Aloha Council Members!
My name is Vincent Flores and I'm a certified arborist as well as an urban forester who has been serving Maui for the last decade and proud to say I am on the Board of Directors for Maui Green and Beautiful. I am submitting my testimony to make sure we're all on the same page for the Kaulunani Grant. The very first step of an Urban Forest Development Plan is to complete a detailed tree inventory with GIS. Imagine for a moment, that we're starting a restaurant together. The first step is to see what exactly we have in the pantry so we can decide what kind of menu we can design, not debate over whether or not the restaurant should be Thai or Mexican or spend half of our budget on fancy plates or art. The street trees are currently mapped and our main focus with the $300,000 dollar grant needs to be, before anything else, to map the park trees, the trees on commercial property and to begin mapping private properties. As you know, we have Lidar Imaging that has been commissioned by the state, county, NOAA in 2011 & 2019, and most recently a tree canopy specific Lidar Set of Imaging through the US Forest Service just last year, and those Lidar Imaging sets are available to the public. The last thing we need is to waste a third or more of the grant money on another set of Lidar Imaging. I say this because I have read the request for proposal as well as the proposal by SR Partners and to be frank, I was disappointed in the fact that Lidar Imaging was included with such prominence in the proposal as it is a total waste of grant money, time and resources. It shows a lack of knowledge in urban forestry and tree related happenings here on Maui. After we've finished a detailed tree inventory of the commercial and park trees, we should use a portion of the grant money to start a preliminary urban forestry division for the County to put together a work plan, management practices, policies, enforcement of said policies and then an overall management plan. Taking those two steps before any other will benefit the trees, the guardian plants, the limu, the community, the coral, and the island as a whole. I would like to work together to help SR partners to execute this grant and fulfill the minimum requirements of the grant as they do not have a certified arborist on staff. I would also like to be the one to take on the task of starting an Urban Forestry Division for the County of Maui and running it as its head. Mahalo for taking the time to read this and I look forward to meeting you at the next meeting! Aloha!
Aloha Council Members!
My name is Vincent Flores and I'm a certified arborist as well as an urban forester who has been serving Maui for the last decade and proud to say I am on the Board of Directors for Maui Green and Beautiful. I am submitting my testimony to make sure we're all on the same page for the Kaulunani Grant. The very first step of an Urban Forest Development Plan is to complete a detailed tree inventory with GIS. Imagine for a moment, that we're starting a restaurant together. The first step is to see what exactly we have in the pantry so we can decide what kind of menu we can design, not debate over whether or not the restaurant should be Thai or Mexican or spend half of our budget on fancy plates or art. The street trees are currently mapped and our main focus with the $300,000 dollar grant needs to be, before anything else, to map the park trees, the trees on commercial property and to begin mapping private properties. As you know, we have Lidar Imaging that has been commissioned by the state, county, NOAA in 2011 & 2019, and most recently a tree canopy specific Lidar Set of Imaging through the US Forest Service just last year, and those Lidar Imaging sets are available to the public. The last thing we need is to waste a third or more of the grant money on another set of Lidar Imaging. I say this because I have read the request for proposal as well as the proposal by SR Partners and to be frank, I was disappointed in the fact that Lidar Imaging was included with such prominence in the proposal as it is a total waste of grant money, time and resources. It shows a lack of knowledge in urban forestry and tree related happenings here on Maui. After we've finished a detailed tree inventory of the commercial and park trees, we should use a portion of the grant money to start a preliminary urban forestry division for the County to put together a work plan, management practices, policies, enforcement of said policies and then an overall management plan. Taking those two steps before any other will benefit the trees, the guardian plants, the limu, the community, the coral, and the island as a whole. I would like to work together to help SR partners to execute this grant and fulfill the minimum requirements of the grant as they do not have a certified arborist on staff. I would also like to be the one to take on the task of starting an Urban Forestry Division for the County of Maui and running it as its head. Mahalo for taking the time to read this and I look forward to meeting you at the next meeting! Aloha!
Gratefully,
Vincent Flores