Holding Atlanta City Government Accountable

By Tom Coffin, Ph.D. A curious but perhaps instructive side story to my abrupt firing last July 29 has emerged from responses to my Open Records requests to the City. I will summarize the events here and attach the documents as .pdf files for your consideration. [Moderator's note: PDF files are not attached to this blog.] Complaint and Investigation On July 28, 2008 I received a call from an angry homeowner at 199 Douglas St. SE. He said that a tree removal company had started to take down a tree on his property without his permission. I instructed the homeowner to call the police to have the cutting stopped. I promised to visit the site to investigate and assess the damage to the tree. Soon thereafter I got a call from APD Officer E. Hicks. Officer Hicks said that the tree company had a permit to remove the tree, signed by the city arborist office. The permit was issued for 194 Palatka St. SE. I spoke again to the Douglas St. homeowner, who insisted that the tree was on h...

From Creative Loafing: "Tom Coffin, the Atlanta senior field arborist whose firing last summer sparked a firestorm of controversy, says he’s mulling legal options if the city doesn’t rehire him. In mid-December, his attorney told the city — in the form of an ante litum notice — that he planned to sue to under the city’s “whistleblower” statute. Coffin has maintained he was fired because he alerted superiors about alleged lax enforcement by his colleagues of the tree ordinance — an eco-minded yet controversial law that forces homeowners or businesses to meet criteria before cutting down trees. Coffin, whom we cheekily referred to as a real-life Lorax, helped write the ordinance, and has earned both praise and scorn from residents and developers for keeping a watchful eye on its enforcement." ... more

From the Buckhead Reporter... "Fired Atlanta senior arborist Tom Coffin is preparing for a hearing that could help win him his job back even as incidents of tree destruction continue to make Buckhead residents long for the days when he was defending the city's tree canopy. One recent trees-vs.-development case involves a $2.9 million house being built at 705 Fairfield Road. The clearing of the lot for the construction involved the destruction of 84 trees, a plan that received a tree-removal permit April 16, 2007, according to the records of the city's arborist office. But Neighborhood Planning Unit A (NPU-A) board member Debra Fowler spotted more trees cut down just before Christmas."... more

Below is an email Sheldon Schlegman sent this morning to City Council members in regard to the City Council's Public Safety Committee’s consideration to reinstate Tom Coffin. I’d encourage everyone to write these committee members as well - their contact info is below. From: sheldon schlegman Sent: Monday, January 19, 2009 9:00 AM To: anne fauver; kwanza hall; c.t. martin; joyce sheperd; h.lamar willis; cleta winslow Subject: Tom Coffins firing. Atlanta City Council Members: Please use your office to rehire Tom Coffin. He is the only Arborist who understands the law and enforces it. Unfortunately his boss felt it was necessary to “Shoot the messenger” when Mr. Coffin presented to him the facts that the other Arborists were not enforcing the law. We the citizens of Atlanta rely upon protection under the law. I notice the furor being raised by the Council when police are laid off. I can understand that; our lives are precious, so are our trees. Our trees are too valuable an a...

Last week the Buckhead Reporter quoted Ainsley Caldwell stating at the NPU-A January meeting: "...the city's tree protection ordinance gives police the task of responding to tree emergencies, but... police don't know the ordinance and won't answer tree calls anyway in this time of city furloughs and other budget cuts." The Buckhead Reporter further noted that Ray Mock, NPU-A chairman, and others present at the meeting said, "the illegal cutting of trees happens at night and on the weekends, precisely when the arborist office is unavailable." So, given that the police won't/can't respond and the City Arborist Office is closed at night and on the weekends, the NPU meeting attendees asked for Ainsley Caldwell's home telephone number. He refused to give it to them. That made them mad. Why? Because we used to have Tom Coffin's home phone number, that's why. Although Tom encouraged us to call the police first after business hours -- back wh...

Tom Coffin recently learned that the City’s Public Safety Committee, in response to his intent to sue the City, is considering reinstating Coffin to his position of Senior Arborist. This is the position Tom held before he was fired, presumably for disclosing to his management data about under-performance in the City Arborist Department. This data would have never been made public had the management in the Bureau of Buildings addressed the shortcomings disclosed. Rather, they shot the messenger, accusing Mr. Coffin of not being a team player and not playing nice. City Council now has the opportunity to say, “Enough. We are not going to let our city government have the almighty power to sit back and collect property taxes and not deliver. Furthermore, we are not going to allow the few remaining performers in city government live in fear of retribution if they complain they are doing their job… and all of their co-workers’ jobs, too.” One sign of a performer is his or her eagerness to get...