Time up for Norris Park trees

There is a time for everything, the saying goes and for the trees in Norris Park, it appears time is up.

McCook Public Works director Kyle Potthoff said city crews began today to cut down the 100-year old trees in Norris Park, after receiving the unanimous go-ahead Monday night from the McCook City Council at its regular meeting.

Trees that will be removed include nine on the north side facing H Street, 22 on the west side facing Norris Avenue, nine on the south side facing G Street and four on the east side facing East First. A wind storm in the 1980s removed a majority of the older trees on the east side, Potthoff said.

Former city councilman and McCook Daily Gazette columnist Dick Trail made a plea not to eliminate all of the 44 hackberry and linden trees, citing the lack of shade and aesthetics of the park for the next 10 years until the new trees mature.

"The park will be hot and there won't be any shade," he said, adding that for the next 10 years -- "basically for the rest of my life" -- the park will be unusable. He asked the council to consider other options besides the recommendation from city staff and members of Parks and Tree Advisory Boards to immediately remove all the trees. Instead, he advocated to remove only half.

"The park won't look very nice for the next 10 years. Please reconsider," he asked the council.

Another former councilman in the audience spoke up and put it another way.

"Don't clear cut me, bro," Bill Longnecker said.

But what trees to remove and which ones to save would be hard to evaluate, said Potthoff, when all of them have decay and are at the end of their lifespan.

To illustrate to the council the condition the trees were in, Potthoff showed a segment of an elm tree trunk that a city resident gave him, where the center was hollow except for a thin ring of live tissue under the bark. Like the example showed, the trees in Norris Park look healthy on the outside but are decayed inside, he said. Which ones to cut down and which ones to save would be difficult to assess, he explained.

"It's Russian Roulette," Councilman Jack Rogers summarized.

Another councilman, Lonnie Anderson, asked if fast-growing trees could be planted as replacement trees.

Trees that grow quickly usually do not have a long life span, said City Manager Kurt Fritsch, in addition to having weak growth that breaks easily.

Fritsch also said that if only half of the trees were eliminated, the replacement trees would be damaged when the other half were taken down. He commented that he put himself through college by logging and that the tree segment Potthoff brought in was the kind of tree loggers commonly referred to as "widow makers."

Councilman Aaron Kircher agreed that to cut down the mature trees would "devastate the park" but added that it appeared to be the safest alternative.

"I'd rather have people be mad at me about the lack of shade than to have a limb fall on a kid or a car," he acknowledged.

Council member Colleen Grant reminded others how a large tree limb fell at the park hours after Heritage Days, leaving a hole in the ground six inches across and one foot deep.

"At this point we don't have a better answer," she said.

Councilman Kircher suggested the new trees be of various life spans so the city wouldn't be looking at the same situation 50 years from now and to have some sort of policy in place to recognize this.

Potthoff answered that Parks and Tree Advisory board members will be creating a "revitalization plan" that not only will recommend the kinds of trees to replant but also other improvements to the Norris Park, such as sidewalks, playground equipment and the bandshellF.

The kind of trees they were looking at would be similar to the newly-created Russell Park, on East Fifth and J, he added.

City staff and Park and Tree Advisory Board members did not come to the decision lightly to remove all of the trees, he emphasized.

"We understand this is not an easy decision," Potthoff said, considering the size and scope of the project.

Mayor Dennis Berry commented that residents who own trees past their prime are looking at the same scenario and that other city trees, such as those in the cemetery and other parks, needed to be looked at as well.

In approving the removal of all trees, the council also agreed to use $5,000 from the tree replacement program in the budget and $18,510 from Council Contingency funds, for the estimated $23,510 it will cost to replant 30 trees, each a minimum of 3 inches in trunk diameter, stump grinding and 17 yards of concrete to replace a sidewalk damaged by several trees.

Citizens and organizations can also donate memorial trees in Norris Park, as a tribute to loved ones. Replacement trees generally run about $400-$600, Potthoff said, for a tree with at least a three-inch trunk that can withstand and thrive in park conditions.