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Politics & Government

Mansfield to Tree Pick-Up: It's a No Go

They say it would be too expensive for the town to do.

Mansfield won't be chipping up brush and fallen trees from private yards despite at least one query from a town resident.

Selectman Jess Aptowitz said last week he had received a request from a York Road homeowner, suggesting Department of Public Works staff come around with a chipper the way they did in December and January to get rid of Christmas trees. People could haul their branches and brush to the curb, and the town could chop them up and take them away.

In three words, not gonna happen.

DPW head Lee Azinheira and special projects manager Mark Cook told selectmen such a process would be both expensive and time consuming, taking the already lean DPW staff away from other tasks now occupying them full time.

Cook commented after Christmas it took two men and a chipper two weeks just to do trees at the curb.

"(Christmas) trees are easy," said Cook. "But if we did that, residents would be clearing everything (and dragging it to the curb.) We would have to bring out the chain saws."

"If we had to clean up everything, I don't think a crew in two weeks would make a dent," said Azinheira.

He added the town is obliged to clean up trees that fall in the public way, and said numerous sites in town now exist where whole trees and large limbs were pushed to the side after the storms. The DPW does respond to safety issues, and already had a schedule of streets they must return to and clean up.

Azinheira said the DPW had been listening to past selectmen's conversations about the state of the badly deteriorating roads, and understood that is their first priority.

"I just heard we really need to concentrate on the streets," he said.

He said he had noticed several private tree companies around town, and suggested people hire private companies for their yard work, or perhaps band together as a neighborhood and hire someone to do several yards at once.

Town Manager Bill Ross said he had worked in another larger community at one point where the town handled leaf pickup in the fall as well as spring cleanups, charging the cost back to the residents, but it still cost the town $140,000 just for the leaves and took 10 to 13 working days to complete.

Selectmen said smaller brush can always be taken over to the town's compost area near the recycling park on Route 106 near the highway garage.

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