East Hills Tree Activist Issues FOIL on Mineola Over Trees

Tree conservationist Richard Brummel once again stepped before the Mineola Village Board on June 5 to discuss the numbers disclosed in a freedom of information (FOIL) request he previously had served on the village regarding the number of trees taken down in Mineola.

Brummel, an East Hills resident, stated that in his FOIL request results that the village had removed 1,035 trees since 2010, listing the following figures of trees removed in the past years: 12 trees from Sable Road in 2012, 12 trees from Andrews Road in 2011, 10 trees from Beebe Road, 12 trees from Dow Avenue, 15 trees from Marcellus Road.

“The neighbors, the residents of Mineola have told me repeatedly ‘they’re coming in and they’re cutting down too many trees’,” Brummel said. “It seems that they have some basis according to the data that I’m looking at.”

Brummel initially stated that the 424 trees were “cut down” after Hurricane Sandy but mayor Scott Strauss stated that those trees “came down, we removed them from the street.”

Brummel responded by stating that “I’m not sure about whether the number of trees that fell from Hurricane Sandy that I looked at was accurate.”

He stated that he had not received a list of trees planned to be cut down – which Strauss said was indeed provided as well as lists of trees trimmed and pruned among the documents requested.

Brummel then issued several complaints about the information that he was given, such as having no address for the trees listed, no description of the trees on the list and saying that “there’s no reason for the trees to be cut down on any of the streets.”

“It’s a tree removal list; if you can’t interpret it, I can’t help you with it,” Strauss said. “I read it.”

The village typically replants between 160-170 trees per year. However, the village will be replacing approximately 450 trees that were damaged, destroyed or uprooted after Hurricane Sandy and increased its tree replanting line to $50,000. Mineola has received “Tree City USA” recognition by the National Arbor Day Foundation for the past 28 consecutive years for its continuing efforts at planting trees.

Brummel said that he was working with two other people in Mineola “who are very interested in getting the village to open up their tree management policy,” but that night again approached the microphone alone.

He first appeared before the village board on January 16 concerning a red oak tree in the rear yard of a foreclosed property at 208 Roslyn Road that he believed was about 125 years old and had the potential to be destroyed if the property were sold to development.

He was since proven wrong on the tree’s age by deputy mayor Paul Pereira, who said that the tree does not exist on historical aerial photographs.

“He says he’s got all these people – where are they? I don’t see them,” a 40-year resident of Mineola said. “He’s got two people and I can tell you, I went around my block... and I’ve got a lot more, you can double, triple, fill 10 times those two people so please, leave everything the way it is and I think you’re being too kind to other people who keep coming here.”

Brummel also said that Laura Reill, who was present at the previous board meeting and has been the only person to publicly support Brummel at any board meeting, is “deeply traumatized” by the loss of several sycamore trees on Roslyn Road, the subject of his previous complaint.

According to reports, Brummel confronted village superintendent of public works Tom Rini at the scene of the sycamore trees being taken down and chased off LIPA crews with it being necessary to call the police to the scene to bar Brummel from the area so that crews could complete the work. The trees were reportedly suffering from rot and decay, though Brummel wished an evaluation be conducted by a certified arborist associate of his.

“I think the tree program is an excellent program that Mineola has, please don’t change it and I think if you were to talk to a number of residents of Mineola, they would even say you don’t cut down enough trees,” Joe Grillo of Wellington Road implored the board. “One of the biggest points that people talk about it is ‘can I get a tree cut down in front of my home?’ Mineola will not cut a tree down just because you want a tree cut down; there has to be a legitimate reason. In my opinion... what’s being said – that these trees are being cut down indiscriminately – is not the truth.”

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