Cleaning up the tree debris before packing up for the day. The oak in question, right next to power lines. A tree-cutting crew put away their chainsaws and folded up their bucket truck Friday after Upper Westville Alder Amy Marx convinced United Illuminating (UI) to stop removing at least on e oak tree from a Yale-owned community greenspace at Ray Road and Conrad Drive. Marx jumped into action after seeing tree cutters at work as she drove her daughter to school. The landscaped, wooded corner property in question is owned by Yale University. Marx explained to this reporter — and to Lewis Tree Services’ Ian Clarke — that Upper Westville neighbors and the Urban Resources Initiative (URI) have worked with Yale over the past 15 years to turn this sylvan spot into a community greenspace. The oak tree with half of its limbs now removed “is the centerpiece of the park,” Marx said. The entire landscape design of the park “was built around this tree.” She urged Clarke to have his crew stop working as she sought to get an answer from Yale, the city, URI, anyone, about what is going on and if the trees can be trimmed instead of outright removed. “This is a community park. This is sacred to us. This is no average tree,” Marx said. Clarke said that his company is the subcontractor for the power company United Illuminating (UI) on this tree-cutting project. “We’re taking down this tree. We have permission from Yale to take it down,” he said. Marx said that the tree-cutting crew planned to take down three trees in total. Clarke did not confirm that number, saying he needed to check the work order. “Right now, it’s pretty much a moot point for this tree,” he added, pointing to an oak that his crew had been working on Friday morning. “I can’t leave the tree in this manner.” Clarke spent about 15 minutes on the phone as his team stood by, their work paused, tree branches and leaves strewn across the sidewalk at the corner of the park. Eventually, Eric McConnell, a lead arborist with United Illuminating, arrived and conferred with Clarke and the police directing traffic. Clarke and McConnell walked over to Marx and a handful of fellow concerned Upper Westville neighbors, including former Environmental Advisory Council Chair Laura Cahn, at around 10:30 a.m. and said that they were indeed going to stop the tree-cutting work for the time being. “We’re shutting down the operation now,” McConnell said. “We’re going to re-permission everything.” McConnell said that UI had received a signed consent form from the general manager of the Yale Golf Course to proceed with this tree cutting work. (These aren’t the first trees Yale has approved removing from this part of town. Click here to read about how Yale won permission to cut down roughly 1,000 trees as part of a recent renovation of the university’s Upper Westville golf course.) McConnell also said on Friday that these trees at Ray Road and Conrad Drive were being cut down not because of their health, but instead because of their proximity to power lines. He said these trees fall within a state-defined “utility protection zone,” which refers to trees that are located within eight feet of an electrical wire and that pose a potential safety hazard. Underlining the stakes of such dangers, McConnell noted last year’s fatal electrocution of a contractor at the Yale Golf Course who had come into contact with an electrical wire downed by a fallen tree during a storm. McConnell said that UI had walked through the privately owned property with Yale twice before moving ahead with Friday’s tree cutting. But, for now, UI and Lewis Tree Services were going to stop their tree-cutting work. McConnell said that UI would do another walkthrough of the site — giving Marx and the neighborhood time to communicate with Yale about the plan for these trees. Upper Westville’s Laura Cahn with United Illuminating’s Eric McConnell. At the scene of Ray and Conrad on Friday morning. The post Alder Rides To Oak Trees’ Rescue appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less