[Robert Paine]: Okay, on February 12th, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law a supplement of COVID-19 fiscal appropriations and an extension through July 15th, 2022 of certain authorizations related to public meetings. This new law extends the remote meeting provisions of the governor's March 12th, 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. In accordance with the 2020 executive order, this meeting of the City of Medford Energy and Environment Committee is being conducted totally via remote participation using Zoom, including committee members and the public. The use of Zoom complies with the law's requirement to provide adequate alternative means of public access to the deliberations of the public body, instead of holding meetings in a public place that is open and fiscally accessible to the public. 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. If despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide for real-time access, we will post the record of this meeting on the city's website in the near future at the link provided in the meeting agenda. All right, we have no new attendees so far, but I will announce who is attending for the record. Um, on the committee, of course, Alicia is the, uh, the city's, uh, energy environment manager. Um, or also the, the, uh, development, what is your title?
[Alicia Hunt]: You have many titles, uh, director of planning development and sustainability. Oh, I still have the name of my office up because I had to log in as the office to launch the meeting here. I'll change that. Okay.
[Robert Paine]: All right, so we have me, Bob Payne, we have Gustin Fury, Angie Hiller, Loretta James, Jessica Parks, and we have Luke McNeely, Martha Andres, what's the big lowest of the honorary member, but we won't. We have one shorter quorum, so we're going to avoid votes until we get some late comers. I do expect at least one other. So we'll bypass the review of minutes and go to administrative updates from Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: Open meeting law was officially extended to the summer, but I think that was before our last meeting. And I don't have any other administrative updates. The big administrative update is that outdoor dining was officially extended by the governor today through April 2023. So Medford is getting ready to approve all its outdoor dining. I am in the middle of hiring additional interns. And at the moment, we're doing some pre-work for the Energy Festival by having our administrative assistant line up an electronics recycling and a shredding truck now, and not waiting till we bring on an intern to do that. We are likely going to advertise specifically for an intern to help with the festival. That's the administrative.
[Robert Paine]: Well, the festival, the Harvest Heritage Festival, I presume, right? That is still on tap for October, what is it? It's the third Saturday in October. And hopefully the mayor can attend.
[Alicia Hunt]: It is on her calendar. We checked the date with her when we scheduled it.
[Gaston Fiore]: So I have a question since I joined and we have only had online meetings. What will be the procedure to get a place to meet after the online option goes away in July? Is it possible to meet at the library? And if so, can we set it on a regular basis, meaning that we don't have to re-book the room every month and we just tell the library we're going to meet the first Monday of the month How does that work usually? How do you work with us?
[Robert Paine]: Go ahead, Alicia. Of course, you've been here a little time. You don't remember when we used to actually physically meet. Yeah, I know.
[Alicia Hunt]: This, this committee has been meeting on the first Monday of the month for a very long time and we just used to. So, the city staff reserved the rooms, and we've always met at City Hall, and we've just had a meeting. We've had a room reserved at City Hall for many years. And if we decide to go back to meeting in person, we would put that reservation in. We can see from the city calendar that we are the only committee that is currently meeting on Monday nights. We actually used to run into a conflict with the historic commission sometimes, but they moved to another night of the week. So we don't seem to, I'm pretty sure, unless I'm completely losing my mind. Oh no, they meet the second Tuesday of the month.
[Gaston Fiore]: Do we have an option to not meet in person? I thought it was like we are required to meet in person starting with the August meeting.
[Alicia Hunt]: Not necessarily, we were actually, did they extend that? Let me check my notes about what they extended. Because we actually don't think, we think they're gonna keep extending this. So we've been talking about doing some gatherings in person rather than meetings.
[Robert Paine]: I'm planning to host a meeting in the summer in my backyard, for example. We will be on the Mystic River. And hopefully we'll have good weather. Or else we'll have put it under a canopy. So when we get to the June meeting, we'll figure out what date works for most people. So at least we'll have one in-person meeting. Lois, you can just stroll down the street if you want.
[Lois Grossman]: Let's walk right down the street. I'll help you.
[Robert Paine]: All right. Excellent. Let's see. Nothing? There's no birthday events this year, Alicia? Oh, Earth Day. I'm sorry, I'm like birthday, who's birthday is it? Earth Day, the Earth's birthday, whatever, Earth Day.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry about that. We are working on releasing the climate plan officially, but it's not, we don't have any events scheduled with that. I know the city is, sort of hosting a, there's gonna be community-wide cleanups at the end of the month where people can adopt a park or an area and organize a cleanup for it. I believe that's the 30th, I'm checking my calendar right now. But it's not, it's less centrally organized than it is an individual event. the city itself is not organizing any birthday events.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, we still have that June 18th Circular Square event, which Paul, who's not here, is going to help with. Was anybody else working with Paul on that?
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, I offered to work with him. We haven't done anything about it.
[Robert Paine]: All right, well, next month, you'll be front and center. We're going to have to have some planning. Whether we prepare some statements or handouts or whatever. Looks like, oh, we just had Paul had his hip replaced. God.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, big deal.
[Robert Paine]: OK. That's good to know. Well, then we'll put you on the calendar for next month, Martha, and you and Paul to let us know. And in the meantime, you might want to send out some messages about what you would need to prepare. So we don't start cold on May. It's going to be May 2nd this time.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, as I recall, someone in this group offered to bring in a bring a heat pump or something like that. Somebody had a gadget that we could. Have for people to look at. Oh, it's not certainly not necessary flyers and a few simple things and just talking to people, I think, is a really good way to explain the committee. But if we have something attractive to It's a good idea.
[Alicia Hunt]: They ask that you have some sort of activity. It may be that John was talking about, he has a thing that you turn the crank and it lights up a light bulb and an LED light bulb. That has been at a lot of events over the years, but it is really interesting.
[Martha Ondras]: That's a great idea.
[Robert Paine]: Let's see, Paul, I mean, Luke, you've had a heat pump system in your house? You could be like a live testimonial.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I can certainly speak to the heat pump. And I'd be happy to do that for anybody who is interested. I have a whole house heat pump, air to water heat pump in my house. I also have a heat pump hot water for domestic hot water. And I installed an air-to-air heat pump for my parents, along with a domestic hot water heat pump as well.
[Robert Paine]: And I believe there's going to be some pretty good incentives from, say, maybe $10,000.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: And there are very good incentives.
[Robert Paine]: I think we should definitely advertise those. Yeah. You just can't say, tomorrow can you install the heat pump? You'd have to.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Well, I will say that the mass save incentive at the moment, it does require that you have an audit before you take advantage of the heat pump incentive. But the program is working towards including a better renovations offering. to go with that offer. And that's probably a long time coming. It's not anytime soon, but.
[Lois Grossman]: You might be able, I'm sorry, if it's okay to say something. You might be able to get one of the installers to bring a device to lend it to you for the day so people can see what it looks like, because that way they can get a plugin for their company. You know, one of the installers.
[Martha Ondras]: I think if there's some materials on this that actually aren't branded to a company, it's better because we're representing the city. But anyone who has flyers or materials that could be left on the table at Circle Square, that would be helpful. Or if you had a poster, a little poster. Anyway, I guess since Paul is obviously going to be out of commission for a while, I will offer to take any suggestions or collect any materials that people think would be useful for the for tabling at circle in the square.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I can also offer up some of the slides that we presented for Mass Save. There's some, I think there's some unbranded images there that might be useful for printouts, but I'll take a look.
[Martha Ondras]: That's a great idea. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you everyone for the ideas.
[Alicia Hunt]: Before you move on, I was just checking the city's calendar and it brought to mind another event that I can't find on there, so I'm emailing them, is that there is a Patriot's Day celebration. It's not really an environmental thing, but it is April 19th, in case people are interested. And we are selling rain barrels. And I will just drop for you guys in the chat the URL with the information about it. They will, notices will go out in the water bills. And if you go to greatamericanrainbarrel.com, community, and select, and then select Medford, you can order the Medford. You would get the Medford timing, the Medford pricing, et cetera. They are $79 for a painted barrel. And then the pickup is Wednesday, May 11th at Medford High School. If anybody has the ability to help us with the distribution, a number of you have done that in the past. It has frequently a fun event. You get to see lots of people. It's really fun to see the regulars and it's fun to have people go, now, what am I gonna do with this? About the item they have just picked up. How do I do this? Or a good one is, why did my spouse buy this? What am I doing with it? That was also fun. Or how many can you fit in a Tesla? Like that, that's an interesting game. So but yeah, so the pickup is May 11. We definitely need volunteers. And the deadline to order is May 3. Okay. Um,
[Robert Paine]: I was asking Sam Glaser about the Tufts Energy Conference, which occurred in March, and I'm hoping to have the ability to access the recorded presentations because it was during the week and I didn't get a chance to see much of it. I will let you know when I hear from him, when I do hear from him. But we did get the presentation from on the heat pumps from the last month's conference, I mean, presentation. So you have that file to look at as well. I think we're done. We'll come back to the review of the minutes when we get another person joining, hopefully Kathleen. So why don't we go on to the updates from the Tree and Urban Canopy Subcommittee.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Hi, everybody. So I know there's a lot of things that I'm going to talk about. I have a cold. If you can't hear me, tell me to speak up. Can everyone hear me OK? Hello? Yes? Okay. All right. I noticed it's getting dark. So let's talk about the tree preservation ordinance. I'm going to move by the agenda. And I'm just going in order of what they had under the tree committee. As we know, the city council had the committee of whole meeting to review the Trees Medford draft ordinance. And there were several questions by the lawyer that was present by KP Law. And I reached out to Trees Medford and I said, you know, is it okay if I answer some of these questions? Because at the meeting, a lot of questions weren't answered. They just took notes and it was informative. So I did reach out to the city solicitor, talked with her and also emailed them tree ordinances information to help answer the questions that they had. And I checked in with her about, well, actually it was just last week. And they're a little bit behind, but we had a discussion about it. So they are aware, there are other tree ordinances, there are permits, there are funds that can co-mingle, you know, permits, funding to be used for different areas like planting and maintenance projects. So they have all the information. It's also in the appendix of the tree report that's on go green method in the appendix on the tree report there's actual examples of existing ordinances in samples of permits that are out there. What else. We also said that would reach out to some city Councilors that are newer, that may not be aware of, you know, existing ordinances and maybe answer some of their questions. I reached out to a few I've heard from one. I'll try again. I'm not sure if Martha and Paul did. Let's see what else. And then we thought we would like to recommend the tree subcommittee that because of all the questions and the process of writing a comprehensive ordinance, that we recommend that they first do a temporary tree preservation ordinance. that would give them the time to write and finalize tree preservation ordinance, similar to what Cambridge did, because they had already had an existing ordinance. So they enacted a temporary measure to prevent clear cutting of large healthy trees until they finished their final updated ordinance. So that's what we had talked about in a tree subcommittee meeting. that that might be the smart move to recommend a temporary tree preservation ordinance until they complete a draft on which could take a year. I don't know. And I don't have any more updates on that. So the next thing on the list, we've been pretty busy attending meetings. comprehensive plan public meeting, which is open for public comment. And the draft they said is due out in July for public comment. And we were very pleased to see in section 2.2 of the comprehensive plan climate resiliency. And that included a lot about trees and sustainability. And in it, it also included a recommendation for possible tree ordinance So that'll be out, there'll be actually out at events to get more input on that. So if you'd like to refer to that, it's on the city website under comprehensive plan. I can't remember the link for it. And let's see, moving on now to the forestry department. Just some brief information to share, because some people have asked, you know, about the trees in the city, city trees. So the forestry department has three foresters, which is small. They could use double or more than that. And when they take out a truck, a bucket truck, they do need two to three people to run the truck. They have 400 stumps to remove and 100 trees that need removal. They also, I had heard they had also received a grant that will help with some of that. Maybe next month I'll invite the tree warden and she can give us an update on the forestry department. And also we're looking forward to working with the new DPW director that maybe allow more funding for, if it's possible for the forestry department. because they are understaffed.
[Robert Paine]: What would be the requirement for staffing if we had a tree ordinance and they'd have to review all these permits? I don't know who would, we don't know who would review the permits, right?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. Similar to other witnesses they, you know, goes through departments and they have to first get the draft ordinance city council and the public they agree on. And then the technicalities and the permit, and all that comes into place after. But as far as staffing. You know, I can't answer that question right now. It might be two or three people, but you know, we had also recommended in the tree report that interns can help the forestry department with that too. I mean, it may not be a full-time job just to do the permits. I don't know. I don't know, but you know, it is important to have a permit, whether it's free or some small amount so that we can keep track of the tree inventory. There's no permits, we have no idea what's going on with the tree inventory.
[Robert Paine]: Does any other community had to actually implement the tree ordinance and they have experience with what kind of traffic they're getting on permit applications?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Probably. And they have, you know, yes, I understand the concern. Medford is much smaller and we're understaffed in the forestry department. but because they had the ordinance also and got money for, you know, permits and tree removals, was able to grow their forestry department. But then at some point, there's no more trees to cut down or mitigate for, and how do they keep funding that department? So that's- Well, there isn't. At some point, you know, it gets to a point where If you're trying to build a forestry department based on permits, and that's also in the tree report, that doesn't work. And that's why cities have to create their own.
[Gaston Fiore]: That works for them. On interns for permitting, right? Because interns are a little bit unreliable. There might be interns or there might not be interns. And if we don't have interns, then what's going to happen without the permits and if we process?
[Robert Paine]: I think you have to have full time employees that come and go, but that's correct.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. And I mean, it may be and decide plan review, you know, things will change. We have the comprehensive plan and other plans all that will mingle and zoning. They may all come together at some point. There could be a temporary measure. That's what I'm saying in the first part that they advocate for now, you know, whatever it is, I'm not going to say what it is, what the people want, and the city council agrees to but I think a temporary measure would be better than nothing if it takes, you know, months or years from now. Let me move on, because there's a few more things. Arbor Day is coming up, and that's the last Friday, April 29th. And Medford is a tree city, so they celebrate Arbor Day. We have to check in to see exactly what the city has planned. Usually there's some arborist companies that will assist and do some tree trimming, and our tree warden, Aggie Tootin, has some events that may not be big this year. but they'll do something. And I think trees management usually has a table or does something for that. So if anybody's interested, sometimes the schools get involved, but I'm not sure. When I talked with the tree warden, they didn't have anything set yet, but that was last week. So it just meant when I'm marking calendars, and it's usually during the day, of course, daylight. I have a day, April 29th, Friday.
[Robert Paine]: And will you have something you think for the circle of square event on tree canopies?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I'll think about it.
[Alicia Hunt]: Maybe we can grab, there are some flyers, brochure things, particularly ones that the Girl Scouts have made in the past about taking care of trees and watering trees. There was some stuff about adopting trees that the city plants. There's some like flyers like this that we could get. If we can identify them again, we can certainly print them out. For all I know, they're sitting at my front, on the racks in my front office. We can print them if they need to be printed.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Let me make a note. That's a circle and a square, right? Yep. Right. Okay. Tree. Okay. Okay.
[Robert Paine]: Whatever you like to say about trees.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay. The fifth item on the tree subcommittee agenda was the ARPA American rescue plan funding. There's a public meeting on March 8. and the federal fund manager for the city is Molly Kivy. And we attended because the city was getting about $40 million in ARPA funding. Some of it is already planned for, but they're open and they'll be having, it's open for suggestions and it was a public meeting for information. And so they'll be reaching out. to get input from residents on how these funds could be spent. Most important, it's a COVID recovery bill to help remedy the impacts of COVID harm. So we were a little disappointed because we thought, OK, existing conditions are not covered. So we were thinking, OK, trees and tree planting, how would that fit? So like I said, it doesn't exist. The specific guidelines, I have all the notes for it. And that's also on the city website, the fund and information on the ARPA American Rescue Plan funding. And there will be, I think all the recommendations or whatever they decide has to be finished. and submitted to the government by the end of this year for funding, more funding that they would get the city next year. And the funds have to be spent by a certain time. I think that was 2026. Anyways, when the federal fund manager for the city, Molly was speaking, she said, however, there are funds for climate change. I thought that was interesting. So I placed a call to find out more information, but that was just recently to find out what that meant exactly. So that would be interesting to discuss with her what that could possibly be. And she also said there was a separate fund, a federal infrastructure fund. I don't know about that. I think that would be building or services like water and sewer, but maybe mitigation for sustainability. I don't know. I'm sure Alicia knows.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'll just say that we keep getting stuff from different federal groups about, so the federal government is funding, putting a lot of additional ARPA money into existing grant programs and the federal infrastructure bill is putting money. So they keep sending us information about existing programs that look like they're going to have more funding in them than usual. And in some cases they're programs that we haven't applied to in the past. So we're trying to like sort through all of these opportunities and figure out which ones make sense. because there are grants that are straightforward to apply to, they're a good match. And there are grants, there is FEMA grants, for example, we're actually looking at a region, it's some FEMA grants for climate change work. You are encouraged, you need to attend a three-day workshop on how to apply for the grant, to do the cost-benefit analysis, to qualify, to be able to do the paperwork to qualify for the grant. And something like that is like, a ridiculous lift, which is why we're looking at something like that as a region and not individual communities. But there are other grants that we are trying to like sort through and figure out which ones make the most sense. We're running into this problem. It's very common around municipalities all over the country right now, is that there's all these funding sources of funds, but you need people on staff to manage the projects and apply for the grants and do the reporting. And there isn't a lot of funding for additional staff. And so how do you have the bandwidth to actually do these can be really hard. And it's great to get like sort of volunteer help, but you have to have a certain amount of knowledge about what's possible and legal avenues, like how legal procurement and stuff like that to know what makes sense. So I'm just sort of putting that out there that like these exist and we're trying to figure them all out.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: And then, of course, once you've got the grant, you have to manage the work and and report on it at the end. Right. Right. So right. It's a long term.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. Well, I'm sorry, it was getting dark. Yeah, I agree. And then, you know, it's very hard volunteers, you'd have to commit to that in so many hours. But anyways, it'd be interesting to talk to Molly to see, you know, about funding for climate change. if that's possible. And if there's any projects, we're talking about trees in this section that might help with that, especially for areas that have a low tree canopy cover or are prone to flooding or maybe new programs. So I'm going to move on to Senate Bill S-504, an act establishing a reforestation plan. It's with the Senate Ways and Means Committee for review. There's no timeline or date. I'm in touch with Senator Cream's office. I actually spoke with them today for them to review it, but we still would like anyone that would like to call or write to the Senate Ways and Means Committee here and members and delegates to ask them to support the bill. It's not just for tree replanting, that's the main goal, but it's for cities of certain populations will get funding to prioritize, as I've said before, areas with 20% or less tree canopy, and then 40%. And then it goes from there, that they will help fund and guide and provide guidance, including administrative costs to reforest areas, maintain existing trees, and maybe help with private property trees too. So it's quite a bill. The funding, it needs funding. They had a funding idea, but that went by the wayside. But what I learned today, and I didn't know, the Senate Ways and Means Committee actually does the budget for the state. So they'll work with, if they would like to continue this bill, or I should say, consider it, they will work with Senator Cream's office for ideas of how to fund it. Like I said, there's no date yet, so it's still time to write in and call delegates. I also sent a letter to the mayor and asked if she would consider supporting the bill by contacting other mayors that are part of the Metro Mayors Climate Task Force. I don't have the whole Metropolitan Mayors Climate, well, Alicia knows the name. and I don't have all the notes in front of me, but you know, that she would inform them because it's a big help to cities if this is passed. And I'll just keep you informed of that. I think Paul was actually, Paul Teslami, one of our members on the subcommittee was going to write a letter to be considered from the energy committee. to send out, you know, to present to us, to have us sign on if we're interested. And then we could send that out to delegates and others to ask for them to support the bill. But he's not here. I haven't heard the update, but I know he was considering that. And then the last thing was the, March was really busy. An update on the new zoning ordinance recodification. There was a city council meeting March 22nd. It may be on the Medford Community Media TV to watch. And the final draft was on the city website under the city council tab. You can find it there. I didn't finish reading it and unfortunately I missed that meeting so I have to watch it. Um, and Loretta, I'll save you time.
[Alicia Hunt]: It was passed. So are you talking about the meeting that was the subcommittee meeting or the city council meeting? So there was a committee of the whole where they discussed what they were accepting. Okay. And that would have been, so March 23rd actually was the city council meeting and they just passed it as was reported out of subcommittee. So the version that went up on the web, they passed it exactly as is they did not make any amendments that day. Okay.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: All right. So the drafts on the city website and we were going to, I didn't get to finish it to see what public comments they adjusted and there's a lot of there's two versions, there's was the draft is presented to the city council and then it's the one with the adjustments. adjustments to see what public comments were considered and what's in there. They did say that they were hoping that the comprehensive plan will integrate with the zoning recodification when that comes about. Because there's a lot of areas in there that we feel could be addressed from buildings to just many areas which we feel are not in there. Our concerns about trees in this section of the Energy Committee was that clearing and for the accessory dwelling units called ADUs that could happen, and also to allow an allowance, let me put it this way, an allowance for different placement of the accessory dwelling unit to preserve existing healthy trees.
[Alicia Hunt]: It might help to know that the ADUs, the way that was approved in this version, was that they either have to be internal to the existing structure, and you can't tell from the front of the house that there's a second unit there. So you could have a side entrance, but you can't make it in the front look like two entrances, and it can't change the footprint, or it has to be in an existing exterior building. There is no allowance under the current version that was passed to change the footprint of your house or added another structure on your property.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, thank you. Because that was one of the things we were like, oh. Because they had that whole section about building an extra property on your property for, wow.
[Alicia Hunt]: It allows ADUs, but it doesn't allow you to change. I guess you are allowed to expand a little bit, but you can't really create a much bigger thing. You can't build a separate structure on your property.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So they changed that a lot because they had the size and the dimension, and it could be a separate structure within 10 feet of your existing main house, but only 50% of the square footage up to 900, no, 600 square feet or whatever it's at. I'm sure it was adjustment, but it was a separate built their original.
[Alicia Hunt]: They're definitely not allowing separate buildings.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, that's too bad. Okay. I mean, for it was actually one of the original advocates for that to increase the housing stock I thought that was really, but you know I just wanted them to allow to. changed the footprints, they were so descriptive of how many feet it had to be from the property. And we were thinking, okay, if you have the land, remember, this is all about if you have the land from your main house for single residence, single house residence properties, they have the land they're allowed to build. Also, they took that out. Wow. Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: And now I could be wrong because but there was this, it's you can't create a separate structure was a big deal. Wow. We did allow, there was, cause there was a debate around historic. We wanted them to allow if you had an existing exterior building that you should be allowed to use that if it meant you were, oh, there was a question. You could only use it if it was up to a certain square footage. We were saying you should be allowed to use it if it was a larger, a larger square footage, if it was existing and historic, because we wanted them to preserve existing historic structures. Wow. Making me second guess what I thought I remembered. I have to tell you, there is so much in this document and I've sat through so many meetings on this. I actually happen to know, I saw the lawyer's bill that I've sat through 15 hours of meetings since November only on the zoning recodification. And there was a year's worth of meetings before that. So I'm trying to remember.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, well, I'm gonna go through.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, there was a question whether we had made like this secret backdoor to allow all single family houses to now become two families. Really, it's not that simple.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right, right, okay, good. Well, that's good to know. I'm gonna read through it anyways, just because we would like to know, the people, myself too, what public comments they did include and adjust because, yeah, so that'll be interesting. So that's about it. Martha, are you here? Martha here? Oh, okay. Did you have anything to add?
[Martha Ondras]: No, I don't have anything to add. That was very thorough. Thank you, Loretta.
[Robert Paine]: For the Senate bill, would there be any possibility of funding more forestry staff from that funding?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes, yes. So that bill is really interesting. They will provide and create a forestry guidance committee with experts and volunteers and they'll have this committee. And they will set the guidelines and advice for each city and town that they're working with. And let's say the bill's enacted, what will happen is From the date it's enacted to three years out, that's when it'll become effective. And during those three years, they have specific guidelines for each city and town. You'll need a tree committee, you'll need to submit a certified plan of how you're going to reforest and take care of your city's trees. Remember targeting 20% of the trees or less tree canopy areas, equitable areas, and maybe yours also, they have flooding concerns. So they'll work with the cities and provide administrative support and funding, but you have to submit a certified plan and they'll guide you in that and they'll approve it and then you'll get the funding. So do we have the people- I'm sorry, you could hire people to help you do this, right?
[Robert Paine]: Good, okay. Well, thank you, Loretta. I'm going to circle back to the review of the March 7th, 22 meeting minutes. Now that we have a quorum. Thank you, Kathleen, for coming on. You made us a quorum. So I set that out earlier today. I don't know if anyone's had a chance to look at it, but I'll entertain any discussion before we vote on accepting the minutes. Yep. If none, I will, I will entertain a motion to accept the minutes.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Motion to accept the minutes.
[Robert Paine]: I'll second it then. Okay. I will call the roll and you can say yes, if you do. All right, Luke. Yes, Bob. Yes. Yes. Yes. Let's get Paul. Okay. Let's go to Loretta.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I didn't read them, so.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, you can abstain.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I can abstain, but okay, I'll abstain.
[Robert Paine]: Kathleen, I don't know if you read them either, probably not.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I did read them, and I think they're okay.
[Robert Paine]: All right, Martha. Martha around here.
[Martha Ondras]: Oh, sorry, I was on mute. Yes.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, Jessica.
[Jessica Parks]: I abstain. I wasn't there last month.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, sorry, Benji. Approve. Alright, looks like we have a vote to approve the minutes. Thank you very much. Let's now go back to our agenda. And I'll go to the transportation subcommittee and let them carry on.
[Gaston Fiore]: So guy hijacked For three minutes. So I would like to go back to the tree stuff. So I have a suggestion for the June Circle of Square event. If either the tree subcommittee, I'm assuming tree subcommittee, could show or talk about the tree ordinance draft, that would be great to get the community to start knowing about it. involve some sort of tax if they decide to cut a tree in their private property, that would be awesome. So, and then the second thing is that I actually started working on accounting for some solar reception to that. So I am in the process of writing that it's only for roofs that face into the two Southern quadrants. So Southeast, Southwest, and I'm assuming it's a good balance. So I will finish this with all the possible scenarios that you can get in terms of roof orientations. I will distribute it out. And then the last quick thing is that, so we were having that email discussion about a while back and I wanted to get back to it. Unfortunately, Paul is not here, but so he mentioned something about, you know, that we would need to clear out 2% of our forested area or something like that. So that's exactly, so I see several issues with a tree ordinance that does not account at all for solar. So one is that, so out of all the presentations that we have had for the past few months, then about 40, over 40%, I think it's 42% of the emissions in Massachusetts come from transportation, greenhouse gas emissions. So that's gonna have to, be converted out of fossil. And we can assume that electric vehicles are going to be a good chunk of it. So not only do we need to convert out of, for example, gas generation, but we also need to increase our energy producing capacity quite substantially. So the electricity is going to have to come from somewhere. So either solar panels or wind turbines or whatever it is, but it's going to have to come from somewhere. So if we don't put it in our roofs here, the solar panels are going to have to be somewhere else. And I started doing some researching, and I dedicated 30 minutes to this only, but I'm trying to work on it. So Massachusetts has this SMART program. It's called the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target, SMART program. And what this happened, it was an initiative designed to help bring new solar energy onto the grid for Massachusetts, obviously. And what happened was that in order to account for this dollar project, they started clearing forests in the state. So on April 15th, Massachusetts published significant improved regulations for this smart program that will help keep solar projects off our most sensitive lands by prohibiting solar heating on land where at least 50% of the parts of areas designated as priority habitat, poor habitat, or critical natural landscapes. So my point, and I was reading here in the Appalachian Journal, which is a Montanean journal, about this journal article about the northern past. So on the talk that we have from Senator Barrett, he was talking about how Maine decided to cancel the hydro project that they had that was going to bring power to Massachusetts. And he was complaining about it, that it's not happening. But on the other hand, this article discussing how the Northern part, so all the transmission lines that were going to bring power from Maine were going to cut straight through the White Mountains. And how people in New Hampshire have been fighting this for like nine years. to avoid that, because obviously they didn't want the transmission lines to cut through the white mine. So I'm just concerned that, you know, again, the solar panels are going to have to be somewhere. And even if we put them in the desert, in the West Coast, then you've got to bring the electricity from over there to here, which means that, you know, we need wires. So the wires are going to have to go through somewhere. So what about that clearing? And in addition to that, then I think about this also as kind of like a justice issue. So the ones that are consuming the electricity is us. And then we want to put the panels who knows where, and then, you know, we'll let those communities figure it out if we, you know, we have to cut trees over there, but it's really the ones that require power to us. So if we need the power, then we need to be thinking about what compromises we can take in order to, you know, be able to have the amenities that we are used to having these days, which consume electricity, and at the same time, you know, have definitely, you know, as much street canopy as we can, et cetera, et cetera. But, so yeah, so I'm writing all of this down. I will share the Google link, and I'm hoping to be at that circle the square thing to discuss this with regular residents as well, my perspective, and definitely get input, I feel like I'm the only one that wants to account for this. So I'm always happy to discuss. I just feel like we don't have the opportunity to discuss this either in the meetings or outside the meetings. Yep.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: If I can just weigh in. Thank you, Gaston. I have to say I agree with everything that you have said. And I do like your thought about a solar exception that is focused on applicable conditions, because certainly there are plenty that aren't. And I do have to agree completely that the best place to produce the energy is where it is being consumed. And that's something that I've been trying to promote for a number of decades. I think that the key though is we have to remember that individuals play a very small role and large Corporations, large buildings, large users, large loads, as well as potentially large producers are where we need to focus in order to make large impacts. Putting solar on my house is, there's two big trees, and I would certainly prefer to keep those trees there, because my pyramidal roof with a south, a chimney on the south, is not a really great place for solar. But that said, a community solar array on a local warehouse or on a a larger building is certainly feasible and should be encouraged. So anyway, I just think we do need to keep our focus on the big opportunities and the big solutions.
[Gaston Fiore]: I'll leave it at that.
[Robert Paine]: Are we getting to the Transportation Subcommittee other issues?
[Gaston Fiore]: Are we, we can- Yes, Martha will lead.
[Martha Ondras]: I'm sorry, I didn't realize that was a transportation issue.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, they have electricity to electrify the fleet and I'm hoping we get a lot of wind, offshore wind to- Yeah, okay.
[Martha Ondras]: Well, I'm not going to decide how the grid gets designed tonight, but I do have a short presentation on transportation in Medford. if we have to still have time for it. Okay, Bob, if you can give me screen sharing, I can show it to you.
[Robert Paine]: I don't have any power to do that.
[Martha Ondras]: Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: There, I just turned it on for everybody because.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, that's great. Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: There are no Zoom bombers on the screen. I know everybody on logged in here.
[Martha Ondras]: Okay, trying to figure out why it's Yeah, okay. Can you see my screen?
[Unidentified]: Yep.
[Robert Paine]: Yes.
[Martha Ondras]: It's probably not in presentation mode yet.
[Robert Paine]: Not yet.
[Martha Ondras]: Or is it?
[Robert Paine]: I can just do slideshow from the beginning.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, there you go. Um, so I, I wanted to just give a very quick overview. There are so many transportation issues that intersect with energy and environment. that we could spend a week on it, but I wanted to just give a quick overview of some of the work that does go on and what this committee could get involved in and why it's an important environmental issue. As Gaston just said, you know, 40% of the carbon emissions from Medford are from transportation. 70% of the traffic that goes through Medford is through traffic. It does not originate or stop in Medford. And we have more highways, I think, than any other cities in the Commonwealth except Boston and Quincy. So we have transportation. overload, if you will. The reasons why it matters, first of all, carbon emissions obviously need to be reduced and there's a limited amount we can do about it. It's regional traffic, but it's something to keep in mind. We want to encourage alternatives to fossil fuel use, including the electric and hybrid vehicles and providing charging infrastructure for them. We want to encourage walking, alternatives to fossil fuel vehicles, including walking, biking, use of public transportation, including buses and the Green Line, and ride sharing, getting more than one person, one occupant in a vehicle. We want to reduce the health effects of vehicle emissions. This is a little map of the, Emissions from highways, this is strictly highway emissions in Medford. The big gorilla in the room is 93, which runs north-south, but here at 16 and 60 also produce quite a lot of pollution. And as you can see, we have schools and housing and so forth within exposure areas. of the highway. I do this for a living, so it kind of is on my mind. It has effects on neurodevelopment of children, it increases dementia and aging, it affects respiratory and cardiovascular health. So enough said on that, we need to pay attention to vehicle emissions for not only to save the planet, but to preserve our health. Part of the health is reducing injuries from crashes. which means safer road design. More police and more enforcement won't do it. We need some things like a 25 mile an hour speed limit, but we also need safer road design, which has been shown to be effective in reducing crashes and injuries. And we need driver education. Transportation is also part of climate adaptation and resiliency. If we're relying on certain highway, if you looked at the flood map of Medford, you'd find that, for example, Route 16 has a one in five chance of being underwater at some point this year. That's only going to get worse with climate change, with more precipitation. And portions of Route 16 will have a one in two chance of being underwater this year. So I'm just picking on Route 16, because I've been looking at it. That's also true of other areas. So we need walkable neighborhood. If we do have a climate disaster or climate events, we need our neighborhoods to be walkable and bikeable. We can't be relying on vehicles. One group that's been pretty active in Medford is Walk Medford. It's a grassroots organization, not a city board. This is their platform. Walk Medford strives to make walking safer and easier, encourage better health, cleaner environment, and a vibrant community. We advocate making our streets and paths safe, convenient, and attractive for everyone. More walking as it benefits our health, our environment, and our local economy. We advocate for better laws and traffic calming, more sidewalks, signed crosswalks, education programs, and thus and such to support walkable neighborhood, pedestrian safety and accessibility, must recognize the needs of all people with a wide range of mobility abilities. and rectify longstanding environmental justice concerns. And it's no accident that High Street, which we know is a difficult street to cross, was also the red line that separated minority communities that banks would warn not to invest in from the primarily white communities where investment was encouraged historically. And now I'm having trouble advancing this. Why is, okay, here we go. So the main things, the main things in the Walk Medford platform, I just, I won't read all of this, but just to tell you what Walk Medford's been working on in the city is very, we're very involved with the city. This is a kind of collaboration with city staff and electeds. We want to make sure the city follows its complete streets policy on all transportation infrastructure and policy projects from whether it's repaving or street repairs or a wholesale planning effort like the comprehensive plan. This should include ongoing planning such as the rezoning effort and the housing production plan. And the city should plan to tame motorized traffic on streets and reclaim streets and public space for pedestrians. We wanna see the basic safety improvements to all existing crosswalks in Medford by the end of 2022, which is very ambitious, obviously that's gonna be tough, but maybe with infrastructure money. The city's been, I'll talk a little bit tonight about what the city has done and is doing. We want to prioritize planning for safe walking and biking to schools, parks, and recreational facilities for children and families, and to implement innovative and tactical low-cost improvements at high-priority locations. It's kind of a two-pronged approach where you do some low-cost, quick things, You've probably seen bollards and wondered, you know, why don't they just move the curb? Well, moving the curb involves moving the drainage system and it's expensive. So while you're waiting for the funding to do the big permanent fix, you know, sometimes we encourage some short-term measures that are not ideal, but at least help. And Main Street and South is probably example of that that most of us have seen. Many of the roads in Medford are owned by the state agencies, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and the Mass Department of Transportation. They're state roads. Medford has relatively little control over what happens there, as Alicia knows very well. So part of what we do in concert with other groups in the Boston area is put pressure on DCR to improve safety on their parkways. That includes Mystic Valley Parkway, Fellsway West, Elm Street. You'd be surprised how many of our roads belong to the state and were designed to be parkways, not highways. We have been working with the city on improving the walking access to the new Green Line stations so that, you know, it's wonderful to have them, but people need to be able to walk to public transportation. We believe in keeping walkways clear of ice and snow in the winter. Let me go back, this is kind of what, we've been trying to get a snow ordinance passed about as long as Loretta's been trying to get a tree ordinance passed. and coming up on four years now, I think. And one of the biggest issues is that street plowing often fills in the sidewalks that the property owners have just shoveled. So, you know, we're working on some, they're not easy issues, these issues. They affect things that are very dear to people's hearts, like their parking space and their right to control their own property. but they're well worth the effort. We're working with the city on some upgrading of wayfinding so people know that they can walk from one point in the city to another. They can walk from the square to the library or to the Condon Shell. And we're looking at, let's see, do I have that? Oh, this by the way is the intersection on Route 16 at Whole Foods, where I guess there were, let's see, this is a five-year crash plan and there were 69 crashes there in five years. So you can do the math to see how often a crash happens at that intersection. We're also working with the city to improve sidewalks. That means this is a sidewalk audit that was recently completed showing the condition of sidewalks. The yellow means they need repairs. The green means they're in great shape. The red means they need to be completely rebuilt. And as you can see, there's not a lot of green on this map. I forget, I think the estimates the millions of dollars it would take to fix our sidewalks. And this doesn't even cover what are private ways, this is the public sidewalks. Some of the city and state, a lot of the state money for transportation improvements comes from mass DOT, comes from state programs and some of the current programs are listed here. There's a shared streets program, which you may have seen some attempts to get the smaller residential streets relieved of through traffic that makes it difficult for children to play on the block or for neighbors to go out safely and be on the street. You've probably seen the outdoor dining program, trying to claim some of the parking lanes for outdoor dining during the pandemic, which I think that program will continue because it's been popular. Safe Routes to School is a program that you may have seen at the Brooks School, the Roberts School, the Andrews School, and soon to be implemented at the Columbus, I mean, the Missittuck School. And this is very simply making the street crossings and the sidewalks safe for kids so that they, and bike lanes, so that, you know, someday kids will be able to bike to school in Medford. The Main Streets Program is upgrading, as it sounds like it's upgrading the major ways so that You know, this again benefits commercial activity. It makes people feel more like going out and shopping here in Medford. The Better Buses is a program that Medford does in collaboration with the MBTA, and I'll talk a bit more about that. And then shared mobility, I forget what shared mobility is. Probably Alicia knows that. So if you've seen some of the, again, some of the improvements recently, the city's installed quite a few of these rapid flashing beacons, that's what this sign illustrates, that just draw the driver's attention. We have a lot of distracted drivers. Speeding is one problem, but distraction is probably just as much of a problem. the size of vehicles, vehicles have gone up in weight like 50% in 10 years, the average vehicle. So these signs help people, drivers simply notice that there's a crosswalk and there might be a pedestrian trying to use it. And you may have seen them around town. MBTA and then South Street, Main Street intersection, which is one of the highest, it's in the top 5% in the state for crashes. I think there were 140 some crashes in five years. That is getting some serious attention to improve mainly for drivers, but eventually for pedestrians and bikers as well. The MBTA has a bus network redesign program going and I, you know, Medford, a lot of Medford is not served well by public transportation. So this is really a focus area and there's some sort of good news in that the bus network redesign is creating some routes like connecting from Malden Center to Medford Center and then into Cambridge that we really needed for a long time. And some of our city councilors are working on the Silver Line extension, which right now does not plan to go to Medford, the east side of Medford, but there's some effort to get that going. And as I mentioned, the DCR we have, in terms of the roadways, there's a parkways master plan, which if they built it all tomorrow, it would be wonderful, but it takes citizen pressure to keep that moving. and make it happen. And there is a coalition that Walk Medford belongs to, which is a coalition of people from four towns, Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, and Medford, to get Route 16 upgraded. It is a DCR parkway so that we can, for example, walk from the Medford Square to the Condon Shell without you know, going through some of the high stress intersection, you know, crossings that you have to today. And Mystic Trails is a program that funds multi-use paths along the river. There's a very nice one that Arlington got funded for, which is actually looking also at the rotaries on High Street, one of which is in Medford and is a particularly nasty place for pedestrians to cross. So that's kind of an overview of what's going on with transportation, why it matters. Love to take questions. And Alicia, if you have any comments, welcome your comments. And Gaston also, because I'm not a biker, I haven't emphasized bike lanes in this, but the walkers and the bikers are generally very close allies because we need each other. And if bike lanes are added to a road, traffic slows down on that road. So that helps pedestrians. And so anyway, this is just really, this is the lightning talk on Medford transportation, but I'd love to take any questions or comments from anyone.
[Alicia Hunt]: That was amazing, Martha. I can't believe you've covered all of that so succinctly. If there's anything that I would add, it's that the MBTA's bus network redesign is going to launch public outreach, I'm pretty certain, in May. They're going to take input for three months. It's going to be dramatic. I've seen some pre-release stuff that I'm told is not final. And I encourage everybody to keep an eye out for that and plan to look at it and comment. If you ever even consider taking the bus, you should look at it and weigh in. And there are other, I mean, Martha, you just mentioned a bunch of other projects, but that one is going to particularly need public comments in the very near future, which is why I emphasize it.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, Alicia, now you're getting us very curious. I'll get to you, Gaston. What is dramatic about this plan?
[Alicia Hunt]: So perhaps just to give you a touch more on the MBTA project is they have taken data from people's, they bought cell phone data. Where are people moving to and from and around? So it's not where are people currently taking the bus. Traditionally MBTA bus route changes has been based on where is our heaviest ridership? Let's add service there. And they said, let's wipe the slate clean. Let's look at in the greater Boston area, where are people moving between regardless of what method of transportation they're using. And let's look at running buses there between those things in order to get people out of their cars and onto buses. And so, plus, they are also conceptualizing saying we want buses to be as reliable and popular as the T, which is how I always say it, the rapid transit, right? The underground subway lines in Boston. So therefore they have to run as frequently and as reliably as that. So they have designated in their new version, a number of rapid transit buses, bus lines, where during from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday, those buses will run every eight minutes. And then they'll have some service, you know, before 6 a.m. and some service till 1 a.m. And then they'll run frequently on the weekends as well. Not quite that frequently, but frequent. So you can rely on these the way you could rely. It would model the T, the subway services. And those routes will be created. And then they're saying, where else should we have routes? And at first, this plan was pretty scary to some of us because they tend to be fixed budget. And we said, well, that means you're going to cut all your routes. They did get a 25% operating budget increase. So they don't yet have more buses. but they do have more funding for staffing to run the buses more often that exist. And so actually something that I'm interested in pushing from an environmental position is that they're supposed to be converting to electric buses. And I'd like to see them bring in, as they bring in electric buses, don't retire those diesel buses so quickly. so that you can actually expand your fleet, because nobody's going to buy any diesel buses right now. But they have to renovate garages, create new garages, then they will be buying electric buses. And then with that, my hope is that we can push them to expand the fleet as well. So there will be under the current plan, fewer bus lines routes, ones that are more intelligent, many fewer overlapping bus routes, right? Right now there are several buses. I mean, comes to mind right now, you can take both either the 94 or the 96. from Medford Square all the way through Tufts, like all the way to Davis Square. And there's a little some deviations. So they're going to try and reduce that sort of idea of overlapping routes, but really try and go where people want to go. And I've really, I will tell you that I have really liked some of the previews I've seen of some of the lines. I have some concerns about some of the routes that are in my mind are missing. And there are some where they would really like to have bus priority lanes, where, honestly, Todd and I went back to them. We had a private meeting with them and we said, we can't give you bus priority lanes on all the roads you want them on. They don't fit. How about you look at the roads where they do fit, like Mystic Ab, where we have, like they weren't planning a bus priority lane on that road. I'm like, but it fits. Um, so we're still, and we're like, and it almost goes where you want to go almost. So we're, we gave, and I know they met with every single city in town, like the people, the planners and the transportation planners, and then they're going to release a plan to the public. So it was very clear that what they saw, what I saw is not what you will doubt now see, because they were going to take our feedback and the feedback from Somerville and Arlington and Walden. before they release a version to the public. So I hope what you see is better than what I saw. Although some of it was great. I mean, can you picture taking a bus every 10 minutes out of Medford Square to, you know, towards Davis Square, to Arlington, to Malden, to, you know, into the city, into Cambridge and all. It would be kind of awesome. So anyhow, that's coming and it is dramatic. And we are looking to see if we can figure out how to do a real like bus station with restroom facilities in Medford square. I think we could do it in our long-term vision. The long-term vision for Medford Square includes redeveloping some of these properties that are parking lots. And we could easily say, we would like you as the private developer, if you want this land, you have to incorporate a bus stop and you have to incorporate restrooms for the public or restrooms for the drivers because they want those in places that are hubs. So anyhow, that's the, long version.
[Robert Paine]: Thank you. Gasorn, you had a question?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, so quickly. So one thing that we have discussed with Martha is that it looks to me that we are missing, Medford is missing some sort of, you know, overarching plan where it is studied, you know, where people are flowing to and from, so from residencies to businesses, to schools, to conservation areas, et cetera. And based on that, that then there is some sort of master plan in terms of these streets, when they have to be redone, need to comply with the complete streets kind of requirements. and also a way to bind the city to actually do it. So for example, Cambridge has a cycling safety ordinance, which if you read it, really the only thing that it is, is it forces the city of Cambridge with a timeline, very specific, to follow the Cambridge cycling plan. And by year 2026, then Cambridge has to build like 23 miles of protected bike lanes, for example. I think that the transportation subcommittee should focus on trying to work towards something like that, where there is some sort of master plan for transportation, complete streets master plan or whatever you want to call it. And then there's also, you know, something that binds the city to achieve certain milestones in a predetermined timeline.
[Alicia Hunt]: So all of that is really good and ambitious. The one thing you have to be very careful about is comparing Medford to Cambridge. Pick any other community. Cambridge is so wealthy that they can do things. I just met with their housing authority today. They have 25 staff in the planning department of the housing authority. Right, like it just as an example off the top of my head, they have resources where we as a region say we want to study or look at this, and they'll say we'll hire Kleinfelder on behalf of the entire region because we can afford to just drop $100,000 on this project that actually helps most of you more than us. So they can be forced to do things and they can afford to do it. When you're looking at Medford, we have to make careful trade-offs when we're looking at things. On the other hand, following our complete streets is absolutely something that the city has bought into. The mayor signed an agreement that we would do that. Our DPW commissioner and city engineer is every time we redo a new street, we follow the guidelines as close as we possibly can.
[Robert Paine]: Anything else on transportation? Luke has a question. Luke has a question.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you, Martha and Gaston. That was also good. I do want to just make a note that I certainly love hearing about reclaiming streets for pedestrians, for residents, for bikers. And I do think that the one caveat is, of course, businesses need to be able to have their deliveries, and they need to have the ability for traffic to get to them in some form or another. And I just love the thinking that goes into that planning for vibrant cities that really do encourage and focus on the pedestrians. I think the presentation was really helpful and nice to see some of the problem spots. So thanks.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, so really quickly, I think what Luke just said, that is something that we can actually do better than Cambridge, because I just think when I see this kind of confrontation between businesses and and for example, biking lanes, then I understand why the confrontation exists, but I just think that then, you know, explanations have not been done and proper things have not been done because, you know, cycling traffic also brings businesses. And then I do think that that's why we need kind of a holistic approach, right? Where someone looks at the problem holistically. So I drive, everyone drives. So then we just need to make it so everyone can coexist together. and then it makes the plane feel a little bit more equal. But definitely parking spots need to be there, at least some of them, parts need to be there, buses, delivery trucks, et cetera. So I think that's, for example, it's an area where we can improve upon what Cambridge has done.
[Jessica Parks]: I have one question. You talked about in the looking at bus routes, you know, it's always, we talk about East, West, and also South. Do they ever look at going north? I say this mainly because I tried to take my son to a, he had a, a scout meeting at the high school. And I suddenly realized that I could not take a bus up to the high school. So I had to get a ride with someone else because my husband had our car. And I suddenly realized that there are no bus routes that go up towards the high school. And I feel like there are so many people who go to a fence up, basically going up on the Northern route in Medford. And it totally occurred to me that there's nothing there. for people who probably would rely a lot on buses.
[Alicia Hunt]: So the good part is that there was some stuff going from Medford up Winthrop and or up Placestead towards Winchester, that that's something one of the lines connected in from Medford all the way to the Burlington Mall, which kind of looked really exciting to me. Imagine that if you were a teenager. So there were some of those. And since my staff person who lives here up in Fulton Heights has actually taken the bus to Wakefield, but it took her two hours, which is sort of ridiculous, right? So there are buses they take forever with the connections. So they are thinking about that. The one thing that was a big hole that we talked to them about and is a difficult one to solve is Fulton Heights, because the reality is a full size MBTA bus cannot do Fulton Street, and they can't do the little roads, I mean, and that's the biggest road in Fulton Heights, right, except for up the side, right, with Fellsway West, and then up Highland, the in between in the middle, Fulton Road is the biggest route, and you cannot take an MBTA bus up that road. There used to be a little MBTA bus that came up here, and it's always been contracted out. And until right before the pandemic, it was just this Joseph's limousine bus. It was only in like the last year before the pandemic that they painted it to look like an MBTA bus. And it wasn't on the regular fare system. And there are no stops labeled in this area. So we kind of talked to them about that and they were having a hard time, like, seeing a solution, other than having something on Highland, and something on Fells Way West, but I think that's something that we need to continue to push on. because I advocate that you can't live in Fulton Heights without a car because not everybody can bicycle. There are some people who can bike, but you need everybody. I know that bikes regularly out of Fulton Heights owns an electric bike because of the hills. And not everybody's capable of that. So that's an area that is incredibly difficult to figure out and to deal with.
[Robert Paine]: Okay. I think we can move on if, but thank you very much. This is very interesting. And we'll see how the green line extension works out with connecting to that. And there might be, since that on circle of square, I don't know if we need to, to, I don't know if anyone's going to talk about that extension opening, cause it'll be close to the opening schedule, whether that changes, any awareness of how to get there, but that might be something to think about in the next couple of months. We had an item from last month about the Volta charging sign permit. And then Alicia, you sent out a discussion from the permit applicant who was sort of disappointed, but offered more information. I think we'd like to revisit that But I don't know if you have that conveniently available to show us. I think the issue was the size of the sign and the content and that type of thing. They were responding to some of our concerns.
[Alicia Hunt]: Just to be clear, you were asking for The PDF and the images, let me see.
[Robert Paine]: I think there was an email that you sent that had their responses to our concerns. Yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I did not queue this up. That's okay. The issue was, is it even coming up for
[Robert Paine]: revisitation by the, I guess city council has to pass it, right?
[Alicia Hunt]: It hasn't gone in front of city council yet. There's actually a sign subcommittee meeting in the next few days. And the impression, it was not clear to me that this one was even on that list. And I just, actually, maybe I should, they've applied. I'm gonna ask them. Yeah, if they've been scheduled yet, but they did send, sorry. I think, I felt like you wanted, but I showed pictures at the last meeting. You were interested in the responses.
[Robert Paine]: Yes, they said, they responded to our concerns and they said, well, if they'd been there, They could have done it in person, but then they did it after the fact. So I was wondering if we should revisit our reluctance to approve them because they were shocked that we didn't wholeheartedly. Right.
[Alicia Hunt]: So I think, right. Thank you. There was a key piece that I was not aware of that they shared with me in response. was that stop and shop is intentionally partnered with them as their preferred EV charging for their Northeast stores. And so it is unlikely, less than unlikely that somebody else would come in and provide EV charging if this was denied. They would just say, fine, we won't put it in there, we'll just put it in our other stop and shop locations if it was denied here. So that is a piece that is, we were not aware of that would be useful to know. They did share information about providing PSA information, so like COVID safety notices and stuff, and they would certainly display city public service information. That they have found that there's been a tremendous response to their free charging model, that people find it very popular. And that the screens are static. They change only every eight seconds. There's no video and no sound. And they're designed for pedestrian viewing. They're not designed for drivers of vehicles. So these are over 450 feet from the public road, but they are in the parking lot. They're designed to be seen by people who are walking out of the grocery store on foot. And they found that the eight-second change was selected to be consistent with the applicable Federal Highway Administration guidelines for highway signs. And they could make it change slower, every 10 to 12 seconds, if people felt that that would make it safer. So those were the responses to what they said. I basically sent them what you guys had said.
[Robert Paine]: Are they still looking for a endorsement from our committee?
[Alicia Hunt]: I think that up until the point when the city council actually votes on this, they would. Okay. And yeah, I am actually not certain if this is going to be typically what happens is that they go to the signed subcommittee, and then from the signed subcommittee, they're reported out to the city council meetings. I do know the signed subcommittee is meeting tomorrow, but it's meeting on the case numbers that they listed were odd because the numbering format was that they were from 2019. Yeah, right. Oh, they're actually looking at the sign denials for King Petroleum is what's actually listed for tomorrow night. So I'm unclear why this company filed for a sign denial reversal a month ago and isn't on this subcommittee meeting.
[Gaston Fiore]: So they already got denied by the sign commission?
[Alicia Hunt]: No, the way it works is if you do not meet zoning and anything that has video on it is, so anything that doesn't meet zoning is automatically denied. And then you go for appeal. It's sort of the exact same as a building permit. You don't meet code, you're denied. You go to the zoning board of appeals. So I don't know why they've appealed. They appealed a month ago. I don't know why they haven't been scheduled yet.
[Robert Paine]: So I guess I don't know if whether we can discuss it some more, whether we should actually have a motion to endorse this project or just say we aren't prepared to do that. I'll entertain discussion.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Bob, I'm in support of it. I was in support of it before, now that I know more. I think, I don't know, I assume they're fast chargers. Does anyone know?
[Alicia Hunt]: I believe that they're level two, not level three, if you know the difference.
[Robert Paine]: What does that mean?
[Alicia Hunt]: Level one is the same as plugging it into an outlet on your house, which by the way, you can do with most cars. Level two is much faster than that. And level three is considered a supercharger. And I'm trying to, because I own a hybrid electric, my examples are not great because it's not a standard car, but on my car, if you plug it into a wall outlet, it takes 12 hours. If I plug it into a level two, it takes me two and a half hours to get to full charge. And my car won't take a supercharger. A Tesla can get charged to full in a half hour or 20 minutes on a supercharger, but so can a LEAF or some of those others. I don't know if anybody has a better, more experience with other cars to share.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, that's fine. I was just curious about that. You know, it's private property. And every time I turn on the TV, all their advertising is electric cars. And I'm like, we don't have enough charging stations and it's free. And now that we know it's not a video, it's just a screen that has static information and it's not near any houses and it's set back on their property. I think they were looking for our support because it's energy related and it's a service to the community. So I support it. I know we voted no before, and if we wanted to individually support it, we could, but I think it would be good if we did. I also support it as I did before.
[Robert Paine]: Well, we can have a motion to have the committee endorse the permit, having the permit, you know, issued. Is that, is that what they want, Alicia?
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And I think that either we could draft some sort of letter saying that, or we could just provide the city council with a very simple statement that the city, the Energy and Environment Committee reviewed their application, and would like to voice their support for this, and not get nuances, because if that, if you agreed to that, then I would feel like you were giving me the direction to do that. I would run it by Bob and say, does this sound like what they agreed to at the meeting? And we could send that off.
[Gaston Fiore]: Do they want this before they go through the sign committee or why is that?
[Alicia Hunt]: Definitely. Well, before they go to city council, it's unclear. I have actually never sat in on a sign subcommittee meeting. I've only ever seen things come to city council. And so you would want the council to have that information when they were reviewing the application.
[Gaston Fiore]: Okay, but it could be possible that the sign committee by some reason, No, we're Dixon.
[Alicia Hunt]: My understanding is that the science subcommittee only looks at whether they have, like there are certain hoops you have to jump through, there's information you have to provide, is the information they've provided complete and whole? So that you're only taking things to the city council that are complete applications with everything they need.
[Unidentified]: Right.
[Robert Paine]: Well, I guess I'll entertain a motion to endorse this permit application. And have Alicia report that endorsement to the city council.
[Martha Ondras]: I make the motion.
[Robert Paine]: Lots of seconds. Okay, we'll call the roll then. Luke.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I will be in favor, given that it's no video.
[Robert Paine]: OK, Bob, I will also say yes. Gaston?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yes.
[Robert Paine]: Loretta? Yes. Kathleen? Yes. Martha?
[Martha Ondras]: Yes.
[Robert Paine]: Jessica? Yes. Benji? Is Benji here? Yes, sorry. Have I missed anybody? I think we have a unanimous Okay, we've done it. Okay, run it on something. All right. The only thing left on the agenda, we have less than 15 minutes anyway, is just to, is there anything with a stretch code that we need to be aware of Alicia?
[Alicia Hunt]: Open for comment. The comment period closed. Now we're waiting to hear the new version. There was a lot of debate about it, but I couldn't, Luke might be able to speak to it better than I could. I couldn't speak to it without getting some notes up in front of me because it was actually several weeks ago. And there are other things we've been submitting comments on since then. The big picture is that the state passed a law saying We want a net zero building code that communities can adopt, can opt into, that is different from the stretch. So there's building code, the stretch building code, which we've had for a long time, which is more efficient, and then there's net zero. And the community said we would like a building code a better stretch code or a more strict code. And so those codes actually, they increase in their energy efficiencies periodically, automatically. But a net zero code, in theory, in theory, would allow communities to require buildings to be net zero. And the draft net zero code that came out of the state was not that. It was basically, so the stretch code that they proposed was much better, was better, more strict than had been. But then the stretch code, the net zero code was like here instead of here, right? In terms of strictness. There was a lot of feedback to the state.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: If I can also weigh in on that. The one major complaint I think that I think is very valid is that they were also obligated to define what is net zero and they didn't. They simply kind of said, well, as long as you're all electric and then by 2050, the grid is net zero carbon, then you are net zero carbon. And while that makes some strange sense, it is not a definition of net zero and it doesn't meet their obligations. And in addition, it doesn't give communities that want to push for higher performance the opportunity to say, yes, we do want to push for higher performance in the code. And so as an opt-in, there wasn't anything significant to opt into. Are you okay, Benji?
[Jessica Parks]: I'm fine.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Okay, just checking.
[Robert Paine]: So the stretch code deals with, I think, is it whether you can install natural gas service?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: They do still allow natural gas in their straw proposal. And one of the big complaints was that they were hoping that the net zero opt-in would essentially ban gas. I do not think that the DOER is able to put that on the table. However, obviously, if you install gas in a new construction, then it's never going to be net zero per se. It's always going to have a significant carbon load that it will need to offset somehow. And so it has the draw stretch code proposal has a number of very good ideas, reducing heat load in new buildings. I will say that it's also very focused on new buildings and not so much on existing buildings and that's another aspect that needs to be addressed. But that it does push for a higher performing envelopes, the walls and roofs and floors of buildings as the primary goal, and then high efficiency equipment inside. And so there, the current proposal would result in, if you were to use gas on a facility, it would be a small amount of gas relative to a standard current code building. But still, that said, it would still be some gas use. So we'll see many folks put in comments. I know we discussed and perhaps a number of us signed on to the letter encouraging DOER to strengthen their position and add in a net zero definition and provide for an option for all electric.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'll tell you that the mayor signed on to both the letter that was circulated by both both Luke and Barry had reached out to me. I think you guys was the two of you about one, a letter that was being widely circulated. The mayor and I both signed that. And then the Arlington town manager was actually circulating a letter for mayors to sign on to. And she signed on to that one as well. So one of the things with the stretch with the net zero code. So we signed on to the stretch code in 2010 the stretch code should just continue to incrementally get things stricter and help move things forward and communities once you approve it, adopt it, you're part of it. Those of us who work in the field in municipalities, we're basically hoping that the net zero code would be hard, would be something that would make us go, ooh, is my community ready for this? Is this gonna hurt development in my community? And we all figured Cambridge would adopt it immediately, they're there. And then the rest of us would sort of slowly look at our development, look at who's building and figure out if we can do it. And I knew something was wrong, was not good enough about this code when it was presented to me. And I said, oh, that's easy. Medford could adopt that in a heartbeat. And I said, that's, it's not strict enough for us for environmentally, if it was just like a no brainer that we should sign on. That's not the point of that law.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, a stretch is supposed to be a stretch.
[Robert Paine]: Right. Exactly. You already had a question?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, after the surgical discussion, there's time. Yep.
[Robert Paine]: What? You have a not?
[Gaston Fiore]: OK. I'll ask the question. Yeah, so I wanted to ask Alicia. So basically, going back to the transportation section, so how can we make more efficient collaboration between the city and our committee to get funding, for example. So because the Arlington project, so the bike path or multi-use path, they're really going to go from El Guaipro Parkway all the way to the Minuteman Trail that goes all the way to Bedford. So they got 80K from the master of program and then $10,000 from the Lawrence and Williams-Solomon Foundation. So, and what we can see going back to, you know, bikes versus businesses, which to me, it's just a no, no, no point. So we have, so Medford, we consider the minimum that this path that now Arlington will be living with their own plans. And the GLX, the kind of, you know, improvement that Medford will be doing from the new Green Line, station across to Medford Square. So if we can connect now along the Mystic with the Northern Strand Trail that goes all the way to Lynn, basically. So you create this Y-shape kind of thing that goes from Lynn all the way to Bedford. But now you can also come all the way from Downtown Boston through the protective pipeline that is going to go next to the Green Line. So I just feel that if we can patch, get funding to patch the, you know, little things that still would need to get done, we can place Medford in the intersection of the three legs of the Y, where, you know, people can either commute to work to downtown Boston or from downtown Boston, or on a weekend, you know, recreational bikers, runners, whatever. then we basically go through Medford Square to either get to Lynn, get to the minimum bikeway. So how can we work with the city to make this happen?
[Alicia Hunt]: So Gaston, we're already working on that. I just dropped a link for the mysticriver.org screenways. And it's, I think that people aren't always aware of the paths that exist. So we actually have off-road paths along the Mystic River from Medford Square, all the way along the Alewife, all the way that connect to the Minuteman Trail already.
[Gaston Fiore]: So you can get from Medford Square- Yeah, but if the off-road doesn't work, I mean, I take it as a runner and I run in the woods daily, so it's okay, but then When it rains, then you come back there.
[Alicia Hunt]: No, there are paved paths the whole way. What we need is a wayfinding system to show people this. I just dropped a link in the chat. So they exist, paved, and you have to cross the road a few times. Those road crossings are very dangerous. And that's what Martha's group with Walk Medford is working on. And when you go the other way, it stops at Medford Square and the Clippership Connector is designed and funded and going out to bid this summer, which will take us from Medford Square to McDonald Park. completely off-road without actually crossing any roads and then actually you can go from river or will take us to riverbend park with riverbend park you can go under route 16 through mcdonald park all the way to route 28 completely off-road without even crossing a road and then um we are designing we have an engineer and we have funding we're currently designing the underpass under route 28 And the state has agreed to build that once it's finished being designed it's on the tip and that goes then along the mystic river around Wellington T stop and then it ends at Wellington T. but we just got the rest of the funding to build the missing piece of it so that you can then go either under the route six, the bridge there, it's not route six, that is route 16 again, or you can get up and there's a ramp onto it to cross that and to get onto the Northern Strand. So there are a few pieces that are missing. So we have construction funding. We have identified construction funding for all of them.
[Gaston Fiore]: What about in front of the police station? because that, so I went, I know what the city is doing for the mainline extension, but that part is not, they're not working on that part. I know that part, but.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, at main and south, that's main and south. So that's one of the major intersections that we're working with the state on, and it needs a complete redesign to make it safe. And so there's actually an additional bike trail, a cycle track that's being designed for on Route 16, on the Route 16 existing road structure, that would be a two-way cycle track that would slow traffic. The state is working on that. So they have adopted that project. And I said to them, how are you going to cross those bicycles at Main Street? And the last time I asked them, they said, we don't know, but that's our problem. It's part of our problem that we have to solve as part of doing this project. And I said, great, you have to solve it, solve it. So they are actually working on all of those pieces. We've been working on this for years. And some of it is because of the advocacy work of Walk Medford. So Walk Medford were the advocates that got the Clippership Connector going. And that's the biggest missing piece. And it's taken us six years. maybe to go from idea to we have full engineering drawings and they expect to go out to bid this summer. So, cause they had the funding. It's interesting, a couple of times we've said, what can we do? And they said, we have the money. It just literally takes time to do the drawings and to go through the permitting process. Clippership connector got delayed by a year because of easements they needed from the mass DOT and a private property owner. And the problem was nobody said no, so we couldn't, fighting didn't help. They were saying, yes, but this, but talk to our lawyers, but what about this? And that just took too long.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, there was some contaminated soil too that had to be removed.
[Alicia Hunt]: And you know what, that totally didn't even slow the project down because that was so on the side that we moved through. And frankly, if we hadn't actually noticed that that soil was contaminated, they probably would have just built right through there without doing anything. But yeah. they weren't ready with the rest of it. They were just gonna lop off that end until we cleaned up the soil. And now the soil has been cleaned up for 18 months. So, yeah. So I dropped the link to the mysticriver.org Greenways, because they've really actually, the Mystic River Watershed Association has been championing these projects and their Greenways director, Amber Christopherson, if you wanna, they are an amazing organization.
[Gaston Fiore]: yeah I looked at. They say there, I mean they're not yet done so that's why, but it's great to know everything they said is great, I hope it.
[Alicia Hunt]: yeah amber their green ways director i've actually hired she helped me write grants and then I took some of these grants and I said, but I can't manage all these projects. So I hired her to manage the project. So she actually will say, Alicia, this invoice is good, pay it. Or we're having a stakeholder meeting, what's your calendar? So she's been actually extremely active in getting these moving forward.
[Robert Paine]: Well, thank you very much for this discussion. I think we've gone through our agenda and I'll set out some reminders about planning for the circle the square event and these various discussions and maybe get it. You can get presentations on a board or however we want to do it, but we should discuss details next month on the circle the square event. So thanks for your attendance. And I guess the meeting, I'll just declare the meeting adjourned and we'll meet on May 2nd. Thank you very much. Thanks Bob. Thank you.
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