Grant branching into job opportunities

SANDPOINT — The money is meant for trees, but local officials hope it will grow into more local employment.

The $87,000 the city received as part of federal stimulus package for the Idaho Department of Lands will be used to remove hazard trees in Sandpoint parks and rights of way, as well as city tree-pruning, maintenance and stump removal.

The project will affect approximately 285 trees in the city that need attention.

In this economy, though, unemployment needs a look, and the grant money will attend to both, Stephen Drinkard, the city’s urban forester said.

He and members of the urban forestry committee broke the grant into six parts in an effort to spread the cash around.

“We didn’t want to do it as one major project where one bidder comes in and gets the whole job, and not hire any local people,” he said.

The goal was to get the tree work done, and create and maintain local jobs, he said.

“The purpose of the money is to take care of the public tree hazard and cut into the maintenance backlog that every city has on work to be done on public trees,” Drinkard said.

The second prong will retain jobs.

“Local arborists here will be bidding on this work,” Drinkard said.

Lisa and Doug Dirks were among tree-care workers contacted by the city. Urban forestry officials called businesses to tell them that a public works license would be required to bid on the jobs that range from an estimated $4,200 to pruning sidewalk trees, to removing 64 trees at a cost of approximately $44,500.

The Dirkses, who own Richardson & Dirks Tree Care in Naples, will likely bid on all of the jobs — pruning, felling and stump grinding — in an effort to secure at least one.

“We provide all those services,” Lisa said.

The small, four-employee company is in the process of applying for the required public works license, she said.

The federal stimulus package provided $450,000 to the lands department for urban tree work in North Idaho. The money was divvied to Post Falls, Coeur d’Alene, Hayden and Sandpoint, the four cities in the region that had an inventory of urban trees.

“Because we have current tree inventory it was easy to look through the database and find these hazardous trees,” said Bill Love, private forestry specialist for the Idaho Department of Land’s Sandpoint office. “That was one reason Sandpoint was targeted to receive money. The idea is to put money on the ground in a quick manner.”

Recognizing and maintaining urban forests is important because of the potential liability of safety hazards, and the functions trees provide: Shaded streets increase the life of pavement, and individual trees store thousands of gallons of rainwater preventing stormwater overflow in cities.

In addition, they bring communities together, Drinkard said.

“People love their trees,” he said.

That is why the city had two independent arborists appraise the city’s 2,400 public trees for maintenance. The stimulus money won’t take care of all of the city’s problem trees, but it will pay to remove the most pressing hazards, Drinkard said.

If the city council approves it, the work should begin in April.