Concerned residents came out to the Tree Vigil

A lot of incredible people came out last night for the Tree Vigil, in honor of the trees that were massacred by the County this week, with the City's help. At dusk last night, folks started showing up at S. Bayshore Drive and 27th Avenue.


People were proud to stand up for the Grove's tree canopy. People are sad and furious over what happened this week and vowed not to let this happen again. Unfortunately, as we were at the vigil, someone came up with some notices that they found on US1, something about removing about 30 trees in the median there. I'll have more on that tomorrow. There is still time to fight that.


Santiago Villegas, from the Grove Tree Watch group, was the person who came up with the vigil idea. He lit candles and handed them out to everyone.


People stood around and talked and came up with plans to try and protect our tree canopy from all future infringement. Many said that it was bad enough to have to fight off land developers, but to have to fight your own government into going green over more cement is absurd.


Alexis Anderson brought a guitar and played, which added a nice touch to the evening. The Drum Circle was to attend, but didn't make it, but they did show up the night before but were turned away by the heavy downpour.


It was a nice get-together. Village Council chair Michelle Niemeyer was there and she filled in people on what had occurred up to this point.


It's nice to see that there are so many tree huggers around here, including me. It's just amazing that we need to fight to stay green. You would think with these 100 degree days all over the country that people would have a clue about leaving the greenery alone in the name of global warming, and simply in the name of shade.


Above with the children from left, are Dr. Avinash Pathengay, Santiago Vieggas, Lili Dones, Michelle Niemeyer, Alyn Pruett and Marc Allen. There will be more Tree Vigils and there will be lots of fighting to save trees in the future. I suggested to Lili, that the City Tree ordinance needs to be amended to better save the trees. She helped write the ordinance.


One touching thing that we all noticed was that the tree was looking at us with sad eyes. It also had a little sprout growing from under one of the eyes. The goal now is to have the trees saved and perhaps they will sprout again and be large and lush in about 10 years.