If someone comes to your door with a form
Residents are reporting that Road Commission staff are coming to the door and asking them to sign a form on the spot about what happens to the wood from their trees — leave it, or haul it away.
Before you sign anything: take a photo of the form, both sides, and email it to hello@savekzootrees.org. We are having these reviewed.
We are residents, not lawyers, and we are not going to tell you what to do about a document. But we would like to know how many of these are circulating and what they say, and so would the attorneys we are talking to.
Send us the formIs your tree marked?
The tree in front of your house probably got there before your house did.
Whatever happens next, photograph it this week — in leaf, from the road, with something in frame for scale. If it comes down you will want that picture, and if it stays you will want it anyway.
An orange or red X means the Road Commission has it slated for removal. A black X painted over an orange one means it came off the list.
Measure it yourself. Nobody else is going to.
There is no independent auditor checking whether the Road Commission follows its own policy. Residents have found dead trees unmarked and healthy trees marked well outside the zone. So measure.
The rule, as the Road Commission states it: the clear zone runs 17 feet from the outside white line. A standard lane is 11 feet, so that’s about 28 feet from the centerline. Where the road has no white line, it’s 17 feet from the edge of the pavement — which reaches further. Roads with lower speed limits have a smaller zone; most of the affected roads are posted 55.
And this part matters: per the Road Commission’s own statements, if any part of the trunk falls outside the clear zone, the tree should not be cut.
⚠ Please be careful.
These are 55 mile-per-hour roads. Do not stand in the roadway with a tape measure. Measure from your own property line toward the road, work with a second person, wear something bright, and pick a time with light traffic.
If you’re a senior or you live alone and would rather not do this by yourself, we will come out and help you measure. Email hello@savekzootrees.org.
If your tree is marked
- Measure it, and photograph the X with something in frame for scale.
- Tell us — this is how we know the real scale of what’s happening.
- Write to the Road Commission board — the addresses, the phone numbers, and a message you can start from are all on The Plan. You can also contact Ryan Minkus, the county engineer, directly. Residents report he will listen and will check the policy against your trees. Be polite and be specific. Expect to hear about what a large concession the agency has already made — you can let that pass and stay on your trees.
- Send the same message to your county commissioner. They appoint the road commissioners.
- Send the right-of-way letter below.
Tell us about your trees
This is the single most useful thing you can do from your kitchen table. Your name is not published anywhere. We use this to understand the real scale and to reach you if there’s news for your road specifically.
Sign the petition
There are two — pick the one that’s you.
Both go to the community petition. The first one matters more than you think: those are the households this is actually being done to.
Ask them to show their work
The Road Commission applies “33 feet from the centerline” as a single rule across 130 miles and fifteen townships. But the width it actually holds depends on how each individual road was established, and the centerline of the pavement is not always the centerline of the right-of-way — the agency’s own FAQ concedes that.
So ask. This letter requests, for your address specifically: the recorded instrument the Road Commission relies on, the right-of-way width it asserts, how that width was measured, and the distance it recorded from that line to each marked tree on your property.
Send it to the Road Commission and copy the County Board. Keep what comes back.
Signs and handouts
All of these print black-and-white on an ordinary home printer. No design skills, no cost.
- Yard sign — headlined Nobody plants a roadside oak for themselves. with a blank underneath for your own number: how many trees are marked in front of your house. A row of signs down one road, each with a different number on it, says something no single sign can.
- One-page flyer — for the mailbox, the feed store, the church bulletin board
- Door hanger — for the neighbors who aren’t home
- Public comment card — the meeting date, the address, and three lines to write what you want to say before you get there