When Babs Moser heard a chainsaw buzzing away in Kiwanis Ravine near the railroad tracks the morning of July 25, she told her husband, Bob Clymer, to take a look from their home on Lawton Lane West.
"So I came out [with binoculars] and saw these guys," he said, adding that he could see one tree shaking as well. Clymer was suspicious because Kiwanis Ravine is on park property, and he called police. Clymer also held up his camera to get a shot of the three men, "and they dodged to get out of the open space."
One of the tree-cutters was also on his cellphone, and Clymer figures he was talking to whoever hired the men. "There was no activity for awhile," Clymer added.
So he drove down to the area and took pictures of the men through his car window, along with the truck they were driving. Clymer later found out that police had called his home while he was driving to the location off West Government Way and had told Moser the men were working for the Army Corps of Engineers.
Police, it turned out, had already been there, apparently bought the story about the men working for the Corps of Engineers and had already taken off without getting the men's names or the license number of their truck before Clymer got to the location, he said.
According to a police report about the incident, a number of trees in the area had already been cut down, and only one of the men was still there when two officers arrived to investigate. The tree-cutter hardly spoke English, but he somehow explained that the work was being done to clear the view for a maritime navigation beacon on a tower next to the railroad tracks, according to the police report.
Clymer scoffs at the claim. "Ships all use GPS systems these days," he said. But police did contact Clymer the next day and got copies of the photos he took, and the truck the men used is registered to a Queen Anne address on 14th Avenue West.
But the investigating officer also did some belated checking by calling the Corps of Engineers and was told the Corps hadn't hired the men, according to the police report.
Clymer wasn't the only neighborhood resident who heard about the incident. K.C. Dietz, the restoration coordinator for the Heron Habitat Helpers, said a neighbor called her about it, and she got on the phone to Seattle Parks and Recreation.
She ended up talking to Mark Mead, the city's urban forester, who went to the scene himself to investigate the day after police had been there. "They were in the process of cutting up the logs [from a broadleaf maple]," he said of the tree-cutters.
Mead posted a stop-work-order sign on the maple, which he estimates had been shortened from 60 to 70 feet high to 15 to 20 feet. There are power lines above the tree that was shortened, and he said the tree cutters had been very careful trimming the tree next to the lines.
"The work wasn't slipshod like we usually see," Mead said. But that fact gave him an idea and he called Seattle City Light to see if they were involved. They weren't, Mead said.
He also called the Army Corps of Engineers and - like police - found out that agency wasn't involved, either. Mead also called the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad to see if they were involved, but they hadn't gotten back to him yet, he said in an interview last week.
"So, more than likely, the last option is someone was looking for a view," he said. The parks department will send letters out to residents in the area warning them that cutting trees on city property is illegal.
Clymer also suspects a desire for an enhanced view was behind the tree-cutting, and he points to some luxury homes on nearby West Lawton Circle as a possible location of someone who ordered the work done.
The Heron Habitat Helpers are caretakers of a huge rookery of great blue herons in Kiwanis Ravine. The heron are skittish birds that are easily spooked, but the rookery is some distance from the cutting site, and the young birds have already fledged this year, Dietz said.
She agrees with Mead and Clymer that someone looking to improve their view might be behind the tree-cutting. But Dietz also has another theory. She'd read a story in the daily papers about maple trees being cut down to sell the wood to makers of wooden instruments such as violins, and Dietz wonders if that was the reason behind the rogue landscaping.
"It's strange. The whole thing is really strange," she said. "It's just really unfortunate that people feel entitled to do that on public land."
Mead estimates the maple tree is worth between $1,000 and $3,000. Sometimes fines are trebled in such cases, but it doesn't necessarily apply in this instance, he added.
Mead hopes to follow up with detectives in the case, but that may not happen. Police spokesman Jeff Kappel said he doesn't think there will be a follow-up. It's a manpower issue, he said, likening the case to triage in a medical emergency.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at 461-1309 or rzabel@nwlink.com
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