Noblesville resident doubtful of Mayor Jensen’s claim that cutting down trees is about public safety

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Dear Editor:

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to Mayor Jensen’s guest column on June 21 where he congratulated the city of Noblesville for being named a Tree City USA for 34 consecutive years.

The opening two paragraphs of his narrative paint a glowing testimony to the city’s efforts regarding the enhancement of the community’s urban forests and how richly deserving the city is in this recognition. He notes that trees are a “critical asset of any city” and that Noblesville met one major criteria for being a Tree City USA by being committed to a $2 per capita amount to be spent on urban forestry. With a population of 72,748 as for 2022, that amounts to $145,496. For a city budget of $116 million that amounts to 0.1 percent of the city’s budget.

Unfortunately, the Mayor’s actions are not in keeping with the image he is attempting to project in his glowing testimony – certainly not when it comes to sustaining and improving neighborhood landscapes where his constituents live.

In his opening two paragraphs, the mayor identifies all the good he and his staff have performed over the years regarding urban forestry and then spends seven paragraphs defending his actions in taking trees down throughout communities in Noblesville. To be fair, I live in one of those communities where approximately 300 mature trees out of 600 or so have been identified for removal over the next two to three years due to various and sundry reasons with the primary being that the roots of these trees are causing the sidewalk to buckle and thus, are a threat to “public safety.”

The side street that I live on is about two-tenths of mile in length and then dead-ends. Last night, I counted 32 trees and 29 of those 32 have been identified for removal due to their threat to “public safety” … really? The fact 91 percent of a side street’s trees have been identified for removal boggles the imagination and calls into question the integrity of the mayor’s evaluation standards with regard to “public safety.”

The result of Mayor Jensen’s actions will be to denude our neighborhood of one of our most treasured community attributes. Property values will decline, and the general ambience of the community will suffer. According to a report on the Realtor.com website, “The visual appeal of trees is unmistakable—beautiful landscaping attracts buyers. Research has shown that planting large trees can increase property values anywhere from 3% to 15%, according to the Arbor Day Foundation.”¹

Instead of seeking to preserve and sustain trees and address the desires of his constituents, the mayor and his arborist staff have opted to simply remove the trees as the optimal solution, and use “public safety” as the reason. As one neighbor pointed out, it takes two hours to cut a tree down, six to seven hours to repair a sidewalk, and 25 years to grow a tree.

Finally, the Mayor states in his narrative that the city has a strong commitment to our tree canopy. He goes on to state that investment in the tree canopy across our city is a top priority.

I guess in the final analysis, it’s simply too difficult to square these words of the mayor with his actions in our neighborhood. His statement about “public safety” is “government speak” at its best. I guess when I think of “public safety,” I think of our police preventing and responding to crime, city services responding to emergencies, and making sure buildings and roads are safe to use. The fact a sidewalk has buckled by an inch doesn’t rise as a public safety priority. In fact, the mayor must feel the same way because the most egregious examples of sidewalk buckling are found on the neighborhood’s main thoroughfare, which isn’t scheduled for its “public safety” upgrade until next year.

So much for prioritizing “public safety.”

I can certainly be accused of being cynical and bitter about this, but after living in Noblesville for 25 years and nurturing my landscape and taking care of the trees planted in the right-of-way alongside my property, I believe I earned the right to be somewhat cynical. Mayor Jensen may say he has our “public safety” at heart, but these actions show me he doesn’t have my or the community’s best interest at heart.

Sorry to be a pessimist, but others in Noblesville need to beware … he’s coming to your neighborhood next in his pursuit of “public safety.”

(1) Durrani, A. (2021). Branch Out! How Trees Can Affect the Value of a Home. realtor.com

Tom Roberts
Noblesville