“I am devastated and angry,” Kevin Suckling wrote in an email to the Mirror Thursday with the subject line: “Here’s an Arbor Day story for you!” — a reference to Friday’s designation as a time to celebrate trees and the benefits they confer. In the email, Suckling included before and after photos of his house front, analogous to the ads in old magazines for bodybuilding programs — except that here, the “after” picture taken following removal of his trees this week was intended to show the way Suckling doesn’t want things to look.

The decision not to permit an exemption for Suckling’s trees was City Council’s, reflecting council’s wish that the results of the project be uniform — without exceptions that could create a bad precedent, according to City Manager Christopher McGuire and City Councilman Jesse Ickes.

Both the original plans and the final plans approved by council show all the trees being removed, said Public Works Director Nate Kissell, who for a time last year was interim city manager.

In between, Kissell’s department tried to come up with “a reasonable accommodation” that would have allowed the trees in front of Suckling’s residence to stand, Kissell said.

The Suckling property along Broad Avenue is seen after trees were removed for the sidewalk project. Courtesy photo

That gave Suckling confidence.

“I was told by (Kissell and another department employee) that they had figured out a way,” Suckling wrote.

The potential exemption was also reflected in plans that Suckling saw on an electronic device carried by an employee of the contractor for the sidewalk job, according to Suckling.

He got the bad news that the hoped-for exemption had been cut when Kissell visited him Tuesday, Suckling wrote.

Council wanted “consistency” in the look of the sidewalks, according to Ickes and McGuire.

Furthermore, granting the “carve-out” that Suckling desired could have led to problems with all such projects, McGuire said.

“It could get political, for one (thing),” with certain people perceived to have better connections to get what they wanted from the city, Ickes said.

Keeping things uniform helps the city avoid such perceptions of unfairness, Ickes said.

In addition, exemptions would also impinge on staff time, he said.

One of the concerns in designing the current project was to ensure that whatever trees were planted wouldn’t ultimately damage the new sidewalks, Ickes said.

Other city projects have included planting of trees that “busted up” sidewalks — most notably the Bradford pears that have damaged the walks on Seventh and Eighth streets between Sixth Avenue and the top of the hill overlooking Pleasant Valley, Ickes said.

In general, trees don’t belong within the bounds of sidewalks, Ickes said.

Accordingly, plans for the current project calls for trees to be placed in the public right of way on the house side of the sidewalks — on residents’ lawns, Kissell said in October.

Suckling doesn’t want trees to be planted on his lawn, McGuire said.

“He (just) didn’t want the city to touch his (existing) trees,” the manager said.

Suckling’s trees, which were planted by the city and which were located next to the curb, raised a couple of sidewalk slabs a little, as an examination by the Mirror showed in October.

Suckling and his wife are “responsible homeowners,” Ickes said.

They maintain their property well, he said.

And trees provide shade and oxygen, he said.

“I can see it from both sides,” Ickes said. “I get it.”

But the city can’t afford any other issues like the ones created on Seventh and Eighth streets, he said.

Things might go better if the city reactivated the Shade Tree Commission, whose duty was to be steward and advocate for street trees, according to Suckling.

That is the first such suggestion he’s heard since the Shade Tree Commission stopped functioning in 2020, Ickes said.

The disregard of his wishes makes a mockery of the city’s new Comprehensive Plan, which includes recommendations for promoting conservation of street trees, according to Suckling.

The plan is no more than a “slick PR piece,” he wrote.

The sidewalk project is being funded with the last “tranche” of the city’s $39.6 million American Rescue Plan Act grant, and it’s taking place on a state artery, factors that helped create a time squeeze last year, as the contract for the work needed to be signed before Jan. 1, to meet an ARPA spending deadline, according to McGuire.

With more time to spare, the city might have made affected residents more aware of what was about to happen, according to McGuire.

“We probably should have done a better job of communicating the goals and the scope of the project,” he said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.