|
19
<br /> 648
<br /> 649 Beth Bronson: Yeah, I just wanted to know if they had an easement with Orange County or not.
<br /> 650
<br /> 651 David Stancil: No, the only one that might exist would be the one that we've been talking about already,
<br /> 652 whether it continues past this property now. Making a long story short, we're very much familiar with this
<br /> 653 property as well. We looked at it when we purchased the property, and there are some maps in the final years
<br /> 654 of the many access easements that have been done that may seem to indicate that this part of the access
<br /> 655 easement no longer exists, but again, I'm getting into quasi legal territory, which I'm not—
<br /> 656
<br /> 657 Liz Kalies: I just want to say I appreciate the attention that you pay to diversity, equity inclusion, and
<br /> 658 justice issues in your application, and obviously in your business practices and related to land use. It was
<br /> 659 really nice to see. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about educational opportunities that you would
<br /> 660 plan to be providing at this new site for the community.
<br /> 661
<br /> 662 Craig Nishimoto: David, you want to address some of that? David is my business partner, and he is all
<br /> 663 about the training and community involvement. He's got a lot of dreams, and a lot of big dreams for this, and
<br /> 664 he spent the last year doing quite a bit.
<br /> 665
<br /> 666 David Ricks: The educational opportunities that we are doing currently are Tree ID, Understanding
<br /> 667 Tree Risk. We teach chainsaw classes and hand saw classes for the community. So, we have folks that use
<br /> 668 our services or hear about us, and they say, "hey, I want to do some tree work," and we'll show them how to
<br /> 669 use their tools safely, and we'll talk to them about their trees and help them decide whether that's something
<br /> 670 that can be done. For example, we have a chainsaw class this weekend that's from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 1
<br /> 671 encourage you guys all to come if you're not confident running a chainsaw, and it's free for the public. We had
<br /> 672 45 people sign up, but it's free, so when something's free, we might have 15 people there. But those have
<br /> 673 been going on very regularly. That's one of our most popular classes. Another class is tree climbing—that we
<br /> 674 give that's free. Craig and I, we came to this later in life, so we've had other careers and professions. And we
<br /> 675 choose to do this. Most of the people at The Treeist can do other things. They choose to work among the
<br /> 676 trees for the community being first responders. But climbing trees is intrinsically interesting, and we believe
<br /> 677 that it should be as ubiquitous as riding a bike here. I have a video encouraging people to sign up for our free
<br /> 678 classes because, if they have trees in their yard, they have extremely valuable recreational opportunities, and
<br /> 679 we want to show them how to do that safely because I'm sure all of you have climbed a tree back in the day
<br /> 680 without ropes or harnesses. And so that's one of the things that we want to bring to the community. The cost
<br /> 681 of a kayak, to go down the Eno River, for that cost you could build a tree-climbing kit for your entire family, and
<br /> 682 go out to your backyard and enjoy your trees, and so we need an opportunity to do that in a safe spot to save
<br /> 683 trees for folks. So, that class is on the 20th. That's the example of our next class that we have. So, we
<br /> 684 encourage you guys— it's free—to come to that one as well. We also have folks that—and this is really
<br /> 685 important and near and dear to our hearts because we're lucky to be alive with the lack of training we received
<br /> 686 early on in our career— next week, on the 10th, I'm training a gentleman from Johnston County to do tree work
<br /> 687 professionally. He started with his business partner there, and so we're having him out to our facility and
<br /> 688 showing him the best practices for our industry. And so, we offer that for the community as well. Most of the
<br /> 689 folks that take us up on that are tree-care professionals that have worked for the company that Craig described
<br /> 690 when he first started and was lucky to be alive. So, that one is an industry-only offer, but the educational
<br /> 691 opportunities, we want to expand on them. For example, since 2016 we've given Tree ID classes, we've given
<br /> 692 how mechanical advantage works for folks. We've given tree climbing. We have taught the folks that work at
<br /> 693 the UNC Botanical Garden how to access their trees. We have taught folks that work at the Arboretum how to
<br /> 694 access their trees to install equipment or to do minor tree work. And it's around that kind of thing. The
<br /> 695 gentleman that recently left, Sam, he is one of our consultants, and he gives presentations weekly that serve
<br /> 696 two purposes: they educate our team, but they also educate the community—they are on YouTube—on how
<br />
|