Climate Equity Council: Open Space and Resilient Park Grant Applications - 2026-03-18

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3-flash-preview from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The council reviewed several grant-funded climate resilience initiatives, including city-wide open space planning and specific flood mitigation projects. They approved formal letters of support for grant applications related to the Open Space and Recreation Plan update and renovations at Tufts Park.

0:05 Minutes and Scheduling — Approved the minutes from the previous meeting and confirmed the next meeting for April 29.
3:53 Open Space and Recreation Plan Update — Discussed a grant application for a comprehensive 10-year update to the city's open space plan, focusing on climate resilience, community needs, and park accessibility.
18:02 Fairfield Street Flood Mitigation and De-paving — Reviewed a tri-city grant proposal to install permeable surfacing on Fairfield Street and support a partnership with Green and Open Somerville for residential asphalt removal.
38:44 Tufts Park Resilient Facilities Project — Evaluated a grant application for Tufts Park featuring subsurface stormwater management chambers, heat-resilient playground materials, and a Miyawaki forest pilot.
55:39 Letters of Support — Approved formal letters of support for the Open Space and Recreation Plan update and the Tufts Park resilient facilities grant application.
1:04:28 Community Events and Outreach — Received updates on a utility bill checkup clinic and listed upcoming community events, including an invasive plants walk and an urban forest management presentation.

[Jennifer Yanko]: The meeting to order. First up, review of the minutes and make a motion to review the minutes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, we have our next meeting scheduled for April 29th. Does that still work with people? Yes. Okay, great. And we have a guest tonight, Amanda Centrella from my office, the Open Space Planner, to talk about some exciting projects that are coming up. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you all so much for having me and for making time on the agenda tonight.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Do you want to do introductions around the room, or do you know?

[Amanda Centrella]: That would actually be great if y'all don't mind. I'll start us off. Amanda, she, her, and I work up with Brenda in the Planning, Development, and Sustainability Office, and I work primarily on open space projects. Great.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Hi, my name is Natasha Barth, and I am the Haitian Creole Community Liaison, and I work alongside my other partner, Darlene Lehman, for the Office of Prevention. Stacey Moore, Community Liaison.

[SPEAKER_00]: June, Senior Connector, but actually I am retiring on the 8th, so I'm leaving. Sorry. But I hope to still stay involved with Medford as a volunteer. I'd love to.

[Amanda Centrella]: And Hala, would you like to introduce yourself? Yes, my name is Hala and I'm the Food Systems Connector. Financial Services Connector, yeah. Okay. Yep. Sounds like a social appeal. And was that usually said? Yes, I know. I know the both of them as well. That's good. Okay, awesome. Well, I'll jump right in. In that case, thanks for the intros. So I'm here because our office has a couple of projects that are in development right now. And at this moment, we're applying to some grants. There's this like, It's called Eco One Stop. It's a grant portal that has a whole bunch of different grant programs that people can apply to at once, which is why I feel like many of you probably have heard of other grants that are in the works. I know Outreach and Prevention is working on a few that are going through this program as well. So there's been a lot of activity on various fronts for this.

I also felt like it was a very opportune time to talk to this group about these three projects in particular, because I see a lot of alignment in the work that you all do and what these projects are hoping to accomplish. So with that in mind, the first one, if you wouldn't mind advancing the slide, So the city of Medford has an open space and recreation plan. I brought a paper copy if anybody feels like perusing it at any time throughout the meeting.

We've had this existing plan. It was developed in 2019, and it was a seven-year plan. So it is current through 2026. Um, we did get an extension, um, to this plan. So it's now technically current through 2029. We did some outreach work last summer. Um, to kind of as a like light touch update. Um, but ideally it, it is ready for a more comprehensive update. Um, that will take us through the next 10 years in the city. And this plan is what it does is, um, first of all, it's a community vision. So it's meant to be heavily informed by community outreach and It serves as a guide to how we strategize on making changes and updates to parks and open spaces in the city. There's an action plan at the back of this. There's a lot of information and sort of data that gets collected through this process. And then an action plan that goes kind of park by park and open space by open space and talks about the things that we'd like to see what needs are and also the climate impacts that those spaces are seeing. And so if you wouldn't mind advancing the slide.

Just wanted to provide a little visual. So this is from our open space plan and we have 42 various recreational and open space amenities throughout the city. Medford is pretty special in that we have, I think it's 1,800 acres of open space. Not all of it is owned by the city. A large chunk of that is obviously the Fells. But all of Medford, or nearly all of Medford, is within a 15-minute walk of a park, technically. Um, and so, you know, our parks are an important piece of the fabric of Medford and an important amenity to our community members. Um, if we want to take next slide. So. Priorities for this open space plan update are to create climate resilient, open spaces, accessible, and inclusive open spaces and open spaces that respond to our community's needs and desires. And a part of that will involve a specific assessment of our existing recreational facilities, demands on athletic fields and courts and things like that. But another part of it will be getting a more on-the-ground understanding of what people are hoping to see out of our green spaces.

And I think so that's just sort of a bit of an overview of that application or that project. Basically, we would be applying or we are applying for a grant to update this plan. It would give us a tool that we can use for the next 10 years to inform choices that the city makes on, okay, what parks are getting prioritized for what types of updates? What are the, you know, And that's across a couple of different lenses, like from a climate resiliency perspective, what parks are seeing flooding, what neighborhoods are experiencing urban heat island effect, from an access perspective, what facilities need to be brought up to date and made more accessible. And accessibility can obviously mean a lot of different things.

Uh, personally, I'm excited at the prospect of getting to do this work, and it would be really, I think, important for the city to partner with outreach and prevention and this group, um, in informing the engagement strategy moving forward. Um, so I'll pause there and just see if folks have any questions about. About that project.

[Amanda Centrella]: So last time, I think in our last meeting, I mentioned that at the last Energy and Environment Committee meeting, Amanda talked with them about artificial turf on the fields. Is that the sort of thing that would also be discussed in this plan too? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like artificial turf, different types of surfacing choices for parks and open space. All of that would be relevant. We're trying to get rid of the artificial turf. I wouldn't say that, but I think it's something that warrants discussion. As we were learning with the Energy and Environment Committee, there are some serious pros and cons to think about with materials like that, both short and long term. And also, I think at the same time, balancing that with the real demand and challenges that we have on a maintenance and use side of our parks. We have way more demand for use of our parks than we have the ability to accommodate for. So an involved conversation. Yeah.

[Jennifer Yanko]: So when you talk about artificial turf, are you talking about fields with a clay? Or are you just talking about putting artificial turf on just people walking by?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, I don't think I've not heard any interest from community members or from staff. And I know I'm only one person. But internally, or from community members and seeing artificial turf in any other application other than like athletic fields. So soccer, football, exactly. Yeah. And I don't know that there's any I mean, we only have Two or three. There's McGlynn playground turf and the Hormel Stadium and the high school. So there are three instances of artificial turf in the city right now across all of our fields and stuff. And I don't know that there are any active conversations right now about changing any of our other fields. But just something that would make sense for us to think about.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Yeah. Any other questions? You have some funding from community, the CPA, right?

[Amanda Centrella]: Community Preservation Act for open space. We don't have funding, or for this project, you mean?

[Amanda Centrella]: Not for this project, because CPA is only eligible for site-specific stuff, and this is a citywide assessment. But CPA is a frequent resource that our office turns to to help fund other park projects, for sure.

[Jennifer Yanko]: So what would you do for spaces where there are no trees, or what do you call it, a heat?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. OK. Yeah. So that actually ties into one of the last projects that I'll give you guys an update about. is we would be basically looking at like where does and does not have shade. And then the plan would reflect, okay, this park, you know, sees lots of heat and there's a real need for shade. And then, you know, maybe a recommendation would be plant this many trees in this general location, or, you know, include shade infrastructure, like awnings or shade sails, or even just like, There's lots of play equipment that has like shade little awnings built over it or access to water fountains or misters or things like that are all things that we could think about to help mitigate against heat. I was going to say there are a couple really good examples of that that you've been working on. One of them in Carr Park with the basketball court with a shade structure over it with solar panels on top of it.

And then in Medford Square here at the park, I don't remember what that is. Riverside Plaza. Riverside Plaza, where the cemetery is. You're working on getting shade canopies. Yes. So that little plaza over there, we're doing two things. We're putting some shade canopies over the plaza area so that there's a seating area with some shade because That plaza is really well used in the shoulder months and in the evenings, but during the day in the summer, it's kind of unusable because it's way too hot. And then also a lot of people will drag like tables and chairs under the adjacent area that has mature trees. So there's shade there, which is fine, but not everybody has the ability to like drag a table or like navigate over bumpy soil. So we're going to put a deck over that area so that it's accessible. folks can move up onto that area and sit and enjoy themselves.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Nice. Yeah. So you mentioned water fountains and stuff like that. What about sunscreen dispensers or something like that? That could be cool.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah. It's not something that we've explored yet. And there's sort of a balancing act sometimes with these types of dispensers or smaller installations, I think even water fountains, there come with them sort of maintenance requirements and challenges. But it doesn't mean that these things are off the table. We are putting water fountains and bottle fillers in places. And we are trying out some new things. So it's a little bit of a balancing of capacity to maintain and take care of, but also addressing a need.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. Do you have any splash parks in Medford? We do. We have a new one that's, the park just opened up today. I'm very excited about it. It's been a couple of years long effort, a car park up in the Fulton Heights area. So number 40 up there. We just added a new splash pad. So that wasn't there before. We have one at Harris Park. That's very popular. And there's another one at Capon Park. which is a smaller kind of neighborhood park closer to the Tufts area. And then the Tufts pool itself and like a water fountain. That's a public pool. Yes. Yeah. Those are the main ones, I believe. There's also kind of a very informal one at Duggar Park. But I hesitate to call it a splash pad proper because it's more just like one like spout i think yeah yeah does it work it's a good question i haven't checked it in a minute you know i grew up in that area and once upon a time we had we did have the sprinkler and um you know is um but i i don't recall it kind of it wouldn't be it's not um last summer but i don't remember it looks like a I hate to say, it looks like a shower head almost.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah. And you know, take this with a grain of salt because I haven't, I was not over there to look at it last season. So I don't know if it's still functional, but it was. It looks like a shower. It looks like a shower. We could probably do a bit better, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can imagine that still working. Put a little flower on it or something. Yeah, just some decorative piece. I got the, well, we can, I don't want to derail us, but yeah, that's an interesting one. Um, and it's right by the river. So there are some challenges there with, we've talked about redoing it before, but it kind of triggers pretty immediately some, um, environmental permitting and consideration, which doesn't mean that it's not worth it to do just that it, you know, a little time and money and thought. Yeah.

OK, shall we move to the next? Or I'm happy to keep talking about the open space update. All right, let's move to the next. We can always go back to it. So this is another project. It involves two things called depaving, which I'll explain, and flood mitigation. And this is actually part of a tri-city application. So Malden, Everett, and Medford are applying for a grant to do this work. And in each city, there will be kind of a example sort of green infrastructure change that we're applying for design funds for. And then in addition to that, we are wanting to do some sort of organizing of community members around depaving. If you go to the next slide, I think I have.

I started with the flood mitigation. All right, that's fine. We can start with the flood mitigation. So if you go back one more, Brenda, sorry. So as I mentioned, part of this grant involves designing some sort of green infrastructure change that mitigates heat or stormwater or other climate impacts. And in Medford's case, there is a street called Fairfield Street in West Medford. It actually kind of goes right up to Mystic River Road where Donner Park is along.

And Fairfield Street and Lincoln Street are the site of some really challenging flooding issues. And now if you go to the next slide, This, apologies, it is very hard to read. And I just meant, I just show it to give you guys a sense of this shows sort of flows of water and water infrastructure. So we've got like sewer mains and under drains and sort of there's this flow of water coming down from the fells towards the Mystic River.

And there are instances of bad flooding on Lincoln Street, and that's where those two dots of red are. And Lincoln Street is where a lot of the flooding impact happens, but it is fed by water that is running down Fairfield Street, which is perpendicularly bisecting. Yes, going down.

[Amanda Centrella]: Exactly. We got this as an image from, we did a study of three different areas, including this area in 2019, called the Localized Flooding Report. And it lays out sort of a lot of the challenges in this area. And so what we're hoping to accomplish here would be to replace part of the parking lane that is on Fairfield Street which is asphalt, with a permeable surface. So something that water can actually infiltrate down through to the soil. This wouldn't take away parking or anything like that. You can still drive and walk over it the same, but it is just a permeable version of a hardscape. In addition to that, to help with heat that we see in this area. we'd like to install things like trees and some plantings that will help to capture some of the water that is not infiltrating down the street. The more that we can do that on Fairfield Street, the better it will be for folks that are living on Lincoln Street.

[Jennifer Yanko]: So you want to put the trees and stuff down Fairfield Street really less on the side in the sidewalk cuts in the sidewalk.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, I think we'd have little bump outs a couple of them and we would do this would be again informed by community input and outreach as well as some studying of Okay, you know, where can we narrow the street a little bit with like a little bump out for some landscaping and a tree? Or, you know, or do we keep it just to the to the strip of land that we have with the sidewalk. Yeah.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Can I just ask, so you said the flooding occurs there on Lincoln Street? Yes. What does that mean, flooding? Does it mean that the water is rising on the street, or is it in people's basements?

[Amanda Centrella]: It is in, unfortunately, I think there are two residents houses in particular, where water is going into basements regularly. Yeah, I, I know that this report refers to like a 2021 storm that was particularly bad. And that's where some of these measurements come from. But yes, like actual people's homes were impacted. And then, you know, in addition to that, on the street, you're seeing water accumulates.

[Jennifer Yanko]: So with this, this recent snow, the couple of snow storms that we had this past winter, this winter, would that have created know with all the snow and how you know the mounds and would that have created flooding for for those folks too?

[Amanda Centrella]: It's possible um that was a you know the snow we had so much of it and it's a lot of water that then you know melts and is going down and so I personally haven't been uh I haven't personally heard anything from residents of this street about that impact but I don't know that I would have been the person to hear. So engineering or DPW may have heard. Is the data here about those two homes, is that based on insurance claims that they did? Was it that level of flooding that they need? I would have to look through the report. Apologies. Yes, I'm not sure where they derived that info.

[Jennifer Yanko]: I mean, so is there potential that, you know, this sort of flooding that those two residents are experiencing? I mean, you know, is the potential there for it to, you know, kind of spread out to more residents? Other houses.

[Amanda Centrella]: Oh, to... Other houses. Yeah, like if we're getting more and more severe storms, more frequency of storms, I know it's going to happen. Yeah, and you know, the infrastructure doesn't change, then I would imagine, you know, that could be a risk. Yeah.

[Amanda Centrella]: I don't. I know that there was, I know the study, so this was a 2019 study, then there was a big storm in 2021 that like helped hold, they helped. And the study was also like using funds to update the city's modeling system, which you'll have to forgive me, I don't know a lot about, but it's used by DPW to assess the condition of our utility infrastructure. So I imagine that this area has been under scrutiny for at least several years.

I think that if it came, if it was raised to the level of wanting a study in 2019, then there must have been incidences before then.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Well, yeah, I think so, because I had heard something that I didn't even know that, you know, there was, there was a lot of flooding down in that area, some, you know, down in that area. I don't know exactly where. um, and, you know, I don't know, when was the year, the Amelia, the dam, the Amelia, and I guess that, that was part of the solution, which I guess some of the findings, that's what I heard or understand, I don't know if I'm getting it all correct. So it's just kind of interesting that that I'm hearing that because I remember hearing something before about that area where there was a lot of flooding and after the dam was... Yeah, well a lot of this area, especially down closer to the river, would have been under water before the Amelia Earhart Dam was that high tide at least. That's probably what they were referring to. I had no idea by the time I had landed there. Yeah.

[Amanda Centrella]: I'm excited about this project just because if it turns out well and it's not a maintenance nightmare or whatever, then it's something that could be expanded across the city. Any new place where you were repaving parking areas could have this permeable surface. Yeah. It would be a real help. Yes, and we would have done it once before so we could understand sort of what's involved in, you know, preparing to install and the after as well. So is permeable pavement used if there's a new, say, development somewhere and there's a new parking lot? If a development is of a large enough scale, it goes through with something what's called site plan review, and that is a I won't call it permitting, but it's similar to a permitting process that involves our planning board, usually.

During that period, there's like a bunch of criteria that the board uses to kind of assess the project and things like permeability come up all the time. They are required, usually a project of a certain scale is required to put together a stormwater report and explain how they're managing the stormwater impacts and that they need to be able to do so. And now there's something called a green score that they have to meet, which is it's like a There's a spreadsheet with lots of different things that they could do, including planting trees or using permeable pavement. And is that just Medford or is that a state? That's just Medford right now, although some other cities have done it too. And so then there's like, and each thing that they do has like points attached to it, and they'll have to go to a certain number of points.

Would you want to advance the slide one more? This is just a little snapshot. There's this really cool, maybe y'all are familiar with it, the Wicked Hot Mystic Afternoon Heat model. This was put together in 2020, 2021. And it was an effort, there's like this really cool map that any of us, it's free to use and access. uh, that was derived by a big group of volunteers going out and taking ground, like surface temperatures, um, on hot days in the summer. Um, so this is, uh, data from that effort that shows, you know, how hot parts of the city are.

And coincidentally, or not coincidentally, but it's interesting to note that so that line in blue is Fairfield Street and a stretch of it there is, you know, some of our hotter temperatures for this area of the city. So doing something that is removing hot asphalt and replacing it with a different surface will help cool the air a bit. Adding things like trees will certainly help, especially as they mature over time. Yeah. OK, so I'll include the link to that map because you can zoom to other parts of the city too. It's really interesting. So the second half of this project, so right there's the de-paving, sorry, the flood mitigation part. And now I'd like to talk about the de-paving part. So de-paving is a nature-based solution that involves removing hard surfaces in pavement and replacing them with alternatives. This might just be replacing pavement like asphalt with a permeable surface, or it could involve something a little bit more like plantings or tree wells, things like bioswales to help capture water.

So deep paving helps to cool the local climate. It's great for allowing water to get into the ground and also for carbon absorption as opposed to it being washed away into our drain or sewer system. Reduces runoff and pollution and great for growing wildlife in pollinator habitats. And there's an organization called Green and Open Summerdome that does this work of Organizing community members who are interested and invested and in deep paving private residences. like, areas of private residences, homes. So, like, someone might approach Green and Open Somerville and say, like, I have this driveway, and I really want to depave it and replace it in some way. And they'll help mobilize a group of community volunteers to do that work and, yeah, and replace with better alternatives. have some photos from a Medford house where they did that actually. I think it might have been the first Medford one that they have expanded to. Yes, so they're called Green and Open Somerville, but they are definitely like expanding into different neighboring municipalities. And they're partnering with us and the other cities involved in this grant because they want to help sort of start mobilizing folks around this effort in Medford and provide workshops, educational materials, tools, like physical tools, to make it easy and possible for people to do this. And then part of that work, too, will be the city figuring out and streamlining a process by which a group of people could make this happen. So if we go to the next slide. This is stolen from Green and Open Somerville's website, but you can see they have some before and after photos of work they've done. And I don't know if the link will work, Brenda, but if you go in the upper right hand corner, there's a little slideshow of volunteers getting together and doing this work. Possibly, it might not work. Yeah, so... These are just some really awesome community volunteers, like, getting into it and doing some... Like sledgehammers.

Yeah. Yes, so the thinking being that we could help seed efforts here in Medford for folks that want to do this. And maybe there are opportunities to do it on public land as well, and not just privately owned land. Yeah.

[Amanda Centrella]: I think, do I have any more slides on this one? No, I don't. Okay, so we'll pause there and just see if folks have questions sort of about this piece of the grant application.

[Jennifer Yanko]: So when ADP, the streets, they replaced it with plants and grasses and stuff like that and that. Exactly. So these are immutable.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah. Yes. So these roots here, these were people's like driveways or. I know, I like that. The yards, the second one.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. And so this is, you know, an effort to combat both heat and stormwater impacts that our community is experiencing. So the less sort of hot asphalt surface we have, the less heat retention we'll see in the summer and cooler air temperatures. Is concrete worse than asphalt? I think asphalt is a little worse. It's a darker material. And there may be more science behind that than I know. But I do think asphalt is worse. I like that driveway on top. We drive along the stones.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Yeah, a little strip along the stones. But I'm not understanding the third one. Is the driveway completely gone? They're plants now.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, it looks like they turned it into a garden. Right? I mean, so. Park on the street. Anyway, any efforts done on, like, private property would definitely be you know only with the direction and consent of the property owners. So it's not like we would be getting together like rogue groups of people.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, but that is really interesting. It does look like they've entirely replaced the driveway.

[Amanda Centrella]: And I imagine pavers are more water permeable than straight concrete or yes like on the middle yeah yeah like that looks like they have maybe some sort of crushed gravel that'll help you know the water will go through more easily and then some yeah individual pavers and that helps the heating of the grass i mean the ground yes exactly interesting you know All right, any more questions on this one? Finger on it, or we can move to the next.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, I believe so. They may have gotten some like small grant funding for some tools.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but the people who are doing it, it's all volunteers to really advertise that.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Well, I was thinking about a couple of people, but they might have the issue of doing the lawn, grassing, you know. Because when they have the pavement, they don't have to do anything. You could put plants or shrubs.

[Amanda Centrella]: You could put shrubs instead. You don't have to have grass. I mean, lawns aren't very natural either. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, you could, you know, customize it however, like, makes sense for your household.

[SPEAKER_00]: It has a house that has the whole front yard is a wildflower meadow. It's really pretty.

[Amanda Centrella]: Right. I may move onward then. So this is the last one. So Tufts Park. Tufts Park is situated in a part of the city that is more dense than other parts, so more densely populated. It's one of the hottest areas of the city as far as ground temperatures during the summer. It is serving an environmental justice population. And I think that that population of folks is diverse and includes folks that are maybe experiencing language isolation, BIPOC and Indigenous individuals.

And it's a park that has important community amenities, like the pool, a playground. Hello. You're just a little late. We're almost done.

[Amanda Centrella]: So yeah, Subs Park has a lot of amenities within it that are really well used and intensely used. The playground, I just recently discovered that I think the last time that it was meaningfully renovated was in 1998. So I know that it is really due for change and replacement at this point. The fields have chronic flooding issues. The mechanics of that, apologies, I don't know a ton about. It's a bit over my head. And engineering has been kind of steering that part of this project. But MIRA, which is the Mystic River Watershed Association, as a part of a regional effort, has been working on flooding and stormwater management kind of assessments. And this park is one of their top three priorities for addressing. So MIRA is putting together this application for an MVP grant for three different cities of which Medford and Tufts Park is one of them.

And it would include major changes for stormwater infiltration and like, I think a chamber under the ground, like a massive chamber that would hold water and allow it to infiltrate more slowly. And then in addition to that, a heat resilient playground, because this is a hot part of the city. And we know, the city knows, just from looking at this park, that it also needs some changes to make it more accessible, because there are plenty of amenities, but there aren't necessarily accessible routes or connections to a lot of them within this park. So if we move forward on the slide, just a little overhead view of Tufts Park as a refresher. There is some interesting and exciting work going on in that back square area. which right now is sort of informally used as like an off-leash dog area. The Trees Medford just got a grant to install what's called a Miyawaki forest in a part of that back area. So it's not going to cover the whole thing, but I think it's like a, I can't remember the square footage, but it's a, small portion of that back corner that we would basically, or the trees Medford would basically be piloting as like a small urban tree, um, like a forested area. Um, and it'll be a really great learning experience for them and for the city to see whether, you know, there are, it should be a self managing system, this, this urban forest after it gets established. Um, and, uh, will be interested to learn about how successful that is. And we talked about this a little bit last time, I think, where that type of forest is that they're planting it really densely so that it grows really fast. Yeah. Yes. So this work will not conflict with that. And it can be designed with that space in mind.

And if we go to the next slide. Okay, yes. So this is back to that tool we were looking at before the wicked hot mystic heat model. This part of the city is very hot. Yes. It's maybe one of the hottest parts of the city, similar to I think Wellington area as well. It's a little hard to tell, but you know, a lot of the lower part of the screen is in Somerville. But where the star is, is where Tufts Park is, and surrounding area is South Medford. So anything that we can do at this park to help introduce shade, water fountain or bottle filler, maybe some misters, things that will help mitigate against this heat will be very important in sort of guiding the conversation that we're having with community members when we do community outreach for this.

I think that might be the last slide I have. Nope, that's not true. All right, so we'll go one more. So this is just zooming in a little bit to Tufts Park Playground. Again, it's a well-loved space. The Tufts pool is really heavily used and I think also in addition to community members using it, we have our summer camp out of Medford Recreation is based in this park. And so, you know, I think it's a very heavily used park in a priority area that really hasn't seen significant renovation or change in a long time, which I think, you know, makes it straightforward to justify, like, why are we looking here? Could go to one more slide. This is a close-up picture of what that park looks like. And so the city, as part of this sort of overarching project at Parks Park, we're going to be taking a close look at the playground. And actually, this spring, and then if we get the funding through this grant over the course of the next year from the summer to next summer, um, we'll be doing lots of outreach and, um, community discussions about what we want this space to look like and, you know, what are the needs here? What do people want to see and what would make them excited?

[Jennifer Yanko]: Um, yeah. Is this a candidate for that artificial? No, no. Um, artificial turf. I was, I was kind of thinking.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stuff under those, like the playground that's cushioning to keep kids from hurting themselves. I forget the name.

[Jennifer Yanko]: That's okay. I didn't mean the playground. I meant the field. I didn't mean the playground.

[Amanda Centrella]: Gotcha. Yes. Artificial turf is not being considered for the fields for various reasons. I know a very straightforward one is that It's a very expensive product. And its main benefit is that you can have lots and lots of play on it without maintaining. The maintenance isn't the same as for a grass field. And if you don't have lights at a field, you can't really make the most of that type of surface. So it's really not worth it. thinking about, I mean, and that's only one perspective on it, but so this field does not have athletic field lights.

And yeah, so we haven't been thinking about artificial turf. That said, there is a different type of surface for playgrounds. You can see an example of it, the red. That's a playground safety surface and it's called poured in place rubber safety surface. And that is, a totally different kind of product. So very good for accessibility. It infiltrates water very well. It does not have the same, at least in studies that have been done on it, there is not the same link to hazardous materials that have been found to be present in artificial turf. But it is very expensive. So there is that caveat. Um, so we will definitely be using some version of hoard in place surface at this park, um, at the playground, I should say, uh, because of how accessible it is. Um, but, uh, it may vary how much, um, as you can see here, there's a combination of the accessible surface and then like, um, engineered wood fiber chips as the other play surface for preventing fall, or I guess mitigating the fall risk.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Yeah. So it's like a fun kind of cool, a cool project to be working on, if for nothing else. I mean, seeing how it's starting, and then seeing the end result of it all, you know, such a sense of satisfaction.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. I can imagine a lot of opportunities for engagement, like you could get people involved and like getting excited about the design of the park. And then there'd be other opportunities for engagement with them while they were there too. Yes. Yeah. I would love, and you know, if this is something that the council is interested in and, you know, I want to respect everyone's time and like capacity to take on work, but I'd love to, For all of these projects would be very interested in consulting with you all as a stakeholder and a partner in this, especially in informing engagement strategies or ideas. I will, of course, defer to you all and how interested you are in doing that, but I'm just throwing the invitation out there.

One other thing I might add for this is I know that engineering has applied for a grant to mitigate the flooding at Tufts Park before, but it was basically just expanding the size of the culverts down the street from there to help with the runoff. And I think the feedback they got was basically that's not enough. And so the fact that this incorporates shade and misting and trees and things like that potentially into this park too could really help to get the funding to be able to mitigate the flooding there. Yes 100% and I think the approach that Myra is taking right now is less of a let's fix flooding let's fix the playground and more of a let's zoom out and look at this whole park and see, OK, yes, we will focus on stormwater and heat, but let's think about it as a whole park as opposed to just zeroing in on just the fields and just the playground. So we'll be thinking about how these spaces connect to each other and how the fields are used as far as athletic fitness, things like that.

[Jennifer Yanko]: I think that's such a greater sell for, the residents surrounding the park. You know, that's when I like looking out your front window and having this beautiful park for your kids to, or grandkids, or whatever the case is, or to just go and sit and watch what is happening there.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: I know I missed the beginning of the meeting, but is there a date where, like an expected date when it would be like, when the reconstruction will start?

[Amanda Centrella]: So this project, as well as the two previous ones, are all in very initial stages. Oh, sorry. There's been plenty of work done for some of these things ahead of now, but they've been more around assessing the existing conditions and feasibility. Um, and so the, this project in particular is, um, we're applying for grant funding to go towards design. Um, so over then, if we get awarded the funding, um, we would be doing design from probably the fall of this year through to the summer, fall of next year. Um, and then from there we would be really well positioned to apply for grants, uh, for construction funding and. could move into that next phase.

Some of this timing is a little hard to say at this point. And so we'd have to kind of, can't build until we secure construction funding first. But if we have this project in mind, so it could be a year and a half, two years before actual shovels hit the ground. But we'd be setting ourselves up for success once we do.

[Jennifer Yanko]: And is the timeline the same for the other two, the open space and the depaving and flood mitigation?

[Amanda Centrella]: So open space is on a similar timeline. The open space plan update, we would get awarded the grant if we awarded funding in fall of this year and then take the year to do that plan update work and outreach process. So that would be done in about a year. And the de-paving flood mitigation project is actually on a two-year timeline. So because it's across three cities, there's a bit more work. There's just more time built into the work involved. We're partnering with the designer as well as Green and Open Somerville for that. But it gives us two years of time to go through the design and engineering process, as well as to host educational workshops and get tools and materials together for the social resiliency aspect of that.

[Jennifer Yanko]: And is that a separate grant, a different grant? Or are they all part of the same grant?

[Amanda Centrella]: All part of the same grant portal. Did you say portal? Yes. There's like a big, there's a grant portal, but there's like a bunch of different grants kind of within. And so, uh, open space, all three of these are applying for a municipal vulnerability preparedness action grant and VP grant. Um, the open space. Uh, plan update is also applying for a planning assistance grant, which is, uh, separate, but related this year. They, they streamlined a lot of. similar grant applications into a single application process so that they can look across all of their opportunities, basically, and see which ones fit best for them.

Do you want to talk about the letter? Yeah. Yes, that'd be great. Can I look through that?

[Amanda Centrella]: So if this council was interested in offering a letter of support for two of these projects, the third one we've already submitted, I drafted a letter very open to any changes that anyone would want to make. And of course, there's no obligation. But it would be something that we could include with our application to these grants that would lend it even more weight. So this first one is a draft letter in support of the open space and recreation plan update.

Do you want to just read it out? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I know the timeframe of this is relatively tight, so we don't necessarily want to go back and forth over email a lot of times. Yes, that is true. So we are hoping to submit this grant by midweek next week. Apologies for the tight timeline. So it says, to whom it may concern, the City of Medford's Climate Equity Council is writing to express strong support for the application being submitted by the City of Medford for an open space and recreation plan update. And I took this piece from the website pages that we have for the Climate Equity Council. So it's that same language. The Climate Equity Council is a municipal committee that advises the city on implementation of the Climate Action Plan. a focus on representing the interests of previously underrepresented groups. Based primarily on members' lived experiences and perspectives we've gathered from our communities, the Council gives feedback on proposed city actions. Medford's parks and open spaces are a cherished part of our community's identity. This plan update process is a valuable opportunity to evaluate the existing park conditions, assess community and ecological needs, and discuss our community's collective vision for our green spaces. We commit to being a project partner by supporting the meaningful active involvement of underrepresented communities in the planning process. Thank you very much for your consideration of this application.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Sounds good. So what's this for? This is for the open space update? Yes. Just that.

[Amanda Centrella]: Just that one. I have a second one. Yes, but we can tackle this one first. So that's what this document is called. It's an open space and recreation plan. And it tackles all of our parks and open spaces in the city. So I think we are in support of Offering a letter of support, I think we just need a motion to do that and vote on it.

[Jennifer Yanko]: I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

[Amanda Centrella]: our website the city website our department has a page the planning development and sustainability office and then there's like a whole bunch of different plans i think it's under the like parks and open space heading can you send the link yeah absolutely it's kind of cool to thumb through it for sure i yeah it can be really interesting yeah and you can kind of see like you know, later in the plan, it goes park by park and gives kind of specific examples of recommendations.

Okay, so this second letter is for the Tubbs Park project that we were talking about last. We're calling it the resilient facilities grant application. So it says, and it copies a lot of the language from the first one. To whom it may concern, the City of Medford's Climate Equity Council is writing in strong support of this regional, oops, I should have said application, to the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program for the Resilient Facilities Project. The Climate Equity Council is a municipal committee that advises the city on the implementation of the Climate Action Plan, with focus on representing the interests of previously underrepresented groups. Based primarily on members' lived experiences and perspectives gathered from our communities, the council gives feedback on proposed city actions. Tufts Park is a major community asset, with humanities appealing to a wide range of park visitors. The park is situated in an environmental justice area and serves a community within the city that has some of the highest ground air temperatures. This project is a valuable opportunity to address longstanding challenges with stormwater management and urban heat. We are excited at the prospect of supporting the Medford community in re-envisioning this well-loved park as a resilient community space. We commit to being a project partner by supporting the meaningful active involvement of underrepresented communities in the planning process. Thank you very much for your consideration.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Do you want to make a motion? I motion to approve this letter as well. Chesson? All in favor? Aye.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you so much. And that's everything from me. I appreciate it all the time you guys lent me. I'll follow up over email, see if I've got a signature for it. I think we could just do your signature, Charbel, as the chair. Yeah.

[Jennifer Yanko]: We're going deep. Wow. Well, I appreciate hearing and seeing all this. I have a question. If a homeowner is interested in that, what is the process? Who do they talk to? What is the process?

[Amanda Centrella]: That is a great question. And actually, that's part of what this funding will help the city establish. So we would put together process, a formal process by which someone would get this done and kind of streamline it, because right now there isn't something like that in place.

[Jennifer Yanko]: I have some people that I think might be interested. Hopefully I'll become a homeowner by then. I'm trying.

[Amanda Centrella]: You and me both. It makes sense to share like a link to Green Open Somerville now so that if people want to get involved sooner than the project is ready that they could you know, maybe sign up for one of their volunteers or something. Be like kind of involved on the early end. Familiar. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much. I'll leave you guys to the rest of your meeting. Sorry for eating. Thanks so much. Oh, don't worry about it. And I'll You guys can always feel to also include my contact info. I'm always happy to chat.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. All right. You want to jump into events? Thanks again. Um, so yeah, so today we had our utility, um, bill checkup event at the scene center. It was really well attended. We were pretty overwhelmed actually. We had people line out the door. Um, so I think they talked individually to 33 different people there. And there are quite a few people who like looked in and saw the crowd and said, Oh, we'll go to the library event instead, or we'll follow up separately. So it was great. And I had. eight people signed up to talk to me more in depth to the electrifying that food program to really Yeah, yeah.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: When when were there some people that were signed up for a third party?

[Amanda Centrella]: Or Yeah, did you find anything? See any there? No, no, no. It was it was but there were a lot of there were a lot of people who were eligible for the utility discount rate for fuel assistance, things like that, that hadn't signed up before. That's great. On the 29th, there's going to be an invasive plants block where people can learn about garlic mustard and why they shouldn't have it in their yards and around the city. Where is that going to be? In the fells? That is a good question.

[Amanda Centrella]: I think it's in the fells. Has it already come up? Oh, maybe. Maybe they're like by the end of March, they would expect it to be. I don't know.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, there's an events calendar listing right now. So if you go to the Medford events calendar, it'll have everything that you need for it. Pick it and make pesto out of it. It's edible. Oh, really? Yeah. I love doing that, using invasive plants to cook with. Yeah, so on March 30th, we'll have another utility bill checkup at the library, this time more in the evening, to maybe be able to catch different people. And they said that they'll be sending more people this time because they were so overwhelmed.

[Amanda Centrella]: And then also March 30th, directly after that, there's going to be an urban forest management plan presentation at the library, the same sort of thing that you guys heard here, but for the general public.

[Jennifer Yanko]: It's a busy day at the library. Is there something else going on in the service?

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Oh yeah, there's also the Dr. ESOL. Yes, yeah. What is that? That is from 7 to 8.30.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: At the library. That's overlapped. Yeah, so I think CARE is hosting it?

[Jennifer Yanko]: I guess. How to talk to your doctor? Is it an event? Oh, the petition advocacy event? No, we had that last week.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Okay. So Cary is organizing another event. It's an ESOL class, but it's centered around talking to doctors. To your healthcare provider. And I believe it's at the library as well. My council order.

[Amanda Centrella]: Okay. Wow. We're going to be back to back to back there. Yeah. Well, we work well together, so the transitions shouldn't be too bad. Okay. On April 13th, the planning department is going to have an open house at the senior center. The one that we held here in the city council chambers was really well attended, and we had a lot of great engagements, so we want to continue doing those periodically. I think, are you interested in having a table there for anything? I know the Energy and Environment Committee is thinking about having a table to talk to people about the Climate Action Plan and our progress with that. That's for the open house? For the planning department open house, yeah. So the first time we just focused on the planning department and this time we're opening it up to other organizations too.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, maybe. I guess we would have to talk with Beth, I mean, I don't know, Patrick.

[Amanda Centrella]: And I know April 16th, Multicultural Night, is happening at the Missatuck. Any changes to that since the last time we talked?

[Amanda Centrella]: And April 18th, I know that the Arab American Heritage Program is happening. Do you know where it's happening now?

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: So they've been kind of giving us issues with the location. Yeah. Not yet. Yeah, we don't have a location yet. Maybe the Missituk, but I don't know. We need to speak more. Okay.