This certainly calls for an explanation. Please write a letter to the mayor and include pictures. Some of the tv stations might be interested too.

Thank you so much for undertaking this project and thanks for bringing it to our attention. I am so sorry for your loss.

Please let us know when y'all have an idea of what the city could do to make amends. We can put an effort into lobbying on your behalf.

My friend worked with the kids to plant fruit trees and and vegetables and daffodils - and recycling. Just when everything was doing so well, the city oversprayed Round-up from the street and killed the fruit trees. Other "landscapers" over-pruned the shrubs in front of the school even though they were well-below the windows... Very discouraging...

Mayor Haslam arranges K-Trans (Trolley) to pick up the City Rangers at 8am. Then the Mayor personally helps lead a tour at Ijams. For lunch, the City will take the kids to Tomato Head (or like restaurant) for some pizza made from fresh local ingredients.

After lunch, K-Trans will take the City Rangers to Organicism Farms for a tour and some goodies, paid for by the city of course.

After a couple hour tour, the kids will head back to Parkridge to find the same idiots who did this “work” have restored the spaces, removed the graffiti, cleaned up the trash and fixed the bridge. A plan for a fall garden will be part of the fix as well.

To end the day, these children will receive their award (whatever is applicable) - presented by the Mayor, Head of Parks and Rec and head of whatever maintenance crew (sounds like the Horticulture Dept) responsible for this.

A lot of this is embarrassing, but the real tragedy happens if just one of these youngsters comes to believe before their old enough to vote – their government doesn’t care about them.

At this point, they have proof.

that's a great little poster, btw.

I manage the City's Public Service Department, the large City organization responsible for all park maintenance under the Horticulture Division. I will look into this first thing and report back.

Wow, for an "obscure" blog, this post sure is getting lots of attention from City department heads.

BTW, Madeline and David are both good people. When they say they'll follow up on this, they mean it.

First and foremost, let me apologize for the damage and removal of the garden plantings at Parkridge Park. I want the supporters of this project to know that as our customers, we value yor efforts and truly want to work with the kids and organizers alike to support and formalize the community garden and adopt-a-park effort in Parkridge. Based on my research, the actions of our crews were not malicious.

I visited the park this morning and also talked with Joe Walsh the City's P&R Director regarding the garden and recent damage. In short, the City arborist visited the park several weeks ago and determined (a) that a number of large dangerous trees needed to be removed and that (b) a number of trees needed to be pruned up to help provide a more "open feel" to the park. Jeff initiated the work order and our crews completed the tree removal, hence the piles.

Removing large trees is dangerous and typically not a "soft" action. We use chainsaws, a bucket truck and winches. It is common practice for our tree crew to fell trees in parks, pile the debris and then for one of our "zone" crews to later pick up the debris using a knuckle-boom (hydraulic claw). For very large trees, we often have to bring in a front-end loader and dump truck to augment the work. In most removals large piles of debris are left in parks for several weeks and become an eyesore. This is something I have never liked and prompted Public Service to request and receive funding in this fiscal year to purchase an extra knuckle-boom that will be used by the tree crew during their tree removal projects. This will allows us to "turn-key" jobs and collect all of the debris at the time of removal. The tree crew asked for this capacity and we will make it happen this year thanks to the funding. But for now, tree debris will sit in parks after removal and is an eyesore. This includes all parks and is not unique to Parkridge.

As for the garden, unfortunately Joe and I were not aware of the plantings. We are both strong advocates for community gardens and made possible one of the first large park gardens at Tyson this past spring and summer, a project spearheaded by our Americorps greenways ranger, CAC Americorps and the Public Service Department Horticulture and Construction Divisions.

Not knowing about the plantings is a challenge, since our mowing crews, tree crew and the folks that run weedeaters are on-site to complete basic maintenance. The only way to guarantee protection for something like a community garden would be for the manager and foreman to be aware of it and to visit the site with their crews. We have done this on numerous occasions in the past and will obviously do that as we work to make this situation right.

Based on my visit this morning and after talking with Joe Walsh, we will be adding a second trash receptacle at the park to help curb the litter and overflow issue. The garbage crew was actually emptying the can this morning and I made the request directly to them. We have also put in a work order to repair the bridge and we scheduled a litter clean up session for this weekend, which will include the drainage swale and broken glass. I also set up a meeting Monday morning with the foreman responsible for the park to discuss cleaning up the walk paths, weedeating edges and just cleaning up the park in general, with the goal of keeping that level of service in the future.

Again, I wish this incident had not occurred. I hope those involved will work with Joe and I to formalize the garden project and afford us the opportunity to improve the situation. We are both available to meet/discuss this matter further. Below is our contact information:

David Brace
Public Service Department
dbrace@cityofknoxville.org

Joe Walsh
Parks and Recreation Department
jwalsh@cityofknoxville.org

My question would be who did Ms. Slaybaugh contact at P&R and why did they not follow-up. As well, why didn't Ms. Slaybaugh follow-up that initial contact?

I hope those involved will work with Joe and I to formalize the garden project and afford us the opportunity to improve the situation.

Interesting. Is formalization what the gardeners are after?
Could be cool to have at least some of these projects formalized.

Regardless, thanks again for the attention, action, and thoughtful response.

Bird_dog - Regarding the overspray at Beaumont, if you have more information about this situation, please e-mail me at dbrace@cityofknoxville.org. My son attends Beaumont and I was not aware of us damaging fruit trees. It may have been us or the Knox County School's mowing contractor. Regardless, if I have some details, there is probably a mechanism for getting the trees replaced if they were killed.

Although we try to minimize the use of herbicides, an application of RoundUp is used during the growing season to keep weeds down on curblines, barrier walls, road edges, edges of greenways and in alleys. It's an important, almost essential "tool" that we use to manage all of the public spaces we have under our purview. Having three kids ranging from two weeks to six years old I am very sensitive to the use of RoundUp in alleys due to the direct interface between public and private property (i.e. people/pets/flowers).