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"Free Pass... To Act Like Potted Plants" Claims Intent-to-Sue Press Release

Press release issued today:
December 15, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ATLANTA ARBORIST FILES WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIM

Former City of Atlanta Senior Arborist Tom Coffin today filed an “intent to sue” letter with the city for wrongful dismissal under the State of Georgia's Whistleblower Act.” Dr. Coffin asserts that he was fired for raising concerns about failure to enforce Atlanta's tree preservation laws while serving as field supervisor of the Arborist Division in Atlanta's Bureau of Buildings.

Field arborists are hired as degreed professionals explicitly to implement and enforce Atlanta’s Tree Protection Ordinance. In the weeks prior to his abrupt dismissal in July Dr. Coffin was pressing his supervisor, Arboricultural Manager Ainsley Caldwell, to accept disciplinary charges he was making against two subordinate field arborists for official decisions they had made that violated the Code of Conduct of the city and the Standard Operating Procedures of the division. On July 14, 2008, Dr. Coffin also gave Mr. Caldwell an analysis of six months of field arborist activity that demonstrated a nearly total lack of enforcement activity on the part of his subordinates. In the wake of these events and despite his recent elevation to the supervisor position, Dr. Coffin was fired without warning or explanation on July 29.

“It is deeply disturbing that I am forced into court for trying to do my job,” Dr. Coffin said. “I was mistreated by an unjust and illegal firing. More importantly, however, the citizens of Atlanta are being mistreated and short-changed by the Arborist Division and the Bureau of Buildings. Atlanta's Tree Protection Ordinance is now a dead letter. The law is not being enforced. The City has given a free pass to field arborists to act like potted plants, doing nothing to enforce the law that they were hired to implement.”

Dr. Coffin served on the initial Tree Conservation Commission of the city, formed in 1997. He chaired the ordinance re-write committee that wrote the basic legislation that transformed the Arborist Division by the hiring of four field arborists in 2000. Dr. Coffin accepted one of the field arborist positions at that time. He was hired in the newly created Senior Arborist position in October 2007. His firing at the end of July spawned several weeks of citizen protest and news coverage, both local and national, in August and September.

If affirmative response from the city is not forthcoming within the mandatory 30-day waiting period, Dr. Coffin will initiate suit in January 2009.

Attached is the ante litem notice to the City. Also attached is a letter of support for Dr. Coffin signed by former chairpersons of the Tree Conservation Commission of the City of Atlanta.

I do not have the ante litem in a format that can be uploaded to this blog, nor do I have a copy of the letter of support signed by the former chairpersons of the Tree Conservation Commission.

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