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WARREN -- The city paid $3,450 to Gaumer Landscape Inc. of Warren to cut down the trees that were too big for city workers to take down in preparation for the city's new bocce court.
About 18 to 20 trees were removed from behind the Women's Park, in between the Kinsman House and the Perkins House, which is where city hall is housed on Mahoning Avenue.
City workers took down most of the trees, Gaumer took care of three large ones, said Enzo Cantalamessa. Cantalamessa was safety service director when the trees were removed last week. He was sworn in Monday as the new law director.
Cantalamessa said the tree trunks were taken to Lakeview Landscape Supply, where the city already takes its outdoor debris, so it didn't cost anything additional.
The trees were cleared out to make room for a new bocce court.
Several trees were left standing. It appears some of the trees that were cut down were in good condition, and some were not.
The court is being built there because the Italian American Heritage Festival is moving in 2020 from Courthouse Square to Perkins Park, which sits just below the area being turned into the bocce court, said Cantalamessa.
The city departments had the manpower and the equipment to prepare the area and construct the court. They decided to take on the project for the committee that plans and hosts the Italian festival in Warren each year, to allow the committee to use its limited funding for the scholarships it issues every year, said Cantalamessa, who is on the committee.
Some groups that help maintain the historical spaces in the area say they weren't consulted about the removal of the trees and the plans to alter the landscape with a bocce court where some of Warren's earliest families built the Perkins and Kinsman houses.
"We intended no affront, but we know there will be minimal to no invasion on any other functions in the area. For years, the migration of the festival away from the square has been discussed, and this is one of the first steps in making it happen," Cantalamessa said earlier this week.
rfox@tribtoday.com