Sustainability Committee - Regular Meeting

All right. Hi, everyone.

Welcome to our June 11th Sustainability Committee meeting. Thanks for joining on this hot and humid July, not July, June. It feels like July, June evening. All right. We have, I think, Okay, keep an eye on the attendance here. Great. All right, so we'll start with the member roll call. Margaret, if you want to walk us through that.

Sure. I have... Sarah Rombacher as outgoing chair, Charlotte Dolenz co-chair. Do we need to vote later? Libby Donegan, myself, John Hagberg, Emily Squires, and Don McGyver. And Annalise, are you a guest or are you a new member? Guest. Great. And Jenny Wright and Kelly Leinema are also guests. That's it. Quite a long list.

I know, right? Full house. And I think Leah is going to join us later, Leah Pratt, but she said she has a conflicting call until eight. So I think she'll join us a little bit later. But yeah, Margaret, you did mention voting. I had, and we can talk about this more under the later agenda item, like member updates, but I had thought that we would reorganize in our July meeting. And at that point, we may even have a new member. But we can use that meeting to reorganize because I hadn't got it on the agenda today. And then at that point, we'll have a new member. The new gang. Sounds great. Excellent. All right. And actually. Well, maybe it seems we did just do the member roll call. Annalise, do you want to just share your role here, just as part of that roll call, just so everyone's clear why you're joining us tonight?

So I am, for those of you that don't know, I'm Annalise Tabor. I'm newly elected to school committee. And when we did our reorg, we elected to have the sustainability committee so we can work on some initiatives specifically with these buildings and obviously building projects like that. So basically exploring ways that I mean, I know that the schools are like a small piece of the pie, but it's still something and I think, you know, getting the students involved in sustainability initiatives, getting that population excited about it, that kind of thing. So I'm really excited to work with you guys and, you know, work on the cap and yeah.

Thanks so much, Anneliese. And certainly as we get into our CAP agenda item and then later on in member updates, we can dig into a little bit more about the way in which we can collaborate. Thanks. All right, on to minutes to approve. Sent them out a little while ago. Does anybody want to make a motion to approve the minutes?

Sure, I'll move to approve the minutes.

Thanks, Don. Anybody like to second that? I think I need to hear you speak, Libby.

I'll second the motion to approve the minutes.

Great. Thanks, Libby. All right. And then we can go around. Margaret? Yes. Yes from me. Don?

Yes. Yes.

Oh, yeah. Sarah?

Yes.

Libby.

Yes.

Emily. And John.

Yes, and thanks, Margaret.

Yeah, great minutes as always. All right, next up is public input. I do not see any other attendees on the line. So I think we can skip over public input for now and get straight into our fourth agenda item, which is the CAP forum. Well, the CAP on the CAP forum. So under this agenda item, I was hoping we could debrief a little bit about the CAP forum that we hosted, including any feedback, any sort of observations that we wanted to share from that, And then the implications of that for this draft, I guess the V1 of the CAP, as well as the online form and responses that we had there, how those are being incorporated or how any of the feedback is being incorporated into V1 of the CAP. And then you can also, I think, talk about next steps So what is next for the CAP and how do we move forward? And under that, I think it'd be helpful to discuss a timeline for presenting this to the select board so we can actually get on their agenda and have their approval for the CAP. And after that, how we want to start engaging on the actual action side of things and sort of divvying that up. So not that all of that will be resolved this evening, but just kind of charting out that that roadmap. That's what I sort of was trying to imply by next steps. So maybe we can start with the forum itself and if anybody wants to share their reflections, feedback, observations, and then we can take it from there.

Sure. I'll go ahead. It was good we had it. People showed up who were interested. It's too bad we couldn't get more people. Just thinking of the results we get from it, it's hard to tally up post-it notes, stickers, and all sorts of stuff, since some people saw only one or two of the placards. And so you can't really develop a whole lot from that. I know someplace there was some tally of, you know, two people thought something was important, another person someplace, but it isn't all that meaningful since, you know, it wasn't sort of a competitive priority setting type thing. and then where you're limited in your choices and you get to see everything. So even though we have some data from that, it's hard saying what's meaningful as a prioritization. I mean, it's like, yeah, okay, we have data, like or hate it, here it is, but it isn't really meaningful. And I don't think anyone's trying to push that, but it's something to be aware of. But the good conversations with folks, interesting people, but it's important to have it as well as we try to wind up things.

Thanks, Don. Yeah, back in a lot of interesting conversations. Anybody else want to chime in on thoughts about the forum itself?

Yeah, Libby, go ahead. It seemed like there was a lot of interest in banning single-use plastics. That was something that people were commenting on. I had the waste poster. I know some people mentioned that they'd like to see a ban on styrofoam. I've started to look into it a little bit. And I think that that could be a good start, something that maybe we can build momentum on. Thanks, Libby.

Maybe just a quick reflection on your comment, Don and Libby's, is I think if we can wrap our heads around as a committee, maybe that this is a V1, this is a sort of living, evolving document that we can continue to refine those priorities. We can continue to see what's going to get traction, where we can make progress, maybe some things change. become elevated in the overall priority list, maybe some things get deprioritized. But I think if we sort of conceptualize it as something that is not like this set in stone forever document, but something that maybe we as a committee can revisit on whether it's a month cadence or annual cadence and kind of recheck in again with where this is and what we want to and also what we want to prioritize ourselves. Right. Something I was maybe going to suggest for a future meeting is that we decide, OK, what out of this do we want to take on and The next six months in the next year, et cetera, so that we can kind of continue to to make that progress. But, yeah, I agree with Libby. It's some things might get some great traction, like single use plastics. And we're like, OK, you know, yeah, Don, go ahead.

I think it's more than just us since we've now pulled together a lot of ideas, a lot of good things. I see the planning board's gone off to prioritize what they're going to do for the year. We should also probably go to each of the boards and ask them what do they think they would like to take on. They should take on one or two climate change or sustainability things. And I can think of Some things I would like to see, say, the planning board do and encourage them that they can at least have a task force so they become partners and they start doing something in the realm of the scope we presented them and I think gradually build into it. But all the separate boards are going to have reorganization and try to set priorities and we should be there with them

and see if they can take a few climate change uh sustainability committee items thanks don yeah love that um and i think annalise you're a great example of that right so if we have these connections with maybe some of the more I say relevant, but the committees that have a little bit more stake in the climate action plan, perhaps committees and boards. And that's something we can certainly maybe if we have time this evening, kind of think about as a committee, individual members who wants to follow up with which groups or we can certainly put that on our agenda if we. run out of time to talk about next time. But, you know, how will we actually do this from a practical perspective? Like who's going to like you said, who's going to follow up with which committee and and liaise with them?

Yeah, I like that.

Any other reflections on the forum itself? Otherwise, maybe we can move to Jenny and Kelly in terms of taking all of this feedback forward into our V1.

I'd add, just for the forum, and I think it's along the lines of what you had to say, Charlotte, which is it was confirmation that we've made the right progress towards refining. There were some outlier questions, but I don't think we learned a lot new. And I think that's because that's feedback that we heard from the community early on. We got a lot of feedback. This time we got a little less. And to your point of this being a living document, I think that means we're doing a good job of aligning to what the community, at least the community that showed up is interested in.

Yeah, that's a great point. I certainly learned something new, which is that Claude can read post-it note handwriting very well. That was a pleasant surprise. No more needing to transcribe post-it notes, folks. But yeah, that was my learning. All right. Well, Jenny and Kelly, maybe over to you for how we then take this forward.

Yeah, sure. Well, and Kelly, feel free to. Kelly and I are basically taking the material that you sent to us and as well as all of the comments that we've received, I think primarily for maybe three or four people total, I want to say, and have been making edits to this, what will be a final draft. And so at this point, our intention would be to get you a complete final draft of pretty soon. There's a handful of kind of outstanding things and then something that I want to make sure we clarify. So the outstanding items would be Charlotte, if there's anything that you want to change with the, you were investigating the greenhouse gas inventory and some details, if there's anything that needs to be changed there, we want to make sure that that's updated in the final draft. And we want to also make sure that we update the community engagement session, which I think would at this moment is missing, you know, the review of the meeting that you held. So we'll make sure that that's incorporated. We're going to make sure that we have some appendices with like the more detailed information and some of the survey material and stuff like that, which is all summarized in the document, but It's always good to have that in an appendix just to reference it in case it comes up at some point in the future. And of course, we forget, you know, the finer details, then they're right there available to you. And then, you know, obviously, the most important thing is the action measures. And I think with that, we are, you know, we're going to go through it and do as many updates as we can based upon the information that we've received so far. And I think we'll focus also on what this committee has said that they wanted to prioritize. That was like a separate survey that you all did, or many of you did a while back. I think there's a couple of things that we need to add in that have come up frequently, but I don't think are yet captured, including this sort of, we've talked about it before, the need for like an annual report or update to the select board or something to that effect, or even town meeting or both. And then with the, you know, review of the plan annually and potentially making any updates or adjustments. So I'll make sure that we, you know, we'll capture that in the measures as we go forward. Is there anything else to edit otherwise than I, Kelly, then I'll just turn to the probably big, the big item, which is that, you know, I think we've done a really really hard effort, especially given that it's, you're leading this effort as a sustainability committee and you can only do so much. You have sort of a, you have a, there's a delicate balance between you have a select board member who's clearly in, you know, invested in your committee and that's really good. And you also have a staff person who we've been, you know, who has a, also plays a role, but it's hard for you to, you can't influence your other boards and committees and commissions, you don't have the ability to direct them to say, this is what you need to do. This is going to be your priority in the next year or year five, et cetera. So I think that there's going to just be some unfinished work. But what we can frame it as is your next step as a committee, and you'll regroup as you always do, and figure out the best way to handle that. So there will be, you know, kind of a recommendation in the measures that is kind of in this administrative category, right? Like the other one about annual updates and presentations to make sure it's on top of mind for your for the full municipal enterprise, if you will. So that when they're making decisions, they're thinking about the climate action plan and the best case scenario, right? Whether it's policy or plan implementation or capital planning, any of those. But there's going to be some things where it's going to have to say something like some additional prioritization or knowing who's going to lead the different actions and the timeline of when it's going to realistically get done is going to need to be figured out as a follow-up. I don't think we can do it in this room. And I, and I, I know how hard it is to work across many different, you know, boards and bodies. So, um, we can certainly make a recommendation about, you know, sort of maybe an approach that could work, but I also think that, uh, Us perhaps just leaving it open-ended and letting you, your committee, figure out the best way to navigate that, given your own, you know, your understanding of the politics and the organization in Littleton probably would serve you better than us saying to you, well, this is how it's worked in other communities. Because that sometimes doesn't go over very well. And it also may not be a very good capture or reflection of your capacity, like staff capacity specifically. So I, that, that's kind of my preference. Um, and then, you know, once we, that those are kind of the biggest pieces that seem to be like the, the end parts of pulling the final draft together. And then, you know, we can talk about that, you know, the, the best timing for the select board meeting. I know it's, you know, they may have shifted to like a summer schedule, so time might be limited, but, um, uh, and I know I've said this previously, but again, for the repeat, um, I know the contract is over very soon, but if it's in July, we'll, we'll figure that out.

So Kelly, did I miss anything? No, I think that's everything.

Okay. And yeah, so open to answer any questions, but I think that was it for completing the draft and figuring out the slide board meeting. Awesome.

Thanks, Jenny. I'm just going to maybe, oh, sorry, Don, did you want to add something? Because I was going to come back on some of the dates.

Well, we had an incomplete discussion about what ANTI would do, what and who would be the leading organization. And I know that was sort of a touchy thing. And I know there, I agree with Jenny and other people and other ideas and project planning, you need a lead group for accountability. And I know there was a reaction to that by some entities thinking that we were dictating or promoting an unfunded mandate. But I think that needs to really be dealt with because there'd be no accountability. And to be a lead means not necessarily you're taking something on without any funding. means you have the knowledge and expertise and you have the network and people look towards you as making recommendations. And I think how you define lead makes a difference. All program management, all project management typically has a lead group. And I can think of just off the top of my head, Yeah, electric department, yeah, thinking that, okay, they can't do a whole lot with electrical infrastructure, maybe outside of the town, but they can influence, they can guide, they can suggest. And if they don't have the resources to do something, isn't it like blow it off? They say they don't have the resources. Yeah, I mean, people sort of deal with this together, but there is a survey center of expertise and knowledge, and it'd be wrong to leave out that group. And so I think it may be more palatable to some groups to be named as a lead. And, and, you know, we can go about in a more planful, planful manner. But I know it was a touchy conversation. I know the town administrator feels, you know, I mean, he's dependent upon goodwill, the selectmen. Now he's in a sort of a funny situation. I know it's going to cause some issues, but I think we really have to address it. And I did hear Jenny say that before, and I agree with her from program project management. You do need to have a lead. Anyway, those are my comments. I was going to write it up, but it's much better expressing it this way. Finding how we deal with it, because everything has a matrix and who's involved and where's the center of knowledge. Anyway, those are my quick comments.

Yeah, John, go ahead. Thanks, Don.

Yeah, I definitely agree, Don, that like to drive real change and to do things you need of lead. I feel pretty strongly that at least in what I heard Jenny saying in the last comment is like, we can't dictate. We know from a political standpoint, this committee doesn't have power. the mandate, nonetheless, even if we had the mandate, the funding to dictate. And so I think what I heard in the CAP forum and what I think the CAP says at this point is the sustainability's job teams is to advocate. And so having, like I'm thinking with, you know, Annalise here, right? Like this is the school committee coming to us to liaise if, and I'm putting a big if here, let's say our focus was on energy, you know, step one as a committee would need to be to liaise to light and water, not ask light and water to come to us. right, have someone from the committee to bring up the cap in the meetings and talk about it, not ask them to take the cap and make it their own. And so just something as we think about the next turn of the committee and how we want to best provide influence, I think it's similar to what you're saying, but just from an entirely different lens. I don't believe as a committee we're going to make a lot of progress trying to resolve and get folks to think that we have a mandate or we can drive their mandate. It's all got to be influence and sleeve rolled up and work around. This was important. How can we consider this in the discussion? Not you need to consider this.

Right. But if the organization has expertise to choose, for example, electric department, they don't want to do it, say, for example, then let them defer upwards. Let them defer to the selectmen. I think they would want to be the ones giving the suggestions and so on and guiding. And they could say this is impossible or give reasons why. But nonetheless, they're a center of expertise. It isn't like we're forcing a mandate on them is an unfunded mandate is people would go to them because they expect to learn more and get good guidance from them. And if they don't want to take it rather than, you know, just sort of blow it off, then let them defer to someone else if they can, if they want. My guess is there are some things that may be beyond their reach, like War, electric infrastructure on the grid, maybe going outside of Luton. So let them state that. Let them say it. Let them advocate for it. But nonetheless, they would be the leading voice in that.

I think we're fully agreeing. Let's use that as an example, like an electric infrastructure as an example and being on the cap. If either that being on the cap or that being a thing that we really felt as a committee was strong and we went to light and water and they're like, that's not on our agenda. We're not looking to touch that. My belief from a sustainability committee is like, cool. What are we interested in doing right now? What could we consider working on? And we move off of that because to your point, they are the experts on that. They are the ones with funding. If we want to push that again in the future or see if the environments change or that becomes another importance. But I don't want to put and maybe this isn't what you're saying, but it's what I'm hearing is I don't want them to. either take it or if they don't like it, go to the select board and tell them that they don't like that the sustainability committee is asking them to do it because that's not the influence that I feel like we should or do have with committees, with other boards.

Let them address it. Let them put some sort of narrative.

Sorry, John. What I'm saying is if they don't want to address it, we're in no position to ask them to address it, period, hard stop, from my perspective.

Well, I think we might disagree on that, but I think it has to be addressed somehow.

So maybe, Don, to follow up on this is, Maybe a suggestion of how we as the Sustainability Committee can kind of take this forward within our remit. First of all, I think just the way that we frame it in the CAP, I believe we settled on the term champions for this V1. And I think that's a great start, right? We just discussed earlier, this is a living, breathing, iterating document. Let's start with champions. And, you know, it's a good start, I think. I'd like to suggest that if we're able to get this V1 approved and in front of the select board soon, let's say June, July, then we actually make a commitment ourselves as a committee to revisit the cap at the six month mark. So that would be take us to like January 2027. Where we take a look, we see where we're at. We see where we've gained traction on certain topics, certain committees, certain boards, etc. And we kind of take a little breather and then we revisit it. And maybe then we say on an annual basis, every January we take stock. And that taking stock could entail us as a committee going through it and seeing, as you said, maybe where there are some genuine sticking points there. what we'd like to update, what we'd like to revisit, and then also presenting that back to the select board, which would again be our perspective as a sustainability committee. But it might be a nice place for us then to surface some of these barriers that we're facing or some of the kind of places where we see some maybe tension in moving forward. So that could, again, it's very much then it's in our remit to say this is how it is or isn't moving forward.

A bit progress. I agree.

Right, but progress. We can say, wow, these are like... the six, seven measures where we've really seen incredible progress. These are the ones where maybe we've made some inroads and these are the ones maybe we really haven't found a lot of traction. And I think that speaks to what you said, Jenny, there's a lot of work ahead of us, right? This is, you know, even with CAP V1 in hand, the work to actually engage with, network with, do a little advocacy with our fellow committees and boards is I think very much still ahead of us. And then I think alongside that, if we're going to be doing these sort of annual check-ins on the cap, I think it gives us as a committee an opportunity to say, okay, 2027, what do we want to pick out of this? Which action measures do we want to sink our time into? Who wants to do single-use plastics? All right, go for it. And what that means is obviously going to be very different. It might just mean talk to a few people. And I'm not going to presuppose that the actions that we would take, but I think that we can pick our battles even within the cap. So I guess what I'm saying is I think that there are different ways in which we can address that sort of progress concern in a way that is evolving and doesn't kind of get us too stuck along the way. And maybe the V2, V3, V4 might get a little closer to that lead mentality. Yeah. Just some suggestions.

Libby. I was going to say that I feel like it's helpful if we're advocating for things, even if it's just a small move of the needle rather than a big one, because it can have an impact and As long as we're advocating for, you know, maybe we go to a meeting and we advocate for a bylaw or something, you know, it's not necessarily taking on a whole section or asking somebody to be a leader on it, but it's a move of the needle and something that we can do. And I think it's helpful if we maybe do some of the, you know, provide some education for these other board members to help them understand the importance of why we want them to take it on. But we should maybe see ourselves as advocates and willing to take on some of that legwork of doing the research and providing data and education to them. to help them understand that there are small things that they can do. It doesn't necessarily have to be a big change all at once.

Yeah, thanks, Libby. I really like that. We can document these as we go, right? Jenny, just to address some of the other things that you mentioned then. So I think we've had a nice healthy chat around the lead slash champions. And I think this will be an ongoing conversation. So I do want to make sure we keep kind of surfacing this, as you said, Don, as we go through the cap actions. The other thing you mentioned was the greenhouse gas inventory analysis. I talked with Diane Dickerson and I also talked with Conor Reardon over at LELWD and Nick Lawler. who helped to unpack the way in which they report their non-emitting percentages. A bit of a rabbit hole. I'm not going to... It was a sort of a crash course in RECs and non-RECs and everything in between. I think my conclusion is for now we can... go ahead with what is in the cap. Um, I think one of our actions might be to actually revisit the MAPC tool, um, with Diane's support. Um, and that could be part of like a V1 update. Um, but I think for now in the interest of progress, um, we want to move forward with this version, um, whether or not one uses X number or Y number, ultimately there was a, it wasn't, A not insignificant difference in the tonnage calculations, but I think just given the complexities of the way that LELWD reports their non-emitting percentages, I say we just keep on keeping on. The Yes, you mentioned the community engagement sessions. That sounds great. And obviously, if others want to chime in on that, it makes perfect sense that we capture that and the appendices. Then you mentioned the committee prioritization. And I think if you wanted to word that, this is just my opinion here, but if you wanted to word that in a way that says the committee will continue to set annual priorities or to revisit priorities in a way that suggests that this committee is going to continuously consider priorities of the CAP. I think that makes sense to me. And then, as you mentioned, some notion that this will be updated. I think if we can refer to this as the V1 and not anything final, it is your final deliverable to us. But in terms of the way that we treat this, maybe some language around this will be reviewed and updated annually or, you know, we will revisit and update us, whatever. But something that that flags that it is something that will will continue to live and be iterated upon. And then in terms of the dates, hold on a sec. I have these in front of me. Karen, you can keep me honest here. I got these from a good source, but Karen, you can tell me this is right. 22nd of June is the next select board meeting. I feel like from what you said, Jenny, about the updates that need to be made to the draft, I don't know if that's doable. The next one would be the 13th of July, which would require... Yeah, in terms of the sequencing here, we probably have to receive... V1 as a committee have chance to digest it and then formulate a presentation to the select board. So that's kind of in terms of just timing. Yes, we're looking at 22nd of June or the 13th of July as our two next opportunities to present to the select board. Ideally, we would do it then, otherwise we do start to get into kind of a skip mode throughout the summer and lose a little bit of momentum. And I think that there are also some potential funding opportunities coming up for us and the town where it would be really nice to be able to have said that we have this Climate Action Plan V1 in hand in order to be competitive for those opportunities.

I mean, if it was June 22nd, it would mean we would get it to you, but then you'd have to immediately pretty much share it with the select board for their meeting because next Friday is a holiday. So they might post their agenda even on Wednesday, the 17th.

And I believe, Karen, right, you typically need any materials by the Wednesday preceding your meeting. So that would be the 17th. which would be next Wednesday. So maybe we can have a brief discussion as to whether we think that's even doable or we want to aim for the 13th instead. I don't know, Karen, if you want to weigh in there.

I don't know what the chair has on the agenda already for this, for the next meeting, but yeah, I mean, I think it's worth finding out and getting on there if we can.

Okay. Yeah.

I'll text him real quick.

It'd be great if we could do it in June, but it was a very tight schedule. Starting in July, 13th people seem to do summer plans and it's more challenging getting people focused and together, you know, just in numbers. But yeah, it's a challenge. There's no question about it. Be nice if it could be June, but see what's possible.

Well, I guess the question then is for the committee, if, well, first of all, maybe for Jenny, for you, if you were able to get us this v1 when would that be by and then do we think as a committee that we're comfortable sort of just essentially forwarding that to the select board because there wouldn't be a lot of time for like turnaround there um and if we're comfortable with that then we could still make that june 22nd uh meeting if there's room on the agenda for us my feeling is that

This is just one thought. We probably won't have our draft like internally ready, like realistically until next Tuesday, Wednesday, just realistically, just so that we can have, you know, quality review control. Like we want to make sure we get you a good, a solid final draft and especially one that's going to be posted and shared with your select board, kind of important. Uh, I also, I guess I kind of funny, feel a little funny about, um, I'm just thinking it through. Sorry. It's just occurring to me that you, your committee wouldn't have like voted on it to approve, like move it to the select board for that. Like that you, you know, you wouldn't have the whole final draft before it goes to them and It feels a little, this feels a little more hurried than I had intended. I wonder, I think with July and I'm available that night, it might just, we can, Kelly and I will figure out those details, but also just quickly before I go into this other point I was about to make, is this online or in person or do they have a hybrid option?

I believe they have a hybrid option.

option it's in person meeting but you can do hybrid right yeah we can do hybrid oh okay yeah it's not i can also be there it's i just was curious i just realized i hadn't asked that uh the 22nd i'm actually in worcester all day so it'd be i technically could go back to live um i'm just just imagining that day sounded a little bit scary for a second But more importantly, I think, here's what I think. The most important thing is that this committee is in full agreement with the full final document. And I don't feel like that's the case yet. But I think that's really important. Is this your first big planning document so far in your time together as a group? Maybe in some prior iteration, there was another important document, but an important document deserves you all to be on the same page about it. And maybe even if you were thinking this was important, I always think it's a nice gesture to maybe just vote, you know, to demonstrate everybody was on board. Here were the comments. And then you recommend it to your select board, you know, that you want them to also like give their endorsement and also be clear about what, what else are you asking the select board to do? I just think that that would be a slightly more, more, uh, methodical approach to going to the select board, um, and presenting more, um, in a more concise and together way rather than just sending them the draft because we're going to be done and our contract is over. Um, I just, I don't, I, that feels a little, um, it's, it's doable. Um, and Kelly and I can make it work, but my suggestion is to maybe be a little more, um, take some of those other steps. It does then mean, I don't know how you meet in July, um, or how you decide to vote. Maybe there's another way you do that. Maybe you don't want to vote at all. And this doesn't matter. Um, but I would suggest those steps are taken. Um, so that, that would be, those are like my thoughts. Um, and we can accommodate however is needed. It's probably going to be more me than Kelly. Um, But that's that's OK. And I think that the part about what you're really asking of the select board is really important, especially given the last the the lingering conversation that that sort of continues. And there's sort of an agreement, but some of us aren't saying anything out loud. Others are. And I think you have to decide what message you want to bring to the board about this fact. which is you will have a complete plan document, but you need other boards and commissions to play a role in it, and you need to demonstrate to the select board, though it is wonderful to have Karen's attention and cooperation. There's something else you want to probably ask them regarding how to effectively get other boards and bodies to be invested. So that's, I think that ask how you do that is, is, is up to you, but I would be, I would have something clear to say, because one other point would be like, just sending them the plan won't really be the thing for the agenda item. You probably want to send it with like a cover memo and indicate, you know, this is a, this has been a journey. It came out of a fund, a grant. There's a little more, to kind of set the table for them and the other people who haven't been participating in the residents who tend to listen in on these types of things. So yeah, those are my thoughts on the timeline and kind of how we can do it. But if you wanna do the 22nd and then figure something else out, we can also kind of work from there and figure out the best way to do that. Might look a little bit different though on our side.

Thanks, Jenny. And first of all, just thank you for your flexibility. I didn't want to presume that you might be available beyond your contract end date. So I do appreciate that. Maybe on behalf of the committee, thank you. Because I do think that gives us a lot more opportunity to do this right, as you said. So maybe then I'd want to make that proposal, as you suggested to the group, and we can just kind of comment on it, that if that was possible, If we were aiming for the 13th of July to present to the select board, working backwards from there, I think we currently have our next meeting scheduled for Thursday, July 2nd, given that that's the first Thursday in July. It obviously falls right before the holiday weekend, so maybe we can just quickly get a a quick head count of whether we will have sufficient members for that meeting. But at that meeting, we would have had chance to receive and digest and think about the one of the plan. And then at our sustainability committee meeting currently scheduled for July 2nd, we would have the opportunity to, if we can decide this now, do we want to vote on it? I think we did vote on the climate declaration. I'm trying to recall now. We would do that at our July meeting. We would confirm what it is exactly that we want to present to the select board, maybe in a short presentation or what have you. And then we would have scheduled for the 13th to present. So anybody want to? Oh, Karen, I can see you got your hands up.

Yeah. So, um, I just wanted to say that Gary said, um, just email Jim and he'll make it happen. So that's all a go for July. I told him you were leaning towards July 13th. Um, and just not that this needs to have any bearing on anything, but I am unavailable on July 2nd. So I won't be able to join you for that meeting. Okay. Okay.

Thanks. Well, maybe, uh, oh yeah, sorry, Libby, you wanted to say something as well. Thanks Karen.

I was just going to say I'm also unavailable on July 2nd. Okay. But I can offer my vote ahead of time if that's a possibility, unless it needs to be live.

Sure about that. I think, just looking at the calendar here, given that it falls on the 2nd, does anybody else know that they're definitely not going to be available on the 2nd?

Because are we losing Emily and Sarah?

Well, that's the thing, yeah, because we don't know for a fact if we will have another member joining us at that point in time. So theoretically, if you're not there, Libby, that would leave me, Don, Margaret, John.

I actually won't be at the July 13th meeting either. Sorry.

Sorry. Can you vote ahead of time?

I would love to. I can certainly chat with my colleagues and let them know about my support and why I support it. I'm happy to do that. But yeah, unfortunately, I will be... Well, not so unfortunate. I'll be on a boat. Oh, lovely.

Yeah. Well, how about this? Why don't I check in to see whether we are or are not going to have a member at that meeting because we wouldn't want to miss out on having quorum. I guess the alternative might be July 9th then, which would not Although if it was July 9th, we would have had to already send the packet to the select board by the 8th. So I think it has to be the second for us to meet the 13th deadline. But Libby, if you wanted to, for instance, we would have V1 in hand if you wanted to share your comments remotely. I don't know how we... Maybe this is what you were going to ask about, Emily, but I don't know how it works with outgoing members sharing comments. I mean, I want to be able to capture your inputs and your votes on these, but obviously you won't be on the committee. So I'm not sure how, maybe we just capture that in the fact that we've had these prior discussions.

I don't know. Sue, Charlotte, I just wanted to mention that you don't necessarily have to do it on A Thursday. True. Get into scheduling quagmire. Yeah, exactly. I mean, in terms of getting a vote. And I think legally, I think my term ends on the 30th of June. So I don't have a say in anything as a member as of the July, I'm sorry, June 30th.

Do we want to consider having, instead of moving it forward, that we take our July 2nd meeting and we make it June 30th? It's like scheduling by consensus. This is never going to be, this is going to be painful.

Do we need to make a motion for this?

So the 30th is a Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah. Did you want it to continue to be on a Thursday? Because that would be June 25.

Oh, I was just thinking just this one off, if we just made it two days earlier, just this one time on a Tuesday. I can't make Tuesdays. Okay. Okay. If we met on the 25th, that would be in two weeks time, which I think maybe as we are entering this kind of final stretch of V1, if everybody was comfortable doing that, we could have a much shorter meeting just literally to talk about V1 of the cap and voice our approval for it, vote on it. Do we want to do that?

I can make the 25th or the second work.

Me too. Either one.

I can probably pop in to the 25th. My daughter has a dance dress rehearsal, so I have to be dance mom.

So pros of the 25th would be we have potentially both Emily and Sarah. So we have our sort of legacy committee commenting on and voting on the cap. The second, obviously we don't have that, but it keeps our regular schedule intact. Does anybody want to make a motion either way?

Sarah? I don't know for sure that we need to actually make a motion to set a meeting date, but if you'd like one, then I will. move that we meet on June 25th.

I'll take it.

I'll second said motion.

All right. Thanks, guys. Does everybody just want to give a yay of approval? I'm not sure this is an official motion.

Yes.

Thumbs up? Yes. Yes. OK. Not an official, but an unofficial motion. Thank you. All right, so we'll meet on June 25th. We will have had an opportunity to review the cap. We will... confirm then our endorsement of it and briefly what we want to send it to the select board with in terms of the presentation cover letter, what that should focus on, et cetera. So maybe budget a little less time than usual maybe for that one, that meeting. Appreciate everybody's flexibility.

Jenny. Do you need anything else from us at this time? The V1 draft. Okay.

And we're off the hook.

We're going to get that to you. And Kelly and I are figuring out, you know, how we're going to get that done and the right timing. But it'll be sometime during the next week, obviously. And then, as you said, you're going to have your meeting. If there's anything else that comes up, you'll let me know, Charlotte, right?

Yep.

And then we'll figure out the proper preparation for the July meeting. And if there's anything else you need from me, you can just reach out to me directly. Sound good? Great. Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Thank you all. Have a great night. Thank you all. Okay. Bye-bye.

Bye.

All right. So I think we've covered enough next steps to take us into our next couple of meetings here. So I'm going to suggest that the next steps we cover next time in terms of keeping the CAP momentum going, what we're going to do through the summer and blah, blah, blah. I think let's just make sure we put that on our agenda to discuss in July. Anything else? On the cap at this point, I think we're wrapped on that. We can move to the next agenda item, if that's OK. So Libby. You were going to talk us through a little bit around the LNG facility. I've framed this on the agenda as just some information and discussion. This was a topic that you wanted to bring up to the committee. Maybe again, just in the interest of time, we keep this one kind of almost like a bit of a brief primer. And then if we want to discuss or take action later, we can put it back on the agenda as well. But I'll turn it over to you, Libby. Thanks.

You're on mute, Libby. Sorry, did everybody have a chance to review the attachments about the LNG facility that's proposed at Kimball's? It didn't say too much beyond what I'm going to say now, but I guess my concerns with it are that they seem to be pushing this as a public health, something that's important for public health, and I understand that Obviously, he is important for public health. But my concerns are that there will be noise with this and that Acton turned this down. So I'm just curious about why another town turned down this facility. I feel like National Grid is sort of pushing hard for this because it's financially incentivized for them that it's cheaper to move it from 550 King Street to Kimball's. But I want to make sure that that's in the best interest of our community and something that really aligns with our goals. as a committee as well. So that's why I wanted to sort of bring it to this meeting was to sort of figure out how we all feel about it and what we think. And if we feel like it's important to have some representation at the July 9th public hearing with planning board that we sort of have a chance to organize that.

I was trying to track down. I remember reading about it someplace. I'm not sure where the attachment was. I did go on the planning board project page, and their National Grid stuff was something completely different. It was more about erosion, electrical stuff, and stormwater. So where is it covered in more detail? I do vaguely recall that this LNG was moving from 550 to Kimball's. The thing that concerned me about it was not so much moving it because it seems like it's something that was in place for peak demand, but then they suggested continuing the infrastructure. And that sort of bothered me, that here they were trying to increase the infrastructure beyond the need of moving the temporary summer facility from 550 to King Street. So could you say a little bit more about that and where to find out more information?

I tuned into a May 14th planning board meeting, so you might be able to get some more information on that. Charlotte had sent some documents. One was from National Grid, which I felt was heavily swayed in their opinion. It seems as though other communication that received shows that some of the proposed infrastructure is going to be in Littleton. As much as this has sort of been posed as sort of a Westford issue where we would have little say, I feel like we might have more say as a town because I think the vaporization infrastructure is going to be in Littleton.

And I guess maybe it's what Charlotte had sent out, that it talked about it being temporary for the summertime. So it sounds like...

It'll be in the winter. So it would be from November to April. So when the temperature drops really low, they start to look at below 10 degrees. But usually once it's around zero, then they sort of pump extra gas into the system to serve 19 communities. So I understand that 12 other sites had been considered for this facility. And from what I gathered from the May 14th planning board meeting, Acton had turned down one of these facilities. So I'm curious about why Acton would have turned this down, you know, where National Grid is highly incentivized for their end and their costs and their interests to move this to Kimball's. I just want to understand, is that really what's best for us as a town?

Right. So it had been in place previously on the IVM land. Is that correct?

Yes. And boards and committees were not aware of it. Planning board was not made aware of it until the planning board meeting on the 14th. Our health director was not aware of it. The Board of Health was not aware of it. I can't speak for other boards and committees, but it seemed as though other entities in town were not aware of this facility until it came up. about moving the facility from 550 King street to Kimball's. And that was concerning to me that this wasn't really done transparently previously. You know, that's a concern to me when somebody is trying to hide something and something that came up during the May 14th meeting was, Oh, we try to do this. So people can't see these facilities. I try to keep it out of their eye, you know, and it, So they intentionally try to keep it out of people's eye. They intentionally try to keep it from the public. But what was concerning to me too about the meeting was that representatives there couldn't discuss what an evacuation radius would be if there was an emergency. And I understand that these are incredibly rare. These are highly regulated facilities. But when you talked about having a facility in town for two or three years already and you can't talk about an evacuation radius, you know, or what the decibels are during the vaporization process, which they acknowledged has noise with it, then that was something that was concerning to me as well.

Yeah, so I'm not terribly enthused about the idea of having it. But what I wonder is, is there some necessity type thing? And of course, it's hard dealing with investor-owned power companies who often aren't very straightforward or honest, having said that and having problems with national grid. So, yeah, I sort of wonder, what are the alternatives? I mean, if something is truly necessary, then I'm more willing to approve something as long as there's no net change to their advantage, you know, build in more infrastructure. Because, you know, that's the big concern about all the climate change legislation, especially the MassAid being cut out, the climate bill, but all the gas stuff, including the lobbying and everything else is still in place there. So, you know, there's a feeling in general in controlling the gas industry industry is not to allow expansion. No net gain in their favor of putting in more infrastructure because that seems to be over above what might be truly necessary. And then my concern is, is this truly necessary? That's another concern. I have concerns too. It's before the planning board, I gather, and They are having ongoing meetings. Could you just mention a little bit more about whether it's more review and what control we have, if any?

There's a public hearing on July 9th that's scheduled. So if we wanted to advocate, you know, for the sustainability committee at that meeting, that would be important. It'll be on the agenda for the next Board of Health meeting as well.

So maybe just jumping in there, I think this is the kind of pertinent question for us as a committee, because there is the public hearing and my understanding that is the public hearing, but also we have a channel as a committee to communicate. So the letter that came to us from... Jeffrey, Jeffrey Hancock. Yes, that was through that was to the Sustainability Committee saying that that he wanted to reach out and discuss. So there's one avenue there that we could designate someone to have a conversation about, at least to gather information, perhaps around some of the the sustainability related dimensions of this. And I think that's another thing that we might want to just ensure that the conversations that we're having as a committee pertain to our sustainability related concerns. We may all hold other concerns about a facility of this nature, but I think if we're going to address it as the sustainability committee then, and I think this is where there was a few ideas in that note, you know, and this is where I think we could discuss as a group here, you know, do we think this is a priority or an important thing for us to engage in in terms of maintaining natural landscapes, in terms of kind of the impact on our electrification priorities versus fossil fuels and the gas leaks and the impact of that on the environment, etc. ? And dark skies, I think, was one of them. Noise standards, EV ready facilities, etc. So I would just be a little careful about kind of mission creep there. I know that you have the two hats. So your Board of Health hat as well as Sustainability Committee hats. But if we want to agree here for someone to take forward that conversation, at least, and just to gather a little bit more information about those intersections, I can see that being a good step in the right direction.

So you're suggesting maybe a task force? I mean, certainly on some planning board things, a couple of us have joined together and sent a letter to the planning board. That may be the way to deal with various things. There have been so many...

Exactly, Don. I don't know that we need to elevate it to a task force, perhaps, but perhaps Libby and Don, if you wanted to follow up with Jeffrey Hancock and just do a little bit of information gathering on behalf of the committee. I think this lines up with how we said earlier that, you know, if each member of the committee is going to take on different little pieces of our cap, then this is one exploratory exploratory piece and you can report back. Does that sound good?

And I would be interested, having served on the Board of Health and also coordinated a training program with National Grid over three community colleges where they really violated a lot of stuff. I am concerned about this. So I'd be glad to work with Libby and see what we could figure out. And then, of course, everyone, you know, welcome to the public forum, the public hearing. Right, exactly.

I'd be acting in my role on the sustainability committee. I wouldn't be able to act on behalf of my role.

Sure.

Yeah.

Sure. I understood. But as an individual that gets informed, you can do what you feel comfortable with.

Yeah. Okay. So why don't I share that? I remember I put it in the original email, but the contact for Jeffrey Hancock. And if you want to just reach out and gather a little bit more information or ask questions on behalf of the committee. And we're not necessarily setting a position at this point, but we just want to kind of understand and dig a little deeper into some of those questions.

And Charlie, if you could resend what you had sent out from Jeffrey, that would be helpful. Resend to me. I get swamped with emails, and even when searching, it's hard to locate. Absolutely.

I will record that 100%. Great. Thanks so much for bringing that to our attention, Libby. Appreciate it. Thanks. All right. All right. we I think can move on to member updates and new business. And I just want to make sure that before we go any further, that the first member update is the departure of our two beloved members. So maybe, I don't know, we should all sort of like toast or something, but maybe Sarah, Sarah and Emily, do you have any little like goodbye speeches for us?

We can't let them say goodbye yet. We just rescheduled the meeting that they have to attend. That was super creative, Charlotte, to get leadership in action.

I'll pay for it later. Well, in advance of that last meeting, I did want to say thank you to Emily for your time and effort on the board. And thank you to everyone that's continuing on and continuing the work to make Littleton sustainable. And a big thank you to Charlotte for picking up the mantle as taking on the chair duties. Really, it's been a very easy transition for me anyway, as you've taken over a lot of the duties and really come up to speed quickly. So thank you all.

i hope i didn't make it too easy for you sarah and i just want to say that um i really appreciate working with each and every one of you um and it's um been really um uh a growing opportunity for me as you know this is the first um committee i've been on um and local government at town level level so that has been very interesting. Thank you to Sarah for all her leadership and of course, Charlotte for moving into the leadership role as well. But I hope to see each of you possibly as a member of the public coming in every once in a while to see if you can give me some support things I'm thinking about maybe exploring as you know more on a individual or a small group basis so hopefully I'll see you in the future soon I mean after the 25th because I'll plan to be there because we need to have a good forum so but thank you to everyone I really appreciate it and Margaret outstanding minutes thank you so much

Thank you both so much. I feel like I was the most recent and then Libby joined, but I feel like I have not really had as much time with you both on the committee as maybe others have, but I've Very, very much appreciated just learning so much from you. And this was my first committee too. And I feel like it's been an incredibly steep learning curve, but you guys have made it so much easier, right? And Sarah, especially for the sort of bootcamp of how to run a Zoom meeting in the town of Littleton and how to... uh to organize and and to think about sustainability in this way so i just yeah from my side at least i just wanted to thank you so much for for that mentorship really appreciate it there's no little like emoji buttons that i can sort of float up onto the screen all you can do is a raise hand like a high five but exactly

Is that your high five, Libby, or do you want to chime in? That was my high five. Thank you for being so welcoming to me. This was my, I mean, I was on school council, but that feels different than being on a town committee like this. So thank you for being welcoming and inspiring.

And I'm not saying goodbye, but thank you. Wise.

Wise.

Because it'll be like a half-life thing. We'll have another meeting between the 25th and the 2nd. Just keep on scheduling more meetings for you. All right.

Well, thank you guys so much.

And now we can maybe turn to other member updates or any other new business. Does anybody have anything for us? John, go for it.

Yeah, only thing I'd add, I had started to explore some ideas around Third Thursdays and just learned yesterday that Third Thursdays are no more. So we'll be on my agenda to try and think about some things to keep public interaction over the summer. But I wanted to make sure the committee knew those were off for the year.

Thanks, John. Yeah, that was going to be on my agenda. bad news updates as well. Yeah, unfortunate. That was another nice way to stay engaged. Maybe we can, yeah, add that to our next meeting for a kind of update on public engagement, community engagement, other events that we might want to organize, even, dare I say it, just us. We'll see what we can do. Yeah. Anybody else? I have a couple things on my list, but anybody else? Okay, I will run through. So... Just a reminder, I guess, and if you have any agenda items then to send for our real July meeting, not the sort of in-between meeting, I have us down for a reorg discussion at that meeting and potentially some new member welcomes. I'll follow up to see if anybody has made it through the gauntlet to be approved for the committee. I don't know if anybody has any updates on that yet, but... I don't think I've gotten news of anybody being appointed yet. So new members, reorg. And then I was going to put on the agenda as well a sort of initial discussion divvying up these different kind of cap things. priorities amongst ourselves. But if anybody does have any other agenda items that they want to add to that meeting, then please let me know. I sat down with Sean Ahern from School Committee. This was actually a little while ago now after our last meeting, but it must have been about three weeks ago. And we just sort of brainstormed ways in which we could engage more with school committee on the various CAP intersections and Annalise I think that's part of then also what we discussed like having this kind of more formal connection but I just wanted to make everybody else aware that I sat down with Sean as well and we just kind of had some some brainstorming and we can discuss that on our next meeting as well and then also Margot from Planning Board reached out and has connected us with Mary Lupoli to have a discussion about the King Street development. So I shared with her Thanks, Sarah, for forwarding it to me. The original 2021 letter that the Sustainability Committee had shared way back then on the project. But it was a really nice sort of reminder of the key sustainability concerns. And so I suggested that maybe we sort of start there to ground ourselves in those topics and questions. And then I offered up an invitation to one of our upcoming meetings so that we would then have that discussion together with Lepoli. And again, kind of keep it constrained to those key topics. And I don't I realize I don't think I actually then re-forwarded that letter, Sarah. So I'll I'll do that to the rest of the committee to make sure that everyone has that in hand. And then you can use that kind of as the skeletal basis of our of our discussions.

We did weigh in on dark skies. Yes, I'm sorry.

Yes, I sent that one too, Don.

Some history there too.

Yeah, thank you for that reminder. I sent the two. I sent the 2021 letter and I sent the dark skies light pollution submission that you and maybe worked on. But yeah, TBD in terms of when we would actually maybe have LePoly on But it was nice to see that outreach and that interest in connecting as well. And then finally, I don't know if you had a chance to listen in, but we had Studio G architects on the podcast. It was the same day as the CAP Forum, actually. But Mary Lee talked about all of the different sustainability aspects of the new Shake Lane school that's been baked into the design. And it was a nice, great conversation with her. just kind of learning more about how they really thought about sustainability from the outset um and some things that i wasn't even aware of myself which was really nice to to hear about all those different aspects of the building project but um just wanted to flag that we're trying to keep those podcasts going um and so i'm still working on getting someone to talk about heat pumps um trying to get someone to come in and that's something to say about that charlotte i ah okay

So it's not the same, but my husband and I, we have geothermal. Oh, okay. And we could come and talk about that, but I don't know anything real technical about it like most people do, it seems. But we can say how much we love it.

Great. Well, at the very least, maybe put a testimonial out there. We can put that on our socials and on our website. But maybe then, John and Margaret, you could be candidates for the next podcast talking about heat pumps and geothermal, respectively, from the resident and sustainability committee perspective. I'm like putting you in the calendar as we speak. But yeah, I'll follow up with you guys on that. But that'd be nice. I think it makes a big difference to hear it directly from people that have actually sold it. Right.

In some communities, they open up their houses for people to see what it looks like. That's sort of an imposition, I realize. But you see that in ACT and you see that in different communities. That's another way of engaging the public.

Yeah, Harvard recently just did one. We co-advertised that event for them a little bit, at least. Just kind of put it on our social media. But they had an open house. It was May 30th where At five different homes showcasing all the different scenarios. So, yeah, I think honestly, the sky's the limit, except that it's just time, time for us to do all these things. And there's a lot of different opportunities. But maybe, John, like you said, if you're giving some thought to outreach, maybe we can discuss that next time. That was it for me in terms of member updates or any other business. I don't know if anybody else. I know actually, Leah, I did want to hear from you a little bit what your committee is excited about or your high school club is excited about coming up and if you wanted to add anything.

Yeah, I am outside. I'm sorry about that. I had a meeting before this because I am going to Acadia National Park to do some environmental science research in Acadia. august and that was like a welcoming call for that but um i actually met with the club earlier today and we really want to learn more about the climate action plan and it's very interesting for me to hear you guys talk about it but i don't know i've never actually read it i don't know what there is to read and i'm kind of confused with that whole process but definitely if there's a more detailed something that I can read about. I would really appreciate that. But right now we're talking about getting a tree in honor of the class of 2025. I think they left the club a large-ish pool. And we also have some trees they can donate as well. So We think we're gonna plant one at the top kind of circle where people park for pickup, if you guys know what I'm talking about. And then we had our zero waste day a couple of weeks back and that went very well. Our vendor for bikes actually hasn't come yet. So we had to transport all the bikes somewhere else. So we're waiting on them, but everyone else, it went perfectly. What else? Yeah, I was wondering in terms of, I know Charlotte mentioned to me, actually when Zero Waste Day, but in terms of the committee helping us with any ideas we have or any things we notice. But I didn't know, I think it can work the opposite way as well. Like we would love to help you guys with any work. We're only young. But we're capable of anything that you would like us. Because I feel like there's some gaps. I know I had to miss your last meeting. And I just want to know how I can help. And I don't know when to speak as well, unless I'm spoken to. So please just let me know.

Thanks, Leah. Well, let's rectify the first part immediately. As you weren't able to join us at the forum live, I can send you the digital copy of the draft climate action plan. And as you probably heard, we're expecting to see that V1 version. from an MCOG very soon. So you'll have that in hand. And maybe we can suggest that if you see something in there that lines up with something that your club would be really excited about, like I think you'd mentioned previously, the idling ban, whether it's extending some of the work you've been doing on removing invasives or even the sickle use plastics that you talked about a little bit at the high school. I think you'd also mentioned composting, all of those sort of feature in the plan. And I'll take this offline with you. But if you want to put one of those on the agenda for one of our meetings and then we can actually sit down and discuss, OK, what do you want to do? How would we do this? What kind of resources would we need? What would a timeline be? How do we help you? How do you, I mean, I think this is where our joint, you know, mandates come together, right? We want to do the same thing. So if that works for you, maybe we can just field a few ideas around and then actually put it on the agenda to dig into how we, you know, how we move forward to one of those, one of those projects.

Yeah, it does. I did talk to Ms. Berry as well, who did attend the forum and she caught me out bit. But, yeah.

It's interesting you mentioned bell and face. At the recent shade tree committee meeting, there were people there, including from the garden club. And one of the concerns people have had for a long time is the wing euonymus, the red bush that's up by the circle. That's an evasive that never should have been planted there. And people would love to rip that out. And that's a little bit more than just volunteers. I mean, you need some heavy equipment, but I know people would be interested in putting together grant money or something to do that and replace it with some, something that's native and they could even be blueberries, um, But, yeah, it sounds like you have some interesting ideas. It would be good to discuss it maybe even informally, I think, what the high school is doing. And the idling ban, as I mentioned before, and Ipswich Mass, it's a big thing that's being done. So a lot of possibilities. And it's interesting that you're going to Acadia. There's the Skudik Institute that does environmental education. Then there's regular conservation stuff. So what are you doing in Acadia for conservation?

I am going to be so honest. I heard very few words. You were glitching out a lot. I think you said something about the Chudik Institution, which I didn't know about.

Yeah, and that used to be a spy center, and then it got turned over to the National Park. It took them a long time to convert to doing environmental education, but they've done a lot of things with citizen science and I've gone to some of their conferences.

That's where I'm staying.

Go ahead.

I said that's where I'm staying, actually. They have dorms.

Oh, good, good.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a very interesting place. There's a large French hunting lodge, which was the center. And it was a naval spy center for a while that is converted. But yeah, it's interesting to hear more about it.

Well, Great. Thanks, Leah, for the ideas. Like I said, maybe we can do a little bit of a round robin on some of those and I'll pencil you in for August. Although maybe actually you can let me know when you want to be on the agenda. Maybe August is not the best plans with summer holidays and such, but we'll make time for you and the club to really dig into what you want to do and how we're going to do it and get very practical. so that we, uh, we give you that, that time. Cause, um, you, you say you're, you're young as if it's a bad thing, but, um, I'd say it's a fabulous thing and we love your energy and we love that you guys are all so engaged. Um, And it's really wonderful to see. So I see that as a huge advantage. And yeah, we're really excited to be working with you and the club. Thanks for those updates. Any other member updates, new business? Otherwise we can wrap this. We've got about two minutes to get us all signed off. All right, did I forget anything? Margaret?

I would like to move to adjourn.

All righty. I will second that.

Very timely. 8.58.

Excellent. John?

Yes.

Don?

Yes.

Emily? Yes. Libby? Yes. Sarah? Yes. And that's a yes from me and

Yes.

All right. Well, thank you all so much.