Scott, 
     I want to update you and your readers about the continuing gripe from some of us about merchants signs being blocked by the trees on N. Cheshire Street. Monday I attended our Village council meeting with a prepared statement. I also had with me pictures of our main street merchants as viewed from traffic, as well as pictures from the historic districts in Chardon and Chagrin Falls for comparison. What a huge difference in the visibility of merchants signs between our town and those! I also came armed with a two studies all about the importance of CLEAR visibility of merchants signs. One was prepared by The University Of Georgia, written by Kent Wolf, the other is from the United States Small Business Administration, written by R. James Klause PhD. These reports are filled with data on how business signs drive passing drivers into your store, citing percentages of "impulse stops", the importance of clear visibility for merchant signs for TRAFFIC SAFETY, and how signs bring in more customers than any other form of paid advertising. All of which is less effective when the signs are partially obscured.

     All of that supporting evidence of how this issue is affecting the merchants fell on deaf ears. Gerald Rouge even went so far as to attack me personally, calling me a newcomer who is trying to change the town, and stating that I do not care about Burton. Apparently Gerald is missing the point that I raise this issue because I do care about our town, and I opened the business here because I care about our town. My position has been that if the merchants are losing business, then our village is losing income, taxes, and opportunity for economic growth. Stable, prospering businesses (not scraping by businesses) are the best way to ensure the long term viability of preserving a towns historic district. What benefits the merchants, benefits the town, it's that simple.

     I have repeatedly said that council, the mayor, and the tree commission, should have asked the arborist if he could improve the visibility of the merchants signs, while still lokking our for the best interest of the trees. What I was told by members of council is that the arborist did what was best for the tree, and that removing the branches as I was requesting would have been detrimental to the trees. Gerald Rouge specifically said that removing lower branches as I was suggesting would leave them looking like "telephone poles", and basically pointed out how stupid I was for suggesting those lower branches come off. Either I am right, or the arborist is right, and obviously you can't have it both ways right?

     Well folks, here's where the story takes an interesting turn!  Y'all aint gonna believe who came to see me on Tuesday!  Alan M. Krause, Certified Arborist, and owner of Independant Tree, the company that did the work. Now when Alan came up to me and introduced himself I'll admit my first reaction was to start getting pissed, and I asked right away if village council sent him. Turns out he wasn't even aware of the previous evening's festivities. He had however been keeping up with The Burton Blog and knew I was little unhappy, and as one business man to another he wanted to here my side, and see what was up. We talked for about 45 minutes.  He educated me on tree how to maintain trees for optimum health, talking about how to trim, when is the optimum time to trim, even how the mulch mounds at the bottoms of the trees should be properly shaped so they do not cause the base of the trunk to rot. That is something the tree commission may want to take time to learn about if they are really supposed to be looking out for the health of the trees by the way. The way the trees are mulched now is actually causing them harm, and it's a simple fix. It's also a common mistake, and I don't blame our village workers at all, it's just one of those things that the right person, like an arborist, needs to give you the information on.

     Of course we also talked about my concerns, the data on signs and the importance of visibility. We walked out into N. Cheshire St. and Alan was able to clearly see which small branches were blocking the clear view of our sign and the other merchants. I talked with Alan again this morning and asked if he would be interested in having a copy of those reports, as citing that date and being aware of sign visibilty may help him when bidding contracts in the future. He will be stopping by for copies later today or this week. Now remember how Gerald Rouge berated me for suggesting that those branches come off, and how the arborist knows best, and those branches should never come off? Alan explained that for this species of tree, it is in the long term best interest for those branches to come off! For both health, and appearance, and also so they are less likely to suffer injury from what is going on at ground level, or kids climbing them.

     Council and the tree commission have repeatedly said they are committed to keeping up with the trimming in the future so the trees are health for a long time, and they want it done by a certified arborist so it is done right. So here we have the arborist hired by the tree commission recommending that those branches come off, and they could be taken off during the next trim, which could be done late in the fall, or in the winter, and should be done during those times of year when the trees are dormant. In fact, an alternative could have been to remove those branches during the last trimming, and leave the branches that were taken off for the next trimming so that not too much trimming was done and the tree was over stressed. Why wasn't it done that way? Perhaps village council could not be bothered to let them know this was an additional concern. Perhaps if council and the tree commission were truly interested in doing what is best for the merchants, the community, and the trees, they could have involved the merchants in discussions with the person who developed the plan for trimming? Could have, should have, but it seems their is more concern for their own sense of selfe importance than the best interests of the community. It seems that all too often these days elected officials keep forgetting who they work for, the people. 

      I also want to take a moment to thank Alan and apologize to him if anything I said seemed to be, or was derogatory of his business. From talking with Alan it is obvious he is a stand up guy who works hard for his business, cares about the quality of his work, his reputation, his employees, and his community. He didn't have to take time to come find me and spend that time here educating me, but he did because it was the right thing to do. Thank you very much Alan, and I will recommend Independent Tree anytime. You have clearly proven to me that you are the right guy for the job here in Burton, Tree City U.S.A., and I'll be on the lookout to see that you get to continue providing service to our village. 
 

     Alan also pointed out that those small branches that need to come off to improve visibility for our sign could still be taken off now without causing harm to the tree, if we were to commit to taking some actions to mitigate the stress on the tree, such as watering and fertilizing it, and also fix the mulch so the base of the tree does not rot. The mulch is already fixed, no charge.

--  Matt  
Geauga Power Sports

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Matt:  Here we go again...  The village council playing games and insulting income generating merchants...  When will it end?  And of course the vile and hypocritical Rouge leading the charge...  Oh the horror, oh the horror...  How much more does he have to run on his term before we can get rid of this unreasonable man?  I'm sooo sorry you had to go through all of this nonsense...  Anybody knows this:  A business on a main street must have their sign VISIBLE!  Who would possibly debate that?  Answer:  An elected official who should NOT be in office...  See my previous blog posts for WHY a guy like Rouge would be allowed to "guide" this village.  I've only seen the guy down town ONCE since he was elected and he was looking at the precious trees.  Take your big work truck and back over the goddamn tree and be done with it...