[Robert Paine]: Hi, this is Bob Payne, I'm the acting chair while Paul has let me recovers from his house fire. And just be careful when you plug in those scooters there that work on those batteries there that that's what caused the fire. So keep them away from anything that can burn. I posted in the meeting minutes, the law that Governor Healy signed on March 29th that authorizes remote meetings through March 31st, 2025. So you can refer to that language just to make sure that if you're concerned about the authorization for this type of meeting, although our next meeting will be in person and we're going to figure out the date either tonight or shortly afterward, it'll be in my backyard like we did last year sort of like a potluck gathering. So we'll talk about that later in the meeting. Let's see. We're going to have a guest speaker from Melrose, Martha Grover, who will join maybe roughly 7 o'clock or so. She has other things to do tonight. She'll talk about how Melrose deals with their heat pump program. But what other we see? So in terms of the committee members, besides me, we've got, let's see. We have Loretta James, right? We've got Luke McNeely, John Rogers. And if I missed somebody, and I've got me for Bob Payne, Dan Pepo, Lois Grossman, Sarah Singh, and who else? If I missed it.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_12]: My name is Jill Feldman. I'm here with Trees Medford.
[Robert Paine]: All right, yeah, we have a slot late in the meeting for that. Thank you for joining. I'm sorry to keep you waiting on that, but we'll definitely get you in.
[Alicia Hunt]: While you were looking down, I let Barry Ingber and Jessica Parks, both members in.
[Robert Paine]: Great, okay. So who were missing, As far as I can tell, Martha Andrus is not joined yet. Paul is not, and I'm not sure if he can. Benji, is Benji Hiller?
[Alicia Hunt]: Benji can't come this evening.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, got it. And Kathleen may come later. Okay, but we certainly have a super quorum. Okay. I sent out the May 1 meeting minutes a while ago. And let's see, I could review them quickly on the screen. So let me see if I can do that.
[Alicia Hunt]: You mentioned that you had a lot of stuff on the agenda tonight. Do you wanna just ask if anybody's read it and wants to make a motion? Going through the minutes line by line is a real time.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, that's right. Okay, let's do that. Does anyone have any comments on the meeting minutes from May 1?
[Barry Ingber]: I move to accept them as written.
[Robert Paine]: I will second the motion. Any discussion before we have the vote on that? OK, I will call the roll. Loretta, you accept the minutes?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yes.
[Robert Paine]: Luke?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yes.
[Robert Paine]: very yes john yes jessica it's staying i wasn't there okay bob i will accept the minutes um dan yes lois yes and sarah i go by sarah sorry yes sorry my my apologies okay Okay, I think I called all the members that are present. All right, onward to administrative updates, so I'll let Alicia while she's around. And when do you have to leave the meeting again, Alicia?
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm gonna leave at 7.20, because I have to go to the city's 40B meeting. That's the same thing.
[Robert Paine]: All right, well, we'll try to cover as many administrative updates and future issues while you're here. So go ahead and do administrative updates, and we'll transition to the circle of square.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sure, a few quick things. So you all by now know Lily. She's here with us. She's a grad student in my office, and she'll be staying with the meeting this evening, as she's been taking care of the minutes and stuff recently. And unfortunately could not join us tonight is Rachel, and I would butcher her last name, so I'm just gonna not say it right now. New graduate student with our office who is actually going to be helping with the Energy Festival, and I'll be connecting her with Loretta. And she's actually gonna coordinate our offices table at Circle the Square. And so one of the things she wants to do with Loretta is sort of connect synergies between those as well. I said, I would show her what you were doing to set up the energy committee that she could duplicate that for our offices. We currently have, I'm gonna say off the top of my head, five interns working here now this summer. We're very excited. We've filled a couple of our full-time staff roles. So since our last meeting, our CDBG manager and our housing planner have both started. We are in the middle, I apologize, there is a fly. We are in the middle of interviews for the Climate Planner and the Administrative Assistant and the Economic Development Director. So I've been doing some interviews for each of those. And I'm hoping that we'll get some job offers out in each of those pretty soon. And we are still advertising for the Economic Development Planner. So that's the big stuff administratively that is relevant with this committee. Several of the interns are working on things like web and outreach and education. David started today is actually gonna be working on waste and recycling and composting in particular with the new waste contract. We've gotten proposals back for the waste RFP and I'm reviewing those now. And we are going to be discussing those. Our committee is going to be discussing those this week and doing interviews with the bidders next week. So you're sure to by our next meeting, I will definitely have public update stuff for you on that. I think those are the really big ones that are going on that are relevant to this committee. Any questions or Lily, did I miss anything that you think is relevant for this group?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I think you've covered everything that I can think of, but I'll jump in if I think of more.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Great.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Robert Paine]: Okay. That was quick. Why don't we then transition? We're doing very well on time. We could probably do the circle of square and the harvest during the festival before seven to 15 then and get all of Alicia's involvement. So let's go to the circle of square first. And I don't know if Loretta is the key person on that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I can speak about it, sure. Just to be clear, it was Paul's idea to us to continue being at the circle and the square festival. We were there last year with Paul and Bob helped and Luke and Kathleen McKenna. And we had a table. He had quite a presentation on invasive plants. Plus we had many handouts for native pollinator type plants. We gave out plants and we had handouts for children, for activity pages, mostly about trees. And there was a lot of information, mass day rebate flyers. So I had sent out an email over the weekend and with who's attending. I'm trying to fill in for Paul I hadn't heard back from him. So, um, like I said, I'm second to assist. And I believe he, he had a great poster last year that he had made for showing. invasive plants and pollinator-friendly plants. I'm not sure if he's able to bring that. He said he'd be bringing, he did have a table. I haven't talked to him in a week, so I'm sure we'll be connecting soon. A lot of the handouts we had from last year, we can just print them and update them. But with the email, if people didn't see it, Lois is attending, Deanna's attending. Let me put my glasses on. Bob is going to attend. I think Jessica said she could come if needed, 1.30 to 3.30. I have a lot of notes. Give me a second here. Lois, Dan, Bob, me, Jessica, and Paul all day. So two people who will be there all day is Paul and also Dan. Lois is there 1.30 to 4. I'll be there 1.30 and then stay where I needed to fill in. Sunday is the rain day. So I'm a little concerned that we might need more help with that because I think there's just three of us. It gets very crowded. A lot of people are there right at the beginning and it starts at three o'clock. So I remember last year it was like a mob singing three to five. And for breaks, it's good to have someone else at the table so people can take breaks. Any questions about that? I did hear from Rachel, the new intern. She wrote me this afternoon. So I think she's saying that the Office of Planning and Development will also have a table.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, so our office also has a table and one of our new staff has been one of the organizers of Circle the Square in the past and she's still helping to organize. She did mention that they are really tight on places. They have a lot of interest in people having tables. So if we wanted to work together or have our tables together, they would be happy to like place us together. And if we had trouble staffing, we could merge if that became necessary, like if we didn't have enough people to cover two separate tables between us. The CPA, Community Preservation Act is also staffed out of our office. It's actually Teresa now, and they're also planning to have a table.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So ideally, like what, just two tables?
[Alicia Hunt]: Between the three groups, between our two groups, if we want to have physically two tables, but if we want to have them together next to each other, and then we can help each other out, that's also, like, they'd be happy to have us ask for that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, so they didn't want just one combined to save space. We can have two.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: But like they don't have to give us four, five feet between our tables. If we say we're gonna work together, right? Like then they'll actually be next to each other, right next to each other.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That would be great, okay. I'll be in touch with Rachel to see, you know, what we have and copying things I'll be in the next week, this week and next week.
[Lois Grossman]: Any questions? Are you gonna send out a reminder? Is somebody going to send out a reminder with the final schedule? We should know a couple of days before if it's going to be on Sunday.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. Either Paul or me will be sending out... Paul filled out the application, so he'll be the one getting the email with the event schedule and where our table is. But I don't hear from him Monday, Tuesday, next week, because the event's not this weekend, it's the following weekend. I'll follow up and get the information and send it out. But as far as who is attending to me and the table, that won't change. Rain day, we probably wouldn't know until maybe Friday morning if it's canceled and going to Sunday. But, you know, him or I will follow up. I wanted to know, does that answer your question?
[Lois Grossman]: Yes, ma'am.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, okay. I wanted to know, before we move on to the festival, were there any ideas from members of things we should have that I might have forgotten about? And also, would Luke have mass save rebate forms or rebate information material that we could pass out?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thanks, Loretta. I was going to ask if we still had any. I don't know if Paul was holding on to them, maybe not.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, I took them last year when we broke down the fest that he found them.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I think I will have a chance to go into our offices and hopefully collect more, so I will certainly do that. I'm not around this weekend, but I should be able to drop things off at the table on the 17th, I believe.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, if you get them, you can bring them to the office of Room 308, I think it is.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Oh, okay, yes, right.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: just send me a text to let me know they're there. So that would be good. I may have to go there to get supplies. So I'll be working with them. So that'd be great. But any other ideas of things we might want to have?
[Robert Paine]: Laura, this is Bob. I have a poster on various opportunities for heat pumps and other initiatives that I can help bring. If we have room to put it up, that's fine. Do we have anything to hand out or display on the Harvard Shrinergy Festival Save the Date?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: We will. That's on my list. Yeah, definitely.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's on Rachel's list too. I gave her access to all our old files and stuff. And Teresa said last year's Save the Date was in her Canva account. So she'll give it to Rachel to set up.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. And I have it too. It just needs some updating. OK. I just felt like, as far as, just want to speak a little bit about rodent control and reducing the use of rodenticides that harm natural predators that we've been talking about in the past several meetings. So I sent a link late tonight. If someone could post one to Bob, I sent an email with a link to Bob, Lily, and Alicia and Paul, because I didn't know if Paul was showing up. If you could post that link in the, chat, and what it is, is a few years ago, the city of Medford had a public education meeting, I think, okay, at city hall with guest speaker Yankee pest control. It was incredibly informative about rodents, you know, how they behave and how to control them on property. And I had spoken with the director of the health department, Mary Ann O'Connor and working with her to find that video. So I found the link to the video and I had sent it to her, but I wanted to present that at tonight's meeting so that if anybody wants to watch it, you'll learn a lot. It's very informative. It's about a, it's over an hour. And also we want to make a flyer with the health department. I don't know if they have the time to do it, but a flyer with a link to that video to educate the public that we can put, I don't know if, yeah, for Circle in the Square and any other events. Oh, maybe have a Cherokee festival too, but the first one Circle in the Square, that table. So, I don't know, did someone just post that in the chat?
[Robert Paine]: Yes, I saw that, yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, and it's on MedFed Access Television, and the link is in the chat if anybody would like to see it, maybe put it in the minutes. And the city said they'd help promote that video too. So I just wanted to follow up with that. The other thing with the rodent control is there is a product that Newton was using. to a birth control or rodents. And I said, I'd follow up with that. I haven't finished that to report back to Mary in a corner to see how that's working exactly. I mean, I had read an article that it was very effective and reduced. I know it's expensive and it may end up being used as a possibility for certain high areas of rodent infestation, maybe in commercial areas. In Circle and Square, if people can bring weights or rocks, I know that sounds funny, but last year it was so windy, we couldn't hold all the papers down and handouts, so that was very difficult. So if you have some rocks or paperweights, that would be very helpful.
[Robert Paine]: All right, I think we can transition to the Harvest Energy Festival, take that agenda item now while Alicia's here.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes, Rachel, as Alicia said, was hired as an intern to assist with the festival. I'll be working on it more. It's like you're caught up with other demands I have. We have two confirmed food vendors, which is very hard to get because of COVID and a lot of businesses closing, it's been very hard. So, but anyways, the good news is we have Chicken and Rice guys that will be there and also Scott Brothers Meats. And we will be having a beer garden, that's confirmed. So Winter Hill Brewing will be serving beer beside Scott Brothers Meats. And the mayor said that she would try to help with the permitting and I'll be following through with that. So I'm a little bit familiar with the food permits for the festival. As far as the first thing is to get that little flyer done, save the date, and then emailing the vendors and we have some new ideas we'll talk to Alicia about. What else? which I think I'm missing something. It would be good to know, to have everybody remember that Saturday, October 14th, rain or shine event behind the McGlynn School. So if it rains, we go indoors, that people, you know, commit or put that day aside, because we need a lot of help. The mayor would like to see us grow the festival and have more people attend. In order to do that, we need more help. And since the energy committee is part of hosting our biggest event, our members should plan to be there. We usually sometimes are there at nine, sometimes a little earlier, but at least by 10 to help with setup and specific tasks, which will be assigned. I think I'm forgetting something, but I can't remember.
[Alicia Hunt]: The other thing, sorry if you just said this and I missed it, that you have a shredding truck lined up. They actually were just mailing to confirm the location. So I had that email exchange. Sorry, while you were talking.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I forgot. Yes, we do have that set up.
[Alicia Hunt]: And you have the electronics recycling as well, right? Right, right. Tell John who it is, because I think it's the one he likes.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. John, it's Northeast Material Handling.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Oh, good. They're free, aren't they? The other one we had to pay $1,000.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, and they had it booked already. And just so you know, when I called, I was like, you're kidding. And they said, no, we haven't had the school booked. And they booked. I mean, you told me they book in advance, like January, February. They book a year ahead. Yeah, one year ahead, they only have one truck. Well, we lucked out and the person that was confirmed that day canceled. So we got this law. Oh good. Yeah, good. This just happened the past couple of days. So, so paper shredding is a new company called a new company for us, a one data shred. And what we're going to do this year is have on-site shredding. What I learned is that the companies that could be less, they actually take the shredded materials back to their company and bring it to another company to be shredded, which I didn't know. They don't do the shredding on site for most of these paper shredding companies. So A1 DataShred, has a truck, they will shred at the event. And people like that, they can see their items shredded. And it's very quick, doesn't hold up the line. And they gave us a great rate, which was lower than some of the others we've used. The only thing they don't take is the boxes that people may bring because they actually dump the items to be shredded into a bin that's locked. And the bin goes to the truck and somehow I haven't seen the truck exactly in performance, but the truck bin, But the person's recycling is loaded in and it shreds automatic like very quickly. Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So now last year, that's the way it was. There was a truck and it had a it had basically a blue bin and the blue bin kind of went up in a little elevator and into the truck. And then you could hear the truck grinding.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, I don't remember that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: They took- Because electronics was right next to them. So I was there with the electronics and I saw the process. Unless it was the year before. It may have been the year before.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: It was the year before, because I had boxes and they just loaded the boxes. So, yeah. So yes, they're free. They charge, I'm sorry. The paper shredding is not free. They give us a great rate that was less than them taking it away from other companies. And they bring one truck. The electronics recycling was interesting. I just got the list today. And the way that works, that's why we need a lot of volunteers, is their driver will set up bins. Our volunteers, me, our committee, and others, when people drive up with their recyclables, The driver will tell us what bins those items going to keep them separated, and he does not help unload their cars. So our volunteers have to help unload the cars and collect money for the items we decide with that we will accept. So, when. The driver will then fill up his truck. If it gets full, he'll leave, go back to his location, pick up another truck and come back at the end of the day at three o'clock to get more if there is more. So they don't charge an hourly rate, that's free, but they will charge for some items and that item list grew. So Alicia and the office, her office, we'll have to really go over that list in detail. There's a lot of items free, but there are a lot that aren't, and we may decide. specifics of what we will want to accept. We'll take some work, we'll have to make up a new list, because people will start calling the office and, are you going to take this? And are you going to take that? We'll have to limit how many items, like last year, we were not going to take refrigerators, because it was just too much. And even for paper shredding, we'll have a limit of how much you know, someone can bring because we don't want people to bring their whole companies, you know, 10 years supply of shreddables. That's about it, but we will need someone to handle the money, collecting money for those items that we will accept for electronics recycling. And some things we will tell them to go to the city because they cost more. I can't remember the first one was, I think it was TVs are $29. So I believe the city only charges 25 to pick up, but I have to verify all that in the next few months. Even vacuum cleaners, they went $10 for. So, you know, we might take those.
[Alicia Hunt]: An interesting thing that people might, you know, you might think this is like, why are we talking about all these things? Last year, we got a number of people who called who asked if we'd be taking things like dishwashers and refrigerators. And I actually saw people dropping stuff like that off for a Boy Scout electronics recycling event. So people do. And when we told these residents that the that the city would pick up those items from their home for $25, they didn't seem to know that. And several of them were perfectly happy with the answer of for $25, somebody will come to your house, you don't have to bring it to us. These large items, but it was kind of interesting because it's in the flyer that we send every year and it's on the website and all, but we actually probably got more than five or 10 emails and phone calls asking about large items like that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right, right.
[Barry Ingber]: So as you can see- A little off topic, but since Alicia just mentioned the flyer that goes out every year, did it go out this year? Because I didn't get one. The flyer for the festival?
[Alicia Hunt]: No, he means the waste one. So yes, and the city has serious issues with our post office and they got like, we got like some boxes worth back saying undeliverable. And I gotta tell you, we are having, it was not the addresses. I have had many things recently sent back to this office or over the past several months that were addressed to other city halls For our adjoining neighbors, for addresses that we have been using for decades, get returned, no address found, return to sender. So it's a mail issue. We have tons of them over at DPW. I think they saved them so that they could hand them back out to people, but they didn't really have a great way to remail them all. So yeah, if you need them, we got them here in City Hall.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, good. So we could have them at the circle in the square.
[Alicia Hunt]: That's the recycling pliers. Yeah, let's ask for them. Um, if you can make a note, like Rachel could totally just go over there and ask for him. I need her to meet Mary.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay. Um, so the festival is rain or shine. It's outdoors behind the McGlynn school near the windmill. And plan to be there at 10 and we'll send out, as we move closer to the event day, we'll send out signup sheets for members to fill in when they'll be there and maybe give them tasks. And if it rains, we go inside. So it's rain or shine event.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_12]: Loretta? Is there going to be any information about the windmill? Like what it does or how much energy it generates or anything like that?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes. Bob Payne every year is there. He's hosting the meeting right now, running the meeting, filling the chair. And we have GACA, Green Energy Consumer Alliance. And Bob and Green Energy Consumer Alliance has been a big supporter of our festival every year. We have tours of the windmill. and all kinds of education right at the windmill during the festival event.
[Robert Paine]: Yes, pretty much a continuous tour. I'm sort of stationed there pretty much the whole time. I was wondering how, if the mayor wants to have bigger Attendance, how do we accomplish that? Is there any idea?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, yes. Well, one of the things she has suggested was the beer garden, which, you know, we had had problems with in the past, but not anymore. Apparently, we'll see how that works out, because whenever there has been beer at other festivals, more people show up and it'll be beside food. She also mentioned a few other avenues that Alicia and I will discuss. I'd like to have the dog park committee or dog park group for the city have a table because we have the dog park nearby and that's a different group. But also last year, I tried to get some artists to come that might've had environmental art or worked with any environment in art, but they didn't respond. So I'm going to contact Four Good Vibes, which has a retail shop for artists and crafters, and try to work with them to see if they could set up something to have some tables there with environmental or to get different groups involved. But of course, we're open to other ideas. I mean, certainly it's not the same as Oktoberfest. Our theme is sustainability in the environment. in education. And one of the comments we had from exhibitors last year was, it would have been good, and I like this, and that's, you know, we have limited staff, so it's a little hard to figure out exactly what. They'd like to see some presentations during the event, a little educational, scheduling of educational events during the festival. So that's something we might be able to work on.
[Lois Grossman]: Loretta, do you remember we had a presentation from Mothers Out Front?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes.
[Lois Grossman]: I wonder if we can contact that group and see if they would like to collaborate with us on this festival. It might give us another pool of volunteers.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_12]: I'm with Mothers Out Front. Oh, good.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Jill, right?
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, but we don't have a chapter in Medford.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_12]: So we want to have a table so that we can recruit people.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_12]: So I don't know that we can, you know, offer a lot of volunteers because we don't have a chapter.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, but maybe you might want to do a demonstration of something.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, well, one thing I was thinking about is the cooktops, the induction cooktops. And I think Somerville has done that. So they might be willing, I mean, I'd be willing to look into it to see if somebody, one of the other chapters would come and do a demonstration.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That would be nice. I actually had found, I don't know if it was in California, I can't remember what the state, I see a lot of information. There's a program that they have in another state where the city was giving out free induction cooktops as a trial basis for people to use for like a month, so they could sign up to try one and see what it's like.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_12]: You know, I heard that some libraries do that. Yeah. Some libraries will lend you a you know, induction cooktop to try it out, which I think is a fabulous idea.
[Lois Grossman]: Also, Loretta, we had the presentation from the high school teacher. Right. A couple months ago. Right. The class that he's teaching up there. And it would be nice if we could reach out to them and see if they're interested in doing anything with us or doing a presentation.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, just for yourself and some of the new members, we have quite a list. We invite all the schools and all the teachers. And a few years back before COVID, they would show, many of them would show up in Tufts and have tables with presentations and exhibits on the environment or sustainability. But over the years, you know, they've really come back, but I'm certainly going to be in touch with them. or Rachel will be. And a lot of the volunteers come from the high school. I think we have like 25 or 30 volunteers, at least 25. And that's a real need help with organizing the students. And that was very time consuming at the event, because we're trying to set up and please the vendors and help them set up their exhibits. And then at the same time, we have the rush of the students coming in. So we need to work on that more.
[Alicia Hunt]: One thing we'd like to do is as the, as you guys get more experienced right like there's certain things john does every year Bob does every year they know their roles, but as some of the members are more experienced. assign each of them like a couple of students like because john was very is very experienced with directing traffic and electronics recycling. He could just stage and manage I know you had a handful, I want to say, four or five students telling them what to do.
[Adam Hurtubise]: They were awesome. They actually, they managed themselves. They did a great job. They, they figured out what they needed to do. They did it themselves and they were awesome.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And so as some of you are newer, have more experience with things like putting saying, and maybe what we need to do is have a meeting just about the event. like a week in advance for you all and say like, okay, Luke, you're going to be responsible for this. And, you know, I'm sorry, I'm trying to say, Sarah, you're responsible for that. And then, you know, in advance what that's all about. And then give you, we're going to like, we're going to give you three high school students, you supervise them and get them to man that area or whatever. Decentralized so Loretta is not trying to answer questions or wrangle all the students. It's funny, some students just disappear and then want you to sign off on them. And some students show up every 10 minutes asking for another assignment and you're not sure which is worse sometimes.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I really wasn't happy last year with the way that worked out, some of them. It was just too much. All the vendors and everybody needing direction. It's a big event we had 44 exhibitors plus music and. And so, the students were great. But some of them. really were good at focusing on what they were supposed to be doing. And others were like constantly, you know, looking for direction in such a big labyrinth area. It's hard to, I swear to God, I must've done more than 10,000 steps, like 15,000 steps running around, showing them where to be. So that's why they need adults and adult supervision and guidance of where to be. and to monitor them. Because there were some funny stories, I'll tell you when we meet with Bob, if Bob has this outdoor event, of things, you know, that were happening on the side with some of the volunteers. And of course, we will have Information, usually Trees Metro is there. All the community groups sign up and city departments often show up too. And last year we had the animal control officer, the health department was there giving out free COVID test kits. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. That's a lot.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm just getting into- The health department may be interested in doing flu shots at the festival. Oh, wow. They were interested last year, but the idea didn't come up until just a few weeks before, and it was too short notice to organize it. But we have a brand new nurse, public health nurse that started last week. And so we've already planted the seed in her head. She could have like, you just give her her space and that's her over there. She does that. She would manage it. Right.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, there is, you know, this is an aside. When I was talking with the health department director, You know, for a long time, we had free COVID test kits that you could get at CVS or Walgreens or different places, even from the city. And that was through your insurance and working with them, you could get so many free ones. And that ended May 11th. So after May 11th, your insurance may charge to pick up those COVID test kits. But when I was talking to Mary Ann at the health department, she said they had plenty of them. So if you need health COVID test kits, the health department has them. You can go there and ask.
[Alicia Hunt]: And you can just get them from my office too. We're handing them out for them. We're trying to decentralize. You can go to DPW and pick them up off the counter or my office. Come visit.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, good. All right. So I think that's about it for now. If anyone has any questions or ideas about other presentations, I mean, it would be great. You know, it's just really hard with not having as many volunteers to have more presentations. You know, like at 1.30 we show this, and at 2 o'clock we show this, like how to set up a rain bear. I don't know. It could be many, many different things.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, we can discuss that at a future meeting.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Very briefly want to jump in to say that Nicholas made a comment in the chat saying that a cargo bike or e-bike meetup might be a cool demonstration. I also help staff the bike commission, which I know the bike commission usually has a table at the festival. So I'm happy to reach out to them to see if they have ideas or if they have people who might want to give a demonstration for e-bikes. If that's of interest, I'm happy to look into it.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That's very interesting. Yeah, I follow up. My head is like, gee. blue bike last year, I invited them. I wanted them to be there, you know, as an exhibitor, but they didn't. So we have that connection now more.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Interesting. I'd be happy to follow up on that later. And I'll get in touch with you later directly and try to kind of move that forward.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: They really should be there to show their bikes and maybe let people try them. That's all I have to say.
[Robert Paine]: That's good. Before we get to Martha Grover's presentation and she has joined, I just want to acknowledge that committee members Kathleen McKenna and Martha Andres joined a while ago, but they joined after we had that vote on the meeting minutes. Let's transition then. And I'm going to let Martha introduce herself. And she's from Melrose. And I guess Melrose has done a lot of things on heat pump promotions. So Martha, I'm going to just hand it over to you. And you can take it away. Introduce yourself and proceed.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Sure. So thank you very much, Bob. And thanks for inviting me. And Alicia, always good to see you. You and I, you're like, Alicia and I go way back. I think you were, you were in your position before mine was created, but not by much. You and I are kind of two of the old timers in this field of municipal sustainability manager. And now you've gone on to do planning director too. So I, I started out about 1213 years ago in the in for the city of Melrose as a part time energy manager person overseeing our municipal portfolio of buildings, fleets, etc. It's how a lot of us got started with green community funding and working on that. But I'm now full time. I'm stationed in the planning department. And I somehow, I guess you guys heard about some of the stuff we're doing on heat pumps. So Bob asked me to come and talk a little bit about what we're doing, which I have to say is a constant work in progress, like everything that we do. So I'll just share with you where we've been and what I'm working on now related to heat pumps. So I'm going to lay the groundwork a little bit about what we've done in Melrose and then would be happy to answer questions about how you get something similar going. Alicia, I know you have to go, but one question. Is there someone dedicated to just sustainability right now in Medford, or are you wearing five hats?
[Alicia Hunt]: No, I'm wearing many fewer than five at the moment, but I have a position posted climate planner that is actually one year grant funded to do climate work, but I'm still doing, I'm literally managing the most of the renewable energy work, but we have a facilities manager. So he's now doing municipal buildings. But when it comes to residential stuff and outreach, it would fall under me. We don't have that. Some of you guys are new. When I started, I was a part-time energy efficiency coordinator in Medford. Martha and I literally did the same job. One year she'd do a program, one year I'd do the program. We're always trading ideas back and forth. So I'm thrilled that she's all here to talk to you guys. I'm so sorry that I have to go to the 40B meeting, but I'm sure, and if there's stuff that we need to follow, I need to follow up directly, we can. Plus Martha Lilly's from my office. She's a grad student. And right now I have a bunch of grad students in my office. So we can, it's easier to pull things off during the summer when I have a group.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Thanks. Great. All right. So, um, Bob, uh, remind me where sharing is.
[Robert Paine]: Oh, uh, share screen. Yeah. Green box with the arrow pointing at you.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: All right. So, okay. Um, all right.
[Robert Paine]: And I will, yeah, see that presentation mode or whatever.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Yeah, I can't get to that. Let me put it in. Hold on.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Try F5.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: F5. Thank you.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: There are so many screens turning on now, all these commands. So I'm still not seeing presentation mode. Are you guys able, are you guys seeing?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, we can see that.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: The whole thing? Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: We're seeing your presentation mode.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: I see a million things on my little screen.
[Alicia Hunt]: All right, so here we go. The next slide and stuff.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Yeah. Alright, so just to kind of lay the groundwork in Melrose, I, you know, again I started out part time mostly working on municipal portfolio work, but over the years, and in conjunction with the Melrose energy commission. We've done these, you know, every, every year or so we do a big community wide. program of some kind, starting out with what we call the Melrose Energy Challenge, which is basically the Mass Save Promoting Home Energy Assessments. We did Solarize in 2012. We created this umbrella group of sustainability organizations, including Zero Waste and ped bike and the community garden group and conservation and all these different groups that we worked on things together. After Solarize ended, we started this Go Solar Melrose using the energysage.com platform instead of just promoting one installer. We've done a green business program. We did another Melrose Energy Challenge in 2016, launched the Melrose Community Power, which is our aggregation program in 2016. That was the first green municipal aggregation program that we started. It launched that year. We've done annual EV showcases every year since 2017, including one this coming Saturday at Melrose High School parking lot on Linfels Parkway, if anybody wants to pop over. And I think we've got about, we're up to about 30 cars, bikes, we're doing electric lawn equipment, scooters, and people show up with all kinds of different things. We did a big roof solar campaign really focused on this is one of the churches that went solar. And then we're starting to get into the heat pump phase with we did the we were in the last round of. the Mass Clean Energy Heat Smart campaigns in 2020. A rough year to do an outreach campaign with COVID, but it was really successful. I think we signed about 140 contracts that year for heat pumps and solar hot water, so it went really well. And then We're doing another round of the Melrose Energy Challenge, but it's more encompassing with energy efficiency, heat pumps, electric vehicles, solar, getting folks out of their cars and walking and biking, et cetera. So just to give you an idea of all the things that we've done together with the Energy Commission. And things really changed in terms of my job and how I spend my time when we adopted the Melrose net zero action plan, which Demonstrated very clearly once you calculate the greenhouse gas emissions for an entire community that you find that the world that I was toiling in municipal operations represents less than 3% of overall community emissions and residential and businesses in Melrose. It's predominantly residential here. We have very small commercial tax base are the biggest emitters and it's mostly homes, as you can imagine, home heating and transportation. So in order to, so one of the first action in our net zero action plan is to really focus on the residential commercial sectors. And that's really where I've been focusing a lot of my work and energy now. I'm trying to get our DPW facilities et cetera, to take over the buildings, the renewable energy projects, and all of the things having to do with the municipal portfolio. Because now that we have this net zero action plan, the goal is now to decarbonize all of our buildings and our fleet and put solar on every available rooftop. And it has to become what they do all the time. These are no longer one-off projects like Alicia and I have been doing over the last 12 years. It's now everything that they do. So in order to support outreach to the community, I applied for last year something called the Mass Save Community First Partnership. And what it is, is there are now 50 communities taking part in the CFP. And we set annual goals for weatherization, HVAC upgrades, and reaching small businesses. with a focus on sectors who have not been traditionally reached by all those other campaigns that we've done over the years, including low and moderate income households, renter landlords, and really, there's also a component where you can set goals or focus on households where English, isn't the first language but there aren't a lot of those households in Melrose I'm assuming that there are more in Medford so that's that's I'm mostly focused on income and and renters 30% of our residents rent and in exchange for doing this work and reaching those goals Melrose gets $25,000 per year from MassAve to support this work, to support the outreach and to leverage. And just to note that the 25,000 is on the low end of the grants that go up to 60,000. I think Malden has a $60,000 annual grant from MassAve. I set our goals low. I applied and didn't really think that I was gonna get it. wrote the application the day it was due and lo and behold, we got it. So I had to put a program together. So my approach to this new outreach program is through partnerships. So I'll go a little bit into the partnerships that I've set up for all of the components of our campaign. On energy efficiency, we issued an RFP with Malden and selected HomeWorks Energy as our energy efficiency partner who's doing home energy mass save energy assessments and weatherization work. For heat pumps, I entered into an agreement with Abode Energy Management and I'll share a little bit more about what we do with them in a few minutes. Our partner since 2014 on solar is EnergySage, and we're working with Green Energy Consumers Alliance, the Drive Green program support, EV education, and then we have our Melrose Community Power Program. And I'm pretty sure our consultant there is the same that you work with, Good Energy. So my theory here around all these partnerships is that I'm a one person department, one woman shop, and I cannot be an expert in all of these content areas. And I can't be the person taking all of the phone calls and helping every resident navigate all of these electrification goals. I've created a program and partnerships and so that all of these organizations are providing that information, the customer service, the consultation, the vetted, the sweet small group of vetted installers for whatever technology it is, and the organizations who are the experts in each of these fields and can really help people navigate the system. So in terms of heat pumps, Abode Energy Management is a third party organization. They have their hand in a lot of things related to heat pumps. and to mass save and to energy efficiency. But most of what they do is heat pumps. So we have an agreement with them and I've used funding from that CFP grant. It's about first year, first year and a half, it's about $13,000, where we have a website and I can show you. I can just go to it, I think it will work here, but I can show you the participating contractor list for heat pumps that they've created. They have a quote comparison tool, they provide coach training, and they also offer free consultations with advisors on heat pumps. And the reason why I thought this was important in terms of having the consultation and the participating contractor list and the quote comparison tool is that we learned In the 2020 Heat Smart campaign, that heat pump adoption is a very, very complicated process for a lot of, especially for our housing stock. There are so many variables, the amount of weatherization, insulation that you have, the age of your home, the existing heating system, heating and cooling system, the layout of your home, all of those factors. And it's much more complicated than, say, just rolling in a new gas furnace that's not a one-for-one replacement or replacing an oil furnace with a new oil furnace. It can touch every corner of the house, weatherization, And reducing that heating load is a major important component of sizing the system accurately. And not every contractor who's selling heat pumps these days has really, I think, enough experience. I think everybody's getting in on this heat pump business, this heat pump craze. But there is a lot of variation in their approach and the equipment that they're using. And I just think that people need a lot more hand-holding and a lot more Help along the way to navigate the process, depending on where they're starting and where they want to end up. So I'm going to quickly just think it'll work if I kind of just are you now seeing Can you guys see the website. Didn't go Not yet.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It might take a second.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: I can also stop sharing and just go back to the page. Nothing yet?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, what you might want to do is stop sharing the screen.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Great to see you all again. Now you're all going to disappear again. Here it is. Yes, we can see that. So with all of these partners that we that we have these, you know, abode homeworks, energy, energy, sage, green energy, the drive green program, I've we've created Melrose specific landing pages so that when someone goes, it's specific to Melrose and it talks about Melrose. So they it's and they can link to this from the city website. So It's the idea is that it's kind of seamless and it feels like a Melrose thing. And so we talked a little bit about the beginning about what we're doing and this is and then it starts getting into some of the standard information that they have on a lot of their community pages information about the different technologies, why you do it. information about the massive heat loan and all the rebates and tax credits, scheduling a no-cost energy assessment. When a Melrose person clicks on this link, it goes to our partner, HomeWorks Energy. And then this is the part of the website where they want to schedule consultation with someone or do an intake form and use the quote comparison tool. They can do that. Or these are our three coaches, volunteers who are just trained. They went through 12 hours of training. Susan Murphy is the coordinator of the trainers. are the coaches and you can, by going on the scheduling or the intake form, you can schedule time also with one of the coaches. And the idea is that the coaches, you can schedule a visit with them, talk a little bit about what you're looking for, for your project, and then they kind of just help you go through the steps. And then they're there for you to consult with over the course of your project. When you get quotes, help you decipher them. And then the other, I think, really helpful thing is this participating contractor list. And to be honest, I can tell you that This list is not going to be all that different for Medford so if if you're in Medford, even though we paid for it we paid for it with mass save dollars so I have no problem with anybody in Medford using this list. You can put in, you know, you put in any one of these towns you put in Melrose. And it comes up with a short list of companies installers who have been vetted by a boat and who understand the massive system, and who have all agreed to be listed as contractors for Melrose. This is in contrast to, if you were to go on the Mass Save list and you look up their HPIN contractor list, heat pump installer network, it's a list of like a thousand contractors. And even if you narrow it by zip code, it might narrow it down to 900. which I just think is impossible for anybody to navigate. So I like this, that they're vetted, and it's companies that want, that are interested in coming to Melrose to do an installation. The other piece of our campaign I'm going to share, go back to my, hopefully this will do it. is that we're working in concert with the Melrose Energy Commission so that all of these same links and all the same information is consistent on their website. They've also, are you guys seeing the presentation now or still?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, no, we're seeing the presentation.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Okay. And the Meadows Energy Commission has also entered into a program with something called MassEnergize. Has anybody heard of MassEnergize? It's a platform used by a number of communities now. I think there might be about 20 communities using this platform. And it's an action platform. You can steer your residents to your MassEnergize website and they can sign up to take actions on a whole host of things, waste things, bike things. electrification actions, everything that you want your residents to be doing to take steps to address climate change. And so they provide this platform, and it's a great community, it's kind of an action tool. And then I also support it, and we're all using the same links, the same partners, the same information, but the Energy Commission and the way that these tools all Jean Gatza, COB Moderator she-her, OSPITH, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSNB, she-her, OSN Other avenues that we've used are webinars, workshops, events, fairs, kind of like you were just talking about. I just heard of a great idea that they just did in Newton on Sunday. They did the Sustainability Street Fair. And it's where a few houses on one block who have done heat pumps and solar and other electrification, maybe they haven't, maybe there's some induction ranges or something like that. They open up their homes and it's a destination for a few hours and you invite the community to come and see these houses and talk to the owners. And then the last piece of my campaign of my, what I'm working on, again, this is all a work in progress, is something called Block Maps. And I only got the link I only got access to our block map tool. i'm a week ago and I haven't even played around with it much because i've. been so busy. If you want to see it, I'm happy to show you. But it's a mapping tool that you can use to target certain sectors of your city for outreach on weatherization, heat pumps. You could even use it, I guess, for solar or for other components of your electrification campaign. It's powered by BlockPower, which is a national organization that's making inroads in a number of states. And so I got in on a sale in December, and I used some of my CFP money. Any interest in seeing the BlockMap tool, or am I talking too much?
[Robert Paine]: No, I think we have time. Sure.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: You guys want to see it? All right. You just can't ask me any questions about it, because I haven't played around with it very much. And I am having trouble. Oh, here we go. I'm going to stop sharing. And.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, we did have a block power presentation last year. Oh, you did? OK. We didn't pursue them, but we wanted to know what they were up to.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Yeah, I think that I'm only doing one piece of what they offer, which is the mapping tool. Because they also, if you look them up, they're doing, in Cambridge, they're doing this huge multifamily upgrade project, which is a huge undertaking and frankly, too much money. And I think we can do it on our own with the MassAid contractors and vendors and with the partners. But the idea is just having the tool the mapping tool that I hope some of our partners can also access.
[Unidentified]: So let me see where I have, hold on. Actually, I will share this and then I will, Little block maps. Wait a minute, maybe it'll come up.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Are you seeing block maps, the mapping? You are, okay. So, the idea here is that you can, they've set up, they've put in a bunch of data and you can sort your city or town and your properties by any one of these different categories, EJ, family income, size of building. They have a bunch of algorithms that determine heat pump feasibility. Building type, you can sort by any of those categories. EUI if known. I think the EUI thing is really built for communities that have Berto rules, not for Melrose. Also heating fuel type. And then you're built and you can come up with a list or a map and target outreach, say, to the oil heating single family homes in your city or town. One of the main concerns about this tool is the quality of the data, which we all know is publicly available data on this. for these categories is not great. If you're taking data from your assessor's database or your permit database, it's really pretty limited. What I've learned is that in your assessor's database, it might have heating fuel type, but that was at the time of sale a long time ago. And the reality is that Especially since coven what I've learned is only about 10% of homes have in person assessor visits, even on those the three year schedule so there will be assessors are mostly. taking a look at our homes and assessing them from the outside and not going inside. I found that our permitting database, it's all open fields. So you have to get in the head of the person who's putting the data in their permit database and try to figure out how she would describe a heat pump, or for instance, how she might describe Solar and try to sort all the data in the permit database in that way and it's really not very useful. So one one thing I'm going to do. I'm going to share this with you and I haven't figured it out yet haven't tried it yet. Again, work in progress mode is that I'm going to use our annual city census that the thing that keeps people on the voter rolls. I've talked to our city clerk. And we're going to put an insert in our annual city census that goes out in January and ask about current heating fuel and heating system information. We'll have that by address, hopefully for some, for a good percentage of this 9900 buildings in Melrose because it's the one thing that we send our residents that they open, they fill something out, put it back in the envelope and mail it back and or drop it off at City Hall. So I'm hoping to get some good data and put that into this tool so that we have even better data in order to do this outreach. I'll let you know how that goes. And that is my whole thing. That's where I am. Happy to answer any questions.
[Robert Paine]: Martha's, Bob, so how much time and money did you need to set up all these partnerships and all these programs?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: So HomeWorks, that's free. We're not paying them. They get paid by their MassAid contractor and they get paid for every home energy assessment they do and get paid for all the weatherization work. That was free. And I am happy to share our RFP with you. There are now, apparently, when I did it even last fall, there were only maybe half a dozen. They're called home performance contractors, but apparently now there are more like a dozen or more. I keep hearing ads for endless energy on WBUR. Everyone's getting into this space. But I'm happy to share the RFP that I did with Malden that we wrote. We did it with the help of All in Energy. No cost. ABODE, so far, that engagement is, like I said, about $13,000. I'm sure you could do it for less than that.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, does that include, I know I did a consultation for $150 to get Educated on heat pumps. Is that is that now free for Melrose?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Yeah. So if you have a if you have a Melrose zip code, it's free. And then a boat does it and then they send me a bill. And we're only paying them $100. And I'm using my CFP funds.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, that's interesting. Okay.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: And then EnergySage, again, that's free. They make their money off of whatever fees that the installers pay them. Green Energy Consumers Alliance, again, they're just very happy to have other communities promoting their great work. In terms of the time, it's a lot. And that's why I'm pushing off all of my municipal work, trying to do less of the EV infrastructure, EV charging, the fleet stuff, the solar stuff, and really working with our DPW staff to get them to take ownership of this work, because it's a lot. And that's why I was asking Alicia how it is that she's doing all of this. she can't do it all. I mean, Medford's gotta, and I'm pushing within Melrose that, you know, I've been making it very clear that if we're in on this, you know, this goal of net zero by 2050, and if 97% of our emissions come from the community, it's time for the city to step up and fund these positions in this work. But I have to tell you that this is a new place for cities and towns to be in where we're, you know, we're there outward facing and investing in positions for things that, for this, you know, climate goal. And I think, I also think that the state really has to step up and fund this work. And I understand that there's some kind of a green communities 2.0, I think they're calling it climate leaders. And I think that Medford would qualify. I think you've met Medford's right in there in the top tier of green communities and would qualify for this climate leader pot of money that I'm waiting to hear about that it would come out with that could support some of this work. Still waiting to hear.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Pardon me, this is Luke McNeely. I assume you are familiar with the MassCEC intern support programs. I'm sure you could also have some help on that front that would be supported. to help manage. That doesn't solve the problem of actually funding full-time positions to do the real work, but it can at least help in the smaller management, smaller aspects.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Yeah, I agree. And Alicia does a fantastic job of leveraging interns from Tufts and MassCEC and I've always marveled at her ability to to do that.
[Robert Paine]: Any other questions for questions.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yes, this is Kathleen McKenna, I was wondering, do you have a number of heat pump Inquiries or I guess it might roll into some of the energy audits that have been done. Do you have like a idea? I'm just wondering what, how many people have participated?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: So far, so I can tell you. that since we launched and I was kind of late getting my program running because I like I said I didn't really think I would get this money but so we didn't really get rolling until October of last year but we've done 700 home energy assessments since October and over 125 weatherization projects and at least That I know. That I know of maybe 75 heat pump projects, and these are not whole home projects, these are mostly what i'm finding is people are doing partial. they'll do a space or they'll do it for air conditioning or they'll do it to subsidize so they don't have to pay for all of the oil over the winter and they can do the heating, but people are i'm finding that people aren't ready to let go of their. Their existing systems they're they're putting in the heat pumps, maybe they'll get through a few winters get used to it and then maybe finally get rid of we're calling it zero over time. Now this concept or it's not going to happen overnight, you gotta yeah but those are the numbers, so far, since since i've told you it's pretty good.
[Kathleen McKenna]: yeah sounds great yeah.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: There was something else I was going to say. Bob, you had asked me about, you know, you have, you struggle with volunteers. I'm really impressed with this turnout. I think our energy commission gets, you know, half a dozen folks. So this is great to see. But I am also, feel very strongly that we cannot get to a million heat pumps by 2030 in the state of Massachusetts on the backs of volunteers. I mean, I am waiting, sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for the state to figure out how this is going to happen and how they're going to fund this. Because it does require across the state an army, I hate to use that term, but of coaches, because these are complicated projects and we need to We need to replicate this abode model of training people, but paying those people to do this work, especially in communities where there aren't a lot of jobs, there aren't a lot of skilled jobs, communities that have been not well served by this, environmental justice communities where there's just made very few inroads. We can't do this with volunteers. We've got to figure something out. And I don't know what the response is. I don't know what the plan is. But I'm hoping that Healy is putting together a team with Melissa Hoffer and the climate team and DOER, EEA. And I understand that Healy's budget includes a lot of funding, up to 250 new positions. in this climate space that we're all working in. It's just, for me, it's happening too slowly.
[Robert Paine]: So how did you get three coaches and do you pay them?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: I am paying the the coach coordinator Susan from the CFP funds. The other two are two retired engineer types that are really kind of geeking out on this heat pump thing and also have enough interest in working with people and, you know, in, in doing that, but it's, it's really mostly Susan and Susan happened to also be our heat smart coach. So she's been doing this work for, for a while. And we're very lucky to have her.
[Robert Paine]: So how many hours a week does that take of her time and all the other heat coach?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: I'm paying her up to 10 hours.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Okay, 10 hours a week. And I bet she puts in more.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Yeah, I'm sure she does. Yeah. And it's, it's not predictable. I mean, I see some of the appointments at seven in the morning. It's when people can do it before work. It's on weekends. It's we have a solar coach. She's been the solar coach since our solarize Melrose campaign in 2012. She's and she's she's doing it every weekend. She's talking to people.
[Robert Paine]: Does she literally visit their homes?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Sometimes you have to, yeah.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, I know.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Especially for folks. I mean, there are a lot of people that the internet, all of this can be daunting and overwhelming. And so, yeah, they need a lot of hand-holding.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Martha, I'd like to ask. This is Loretta James. I've spoken to you before actually about zoning and trees, but when you were talking about your coaches, how do you fund that? Because that's the biggest problem with budgets is getting that extra money for cities to fund it. So how do you fund the coaches?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: So the training I funded with the CFP program and then the hours that Susan is spending is coming also out of the CFP budget.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: which is actually the first partnership.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: So one of the things that your group could do is I think that the CFP, another round is coming out probably some later on this year. So if there were a Lily Worth type intern or somebody who could help draft the application. And again, I will share anything There's no reason for anybody to creating anything from scratch. We've been sharing RFPs, bids, grant, everything with each other, Alicia and I and our whole cohort for years. So you take a few sample applications, put something together that is Medford specific. I think that'd be a great way to help. It would give her that seed money to get a program going.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: So tell me again, it's community? Community First Partnership. So if you look up, if somebody might be able to find it, it's just Mass Save Community First Partnership.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, okay.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Yeah, it's a Mass Save program. There you go. And the beauty of it is that it comes with tons of support. So there are, it's supported by an organization called All In Energy, and they're in this space, you may have heard of them before, and that you get a program manager, you get access to Salesforce to track your leads.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Really?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: You get training, you get a lot of outreach materials, so sample community letters that, you know, your mayor might send to every household, you get all kinds of tools and other things once you're in this program. And what a lot of them do, I mean, again, we aimed for the lowest amount of money because I didn't know what I would do with it. I wish I had applied for more, but I didn't. But what most communities are doing with their CFP funds is hiring energy advocates who support these programs. And what Malden did, and I don't know, I don't fully, I don't know everything about Medford, but Malden has, they have a lead abatement program and a home renovation program. And so they combined the funding for those two programs and this to create a full-time job. I don't know what they're paying. That person actually just left, but one job who's supporting all three of those programs, which I think is brilliant. Is there you know you can help somebody with their home renovation, their home energy assessment, their lead abatement, and access all of those different. So that's how Malden does it. Every community is doing it in different ways.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That's very interesting. Thank you for sharing that.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Jill, I can stop talking if she wants to do trees.
[Robert Paine]: We're going to get close to the 8 o'clock hour, so any any other questions?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: And I'm happy to talk with anybody offline if you have follow-up questions.
[Robert Paine]: Great, yeah. And this has been very educational. And we'll probably internally discuss if we can do similar things. I don't think we've got this grant in Medford that I know of.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: No, you don't have it. But I think that you can make a good case. They're prioritizing environmental justice. But I think that you've got enough of an environmental justice footprint throughout Medford that you would you would be a great candidate. I think that if I were, if I had applied this year, Melrose would not have gotten, would not have been accepted. They're really looking to get EJ communities or predominantly EJ communities in this program. I think Medford would qualify. So if somebody put it on your to-do list,
[Robert Paine]: We'll have a discussion at the next meeting, maybe. Well, thank you very much, and we really appreciate your taking the time out to educate us.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: Yeah, I'm here anytime. I'm happy to help and share everything.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thanks, Martha.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you so much, Martha. This was wonderful.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I've taken a lot of notes. Me too.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_28]: And really, I'm here anytime if you want to meet offline.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you. That would be great. I appreciate it. I'll definitely reach out.
[Unidentified]: Great.
[Robert Paine]: All right, we can transition now to the tree. We have some extra time for the Trees Medford to give an update on their activities.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Jill had to go. She put in the chat that she needed to close out.
[Robert Paine]: Oh, I'm so sorry.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I can just tell you that the legislative meeting I attended, and Lois attended, and other people attended, which was the Act for Establishing Municipal Reforestation Program with the state. And they did an overview of the program. Maybe Lois, I'm losing my voice. Maybe Lois, if she's still here, would like to talk about that a little? Lois? I had to step out of the room for a minute. What did you want me to talk about? Can you talk about the meeting that we went to with the state for the act establishing the Municipal Reforestation Program, the bill?
[Lois Grossman]: I never heard that. Alicia did. Okay. I thought you had information that she said she would circulate.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, okay. Well, that was the establishing municipal reforestation program for trees.
[Lois Grossman]: I've been working with Amanda and the tree group, but I wasn't able to hear the presentation that took place.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, okay. So that was, I attended that. And basically they reviewed the bill and it was very interesting that Speak for the Trees, you know, had helped write the bill with Senator Cream to support municipalities specifically. I have so many notes here. Sorry about that. To help grow the tree canopy and maintain it throughout the state. which is quite impressive, that would provide funding to cities and towns. Specifically, they would target areas that have 20% or less tree canopy first for funding with the whole program for planting new trees. and maintaining existing tree canopy. So 20% or less tree canopy, and then it would go up from there. So they were mainly, the public was invited to attend that meeting at the state house and they did it on Zoom also to share the bill and to get more support from other congressional leaders in the state. I haven't heard any updates since then, because now the summer's here A lot of those meetings are very slow during the summer to pass bills or review. As far as trees method, I mean, I haven't been able to attend those. I don't know if anybody's here from them, but I know they're looking for ambassadors to sign up to adopt a tree for tree watering in the city. It's a big challenge. There's a lot of trees that need You can volunteer and sign up to take care of a tree. So you could go to their website or Facebook page to contact them. They have the list. And I think it was the Girl Scouts in Medford did a map of trees and what year they were planted and which ones needed, you know, volunteers to sign up to water them. They'll probably be in circle in the square too. There were, Bob, there were a couple of other things I forgot to mention.
[Robert Paine]: Go ahead, yeah, we have extra time.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Just real quick, Massage Farmers Market starts this Thursday. And usually I try to go, I missed this one, to see who's there, support them. And they've been a supporter of the Harvester Energy Festival in the past. So that's this Thursday, I think it's four to seven, it's four to seven. And even if it rains, unless it's pouring, they might cancel, but that'll be their opening day. The other thing that was really interesting that I just found out today from a Facebook post is the Tufts Pollinator Group is going to be planting a pollinator garden at City Hall. So I thought people might be interested in that. And Amanda Bowen had sent out an information about that. I guess there's a little map I didn't get to look at the whole post, but if people want to help plant the pollinator garden at City Hall, I think that's really exciting. They were looking for help to plant. And the other thing I missed, I don't know, is John still here, John Rogers? Okay, so this is about herbicides. And I remember we were talking about Roundup and how dangerous it is. I was wondering if you might have the time to make up a one page flyer on how dangerous it is to use. because you gave us quite a bit of information at a previous meeting of how you're not supposed to just spray it all over the place, and how it affects people, and how should we wear a mask, and if you're gonna cut, you should cut a plant and just dab it on with like a Q-tip or whatever for that specific plant that you're trying to eradicate. Because I've seen quite a few people this year spraying Roundup on sidewalks. to kill weeds. Yeah, you've said that, yeah. Oh, a lot. And I'm like, oh my God, dogs walk over that, people walk over this. It gets into our water supply. I'm just like, oh. So if we had a fly, I don't know if you could do that on camera or make up a little thing.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't know if I have time to do it before I circle the square, but I might have time to do it before the oxygen energy.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, I just, I have a lot going on.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, okay, I just thought. I mentioned it to you because you're so informed about it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I mean, I could- Yeah, I mean, if I could come up with, I mean, that's in like two weeks, right?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, that's, yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: It's something. It is cancerous.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, I know. My dad got cancer from that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I know. You mentioned that. Very sad to see people just using it and it's pretty, well, yeah. People don't know, but you know what, I might be able to have someone in the city do it, the city hall, maybe one of the interns, or I know Paul was big into this.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, Paul and I were gonna work on it together last year. Paul must be very busy right now.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That's right, so maybe, we'll see. Okay, that was it. I don't wanna take up any more time.
[Robert Paine]: I need anything else or is that know that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay.
[Robert Paine]: Why don't we go on to the scheduling the next meeting I was, I got some reports back from some people. I'm going to float a date to see how many people can make this because many of the people I've heard from could could do Wednesday July 12 but I'm going to see if there's a lot of objection to that date. So I haven't heard from, I haven't heard from Paul. Luke, how does that date look for you?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: It's say again, Wednesday, July 12th. I'm just checking, sorry.
[Robert Paine]: Everyone else can check at the same time.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Okay. That is looking clear for me at the moment.
[Barry Ingber]: It looks good for me, but I just am wondering why. We don't, for the sake of consistency, go with Monday.
[Robert Paine]: We could, okay, well, let's try that. I was trying, I think Alicia could do that. I just wanted to make sure Alicia could do that. And she's not here now. She might be, I don't think she'd do the 11th. The 10th is also possible. So if I throw out the 10th or the 12th, you can see if you're available on either all these days. I think that Benji was, not available on the 10th, but it was available on the 12th, for example.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I will say that the 12th is, I can be available. I do try to take my mom to Tai Chi in the evenings on Wednesdays. So anyway, but so the 10th, I'm definitely available. Okay, got it.
[Robert Paine]: I know already some people couldn't, at least one who couldn't do, but if that's just one, you might be able to. So far, I haven't got a lot of objection on that date. So.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Bob, this is Kathleen. I haven't answered, because I mostly am away in Maine often, and I'll just have to play it by ear.
[Robert Paine]: OK, I understand. Maybe I'll send out a final list as an email and we'll settle on either the 10th or the 12th and see what I get back for a reply. And then we'll do that. And then what we'll do is we'll meet in person outside and have a, hopefully outside, and I do have rain canopies. have people bring you know whatever if they want to bring some sort of food offering we'll just have a picnic table and set it out. We'll start at six to avoid dusk and mosquitoes that type of thing. In terms of topics for that meeting we can We can maybe further discuss what we heard from Melrose and how that might be able to be implemented in Medford. That would be an interesting follow-up discussion. Obviously, the feedback from the Circle and Square event, and then looking forward to the Harvest Trinity Festival, those are probably going to be major discussion topics of this next meeting. The next meeting after that would not be till the Monday after Labor Day, so it'll be a two month gap, basically. But that's typical, so that's fine. There can be, in the interim, email traffic as needed.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So Bob, just to confirm, there's no meeting in August?
[Robert Paine]: No, we're just setting one summer meeting, July, August. That's our typical plan not to burden everybody to have a summer meeting every month. So one summer meeting for the two months. Before we adjourn, any other business items that anyone wants to bring up? Otherwise we can have... 15 minutes back for your day. If not, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. All right, and does anyone object. Yes, well, motion passes that I guess. Well, thank you for your time, and I'll send out an email about two candidate dates and see the best possible reply, and we'll set the date. I'll let you know what it is. OK. Thanks very much. Sounds good. Thank you. Nice to see everyone. Thank you.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Bye. Thanks, everyone.