Arborist Advisory Council Meeting Minutes, September 22, 2008

Members Present

Wes Davis, tish carr, Dave Newell, Ted Armstrong

Members Not Present

Lois Stack, John Lamanna, Art Batson

Staff Present

Bob Batteese, Ann Gibbs, Debbie Davis

Guests Present

Jan Santerre, Loretta Huttman

Reading/Approval of Minutes

tish called the meeting to order at 11:00 a.m. The minutes from the February 11, 2008 meeting were approved with minor changes.

Update From Members

Dave – Small companies are affected by the turn in the economy, some have gone out of business. Slowest August ever experience, but fall business is picking up. Still hard to attract new employees and is important to keep those he has. The economy is not impacting his business. His business does not have a presence on the internet. He has a long customer list and gets business by word of mouth.

Ted – Spring was slow. Lots of new tree companies and still unlicensed folks. Questions customers should ask when hiring an arborist are “Are you licensed, insured and a direct hire or working as a subcontractor?” More customers interested in taking trees down because of the nuisance factor of seeds (acorns) and sap (pitch pine).

Wes – CMP is busy because of a mandate from the PUC to catch up on the tree trimming work to start on a 5 year cycle for all road line work. Business is changing, power quality is driving these changes. They will need many more tree worker and it is hard to find them when competing with all the emergency storm damage. Now have 136 trees crews, normally worked with 60. Transmission lines are on a 4 year cycle. FERC fines are very high if there are outages so there are financial consequences to vegetation management. Permits often require white pine as a screen planting for transmission lines. Trees grow too large and can’t be pruned properly. Need to find some alternative appropriate species for screens.

Tish – Bangor has a city forester. Belgrade passed a tree ordinance. They are having a lot of power outages and trying to work with tree workers to prevent topping trees. Lots of tree workers and equipment clogging up the road. The ordinance adds a challenge when working with utility companies.

Program Update

Bob reported that the natural resource agencies have been asked by the governor to look at efficiencies between these offices. There is a task force and they are required to come up with a report of their findings by the end of the year. Updates on their activities can be found on the State Planning Office website.

Debbie reported on test results, exam stats etc. On April 26, twenty people took the arborist exam. Eighteen people passed the exam and two did not pass the exam. The range of scores was 63 to 98 points. The average score on the Landscape exam was 84 and the average score on the Utility exam was 80 points. On September 10, twenty-one people took the arborist exam. Twenty people passed the exam and one person did not pass the exam. The range of scores was 46 to 97 points. The average score on the Landscape exam was 86 and the average score on the Utility exam was 83. She has been receiving lots of complaints from the AG’s office regarding firewood issues and whether folks are logging or doing arborist work without a license.

Ann reported on a 1 year licensed arborist who would like to take the master exam because he claims to have 30 years experience. Qualifications for the master exam include 5 years experience as a licensed arborist in Maine. He would like to take the exam in MD and they won’t let him. It was suggested that he send a letter to his former employers vouching for his experience and get them to send these along to MD. The group agreed that we could not make an exception to this case and allow him to take the master exam.

Education/Outreach

Distribution of Brochures – Dave indicated that the ME Association of Realtors are willing to distribute the why hire a licensed arborist brochure. There are 250 offices in the state and 200 are members of the association. Dave’s brother Don, a realtor in central Maine, suggested that the brochure needs to be distributed from a specific office. He and his partner are willing to distribute the brochures to their offices. We will put together a short paragraph to be included in the association newsletter alerting folks about the brochure and make it available in hard copies and electronically on the arborist program website. Ann will make sure the brochure is posted in on the web. Ann and Dave will develop a paragraph for the newsletter and Dave will share this with Don for posting. tish will check with home inspectors to see if they might be an outlet for brochures.

Project Canopy

Jan Santerre introduced herself as the coordinator for the program and Loretta Huttman the recently hired volunteer coordinator. Loretta has lots of experience with outdoor recreation and fundraising. Federal funding for the program will be changing and becoming a competitive process. They will be updating the program strategic plan and the big tree registry for 2010. This year they award 40 grants totaling $250,000. There were many more requests for funds. Suggestions for collaborations to promote licensed arborists. All grants require municipalities to work with licensed arborists. Project Canopy has helped MAA sponsor training opportunities annually through outside grants. There may be other opportunities in the future.

ISA Role in Continuing Education

Ann was approached by NE ISA members about the possibility of utilizing the ISA continuing education credit system for ME licensed arborists. Members indicated that 30 credits were required over 3 years and the fee was $125/year. Most thought that getting credits at the manager/professional level would be easy, but it was harder at the crew level. It might be difficult to follow the ISA process using the current Maine set up. Ann is trying to set up a meeting with NE ISA officials to discuss this in detail.

Agenda Topics and Date for Next Meeting

Next meeting is scheduled for 2/23/09. No new agenda items were proposed.

Meeting adjourned at 1:25 pm

Respectfully submitted by,
Ann Gibbs

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