Rudman's city: Advice to council: money has never grown on trees

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Looking back on the six months periodic detention Mike Smith got for taking to the One Tree Hill pine with a chainsaw, the activist can count himself lucky the court wasn't aware how much his night's work would end up costing city ratepayers.

Then again, if Judge Richard Bollard had been told the bill would come to well over $1.3 million, I doubt he would have believed what he was hearing. I know I don't. And I have the actual figures all set out for me in a report from Mark Bowater, Auckland City's manager, arborculture services and sports parks.

The total comes to a lot more than the $940,404 the Chubb Security van robbers stole, resulting in leader Peter Richard Tyson getting sent away for 11 years last week. And in that case, Chubb got $676,000 of their loot back.

Not that I'm suggesting for a moment that Smith should have been locked away. How would he, or any of us, have dreamt that politicians, from the 1994 incident onwards, would shower so much money into life support for one already ailing pine?

As you know, I was never emotionally committed to saving the old Monterey pine and I suspect that some of the committed might have been less so if they had known how much the whole circus was going to cost.

Smith attacked the 120-year-old tree in October 1994, leaving it with numerous small cuts, ranging between 10cm and 42cm in depth.

Only 28 per cent of the trunk circumference was left undamaged. The experts said that it had 10 years at most to live. That was with specialist attention.

The politicians responded by opening the cheque book and saying: "How much?"

Some 20 years before, someone had tried to blow up the tree with explosives. Apart from some decay around part of the trunk, it survived that outrage. A protective cage was erected and that was that.

The care after the 1994 incident was much more intensive.

On first-aid alone, $41,200 went into remedial arboricultural work, which included regular summer watering. This was in the period between the assault and the end of the 1996 financial year. Another $48,286 went on fencing, barriers and cables to stabilise the tree. Then there was the $12,510 in legal services.

But the biggest bill by far was for security, which came to an eye-watering $208,631. This included the installation of video surveillance equipment plus "static, roving and routine security."

At times there must have been more spooks than sheep on that thar hill.

In 1997, the tree cost only $3480, but the following year the total soared to $49,691.

The 1999 bill came to $24,710, and last year it was $73,424. That blowout was caused by another attack on the tree.

In the current financial year, the costs were $95,910 and mainly related to the removal of the tree.

The total spent by ratepayers in saving the tree and planning its replacement since the October 1994 attack comes to $557,842. But this is not the full story.

Mr Bowater records that these figures "are derived primarily from financial records."

What is left out and can only be guessed at is the "staff time across the many departments that have been involved since 1994."

The above costs cover the hospice and funeral expenses for the late departed pine. Now we face the continuing cost of growing a replacement to maturity.

Last Thursday, councillors agreed to the experts' advice. This was to plant a grove of totara and pohutukawa seedlings and allow "a process of natural and managed selection" to take place over the next 10 to 20 years. This would result "in the survival of either a pohutukawa or a totara that will grow to maturity."

The cost of the "ongoing maintenance, security and monitoring of the new tree planting" is listed at $40,000 a year, which totals, over 20 years, $800,000.

Councillor Victoria Carter was something of a lonely voice last week when she tried to amend the motion to read that no tree be planted.

But she does have a point. Is any tree - or even two trees - worth $1.3 million?

Herald Online feature: Tree on the Hill