[Brenda Pike]: Do we want to start with just and have the guests here introduce themselves? Yes.
[Unidentified]: Hello, my name is Trey winter. I am a 15.
[Brenda Pike]: Oops, is that my Wi-Fi that's having an issue? I think it's strange.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: I'm very interested in climate issue and I am just here.
[Brenda Pike]: OK, I'm just chatting to him that I think he's having Wi-Fi issues and asking if he wants to introduce himself in the chat.
[SPEAKER_02]: Margaret, would you like to? Sure. Hi, my name is Margaret. I'm sorry, I don't have a video. I thought I would, but I don't. So here I am. Let's see, I bought a house in Medford about two years ago. And I have been living in the Boston area for about 12. In my professional life, I work in a variety of environmental science and policy types of projects. And so I'm just looking for ways to bring my, you know, to expand out to something like really relevant and local. Thanks. That's great.
[Brenda Pike]: What's your last name, Margaret? K-U-R-T-H. And I see in the chat that Trey says his name is Trey Winter, 15 year Medford resident and a scientist very interested in climate issues. Thank you for joining Margaret and Trey. Do we want to continue with some of the administrative parts? Yes. We can't do the minutes from the September meeting yet. So we will wait till we have, we either have a quorum here or we just wait till the next meeting. But I wanted to talk about when the next meetings would be just to make sure that it worked for everybody. I think right now they're on the calendar for November 18th and December 16th.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: That's so perfect for me.
[Brenda Pike]: Charbel, do those work for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Those will be on the Monday? Yes. At this time. Yeah, it should work.
[Brenda Pike]: And should we do them Zoom or hybrid?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, does it are you, uh, are you able to meet him on in person? Does it work for you? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we can probably do it.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for which one? Both of them are for November.
[Brenda Pike]: Um, well, we had talked last time about alternating between, uh, uh, just zoom and hybrid. So maybe hybrid for November and then just zoom for December. That's fine. Oh, I see Samia is joining.
[Unidentified]: Hi, how are you? Hi.
[Brenda Pike]: We were just getting started with some of the administrative parts of it. We were just talking about the next meetings, November 18th as a hybrid meeting and November 16th as just a Zoom only meeting. Does that work for you? Good. We now have a quorum so we could review the minutes from the September meeting. If you've had time to look at it, I know I sent it to you pretty late.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: No, it was great.
[Brenda Pike]: Lizette have you had a chance to look at the minutes.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately, I haven't, but I'm reading them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to try to take a look.
[Brenda Pike]: We could also just put it off until the next meeting if that's difficult to do right now in the short notice.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: No, I think we can do it. Brenda. I mean, it's I just like that as well. I, like, read, like, half of it right now. I think it would be good either way to talk about the events. The upcoming events.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, yeah, that's that's the next thing on the on the agenda. Yep. Did anybody have any edits to the minutes. Is that are you just finishing reading through them right now? Yeah.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but we can start. Motion to start the meeting guys.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, yeah, yeah, we don't need a motion to start the meeting with the meeting. 1st motion minutes. Yes. Motion. So, for the minutes guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so far, everything looks good, so I'll just say hi.
[Unidentified]: Hi.
[Brenda Pike]: Okay, meeting and that's an eye from you, is that yes. Okay, the minutes from September meeting are approved. That's great, so we can get that online for people to be able to see. So, next up on the agenda, we have the Medford connects events.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Yes. So the next, I think the next one we have is the, I just saw it. It was the winter preparedness.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it's the only one that we are having right now.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: November.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: And we mentioned about it last week, you know, last meeting that it was going to be at the library, but we changed to the chamber. Oh, okay.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: It's actually really good because it's more space. Last year it was like crowded.
[Brenda Pike]: It's also hard to book things at the library.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Very busy. Yeah, so we are not sure because, you know, election and everything, you know, they have been using the rooms a lot lately, so we didn't think about it until someone mentioned it. Okay. Yeah, so it's going to be November 14, 6 to 8. Oh, 6 to 8, OK.
[Brenda Pike]: I had it as 6.30. Good to know.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was the library time because they had an event before. Gotcha.
[Brenda Pike]: And Samia, had you sent me the flyer already? I apologize if you didn't.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I shared the Canva with you in case we make any changes. But I can send you the thing again over here just to fly along.
[Brenda Pike]: Okay, I can look through my email for that too. Sharp Bell, you were reaching out to ABCD about that, is that all set?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so first I reached out to Andrea Mendoza, and I guess she spoke with one of her employees that They're in charge of the outreach in the Medford area. Her name was Roxanne. I don't know if you know her. But yeah, it seems like Roxanne will be showing up to the winter preparedness event. So thank you again for helping and connecting me with this. I appreciate it.
[Brenda Pike]: ABCD does such great work across all kinds of different topics.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they were very nice people. from just like talking with them on the email. So, but I'm sure they're very nice people in person too. And I think it's very important that we get some folks down to kind of explain the fuel assistance programs, because it's so helpful, especially, you know, for the upcoming winter.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, one thing. I'll jot it down for the city updates later. But I have an update about ABCD, too, that I'll share. And I'll be there with the Electrify Medford dollhouse and all of that. We mentioned last time something about the knitting connection, having hats and scarves available for people. Alicia told me that she is working with your mom, Charbel, to get those from the knitting connection building.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing. That would be good. And Catherine, I guess we're having a lot of success with the overall clothing drive because the boxes keep filling up. Right, Samia?
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I'm tired of going over there every week and picking them up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think twice they were full. So she had to go back and forth. So yeah, hopefully this will be very successful.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so and Alicia did reach out. Katherine shared the email today with me. So she just wanna have an idea how many people are expecting. So she will help us with the donations. So that's good.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, Samia, are you the one who's organizing this or is it? Well, it's our office. Okay, okay. Yeah. I'm just wondering if Alicia might've mixed up the person that she'd been speaking with.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, no, no. She reached out to Catherine and then Catherine just shared the information, yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: Great. And then Alicia had also mentioned that the Medford Family Network also gets hats and scarves and things like that from the Knitting Connection. Is that something that you guys are coordinating too?
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I spoke to Mary Cassidy about it, and then depends on what she's going to have, you know, she's probably going to bring it with her. She wasn't sure yet what she had available and what she would be able to bring. And they have all the other events they are participating to. So I assume they kind of take everywhere they go, you know, whatever they can. So we see. So that's why we want to make sure that we had at least some from other sources, you know. Yeah. And I know that some other partners that are coming to tabling, they are also bringing some stuff to donate. So I just hope, you know, our residents take advantage of that and they show up. And, you know, we really got very nice stuff, you know, like great quality coats and stuff.
[Brenda Pike]: So, yeah. That's great. When you're saying other partners are bringing things to donate, is that mostly coats and hats and scarves?
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, those warm pads. They kind of ask what things that will be interesting for people, and we gave some suggestions like that. Gloves. Last year we had the warm blankets and pads, so if anybody would be able to bring some, if everybody brings a little bit, everybody can take some home.
[Brenda Pike]: That's great. I remember when I was at National Grid, there was a company that made wool blankets that was looking to donate blankets to folks through the income eligible programs that Mass Save has. I wonder if that's something that might be useful too.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: That would be.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I'll see if I can remember what the name of the company was, and I can try to reach out to them.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Oh, great. Then we're going to take a look, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny that we're talking about the winter preparedness event, and today was such a beautiful day. And we're only a few weeks out. It's scary.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, it was cold last week though. I turned on my heating system for the first time.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, me too. But it's scary that, you know, warm today.
[Brenda Pike]: I'm always the Debbie Downer who's like, oh, it's unseasonably warm. Welcome to climate change.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: That's what I was going to say too, but I've been holding my tongue. Because a lot of people don't believe that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was like, that's what I was kind of getting to, you know? Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. Oh, Trey is saying that's why his Wi-Fi is so bad. He's trying to be outside on such a nice day. Samia, I want to clarify something. The Medford Family Network is bringing donated materials to the event?
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: They're not sure.
[Brenda Pike]: Okay, they're not sure.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're not sure. I spoke to Mary Cass very briefly, but I called them and I spoke to somebody else over there and that's what they said. Depends what they have available that day because they need to provide for the families that come to the center, or whatever events they go, if they see an opportunity for them to give it away, they're gonna do it. And if they have anything, they will bring it.
[Brenda Pike]: That makes sense, okay. I was just trying to figure out if you were both asking for things from the Knitting Connection for the same event that happened at the festival this weekend. We got a last minute frantic thing of like, oh no, the tables that we requested aren't available because some other event is using them that day. And then after like half an hour of phone calls, we realized no, it was two people requesting tables for the same event.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay. You know, my understanding is that they already got some donation, you know. So, let's see. That's great. And whatever we have left, you know, it's always going to go to, you know, the partners that are interested to bring it to their places to donate to their, you know, the people that are using their service too, so.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: That's good. So, the stuff is still going to be used regardless?
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. That's our problem.
[Brenda Pike]: Anything else for the winter preparedness event? I don't think so. Any other events that are coming up in the next month or so?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: It says Pumpkin Smash, Brenda, November 2nd.
[Brenda Pike]: Are you guys going to be at the Pumpkin Smash? I'm going to be there for Electrify Medford.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Someone was reaching out to find out more information about it because we never did that before.
[Brenda Pike]: So, okay, so I can jump to the updates on city actions if there aren't any other. Yeah, events to talk about then because yeah, the 1st thing I was going to talk about there was the events. Um, yeah, the pumpkin smash November 2nd at the West Medford community center. 1030 to 1, and we're going to and it's basically for people to compost their jack lanterns. Instead of throwing them out. But the way that they're getting, they're drawing people in to do that is by having a pumpkin smash where they basically like take the pumpkins up really high and drop them on the ground to smash them. So it's fun.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Well, my mom, my mom cooks, you know, pumpkins and makes pumpkin pudding. So interesting.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Never had a pumpkin pudding before.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Are you kidding me, Sami? It's so good. I love pumpkin pudding.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Especially my grandma's recipe.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Forget it. I love pumpkin pies. No, but it's way better. Like it has like a different taste when it's like from a can versus like the actual real like pumpkin. If I make some guys, I'll bring you some. That's awesome. That would be lovely. Hey, our next meeting is hybrid, so. Yeah, I should have my mom be like, pumpkin time.
[Brenda Pike]: So yeah, so I don't know if they usually have a lot of tables there, but they invited Electrify Medford to have a table. So I can, if you want to also have a table there, we could what we could talk to them about getting another table set up there, or you could share our table.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: I think that'd be good.
[Brenda Pike]: That'd be fun. Okay, so I'll reach out to them about that. Thanks, Brenda. So it's mothers out front who's putting that on. Let's see. Oh, here's Natasha.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Finally. Natasha.
[Brenda Pike]: So then after that, and after the winter preparedness event, the next thing that Electrify Medford is going to be at is the winter extravaganza on December 4th. Are the Medford Connects folks going to be there too?
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: No, we are following your list, you know. Oh, okay. Because there are a lot of events that you never even heard about it. Do you know anything about that? What is that about?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I tabled at it last year. So this is at City Hall from 430 to 630 on December 4th. So they have lots of outdoor tables. It's almost like the farmer's market except not food. It's like a lot of arts and crafts vendors, that sort of thing. They do have food available, like hot cider and things like that. So they have the outdoor tabling and then indoors they do a tree raffle. where people will donate Christmas trees decorated with whatever they want to put on them. And then people will raffle, and then they raffle off the Christmas trees. That's awesome. And so they usually have different themes. So one might be like, I don't know, all dolls or something. And it's just decorated with dolls. Or when the library did one that was just books, small, like board books all over it, things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to the one last year. I was mad. I was like, man, I wanted to win one of those trophies. I know. I didn't get any of them.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: I didn't get any. That's crazy. We should do that event. That'd be so much fun. Yeah, sounds fun.
[Brenda Pike]: They also do a gingerbread house. I don't know if it's a contest or just a display thing. So they just have them up for display during the extravaganza. And then they do events with kids there, like the Medford Family Network will be there doing some sort of craft activity with kids.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Do they tell you like how to sign up for if you want to like participate in like the tree or like the gingerbread or stuff like that, Brenda?
[Brenda Pike]: Yes. So Lisa Coliani in the mayor's office is the one organizing the the tabling and the gingerbread house part of it. And then there's a different organization that's doing the tree raffle. But I have their contact information because I'm going to. So Electrify Medford is going to be tabling and I'm going to put together a energy efficient gingerbread house. That sounds so cute. I'm planning to donate an electrified Medford Christmas tree. Will an EV be part of it?
[SPEAKER_00]: An EV car? That would be amazing.
[Brenda Pike]: Just one of the things hanging from the tree is a set of keys. Yeah, so I can send you the information for that.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Awesome. I'm just saying that we can put it on social media.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Maybe Charmel can dress as a snowman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: That would be amazing. That would be cute.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be freezing in that suit.
[Brenda Pike]: What are you talking about? It's so big and puffy, it could have lots of insulation in there.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: That's what happens when you're the only man in a team. Exactly.
[Brenda Pike]: Those are the only other events that I'm planning to be at. There are other events coming up that I'm not participating in. There's a business trick-or-treating thing on October 25th. in Medford Square where a lot of the businesses will just have candy and kids will go around trick-or-treating through them.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Doesn't that include Salem Street as well?
[Brenda Pike]: Probably.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Okay. Because I do that every year with Gabriel. Oh, nice. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: That would be fun. And then there's a Halloween Fest and pumpkin float at Wright Pond on October 26. But that doesn't sound like a great tabling opportunity. I mean, it takes place at night, so it's dark. And I don't think that there are usually tables around there. So it didn't seem like a good use of my time. Oh, Trey was asking if there's a URL with all of these events listed. There's an events calendar. Let me pull it up here. And it's not, let's see, here we go. Always good to go check in on that, although sometimes things can pop up there with a week notice or less before the actual event happens. Sometimes it can be tough to follow them.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: The city's social media, they always share the flyers with more information about those events. It's good to check that out too.
[Brenda Pike]: That's true. There's a newsletter that the city has that people can sign up for to get. all of this information. Let me pull it up here. So the second link is to sign up for the city's newsletter. So those are the only other events that I had. I wanted to take a minute to just say that the bilingual storytime event was really fun. I don't know how often those happen, but that was great and I would love to be at more of them.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: No, I had a blast. Honestly, like that was just for like the Hispanic Heritage Month, but I feel like we should be doing like more events like that with like the kids and like, you know, you and Medford Family Network.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, definitely.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Especially because it's open to the public. You know, I went to the Miss Attack on Thursday because they had their book fair, you know, every school have those book fair where they sell the books. And they decided to have a few classrooms with story time for the kids with different languages, you know, different books. And I thought that was very cool, you know. Yeah, maybe you can do something like that at the libraries too.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: No, only this one. This one was like extra because like, I don't know if you remember. I don't know if you were there for the chamber one, but like Esther Gomez is a part of like her, her programs like Spanish fun program. And she does like a lot of like activities with kids. And one of the activities that we had that day was a immersive storytelling, so she had her props and everything, and she would speak in Spanish, the other one would speak in English and would say the same story. And then it was just very interactive, so the kids were engaged. 100%. There was not a kid that was distracted, that was crying, bored. It was 100% laughing, dancing, listening, paying attention. This is the first time I've ever seen a group of kids who didn't.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Is there a lady that was teaching us to dance?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the Esther, Esther Gomez, she does a bunch of stuff, like her program, to be honest, I feel like I'm gonna use her for like every event if possible, because that she was really amazing. The first one, obviously, with like the salsa at the chambers was really, really fun. And then especially the, you know, the kids like storytelling, it was, it was awesome. I really liked her.
[Brenda Pike]: And it was done slowly enough and with gestures and things like that. Even without the English translation, I understood about half of it with my terrible, terrible Spanish.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Wow, Brenda. No.
[Brenda Pike]: So I was like, OK, this is the level of my Spanish. It's like half of a three-year-old's level.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: No, it's good. You know, to be honest, it makes you feel more comfortable, like hearing it, you know, and like being able to like also hear in English and it's not hard. It can be like your lessons, Brenda, for learning Spanish.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, and then the Harvest Your Energy Festival this past Saturday was, was great. There were, I think there were more people there than last year, although it's a little hard to tell because the playground is different, has a different configuration now. Um, so, uh, but a lot of people came just intending to play at the playground and then they were like, oh, wait, there's a festival. Um, but we had an EV showcase. I think we had eight electric vehicles there. And we actually ran the, um, the stoves that deep cuts had to, to heat up their sandwiches off of the electric vehicles, which was fun. Yeah. Cause we didn't want to have a noisy, like gross generator there since the EVs were going to be there anyway. Yeah. The wind turbine tours were not as popular as they were in the past, just because the festival has moved slightly away from that. And so we were walking people over to it, but it's not the same as when people are just walking by and just stop and talk to you about it. But the carnival games that we had for Electrify Medford were very, very popular again. So it does cost us money to rent them, but I think it's worth it for big events like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the beanbag one, even though Junior keep winning.
[Brenda Pike]: But I was thinking we should have little prizes that we give to kids who actually win. Yeah.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: At this point, Brenda, I feel like we should invest in buying those.
[Brenda Pike]: Part of it is what would it cost to to hire them to, you know, to make more of those for us. And then the other part is where would we store it? Because right now we have a hard time even storing the signs that we use at the festival in our office.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Trust me, I feel you on that, my car is full of stuff and I don't know where we're gonna put it.
[Brenda Pike]: So I think that's it for events. For Electrify Medford updates in general, we have 86 residents who've signed up now so far, and 25 of those have been coached. either by me or by some of the volunteer coaches. We've contacted almost all of the people who've signed up now, but there's, you know, people get busy and we're not getting a huge percentage of people who are responding after they sign up. So we'll keep, you know, we'll keep going back to them after, you know, a month or so and see if it's a better time for them. Right now we have nine coaches who are really active with the program. Some of the coaches that we trained already have either dropped out because they're too busy. Some of them haven't been able to be very active yet, but still want to be involved. So we're still keeping them on the list. So we have nine now that are really active with it. We had, A couple people from larger condo buildings ask about installing solar because they've been turned down by contractors that they've talked to, just because it's a more complicated situation. So I spoke to the contractor that Medford used for Solarize Medford back in 2013, and another local one too, actually, at the festival this weekend. And both of them said they could do it in some cases, but not all. So they seemed more open to it than the contractors that the the residents had spoken to before, but it did sound like they weren't going to be able to do it for every situation. But we're putting residents in touch with them so that they can see exactly what the situation is on those buildings and see if there's something they can move forward with. We saw that problem when I worked at National Grid, too. with home performance contractors who would sometimes, they would find out that somebody lived in a condo building, even if it was a smaller condo building, like three units or something, and they would just decide not to serve them because it was more difficult to get the owners of the building to agree to move forward with something. One other Electrify Medford thing, I'm planning to apply for Mass Save's Community First Partnership, which is where you actually work with the utility to get word out about the program. They give you data about exactly how many people in your community are doing different things like getting home energy assessments or installing insulation or installing heating systems, and then you agree to goals to increase those. And so then we, the real reason that I want to do this is so I can get this data from the utility and get updated data as we move along, because otherwise it's We can get it at a very high aggregate level, but not at the level that we could get it at by working with them. But they'll also have funding available for us to help with outreach. And they'll also do outreach for us, like having inserts in utility bills. So I'm really looking forward to applying to that and including them in the program. Changing topics a little bit. The electricity, Medford's electricity aggregation. We just put out the press release about the renewal for that on Friday. And it's all good news. The cost went down about one cent per kilowatt hour, and the renewable energy content went up from 5% to 10% additional content. And that's locked in for the next three years. It won't go up and down like the regular utility bills will.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: That's really good.
[Brenda Pike]: And the letter for that will go out to residents who are enrolled in the aggregation already in early November, and then the change will show up on their bills for their December billing cycle. And yeah, it's great that the costs are going down in general. The cost for the renewable energy content is going down even more than for the standard product that is sort of the default. Right now, our cost is about, is a little over 18 cents per kilowatt hour for 100% renewable electricity through the program. And with the new contract, it drops down to 16.6, I think, something like that. It's actually right now, it's only like six tenths of a cent higher than what National Grid's default rate is. So that's pretty exciting. I'm hoping that will make more people choose to opt up to 100% renewables. Um, there might be some confusion happening around that after the, I don't think most people pay attention to the press release, but once the letter goes out in early November, we might hear from residents who are asking about what this is and why the city is doing it and stuff like that. So I just want to make sure that you're aware of it and can, can talk with people about it if it comes up. Let's see the compost program. We have about 4,600 people signed up for it right now. I thought it was higher than that, but I got the exact number. It's 4,608. And it's been stalled right around there for a few months now. So we planned on 6,000 people participating in the first year. So if there's anybody that you know that's interested, and signing up for curbside compost, we still have room in the program. We're really trying to get the word out about that. Oh, and I had said I wanted to give you an update about ABCD. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the utility discount rate, which you can sign up for through ABCD, I just saw a news article talking about how moving forward, I don't know starting when exactly, but the utilities have been approved to do this. they will automatically sign people up for the income eligible discount rate if people are enrolled in a benefits program that confirms their income is at the correct level. So things like MassHealth and basically anything that is on the list that National Grid has on their website. Let me pull this up right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that include the fuel assistance program, the HEAP, I think it's called?
[Brenda Pike]: Yep, yep, exactly. But now, sort of the first step in getting the fuel assistance program is confirming your income and getting onto the utility discount rate. So if you're signed up for HEAP through ABCD, they would automatically sign you up for that anyway. But there are these other non-ABCD related programs really that would also now happen automatically. And so those are like, you know, food stamps or Head Start or, you know, public housing or WIC, SSI, all of those programs. So that's going to be amazing, because there are a lot of people out there who are eligible for the discount rate that either don't know or don't want to go through the hassle of signing up for it. And this way, they just get automatically opted in.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Well, it kind of makes sense, too, because when do you go to enroll for those discounts, they want to know what other, you know, help you're getting. So to confirm, you know, like if you have MassHealth, you need to send your MassHealth letter, you know, acceptance letter and stuff like that. Yep. If you all together, it makes sense, you know?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. And why would you have to confirm your income more than once, you know?
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like if the, like MassHealth, if the, you know, government, already confirming that that's your income that is, you know, why, you know, anyway. Yep. Makes more sense.
[Brenda Pike]: Yes. So I was very excited about that. I don't, I don't know exactly when that's going to start. So I'm going to continue talking to people about signing up for the discount rate until I'm sure that that's happening automatically.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: That's great.
[Brenda Pike]: I think that's it for my updates on city actions right now. We can move on to green jobs unless folks have questions about anything that either that we talked about or that they've heard about and want to ask questions on, things that the city's doing. Okay, so we had talked briefly last time about sort of, I think of it as workforce development, but also like green jobs or sort of connecting people with jobs in the building construction field. Um, so, and we talked about it a couple of different ways, right? We had said about city projects and making sure that people are being hired onto city projects and then, um, also like training programs to like get people to the point where they're, um, qualified to be, to be hired for, for these different jobs. And I know sometimes there's kind of a disparity between the two and you go through a training program and then you're like, okay. Where are the job opportunities for this now and that's been a lot of frustration around training programs in the past. So, a lot of the ones that I know about now are really trying to match with employers. to try to have a sort of a pipeline going from the training program to employers, to different varying levels of success there, but it's what they're sort of trying to do. But so city projects on the one hand, because this came up as part of the Andrews and McGlynn HVAC upgrade project. And I want to talk about a couple of things here. So there's prevailing wage requirements for all city projects, all city construction projects. So it's not saying that someone has to be a part of a union, but it does say that whoever is, you know, whatever contractor we've hired has to be paying their employees the prevailing wage for that trade. And we get lists from the state that show exactly what the prevailing wage is for different trades when we do those contracts. And that's written into the contracts and that's required. There are also DCAM certification requirements for any projects over $150,000. And DCAM is like the Department of Capital Asset Management. There's another M there. I don't remember what it stands for, but it's a state department that certifies that companies meet certain requirements. And I can share. I could share my screen here. Can you see my screen? Okay, cool. So this is for contractors that we would be hiring for our construction projects. If it's over $150,000 project, then the contractor has to be DCAM certified. And, sorry, trying to pull up. And it's really more trying to, identify contractors that are going to be reliable for a city that are not going to go bankrupt or not like brand new and haven't done these sorts of projects before. And so there's prime certification, they have to have So this is the primary contractor who's applying. They could also have subcontractors underneath them, or there could be subcontractors who apply separately from the prime contractor. But there are these requirements at different levels for the different levels of contractors who might be bidding on these projects. And so I think this is an interesting thing because I think this, can be a complication, especially for small businesses, to get city contracts. We were doing an electrical recircuiting project at the Andrews School as part of a resilience thing, where we were looking to put more things onto the backup generator so that it could be used as a shelter when the power was out. as one contractor who I would have chosen all else, they would have gotten the bid all else equal, but they were not DCAM certified and it was a project over $150,000. So they were not eligible. And that happens a lot, especially for, you know, uh for like minority contractors a lot of times we'll see a lot of smaller businesses that have um that don't have dcam certification and so that's one of the big pushes that i think the state is doing is trying to get more businesses certified here and one of the options is um Because the requirements are smaller for sub-bidders, one of the options for smaller contractors is going into a project as a sub-bidder underneath a prime contractor. OK, and then there's just a very strict procurement process required by the state for how we procure different types of vendors for different types of projects and different levels of project costs. So at a high level, it's generally like under $10,000, you just use sound business practices. So you're just looking for a good deal for the city. $10,000 to $50,000, we need to get three quotes. And then over $50,000, we need to do a sealed bid or proposal, like an RFP or an RFQ process, which is, it takes longer, it's more complicated, but the idea is you're doing it that way, so you're not having cronyism and people hiring their family members and stuff like that has happened in the past in lots of cities. And then there are also state contracts where the state has gone through a procurement process already and qualified some vendors to be used for state projects and for city projects too. So then you can pull from this list of vendors that are on the state contract. and you don't have to go necessarily through the RFQ process or RFP process for the same dollar amount. You would still have to for higher dollar amounts, but instead of 50, you could go up to a higher amount. Lots of different requirements for lots of different types of projects that we're doing just so that you guys understand how that that that whole procurement process works I don't know how involved you've been in procurement for cities before.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: I think that one of the concerns I think will be more like giving the priority for the residents first to have access to those jobs. And then, you know, it's just like, you know, companies normally like the inside opportunity first, you know, if you know anybody, if anybody's interested in that position, you know, and then they put it to the public. Maybe it should be like that residence first, and then if anybody show interest, and then put out there. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: It's interesting. So Boston has a requirement that all employees have to be residents of the city, which is maybe going too far in that direction. It doesn't require that for contractors, though. It's just for actual city employees. They do have goals for residents on certain projects, but I think those are actually the hardest goals for them to meet. Other ways that we can increase participation in projects is having minority and women business enterprise goals. so that the actual company is owned by a woman or a person of color. And so we do have goals for that. There's a state certification, and there are statewide goals for it. And I think I'll drop these in the chat, actually. They're surprisingly small. There you go. And there's a state certification process to be certified as a MWBE. And the city of Boston, sorry, I'll go on. There are also workforce participation goals too. So what I just dropped in there is for, who owns the company, basically. And then this is for numbers I'm just dropping in now are for the actual workforce. And again, that's a statewide bowl. So it looks especially small for cities in the greater Boston area. And then if a city were to have our own set of goals, we first need to do a disparity study where we look at all of the contracts that the city has awarded and look at what the workforce is for what the city is currently doing. and compare it to the city's actual population. And if there's a disparity, like a significant difference between those two things, then we could set citywide goals, city-specific goals. Boston did that, it took them years to do it and cost them a lot of money to do that disparity study in a way that where they wouldn't be sued afterwards for it, yeah. So I'm not sure that that's something that Medford is, I don't think that's something that Medford is looking into right now, but it's an interesting thing to keep on the burner for maybe for the future and to talk to people about. And then Boston also has goals for Boston residents as part of these contracts. And yeah, like I said, of the three types of goals that they include in their contracts, the local residents one is actually the most difficult one for them to reach. And there, but there are part of how they're working on it is not just setting the goals, but also trying to connect the companies that they're working with, with some of the training programs so that there's like an on-ramp for local residents who start take doing these training programs to get. into these companies and the companies have an incentive to hire them because they want the contracts with the city, right? So it's kind of an interesting process there. And they've set up a lot of their own training programs, but there are lots of other ones that Medford residents could take advantage of too. So there's the vocational schools and the community colleges that you might think of, right? Like Bunker Hill or Franklin Cummings or places like that. And now with the community college tuition thing that the state of Massachusetts is doing, that could actually be free to residents, depending on their income. And then there are pre-apprenticeship programs, like Youth Build Boston, Building Pathways, start with someone who has absolutely no experience with the building trades and do some like very initial training to get them on the path to getting an apprenticeship with a union and getting a good union job from that. So those are really great programs for people to participate in. A lot of times you'll also be paid while you're doing these trainings. They're very competitive though, so it can be difficult to actually get into them. And then there are other training programs that are just separate from the building trades. So there's like, LISC has a Bridges to Green Jobs program. Right now it's just specific to Boston and to Lawrence, but they've been talking about expanding that. And so I would love to get folks from Medford into that if they expand it. So I've been talking with them about that. There's a weatherization training program. There's a beams is the name of this one. It's like an energy management program. So, I mean, these are all great things that people could take advantage of. And again, a lot of these will pay you as you're doing the training. And then there are programs for existing workers, like building operator certification, MassSave has programs for contractors, and then there's a MassCEC, Mass Clean Energy Center job board. So if you already have been trained, you already, you know, have the expertise to do this work, they have this job board to help you find jobs. And then for business owners, Emerald Cities has a contractor academy with the goal of helping women and minority business owners to expand their businesses and to connect with jobs. And this is all particular to building construction. and renovation, energy efficiency, things like that. And so they, I think, do a really great job of connecting these companies with cities, with the state, with large organizations that are doing projects to get them hired on to do this work. So they're a really great resource for them. And then in terms of funding, There's, I mentioned the tuition-free community college. And then there's also a Mass Save Workforce Training Grant. So if someone wants to do a training program that isn't one of these that are paying you as you're doing the process, and it's a program where you actually have to pay for it, you could apply for this Mass Save Workforce Training Grant. I think it's up to $10,000. So that could be a really great opportunity. So I know that was a lot, but were there particular areas that you were interested in diving into more or putting something together to be able to communicate it to residents who might be interested?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Friend, I have a question. Do you ever have like a night where it can be like for like information and stuff and like have all like you know the resources and everything there? So you know like people like for example like you know how like now it's all like the voting and stuff? Like, that would be a good way to have all the info there for people. So just in case they go by, they see, oh, there's a table there with info. Let me see what's going on. You know what I mean?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, definitely. And I know that I keep referencing Boston, because I was at Boston. And they had a lot of resources to do this sort of thing. But they would have. once or twice a year, they would host a job fair to have people not just from the training programs, but also employers come in to do a job fair.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: I think that'd be like so good for us.
[Brenda Pike]: Who who does this work in Medford? I'm not particularly aware of of organizations that are doing sort of like workforce development. Stuff here, I don't know.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: I think we'd have to find that out.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm not aware of that either.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, because I feel like. I'm certainly not an expert on this. I've done I've done some. work like connecting people to these types of resources in the past, but I'm not aware of sort of the landscape here in Medford for it. So that might just be the first step is for us to do some research.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I mean, we could put together some information about this that we could have available, like even if it's just like a flyer or on our website. But I think the most useful way for us to get that out there would be to partner with someone who's has some connection like that.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: I just think that we should just take advantage that people are going to go vote and do have early voting. and some go to like, you know, different spots, and you can have like at least like a flyer or something that has like all the like, not all the info, but like, you know, links to where you can get the info and stuff like that. Just so like, because a lot of people sometimes don't have time to be going on like, you know, they they people see what like, you know, where they go, like they see stuff. So I know for a fact that my mom's always like, and my dad, when they go around, they see something they grab and they're asking questions about it. So I think that'd be a good way to like spread the word out for all these resources.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think I think we talked a lot about, you know, online and, you know, website, social media, but there's still a lot of people that don't have access to that. You know, so I always like the printing option. Even if they just take a picture, take with them, you know, like, you know, save some papers too, you know. We can't print thousands of flyers to be distributed, but I'd be interested to find the right amount of information to put in one flyer too, that it can be, you know, enough. That's the problem too, is so much that it can fit everything in one little file. Yeah, and not be overwhelming. Yeah. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: That's true. Do you guys get questions about this a lot? Do you have residents talking to you about looking for jobs or? Things like that.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: That's why we have been talking a lot about that, because like, but I think the main thing, you know, like, they don't know the options of even the city jobs, you know, like, it's not everybody who thinks that anybody can apply for a city job, you know, like, and, but it'd be good to have some partnership with the business, the local business to, you know, and that we can reach out to them, hey, we have these families, you know, in our city that are looking for jobs. Do you have anything available that can, you know, help us out? And even training, you know, maybe you're not going to give that person the job, but maybe have, you know, make a commitment, maybe those first 90 days you're paying that person to work with you, that way the person is also learning something and be ready to find a job and get a little experience to, you know, find a job somewhere else. I don't know.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, Brenda. You do. Yeah. Yes. I get very frustrated in talking with employers about this sort of thing, because you'll hear from them a lot, especially in the construction field, that they have a hard time finding people who are qualified. And, um, and my first reaction to that is okay. And hire someone and train them. And then you'll, they'll be qualified in exactly the way you want them to be. But nobody wants to take that time and invest in a person because they expect them to then move on really quickly afterwards or something. When, whereas I think that would just make somebody more loyal to their job. Right. Yeah.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, in all honesty, I know for a fact that we all do. But I too get like, a lot of people asking me just today, as I was drinking, Marie Cassidy calls me like, I have a Spanish like, lady here. And she doesn't speak any English, but she's trying to get a job and all this stuff. And I'm like, immediately, I'm just like, target, target hires. Even if you don't even speak like English, there's people here that speak the language. So you're good to go. Like, you know, like, I always try to, like, get people at least, you know, whatever, like, job openings that I know about, I'll, like, say, you know, but every single day I always get asked, oh, is, um, are they applying, like, are they, like, you know, wanting people or, oh, do you know about jobs and this, and just random people, too, that come up to me. So I think that's very important for us in our community.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, definitely. And as I'm thinking about this topic, I'm thinking about green building jobs, right? But I think that you're getting probably reached out to from people who are looking for, not that specific, they're looking for anything. So this might be a broader effort than just what I was thinking of in terms of green building. So it might be worth, Um, can, can one of you guys follow up with Catherine? Um, just to see if there's a way for that, for your, for that office to, to do something that's maybe broader than what I would be focusing on.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: We can all talk about that on Wednesday and our meeting, all of us. Great. Yeah, Margaret said mass hire. We do that a lot too. We work with mass hire. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people who want to work just in Medford. So that's the issue. Because they don't have transportation? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I remember, I think that night that we were at the like storytelling thing, Diana, who's like part of like with me, like the YMCA Food Justice Council, her husband just came and like, I don't know if it was from Puerto Rico or something, and he's trying to find a job and, you know, like he doesn't want to go as far because, you know, he just had a a daughter like a little baby daughter and he has two other kids so he's not trying to like go far for work just in case like they need that like him so it's like It's hard to get something here specifically unless, like you were saying, people who are qualified. I think that's the most annoying thing. They should be able to train someone. Even, for example, here, the Target in Medford, they train. Even if you don't have, say you have the minimum experience, they help you and they train you here. And they understand that everyone has different learning abilities. obviously language as well so but they're still able to do it you know what i mean so for a good like first job for people especially immigrants too like it's a it's good like i recently helped one of my um uh what's it called um students from the english language classes that we were doing at the library he just got a job here at target and he's algerian he won the lottery to get you know um to be here like a resident and I helped him get a job and now he's like so happy like you know it makes me happy too to be able to like help anybody you know achieve their goals get a job and and do stuff for them for them and for their family but I think that's like the most important thing for us to help them out. Oh Brenda you're muted.
[Brenda Pike]: Thank you. I was just thinking about this the other day because one of the Electrify Medford coaches, her son worked in construction in Haiti, but he doesn't have the, well, the certifications or the English skills right now to get the certifications that he would need to do that sort of job here. Um, and so, yeah, so I was just thinking like, that's, that's kind of a multi-step process in that case, right? Like you need to, you know, improve your English skills, get your, get the GED. Yeah. Then do the training that you would need in order to, um, do the, like the specific skilled work.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's why we're offering the language classes, the language access classes in the library to help, you know, people who have like the basic or minimal like English proficiency and be able to, you know, at least speak the basics to be able to get a job that way they can learn more as they're working. Because I know that that's possible. Like, there's so many, like, we all come from like immigrant families. Mine in particular, for example, like my dad's brothers were Portuguese. They came not knowing a lick of English and they learned English while working. It's not hard. It's just the resources need to be more available and the knowledge of what to do and where to get the stuff is very, very important.
[Brenda Pike]: Definitely. So I think this is a really worthwhile thing for us to work on. But I think it would be important to, like I said, talk with Catherine about it, just to make sure this is part of that. And she also thinks that it's an appropriate thing to work on. And I think she would probably have more resources than we do, or more information about this than we do. But I also think maybe, We could partner with someone, one of the economic development planners in my office. There are two people who work on economic development. So this might be something that they would be interested in working on too.
[Unidentified]: I agree.
[Brenda Pike]: Anything else we want to talk about regarding workforce development, job connections?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: I think we're good. We can definitely talk to Catherine Wednesday about it too, Brenda. Cool.
[Brenda Pike]: Um, and I think the next thing on their agenda was. Future meeting topics, yes. Um, should we add just in some follow up about this for the next meeting? Absolutely. Yeah. Um. And then we had, we were talking about asking the tree warden to come to a future meeting, but we're still waiting on an updated trees tree ordinance or multiple. There are three of them. Um, so that might be more likely that that might be there for the next meeting, but it might not be. So I'll, I'll continue to keep that in mind and invite her once we have something to talk about. I have something on here that just says transportation topics. Is there something in particular that we wanted to invite the transportation director to talk about?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: What I feel like it was Stacy talked about that last meeting.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't remember since you bring that up. I think there's talk of them canceling the 94 route for the MBTA.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, OK. So talking about bus routes in particular.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how they're going to change. And what we can do is to kind of maybe stop that, since a lot of people kind of rely on those routes to get to where they need to go, whether it be work or other places.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, and I know that our transportation director has been involved in those conversations with the MBTA and has really been advocating hard for this for the city. I think he's been very frustrated with well, how long that process takes because I think they've been talking about this for years. And just sort of the relative influence that he has there. But yeah, I can talk with him about maybe joining a future meeting to talk about that. Or at the very least, he can give me an update on it and I can share with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that would be nice. Thank you.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, Charbel, I couldn't quite hear that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm saying that would be nice. Thank you. like at least the 94 was like that was the bus that I would always take from from Medford from Medford Square to go to Davis Square and then I would take the red line to get to UMass Boston so that was like a very important route so I kind of it's kind of unbelievable that they're getting rid of that you know
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I think there are people in my office who take that too, and they're going to be very frustrated. I would love to have put some time on the agenda to talk about sort of green giveaways at events. I know Lizette, you and I have talked about that a little bit, but I'd love to come back to the rest of the council and get feedback on what we've been talking about.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. In all honesty, it's very hard to get giveaways in general. I don't know if you saw even the list I did, but it's hard. even like companies who like you can try to like buy things at least by bulk and be able to like be reusable. It's hard to. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: And then and one of the things I this came up because of the festival this past weekend where someone was saying it was better this year because last year there was a lot of plastic trash that they just didn't like their kids picking up at the tables. Yeah. But they were saying that Even if it is something that's disposable, having it be something that's not plastic, that's like cardboard or wooden or paper or something would be much better than having plastic. Oh, some of the feedback we got at the festival was deep cuts didn't have a vegetarian or vegan option. So the only food that was there was meat-based, which is like so against the message of the film. That's so funny. Yep. So, yeah, so we were talking about like, OK, so like in future years, we should have some sort of like write up of like, this is what we're requesting from vendors is like have at least one vegetarian or vegan option. Right. And maybe we could add to that, you know, have green giveaways at their tables and reduce the amount of trash and things like that. Yeah.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Maybe each of us can come with like a list of like the things that we think can be an option. Then we can, when we have our next meeting, we can like share it. That's a great idea. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: I think I promised you last time that I was going to give you an update on our greenhouse gas annual report, which I submitted, but I don't have good. I don't have easily. Shareable information on right now. I just haven't had the time to pull that together. So I'll try to do that for the next meeting too. And then for another one, I was brainstorming, I was thinking, I would love to just talk sort of at length about different ways that you guys are sort of meeting ESL residents where they are, because I know a lot of the things we're doing are, we're holding events and trying to pull people in, but I would love to be doing more like going to things where the people are already doing. And you might be doing that anyway. And I'm just not as aware of that. Does that make sense? Do you think that would be useful to talk about?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I feel like, like you said, now, like, we we do it either way, as well as like, in our own like, personal. But That could be something we can figure out a better way to get more people. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: I think it would definitely help me. I'm not sure how much it would help you guys, but it would definitely help me as I'm thinking about outreach. Anything else you want to get on a future agenda?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: I don't think so, Brenda. I just looked at the time too. It's 7.06.
[Brenda Pike]: That's true. And that's a lot of topics. That's more than we're going to do at the next meeting. So we're good for now. I think that's it then. Was there anything else folks wanted to talk about?
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: I'm all set. Everybody else?
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: I just have a question. I just have a question really quick. So the events that we do, is there anything that keep us from inviting religious place to have a table? Because I think that would be a good thing, because we're going to be reaching out to their communities too. And their religious leader can be bringing those information to there. maybe something that I can think about it, future events, invite them to the table and just talk about their places. I don't know. And get them involved with the community too.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, absolutely. I don't think there's anything preventing us from doing it. And in fact, it might be the opposite. Because I remember a thing like, I don't know, at Boston City Hall where they had different Entities that they would organizations that they would host or whatever. And there was some sort of court case that was like, you have to, you know, fee. If you, if you invite some, you have to not invite, but if you are open to having some, you have to be open to having any organizations basically. Yeah.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: I do know that our work, you know, reach out to those organizations, you know, those churches and religious places, you know, like it's not necessary that all the residents go there, you know, most of the time they come from other towns. But I think we are reaching certain, you know, residents that we're not coming to any other thing in the city and stuff. So, or they're going to be bringing the message to their, you know, places. So maybe.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I have a contact list for, I think, all of the houses of worship in Medford. So it's long. There are a lot of them. But it's one of the things that I'm planning on doing through Electrify Medford is doing outreach. to the sort of the leaders of those different houses of worship and trying to get information out to their congregations that way.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, you can come to them, you know, at the service and provide those information too. That's all. Thank you.
[Brenda Pike]: Anything else folks want to talk about? So we'll need a motion to adjourn before we can end the meeting.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_02]: Yes. Motion to adjourn the meeting guys. Aye.
[Brenda Pike]: All in favor? Aye. That's a thumbs up from Charbel too. Natasha?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was looking for my thumb. Thumbs up. I'm done. I can't.
[Zcwx-pW5U0k_SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, everyone. Thank you.
[Brenda Pike]: Have a good night.