The Emerald Ash Bore will soon be chomping down on trees all over Sioux Falls, it’s inevitable. Some of those trees are in city parks and in the city owned parking strips (boulevards) throughout the city.
In the above video, City of Sioux Falls Parks Director Kearney explains that the city will ultimately have to eliminate most of those Ash trees. The city seems to be taking a proactive approach to the problem.
This would be a perfect opportunity for the city council to tackle Project TRIM reform. During the last municipal campaign, Janet Brekke recommended that Project TRIM gets tied in with other city cleanup projects like KEEP & NICE (Brekke created these programs when she was city attorney). Not only could the city take over Project TRIM and take care of the trees they own in the Boulevard they could tie it in with the elimination of Ash trees in the boulevard.
I think the Parks and Rec and the Forestry divisions of Sioux Falls should come up with a 5 year plan to not only eliminate these trees before they are attacked by the bore, but also trim the other trees in the boulevard. It will be costly up front, but once the city goes through a second 5 year cycle it will get less expensive.
How bad will McKennan Park be hit by this? If badly, then it would be an opportune time to go with a whole new look for the park to match the mentality that a historic district is suppose to consist of new structures that depict a historic theme to the likening of those now living…. (“What?” “All of these trees are going to go?”…. “Well, then lets tear down a bunch more of these lesser homes in this historic district, so as to present a greater pretend historical past….” 😉 )