In this week’s Spotlight …
- Trees disappear. Trust money too?
- Curtain reopens on live theater in the Grove.
- Letters: Tree ordinance weakened; Amping up the Strut
A Spotlight investigation into the city’s management of its tree trust funds reveals large gaps in more than just the tree canopy. Live theater plans its return to the Grove in an unexpected venue.
Letters to the editor call out to readers for involvement as the city commission considers weakening the tree protection ordinance and as the King Mango Strut unleashes local creativity. Your letter can reach the Spotlight—and its thousands of readers—through this link.
The City of Miami’s 20-year-old Tree Trust Fund has raised millions of dollars by charging property owners who want to cut down their trees. Where the money goes is not entirely clear.
By David Villano

Last year when City of Miami Building Department officials granted a developer’s request to remove 55 trees – including a number of mature oaks, royal poincianas, mahoganies and other hardwoods – to make way for the massive, five-story Elemi at Grove Village housing project on Thomas Avenue in Coconut Grove, it came with two conditions: plant 73 mostly smaller trees around the perimeter of the property and pay $120,000 into a city account earmarked for tree plantings elsewhere in the city.
Whether the payment – one of dozens from Coconut Grove alone over the past two years to the City of Miami Tree Trust Fund – will actually result in trees being planted remains uncertain.
While City of Miami officials have refused repeated requests for a detailed report of Tree Trust Fund expenditures, records obtained by the Spotlight suggest that only a small fraction of the money it raises is being used to plant trees – despite a clear requirement in the city code that funds be exhausted annually for that purpose.
Organizers hope to revive Coconut Grove’s theater scene by staging a festival of new works by local playwrights at the Woman’s Club in May 2025.
By Carlos Frías

Live theater is coming back to Coconut Grove in 2025 – but not to the place where you’re thinking.
If all goes as planned, the Woman’s Club of Coconut Grove will host the Coconut Grove Theater Festival in the spring – the first series of theatrical performances in the Grove, organizers say, since the Coconut Grove Playhouse closed in April 2006.
Local playwright William Hector, who has proposed staging pop-up theater in vacant retail storefronts to revive the Grove theater scene, approached the Woman’s Club about partnering on a series of new plays. The four-day event will feature eight local writers working with eight local directors to put on eight plays, from May 8-11.
Protecting Miami’s tree canopy is important for more than just aesthetic reasons argues Sandy Moise. City Commissioners should reject proposals that weaken the city’s tree ordinances at this Thursday’s commission meeting.
Joining the King Mango Strut parade presents an opportunity to champion the underdog and lampoon those in power write the Strut’s organizers. Their open invitation to be part of the creative silliness celebrates ‘what’s weird and wonderful about Miami’.
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