Tucson police probe mass chopping of neighborhood trees

The count of axed-down trees in Navajo Wash has grown to more than 75 as the Tucson Police Department investigates the unauthorized clearing out of the wash at a neighborhood association’s request.

The Tucson City Manager’s office originally inventoried 54 lost trees in the area, but City Attorney Mike Rankin said the latest count is more than 75. He said the “criminal damage to city property is under investigation” over “state law regarding damaging property that you do not own or control.”

The Tucson Police Department confirmed it is investigating the matter.

The felled trees were noticed at the city-owned wash south of Fort Lowell Road and west of Mountain Ave on Sept. 10. Adrian Wurr, secretary of the Hedrick Acres Neighborhood Association, which represents the area abutting the wash, told the Arizona Daily Star last week the association accepted a donation from a resident, who then paid a landscaper to clear out the trees “in conjunction with the neighborhood association.”

The association adopted the wash in 2008 through Tucson Clean and Beautiful’s “Adopt A Public Space” program. The nonprofit advocates for environmental conservation and partners with groups to adopt areas under an agreement to regularly clean them and report conditions that require attention from city employees.

The neighborhood received grant funding to plant a “forest of trees” in the wash, and “neighbors teamed up to plant and hand water the trees until they were established, and have lovingly tended this community space,” for 15 years, according to Katie Gannon, Executive Director of Tucson Clean and Beautiful.

She said the nonprofit does not provide groups with pruning tools. Since the public space adoption program began in 1985, “Never in the history of our program has a group intentionally destroyed mature trees on a publicly-owned site they steward,” Gannon said.

“I was shocked and dismayed that anybody would do that to trees, much less on a neighborhood site that they cared about and were stewarding. It is incomprehensible,” she said.

The neighborhood association reported the chopped-down trees to the nonprofit after the work was done, anticipating Tucson Clean and Beautiful would pick up the massive piles of debris left behind. But the association never told the nonprofit they were planning to deforest the area beforehand, Gannon said.

“As far as I'm concerned, it’s the scene of a crime, and we're not touching it,” she said. “They paid to have that work done, they should pay to have that removed themselves.”

Gannon clarified the group behind the tree axing “doesn't represent the whole neighborhood association. It's a handful of persons and we absolutely will not be working with them any more under this program.”

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Wurr told the Star last week the neighborhood association “wrote a letter explaining our actions to the Ward 3 office. They have ignored that and put out a report saying they don't know who did it and are very concerned about it.”

A council aide for Ward 3 Council Member Kevin Dahl, C.J. Boyd, wrote in Dahl’s Sept. 15 newsletter that the office became aware on Sept. 10 of the sudden gap in the wash where dozens of trees once grew.

But the ward office never received prior, or subsequent, notice of the tree razing.

Sofie Pasilis, a volunteer with the neighborhood association who lives at the same house as Wurr, according to property records, wrote an email to the ward office on Sept. 15.

“I support the tree cutting because of the high risk of fire posed by the trees and dry grass,” she wrote, but never indicated who was responsible for cutting down the trees.

Pasilis said she’s volunteered with the neighborhood association “maintaining” the wash for five years, but that only two to three people usually show up for the clean-ups.

While Wurr told the Star cutting down the trees to dissuade the presence of unsheltered people was “not the primary reason” for doing the work, Pasilis’ email draws more attention to the visible homelessness at the wash.

“The homeless camps attract drug dealers and other shady persons, who seem to be using the homeless for their own purposes,” she wrote. “There is a huge amount of illegal drug use, and disruptive activity. I assume allowing these encampments is cheap for the city, because no housing is needed. But it puts an extreme burden on a small section of a neighborhood immediately near the camps, while everyone else can keep eyes averted, or take a different route to work.”

Wurr recently joined one other Hedrick Acres resident and a business owner in the area as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the city to clear out homeless activity in Navajo Wash.

It’s unclear if Wurr or Pasilis are part of the ongoing police investigation of the tree slashing.