MORE VERTICAL CLEARANCE NEEDED
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| Colonial Acres |
Some pine, oak and other trees on Colonial and Washington Drs. in the Colonial Acres neighborhood caused particular concern.
Electric Dept. Head Sligh said his crews trimmed the trees to allow for clearance for fire and other tall vehicles (motor homes). (This paragraph was corrected/updated. Sligh was not directly involved, nor was the mayor to his knowledge. See below...).
Councilman Burrell: "I've received calls ... (say) they are butchering trees in Colonial Acres. ... seen them butchering them myself (elsewhere) in the past. They scalped these trees."
(Update: See the letter written by a Colonial Acres resident in the comment section below)
Mayor Kant said street trees haven't been adequately trimmed for 10 years; and motor homes, fire and other tall trucks are having problems with clearance causing liability issues: the city has to pay for any damages.
Kant: "If it hits it, I have to pay for it, whether I like it or not."
The city usually waits until clearance is down to 12 feet; but the recommended safety standard is 20 feet.
(Private companies are hired to do the more extensive trimming, such as for power line clearance.)
See the video below of the entire discussion at the last council meeting.
UPDATE
The day after this article was published, Electric Dept. Head Sligh asked the Times to make some clarifications. He said he himself was not directed by the mayor to trim the trees; in fact he was out of town on that day.
His assistant Jimmy Clusters was asked by another as-yet unidentified Dept. Head to do the trimming. Public Works Director Fidler was not involved, according earlier statements by Sligh.
Sligh did not respond when asked if he knew if the mayor or someone else initiated the request.
(Note: Cluster is a long-time member of the volunteer fire department and fire truck clearance was specifically mentioned as a reason for the pruning.)
Sligh's statement:
- On Friday, June 6th, I was on vacation and was out of state. I did not talk to anyone at the city on this day at any time during the day.
- The statement that the Mayor instructed me to have our crews trim the trees is inaccurate, although the work was indeed done by our crews.
- I returned to work on Monday June 9th and was unaware until that morning that any tree work had been done. I later learned that another department head, and not the Mayor, had instructed my Assistant Superintendent, Jimmy Cluster, to have our crews go and trim the entire street for clearance purposes. They did this late on Friday June 6th.
- I do not have first hand knowledge as to whether or not the Mayor knew anything about it. I had not heard him speak of it, and I had not even seen him until I arrived at the City Council meeting and work session on Monday June 9th.
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| Walgreens store elm |
*In an unrelated incident, a tree at the Walgreens store on Greeno Rd. was knocked over, apparently by a car parking there.
* Another Corridor 98 oak on S. Greeno Rd. (near The Hamlet retirement community) has been cut, circumstances as-yet unknown.
* The Times is monitoring potential threats to several other significant trees around town.
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| Another "Corridor 98" oak cut down |
Comments
One of the reasons my husband and I purchased our house in Colonial Acres was because of the three large live oaks in the front yard. You can only imagine my horror upon returning from vacation to find they had been severely cut back by the city. They were graceful trees that lined a residential street and were not under any power lines.
Now these trees are trimmed on one side as high up as 20 feet and no longer have the beautiful symmetry they had before. I find this ironic when Fairhope brags about its love of flowers and the natural beauty of our town. Not only am I disheartened by the harm done to my trees, I’m irritated because the loss decreases my property value as well. Just imagine if this was your yard.
After contacting the city, Scott Sligh was sent to check on the tree cuttings and examined the five foot high piles of limbs in my yard. He was appalled by what he saw and apologized on behalf of the city.
Mr. Sligh told me that he is in charge of this department, yet someone sent a crew to our seldom used street to trim the trees without his knowledge when he was out of town on Friday, June 6.
I later found out that a neighbor with an RV, whose son works for the city, requested that a pecan limb on the house next door to us be cut because his RV rubbed against it.
I understand that trees overhanging streets have to be trimmed around power lines and when they hang too low for passing trucks, but the trees in our yard were cut twice as high as the phone cable is over the entrance to our neighborhood and much higher than the trees on other streets around town.
I’m writing this letter, in hopes that no one else in Fairhope will come home to find their trees butchered by the city because someone whose son works for the city requested that it be done.
Sincerely,
deLancey Erickson
555 Washington Dr.
Fairhope, AL
Google has their own rules and may delete independently.
Suggest you repost or send your comment directly to me and I will post it for you -- if it meets minimum standards: fairhopetimes@att.net
Also, see the video of the discussion at the bottom.(also available from the city's own website)
We can only report what is said in public forums by employees and officials -- not the accuracy of the comments.
Can you say who the city employee involved is?
My fellow citizens congratulations for electing a Mayor who will throw his staff under a bus at the drop of a hat. Oh well we have a flower clock.
They (the trees) are now an ugly mess with their tops sliced off. The next time you're along North Section Street look at what our previous public works director and some do-gooders have left us with their mess.