PORT TOWNSEND — The only municipality on the North Olympic Peninsula with Tree City USA designation from the national Arbor Day Foundation has lost its tree committee.
All five members quit, tendering a letter of resignation to the Port Townsend City Council on Friday.
The committee’s letter alleges a lack of support from the city and stalled projects — including a seven-month-old proposal for downtown’s aging street trees — as reasons for their departure.
One requirement to be designated as a “Tree City USA” is to have an active tree committee — which is why the committee was founded in 2004.
Nancy Stelow, a real estate agent who had been on the committee since it formed, said that, for the designation to remain with Port Townsend, the city would have to reform the committee.
“They have to put another committee together,” she said.
“They could replace it with a committee that plants a tree every year and that would work.
“Our goals were greater than that though.”
The City Council has not addressed the group resignation. Although council meetings are routinely held on Mondays, there was no meeting this Monday, nor will there be one next Monday, in observance of Labor Day.
Mayor Michelle Sandoval, who was on vacation in Canada on Wednesday, said she had not yet heard about the letter, and had no response.
City Manager David Timmons and Deputy Mayor George Randels were both unavailable for comment on Wednesday.
