[Robert Paine]: Okay, this is Bob Payne, I'm the chair of the Medford Energy and Environment Committee, and this is the November 7th, 2022 meeting, monthly meeting, and I'm going to read a statement that allows us to conduct this meeting virtually. On July 1620 22 governor Baker signed into law and act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations. This act allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely through March 31st 2023 without a quorum of the pot public body physically present. And meeting location. But I'm not here. 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 requirements 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 by 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 at the link provided in the meeting agenda. End of statement. Okay, members who are present. Let's just make a note of who's here. So let's see. Luke, you're here. Luke McNeely, Bob Payne, Gaston Fiore.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Here.
[Robert Paine]: Paul, is he here? No, not Paul, it says Lumi. So Barry Inkberg is here. Loretta James, as you know, is not able to make it, physical issues. Kathleen, you're here. Nicole is not. I don't see her. John Rogers, you're here. Martha Anders, you're here. Jessica, I don't see you. And Benji, Hillary is here.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Robert Paine]: So we have at least, I think, eight. We need six. We have Lily Worth doing minutes. Thank you, Lily. I don't see any representatives from uh Tufts Energy Group yet and John you're upside down for some reason. Okay I don't know what that's all about. Okay that's all right. No members of the public other I have shown up that I can see. Okay um I set up the minutes from last month's meeting. And I'd like to see if anyone has any comments before we vote on accepting them. If I don't hear any, I will entertain a motion to accept them. I can't make them.
[Unidentified]: Seconded.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, Martha seconds. Okay, I will call the roll of those here. Luke, you accept the minutes? I accept. Bob Payne, I accept. Gaston?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yes.
[Robert Paine]: All right, Barry? Yes. All right, Kathleen?
[Kathleen McKenna]: I was not there, so I'm abstaining.
[Robert Paine]: All right, you abstain. John? Yes. Martha? Martha's looking for her mute button. Yes. All right. Thank you. And Benji. Yes. Okay. Minutes have been accepted by unanimous vote. Okay. Go back to my. Let's see. Alicia, it's time for your administrative updates.
[Alicia Hunt]: Um, great. Did you want me to talk about? Sorry, I didn't double check to see where on the agenda you have required training is now that would be fine amongst your rate of updates. Okay, so I don't have any other administrative updates. You've all met Lily before. She's a grad student with us and she's volunteered to come again tonight and take minutes again. And the other is that I circulated around the conflict of interest training. For some of you, this looked very familiar, but you hadn't seen it in a long time. And for others, you were like, what is this? But we may have mentioned it at a previous meeting. it recently came to our attention that somehow in the change of administrations, it had gotten lost that this was something that should go out to all members of all boards and commissions, both upon appointment and every two years to be completed. And the one piece that I think is very important to realize, and part of why it kind of got lost is because it says very clearly that all employees of municipalities in the state have to take it. have to do it every two years, and there are things that reference employees in it, but if you actually read through the summary page in the first step part of it, you will see it very clearly defines people who are appointed by a municipality to be considered an employee for the purposes of conflict of interest law and therefore. While it's set, I want you all, as you go through that, to be aware that employees refer to you, and it says specifically whether or not the appointee is paid. So it includes people who are appointed to volunteer boards and commissions. So this needs to be, we're working on a process of getting it out to all boards and commissions, but we started with yours and actually the Solid Waste Task Force also pretty urgently needed to get it because they're dealing with some big, big dollar contracts that we're getting ready to design and put out. So if people wouldn't mind going through and taking that and then getting the Certificate to me. Some people have trouble printing the certificate. I do not need paper. Some people take a screenshot of it. And if you don't actually know how to take a screenshot, you could pick up your phone and take a picture of the phone of your screen with your telephone and send that to me and that is fine. If all of that is a problem, please let me know.
[Gaston Fiore]: So Alicia, I have a question. And then Barry, I think, has the same issue. So when do you send the email? Because I already sent you the email.
[Alicia Hunt]: Did I not send it to all of you?
[Gaston Fiore]: I did not. I apologize. I don't think I got it.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I did not receive it.
[Alicia Hunt]: All right. I thought I had sent it to everybody. And I gave the language that I had used to Teresa to set up stuff to send all the other boards and commissions. And maybe I drafted it all and never actually sent it. that is 100% possible. And I apologize. I will send it during this meeting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Question. Alicia, if you took it, I took it a few years ago. It's an every two years thing. Years. Okay.
[Gaston Fiore]: So I have another question. I did send you a certificate this morning because I did it by myself. But I had a question. So My understanding is also, in addition to every two years having to retake the training, then every year we have to reread the summary for municipal employees, sign a paper and send that in. Are we supposed to do that, A? And B, do we need to keep track of that ourselves, or we will get an email from someone? Or is the chair, for example, the one that's supposed to keep track of the members of the committee? How would that work?
[Alicia Hunt]: So in theory, it's actually what normally happens is that our city solicitor sends it out to all staff and then the staff who support boards and commissions are supposed to then send it to their boards and commissions and receive that. And that didn't happen. Frankly, it just got lost in the stuff. And what I've actually been talking to Teresa about doing is setting up a Google Form where you could select your board and commission from a dropdown list, put in your name, and upload. And maybe not Google Form. We use something called Smartsheets. surveys that come from the city lately come in smart sheets. And it's very easy to attach a file to that. And then it goes to our secure document thing. So we were trying to get that set up for all, sorry, all the boards and commissions. When John's face pops up upside down, it's very distracting.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's funny because it's right side up in my, when I'm looking at it on my computer, it is right side up. So I don't know what is going on. Is it your background? No, I mean, it's, in other words, when I look at my camera in the camera settings, it's right side up. It's only upside down in Zoom. So I guess I'll leave it off. And it's funny because the background's right side up.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I think somebody has snuck in and adjusted your settings.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: So I found the version that I sent to the, waste solid waste task force and just double checking that this doesn't say anything specific. No, this is exactly I don't have to change one word in this. And i'm going to send it to our email list. And I'll send it to you guys. Sorry about that. I will tell you that I not only thought that I had spent sent it when Bob asked me to follow up and talk about it. I thought it was follow up to the email I'd sent. And then Gaston sent me the certificate and I'm like, Oh, see, I sent it to them. So my apologies. Hearings for me. So I'm sending you here, it's both the training, the link to the training where you get the certificate and the summary document. And in that email is where I actually quote that this is a, that boards and commission members are considered employees for the purposes of this training. which I think is sort of the key. It is the part that really got missed because I did find out that we have been sending it to all new hires very regularly, but the staff who was sending it didn't realize that it applied to boards and commissions as well.
[Robert Paine]: updates or any when you talk to the mayor does she ever have any opinions as to what our committee should be doing?
[Alicia Hunt]: I will say that the last thing that specifically when we were talking about education and outreach, and she had suggested that if this group wanted to put together tips that she could put out on social media about environmental things, recycling things, energy things, tips that are good for the general public, she would be happy to have the city pushing out more of those. and that she would be happy to take this group's recommendation. And I know we had talked about putting them together in a spreadsheet and just collecting them in a spreadsheet. And then we would give her the running list and then they could mark off as they do it. And if anybody feels inclined to make things like pretty and with graphics, you're welcome to. That is also something that Teresa, my admin assistant in my office, loves doing. So she is also happy to take the tips and put some relevant graphic with it to make it splashy for social media.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, I had that presentation that had some Green Energy Consumer Alliance links and other things that could be part of that.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And we are my office has been putting together, if you ever let your TV sit on the Medford public cable, people do that actually. And it's between shows. There's a slideshow of different tips and information that run through and my office is trying to periodically send them refreshed slides for that for the various 10,000 things we're trying to do outreach on. So we would include tips from this group in that slide show as well to reach an audience. I will say that way you can think about the audience for this. The TV tends to skew a little older and the social media tends to skew a little younger. But we do have hit things in both directions.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, any other administrative updates? I think that was all right, Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: I cannot think of any.
[Robert Paine]: In terms of any upcoming events for the rest of the calendar year, is there anything with the Jingle Bell Festival or whatever?
[Alicia Hunt]: There is gonna be like a craft fair holiday festival type thing. We have the date for it because it's very traditional. It's part of the Jingle Bell Festival. So everybody's clear, the Jingle Bell Festival is run by a nonprofit in Medford. It is their big annual fundraiser. They have lots of stuff that happens with it. That's what does the Christmas trees that go in city hall council chambers. Typically, in recent years, the mayor's office has organized like an event and a city hall lighting event, the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. It is an opportunity when you can see those Christmas trees, but that is one piece of the event that they put on. I do know that they have 30 crafters lined up for it, so I'm not sure what else they're planning. I have suggested that we should have tables at it. My office found that it's a really good time to reach people who don't tend to go to things like the Energy Festival and the Mystic River Festival. It tends to skew more to people who have lived in Medford for generations. tends to be the audience that comes at. Obviously everybody's welcome, but they know about it. Like you don't even have to tell them that it's happening. They just expect that the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, they show up at five o'clock at city hall, there'll be an event. So I have not confirmed whether or not we could have a table, but I feel that if this group wanted one or wanted to give us stuff, my staff are working that evening and I have strongly suggested that we should have a table at that.
[Robert Paine]: Right. If you had any, some of those tips that organized by then that could be a display. Sometimes John brings his generator.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, the crank generator with Christmas lights for Christmas.
[Robert Paine]: Yes, exactly. Well, keep us advised Alicia and then we can see if anyone can, you know, you have to give us logistical details about help needed and where and when.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And I don't know what they're officially calling it this year. They did not put it on the city website, but I'm going to email Lisa and ask her.
[Robert Paine]: Okay. I think that's the only event through the rest of the calendar year that I am aware of that we usually have. We'll go over the Harvester Energy Festival after we go over the rest of the administrative items. Okay. Gaston, you have a report from your consultation with the State Ethics Commission. So I'll give you the floor.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yes. So yeah, so after our previous meeting, I did contact the State Ethics Commission. So they do have an attorney of the day, that you can contact for advice regarding some issues that you might have. And obviously the advice applies to, you know, something that will happen in the future. But I think that's even more relevant. I will describe exactly what I did, given that I think that we're going to vote or the like regarding the tree ordinance in the future. So, Yeah, so in order to give some structure to this, so I have to put some fictitious dates into the future, but then they should not alter at all the outcomes of the conversation. So what I discussed with the Attorney at the State Ethics Commission is the following. So let's assume that, you know, on March 1st, then the city council would vote on a final tree ordinance. and then to pass it or not pass it. And then the final three ordinance is very similar to the current draft, at least in the sense that it has no exemption or difference between among anyone. So basically, you know, a developer will pay the same mitigation payment or whatever you want to call it, mitigation payment, which is what Cambridge is. as a regular resident. So by regular resident, I mean, so a person that owns their property and lives on it as a primary resident. So an owner occupant, basically just to simplify. So the current proposed audience has no distinction between anyone. So both would end up paying the same thing. So as anyone knows, then I'm a very strong proponent of having a distinction between owner occupants and everyone else, such as developers or landlords, for example. City of Boston has this, Somerville has this, Cambridge has this. So, okay, so by going back to this, on March 1st, then the City Council will vote on passing or not passing the two ordinance, very similar to the current one, that is to say has no distinction between different people. So let's assume also that then on our February meeting, then we decide to have a vote on or someone put forward a motion on writing a letter to the city council and the mayor stating that our committee strongly encourages the city council to pass that order. So given a scenario like that, I will probably vote no because it has no distinction. So I asked the attorney at the Statistics Commission whether voting me voting no would actually constitute a financial conflict of interest, which is what happened last time. So my situation is like, I'm an owner of myself, but I don't own any other property. I'm not a developer. I'm not a landlord. I do not have anything to do with any tree business. So, and I think he was raised. So the question is like, you know, what happens if, you know, my answer to, are you going to cut any trees after, So let's say March, not a specific date, because after March 1st, where that constituted a financial conflict. So, but I said maybe in the sense of maybe because, you know, I don't know what I'm going to be doing in five to 10 years, you know, in the future, so after Leonidas gets passed. But obviously, I would not have any, contract or even discussion or whatever, in terms of like engaging into cutting down in the trees in my property, which I would change the discussion, obviously. So in that scenario, where it's just like, well, I don't know what I will be doing, then what I was told was that there is no financial conflict of interest because there is, I have, the words I read the summary for municipal employees after the discussion. And since 55% or around that of Medford residents are also owner occupants, there's this thing that says that if the issue that you are discussing is shared by a substantial portion of the population, which here is 10% or more, then you have an exemption from a financial conflict of interest. Specifically, I think the paragraph that applies to this one says, there's also an exemption for both appointed and elected employees, where the employee's task is to address a matter of general policy. And the employee's financial interest is shared with a substantial portion, 10% or more, of the town's population, such as, for instance, a financial interest in real estate, tax rates, or municipal utility rates. Since there is nothing set, but you know, if five years from now, I decide to cut down the fee, then obviously, and then, you know, the Oregon patent has no exemption, I would have to pay a mitigation penalty, but that's shared by the 55% of owner-occupancy mentors, then you're basically exempt by this paragraph. So that was one conclusion. The other conclusion, is that, so I think this is very important because I was also thinking that, you know, as everyone also knows, I'm a very strong proponent of Medford at some point adopting tax paid curbside composting service. And that I currently pay for it. I think it's $8.99 per month. So I was also thinking, well, you know, what would happen if we have a similar vote where we put forward a motion to send a letter strongly encouraging the administration to adopt something like that, I would yes. Well, does that constitute a financial conflict of interest? Because someone could argue, well, you're voting yes, so you don't have to pay the $8.99 per month anymore. Well, this thing applies again, right? Because it's not that I will be the only one benefiting. In this case, it's even more than the 55%, because everyone that lives in Medford would also benefit. The other thing, so the composting, I didn't discuss, I was just putting it as an example. Also, after reading the text, which I did after the consultation, it does look like something else would apply in the case of the trees, since there's nothing, there's always no contrast or nothing, which is the following paragraph that I found, that it says, the financial interest must be direct and immediate or reasonable foreseeable to create a conflict. Financial interests which are remote speculative or not sufficiently identifiable to not create conflict. So I don't know where this applies, because I wasn't told about it. But it would seem that it might apply as well. So the other thing that they did tell me is that, let's say that someone does have, from our committee, does have a financial conflict of interest on something. they really feel strongly that they want to participate in the discussion and also on a vote of something. So there is a way to get an exemption. And that, I was told, and I read about it, it's, I wrote it down. So that's, so the Massachusetts general law that applies would be like chapter 268A, section 19B1. So I looked it up after talking, and then basically, the procedure would have to be followed in the following. So let's say that, again, so someone does have a financial conflict of interest or something, but they still want to participate because they felt funded by the issue. So what would they do in that case? In that case, then the law says this. It shall not be a violation of this section if the municipal employee, so this only applies to municipal employees, which is our case, First, advice is the official responsible for the appointment to his position, so in our case, the mayor, of the nature and circumstances of the particular matter and makes full disclosure of such financial interest and receipt in advance of written determination made by that official that the interest is not so substantial as to be deemed likely to affect the integrity of the services which the municipality may expect from the employee. So what does this mean? So this means that that person will have to Petition, write a letter to the mayor in advance, obviously, explaining what the financial interest is, the financial conflict of interest is, and then the mayor can or cannot then give an exemption to the member of the committee to participate in the discussion and the subsequent vote. So I don't know how this would work if someone wants to use this because it means that If we start discussing something on a meeting without having been planned before, say from the month before, then obviously would not give the person time to contact the mayor about this. So it's not clear. I know that I've heard from people that some people disclose something on the meeting itself, and then they keep the discussion. I don't think that's correct. based on what they have told me. So it's something to keep in mind for the future if we know that we're going to be discussing something that someone does have a financial conflict of interest on and they still put strong that they would want to participate to keep in mind. So then they contact the mayor beforehand and then they can address the issue with enough time in advance. So also, After reading the text, so I wasn't aware of this in the discussion that I had on the phone, but it does look that whenever someone has a financial conflict of interest, it doesn't only apply to the vote, it also applies to the discussion. So if someone does have financial conflict of interest on something, then they shouldn't be participating in the discussion either. I don't know whether they can participate as a private citizen or not. I'm not aware of that. I did not ask that part because, again, I wasn't thinking that it would also apply to the discussion. So yeah, I don't know about that part. But yeah, hopefully this clarified things. Does anyone have any questions that either I can try to ask or maybe Alicia or Bob or someone else, or we can try to ask them as a group. And I think it's great that we have that service. I didn't know it existed. So anyone can just call the number and then it seems it's extremely helpful. So you leave your information and then you get the call back and you talk to the lawyer and then the lawyer just takes some time and then they call you back. So I would greatly encourage and you want to sort of make use of that great resource. So.
[Robert Paine]: Any questions by anybody? I'll have some after I yield the floor to anybody else. Maybe a clarification, Gaston. So in this case, you got an opinion from the Ethics Commission lawyer of the day. Does that mean you don't have to get an exemption from the mayor?
[Gaston Fiore]: No, no, because there's, I don't have, so I guess that the, again, so I, they didn't, so I did bring the two scenarios just to, for my own understanding. So the first one is the one that applies to me, which is like, again, so let's assume we have that vote on March 1st and then, you know, I might or might not have some years into the future. So, What happens in that scenario? So in that scenario, then I have an automatic exemption because I'm in the same bag as any other occupant of my firm. So OK. So what about if I had a contract like this? What about if I had a contract with a tree cutting company to cut trees on March 15? Well, in that case, then the lawyer said, well, if that did apply to you in February, then you need to give us a call back because probably this generally 10% or more law does not apply. So then, you know, pull us back if that applies to you, and then we'll discuss. To me, I would not even have to call if that applies to me, because it looks like, yeah, I mean, so this kind of 10% will probably not hold or, you know, almost for sure will not hold. So in that case, then I would feel that the procedure would be to, in advance, contact the mayor, say like, you know, well, I have a contract to get business done after the ordinance. Um, you know, so if the ordinance does not pass, then I will not have to pay mitigation payments. So, um, you know, if I will know, then that's this, uh, constitute a financial conflict of interest because it could be argued that I'm voting no to, to, for my own benefits. So I don't have to pay the mitigation payment. So I would, I would say that in that case, I, it's, it's obvious that I would have to, um, contact the mayor.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's generally, I think, for almost everything that is going to affect this committee, it's going to be if you have the same interest as a large percentage of the population, then you are just representing that portion of the population. as for the stuff that you all are talking about, right? And I think that's sort of the key thing. It's like the city councilors have to vote on the taxes and they all are impacted by the taxes. Now they're actually, to be clear, making the decision where this board makes recommendations, but they all have an automatic exemption to be able to vote on taxes because they represent proportions of large portions of the population.
[Barry Ingber]: Alicia, I think everybody understands that and has understood that. I think the issue was whether there was actually a plan to cut down the trees.
[Alicia Hunt]: But it doesn't matter. It actually wouldn't matter, I think. Okay, so that was my question. That would still be a homeowner with a tree on your property. The difference would be if he owned the company that was going to profit from it or be penalized. Because owning a company that cuts down trees is not a large portion of the population.
[Barry Ingber]: said, you know, said what you just said, which I think all of us had already understood. And then he gave the counterexample of if he had a contract to cut down the tree. So my question was, in between was what if Gaston, and I'm asking Gaston because I don't know if he explored this with the lawyer, if Gaston did not have a contract but was planning to cut down the tree in April, would you be covered by that or where would you stand then?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, so I did not ask about a plan because I thought that If I had a plan, then it would be the same category as I have a contract. I mean, it's not the same category, but then I would be, it would be different. So in that case, I can answer your question. If I had a definite plan, and by some reason, you know, I still did not have a contract because it would be too far into the future or something like that, then I would ask the mayor, because I do think that it's kind of the same, it's in the same category. it's not that you don't know anymore, then I think that, you know, it's equivalent to you are gonna definitely pad it after the audience passes. So then, yeah, so that's how I see it.
[Alicia Hunt]: So actually I totally misunderstood you because I thought you said if I had a contract, you meant as in you were the company that was going to do it, not a homeowner who had hired somebody and had a contract.
[Gaston Fiore]: No, no, no. By contract, I mean that instead of like, you know, you saying like, well, yeah, I don't know what I'm going to be doing in five years, which is after March 1st. So then in that case, yeah, I don't know. When I referred to contracts, I meant that I was set to take, to cut down trees. That's why I said, let's say March 15th. I mean, Barry said April, but it doesn't really matter. So in that case, when I discussed that part, then they said like, oh, well, that would change totally the advice. So then if that applies to you in the future, then you need to call us back. But again, as I mentioned, then I would not even call back because I do think that then the, you know, where you are in the same bag as 55% for racing does not apply anymore. And then you would have very probably a financial conflict. I mean, so in that case, I would not even myself, so someone else can do something different, but I would not even contact the commission. I will go straight to the, you know, if I wanted to participate in this session, I would go straight to the mayor. and the mayor can then decide whether, what I said, because the mayor can determine that, you know, the financial consequences are small enough that will not affect your truthful sort of participation in the discussion. Yep.
[Robert Paine]: Any other questions? I was going to bring up the issue of, since this ethics commission rules on future potential votes, if you have a vote right away, you know, on the spot, I don't know how you resolve this within the same meeting. So that's something to think about, Alicia. How do we deal with something that's not anticipated
[Alicia Hunt]: Well, you know what topics are going to be discussed because there's an agenda that's posted in advance. That's part of why there's an agenda posted in advance.
[Robert Paine]: If someone can make a motion.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, but you can't, this committee doesn't actually, you only have the power to advise.
[Robert Paine]: Correct.
[Alicia Hunt]: You are not going to make a decision that impacts the financials of other, you don't have a decision-making authority. You have an advisory authority. And I'll point out that the city council, if somebody makes a motion to do something, they can't vote on it in the same meeting if it was not reasonably anticipated from the agenda, right? So if there's an agenda topic and people make motions related to that, then they can vote on it because they could reasonably anticipate that motions related to that topic would come up. over the course of a conversation, a topic that is divergent comes up, they have on occasion said, we can't actually vote on that this week because that wasn't reasonably posted. And if they're making an ordinance, it's actually an even stricter, they have to print the whole legal ordinance in the agenda before they can vote on it.
[Robert Paine]: Benji, you have a question.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I would just suggest as a practical matter, at least for this committee, recusal would save everybody a whole lot of time and energy. In my, I guess it's probably 18 months now I've been on this committee, we haven't had any close votes. And if it's not going to be a close vote, just recuse and we save everybody a whole lot of time and energy as a practical matter.
[Robert Paine]: True. The other option would be to postpone the vote. If someone said, I might have a conflict of interest, but I need to get a ruling from the ethics commission. Can we postpone the vote? Maybe we can, maybe we can't. So that's a thorny issue. Yeah.
[Gaston Fiore]: No, I think in general, Yeah, I don't know how many close calls we're going to have in the future. I don't know. That's why I put the example of the composting. So is there going to be another close call or not? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the problem that I have with refusing just because you think or something like that is that you know, do we want to go that route, right? In the sense of like, you know, well, people start thinking like, should I actually talk about this? Should I not talk about this? And is that going to lead us to a place where we don't want to be, where, you know, people are not expressing their opinions because they, they, you know, they fear that they might be doing something wrong when in fact, you know, so I, I personally would favor to test, If someone thinks that they're going to have a close call, to put it that way, then let's see what we can do beforehand to actually, for example, hold the ethics commission or discuss it among ourselves and see what are you thinking about, why are you thinking this way, is it warranted, et cetera, et cetera.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, any other comments? Just want to then finish up the administrative issues. Looking ahead to the December meeting, this is often an organizational meeting. We are going to reaffirm the committee co-chairs for next year. I would like everyone to consider whether they want to be members for another year. For example, Nicole has expressed the interest of not So we will be dropping here after next month. And so that means that we might want to consider adding new members next year. We've had people leave. There are a couple of losses now, that'll be three departures this year. So we can discuss that at the next meeting. And Alicia, you mentioned that the mayor sometimes has a call. You have an ongoing collection of resumes and of interest, and you might check to see if anyone has expressed interest, but that could be something where we look out for other possible members. Barry, you have a question.
[Barry Ingber]: Yes, I just wonder if you just put out the need to improve the ethnic and racial diversity of this group.
[Robert Paine]: What would you suggest specifically?
[Barry Ingber]: In that regard, I would suggest what the Supreme Court is about to outlaw, which is some affirmative action and in the review of the resumes. And I would also suggest affirmative outreach.
[Alicia Hunt]: I would strongly recommend that if people know people who would be a good fit or fits characteristics to people who are minorities to who might be interested to actively encourage them to apply, because we do tend to get the same people applying for things. at any time if somebody's, so the mayor does have a strong preference that anybody, I might even call it a rule, to be appointed to a board and commission, even if you've said in an email, yes, I'd really like to be on this one, that you fill out the form that she has, and people can fill it out at any time. And it's linked off the city's website under boards and commissions, it's right there. I'm putting the link here. And I was actually just going to check it.
[Unidentified]: There had been. Oh, I know what happened.
[Alicia Hunt]: I couldn't figure out why I didn't have access to the back end, because I usually can see who's applied, and I couldn't find it. The form got messed up. We've been under discussion whether or not we should actually ask people about their race and ethnicity on the forum in order to do exactly what you're suggesting, Barry. The previous, it used to be considered bad to do that because people felt you would then discriminate. And I think now people think it's a good practice because then you can affirmatively know who you're appointing and may actively add diversity.
[Unidentified]: We're gonna have to fix the form.
[Barry Ingber]: Yes, I strongly suggested to the mayor a year or two ago that that be put on the form and to Neil.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, yeah, certainly if you know of anybody you would want to urge to apply, that would be good too. Martha, you have a question, and so on then after that, Martha.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, thank you, Bob, for recognizing me. I've been working on this issue at my job, and I would just point out there is a appropriate way to include demographic information. at demographic questions in an application form. And it generally relies on self-identification, make it clearly not a part of the application, but a separate section so that people do not feel obligated to self-identify and they don't feel that it becomes part of their application. It's just information you're collecting in order to monitor The city's progress in recruiting a more diverse set of applicants. So anyway, that's all I have to say, but there's a right and wrong way to do it. And I'm sure you have some expertise either from the lawyers or the diversity, the Human Rights Commission on how to do that.
[Robert Paine]: Okay. Oh, and Gaston?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, no, so I just want to say that I applaud Barry for saying that. I've thought about this myself, too. And, you know, so the two committees I'm involved kind of have the same issue, or I don't know where it's an issue, but the same. Yeah. Now, I also want to say that, you know, as someone that is Hispanic, Latino myself, I'm from Argentina, then it needs to be put It needs to be thought out how to use the rays, because I don't feel those things myself. I just never know how they're going to be used. I'm even extremely reticent to put it in my medical record. So I think it's great to think about this, but it has to be done carefully, because otherwise, yeah. It just has to be thought out how to do it properly.
[Robert Paine]: Any other comments before we move on? Thank you for your input. It's time to review how things went at the Harvester Energy Festival last month. We had a very good weather day. Unfortunately, Loretta isn't here to participate, but maybe Alicia, we can see what you thought. And then we can all chime in who are here, who are there at the event.
[Alicia Hunt]: Well, I really appreciate everybody's hard work and Loretta did an amazing, amazing job organizing the event this year. And it was great and worked really well for my end because often Loretta ends up helping to supervise an intern and I'm supervising an intern. And actually this year, she just did it and I didn't have to supervise. I answered some questions and helped with some policy issues and helped with some day of logistics and all but So I thought it went really well. We had a huge number of exhibitors, which was great. If I were going to do things differently, I would have somebody lined up in April to start reaching out, particularly to the schools and the teachers and to groups. There are a number of groups and organizations that actually That we would have liked to have there, who were already committed to by the time they heard from us. So starting earlier would have been better. And I will tell you that Loretta 100% 150% agrees with that. And the other thing is that I always feel like it would be great if we could figure out how to increase attendance, and I'm always looking for new ideas on how to get the word out to the public feel like there is a segment of our population. who knows about the festival and they love it. And I heard from people who were like, it's the first time I'm ever missing it, right? There's people like that. But then there's just a whole segments of the population who are like, what, the what event? Which is actually why we do this paper shredding and stuff is to help try and get people who might have other interests to come out. So those are my big thoughts.
[Robert Paine]: I think there was a robocall though, before the event. I mean, how could you miss that?
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, some people hang up as soon as they hear that it's the mayor. I gotta say then, don't complain that you don't know what's going on in the city if you hang up on her robocalls.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Since Kathleen, someone on the recycling was very excited to be there and they said, The only message they got, and I don't know where they look at websites, they said they just learned it on a robocall, but it was only the day before. The other idea is you do multiple robocalls, people get irritated, so it's a tough call to know when to send that out. And we had less recycling, but I'll have to say the people that did come were so thankful. And I thought Jessica, myself and John, it was a great crew handling it over there. And we helped also with the, you know, directing people to shredding and the clothing. So that went pretty smoothly this year. Had a question on the food truck. I only saw it over by us at the end. Was was that a late arrival or was it at a different location earlier in the day?
[Alicia Hunt]: It was a little bit different when you first it was up on the sidewalk next to the playground. And actually, so what happened was they brought it over early in the morning and it's. the part that you attach the trailer hitch broke as they were putting it up onto the sidewalk to take it up onto the grass. And that was a huge brouhaha before we all arrived that DPW handled before we ever got there.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Oh, I see. Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: Got it located where it was. And that was a smaller, older one. And at some point during the festival, apparently the owner brought over his nicer, bigger, food truck because they were both like trailers and so the one that was on the street there by you guys showed up late during the festival but there was his smaller version of that was there the whole time actually showed up around 7 30 in the morning okay i have to say the food was fantastic i caught it at the end and it was just amazing
[Robert Paine]: Maybe we should have an Earth Day announcement then to start in April. And that would.
[Alicia Hunt]: Save the date we used to put out save the dates in April for the event, and yes, thank you to you guys who were running. that the electronics recycling and directing traffic. I get nervous about calling out everybody individually for everything people did because I feel like there was so many people doing many things that I'm going to miss some.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I just want to jump in to say from where I was manning one of the entrance tables, there were a couple of kids and one in particular who was helping to direct traffic who were fantastic. Yeah, I was very impressed.
[Adam Hurtubise]: She did a great job. And there were three of them that did a really great job. They were organized. One of them scouted out parking spaces and related to it because the person at the entrance couldn't see the one who was scouting out. So then he would use hand signals to send to this intermediate person. And then they would send it to the girl who was- Yeah. And, you know, sending cars around. And so she'd ask them, are you here to recycle or are you here to park? There's no parking spaces. Or, you know, so that was just fantastic. I got their names. So if we want to somehow applaud them, we have that. And, you know, if they're listening, you did a great job.
[Alicia Hunt]: Please pass those along. And do you know if those were, so we had students from the Junior High Honor Society and we had high school students. Any chance, do you know which?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't know which, but I do have their names. I'll email them to you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Pass them along. I'm in touch with the teacher from the Junior High Honor Society.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Perfect.
[Alicia Hunt]: And then the students from the high school, it just went through Mr. DeLeva. He just made an announcement and asked people to sign up.
[Adam Hurtubise]: The other thing that I found particularly striking with this group of students is they stayed for the entire event. They did not, oh, I'm getting tired or let's change shifts or whatever. They shifted out to go to the bathroom and that was about it. And they were quick about it. So I was impressed with theirs.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: From setup to shutdown, I agree.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Robert Paine]: Any other comments? Probably the, you know, that weekend in mid-October still seems to be reasonably good right after Columbus Day weekend.
[Barry Ingber]: And it gets warmer every year. It even gets warmer after that. I just want to say, I always like think, oh, I'm going to have to spend the day at the Harvest Year Energy Festival. And every year, and I especially noticed that this year, I have so much fun. So glad to be there. So I just wanted to say.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, I don't know if we need to have any, any celebrities or anybody that will really attract attention, but hard to say who that would be. It's windy the turbine.
[Alicia Hunt]: It is, you know, and we actually, we started having Matt Heaton partially because his name is well known among the younger crowd, the parents of the younger kids, toddlers, and I thought it would help pull them out. But Matt actually in his reply email to Loretta said, you know, I really enjoy attending this every year. I'm really glad I could be there. So I always feel bad because it feels like people aren't really watching and listening to the musicians. But I think that both he and trail mix really feel like not about them, it's about the whole thing and they're providing a good atmosphere for the whole event. And they really, like they both said, they love coming and they love being there. In fact, this year, we didn't reach, we may not have reached out to trail mix as early as usual. And they reached out to us and said, when is it? You know, we want to come.
[Robert Paine]: Let's see, Gaston just mentioned the Cooperative Connector, whether it's going to be ready for next year's event.
[Gaston Fiore]: So a lot of people keep asking at the inbox table. Yeah, we keep saying it has been approved. It's just like paper. So the funding is there, et cetera. But so hopefully for next year, we'll be ready.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. There was some of the permits took longer than they expected. It needed a Chapter 91 permit. And there was an easement with a private property owner that the one closest to Medford Square, both of those really took a lot longer than they expected. But I am, I actually have the documents that could go out to bid. And I think they just were waiting for the lawyers to say, okay, everything is signed, you can you can put this out to bid to hire the contractor. So everything is ready. And just to be clear, in case people don't know this, the state's paying for it. The city helped with grant money for the design in the beginning. We got some of the grants that started this, it funded it, but they're not asking us for any funding, including they're not asking the city to pay for the pieces that are on city property. We gave them easement so they can just build those pieces.
[Robert Paine]: Any other comments about the festival? Thank you all for who came, and it was a lot of fun, yeah. All right, just briefly, there will be another November webinar next week on Wednesday night, the 16th. Tufts is organizing the the actual Zoom logistics. It's this Black Power organization and they're going to talk about heat pump issues. Basically, both how individual residents should think about how to go about it. They also have their own examples of how they've worked with municipalities to actually help get residents to to actually finance this so they'll have that element of the of the discussion but they'll also have a more general coverage of what's involved why is it a good thing to do and how should you go about trying to find a contractor that type of thing. So that's what this webinar is going to be about next week. Did you all get a I think see something now in the chat box. You may have gotten an email about this from Yvette. So if you are wanting to join, what's going to happen is there'll be, as we've done in previous years, a very short five-minute introduction summarizing the roles of the Tufts Energy Group and our committee, what do we do, and then we'll introduce the featured presentation, and then there'll be question and answer afterward.
[Kathleen McKenna]: I had a question. Is this something the city of Medford is vetting or we're just using it for some information?
[Robert Paine]: I'm not I'm not pressuring the city of Medford to sign up with these people. But I just want to show I want to have another discussion of how heat pumps are, how we how we can promote heat pumps. And then an example of where there's been some municipality organization of financing of this because one big stumbling block is that even if you have some incentives, you still have to fork over several thousands of dollars to install a heat pump system. And so the question is, well, where are homeowners going to get this money? They may discuss some elements of how that could be done.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, so hopefully this will get discussed and I will ask the question, if not, during the presentation. But remember, too, that we have 45% of residents that are not owners and I always find it very hard to believe that landlords are going to have any incentive to electrify their houses that they're renting out. So I'm interested to see what they have done in Ithaca, for example, in that regard. I don't know what the percentage of renters is down there, but it would be interesting to see if they have some data.
[Robert Paine]: Right, good point. Martha, you had a question?
[Martha Ondras]: Yes, I had a question, but rather a comment. Arlington just launched a very nice website called Electrify Arlington, which has done a nice job of organizing information for homeowners, renters, businesses, and they had some other categories. So you can If you're a renter or a homeowner, you can go right to a list of resources and a kind of timeline of which things to tackle first. Like for example, you should get your mass save evaluation of how to tighten up your house and reduce heat loss before you start looking at the heat pump. And it's something that I was looking for actually a very nice kind of for the average homeowner how to approach this rather daunting and complex set of issues. So that's something we might wanna talk about in another meeting.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, I've actually engaged Mass Save to do my house because I think you have to do that in order to get the rebate or the- Yes, you do. Yeah, you had a hand up there.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, and I just wanted to say I love the Electrify Arlington approach. They do have coaches, which is very handy to be able to have someone to talk to, to guide you through the program. I don't know how they've set that up, if that's a grant funded thing or how they've allocated these coaches, how many they have, et cetera. But it is, it's kind of like the solar coach back when we did the Solarize Medford, a very helpful process to make things happen.
[Robert Paine]: It seems like the Green Energy Consumers Alliance is a link to a a contractor advisory method where you get some useful information and no, I guess a no commitment, but you get maybe some possible quotes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[Robert Paine]: It's worth following up. I had a link in my presentation to that. Area of green energy consumers alliance, which is also has useful links to electric vehicles and any community solar. Or solar, you know, if you wanted to solar on your roof, you wanted to. I have a community solar arrangement. They have links for that as well. So, okay, that's anyway, that's next that's in 9 days from now. I think that's all I have on that unless there's any further questions. Okay, let's see, we are actually pretty doing really well. There was a going on to item for the the draft pre ordinance there was a recent City Council review going through fairly meticulously some of the actual edits on the draft and there were some motions and some Issues to be further investigated for any revisions to the draft. I don't know if... I know I was there, and I guess someone was there physically, and so was Alicia, of course. Some of the other members were there on Zoom. I don't know if there's been a summary of the meeting published yet. And I don't know what the next steps are exactly either. Maybe Alicia, you have some knowledge of that.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, we, we need staff to review a bunch of the details. And go back, get back to them on it and unfortunately, people are really, really busy. We, I do believe so the. Our chief, we had an interim chief of staff and she was amazing. And the regular chief of staff is back. And I do believe the interim is staying on to work on some special projects, including doing things like trying to help coordinate some of these ordinances and move things forward because it really just takes somebody sitting down with different staff and going through it and figuring it all out. But I'm not, I did get email about it about a week ago. And I am afraid that I don't know where it stands at the moment. So I should put it back on my to-do list to go through that.
[Robert Paine]: So nothing's going to happen maybe this year?
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm not sure if they have a target date on when they want to meet on it again. The council is meeting twice a week, every week, almost. Well, I should say almost every week on various topics. If it's not a regular council meeting with various community halls, I'm working on a bunch of ordinances, but I'm not sure. They haven't asked me for a target date to get back on this one.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Robert Paine]: All right. Any other comments on the tree ordinance? Still under review? Oh, yes, Gustavo, and then Mark.
[Gaston Fiore]: No, I will let Mark talk, because mine is not exactly about the tree ordinance. It's related to something related to environment. But I'll go at the end after everyone is done talking about this.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, yeah, I know for the comments from you on that.
[Gaston Fiore]: No, I wouldn't mind about it.
[Robert Paine]: But Martha.
[Martha Ondras]: I just I want to echo that sentiment there there were clearly issues that still had to be worked out in the details of the language. for the ordinance and the I think the Council made a decision to kind of split out the part parts of the ordinance that were related to zoning should be integrated with zoning and other parts that aren't related to zoning like the tree committee. could be dealt with on their own track. So I think, you know, some really good decisions were made and progress was made, but they all, you know, that meeting also identified, and they had considered business input, which was, they solicited some input from businesses as well as residents. So I felt like it was a good session, but there is clearly more work to do in order to get to the final language.
[Alicia Hunt]: If I might, some of what Martha's referring to is if you look through Medford's ordinances, we have a whole section in our ordinances on boards and commissions. Creating a new commission belongs in that part of the ordinance, in ordinances, so should be its own motion to edit that piece. Then there's doing pieces that are around new construction and that belongs in zoning. Then there's stuff around existing trees and private homeowners, and that belongs in the environment section of our ordinances. And the way it was structured, it had some, so it, you know, it feels like it actually should be a couple of separate ordinances. And there were actions that should be taken. And the people who put together the draft don't necessarily know what people who work in City Hall do on a day-to-day basis. And so one of my recommendations was to take all the stuff around applying for permits and put it in the office that handles permit applications and has software for that and does that routinely every day, which is the building department, whether they're private homeowners or not, and then have them consult the tree warden as needed for things that are not routine. And don't ask the tree warden to issue routine permits that don't need her judgment as an environmental person. we're an environmental expert, and that when we were working on it, we were within days, and I can't remember before or after the brand new building commissioner was starting, and that whole office of issuing permits falls under him. And so we really felt that he ought to weigh in on it, but it was also unfair to ask him to weigh in on it in his first few days, because he ought to understand the functioning of his office and his staff and their capacity, Before he speaks on what addition taking on new work and how that could work and the flow of that. One of the things that I recommended to the Council overall was to think about, and I just want to share this thought with you all for ordinances in general. to regulate what's allowed and not allowed, but not to regulate how it happens, right? So people should get permits or not be allowed to cut down the trees, but there were things like they should be received by the tree warden and that she should stamp them with the date stamp. And then she should respond within 20 business days. and rather a permit should be applied for from the city that needs to be acted on within 20 days. Then the city could indicate because one could read that and say that that person has to actually stamp it because that's how it was written, as opposed to electronically. There's an electronic date stamp and somebody will issue it and that she would weigh in on ones that need her level of judgment. but to not try to dictate the details of how it works, but rather, what's your goal and what's the policy around it? That was some of the working that we needed to spend some time on.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah. Now I do have a question about the tiering. I do remember the comment that you just made from the last meeting at the city council. But I don't think they discussed at all putting the ordinance into zoning at the subcommittee discussion. I mean, Bob was there. I mean, Bob, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that was discussed at all. The thing that was discussed was that they decided to separate the public tree part of the ordinance from the private. And the whole almost two hour of meeting, they focused on the private, kind of three section of the audience, but it was a meeting that went, you know, kind of section to section to section. And I'm actually very curious about the zoning discussion, because I think that happened at a meeting that I was not present. So I will reach out to you, Marta, about that. Yeah.
[Robert Paine]: Okay. Paul's actually joining. Okay. Barry, you had a question.
[Barry Ingber]: Yeah. Maybe this is something I should talk to Alicia about one-on-one, but. I think I attended part of that meeting and there were. Questions around. Native trees and invasive trees and. adapting to climate change. And I just want to say, as somebody who has studied a lot of ecology, that trees that typically used to grow in Pennsylvania and don't grow up here are considered native trees. We don't consider mockingbirds and cardinals that did not come up here in the 1950s to be invasive species or even foreign species. That's kind of a normal change that happens in the life of ecosystems is that species drift. So, Usually native to here is considered to be anything in North America, east of the Rockies. So just, I think we don't have to really worry about that language in that way.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, I think some ordinances in other cities indicate that the tree is not protected if it's deemed by the tree warden to be undesirable. were invasive. So I don't know how that somebody beyond my pay grade can figure out what's invasive. No, well, that's listed.
[Barry Ingber]: This is a different issue about specifically calling for native trees and Alicia and some others being concerned that native trees actually might not thrive as well as trees that used to grow a little bit further down South. And I am saying that's okay. Those are native trees.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm just concerned about financial hardship for people who might you know we talked about this before and I'm realizing that if you cut down to 10 industries it's going to be $17,000. My concern is, and I'm going to use an example of a friend, an actual friend of mine who had a toilet that was running and their next water bill was $10,000 and they had to pay it. So I reached out to them and I said, how did you work with this? They said, well, the bill actually ended up being $6,000, but they took it out of their retirement. So they took their retirement fund and they paid their water bill with it. Water is a resource it gets used up, and you know, it does need to be paid for. That's one thing. I think the trees are also a resource and I think that the tree ordinance needs to have some teeth to it because the trees are important, but now. say you have a new a young family move into the city and they have some trees on their property and they cut them down and all of a sudden they're like oh I'm going to be fined $17,000 that could affect where their kids go to school it could affect their ability to remain in the city and I'm just wondering if there's some kind of a financial circuit breaker that can be enacted to deal with that kind of a situation.
[Robert Paine]: For this one. Very of a comment.
[Barry Ingber]: There was it seems to me that what Loretta suggested is just like a kind of a perfect solution, which is that we regulate the contractor. So if you require a permit to cut down a tree, there's no contractor who's going to cut down the tree without a permit. And so they become liable, the same as the way we regulate electricians and plumbers. So I think that that's the answer, is that nobody cuts down a tree not knowing because they're not cutting it down themselves. They're hiring somebody who does know.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Well, that's not, I think specifically for people who are on a tight budget, they would tend to cut the tree down themselves.
[Alicia Hunt]: Depending on the size of the tree. And I think that you're thinking of trees that a homeowner is capable of cutting down might be smaller than the diameter that's being regulated by this.
[Adam Hurtubise]: That is muted.
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't remember exactly. But I will say the other argument that was made very strongly that I feel like the council really heard was to charge a different amount to homeowners and the people who live on the property than to developers, contractors. And I'm not sure in the end where landlords fell on that, but that if you are a home, if you live, if you're, I just blanked on the word, but right, if you live in the home.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Owner occupied, owner occupied.
[Alicia Hunt]: that there would be still a charge, there would still be something, but the amount that makes a homeowner think twice is a very, very different amount than the amount that makes a contractor, a developer who's flipping a house think twice. And that needs to be really considered. And I think the council really heard that.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Okay. Addressing the commercial interest. Yeah.
[Robert Paine]: Paul, welcome to the meeting. We're pretty much on the schedule of the agenda talking about the tree ordinance. Any other comments on the tree ordinance.
[Gaston Fiore]: Okay Alicia if you could give us a day I have so but before one I have a related question. I'm not going to eat, but it's a really good to. So, um, I, I do kind of follow now what the city council is working on. And I did see that last week, I think it was last week, they discussed the proposed ordinance on leak lowers. So I, unfortunately, I couldn't go and I haven't listened to the meeting myself yet, but I do remember that a few months ago, we did vote on sending a letter to the, I don't remember who it was, the city council and the mayor or the mayor to sort of encouraging them to support Notre Dame for that day, but I was just wondering what the update was regarding phasing out gas-powered leaf blowers, given that, you know, now I can hear them all the time.
[Unidentified]: Alicia, would you know?
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, my husband texted me as you were saying, I didn't hear quite what you were asking about the leaf blower ordinance.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, so what happened, whether we did contact the city council or the mayor, and what was the answer, if any, related to that, given that the city council discuss the proposed ordinance to phase out gas-powered leaf blowers. I believe it was last week.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, I was at that meeting last week. There was one, so my office actually, one of our staff reached out to every landscaper that they could find either through the city clerk's list of businesses and by Googling and searching and let them know about the meeting. And ironically, the one and only landscape landscaper contractor who showed up said that he did not hear through our office, but rather it seemed like he knew one of the city Councilors. It was just fairly ironic because she spent quite a long time reaching out. Several of them asked her for copies of it, and none of them actually followed up or showed up. And the council was kind of like, we need to have a meeting with the contractors and the landscapers to discuss this. And I'm not really sure how they plan to accomplish this since we tried to get them there for that meeting and it didn't work.
[Gaston Fiore]: No, I was just wondering because I think a few months ago, we did vote on sending a letter encouraging, again, I don't recall the specifics, but either encouraging the city council or very, very proud, not because he was the one that put forward the motion and then requesting the mayor to basically support PB, David Ensign — He or Her. PB, David Ensign — He or Her. PB, David Ensign — He or He. PB, David Ensign — He or He.
[Alicia Hunt]: Do you mean an update to the letter you sent? Yeah, I didn't. You mean a response?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, a response. For example, whether it was an update on whether the city was planning on hiring contractors that used non-gas-powered leaf blowers, for example. An update on that as well.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'll have to search my e-mail. I remember the committee voting on it and drafting it and sending it. But honestly I don't remember if there was a response.
[Robert Paine]: Martha did you ever question or comment.
[Martha Ondras]: I I'm trying to remember I mean my recollection of that meeting is that they did not resolve whether the public. spaces, you know, and one of the one of the objections to the ordinance is proposed was that it regulated private property, but it didn't require the city to change its leaf blower habits. And it was it was focused not on electric versus gas fired equipment. It was focused on the period of the year and the date hours in the day. when leaf blowers can be used and modeling on a lot of other cities that allow the leaf blower use during the spring and fall cleanup periods when you in fact need to get, you know, may need to get leaves off your lawn, but not in the mid-summer or the mid-winter period. The but that that was something that was discussed pretty heavily and I don't we should you may recall I don't recall them coming to a conclusion on. And then I think there you are there too right.
[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, I don't remember if I stayed through the whole thing but I think I did they did not come to a conclusion. There were I think that private that you're right, that private homes were being considered in a different bucket than the city. There were issues around it would be really expensive for the city and the city is in serious financial straits, so the city can't do it. And how do we ask private homeowners to do it if the city can't do it? And then there was what I think was a full fake environmental justice concerns about minority business owners not being able to manage if they couldn't use leaf blowers. So I don't know. I mean, some of the counter arguments, in my opinion, were baloney, but some of the counter arguments I think did have some basis to them and need to be worked around. Nobody really, somebody, and I don't remember who, brought up the issue that there was a difference between blowing leaves and blowing dirt on sidewalks. And I don't remember where that discussion went or if it even proceeded, but it would be really nice if leaf blowers only operated in the months of October and November and weren't being used to clean streets.
[Martha Ondras]: You just reminded me there was also a restriction that you can only run the leaf blower for 15 minutes, run it constantly for 15 minutes.
[Gaston Fiore]: Okay, so, well, thank you all for, I will read the proposed ordinance. But I also think we might want to consider discussing this again in the future because, I mean, I even remember the meeting that The lawmaker from Lexington came and gave a selection on the implementation there. And my recollection is that in Lexington, they've got something to basically only allow electric leaf blower. And we're trying to do the same. So not just restrict the time of the year or the lengths of time that leaf blower can be used. So anyways, I think it would be helpful to have, you know, to revisit this discussion and see what we can do regarding the issue. Because I think, I think lengths of times and things like that, like sound great in, or maybe not great, but I mean, I might, I might see them in theory, but in practice, how are you going to, I mean, enforcing even electric leaf blowers would be very, very hard because these companies come, then work for like, you know, 15, 30 minutes and then they go away. So how are you going to enforce this in the first place? But if we're going to try to enforce lengths of time, I think it's just, it's just never going to happen.
[Martha Ondras]: Well, you also reminded me there was a phasing in of electric equipment. I think that, what did they have, three or four years to phase in new equipment? I think this group, as Alicia's pointed out, we make recommendations to the mayor and city council. They are the ones that have to craft the the ordinance language and I guess the question is are we at a point where we want to we litigate this or you know we we make yet another make more recommendations about the ordinance or do we want to wait and see what's in them and time.
[Robert Paine]: Well we could discuss this briefly at the next. The summer meeting if there's any updates. The status is.
[Gaston Fiore]: So Alicia, one question related to this proposed tree ordinance. So I did discuss this with councilor, well not discuss, but I did mention to him. So is there a way for us to access the latest proposed ordinance, either the tree ordinance or this leaf blower ordinance, the latest version that city council is using? Because the answer that I got is that it is somewhere, I didn't get where. And then I remember that for this, for the meeting where the two are using, that's kind of the version that Nicole was using, but is there like a repository where we can go and then we can see like, oh, this is actually the latest version of either the link lower or the link for the two aliens. And then, you know, that will help us to sort of read over it and then decide where we want to discuss this now, or maybe wait until it has a more final form or something like that. I thought that they told me it was on their Google Drive here, and I... Yeah, that's where I found the leaf blower lens, but I don't know whether it's the latest version or whether it's something newer.
[Alicia Hunt]: And like I have the version so that's the thing is that there's the version that was at the meeting that was discussed. And then I took notes on my version of it. And they made some motions. And as far, and it's not actually clear whose job it is to then edit that version and say now here's the updated version with their motions in it. The next night we had a different one which was the affordable housing trust and they actually my one of my staff said I will take your motions and make an edit make the edits and bring you back the updated version because it's the housing thing and it's her job to try and get this passed. But it's not like I'm not clear that anybody walked out of there thinking, this is my job to edit this, this document and get you the, what's the next version. And I think that's part of what the chief of staff was thinking about was how do we then pull together all of these edits? I can send you the version. The difficulty here is the version that I have is my notes and edits on it, right? And what you actually want is the version the council's working from.
[Gaston Fiore]: I think it would be useful. It's not a problem. I'll send out an email about this and then see. But I did find the draft of the leaf blower audience in some Google Drive, which I got from the city council page of the city's website. So I will try to figure it out. I think I did.
[Alicia Hunt]: That's where I just went right now to their website. It's not there.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, I did this last week, so I don't know, maybe it disappeared.
[Alicia Hunt]: No, you know, we're trying to find it. Yeah, I was just poking through it. Oh, sorry. If you keep scrolling really far there, oh, projects and papers and committees draft ordinances under 2021. Here it is. Um, There is a word version here that seems to think that, let me share this. On the city council's website, I scrolled really far down and came to city council from committee and clicked on 2021 draft, and that's the link that I just put in the chat. The only thing in there is the leaf blower ordinance, which is actually both versions were updated in 2022. Oh, this is also the link to the zoning recodification. I apologize for the city's website. It was being updated to a new company, and the old version broke, and then the person who was doing the update left and somebody else in the city is doing it in addition to their regular job. And it's taking an extremely long.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, I was also Alicia on this on this issue. But I was also trying to play this version of the zoning audience because I wanted to see where there was a draft where, you know, different portions of the audience were going there. And then clearly, but even on the MuniCode website, Yeah, the one that is there is not. And I found it on some website. I found a paper that basically says like, oh, we're replacing all of the zoning ordinance with this other ordinance. But I was having a lot of trouble finding what that new zoning ordinance was. And I think I found the word document kind of similar to the lower ordinance somewhere. But I also wasn't sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, is this the one that good? Do you want the answer?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, yeah. So if there can be like a kind of a repository where we can go and say like, oh, this is the first one, that would be great.
[Alicia Hunt]: I can't do anything about it because it's the city council's website. City councillors can do something about it. It's their website. I mean, they are also a victim of the problems that we're having with this site. But whether or not there's a repository for their documents, that's something they need to work out with their staff, which is the city clerk's office. City clerk works for the city council, so that's their staff. The document on their proposed zoning recodification, that is the newest version, the stuff from March 2022. I will tell you that we have been trying to get what we call a clean copy from the zoning lawyer for months in order to put it up on the city's website and put it into Muni code. And we actually gave him the copy edits that we have been finding, you know, like typos, straight up misspellings and stuff like that. And he was supposed to, I do not know what happened, why we don't have the final version of the zoning yet. But that is the most, it's the final official version and what's going to change is that it's going to add a table of contents and a lot of those spellings and typos will be corrected because we've found basically all of them and sent them to him.
[Robert Paine]: So, okay, let's move on to solid waste contract updates. If you have any Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sure, sorry, I apologize. I don't feel like I should be the one doing all the talking at these meetings, but that task force has been having meetings, and Tim and I have been meeting with the consultants, and we have been reviewing different scenarios. We met with the state around best practices. Actually, Tim and the consultants I met with her last week, she's meeting with the task force this week. And the consultants are going to be meeting with a number of property owners and some businesses. Under the current contract, there are a large number of small businesses that are on the city's contract. but by virtue of where they are located. And there are a lot of small businesses that are not on the city's contract. And so trying to make sure that as we change things, that we're doing things in a way that is equitable and fair and not too burdensome to the taxpayers, but also not pushing any small businesses out in the cold and trying to figure out how all these things should work. and what the city can afford and should do. All of that said, there is going to be a public meeting to discuss these things that'll talk about things that we've found and best practices and recommendations and to hear from the public. And so for those of you, those of you who are both interested in housing and waste, prepare for a long night on November 29th. I'm looking at you, Barry. That was a joke. Hope you don't mind. uh the solid waste i am busy on november 29th oh no from 6 to 7 30 is going to be the solid waste public meeting and it's not announced yet but we are 90 sure that the 40b opening public hearing is going to start at 7 30 that night because the board's available the consultants available and the filing has been received and we have a Statutory limit as to when we need to hold that opening hearing. So it's going to be a double header that night. But people should plan to come to the solid waste meeting here. It's both to hear from the consultants and to express opinions and on next steps. Well, the next steps is it's going to be an RFP, but like, what is it that we're asking the companies for? So hopefully, I don't know.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Is the date listed on the city website?
[Alicia Hunt]: The solid waste meeting went up there today. It's actually listed as Medford Fox Trash Public Virtual Workshop. That went up there. The 40B hearing isn't yet. It's just to save the date in calendars of people who are required to attend.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, very good. That's the day before the Jingle Bell Festival. Let's see.
[Alicia Hunt]: You know what, can I actually mention one other event? So the night before is Melrose, Malden and Medford have been working on building resiliency and physical buildings. Resiliency, efficiency, energy efficiency, and housing for low-income buildings, and working on policies and stuff for that. And we just received some request to attend, but members of this committee might be interested. It's kind of aimed at boards and commissions and city staff. I was trying to get some a little better explanation, because if it's aimed at staff, I don't understand why it's not during business hours. And if it's aimed at the public, then I'm not clear about the invitation I received, let's just say is not in any way formatted that I would put it out to the public. So let me see if I can, I think that, here we go, that was my registration form. Let me see if I can find the invitation to that. And I'll send it around to you all.
[Robert Paine]: It'll be a busy week.
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh my god.
[Robert Paine]: It's Thanksgiving. We hit the ground running. Okay. While you're doing that, Alicia, I had sent out about a month ago a PDF of the presentation from the State Commission on Implementing the Climate Law. And they give updates and you can refer to that. I don't need to go through it. I saw an article in the Globe recently of how Boston doesn't think they're going to meet their 50% goal by 2030 because of certain foot dragging by the state. Now that might change under a new administration. So we'll see how that goes. I was wondering, Alicia, is there any, how does the city of Medford work with the state on this climate law implementation?
[Alicia Hunt]: So different portions of the state are directed under the law to do different things and then that rolls down us right. Some of it is that they roll out grant programs and then we apply for grant programs and they change regulations and we have to abide by the regulations. um, but it's like, it's, it's sort of, it all depends on the different pieces. And if there's a particular piece. Right. Like there are pieces that, um, I've been looking at the stretch code recently. And honestly, at this point, I don't remember if the stretch code is part of that law or a separate piece that they passed. Um, But the state had to roll out a net zero energy code and an improved stretch code. So they did that, and they had meetings, public meetings, and asked for input. And so I attended meetings, and we gave input on that. And then they rolled out another version, and we commented again. And now they've rolled out the final version, and I attended meetings on that. And there's a question as to whether or not Medford would adopt the, I forget the language they're using, but the enhanced stretch code, which is supposed to be fulfilling their net zero requirement, but there's nothing net zero about that code. And so I have reached out the building department to ask if the new building commissioner could weigh in, and if the building department could talk to us about it, because we are covered by the stretch code, and whether or not Medford should adopt. Honestly, if they had passed a straight up net zero code, I would tell you that Medford development isn't ready to impose a net zero requirement on new buildings. This enhanced code though, we might actually be ready for. And so now we need to look at whether this is the right thing to push forward in Medford. So I'm gonna talk to the building commission committee because they need to be part of that conversation to put it in front of the city council to adopt it. So that's just sort of like one example, but that's like one small piece of all of it. I don't know if that helps.
[Robert Paine]: I thought there was something about needed to have 10% of low income housing in order to qualify for that some really weird stipulation. And we are not a 10% in Medford. No.
[Alicia Hunt]: You may be confusing all different pieces.
[Robert Paine]: I might be confusing it.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, there's there's another one. There's there's we're also looking at this MBTA communities. It's requiring dense multifamily housing around train stations and bus stops. And that's a whole nother thing that we're trying to understand and get our heads around and figure out if we already comply or what we need to change to comply with that one, because that one had a limit of You couldn't require more than 10% of the housing. You couldn't require more than 10% affordable housing as part of that, unless you did a study that showed that by requiring 20% affordable housing, you weren't stifling development because they were afraid of what some communities trying to allow it as a right, but actually make the development of it so unfavorable for developers that they were effectively not complying, even though they might have been legally complying. So there are a lot of different things going on. I'm not sure which piece you might be thinking.
[Robert Paine]: I'll look it up and send you something if I, okay, Gaston, you had a comment or question?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, so quick question. So we don't have been met for a similar goal to the state in terms of we've got to be net zero by 2050. Is that correct? And even if we do or we don't, I was also wondering, do we know, or is there a plan for us to know where we are right now in that path, what we need to do, what we need to achieve to get us there, if it is a goal that has been declared?
[Alicia Hunt]: So the goal is to be net zero region-wide by 2050. I will tell you that Cambridge commissioned a very expensive study in 2018 to indicate how they could, within their borders, be net zero. And the study came back and said, you can't. You don't have the resources, the space to do that in that footprint. And we sort of looked at that and said, And neither do we, right, in this footprint. I mean, you can think of horrible like options that are probably not good, but there isn't. So we need to be looking at it at a more regional level. We need a study that tells us, so we do a greenhouse gas inventory every year. And that is available, that's linked off the Go Green Medford website. The data is not wonderful, because while we're able to get data on electricity and natural gas use in the city from the utilities, there is no way to get oil use for the city. Therefore, all of our oil numbers are you look at your census data and what's your average household use in Massachusetts of oil and how many we know how many households use oil and how many, but so it's it's very much estimating. And the transportation numbers are a huge portion of our greenhouse gases, but we got good transportation numbers in 2014 and this region has not been able to get better numbers since then. So none of the communities, we all get the same data through MIPC in the state and our numbers on transportation haven't been updated and we haven't been able to get new numbers.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Sorry, Alicia. Can you send links to where you get those numbers from? Would that be feasible? I don't want to burden you with anything. Not easily.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'd have to go back into our group so I can send you where the greenhouse gas inventory is.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Right.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's numbers that MAPC got for- What is MAPC?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I'm sorry.
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't understand. Metropolitan Area Planning Council. That's the regional planning agency. Right. They got numbers, working with the state on single use vehicles, vehicle usage in 2014. And nobody's been able that some of this goes back to the DMV, because you need to know about what vehicles are registered in your community, how much vehicle miles are traveled? What kinds of vehicles are they? How energy efficient are they? And that data is not being made available to us through the DMV.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Have you, I sent out something about public transportation information that Google is accumulating.
[Alicia Hunt]: They don't have real numbers.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Oh, they're getting numbers from deep data that they have from exactly the sources you're talking about. I'm not sure. that's what they claim, but, you know, clearly they have access to something to get that information and put it up on, you know, for public view. So it would be good to sort of try to compare what they're doing and how the city is like going after it.
[Alicia Hunt]: I would say that I can't believe that Google, a for-profit company, has data that the state doesn't have, that Boston and Cambridge have not been able to get their hands on.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So you dispute that data?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. I mean, just basically, like, how could they possibly have it? Because the state says it's proprietary. and it's private and they're not sharing it. So maybe the state got hacked and Google's sharing it, but I don't believe that either.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So the state is preventing Google from seeing this data?
[Alicia Hunt]: They are not sharing this data.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Oh, the state is not sharing the data?
[Alicia Hunt]: So the RMV, right. Why would that be?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: It's really strange because it should be publicly available, right?
[Alicia Hunt]: No, because in theory, anything that's personally identifiable is not public data, right? So anything that names, addresses, Anything that's publicly identifiable, once it's aggregated, that is, I mean, once it's a list of all this publicly, like, I can't give you a list of residents and their addresses and stuff like that.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: No, no, no, I understand. I understand. But Google is getting this data from traffic information that it's getting from cars and public transport vehicles coming in and out of Medford.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. Now, I have data on all the buses and the subways, but that's not the main numbers. We need single use, single vehicle.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: No, that's what I'm saying is that Google has more information on single use than I think the city might actually be able to accumulate. But then I'll have to look into this.
[Alicia Hunt]: So we have a grant with MAPC for them. to help us scope what we need to get a grant and hire a consultant to do a net zero plan. So we need a plan that says, this is what our energy use is. And if you do this action, here's how much carbon you will reduce. And if you do this action, here's how much carbon this would reduce. And to figure that out, you need to hire consultants and engineers. to run these numbers, do this analysis, run these models. And so we need to get a grant to do that. We need to have a scope of work to understand what exactly, because I've never done that before, right? But it's the kind of thing that each community kind of does one off. So there are consultants who've done it a lot. So we have a grant from MAPC for them to help us develop the scope.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So what you're saying is that there's no easy way to arrive at this data. We need to spend a couple of years thinking about it and getting consultants and experts together to put together a data set that could be used by the public.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, we need analysis, we need a consultant who will do the analysis for us. And that costs money, we need a scope MAPC we actually applied for a grant from MAPC last winter that we have. but they've been short staffed and I've been short staffed and so neither of us have had time to move that forward. It's actually applied for another grant to hire a staff person to work on energy and climate things like that in climate zoning because we don't have the manpower in City Hall to do all the things that we need to be doing. So my hope is that we'll get that grant will be able to hire somebody and then they would manage that project.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So I I'm sorry I I need to I apologize so I need to me I grew up to that are so speak.
[Robert Paine]: You know because we're we're running overtime so Paul will have to see if we can get input from Martha and then move.
[Martha Ondras]: I just want to quickly say that and maybe see does a very good job of This kind of planning that the data set that's generated is from CTPS, the Central Transportation Planning staff. There are household surveys that you can tell where a car starts from, where it goes. You can do some trip projection, and it's actually very good data. And I think it's obviously Google constructs their information in a different way, but I would not discount the state's data.
[Robert Paine]: Look, do you have a comment or question?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Well, I separate from this. Thank you, Martha. I did just want to make sure everyone was aware on the subject of the new code, which is a stretch code and a specialized opt in code. That is, as Alicia said, not net zero, but it is trying to push a little bit further. There is a symposium, the Passive House Massachusetts Symposium next Wednesday. They will be focused on that and other energy efficiency in large scale buildings. post that in the chat. But I do want to just recommend folks do look out for more information on the stretch code. It will be impacting all of us next year. We will automatically be upgrading to the new stretch code as we are a stretch code community and we have the option to vote for the specialized opt in code, which does again push it a little bit further.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, and Paul, did you have any concluding comments or questions?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Um, yeah, I'll leave that for the next next meeting. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think we're running out of time. So I appreciate very much. Alicia's comments and I want to say one last thing that it would, it would, it would be helpful to think of ways to alleviate this information gathering thing that we are burdening Alicia with. I think that there is a little bit too much. We seek information, we don't know where to find it, and Alicia is involved in so many committees and And she has her, you know, she's involved in all that. And we tend to want to have answers and whatnot. And so it's, maybe thinking of ways for the committee to sort of gather information that we don't have to do this. And so others can pipe up and sort of answer questions. So I don't know if that resonates with everyone, but I'll put it out there.
[Robert Paine]: Well, you and Paul, I mean, Paul, you and Gaston will be dealing with that next year. Let's see. I just wanted to then review that we have the webinar next Wednesday of next week. We have a potential involvement in the Jingle Bell Festival on November 30th. And then our next committee meeting will be December 5th. It'll be a virtual and I'll solicit input on agenda items. Well, we will do some administrative items. All right, I'm gonna call for a motion to adjourn. As I can't do it myself.
[Alicia Hunt]: I was just looking and I'll just tell you that I misspoke. It's not 2014 data. It seems to, it may be 2017 data. I was going back to my email.
[Robert Paine]: Great, okay. I'm sorry, motion to adjourn. All right, I'll second. Does anyone object? I will say we are adjourned then. See you maybe at the webinar or Jingle Bells Festival or certainly December 5th.