Partial Success

They're Getting Warmer


We'll, just to keep torturing myself, I bought a copy of today's newspaper on my way home from dinner. You can imagine my surprise when, on the top of page two, they published this article:

City's tree plan just a sprout

Fri, Jul 21, 2006By KEITH LAING
The Brunswick News

The city of Brunswick wants someone else to pick up the bill for resurrecting one of its fallen oak trees.

Mayor Bryan Thompson said the city will seek assistance from several sources to raise the $35,000 it is expected to cost to have a professional sculptor carve a fully grown tree felled during the K Street sewer repair project into a community landmark celebrating the lives of prominent Georgians.

If the proposal comes to fruition, the 180,000-pound tree, which had once shaded K Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Amherst Street, would be transformed into a piece of artwork commemorating Georgia founder James Oglethorpe, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and poet Sidney Lanier.

"There could be a variety of sources, such as the area arts organization and private sector donations," Thompson said.

He added while the city has selected Pennslyvania-based artist Joe King to create the sculpture, it has not arranged to finance the project.

"It was never our intention that the city was going to drop $35,000 on this," he said.

"We were talking to this guy to get a ballpark range of what something like this would require in terms of cash" We are fully planning on seeing what kinds of partnerships might be formed throughout the community to help pull this together."

Thompson also said the project has not been finalized yet.

"We're at the stage where we are looking at the possibility of this," he said.

"We were trying to find someone very qualified to take on in a masterful way this large, complex project."

I'll give the Newspaper a B+ for their effort, after allowing the story to flounder and fester in the critical public eye for almost two weeks.

Notice that as is typical with newspapers, mistakes made in stories printed in large print, above the fold, on the front page are later corrected somewhere else inside in fine print, if they are corrected at all.

The interesting thing is the number of letters to the editor that have been published addressing the initial story...a total of five to date, including this positive one in today's issue:

Backlash about old oak sculpture saddens artist

In regards to having the old oak tree carved by a sculptor, I understand the reasoning about the money being used for humanitarian needs, and the other options mentioned are okay. Still, as an artist myself, it makes me sad that once again, as always, art is considered unimportant, or the very, very least important.

Artists have to earn a living, too. A plastic surgeon "carves" someone's body and reshapes it for the sake of egotism and makes that much money, I'm sure. How important is that?

Jackie Strickland

Then there is this one that's the third negative one to date:

BrunswickMayor may be risking re-election due to idea

Mr. Mayor, while your moves to improve our city, (ie: tearing down the eyesores) are to be commended, I have to stop and think about the idea of spending $35,000 to sculpt what is left of a tree.

Are you out of your mind? Don't you think that the monies could be spent better elsewhere in the community?

Do you want to risk re-election because of a tree? If you want to help preserve the city of Brunswick's history, then look around and find a cause that will benefit the members of the community, perhaps even garner some profits for Brunswick. Sculpt a tree? Mr. Mayor! It's firewood!

MJ Bragg

And finally, much to my surprise, blog reader and frequent commenter here at this blog, Ed Drew, wrote a letter without my prior knowledge and finally managed to get my name mentioned in the newspaper in association with the project I originated.

Ed wrote this:

BrunswickInformation regarding tree appears wrong

I am very disappointed at the recent reporting of the events surrounding the carving of the remains of the oak tree from K Street. I was well aware of the plans that had been put together with great effort by Virgil Rogers of St. Simons Island. He put considerable time and effort into saving the tree stump and the plans included having it done with private donations, not tax dollars as you imply in your editorial.

I am very disappointed in your inability to correctly write a story and editorial of an event right there in your city. Neither of these even mentioned Mr. Rogers, who, had it not been for him, there would not even have even been a project. If you can't get a local story correct, with proper credit to local individuals, how in the world can you get anything correct?

I formerly lived in Brunswick, that's why I am familiar with the situation.

Kenneth Drew
Deridder, LA

All I can say is...THANKS ED, and hopefully with a little luck we can turn this thing around and get it done after all.

What still bugs the heck out of me was why it had to be such a mess in the first place?