Bad Choices by Officials

Ekka · 21st April 2007, 10:10 PM

A new and respected member of the forum and Arb community asked me to post this... CoconutGroveTreeGuru aka Bob Brennan located in Miami I take it.

Quote:

Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 1:57 PM
Subject: Bad choices by officials

I hate writing this letter again!

Tonight while I was at a Boy scout meeting with my son Bobby (who will soon be an Eagle scout) I got a phone call from a frantic neighbor. They are cutting the oak trees, they are killing the trees, "Who do we call" I left the meeting and stood in the parking lot. First call to the emergency number of Code enforcement 305-416-2087 which I have in my phone memory listed(code emergency). Mr. De Mola promised there would always be someone to answer the phone. Guess what? No answer! just a machine and 40 questions. The police were called! the workers continued. after 7:PM untill after 9:00 in the dark. Called the Net office. No Answer! I called 311 who was going to refer me to the code enforcement office to which I told the lady that was pointless because they close at 5:00, and there was no one to help.! The nice lady referred me to DERM (department of environmental regulation) after fifteen minuets I got a call from a nice man named Eric who said he was not able to go now because he had another problem to attend to, But, because by now I am about crazy. Because my governmental agencies will not respond to people killing the source of our air supply. So Eric says he will go by and stop the workers. That is all I ask! I never saw Eric.

By now it is about 7:35 I have been on the phone For more than 25 minuets I finally get in touch with Sue McConnell she asked if I called Liliana Dones, which I had not but I got a call from the owner of one of the neighboring homes. Who asked me to go. At that point, my son was done with his last merit badge and it was time to see if we could salvage any of the tree. Off we went to see if we could help, knowing that the police at least had been there, and hopefully had stopped the work. As Usual! not a chance. I keep in mind how much damage can be done with a chain saw in a very short period of time.

Here we are arriving in front of a house that has been under construction for at least six months. I know that because when the roads were closed along Aviation Ave. and the one way police came into existence it forced me to use this street to gain access to my own home. Anyway 2260 S.W. 27th Way there are limbs hacked in the worst possible way. We call this inter-nodal cutting, it is done by people who do not understand how trees grow and why. The homeowner is none other than (A very high ranking official in our city). Who cannot say I did not know!

When I get there, there is no one in the tree and a guy throwing limbs in a dumpster that is in the front yard. I recognize that this house is directly behind a double vacant lot on S.W. 27th terrace. Which is where I go to see if there is activity. Pierre Sands, Certified Arborist, Ron Nelson, local activist and neighbor along with another Certified arborist Nick Delmore and neighbor. People who care about the trees move here and take care of them not kill them.

Dear Mr. Very high ranking City Official, Please, If you are not going to take better care of your trees, then maybe you should resign and move to a place where people don't care about there trees.

Or, Help me educate all of the city employees and the Police about the value of our trees. The damage that was caused to your trees today was substantial. In lowering the value of your trees and increasing the hazard factor to your home by the bad pruning. The stump in the rear of your yard was alive and should have had a permit. I do not believe any one would have objected to you taking out the stump but you did it without a permit. The work should have been stopped by the Police. The police need to know this!!!!!!!!

I am sick of our trees being destroyed by the work on weekend and after 5:00 Hackers!!! I am even more tired of You and your cronies inviting them into our neighborhood. I would even be surprised if the CoCo Tree service has a license.

Please help me STOP after hour hackers. We must already have noise ordinances, or something.

I would love to help teach these guys how to properly prune trees. We need to create a school where people who want to can learn about trees and how they grow and how to properly prune them. But most of all they need to be able to make enough money to teach the owners that proper pruning is better for them and their trees.

Our planet is cooking because we are removing trees faster than they can cover the roof we are putting in. The Mature trees will lower the wind speed by 75% or more During Andrew we in Coconut Grove had 165 mile per hour winds (that was the speed recorded by the weather ball that landed on Neil Franks Car, which was parked across from the University of Miami at the National weather center) There were no houses torn from their foundations or windows blown out. sure we lost some trees and a few shingles but in the areas where the really rich people live and where they took out the trees to put houses they lost roofs, blew out windows and doors. Trees Protect us on so many levels.

These people don't need to be punished they need to be educated. Please help me protect our little section of our planet and if we can get one thing right then maybe we can help others to get it right too.

Earth day at the Barnacle State Park would be a good place to start. Sunday 4-22-07

This has got to stop NOW! Education NOW! ASAP! IMMEDIATELY!

I want to live in a beautiful city! and Education is the only way for that to happen.

Bob Brennan
50+ year resident, Certified Arborist, Certified Horticulturist, Jaycee International Senator #44709, YMCA Coach, Scoutmaster "Emeritus" troop 21 Coconut Groves Oldest. I plan on being around for a long time!

To which he received this response from a Bob Ferreira

Quote:

Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 3:49 AM
Subject: Re: Bad choices by officials

Bob et al:

After having read your passionate letter and the many responses, I
called two eminent scholars on everything, Howard Stern and Bob Imus to
get their opinions on this matter. They both suggested that we ought to
cut down all trees and I have paraphrased their reasons below in order
to keep this email PG rated.

[1] Tree leaves and pine needles, in particular, are dangerous to your health because they fall to the ground through seriously contaminated air. Next month in The New England Journal of Medicine there will be a warning that live oak leaves that are vigorously raked may be carcinogenic.

[2] It is a well known secret that a huge percentage of our population is allergic to potable drinking water and those same people need to keep away from environmental elements that are classified as "dirty" such as soil and tree sap.

[3] Trees are also the home of other health hazards such as birds. These fowl creatures poop in Technicolor often on cultural icons like automobiles.

[4] They suggested that we follow the advise of our Green Mayor and paint your concrete Forest Green

WOW, some things need to change in that town too!

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