(a) Unless specifically authorized by the Mayor or his designee, no person shall knowingly do any of the following:
(1) Damage, cut, carve, top, transplant or remove any public tree or shrub;
(2) Attach any rope or wire (other than one used to support a young or broken tree), nails, posters or other contrivance to any public tree or shrub;
(3) Allow any gaseous liquid or solid substance which is harmful to such public trees or shrubs to come in contract with them;
(4) Set fire or permit fire to burn any public tree or shrub when such fire or heat will injure any portion of such public tree or shrub;
(5) Excavate any ditches, tunnels, trenches, driveway, sidewalk or alley within a radius of ten feet of any public tree or shrub;
(6) Deposit, place, store or maintain upon any street or public property of the City any stone, brick, sand, concrete, or other materials which may impede the free passage of water, air or fertilizer to the roots of any tree or shrub growing therein.
(b) As used in this section:
(1) “Person” means any person, firm, partnership, association, corporation, company or organization of any kind.
(2) “Property line” means the line between the outer edge of a street or highway and the abutting real estate.
(3) “Public property” shall include all other grounds owned by the City of Galion, including parks.
(4) “Public tree or shrub” means a tree or shrub growing on a treelawn or any public places.
(5) “Shrub” means a low growing woody plant with one or several perennial main stems producing branches, shoots, or multiple stems from or near the base of the plant and incapable of being pruned to provide at least six feet of clear branchless trunk within five years of planting.
(6) “Street” or “highway” are synonymous and mean the entire width of every public way, easement or right-of-way, between the property lines, when any part thereof is open to the use of the public for the purpose of vehicular and/or pedestrian traffic, and includes alleys.
(7) “Tree” means a tall growing woody plant with one or more perennial main stems or trunk which develops branches from the aerial section of the stem rather than the base; capable of being pruned to provide at least six feet of clear branchless trunk below the crown within five years of planting.
(8) “Treelawn” means that part of a street or highway, lying between the property line and that portion of the street or highway usually used for vehicular traffic. This definition includes curb strips, but also any other unpaved street right-of-way, whether or not a sidewalk is present, and regardless of a sidewalk’s location.
(9) “Top” or “Topping” means a severe cutting back of limbs to stubs larger than three inches in a diameter within the tree’s crown to such a degree as to remove the normal canopy and disfigure the tree. Trees severely damaged by storms or other causes or certain trees under utility wires or other obstructions where other pruning practices are impractical may be exempted from this chapter at the determination of the Mayor or his designee.
(c) Whoever violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor of the fourth degree.
(Ord. 95-6135. Passed 4-25-95.)