Questions remain about controversial Milesburg tree removal. What happened?
Dozens of trees that lined Turnpike Street in Milesburg were suddenly cut down one morning in late October, shocking residents in a community that had been debating the future of the trees for months.
The Milesburg Borough Council for months went back and forth on whether trees lining Turnpike Street should be removed for several reasons, including because they could be damaging the waterlines and the sidewalks. But many residents didn’t want to see the trees removed and demanded answers for the abrupt removal in late October. That removal came after action from the Milesburg Water Authority, before the council could make a decision on the matter.
Last week, some Milesburg officials addressed the timeline and defended the removal.
The water authority — four of five members of which are also on the borough council — voted on Oct. 23 to cut the trees down. Before 9 a.m. the next day, a private company was already working on the removal. Questions about how and why it happened so fast flooded social media and the following borough meetings.
During the Nov. 2 meeting, Fred Kellerman, council and water authority president, said the authority had “the right” to take action on it because there are water lines under the trees. He said the trees were diseased, tearing up the sidewalks and creating the possibility of a lawsuit.
Still, questions of how it happened so quickly lingered. Council member Greg Ritter submitted a Right to Know request to the borough for contracts regarding tree removal and maintenance, but was told during the council’s meeting on Dec. 11 it would need to be submitted to the water authority instead. Borough manager Paula Hall said she wasn’t sure if there is a contract, as the company “just writes up quotes.”
Nick Witherite, the lead maintenance and water operator, said there’s not a formal contract but the quotes include the scope of work and price.
“It does have everything stated in there that he did … which was removing all the tree limbs, all the sawdust, the brush, all that stuff,” Witherite said.
The CDT submitted a Right to Know request for the name of the company hired and the cost of the project, as Hall declined to release the information.
During the December meeting, Hall said the quote needed to be under the minimum purchase amount that requires the advertisement for bids. The initial quote that Witherite got before the water authority meeting was too high, Hall said, and it would need to be advertised for bid unless he could get a lower quote. Hall said the company was able to lower their quote.
The work was done the next morning.
“How it happened so fast is that this has been talked about since I brought it up in like July, I think it was. So when I talked to the other contractors about it, they all already had it in the back of their mind that it’s going to cause controversy — if the quotes get accepted, they’re going to get in there, get it done and get out,” Witherite said. “...So when I called him after the water meeting and said ‘your quote was approved,’ he says ‘OK, we’ll start tomorrow.”
For contracts expected to be over $10,000 adjusted for inflation, municipalities are required to get price quotes from three qualified bidders, Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, told the CDT. Bids and quotes are public records once the contract is awarded to a successful bidder.
Sense of community pride or safety hazard?
The trees, Milesburg Council member Sandy Dieterle said during an October meeting before they were removed, gave the community a sense of pride.
“They provide shade, they provide air cleaning, it’s a place where people would want to live, a place that’s just not asphalt and wires. Along with the trees comes work and we all know that. The roots are wreaking havoc on our sidewalks. Yes, the trees need to be trimmed,” Dieterle said. “But to have a nice town it takes work. Just like the roads that need repaired, cracks need resealed, potholes need fixed every single year. We don’t just close the roads because they take work. We have to work at it.”
But others wanted them gone for safety reasons. Becca Campbell has lived on Turnpike Street since before the trees were planted. During the Nov. 2 meeting, she said it was difficult to back out of her driveway due to the trees — there were 37 tree trunks in the line of sight to get out of her driveway.
“You don’t understand how scary it is to get out of that driveway. There’s only a couple of us that have a driveway on Turnpike Street and that has become a drag way. So when you back out of my driveway, all I saw was a row of trunks, tree trucks. And in the night, all you saw were lights behind the trunks and you didn’t have any clue how close they actually were because you couldn’t see what their speed was. All you saw was lights,” she said.
Residents at the Dec. 11 meeting still had concerns about the trees, with some saying they weren’t happy with the unintended and unexpected consequences of the removal.
