Columbia Citizens

Just in case you didn't see this already - one of the huge trees at the corner of Alaska and Rainier north of the library fell last night. There was a very very loud crack and then it was down. They are already grinding it up. It is very sad to see an empty space there. It was actually half of one of the three trees that have been there probably since before there was a Columbia City.

I've spoken a few times with the Parks Forester in charge of our iconic Big Leaf Maples. Here’s what I found out:

• It is most likely that the tree that failed due to rot in the storm will possibly fail again and will have to come down entirely within the next month.
• The trees are very old and are considered to be overly-mature for their species.
• To maintain the remaining 2 trees Parks will also be reducing their crowns to lessen their weight factor.
• No time estimate was given but most likely these 2 trees will have to come down at some point in the near future as well.
• The trees are under Landmarks protection and therefore Parks will have to go through Landmarks review process before they do any more removal.
• Parks will probably advise replanting the same native species of Big Leaf Maples.

The good news is that since the trees are an important part of our history, Parks is open to donating the wood to our community to help commemorate them.
The salvageable wood of the fallen tree has been moved to a nearby Parks storage facility and not to the chipper or the highest bidder.
However, to keep them there Parks would like to see that we are taking some pro-active approach to rally our community and chart a new course for our dear old trees. That's right, we need A PLAN.

So what do we need to make happen some really cool commemorative arts project(s) with our old friends?

Ideas
Volunteers
Money
Artists
Space

Please add to this list:

Ideas: public benches, tree sculptures, farmer’s market music pagoda, goblets… If we do go the route of park furniture, such as benches, it is possible that we can ask Parks to maintain them for us. The idea keeping the logs on the ground for kids to play on is not feasible due to safety, rot and Landmarks.

Volunteers: Are there any citizens with public arts project management experience interested in taking this on? Any grant writers out there willing to help?

Funding: Parks Levy Committee, Seattle Parks Foundation, Seattle Arts Commission, and Department of Neighborhoods…

Artists: Are there any wood artists out there who have ideas and would like to submit a proposal?

Space: Where do our benches, sculptures, pagodas, etc live?

What are your thoughts and ideas?