Seattle School District’s bad faith decision to fell trees at Ingraham High - angering neighbors and Mayor Nickels
Wow, they may be crazy, but the Seattle School District has got chutzpah. This week they announced they were withdrawing their application for permits to remove nearly 70 trees from Ingraham High School, and instead will just go ahead and chop them down next week.
It’s actually pretty amazing that they took this course of action, because this basically turned some important supporters against them. I mean, not only are they acting in terribly bad faith by basically giving the finger to the neighborhood, but they’re angering the mayor with their decision (friendly word of advice to Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson, our mayor really doesn’t like it when his team members stray from ‘following the course’), and they’re acting like they are some kind of private landowner - instead of the publicly funded agency they are.
Fortunately the neighbors are on top of the ball here, and have been giving this bad School District behavior the public visibility it deserves.
Next week should be interesting - a court injunction may happen, or the city may just find out how much power the School District has (and will probably lose as part of a public opinion backlash) if it goes ahead and fells these trees.
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There is an appraisal method to calculate the present value of the future benefits of the grove. It is called the Trunk Formula Method, and has been documented by the Council of Tree And Landscape Appraisers (CTLA).
Another appraisal method is salvage value. The school district has received a bid for $25,000 from a logger who is going to sell these trees to the sawmill. This is the salvage value, but it does not account for trucking or debris disposal costs.
It also does not take into account the habitat value to wildlife, the recreation value to students and the community, the stormwater retention value that reduces demand on our sewage treatment facilities, the air freshening (also known as carbon sequestration) value as CO2 is soaked up, and Oxygen is released, the noise buffering value, keeping sound from kids in, and traffic out, or the increase in real estate value, since trees add at least 7% to the value of land.
The CTLA formula factors in all of these values. It uses the diameter of the trunk as the basic dimension of financial worth. An estimate of the true appraised value of the trees proposed for logging by the school district is about 3/4 of a million dollars, according to testimony at the environmental appeal hearing.
These two estimates are so far apart in value, I’m thinking the school district is trying to lowball us. The wood is not the only measurable asset here, and this attempt at ignorance is pretty transparent.
These trees are on public land, and the district has the obligation to hand the Ingraham Forest over to the next generation in an intact condition.
The difference in a community with a half acre of trees removed is a substantial loss of quality of life. The bogus claim that saplings from a nursery are “replacement trees” needs to be rejected as an unsupportable arguement.
With 27 acres to work with, the school master plan has identified 4 potential sites on campus as suitable to replace the portable buildings sitting in the parking lot.
The district claims it would be more expensive to put the 12 new classrooms anywhere except inside the forest grove. By digging in their heels, the district has spent even more money defending the poor design choice that requires logging. They probably have started designing a new plan with an alternative location for the construction project, but aren’t telling us.
It think this latest tactic is just a way to save face for the new superintendant. By withdrawing the building permit applications, the district can now say that this design was just tentative, and they have suddenly found an alternative location that will work much better.
It seems remarkable that the School District decision makers are collectively composed of what would charitably be known as “slow learners”, and that they are so easily and repeatedly gulled by their hired consultants and the sharks in their law department into making choices that reflect so keenly and so poorly on their intellect and judgment, resulting in a profound distrust within the general public. No wonder parents who have the means are refusing to have their children exposed to an educational system controlled by these dimwits, who appear completely oblivious to the widespread anger and resentment generated by their inanity and hubris. The issue of their bullheaded refusal to rethink, and their bullying treatment of any person or group able to muster the temerity to question any of their opinions or decisions clearly reveals the obvious, that these people have absolutely no business being in their positions of power. They may succeed in once again skirting the law by felling the Ingraham Forest, but it may also be the last time they have the opportunity to defy Seattle’s parents and citizens.
Save the trees, fell the School district!
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