Energy and Environment 07/20/26

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.5-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 committee discussed preparations for the October Harvest Your Energy Festival, rescheduled its next meeting, and reviewed municipal sustainability projects ahead of the Climate Planner's transition out of her role.

0:15 Fall Meeting Schedule Adjustment — The committee rescheduled its first autumn meeting from Labor Day to September 14th.
2:41 Municipal Climate and Infrastructure Updates — Climate Planner Brenda Pike highlighted upcoming public events, a new cooling resources map, and a minor vandalism incident at the municipal wind turbine.
10:43 Harvest Your Energy Festival Planning — Planning intern Kyla updated the committee on vendors and logistics for the October 17th festival, soliciting suggestions for local sustainable artists and kids' environmental games.
30:02 Member Updates and Public Tree Ordinance — The committee reviewed upcoming zero-waste swap events and discussed the City Council Committee of the Whole's recent favorable vote on the public tree ordinance.
40:19 Ridwell Specialty Recycling Discussion — Members discussed the specialty waste collection company Ridwell, raising questions regarding the efficacy and validity of its recycling claims.
48:27 Climate Planner Transition and Outstanding Projects — Brenda Pike detailed ongoing and future sustainability initiatives for the incoming climate planner, covering green community certifications, school electrification projects, and EV fleet policies.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Recording in progress. Fantastic. We're looking a little smaller today, but I sent out the Zoom link, so hopefully we get everyone that can make it and give them that reminder. But the important thing, I think, is that we'll have our next meeting not in August, but September 7th. Should be that first Monday. And that'll be our 1st. Uh, 1st meeting in the fall and our 1st, 1 in, I guess, several years 1st, I've ever had without Brenda.

[Brenda Pike]: Probably yes, so she'll be starting August 10th. so, um. September 7th should be the 1st meeting that she'll be at.

[Lois Grossman]: This is why you guys have to be here, because otherwise... I just went to put it on my calendar and realized that Monday is Labor Day. Yeah, so let's... I won't even be here.

[Lois Grossman]: Yeah, I think you'll... We should probably do it the next Monday.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, the 14th. And it looks like we're kind of weaving between other holidays too, like Rosh Hashanah ends the night before. I'm so poor, it's the week after, so I think if we hit the 14th, we'll be in a good, like, we'll thread the needle really well.

[Barry Ingber]: Wait a minute, what, the conversation, um... Wait a minute... I think we're...

[Lois Grossman]: It's during Rosh Hashanah, but after the second day of Rosh Hashanah, so that people can come if they want.

[Barry Ingber]: Good catch. Right, okay. The first two days end on Sunday night.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, my calendar is not as clear as I would like, but looks like the 14th we'd be able to do just fine, which is pretty good. So I will update everything to show we'll actually not meet on Labor Day, because that's crazy. All righty. September 14th. All righty. Yeah, Brenda, you want to give us some of those city updates?

[Brenda Pike]: Sure, I just have a few this week. I'll give you a rundown of some upcoming events, because late summer, fall tends to have a lot of them. July 23rd, it's not open to the public event, but we're doing a little tour of the wind turbine for some elementary school students. August 4th, Will actually is going to be tabling at National Night Out for Electrify Medford and also the compost program, right?

[Brenda Pike]: August 15th is our Brazilian Independence Day celebration. August 22nd, Office of Outreach and Prevention is doing their back to school event. The 30th, there's Hoops and Hope at Duggar Park. September 26th is the Mystic River Celebration. I've signed Electrify Medford up for a table for that. And October 4th is Tufts Community Day. I think, Will, you signed Electrify Medford up for a table for that.

[Brenda Pike]: Perfect. October 8th, we're planning another energy bill checkup event at the Senior Center with National Grid and ABCD. October 17th is the Harvest Your Energy Festival, and Kyla is here today to talk more about that. And November 19th, is the winter preparedness event at City Hall where they give away hats and coats and things like that. And we'll also do another energy bill checkup event with National Grid and ABCD at that event. And I know we'll have our new climate planner in place on August 10th, but for the first few months, I'm imagining she'll probably be getting her feet under her a little bit. So if members of the Energy and Environment Committee would like to help out with any of the tabling that's happening, I think that would probably be really welcome.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I'll be doing my best to hold down the fort. We've got a lot of knowledgeable people, not in this room necessarily, but this room plus more, and it'd be good to lean on all of you.

[Lois Grossman]: You'll send out the dates and so forth and a way to indicate, because I like doing those events if I can, tabling. I often do it for Trees Medford, and if we can be together, which we can usually arrange, then we can help each other out.

[Brenda Pike]: Perfect. And I wanted to give you a heads up that at the next Climate Equity Council meeting, which will be August, sorry, bringing the calendar up, August 19th, Catherine, our housing planner, we'll be joining them to talk about the Housing Rehabilitation Loan Program and the Affordable Housing Trust. So I thought that might be something that members of this committee would be interested in hearing more about and asking questions about too. And then something that came out of one of their meetings is we developed a cooling resources map which shows different locations around the city with where people can swim where there are sprinklers available where there are drinking fountains, things like that, um, cooling centers. Um, and that includes also the hours that these are available. Um, if there's any sort of costs associated with them, things like that. And they're putting that together in a handout. Oh, and including public transportation to get to some of these resources. And so their Office of Outreach Prevention, the Medford Connects team is going to be having those available at any of the events that they do and when they're working with their constituents.

So that's all that I have for current city updates. I think most of the other things are still sort of in progress and will probably not be completed by the time I'm gone. So I'm saving them for sort of the farewell project section, if that works for you.

[Brenda Pike]: Oh, and one, uh, uh, random update, um, last week we had some vandalism at the, uh, wind turbine where, uh, somebody cut the padlocks to the door of the wind turbine and to the, um, The fence where the other electrical equipment is for the turbine, and they didn't do any damage to the turbine or anything. It just looks like they wanted to see inside and see what was there or something. But we've put new locks on that, and we're talking about putting or adjusting a camera so that that location is more visible moving forward.

It sounds like it's an issue that hasn't really happened before. There was maybe some graffiti on it back when it was being built or something. But I haven't really had any issues for many years.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Definitely a weird one. Alicia seemed like kind of found it both confusing and remarkable. She was like, why are they? I don't know. They left behind like a soda can or something. angle grinder which they used to presumably cut things open at Bazaar.

[Brenda Pike]: I wonder if somebody had like an angle grinder to like cut bike locks and steal bikes or something and they just sort of opportunistically did that. Oh, they left it behind too, huh?

[Robert Paine]: Good. I'm in customs here. Customs at the airport. I just got in from Tokyo.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I figured. I was like, I didn't email you. I knew you deserve some time off.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: He'll be listening in during customs, and that's his alibi for the turbine.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Lois, it looked like you had something you wanted to share. OK. Perfect. In that case, I think that's it for city updates, right? That was really the big one that people should probably hear about. But yeah, I want to throw it to Kyla is one of my classmates in my graduate program at Tufts, but also another planning intern here and has been doing a ton of work on the Harvester Energy Festival planning. I figured between everyone at MEUC, we've run probably a decade and a half of Harvest Your Energies between a lot of you. So I figured I'd give her a chance to ask questions and get insights and make sure things are where they need to be. So I'm going to throw it to Kyla to take some time.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Will. It's nice to see everyone and happy to be here. And yeah, like Will said, he's mentioned y'all are very seasoned veterans when it comes to the festival. So he said it would be good to kind of like pick y'all's brains on a couple of things. But yeah, planning is underway and I'm still, I guess the biggest thing is that I'm still kind of working on getting some exhibitors to join us as well as some sponsorships. I think we have one for certain, and then one is kind of like emerging or in the works. And then some other, like, I guess, progress or milestone is that we've got our food vendor, which is Placita Mexican Tacos. They opened up a new location in Medford. They have like a couple others in the Boston area. So that's super exciting. um and colleen's which comes every year so that's fun that they still like to join and then um are we're gonna do the beer garden again this year it was a big hit uh so the black harp traveling pub is gonna come um and provide beer and wine um and then i guess um

I guess my biggest question for you all was to see if you knew of any artists who particularly work with upcycled materials or focus on themes of the environment or just sustainability in general. We're looking for artists to join along with the exhibitors to sell their work and showcase a different side of sustainability that's not just companies and organizations, although those are all important. But I think it's good to have that variety. So we have one application so far. So I was hoping to have a wide variety of folks to sell their art. And I feel like that would be fun for residents. Yeah, I'll let you all if you have any thoughts.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Do they have to be sustainability focused? Can it be any local artists that you think would want and they're selling or they showcasing or both?

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yes, they're selling. They can showcase if they prefer not to sell. But yes, the preference is that they focus on sustainability or use upcycled materials. For example, the person who has submitted an application so far does some nature photography in the Malden and Medford area. So that's kind of like. An example, I mean, yeah, any, like the type of work comes in all different shapes and sizes. So yeah, but preferably around the environment and sustainability.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: I have, yes, I emailed them to see if they could send out the flyer that I made to their network to see if anyone would be interested in joining. I can't remember if I received a reply back. But yeah, I reached out to kind of like the art organizations in the Medford area. I think it was Cachet, the Medford Arts Council, I believe. if that's it. And yeah, Arts Collaborative. Yeah, so just those networks in the area, I've sent those out to see if they can also kind of spread the word.

[Lois Grossman]: You need to probably do it at least one more time so that they know you're serious.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, probably another, I think I sent that maybe No, I don't think it was last week. I think it was the week prior. So I think I'm due for a check-in, for sure.

[Brenda Pike]: Kyla, Laurel has done a lot of work with the Arts Collaborative. So if you haven't already reached out through her, I'd recommend that. OK, perfect.

[Lois Grossman]: I think that's a great idea, though. And I think it's a great opportunity for the artists I'm sure there are some. I'll talk to Susan Altman. She lives down the street. She's in the collaborative. And I'll make myself a note to talk with her, because I think she might even do work that might be appropriate.

[Brenda Pike]: I'm imagining something like I don't know, people who use Artisans Asylum or something would be a good sort of sustainability-related connection there. And I know they're not in Medford, but there are probably Medford people who are using that.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I was just drafting an email to the folks at Medforge. They did sustainable art and crafting things for one of the open houses a while back. And they yeah, I think they'd be into it. So I'll I'm pitching them now and send you some contact info in a minute That'd be great. Well, yeah And I'm kind of racking my brain through like I'm sure there's some Tufts art students SMFA folks that want to do things but for sure, yeah, I Like, I think there's some toss clubs that you could save a table or two for, and they would want to be there.

[Lois Grossman]: What about the high school? Are they doing any summer classes? If there were a summer arts class going on, they could guide their work in that direction. Yeah, I don't know if there are anybody's teaching arts or arts and crafts through the high school, but it would be, you could get some good work out of kids.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Something to look into for sure. I'm going to write that down.

[Brenda Pike]: There is a teacher at the heart high school, um, schools, the students eco league, um, and he does a, um, and he sort of heads up the, um. Like, the electronics shop there, um, so he might be able to make some suggestions.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: believe it's Samuel, I have their email. They were really nice. Yeah, I don't know. It's one of those things where all the schools, you'd have to maybe wait till closer to the start of the year. But if you can get them started and maybe save them a table or something, feels like it'd be worthwhile.

[Brenda Pike]: Or maybe some of the teachers would be interested in doing it, right? Like some of those folks who are working in that shop are really creative. Yeah.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Either way, I'll put out a larger blast in our action items email and see what other people come up with.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I'm sure we got some. We got some cool artistically minded folks that I'm sure would be interested in figuring out with you.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. And it could be like, you could be a professional or this could just be something that you're really passionate about and you want to sell. Like, it doesn't have to be like, I went to art school and now I'm selling art. So yeah, very, very lenient with the prerequisites, I guess.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: I do. Yes. I will, I can send that and I'll put it in the chat or something.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I can just circulate it directly to people, anything to minimize that barrier.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Yeah. And I will also send a link to, um, the flyer that also has a QR code that, um, if any of y'all are like out and about chatting with people and, um, this seems like a good idea, then you can just send it their way. Has all the info there. But otherwise, yeah, I think just like logistics and planning going on in the background. And if you have any other thoughts, let me know now or I can send I can drop my email in the chat as well if you if anything comes to mind in the next coming days.

[Brenda Pike]: I know as we get closer to the festival, there's a volunteer sign-up sheet that gets sent around to this group, because I know a lot of people in this group really help out that day.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I usually see everyone. Sorry, Kathleen, I thought I heard you there.

[Kathleen McKenna]: Yeah, I'm not very good at timing. Is there a fee for the arts folks, just in case I run into anyone for the table? Or how does that work?

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Wait, I'm so sorry. I think I missed that first part. Do you mind repeating?

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes. Thank you so much for asking. There's just a $25 fee for the art table.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Okay. And could multiple artists share a table? I know that's pretty common practice.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I imagine so. Like, if I personally don't have, like, see any issue with that, like, if, like, folks are maybe, like, smaller scale wanna kind of, like, share that burden of the cost and, like, split their table, that's totally fine. Yeah. But thank y'all. I appreciate all the input now and in the future when it comes. But yeah, I'll just send those links, and I'll let you get back to it.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Actually, before you close out, just from the three of y'all there, are there any notes from past Harvest Your Energies, any pitfalls you see every year? And you're like, gosh, I hope they don't do that again. Now's the time to nip it in the bud.

[Lois Grossman]: Well, we talked about the, there was absolutely nothing vegan to eat. And I think there should be enough things to drink besides beer. I mean, there are a lot of kids. So I think I had trouble finding even a diet Coke that just, you know, encouraged people that are doing the food to bring beverages so that there are options.

[Brenda Pike]: Oh, and also, Kyla, if we're able to get that MWRA water truck, that would be great. Yeah.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: I was. I hopped on that right after we talked about it and we're set. I called them up because I hadn't heard a response. And I was like, I heard that it books out late in advance. So wanted to wanted to get on that. So that's all set. The water truck is coming. So that'll be more beverages besides beer or wine and then also I think um another like exciting thing with uh Plazita is that they typically like whenever they do like tabling or vending or something it's um Vieira tacos as well as their Mexican sodas so I thought that would be like a really fun addition so maybe that not necessarily a diet coke but maybe something along those lines um and then uh

Will has also talked to me about the vegan options. So I'm trying to see, they mentioned doing some veggie quesadillas. So I'm trying to see if they would be able to do that and maybe hold the cheese for our vegans. I feel like that would, hopefully that would be good.

[Lois Grossman]: Or just, you know, have snacks, guacamole and chips, salsa and chips. you know, options.

[Brenda Pike]: I do feel like burritos lend themselves well to, uh, to, to vegans, right? Beans is a great option. Um, I know in past years, we've had a hard time getting blue bikes involved. Have they been able to sign up this year?

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: I have not heard back from them, but they are on the call list for sure. OK.

[Brenda Pike]: If you have a hard time hearing, getting a response from them, ask Todd to reach out to them, Todd Blake, because he works with them all the time.

[Brenda Pike]: And I know last year, Walk Medford wasn't able to come. I think, and we really wanted to make sure that they were invited this year.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yes, they are invited. And I think that they also, they started an email chain with me copying WOC Massachusetts. And I think that they were hoping to do something together. Yeah, so hopefully that'll happen.

[Lois Grossman]: Brenda, do we still have those games, those environmental games that you had for Circle the Square the last time? There were these big elaborate toss things.

[Brenda Pike]: I haven't signed up for that yet. I can do that now tentatively. It is a lot of work. I have to drive up to Concord to pick them up and to drop them off. So it drives out to Concord in one day and then setting it up and everything. So I didn't want to volunteer anyone to do that without them knowing about it. But I can sign up for it now, and then if that's too much for somebody, then they can be canceled later.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: These are the, like, carnival-style games? Yes. Interesting. We should really look into making our own. They're not that complicated.

[Brenda Pike]: That would be very cool. The issue, and if it was going to be stored on city property at all. There's just a serious lack of storage on city property. If someone could store them at their home, then I think that would be fine.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh, it's so doable. The gears are turning here. I'm finishing one game. I'll build another. Let's go. I like it.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, they're really nice. The carnival games really rock. If it is possible, that's great, but.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, Will is also putting together some great games for Compost.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I'm making a trash sorting game right now. I've been working with some friends to make little beanbags with pictures of trash to sort out and things like that. But.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. We don't just need carbon. And then a decarbonization one will do well too, I think. We'll find some new ones. Yeah, I'll call in all the Makerspace people and we'll do a big collab on it. They'll be excited.

[Lois Grossman]: How about magnetic dart boards? Do they have things like that? I think I see. We can't have darts, obviously, with kids. But things that you throw and they stick.

[Lois Grossman]: Little things. Something to think about. I think I've seen things like that.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. That'll be a fun game to play. We'll do some brainstorming. Kyla, is there anything else on your mind? Anything tripping you up? Otherwise, you're feeling okay?

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's it. And I appreciate all the comments. Everything is really helpful.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: I have not, no. This is honestly, I moved to Boston in August for school. And I had never heard of Harvest Your Energy Festival until I applied to work here. So it's very new to me and I'm learning a lot.

[Lois Grossman]: It's a nice festival. It's well attended. A lot of exhibitors. A lot of people come. There's a lot of space. It's wide open. The entertainment is usually good. It's a nice event.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Yes. So I've heard. I've heard. And I hope to live up to that legacy. And I hope you can say the same about this year.

[CAS00002540_SPEAKER_01]: I hope so. Thank you for your help, y'all. Have a great night. See you.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I'll see you tomorrow. All righty. See, we're zipping through. This will be an easy night. I want to open the floor for member updates. If there are projects you're working on, things you could use some help with, any issues you've been hearing about. I know Zero Waste Medford has been busy. We got stuff planned for the fall. Junk in the Trunk is scheduled for October 17th, the morning before the Harvester Energy Festival starts. So we love a good zero waste swap event.

And then we're pinning down a date for the free flea market in the fall. It should be the end of September. So as always, we welcome volunteers, but more than anything, we want people to shop there. So go get rid of some stuff, go find some new treasure. Always helpful.

[Lois Grossman]: Is there any point in trying to do something like that at Harvester Energy? I think that's necessary. We're doing it in September.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: So yeah, I think those swap events tend to be kind of their own universe. And I I'd hate to gum up a good festival with a bunch of what can be junk.

[Lois Grossman]: And we they do take clothes. And yes, I assume we're having the same thing that what we always have. Yes, we have recycling the

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And I believe we got confirmation, of course we should have waited until Kyla was still here. We got e-waste, we got textiles, I believe we have styrofoam again, and I think that was the... and paper shredding, yeah.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: The usual suspects. The guy was harder to pin down than I think we had imagined, but we got a hold of him. But yes, plenty of options for folks. That tends to be pretty well used. But yeah, is there anything else you guys are hearing about, things we should know about? I feel like Trees Medford has been very busy, but I never know the specifics.

[Lois Grossman]: We got the ordinance passed, the public trees ordinance. Oh. That's new. The council approved it. I don't know if it has to go through more iterations or not, but the council voted. All that were there voted. There was one absence. They voted in favor of it. A minor change of wording in one place that was accepted. And now there is a public tree ordinance. Now all we have to do is the private tree ordinance, which of course is much harder. And there was an alarming email today from somebody in the city who works with trees. Sorry for the buzzing, it's the dryer.

Asplund is the name of the, contractor, they came and trimmed trees on the street that had already been trimmed and took down trees. And, you know, she was raising some issues and there will be answers to that. I didn't forward it here because it's not really our affair. We do have a tree committee and people working on these things, but doesn't mean there aren't things happening. They just may not affect us directly.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Actually, I have two questions about the tree ordinance. First one, is it to the language is like, the language is to the liking of Trees Medford? I know it's gone through a lot of iterations. I want to make sure it didn't get chewed up at some point.

[Lois Grossman]: I've edited the damn thing more times than I can count. But everybody's happy now with the language and the way it's set up, both the council and the tree people, and Anna Callaghan, who has been the chief council lead on this. She's been very faithful. And the thing I like best about Anna Callaghan is her sister. She's my general doctor. She's my physician.

[Brenda Pike]: Something trees related that you might be interested in when I was talking to the contractor that does our wind turbine maintenance. You mentioned that the trees around the turbine have been growing to the point where it is disturbing the wind flow to the turbine, which is 1 of the reasons we had it. We've had a bit of a drop off in energy production over time. I mean, there's just a normal, you know, sort of. Decline in energy production that you would expect from just like the aging of the of the turbine, but it's, it's declining more than would be expected for that. And they think that it's because of the height of the trees that are growing around it. So they're going to be sending us a letter with some recommendations for sort of trimming back the trees that are above a certain height, like, 35 feet, something like that. And then we can look into sort of what the impact that would have have on the trees.

[Brenda Pike]: We wouldn't be removing any trees. We would be trimming back the existing ones.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And my other question about the tree ordinance, do we have news or timelines or expectations for a private tree ordinance? Do we think like months, years out? Has it even been talked about?

[Lois Grossman]: At least a year, I would think. It took so long to get the public one. I mean, the tree committee has been pushing this for years.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. I just know they are usually packaged together as we're going to pass both.

[Lois Grossman]: So I wasn't sure if this makes it easier or... No, they deliberately did it differently, made three separate ordinances, the tree committee itself, which has been passed. I don't know if it's been formed, but it's been passed. The public trees and the last thing will be private trees. And that will be the trickiest because you're going to be telling people what to do and in their own yard and they're not going to like it. So it's definitely going to be tricky business.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It's good to check in nonetheless. And the public tree ordinance is a really big deal. I didn't know that happened.

[Lois Grossman]: Yeah. It was a committee of the whole meeting Tuesday and they passed.

[Barry Ingber]: They can't be passed by a committee of the whole, it has to be passed by two official council meetings. So that means it isn't ordained yet. I mean, it's formality, but it'll pass, but that means it's not yet an ordinance.

[Lois Grossman]: Right, I don't think I said it was. I think I just said that they passed it. I wasn't aware of that distinction either.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: That's good clarity for me. I had misspoken and misunderstood. But it sounds like we're close and on our way, so that feels good. Fantastic. Yeah. Barry or Kathleen, are there any other news in your corners of the world?

[Kathleen McKenna]: Too much. I've been attending some passive house, so that's kind of cool. And on the harvest your energy, just remember to have a lot of people on the traffic. That's usually an issue.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, we'll get lots of folks managing the traffic and... Oh goodness, yeah. If you ever want to send info on that passive house, things you've been finding, I'd love to send it out to folks, or at least read about it myself. It's kind of a fun, fun space.

[Kathleen McKenna]: Yeah, you can probably forward a link they send out of national and a lot of local buildings that are passing and whatnot.

[Kathleen McKenna]: And it's one of the options for the multifamilies. Probably Brenda knows that.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Perfect. All right. Seeing no others, I think it's, wow, we're making record time. We're going to get out with so much time.

[Barry Ingber]: And you know what? Since we're not having an official meeting, we don't even have to. vote to adjourn.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I don't even really have to put teeth on that. The hardest part of my job is getting that final motion.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh my gosh, yes. I went to a RIDWELL event, and I was actually sitting right next to Lois. This was last week. RIDWELL, I think I talked about many, many moons ago, is a specialty recycling company predominantly on the West Coast, and they do They do recycling of really just any hard-to-recycle thing, anything from plastic film to batteries to light bulbs and fabrics and anything and all the different flavors of thin plastic, like candy wrappers and things.

And they're trying to build a bigger presence on the East Coast. So they had a bunch of events out there. Yeah, so right now they do a sort of mail-in service of plastics and things, but I met with their – I guess his CEO was present and wanted to potentially come and speak here at the MEEC and just kind of talk about the program that they're running and how they work with local groups to upcycle and recycle certain materials.

[Barry Ingber]: So you might be more on top of that than me. I haven't been following it at all, which is why when I saw a news article about their setup being basically a scam, I didn't save it or share it, and I don't remember where I saw it. I think it requires a little extra diligence before you get involved with them, because there's at least some critique of them out there, and I need to, I guess, determine whether the critique is valid or not. But yeah.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I appreciate that. I think it was two summers ago, I was canvassing out in Seattle, and I saw pretty much every house had a little Ridwell-like box on their stoop. Think like a milkman, milk bottle deposit type. So it's pretty popular in the places they're doing it, but I will definitely do some more targeted research there, because that's a big deal.

[Barry Ingber]: I'll see if I can find it, but I know I'm not going to be able to find it, because I have no idea where the article was. Like, I didn't realize there was any reason to put it in the hard drive, you know, either this one or that one, you know?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: No, I get you. It's a tricky prospect. So I don't doubt that it's not an easy thing that they claim to do. So it wouldn't shock me if it's far from perfect. I'd love to know more, though. That'll be worth researching and looking into. So if you find it or I find it, we'll send it back and forth.

[Lois Grossman]: I actually checked with the mass recycling organization to ask if they knew about Redwell and what they had to say, and they didn't have anything to say. They said they weren't in the business of recommending, basically. So I signed up and I haven't yet got my materials, but when I do, I've started saving all my plastic wrappers that I can't recycle anywhere. And I'm saving them and then I'll start putting them in these bags and see how long it takes me to fill up a bag with paper plastic wrappers of various sizes. And I'll keep the committee aware.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I think it's something we'll keep an eye on. And we'll, yeah, I have the email of the main guy. I've been chatting with him, trying to figure out what's what. So it'll be good to just keep our finger on that pulse and figure out what's going on there.

[Robert Paine]: I was going to mention that. I think Bob is back again. I was just going to mention, I take all my plastic bags and wrappers to Stop and Shop. They have a free recycling. They do? I know Soft Plastics. Yeah, so I don't know, do I need RIDwell? I don't know if I need it.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: They tackle quite a few different types of products. I would look at it, again, as Barry brought up, good to approach with some caution or maybe skepticism in there, but what their, yeah, their general idea is to match these pretty wide array of products with potential buyers. So more than just your thin plastic film bags, but I'd have to go down the list, but they supposedly do quite a bit.

[Lois Grossman]: They turned them into a product that's used for artificial lumber, and they brought in a piece of it, which they passed around. We could see what it was like.

[Robert Paine]: Yeah, so they'll find a local group. I was going to say this, Bob, again. If Greenwell actually uses the plastic rather than just burns it, that would be better. I don't know what the stop and shop does or the city does with its plastic recycling stuff.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, so I'm looking at their website here, some of the stuff they offer for mail-in. multi-layer plastic, plastic film, bottle caps and flat lids, prescription pill bottles, corks. And yeah, they're general ideas to basically just be a giant sorting facility and then send the bundles of material to whoever would use it, whether that's upcycled or recycled or or what have you, or reused, I suppose. But that's, again, I'm not here to sell you on these ones, mostly to report back what I found with them.

We cover a lot of the things that they would take, things like textiles, paint, things like that we already kind of cover. But if you're looking to supplement it, it might be worth looking at and seeing what makes sense for you.

[Lois Grossman]: If they get enough people signed up, they might start a drop-off somewhere out here. That would be the goal, to have a drop-off center so we didn't have to send things. We could just bring them. Who knows where that would be?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: That'll be our final piece, which I think we'll jump to now, I think. Sure, yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's any other major updates I wanted to save a couple minutes for Brenda to share what's on her mind, what needs to get done, or what she imagines could be happening here in Medford.

[Brenda Pike]: As I was jotting down some notes for this, and it went very long, and I thought, oh, no, this is going to take too long. So I will not go into too much detail for each one of these. But if you're interested, we can talk more about it. Will, I'm sure you've heard all of this once already. But yeah, for everyone else. So this is basically projects that are either in the works that are not going to be finalized by the time I'm heading out,

have not started yet, but I think are really important to move forward with in the future. There are some, you know, regular reporting things that we have to do. Green communities reporting or greenhouse gas inventory, LEED for cities certification. Will and Natalie are working on those. Natalie's one of our other interns. Um, and they're doing a great job on that. So, um, those are all gonna be done this fall or submitted this fall or winter. Um, so a lot, a lot being done there. Um, we need to update our climate action plan. Um, and my idea was to do that in 2027. Um, Alicia thinks that might be a little ambitious, um, because we would 1st have to. apply for a grant to hire a consultant to help us to update this plan. So she's thinking that next year might be when we're applying for grants, when we're hiring a consultant, doing outreach, and then the actual plan might be released in 2028.

We should be applying for Green Communities Climate Leader Certification. Um, doing that would make us eligible for an additional 1Million dollars in grants for electrification grants for things that we really need, like, um, updating our heating system and. The hall, which is regularly, uh, we're regularly having issues with, um. And so we're already a green community, but Climate Leader is the next step up from that. And there are five requirements. We've met all of them, except for the last two, one being a decarbonization roadmap for city buildings and vehicles.

I've actually received the first draft of that from a consultant that I've been working with on it. And so Once we get feedback on that, there should be a good final draft that we'll need to get passed by the city council and the school committee with support from the mayor in order for that to be official for green communities. And we also would need to pass an EV first vehicle policy, which basically just says the city will, when we're purchasing vehicles, we will first look at electric vehicles, see if they meet our needs. If they don't, for some reason, we would look to the next step down would be hybrid vehicles. Next step down would be a very energy efficient gas vehicle. The next step down would be less energy efficient or diesel or what have you. And it's all dependent on the need for the vehicle. There are some things right now where there just aren't good electric versions of. And so that wouldn't necessarily be a consideration. You would jump sort of down.

you're basically saying that you're going to be seriously considering and justifying to the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources why you didn't choose a more efficient vehicle. And there's a draft policy for that that we've been circulating internally And we should actually be getting a draft EV fleet recommendation report from National Grid soon. We gave them a list of all of our vehicles, and they are coming back to us with recommendations for electric vehicles that would meet the needs for replacement vehicles when we need to replace those, including what vehicles there aren't good replacements for. So it'll be a really helpful thing as we're sort of going down that list for that policy.

Of course, the Andrews and McGlynn HVAC project is still going on, but that should be finalized by the end of this summer, after which the McGlynn roof is going to be redone and starting in September. And then solar will be installed on the Andrews roof starting in September. And then after the McLean roof is finished in probably end of October, early November, then we'll be installing solar on that as well. So all the contracting for that is done. We just need to actually get the installation done.

The three lower schools will also be having HVAC replacements and roof replacements done. Um, we're actually so that's the Roberts, the Brooks and the miss a tuck. This is going to the accelerated repair project. Um, that's headed up by the school operations department. Um. And there's a very strict process in place through MSBA for that. And so the Roberts has already started that. They've chosen an owner's project manager and an engineer for that project. And then the subsequent schools will be going through the same process just six months apart.

And they're considering that the plan is to electrify or at least partially electrified depending on what the results of the engineering studies come out to, the HVAC for the schools. And then once the roof is done, we should apply for solar grants so we could get solar onto those roofs as quickly as possible now that we've extended the life there. The high school project, I mean, the plans for that are looking good right now, I think, sustainability wise. But we need to stay on top of that because corners can be cut in the name of cost savings as the project goes on. So important to continue to keep an eye on that.

I'm really more concerned with making it net zero, making it all electric, really maximizing the you know, reducing that energy use intensity of that building more than I am with reaching a particular LEED goal. Although we do need to meet LEED silver for MSBA. We've been talking about, you know, setting LEED goals that are, you know, pretty high for those. But I think as long as we're meeting our energy goals in particular, I think I'd be pretty happy with that. The life cycle cost analysis that I have seen shows geothermal being more costly than air to water heat pumps. We are looking at it being all electric. That's the plan.

But I'm not sure that they factored demand costs into that life cycle cost analysis. And so that those can be pretty significant for buildings of this size. So we'll be discussing this. There's a sustainability advisory group meeting tomorrow night, we'll be discussing this. Um, electrify Medford. There's a lot that could still be done with this. Um, through our grant, we still have, um, incentives that we can, um, uh, roll out to Medford residents. That's not something that I wanted to do right before I left and create a huge demand for the, for the new person as she's coming in. But, um, that's, that's something that to, to be looking forward to, um,

And we've had some drop-off in coach interest and people moving away. So it would be a great opportunity to hire on some and train some new coaches too. And it would be great to do some more direct outreach to landlords and people with oil, propane, or electric heating. We've been doing a lot of direct outreach to residents through events and things like that. But there are other attacks that we can take there.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: To interrupt quickly, I know there's been talk about, I know Alicia has had kind of back and forth on the coaching model writ large. And there's something to be said, like, if we are losing coaches, there's an opportunity to potentially reimagine the system or change how it works. I don't know if that's feasible, but there's something that we can, as a group, start to think about is we can bring on a bunch of new coaches. And if we have the demand, that's great. If we don't have the demand, there might be other ways that we can help people learn about this program.

[Brenda Pike]: I do think we have the demand. I'm not sure that the model of having a lot of coaches putting very few hours per week into it is necessarily a good one, because I feel like each coach is not doing enough coaching to become entirely comfortable with it. I feel like each time they're doing a coaching session, maybe it feels like something brand new that they're somewhat less comfortable with. They're not seeing all of the different uh, you know, possibilities in terms of questions that are coming in from, from different types of residents, um, that I'm seeing when I'm doing a lot of them. So the, the, the cities that are doing coaching programs with either full time or part or like, you know, 20 hour per week, um, coaches, um.

you know, one of those rather than lots of coaches who are doing it, you know, maybe a couple hours a week. I do feel like their coaches tend to be much more comfortable with it, have, you know, gain a lot more knowledge about what they're talking about through that process.

[Kathleen McKenna]: So I had a missed time statement. I know I said I would sign up many, months, years. But yeah, I was thinking of that. I don't know if I can catch you before you leave, Brenda, to try to train for that. That's an action.

[Brenda Pike]: There's a lot going on in the next couple of weeks as I'm trying to get things ready. So it might be better to reach out to the new climate planner when she's on board to go through that training process.

[Brenda Pike]: Yes, absolutely. They are basically doing this job in another town, including with an energy efficiency outreach program to residents. Great. And I'm not sure that I can share her name or anything yet. I'm not sure if she has, you know, given her notice or anything. So I'm just, I'm going to wait until I have been given the go ahead to do that before I share with you guys. Sorry, I wanted to tonight if we could have.

[Brenda Pike]: She's great, you'll love her though. Um, so, um, charging stations, I think I would take a break on installing charging stations on city property for for a little while and instead work with commercial building owners to get them to install charging stations in their lots. I did some very initial outreach. To businesses with sort of a fact sheet about. The benefits of bringing in people who are charging into your business and sort of the increase in business that people see with that. We did some and like the incentives that are available to help them out with that.

And we did some outreach through the Chamber of Commerce, but I think some more direct outreach to business owners could be done, because I think that's really sort of a missing thing here. School bus electrification is something that we sort of started. We had a consultant on board that put together a report with recommendations. That unfortunately have not been presented to the school committee yet. Um, they had some space on their agenda, I think, in June, but I wasn't able to make it then. So that still needs to be presented to them. Um, but long story short there. The recommendation would really be when there are significant grants available again for.

Purchasing school buses, I think the city should apply to own our own electric buses that some third party operator like Eastern would operate. Based on Eastern's responses to the draft electrification plan as we were going through that process, I don't anticipate them offering electric buses to the city at a reasonable cost. So, I think if we want to electrify our buses, we will have to own them ourselves. And the only way I can really see us doing that is if there are significant grants available to help offset that cost.

Some smaller things here. Demand response. We are enrolled in a demand response program. There's an automatic one. that just has been happening at Anders School and the DPW, that's been working well. There's also a more manual one where the schools are supposed to be sort of cutting back their usage during peak events. And that hasn't really been happening so much. It seems like that's something that they're not necessarily comfortable doing. We have been getting some credit for demand response, but I think that's more just based on the hours of the school and the fact that when peak events are happening, school tends to be out of session more than the school actually increasing the temperatures in the school during these peak events. So working with the schools to set something up there would be really helpful.

[Kathleen McKenna]: Yeah, I might like to get involved in that. Who would I contact? The new person?

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, it would be the new person. And the new person would be working with the chief operations officer for the schools.

[Brenda Pike]: And it might just be that the main... Oh, I was going to say just in general. I was going to say it might just be that the maintenance staff It just might just be that the maintenance staff might need some more training on the building systems to be more comfortable with changing those schedules. So yeah, that might be the extent of what needs to happen there. What were you saying, Will?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I was thinking at some point we'll get a short list from you of some of these high-level ones you think we can tackle. Um, cause I think it'll, it'll make a good, uh, a good list when we're, we're scrambling for projects in the future. We can go, Hey, actually we could be part of the push for Evie buses or something like that.

[Brenda Pike]: Um, you know, that's what I'm hoping that we were plugging a little bit here. Yeah.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Typed out list and I will make sure that it is accessible and maybe we can plan out some attack actions with those that.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, definitely. The energy code, the specialized energy code, I think we could do with some more education of developers and contractors. We've sort of been working with people 1 on 1 as they're doing large projects, but a lot of times it's, it's happening too late in the process to be, you know, to be able to do that. to make the process less painful for them. So I think really getting more education out there so that they're talking to us about this and factoring this into their designs is really important.

[Kathleen McKenna]: Sorry, doesn't MassSafe have things of that nature where you can Send those folks to I get updates. I haven't been looking for the specialized more regular. Green communities, yes, they.

[Brenda Pike]: Yep, they definitely do. I don't feel like a lot of the the contractors and developers that we've been talking to have been taking advantage of those.

[Kathleen McKenna]: Right, and they have to be available. during those times unless they sign up and can get a recording or something like that?

[Brenda Pike]: I mentioned before that streetlight controls, we don't currently have access to our streetlight controls, and I think we'll need to replace the controls hardware in order to get new software to control it. I'm not sure this is an energy efficiency issue since the controls themselves actually don't save a lot of energy. It's really that switch to the LEDs that did most of the energy savings there. It's almost more about convenience and responding to resident concerns and scheduling.

So again, I'm not sure that it's an energy efficiency issue there, but it's something that the city will need to do in order to be able to control their streetlights. And then just a couple of other things. It's a, it's a regular problem that, um, that those, those systems are down. So, um, I'd really like to have that be an electrification solution, um, which I think, I think we would need to be able to do. get a grant to be able to do something like that. So something that we've been discussing for a long time, haven't really moved forward with up to this point.

[Kathleen McKenna]: What are they now? Real quick, are they oil or boilers? It's gas boiler. Gas boiler, okay.

[Brenda Pike]: Unfortunately, that has not worked out that way. But I will be available to meet with her later on in August. And I'm putting together a lot of information for her, sort of summarizing a lot of this. So once we get together, she'll have already gone through a lot of this and can come to me with questions.

[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, because that seems to be the place where this stuff needs to go. Yep.

[Brenda Pike]: And then the library was designed to be net zero and is not effectively net zero, unfortunately. About half of the year, we actually do have zero. energy bills, but not the other, not in the winter. And so what we really need to do there, I think, we've done a lot of work working on the scheduling of the heating system and those larger systems, working on those larger systems. So we think the issue might be plug load and higher than anticipated plug load, especially things like,

You know, electric heaters and at desks and things like that. So, um, that's that's something that will need to be done to really identify where there are opportunities to be reducing the energy use there more. Okay, I've been talking a lot. It's a, that was a lot, but any, any questions about any of this.

[Brenda Pike]: Yes, she will. And also, Will and Natalie are being copied on a lot of things right now and are also included on them. And I have a giant transition document that I've put together with all kinds of information that people can refer back to if there are questions that come up along the way.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I may work with you at some point to take fractions of your list and put them into what can be public outreach focused or research focused enough that we can tackle it without substantial funding and be able to do something in a volunteer capacity. So I think that'll be a really powerful list to draw from. Your transition document's like 18 pages or something absurd. I know. Brenda does the work of five planners plus two. So we'll see what we can offload. But gosh, there's a lot to do.

[Brenda Pike]: There definitely is. And, you know, public outreach and stuff is really important. Absolutely. But there are some things on here that are more internal, but I do think could benefit from some advocacy, right? So if there are things that you really want to see happen. that aren't things that the Energy and Environment Committee can take on yourselves and move forward with. There's still a lot of benefit to really pushing the city to do these things.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: So we'll work on that list. I'll send it out along with minutes and the like. Yeah, I think, gosh, I filled up my whiteboard three times over.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Have a wonderful evening. I'll send out a little blurb to everyone, but thanks for sticking it through when no one else seemed to be available.