The Soldotna City Council enacted an amended ordinance that would accept grant funds and increase estimated revenues and appropriations for a total amount of $165,172.25 for Spruce Bark Beetle Hazard Tree Mitigation. A previous resolution was passed authorizing the City Manager to solicit for beetle kill hazard tree mitigation efforts.
City Manager Stephanie Queen told the city council:
“The council had previously authorized us to enter into contracts with two contractors for the removal of trees at several city properties and that work is well underway. In fact, some of the parcels, they’ve already concluded that work. We were really fortunate to connect with folks at the state level who identified state grant funds that were available for that work and this ordinance would appropriate the funds covering the entirety of both of those tree removal contracts that were awarded to Andrews and sons LLC and to Stumpy’s Tree Service.”
Queen spoke to the request to amend the original ordinance amount of $110,000:
There is a memo dated May 9th in the packet from C.O. Rudstrom and we will be asking that the council amend the ordinance to increase the dollar amount of that grant as we were notified that additional funds were available and once they got in there and started the tree removal, our original budget was based on a finite amount of trees that we estimated were in the park, we discovered that there were many more trees available, but the state was willing to work with us to amend the grant agreement and issue the higher dollar amount to allow that work to continue.”
The Public Works department prepared several requests for quotes that address the specific scope of hazard mitigation work that is required in many parks around town. They were based on plans that previously were developed by the forestry consultant.
The grant funded project was put together in a short time frame and will mitigate the beetle kill spruce trees that are closest to buildings, roads, trails, and campsites.