How is your Forestry
Division organized?
SC: Our Division covers parks maintenance, for-
estry, and horticulture. We have some specialized
staff to cover each area, but all work together
and pitch in to help one another as needed. Our
tree crew (Scott Conover and Jim Lekoy) have
over 50 years of combined experience and are
veteran Certified Arborists, and Scott recently
became Board Certified too. They perform
inspections and handle priority jobs, sensitive
jobs, and other forestry tasks as time permits,
sometimes with additional help on the crew.
We have a chipper truck and an aerial lift truck
to support forestry operations. However, we con-
tract out most removals, the street tree planting
labor, most stumps, and our winter pruning con-
tract (all street trees are pruned on a six-year
cycle). Most park work is done in-house, but our
lone crew can't get to nearly all that needs to be
done along our streets, so the crew also spends
considerable time assembling our contracts and
supervising our contractors in the field. That takes
a huge burden off me. We've used both staff and
contractors from day one, and that has helped
us avoid any friction or unease regarding the use
of contractors. Our staff recognizes the contrac-
tors as an essential part of our forestry program
and a crucial element of our ongoing success.
And they recognize that poor quality work by
contractors may get our own staff blamed, so
they have a strong incentive to be vigilant!
Anything else you
want to share?
SC: When our Division's administrative assis-
tant retired a year ago, we had the unique
opportunity to promote from within, and
our inventory specialist/tree crew member
Veronica Trommer took over the office duties.
It's pretty slick to have a seasoned Certified
Arborist/CDL driver/licensed pesticide applicator
answering the phones when the public calls!
30 CityTREES
The Forestry crew is normally only two or three people,
but after major storm events, it's an "all hands on deck"
situation, and other staff pitch in for days or weeks.
The City's historic Mallway District is its oldest
commercial neighborhood. The streetscape there
was renovated in 2010 to add some real pizazz.
Ulmus 'Frontier' has thrived in the planters.
