Opis
What is UP with this?! Somebody new on the job? Street-sweeping "no parking" signs have been stapled to trees young and old all over this neighborhood and probably beyond. It's bad enough for the mature trees, but the young ones can't handle it.
I honestly thought this issue had been hashed out and solved over the last couple of years. Way to undermine the hours of good work of neighbors and URI, guys.
Will the city please send someone around to carefully remove the signs and staples from all the trees, asap? And please, please be extra gentle with the new trees.
27 Skomentujs
David Streever (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
The city is unwilling to entertain any reasonable change to their procedure, which is why it still happens.
Howard Weisselberg, a very nice guy, is unfortunately incapable of making a meaningful change in his department. Both he and John Prokop should step down or be replaced with director and assistant directors who understand the basics of tree care.
Ironically, their department has been very helpful in sawing the concrete so we can pull it up and plant trees. Unfortunately, if they continue their inane and lazy work, they will kill the very trees we plant.
I'm extremely disappointed in Mr. Weisselberg, who received a list of suggestions on alternate ways to handle street sweeping, but seems intent on merely doing it per the usual.
This is the problem with New Haven under Mayor DeStefano--an insistence on ignoring the systemic problems and a focus on cosmetic or minor improvements to address underlying issues that are fixable by re-evaluating our approach. The focus is always on some nebulous big project, and rarely if ever on questioning our basic assumptions, which--in this case--are the real problem.
East Rockette (Guest)
NB There's already an ongoing discussion here: http://www.seeclickfix.com/issues/9484-city-workers-destroying-trees
But clearly nobody from the city is reading that other thread, so the more exposure of the issue, the better. Next step: printing out these pages and stapling them to City Hall...??
BenHV (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
David Streever (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
Annoyed on Front Street (Guest)
I doubt the city will send someone to remove staples from trees. I promptly remove sign and staple. Why post signs when street signs give the street sweeping schedule anyway. If you are able to drive you should be able to read the signs and not park.
robn (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
David Streever (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
Robn, it is apparently impossible--that was one of many suggestions I had made.
For the sake of everyone, I'll re-post some of the suggestions that I got from other municipalities. They all focused on establishing a schedule and sticking to it. They all said don't do anything to the trees, ever. (Every city I spoke to was aghast--even when I detailed the cities "genius" plan to buy permanent velcro cosies for the tree that lets them add signs)
1. If you can't sweep a street on schedule, leave it for next scheduled date.
2. Place sawhorses at the end of the block, on the side where parking is banned, on each side of the block, with big signs warning residents if you do have to sweep on a non-scheduled day.
3. Use reverse 311 to let residents know you missed a day but will sweep the streets on an alternate day.
4. Use postal mail to let residents know you missed a day and will sweep the street on a different day.
5. Simply tow the cars out of the way, then return them after sweeping is over, if you have to street sweep out of schedule.
In every instance, they were aghast at how backward we do this, and perplexed by the bizarre scheme of installing velcro cosies on the trees.
I have no idea what is going on at City Hall that they think this is OK.
Department of Transportation, Traffic and Parking (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
[Content removed by Administrator]
David Streever (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
Department of TT&P:
Should I FOI their emails to prove that I did respond?
I sent Howard a detailed email.
I love it when our city government gets snarky on the internet.
David Streever (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
Department of Transportation, Traffic and Parking (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
The Lorax (Guest)
Streever's right, this is a complete and utter no-brainer. A five year old could understand it: don't staple signs to trees.
One side of City Hall is spending hundreds of dollars to plant trees. The other side is spending hundreds of dollars to kill them. And we wonder why the budget is unbalanced... it's not just unbalanced, it's unhinged.
Again, what do we have to do to stop this idiocy? Staple letters of protest to the Mayor himself? "Ow, that hurts!" Exactly, sir: you speak for the trees.
David Streever (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
I've put in an inordinate amount of time into planting trees in this city--even donating personal money on top of time--and I am flabbergasted that a city employee, paid by our tax dollars, would feel the need to make snarky comments criticizing my investment and work on this.
If the city truly believes that I somehow failed, I will submit a detailed FOI for all emails between Howard and myself, and the phone logs of our calls, so I can show that not only did I conduct almost 4 hours of research for the City, but I summarized my findings and reported back to Howard.
He never responded--because he did not like the answer he received--but that is not my fault. If the City is truly invested in their trees and the hard work of their citizens, they will do their own research and actually come up with solutions, instead of throwing stones on an internet message board.
The Lorax (Guest)
David Streever (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
Lorax--I first asked the people stapling the signs if they could avoid stapling them to young trees (politely! I swear! one of our local politicians was standing there when it happened). They refused to acknowledge me, finally telling me they "aren't supposed to talk to people", and drove away.
Meanwhile, Director Prokop was using colorful language and telling my friend who was with me off when he called him to ask him about it.
When I continued to complain about this (never once getting any apology or admission of wrong-doing), I was finally contacted by Howard, who asked me to do a bunch of research.
I did that research--he never responded to me because he didn't like the answer--and now other city employees are blaming me? for this mess and being snarky, when the real problem is that the city made a lame-brain decision years ago and is sticking by their guns.
All of this is a very round-about answer to your question, Lorax: "Who does that?" The people who do that are the same people who behave so poorly when a citizen who has done a lot of work tries to help them and do more.
The experiences I've had with city hall drive home a message--that the employees are small-minded and petty. This is just one of dozens of examples I can point to--another example is the blackout on information from them to me--I disagree with them on Route 34, and have been completely shut out of the information flow.
They even told another citizen they disagree with that they would charge her an enormous amount of money to give her basic information, because they've decided to lock her out too.
Our city is run by people on the defensive--and instead of asking themselves why they are so defensive, they turtle up and band together, and view citizens as the enemy.
That is why they haven't fixed this, despite years of complaints from arborists, environmentalists, tree planters, and other tax payers--they exist in a toxic atmosphere where citizens are the problem, not the solution, and we just don't have enough respect for their work.
robn (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
AC (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
BenHV (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
David Streever (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
David Streever (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
Ralph (Guest)
[Content removed by Administrator]
Department of Transportation, Traffic and Parking (13425 civic points)
1 day ago
Someone please repost what Jim Travers wrote on behalf of his department.... and why did the Admin delete it?
Ralph (Guest)
Ralph (Guest)
Botanist (Guest)
megan (Zarejestrowany użytkownik)
@Ralph-
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inNewHaven (Guest)
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