County will remove six trees from Courthouse Square

Amidst concerns surrounding general decay and future liability, the Grundy County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to remove six trees in the southern and western sections of the courthouse lawn during Monday morning’s regular meeting.
           
Supervisor Jim Ross led the push to get the trees cut down after the Iowa Communities Assurance Pool (ICAP), which insures the county, recommended “removing dead tree limbs or whole trees that exhibit hazardous and/or unstable conditions.” Currently, six of the trees are already cabled, and County Maintenance Director Mark Jungling told the board that one tree on the south lawn could knock out a power line that would leave the entire southern half of Grundy Center without electricity.
           
“Whether we acknowledge it or not, I think it’s a hazard,” Ross said. “If they were mine, they’d be gone a long time ago. Those trees are junk.”
           
Supervisor Barb Smith, on the other hand, lamented that the trees are the “crown jewels” of the downtown area, and any mention of removing them has drawn fierce opposition among members of local groups she has spoken with in Grundy Center. She told Ross that while she could get behind removing three of the most rotted and hollowed out trees, she viewed going “hog wild” and taking down five or six as excessive. She also worried that in authorizing the removal without first seeking quotes to assess the cost, the county would be “signing a blank check.”
           
“This keeps getting worse,” Smith said when Ross revised his original motion to call for the removal of six trees instead of five. 
 
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