Where's Tom Coffin?

It has come to my attention that beautiful trees all over The Great City of Atlanta are disappearing in mass quantity. Just the other day I was driving down West Paces Ferry Road, when I noticed one of the most magnificent Beech trees completely mutilated by a developer building a monstrosity of a home. This particular tree was on the corner of Rembrandt, but this is not an isolated event. Don't get me wrong, I like trees but I am no fanatic. I cut down trees for a living! I am just baffled that the city of Atlanta Arborist's Division allows this type of genocide to take place but if a homeowner wants to remove a single pesky mulberry tree, they get put through the ringer. It seems to me that this defeats the entire purpose of a Tree Ordinance in the first place. Is that what it's originator, Tom Coffin, intended. I don't think so. It is just too bad that he lost his job defending his own creation, otherwise we could ask him. I don't have anything against the hard working men and women of the city of Atlanta Arborist's Division, but I feel that big city politics get in the way of allowing them to do their job. Maybe they're understaffed, maybe developers pay big money under the table, or maybe politicians put pressure on them, I don't know, but I do feel that the ordinance should be enforced. Oh and on a closer examination of the border trees on that very lot, I found the lamest excuse for a tree save area. According to the Atlanta Tree Ordinance a tree save area should be equal to 1' wide for every 1" of tree diameter at breast height in order to preserve the "critical root-zone". The fence that was constructed was not only too small to protect fibrous absorbing roots but it was to small to protect even the root plate of this specimen white oak on the neighbors property. What a joke! My prediction is that tree will fall over this spring in the first thunderstorm of the year! Michael Franklin, what is the deal with that? Is it the developers putting pressure on the arborists? Something has to change or we won't have any specimen trees left. I don't want to cause trouble by mentioning names but you City Arborists are responsible for trees in your zones. Sadly I see this way too often and this time I had to speak up. I have never blogged before but this is the only I know to get the message out there. So here it is my first blog. You can contact me at www.arboristatlanta.com