Missing Ybor City trees will be replaced

TAMPA - Call it a tree travesty. 

More than 100 trees were cut down through Ybor City, as part of a beautification project that is, to say the least, not finished.

"I've had better days, that's for sure, than this one," said Greg Bayor, the newly installed head of Tampa's Parks and Recreation Department (and leading the latest phase of the beautification project).

"I understand the physics of it, so they can grab a hold of it and pull it out," he explained.  "But they didn't have to do it all at once."

"That's it," said Rachel Pennington, who lives in Ybor.  "And it's heartbreaking -- everyone was upset by it.  But the city had a plan, so the trees went."

The plan was to keep the healthiest and most viable Florida-friendly trees that wouldn't buckle Ybor's sidewalks, and replace the rest.

"Well, I feel like if they're going to ruin the sidewalks and make it look an destroy down here, then I think it's just better off that they take 'em out and replant 'em," said Bardha Mamudi, outside her New York, New York Pizza restaurant on 7th Avenue.  "I think it is important that they replant them.

And according to Greg, that's going to be his most important task this week.

"If we have to go out with my staff with shovels and do replacement trees this week for demonstration," he said,  "we'll be out there."