The Sterling Oak

Mayor Taylor’s Guide to Saving the Planet: Just Ignore the Tree(s)

,

Estimated Reading Time is

1–2 minutes
220 words
Misleading statements by City of Sterling Heights obscure total impact of development

After 8 months, Sterling Heights Mayor Michael Taylor finally responded to the Sterling Oak petition. Because the last post was a bit long on the topic of excessive baloney, let’s just keep this one short and sweet. We will simply compare the Mayor’s opinion with the reality of this development.

Mayor Michael Taylor of Sterling Heights response to Sterling Oak petition

The Destruction Reality

Actual environmental impact of the CCF2 Tigris Tower development plans – Enclosed yellow outline to be clear-cut and dug up, includes landmark trees, wetlands, and floodplain forest habitat.

Because facts matter, this site has never mentioned the word “greed,” but city officials have documented statements expressing interest in property taxes. If the Sterling Heights City Council is going to be trusted to make decisions on future preservation plans, we’d like to suggest that they at least read Doug Tallamy’s work to educate themselves on the importance of our declining green spaces and trees within them.

“We cannot casually accept the loss of oaks without also accepting the loss of thousands of other plants and animals that depend on them.”

– Doug Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees (Timber Press, 2021)

If we need a reminder of the first development …

Tigris Tower development impact
Tigris Tower 1 land clearing for development

Reality Check – What’s living there … nature, ecosystems, a big tree, and friends … maybe the Mayor needs glasses?

, , ,

Please help spread the word, share this with friends

Stay Updated on The Sterling Oak

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email. Be sure to click your confirmation link in your email.

5 responses to “Mayor Taylor’s Guide to Saving the Planet: Just Ignore the Tree(s)”

  1. Ruth Newton

    Thank you for all these emails. Your wisdom and insightfulness has opened my eyes to the ignorance of our city politicians. I’m thankful to have this information as we are approaching the election. I do wonder if you have thoughts on the council that is up for re-election. I would be very interested to hear your opinion. Thank you again for all the hard work you have put into communicating to us. I do forward all your emails to a large group of family that lives in Sterling Heights.

    Reply
    1. The Sterling Oak

      Thank YOU Ruth for following along on this interesting journey! If you’ll excuse a little soapboxing … 🙂 Ignorance is a funny thing, we are all ignorant about certain topics, right? Despite it’s usual negative personal connotations, it’s root simply means “not knowing something.” The question is … will the person let ego get in the way or simply recognize it as a blind spot in their knowledge? It’s not possible to be all-knowing about everything, so decision-makers bring in experts to advise them. But are the experts truly presenting all information to make the right decisions or trying to persuade a certain outcome? Do those “experts” have the appropriate background to effectively communicate about all of the impacts, are they truly impartial?

      So this particular development is about a lot of this; insight into human nature, flaws in city processes, selective presentation of information, bias and/or blind spots that influence our decisions, and a general paradigm shift that is needed in our thinking if we truly want to protect our declining natural habitats and green spaces. If all we do is pay lip service to the idea without making core adjustments that create the issues to begin with, we are fooling ourselves and the public.

      So this election will decide who we are entrusting to make some key decisions for the next 4 years. Some people just vote for their friends in office, some vote for people who may help them personally in the future, a name they recognize, or some people have established political alliances that have nothing to do with protecting nature, trees, wildlife, etc. Sterling Heights has a lot of good things going for it, as well as problematic stuff. The situation with this development has demonstrated the city doesn’t handle the problematic stuff so well, at least publicly. Is it more important to try to sweep things under the rug to maintain an image and shape a narrative, or lean into a blind spot and get into the nitty gritty of problem solving? The evidence points to a yes.

      If you want to base a lot of your vote on this particular issue, then the only incumbents that used a key principle of protection of green space to vote NO in face of the millage asking for more money, to protect green space, are KOSKI and SCHMIDT. A single tree likely had little to do with it. Other councilmembers, that voted YES on the development, have engaged in games to try to re-frame or shift the narrative, like RADTKE, SIERAWSKI, and TAYLOR. The rest, whether silent out of ignorance, embarrassment, or other motivations, are anyone’s guess, but YANEZ and ZIARKO also voted YES. Hope that helps.

      Reply
      1. Ruth Newton

        Yes this will definitely help me make a decision on who gets my vote. I appreciate your knowledge and your willingness to teach us all.

        Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Subscribe to The Sterling Oak

Don't get distracted by someone yelling "squirrel!"

Be sure to click your confirmation link in your email after subscribing (check spam folders if it doesn't appear in your inbox)