By Matt Gleckman

Members of the Main Street Association gathered at Quality Bookstore yesterday morning to discuss concerns over trees along Main Street blocking the signs to local businesses.

The agenda item was added to the association’s normal monthly business after the city received a number of complaints from local merchants.

Chris Burkett, director of Parks and Recreation for Cortez, stated that the planting of the trees along main street began in the early 1980s as part of the downtown association’s plan to improve the city’s appearance by adding greenery.

"The merchants taxed themselves in order to pay for the project and a landscape planner was hired to decide on the tree species that would be used and where they would be planted," said Burkett.

According to Burkett, since the time the trees were planted, there have been a handful of complaints each year from store owners stating that the trees need to either be pruned or removed all together. This is especially true of the Bradford pear species, which grows tall enough to block signs and also has an especially dense foliage.

"I asked the city if they could transplant the tree in front of my hotel 50 feet to the east," said Michele Wolanin, owner of the Sand Canyon Inn. "I would even cover the cost of moving it. Right now the tree blocks my sign and is affecting business.

"While some store owners have come forth and complained to the city, others have been suspected of sneaking around and secretly poisoning the trees by throwing salt on the soil.

Burkett stated that right now there only seems to be three possible solutions to this problem: Remove the trees, live with them, or do something about the signs. Since right now city policy states that none of the trees will be removed, it appears that only two of the options are viable. With that being the case, many of yesterday morning’s attendees began discussing the possibility of receiving help from the city in designing new eye-catching signs such as sandwich boards.

The conclusion of the meeting was filled with many questions to be answered in the coming months. How do other communities handle similar situations? Do we need some kind of continuity when planting different tree species? Do we need to survey all of the downtown business owners? What are we trying to make downtown Cortez look like?