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Youngstown committee rejects city plan to cut down two healthy trees downtown
YOUNGSTOWN
A city request to cut down two healthy silver maple trees in order to get a better look at the downtown Christmas tree was met with a “ho, ho, no!” by the Design Review Committee.
Not trying to be a Grinch, Dave Kosec, a DRC member, said Tuesday: “It’s one month a year, so why don’t you put the Christmas tree somewhere else. I don’t like where the Christmas tree sits now. There are other places downtown where it can go.”
The committee unanimously voted Tuesday to deny the city’s request to cut down the trees.
Angelo Pignatelli, also a committee member, said it’s not worth taking down two healthy trees to have a Christmas tree up for a month when it could be placed somewhere else downtown.
Bill D’Avignon, the city’s Community Development Agency director and a DRC member, suggested cutting down one of the two trees. That request was rejected by the rest of the committee.
Charles Shasho, a DRC member and deputy director of the city’s public-works department, referred to downtown trees as a “sensitive issue,” and said these two are “overgrown.”
He added: “The trees are 10 years old and look at how big they are. What will it look like in five years?”
In an ironic twist, the city’s representative at the meeting to get the two healthy trees cut down was David Sturtz, its forester.
He said the two trees on either side of where the official Christmas tree is placed are about 25 feet high and growing. The lower limbs have been cut, he added.
The Christmas trees used by the city are typically 25 to 30 feet high, Sturtz said.
“These two obstruct the view of the Christmas tree,” he said. “It can be a challenge at times to get the Christmas tree [in that spot.] The Christmas trees fits, but as the other trees grow, it will be difficult to see the Christmas tree. There’s nothing wrong with the trees, but they obstruct the view.”
There are seven trees on the north island of Central Square and 10 on the south island, the home of the Man on the Monument, which honors those from the Mahoning Valley who died in the Civil War, Sturtz said.
Several of those trees block the base of the monument, but not the “Man,” he said.
“But they will grow taller than the monument,” Sturtz added.