I have read the draft of the Bainbridge Island Community Forest Management Plan that is now "available" for our review. I write "available" because this text is not easily readable in the format sent via email and while a posting in a blog format would make comments very easy there is nothing of the sort with this document that is not posted on the small page devoted to the "community forestry commission" within the abysmal website of the city of Bainbridge.
PS: in fact the draft is posted on the page -my mistake- but I still consider the site abysmal :)
One more precision: I think Marja Preston (the planner attending to the Commission) has done as fine a job as she could considering the lack of political strength and courage of the Commission members and the opposition of the Head of the planning department to any serious protection of our trees. None of the members of the Council nor the Mayor nor any other member of a commission that should have intervened (like the Planning Commission), nor any local enviroment group has done anything significant to speak up for our trees and ask for their preservation and for precisions about the creation of new parks downtown. When I offered to speak up within a project submitted to the Arts Council it was turned down. It is also my fault that I was unable to rally anybody around a cause I think is so important. A friend of the trees preaching in vain in the desert. Also in vain are the numerous letters to the editor published at regular intervals by the Review to make it look like some serious consideration is given to this issue. Of course it is exactly the opposite. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose :(
Back to the draft that ignited this post. :(
If the format is not user-friendly, the content is sad and pathetic.
It should make very angry anybody who seriously cares about the trees in our community.
It
is telling that the planning department has constantly refused to
compute the number of significant trees that have been cut down in the
recent years, especially in Winslow.
This document vaguely states
they are quickly disappearing and proposes absolutely nothing
substantial to oppose this trend but maybe planting trees along the
streets.
All the rest is left to the voluntary care of the landowners without any special requirements for new developments.
I
find the whole thing quite distressing: here is a community that
pretends to care about the trees but NOTHING, absolutely nothing is
done to protect them and promote them.
In that context the "community forestry commission" has been and continue to be an alibi for masking the real problems.
As a PS, here is the blog-model I had suggested they use (it was more than one year ago).
--------------------------------------------------------------
A draft of the Bainbridge Island
Community Forest Management Plan is now available for your review. Please give
us your input or ideas on how the community can better manage it’s most valued
resource. Click here to view a draft of the
document.
http://www.ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.us/documents/Draft%20Community%20Forest%20Management%20Plan.doc
Community
Forestry Open House
Wednesday,
September 21st
7-9PM
at City Hall
Please join us and see what the
Community Forestry Commission has been up to! View the results of the forest
canopy inventory, the street tree inventory, and receive a copy of the draft
Community Forest Management Plan. Come to give us your ideas on forest
management policies, streetscapes, creation of a Street Tree Plan and a new
Legacy Tree program.
Marja Preston, AICP
Planner
City of Bainbridge Island
280 Madison Avenue N
Bainbridge Island
,
WA
98110