Knoxville City Council passed a resolution on KUB’s tree trimming program at its December 1 meeting. Among other things, the resolution included KUB’s suggestion to the City that we address concerns by establishing a citizen panel to perform a comprehensive review of our program policies and make improvement recommendations.

KUB has made many improvements to our tree-trimming program over the years to address issues raised by customers. We’ve improved our communications and modified our trim standards to respond to community input. We’ve also raised the level of professional oversight of the program through certified arborists on staff and use of outside consultants.

We recognize, however, that concerns and disagreements remain. We look forward to working with this new panel to address those concerns and to develop policies and practices based on a broad community consensus. We are anxious to get started and need your help to identify potential panel members.

Our goal is to identify 15 individuals with diverse viewpoints and experience. We anticipate panel members will serve for six months or less, with a meeting schedule to be determined. Meetings will be open to the public, and we anticipate one or more public forums for citizen input. The first meeting has been tentatively scheduled as a half-day session on January 22.

The resolution calls for a representative from KUB and a representative from one of several City departments. These other areas will also be included:

Neighborhood and community representatives
Professional arborists/tree experts
Business representatives
Community design experts/landscape architects
Beautification groups
Environmental groups
Others with an interest in the issue.

For more info, visit   www.kub.org).