[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: co-chair, at least for tonight, try on this new seat. So if I mess things up, please let me know. Graciously, I hope. But we have our agenda ready to go. I believe we start with a review of minutes, correct? I would entertain a vote to accept the minutes from before, from last month.
[Robert Paine]: Just a point of order. I should make sure we record who's actually attending just for the record.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Perfect. I will quickly run through it. We have Lois. I don't see Bungie. I see Barry. Loretta. We have Kathleen. Luke. Don't ask me, Martha. Dan, Bob, Jessica, myself, and no Paul. And Kathleen. And Kathleen, perfect. That brings us to nine, which is above our seven for quorum. All right. Now I would like to entertain a movement for accepting the minutes from last month.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: So moved. I do have to note that I did not receive the minutes. Well, I have.
[Robert Paine]: Thank you. I'll second the motion. I think that Brenda had sent them out. Late last week, I don't know if you're getting her emails.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right here, I'll throw that in the chat and we'll be okay. And so after that, I would entertain a vote to begin. Except this current one vote.
[Robert Paine]: Typically, we'll see if anyone has anything to discuss before we do the vote. No one seems to have piped up, so you're probably safe in proceeding.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I'll move to vote on accepting these minutes. can you please assist me here just making sure I go through it in the correct order. I don't want to waste everyone's time fumbling and guessing.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, sure. So we have the so we had the motion to approve it. We had the second. So I think we'll just just go down through the list of names in the participants list. Maybe that might be the easiest way and just call each one to get the vote.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: So I'll go down our list here. Yay or nay on accepting the minutes lowest.
[Lois Grossman]: Yay.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Benji, Barry. Yep. Loretta.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yes.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Kathleen.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yes.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Luke. Just read them, yes. Thank you.
[Lois Grossman]: I actually read them. By the way, Will, I did read them. That wasn't a pro forma motion that I made. The minutes were good. I think Brenda provided. Oh, I appreciate it.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, yeah. From Dan? Yes.
[Robert Paine]: Bob? Yes. Did you get my, yeah, yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Apologies, looks like I'm cutting out. Can everyone hear me?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes, we can hear you, but no video.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I turned it off in the hopes it'll work. I believe I missed the last 30 seconds there.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, Bob Payne, I say yes. Thank you. Jessica?
[Jessica Parks]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: We have John, he is not here, sorry. Will, I accept. And do not see Paul, but as a unanimous yes. So accepted, and we will move on to our agenda for tonight. Has everyone had a chance to look at this? And I would love to discuss any addendums, anything we'd like to add about our agenda. Hearing none, I would move to vote on accepting this agenda and moving forward. Is that correct?
[Brenda Pike]: I don't think we need to vote on the agenda. Yeah, it was just the minutes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: In that case, I will move forward and just send it over to our monthly update, I believe.
[Robert Paine]: Did we get administrative updates?
[Brenda Pike]: So just just really one administrative update so I think Alicia mentioned last time that we have a new economic development director, a new economic development planner, and a new housing planner who came to the last meeting you met at DT. But as of today, we now have a new building commissioner, too. His name is Scott Vandewall, which I'm very excited about because we're going to be implementing the new specialized energy code starting in July. So it's good that that team is built out now.
[Lois Grossman]: That was the only other question. Why do we have so many new people suddenly? Did the others leave? Were they asked to leave?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, there's been turnover, and those positions have been open for quite a while. So it's just been difficult to find people.
[Lois Grossman]: Why do you think that is?
[Brenda Pike]: I mean, I think part of it is generally the pay scale for local government isn't the same as the private sector. So it can be difficult to compete.
[Robert Paine]: Thank you. Brenda, could you? A couple of things you were going to tell us about people who were interested in joining the committee and they're welcome to be attending our meetings, but maybe you could give us like a sort of a basic description of how many and what kind of talents they might have.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So there were nine people, actually, who expressed interest in joining the Energy Committee, in addition to other committees at the city. It's one forum, and you check off which boards you're interested in. So for most of them, the Energy Committee was one of the boards that they expressed interest in. It tended to be a lot of people who were in fields that were related to what we tend to talk about here, right? So there were people who were working in, you know, who were architects who were engineers, things like that. So I was really impressed by the experience of the people who were expressing interest. I wrote back to them and let them know that we didn't have any openings right now, but they were welcome to join the committee anytime as a member of the public. and to just see sort of what goes on in the committee meetings and the sorts of things that we're talking about so they can see if that's something that they might want to pursue in the future. So we might have guests in the future for these meetings because of that. And one of the people did respond to me and has since signed up to be a coach for Electrify Medford.
[Robert Paine]: One other question I had was are there dates we need to be aware of for city functions that our committee would be participating in that we need to plan for or maybe that's further off?
[Brenda Pike]: I am putting together a list of events for for Electrify Medford coaches to be able to sign up for particular events to attend to do sort of promotion of that. And I'd love to share that with this committee as well once I have that finalized. Climate Equity Council has also expressed interest in that, so I think we might have a lot of people signing up for it so we can spread the work around a lot.
[Robert Paine]: Go ahead, Loretta, sorry.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That's fine. I had an email today, just a little, well, I just saw it today. Maybe you could speak to that, unless it's too soon, about the composting program for the city that just was emailed. Because I think that's your ballpark, and they mentioned Earth Day. So maybe you could talk about that. I think that's exciting.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, absolutely. So, if we're done with the administrative updates, I want to move on to the climate policy initiatives. Oh, okay. Yeah?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, go for it.
[Brenda Pike]: Cool. Yeah, so the free curbside composting is going to be starting July 1st. And people can sign up for it at medfordcomposts.com. And there are only 6,000 slots available for that in the first year, and people have to sign up for it. It's not something that's just going to be by default, like recycling or trash. But we think that 6,000 might be enough for the first year. Right now we have 1,200 people who are paying to do composting. And so, If we have more than 6,000 people signing up for that this first year, that's a great problem to have and we'll probably try to find the funding to expand that. But the goal is to have everybody in the city able to sign up for the free composting within three years.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: So if we are already paying for composting, do we need to sign up still? And is that price different? I see that there is some current service pricing. Sorry?
[Brenda Pike]: I don't think you have to sign up for it again. I think it'll just convert. that point to the free service, but I will double check that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I read that Brenda, you're already a paid member, we'll just transfer over starting July 1st.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I see that, yes, forgive me, I just didn't read that piece.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And there'll be more news coming out about it. Excellent.
[Brenda Pike]: Yes, and there'll be a lot of outreach in the next month or so about this. I think Garbage to Garden is actually planning to do even door-to-door outreach around this to get people to sign up. So if folks are interested in volunteering to do that sort of like door-to-door outreach in their neighborhoods around it, let me know. Let's see what else. Oh, so the city received energy efficiency conservation block grant that we're putting towards upgrading the lighting in City Hall. And that, I mean, that's a pretty low, that's low hanging fruit, right? The payback for that is less than six years and it'll save the city about $22,000 a year. So it's a really great thing to do. One of the first things that we should be doing, definitely. We added two new blue bike stations at West Medford Square and Logan Park, which makes a total of 10 blue bike stations in Medford now. And we have a grant for several more in the spring and summer. I don't know exactly what the total would be after that, but a few more. We received an electric street sweeper, that's replacing our old diesel street sweeper. And that was partially paid for by a state DERA grant. The four electric vehicle charging stations are still in national grid limbo. I think one of them might go online this week. But I don't have a timeline for when the other three will be connected. It's frustrating because they are sitting there, they look like they're good to go, and people will pull up to it and be frustrated. I've been getting a lot of emails about this. It's good to see that people are looking forward to it, but frustrating that they're not available yet.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Interconnection is often the slowest part of any electrical upgrades. Solar batteries.
[Brenda Pike]: I had some sympathy during the snowstorms, because I appreciate that their blue sky work gets delayed during that time. But yeah, it's getting frustrating now. For the McGlynn and Andrews HVAC upgrade, we released the RFQ for an owner's project manager last week. So sort of the first step to getting that project off the ground. We'll be releasing an RFQ for designer for the project very soon.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Sorry, this is HVAC for which facility?
[Brenda Pike]: McGlynn and Andrews.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Okay.
[Brenda Pike]: Yep. And that's the project that's going to be partial electrification, not full electrification, but for the majority of the heating season, they will be using heat pumps.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Great.
[Brenda Pike]: We have a specialized energy code training scheduled for building inspectors on February 22nd. And I originally scheduled this as an in-person training just for Medford's building inspectors, but other municipalities got wind of it. And now we have 35 plus other people from other towns attending it too. So again, I'm glad that there's that much interest for it.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Which day is this one on?
[Brenda Pike]: February 22nd. And what are the times? It's in the morning. It's like 9 to 12 in the morning. And it's really primarily for building inspectors. We'll have other trainings in the future for developers and owners and things like that. We held a, or Mothers Out Front held an event at the library on Wednesday night. Thanks for attending that, Bob. There were 20-ish people, I think, there. They seemed pretty enthusiastic to get involved. This was really sort of their kickoff meeting to try to generate interest and action. And we were really hoping to get people involved in getting word out about the compost, the free composting program, and about Electrify Medford. And people seemed really enthusiastic about that. And we had some more coach signups for Electrify Medford coming off of that. So that's great. We have 11 people now signed up as coaches.
[Lois Grossman]: I have a question for Brenda.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Lois Grossman]: If I can remember it. Why won't there be a robocall about composting?
[Brenda Pike]: There probably will be at some point. It's just not been widely announced yet.
[Lois Grossman]: Because, I mean, that certainly gets through to people.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I don't know what the plan is for getting out the word, except for I had heard that there was going to be that sort of like door-to-door outreach in March. So I think the mayor has announced this now and the website is live now, but the real push for it hasn't happened yet. And then the Boston Glory Professional Ultimate Frisbee team, which I didn't know existed before this point, they are interested in doing an energy a fest at one of their games at Hormel on April 26th. So they reached out to us about the city sort of like co-branding around this and having tables and information and connecting them with vendors and things like that. They really want to have recycling and things like we had at the Harvest Your Energy Festival. They'd love to have that. We're going to be connecting them with vendors and they're going to be doing most of the planning around that. But if the energy committee is interested in tabling at that, I think I'll do it.
[Kathleen McKenna]: That's my area, Frisbee, ultimate Frisbee.
[Brenda Pike]: Nice.
[Kathleen McKenna]: My world's coming together.
[Brenda Pike]: You've been to one of their games before?
[Kathleen McKenna]: I don't know if I've been to the professional games, but yeah, I play in the Buda League, Boston Ultimate Disguise. That's great.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: This is April 26th, Brenda?
[Brenda Pike]: Yep, 7 p.m. April 26th.
[Robert Paine]: Oh, at night. What day of the week is that?
[Brenda Pike]: It's a Friday.
[Robert Paine]: Okay.
[Brenda Pike]: And I had heard that the citywide cleanup day that takes place annually is going to happen on the 27th, the next day, that Saturday. And I don't think there's been any sort of announcement or outreach or anything like that about that yet. But that's when it's being planned for. And not a lot of update about Electrify Medford except for the fact that we have 11 people now signed up as coaches. We haven't done any training for them yet or anything. We are not moving forward with that until we have our contract signed for the grant, which we're in process of doing right now. We still have to hire the technical consultant and get materials online about that as well. So a lot of this is waiting until after the contract is signed for the grant. So still in process there. But one of the things I wanted to talk to you guys about, the Climate Equity Council, one of their comments as we were talking through the Electrify Medford outreach plan was they noticed that the Go Green Medford website doesn't have a translation plugin. in the same way that the City of Medford website does. City of Medford has the ability for people to click on one of three additional languages to have the site translated for them. And I'm assuming that there's, Go Green Medford is in WordPress, so I'm assuming that there are plugins that we can do with WordPress to do that. which is something that hadn't been pursued before. But I think that's something that we should really try to do to make sure that Go Green Medford is available to as many people as possible.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I was just saying on the City of Medford site, in addition to English, there are five other languages. Impressive. But yeah, that would be great.
[Lois Grossman]: Would it be simultaneous translation or just for written things? What do you have in mind, Brandon?
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, so I think with the City of Medford website, if you click on a different language, it presents the website in that language. It just translates everything in that language as if it were that to begin with.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Right now, I'm looking at Bienvenue à Medford. I can't really deal with any of the other languages personally, so I'm not going to attempt those.
[Lois Grossman]: But that's just the website, right? That's not for conversations and things like that. It's just printed material that goes up.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, yes, yeah, for the Go Green Medford website is what I'm talking about, trying to get the translation for that. For Electrify Medford, our goal is to have coaches who are able to translate for people. So if, you know, in this first round, as we're getting people to sign up, if we don't have, you know, enough people who are able to translate into the main additional languages in Medford, then we'll be recruiting specifically for that. I think those are all of my updates, unless anybody has any questions.
[Robert Paine]: Brendan, there's nothing for Earth Day itself, but I think Earth Day week is April 26th and 27th, so maybe that encompasses that.
[Brenda Pike]: I would like to do an event for Electrify Med first, so we're going to kick off event that week. I think we had talked last time about not doing it on Earth Day itself because of school vacation and like not early in that week because of a holiday. So I think what we'd be looking at would be like Wednesday, Thursday timeframe for that kickoff event. Although we haven't fully scheduled it yet.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And that would be week of, so like the 24th, 25th?
[Brenda Pike]: Yep, exactly. Okay.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Would it make sense to, in any way, partner with this? Because I think the Energy Fest with the Ultimate Frisbee Group is happening that same week. Is it worth partnering with them further to expand that? Or is that too much work, too many balls in the air?
[Brenda Pike]: I am concerned because that ultimate Frisbee thing is a ticketed event that it would be, you know, leaving people out. So I want to make sure that any like kickoff event we do is open to the public.
[Robert Paine]: Brenda, would that be at night or during the day?
[Brenda Pike]: I think it would be in the evening.
[Robert Paine]: Okay. Yep. Thank you.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Right. I don't see any raised hands. So with that, we would move on to next item in the agenda is Trees Medford update with Loretta. I know I've gotten quite a few emails on different tree plans to be built and things in the works, so I'm excited to hear to support Loretta.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I didn't hear the last part that you said.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: You got many emails here and there, petitions to sign on reforestation and rebuild and things.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, right, right, right. OK, that's it. Yeah. But we got increased method work. Bob and I have been working with them. Their drafts are almost done. Not quite finished yet. And the update, they're not here right today. Let me just check the I'm sorry, I'm just closing the chat. Had reached out to two city Councilors. And she's waiting to hear back from them. That was about two weeks ago. Two and a half weeks for their suggestions to move forward with the project. She hasn't heard back from them. Bob would be invited to, myself, and, of course, Theresa Medford. So she had said that she would reach out to them again and hopefully hear back. And that would be a Zoom meeting. But as far as completing their draft, they weren't done yet. I looked a week ago. It's really come a long way. It's almost done. There's a few more tweaks to it. And they have updated a letter to the city councilors, too. But that's all I have for status update on the project. It's still ongoing.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: have you asked for any timelines or anything when we can expect to see anything?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, I think, you know, the project was, I call it an elephant. It's so huge. I needed a break from it. I mean, we worked days, days, hundreds of hours, Bob too, and Lois, and of course the trees meant that they were leading us. So, I think Sarah's working mostly on the private ordinance, which is the hardest and most complicated. And I understand, I needed a break. She took a break. You know, you have to really concentrate on that and all the implications of things you're suggesting. And remember, they're just suggestions, but it's also an educational opportunity, and that's why they reached out to city Councilors. Now, originally, back in December, I had suggested that to trees mentioned in their monthly meetings that it might be a good idea to wait until the new city councilors, there's so many of them, starting in January, start to maybe offer an informal meeting, get together, you know, with Treesmen to learn about all the different groups, but specifically them and the work they're doing. So maybe, you know, they took that to heart, and that's why it's a good idea to ask to meet with those two, which are Councilor Justin Singh and Anna, or Ann Callahan, So like I said, there's so many new Councilors and a lot for them to learn about the city and projects. It may also be as an aside, a good idea to have them attend or invite them to attend one of our meetings. As a suggestion to you since you're one of the new chairs. So they can learn about our work and what we do.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I appreciate that. I got one of the names, it's Anna Callahan was the other legislator.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Let me just look, I'm on the website too. So if I look away, I'm not being rude, I'm looking at city council members. Okay, that's the picture. Oh, these are the new people. Okay, we have a lot of new ones. Oh, Matt Leming. It's on the city website. You can look it up. And the city council is new. Who else is new? Anna Callahan's new. And Councilor Emily Lazzaro's new. All the rest have been on the council before. The two, the trees met for, had reached out to to invite them. to a zoom meeting to learn about their work or Councilor, just in saying, and, you know, she can. Yes.
[Brenda Pike]: So we met with the three new Councilors just to kind of get them up to speed on what the planning, development, and sustainability department is doing. So if you'd like me to reach back out to them and invite them to one of these committee meetings, I'd be happy to. I think Justin is also focusing on a lot of the sort of environmental efforts that the council will be working on this year and they're putting together sort of plans for what each committee is going to be taking action on the next year. That's what they're working on right now and putting together. I think Justin is taking the lead on me for the environmental one.
[Lois Grossman]: I spoke to Matt Fleming recently and I asked him if he was interested in that. He is tied up with school matters, I believe. He is not going to make that one of his priorities. I'm sure he won't stand in the way, but it was clear that he's not going to make it a priority. They picked their issues wisely.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Not sure what you mean, Lois. He's not going to make what a priority?
[Lois Grossman]: In your opinion? He's already involved in certain things that he's trying to follow through on, and trees was not one of them. Really? Okay. Right. It's not that he's opposed to it, but it's not something he's going to particularly champion, like Justin perhaps will, and Zach Bares, who have been more involved in environmental things. I mean, that's not an official position. I simply asked him, was he aware? And he said, yes, but his attention this year is, I believe it's on teachers and salaries in the school system is what he's particularly involved in. If I remember.
[Brenda Pike]: I'm sorry, Louis, who is this? I missed the name. You're not talking about Justin, are you?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Matt Leming. Leming.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: Oh.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: We're not talking about Justin.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: No, she was, yeah, Lois mentioned Matt.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, okay. Well, he wasn't one of the people that I, that Sarah reached out to. It's Justin and Anna. Oh, okay. Good to know. see it's important that the all the new ones they still need to learn about this in my opinion so I would like to suggest and if the other members agree that they are invited um to our you know meeting and I'm sure Trace Manford is going to follow up as they said they would um but I think they should come to one of our meetings to learn about all our projects and what we do
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a good idea.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I mean, we do a lot of work to support the residents in the city. And since we have so many new members, it would be good if they're more involved, in my opinion. I know in other cities, there are city council members that actually join the different commissions and boards throughout cities, so they can report back and everyone knows what's going on. Historically, we haven't done that in this city.
[Robert Paine]: This Bob, I was going to suggest that maybe a more efficient way would be for us to. Maybe presented 1 of their meetings, what we do and what our. Our goals are for the. Foreseeable future, we have not really gotten in front of them to do this. Historically, we show up for specific items, but I don't think we give them a update as to what we're up to. And maybe it would get more of their attention if we go to one of their meetings to get on their agenda and make a 20-minute presentation. But it's something for us to think about.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Well, the nuts and bolts of it are that they are all at their meeting. So that's a great point. Exactly.
[Lois Grossman]: That would be the way to do it. I think we should wait till we have something specific that we want to tell them about.
[Robert Paine]: That's right. The rest of our meeting is going to be part of that, but I would recommend to plan to actually go to their meeting and make a presentation and maybe do this once a year, perhaps.
[Brenda Pike]: Or, you know, occasionally it might be good to reach out to. at least the new Councilors or, you know, the person who's focusing on the environment issues for their committee as sort of a precursor to doing that, right? As a way to set that up and get that on the agenda.
[Robert Paine]: When we're ready, yeah, because we're still figuring out what, obviously Electrify Medford is a big part of it. And are you, Brittany, are you going to make a, have you made a presentation of them or are you going to?
[Brenda Pike]: We haven't made a presentation to them, and I don't know that there's a plan to right now.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, can we go back to in the meantime, I think it might be interesting to invite the new members to our meeting. They can sit in and just so they know about us. You know, we have the administrative updates. We have our agenda posted. and just shared a lot of information that Brenda's working on and will be assisting with some of it in our plan. So I just think it would be a good idea in the interim to send that out too.
[Robert Paine]: Right. We might not have him go through the full meeting. We might want to concentrate a portion of our meeting for discussion of things we're doing.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And answer questions they might have, too. I'm sure they're new.
[Lois Grossman]: But it should be around the theme. I mean, sitting here for this last hour with this group has not been the most exciting thing that I've ever done. and I don't think we're gonna do anybody a favor by having them come. On the other hand, when we do settle down to work on a particular point and bring in your various expertise, we are a strong committee and I just think we should wait till we have something specific to share and then let them see that we are a resource and want to know what they're doing and want them to know what we're doing.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think Lois makes a great point. The meeting does not always flow great, but if we had a presentation, we could really hit all the marks.
[Lois Grossman]: And I was going to bring this up at some point, so this is probably a good point. We have these two-hour meetings, but we seldom need two hours to do the things we do. So I asked Brenda and Alicia about it. I said, are we compelled by the city to have a two-hour meeting? We are not. have the ability to set the time of the meeting, the time it begins, the time it ends, and how long it should last. So this might be time to consider making our meetings less than two hours. I see Barry likes that idea. It must have cheered him up. He hasn't been feeling well.
[Brenda Pike]: Alicia, let us know that there was a vote taken at some point. Many of you probably remember that there's a limit on the time of two hours, so it doesn't go over that and last any longer. But that's not a requirement that you have to do two hours, definitely.
[Lois Grossman]: Yeah, so I think we should stop scheduling our meetings from 6.30 to 8.30. We should schedule them at 6.30. and let them go as long as they need to go and end them, and let people get back to the important things they're doing with their lives. Even if it's eating dinner, that's important. I see smiles. I think I'm not speaking out of turn.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I am starving, but this is a worthy cause, so yes.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, this is Bob. I was going to say, historically, the agenda sometimes has portions that go shorter or longer than planned, and that's fine. We try to keep it down to two hours. Sometimes we end early. That's fine. Two hours seems to be a reasonable time to do everything you need to do, but sometimes there might be portions of the year where you don't need the full two hours. So that sounds fine. Laura, I was going to recommend that you have Therese Medford maybe make a presentation to the city council rather than having them just wade through the text and try to figure out what they're recommending. It might be good for them to actually make a presentation to them.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, I'll get back to you on that. They're taking the lead on this. We're supporting them. I have to wait and see. She was supposed to reach out to them again, Sarah, last week. So at the end of last week.
[Lois Grossman]: Okay. I know for myself, I will attend the city council meeting when they do make that presentation. I'm sure you will too, Loretta. As many of us as can should come and support that. It's as environmental as you get.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right, but the first meeting was just informational and tasks for advice of the procedure, you know, to move it forward. And Sarah said she'd let us know when she'd hear back for myself and Bob to attend. But of course, once they get finished, and then, I just remembered this, they would finish the draft. based on maybe some comments there or suggestions they would make and present the whole package. But they meet, I think it's the third week every month, Teresa mentioned. I forget if it's, yeah, I think it's the third Tuesday of each month. People are welcome to attend their monthly meeting. So we'll probably hear, well, we might hear something before then.
[Lois Grossman]: Their meetings are one hour by the way.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: But I'll certainly share with it. I'll go through Brenda to distribute any news. If anything comes up.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I see a hand from you as well.
[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, that's me. I just wanted to chime in on what Lois brought up. I think that in over a half a century of meetings, what I've seen is whatever time you schedule for the meeting, the meeting will fill up. And I think that we have a great ability in our group to expand agenda items that could be covered in 10 minutes, up to 30 or 40, and that we could easily schedule our meetings for an hour and a half and get everything done, either from 6.30 to 8.00 or 7.00 to 8.30. And that's my opinion, but we can have a discussion about that.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I would point out that we are well ahead of schedule for this meeting, if that's any indication. Loretta was supposed to give tree updates at 7.30, not even 7.25. So I think that is a good mile marker for what we can get done. But we'd love to hear how any other further discussion we might have on this kind of impromptu agenda item.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I will simply say I fully support the idea of having time effective as well as agenda effective meetings. By all means, we should get things done and if we can get them done efficiently, that is wonderful.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I support that too.
[Lois Grossman]: So is there anything else on our agenda tonight, Will?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: There is one final piece on our agenda and this one is the weightiest piece. This is the part I'm rather excited about because I'm still new here and I would love to know what projects we have taken on and more importantly what we want to take on in the future. I believe I've put it in the chat already, but most of you have it linked in the info as well. I was given this list of the Energy and Environment Committee's 2023 priorities. Six different priorities that we had looked at tackling over the course of the year, and I think this is a perfect moment, now that we are looking at restructuring a little bit, restructuring our time at least, to decide on where we should be devoting our energies. So while I give you all a moment to kind of parse through this document, I will just quickly read at least the bullet points and we can open it up to discussion on what people believe is their most, what they believe is their favorite topic to tackle. We have our electrification of public transport. We have increasing our engagement of Medford students for environmental issues. Developing urban meadows in Medford. Supporting and promoting tree equity across Medford. Promoting education on rodent control measures. particularly the use of rodenticides. And as always, we talk about our harvester energy. And these were our priorities from last year. And I'd love to open for discussion what people think we should be focusing on moving forward.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, I'd like to speak to this. I think it'd be good if you send out a poll. with some of this and anything else we may discuss tonight for people to get a survey of. And also that we can include additional thoughts on this. I mean, I definitely have worked on the rodenticide projects before working with the health department and I have to follow up on that to see if we actually did post the meeting I found that the city had with the residents to teach them about road and control. We talked about that last year, and I think we put the link in the chat. Not sure where else to go if it's on Go Green. I'll have to follow up on that. I think under the health department, they might've posted the link to the video, which was a meeting for residents at city hall. They had a few of them, but one had Yankee pest control, which gave the presentation on rodent control measures. And that company works with the city now and also advocates for not using rodenticides first. It's about sealing up your property first before using rodenticides, because they'll just keep coming back. And with the increase in temperatures, we'll just have more rodents because they continue to proliferate. I can't remember some of the other things that you said. I know electrification. What was some of the other things that you mentioned?
[Lois Grossman]: Connecting with students at the Medford students to support environmental issues was one of help increase engagement of Medford students in support of environmental issues. Brend is already doing number one, which is the electrification. We're not doing anything about urban meadows that I'm aware of, unless it's part of the Trees Medford.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No, I know Sarah and I had spoken briefly about taking that on as a smaller scale project. I think these are all good goals. What else was there?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: We had talked about planting native plants, and at the Harvester Energy Festival last year, I invited the local group, and they gave an excellent presentation at the Harvester Energy Festival. They had a table. We could do more with that. and maybe have that group come to one of our meetings. They were invited before and they couldn't make it. Anyways, there's lots of ideas.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Do you remember the name of that group?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. I can look it up. I'll get back to you in a second. I have to get my phone. It's a Facebook group.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Is it the invasives Medford group?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes. Uh huh. That's one of them. But we also have the Medford Garden Club. It's not the old Garden Club. I'll be right back. I'll have to...
[Jessica Parks]: Well, in terms of the increasing engagement, I mean, that's something I'm very interested in. I've actually been working with some people at the Missittuck, which is the school my son's at. So slightly self-serving, but I mean, one of the biggest issues with school engagement is the need for a teacher to be willing to support it. We do have, at least at the Mississippi, two teachers who have expressed interest in supporting a green club and continuing it. The PTO did have a green club offered. So we do have a bunch of students that are part of a green club. That stopped briefly and may be able to continue, but it's been a bunch of conversations. Which have been led by a few people. And kind of has been tag teaming with other conversations about bringing recycling. to the Mesituc, which Brenda has been, I think, involved in some of those discussions as well, because it turns out that does not exist. And we're struggling, again, there have been some issues. So Brenda, that may be another conversation, because there's some question as to the curbside pickup or the now suddenly magical dumpsters have appeared that are, potentially dedicated for it, so that's a whole other issue.
[Brenda Pike]: But anyway. Actually, can I suggest connecting with mothers out front about that? Because they're very interested in doing recycling and composting in the schools, and actually volunteering at the schools to make sure that this is happening. They are interested in volunteering at the schools too? They want to, yes, definitely. I think that's one of their pushes this year. Helping to get recycling and composting off the ground in all of the schools.
[Jessica Parks]: Okay, because we were working so. I've been working with some of the parents who were involved with the PTO group that kind of sort of started doing it. And they did, they were working with that group. They did get the bins into the school. It's just, it's been a matter of coordination with a lot of moving parts. but then separately in terms of student interest. There's no lack of student interest, it's just trying to then figure out what they want to do, kind of figuring out a priority, helping them move that priority forward, and then also getting a teacher who's willing to also sign with them. There may be one at the Mississauga, but again, it's how do you roll it out to other schools and convince teachers to spend time doing that? Because right now, spending extra time is a hard ask. So I don't know how we want to move that sort of forward, but we do kind of have some momentum, at least moving at the Mississauga right now, and two potential teachers willing to sign on to it. I'm sorry, what's the Miss Attack Camp? What is that? What school? Oh, the former Columbus, if that's what you know it as. It's the elementary school in the South Medford Elementary School.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Former Columbus. Now it's been renamed? Oh, I see, okay. Right, okay. But it's still part of Medford Public Schools.
[Lois Grossman]: Yes. Is that on Playstead? No.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: No. Which one is it? It's on Hicks. Yeah, I know where that is, so. So with regards to the, to the meadows, I think we had a discussion a while back before my house calamity took me out about finding out where we could actually find parcels of land and they don't have to be terribly big. They could be even like, I don't know, five square meters if you want. They don't have to be terribly large. And maybe if we identify a few of these, then it's just a matter of preparing the land, having a plan in place, for perhaps the kids to participate with this, you know, the high school kids or elementary school kids, or middle school kids, and really a supply of seeds. And, and then cordon off the area, you know, put some tape around it and saying this is, you know, this is, you know, a meadow being prepared by, I don't know, public schools or something like that, and then stick our name on it too, so we get some credit for it too. And get some, I can get some buy-in from some of the high school, well, one high school principal, Mr. Block, He was very kind to both my kids, so I'm sure he'll have a listening ear. So anyways, if there's anyone else who wants to go and approach the other schools, Brooks and the middle schools, we can divvy that up. between us and see who we can get to get through it. It's really an easy thing to do, really, it's like it, it beautifies the city. And, and it, I think it gives a sense of, you know, purpose to a lot of kids, I think, certainly gives a sense of purpose to me. So, you know, I feel that it's, it's one of those things that you can easily do and accomplish and but not too much fuss and muss. I don't know, when you send out the poll, I guess we could all sign up for all that.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, so I'll speak quickly, and then I want to throw to Dan, who patiently had his hand raised. I know that Tufts has a pollinators group that sources seeds and works with, I think, private front lawns as well. you can sign up to receive those seeds and have work done with groups that know what they're doing. So sourcing seeds is the toughest part for sure, but it's been done and it's been done very locally, so I'm sure we can figure that out soon. The other side piece was, I know a proper poll would constitute likely a form of voting that we can't really do outside of the bounds of this meeting. But I would love to do it as more of a sign-on to say, this is a project I'm interested in and would want to devote my time to. And all official votes could be held, let's say, next session as we take time to think on the project and look at who else is interested and wants to be involved.
[Lois Grossman]: So you'll send this list around, and we will let's sign up with you and your co-chairs to show our interest areas? I think so. That's a good idea.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I also think it would be worth leaving some open slots for if we have new projects we want to undertake. So I will make a public document that we can add to. and sort out where we want to divide ourselves and how we want to divide those resources. But that'll be kind of the month long project, I think, in between sessions.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: I think there's probably a lot of topics that we don't have time to discuss today that might be on people's minds that we can add to that. And actually, in the shared drive, I already put together a file that we can put some ideas down. I think that might also address Lois's point that there's not a lot to discuss. It might open up some new topics that people find interesting. So definitely like that idea.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Gosh, I love having a co-chair. That's very helpful. Thank you.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, like the groups names that we're talking about for invasive plants in the chat. One of the things that was really big with these groups and around the city was Black Swallowwort. A lot of people had mentioned in those groups to have some kind of contest, other members that I don't really know, but one of the couple of them I do, because it's so invasive and it's everywhere in the city. I saw many posts where they thought the city wasn't doing enough. And I tried to explain to them that, you know, we're volunteers and we don't have enough and maybe they'd like to work on something with us. So I just remembered that was one of the big topics was Black Swallow Award education.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I remember it well. I remember seeing people with big trash bags full of it. And they would post pictures on the Facebook forum and everything.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. Right. Other cities have, too. And we actually... Is Sarah here tonight? Let me see. Is Sarah here?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I have not seen Sarah tonight, no.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay. So one of the things, just as an aside, I won't talk long, is that Somerville has a program for that, and they had printed door hangers for educational purposes for Blackswell Ward. And Lois and I had talked about this last year, but, you know, time goes on. Things get complicated with other projects. So Sarah went and picked up the door hangers from Somerville to teach people about Blackswell Ward so that we can have a sample and maybe look at that and work on that. And so now that I'm thinking about it, I forgot about it because of the treaty project that we've been working on. But that's something that originally Sarah and I, and I think Louis, said that we would look at to have our own city ones, and the possibility of- Can you add it to the list, Will?
[Lois Grossman]: Can you make sure it's a separate item?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah.
[Lois Grossman]: Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And I will also make sure you all have editing privileges to add new agenda items, or rather new priority items.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, it's interesting, because I'm sure all the members have many more, and that one was a big one, and we forgot. I mean, I can't remember when. It was in the summer of last year we talked about it, and it took a while to get their samples, and I do have them somewhere.
[Lois Grossman]: Well, we also found out that the trees Medford signs that they had made up for watering the trees cost like a dollar each. We're not talking, it costs a good amount of money to get a good door hanger. Yes. That'll stand up and be waterproof. I think that's one of the reasons we bogged down, but we should explore.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. I actually made calls to Somerville to find out who was in charge of that project, but I never heard back to get the information of their costs and who they use for printing as a comparison.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Next. Yeah, I was about to say, are there any other points we want to discuss or do we feel very confident in?
[Brenda Pike]: I'll bring up something that's not happening right now, but will be happening this year. So the city will be doing another zoning recodification. And we're in the process right now of hiring a consultant to help us with that. And I'm obviously going to be following along and making suggestions for climate-related I'm not sure if that's something that anyone in this committee is really interested in delving deeply into. I think that feedback would be really welcome.
[Lois Grossman]: That could go on the list also.
[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, not for the list, but just so that everybody knows. Luke and Nicole Morell and I are working on furthering the solar roof ordinance to try to make sure that it provides community benefits, especially to lower income people. So at some point over the course of 2024, we're likely to come to the committee with a proposal which perhaps will become a committee proposal, or perhaps not. But we're likely to kind of get through our next step sometime during the course of this year. You want to add anything to that, Lou?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: We can just think of it as the Solar Ordinance 2.0. The first version is somewhat light and there are areas for improvement. So we're hoping to improve upon it, build upon it.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So since I'm working on the tree ordinance, anything, you know, if you have any questions.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: No, it will not affect the tree ordinance. We're not looking to interact with those two. They can be and should be separate. Solar should not come before trees. OK. All right.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I just wanted to give the heads up.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Understood.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, thank you.
[Barry Ingber]: I mean, we're also talking about much larger scale. Yeah, these are like warehouse buildings. You're doing a big building, you're not going to be... I mean, if the building is happening, Trees are not going to be a factor. Trees might be a factor in whether a large development happens, but if the large development is happening, it's not going to be shaded by trees. It's not part of what we're looking at. Just imagine, go back to where we started these conversations when a lot of the people on this meeting weren't here, when the Wegmans got built with that big roof, all that wasted space. Now we have an ordinance in place that requires solar on there. what 2.0 would do would say, okay, now, how about that solar not only be forced to exist, but that it be forced to benefit the community. Good. No relationship to trees. I get it.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: It's interesting. Very interesting. Sounds very promising. It's interesting because I've run into some people that have been talking about putting solar farms on their property, small ones.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Interesting.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. Apparently, it is possible.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, maybe. Comes with some challenges, I'm sure, but if they've got enough property, perhaps.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: There certainly have been private developments at solar farms.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right, if you have the land.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right. Do we have any final lingering thoughts before I move on to the final agenda item?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: What is that new business new business, I will just say that I just received. Actually, an hour ago, a garbage to garden composting announcement, so I thought I. Right, I think that's on the cutting edge.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I'd love to see commercial buildings offer that, apartment complexes. I'm not sure how that would be done, but that's a lot of people and a lot of residents.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: That needs to be planned in at the outset. I mean, that's a big challenge. It needs to be part of the waste and recycling planning. schools as well. It's a lot to collect.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Right. Does anyone know where the waste management recycling facility is?
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: I've heard that it's in Cambridge.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Oh.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's what Felicia said during one of the meetings, that it's over the Cambridge.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I've been to the Carls' Tent, right? Not waste management. Okay. Yeah, I don't know.
[Lois Grossman]: They used to incinerate up in Salem, but that plant is closed or is being closed.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I believe garbage is still being incinerated, but I'm not sure where that's happened.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I think Wheeler Braider does that in Manchester and somewhere in New Hampshire, but they've got a pretty big waste energy facility up there still.
[Lois Grossman]: Brenda, do you know if we finalized the contract for the city with waste management?
[Brenda Pike]: I think that that has been finalized. Yeah, I think it is. I'll double check with Alicia about that.
[Lois Grossman]: I mean, I was on the committee that set all that up, but we dispersed the committee last year, and I'm not plugged in anymore, so I just didn't know if we finalized it.
[Brenda Pike]: I know, at least she was in a flurry of meetings about this towards the end of last year, and then I hadn't heard anything about it since then, so I think it was finalized.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right. We are making record time. So, are there any other pieces of your business?
[Robert Paine]: I was going to suggest that if people had any recommended presenters for future meetings, they could let you know. You know, something on this invasive committee, invasive species committee. because I don't know what they do. I was trying to get a hold of Mike Barrett again, a Lexington senator, and he hasn't responded to me on what the state climate law implementation progress is doing. That would be good to know.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I grew up down the street from him. I'll give him a call. You do? You're kidding. Yeah, I grew up in Lexington. He was a couple blocks away.
[Unidentified]: Good.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No. And I was looking at, I have written down potentially talking to Councilman Justin Tseng and Councilwoman Anna Callahan as potential speakers. But I would love to hear any other suggestions.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: And potential guests as well. And guests, yes. Right, not necessarily speakers unless they really want to. Unless they feel, yeah, moved.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I would also likely reach out to I know we had a speaker at Harvester Energy or a table a tabler for invasives. Right. I will try to find that information. I'm sure we have a
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I had that, too. It was one of the members. It's a man. I'd have to look up his name, but he actually hosted the table, the invasive group. He's very knowledgeable about all this, too. I actually have a folder on events for us, and I'm just looking it up, our initiatives. We'll find it.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Well, if need be, you all should have my emails and I would love it if you just send me a name, I'll look them up and it's probably a speaker or a guest you want to have visit. And we'll sort it out. So I'm finishing up the first draft of this priority bulletin. So you can expect to get that out probably within the week. So we can begin voting, discussing, emailing back and forth. We can have a more open conversation, maybe at least through email.
[Lois Grossman]: And again- Maybe we can do one of those, arrange these in your order of priority. I- And see how it plays out.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think that's an excellent way to do it. Adding columns as you speak, ways of denoting if you're interested in certain ones, if that's a topic you'd like to cover yourself or with help, or just one you want to speak on. And you'll get it all sorted out. So check your email. Hopefully by end of week, we can send that out and get that and that can be kind of something we mull over for the month. All right. I have nothing left on my agenda.
[Barry Ingber]: So. I would move to adjourn in that case.
[Lois Grossman]: Second. I will second, yeah. All right.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right. People have spoken.
[Lois Grossman]: Thank you, Will.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Of course. Thank you. Yes. And congratulations.
[Lois Grossman]: Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Good job. We'll get it. And this is good. All right. I will see you all. I believe March 4th is our next meeting. All right.
[Lois Grossman]: Put it on the wall.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: On the wall. Take care. Be well.
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