The Select Board voted to remove a volunteer from the Tree Committee for violating the town’s guidelines for civil discourse during its meeting on Monday night.
Gerry Paul, who has been on the Tree Committee for about 20 years, has spent the past 5.5 years investigating whether builders have followed the town’s tree bylaw, which outlines rules regarding cutting down trees. He alleged they haven’t on several occasions, which he surmised could have cost the town over $1 million in lost revenue from unpaid mitigation fees. Town Manager Steve Bartha said the town investigated and justified all of those allegations, but Paul did not stop asking questions.
One town employee filed a harassment complaint against Paul this year, which led the town to investigate his behavior in April (such complaints are not public record). The lawyer who investigated the situation argued Paul violated Lexington’s civil discourse guidelines and recommended the Select Board remove from the Committee, which it has the power to do.
The Select Board voted to follow that recommendation on Monday.
“[This is] not a question of whether Mr. Paul acted valuably in his service to the town as a member of the Tree Committee,” Select board Chair Jill Hai stated during Monday night’s meeting. “It is whether the manner in which he acted was so inconsistent with our standards of civil discourse and our expectations for those who are acting under our authority as to warrant the removal.”
Paul argued it was unfair for him to be removed from a committee for violating the town’s guidelines for civil discourse, which are recommendations, not a mandate.
“I’m being charged with a violation of a civil discourse guideline that has no consequences of violation,” he said during Monday night’s meeting. “This is an aberration within the town.”
Paul, who has also been a Town Meeting member for almost 20 years, shared the news on the Town Meeting Members Association list Tuesday morning. Some residents agreed with Paul that he should not have been removed from the committee.
“I’m disconcerted that a harassment complaint — a serious allegation intended to remedy discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or other protected status — was the mechanism to resolve this situation,” Elizabeth Warren, a Lexington resident (not the state Senator), said.
“I am profoundly ashamed for Lexington about what the [Select Board] decided last night [regarding] Gerry Paul,” resident Patrick Mehr told the Observer over email.
Paul attached a document to his TMMA post that lists his counter-arguments to the town employee’s complaint about his behavior. That document ended with “Letters of Support from Tree Committee Members,” including from Tree Committee members Pat Moyer, Nancy Sofen, and Barbara Tarrh. Those members posted a follow-up letter, stating they did not give permission to be quoted in Paul’s rebuttal and they shared their support before knowing the full story.
“We stand by what we wrote in those letters, although we subsequently learned of additional details that caused us to believe Gerry’s methods had gone too far,” Moyer, Sofen, and Tarrh’s letter states. “It was painful to see members of the Select Board in such a difficult position. We unequivocally accept their decision to remove Gerry from the committee.”
Background
In 2021, the Tree Committee noticed irregularities in enforcement of the town’s tree bylaw, which requires homeowners and developers to log the trees they plan to cut down and either replant or pay the town to do so.
Paul began comparing logs of tree permits online with what has happened at sites where trees have been cut down. He did much of his comparison of sites by looking at Google Maps street views.
Paul argued the rules meant to protect Lexington’s trees weren’t strong enough, developers could find ways around them, and the town was not adequately enforcing its bylaw.
2021 was also the year when David Pinsonneault, Lexington’s director of public works, stopped sending members of town staff to Tree Committee meetings, Paul said. Bartha told the Observer that Pinsonneault said he stopped doing so because of “the way employees were being treated by Mr. Paul in and outside of those meetings.”
Fast forward to 2023, Paul brought 67 allegations of tree bylaw irregularities to the former Town Manager, claiming over $600,000 of lost revenue. The town reviewed those allegations and found insufficient evidence of any intentional wrongdoing, Bartha said.
In Sept. of 2023, LexObserver reviewed the tree permits submitted to the town and found such permits and related applications were inconsistent and irregularly uploaded to the town’s permitting website. A lack of records made it difficult to determine what trees have been removed and how the town has calculated fees.
Paul brought 22 new allegations to Bartha this spring, claiming an additional $400,000 in lost revenue. Each allegation was again reviewed and debunked by Pinsonneault, Bartha said.
Unsatisfied, Paul has kept asking questions.
Subsequently, a town employee filed a complaint “of harassment” against Paul because of his behavior, which Bartha described Monday.
“In a meeting this summer with me, the DPW Director, and the Select Board liaison, Mr. Paul referred to DPW employees as ‘incompetent’ and ‘masters of misdirection’ and told me ‘DPW just needs to learn how to work with the tree committee with me on it.’” Bartha said. “In February of this year, Mr. Paul presented a [powerpoint] to me in which he described each of the DPW Director’s 67 responses to his 2023 allegations as ‘wrong, misleading, and or demonstrably false.’”
“His inability to agree to disagree and move on has been detrimental to the relationship between the tree committee and the public works department and because he was appointed by the Select Board, it creates the perception that such behavior is condoned,” Bartha added.
Paul is unsure how the way he acted constitutes harassment.
“Nothing focuses the mind like seeing your name and harassment in the same sentence…I racked my brain to understand how this could be,” Paul said Monday.
After receiving the complaint, the town hired a lawyer to investigate Paul’s behavior. The lawyer interviewed a handful of people from the town including Paul, Bartha, Pinsonneault, the Tree Warden, a Select Board member, and another Tree Committee member. She found Paul violated Lexington’s guidelines for civil discourse, which request that board and committee members show respect for others; discuss policies, not people; use a civil tone; and agree to disagree. The lawyer subsequently recommended the Select Board consider removing Paul from the Tree Committee.
Select Board members said the decision to do so was difficult to make. But ultimately, they felt obliged to ensure town employees were treated fairly.
“This isn’t something any of us take lightly, volunteers give their time and service…but we had a complaint filed…an independent investigation was done…based on that information it is very difficult for us to say that our plan is to do nothing,” Doug Lucente, a Select Board member, said during Monday night’s meeting. “We have to do something to make it a healthier environment for everybody.”
As a then Tree Committee member, I co-wrote our original Tree bylaw in 2000 with fellow Tree Committee member Jim Wood and our then Town Counsel, Bill Lahey.
Our basic philosophy was that the Tree bylaw would save major trees because it would help the Tree Warden make builders “THINK BEFORE YOU CUT” a big tree to avoid the mitigation fees instituted by the Tree bylaw.
As described in https://lexobserver.org/2024/06/14/letter-to-the-editor-how-to-improve-our-toothless-tree-bylaw/, our current Tree Warden is not doing this: the Tree Warden allowed a major 30-inch diameter oak to be cut at 25 Munroe Rd by Finnegan (https://lexingtonma.portal.opengov.com/records/78309) when in an exactly similar layout one street over, another builder kept a similar 30-inch diameter oak in place at 25 Munroe Rd.
Instead of unfairly punishing a longstanding, dedicated and effective volunteer Tree Committee member, the Select Board should investigate why the Town Manager, Steve Bartha, and the DPW Director, David Pinsonneault, have been unable (or unwilling?) to train our Tree Warden to enforce our Tree bylaw effectively. If these two senior staff members cannot do so, THEY, not Gerry Paul, should go.
The Tree Warden has not attended Tree Committee meetings for years; DPW Director David Pinsonneault attends instead. If a teacher can’t handle a 5th grade classroom, would the School Principal take over for the teacher? I don’t think so. The teacher would be trained, and if unable to improve, would be fired.
The Select Board needs to supervise more closely the ONLY Town employee it is responsible for, Town Manager Steve Bartha, instead of simply taking an independent report (commissioned by the Town Manager) at face value.
Does the Select Board realize that independent reports can be wrong? As one example, the https://lexingtonma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/14350/Lexington-Residential-Impact-Report-April-2025?bidId independent Fougère report is wrong: it misses about half of our $240 million total (including health benefits and debt service for school personnel and buildings) annual school expenses because Fougère used wrong unit costs in table 16 of its “independent” report. And the Town Manager has not made Fougère correct its wrong report — which the Town has nevertheless paid for…
I can’t speak to the merits of Paul’s removal but I can say that we need way more transparency on this issue of tree removal. How do taxpayers know that the rules are being followed so it’s not hidden from our view? It seems like it’s pretty simple math. Can anyone share where we can go to see for ourselves?
There is a link to information about the tree bylaw in the article above. Some information about construction sites and tree permits can be found here:
https://lexingtonma.portal.opengov.com/search
What I found relative to the loss of $450K is in this document:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MJsGCCKFC49ZV8tQJ0w-t4pqTx88LxzU/view?usp=drivesdk
It is not easy for you or me as a resident to “go to see for ourselves” whether the rules regarding removal of trees protected by the Tree bylaw are followed, because one would need for EACH lot where “major construction” (as defined by our Tree bylaw https://ecode360.com/10535335, i.e. lots where 50% or more of the footprint of the existing house is removed) to know (1) how many protected trees were removed of how many DBH inches total, (2) whether the required mitigation is replanting and/or payment of a mitigation fee, and for each how many DBH inches of replanting of new trees, and how many $s to be paid into the Town’s Tree fund as mitigation fee, and finally (3) whether (2) was done as required when the Tree Warden issued the Tree Removal Permit.
That is EXACTLY what Gerry Paul investigated methodically for years, and to the annoyance and shame of Town officials, he found that $1 million worth of mitigation fees were never paid, that healthy trees were declared “hazardous” (waiving to the advantage of builders for those large trees the requirements of the Tree bylaw), and — to me most importantly — that the Tree Warden made no effort whatsoever to save trees by having builders modify their proposed plans for their new construction so as to save trees wherever possible (the “THINK BEFORE YOU CUT” I mentioned above).
Instead of addressing these continued failures to properly enforce our Tree bylaw, Town Manager Bartha and DPW Director Pinsonneault did nothing to make the Tree Warden work more effectively, as he should, but instead got the Select Board to get rid of Gerry Paul who dared to speak truth to power.
Not the way I expect Lexington to be run…
I agree with Jeanne DeSanto. Too many trees are quietly disappearing. I feel we need complete transparency regarding this tree bylaw.
Along with weekly police reports, property sales, announcements, etc., transparency would be achieved if there was weekly notification of tree removal detailed in Patrick Mehr’s comment above. HOWEVER, the Tree Warden first needs to be properly and thoroughly trained to understand and implement the rules regarding removal of trees protected by the bylaws and be required to disclose all information weekly to residents.
Lexington has bylaws in place to protect our established trees, but with some of the trees “quietly disappearing” at even a few building sites, as Mr. Paul has observed on Google maps and reported, we need to take another tack to enforce these bylaws. It makes sense that evidence of the required permission to remove an established tree (and assurance that the proper mitigation rules have been enforced) should be conspicuously posted AT THE SITE before and after the tree is felled. The transparency of such public posting will help avoid suspicion that some of our developers might be taking advantage of special personal relationships in the town, which they’re probably not.
Thank you, Gerry Paul, for doing the town a service and bringing this issue to light. The Observer needs to continue to research and report on this issue. One million dollars is a lot of money. What are the Town Manager, DPW Director and Tree Warden going to do differently moving forward? Who is going to hold them accountable? If the town can’t accurately account for something as basic as this, how can we be sure that the millions of dollars being requested for the new high school will be spent responsibly?