By Kelly Cornelius
February 1, 2024

Trees in Tree City are no longer safe. They are not safe in our historic and storied Parkways, as evidenced by the recent Williamsburg Street “mistake” at the Farmer’s Market, and they are not even safe in a city park.

Aiken City Manager, Stuart Bedenbaugh, announced Friday that the city would proceed with plans to destroy 68 trees from Smith Hazel Park despite community leaders asking to save the trees and despite the Recreation Commission asking for a pause to rethink the destruction of trees after citizens and community leaders brought it to their attention.

Bedenbaugh was quoted in the Aiken Standard as saying  “The city has held several public meetings to discuss the upgrades and tree removal, including a Sept 11th public hearing”.

Except that it doesn’t appear the city ever held a public hearing to vet this particular plan. In fact, according to the city’s Sept 11, 2023 Meeting Agenda packet, there was no agenda item for this and no public hearing. There was a work session held before the city’s regular meeting that same night, with “Smith Hazel Recreation Center Improvements Update” on the agenda, however, there is no opportunity for public input or comment in City work sessions.

A FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request has been submitted for a September 11 public hearing — or any public hearing on the Smith Hazel Park plan. A subsequent FOIA was also submitted for receipt confirmation of public notice for said public hearing on Sept 11 — or for any public hearing where this plan was shown. In addition to the FOIA requests, both Mayor Milner and City Manager Bedenbaugh were emailed requests for evidence of the public hearing that Mr. Bedenbaugh referred to. Neither has responded to date.

As the timeline confirms in The Unlearned Lessons From Williamsburg Now Being Visited Onto Smith Hazel, citizens were not made aware of the number of trees to be cut until a Jan 12, 2024 email sent to Mr. Bill McGhee, despite that the question had been asked numerous times over the past 13 months.

Officials are ignoring community leaders and their own Recreation Commission, with apparently little memory of the heat they took last year after “the wrong plan,” as City Manager Bedenbaugh termed it at the time, destroyed 11 trees at the Farmer’s Market. This debacle, which was an embarrassment for all involved, could have been avoided had the public been allowed to see “the wrong plan” and give input before the plan was executed. Here we are again, less than a year later, the lesson already forgotten.

Below is a reminder of this lesson from a June 12, 2023 City Council meeting, which occurred after the Farmer’s Market trees had been destroyed.

The City should have a proper public hearing regarding this plan so that citizens can have input before these trees are destroyed and gone forever like the “mistake” at the Williamsburg Street Farmer’s Market. The oops-we-did-it-again excuse is not going to fly this time.

What Can You Do?

You can email or call city officials

803-642-7654

City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh sbedenbaugh@cityofaikensc.gov

Mayor Teddy Milner Tmilner@cityofaikensc.gov

Councilman Ed Girardeau egirardeau@cityofaikensc.gov

Councilman Ed Woltz   ewoltz@cityofaikensc.gov

Councilwoman Gail Diggs gdiggs@cityofaikensc.gov

Councilwoman Lessie Price lprice@cityofaikensc.gov

Councilwoman Andrea Gregory agregory@cityofaikensc.gov

Councilwoman Kay Brohl kbrohl@cityofaikensc.gov