Individuals have to jump through hoops to clear trees, but not WSDOT

Taken from Monday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.

When looking at where to build our house, we were considering two adjacent lots. The lot next to the one we ultimately chose had a bunch of apple trees. I wanted a big grassy area where we could play croquet, Frisbee and all of that, so I chose the lot without the trees because do you know what it takes to remove a tree?

You’ve got to have the government remove a tree. You’ve got to bring in arborists. You have to plant a tree for every one you take out. It’s absolutely insane what you have to do to clear a couple of trees from your property.

The reason I bring this up is because we just found out that the Washington State Department of Transportation is going to remove 500 trees around I-5 between Lakewood and Lacey to improve sight lines of new state traffic cameras.

You know what would happen if some homeowner wanted to take out five trees on his property? He would be hit with massive fines. But when the state says, oh we need sight lines for our traffic cameras, we’re going to take out 500 trees. Oh OK no problem. That’s absolutely not an issue for the state to do it.

If we tried to do it on our own private property, we would be fined. We’d be told we have to bring in the arborists, the professionals and have it permitted – ah, the amount of hoops we’ve got to jump through, but for the state, it’s no problem at all to take down 500 trees. It’s crazy.

Here’s what I would love. I would love to have government just live by the same rules and regulations that we have to live by, or better still, let us live with the lack of rules and regulations that they live by. That’s all I ask.

Taken from Monday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.

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500 trees along I-5 will be removed for cameras