Project T.R.I.M.

Here we go again, questioning Project T.R.I.M., or as I like to call it, forcing property owners to pay private contractors to trim city owned trees. I have touched on this TOPIC many times in the past, and my conclusion has always been to have the city work in cooperation with residents on the project;

Councilors have received calls and complaints from residents about how it’s difficult to know which tree in their yard or boulevard needs to be trimmed. Councilor Dean Karsky asked why crews don’t trim the trees during the inspection.

“It seems like a terrible waste of city time and equipment and people,” he said. “They just tell me I need to do it, when they were there, saw it, could have just done it themselves.”

This has often been my contention. In the time it takes them to inspect and generate letters they could just be trimming the branches themselves. This is where the cooperation could come in. If it is minor trimming the city could just do it during inspection, if anything major has to take place they could work with the property owner to get it done at a minimal cost to the property owner. This isn’t rocket science but of course MacErpenbach doesn’t think anything is broken;

Councilor Michelle Erpenbach said if the issue is communication between public works and parks and recreation, the City Council can’t fix it. She thinks Project T.R.I.M. works well and has made Sioux Falls look better.

“Right now, this is the way we’re doing it,” she said. “The cost involving (with Sioux Falls taking over) is an amazing amount of money … the system works. It’s not broken.”

She is right, the city’s point of view is that it is working just fine, because they are saving themselves $700,000 a year by pushing the cost off on the homeowner. But the city thinks a lot of things are working just fine, just ask the IT department about SIRE and web streaming of the council meetings, it seemed to work just fine to until I ripped them a new one for 45 minutes and suddenly it was ‘broken’. Sorry Michelle, but if we are paying forestry people to inspect trees, we might as well be paying them to trim the treems that are not in compliance. The system is broken, and has been for years. But of course all powerful and all knowing Lady MacErpenbach will reassure the public that we just are not educated enough on Project T.R.I.M. to understand it. Oh, we understand it Michelle. The city is screwing us.