The Wisdom of FDR & a Tree Planter’s Daughter

Friends of Trees is grateful to all of our tree friends who joined us at Portland’s community budget forum last night, to FOT volunteer Mark Buchweitz for giving a moving testimony, and to all who are sending emails of support to our city leaders. Below is an eloquent testimony submitted by FOT crew leader Jeff Kisseloff. Read more about the budget concerns here.

My name is Jeff Kisseloff. I am a writer and historian but am here tonight as a crew leader with Friends of Trees. I moved to Portland with my family three years ago from New York. Back in New York City, trees are kept in little iron fences, tree jails we would call them. Parents routinely send their kids off to school with their lunches in their backpacks alongside inhalers that are as ubiquitous as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Decades ago trees were so rare, it seemed in the borough of Brooklyn, that a famous novel got its title when someone planted one in Betty Smith’s neighborhood, and the people who lived around it prayed for its survival.

I hope this doesn’t happen to Portland. We fell in love with the city when we first moved here, and so much of that was because of the lush greenery that was everywhere around us. The argument may be advanced that this is about trees, not about people, but it *is* about people. Trees make peoples’ lives better. They make the air cleaner. They give us shade from the sun, and they beautify our streets. In the heat of the summer, we see kids playing outside and adults congregating under shady trees. Budding leaves in the spring improve the moods of those who suffer through wet, dark winters, and I don’t have to tell you how the changing colors beautify a fall day and add pleasure and wonderment to our lives.

When he created the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration during the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt established a principle that improving the lives of Americans was one of government’s obligations. He did this not only by putting people to work but by having them create art, develop parks, and plant millions of trees. His shortsighted opponents fought his plan, but for eighty years we have benefited from FDR’s farsightedness and the principle that sometimes to make money the government has to spend money. That our city benefits economically from the beauty and ubiquity of its trees there can be no doubt.

Portland’s trees are as intrinsic to the city’s uniqueness as tattoos and beer. As a crew leader for two years, I have seen entire neighborhoods turn out to plant trees and celebrate their adoption as the most recent residents of their blocks. On one planting, I met a fellow named Ron and his eleven-year-old daughter who came out not only to plant their own tree but to help others with theirs as well. He and I became friendly and had lunch a few weeks later. He took out his phone to show me a picture of his daughter. She was sitting in front of their young tree with a book in her hand, reading to it.

To cut the budget for street trees doesn’t just reduce the number of trees that can be planted and cared for, it endangers the health of the citizenry, reduces the pleasure that we Portlanders get from living in this city and, while it may in the short term save the city some money, the long-term financial damage from a less attractive city and a less healthy population will dwarf the supposed savings imposed by a budget cut. I think both FDR and Ron’s daughter got it right when they recognized the grace, beauty and benefits of trees. I hope this panel does as well.

–Jeff Kisseloff