Does that look improper to you?
Posted on 05/28/2011 11:29:56 AM PDT by barmag25
Every two to three years, Eddie Sales trims and prunes the crape myrtles at his church, Albemarle Road Presbyterian Church.
But this year, the city of Charlotte cited the church for improperly pruning its trees.
"We always keep our trees trimmed back because you don't want to worry about them hanging down in the way," said Sales, a church member.
The church was fined $100 per branch cut for excessive pruning, bringing the violation to $4,000.
"I just couldn't believe it when I heard about it," Sales said. "We trim our trees back every three years all over our property, and this is the first time we have been fined."
Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/05/28/2333197/church-fined-for-improper-tree.html#ixzz1Nfkq048B
(Excerpt) Read more at charlotteobserver.com ...
“City trees” includes those trees between the sidewalk and the curb.
Tree Work Permit
Since the City of Ithaca is lucky enough to have such a large and diverse urban forest, we understand that work will have to be done near the City trees. The Division of Parks and Forestry hopes to work with contractors and property owners to complete necessary work with the least amount of harm done to City trees as possible.
A Tree Permit is required for any contractor or property owner that will be working within the drip line of a city tree (drip line is at the edge of the canopy. i.e. stand at the work location and look up; if there are branches above, you are within the drip line of the tree). The forester will sign the permit after making comments specific to the job. Periodic inspection will confirm that the general rules for working near City trees (second page of the tree permit) and the forester's comments specific to that tree permit are being followed.
Many of these trees are HUGE. The drip line, canopy, may cover your entire front yard.
You are right on, slick. Crape Myrtles need to be trimmed way back every 2 or 3 years. If the ones shown in the photo are representative, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what he did. Hopefully the church has a good lawyer among its congregation. File an appeal of the fine and get a good arborist in to support you. The city guy doesn’t know what he is talking about.
I have had a battle royal going with my relatively new neighbor who moved to the U.S. from Russia. He has not trimmed his tree limbs for almost 3 years and they were beginning to kill my grass. Untrimmed trees are also a big problem when we have a hurricane. Tried to explain this to him and that his particular kind of tree was really designed to grow up and not out. Even gave him the name and phone number of my tree trimmer. Having no success I trimmed the lower branches myself. He came over to talk to me about it one day when I was walking out the door to go get some range time with some friends and had my gun in my hand. He thanked me and turned around and walked away.
Does that look improper to you?
No doubt the code enforcement officer’s salary is paid for by fines.
By the time the court case or appeal rolls around, they will be beautiful. He can take pics to the judge. Everybody with gorgeous crepe myrtle trees knows you have to be aggressive.
See post 44. Every good CM in my county looks like that in April.
i have awakened in a parallel universe where the idiots reign....
tree police.....really???
we need email addresses and fax numbers....
There is a crape myrtle on the corner of my house by the garage door. Planted by my late MIL way too close to the house and it grows until it hits the eaves of the house.
After pruning it severely several years, and not doing very much good, I cut the thing off at ground level with the chain saw. It still comes back 2 or 3 times a year and will be 6-7 feet tall in no time.
Most people don't realize that crape myrtles are trees -- not shrubs -- and you can't hardly kill them if you try.
“These people levying the fines are the same Environmental types who know nothing about trees or rivers.”
I was up at Rocky Mountain National Park today and noticed large sections of fencing around stands of trees and other vegetation. The Elk in the park are over populated and they refused to let hunters in to thin the herds so they spent millions to put fences around the trees so the Elk wouldn’t eat them. I truly don’t know what goes on in these peoples minds.
I’ve been wanting to get one since I moved back to Ohio from Arkansas. I’ve never seen one here but if, as you say, “you can’t hardly kill ‘em,” I think it’s worth a try.
Why, under their all-knowing and "progressive" approach to the people/government relationship, we are almost back to the European arrangement of government over people which existed when our ancestors fled Europe and established liberty for individuals in the New World.
In the early days of America's experiment in liberty, its Founders warned of oppressive taxation by those elected to represent the people. Under their "People's" Constitution, the people were left free, and the government was limited.
While Europe struggled with oppressive government intervention, the genius Founders of America recognized enduring truths about human nature, the human tendency to abuse power, and the possibilities of liberty for individuals. Richard Frothingham's 1872 "History of the Rise of the Republic of the United States," Page 14, contained the following footnote item on the condition of citizens of France:
"Footnote 1. M. de Champagny (Dublin Review, April, 1868) says of France, 'We were and are unable to go from Paris to Neuilly; or dine more than twenty together; or have in our portmanteau three copies of the same tract; or lend a book to a friend: or put a patch of mortar on our own house, if it stands in the street; or kill a partridge; or plant a tree near the road-side; or take coal out of our own land: or teach three or four children to read, . .. without permission from the civil government.'"
Clearly the government of France at that 1868 date laid an oppressive regulatory and tax burden on citizens, robbing them of their Creator-endowed liberty and enjoyment thereof. Frothingham observed that such coercive power constituted "a noble form robbed of its lifegiving spirit."
Thomas Jefferson warned Americans:
"To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39
Sounds like the leaders of this city have "progressed" all the way back to where France was in 1868 and before.
See my Post #52.
Thousands of acres donated for use of residents in my state, as well as tourists, with free camping areas was sown with grasses unknown to are to prevent anyone from being there.....and they complained no money to check on people camping, yet they spent many hours changing landscape, so noone could spend time enjoying the benefits of land donated for that purpose.
Instead of giving away millions to abort babies in Africa, and other countries. Instead of giving 900 million, as Obama did to families of Palestinian terrorists his first weeks in office, to come here and live off our taxpayer dollars, and instead spending like on overseas trips like a lottery winner...we could afford some more jobs in our National Parks. For those who actually know what to do with nature.
1. is it even a tree??
2. if you cut the trunk at the ground level, that must be ok, right, I mean not a single branch was cut
3. if the cm died, mysteriously of course, then it would be ok to cut it down, right?
I really, really dislike government sticking it’s nose in things it has no right or business in
Terms:
to “Coppice” a tree = cut it to the ground usually because you want new shoots for some purpose.
to “Pollard” a tree = cut last years growth back, often done to Crepe Myrtle’s to keep the tree from getting too large and to encourage a new growth of branches that will flower.
to commit “Crepe Murder”, the term busybodies have for pollarding Crepe Myrtle trees.
Daniel Boone, huh. Do you know the truth about DB? Well he lived in NC, in Yadkin River Valley, and had two sons (other children?) and a wife who was happy here.
Because he was a wanderer, he left his wife here and went to explore Kentucky (county of VA at time, and not yet a state). He was a friend, and his uncle married a relative of Tom Lincoln (Abe’s father), who lived in PA. Tom Lincoln’s father takes him to Kentucky, from VA etc...
This comes out of DBs own memoir.
Boone has audacity to come back to NC, and get his wife and sons, and move them to Kentucky. In a fight with Indians the oldest son is killed, and Daniel Boone is captured, and months go by....his wife moves back to NC to Yadkin River Valley. Boone escapes, and comes back and takes his wife and son back to KY, and gets other son killed. What a jerk!
Kentucky would have been settled with or without Boone’s help, as many were already flooding the area, which was a hunting ground for the Cherokee; and not really used for much else during the Indian years.
For over 100 yrs there were zero beavers in the area, in which I grew up, and although they may have been in other places 50-100 miles away. But they have been hauled in here now and let into the creeks and streams, so they are here now being as destructive as possible....so that blanket statement is untrue, and don’t put too much faith in Daniel Boone’s words. Yes, he helped blaze a path into Kentucky near area where TN, VA and KY are closest, but a lot of other men helped.
Obviously, the officer writing the fine knows squat about crepe myrtles.
The church pruner is correct.
Members of the church should descend on the next City Council meeting and demand the fine be rescinded and the writer of the fine go to crepe myrtle sensitivity school.
One thing I forgot, Kentucky was being populated from Louisville area by boat, from a fort in PA, as they used the river to access the area by flatboats, even before history notes it.
Some were coming up the Mississippi from New Orleans by boat to Louisville, and bringing livestock, before any of it was part of our country. In fact, horses were known to exist in midwest long before pioneers actually came, and it was probably by large boats up Mississippi.
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