Saving Brickell's trees

This is quite interesting. They are fighting for the trees on Brickell and winning. After residents complained about the destruction to County Commissioner Xavier Suarez and showed him a petition, he got involved and saved what hasn't been destroyed yet.

Speaking of trees and the Grove streetscape project. The first phase on Florida Avenue has been done and redone because there were problems with the work and the project. Sand is escaping from under the new bricks. As for the Silva Cells, I cannot speak. 

As for Main Highway and other areas in the Grove that the County owns (not the City) well, those streets are at a standstill and their stop gap for people tripping on the bricks is the black tar you see around trees and stuff. 

Anyway, here is Commissioner Suarez's Facebook post in regard to the Brickell trees:

Thank you for your recent emails and for the massive petition just received. I was first alerted to the issue when he heard form neighbors’ emails of the prospective cutting of a substantial number of trees. Soon after, residents and commuters alike (as well as I driving home to 25th Rd) saw the protest notices which were affixed to many of the trees in question. Later, our office was inundated with no less than 1,500 signed petitions by City of Miami residents who opposed the imminent removal of the 75 designated trees. 

At that point we checked on the jurisdictional authority for Brickell Avenue and its median, and confirmed that the State of Florida owns the street, but the City of Miami has a management agreement in place. (Once again, FDOT Regional Director Gus Pego proved to be one of the most responsive administrators in this region...)

After speaking to Director Pego, all the petitions were scanned and sent via email to him and to the Assistant City of Manager of Miami, Alice Bravo. At the same time, the Commissioner’s Chief of Staff discussed the matter with City of Miami Commissioner Sarnoff’s Chief of Staff.
 I assure you that we are going to do our best to save all healthy trees. Nearly all of the trees designated for removal provide canopy, a natural source of shade and beauty which is so important to our environment and wellbeing. (Parenthetically, we are way behind most other American cities in percentage of tree canopy...)

We are informed that some of the trees slated for cutting are too close to the curb and otherwise doing damage to the infrastructure. As to those, we have asked both the City of Miami and the Department of Transportation to reassess the potential damage against the transactional loss of canopy and aesthetics that are so vital to Brickell Avenue.

Here is the Facebook page for saving the trees: https://www.facebook.com/brickellunites