[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: But we still have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, giving us exactly a quorum. Fantastic. And I see a guest or two. If they'd like to introduce themselves, I want to give them the opportunity to do so. Name, pronouns, who they're representing, if anyone. Okay, fantastic. In that case, has everyone had a chance to review the minutes from our October meeting? All right, any notes, any amendments, anything come to mind? Seeing none.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: So, I don't know if it affects the voting on the minutes, but I wasn't there last meeting. So, I have to abstain. So, I don't know if that changes the quorum.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Same for me. Same for me too.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Interesting. I don't know if it affects the quorum so much as.
[Robert Paine]: What does that do? I don't think so.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It just needs majority to pass majority of the quorum of the people who show up. Okay, so I think we'll be in the clear, but still just barely. So we'll. Do I see any motions relating to the minutes?
[Robert Paine]: I don't move to accept the minutes. It's Bob. Well, you can second them.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh, I can second. Fantastic.
[Robert Paine]: You can't make a motion.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Fantastic. Good. Yes, I will second that and we'll go right to voting to accept the minutes. Going down the list. Benji. Accept. Loretta, James.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I'll abstain because I wasn't at the meeting.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Fair enough. Kathleen McKenna.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No, Dan, Bob Payne? Yes. Jessica Parks?
[Jessica Parks]: I have to abstain.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: John Rogers?
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Abstain.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Bill Sherwood? I'll accept them. Aye. And yes, just barely, I believe. We'll accept these minutes. Four yeas, three abstains. And we can move on to some more pressing issues relating to this month. I'm going to throw it over to Brenda. I know you have a bit of a cold, so we'll take it easy on you, but do you have any updates for us?
[Brenda Pike]: Can we 1st, talk about the December meeting? Looking for if we want to have any additional co chairs or add any additional members.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, that's a great point. As you noticed, attendance is a little sparse. We also had an email come in earlier today from Martha Andrus saying that she'll be stepping away from this committee. So, I'd like to discuss potential of adding additional members, see if anyone else would like to assist in co-chairing alongside me, if there's any interest in that. Let's hold a couple minutes to speak to this. Anyone feel, I'll start with this. Does anyone feel strongly about not adding any new members?
[Robert Paine]: Well, this is Bob. I think we can certainly get up to where we were before and up to two. I don't know if, Brenda, you know of any resumes that have come in of interest for, you know, expressing interest in joining the committee.
[Brenda Pike]: We've had a few come in over the last year. And what I've told them is just to, if they're interested to attend some of the meetings and see what they're like. One of them actually was the person who came to speak about zero waste. she was interested in joining the committee. But we have some more who came in as well.
[Robert Paine]: If we have multiple candidates, how do we decide if we have more than we want to add? Who actually makes that decision? I don't think the committee does.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: My recollection, there was someone who was working for the city had interviewed me and moved me along, at least. Although I remember them being, I think, a UEP student from Tufts, so I don't know. just how many steps there are.
[Brenda Pike]: One of the PDS interns, possibly. But I think what we would do is I would reach out to them to see if they're still interested, because some of these were months ago that they said they were interested, and just have a conversation with them. And then I think we would make recommendations to the mayor
[Robert Paine]: Do we, maybe the committee ought to maybe provide some, I don't know, recommendations or opinions as to what talents or background would be useful, most useful, or maybe Brenda, you know already. I think the zero waste issue is interesting and I don't know if we have any expertise. Certainly I'm not an expert and I'm supposed to talk about it, but someone who has more experience would be useful in that regard. For example, just one example. So it would be nice to know, I don't know if we need to know, but if there's a list of background attributes for the candidates. It would be interesting to know, but I don't know if we've ever been involved in that process before. Go ahead.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: I think there's a lot of diversity in the city. So there could be backgrounds like, you know, maybe someone doesn't have a direct energy or environmental background, but they have a really good, like, let's say like a procedural background or other backgrounds that we could use, maybe a public speaking background or something that would be useful to the committee, but not directly useful as far as energy or environment, right? So we probably have to kind of vet the candidates one at a time that way.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: It's interesting, just a few years back before COVID, we used to have a process where we would also reach out to people ourselves, the Energy Committee members. Some of the older members, well, not older, but members that have been on the committee a while would remember that. And we would reach out to candidates and they would submit applications to the office or sometimes, the office would get applications and we would review them. And then we would decide as a group with the city before they'd go to the mayor. So it's changed over the years. They just go to the city and they get placed with us. So that might be something to deliberate on.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I definitely like the idea of taking recommendations. I mean, pushing people to apply is definitely a better start, because I don't know how many applications you receive, but I know I learned about this sort of on a whim. It was luck of the draw more than anything that got me started.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I can think of a few people to ask, but I don't want to overstep the office since it's changed.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think nominating is going to be different than hiring. I think telling them they should apply is a great thing.
[Brenda Pike]: Definitely. Maybe the goal should be to reach out to folks that you think might be interested and just that they apply before the next meeting so that we have a chance to look at the experiences of the people who have already applied at that point.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: But the next meeting is in a couple,
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It is pretty soon.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, that's really soon. Isn't it like one, two, three weeks from now? That's pretty soon.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, so maybe January would be a better choice.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I think they need some time to think about it and then maybe speak with you, Brenda, and some of them may come to a meeting. But I can think of some people that are involved in Gardening and invasive plants and have a background in horticulture. That might be interested, which would add to some of our focus focusing on invasive plants and. Planting pollinator gardens and things like that.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: That's a great idea. Yeah, I think if we could generate. A bunch of new applications to to begin parsing through. I think right now, we just don't have a whole lot of choices. Uh, so it's important that we. We brought in that pool and then we'll have a lot of people to choose from and I think that'll be really good for us.
[Jessica Parks]: I know. I'm sorry. No, that's okay. Sorry. There is someone who I know. Who I met on the. Recently, who works for FEMA who. is interested in joining as well. She was gonna fill out the form online and she was going to try and come to today's meeting. I actually just sent her a message to see if she was gonna sit in as well, but she has expressed interest in this group. That would be interesting. Although right now she's slightly worried about her. The future of FEMA, but, you know, that's 11.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I totally understand. Well, how many members do we have?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: We have as of today, we have 12 members. Uh, although. I know there are a few folks I haven't seen in a while, but we have 12 listed committee members.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Do we have an ideal number? There's a target?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: We were at 13, and I think that gives us an easy quorum to meet.
[Robert Paine]: We were at 14, actually. We had 14 before. It was Sarah. And then we still had a quorum of seven, so that was good. I mean, we could get back to, we could add two and assuming we continue with the current 12, that would get us back to 14.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Having an odd number kind of prevents deadlock votes, but it doesn't really matter because, you know, it works on quorum. So if you have like, you know, on any particular day, whatever members you have, you know, so, so I don't think that's as important as it sounds.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And given the variation we see in attendance month to month. I think more members is generally better. In the sense that if we had another odd night, like, tonight be nice to have. 8, 9, 10 people rather than than 7. I think we only stand to benefit from a bigger pool.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I'm fine with that. My only concern is inviting people to apply when we don't have a lot of spaces and then turn people down and have everybody wasted the time and effort to get there. That's the only concern I was expressing.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That's true.
[Robert Paine]: So Brenda, how many of you said we had a And maybe you should recycle or revisit the people who would express interest and maybe let us know how many candidates there are already.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I can do that before the next meeting. Actually, I'll reach out to the folks who expressed interest in the past, like I said, because if they expressed interest six months ago, they might not actually be interested anymore. So I'll reach out to them and then we can see how many we have on that list now.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, maybe we can revisit this whole thing December 2nd as to whether we have to reach out further.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Go from there and I wonder, you know, have they attended any meetings?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I think giving folks the opportunity to join us maybe for our December meeting. If they are interested, whether or not they've even applied just to say, hey, you should sit in. Because there's truly no reason not to have people here. So, giving them a taste of what we do is is helpful. And then we can start to deliberate further on how many seats are actually open. If there are voices that need to be heard that need to be on our in the room when we, when we have these meetings, we can start to discuss that. But I wanted to just get that on everyone's radar. Make sure we're thinking about it and we can begin that process. So December 2nd. Tell your friends interested to to join us on that day. I think will be a good starting point.
[Robert Paine]: Well, we should also inform people for the next meeting that they should express any interest in being a co-chair so that we can actually revisit that agenda item next month.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. I'm learning to love the co-chair lifestyle. It's nice to have a friend to do it with, though. So, if anyone's feeling brave, feeling bold, it'd be nice to share in this joy. So, something for all of you to think about. We'll relay it to the rest of the committee as well. All right. With that, unless there are any other pressing concerns, thoughts, before we move on, I'd like to turn it over to Brenda.
[Brenda Pike]: Right. And I apologize for my voice, I'm sick and it's, it's my voice is not great. But let's see electrify Medford. We applied for the massive community first partnership. This is a three-year program where we work closely with National Grid to do outreach about the Mass Save program. Sort of what we're doing already with Electrify Medford, but with this, we would get monthly updates from them about their incentives, but also data about what measures have been installed in Medford. And we'll be able to do bill inserts through their utility bills. So that'll be really good. And also we've written into that, having our economic development planner work with me to do small business outreach about the Mass Save incentives. So sort of expanding what we have been doing for electrifying Medford to small businesses too. Um, so far 92 people have signed up and 26 have been coached. Um, we've done, we did a bunch of events in the last month, including a bilingual story time at the library, the last farmer's market of the year, the harvest your energy festival and the pumpkin smash at the West Medford community center. which I was really surprised at the number of people who go through that. And then coming up, there's a winter preparedness event tomorrow night at City Hall. There's, excuse me, winter extravaganza on December 4th. And there will be an Electrify Medford event at the library on January 16th. For the community electricity aggregation, letters went out to residents about the new pricing. So starting with the December billing cycle, the rates are going to go down about one cent per kilowatt hour for the default rate that we have. And the renewable energy content is going up to 10% additional. We've had a lot of calls after those letters went out, mostly people who are already on the aggregation who think they have to sign up again. They don't. If they're on the aggregation, they'll automatically be rolled into the new pricing. But we've also come across people who are on competitive suppliers. One person this week was paying 28 cents per kilowatt hour, which was just ridiculous. And they had no idea that it was so much higher than what they could have been having.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: I wonder if they got slammed into it.
[Brenda Pike]: They knew that they had a competitive supplier, but I think there was an introductory rate, and they didn't realize it changed over.
[Robert Paine]: On that issue, yeah, my neighbor was saying, I got this letter, what do I have to do? You know, there's a lot of people, how did we get this letter? Yeah. Nothing to worry about, if anything, that's good news.
[Brenda Pike]: Just tell them to double check their electric bill to make sure that they're on the aggregation.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, I think, I'll have to check with her, but I think people were, I guess people, this didn't say, don't worry, you don't have to do anything. In fact, it's good news, but I don't think the message is, I don't think I've ever gotten this letter before.
[Brenda Pike]: It does say that, but there's a lot of text on there, so I can see how people are, yeah.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: So did that go out to everybody, or just people who are already in the aggregation?
[Brenda Pike]: That went out to everybody because we've been getting people who were on competitive suppliers.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: One thing I noticed with my electric bill is I could tell that I was on the aggregation, because it says that, but I couldn't tell what my rate was. And the only way I could tell what my rate was is you put last year's rate in there. So I could see that my rate was equivalent to one of the last year rates. So I knew which tier I was on. But it'd be nice if the bill said you're on this tier. I went over my electric bill top to bottom, and it didn't show what rate.
[Brenda Pike]: It didn't have the number.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: It said it had the number it had the so the letter that you sent out said it was like 15.36. cents per kilowatt hour, 368, I think. And then I could look and see that that's what I was paying. But it didn't say, and it said that I was part of Massachusetts aggregation. I could see that. But it didn't say what rate I was on the aggregation. Now, it did say that as an electric company, I was a residential R1 rate, you know, from the electric company itself. But, you know,
[Brenda Pike]: You mean what rate in terms of like the local green or the basic.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
[Brenda Pike]: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have control over what National Grid puts on the bill, unfortunately. OK. The number. Yeah. Yeah, so if you have received that letter already and you have any feedback on the wording of it, it would be really great to get that. This is locked in for the next three years, so this isn't going to happen again for quite a while, but it would be good to just have that feedback so that we can keep it in mind for next time.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, it does say in fine print, no action is necessary to receive the new pricing for your current Bedford supply option. So if you really look, you can find that wording.
[Brenda Pike]: But there's a lot of quotes on there.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff on there, yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. I mean, that's good news because it's lower.
[Brenda Pike]: Absolutely. You'd be surprised how many people still yell at me, though. When they yell, I'm mostly about unrelated things like the the override vote and things like that.
[Robert Paine]: Is it your fault? I don't think so.
[Brenda Pike]: It's it's I'm like, I mean, I'm like, this is a lower rate. And they're like, yeah, but you're taking it from me someplace else.
[Robert Paine]: Oh, geez, wow. Okay, yeah, all right. You are, you personally are. Well, yeah. Yeah, of course.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: I think I saw there was $3.9 million that was saved over the last program, or $3.9 million that went through the last program.
[Brenda Pike]: It was more than that that was saved, actually. It was, I think it was closer to five million.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Oh, okay. So that's a lot of kilowatt hours.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That would be a good post. You're saying that Manfred residents that chose the electric aggregation program, their national grid in the city, locked in that rate, saved almost $5 million? Is that what you're saying?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I can pull it up here so I can have the exact number.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: I don't have it in front of me. I looked it over last night because we got the letter yesterday.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I didn't get that. Oh, OK. I'll have to look.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: You might get it tomorrow, you know.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, OK.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: I've noticed that our mailman doesn't deliver mail every day. He delivers like every other day.
[Brenda Pike]: Right. So it's $11 million saved since the program started back when the aggregation was first established.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That would be a really good post, maybe on Go Green Medford, Brenda. I mean, honestly, that's important for residents to know. The residents who chose to save $11 million. Yeah. Include businesses too? Or were they not?
[Brenda Pike]: Small businesses, large businesses can get cheaper rates elsewhere.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right, okay.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: And now I saw $600 per participant average. Was that over the program or over the year?
[Brenda Pike]: That was over the year.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
[Brenda Pike]: Right.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Let me see, you know, the thing is, is you, you know how much you pay for electricity, but you don't know how much you could have paid for electricity.
[Brenda Pike]: It wasn't over the year. It was since December, 2022, when we last locked in pricing.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. Yeah. So over $200 saved. Yep.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Still, Hey, you know, The price is locked in for three years, which is with everything going up. I find it surprising that the price went down.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I did too.
[Brenda Pike]: The timing really helps. We have a good consultant that we work with on this. Um, back in God, I think it was March. They reached out to us and said, actually, I think we should renew earlier than usual.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Um, Oh, okay.
[Brenda Pike]: I sing is, is very good right now.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. Well, that's great.
[Brenda Pike]: And then I think the only other thing I wanted to mention tonight is I submitted our annual report to green communities and our total energy use, that's buildings and city vehicles, so this is just for municipal energy use, is down 19% from our 2009 baseline. That's good. And that's 14.5% if you weather normalize that. So a lot of that is due to changes in the weather.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Wonderful.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: That's excellent. Anything else or do you want to jump right into Harvest Your Energy Festival? Gosh, that feels like ages ago now.
[Brenda Pike]: So the only feedback that I got directly about the festival was the need for more vegetarian and vegan options there.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Go ahead, Kathleen. Lois sent out that email. I read through it and she suggested more things for the kids to eat, whether like, unfortunately, like candy. I don't know. I don't have children, but she commented on that.
[Robert Paine]: I wasn't there as a Bob. So how does it compare to other festivals? More attendance? I mean, the weather was glorious.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: So I was working the parking for the electronics recycling, and I felt like this was the most, like we just had nonstop cars the whole time. So I felt that there was a lot of recycling going. But I couldn't tell about attendance to the fair itself.
[Brenda Pike]: It definitely felt like it was more than previous years, but it was hard to tell because the playground had been redesigned. So you didn't have the same sort of canvas that you were looking at.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Jessica Parks]: Yeah, the flow is definitely different because of the way it was set up. So it didn't seem as crowded or everything was all in one place. But when I was standing at the front, there was a constant stream of people moving past me. So I mean, it seemed like it was well-intended.
[Brenda Pike]: The way the playground is set up, It's, I think you don't get as much foot traffic past the wind turbine. And so I think we didn't have as many people going over for the wind turbine tours.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that's true.
[Brenda Pike]: But we did have people walking sort of in that direction to go to the electric vehicle showcase and for the food, but there was still some distance away from it.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: So now Bob, did you open the turbine this year? Could people look inside?
[Robert Paine]: I wasn't able to go because of a wedding event. Oh, OK. So I presume it was open. And I think the person from Green Energy Consumers Alliance was able to probably do what I do because she's been there year after year. OK.
[Brenda Pike]: Yes, exactly. And they had a table at the electric vehicle showcase. And so they were trying to sort of direct people over towards the wind turbine too. from that table.
[Robert Paine]: Well, we lucked out on the weather and maybe, I don't know if Octobers are gonna be dry and warm like they have been, but it seems like it's a good weekend year after year to pitch. Yeah. Weekend after, right after Indigenous Peoples Day. Mm-hmm.
[Kathleen McKenna]: I was over at the- One thing.
[Unidentified]: No, go for it.
[Kathleen McKenna]: I was over at the shredder, and people were definitely happy to have that there. It seems like less traffic there. But like John said, there was a constant flow going through the parking lot. And one thing I noticed was, although it was better, I think, We need to have two lanes, one waiting for the recycling and then a second lane in case people need to get by to do something else. And we only had that snafu with the city's truck there that blocked us for a few little while before we could get them to move the truck. And also when they made that sort of U-turn. The second part of the U is where the, what was it, humidifier, dehumidifiers truck was. And I think that should be moved because it took up too much of the turn and cars couldn't get by if someone was stopped there.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: That's my, yeah, it's funny. We had that issue like three years ago and we talked about it and we, and we remembered it and we kept it from happening last year, but then we forgot about it for this year.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yeah. It's just that right where the turn is, right. If you move it up a little closer to where the shredder is and maybe the shredder can move up a tiny bit. But other than that, it was pretty smooth.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: One thing I wanted to bring up, we don't have to discuss, but just to get it on people's radar as well. So I was tabling our MEEC table for the better part of that event and basically just opened forum for people to discuss the things that were Bothering them or wanted to see changes within the realms of environment and energy in Medford. And we had a couple of very active folks coming from the trees Medford table. That were very, very excited about. Different programs involving preserving our canopy and bettering our trees. But the other really common one I saw a lot of, and it's fitting that Bob will be talking about it later tonight, was people talking about waste management. People wanted expanded recycling programs and textile recycling options. That became one of the larger topics of discussion at our table, which was interesting and something that I was just taking note of and wanted to generally relay to you all as an issue that popped up and I found interesting and something maybe worth looking at more closely. Right. Any other closing thoughts on the Harvester Energy Festival? Seeing none, Loretta, are you ready to tell us of any updates on Trees Medford?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes. Thank you. Next Wednesday, November 20th, at 6 o'clock, the City Council Committee of the Whole will be meeting with to discuss the tree ordinances that were presented by Trees Medford. So I wanted to, it's on the city calendar under events, and it's a Zoom ID you can attend in person at six o'clock or by Zoom. Now Trees Medford's next meeting is next Tuesday. I wasn't able to attend their last meeting in October, but, I'm sure, I didn't actually place a call to Amanda Bowen, but it was last minute early today, because I just found out about the meeting yesterday with the city council committee of the whole. So at their next meeting, Tree's Medford is next Tuesday at, I think it's at six. Yeah, theirs is at six. I'm sure they'll be talking about it. If I hear anything, I'll email. Brenda and she can send it out to you. But those meetings are open to the public. And since we had worked on advising Therese Medford on all three of the ordinances, actually, it would be good if some of our members join in. I hope to be there. I'll probably do Zoom. So I will let Luke know. I guess he had a big look with the only know about this, and I'll probably send an email out to remind people and Felicia also. I'm not sure exactly the process, you know, at the meeting next Wednesday with the city council, but they'll be reviewing and asking questions, I'm sure. But Therese Medford has the lead on this. I think they'd like our support, you know, as backup. So that's one thing.
[Brenda Pike]: Is there an updated version of the ordinances?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I had sent that out a few months ago. Remember an email I sent that out? Okay, but it was nothing since then. Okay. Nothing since then. You know, see the last I heard, and I had been going to the meetings except for last month, they were going to try to have a meeting with some of the building department people. So I don't know if that happened last month. So But, you know, it's time they start moving this along. And maybe they did present the ordinances, the city council, maybe it went to the city solicitor for review. So it should be an interesting meeting. I don't, I don't know, Amanda and Savage enrolled with no more. So if I hear anything next Tuesday night or before then I'll email Brenda and she can share it if you don't mind, but the rest of the members. But I did leave a message for Amanda that if she could attend tonight, that would be great. It was last minute. So I just heard yesterday about this to give us any updates or if she wanted to speak on this at all. But those were the ordinances they submitted a few months ago, May or June to the city council. It could have, yeah, I think it was May or June. So I haven't seen any updates to that. Those are the finals they submitted. So it's up to the city council to decide how they want to, or if they want to move forward with that and adjustments. So just mark your calendars, everyone that's interested. Next Wednesday, again, it's six o'clock city hall or by Zoom. It's on the events calendar at medfordmass.org under events and there's a Zoom ID. I actually have it in my phone, if you'd like it. But I don't wanna waste people's time, but I'm gonna look it up real quick. City Council Tree Orders. Zoom meeting, 842-963-18382. 842-963-18382. And it's on the city website. They didn't post the agenda yet. So when you go to the events on calendar and you click on Wednesday, the 20th, you scroll down to city council meeting. It just sets a Zoom ID. They'll probably post the agenda maybe next Wednesday or at least the day before the meeting. The other interesting thing with Trees Medford is in the energy committee, is years ago we started talking about it'd be interesting to have a city program to educate people about important trees in Medford. And if you look to the Energy and Environment Committee report that was done on municipal strategies to educate people about trees and preserving the tree canopy, It has educational ideas and programs. You can find that report, the true report that the Energy Committee wrote, on gogreenmetro.org. You click on trees and it will have the introduction letter to the report and also the appendix. Item number four is about having a landmark tree program in the city. Trees would be nominated through a process. and maybe would have different groups contribute to this so that if certain trees are nominated because of different reasons, their size, history, background, importance, that could be put on a map and also would have a walking tour map of these significant trees. So Therese Medford has been thinking about this for a while and we actually had a meeting last Thursday I think it was at the library for people who are interested in moving this forward and there's a lot of interest. So I was at the meeting and we are going to Kim D'Andrade from Trees MedFed actually had the group and there was a lot of excitement and we had a one hour meeting scheduled to discuss this possible program and shoot around ideas and it went really quick so there's a lot of interest. I think there were 13 people interested but only six or say seven people came to that meeting. We're just formulating the ideas of how to start this, and the name of the project what we will call it so it could be. There's going to be a Google or a doodle poll. What do we want to call the name it will probably. Well, I'll have to see what everyone else says, but it might just end up being significant trees of Medford or something like that, instead of landmark or just historic, because we want to include many types of trees. So it doesn't just have to be the oldest tree in Medford and other criteria. And we actually talked about the program and how it would set it up, and maybe having students involved in making the walking tour map, and maybe engineering would help with pinpointing the trees, and there could be city trees too. It doesn't have to be just on private property. That's a new development. I'll keep you informed. You can always join in on the meetings. Patrice Medford, the next meeting, like I said, is next Tuesday. the 19th at 6 o'clock.
[Robert Paine]: That's about it. Loretta, when you send out the reminder, maybe you could attach the latest versions of the ordinance, the documents, because I probably lost Reno from months ago.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. I think. Yeah.
[Robert Paine]: Is it in the agenda online somewhere?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I'm trying to remember. I attended the April Energy Committee meeting, and I had expected to attend Abigail's festivities, and then I took a leave of absence. So I think it came out in May. I know I sent it to Brenda, and I know she distributed it. So yes, I will try to find it.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, make sure we got the latest version. Yeah. Or have it again. I probably lost it by now.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. And I would have to read it again, too. So, yeah, OK. I don't know what changes they made, you know, based on recommendations. So I shouldn't say I don't know. I don't remember. So, yes, I can do that.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: 2 quick points 1, I absolutely adore the significant trees project. I think that's fantastic. I think it would make a great social media campaign, get people excited. People love attaching. Like, love and affection towards those kinds of projects. I think of fat bear week. But that the National Park Service does where. People vote on their favorite bears that are fattening themselves in Alaska for winter. People would love to partake in that, and I think that's a great project we should be pushing forward and just getting some attention on. So, I'm glad that's happening. The other quick question I had, and this doesn't necessarily have to be something, Loretta, you can answer, but maybe Brenda and the rest of the committee as well. I know we looked over and kind of gave our seal of approval towards these proposals. Are there other ways in which we can kind of use our position on this committee to give credence, to give a favorable showing in the town hall meeting?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: showing up, showing up. Everybody has a different opinion, but it's important to show support for their work and our work too, and assisting them with previous knowledge that we've had, but they're the ones that are putting this through. I think we could use, especially talking about all the challenges we have with losing the tree canopy. And I have mentioned before, it would be really important to show the tree canopy coverage from like 15 years ago and what it is now. Yes, I know a lot of them died or got damaged, but a lot of them have been cut. by development or even if they did die, there's been, look at all the trees cut down at McDonald Park due, I think that was to the Emerald Ash Borer. So we're losing a ton of trees, a lot of old ones that in our lifetime, in the next, we won't have because of their age. And they provide the most environmental benefits. So I think it would be really important that they, the city council does something. And I know some of the challenges they will say, but I'm going to defer to trees method and their work and I know that they were looking for support or maybe not as much at this meeting, but these are the people who are making decisions for our health and our environment in this city. Other cities are much more progressive about this, like Arlington and Cambridge and Winchester and Concord and all the ones you know that are also cited in the tree report. Just to show up to see if they missed anything or if they say something, they're not as knowledgeable as this group is about our environment and trees. I don't think any of the city council are. All of you have a lot of knowledge and experience in this. I mean, I know they'll be asking questions, so it'll be important to back up Tree's method, and they have a lot of experience too, but just in case something's missed, it's important to say. That's my only advice. And I will mention it to them again about the mapping to show the holes of all the areas. We do have some maps. of before and now to show the drastic reduction in our trait therapy. I do wanna go back to some things that I forgot to mention that's important. About this program for whatever it's gonna be called, Heritage Trees, Significant Trees, whatever, Dee Morris, who is our local historian was at the meeting to discuss this program and she's excited about it too. So that's another segue and opportunity because she had given a presentation at the library about historic trees in Medford. And that was a couple of years back and it was fascinating. So she will be part of this program.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Fantastic. And when you send or resend those proposals our way, I would love to know where we can find out more about when those meetings are. Just to keep involved. But otherwise, maybe I'll just keep joining Tree's Medford meetings as well.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right, I'll send you that information. They sent the email out already for next Tuesday night at six o'clock. And they're very quick. They're only an hour, the meetings, the six to seven.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Right, fantastic. And with that, Brenda, I hope your voice is feeling okay. We need you one more time.
[Brenda Pike]: Is this for the air quality communications?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, please.
[Brenda Pike]: So one thing that came up when we had all that smoke from the wildfires is that the city didn't have any prepared materials about outdoor air quality in particular for events like that. And so I think some things were cobbled together and put out, and it wasn't necessarily perfect for the moment. Bob, you had sent along some information that I think will be helpful moving forward. But I'm just wondering, do folks in this group want to participate in developing communications about how to deal with bad outdoor air quality?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think that would be a really good idea. I immediately think also. We should have for other events as well. Things like extended drought. Extended rainfall, we almost definitely have things for snowfall, but. Being prepared for if, you know, if more extreme weather is going to be. The norm, we need to be better prepared for that. So we should start. And I can think of no better group than those in this call.
[Brenda Pike]: So I can reach out to our board of health to see what materials they already have for any sort of extreme weather events, if they have any at all. And I can share with you guys. And then we can talk about what sort of content that should be included in there.
[Robert Paine]: Brenda, is the city going to be able to get some of those free purple air monitors to augment what we already have? I think there was an option to do that. I forget under what program.
[Brenda Pike]: Not that I know of. I don't think we're participating in anything right now.
[Robert Paine]: I remember sending you something months ago, probably forgot what it was, but it was an option, maybe under the state, that you could get more of these monitors. I'll have to look it up and resend it to you. And I don't know if it's still an option. But we do have some holes in our coverage. I have one in my backyard, which I think usually agrees well with this TEP monitor in Chelsea. But we did have a lot of sharp gradients recently. I monitor, I have a color code in my monitor. And it corresponds to the typical, there's some sort of air quality scale that, and if it's 100 means you're at the cusp of going into a bad set of ratings. Usually it's green, and that's good. But it was red at the time. I sent you an email about, oh, my monitor is glowing red, and you can smell it. But if you look at the map, and there are online maps, there were some clear areas, so it was localized. But there are recommendations where you stay indoors, basically, because keep the bad air out, the good air in, and try not to exercise a whole lot in those areas. There's common sense things to do. You can't really do, if you have an air purifier indoors, maybe you activate that. Things that are common sense types of things to do. I know some schools actually had to close in Salem or whatever, or restrict their extracurricular activities based on this. It is definitely a health concern.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: And it was very local as far as, like, I remember I was driving back from the airport one of those days, and I had my windows open. And when I came out of the tunnel, everything was all right. But then after I kind of got on the expressway more towards Somerville, all of a sudden I could really smell the smoke. And then by the time I got to Medford, I couldn't really smell it anymore. And I could see it off in the distance. So I knew that somehow the wind was blowing from that plume of smoke across into Cambridge. And people that I knew who lived in Cambridge said it was really bad in Cambridge that day.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Brenda, was there anything else regarding the air quality communications?
[Brenda Pike]: I don't think so. I do want to know, I have been quite underwater lately in terms of my workload. So is there someone in this group who would be willing to sort of take on leading that project?
[Robert Paine]: I'm sorry, what project was that? I was distracted.
[Brenda Pike]: The air quality communications.
[Robert Paine]: Oh, I can help you with that since I'm an air quality scientist. Yeah. I mean, I say you what the typical recommendations are in American Lung Association and other groups. Also, if there are web links to the Purple Air monitoring network, which includes state monitors, they add those. So I think having access to a map of these monitors is good. And we could just post a link that anyone can get on at any time and see it. Those are those are things and we can also post the these common sense recommendations. But usually what you do is you tune into the TV weather, a segment of the news and they talk about these things. So there's a lot of that stuff on the news anyway. I don't know if we, Medford has to have like an alert system for the smoke. But we can provide people with links to, real-time maps and links to recommendations from the American Leg Association or other qualified entities, EPA, et cetera, as to what to do under these circumstances. That's probably the best we can do right now.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I was thinking the city has the, I guess robocall is what you would call it, but it's not just necessarily calls, it's also texts and other things so that In an event like that, they can get the word out to people a little bit faster. So just having something prepared to be able to hand off to the mayor's team to do those calls would be really good.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, usually it's either a widespread event from like a Canadian fire, which we're all suffering. you know, we're no better off in Medford than in Melrose or whatever, or if it's very localized, I don't know, there's a way to figure out where it is, and it depends on where the wind is blowing. But that's an interesting dilemma. There are real-time websites as to the, you know, there's obviously, oddly enough, the iSurf, surfing people, are very, they have great forecasts of winds. I surf whatever website has like up to a 24 hour forecast of the wind patterns. And so you can get those if you want, you know. So I don't know how far we have to go toward getting weather outlooks, because that really goes toward, that's the National Weather Service, I guess, more or less.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Go ahead. The purple air monitors, wouldn't they help you to map what was going on?
[Robert Paine]: Instantaneous basis, not a forecast, though. But yeah, the purple air monitors are good, and I like that. I have one in my backyard. And I'll try to send you that opportunity to get more free ones. I mean, they're about 300 bucks or something like that to get one of these. You can get some for free.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: You get wind forecast from the National Weather Service. Marine forecast for fishermen and boaters. They tend to be pretty good.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah. There's a bunch of, yeah, we'll have to keep talking, Brenda. Assuming, of course, all those entities exist six months from now.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. I know.
[Brenda Pike]: I think having tips that are as simple as possible will be really helpful in addition to that purple air map that's very visual and very striking. But yeah, the tips are really what I was thinking of, yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And maybe recommendations by AQI. Like it's like, oh, if it's between zero and 75, like just do what you're going to do. But if it's over a hundred, like you should limit your time to 20 minutes or who knows.
[Robert Paine]: Thank you. You're not, thank you. It was like you started out in Lahore, Pakistan and they had like over a thousand AQI or something. It's an awful thing. Yeah. Over a thousand.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Right. With that unreal fact, let's send it back to you, Bob. Let's talk a little bit about waste reduction to kind of round us out for the evening.
[Robert Paine]: Sure. I'm the last person that knows much about waste reduction, but since I talked about it in a couple of meetings ago, I was put on the agenda. I think I looked up the fact that Melrose has a zero waste committee. And they are doing some good things, and it might be useful to have a, if we could ask a representative to talk about their program. I sent a link to the committee about them. They have, for example, I don't know, does Medford have a polystyrene ordinance? Because they have one that limits, because that's a source of a lot of waste. So something to look at to see if, does Medford have that? They also have a TerraCycle. It's a sort of a unique collection program that takes sort of oddball things, but they have regular collections. So there are some organizations that will actually take things that are hard to recycle otherwise, and you can bring them to collection sites. And maybe we should team up with those people. I said, Brenda, the fact that they also have the holiday swap, where if anyone wants to get rid of their Christmas tablecloths or things, they do that in Melrose too. That might be something to do when we do our Jingle Bells Festival. Basically, people bring things in and anyone can come in and just take it for free. It's like a plant swap, a holiday swap. That would maybe get more foot traffic in the Jingle Bells Festival or whatever they want.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I'm not sure it's the same category, but the plastic takeout containers that are black and therefore not recyclable, if a campaign to convince takeout places to not use the black containers anymore, and to use clear ones or compostable ones even better. But the black ones are not recyclable. I can't imagine this is like a black lobby. There must be some way of convincing both the manufacturers and the proprietors to use ones that are recyclable. Do you have any thoughts about that?
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, it's sort of funny. I use all those for leftovers. I keep reusing myself. If they were, if they were clean, you could still reuse. Yeah, that might be, we might get a lot of input to, for our experts and maybe that one candidate, um, to our committee and also representatives of other cities that do have these like Melrose. So I would, I would recommend that we contact, the Zero Waste Melrose people and see if they could give us a presentation of how they're doing and what they would recommend that we do. Sounds like a great idea. Sometime next winter season, next year.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: On the topic of, please.
[Jessica Parks]: I was just going to say, I mean, I think it's similar, like, the MFN does their toy swap in their children's clothing swap and those are other things that are diverted from. You know, waste streams and that's a huge area that. Swaps are done and then I know there's been a bunch of the. What are they? Drew, everything is free Medford, which I don't know if Melrose has an equivalent one, but I know that there's definitely a lot of things saved from. Maybe we could just kind of build off of that as well. Because I know that we have a very robust free. You know, things as everything down to, you know, half a half eaten birthday cake is saved from the waste, which I've always been super impressed with. I know that, you know, not all communities have as robust a kind of free site, but maybe it's a matter of having more of these swap events that are like more targeted. I think that could be cool because the LFN swap days are loved in the community. And to be able to swap other things as well, other than just kids clothing is I think could be really good.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, good ideas. Maybe we can keep going on this next year as more development here. I know Zero Waste and Melrose actually have monthly meetings like we do. I don't know if we need a separate entity for that. It could be just an outgrowth of this committee. But it's good to hear from them, and I'd have to look to see if other cities and towns have similar committees, but Melrose is pretty close to us, and I think they've been going for a couple of years. Probably good to hear from them.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I just wanted to add, I saw something interesting, and it's a little bit like, you know what you're talking about. So I wanted to share that with the group was posted on mass. So, the day after Thanksgiving is black Friday where. Billions of people buy things, you know, at deals. So this gentleman on Facebook that posted, he had this event last year. It's called Buy Nothing Day, and it's a swap. And he had a lot of response, and he holds it at Arlington Church. And it's called Buy Nothing Day and it's open to the public. It's a short period of time and you bring things you don't want in good condition or new items. And you can go in and also take what you can carry out that people leave. And that's a great way to reduce unwanted things and recycle. And I think they serve food and there's music. It's quite a large event actually.
[Brenda Pike]: I would just add that everything is free Medford. One of the people in my office, Teresa Dupont, helps to organize like the junk in the trunk swap event that happens. Yeah. Right.
[Robert Paine]: I wonder if something could be initiated with respect to the farmer's market. I don't know if there's room for that or that would be overwhelming. But that's another venue that might be good for such swaps occasionally, maybe once a month or something. Just an idea.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: But we can also host one too. We could pick a place like the library, that conference room area is always open for rental at no cost at the library, the function room. There's a lot of options to do something like that.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think that's a great thing that, you know, we should be probably just hosting. Yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: We could host that, right?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. two other little waste reduction-y things, because this lines up actually with my day-to-day line of work. The first one was, over the summer, when I was not joining you all for meetings, I was canvassing in Seattle for some time. And they have a program out there, as well as a couple other cities I've learned, called RIDWELL. R-I-D-W-E-L-L. And it is a... And I'm not going to sponsor them or anything. I don't have any connections to them or anything. But if we could find similar services... Basically, they are a big box that you put on your front step, and they help you to organize what you're recycling, and they take a wider range of different recyclables, anything from multilayered plastics to textiles to different light bulbs and batteries, and also those plastic Clamshell containers, you sort them, put them in your bin and they will collect them every couple of weeks. So, it gives people an alternative option for recycling. To recycle things that they don't normally get to recycle. So, it's something that I wanted to at least throw out into the ether. Let people think on and see if it's something that we believe would be right for Medford, or maybe just a greater Boston area push we could start making. Because I look down here, they have. They service Atlanta, Austin, the Bay Area, Denver, Portland, Seattle. So a lot of major cities that we should be bringing to the East Coast, perhaps.
[Robert Paine]: M-A-P-C, you would think, metropolitan area or whatever that stands for.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, it might be too big for just us, but I'm sure we have a consortium of folks that would be interested. The other thing I wanted to speak on while we have a minute devoted to it. My day-to-day job is an advocate for right to repair. We focus a lot on making sure you can fix your electronics. So I spend a lot of time at repair cafes and public fix-it events, opportunities for people to take all the appliances and electronics and phones and tablets that they think are broken and actually work with people to fix them. It has a really large community across the country, across the world. And I think in addition to these swap events, we should have repair events because e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the world. It is not terribly recyclable and is very toxic. So it's really important that we support repair and make sure people can actually fix the stuff that they like and keep it in use for longer.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I don't know, I missed a couple of meetings here since April, well since May. And several years ago, I just want to bring this up. I was really concerned about the single-use batteries and how they weren't recyclable, and now they are recyclable. So I didn't know if the rest of the members knew this, but Staples has really grown in what they accept free for recyclables. So single-use batteries like 9V, Cs, Ds, As, and alkaline batteries, they accept those free for recycling now at Staples locations. I was so happy to see that. And I went to City Hall and talked with the DPW office at the main office. And, you know, they also accept certain rechargeable batteries and certain kinds of lights and cell phones for recycling in their office. And I just wanted them to be aware of the Staples program. And they're aware of that, too. And at the Havasura Energy Festival, I'm sure they also took single-use batteries for recycling. But this is all year round, you know, you can go into Staples. And if you actually set up a free account with them, they'll give you points for recycling that you can use to purchase their products. So I just wanted to mention that in case people weren't aware.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think that's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, the big takeaway for me was at the harvester energy festival. We have the recycling and shredding. Companies come in and they are the largest, most popular parts. In a lot of respects, so we need to be facilitating that more. More hands down, whether that's. Other options for recycling other options for repair. and avenues for people to dispose of things appropriately, I think is an important avenue to pursue.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I agree. We could even do that at events. If we decided to have an event, we could have people bring in their single-use batteries and stock them up at home and bring them in. Then we could bring them in staples for them. There's a lot of things we could do.
[Brenda Pike]: I just wanted to point out the library does occasionally have fix it clinics, so that might be a good way that we can partner with them.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I would love that. Yeah, and that's something you partner with high schools and maker spaces and. Everyone's into that, so lots of avenues all up in the air at once and I think we'll. Maybe distill it, I'll distill some of this into a thing we can talk about next week or next month. As a space where we can begin something pretty actionable. Because I feel like this is an easy one and kind of low hanging fruit.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Before you were in the meeting, well, I wanted to mention something under new stuff if I have a minute. So just.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh, we definitely do. Yes.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. But well, I don't know what was done. So I just wanted to.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah. Yeah, I'm done. People have got good ideas, good input into this. And it's the nice thing about this is that it can be it could save people money and not cost the city anything. So. It's good for our well-being as a community.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I really like that. We just need more members to help. Because we always have great ideas, but it's getting them done with more members that are available. So one of the things I wanted to bring up, and I brought this up years ago, was the rat poison, escars, or rat poison that kills the predators of rodents. And on Facebook, there's a group that I've been involved with called Newhouse Wildlife Rescue. They're rehabbers for wildlife. And they take in a lot of animals that have been poisoned by commercially bought and also the black boxes we see out there by rat poison. They have a petition, if you go on Facebook, under Newhouse Wildlife Rescue, they're in Massachusetts. They have a petition they started because they have a lot of members and they were able to save a domesticated beaver that they had in their care that couldn't be reintroduced to wildlife. And the governor actually got involved and they were able to save this So they have a lot of followers, and because they got so much support from all over the world to save this beaver and allow them to keep it as an educational pet, they decided to move forward with, and they have been meeting with the Pest Control Board of Massachusetts to teach them how many animals are actually harmed and killed by rat poison. feed off of mice and rats, like hawks and eagles and foxes and opossums and whatever. So they started a petition this week. It's on their Facebook page for people to sign in support of banning rodenticides in Massachusetts. So I thought I'd bring that up because it is an important thing. It's environmental. It kills dogs and cats and harms children and So, I just wanted to bring that up if people could go on there and look for the petition on their Facebook page link.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Kathleen just put the link in the chat actually, which is very helpful.
[Kathleen McKenna]: I don't know if that's the Facebook 1, but I think it's their main site, which is even better. Yeah, they're in.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Chelmsford, I think, is where their location is. There's also Cape Ann Wildlife, which is in Gloucester, and they actually help rescue the birds that are hurt or damaged and brought to them by, you know, many different ways. But they've had a lot of birds that have died because of rodenticide poisoning. And there's other ways to manage pests by not using these poisons. I just want to bring that up. Thank you for listening.
[Robert Paine]: Go ahead.
[Kathleen McKenna]: I had a question. Do you remember what that drug or chemical or treatment was that keeps them from having babies?
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yes. That's what I was going to say, yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: We actually bought some because it's the first time ever we started seeing rats in our area. Hold on one second. I'm going to ask my husband. Yeah, it's called Cynetic. Cynetic. Cynetic, that's the name of the company. That's the name of the company. What's the name of the product? I forgot the name of it, but a couple of years ago, I tried to follow up with the other city that was using it as a test. It is expensive, but our city has a great program. I've worked with them to have those public meetings and advertise it a couple of years ago. The link is on the city website under the health department for rodent control, and it's a video recording of when Yankee Pest Control came to the city to talk about.
[Unidentified]: Oh, right.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: It's fantastic and it teaches every, it's so good. I learned so much. A lot of people did attend, they did it again. So that link's on the website. But as far as Yankee Pest Control, if you call the health department and you say you have a problem, they will have someone come out to your property and assess it for burrows, for rat burrows, and use, what's it called? CO2? Dry ice.
[Unidentified]: Dry ice, yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Dry ice. You have to find the two holes and they'll actually use the, I guess you'd call it a gas, to exterminate them. I mean, it doesn't hurt other animals or whatever. So a lot of people don't know that. Anyways, the product is called Synantec Evolved Cotton Saline Oil-Based Soft Bait Contraceptive, formulated to lessen the population in or near your home. It's expensive. They actually bought a bag to try it. The problem is they eat it, they're attracted to it, but you have to do a test area. I mentioned it to the health department before, but I didn't get a chance to get back to them, so I need the efficacy report from I don't know who, I can't remember what town, I think it was Lexington, and I made calls to them to see how it worked. So you have to do it like a small area, like maybe just like High Street, for example, a West Medford shopping area, and you have to keep using it for like six months. and they will stop having babies. But is that the answer? I mean, it's a lot of things. Saling your house is number one, and not having nesting areas for them, and having food on the ground, whether it's your garden, plants that have fallen, fruits and vegetables. It's just a problem across the East Coast and people don't realize that. It's a big education curve for people. And the first thing is to blame others, but they use rodenticides. That's not gonna solve the problem. They multiply too much, too quickly.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Did that help Kathleen? Yes, thank you. I think I might've found it. I put a link.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I think it was like $36 for a bag. But you know what? They come and they eat and they leave. And it doesn't harm other animals. It's birth control. But do you really want them coming for that? You want to get them away from your property. You know, it's, so anyways, we did it for a few months and we have less now. So I think it's also because they passed a no feeding ordinance and people are looking for that. I'm sorry, I wasn't clear, like bird seed and stuff like that. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: I was going to say, I have cameras around my house specifically for mice and rats because my wife is terrified of them. And, you know, mice, yeah, we have mice. But I found that if I have mice, I don't have rats. But I do, I saw a rat like, I don't know, a couple of months ago go through my front yard. It didn't stop at my house. I couldn't tell where it left to and where it came from. But it came onto my property, crossed my property. And it only did it one night. It didn't do it over and over again. But, yeah, rats are really smart. They're kind of industrious. They're really hard to get rid of if you get them. My neighbor had one in their house and it was, you know, it's easy to get one in your house to kill it, but it's hard to find out how did it get in and how do you stop the others from getting it.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, you can share that video. It's on the medfordmass.org website and the health department for them to watch. And he explains it all, how they get in.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: You're talking about the Yankee Pest Guide. Yeah. I went to both of those. It'd be great to have another one.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, you were there. Oh, okay. I was there. He did a great job. Yeah. And the sad thing is, you know, I learned so much because, I mean, who wants to learn about rats? But I learned so much that the rats will follow the mice because the mice pee and they leave the urine smell. They go, oh, where are they going? And they follow that. So if you have them in your house, you really got to be careful, you know. I've just seen in our neighborhood off of Spring Street, which I've never ever. But then again, we had a lot of cats. So maybe because we had cat, now we don't have the cats in the neighborhood, so it could be that.
[Kathleen McKenna]: I had an item to bring up if we're done with the mice. Yes, and I guess I, the only thing I know, and I don't know more, maybe others. Can comment, I guess the Massachusetts house is. Voting on the climate bill tomorrow. I saw something go out on that. Is that the, I don't know what the stream of, does it go to the Senate from here or does anyone know specifically what some of the bigger items are on that?
[Brenda Pike]: So I was on a call today, excuse me. with Melissa Hoffer and Rebecca Tepper and Gina McCarthy, and they were just talking about the state's reaction to the change in the federal administration. And on that call, they talked about the vote tomorrow on the economic development bond bill. And that has $400 million for mass CEC, for climate tech, like innovation and offshore wind, and then $300 million of tax credits for climate related businesses. And then the climate bill, I have not seen a good, um, listing of what is in it now after all of the back and forth. Um, I know a major part of it is the, um, siting of energy projects like substations and offshore wind and things like that. Um, and sort of, I don't want to say streamlining, but, um, uh, sort of standardizing the process for that and having more input earlier on in the process from the community. But I haven't seen like a final version of the climate bill.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Okay, thank you.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Right, any other new business we'd like to discuss? Anything we'd like to introduce? Seeing none, is there anything anyone would like to add? Any movements? I'll second that. Any opposed? Awesome. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you all for joining. I will see you in less than like two weeks. It seems a little too fast, but I know I'll be doing a little write up here too on some zero waste stuff we can do. Bob can look into some air quality things. And if anyone else is feeling moved by the moment, come prepared, bring a friend. Let's have people sit in so we can get some new members. Good night. Be well. I'll see you all soon.
|
total time: 2.7 minutes total words: 218 |
|||