District 7 Council Candidate - Randy Reed - Speaks for the Trees!
Randy Reed
District 7 Council Candidate
Nashville Tree Conservation Corps asked candidates running for Nashville’s 2019 election how they would solve some of our city’s most challenging tree canopy issues. See how they responded in the question and answer below!
Randy Reed Speaks for the Trees…
I just going to answer with some observations. This is something that’s going to be difficult. Developers Are not gonna to like any restrictions some homeowners will not either. Before we go any father I want to go on record. I have over 50 grown trees in my front yard in Inglewood. A lot of mine are getting towards the end of their life cycle. About 15 years ago myself and my uncle went out and got wild seedlings off the side of the roadways. I wanted a little color in the fall to go with all the Hackberry trees in our yard. Well these are coming up on 15 years old. Well guess what, I just had to cut a 25 ft tall oak tree down. Seems now on Brush Hill Rd we are having a deer problem. They have nearly killed every one of these young trees along with some Japanese maples. Never dreamed we would have this problem. I’m going to try to find a couple pictures and send them along. One shows the temperature out in the open, one shows the temperature under shade. Big difference. The photos I sent to a friend. He made a strange comment. I know him not to get outside much. I did a overhead of his home. Guess what? He has not ONE tree on his whole property. Persons like him are going to be difficult. I have skin cancer problems so I always look for the shade. People like him are not interested in what anyone thinks. He’s not going to allow a tree to live around him. Don’t really know what this is about. He won’t even come to my house unless I move a car out of the garage where he can get out from under dripping trees. There are so many people out there like him. I guess it like smokers and non smokers. He’s not going to change. I enjoy trees and look for them, he on the other hand looks for them to avoid them. But being on the Police Dept 37 years I know this is an uphill problem. After all they can’t even stop developers from destroying old graveyards. It’s going to take a lot more education on these type people. I really don’t see a solution except education. And then you have people like the advance NES tree cutters that are so ignorant of trees, one tried to tell me a 70 foot tall Hackberry we were standing under was classified as a BUSH! These people are out in the public on a daily basis spreading misinformation. Actually this is where this needs to start. They have more contact on an official basis than anybody does with the public. I’ll follow up with TWO interesting pictures from my front yard.