Energy and Environment 04/06/26

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.6-flash 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 Medford Energy and Environment Committee discussed climate plan monitoring, municipal sustainability initiatives, and a proposed biweekly trash collection program. The committee also approved sending a letter opposing state funding cuts to Mass Save.

0:00 Approval of Minutes — The committee approved the minutes of the previous meeting as amended to correct staff attendance.
3:51 City Staff Updates — Brenda Pike shared updates on Electrify Medford outreach, upcoming EV charger installations, citywide cleanup events, MVP grant applications, and a report on predatory electric suppliers.
13:49 Climate Action Monitoring — Josh Ekhart-Lee led a discussion on tracking implementation of the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, with members offering feedback on how to streamline data collection and member involvement.
49:24 Discussion on Proposed Biweekly Trash Pickup — Committee members raised concerns regarding a proposed biweekly trash collection schedule, discussing potential sanitation issues, compliance, and state regulations.
1:11:57 Mass Save Advocacy Letter — The committee approved sending a letter to state legislators opposing proposed cuts to Mass Save funding, incorporating minor revisions.
1:25:58 Zero Waste and Urban Forestry Updates — Members received updates on upcoming zero-waste events, including a clothing swap and free flea market, as well as tree giveaways and findings from the Urban Forestry Management Plan.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Welcome, everybody. Beautiful day, a little chilly, but it's almost spring. Feeling good. Let's go down, do a quick roll call, and then we'll jump into minutes and moments and all the good stuff. All righty. So if I say your name, just tell me if you're here. Josh.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Benji. Yeah, very here. You're just in time timing. Loretta here. Perfect. I do not see Kathleen yet. Luke told me he would not be here. Yay. I do not see Dan currently, but Bob. Yes. Jessica, nothing yet. No John either. Will is here. John Rogers, I'm here. Oh, there you are. Thank goodness. And that's why I do this.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: If it was just up to me, who knows what would happen. And Paul. Okay. That brings us to nine. Perfect. All right, did everyone get a chance to look over the minutes? I know it was a little slower this time around, but I think I got a chance to go through it.

[Brenda Pike]: I have one change that I just caught. It was Alicia there as a municipal staff attending, and she wasn't there last time.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: That's a very good note. We'll make sure that's struck from the record. Would people accept it with that small amendment?

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: I would motion to accept with the removal of Alicia Hunt as an attending municipal staff member.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Bob. Yes. John. Yes. Will is a yes. That brings us to eight yeses. The yeses have it. Let's accept those minutes and let's give some quick administrative updates before our city updates. Next meeting will be May 4th. I don't think there's any reason that needs to change. I'm seeing a couple of head shakes, feeling good.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh yes, may the 4th be with you. Makes me feel like I have the lift. Brenda, I would love to get some city updates from you.

[Brenda Pike]: Great. So first up, Electrify Medford. So far, we've had 242 residents sign up, and we've coached 124 of those. And 53 have taken an action based on that. We had utility bill checkup events at the senior center and at the library. The senior center one was packed. We had 22 people. There was a line out the door. People were waiting, in some cases, 45 minutes in order to talk to National Grid. So that was really well attended. The library one less so. We had four people show up for that. That was in the evening instead of during the day, like the senior center one.

But we would like to do more of these in different locations. We were talking about maybe doing one at the West Medford Community Center. And if there are other locations that you think would be good places to do that, I'd love to hear it. And we have pulled out of the Mass Save Community First partnership program. That was something where We were mainly partnering with them around outreach. They were giving some funding for outreach to businesses, and they also would have been collaborating on outreach. But we couldn't come to an agreement on data sharing. They had some requirements for city networks and computers and things that we weren't able to meet. So we went back and forth along with A bunch of other municipalities on that and after a year of discussion, we finally gave up on that 1. I'm hoping we'll be able to partner with them on something in the future. They also have an education partnership that doesn't include data sharing. So it would just really be around the outreach. So that might be more appropriate.

We will start installation of our on-street EV charging stations this week. On Thursday, the one at Berry Park will start to go in, and all four locations should be completed by early May. And we're talking with the Mass Clean Energy Center, who completely funded this program, about doing a ribbon cutting event, probably in early June, that the mayor would be speaking at. So once we have a date set for that, I'll let everybody know. I wanted to plug that the citywide cleanup is coming right up on May 2nd. So if you want to volunteer to be the lead for a particular location that you don't see already listed there, you can do that, or you could sign up to just help out at one of the existing locations. And I'll drop the link to that.

uh into the chat so people can take a look um and this is part uh this is now falling under this a larger keep medford beautiful umbrella um that the mayor's office is really trying to encourage more people to volunteer to help out around the city. So that includes things like adopt a storm drain, adopt a tree, adopt a site. So I dropped the link for Keep Medford Beautiful in the chat as well. And that site has links to all those different things where you could sign up if you're interested to help out. And I especially wanted to plug the Adopt-A-Site because that was something that people here seemed interested in for pollinator gardens. So if you're interested, the city would really love to have you get involved.

And last time, I think there was some question about funding for supplies for pollinator gardens. And the mayor's office would have funding for some supplies. So if you want to adopt a site, I would encourage you just to reach out to Lisa Coliani and the mayor's office to find out exactly what would be available. And then I also wanted to mention that at the last Climate Equity Council meeting, Amanda Centrella, our open space planner, attended to talk about the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Grant applications that the city was applying for. And the council provided a letter of support for those.

And those are for an open space and recreation plan update stormwater and heat island work at Tufts Park, and a deep paving project in West Medford. So those applications have gone in now, and if we get the grants, we can do a deep dive into each of those if you're interested. And then I also wanted to mention the Climate Equity Council has some events coming up. They're doing a multicultural night at the Missituk School on April 16th.

They're doing an Arab American Heritage Month event also at the Mississauga School on April 18th and Haitian Flag Day at the McGlynn School on May 16th. And they also, they, they worked with the attorney general's office to record a webinar about predatory electric suppliers. Um, that it has some Medford specific, um, information in there. So that's going to be on Medford community media. And once that's live, I'll send the link out around so you can share it with your networks. And it'll also be featured in the city communications as well.

And along the same lines, the Attorney General's office just came out with a competitive electric supply report update that shows that just in the month of April 2025, about 2,800 Medford residents lost almost $50,000 in overpayments to these third-party electric suppliers. paying about 30% more than the 30% higher rate than they otherwise would have. And I'll drop the link to that report into the chat as well. And that's in April when people's energy use is generally pretty low. So you imagine what that would be like if it was January when it was or when people are using lots of air conditioning, for instance, in the summer. So April is a shoulder month, so energy use is much lower.

[Lauretta James]: That's really awful, Printa. $50,000 in Medford alone. Oh my god. Yeah. That's all that I have for my updates.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right. I'm like, you gave me that report and immediately I'm like, Oh my God. Okay. Um, yeah, something for, for folks here to maybe meditate on for next session. Uh, if there are other actions we want to take around this, um, this one in particular seems to be evoking something pretty visceral in me. Uh, and if you're feeling the same, uh, I will be sure to add this as action items, but you propose something and we'll, we'll talk about it.

[John Rogers]: Um, cause wow, um, it tends to be the elderly that fall victim to these things too, which is even worse than, you know, they, they do specifically split it out into that.

[Brenda Pike]: They have like all households and then they split it out into low income households in particular. And they show that low-income households are paying even more than the average.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I will put it in our follow-up that I'll try to put out tonight or tomorrow. Adding it to my action item list.

[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, I, I think that I would like to, um, uh, we can talk about it the next meeting, but that we construct, uh, uh, an article or editorial for got to know Medford and put it out there.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, the, this report is worthy of a lot more attention than I think it's going to get otherwise. So you're spot on.

[Brenda Pike]: And I think you'll be great to pair that with that webinar about the predatory electricity suppliers too. Yeah.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: We're going to switch gears a little bit. I'm going to hand it over to Josh to talk a little bit about our climate action monitoring updates. And Josh, for your sanity, I'll take minutes for the section and we'll double back and make sure that we got everything. But you focus on what's important.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Oh. Thanks, Will. I'll just, I'll drop the link in the chat to our implementation matrix that folks have had access to throughout, but just easy to have a nice quick, quick, quickly clickable link. And what you'll see when you look at the building and energy section is a pretty blank workbook. You know, We've done some outreach to city staff. We've done some research on our own, I believe. Bob and I were emailing over the last couple of weeks with staff and one another.

But in terms of getting meaningful data and progress on this tracking exercise, it's been slow going and not super rewarding. Jumping into a summary report of what's happening in the building and energy space on the Climate Action Adaptation Plan, I just wanted to just check in with all of you about if you think this is a worthwhile project, if you'd like to do this for the other sections. I couldn't do it alone. And I know Brenda is working on a similar exercise within the department on their own timeline.

And I just, you know, I want to make sure we're respecting y'all's time and volunteer energy. And I don't know if the uptake for this has been enough for this to like be a super successful project. So just like a transparent, stable setting on like, I've been trying to get answers from city staff and from city research for what we can get. And it's not a knock on Brenda or Danielle or Catherine who I've been emailing with, just like the realities of what kind of data we have access to.

But there's not a ton of value in like, diving even deeper into the other sections of the plan if we don't really have the capacity or interest to do so.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: Maybe I should raise my hand first. I can't see who's. So my thoughts on this and I wanted to email a thousand emails I wanted to send to you guys was So would it be so so I understand like, you know, access to data has been one of the limiting factors, probably responses. So since we are tackling something of this magnitude for the first time as a committee, should we like focus on one or two or three of the, you know, subsections. Let's say and see if we can dive much deeper.

See what's available publicly, because honestly, I don't know. And I don't know, that's just a thought. instead of like, okay, are more of us going to volunteer for all of the remaining categories? Would it make sense if, you know, I see your name, I see Bob's name, I see Will's name on a few things. Should we all just pool time and resources into one of those topics and see if we can even make it a success? Might be too soon to come to that conclusion, right? Whether it's worthy or not.

[Brenda Pike]: A few cents. Oh, could I just add, I think some of the things that are in here right now don't reflect what I think what the response was. So I might want to go through and just correct some of these, which also makes me wonder Would it make sense for me to just go through and do a first pass in all of these tabs to put in the information that I already know, even if it's not complete, so that that can be sort of the starting point moving forward if this is something that you want to continue to do?

[Barry Ingber]: I just want to say I've just looked at it. This is the second time I've looked at it. The first time was probably well over a month ago. And I can't make Heidner hair of it. So I mean, that it's just I'm finding it really complicated. Maybe it's just not the way my brain works. I don't know if anybody else is finding it hard to wrap their heads around, but I'm just not quite sure what's being asked of us or what to do with it. It's just like a whole lot of dimensions there.

[Lauretta James]: I agree, too, says Loretta. I'm a little confused by it's so big. And I just think we need to have more guidance and just ditto everything Barry said. I'm confused by it.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: That's good to hear. And I'm sorry it's taken so long to get that feedback. I would have updated it sooner. just to respond, this is simply the design that is in the city's energy climate adaptation plan. And so it's confusing to us with the only additions being which one of us is relevant and what our update on the topic is. It's certainly inscrutable to general residents. because the only thing we've added are additional columns to say which one of us is adding is like responsible and what our update sort of is on this item.

So I think that's a really valuable structural like piece of feedback on how this action plan is written.

[Lauretta James]: Okay so just so what what is the idea from willing that we as members do with this? Because we can't update everything, you know, like, for example, with the trees that I'm working, you know, with and all the data, I can't add everything. I'm not sure. How do you want us to update? Update that form? Or what?

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Sure. So The intent that was laid out and that we sort of came generally to some sort of basic understanding of early on in the year was that this was meant as like a broad overview of progress completed on each of the many, many actions in our climate action and adaptation plan. It wasn't meant to be a deep dive, but a comprehensive broad update. So for instance, an action that is establish a municipal affordable housing trust, that's BE 1.1.C. The intent was to have someone volunteer to sort of figure out what our progress is on that. Um, have a general status that is, hey, it was created in April 2023. It's funded through the community preservation act. And here's it's 5 year plan. Um, that is that is what is like, intended as. Top line sort of summary updates on this project. Um, for the trees work, like, it's not meant to be we planted. a tree at this location and this location, but rather, what are the big takeaways since the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan?

[Lauretta James]: OK, so I could add that we have an urban forestry management plan.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Exactly. Something like that? 1.1b in ecosystems and natural environment.

[Lauretta James]: So with our collective knowledge, if we have information, I mean, I don't think we can fill in all these blanks because the office would know more about these things than we do.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Yeah, the point is that it's just one of us taking responsibility to try and answer these questions. It doesn't have to be because we have that knowledge inherently in the moment, but we can email city staff or call someone you know who's more involved in this. But that is like a level of effort outside of time spent in meetings and a level of like follow through and directness with city staff. It's been hard to turn into outcomes.

[Lauretta James]: And then what happens with this report? Is it shared with the office?

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: So they have, you know, we're doing of our own accords. And I, I want to respect people raising hands, but just to respond to the question. You know, the, the sort of core goal that we talked about as as a committee a few meetings ago was that this would inform a, like, narrative report. on the sort of state of climate action in Medford based on the climate action plan.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Yeah. No, I'll keep saying it until it's clear, because clearly I'm not doing a good job trying to facilitate this process. And I just, you know, you have so much expertise in this room.

[Lauretta James]: I think you are. It just needs clarification. We work on so many different things. And everybody has different expertise. It's important to be reminded there's so much going on in the city.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: I'd be interested in hearing, Bob, about your experience trying to gather information on strategy BE2 on fuel switching and energy efficiency, what that info sort of gathering process was like for you.

[Robert Paine]: Yeah, you've steered me to a couple of resources which provided some information which I passed on to you. I have now a chance to deep dive into it due to the Easter holiday, but I will try to do that soon. I don't know, Brenda, you have, through electrifying Medford, any other insights into conversions from fossil fuel to electricity for Medford residents, and maybe for a city. This also, I guess, Josh, applies to municipal resources and buildings as well, right?

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Uh, yeah, I, I believe so though. I think that is, um, primarily something tied into, um, B. E. And also 2.4.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yeah. So, so 2.1 is, is really more focused on other city buildings, other buildings in the city. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

[Robert Paine]: Yeah, in general, I guess it's good to have a 5 year update. This happens in a lot of plans. I mean, I, I'm involved with regional haze in my line of work, and every 5 years, each state is supposed to provide an update is how we're doing on cleaning up the air for national parks. You know, it makes sense to have a 5 year update. Well, how are we doing? And where are we falling behind? And what do we do to fix that? So I think it makes sense to have an update.

[Robert Paine]: No, no, there's no but. It's just that how much work is it to do that? Does the city, Brendan, does your office you're probably working on some of the aspects of that.

[Brenda Pike]: And so- Yeah, that goes back to my question earlier, right? Would it make sense for me to just go through here and do a first pass of the things that I know from what I've already looked into here, knowing that that's not complete, but that might be a better place to start than a blank page.

[Robert Paine]: It might be better to say, well, we need help from the committee on these specific items, and maybe you've already done that. But if you already have some things covered, we probably should know about that.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: A lot of this is asking Brenda about it anyway, or when we ask other people, they're like, Brenda would know.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Yeah. I think that would be valuable to the end of, like, filling out this spreadsheet. I think part of Part of my intention with encouraging and asking us to do this project was also about us taking ownership over the Climate Action Plan and becoming more expert on the contents and its progress. As much as I believe we can rely on Brenda, because you're incredible, I'd also like us to step into the authority and knowledge that we have, maybe with more intention.

So maybe with a starting point from Brenda, still leaning into having a member of the committee for each item to become its quasi-expert meetings would be valuable, unless I see your hand raised. but you are still muted.

[Brenda Pike]: Well, until Lois unmutes, can I just say, I love that idea because it would really help to get the committee's feedback on what areas you want to focus on moving forward. Because there are a lot of actions in this plan, right? And so it's hard to say, yes, just do all of the above, but to really focus in on which actions are really important to you would be really helpful.

[Lois Grossman]: What I was going to say is I wish you would do what you volunteered to do, Brenda, send it around. Because frankly, Josh, I don't even remember anymore what we first discussed, what you're doing exactly, and why. My mind has been in many other places. And seeing Brenda's feedback might help me. and others to understand what's going on and be responsive.

[Brenda Pike]: It's definitely a situation where just reading the one sentence on here for each item isn't enough. You have to go back to the Climate Action Plan and review what the intent was in there.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: I appreciate that, Lois. I think maybe a bit more as a follow-up. a bit more of a concrete directive kind of email that's like, this is a reminder of the purpose and intent and what we've talked about previously would be valuable. I think maybe because our interests are pretty diffuse, a process I thought would be valuable would be breaking down our timelines to do building synergy for this meeting, transportation for the next, the environment for the following, and public health for the one succeeding that. It seems like it would be more engaging and beneficial if We just did a collective sort of assignment at the off across all sections, and then we can go at them at our own pace and people can provide updates as they happen. That would be a little bit more scattered, but it seems like that might be more fruitful.

Anywho, without hearing a direct rejection of this as a process, based on the initial question of, do you guys think this is valuable? I'll try to go back to the drawing board and give a really clear and hopefully actionable kind of follow-up to this meeting to you all in an email as to what we're looking for and what our expectations are.

[Barry Ingber]: Let me give you a response. I think your idea is really good. I think it's really sound. I think it's really a step ahead of the work this committee has done over the decade that I've been on it. I think it's a great direction for us to move in. I think the tool is hard to understand and what is being asked of us is a little hard to understand. But I think that if you can help make that task clearer for us. And if we engage in it, I think that it will be really good for for the city and for us.

So I want to express my support for the project, but I think it needs some work. And just giving it an extra look, I can see the pieces that I would volunteer to engage in. but I'm still not really clear about what that exactly would mean. So that's where the work is needed.

[Robert Paine]: I was going to suggest that Brenda might be able to do an overview of maybe each area in the climate action plan as to what very, very brief overview of, okay, we're on track for this and we need to do this to quantify that. And I might need what resources are needed to finish that task. And if some of the resources are from our committee, that would be identifiable. If there are resources that the city will apply to that, then we don't have to worry about that section. So I think we need to know what sections are needed to be augmented for the effort and where would we fit in.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, would it make sense to do, you know, just a quick walkthrough of a section each meeting and just go through and, you know, launch a campaign for any energy efficient electric heating and cooling systems? We did that. That's Electrify Medford. Here's the progress for it, you know, and just just talk through like each of the things in the meeting. Would that be more? Would that be easier for people or more? understandable, at least as a jumping off point?

[Robert Paine]: Yeah, I think so. Since I haven't had time to read through the whole thing, I think just dragging us through various sections in each meeting would be good. Maybe, I don't know, 15 minutes, a 15 minute time allocation maybe.

[Barry Ingber]: Yeah. I agree. You know, and I'm speaking just for myself, like I'm not really familiar with the Climate Action Plan, and I should be. I mean, I'm not new to this committee. So, you know, why aren't I? And I guess the reason is because there hasn't really been a particular reason for me to be that familiar with the Climate Action Plan. And so other things have taken my my time. So I guess what I would want to know now is how, I mean, because I agree with your suggestion, Brenda, and with what Bob just said, but I also want to know, how does my making myself familiar and contributing to some kind of a process like this, how does that help? Like, what am I adding to the efforts of the city and the efforts of this committee by doing that? Because if I understand what that is, I'm in.

[Brenda Pike]: Well, I don't want to speak for the folks who sort of started this off, but I think the goal is to monitor the progress and kind of hold the city's feet to the fire, right? If there are things that are not. being done that you really want to focus on, I think it's important to know where they stand and sort of focus on that moving forward. One of the reasons why we have, for instance, this Electrify Medford campaign is because when I first came to the city of Medford, I heard the Energy and Environment Committee is really interested in doing an outreach campaign around this. And so, you know, there was a lot of focus put into getting that off the ground. So the things that you are pushing the city to do, they get attention.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think the way I imagine this in many ways is right now we have a checklist of every possible action that Medford could and should take around climate. But that's not super helpful because we don't know what's even been checked yet. Um, so it'd be really great to know what's already been checked off, which ones were, we have like a half check in. Um, and that way, you know, by the end of this process, maybe at the end of the year, let's say we can deliver a. bulleted list to the planners at City Hall and say, hey, here are the things that you promised to do, here are the things that you missed, and here are the things that we think you could do tomorrow, and here are the things that you should start because you're really behind on. And I think that's a really great like orienting piece of work. And a major reason why when Josh proposed it, I said, we have to do this. I think that's a really helpful thing that would help guide our legislators and help guide folks towards keeping the promise that they made.

[Robert Paine]: Yes, I was going to say that the monitoring the, the evolution of this climate action plan seems to be fitting to our role as you know, in this committee is the most. Directly involved in this action, so we ought to be knowledgeable about it. So, it makes sense to dive in and do it, but we do need to be led by Brenda in terms of. Okay. Here's what I know is what we're how we're doing and.

figure out what our committee can do to help fill in the voids. Just be involved in being understanding ourselves, how we're doing, and then maybe suggesting where we might contribute to further progress.

[Lois Grossman]: This discussion has helped me at least understand what we're talking about. And we need to keep talking about it. We need to keep it present and not pie in the sky. But not necessarily now, because we have other things to talk about, right?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: There's a lot to do. I'm going through my notes here to remember who said it. I think a couple of people did. I think it was Bob's recommendation of, hey, let's take 10, 15 minutes each session to just maybe even read the opening piece of a section of the Climate Action Plan. God knows someone spent a lot of time writing that. But it should kind of clarify, why is this chapter even involved? What are the objectives? Why are they there?

And maybe cue us into the hopes, dreams, aspirations that people had when they wrote this and give us that jumping off point. And maybe I can work with Brenda to put together a little like, here's the baseline info we have so far on this objective. Because if she doesn't want to make too many enemies in her office, I'm fine to pester Danielle and Catherine and everyone else too. So... I'm glad we're talking about it and we'll... I'm not going to shut up about it, so...

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Appreciate you all engaging in this conversation. And I'm sorry, I've been unclear. And like the ask previously, it's helpful for me to know how we can move forward successfully. There'll be some more clarity and some more direction soon. I appreciate y'all.

[Brenda Pike]: Did we want to, in this section, talk about the PDS, the planning department open house, and the energy environment table there? Because I think that was going to be focusing on the climate action plan, right?

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: I don't know if I have a vision. A formal vision. But my hope is, as we sort of talked about here, to lay out very broad summaries of the sort of five areas of the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan and kind of ask folks what concepts they're most excited about. So we get a sense not just using progress on an item as a motivating factor, but also interest. Because if we just use the sort of like, well, this is where we have made progress and not, and we want to move forward everything. It's sort of, it's a little more complicated because there are things with a higher lift needed or a higher impact. And so the hope is to get some qualitative data on what is of interest and what seems to be of value to the kind of engaged residents who show up to the open house.

So whether that'll involve stickers as a classic planning school kind of exercise or not, I haven't decided what the mechanical form would be. But that's the primary aim, if that sounds valuable to folks.

[Brenda Pike]: Josh, I have printouts of the tables that list all of the different actions. So that might be useful. And then I can also bring physical copies of the climate action plan, too.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Thanks. Yeah, definitely a reference that'll be useful. I think my hope, as we've seen, our most engaged residents on this, who are the members of this committee, are finding it a little hard to parse. So I might try to just do the strategies and keep feedback to a higher level with a smaller list of items. Or rather, objectives, not even strategies. Really take it to the highest point.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I was just rounding out the notes here. Yeah, for those of us who aren't fully in the know, there's an open house next Tuesday. where the planning department is going to be showcasing a ton of stuff. And even some folks not with the planning department.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, thank you. That is a good catch. I was going to show up the wrong day. Bad planning mistake. Uh, thank you. Uh, yes. Next Monday is the open house. You should all go. Uh, there's a really, there's a ton of cool stuff. If you'd like to table, Josh could use the company. I'm sure. Um, I'll be throwing stuff across the aisle over to him, but you know, I don't think it'll be quite as engaging, uh, without your company. So think about visiting, co-tabling, whatever you'd like. I think it'll be a ton of fun.

[Brenda Pike]: We had a lot of people come to the last open house that we held. I was a little surprised. I didn't think that that would necessarily be very engaging, but we had a lot of great conversations with people.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And I'm bringing a bunch of fun toys around, like repair and fix-it maker stuff. So if you want to go see a solar powered 3D printer, if you want to go see some repair stations for mending or for soldering, we got cool stuff. I'm pushing the waste table hard, but there's other tables, too, and I'm sure they do cool stuff. I just don't know what yet. So worth exploring. I think it's cool. I'll be there. All right, I'm finishing up our little action item list here, making sure we have lots for y'all to look at for our climate monitoring project.

But without much else going on, we are a little ahead of schedule, which is exciting. Gives us a little extra time. Oh, Benji.

[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I wanted to raise something that isn't on the agenda. At least two of our members have expressed, Barry and Bob, pretty strong opposition to the biweekly fresh pickup, which is going to be happening in a year. I just wanted to raise the question. I'm not sure what I think about it, but at least two of our members feel pretty strongly about it. There may be others, and I don't mean to shortchange anybody, but I feel like we should make a decision about whether we want to deal with it or not, and not just leave. folks sort of hanging on it. Is it something we want to express opinion on, take a formal stance on, et cetera? And I feel like we haven't really made a decision about that, but there has been some pretty strong opposition voiced by, as I say, at least two of our members. There may well be more.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, so what I have is at least the compilation of amendments and alternatives and such. If we'd like, we should definitely make this a larger talking point for discussion at one of our meetings. I'd be happy to give us, well, I'll let us talk briefly here. We can also set aside a little time at the, the new business section of our meeting to broach it again. But I do want to give this a lot of time, because I think it is important to talk about. Yeah, Barry.

[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, I think I'm probably the harshest critic of this initiative. Bob was pretty strong, but I think that I outdistanced him on it. Even from that perspective, I think that our opposition If everybody—if the committee agrees with me, and it's not clear that the committee agrees with me, but even if the committee agrees with me and Bob, I think that it would be inappropriate for us to take a public stand in opposition. I think our stand should actually be internal and expressed to the planning department and to the mayor. And we can express it as starkly and clearly and strongly as we want, but as a committee, I think that it just feels in some way inappropriate.

It doesn't feel inappropriate to me for any of us who are so moved to as individual residents to express our displeasure. I don't know. I mean, I'm not even sure I can clearly explain why it doesn't feel right, but it doesn't feel right. So in some ways, that makes it easier, because as long as it's internal, it's not as fraught. Anyway, I just want to say that.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I appreciate that, Barry. I think, I don't know if this will be another instance where we won't get MAEC as a committee just fully aligned on one course of action. That's part of the reason I liked the idea of this open amendments doc, where I could distill the information and the ideas of the committee and then just hand it directly to Alicia and to the mayor and to such and say, hey, you know, these are some of the recommendations being made by the people that you entrusted to make recommendations. Um, if we decide we want to talk about this more, um, please email me. Um, there's never, I talk about this again, 15 hours a week. Like that's just my, my day job now. Uh, so I'm delighted to keep talking about it. Um, but I don't want to, I don't want to like steer the whole ship in one direction or another. Um, But if that's something we want to hold a more in-depth conversation about again, I'm delighted to do it. You need only ask.

[John Rogers]: Yeah, I think that I'm also against it because of the sanitary issues, like the concept If it were not for the sanitary issues concept, it would be a great concept. But I think the sanitary issues are very profound. And also, I think we can't find a lot of data on this, because I can't think of any other municipalities that are doing this. So what's going to happen is we are going to become the data. And that's a little horrifying.

[Lauretta James]: Yeah. I understand, as I said in other meetings, the concept of it. I don't think it's actionable to assume everybody will comply. So I'm also against it, except for the recommendations that I mentioned to you in your spreadsheet, which would be. You know, having weekly pickups May through September, and maybe holidays if possible, because it's so hot then, that's where you attract more rodents and the smells. So, yeah, it's difficult, because this is a city position, and I'd like to hear more updates of what's happening.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: At the very least, I can make it a general update on what's being done. Yeah, I can at most direct us to literature and things that I've found. There are only a handful of cities that do every other week pick up. I believe London being one of them. But there's only a handful of, what's that?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: But they have very different structures than we do. So that makes sense. That doesn't necessarily mean that it works anywhere else, let alone Medford. But I could put together a little reading list of pros and cons and things that I've been working through as well. I'm still on the fence, you know, and I, again, the more I think about it, the more muddled it gets. And that's why I like talking with you all about it.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: The city is still deliberating. I mean, they want to keep hearing from folks. So every time that you have an opinion, every time you have a thought about it, people do want to hear it. I've even put together a little section on the Bill Green Medford website where people can talk about it a little more. because I think it's important to talk about.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: There should be more in the works. I actually don't know when.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I don't want to. I see two more hands. We're going to be or three more hands with Lois as well. I don't want to take too much time on this, but we will. I will hear you guys and then we'll hopefully maybe just give another time in the month to do this because there's a lot to talk about.

[Robert Paine]: Yes, very briefly, I found an EPA regulation that says you have to pick up weekly trash that has food waste. And since we aren't going to get rid of all the food waste anytime soon, we are in violation of an EPA regulation if we adopt this plan. How can we possibly have done this?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Sure. I think it only works with the assumption that everyone composts.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: I was going to say, if composting is free, how would it be in violation, Bob?

[Robert Paine]: Because we aren't all doing it. You have to have 100% compliance in order to do this legally, and you can't do it legally, so we can't do it. Until we get to 100% composting, you cannot institute this without you in violation of an EPA regulation.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: So could the city just say the residents who are not adopting composting are in violation rather? Just throwing them.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Because they're being given the option. It's a sort of chicken and egg situation. I hear where you're coming from, but it is like if someone is in violation, it's strictly because they are choosing not to. at that point, unless there are some.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: Yeah, because the city is offering it for free, right? That a lot of cities are not doing.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It doesn't work for apartments, though. So there is worry there. High density does not get free composting.

[Barry Ingber]: It also doesn't work for dirty food wrappers, and it doesn't work for diapers. And it's just, I mean, we're in violation.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: The diaper is just a whole other conversation, Barry. People aren't even disposing diapers the way you're supposed to.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: I mean, I haven't dealt with diapers, but I've heard from a lot of people that say that.

[Barry Ingber]: I mean, Bob has found a federal regulation that exists. And whether we agree with the regulation or not, it exists. But I have a caustic comment and a question that I think Brenda or Will could answer. And the caustic comment is the thing about the $200,000 challenge grant sounds more like a response to a fundraising push than the way you provide municipal services. I mean, we do this in order to meet the challenge grant. That's crazy.

That's not how we do municipal service. It's not how we do education. It's not how we do fire. I don't understand even looking at it that way. But the question is,

[Brenda Pike]: Sorry, just in quick response to that, I would just say that there was a desire to do composting, to do free composting and roll that out to the entire city. That was identified as a way to fund that. And so the attempt was made to be able to meet the requirements to be able to fund free composting across the city.

[Barry Ingber]: OK. I support free composting across the city. The question is, The requirement is 32 gallons of trash per week. I gather that's per household, though it was not stated clearly. But I gather that's per household. What is the current number of gallons per week of trash being collected per household?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Well, we could look at the by weight, but we don't get it for household.

[Barry Ingber]: It's got about one gallon or less. So we're averaging all of that. So I'm wondering how much above 32 we are at the present time.

[John Rogers]: The thing is, I'm just thinking, and this isn't why I raised my hand, I'm just thinking that it's easy to tell how many gallons because trash compactors are a volume thing, right? So if you know how many gallons are in a trash compactor, then you know how many gallons you've picked up by how many trips you had to make to Medford. So we should be able to know exactly, because for instance, mine, I usually only have two bags in it. Like mine is mostly empty. On a big week, I'm half full.

So if there are other people like me, meanwhile, my recycling bin, I have to go and make a trip to the city in between. About once a week, I take something in my car down to the recycling in the city yard. But aside from that, we should be able to tell exactly how many we're doing right now.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, most likely. I can look into our consultants. I'm sure they have that data, or at least the totals, and we can do some division.

[Brenda Pike]: So I shared our waste tonnage with the group this summer. Remember the graphs that we looked at that included that? And so we can just convert that from tons to gallons.

[John Rogers]: I don't know if it doesn't, but they're 2 different things gallons are not totally different, but we could do.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, some, some broad estimates there, but I don't think that's the way that the program that the state is interpreting. The state is interpreting it as. If you have 64-gallon bins that are picked up each week, they're considering that to be 64 gallons per week. They're not looking at what the actual amount is.

[Lois Grossman]: Yes. I want to know, is this already a done deal? and are we spinning our wheels talking about it, or is there still the possibility that this will not go through? Do we know the answer to my question?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I believe, my understanding, And Brenda, please step in if I misspeak. My understanding is that this is the proposal, but it is not signed in any formal sense, I think until mid-summer, maybe even later. It is something that the deliberate, like, there's a reason why folks at City Hall are still asking for input, because there is room for discussion, and they want to get it right.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. So the company that picks up the trash is asking for a year's notice before any change is made. So if we're looking for something to start next July, for instance, then they would like the decision to be made by this July.

[Lois Grossman]: It wasn't presented that way. It was simply presented as a fact. It's going to happen in July 27. That's what we were told in the press release. That's why I asked the question. It was not presented as a proposal. It was presented as a fait accompli.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Understood. Yeah, I think I can't speak for City Hall in this case. I wasn't there. There's, I think, a lot of issues with how this is rolled out. And I think that's a sticking point for a lot of folks. And I want to... Me personally, and part of the reason I like engaging with you all at MEC, is I do want to find those kind of back and forths between where there is room for something productive in this. Because I think if we do have that opportunity to change the contract, I do want to know what it would look like um, that would be the most sustainable for people, but also the most sustainable for our environment and see if we can find that balancing act. Um, so it is, it is an interesting, uh, deliberation there. Um, and I don't think it was communicated well, and it's something that as I've done more research, I've uncovered more and more about. the ins and outs of what is actually happening versus what's been communicated. And I know that they're not always one-to-one.

We are moving into territory where there's just a much larger conversation at work. I'm going to ask John and Kathleen, either we can make it really quick or you can email me. And again, we should probably have a discussion about this more formally next month. I wanna make sure we have time to talk about the other things.

[John Rogers]: Yeah, I think mine's quick. It's the $200,000. Is it a small percentage of how much we actually pay for trash pickups? I know I've seen the numbers, but I don't have them in front of me. Yeah, let me grab.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I'm putting a link in the chat. This is a document that was put together On the city website, I believe by garbage to garden, talking about a lot of different facts, figures and the like. This talks about how many households are currently enrolled in composting pounds of waste of food that's being diverted. They start talking about savings. writ large based on tonnage that's being removed, as well as what they expect savings to look like over the course of the 10-year period.

This is all done through Garbage to Garden, specifically by their folks. And it answers a good number of questions I'd be shocked if it answered every question, but I don't necessarily have every answer. But if you do have parts of this that you take umbrage with or you're confused by, you can email me. I can reach out to folks at Garbage to Garden, see where they're coming up with certain facts and figures. But I think it's a pretty good overview of what they're imagining for this program. Um, why they're doing it, how they're doing it and what they expect to come from it.

Um, this has been on the city's website for a minute now, but I'm looking to link it elsewhere as well, because I think it's pretty darn useful.

[Brenda Pike]: But I think a quick, a quick summary is the 200,000 is not the largest, the larger number here. The, I think what they had said was that. If we made no changes to our waste program, there was going to be an increase in cost that to the tune of like a million dollars a year or something like that.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And that's a mix of disposal tipping fees and the fact that our waste. Containing food is about. Was it 20 to 30% heavier when it includes food?

[Brenda Pike]: So it was a combination of trying to save the city a million dollars a year and then also get that grant.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And of course, at any time, I have a huge database now of all the links that I found as I researched this. If you're ever looking for a fact, a figure, a piece of information, I know Bob and I talked at length via email for a while about ins and outs of parts of this program, just email me. I'm happy to just kind of talk about it. Again, I don't necessarily represent the city or propose that this is the best plan.

But at the very least, I'm trying to understand it and get a sense of why I propose it at all. So please reach out. Happy to talk about it. And I check my email a lot.

[Lois Grossman]: Will this link be in the minutes, Will? Josh's link, will they be in the minutes?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Would you like it for yourself or for future reference? Like for yourself or for official minutes?

[Lois Grossman]: I just think those links are important and should be in the minutes so we can get them again.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I'm putting together. I have my little email follow up email after this that will have all of these for us. That's why I ask, like, do you want this to be in the public meeting minutes or just to us to us? Okay, I can do that. Great. I will make sure that that information is given out to everybody probably tonight as I put everything together. And Josh will put together his clarity and action item list for the cat monitoring program. And we'll make sure that's the monitoring evaluation piece. And we'll send those out to you all. OK.

Time is of the essence. I love the energy. Okay. Brenda, we're going to try to do our absolute best to get through our letter in support of mass save in negative six minutes. But in lieu of that, we'll do our best to just be quick and efficient. But is there anything you'd like to say? I think we've all looked over the letter at some point.

[Brenda Pike]: Yes, so only one person sent along any edits to it, and I've included those in the letter. Did other people have a chance to review it? Do you want to make any changes? Barry?

[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, I didn't exactly have edits, but I did share with Brenda and Will a conversation that I had with Paul Donato, who's in the leadership at the House. And it gave a different slant, and I shared with Luke as well, because he works for MassSafe, a different slant on the reason for the cut. And in my opinion, this letter should address those concerns, because that's what we're up against. You know, today I got an email from the National Consumer Law Center about the Trump administration's efforts to gut everything, including fuel assistance, citing inaccurate, exaggerated, and outdated information about fraud in the program. And that kind of accusation is used always, always by people who want to gut services to people and who want to gut programs to assist people. And that's what's being trotted out here on mass save is actual imperfections in the program are being used as an excuse to gut the program rather than trying to fix the program. You don't fix a program by defunding it. And You know, so that's what's happening here. And I think that the letter needs to address that head on. I also think there needs, I don't know if what's going on at the state level, but is there a strategy for the Senate and the conference committee since the trashing of the program has already happened in the House? And it's kind of too late to address it there.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, the focus is definitely on the on the Senate at the at the moment. That's where the advocacy is.

[Barry Ingber]: Okay, well, Pat will be a friend. So, you know, having conversation with her about it would could be helpful.

[Brenda Pike]: And I would add that the mayor has also reached out and as has the Metro mayors coalition as a whole about this as well. So there's a lot of advocacy that's happening around it.

[Barry Ingber]: And even though the cuts have already happened in the house, Rep Garbaly might be out of the picture at this point, but Donato, because he's in the leadership, should still be turned around because of conference committee issues. If the Senate comes up with a better version, they're going to have to hash it out. And there's

[Robert Paine]: I had suggested a possible compromise to reduce the cuts, because I think there's public pressure to reduce electricity costs. And Mass Save is like a punching bag on that issue. If anything, we could maybe cut the cut in half, rather than advocate. That would be a fallback position. Obviously, we'd like No cut, but if we have to take some cut, it would be less than the proposed cut at this point to just to get something back, claw back some of the money.

I don't know how to express that in this letter, but that would be a compromise position. if we have to go there. But, you know, you can go in with no cut and then you might say, but by the way, verbally, we would appreciate some less of a cut. If you have to do some cutting, do less. Because there's, Mass Saver's really valuable.

[Barry Ingber]: Well, I don't see a reason to compromise on that, actually. I mean, so for people who I didn't share it with, Paul Donato asked me to call him so that he could explain to me his vote to cut Mass Save. And I had not heard what what he told me on the phone was not something that I had heard before anywhere. But he said, first he argued about whether the cuts were as severe as I said, and then he acknowledged that They were, because they're compressed into a small part of the funding cycle.

But he said that the reason the leadership was cutting the program was because of poor management issues. Those were not his words. But that MassSafe vendors were overbilling by billing for for jobs that they weren't actually doing. And I said, there's follow-up inspections. And he said, well, the follow-up inspections aren't happening, which I actually think is true. And, but he put out the cuts as, temporary, you know, so that the problems could be fixed. And, you know, how you can't, you don't, how does that fix the problems? Like that's, you can't fix a vital, underperforming program by gutting it. And, and that's an excuse that's always used. So I think that that I think you have to be really blunt about that. Arguing with the points that are not the points that they're making, at least in the back rooms, does not help us.

[Brenda Pike]: I'm not sure it's useful to argue with disingenuous points that they're making, right? If they know that what they're talking about is not necessarily true, and they're just saying it to Yeah, there and they're just saying that I don't know that it's necessarily helpful. But again, this is your letter. So feel free to make any edits to it that you would like before sending it out.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Leave it up to you all. We have a letter in hand. If we think it is something we'd like to send out, We can certainly hear a motion on that. If we think there's edits to be made or wording or phrasing to be done, we can do it conditionally. I leave it up to you all.

[Robert Paine]: I think it's time sensitive though, right? Yeah. I guess we either do it or don't do it right now. Is Barry the, he has the letter, he's the one that would... I should have the letter, but if you don't, I can send a link right now. No, it was, it was included in Brenda's email.

[Barry Ingber]: I mean, I guess the basic point is don't cut, mass save. It could be those three words, and that would be sufficient. Maybe adding a sentence to the effect that we have also heard that there are concerns about the performance of the program, that minor performance issues with the program can't be addressed by gutting it. And that there are better remedies than budget cuts for fixing performance issues. I mean, you know, I'm not sure that's a good idea, because that kind of puts out the idea of there being performance issues.

But that was put out by Paul to me. So that's what they're talking about in the back rooms.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: I'd welcome making a motion to edit with Barry's final language edits, if, Barry, that feels comfortable to you.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Well, I was hoping to ask permission from the one sort of being voluntary in that motion.

[Barry Ingber]: I'll give Brenda a sentence or two. and leave it to her to decide what to do with it. If she doesn't like it or wants to change it, that's just fine with me. I think the important thing is that the letter, that'll let it go out. And like I said, don't cut mass save would be, would take care of it. So.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Be a neon sticky note. Don't. All right, and then that was a, so there was our motion. Is that a second from Benji?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Fantastic, okay. So this is a motion to send the letter with minor language adjustments at the behest of Brenda, as Brenda sees fit. And I made notes as to what exactly that might look like, and I can relay that to Brenda as we workshop and make sure that's finally put out.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Great. I mean, if you'd like to send something, I'd prefer it. But I wrote down what you wrote, and hopefully it's close. That's fine. That's great. In that case, we will head down the line. Yes, no, abstain. The usual trio. Alrighty. So, Josh. Yes. Lois.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Okay, great. I'd hate to ascribe bad votes. Uh, Bob? Yes. Uh, John?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And a yes from Will. Uh, the yeses have it. We will get our signatures on that post, Nate. We'll make sure that, uh, I'll make sure that's sent out by, by the end of the week. Thank you all for looking that over and getting it moved. Right, final piece on the docket are a couple little updates from our friends across the city. I'm going to throw first to, well, goodness, we don't have a ton of time. We will go first to Pravita to talk a little bit about Zero Waste, and then quickly to Loretta to talk a little bit about trees.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: Sounds good. Yeah, I don't have more than I have a heart stop in maybe 48 seconds, but Earth Month last year, we had the Medford Free Flee Market to promote sustainability, keep things from landfill, you know, reduce waste, one of the topics we are very passionate about and keep discussing in different ways and forms. So we have two events coming up, both in collaboration with Tufts. One is a clothing swap. Thanks for the idea, Lewis. It's on April 20. I sent out an email.

It's going to happen in Tufts Chase Center. It's on Patriots Day, so right around Earth Day. April 20 from 12 to 4. so if you have any good clothes to donate to your neighbors please bring them if you're thinking about getting some new clothes for spring or any changing season summer maybe you want to check it out before we buy anything new And then in May, we have a free flea market, again, in collaboration with Tufts, very similar to the one that was held in last May and September, where you can bring a lot of things that you want to donate, not just restricted to clothes, and you can pick up cool items.

I believe Lisa from the city reached out to Angie to get some information on the free flea market. And then I have sent that's potentially going to go on the city calendar, right, Will?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, in the chat. This is a little pet project of mine. where I added not just the two events that Prabitha has been working on, but it turns out people in Medford have been doing a lot of zero-waste projects. Everyone ranging from private entities like Zero Waste Medford and Prabitha, but also Mama's mutual aid group. The library has done a ton of mending events. And so anything Zero Waste related, I've been putting on this calendar and slowly adding it and linking things to it. So as you promote or produce events that you think live in the Smart Waste category, you can send an email to myself or to the link here and just add more to them, because there's a ton going on.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: Yeah, this junk in the trunk organized by Everything Is Free Medford on May 9th, that is Also in May, which is great, we have at least three events. So I just wanted to before wrapping up and leaving, sorry, I just wanted to talk about one more thing. So I'm also in conversation with moms out front, and they are very interested in partnering and doing something zero waste sustainability related. And those are the folks that we've been having extensive conversation on diapers and whatnot.

We haven't decided when, but once I have the details, if anyone else is interested in joining, let me know. And then also in conversation with Trove Medford, one of our own refillery. So hopefully more cool events to come. Thank you.

[Josh Ekhart-Lee]: Well, this is a sort of mechanical question. Is this calendar just, it looks like a well-formatted table, or is there a way to make it like an RSS feed?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: My God, I've been trying everything. It's still kind of a pet project. I'm still playing with it. Right now I have a spreadsheet that automatically populates this calendar. And I don't want to do without it, but I'm trying to figure out how to break our formatting here to make it fit better. If you do have to scroll. Yeah.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Less than ideal. And I'm still playing with it to find a system that works best. If you know anyone, or anyone here knows anyone with bigger HTML experience than me, which is most people, send them my way. These iframes have been killing me. Did Rebetha already scoot out of here? And Loretta, tell us what's new in the world of trees. I've been to a couple of meetings just in the last week, so I know it's busy.

[Lauretta James]: Right. I had a lot of information to share, so I'm going to try to do it really quick, I think. So let's start with the spring tree tree. Giveaway and Purchase Tree Giveaway. That's Monday, April 13. Trees Merit will have the delivery of Beirut trees. It's early morning. I think the truck is coming in at 7.30 on April 13. And they did need some volunteers. I'm not sure if they still do. And I'm not sure. I think it's at the West Medford Community Center, did Lois leave? Yeah. I don't know. But anyways, that's where it's been before. That's one thing. I'm going to move along real quick. The urban forestry management plan public meeting was on March 30th. They did a great presentation of the. of the plan by Weston and Sampson. And I asked Will to put the link in so you'd all have the plan. It's 134 pages. I was going to read something from it, but you know, the management, what? Okay. Yeah. The idea of the management plan, it does say all the recommendations in this plan are subject to available funding, which is important because they've always been underfunded staffing grant support and city council approval. proposed timelines and targets represent aspirational goals. It may be adjusted based on feasibility and community priorities. I also had some presentation slides, but it was sent to me by an email. So I couldn't really share it because the link is from a personal email address. So, but in any event, the important things on that was that we have lost 60 acres of trees from 2015 to 2021.

And that's from, give me one second here. I'm jumping around to different notes here. Oh boy. Where did it go? Oh, here it is. That's on page 27 of the plan. that I just mentioned, the tree canopy change for urbanized lands from 2015 to 2021. The net canopy cover change was 60 acres of loss. And that could be from trees being damaged, dying, removed. and most of it is from, let's see, we had in 2015, 848 acres of tree canopy. And in 2021, we have 788 acres of tree canopy. So that's how they got the 60 acres of tree canopy loss. The plan has a percentage by different areas. It's mostly from commercial and residential lands. So that's, and the biggest hits were West Medford and East Medford. That's a lot, imagine 60 acres of trees. And we're going to lose all our elm trees. They're expected to, I'm sorry, sorry, correction, ash trees. We're going to lose 100% of those.

And I can't give you all the, like I said, it's a huge report that will list how many percentage of trees. We have 17% Norway maple trees that are in poor condition and pear and ash trees. And we have 50% of the trees that are inventory, which are 10,000 trees, mostly public, meaning public Medford trees on Medford lands. 20% of them are Norway maples and Calgary pear. And that doesn't align with the idea of the 10-20-30 rule, where no more than 10% of the trees should be one species. So it's a good read. The idea is to get more funding for tree. DPW, the forestry department, implant 200 to 400 trees a year. But there's a lot that's going into that. And that's a whole other thing.

Let me just move on. The Trees Manifest Pilot Milwaukee-style mini forest at Tufts Park. I think I sent you a link to that. And right, well, there's a link to learn more about it. So it's a community event. And the site preparation day is Saturday, May 23rd. And there'll be a community planning day Saturday, September 19th. So they're looking for volunteers for that. And the link on www.treesmedica.org slash mini forest slash project has videos of what they're planning to do. And you know, it's a small mini forest, but it's very interesting. And also, Did I do anything else? Yeah. Okay. So there's an invasive plant, invasive plants method, walk and talk on April 24th from 11 to 12 hour per day invasive tree walk. So anybody interested in that? April 24th, invasive plants method, walk and talk. And they'll be looking at invasive trees.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And if you find you have more info that you left out that feels really important, please send it to us. You can send it to me and I can send it out however you want to relay that important work. Because it's springtime and that means trees got to get in the ground. It's time to start working. It's a lot to do, and we need more people to do it. So thank you for sharing that.

[Lauretta James]: Yeah, I do. I will. I'm sorry, I forgot to say. About the tree walk, if you go to the medfordmass.org website, and you look under events, the invasive plant walk is on the event page under events for April 24th. And I'll say probably we had a meeting up and everything, which I left out. So I'm sorry about that.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No worries at all, we put you in a tight time window there, and I appreciate you sticking to it the best we can. All right, and with that, do we have any new business? Do we have any motions that need to end the meeting with?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I hear the second. None opposed. I won't hear it. All right. Have a wonderful evening. I'm sending a little follow-up email with all the stuff we talked about. Okay. And please reach out if there's more you want to do or talk about. That's why I'm here. All right. Take care.