The City of Iola, in an effort to prevent more power outages like the one experienced Monday morning, has paid a tree trimming company to remove tree branches that are encroaching on the city’s power lines, but some area residents aren’t happy about it.
For more than two decades, Lisa Lower’s home on Walnut Road East has had two maples that separated the house from the road while providing shade, aesthetic appeal and reduced utility costs in the hot summer months. When Lower arrived home from work Tuesday evening, she found her two maples were missing all the limbs on the tree’s south sides. The city, without notifying Lower or her husband, had hired Asplundh Tree Expert Company, a Pennsylvania-based removal company, to clear the limbs from the path of the electric lines.
“The trees are ruined,” Lower said. “They’re probably just going to be diseased and die because (Asplundh) took too much off.”
Iola Mayor Bill Shirley, who went to the Lower’s home at 1420 North Walnut Rd. East Tuesday night to try to ease some concerns, said he understands the Lower’s frustration but insisted the city administration has a responsibility to the entire city of keeping electricity flowing throughout the city. If the city chooses not to trim those trees in the summer, they could cause even more problems in the winter months and as a result, even more Iolans would be frustrated, he said.
“When you have electric lines going down in the winter time, (people) wonder why the city didn’t come by and take care of the limbs,” Shirley said referring to frozen branches breaking after a freezing rain. “We have to make sure we are protecting our electric lines for the winter time. I hope that people understand that if the trees are over the line, then they have to get cut.”
Although she understands the city’s concern about maintaining its power lines, Lower, a local educator, said the city could, at the very least, offer notification prior to chopping up her trees.
“There should be better communication,” she said. “I shouldn’t just come home one day and find my trees have been sheared without any indication that was going to happen.”
But contacting every homeowner prior to removing a few branches would “become a nightmare,” especially because it’s a contracted service, said Judy Brigham, Iola city administrator.
The city’s job isn’t to prune the trees, she said, but simply clear the lines of branches.
Still, Lower isn’t satisfied.
“It would be a nightmare (for the city) to contact everybody, but as the homeowner, it’s a nightmare when you come home and you find your trees have been sheared,” she said.
Homeowners who want to plant trees but are concerned about where to place them are encouraged to call the Iola City Hall at 365-4906.
Tree trimming irksome
