Happy 2007 to everyone. I’m back at work after some much-needed time off, and some not-so-much-needed holiday feasting. Sorry to have left you readers with nothing new to read.
This one’s for tree-lovers. I had a plaintive e-mail on Dec. 27 from Sherry Williams, a longtime Observer reader and letter writer. It was Sherry and her husband, Sam, who were forced by the city a few years back to whack off the blossoms of some daylilies they had planted in a median near their home, because the city feared the flowers were a traffic hazard.
Here’s an excerpt:
Today at 9:20 AM I called the Observer about the trees in Charlotte, being felled for no apparent reason near Midtown Square. I am afraid, during the course of trying to state my point of view, I cried. The idea that all of the hawks and owls whose homes have been removed (six large oaks and one magnolia) just this week, from Kings Drive, causes me to cry. … I feel that large oaks have souls and cutting them without cause is the worst kind of evil.
I wasn’t “venting,” I was brainstorming. I want to save what is left of the trees and some of the open space. However, clearly, I don’t know how to do it. Happy New Year. Sherry Williams
I drove past the site later that day. The oaks cut were apparently near the Kings-Independence intersection. It was cordwood by the time I saw it. Here’s how I responded to Sherry:
Like you, I hate it when trees are cut down. But in the Kings Drive case, I have to conclude the overall project will result in a lot more trees living a lot longer, as what are now a bunch of concrete parking lots that cover Little Sugar Creek are dismantled and turned into greenway – for posterity.
In our neighborhood, a half-acre lot of woods and wetlands was recently all but clear cut. All fully legal, of course. If you really want to have an effect, keep beating up on City Council members and the mayor to enact stronger protections for our natural landscape. They think because we have a tree ordinance (a relatively weak one) and a county creek buffer ordinance – which has grandfather-clause exemptions big enough to accommodate the Biltmore House – that we don’t need stronger ordinances. We do.