City To Propose False Dilemma for North Palm Ave Landscape

AUGUST 5TH UPDATE--  THE CITY MAY HAVE ADDED A LEAVE-THE-TREES, BACK-TO SQUARE-ONE OPTION. I HAVE REQUESTED A COPY OF THEIR AMENDED OPTIONS. 

The City of Sarasota, which we understood had suspended work on the North Palm Avenue Landscaping Project and was going to seek advice from the City Commission on August 18th has apparently been hard at work re-jiggering and re-framing the project and will be presenting the Board with a false dilemma. (See City document below)

A false dilemma is "is a type of informal fallacy that involves a situation in which limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option." Wikipedia.

My favorite false dilemma as a child occurred when my mother asked if I would rather take a nap or a bath. In this case the City is providing three options, two of which are extremes (think hot porridge and cold porridge) and the middle option is supposed to be "just right".

Unfortunately, that middle option reflects a complete misunderstanding of the trees they seem so hell-bent on removing. 

One option (#3) is the do nothing option and that is clearly unacceptable due to the sidewalk flooding that the City has ignored for years.

Another (Option #1) involves going ahead as planned with the project, even though it is contrary to numerous adopted City policies and ignores the historic status of some of the palms, which have been there AT LEAST 89 years. I would argue this is unacceptable. 

The middle bowl of porridge in the City's view (OPTION #2) comes in several flavors, BUT THEY ALL INVOLVE REMOVING ALL THE PALM TREES!

The  "b" and "c" versions involves REMOVING ALL THE PALM TREES, planting them somewhere else and then implementing much of the original design except that the Hollies and Tabebuias  (and the Thrinax?) would be replaced with brand new (presumably cabbage) palms. "c" includes a warranty on the new palms, "b" doesn't. Neither plan insures the existing historic palms would live in their new location. 

So what about "a"? "a" involves REMOVING ALL THE PALM TREES and then bringing them back again (also with no guarantees).  The City claims this is necessary due to some unspecified underground utility issues. This is crazy -- the palms do not need to be removed to add sidewalk, adjust the drainage, or whatever. These are not oaks or pines -- they are used to having most of their roots removed and surviving. 

WHAT THE CITY SHOULD BE DOING

The City should be clearly defining what problems they are trying to solve there (and identify the criteria for success) and there should be a commitment to 1) being compliant with existing City policy, and 2) starting from a premise of saving as many existing trees as possible on site. 

INSTEAD

Instead the City has homed in on the intolerable sidewalk flooding and is planning to present the City Commission with a false dilemma. Let me be perfectly clear: All the sidewalk flooding could be addressed and eliminated without removing any of the existing palm trees. 

IF

If the City is not going to do it right (defining the problem and criteria for success at the front end) and instead jump to the solution for what they now seem to see as a flooding problem, let me suggest what that solution would look like.

1) The elevations of the Bay Plaza driveway where they meet the sidewalk are changed so that stormwater does not make a left turn and head down the sidewalk. 

2) The turf/sod between the sidewalk and curb are regraded so that the turf (or hardscape) is lower than the existing sidewalk -- that will enable any water on the sidewalk to drain street-ward. The cabbage palms do not care if six or eight inches are lowered in their vicinity. (Y'all have seen cabbage palms with virtually all their roots shorn off, traveling on flatbed trucks to a landscaping job. Removing a quarter of the roots would be minor in comparison.)

The City's current pitch appears below. Clicking on the pages should enlarge them.

The DID implemented the plan to "mirror the other side of the street".
How many of you think of flowers when hollies are mentioned?

Yeah, they are very obsessed with consistency. And nothing would make Palm Ave more boring than consistency. 

As far as I have been able to determine so far, none of the voting entities mentioned above were told by staff that
1)the design was not compliant with numerous officially adopted City policies, or
2) implementing the design would result in the elimination of 26 native trees from Palm Avenue. 

Herald-Tribune Covers Palm Ave Story

Tucked under the headline PALM AVENUE PALMS' FUTURE IS AGAIN SHAKY, the Sarasota Herald Tribune's Ian Cummings ran a story on July 20th 2014. Although the piece mis-identified me as a "retired professor of Environmental Studies" the article, which appeared on the front page of the second section, is a fair summary of the issue.

I was not interviewed for the article, so it doesn't reflect the more recent discovery that some of the palms were visible in a 1925 photo - making them at least 89 years old in that location.

The article, somewhat ominously, quotes Tim Litchet that "Now, we are hearing from people on both sides"  suggesting a campaign by parties unknown to reduce shade, decrease pedestrian opportunity, violate adopted City policy, and disrespect our natural and cultural heritage on Palm Avenue.

New Discovery Pushes Back Age of Palm Ave Cabbage Palms

When I started this quest to save as many of the Palm Ave. cabbage palms as possible, I was being told they had been "dumped" there in 1983, making them 31 years old (in that spot). The pejorative verb and Reagan-era origin suggested these trees were expendable.

Then I did some investigating at the County History Center (and left them a tip -- its a great resource). That pushed the date back to 1957, nearly doubling their age at that location to 57 years. 

1957 photo shows palms lining North Palm Avenue.

Now an anonymous researcher has produced a photo from 1925 that shows a row of cabbage palms lining that section of Palm Avenue. That means some of the palms have been there 89 years, nearly three times the age that the Downtown Improvement District thought was relevant and clearly making a case that these palms have some historic significance. 

These aren't simply palms seen by Jerry Springer, Stephen King, and Dick Smothers, these are palms Mrs. Potter Palmer drove by, palms seen by Jimmy Stewart, Emmett Kelly, and Mackinlay Kantor. Palms that survived the great depression. Palms that were there when servicemen trained in Sarasota and when the war ended on August 14, 1945. The City failed to undertake any meaningful due diligence to determine the history of the landscape they have been proposing to replace.

Since they are healthy and established in the photo, one has to wonder how much further back they go. 

Panoramic view of Palm Ave from 1925 shows rows of cabbage palms lining the street.

Magenta arrows show the row of palms. 
Green arrow points to the Women's Club
(now Florida Studio Theatre) 
on the corner of Palm and Cocoanut.

City Staff Recommends Re-thinking Palm Tree Removal

Friday July 11

Tim Litchet, Director of Neighborhood and Development Services for the City of Sarasota, announced today that the City is putting the plans to remove 26 palm trees from the 1262-1274 block of North Palm Avenue on hold pending direction from the City Commission. The full text of the announcement appears below. 

While no explanation was provided for the time out, it was becoming apparent that earlier efforts to solicit input from city residents regarding the tree removal and new landscaping failed to attract the attention of many who would prefer to see the palms remain. In addition, new information regarding the historic status of some of the trees was overlooked earlier in the decision process.

"Mr. Miller, this email comes to verify our conversation this morning where I informed you that I had met with Marlon Brown, and he has directed that staff bring the Palm Avenue palm tree issue to the City Commission on August 18th to review the status of the project and to get any further direction from the City Commission that they may wish for staff to consider.  Staff will prepare an agenda item that will suggest options including building the project as approved, not building the project,  redesigning  the project to save as many of the palm trees as possible while doing our best to improve drainage, and/or delaying the project until we have newly adopted code standards to work with related to the efforts of the Urban Design Studio.  I will provide you a copy of that agenda item in advance of the meeting."

As noted in the announcement above, today's decision does not mean that the trees will be saved, only that the impending plans to remove them will be considered by the City Commission and that the trees are not immediately threatened. 

Fascinating Facts about the Palm Ave 26

Truth is Stranger (and more interesting) than Fiction

When I first went to my first Downtown Improvement District meeting on June 25th, I was told what seemed to be the official DID narrative about the palms in front of the 1262-1274 block of Palm Avenue. The palms, I was informed, were all "dumped" there in 1983 when Bay Plaza was built. Mr. Kauffman, a DID board member is certainly entitled to his opinion of the cabbage palms (and he has made it quite clear he hates them), but, to quote Senator Moynihan, he is not entitled to his own facts.

His denigrating verb choice (dumped) suggests they were pushed off a truck and somehow grew into more or less vertical trees. That didn't happen. Someone went to the trouble and care to plant the Bay Plaza relocation trees there. He would have you believe there were no palms there previously and the palms at risk today have only been there a modest 31 years.

Cultural History is interesting, Natural History is interesting, but the intersection of the two is Fascinating!

I have been doing business in those storefronts continuously since 1975, and I didn't seem to recall a time when there were no palms there. The building was built in 1954, and it seemed unlikely there was just lawn between the storefronts to the curb from 1954 until 1983. So I drove out to the Sarasota History Center and looked at their beautiful 1957 aerial photograph of downtown. That picture was taken on March 10, 1957 and, lo and behold, it clearly shows a row of palm trees in front of that block. Because the canopies are full in the photo, and because it takes transplanted palms a while to recover and grow a new dense canopy, I think the odds are excellent they were planted in 1954, when the building was built. 

Do I know for sure they are cabbage palms? Nope, can't prove it, but consider the state of the local nursery industry in 1954. True, there was Reasoner's, but the wide variety palms available today was not just there. The canopies are consistent with cabbage palms, and they are clearly not Royal or Cocoanut palms. So, having looked at aerial images of thousands of cabbage palms, I was pretty sure that in 1957 a row of probably 11(maybe 12) cabbage palms graced that block. 

This black and white photo from 1957 clearly shows a row of palms
(with a gap ) in front of the 1262-1274 block of Palm Avenue.
This is a view from the North, looking South.

What became of the palms that celebrated their semicentennial in 2007?

Seeing the 11 or 12 palms in the photo begged the question: what happened to them? I tried looking at the landscape architect's map to see if any lined up, but that seemed inconclusive. Then, this evening, July 9th, Julie and I went to look.

Mind-Blowing

We arrived in the evening, after eating dinner on Lower Main in one of our favorite restaurants: Two Senior Eaters (Thezla is an attentive server). The first palm, the furthest east and closest to the building was hard to interpret, but then things became clear. Seven of the 57-year old palms are still there! And, of course, it is quite likely that they have been there 60 years. How do we know? Because they look completely different than the more recent Bay Plaza rescues. 

Four Distinct Differences

First of all, they are planted in a more or less straight line. Second, they are the palms closest to the storefronts. Third, they are a completely different diameter than the more recent palms (much smaller), and fourth, most show a swelling where the trunk suddenly gets wider. 

That's where natural history and cultural history collide. The skinnier 57 year-old trees came from a locale with relatively poor growing conditions. When they got transplanted to Palm Avenue, the conditions were more to their liking, and the trunks got beefier. Go see for yourself. The Bay Plaza palms were coming from a block away, almost undoubtedly the same soil -- and their trunk diameter consequently doesn't show that variation.

A living natural/cultural history lesson. 

So right there, on little 'ol Palm Ave., are 26 palm trees attempting to teach us about our city's history. And some of them have been there for probably 60 years (unarguably 57).  Go check them out - you'll enjoy telling your friends or children about how the two batches of trees tell some of the story of Sarasota.

Better Hurry.

But you had best hurry, because the City of Sarasota is planning to remove every single one of them in just a month or two. Every 31-year old tree, and every 60-year old tree, and they will be replaced with two hollies, two Tabebuias, and eight Thrinax palms. And when they are gone, you'll be able to tell your friends and children how Palm Avenue used to have Palm stories. 

-----------------------

If you are wondering why all these trees will be removed, the answer is simple. So that side of the street will match the side of the street next to the parking garage.

So that side of the street will match the side of the street next to the parking garage.

http://jono08.blogspot.com/2014/06/saving-palms-of-palm-avenue.html

http://jono08.blogspot.com/2014/07/sarasotas-plan-for-palm-ave-far-worse.html

Sarasota's Plan for Palm Ave. Far Worse Than I Suspected

I first got interested in the City's plan to remove 26 cabbage palms from Palm Avenue because of my deep interest in and understanding of our state tree. But the more I learn about this project, the worse it gets. City staff tried to make me feel as though my suggestions were contrary to adopted policy, so they provided me with several folders containing their policy. What I learned is that the City has routinely ignored their own policies.

The City was supposed to promote retention of existing trees. They didn't. They were supposed to protect existing trees in the right-of-way. They didn't. They were supposed to provide shade trees. They already had them and propose to replace them with less shady trees. They were supposed to have canopy trees. They already have them and are proposing to get rid of them. Three separate manuals said they were supposed to have only one species of tree. They are proposing three. They claimed they were "undergrounding" utilities. There are more utilities aboveground in their proposal than exist now. They were supposed to favor trees with clear trunks and high canopies. They didn't.

YOU MAY NEED TO CLICK ON THE GRAPHIC AND GO TO FULL SCREEN
TO ENLARGE IT SUFFICIENTLY. 

And they claimed they wanted to provide a better pedestrian experience and a more walkable community. But their proposal will have 20 times less pedestrian space than exists now. In the graphic on the left, the public can walk on the green sod and the sidewalk adjacent to the storefronts. But the graphic on the right shows the landscape bed that will be packed with mulch, ground covers, shrubs, and a few trees. Bottom line: the City's proposal will result in far less walkable space than the present condition.

The next meeting of the Downtown Improvement District is Tuesday July 8th at 9:00 am. Please consider making the scene. If you can't, contact a city commissioner and let them know this is scandalous.

See also my previous post: Saving the Palms of Palm Avenue

View from the Mainland

I was there 284 days ago, on September 18th 2013, when the Corps of Engineers showed up at a Sarasota County Coastal Advisory Committee meeting to pitch their hole-in-the-shoal solution to Lido Key erosion. I spoke and objected to both the process and the content of the proposal. I was there on October 22nd when the Corps pitched the idea to a joint meeting of the County and City Commissions and once again I complained. Since then I have appeared on a Tiger Bay panel, posted blog entries, given public presentations, and had a guest column printed in the Sarasota Herald Tribune. My objections have been consistent and, for someone with no financial or familial interests in either Lido or Siesta Keys, I suspect I have been one of the more engaged stakeholders. Aside from digging a deeper foxhole, the Corps has not shown much interest in alternative approaches, negotiating, or otherwise engaging the public, but now there is some reason to be optimistic.

Here's my take on the current situation: 

Lido Key residents are understandably preoccupied with the current status of their beach, which has made them susceptible to desperation-driven decision-making because the Corps proposal has seemed to be their only hope. Their reluctance to negotiate reflects the Corps' pouty insistence that nothing can be tinkered with. While desperation of the Lido residents has made their position more motivated and powerful, it doesn't address any of the real-world obstacles that need to be overcome. These include the threat of additional legal actions from Siesta Key, the Corps re-starting the scoping process, the need to undertake a variety of studies and environmental assessments that must precede permitting, and the ultimate uncertainty of federal funding. These obstacles could easily take two to three years to address and even then there is no guarantee of federal funding.