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Letter to the editor

County budget cuts could include trees

The crape myrtle trees are costing about $14,500 a year to maintain.

By CATHERINE E. SHOICHET Times Staff Writer
Published September 21, 2007

The Greater Riverview Chamber of Commerce will try to find another way to fund the maintenance of the crape myrtle trees.
	[Skip O'Rourke | Times]

Between car crashes and traffic jams, bright pink blossoms bloom along U.S. 301 every year when spring comes to southeast Hillsborough County.

About 10 years ago, a group from the Greater Riverview Chamber of Commerce planted the crape myrtle trees in the median between Bloomingdale Avenue and Gibsonton Drive.

"It makes for a very nice drive on a very busy road," chamber president Jim Johnson said.

But now the trees are on the chopping block in the latest round of county budget cuts.

Maintaining them costs about $14,500 per year - a price county commissioners said on Aug. 15 they weren't willing to pay.

If the chamber can't find another way to pay for the trees, the county will pull them out. That would cost between $11,000 and $14,000, according to Julie Johnaboeke, a general manager for the county's transportation maintenance division.

The savings could be spent on county roadways, she said, rather than on U.S. 301 - a state road.

If the trees are removed from the three-mile stretch, Johnson said, Riverview residents will pay the price.

"They saved and kept in their budget a lot more costly things than that," he said. "I'm not saying that we're any better than anybody else. It certainly isn't going to be the big saving grace of the county."

Richard Bailey, a forester and lifelong Riverview resident, helped secure grant money to plant the trees in the 1990s.

Over the years, he said, a few of the trees have disappeared. Cars ran them over. New signs stood in their place. Construction crews built cut-throughs into the medians.

But 121 survived.

"It was a lot of work," Bailey said. "I'd cry a little bit if they were taken."

Chamber officials are hopeful that they can get local businesses to chip in time and money to save the trees. They're not out of the woods yet.

"The trees aren't safe yet at all," Johnson said. "We're going to get together in the next couple weeks to kind of see what we can pull together."

Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at cshoichet@sptimes.com or 661-2454.

[Last modified September 20, 2007, 08:10:30]