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Dover council complains tree trimming went too far
By JOE MIZER, T-R Staff Writer


Officials at Dover City Council Monday night expressed their outrage over the “trimming” of trees in Dover Burial Park off N. Wooster Ave. and northward into Parral.

The trimming, which was done last week by Asplundh, a contractor for American Electric Power, has left some of the trees in such poor condition that Councilman Dan Minnis said they probably will have to be removed. Mayor Richard Homrighausen and Service Director David Douglas agreed.

The mayor and service director, however, said they will have a tree trimming contractor hired by the city take a look at the trees to see if anything can be done to save them.

Minnis brought the matter to council’s attention in a letter to the administration in which he said the utility right of way tree trimmers had produced “an absolute hideous sight, with how they cut out the middle of the trees on cemetery property.” He said he might be overreacting, “but I was just astounded when I drove by these trees in the morning on my way to work, and then witnessed the ‘finished product’ later that evening on my way home.”

Douglas said the trees are in pretty bad shape. He noted that the tree trimmers were within their right of way when the trimming was done.

“This was mutilation in my book,” Homrighausen said afterward. He said Cemetery Superintendent James Mizer told him that the tree trimmers had asked about a month ago to remove the two trees they trimmed last week, but Mizer told them that the city valued its trees and to trim them as usual.

“You ask somebody to trim it, you don’t think they’re going to butcher it,” Homrighausen said.

In a related matter, Councilman Robert Mueller said the tree trimmers were from the same firm that went along the former Ohio and Erie Canal right of way “and trimmed everything down there and left it lay.” He said he believed that issue was still in committee, but Councilman Tim Tarulli, Service Committee chairman, said that while the issue wasn’t on his committee’s agenda, he would look into the matter.

Mueller also commented that the city’s recycling dumpster on E. Broadway, across from the Municipal Light Plant, is being abused and misused by fly-by-night operators for composting materials. He said it’s a good program, but it’s for residential use only.

And if the misuse continues, “I’ll be the first one to come up here and ask that it be yanked,” Mueller said.