Who POWed that tree?

Skid mark visible in the foreground indicates the path
of the vehicle that knocked this tree and its cage down
alongside MdDonald's overnight Saturday.

Sometime overnight Saturday, a street tree alongside downtown Plainfield's McDonald's was struck and knocked down -- see the picture above.

As a toddler, my baby sister once asked her mother as they drove by a tree that had been knocked down, "Mommy, who POWed that tree?" She had it exactly right, for it must have made a great "POW" when the vehicle struck it.

I have driven by this corner a thousand times and not really paid attention to the three street trees planted on the Madison Avenue side, with their iron-strap tree cages and metal tree grilles around their bases.

Seems I'm not the only one.

The tinted concrete fake red brick sidewalk indicates this was part of the $1 million+ downtown streetscape project undertaken near the end of a Mayor Al McWilliams' second term.

Notice the tree cage was long ago bent or pushed over
and the original tree replaced by suckers that have
never been attended to.

The condition of the tree and the tree cages also indicates no one has paid attention to them since they were planted a decade ago.

So, here's a question: Once the planners and the land use boards have approved of such street trees, who is responsible for tending to them and removing the cages as they become unneeded and enlarging the openings in the tree grilles as needed?

---

  -- Dan Damon [follow]

View today's CLIPS here. Not getting your own CLIPS email daily? Click here to subscribe.