Seattle Press
Pageler's Letter Just Placating Rhetoric
To the Editor:

Regarding Margaret Pageler's response to Wallis Bolz' tree trimming editorial (letters, April 21):

Nice try, Margaret, but after reading through your well-intentioned rhetoric, you are still only telling us what the city arborist has told you to say to placate us tree-huggers. Mature trees should take top priority because of the amount of oxygen they provide the atmosphere of our ever more carbon-monoxide choked, once-Emerald City--now quickly becoming another concrete LA-wannabe, thanks to the developers paving our green spaces over and interlopers clogging the roads. Trees can be trimmed, people would be willing to consider and even pay the cost and inconvenience of underground wiring in order to have the aesthetics of a view. Yes, those are just a few of the other solutions you failed to expand upon. Another is curbing, not managing, growth within the city.

I was born here. The changes I've seen are both pathetic and devastating. Progress has a price. It's called a loss of a sense of place. And it affects the people who live here now. All just in a hurry to get someplace across town, while talking to each other on their cell phones--the transmitters for which have become just another eyesore in the name of "progress"!

Lon McKinney
Lesser Seattle
via e-mail