I start this with the story of the city I currently live in… Lake Helen.
Once a flourishing village for North Easterners back in the late 1800’s escaping the harsh winters. Known for its citrus groves, sawmill and the Bond Brick Company were established.
At first any travelers journeyed steamer, horse or mule wagon from the St. Johns River, then things changed a bit in 1887 when the railroad came to Lake Helen.
Lake Helen may have had its’s glory into the 1930’s but it’s almost as if fairy dust was sprinkled over her… remaining an undiscovered quaint community off the beaten path, with tree-lined streets and a slow pace so reminiscent of olden days.
Fast forward to 2017… a ‘tree’ was felled in Blake Park – our city park- a beautiful 80 year old
Magnolia tree.
Allow me to rewind a bit and fill in some of the “back story”: The tree was one of two to be slated for death
row… to make way for a $50,000.00 thousand dollar septic tank at the cafe. (the cafe originally
several years ago was intended to be a ‘community center’ of sorts and the city had applied for an ECHO grant)
Diving into some bureaucracy and politics and poor business sense. Several citizens advised that only one bid was received and approved for the septic tank. Three bids at minimum is what the citizens expect – in fact it is CITIZEN DOLLARS.
Still in question is… did the City Administrator Jason Yarborough go above and beyond to offer wise and economic counsel to the Commission body? or was he too eager to put this project as a notch under his belt? I humbly am of the opinion that he could have done more to provide arguments to saving money while still getting the city the updated septic system. After this incident, I’m not going to comment on what I think about the current Commission body. This current commission body was of the opinion that the expenditure in no way was going to affect the citizens, since it was being upgraded with ‘found’ money from a sale of a city owned property that was purchased a while back in an auction. REALLY!? Found money or hard earned money is still MONEY!
So what is MY involvement in all this? Lake Helen Market in the Park and Yard Sales coordinator Karen ForakerGaryantes called me on a Friday night worried about such action and shared how much she loved the tree -wondered if anything could be done. She said the tree could be down in less then 72 hours.
My response: Yes, I believe we can do something. Let’s start a SAVE THE MAGNOLIA TREE PETITION!
Indeed I commend her for her efforts in 3 hours on a Saturday morning she had obtained over 100 signatures. But as soon as the fire rose… the politics started coming out of the woodworks.. and short of calling Washington D.C. it just seemed that “the commission body” had made a final decision and no support was coming out of City Hall. Save for one person… Mayor Buddy Snowden who had stated at public meeting that he would rather entertain other avenues before taking the tree down.
I made many phone calls… learned a lot and also found out that there was a company that could do the job for 1/2 of what the current company Dixie Septic was going to install it for. But in the end, I ran out of time.
Lake Helen, Florida named “Tree City U.S.A.” for eight years now… sadly now, it’s Commission Body and City Administrator has made hypocrites of us all.
It’s moments like this that our true nature is revealed. When money to be used for what ever reason can win over the nobility of a tree.
… and so after planting two trees on the land that I am current custodian of… I contemplate the future of
this little ‘town’ on the “Earth Day- 2017”
