MCS Waiting on Costs Before Taking Down Sick Tree at HS

MIDDLEBURGH - Middleburgh Central School officials are waiting to receive the required number of quotes before having a sick tree on the high school lawn taken down.

Superintendent Mark Place said that several vendors have looked at the tree and the district are waiting for at least two or three quotes. Board members said they are "on board" with taking down the tree at their meeting last week once the requisite quotes have been received.

Once the tree is taken down, the condition of the remaining trees will be "taken into account" and discussed and the required cabling and pruning will be done to extend the life of those trees, Mr. Place said.

In November, Mr. Place told school board members that a tree assessment was done by a professional firm for the district and that a large tree on the left side of the front lawn (closer to Clauverwie Road) needed to be removed. The tree has "some problems with the top branches."

Now that the board has given its approval, once the quotes come in, the district will share information widely with the community prior to any work being done, Mr. Place said.

The transparency of the proposed tree work is a far cry from the tree removal on the high school front lawn several years ago that resulted in numerous raucous meetings of angry district residents and a petition being circulated for the removal of then Superintendent Brian Dunn.

The trees were removed on an early Monday morning in July 2020. The tree removal was dubbed as the "Monday Morning Massacre" by some residents. Among the trees that were cut down were some planted in memory or in honor or students and school officials. Many residents attended a contentious meeting in the high school gym at which the district's attorney explained why the trees were taken down. A petition calling for Mr. Dunn's resignation was circulated on-line and gained many signatures. Some trees have been planted on the school lawn since, mostly right in front of the school.