What were once graceful blooming crape myrtles in front of office and retail centers along South Main Street are now stumps.
            Members of the town’s Urban Forestry Advisory Board saw the stumps and sent a strong message on to the town’s planning staff recommending enforcement of the landscape standards and retraining for the company/people involved in the pruning. They found that the trees had been too badly damaged to be rehabilitated in any reasonable way.
            After Commissioner Margaret Stinnett – she is the one always advocating for trees and to pave dirt roads – saw them Tuesday, her reaction was: “. . . hacked, murdered, butchered!” She is talking to the town’s planning staff about removing and replacing the trees which are apparently not on town property but are within the town’s purview under its landscape and other ordinances.
            Wednesday afternoon Assistant Planning Director Chad Sary said in an e-mail that he will “review the pruning practices mentioned in our zoning ordinance and figure out what/if any violations have occurred on S. Main Street. Upon making this determination, I am going to contact the property owners to discuss and there may be some removal and replacements involved.”
            In a later telephone call Sary said he would certainly be looking into the situation. It may be a matter of talking to the property owners and the person and firm doing the pruning. Some of the trees may need to be replaced, he said.
            Monday night members of the Urban Forestry Advisory Board learned that the following trees were chainsawed almost to the ground:
            -- 12 crape myrtles at the Main Street Professional Center which is a condominium retail center owned by the resident businesses.
            -- Seven crape myrtles and one island tree at Main Street Station owned by Lloyd Mattingly and Jeffrey Looper.
            -- 18 crape myrtles at the Ligon Mill Professional Center owned by Mattingly.
            -- Two crape myrtles at the Wake Forest Child Care owned by Jean Dodd of Raleigh.
            -- Four crape myrtles and two canopy trees at the Carolina Health Club owned by Charles L. Steel IV of Durham. The canopy trees were apparently severely trimmed to allow passers-by to see the business sign.
            “We had our maintenance guy do some pruning. He obviously got carried away. We certainly did not intend for him to prune that way,” Mattingly said.
            He was sure the crape myrtles would recover because, he said, he had done the same thing at his house. “It’s kind of hard to kill those things.”
            However, Mattingly said they would certainly replace the trees if they do not recover.
            “Our intention was they were getting way too big” and he frequently gets complaints from the tenants who say the trees obscure their storefronts and signs.
            After discussing the tree trimming on Monday night, the members of the tree board voted unanimously to “recommend that staff enforce the provisions of Section 6 Landscape Standards, finding that the improper pruning is severe enough that the trees are no longer in good growing condition, appearance or function. The trees are beyond rehabilitation, serve as a poor example to the rest of the community, and no longer meet the requirements of existing or prior landscape regulations. Therefore, they need to be removed and replaced.” The tree board members also asked that the staff identify the companies which performed the pruning and wanted them to receive remedial training about pruning and landscaping.