City of Chicago responds after WGN report on dying tree 

The tree outside Maurie Richie’s Northwest Side home was dying. He called the city and his alderman’s office to request its trimming or removal.

But more than two years later, no one had come out to address the problem.

Increasingly frustrated, Richie called WGN Investigates for help. A day after the WGN News story aired last month, the city showed up at Richie’s home to remove the tree from the parkway.

With the tree taken care of, WGN’s Lourdes Duarte talked to the city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation commissioner Cole Stallard, and took a deeper dive behind Stallard and the DSS’s efforts to proactively maintain and trim trees around Chicago.