Fresh Loaf

Fox 5 reports that some of Atlanta’s ne’er-do-wells have turned their sights toward pricey palm trees that were recently planted in Southwest Atlanta along the Beltline. Because copper, blue jeans and flat screens just weren’t cutting it, we suppose.

The station reports that the $450-a-pop palm trees’ roots were secured with rebar to prevent them from being removed. They were purchased with a grant provided by the Arthur Blank Foundation for the $2.8 billion project’s arboretum, or “museum of trees.”

Bookmark It

My neighbors in northeast Atlanta heard a loud noise this morning around 1:45. They went outside to find that this huge tree had fallen and just missed the front of their house. They said it wasn’t storming at the time that the tree fell. The tree, a Bradford pear, is common in Atlanta and has a reputation as being susceptible to falling in high winds.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

Beltline Arboretum

Trees Atlanta has selected local artist David Landis to create the first piece of public art for a planned arboretum, or tree museum, along the Beltline.

Once completed, the arboretum will circle the entire 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit, and be one of the largest tree museums in the United States.

Landis was selected from a field of 20 applicants. His sculpture, which will be inspired by residents’ memories of trees and the historic West End community, will represent the first of 14 tree and plant collections along the smart-growth project.

Trees Atlanta says the sculpture will be designed to be a “landscape in motion” and will be installed in the West End’s Rose Circle Park early next year. The work is made possible by a grant from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.

Landis, who created the Butterfly Pavilion at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, has also shown work in Minneapolis, Albany, Ga., Toulose, France and throughout the metro region. A graduate of the University of Georgia and Georgia State University, he’s also taught at the latter and Dunwoody’s Spruill Center for the Arts.

Beltline and community officials will celebrate Landis’ selection on Thursday, July 9 at 7 p.m. at the Hammond House. The event is free and open to the public.

This post has been altered to fix a typo of the artist’s name.

(Screenshot courtesy of Trees Atlanta)

Bookmark It

Brown Middle School students today will plant nearly 1,000 trees and shrubs to help build the Beltline’s “arboretum.” The 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit is planned to boast one of the country’s largest “tree museums” once complete.

From the AJC:

Trees Atlanta and the Atlanta Audubon Society are working with Brown Middle School to plant fig and black walnut trees, blueberry bushes and other bird-friendly trees and shrubs at the West End school. The project was largely funded by a $42,400 grant from TogetherGreen, a National Audubon Society program sponsored by Toyota.

Trees Atlanta spokeswoman Cheryl Kortemeier said the middle school is along the first piece of the Atlanta BeltLine Arboretum, a one-mile path next to the abandoned train tracks. It is accessible from the school and Gordon White Park. Kortemeier said the arboretum’s theme for the West Connection is ethnobotany, or how trees and plants are used as medicine.

Residents who want to help out by mulching, watering and planting remaining trees can visit the work site on Saturday at 9 a.m. Contact Trees Atlanta for more information. To download the arboretum’s conceptual plans, visit the Beltline’s webpage on the project. (The plans, which are PDF files and located along the right column, are very large but incredibly resourceful if you’re a tree-loving Atlantan.)

(Image courtesy of Atlanta Beltline Inc. and Trees Atlanta)

Bookmark It

Tom Coffin, the Atlanta arborist whose firing last summer caused a firestorm of controversy, says he’s suing the city.

In a suit filed Friday, Coffin’s attorneys say his supervisors at City Hall violated the state’s “whistleblower” statute when he was fired after raising questions about his colleagues’ alleged lax enforcement of the city’s tree ordinance.

“The City Council passed and the Mayor signed the Tree Protection Ordinance in recognition of how important trees are to the health and well-being of the city,” Coffin says in a press release. “I was hired to enforce the law and to ensure that my colleagues did so as well. My firing leaves the city with a broken ordinance and a mockery of enforcement. It is outrageous that I should have to sue for my job while the City, in the midst of a severe economic crisis, pays five field arborists to ‘look the other way’ and make excuses for their lack of performance and accountability to the law.”

Coffins wants the city to rehire him and pay compensatory damages. He is represented by Brian Spears and Gerry Weber, former legal director of the Georgia American Civil Liberties Union.

View the press release and a pasted version of the suit after the jump. You can also download a PDF of the suit here.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

(more…)

Bookmark It

Tom Coffin, former Atlanta arborist

Tom Coffin, the Atlanta senior field arborist whose firing last summer sparked a firestorm of controversy, says he’s mulling legal options if the city doesn’t rehire him.

In mid-December, his attorney told the city — in the form of an ante litum notice — that he planned to sue to under the city’s “whistleblower” statute. Coffin has maintained he was fired because he alerted superiors about alleged lax enforcement by his colleagues of the tree ordinance — an eco-minded yet controversial law that forces homeowners or businesses to meet criteria before cutting down trees. Coffin, whom we cheekily referred to as a real-life Lorax, helped write the ordinance, and has earned both praise and scorn from residents and developers for keeping a watchful eye on its enforcement.

In an open letter last week to the city council and residents, Coffin said he’d prefer to be rehired and get back to enforcing the tree ordinance rather than head to court to argue a case he thinks he can win.

Coffin writes:

“…I seek reinstatement to the Sr. Arborist position that I won through merit and lost through deceit. I wish to continue my nearly 12 years of service to the city in formulating, implementing and enforcing one of its signature environmental laws. I seek my job back. I ask for compensation for lost salary and benefits, and for the legal costs incurred by me since my firing in July 2008. These demands are reasonable and minimal. I ask that the [city's Public Safety] Committee recommend this result to Council in the interest of justice, fairness and economy.”

Beth Chandler, the city’s attorney, says the law department is reviewing Coffin’s claim. There is no timeline for when a decision will be made, she says.

In an earlier open letter to city council and residents, Coffin said the city’s tree ordinance, in his absence, has become a “dead letter.” Coffin, who travels around the city on a recumbent bicycle, told CL on Friday that even months after he was sacked by the city he still finds himself surveying trees and reporting possible violations to the arborist’s office.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

This thing is getting close, you treehuggers, and there are only eight days left to make a difference.

Atlanta, with the cooperation of Trees Atlanta, is participating in American Express’ “Roots For Your City” campaign in which such cities as Chicago, Miami and New York City compete for the lion’s share of a $1 million grant from the credit company. Each time you make a purchase with your American Express card, Atlanta’s chances improve.

And of the eight participating cities swiping their cards to win, we’re second only to some place called Los Angeles, where dogs are bred in petri dishes to be as tiny as hamsters. We must not lose to this mysterious land of heathens!

Click here to see which Atlanta businesses are participating. If you have shopping planned for this weekend, be sure to check them out.

Bookmark It

Tom Coffin, the dedicated Atlanta arborist who was fired by the city in late July for what seems to be simply doing his job, has not given up on his fight to uncover why he was dropped off the city payroll. (To get the background about Coffin’s firing, click here.)

The real-life Lorax sent word this morning that the city’s investigation into his termination is now complete:

I received word from HR investigator Al Elder that his investigation is complete and is now undergoing executive review.  I assume that “executive review” means that the report is now on the mayor’s desk, though Mr. Elder declined to clarify who is doing the review.  I have been given no time frame for a decision and don’t know if the review will take days or weeks or months.

Meanwhile I made an Open Records request for the July and August “Inspections Completed By” reports produced in the Arborist Division to supplement the January through June data that I have circulated.  The chart below indicates that in the short run at least the only change in the enforcement pattern of the field arborists is to finally bring me in line with my former subordinates, by default.

The big blue and red bars represent Coffin’s average monthly inspections from January to June and July, respectively. The other three sets of initials are his former colleagues’ monthly inspections during the same time periods.

Bookmark It

The 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.)

(more…)

Bookmark It

That’s a damn good question.

On one hand, you have an outspoken arborist who churned out more citations and inspections than his colleagues combined, holds a Ph.D in forestry from the University of Georgia, and by all standards and definitions, committed what may be the ultimate sin in municipal government: He actually — gasp — did his job. On the other, there’s…uhm. Well, no one really knows. Coffin says the firing was out of the blue and the city’s said it was not related to the $140 million budget shortfall. Surely there’d be a paper trail, right?

So I stopped by City Hall yesterday to review his personnel file.

(more…)

Bookmark It

Tom Coffin, a senior field arborist for the city of Atlanta, was fired on July 29 and has released a letter in which he outlines his concerns for the program that has both generated controversy and praise for its efforts to maintain Atlanta’s green canopy.

In a letter addressed to Mayor Shirley Franklin, the Atlanta City Council, the Tree Conservation Commission and citizens at large, Coffin says he was fired after he raised questions about the lack of accountability expected of the arborists and lack of enforcement of the tree ordinance on certain properties.

He also displays graphs that show he was one of the hardest workers the department had. Compared to his colleagues, Coffin conducted nearly double the number of property inspections. And according to graphs produced with information from the agency, his jurisdiction in the northeast quadrant of the city showed the highest number of ordinance enforcement and activities.

And, of course, in addition to enforcement activities I handle one-third of the total field workload in the arborist division. My firing will not increase either the efficiency or the effectiveness of service to the city. Both are likely to plummet.

Of what this all means in the big picture:

My job is certainly important, especially to me. The greater question, however, is the impact of my dismissal on the urban forest that defines Atlanta and greatly enhances the quality of our lives. If the Bureau of Buildings succeeds in this attempt to silence the demands I have been making for accountability to and enforcement of the law, the Tree Protection Ordinance becomes a dead letter, suitable for framing.

A bit of trivia: Coffin was one of the founders of The Great Speckled Bird, Atlanta’s original alt-weekly.

CL is still waiting for a spokesperson from the city’s department of public works, the agency that oversees the arborist’s office, to return a call for comment.

A city spokesperson responded via e-mail:

Mr. Coffin’s termination is a personnel matter and not related to budget reduction. I assure you we have other arborists who are trained and knowledgeable in the tree ordinance who will handle and protect the City’s tree canopy as required by our codes. The Sr. Arborist position will be opened soon and we will hire the most qualified person for the job.

In a phone interview with CL, Coffin said he’ll appeal his dismissal. His full letter is pasted below the jump. To view it as a document with graphs he says support his claims, click here.

(more…)

Bookmark It