Vermilion Parish tree contractor complains to police juror about homeowners cutting down their own trees

One tree contractor from Vermilion Parish said he does think it is fair that a parish homeowner can rent a machine to cut down a large tree, pull the branches next to the road and have the Vermilion Parish Police Jury pick it up for free.
If a tree contractor does the same tree job, the contractor can not leave the trees along the road and has to haul it off to either the parish landfill or outside the parish. The hauling it off creates an added expense to the tree contractor.
The Police Jury does not charge the homeowner to haul the tree away because the resident pays taxes for the service of the Police Jury.
Police Juror Cloris Boudreaux, at a police jury committee meeting, explained to the jurors the contractor’s concern about not charging the homeowner for pickup.
Boudreaux told the jurors that a homeowner can rent equipment to cut and remove trees in their yard. The Police Jury has a parish-wide ordinance they will pickup the branches only if a homeowner cuts down the tree and brings it to the road.
The Police Jury will not pick up tree branches if a contractor cuts down the tree. The jury, in the ordinance, states the contractor has to haul the branches away from the home.
The same as knocking down a house. The homeowner can rent an Excavator, knock down his house and bring it to the side of the road by pushing it with a bulldozer. The Police Jury would have to pick up the demolished house and not charge the homeowner.
Boudreaux said the tree contractor informed him a homeowner west of Gueydan cut trees down himself and hauled them along the road. The contractor told Boudreaux it would take a month for the Police Jury to pick up the cut tree branches in Gueydan.
‘The contractor feels it’s unfair for him and the police jury system,” Boudreaux explained.
Boudreaux would like the Police Jury to look into possibly changing the ordinance.
Police Juror Nathan Granger said he would be OK with looking into changing the wording.
“The whole intent (of the ordinance) was to let people do it but not major, major work,” Granger said. “The intent was if someone was trimming branches and doing the work, they can put the branches to the road.
Police Juror Mark Poché said in his district, near Erath, he knows of two homeowners who cut trees down themselves and piled it along the road. Poché said the piles of trees looked 15 to 20 feet high.
Linda Duhon, the parish administrator for the Police Jury, said the parish does have an ordinance that describes how large the branches can be, and it has to be in a pile for the Police Jury to haul off.
Granger said the homeowner has gotten smart and cuts the large branches into small ones to meet the Police Jury’s size requirement.
The ordinance states that the Police Jury will do five grabs at each house and then move to the next house. Poché said if a house has a large amount of tree branches along the road, it could take the Police Jury a year to remove the branches because of the five grabs.
Granger said another issue the Police Jury will have if it does not pick the pile of branches is when a hurricane hits the parish. If there are branches flying around during a hurricane, it becomes a danger to the neighbors and homeowner, he said.
The Police Jury is expected to bring up the issue at another committee meeting in the near future.