As a person who has devoted his life’s work to preserving, maintaining and planting trees, I am very disappointed to see that a row of beautiful old maple trees were recently taken down along North Street to the cemetery in Ashfield. These were the last of our remaining original trees that lined a historical section of our town.
Under the Massachusetts Public Shade Tree Act, Chapter 87, Section 3 the town tree warden must post notice of a public hearing on the live trees to be removed. Also, the notice must include location, type of tree and size. The time of the hearing must be posted in two public places in town seven days prior to the hearing and also be published in a newspaper of general circulation two successive weeks prior to the hearing.
To my knowledge this wasn’t done. As a result many citizens of Ashfield who appreciate trees had no way to have any say in the removal of these historic trees.
Some citizens of Ashfield mentioned forming a special town tree committee to oversee future tree removals and possibly replant new trees. This was done in the past as I was on two tree committees that planted trees around town. The trees were donated by townspeople and planted by volunteers. All of this was done with no help from the tree warden or the tree warden’s budget.
There has to be some money appropriated in the tree warden’s budget to replace some of the trees.that have been removed. The tree warden stated that Eversource Electric Company saved the town between $4,000 to $5,000. If that is the case then maybe some of that savings can be put to use by replacing the trees taken down.
Ramon R. Sears
Mass. Arborist Association and former Ashfield Tree Warden