BY JANE PRENDERGAST
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON -- Residents of the riverside neighborhood that lost three 30-foot elm trees last week are ready to pay for information about who cut them down.
The Historic Licking Riverside Civic Association is offering a $2,000 reward. Members hope the money helps lead police to the people who jumped out of a boat last Friday, ran up the shoreline and leveled the three trees with a chain saw.
The trees are on city property on the shoreline at Riverside Drive near Kennedy Avenue. Association members and police think the tree cutters might have been motivated by wanting a better view of the annual Riverfest fireworks. That belief was prompted by a recent request to the city's public works department. Someone called asking for some trees to be topped before the Sept. 6 fireworks display.
But the woman who made that call has identified herself -- Cincinnati public relations executive Alliea Phipps. She said she was elected by her condominium association to make the request, but that they asked for trees to be cut in a different spot several miles away. And when the city said no, she said, the association accepted the answer without a problem.
A public works employee who happened to be out checking street-sweeping work at the time the trees were cut saw people run from the shoreline, jump into a boat and speed away.
The case of the trees has been assigned to the Covington Police Department's criminal investigations section.
"We are actively looking into this," Lt. Danny Miles, department spokesman, said Thursday.
Karen Rafuse, president of the neighborhood association, said the trees are more important to the neighborhood than people might understand. They provide erosion control, she said, and should be respected as part of the historic area.
"We just can't have people doing this kind of thing," she said Thursday.
