By GLYNIS HART
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CHARLESTOWN — Kathleen La Rock was beside herself the day the landscaping crews cleared around the utility poles on her property last year. Liberty Utility schedules regular clearing of trees and branches that might interfere with power transmission lines, but when they came through last August, they cleared a lot more than branches. Mature maple trees up to eight inches in diameter, and trees far beyond the 15-foot clearance specified by the utility’s own policy had been cut down.
She called, she wrote letters, and even contacted the newspaper (Utility crews ruined hedgerow, Eagle Times, Nov. 10, 2018) to get the trees replaced. Around 20 stumps had been left by the crews, and when the utility offered a few lilacs to make up the difference, La Rock turned down the offer as inadequate.
She was trying to sell the house at the time, and one of its selling points was its privacy, since the trees screened it from the road.
On Tuesday morning, as rain drizzled through the budding leaves, a half dozen young men from Chippers Landscaping — hired by Liberty Utility — planted trees and shrubs on the Charlestown property. Not just a few: six pink crabapples, two white crabapples, six lilacs, two shadbushes and five red maples.
“They did so over and above anything I could have thought of myself,” beamed LaRock. “They put all these beautiful trees in.”
The house is now sold, so the flowering crabapples, lilacs and maples will be enjoyed by the new owner. LaRock was full of praise for Heather Green at Liberty Utilities, and the folks at Chippers.
“All’s well that ends well,” she said. “You have to speak up. You have to be an active person — it matters.”
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