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Community Christmas tree still standing

Could be safety hazard

By Cindy Filipenko

If your Christmas tree is still up, you’re not alone.

Two months after it was erected Pemberton’s first community Christmas tree is still waiting to be removed. The LED lights on the 40-foot cut tree (10 feet are buried underground) in front of Signal Hill Elementary School have long been extinguished but the tree, with its curling foliage and dozens of strands of lights, remains.

“I think there was great enthusiasm when the project started, to get the tree up and lit. After that, people kind of fell away,” said Sheena Fraser, deputy clerk of the Village of Pemberton.

As well as being an unfinished piece of business, the tree also represents a potential safety issue. The melting snow penetrating the soil surrounding the tree could result in the tree becoming waterlogged and quickly rotting, in turn, presenting a falling hazard.

Fraser expects that the tree, a joint initiative of council and community members, will be removed after the matter is brought up with the Public Works committee next week.