I have often shook my head at this argument that the city can’t afford to trim THEIR trees in the boulevard;
In 2013, for instance, then-Councilors Kenny Anderson Jr. and Dean Karsky prompted an analysis on the costs of Project T.R.I.M. compared to what would happen if the city took over the trimming. No changes to the program materialized, however, after Parks Operation Manager Kelby Mieras estimated an annual price tag of $700,000 to hire contractors to trim trees in one-fifth of the city, the yearly cycle Project T.R.I.M. operates with.
First off, the boulevard is city property, owned collectively by taxpayers, and secondly we pay a frontage fee in our property taxes for the city to take care of it. In other words, besides curb and gutter repair, street repair and snowplowing, the city really should be trimming those trees and quite honestly fixing the sidewalks adjacent to the parking strip (boulevard).
Cities that do this have actually saw costs go down after a couple cycles of the city, because now they are being maintained on a regular basis. Cities like Brookings, Brandon and Kansas City all maintain the boulevard trees. Brandon has even admitted that the cost gets less each year because of the diligent maintenance. Duh.
Like I said, the city has the money, we know that, I don’t need to insert a rant here about all the crap we spend our 2nd and 1st penny on that has ZERO benefit or LITTLE benefit to citizens. And secondly, we already pay taxes for this care.
There of course is suspicion that the city will fudge the numbers to make it look expensive, but like I said above, it doesn’t matter, because we are already paying for the service.
Enough of the games, just trim the damn trees already!
You’re damned if you do or don’t. They ask you to trim their trees then cite you when you do. It’s nice that they have a charter that makes them the final authority. The best public response is to smile and ignore them.
I talked to a city forester just after the tornadoes. He told me that they were still debating within city hall if they we going to help trim trees, for free, for residents who suffered tree branch issues from the tornadoes, trees that is, that are in boulevards.
At that time, they were, for free and proactively, dealing with boulevard trees, which appeared to be a pending danger, however.
Although, I had a half of a 40 foot pine tree that landed in one of my large boulevard trees, due to the “Pizza Ranch Tornado,” which the city never took inventory of, or I guess must have decided was not a danger to sidewalk pedestrians. I eventually contract out at my own expense to deal with that, thus, an other example of how the city’s tornado recovery program was never thoroughly organized.
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( – and Woodstock states: “‘Pizza Ranch Tornado?’…. Hey, that’s a good idea…. We should name them…. We also had an Avera Tornado and the Taupe Tornado, that way we can some day reminisce with great fondness about that tornado, or this one, like the fond memories we still have of Camille.”)