Ameren's tree removal plan upsets residents

Photo by: Robin Scholz/The News-Gazette

Jane McIntosh holds her dog, Sweet Peas,as she talks Thursday about the trees Ameren Illinois plans to cut down at her home in Mahomet.

MAHOMET The trees in Mahomet retiree Jane McIntosh's yard shade her home from the morning sun, but they're not likely to be around much longer.

McIntosh and her neighbors, Betty and Sam Thompson, were informed by Ameren Illinois that nearly a dozen trees at both their homes on Bureau Court in Mahomet's Candlewood Estates are too close to power lines and have to go.

In previous years, Ameren has trimmed the tops off their trees, McIntosh said, but this is the first time in the 19 years she's lived in her home that the utility said the trees would have to be chopped down.

Without those trees, her yard "just wouldn't look good," she said.

When Betty Thompson heard about plans to take down the trees, she said, she cried a bit and pleaded with an Ameren Illinois representative.

"I begged her, please reconsider," Thompson said. "Then she called later and said, no, we're going to cut them down."

An Ameren representative told her the trees won't be taken down before Monday of next week, she said.

Ameren Illinois spokeswoman Marcelyn Love didn't address tree-cutting plans at the two Candlewood Estates homes, but did say there appear to be transmission lines running through that area.

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Ameren's tree removal plan upsets residents