AI-generated transcript of Medford Energy And Environment Commmittee 11-06-23

[Robert Paine]: I'm gonna, I'm gonna start the meeting. I'll just call the role of people that I've seen join. Loretta James has joined, just looking at the Zoom attendance. And let me know if I'm incorrect. Luke McNeely has joined, Barry Ingber has joined, Jessica Parks, Benji Hiller, Bob Payne, that's me, Dan Papo, Lois Grossman, Sara Singh, and Will Sherwood. Have I missed anyone? I think so, just looking at the list here. Okay, no guests that I can see that joined at this time. Let's start by reviewing the minutes from the October 2nd meeting that I sent out several days ago. Does anyone have any comments on what they received? Okay. We'll entertain a motion then to accept the minutes as sent. Lois is raising her hand. Lois, why don't you unmute yourself just to make sure. It's just making a motion. All right, and a second? I can second it, I guess. All right, I'll go through the roll call and say yes if you accept the minutes. You'll have to come off mute. Loretta.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Accepted.

[Robert Paine]: Thank you. Luke. I accept, sorry. Barry? Yes. Jessica?

[Jessica Parks]: Yes.

[Robert Paine]: Bob, yes. Dan? Yes. Lois? Yes. Sarah?

[MCM00000770_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[Robert Paine]: Will? I accept. Okay, total of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 in the affirmative, none in the negative. That's unanimously accepted. Okay. Either Alicia or Brenda, do you have any administrative updates you'd like to report? aside from your other presentations.

[Brenda Pike]: I think the only thing that I have is that, so we didn't post a recording from the October meeting, but we have arranged that so that will happen moving forward. And we did record the webinar, and that will be posted on the website as well.

[Robert Paine]: Alicia, do you have any updates?

[Alicia Hunt]: think so. I will just share that I knew this comes later happened to be meeting with some parents today. And one of them said to me, Oh, and by the way, I saw the webinar last week on the storm, the flooding in Medford. And I just made me so proud to be a Medford resident. So I'm just passing it along.

[Robert Paine]: Great.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah.

[Robert Paine]: Thank you. We'll have a short, very short summary of that. Upcoming municipal events for the remainder of this year, is there any like a jiggle bell thing we have to do?

[Alicia Hunt]: So there are two opportunities to do outreach if people are interested. One is actually next week, there's a winter preparedness thing at the library. And it's really around getting people prepared for the winter. They're gonna give out coats, they're gonna have information on fuel assistance, stuff like that. But they did say that if my table, my table, my office or committees wanted to have a table and promote stuff or provide them with literature to hand out on anything, they were, happy to do it. It's the Office of Outreach and Prevention that's doing it. It's really targeted at people who need help preparing for the winter. But so if that's of interest, the other one is the Jingle Bell Festival. Wait, it's being called. holiday party, maybe? I'd have to look up what the phrasing is this year. It is the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, as usual. And that is actually a really good, oh, it's called a winter extravaganza, and it's five to seven. And that is actually a really good time to do outreach about things like climate change, when it tends to be sort of a different population than goes to the Energy Festival. And I have absolutely had many people say like, we have a climate plan when I've had it out at that event. It's people who are not really clued into what's going on here. It really attracts a lot of people who have lived in Medford their whole lives and go to the things that they know happen at a certain date and time every year. And this is one of those things.

[Robert Paine]: Is that inside?

[Alicia Hunt]: It's mostly outside. Sometimes they have some spaces for inside tables. I think they were actually doing a rain date this year rather than planning to move inside. They are going to have food and DJs and Medford Brew Company and stuff like that. If there's anybody who's never been, it is absolutely an entertaining Medford thing. There is this Jingle Bell Festival, which is a fundraiser for the Buddy Colon Center. So it's a center for people with Alzheimer's, a day center. And they raffle off Christmas trees that are donated by the community. And they have some wreaths and they have some other things that are a little less Christmassy, but it's truly a Christmas-based event. And that is kicked off that night, and then the mayor has developed sort of all this other stuff to go on at City Hall. The trees are done by the private organization or the non-profit, and everything else is organized by the city. But it is a sight to see, and they raise a lot. It's their annual fundraiser. They raise a lot of money, and it's when they turn on the lights outside City Hall.

[Robert Paine]: I think we've done something in the past. I don't know if we've done it recently, or of course with COVID, I don't know if it even happened.

[Alicia Hunt]: I have definitely hosted tables there the last two years. Two years ago, I spent most of my time at a table promoting the climate plan and stuff. Last year, I think my office had a table and other people's. Yes, we had grad students staff it. rather than me being there the whole time.

[Robert Paine]: Okay, so would we have, would our committee have a separate table or would that be?

[Alicia Hunt]: If you wanted to have a table, we could arrange that if you would prefer like, oh, what can you put out some information if anybody wants to join someone from my office? One thing that makes it a little bit easier is because it is during city halls regular hours. I have a lot of staff who are already working that night. I may actually have a conflicting meeting. I think I have a community development board meeting that night that I'm going to have to be at. Oh, maybe not. No, no. I have meetings Tuesday and Thursday I have to be at. The one thing that hasn't quite been announced, but will be that Thursday is a Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, and it's going to include the first hearing for the next 40B. The one on the Fellsway has resubmitted. So, assuming that all the paperwork we received today is in order, and I believe that it is, it's gonna have a hearing on the 30th.

[Robert Paine]: Okay, seems like I might be able to be able to participate in that. It's November 29th, I believe.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, November 29th.

[Robert Paine]: And we can, probably we should have a separate table. We'll have to just probably get similar materials that we had at the Harvester Energy Festival. And I'll check with to see who else would be able to, and this would be in the vicinity of city hall, basically.

[Alicia Hunt]: It's out front. It's in the parking lot at city hall, but they do a lot of it outside.

[Robert Paine]: Right. Okay. But then if there's a rain date, if you will, that might be the next.

[Alicia Hunt]: I just looked at it and this. Oh yeah, it does say rain date Thursday, November 30th, five to seven. I will tell you that I've never seen them do a rain date for this before. We just moved in everything inside. But I think that the mayor has so much lined up for outside that she just wants to move it. Boy Scouts are selling wreaths. If you ever feel like to buy your wreath from the Medford Boy Scouts, they'll be there with them.

[Robert Paine]: Maybe we should opt for the extravaganza, whatever it is, and get a table. We'll see who, I'll follow up with notices and see who's available. It's just a two hour thing with maybe some time in advance to set up. You have all the materials at City Hall, so it's probably pretty easy to put them out. Okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: Loretta has her hand up.

[Robert Paine]: I'm sorry, Loretta, go ahead.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Hi, I just wanted to say I had a hard time signing in tonight. And I used the links that were on the city calendar for the zoom meeting. And I used the links and some emails. And I kept saying there's no meeting. So Bob, you just sent out an email a few minutes ago, and that link worked. So the link on the city website and the link of under events in the one a few others that were sent were not correct. So there might be some members trying to get in.

[Robert Paine]: Well, I did send the link again, they had the agenda last week.

[Alicia Hunt]: So you know, Loretta, we're very confused because it is literally the same URL.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I know, but the one on the city website, try it just for the heck.

[Alicia Hunt]: No, I couldn't get in either.

[Lois Grossman]: Oh, Ralph sent one and I tried it and it said there was no meeting. So I went to the agenda that Bob sent out and that did have the right link. I don't know what the problem was. Same for me.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think I found it. They typed it in manually and there's the J is an I. Let me just check.

[Robert Paine]: Very tricky.

[Alicia Hunt]: Am I correct? Is that a J?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I don't care.

[Alicia Hunt]: I closed out my... Maybe that is an I. No, it's supposed to be a J and they typoed it on the city's website. I'm going to send a note to the communications director so they don't screw this up again.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Robert Paine]: When is the winter preparedness event at the library? What date is that?

[Brenda Pike]: It's Monday the 13th.

[Robert Paine]: Okay. Yeah. I'm going to be actually out of town.

[Brenda Pike]: And they're going to have things like, um, you know, ABCD is going to be there talking about things like fuel assistance and mass save and things like that.

[Robert Paine]: I think if we go for the, the winter, that would be better. Okay, I'll follow up more about who might be able to join that. You're certainly welcome to do that. We have our next meeting is December 4th, last of the year. We usually have an organizational component to that. Two items is that I'd be very happy to pass on the mantle of Committee chair or even co-chair with somebody. So think about if you would be willing to step into that role by next meeting. I saw Sarah's hand up. Ah.

[MCM00000770_SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that's right, because my life is no longer unstable. I have a job now, no longer searching. Also, I just moved to Lowell, but I'm still going to be very active in Medfared. That doesn't change anything, and I have freed up more time, so I am willing to take on that role.

[Robert Paine]: Just a note for Alicia, is that a problem that SARA is going to move to Lowell?

[Alicia Hunt]: So we don't have anything in our ordinances that require that members must be Medford residents. Some boards and commissions do state that in their formation ordinances, but this committee is ad hoc, so there is nothing in it. I would say that the mayor prefers to appoint people who live in Medford, but I think the idea that somebody is already appointed, I think it's something we can absolutely consider. There's nothing in the ordinances that says we can't do it.

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: All right. Sounds fine. I would just raise that, didn't Will and Dan also at one previous point, I thought there was some interest from you guys at one point.

[Robert Paine]: No, we're not closing off.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, hey, this is Dan. I'm kind of, things are a bit difficult for me to take on too much responsibility right now, but I am happy to like a co-chair kind of thing. You know, to make sure there's some Medford representation as well. I don't think it's like too prohibitive, but yeah, Sarah, if you want to do like a chair, co-chair, I'm perfectly happy to do that.

[MCM00000770_SPEAKER_02]: I think the co-chair arrangement sounds even better. I'd be more comfortable with that because I still need to learn the protocol terminology and I think co-chair sounds perfect.

[Robert Paine]: Plus if you're ever like out of town or something, you'd like to have a co-chair to step in. All right, so we have Dan and Sarah and anybody else that would express an interest?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I would certainly be remiss not to throw my metaphorical hat in the ring.

[Robert Paine]: Well, what we'll do next month is each of you can speak to this a little more formally, and then we'll, we might, I don't know if we can have three co-chairs. I mean, it's possible if we have like 10 meeting or 10 or 11 meetings a year, so you could rotate.

[Alicia Hunt]: They should, Bob, you shouldn't decide for them. Let them talk to each other. Okay. Very good. Discuss and let the committee vote. Don't try to solve it for them.

[Robert Paine]: All right. Very good. Thank you for your interest. Did I miss anyone who would be interested? Well, we'll take it up next month. There's also the issue of members should just make sure that they're reaffirming their intent to remain on the committee for the next year that we usually have everyone just reaffirm their commitment to serve for the next calendar year. Sometimes we get people who decide to leave the committee at that point.

[Alicia Hunt]: If I might clarify, and a lot of boards and commissions, you're appointed for a specific term, and at the end of your term. then we kind of say, do you want to be reappointed? And it's an easy like point because this committee is ad hoc. There are not terms. So it is useful for people to actually, we would much rather have somebody say, I'm sorry, I don't have time for this in my life and step down, then just stop attending meetings. And then we have trouble making quorum. So we want people to like say, no, I have time. I will continue to come. so that they don't, and you don't have to email us or anything. It's just, if you realize that you don't have time, you know, let us know.

[Robert Paine]: Just making sure I haven't missed any members that have joined since we started this. I don't think so.

[Lois Grossman]: Can I ask an off the agenda question? Go ahead. Sarah, what will you be doing?

[MCM00000770_SPEAKER_02]: Oh, thanks for asking, Lois. Yeah, I'm excited to tell you all. It's actually very relevant. So I accepted a job offer with the Nashua River Watershed Association. My job is conservation and climate resilience specialist. And they have made me the project manager for the MVP NBS grant. So this is a $400,000 grant that is for nature-based solutions in five communities. in the Groton, Fitchburg, Nashua River area. So now I'm talking to these communities, their DPW, the Conservation Commission, environmental committees. And I'm learning a lot about what communities across Massachusetts are doing for climate resilience, for dealing with flooding. And I'd love to report back to you all what I'm learning.

[Robert Paine]: Great. Congratulations. I think that's all for organizational items. I have not seen anyone from the Tufts energy group drawing, so we'll skip that part of the administrative. Aspects that were just about at the end of that. Time slot anyway, now let's review. The 23rd, 2023 harvester energy festival for any reaction comments notes for next year, et cetera. And I'll let Loretta lead that discussion, but we can all join in many, many of us. We're we're there.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Any comments from others.

[Barry Ingber]: Thought it was great.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I did send out an email. Sorry, Lou. We talked at the same time. I did send out an email with some suggestions and observations. I think the email new service is working, except for Barry, who bounces. So I sent it to Barry. So I don't know if you had a chance, everyone, to read the notes.

[Barry Ingber]: I'm not sure I'm still bouncing, by the way.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: You are. I get the notification back that it didn't go through. So I sent it to you separately.

[Robert Paine]: So why don't you just summarize your, your email?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, I don't have it in front of me. So, and it was long and I didn't want to take too much time because I have a full agenda, but I thought it went, excuse me, really well. And excuse me, I did hear back from, um, help see regarding how much material was collected. And it was 1,067 pounds of material. which is huge amount. And for the dehumidifiers, 97 were collected, which was equivalent to 2000, I think it was $2,067 in rebates to residents. So that's quite large considering Mass Save came in so late, just literally a few weeks before the event. That's quite a bit, 97 humidifiers. So I think we did a great job. I'm also in collecting recyclable items. And as far as on green team junk removal, they're going to get back to me. The owner director was sick with pneumonia. So when he's feeling better, really sick, they'll get back to me with their numbers of what they collected.

[Robert Paine]: Other comments from people who thought there could have been something done better.

[Jessica Parks]: Is there any way that we can reduce the amount of stuff that people walk away with? The giant bag of, pardon my language, stuff that my son came home with from each of the tables. I kind of, he walked, granted he walked in, he was incredibly excited of all the exciting things that he brought home from each table. And I kind of looked at him and I was like, wait, this is kind of the opposite of what I think we're trying to stand for. As he's like unpacking stickers and papers and this, and I understand that it's marketing and it's tools for education and things like that, but some of it, I don't know if there's a way to work with vendors and tables and things like that in the future, but I have now a giant bag from the festival full of stuff. And I'm sure many people do too, that, you know, maybe one item per vendor table.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Interesting.

[Lois Grossman]: Just a thought. And you didn't even see all the candy that he already ate, right?

[Jessica Parks]: Oh, I'm sure he had so much candy in him. He was there for the long haul. So, I mean, it was like, you know, an eight year old's dream. A bag of like five million stickers and pencils and balls and Lord knows what else, but.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I would like to second that. Maybe there are ways to encourage different kinds of giving and different kinds of materials that could be given out. I think of the folks that are giving out tree saplings and things that are either biodegradable or already kind of designed to be, I don't know, not saved and are not just marketing junk.

[Jessica Parks]: And I mean, I get the need for, I 100% understand the need for the marketing. And I know that people go to these events with the hopes of marketing and the hopes that someone brings home something that has their name on it. But like, I think, you know, waste management sent him home with like 10 different items. Yeah, he has pencils from them. He has a Frisbee from them. He has a ball from them. I mean, wow.

[Robert Paine]: Business for waste management.

[Jessica Parks]: Yeah, I know that that's the higher name about that one. But so it's like maybe trying to say, hey, can you bring one marketing thing to your table?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Hmm, interesting. Or maybe they can, I'm not sure, but QR code posters to get the information. But I don't know, they like to give out stuff, so.

[Jessica Parks]: And I completely, I get it that, you know, that people love collecting things, my son included, but you know, just a thought at an event like that, maybe we could try and curb it a little bit.

[Brenda Pike]: Or maybe ask them to not bring plastic products.

[Jessica Parks]: That would be something. That'd be a start.

[Lois Grossman]: I'd like to tell Will that those trees that Trees Medford was giving away were to be planted. We weren't giving them away. People had to express an interest, assure us that they had where to plant them, take the instructions and go. It was not a blind giveaway by any means.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I found that to be a far more meaningful and impactful way to engage with the table. So I appreciated it.

[Lois Grossman]: Okay, I thought you were saying that people were even giving away saplings.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Um, you know, I can talk about a few things about the festival that I observed and I had suggested that we do the same thing next year with three recycling events that, you know, we picked the date earlier and maybe give the electronics recycling in a separate, um, parking area. Uh, the line did get backed up. In my notes, if you read the notes that I sent out, some people were waiting 40, 45 minutes in line up past the Andrews School and they couldn't get by. So they made, some people were making U-turns because they go down that road to cut through to other areas. So, you know, that's more of a design thing for next year to keep in mind. Picking the date earlier so that we could, if Alicia agrees. so that we can try to reserve those three parking lots just for the festival. And it really wasn't something that we were aware of, maybe. I was told by some of the people that they were waiting in line and actually saw her at one point. And so the way it was just too much for one little parking lot. And the beer garden, And the food vendor there, it didn't work out exactly as planned, but that was no fault of our own. I thought the Beard Garden could have done much better if they brought their own tent, but they came as one. So that was very confusing when they showed up. So they came with Scott Brothers Meats, and there were several people that didn't realize that the alcohol was behind there. So next year, if we do the beer garden, we can do better with that. But Chicken and Rice guys reported they did really well. So I was happy for that. And as far as exhibit, we do send out exhibitor feedback forms and we got some back. And it was interesting because we changed the raffle. in the way it was handled. And some people liked it. Well, they said it wasn't clear how the raffle tickets and what the purpose was. And those were sent from some vendors that didn't have a raffle item. So I looked back and I thought, okay, so if I was an attendee and I was an exhibitor, how would that feel? And I could understand that. So maybe next year we hand out the raffle tickets. to the exhibitors that have a raffle instead of to all attendees. So what would happen is people would have their raffle tickets and go up to tables and go do a raffle. And some of the exhibitors didn't have a raffle and they weren't sure what to do with that. So and a couple of exhibitors liked it the old way, where we had one table with all the raffle items on that table. But we had learned from the past that some, some attendees just come and stand at that table and don't visit the exhibitors. And that's why we changed it. Plus also the amount of staff needed to me in that table.

[Robert Paine]: Oh, Dan, you have your hand up.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And sorry for the background noise, uh, driving back up to Boston right now, but, um, I've got two kids who play Medford soccer, and they're in the same, like, fields right there at the same time as the Harvester Energy Festival, and I know there's football over at the other field right there. One thing I'd like to suggest, I asked a lot of our friends if they got a chance to walk over and check out the festival, and they said that they didn't even know it was going on. I'd love to suggest and also just volunteer to you know, maybe reach out through some of those youth sports groups that are using all the fields and the area over there next year or for other events as well. I think you'd get a ton of people going over. Just a quick suggestion. Also, I was just thinking while we were talking about, you know, like reach out and then ways of, you know, that people are giving out things. One thing I really liked while we were trick-or-treating this year, I got about three or four different people mentioning the Mothers Out Front Pumpkin Smash event coming up and offering like very small little outreach for that or just saying, you know, go to this next weekend, which I thought after hearing them talk here was really cool and really interesting and a great way just to make that known in the community.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, they were an exhibitor at the festival. Is that what you mean?

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, I just thought I would mention that while we're on the subject. I thought it was great to see so many people. We were in a couple of different neighborhoods trick-or-treating, and there was a lot of people talking about that event. But then also, for the Harvest Energy Festival, Let me know if that'd be something you'd be interested in, just reaching out through the youth sports, because those fields are just full of kids and families every day during that season. So it'd be a great way to reach out and get people to attend those kind of events.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Thank you. Alicia, you have anything? That's a great idea.

[Alicia Hunt]: So some years we have reached out through the sports teams and I will tell you that it's 100% been the years that my kids were participating and I knew who to reach out to and who to send the information through. And so if you can help us with who is the contact, because the contacts turn over, at least when I was a parent in soccer, it was like different people every few years and not like Medford soccer at Gmail or something. generic that you could keep. So as we'd love to reach out through those groups, we just need people to continually refresh us on who is it now. Because that would be great. There was something.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, definitely. It can be confusing, so happy to help there.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, and I know the idea of like, oh, we should schedule earlier and reserve the parking lot so we can. I don't think that we could get them to not hold Medford soccer that weekend just because we wanted access to their parking lot. Like that's the kind of, like, it's one thing for like other, say, don't have other events here, but that's a standing every Saturday, all fall. Yeah. And all spring, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: And I can tell you too, it's very aggressive. So yeah, definitely like some forewarning there. I'm sure they'd like be willing to work with, with this group or with the festival to help make it a better experience.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because I was thinking it really should be. If we do the electronics recycling, it shouldn't be in that one little parking lot. Well, we said that we have right beside the festival, but we could still have paper shredding and help see there, but move the electronics recycling to a different parking area. So they have that whole space to pull into, but then I was thinking the Andrews, cause they can pull all the way towards the end.

[Alicia Hunt]: But now that you mentioned it, in theory, they could have brought people further in, they could have brought the line further in and had the line in the parking lot and not taking money quite so far out at the door. And I will tell you that the company felt that it went super well. They told me, I think the number was 230 or 240 vehicles came through. They thought it was excellent. And they told me they didn't get any complaints. So if people were unhappy and left, they left, they didn't get up to them. And I didn't get any complaints from the public except for the one resident who had the issue around the handicap parking. And that sounds like it was just a big misunderstanding because the electronics go green was allowing people with handicap stickers to come into the lot and park. in that lot to access the festival. And for some reason, she got the impression that she could not do that and had to park far away and walk over to the festival or come over in her wheelchair. And when I spoke to the owner of Go Green, he's like, no, we absolutely could have handicapped parking. And there was some, and I saw two vehicles with handicapped hang tags parked in the parking lot that was otherwise closed. We could have had a sign that said electronics recycling and handicap parking only. That could have made it more clear. But she's actually the only person that I've heard at all say that the line or anything was an issue for them.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh yeah, well, I had a few people said, so what happened was, because it's one way in from Riverside Ave, right, it's one lane, they were backed up and it was no fault really of us, but the way the drivers were handled, it was the people coming in actually, when they turned into the festival parking lot, They were asked what they had, you know, to be directed to dehumidifiers on the left or recycling on the right. And then they were told to move ahead. What happened was they blocked the lanes. So people going for shredding or for material recycling couldn't get through because those drivers just like jumped out of their, moved up, jumped out of their cars and there wasn't enough room for a car to get through to go. So that's why I backed up. So in the future, we could, if we have, well, we should have- More cones, cones with lines and information. Fred, they need to really work, because, yeah. And actually my husband was one of them who left the festival, went to get his car, and went back in line. And he was going for the paper shredding. And here's him, I was there 45 minutes. And I asked them in detail, and then someone else told me, too, they were stuck. But it was also cars couldn't get down the road, so they're making U-turns to go another way to get down to the apartment building or home now. So now I know exactly what happened. So I thought maybe we could use the entrance parking lot separately, but maybe not.

[Lois Grossman]: I remember in the past, Loretta, they had the paper shredding truck at the Andrews when you came in. It wasn't near the festival, you just passed it on the way in. I don't know if it's worth doing that again. I remembered doing it.

[Alicia Hunt]: The only time we had the paper shredding out front was when the festival was inside one year, one or two years. And then we put the paper shredding in the McGlynn parking lot up front, but everything else was inside.

[Lois Grossman]: Right.

[Alicia Hunt]: Otherwise, it's always been there in that parking lot.

[Unidentified]: Right.

[Alicia Hunt]: But we did have it up front when we had the rain. We had electronics recycling in the front too, one year, but the rest of the festival was in the cafeteria.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, and the other suggestions. I mean, there were quite a few suggestions on that letter. I mean, one of them was overwhelmed. The first two were to make the festival longer. So instead of 12 to three, which is really short, make it 12 to four. I got that from a lot of exhibitors and people, and that said that most festivals are four hours. which I agree it would be great because it goes by so quick and we have so much going on. So that's something to consider, having the festival 12 to four. And then the other thing was, just thought of my mind. It was that, what was it? Oh, having an event after, right at the end for the exhibitors, like an exhibitor get together for one an hour. And a few people said, oh, if you kept the beer garden open, it would be great for exhibitors to network and get together after. And I like the idea, if we still have staff around, that would be, say, from 4 to 5, pending the weather. Or even if it did rain and we didn't have the festival outdoors, maybe after still provides the get-together for exhibitors. Any thoughts on that?

[Robert Paine]: That was a long time. So if you have that extra hour after, you know, plus an extra hour, maybe they can do the last, last, you know, minimize the, get the executor, get together. They might want to just get out of there. I don't know.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. Well, we could put that on the registration form as an option and see what happens.

[Robert Paine]: I know next year Columbus day or people, you know, indigenous people's day as as late as possible October 14th. So, we have to decide if we want to keep it. If we want wanted to do with the Saturday after that date, it would be October 19th. I don't know if there's an advantage to go to like October 20th, whatever it is, October 5th or something like that. So we can decide this early next year, but I just want to know whether we want to do a little earlier, the weekend before that holiday weekend. We generally try to not do it that holiday week.

[Lois Grossman]: Don't want to do it October 12th, that's Yom Kippur.

[Robert Paine]: All right, so it'd have to be the 5th of the 19th. Those are the dates. If that's a Saturday, that's the issue. Okay, so that's a good summary. I don't think I got your email, Loretta. Really?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Which one? The one about the festival?

[Robert Paine]: Was it today?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, it was last week.

[Robert Paine]: Okay. Last week I might've got it. Okay. Okay.

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I did just check and I did not receive it.

[Robert Paine]: I don't think I did either.

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I did not. We'll try it. Try it again.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Really?

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, sorry, I mean, if there's something else I can search for, but I was looking for you under your name, your email, and also in the Medford office of... No, I sent it through the new Medford email group. But from your account or from the Medford office of energy and environment?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Medford math, M-E-E-C at Medford, what is it? dash gov, the new email.

[Robert Paine]: Why did you try to send it again?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Loretta, was it the one you sent on Thursday with the information about HELPSI and the amount of... That was probably the first one with the attachment and then I sent one after that about the dehumidifiers.

[Lois Grossman]: I didn't see these emails. I'm going to check and see if they're in my spam or something.

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: It's funny. I have emails from before the event, but not after.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, that's okay.

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I received both of the ones that you sent on Thursday the 2nd, but it sounds like I might be the only one.

[Alicia Hunt]: I got them, so I'm forwarding them right now to the Energy Committee email list, because I'm curious to see if people get them. If I just hit forward on the exact same message. I just got one from you. Yeah.

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I just received what you just sent.

[Alicia Hunt]: And it doesn't thread for you. It doesn't show you that you had already received a copy of this. Like my email is threaded. So if you hit reply, if you reply to a message, I see them back to back with each other.

[Barry Ingber]: I got it.

[Alicia Hunt]: I will say that some, not infrequently, I can't find something in my mailbox and somebody will forward it to me and I will see that I did in fact receive the original, I just wasn't seeing it.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Lisa, did you just send it from your email address?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, from my email address to the mailing list.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: see, I get a notice when I say they're in my spam Loretta.

[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, well read his version. Yeah, we got to move you off of a well to Gmail.

[Lois Grossman]: One for November 4, and one from. Yeah, but that's using it. And one from November 2nd, there are three of these.

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yes, I actually find mine, the same ones in my spam as well.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: From the Metron Energy?

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yes.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, I don't know why it went to your spam.

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: It's the same titles as what Alicia just sent.

[Alicia Hunt]: Do you guys know how to like whitelist her so that anything from Loretta

[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: But what's funny is I've gotten plenty of things from Loretta in the past, so I don't know why. But anyway, I will, yes.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So who else is, let me just see. Bob, did you get them?

[Robert Paine]: I think Alicia, I got Alicia's forward, so we should all have it by now. All right, we'll look at that and we can get back to you separately. I think we're going to move on to the next agenda item, but thank you all for your. Suggestions we'll talk about usually in the January meeting, we try to set, we try to at least to discuss the date of the. 2024 festival, see if. You know, municipal calendars are open for which dates. So that'll be a January meeting agenda item. Just quickly on the webinar for Flooding Potential, Julie Wormser of the Mystic River Watershed Association made a presentation. It should have been, it should be, it will be, it was recorded and it should be up at some point, right, Brenda?

[Brenda Pike]: Yes, I have the link to that now, so it'll be up on the website tomorrow.

[Robert Paine]: I was very, very good. Good, good feedback. It lasted about an hour total with questions. And yeah, it looked like Medford was really very active in planning. So I don't know how many we had total registrants, though. It was hard to say. Do we even need to have the Tufts

[Alicia Hunt]: I can ask Rachel to look at the account. She didn't know how to pull the registration list, and I didn't think of that today when she was in the office.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: But Brenda, maybe you can help me remember. I know how to do that on a Zoom webinar. She just has to look into her account. There's a way to get that. It's just not obvious. You have to run a report.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. And I think she didn't have great visibility into it because it was, um, the, the Tufts account that we were using. Um, but I think she can, we can follow up with Rocco to get that.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Robert Paine]: All right. Um, why don't we go on then, Brenda, I give the meeting over to you and you can report on your activities.

[Brenda Pike]: sure so um let's see what's the list of things here um climate equity council um i think that i've mentioned um this group before this is the the group that is going to be um with members sort of representing sort of underrepresented groups in the city, with members that speak different languages, for instance, and we can get some feedback on some of the climate action plan work from them and they can help us to reach out into the community more. So their first meeting will be November 27th. And it will likely be the third Monday of the month moving forward. And this group, at least at first, is going to be made up of the Medford Connectors. So these are some folks who are part-time employees of the city who've been hired specifically to do outreach to different groups in the city. And so at least at first, these will be the folks who are making up this Climate Equity Council. And they're out of the Office of Outreach and Prevention. And so that first meeting, we're just going to be talking about the role of the Council, give an overview of the Climate Action Plan, so to get them up to speed, some of the immediate actions the City is working on right now, and then to get some feedback from them about, you know, what topics they want to focus on moving forward, what topics they want more information about. Any questions or anything about that topic? Okay, um, the specialized code. Um. The third reading of that it looks like will be November 14th. Now there were some scheduling changes for the city council. Um so it looks like it will be at the November 14th meeting. Um I don't think it's going to be an issue for that to pass. So I don't You know activism around that or anything just giving you an update on where that is but third reading is the last one, and if that's approved, and then it will pass. To be effective July 1 of next year. um. We are in the middle of installing seven charging stations. So we've started most of them now. So these are going to be at Tufts Park, the West Medford parking lot, the Yale Street parking lot, Brooks Elementary. and Roberts Elementary. And also the DPW, that's also going to be a public one as well. And we're also installing one at the police station, but that's going to be just for fleet use. So we've started the work of installing these. I expect that most of them will be operational by the end of this year, or I hope that most of them will be operational by the end of this year. Let's put it that way. And let's see here. Electrify Medford. So we should hear back about the MassCC Empower Grant in December. But I think the plan is to do the program with or without the grant. It's just if we don't have the grant, we wouldn't be able to have additional rebates to residents. We wouldn't be able to pay coaches to do outreach. So it would be sort of a slimmed down version of the program. I took the Rewiring America electric coaches training to see how useful that would be to any coaches that were interested in taking it from Medford. I think it would be useful for people who want to have a deeper understanding of heat pumps. I imagine that there would be different coaches would have different interests. Maybe some people would be more interested in doing sort of tabling and outreach and sort of more surface level outreach. And then there might be folks who are more interested in doing that sort of deeper one-on-one assistance. And those are the people who I think would get a lot out of that coaching, that training. Um, so if we have the, if we do receive the empower grant, then we would have some funding to put some of the coaches through that program. Um, I think rewired America is also also has some funding to put some people through the program. Um, but there's a wait list for that. So I'm not sure what the timeframe would be. So I'm going to continue to follow up with them to see if we can make their training available, available for people.

[Robert Paine]: I had a question. What does rewire America mean? Are we rewiring things?

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I think the original name was electrify everything.

[Robert Paine]: Okay.

[Brenda Pike]: And then they're sort of rebranded themselves as rewiring America, but it's really focusing on, you know, heat pumps, electric vehicles, things like that.

[Robert Paine]: OK, I didn't know if we had deficient wiring codes that we had to update or something. No, it's just use electricity more.

[Brenda Pike]: Yep, exactly. And let's see. Oh, I'm putting together an outreach plan. So I think at the next meeting, I'd love to send that all around to you beforehand to get some feedback on that. Um, oh, and one more thing I wanted to mention that the Department of Public Utilities has put out some aggregation guidelines, some draft aggregation guidelines that is supposed to make it easier or faster for municipalities to get their aggregation plans approved. Medford has been commenting on this with other municipalities through Good Energy, who's our aggregation consultant. And just along the lines that the, the guidelines are still too restrictive. It doesn't give municipalities the flexibility that we need to to really be offering. some real benefits to residents in a timely manner through these aggregations. So we're requesting a technical session with the DPU to talk about that. And we're also supporting a bill that's going through the legislature right now, Bill H3852. just trying to make it easier for us to make changes to our aggregation as those are needed. So if folks are interested in that at all, happy to go into more details offline.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have a question on that too. So in the past, I've worked with a lot of the the some other aggregations in Massachusetts, Averill, a few others, it's been a few years, but what I did with them was worked on their load forecasting and their day ahead optimization in the markets for the load that was under the aggregation. I was wondering, maybe we can talk about it offline a little bit, but I'm interested in the partner that Medford is working with and what sort of, I guess, energy management activities they're doing for Medford that could help unlock some value for us. So I'm happy to maybe help engage there a little bit if that would be useful.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I'd be happy to talk with you offline about it. I mean, Alicia, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think that the aggregation offerings are locked in for, what is it, a two-year period? Generally, roughly, it's not required to be that, but we tend to try to make it a consistent offering for people.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I was going to say, there's definitely, depending on the contract that we have, there's definitely some potential market opportunities that that we could take or at least see that the company, whoever we're working with as the manager of that creation is doing that can be a little bit, it can be a little bit hard to like fully get transparency on that. So, yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: Have you worked on Massachusetts municipal aggregations?

[SPEAKER_02]: just on the optimization. So like I said, Avril is one and then other, but optimizing their day ahead. We can talk about it offline. Yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: There's just, there are crazy DPU regulations. So we're able to like purchase for like two or three years at a time. The preference is three years. We, this time could only get pricing for two years cause the market was so crazy. But, um, There isn't a lot of options of what we can do because of the way the DPU tries to over-control everything, but we can discuss it. We've been working with, geez, I was gonna say the name of the company. Good Energy is the consultants that we've been working with.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, yeah, and I understand the rules around aggregations and retailers in Massachusetts can be really restrictive on that, but I guess I'm just offering that You know, it's something I've done for years and years, so happy to help take a look and see if maybe there is some potential market opportunity, because it can be a significant value.

[Robert Paine]: Barry, you have your hand up.

[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, I was wondering if Brenda could say more about what kind of changes we're looking at potentially implementing in the aggregation.

[Brenda Pike]: I think in general, it's just if we want to say increase the percentage of renewables included, we would have to go back to the DPU and have our plan go through the entire approval process again, rather than just that being a relatively minor change that we're making that we could do on our own.

[Alicia Hunt]: That's that's why we didn't go up from 5% as the default this year, we would have had to go back in line in the queue with DPU and it could have been a couple of years before they approved it. We're hoping with the new regulations with DPU. that if there was a quicker turnaround time, we could consider, like I never raised that as an issue because as soon as I became aware that it meant going back to DPU refiling and going through the entire process and that there were municipalities waiting years for their approval. I was like, well, no, well, then no.

[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, and Luke and I are familiarizing ourselves with the barriers that Boston is run into and trying to create a low income aggregation pool. So yeah.

[Robert Paine]: Bob, I had a question if you, if you file for a change, doesn't the current plan stay in effect anyway, or is there a risk.

[Alicia Hunt]: If we had a contract, so at the time we didn't have a contract in place, or we were needed to recontract. And if we wanted to put it out to bid with a different amount. that we had to wait until we got re-approved. I'm not sure what would happen if we tried like right now while we were at the start of a two-year contract to get re-approved, but are we really ready right now to say what that number should be in two years? I mean, that's part of this, like, we'd love to be able to have that flexibility to say, okay, right now, here's what the tolerance is. you know, let's do this.

[Brenda Pike]: And I think we always want to try to balance out the cost with the amount of renewables in the in the offering. And that's hard to do if you can't respond in real time to market conditions.

[Robert Paine]: Okay. Well, I think the state is supposed to be upping its emphasis on the climate law and maybe they'll make some changes to this and other areas. I have more Brenda or

[Brenda Pike]: That was all that I had for today.

[Robert Paine]: I think I had sent you a news item about the state had announced some more aggressive approaches for climate change. And maybe for next meeting, you might want to see if you can find out if there's anything that would affect Medford

[Brenda Pike]: Oh, the new the new plan that came out last week. Yeah. Yeah. Happy to talk about that next time.

[Robert Paine]: Okay, great. All right. Well, we have most of an hour to talk about the updated tree ordinance. What happened? I think it was November 11th or October 11th or something like that. I thought it was going to be a leaf blower hearing, but it ended up being a tree ordinance hearing in which, I forget the guy's name, the deputy building commissioner has sort of edited the draft from last year. And they've created three different ordinances. One is just the tree committee, then there's the public, and then there's a private. And they went over, I think, mostly the private one, because that's the most changed. And Loretta, you attended a Trees Medford meeting recently that talked about this? Yes. Yes. Maybe you could tell us, I think they're gonna try to dig into this new one versus the old one at the November meeting.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right, did you want me to speak about the meeting?

[Robert Paine]: Go ahead, yeah, that would be great.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, so Alicia and a few other people sent us the drafts that the city council would like if we have any comments to comment back to them, including Trees Medford. So at the last Trees Medford meeting, which was just a few weeks ago, I attended and Lois was there also. And we discussed the drafts and the takeaway was that at that meeting, which was a couple of weeks ago, that none of us had had a chance to read through the proposed drafts to make comments, including myself. And we needed some time and they were going to set a date. I think they're going to try to get together on the 14th of November to read the drafts and start preparing maybe some comments. And there were a couple of suggestions that they had made One of them, oh, maybe I didn't send that email. No, I did send that email. One of them was to, well, there are a couple of concerns, but we have a job to do and that's to respond. So I think that's the important thing is they've already done quite a bit of work on it and for us to respond and make the time to respond. reads through the comments and the proposed drafts. They did say it's been a year. So to refresh ourselves on what was written, it'll be quite a bit of time. To me, it's more than a day. It's a couple of days. But there's three different sections. There's a tree committee, there's private trees, and then there's zoning. I guess they moved it into zoning. But like I said, I haven't read it yet. We all agreed that, in thought before reading this, that maybe we should keep it, these are the, okay, so there's a couple of concerns. One, maybe we should look at, of course, what they wrote, but try to keep it simple and concentrate more on trees that would be affected by construction. And I asked them what they meant by that. not just large site plan review construction, but all construction, because that would affect, or that does affect the most trees as far as having them removed. So that was one thought. The other thought was we have a lot of new city councilors that may be coming in or there's an election tomorrow. And we don't know who's going to be on these committees with the city council. So those people would need to be educated about, you know, trees and read also. be appointed to that committee. So that was a big question. So one of the things that was brought up is that last year, late last year, through Planet Geo, there was a webinar for ordinances across the country. What was done in a discussion, there was fantastic learning experience for all planners and cities and people looking at tree ordinances. And it was recorded and there was part one and part two. So we agreed it would be a good idea to send it out to people just as education of what is out there already and also the difficulties other cities had for the guest speakers that are on that webinar and some key takeaways. So I did send that email out too last week. to the Energy Committee, but the other thought was also to send it to the city councilors that are on this Committee of the Whole too, at least to the future ones that may be appointed, which we don't know who they will be. So we're losing, I think, three city councilors.

[Alicia Hunt]: To be clear, just one thing, Loretta, the Committee of the Whole, whole means everybody, so all city councilors are on the Committee of the Whole. Oh, so whoever gets elected tomorrow will be on it.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: OK, so what about that subcommittee that actually reviews?

[Alicia Hunt]: So sometimes things go to like a subcommittee on ordinances, things like that. Sometimes they go to subcommittees and those you don't know who will be on it. But I wouldn't worry too much about who, after tomorrow, I wouldn't worry so much about who educate them all, because in the end, all the city councilors have to vote on the ordinance, regardless of whether it's in subcommittee or committee.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, I see. So the meeting last month was the committee of the whole, but there were many members missing. So that's why I thought it was the subcommittee.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: There was very, a lot of them were missing from the meeting. So, okay. Okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think it was a committee of the whole.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That's what I was, in the past, when they were breaking the draft ordinance from Therese Medford up, they had it in a subcommittee. So things, it's been, like I said, it's been a year. So our job is to, you know, read, read the, address that was sent to us and they're looking forward to our comments. And I'm sure it's changed a lot, trees methods have changed a lot. They want to look to see the original one they submitted and how it's changed. So it's quite a job for us to decide on.

[Lois Grossman]: Sarah sent something to David, did you see it?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: The what, I'm sorry?

[Lois Grossman]: Sarah sent around, Sarah Gerald, she sent around her edited version. Oh, when? This afternoon. So when you check your email, you'll find it. Okay. I suppose we could share it with anybody else that's interested. She's gone through and color coded comments that they're going to submit.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, they did it already.

[Lois Grossman]: Okay. Well, she's got that version. I hope to read it tomorrow.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, so I didn't see that. I was on the computer a lot today. I didn't see that come through. I'm curious what happened to the November 14th meeting they said. Okay. But anyway, so we thought it would be a good idea if we could collaborate and agree on some of this, but so we have a united front suggestion.

[Lois Grossman]: If the rest of the committee wants to delegate me and Loretta as a subcommittee that can act in the name of the Energy and Environment Committee,

[Barry Ingber]: You run into open meeting law questions, problems if you do that. You and Loretta can just work on it and make a recommendation informally like Luke and I are working on solar roofs and make a recommendation to the, without being designated a subcommittee.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think that the question is if they need to provide feedback to the city council before the next energy committee meeting, do you all empower them to do that? Or does this committee's feedback to the city council need to wait until you can discuss it at your next energy committee meeting?

[Barry Ingber]: I think it needs to wait.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: It needs to wait. I'm not ready to, and I'd like Luke to, I mean, he left early, but he's familiar with a lot of this. So I'd like to see if he can, So I'm unclear of how do we proceed? What is the suggestions of, I like what Barry said, we have, so actually getting back to what Barry said, we should do this on our own and submit our comments to the committee at the next meeting.

[Robert Paine]: That would make sense. Alicia, do we have any sense of when the city council expects the review to occur by all these groups that were provided the drafts?

[Alicia Hunt]: I don't remember if they asked for feedback by a certain time.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I did. I did ask Alicia and Bob. I met with Zach and I asked him, I said, does this need to be done in the next few weeks, you know, by the December or November? And he said, I don't think we're going to get to it before the end of the year. He said there's too much in with the elections and everything. That's what he said. So I think they're looking at the end of December, January, but. It doesn't mean we should stall, but, you know.

[Barry Ingber]: We might be better off that way, actually. You know, the city council is going to change, and I think it's going to change in our favor.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. That's what I'm thinking. Bob, let's get direction here. So we're going to read it and comment on our own and submit back to the committee, right?

[Robert Paine]: Yeah, I'd like to see what the Trees Medford committee is gonna have, but I think the next meeting we'll have to have a, it would be nice to have something before us to review as a consolidated set of comments. And if you and Lois are willing to take input from some of us.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I can do that.

[Robert Paine]: And then report back a distilled set of comments, that'd be good. So I guess you all have the, I sent out the, especially the private one. I think the, although there might be some comments on the public tree and the tree committee, but I think the private one is the most different than before. In my view, it was, There was no mention of anything about the diameter of breast height at all. There's no quantification because before it was like $300 per inch and there's nothing about that in there.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: In the draft, right.

[Robert Paine]: And then there was about, if you clear a lot, you only have to pay $1,000 for the clearing a hole. That was like, holy mackerel, that's like, It takes more to cut one tree than to pay for that. That was like, holy mackerel, that's a, that's pretty.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That was really, those are some of the key points that I brought up at that last meeting. I mean, I appreciated the commissioner's report, but some of those numbers are just not getting back to, it's what Medford can do, and this ordinance should be for what Medford can do. it's good to look at what's already in place in other cities to help preserve the tree canopy. So, you know, it's hard. They've done all this work already to see what they wrote in the draft and respond to that. But what about the other things they left out? So it's very difficult as far as fees and diameter of breast height. That's all documented in the tree report. If people wanna read that for informational purposes, that's a guide for municipalities to preserve trees. And it will say all the cities that already have an ordinance, the measurements of trees, what they charge anywhere from 100 to $800 per square inch of tree removal. And there have been developers and contractors that actually pay that. And also the aggregate of trees. So if you have a tree that's a foot in diameter, that's 12 inches, and you take out 15 of those, it's the total amount of trees that's calculated in that number of square inch. I will refer to Cambridge and some other cities that do get payments of $200,000 or $400,000 in clear a lot. Does that help us? Where are we going to replace those trees in our lifetime with new trees that may not survive? If you want to read the report, it's on the Go Green website under trees as a guide. That's for educational purposes. If anybody has any questions and they want to email me or Luke, but we're the only two left on the original tree report committee, feel free to email me with questions.

[Robert Paine]: I was wondering if the city has the staff to manage an aggressive tree ordinance. I think it was slimmed down to make it simpler to manage. I don't know, Felicia, you know, whether the, since the building The building department would presumably have to issue these permits. They probably wanted to make it so they can manage it.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right, so there's an in-between place, right? So like what they wanted, it was like, can we have some formulas? And if it meets the formula, we charge the money and move on. And that's to help them manage it. But on the other hand, the formula that they're using is too low, right? So if they had literally said the same formula, but they were charging $100,000 an inch or whatever, then everybody would be like, oh, sounds great. So I think that part of what the city council needs to hear is around this feedback that like the thousand dollar number is not the right number, but if they wanted to clear cut a lot, they could pay. $300,000 into the fund, or if they wanted to like for every tree for this many inches it's some number and Laura read has done a ton of research on this, so tell us what number should be, but I think what he was sort of getting at was that. can we do this in a way that somebody doesn't have to go out there and measure every single tree, that we can just issue them a permit and here's how it works, and you make the permit costly enough so people don't just do this lightly, but if they are gonna do it, it generates some real money that can be used for some real stuff, right? I think that's where they were getting at the balance.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And what's interesting is they can certainly, like I said, I haven't read the draft. So I don't want to stray too far from what's written or what lawyers may have suggested that have reviewed some of the questions, but how about keeping a percentage of the existing trees, especially if they're a certain size. And I didn't think that was addressed either by the commissioner anyways. So it seemed to me in that committee of the whole meeting, that they were moving towards the lines of allowing completely clear-cutting a lot, no matter what the size or the amount of trees were. So those are things I'll be looking for.

[Alicia Hunt]: To be clear, the city council wasn't moving that way. The building commissioner was recommending it and there was nobody standing there saying, this is a bad idea and here's why. I feel like everybody's super polite at those meetings and nobody wants to contradict the building commissioner and nobody wants to, but so everybody's just like, oh, well, thank you for your recommendation. And what they need is somebody to say, no, here's why. And I don't have the here's why in my head that I can just speak to it like that. Like you have that information in your head.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. I did speak up.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. But what the council's actually doing is making it easy for you to provide them that like, this is a bad idea and here's why in writing so that they can review it without you having to stand up there on TV and do it.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right, right. And Tree's Mansion was there. There were other people that, the only people I think that spoke up was Alicia and myself. So it would have been good if more people had spoken up that are involved in this. But I'm sure Alicia, you'll be watching the calendar in case it comes up, because you might see it first before us.

[Alicia Hunt]: They're likely to say, you know, when, when will the recommendations be back? Do you have recommendations and then base it on that?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay. All right.

[Robert Paine]: Yeah, I think it'll probably be early next year.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, I'm not going to, I don't want to be surprised.

[Robert Paine]: They're going to be going through, there's going to be a whole turnover of people. So I don't think they're going to act. before the end of this year, I would say.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I do have a question for Alicia. So when years ago, this has been going on for a couple of years, when we had the, I don't know, was it the master plan? There were many plans for zoning and recommendations. Oh, the environmental report that the city came out with. There's a title for it, I forgot the name. It's a big booklet.

[Alicia Hunt]: The Climate Action and Adaptation.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right, yes, okay. Climate Action and Trees. A lot of the meetings we had attended, our suggestions were actually in that report. But moving forward since then, in planning in your office, is there anybody that has been looking at trees and writing more suggestions?

[Alicia Hunt]: So that report only got finalized a year ago. It feels like it was a long time, but it's a very new report. And there was a lot of tree stuff put in there. So a lot of Brenda's job is looking at the climate plan and what's moving forward and where do things stand. But we don't have anybody with the bandwidth to focus just on trees. Now, I don't know if you saw the press release, but the DPW just got a grant to do a urban forest vulnerability assessment. They have a lot of money and they've hired Weston and Sampson to do this assessment of their trees. And so it's not looking at what is everybody else doing, but it's actually an assessment of the actual trees in Medford. And I think that the DPW is interested in taking more of a lead on this sort of work. They applied for the grant. They just, they told me they were doing it.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. And they were at the festival. So their work with the city just for public trees or the whole tree canopy?

[Alicia Hunt]: I believe that that assessment is just street trees. I would need to confirm, but I'm pretty sure that that's what it is. There was a press release. It may have said something. It's an MVP grant. Brenda, I have a copy of their grant app. I'm fairly sure under our grants MVP this year folder, if we wanted to see what they actually applied for.

[Brenda Pike]: I dropped a link into the chat. I think this is what you're talking about. Yes.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, well, that was back in mid-August. It feels like it was two weeks ago. So it is maintenance strategies. Yeah.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, so it's for the DPW, it's for public trees, city trees.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, I'm pretty sure because public trees really fall under their jurisdiction.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. Okay, I was just curious because I know like Amanda and different people, there's so many people in your office and they've changed over the years. Sometimes it gets confusing for me to keep track of all the reports that you're working on. And especially when they moved the trees into like zoning. And I'm like, okay, where, what, so I have to read what they did. So, but thank you for that information. I was thinking about, I was thinking about site plan review and if they put trees or landscape design standards into that. So I thought you had hired or the city had hired a landscape design person at some point.

[Alicia Hunt]: We have a couple of landscape design firms on call that we use for different projects, but it's not on staff.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And are they part of the site plan review?

[Alicia Hunt]: So no, but we have the site plan review is the planning board that's community development board and that's where we have. People with different backgrounds, so we usually try to have somebody with a landscape design background. Like somebody who's a landscape designer on that board, we usually have a transportation planner, somebody who's general planner, somebody who's in construction, and they've always cared about trees. They ask for trees, they ask for native trees. And when there's gonna be a bunch of trees, they say, we want you to work with our, what do you call Aggie's position? Our arborist, and she needs to approve your trees. Um, okay. So that board, so, you know, my, my, my staff and I are their technical advisors. Okay.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. Cause I'm thinking about the other cities and when we read through their ordinances that were pretty strict, not that, but under a large site plan review, many of them had a landscape design standards for trees. Um, and that came under, I don't know, there's so many, that's under, what did you say that department, that site plan review community development?

[Alicia Hunt]: It's the community development board that does that.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. So in other cities, they have landscape design standards that involve the trees. And that's what I was wondering if that was ever done. Right.

[Alicia Hunt]: We've started putting in performance standards that include some information. Like off the top of my head, there's requirements that if you have parking lots that are large parking lots for every 20 parking spots, you then have to have an island with a tree. Stuff like that.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. And that's actually one of the things that comes up in a lot of the ones I read, parking lots and having rows of trees to, you know, protect like trespass and provide, you know, a screen, a privacy screen, but they also had, you know, landscape, if someone was planning to develop a project and they submit site plan review, they also had to submit a drawing, landscape drawing of the existing landscape, including the trees, which would include the height and all the actual diameter of the trees and the aggregate amount and what it would look like before and after when they were done. But that would come into ordinances. But cities are tending to go that way, as many cities are losing the trees to develop. So, thanks for that information. It's a lot to keep track of. I'm sure for you too.

[Robert Paine]: This is Bob. I was going to just interject that the ability of the city to manage the tree ordinance would be maybe, I don't know if that's consideration, but there could be a lot of of staff power needed, especially with experts, if you have lots of people wanting to, if you have to have someone look at every tree you want to cut down and approve it. I was not clear about if a homeowner wants to just cut a tree, not going to develop anything, wants to cut a tree, what do they have to do? It looks like they would have to apply for a permit. It's not clear if it costs anything, as that's not mentioned at all. It's not clear that if they get, who's gonna approve it? What's the likelihood of it being approved? If it's not approved, is there an appeal process? All that's not mentioned at all. How long does it take? And all that stuff needs to be considered. Now, Winchester totally abolished the private, issue. They banished the committee, they dissolved it, and they're not going to have any private thing at all. There was a tremendous pushback. People don't want their property rights to be diluted. So that's what happened again in Winchester. They just rode them out of town.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I'd like to speak to that. I saw your email, Laura, and I just wanted to point out that ordinances and what cities can do are unique to their city. So in Winchester, the housing there is residential housing is over 90% single family homes. So the reason that Winchester did not get their tree preservation attempt ordinances passed is because Over 90% of the properties are single family homeowners. And those people were the most that complained and didn't want that. But tonight they're redoing at a meeting to try to reestablish another tree committee to start this up again. Because they are having the same problems that residents are cutting down trees. one right after the other, and they may not have the development that we have because there's so many single family homes, but when they're redoing homes or whatever, they're losing lots of trees. So they have the same issues and they're going to continue with this, but that's one example. I mean, we have in the tree report all the other towns that had similar issues. And we can make this simple. We don't have to make this complicated. And we could just say, you know, to start with, we could start with the construction. Anyone that's doing construction, we do a tree save area. And if the tree is a certain age and preserve, you know, historic trees or trim them and have ISA certified. arborists who are registered with the city prefer warm work on trees so they don't damage trees. That's a big one that if you do get to listen to the webinar, you know, when you're home and you're doing laundry or whatever that I sent you the links. That's one way that you can, cities can prevent, you know, in uphold their witnesses is by having an ISA certified arborist so that when people try to complain or sue or rebut, you have that authority figure that can review and discuss the appeals. and why it's important to keep trees. But in any event, I'm getting off track. So at this point, I think it's important to see what other cities have done. I mean, there are, we could do tree preservation of a certain size to preserve historic trees and the, also the, amount of aggregate trees that are removed. I do remember, and I'll speak on Luke's behalf even though he's not here, is to put the burden back on the city to allow anyone to cut down a vast number of trees. It's very hard because we can't replace old trees that are 20, 50, 60 feet high in our lifetime. So if we allow someone to remove trees, And we're not trying to stop development. We're just trying to preserve the most beneficial trees that add to our environmental assets. Where do we put them? So in the tree, but we never really agreed with that. Why would we allow all these trees to be cut down and pay into a tree fund to plant new baby trees somewhere else? So think about that when you're reviewing ordinances. It's like impossible. We'll never get that benefit back. So I'll end with that. Fill me in.

[Robert Paine]: Dan, you have your hand up.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think you actually addressed my questions at the end there. And the answer might be just go watch the webinar and read the documentation. But I had two questions from what you were talking about. Is there any type of... Is there any distinction between type or species of tree here? That's one concern I kind of have around putting something in place, maybe a little bit to Bob's concerns. There's obviously some trees that are potentially more beneficial than others. um you know native trees or or others that have some sort of historical significance um and is there any sort of um way to remove a tree and then plant another one in a in a similar area that's like some sort of ability to to do that without uh a prohibitive cost i think would be my two main questions but if the answer is just go read the documentation i'll go do that as well well an answer to your question

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: When they talk about trees and most ordinances, they have a minimum standard for the diameter of the inch of the tree. And some cities are as low as six inches in diameter and others go up to 10. I think there's even one city that has 12. But when you look at the city that has 12, they're very, what's the word? You know, they're way out in the country and they have a lot of large trees. So they can maybe afford to lose trees that big in diameter. But the definition is that there are some trees that are slow growing, slow growing. So they still could be 30, 40, 50 years old, but they may not meet the six inches or eight inches. So it depends on the species and For cities that had more money, they have a huge guide of what those trees are. A lot of cities don't because it's a lot of work to list all the trees. But there is a, and I'm sure Aggie Tudin has it, there is a standard guide by the Arborist Association of Trees. I mean, I don't have that exact one. And the other thing you brought up, what was the second thing that you brought up about replacing them?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, what kind of language there is about replacing trees that are cut down or removed?

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I still didn't hear that. You were breaking up. Say that again.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm in the car. My question was, is there language around being able to replace trees or plant multiple trees to replace a single tree that is removed and avoiding costly removal fees or penalties.

[Lois Grossman]: There was language like that, Dan. There is. I mean, it's one of the principles. If you're going to reduce the tree canopy, you have to rebuild the tree canopy.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right.

[Lois Grossman]: You paid to have a tree elsewhere.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. Either. But I'll add to what Lois said, either on the same lot or by paying into the tree fund and then you put the burden on the city to plant that tree or aggregate number of trees. So for example, if 300 inches of trees was removed and allowed and they don't want it back on their property or they can't fit it on their property, that's one example, there's many. They might require them to keep a certain percentage on the property. But if it was 300 inches of trees removed in diameter of the trunk, they could pay that amount, whatever the fee is per inch, to the city and they put this burden back on the city to plant that amount of trees, whatever that would buy, if trees are $200 each for small trees or whatever, to plant them somewhere else on public property.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, thanks. That's great to hear. I'll review everything in more depth. My immediate concern was just from an equity perspective, too. A lot of Medford is very dense, and there are a lot of trees. I worry, maybe a little bit to Bob's point, I worry a little bit about shifting costs onto homeowners, so they have to make a decision between getting the proper permit or homeowners, or renters, or really anyone, are in between getting a proper permit and having a significant cost versus removing a fast-growing tree that might impact their property. That's the only concern I have. So thank you for that answer.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, well, there's actually a lot. If it's diseased or Norway maples, there are certain trees that do grow out of sight. And if they weren't maintained properly, Those are exceptions. Invasive tree species.

[Barry Ingber]: I'd like to throw in a couple of comments. These were comments that I made with the earlier version of the ordinance, and I have not had a chance to read the documents that Bob sent out, so they may have been addressed. but there's three particular things that, actually there were four, but I'm gonna skip one of them that I'm concerned about. One was, there was some really problematic language in the original ordinance regarding affordable housing. And I hope that that has been dealt with. The second thing is what Dan is alluding to, is that there was no exclusion for invasive and noxious species. And I hope that that has been addressed. And the third, which I suspect has not been addressed, is the mitigation. And I suspect it's not been addressed because I'm even hearing people talking about inches now, diameter inches. And anybody here, I mean, there's a number of people here with engineering background and math background. Diameter isn't the right measure. Cross section, the area of cross section is the right measure. Three, four inch trees is nowhere near equivalent to a 12 inch diameter tree. It's like, that's like three baby trees compared to a big tree. So it shouldn't be measured in diameter. It should be measured in area of cross-section. That would be a lot closer to an accurate way to mitigate a loss of trees. And yeah, other comments are relatively minor, but those three are big.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: It's interesting, Barry. You know, the original way back when we were preparing the research document, there are many areas for a permit. The problem is having a staff to review all the permits. And one of the suggestions is the permit to have a review was very low cost or free. it was just to have the city be aware of what trees are being considered to be taken down so they could keep track of the tree canopy. And that's the whole point of the permit is so that we can document the trees that are being lost, not so much the application fee, but to have the conversation, to have the person have the conversation and the staff person be able to go out and speak with that property owner. to preserve trees and keep an inventory.

[Robert Paine]: So in summary, I guess Loretta, you and Lois might be the focal point for disseminating trees Medford updates and also digesting edits that we send to you and report at the next meeting how things are going.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Lois Grossman]: And we'll see if they're willing to share documents that they are now preparing for the Drees Medford group, if they're willing to share with us, in which case we would forward. Right. Must be time to end the meeting. Alicia's cat has appeared.

[Unidentified]: Oh.

[Robert Paine]: Yeah, any other comments, any other items you'd like to consider for the next meeting other than this? And of course, Brenda will have updates.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: There's just one quick thing I would like to ask Alicia for her opinion, if I could just squeeze this in with the kitty cat there. As far as solicitors to homeowners, we have this rule, I don't know if it's a law, but solicitors are supposed to check in with the Metro Police Department. And I think they get a tag or a notice because they show their identity for the businesses that they're soliciting from. And I wondered if you had any more information on that, because there was a solar company that was being obnoxious and metric recently and posted on Facebook. And we know, you and I know that company from last year or so ago. And I was curious because I need to find out more about the process for that.

[Alicia Hunt]: Did they get approved if they just registered with the police department know if I remember correctly it hasn't come up in quite a while. They have to go into the city clerk's office and register with the city clerk's office. And I don't remember what the vetting is or how it's decided who gets permits or who doesn't. But they're supposed to register. And I think a lot of it is just around so that there's some contact. If there was a problem, somebody could then say, oh, they registered. We know who that is. We know who the company is. If somebody then complained about them, you would have contact information for the company. But I'm not sure. I don't know that they say no. I don't remember if they quarry check them. Honestly, it's been several years. I think it was pre-pandemic that it was like an issue. It was like a big problem in Medford.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, so maybe I made the wrong call. So I called them over to the police department to find out the process. And it was pretty vague. They just have to show their company information, ID. And I think maybe I got the wrong person to speak with. And they just, I'm pretty sure that we were tagged, that we were an ID that's issued from- No, the city does not give out an ID.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'm sure they don't.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, they don't, okay. So then I asked, well, what happens if you get complaints, you know, and they're bothering, you know, residents? And he said, they have to file a police report. I'm like, these people aren't gonna do that. I would think if they kept a list, if they could just say, oh, we're not gonna allow you to, they'll have to find out more, okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it's pretty low key, honestly. They're supposed to register but I don't remember a lot of the details, sorry. But I thought it was the clerk's office, not the police department.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Interesting. Yeah, I was doing that off memory, like, I'm like 25 people complain about a particular company.

[Alicia Hunt]: So the reality is, if the issue is that we think they're a bad company, but they're not doing anything wrong going door to door, right? Like, they're not They're not robbing people's houses. They're just annoying. But we think that they're not a good company. We're not supposed to and allowed to say that as the public. That was one thing that the Consumer Protection Bureau does. Like you can check them with them. You can report them to the Attorney General's office. And the Consumer Protection Bureau would say to me, Oh, yeah. 20 people have complained about that company this year. And they could say that and they could say that to anybody. But if I'm like, well, I think they're very high priced and they do crappy work. I'm not supposed to say that because they're a private company and I work for the city.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: This company was being obnoxious and trespassing and going back to homeowners many times and we're told to leave.

[Alicia Hunt]: That's the kind of thing that I would call the police. That's like a police matter then. Okay.

[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I just thought they'd have a list of who not to allow. Okay, thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think so.

[Robert Paine]: Okay, our future meetings will be December 4th and then I suspect in January, since the first Monday is New Year's Day, we're not going to have a meeting on New Year's Day. It'll be January 8th. Unless that conflicts with a lot of city business, but that's the current plan. All right, I guess we have come to the point of adjournment. I guess I will move to adjourn. Anybody opposed? I hear none. All right. We'll see you maybe at the November 29th event. And certainly December 4th, it'll be a Zoom meeting. Thank you.