Observant readers of this blog may recall late last year that I mentioned a tabled ordinance would be allowed to expire at 2008's final City Council meeting.
That ordinance was intended to give the Council the authority to charter boards and commissions to address specific issues in the city. The ordinance was tabled because it was pointed out that the Council already had that authority, and the passage of the proposed ordinance would simply be a redundancy.
I wrote that I would, instead, submit an ordinance during January to charter a board, the focus of which would be to reintroduce chestnut trees into our local arboreal population.
During the preliminary conversations about that potential board, I contacted Greg Mills. He had been instrumental in the now-moribund Tree Board. I had spoken to Mr. Mills on another occasion and found him to be a wealth of information about trees. He owns a tree service, and he is passionate about trees and their value to our ecosystem.
The purpose of my call to him was to solicit his involvement in the chestnut repopulation effort. While Mr. Mills willingly agreed to join the effort, further conversation revealed that I was again proposing to sow seeds of redundancy. Mr. Mills is instrumental in a fully functioning group of people devoted to the health and propagation of trees. Mr. Mills gently suggested that the more valuable service I could perform as a Councilman, would be to resurrect the Tree Board.
So, for those who are interested in trees, and see the value of a healthy urban forest, the chestnut restoration project will, in all likelihood, find itself grafted onto a rejuvinated Tree Board. Mr. Mills has graciously offered to help the effort in any way possible.
Most likely, the method of bringing vitality back to the Tree Board will be a resolution of support from the Council asking the Administration to move forward with the idea. I hope to offer that resolution at the next meeting.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
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