City: Broadway median swings must come down

As we all know, no good deed shall go unpunished.

Just ask Matt, who because of his line of work, asked that we only use his first name. You see, Matt is in the U.S. military and has been previously occupied overseas during the past five-plus months.

In April, Matt did a good deed. Before leaving, he saw a problem in the Columbus Historic District and decided to fix it. There were some old tree swings in the median of the 500 block of Broadway. The chains were rusted and Matt wanted to make it better.

And he did — significantly better.

He spent more than $200 of his own money and a few days of his own time replacing the old swings.

“Why not? There was a problem,” was his thought at the time. “Those old swings had been up there for years.”

And not only did he replace them, he upgraded them in a significant way. He purchased arborist rope that does the least amount damage to the tree. It’s tensile strength is 16,000 pounds. He bought stainless steel hardware that will hold up to 7,000 pounds of pressure. All of the knots were tree-friendly arborist knots.

And when it came to the swing seats, he purchased oak slats and sanded them to make certain there would be no splinters.

“I was looking for something that wouldn’t rot, too,” he said.

He did it right, as people like Matt usually do.

Good deed done, Matt went about his business. While Matt was not here to enjoy the swings, others certainly did. On any given day, you could see families out there playing under the large oak tree, taking turns on the swings.

I have seen a man, on bended knee, proposing while his intended sat in the swing. Runners and walkers will sometimes stop and swing for a few minutes before returning to the grind.

There is only one thing that Matt probably should have done differently. There is a single-rope swing, and he used a large bolt through the limb to attach the swing. Down the road, and it is probably a long road, that could be an issue.

Matt did what people like Matt tend to do, make their corner of the world just a little better place.

But what Matt did violated city of Columbus code, specifically the city tree ordinance that prohibits attaching anything to a city tree by any means without a permit.

Spoiler alert: we are about to get to that no good deed goes unpunished part of this story.

The trouble started around the Fourth of July, when Eric Gansauer, the city’s forestry administrator, sent letters to to several Historic District residents demanding they take down swings, bird houses, art and feeders attached to city trees.

The problem with the tree swings in the median was Gansauer had been told who erected them, but had not been able to locate Matt, and for good reason: Matt had been previously occupied. Friday morning, about a week after he returned home, Matt was sitting on his front porch when Gansauer showed up.

Busted by the tree police.

Matt was told the swings must come down.

The city’s side of this is legitimate. There are concerns of liability and safety. But folks, there have been swings in trees since there were trees. And I bet this isn’t the only illegal swing on a city-owned tree.

Public Services Director Pat Biegler and Risk Manager Anne-Marie Amiel went out Friday after Gansauer’s visit and looked at the swings.

“They are beautifully constructed,” said Biegler, who, to her credit, checked it out for herself.

But, and this is a big but, the city is not going to budge, Biegler said, calling them an attractive nuisance.

“The swings need to come down,” she said.

And they probably will.

The next guy to propose will just have to use the bench a few steps away, I guess. As for Matt, thank you sir.

Sometimes the right thing just isn’t the right thing. And that’s a crying shame.

This story was originally published November 5, 2016 at 2:52 PM with the headline "City: Broadway median swings must come down."