was the cutting down of a 35-year-old, 18-inch-diameter green ash tree in the city park, which Lawrence believed that she and other petitioners had rescued from being cut down in April.
As the tree grew, the roots had pushed up the sidewalk and officials worried that someone might trip. Officials said they would have to replace the concrete.
The mayor said he was told a conservation department officer had informed officials that the tree would die within five years.
The green ash, which occupied the center of a concrete circle in the sidewalk leading to the Rulon Pavilion, was the topic of a discussion in April.
What Mark Gruber, conservation agent, actually said was because of the root distress caused by the concrete, the tree might not reach its normal height of 80 feet, but it might live for 10 years.
Trees take on a life of their own, Gruber said. If they don’t have the space, sun and water required for good health they might never grow as tall as their potential height.
At the time of Gruber’s visit, Adams said he would not allow the tree to be cut down and Selby said he was considering pulling up the cracked concrete and placing the circular pathway farther away from the tree.
But two weeks ago Boedges cut down the tree with no notice to the petitioners who tried to save it. He planted two samplings near the circle where the 6-inch trunk was still dusted with sawdust.
“He will still have to take up the concrete,” Lawrence said. “It’s hard to see what was gained.”
In trying to evaluate the loss to the city parks by taking down a large tree that was not disturbing any other tree, or being disturbed by other trees, petitioners talked with Perry Eckhardt, Department of Conservation urban forester.
When asked what the value of the tree was, Eckhardt said it’s not possible to put a value on the tree.
“To replace a tree that size would cost in the thousands of dollars,” he said. “In fact you wouldn’t replace it. It’s irreplaceable.”
Lawrence said her volunteer work had not always been easy.
“But cutting down this tree was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she said.
Lawrence also said she did not understand the city trying to pacify citizens by planting trees in 100-degree temperature and expecting them to survive.
“Well, you fellas are just way smarter than this ol’ lady,” she said.
/* */
This message is specifically addressed to Herb Adams, Harold Selby, Steve Flannery and Ben Boedges. (the rest of you are F.Y.I.)
I, BJ Lawrence, resign as volunteer gardener to City Park garden entrance
This being my seventh year having supplied the plants, the mulch, the
pre-emergants and the labor all at no charge to the city of Pacific. (except for one year the park board president made me beg for money for mulch and three hosta’s) Have dealt with three park board presidents that did not know squat, much less care about our parks and not their ego’s, but cutting down this tree was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Since your ultra egos prize a piece of concrete over a living tree, and try to pacify the situation with re-planting trees in 100 degree temperatures and expect the tree to survive. Well, you fella’s are just way smarter then this O’lady.
This city is deficient in the thought process of maintenance. The City Park is a prime example: standing water for mosquito breeding, now standing water around your new playground equipment (replacing the old that wasn’t maintained), and how about over $3000 for mulch for that new playground, (guess to soak up the standing water), when our basketball court has a 3-4” crack perfect for a broken ankle, the pavilions are showing signs of needed maintenance, trees have been cut down and not replaced, many of those were memorial trees, the memorial plaques are being swallowed up by mother earth (which perhaps is fitting), not all memorial trees have plaques and since the city does not keep a file of the applications that had to be submitted and approved, you had no idea if that tree you chose over a piece of concrete was a memorial.
In conclusion, hope that you read the following from wise men, or better yet understand what the words mean, but that would require putting your ultra egos and testosterone aside.
Good luck finding another volunteer for the park garden, or will you just let it go back to the weed patch it once was….probably.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle, 1855
The control man has secured over nature has far outrun his control over himself. ~Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1953
The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too. ~Chief Luther Standing Bear
The magnificence of mountains, the serenity of nature - nothing is safe from the idiot marks of man's passing. ~Loudon Wainwright
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it. ~Henry David Thoreau, "Chesuncook," The Maine Woods, 1848
Volunteer Gardener Resigns After Old Tree Cut Down
By Pauline Masson, Pacific Editor Posted: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 6:32 pm
After voluntarily tending the city park entrance planter for the past seven years, BJ Lawrence said she will do the work no longer.
In an e-mail addressed to Mayor Herb Adams, City Administrator Harold Selby, Park Board President Stephen Flannery III and Public Works Director Ben Boedges, Lawrence said officials will have to make other arrangements.
“I, BJ Lawrence, resign as volunteer gardener to the city park garden entrance,” the e-mail message said. “This being my seventh year having supplied the plants, the mulch, the pre-emergents and the labor all at no charge to the city of Pacific.”
The reason for the abrupt resignation was the cutting down of a 35-year-old, 18-inch-diameter green ash tree in the city park, which Lawrence believed that she and other petitioners had rescued from being cut down in April.
As the tree grew, the roots had pushed up the sidewalk and officials worried that someone might trip. Officials said they would have to replace the concrete.
The mayor said he was told a conservation department officer had informed officials that the tree would die within five years.
The green ash, which occupied the center of a concrete circle in the sidewalk leading to the Rulon Pavilion, was the topic of a discussion in April.
What Mark Gruber, conservation agent, actually said was because of the root distress caused by the concrete, the tree might not reach its normal height of 80 feet, but it might live for 10 years.
Trees take on a life of their own, Gruber said. If they don’t have the space, sun and water required for good health they might never grow as tall as their potential height.
At the time of Gruber’s visit, Adams said he would not allow the tree to be cut down and Selby said he was considering pulling up the cracked concrete and placing the circular pathway farther away from the tree.
But two weeks ago Boedges cut down the tree with no notice to the petitioners who tried to save it. He planted two samplings near the circle where the 6-inch trunk was still dusted with sawdust.
“He will still have to take up the concrete,” Lawrence said. “It’s hard to see what was gained.”
In trying to evaluate the loss to the city parks by taking down a large tree that was not disturbing any other tree, or being disturbed by other trees, petitioners talked with Perry Eckhardt, Department of Conservation urban forester.
When asked what the value of the tree was, Eckhardt said it’s not possible to put a value on the tree.
“To replace a tree that size would cost in the thousands of dollars,” he said. “In fact you wouldn’t replace it. It’s irreplaceable.”
Lawrence said her volunteer work had not always been easy.
“But cutting down this tree was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she said.
Lawrence also said she did not understand the city trying to pacify citizens by planting trees in 100-degree temperature and expecting them to survive.
“Well, you fellas are just way smarter than this ol’ lady,” she said.
/* */
This message is specifically addressed to Herb Adams, Harold Selby, Steve Flannery and Ben Boedges. (the rest of you are F.Y.I.)
I, BJ Lawrence, resign as volunteer gardener to City Park garden entrance
This being my seventh year having supplied the plants, the mulch, the
pre-emergants and the labor all at no charge to the city of Pacific. (except for one year the park board president made me beg for money for mulch and three hosta’s) Have dealt with three park board presidents that did not know squat, much less care about our parks and not their ego’s, but cutting down this tree was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Since your ultra egos prize a piece of concrete over a living tree, and try to pacify the situation with re-planting trees in 100 degree temperatures and expect the tree to survive. Well, you fella’s are just way smarter then this O’lady.
This city is deficient in the thought process of maintenance. The City Park is a prime example: standing water for mosquito breeding, now standing water around your new playground equipment (replacing the old that wasn’t maintained), and how about over $3000 for mulch for that new playground, (guess to soak up the standing water), when our basketball court has a 3-4” crack perfect for a broken ankle, the pavilions are showing signs of needed maintenance, trees have been cut down and not replaced, many of those were memorial trees, the memorial plaques are being swallowed up by mother earth (which perhaps is fitting), not all memorial trees have plaques and since the city does not keep a file of the applications that had to be submitted and approved, you had no idea if that tree you chose over a piece of concrete was a memorial.
In conclusion, hope that you read the following from wise men, or better yet understand what the words mean, but that would require putting your ultra egos and testosterone aside.
Good luck finding another volunteer for the park garden, or will you just let it go back to the weed patch it once was….probably.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle, 1855
The control man has secured over nature has far outrun his control over himself. ~Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1953
The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too. ~Chief Luther Standing Bear
The magnificence of mountains, the serenity of nature - nothing is safe from the idiot marks of man's passing. ~Loudon Wainwright
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it. ~Henry David Thoreau, "Chesuncook," The Maine Woods, 1848
posted by ERIC REICHERT at 8:33 AM
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