City’s downtown is being defaced

Little by little, the Geesaman administration seems to be intent on defacing downtown Portland.

It’s not enough that the city’s redevelopment commission has resembled Rip Van Winkle, snoozing while vacant buildings crumble and the commission’s available tools lie idle. 

It’s not enough that visible eyesores are ignored. 

Increasingly the city appears to be in the timber business.

Barely a month goes by before another downtown tree is removed, leaving behind a scar on the sidewalk.

The planting of street trees has never been simple, and Portland’s experience has more than its share of miscues. 

In a perfect world, trees would be placed where they would enhance commercial properties rather than obscure them. In a perfect world, the right species would be planted, trees that flourished rather than littering the pavement with crab apples. Then again, in a perfect world, bird droppings would never be an issue. In Portland’s case, all of those have been problems at one time or another.

But rather than solve the problem, the Geesaman administration’s approach has been to fire up the chainsaws.

Would it be possible to replace some of the trees along Main and Meridian streets in locations that didn’t obscure commercial properties? Sure.

Would it be possible to identify species that would be better suited to the “urban” environment of downtown? Sure.

It might even be possible to come up with a solution to the bird droppings.

At one point, Mayor Geesaman had a state arborist come to town to look at the situation and make recommendations. But that’s where it stopped.

Instead of addressing the issue, trees have been removed without discussion, without a chance for comment and without debate. And once they’re gone, they’re gone. There is no coherent plan for replacement or relocation of trees. Once the chainsaws have started, all other options are off the table.

That amounts to nothing more than simple vandalism. Vandalism funded by your tax dollars. — J.R.