MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – The Mobile Tree Commission has not met since March, holding up development projects and drawing criticism.
The seven-member board needs at least four members to conduct business. Part of the problem is that there are two vacancies. But at last week’s meeting, no one has shown up.
John Robb, president of Friends of Mobile Trees, said the commission met regularly via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. But for most of this year, he told the Mobile City Council on Tuesday, it has conducted no business.
“This looks to us more like a boycott or a deliberate obstruction of city business than a quorum issue,” he said.
Outside the council chamber, Robb reiterated that he believes it is willful.
“Quite frankly, if I was running the show, I’d probably terminate all five of them,” he told reporters.
William Rooks, the Tree Commission chairman, acknowledged that achieving quorum has been a challenge the past several months. He attributed that to vacancies that have numbers as many as three.
But Rooks said many of those canceled meetings were due to the fact that there were no permits on the agenda.
“It’s not uncommon,” he said.
Rooks said one of the vacancies only very recently has been filled.
“We’ve been kind of operating with just four members,” he said.
One of the vacant commission seats is from City Council District 4. The councilman, Ben Reynolds, said he has asked Robb for help identifying possible appointees.
“Not everybody wants to serve on a volunteer board,” he said. “And we’ve got, I don’t know how many – it’s a lot. We might have 30, 40 different volunteer boards.”
Reynolds added that some people are reluctant to subject themselves to public scrutiny.
“Just the rigors of being on a board is not all that attractive sometimes,” he said.
It’s not just the meetings, Robb said. He told council members that the website has not been updated since May. The phone voicemail has been full since April. And he said staff rarely return text messages and emails.
“Trees are our greatest natural resource, with the exception of our people,” he said. “And if Mobile would embrace what that means for us as a community, it would be transformative. We look at cities like Charleston, as I mentioned earlier, that are world-class tourist destinations, largely because of their live oak trees.”
Robb called on the council to fill the vacancies and also urged the city to increase the Urban Forestry Department’s budget. He said city arborist Peter Toler is doing a great job but added, “One arborist can’t adequately meet the daily challenges of a city this large.”
According to city officials, the meeting cancellations have delayed about a half-dozen commercial projects, some of which are sizeable developments.
James Barber, Mayor Sandy Stimpson’s chief of staff, said the administration is proposing a change to the city’s tree ordinance to allow for a “default approval” process. He said it would give the administration flexibility to approve permits to remove trees from city rights of way as part of commercial projects if the Tree Commission fails to reach a quorum for 60 consecutive days. There is already a similar procedure for individual residential projects, he says.
“What we don’t want to see is that construction or commercial projects are held up because of a lack of quorum,” he said. “And again, we’re approaching five months without a quorum.”
Rooks disputed the administration’s numbers. He said there really only has been one major project that has been delayed, a new business planned for Cottage Hill and Hillcrest roads. He said the parties agreed to postpone the issue from July and August and added that a makeup meeting is scheduled for later this month to account for last week’s missed meeting.
As to failure to update the website or clear old voicemail messages, Rooks said those are responsibilities of the city’s Urban Forestry Department.
Robb said he is uncertain whether the city could bypass the Tree Commission since it is governed by state law. But he said there is a simple solution that does not require amending the ordinance.
“I think the answer is for them to fill the seven slots,” he said.
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