With a posthumous honor, Waterbury celebrates becoming Vermont’s 10th Tree City USA
June 4, 2025 | By Lisa ScagliottiIn between Saturday rain showers, a small Arbor Day ceremony on the edge of Waterbury’s municipal gardens marked several noteworthy achievements recently.
About two dozen community members made their way to the garden entry, led by Waterbury’s volunteer Tree Board members, who organized the event held on Saturday, May 24. They gathered just past the wooden fence beside a brand-new, freshly planted Littleleaf Linden tree that stands about 10 feet tall.
At its base is a shiny engraved plaque mounted on stone dedicating the tree to Steve Lotspeich, Waterbury’s former town planner and tree warden. Lotspeich worked for the town of Waterbury for 30 years before retiring in March 2023, and just a little over a year later, he passed away after an illness.
In his role, Lotspeich performed many tasks with some of his greatest dedication and effort focused on caring for and protecting Waterbury’s trees, and adding trees to public property, including those planted along the library’s gardens, many town streets, and in Waterbury’s cemeteries. In May 2023, Lotspeich was honored by the Vermont Urban and Community Forestry Program for his years of dedication to protecting and preserving the community's forests and trees, and public engagement and education around community forestry, including his work to launch the town’s Tree Board.
The board took the opportunity to announce that Waterbury has earned the honor of being the 10th community in Vermont listed on the national Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree City USA list. The designation was something Lotspeich worked to achieve, helping to form the Tree Board and to ensure that Waterbury met the criteria for the distinction.
The designation puts Waterbury alongside Vermont Tree City USA communities of Burlington, Montpelier, Rutland, Middlebury, Shelburne, Winooski, Essex and Essex Junction, and Hartford. By population, it’s the smallest Vermont community on the list.
Rutland was Vermont's first Tree City USA community. Middlebury College, St. Michael's College and VELCO also have been recognized for their tree-planting efforts. Arbor Day Foundation graphic
Launched in 1976, the Tree City USA recognition program began as a project of the Arbor Day Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, and the National Association of State Foresters. It was one of the first programs of the newly formed Arbor Day Foundation with the goal to promote tree care as well as tree planting efforts.
Today the Tree City USA program boasts 3,587 recognized municipalities around the country in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico – enough to encompass 48% of the U.S. population. Together, people in Tree Cities also plant over 900,000 trees annually, according to the foundation.
Attaining the Tree City USA distinction means a community has a tree management program in place with public policy that makes caring for trees a priority and that has people appointed to ensure those efforts take place. The foundation looks for communities that invest at least $2 per capita in tree-related programs, maintenance, etc., each year. In Waterbury, annual tree-maintenance budgets for the town highway department and cemeteries easily exceed that benchmark.
“[Waterbury’s] per capita spending on community forestry was $3.54, and they reported 222 volunteer hours to support community trees,” according to Eric North, program manager for the Arbor Day Foundation’s Urban Forestry program.
The foundation says the easiest requirement for a community to meet to become a Tree City USA member is to hold an annual Arbor Day event that draws attention to the importance of trees in the built and forested environment. Waterbury met the criteria in 2024 for the honor, North said.
Steve Lotspeich (right) obtained many grants to help with tree planting in public spaces around Waterbury such as this planting in 2011 along Bidwell Lane and Stowe Street. File photo by Gordon Miller
At the recent tree-planting ceremony, Tree Board Chair Jane Brown said the committee chose to plant a Littleleaf Linden tree in Lotspeich’s memory because it was one of Lotspeich’s favorites that he had acquired in the past to plant along several streets in downtown Waterbury, including Winooski Street and Railroad Street.
The dedication plaque at the foot of the new tree. Photo by Gordon Miller
Tree Board member Mike Loschiavo tracked it down at Horsford’s Nursery in Charlotte. Loschiavo, who also is Waterbury’s current tree warden, donated the tree, Brown said. Other committee members, Nina Hulstrom and Barbara Blauvelt, arranged for the dedication stone and plaque.
Brown brought along water for the tree in one of several containers that she said Lotspeich had passed on to her when he retired. She said the planting ceremony and Tree City announcement were a fitting start to what she hopes will be a yearly event.
Following brief remarks, attendees shared some snacks and refreshments and admired the new Tree City USA sign the town received to be placed in a public location. Brown said she wasn’t sure yet where it will be mounted.
Learn more about the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree City USA program online here and here.