Christie talks Tree City USA designation
The city of Bella Vista is entering its third year as a Tree City USA city and, as part of Arbor Day events held during the week across the city, Mayor Peter Christie visited the monthly meeting of the Bella Vista Garden Club to explain the title.
“What does earning a tree recognition actually mean to our community?” he asked those in attendance. “We all know about preservation and how trees make oxygen and do other things, but it clearly demonstrates to visitors and to our residents that we understand the importance of trees and what the urban canopy can do to help us and protect us.”
He added, “The same thing is true with the flowers and bushes as well, as far as showing we care about the community.”
Christie explained there are four standards that must be met by a city to achieve Tree City USA designation.
“You have to have a tree board or tree department, you have to have a community ordinance, you have to spend at least $2 per capita on urban forestry and you have to celebrate Arbor Day,” he said.
The city’s Tree Advisory Board is made up of Chairman Mike Abb, Cheryl Hall, Linda Lloyd, Graham Edwards, Chuck Woods, Laura Hoffert and Nancy Dougas. The city liaison is Kay Curry.
The city does have the community ordinance in place and also has the funding covered.
“The $2 a head that you have to spend, they let us use the trail maintenance money for that,” said Christie. “So, our current census as of the 2020 census, is 30,104 people. You multiply that by two and you can figure out what it should be. We actually spend more than that. We spend $71,000 a year.”
Christie said those funds also cover situations like what the city faced following the wind storm that hit on Aug. 26, 2019.
“That was awful,” he said. “So we built that contingency into the budget. We don’t necessarily use it, but it’s there if we have to get to it. We actually didn’t build enough that year. It cost us about $400,000 to clean it up. But we got there and we got it fixed. But they let us use that money as a qualifier.”
The city also observes Arbor Day. This year, on Monday, March 21, the mayor read a proclamation during a tree planting ceremony that included the planting of two sycamore trees at a location behind Premier Dermatology at the site of the former Iberia Bank.
“It is a day that I enjoy and a day of thoughtfulness because trees are so important to the community,” Christie said of Arbor Day. “One might think, ‘Planting trees in Bella Vista? Are you kidding me? That’s like bringing coal to Newcastle.’ But they’re different trees. They’re not all oak.”
Besides providing a variety of species, the mayor said planting trees and being a Tree City USA city is a good outreach to the community.
“All that contributes to telling people to come here, that we care about the community,” he said. “Yes, we pick up the litter and do all sorts of good things, but the beauty of the flowers, and maintaining the trees, and having a different type of tree other than just oak, is all very important.”
Christie also pointed out that the trees help elevate values of the properties in the city.
“They also increase property values, which is one thing that’s near and dear to my heart,” he said. “That was one of the things I wanted to do when i first ran for mayor in 2014, to insure that our property values improved, and we’ve been successful in doing that.”
But, he added, “I can’t take all of the credit. People drove up house prices south of us and so people came north. Now the house prices are going up here, but the building continues. Nevertheless, we have kept property values in a nice place because, let’s face it, as we get older that is our legacy to our kids and our grandkids. I don’t know about you, but I want to leave them something to try to help them as they continue on through their lives.”
The mayor pointed to the example of Lake Bella Vista as another important reason for planting trees.
“Lake Bella Vista is an example of urban development without trees,” he said. “Why would I say that? It always floods. It floods out the Wall of Honor and over across the street to the trout farm. So in conjunction with the (Property Owners Association) a couple of years ago, we hired Burns McDonald to do a complete hydrology study. And here’s what they found. There’s 83 square miles of tributaries feeding into Lake Bella Vista. Always have been. The difference is the growth of urbanism, no trees, improper retention ponds to capture the water … there’s no ground left to absorb the water, so what it does is it hits the roofs, hits the gutters, hits the pavements and it runs, and it runs right into Lake Bella Vista.”
The report, according to the mayor, said that “it doesn’t matter whether the dam’s there or not, in our estimation it’s always going to flood because it’s a puddle.”
He said, “That took me by surprise. I never thought it would have been that big (an area of tributaries). So it’s important that trees absorb, they help prevent that kind of runoff, and we have to be cognizant and aware of that as well.”