Cutting trees ? helping taxpayers: County estimates timber will generate thousands
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Members of the Land Committee, which includes George Smartt, David Vandagriff and Carl Bouldin, have been studying the possibility of selectively cutting some of the timber for some time now, and county officials have decided to move forward with the project, according to Smartt.
County Mayor Kenneth Rogers feels the time is right to take advantage of the potential for profit on basically unused land.
“Those trees have been there for a good while,” said Rogers. “And we just felt like they’re going downhill, and right now lumber is at an all-time high, so we felt it was just good for the county at this point to go in there and cut what we’ve got that’s big enough to cut.”
The sale will be by public bid.
“What we decided is we are going to offer for sale three tracts of county timber,” Smartt said. “We’re going to put an invitation to bid in the classifieds of the paper. And then we will have a pre-bid conference of all interested people Friday, April 30 at 3:45 p.m.”
Smartt said the county will try to make it a requirement for everyone to be present at the pre-bid conference if they wish to bid on the timber so they can be made aware ahead of time how the county wants the cutting to be handled, and also allow them to take a look at the tracts and the type of timber available.
“And then we’ll give them a certain period of time to come back with a bid, and we haven’t established that time yet,” Smartt said. “We still have quite a few things to do because it’s not as simple as you or me deciding to sell something in our back yard.”
Smartt said it would be hard to estimate how much the sale might generate, but said it would certainly generate several thousand dollars for the county, which would be routed into a specific fund.
“It will go back into the industrial fund as I understand it,” Smartt said, “which will be used specifically for industrial recruitment. I doesn’t get dumped in the general fund to be spent on anything.”
“The first area is off Belmont Drive across from the old DeZurik plant right next to Pack Manufacturing,” Smartt said. “The second tract is over here along the bypass behind the sanitation department, and the best timber on it is right down behind the old cheese plant. Then we’re going to cut a tract which is in the intersection of the bypass and the railroad track, near the old cemetery and backing up on Magness Drive.”
Smartt said the committee also felt clearing out some of the mature trees would also serve to make the tracts more attractive to potential buyers. The county will ask the bid-winner to make sure the property is left in good condition.
“They’re going to be required to use best-management practices in cutting the timber as set out by the state,” Smartt said.