Festus city employees began cutting down cedar trees last week at West City Park along Old Hwy. A to prevent potential damage to nearby electrical lines, officials say.
“The cedar trees were getting into the power lines,” City Administrator Happy Welch said Monday (Feb. 8).
Larry Crites, Festus parks superintendent, said Tuesday (Feb. 9) that only the cedars along the roadway are coming down.
“We’re taking down 20 to 25 trees – just the cedars – from the bridge (on the east) to the entrance at the lake (farther west),” Crites said. “The Park Board decided to do it last month. We could be done by next week, depending on snow.”
He said the Park Board has not yet decided what type of plantings should replace the cedars, but something will.
“The cedars are going to be replaced with a different tree or hedges, maybe shrubbery,” Crites said.
He said the downed cedars will be put to use in other ways.
“We’re saving some and chipping the rest for mulch,” Crites said. “The ones we’re saving will be used as posts along the new trail they’re putting in.”
City officials are using a $19,505 Jefferson Memorial Community Foundation grant they received in November to install the new .8-mile trail on the park’s south end, near the baseball fields.
“City employees are doing a vast majority of the work, with some of it contracted out,” Crites said. “I would say the trail should be ready in about a month or so.”