Hi Rana:
Sometime, I believe in June representatives from the CoH (police, traffic engineering, and a representative of the Mayor) met with management at SCA. I sat in as a representative of the Board. At that time we had a broad discussion regarding a growing concern among residents about traffic and pedestrian safety. Prior to the meeting, the City of Henderson has conducted a traffic speed study on Anthem Parkway and also did a pedestrian safety enforcement action at Atchely and Anthem Parkway. At the meeting the CoH representatives said that basically the average traffic speed on Anthem Parkway was less than the posted speed limit and also stated how the parkway had been engineered for a 45 mph speed and that none of our roads coming onto the parkway merited a stop light. At that meeting I spoke to the line of sight issues at Merrimack Valley and Anthem Parkway and noted an accident the previous week at Red Valley and Anthem Parkway. At that meeting the two representatives from traffic agreed to go out and look at line of sight issues. In a follow-up email the City Traffic Engineer stated that they were working on maps to provide to SCA and Anthem Council to improve line of sight issues. Maps were later sent out. Thus, the city did have staff view the intersections which then lead to a formal study that resulted in maps being prepared indicating where foliage needed to be removed.
SCA immediately remediated the small sections that we were responsible for. Anthem Council had the most work to do and after a month from receiving the maps they removed the first section of foliage from the median. Last week they removed a good bit of it from Merrimack Valley and Anthem Parkway southward.
While I cannot speak to the height of all of the foliage, I do know (I measured) that much of the growth southward from Merrimack Valley was in excess of 24 inches and even at that point if it still constitutes a line of sight problem according to the city it must be removed. The trees are fine as long as they do not block the line of sight. I suspect that to mitigate the liability of Anthem Council after receiving the notice from the city that a decision was made to first remove all of the foliage constituting a line of sight issue. Without doing so, if someone did have an accident ACC could be sued for negligence in not having removed the growth after being told to do so. I suspect that more removal will take place on down to Somersworth.
I certainly agree with you that it looks bad at present and I do not know what the plans are now for those areas. I would hope that while the plantings are gone, they can replace the aging irrigation lines and controllers. I am not sure exactly what is taking place with ACC right now as I have heard that their long time staff person from FSR is no longer working with ACC.
I will ask that our ACC representative have a report at our next SCA Board meeting that will address this issue. Further please attend the next ACC Board meeting on November 17 at 3 pm in the Solera Clubhouse and make your voices heard.
Tomorrow, I will make more substantive comments regarding the hiring of Adam Clarkson. For now I am off to two doctors appointments and then on to UNLV to teach a class.