[Brenda Pike]: Welcome to the first meeting of Medford's Climate Equity Council. This has been long awaited and everyone's really excited about it. So thank you for agreeing to do this. So tonight, let me share my screen here. Actually, let's flip back through, there we go. So tonight, we'll start with some introductions, then we'll talk about the role of the Council, we'll talk about the Climate Action Plan, and some of the things from the plan that the City is actively working on right now. And then I want to hear from you. What areas do you want more information about? What areas do you want to focus on more in-depth in future meetings? And of course, stop me anytime to ask questions. I'm afraid I'm going to be doing a lot of talking tonight, but I think that's the nature of a first meeting where we're doing some level setting and making sure we're coming at this with some of the same background information. But before we do that, let's jump into the introductions. And I will stop sharing my screen for that so we can all look at each other. Here we go. So I'll start. I'm Brenda Pike. I'm a climate policy planner for Medford. I've been here for about four months now. My job is basically to push the implementation of the Climate Action Plan. Some of these things I'm working on directly, some I'm tracking what other people are doing. And the thing I'm most excited about with this council is an outreach campaign we're planning for next year about energy efficiency, electrification, solar, electric vehicles. But we'll talk about that more in more detail later on. So please, you know, when it's your turn, please share your name, what area you live in, what your focus is as a connector, and what you're most interested in talking about with the council. Actually, I will pass it to Alicia next.
[Alicia Hunt]: Hi, everyone. Brenda, you're still sharing your screen. Oh, interesting.
[Brenda Pike]: It says my sharing is paused, but let me stop it. There we go.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. Hi everybody, I would encourage the members of the council that if you're comfortable, I'm turning on your cameras so that we can like feel like we're talking to each other and get to know each other that would be wonderful. I'm the director of planning development and sustainability for the city. And the other thing I think would be really helpful, Brenda, and maybe Sophie, if you could explain how we got to this group of people to be the first Climate Equity Council for the city. So my office oversees planning, economic development, and climate work sustainability for the city of Medford. And we actually started back when I was just doing climate work, sustainability, energy and environment for the city, working on a climate action and adaptation plan. And through that process, one of the things that we came out with was the idea of having a climate equity council. So people who would represent underrepresented populations in the city of Medford. to weigh in on the climate plans, the details, so people from that group representing, I don't even know how to say that, but we worked with some of the original Medford liaisons, community liaisons, and our consultants, and our Office of Outreach and Prevention in the development of the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. and one of the suggested actions was to have a group of people who would ongoing weigh in on actions and plans and goals from a equity perspective so that it's not, to be very blunt, a bunch of upper middle class white people writing the plans, implementing the plans, developing everything without any understanding of other needs in the community. That's where this was born out of. Then Sophie, maybe when we ask you if you could explain this current group so that I don't accidentally misspeak, that would be wonderful. We did our Climate Action Adaptation Plan, which was adopted in April of 22. And we have been sort of moving to start to implement pieces of it, unless it was April 23, but I think it was 22. It's just it blurs for a while after that, once the pandemic starts. And we really needed to hire a climate planner to have the bandwidth to move something like this forward. So I'm really excited that we have Brenda, and I'm not going to stay for the whole meeting because I have found that I end up dominating and talking and just answering questions constantly. And so I'm going to let you all meet with Brenda and Sophie and then they will let me know if there are questions and information and things that I can provide back to people later. I also live in Medford. I live in North Medford near Wrights Pond. This is a picture of Wrights Pond in my background because I'm sitting in my daughter's bedroom right now and you don't want to see what my teenage daughter's bedroom looks like. So anyhow, thank you all for joining us this evening. And I will just sort of disappear probably around 620 or 630. I was going to stay for introductions and a little bit of time, and then step away.
[Brenda Pike]: Sounds great. Thanks, Alicia. Sophie, would you like to go next?
[MCM00000940_SPEAKER_03]: Sure, thank you, Brenda. My name is Sophie Antoine. I am the Health Equity Coordinator with the Health Department through the Office of Prevention and Outreach. So, we do have five Medford connectors, and these connectors are representative of our Spanish-speaking, Haitian, Creole, Brazilian, Portuguese, In Arabic and 1 of 1 of our connector is also also represents our African American community, the connector and liaison. She is playing both roles when it comes to the council. And 1 of our connectors, I think it's listed who is our Spanish speaking connector is also involved in. our food justice efforts through helping our food policy council through the Y, which is the community market. I don't think there's anything else. If I miss anything, just let me know. But I think that's pretty much it. That's what the group comprised of. Obviously, we will be using our connectors to reach out to their respective community communities to really bring in more people from these underrepresented groups to see what we can get out of this.
[Brenda Pike]: Awesome, thanks, Sophie. Samia, would you like to introduce yourself?
[Jenny Graham]: Hi, I'm Samia Bennett. I am the Portuguese, well, Brazilian-Portuguese MADFORD Connector. I'm excited to, you know, to learn as much as possible and looking forward to work with all of you guys and spread the word, you know, whatever we learn today. And I'll pass to Lizette.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Hi, everybody. My name is Lizette. I'm the Spanish Network Connector. Like Samia said, I'm excited to, you know, have that knowledge to be able to share with everyone that's in need. You know, I think that especially right now with climate change, like all this information is important for everybody to know. So I'm glad to be a part of this and working with everyone as well. And yeah. I pass it to Charbel.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Hi, everybody. My name is Charbel. I'm the Arabic language Medford Connector. I'm excited to talk about this because I feel that climate change is very important, but it kind of like flies under the radar. like for a lot of people because they're so like caught up with their daily lives. So, but it's very important, especially when we think about the future generation and them having a world to live in for quite bluntly, you know. So, yeah, I'm excited to learn.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. Natasha?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: I'll pass it to Natasha. Yeah.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: Hello, I'm having a bad hair day. So forgive me, I put a bonnet on. Hi, my name is Natasha. And as Sophie was introducing us, I will be representing the Haitian Creole community. And I am also, as my colleague said, is excited to know more about this program. I'm coming in blind, but I know when I know a lot of things, I'll be able to go out and partake it with the community, especially the ones that really need to know about climate change and what's going on. Because as we know, we have a lot of migrants that are coming in and a lot of people don't know, like even people like in my circle don't know about what's going on with the climate change, which is really important, you know, for us to know about it. So when we do have disasters, where they need to go, where they need to get resources. So it's good that We have a group of people that is concerned about that and to learn more and see how we can help each other. As my eyes, can I see who's next here? Is that Mary or something? I'll go. Stacey.
[Evangelista]: Hi, folks.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: Stacey. Stacey. Okay, Stacey.
[Evangelista]: I'm sorry, I cannot turn my camera on. I'm not feeling very well today. So I am the community liaison slash connector for the African American community. And like Natasha said, you know, I'm kind of coming in a little blind. So I'm eager to find out more of what the council is about and what we will do. Climate change is pretty important, like Charbel was saying, and it's pretty important to me as well. Awesome.
[Brenda Pike]: I'll pass it on to Lois. She might be the last one of the council members actually. I think we have some members of the public here that are in the meeting. Yep. Got it. Let me jump back into sharing my screen. Okay, so the role of the council as we envisioned it is to advise the city on implementation of the climate action plan, with a focus on representing the interests of previously underrepresented groups, as Alicia mentioned, and to give feedback on specific proposed city actions, including things like neighborhood specific projects, buildings and energy products, stormwater project, public health projects, transportation projects, all based primarily on your lived experience and your perspectives gathered from your communities. And so right now the council is So we have five members now. It's just the connectors, but that could change over time. We're really looking for people who can represent people who speak some of those non-primary languages in Medford, communities of color, low-income communities, renters, and areas of the city with increased risk of flooding and heat island effects. And we can get into more detail on that last one maybe in future meetings. I have some great maps I can share. But mainly that means Southwest, South Medford, some of West Medford. But this is really important. You don't need to be an expert on climate change or local government. That's my job here. So if we're talking about something and you feel like you need more information about it, we can talk about it more in depth in another meeting. I can email you information or we can talk one-on-one. Anything you need, just let me know. So the intention is to have monthly meetings, probably on the third Monday of the month. We can see if that works for everybody. But we might want to meet more often at first just to get up to speed. We can meet like this or we can meet in person if you'd prefer. And we can talk at the next meeting about who all you want to be the chair. So each of you will have a month to think over whether you'd be interested in doing that. And the Council is staffed by me, so I'll send out the agendas, I'll take the minutes, I'll host the Zoom meetings, and anything else you need. So, any questions right now about being on the Council or anything I've talked about so far before I jump into the Climate Action Plan?
[Jenny Graham]: actually, I do just before you move forward. So that means we're going to receive all the material that you're sharing with us to an email that you can take a look again.
[Brenda Pike]: Yes, absolutely.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.
[Brenda Pike]: Okay, so let's jump right into talking about the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. That's this giant book right here, actually, that was released. This is also available online, actually. I think I've sent the council members the PDF of this as well. But this was released in April of 2020 after lots of input from many residents of the city, all the different city departments, city council, lots of iterations of this. And the goal is not just to be carbon neutral, which is what you might think of a plan like this, but to do it in a way that makes the city more just, equitable, resilient, and healthy. And when I think of resilient, I tend to think of being able to respond quickly to a power outage or a flood or something like that. But we also want to help people be more resilient in their daily lives, to have access to food or other services so they can recover from things like job losses. But climate change will make any existing inequities worse. Some more intense storms, hotter temperatures, flooding will impact people's ability to get to work, to go to the grocery store, to have a heating and cooling system that works, to have power for medical equipment that they need. So it's really important that we do our part to reduce the intensity of climate change while also preparing residents for the impact of it. And this is from the climate action plan. So it's a little out of date now, but the general message hasn't changed. Buildings represent about 70% of our carbon emissions and transportation about 30% here in Medford. So we know what's most important for us to focus on in terms of reducing our carbon emissions. In large terms, we know what's most important to focus on. Now the Climate Action Plan breaks things down a little differently, more along the lines of the different departments in the city. We have topic areas of buildings and energy, ecosystems and natural environment, public health and transportation, and each area has different objectives and then strategies and actions to meet those objectives. And the very first action in the plan is you actually. So this is how important the city thinks that your work will be. And one of the other actions listed here is to model greenhouse gas emissions. And that's something that I'd like to do over the next year or so. I'd like to hire a consultant to project how much we can expect each of these actions to save so we can really help prioritize what we do. So the buildings and energy section, it talks about access to healthy homes and places that are affordable, that use little energy, produce almost no climate pollution, and keep residents safe during extreme weather. And so some of the strategies here focus on diverse housing options and affordable housing options for all sizes of families, all income levels, high performance new buildings, so updating the zoning codes. And this is something that's actually coming up. The city's hiring a zoning consultant to do sort of an overhaul of the entire zoning, and so part of that will be making sure that climate is really considered in that zoning overhaul. Making new buildings flood resistant or flood resilient. So in areas that are likely to face floods in the future and that's different than areas that are in flood zones right now right so folks might not even necessarily be aware that in the future there they're projected to be in flood zones. Another buildings and energy strategy is adopting the net zero stretch, or we have the net zero stretch code advocating for an even better, what's called the specialized opt-in code, which the state actually did put forward and Medford actually did adopt earlier this month. This is something again for new buildings and major renovations to reduce their emissions. Then to lead by example by building any new municipal buildings to a real high standard of net zero energy, and that's something that the city did with the new library building shown here. New buildings are actually only a tiny part of the building stock here in Medford. Retrofitting existing buildings is actually even more important than that. Some of the strategies for existing buildings include encouraging fuel switching from fossil fuels to electricity. and encouraging energy efficiency in those buildings as well. This is part of what I said, that outreach campaign that I'm hoping that we'll be doing next year. Benchmarking and energy standards. Some other cities have done things where they require buildings over a certain size to report their energy usage each year, and then set standards saying that their energy or their emissions need to be below a certain threshold per square foot. And then providing tools and resources to property owners to help them to do these to do resilience retrofits as well, so preparing for the flooding, the higher temperatures, the power outages, things like that. And then also doing the same thing for our municipal buildings and so this is something that the city is working on all the time sort of piece by piece I mean right now I think there are multiple um, lighting upgrades going on. There are some weatherization upgrades that are happening, um, or will be happening in multiple city buildings. And so this is something that the city has been doing and continues to do. But we just we need to ramp up as as time goes by. And so we also need to, in addition to making sure that our buildings are energy efficient and low emission, we also need to power them with renewable energy. So some of the strategies here are expanding local renewable energy. So for instance, things like the solar ordinance that the Energy and Environment Committee helped to put in place so that larger buildings are required to install solar on their roof when they're first built. And then also increase Medford's energy resilience. So making sure that in the event of a power outage, there are options for people. And I just want to add that If you have taken a look at the Climate Action Plan, you'll know that each of those strategies has multiple actions underneath them. Probably too much for us to go into detail on today. We would be here probably all night long if we were doing that. We're just talking about these strategies right now, and then we'll go more in depth in the future. In ecosystems and natural environment, it's really recognizing that these ecosystems, especially trees and things like permeable ground cover like grass, for instance, can help to prevent flooding, to keep temperatures cooler, things like that. And so a big part of that is protecting the existing tree canopy and increasing the number of trees that are here in Medford. And I know that there is actually a tree ordinance that's under consideration right now by the city council. So that's something that I know a lot of people are really paying attention to right now. Adopting ecological performance standards for new development. So this falls sort of under the stormwater area, I think, where it's about building in such a way that you're leaving space for water to be absorbed into the ground because that's going to reduce the chance of flooding in the future. and then enhancing the resilience of land and water ecosystems. So a lot of that has to do with generally about essentially leaving space for the water, right? So not building right up to the edge of the river, but to leave some space for the river, things like that. A big part of this is mitigating flooding and doing that as much as possible using nature-based solutions. Not just bigger pipes, but having natural features that can actually absorb the water over time. So that's that's what rainscaping essentially is right so so leaving green spaces that can absorb that water, rather than having it flow into and flood the streets and things like that. maintaining and improving the stormwater infrastructure is really important. I know that there are multiple areas around the city that have been identified as areas with stormwater flooding, and there's a particular area in South Medford that I know the city just received a grant to have a consultant come in and design the improvement to the stormwater system there to prevent that flooding in the future. And that's the sort of thing that will need to be done across the city. And finding funding is a huge portion, a part of that. The grant that they have right now is just to design it, not actually to construct it yet. And reducing flood risk from the rivers by just having some buffers there along the river. So public health, making sure everyone has access to healthy neighborhoods, infrastructure resources that will improve their lives, not just in the case of climate issues, but also day to day. And you guys probably know a lot more about this part of it than I do, but we will talk through some of it here. So healthy neighborhoods, I think a lot of the healthy neighborhoods has a lot to do with these two things below here, actually. So the heat mitigation, some areas of the city are significantly warmer than other areas of the city, just because of things like more pavement, fewer trees, things like that. So it's really important that folks have ways to stay cool during periods of high heat, especially in those areas. increasing the resilience of the local food system. I know you guys are very deeply involved in that portion of it. and waste reduction, so making it easier to not just recycle, not just reduce, reuse, and recycle, but also to compost, for instance. I know that there's a compost program that the city has that right now I think a smallish number of people are taking advantage of, and that would be a great resource. thing to just get the word out more about to make sure that the people are aware that this is something that is available to them. Investing in people and businesses, centering equity in all of our processes, making sure that there are workforce development and training programs that can help people who are looking especially for to get into fields that are climate related here. So there are a lot of things that you might not consider to be climate related, but actually are. So for instance, an electrician, a lot of people are going to be switching to heat pumps for heating in the future. So electricians are a huge part of the climate workforce of the future. And then expanding neighborhood resources and opportunities for building communities so that people are supported all year long, but especially in times of power outages, flooding, things like that. And then transportation. So just making sure that people can actually get where they need to go, for one thing, and then that they're doing it by methods that are using fewer, that are emitting fewer carbon emissions. So especially public transportation, sidewalks so people can walk or bike lanes so they can bike, things like that. So one of the major things that Medford does for this is to advocate for transportation investments at the state level, especially for public transportation, because there are lots of things that the city doesn't have any direct control over that really affect our residents. And then, where we can do these direct investments in public transportation we can to focus in on those and then to make sure that our streets are really designed for everybody from so not just cars but also bicycles for people who are walking for people who are pushing a stroller or using a wheelchair. And then making sure that neighborhoods are accessible. So that again goes back to those zoning changes that we talked about earlier. Those are going to encompass a lot of what we talked about. And then for people who do drive, accelerating the transition to zero emission vehicles like electric vehicles so expanding access to EV charging stations, this is something that we're already working on. We'll talk about that a little bit later. expanding access to the electric vehicles themselves. So helping people with information and maybe even incentives to help them to purchase them. And then transitioning the city's fleet of vehicles to electric. And making sure that our transportation infrastructure is able to handle any future storms and things like that so people can actually use it in whenever they need to. Okay, so that was a lot very quickly. So we're coming at this piece by piece based on funding availability and other priorities. And what I have listed here, should really be called some immediate actions that Brenda is working on because these are things that I've been immediately involved with in some way. If you guys have specific questions about public transportation, for instance, I might get someone from the transportation department to come to one of our meetings to discuss it. But some of the things here that I've highlighted, electric vehicle charging stations. So the city has six charging stations already in municipal parking lots around the city. And this year we're working on adding seven more. So we'll have 13 charging stations. And those are at areas all over the city, including some of the schools, parks, things like that. And one of the things that I would really like to do is put together an EV charging plan for future charging stations that we'd like to do and get some input from the public about where they're interested in charging stations. do you have an electric vehicle or want to get one but live in an apartment and don't have a driveway or someplace that you can plug into at home and so you would like to have a public charging station nearby? Samia, yes.
[Jenny Graham]: I have a question about that. Sure. I've noticed that a lot of places are trying to encourage people with electric vehicle, you know, and adopting the charger. But what are we doing to the other people that also want to help, like the ones that are willing to take the bike to work? Is there any help for them to buy the first bike or, you know, to fix the bike or to get a new helmet or safety? things for them to ride their bike to work and back, you know? Is there any funding or any help for those who are willing to take the bus, you know? Is there anything in place or right now you're just focused to those who has an electric vehicle, you know? Maybe, you know, I mean, I'm interested to get one or I can afford to get one, but I want to help somehow, you know? Like, are we looking in those other options, you know?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, absolutely. So that's something that I'm working directly on, but I can talk to some folks in the transportation department about what options are available for folks. I'm not sure if there are incentive programs available for bus passes, for instance, or to help people buy helmets or to help them buy bikes, but they would definitely have more information about that. I can share it at some other time or pull somebody in actually to talk about that if you're interested.
[Jenny Graham]: That would be awesome. I think we should provide options for everybody. The same thing goes to the solar system that you're talking about. Do the city have their buildings with the solar system in place? Is any of the city buildings with that? As a homeowner, I would like to see all the city buildings with solar system before I put in my house. Show me that the product really work, that you're doing your part. to do something for the city too. Is the city planning to do that too?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely the city needs to be leading by example to show that this is something that people can and should do. We have solar on three city buildings right now. We have the public library, the Department of Public Works, and the police station. And I know that another one is being planned. There's going to be a car park actually there's going to be a little sort of canopy structure over the the ball courts there with solar panels on top of it. actually, because people asked to have some sort of like weather protected area where they could play during bad weather. And so we thought, why not put solar panels on that then? So one of the things that's actually limiting the city right now is the age of the roofs of a lot of the buildings. And so We need to sort of replace the roofs at the same time as we we put solar panels on them. And so that's something that we have in mind like okay this is the age of this roof. This is when we should be replacing it and putting solar panels on. I mentioned a little bit lower down here we're looking at solar at the the Andrews middle school. As one of the places where the roof was recently replaced, and so this is a great time to add solar to it.
[Jenny Graham]: yeah but like when do you advocating and talking to people, you know, like your home on there, do you know all the programs that I have available, you know, like. and mention those places. Did you know that our library has a solar system? It's good for us to have those kind of information so we can support what you're trying to make everybody do.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Cool. I think a lot of the times my particular focus is on energy use. And so I'm focusing on things that use energy and how to make them use less. Whereas our transportation department is focusing a lot on alternate forms of transportation and things like that. But they're definitely much better than having people use an electric car. Yeah. But while we're on the topic of vehicle electrification going down this list here. School bus electrification is something that we are looking into and we are working with this group called Power Options, who's able to give us free technical assistance to put together an electrification plan for our bus fleet. Because if you think about it, children are inhaling those fumes that these buses are putting out. And so we don't want, like, they're the most important ones to electrify these vehicles for. I already mentioned this Electrify Medford Outreach Campaign, and I'll go into that a little bit more in depth in the next few slides. I mentioned that we're hiring a zoning consultant to do that overhaul, and so we wanna make sure we're incorporating as much as possible that we can into that, because those overhauls only happen, they happen very rarely, so this is a huge opportunity for us to be including a lot of good changes. The solar that I was talking about at the Andrews Middle School, that's actually part of a larger project where we're trying to set Andrews up as a place where people can go during an emergency as a shelter where they could be in a climate-controlled environment, they could have access to food, they could plug in their devices, things like that. There are some steps to get there, but another one of those steps is doing some upgrades to the wiring there to put things onto the emergency circuit that they would need for an emergency shelter. The specialized and stretch energy codes. Medford has already had the stretch energy code, we just adopted that specialized code. A big part of that is really improving the envelopes of the buildings, so lots of insulation and air sealing and things like that. Then also preparing for the future so that if you do want to have fossil fuels in the building, setting it up these new buildings so that there's already wiring in place for for solar panels in the future if you add them, for heat pumps in the future if you add them, because that really reduces the difficulty of doing that if all of that wiring is already in place when the building is built. And then we're working on, we have some plans for I have heating and cooling electrification at the McGlynn School, Andrews School, and City Hall because they have some systems that are nearing end of life. At this point, if you're going to replace the system, you don't want to be doing it with fossil fuel burning systems. You want to replace it with heat pumps. to reduce the amount of energy that's being used and the amount of emissions that are going out there. And to improve cooling, really. That's a huge benefit of the heat pumps that would be there. We're also working on some lighting and weatherization upgrades at a lot of the schools, at City Hall, and at the senior center. And we're working on stormwater improvements. So I mentioned that the engineering office has identified areas of the city that really need some stormwater improvements, and they've been working on getting funding to do that. So it's a series of next steps that they'll be working on there. So these are a lot of things that are my focus now and in the immediate future, but the city as a whole are doing a lot more that we can get into more in the future. But really, one of these actions that I'd like to get a little bit more in depth on now is this Electrify Medford campaign, which I'd like to start early next year. So we'd be doing some community wide messaging, we'd be doing some very targeted outreach to underserved communities, because these are areas where folks just haven't been participating in these programs in the past. So, again, all the non-primary languages here in Medford, EJ census block groups, areas that are or will be even more impacted by hazards like extreme heat and flooding, and renters and landlords. And the way we'd be doing this is we'd be working with some local volunteer energy coaches, and there will be stipends available for coaches who are members of underserved groups and that work with underserved groups. There will be technical support. In addition to me, I actually worked on the MassSave energy efficiency programs in the past, so I have a lot of understanding of those technologies and those programs. We'd be making referrals to MassSave, to folks like Green Energy Consumers Alliance that focus on solar and electric vehicles. in addition to that more baseline energy efficiency. And then we'd have some deeper technical assistance for heat pumps, because they're a little bit more complicated how they're designed for people's homes. It's not just a one thing for one person's home will work perfectly for another's. And that technical assistance will be free for income eligible residents and others if they want to use it, it'll be available for a fee. And then if we receive this empower grant, which I think we have a good chance of getting, which we've applied for, should hear back any day now. There'll be additional incentives of up to $3,000 per household. And again, that's for income eligible residents or for landlords with income eligible tenants who agree to pass along those savings. So I think a big part of this will be working directly with landlords to help out renters. So the idea is that people would either sign up directly with a sign up form online or by outreach that we're doing out in the community and the coaches and others will help them to sign up with that. And then coaches would have an initial conversation with residents either by phone or Zoom or in person, and then discuss all the options and provide decarbonization plan with all the information about where people can go for different options, and then continue to follow up with them as they go through the process and help them until the end of this program. A lot of times, people are interested, but they run into issues when they start working with a contractor or when they apply for incentives from MassAid or something like that, and so the idea is that we would be helping them as they go through that entire process. And then I'm always available either to talk with residents directly or to answer questions that coaches have. Yeah, and again, anytime a coach is uncomfortable or feel like they might be over their head, always happy to jump in on that. So, I mean, what I'd like to, sorry, before we get to that, What I'd really like to get from you guys as part for this Electrify Medford campaign is help reaching out to people in these communities who might be interested in being a coach. There will be training for them. I'll always be around to provide technical backup for them, so they don't need to be experts either. I expect the time commitment will be about four hours or less a week. So there's nothing to do right now, unless you think of someone immediately who might be interested. Just let me know about that, but I'll have a flyer with more information in the next month or so after we hear back about the Empower Grant. Okay, any questions about any of that? That was a lot.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Yes, so other than outreach and getting in touch with the communities, what other responsibilities do we have of being on the council? I guess.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, so basically, I think it's sort of like. When I'm talking about this Electrify Medford campaign, for instance, this is something that the city is planning to do. It would be great to get your feedback on the campaign. If you think that this is something that I don't think that this is a good idea, maybe you should do this a little bit differently. Here's someone that I think that would be really interested in this. the city. Um any sort of like feedback like that, like that's the exact same sort of thing that we would be looking for you to do for any of the actions that the city is doing. So as we move forward in the future. Each meeting we can focus in on different topics. Depending on what we're And for each one, we'll go into some detail about what's happening and then love to get feedback from you guys about what you think about it. How do you think we can improve it moving forward?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Okay. Thank you.
[Brenda Pike]: Any other questions or comments or anything about anything I've talked about so far?
[Evangelista]: I had a question. Sure. My question was about, you had mentioned that there are communities that are not necessarily a flood zone, but are projected to potentially be a flood zone. What makes it a projected flood zone? I mean, what are the changes that are happening?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, so, As it gets warmer, the air is able to hold more moisture. And so when we have a storm, it's going to rain a lot more. And so I think we've already started seeing this, but it's just going to happen more and more. And so our stormwater pipes were not designed to deal with the level of rain that we are going to be getting. And so we need to improve that stormwater infrastructure or else we're going to have lots of street flooding, for instance. And then also, sea level rise is going to be an issue. Medford is protected from that by the Amelia Earhart Dam. And that when that dam was constructed the city actually filled in a lot of areas that used to be to flood at high tide and then the dam was constructed and there were no more tides. and buildings were built right up to the edge of the river. If there was ever a storm where the dam failed, then there would be flooding along the river as well. These are issues that the city is thinking about all the time and we're working with other cities to make sure that the dam is you know, upgraded to deal with future storms, but that's something that is a possibility as well in the future.
[Evangelista]: Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: And if you guys want to talk about that in more detail at a future meeting, I can pull up some maps of specific neighborhoods in the city that we can take a deep dive into.
[Jenny Graham]: I like that. I like that idea.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, that's great.
[Brenda Pike]: Any other questions or comments about things we've been talking about so far? Okay. So, One of the really this is the entire point of these meetings actually is to get to get feedback from you so. What areas either that we've talked about as part of the climate action plan or that you've been thinking about yourself or wondering about what areas, do you want more information about in the future.
[Evangelista]: I think like Samia was mentioning about more education about solar panels and the pros and the cons and what the benefits are for homeowners. And I don't know, maybe with businesses, they get some sort of credit if they Um, put solar panels on their buildings. And it might be good for some more education on electric vehicles. I mean, I don't know much about electric vehicles. I mean, if someone wanted to buy 1, do they have to. Do they have to have some special plug installed at their house or. Do they have to go to some EV charging station elsewhere? And again, the pros and the benefits of it and the cost savings. I think that would be good as well to educate folks.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, that's great. And that's all information that if we're doing this outreach campaign that we need to have available. for the public and we need to have this all put together. Not just the pros and cons and how do you do it, but also what incentives are out there, what tax credits are out there, things like that.
[Jenny Graham]: But they have a data that can compare the costs that were before, like in this case, the solar panel for the city. We used to spend this X amount every month. to supply energy for this building now, this is what happened. I think that'll be a wake-up call for everybody to like and see numbers. Yeah, absolutely. It's like we were talking about the map. Visual is way better for us to understand it too. That's something that could be available, either the social media or whatever, so people can be aware. visually and see, wow, this is what's going on with the city. These are the changes they're making.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, that's a really good point. Having more information presented visually and available on social media and things like that, it's really good. In terms of the costs, I think it's really striking that for the library, they were paying thousands of dollars a month in energy bills for building that size. For four months this year, the solar panels were producing enough energy that they paid nothing for their utility bills.
[Evangelista]: Wow.
[Jenny Graham]: That's amazing. That's great. Wow. I have a question too. Like you mentioned, Like, I would love to have a solar panel, but like, I'm not willing, not willing, I can't afford to buy, you know, to fix my roof right now. You know, I don't have time to do that, then be able to be eligible to that right now. And I think that's a lot of questions that people have to, you know, oh, I need to change all my roof, you know, maybe not, maybe you can do it now, you know, and so more information we have, more information can share with everybody, people be willing to do it.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, especially as we're doing more outreach about these topics, it's important to have information for people to be able to take advantage of these things at different levels, right? So maybe you don't have a roof that you can put solar panels on, but what else can you do, you know, from from purchasing renewable energy to just even participating in the city's electric aggregation to get savings on your electricity bills. That has a slightly higher renewable content than what the utilities basic service does. Not 100 percent, but it's still better than what the basic services. and it's cheaper than the basic service. Just educating people on things like that that are available to them would be, I think, really helpful.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. I also just wanted to mention that I'm thinking of people who are living in more underprivileged neighborhoods in Medford where they will not really have access to a lot of these things. Most people will not be able to afford like an electric vehicle or something like that. I'm thinking that there has to be some incentive for people to adopt these lifestyles and some government assistance for sure. If it's not help with electric vehicle, maybe help with public transportation like Sonia said. I'm thinking how are we going to affect the most people, are we gonna have an impact on the most amount of people that are living in Medford and that are not usually getting their voices are not heard in issues like these, you know? So I think definitely we need some kind of incentive to get them involved and also to get them to know about the real like dangers of climate change, you know?
[Jenny Graham]: And inclusion too, you know, I think it's open, you know, we show, you know, offer everybody. I think the kind of saying, you know, like I get really mad when I see on social media people I complain about traffic, people just taking the bike. I mean, listen, if I ride the bike here to the corner, I'm dying, okay? I'm not physically, mentally prepared to ride a bike to work, you know? Like I'm scared, all these things, but maybe you are, but maybe there are other things that I can do. I don't mind taking the bus, you know? Actually, I get earlier at work when I take the bus. you know but like other people don't know the benefits of doing that and leaving the car or maybe leaving the car at the station and you know and taking the train you know help with the traffic help with the environment you know um but we need to find a way to include everybody you know not just the people who can't afford a nice car exactly and also like
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: I think there's kind of been, at least lately, there's been kind of like a large shift towards bike lanes. Well, I think like bike lanes are good, but the majority of people are going to have, you know, whether they need to go to the grocery store to get groceries, like they're not going to get their groceries on a bike. They're going to be using a car, you know, or like they have to take the bus, for example. So I think there needs to be a balance so that not some populations are like they're being served more than the other. You know, there has to be like some kind of balance in these things.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, that makes sense. I like what you guys are saying about, I guess, meeting people where they are. Different people have different abilities to do different things. It's not just ride a bike, it's not just buy an electric vehicle, it's the entire array of options so that they can see themselves in one of them.
[Jenny Graham]: It's winter time now and every year, every winter, they worry because Um, we work with, you know, low income people and, uh, this time of the year notice that a lot of people trying to put their heating on at home, you know, because they want to save money. They don't want to have a $600 gas, you know, or electric, um, bills. Um, and I've noticed that a lot of people are adopting the electric, um, heating system, you know, those little tiny things. And I've read so many incidents, you know, like with fire and stuff like that. So it would be very helpful to have information if that would be something that it could, you know, okay, the ways that it can save, you know, like with, you know, your bills during the wintertime, but it be safe, you know, like, I think that is missing a lot of information about that front. especially during the winter time, you know, people do some crazy stuff.
[Brenda Pike]: Are you talking about space heaters that they just plug into the wall?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, those little things.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, okay. That's very different than what we're talking about when we talk about heat pumps, space heaters.
[Jenny Graham]: No, I understand that. People trying to kind of, you know, save know with all this stuff and a lot of people adopted to things that are not really safe you know and then a lot of people have been asking to like oh you know instead of me doing that I just you know do this and I think that is kind of we should be providing, you know, like we provide it like places that it can go and be warm, you know, and during the heat time, you know, places that will be the air condition that I can go, but like also show ways that it can be safe and save money, but like be part of the helping us to be have a clean, you know, environment and everything, but to be safe, I think. Safety is very important. But I think there is a lot of missing information for us to be sharing with everybody in general. Whatever you can provide to us, I think it's applause.
[Brenda Pike]: Definitely. I've even heard of people using their kitchen oven as a way to heat their home, which is a terrible and dangerous way to do it. It's really bad for the air quality in your house. Okay, so feel free always to reach out to me if you want more information about anything in between meetings. I'll be focusing on pulling together information about a lot of these topics that we've talked about here. But for future meetings, what areas do you want to do a deep dive into? It sounds like There's a lot of interest in more information about the solar panel education, solar panel information, electric vehicle information. I'm hearing, I really want to do a deep dive on those flooding maps. Transportation, different types of transportation. anything else that people want to focus on in future meetings to really dive into? This is really a very broad overview right now.
[Jenny Graham]: Would you be bringing someone from the transportation to talk to us about it? Then we can ask him more questions, more deep questions too?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, definitely.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: I want to say affordability. Sorry. Yeah, go on. This is the main thing. I would say, especially for the low income people, because all this sounds good. But the biggest question in their mind will be, how much will it cost me? You know what I'm saying? So affordability is, I think, is one of my biggest concern that I would want to know because I know that's going to be a question. Well, how much is this going to cost? I can't afford this. This is crazy. This sounds like for people who got, you know, six digits in their accounts, you know. So yeah, affordability for me.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, definitely. And there are different types of affordability, right? There's the upfront cost of it, which there are lots of incentives out there for upfront costs, but some things might cost more over the long run, depending on how it's done. So for instance, heat pumps. Some cases, it can save you money. In some cases, if it's installed in a certain way in your house, different configuration or something, it could be costing you money, more money. So it's really important to make sure there's an understanding of or projection of what the cost is going to be for all of these, both in the immediate upfront cost, And how long it's going to take to get incentives back, for instance. That's a big issue. I've heard from a lot of people about the Mass Save programs and how it could take months to get incentives back from that. So it doesn't necessarily help with that immediate upfront cost. It'll help in a couple of months, but not right away. So things like that, just being really realistic about it and clear. And did I see a hand up? Was that? Charbel, did you have a hand up?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, I meant to do like the reaction like clapping hands when Natasha was saying that. Yeah. Definitely. I definitely agree with her because if we can get incentive about affordability, at the same time, we're also getting our awareness on the subject. It's like two birds and one stone. Like I said before, it's not on a lot of people's radar because right now the most affordable thing is not the most, what's the word? like climate efficient thing, you know? So that's my point.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. I mean, a lot of times the most affordable thing right now is not, but over the longterm, a lot of times the more climate efficient things will save you money, but it's like, are you thinking, are you able to think that longterm or are you just thinking right now? Because that's all you can do right now. Yeah. Anything else you want to focus on in future meetings?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: Besides the Andrew that you guys are trying to prepare, like in case of emergency, as an emergency shelter, what other places? are you guys thinking of, if you would say have like an emergency, and we have only Andrews, what other places would we be having? Besides that? I mean, are we thinking of that as well?
[Brenda Pike]: That's a really good question. I've heard some discussions about different areas, different places that might be possibilities. I think right now, the only one that we're really Trying to put resources into doing we're sort of doing one at a time right, so I think the Andrews is the first one we're looking at. I know there's definitely some. There's a wish list, definitely. So I can get some more information about other areas the city's looking at. And I'd love to hear back from you. Do you think Andrews is too far away from a lot of people? Do you think it's going to be inaccessible to some people? Is that a good location or a bad location for something like that?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Brenda Pike]: Anything else we want to focus on in the near future?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: Will the electric car go down in prices? Because I sure want one. My son keeps telling me, you need to get these cars, they're so awesome, and this and that. I'm like, oh, retro expensive right now. Will the prices go down?
[Brenda Pike]: I hope so. I mean, they've already gone down a lot from just a few years ago, and there are a lot more models of them. So as time goes by, they're just going to ramp up the stock of them more. Right. Yeah, hopefully. And hopefully there'll be more incentives. There are already quite a lot of incentives out there. So it can really cut down the price to the same as another new car of that type, right? So if it's a compact car, the incentives can bring it down to that price level.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: Well, the goal is to try to make everybody go to those kind of cars, you know, they should kind of work on that incentive to make sure that, you know, I mean, I don't know in the future, I'm hearing a lot of things, and my son's obsessed with these things. And he's only 12. So he's telling me some of these stuff, that, you know, will they trade in, you know, will they will manufacture do more of those type of cars, and then because of the, I'm not good at these environment stuff, fossil fuel and all these things. I'm not really good. I'm learning, you know, but I know it's affecting the environment, you know? So if we're trying to protect our mother earth that everyone needs to live in our future and our future's future children to live in, you know, we got to start building these things, but at the same time, going back to affordability and make sure it's affordable. you know, so in the future and our children could have a better air to breathe, you know, and in the better future, because all these things are affecting with climate change, you know, I mean, I don't know if y'all have seen, for some reason, this is the warmest November, you know, that we've had, because if I'm not mistaken, last November, we even had snow and stuff. So it's like our snow seasons are less. So that's kind of scary. So we don't know what's going on, you know, so.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, yeah. I don't have it with me right now, but I made a climate change scarf that shows different, the average temperature each year from 1895 till now in Massachusetts. It goes from like blue to dark, dark red. Wow. Really depressing to look at, but I'm like, I'm wearing it around my neck.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Wow. That's scary. You hear that, Junior?
[Brenda Pike]: In terms of EVs, I know that a lot of that in the US, manufacturers are required to hit certain miles per gallon that is kind of going down each year. So they need to increase the number of electric vehicles that they are selling in order to meet those requirements that the federal government has on them. I think that's one of the reasons why you're seeing advertisements around so much about electric vehicles and more of them being put out because they are required to increase the numbers that they sell. That's definitely part of what we can talk about when we talk about EVs. Okay, so for our next meeting, I think what I would like to do, if this works for you all, is get together December 18th. That's the third Monday in December.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay. Let's see.
[Brenda Pike]: Is there anybody that doesn't work for?
[Adam Hurtubise]: If it doesn't work for anyone?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, any of you that it doesn't work for?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Will be the same time as today, right? Yes, it would be. It's good work.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: I think it'll work because we usually have our connectors meeting around this time.
[Brenda Pike]: That's great. At that time, I'd like to talk about who you'd like to choose as chair of the council. Just be prepared for the next meeting if you're interested in being chair to let people know and to talk about that.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: Anybody in the air like Charbel or something? Are you talking?
[Brenda Pike]: Okay, I mean, we can do it now if you want to.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: I have something stuck in my throat, Charbel, okay.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, Natasha, it needs to be you or Charbel. You guys are Medford residents, so.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's true, yeah.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: I think Stacy is a Medford resident too. So we got December 18, 6pm, right?
[Brenda Pike]: Yes, exactly. And would you like to meet on Zoom like this or would you like to get together in person? Where will it be at?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Where would it potentially be?
[Brenda Pike]: It would be at City Hall.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: I think it could work, potentially. Just because I'm coming from work before, so Zoom is a lot easier. Yeah. I think I would be able to go since it will only be once a month.
[Brenda Pike]: Is Zoom easier for everyone though?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: Samia, is it fine with you since you'll be coming to work? traffic and stuff?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, Zoom for me is fine. Actually, it's better. But I'm open to if we want to at least have one meeting person so we can all meet each other. I just need to know in advance.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: We're praying that they don't have a foot of snow during that time too. I don't want to go out.
[Brenda Pike]: Well, let's do this next one. Let's do this next one on Zoom then, though, and then we can talk about if we want to do in person in the future. It sounds like Zoom would be a lot easier for you for the next one. OK. And then we can talk about, let's see, of the things that we were talking about here. Do we want to talk about flooding and I can probably talk about the emergency shelter locations, although that's in a very sort of early stages right now. And then maybe we can get into... Before we dive into solar panels and electric vehicles, would you like to talk about the mass save programs and energy efficiency? Because I feel like that's sort of the baseline that everybody should be doing. It will save people money. Yes. There are lots of incentives that are available. I think that when you're talking about the levels of things that people can do, that's number one. Yeah. I think build on top of that. Yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: I like that it would break up too. Don't be all those topic in one meeting. Take one minute, just go slowly and learn everything from one thing and then jump to the next one. Too much information.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we can focus on those few things. And then if there's anything else that comes up in the meantime that you'd like to add to the agenda for the next meeting, feel free to email me if you have questions about anything. feel free to email me or call me. I'm here, so anytime. And actually, here's my contact information, which you probably already have from the emails that I've sent you in the past in the meeting invitations, but in case you don't, there it is. Well, thank you guys so much for being willing to dive into such a complicated topic and for being so active with your feedback and your suggestions. Thank you.
[Evangelista]: Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.
[Brenda Pike]: Thank you. Great. I'll see you in a month then. Thank you very much.
[Jenny Graham]: Have a good night.
[Brenda Pike]: Bye. Take care. Good night.
[Jenny Graham]: Good night, everyone.
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