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Where were you when all the forests were being leveled in east Texas?
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Had the Greenbriar exit off 59N been open last night at 9:30 pm, I never would have stumbled across thisthe worst case of arborcide I've personally witnessed. When my car's headlights swept across the SE corner of Kirby and North Boulevard, I immediately noticed an absence and felt a profound "disturbance in the field" if you know what I mean. I pulled over, and when I opened my car door the insane, insistent screams of several chainsaws brrrzzzzzing at once filled my ears and the (once, to me) lovely scent of freshly cut healthy oak filled the air. I was deranged by the arrogant insanity confronting me, I was almost blinded by confusion. Another man (who seemed sane) was photographing and said "They've already got 6 of them," when he walked by me to get in his car.
I started shouting at everyone to "Stop" and then shouting in Spanish to the men clambering in and out of the huge "cage" landscaping trailers which held the limbs and trunks of murdered live oaks, but they kept working in the dark, sawing down into the accumulated body parts of trees in order to compact the piling limbs and foliage, their heads hung in shame. (I am still stunned by what I witnessed last night, but grateful that I didn't witness the maiming of a worker moving so fast with a whirring chainsaw, standing alongside another tree-dissector on top of limbs piled and shifting in a trailer, in total darkness. It was crazily dangerous and certainly not OSHA approved.)
I took pictures and video I until my iPhone died.
The crew bosswho self-identified as Freddy, of Freddy's Landscaping and Moreapproached me and wanted to know why I was taking pictures. I could barely speak. I asked him who hired him and did he realize there was a hefty fine for cutting street trees. I was insistent. He got his "boss" on the line and nonchalantly handed his cellphone to me. I couldn't hear well through the whine of chainsaws, but I believe this man's name was "Brock". When I demanded whether he had a permit to cut the trees, he replied, "Hey, Lady, I'm just the contractor." I asked who hired him and he very clearlyspelling it outsaid "Haza Foods."
I drove away, grabbed a neighbor and civic club leader and went back to the scene. We called 311, we called the police, we documented the decimation as well as we could (it was very dark.) My neighbor knew more than I did about the City ordinance and told Freddy what the fine could possibly be (if you measured all the "caliper inches" of the stumps) and he said (this is a DIRECT quote) "Go aheadfine me! They'll pay me back, and more!"
We waited for HPD while Freddy and his crew cleaned up all but the largest stumps and trunks and left. A HPD Sergeant responded and did take a police report.
When I got home I sent the pictures to as many neighbors as I could, and to the Chronicle tip linescitydesk@chron.com, neighborhoods@chron.com, and kathy.huber@chron.com.
This morning I made "DO NOT CUT THIS TREE" signs and attached them to two remaining trees with packing tape around their trunks. One of the men working on the site yelled, "Get a life, lady!" and when I asked a worker nearby why those trees had to go he said, "They f@#$ up the concrete."
quote:I would imagine they would have gotten city approval and not done this overnight if they had legitimate reasons.
if there were legitimate reasons for them to be taken down, people will have to accept it.
quote:Forever? Uh, no. Nice trees? Yes. But it's not like they were 100, or even 50-year old specimens.
Those trees had been there forever, and suddenly get cut down?
quote:Sometimes the blowback is worth the price. A couple of people get up in arms for a few years and maybe you get rid of some trees that are a pain in your plan.
just a silly move by the property owner.
Anyone with an ounce of foresight would have known that this would produce blow-back.
quote:If the shoe fits.
Will you post the same thing again every time I post on this thread?
