Environmental Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

I'd call to order the June 10th, 2026 EAC monthly meeting. We all received copies of the agenda and the minutes, and everybody had a chance to look over those. Any edits, changes to the minutes? Okay, can I have a motion to approve the minutes?

I motion to approve. I'll second.

All in favor? Very good. comments. There are none. So we welcome Doug Arlo to us. And we welcome Carmen.

Thank you.

And we'll very quickly, because we do have a full agenda, is go around the room, introduce ourselves. I just figured maybe we'd talk about some of the projects that we sort of focus on individually, and then how long we've been here. So I'm Jeff Petro, and I've been here since 2023, and I came... would be sort of the task of getting us recertified for world standard sustainability. So with that, you know, I took that on in 2023 and 2024, and we've achieved that goal. And I've always been involved in the roadside cleanups. And I would say lately my project has been probably more focused on the bird tone certification and acceptance. So that's probably where I focus a lot of energy lately.

Okay. I'm Ken Holshouse, one of the original members of the EAC, so I'll be coming up on 10 years. I've always been in charge of trying to put trails in our parks and with deer management We haven't gotten much done on either of them. But those are the two areas of my focus. I help with everybody with the litter pickup and all of that. My original background is for science from Penn State and American Chestnut Foundation and that type.

I'm Audrey Williams. I'm the newest member. Started in January this year. And so I have been helping Bernie with the tree program and somewhat with the rain gardens, but I haven't been helping so much because somebody doesn't text me and tell me to go over there. So we have some rain gardens to help kind of deal with some drainage and natural plants. And then Bernie has the ambitious plan to plant 50,000 trees in the next 10 years. So I'm helping out with that.

I'm Liz. I am with the town. So I'm the community engagement manager. I've been here for almost three months-ish. And I am excited to be part of this meeting. I know the EAC has a lot of exciting activities and things that you guys want to get done. I think I can help from a communication standpoint with our website and our email and our social media. So I'm here to answer questions and listen to what you guys have going on.

hey Carmen I'm Katie stringent I'm the assistant town manager we've been communicating previously I've been here for about four months so I'm the staff liaison to the EAC so you'll get the agenda for me and you'll be hearing from me monthly and then in between as well too great so I've been working on primarily the tree program and I was asked to join

I'm Jenna. I'm a junior member. I go to Alderdice High School, but I live in McCandless. I'm in 11th grade, and my focus has been for the past, like, I guess I've been here six months on, like, park connectivity and sidewalks and things like that.

I'm Nadia Yesko. I'm the other junior member. I go to North Allegheny. I'm a senior. I'm here for another couple months before I move up to D.C., and I've been working on the storm drain decals and some of the water quality in the area.

I'm Joanna Cameron. I've been on the EAC since fall of 2024. And when I first came on, the first thing I took on was some of the rain garden. But a lot of my passion also comes with native plants and pollinators. So branching off into that a little bit, a lot of communication and then also things involving scouts and anything involving children. So like making crafts and education for children and talking to kids. That's where I really specialize.

Melissa Winston, the vice chair. I sort of work on a lot of little things. I don't really have a set Melissa only project, but I have been assisting those recently with the climate action plan. I also built a bit with the roadside cleanup and a lot of the various events that we have, like attending Unity Day and Winter Fest and stuff like that.

A lot going on.

To that note, I gave you an ongoing project for 2026. So to take notes on everything everybody has said, it'll maybe make more sense for me to look back.

My name is Carmen Ruby, and we moved to Pittsburgh about two and a half years ago. I followed my daughter and her husband and my grandchildren up from Maryland. I served in the Montgomery County, Maryland government for 35 years, ending my career as the procurement manager for the Department of Environmental Protection. So in that capacity, we were involved in most of the things that you have said in this table. So we've had exposure that way, and it sounds like something I'd really like to get involved with.

That's great. And you've mentioned things, real great work, recycling, the trash, grants, rain gardens, watershed, tree canopy. These are things that you mentioned in the interview. And these are all things that we all touch points on.

We did this procurement team. We did LIDAR to measure tree canopy. We did everything from events to to stormwater finding contractors for stormwater management. It was funding deer, planting trees, grants, and all that. So it was a wonderful job. And I was proud to have served in that capacity for that office. Very good, dedicated people that we were very proud of.

That's great. Well, we welcome you.

Thank you.

That is great. Now we do want to do your EHC number update. Jenna?

So I've been very busy the past couple of months with ending my junior year, but I know me and Katie mostly have been talking about figuring out grants. Grants are a hard thing to figure out and getting them and finding them, everything like that. So I'm still looking for where I can be helpful in the grant department of things, but that's where I'm at.

And I have been, me and Katie just finalized the dates that I'm going to start getting out doing the decals. I'm hoping to knock off as many as I can just because it's great being a senior because I don't have any mandatory extracurricular. The first time in probably like 10 years. No, I'm going to knock out as many as I can, try and get all of them, but we'll see. Also, now that it's warmer out, I'm going to see North Park Lake. I'm going to try and research some methodology to... Do some surveys, tests. I don't know. I need to look into that more, but something I'm hopeful. Just got a new kayak, actually. Oh, sorry. Go have fun, do some testing. Yeah.

Wonderful. Any questions for Jenna or Nadia? Moving on to project updates. First one on the list is going to be, you know, It's going to be a larger subject. I'm going to turn it over to Melissa, but it's a climate action plan. I know that everybody was either in attendance for the presentation. I know everybody received copies of it. Also, the preparation action plan was also on there. And then also Audrey did some, you know, did some works for some cross comparison between that and the, the sustainability certification. So, you know, there's been some thoughts on that. I know this is for the information, but as a group, we need to, you know, sort of see how we want to not just have this, you know, out there. We want to actually see if we can use it and see how we can better develop it within this committee. So I'll turn it over to Melissa.

Like Jeff said, I hope that you all had a chance to review it. I'm not sure, Carmen, if you did. But I did. Perfectly fine. You'll have the opportunity later. As a reminder, the CAP digits list sort of some of our historic information as well as suggestions that we can use as a town to work toward different goals. As a committee, our overall purpose will be to use this tool as well as some of the other reports that we have to just form strategy on how we can work toward platinum with sustainable PA and also to progress our bird town programs. So what Audrey had done to start comparing them is a really great starting point. Throughout the summer, I'd like for us to be able to come up with a nice little strategy, looking specifically at the items can land. And then we'll be able to take that and share that with the town for recommendations for initiatives and everything. But for today's discussion, I'd love to just go around and hear everybody's thoughts on what they took away from the CAF and if they have any specific questions for things that they're wanting to learn more about or any concerns around it. So I'm not sure if we want to just open it up or go around whatever everybody prefers.

I can go. Yeah. I didn't get much of a chance to look, but I wanted to just mention I have been talking to Katie and I know that there are communication related initiatives for these rubrics. So I just wanted to say that I'm happy to help and anything I can do. Birdtown, I think that and the gold standard, I think that we haven't promoted or talked about enough. We got them. They're amazing. But I think we can really use it to our advantage, make it more clear on our website and use it on our social. So I'm here to help with those rubrics and I'll coordinate with you guys and Katie to see where those are. And also specifically as well, making sure whatever I'm doing, because there are some things I do. communication-wise that you guys might not see that do talk about the environment or EAC, Birdtown, et cetera. So I'm working to keep track of everything that I'm doing. So that way, if you came to me and said, send me a list of everything that we've talked about for Birdtown, and then I'd be able to share that and that would help us hopefully. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Absolutely.

Yeah, I had kind of a connected thought. I know on the list that Audrey sent out, one of the things that we needed to improve with was communication around our stormwater water management. I would love to communicate with you, Liz, because I had to do some research for the storm drains and all. Also, just because I was doing some research on the plane because I had a Tripp, I was somewhere and I had just time on the plane. We signed on, like, as a township to, like, an MS4 stormwater management plan. And there are certain, like, things that we're supposed to be doing that we're not really doing. Yep. We are doing them, but it's not public.

Yeah, not public. I just want to clarify. And I would like to make more of those...

understood public facing easier yeah because i think the last time it was updated public it was like 2015 yes so that and it's also just came to my office last week to talk to me about the ms4 initiatives as well so i'm burning on that i think it sounds good those are great observations thank you nadia

So I didn't notice like one of the things is that they are doing very large scale, like things that would be great. And some of it is just not going to be actionable. So making denser things, we're not going to be tearing down stuff, but they do stuff. And then I think there's stuff that we have all been advocating for forever, like bike lanes, sidewalks. Yeah. So I think it's going to be much more difficult to kind of take what they're doing and narrowing it down to actual things. I agree with that completely.

And that was something that Bernie, Jeff, and I had shared with them as they were preparing that. But it is simply that list of different high-level ideas.

The one idea that they have in there that I think it's worthwhile for us to pursue is the energy consumption in individual houses. That's what I was going to say. I mean, my last girl from Penn Power, you know, they said, I'm really alone, you know, wanted usage for the size house I have. That's all the further it went. But like with heating and, you know, windows and all of those types of things, I think a lot of our housing was built in the 60s and 70s. And so it's probably, probably have never had an energy audit, so to speak. And And it goes towards all of our goals.

Yeah. And Audrey had pointed out that there are the energy audits, which is true. When we first moved in, that was something. One of the first things we did, we contacted our energy supplier and had them come out to do the audit. And it was very, very helpful.

I noticed buried on our website, we have links to get those, but it's in the history of Mailchips. And I'm like, oh, wow. So like one of the websites, well, I can talk about websites. But we'll have some information is not easily accepted. I think we could do better.

That's great. Back off of that energy consumption. I found it interesting. I know we had bounced around like ideas of solar panels and like how we work as a township to like incentivize slash like subsidize slash whatever we can do to get people to install more solar panels on their houses or to like install more solar panels, maybe on municipal buildings, things like that. So I forget particularly what it was. I have it in my notes. about like the program that they said we had in place before. Solar. Yeah. So I thought that that was interesting because I think that that works with a lot of things that we're talking about if we're doing like energy audits and things like that. I know personally, I know quite a few people who I think would be definitely not opposed to and then quite a few people would be interested in pursuing like solar energy because everyone wants things to be cheaper anyways. So I think that that could be something interesting to pursue, whether it's just like

spreading it on social media or on LinkedIn or whatever in a newsletter or whether it's like really going deep into that program and going back into like subsidizing people getting solar panels would be interesting yeah I think we do need to balance that though because I don't I'm assuming y'all also have the issue of like every 10 seconds somebody's knocking on my door trying to like yes every solar right and then like I can't find any information out about the solar panels probably the weird person that knows like, okay, we maximize at like 28% efficiency, what efficiency and they can't tell me.

We've looked into it and there's a lot of companies out there that are a little sketchy. There's a lot of companies out there where you're not sure exactly what you're getting, who's doing it. And so, yeah,

So I think providing really good information.

Yeah, I think somewhere that we as a township can work to just make that clear.

Is that possible that the township would have respectable names or something would come through as a recommended distributor?

We can't make recommendations to individuals as far as companies to use or folks to go with. But somebody said it. We could see if, does the state have any?

I was going to say, if the county or various organizations do, we can definitely highlight.

Sure, in that way, yeah, but we certainly can't say, like, go with, you know, the solar panels. Thank you.

There are some out there that people are, that are in the form of... And talk with your realtor before you do that, because... number of realtors have expressed that it actually degrades the value of your house and make sure you have a new roof before you do it and all of that. There's a lot more to it than just to sold and what's going to be going on there.

I mean, some basic tips like that.

Talk to your insurance company because a lot of times you have to increase. It's part of the puzzle. The puzzle of the local climate action plan has many, many different practices. What you do is you say, well, we want to focus on solar. We think solar is attainable. Now we want to have one or two committee members say, okay, let's run with this a little bit. Like we did a couple of years ago when we had somebody come in and speak through solar and we were able to put something on. So it's just, it's one of the many, many things. Yeah.

And I think I'll offer to someone, the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority Board, which is part of the EP, and we had applied for this referral program. It was pulled back, but I think we prevailed. It was like a hundred million, but There are already current programs in place at the state that can pay for assessments and and have providers to do that they could be funded assessments for solar so. For municipal buildings, as well as residential programs, if you qualify, so I do think when we take a look at it to be wants to work with me on it. yeah.

And you're right, BEP has all this done as far as what programs are and, you know, providers.

In the case of some of the funding, there is an approved contractor list of who's been vetted through the finance agencies for this. So I do think that data is out there. Why don't we, you know, circle some wagons and figure it out.

And that Get Solar website does have information specific for municipalities. So that's a good starting point.

And even if I, even if like we, can't like advertise certain companies or things like that. I think it'd be helpful to like, everyone brought up different things, like talk to your insurance company, talk to your realtor. Like those are things that we can put on a list on a website and say, these are, if you want to... If you want to put solar power on your house, then here's a checklist of things you should do. You should make sure your roof is updated. You should talk to your realtor about this and say this, this, and this. You should ask them, and this is what all of these numbers mean. Things like that. Like a roadmap. Yeah, like a hub for it so that you don't have to go in the deep dive of the internet to find all that information. Yeah.

And part of me wonders if it would be better, yes, to have that on the website, but also have something that's generally out there social media-wise, having tips out there about things, trying to put it into smaller pieces and put it out there so people engage with it differently, capture their attention, because a lot of people aren't going to go on the website looking for that as often. But if you see it on social media, it's just popping up. It's like, oh, that's interesting. You might go down the rabbit hole a little bit more and a little bit more. So it's a good way to pull people in that way.

and joanna i'm going to use your b from the bees for the mail as an example but um something that i'm trying to do is anything that we put out that environmentally but also the other committees and other things we talk about is to add those credible sources behind it so that way the town and the residents know that this is backed by these resources whether it's the state or um at the county level. And I think if you guys can provide that to me, that that will really help me be able to put this out on socials and in all of our communication channels.

I think, you know, what I want to raise, we talked about residential assessments, and I know, Audrey, thanks for putting some notes into their recommendations. And you'd put Energy Star Portfolio Manager for commercial business associations. But one thing I could suggest, I know that the stationary engineers for institutions, and we have a good number of them here. So, you know, the hospitals that are some of the commercial real estate that are owned by large real estate companies that have stationary operating engineers, they actually are to do Energy Star through the local 95. And they've been doing that for a long time. But I think it'd be interesting to start with kind of the institutions and reach out to institutions and their stationary engineers and see if they're getting their Energy Star guidelines. And that could be a way, even if we just started, because commercial retail, let's say, which is a big part of our footprint as well. I think that's more challenging if it's not being professionally managed by a commercial operation.

we could always roll out some sort of incentive program for the local.

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking because like a lot of like the sustainability things seems to be able to like track and actually document that you're making the changes. And so I think like part of the STAR program is, you know, you can actually enter in like monthly year usage or whatever and actually track it over time. And I do think starting where it's easy and people just plug in numbers that they're already collecting, but then maybe incentivize other people to do certain things.

The town can recognize different organizations as they join and start participating in this. We can include their name as sponsors of clean air maintenance or some slogan or something.

So if I could step back just a minute. So Katie, you know, it was given to you and John. um and you know what is the takeaway um from that standpoint like what what is the what's the uh you know the support behind it or what's the thought behind it so and that was sort of what i was talking about when i had emailed you jeff um what we were hoping to do is be more specific about some of these recommendations from this plan because to audrey's point

it's sort of like higher level. So like, we'd like to take some of these more actionable items to council to be able to say, you know, we would really, whatever this ends up looking like, but things that they can say, you know, that's a no brainer, right? Like, not like, oh, we should put bike lanes everywhere, right? Like that's, that's a harder, you know, thing to sort of, I think Bill Caputo doesn't have anything. Yeah, yeah. But if more of that, like those were sort of like higher level things, let's drill down on the minutia. And that's what I'm sort of was hopeful for today and, you know, in the future to have more of those discussions to say, because to send the report to council, you know, very busy, lots of things coming from different angles, which certainly we will. But for us to be more specific about, you know, two, three things that we can say, you know, six months, a year, two years, those types of things.

I'd also say the plan by itself means absolutely nothing to that particular audience. It really doesn't. So it does require us to go in and clean it up and present something more consolidated and concise and actionable for them with the top priorities first and then ideas longer term.

I mean, it might be a good idea to try and have, like, if we want to achieve platinum, In six years, have a six-year plan. How are we going to get there?

And it will cost as much.

Right.

Yeah.

Any other? Well, is there a process for us to get there then? I mean, it's not always going to be done here in this meeting, correct? Or are we going to workshop this to get there?

Audrey's been doing some offline. I was planning to dive into this more this summer. Things have been absolutely crazy for the spring, but I was going to go and do the exercise of looking at the rubrics, pulling in different initiatives, talking to all of us, sort of developing how I think my panelists should look at a metric strategy and a goal and measurement strategy. It's not something... We as the committee will not be the ones doing this, so I really welcome down, Katie, to you, John, the town staff actually taking ownership of a lot of this. So we will need full buy-in and support if Platinum is that old and the town is working toward, but it definitely requires partnership and we have the ability to advise on how we can get there.

And I think even to step back from that, you know, explaining the priority of platinum, right? Like, why is that? Why is that important? Why does it make sense to put dollars behind that, right? There's only so many tax dollars in a budget. So why does that something that we put tax dollars behind? Why is that important in your... Again, just to make that sort of as digestible as we can. I think that's really important.

Yeah, so to make an interesting point, because if there is too high of a cost or too high of a hurdle, so that there are certain parts of it that said, well, we're never going to build an HR department that achieves this, that is required for platinum. then let us know that right because we want to we want to do the work of the local climate action plan we want to do the work of the sustainability certification we don't want to do work that isn't that isn't ultimately something we can you know that isn't going to benefit everybody or maybe it benefits everybody but um it costs too much yeah something like that so we'll need direction sure absolutely and in the platinum i i won't when i look at the platinum the requirements i mean they are they're platinum for a reason right that's the highest standard especially um

Or social ones. Yes, yes. So doing that and doing that appropriately and making sure that we have the staff internally to do that and do it justice, not just do it in name, right? So those are the types of things I would encourage you to think about.

Well, and I wonder if we could, so like, I work in compliance. And so one of the things is we're having 9,000 new jobs dumped on us. And so we're writing up a proposal of we can be 60% compliant if we have this many employees, but we can be 98% compliant if we have this many employees. And here are the drawbacks from not being compliant. And so maybe something like that. Here is gold standard. Here is platinum standard. This is what we think gold will cost. This is what platinum costs. These are the benefits from this. you know, this is the benefit from that. Maybe, like, just kind of, like, I'm talking myself into writing this already.

Because, you know, if you're compliant, right, I'm process of planning and strategy, and I feel like

Who has to participate isn't, you know, anybody in a room. It should be the staff who, by the way, I mean, you guys are all came from somewhere else. You all have backgrounds and these issues when having done this. I mean, I think that's been the value of the new staff is, you know, you, this isn't new to you, nothing being discussed. It's the first time you've heard it. So I think that's a new situation for the community. But I also think the staff, they have their ideas and they already have the things they wanted to do. And so instead of us going like, well, we want to do these and they're going to do those. I mean, is there a way to kind of just, what's it look like when it's more, you know, unified as a strategy instead of you do that, we'll do this, we'll recommend this for you to do. I mean, you should be doing the input. What do you think are the things that you were already underway doing. Because that's what I learned. Meeting with you all is, you're doing a lot. Yeah.

And I feel like they're doing a heavy lifting now. We don't have to. and how you can align it with these systems because you are doing a lot of incredible work.

But I think that our committee is shifting from now having a staff that's very actively involved and engaged in doing these things. I almost feel like the dynamic has to start looking different. You know, we didn't have Katie before, right? We have Katie, we didn't have Liz. So now you guys, I mean, just you two alone, like what you're bringing and then there's Matt. You know, she's got this staff that's been there, done that, knows how to do it. And it's a very different thing than, you know, before we were bringing really progressive novel concepts to a staff that was unfamiliar with them. So I really think there's got to be a little bit of a different approach now with this whole new staff.

That's a great point. That is the end goal to have sustainability embedded in the culture of the town where it's just part of sort of everything that you're all doing in the day-to-day for the community.

And that's in the language of the LCAP is that it says there are a lot of things going on in the canvas with EAC, but none of them are cohesive. We don't know what you're doing. You don't know what we're doing. And that's actually what was written up. And that's what we're discussing right here. So what's the process to do this? Right. So, so we'll have to, we'll have to figure out how we want to do this in an efficient way, because it looks like, you know, we don't, we don't, we want people to be communicating correctly. We don't want everybody to be sort of doing a little bit, you know, unless, unless they're asked, but I mean, you've been successful in your subcommittee subcommittee tree. You know, are we building a structure in this committee that is more subcommittee? You know, this group is working on this, this group is working on that. And with that, we're getting volunteers from the community to be part of that subcommittee and they'll help us do this and do not. I'm not sure if this is one of those, it's not to that point, but that's something that we probably have to ask ourselves as a group, if that's the way we're going, because we're getting bigger. we're getting bigger. We need more cohesiveness in volunteers.

Yeah, and I think the staff, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the staff larger than it's ever been?

Maybe. And I think certainly, you know, your point's very well taken. It's just, you know, how we have the conversation with management and how we have the conversation with town council. And, you know, you all do this day in and day out, right? You live, eat and sleep and breathe this and we're wearing, you know, a million different hats. So how, again, how do we align those things? How do we achieve those things? And all of the other things, right? And a lot of those things may align, right?

But if we do it right, it's the things you're doing while you do it, right? It's the how you're doing it, not the what.

Yeah.

It's like, we're still going to do the same thing. We're just going to do them a different way or consider it in a different way. I went to that CMU input listening session today with Connect. But that was a big part of what they wanted to hear was, how does the township respond to the term green infrastructure? And I know I've mentioned that term before, but in some ways, that's different. The green infrastructure is different from sustainability. But I do think the notion of, I don't necessarily know the attitude of the town staff, council, you know, we don't talk about those things. And maybe you do, but we're bifurcated where I don't know what you're saying, you don't know what we're saying. So, I mean, it became really clear to me that there's just this missing link. But I think it's because you all are back here You're doing things already that are in this direction. We don't know how much you've shifted and changed, but we are thrilled that you are doing it and you're here. So I do think some of it is, you know, maybe you inform us and we inform you, but that's why I'm asking for a process that maybe daylights all of this before we start saying, well, here's a gap. and here's a plan, and then here's what we do, because we don't know. Is there a gap? Maybe there's not.

That's why showcasing sort of just the overall big picture of what the different silos of types of projects and initiatives are, and then the goal of Reducing costs, providing that resiliency for the community and all the other benefits of a lot of these initiatives is so important. But like you were saying, there's already a lot of projects that are happening, but there's just possibly pieces from some of these initiatives that can be rolled into everything else that you may or may not know about.

Yes, I was going to just mention, I think communication weaves itself a lot into this conversation. But one thing I hear you guys mention a lot is like management and then town council, how will they understand these? And I think if you guys could help me understand why residents should care, that that would help bring that loop back around. Because if the residents care, then the council member, they'll hear that. And when it's brought to them, it won't be as green. It'll be something that is, they've heard multiple times.

And it's also important to touch on.

the it's not the cost savings and things are more reliable like those are the big things that that person will care about maintaining our green spaces for people to be able to play and enjoy a healthy outside environment and i think that's what pieces that are correct absolutely and that's what goes out because i'm town resident facing primarily so when i get out there i want to inform those residents and get them excited and committed and hopefully that and we're brings more volunteers to the committee and that all together, the breadth and the size will impact management.

And there's always an opportunity to do surveys of the town because we haven't, since I've been on the committee, we haven't done something like that to see what are the truly important pieces to the town because that does matter too. We want to be working in areas giving what they're wanting to see.

You're just doing surveys in McKendon all the time.

Yeah. I mean, I think that would be useful to find out what's important But what we all know is it is easy things, right? Everybody's feeling the burn of the energy costs right now, no matter what, and that's likely to continue to go up. So I think we're in a safe spot to say, how do we save people money? But I also think part of climate and climate change is resiliency. What do you do? And I think that's for the benefit of the town. Like I recently heard the town has got to generate.

We know it works.

But those resiliency things for what's, you know, the storm events that we're having, you know, I think like to me, those are the things we want the municipality to be standing no matter what happens, because that's how, you know, the municipality can support the residents in times of crisis. So, you know, I would love to investigate, well, what are the other things you need and how do we focus on those things? Because they're important that, you know, because to me, that's a sustainability initiative is to make sure that, you know, the municipality is resilient and ready for any kind of event that may occur. So I don't know, but I think those for me tend to fall out of the priorities. Residents and municipality and then the commercial sector, how can we support them to get better at their energy?

My vote is for a subcommittee. But, you know, we come up with just a very bare bones draft and then start communicating town. Like, what do you think of these broad ideas? And, like, do we have buy-in from this? What are you doing? And, like, kind of going back and forth and then come back to this committee. Then we could, like, get a report going, then go to actual town council.

And I think, too, to Bernie's point, like, when you're spending time with the plan, like, to have that, like come back with that conversation sooner rather than later so that you're not down this hole. And like Jeff was saying, like, you're not down this hole. Yeah. That's why I think like you're going to do this in a broad outline.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I think that's just, it's important to, you know, and I appreciate that structure and I think that's, that's right. So just as the newbie.

Yes. I have a lot more research to do, but is staff driven by what this committee does? advises or is there another is that what we're saying that there's that other other forces there are other other concerns that are are driving the staff.

We take what we recommend goes to Council and if Council approves it then it then it goes into the administration.

And once it goes into the administration there's a budget set forth. or there's a consideration of costs or is that?

Consideration of costs. This benefits the residents in this way. This benefits our grant writing in this way, which the goal clearly did. Maybe Platinum does more. I don't know. But if these are the benefits to the budget, these are the benefits to the residents, and this is the benefit to the whole community environmentally.

and so yeah ultimately it would go to you know i think it would go to staff to see if there is you know the you know the want to yeah that's really why i'm here and why i'm sitting in this room because i'm having those conversations with management at the same time that we're having them with tom at town council so this is all really intermingled and intertwined and that's sort of like why we're you know, talking about these things and having these conversations because John and I, the town manager, you know, we're in those conversations with town council, but I'm also in these conversations with the EAC and I'm also in these conversations with the parks and recreation director and the department, the community development director. So these things are sort of all happening at the same time. But to Ken's point, yes, this is an advisory committee to town council.

And then I'm assuming if we wanted $50,000 for something, we would actually need council approval for large quantities of funds.

Right.

When we were doing the briefing, what I had wanted to do was go present at council, you know, what the plan would be to kind of gain that approval. But again, we haven't kind of moved into that direction because we were waiting for, you know, our third manager to show up in our third step. So, I mean, it's been like three years in the making, but I feel like it's finally gaining ground now because there is a staff there that is listening and managing and capable. But all that turnover, I think, you know, also didn't help the committee for a while.

So to go back to climate action plan and next steps, it sounds a little based off what Biddy was recommending as well. I was one of the little subcommittees to clean this up and come back here again and then come up with something to share to Town Castle will be the way to go. Who would like to participate in that? I'm happy to help. I'm already halfway there.

I'd love to help out with any of the survey design, like data crunching. I'm totally down for that. I love that. I love my stats.

I'd be super interested in collaborating with Nani on that and also doing, like, kind of figuring out how we want to bring the justification to the council, justification to residents. I think that's particularly important. I think that there's like, there's like two realms of what we have to do with this. And one is like convincing people that we have to do things and the other is what we're going to do. I'm definitely interested, especially in like making sure that People are convinced. I'm a convincing people type of person, you know?

I was going to say, that just reminded me, a woman I knit with mentioned you.

She saw you at a town council meeting. She's like, she was so well-spoken. What do you mean she's only in high school? Same. For you, with that many individuals involved, is that a problem since...

you just can't have a quorum so because they're junior members they're non-voting members so right now you only have one voting melissa are you also on the computer i would be assisting yeah there would be three of us if you would like to join us yeah so you yes you just can't have more than four are we allowed to have four though in case bernie wanted to you guys

I mean, if we need to. Okay, you good?

Yeah, does anybody have anything else on that topic for now? Our action will follow up at the end of this.

Great. Great. Thank you. Next up is the tree program. Bernie, any update there?

I'll agree. So Bernie abandoned us in our last subcommittee meeting. So we are kind of in a lull right now because we're in summer. So we are waiting up for things. However, one of the big things we need to do is start planning for next year. And so we are looking to set up a meeting with town staff to talk about Yeah, yeah, no, no, I've seen emails like, you know, so Archie was reiterating, he's going to have a meeting on the dates we sent, whether y'all come or not. Okay. But that was, again, it was Wednesday, like the last Wednesday and Thursday of the month, I think, or the second to last, like the 23rd through the 25th or something. Okay.

So- just so you're aware that we had reached out john and i had reached back out to bernie specifically just for some history on this okay because we as bernie just alluded to we've been through different managers um and different staff on this committee so john and i just wanted to sort of like back up a little bit understand like what the global you know you know and it sounds like you've Because you said, like, there was a process for requesting money, but, you know, that never went anywhere. So it was like, can you just give us a little bit of, and not that we don't want to meet with the committee. Yeah. And I don't know that you all need to be there for, like, give me the 101 tree program.

Yeah.

You know, just a step way, way back. So when I met with the staff in January, I think it was a week before you started or started around there. Okay. That was, I mean, it was five or six, you know, staff members. Mm-hmm. And we should have waited until you got here. And we didn't. So for me, that was kind of seeking input and approval January through June for six months. What are we going to do? Here's the plan. Here's the outline. And the rest of the staff did. So it was great. And so what I was asking for is the June through balance of the year and things we're thinking about for next year. So that was my original request for the meeting. But But I'm trying to meet with you guys separately. Yeah.

Yeah. And not that we wouldn't meet with the committee. It's just like, we would like some of that background just so we know like, where did the, you know, where did it come from? Where are you going? And then to say like, okay, now we know because I'm glad that staff was there, but there was no management in that meeting. So just to sort of have that, like, I'll be there too.

And I'll respond. want to join, you know, so we'll set that up.

And I know, like, some of the stuff that, like, Archie specifically, or, like, the tree subcommittee in general was wanting is things like, this year we had the 175th tree, like, giveaway, but next year that's not a thing. Are we still planning on having two tree giveaways, or are we only going to one? And so, like, just basic planning stuff that we would need town buy-in from, but, so, like, just how we plan stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So not like drill down hardcore, but we need to like broad plans. Like, sure. What are y'all wanting to help us with? And what can we do?

And I think that's still moving for us, too, because with our 175 programming, like we have a 5K on the 4th of July. Like, are we going to do a 5K every year or are we only doing a 5K for this year? So I think we're still talking about those things, too. But yes, your point is very well taken. And yes, we will meet.

So then as far as follow-up actions, there will be the tree history meeting with the town of Bernie and then the tree committee town meeting. Correct.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

No. So then I was trying to see like what else is on here. Archie had come up with some potential people for a speaker series. And why do I keep losing that email? And it was a whole list of people. And I lost my mind because one of them is a herpetologist. And I was very excited about that. um but so i can forward that to the group but he has a whole list of people um so somebody that's with bird lab um a herpetology expert a regional mammal expert and educator the herpetology expert could bring animals since the library was willing to do that right that's where i am yeah so i think he is a really great resource of people he knows that who would set up a more regular speaker series with the library okay kind of with us and so i have names of those people And I don't know if we want to ask him to ask or if we just want to ask them directly. He also wasn't sure, like, is there a budget for this? Like, can we give the speakers $200 for speaking or whatever the case may be?

Yeah, this is where, sorry for not having this. But I think, you know, that whole question of who is running point on the EAC speaker series.

Yeah, that's a thing. And we do have to.

And that was her. And since she's been gone, it's been kind of an orphan. So, you know, we just are trying to, you know, find people. I was doing them for the tree program, but searching those people in all kinds of different fields that are still in the general realm. But, you know, that could be something that somebody who doesn't have anything to do. and historically how often were those happening i'm sorry like with the speaker series like historically how often is this before a year for a year it was supposed to be one a quarter okay and they were the eac speaker series and then it was always promoted through the library and i you know i think the history of it was um They promoted it, and I think they were out either at the library or here. But again, this is Judy's gig, and I think you and I kind of did a couple in the annual year.

So in community outreach, which we'll get to, we have still some thoughts and open thoughts on speakers, and we've had speakers, and so... We don't want to get out of our seats and say, let's have eight. So we still need to manage that number and manage people's interest. I think we should do the animal guy.

Whoever's bringing animals, I will be there.

Well, the snake one has got me because I remember Katie the snake. When I was a kid, it was a 30-foot long reticulate python. And I'm like, it was my favorite thing as a kid.

Katie's spirit animal. I just want to mention... I wanted to mention speaker series wise, Abby's done a really great job at the HCC. And one thing she's done that I think would be amazing to adopt for next year is if you guys could strive to get those four booked for the whole year. One thing that Abby's had a lot of success with is creating like a roster for the year. So that way when you sign up for the quarter one, you see the rest. So I can help with like the design of that, but that could be a good goal.

orphan program so somebody want to i don't audrey a lot more no no this is how you get your first meeting they're like so i should really well i mean if she's somebody about it yeah yeah we can give you the back

Yes, there are a lot of these things I can say, oh, I want to do that, I want to do that, I want to do that.

And I would suggest picking something you're actually interested in, not just everything, because... Why did we try to throw on you?

Okay.

Is there a certain area you are very drawn to?

The only other thing is that the subcommittee has been working on videos. They have no experience editing social media videos.

I know somebody reached out to you, Julie did. And so they would love help editing stuff into a cohesive and just like communicating like with them and maybe, and then we could put those up on the website or social media or however.

They were supposed to suggest to treat to. in the monthly newsletter and then click the link and there's a video.

Yeah, I received that. I reviewed it briefly. I'm just coordinating with Katie on how that fits into the timeline.

Maybe it doesn't, but you know, that's where we were before you existed. Yeah. Okay. I'm doing a reorg.

Yes. Nice. Let's talk rain garden. So for Carmen and then Liz and Katie, if you don't know some of this information, I can throw a little bit in there too about where a rain garden is. So in 2010, the first rain gardens were put in along the parking lot that's back there by the Heritage Center and the soccer fields. There are four of them all in a row. And then in 2017, when they put in the Heritage Center, they put in a large number five rain garden that's next to it. They were originally put in through grants and help with a couple different programs, including the, what was it? I have part of it here. Western PA Audubon Society was one of them. And they prevent a lot of the water that goes onto the parking lot there from running into the creek and causing flash flooding when rain events, kind of like the one we had earlier today. So that being said, what has happened is then it becomes a battle because you are then fighting invasive species. and you need upkeep of different things and working with public works and trying to figure out because it should not be just one person for shovel but sometimes with the upkeep part of the is you're fighting timing because okay I want to hold say I want to hold an event in the spring well you're fighting then weather the trash the litter pickup date the uh easter celebration date actual easter date um and then trying to find a time around there where it's like oh i could get together another group of volunteers that you know have kind of specialist knowledge on this is what poison ivy looks like and going out and like taking care of weeds or something like that and then additionally having things later on through the year as we're looking at like, oh, what's popping up now? What do we need to take care of now? So that's kind of the overview of where the rain gardens are and what the challenges have been with it. So from that, having checked it out recently, there's some good news and some bad news. The good news is there's some really pretty flowers that are blooming out there. And when I was out there recently, the beer tongue was so pretty that I was taking some pictures. And then this is when... I had the great idea of emailing Liz and being like, hey, can we just do something? And like, cause I thought it was just so cool that Beartongue is such a cool flower at this time of the year and it really draws in a lot of bumblebees. So I really wanted to highlight that, but I was like, there's some other really cool flowers that are blooming right now. Cause I have a lot of native flowers in my own yard too. Maybe I can highlight those and like what's blooming. And then Liz came up with an idea of like field notes. And this I think will be a strategy for when we get to miscellaneous flowers. The bad news is, but how I want to do it, this is where I want to actually coordinate with you guys on communication and all of that. There are two plants of poison hemlock that are currently in the rain guard. It's common. I am looking out the window right now and I see a whole row right there. I'm sure that that's there everywhere. You go down Wildwood Road, they're everywhere. I'm not surprised that it's there. The question is, Taking care of it. Okay. I can go out there, you know, any morning I can take care of it. But also, since it's on-town property and since it's kind of an educational space, should I document it? Should I make it into some kind of content? And then I'm thinking ahead, like, how can I document it then for Public Works to also let them know, like, hey, this is what it looks like. This is how you should take care of it. Here's why you need to be careful with it, because it's something that if you get the sap on you, it's kind of like poison ivy, and you can break out in a rash. So... That's kind of where my thought was with like before I go out and just like impulsively get my overalls on and go take care of it. Let me back up a little bit and see if there's any suggestion from the peanut gallery about what would you like me to do to document that have my sources there and like, hey, this is why I took care of it in this manner.

So say I do use glyphosate or something on it, which I might.

I want to make sure it's documented why I did that, because that was something that I ran into when I was dealing with the Japanese knotweed, which there's still some in there. Some people push back, but that's the only way you can really take care of Japanese knotweed. The other way you can look at article after article after article, it doesn't take, actually like kill it if you just cut and cut and cut and cut, and nobody has the time to go out there once a week and cut it. So... I just kind of want some feedback on what would you like to do?

Do you really need to document any of it? Just do it.

That's well, that's why I almost did. I almost did that, but that I, I paused and I was like, could I turn it into something and make it educational? I do love a story.

I think it is Katie. I'll let you answer first and then I'll jump in. You were on a roll. Okay. One example I saw you guys went out, I believe it was last year, and there's a photo of, I know it was Jeff and Joanna, someone else I think in the photo. Ken. Ken, okay, got it. And the caption was, our EAC is out getting rid of Japanese knotweed. And I think in the document side of things where we could take that a step further is same photo, same caption, but we add on to it and we say, how do I identify Japanese? We pull in some of those sources. Why does it matter? And when I put those field notes up, I actually got two messages from people that were like, I have the purple one in my yard. People are starting to get engaged and interested. So anytime there can be a story told, I think it's definitely worthwhile. I would probably recommend don't spend a ton of time on that. One thing I like to do is if you're going to go down there and do that, let me know when, and then I can hop over and ask you some questions on camera, turn that into a video. And then what we can do is tie that back to the resources. So you could just say, We're out here today. We're getting rid of this Japanese knotweed. Come along. And then I'll get some B-roll of you guys doing stuff. And then what I would use the caption as that real estate to say, do you have this in your yard? Have you ever seen this around town? Here's how we, our EAC, approached it by the HCC and kind of using the caption to get those resources out there. So I love it. I think it's something definitely to document. Just I think there's ways we can do it in a streamlined fashion so we can get more stories out there in a faster capacity from your side as well as mine. There's a lot of things to put out on social, but the more... faster that we could do it together. And I'm really good at getting those quick snippets and turning it around, giving those up. So I think that's a great idea.

Okay. I think from my perspective too, for me, it's probably part of a larger discussion about how we're handling invasives in the park and how we're handling invasives in the rain garden. I don't know what the current strategy is in the public works department. And for those of you that may not know, Brad Iannuzzi's last day with the town is Friday. Brad has taken the assistant manager position with the borough of Aetna, where he lives. um and he also used to serve on their council so he has resigned from council and will not be their assistant manager all this to say we'll be having new leadership um over in the public works department um so that's something um you know globally we could talk about the management of evasives and the benefits of you know native plants and those types of things um but your point is very well taken about you know it's over there i could just go do it right in the darkness

Um, exactly. And that I almost said, that's what happens.

But I think too, we can talk about in those spaces, what we're doing, because I know there was like a vestal that like the entire hillside was full of invasive. Yes. And I think Abby was working with the public works department for some time to get that addressed. So we are having those conversations. It's just, again, public works is everywhere and all things and doing all things. So to manage those things, but yes, to me, that's part of a larger conversation.

Part of the limiting factor to this is that the other works can only do on a canless property like so when you have not weed that is in the right of way, but it's also into somebody's property. It doesn't matter if we effectively take care of it. on our part of it, it's just going to come right back because the landowner didn't do anything. Right.

And that's where the education comes in. It's like, how can I educate the public more to help take care of some of these spaces that I don't have any power over? But if I... teach a man to fit.

Yeah, and I also wonder if we could even do targeted, like, if we identify this is a place we want to do and these five properties, you know, have something, maybe we send those five people letters and explain. We've identified this and, you know.

I think it might also be helpful to take those videos, compile them somewhere on the website, and make, like, a section of the website that's like, how do I deal with these invasive plants? Just have them all in one space so you don't have to be, like, scrolling Instagram.

Some of them already exist through the...

other places too yeah i think there's just like we could do some good linking to resources yeah just make it very yeah together definitely that is so vast and yes have dealt with this and have that on their website as well right okay okay cool all right uh moving on community outreach um

So here's, we're going to talk about the speaker. We'll just sort of, Ernie, you were talking about the indoor air quality.

Yeah, it's still live, but trying to get these two groups to talk to each other, it's just been like a, it's like a comedy. So I've talked to Linda separately and she, you know, the person who broke it, who wouldn't be the speaker, the woman who is the speaker, the one who I can't seem to get, now done with the library, what they, and I think it's because it's a three-part series, and that's kind of why it's been more challenging.

Sorry, it's not in the display. I'll turn it off. Sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you.

To date, we've had, I'm trying to think, we've had two speakers.

Yeah, we had two. I think we need to touch some more. Don't press a button, but just touch it.

Sorry. Sorry, I apologize. Yeah.

I mean, the, the goal behind the Ropis, you know, they do a whole cohort that a long period of time, you know, you're committing, I think it's two days a week and it's three hours each session. So they have a lot of information that we feel about indoor air quality. So we talked about just putting it into It's like digesting it into three sessions. The third one would have been a building of the MERV unit with a band so that people could make their own band. So you may not have even needed to attend workshop one and two. Each one would be separate, kind of different topics. So I think because it's a three-part series is why it's been more challenging to get those speaker library updates. There is no, originally it was going to be August. Now I think that's probably too close. We'll probably move it in either the fall or maybe we throw it in.

And that's fine. We can keep that in the community outreach because, you know, move it over to Joanna. You know, we were talking about different, you know, native landscape or whatever, and then this Lynn Purse comes along.

Yes, and then I want to talk about that too.

Well, I mean, would that be your, are you still, do you want to propose a speaker?

I have a speaker that's like ready to go. He was going to do June, and then I actually pushed it out because it was like, we didn't have enough time to properly advertise it. So I tell him, let's push it out. So I need to figure out, like, he's pretty much ready to go. We just need to find a date, right? And from now, when can we do it? So he is John from Larkspur Design. And he's at the permaculture design at Garfield Community Farm. He specializes in native and edible landscape designs. And he has a whole cool website. He also is one of the master gardeners who works at the other... the other garden that's in the city that's more edible based, kind of like the one by our cannon. There's a separate one. So he's the person who runs that. And his speech he's ready to give is called looking for his last name.

All right.

He called it the productive ecological garden. And I can send this along to everybody. A short snippet for sharing, can a native garden also produce food? Can a food garden provide habitat for beneficial insects and pollinators? Can I grow food under the canopy of native trees? These are the sorts of questions that we'll get into with John Creasy, there it is. John will share from his experience of 20 years of market gardening and a food forest here in Pittsburgh. So that's the one I have ready to go for whenever we want to start advertising can find a date that we can set. I think Heritage Center would be great because you have the native plants right there from the rain garden. Then let me get into Lynn first then briefly. When I put out there the information from going down to the rain garden and seeing all the beer tongue, this amazing person reached out to the town through Katie, then through me, and then she and I had been talking. And then to, yeah, okay. She is incredible. She lives here in McCandless and she is an educator on native plants. She is involved in the Master Gardeners and she also has a home here in McCandless that they do on national tours to take a tour of this amazing yard garden thing that she has going on. Who is this? Her name is Lynn Purse. I would love for her to be a speaker. I don't have anything going on, like no date or anything, but I think whatever we would like to do next as far as any Native thing, I think she would be amazing based on what I've seen so far. Oh, she has her own website. Oh yes. She does social media. She, she makes her own YouTube thing. Like she's incredible. That being said, if anybody is interested, I can't go, but her yard is on a tour this Saturday. Yeah. I could put somebody from here on the guest list if anybody is available.

It's like a better fit for this community. And, you know, she lives here and she's able, right?

She does live here. I think she is a good fit. I haven't met her other than in emails and texts, but...

I think they're both interesting. We've never clarified if we're actually allowed to have subcommittees. Bernie just kind of formed a tree one, but if there is a native plant subcommittee, if those are allowed, I don't know how this works, but she seems like a person or volunteer or whatever.

I have a couple other native plant friends.

A lot of people want to get salt and do things. I think that Is there a brain? Yeah.

Wait, do you know her actually? We're the house. No. She offers tours.

She does offer tours, and she said she might give an EAC tour. Right now, you know.

Do you know the neighborhood she lives in? She lives in our neighborhood. Yeah.

Do you want to sort of go with these, you know, run with these?

I can run with these two and start getting some things scheduled, and I can go with both. I can go with one over, yeah. I feel bad because John's kind of been like getting ready to have a presentation because he was the first person that I was able to actually get booked. I had a bee person who I originally wanted and the bee person ghosted me. So this one was another like, okay, native plant. That's a good route and I like it. I like that Lynn is McCandless and I think that's a, she might be better at the library and have one at the heritage center. Like that might be a way that we could look at it.

I just wanted to mention, I think the topics are very timely in terms of the summer, people gardening. So I do know July and August are pretty, other than the 5K, we don't have a ton going on, other than up at the Heritage Center, their speaker series. So I don't know if you maybe wanted to... aim for later in July or something in August before community day comes, because that's going to be a really big, it's going to take over a lot of our communications, but July and August are pretty open. And I feel like that could be a good open space for us to promote this.

I was going to suggest August. Okay. So Joanna, you're going to move.

I'm going to move it to August. Yes. I'll move John to August and then we'll look at maybe, maybe even next spring or something. We could look at Lynn.

Yeah. And I think if you restructure your speaker outlook and how many you want to have a year with what you want to do, I think that helps guide us too. I agree.

Cool. Very good.

Well, yeah.

Okay, so next up, it's not on the agenda, but Garden in the Park is on July 25th. We traditionally do that. We set it up and, you know, set up a tent and get some- I'm sorry, what was the name, Jeff? It's called Garden in the Park. It's at the four-way Ingramar Back Clock at the Walnut, at the Cannon. And it's usually, it's really using just a, you know, talk to Ken Dahl's house kind of thing because everybody was talking about deer.

Exactly.

Yes. It's in the morning. It's like 9 or 12 or 9 or whatever.

And they have Penn State cream or ice cream, too. Yes. If you would email me about this.

I remember this now. I don't see any reason. Are you in town for that? Okay. Does anybody have any objections to us participating like we have the past two or four years? Okay. And it's not, it's not, Ken and I will go stand down there. I mean, whoever wants to come by and look at the park, it's, you know, we can talk about that, but let's just move forward and say yes to the garden and park people that we'll put up with.

put it together and they have that garden of different plant you know flowers that they have all around there and that's some of that is varieties that are trying to see how well they do in this area and things like that that's cool Like a test.

And there's different groups here.

There's a mycology group, you know, fungus and stuff. There's different groups that represent themselves there so that people can come and walk through and see the flowers and talk to other groups that they're interested in.

Dillon Winiecki, ECA- Okay, moving on to open initiatives, one is a bird town update, so I did attend the regional bird town clutch on on May 14 was there as well. Dillon Winiecki, ECA- That was at pine and we you know learn more about bluebirds in different things, but one of the. One of the tangibles that came out of that is that we were awarded a $1,000 grant from the Pittsburgh Foundation. And they gave us some options to use that $1,000. And we would use it at the Autobahn or at Beachwood Farms. And we did send it off to Katie, John, and John would like to. His first choice was a Swift House, which is right at $1,000, shockingly. So, you know, there is a way to use that and we can discuss that. We have up until the end of next June to use that. So we can, you know, we can talk about that. I'm just going to give an update, but we can talk about that a little bit more next meeting.

Just as a real quick with that, with the Audubon and all that, they also have a lot of native plants that you can purchase from them there.

So I know they have like a big sale. Do they have them continually throughout like summer? Not positively. Okay.

Yeah. They have, they have four different locations and one would be formed by us. Right. I also attended a June one virtual meeting with Birdtown or Bird City USA. And in that we are, you know, we are officially in that community. I have created a McCandless webpage that, we need to put some content on that webpage. And the first thing would be to upload a logo, Liz. You got it. If I could talk to you about that. Absolutely. We can add users to this. I want to make Bertone more of a conversation next time because I think I don't want to just fly through it, but just letting people know that it is out there. It's active. We're not behind on anything. It's not so... overwhelming that, I mean, we'll become bronze easily. The objectives to meet and become bronze, which we should do every year, have already mostly been met by what we're doing. We just need to submit those. For example, you need to sign up five new homes to the backyard habitat. We have 42. Wow. So we have enough for both. Oh, yeah. No, it doesn't say anything. He's like, you could use them. You're already there. We're already good. Yeah. So, I mean, not that we won't do that. We have flyers and we'll promote that at Gardner Park. And we'll continue to do that because we don't want to just rest on our laurels and just say we're done. So we'll do that. But the objective is to move up in certification in bird time. is are largely already out there by what we're doing uh we just have to prove that we're doing it so i'd like to expand that a little bit you know as we talk about subcommittees um and and i certainly want to be you know you know a leader in that subcommittee and it's not a lot to do but i think it's interesting work it's sort of you know from my standpoint it's probably the easiest one out there and it's you know it's it's also high profile it fits with what joanne's doing with the native plants yeah yeah the bird town certification backyard

Do we need to be taking random pictures of birds in our backyard and sending them to you?

Absolutely. Feel free. I like to use the stories for stuff like that.

I think the takeaway of this is that, Liz, I'd like to get you more involved. Absolutely. You know, we'll have this conversation in a more meaningful way the next meeting, and we'll talk about how we want to sort of set that up. But, you know, we're not behind the eight ball. We're attending things. We're on time with setting up our user site. We are required to do some communication. It's a complex. We are. Yeah. Well, we're required to have a committee and then we should have a meeting and we should also. And what I would say is that we have to make sure that's the right convention in a way, because, you know, I think it's public information officer. So Liz might actually be on that committee, doesn't even know it. So we have to make sure. Any volunteer hours, please share them with me. I do have an Excel spreadsheet tracker. That's part of one of the commitments, you know, to have these volunteer hours and give that to end of the year. So if anybody has volunteer hours, I need to have that.

And Jeff, is that general volunteer hours?

That is, that is EAC related volunteer hours.

So like Nadia's decals on the storm drains, would that count?

Or is that not? She's a student. She's, yeah.

Was a student. Is in between being a student. I mean, she's going to start.

Yeah. Because she's a junior member, I wouldn't think negates the fact that.

Well, and to that point, we just had a roadside cleanup where we had every member. And they were all marked in as a volunteer hours. So, you're right. So, great work.

Quick question. It's also not a volunteer event here. We aren't making any checks. Oh, yeah. You want to track all the volunteers.

Oh, yeah, because we have volunteers for Easter.

Yeah, a lot. Volunteers for Community Day. Well, everything that's related to some of these initiatives. Yeah. They have a really great rubric on their website. So you can take a look.

So again, all points that are valid and we need to think about. But let's look at this a little bit more in depth. And I'll come up with better.

And we don't have to actually report all this until the end of the year. Because we only joined in January. And we have until later this year to get it. January 1st. So we have time to plan.

One of Archie's proposed speakers was a guy from Third Lab.

Yeah, that would be so cool.

Yeah.

quick question, Jeff, for that June 15th deadline, do you just need the Towns logo for the website? Oh, you're not designing something. So I'd like to get you access to that. Yeah. Shoot me. You can invite me.

Start to record things like volunteer opportunities and just so you start putting content on that. Great. So that's what I need.

If you, if you give me access, I can upload the logo for you.

Perfect. Yep. You got it. um catch basin project um we're going to exchange those details and the glue and um and at the end of this meeting and then you can start that great can you take some pictures while you're out there yeah i got anything on department of conservation grant ideas any update anything new there

You had already submitted something, correct? We submitted C2P2 for Pontiac Park. We just submitted, big name escapes me, a grant for connectivity in Wallpark from the parking lot to the branch trail. But certainly, you know, if there's something that comes in mind, we also applied for the native planting in Pontiac Park. Um, are there something that you think about or you're working on or are those rolling deadlines for the grants or? Typically grant deadlines are in the first half of the year, just for that, to meet that fiscal budget for the following year. Okay.

Are there more openings for burns?

Yes, so you have an entire community that I will get with you. Multimodal just opened. That's one of my primary jobs here at the town is grant submission and grant monitoring. So yes, we will absolutely, I will give you all the grant work you want. Thanks.

Okay. And we weren't able to achieve Potter and Pontiac park walks. um last time but you know maybe i'll go back and see if so if we if we want to have a conversation about what the eac can contribute to these parks and some suggestions and some advisement um to the township of what the eac can can do in these parks uh or eagle stop projects or whatever that is i think we should walk these parks and uh and get familiar with that so i'll throw out some more dates yeah yes i i would be interested in i know we talked about getting the the thousand dollar grants

Perhaps using that and like putting, what did he want to put in there?

The Swift house?

Yeah, putting the Swift house maybe in Pontiac. If that's like, I don't know if there's specific things of like, oh, you need to put this in certain places. Are there? Yeah, they're fresh.

Great, that's a good suggestion.

But if there's like something like that where we get something fresh and like maybe that can be used to kind of advertise the park. Yeah.

Okay, so I'll submit some more dates out there for us to, as a group, to walk these parts. Okay, next up, miscellaneous July McMillan tip. Thank you for the last one, Joanna. That's fine. So Carmen, every month we supply for MacMail, the digital newsletter that comes out from the township. Do you get it?

I don't.

Yeah, so I didn't know about it either.

I moved here two and a half years ago, so...

we need to get more people signed up so that's helpful to know thank you not enough but but it's a great publication and and the eac submits um every month a tip um bernie's tree committee subcommittee submits about 150 words on you know their subject of the month for trees and then we we uh complemented with something last last month it was bees it might be recycling it might be you know something else do we have um any thoughts on what that content should be based on

chatting with these two over how I did it, because I changed it up a little bit and I had pictures. And it seems like that's the way you want to go. And this is meshing into point B, is the strategy for these MacMail tips, for our social media, like how much should we be, like, I know previously it's been this huge paragraph, I think we want to go towards an infographic. How much do you want to have sent to you and how much do you want to do like on your side of making the rest of the graphic?

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. I would recommend for the make mail tip for the EAC to keep it. nice and short and succinct. A great example is the B one from last month because Joanna had sent over a graphic that she made. I recreated it with a little bit higher quality images just to have that sourcing, but I did not know you took those pictures yourself, which is absolutely insane. They're like closeup photos of bees. I was like, there's no way she took this. She did. So I do want to, I want to get those from your phone and maybe do something with them. Cause I think that's really cool how you got them and they were actually in McCandless or wherever you were. But what was unique is that you kept it really succinct. So it was like one to two sentences, a bulleted list. The lists are where it's at because people's attentions are short. And also our make mails are pretty long. We have a lot of information to get out there. So the image was very succinct. Striking and then followed by a very easy on your eyes to read made it a very successful MacMail tip as well as that turned itself. That format lends itself really well to socials. So that's actually scheduled for Sustainable Saturday this Saturday. And it was so easy for me to turn that around. So the easier it is for it to translate to other platforms, that's also something that could easily translate to a town crier if we were to do an EAC feature. So shorter, the better, more succinct. And then if it's a hit with the town, people love it, then I will come back to you and say, you know what, let's do something longer on bees. Or this question came up, how can we...

It's growing on and off.

How can we get that out longer, so I think start shorter you guys have a lot on your plates. A lot of exciting projects, so if I can make it easier, where you guys provide something more succinct and concise i'm happy to make the graphic for you, if you give me direction, if you give me a graphic that you have. share a Canva link with me, I can kind of clean that up or brand it to McCandless, share photos with me, or you could just share an inspo. There's like a 95% chance that I can make it into something for us. So if you have like an infographic, I just love this infographic that the Audubon Society did. Can we do something similar? Here's that information. I'm happy to pull that together. But if we could keep the tips Shorter, kind of make those listicle vibes. That'll really help to adapt it onto multiple platforms and then hopefully take a little bit of a lift off of you all.

July is watering. You just want a watering can and say, do it. Perfect.

Let's do it. Yeah, but globally, that's what we're trying to do with the MacMail. We're trying to move further away from the long newsletter that we might lose folks when they're reading. So we're trying to be more visual, and Liz has that expertise to lend. Yeah, absolutely.

I think for July, it would be kind of neat since 4th of July, especially big year, kind of do sustainable 4th of July tips. Like a lot of people doing plastic... So like single use silverware, maybe push them towards the compostable ones. Go ahead and take it. But yeah, that's fine.

I think that sounds great. Yeah.

Did that touch on what you...

I wanted to know what our strategy was going to shift to. We're going to shift away from using paragraph, look at infographics, look at things that can go onto social media a little bit more because I picked up on what they were doing and I like it a lot.

Yeah. And just so you all know, we are scheduled for Liz's Create a Sustainable Saturday. So her goal is to get something out on socials every Saturday. This Saturday will be Joanna's bees. But she's pulling some things herself. She's putting those things together. But if you have, you know, three things I get you pictures of my compost pile, I'm sure not nearly as pretty as a bee. You'd be very surprised. Yeah.

What day does the newsletter come out?

Amazing. Oh, yes.

That would be great.

It is going out.

If you could get it to me by next Wednesday is the deadline I gave the town, but if you could get it to me by the 19th, Friday of next week, that would be perfect. And then if you could, if you're referencing... Yeah, thank you. A couple is perfect. That just helps, I think, build our credibility with the town. And... Any photos you guys have, I just wanted to mention, like I like to, I'm trying to utilize stories more and we are getting more interest. So feel free to send over birds.

I wish I had a bird camera.

So let me live vicarious.

I have a bird camera theater.

That's what I, and I have a, I have a trans, I have a theater that's,

peter that goes on our window oh i love it yeah any pictures feel free to send um and if you if you need any help just let me know or if you need any inspo yeah totally yeah thanks so much pictures i think maybe you might have wonderful so well next is a general update to share and that's just uh carmen that that's just if there are people that have um they if they have um

relationships with Tree Pittsburgh or litotomy or something like that, if there's something to share that the group just wanted to share. I didn't believe we did because Joanna was looking at us.

I did have one other thing to add. I'm so sorry. primarily for Joanna, but June 22nd through 29th is national pollinator week. So I just want to email you about like story and what you would like from you.

You got it. I think that, I think some type of video might be good or we'll talk. I need to borrow the inflatable bee suit.

Obviously, no, it's to wear it. Yeah, let's chat offline about that. I think we can make it really good. Also, the National Geographic, their photo series is offering, you can just sign their pledge for national pollinators and they'll send you a national pollinator pack of seeds. So I applied for the town. I'm supposed to be here four to six weeks. I should be here anytime, but I think the town will like to see something free that they can get. So sounds good. Thank you. Are you stupid?

I have something for open floor. Yeah. So I attended today the regional green infrastructure listening session. It was a listening session hosted by Connect CMU and Phipps in addition to Allegheny County Conservation District also attended. And they wanted to hear our experiences and opinions about issues, challenges and opportunities facing your community and discussing how green infrastructure might or might not be helpful to your biggest challenges, um, the discussion, it was held in person at CMU breakfast and free parking. Anyway, uh, there was, uh, probably, uh, they did one virtually last week and this was one in person. There was only a handful of communities, Crafton, Aetna, um, oh boy, I remember them all from Hills, Forest Hills, uh, So anyway, that's kind of what we did as Roundtable. We started with them doing ratings. They wanted us to indicate our community's interest in things like high wind, things interesting like flooding, obviously landslides. So there was only eight metrics, and they had us all mark in the scale of, say, not as important to very important, which ones. And so I kind of went with high winds, because I felt like, you know, trees going down lately has just been the thing that seems to be getting the most attention, other than Paul Skeen's in Vestal Park. Anyway, so that's kind of where I landed with us. But all of the listening session is going to be, you know, really just, it's more of an information session, they're going to come out with a report. But The gentleman from Connect, Eric, did grab me afterward and tell me that they are doing a session with Duquesne Light and First Energy about trees. Anyway, he said, we definitely want you to come because we kind of got the ball rolling on this. But they've been talking with Duquesne Light about trees. how to do a better job. And I also learned something new today, which was, I guess, PennDOT also has a strategy to do for the purpose of when you salt a road, they're cutting the trees completely in line with the way the tree is so that the sun can hit salted road. So apparently that's why sometimes when you're walking down, you know, and you're starting to see trees being cut, directly in line with the edge of the street. That's what's leading to it as a practice, which is that the salt will melt better when the sun's hitting it. And so I know. So it's become a state PennDOT strategy to make sure that state PennDOT roots are trees are cut that way. So all of that's going to be kind of thrown into the pile of things to discuss with, you know, PennDOT, the can light, and . So that's kind of my update from today.

Great. Okay. SharePoint maintenance, EAC dedicated webpage. I'd like to just sort of table those until next. We'll move on that.

If I could just real quick while we have Liz here. Yeah. She had some ideas for an outline that would mimic Pines. Audrey, I know you'd put some materials together. I think maybe you two can maybe talk offline about an actual, how you put the ideas into action.

Yep.

Okay.

Love it. Can I just say how exciting it is to have these guys and staff? Next regional EAC meeting will be at Marshall on July 16th. No, no, no, no.

Marshall. Marshall. Marshall, yeah.

Is that us there?

That house looking thing at the park.

I don't know. It's on the email that I got. So, you know, I'll attend that and hopefully others can as well.

I think they're very, very helpful.

Town information, report from town council.

Barney, I think you hit the nail on the head. You know, we have John Schwinn here now. over three years ago. I will describe some dysfunction, but I think he's a similar great team. Katie's awesome, Liz. And for those that don't know me, I'm Doug Arlo, town councilman for McCandless. I'm the alternate liaison for this committee here. replace Jack or just instead of Jack. This is my first GAC meeting, and I've learned a lot. You know, I heard platinum and things like that. I want to hear, you know, in order to sell that to downtown, so we want to know, hey, what does that mean for McCandless? Does it mean less, you know, lower taxes, quality of life, you know, or it's going to open us up for more grant money? It needs to be a sell job, I think.

Mm-hmm.

As you guys all indicated, McCandless is really fortunate to have you, you know, not just you, but on all of our boards, really well followed by people. And, you know, we're really fortunate to have that. I want to thank, you know, appreciate all you do for the town of McCandless under Jeff's leadership. I could feel the passion in this room tonight. Carmen, welcome to the team. Thank you. I've participated in the last three years in the litter pickup program, and it's incredibly rewarding. I look for litter now on the side of the road. Anyway, Katie stole my thunder.

My one tidbit for McAnlis is on July 4th, we do have a 5K run.

That's something near and dear to Ken's heart, I believe, because he's the runner. But that's 9 a.m. July 4th at the boathouse.

Yeah, and my wife and I were going to join. We're just going to watch. If anybody can do the same, that would be great. We had a 5K that

and threw a gear and went out to the showcase cinema at that time. Is that just for Emily?

Major fundraiser. My last thing is I learned on Monday night that Katie's a big Knicks fan. We'll see.

Next time. How long did I have anywhere to be? Done. It's all good. Everything's good.

Good night. That was fun.

Katie, anything?

I know Nadia will stay with us through the summer, but we wanted to recognize your graduation. This is from the town and from the EAC. So thank you for all the work that you've done. It's been a pleasure having you here on the EAC. And congratulations. um just a couple quick notes jeff um any requests for liz if you could see that i'm also copied um just so that we can manage workload and expectations for liz um and then remarkable tree we only have two submissions so if you could please push remarkable tree to your networks and to your folks um we would appreciate it i'll put that on next reading until i mean i saw you put together something but i you know we need to like wait till

mid-July and then do a big push to the end. That's kind of where I was with it.

Yeah. And I was thinking if anyone wanted to do like a flower flyer, like roundup, I'm starting those with our intern where I'll print out a bunch of flyers and anyone who can grab them and just put them in coffee shops and local. That really helps a lot. Yeah, someone sees it on social and then they're getting a coffee and they see it again. It really brings it home. Something I'm working on is conditional logic on the form. So right now the form has, you sign up with your information and then below it, it's like, if it's somebody else's property. And when you see that, if it's not someone else's property, you sort of, it's a lot of, it takes up a lot of the page. So they might just get off of like skip right off of there. And I have a lot of background in like the survey design and the way it's questioned and organized. So I'm hoping to work on that sometime next week where the form will start with, is this tree on your property? If yes, then that pops up with that information. If it's not on your property, it kind of takes you to the other format. So that way you can immediately see the tree questions before you scroll down. So I'm working on optimizing that survey and hopes that that helps us as well. And then I'm thinking if we want to push it harder mid-July, maybe we come back around August 1st. If we don't have a lot more submissions, what I'd like to do is pare back that survey a little bit, take off a few of the questions or turn them off from mandatory. So people who just want to submit their stories can... Post a photo of a story in a quicker fashion.

I think it would also be good at the events that we're present for, like the 5K and the garden. Just have a QR code with it up.

Encourage the people that are there to scan it. Absolutely. And I can share the PDF of the flyer with anyone who they're easy to print out.

For the survey, you're a woman after my own heart. What do you usually use for survey software?

So right now we're using Formaster, it's called, and that is because it allows us for events like cleanup day to sign a consent form with an actual e-signature. So I'm using that at the moment.

So I don't know if you want recommendations, but I have, if you've ever looked at Tally. I have not. It also has that, and also the conditional logic is super easy to pick. as someone who does not have computers i just used that for a survey that i did for a big research project and it was like i don't know you took the survey right yeah so the conditional logic is really easy yeah just like click some buttons and some dots it's awesome there's yeah i think that's conditional logic is a little like harder on the form yeah so if you want to check it out i will definitely it took me like five minutes so you're good so they're still geeking out

survey.

Yep, the closest thing up little rapid fire on topics for next month. So always make mail. Bird time will be more wholesome. Hopefully, if we get into Potter and Potter work, we can have sort of that discussion. We will go back to the the SharePoint maintenance of that, you know, just loading of historical data. And then the dedicated website will continue to, to sort of continue on with that conversation.

Anything else? Should we do community days expectations, see what we want to have out for community days, like going to do a craft or anything like that?

um also throwing out in there if we were for the remarkable tree program there was discussion of presenting like winners at community day um if we are doing prizes if there is any budget for prizes that was part of it that's part of it yeah yeah yeah a tree you have another tree so nothing to decide that we've never even tapped and any information you wanted to garden in the park

or whatever program you have, make sure you get that in presentable form for us to use there. Because that's, you get a couple hundred people coming through that you can see whatever.

I'll put together, we'll put together literature and all that kind of stuff. Okay. Okay. If there's something else.

I'm looking to adjourn.

Very good.

Second. All right.

I had to raise my hand at you.

Thank you.