The city is currently planning to cut down five healthy, mature oak trees in the Cradle of Country Music Park to make room for an aluminum sculpture selected by the Public Arts Committee in 2018.

While we are in favor of public art, we do not want to lose our trees that currently help to protect the corner of Gay St. and Summit Hill Drive from rising temperatures downtown.  

We are asking City Council members to vote “Yes” on the Cradle of Country Music Park Resolution on September 6th to save an important part of our valuable downtown tree canopy! The resolution would cause a six-month pause in implementation of the plan so that the City Engineering Dept., the Public Arts Committee, the Parks Department, and a group of Citizen Stakeholders could work to find a way to install the sculpture without removing the mature trees.

The current project in the park is costing the people of Knoxville over one million dollars.  We need to get it right before moving forward!  We are asking City Council members to support the resolution to provide time for a re-evaluation of how the sculpture will be installed, to minimize the removal of trees and retain the theme of the Cradle of Country Music Park.