PORTAGE (WKZO) -- The City of Portage has a preliminary plan for replacing dozens of trees that formed a screen between homeowners on Angling Road and U.S.-131 that were clear-cut by the Midwest Electric Cooperative, but the utility may never win back the trust of the homeowners.

The homeowners say the crews came in without notice and took down the trees, leaving behind the stumps trunks and other debris, damaging the fence that separated the neighborhood from the highway, and then mocked the homeowners as they left.

Utility spokesperson Patty Nowlin says they are revising their policy for notifying homeowners when it may not be their property, but it does effect their homes.

City manager Maurice Evans says he plans to proposed spending about 60-thousand dollars left over from the mild winter, planting about 160 trees in a narrow strip between the highway and the power lines.

He says he still needs council approval, State permits and to put the project out for bids, and a forester and a landscape archetech to space the plantings and pick the trees.