Protest Salem Hospital’s needless tree killings: 5-6 pm, Mission Street

Picket! Protest! 

Exactly what is called for after Salem Hospital cut down dozens of beautiful ancient trees yesterday, just a short while after a legal ruling required it to reduce the size of a parking lot and save trees it wanted to cut down.

Photo by Jim Scheppke of the devastation.
Some of the destroyed trees are estimated to be 290 years old!

Some people upset about the needless urban logging plan to do some protest picketing along Mission Street (across from Bush Park) from 5 to 6 pm for about a week.

Here's what protest organizer Lois Stark said in an email message:

We need to show the community what the hospital has done. 

I suggest we picket along Mission street every night between 5:00 and 6:00 pm. Our signs should say, “Salem Hospital: Stop killing trees!” “Save the white oaks!” and “Isn’t 32 enough??”

I plan to be there tomorrow night (January 7) at 5:00 pm with my sign. I want people to show up, but regardless I will be there EVERY NIGHT FOR A WEEK (at least).

Send this out to everyone you know and get your signs ready. As far as I know, as long as we don’t block the sidewalk it is perfectly legal. It’s our sidewalk.

Thanks for doing this, Lois. I can't be there tomorrow, but I hope to take part in the picketing on another day. 

This is part of one of my comments on a newspaper story about the tree killings. (Salem Health is Salem Hospital's parent organization.)

Huge 290 year old trees are significant to everybody but heartless Hospital officials. 

They survived from before the American Revolution through floods, fires, windstorms, and so much else. But a greedy corporate healthcare organization, Salem Health, finally succeeded in killing them. Shameful.

Another Jim Scheppke photo