After a barrage of negative reaction to a proposed Bastrop city tree ordinance, City Manager Mike Talbot said on Wednesday he will recommend that the city council drop the plan.
“Our recommendation (to city council) at the Jan. 12 meeting will be to reject the proposed ordinance, for now, and regroup at a later date to be determined,” Talbot said.
The council would have the final say at their first regular meeting of 2010 on what happens next with the draft plan, Talbot emphasized.
The 17-page draft was to be the city’s first full-fledged effort to set down rules for protecting and replacing trees on public and private property.
But Talbot, and at least one council member, acknowledged the plan may have gone too far.
Talbot said he was “the lead person” on the draft, teaming up with city attorney J.C. Brown and former city planner Stacy Snell in coming up with the plan.
Talbot said the group formulated the plan over the past year after looking at tree-protection ordinances in 8-10 other cities. He said his three-person group did not consult professional arborists in developing the plan, but the group was open to that action if needed as discussions progressed.
The city’s planning and zoning committee had also given the nod to the draft, Talbot said.
The proposed ordinance contained such items as a Tree Committee that would have been authorized to enter private property, file complaints in municipal court and file temporary restraining orders when it came to actions regarding trees.
Also, fines of up to $5,000 for violations of the ordinance were part of the draft plan.
“It turned into an emotionally charged issue,” Talbot said, citing emails and phone calls the city had received.
The Advertiser published several letters from citizens claiming the city was overstepping its bounds, although Talbot said he had received no notice of anyone taking legal action.
In a Dec. 12 article in the Advertiser, Brown said Texas courts have upheld the right of cities to control, to some degree, what happens to trees on private property.
Still, it quickly became a contentious issue, Talbot said.
Council member Ken Kesselus agreed.
“I heard very little positive (comment) about the ordinance,” Kesselus said, referring to both emails he received and comments heard from citizens. “My initial view of the (draft ordinance) was that it was a lot more than we needed.”