By DAVE LIEBER
watchdog@star-telegram.com
After 33 years in office, Grapevine Mayor William Tate says he doesn’t take on too many fights anymore. But when he does, he’s serious.
Fifteen years ago, he fought Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on an expanded runway.
His latest target: Oncor Electric Delivery.
He calls the company a bully that hires other companies to butcher trees in the name of safety.
"Absolute ugliness," he declared of Oncor’s arbor assault on Grapevine at an October City Council meeting.
"You can’t imagine what they’ve done to us. For someone just to come in and have their way with you while you stand helplessly and grieve isn’t right."
Tate and others say tree trimmers hired by the electricity transmission company have butchered trees worse this year than any other time since Grapevine got electricity in 1929. The loudest complaints come from Grapevine, Euless and North Richland Hills.
Homeowners say Oncor, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings (formerly TXU), cuts trees in a ham-handed manner without providing enough notice or information. Workers sometimes cannot speak English.
The whole system is a mess, some say. Bonnie Whatley of North Richland Hills tells The Watchdog that she received a $490 bill from Oncor after the company disconnected power lines near her house so a tree trimmer she hired could prune nearby trees.
She made many calls to Oncor and TXU Electric to complain about the bill and has refused to pay.
"TXU will tell me one thing, and Oncor will tell me something else," she said.
Nancy Norello, also of North Richland Hills, paid for her own trimming this year. Later, when Oncor notified her that more trimming was coming, she refused to let workers on her property. Making it worse, they spoke only Spanish, she says.
Another Oncor worker told her she could face jail time for hiring an unapproved trimmer. (State law allows a one-year jail term for violating the High Voltage Overhead Lines Law.) Another told her power could be cut off, she says.
"They thought they were going to bully me," she said.
When the trimming company brought a constable to her property, she says she convinced the constable that Oncor was attempting to gain unlawful entry.
She hired a lawyer and negotiations are continuing.
At his house, Mayor Tate says, backyard trees were trimmed "really harshly" after an April storm. Limbs were left on his property for weeks.
"My wife was extremely upset," he said.
Throughout town, pines, cypress and post oak trees were ruined, he says.
When Oncor threatened to cut trees around the city’s treasured Nash Farm, the city decided to spend $25,000 to bury electric lines instead.
Tate was so angry he filed a complaint with the Public Utility Commission. Even though the PUC doesn’t regulate tree trimming, Tate says the complaint got Oncor’s attention.
The mayor recently hosted a "summit" with several North Texas mayors and top Oncor officials at Grapevine Convention Center. Tate invited The Watchdog to attend.
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