"...to PROTECT and enhance...."

During (but not restricted to) the past year, I've been dismayed to see the wholesale slaughter of many acres of fine mature trees that could have served as valuable enhancements to a new landscape as well as providing continuity to our ecosystem and to the beauty of our skyline. This has taken place, without any apparent City supervision or developer accountability, in various locations throughout Fairfax--and all in the name of "progress."

Neglect of our environment is not progress; it is regress. Exercising conscientiousness about our development and being exacting with our developers would be progress--and, what's more, progress of the kind that has long placed many other cities far ahead of us in terms of thoughtful, beautiful, and genuinely beneficial development.

It's about time we jumped on the bandwagon, asserting ourselves as what we are: not a "suburb" of Washington, DC (or of any other jurisdiction) but the county seat of Fairfax County--and a true city not only in terms of our incorporation, but also according to our own definition of what a well-balanced city should be.

Preservation and enhancement of our urban forest is crucial to that assertion.