[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Okay. Okay, good. Good evening, folks. Welcome to the energy and Environment Committee meeting. And in tonight's meeting, I wanted to let's let's first start by doing a roll call. So we have, let's see, as part of our committee members, I'll start with, with Bob, Bob. Present.
[Unidentified]: Dan. I'm here. Okay, Sarah. Present. Lois.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Hi, Loretta. Loretta, you're present. Yes. And I think the other members are not members of the committee. No, that's right. So anyways, that's all we've got. I think we don't have any other people joining in. If they show in, then we can, I guess, include them in there. But just before we start, I have to give you a rundown of The. What do we call it? Yeah, so just to let you know that on July 6, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law an act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations. This allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely through March 31st, 2023. That's been extended, I believe, without a quorum of the public body physically present at the meeting location and to provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. In accordance with this Act, this meeting of the City of Medford Energy and Environment Committee is being conducted totally via remote participation using Zoom, including committee members and the public. The use of Zoom complies with the law's requirement to provide live, adequate alternative. All right, so as part of the agenda today, I wanted to, usually we start with some administrative details. But since our guest, Mr. Rocco Sieri, has a time constraint, I have included his talk at the very beginning so we can talk about administrative stuff. afterwards. So let me first go ahead and introduce Mr. Seery. Mr. Seery is the Science Director for Medford Public Schools. He's been with Medford Public Schools for 24 years. He's taught in Medford Public Schools and it is really a great delight to have him here and very much appreciate it. very much appreciate him spending the time to talk to us about the initiatives and projects that, or some of the initiatives and projects that he has, he's supervising or is part of in Metro Public Schools regarding engaging students in environmental and and energy issues. So with that, I'll give the floor to Mr. Siri.
[Rocco Cieri]: Good evening, everyone, and thanks for the really generous introduction. I really appreciate it. As you all know, I've been in the public schools for 24 years and I do recognize a few friendly faces in the crowd there. There are a number of projects that we've been working on that Mr. Tesalemi has had reached out to the schools to find out a bit about and to, I would give you a little bit of an overview of. Our purpose is really light touch and it's just something that I'm gonna share based on our experiences. As you know, the pandemic really affected some of the outcomes and the possibilities that we were working on and we were developing over time. But there have been some things sort of in the background that I've been trying to pilot and continue. And I just wanted to give you a quick overview of some of those things, if that's okay. And then I'm going to leave time for questions and allow you to sort of ponder the type of involvement that students could have with the organization, with your group. First of all, the high school still continues to offer an elective in environmental science. That's after biology and chemistry. And they can take it either their junior or senior year. And this upcoming year is the first time that the vocational technical high school students are able to participate in elective courses. And that's because we moved down the requirements, the course requirements at the high school. So ninth graders take biology, 10th graders take chemistry, and next year will be, as we roll that out, next year will be the first time that students will be able to take elective courses. A very small number of kids at the vocational technical high school take physics, another small number of them take take anatomy and physiology, but it really depends on what they've chosen as their potential field of interest and the overwhelming number of students who will be exposed to environmental science. So that gives us a really big audience to talk about some of the initiatives and ideas and future of this particular topic and your group in Medford. It's the first year, so I think as we think about what the long-term possibilities of collaboration are and the types of projects that we envision for students to participate in, this is really it's wide open and it will continue to be so we're hoping that the science elective continues to be robust interesting but definitely relevant to the lives of the students so that's one piece is where in the curriculum this kind of piece lives. A second thing that we do in our biology classes, we were really, I was really interested in finding projects where students could participate in some sort of environmental impact project. And we learned many years ago, several years ago, that the marbled salamander had all but disappeared in the Fells area. And there was a group that was interested in introducing the marbled salamanders back. So it's a reintroduction project that began, I want to say in 2016. And we received a grant fortuitously, it was through a student who won regional science fair. and then went on to the State Fair. And because of her win at the State Fair, it allotted a certain quantity of money to the district, in addition to her winnings. And one of the best uses that we ever made of it was to begin to collaborate with what was I think it was, I don't remember the exact name of the nonprofit, but they were the ones that were going out and collecting marbled salamanders from Western mass to then introduce them into the fells. So we funded the organisms and the habitats and things like that through that money. And it was a great exposure experiment for students because they really needed to and for the teachers to have a real life. organism present in the classroom that they needed to care for that then went right in their backyard and then. hopefully the reintroduction had worked. We're finding right now that there are larvae in some of the vernal pools in the fells. I won't disclose any more information, but it is on Facebook. We've got video evidence of the little larvae in the vernal pools. I don't know if you've been following it, but It's there there, and we know of at least one clutch in one of the vernal pools that has that has sort of taken. We're not sure about the one that is closest to the high school because we haven't had an opportunity to go look, but we're hopeful that that. is continuing during the pandemic, we had to put a pause on bringing in the marbled salamanders because we really didn't know whether we were going to be in school or not. And we actually had marbled salamanders that teachers had to take home and care for actually they took care of the. of another species, but those ones had to be, they were almost near their ability to be released into the wild. So they went to Zoo New England at the Stone Zoo with the rest of their family and then got released to the fowls. A second organism that we work with is a turtle. It's called the Blanding's turtle. That's another project where we get very small turtles and then release them into grow them for the entire year we track their growth to make sure that they reach sort of like the the correct size, and the hope is that they get to a size that is about. In seven or eight months of time, they grow to the size of a five or six year old turtle in what I call Hotel Medford High. It's a really beautiful place and warm, and so an organism that doesn't have that environment in the wild can really, and they get fed every day, they can just grow to the correct size. That project continues, will continue next year because this year we got a little funding that was a little late on it, but it's part of the project. And again, it's great to grow organisms in school. The challenge is to make sure that we have a place for them to go in the summer. That's why I sort of think these types of projects where they're reintroduction projects into environments within Massachusetts of either species that are at risk or species that we would like to reintroduce into areas within Massachusetts that are native species work really well for students because they're learning a lot of different things along the way. So that's our sort of life science piece that happens in biology classrooms and in the environmental science classroom. In chemistry, students are learning about water filtration. It's part of their chemistry curriculum. And that was started about two or three years ago. Students develop projects on water filtration, trying to identify the best ways to do this. And again, this is like an engineering project that we try to do in chemistry, where they learn about solids, liquids, gases, and all kinds of other types of materials to work with. And also in a cursory way about pollution in a chemistry class, just to make it relevant for the students. And again, those are sophomores, so 10th graders. And finally, there are a couple of projects that are gonna be piloted this summer where it won't be introduced until May. Students will be able to apply. It's a very light application process to participate with the Massachusetts Science and Engineering Fair where they'll work on something called a think tank. And the think tank is centered on the large topic of sustainability. And the purpose is for kids to come up with a project that has some kind of relevance to the local environment, come up with a formal proposal, do the background research in the formal proposal, and work with their community to be able to find a way to, you know, carry out the project in some way. It doesn't need to be a giant project. It doesn't need to be something that they independently come up with, but it is by its nature a really collaborative opportunity. I believe I will be able to support 10 students to participate in it. It is largely going to be done independently. What I'm guiding them through is the process of developing a research project and finding the correct group individuals that will sort of be able to collaborate with them and then come up with with a project that's doable within the community. Again, I think it's gonna be something really great. It will all depend on how much interest I can generate within the students and how many of them sign up to be able to be a part of it. But that's sort of the third arm of the things that we do. We have other things that go on within those classrooms, but again, it's been very difficult to have kids participate post pandemic and things that happen after school. We're getting there, it's getting better, but it is really, there's no question that the pandemic has had an effect on the students and their connection to one another, but also to, you know, just to the community, the school community, and sustaining their interest there has been a challenge across the board. We're working on it, and we're trying to give them the relevant projects that keep them engaged. So those are the things I wanted to talk about really briefly, just give you an overview of what's going on. These things can trickle down to lower grades, but it all depends on whether our higher level grade students can sort of put their energy into it to be able to sort of get the interest of younger kids in and get it more participatory. but ultimately those are the three that we're in right now. So if you have any questions, please feel free. I'm gonna mute myself so I can hear them, but feel free to ask any questions that you have.
[Unidentified]: Thank you for the presentation. Thank you very much, yes.
[Robert Paine]: Hey, Rocco, this is Bob Payne. What's the Facebook, how do I find it here, the Facebook page?
[Rocco Cieri]: So the Facebook announcements about the marbled salamanders, I believe, is under, you know, I might have to send you an email, but I believe the organism is called Earth Wise Aware, EWA. Earthwise Aware, that is another group within the Fells area. It's not limited to Medford, but they do community surveys, plant surveys, things like that. They're actually active in some ways, good group to have to know about. Earthwise Aware is the name.
[Robert Paine]: In the past, there have been, oh, I'm sorry, did someone else want to ask a question?
[Lois Grossman]: When you're done, just let me know. It's a small question.
[Robert Paine]: I was just going to say, there might have been student ambassadors that monitored our meetings. as far as during the school year, and mostly, of course, during the summer, we only have one meeting anyway. But Rocco, you might want to see if there's any interest, and this could be community service credits for students to chime in on these monthly meetings of our committee, if there's any interest in that.
[Rocco Cieri]: That's great. I think part of the group of 10 that I'll be assembling starting in May would be an excellent group of kids to start to engage in that work.
[Robert Paine]: Go ahead, Dolores, if you want.
[Lois Grossman]: Yeah, I'm interested in your salamander project. And I'm wondering, are the vernal pools being severely affected by this dry spell?
[Rocco Cieri]: Is it interesting? Yeah, that's a great question. The vernal pool side, I am not sure about because I don't monitor them. Zoo New England monitors and EWA, the Earthwise Aware Monitor, we simply grow the marbled salamanders from from essentially a larval stage to when they're fully, they're not quite adult, but they're in their like adult bodies. And then we release them into the fells. So those locations are protected. I believe the vernal pools are certified. So they shouldn't We don't release where we've released them because we don't want them to be overrun, but ultimately the vernal pools themselves are certified. From what I can tell, organisms usually adapt to the different conditions. If the water starts to disappear, interestingly, the larva start to go into their adult phase at the same time period. works quite well for them.
[Lois Grossman]: Good to know. Thank you.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Hi, Rocco. Yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead, Larissa.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Hi, Rocco. This is Loretta James. I've been helping coordinate the Harvester Energy Festival. So I think we talked maybe last year and other years. So I wanted to give you the date for that, which is Saturday, October 14th this year. And it would be great if the students can have an exhibit or some kind of presentation table. In the past, and also because of the pandemic, things have been a little slow with getting the schools back on board, but we've had many, if you remember, and you were involved years ago, many of the schools will have a presentation at the festival and maybe exhibit a project and things that they're working on. So I wanted to give you the heads up for that. for Saturday, October 14th this year.
[Rocco Cieri]: I just put it on my calendar. I appreciate that. And again, some of that has lowered not because of interest, but because of the pandemic and things ramp back up to normal, hopefully this year. I'm always hopeful that the upcoming year is gonna be better than the one we've just been through.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right and also I'd like to you know just get onto a Bob said by pain said is that would be great if the students are interested in our monthly meetings, which are the first Monday of each month at 630. In the summer.
[Rocco Cieri]: That's great. I'm sure we can get some interest. And as I said, we've got such a robust group going into the environmental science classes and those opportunities sort of abound for their, you know, we can encourage them to to you know, to be present with a lot of incentivizing, but also hopefully they can return with some information for us as well, which is, and learn what's going on in Medford right in their local community. So it's a great, I think it's a great one and an easy one to do for us.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Thank you. Rocco. I was wondering, have you thought about getting what ways to encourage parents to get getting engaged in, in, you know, a lot of times what happens is kids. you know, kids' time is, you know, revolves, constrained by parents' work situations too, you know. And so, you know, what, have you given any thought to that or, you know, do you have any opinions on that?
[Rocco Cieri]: Yeah, I think, I think you're you're right on the nose their interests also sort of track with what their families are interested in sometimes it diverges between the student and the and the families. But overall, you tend to see trends students. For example, if parents emphasize academic excellence, you'll see the student accept that as a way of doing things, but also an interest in nature. I guess the start of projects, for me, especially with these living things in classrooms, was part of my own upbringing. I grew up in a home that didn't have tremendous interest in nature. We were, you know, growing up in Malden, there wasn't a lot of nature that was considered. My parents worked, you know, we were definitely working class. They worked two jobs and I saw them in a limited way, but I was very interested in nature. So to sort of kindle that amongst students, this was something that I thought would be a good way of doing it. But you're right, parent involvement and family involvement in the projects is really important. And I think we need to find a better mechanism of communication across Medford to get these things out. So, it not only helps the kids, but it also engages more of the individuals that would be interested in participating in some of the initiatives we have. So, I agree totally and wholeheartedly with what you're. with your sentiment because it's really, really critical. And it will sometimes make or break the experiences both for the kids, but also for our ideas. So definitely any support that you think might make sense from a communication standpoint out to the public. You know, I would definitely be on board for finding ways to make that happen. I'm not great on social media, unfortunately. I wish I was. Maybe that's the way, I'm not sure. But I could use a lot of support in figuring out how to do that, because I am not good at it.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Sure. No, that's very helpful. I mean, we can discuss it amongst us and see what ways we can come up to help you out there. Absolutely.
[Rocco Cieri]: Even for students to participate, you know, anything we do, we want student participation. It's really critical to get it out to families because once they know, they can put it on a schedule and then the students participate.
[Robert Paine]: Oh, I'm sorry, Sarah has her hand up. Go ahead.
[MCM00000770_SPEAKER_02]: Hi Raka, I just wanted to say I'd be happy to help with the social media outreach, especially on Instagram. And I also wanted to add that many of the students at this age are on social media already, or they will be very soon. And so perhaps it's possible to shape what they're influenced by, who they're following. I myself follow a number of rewilding influencers. And they have before and after transformations and short videos that are very inspiring. And I see those every day. And that definitely has shaped my interest. So I'd be happy to share some of those really cool influencer accounts.
[Rocco Cieri]: It's really helpful. Thank you.
[Robert Paine]: And this is Bob Payne again. I was going to say, are there any events at the high school that we should be aware of that we would want to exhibit? Or are there also, are there any newsletters? There's always communication going to homes by students, and we could put something in there. So those are two areas where we could get messages to families of the students.
[Rocco Cieri]: Definitely on the K to five level, it's easy, easier because students have, you know, sort of a packet that goes home and flyers can be put in, mass flyers, although that doesn't necessarily help the paper consumption side of things. That is one way. The other way is, you know, on the website. I don't have control over the website, so I can't add things in. But the principals can prioritize their communications. And that can go, I believe some of them have either Twitter or some form of communication to families. And I can also target classrooms With the email system that I have. So if we wanted to reach specific groups of students in certain classrooms, I can I can target those pretty easily. So if you were interested in, you know, targeting the students that are going to take electives or participate or find out about something that would be a way of doing it. The other side of your question about what is going on at the high school that you would want to participate in, we are going to have a Fells Day coming up. I'm trying to remember what day that will be. It is in June, and I will get you the date. I'll send it to Mr. Taslimi. It's probably the second week, it's second Friday of June, but I want to confirm the date, and we're sort of working that out right now. So that is something absolutely that the group can be engaged in from the outside. Thank you.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: Thanks Rocco these these high school programs sound great. I was just curious I think you might have touched on it a little bit, but, um, are there also any plans you're aware of or anything happening for, like, lower grades or kindergarten through middle school as well.
[Rocco Cieri]: Again, great question. None that I am aware of. They have science events like STEM. I know the Roberts Elementary is gonna have a STEM night the 25th. I don't know if the other schools have a STEM night or a STEM day. I think the Mississauga is going to have a STEM day. They often have a STEM day where the PTO would bring in either an outside resource or something to share with the students, but largely the principals and the PTOs are engaged in making those things happen. Since my role is mostly, I really have a heavy hand in middle school and high school, and not so much in the K-5, just because as one person, it truly is overwhelming. But in the end, principals are there more often and can really rally the support of of the students, but also the parents that are within the community. But I will find out. I mean, I haven't heard anything. I only know of what's told to me through either principals or teachers that reach out.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: OK, great. Thank you.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I just wanted to say that the after-school program in the elementary schools is also a captive audience of kids. And some years ago, I used to do science fairs at the after-school in a Roberts Elementary School when my kids went there. So that went really well, actually. So I don't know if we can re-engage some of the principals involved in that. maybe talk to the person in charge of the after-school program. I don't know who it is right now. I think I forget who it was before too. But yeah, that's another avenue, I think so. Any other questions for Rocco? Rocco, I know you have to leave soon because you mentioned you have only half an hour. No? All right. What an absolute delight to have you here, Rocco. I very, very, very much appreciate you coming and talking to us. And yeah, we will keep the communication going. And hopefully, it'll become more and more fruitful as there is some back and forth between us. So thanks very much again for your time. And I'll let you go.
[Rocco Cieri]: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. And I look forward to this new venture that that will happen. Hopefully we'll have some great projects that are that that you and I and everyone will be able to benefit from. Take care.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Thank you so much.
[MCM00000770_SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you're on mute.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: There we go. Can you hear me now? Right. OK, good. Yeah. So we're going to move on to some administrative things. And I guess as a first step in this, we should introduce our new members. So I will leave it to our new members to introduce themselves. And we can start with Sarah. Go ahead, Sarah.
[MCM00000770_SPEAKER_02]: Hi everyone. My name is Sara Singh. Sara rhymes with sayonara. And I'm a classmate of Lillian in Tufts Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Department. That's a mouthful. I'm also a grad student at the Fletcher School as well. I'm currently in the Fletcher Library. This is where I live. And my passion is wilderness and wildlife conservation. So the things that Rocco was talking about with the marbled salamander and the turtles. That's what I'm gonna be pushing for. Specifically, I'm very interested in rewilding our communities by encouraging Medford residents to move away from traditional monoculture lawns, moving more towards wild gardens that can sustain pollinators. Also encouraging the community to reduce pesticide use and move towards natural alternatives. And finally, the third issue that is very important to me is to work towards a zero litter scenario. Maybe that's not possible, but zero litter is definitely my aim. So I'll be trying to organize more litter cleanups with the community. Also, I'm graduating very soon in August and very excited to have a real job. And I also look forward to meeting all of you in person sometime soon, hopefully.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Thank you very much, Sarah. Okay, why don't we go on to, oh, why don't we go on to Dan. Dan, go ahead.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, sorry about that. I've got a lot of background noise. I've got two young kids who are just hanging out right outside of the frame here. But it's great to meet all of you. I'm really excited to be a part of this. I live in South Medford, been here for a while. I have a two-year-old and a four-year-old who are just starting to get into the Medford public schools. So I've spent my whole career, about 10 years now, working in renewable energy, a combination of kind of all over the country, managing wind plants, solar plants, batteries, hydropower. Until recently, I was, managing the whole fleet for inel green power in North America, and currently work for a startup that has a presence in Boston that's really working on battery technology. I'm really excited to be a part of this. Probably the things I'm most excited about, I'm really interested in how I can take some of my energy markets knowledge, energy knowledge, and find ways to help promote that on either like an individual or a town level here in Medford. and really interested in a lot of the projects that I've seen this committee be a part of and work on to help find ways to really preserve and help enhance in all of the nice natural spaces in this town and make them better for myself and for all of us and for my kids. So same as Sarah, really excited to meet everyone here in person at some point and start to get involved.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Thank you very much, Dan. That's great. I want to move on to Lois. Lois, could you please introduce us? I think you have been on this committee before, have you not? So this is a bit of an old hat for you.
[Lois Grossman]: Not hardly. It's changed quite a bit, but it In many ways, it is the same. It's people who care about energy and environment, putting their time and effort into helping this city and get better in these ways, become more educated, become more aware. I think, I mean, Bob and I have been neighbors since I moved here. We lived right down the street from one another. And they introduced me to a lot of the things in Medford that I didn't know anything about. Bob, I think you and Beth are the ones that pointed me out to the Brooks Estate. Prematurely. And I went out and fell in love with the woods and got involved in the Brooks Estate Preservation Association, which is aligned in philosophy with this group. My current interests are pollinator gardens. We just started a giant one up at Temple Shalom. There's a whole huge swath of ground up there that we prepared for a pollinator garden. And we're hoping that some of the 20,000 seeds we planted or that we scattered are going take root. If that gets going and looks interesting, I will keep you all informed because it may be a way to draw people in, especially because it's right next to the high school. There's a chance there to get some students from the high school interested in the pollinator garden. So, and I garden extensively and I never miss the energy fair, if I can help it. It's a highlight for me of the year, all the things that go on and the people who are interested and whatnot. And I'm glad to be part of it again.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Well, that's wonderful. Thank you so much, Lois. Appreciate it. All right. We're going to go to our next item on the agenda, and that's some administrative updates from Alicia, which I'm going to ask Lily to let us know if there are any. Are there any, Lily?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: There are a few. And yes, I realized I should probably introduce myself to those who don't know me. I'm sorry. Not at all. I'm also I work in the planning office under Alicia hunt, who's our director of planning. She normally does attend these meetings. But on this occasion, she had a couple competing meetings. And since it's a Wednesday, she was unable to attend, so I'll be here in her place. I will also mention that I'm in the engineering office now, and if the lights go out behind me, you may see me waving my arms to have them automatically turn on again. So that's kind of what's happening if you see me doing that.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: You need a couple of light sticks, then that'll entertain us quite a bit.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, this has happened to me before on meetings, and I'm here waving my hands. I also just want to let any guests in the audience who are not members of the committee know that if they would like to introduce themselves, they absolutely are welcome to do so, but it's also fine to kind of just sit and listen into the meeting. We're a welcoming group of people. So let's see. So in terms of administrative updates, Alicia asked me to share a couple of upcoming events that are relevant to this committee and that may be of interest. And I'll make sure that these are sent out in an email as well so people have them. But briefly, there is going to be a webinar on local guidelines for resilient, efficient, and affordable buildings. This is happening on Wednesday, April 26 at noon. And basically, the background here is that Melrose, Malden, and Medford collaborated and worked together with the Metropolitan Air area planning council to develop basically some guidelines for sustainable and resilient building, basically to use when developments were kind of coming before us. So basically to help communities encourage developers to build affordable housing. So the webinar will basically learn about the guidelines and hear from each community about how they plan to use these guidelines to really encourage Sustainable development. So again, that is April 26. I'm going to drop the registration link in the chat just for now. So folks have it. I'll sort of pause there, sort of see if there's any questions or if anybody wants to jump in. It's kind of make space for that.
[nMlCJNUIswQ_SPEAKER_18]: The second really go for it. Yeah, it's nothing to do with administrative stuff. I just wanted to say hi. I'm Susan Altman. I used to be on the committee a long time ago, and it's obvious that y'all are doing great stuff. And I'm sort of jealous that I don't have the time right now to be part of it, but you're doing great stuff.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you so much, Susan. Thank you for coming. It's always great to come any time, even if it's just popping in to sort of see what we're up to.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Absolutely. We appreciate your support. Thank you.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Sure. Excellent. So let's see, moving on, there's also, this is more of a kind of more local in City Hall event, but on Wednesday, May 10th, we're doing a free distribution event of rain barrels. So if people want to come and get a free rain barrel to help them kind of collect water for irrigation, they can show up at City Hall. and get one. And this is a little bit of a infrastructure projects involves, you know, having volunteers come and kind of get the barrels off the truck and give them out to people. So we are looking for volunteers to help with that. However, not all of the volunteer work is necessarily carrying things or, you know, any kind of heavy lifting. We also need people to help kind of with registration and just sort of showing people where to go. So that's Wednesday, May 10. So it's a little bit of a ways away. We need volunteers from 3 to 5 p.m. for the setup and then 5 to 7 p.m. for the distribution. So if this is something you're interested in, keep it on your radar. I'll make sure that there's an announcement that goes out in email so people can kind of keep on top of this. And then in terms of kind of more committee related updates. So we did get several additional applications for the committee and Alicia has asked planning office staff to sort of review them and maybe reach out to one or two other people to see about potentially adding even one or two more members, sort of seeing how that goes. So there may be additional members kind of coming up to kind of round out the committee, but we'll keep you guys informed. And Alicia also suggested that, you know, now that it's spring, it might be a good time to organize an in-person meeting, especially with, you know, turnover in the committee, or maybe some kind of social event to sort of help people really meet each other in person. So I just wanted to kind of throw that idea I don't know. I don't know if that's something that's out there and maybe that's something we can discuss. Either before the next meeting or at the next meeting. Or maybe the next meeting could be in person. We'll see. I think that's kind of it. In terms of updates from the planning office. But if anybody has any specific questions about. and answer.
[Lois Grossman]: He said something about free rain barrels, but they're not free, of course.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Oh, they're not free. I'm sorry. I thought they were free. I could have been 70 or $80.
[Lois Grossman]: And you have 6060. Yeah. We have to order them by the 30th, I guess.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Oh, interesting. Oh, my mistake. We've been having so many sort of programs where we give people sort of free and subsidized things that I kind of just assumed this was the same thing. Thank you so much for correcting me.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All right. Any questions? Any more questions for Lily? All right. So the next item on the agenda is to review the committee meeting date. I put review committee meeting dates for 2023. I'm going to hold off on this. I'll send out another mailer to get attendance, I suppose, and, you know, We'll follow up after that. Now, I wanted to give the floor. Initially, I wanted to discuss some feedback from the mayor regarding our priorities that we discussed in previous meeting. I'm gonna give the floor to Loretta to, oh, before we do that, actually, we have to review, we have to take a poll on the minutes from March 6th. So I guess, Bob, we have to approve these, right? So we have to go through each of us to.
[Robert Paine]: I was trying to find where they were, where you sent them. You sent them sometime, right?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, I did. I can. Would you like me to put them up?
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, that would be helpful. Yeah, obviously, many of us will have to abstain because they weren't at the meeting. We do have a quorum, I believe, if we count the new members, believe it or not. I was Kathleen and Martha have joined it.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, I think we do have quorum. Yeah, exactly. So let me put up the meeting agenda for meeting minutes. Sorry. 12 minutes from March. Yeah, there we go.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, great.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All right, so let me share my screen with you folks. Can everyone see that?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, we can. OK, good.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So should we go through each of these, Bob, you think?
[Robert Paine]: Well, let's see. Whoops. I guess I'm on mute here. Am I, I'm sorry, I guess I'm not on mute. Sure. Is this the right one? Cause it looks like review a minutes from January six. Was that done in February?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: No, no, no, no. Sorry. This is, this is, this is March. Yeah. Let me have a look. Is it hold on a second. Or at least I recorded it on the March. Give me a second, please.
[Martha Ondras]: This looks like the one you sent out, Paul, to us. It does.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: OK. Apologies for the typo on that.
[Robert Paine]: OK. Were we reviewing minutes really from February something? Oh, it looks like we had to actually review minutes from two months.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, two months. That's right. That's why I was confused. Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's right.
[Martha Ondras]: I reviewed the minutes before the meeting and I'm happy with them just to go on the record.
[Robert Paine]: And that's is that the last page.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: There's a bit more here. Okay.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, yeah, this looks good to me too.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Okay, good. It looks okay to me too. Can we get a
[Robert Paine]: So I will move that we accept the minutes.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yep, exactly.
[Robert Paine]: Okay.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: You have to call the roll.
[Robert Paine]: Okay. So, um, let's go through the role. Uh, geez.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So, um, here. Bob approves, Martha approves. I guess we'll put them up to our new members too. Lois?
[Robert Paine]: She can't approve because she wasn't.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Oh, she just joined. Yeah. She wasn't there.
[Robert Paine]: Kathleen, I think is on and Martha.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Kathleen, you approve. All right. Yeah. All right. So, and Loretta, you approve? I abstain, I wasn't there. Oh, that's right. I forgot. That's right. So you went there. All right. So we have, and I approve too. So that's it. Okay, good.
[Robert Paine]: A couple of other administrative things. We do have on our minutes, a little blurb about each member, and I would, you should ask the new members to provide similar information.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Ah, that's right. If the new members can, thanks Bob for that, if the new members can provide a one paragraph autobiography or biographical sort of, you know, informational bit on yourself and also provide a picture. of yourself. So we can, that goes on the city website. So, and then, and of course it goes out with every minutes of the meeting that is distributed. So I would ask all of you to do that. Thanks for the reminder, Bob.
[Robert Paine]: And then they can look at the current agenda to see how that looks. I think we just have to know that the next meeting is scheduled to be May 1st, and I guess we're still going with that. And it's probably virtual. I would recommend that we discuss at that meeting when to have an in-person meeting. It could be an outdoor meeting if it's either June or summer. And I would be happy to host it at my house like we did last summer.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: That's good. Thank you, Bob. Yeah, so.
[Robert Paine]: Some people still don't want to go indoors for a meeting. But I don't know if that's good. So we have to discuss, are people OK with an indoor in-person meeting, or they only want to do it outdoor? So last year, we were very careful to do it outdoors.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah. All right. Oh, by the way, there is also a tentative meeting with the mayor on the 27th. And she's requested one, two, maybe at most three people to sit with her and discuss the priorities that you saw was on the screen just earlier. I will send out the priorities. again to the new members and everyone else. I'll share that after this meeting. So everyone is on the same page. And then once we have that discussion with the mayor, we can discuss her reaction and her sort of input into it at the May 1st meeting. Okay, next item on the agenda is is Loretta. And Loretta wanted to talk about two items. One is rodenticides, and the other one is the reforestation bill. So I will give the floor to Loretta.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Hi everyone. And it's great to meet the new members. I've been temporarily on leave. So this is my first meeting in several months but been trying to catch up and by June I should be much better than today, every month I get better. So, I wanted to, besides what Paul mentioned, you had on the agenda a few things. So I'm just going to briefly touch on those. Harvester Energy Festival is our big event of the year. It's Saturday, October 14th from 12 to 3 or 4. We might extend it. And all members should attend to help set up and plan it. In the past, we've had subcommittees. for different topics that we wanted to work on. And that really helped. We haven't had a harvester energy subcommittee in years because they're all volunteers. It's quite a bit of work. And last year I was more full-time in the official coordinator because in the energy committee, I've been doing a lot of this over the years, but usually there's an intern that's hired by the office of planning and development, Alicia's office. that does a lot of the internal work and emails, and then I would assist with getting sponsors and exhibitors. So in any event, we have the hardest thing the past few years has been getting food vendors because of the pandemic and many restaurants closing, lack of staff and income. and everybody wants food. So I jumped ahead, even though I was recovering from an injury, and I do have two confirmed food vendors. We have a spreadsheet that we keep with all the exhibitors. So we have committed chicken and rice guys who are at many events in the city, and also Squat Brothers Meats, who has been at the farmer's market, and they put out lovely display. So they're committed to be with us to serve food on that day. And we'll figure out the details later. So that's to I'll look for someone else, like a dessert thing. But that's just, you know, I wanted to bring that up to market calendars Saturday, October 14. And there'll be things to do like pick up items that companies and sponsors donate and design a flyer and be at the festival that day for setup. That's important. We usually start at nine in the morning, and we're done usually by four, 430. So just want to give you the heads up on that. Moving along to Circle in the square, Paul you would asked about that circle in the square is June 17 Saturday from three to 7pm big city event. Everybody's there. Last year we had a table. Paul and I organized it. I'm not sure if I'll actually be there to do the setup. I'd love to be there to help monitor our table. I have not filled out an application, Paul. I'm not concerned about the fee. The fee is something we're being reimbursed for. Concerned about who's willing to staff the table. So we need a commitment from others. So it was Paul and me and Bob showed up and Kathleen showed up to help us, you know, break down. It was incredibly windy day and everything was flying all over. I do have the notes from last year. We did a lot of information on invasive plant identification. We created posters like Black Swallow Warrant and lots of information about trees and how important they are, activity pages for children that we passed out, and I think, Paul, you brought some plants last year, and I brought samples of black swallowwort so people could identify it.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yes, I bought seedlings and distributed to people who came.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So tomatoes cucumbers all that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. That was really nice. And we had, you had designed a huge poster of invasive plants and that. both the treatment and the invasive plans got a lot of attention at our table, so people could identify. So I think, you know, the important thing, do we have a commitment? It's three to seven. I'm not sure the setup time. It's probably two, you know, an hour before. There's a lot of things to carry in print, you know, ahead of time. So we need to talk about, we have a May meeting. think about who's available, and who could staff and help set up the table for the members. So that's important. Let's talk about. There's like two more things. Oh, trees. I don't really, you know, the tree ordinance by trees mentioned that you know we're helping them. That's what the city council committee of not sure which committee, and they're going through the departments to You know, see what they can do. I haven't seen the updated notes from that. I don't even know if they're available. So I think that's still under deliberation. The concerns I've heard, and I haven't actually been able to keep up totally with trees meant for meetings is the cost to the city and implementing. They broke up the tree, the submitted proposed tree ordinance by trees method. into different sections. One would be like public trees would be one area and private trees would be handled by another city council committee. So that's really all I have about, you know, maybe somebody from trees management is here and can tell us, let me see. No, I don't see anybody, but that's okay. We can check in with Alicia to find out But I do have an update. Let me just, there's an act, a bill that was proposed, I was very excited about, and our group was, by state, Senator Cream, Representative Owens and Armini, and it was the Municipal Reforestation Bill. And it's a very important bill. It was just written, I thought, fantastically. And on May 4, if you want to write this, Tim, there'll be a legislative briefing by the sponsors who wrote the bill. And that's May 4 at 10 AM at the Statehouse. And what they will do is describe the bill, it's for legislators, to gain their support from colleagues to co-sponsor it. Organizations devoted to planting, maintaining and preserving trees are invited to attend. There will probably be a Zoom link for that. I'll find out more, but I think it'd be important to attend if you can. Now the reforestation bill It's complicated, but basically it'd be a state guideline for certain cities that fall under certain guidelines to help with committees and reforestation for those cities to maintain a certain percentage of tree canopy. It includes maintaining current trees. And that would also include funding to the cities to help with maintenance and DPW and all these guidelines, which are just, it's just written really well. Of course, the problem is funding it, and I'm not sure what happened with that. I do have a contact from Senator Cream's office. I can find out more if they changed it. Originally, the funding was going to come from a new tax that fell through. But still, it would take a lot of burden off the cities to manage a percentage of tree canopy that's important, because the state would provide the guidelines for that and monitor it and provide all kinds of funding for existing trees and, of course, new trees. So that's May 4th. And when I find out more, or Tree's Meds with me, actually they had said in an email that they will let us know more information if there's a Zoom link. But I'll monitor that and I'll try to attend that meeting. Any questions on those two items or three items I mentioned? I tend to go pretty fast. So if anyone has any questions,
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I just wanted to say, I sent a link out to the bill in chat. Oh, you did?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. Oh, good.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So if you want to look at the bill, it's not terribly long. So it's certainly readable if you're inclined to do that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And it's interesting. For all these cities that are trying to do a tree ordinance, but there are many in Massachusetts and across the country, that they would provide the guidelines. So it sort of would supersede anything that we do with an ordinance to an extent and provide sort of funding for that, at least temporarily, but it would take three years. It's like a three-year plan that they would implement. So it can really help cities.
[Robert Paine]: Laura, this is Bob. I had a question about would that funding then, it seems like if you kickstart the program, because there would be permit fees that would presumably fund the ongoing operations of this program in Medford. Once you get it started and you have a way to collect permit fees for tree removals.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I'm sorry, what's your question?
[Robert Paine]: The question is, Getting started with the personnel is the toughest part because you haven't built up a reservoir of money from permit fees before you start. So this bill, the state bill, might be able to actually kickstart our municipal program by providing the upfront revenue. You have to have upfront revenue to start, get the people in place, and establish the permitting program. Once you start collecting fees, you would presumably self fund the program, you would think.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: You know, it's been a while since I read the whole state bill. It's about providing the funding to maintain a tree can, to plant trees, to get to a percentage. It was very high. It's like 60% or 70% tree can. So they would be targeting areas that have, you know, much lower tree canopy to replant trees, public trees. And then the other part was also to help maintain existing trees. So I can't answer that. Yes, but it does say.
[Unidentified]: That would be the part. That would be the part.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Let me finish. No, it does say funding to administer the program and maintenance. So of course, clerical administrative costs would be part of that. But if you're talking about the ordinance for Medford, You know that's a different thing, because to start that up, I mean other cities have done it and it's about having a budget or a small grant to get started when we did this with the plastic bag ordinance. as far as writing a bill, because there's no permits involved, but other permits, they're not that hard to implement, but it is the staff, because engineering, the Department of Public Works, and also the building department has to be involved, and they're already slammed. So yeah, it needs an extra person. or two. Right, yeah. But I think that's been neglected for so many years. If we could get even a part-time certified tree arborist certified, it's important. There's been webinars I've been listening to while I was out recovering from Planet Geo on trees and tree ordinances, and I meant to send that link out. across the country. And it was just fabulous to hear about how many cities and towns already have tree ordinances and what they've gone through. And every city is different and it really depends on the budget. So that's how that got started. But the main thing I got out of that was to answer some concerns from this city about regulating somewhat private trees is, you know, they're concerned about telling people what to do and possible, you know, suits. Other cities and towns have done that by making sure they have a certified arborist on staff who can help with any of those possible claims. And also regulating the tree companies to service the trees, because, you know, we really should have certified arborists for the tree canopy, whether it's private or public. And I think most of us have seen a lot of the bad work that some of these tree removal companies have done. So it's important that trees are trimmed properly and are V-topped or V-cut, sorry, and tons of information. But I hope that answers your question. We'll see how it goes.
[Robert Paine]: Sure. Yeah, big concern is having because there's a timing issue you got to have the personnel to manage the permitting process.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. Right. Right. So we need extra help for the DPW forestry staff to do that. And that's, you know, permanent position.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So, anyways, I want to get on to... Actually, I just wanted to say, has any thought been given to, on the city's part, I guess, I don't know if you'd know, to like get a volunteer robberist to, you know, put some time in? You know, I don't know if that's even possible, but, you know. Probably not.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I mean, yeah. Well, OK, that's a big question. Is there any volunteer for Abidjan? Oh, you know what? I forgot to bring that up. Oh, there's a lot of things. It's Earth Day and Arbor Day this month. The city always does some activity for Arbor Day. Let me look that up. I think it's the 28th. No. Oh, yeah, it is. It's April 28th is Arbor Day. So I'm sure the mayor usually does something and Aggie Tudin, our tree warden, does something in the city, a proclamation or an Arbor Day Tree City, USA, sorry, I have a lot of information. And the 20, oh, that's Art and Bloom, sorry. I'm looking at my account. Earth Day is the 22nd of April. So there'll be, I mean, I'm sure you already know there's tons of events for Earth Day. I'm not sure particularly in the city what we're doing, but as far as getting back to, The reason I brought up Arbor Day is the Forestry Department, usually on Arbor Day every year, there are tree arborist companies that will come in and donate their time to trim, you know, some trees and they help with Arbor Day, like no charge to the city. But as far as having them actually work, they already donated time, but to work with, say, a new tree ordinance, it probably, I mean, they'd have to be insured. They might have to be an employee, and I'm not sure how that would work. There's some liability there. I think they'd have to be an employee, but who am I to say that? But it would be interesting to bring that up, too, if we have any more input on this potential tree ordinance those two issues. And I know Barry really liked that idea. Barry Ingber, who's not here today, he's on the Energy Committee, about having certified tree arborists work on any trees in the city, private or public. Well, they do that for the public city trees anyways. And the reason this came up, I mean, think of it this way. When a company's coming into the city to do work through the building department, they have to be licensed, right? They have to be licensed electrical contractors, plumbers, with all kinds of state credentials, and sometimes they post bonds and insurance to work on projects. So, you know, why trees have caused a lot of problems in Medford, because they may be taken down incorrectly and the roots are pulled up and they cause landslides, or they cause the tree to topple over, or the trees topple over, and they're not pruned correctly, and they take off more than 25% of a healthy tree, and many, many things. So I think that's really important to suggest to city councilors that that might be part of a separate ordinance that comes about so that we can maintain the tree canopy the best as possible. But anyways, I need to get onto the road. I don't know how much time there is. So I wanted to get onto the rodenticide issue. I sent out an email just before the March meeting, but I didn't get any response. So I'm not sure if people saw that, but I think Paul, you probably saw that email. And what had happened is, You know, we use rodenticides in the city that kill the natural predators, which are hawks, eagles, opossums. And what happens is the rodents eat the poison that are put out in bay traps and by people that you can buy readily at the store. And then the natural predators They don't know they eat the rats and mice because that's what they go after to feed themselves and they often die. So there was a big commotion a month and a half ago where this famous eagle, MK, did die a horrible death because he had eaten the, I think it was a male, So the female, well, I'm not sure if it's the male or the female, a lot of information, but he died recently up in the watershed area of West Medford and Arlington, and they had been monitoring him. Previous to that, his partner, one of the partners is the couple, and they had eaglets, and two of the eaglets died from rat poisoning. So, When MK died recently, it was all over Facebook and people were concerned about the rodenticides that are being used that kill these natural predators that we need to control rodents. This is just one part of what I'm gonna talk about. So I talked to, our animal control officer, and we just shot around some ideas. Now, several years ago, maybe within the past six years, when the rodent population got bigger and people in the city were complaining about it, across the East Coast too, the health department did a great job. And they had a public meeting for residents about rodents and controlling them on your property. And this was before COVID, maybe three or four years before, they had two meetings. So I talked to our animal control officer, because he's very concerned about it too. And what happened on Facebook is a lot of people said, well, there's nothing else we can do. We need to control the rodents. We have to keep using poisons. And we were really just heartened with the fact that people that were commenting didn't know about the other measures they could take. to control rodents on their property. So, I mentioned to Patrick Holden that I would speak with the health department, because a few years ago when we did have the city meeting, the public meeting. I have helped. the health department with advertising a meeting. And I went around and we had flyers made and distributed them to households. And so I asked on the health department, Mary Ann O'Connor is the head, if we could possibly do this again, because there's so many residents that don't know that there's other alternatives than rat poison. And that meeting was very educational. Yankee Pest Control was one of the leaders in pest control and information across the United States. I didn't write his name down. I can't think of his name, but he gave an incredible presentation with slides and information about how to control rodents on your property. And he totally advocates not using poisons first, but it's sealing up your property first. The rodents are here to stay. And it's just, people just don't know how difficult it is and how many, what do you call them, families of rodents are born each year from one rodent. It's many, many, many, many. And it's a problem of just planting them. power here. It's a problem across the East Coast because of, if you want to call it global warming, but we'll say it's the warmer winters, they have just multiplied and multiplied all across the East Coast. And this has been going on for the past eight, 10 years. So the warmer the winters, the more rodents we have. The important thing is to seal our properties and use other measures to keep them out of your home. which is, you know, you're going to see them on the streets, but also within the cities. If you see open dumpsters from businesses and the lids are open and the gates are open, you need to call the city, the health department, and they'll send someone over to talk with the restaurant or facility that has food. So the rodents don't get this food. So there's a lot of things so I called the health department spoke of Marianne. And I said, you know, could we have another meeting with that be possible public meeting, and she liked the idea, and I said well let me see if the. energy committee would support that and help us and help them because, you know, City Hall is very short staff, there's only so much they can do. So I said I would bring it up to the committee to see if they would help with advertising this public meeting. And we could get hopefully Yankee pest control, again, to come out and do the presentation about how to control rodents on your property. You know, not to mention, also to mention that the City Hall Health Department did an amazing job. They have a flyer with the poster and they also had a new ordinance several years ago for buildings about how they're supposed to control rodents for new construction. So this is just to remind people that are interested in what they can do. So I told her I'd get back to her and mention it to the committee. And I thought, This would be important. In my opinion, this committee doesn't want to do it. I might follow through myself, maybe to add to the list of priorities for the mayor to see if she would be on board with that because the meeting would be at City Hall like they did in the past. And I think it was like two hours and residents that came were able to ask questions and the gentleman at Yankee Pest Control actually showed products and slides of rodent damage and how they get into your home and showed products that people can use to secure their homes and also to eradicate rodents. So that's the first thing. It also went on to a conversation Another way cities are trying to use control rodents is birth control. So the city of Newton started using birth control for rodents, and I told Mary Ann that I would look into that because I know they're busy and see how that pulling is working. I had heard that it's working very well. It's a tasty treat for the rodents that's put in the bait boxes that we see on commercial properties and other apartment buildings and new construction. And the rodents were attracted to the taste and that has diminished the rodent population significantly. But she agreed that it would be okay for me to check this out, to talk to Cindy Newton. I'm curious about the cost, you know, what this product costs. It's called ContraPest and how effective it is. And just to make sure that it doesn't affect the birth control of the natural predators that eat these, you know, that would be awful. But she did say that she heard that it's only effective for three months, and they have to keep rebating them. I said, okay, let's find out how much it costs. And maybe, you know, just for your information, we could discuss this, maybe for high areas of rodents, we could do a portion of the city, you know, or something like that. But that's, you know, out there. But there are other, you know, things besides poisons.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: You mean as a proof of concept?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: yeah, let's, you know, let's see, Newton's doing it. You know, they're often leaders, Newton and Brookline and some of them in Cambridge. So I agreed to do that on my own and get some information. She also thought that the city meeting for road and control that was held several years ago was recorded and might be on MedFed access television. but she couldn't remember where it is or whatever. So I'm going to look to see if it was, because it was so great. So I'm going to search for that. I haven't, you know, this just happened recently. So I'm going to search and see if I can find that recording. And maybe, you know, we can advertise that to other measures. Let me just look at my notes here. And lastly, rodent birth control, public issue of the meeting, educating the public on other options. Yeah, okay, there was something else. If someone asked me a question, I'll probably remember what it was.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I have a question. I know, well, more of a information bit, you know, I've been using these these devices that you plug in into, and they emit a sort of ultrasonic buzz that's really nasty, apparently, for rodents. And I can honestly tell you they've been extremely effective in my house. Really? I was plagued with mice. I really was. I have an old Victorian house, and it's It was terrible. I could hear the mice in the walls. And no, this has been so effective. I've got them all over the place now. I mean, I don't hear them. I think the cat does sometimes, but it's mostly in the basement. But they've been effective.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: You're lucky because they generally don't work. I have had those and I've read that, you know, if they work for you, the thing is to find the source. I know where to look now. If you see a piece of that presentation, you would be amazed how these, unfortunately rats follow mice and mice, I was shocked. I learned so much. I was like, oh, things you don't want to know. you do need to know because the rats can get into your house and it's not, and the mice, but in any event, I did remember what the other thing was. This was really amazing to me. So I hope people watch this meeting and learn. The city has a program. I knew they were working with Yankee pest control. They got some kind of grant, but I thought that was just for, you know, public property problems with rodents. But Marianna Connor was the head of the health department. And this is really important. I'm laughing because I didn't know. If a resident has problems with rodents in the city, they can call the health department and ask for help, especially rats. I don't mean like, okay, you saw a rat running through your yard, but if you have a ton of rats in your yard, or they're in your house and you're not sure, the city will take your information, your name and contact, and Yankee Pest Control will come out. They'll make an appointment with you and come out to your property to look for areas that they could be entering. And especially, this is great, if there's burrows, because rats burrow, I've seen it myself. Alicia was with me one day, several years ago, we're at a property. This company is Poisons, I won't say which one. And we were standing there with one of the health inspectors, and all the rat, you know, baits, traps around, but they'd also injected poisons into the ground at this commercial property and we were there. The rats were jumping out of the ground. I probably shot up to the sun, because I didn't expect it. But in any event, they do dig burrows. If you walk on those burrows, they don't like it. In any event, the Yankee pest control will come out and use Oh God, I can't think of the name of it, New York City was doing it in cities it's very expensive they have put the dry ice what's the fumes that dry ice mix I forgot.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: It's a carbon dioxide. Yeah, it's extremely effective. Yeah. And it doesn't it doesn't last long.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So no instantly.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So in the boroughs. Yeah, exactly.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So they put the pipe through the boroughs and charge them with carbon dioxide, which will kill them. And it's not a poison, you know, that will kill. It's very effective. So and this is free of charge. So I'm like, residents need to know about this. I didn't know about that. So that's something else, you know, I can tell the animal control officer about, and that we can, you know, inform the public that if they have a serious problem, they need to call. Because the burrows are a problem. And the burrows underground are a problem. You'll just have more and more on your property. Anyway, I'd like to know if the committee is interested in pursuing this. If not, I'll work on this on my own.
[Lois Grossman]: May I add something here? Sure. I just was on the solid waste committee. We met all fall trying to come up with proposals for the next contract. And one of our proposals was citywide composting. And the main reason for that was rat control. If you take measures with your solid waste, there's less likelihood that you're gonna be invaded by rodents. And so that was woven into the proposal that went behind the RFP. I don't know what's happened since we put the RFP up, We certainly did ask for citywide composting as a rodent control measure.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That's good to know.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I think New York City, just by changing the timing of when you can put out your rubbish from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. they've actually managed to cut into the rodent problem a bit because people used to be able to put out the trash after 4 p.m. Now they're not allowed to do that until 8 p.m. And so that apparently makes a difference. I know New York City is just overrun by mice and rats. I don't know if something like that is doable here, but it's worth discussion afterwards.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So Paul, I know we're going to run out of time, and I didn't want to take up too much time. I just want to know if this could be a priority. If the committee is interested, you can take a vote or show of hands to put this as a priority to bring it to the mayor. If she supports that, because it's at City Hall, we'd have to ask permission.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Can you do me a favor and could you write it out in a paragraph as a priority and send it over to me? Sure. Would that be? Yeah. Okay. And I'll certainly put it in. I think I'm personally interested in something like that. I think it's an important issue to discuss. I just want, you know,
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: for me to help the health department if they decide to have the public meeting you know by being there and for us to advertise help advertise it and then of course the office of alicia's office that they would help advertise you know so bob would we put this to to a vote or to include as a priority is that is that something that we have to do or uh so exactly what does that mean uh to to um
[Robert Paine]: to have it as a, do you actually have a presentation to us or by the same company or?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, to help the health department, if we would agree to help them with the meeting, which might be, you know, advertising, be a public education meeting on rodent control. The health department would set it up, but we would help them by being at the event, maybe passing out flyers and advertising it.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, certainly is that has environmental issues involved. So that makes sense for our committee to do that.
[Kathleen McKenna]: This is Kathleen I think it's important, and I think you could get a lot of interest. Maybe not just from Medford people, but there's a lot of people that were pretty upset about the eagle issue. Gone over to the lakes on occasion just to hang out and those eagles have a definite following. So, Yeah, I think it's important and possibly bring it up with the mayor if we feel that's important, or like you said, deal with the health department. And yeah, it'd be great to get the video. Depending on how good that is, we might not have to have that company come back, right? We could share it somehow.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I will look for that. It's also good to have the public meeting because residents can ask questions and they got to touch. That's true. They got to touch the products team recommended, you know, so.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yeah, I agree that was a great program. I'm not sure if the infestation level is as bad, but obviously it got into the. wildlife, whatever animal thing to go and kill the eagles.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, I think that'll draw in a lot of people. It's a big issue. Wildlife, a lot of people are interested in wildlife. You put out something like that, I think it gives us some visibility as a committee and certainly brings up the issue with people. That's good. I'm all for it.
[Martha Ondras]: Thank you.
[Robert Paine]: Maybe there could be some some handouts or presentation at the circle of square event by that time.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I can work with you, Loretta, to do that, if you'd like.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Let me talk to the health department. Look for the video and see if, you know, She has to also check to see if Yankee pest control, you know, is available on Saturday. So, and talk to the mayor and, you know, but yeah, there's a group called RATS, R-A-T-S, Raptors Are The Solution, which are eagles and hawks and all that. But that's not the only solution, you know, the poison, there's other ways too. And that's what's important to get out to the public. because they don't have to use poisons. They kill cats and dogs, too. They do, yeah. That's true. That's bad. OK, thank you.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Thank you, Loretta. Thanks very much for that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And we'll have to send out a survey. Who's available to circle in the square?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yes.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, you can put me down. It can't be me.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Right, so the last item in the meeting is I was going to give a talk on urban meadows. And this is one of the group's committee's priorities for this year, is to see what we can do to establish some meadows in Medford. And so in that respect, I'll just share just a few pointers about meadows and why they're important. And I know most of you are well-versed in this, so I won't linger on the points too much. But anyway, here it goes. Let me share my screen with you guys. Let's see. Just give me a second.
[SPEAKER_13]: I don't know what's going on. Hold on. It's not the right one.
[Unidentified]: Oh, here we go.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Can everyone see that?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, we can.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: OK. Why are urban minerals necessary? Well, they promote biodiversity. This is what we need in cities. This is what's sadly lacking because of the concrete jungle that we built around ourselves. So they provide for a healthy ecosystem. They certainly improve air and water quality, and they reduce the heat island effect in cities, which is important. In some areas in Metford, we have no canopy and no meadow lined at all, no plants or trees. So this can help in that respect. And then, of course, the beautiful things. You walk around, you want to see some lovely flowers, and they enhance aesthetics in that sense. They're pretty cost effective. They require less maintenance than lawns, for sure. And, you know, they don't take up as much water. And, of course, they can conserve water in some areas where it's scarce. And then, of course, they're important for climate resilience, you know, they absorb rainfall, they, like I said, heat island effect is reduced, and they can help reduce energy consumption, cooling buildings in the hot weather, particularly if they're placed around big buildings. Right, so choosing a location. I'm not going to linger on this too much. I'll just go through it quickly. You have to choose the right location. You've got to have lots of light. You've got to get rid of the weeds. Sometimes this is done by using herbicides, but obviously there's other ways of doing it. But if you want to set up something fast, that's probably the way to do it. And then, of course, you have to prepare the soil. Compost is important. You have to add organic matter. And then you have to pick the right plants. At least from my perspective, these are native plants in Massachusetts. And then you plant the meadow. You have to maintain it after you've planted it. So that requires really little maintenance. But you have to weed out any invasive plants or trim back any Okay, so how do you incentivize this to people? Right, so you can provide financial incentives. One way is to encourage, you know, give tax credits or grants or subsidies. You know, this could cover the costs. You can raise awareness about the importance of urban meadows, and we can do that at many of our outdoor events, you know. public outreach campaigns, workshops, educational programs. We can certainly see what we can do with the schools, with Metfit schools and Rocco Sieri to see if there is any, you know, there's any convergence there. And we can create partnerships. I've approached two businesses, actually, and they were interested in setting up a small area in their vicinity, you know, to have an urban meadow. So certainly that's something that can be looked at. And then, you know, obviously you have to give people some technical assistance, and we can give that assistance on site selection, seed selection, maintenance practices. There is a lot of expertise here in Medford, and some of our committee members are very well versed in this sort of stuff, and so we could use that expertise. And then lastly, of course, you can ask the city to provide zoning ordinances and require new development projects to include green space or meadow areas. So that's part of the incentivization. And then lastly, I want to just Oops. Yeah, these are some of the meadows that I have found in New England that are really remarkable. I wanted to bring them up because, and in this presentation, I've actually included the link. So if you go up here, you can find a link to that meadow and certainly go visit. So this is Arlington Great Meadows. Many of you probably know this as 183 acres of land. It's owned by Arlington but it's in Lexington. Yeah, lovely area. The next one is Blue Hills Reservation and that's in the That stretches 7,000 acres, stretches from Quincy to Dedham, from Milton to Randolph. And a massive, lovely, beautiful place. Third one is Rock Meadow Conservation Area. And this is, I think, this is in, in Belmont, I'm not sure. But yeah, anyways, this is, this is, this was used by Native Americans to, to, they, they've actually maintained that land and they used to actually burn it down to control the growth of stuff on it, so sort of a controlled growth exercise by Native Americans. But again, another lovely place to visit. Fourth one is a broad meadow brook. This is in Worcester, and this is the largest urban wildlife sanctuary in New England. It's 400 acres, and it's cooperatively managed by Mass Audubon. Again, lovely place to visit. Last one is Daisy Wilson Meadow. This is a small meadow. And this is, where is it? I'm not sure where this is, but looks like a lovely place. I haven't been to this one for sure. And lastly, again, like I said, at the top, if you click on the On the titles of these, you can find a link to the place if you want to go visit them. And lastly, Medford Meadows.
[Unidentified]: Let's build one. All right. That's all I've got for you tonight, folks.
[Robert Paine]: Paulus and Bob Payne, what's like a minimum size for such a
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah. Cause how are you going to find the land in Medford, you know, unless you convert something. I mean, you could, I can see across the river from where we live. There's, there's, um, the ball fields and then there's grass, you know, there's lawns and you could convert the lawns to a meadow, I suppose. So you can convert DCR land to meadows. Yeah.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I think a quarter of an acre will give you a reasonable meadow. And of course, you could put native plants anywhere. I'm trying to do that in my front yard. So I'll let you know how successful I am with that in the future. Yeah, I've heard anywhere from an acre to, to a quarter of an acre, you know, for a proper sized meadow to, you know, have an impact of any sort. So, but I don't see anything wrong with having smaller sized parcels of land with doing this. So unless I hear that there is a constraint on the size of this, and some of you here might be more versed in this than I am, but I don't see a reason why it can't be a small little thing in your backyard. But it certainly is feasible. Incidentally, I have bought a massive amount of native seeds. So if anybody wants to start one, I can give it given to you for free.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: So I can add anecdotally to I think, kind of tangential to this. I, I personally set up a rain garden, my backyard with native plants to to solve a drainage issue, which was incredibly effective. So I think finding ways to kind of incentivize that and you know, provide information to people on how you could build that. It took a weekend, you know, what kind of plants to plant there, how you could use it to put in a small backyard, something like that would be, you know, pretty, pretty effective and pretty easy to do. And then I've also lived in other cities that did incentivize this kind of thing, either rain gardens or native planting in yards, replacing lawns, which I've always been a big fan of and provide some really beautiful natural space in neighborhoods with smaller land parcels. So I think that's a great idea and finding some ways to incentivize it on a smaller scale would be great.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: scale. So if anyone's interested in pursuing this, let's get in touch with me and we can put together a bunch of people and we can see what we can come up with in terms of information, educating people, incentivizing it, getting the city's input, of course, from And I know Alicia mentioned that there was an attempt by the city to actually set up some meadows, but DCR mowed it down or something like that? Is that what she said? I don't remember how that could have happened. But certainly, if that happens, then we can certainly find some way to prevent DCR from doing that by cordoning it off somehow in some way and having some communications with DCR. I know DCR is also interested in getting meadows, urban meadows set up. Maybe I'll get somebody from DCR to come and talk to us about this. So let's see how we can do this. But anyway, yeah.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Thanks, Paul. I'll jump in just to quickly say I'm not sure. I'll have to check with Alicia about what exactly was the issue with the DCR meadow. I have to admit, I'm not in the loop on that one. But I did want to sort of mention a couple of great comments in the chat. Elizabeth from Sharon Street mentioned pocket forests. which is I had not heard of that concept, but it sounds really interesting. And then Kathleen mentioned there is a citywide cleanup this coming weekend on April 15th. But I did sort of relating to your earlier comments about urban meadows, there may be an additional strategy to consider. I think the idea of incentivizing residents to kind of build them is a great one. And there also perhaps is an avenue to consider whether we can encourage developers and kind of new big projects to include urban meadows or sort of pollinator gardens as part of, you know, some of their landscaping and infrastructure. Now, I'm not sure whether there are any, you know, specific plans in the pipeline, but I'm sure our office would be happy to help investigate this. And that would absolutely align with some of our larger goals, like the goals in our climate plan.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Excellent. Yes. Thank you, Lily.
[Robert Paine]: Also, Paula, maybe the Medford Garden Club has some ideas that there may be other Medford institutions that are on top of this.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure people are thinking about this. So Medford Garden Club, I'll find the link to that, and I'll send it out.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And Paul, also Friends of the Fells.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Friends of the Fells, yes. Yes. Yeah. They would be interested in that, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there we go. Somebody sent, Elizabeth sent to everyone, climate resilient. Oh, it's an event, yes. Thank you, Elizabeth. April 29th. Okay. I would like to, we are out of time, so I would like for someone to propose a motion to adjourn.
[Robert Paine]: Well, I was gonna add one quick thing. If you're gonna meet with the mayor, the mayor may ask, well, what does the committee want to do? What are its priorities? Yeah, I would say we could send you our ideas via email about what you might recommend. When you talk to the mayor, because the mayor may say, well, I don't know, what do you want to do?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Sure, sure. No, that makes a lot of sense. I did send out the priorities earlier. Do you want me to include some of the new stuff that we discussed and send that out again and get a yes or no from everyone?
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, that would be good. Yeah, have a back and forth email before that meeting.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: OK, yeah. No, I'll certainly negotiate that. No worries at all. Thank you, Bob. And Paul, who is going to be at the meeting? Well, yeah, it wasn't really like it wasn't a hard and fast thing. But I will have to be at that meeting, apparently, because I'm the chair. But anyone else wants to join, by all means do. On the other hand, we're restricted by how many people she wants to talk to. So I really don't know. I think, Bob, you can't actually meet with her, right? So you're muted, Bob.
[Robert Paine]: I do daycare now for grandchildren. I cannot go to a luncheon meeting with the mayor. Sorry.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All right. All right. So yeah. Yeah. So yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: An in-person meeting or a Zoom meeting?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I think it's a Zoom meeting.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes. I can try to just let me know what time.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Loretta, thank you. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Okay.
[Martha Ondras]: If you need another person, I'm happy to do it, but if you're getting overcrowded, I defer to someone else.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: No, I would be happy to have you there, Martha.
[Martha Ondras]: Thank you.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah. OK. That's great. So that's three people. And we will bring back the thoughts and opinions of the mayor in our next meeting on May 1st. So with that, I think we are close to we have three minutes. Any other questions or things people want to discuss.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I did see a lot of applications to install solar panels in Medford. a lot. So at some point, I thought, I have the time I'd count how many applications I saw, because I'm concerned, you know, with trees, and people can trim their trees, they don't have to take out available resource of a healthy, significant tree to put on solar panels. So interesting to see if there were 80 applications, we know we're going to have tree loss.
[Unidentified]: Oh,
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: People aren't aware of that. So.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So is Aggie involved in this at all, or is she?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, this is a private property tree, private property solar panel installation. So no, no. And that's why it's important to get some kind of
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Maybe if we know who they are, maybe just send an information email to the people saying that if you are considering this, we would appreciate if you trim the trees rather than get rid of them. And I mean, if we know who they are, a city can certainly request that. We're not demanding it, obviously, but we can request it.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I heard a while ago. I don't know if this is still the case that if you're selling solar panels, and it's a lease, one of the requirements is the trees near the solar panels have to be taken down.
[Unidentified]: Oh, is that right?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, good. This is what someone told me on the committee years ago that in some of these lease contracts, the trees close to the solar panels, they want the trees taken down because they could be broken by the trees. I'm like, wow. So And there are going around knocking on doors currently.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yep. Well, I'm having solar panels installed. But they're not cutting down any of my trees. I'm actually trying to rejuvenate most of them.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And the basic thing is that in our lifetime and in the future, we can't replace 60, 80, 100-year-old trees.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: That's right. You can't do that. You're right. All right. Any other questions, thoughts, comments?
[SPEAKER_04]: I have a question. This is Elizabeth Dowey. I'm sorry. I'm on my phone, and I haven't done Zoom on my phone before. But I just wonder if you all have dealt with the knotweed question in Medford at all.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Which question is that? Not weed? Yeah, not weed. Well, we try to have, you know, education at the circle and the square event, you know, because of COVID and because we're a volunteer committee, it's just really hard, but I'm sure, you know, other groups may have, but as far as, you know, we'd welcome it. At the circle and the square event, I don't know if you heard us, we had a lot of information about invasive plants. and how to, I mean, it's not really by using chemicals, which harm the environment and get into our water stream. So, but no, have we done outreach on that? No, more than that, no.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Okay. Would you be willing to give us some information on that, Elizabeth?
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'm dealing with it coming from a neighbor's lot that is strangely operated by a landscaper in town. And through next door, I've run into some people who've been dealing with it, but I'm a little bit, I've been trying to deal with it sort of quietly among the neighbors, but I'm not getting a lot of positive response from the landscaper. So I'm looking for taking it to another, venue, you know, and I'm not sure where.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: You know, it's the circling event. My big thing is Black Swallow Award. It's just everywhere. And I mean, it's just out of control. And whenever I see it, I pull it out. And that's a lot of people have said, can we have an event or could we do more about it? But a simple thing to do is create a flyer on Canva about knotweed specifically, you know, and information on how to get rid of it. And that could be distributed. You know, we could certainly show it during a Energy and Environment Committee meeting, like when they show slides. Or you could submit information to Medford Access Television as a flyer and a blurb, you know, that would go across the screen. So there's a lot of, you know, it's about who has the time to do it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly. Yeah. And I've hired someone and I've spent money on it. So I have a good professional. I've talked to a number of people about it. Someone who deals with it in the DOT. So I have some knowledgeable people. It's just a matter of how, how to get it, but it sounds like maybe, what I'll try, I'll come back to the May meeting so that it, you know, I'm not like right at the end. Okay.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Let me just say, you should get in touch with the Metro Garden Club, unless you remember already. They have regular monthly meetings. It's on the city website, because they do a lot. And it's a large, a large group and they can help with it. Okay, yeah, that's a good point. I just don't know. They may already have information that could help.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, thank you. You're welcome.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All right, everyone. We don't have any time left, so I'm going to ask somebody to give a motion to adjourn.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Motion to adjourn the meeting.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Second. All right, good. Seconded. Thank you all very much. I appreciate your time. We'll see you all in May. I will send out some information regarding priorities in the week, in the coming week. And again, my appreciation for Lily being here and helping us out. Certainly a minute is just a lifesaver. I'm terrible at taking minutes. I really am. You would think I'd be better at it, but I'm not anyways. Have a good evening. Bye bye.