Profits may have to compete against personality in the decade-old Main Street beautification effort.
Merchants are complaining that trees along the street that give Spanish Fork an inviting personality are hiding their signs. Mayor Dale Barney said he received four calls within an hour recently from as many merchants complaining about the trees."They must have got their heads together," he said.
Steve Boothe, owner of Boothe Brothers Music, said the trees grow about 8 feet a year.
"If they're not going to take care of them I want to cut them down myself," Boothe said.
The trees are dangerous because motorists slow to find the signs, which are difficult to read behind a sea of leaves, he said. He also complained that the signs cost him business, because if shoppers can't find his store they go elsewhere.
Bruce Hall of MVP Sports said it's just a maintenance problem. The trees need to be trimmed, not removed, he said.
"They're too bushy. Other years they've maintained them better," Hall said.
"I'll bet I could get 60 signatures" of merchants just on Main Street who don't like the trees, Booth said. Planting the trees in a business district "was a bad decision in the first place," he said.
Ironically, it was the beautification project started nearly a decade ago that is credited with bringing merchants back to Main Street. The project was started to stop the tide of businesses moving out back in the 1970s and 1980s.
"The purpose was to improve business on Main Street. We still look at it that way," City Manager Dave Oyler said.
"I wondered when they started planting those trees what kind of a situation we'd have in a few years," Barney said. "I told my wife before I was elected that the first thing I would do was take all those trees out. She said, `Don't you dare.' "
During the 1989 election, the beautification effort became a major campaign issue supported by virtually every candidate. Former Mayor Marie Huff, then campaigning for her first term, described downtown as "desolate." As it progressed, the project gained wide support from the city and the Spanish Fork Chamber of Commerce.
Originally, a local bank offered to help fund the program, but the bank was later sold to a national chain. Therefore, the city has funded the entire beautification project, including planters, brick work and landscaping, and is responsible for its maintenance and liability.
Councilwoman Thora Shaw said an arborist will be retained to see how the trees can be trimmed, but no decision has yet been made.
"I would personally fight against having the trees taken down," Shaw said. "They make Main Street a very attractive entrance into the city."