We did it!! Monday night the City Council passed the "no net loss of trees" ordinance! Thank you, everyone, who came out last night! We were able to head off any effort to delay and secured the necessary votes for passage.  Our current Alderman, Ian Pfeiffer, supported this bill and his vote last night was crucial to ensuring its success.  Please take a moment to email or call Alderman Pfeiffer and thank him for his support.

What this ordinance does is protect our quality of life, which is dependent on healthy creeks and streams. Forests play an instrumental role in this by filtering the water entering these bodies of water. This ordinance ensures developers replace the forest they remove during the development process, and it dissuades clearing of forests by placing an economic cost on their removal.

I am not finished advocating for smart legislation that will seek to restore our environment, protect our quality of life, and to break the stranglehold developers have over the City's planning process. I have a number of pieces of legislation in mind to do this, including legislation that will require that developers treat more stormwater than the minimum in the current law.