Community Corner
Fleischman is Poway's Unofficial Sixth Member of the Council
The 78-year-old has regularly attended council meetings for almost 30 years.
Dee Fleischman is known to some as Poway’s unofficial sixth member of the City Council. Although she doesn’t sit behind the council dais, Fleischman, 78, has regularly attended council meetings for almost 30 years—even before she was a resident.
Fleischman, who was living in Escondido, began attending Poway City Council meetings in 1982, alongside her then-boyfriend Riley Fleischman. Riley worked as a reserve deputy and was on the redevelopment committee.
“When he found out I was interested in city government, too, he said, ‘We’ll do that,’” she explained. “We dated going to council meetings.”
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After the couple married in 1986, Fleischman moved to Poway. The pair continued to regularly attend meetings.
“The council was receptive,” Fleischman said. “I began to see a difference in what Poway was as opposed to other North County cities. They were much more concerned with issues of growth, much more responsive to the citizens, much more involved in the planning process. The council took great pains to be responsive to residents.”
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Fleischman continued to attend council meetings after her husband, who was in law enforcement for roughly 30 years, died in 1999.
“At that point, I had never spoken at council meetings before,” Fleischman explained. “We put in slips saying whether we were in favor or not in favor of something, but never spoke. But then I saw some things that concerned me with tree care, and I started to speak at meetings.”
Fleischman did more than speak. In 2000, she became an original member of the Poway Tree Committee.
The five-member committee consisted of three volunteer Poway residents, the Public Works Operations Manager and the City’s Certified Arborist. The Tree Committee made recommendations to the council on urban forestry management policies and considered appeals to tree removal and encroachment permits.
The committee also helped organize the City’s annual Arbor Day celebration. The City of Poway was first recognized as a Tree City USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation 1999.
“We have good people in Poway,” she said. “Most people here do not want Poway to become like every other city in North County. They saw something special in the beginning that they wanted to preserve.”
One of those special places, Fleischman said, is Old Poway Park.
“This is one of the jewels of not only Poway, but of North County,” she said. “I think this is what we wanted to preserve—something of the open space, something of the cool, shady and country-like places.”
Fleischman realized the importance of trees long ago.
She and her first husband bought a house in the newly developed area of Park Forest, Illinois. Because there were no trees in the area, Fleischman said there were no birds, and thus, many insects. She described it as a “baked, desolate, ugly area.”
“With time—we lived there 10 years—the trees people planted grew up, and it was a different place,” she said. “I began to realize the value of trees.”
When Fleischman studied art at the University of Illinois, she said the campus lost every tree to Dutch Elm Disease.
“It was such a shocking change between what was there and what it was with no trees,” she said.
When Fleischman and her husband lived in New York, a developer wanted to grade the surrounding wooded area before he had a grading permit. Although the township said the developer must get a permit, some residents did not see a problem, Fleischman said.
“I thought how can people feel like that and not care if he destroys a natural area,” she said. “I thought people don’t really realize what it is to lose that. You’ve lost something precious and important.
“I think that’s when I became more interested in what governments were doing regarding development.”
Although the City Council voted to disband the Tree Committee last month, Fleischman said she will continue to attend council meetings.
“I still intend to speak out on tree issues; there’s no doubt about it,” she said.
Because she believes public input is important, Fleischman hopes some form of the committee will be reinstated.
"I think it’s important to have public input in a city,” Fleischman said. “Poway is different; it has a different feel. It’s been an island in a sea of a growth crazy county. The people here are more involved with their city. It’s more like I think everyone wants a hometown to be.”
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