NOTE: Two of the people responsible for the destruction of trees in Navajo Wash sued the City of Tucson for neglecting the area and not dealing with homeless people camping in the Wash. On May 9, 2024 they lost. Sadly, that does not bring back the trees they destroyed.
As a resident of Hedrick Acres, I received the annual newsletter from the Hedrick Acres Neighborhood Association yesterday. Most of the newsletter was given over to an article headlined “Brush-Clearing in Navajo Wash Park”. Brush clearing? That’s what you call cutting down 74 trees and scraping away all surface plant life?
After throwing shade on Councilman Kevin Dahl and Tucson Clean and Beautiful, the author of this article (is it Adrian Wurr, the HANA Secretary? Or John Pendolino, HANA President?) claims the Board was just following the original Master Plan for the site which, they say, indicated only a few trees planted at the sides of the wash. The author goes on to say that those few trees at the sides were all that were planned, were all that were planted; the rest of the trees and grass were volunteers. And it was the volunteer trees and plants that they removed.
This photo, below, is the “After”. You can see more here from Oct. 2023. I just stopped by at noon today and it looks almost identical this this now, including 3 homeless tents.
(Just to be clear, the woman in the photo at the top of this post is with Tucson Clean and Beautiful and has nothing to do with HANA. The photo is a “Before” image of Navajo Wash Park taken in Oct. 2022.)
I won’t argue with the original plan which was drawn up 16 years ago by Drachman Institute at U of Arizona and approved by the city, the Tucson Department of Transportation and TCB. An image of The Master Plan is in the newsletter but it certainly appears, however, that a lot more trees were anticipated than the supposed “few”. There are five spots for trees to be planted marked on the plan–plus 36 other trees. Are the other trees anticipated future volunteers? Or were they already on the site?
The HANA Board bottom line
They assert that Navajo Wash was/is first and foremost a waterway designed to help prevent flooding, and only secondarily, a park.
What I question are the reasons for the Board’s unilateral decision to whack down 74 trees without consulting anyone. And to do it at this time. I don’t believe that flooding risk caused them to make this decision.
Why not 10 years ago, if the trees and grass were increasing the danger of flooding? Why not 2 years ago in 2021 when Tucson had a record amount of rain? And are they sure the trees were increasing flooding danger? Perhaps, instead, the plants were slowing the water flow through the park to give it more time to sink into the soil? (I’d have to ask a scientist about that, but it seems to me to be a logical question.)
Did they contact the city or DOT before getting out that chain saw? Did they get permission or even inform any public official before they rushed into action? Not really. They claim that because the city picked up the debris and tree trimmings in the past, that the city approved of what they were doing. (Personally, I don’t think the guys on the garbage trucks during the last 16 years saw that as their responsibility.)
Suing the City of Tucson
The HANA Board did contact the City about one thing. The four individuals on the Hedrick Acres Neighborhood Association Board have hired expensive attorneys to pursue legal action to resolve what they are calling the ongoing problems of the homeless. The Board, which claims to represent the people who live in Hedrick Acres, has sued the city. Hey, no one asked me if I wanted to sue the city. I don’t. I’d prefer that the city work out other ways to help the homeless. And who is going to pay for these lawyers? The Neighborhood Association has almost no money. So is it going to be the individual members of the Board who hired the lawyers? They’re the same attorneys who sued Phoenix about that city’s blocks-long homeless encampment and I doubt they work for free. So now the Board is asking for donations. I won’t be writing a check. They do not represent me.
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