Located on the Cowlitz Trail, a 9,000-year-old Native American trading route, the Davis Meeker oak was known as the hanging tree. This is because after the Medicine Creek Treaty stole the land from the Native Americans, if any Native American was found living outside a reservation, the settlers would hang that person from this tree.

The tree is 400 years old and healthy But it is in the sights of Tumwater Mayor Debbie Sullivan, who wants to expand Old Highway 99, and City Administrator Lisa Parks, who wants to expand the airport. The tree is an obstacle to airport expansion and apparently to road improvements that would support airport expansion. Sullivan and Parks say they only care about safety.

But a mere week after Parks started her job with the city, the city's own arborist stated in an internal email that the tree is not high risk. He then hired a second arborist who agreed. But mysteriously, the city arborist's final report gave a conclusion in direct opposition to these statements. The owner of the second arborist's company was so taken aback by this that he wrote to the city to say that the city arborist's assessment was an embarrassment. That owner is also one of the creators of modern-day risk assessment methodology.  Other arborists also have found the city arborist's later removal recommendation to be baseless.

The city arborist also lacks experience with mature oaks.  An unaffiliated arborist with 40 years of experience, especially with oaks, did an independent assessment on June 19, 2024, and found that the risk level was merely moderate and could be easily reduced to low risk with selective pruning and a support system.

The tree has dropped branches in the past and the old city manager appropriately treated them as routine events. The danger narrative emerged only after the mayor hired Lisa Parks to be the new city manager. She started her job one month after the most recent branch dropped on May 16, 2023. A photo of the branch after it fell shows only the tip extending into the road.

Ms. Parks's prior employment was with the Port of Olympia, which owns the Olympia Airport where the tree stands.

The airport’s senior manager told the Tumwater City Council last year that by 2040, the forecast is for there to be 20,000 passengers per month flying in and out of the airport.

While preparing to have the tree removed, Ms. Parks told city employees to keep the plans a secret, presumably so the city could cut it down before the public and tribes had time to react. City Councilmember Joan Cathey remarked at a March 11, 2024, work session that the council should have been brought into the process earlier to give it time to consider options. Later, at the height of the controversy, the mayor canceled the tree board meeting.

The site is important to the tribes and cutting it down would violate the law because the city has failed to obtain (1) a waiver from the historic commission as required by TMC 2.62.060, (2) an archaeology permit as required by RCW 27.53, and (3) an incidental take permit from US Fish & Wildlife, because cutting the tree would have killed the baby kestrels that were nesting there.

Meanwhile, the city council has the power to fix this problem immediately. Yet not a single councilmember has made a motion to pass an emergency ordinance. By contrast, the Bellingham City Council recently passed an emergency ordinance to save legacy trees there.

Please help save this tree by donating to the legal fund and contacting the city council to ask them to pass an emergency ordinance that requires the mayor to first obtain:
(1) a thorough risk assessment,
(2) a waiver from the historic commission, and
(3) consensus of three arborists who say removal is necessary.