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Jul 5

Court of Appeals Grants Temporary Stay to Tumwater Oak Group




For Immediate Release                                                                               July 3, 2024

 

Contact:

Ronda Larson Kramer, 360 259-3076, ronda@larsonlawpllc.com

 

Resources and links: http://linktr.ee.TumwaterOak

 

 

 

 

 

Washington State Court of Appeals Grants Temporary Stay to Tumwater Oak Group

OLYMPIA—The group standing between a historic 400-year-old Garry oak and the City of Tumwater’s plans to destroy the tree filed late July 2 in the Washington State Court of Appeals to stop action by the city until the group’s appeal is reviewed by the court.

This morning the court granted a Temporary Stay of the TRO Dissolution.


On May 31, Judge Anne Egeler of Thurston County Superior Court dissolved a temporary restraining order obtained by the group on May 24 from Judge Sharonda Amamilo of the same court.


The temporary stay, granted this morning, will be in effect pending the outcome of the July 2 request for injunctive relief to the appeals court from Save the Davis Meeker Oak. A response to the SMDGO motion from the City of Tumwater is due on July 15 and reply from SDMGO is due July 18, according to court order

.

The July 2 request to the appeals court aims to prevent any damage to the tree by the city, which has vowed to take it down and has resulted in a sustained public outcry and the formation last May of Save the Davis Meeker Garry Oak.


The appellate court has the authority to grant a stay when there are debatable issues and if there is a danger that the outcome of the appeal would become moot due to actions of one of the parties.


The motion asks the court to enjoin the mayor from cutting the tree pending the court’s final resolution of the appeal. No date has been set for that review.


The tree is historically, culturally and ecologically irreplaceable, according to the group. Through filed statements, SDMGO documents each of these factors.


The Tree Was and is Important to Native Americans


The declaration of Laura Young, a professional archivist from a sixth-generation Washington pioneer family whose children are enrolled members of an area Indigenous tribe, states that “This tree is known as one of the few territorial trees in the area used to hang Indigenous People as a method of forced property eviction before and during the regional Indian War of 1855-1856. After settlers arrived, vigilantes used it to hang Native Americans from one of its branches.”


Young added that there are also sensitive issues regarding Indigenous burial sites and grave desecration and theft of buried objects.


Young states “Not far from the tree was an intersection to an east-west trail called the Cowlitz to Yakama Trail, which went over the mountains to eastern Washington, and northwest to the Hood Canal area of the Twana and Skokomish Tribes, and the Quinault Nation. Shade next to a major trading route in the middle of a prairie where there was otherwise little shade would have been vitally important for travelers who needed to cool off and rest.”


This native oak is believed to be one of the very few still standing, noted Young. For it to be destroyed would be devastating to her family’s pioneer and Indigenous roots.

“It would prevent us from ever visiting our family’s living history again,” said Young.

An overlay map done by the Tacoma Historical Society of the 1854 survey and current aerial map shows the location of the tree in relation to the Cowlitz Trail. (Document titled Bush Family Farm).


A Pair of Kestrels is Nesting in the Tree


Raptor biologist Steve Layman documented the biological and environmental value of the oak in his declaration and the damage that removing the tree would cause to American kestrels protected by the international Migratory Bird Treaty Act.


“A family of kestrels will often reuse nest cavities year after year, down through the generations. Holes are in short supply. They evolved when there were all sorts of ages of trees, with holes mostly created by woodpeckers . . . ,” said Layman. “There are not very many trees with vacant holes anymore.”


Airport Expansion


Community activist Janet Witt’s declaration details the Port of Olympia’s planning documents that indicate the tree and the adjacent historic airplane hangar lie in the way of airport expansion. The expansion has been discussed for more than 20 years. However the port has not done an Environmental Impact Statement, only piecemeal assessments that do not address any impacts on the tree or hangar. The tree has been on Tumwater Register of Historic Places since the mid-1990s.


The City Relied on a Flawed Arborist’s Report


Beowulf Brower, a certified risk-assessment arborist, documented in his declaration the faulty information and process the City of Tumwater used to reach its flawed conclusion about the health of the tree and its decision to destroy the historic oak.



“It should, of all trees, have every conceivable thing done for it to avoid having to remove it,” said Brower. “The city arborist’s lack of consideration of any mitigation efforts other than full removal constitutes a breach in the expected duty of care assigned to a historic tree. By combining a scientifically-backed assessment, well-informed pruning and a simple cable system, any risk that exists can be mitigated to an acceptable level.”

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Jun 28

City Administrator Directs Staff to Keep Quiet About Plans to Cut Down Oak Tree

Updated: Jul 4



 

Contact:

Michelle Peterson, 360 878-7689, michellepeterson.RN@gmail.com

Ronda Larson Kramer, 360 259-3076, ronda@larsonlawpllc.com

 

Selected documents obtained by SDMGO through public records requests at: Public Records (Media Resources/Public Records Requests)

 

Website: Save the Davis Meeker Oak: https://www.davis-meeker-oak.org/

 

 

 

State Legislator Addresses City Administrator’s Directive for Silence on Oak’s Fate


TUMWATER—In what has become the City of Tumwater’s most contentious issue over trees in memory, City Administrator Lisa Parks told staff in an internal email last October to keep from the public the city’s plans to remove a 400-year-old tree next to the Olympia Airport.


Washington State Representative Beth Doglio said of Parks’s internal email, “I think the city should pause, reflect and reassess the public process concerning this historic tree, given the tremendous community and tribal concern that has come to light.”


Doglio represents the state’s 22nd Legislative District, which includes Tumwater.


Lack of Public Process


In an October 27, 2023 email obtained by Save the Davis Meeker Garry Oak, Parks wrote to staffers, “. . . there shouldn’t be any agendas that have this topic as an item listed . . . I would ask that any . . . conversations about the topic remain internal to this group.”


Later in the same email chain, another city employee explained the reason for keeping it a secret was to “get ahead of any backlash.” Tumwater Parks and Recreation Director Chuck Denney responded that Parks was disregarding “all kinds of things that need to get done.” Denney said, “Mum’s the word I guess—we are not ‘sharing’ the possibility that the tree may be removed to anyone yet.”


Though Parks’s email had noted that there were several internal steps needed before a public process was begun, these steps were not taken. Instead, Mayor Debbie Sullivan made a unilateral decision before a March 11, 2024, council work session to destroy the tree with minimal public process and notification.


Councilmember Joan Cathey remarked during that work session that the council should have been brought into the process earlier to afford time to consider options and review the issue with the community.


City Arborist Unqualified to Assess Tree Risk


Parks claimed in a May 14, 2024, memo to the city council that City Arborist Kevin McFarland who recommended removal had the credentials to do a tree risk assessment (“TRAQ”). This qualification provides assurance that an arborist has the training needed to accurately assess risk. The city arborist’s signature block states that he has this qualification. But a website listing arborist credentials indicates he lacks the qualification.


Paul Dubois of Keyport, Washington, a certified tree-risk-assessment arborist, found the danger level for injury from the Davis Meeker Garry Oak to be moderate at most, and found that it could easily be reduced to low with selective pruning and a support system. Dubois volunteered his time to perform an independent assessment of the tree on June 19, 2024.


The results of Dubois’s risk assessment are consistent with a June 2023 email from McFarland to Tumwater’s operations supervisor stating the risk was not high. The city council was never made aware of McFarland’s internal statement that directly conflicts with the conclusion in his October 2023 report to the city. In his October report, he recommended destroying the tree. McFarland has not responded to a request for comment on his contradictory statements.


Because the Davis Meeker Oak is on the Tumwater Register of Historic Places, the city must get a “waiver of a certificate of appropriateness” from the Tumwater Historic Commission before it is allowed to remove the tree—something the city has not obtained, in violation of the city’s own ordinances.


The city has not filed for a required permit from the Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP). DAHP has concluded that based on the historic and tribal association of the tree, it is an archaeological site.


Airport Expansion


Before becoming city administrator on June 16, 2023, Lisa Parks was the executive services director at the Port of Olympia, which operates the Olympia Airport next to where the tree stands.


The port is currently updating the airport’s master plan. The unadopted draft preferred alternative plan projects significant future land developed for general aviation (114 acres), aviation-related/compatible industry (245 acres), and additional area for parallel taxiways.


Local airport activist Jan Witt summarized the airport development plans that she and others were told about at an open house in 2023 held by the Port of Olympia: “The plans would reconfigure the airport to accommodate commercial passenger and freight air service by constructing a new passenger terminal and 500 parking spaces and room for more and by making taxiway changes to increase capacity and refurbishing a portion of the main runway, likely including strengthening it to accommodate heavier aircraft. Plus the plans would add a new turf runway parallel to the main north/south runway,” Witt explained.


Warren Hendrickson, the airport’s senior manager, explained to the Tumwater City Council at a February 28, 2023 work session that by 2040, the forecast potential is 20,000 passengers per month using the airport. He suggested that if the airport was not expanded to meet a forecasted deficit in the aviation industry, it would result in losing out on $31 billion in economic gains and jobs.


The Davis Meeker oak is adjacent to the end of Runway 17/35 at the airport. A 2003 environmental impact study found that the tree hinders flexibility in the use of that runway because it constitutes an “obstruction” that dictates “precision instrument approach minimums” to the runway. Part of the 2013 master plan update also mentioned infrastructure improvements to Old Highway 99 at the tree, including widening the road to four or five lanes and improving the intersection at Bonniewood Drive SE where the tree stands. That work has not been done to date.


The city maintains that airport expansion and road improvements are unrelated to the decision to remove the tree. Thurston County resident Sharron Coontz voiced skepticism: “The mayor stated unequivocally that the oak is coming down, as if there are no other options such as pruning,” said Coontz.


“That only makes me more convinced that the city has hidden motives, whether to do with the widening of Old Highway 99 or airport expansion or some other plans. The mayor has claimed that she wants an ‘unbiased’ evaluation of the tree. If so, wouldn’t she say, ‘Perhaps this tree could be saved without compromising public safety. Let’s investigate that’? Instead, she seems to have already made up her mind.”


Foregone Conclusion by City


The mayor promised at a June 4 city council meeting attended by an overflow crowd to get an unbiased evaluation in the form of a follow-up risk assessment. However, destruction of the 400-year-old tree appears predetermined, as Sullivan later told the Olympian newspaper on June 12 that the tree will not be there in the end: “It’s an historic place and will stay an historic place, it just won’t have the tree standing there,” said Sullivan.


The mayor put a request for qualifications for the follow-up assessment on the city council agenda for its July 2nd meeting.


The Davis Meeker Garry Oak is located on the old Cowlitz Trail, which was used for millennia by indigenous peoples and later by settlers on what became a northern branch of the Oregon Trail. The tree was a landmark for travelers.





Photo credit: Open Knowledge Foundation.

Jun 22

Error-Ridden City Tree Report Invalid to Assess Meeker Oak Risk

Updated: Jul 2

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                    June 21, 2024 

Save the Davis Meeker Garry Oak

Contact: 

Michelle Peterson, 360 878-7689, michellepeterson.rn@gmail.com 

Ronda Larson Kramer, 360 259-3076, ronda@larsonlawpllc.com 

Court and background documents at https://www.davis-meeker-oak.org/ Media Resources

 

Error-Ridden City Tree Report Invalid to Assess Meeker Oak Risk

TUMWATER—The report relied upon to justify the eradication of the historic Davis Meeker Garry Oak is so deficient and full of errors it cannot be relied on to determine whether the tree is a risk.


A panel of independent licensed arborists with advanced tree-risk credentials reviewed the report. The document, by Tumwater City Arborist Kevin McFarlane, has been used by Mayor Debbie Sullivan as a justification to cut down the 400-year-old tree that is on the Tumwater Register of Historic Places. She maintains the tree is unhealthy but has no evidence to back up her claim.


Notably, the city arborist lacks an important certification in tree risk assessment. Specifically, he lacks an ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification (ISA TRAQ). This is a voluntary qualification program. When a professional earns the ISA TRAQ credential, they learn a standardized, systematic process for assessing tree risk. One can verify any arborist’s credentials here: Verify an ISA Credential (treesaregood.org).


According to the panel of independent experts, McFarland appears to have rushed through his assessment, as indicated by the report’s errors:


  • It overstates the height of the tree by 54%. The report states the tree is 125’ when it is verified to be 81.1’ high.

  • In citing land use or other changes to the tree’s location, the report states “none,” while the tree, at approximately 400 years old, predates all development.

  • The potential damage to the hangar is reported as severe. The hangar is not in the dripline of the tree. At most, the risk would be for some damage to the building’s exterior.

  • Photographic evidence shows a two-inch area of open decay, yet the report says that 50% of the tree’s circumference is an open void.

  • The arborist failed to use resistance drilling, a technique would have helped determine the density of the wood.

  • The extent of decay that is estimated and dramatically illustrated is based on only a one-hour climbing survey of the tree and on tapping the tree with a mallet.

  • The risk categorization, which is based on a series of formulaic steps, does not conclude with the correct level of risk/damage; it rates the risk higher.

  • Due to the risk the report assumes, Mr. McFarland recommended removal of the tree and dismissed the possibility of “retrenchment,” a vague term that encompasses numerous possible approaches to pruning or reshaping the tree to enhance its strength.

  • Another consultant cited in the report who performed tomography of the tree—testing by sound waves—recommended instead that the tree be retained and managed as a “veteran” tree with retrenchment and pruning. A third independent arborist reviewing the report states that a 10 to 15 percent reduction through pruning would reduce strain on the tree by 50 percent.


"The loss of habitat value from removing a tree of this magnitude can not be mitigated,” said certified arborist Beowulf Brower. “The risk assessment condemning it contains such a variety of errors that it should be redone by a neutral third party. While the methodology of the inspection was sound, the report is incongruent with those findings."


Jesse Brighten of Arbor Dreams and a certified arborist and tree-risk assessment specialist, said, “The errors contained within the report (McFarland’s) are so egregious the recommendation for removal should not be considered.”


“The economic, social, historical and tribal values outweigh any hasty recommendation for removal. Preservation efforts should be considered,” Brighten added.


Mayor Sullivan in April overrode the Historic Preservation Commission’s refusal to remove the tree from the Tumwater Historic Register, claiming that she had emergency authority to skip obtaining a required waiver for taking down the tree. She then got bids for the removal without opportunity for public review or comment and she went to court to remove a temporary restraining order obtained by Save the Davis Meeker Garry Oak (SDMGO) citizens group.


The Davis Meeker Garry Oak is located on the old Cowlitz Trail, used for millennia by Indigenous people and later by setters on what became a northern branch of the Oregon Trail. The tree was a landmark for travelers.


Garry oaks are Washington’s only native species of oak, and Garry oak habitat is protected under state law. Also, oak is the national tree of the United States.





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