STACKED STAC NO MORE -- CITY STAFF WILL NO LONGER BOSS AND BULLY STREET TREE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

CITY MANAGER WILLIAM B. HARRISS
Photo credit: J.D. Pleasant

For nine months, the Street Tree Advisory Committee (STAC) did not meet was that City Manager WILIAM B. HARRISS, who stacked it with City Staff, did not want it to meet.

Last night, HARRISS did not want to speak on the issue, deferring to his heyboy JOHN REGAN, to do so. HARRISS says the proposal "undermines my jurisdiction" and that "I'm a little emotional" on a day when several speakers called for HARRISS' firing.

As revealed by STAC members at a prior city COmmission meeting, City Planning and Zoning Director MARK KNIGHT once threatened to cancel STAC in retaliation for First Amendment protected activity.

After a presentation by STAC and a song and dance by HARRISS' heyboy, JOHN REGAN, Commissioners refused to make STAC an advsory committee to the Commission, but only to the City Manager's office, depriving it of Sunshine Law protection.

Presumably writing sitting at home with his nose in the air, in his loungeware and fuzzy bunny slippers, ex-Mayor GEORGE GARDNER wrote a slanted story for his taxpayer funded City newsletter today, ignoring the facts. Here's the $13,000/year City propagandist GEORGE GARDNER's Pollyanna version:

Tree committee gains greater role
Four citizen members of our city's Street Tree Advisory Committee (STAC) successfully made their case Monday for greater recognition, more frequent meetings, and less city staff on the board.
Gina Burrell, Sally Ann Freeman, Robin Nadeau, and Chuck Lippi pleaded with commissioners to make STAC a commission - rather than a staff - advisory committee, create a landscape beautification subcommittee, and develop a five-year beautification plan for the city's entrance corridors.
"We just don't meet," Lippi, a certified arborist, told commissioners, noting the committee's last meeting was nine months ago.
City Chief Operations Officer John Regan responded, "Protecting our tree canopy is a core value of our community. But they're not going to be able to work effectively as a Sunshine committee (if appointed by the commission). The Aviles Street beautification plan recently announced is working because merchants and residents are able to meet individually at any time, without formal notice. We hope this will be a model for other neighborhoods to work on beautification projects."
Regan said he'll schedule a meeting of a revised STAC board for next week.
The Street Tree Advisory Committee was created as part of the Tree City USA program, appointed by Planning and Building Director Mark Knight. In recent years, citizen members have been more active in strengthening the city's tree code, while more staff members were added. Today there are five citizen and five staff members.