TAMPA, Fla. — Mayor Jane Castor had a strong and simple message for anyone looking to cut down protected trees illegally: pay up.
A Hillsborough County judge upheld the city’s largest fine for illegally cutting down protected trees in Tampa. Tree service company Miller & Sons LLC in Tampa was required to pay $234,427.50.
"They were found in violation and assessed the largest fine in the city of Tampa's history, over $234,000 fine," Castor said.
Castor explained Miller & Sons LLC will have to pay for cutting down 28 protected trees in 2019 near Gandy Boulevard.
"They were given a cease and desist order by the city, but they continued," she said.
Jonathan Lee, owner of Miller & Sons LLC and the arborist that made the call to cut the trees in 2019, said that he inspected the tree and determined they were in poor condition.
Castor filed a complaint with the International Society of Arboriculture against Lee. City officials then conducted a hearing on the matter and said ISA issued a public reprimand against Lee.
Castor said city arborists then determined that the trees were not in poor condition.
"These trees had recently been given a certificate of health, good health, by an inspection from city arborists," she said.
Lee said he believed the property located near Gandy Boulevard was residential because it was a mobile home park.
Under new legislation at the time called “private property rights,” Lee said it was legal to cut down the trees on residential property. However, the property near Gandy Boulevard was a zoned commercial and Castor said the tree cut on that land made it an illegal act.
Lee said he plans to appeal his fine. He sent 10 Tampa Bay a full written statement in response to the fine. You can read that below.
"Miller and sons will file an appeal through the District Court of Appeals regarding the circuit courts decision to uphold the magistrates imposed fine. We value the trees in our community and work with many residents and companies to do a variety of tree work including tree preservation plans, construction-related tree protection, etc. The case stems from the removal of 27 hazardous trees located at a mobile home park in 2019 after a new state law had passed. The debate with the city is rather the property that was zoned commercial should have qualified for the state law seeing as how residents resided there at the time of the evaluation and tree work. Miller and sons did not clear cut the property and there were healthy grand trees that we would not sign off. Multiple other Arborists determined the trees to be in poor condition at this location and we can assure that trees must meet certain criteria to be considered for removal. Ultimately the property owner decides to remove the trees. The property owner settled with the city for $30,000 and ended up selling the property for over 2.5 million which left us to battle the city since they would not discuss a settlement with us. It is my opinion that this is more about the optics and the politics given the poor condition that the trees were in. The city even stated in a prior article that they weren’t questioning the condition of the trees but rather that the property met the criteria as it was zoned commercial.
"It was clear from the beginning that the city of Tampa felt the new law was a violation of the home rule and they stated that they would fight to amend it, which they successfully have. Miller and sons should not be a pawn in this fight between the city and state and we attempted to discuss the matter with the city multiple times before this became a legal issue. We value our communities' trees and the health of our clients' trees but we are not the ultimate decision-makers for what a property owner decides to do. We can only diagnose deficiencies with trees and give them a hazardous rating and layout options.
"Furthermore for the city and the court to argue that the Gandy property did not meet the criteria for the state law, it seems inequitable that a mobile home property wouldn’t qualify. If they had the right to reside there for multiple decades, the right to vote in the district they were resident of, how can they not be considered residents? The city also attempted to label the mobile homes as condemned at the time the trees were being removed and placed stickers on each mobile home on 8/14/2019 mandating the residents leave the premises by 11 a.m. that day, giving them less than 2 hours to leave their homes. I believe this was an attempt to stop the tree work at the time but would have rendered people homeless. Lastly, the mobile homes were registered by Hillsborough county as mobile homes in 2019 and many years before 2019 and were also registered by the Florida department of health as a mobile home park yet the magistrate called it a trailer facility of some sort and stated that they were not registered with the department of health to which the circuit court upheld. If this was in part their justification to rule against Miller and sons, a quick search would show this to be factually incorrect and that it was certified. When we entered that certificate into the record, the ruling was never corrected.
"We will always have a balanced approach to tree care and tree preservation while respecting the decisions of our clients and will make every effort to understand and follow laws as they may change which has become often. We respect the city's right to protect trees but find it to be at times arbitrary, inconsistent and perhaps motivated by political and monetary factors."