I walked into a Holmes Beach city park searching for one type of memorial and came upon another.
Under a leafy canopy at the edge of the park near the 63rd Street boat ramp stands a “Trees of Memory” plaque.
The memorial recognizes the people for whom trees have been planted in Holmes Beach.
Anna Maria and Bradenton Beach also have recognized in other ways the people who promote planting trees, and the elected officials in all three cities have worked to adopt or amend rules aimed at protecting trees, in particular those grand trees with deeper roots on Anna Maria Island than most inhabitants.
State lawmakers and the governor apparently care less for the living memories among us, having placed into law a measure making it more difficult for local government to restrict the removal of trees from private property.
Proponents of H.B. 1159 said they sought to protect private property rights against aggressive power-grabs by local governments.
Opponents of the measure offered two basic arguments: Legislators sought to weaken local home rule in favor of growing state power and sided with money and development over nature and conservation.
After Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill in June, a Tallahassee Democrat story, “Canopy Crossroad? Law removes local oversight on tree work,” was carried by news outlets around the world via The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, in city halls across the state, city attorneys informed their mayors and commissioners that tree-protection ordinances were weakened if not voided.
The law basically says a private property owner with a note from a licensed landscaper or a certified arborist can take down a tree that poses a danger to people or property.
In Florida, where the hurricane season spans six months of the year, a property owner could say any tree poses a danger and hire a landscaper to support that claim.
The law doesn’t require the “tree expert” to examine the tree or visit the property.
And the law doesn’t require the property owner to show anyone the note from the expert.
Florida lawmakers gave property owners permission to chop, chop, chop.
Still, as a longtime friend and conservative columnist once told me, “Just because it’s not outlawed doesn’t mean you should do it.”
He was referring to businesses not prohibited by the government from discriminating against gay people, but his same statement can be applied here. Just because the state made it easier to chop down a tree doesn’t mean you should chop down a tree.
Each living tree should be prized.
As the plaque at Holmes Beach City Park reads: What do we plant when we plant a tree? We plant the ship which will cross the sea. We plant the house for you and me. We plant the shade from the hot sun free. We plant a thousand things we daily see. We plant all these things when we plant a tree and we plant a memory that will ever be.”
This column was published in The Islander newspaper.
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