Your Opinion: Brush removal at park generates outrage

Dear Editor:

I was shocked and horrified last night when I discovered that brush along the drainage ditch on the east side of Memorial Park had been clear cut with the skill and sensitivity of rampaging vandals. Native trees and plants that were vital to maintaining stable dirt banks have been clear cut.

I was equally shocked this morning to see in my Sunday paper that evidently a local church volunteered to commit this foul act of environmental rape. I thought God gave us this planet to be good stewards! These criminals cut down a sassafras tree that could have been 30 years old. I can't believe that the city is run by people stupid enough to allow this.

I am furious to think that my tax dollars will have to be expended to control erosion and excess sediment that this grotesquely unenlightened act will cause.

I hope the parties responsible will be fined and punished sufficiently to restore and maintain the natural and beneficial growth of plants whose roots filter run-off and keep streams clean and clear, whose leaves and branches provide shelter and sustenance to song birds, lightening bugs and all the other beautiful living things that make a park something to be treasured above the average parking lot.

Outraged.