Perhaps you remember the story from June of last year about an outfit called SNSA Group cutting down 70 protected trees in the Red Bird area. They did the deed on a Sunday, which suggests they knew they were up to no good and were trying to get away with it. Oh, well. Another bad actor does whatever he wants and nothing happens. That was the last we heard. Until now.
An alert FrontBurnervian points us to a settlement issued by a Dallas court just a couple months ago, wherein SNSA agreed to pay nearly $100,000 to atone for its sins. Which is at least a start.
But here’s what I’m guessing. Faced with the prospect of having to go through the appropriate channels, secure the permits, haggle over the amount that would have be contributed to the city’s Reforestation Fund, might SNSA just have made the decision to start chopping instead? Seems like a risk worth taking. You might get away with it and pay nothing for the trees. And if you get caught, it only costs you about $1,400 per tree.
If the city wants to get serious about protecting its urban forest, which is a huge public asset, it should charge violators 10 times the current amount.
