Warpath

This is the letter Fiorella sent off to the Williamson County Commissioners...and the local newspaper


To: Williamson County Commissioners
      Terry Cook
      Cynthia Long
      Valerie Covey
      Russ Boles


I am very angry.

I cooperated with a project that I thought would benefit my Lost River neighborhood--the raising of a low-water bridge over the dry creek which is on my property--signing the legal papers in the office of Kon Q. Kwan, Supervising Engineer, two months prior to the planned construction. He assured me that none of my oaks would be cut down or damaged and the only trees that would have to be removed were two large cedars.

The destruction crew started work on Tuesday, June 4. I was about to stroll down to the site when my son and his wife, who had gone out for breakfast, rushed into the house and told me a big oak tree had been cut down and another was in process. Several cedars had also been cut down, far exceeding the two I had been told two months earlier it would be necessary to remove.

In an instant, I was out the door, up the driveway, and down to the site, where I called an immediate halt to the work. The crew captain contacted management, then apologized and told me that he had been given the wrong instructions, that there had been no need to cut down my oaks or clear so much land.

Realizing there was no way any of the landscape could be glued back together again, I tried to make the best of the situation by insisting that all my felled trees be cut for firewood and delivered to my door, along with the growing haystack of wood chips.

Later in the day, Mr. Kwan, accompanied by George Mayfield, Supervisor Inspector, visited me at home and apologized profusely, even offering to plant two new oaks (as if saplings could compensate for hundred-year-old trees), but I held my ground that no more trees be cut down, that I receive the wood chips, and that the remains of my felled trees be cut into firewood and delivered to my door.

It's been more than three weeks, and I have received most of the wood but none of the chips. Also, the logs that were delivered, although neatly stacked, have not been split into firewood.

Surely, Williamson County, which has broken its word, savaged my land, and cut down my trees, can at least load the wood chips into a truck and get those logs split and delivered to me.