Parks commission debates tree ordinance

The Wrangell parks and recreation advisory board discussed but took no vote on a draft of an ordinance aimed to prevent logging in city parks.

The ordinance has been in the works since police reported that at least two trees had been cut down for Christmas trees in December. Parks manager Amber Al-Haddad presented committee members with templates cribbed in part from similar ordinances on the Internet, though logging in public parks isn’t a particularly widespread public dilemma, she said.

“What I found from cities around the nation is that park ordinances especially don’t really deal with cutting down trees,” she said.

Parks and recreation board newcomer Cindy Martin said she was concerned about placing additional workload on the parks director.

“I’m aware of the demands that your job entails,” she told Al-Haddad. “It seems like persons who would want an item like this could go to many other places for this than require your time.”

The draft ordinance – which will likely be substantially revised based board members’ March 5 discussion – allows for a permitting process for people who want to take trees in public land. Prospective loggers would need approval from Public Works before removing any tree. The permitting process was designed to allow the public to use the land while at the same time preventing loggers from damaging or over-using a public resource, Al-Haddad told the board.

“We’re a public entity,” she said. “That is property that belongs to the citizens. We kind of have ordinances that lay it out.”

“I think that we still have a lot of work to do on this. Do we say ‘You can’t really cut any trees for any personal purpose?’ or do you say ‘You have to come and get a permit?’” she added.

In brainstorming sessions conducted earlier in the year, the board had discussed limiting tree-taking within a certain distance from trails, though that approach was scrapped in favor of the permitting process after parks department officials recognized the distances could extend the no-cutting zone onto other properties.

A potential permitting process could also include not just taking trees, but also adding them, said board member Bob Lippert.

“I mean also just a planting,” he said. “If someone wanted to plant a memorial tree for someone. It doesn’t have to be really time-consuming.”

The draft version may have created too much bureaucracy already, said board member Grover Mathis.

“Two pages have already turned this into a big bureaucracy,” he said. “This is overkill, to me. I do understand it to an extent. All it started with was one small little ordinance that tells people they can’t cut down any trees.”

The parks director shouldn’t be involved with permitting trees for taking, Mathis added.

“I’d want to be, if it’s on the property that I manage,” Al-Haddad said.

Mathis suggested an alternative wording.

“Anyone not an employee of the city of Wrangell cannot cut a tree without permission from the city of Wrangell,” he said.

The ordinance must be broadly worded, but should also be easy to understand, Mathis said.

“It’s involving a lot more into it than there are problems right now,” he said. “I haven’t heard of any problems or any instances of people cutting, carving, damaging, pruning or planting where they shouldn’t. We want an ordinance, but do we really need to encompass so much language for what is just, basically, somebody cut down a couple of trees?”

Lippert countered that an ordinance which focuses only on live trees could potentially allow people to take dead trees with impunity.

“Does this include dead trees or just live trees?” he said. “Standing live, downed live?”

Any ordinance recommended by the board would go to the borough assembly for a first and second reading prior to implementation.

The board also briefly discussed improving or creating signage for the Mount Dewey trailhead and the possibility of creating a marquee to display photos of parks and rec people in the facility housing the public pool.

Potential changes to that facility’s hours of operation have been put on hold until a clearer budget picture emerges for the coming fiscal year, Al-Haddad told the board.