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138 139 JOHN OXIAN: Common Law goes back to the year 1066. 140 141 THOMAS BODNAR: We are at a loss with out a report from the Forester to make 142 a decision as to whether or not the tree will be harmed from more trimming. 143 144 JOHN OXIAN: I would suggest that this be placed into committee and if we cannot 145 get a statement from the City Forester, we will seek other avenues of professional 146 opinion. 147 148 APHRODITE PAPPAS: I am the sister-in-law of Serafin Philippes of 2111 Portage. 149 In all do respect to the age and the history of the tree my brother-in-law is having 150 problems with walnuts falling on his roof and causing damage. He does not want 151 anymore of the tree trimmed then what is necessary for the protection of his property. He 152 is not asking for the destruction of the tree or to make it look ugly, he simply wants to 153 protect his property. Please take into consideration what he is going through and that he 154 will touch the tree as little as possible. 155 156 JOHN OXIAN: That is why it would be good to have the Forester give a 157 recommendation. That way if the Commission approves the tree trimming it will be done 158 in the proper fashion. 159 160 DONNA BROWN: We bought this property four and half years ago because of 161 the beautiful mature trees in the area. There are three exceptionally beautiful trees on our 162 property and the Black Walnut is one of them. I am here tonight to ask that you not 163 allow any further cutting of this beautiful tree. I want to begin by considering the risk; I 164 do not think we can talk about probability so- much as. risk -to the tree if the proposed — 165 cutting is allowed. As you can see in photographs, extensive cutting at the property line 166 has already occurred. You can see that the result of the passed cutting is that either the 167 branch has died all the way back to the trunk and I consider that damage or it has taken 168 on a spidery growth which proper trimming wants to avoid. Moving up the tree we see 169 the branches in question, now lets consider what might happen should these branches die 170 back to the trunk. I have looked at this tree from underneath very carefully with the idea 171 of risk not necessarily probability, but, risk in mind and I believe this is all we can talk 172 about and I think it is best to base it on what happened in the past. What we are risking is 173 a large portion of the southern crown of this tree and what are we gaining. These 174 branches are primarily over Mr. Philippes garage roof and his asphalt, there is very little 175 extending over the house itself. We have twenty-five Walnut trees in addition to this one; 176 we have many more walnuts falling on our house then Mr. Philippes. Mr. Philippes has 177 stated that our roofs were put on at approximately the same time by the same roofer and 178 our roof was not damaged this winter. Mr. Philippes's house roof, not his garage roof 179 was damaged this winter by the large amount of snow and ice. 180 181 The tree is primarily over the asphalt and garage. I think the cutting that has already been 182 done should be sufficient. Routine trimming is not what we are talking about tonight; 183 routine trimming of tree is done to improve the health and beauty of a tree. We are 4