[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right, let's go right down the line one more time. Vote to approve the minutes. Josh? Aye. Lois?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Aye.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Benji?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Barry?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Loretta?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Kathleen? Not hearing you, Kathleen.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh, perfect. Prabita?
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Luke is also on. Oh, we got Luke and John. Fantastic.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Apologies, I'm late.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No worries at all. We're just voting on the minutes. If you'd like to weigh in, yay or nay? If you had a chance to look at them.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I must defer. I did not attend last month. No worries. All right. Prabita?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Awesome, Dan. Yes. John Rogers. All right, skip over for now. Will, yes.
[Robert Paine]: I also say yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Goodness, there's just so many. Bob, thank you. Yays have it across the board. Oh, looks like Paul is here as well. Wow, we really... It's so nice. Fantastic. All right, let's just jump right in. There's so much doing and not a lot of time to do it. Brenda, are there any administrative updates we should know about?
[Brenda Pike]: Um, yes. Um, let's talk about when the next meeting is going to be. Um, so the mayor can join us, um, either April 2nd or 16th. Those are both Wednesdays. Monday's are school committee meetings. So that makes it difficult.
[Adam Hurtubise]: The second is currently the only one open.
[Robert Paine]: We might have to do, why don't we just go and see how many people can make either one. Now that we're all almost here.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, we actually have a really close to quorum. Let's just go. Is anyone unable to make the second?
[Barry Ingber]: I can go, I think. OK. But probably I can make it.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: OK.
[SPEAKER_11]: I'm traveling that week, but not on the second. I'm leaving on the third.
[Brenda Pike]: And just to clarify, I don't think that could be a hybrid meeting because there are so many meetings on Wednesday nights that it would have to be online only.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Well, that makes it much, much easier then.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right. Anyone feel very strongly about going on to the 16th instead? Otherwise, I think the second will work.
[Unidentified]: It's cool seeing none.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Let's make sure I see you all on Zoom on the second.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Perfect. Yes. Thanks.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: That was good.
[Brenda Pike]: Some other administrative updates. The planning department is losing our housing planner this week. But that job is already posted, so please share it with anybody that you think might be interested. And we're also starting to look for interns for this summer. So same thing, if you, yeah, please share that if anyone you know would be interested. And then I heard some feedback that people are still having issues with our mailing list. I think what's happening is when you're sending emails to each other, there's a conflict between your two emails. Because I don't think it's happening when I'm sending emails out to you. And it's not happening for everybody. It's only happening to certain people. So for instance, one bounce back said the sender is sending too much mail for its authentication status. And that didn't affect everybody. It only affected certain people. But I mean, I don't think that's something that we can fix within our mailing list client. I think that's something where it might mean that I need to send out the agenda and minutes to everybody to make sure that everyone's going to get it. And then you just have the understanding that if you're replying to, if you're sending, trying to send something out, everyone might not get it unless you send it through me. That's all I had for administrative updates. I mean, I have other- There's plenty to do, I'm sure.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: With that then.
[Robert Paine]: I just had a question on the mayor's availability. Is there a time slot that,
[Brenda Pike]: We just assumed that it would be 630. She probably wouldn't stay for the entire meeting, but she would probably come for the beginning of it.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Perfect. We can discuss at some point what we might want to share with her, make sure we have everything at the end of this meeting kind of sorted and topped off ready. Uh, with that, I'm going to throw it to Lois and Benji, uh, who have started work on a project of their own, uh, to eliminate plastic takeout containers. I see Lois online and Benji in person. Hopefully you can navigate that.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Your camera is turned off and not that it's an issue for me, but are you guys in the office?
[SPEAKER_11]: Yes, we are.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'll get a good view of any, but. The volume, I think the background is just blurred. There's so much, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_11]: Sorry, didn't mean to derail.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No, no, no. All right, let's hear from, yeah, Lois, can you hear us?
[Lois Grossman]: Yeah, sure.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right, take it away, please.
[Lois Grossman]: Yeah, I'll start and Benji will take it up if I'm on call here. We did send around our plan. Did everybody get to see that? We just thought if people had a chance to look at what we're talking about, you'd be able to just say whether you think we're on the right track or not. And if anybody has any questions, suggestions, answers.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I know I definitely got it, but that's not really a good baseline.
[Barry Ingber]: No, I did not get it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Can you pull it up? Yes. Oh, Tangerine was fighting. Yes. It is just titled The Media Project. Oh, okay. Let's see.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: But hopefully, here we go. Lois, if you could give a quick summary, I think that would be very helpful.
[SPEAKER_16]: Folks online seeing your screen, Will,
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, actually, that's a great question. Are people seeing what I'm, I don't think I'm sharing. Okay, I'm gonna put this in.
[Lois Grossman]: Can you share? I'm just seeing the W. Share that? Yeah. Yeah. Share screen. At any rate, a couple meetings ago, people talked about what they were interested in and One of the things that I mentioned was black plastic, I guess, and that I wanted to try to do something about takeout containers, which sometimes horrified me. I asked if anybody else was interested and Benji was. We met and came up with these questions. and a tentative plan. And I will tell you anecdotally that it's possible that we've already made an impression because I went for Chinese food up at the hillside and they had styrofoam containers and black plastic containers. I said, I thought styrofoam was not allowed in China. anymore. Yes, he said, but the city gave us permission to use up our remaining stock. And then we're not going to use it anymore. Which so obviously he's aware and plugged in. And he had all these black containers. And he put my order in something that doesn't usually go in because he didn't want to put it black. And Benji went to that same place. and didn't see any black plastic anymore on this shelf where they have all their containers. When I explained that the reason black plastic doesn't get recycled is because actually it's hard to read the numbers and the band that they travel through the facility on is black and they can't distinguish the black from the black. didn't have any black on his shelf, so maybe a lot of what we have to do is inform people of what are the difficulties and find out what can be done about it. If you see at the bottom of the sheet, the We are trying to get them to talk about what they use for hot food, cold food, liquids, how they dispose of their trash. Do they use the composting service? Do they recycle? And who do they do it with? So these were, we hope to engage in conversations, not confrontations, and try to inform people that they have choices and what the benefits of the choices are. Did I cover it, Benji?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I guess I read a little. Initially, it was just about black press. And then the more I investigated, I have a good friend who's on the Recycling Committee of New York, Maine. I spoke to people in Brookline and Somerville and Cambridge. And I educated myself a little. I don't like I'm educated. yet, but plastic of any kind and any uses, if we could somehow get rid of it, would be a good idea. The next thing was people talking about compostables, which are a replacement or a potential replacement for plastic. We have not yet figured out exactly how much they cost, but it appears they cost significantly more than the plastic does. apparently some issues with compostable stuff, which ones do and don't, off gas and when they're made, et cetera. And so then we also stumbled on someone, a woman named, who has a business of reusable stuff, a business called Recirculable, And she's trying to make them all reusable, which are obviously going to be dramatically more expensive by the way. It's compostable and require significant investment and input from both restaurants and consumers. And so it raises in my mind the question most things, I think it's a good idea to try and take your best shot at first. One strategy would be, my conclusion about the black plastic is that there's no particular reason why plastic is used instead of white plastic, except that it's used. When I had in white plastic, but it was a white plastic, what I call clamshell, that is up in the bottom and connected to each other. And that's also true in some restaurants in Cambridge I've taken out from. I was at my daughter's house a couple of weeks ago in New Jersey, and the containers, the bottoms were all white plastic, even in the separate ones. So my conclusion is that there isn't If there is a cost differential between white and black plastic, it's insignificant. And I'm convinced without any data yet, that there isn't any difference. And with the black plastic, it's simply a matter of educating people. And maybe we are looking for an ordinance, maybe we aren't. I'm not sure what strategy is there. And that sort of slips over into the issues that Paul and others were raising. Depending on what conclusion we reach, how do we see the policy? If you're going beyond with the plastic, if you're going beyond black plastic and replacing it, you're going to compostables. It's going to be more expensive. And the reusable as a complete solution is probably untenable. That's what we've been told. 20% or 30% or 40% reusables component, it's not 100%. And one of the things that we thought of was, there's one Marguerite Bell from the reusable business. We met with her for about an hour, and she seemed extremely knowledgeable. She definitely got an interest in selling reusables. And so, with that filter, when you're hearing what she has to say, I was convinced that she was sincere and that's where they should go.
[SPEAKER_11]: Benji, who's this person? I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: A woman named Margie Bell, who has a business called ReCircleable.
[SPEAKER_11]: ReCircleable, okay.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Which does reusable containers. The method that they do is you have restaurants become part of a consortium, so you can take your container from one place and return it to the next place, and it makes it much easier. to encourage use. There's obviously a lot more involved in saving the container and washing the container and taking it back than simply putting it into a recycling bin. What Lois and I are looking for is input from folks about what How should we approach this? Should we limit it to just replacing black plastic with white plastic? Should we try to go further than that? The York Main Ordinance essentially requires compostables. My friend said that they managed to get that to be a pretty much joint effort with a restaurant association. they included them in the planning and it hasn't taken effect yet and it obviously requires both the restaurant to use it and then the consumer to to put in the curbside bin. And I remember when curbside compostables became part of the city project, there were some issues and some concern about maybe it would be too much use, and would that be a problem everybody brought in across the it's doing the composting, and so there are a whole variety of questions there.
[Lois Grossman]: Don't forget Benji, Margie Bell said she finds difficulties in the processing of compostables. is not energy efficient or uses too much energy and releases things. But as Benji said, her business is to do these reusable containers rather than recyclable or compostable.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: And she acknowledged that you're never going to get to even 30% or 40% reusable. So the question is, better isn't perfect, but it's better.
[Barry Ingber]: Again, a question on the reusable and I mean, maybe actually, Paul might know the answer as our resident chemist. But I never, I use plastics for food storage, largely because I'm over 70 and I'm not really afraid of long term poisoning anymore. But Even I am leery about the idea of heating plastics up and reusing them because they become unstable. If I wash stuff at home, I'm washing it in 140-degree water. If they're washed in a restaurant, they have to be really hot because they have to meet standards. What is that due to the stability of the containers? Are they safe? That's a good question.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: And I don't know the answer to it. And I wonder if Paul... Yes.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I can tell you that the higher the temperature, the more the shed Can everyone hear me? Yeah. The more the shed. So I wasn't aware of this until I looked it up. It's whatever plastic you have sheds, essentially. And it's very, very, very tiny particles, but it actually does shed. So even polypropylene, which doesn't have the plasticizers in it, actually sheds stuff. Any kind of heating increases the shed. I guess the overarching problem for me is is do you have is a compostable container that's essentially made of cellulose. And that can be just discarded, and you don't have to worry about it. And it appears there is. But This has to be stipulated town-wise. It has to be regulated. So it can't be a voluntary thing. Because businesses have to make money. And unfortunately, they'd always go for the lowest cost container to, you know, distribute all of the goods they need to do that. So Yeah, I'm, I'm not sure the, the, the way to go about it in terms of like making businesses to do this, like, you know, go for the composable stuff, but perhaps finding out sources of compostable containers for businesses and talking to the restaurants, sort of hubs would help.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: One of Lola's suggestions was that we just take a census of restaurants. She and I are going to divide them up and go talk to them. And one issue is how do we represent ourselves? Is it okay to represent ourselves as part of this committee? Are we private citizens? I'll set that aside for a second, but we want to figure that out before we go. and just have conversations with this checklist, and I assume there are 50 retrons. Some of them are willing to tell us, well, it costs this much for compostables and this much for plastic, and the reason they're back-casting is because that's what they sell. that information I think we'll be able to obtain relatively easily. And I guess the other thing that we didn't mention is our compostables, because we're residents, we don't pay any extra except for the bags. I assume that businesses do, and we have to find out what the cost is. And there's gonna be, if you wanna, We will pay for composting for restaurants as well and paying it for residents. I don't know what the levels of costs are on that spot, so this is what we need to gather.
[Brenda Pike]: I really like the idea of doing a survey and finding out what people are doing right now and gathering that information about cost differentials.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: We wanted to ask you folks here, do we represent ourselves as just interested citizens or is it okay to say that we're
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, yeah, I mean, you can absolutely say your energy committee members. I think if the committee wants to like officially vote on whether they can represent themselves as the committee, you know, then you can do that. Definitely.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: What we need is a badge. Like an official badge. Can you give us one?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: But wait, is this the Energy and Environment Police? No, no, I hope not.
[Lois Grossman]: We're going to be non-confrontational.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yes, exactly. But you need some sort of official capacity. Otherwise, the guy would tell you to f off.
[Barry Ingber]: You know, so, you know, I have rainbows and flowers.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: One kind of parting thought as we kind of wrap up thinking about this. It would be to identify some kind of poster child, some kind of like, I think of like a, like Clover has like actual compostable takeout containers. Identify those and say like, what are you paying for these? How are these being disposed of? How do you treat them? To see if we can propose an alternative when we approach these other restaurants. I think that's a really productive way to go about it. And then discussing if there should be some kind of sign-on letter for restaurants as we get closer to see if they'd be interested in promoting it and saying, actually, if we got help from Medford, we would want x, y, and z assistance, and we would do it.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, excellent idea. Restaurants are not only in like the five business districts. Are restaurants even sort of allowed to take part in the city trash and recycling? And that's only if they're below a certain size. So if they're essentially putting out a residential building's worth of trash, then they can participate. If it becomes more than that, then they're responsible for it themselves. And they're not involved in the composting whatsoever. Although there's been some discussion of trying to talk with the Chamber of Commerce to get people to sign on to the composting program themselves and work themselves. But that's where that stands right now.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think all the other small parting bit is like, we don't have to have a perfect solution right out the gate, but a pragmatic one of eliminating plastic, I think should be a priority for what Paul was saying.
[Lois Grossman]: I have a final thought too, I have to go, but it occurs to me that really, Benji and I should carry out our survey and then report back with the results and let this committee take it over. Since we're going to say that we're on this committee, we'll gather information, bring it back to you all and see what we want to do with it. Do we want legislation? Do we want education? Do we want a combination? Some restaurants actually have signs saying we don't use plastic, you know, and maybe we can give them flyers. This place is plastic-free, you know, whatever.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_11]: Louis, I just want to say one thing. If you need extra hands to distribute your survey, count me in. I'm sorry I didn't show interest earlier. Great.
[Lois Grossman]: Thank you. I'll see you all now.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I'll look forward to the recording. As indicated, she's more than happy to come make a presentation. We should. I think she's a, it appeared to me she learned what she was talking about.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes. I see. Yes, Jill Feldman. I see you've had your hand raised very patiently.
[SPEAKER_12]: I do. Hi, I'm with Mothers Out Front, but the reason I wanted, I just wanted to share that I moved here from Milwaukee. That's in Wisconsin, in case you're not familiar with the Midwest. And they have an organization called Plastic Free Milwaukee. I just checked, they're still up and running. It's a really good organization and that they're able to connect with the city. And I would suggest that the people that are interested in this look at their website to see what they've done, because they've done a lot of this work that you're already just starting. And the other thing that they've done, which I thought was really cool is if a restaurant meets a particular standard. You get a medallion and then there the name of the restaurant is posted on a site that says that this is a restaurant that does not use any single use plastic. And they also provide information to restaurants on where the best places are to get replacements for simply use plastic.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: That is a fantastic thing to add. We are nearing the end of the kind of allotted time. I want to make sure we have enough time for everything else. Anything good for the order? Anything, parting thoughts?
[Robert Paine]: I bought on my phone, you can get biodegradable, compostable, clamshell, made of cane sugar fibers for about 40 cents each. That's not bad.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: So unfortunately, I'm on my phone because my computer's giving me a lot of trouble, and I can't raise my hand on my phone.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't know why.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I came from the electric vehicle industry. In the very beginning, what they had was, and this is something that may be above our pay grade, but We converted electric vehicles, and basically, the government paid the difference between the donor vehicle and the completed electric vehicle. So the completed electric vehicle cost about $35,000. This is back in the 90s. And the donor vehicle was $7,000. So the rebates were such that people paid $7,000 for these electric vehicles. Maybe we could do something where the difference between the the recyclable plastic versus the black plastic. Maybe there's some way we could say we will cover the difference in the costs. And I understand that that's like something that has to go through all kinds of everything to get done. But it's an idea.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Well, I don't think there is a difference in the plastic. I think that the black plastic is just sort of happening because nobody was paying attention. Oh, okay. I'm not sure about the black and white, but I'm fairly confident since I've seen white plastic in a number of different places, and a black was less expensive in New Jersey. So, and I assume that at least some of the restaurants we've talked to will answer those questions in depth and will have the information, hopefully by the next meeting.
[Brenda Pike]: I'm sorry, one more thing. If once we get to the point, if we decide we want to be revising an ordinance or anything like that, we'd want to talk with the Board of Health first about what enforcement would look like, because we don't want to set something up that the city is in a position that they can't enforce.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: In New York, Maine, and in Cambridge, and in Brookline, and in Somerville, enforcement, everybody that spoke said, this is all great, enforcement's the real issue. So the notion of getting people on board as opposed to replying, or in addition to that, is probably the way to go. But yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Start at the counters, and we'll work from there. I want to make sure Brenda has enough time for their municipal updates. So I'm going to cut our discussion off there, but I really appreciate the good, healthy discussions here. And yes, Brenda, the floor is yours.
[Brenda Pike]: Okay, I will try to rush through these because I know we have some great products to talk about. But Electrify Medford, we have 125 signups so far. We've coached 50 people. Um, and we have a new Spanish speaking coach and we've done two coaching sessions in Spanish in the last couple of weeks. So I'm really excited about that. Um, I coached the mayor and the mayor posted about it on social media last week, which led to some more signups again. And we have an upcoming event at the senior center where we'll be doing an informational session there where I'll do a short presentation and then there'll be coaches on hand so that people can just get coached right there in the moment and not have to wait. So I'm looking forward to that. I'm working on scheduling more sessions like that. I'm hoping to do the next one at the West Medford Community Center, but if you have recommendations for other locations like that, that you think would be a good place to hold one of these, please let me know.
[SPEAKER_11]: What about the library? Maybe you already talked about that. That was the first one we did, was at the library. Sorry. Yep.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Are those events, Brenda?
[Brenda Pike]: Sorry, what was that?
[Kathleen McKenna]: When are those taking place? Senior Center and West Senior Center is March 4 so it's when's that tomorrow.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh yeah.
[Robert Paine]: Any events during the Earth Day week or whatever week.
[Brenda Pike]: Earth Week. Um, I don't think we have anything planned for that week. It's a, it's a pretty tight week right now. That's like the cleanup is happening every other day. And, um, there are holidays, religious holidays happening the weekend before and things like that. It's always a difficult week to schedule things around. Um, We are preparing some door hangers to go out at the end of March. And I think I mentioned that we're working with a Northeastern professor who lives in Medford, who's working with student groups there to distribute those around the city. So looking forward to that. And then I'll be doing the Mass State Community First partnership training April 4th. And I'll be really interested to hear the how the $500 million haircut the DPU gave their budget will will impact their plans incentives.
[SPEAKER_16]: Let's see.
[Brenda Pike]: Andrews and McGlynn HVAC project. We've received design documents last week. We're signing a contract with the construction manager this week. And then the construction manager will be working with the designer to finalize the design and pre-purchase the equipment later this month. So moving right along. Every day counts there to try to get this done by the end of the summer. have, so we have renegotiated our municipal electricity supply purchase. So in the same way that the aggregation negotiates an electricity price for residents, the city also negotiates a price for electricity use in city-owned buildings, not separate to the residents and low business rates. So we locked in our contract for December 25th through, sorry, December 2025 through 2028. And it's a half cent lower than our current contract. And we also sent Class 1 RECs to match with the IDPs we have right now, too. So I'm very happy that we were able to do that with the additional renewables. Green score zoning. We have an updated zoning web page that summarizes suggested zoning changes in the process. I'll pop that into the chat when I'm done talking here. But the green score was discussed at the Community Development Board meeting on February 5th, and they recommended it to the City Council. So that's moving forward slowly but surely. We heard back about the MassCEC on-street charging grant. We weren't chosen for an implementation grant, which was really disappointing, but we will likely be chosen for a feasibility study. They've sort of bumped us into that selection category, and we'll find out about that by the end of the week. I'm curious, did Somerville get the implementation grant?
[Adam Hurtubise]: We did, yes. But that's because we have a science strategy on it.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, yeah, that's great. So yeah, so once we, they told us that we'll likely be chosen for that. So once we start moving forward with that, Josh, I'm going to be reaching out to you to talk to you about that. Yeah. The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources is moving forward with their large building energy reporting. And that's for buildings over 20,000 square feet. And the utilities will be reporting directly to them the energy use. But for the delivered fuel, the building owners have to report to them. So letters went out to building owners last week, and I have claimed Medford's city-owned buildings on their website. And the reporting deadline for that is June 30th, and DOER will publish the usage data online by October 31st. So you'll be able to see statewide every building over 20,000 square feet with their energy usage. It's pretty exciting. And that's information that could be really useful if municipalities decide in the future, we want to set a performance standard for energy use. We don't have to first start collecting that, doing that reporting ourselves and collecting that information. It'll just be available to us. And this is not a municipal update, but I was wondering, has anyone been to the Climate Book Club at the library? I know there's nothing.
[Unidentified]: Oh, this is news to me.
[Brenda Pike]: Okay. Next Wednesday at seven o'clock, they're discussing the book all week and save, which I actually haven't read yet, but I'm very interested in that. You keep going. Okay. I haven't seen any updates, but if anyone's been to the book club, I'd love to hear what you think about it. There's no chance I can read that full book in one week. You read the audiobook at 1.4 speed. I know I ran through all that really quickly, but do people have any comments, questions on any of that?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: If NETVRD were to try and explore doing Virto, would that likely be pushed from this committee out, or would that be a staff initiative?
[Brenda Pike]: I mean, it could go either way. I mean, I think the big issue around that would be the resources to manage it. And I know that, I think that in Boston, there is a fee for, to building owners in order to support those sort of, you know, the staff time and, you know, software and everything that they need to do that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So staff are probably looking for a committee to be pushing forward on this?
[Brenda Pike]: Yes, but it would be really important to obviously be working together really closely to make sure there's understanding of what the resources would be needed in order to do something like that. And I think it's important to at least have a couple years of reporting data first, because otherwise it's hard to set the levels of the performance standard. And Boston collected, I think, five years of data before setting their standards.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I want to just circle back for a second to the classics, what I'm going to call it. People seem to be interested in having us invite Ms. Margie Dell to make a presentation. If that's the case, what month?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: You should reach out to me after and we'll figure out where it's at. We have no shortage of talented people that want to come in and join us.
[Robert Paine]: That's great. I wonder if people know about this tax deduction you can get for, if you're on the energy aggregation, more than the basic program you can get from the Green Energy Consumer Alliance, you can get a tax.
[SPEAKER_17]: It's considered a charitable donation.
[Robert Paine]: Yes, that's right, so I got one of those.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, so if you're doing 100% renewables, Actually, if you're at the default level, that additional 10%, that's considered a charitable donation on your part. And so you can claim that on your taxes. If you itemize. If you itemize, yes, exactly.
[Robert Paine]: Actually, when the state, you get something off the state, not the federal. I kept doing my TurboTax and every little thing I got the state, rebate refund went up, so you get money back from the state, even if the feds say you're capped at $10,000.
[Brenda Pike]: I don't think the letter comes to you automatically.
[Barry Ingber]: You have to go online and apply for it. I kind of like paying my state and local taxes. I don't like paying my federal taxes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Two quick things. Could we switch this around back to you, perhaps?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, absolutely.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think mine's going to die on me. The other thing is, before I do that, I want to, unless there's any more, be cognizant of time and throw to Loretta. who is listed as talking about Truth Medford updates, but that is incorrect. It is actually about the reforestation, municipal reforestation work being done. And of course, Loretta can say it all much better than I, so I'm going to throw it to her.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Excuse me. Actually, I am going to speak about Trees Metro briefly. They had a tree giveaway, pre-tree giveaway, and the application deadline was February 28. But I'm not sure. Maybe people can still apply. But the reason I bring this up, on March 12, at the library which is next Wednesday from 6 30 to 7 30. There's a training session how to plant bare root trees that I thought I'd share with everybody. Mostly for property owners to plant trees in their property. I hope to attend that to learn something. Some of the trees that they were giving away free are up to 10 feet tall and some might be taller. So that's next Wednesday. They also have a program and well, I think I sent you the link to that, but I'm gonna read about this program they have. It's new and I worked with them a little bit on this and it's to nominate a significant tree in Medford. And there's a page link for that. where you can nominate a tree. And I'll just read you the brief outline from Trees Medford. We're on a mission to celebrate the trees that make our community special. We invite you to help us identify and honor trees in Medford that stand out because of their size, beauty, age, history, or even rare species, whether on public or private property. We want to track and celebrate the health and progress of these remarkable trees over time. how to nominate, share a photo and brief description of a tree you think is significant. Tell us why you believe this tree deserves to be recognized, size, beauty, age, history, rarity, et cetera. Let's work together to protect and appreciate the trees that make Medford thrive in this nomination form. And once they just started this, so once they collect enough, we'll pull with other ideas that could be. a walking map tour of significant trees. It could be plaques for the trees if they're nominated as special. So I don't know if you can drop that in the chat, the link to it.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Give me just one moment.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Sure, I sent it in.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes. No, I have it. We're fighting a lot of systems all at once today.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. And then I'll move on to the act establishing the municipal preforestation bill.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Please do.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: OK. Mass Community Tree Coalition and the Mass Pollinator network group had a webinar last week regarding the municipal reforestation bill and how to fund it, how to support the funding. So I attended that and I sent the email out to Brenda and Will to share with the group. And hopefully you got it through the MEEC email server and this I'll just talk briefly about the bill. We have discussed this in the past. So there's much support for this reforestation bill that will support communities. And I'll just review some of the notes. The problem is funding it. And this is what this is about. So there's a bond bill coming up. the environmental bond bill to be filed this spring. And we want to show and tell Governor Healey that cities are interested in this, because she won't know unless mayors write in and tell them, you know, we're interested in this municipal bond bill to help support this particular reforestation bill. And this would be to include $100 million over five years to support this bill. Now the environmental bond bill, I think that's going to be presented in April. So the Mass Coalition of Trees If I got that right, there's so many notes I have here. Mass Community Tree Coalition, sorry, has been writing and holding these webinars so that we reach out to representatives and senators in Massachusetts to tell them we would like them to support the bill and the bond that will be presented. And our mayor has already signed on to the letter of support to Governor Healy, but there's many that haven't. I just wanna, there's so many ideas I had about this because there's a lot of links in the email to click on with sample letters. And I think the most important thing we can do is to contact as individuals, our representatives and senators and the bond bill numbers are in the email to ask them to support the bill for the bond. And so that'll be heard supposedly in April. But going back to some of the notes on the reforestation bill, this helps municipalities with funding for tree planning and sustainability to maintain the existing tree canopy and also plant new trees. And the priorities are less cities that have less than 20% tree canopy cover, that's number one. Number two, less than 40% tree canopy cover, and three, less than 60%. And that could be areas within a city too. This also includes private property and planting new trees, which would have the biggest impact because they will help with picking the right tree for the right place. And also priorities are to environmental justice neighborhoods. But some of the things that people don't realize is that it includes funds for workforce development programs, administrative costs to the city, equipment to plant trees and maintain the tree canopy. purchasing trees, and as I said, maintaining new and existing trees. So we really, it's an amazing program that would be assisted by different government agencies to the towns to help write the application to be considered for these. So one of the things, as I said, I think it's important for us to share, to write to our legislature to support this bond in the program. And then I was thinking, I have the letter open that they have a sample letter to mayors to write into Governor Healey to offer support for her to present the bond at the stated amount for the act. But when I looked at the bottom of the bill who was already signed on, It was only a few cities. And in the webinar, it's really worth watching in that length of the email. It's about an hour. We have several professional speakers, Green Cambridge, many different people were speaking at that meeting about the bill in detail and what it can provide. So when I looked at the letter that they sent out, the sample that would go to governors by mayors that mayors can sign on to, it's only one, two, three, four, five cities. that signed on so far. That's Somerville, Medford, Chelsea, Cambridge, and Pittsburgh. And then I remember, you know, the mayor is part of the Metro Mayors Coalition, and that's a group of 17 towns. So, and that would include Arlington, Boston, Brantree, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, Malden-Maffitt, Melrose, and I'm like, okay, I'm going to write back to this group, the mass community trees organization to see if they contacted this group, instead of all these people, which could be thousands writing to each mayor, maybe they can send out this proposal to the Metro Mayors Coalition to sign on to.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Brenda, are you our designee to the Metro Mayors Coalition or does Mayor Blanco-Congo or something?
[Brenda Pike]: What? I'm sorry? Our mayor or Alicia. Okay. Yes. I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question. Oh, the question was who goes to Metro mayors.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh, um, mayor, um, Brianna Langer current is already on the mayor's Metro.
[Brenda Pike]: Yes. And I was saying that either, either she attends those or Alicia does.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. So, but she's already signed the letter to the governor asking for support of this bondo or others in this 17 towns that I'm reading that are members that have not. So that's why I was thinking of contacting them with this list of the mayors from those cities. And because they're part of this coalition to support sustainability, they develop an agenda and an action plan to focus on key issues affecting urban core communities. They promote regional collaborative approaches and utilize a wide range of methods to achieve its objectives.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Would you like to circulate that letter to us to look at at some point?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Which letter?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: The one that you're proposing to write to the Metro mayors.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, I'm not going to send it. What I'm saying is the mayaskommunitytrees.org group, excuse me, they're the ones that are holding the webinars. and asking for residents and other communities to help spread the word about this. So what I'm proposing that I will do is send them this information about this Metro Mayors Coalition that they can write to and get everyone to sign on.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Perfect, love that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So what I'm saying we can do is also contact our legislators and senators, so they will support the bill, the bond bill. And there's sample letters that we can use to send to them if they ask for an email.
[Brenda Pike]: And I believe we should have received, Loretta, this information that I forwarded from Loretta, but let me know if you haven't and I can send it to you individually.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So that, is there any, are there any questions?
[Robert Paine]: Or should we contact, should we do it collectively or?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Individually or collectively? Individually is probably more impactful, the more people that, it could be groups too, environmental groups, like Friends of the Fells or Mystic River Watershed Association. and maybe Tufts groups. There's so many. So this template examples in the email that Brenda sent out earlier today or yes? Today. I think it was today.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Good. Perfect. All right. With that, thank you so much, Loretta. I'm going to give the floor to Prabita to talk for a little bit about her projects in the works.
[SPEAKER_11]: OK, great. I think it was also included in Brenda's agenda item. So two things we are working on, Loretta, Will, Brenda, and I. for Earth Month. Earth Day is 22nd of April. So the first thing we wanted to do was have a social media campaign, the Go Green website, Energy and Environment Medford, socials, Instagram, Facebook, and also potentially have an advertisement. Basically, the idea is every day post a kind of like a Canva like infographic on tips to become more sustainable in our day-to-day life, whether it's household tips or office place, you know, and it really fits well with the reduced plastic topic that we were discussing earlier. An Excel sheet was sent around and put together 22 items in there for every weekday in April. with a description and an image idea, hopefully, for an intern to work on. I've added as much details as possible that I could think of. You can give a cut-off where the members can go and edit potentially, and we'll have to pass it over to a different team, I believe, to work on these every day. That's really just to gather momentum around our Zero Waste initiative as well. That's one thing, and please feel free to chime in, any of you, if I'm missing something. And then the other topic, just to stick within the time slot, I'm rushing a little bit, is to have a… an event, the free flea market, will Brenda and I, Loretta is also going to join. We're working with Tufts and Everything is Free, Medford, folks who are actively involved in both, to have a free flea market, something like a flea market, but everything is for free. We're going to really highlight that we can keep things out of the landfill. We can add more details to that if you would like. The idea would be to have a central location where folks can drive their things that they want to offer up for free. someone is not able to transport, we would also have like a map. I believe last year there was a citywide yard sale and the map feature was utilized. So if I'm offering a couch that I'm not able to drive, I can sign up at my address. put it in the driver. So it's like a big team effort. We're going to work with the Department of Public Works. So yeah, so that event is going to be in May. And we actually have another meeting coming up where we are going to talk more details with the Tufts person. Anything I'm missing? I
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I would just add that part of the purpose behind it is to schedule it around when students are leaving. And Tufts is really excited about doing Christmas in May. Exactly, yes, Christmas in May.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think it's a really great opportunity to couple with not just the Tufts community, the Medford community, possibly the Somerville communities as well to kind of have that central space where everyone can exchange those things freely and keep them out of the landfill because goodness knows it just all gets dumped otherwise.
[SPEAKER_11]: So I have to say I furnished after we moved in my living room and made my basement all from everything is free. Everything is pre-Medford. So
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Robita, when is the next meeting date to discuss this? I forgot.
[SPEAKER_11]: I think it's coming up this week, right? It's Thursday, May 6th. Yeah, I can forward it to you.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay. And if there's a phone link or whatever, please. Yeah, let me forward it. Thank you.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: So just to provide general actions and things to look out for as a committee, this will likely be in the first couple weekends of May, the ballparking probably May 10th. So somewhere in that weekend area. The best thing you can start to do is to find potential volunteers, whether it be yourself or your usual networks of people that you know like to do these things. And as we get more materials, be ready to circulate them, be ready to outreach to companies that do zero waste projects and other initiatives, things especially like repair shops that might want to be invested in getting that space and advertising in that space as well. So we will have more details forthwith, but until then, just get excited for some extra events to green up our city.
[SPEAKER_17]: So not Earth Week, but not too far from it. Yeah. No, it's perfect.
[SPEAKER_11]: So Walmart.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Rabita, anything else you'd like to add for the good of the order?
[SPEAKER_11]: No, I mean, that's pretty much it. I hope the Excel sheet, like I know we went a little back and forth. I hope it has the details you were looking for Will.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, yes, we will keep, I think as we add to it, we'll keep refining it until we get kind of that perfect set that we'll want to send out into the world. But that one is definitely a team effort for those that haven't looked at the sheet. Think about little programs that you know about, sustainability tips you have in mind that you think everybody should know about.
[Brenda Pike]: Do we want to set a date where we're taking last edits on those?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: That would be a great idea.
[SPEAKER_11]: Yeah. They will need some time to work. Even if you just do it on Canva, 22 is a lot, so we want to give them enough time to work on it.
[Brenda Pike]: Maybe the 17th, so two weeks from today. Yeah. Then that gives another two weeks to
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: To build and design design and everything.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. So let's, let's have our final submissions in by yes. Monday, March 17th. Um, and that'll give us time for yeah. Design refining all those good things. Uh, so that we can start right on April 1st ready and raring to go.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: could you explain that for the rest of the members?
[SPEAKER_11]: Let me see if I can actually share.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I didn't hear you say, maybe you did and I missed it, what the plan is that it's going to be a post every day during Earth Month.
[SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think I said it in the beginning, but maybe it wasn't super clear. Yeah, it's going to be a post every day on the different socials. I think Facebook, different groups on the websites too. We have a small list, and I believe it's also going to be featured in the newsletter, weekly newsletter that the mayor is going to send. So it's going to be like an infographic. on the household to everyday sustainability to April 1 to April 5 if it's the weekdays. So we're collecting for all of the weekdays in April.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, so we'll do daily ones from the planning department social media. And then it sounds like the mayor's social media will do maybe weekly ones where they're combining them together for that week.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: That's great.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Any other closing thoughts? Seeing none, I'm going to go to our final section of the night with Josh.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Yeah, thanks. Well, this is brief, but I just wanted to sort of start the conversation with you all on the idea of supporting some sort of work towards fossil fuel divestment here in the city. Uh, so, you know, our, our collector treasurer has certain, like, responsibilities related to, uh, investments of funds that the city council sort of in turn is responsible for. Um, and I think it would make sense to, uh, do some work, especially some, like, solidarity work with other organizations and on other sort of topic areas. to develop some sort of ordinance language calling for divestment from any company that uses fossil fuels as more than 15% of their portfolio. That's the typical threshold for these kinds of industry scans. I'd also like to expand that, not just Fossil fuel divestment, but those general impact investing targets such as divesting from gambling, alcohol, and tobacco products, weapons manufacturers, and companies actively involved in countries and areas with humanitarian abuses and human rights violations. I think this would be a great opportunity for us to promote broader responsibility and support efforts. As I've talked to other folks involved in 350 and in some of the other cities and towns, I work in Somerville where employee pensions were set to be divested for fossil fuels circa 2014 and have not necessarily been successfully divested. Pensions are separately managed. There's a group called HERAC, I don't know how it's supposed to be pronounced, that has a sort of long-standing prohibition on anything that would limit investments done in these public... What is the name of HERAC? P-E-R-A-C is the organization.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I guess I would generally support what you're saying. I think we should have a conversation about whether or not you want to take on the additional political opposition that's going to come with designating various countries as being abuser of human rights. I'm inclined to say yes, take it on. I think it's not something you should sort of pass by the others seem to me And I'm not telling anybody anything they don't know. I'm just suggesting we shouldn't let that just slip by as something without having a conversation about it.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: And I think what I expect is that, like, I've been hearing that a divestment conversation should be happening. I'd like to see it happen. And if it were to come from me or to come from any other group, we would be supportive of it because of its fossil fuel divestment component. And we may not be the ones to make comments on it. what the UN has decided or the International Court of Justice.
[Barry Ingber]: A little history and question. Probably 10 years ago, we talked about, so some of the old timers would remember, that we talked about divesting pension funds from fossil fuels and other nasty stuff. And I think our conclusion then was that we really wanted it to happen, but we it didn't. feel right to tell city workers what should be done with their pension money, and that we needed to get workers and unions on board first. And at that time, that was plausible. Right now, unions are kind of in a different place than they were then. And we won't go into that. But which money are we talking about?
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: This would be money under the jurisdiction of the treasurer.
[Barry Ingber]: OK.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: So that is like city funds that are invested, which is not the pension funds.
[Barry Ingber]: I wholeheartedly support that. OK. of the bad actors on the world stage.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: There's a conversation to be had in there. Yes.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Absolutely. But I just wanted to start socializing that idea and seeing that if an opportunity came up for people to be supportive of that initiative, that we might be one of those bodies that has some amount of institutional power that we can build to be supportive.
[Robert Paine]: Are there other cities that have done similar ordinances that we can point to?
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Yes. Portland, Maine has a pretty strong one, which is related to divestment from businesses and companies involved in human rights abuses, particularly with regards to Israel and Palestine at the moment. City of Boston has a pretty comprehensive fossil fuel, sort of social impact investing proposal on their books. And there, in Somerville, we have the pension fund divestment program that we're working on.
[Robert Paine]: the city council would probably say, well, show me something that somebody else has done. So we don't have to be the first one to do it.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: I also don't envision us to be the first ones to do anything. I'm just thinking about this in a larger context and kind of like straw-pulling us to be supportive of a sort of broader divestment initiative, especially one that includes fossil fuel divestment. Do we need a legal review of this? I don't think we need anything at the moment.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I don't know much about this topic personally, and I don't know how much our, you know, our finance department would know about this right now or be supportive about it right now, but I think it's really interesting and, you know, if that's something that the city council pursues and this committee wants to sort of speak up in support of, then that would be interesting to find out sort of what that process would be.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Yeah, and I have no illusions about Teamsters 25 being allies in this, so I wouldn't even try.
[Barry Ingber]: It was plausible once.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Great, thanks.
[Lois Grossman]: Good.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right. Any questions, comments, concerns coming from the Zoom side of the world?
[SPEAKER_16]: I see some chats here.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Seeing none, I think they're all from past things. Yeah, seeing none, I'm going to move to our final section for new business.
[SPEAKER_17]: Paul said, perhaps providing options for people for personal finance divestment, as in funds and equities, et cetera, an information sheet on this would help people, which funds, which equities, and so on.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Certainly an interesting additional element, something one can do, especially with pension funds, is just add an option to allow for some funds that are not in the main pool to be in a social index fund. That's what I was able to do in my last public service job. But that's also, I think, a separate but relevant and interesting threat.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Perfect. Seeing nothing else, let's jump to new business. Anything on people's minds, things that we need to be talking about?
[Barry Ingber]: Just another potential speaker is that I was approached by somebody who's interested in a dark skies agenda. And she has a model ordinance that she wants to promote. and was trying to figure out how to get started, and said, well, there isn't any obvious group in the city for you to get started with other than us. So she's, or they, I think they're, they're interested in presenting at our April or May meeting if possible.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes. What you might not know is that your chair was formerly working in planetariums and did astronomy shows in dark sky areas. You've checked a really important box for me. I would love to get their contact info so we can chat. Okay. I will share that with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I miss the dark skies too. We used to have dark sky around here, you know, in pockets here and there, not so much anymore.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I would love to pursue that more. So that's just an excitement for me more than anything that I would love to start pushing on.
[Robert Paine]: A few years ago, we went through an LED lighting replacement that adversely affect dark skies or?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Most of it has to do with just the angling of it. There's like the physical design of the light more than anything, but.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: More directional.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Directional, that's really what counts.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And there is lighting, you know, this dark sky certified. That's reasonable. So that it shines down on your property, not up into the sky.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And we would get a lot of support. I know I had professors at Tufts that worked on Firefly initiatives. And a lot of those revolve around the same principles of conscientious lighting and dark sky proposals.
[Barry Ingber]: So I will put them in touch with you. And in terms of scheduling, wait on that?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. In terms of April or May are probably both good.
[Robert Paine]: April, we have the mayor.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: April, we'll have the mayor chatting, so.
[Robert Paine]: Yeah, we should talk about, what do we do to prepare for the mayor?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: We'd love to prepare for the mayor.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. I mean, I have a question about, excuse me, so you said April 2nd meeting with the mayor, does that mean that we won't have our regular monthly meeting on that Monday? We'll do it on that Tuesday?
[Brenda Pike]: Moving this meeting to Wednesday.
[Barry Ingber]: Okay, I'm just looking at my account.
[SPEAKER_17]: Yes, I was just thinking that we would have a really packed agenda for April. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Brenda Pike]: In terms of the meeting with the mayor, I mean, what I had suggested to her was just for the committee to talk about the projects that you're working on and that you'd like to work on, and for her to talk about some city priorities that she thought would align with what this group is doing.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Right. With the entirety of that agenda.
[Brenda Pike]: I don't think it would be the full hour and a half. I would expect she would be here for half an hour, maybe an hour, I don't know.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I suspect by 7.15 we'll be able to move on to other projects and keep moving. But it would be great, perhaps folks that are working towards a project, I'm looking at like Prabipa, Benji, Lois, Loretta, maybe we can discuss putting together a little slide deck or something of that like so that we can organize our thoughts and make sure we're conscientious of our time allotments.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, it'd be really interesting for Josh for you to float that idea as well.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And if anyone else feels strongly and has words the mayor needs to hear, by all means, we should
[Robert Paine]: Maybe she circulate a draft slide deck before the meetings. Yes. That would be good. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_16]: Yeah. And we can bury you are working on a solar project for a little while now.
[Barry Ingber]: I think that we've been working on it for quite a while, but we've also not been working on it since the summer, and certainly not since the election. So, I mean, my head's in a completely different space right now.
[SPEAKER_17]: Okay, so it would be something useful to discuss with you at this point.
[Barry Ingber]: No, I don't think that it would, I don't think it's useful until we've actually ironed out the wrinkles that we haven't figured out like legality.
[Robert Paine]: I was going to say if there are any state climate bill issues that the mayor should be, we should be lobbying our legislators on. I don't know if there's any such thing, but we should maybe put that on the table. Are we aware of any issues other than reforestation?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, I do have a new business thing. So at previous meetings, I was talking about rodenticide poisoning for wildlife. So I did get a message and I'm going to email it to Brenda that apparently there's a bill that was written to be in the use of SCARS rodenticide poisoning. And I have to look that up. There's been a lot going on. So I will find it and send it to Brenda and ask her to email it to you guys. members share it with you so you can see where it's coming up and that we can write our legislature body to support the bill.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, would you, sorry, for the redundant side, would you like to discuss it with the mayor as well. Would you like to put that into a slide deck piece as well? Or should we just save some time next session?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Let me get back to you on that. It may have already happened. I know I got it like a week and a half ago. Yeah. There was just a lot of other meetings. So I have to look it up and see. where this bill is at and who sent the email, who sent the notification. It might've been a Facebook call. There's so many cities and wildlife rehabbers that are sharing this, but I just have to vet the information. So I'll get back to you.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Okay, yeah, just keep us in the loop, because that's something I would like to follow. All right. All right, we're looking at two-ish more minutes. Anything else? Good for the order, good for the group.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Not really enough time to talk about that existential question that we were emailing about earlier this week, but maybe worthwhile to talk about.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, about the purpose of this. I mean, I think that might be a useful thing just to chat with the mayor about as well. From my perspective, and I think according to sort of the mission of this group, it's kind of twofold. One is to advise the city on environmental issues, and the other is to do outreach to residents. And so I think both of those things, it's kind of as, it's what you make of it, right? So if you want to be more active, then you can be more influential there.
[Barry Ingber]: I can't remember if I sent my email to the whole group, but I mean, I think that my argument is in addition to those things, it's a launching pad for other stuff.
[Robert Paine]: We can see if the mayor wants to change our mission.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think the big goal I'd love to see from the conversation with the mayor is just to see where we can find alignment and be as useful and directed as possible. Because I think we can plan a lot of things, and I'd love to make sure they're in alignment.
[Barry Ingber]: I think there's a lot of expertise on this. body, like more than there is in most bodies in the city. And that the mayor probably is not aware of that. And I think that the number of scientists and engineers and architects in this group, and lawyers, I mean, it's, it's like, it's impressive. And I think it would it might give us more clout to make her aware of that.
[Brenda Pike]: It might be a good idea to just go around and have folks just briefly introduce themselves and sort of their background.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And brag in this context. Permission granted to brag.
[Robert Paine]: Make sure our agenda list is up to date as best as possible. Our bios, little bio sketches, pictures and all that stuff.
[Brenda Pike]: I mean, I know members of this group have sort of represented the city at things officially in the past. I think Alicia had Luke go to some sort of statewide meetings for her at one point. And I think that's happened with some others of you as well in the past. So yeah, a lot of expertise here.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: But yeah, I think it'll be important next month to represent ourselves well. And we'll show off a little and make sure that we're being used as well as just kind of making our own path.
[Barry Ingber]: Actually, maybe Brenda, well, whoever is doing the introductions, probably you will. But if it's Brenda beforehand. to prep her for, this is a very high power group. We want you to know that.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Looking at the clock, do we have any final motions? You're adjourned. I can take that. Of any opposed? Seeing none, let's get out of here. I will see you all April 2nd.