Tree Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

The camera's off. Did you guys go? Okay. There we go. The camera's off? No. It's on now.

It is on now. You just won't

see it up there. It, though. So it is Wednesday, February So are you? Wednesday, February 4, and I am calling to order the meeting of the sustainability advisory board. Welcome, everyone. We'll do roll call and verification of quorum. We have Anne. We have Karen. We have Art. We have Bernardo, Evelyn, Rick. Mackenzie is absent. She is on Okay.

Kind of

a honeymoon. And Erica, will be here soon. She's running late. So we do have a quorum. First up is approval of the agenda. So if I could get a motion to approve the agenda, which you were all provided in the agenda packet. So moved. Art, do I have a second? Ronaldo seconds? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Alright. Approval of previous meeting minutes. We have December meeting minutes to approve. So, hopefully, you had a chance to look those over. Do I have a motion to approve the December meeting minutes? Kathleen, motions to approve. Second? Ronaldo?

All in favor? Yes. Any opposed? K. Moving right along. Public comment? No. Nope. We have one member of the public here. No comment from him?

Nope. Not tonight, apparently.

General business. Alright. So we've got Michelle Crawford here from town clerk's office, and she is going to be presenting on the agenda packet support that, the town clerk's office is going to be providing to all advisory boards. So, Michelle, welcome, and thank you for joining us. Of course.

Thanks for having me. So this is your first meeting where you received an agenda that has live links in it. When I send you the link now for the agenda, you can see in that electronic copy that there are blue items that are highlighted. And if you look at the paper copy in front of you, you'll notice that on the far left, there is an what we call an agenda item number. So anytime we attach something to your agenda that has documents that we want you to look at, your chair or staff liaison has attached for you to look at, it will now be attached electronically to your agenda.

Okay. And this also helps us to keep very good track of what you're discussing each month because what we'll do is put the agenda packet into Laserfiche for the official record of the town so that anybody going in to see any of your meetings now, instead of just seeing an agenda, they'll see the entire agenda packet. So when you look at this online, you can see that it's page after page after page, and you can look at each item as it is listed on the agenda. So in the order that it is on the agenda is the order that it is in the agenda packet. So the number on the far left is your agenda item. So what happens is and I'm gonna share my screen.

I think

I was gonna do it. Let's see.

So just there. Let's see. There we go. Okay. So I'm gonna show you the software in which we that we use. So the software we use is called Granicus. The specific software under Granicus because it's a large umbrella, they own a lot of agenda softwares. Ours is called Legistar. When the clerk's office gets into Legistar, we actually run all agendas for all advisory boards, commissions, town council, urban renewal authority through Legistar. So we have an extensive calendar for the year.

All of your dates are already in Legistar, which helps to put them on the agenda center, which helps to put them on the town calendar. So we upload those every year as we near the end of the year. And so this is a picture of what your agenda looks like in Legistar, and it is got a framework that every time I go in every month and I say generate the agenda, there are standard items one through seven that automatically appear. And then I will add information as the chair gives it to me to put it into the agenda, and now it will include agenda items. So when we open a new item, it has two parts to it.

The first is what is called an agenda memo. And the agenda memo, we actually fill out, and it has a number of questions. And it's basically a synopsis of what you're attaching and why. And then you can add the attachments. So for this item, your first item that was the approval of the minutes, It's simple.

We just put that it's being presented by the chair, that it's coming out of the administrative department because that's where the town clerk sits under. And then it just says that it's approval of the minutes to keep the record for the town, and then we do the attachment. And then, we attach the minutes, and that's what basically gives you and I'm hoping that'll show it. So this right here is 2026Dash105. And if you see it on your agenda, you'll see that in blue in the far left, and that's that agenda item number.

And so that allows us to attach an agenda memo, and it allows us to attach the the actual minutes. So when I open this agenda item in Registar, this is the brief information that I will put in there, and it includes that we just recommend that you pass the minutes. And then the attachment right here is the meeting minutes, and it's as simple as that. Your a title for your agenda items will match that of the agenda item on the agenda. So, for example, let's go back, and I'm gonna show you the one that I put in there for our sample tonight, which is agenda item 26 dash one zero seven.

And so this was about your presenting your packet support presentation that I was gonna take about fifteen minutes to do it, who I am and my title, that we are just preparing you for Granicus legislator agenda packet preparation, and then that we will be preparing these for each one of your meetings. You will always every month, unless you have you don't have minutes ready, you will always have at least one agenda item, which will be the minutes. I'll always fill out the memo for that because it'll be really simple, and I'll attach the minutes you give me. But any other items, Erica will likely start the agenda memo. If she's absent, I can assist you with that, and then you'll send me all the attachments, and we'll fill out the memo.

Like we did for the letter of support that we Correct. Discussed. Okay. That is correct. Okay. And then attached here, I put a sample, and this was gonna lead me to our next see if it'll open it. K. It takes a bit. See if it'll open it. I don't know if it'll share. Stop sharing. Share this. And we can we're gonna go

to let's see if I can get that open. I have to see where I am.

There it is. Okay. So we're gonna share this. So this was the item that I put in that was in your packet. So this was the list of your members that are currently coming up for reappointment, if they so choose.

And so I attached that, and I attached the schedule, which is what I wanted to talk to you tonight. So this item basically tells us that the following people, Kathleen and and Karen, are up for renewal. So the applications went live on the website on Monday, and we ask that you complete the application. They're new this year. We're running them through a different system.

So we ask that you complete the application in full. And the application process closes on February 27, which is a Friday. The clerk's office will then take all of the applicants for the board positions for each advisory board and prepare them in a packet. And we'll open up an agenda item, and we'll attach it so that you can go through all of the applications, and they'll run one after the other likely unless we attach them separately. We'll see how we're gonna do it.

And we'll end up having you take a look at each one of those individuals prior to your meeting because you'll have that agenda. And then you'll be prepared for your meeting to discuss those members. Because of how recruitment goes when we do general recruitment every two years, we are unable to do interviews. Whereas sometimes, advisory boards have asked in the past, is it possible that we can do an interview when we are replacing somebody midterm? But that's not possible during the recruitment season.

So we ask that you go through the applications, any attachments. They may attach a resume and then make a decision. And then once you have made a decision, you'll have your meeting in March to make that decision. You'll contact the clerk's office. Let us know who are the members you're referring pointed to the board, and then we will prepare the resolution for town council for their fourth meeting of the month in April. Once that's approved, we will notify the people that have been appointed, and then we will onboard them. So their their first meeting would be May? May. Okay. Correct. Yes. And we're gonna do an onboarding for that. Yes.

There's two questions just to make sure I'm clear. So first off, what does it work you have to reapply? We got we're

You guys same times. It depends on the term that you filled. So the term that you filled, we offset terms so that we Right.

Yes. I do.

Replace a full board. So it goes three, four, three.

So even though we started at the same time, we're just Depends on the

That's fine. Point that you were put in. Yeah. And I was only when I started, it was only a two year term. Right.

The terms are always four years. It just depends on When you start. Correct. Who and who if you are replacing someone, how much they had left in their van. Yeah.

Understood. Okay. So we need to all of us that are here in twenty twenty six April, we all need to go in and put our new application in That is correct. And submit it through the system. Right. And then everyone who doesn't have to reapply No. I have to reapply. Know. Everyone who doesn't have to reapply gets to vote on us. They get to what? Is that

how it works? We don't

we don't get to vote on ourselves.

You know, for transparency reasons, it has to be you know, it it's gotta be conducted at the March meeting.

So, you know, it's always a little Yeah.

I think it's always a little weird, but but yeah. It'll the discussion will take place. And our consensus on who we wanna put forth to the town council will be done at the March meeting. And then it's the council that really makes the ultimate decision of whether or not those people are appointed. We make a recommendation. They vote. Does anyone ever get

voted off the island? Like, that's there's

no way. I don't know. I don't

I That would be uncommon for council to go against what the board is recommending.

I just mean, like, if we all reapply and then we come to the meeting in March. I know that I'm And Aldo is like, I don't want Kathy sitting here anymore, so she can't come back. Like, that would be weird. That would be voted off the island. We do have members

that are retiring. We've already been notified of a couple members that are retiring. So if you had somebody who was saying, yeah. I'm ready to be done. I'm not gonna reapply. We would notify you of that, and so we've only had two boards where mem we've had a member on each board that has just said, yep. I'm not gonna be reapplying. So we let the chair know that that is an available fully open I mean, it's an open position for anyone, but we always let them know they are not returning. And they would know that packet because their application wouldn't be in it. And so just to clarify again, so February 27, it closes.

Mhmm. So by Monday, we'll have the packet so that we can look things over because we because your turnaround is gonna be as quick. Quick. When when

are the applications due by?

February 27 is when

it closes, which is a Friday,

which is Yeah. Friday before our meetings. Yep. Yeah. Very so on Monday so that Monday, which is what March, first? Or It's March 2. So on Monday, I would I would just ask that, you know, be prepared to look in your email for that packet so that you can go through and look at the, you know, whatever applicants that we get. If we I would like to have them posted to you all by Friday If I

Oh, okay.

Like, I would I will have the packet ready to go. So it's likely that what I'll do for you know, that we're talking about this. It's likely what I'll do is I will especially for SAB, I will likely put each application in separately. So that way, if somebody applies the very last minute on Friday, I can upload just that application. Okay.

Mhmm.

And I can have it ready to go so that you can review, and I wanna get it out Friday to give you the whole weekend and those three days before your meetings to review them. Sounds good. This is what it looks like on the website when you go into government and then you go into boards and commissions. At the very top of the list, it'll say apply to advisory boards right up here. And because we are now running this through our platform on the website, you all have these handy dandy little pictures. It looks very nice, by the way.

I I looked at your computer,

and I was like, oh. And they'll update them if you have a different picture you would like on there.

We should put a different picture down here in

a trash pile.

Yeah. I know. I was I

was less impressed with that one, but they did it for us. So if you wanna send us a picture, absolutely, and I will give it to the locations to get it uploaded. And then we'll make sure that we get that updated. You can even send it to me Perfect. Next week.

So that's what happened when the recycling center closes. It's usually that.

Mhmm. And it takes

a day sometimes to put all that Yep. The compactor up. And poor Caleb is just like I

mean, it's terrible. So you each have a picture you can click on, and I don't I'm wondering if it'll allow me to do this and see. I'm gonna have to hold on. I'll reshare. You can see it. So here's the application, and you can upload. It's a couple it's not terribly long. I think a total of three pages, and the third page is mostly reading things that you approve that your information, you know, will be made public because it will be in the packet and people can see it.

Mhmm.

And then you can attach a document or resume if you'd like to. Phone numbers and email addresses? We will likely remove those. We will redact those for the application packet Okay. So that that is not public. Okay. Good. Yes.

Mhmm.

Are the questions basically the same from what it was before? Or They are from the application. That's correct. Yeah.

Mhmm.

So and so that's the second part of the packet. So that's kind of connects you right back into the packet. K. And the only other thing I was trying to think I think that's the only I'm gonna stop sharing from there. Back to the video. I don't think that I had anything else with regard to sustainability. I need to think of off the top of my head. That's it. We will oh, the training. So we will do an onboard training for boards and commissions that we do every time we do general recruitment, which is every two years, and that's what this is.

We always invite the new members and returning members, even those that did not have to reapply to come back for a refresher. So we basically talk about being on the advisory board, what you're responsible for, what you're not responsible for. We also have a little presentation by CRSA, and they'll talk a little bit about what your role is and how you're protected by the town and what you should and should not be doing. And so we'll do that presentation. We're tentative the fur about the first week in May, but we will give you ample time to let you know because it'll be part town clerk and then part that we'll be presenting.

Okay. And we'll do it here at town hall in Chambers, and it would be all the advisory boards together. K. And that's it. Do you have any questions about how the agenda works or your packet or live links? No. I think that's great. I think that will be helpful. When we have things that, you know, we kinda have the stuff compiled ahead of time, being able to share that so everyone can kind of review it and know what we're gonna be talking about, I think, is really helpful. So yeah.

Thank you. That seems like a lot of work for you guys, for all the advisory boards, but works for us. Yeah. Well, we the great thing about it is the staff liaisons will be able to help us. We do this regularly for town council.

So when you look at a town council agenda, even under consent agenda, some nights we'll have we could have in a really busy night up to 15 items. All of those are an agenda item with an agenda memo with attachments that we have to go through and check, and it goes through layers of staff. Erica goes through it all the time. So it goes through layers of staff of reading it, making sure it's all correct, making sure everything is in the correct order so that when people click on items, it's exactly in the order that it says it's on the agenda memo. Does that also translate into in the recording that if someone's watching the recorded meeting, they can click to go to that part of the meeting just like town council meetings or that Yep.

Next set. Mhmm. So, yes, so that's so these agendas in that sense are a little bit easier. Great. Yeah. Alright. Good. Well, thanks for having me. Yeah. Thank you. Let me know. I'll always reach out to the clerk's office if you have any questions about the application process, and let's do that. Okay. Great.

Thank you. You're welcome.

And one more question. So going forward, normally, I would get you the agenda the Friday before the meeting. So because this takes a lot more time, do we want do you want it the Monday? Like, the so you have, like, a full week plus? I will send you the reminder always one full week in advance. So I'll send it the Wednesday before. Okay. And then I hope to have it to you within two to three days after that, you know, to give you time. SAB is unique in that you're always that first Monday. And so but I always wanna get it to you by Friday.

I Okay. Unless we have something pending and just so you know that the agendas have to be posted twenty four hours in advance of your meeting. So we do have that, so we can post as late as 5PM on Tuesday, but I prefer to get everything out to you Friday so you have it. Okay. Great. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. Nice to see everybody. You too. Okay. Moving along to item b, council member updates.

I don't have much update other than the appreciation for yesterday's presentation on it was removed and came back, and I'm glad everybody wants it back. And without many hiccups, it was kind of put back.

Yeah. It it seemed like so last night was the study session for EPR and the the resiliency action plan, all these acronyms. And I I thought it was great. Yeah. Emma, Erica did a great job. Mhmm. Council was pretty supportive. There were some great questions that came out of

it. So yeah. That's okay.

It should be on content agenda from what I see.

Yes. We have it on for March 10, the consent agenda, and we'll get updated draft to counsel before that. And then depending on that, we may have a discussion or ideally, just on consent. But it's on the consent. Right. Thanks, Michelle. Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you. There was a discussion, like, you know, that meeting. You did the same kind of meeting yesterday. Yep.

Yeah. I think there was there was some good discussion last night about just some of the concerns that were raised and some additional ones, and we're gonna add a section of just really explaining what the goal of that plan is and that it's really a vision. And it's aspirational, but it's not mandatory. So there are strategies to explore, but not necessarily something that somebody could say. Look. You said you're gonna do a resilience hub. You know, why isn't it, you know, completed right now? And I think that that's a really understandable concern. So we're gonna incorporate that. We had the one of the previous students in the room last night that developed the plan and then two of the new students that we're working with that I can share a

little bit more about. Thanks. Yeah.

Alright. Thanks. Well, would you like to share more? Because you're up next. Sure. Definitely. It's on updates.

Yeah. Sounds good. So we were accepted for a second round of c four master's in the environment students, and we're really excited about that. There was over 50 projects proposed this year and only students enough to work on 25 of those. So really cool. Lafayette and the town of Netherland are also doing resilience plans. So there's now gonna be, like, three separate groups of students working on resilience, which I think will be cool from the student perspective and be able to share and collaborate. The goal of our second phase is to really explore implementation. So we propose three different topic areas. And from initial discussions, it sounds like we might be looking at all three of those.

One is an HOA resilience workshop pilot program. So, ideally, we'd work with a handful of HOAs in town and really run them through a resilience workshop series. That's gonna be brainstorming, you know, where are your connections? Who are your neighbors? What resources do they have? Does one of them have a front end loader? Does one of them have a giant battery backup and they could plug in everyone's house? You know, and starting to really identify what are you gonna do, you know, if if there was x, y, or z happened. Who can pick up your kid from the bus? Things like that.

And then also at the same time exploring some really tangible threats that we have that the resilience action plan explored. So extreme heat events was something we mentioned as well. We feel like that's probably the most tangible for the town. What happens if we have an extreme heat event and the power goes out? Right? Where are most vulnerable residents going to go during that time? And then the third piece was, really exploring resilience hubs. So we talked a lot about that last night in the context of a community center. And I know our facilities manager, Chad Alexander, is fantastic, and he's been exploring that a lot. There's some tangible barriers to making that facility a full resilience hub.

Also talked with council member after the meeting, and we were also talking about well, in a lot of ways, it already is a resilience hub. We already send folks to the community center when there's extreme heat or extreme cold events. That is a facility. They stay in the lobby, right, because you need to pay to go beyond that to use that facility and the services, but it already is a hub that you can go to. So, I think there's just some really cool opportunities we can engage in and work we can do to research what are good locations in Erie. I think somebody else mentioned last night the library Mhmm. You know, and what that could look like. So cool opportunities there as far

as resilience. Does that require, like, a interagency agreement or something since it's not a town facility? It's a High Plains Library District? Or, like, how would that

Yeah. There'd be there'd have to be some type of agreement. Yeah. And I think, I personally get caught up in, you know, the full definition of a resilience hub is is really dynamic. You know, it's a place that day in, day out, people are using for, meetups and sports activities and community events. And, you know, it's a really a dynamic space that also has a backup generator and has space for people to cook and has space for people to take a shower and wash their clothes. And, you know, there's a a very there's a huge array of things like the full facility would provide. And I I think we can also start much smaller. You know? What about HOA clubhouses?

You know? What about the library, for example? What about the community center? So these students would be looking at that, what that could look like. Yeah. Rebates, we just did a update for rebates. They are now live for 2026. There's a very few number of changes to those, but, yeah, take a look. We're continuing. We haven't cut anything that is coming to the top of my mind.

Yeah. We just a quick recap first. So the energy efficiency rebates last year were a smashing success. We doubled the amount of rebates that we were able to award and give to residents based on what we asked for in the budget. So that was really kinda meeting the moment with the clean energy tax credits being rolled back from the federal administration, and we saw a lot of participation from residents.

So it's really neat that we were able to scale with the demand, which can always happen, you know, just given what you have budgeted. But we were able to move some things around, which was great. Water conservation. There is the has anybody heard about the flush and flow flow program? So we are working with the Weld County Youth Conservation Corps, and this is a direct install program.

It is really targeted towards lower income residents, and it's a a what is it? White glove service where they'll come in and actually replace toilet, and they'll actually look at some of your equipment, water equipment in your home, faucet, showerheads, replace those as it makes sense. And ideally, save folks quite a bit of money on on water just by conserving more. So take a look. We're basically we're marketing and collaborating with a lot of other communities on this one, primarily on the Eastern Side.

So Greeley, Evans, a couple of other communities are also participating in this. We've been talking with Weld County about this for a few years, so it's really exciting to see it coming to fruition. I think we have two residents kind of in the pipeline right now for that program, and we're hoping to really scale, but it'd be really targeted outreach. We're gonna be going to our our more disproportionately impacted communities identified, you know, from the state and virus screen program and really just trying to connect with them. We don't have, it's a it's a small kind of pilot budget at this point, but a cool opportunity.

So would that be a no cost to them if they qualified for Yep. That's awesome. Mhmm.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

We submitted a grant yesterday, the grants team did, for a much nicer office space at the recycling center. So we're really keeping our fingers and toes crossed, and I'd ask you all to do the same because it would be really nice for the facility and for our staff there to have a little bit more space. The the building or the shed that we've looked at, I got quotes for, has more windows, so it'd actually be easier for them to, like, sit and see people coming in. Right now, there's just no windows on that side, which is pretty tough as far as, like, knowing where people are. Last steering committee is coming up quick for the sustainability action plan.

That steering committee group has a draft of the plan now, which they're reviewing. That's Mackenzie. Right? Mhmm. Did anybody else in this group get that?

It was just Mackenzie.

She's the only one in

the steering committee?

Okay. I was gonna

I got this one.

You got it?

Monday, ninth. Right?

Yep. Mhmm.

Did you

get the draft plan?

It should be. I think so.

Yeah.

When we made it. So ninth.

Yep.

I was just wondering coming in, you know, if you all are ready to see that draft plan and to get your eyes in in ideas eyes on it and your ideas in sooner than later. Just like a general head nod if you all are interested in that or if you'd like to wait a little bit. I see Karen.

You can send it to us now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Send that out to you.

I think it would be good to see it.

But Yeah. See about it later.

Yeah. It's very much draft.

You know? There's gonna be

some big changes, but, yes, I agree. And then just the last thing to share with you all is we're trying to make a pretty big effort from staff on internal sustainability engagement within town. And so that's that's really staff focused. And we're kicking that off with the compost challenge for the next couple of months, February and March. And we've had a identified person for each of the town big facilities who's becoming, the compost fairy for each location.

So if you walk around town hall and you see any, you know, slightly cheeky memes above the compost bin, that's why. So it's gonna be the facility that has the biggest change compared to their numbers for compost collection last February and last March, and they will be the winner. And they get to choose between a pizza party, ice cream party, or breakfast burritos. So the competition is on. We are part of this facility, so if you'd like to bring your home compost to town hall, I definitely wouldn't complain about it. No. Don't don't quote me on that.

That that would be very inappropriate, but we are very competitive. That's all I got. That's neat. And you guys use who does the compost collection? Is it scraps?

No. It's lompost and now color and compost.

Yeah. That's what we have. Yeah.

But they used to do a report card for facilities, and they used to score them, like a to d. Mhmm. And we don't have that now. We just have amounts and there's any kind of contamination. So it's been different. We've been trying to figure out how can we keep the competitive compost spirit alive. And so we're trying this as just a test to see how it works. So just a funny funny story. Chief Stewart, before she retired from the police department a couple of years ago, she came to me and she said, I am not going out with a d.

Right. Right.

And so we did some intentional compost if one on ones for the the police department. They had a specific person who was responsible for their compost containers and making sure that contamination was out. But a lot of that scoring was just based on contamination from Clementine at the time. Yeah. And so they were able to get to an a within, like, a month of just intentional focus. So I always just finally remember chief Stewart's dedication. They're like, I am retiring with he's probably getting an a for compost.

That's great.

Yeah. Thanks.

Alright. Moving on. Sustainability action plan letter of support. So I printed off copies for everyone, but they it was in the packet. So I don't know if we wanna go and read it line by line.

But, basically, the background on this is that this letter of support would be a part of the, revised sustainability action plan packet of booklet. And back in 2019, a similar letter was done by the sustainability advisory board. Now they were actually the ones that did most of the work on the plan itself because that was before they had staff for sustainability. So but in keeping with that sort of same tradition, that letter came just from the chair of the sustainability advisory board. This one would be selectively from all of us.

So Right. We put it together, but we welcome your comments, revisions, any kind of feedback that you have on my wish. Whether or not you want changes, if you're for the idea of having this included and see idea of having this. So I will open it up to you guys to I mean, what do think? Oh my god.

She has a problem.

Yes. I know. That's right. Those are so

great. They're really good.

Start. I won't stop. Mhmm.

I mean, I support our letter of support.

Yeah. I like it. Have a good week. Thank you. She was over. Yes. You're

not. The snack lady. She's a snack dealer.

We chill.

Yeah. I don't need them. Heavenly hot It's

like a calendar. Heavenly hot sauce.

Very tasty. Very dense. There's a I need to, like, practice it, but there's a recipe for, like, a cup. Mhmm. Because they're so expensive. And I And she'll have to bring some in, and we'll have to try and we'll have to, like, decide if they're good or not. We might have to try several times. Making cake. Like, he makes it, like, every other night. Oh. And this needs to get out of my house, so I'll be just excited. It's so bad. It's amazing. First promotion that's doing it and now this. Alright. You just never know which is gonna show up next to

you.

Is there anything in that isn't in this letter that should be?

Don't ask me. I'm I'm the one who put it together. I everything that I wanted isn't it.

Yeah. I don't I don't know what else should be. At least I like it. Yeah. I think you hit all the high notes. Yeah. I don't know how many times you can say sustainability action plan in one document, but you you nailed it.

I know.

Yeah. I did. I see it once in each paragraph.

I know. Just to drive the point on name recognition. We

need Right. Over and over and over again. Yes.

You know, I I I couldn't go the acronym way. I just and I think it looks great. Alright. Well, you guys so I would need a motion to approve our letter of support to be included in the sustainability action plan revision for 2026. That mean motions. Second, Art and Ronaldo. It's a tie. All in favor? Yay. Yay.

Any opposed? Okay. Great. Moving along to 2026 priorities brainstorming. We unfortunately don't have use of Mackenzie's lovely Trello board for this, but thought it would be good to just revisit what we think we want our priorities to be for 2026.

And I guess what I should take a minute to do is sort of recap what we've done already. Because some of those things that we put a lot of effort and time into, have sort of, stabilized. And one of those, you know, we had the, the pollinator map project that, you know, was concluded pretty early on. Then, you know, we have ongoing we've got the pollinator district effort, which will continue. I'm not quite sure without Mackenzie being here to field questions.

I'm not quite sure, where we're at with that in terms of, like, how much work that is gonna need to go into that this coming year. Community fruit rescue, that was a big initiative. That's pretty much up and running and can run on autopilot, provided we, have the funding for that going forward. So are there priorities that we want to start looking at and putting on a board of some sort to consider?

I have a few of my own ideas, but I'm not gonna start. So

Do share. Share.

You have my brain spread. I'm not gonna think of

Okay.

Well, one of the things, and this it was kinda timely because last night, we was the, they talked about the EPR and what's coming with that. And while that is not really you know, a lot of the messaging for that is not gonna come from even really the town. It's gonna come more from tell me again what the acronym acronym is for Action Alliance. So Circular Action Alliance, they are really going to be coming up with the messaging for how EPR is going to affect recycling and what individuals, especially those who are in areas of HOA controlled, you know, questions to be thinking of and to sort of be asking their HOAs to gauge, you know, where they're at with thinking about how this is going to affect the recycling for residents. And I guess I see an opportunity to be a part of that educational piece since that is one of our focus areas is to, you know, be engaged in that sort of communication.

So I don't know what that would look like, but I I feel like that would be something that as EPR evolves through 2026, there probably would be opportunities for us as a board to become involved in some sort of engagement or networking with HOAs or something to try to help get the word out about that. Yep. That was my main thought. I we've talked about a lot of other things like repair cafes and things like that. You know, I so, anyway, is there are there things that you guys are passionate about that you want to see considered as a focus area for 2026?

So how did how did you envision communicating with the h o we talked about this, like, eight months ago, trying to network with the HOAs. And do we have lists of HOAs?

How do Will they even show up or respond?

Right. And excellent question. There there are lists of HOAs. Unfortunately, some of that is management company contacts, which could be good or bad. Like, MSI, like, Notia Farm, that's who their management company is.

And they actually are the management company for several HOAs with an Erie. So if you could get a responsive fits in at MSI, you might actually be able to I hate to use the term, killed, you know, four birds with one stone. But, you know, that might be your end to being able to to get somebody that can also put you in touch with several HOAs instead of it just being, you know, trying to do tackle individual at a time. Sure. Unfortunately, I think it comes down to, can you get community members If you if if you are talking to community members and you're you know, naturally, my first thing was, well, do does my board know about this?

And so I emailed my board, and I was like, do you know about this? Do you know that this is coming? And, luckily, I happen to have you know, Kenosha Farm is actually a a very wonderful HOA, at least has been in the past in terms of, you know, wanting to get that kind of information. And so they were, you know, my contact there who unfortunately retired from the HOA board, was all over it, like, the next day. And she's, like, read through all the stuff I sent, and so and she's like, I'm gonna take this back to the the rest of us because, no, we have no idea what this is.

We have no idea what you're talking about. And so I I think that if you can't manage to get HOAs to respond to you directly, what they almost have to respond to is people within their community saying, hey. You know, did you know this is coming? Like, this is gonna affect us, and who's the point person? And so you almost have to drum up the individual community members to go and elicit support for the HOAs to be in communication, I think, with the town Sure. On this. So I don't think that there's an easy answer to that. But

I think the well, the haulers can't charge for it going forward. So by default, the HOA will understand that their cost structure changes because it's a free service. Mhmm. What I think you or we should be looking at is how do we get in front of it, and we should've been doing this everyone should've been doing this a long time ago. How do you get in front of it to convince the HOAs to not just give back the money to the community because it is a reasonable amount of money Mhmm.

But how to reallocate that towards, pollen in your gardens in the community or other things that try to get the narrative changed in those HOAs' minds because they're immediately gonna go, wow. This is a big chunk of change in our budget Mhmm. That we're gonna see relief from. And are we we're gonna as a board, every every board wants to go, we're giving you back money. Right.

And, you know, it's going down, but how do you get in front of that? And and are there boards like, on your HOA, it sounds like you might have a landscape committee and and real live people engaged that might be able to convince the community to put a pollinator garden in instead of just giving the money back.

Excellent. Yes. I I totally agree with you, and I totally agree that it probably should have happened a long time before. But the reality is unless you can concretely, like, talk to them about things, they just can't wrap their brains around stuff that isn't set in stone yet. And so until they see or have some sort of random communication.

But, you know, I guess what I'd like to see is because there's a message that show that if you've got one person talking to their HOA, that whoever's talking to the the other HOA is is all the same information, which I think is it's where it comes back to Circular Action Alliance. You know, I'd like to see them come up with talking points for people to be able to go back to their HOAs and, you know, start that dialogue. You know, if if the town is having a hard time and if we as a and as as an advisory board have a hard time identifying contacts, then you you sort of have to start with the bottom approach in that, maybe you can give these talking points to just individual community members to say, hey. You know, we've been trying to reach out to your HOA. Haven't had much luck.

You know? But he here are some things that you could ask them. I don't know I don't know how I don't know what that would look like, but I see huge opportunity for us to be involved in some sort of public engagement, whether that's tailored to HOAs or whether that's more tailored to just sharing information to community members at large at events or or whatever or, you know, like, everything that comes by me that's that's, you know, already been ok'd by either Erica or the town or whatever, I posted up on my Kenosha Farm Facebook page. I posted up on the Erie, Colorado group. You know?

And I haven't had anyone come back from either of those groups saying, you know, we don't wanna hear. Stop posting. So, you know, I think any opportunity that you have to share the information is great, and maybe that can evolve into an actual strategy.

So, like, you're the expert. My understanding was that callers don't have to participate if they don't want to.

They're all gonna participate.

They're all gonna participate, but they don't have to. Right? And they don't have to in 2026.

Right.

It'll be silly for them not to.

Right.

But I think oh, we have a lot of different haulers in Erie. They all have different business models and styles, services, transparency, not transparent. It's all different versions. Right? So what we communicated last night was get in writing what you're paying for recycling now so you know what should be offset.

And then we plugged last night too, like, advocating for additional resources, like a bulky pickup for your HOA or organics collection. I mean, obviously, our favorite would be organics collection from a waste diversion perspective. But I think right now, we're kinda leaning into Circular Action Alliance. Like, we're waiting for them to kind of make these materials so that we're not reinventing the wheel, and we're it's clearly commuting however they want this to be communicated to residents and HOAs and all the other partners. Is that your understanding? Like, what am I getting wrong there?

So my understanding is they'd rather you be proactive and already be engaged in education. And and all you all you are expected to do is expand your current education to include understanding of what EPR now is and what that's gonna provide for everyone. So just like you're I know you're talking to Boulder about Mhmm. They're trying to link because education's gonna be a big money money pit or there's gonna be a lot of money going into education.

But they can't tell us exactly how much, and they can't tell us when we're gonna get reimbursed. From a budgetary government perspective, we can't we couldn't budget for that

Right.

You know, last July when we were putting in our budgets. So this year is kind of this, like, weird nebulous from how government operates as far as, like, the education funding and stuff. 2027, I hopefully, will be much clearer. We'll be able to say, okay. This is what we are told we're gonna receive, you know, for each household, for example. Right. But this year, we don't know. Like, there's been no communication. It's been, you know, 2 to $3 per household. We don't know when you'll get that. We don't know how, you know, how it'll come. You know?

I don't I think they're just trying to get the infrastructure going first. So get the merch online, get the collectors going Mhmm. And in the game, get the munis on first because they're easy. And they already have contracts, and they're gonna grandfather those contracts. So they're they're trying to get the low hanging fruit first just to get the infrastructure going

Yeah.

And and then roll with it. I think what most people are worried about, like, Ecocycle's worried about is if if you don't go have a plan, if you're not proactive

Mhmm.

They may default to this overarching education that they were presenting at the board. I don't know if you saw some of their presentations where the lady was going we're gonna speak regionally, but broadly. Right? And so if you wanna be talking eerie, you're you may not hear eerie. You're gonna hear front range recycling education focused kind of talk.

So I know we, Boulder, we're in the second phase of the application process now. So we've got our foot in. We're trying to we're trying to control the narrative by telling them what

I'm telling

what we we wanna we're including in our cost structure in the hopes that they will pay for it. And and the collectors are doing the same thing. I'm working with Western on that one. Great. Yeah.

But you're right. It is it's not fair because the early entry folks are gonna get paid while others are. Like, your HOA is gonna still be paying while a muni is getting paid by c n CAN because there's an overlap until they can get everybody rolled into this thing. First in gets paid. And, like, from a budget perspective, you can't like you said, you can't think, wow. I got '26 covered. You don't. You might have fourth quarter twenty six covered, and you might not, though.

Don't tell me that.

Yeah.

I've been alright.

Have you

been It's too late 2026. We have been. Yeah. We haven't. We've we submitted the forms and stuff. But that's for the recycling center, you know, first wave.

It'd be interesting to see how your collectors I think that, like, a, the little guys are the only ones that may go, you know what? I'm not gonna recycle. So who who are those little guys that roll around town? All waste. They're just little they have, two or three trucks. Those guys are probably gonna be hurt.

We have one way and waste management. Way?

One way is gonna struggle unless they can survive on just trash.

Right. Absolutely. And those are the things that we need to we need to know at some point of if they're not participating, you know, being able to communicate that on the website or or reach out to one way customers in Erie and say, if they're not willing to do your recycling, here's the others that are willing to do it. Reach out to them and and have them pick up your recycling only, you know, if that's what you need. Because we we spoke to it last night, but in the 2023 community survey, there was 89% of residents at that time that had curbside trash and recycling collection and perhaps compost too.

I think there's about 5% of folks that reported they have compost, whether that was curbside or backyard. But there it means there's 11% of residents that still don't have curbside recycling pickup. And those like, both those populations need to be communicating to. Right? Those that don't have it now and those that already do, lots of opportunity.

Right. And would think their current trash collector would bite on it because they're gonna get paid a reasonable amount of money to pick to just put a can there and pick up recycling. Mhmm. So you gotta hope that that group comes online really quickly.

Mhmm.

Then your your rates go up.

Mhmm.

What percent did you say it was are not currently getting recycled?

11% in the '23 survey. So that's old data now, but

What is that?

We have a lot of people that use the recycling center, and our single stream has stayed steady the last two years. It went up from three years ago. So I would imagine a lot of those folks are taking their recycling to the facility or somewhere else.

Bunch of area is HOA.

Oh, it's huge. It's like god. There's only three

in 80 to 90%.

There's only Like, everything.

Two neighborhoods plus Old Town that don't have an HOA. That one.

You would think those would be that 18 that 11% or whatever the percentage you

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's interesting we talked about last night too, but we also have questionnaire results from twenty four and twenty five that point to, like, people don't wanna necessarily pay more than what they do now for adding organics collection. But the same percentage that are interested in that, not paying more, but having organics, are also have their their bills paid for by their HOA, so they don't necessarily know what they're paying. You know? So it's it's just an interesting yeah. Waste is near and dear to people's hearts.

You know? Like, even one way when we did interviews, there was a lot of folks that were saying how much they love one way because they'll roll their carts right back up to their garage, you know, and and just those little things that really bring that customer service experience, especially maybe your mobility challenge or, you know, you you don't necessarily your HOA is tight on those restrictions or whatever that looks like. Sure.

Unlike who I don't even know who it is. It services my neighborhood. They leave them, like, upside down. My trash can has, like, more cracks in it than you can imagine because they just throw it on the ground so hard. It's so frustrating. I think Interesting.

So, like, Western, those the they're a high cost premium collection company that's gonna struggle with Republican Waste Management and those guys. So they're hoping they promote, hey. You you leave an extra bag on the side. We actually pick it up where waste won't pick it up. Right? And so they're trying to get creative on going, how do we present ourselves? Because they're scared CAA is gonna go, we we don't give a shit. We don't care about premium anymore. We want base collection services. Everybody has a standard.

This is communism now. Everybody has a standard. So it'll be interesting to see whether or not CAA allows for boutique type operators like Western to do premium kind of service, and their customers appreciate it. Right? Mhmm.

Alright. Well,

is that enough trash talk?

Yeah. It's the third time

I've No.

No. No. It's not. I'm just before, I guess. This is something that I think that we can tackle all in one meeting, but I think that, you know, as we move forward in 2026, we might wanna be taking a look at what what we wanna prioritize in terms of where we wanna put the effort. So if you have ideas, you wanna shoot them to me and copy Mackenzie, we can get the Trello board going again. And maybe at the next meeting, we can revisit that topic.

So Can I just ask, was the idea that we figure out a way to communicate with HOAs and establish some kind of regular communication with them? Was that what your idea was?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. To try to and to see what we could do. And, you know, this might be something that we don't we don't bite off a huge chunk of it because the town maintains a list of contacts for the HOAs right now. So there's somebody at the town who and and the town has the I think it's called one group where I don't know how active they are, but it was supposed to be a town led initiative to get HOAs to come together at various meetings. I don't know if they're quarterly, or do you know how often they happen or don't happen? Or

I think they're meant to be quarterly to twice a year. They're in a transition phase right now. They're working on a website that's gonna be a repository for a lot of information. And then ideally, at least last I heard was that it also be a space for folks to have like, present questions and then have, like, a group response, kind of like an engaged eerie page. Mhmm. I was not able to go to the website discussion meeting. I think Dylan went. But yes. So it's still very much alive and active. It's really facilitated by our neighborhood services team. So and we will be sharing the basement with them at town hall at some point in the next few months. So we'll have a lot of collaboration opportunities. Cool. Yes.

And, you know, maybe what that looks like is we that's something that we provide educational materials at just like we do at any other event that we have sustainability advisory board people manning, whether that's Arbor Earth Day, farmers markets, like, I you know, I don't know. I think there's probably opportunities for maybe having informational sessions at the library or, you know, whatever that that might look at. But I do see that as something that is a budget free way of utilizing our resources to help engage community members and get information out to the community. So

Yep. I'm good. Cool.

So twenty twenty six calendar events. I gay I created a SAB calendar, which is an additional Outlook calendar, and I gave you all access to it. So, hopefully, that came through okay, and you can actually see if you are in Outlook and you look in the calendar view, you should have an additional calendar that you have access to. And I front loaded all of the stuff that I knew about to date, taken mostly from the town calendar, but also just things that, I know that are going to be. So where so all of the SAB meetings are on there.

They're always the first Wednesday in of every month. And I looked through to see if we would likely have any reschedules due to holidays, and I do not think that they we will, because none of them seem to to, conflict that way. So, Mackenzie's got a b hotel workshop going on. So, anyway, this, I hope, would serve as a place where you could see right up front for the year what are the meetings, what are the events that may need volunteer support for, and, hopefully, we can plan for some of these things in advance. Coming up, you know, our biggest need for volunteers is for Arbor and Earth Day.

There's just so many different things that happen during that. And so if at all possible, if you are available for that April 26

is that '26? Twenty fifth. Twenty fifth. Isn't it? Twenty fifth?

Mhmm. Hopefully, that's correct on the electronic version. But, anyway, we need lots of volunteers. Like, had to recruit my husband last year because we just I mean, there are so many different things to do.

Do you want us to go into this calendar and, like, put our availability in?

Like, here. Awesome. So, like, that entry, if in the notes field, if you know that you are available

I was just thinking I was gonna put in an event that's, like, available or not. But either way.

Might just be easier to edit the notes field. Do you guys have edit capabilities? I don't

think so. Probably not if it's a shared No. Calendar from So, I mean, I was just saying you can just make an event that each person is either available or not. Like, invite everybody and decline if you're not available? Yeah. Or just put a just put a note in that says I'm oh, I guess we can't. Yeah. We can't edit the calendar at all, actually. So you'll have to either invite us. We can so we can see all the events, but we can't interact with them. So Okay. Just step forward. Okay. I'll have to look

at it says, I thought I gave you permission to actually be able to edit the calendar as well. So I don't have to take a look at why we can't do so.

New events or anything? So alright. Okay.

So, anyway, hopefully, that will help with just being able to go out and look at what the needs are, what events are coming up. And this is a work in progress because, you know, the I we don't know I mean, I don't know when what kind of summer events or if we're even going to be at things like farmers markets. I mean, and there was a big push for that during the the plan, the sustainability action plan, and then, you know, being there with the students as well for the resiliency action plan. But I don't know, you know, what your thoughts are on sustainability, having tables at various community events. And, typically, we would partner with sustainability because we don't really have the tent and the tables and the and whatever.

But

I think we're open. We already communicated to the next round of students that there will be some community engagement. Mhmm.

I think

we did, what, five farmers markets last year. Mhmm. I think that feels doable from my perspective, especially if we all take turns and don't burn ourselves out. But I I think it was really valuable to the community. Mhmm. A lot of positive feedback, especially by

the band, though. I please, please, not

ask. Like, we are asking for a favor by getting a free booth spot. So they often just put the town booths right next to each other. I can suggest it for sure.

So hard to talk to people with the band playing, like, literally five feet away from you.

It would like I can mention that

to I mean, I I totally get it. But even just being around the corner, like, even though we're kind of off the beaten path, just even being yeah, biased tech out would be better than, right, like, smack dab in front of the band.

Yeah. For sure. And we're not

paying, so it's always I know. I know. It's just it's just really hard to talk to people. Yes. Okay. So that's all I got for calendars. So moving along. So event materials purchases. Mackenzie and we we talked about her doing the water balloons, the knitted water balloons. And so I'd like to suggest that we give her a $100 for materials for that.

We didn't do that as part of 2025. We tabled it for now. So we did already talk about doing that as swag items. So does anyone have any objections to allotting $100 for her materials for that.

Yep. Sounds good. Fine.

It gets tricky to to give her money. So, ideally

Yeah. Order it. You'd order it. Yeah. She's and we can work with her when she gets back from traveling.

Yeah.

But I I think I I'll make sure she knows that, but I think she's clear on that.

Okay. Give her the gold card.

No. If we pay taxes, we're in trouble.

Arbor and Earth Day update. So we are we have kicked off Sorry. For Arbor and Earth Day.

Question. Do you we had talked previously about doing some, like, wood laser cut things. Do you want me to pursue that or not?

Yes. In fact, I have that on the agenda other under prior action items. So because I noted I saw that it was in the December. It was Yes. As an action item. So, yes, I would like to to talk about that. Do you wanna talk about that? Let's talk about that now instead of waiting until the end.

Sure. So Yeah. I the last that I heard was that we weren't approved to use the Yuri logo. So Oh,

the logo conversation continues. Okay. Yeah. So So,

I mean, I can do anything else, but I

if no Yeah.

We need to wait on often.

Hopefully, it'll be resolved. Have you had an update on the logo conversation? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I can do anything else. Not the logo.

We just couldn't add things like because we used to have the logo, but then underneath it, we put sustainability advisory board. I thought we could still use the town of Erie logo. We just can't add any additional elements to it.

Yeah. So we could do laser Sustainability underneath that. That's okay. Yeah. You can use the Town of Erie logo. We just can't add elements to it. Adjust it at all. Yeah.

I mean, if you would provide a high quality template, I wouldn't have to adjust it at all.

For the just for the g logo?

Yeah. I mean, I have the, like, PNG or whatever, but it's not like a SVG file. Okay. If you can send me that, that'd

be fantastic. Totally.

Okay. Great.

Yeah. We just can't add any, like, words underneath it.

What about on, like, the back? Like, if the front of the it had the logo and the back had something about sustainability. Fine.

As long as it doesn't look like it's part of the logo.

Yeah. I would imagine that that would be fine. Mhmm.

And it'd be nice to have at least the word even if it didn't say sustainability advisory board, at least have the word sustainability on it. Or something, you know, that Yeah. Let me instead of it just being town of Erie. Or we could wait to see if they resolve that. If you wanna move forward, so you

have something for the Arbor Earth Day. What was it?

It's it'll take time. It won't be decided by the

Is there a cost? What what is the cost for that? Can you give me a like, if rough don't don't try to get it down to the penny. But roughly speaking, how many how much would it cost to get, like I can't remember how you said the batches had to be done.

It depends on what size we want them. I mean, I generally cut out of, like, a 12 by 12 or 13 by 13 inch piece of wood, and I can if they're small, then I can get 40 out of them. Or you know what I mean? Like so it kinda depends on what we want them to look like, I guess, or what you want them to be. You want keychains or you want Christmas tree ornaments. Know? There's the sky is the limit Okay. What it could look like. So maybe you and I can sit down and

Yeah.

Let's do It's it's very cheap. Okay. It's very cheap.

Alright. Cool.

Then I would just mention that you all should vote on anything you buy, so just make sure you vote on those things. Yes.

Alright. Well, I want Mackenzie to be able to move forward. So do I have a motion to approve a $100 in materials for Mackenzie's water balloons?

So

So moved. Okay. Perfect.

They were very

Okay. Sorry. Popular.

I was like, I I

Mhmm.

People asking me and, yeah, they were

I think they'll be a hit. I don't think that you know, I think they'll be in fact, I would like people to have to work for those. Would like to have to sign up for the newsletter or something to get those.

It's, like, one of the few items that we ran out of, wasn't it?

That would be seed pods. Yeah. Seed pods. Went fast too. Okay. Harbor and Earth Day.

And so a couple other things. So event application was submitted. We are moving ahead with, the vendor application is live. I do want to throw this out because I learned earlier today that Cab and Sab are expected to budget for Arbor and Earth Day and split the cost $50.50. And that was not my understanding, Tom.

Oh, in his email? In his email. So we were never expected to pay for anything other than our swag, and I believe we had a price or two that we paid for last year. So, that was a little bit of sticker shock to me because the table and chair rentals itself is about $1,200. And if we're splitting that with tab, then that's $600 that we did not budget for for this year.

Forget that.

We didn't budget for anything. So and, again, I just learned about this this morning. So, you know, obviously, we're gonna we're gonna have Arbor and Earth Day this year. And I guess and chairs. One for a penny and for a pound. I think we really need to talk about this more at our planning meeting on the twelfth because I don't know you know, obviously, we're going to have to take the money from something else because we did not have any conversations about this, and we did not budget for it. What else can

I know this? Or

Well

talk about that.

We could talk about it because the tables and the chairs are not the only thing. If we're being expected to split everything fifty fifty, that means fifty fifty of the prizes Mhmm. Which tab had previously handled all of those. Then there's things like the lunches for the volunteers, the cookies, the bagels, the so Yeah. There's a lot more than I it was always my understanding that we were taking over the administrative aspects of this.

I was not prepared to think of this in terms of the budget. So there is no budget dedicated for Arbor and Earth Day. Above and beyond what we budgeted, I think it was, like, $250 for the event, and that was supposed to cover just, like, materials, swag, whatever we needed. So we have a huge shortfall there if if we So even the 2015.

We are. We're don't stress. Like, don't stress about it at all. Don't worry about it. Like, stuff that we've historically paid for, we can pay for. No problem. Can you forward that email that Tom

sent to me? I don't see it. It was the it was the response to all my questions that I sent last week, and he said that it would take a while to get back.

I don't see it in my inbox. Maybe I'm

on it, and I don't

see that either. Did it come to me?

So we can figure it out. I'm not stressed about it at all. I think the interesting like, what Tom is trying to influence is just that all of you.

No. It did not go to you, but it went to Claudia, Amy, me, and you.

Okay. So

I will forward that to or I'm just gonna forward it to you.

Don't stress. Like, we already bought really nice rain barrels. I did see that. We already have some swag items we can use for the raffle. And then, like, cookies and things like that, we can totally figure out. I think the interesting part is, like, if there's things Sab specifically wants, that should be something you all are budgeting for. If it's something that's, like, historically been happening for the event, like, we can talk about it. Like, for example, there was a vendor in the response survey from last year that wanted two chairs. Right? And if they want a second chair, they can bring a chair because not everybody has two people that

kind of address that. So I'll I'll let you look at the email, but he he pretty clearly says tab and SAB will split fifty fifty. So that's kinda what got me, like Don't stress. Okay. Don't stress. Okay. Yep. Yeah. I'm not gonna stress.

You are not gonna get cut from the cookies. Like, we are not gonna have no chairs and tables for vendors. Like, we'll make it work. Okay. And the interesting part is, like, this event is the tree advisory board's event and historically. Right? Like, tree advisory board's been doing it for a long time. Sustainability is relatively new to it, but the tree advisory board, like, part of their responsibility is the Tree City USA and to put on this event. Mhmm. It's not explicitly called out the sustainability advisory boards group.

And I wasn't here that the sustainability backed out of it altogether. Oh, really? Yes. That's about four years

ago.

Would have been crying. I'm glad it wasn't here. Yeah.

Yep. And

so because they couldn't afford it? Just No. They they

it was the, what, twenty fifth anniversary for or maybe it was the fiftieth for the for the Earth Day, the first one. And so they said we're gonna have all these different Earth Day events.

Okay. Well, not

really

They would they do that in lieu of just one day.

Meetings. And

Yeah. Alright. So well, thank you.

I I will stress. I will stop stressing. Okay. If the expectation is $50.50 funding, then going forward into 2027, the I think the the talk from this board needs to be, do we wanna part we we like you said, we don't have to participate. This is it's great, and I'd love to see it going forward, but we either need to budget for it.

You're worrying about it, and she just told me to worry about it. So let's Okay. So

I'll let you and Tom figure out where that all came. Yeah. Yeah. Don't he didn't copy you.

So if they took care of it '26, they'll do it in '27. So

Well, council member professor Milley said that it be fine for this event. So yeah. We'll figure it out. I and I shared that historic piece because the tree advisory board's budget is really designed for this event. And it hasn't it's been an add on for the sustainability advisory board. Mhmm. Samely, advisory board has more funding than the tree advisory board does. But just I think there's there's some moving parts, and this is just kind of it's the nature. Like, we we were budgeting last June and July. Right?

So things evolve. Things change over time. And that's the nice part of, like, we have the town division budgets, forestry and sustainability. Like, we can come in and help. I think that was more like, we don't necessarily want to increase the cost of these things that have been more business as usual without staff kind of coming in and saying, yeah. That makes sense or no. That doesn't. You know? Right.

So

Okay. Well, I will let

you read through his email, and I think you'll understand why I immediately started freaking out. Because he's he's pretty specific in that SAB tab versus sustainability and forestry. Okay. And that so And Stop. Mhmm. Stop.

And I'm moving on.

But that. Tom and I also have been in connection. Like, we've been talking a bunch.

So Okay. Cool. Don't worry about that.

Okay. Perfect.

Alright. So Yes, ma'am.

March meeting attendee and topics. So just and and this is gonna be a standing every meeting, I'm gonna ask who is gonna be at the next meeting. So for March, is there anyone who knows right now that they are not going to be available to attend the March meeting?

I will be traveling for work.

And you told me that or or

Did I? Maybe I did. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I did.

Yeah. She did. Okay. So there's a chance like, 2% chance I won't, but

most likely, it

will won't not be here. Well, I think you I I already have you down. It's not Okay. Too hard.

I'll let you

know if that changes. So yeah. I mean, obviously, things things come up. People get sick, whatever. But I think it's a good idea going forward each month to know who is gonna be able to attend. And if something does come up, if you could let me know as soon as possible, that would be great.

Advisory

board applications. So Michelle already covered this for us. So you all know that so Kathleen and Anne and we we all need to reapply. We know where to go. We know where and when the deadline is. So board member updates. Does anyone have updates before I launch into mine?

No? I have. Okay.

Prior action items, we already talked about and and the laser engraved swag items, so we will chat offline about that. The SAB booklet status, and that this is going way back to either November or December's action items. This was the booklet that Mackenzie started to put together, and I thought it was kind of in maybe your court, Erica, to work with comms.

Yes. I'll follow-up on that.

Okay.

Somebody forward it to me. It's it's top of my inbox.

Okay. I will Yeah.

Try to

find that and forward it to you.

Okay. So my updates are, one, in case I didn't or someone didn't actually confirm, we were awarded $11,000 for 2026 from the town for our budget. Does anyone want to contribute a Sav Corner newsletter contribution?

For every month, I'm going

to ask if someone wants to do it because I would love to, you know, have you guys contribute if you want to. If not, Mackenzie and I are can certainly send something on to Emma each month. But does anyone wanna take a stab at something for March?

What exactly does that entail?

So it's

I'm happy

to be.

I didn't know the details.

So the sustainability, they do their monthly sustainability newsletter, and there's always, like, a little part of it that is called SAP Corner. And it could just be a fun fact. It could be a call to action for something. It's not meant to be a large part of the newsletter, but, you know, some something some topic of interest that comes from us that we wanna share in the newsletter.

I'll I'll try it. That's cool. Yeah. Alright. So When do need that by?

Emma needs it by the twentieth of each month. So she'll need it

I need to make a mess now.

Mess I forget. And it it's really there's whatever kind of topic you want if, you know, Okay. If you wanna know what we've done. Because we only started doing this maybe midway through last year. Yeah. Because

I've seen it on them. Okay.

There haven't been too many topics, but I could probably get you a list if you wanna know what's already been done. And, yeah, it's really just your choice.

We should definitely keep on running most of those topics.

Yeah. I have the ones I submitted, but I can go back and compile a list of just pull them out from each newsletter, and put them into a document.

So I chatted with Emma about that today. So if you guys want to do a repository of topics and then update them if something comes up that will individually. You can also do that too. Like, she doesn't need it until the twentieth. So if you wanted to have 10 different topics and then all of a sudden, you're like, oh, it's relevant. Let's do this special one.

I do have a couple that I put together. Yeah. And they're just sitting in my files.

So I Well, if you all wanna do that and then you don't have to stress. But

Alright. Cool. We have a community fruit believe it or not, community fruit rescue preseason meeting coming up on February 24. And so as as far as I know, Tab is still on board with, funding an equal share for that. So we had budgeted $750 for our portion of that with Tab doing an equal share.

So we will kind of start seeing what it takes to ramp up the season with community for rescue. And and then I lastly, I want to I wanna read something to you from Rose Murphy. And I did email this to you, but in case it got lost, she had sent in some feedback and some suggestions, and I would like to read through them and get your thoughts on what she has to say. So I'm gonna I know it's but I'm gonna read it in its entirety. I believe that the sustainability board has done considerable research on pollinators and flowers that each species needs.

Also, are numerous guidelines out there for low water plants. Each year, the town of Erie rents space to a plant vendor. Typically, the vendor sells a lot of nonnative hybrid flowering plants. Three suggestions. And I'm gonna pause there.

She's talking about Plum Creek Gardens, which has, like, temporary pop up shop right there by the post office. Mhmm. One, could the sustainability board work with the town to suggest or require that the vendor sell water low water, need pollinator friendly plants? Two, could the sustainability board set up a booth to educate and encourage the use of more low water use pollinator friendly plants? Three, could the sustainability board in town work with Lowe's to encourage them to sell more low water use pollinator friendly plants, set up a workshop

for us.

Set up a workshop through Lowe's, set up a second workshop to educate customers on alternatives to Roundup and other environmentally harmful herbicides and pesticides. These alternatives would need to be available at Lowe's and cost at least as much as Roundup. So those were her suggestions. Is this is this a community member? So Rose, yes, she is a community member. She was on the sustainability advisory board for many, many, many, many, many

Since the the committee.

Since so since

Before the board.

So 2018, twenty nineteen ish. So anyway. Sorry.

Just an account post.

She she very highly involved, and I think she's got some great suggestions. Part of my challenge in reading through them is what can we effectively tackle? What would be what would be what would we be able to capable of influencing and what is going to sort of be a nonissue? And that really pertains to the first thing. That the plot of land that Plum Creek is using for their pop up sales is slated for development, but it's gonna start in June 27.

It's going away. So unless the town has another plot of land that they would lease to someone to have that sort of temporary nursery, I don't see I I don't see a lot of leeway in in trying to even tackle Leveneer's suggestion. I am sort of curious, just from my own standpoint, of how Plum Creek got that arrangement in the first place. I don't know. So and then her second point of the setting up a booth to educate and encourage, the use of more, low water use pollinator friendly plants.

I wasn't exactly sure if she meant set up a booth at Plum Creek Gardens, or like, I didn't know yeah. And those are my questions. Think more more information would be needed about that. I think, you know, as far as our own community engagement, I I think that we already address, you know, pollinator plants and and things of that nature. We could certainly make more of a concerted effort to incorporate specific things when we have staffing at events and we have a table.

But I I'm I'm just not sure if she meant at the nursery, and my initial reaction is we don't have enough volunteers even I mean, I don't even know. They're open every day of the week.

Well and it's Yeah. An issue.

Yeah. We're just So Yeah. Then the third one about Lowe's, would love to hear your thoughts on that. From what I know of Lowe's workshops, they are usually to do something, to build something. They're not really an educational, purely an educational thing. So I don't know what that would look like, but would be open to, you know, your thoughts on that.

Also, entirely sure Liz would welcome us. Right. Yeah. In to talk about educating the population and not buying the pretty flowers. Yeah. Yeah. Or us. They sell different ones. You know? But, like, I I mean, we can ask for sure, but I'd

I'm sure you

can

get them to they must have an people are always interested in native plants, so they must have Oh, yeah. A native program. Lois must have talked about that. I'm sure. But if I'd say, jeez, 70% of what they've got in there isn't native.

Right. Yeah. They just I mean, they list it. It's got, like, a tag on it that says, like, native plant. But yeah. I mean, we could talk to them, but I that's a hard sell probably from a corporate perspective.

So with that in mind, I think what I'd like to do is table that piece of it to when next month we can fire up the Trello board and maybe add that because I'm gonna have I'm going to suggest, and, of course, this is, you know, this is just my idea. But I feel like anything that goes up on the Trello board as a priority needs to have a point person. Mhmm. So if there is somebody from the board willing to be a point person for that initiative, it kinda goes hand in hand. The initiative doesn't get put up unless there's a point person who wants to champion that.

Otherwise, I just don't see some of these things going anywhere if there isn't somebody to drive that as a priority. Deal. Agreed. Alright. So I think I I did communicate back to Rose when she first sent these over, but I think I will just send her another email letting her know that we discussed it and that we're gonna take a look at item number three Mhmm. A little deeper in a a subsequent meeting if that sounds good to you guys. Got it. Yep.

That's all I got. Alright.

Anybody else? Alright. It is 803, and I am calling this meeting adjourned.

Okay. Thank you. Can I just edit these?