Environmental Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening everybody and welcome to the February 11th, 2026 EAC meeting. I'd like to hold the order of that meeting. Um, and everybody received the January minutes and were there any objections, edits, changes, thoughts on those minutes? Okay. Can we have a move motion to approve the minutes, please? I move that we approve the minutes. Okay. All in favor? I. Okay. Do we need a second? Yeah. Second. Sorry. All right. Thank you. I'll second. Do we get a second? Good. We can all vote. It's fine. Um, public comments?

None. But we'll allow for that if somebody comes in and we'll certainly make room for that on the agenda. Um, everybody met Katie, our new liaison from township. Very good. Everybody knows Melinda. Um, what does Jack here? Okay, so first of all, um, Junior DAC member update. Yes,

so I've just been looking over um the stuff that Ken gave me a couple weeks ago um for the testing in the canvas uh for North Park and I've been looking a bit into Potter Park like he suggested uh just figuring out how I could adapt those tests for that lake. um meant to go out there and then it snowed. 2 and 1/2 ft of snow. So, I'm going to hopefully make it out there, check it out when the weather is more permitting. An interesting piece of water to to think about sometime when you have more time, too, is um the little stream that goes down through Wall Park.

Okay. um because I don't think anybody's ever done anything on that and that's that's the very top end of it up there and there's a few minnows in it and stuff but uh I don't know that anybody's ever really looked at at uh you know that stream at all. Yeah, I'll get into that. Um also a bit semi-related um me and some friends got uh approval from the NA school board or I guess just Nash, I don't know. I didn't apply for it. Uh to build a native plant garden uh out in the front of the school. So we're gonna we've started germinating the plants and we're doing all that. That's fantastic. Very good.

That's great. Wonderful. Um so on the water quality um there was a reach out to Katie from a resident who Katie, you want to you want to describe that so we get it right?

Sure. So, he reached out to me um and I now forget the address. I apologize. Um but he had reached out to me about some water quality concerns near his home. Um and he had expressed that there might be some issues with the sanitary sewer line in the area. Um and he reached out to the sanitary authority. Um and it's his understanding that in reaching out to the sanitary authority that he had cured or aided um in uh assisting with that water quality. Um and certainly I can share those details with you. Okay. Um but he had some concerns about not concerns but he wanted to perhaps um more globally engage the EAC in water quality sort of information or some things that we can do or other outside organizations that we can work with to improve water quality in Macless. So yeah that was sort of like this just overall um request of me and NDAC. So

so Jack first I apologize for starting the meeting without you because that was my air. So, um, so let let's throw that out. So, we're an advisory committee and he's he may even come here tonight to say um, you know, what can we do about this water question about water um, quality in this in this area. And I mean, we don't we can't do anything other than to bias council or management in my mind. I want somebody to sort of jump in here. um we can't do anything about it other than to say u you know we we suggest that there's a problem here or can you look into this or something I don't know what we can do about that any thoughts on that Ken?

Well I think some of that falls like any you know northern area environmental council they they used to do some water quality testing but they're out of existence now. Um but within the within McCandless, you know, you've got a big effort on storm water. Um and I think it would fall under, you know, with storm water and and with the sanitary authority. I mean, they they should be well equipped to go out there and measure anything there because I mean that's their that's their you know, if if they are causing a problem, they're they're the ones that are going to get sued and everything. So, I would presume that they have all of the uh methods to go out there and and uh check that to see if there's any sewage leakage in into a stream or whatever. Um that would just seem to me to be matter of course of business for for the uh sewer authority. You have any ideas on that, Jack?

Can you give me up to speed, please? Since I came in late. You didn't come in late. I I started I started early so again apologies. Yeah, sure. So I had a resident that had called me um about some concerns with water quality in the canvas.

Um and he had said that um near his home he believed that there might be a sewage leakage or something that was impairing the waterway. Um so he had reached out to the sanitary authority and told them I I understand numerous times I have this concern. I think this is a problem. He believes that in him reaching out to the sanitary authority that that had corrected eventually corrected the issue. Um so he had called me about potentially the EAC engaging on water quality issues. I don't know what specifically that would look like. Um but he was just sort of concerned about water quality in Macanless and wanted to talk more about that. And as Kenneth said that was sort of order business for the sanitary authority to go out there and correct that issue. would the sanitary um but I assume the sanitary authority has the equipment they needed.

Yeah. And certainly that they've made that repair and that it's this gentleman's understanding that that waterway is no longer impaired. Um but he had just wanted to sort of check in on what the BAC is sort of doing on water quality or or what maybe we can inform residents or some things that we're doing um on water quality. Um, and I understand Nadia that you uh Jeff had let me know that you're sort of working on this through the course of your studies right now. Yes. Um, and some things that you're doing already for the EAC. Bernie, you have some thoughts?

Hey, it's just more of a clarifying question. I mean they're looking to us as an environmental group to weigh in but what's the the topic is concern around is it water quality wastewater o overrun from storm storm water runoff like I I missed the relevant concern they have and to your point Jeeoff I I think we could do something on water and water quality, but what was the topic area of concern that the resident had?

He he the way he framed it to me was water quality. Um and that he believed the sewage to be incidental to that to the impairment. Um so that was that was the way he framed the matter to me.

Yeah. So that would be like a combined sewer which I don't think Macandas has any combined sewer with water uh even on overflows. Um you know I know that they had adhered to the storm water plan but what is it that he would then seek from us would be to do kind of a session on on this kind of a public information session. Is that your thought? I had asked that gentleman um because I had spoken to Jeff about this earlier and he had sort of said, you know, we're an advisory board. We can make a recommendation to town council. Um but I had asked this gentleman to put his concerns in writing um to me so that I could see maybe more specifically what it is that he's requesting of the EAC or town council. Um and for me, this was sort of a learning experience because I wasn't sure if I have someone that reaches out to me and says, "Hey, I want to talk to the EAC." This is a public meeting. So certainly you you can attend and and speak on anything that you would like. Um but I also was trying to glean information from this gentleman. What is it that you would like the EAC to do? So um we did have a brief conversation. Um that's the way he initially framed it to me, but again I've asked him to if this is something we can follow up on, please put it in writing. It's my intention.

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I mean just like air quality, water quality I think is in our purview in our mission you know for guidance best practices. So I we could certainly take a look at that um you know once we better understand the topic. So, thanks for I don't know if there's any action for this evening. Um, but just certainly something that that had it come to my attention via phone call.

It's where the township is paying a lot of attention to the storm water issue and making sure the um catch basins are cleaned out and and all of that. As far as our main when I mentioned that that stream from in wall park that actually goes it's in a different watershed. It actually goes down into the Ohio rather than everything else goes into Pine Creek and into the Alageney River. Um with Pine Creek they've done a lot of water studies down below. I've provided you some of that. Um the fish commission used to stock Pine Creek through here. So, I don't really believe there's there's issues um with it. Although, you know, we don't have anything documented. Um that's something the fish commission may be able you so we may be able to talk to the fish commission to check on that for something. But, uh as far as the township's doing everything within its purview that it's allowed to do because that's that stream goes through a lot of private properties. Um I had a thought too of um for additional resources something like the uh master wershed program um it's through state they have the stewards in the area that might be able to provide additional resources uh beyond what we would have

stewards we may be talking about your topic so you are Mark Mars okay yes this one I spoke with yes okay good So I I had sort of uh Mr. Mr. Marc, I had um sort of uh made the EAC aware that you had had some water quality concerns um adjacent to your home and you had reached out to the sanitary authority um and they had taken some corrective action um and you had then uh presented that that was something that improved that water quality in that stream perhaps you

I don't know I have the reports I don't know the D changed their nomenclature But the stream was clearly red previously blue, but yet I still see some indication that there's still pathogens in the water. So, except this topic on your list, I Googled the major source of pathogens and water and it's show you a picture of nine deer in my backyard. Yeah, that in a few minutes. Yeah. So,

this is what I wanted to share. It had to have helped and I think it's something we should look at any other trunk lines that are next to a stream, which makes sense, right? That's where you would run them. Yeah, we were sort of talking about the purview of the EAC and you and I had had this conversation earlier. PAC is is a you know sort of advisory board um to town council. Um certainly things like uh separate sanitary sewers or the purview of the sanitary authority. Um they do water quality testing. It's their responsibility to make sure that we don't have any overflow into our storm water system. Um so those were the the things that we were discussing um prior to your arrival here.

And and even that it's interesting because I was at work when they came to my house to test and I had just been married. My wife was new. didn't know where the the uh what do you call it? The vent pipe was so they could test it and they said, "Oh, we'll come back." Been 22 years. They've never been. What's the location of the stream that you're live on Montgomery Road and it's between Montgomery and I guess it's Cole Road. You can see from the maps. I have a question.

Yep. Um the um the report that you have on the pathogens uh you're saying the MTSA provided those test results and reported them to DP or um could you clarify for me? Sure. So, in the Post Gazette yesterday, there was an article front page about water quality in the watershed in Pennsylvania in general. And that's where I got my data. And that's where I got it from before the DP's report. Yeah.

And I I have the link at home like I can email it back to you. You're I can email it to you. Um, you had mentioned that you had reached out to the storm water individuals and they came out 22 years ago. Yeah. Did you reach out in They came out just to check. They were checking everybody's Did you reach out again recently? No. Okay.

Yeah. But then I contacted them about the water quality when I saw this report from the DP and they said, "Oh yeah, you know, we'll run a robot through there." And they did. It took them a couple years, but they did run it through and then they did repairs on that line along Montgomery Road and had to help.

Thank you. So to clarify just so that I understand what's the question on the table about the site then it has it been uh restored to healthy water quality or is it still an impacted area? Hard to say from these reports. I need some expertise to decide if it helped or not and if it's something worth pursuing in other locations. Okay.

I mean, I'd be happy to uh if you could send those to me. I have somebody who used to work both at EPA and D uh and still work with the D on a weekly basis. Um, so I'd be happy to take a look at what your concerns are and see, you know, if they can be addressed in some way. Okay. So, why don't you go through Katie? Oh, go through Katie and then then Katie can Let me grab you my card. Okay. Okay. Excuse me. Okay. Hey, Mark. Yes.

Could I um take a picture of those documents? Would you guys like me?

Talks about pathogens and one talks about um fish and it's good for one and the other there's still some pathies. Okay. Thank you very much. That whole upper end up there would talk about like with the grass grass coming right down to Pine Creek, Fish Creek up in there that uh get a lot of storm runoff and and such. And when that was going to be developed, we were hoping to put a small park up in there to uh help catch some of the water and stuff like that, but um that didn't come about. Well, I tried live staking on the part of the creek, you know, in my yard and he had a drought and they died. Um, I have a lot of neighbors who cut their banks. They cut the grass right to it. So, that's not helpful,

right? They need need the viperian vegetation. Yeah. And I I think a lot of my neighbors, nothing against them, I just don't think they would care. They like it being clean to the back and right to the strain. Yeah. Let's see. Well, we'll continue to learn about this and um you know, Bernie has a lot of uh contacts and expertise. So, um let us work on this. It's something that we're growing with and and uh you know, we are interested in this topic and uh continue to grow as a committee in this topic. So, um we'll hopefully work with you on this. Great. And if you don't mind, I'll hang out for sure. Absolutely.

Absolutely. It might also be worth um for our McMail tips where we have people suggesting stuff maybe more in the summertime when there's more stuff talk about some of the care we can give for streams and things like not cutting all the way back and stuff. Again, I don't know how much it might help, but just getting the information out there might be nice. One of our article during her time and her topic of water quality. Yep. I think when we start putting out the catch basin stickers that would be a good thing to like what are these what are we doing and maybe rope in the water quality in that um do you have the list of the roads yet or

yeah we can talk about outside of this happy chat with you we need to get the list but I know how to do it now

great on that topic Okay, moving on to project updates. Um, Ken, can you please uh give us an update on the deer control program and final staff, if you have that final stat for suburban white tail hunters program this last year, they harvested a total of 68 deers in January, which amazes me is how cold that was. I'm not going to go out and sit with my bow in that kind of weather. Um, and with the the 68 deer harvested, 48 were donated to the uh share the harvest. So, that that provided over 9,000 meals for people. Um, there were no safety incidents and there were no complaints by any of the landholders. Um I have the this is the information from the the uh police department on pickups and roadkills and all of that. And so for January there were four deer accidents. Um big big daddy picked up 13 deer and again that doesn't include Mcnite in 19 um and and that's you know hunters. Okay, that's I guess three here were taken in in uh um in in our parks during the late season. So that's all I have on that. Um as far as our enhanced management, we managed to not get that approved by the game commission. So um I guess we're going to go another year where we're not doing any enhanced management. Um hopefully this next year we can uh get get uh through all of our approvals on that.

What was the reason? They didn't do the paperwork correctly. But there were other communities that sort of ran into the same roadblock, right? And wasn't I'm not saying I'm not making excuses for I'm not aware of any others having had an issue. Okay. All right. Hey Ken, what was done wrong from your perspective? What just from the email from John? Um he said they didn't have uh all the information on the sharpshooters done correctly and there was something else in in how they uh something else on how they reported it.

Okay. Um what we're trying to do with an enhanced program is to we have a hugely over abundance of deer that it's the ecological devastation of there's no regeneration of any trees. It's wiped out all of our native uh plants. Like at my house with bird feeder, I used to have to fill it every day. Now it's every three days. I hardly have any cardinals or any any of the traditional winter birds anymore because the habitat's been so altered by the deer. Um, so we were looking at doing an enhanced management where because we're a suburban community, we just archery hunt. We harvested 68 deer, but that that doesn't even put a dent in our deer population. Um, and so we were looking at uh after all the deer seasons are done and things is in selected spots in the township of putting bait out and uh designated people that have gone through certification processes and everything uh to at night go in and remove those deer and take them down for the uh share the harvest. and we were hoping to last year do 150 deer and this year do 150 deer and we're at zero. So,

thank you. But if if if this program goes through and we do it for a number of years, then we can really get into like with our parks and things of reestablishing trees and getting the native plants back in and everything. But until the deer population is under control, anything you plant, you have to have, you know, physical barriers to to for it to survive. I'm done. Okay. Anything else for Ken?

Oh. Oh, I just have a slight question because that's all in the residential areas where that hunting was supposed to be taking place. Um, is there anything residents can do like in my neighborhood where I don't know if it was the snow or the bad weather or whatever, but there's like some three-legged like sick like dying deer running around.

And that's because there's too many of them is part of it. I have a three-legged deer running around my house now that if if she had appeared when with that injury like she disappeared for like three weeks and then season was done. So, I I would have I would have gone out and shot that one with my bow. Uh my neighbors had given me permission. It's just hard to shoot the deer I see every day. Um but so it's it's the reality is is this winter being difficult as it is and the population that we have, um there's going to be deer starve to death. And it's usually the fawns that starve first because the larger deer can get up on their hind legs and get higher up into things. Um, you won't ever see them. They'll be back in the woods.

Yeah. Is there anything that residents can do to like get those harvested because it's they look like they're separate. At this point, no. Okay.

Okay. Moving on to um I'm going to call this a climate action plan. So, we have a um you know, we have a a partnership right now with Penn State University who did our communitywide greenhouse gas inventory and they are now currently working with us on a weekly basis for a local climate action plan. And Melissa, would you like to comment on that?

Sure. So, these are the students at Penn State. They have the semester where they're going to be focusing on this new deliverable for us. As you all know, they did that greenhouse gas inventory for us in the fall semester, and now they're going to take that and apply it to a climate action plan. The purpose of this document is to basically talk about Macandas and our greenhouse gas emissions within our boundaries, talk about ways that we can work to reduce them in the future and the impacts of potential climate issues for our area and how we might be able to remedy them. In addition to this main plan, they're also going to give us additional deliverables, uh, smaller bite-sized pieces that we can share with the community and that we can socialize tips and information for the town. Um, so we're really excited to be working with them. Really great students. I'll let Bernie add to it as well. She's been a great partner here.

No, you covered it. um you know they're a bunch of ambitious uh knowledgeable students who know how to do the quantifiable data in addition to the qualitative measures. So I think it'll give us some good metrics and hard data that we can use to improve on. Does anybody have any questions? I'm assuming this is something that's going to like complete at the end of their semester. Yeah, essentially. Yeah, they have um a deliverable due date of May 1st for this final plan. And then we want to get a good grade. I do believe they're going to be presenting to us as well, similar to how they did you weren't here yet, but back in December, they did a little presentation for us. They'll do similar again with this.

They would prefer to do it in front of council. So, u we'll have to see if that is practical or not because we want to give them their time to do I mean to deliver what what all the effort they put into this and the work that they've done. Uh that would be easy for this committee. Um maybe a little bit more difficult. It would be truncated for council. So I think it would be best if they presented to our group, but then we can invite town council members to sit in on Yeah. Or send them a video or something like that or or and certainly Jack would be here. So that would be that would be representative. Okay.

I mean there are opportunity there could be opportunities where we have a smaller schedule on council that they can present, but that's in the purview of Trish and John. So, I recommend talking to them soon because obviously this month's booked as you probably could tell and events will be booked for the next one for this month. So, we have to look after. Yeah, it would be again it would be probably end of April or May. I thought we had a placeholder date with them already. I have usually the can't remember that. I I've been told usually the summer months tend to be more quieter. So, okay. They're an opportunity then. students will be done by then because they're simply true. Even though they're amazing.

Yeah. Have a date. I can certainly look and talk to John and see if that's something that might be on the books or what would be appropriate. I'm sure procedure. The council will definitely be interested. Um it's something that would would we not have that video? We do. These are Yeah. So, if it's recorded, then council can see it at, you know, whenever they want to. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions on that? Okay, Bernie, uh, tree program.

Um, March is going to be one busy month. Um, the 5th, uh, you know, and again, just to make note on our own agenda for today, RT's talk on the 5th of uh, March is part of the EAC speaker series. Um, we're supposed to do anywhere from what two to four a year. So, uh, Archie's talk at Northland Library that evening, I think it starts at 6, um, you know, is the first one of the year. And uh the librarian did kind of convince to uh use the title right tree right place which comic is the theme that Dukane Light uses um because there's been a lot of conversation Dukane Light is back in our area. They have not notified as far as I know the staff of Macanless that they're in our neighborhoods just taking trees down. Um, but I hear even on my street while I'm gone, they're having a grand old time. So, uh, again, this is the kind of thing that on the March 7th event that we're hosting with all of the Alageney County tree, uh, programs, the conversation we have with all the other municipalities is the idea that, uh, there's a protocol that Dukane Light is supposed to have related to each community. They're supposed to notify the community uh of what their plan is for tree removal. Usually a township that would have an arborist would then negotiate that, walk the assessment with them. We haven't had anything like that in place. So, we're trying to get that in place. So, I covered this when we had our staff meeting in January, but again, um you know, Dukane like got here before

we could do anything and I know they're taking out large swaths of trees because I'm getting the complaints back. So, um so the fifth is Archie's talk on right tree, right place. Um the 7th is we'll be hosting Macandless EAC tree committee is hosting all the other municipal tree committees at Northland Library from 1:00 in the afternoon to 3:00 in the afternoon. um uh other um municipal tree programs like Oakmont, Penn Hills, Church Hill, Fox Chapel. Uh and if anyone knows of groups in the North Hills who for the most part, the North Hill Tree programs have not been attending these meetings, you know, please uh make sure and let me know and I'll get them an invitation. Uh, and I want to um, and then I think the biggest thing that happened, and I've been, you know, without putting my business into a public recording, I've not been well, but um, uh, our staff have picked up on the notion of doing uh, tree adoption on March 22nd to signify the um, 175th anniversary uh the founding of Macandless and I couldn't be more excited that the staff have rallied into giving away one tree per household uh for the first 175 households who sign up to get trees. So, um again, I think it's very exciting. Uh I think that uh those won't open until I believe March 3rd is when they'll become available for um reservation for adoption. Um, and I

guess there will be opportunity to uh potentially get more than one, but uh the township staff, you know, I'm very excited that this is kind of something they've opted into, uh, making kind of the centerpiece of their 175th anniversary event on March 22nd. So, March is going to be a busy month. And then we do hope to expand the tree committee between April and uh say through the summer months to actually get more tree advocates to come together on a monthly basis and you know uh start um that kind of programming and and I also think Julie uh so we had a subcommittee meeting on Monday. Audrey attended our new EAC member. She's asked to join the tree subcommittee. I couldn't be more happy. Uh she's already plugged in and we're already putting her to work. Um but Archie uh and Julie are also working on a whole series of tree tips um and videos for YouTube that we can post. Um, so we have a lot of things to start promoting and and I do think what's going to be really important over this next year is having regular meetings with township staff in order to coordinate the remarkable tree program in addition to all of the fall uh tree adoption programs and tree tender programs. So again, uh it's been a great month for trees. Um and I'm really pleased that the township staff is excited about doing the tree adoption.

So Bernie, please remind me. Um so the March 5th is at Northland Library as well. How do we sign up for that? Um, so there is a link if you go to the north route. So again, in the absence of John Varski, I don't know who is promoting for the township, but if you go to the um Northland Library website, you know, there is a promotional flyer. Audrey, do you happen to have a copy of that flyer? I don't have it on me. I did email it to Katie to try and get posted to the socials. on the town website. Um, it should be on Tom Facebook.

Um, so it is out there. Um, and I did not want to interrupt um, Bernie while you were speaking, but John and I are ironically meeting with Dukane late tomorrow afternoon at 1:00. Um, so your timing is perfect. Um, so we are meeting with them. Are they are they actively trimming now? Is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay. Okay. I was not aware of that.

Yeah. And you know, again, they're supposed to notify us, you know, as a municipality when they plan on coming to the community. They're supposed to share their plan. We're, again, to the extent of an arborist, we have the right to weigh in on, you know, how uh much they do or don't do. uh Oakmont, you know, negotiated significantly with their arborists for, you know, I mean, when when there are trees in the way, yes, we get it, but they've been very aggressive. And um so all the municipalities are pretty upset at how aggressive they've become. And uh part of this group that's been meeting on a quarterly basis with all the municipalities has been trying to figure out how to negotiate with them better. But as a municipality, we have the right to do that. So I again, so there's a woman named Meg who works at Tree Pittsburgh, but she once was the arborist for the m for the um uh for the utility and she understands the the laws and the rules and she's been the one providing us the guidance. So, if you want, I could try to get Meg to send something to you or uh because what's the agenda, Katie, tomorrow with Dukane Light?

So, they had sent us an email and just said, this is where we're trimming and we'll be here in a couple weeks. So, and John had said, you know, we need more information. We need communication from you. Um, so, and I forget the woman's name that's coming in. Um, so John had requested a meeting with her. So, she coming in to meet with us, but they would have just gone forward and done what they were going to do had we not requested a meeting with them. Um, this to say, you know, we need to know, we need information. What is planned? What is happening? How do we communicate this effectively? And I understand that they're already trimming. So,

can I uh can we send Archie from our subcommittee? Uh, he's an arborist. Can we send him to that meeting? I don't know that he has availability, but you know, we can certainly I can ask John um and we can I can certainly talk about that um with him in the morning. Um and then if you have a contact for Archie um I would be happy to reach out to him.

Yeah, I'll forward it over to you right now. He's our tree subcommittee um knowledge base and he's a mechanless resident and he's the one doing the talk on March 5th. And when I met with the staff uh Archie is supposed to be meeting with the planning director Matt on

doing an inventory of all the trees in Macandless uh and and then doing kind of a gap assessment. So yeah, we I really appreciate that John, you know, um asked for that meeting. Um that that's really meaningful to let them know that they can't just keep coming in and ripping things down without oversight. So thank you. Tell John thank you. I will. I certainly will. Yeah. Ernie, just an aside, have you ever looked at the uh planning guide that that we put together a couple years ago? Yes, I have. Okay. to to incorporate that in because that's

that's something you know for for the land owners to be aware of you know where to plant what and where not to plant what

and I think between Dukane light our planting guide I mean we have all that material when we did the tree adoption there's all kind of data and information about that and I do think that's going to be a big part of the advocacy that we do is you know uh teaching people, you know, what what tree in the right place, right? So that they don't have to fear trees in storms um and storm events. So, you know, we got to get it right. If we're going to plant 50,000 trees and recanopy Macanless, I just think it's really important we get it right um and we guide uh the residents into the right placement. So, but yeah, Ken, we'll use those tools going forward in addition to I think developing more tools and just much more information to put on the street. So, anything else? Because that's kind of what I had.

Well, yeah. So, so again, so we could go on to the Northland Library website or Michaela's website and sign up for the March 5th um right tree, right price. We could do the same thing for the March 7th which is also at Northland Library. No, no, that's a invitationon event. Um, that is okay.

Yeah. Now, anybody here on the committee who wants to attend, feel free to attend and I can get you the information, but it's meant to be the tree programs of municipalities. So, there's shade tree commissions, there's tree, you know, all kind of like crafting. Um, I don't know. There's probably two, three dozen municipalities in Alageney County who come together. And the way we're going to do it, um, Patricia Harris, the woman who kind of guided me into hosting this, um, I mean, this time she wants it to be more of like a roundrobin discussion on what the most relevant issues are. Um, as opposed to having three expert organizations do presentations. So it'll be a less formal discussion. We'll probably break in the smaller groups. Um and uh but but you know more the more ears we have as mechanists there um to hear what all the best practices and great ideas are uh you know that would be great. The Tree Canopy Alliance is coming, Connect is coming. There's a lot of Tree Pittsburgh comes. Brian Krooks uh comes with uh Penn State. there's kind of a whole core group of, you know, the tree expert community that shows up, but who's really meant to be there are, you know, the municipal staff um who were involved in tree programs or uh tree guidance groups.

Years ago, we one of our first things we did with EAC was we looked at u different communities have shade tree commissions and so on and so forth. And because McAdamless doesn't have many uh municipal streets that are treelined and such, we felt that it was most sensible to just leave most of that in private land owners uh Billywick to take care of that stuff. But educating them is a is a big part of of that. That's all I have.

Yeah, I I agree with you, Ken. I feel like uh you know in meeting with Matt the planning directors he said you know Macandas is now pretty much fully developed right not a lot of green space left so it's it has to now look at retreeing itself uh over the redevelopment of mechanless and you know if it's took 175 years to pretty much uh you know pave over everything uh you know and and develop it. You know, it's now a matter of uh what will it look like for the next 175 years and could we in fact look at uh ways that you know we can keep trees uh um kind of there. I I mean one of the things like just to tie together the climate action group um you know one of the things they talk about is we're a drive-thru community because of 19 and Mcnite and it could be a really interesting strategy to make those two streets uh heavily treelined as a way to offset all that um you know all the uh uh the greenhouse gases and the you know the the the stuff that the cars are exhausting and how we could offset it just by creating uh possible treelined avenues there instead of say not. So, so those are the kind of things that I think you know mechanist can start thinking about you know how it can mitigate uh you know some of the issues that it's going to have now that it has lots of big parking lots and lots of you know developed space

a lot we've gotten into different issues like when with Japanese notweed and and all of those kind of issues um very little of it is actually controlled by McCandless and private land owners. When you get into Mcnite and 19, you've got Pendot you're dealing with and so forth. So it's it's a very very complicated um because different people have different property rights on different areas and so it's it's very hard to have a unified program

which is why you know you do a collaboration like this you invite the state we get them involved um you know with the municipality and you know again it's it's more of a it's not we're going to do it tomorrow but you know we talk about let's do a 10-year plan on rolling this help. So, PEDOT is uh I used to be buddies with the PENDOT director who retired Tom Fox, but I'm sure the the other person who's there is just as willing to work with us. So, anyway, that that's what I have. Um and again, it's just an exciting month in March for uh trees and I do want to thank the staff for uh jumping on board with trees. Uh, rain guard is joining. Anything new there?

Um, well, since spring is coming up, I am going to have to look at having another workday coming up and listening to all of Bernie's things that she has going on. And then we have uh litter pickup. So, I'm going to have to really finally figure out like which weekend is going to be best to work out with everybody's other plans so I can get as many workers as possible. Um big things that need to happen in the spring. We're going to have to have remulching, which Archie actually gave me the idea last year of getting um wood chips from an arborist rather than having to worry about actual like mulch. Um so, uh working with that. Um there's a bunch of and all the different rain garden beds. There's a bunch of rocks that are kind of they used to be like decorative like a dry creek bread type rock arrangement that have since been really covered up by dirt and now it's just as you're trying to dig in there. It's just more and more rocks that come up. So the more of those we move and kind of redecorate, we've started that in a couple areas. That's a great job for kids. Hey, take all those rocks, take them out. We're going to put down uh some kind of weed mat and now we're going to put all the rocks back. um they loved it and I didn't have to uh get as dirty or have my back hurt as much. Um and other than that, the other thing I'm going to need to do is uh probably some re reeding. Uh working again with Ern Seeds. Um they have some really good mixes that are native plant mixes that are special especially for uh rain gardens and that kind of thing that I would like to put down at least a little bit. trying to get a denser planting than we would get if we put down plugs or anything else for plants in the area. So, um, between those three things, the mulching, the receding, um, and kind of playing around with rocks and where we might put down some kind of weed mat, which I just used, um, it's just like butcher paper last year and it actually worked out pretty well

that it was just enough to keep the weeds back in some areas um, for long enough so we didn't get as much of the growth of some of the invasives. Um, that should take maybe three hours some morning. So, I'll have to find a time that works between everybody else's thing with Easter and everything else coming up. Um, and that's the biggest thing for Ringard right now. I can't really see it under all the um, snow at the moment. So, I want to take Audrey out and have her see like where where all the different things are, but when we can see the ground would be great.

It's going to be interesting to see how well we controlled that. I'm very intrigued about that. I want to see what happens. And we'll know probably about the start of April is when it started coming up. So,

right. Next is Roadside Cleanup. Um, we actually had a meeting today with Abby, Katie, Diane, Melissa, um, Dale, myself to sort of kick this off and to go through um, a lot of the details about what it takes sort of in the onset of this um, and you know what we'll what we'll look forward to doing coming up. Um certainly some of the action items are that we picked a date and that would be April 25th again with a May 9th backup. Uh that date is now um and I think we do have a flyer so that is now advertised. Yep. Pass them around.

Um yeah, please. There's only four of them. Um but I'm happy to print more. Would you like me to print more for this? I think so. Okay. I think so. Just sort of take a look. That's going to be our signup genius. Uh, so the signup genius is set up already by Abby. Um, Melissa wants to make sure that it has a few uh items on there that would help us identify and and and keep names in better order. So, um, you know, we're moving forward with that. I believe it's on the website already. Is Signup Genius is live? Yeah. Okay. I'm not sure. I It would have to be because how would you get to the signup? That's right. So, sure.

Okay. Good. I'm not going to go through a lot of the finer points, but we will in a couple weeks uh beginning of March, we'll start to um you know, advertise this more on social media. Um you know, we we we have everybody has sort of takeaways on who's going to um you know, do this and do that. So, we will be hitting uh the the the the Mechanis Crossing sign board, sign board out in front of the Heritage Center. Um we're going to reach out to the North Alagany Trib. um the library. So um I can take one of these I believe unless somebody has a better in on the library, I could just take it and um and and ask them to post this um in Burnington for us. So So I'll do that. I'm going to go get a new book anyway. So I will take that to the library. I'll reach out to um Representative Venat and Senator um Lindseay Williams office. So again, not going through all this, but these things are starting to sort of heat up. Um I think some of the takeaways that we could talk about now is um Nadia and and and Melissa again, you know, keep me on track here. Um we need to contact and coordinate with the NA school groups uh volunteers for Interact Club, Key Club. Um and and and we're also going to reach out to Randy Thor who's a communication director and that you do you know that name?

Um no he's with communication students would each other. All right. I have a scouting contact if you need one. Oh great. Yeah today was going to be getting a list of potential scout partners too. I I have someone who has both Boy Scouts and Girl Scout contacts for all of that was an area struggling. Um we had maybe one contact, but we didn't know how to reach out to the other the other groups. I found somebody who can reach out to both last year as I was doing the ringard stuff. So they change they change every couple. Yeah. So we're trying hard puzzle pieces. So um if that's something you'd be able to share, uh we would very much appreciate that. Thank you.

That's great. and then audio. We're gonna we're gonna come back to you as we as we mature a little bit more in this. We'll come back to you and say how do we reach out and how do we get to the student body.

Okay. And I'm also going to do um reaching out to the I have reached out to the school announcement thing about doing something with them probably later on once again when I can actually like get outside film something and that'll they'll play that in the high school um which everybody has to watch in the morning. Uh that's great. And what we also heard today is that um there is there was an interest a wider interest in the EAC by um elementary students um intermediate students, high school students. So we're we're we're hearing that people are interested in this. So they might be receptive to the message and also there's going to be a town hall to be determined date uh that's coming up the council will speak to and then we can also u get in front of the student body that way and to announce to them that this is going to take place on April 25th.

Hello. So um things to look forward to but to to sort of start to wrap your mind around. Um, we also decided that, you know, what we did last year was, you know, pack the room pretty good with, you know, you know, sort of, um, you know, exhibits and things that we were trying to accomplish and and we didn't want to necessarily do that this year. I mean, Bernie, we can, you know, we can always talk about the tree program, but we wanted to make sure that we didn't overwhelm people uh, and take away their attention from, you know, the the process of getting them through and getting them to, you know, placed and so forth. So, um, we're going to cut down certainly on exhibits this year.

I am also I did just check the town of MCAL's website. I do not see on the calendar there's nothing listed for the roadside cleanup. I know on the calendars that were mailed to houses, it is listed there, but

Okay, we'll make sure to get that added. Thank you. Um, I had a an idea for the litter pickup and I don't know if this is something that's possible, but um, last year just as I was finishing my little route, I came across a very dirty area that we did not have the bags to finish. And it's one of those places where I don't know if it'd be if we could have people submit areas that are like hotspots where if we have like special teams that go out with like a bunch of bags to go clean up like a super dirty area if that would be something that we could promote or I

that would make it tricky for route purposes and for planning but that could be something if they're out and notice places they could share it to us and we can maybe implement it for not necessarily this particular cleanup, but for smaller cleanups throughout the year. That could be a fun way to hit those areas. I think that would be a good way because I know last year um it came up that I think in Wall Park there was an area and then there's an area that's what is that? It's Pine Creek right before it turns into the other road. There's like a a shrubby area there. Very dangerous there. It's very dangerous. So, you don't get to go there that often. It never elevates. It's disgusting cuz you're going back to those apartments and it's just everybody throwing things out their windows.

Yeah, it's the same thing on I want to say I want to say it's Rochester Road that goes to Ross. It ends at Ross. That's a really bad area and but we can't get to it unless we have coverage and we have a lot of people and we so we we always skip it. Every year we skip it, but some at some point we have to not skip it. Right. And it's not too bad to get to if you kind of cuz there's a guardrail there. If you go around to where the grassy area is and then you're hitting it from the grassy area up, then you can clean it out very well. It's just we didn't have enough bags.

Yep. Yep. Um we also found out that there are now officially three adopt the highways. So that program is taken off. So there are three. We'll promote that program again this year as we you know as we have all the people in the DPW. So, uh, oh, and Brad from DPW was also there today, too. So, um, you know, we are we are we are, uh, you know, already, um, built in with a beat DPW with the police coverage. Um, we're trying to reach out to the volunteer fire departments that offered to help us last year. So, uh, these things are all in and they're they're not action items at this point, but they're all sort of, uh, you know, beginning. Um we um we have to make sure that when we have students sign up and if they can't um walk to an area that they need to ride to an area and if they're going to go with an adult because they've been dropped off that anybody that takes him has a PA state clearance. Um I have one. Um Ken has one. Okay. Joanna obviously. Um, and so we just have to make sure that if anybody is uh ever asked to do that that they make sure that they have their clearances. We don't want any students getting in.

I got one as well. So, okay, good. I can help out if anyone. Good, good, good, good. That's just an important question if if you're ever asked to drive students. Um, and it takes an hour to do or something like that. It's it's ridiculously fast. Um and again on that day uh we will need to assign point people for u supply tables. We we've sort of decided that we're going to get 10 tables supply tables. Um sign in disclaimer or not disclaimers but um assignments. What are the route assignments? Well, that's that's that's a whole different thing, but yes. Um, but the um what do I

the waivers? I always forget the word waivers. The waivers. So, we we'll need assigned assignments at those. And then the big dog will be the um the assignment of routes. So, um we'll need we'll need all hands on deck for that. That'll be a big day for us. Is everyone going to be able to assist that day or is anybody unavailable? The 25th. Yeah. April. Uh should be I can take off. I think I should be I should have be there. So I'll be there. And we'll definitely bring this all up next month as well. Yeah. Bernie, were you saying something? Okay. Sorry, it looked like I was given the thumbs up for the 25th.

Oh, good. Um, so again, there's a lot more to come and I and I don't want to take up this meeting with that because um, you know, there'll there'll be we'll bring we'll bring the larger points of this meeting and then we'll just keep working out the details behind the scene. And if anybody else wants to help with details, reach out and you're more than welcome. Gail is in as well. Any other questions about the roadside cleanup? Uh, yeah. Well, just for like students who I'm reaching out to through the clubs, is there like an age requirement? Like do you only want like people 16, 17, 18 or like cuz some of those go through all the way down into the middle schools. We have uh routes that all different ages can do when they sign up. We just need to know we're going to get that added so that we can collect ages.

Okay. We do have safer zones that are like and would you want me to reach out to maybe some of the elementary school principles see if that's something they share or I don't know if you want to share it directly to elementary schools. Do you? I don't know. I I don't think you'd want to go that probably not. That that would get a little tricky. We don't have too too many of those areas reserved for scout groups. Yeah, it's a good point because a lot of that will be taken over by like um scout troops. Okay. Yeah. Which is about that same age group. Okay. So, you're looking more so for like the high school, middle school age group. Yeah, I can do it.

Yeah. Come and get your your your volunteer hours. Um and um and then there there are those that just show up every year. We we we notice those same people coming back. So yeah. And you would be able to sign volunteer letters for people, right? Yeah. Yeah. They provide we provide the town provides the letters. They do that after the fact. Yeah. I can pass that on to the

Oh, that's great. Okay. Any other questions about roadside cleanup? Okay. Community outreach. Um the regional EAC reboot update. And I will tell you that um you know I reached out to the group and um and said well we would host this and this is what I want to accomplish and here's an agenda and so forth and somebody came back to me and said um oh well we've been we we we didn't do it la Pine came back and said we didn't do it last year. We've been talking to Franklin or no Marshall and we want to host this. So on April 2nd there is going to be an EAC meeting and I'll send it out to everybody. There'll be a regional EAC meeting at Pine. Um, and it will involve Franklin Park, um, Pine, McCandless, Marshall, Ross, and I think that Hampton right now is a little bit in disarray, but I think that they're trying to get themselves together to do that. So, um, PI has never hosted a meeting. We agreed to do it on April 2nd. Um April 2nd and 6:30 and every all were invited.

You'll have to give us more information about where it is and Yeah, absolutely. I'll follow up. So that's on me. Okay. Okay. Next is the bird tone update. Oh, no. No, it isn't. Next is is the tree health event. Okay. We already talked about that with Bernie. We could skip over that. Um, the next topic is speaker series bees. Joanna, anything any thoughts on that?

Um, I have spoken to Abby about ideas about when and I kind of coordinated with Bernie because I wasn't sure when all of her speakers were. So, I'm looking at like summerish for when that's going to be. I don't have a whole date nailed down yet. Um, but we were talking about having it in the Heritage Center, which I really love the idea of being able to be there and then have people go out and look at the rain garden because if I could have it when there's things that are blooming and we can talk about things there, that could be really cool. So, that's the ideas I have, but no nail down date yet. Mhm.

Okay. Wonderful. Um, open initiatives. So, catch bas and details. And again, I didn't bring them in. There's not a new list yet for 2026. Okay. And it's certainly early and there's, you know, there's We have to request the 2025 list. I talked with Matt on all of this. The latest 2025 list is on is on the is on the site, was it? Yeah, that was the list of routes that um that the volunteers had done the basins for, not the repaved routes. Matt. Oh, well well on the Mac's website is is the is a 2025 the 2025 paving list.

Okay. Yeah. Under under departments DPW, right? That's good to know about. He said that he usually would go to it wasn't John. It was somebody else who would give him the Yeah. Yeah. So that's always going to be on there and uh that'll be updated for the for 2026. So, but I didn't want to bring those in. I can we can exchange those once once it starts getting closer to actual application. Yeah. What time what time of year did they do them last year? Was that later in the year when there's no snow? Yeah. Yeah. You see the ground for once, right?

And do we have to wait for the road salt to clear off, I assume, just so it sticks better or does that affect it? I don't know. We should watch that video again because it might give some useful tips. I can't recall it. I don't think it did. Okay then. Yeah, I'm not sure. Okay.

Well, what I'll do is next meeting I'll bring in product uh and and we can at least you can research the product. We can research a product and I'll do the same thing and and it'll tell us how to you know how to apply it and when not to apply it and so forth. So because I have that okay um Burton PA update. So, we were uh the the Monday council meeting the 9th we were presented with our Bird Town PA um back and signage and uh that was by Nick Stallman from the Autobon Society and it was in front of a uh large crowd. We had a very large crowd.

You got the word across. He got the word across. He did. And I was able to Joanna was hitting me with a with a with a taste and saying roadside clean up. Roadside clean. 100 people in the room. I was able to advertise the April 25th roadside cleanup. It's all these people and they're all there for a different reason. It's like, but have you guys heard about birds? He was very good. He he was very very good. So we got an opportunity even more. Yeah.

So, we got an opportunity to um to to uh you know be presented. It was it was a good ceremony. I think it was uh it was good for the meeting as well. It sort of lightened things up. Um and uh we got a picture taken and and also I've been talking to Natalie from the trip and there will be an article to come out regarding that certification and um and our picture will be in there and so forth. So, we are the 96 bird tongue community. Yes, sure. Um, have you do you know where where you're going to put the signs or is that something that you want to bring down?

We do this for you know we do this for you know the residents in in the municipality whatever whatever John and Katie think um for those signs the forget his name who works for the Birdtown organization said that oftentimes it will be at entrances of parks or areas like that. Okay. That's where Franklin parks are. So might be a little biased, but maybe put one of them in wallpark and definitely one in Wall Park. Yeah, park also deal with that that additional 17 acres. That's that's quite a place. Now we are allowed to purchase additional signs as well because they only gave two and I think they're $65 a piece. And so I think I think I think we have um buying to buy some additional ones.

Yeah. So if we do want one at each facility, that is definitely an option. budget. I can tell you that. I mean, it was being people were happy and clapping and more excited than I really expected anybody to be, but I mean it's good to lighten the mood.

Yep. So, it went very very well. Um, the next thing I have up here is the EAC dedicated web page. And, um, so Katie, this is something that we've been talking about. And when we talked to John about it last um last meeting um he told us that to to to have an add-on to our EAC web page that currently exists doesn't cost anything additional. Um and it would give us a lot more real estate to promote the things that we are working on. Certainly the tree program, our progress of bird tone, um sustainability, you know, there's a lot that can go on there and and we really like to have you explore for us, um the, you know, the ability to do that, make sure that it, you know, it's approved that we can do that. Then we can start to think about design of that, what we would add, and and you know, it's not an easy thing to do, but we we want to keep it inching toward um, you know, better recognition of what we're doing for the community.

Sure. I'm happy to do that. Anybody have any thoughts on that? Just in general, it'd be a nice place especially to like add some resources too because we were talking about like we have information for how to plant trees and all the stuff that we've gathered having a place to direct people. Yeah, there's so much go on there and there are a lot of really great examples. um like Franklin Parks and Pines, their website do a lot better job showcasing than what ours currently has. So really great starting point just to reference.

Yeah. And and and Pines is more dedicated toward their bird tone um you know uh position, but I I mean we just have so much to say. we have so much going on that you know we could be a third a third a third and we can you know we can wrap it around sustainability and and uh you know it's it's as if you know I I think it can be um I I I I think it can be as inclusive as we need it to be. Uh there's a lot to go on there but we just have to figure out how to do it. We have to wrap our arms around it.

Okay. Are you looking for, you know, maybe a subgroup to try and work through that with maybe a sketch of a site map and, you know, just what the content might look like? That's that's a great idea. I mean, I know that everybody is somebody needs to be in charge of that. Yeah. I would say also it might be useful to have some type of brainstorm session where we can collect everybody's ideas and go from there. What were you using? I was going to say we have a few new members who might want to help facilitate our crew doing that, right?

I mean, I could take a look at some of the stuff that we need and what we're looking at. And I'll send you pines. Okay. Um, and certainly theirs is on their website, but I'll but I'll send you what what what I have. And this is where the idea came from. So something you can maybe think about and again we can have a you know two or three person subgroup and um you know nobody nobody wants to make this their career but we can uh I think so too. We're hiring a new a community engagement individual that will responsible for communication for the whole of the town the town excuse me. Um, so if you can direct on content,

um, or this is what we want it to say, even like in a word document, we can make it pretty for you, right? We can do graphics, we can do those types of things, um, which certainly would be something that would encompass this individual's responsibilities. But as far as like this nails it or this is what we want to say or this is how we want to convey it, we would look to to this council to do that. So, um, but yes, if it's something where you're saying like, hey, this is really great. this is can we post about this or can we have something even it's it's an estate article or it's something that has come from another organization that would like to direct to we can do those types of things. So like we can do the the pretty part for you. Okay. And that's a position that hasn't been hired yet. We're interviewing next week. So

um we're hopeful to bring them on shortly. At this point it probably wouldn't be till the end of March. Yeah. Um but that is something that we will be hiring an individual to manage these things um for the whole of the town. Um, so again, if it's something where you can come up with content that's meaningful, um, we can make sure it gets up there for you. Okay, good. And I and I think that the, you know, the initial build of this, you know, will be where the work is, but then after that, I'm not sure that we're, you know, it's not it's not like it's going to be constantly evolving and changing. It's just, you know, we're just again, you know, updating. Go ahead, B.

No, I hear you. But I also think you know it there should always be a section that's you know what we have upcoming you know activities events. Absolutely. So that would be the rotating part and then to your point you know the other infrastructure but Audrey's going to figure that out for us.

Thank you. Yeah. Right, moving along with that one. Um, Department of Conservation grant ideas. I haven't I haven't got any updates from John or Abby yet. Um, I can reach out to him again if you want me to. And what was the request just so I understand? Um, so we received we were invited to do another grant through the um Department of Conservation. Okay. And that is something we're going to work on pursuing. Okay. A while ago, so I have to

Sure. Yeah. I just want to make sure if it's something that I can follow up for you. Okay. Um if you want want to look through, but um essentially it's like a park development type or trails. Okay. But Okay. So this was C2P2. Okay. I can forward this email to you if you would like. Thank you. Oh, you're Would you like me to forward the email? Yeah. Okay. Just kidding. No, thank you.

Oh, it's quiet. Naomi, when you you want you might want to check in Penn State egg extension on uh watershed management. Okay. Stream stewards and you might very well find somebody there that would be willing to come out and help you do water testing. What extent for Penn State? Penn State egg extension eggure. I figured Mr. James Stewarts wershed management. Thank you. Okay. You may well get somebody that'll come out and help you do that. Thank you.

Okay. Next is um invasive species replacement or invasive replacement program. I have your front.

Yeah. So the state has a program called invasive replaceive and so it is um you can I'm not entirely sure you have to apply for it but you have the potential to have um you can show that you have removed one or more invasives. So it's like a picture requirement that you've removed them and uh the state will have a select uh trees and shrubs that you will get for free. I'm assuming it's not a ton and I don't know how many they do. You have to go and physically pick them up. They have not released a date or a site. Um, I found out about this in the subreddit for Pittsburgh, so I'm assuming that there's one vaguely close to the city. Um, and what's interesting is you seem to be able to do it for public spaces as long as you have permission from the land owners because they specifically call out you can do it for like libraries or schools. So, if you are identifying land with invasives, they will give you essentially a replacement um if you've shown you've already removed one.

When you're saying invasives, are we talking about they have a list? Uh they have like notw weed and you know tree of heaven. There's a whole list of stuff that they say that they will recognize and it's a huge list. Um and so I don't know much about it. They don't have the information for 2026 posted yet. I keep checking. Um but it seems like something we could provide information to community members as well as if we know of any invasives like on the library, you know, grounds or something. Maybe it's something we could actually look at doing. So again, it's for public places and not houses as well. Okay,

so private individuals, you just have to be a land owner and be willing to actually go through the process. So this is something we could actually tell somebody that if you want to remove this on their own house, they could provide a tree or a shrub. I would suggest incorporating that in Bernie's programs. Mhm. Yeah, that sounds that sounds like that goes hand in hand with a in a in a McMail tip with the tree tips. It's probably best to wait till the website's updated with the site locations for where the events will be held for 2020.

I mean, oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, yeah, there's a thought on that, but um Okay. Now, does that does it make any sense? I mean, I you know, if you're going to wait for the deer to go away, I guess you're never going to do it, right? So, so you remove an invasive. We know that we've done that. We know that people have done that. We know that you've done that um on your own property. But if you if you replace it with, you know, a native species, does it just get just does it just get eaten basically?

Potentially. I mean, you would need to be doing things like putting up protective netting or whatever the case may be to try and prevent um animals and deer from eating it. And so, I mean, this is essentially just an enticement for people to take that step, especially because they require the photographic proof of removing it first. So, you're getting people to go out and look at what are the invasive species, what do I have, take them out,

show evidence of it, and have a free shrub. Does mean the shrub's going to survive or whatever. And I don't know what plants people get, if they have a good place to plant it, if it's a shade plant. I mean, I've don't know. But I it's a good opportunity, I think, for people to, you know, get out and look at what's in their yard. Okay, great. So, why don't why don't we table that one then until until it's updated. Sure. That's great. Um, next up is March Mail Tip. Where are we traditionally are now?

Historically, it's been topics like recycling and donation, garden at lawn tips, tree pruning, and deer. a lot of garden and lawn tiffs because I guess it's spring. Yeah, that's where we've traditionally been. Um, but does anybody have a strong interest in any topics for March? I feel like it's a little bit like yes, you start your seeds, but it's a little bit early for a lot of the gardening lawn tips because it's mostly mud. Um, daffodils and rock. as yet to still a little bit too early for that. But I mean, in March, we will be.

I have a wild idea. I mean, you could talk about simple things like putting down cardboard and stuff under mulch to try and as like a natural weed suppressant. And basic things, you can also do a different topical, right? I have a a wild thing. What is your idea? Come just came to me because of all the mud and everything. Um, but the effects of dog poop on water runoff that ties to the water.

Yeah. Now we're talking about water, but like that's a big deal. Especially when you have, as a person with dogs, you have the poop lasagna with all the snow and as it melts and all the water runs out your yard. So you have all of the everything that is in the dog poop, it's then running off in the water into our water supply. And so there's enticements to pick it up and different ways to pick it up and keep it so it doesn't cause issues with water, but I don't know if that's that one's a little bit wild. Yeah,

Bernie, you know, we we know that you're going to get half of it and and that's that's we're so happy about that now. any any thoughts about something that could accompany accompany you?

Well, it's a tree planting guide and selection is actually the topic. Um, I sent them all to you in a um, you know, in my uh, PowerPoint before, you know, that I didn't share uh, today, but you know, the list of all the ones we're planning on are in our schedule. And tree planting guide and selection is probably a good one. um you know because of the tree adoption as well. Uh but in terms of what goes with that next month is mulch on the tree side. Um uh so you know I I don't know what goes well with it. Um I always think um I guess it's too early to worry about air quality. Uh but I you know and I don't know when the bird migration

actually that's that's not a bad one. That's a good one. But I think I I don't know what month the birds start migrating back. March. I I have had blue birds at my house first week of March. Yes. Okay. Okay. So I see me now taking this one. Um how many how many words do I get, Bernie? 150. Well, I'm taking we take about 150. So it you we usually get between three and 400 total. So Okay, good. Yeah, I'll I'll work with you and I'll do 150 on and I'll pull right from bird tone

VA and Autobond Society. Uh because it will be bird migration days as Okay, that there we go. Yeah. And that's a great adjunct. We should always give thought to, you know, what's happening with the birds and and Joanna, the bees, right? Yeah. You know, uh, you know, should we be concerned about bees in March? Yeah. Um, towards the end of March and into April is when you'll start getting the mason bees coming out. Yeah.

Um, and those are very specialist native bees to our area that are um more effective than honey bees. So, um, that's something we could look at in a future thing is how to pollinators, how Yeah. pollinators. But even if we're just looking at mason bees, like how to provide um a healthy habitat for to support them. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Um, we'll work with that. Now, let me ask you this. We we seem to we seem to have got away from this and and we used to credit people that when when we did it um when somebody did the tip and maybe we got away from that because we were doing the tree tips and we just you know do does anybody have a need that we should be crediting people that give tips?

I was the one who said that John don't put my name on it. So if that stopped, it was because I said to him, you know, don't put my name on that. Um because uh but if you think, you know, uh the other one should have it on, I'm fine with that. I mean, Archie's been the one doing the tree tips now, so we could give him credit for doing the uh tree tips. I mean, he is

I don't mind once being anonymous. I I would like Archie to get credited. Um, and the student EAC members would be nice to get credit like like Jenna did one and and her name wasn't on it and I that's whatever it it it came to me that I'm like oh she wasn't named on this one. So I don't want naughty to do one on water quality and and not get not get credited. So I mean I think for us I'm not sure that we were really worried about it but I think that that people that should be recogniz you know will be recognized. Yeah I think you're right about that. that wasn't, you know, an oversight to not keep up that practice. So, we'll do that. Um, sorry about that.

Right away, right away. Um, uh, 175th. Um, I'm not sure I sent Oh, I don't the the the minutes are not from the last one, so I will send that. Um I did send a round to every member of the 175th the remarkable tree program um and got some some great feedback on it. Oh this is wonderful. Um so we are uh you know we are still front and center on that. Um air quality monitor update. The reason I have that is because Katie uh we have purchased um an air quality an indoor air quality monitor but we don't think it has been um you know it has been put any place yet or Bernie right. Yep. No,

we purchased an outdoor one and it is operational. Um or that uh mainly because it showed up one day on my if you go to purple air.com and you look at macan list it's now there. Um, so if somebody go online and take a look, uh, you know, it's on the, uh, it public right there. Outdoor 35. All right. Outdoor and functional.

That's again, um, anybody have any general updates? Um this is the one on Pine Road. Huh. Anybody have any general updates to um uh organizations that they liazison with and you know any anybody hearing anything uh of importance that they want to bring to the group for this month. Just the friends of North Rangers in North Park are going to be doing a history of the park and thing at the uh Rose Barn on the 19th if anybody's interested. Oh, that's great. This the n this month the 19th. Yeah. Well, do you have the time? I don't off hand.

Okay. I'm assuming it's on their website. It should should be on the county website. Yeah. Should be 7 o'clock is generally but yeah last time

I was going to say Ken I apologize. I wasn't feeling well, but I wanted to go to, you know, you're right to guide us all into the Friends of North Park meetings, and I think for as many people as can attend, we should. Um, but again, I'm sorry I didn't make that last meeting. We don't do that that uh Princess North Park used to be very active and and we had a uh gentleman that caused the whole uh bylaws from the county to be redone and everything like that and it really hasn't gotten back up to uh speed doing a lot of presentations and things at this point.

Anybody else? Okay, next one is SharePoint access and I see that Melissa because I just wanted to make sure that everybody on the committee has access to that. Um, and what else did you send? Um, the volunteer database link for Bernie's request as well. Yeah, great. Yeah, I'm just asking that we put it on the agenda each time so we could kind of take a look at it, see what the volunteer list is growing. You know, are we wanting to talk about it each month?

Yeah. Well, I want to be able to um you know, have a conversation with our volunteers and I know the ones who signed up on roadside cleanup, I'm talking about the ones who signed up on the tree things. And so Audrey and I have talked about, you know, having regular communication with them in addition to uh having in-person gettogethers. And you know, Abby had talked about us meeting at the Heritage Center as a possible use. Um but that's part of what I have to follow up with. uh whether or not that's going to be, you know, the best possible location for us this summer, you know, or should we do an outdoor location as an example at one of the parks. So anyway, but we need to know that and Audrey is going to help me with that. Thank you.

On that note, um when you do go into that document, um Joanna had set it up in Google. Oh yes, I need to we have four add some new people to that.

We have some four different tabs in there. Um the first one is specifically for volunteer groups. The next one was specifically for rain garden volunteers and the tree program. The last tab is the community event signups. When you're in that table, there are different tabs for if people marked interest in certain categories like if they're interested only in roadside cleanups or only trees, only rain garden speaker series and so on. So, if you are looking for volunteers for your trees, for example, make sure you go there and then you can filter by the people who said yes to trees um because they'd also love to learn about those opportunities. I will add a caveat there for the people who signed up in 2024. We did not ask that question. So, just send it

in. We only started getting more details from them in more recent years. Okay. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Again, I also do not know if the Winterfest 2025 is on here yet, so that's on me. I have to add that. I need to purchase as well. So, yay. Put that on the to-do list. Okay. Having discussed that, I mean, I had mass or calendar here, but I'd like to table that till next week. Next meeting. That's okay. That's uh not a conversation we need to have right now. So, um, and really quick, Bernie, you do want the volunteers on here each month. You said

we could just have the link accessible on an ongoing basis. That would be great. I think like if we just put the link to the SharePoint like on here, not necessarily. I just emailed it to all of you. You guys can bookmark it. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good. So, we're not going to add that then to the release. Okay. Great, great, great. Um, Jack, update from Tom Council.

Um, the big thing is that me and Nick Detti are making an attempt to try to salvage the deer application. Um, no guarantees. Um, it's just back channeling, seeing what we can do. Um Nick reached out to state representative Anita Kulik who is the chair in the state house of the game and fisheries committee to see if she can put some pressure on the game commission to do to fasttrack or get this resolved. No guarantees. This is just an attempt. We're just trying to save it. Um, we have I haven't heard any We did this last Well, Nick's been the one leading this, but we have and Nick's been telling me to let you guys know, but we haven't gotten any updates yet.

So, um, I'll let you I'll keep you guys posted. Nick's going to call you either tomorrow or Friday. Um, Anita will ask if there's any updates. And before I forget, Nick says that the you guys are awesome. You didn't say that. I have the text right here. That's why I was checking my phone. Jack, if you would please email me because I'm not sure of your email address and I'll forward you John's letter. Uh, I did I did get it. Okay.

Um, yeah, I did get it from John. Um but yeah, I'll keep you guys posted. Um if I hear anything, I will let you guys know. Okay. But it's it's a coin flip as Nick posted, right? And and you know there again, we'll put you on the agenda for next month so we can remember to you know ask again should you not hear anything and you can just update us that you know you've heard something you haven't heard something in case in case other things happen between now and then. Okay. Um, anything else, Jack?

Uh, that's about it other than the reception to Birdtown M Council was pretty good. Um, audience was very when I um after all the discussion of that item, the audience seemed very interested in the air quality sensor. Really? Mhm. Oh, that's great. They seem very interested in it.

Okay, good. I think the next thing that we have to promote is the gold standard or gold certification for sustainability. So, you know, we're trying to, you know, sort of ease these things out and so they don't get lost, the importance of them doesn't get lost. And so, that'll be the next thing that we try to promote and we'll go through um John on that as well on how he wants to do that. Okay. and suggestion there is to every realer I've talked to is totally unaware of it and have never had a client ask about it. So that's something you need to promote with the realators too. Okay.

And and that could be with with um uh Trish because she is a realer. Okay. Grab my mind. Yeah. Anything else, Jack? I think that's it. Okay. Topics for next meeting will be uh April McMail tip. Start to think about that a little bit. Um a uh recap on the um right tree, right place and um you know your your your March 7th meeting, Bernie? Um other topics for next meeting?

The tree adoption. We'll be dying to hear how that went. That's right. And and I, you know, think that anybody who would want to support the staff by offering a volunteer on that day, um, you know, we should make that offer if you have availability on the 22nd. There's always a lot to do. Um, we're going to get almost double the number of trees, so there's a lot of pre-work to do. Um, so anyway, I'm just going to throw that out there if anyone has availability that day. Um, we should rearranged my schedule. So, didn't did you say the event is March 22nd? Yes.

That won't Yeah, we have a meeting on March 11th, so that won't be one of the topics for recap purpose yet, but April. Yes. And Bernie, send us out reminders about those things. Otherwise, some of us aren't real good about having those in our heads. Well, well, this is where I hope to be able to get more will copy everybody on the committee on it. So, yeah, Audrey's promised to help me with that. So, I'm really leaning on her. Can you tell? I mean, don't ever say you want to help me, right?

Um, okay. So, so we'll remove, so next month, Ken, we're going to remove gear program from project updates. We'll table that until we get started again in the fall and um it'll be a little bit bigger block for roadside cleanup and because things will start to happen at the beginning of March for that and um other topics will um develop as we go along. Okay.

Anything else? I I do just want to say like on the note of every year when it comes up in the summer I feel like it's too late to raise it about indoor air quality but you know to the extent that um you know we keep having the Canadian wildfires or the western wildfires um you know trying to do some speaker topic if not this year next uh uh there is a group called Rous R O C I S that's here in Pittsburgh. Um and we should have them do a presentation in McCandless about uh indoor air quality. Um it's such a big topic during um these events. I talk about it all the time, you know. So it's not just the um those events, but you know, we've talked about radon um and the importance of, you know, better indoor air quality. uh we did that in the tips, but I just feel like uh this issue is getting to be bigger over time uh with the wildfire events being what they are. So anyway, I I I just want to throw it out there.

We'll put it on the on the agenda for next time. Yeah. And I, you know, and again, I don't know if anybody new to the committee cares about that topic, but you know, I would love for somebody to kind of adopt the notion of air quality, both indoor and outdoor air quality, you know, as something that we can bring education to uh our community, too.

And you make a good point. Um, a lot of these it it sounds overwhelming that we're asking somebody or or we're potentially going to volunteer to take something on. A lot of it's just education. A lot because we keep we're not going out there with with picks and shovels on everything. You know, it's not always boots on the ground. It's just it's just saying, "Hey, I've got an idea to bring a McMill tip that will educate somebody on water quality, air quality, um, you know, all kind of different things." So it could just be that and it could be um you know just your research and your your ability to put that together. So we shouldn't be two in one.

I I know and I'm sorry I keep mentioning I just feel like it's not getting stickiness anywhere else and I would love for it to do that but um but you know make sure that we carry it uh forward for people that's all. Okay. Anything else? Okay. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. Okay. All in favor. All right.

Yeah.