Magnolia Squashes Orange in City Tree Debate

Jennifer Lumm wish she'd known sooner about the movement to make the southern magnolia Dunedin's official city tree.

In the end, sudden public uprising in a tree that would pay homage to Dunedin's citrus grove heritage was no match against a citizen advisory group's selection for one with much deeper Southern roots. 

The environmental committee's southern magnolia defeated the orange tree in a 4-1 commission vote Thursday. Designations were also passed for the osprey as the city bird and magnolia as official flower.

"We're from the South, we love the magnolia tree. We just don't think it's a representation of Dunedin," said Lumm, who spearheaded a budding orange tree movement that caught the sympathy of at least two commissioners. She held a sign showing Dunedin's fruit crate labels.

Some residents were caught off guard, even though discussions over what tree would potentially replace the longstanding, non-native bauhinia as city tree was discussed "heartily" with the city's environmental advisory group over the past year. The southern magnolia was selected for its prevalence in Dunedin and its durability, said Lanie Sheets, parks and recreation superintendent.

The Environmental Quality Committee vetted the magnolia through other city groups, including the Dunedin Garden Club, the Bay Bouquet Garden Club and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee, and brought it to the commission in a ready-to-approve resolution on April 18.

"We're already so engulfed in the orange," said Lumm, who held orange signs in protest at the commission meeting Thursday.

Lumm defended Dunedin's orange belt history only finding out too late that the decision was all but made for the magnolia.

Vice Mayor Julie Ward Bujalski agreed to that point. She said she received numerous phone calls and emails from residents upset because they didn't know the decision was going to be made.

"Who knew?" Bujalski said. "Who knew that the city tree and flower would be something that people would really want to be involved in?"

She said she wanted the environmental committee to hold off 30 days to encourage resident participation:

What I am hearing from folks is that they didn’t know about it until the Patch article, and they would have liked to have a chance to give some input. Now, I will say that’s what we have our citizen advisory groups for. People get on these advisory groups to represent the citizenry of the community. But I can also understand, because this is such a, kind of a far-reaching, community representive sort of thing, how people might want to have some input. Having said that, I’m not saying that it isn’t good. But I think we might want to hold off a little bit and let some folks have an input that would then go back to these committees for consideration. 

Mayor Dave Eggers said, from a historical perspective, Lumm's pull for the orange tree held merit, and that letting the issue out to the public would be a good thing.

Commissioner Julie Scales said she was at the Environmental Committee's last meeting. 

"A lot of frustration was expressed by how long this process is and how long this decision has been delayed," she said, adding that its members hoped the resolution would be passed in time for Earth Day on April 22. 

Scales backed the committees analysis. She said the committees wanted to select native species as official city symbols, and that technically, the orange tree is native to Asia.

Bujalski recalled lessons learned from the backlash after the first logo was revealed during the city branding initiative in 2011.

"I think one of the mistakes we made there was not including the general public in getting feedback as far as like on our Facebook page to garner ideas," she said. "I also think, in hindsight, I think that's a mistake we made here."

Commissioner Heather Gracy also backed the committee, saying she sat in some meetings when she campaigned last summer. 

"All last year the different committees that I visited, this was brought up several times," Gracy said, "and so, that really makes me want to support the motion just because I value input and time and effort that all of these citizens take in attending these committee meetings."

Eggers, the only dissenting vote, disagreed, saying he would rather not vote until he knows the general public had adequate opportunity to weigh in.

"We may have been talking about this for a long time, but walk down the street and ask people if they know anything about what we're talking about tonight and I would bet you nine out of 10 have no idea," he said. 

"We don't need to rush," Eggers said. "If it's Earth Day, I'm sorry. We didn't have it for last year's Earth Day or the one before that."

The mayor apologized after casting his dissenting vote.

"I'm sorry we didn't get more input along the way. Shame on us, um ... but, uh —"

Scales interrupted with a question for clarification. 

"I know that Courtney (King, city spokesperson) sent us that comment for Facebook. Were there any other comments on Facebook about it?"

"I don't know," Bujalski said. "But nobody else knew about it until the Patch article came out. So, we should have put on our Facebook account a long time ago saying, 'we're working on this, what do you think?' That's what we should be using our Facebook page for."

The City of Dunedin has no recorded Facebook status updates mentioning the resolution designating Dunedin's official tree.

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