Hello everyone,

I delivered our petition to the mayor, city council, and various people at the St. Paul Forestry division office mid-last week.  In response, late this afternoon I received a letter from the director of St. Paul Parks & Recreation (Forestry is a department within Parks & Rec) stating that they would hold a meeting to hear our concerns, and that meeting will be held virtually this Thursday, Aug 19, at 4pm.  Find the RSVP and question submission link here. 

This meeting is very short notice, and was organized with no input from myself of other organizers.  Thus, due to the timing I know many of us will have a hard time attending (it's hard not to feel that this is intentional).  Please, if you can, attend this meeting and submit questions,  I will make every effort to be there despite work conflicts.  This is likely our only opportunity to interface with the Forestry Department.  

Clearly in response to our attention to this issue, the city recently re-posted the EAB management plan and updates, which had been dead links when we first went looking for them.  I'd encourage you to read those in prep for Thursday if you can.

If you have written to the Forestry Department regarding this issue, you have likely received the same canned responses that make up the remainder of the response letter I received.  If you haven't yet heard their argument, the city's talking points in repose to our petition are:

• everyone in the city is suffering due to EAB removal
• The city responded immediately to EAB infestation when it began, and since the beginning the goal has always been to remove all the ash trees.
• the trees in the park are risky due to dead wood (this could be mitigated with proper pruning, a tactic they will not even consider).
• According to them, a phased removal would mean they wouldn't replant any trees until all the ashes have been removed.  
• They say a phased removal would have a larger carbon footprint due to the multiple trips required by crews to remove trees.  Thinking about this logically for about 4 seconds, I'm fairly sure it's complete crap.
• They will host next year's Arbor Day volunteer event at the park, giving the community the "opportunity" to plant a diverse selection of trees.  I.E. we'll do the work of replanting for them, and I'm guessing the trees will be really small and thus take longer to rebuilt the canopy we've lost.  

These arguments are old, and we addressed most of them in our petition (how their plan doesn't account for equity, how treating and pruning could maintain these trees, etc).  The city is still treating removal as the sole option based on an outdated and disproven economic argument that it's more cost effective.  Something I noticed last week was that there are younger, poorer-looking boulevard ash trees on Summit Hill that have been treated by the city this year.  I called Forestry and was told that (despite the claims otherwise by the department) they can and do choose high-value trees and pay for treatment.  Hm. 

The good news is, we are clearly ruffling some feathers over at Forestry. The pressure has gotten us the management plan reposted, direct responses from officials, and a public meeting.  So pat yourself on the back for helping us get this momentum, and I truly hope to see you on Thursday at the meeting where we can make our voices heard!

Thank you,

Naomi