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Home > Faculty Senate > Meeting Documentation > Faculty Senate Minutes > Transcript Of Tree Discussion

TRANSCRIPT OF Tree Discussion

DETAILED TRANSCRIPT OF GENERAL DISCUSSION ABOUT SPRING-BREAK TREE-CUTTING INCIDENT
VSU FACULTY SENATE MEETING, APRIL 20, 2000.

Dr. Bailey's account of the tree cutting over Spring Break: -----------------------------------------------------------

"It's taken me awhile to look into the situation. Twelve trees were cut that a number of you feel should not have been cut. Let me tell what I know about the matter and then you can ask me any questions you wish, and I'll try to answer you as straight as possible. Originally... as I said, I finally got most of this information clear in my own head... originally, these trees were scheduled to be taken down; they were part of the original plans. However, Dr. Bergstrom, you are correct in contending this, there was an agreement with the Beautification Committee that they would be retained."

"When Don Reames Construction Co. graded the entrance road, they notified the general contractor and the superintendent from GSFIC that in several areas the road was over 18" lower than the surrounding ground and that heavy root damage had been done by this equipment due to the grading. The planned curb would be 12 inches lower than the roots of several existing trees and no final grading could be accomplished if the trees remained. I was not informed of this, I'm sure the committee was not informed of it. Also, data cable serving Powell Hall was found to be entangled in the root systems of one or two of the trees. In addition, the installation of twin 36-inch storm retention pipes did damage to the roots of two or three trees. And therefore, what occurred was this: sometime in the [inaudible] last week or so, Mr. Brignati and I went over to this building because, frankly, we had a problem with the paneling going up and down the halls... in that it doesn't look the way that is acceptable. The building people asked us to come over and look at the paneling. We were trying to reach an accomodation that would take care of the paneling and at the same time not cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of money. And that was the subject of our conversation; as we walked out the door, they said can we take down... we're going to take down these trees, is that alright? Mr. Brignati said, 'is it part of the plan for the building?' The answer came in 'yes.' And he said, and I concurred, 'if it's part of the plan, then it's fine.' Now there's where the mistake occurred, because that plan had been modified somewhere along the way. So if there's a culprit in the situation, it's the President of the University. I assume that... I don't think that people from GSFIC, or the person from the construction company, Gil, I don't think they were trying to pull anything, I think they were telling us what they thought was correct. But they were wrong. For that misinformation, I apologize. I do not apologize for my intent; I was not trying to mislead anyone, I was trying to be open and honest."

"Now the only thing I know to do to take care of this situation now and in the future is this: I propose that before any tree is cut on this campus, I be notified personally and I grant my permission, and I will not grant my permission until I personally consult with Dr. Bergstrom and his committee. That doesn't mean I'll always take their advice, but I will consult and I will consider it very carefully. That's all I know to say, that is the truth, and that is the whole story, and I did not get the full story until about 11 o'clock this morning from a third rate... not a third rate person, a third tier person.. there is a distinction between the two; I finally got the report from him. I'll be glad to answer any questions you have today."

[Dr. Bailey to Dr. Bergstrom, rising to address the Senate]: I hope you'll carry the spirit of Jewish and Christian charity along. We're not out to indict anyone. My modus operandi has always been to correct situations, not to find fault or attempt to destroy; that goes for people, as well as trees. Go right ahead, Dr. Bergstrom."

[Dr. Bergstrom thanks Dr. Bailey, hands out copies of existing tree policy explaining that there is general confusion about it]

Dr. Bergstrom's comments and questions (accompanied with overheads):
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm glad that Dr. Bailey did mention this; just for the sake of completeness, this is the copy of the letter [May 29, 1997] Dr. Bailey referred to, summarizing the consultation we did have, I personally requested from Dr. Bailey permission to meet with the architects, IPG, with Mr. Bell and Mr. Brignati, and members of the committee. We were pleased that Mr. Parris, the architect was very accomodating and said 'yes, we can redesign the entrance drive and the walkways so as to save approx. a dozen trees' so that's when the consultation occurred; I wrote up this record of the meeting on the day of the meeting and sent it to all parties involved [cc: to Bell, Brignati, Bailey and members of the Campus Beautification Subcommittee]. We did discuss tree by tree what could be done. This is a portion of the contract site maps that I obtained 2-3 days ago from IPG. This is the extant contract site map; the architects confirmed there had been up till that day no amendments approved to it. ...the trees that we particularly pored over are mostly on the east side of the building and along the east side of Powell Hall, because that's where the ingress road would come. One correction to what Dr. Bailey said is that not all of the trees cut down over spring break were originally [before the May 1997 consultation] planned to come out. Some of them were planned to come out, but others were not. This clump of trees [pointing to overhead of site map] which is, or I should say was, immediately outside the front entrance doors of the building--that entire clump of trees was cut down, that includes 6 or 7 large pines and actually a number of palms and a couple of dogwood trees, as well. The only trees that were designated to come out on the contract plans drawn up in September of 1997 were these rectangularly hatched ones here. So, there were relatively few outside the footprint that had to come out, after we sat down and figured out a way that we could curve the entrance road to avoid the trees. We were pleased that the architects were able to accomodate this request. And, in fact, the trees had been there all during the 2-yr construction phase."

"We sort of were proud of this as a somewhat rare example of collaboration and cooperation, and this is the way the tree policy... there's some good stuff in there. The preamble tells us why we, especially, as the leading center for higher education in the region should be doing this, should be setting the example, we should in some cases be taking the extra step to do things that are not necessarily done in the private world, where you go out and just clear the site, and it's easier to work with. We should be leading by example and doing things in some cases maybe the hard way. We now have another opportunity to do this with the library annex building. But I still ask 'where is the direction?' The gain that we thought we had here is now gone, and there's been an ad hoc explanation, but you can't really go back and even determine whether that ad hoc explanation is valid."

"Let's sit down now and talk to the architects of the new building and say 'alright, it's going to cost $10,000 more to reroute this cable, but you are going to save 3 100-yr old pine trees. How much are those 100-yr old pine trees worth? They're not worth $10,000 because any amount of money that we have to spend to do something special to show that we are setting an example for the region in environmental stewardship... it's not worth $10,000? I think it is."

"I also think that... the policy says the administration "must" ... consult the committee. Consultation we understand to be to come to the committee before lines are drawn for the building to determine where things are going. Let's look at where the trees are first, and let's see if we can possibly, you know, without destroying the other values that we're trying to achieve, but let's see if there is a way that we can affect the placement of the roadways and the walkways and save the trees. And this is an example of doing that, of that kind of collaboration. I still don't quite understand why this breakdown in communication occurred."

"Up until today this [overhead of letter from Jim Brignati to John Butler, GSFIC Director in Atlanta] was the official response of the administration. I've heard it said by several in the administration that the problem is we don't own the construction site. Technically that's true, the GA State Finance and Investment Commission owns the site. I've even heard it suggested, perhaps it's a bit of hyperbole, that we can't control anything they do on that construction site. And I said 'how can this be? This is our project.' I thought the whole idea of [GSFIC] owning that site was a liability question, not 'we're in control and we can do whatever we want.' So I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Butler when he was down here on campus. I talked to him and said 'is this true?' Is it true that you're telling our people that we can't go in there, or we can't tell you what to do or what we want you to do?' He said, most emphatically, absolutely not. 'This is not our goal, we do not tell the Using Authority (VSU) what shall be done; we do not take the lead in making such proposals; we follow the Administration's lead.' He said that to me in person. After spring break and the discovery of the trees coming down, I then called him on the telephone; he said exactly the same thing to me on the telephone about this specific project."

"This letter [from Brignati] seems to imply that Mr. Butler's employee, Ish Jones, along with the contractor, were coming forward with this proposal and, effectively, lobbying the administration, and that just ran counter to what I heard Mr. Butler promise me that they do not do. Also, Mr. Brignati was not only at this meeting in May 1997, he facilitated the meeting, the meeting was in his office. It was a long meeting, partly in the office, partly walking around the old-growth grove of pines, looking at every tree on site. And, I have a little problem believing that everybody's just forgotten about this. Plus, here are the contract drawings; this is the version of the drawing that has the building footprint, and you can still see--these are the extant drawings--here's the clump of trees that contained about half the pines cut, and there's some scattered other pines out toward the street [Georgia Ave.]"

"Dr. Carter and I went out and surveyed the site from outside the fence... We know there were at least 12 large pines [cut down]; we could not tell if there were more than 12, and we still don't know the number. I don't understand why we can't get the number. Exactly how many trees were cut? What happened to them? One of these trees out here by the road was a 20-inch diameter longleaf pine. Now, according to Dr. Grissino-Mayer, who is our expert on tree aging, our dendrochronologist, this tree, based on a regression of other trees he has sections of, this tree would have probably have been at least 180 yrs old. And as he said in the paper yesterday, the lifespan of these, our native longleaf pine, is as much as 500 yrs. These were relatively young."

"The other reason that I view skeptically the claim that nobody knew--I mean you've got everybody saying it's somebody else and nobody knew and nobody remembered--is that just a little over one year ago, Robert Tindall of Plant Operations came to our committee and said we've got to have a conference between you and the contractor because they're getting ready to put the cooling tower out there and they need to take down some trees. And he said to them 'look, you guys need to meet with the committee on this because we have a policy that says you've got to do that, so he facilitated that meeting. They proposed to take down ten trees, but we really carefully studied the situation, and said 'could you do it this way and only take down half of those?' And they said, yeah, OK, and we saved another five trees. So there is a record twice now on this very project of that consultation going forward. At that meeting, February of 1999, with Mr. Tindall there, we all had this conversation, we asked Mr. Solano and Mr. Jones, 'will there be need for any more trees to come down?' They said 'absolutely not.' Mr. Tindall reminded them, 'if there should be, you know that you've got to come back and have this consultation, you realize that?' 'Yes, we realize that.' OK, so everybody knew as of February 1999 what the procedure was, what the history of the consultation had been, and that all the trees that were still there a year ago were designated 'To Remain' and I stress again, they were in the contract. So I am a little skeptical about failing memories at this point."

"It needs to be remembered that this grove out here is part of the area identified along Georgia Ave., I believe the songwriter intended to imply that these are the 'stately pines of Georgia, which we are 'Mong.' And this grove, the oldest part of the grove, which does have some trees in it that are over 200 years old--middle aged for longleaf pine--the Master Plan map that we just approved last year does show that grove extending right up to and including that little grouping of trees that I just pointed out to you [which were cut down over spring break], that is integrally part of that grove. The problem with trespassing into, encroaching into a grove like that is exactly why all the parties got together 7 years ago and drafted this policy... this is the reason why we particularly thought it critical that we mention the old-growth groves, old-growth pines, and particularly longleaf pine. This is an ecosystem that once covered 90 million acres of the coastal plain of the southeast."

"...This is a remnant of that ecosystem that precedes the founding of this area, and it is a vitally important resource that we should take extreme measures to protect. One of the problems is that when you thin a strip of trees that had been adapted over many years time to growing along the edge--these are what ecologists call "sun trees," they adapt their morphology and physiology so as to handle different enviromental conditions, more extremes of sunlight and humidity and temperature and wind. But when you remove that barrier of sun trees or edge trees, you expose the relatively more spindly, interior shade trees, which are simply not as resistant to the vagaries of weather and disease, and that is why we pointed out in the policy that doing this really increases the susceptibility of the remaining part of that grove."

"At this point, I think we need to go in there and take a really hard look at planting some large container-grown longleaf pine and getting them to get up there and provide that wind buffer and that sun buffer to protect those remaining trees; otherwise we're going to lose that entire grove, eventually. It is something that could be protected still."

"One other thing I found interesting in the contract... under the Section called Site Clearing.. it says 'protect all trees and other vegetation indicated to remain against cutting, breaking or skinning of roots, skinning or bruising of bark, smothering of trees by stockpiling construction materials or excavated materials within the dripline, foot or vehicular traffic, or parking of vehicles within the dripline.' 2) it says 'provide a 4-foot high fence around all trees or groups of trees indicated to remain. The fence shall be placed at a distance of ten feet from the trunk or at the dripline, whichever is greater.' I'd like all of us to go out after the meeting right out here and look through the fence and look at all the trees out there that are still there that have construction materials piled up against the trunk, over the root zone, no fencing--certainly not a 4-ft high one ten feet away from the base; I mean, this is something that is in the contract, and I'm wondering who enforces the contract. We have asked, we have tried, we don't get our phone calls returned. We don't know who to talk to, sometimes."

[Dr. Bailey interjects]: "let me answer that question for you; GSFIC enforces that contract... [inaudible] it is illegal for a President even to go on the grounds of the building site. You'd have to contact the Building Authority."

[Dr. Bergstrom responds]: "Unfortunately, I got the rather peremptory response from Mr. Butler when I mentioned that we had this policy, that 'we're not concerned with your internal policies and we don't deal with committees.'"

[Dr. Bailey repeats "...you'd have to contact Mr. Butler."]

Dr. Bergstrom: "Mr. Butler's told me that we can only proceed through a designated VSU authority."

Dr. Bailey: "Well, I'll be your authority, Dr. Bergstrom. I'm going to have to leave... Let me repeat two things: I take responsibility; the two gentlemen asked us 'could they cut these trees?' I asked, Mr. Brignati asked, 'were these in the building plans?' They said yes. They gave us the wrong information. If there was a change, and there appears to have been a change in the number of trees they were going to cut, your committee should have been contacted, and I apologize for that. I've made you the offer, and I hope you'll accept it, personally, of having to give permission for any tree that is cut, I will not see any trees cut until I have consulted with you. That's all I know to say. As the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham said, 'you don't unscramble eggs.' A lot of eggs seem to have been scrambled in this particular equation."

Dr. Bergstrom: "one quick followup, Dr. Bailey, I appreciate your offer, one problem is there are so many people responsible directly for removing trees on this campus that I'm wondering how effectively the word can get out, whether it's Monty Griffin, Bob Bell, the contractor..."

Dr. Bailey: "Brad, I do have the ability to apply a little pressure... and most of these people are good, they don't come to work in the morning thinking 'how can we be nasty, cruel, wicked, or mean?' They're trying to do their jobs. They're wonderful people... ultimately, ladies and gentlemen, Harry Truman said it, 'the buck stops here.' The buck has just landed on my desk and I assume that responsibility. I look forward to working with you, Dr. Bergstrom. I admire your zeal and your interest in preserving [inaudible]. I want you to know we have planted over 1300 trees in the past five years on North Campus and the site of the new parking lot on this campus, and I got Monty Griffin to give me the figures this week, we've planted 213 longleaf pines. That's quite an impressive..."

Dr. Bergstrom: "I need to know where they are. I personally provided him with 125 of those, and I could only find 50 of them [planted], and half of those are dead. I don't mean to dispute you, but there is a problem of acountability, and I never found out of those six acres of dense hardwood forest that were cut off of Sustella Ave., nobody ever gave me a tree count, and I suspect that, at a very conservative estimate of 250 trees per acre, you're talking about well over 1,000 trees right there that have never been figured into the calculus. There is, of course, natural attrition all the time, that I find it hard to keep up with. Then, I find tree stumps, fresh ones along the creek, that nobody told us about. Everybody comes to me and asks 'what's going on in the creek?' The students are all upset, they were down there cleaning up the creek... 'I don't know, nobody told me.' I ask Monty, 'could you please keep me informed of trees that are cut down, even if they are dead,' and he scoffs. He doesn't want to bother with it. I'm very frustrated, and everybody on my committee is very frustrated."

Dr. Bailey: "I want to work with you. We do expect accountability, but I've found the people with whom I've worked for the past 22 years to be extremely honorable. I have confidence in them, and approach them with the right attitude...[inaudible]... any information you want, you come directly to the old man, himself, and, Brad, I'll try to get it. You and I will go out together and bless [?] those trees that are going to be cut. Hopefully, very few will have to be cut."

"You might like to know this. Just this week, the library annex came in a $1.2 million over budget... they're probably going to have to redesign that building. One of the proposals from the architect in Atlanta was, 'if you let me cut three of those major pine trees, I could save you $50,000.' Jim Brignati and I said 'No.' You may not realize that we have such sterling attributes, but in a finer moment we occasionally can come through. And we want to conserve trees as much as you, and I respect your zealousness and your dedication, and I want to work with you to help bring this about... a better situation. I do not want there to be any question... I hope a year from now you can come back and say we've gone a whole year and my questions have been answered [...inaudible]. I'm going to work to that end, and I believe you will, too.