[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: I still can't. Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us. Those of you who are online. The climate equity meeting is now come to order.
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, hey Natasha here too.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: So with Natasha here, we have a quorum. Okay, so first thing up, can I make a motion to review the minutes from the last meeting we had? Go ahead. We have a second. Someone needs to second. Second. Hi third. So no meeting. In July, is that correct?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, my understanding is that because there are fewer limited hours over the next month and a half. that it would be better for us not to have the meeting in July and just go to the August one instead. Okay. And that would free up more hours for you guys to be able to do other things. Okay.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: So no meeting next month.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Are we picking the date for August now?
[Brenda Pike]: I think the 19th. Yeah, so the third Wednesday of the month would be the 19th. Does that work for everybody?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: August 9th. In Canada, because now we're going to have our team meeting every two weeks instead of... Right, I didn't add it.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, I think we should be good. Because we should meet on the 5th. Oh, no. The 5th and the 19th, right?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: 19, the 19th. Yeah, we are meeting the 19th. Yeah, so we should be good. Yeah, we should be good. Yeah, it's not going to be that long. I think because we'll just be meeting once every two weeks, so it would be better if it can be a little longer if we have to, if we need to. Like the 26th? Yeah, can we move to the 26th instead? That way we have the 19th for our weekly meeting. Oh, but you guys are not here for the 26th, right?
Why are we here for the 26th? Because the meeting is just after two weeks. Oh, right. Never mind. We're doing the right thing.
[Brenda Pike]: The end of August? I thought it was just a month and a half. Yeah, totally reduced hours.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Is it to the end of August? July and August? Oh, I thought it was six weeks.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: That's what I thought. Okay, let's see. I don't have the... Yeah, let's keep inviting them. Okay, so we're going to say that August 19th for the next Climate Equity Council.
[Brenda Pike]: And Charbel and I were talking about an agenda for that meeting, because my last stage is July 31st, so I'm not going to be here for the August meeting. Hopefully you have a new climate planner in place who can be here with you. If not, Natalie can help out. But what Charbel and I discussed was having Catherine Buckingham from my office come to talk to you guys about the, she's the housing planner, to talk to you about the home rehabilitation loan program that she runs and also the housing trust. So, she's available for the 19th. I think it's a good idea.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Okay. So just to reiterate, there will be no meeting for the month of July and our August meeting will be the 19th. do we want to schedule further ahead, or shall we just take it a month at a time until we know what's happening come the end of July?
[Brenda Pike]: I mean, right now it's scheduled for the third Wednesday of each month. OK. If that still works. We'll just keep it set. That's good. If you need to move the September 16th meeting, we can talk about that now. OK.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: and introducing Natalie Rodman.
[Brenda Pike]: Yes, so actually, Natalie and Kyla on Zoom here are both interns that are with our office for the next year, actually. So that'll be good. Both Tufts UEP grad students. And Natalie's really focusing a lot on me. climate-related work that I've been doing. So she's really going to be helping out with the transition to the new climate plan too.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: So that means Will is not coming to the meetings anymore? Is it going to be her?
[Brenda Pike]: I think if Will is coming, he'll probably be coming just as chair of the Energy and Environment Committee, just for like collaboration between the two groups.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: But like, can we share her email with us too? Like if we come, anything, like any questions? Yeah, absolutely. That'd be great.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. Um, and yeah, and obviously if you can't make a meeting or something, then talk to Will about, about doing minutes. Yeah. So nice meeting everybody. Um, and Kyle is actually here tonight to talk about the Harvest Your Energy Festival. Cause she is really focusing in on planning that. Oh, wow. Which I think we'll get to that in more detail when we get into our events and activities section of the agenda. Which is a great segue. I wanted to mention, I wanted to talk about plans beyond August, because it'll be much more sort of on this group to develop the agenda each month and make sure that it's being posted on time and things like that.
Deciding what you want to do for the, for the meetings and like, really like. I've been doing, I feel like I've been doing a lot of that up until now, but it will definitely be more on you guys.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I do like the idea, you know, maybe for this next meeting, you started, you know, you start preparing for the winter, you know, like for the fall and winter and like, maybe already schedule some, you know, the bills. you know, with National Grid, you know, like those events, you know, in place. We can check our schedule for last year, you know, our event schedule, and see if we can kind of save those dates already. Because I think that if we know ahead of time, you know, it's better for us to plan even the other events, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And Charbel's going to be in a meeting, too, so it's going to be important to hear his point, too.
[Brenda Pike]: Definitely, yeah. So yeah, winter preparedness things, bill checkups. What were some other things that you wanted to tee up?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, but I think we all should catch the scams, you know, like bring that together with all that, like making one big event. But I think if we start working now, you know, in August for those events, you know, give a little more time for us to, you know, do the outreach. You know, like more people know that we are doing this. You know, I think it's going to be. And we're not going to have so many confrontations with dates to, you know, it's so much going on. I was, you know, to the to the end of the year. So maybe try to get those days that he had last year or, you know, new days for.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, absolutely. It sounds great. Yeah, I can start seeing that up for the national folks. And I'll follow up over email so you guys are aware of the planning for that.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: And are you the one who always contacted them to arrange those things? Yeah. OK, so maybe Chabal can sit with you and see how in the future how he can handle it, right? Definitely, yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: Or anyone, just in case Chabal can. Tarbell was involved in those discussions. So yeah, he should be aware of it and who the contacts are. But I'll copy him on these, too.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Any other events or activities coming up?
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, I think there are a lot of events and activities coming up. I did make a slide, actually, for tonight. There's an invasive plant block, June 28. They've had some of these before, but this one's going to be focused specifically on Black Swallow Mort. And this is on the city events calendar.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: We have the summer one, the summer eeks one, the flyer that I just gave to you. When is that?
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: I don't know.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: And I think that I was. get a lot of families. What's the summer eats? Um, the summer food that they have given a farce, you know, for the kids that, you know, are not having that those meals at school, they still provide the meals for the kids during the summer. So they have the grand, you know, the kickoff party.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: June 29th. Those are called summer eats.
[Brenda Pike]: And so this is just the kids? June 29th is just the kickoff event? Yeah. And then every day?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Every day. Yeah, they have a schedule. Different parks, you know, where you can go during that time and get your food, you know, only the kids. It's just for the kids, unfortunately, you know. Is it lunch? Yeah, it's lunch. Yeah, lunch. So it's not just at Tufts Park that it's happening? No, that's just the kickoff. Yeah, but they're gonna have time over there too, like noon to 1.30, whatever, you know.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Um, what's the why website? Because I'm like, we'd say and check the website for location inside.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah. So going to have a truck, you know, that's going to be going to certain places and stay like an hour and then go to the next place. And then you're going to be places like tops. That's going to be a table over there the whole time, you know, serving the food, you know, for whoever come to get food. Um, but it needs to be in that timeframe, you know, so all the kids to be able to have a free pop meal, you know, during the summer. That's great. Is this something that they do every year? Every year.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah. It's kind of replacing, you know, because a lot of families are still coming with that food from school every day, you know, so they can still provide that to them.
[Brenda Pike]: And there's more information on the YMCA website? Yeah.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: YMCA just told us at the meeting that they're coming up with the schedule and they're sharing the new flyer with the new places, you know. So we're just waiting for that to start sharing. That's great.
[Brenda Pike]: So are you going to be helping to like organize that that day? Or are you going to be tabling at it?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: No, actually, we just received that flyer today. But I think it would be a great opportunity to tabling it there. So maybe we're going to reach out tomorrow. and find, you know, but I think it's a great opportunity, especially because they have a lot of summer preparedness giveaways. Yeah, that'll be a good place to do that. Maybe Stacy and I are going to go.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Do you want to do the summaries? Yeah, well, I think it's on the day, weeknight. You said 29? The 20s. Yeah, the 29. 29, yeah. 12 to 2. Monday. 29th is a Monday. So I'll actually have me at the community center. Well, maybe not, because I don't even know if it'll be open because the kids will be out of school. So I need to find out about this. So maybe, yeah.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I'll email them tomorrow and find out if it can be, and then, you know, I can coordinate if you're available. Sounds like a plan.
[Brenda Pike]: On July 9th, I'll be tabling at the farmer's market for Electrify Medford. August 4th is National Night Out. We have a table for Electrify Medford. Are you guys tabling there too?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: By the way, I was thinking to email them and ask if we can all be close to each other, you know, like, because I think it's kind of like the interaction and what are we going to be doing kind of be the same. Yeah. Yeah. That was, yeah, that was really good last year that we were like side by side. Yeah, but they requested to move, you know, for us to be all close, you know.
[Brenda Pike]: Yep, yep.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: So that's cool. I love that idea. Post where? To each other, you know, to the health department and to be together with them.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: I thought you were talking about the location, like where we were last year was pretty cool.
[Brenda Pike]: We're nice and central there. Yeah. Yeah. Too far away from the dunking booth, though. The chief of police always gets the dunking booth every year.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Mrs. Amaya do that, too? Oh, I don't know.
[Brenda Pike]: I think two years ago she did. She's too cool to do it?
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: What? No, I said the water's too cold.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Oh, OK.
[Brenda Pike]: August 30th is the Hoops and Hope event at Dutter Park. Have you guys ever done anything at that event? Yeah, we usually table there. Yeah, I have a table there for Electrify Medford. Do you think that that would be a good place? event to do the electronic stuff?
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: You can. You just have to get, you just got to talk to the people who run it.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. Do you feel like people are kind of like in the mood to be like going to the table and talking to you and stuff or are they more focused?
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: It's kind of hard, it's kind of really hard to know. I mean really it's kind of about the kids. It's a big kids event. Yeah. You know the parents are around so it's really hard to say.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: Last time we were there, there was a lot of people that did interact with our table. Okay. And especially if they have, like, treats, we like that.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: So, there was something.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, but last year was outside, right? You didn't attend outside. Yeah, last year was outside. Yeah, the year before, we were inside. Right. And then I think it was hard for people to interact because you're kind of, like, in the back. Right? So very little people. So depends how they set up everything, I think.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: It was a rain day. That's why. It was held in the cages of Medford High School. So it was very different. But the events still went on. But, you know, folks are used to being outdoors.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: So, yeah. So that year was difficult. Just people navigating the place and, you know, being so Much smaller than in Big Island, which may be separate.
[Brenda Pike]: The Mystic River Celebration is every September, but I don't know if they've selected a date for it yet this year. Have you heard? I haven't seen it. What is it? The Mystic River Celebration? No. It's at the Condon Shell. Yeah, I almost said the Hatch Shell. I don't know why. I don't know why.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: When I was doing the slide deck, I landed on their page. And I don't know why I thought I saw something there. I'll see if I see anything. If I see anything, I'll let you know. OK.
[Brenda Pike]: Because that's always a good tabling event. And then October 17 is the Harvest Your Energy Festival. What is it? October 17?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yep. We have a Brazilian day on August 15th. Okay. And I secured the water truck last year for this year, so we're not going to be using water bottles. We're going to be giving reusable water bottles. And they can refuel in the truck. So you already have the truck schedule? I did last year. The next day after the date, they said, just for me now, but put my name over there. And then I contacted them again. Is my name still there? Yes, ma'am.
[Brenda Pike]: Let me make sure that it's good. I think they only have one of those, like for all of the cities that are in the
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Because last year I contacted them like three months before and they said they didn't have anything available and I was flexible to even change the date if we have the event. No, there's nothing available. Okay, so the day after the event I'm contacting you for a year. Anything else this summer? Hispanic in September. Oh, back to school is going to be in August. Back to school being like the day of going back to school or the back to school? The last year we did in September. So this year we're going to do end of August. I believe that, no, it's right after Brazilian Day. I think it's the 22nd.
I will double check. I put in the schedule because I reserved the chamber and then I need to change because they had a meeting. Gotcha, okay. And that's like the backpack giveaway and all that. Yeah, you know, and all the resources, you know. And I think it was the day that you've had the National Agree to Be Healed, right? No, that was the Winter Preparedness Event. Yeah, okay.
[Brenda Pike]: It's a slightly different focus. I'm not sure if the back-to-school event would be a good partnership with the build-checkout thing for National Winter Preparedness Day.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, but I want to see how we're going to do with all the ideas we're having for the summer games. that maybe can bring that to the event to interact with the kids and maybe teach them some and pass along some information for the parents.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. Along those lines, I know Will was talking about putting a game together for trash sorting. And he's actually, he might join us a little bit later, but he's getting some people together at the library Friday afternoon to make bean bags. Yeah, with little images on them of different types of trash that you could throw into different containers. Yeah, that's going to be fun.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: I don't see anything on the Mystic River Watershed Association for anything coming up. What do you mean, the Mystic River Celebration? Yeah, I don't see it. That's put on by Cache. Oh. Oh, okay. I shouldn't.
[Brenda Pike]: Any other events this Sunday?
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Nothing that I'm aware of.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, no, I think the biggest one is going to be the night out.
[Brenda Pike]: Kyla, can we throw it over to you now to talk about the Harvester Energy Festival?
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yeah, so my name is Kyla. I know Brett already said, but I am coordinating this year's Harvest Year Energy Festival. And it's Saturday, October 17th. And I guess I can just state for the record that Harvest Year Energy is an annual festival that the city puts on every year through the planning department. Um, where we get, uh, it's an opportunity for, um, Medford residents and, um, people in the area and as well as, like, local businesses, um, companies and other organizations and groups, um, to kind of come together around, um, environmental education and sustainability, uh, and particularly, uh, sustainable energy. So that is happening the 17th, and along with planning, our office is also thinking about outreach strategies. I think typically, from what I understand, the event has been going on since I think 2012, around there.
So I think it's mostly kind of like a, I don't want to say established Medford residents, but people who have been here for longer are the people who frequent and flyers get passed out into kids' backpacks like in September. So then that gets brought home to like families and such. But I think we really want to try to kind of get the word out Um, to more people and more communities across Medford. Um, so I guess that's kind of what I wanted to open discussion up to you. If you had any. Um, like, strategy strategies to kind of get the word out and also, um, perhaps, like, some translation, um.
materials for the flyers and everything. Yeah, so I don't know if you have any immediate thoughts right now. I guess we can discuss it, or if not, we can shoot an email my way and we can talk about it. But yeah, that's the save the date flyer right there.
[Brenda Pike]: I think one question I have is, does this save the date flyer need translation? Would you translate the name of the event?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I don't think so. It's very basic information. And I think it's everybody knows that save the date no matter what, you know, what language you kind of speak these days. Yeah, now people are going to see the name and the date, you know. Maybe it would be a good idea to have the time, though. I would love to know that, you know, the time that is running from when to when. So it would be a possibility, you know, to... And the address of the Riverbend Park.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, where is that? I don't know where that is. It's the Dade McGlynn and Andrews School.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Oh, okay. Maybe put in between parenthesis, you know, the McGlynn playground, near the McGlynn playground. That playground is beautiful.
[Brenda Pike]: Hi Liz, is there going to be another flyer coming out that has more details about what is going to be happening at the festival?
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: yeah so i think like closer to hopefully closer to august and september when we know um who is going to be like sponsoring the event um that's kind of like part of like the sponsor benefits is that um their logo and like organization name gets um uh printed onto all of the like flyers So we don't have, we're hoping to get more sponsors since then, and then that's when I'll arrange what the flyer looks like, and there'll definitely be more information of what's gonna be there. We have some electronic recycling, paper shredding, and then an area where you could donate unused like clothing materials or anything like that so that'll be there as well as like live music food so that'll also all be kind of advertised on that flyer coming soon.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: So is the clothing thing material just like you know fabric or okay
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, or I guess like... Old clothes in good condition. Honestly, both. Like, if you, like, say, I guess, like, you cropped a t-shirt and you have, like, that extra, like, um, fabric at the bottom, like, that could definitely be added to the, to, like, the clothing boxes or just, like, clothing, like, old clothes themselves, like, either. Jeans, jeans and, uh, okay.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah. Okay. And those service or donation, like, do we need to pay for anything? Like, it's going to be free.
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Um, everything will be free. Um, I think the electronic recycling, um, is free unless you want to recycle, like, larger items. I think, like, stuff like washing machines and, um, things like that I believe aren't accepted at the event just because that's, like, too much. Um, I think it's more so, like, old tablets, phones, um, things like that that would be more applicable for this. Um, and then I believe, oh, the paper shredding historically has been, um, three boxes per person. And I think more than likely there'll be a charge, I believe, but I can double check on that.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: You know, I love, I was, all the events when they have the paper shredded, and I said that many times over here, and especially like, like today, we just filled two bins. know recycling with papers from the office you know and but we have a bunch we have a box in the office that you need to shred it but it needs to take the time because the machine is so small and little by little so maybe it would be a good idea maybe make a flyer for the city hall you know and everybody collect the box or something you know like encourage people to you know shred their know, important papers.
[Brenda Pike]: I think it might be better to just schedule an event a day at City Hall. That would be amazing. Yeah, so that way people don't need to bring stuff over there. There does tend to be like a line of cars for like the electronics recycling and things like that and so it might be better to
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, and I always go back to the shredder because it takes forever. You start shredding, and then it gets hot, and then you need to stop, and then you need to go back. It's a lot and a lot of things.
[Brenda Pike]: Going back to the cost, my understanding is that for electronics recycling, there is a cost for most larger things. People will bring air conditioners. or like monitors TVs things like that and there is a specific cost for each one and it tends to be somewhere between like 15 to like 40 dollars i think was the most expensive thing that was
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: Do they hand you the broken ones or it has to be functional?
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: No.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And in fact, I'd encourage people to do only broken if they're going to recycle it.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: But you gotta pay for it then. I think it's basically, if you're going through the city, right? Buying the ticket and putting your stuff in the sidewalk. Yeah, it's just a little bit cheaper than doing it through the city.
[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_08]: But it's more expensive to do it that way.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: So that will that will be indicated on the flyer and or the website, you know, a list of things that can that are recyclable in terms of electronics and stuff because you can. Lord knows what might kind of come through otherwise.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Oh, you know, then they might just leave it in a parking lot, you know, with the prices and all of that.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, but I think it's tough to put a list of everything. So maybe like some basic things in a list and then maybe make a little QR code where the check here for more, you know, ideas of things that it can recycle because the flyer will be
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: The point being that, you know, folks are aware that you do, there is potentially a cost. Yeah. Oh, the cost. Yeah. There's a cost, you know, because you'll just think, oh, well, you know, my car's all booted up. What am I going to do with this money in my garage?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: A lot of folks run electronics recycling as a fundraiser, which is a great way to kind of promote like, hey, you can do this, but it will cost money. And then the money goes to something, hopefully. Just another avenue, another way to talk about it.
[Brenda Pike]: The clothing donation actually is part of a fundraiser for the PTO, the parent-teacher organizations at the schools. Actually, Kyla, are we using the same company this year that we used last year?
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: I think last year was Bay State Textiles. And I think this year, Helpsley is going to pick up the clothing material. They are not going to have, they can't make the event in person as it's happening, but a driver is going to come to pick up the boxes and stuff.
[Brenda Pike]: OK. Last year, I think they did I don't remember which one is the one that works. I think Bay State is the one that works with the parent policy organizations.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Didn't they just have one event? Didn't they just have one event like that at the entrance?
[Brenda Pike]: They might have, but they also have donation bins outside of every school all the time. Oh, really? Yeah. That's awesome.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: And outside the daycare. Oh, yeah. So anything that you're donating to those bins, they will Monetary donation will go to the PTO. Oh, yes. No. Yeah. Yeah, so pilot might be worth looking into Using a state or the clothing donation again because it would be helping the PTO. Yeah, totally Um, but the other flyer that's that's going to have more details closer August September I'm assuming that one would be better to translate because it'll have more information and what the save the date has How far in advance should Kyla reach out with text to be translated?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I would say at least three weeks. All right. You know, in the schools, you know, anything that is towards the PTO, you know, DFA, thankful and they like to share the flyers and everything, and I know that is a lot, but maybe, you know, our office will be able to, you know, help with the cost of bring more flyers and, but if for the schools, you know, for each backpack, you know, about the event, you know, if you found, if you could find a way to, with all those informations, you know, like to put on the flyer, but try to highlight the sports to the BTO. I think, you know, that is a lot of parents that when they see things like that, that they are more, into participating in events like that. And then if we can deliver those flyers to the school, it would be good. We can definitely send to them, and they can send to the newsletters and everything, put it on their calendar. But it definitely did fly in the backpack. It can reach more people. That's a lot of people, but we need to still do the outreach, right?
[Brenda Pike]: Isla, do you know if they've always done flyers in the backpacks for the Harvester Energy Festival, or is this going to be the first year?
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think this is a routine outreach thing that we do. Yeah. I don't know if it was translated last year, though. I don't believe it was, based off of what I've seen in prior files.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, one thing to think about for my Electrify Medford posters, I'll have on the front, it will be the English full text of everything. And then on the back, I'll have just a quick summary in each language with a link to more information. And that way, you don't have to have separate flyers for each language. You can just have the one flyer.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: We've talked a lot about QR codes for other things was a really powerful way to do it.
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Do you think there would be like in that case, I'm just curious if there would be like an accessibility barrier if like just like technology wise versus like having something like a physical copy? I don't know.
[Brenda Pike]: Well, I think Especially if it's for more information for the translation. The alternative last year was that we didn't have the translation, so the QR codes would be better done. And it would be impossible to
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: put it in each backpack. Oh, the students speak Portuguese, the students speak Spanish, the student, you know, like, it's extremely hard. So like, we just did some workshops with the PTO. And that's what he did, you know, like we put a QR code with the other translation flyers available, you know, or they could stop at the main office and get a copy, you know, from the flyer of the flyer, you know, but we couldn't print each language, you know, be too hard. Yeah.
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Totally, yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: So are there other ways that you would recommend getting the word out about this other than like the schools? And obviously it's going to be like on the city website and put out in the newsletters and the mayor's communications and things like that, you know.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: You know, like those realtors, you know, like the rent houses and stuff, you know, like they always have people moving. And a lot of time when they're moving, you. throwing things out or, you know, like you're looking for stuff too. So, you know, like I know when the, I've seen a lot of flyers about them in other towns, you know, for events like that on those places. And I was wondering like why, but then Clay told me like, you know, I see maybe because the people are moving, you know, I mean, people are new in the town and want to know what's going on, you know.
Anything like posted on them? No, they just put them in their window, you know, like they ask permission to put them there. Oh, okay. You know, places and stuff. So, I mean, I would say just like try to put them, you know, anywhere they allow you to put it with the flyers on it, you know, like, you know, like we did the door, the door thing, can do for the business, you know, can take a day and do for the business and put some flyers. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: We also, or we have always also had the yard signs that go all around the city. And I assume we're going to be doing that again, right, Kyla? Yes. OK. And I think those are printed through the high school, like the vocational center, right? Yeah.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Oh, you know what? Have you guys seen the little tables in the entrance of the City Hall that have some little flyers over there? I see people over there all the time. And I mean, I was putting flyers over there and everything goes. So maybe start putting stuff over there. You know, I put it, I just put our guidelines over there and all this, you know, resources guidelines and everything goes like, I go back over there, it's gone, you know?
[Brenda Pike]: So people really, It's funny, I tend to post things on the bulletin boards on either side.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I've seen people look at that too, but then because I order a lot of food and they always leave my food on the table, so I always come back to that table and then I'm like, oh, this stuff are gone, you know, like so people took, you know. I think because the people are also, when they come in, they're kind of lost. They kind of try to get information how to navigate the city hall. And they see things over there. Oh, this is interesting. Let me take this.
[Brenda Pike]: Question for you, Kaila. Since we were talking about that water truck earlier, do we have the water truck booked for Harvest Your Energy Festival?
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we don't, I don't think we do.
[Brenda Pike]: So it's the MWRA water, like, it's a water fountain truck, basically. Yeah. Well, and we usually, I think we usually have it built each year.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: I don't get that.
[Brenda Pike]: I sent an email. Yeah, I reached out to MWRA. To MWRA. And I think, Kyla, in the document that we have with people's contact information, the contact at NWRA should be in there. Do you know who that is? Mm-hmm. Don't answer 4-2, please. But I didn't really need to book it out. It was so far in advance.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: It's a shortage. A shortage of?
[Brenda Pike]: Well, there's one water truck for all the communities that are certified in WRA. That's great. Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It's such a good truck. OK. We're in already.
[Brenda Pike]: Let me see you. Recording in progress. Just saying, I just forwarded my oldest email with them.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: OK.
[Brenda Pike]: So you mentioned that you're still looking for sponsors. Are you looking for help with outreach to potential sponsors?
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Honestly, welcome. Any thoughts or input on that?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: What are the criteria to be a sponsor?
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: you're willing to pay $150 or $200 is honestly the criteria. But I know there's typically a handful of companies and organizations that consistently sponsor the event. So I think that is just a following up, because our initial wave of invite was um, kind of like through, uh, like a mass contacting, um, site. So I think, um, like, especially as we get into July, it'll be, um, more so like a individual, um, outreach on my end, as opposed to kind of like a blanket email.
[Brenda Pike]: That makes sense. What does sponsors get in, in exchange for, for being a sponsor? Do they get a table? Do they get, I don't know, banner or.
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: They, it's, from my understanding, it's really just the advertisement on the flyers. And then I think more benefits could be negotiated. If, yeah, if like, the sponsors would like to talk about that. Um, yeah, but other than that, I, that is kind of it for the sponsors.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. I've definitely seen a lot of sponsors actually tabling at the event. So it might be the sort of thing that if there are businesses that cater to different groups than we usually are reaching out to through this, then it might be useful to reach out to them for sponsorships. So if you have any suggestions, that would be great.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I think the only suggestion that I would give is that you guys provide the tables because as I've mentioned in many other events before, you know, a lot of people, sometimes you need to pay for the table, you know, like people requesting you to registration and stuff, but I like to make it convenient for them to, you know, talk to the BW, have the tables set, you know, and people just come and just worry about their materials and set up and, and leave, you know, make, makes things easier too. Yeah. Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think it was the recreation department last year definitely provided tables and chairs. I remember I came to volunteer to help set up, and there was a bunch of guys in their matching uniforms doing it all for me, and I felt kind of useless. Did we already talk about social media as well? I know for Junk in the Trunk and some of the other events, we get almost everyone through Facebook, whether that's like any of the community groups or anything like that. There's a Medford Reddit, there's, you know, Instagram and all these things.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I agree with that.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Are there WhatsApp groups that you could share, like the flyers? Yes, we have multilingual WhatsApp groups that can send that for sure. That would be huge. We shared the Translate ones, you know. But I do love the community Facebook pages. I think that's the biggest ones that, you know, and especially like I see the interaction. We have been boosting our flyers too. And I think that has been helping a lot. So I love the fact that it can set up, you know, the age and the group, you know, I can the area that they want to reach, you know. So I think that it's like you can see like they show you, you know, the data that, oh, you've reached this many people, this many people like you, you know, to fly or whatever, this many people view this, people visit your page. That's other thing that I noticed that we've got so many more followers since we started doing that. So it's, I think it's a very positive thing. It's like, oh, I'm not, maybe not be able to go to this event, but it's something that I'm interested. So I want to follow you, you know? So I think it has been very helpful. That's great.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: and it's only like a couple bucks, right?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: So yeah, so you can decide how as many dollars you want to spend, you know, like so if it's a short time, you know, I put like five dollars a day because like just for a couple days, you know, like I do five dollars, but like I've been doing about two dollars a day, you know, for a period of seven to fourteen days, you know. So you live here in France? Yeah, you kind of choose because like more money you invest, more people you're going to reach. I see. You know, so that's kind of like they gave you an idea. So I think it's worth it. Yeah, you know.
[Brenda Pike]: I boosted some posts for Electrify Medford and we definitely got a lot of impressions, like viewers of those posts. But we didn't get signups from it. which is really frustrating.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, but I think I think it kind of directed people like, hey, oh, dear, dear, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, kind of see us, you know, like, and, and all the thing is that funny that I've noticed that on my phone was showing me all the time, the poses in me, oh, it is working. And then my daughters, you know, I saw that they like some of them, like, Oh, mom, just pop up to my Instagram, my Facebook. So I knew that was for your work. So I like, you know, like, and I mean, oh, that's good. So it's working. It's not bad at all. We've seen this, you know?
[Brenda Pike]: And it is the sort of thing where you have to see something multiple times usually before you'll actually take action. Yeah.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: fast well it's good to know that it works our recovery group is a huge thing because that was uh we have a support a family support group now for recovery you know and we have been getting a lot of you know views and that and likes on those posts that we boost and we got a lot of people attending those meetings you know like that we really didn't expect many people. Our AI event that we had 45 people register for that event, we had about 100 people showing up, you know. So we reserved the biggest room at the library. It has about 45, you know. But no, we got more than double of the people, you know.
It wasn't good because we had some activities and stuff that we want to do. It was amazing that all those people came. But you also want to provide a quality.
[Brenda Pike]: You know what I mean?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: So we are running around trying to grab chairs and try to find a place for people to sit. You know, you don't want to deal with this. So we are thinking next year, we think about a bigger place, maybe the chambers, because if it's too full over there, we can go outside. But you think about it's better for us to have a bigger place. But yeah, I've seen a lot of great results with those.
[Brenda Pike]: Kyla, anything else that you wanted to talk about around the Harvester Energy Vessel or other questions you had for them?
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so. No, yeah, this was really helpful. Definitely have like some starting points to and like some next steps to get working on for sure. So I appreciate all the thoughtful comments and everything.
[Brenda Pike]: And after this meeting, we'll send your email address file or the enviro email address to this group if they have any further feedback.
[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Probably, I think the enviro email. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: And now I'll just send that around to everybody so that I think you've probably seen it before, but just so that you have it top of mind.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Looking for my agenda again.
[Brenda Pike]: Do you guys have any more questions for Kyla? No, I don't. I think we're good. I think we're all set. Thank you. Kyla, you're welcome to stay if you want to or jump off. Okay, sounds good. Thank you all. Thank you, Kyla.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: All right, does that mean we're ready to move on to updates?
[Brenda Pike]: Oh, I had a question. Stacey, you mentioned before that you were planning a prostate cancer event in the fall?
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Yeah. At the West Metro Cancer Center.
[Brenda Pike]: No more details.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, no more details at this point.
[Brenda Pike]: OK. And Hala was planning something with a community garden.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: She'll be waiting for the grant.
[Brenda Pike]: Ah, OK. So more details in September. Yeah.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: I got a question for you, Brenda. I had a resident ask me about MassSafe, and they're looking for someone to come in. Do you have a contact come by their house and take a look at some things?
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is sort of what we do through Electrify Medford, right, is let people know about what's available to them, including MassSafe. That's the major program that we point them to.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Right. And it was one of the residents that was at our event, the cancer screening event. Yeah. The next day or that Monday, she she asked me about, about that. And I said, Oh, Brenda was here. She was the person she would have been the perfect person to ask. And she was like, Oh, yeah, I haven't didn't think about then. So I just thought I'd ask you if there's a contact that I can, you know, I could pass on to her. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: I'm happy to talk to her directly just to find out exactly what she's looking for and make sure the director did the right program. Or she could just go to the MassAid website or they'd call their main phone number and then they could direct her to whatever.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Well, I'll pass that on to her and let her decide. I'll give her your contact information.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, that's great.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: I'll look up the MassAid and let her know. Perfect.
[Brenda Pike]: Are we ready to move on to City updates? Yep. Okay. Electrify method, we've slowed down a little bit. I haven't been doing as much outreach as I'm kind of wrapping things up myself. But so far, we've had 248 residents sign up. We've coached 131 of them. And 58 actions have been taken as a result of that. And that program will continue. So whoever the new climate planner is, we'll be continuing that program through at least March of next year.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: And whoever it is, we're going to continue this meeting. It's the way it is.
[Brenda Pike]: Definitely. Oh, we had a ribbon cutting for our new on-screen EV chargers. Oh, cool. Last week, yeah. Actually, I got to wield the giant scissors myself. And Will spoke actually as part of the chair of the Energy and Environment Committee. Did you have a good number of people coming? Yeah, it was mostly people who were like involved with the project in some way that came to it. Yeah, it wasn't a lot of residents coming for that one. It's an important project. Yeah, absolutely. That makes 17 city-owned public charters.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: which we were crunching the numbers. We had our climate planner from Somerville there. Who's also co-chair of the Energy and Environment Committee that's here in Medford. And he goes, I've been doing the same type of work as Brenda in three years. I've gotten two stations. Brenda has gotten 12, which is just remarkable. I was like, that's really, that's crazy.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, well, I like these in particular because they're in like denser neighborhoods. So people who don't have driveways that people actually use. Yeah, it's awesome.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: So accessible.
[Brenda Pike]: So we talked last night about the aggregation plan update. That public review period ended June 22nd, so two days ago. And we filed the plan with the Department of Public Utilities. two comments. Well, we got one comment and one question about it. So yeah. Generally, when I talk to people about it, they were just happy that we were making that change to put low-income residents on the lowest rate possible that we have. So that will happen, changing the, once we get approval from the DPU, or actually, I don't think we need approval. I'll follow up on that. With the new plan process, I think there's a streamlined approval process with the DPO, so it should be really quick and easy. And then once that's approved, we will be... We're signing a new amendment to our contract with our supplier, and then they'll be moving all of the low-income residents on National Grids discount rate over to that Wentworth-Basic rate.
And that will be even better starting in August because national grids rates are going up two cents per kilowatt hour in August. And so that's going to make the difference between national grids rate and our Medford's basic rate, four cents per kilowatt hour. So it's going to be, it doesn't sound like a lot, but it actually is different over time. Yeah.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Every little bit helps. Yeah. the bottom line. It makes a huge difference.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: People can switch to the aggregation any month.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, any time they want to, they can switch over. It's not just when we're making some change or something.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It's good for me to remind myself. It should be that easy, right?
[Brenda Pike]: I just had somebody call in today saying, I just saw something about changing your aggregation plan. I opted out of it before because I didn't trust it and now I really want to try.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: You know, can I ask that maybe it's a silly question, but the electric chargers, you know, like it's just for cars or can it be for the bikes too? Oh, it's just for cars.
[Brenda Pike]: Just for cars. Yeah, because it's a particular plug that you plug into. It's not like a regular, like,
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: outlet or anything. Oh, because that's what they use for the bikes. I don't know. I don't have a lot of battery in that electric bike.
[Brenda Pike]: But yeah, when they're when they're charging theirs, they just plug it into an outlet. Often. Yeah. Important point for electric bikes, though, when you're charging electric bikes and storing electric bikes, it's always better to do it outside because there have been fires from the batteries from electric bikes. Usually it's if someone is like using a battery that doesn't fit the bike or is like a it's a it's a knockoff.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I think in a motorcycle driving in the middle of the road. Yeah. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: But actually, one of our members of our of the Energy and Environment Committee, it's us burned down because it's because it was because of. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Yeah. He was charging the battery inside. Yeah. Was it a spontaneous combustion type of thing? No, I think it's an overcharging, like the battery is not manufactured correctly, and so when it's charging, it overcharges.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Just like that hoverboard that people were charging inside the house, too, and then the wildfire happened. So, yeah. Always better to do that outside.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, they recommend, like, do it outside.
[Brenda Pike]: Unplug it when it's done charging.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: overcharge it like don't do it overnight like do it when you get home and then like after dinner unplug it yeah i didn't know they would have those kind of problems it's not widespread but but it's possible yeah yeah but yeah and you just kind of think of all these other places where they these these machines are popping up and the manufacturing of it is you know kind of iffy and you know they're just kind of trying to mass produce and sell cells up
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And, you know, batteries are always going to have, I mean, there's a reason why certain batteries aren't allowed in your carry-on luggage and things. Like, you know, there's always going to be those issues with that much energy being stored away. It's just crazy. It's just all crazy.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: So, a couple of things that I'm working on, I'm invoking powered motorbikes. Sorry, what? I'm sorry. I just, you know, I'm old. Like, what's wrong with just pedal bicycles, human powered? Are you pedaling a bicycle? I have one. I'm not riding an electric bicycle. I'd rather pedal. But yeah. All right, I'm going to ride my bike next time. Next event we have you're going to show just to show me. That is one that's two people. I like the idea. Can you imagine? So okay, so just updates on things that I'm like working on trying to like, get
[Brenda Pike]: sort of wrapped up in the next month here. We are getting updated electric vehicle fleet recommendations from National Grid. So it's for like city-owned vehicles. We've like provided them with a list of the vehicles that we have and they're going to come back to us and say, you know, this we would recommend an electric option. This one we wouldn't for these reasons. Here's the particular like brand that we would recommend and model number and model and things like that. So, um, I'm working with, um, DPW on, on that and with national grid. So hopefully we'll have like a good list that they can like work from as they're like replacing vehicles. They can go back to it over time.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Kind of a silly question, but could we publish that as a sort of unofficial buyers guide? Oh, interesting. Like I, like I think of like my parents. My dad's been saving for years. He really wants an EV. And ever since Teslas have gone the way they have, he's like, well, now I don't know what to get. I don't know any other brand. And if I pitch him one thing, he's like, well, I don't know if it's actually any good. He doesn't know what they do. If it's good enough for DPW, it's got to be good enough for somebody.
[Brenda Pike]: I was going to say the city doesn't make recommendations, but this isn't the city making recommendations. It's National Grid.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: But what about that event that you had with the the different, yes. And then have a, like a dealer, you know, come and then, Hey, we are promoting this.
[Brenda Pike]: If you buy it from us, you know, those are the recommendations you have and you get a discount, you know, like I've been talking, I had been talking with some dealers in Medford who were interested in, in doing an event like that, where they would do test drives and stuff. It just didn't materialize, but I'll tee that up for the next person to pull the
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: imparted I know where the contacts are the truck heading zoo whatever that's yeah that made a co-worker took their little kid to uh yeah touch a truck they have like all the big like big fire trucks and all the big jeeps and stuff and all the little kids can go and jump around on them and all that yeah I do many of these too oh yeah um let's see oh um I
[Brenda Pike]: would like to get Medford certified as a Green Community Climate Leaders, Green Communities to State program through the Department of Energy and Resources. And so Medford has been a green community designated by them since 2013, 2014. And they now have another level. with new requirements that they're calling climate leaders. And we are meeting most of their requirements. There are two more things that we need to do in order to meet that and be eligible for more grants, like much larger grants than we could get otherwise.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: What's the new level?
[Brenda Pike]: Climate leaders. Climate leaders. Yep. One is a decarbonization roadmap for city buildings and vehicles. And we are working on that with a consultant, and we're going to get a draft of that back from them in just a couple of weeks, actually. And then the other thing would be the city adopting an EV-first vehicle purchasing policy. So the idea is you look first to see if there's an EV that meets our needs. If there isn't, then you go down to a hybrid. If that doesn't meet our needs, then you go down to, the most energy efficient version of a gasoline or diesel vehicle.
So that the EV fleet recommendations really helps with that, like getting people more comfortable with that, or at least understand sort of what the options are. And so, yes, I have a draft policy that we just need to pursue with the mayor and city council. And then, yeah, if we do that, then we can, apply for Climate LEADER certification in December and then eligible for the next round of grants. Their deadline is next June. Who is responsible for the map for the summer cooling resources?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I worked with Steve.
[Brenda Pike]: In the DPW on that, he's the GIS person there. Okay, we just want to go out of the bus. So he put the actual map together and then I just put the information in the back of it with the more like the hours and things like that for the current locations.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Did you have edits to it? We came up with all the bus lines that goes to those places and then we thought that would be a cool idea to provide that information.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: So we just put it like this, look like it. know but it's just just for us to put our ideas together but uh inside you can see the buzz lines for each place you know that you're talking about there's a little oh wow you got into a lot of details Yeah, because we want to eventually have like a tri-fold, you know, so that's why there are six pages over there because we want a tri-fold. Of course, then later we're going to work with design and stuff like that, you know, like the visual part. We just want to put out information out there first.
This is great. Yeah, this is definitely more information than we'll go on that map. Yeah, but we are thinking about if it will be possible at least to put the bus lines for each of those, like for the pools and the parks, you know.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: And I wondered about Adenon, because Shannon Beach is technically Winchester. I came to realize that when I was working on the thing. And growing up in West Medford, we would go over to Dillboy in Somerville, the pool over there. So I thought maybe that should get a mention for people who are close by, or even people in the Tufts University area. but can you go if you're not some of your residents? I believe so. I believe it's like an MDC public, because I used to go there as a kid. How long ago was that? It was a long time ago, granted. I think I'm pretty sure I took a look at it, because I added it to the slide thing that I did.
So because, you know, that's what I thought. I was like, well, technically, because I always thought of Shannon Beach as being part of Medford, you know, growing up. But when I was looking at the map, it's clearly Winchester.
[Brenda Pike]: Definitely wanted to include it, though, because it's like the only free option. Absolutely. It's crazy to me when I was looking at the cost of everything. Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: So some way to just kind of like, let's zoom out like 1.5, like a little bit more and see what else is around to help people. I think that's really smart.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: But it's just like, I don't know if you guys have been at the Walden Pond in Concord, you know, it's not that far from Medford, you know, like I go through Medford to go over there, you know, but like if people are willing to take a ride, there's so many other places that you go around that just basically just pay for parking, you know.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I wonder if maybe like on the back we go like willing to drive like here are a few other options yeah like we're not gonna like 15 minute drive yeah here are preferred locations are the ones in medford you can walk to them a good bike to them yeah but you know if you're willing to go you know here's some nice beaches you know like places that people live over here forever never been to any of those places yeah yeah
[Brenda Pike]: I'll connect you with Steve so that if you have edits to the Mac, you can do it directly and not have to go through someone in my office for it.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, especially because Steve will do it all. He just won't think to do it. Like, you have to prompt him, but he'll do it really well in time.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: You just need to tell him, like, oh, what else? Yeah, we're going to have our tri-fold, but it just doesn't be a good addition to, yeah, it would be a good addition to put in the baseline for what you guys are doing. That was just a suggestion. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: Okay, so some other things that we're getting started are actually getting a lot of work done before I go. Natalie's working with me on the greenhouse gas inventory that we do each year for the city. So we have an update on that, where we are compared to previous years once we get that done. We're doing, Natalie and Will both are working with me on LEED for cities certification. So you've probably heard of LEED for buildings, right? It's like LEED Silver, LEED Gold, Platinum. They have a similar thing for cities where you can compare different policies and programs that you do to other cities for sustainability-related things, which is a good thing to, like, not just to sort of benchmark us against other cities, but also set us up for, like, next year doing the climate action plan debate.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It also means that at some point in the next, like, probably month or two, I can give you all a list of all the points that we did well on and the things that we didn't catch, like, all the points we missed, and then you can star the ones that you think are most important. Because there's like 100 and whatever different things we could do. It's like, well, it'd be great to have you all narrow down. These three are actually really important. Because it qualifies us for points, so we're incentivized to do it. But then also, if you think it's important, then everyone's on the same page.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Right. Absolutely. Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It helps us a lot to narrow it down.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. And we're also doing, I'm also doing green communities. annual report starting that. It's a report of our energy use and our emissions that we do to the state every single year. It's all that's going to be submitted this fall or winter, but we're getting a good start on it. And then the Energy and Environment Committee. Will, do you want to talk about the black plastic?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. Yeah. We've been focusing on black plastic for a while now. I don't know if I've told you about it already. The idea is that it can't be recycled. And because it's made with composites of all these other different materials, if you put hot food in it or you heat it up, it'll leach a lot more than just microplastics. It's like a lot of pretty awful toxins have been shown to leach into your food if you use it.
[Brenda Pike]: And a lot of restaurants use it for takeout. And they use it so much.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: We put out a letter through the mayor's office, basically advising all restaurants to stop and find alternatives. But we are also currently working on petitioning restaurants directly, going door to door, kind of canvassing almost, and telling these restaurants to make a switch to aluminum. to compostables to even clear plastic is like infinitely better yeah if you're into anything other than like Black plastic in particular is like so much worse.
[Brenda Pike]: We talked about it in here before. Yes, Charbel was concerned about the cost. But like the white plastic or the clear plastic, that's not an additional cost.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. And in their research at least, some of my committee members found that there are some compostable containers that are about the same price as plastics. Like they're getting to a price point.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: OK, so you're saying that the black, Plastic ones are not good.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. So we even put together, we're starting on this little flyer here.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: So those are not good?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I bought a bunch from Amazon too.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh yeah. And they're like very easy to get, but like we put out like our three different like general bullet points of why we're like, Hey, we should say no.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I didn't know that.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No, most people don't. And it's not, you know, and I'm sure restaurants don't know either.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I mean, like we mentioned that before in the meeting, like you said, but we didn't,
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: didn't like visualize that it was exactly the one that I buy it's the one that literally everyone uses and we're like and the fancy restaurants too oh they love the look yeah but it is demonstrably worse for you like across what about um what about civil wear uh yeah you don't want to mess with any well is it because yeah it'd be the same thing same thing I mean you know
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: when you're using it to eat but it's not like you're heating it or yeah it's less it's definitely less yeah um but no different you're not gonna have hot things like sitting in it like yeah yeah right right but so i'm so much so i guess what i'm getting at is should that be pointed out as well not just you know you have to go containers but if you're yeah and If your utensils that you're sending out, if you go to the coffee mug lids, and the same thing. I think we're saying any black plastic.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Really, the dream would be, and I think, like, I think it's Needham has done a full black plastic ban. And there was one other, I think it was Natick, has done a full ban on black plastic for consumer blood foods. And you can hopefully double check.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It might have been listed in there. But a couple other Massachusetts cities have said, hey, there's no way we're doing this. So we're putting together a petition. We're going to go canvassing to restaurants and start telling people and seeing if we can convince restaurants to stop, but then also potentially start looking towards a city ordinance to change this.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: You know, most of the restaurants go to like restaurant depot, right? To buy those things. So do you think that would be a good approach to reach out to a restaurant depot perhaps? You know, I said, Hey, what about, you know, at least help people to, you know, I don't know.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Yeah. That's a good start. And that's a, that's a great start. Yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And here, I thought I was being clever. It was like, let's start at the restaurant. Let's start at the source. Better.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: I see this just like the plastic bags, you know, like just like my town.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: A lot of places have been doing the paper bags, but just recently I went to the store and they gave me a plastic bag. I mean, what's going on over here?
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: No, no, no, they gave me the real plastic one instead of the paper or that one that is... Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what's going on? Oh, we are out of the bags. Yeah, but you're not supposed to be interested in this. What's going on? And then, of course, we're not going to give a hard time to the cashier, you know, like, so, I mean, OK, but I was thinking, I mean, are we going back instead? You know, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, you're taking like 10 steps back, you know, like, If they can get away with it. But how do you follow up with that, right?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Like, you cannot force anybody to do it. It's a fight I'm having upstairs with the health department. The board of health is stretched really, really thin, but technically it would be partially their job to go and enforce this and at least double check. But there's a string of times now where I go, hey, when's the last time you checked that? And they're like, are you crazy? Like, with what army? So it's tricky. And that's why... And the polystyrene one. I mean, that one's kind of shaky too sometimes.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Because you can get them because they can get away with it. And especially with inspections, I've seen some of the inspections translate, you know, like into doing the good. But there's so many other things that they'll focus on that that's the last.
[Brenda Pike]: You know, that's why it does still help though, because then if somebody like reports it, then they can follow up rather than doing like, they might not have the resources to do like random checks or something that they might be able to follow up if somebody were to work.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And just from an educational standpoint, like, you know, now that he's kind of told you this, I'm sure there's going to be a time where you get take out and you go, oh, And you're going to like, now it's made by Blinch. It's one of those things like, I think the more people that are aware of it.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: But at the same time, I'm going to do my research. What is going to be cheaper for me? Because for me it was like, it was the cheapest and more durable option that I could find, you know? So now I need to do a research, like what is going to be okay with my pocket and, you know? And that's going to be breaking apart, you know, like, uh, yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Uh, we had a letter that we put together just recently and they found out already. I don't know. Okay. Mayor, mayor said it was good to go, but I actually don't know how I, but we were doing some checks and we were looking at, yeah, it is, it is marginally more expensive. We have some, you know, you know, $3 to $5 more per container, or not per, per compostable, per hundred or something, you know.
[Brenda Pike]: But for the other types of plastic, there's no cost difference, yeah.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: But all this to say, that's a push the Energy Environment Committee is going to start moving on soon, and I will gladly give you all resources to spread out to everybody.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: It's just... I think it's a pretty cool initiative. I like it, you know, like, but like little things like that, that we don't know, you know, like. I think there's no way it's gonna be in the back of our head, like.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, and here's the, so it's Brookline, Hudson, Meadham, and Pembroke in Massachusetts have all... They've all passed it? They've all banned it locally.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Huh, okay. But if they do that, need to approve a vote, is this like the mayor that needs to decide?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: There's a million, there's a lot of pathways that has to go through. First things first is let's talk to restaurants, let's talk to people, let's build a petition, let's build awareness. Usually like when I've done advocacy in the past, if you get to a certain threshold it runs itself, you know, you just have to like start So if we get going, if we get started, that'll bring us most of the way there. And it helps that we're right.
But I'll start moving some material your way as well. And I think by the end of the week, we'll have our petition up and running, and we'll start.
[Brenda Pike]: Cool. So that's all that I had on my list for updates. Anything else we should talk about? I don't know. Is that it?
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: That was on the agenda. That was the last agenda. Okay. So are we ready to adjourn?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh, I have one small update. Okay. This Friday, I got like old curtains and stuff that I washed. So we have a ton of fabric. I have a bunch of vinyl heat transfer symbols all ready to go. That's cool. So we'll have lots of opportunities. So if you want to learn to use their fancy sewing machines, it would let you get badged as well, so that you can rent out the sewing machines from the library for free.
So it's kind of a two for one.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I'll be sneaking wine over there, too.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh, yeah.
[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Teamwork, bud. All right, so no future meeting topics. We talked earlier about the August meeting. Catherine's going to come to talk about
[Brenda Pike]: housing, and then Samiya was suggesting talking about winter preparedness, planning bill checkups with National Grid, and third-party energy supplier outreach. Okay, so schedule all those things.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, so then our last thing is on behalf of the outreach and prevention, the Medford Connects team, and I'll just like to Thank you for all that you've done and all that you do. And you will be missed. But you won't be that far away. That's true. So that's a good thing. And with that, we can adjourn the meeting. Motion to adjourn. We need a second.
[Unidentified]: Miss Asha.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: She's on mute. We'll see. We got a second. Oh, she rolled the video. Oh. Oh, thank you so much. Oh, we're more chats here. Did you do that this time? Me too. Thanks, Jason.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Now we just need to say, aye.
[Brenda Pike]: Aye.
[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Or give us a thumbs up. Give us a thumbs up. Motion to adjourn has been seconded.
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