Arborist Council Meeting
February 13, 2006
Deering Building, Augusta (11am to 2pm)
Members Attending
Lois Stack, tish carr, Ted Armstrong, Art Batson, Wes Davis, Dave Newell
Members Not Attending
Bob Levesque
Staff Attending
Terry Bourgoin, Debbie Davis, Ann Gibbs
Review/Approve Minutes
Minutes were approved from the 11/14/06 meeting.
Program update
Debbie indicated that 463 licenses have been renewed with 145 yet to be renewed and that she has been getting many inquiries concerning the new requirement to provide proof of insurance.
Recent complaints
Gil Lamarre did sign the consent agreement and has agreed to pay his affected customers and the fine to Department of Agriculture and not to do arborist work without a license. A press release was sent from the Dept., but hasn’t run in any newspapers. Letters were sent to Lamarre’s customers listed in the consent order informing them that it had been signed. Ted will include the press release in the MAA newsletter and web page. Terry wants to get more publicity on this because it is the first case to go to court it can be used to demonstrate the consequences of doing arborist work without a license.
Public Relations
Ann gave a report of what happened during the meeting in January attended by: Lois Stack, tish carr, Jennifer O’Leary, UMCE and Ann Gibbs. The group decided to do some baseline surveys with Master Gardeners and town clerks to determine the awareness of arborist licensing. Ann passed out the list of Public Education and Government Stations (PEGS) with the idea that council members could contact a station in their town to air the MAA video. There are 30 PEGS on the list, and 14 of these are equipped with video. Ted will distribute copies of the video at the next meeting in March. Advisory council members will take the list and check off which stations they will contact. tish will draft a letter to include with the video. Art suggested we get a list of arborists for each community with a station and contact them to send the video.
Arborist Rule Change
The rule has been promulgated, and will be effective this week. The fee for the study guide was removed from the final language because it would make the rule major substantive requiring it be presented in front of the legislature each time changes were proposed. All the other proposed changes were included. Terry suggested the rule be mailed out to all the licensed arborists and post the change on the web site.
Update on Exams
Nine people took the new arborist exam in February and they all passed. They did well on the tree ID. Dave thought the applicants were better prepared, the study guide is much better, and thought the exam went well.
Licensing Categories
Terry passed out a list of issues that were developed on this subject from the previous arborist committee, which included the following issues: Is a pesticide license necessary to become a Master?, Eliminate the terms regular and restricted licensing categories and Do we need the Apprentice permit? tish asked if it is easy to make small changes or should we make all the changes at once. Terry mentioned that is would be easier to make all the changes at once as you still have to go through the rule changing process. The last change was routine and these proposed changes regarding licensing would likely be controversial. If we open the rule up again we should have all the pieces to be changed in order. Terry was not advocating changes, but these have been of concern to members of the industry. tish mentioned it was good to discuss this now and share at the MAA meeting.
Terry went through the list of issues (list attached). tish asked if we should leave the licensing as is or have there been complaints from the constituents that should be addressed? Is it a problem administratively at the Dept. and how does it impact the public? Not a lot of complaints concerning folks with utility licenses doing landscape work. Art asked if there are concerns from MAA? Ted indicated not a lot of complaints, usually landscape licensees seeing utility folks doing landscape work, some of the issues have disappeared. Ted thinks that the landscape arborist should have to meet more difficult requirements than the utility arborist, and that there should be two different methods of pruning, utility vs. landscape, presented. Wes mentioned that utility work is observed by the public and these folks need to be licensed. Dave suggested we clean up the wording for the definition of utility vs. landscape and get rid of the term primary, but leave the terms restricted and regular. If changes are made all definitions should be studied. tish thought we should review the definitions and the meeting minutes from the past where it was proposed that the Dept would require previously documented experience before taking an exam. Art indicated that this was too much work for the Dept. to administer. Wes thought there are few apprentice permits issued so why keep that category. Art suggested strengthening the definitions and determine if the arborist definition should stay or not. Wes mentioned that if an apprentice permit is required before taking the first class exam then we should keep the definition. Art thought that maybe we should require folks taking the utility license to be an apprentice. Have a sponsor on the utility first class application before they could take an exam. Discussion ensued regarding whether a landscape arborist can work around utility wires. OSHA rules direct how trees are treated when in the area of utility wires. Art could also require that folks prove EHAP certification before they apply for the exam. Lois asked how many landscape arborists are EHAP certified, the response was not many. We could require that utility license folks have EHAP certification to renew their license. tish indicated that someone needs to provide EHAP training in Maine, as this has been lacking in the state. Ted mentioned information was available from TCIA so folks can self certify. Utility license would require they are sponsored and EHAP certified.
The group came up with suggested changes which included: requiring utility licensees to be sponsored with evidence of EHAP certification, eliminate the apprentice category, review and rewrite the definitions, eliminate the word primarily from landscape and arborist definition
Motion was presented by Wes, second by Ted, passed unanimously
Agenda topics
The next meeting will be March 20, 2006 to include: review the list of topics from the past, rotation of members, review proposed changes to the rule.
Terry mentioned that we didn’t need to meet monthly as we have covered lots of ground, but the law requires quarterly meetings.
Respectfully submitted by,
Ann Gibbs
