Atlanta arborist says he was fired for doing his job too well
By ALAN JUDD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/02/08
Tom Coffin thought his bosses wanted to talk about the possible malfeasance he had discovered in the agency that enforces the city of Atlanta's tree ordinance.
Instead, they fired him.
Coffin lost his $50,700-a-year job as the city's senior field arborist on Tuesday after filing complaints against other employees.
He alleged they looked the other way when developers and homeowners illegally removed healthy trees, approved construction sites when violations were obvious, and failed to regularly impose fines even after blatant disregard of the law.
He gave his superiors an analysis of city data that, he said, showed "the near total abdication of enforcement of the tree protection ordinance."
"I followed the book," Coffin, 64, said in an interview Saturday. "And then I got fired for it."
His dismissal has stirred protests to Mayor Shirley Franklin and other officials by an informal network of people, mostly from the northeast Atlanta area that Coffin patrolled, who are concerned about the continual loss of the city's tree canopy.
The episode also exposes how loosely the city enforces its tree ordinance, which allows hefty fines for removing healthy trees without a permit.
"Tom's doing all the work, and the rest of them aren't doing a damn thing," said Sheldon Schlegman, an Atlanta architect and a former chairman of the city's Tree Conservation Commission.
By firing Coffin, Schlegman said, his bosses are telling other arborists that "we'd rather you not do anything."
City officials including Franklin did not respond to requests by telephone and e-mail for an interview Saturday.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Planning and Community Development, where the arborists work, e-mailed a statement describing Coffin's dismissal as "a personnel matter" that was not related to recent layoffs of city employees because of a budget deficit.
"We have other arborists who are trained and knowledgeable in the tree ordinance who will handle and protect the city's tree canopy as required by our codes," the statement said. The city will soon seek applicants to replace Coffin, according to the statement.
Coffin spent eight years as a city arborist after helping write the tree ordinance in the late 1990s. He aggressively enforced the law, his supporters say, and bristled when others overlooked violations.
This spring, Coffin said, he began documenting "fairly extreme irregularities" in enforcement, including false reports that construction sites were in compliance with the law. Using a city database, Coffin determined that he had issued 70 citations for illegal tree removal during the first half of 2008. Five other arborists combined reported 29 violations; two of them issued one citation each.
Coffin didn't try to explain the disparities. But he thought the data called for serious repercussions.
"If you were a traffic cop and you went six months without writing a ticket," he said, "would you still have a job?"
Last Tuesday, Ibraham Maslamani, director of the city's Bureau of Buildings, called Coffin and another supervisor into his office. Coffin had been requesting a meeting to discuss his findings about enforcement and assumed this was it.
But without explanation, Coffin said, Maslamani told him, "Your services are no longer required." Twenty minutes later, Coffin walked out, unemployed.
"There had been no prior consultations or discussions or admonishments or any indication I wasn't doing the job I was supposed to do," he said.
Coffin, who is trying to get his job back, doesn't think his frequent jousting with well-connected developers cost him his job.
Some of his supporters aren't so sure.
"The neighborhood suspects that the firing was caused by Mr. Coffin's diligence," Mercy S. Wright of the Tuxedo Park neighborhood wrote to the mayor last week. "He was simply doing his job too well."
By ALAN JUDD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/02/08
Tom Coffin thought his bosses wanted to talk about the possible malfeasance he had discovered in the agency that enforces the city of Atlanta's tree ordinance.
Instead, they fired him.
Coffin lost his $50,700-a-year job as the city's senior field arborist on Tuesday after filing complaints against other employees.
He alleged they looked the other way when developers and homeowners illegally removed healthy trees, approved construction sites when violations were obvious, and failed to regularly impose fines even after blatant disregard of the law.
He gave his superiors an analysis of city data that, he said, showed "the near total abdication of enforcement of the tree protection ordinance."
"I followed the book," Coffin, 64, said in an interview Saturday. "And then I got fired for it."
His dismissal has stirred protests to Mayor Shirley Franklin and other officials by an informal network of people, mostly from the northeast Atlanta area that Coffin patrolled, who are concerned about the continual loss of the city's tree canopy.
The episode also exposes how loosely the city enforces its tree ordinance, which allows hefty fines for removing healthy trees without a permit.
"Tom's doing all the work, and the rest of them aren't doing a damn thing," said Sheldon Schlegman, an Atlanta architect and a former chairman of the city's Tree Conservation Commission.
By firing Coffin, Schlegman said, his bosses are telling other arborists that "we'd rather you not do anything."
City officials including Franklin did not respond to requests by telephone and e-mail for an interview Saturday.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Planning and Community Development, where the arborists work, e-mailed a statement describing Coffin's dismissal as "a personnel matter" that was not related to recent layoffs of city employees because of a budget deficit.
"We have other arborists who are trained and knowledgeable in the tree ordinance who will handle and protect the city's tree canopy as required by our codes," the statement said. The city will soon seek applicants to replace Coffin, according to the statement.
Coffin spent eight years as a city arborist after helping write the tree ordinance in the late 1990s. He aggressively enforced the law, his supporters say, and bristled when others overlooked violations.
This spring, Coffin said, he began documenting "fairly extreme irregularities" in enforcement, including false reports that construction sites were in compliance with the law. Using a city database, Coffin determined that he had issued 70 citations for illegal tree removal during the first half of 2008. Five other arborists combined reported 29 violations; two of them issued one citation each.
Coffin didn't try to explain the disparities. But he thought the data called for serious repercussions.
"If you were a traffic cop and you went six months without writing a ticket," he said, "would you still have a job?"
Last Tuesday, Ibraham Maslamani, director of the city's Bureau of Buildings, called Coffin and another supervisor into his office. Coffin had been requesting a meeting to discuss his findings about enforcement and assumed this was it.
But without explanation, Coffin said, Maslamani told him, "Your services are no longer required." Twenty minutes later, Coffin walked out, unemployed.
"There had been no prior consultations or discussions or admonishments or any indication I wasn't doing the job I was supposed to do," he said.
Coffin, who is trying to get his job back, doesn't think his frequent jousting with well-connected developers cost him his job.
Some of his supporters aren't so sure.
"The neighborhood suspects that the firing was caused by Mr. Coffin's diligence," Mercy S. Wright of the Tuxedo Park neighborhood wrote to the mayor last week. "He was simply doing his job too well."
