Salem City Council votes to halt tree trimming until September

SALEM, Mass. — In Salem, city leaders have voted to stop all tree trimming through the summer. The move came after residents complained about utility workers damaging too many trees.

Historic Salem is full of tree-lined streets, but lately, you'll find many of them hacked and chopped off in awkward places to avoid the power lines above.

“In my mind, this is overly aggressive. It's beyond what they're showing as their standard operating procedure,” said South Salem Neighborhood Assoc. President Polly Wilbert.

National Grid prunes those trees, both on city and private property to prevent power outages when a storm hits, but many residents say lately, the pruning has gone overboard, leaving too many stubs, instead of leaves.

So, this week, the city passed a moratorium to halt all tree trimming until September.

"Passed unanimously because Salem is very serious about their trees,” said Salem City Council President Sotelaine Milo.

So serious, the city created a neighborhood task force to focus on planting and maintaining trees around Salem.

This year, they're spending about $80,000 on trees.

“And when you commit that kind of money in an annual effort to plant new trees, you want to make sure in ten years when the utility comes through, that amount of money hasn't been wasted,” said Wilbert.

Boston 25 News reached out to National Grid about the issue.

A spokesperson says their top priority is keeping the lights on for their customers, along with safety, but they've agreed to meet with Salem city leaders to address this concern.

“We're confident we're going to come to a resolution,” National Grid told Boston 25.

Cox Media Group