Will Trees = Votes?

Campaign season took root along with a new oak, as a veteran street beautification group planted its 500th tree in Edgewood.

Neighborhood activist Eliezer Greer (at left in photo) announced Tuesday afternoon that after a decade of work, his non-profit group was planting its 500th tree in the 24th Ward. He invited Ward 24 Alderwoman Liz McCormack (pictured center), among others, to pick up a shovel and finish the planting in a press event outside a home at Elm and Hobart Streets.

Greer, who’s best known for founding an armed citizens’ patrol, also runs Edgewood Village, Inc. For the 10th spring in a row, the organization has received federal Community Block Development Grant money to beautify neighborhood streets by planting new oak, ash, honey locust and liquidambar trees.

Growing Season

In past years, the group has planted up to 80 trees in the neighborhood, transforming the cityscape with new foliage. This season, as CDBG funds dwindled, the group got money to plant only 20 trees.

Lula McMillan, who lives at 924 – 926 Elm St., helped shovel a scoop of mulch onto the base of the sapling pin oak outside her home of 12 years. She welcomed the prospect of more shade. Edgewood Village Inc. hires contractors to plant the trees; neighbors often volunteer to water the tree for the first year, said Greer.

Campaign Season

Greer’s family runs a politically influential yeshiva which has helped stabilize and improve its swath of the Edgewood neighborhood. He’s known as an influential vote-puller. Over the past couple of years, Greer has emerged as an outspoken critic of City Hall, especially in regards to the decline of community policing. He is a strong supporter of Alderwoman McCormack, who has served the neighborhood for 11, two-year terms. On the board, McCormack has not been considered a rock-solid vote for Mayor John DeStefano, Jr.‘s administration.

After many years without a challenger, McCormack is being faced this year by a City Hall-backed contender, Marcus Paca. Click here to read a previous story about his candidacy.

Greer contended the tree-planting event was not intended to be political. It was merely a continuation of a decade-long partnership with McCormack, he said. The two have worked together on many neighborhood issues, including two recent, controversial ones: McCormack joined Greer and other neighbors in opposing a Laundromat on Whalley Avenue and supported his citizen patrol.

At Tuesday’s press conference, which attracted one photographer, a video cameraman and this reporter, Greer made a point to credit McCormack for his group’s arboreal success.

“Although the budget was tight this year, Liz McCormack fought hard to keep us the commitment [to plant trees] to the neighbors and voters,” he wrote in an email announcing the event. At the press conference, he credited her ​“tireless work” with making the program possible. She was instrumental in forwarding requests from neighbors who want a tree outside their homes, he said.

McCormack gave a more modest description of her role in the program. She said over the years, she has typically forwarded between two and five neighborhood requests on to the tree-planting group. None of the 20 trees being planted this spring stemmed from those requests, she said.

The plantings are paid for by CDBG grants, which are recommended by the mayor’s office, voted on by the Joint Community Development/Human Services Committee, then sent to the full Board of Aldermen for final approval. Over the years, McCormack said, she didn’t play a major role in shaping this process, except through a private conversation this year with an alderman on the joint committee.

The alderman she spoke with at first frowned on approving the grant, McCormack said. He argued that it duplicated city services. She countered that the program would benefit him by freeing up tree-planting funds for other neighborhoods. The alderman was swayed, and voted for the proposal, she said.

Asked about the press conference in a phone conversation, McCormack’s opponent, Paca, said Greer ​“can credit whoever he wants” for the tree-planting program. ​“But people know. People who have been following closely, know.”

Hank Stays Neutral

While Greer touted McCormack Tuesday as the candidate who had championed neighborhood issues, another key party insider kept his distance from the race.

Hank Campbell (pictured) and Greer are Ward 24 Democratic Party co-chairs. Both attended the press event Tuesday.

The function of their somewhat obscure position is to nominate an aldermanic candidate for the Democratic primary. That nomination determines which candidate, Paca or McCormack, will appear on the Democratic primary ballot under the party line. Like most ward co-chairs, Greer and Campbell plan to arrive at their decision after a nominating vote by 50 neighbors in mid-July. Co-chairs’ influence derives from their role in hand-picking those 50 voters.

Greer was quick to make an early endorsement of McCormack.

Campbell, however, has not. He’s been a co-chair for four years and a neighborhood activist for 40. While he supported McCormack in years past, this year he said he’s staying neutral.

“This is the first time in the ward that there’s been anyone [opponent] who’s serious,” Campbell explained. ​“I have to play politics.”

“This country is a democracy,” he said. ​“I don’t think there’s anyone out there who can out-express the existing alderwoman, but you have to leave the door open … Otherwise, it would be a dictatorship.”

He said he plans to hear out both candidates and leave the choice up to the other 48 participants in the nominating vote.

Paca declined comment on the co-chair politics. His made a note to praise the tree-planting program.

“That’s a very important part of our community,” he said. ​“It’s something that should be supported, and I’m glad that we have more trees in our community.”