08-29-1978 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING OF THE ORONO COUNCIL, AUGUST 29, 1978 Page 20 oi 732 includes all diseased elms that I have been TREE DISEASE PROGRAM able to record, even those that have been removed (Continued) without notification. There are a nLu:lber of unrecorded diseased trees, most of which have or will be removed, and this figure could approximate an additional l00 or More. Only two cases necessitated legal procedure where the forester took bids and had the trees removed. Thirty-two samples were taken on suspect oak trees, but none turned out positive for oak wilt. Suggestions for 1979 Tree Disease Program With the increase of Dutch elm disease, there is also an increase of resident response to the ProbleM. The er,�phasis here is in the considerable nur.tber of phone calls and the amount of time needed to answer � then by phone and field survey. This year I kept tabulation on the time needed to answer the calls and to date, it is 286 hours fror_Z iiarch 1 to August 20. The field time tabulated where there is need to examine the trees from the phone requests totaled 367 hours. This includes travel time between locations. Thus , the total hours based from phone calls to August 20 is 653 hours, or alr.�ost 82 man days. If there is a comparative increase in phone response in 1979 , I have no solution for handling it, and this is inclusive of an assistant helping me. I have had an assistant, Peter Brownlee, helping me conduct the tree disease survey for 1978. To Auc�ust 20, he has 324 hours on this program. His tirie and mileage costs are paid -by me. The only solution to the heavy man hour der.iand on the tree disease program for 1979 is to seriously limit phone calls, and to aim only at the shade tree elm - the ones in yards and not in wooded areas. The only other solution would be for Orono to provide an assistant that I could train and he could assist me on phone calls and survey. I prefer the first suggestion - limiting phone calls and surveying shade tree elms only. The phone lir,►iting might be done whereby a secretary can screen and answer many of the calls of a policy nature (rebates, tree injections, suggested tree firms , burning permits, rules and regulations, disease symptoms, registered letters on legal procedures, and others that cot:ld be ans�aered in this manner) . (Continued)