The fired arborist, the silent city, and now ‘the plan’
August 18, 2008 at 11:13 am by Thomas Wheatley in NewsThe controversy swirling around the firing of city arborist Tom Coffin is now being discussed on Daily Kos. A member on the left-leaning website posted a PDF of a e-mail communication between city Planning Commissioner Steve Cover and Ibrahim Maslamani, the director of the city’s bureau of buildings and Coffin’s former boss.
In it, Maslamani asks for marching orders after support for the former arborist started pouring into City Hall. In his response, Cover tells Maslamani to “stick to our plan” and to “give Luz a heads up.” (Click here to read the e-mail thread.)
The poster on Daily Kos suspects “the plan” refers to a permit streamlining strategy suggested by the Bains Group, a consulting firm that conducted a pro bono evaluation of city operations in 2004. Mayor Shirley Franklin followed their suggestions; Borrero led the effort. The changes to the permitting process were completed in June 2007 and included tinkering with the tree ordinance. (The ordinance has been a sticky issue in the city, both praised by eco-minded residents as a way to preserve Atlanta’s urban forest and derided by developers as a bothersome and unfair obstacle to building. Property owners, even ones who want to preserve trees, have expressed frustration with it, saying it’s prevented them from removing trees they feel pose a danger to person and property.)
When pressed for a comment about the e-mail, the city released this statement from Cover:
“Mr. Coffin’s recent termination has generated noticable dialogue among community members, City employees and business owners who both support and oppose his dismissal. In recent communication with Bureau management, I advised the Bureau of Buildings Director to stay on course with our decision to provide only the facts about this very sensitive personnel matter.
We have a responsibility to the City and the other professionals in the Arborist Division to continue to protect the City’s tree canopy while providing excellent service to Atlanta residents and businesses.”
A word of caution: E-mails without context can be misleading. “Our plan” could easily be the protocol the department and city must follow in the wake of an employee’s firing. The city, for legal reasons, is muzzled as to what it can say about Coffin’s termination. In such a situation, it has to settle for being a pinata. And judging that the first result Google displays when you search “Luz Borrero” is a city press release about that same permitting process improvement, it might be tempting to jump to conclusions and make a connection. But it might just be coincidence.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I’ve had two huge oaks removed from my property over the last five years because they were dying and threatening the house. It took no effort on my part to have the city come out and approve their removal. So I’m not sure who the property owners are that are frustrated with the process. I requested the permit online and in about 3 weeks the arborist showed up, was very knowledgeable, and emailed me by permit.
Its laughable to me that developers would criticize Atlanta of all places as having unfair obstacles to development. Aside from the formality of talking with the neighborhood groups there doesn’t seem to be any type of development that the city won’t approve. Of course there are codes and standards but compared to any other city (boston, chicago, new york, dc. new orleans, san fran) Atlanta is easy street for developers.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Very interesting. The City of Macon’s Arborist mysteriously disappeared shortly after our new Mayor took Office. I still haven’t heard a legitimate reason as to why.
Also, i’m suspecting our Pension funds are in the same predicament as ATL’s.
An assistant City Attorney tried to unlawfully expel a Councilman from the Police and Fire Pension Cmte meeting. I’m suspecting she feared too many tough questions on the exact status of our “fare” city’s Pension liabilities.
Don’t worry, if Bush can bail out Bear Sterns to the tune of $30 billion, he can bail out our municipal Pension Funds.
But we still need to get rid of City Attornies that try to expel Council Persons from meetings to apprently avoid sunlight.
Maybe someone can instruct her to go find the missing arborist and we can just lock the door to the Macon City Hall’s one and only Unisex bathroom behind her…
If you can think of better ideas, please chime in.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
This piece seems to be taking fair and balanced to Faux News extremes. The city admin ‘a pinata’? Try instead ‘a bully that is unaccountable to the public, save for once every four years, and that sees no reason to answer for its bullying.’ And a PR machine that loves to pretend to be green while all its actions are the opposite: non-enforcement of the tree ordinance, which has long pre-dated Coffin’s demise; pushing through the Piedmont Park parking deck against near-unanimous citywide neighborhood opposition; gutting the parks department in the first fiscal crisis of the admin; supporting the Beltline only as a way to funnel huge sums to favored landowners …
And how about letting Shirley make her own case that she can’t explain the Coffin firing for legal reasons, with a legal view from the other side of that issue?
December 29th, 2008 at 11:09 am
As a counter to all the comments defending TC’s strict enforcement to the letter of the tree ordinance I have a few comments.
The tree ordinance is overbearing and way too restrictive. RW above says the city permitted him/her to remove two diseased/dying trees. So what? The trees were going to die anyway so what was the arborist going to do? How about a homeowner with a 3/4 acre lot over 50% is covered in mature trees (house built in the 1940s) being denied the ability to cut down ONE tree in a completely shaded and overgrown backyard to add a little sunshine? How about being denied the right to cut down an 80 foot tall pine hanging over the house because the arborist says the threat is not great enough (in their discretion) and not within 5 feet of the foundation? Do you people realize that the tree ordinance does not permit even 1 heatlhy tree to be cut down at the homeowner’s discretion even if you have a 3 acre lot covered in trees? The arborists by nature value trees over just about anything else and will deny just about any request for the removal of a healthy tree unless a lot of money is spent to plant another tree somewhere else (assuming the city actually even plants the trees). News alert- if a tree is 80 feet tall and is 20 feet away from the house it can still do massive damage to life and property but the city ordinance does not require the arborist to be reasonable. This tree ordinance is way too restrictive when a homeowner can’t cut down 1 healthy tree without paying compensense and getting an arborist to agree (which of course the arborist typically does not want to agree to ANY healthy tree removal). I am sure many of your reading this on Creative Loafing are fine with the idea of not even permitting 1 healthy tree to be removed from a suburban lot but anyone with common sense and a sense of reasonableness realizes this goes too far. I am not against trees and have no problem with tree replacement requirements for new development but this ordinance is draconian and is creating the non-enforcement backlash. This is what happens when government tries to enforce rules that are overbearing- just like prohibition back in the ’20s. People start ignoring the rules and working around the rules. The city needs to pass a reasonable tree ordinance that allows a homeowner to cut down a tree or two every so often without a overbearing nanny saying no to everything. Then the city could actually enforce the rules.