No unnecessary red tape

I wrote the following email to the Mayor of Austin. I had been meaning to send it to him for several months now, but kept forgetting to do it. Finally I remembered, and on a Friday when I came home from work, I sent this to him at 6:45’ish.

Dear Mayor Wynn,
It is my understanding that you are a runner. As a fellow running enthusiast, I enjoy using the Lady Bird Lake hike and bike trail multiple times a week. In fact, I run on the trail no less than 4 times a week, sometimes as many as 7 times a week starting between 5:30 an 6AM.

If you have run the Hike and Bike(H&B) trail in the last 4 or 5 months, you have undoubtedly noticed that many trees have grown considerably this year. I, along with hundreds, if not thousands of other Austinites use the H&B trail at dawn, dusk, and even well before sunrise, and have to continuously swerve, run into oncoming runner's path's, or duck way down to avoid many of them.

There are a few dozen trees that are in severe need of some trimming. Specifically, on the south side the 1/2 mile past the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue heading West, and almost the entire north side of the trail from MoPac to I-35 has very low hanging branches.

I figured they'd eventually get taken care of, but it's now fall, and nothing has been done, so the purpose of my email is very simple. Could you please be so kind as to dispatch a couple of city crews with landscaping/trimming equipment on to the trail to cut off the branches that hang well below 8 feet?

Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Best regards,

At 8:26pm, he replied. Here’s part of that reply:

Thanks for the reminder Mike; Agreed and will do. Regards, Will Wynn

That same evening, at 12:17am, his assistant replied to me, then sent an email on which I was cc:’ed to another guy:

Jason,
Any chance you could get a crew out there sometime next week to check out the areas mentioned in the email below?
Thanks much, Matt
Executive Assistant, Austin Mayor Will Wynn

On Tuesday morning, I got yet another email:

Matt,
I confirmed with our Central Park Division that crews are currently addressing this matter. In addition, we are currently working to improve the maintenance plan for that area in hopes of having these issues addressed more quickly in the future. Thanks and let me know if you have any questions.
Jason

On Wednesday, October 3, I got confirmation that it was being taken care of.

Mr. xxxxx,
Good morning. On behalf of Mayor Wynn, thank you for sharing your comments regarding the landscape maintenance along Lady Bird Lake and the trail. The Parks and Recreation Department Central Park Division crews are currently addressing this matter. In addition, the department is also working to improve the maintenance plan for that area in hopes of having these issues addressed more quickly in the future. Again, thank you for your email and please let us know if you have any further questions.
Sincerely, Jason

So I finally replied to all three of them (Mayor Wynn, Matt and Jason) this morning after running two loops on the affected areas:

Hello,
I apologize for the delay in my response to your emails. I was out in Chicago running the marathon, and then took a couple of weeks off before I could make it back out on to the Hike and Bike trail.

This morning I ran two 5-mile loops (Congress to MoPac), and it was great to be able to mindlessly run in the dark without having to watch out for eye-gouging branches.
I think I speak on behalf of thousands of H&B trail users when I sincerely thank you for not only trimming the branches, but for taking care of it so quickly.

The speed of execution makes me proud to live in Austin!
Thanks again,

I thought that was pretty cool.