AUBURN – The city has already sold $400 worth of wood cut from area trees as part of an effort to help people stay warm this winter.

City Manager Glenn Aho said the the city is taking bids for roughly another 50 cords of green wood, part of the city’s Community Cords program.

Proceeds from the sale of that wood, collected by arborists this summer while they cut down trees around the city, will be used to help residents pay for heat this winter.

“It’s mostly green wood, and it’s not ready to be burned yet,” Aho told city councilors during a Monday workshop meeting. “The goal this year is to do as much as we can to help people this winter and selling the wood now is the best way to do that. Next year, when we’ve had some time to plan, we may do something different.”

The program was one of several councilors created this summer to help deal with record high heating oil prices. The city is creating a management plan for urban forests on 460 city-owned wooded acres around schools, in parks and along recreation trails. It will identify the kinds of wood in the city’s inventory and how to best harvest it for profit and for encouraging forest health.

Profits from the sale of the wood go to help pay heating costs for people that need help, but have too much income to qualify for general assistance aid.

Aho also updated councilors on the names of the city’s programs. Mayor John Jenkins has come up with catchy names or acronyms for most of the programs and has claimed a copyright for each one. They include CHEAP, the Community Home Energy Access Program, MERIT, the Middle-income Energy Resource Investment Trust, and Neighbor’s Keepers, Jenkins cadre of volunteers who will check up on neighbors and elderly residents this winter.

Aho said Jenkins may control the names, but the city controls the programs.

“If something happened, and the names were revoked, we’d simply have to change the names of our programs,” Aho said.