[Kathleen McKenna]: Recording in progress.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All righty. Good evening, everybody. It was a close call, but now we are ready. We're raring to go. Full power. Let's start with a quick roll call, followed by maybe a discussion of the minutes, but I'll just run down this nice and quick. Josh, are you here? Just barely. Perfect. Lois? I see in the chat at least, so I'm going to... I'm here.
[Lois Grossman]: I just can't. I'm having trouble unmuting.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Perfect. Benji is not present. Barry told us he was not going to make it. Loretta? Here. Kathleen? Here. Luke is not here yet, but I heard tell that he might join us a little later.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Resend.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Dan, it's not on my list. Bob? Yes. Jessica?
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: John, I'm not seeing him here. Will is here, and I'm not seeing Paul. But with eight, we have quorum. Did everyone get a chance to review the minutes? And does anyone feel strongly about them?
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: I feel strongly about motioning to approve the minutes, unless anyone feels otherwise.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Second. Second. Perfect. All right, let's run down this one right quick. All right, in favor of accepting the minutes, Josh? Yes. Lois? Yes. Perfect. Yes. Kathleen.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Will is a yes as well, brings us to a perfect unanimous eight on accepting limits. Let's get started. First important order of business. Brenda brought up the fact that November 4th is election day. do we feel comfortable having our meeting the night before? Or do people have big plans and need to rest up beforehand? Should we have our meeting on November 3rd or the 10th?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I like the 10th. Are you taking a poll?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay, so I'll de-advocate for the 10th. Is there a holiday the next day? Oh.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: On the 10th, I don't think anything.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, I mean.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Veterans Day is the 11th.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay.
[Robert Paine]: That's still okay. Bob, I think it would be nice to know the results of the election for city council to see what our political climate is for planning purposes. So I think the 10th would be advantageous in that respect.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: And then our meeting runs long, I cut the day off the next day. So it works out nicely.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Spirit. Any other strong emotions one way or the next?
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: And this good.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Great.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Loretta, you had mentioned the third. Are we OK with the 10th? should be able to work. Or no, you mentioned it was when Mary wanted the 30.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I had mentioned maybe the 10th. I didn't realize.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think everyone present wants the 10th. I think I'm going to set that as the official date for next month.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I was just concerned when I saw the holiday that people might be going away for that long holiday weekend. But if everybody says the 10th, that's fine with me.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: So it shall be done. I'll see you all on the 10th. All right. Now I'm going to hand it off to Brenda for all the good news.
[Robert Paine]: There's another date, the December date, and the issue there is December 1 is right after the Thanksgiving weekend, and we'll sort of be zonked out.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Oh. I'm looking at my calendar. December. Oh.
[Robert Paine]: Anyway, my reaction was, oh gee, I don't know if I'll be ready, because I'll just be decompressing from a 48 weekend.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: That's very fair. I don't know if we want to decide that right now, or just mold that over with that understanding in the back of our brains.
[Lois Grossman]: Okay.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right. Sounds good. All righty. I'm going to throw it over to Brenda. Administrative and city updates.
[Brenda Pike]: OK. No administrative updates this time. And for the city updates, I have a slideshow, actually, this time, because we have some visuals that I thought would be helpful. Can you see my screen?
[Unidentified]: Yes, looks good. Great.
[Brenda Pike]: Okay, so the first thing I have is events. So we've had a lot of events so far in September and the beginning of October. And then we have a bunch more coming up. Fall is very event heavy. But the next few are the Hispanic Heritage Month event coming up this Saturday. and then obviously Harvest Your Energy the following Saturday. And then in a couple of weeks after that, we'll have the Pumpkin Smash at the McGlynn School. And then later in November, the winter preparedness event at City Hall where they give out lots of coats and things like that and have lots of organizations on hand to help people who need more assistance. And then I wanted to mention that each member of the City of the Climate Equity Council is planning a climate change event for their focus area. So one of them did bingo, the bingo and ice cream social at the senior center with climate trivia questions. And then another one did sort of a, you know, more age appropriate questions with some of the middle school students at the Canoe Mobile event. And then they're planning an energy bill checkup event with National Grid and ABCD in attendance so they can help people right on the spot with any issues with their bills. They're planning an induction cooktop demonstration and an event at the West Medford Community Center. So the last three things we don't have any clear details on yet. The energy bill checkup event might be the seventh at the library, but we haven't gotten confirmation from everybody participating in that yet. But I know some folks from this group had said that you wanted, you'd be interested in tabling at more events. So if there are, if I've ever highlighted an event coming up that you would be interested in having an energy committee table at, definitely let me know and I can help you connect with the right people for that. Josh, did you have something?
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Yeah, I just, If these are being primarily facilitated by the Climate Equity Council, I would love to be on hand as additional sets of hands to co-work on those with them. I think that'd be a great opportunity to reconnect our committees.
[Brenda Pike]: That's great. I will include you in the email chains then as we're talking about them. Luke, did you have?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yes. Thanks, Brenda. And sorry, I'm a little late. But the last few, if there is a date for any of those, the energy bill checkup, induction cooktop demonstration, and whatever might be happening at West Medford Community Center, I might be able to attend one or something of those, but I would I would be interested in helping out at one or another.
[Brenda Pike]: That's great. Yeah. As they get planned, I'll give people a heads up what the date and time will be.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I'd also like to jump in very quickly. One, definitely keep us connected with Climate Equity Council. I think it's silly that we don't talk as much as we should. We should. Yeah, it should be like this. The other side of it is, I believe October 18th that morning is the Junk in the Trunk I was going to call it a festival. The event, Chunk in the Trunk, will be hosted by City Hall. I believe it runs like 10 to 11.30 or something. But just another everything is free type event. Would recommend people stop by, maybe even on their way to the Harvest Energy Festival.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Was it on the 18th, you said?
[Brenda Pike]: I question whether that's true, because I think Teresa DuPont in my office organizes it.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: She has fully stepped out of it.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, I didn't realize, okay.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, this is now being planned solely by some of the old guard that just love Junk in the Trunk so darn much. And I've been on their email chain, so I hear every little detail. And it means that it's been a hard road, but they're super stoked to have it. So celebrate the thing that almost never happened.
[Lois Grossman]: When is it, Will?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It'll be the morning of the 18th, October 18th, over by City Hall, I believe 1030.
[Lois Grossman]: October 18th?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes.
[Lois Grossman]: Like in two weeks?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yep. They've been accepting vendors for a while, but of course, you stop by and things are free. So come by, I believe it's 10 to 1130. over by City Hall. And I'll probably bike over there, check things out, and then keep biking over to the Harvester Energy Fest. It'll be one swift, perfect movement.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Well, you can't take any stuff if you're going to bike.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I'll bring a backpack. We'll make it happen.
[Brenda Pike]: Okay, so moving on to EV charging stations, we're still waiting for National Grid to connect the station at the West Medford parking lot. The new date we've been given by them is October 8th, so we'll see on Wednesday if that actually happens or if we get pushed out again. Um, and then, um, when we had the traffic commission meeting for the, um, on street chargers, um, residents, some residents at a couple of the locations, um, uh, we're not happy with having the chargers there. So, um, we were sort of rethinking those. and sort of combining the two charging stations at one location. And we're currently looking at 200 Boston Ave for that new location there. So that's going to be at the traffic commission meeting next Tuesday that we'll be talking about that one.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Did they say what they didn't like?
[Brenda Pike]: For the most part, it sounded like they were worried that people from outside of their neighborhood would be coming into their neighborhood to use them. Nobody who spoke at the traffic commission meeting actually parked on the street, but they were concerned that when they had visitors, their visitors wouldn't be able to park.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: It's two spots, right?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, two spots. Okay.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yep. Just check it. Just check it.
[Brenda Pike]: Yep. Well, the problem is with these sorts of meetings, the people who are against something tend to show up and the people who support it tend not to.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Is there a check off box that just says against change? I'm sorry, I'm being... So anyway.
[Brenda Pike]: Yep. So hopefully 200 Boston Ave, it's between the two locations. It's not in as much of a residential neighborhood. So maybe it will be more acceptable to people.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Now, I know that like for at my work, we have chargers for charging vehicles and there's a $20 fine for parking a half an hour past when you're fully charged. Are these charges on that same system?
[Brenda Pike]: No, they're not, but there's a $1 per hour charge if you stay past four hours.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Okay, yeah. So yeah, and that's the other thing is four hours, four hours or completely charged. And yeah, I think you can set those because what they didn't want is they didn't want people to be, you know, cause there's like 2000 people that work where I work and they didn't want people, you know, clogging up the chargers. They want to be able to rotate them. So.
[Brenda Pike]: Yep, exactly. We had a problem at one point with people just parking their car there and being fully charged and then leaving it for 24 hours more or something like that. So that was why we added that additional fee. Yeah. Yep. Moving on to Electrify Medford, we've had 202 signups so far, and we've coached 99 people. We're in, and we haven't had an update on the actions taken for a little while since I need to reach back out to the folks we haven't heard from. But we're in the process of a legal review of the MOU for Mass Saves Community First Partnership grant. still having issues with the data sharing aspect of it and how that intersects with public records law for municipalities. So still working on that. And then the Main Streets Program for Small Business Energy Efficiency will start at the end of October. So we'll have a kickoff event for that. Sorry, double checking when that kickoff event will be, I just found out about that today. OK, the kickoff event for that there. So they're going to be talking about it at Harvester Energy Festival. They're going to do a coffee hour with businesses. But the official kickoff event is actually happening November six at City Hall. And then they're going to be going out to the Medford Square first and going to the businesses there. And then over the next week or so, going out to the different squares and talking to businesses. The Andrews and McGlynn HVAC project. So the re-graining of the plazas at the front entrances and the kindergarten roof leak repair have all been completed. And they're diving into the actual HVAC part of this now. So the construction is going to continue through the summer of 2026 with the disruptive work happening on non-school days and evenings. And then the cooling system replacement will actually start October 15th. Um, when they officially turn off the, the cooling system, and then he, the backup heating system replacement is going to start May 15th when we're outside of the heating season. And then the McGlynn roof refurbishment will happen after that age for that work is done. So, summer of 2026. And then just the schedule for our solar projects that we're planning, the car park solar, that's going to start this fall or winter and finish early in 2026. Andrews will start the summer of 2026. And then, like I said, and then after the McGlynn roof refurbishment is done, the solar will be installed there in the fall or winter of 2026. And we are working on a power purchase agreement for the McGlynn solar now, because if we sign it by the end of the year, it'll be eligible for tax credits. And we're hiring a consultant to help apply for tax credits for the new EVs and solar projects. So the car park, the Andrew School, and the two EVs that we have gotten this year are estimated to total over $250,000 in tax credits. So we want to make sure that we are dotting our I's and crossing our T's for that. Um, 1 thing that I wanted to mention is that, um, our streetlight management vendor, uh, their, their streetlight business, their, their. either selling that off or that's going out of business. So we're looking into options to integrate our technology that we have right now into a new software platform. And we've been talking with a new vendor about that. But if anybody who works in this field has any insight into other vendors that we can be talking with. Yeah. Well, okay. I'll follow up with you, Will. And then Green and Open Somerville is looking to partner on an MVP grant application for deep paving projects, a regional deep paving project. So I'm actually talking with them. uh, Wednesday with them and Malden, um, to try to, to start that off. And if you are interested in being involved with this, I think they would, they would love to have the energy committee's involvement in it. Um, and they won't be able to make it to the harvest your energy festival, but they sent along some materials. So if you'd be willing to have that at the energy committee table, we could do that too.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: I'm totally a fan of having the info at our table.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, sounds great. Great. They've already done a couple of depaving projects here in Medford, but they've mostly been focusing on Somerville so far. So it would be cool to partner with Medford residents.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I know it specifies Somerville. Do Medford residents benefit from the same free movement of things and free labor
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, yeah, it's exactly the same the same project model.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, right.
[Brenda Pike]: And then I wanted to give you just a quick overview of our greenhouse gas inventory. So we, I submitted the last this year's inventory towards the end of September. And this gives you a little snapshot of. sort of how our emissions have trended over the last few years. I think our first inventory was actually 2017, but I kind of question the data.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Brenda, I'm sorry, I think I'm just seeing Benji's email. Is he in the waiting room? Is he? Or maybe he's in the wrong link and I can just send him the right link. I don't see him in the waiting room. OK, don't worry. I'll just send him another link. Sorry, sorry to disturb.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: You know what? So when you sent out the agenda at the bottom, one of the emails, there's a link to the city council meeting tomorrow. I clicked on that first too. I'm like, what's going on?
[Brenda Pike]: And that was the city council meeting that was last week, I think, right? Because that's when I sent out.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it was one on the deep paving.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, I just emailed him the link. Great, thank you.
[Brenda Pike]: But yeah, so I think 2017 was the first year that we did an inventory, but the data is a little questionable there. It's suspiciously low. So I'm starting here with 2018 data. And that's when we started using the MAPC. We got assistance from MAPC for the project and started using their tool that we're still using today. And the biggest decrease I would say I've seen in this is in the building emissions. And that data we get directly from National Grid for community-wide emissions. So that's pretty trustworthy data. And it's not just that the electric grid, for instance, has gotten a lot more, has had a lot more renewables come onto it. There's actually a reduction in energy use, both on the electricity side and the gas side too. So that was really heartening data to see. The transportation numbers. have not dropped quite as much. I think we've seen a drop of like 4%. So that's definitely an area to focus in on more in the future. And transportation is not as large of a portion of our greenhouse gas emissions community-wide as buildings, but still a really big area to focus on.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Here we have Benji.
[Robert Paine]: Brenda, what's the population of infrared? Is that held steady, or has it increased or decreased, do we know?
[Brenda Pike]: It has increased. So it's at 58,000 something, closer to 59,000 maybe at this point.
[Robert Paine]: All right, so the per person consumption has gone down even more.
[Brenda Pike]: Yes, yeah. And then this is just a little bit more digging into the data there. Breaking out the municipal emissions from the total. So the municipal emissions are included in the total on the top there, but then we just broke them out separately to show them.
[Lois Grossman]: It's hard to read the numbers. Could you give us your sense of
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, so municipal emissions has definitely dropped a lot for the building level. We've seen a 20% plus reduction in emissions. Transportation shows a big drop this year, but I question that data. MAPC changed the way that their tool was calculating that this year, and I think that's really the source of that change and not actually anything that changed on our part significantly, although we have been Over the years, we've been doing more hybrids and things like that. But at the same time, I think we've also been adding more vehicles too. So I think that municipal vehicle number is suspicious there.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: If I may say, it also shows railways as a significant, it's relatively stable over four years and then drops by 2,000 plus.
[Brenda Pike]: Yep. The MAPC tool changed the way that it calculated those as well. So now it's only calculating the MBTA emissions from lines that actually go through Medford. So I think it is under-representing if Medford residents are using other forms of transportation in the city, if they change lines at some point.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: May I ask, is the stationary energy, just to clarify on Bob's point, residential buildings includes all residences? This is all buildings in Medford, or is this municipally managed and whatever?
[Brenda Pike]: So the middle section, that's just municipal. But the top and the bottom here, where it says stationary energy, that includes everything community-wide.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: OK, great. Thank you.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yeah, one would have thought that during COVID, you would have seen a rise in community energy, everyone at home. It's interesting.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, that's a really good point.
[Robert Paine]: There doesn't seem to be a drop in transportation, though. It probably rebounded after everyone got... Not very significant.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: It's not very noticeable, actually. Neither the drop nor the increase from...
[Brenda Pike]: Well, so the transportation number is 1 of the, this is a data issue. Um, the statewide, uh, transportation data, um, didn't, we didn't have an update from that from, I think. 2014 to 2021, or something like that. So, um, there's not a. The year-by-year data for many things other than the national grid data, I would say I would be very skeptical at looking at each individual year and comparing it to the previous year or the following year, just because there's sometimes lags and when we get updates to data sources. But the national grid, the building, the stationary energy data, that's very reliable.
[Lois Grossman]: no matter what else, it's clear that things are getting better, not worse.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's true.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I mean, is it getting better at the rate that we need it to? That's the question, but it is getting better. That's a good thing.
[Lois Grossman]: I mean, change takes a long time. We're talking about changing people's behaviors. at personal and community and statewide levels. But it's the first good news I've heard in quite a while, Brenda. It's encouraging.
[Kathleen McKenna]: That's great.
[Brenda Pike]: So I think that's all that I have for my updates. Let me stop sharing.
[Robert Paine]: Brenda, this is Bob. What's the status of the flipper ship connector?
[Brenda Pike]: So the section between Medford Square and the Andrews School is open.
[Robert Paine]: Okay, because I don't think there was like a ribbon-cutting ceremony or anything.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony. And there was a community bike ride that went through to celebrate it.
[Robert Paine]: Must have missed it. Okay.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Well, good. It's a really smooth ride. I highly recommend it, Bob.
[Robert Paine]: All right, good.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I had a question for Will and Brenda. I don't know, I can't remember seeing the agenda before it was finalized. And I know that you had sent it to the city council, the letter about municipal funding. And I was curious if there was any, if you've watched the city council meeting, any updates on that? I think you and Barry worked on it, Will.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh, the electrical equity consumer watchdog letter. Yes, I submitted those a little over a week ago. I have not heard anything back, but I sent them out to our various reps and senators. I just got a huge list from Barry of who to send it to, and I just made sure everyone got a copy.
[Brenda Pike]: Was that the, Loretta, were you asking about the electric suppliers letter or about the divestment?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Now I'm confused because they talked about it at the city council meeting.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh, that might be divestment.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I thought it was a divestment letter that- Yeah, divestment was sent out months ago. Okay, so that was discussed.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, and there were votes on it back in August.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: At the city council meeting last week, they moved it through the third reading. So it's in 10 Mayors.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right, it was very interesting. It was interesting to watch. So that was the divestment letter. Yes. I thought you'd like to give an update, but thank you.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No, I appreciate that update.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: It was interesting hearing all the different comments and if you can watch the replay, it wasn't worth it because they stood up for passing it through to the next reading.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: And last week's discussion is much shorter than the previous 2 meetings where it was discussed a little more dejectable that definitely that definitely makes it a little more appetizing.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: That'll be that's great. So, Brenda, that's it for city updates.
[Brenda Pike]: Yes, it is.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Alrighty. In that case, I don't want to take too much time on this, but I would love to devote a little bit of time to the Harvest Your Energy Festival. In years prior, it has been me all on my lonesome, and I know some of you table other events and do other things and live busy lives. I'd like to do less than three hours of tabling. So I'd love to get some partners to either keep me company or explore the space with me. So I'd love to send out that humble request to get some tabling buddies for the Harvester Energy Festival.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: I'll be there.
[Lois Grossman]: We'll be happy to. When do you? When do we start?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I believe it's 12 to three.
[Lois Grossman]: 12 to three. Last year, I remember I was there at like 10 o'clock helping to direct traffic and all, and was so exhausted by the time we started.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, and that's the other side of it is we have so many other things we do.
[Lois Grossman]: Why don't you count on me to be there at 12 with you from 12 to three? I can sit still for three hours without any trouble.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: This will hopefully be the easier part of your day.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: I'll be there for a bit too, Will.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Okay, phenomenal. And it looks like we just got a Qualtrics survey put in chat here.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, so the survey is for helping to volunteer for other parts of the festival. So I know, Will, you're talking about actually tabling with the Energy Committee. But if you want to help direct traffic to recycling.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Setting up the tables is a Herculean feat.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: So I usually do the traffic. That's something I've just done for year after year after year. So I can sign up for that. So.
[Brenda Pike]: Thank you. I know that gets really complicated except for a long time with people trying to get to the recycling. Right.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, depending on where I'm at, you know, at the festival, I plan to be there again this year. I'll pop in and relieve you at times.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: But they'd already sent out that survey. So I'm not sure if they're going to place me somewhere. But, you know.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: If you find you have an open 45 minutes, I would love to grab lunch and would love to grab a moment of stretching my legs.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. Do you have all the materials? Like we usually have a mix of things that we put on the table.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. I think the other side of it is we are making a pretty substantial list of things to just be handing out. It seems like we're going to be a flyer-heavy table. I think we put together a pretty substantial list a few sessions ago. And every time I look at it, it gets a little longer. So I'll be probably emailing Brenda in the next day or two to see what we can collect and make sure we have it all.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Don't forget to bring rocks. So many rocks.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No, I got so many paperweights. I even got a little anvil just to make sure we stay locked down.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, the reason I asked is I probably still have a huge folder of all the printouts and invasive plants and what to plant and tree information, all kinds of stuff. So I might just bring it. And if you need it, you need it. And if you don't, you don't.
[Brenda Pike]: Loretta, do you want to bring that in and just drop those off in our office so that we can get an idea of what we have ahead of time and what we might need to print out? OK.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I don't know. I didn't know he had a list already. I'll see what I have, because every year, except the last year I did that, so I might be low. So I'll have to dig it out.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I have a list of topics that people have expressed that they want to be showcased as what we do or what we're about. It doesn't mean I necessarily have a flyer ready for it yet. So if you have something we can photocopy or something we can work with.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I don't know if I have that, but I have a lot on trees and invasive plants. and rodent control, because I had worked on that previously with the health department, how to help prevent it from your property. Yeah, I know I still have those. So yeah, I'll drop them off to Brenda's office.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Phenomenal.
[Lois Grossman]: OK. Are we doing anything kid-friendly, Will?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Not to my knowledge.
[Lois Grossman]: We could get green candy.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: yeah seriously yeah i'll um green gumdrops you know wrapped candy go green do you want that that hand crank um led incandescent um thing or is that kind of i don't mind it it's not okay I mean, it's so old. It's like 12 years old now, and everybody's using LEDs, but I think it's the crank aspect of it that might be... It definitely gets people here, and that sometimes is a big winner.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Okay. Yeah, I will look into potential handouts and things that might entice folks over. And of course, email me if you have a thought in the middle of the night, something that comes up. I know I will be talking about some black plastic readings that you guys have put together. I'll make sure that that has a place of honor. We'll talk about our zero waste initiatives and things like that. showcase the fact that we've actually been working really hard this year. And I want to celebrate that, celebrate us a little bit for doing such a good job.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I got I reached out to a new exhibitor, if you want to hear about it. Briefly, it has to do with the zero waste idea. And we talked about this just briefly at the end of the last meeting. So the company named Sobago, they're located in Melrose, and they recycle thin film plastic. And they actually, the owner's name is Dave New, so he's going to be tabling at the festival table. He said he will collect thin film plastic.
[Kathleen McKenna]: That includes... Oh, fantastic.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, so that includes... You know, the bubble mailers we get, like, from Amazon packages, and the thin plastic envelopes we get from, so that's really cool. That could be also, in case anybody's listening to this meeting, besides us, that could be, you know, the plastic from toilet paper packages, paper towels, vegetable bags, you know, but they can't have the paper tag on them, so you have to remove them. So what he has is a machine that you can buy for your home and it compresses, it's a small machine, it compresses the plastic so you can push all the plastic into the machine, push the button, close the lid, push the button, it compresses it into a disc, a small disc like a puck. And what you do with the boxes that he has drop off locations there's two and one is with help see it's sort of a pilot program so there's a box for helps to drop off at the school on Main Street. I'm trying to think, the Curtis Tufts High School, I think it's called, on Main Street, but also at Whole Foods in Medford. And he picks them up. So he'll be demonstrating at the festival. And what happens, he picks up the pucks, and then he sends them off to companies that can use them in their products.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh, fantastic. Yeah, it'll be good to... I always like knowing who's tabling, so it'll be good to point folks in all the good directions.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: If you have any of that type of plastic, consider bringing it maybe to the supermarket or God knows what they do with it. You might want to, you know, save it for the festival and bring it over to his table.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: And Loretta, can you just repeat the name of that? OBAGGO.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: O-B-A-G-G-O.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Awesome.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And the other company I was looking at was Ridwell, but that's out of California and they have a big campaign. They are, you know, having events. Will had mentioned that at the last meeting. And what they do is pick up from your home, you contact them and you have a contract with them, but they pick up clothing, all kinds of things, plus plastic. And they charge you also, you know, for the pickup. And the plan is like 17 a month and up, depending on how many items you want to recycle. But we already have some of that in management. I thought this little machine was interesting that he has produced at Obago for home use.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: So it'll be great to see it in action.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, he does events. He did, what is it called? God, my mind is blank. The event on the Charles River, the head of the Charles, something like that. And he had a team there and they collected tons of plastic after the event. I'm not saying he's going to do that. This will be his first time at this festival. I just heard about this. So he'll be showing his products.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Loretta, so the machine just makes it recyclable? Is that what the machine does? And then you can put it in your recycle?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: The machine, you stuff your plastic into this little machine, it compresses it, it makes a puck, and then you drop it off, you know. And then he picks them up. So yeah, or he's hoping to get in areas with more high demand in the future, drop off boxes just with his company name on it. But now he has the pilot programs with retailers.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm actually looking at the website right now.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, me too.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it looks like it's about the size of a coffee maker and it looks like it heats up the plastic and kind of melts it into... Yeah, and then it compresses it.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Right. And that's why I thought, oh, maybe we could recycle it after that.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. So Trex is one of the companies that, you know, makes products, the flooring, the Trex and furniture makers and other people. And there was, I think when he did the head of the child, that's what it's called. I remember seeing something about Market Basket actually helped pick up all the bags of plastic and sent them over to Trex or something like that, or maybe to his company, I don't know, something like that. But it's interesting that they have that option for now anyways. including all those plastic bags that they might get.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: In the About Us section, he does talk about the goal of having it be accepted as a densified plastic for curbside recycling. But at the moment, that may not be accepted. It is a different material, I guess. Well, they're both foods. It's good.
[Lois Grossman]: Yeah. Whole Foods does take it, and has all along.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Oh, so this, you can then drop it off at Whole Foods?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: OK.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, you can take the pucks, you know, the pressed plastic hockey puck kind of thing that's densely packed and drop it off at Whole Foods in Medford.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: That's good to know.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Or the Helpsie bin in front of the school that I had mentioned, Helpsie Material Recycling at the, I think it's the Curtis Tufts School on Main Street, South Medford. So there should be a bin outside there somewhere on the property.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Fantastic. And we'll pick his brain on Saturday.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right. So yeah, I hope to see most if not all of you at Harvest Your Energy at least a little bit. And we'll show off a little bit and enjoy all the cool stuff going on. Um, next on the list here, uh, many of you are asking about getting our Medford Climate Action Plan, uh, in a way that we can monitor and look at ourselves, uh, just to be a sort of third party that's observing and making sure we are on track to do things, uh, correctly. and at a pace that is perhaps correct and right for what we're trying to do. And I guess it took a little bit of digging, but Brenda was able to find a copy that we are allowed to play with. So what I can do is I can share my screen, but I'd love to have Brenda give a little pitch as to what we are and aren't allowed to do, just to be sure we're following the rules correctly.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Can't see the screen yet.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yep, iOS channels. All right, you should see a really empty looking Excel spreadsheet to start. Yep. So I can give a quick overview of what we do have, which is basically it's broken down into these sections down at the bottom. the overarching goal, but then more importantly, section by section here. We have things ranging from buildings and energy, which have a string of objectives, ranging from retrofits to renewable energy systems, some of which we are on track to do and some of which we maybe haven't started. But you can see these updates have not really been updated. which I think is where we can come in and discuss where we think we are, how much effort we think is best employed from us and our group and where interests lie. But you can see we got transportation, buildings and energy, ecosystems, and the natural environment, including work of tree canopy preservation that we've already touched on, but then also some stormwater infrastructure that maybe we don't touch nearly as much. And then issues of public health. Because as we know, all these things are interconnected, interrelated. So it's great to have these issues of equity also intertwined and tangled with all the things we need to be doing. I believe this was sent out to everyone with the agenda. So everyone has access to this, and it might make sense to have one shared copy that we can continuously update. So I might import this into a Google Doc that would allow for live edits. But the general idea is, as it was pitched to me at least by some of you, to have this as a potential project for a committee. One that as we see areas of interest that we are passionate about, things that we care about, or hear about projects that we think constitute success, or at least a substantial milestone towards some of these objectives, we can make notes. And we use this as a tool to remind ourselves and remind our legislators how far we're going and what still needs to get done.
[Brenda Pike]: Um, but yeah, I was going to say, do you think that it would be useful if we set aside a portion of each meeting for the next few months to just go through a section of this? Um, maybe not an entire tab at a time because I have been I do have a version of this where there are where I do have some notes in the update section. It just wasn't ready for public consumption yet. So I just gave you guys the blank one right now. But we could, you know, go through and talk about each one in turn and where we think we are and what what info we need to find out.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Miranda, so on that note, I have a question. So I understand that what version you're working on right now is not ready for public consumption. But how can we reduce redundancy? Because if you've already input some information, do you have any thoughts on how we could avoid redundancy and really just focus our time and energy on something? very, you know, there's a gap.
[Brenda Pike]: Well, that's why I was suggesting maybe focusing on a certain section each time that we're we're meeting, because then I can, you know, make sure that I'm running by anything that we're going to be talking about past, you know, Alicia or the mayor if I needed to. So then for each section, we could be confident that we could we could talk in detail about these things. And I would add that the contacts that I have in here, I think they're up to date. Um, as I've been going through and talking with people, um, these are the folks that I've been, uh, directed to, but it could be as we go along and we, we follow up, uh, for more information with some of them that those will change.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: And are all these contacts city staff people, or some of them like committee folks or.
[Brenda Pike]: I believe they're all city staff people. So I don't think that anybody outside of the city was identified as the lead or the city steward for a particular strategy. Although that was something Josh and I were actually in a meeting about lead for cities last week. And I think that might be a useful thing to do to sort of to help to track our progress and document that and have it certified before we move along to the next action plan update. And so there is a process that I'll be going through that will last for probably much of next year, it sounds like, the whole cohort model that they're using to do that. So this could help feed into the data we'd be collecting for that and getting certified. But one of the interesting things about that was that I think it was that, or it was a representative city that they were using as an example for that. They were talking about each strategy having both a city staff lead and a community member lead, whether it's a nonprofit that's working on the subject or whatever. And I thought that was a really interesting thing, having the sort of the marriage between the two.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, that sounds cool.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: So I guess, first and foremost, I'd like to open it up for a brief discussion. Just how do we feel about this, what could be potentially a substantial undertaking? it would mean using a bit more of our time to do a little more research and compile sources and be something of a check on all the things that go on. Is that a project that we as a full committee would like to undertake or as maybe a smaller subset of us, depending on wants and ability?
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: I think it would be cool to do this because I know a lot of us have passions and projects, but also matching it up with having a yardstick, if you will, and really putting it back on to contributing to the goals of the city for sustainability, greener space. I think that would be motivating.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: I'm a big fan of this. Oh, Luke, please.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Sorry, thank you. Sorry, Josh. I am in agreement that it is very much in line with our kind of our charter, this work. And if we can be helpful to the city, this is a good effort that can help support the community and the city's goals. And perhaps through focusing on a few of these items, we can also better understand or better prepare to provide more information to the community as well on these topics.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: I think for me as a new member, this exercise will really help inform me as to the state of affairs and what opportunities there are for celebrating all the progress that Brenda gives us updates on every month, how we really are doing a lot of work and figuring out where our support as a volunteer group of experts will be valuable. Luke, to your note on how this would be helpful, I think it'd be worth us thinking about not just, can it go deeper than an update? What is a unifying set of questions we ask or data that we're looking to gather so we can really strategically get to the bottom of each of these action items?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: The one concern is I'm on too many committees now. And this is reminding me of the current messages building codes. There is a lot here. Each of these topics could be a deep dive. Obviously there's a limited amount of time and so understanding kind of how much effort we're going to put in and over what period would be important. So to Brenda's point again, focusing on one section and kind of tackling that would be helpful I think. and then working our way to the next, maybe we can prioritize which sections we want to focus on first too.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, it feels like something that perhaps as we choose to take on, Brenda, we can discuss which objectives need to be looked at. But I mean, looking at some of these are much easier to parse than others, to Luke's point. I could imagine, I don't know, I'm looking at launching a cool Medford outreach campaign. Either it's done or it isn't. And we can just Google it to know if it happens. That will take about 12 seconds. But then you have some where it's, you know, how do we tabulate the extensive amounts of buildings that have or don't have solar and this, you know.
[Brenda Pike]: I don't think anything is as cut and dry as it might seem. So, for instance, the cool Medford outreach campaign, I don't think there is a large outreach process that's happening directly to residents right now about that. There has been a lot of work done with non-profit partners and getting them cooling kits and educating them about things like that so that they can then help to, especially at events that they're doing, get word out to people. So I think there's nuances to all of this that unfortunately is going to take some time.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: But if this is something that we choose to pursue, which it sounds like people seem to already be at least in agreement that it's an important thing to be thinking and talking about, I can do some brainstorming along with Brenda to see how to do it in a way that feels manageable and respectful of the amount of time it would probably take. So I want to be mindful of all the time we have and do not have. But knowing this, I'm ready to go forward and start pestering Brenda all about it and see if we can make this into a formal activity for our meetings.
[Brenda Pike]: I think this will be really helpful too, because I could continue collecting data for this forever. And so having something that's more public like this, that is more sort of putting a pin on things as we talk through them will be really helpful.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: As a side note, it could also be something that can and probably should be publicized. As we get a new check mark, maybe after a meeting, I can post it onto social media and say, look, our bar just got a little bit bigger. Things are looking a little bit cleaner, a little bit greener. Check it out. And then it gets to showcase that people are thinking about this and that Medford's making progress that a lot of people maybe aren't seeing day to day.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: I really love this piece a lot more because it also involves community engagement, right? Yeah. All for it.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: I'm looking at the magnitude of the task, looking at this, the, uh, on the, on the sidebar, it looks like you've moved down the sheet, like 1% or 2%. How deep does this go? Does this just keep going? No, it's not that bad. Not terribly. They, they put down... They copied and pasted. Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: They have a thousand and one rows, but most of them aren't used.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Thankfully.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No, I've scrolled to the bottom of each page just over the course of us talking. And there's, there's no more than three objectives per section. Yeah. Okay.
[Lois Grossman]: Will?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes.
[Lois Grossman]: Could you print out a copy of that and bring it to the table? And maybe we can spend some time looking at it. Oh, I think that's a great idea. And other people in the group can come by and look at it. We have some time that we won't be engaged directly with the public. We can engage indirectly with the public by doing that.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: It's interesting, but just maybe even just an informal inventory of the tables at the event might help inform you to see where you're at here too.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: See what people are talking about, see who's showing up and putting in those hours with us. I think that is a wonderful idea. Anything else good for the order? Otherwise, I'm just super excited to get this one started. It's been brought up a couple of times, and each time I go, gosh, we should really get started, huh? So I'm happy to launch this properly. And so we will get things prepped and ready for Harvester Energy Festival as probably an impromptu in-person soft launch. We get to just chat about it, look at it all in person, and discuss a little informally With that, we got about 10-ish minutes that I wanted to devote to little updates for our projects. If there are things that you need help with, major updates that we should be aware of. I know Trees Medford is always cooking along and we should always have an ear listening for our trees. But yeah, if there's anything on people's minds, projects where they need assistance from the greater group, I want to set aside these 10 minutes for that.
[Brenda Pike]: I was going to say, speaking of Trees Medford, do we want to invite someone from the consultant who's doing the master plan to our next meeting to talk about The master plan and how the inventory went and where we're where we are moving forward with that. I've seen some discussion of it. The numbers are really sobering. So I think it's going to be a little bit more depressing than our greenhouse gas inventory, but I think it's really important to have that context as we move forward.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Sounds like a deeply important one. So I say yes.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I think that would be good. I think that would be good, Brenda. And I would invite TreesMedford to that, too. So I know they've talked to Western Samson. I think it would be great.
[Lois Grossman]: There has been some sobering reckoning about the tree canopy because of the Norway Naples, which are deteriorating rapidly. And we are not building back tree canopy at a pace that will make, I mean, we're like 100 years behind. It's very sobering.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, the discussion isn't increasing the tree canopy, it's trying to slow down the decline of the tree canopy.
[Kathleen McKenna]: Yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: So you'll, Brenda, you'll invite her or, I mean. Yes, I will. I'll reach out.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: After that, yeah, please. I'm going to give them at least an hour to say whatever they need to tell me.
[Lois Grossman]: And ways we can help. Maybe they can give us some pathways that we can follow as a committee and individually.
[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Yeah, I'd love to learn more about like Councilor Callahan's canopy crew effort. That feels potentially really actionable, especially for folks on this committee.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, I could talk just for a minute. One of the things I've been working on off and on, but it's been a little bit of a struggle. So I hope to get back to that. If it's okay to talk, I don't know if there was someone ahead of me.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No, I'm leaving this as more of an open.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Okay. So one of the concerns across the United States, but in Massachusetts, in something that I had brought up for Methodist, not using rodenticides for rodent control. So, I'll get back to that after the festival, doing some more research. But this one particular group, Save Arlington Wildlife, has done a tremendous job with informing and keeping track of the cities that have agreed to ban it on municipal owned properties, that's the rodenticide called escars, which kills also not just the rodents, but also, unfortunately, the predators and pets and contaminates our land and water. So many municipalities have actually agreed to not use this particular form of rodenticide And that's for municipal owned buildings or managed buildings, which is a great thing. So they're building the list. They probably have the list already, but it seems like every month, another, every few months, another city signs on to that. So I hope to be in touch with them to learn more about that. In the meantime, they've actually gotten billboards up. in different locations that say, you know, stop using rodenticides and why. And they show pictures of the other animals that are getting killed by this when they eat these rodents that are poisoned. What happens is they're bludged. It could be a dog, it could be a cat, an opossum, birds, owls, anything that would go after a rodent, foxes in particular. It's just horrific death because they can't handle that kind of poison and they bleed out. So, and unfortunately the, what is it called, the pesticide company, companies and organizations are against this and have been fighting this and actually going up to cities asking them to not pass any of these bans because that's their business. And that's the, unfortunately that's, We'll see. What they think is effective, and they sell that, and they put it in the black bait boxes that you see. And it's really sad because there are other strategies like rodent birth control, which diminishes the reproduction because they do have blitters a lot, like every six weeks. And because of the warming of the climate, we see more and more rodents. Um, so I've been involved with this for a while, but to get it to a point where I can speak better about that and get actual information, I had said before a few months ago, I'd like to see how the health department feels about this first, because if they're not on board with it, you know, it's very hard to get something like this as a city ordinance. So that's where I'm at. I just wanted to give the update on this. And if you had any questions about it.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Well, I just want to maybe give a positive notice in my backyard. So I have cameras in my backyard that I really watch the animals with, you know. And so we have a pack of foxes here now. They're little, but it has really diminished the rodent population in my backyard a lot, like significantly, that I'm noticing. So that's good news. Now, I have to say, I kind of have a little bit of a fox problem now, but
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, but that's what they eat mainly, is rodents, right?
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And there are other rodenticides that you can purchase that don't cause the anticoagulant bleeding out.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but I was wondering if, like the birth control one, does that affect the birth cycles of the foxes? Does it transmit that way?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, no, we actually tried it. You can buy it on Amazon now too. Evolve, I think it's called. And you have to get the little black box. It's not, you know, it's like $60 for a three or five pound bag. And it's like little sausages. It looks like that. And you put it in the big traps and they're attracted to it. And, you know, some cities have done it as a targeted area. It's expensive for cities. But if you pick a targeted small area, the problem is, you know, somebody has to keep going and filling these up. I'm not suggesting that yet to the city. I just want to see if they would consider banning the companies they use. And they may already. I might be surprised and they might say, we know about this already and we don't allow them to use this type of rosenticide. So I'll get back to you on that. But in the meantime, I had a really good situation with a property near me, so that really kept me going. And it is about sailing up the property and not keeping your rubbish barrels open. We literally had over 100 rats next to- Oh my. So that's why I have not been, it was like a full-time job actually handling this with neighbors because people will even leave their rubbish open. So if you feed the rats, they're gonna come. So, yeah.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Okay, if the floor is open again. Thanks, Loretta. Can I get to the next topic? I know we have probably two minutes left.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Plenty of time, please.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Okay, so I brought it up last week at our MEEC monthly meeting and then I had a chat with separately with Luke and Will. This is about zero waste medford. We touched on it briefly the last meeting and we discussed about the Possibility of starting a subcommittee zero waste subcommittee zero waste Medford subcommittee. So, just to again, circle back to some of our discussions. A lot of our efforts are already geared towards waste reduction and will point it out in a nice bullet format or black plastic. reduction, the free flea market, the repair clinics. So we are undertaking a lot of efforts that are geared towards waste reduction. So I believe we want to get the support of the committee to start a subcommittee for zero waste Medford so that we could be, you know, a group of us could Work in a more focused manner on really just defining some of the plans for what the subcommittee would do. And yeah, I would like to hear any thoughts and inputs and however we want to take this forward.
[Brenda Pike]: So I just want to. Clarify about the subcommittee, so I, I was warned by Alicia that her understanding is that if we have an official subcommittee that it's something that has to be have open public meetings. If you meet, so I, I. Kind of hesitate to to say we should have a zero waste subcommittee and instead maybe just have some people who in the same way that we're working, each person is sort of working or groups of people are working on different side projects, a group of people who are focusing on zero waste, but not making it an official subcommittee. I do feel like it would complicate things if every time you met to talk about that, you had to have a public meeting.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Oh, so any meeting, if it is a subcommittee and if there's any meeting to discuss agenda or whatever, it has to be a public meeting. Is it? Just for my understanding.
[Brenda Pike]: That's what I have been told. If there's an official subcommittee, then meetings have to be open to the public.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: not a subcommittee that just meets to talk about projects and ideas, and we don't vote on anything. That's what we would have done previously before you had started helping with this.
[Brenda Pike]: I'm told that it's the difference between having an official subcommittee and just having groups of people who are working on different projects.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: If I may jump in, because For example, Loretta and Curtis and I acted as a perhaps unofficial, I don't even know, subcommittee for the tree committee way back when. And we had done similar things for a variety of approaches, but that's many years ago now. And so I guess the question is, whether it's an official subcommittee or not, Are there, I guess, some open meeting law requirements, even just if a few of us as committee members gather and discuss committee-related topics? Would zero waste, for instance, be considered if a few of us took that on as a project?
[Brenda Pike]: Um, would we be running into any open meeting law issues or only if you had enough people participating that it that it was a quorum for for the group? Um, so if you're just, you know, some members of this committee who are getting together to to work on things and to prepare for these meetings, that's that's 1 thing. If you're an official subcommittee, then that are, you know, there are 3 of you. If 2 of you get together, that's a quorum of that subcommittee.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah.
[Lois Grossman]: Okay, what if we call them working groups, right? Instead of subcommittees?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: The project, I've been very deliberate about how we phrased our passion projects. With this, this expressly in mind, we can tackle a lot of passion projects on our own. We cannot discuss subcommittees as openly.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Well, without falling into a whole bunch of requirements that need to be followed.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: But here, at least we're able to, we could convene and talk about these sorts of things unofficially and then represent them to the larger group.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: So a working group, we could call ourselves a working group or like the project group, but just the word subcommittee seems like it has a little bit of a legal, okay.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I think it may also be the number of people. So even if we call it a working group, if there are five of us who are all energy committee members, we are technically kind of, I don't know what the number is, but if... It's eight for the quorum.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah. Okay. So we can have seven people working on this. That's not so bad.
[Brenda Pike]: That would be amazing.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I thought open meeting was a little bit more strict than that, but okay. All right.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Good, good. So all this to say, the potential is certainly there, just we'll be very cognizant of our verbiage. OK. Because, again, you're right in saying we have a lot of zero waste projects that we're undertaking. It's going to be really important that we talk about them and move them in meaningful ways.
[Lois Grossman]: We better not call them passion sessions, because inevitably social media will pick up on it right away.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: If I may, and Prabita, feel free to edit this suggestion, but maybe we suggest that there will be a small working group to focus on zero waste in Medford, and we will report to this group when we can on some zero waste ideas that the group then as a whole could perhaps help move forward.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: I think that sounds great. That pretty much sums it up. Yep.
[Unidentified]: I'm checking with legal and I think it checks out.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: No, not sub, working group.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And to kick off that part of the working group, I'm in a tense battle with Tufts University Legal on how to get fix-it clinics spread out on Tufts campus.
[Unidentified]: Wow.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: As a way of expanding that zero waste policy. So I'll be spending a good hour of my day tomorrow convincing them that taking apart your phone will... Why is it a legal issue now? They really are worried about liability. and it's becoming a much bigger fight than it needs to be.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: If it gets into real tech, that can be a problem. Fix-it clinics typically are a bit more like, my fan is broken, and I need to fix that, or my bike is broken.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: So you can't do like Apple phones and stuff, is that the legal issue?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: That starts to get into, yeah, like real... So we're seeing how much we can... I'm seeing how much I can get away with
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: But reality is we're going to see what is allowed to happen. But we're expanding that as another arm of this not subcommittee.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: I like it. Not subcommittee. Zero waste, not subcommittee. Let's call it that.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Will, I gather you are connected to the FixIt clinic?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, I was a policy advocate for a long time.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I've been a FixIt helper on a number of events. Oh, fantastic.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: So could we highlight any FixIt events too, then, as part of our event highlights?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, I know I'm jumping into the new business section, but I do want to make one formal on-the-record pitch once again that we get some form of social media access. Because you opened, Brenda, by talking about how the Climate Equity Council is hosting events, and I got very jealous. And at the very least, advertising really important metrics and things within our broad scope of energy and environment. I want to make sure everyone hears about that. And we can discuss in our own not subcommittee what that needs to look like and what that needs to mean, because I know some things pre-exist and some things don't. But yeah, we'd like to see our own things get pushed out into the great wide somewhere as well.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, so I mean, we have my department's newsletter and social media, which was what we've been using in the past for these things. So yeah, we can talk next time if you want to do something more than that.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: With a minute left on the clock, do we have any new business, anything good for this committee to hear about? Something you really want to get on record?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Well, I was supposed to give the update about the treaty committee ordinance. I think that was, unless that was bumped off the agenda. So it's the tree committee ordinance by trees Medford passed the second meeting and I paid attention to the city council meeting last Tuesday and they moved the agenda around and I waited and waited and waited. So I'm assuming it went past the second meeting and they just said, yes, and they gave it a document number. And I was like, where was, so it will be up for the third meeting, the tree committee.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Do we have a expected date for that?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: No, I don't know when. I don't know when.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: We will keep our eyes peeled. Very exciting. All right. Any lingering business?
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Related to Trees Medford, Lois put me in touch with Jared from Trees Medford and we are working on a pocket forest, the Miyawaki forest. So that's quite exciting. Maybe in a future meeting, we can bring a couple of people to just talk about it. Right now, we've decided the location to be at Tufts Park. It's super cool. I'm learning a lot, but I think it'll be very nice to hear from those folks at some point.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: If you could maybe start an email chain, I would love to make November our tree session. If we're going to have our surveyor come in, we can get our Trees Medford folks in as well and make that devoted to, make that a kind of themed session.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: Awesome. Yeah, I'll start an email chain between you and Jared and we can... Minute pass.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Is there anything anyone has to say?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: There was a meeting, actually regarding trees in the Memorial Grove. Brenda, do you know what everybody's inviting? I think it's next, is it this week or did it happen already?
[Brenda Pike]: I thought it happened on Sunday. Oh, was it Sunday already? Yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Because I'm thinking of the Tufts Community Day. It was the same day?
[Brenda Pike]: It was the same day. Oh.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah. So I think that project is funded through the city, maybe some grant. But the new project that they're working on with Jared in Milwaukee, Miyawaki Forest. They'll be looking to see how to fund that. But it is an interesting concept.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: We're trying to apply to the community grant funds. This week we're meeting to apply to a couple of funds. Talking to Teresa as well.
[Brenda Pike]: If you'd like an update on the COVID Memorial Grove, I can talk to Amanda Centrella in my office who's sort of heading that up.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I just brought it up in case the rest of the members didn't know about it. I saw the plans are on the city website. Well, they were actually. It's very pretty. Very pretty. That's all I have to say.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I appreciate it. This makes me excited to have a bunch of new things to talk about with you all next month. All right. I think I've wound down all the things I could talk about.
[Lois Grossman]: We'll meet again on the 18th. Right. There you go. Yeah. In person. Yes.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_11]: That's exciting.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Any final movements of the evening? Motion to adjourn. Second. All right. It is done.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Second. Thank you all for a wonderful session. Thank you. Bye.
[MCM00001758_SPEAKER_03]: See you on the 18th.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Bye.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Good night.