Gatti brothers trash street trees. City of Salem needs to fine them, big-time.

Salem is a town that claims to care about trees. Yes, it's true that most people who live here are tree lovers. Unfortunately, there's a lengthy history of businesses and developers who treat trees really badly with few, if any, consequences. 

Photo I took today of one of the mangled trees

Today's Statesman Journal has a story, "Illegal trimming destroys street trees at Gatti property, famous for holiday light display." There's plenty in the story by Tracy Loew that's infuriating. Like...

In an interview, Richard Gatti said he hired a contractor to do general work around the properties, and asked him to tidy up the trees, which were blocking the sidewalk as well as views of the lights.

...Unfortunately, Gatti didn’t notify the city, get a permit, hire a licensed tree service, or specify exactly what should be done.

“Do I know that we’re not supposed to be trimming their trees without approval? I suppose I knew that, but I thought, well, I was doing mine,” Gatti said. “It cost me quite a bit of money. I wasn’t wanting to put the burden on the city.”

...Tree topping, also called heading or tipping, is the removal of a majority of a tree’s branches. It’s one of the worst things one can do to a tree, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry.

...Salem code states that trimming or removing a city-owned tree without a permit can bring a fine of up to $2,000 per occurrence, plus the cost of the trees.

In this case, the city will not fine the Gattis, but will require them to remove the topped trees and replace them, city spokeswoman Kathy Ursprung said.

UPDATE: Today, January 27, I got an email from Ursprung that said: "I was misquoted in the Statesman Journal regarding this case. I don’t have all the details at this point, but Mr. Gatti is expected to be fined."

Wow. Richard Gatti knew he shouldn't trim street trees on public property without getting approval from the city. He didn't use a licensed tree service. He didn't tell the contractor what to do.

If this behavior doesn't end up with Gatti paying a big fine from the City of Salem, then city officials should give up any claim to being dedicated to protecting Salem's trees. 

This sort of needless tree destruction has been going on for many years. It has to stop.

Making people who trash street trees pay for the full cost of replacing the trees with comparable ones of the same size would send a message that the City of Salem is serious about protecting public property in the form of valuable street trees.

I've seen an estimate on Facebook by a certified arborist that the value of the trees Gatti destroyed could be over $75,000. So there's no way Gatti should get off with a $2,000 fine per tree -- though even that would be more than the zero fine that the city spokeswoman said would be levied. 

Here's links to some of the blog posts I've written previously about the crappy way Salem treats its trees. I look forward to not having to write any more.

Outrage: the true story of Salem's U.S. Bank tree killings
Truth Bomb #3: City of Salem kills trees for no good reason
More beautiful trees in downtown Salem cut down for no good reason
Black Walnut deaths point to more Salem tree dysfunction

Another photo I took of the mangled Gatti street trees 

Comments

[Norm Baxter]

Gatti is another member of the Salem oligarchy, immune from the consequences of his actions and delighting in rubbing the public’s nose in his arrogant disregard of city ordinances. Of course city staff will let him off with the proverbial slap on the wrist. As for the average citizen, heaven help you if you even scratch a tree trunk.

[Kristy]

What street is this?

[Careylynn]

Amusingly enough, one of its lawyers is facing domestic violence charges!
In Statesman!

[Kurt]

I know of a business owner who regularly trimmed trees on his property because they interfered with sidewalk traffic and street traffic. The City would not take care of them and the trees were a safety threat (The Gatti trees were much more severely trimmed).
Gatti seems to have no problem announcing that "Whateva, I'll do what I want" (Eric Cartman on the Povish show) but he can do that. He's no fool.
I don't pay to read the local rag, so I don't know whether the death of the trees is exaggerated (and I would probably still not know if I were to read the article), but we may want to wait a few weeks to see just how dead they are. It seems that spring is already here.
Daffodils may soon be emerging, as they did last year.

[skyline]

Defiantly an idiotic pruning job.
But depending on the type of tree; you may be surprised at how beautiful those trees are in a few years.
I had an uncle with a large property on High St near Bush park. He always pruned his trees like that.
They always sprang back into beautiful trees.

[Brian Hines]

Kristy, the Gatti building is at the corner of Liberty Street and Superior Street. The first photo I shared is of a Liberty Street tree. The other photo shows three trees on Superior Street.

[tucson]

I second Skyline's opinion that the trees will recover much of their former beauty, in time. The tree in the picture does look pretty bad. It will take a while.

When I was living in So. Oregon my neighbor decided to cut down a grove of beautiful old growth pines on his property that really added beauty and character to the area. It was a shock to see them gone. Nothing but slash and stumps left which, to finish the job, was burned causing smoke to fill the air for a week or two.

He got $8,000 for the trees which he used to buy a used red Mustang convertible for his late-arriving mid-life crisis at age 75.

I was pretty pissed and filled with disgust even though they were his trees and he had a legal right to cut them down. I spoke to him little after that display of core values and, for a variety of reasons, moved away from that part of the valley soon after.

[Skyline]

UPDATE:
Mrs. Skyline & I noticed that there are many, many trees along Commercial and Liberty St that have been "pruned" in this manner in past years and recovered nicely.
If you drive from South Salem into downtown and look closely, you will clearly see that this method has been employed along solid blocks of trees in the past, but in a much more deliberate manner to design the shape of the tree in the future.
Not knowing the type of tree makes me hesitant to speak out of turn, but I'm guessing that all that is needed s to bring in a professional to touch up the job.
The main problem here is someone operating outside of the law, and with low information.
MUST have been a liberal!