Galveston, let's make lemons out of lemonade (actually pencils out of trees)

Hello all who may be still tuned (the financial thing kinda wrestled the news away from Galveston kinda quickly). Many houses have been worked on, but not many completed. Between walking around town and driving on Broadway I have been paying attention to the trees. The city has done a beautiful job on the medians of Broadway (few parts left to put bricks on but each end of every median has new oleanders and shrubbery planted and mulched with automatic watering systems installed). They have been and are still watering every live oak. Unfortunately despite best efforts it looks like less than half are budding. I walked around the East End Historic District and every deciduous tree (trees with leaves) is daad (dead as a doornail). This area had several feet of brackish water for about 36 to 48 hours contaminating the soil and it burned many plants. After the storm we were lucky as there was little to no rain to come in through the damaged roofs but we were unlucky as there was little to no rain to wash the salt away.
Ok, so in order to help the economic state of things I vote to use the wood constructively. Take a tree or two and make Galveston pencils and other doodads. Sell the rest of the trees to wookworkers. Live oak (note to those not from the area - that is the name of the tree, not their state of being) is a marvelous wood, very strong and good to machine. these trees are also, unfortunately for us but good for woodworkers, about 100 years old. You really can't get great wood like that these days. Old, great wood with historical significance should sell for a decent price. That's something the City could use. Oh, and since I thought of it I only have two stipulations. I want a piece (a small branch'll do) and I want a part of the money to go for new planting and bicycle lanes first, then other stuff. Why bike lanes? Being green is in, that's all.
Good luck Galveston, and remember that you are not alone.