School Board approves timber bids

March 07, 2023

The Franklin County Board of Education opened bids Thursday, Feb. 23 for the sale of various timber stands on several parcels of school trust lands.

The first bids opened were for 110 acres in Section 1, Township 6 North, Range 3 East.

“These are some thinnings ... pay-as-you-go,” Superintendent of Education Chris Kent said.

“On that first one, we actually had three bidders. Good Hope outbid LandMAX (Timber Co. Inc.) and M&M Farms of Bude. I got a recommendation from the forester to take (the bid from) Good Hope.”

For pine pulpwood, Good Hope bid $1.55 while the other two priced the commodity at $1.25 and $1.51.

For pine chip-n-saw, Good Hope bid $12.55 and the other two bid $10 and $8.51.

Also, Good Hope priced pine saw logs at $19, while the other two companies bid $19 and $20.51.

Hardwood pulpwood was worth $2 to Good Hope and 50 cents, and $1.51 to the others.

“So (what we will get for) the pine pulp and hardwood pulp is basically nothing,” Kent said.
“I’m glad we got $2 for the hardwood pulp. I looked back when they bid on the last one we had and they were like $1.50 back then, so they have come up on the pulpwood.”

The second set of bids opened was also for a pay-as-you-cut thinning on 141 acres located in Section 16, Township 7 North, Range 2 East.

“The only bid we had was (from) Good Hope,” Kent said. “(The bid was for) pine pulp, $1.03; pine chip-n-saw, $8; pine saw logs, $15; hardwood pulp, $2. So everything was lower except the hardwood pulp, and that’s just (because of) the age of the timber, the ground they have to work in and all of those things. But, the forester did say we needed to take this bid to get it thinned out.

“On the third one (124 acres in Section 16, Township 6 North, Range 3 East), there were no bidders. This is a little bit younger timber, and it’s hard to get people in there to get on those, but we’ll try again. My recommendation is to accept Good Hope on the first one and second one, and of course, no bid on the third one.”

The board voted according to Kent’s recommendation, and plans to re-advertise for bids once more for thinning on the 124 acres.



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