Also, you have the option to file under senseless atrocities. I'm finally beginning to understand where I went wrong. Last year I asked the city to remove the dead tree in front of my house, and nothing happened. This year, it's clear that if the dead tree were a living tree, and if I planned on adding a steeple to the 1117 ESSNA, then I'd be golden, and all the living trees in front of my house would magically disappear.
In today's fathomless demonstration of City Hall as Paul Bunyon, the point goes well beyond the horrid symbolism of a city with chronic stormwater drainage problems and a leafy canopy crazily depleted by recent weather events, electing to remove healthy trees -- although it's a symbolic catastrophe of epic dimensions.
All the wrong messages are being sent today, messages about the persistent non-transparency of decision-making processes, about focusing attention on isolated objects and mere symptoms rather than egregious in the wider community fabric; a steeple may well be more important than a tree or even seven, but if there is not a mechanism for agreeing on this value, what do we really have at work here, in this place?
Talk about poisoned chalices.
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