Sustainability Committee - Regular Meeting

So, we're recording. Welcome everybody to our sustainability committee meeting. It's uh Thursday, February 12th, 2026. Um and we will kick it off with a member roll call. So this is just for the sustainability committee members. Um all right Margaret do you want to lead us in that? Sure. I have Sarah Rambacher chair Charlotte Dolan's co-chair myself Margaret Gibbs and John Hagber and Don Macccyver and Emily Squires are not here.

Great. Thank you very much. I'm just keeping an eye also on the attendees here. Okay. So, it's a very popular meeting tonight. So, I got to keep an eye on the attendees as well. Um, okay. Great. Um, so we will uh start with then uh the minutes well kick it off next with the minutes to approve. Um, so does anybody want to make a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting?

I'll move to approve the minutes from the February, what was it? January date, Margaret, January 7th meeting, I think. January 8th. January 8th meeting. And I'll second that. Great. All in favor? So maybe go around. Um Margaret, yes. Sarah, yes. John, yes.

And me is yes. I'm a yes. All right, moving swiftly along. Um we will uh see if there's any public input on the line um before we move to the presentation from the students at Littleton Little Littleton High School. So, I I have a lot of people on the line. I'm assuming, Leah, that these are all your people. Um, but if anybody is not part of the high school presentation and is just a member of the public, then now would be the time to speak up. Alrighty, going once, going twice. Um so it's uh a pleasure to uh introduce our next agenda item here. Um Leah and her fellow students are going to be presenting to us on a project that they've been working on um on sustainable seafood. So Leah, I'm going to let you introduce um your team and your presentation. Um and I think you said it will be around 10 minutes or so. Um and then we can pause for any questions or comments from the committee. Um and any questions also from your side. Um so yeah, I will hand it over to you.

Thank you. So I do have six yeah, six of my classmates here with me. Um Alex J. Alex, H, um, Mia, Morgan, and McKenzie. And we have, um, made a somewhat short presentation about sustainable seafood. And before we get started with that, I just want to make sure that all my groupmates aren't having technical difficulties. Um, can you guys just confirm that you can speak and that everyone can hear you? I think I'm good. Hi. Can you hear me right now? Uh, hello. Hello. Good.

Okay, sounds good. Um, so I guess I just share my screen. Oh boy. Okay. Okay. Um, is it uh giving you any prompts, Leah? It should just be the green button at the bottom of the screen that we should allow to share.

I'm just trying to It says that I need to do something in my settings. Let me try and fix that. Okay. only boomers use Zoom. That's the problem. I say even I struggled out because I just use Teams for work exclusively. So, um I'm always like, "Oh gosh, got to wrap my head around Zoom again. Oh my goodness. I do not know what just happened. Um I Okay, maybe it's because I'm on a Mac or something, but I'm trying to just open up the presentation. Let's see if it works this time.

Worst case, Leah, you can email it to me and I can show it from my side. Yeah, we now somehow have two of you here, but we'll just uh Oh, jeez. We'll take that as a a bonus. Okay, I figured it out. Sorry about this, guys. No worries. Can you see everything? Okay. Yep. Great. It's in presentation mode. Yeah. Great. Can you also see like yourself in the corner? Yeah. Very I don't know if I if I'll like leave the call again. Um maybe I can just try

to minimize it or something. Yeah. Can you still hear me? All right. We've still got you.

Okay. Wonderful. Okay. So, this is our presentation on sustainable seafood. We are juniors at Littleton High School and we were assigned this civil action project by our history teacher, Miss Mcmanis. Um, we decided on sustainable seafood. I can go to the next slide here. My gosh. Why focus on seafood? So, we had some choices in our prompts for this project. Um, we decided on sustainable seafood because we all have a passion about the climate and um, my teammate Mac actually presented this idea and we think that it's a really underrecognized um, force when talking about sustainable food in general because not a lot of people think of seafood immediately and aquaculture and how we get our seafood. So, we really wanted to educate the sustainability committee, but also we're going to post on our um environmental club Instagram and get it out to our peers as well. So, we think it's a very real issue. Um this is a slide that I created about recent sustainable innovations in seafood production. I um this contains four or five different um systems. So vermouth filtration is um photoed here. It looks kind of like a compost or filtration system. And essentially um this is very innovative because it filters out the water and allows it to be reduced again or reused again. Um so this comes in handy when you have waste from aquaculture. So you can take water that has been already be already been used, put it through the system and then you can use it in another fish tank. And then

aquaculture, I have two other systems that I've included. So recirculating systems and open ocean aquaculture. So um when we're talking about aquaculture, that term itself just means growing fish and um harvesting and all that. So you can have systems that are contained on land in tanks or you can have systems that are out in the open ocean pictured um in the left bottom corner here. And both are successful. I would say that um output of fish is much more when you have open ocean just cuz there's a lot more space. However, it is beneficial um to have a contained tank on land because it's much more controllable because the environment is much smaller and you can control the variables. Um both of these methods can be made sustainable. Um, as I mentioned, you can reuse the water and you can also going into regenerative ocean farming, which is in the bottom and the picture um to the left with the seafood or the seaweed, I'm sorry. Um, so this method kind of combines aquaculture truly with sustainability and it actually mimics an aquatic ecosystem. So you can some aquaculture involves only one species at a time but this regenerative ocean farming involves multiple. So there's a farm in Connecticut. It's called Greenwave and they um have a lot of seaweed. That's their main focus. And I really support seaweed farming because it takes in a lot of um oceanic carbon dioxide which is very much helpful in terms of combating

climate change. But addition in addition to that um these systems can mimic a natural ecosystem and beneath the seaweed it's layered with different organisms. So you have muscles and scallops and oysters and um it's you know it's not taking up as much space because they're layered vertically. So I find that very interesting and these are some of the systems that I wanted to include. So I can go to the next slide and one of my peers will talk to you about how we get seafood in Littleton.

Hello there. Um, we get seafood in Littleton with companies like uh Spend Fish, Seafood Express, James Hooks and Co. and some others. They um seafood is also uh flash frozen at peak freshness on boats or at shore facilities to keep to keep them there shipped to all other places. um uh global sources like companies like Yama Seafood offer uh daily shipments from global sources and they're often we used by top chefs directly to consumers. So those are some ways that we get seafood in Littleton and other places.

Okay.

Right. So, I did non-sustainable fishing methods and the main three that I really stuck out to me or the most used were cyanide fishing, bottom trolling, and dynamite fishing. Uh, cyanide fishing is essentially cyanide is sprayed into reefs and it stuns fish, but it also damages coral and nei. Bottom trollling drags these massive, massive nets across the seafloor. And because they can't really control what they're trying to pick up, they destroy so many habitats. They destroy tons of different marine organisms, not just fish. And they just they catch so many different species, not just the ones you were trying to eat. Um, and then dynamite fishing, which is already such a extreme way to fish. It uses explosives that kill our stemfish and it shatters nearby coral reefs and it can even endanger people. Um, all of this is of course really really detrimental to a aquatic environment. It's really incredibly important to responsibly source seafood to ensure that we are not unintentionally contributing to these environmental damages. And these destructive fishing methods can also damage marine life, reduce seafood supply, raise prices, and in turn can cost fishing communities their jobs. Okay. Um, I researched legislation that had to do with seafood production and just like catching seafood in general. And there was actually uh the domestic seafood production act. It was proposed July 30th uh in 2024 by Mary Satler Pelola and she was the US representative from Alaska from like 2022 all the way until last year. Um and if it was passed it would provide better jobs in maritime communities that rely on fish for food and work as well as healthier

sustainable seafood for the general public. And it would also prohibit environmentally harmful seafood production techniques such as overstocked fish farms that can ruin the surrounding environment. Um, and currently we have some executive orders in place that are kind of preventing sustainable seafood production. Um, on April 17th, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order to restore American seafood competitiveness. Um, this order reduces regulations that were put in place to protect fisheries as well as fishing communities throughout the United States and it also decreases sustainability in seafood production and prioritizes profit over the safety and health of these fisheries which have been proven like to benefit from these safeguards for many years. Um, I think Alex was having trouble unmuting.

Can you hear me now? Okay, there we go. All right, I'm able to be heard, right? Yes.

Sorry about that. Um well, I studied or or researched the uh effects of unsustainable fishing and the effects on the future it has. And um when it comes to a future that includes unsustainable seafood production, there are both moral and economic complications. Considering the moral side of the argument, the destruction of ecosystems is mostly our responsibility to avoid. Trollling and by catch kills important populations of keystone species and decreases biodiversity within our oceans. The destruction of marine habitats and the deaths of endangered spe of endangered populations of sea life threatens the entire ocean's ecosystem and by extension threatens the 30% of the population that relies on fish for their source of protein. And if profit margins are seen as more important than the mortal opposed, sustainability is still incredibly important. Things like over fishing or illegal fishing destroy marine wildlife populations, which reduces reproduction rates and decreases future yields for fish like bluefin tuna or grand bait cod. If the environment is destroyed, there will be less fish to profit profit off. Fortunately, we still have the future in our own hands and people are still figuring out new ways and better sustainable fishing practices. Hi, I researched benefits from enforcing regulations and in my research I found that recent studies made by Stanford University estimate nearly an 80% increase in global seafood consumption by 2050. The consequences of continuing the unstable fishing methods will lead to the health of our natural resources depleting and the communities that depend on them will struggle. However, enhancing the quality of fishing methods will promote a thriving domestic seafood economy. The benefits from aiding these growingly present issues will help the individual person, local communities, and overall climate thrive. To meet the

demand from consumers, the domestic seafood industry supports more than 1.6 million jobs in the United States alone. Aquaculture's expansion in the last 30 years has been massive, averaging around 6% growth per year. Improving improved management of these fisheries is predicted to provide more than 5,000 jobs as the amount of sustainable seafood we catch increases by 27% a year. As of now, fish farming supplies nearly 10 billion pounds of healthy protein. Innovative, well-managed fisheries play a vital role in supplying our growing populations with nutritious food. The domestic seafood industry also generates 183 billion in sales across the broader economy and is predicted to rise in the upcoming years. However, the practices in action now threaten the marine ecosystem as we've stated which only leads to eventual economic and environmental turmoil. With a sustainable supply of seafood, stable market and income is insured. There's a chain reaction from when the consumer chooses sustainable seafood. A rise in demand for seafood with a background of sustainable catching methods encourages supermarkets and restaurants to request these fishes from their suppliers. Integrating this improved supply and demand cycle will reward the fishermen and fish farmers who adopt sustainable practices and encourage governments to improve management. Moving on to my climate focus topic. Sustainable practices minimize the negative impacts of fishing and aquaculture on aquatic ecosystems. This leads to reduced pollution and healthier habitats, improving the quality of water. By reducing chemicals and other harmful substances that enter the water from unsustainable methods, habitats will be restored and supported, which benefits both marine life and human populations. In May of 2019, the United Nations named unethical fishing as the most significant cause of marine biodiversity loss as 94% of global fish stocks are over or fully exploited. Of

the top five fish in the United States eat salmon, cod, hadock, tuna, and prawns, two are farmed and three are wild caught. By diversifying the seafood that we eat, we can minimize damage to vulnerable habitats and these species. With work to restore, adapt to, and innovate ways to address the present issues of seafood sustainability, these benefits will be along those of many other perks regulation will bring. Thank you for your time.

Okay, I know that was a lot of information, but if you guys have any questions, we would love to answer them. Great. Thank you so much, Leah, and everybody who just presented that really represented an incredible amount of work and effort on the part of you and your team members. So, um yeah, very impressive. It'll be great to actually um digest that as well. I I took a few notes as you were speaking. I'm going to hand it over to uh my fellow committee members to see if there are any questions um or comments. Yeah, Sarah, go ahead. Yeah, thank you for this so much. Um, I think it's so important to spread the information so that people can make informed decisions and understand all the all the impacts that that they have that their choices have. So, um, I did have a question for you. Do you have any um suggestions or guidelines or uh ways that when we go to buy fish, we can um make good choices?

Yeah. Um before I attempt to answer that, would any of my groupmates want to? Um could I say something really quick? I don't know if it's like will fully answer the question, but it's just something that I just like thought of that I thought could be interesting. Mhm. Um, well, we actually watched this video in class that actually like inspired me to look more into this and this is why I wanted to do it. And it was I don't remember his name exactly. I think he was mentioned at some point maybe but or the organization was but there's this um like this kelp farming like this kelp farm um Greenave.

Yeah, Greenwave. Um, and it was created by this guy who was a fisherman. And then he once he realized like how much harm like just like normal fishing does and like industrial fishing does, he wanted to find out more ways. And not only was like you can make so much different kinds of foods out of kelp, there's so many options. And it's like I think it's really like probably going to become more popular in the future because it's not expensive to produce and basically anybody who lives near the ocean can start their own kelp farm. So I think that would also be like something really interesting to look into is like like uh meals that have like kelp in them.

Yeah. So I can actually go back to what Mac is talking about. So, the regenerative ocean farming, I think a kind of quick answer for how to buy your fish and know what to do as a consumer is just researching a little bit. Um, it can be really hard to tell where you're getting your food from, but I think just being conscious of different ways that fish are grown. Um, I mean I I seriously doubt any fish would be labeled like came from a regenerative ocean farm, but um I do think we should look more into that because I know as a consumer myself that's very difficult, but there are ways that fish are produced sustainably. So it's out there. Yes. And um additionally, and this is a lot smaller scale and pretty simple, but a lot of the time when you're just in the grocery store and looking, there are two councils, the um Marine Stewardship Council and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council that actually label um packaging on fishes and the Marine Stewardship Council, MSC. It's like a little blue label and it essentially signifies that this fish was um wild caught. And then the ASC is similar and it just signifies that it was a responsibly farmed fish, which is always something you can look for.

Thanks, that's great. If you can um shoot a quick email to to me with those specifics, I'll make sure we capture them appropriately in our notes. Thank you, John.

Yeah, just uh like Charlotte and Sarah said, thank you all for being here. Great to hear the presentation. Really appreciate it. Um a little add-on, Charlotte, to what you just said. If we could get that information, one of the things we have is the sustainability committee is our Energize Littleton site where we try to post things people can do to act more sustainably. So I think uh we could take this information and add a uh action for purchasing sustainable seafood uh with some of the information that Mia just shared along with the rest of the presentation. So be great to get that from you all and we could take that step on our website. I think that would be an easy uh task. I'd love to hear if um as you all did this research if any of you have changed any habits, behaviors, anything that um you learned that you put into action.

Yeah, I will just say that we would love to put um any bit our whole presentation or just pieces of it on the website. Um I don't know if any of you guys have changed any habits. I personally have been a conscious I'm in the environmental club at our school and like co-president so I've been very conscious of where we get all our food from. So I always look out for that. I don't eat a lot of seafood but definitely now that we've done this presentation I'll be more conscious of when I do buy seafood.

Yeah. I mean, I only really eat salmon, but I this whole project did really inspire me to take up a one semester class um of environmental science. And I it really really is interesting to me. And it this entire project also did make me like when I go grocery shopping with my family, I do tend to look a little more at the labels now. So, I think it was good overall.

Yeah. Yeah, I did want to say too, I I did realize that I started picking up fish more in my diet. I I I'm not really big of a of a seafood guy, but I did find that when I went to the grocery store with my mother after this project, I was like, "Should we try some of this fish? Should we should we maybe eat some kelp or something? Should we should we look more into shrimp?" And she was like, "Where did this come from?" I was like, "School." She was really surprised by that. personally been trying to request in my family's like our meals. I've been trying to request more seafood because the um nutritional value that I've learned a lot of while researching this project was so interesting to me and and um nutritional eating and like a balanced diet is very important to me and I'm hoping to integrate more um more seafood into my family's um meal rotation. Great. Thank you all so much. You're reminding me that one of the meals not long ago, I think at least at Shaker Lane was kelp meatballs, I think. Um, which my six-year-old and my 8-year-old actually came back raving about how much they liked the kelp spaghetti and meatballs or whatever it was. So um it's really great to see also some of these practices uh being incorporated into our own uh school nutrition programs right so even kids at a very young age um can also be kind of exposed to these other um other options. So um it would be wonderful to see that the schools introducing some of these new foods or maybe less familiar foods um off off the basis of of the work that you've been doing. Um, all right. Well, I think uh we probably should move on to our next

agenda item, but I just wanted to say again, thank you all so much um for all of the research, all of the effort and being bold and um active enough to to really, you know, take it forward and present this to us in this public forum. So, um congratulations to you all and and keep up the great work. And I think I can speak for the rest of the committee when I say I think we're really excited to partner with you all on other initiatives as well and and to keep this kind of momentum going. Um it's really wonderful to see. So thank you all uh so much and you can feel free to to drop off or listen in on the background but we'll we'll move on to our uh next committee business. So thank you all so much. Yeah, round of applause. Well done much

for having making this. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Great. Okay. Very impressive work. Um, all right. So, we will move swiftly on to our climate action, climate action plan review and our discussion. Uh, we have Jenny on the line and then Kelly, I think you're behind the MCOG. Yes. Sorry, Kelly. Hello.

Hi. No worries. Um and uh I can also see Karen and Libby on the line, but um yeah, so we'll move um onto the CAP action plan review. Um Jenny, did you want to recap a little bit what you want from this? My understanding is that we we really want to prioritize our time this evening on reviewing the actions part of the um climate action plan. um and to sort of home in on some of the priorities or kind of major topics um versus you know deliberating sort of every comma in every every line. But that was my takeaway. Um but I think probably best if you want to sort of share a bit bit of how you want this conversation to go.

Yeah. No, thank you. And uh I think I we received some comments by email already by a member of the committee who I don't think can participate this evening. So I think um you know what we shared with you was very much intended for you to focus on just the measures the climate action measures not uh you know the all of the other sections that are that are written to date. Although if you do read it and you flag something that looks like a really bad error or you know something you you know maybe some nuance that we missed um in communicating uh something to kind of set the stage for the discussion about the measures then we absolutely would welcome that kind of feedback now sooner rather than later. Um but definitely not uh you know we don't need an edited version right now because this is just very very work in progress. Um, and I think we wanted to really focus tonight primarily on your questions or comments about the measures. Um, and by that I kind of mean not uh like what you think are some of the priorities. What maybe of any of the things that have we've uh put into this document, what things are um maybe maybe not right for Littleton, you know, like if you're seeing things on there that, you know, maybe that's not something to pursue or something the town had tried previously and it's not or not of interest. Um and then I think just to get at least an early sense of um who which you know when you make a plan you have to sort of assign people to implement it and I I would guess that your committee and especially when we talked the last time your committee is not in a position really to implement much of this plan. You would be doing it

in partnership with you know other town bodies staff etc. So we want to be thoughtful about the measures and whether or not they're feasible but also if they are feasible then which entity would be the uh who or in partnership with multiple people potentially who would be moving those things forward. So, um, if there's things that are glaring and we really need to address them, that that's certainly a comment. Looking at the measures, what are the priorities? What do you want to maybe take out of there? And then, uh, helping us to better understand what's feasible and who would implement it. I think those are the primary things. And and Kelly is is uh here as well. So, Kelly, do is there anything else that I missed? No, I think that really covers it. Um, I think the one other thing to add is, you know, each of those priority actions or priority measures includes a section um that I believe is currently highlighted in yellow and that indicates where we really are our next step in that area is to provide you with links to educational resources or other other sources that you could look to as a precedent. um because it's one thing to give a recommendation, but I think it's a whole other thing to see how it plays out in other communities. So that's that is a that is upcoming you unless you have actually a resource that you would like us to include in the plan, that's not really something that we need you to comment on right now. Um so that's it.

Great. Thanks very much both of you. Um maybe I'll just make a couple of general comments and then we can kind of open it up to the committee to delve in. Um what you said Jenny really resonated with me because I think the first thing as I read it was sort of trying to um think about a matrix of impact and feasibility um and using that perhaps to to kind of guide our prioritization discussions. Um, and then also I noticed that there were several places where you'd put Sorry, I just got new Kles in there. I don't know what to do with these. Very, very cute. I just want to say it.

They are adorable and very cute. Um, also, yeah, there's a couple places where you'd written like town to take the lead and I think that to me seemed to be a place where we needed a bit more specificity um, responsibility. Um and then the last piece around um even with specific let's say departments, boards, committees being tagged as responsible, it did still strike me as a lot of work um and probably not feasible to really be faithful to that plan with just a volunteer committee. So I I appreciated the the recommendation around um a sustainability position. Um, so I think that's it's come up a few times right within our committee and I think one of the

questions has always been sort of a return on investment question. Um, not just someone to do the things but what does that look like in terms of return on investment for the for the town. So a hanging question there. Um, I don't know we need to answer any of those right now. That was just my my general thoughts as I was reading through it. I welcome uh the rest of the committee members to jump in with um thoughts and comments. Yeah, go for it. Sarah, um I had a couple questions and if they're too detailed then then that's fine. You can tell me. Um, well, one that is probably too detailed. I just I didn't see keys on all the graphs, and it may be that I'm looking at the doc through the Google viewer. So, um

Oh, I'm not sure. I don't I don't know, Kelly. Um, it might just be the way I'm viewing it, but check in there. Why that wouldn't be showing up? Okay.

Okay. Um, and then two things that I remember hearing at our forum and I just I didn't quite see it as sort of a um an action that we could take. And one is um thinking about dark skies. I know that that there's been a bit of a push for that with some people paying some attention to that. I'm not really sure where that fits or if it fits. Um but I thought I'd mention that. Um, and another thing is peak shaving. And I didn't specifically see I I see some things about um reducing peak demand. Um but also um Littleton Electric has I'm not sure where they are in the in the process but at various times have talked about different solutions to that as far as like gas generators versus batteries whether any of it's needed whether we do some sort of collaborative thing with other towns. So, um, I thought that might be worthwhile to put in here to say that we would, you know, want to look at the more sustainable solutions. So, um, and then I guess the other question I had was, is there any way um to maybe um put some sort of level of effort indication on? So we could sort of in prioritizing things we could see those things that are sort of lowhanging fruit. That's all I had.

Yeah, I think that was similar to to what I was thinking Sarah. you almost had like a sort of some sort of bubble chart or you know some sort of 3D visualization of where we think these things are in terms of feasibility and level of effort for the town. Yeah. Or maybe I don't know cost is an element there as well. Right. There's a sort of feasible uh cost impact kind of matrix there. Yeah. And I don't know that might be out of scope of this. Um so that was I guess more of a question for you guys. Is is that something that that would commonly be included or not?

Well, one one thing that I wanted to kind of clarify is actually what the time horizon is of this plan. Um, and that that will help us to better understand like the long-term, what that really means, what's the midterm, shortterm, near-term kind of thing, which is what you're talking about, but also what resources are necessary to make things happen. Um, was did you ever discuss like during your workshop did this come up at all? Uh, back in August the time horizon. I don't know, Kelly. Did that I don't recall it being brought up. Um,

yeah, cuz usually it's like by 2050 or some very farreaching goal. um which would mean that many things might take a long time because it's usually about emissions reduction and even the state's emission reduction goals are challenging as a state. So I don't know if you had ever talked about that, but that would be that's one way that we would then kind of work backwards, you know, to know what that what what the outward date is the goal. And I I do appreciate the the near-term actions sections. I think those are really valuable.

Okay. Okay. Good. Yeah, I think on that timing piece, the only thing I recall is a few comments around aligning with other plans that we have in Littleton. So, we have the master plan which goes through 2030, I believe. Um, so maybe that's the midterm like there might make sense to align with some of those plans. Um,

so that we have a kind of Yeah. Um, I guess a phased approach. Um, and I think that was one of our other committee members comments as well. just Don was saying, you know, to really make sure that the climate action plan is also cohesive. Um the other plans that we have, we have like the hazard mitigation plan, etc. So, I think cross referencing with them and seeing what then makes sense to to set as those time horizons. Um I mean 2030 is actually right around the corner. It's more Yeah, that's what I was thinking when you said that. Yeah. 2035 is the new Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah,

I I do really like the format of this to set a long-term outcome, right? And like whatever we pick to make sure that we it seems meas um measurable in 2050 and then the near-term actions, whether it's 2030, the next 5 years, whatever. If you want this plan to be living, you know, my my sense is you come back to it every year and you check off the things that you did and then you move on and add new things into the near term, right? It becomes a living document of okay, well, what's our next step to get us to where we want to be in 2050 and what's our next step? And so, I guess that's one of the things that I've struggled with just looking at this and how to think about it. It feels like it's immense and way too much. And at the same time, it's really hard to take any of these things off the docket because they all feel like they're valuable things that one could do. So, I guess that's my, you know, overall question, Jenny, is like is have have we seen a sweet spot in other plans where there are ambitious enough goals that actions happen, but not so ambitious a goal that we get stuck. Whether it's us as a volunteer committee, lack of a sustainability leader, the t you know the town at large in that town bucket like uh just I'm trying to think about how we dream big but not so big that we choke on it.

Yeah. No, I appreciate this question. Um, I mean, I I think this kind of I I think asking yourselves as a committee what you think you can do is probably a good first step, you know, what you'd be willing to commit to and whether it's year-over-year or like, you know, and I don't know, does your committee have sort of an action plan? I mean, other than your charter, like your charge, do you have like an action plan that you work on? I don't think we have a documented action plan and I think this is you know this would like from my perspective provides a framework to hold ourselves accountable

and so a little little bit of that is like that that's a little bit of the the background or the question is if this is our plan to hold us accountable you know a lot of this we can't do on our own we are the cheerleaders for it we are the go to committees and try and support this we are the you know the voice asking the town hey we committed to this? How are we doing? Mhm. Um and so if it is our action plan, I I don't want to sign up for I I want to be cautious that we don't sign up for an action plan that we can't execute against.

Yeah. I and I think that kind of comes back to when you when when any of you read the document, what you think would be if you look at it, what you think might be some realistic next steps for the town based on your own experience on this committee or through other committee work or town meeting or who knows what else that that's the kind of thing that you would need to help us answer. Um, we could certainly advise, you know, just based on other communities how long things might take and what resources might be needed to bring it to scale. But, um, it would be helpful to better understand I think for as a starting place, especially based on what you your answer just was the what you think the committee could actually take on. And then that helps us to then eva better evaluate all the other things that are in the plan and say okay well which which other if you were going to kind of maybe be a support you know in advancing things not the lead you know so there's like the lead party and there's the supporter and there's other partners helping to get different tasks going and maybe a lot of it is more of a support role but there might be some things that you really in particular want to lead on you know whether it's you know educating the community about the importance of this topic, which hopefully you're already doing anyway, or um or something else, you know, maybe um you know, related to transportation or uh building electrification. Um those are things that you I think it would be helpful for for the committee to to let us know about and then we can kind of parse out the rest of it, figure out where, you know, traditionally who would be the ones advancing it. Usually this is also the town's document. I say that not that you're not the town but it would be you know if the select board is

going to adopt it or endorse it or whatever the language will may be. Um that means that they also would play a role in advancing you know legislative actions for example or bringing things to town meeting uh making recommendations. and they also might say to your committee and we also want you to work on these things in the upcoming year. So the select board ends up having kind of a lot more more ownership over it. Um and then the the last part to that is I think that they would work in partnership with the town manager um or administrator, sorry. Um, so you'd be um you'd have, you know, that partnership between the town administrator and the select board in uh making decisions potentially even on an annual basis like um and sorry to go down a a quick sidebar, but if your select board has like annual priorities um that they do like priority setting, some communities do that. um they might prioritize on an annual basis from you know after the plan is adopted from this point forward we're going to make sure that we address I'm just I keep on adding this but building electrification or we're going to focus on this transformative school uh you know massive project that's going to be you know complete decarbonization net zero um or we're going to um work to improve micromobility, transit connections, you know, in advancement of Littleton's climate action plan. But having your um your elected body and elected officials doing that can be that is usually the thing in other communities that helps to move these plans forward on a on a regular basis and also communicates its importance to the rest of the community

and to staff. Does that help kind of so there's a little bit of like what is your committee's role in this and that I'm not sure we can answer but I think you are better position to answer and it might be you can only do one thing every year and I also understand that but I think um the rest of it is probably in conversation with the select board and the town then the town administrator who helps to guide other department heads or or you know other staff um in any roles that they might play implementing this plan. So,

thanks Jenny. So, yeah, maybe on that note, we do have Karen here. So, um I think maybe Karen could speak to that, but perhaps first Sarah, you've had your hand up for a little while. Um do you want to chime in and then we can loop back to you Karen if you have any comment from the select board side? I I just wanted to add on that same issue that it didn't scare me. I I think as far as like the the scope and the amount of things in there because I I also view this as a document to sit there and when a decision is when a decision needs to be made, this can help guide it. It's not I viewed it less as a checklist of everything to do and and more of a a guiding like pushing pushing decisions this direction. So that's all.

Okay. No, thanks. Good framing. Uh yeah, Karen, I don't know if you have any thoughts about the select boards positioning on this. Yeah, it's just uh we do set goals every year. um usually in the summer at our very fancy retreat in the fire station. Um so um yeah, it's it's absolutely something that could be a goal for us.

Usually it um it sort of depends on how it works out. Um, so far I've seen it work out where each member had a priority that they put forward and then it was discussed and other times I've seen that it's more of a consensus type thing. But, um, certainly certainly it can be it can be made a priority depending on you know what the priority is in terms of action. Thanks Karen.

Sure. Um yeah, I think that that fit into the question that I was going to ask where I'm sort of pondering is to what ex what sits in the climate action plan versus what sits in how the town is going to implement the climate action plan. Um because if this was in my other sort of work head you know work brain and thinking well a plan is a plan and then you know you have your implementation plan and with that in mind I was wondering if you have or could share best practices um from other towns. I mean to me having like a a sort of more quantifiable me and plan to go along with this when we say encourage or um I know there's a lot of there was a lot of um verbs and those um action bullets that you know engage, highlight, tailor um that could benefit from some smart um objectives uh that we can then at least hold ourselves accountable against. Um and then in terms of the work planning or the implementation, it seems like it would be a good idea to map out which of those actions are actually already underway or that there is some mandate or momentum or you know statement from another department, board, committee, whatever in town that this is a something that is already um at least underway or you know being attempted versus the things the actions that don't yet have a champion um and that don't yet have a place and that that we would have to kind of uh put on the docket because I do see a distinction in the level of effort between those where um if another group is already taking taking them on and and that that is um sort of already underway. Yeah, just curious um how other towns have approached it. Um some other communities it make it into a could be a more datadriven plan where

you have like a dashboard and you have like specific metrics or goals of you know emissions reduction or uh which is hard at a local level like that's not that's really challenging but you could have like a dashboard that sort of lists each measure and kind of the me you know the how you're going to reach it the timeline you know the work done to date and that that could be like a public-f facing dashboard so people can engage with it and better understand or maybe download specific materials that are related to um a specific measure and then even you know connect with uh the the kinds of resources that Kelly was referencing that we're going to put into the document. Um that can be something that you do. Um and then I think things that you had said, you know, providing regular updates and an annual update certainly about the progress. Um those are the ways that you would kind of keep track of it.

I'm thinking of a Energize Littleton uh dashboard, John, with the new website that we have going. some sort of uh little ticker on how well doing

how many people have opted in to renewable energy and so on which I imagine some of those data points can be pulled from existing sources and it's really a matter of aggregating um just so that they're more digestible for the for the community to see. Yeah, that's that and that's a really good um you know way of looking at that particular measure. For example, like how many people signed up? Our goal this year was for blank number of households to sign on and then we actually had this number, you know, or um since I keep going to building electrification, we you know, instead of every new every new development must be this. Well, maybe it was we, you know, we had a goal of at least two new buildings, you know, that um included or incorporated, you know, certain uh principles or even maybe all the way to passive house something to that extent or net zero um and you know that that's then we had two and here are the projects and here are the examples. So I guess we haven't talked about the that level of we haven't drilled down that specifically into any one of the measures. But if you do think that you can get there and sort of really dig into them and say okay we think realistically we can you know this is an achievable goal in year 1 or year two etc. We should be if it's all buildings or all this or all that, you know, probably that you want to start with like a a sounds like a smaller goal,

more realistic one. Yeah. Now, my again my work brain is going into like we need some sort of cap OKR workshop or something where we hammer all this out. But um I'm getting ahead of myself. I mean, yeah, it's funny because I don't know that I haven't seen a climate action plan with like KPIs or anything, but I mean, but but I think but I I think it does need to have some of those metrics in in it to measure your success. Otherwise, I'm you know,

it will be a lot of consider and occur and encourage. Yeah, Sarah, sorry. Your your little hand on my screen blends into the pink color on your wall. So, I could Sorry. Um, yeah. One other thing that this has uh reminded me of is do we want to put unless it's already in there and I missed it. Do we want to explicitly say that, you know, uh, we're going to like make sure to check in with this once a year to set some priorities and every 5 years or something. we refresh refresh it because I can I don't want it to, you know, sit on the shelf and just be there and and things move so quickly that um I think a pretty frequent um revisit of the goals would be great. Yeah, I would like pull that out as like kind of, you know, administrative like other, you know, things to do. Um, you know, just to kind of manage the document, manage the committee, um, you know, uh, update new elected officials, all that stuff. Yeah. So, we can we can make that as sort of a separate maybe overarching goal. And I think John was saying something similar as well. Come back to it every year to make it a living document. That's what I wrote down.

Yeah. I just didn't know if that if there was like some front matters or or at the end that that said explicitly every you know five years we should we should revisit the goals and see where we are. If you want to do that, we can just add it as I'd probably want to make that like at the end, you know, that at following all the measures, but it could also be as an introduction, you know, that this this um the following measures will be, you know, we'll review them annually. We'll also provide a plan update every 5 years which might mean revisiting the you know emissions and other um metrics that we can call out at you know some point um educating you know elected officials, newly elected officials, having a uh scheduling an annual meeting with the select board to review progress things like that. it it I'm open to wherever you want to put that in the it could be in the beginning and then we talk about the measures or it could be after the measures as sort of like housekeeping is what I would call that. H I like that idea too because I think it does keep us accountable, right? If it is written in there and and if it's sort of a policy, a plan that's endorsed by the town by the select board, it sort of says, okay, well, yeah, like you said, Sarah, it doesn't sit on the shelf. It um we're sort of under the, you know, we're we're obligated to um formally review it and our progress against it um each year. I also like the idea of us using it as a um a prioritization tool and a work planning tool and a sort of goal setting tool for for us as a committee um and then other members of other committees and departments too.

Um yeah I mean I don't know I speak for everybody but for myself I feel like the value in the plan is is being able to take action. Um I mean it's in the name the action plan. So I think whatever we can do either within the plan itself or in the way that we adopt the plan to actually make sure that actions are taken um and that more actions are taken than would have been had we not had the plan. Um to me that's a kind of measure of of the success of this effort. So yeah, John.

Yeah, I do love the idea of the actions and just as something you said, Jenny, around like this is the town's plan as I've just kind of scrolled back through it with that lens. I think there's a lot of great stuff in here um that belongs to other people and so us deciding what it should say like the energy section the A section like the A section feels like it's very much in the agricultural uh comm what's what's the A committee's name I'm I'm I'm forgetting it but you know what I mean uh Ellie WLD reification, right? Like

and so I it feels like some of these things if we put the names of those committees next to it, the step that we can take is to bring these to those groups and say, are these things aligned with what you're trying to do already?

And if they are, let's capture it. If they're not, let's let's talk about can we dream bigger? Are we at the right level of thinking? And then you're probably taking a million actions already. Let's capture those as our short-term actions. And Sarah, to your point, when we look at this two years ago, let's get back together, think about where we've gone and where do we want to push for the next two years to get to that long-term goal that we have. As I see it, I'm getting excited about that view of it. if I review it as like what do we want to put in the climate action plan this you know group of four plus um Emily and and Don and others like we're we're going to be running over other people's toes where we don't we don't necessarily need to cuz like I'm sure I'm going to use LELD they want to increase grid uh capacity and they know way better how to increase grid capacity than I do now we can have a discussion around how to do that sustainably and like how are they thinking about it. Connor's had some pretty good answers for all of that as we've worked together and partnered together. So like that's an example in here that I think maybe we need to um sit as a committee the grid that you that you were talking about of like what's feasible and maybe what's already in somebody else's remmit. I'm thinking almost like a four box or a six box, right? where they where it's uh an axis of what can we do, what is owned versus what isn't owned, and maybe how big is the circle, like how difficult would it be, is it short-term or long-term might be a good view for each of these. um we could take a stab at um putting it in a visual to come back and have a debate about whether that's right, wrong, or indifferent. Cuz I'm sure we'd all have different opinions on

whether or not X is feasible or not does the group that own it, are they doing it in a way that we think is truly sustainable or not? Like that that's a discussion to be had, but tough to just do from a page. And what you're talking about doing is a would be a very helpful exercise in in getting this in in in like the best shape we can get it so that when we have that public meeting that when when that happens we'll get hopefully inviting you know a lot of the other committees that you're referencing um staff you know and and other community members I'm sure who can help to say okay yeah that looks right or that's actually something we are working on as well and you know or so you can get a better sense of you know sort of um affirming that support or you know maybe additional feedback as well that we're not thinking of right now. So that if that is something that you could also think about that would be very helpful. So maybe this is a question to my fellow committee members, but in terms of how we would actually do that then would we take for instance this version of the climate action plan and either together with Karen and or um Jim Dugen like send that to the various departments and say you know on the behalf of the sustainability committee or on the behalf of the town like could you review the pieces of this that are relevant or that jump out at you like hey we're already doing that or wow that's really out of line with what we're thinking and and actually just provide that that direct feedback um you know committee by committee, board by board, department by department, what have you. Um because it seems like that would be the most effective way to do it. Just one by one making sure we get that that feedback good enough.

Um yeah, I guess open question I guess to the committee members. Yeah, I was definitely thinking that we should maybe maybe we make a guess at replacing town or you know making that a little bit more um granular. Some of them maybe are just town, but some of them we might want to call out specific um departments or committees and then yeah, definitely going going to them either meeting with them or sending it out for comment or both. I think what we said we were going to do was we want to get this one this document into pretty solid shape first, you know. So, we'll and and to Kelly, as Kelly mentioned, we we still have a little more work to do on it to begin with. You know, it's not quite ready. It's not showtime um for us on this document quite yet, but um once we get it into really, you know, and we all feel good about it for sharing, I think at that point then um maybe we would have we could either I guess we hadn't talked about this part whether it would be before or after the public meeting. you know, we could have the public meeting where we're giving a presentation and sharing the document essentially and then I think what we had talked about was we were going to do that and then circulate it for comments and feedback, that kind of thing. What we're introducing now is maybe there's a part that happens before the public meeting where we get a better understanding of, you know, does this look right to you or do you, you know, the things that we just talked about. Um, I'm okay with that. I think it just means we probably have to push out the public meeting

just to give people realistically time plus we want to still finalize do a little more finalizing of the document and you need more time to look at it as well. It sounds like yeah I speaking for myself I think I would prefer to have input from the town departments and relevant boards and commissions before public dissemination because I think this is just gathering the facts right it's not not contentious it's just saying oh

you add you know what you're actually doing and I think that would be a little bit um embarrassing if we were sort of presenting something that then one of was like what do you mean we're already doing that right So I think in order to ensure that this is a really kind of cohesive um process um and yeah being able to then get that feedback and the same with that in mind I I mean I don't know that it that the rest of the document needs to be in perfect shape in order to

gather that factual feedback that kind of you know when we're talking about shade trees well you know reaching out and saying okay what exactly are you doing and does this fit with your plan and what would your near-term long-term not do you you know want to comment on the whole entire plan itself. Okay. Kind of doing a little bit of a fact check with with the departments but um yeah no I I do appreciate that and I think we can fit that into the workflow. I just think it will mean we might want to give time to that piece. Margaret,

I was just looking at the original timeline um where we talked about um doing a public review and resilience forum in early March and I don't think that's actually been scheduled. Uh so then we were supposed to have a final revision and plan completion in later March and then early May for committee review and recommendation which it sounds like that's sort of flipping around a bit. Maybe putting the committee review and recommendation first. But yes, I I think that I think the goal kind of needs to move from April for the final cap draft to to later, but I I can't remember, Jenny, how long you guys have that you can do this

through the fiscal year. So, the end of June. That's why we were kind of what that's why we were talking about I think when we last spoke we were talking about like when the select board meets and how it could may or may not overlap with town meeting and trying to time that correctly. But I think what based on what you just said, if we have if we, you know, do a little one more run through of the draft that we have right now, um, get it into a sharable shape is what I would call it. um for committees and probably like a memo to them like explaining what it is, what we've been up to. Um you know, and what the expectation is in terms of their review, get the feedback, comments, maybe even uh to your point, um you might need to meet with them, go to like another committee, go to their committee meeting, answer questions, um give staff the chance to look at it. that that'll be a few weeks and then we can take those comments feedback maybe we meet again um or I come to one of your uh next committee meetings after that and then we think about the the community meeting does that so it's like we're we're doing something else first now and Kelly what do you think about that

I I like the collaborative approach of bringing it to the committees I think that's a good idea um it might be difficult to like have a one of each of you attend those committee meetings. So it may need to be written communication and then if they want to follow up um just to keep the timeline tight enough so that we have enough time to do final revisions and all of that. But I I do agree that that is probably the better approach instead of bringing it to the public beforehand. Do you think we should use like a comment resolution kind of thing like a matrix?

Yeah. Yeah. Um, we could do that. I mean, the other option we could do is just take the take the priority measures and put them into a spreadsheet. Um, so that and then have like additional columns for, you know, owner or actor, you know, lead or something like that. And those could maybe more easily be filled in. Yeah, I mean in my head I'm I'm thinking something at least that allows let's say LLWD to say okay one of our near-term actions promote LWD nocost home energy assessments and rebate rebate programs like any comment on that you know something that at least allows them to add you know a note on what they're already maybe doing against that if they feel like that is somehow framed you know, nonoptimally. Um, again, I think we probably will get a mixture of of feedback dep in terms of the level of feedback that we might expect. Um, but at least allowing the opportunity to kind of gather that. I I was just going to mention that our next meeting for us is March 5th, I think. Um, if I'm not mistaken. So that gives us around I guess it's like 3 weeks from now actually cuz this one's a little bit late um in terms of our normal schedule but wondering if what that turnaround of the share ready version might be for you guys Jenny Kelly so that is it I guess I'm asking is it in any way feasible that we would have that version have sent it out to um priority people over email or what have and even maybe gotten some feedback before our next meeting.

I think that's possible and ideal. Yeah. Before March. Yeah. Because March 5th would be coming back together again. Um and then might be able to um discuss some of that that feedback and kind of next steps there. Kelly said she thinks it's feasible. So, I'm going to go I'm an optimist. I'm an optimist. Um, but I you have to be an optimist to be a planner. So I guess that's part of the job.

It it seems like 3 weeks would be ideal to get it to a version that we could go line by line in this meeting and hit any of the additional pieces before it goes to the rest of the committees. Are you suggesting that we have time to get it to a place where we can dist like we bucket everything that's LEWLD and we get it in front of LWLD before our meeting for response cuz with a 3-we turn that feels guess yeah I relatively quick that with

that was going to be my suggestion John but only I guess only because I didn't to me at least nothing in there jumped out as um controversial in any way. I was like, well, this all looks looks great. Thing in my head was I feel like this is a lot of stuff that people are already working on or at least have a notion of and therefore we wanted to be collecting that. Um but yeah, I I don't know. I see your point. I I I think it's totally doable. What do we Is there uh Kelly, Jenny, anything that you all need? Do you have the contacts for those people? Do we have the way to distribute them? I think we have to do that.

Yeah. I don't think it would come from us. I think what we what this is what I'm hearing. We we would put together like a memo and uh it would outline sort of the the process um and what we're looking for in terms of feedback. I Kelly and I will talk about what exactly the document is that we're having people comment on. I think probably it's the document that we shared with you but slightly tightened up. Um, that would be my preference, Kelly, just because going back to the spreadsheet is true. I think we take out all the preparatory material and it's really just the actions. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Probably probably a better way to go. So, I think we would just need to get that part done with the memo and just say that we want to have I guess we can't say we want feedback by March 5th if that's the night that you meet. Um, so it would technically not be three weeks because today is three weeks to March 5th. Um, so that that's where I'm not I'm maybe March 2nd.

Sure. Um, and then maybe Sarah, we can um talk offline just about like what the format then of that email, like the the mailing list basically and and how we target um each of those emails that will just or or conversations that will go out. Um, and maybe again we can divide and conquer a little bit maybe across the committee on that. If the town administrator's office would help with this, I think that would be ideal. I know we we've had a liaison helping at some point during the process. I know that's not happening right this moment, but

I think that would be helpful to disseminate it and and to also amplify why we want their, you know, why it's important to provide the feedback. Um I do think you need to involve the schools as well by the way like not to forget the schools. Um because my understanding was your schools are well clearly very interested in sustainability and climate, I'm sure. Yeah, I think anything that goes out to a department will definitely go through the the TA and um probably also to to committees.

Yeah. Okay. So, I think that's what we can do. Uh, Kelly and I will talk uh separately about by when we can get it to you. Um, Monday being a holiday. Monday's a holiday. Monday's a holiday. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so we we will we'll follow up with you about that. I'm I'm actually out next week personally. So, um, but we'll we're I think we have a plan.

Yeah. And I think um I have your contact information from Jenny, so you probably get the the actual email from me. Um but I'll CC Jenny and we should just keep everyone in the loop. Yeah, school vacation week next week, I think. Line. Um all right. I don't know if there's anything else from committee members um or if we want to wrap it up. here the sake of time. Anybody else want to add anything or have any questions?

Right. So, um we do have uh another agenda item on member updates, but maybe before we just move there, I just wanted to say thanks to Jenny and Kelly once again for spending your evening with us. Um yeah, really appreciate uh reading through all the work that you've done to put put this together. It's um yeah, as I think you were saying, John, it's it's really exciting um to see it kind of uh come to fruition and really very grateful for everything you guys are doing. Great. You're welcome. Yeah, you're welcome. And thanks,

excellent working with you and we'll we'll be in touch very soon or Kelly will and then we'll see each other on March 5th. Okay. Thank you. Great. Thanks so much. Thank you. Have a good evening. All right. Good night. Um All right. So, last item is member updates. Um does anybody else have anything to share? I have one

just quickly that we are still working to get our new site up with um Energized Littleton. There's just a little back and forth on releasing our old domain that they own. So, we'll we'll solve that. That's on my plate. I owe them a follow-up, but uh all the content's been edited, so we should be ready to go live when they're ready to do it.

Awesome. Thank you. and yeah getting more and more use cases by the day for the website. Um next uh meeting I'll add um a bit of an update around our social media um approach um and I'll prepare uh I'll I'll propose to add to the agenda uh a bit of an update there and just in terms of our goals that we set last time. Um but my other update was going to be ex sort of I guess introducing Libby. I was like, I'm not sure what the protocol is here. But Libbyy's um confirmation to our committee was uh confirmed approved by the select board on Monday. Um so Libby hasn't yet been sworn in, so it's not yet a functioning serving member of our committee, but um still decided to give up her evening to listen in um as a member of the public uh for tonight's meeting and and just hear all the machinations and and discussions. But just wanted to give you a shout out, Libby, and say we are very excited to be officially welcoming you next time.

I'm very excited. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, welcome. See, I think I Yeah, I don't know if Libby actually can talk. I think you can talk, Libby. But if you can hear us. Yeah, I can hear you guys. Thank you. Oh, great. Okay. looking forward to working with you all. Same. Same. We're very very excited to to have you join the club. All right. Anything else from anyone else? Otherwise, we can entertain a motion to adjurnn.

I'll move to adjurnn. I'll second that. All right. Margaret. Yes. Sarah. Yes. John. Yes, please. That's a yes from me as well. All right.