AUBURN — City foresters will put down their axes for the next six months, giving city councilors a chance to review wood harvesting policies.
The city will place a 180-day moratorium on cutting wood.
“In all likelihood, it will not last that long,” City Manager Clinton Deschene said. “We’ll just get in with some new policy recommendations and be back.”
Since the fall of 2008, the city has sold excess wood on city lots, such as schools, cemeteries and Mt. Apatite, and used the proceeds to fund a low-income heating program.
Dot Meagher, director of Auburn’s Health and Social Services department, said that program, Community Cords, lets the city buy up to 100 gallons of heating oil, kerosene or pay a comparative amount of their electric heating bill for Auburn residents who can’t afford it but may not qualify for General Assistance or the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
“It’s just to hold them over until they get a check” she said.
Meagher said the city paid $5,632 to 19 families last winter. So far this year, the city given out $2,559 to nine families.
The program is funded entirely through the sale of city wood.
“It is a big need and if it wasn’t for that, I don’t know what other resource we’d have to help people,” Meagher said.
Deschene said the council’s concern was how the wood was being harvested, who manages it and how the proceeds are used. School officials also were concerned that wood was harvested from school properties.
“There are a lot of little pieces to this, and people are focused on single specific issues,” Deschene said. “They’re not looking at the broader implication and implementation impacts. So I think this is a good time, now, to pull all of it together. Let’s take a break from cutting down trees and use the next six months to figure it all out.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
