Back to Article Index | Next column
Volume 115, Number 181 - Tuesday, April 27, 1999
April showers' stumps, fast-track flowers
by John Friedlander
The forsythias are winning.
It's hardly a surprise, like the UConn Huskies' triumph in the NCAA Final Four was. The stunning yellow blooms provide an ocular thrill every spring, and this year's eye-popping performance tops the cherry and apple blossoms again.
Spring's abundance is all the greater for its many different aspects. In the spirit of this variety, I'll touch briefly on a number of topics in today's column.
* I've written before about the beauty of Middletown's trees. We've earned the title of the "Forest City." But lately I've spotted what seems like a huge number of fresh stumps. Suspecting a Department of Transportation plot to prepare for road widenings by eliminating streetside obstacles, I called Middletown's Deputy Tree Warden Joseph Russo to find out what was going on. With the information he gave me, I realized I should have set my sights a little higher. It isn't DOT that's doing the cutting, it's Northeast Utilities, clearing powerline paths.
Apparently, NU has cut back its pruning budget so much that they only do this kind of work once every few years. When they do tackle the job, all their saved-up work is much more obvious.
On city-owned land, they have to negotiate with the city's tree experts for every planned felling. The city is aggressive about protecting its trees, taking each request individually, and rejecting many.
Trees located on private land, however, are at the mercy of the landowner. As Russo explained to me, there are all sorts of reasons landowners want to get rid of trees. I first met Russo when the aggressive roots of the red maple in my front yard destroyed the underground pipe that connects my house to the city sewer lines. I inquired about removing the tree to prevent this from happening again. I was steered straight when Russo explained how valuable each tree is, and that my sewer could be repaired easily and wouldn't be vulnerable to this problem again. I'm glad I left the tree standing.
Believe it or not, some landowners want to get rid of trees because they hate raking leaves in the fall. Felling a tree to solve an autumn leaf problem is an overreaction I hope landowners will avoid.
Meanwhile, I hope Northeast Utilities and its tree-cutting contractors will do their work with some sensitivity. Trees are a valuable part of our town's texture; they aren't just obstacles to power transmission to be disposed of like any other garbage.
* I observe with disgust the priorities demonstrated by Governor John Rowland: football is apparently more important than our children. He had to practically move heaven and earth (an extremely charitable description of the Powers That Be in Hartford) to do it, but the stadium juggernaut met its April 2 deadline to report significant progress to Robert Kraft, the new owner of Hartford. Meanwhile, the new Long Lane School site location still hasn't been announced.
If the parents of a troubled youth confined to Long Lane stopped off for a few months at a bar for some brews and a ballgame on the way to a conference with their kid's counselors, we'd think they didn't deserve to be parents. Like these errant parents without the good sense to know what's important, the Governor has fumbled the Long Lane ball while being distracted by the illusory money-green glow of NFL football. As I write, we're still waiting for a Long Lane siting decision, while every day brings new reports about the stadium's progress. Do we spend our time working to improve the safety of our children, or working to increase the wealth of a Massachusetts resident and his football team? Gee, this seems like a really easy decision to me. Why hasn't the Governor got a clue?
* While we're at it, two words: Fast Track. Applied to both the stadium and Long Lane, they appear to mean that a long list of steps meant to protect us from bad project planning and construction will be either rushed or rubber-stamped.
In the stadium's case, I have zero tolerance for the argument that the facility needs to be fast-tracked so the Patriots can play the 2002 season in their new home. There's no way the financial desires of a wealthy out-of-stater should be allowed to override the long-term needs of Hartford and Connecticut, especially when this monstrous structure will have such a major impact on the area it sits in. Those who would put Robert Kraft's interests ahead of our own clearly are confused about whom they're employed by.
It's true, however, that some projects need to be hurried to completion. When the Mianus River Bridge collapsed, 'round the clock repair work didn't keep truck traffic from devastating the neighborhoods on the alternative route around the unusable bridge. It's also true that the Long Lane situation appears to be an emergency, and every day waiting for a new facility is agonizing.
But having to fast track a project like this indicates that someone was asleep at the switch and didn't see the problem coming. It shouldn't have taken a suicide to get the state working on a solution to a problem that had been developing for years. I'm reminded of the frayed poster over every coffee maker in every deadline-driven office cafeteria: "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
I'm not comfortable with the idea of Long Lane staff and residents going another day without an improved facility. Neither am I comfortable with the construction of a new facility being done without getting all the normal approvals required of such a project. We're going to live with the results of the process far longer than the process itself. Let's make sure we do the job right.
Meanwhile, enjoy the forsythias!
Back to Article Index | Next column
Though I wrote this column, the Middletown Press owns it now, including the copyright associated with it. The column appears here by permission, and no other publication is allowed without express permission from the publisher.