Embedded Files
http://www.thedahloneganugget.com/submit_letter
Dahlonega Nugget Editor:
(put letter to the editor in the subject line.)
****************************************************
Email all Lumpkin Commissoners:
commissioner@lumpkincounty.gov
Kathleen Walker, County Clerk:
706-864-3742
kathleen.walker@lumpkincounty.gov
Lumpkin Board of Commissioners individual contacts:
Chris Dockery
Chairman
(706) 864-3742
chris.dockery@lumpkincounty.gov
Doug Sherrill
Commissioner District 1
(706) 864-3742
doug.sherrill@lumpkincounty.gov
Steve Shaw
Commissioner District 2
(706) 864-3742
Clarence Stowers
Commissioner District 3
(706) 864-3742
clarence.stowers@lumpkincounty.gov
Clarence Grindle
Commissioner District 4
(706) 864-3742
clarence.grindle@lumpkincounty.gov
Lumpkin County government and meeting schedule:
www.lumpkincounty.gov/dept/boardComm
Dahlonega City Council Members, and Mayor Contacts:
http://dahlonega-ga.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=99&Itemid=81
**************************************************************************************************
12.30.13 Submitted to Dahlonga Nugget.
Our Natural Heritage. Why we live here,
why tourists visit
Dear Editor:
Residents on Jay Bridge Road and elsewhere in Lumpkin County are expressing despair over the clear cutting on that road from the highway to the river. Old timers are in tears over the whole sale violence which is being perpetrated on their homeland.
All trees are being removed. Animal habitats destroyed and mud put in to the river. Lumpkin County is quickly going from a get away to, to a get away from, faster than you can say 'Alpharetta...'
If every land owner decided to clear cut their land they could do it, and Lumpkin County would resemble Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped, and it would all be perfectly legal; and THAT is NOT RIGHT...
In the past, when good folks spoke up at meetings and wanted trees protected they were ignored. These are people who care, about this county, about animals, about tourism, and about other human beings.
Ignoring the pleas of good people and old timers care, who want to protect the land and the animals they love is breaking their hearts. This is disrespect to our elders, and that is NOT RIGHT!
The animals have nowhere to live. Insect habitats are being destroyed. There are those who have regard for the way they do things and there are those who do not--that is what laws and boundaries are for, and good people are not threatened by them. We are not threatened by a tree ordinance; we are threatened by the lack of a tree ordinance...
We have a tree Ordinance for Dahlonega, but it is insufficient and there is no enforcement. We need a tree ordinance for Lumpkin County. We will have a petition for a tree ordinance; and, we shall overcome.
Katie Klemenchich
Lumpkin County
************************************************************************************************
10.1.13
I have no recollection of a tree ordinance being discussed during the BOC meetings I have attended since 2006. There was discussion of a timber ordinance (not passed) earlier this year but I suspect you are not talking about logging.
However, I did do a search via the county webpage of the County Ordinances. You can do the same search by looking on the bottom right-hand of the home page of the website. Select “County Ordinances” and put the word “tree” in the search box. This will bring up the land use code that contains the section on landscaping.
As far as Georgia Counties that have adopted tree ordinances, that is not information that I have. I do know that Forsyth County has what is called a “tree ordinance” but it appears to be very similar to what we have in our Land Use Code as landscaping. I would suspect that cities and urban/metro counties have some variation of tree ordinances/landscaping rules but I don’t know how many.
Kathleen Walker, Board of Commissioners, Lumpkin County
**********************************************************************************************************************************
Jamie Klem <jamiek.klem@gmail.com>
to kathleen.walker
Dear Ms. Walker;
I was told by the woman at the office where Larry Rider works that you have been to most of the meetings of the Lumpkin County Commissioners. Can you tell me how I can obtain a history of efforts to raise this issue at the meetings, and what the response has been, as well as the reasons they do not have a tree ordinance? Is Lumpkin County the only county in Georgia without a tree ordinance? If not, do you know which others do not have one?
Thank you very much for your help.
10.1.13
Thanks for sending your questions to us about how to get a tree committee together and begin work on a tree ordinance. I’d like to ask my colleagues who have worked with communities and tree ordinances if they have feedback and suggestions for you. Can you help Katie with some initial guidance? See her e-mail below.
Thanks,
Mary Lynne Beckley, Executive Director
The Georgia Urban Forest Council, Inc.
315 West Ponce de Leon Avenue, Suite 554
Decatur, GA 30030
404-377-0404
Sustaining Georgia's green legacy by helping
communities grow healthy trees
From: Jamie Klem [mailto:jamiek.klem@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2013 11:18 AM
To: gufc@gufc.org; Jamie Klem
Subject: Looking for help in getting a tree ordinance for Lumpkin County
10.1.13
Dear Georiga Urban Forest Council:
I am a local activist in Lumpkin County. I am looking for information on what if any, other Counties in Georgia (besides Lumpkin) do not have a tree ordinance? I am also looking for suggestions on how to go forward with getting a tree commitee and getting an ordinance.
We also have a Dahlonega Tree Ordinance, but it is not enforced, and there is no enforcement officer. Dahlonega is called a Tree City.
There is NGU here, much development, and we are a tourist town that is fast losing its small town feel.
Thank you for your help.
A Coalition of the Willing
A Coalition of the Willing
Many citizens have engaged in the struggle over the years to try and get an ordinance to protect our trees and to get enforcement for the Dahlonega Tree Ordinance. Emily Lewy, Robert Bridges, and many others stood up in County meetings, and said 'We need a Tree Ordinance.'
We applaud their efforts.
Today, the need to Let our Trees Just Be is only more urgent.
This is a struggle worth engaging in, regardless of various setbacks. There are no substitutes for trees. They give us oxygen, they give animals a place to live. They are our natural heritage. They provide a large reason why people visit our town, and area. They should be viewed as a treasure, and protected as such.
A few of the tree activists have burned out over what they perceive as a hopeless cause. But politicians come and go. We need a change of consciousness, and it needs to begin with me; with each one of us. If every concerned person did just one thing, we can get this done.
Dahlonega Nugget Editor:
(put letter to the editor in the subject line.)
jamiek.klem@gmail.com
Print the tree ordinance petition at the bottom of this page. When completed drop off at Taylor Made Resale in Dahlonega, or The Wholesome Earth store, Dahlonega.
******************************************************
TOGETHER, WE CAN DO IT....YOU ARE NOT ALONE...OTHERS BELIEVE THE WAY YOU DO, THAT TREES SHOULD BE PROTECTED, RESPECTED AND PRESERVED...
I put my hand to the plow; I will not look back...
I will go the distance.
******************************************************************
We are on the right side of history, and the right side of nature.
I respect what I see what is coming. I want to do my part.
******************************************************************
Be on the Tree Committee.
Sign the petition...
attend City Council Meetings and County meetings, ask for opportunity to speak.
Contact your local officials.
A few old timers have burned out over what they perceive as a hopeless cause--the very decent and caring desire, to have a tree ordinance in Lumpkin County.
But politicians come and go. We need a change of consciousness, and it needs to begin with each one of us. Elected officials taking away the hope of people who believe, in good things? Who care about the land, the animals, the air, the water, the tourism, who believe, in good things?
...ELECTED, TO TAKE AWAY HOPE?
TO BREAK PEOPLE'S SPIRIT?
I HOPE, NOT...
**************************************************************************************************
Ansel Adams, American Photographer, wrote 5,000 letters to the Editor in his lifetime according to PBS documentary. About 2 letters a month for 25 years. Adams was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980 for all his life work as a photographer and an artist and advocate for wilderness.
From Ansel Adams site:
Adams was an unremitting activist for the cause of wilderness and the environment. Over the years he attended innumerable meetings and wrote thousands of letters in support of his conservation philosophy to newspaper editors, Sierra Club and Wilderness Society colleagues, government bureaucrats, and politicians. However, his great influence came from his photography. His images became the symbols, the veritable icons, of wild America. When people thought about the national parks of the Sierra Club or nature of the environment itself, the often envisioned them in terms of an Ansel Adams photograph. His black-and-white images were not “realistic” documents of nature. Instead, they sought an intensification and purification of the psychological experience of natural beauty. He created a sense of the sublime magnificence of nature that infused the viewer with the emotional equivalent of wilderness, often more powerful than the actual thing.
For Adams, the environmental issues of particular importance were Yosemite National Park, the national park system, and above all, the preservation of wilderness. He focused on what he termed the spiritual-emotional aspects of parks and wilderness and relentlessly resisted the Park Service’s “resortism,” which had led to the over development of the national parks and their domination by private concessionaires. But the range of issues in which Adams involved himself was encyclopedic. He fought for new parks and wilderness areas, for the Wilderness Act, for wild Alaska and his beloved Big Sur coast of central California, for the mighty redwoods, for endangered sea lions and sea otters, and for clean air and water. An advocate of balanced, restrained use of resources, Adams also fought relentlessly against overbuilt highways, billboards, and all manner of environmental mendacity and shortsightedness. Yet he invariably treated his opponents with respect and courtesy.
A Coalition of the Willing:
Does that phrase sound familiar? It was the slogan used for a war about 10 years ago.
Many citizens have engaged in the struggle over the years to try and get an ordinance to protect our trees and to get enforcement for the Dahlonega Tree Ordinance. Emily Lewy, Robert Bridges, and many others stood up in County meetings, and said 'We need a Tree Ordinance.'
We applaud their efforts.
Today, the need to Let our Trees Just Be is only more urgent.
This is a struggle worth engaging in, regardless of various setbacks. There are no substitutes for trees. They give us oxygen, they give animals a place to live. They are our natural heritage. They provide a large reason why people visit our town, and area. They should be viewed as a treasure, and protected as such.
A few of the tree activists have burned out over what they perceive as a hopeless cause. But politicians come and go. We need a change of consciousness, and it needs to begin with me; with each one of us. If every concerned person did just one thing, we can get this done.
Dahlonega Nugget Editor:
(put letter to the editor in the subject line.)
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse