My concern is not with the restoration itself, but with the decision to convert approximately 40 acres of mature woodland into an oak savannah. The city is choosing to replace diverse woodland with oak savannah. But that is not the only choice they have.

I've been told that it takes between 20 and 50 years to get an ecosystem completely done for a a savannah. I don't know. I'm not an expert, but that's just what I've read. Now, I don't have that much time. A lot of us don't have that much time.

You as the staff and mayor have the deciding vote on whether or not to accept the planning commission's recommendation. I would recommend that you either go investigate it further or just say no. This is not right.

Without fire to remove the enormous nitrogen levels in our soil from more than a century of suppression and pollution, the conveyor belt of ecological succession is sliding into reverse. From plowing oak savannah to farmland, importing invasive Kentucky bluegrass for every yard, forced into 340 miles of car dependency, dumping a zip code of poisons into the geoengineered creek while Bachman's profited off of Buckthornne until 2001. We never left the era of colonialism.

We were not told that a change was underway to transform our unique wooded area into a hot, sunny oak savannah and prairie. And now with the 40 acres that the city had recently been showing as Oak Savannah has increased to 58 acres in the bid documents without community input or knowledge.

I would disagree with you. I... the plan all along was for restoration. And restoration does not mean just kind of doing little nibbling around the edges. It means restoring to what it once it once was. And I think we were we were pretty straightforward with all of that.