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Palm tree whodunit baffling

A Lakeland landscape company won't say who hired it to remove nearly 200 trees.

By JODIE TILLMAN
Published February 16, 2007

HUDSON - Never did they make a fuss. Or file a complaint. Or say anything at all other than to crackle in the wind.

But questions about their welfare led two Pasco sheriff's deputies to drive to Lakeland on Thursday morning and confront an official with the Palmscapes by Design landscaping company.

Who hired you, the deputies asked, to remove those palm trees?

The nearly 200 palm trees are still in the ground, but it seems the mysterious work order to take them away has spurred county government, including its law enforcement division, into action.

"We did make contact with that company," said sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll. "We are investigating ... the allegation of someone possibly illegally removing palm trees. At this point, it's not a crime."

"To Lakeland?" said happy, but surprised, Hudson resident Al Meyer. "Well."

"They did?" said Dick Ortiz, the county's code enforcement manager. "Wow."

Ortiz also is working on the matter. County code enforcement officials have so far been unable to squeeze an answer from Palmscapes about who asked them to remove the trees.

These trees strike a nerve in Hudson: They were planted in the public right-of-way along Clark Street and Old Dixie Highway as a beautification project nearly a decade ago. Community volunteers organized the project, paying for the transport of the trees with money raised through the Hudson Seafest.

Palmscapes on Jan. 30 contacted clearinghouse Sunshine State One-Call with a work order to notify utility companies that it planned to dig them up. Meyer learned of the work from a utility company, then called county administrators.

The county and local utility companies all say they're not behind it, and Palmscapes hasn't publicly said who is.

Ortiz said Palmscapes has not returned his phone calls. So he sent them a certified letter on Wednesday, saying they cannot remove any trees until it's clear if whoever got them on the project had the authority to do so.

"Before you take those trees, you've got to clear it with somebody," he said. "If this is a legitimate deal, all you've got to do is tell us."

Palmscapes official Stacie Reel, in an interview Thursday, declined again to say how her company got involved.

Reel did say she had been contacted two months ago by a small business that occasionally locates trees for Palmscapes to remove and re-sell. The principal with that company, which she declined to name, said he was working on a deal for Palmscapes. The unnamed company would get a finders fee, and Palmscapes would get possession of the trees to sell, she said.

Reel decided to go ahead and call Sunshine State One-Call to get things going.

"We are doing things the right way," she said. "We haven't stepped foot in Hudson."

She added that removing the trees now may be their best chance at survival.

That's because most of them are directly beneath power lines. Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative did not request the removal of the trees, but spokesman Ernie Holzhauer said the palms will likely begin to interfere with the power lines in several years as they continue to grow.

Palm trees, he said, are among the most difficult trees for utility companies: You can try trimming from the top. But it's hard to do that without killing them.

Jodie Tillman can be reached at 727 869-6247 or jtillman@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 16, 2007, 00:06:14]