[Robert Paine]: Okay. This is Robert Payne. I'm the chair of the Medford Energy and Environment Committee. I'm going to read a statement that allows us to do meetings remotely. On July 16, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law an act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations. This act allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely through March 31, 2023 without a quorum of the public body physically present at a meeting location and to provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. In accordance with this act, this meeting of the City of Medford Energy and Environment Committee is being conducted totally via remote participation using Zoom. including committee members and the public. The use of Zoom complies with the law's requirement to provide live, adequate alternative means of public access to the deliberations of the public body. Instead of holding meetings in a public place, persons who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so using the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford website. We will also post a record of this meeting on the city's website in the near future with the link provided in the meeting agenda. End of statement. So just to confirm committee members who are present, and then we'll go to the guests. This is Bob Payne. I see in the list Gaston Fiore. Here. Okay. Sorry, okay. I got Benji Hiller, John Rogers. Just to note that Loretta James who's normally on the committee has taken a temporary leave of absence through this month and will rejoin the committee in November. So she's not an official member of the committee today. Mary Ingber is here. I'll see, I did John Rogers. Martha Andres?
[Martha Ondras]: Here.
[Robert Paine]: And let's see, have I missed anyone? Okay. That gives us at least six. Then we've got guests. We have, looks like Lois Grossman, who used to be on the Wind Energy Committee. Oops, looks like Jessica is also joining, Jessica Parks, as a committee member. I don't see Paul as living yet, unless I have missed him. And who else do I not see? That may be it because, oh, Nicole, may or may not be able to join later. Kathleen and Luke are not able to join today. So I think, and Paul, we're not sure about. So then in terms of guests, Rosemary, why don't you, sorry. Okay. Rosemary, why don't you introduce yourself from the Tufts Energy Group?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, hi. My name is Rosemary Lohr. I'm the president of Tufts Energy Group here at Tufts. So we're going to be helping organize the symposium in November. We've helped in some previous years, and we have a lot of members who are interested in helping again. So we're looking forward to that.
[Robert Paine]: OK, thank you. Other members who are guests, which they don't have to necessarily identify themselves. We already heard from the Hansons and I think, is that all? Of course we have our intern. Maybe you could talk about your role too.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Sure. I'm Lily. I'm an intern in the planning department. I also work in the engineering department. A big part of what I'm doing is working on the citywide bike plan, but I also help out here and there with other projects. And I'm here today helping take notes for the minutes.
[Robert Paine]: Thank you, Lily. Okay. Why don't we get started with the administrative part of the meeting? Obtain the minutes late and I sent them out, but I don't know if people have had a chance to look at them. If it's too short of a time, we could defer that till next meeting or. If you've had a chance to review them, we could vote on accepting them. I can't even vote because I was not at the meeting. So I'm going to leave it up to those who were at the meeting in September to. tell me if they've had a chance to review the minutes and could vote on their acceptance.
[Martha Ondras]: Well, I was at the meeting. I will vote on their acceptance, vote to accept.
[Robert Paine]: Okay. We're not going to do the vote until any other comments on that, on whether we should proceed with voting on their acceptance. If I'll second the motion to accept. Okay. So I will, I will, uh, I will then call the role for, uh, and I'll do all the committee members present and you can abstain if you were not there and vote to accept or not. Um, so, um, Luke was not here, Bob Payne. I, I have to abstain. I said, all right, Paul is not here. Uh, Barry except. Okay. Kathleen is not present. Nicole is not present. John?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Accept.
[Robert Paine]: Martha?
[Martha Ondras]: Accept.
[Robert Paine]: Jessica?
[Martha Ondras]: Accept.
[Robert Paine]: And Benji? Abstain. Okay. That's right. You missed the meeting too. I did. Okay. No votes to the negative. We will accept the minutes as sent out and posted. Okay. Alicia, it's time for you to give us administrative updates. Maybe we can also review the arts event about a week ago.
[Alicia Hunt]: I was just sort of thinking if I had any real administrative updates for the committee. The only thing that I can think of is the mayor sent staff today an update with different positions that have been filled in the city, one of which is particularly of interest to my office. Um, that I, you know, I don't know if, um. How much it interacts with this committee, but the facility, the building commissioner. We have hired a new building commissioner, so that is really good news for us. We work very closely with the building commissioner. I will also say that we have reposted the facilities manager position as a bit more realistic. We looked at it a little bit and focused more on a position that will manage the buildings rather than somebody who would go out and get grants and do capital projects. because it was very clear that what we had budgeted for this position was not in line with what people who were qualified for that position would be expecting to get. So we're hoping that we'll be able to fill that. We've been, like I said, we've reposted it. There are a lot of positions posted on the city's website right now. So people are looking for municipal jobs, they should look. We are looking for lawyers, city solicitor and assistant city solicitor are both positions that are posted on the website right now. And then I'll move on to the event last, was it last weekend, two weekends ago? Oh my gosh.
[Robert Paine]: 24th of September.
[Alicia Hunt]: So it was two weekends ago, I guess, technically. So we had a table at the Mystic Arts. It was the Mystic River Celebration. This is down at Conin Shell. There was a lot of great music and entertainment and a lot of excellent tables. And we hosted a table that had Energy Committee information on it and had information about the climate plan, the comprehensive plan. actually a project that Lily's helping me manage, the Route 28 underpass, which is a project that we need to do some public outreach on because we are going after federal state funding for the construction and they require some additional outreach than what we've done, particularly for the state MEPA process, the environmental review process. requires outreach to underserved communities. We had information about that. And the solid waste survey was there. And we had, let me see, Martha staffed the table with one of my grad interns, and then Bob and I staffed the table. I thought it went really well. We talked to so many people. It was very exciting. Yeah, there was some stuff this weekend, but the Oktoberfest got pushed to next weekend. And so we are talking about having a table at that those solid waste task force is particularly interested in that. I would love to get some additional help staffing that. And then I feel like we could commit to a table. I had more than one person. I'm willing to be there as well. But we find that my time gets so sucked up by people that it's good to have somebody else there in addition to me. I don't know if Martha or Bob, you wanna share any, oh, I do wanna give a shout out to Benji's daughter-in-law who also staffed the table with us. She works for the city of Somerville and she had actually reached out because she needs to do outreach on a project, a stormwater separation project that they're doing in Somerville. And she needed to be talking to people because it'll impact the Mystic River. So she spent some time with us and with the Mystic River watershed table, talking to the community as well. That was fun to have somebody from another city working the table with us.
[Robert Paine]: I'm severely prejudiced on this subject, but I think she's great.
[Alicia Hunt]: I love working with Luchika. She's great. I know her through professional work stuff.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, Benji, we got to meet a lot of your family at that event. Which event is this, Alicia, that's coming up?
[Alicia Hunt]: Then the one this coming weekend is Oktoberfest, which was postponed from this past Saturday. It's a Chamber of Commerce event.
[Lois Grossman]: And where is it going to be and when?
[Alicia Hunt]: Salem, Medford Square, I believe mostly Salem Street. Although actually, no, Riverside Ave. I could be wrong, or Clippership Drive. It's one of those right there in the middle of the square.
[Lois Grossman]: And from when to when?
[Alicia Hunt]: 1 to 5.
[Lois Grossman]: 1 to 5 on Saturday?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yep.
[Lois Grossman]: I'm going to check my calendar and I'll let you know if I can join you.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'd appreciate it. We'd love to have some more people to talk about all our great projects. All right, Bob and Martha. Anybody want to add to the, about the event we were at?
[Robert Paine]: No, the weather was great. I hope we have the same good weather for two weeks, less than two weeks now. which we'll talk about soon.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, the weather was great. A lot of people were interested in talking about different energy, heat pumps, transportation, trees, you name it. People are very interested. And they love the signs, was one thing. We got a lot of very positive comments on the pilot Project to put up signs about walking distances around town people, a number of people made unsolicited positive comments about the signs.
[Robert Paine]: A lot on invasive invasive plants too. So that always be of interest. Thanks to Paul for that. Okay. I don't think there's any other, no other administrative updates. We can move on to, back to Rosemary. What's, is the Tufts Energy Group going to have a energy conference in the winter?
[SPEAKER_07]: So the energy conference usually takes place in around March. Technically the group that puts on the energy conference is a separate organization from energy group. but we plan to be working together a lot this year. So yeah, that will be sometime in March.
[Robert Paine]: Okay. Just a reminder that this webinar, which we've now, there'll be a third year in a row. This will feature a presentation by Block Power, which is, has worked in other states but now is in Massachusetts and we'll talk about how they work with municipalities to help residents fund projects like heat pumps, because the heat pumps are not, you know, a cheap endeavor. And it'll be interesting to see their point of view on how to actually fund and pay for help residents pay for types of programs. In regard to that, well, we'll talk about later what we're going to present at the Harvest Trinity Festival, but I did send out a presentation, mostly geared toward residents and some opportunities to take advantage of all these government initiatives, state and federal, that are coming up regarding heat pumps. solar and electric vehicles, there are going to be some unique opportunities for deep discounts. And so it's good for residents to be aware of those. I think we can move on then to the Harvest Your Energy Festival planning. We're going to let Loretta and Alicia take that over. Thank you, Rosemary.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Thanks, Bob. Felicia, do you want me to speak first? Go ahead. For the festival, we have 40 exhibitors and 13 sponsors so far. We will have some food, chapters, coffee carts, and Let me think, sorry, I just had a brain freeze here. Work hard, eat good, we'll be there. That's a food truck and they'll be serving different kinds of chicken and rice bowls and a vegetarian option. And let's see, what else do we have? We have music by Matt Heaton and the Outside Choice and Thrill Mix. For an update, the most complete update, you can find on the website that's been updated, googreenmedford.org, when you click on the Harvester Energy Festival. Almost everything's there, just a few more tweaks will do. So you can see all the exhibitors, the sponsors, and all the raffle items. As far as some interesting things we have that are still coming in, The Board of Health will be there to give out free COVID test kits. And some new exhibitors that haven't participated in the past are the Animal Control Officer and also Kitty Connection, our local animal adoption and rescue organization. And recycling, we have three recycling events. HELPSI will do clothing and material recycling at their table. And that's on the website. So you'll see a list of what you can donate. And they also have a retail website where you can purchase reused clothing. And they'll be giving out, well, they actually, they've donated to the Raffle some gift certificates to use on their website. In addition, we'll have paper shredding and electronics recycling. And we're working on some details on the electronic recycling. And this week, we'll be really busy picking up raffle donations. Wegmans just came through with their donation request. And for a snack, I was looking for snacks. And a lot of the restaurants and food vendors are having supply chain issues, which is the same across the country. They don't have enough staff and they need help. So it's very hard to get a food vendor right now. So Wegmans has donated. I asked for some package snacks and other things too. apples. So we'll have fresh apples to give out for free. I don't know how many yet. We just got the request approved and it came in the email today. So I'll be working with them to see how many and who can pick out all the stuff plus the 200 reusable bags they'll donate, a gift basket of organic food and a gift certificate. So like I said, the best way to be updated is to go to the website, gogreenmedford.org. and it will list all the recycling options, all the exhibitor responses and raffle items, directions, and recycling. Alicia, do you want to talk about that? The electronics recycling?
[Alicia Hunt]: So we have electronics recycling lined up and waste management has agreed to pay for it, which is about $1,000. So we don't have to collect money, but. But if we want to take televisions or monitors, we have to charge for them. And we were able to work it out that they would charge us $15 each, which is a lot less. So people can actually arrange to have large items like dishwashers and televisions picked up from their home through the city for $26. And so we're actually putting on the flyer like no large items, dishwashers, refrigerators. And you would say, but really? So I actually at the August electronics recycling that the crew team had, I watched somebody unloading dishwashers into their truck.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Wow.
[Alicia Hunt]: So we're going to say no large items, but we're going to put on the bottom, you can pay $26 and the city will come pick them up from your home. Well, from the curb. So here's the question. We could do the TVs and monitors for, sorry, was it $13 or $15? $15 per TV, LCD or Right. The question is, in order to do that we need somebody who would take responsibility for that portion of it for collecting the money and making sure that was happening. Because that's. Certainly we can't delegate that to students. It's not directing traffic, it's actually collecting money and then turning it over to the company at the end of the event. So I basically said to Loretta, I thought that it would be better to bring it to the committee, because if there was somebody here tonight who was willing to say, I'll be responsible for that at the event, then I think we could offer it. But if we don't have somebody from this group who's willing to do it, then I don't think that we can offer it because I'm not putting a student volunteer in charge of collecting money at this event. So I basically figured I'd put it out to you all.
[Jessica Parks]: Do we know, I mean, is it something that we've seen in the past has been a popular Do people really want to bring their monitors and things? Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I did the traffic controller. I've done it for like, I don't know how many years as well. And I usually work with Kathleen Kenna and she collects the money, but she's not here today. So, but it is popular because they're hard to get rid of and he has a place where you can get rid of them. So we probably do 10 or 20, you know,
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: There's a picture on the website of how much we collected one year at the bottom of the GoGreenMetFed Havasura Energy Festival page, and it was a lot. And Kathleen, she did it, but she wasn't really comfortable handling all that cash. I mean, we could also limit it to two televisions or monitors per car.
[Jessica Parks]: I'm happy to volunteer to be that person to collect money. I mean, I have no problem doing that. I just didn't know if there's a need or if there's that much of a demand, I guess would be my question. And I apologize for the cartoons in the background. Is that Jessica?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes, it is Jessica. I don't see your room.
[Jessica Parks]: I know I have cartoons going in the background.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay. Okay, so you'd have to be there like 1030 at the latest. I can do that.
[Alicia Hunt]: Why. So, I mean, aren't they only scheduled the electronics recycling company will we would expect would show up around 11 or 1130.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, originally the contract said 10, and then I have to email them an update. And then if you want to do the $15 instead of the per pound rate, which we'd already said no to, I have to get an updated contract with the quote. And the other thing, Jessica, is we need to have change to make change for people.
[Alicia Hunt]: Do you really? Could we put on it like exact change cash only?
[Jessica Parks]: Yeah, we could figure that out. I mean, I would think after a while, we could ultimately get there, I would guess, right? I mean, just tell people to bring fives. I mean, because not many people carry cash around, I'd say. And so if they're being told to bring cash, they're going to go and take some out, would be my assumption.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, so $15 cash only exact change. Exact.
[Alicia Hunt]: I think I think it's better to at least say that. And then that way most people will be prepared. And if Jessica ends up then making change for a handful of people, it'll be fine.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Um, okay. But do we want to limit it to two per car? You know, we could we already have a list of people that have been calling and emailing, you know, waiting for our answer.
[Jessica Parks]: So yeah, a bunch of people who are really interested in the answer from the question on the Medford recommendations page.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So what would be the advantage of limiting it?
[Jessica Parks]: Yeah, that would be, I mean, if we're charging limit.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, well, let me tell you why. So you get tricks at people, you know, like someone was that when I was talking to PC survivors, they told me someone showed up with like seven dishwashers. 12 TVs.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, that's not television.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No. Well, I said seven or 12 TVs. Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So, you know, I thought you said dishwashers.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I did. Yeah, I'm just giving an example.
[Jessica Parks]: Yeah, I think like 12 TVs is easier to handle than I would think, I mean, I don't know. Is there, maybe that's a question for the people who are taking this stuff. Like, is there a limit to what they're capable of taking?
[Adam Hurtubise]: So what they do is they come with these giant boxes that are about the size of a wash machine and they're called Gaylords, that's the name of the boxes. And these boxes unfold and they're like triple thick cardboard. They're really hefty and they have a forklift or a truck lift that they can put them into the truck. On a really good year, we filled like 10 of those, and they all fit in the truck. And if they don't fit in the truck, what they do is they start loading stuff on top of the ones that are already in the truck, because they're not tall. They're the height of a truck. of a wash machine. So what they'll do is, because they're interested in the materials, they recycle the materials and make money on that. My feeling is about the monitors are, the goal here is to make the environment better, right? So the more of those we can get out of the environment, the better off we are. There we go, there we go. Yeah, that's the picture, right. Yeah, so.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, I was also thinking, you know, we don't want people to hold up the line either. I don't think this company is bringing boxes. And that's the other thing we need the labor. We have a list of student volunteers to help people unload their cars. So I was just putting it out there for a limit. I mean, you might want to say a limit of five or a limit of eight. And they did say a piece of our selling came in with 113 inch like television screen that would be like in a big bar or restaurant.
[Gaston Fiore]: So if the problem is running out of space, would it make sense to just be first come first served and then whenever you're out of space and you just stop the collection for both items?
[Adam Hurtubise]: That's what I think is a good idea.
[Jessica Parks]: Yeah, that was going to be my next question is until basically until we can't take them anymore might be better because we don't want to, we don't want to say like five per people and five per person. And then, you know, only a few people show up with a couple or something, you know?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So what's the wording? Until the truck. So the truck is full.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Do you really have to say that? I mean, you just say, Hey, the truck's full. Sorry. You should have came earlier. I don't know. Say that, that, you know, that, you know, so that the other thing is that one thing I think that's nice about big giant TVs is they tend to be flat. So they could just slide down the side of the truck and, you know, they don't take up a lot of space because of the way they slide down the side of the truck. So I'm not worried about that.
[Jessica Parks]: Okay. And is this, and I'm sorry, I may have missed this, is this $15 for all monitors regardless of size or is this like $15 for a larger size monitor or TV?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: They said all, $15 for all types of televisions, CRTs and LCDs. So CRTs are like the old Apple computer. with the tubes and... Right, right.
[Alicia Hunt]: Originally, they wanted to charge us per pound. And we basically said to them, we can't do that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: How do you weigh them?
[Alicia Hunt]: We just can't. And they wouldn't even charge us then until after they got back to the shop. And so, so one day they're picking up along the way. Right. Can you confirm with them? If we fill up the truck, is that it? Because we've had companies, we had one company that filled up boxes, took a truckload away, came back with the truck and filled it up again. So what their plan is. Yeah, that was one of the earlier years, they literally left stuff there for a few hours. And they're like, we don't care if people, I'm like, what if people come and pick? They're like, we don't care.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, that was Northeast, that was Northeast recycling.
[Alicia Hunt]: but they did two trips. And the other question is, would they want us to pay them right then and there or bill us later?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, I'll check that again. They were going to bill us because what happens is we get a revenue share back. for the other items, not the monitors. And so they'll adjust the bill for the quote, the quotes like over a thousand, and then we'll get credit for a lot of the other electronic items to bring the bill down. It might come down $200, but the extra charge, the $15, I'll find out about that. So I will ask, I'll get back to you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Cause I'm just going to toy with the wording. Cause in theory we could take checks made out to the city of Medford and we would deposit all the cash with the city. And then we would have a check cut from the city from our account. The, the one year that I really, that sticks out in my head with Kathleen collecting money we handed that the company, the cash at the end of the day.
[Unidentified]: Oh, okay. Yes.
[Jessica Parks]: So basically it's $15 cash or a check made out to the city.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. Yeah. But the city has no way to take Venmo or credit cards on site or anything like that. We're still working on figuring out how to take credit cards in City Hall. If you can't use a parking, a credit card when you walk up to the window at the parking department, I don't think you can do it like remotely with the city. We're just not there.
[Jessica Parks]: So what, you can't just do a global city of Medford Venmo account? It doesn't work that way? No, you would think. I have one more question. Do they take batteries? Because that's what I keep getting asked.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, let me let me just finish with Alicia on the TV thing. I don't want to say we take check shit because I think you said they might want to be paid at the event. Well, can you confirm with them?
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, yeah.
[Jessica Parks]: Let me know morning of or if possible, of course, so we can promote it.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. Right. So I'll find out. And let everyone know and it'll be put on the website in the flyer. But we know that for now, that'll be $15 per TV, each CRT or LCD or any type of TV.
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