About 40 oak trees on the south edge of Winona near St. Mary’s are now approved for removal after a unanimous Planning Commission vote Monday. Members strongly wished to avoid a potential repeat of the Woodlawn Cemetery logging debacle, and received assurances from the logger and property owner that the circumstances this time were much different. In 2019, property owned by Woodlawn Cemetery, woods neighboring the cemetery, was supposed to be selectively logged with minimal impact to the soil. However, the contractor that did the logging reportedly cut more that then 30 percent that was planned for harvest, and left so much debris at the site that Woodlawn requested $15,000 from the city to clean it up. The funding request was denied.