Coulee Dam’s law that protects its trees may be overhauled at the next council meeting June 27.

Resident Bruce Bartoo has asked permission to remove two town-owned ornamental cherry trees from the planting strip in front of his house at 310 Stevens Avenue, saying he would plant Hawthornes in their place.

Bartoo has asked for their removal several times over a course of a few years, but now says the trees are creating a hazard in his and a neighbor’s lawn, sending up sharp sprouts.

The request has been stalled in the past, either directly by the town’s “tree committee,” established by Ordinance 726, or by that board’s lack of action. The law says it must make a recommendation to the town council on such requests coming from “individuals or governing bodies.”

Now, the council is considering changing that requirement.

“I think that we need to straighten this mess out,” Councilmember Fred Netzel said at last Wednesday’s council meeting. “Bruce has put up with a lot of hooha to get this done, but I think we need to fix … the problem” rather than just grant his request.

Councilmember Ben Alling moved to table Bartoo’s application but ask the town clerk to ask the town’s attorney to research the effect of removing a sentence that would, in Alling’s words, “see how we can get this back into the hands of our elected officials.”

The flowering cherry trees Bartoo doesn’t like line most of Stevens Avenue.

In his application, Bartoo quoted several officials and knowledgeable third parties, stating that the cherry trees are “the wrong tree” for where they were planted.

That species was selected many years ago to replace aging Hawthornes, the type Bartoo wants to put back in the planting strip.