Environmental Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Hey, welcome everyone. I'd like to call to order the June 11th, 2025 EAC monthly meeting. Um, and I John sent out a copy of the minutes at the beginning of the week. Did everybody get those minutes? Good. Um, any edits, objections, changes, anything in there that you always look at me. Yeah, I definitely look at you. Um, can I have a motion to approve the minutes, please? I'll move. Second. Second. All in favor? Okay. Um, public comments. Seeing that we have none, we can move on. Um, project updates. So, you know, we were we were told, you know, very firmly and and by email that we would be involved in the PSA, this a good story, PSA, um, summer program, undergrad students, and I would email and say, you know, what about it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is happening, that's happening, different things once we get this, blah, blah, so um, so Sawyer Sidinger from PA Sustainability reached out to me. Jeff, Jeff, have you heard from um Penn State yet? And I said, I have not, but I've been I've been emailing and he's been assuring me. So, he contacted me. He says, I talked to him. It's going to happen. You're the you're it. So, we're just waiting for some things to happen. I guess things don't happen, you know, as as fast as I'd like them to happen or whatever schedule I'm used to. So, uh apparently we are still joining that program and I don't have any reason to believe that we're not joining that program. Okay. Uh let's wait for deer management for a minute, but uh let's go to Joanna on rain garden um update and that would be your next sure. So the next um event is coming up on June 21st and that is

the as I dubbed it the hackathon of going out there and trimming it down. Um and so that's the first step in managing uh the Japanese knotweed that's out there. The second step is unfortunately with everything I have to look up is the herbicide which I have approved through public works and they are working with a professional company to use the one that was recommended by the awan society as well as some others um which is the Aquanet um and so that will take place about eight weeks after the hackathon so you allow it to grow back but it's going to take a lot of the energy out of it once to do that. Oh, K's here. And then um but it's not going to grow as large. So that way, especially if it's like if it's anything we I don't think it will go down this far, but it's by the creek or anything else, um it's not going to be dangling as much over the creek or anything. It's not going to be as big. You're not going to have to use as much spray, but that's when you spray it. So um that should take about that should take care of 90% of it or so in the first year and then the rest we can do next year through uh stem injection and are you is Ken aware of or should you take 30 seconds to describe again your process for aware of what it is and um it's what the conservy's been doing cutting it and then fing it in August and Yep. that's what all the conservies do. Yep. And I I've been working with the town and uh got them involved and they're gonna have somebody professional come in to make sure it's the right spray and it's done correctly and everything. So good. And I'll be here on the 21st. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Officially sign up. But um how is your response to that? Um so last I checked a little bit low. I think I'm going to send out a followup since it I'll give it a couple of weeks and then I'm also going to reach out to a couple

people individually that I do somewhat personally know and that came to the last one that I've met once or twice and got them a little bit more involved. um see if they are able to come and I might reach out to a couple people within the community who were not on the original email list like um my boss's daughter and see if she wants to come out and uh join me. So, okay. And I and I think because you are, you know, because you don't want children there, right, you limit, you know, your adults and your, you know, let's go do something wonderful for the community type of feel. These are people who want to swing up Madic, right? It's also summertime, so a couple people are out of town. Um, and there's a couple people, cuz I had to mention like there's poison ivy in there. And if people are super allergic to poison ivy, which some people are, I completely understand. Like, yeah, don't come out and expose yourself to poison ivy. It's, you know, I do recommend, by the way, um, Farmers Defense has the cool, um, sleeves that help block SPF and they block, uh, poison ivy and stuff. Um, highly recommend those just for working the yard or if you're all around poison ivy and allergic. Some of us will just show up. Yes, I know you will. Okay. Farmer's defense, huh? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, you deer management is always right up to sustainability. So, with Ken here, um, and I don't know that there's really much we could say other than, if you don't mind me saying, Ken, that that Ken and I did meet and we looked we looked at the, um, the message that I crafted for the Mon this past Monday's council meeting. That was a letter in which I sent everybody. Um, and I'm I apologize and I think it's a bit of a foot file that I didn't send it before. So, um, so recognizing that, um, that that I did read that letter of support for a stronger response to deer

overpopulation, um, I did run it past Ken. And other than that, is there anything out there, Kend, and you can call here later on, is um, doing a uh, public speaking um, in September uh, for public awareness on deer management. I can most likely um get the wildlife biologist for the game commission, the deer biologist for the game commission to come in and speak to us. Janine's worked with us before. Um and I think that I would like that to really get kind of pushed, meaning Ross is talking talking about upgrading what they're doing with deer management. The city is doing a call. Um, you have deer management issues in North Park that's not, you know, they've been doing a hunt there for almost 30 years now. So, I think there may well be some public interest beyond just McCandless uh, and I was thinking about mentioning with Friends of North Park and partnering with them um, to do so that it's a broaderbased uh, audience so to speak. Um but talking about deer management and you know deer population doubles every two to three years and so on. You know an individual mature deer is eating 8 to 10 pounds of brows a day and things like that that people aren't really aware of and and can um you think that I mean what was the response last time you had you know some public outreach on deer over population? I did one with friends of North Park probably about almost like 10 years ago now and we had virtually no way to do any publicity and so we had a

very low turnout. Okay. Um I think that you know publicizing it through Northland Library and and our township publications and so forth uh that we would have a much larger audience. Yeah. because, you know, since this is since this is um heavily supported by the township, um you know, they're going to, you know, we'll we'll have any any um you know, any resources that we need to get this thing out there. So, so you're thinking, and we're just fast forwarding to the public that it doesn't really matter. It's all the same topic. Um you're thinking September, you're thinking that you're thinking like one of the rooms in North Park. So, in actually in North Park, depending on what what we're looking at when we start booking and things, I can I can most likely get us the cabin in North Park, you know, which holds a good number of people. Um, if we get bigger than that, maybe even the Rose, but um I think that that I I can do that. Um, there'll probably also be a couple game protectors there for people that want to know hunting laws and stuff. And I'll probably do a little bit of talk because Janine doesn't really talk that much about the ecological devastation. And so I usually talk about that a little bit and then throw it open. And the game commission guy, the the uh game wardens, so to speak, are are there for anybody's questions and things. Does that sound reasonable, John? Yeah. I have a question about McCandless uh township and fence heights. So, I've been looking into maybe fencing in my yard and the company I hired, they said, you know, mechanist doesn't allow in the backyard a high enough fence to keep the deer out. So, I'm throwing that out there. Even something he was referring to as a deer fence, which I never heard the term. I just thought I need a big fence

to keep the deer out because I have a bunch of fawns in there again. You know, it's just like and then once they're born there, they live there and I can't ever get them out. Yeah. It's I I literally watched tears stand next to a 4ft fence and hop it. I mean, they're standing right next to it. I mean, this isn't taking a couple of steps. This is just right. Well, I have a six feet in height. It cannot exceed. He told me we need at least eight. And then he said it won't. So, he's like, "Well, you can try, but because I even have a downhill My whole backyard is a downhill. He said it's got to be 8 ft is the only way it even begins to be effective. So, I'm throwing this out there because work. Yeah. That it's not you just have to do this with no one knowing you're doing it. Just get an electric fence like a horse fence from a you you put it like ankle height and then thigh height and you put peanut butter on it and they lick it. All right. Where are the environment? Well, they never they never come back. They get zapped one time. It it doesn't kill anything. I mean, I watch rabbits. What I'm suggesting is can we in the case of something called a deer fence, which apparently is different than a privacy fence, right? Yeah. It its intent is in fact to keep deer out of your yard. Yeah. could we consider legislation that would allow uh for a deer fence to be 8 feet, which is what, you know, he has told me is the only thing that's going to work. So, uh yeah, I mean, frankly, my reasons for wanting to do it, I now have a grandchild. Yeah. Want to put a play space right where all the fonds are laid everything and uh you know, and I I've just got to figure out a way to keep them out. and he's telling me no matter what I do through a mechanless it's not going to work and yeah I'm not going to do anything

outside the boundaries of what's permitted right so right but I find that absurd that the solution to my problem isn't solvable right right what we allow and and dear fence you would know this it's it's something different than like a privacy fence right I I still don't know what it is yeah so is it like a fence kind of thing or some of the stuff they use now is movable. They'll put it around like 10 acres and then they can move it to another 10 acres. So, it's it's basically a cyclone fence that's in panels tall. Oh, is that what it looks like? I'll be darned. I had no idea. Yeah, a lot of it's plastic now because it's much lighter than the than the metal. I think I'd rather get the metal anyway. But point is can put it on the table. Yeah, I can ask John ass. about that that that black plastic is not as as much of an eyes sore as the old cyclone fence kind of stuff. Um so so anyway so the first um you know first sort of deer management um leading to the next step was you know the first salvo was was um completed on Monday where I read that letter of support from the EAC at the council meeting. John, where are you with with your messaging? The article is roughly done. I need a good lead. I need to make sure the flow is good. I have all the stats I need right now. I have some quotes from Ken and from your statements. I don't know if I'll need a council statement or not from either you or Jack potentially. Add one. Yeah. So, basically, I have one long article and I think the idea is maybe to break it up into a couple ones, but I'm trying to write a long one basically for the magazine format. Okay. Okay. And and we we know that Mark um sort of put his hand up to help you along with that. You reached out to him. I've reached out yet. I think too like

some sort of safety me probably a little later. Yeah. Good. Please copy me on those. Okay. Um I missed. Do you guys have an actual date for the speaker series you're going to do? No, I I have to talk to Janine, make sure she's available. Okay. Yeah. But the month would be probably September. Okay. We'd like to do it early September. archery. We're special regulations here. So, archery season actually starts two weeks earlier here than it does the rest of the state. Okay. Um Okay. So, so you know, we we want to we want to help you along with that one, John, and then, you know, move that thing on because we want to keep sort of, you know, gradually firming up our message until we till we get to Ken's and then um you know, letting letting the community know um you know, through these positive messages and and the EAC's um support that you know, this is something that we're moving forward with and and um unanimously. Anything else about deer management? Oh, make sure you do it. Yeah. Um, and I'm sorry, anything else about uh the rain garden for for Joanna? I didn't throw that out there. Okay. And then, um, next, uh, tree program. Bernie, you want to talk a little bit about your, uh, you know, our, um, Yeah, we can just do the recap now. Yeah, I mean I want to thank everybody on the who attended and for, you know, getting the township to agree to uh let us move it inside. Yeah, I thought it went really well. 24 people. Thank you, Jeff, for standing out in the rain and guiding everybody into the dry part. Uh yeah, I mean, I thought for sure we'd have nobody with the wash out and was just really surprised by how enthusiastic and educated the people were who were there. M I mean they just

all you know were tree lovers. So yeah and I I I felt because it was so small that's why I wanted everybody introduce themselves so that the speaker who did a great job to um knew that he was speaking to tree lovers he didn't have to convince anyone and I would say that that works. So um but I think you'll find some folks who want to help with notweed and you know and I do want to like connect with I think the whole group of you know people we got and with their contact information most of them were people from the road pickup you know that the roadside pickup. So that group of canvas volunteers I think are good people who just care about you know a lot of these issues. So anyway, um but I I I mean kudos to you too. The speaker series is kind of your program, right? And uh so I didn't realize that, but I guess it is. Thought you and Judy did it and I always felt like we we just came up with topics or maybe helped with it. Right. I think I think it's I think it's residing where it should reside. Yeah. And just like with Ken's dear thing, I want to be, you know, I want to I don't want to just go like this. I want to say, "Okay, what do you need next?" fully supportive and you know get up there you know whatever you know do do the uh you know the figurehead thing kick it off with 10 words and then and then that's it. Yeah. Um so it works. I think it works. Yeah. Well and again I thought it was really uh just I think the fact that um because you were there with your uh so and and Joanna was there and Jeff and I mean it was great. Yeah. You didn't come exceeded my expectations. Sorry. No, it's okay. But I um I mean in my view, you know, again, I really appreciated the township maybe reluctantly letting us do it inside and I I just would like to understand that in the future because

I've wanted to see I just think we just sort of um we were with regard to that. I think that we weren't really asking directly like I I think that we were heming around with John a little bit just saying John um please you know we have to be a little bit more direct if if inclement weather then you know do we have access can you please lock it down as opposed to it it was you sort of waited till the last day. I just think we learned from that that we know we need to know that we have a rain back. Yeah. We we we have to ask and we have to be official about it. Okay. Yeah. I I think that's what we learned. Yeah. All right. Maybe you learned that, but now I understand it. Thank you. Yeah. So, um, what are your next steps? Well, um, I think taking a lot of those folks. Uh, July, well, um, I I want to talk about July and August, then August, September. Um, so July, August, I do want to schedule meetings, uh, probably at my house or in the backyard with a deer. um unless we can use this facility to have tree you know planning meetings. So a lot of those people who attended have demonstrated interest in wanting to be kind of on a planning group and what I've said like last month is by September I'll have a final agenda that we can propose for 2026 and then start promoting it. And ideally, John, what I want to do is land dates so that when you go to print your calendar Mhm. we can put that on your calendar. That would be ideal. So your calendar deadline is about mid November. Okay. So if I have a schedule ready to go in September, but that's what I see is I just like you know with the speaker series like I really want um talk to so many people who want to do things. So,

if I can kind of have everybody take a month and that's their month and they kind of own what that activity is and help organize it, then to me that's how we can do this. So, um and so yeah, I'm going to look for, you know, another 11 whether it's some of us plus a lot of the people on the list cuz some of them have um been more enthusiastic and wanting to plan things. But just like uh when you do any event, you don't know the you know how much help somebody's going to need. And and they're not all going to be events. Some of them are just education um events. Anyway, so on that note, just as a followup to, you know, next year's calendar, um last month I said I talked with uh someone I knew at Dukane Light who does innovations. He set me up uh on a call with the government relations and vegetation management people. Um feel like um he was probably as surprised as I was about um how their intent is to remove all of our big trees. I mean, their vegetation management guy scared me. Like I kept thinking like maybe we all misunderstood what they were doing, but you know, no, he kind of said, "No, we have to pull out those oaks and we can't have them fall." And so, you know, they have a program and we covered this in one of the meetings with the woman who um you know um attended. I'm forgetting her name, but she was on that video call with us on the one meeting. I think you and Joanne were there, but she had said she bought a house and Oh, Julia Palonia. Uh yeah. Yeah, but she had said, you know, Dukane Light came through and decimated her neighborhood. I felt they did that to mine. So, as I shared that story with them, they said, "Well, yeah, that's our goal." Uh, we try to convince homeowners

if they have any tree that's above a line, anything higher than 20 ft, you know, we offer to prune it, but what we really want to do is take it down so it's not ever a problem. And I'm like, "Oh my god." So, so I said to them, "So, if we're trying to do a whole tree planting initiative and every four to six years, you're going to come through and convince all the homeowners to get rid of their trees, especially the big maples and oaks. I mean, that is their goal." I said, "So, we're really working crossurpose." So, um, so they agreed to hub, come back, have another meeting on how they could either change the way they do it or figure out how to work with us on, you know, what they want to do is recommend. They have trees they recommend. They give the homeowner a $100 voucher. Go get this little 20 foot tree. Yeah. And but that means we will always have a loss of a mature canopy. Does joining Tree City USA give us any type of leverage at all to say uh no, we have protection through this, you know, this affiliation? I think I just want to I I can tell the guy that I talked to initially, I think his jaw was to the floor when he heard the vegetation management guy talk about this cuz I think he didn't think that they were that bad. In fact, he assured me it was probably the contractors being too enthusiastic um and that that's what he felt they could fix. And he's supposed to run um new products and services, innovative ones for their customers. They consider us as a municipality their customer. So anyway, so they do plan on coming back. Um I asked that our next meeting be before this you know our next month's meeting so that we can at least hear from them what their thoughts might be. So but it was um disappointing is the best way to say it like um but it

was also validating like like we knew this was happening and they're willing to say yeah that's our goal is you know and they said they've had so many requests since the storm of people calling them saying come get my trees. So, I mean, it's almost like it's a lost cause before we start if we can't really get this figured out with them. So, anyway, um, so yeah, that was I'm hoping, you know, we come and figure things out a little bit better. And then August, September, I really want to promote the tree tenders event on August uh, October 15th. Joanna, my hope is that what you and I could do is figure out I think you said the township was willing to underwrite the cost of that. Yes. So that being true, what I'd like to do is offer it to the residents to attend for free, but provided they could do x number of volunteer hours, you know, with us over the next, you know, year. Um cuz if they come in October, could we get them involved in rain garden or tree plantings and things like that that we have on the schedule, but I I'd like to work with you on what's that benefit look like? You know, like how do we alert people? Yeah. Convey, track, reward, right? All of that. So, um anyway, what exactly is the expectation of somebody who goes through that? That still isn't clear to me. No, it's not. And I think that's where I want to work up what that what is the benefit of because the alternative is or you can pay $60 and attend the six hours um you know and and then you don't have to offer 20 volunteer hours to the township next year like so so it's kind of an

offsite right so you either have the money or you um you know you pledge some volunteer time uh you know to the um programs of the EAC. So that's my thought. But yeah, how you position that without um but I I mean I feel like I've done this before where you know people kind of um pay their way out of you know you don't need to pay if you agree to volunteer for you know a couple events next year. You don't like it? No, I do. I I still like becoming a tree tender. I I guess I don't really It teaches you basics about trees and tree care, but for the courses they offer all throughout the state. What What is was their goal of coming out of that class supposed to do after? Well, so we're offering it to Macan Road. Yes, I understand that. But in general, yeah, that way we'll have a body of knowledge of of people who have knowledge to do more with trees. And yeah, ideally we have them planting trees and they get involved in all of next year's programs and ideally they just become, you know, our version of a tree expert. But I want them to um I mean my hope is again we offer one or two tree programs a year, you know, the tree tender training so that we we get an educated resident population who understands what they should and should not be doing with trees. Okay. Thank you. So I would say that's more it. I mean I'm trying to mainly for the education of our Yeah, that that's a great goal. Yeah. Did you get a chance to touch base with my friend it from Hampton EAC. No, I haven't reached out. Okay. But you sent me an email on that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because when you were talking about with uh tree sale and and things like that, you two should get together on that

stuff. I know. And I I don't know why I didn't think that was my next step, but I guess it was. Um so I'll look at what you sent, Ken, and make sure I do follow up. It has been a really crazy month. Anyway, not newborn at all. Yeah. H with a new one. Yes. Uh well, not that just work. I mean, I don't know if you heard, you know, we're came to agree with China and rare. So, um you know, maybe it's not as bad, but yeah, it's been bad. Anyway, um I I'll call that it on my update. Um, I feel like there were other things, other people I talked to. Um, and yeah, I feel like I'm not going to be able to do a subcommittee meeting. And I think part of it is I had wanted to hold it like at a park for somewhere outdoors. And again, I just um I want to use like the township resources, but I feel like the township when I reached out after the last, you know, meeting John and Diana and said, "Hey, yeah." They said, "Let's get together and talk about this, I sent an email, but they were nonresponsive." So, I don't get back with them because I know they wanted to. Oh, really? Yeah. So, that's I know John S's pretty busy. I don't see him that often. No, I know. And that's why I just thought, well, if they're not going to respond, then you know, I got to figure out something else. So, or maybe you and I figure out where I can hold the subcommittee meetings. We can figure something out. We do have a lot of facilities that aren't officially for rent, but if we figure something out, we can do something with it, right? Okay. Yeah. Well, then maybe I'll work with you on getting those scheduled. Uh because I want to send that big list. I have, you know, invitations to, you know, officially join uh the planning team. Okay. All right. All right. Okay. Anything else for Bernie? Yeah, I have a question. Uh, sorry, this is going back

a little bit. My microphone wasn't working. So, when you were talking about the the folks that are talking about like cutting the trees down and stuff like that, do we have a plan on that side of things as well? Because obviously we have stronger storms coming through. We have situations where, you know, school was cancelled for three or the five days of the week because of how many trees were down and power lines were down and things like that. Are we taking that into account with our planning and and the stuff that we we want to do moving forward? Yeah, we are. And that was the conversation at Dukane Light. I mean I think the challenge is they have a single interest which is you know to make sure everybody has power and uh and it's not based on what I hear about their management plan it is not in balance with our interest of you know we want a healthy tree canopy um so um so there is a way and we're going to have to find it as okay so we don't we don't have a plan for it right now though we don't know how we can balance having a healthy canopy and also allowing us to continually have power when we have these terrible storms. We did a planning guide, a planting guide several years ago to encourage people like over in McCandless Crossing, they plant red oaks underneath the power lines. Um, yeah, horrible. So that trying to give homeowners some idea of how they can have nice plantings out there but not be getting in the way of the utilities and things, right? I just I think it it's probably something that we want to make sure that we are also planning and and including in the plan so that way if this kind of stuff comes up, we can say, "Aha, yes, that's important, too. Here's here's our solution to it." Right? I think that'll be a really valuable piece. And I do think, you know, whereas they want to kind of never see an oak or a maple

anywhere near the power line, um I think that question of how do we guide um you know, our residents into, you know, where they could do it. But to your point, their website has lots of this information. Um you know, and I had read it all before I met with them and it's similar to our same guidelines. So, I mean, there is a right way to do it. Um, but the notion of an oak must die if it's, you know, within, you know, 60 40 ft of a power line, I mean, it's just there's got to be a balance point to that. Um, having having done tree work and and storm damage, um, there's a reason why they want them back. when you're dealing with 50,000 volt lines and right dead trees uh laying across them, it's less than fun. Yeah. And I guess meanders came through and they just cut one of the oaks across the street from me um for I think paving the street. Would that be right? I'm not entirely sure of that, but it sounds like in certain circumstances they might have done that job. Yeah. Yeah. I just noticed that um cuz I usually park my car under that tree. So the weather is really too hot. So um anyway, but no, they just kind of somebody cut the whole side of it and I came and said, "We're going to pave on your street." So they were going to come and take anything, I guess, within the boundaries. That sound right? I do not know. You don't know? Yeah. Anyway, somebody, you know, Yeah. I don't know who it was because I wasn't there when it happened, but yeah, we're not right away. Honestly, we're not beginning paving until July, I think, till after the 4th. Yeah, I know that street's going to get paved. Maybe it's Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I think it is. Um because it we're told they put in storm

drains and they've been working on it all all year. Do do we know does does the town have any control over uh utility lines at all? like regulating that they should be buried. Like is that something the town can pass ordinance for or anything is a mess. It's hard to do. It is hard to do, but I'm but I mean if we never start it'll never happen. I'm asking if the town like is that just totally up to the power company or can the town say this is this is what's got to start happening and in 10 years this is what we want. When we moved into our house a couple years ago, we actually called the power company to ask about that because we're one of a few select houses on our street where it is above ground. They said to do our little section which connected to four houses, it would have been $20,000 and that was two years ago. Yeah. But based off that, since I as a customer have the ability to if I had $20,000 to pay them to do that, I would imagine a municipality if they had money would potentially have that ability to ask for it. Yeah. We we were on Grand View and we were always trying to get Grand View Avenue power lines and it was you know hundreds of millions at a certain point for the two mile stretch. The utilities here in Macandless um like I'm on Pen Power which is along Ingamar Road and you see how far it is between the poles. That's because that's a rural that's under a rural uh uh transmission. When you get into Dukane Light, when you get into my neighbor's house and and and using Dukane Light, their poles are much closer together, but they're always going to want to string from pole to pole uh rather than going underground. It's just much much much less expensive for them to do it that way. Um so, generally when they're clearing lines, they just they don't want, you know, a big tree to be able to come down across

the lines. And so that's that's the issue you get into is big trees within 50 ft of a power line, they're they're going to get pruned pretty heavily. I I get I get why they would want that. We want there to be trees. So, you know what I mean? Like I mean, we don't know the balance yet, but we're going to look for it, Matt. [Music] It's a tough balance. It is a real tough balance. I get I get all of it. So cuz yeah, if we lose power, we're all set. So I Yeah. Anyway, sorry, Jeeoff, I rambled there. No, no, quite quite all right. Quite a right. It's a priority. Okay. Any anything else? Okay. Well, we can move community outreach. We can move past um the tree Pittsburgh recap, which we just did. We can move past the speaker series um which we have already discussed. Uh, I want to again I'm going to table bird PA membership if it's okay. I I have facts on that. I just don't think it's a priority for this meeting and I'll put together some, you know, maybe a little PowerPoint as best I can for another meeting that we have a little bit more time. But I I I think there's a couple other things we need to discuss this meeting. So, I'm going to table that. Um, one thing I want I'll hold off on that for one sec. Let's let's go to open initiatives. Um, and let's flip this a little bit because I I think I think one of the most important things we need to discuss tonight is the junior EAC member. Um, I think we need to sort of weigh in on um, you know, how that went this year and I'm going to let Matt lead it. Um, how it went um, you know, this year and how we think it should go and if we think we can accomplish that. Well, let's start by hearing from our junior EAC member. Oh. Um, yeah. So that's how it went this year. Uh we we had, you know, we had very few

applicants. Um and we wound up with somebody who was unavailable for whatever reason. I don't know. I don't know the reasons. Um I know that there were occasionally emails saying that there were other commitments and things like that that didn't allow him to uh attend the meetings. Um he did attend a couple of events, was at a meeting or two, but um in my in my opinion um we are not we're not really getting anything out of this nor are we really giving anything to the person who is uh who is the junior AAC member. Um we had a little bit of this problem the first year. This is the second year for those that aren't aware. Uh the first year we had a little bit of this problem but not nearly to the extent that we did this year. um we tried to solidify the program, more documents were created, uh more guidance was given, uh things along those lines to try to make it a little easier for that student. Uh that clearly did not solve the problem. So I think that either uh there needs to be a major change to the way that we do this or our expectations from that student uh or the program needs to end. So I open that to uh to the discussion uh or I open that discussion to to all of you. Anybody want to kick it off? The only thing I'll say is it it's seems to me that that the students that are doing that it's so that they can put it on their resume for college applications. I'm not sure that there's any other rationale for it, but that's just my very limited exposure to it. So it's and I would agree with that. I mean I think I think that's I I think our this past year's he achieved his goal but we didn't achieve any goals in return. Um because it is on a resume you know that's going to happen. So I I mean

I I like the program. I like the concept of it of us having some um embedded person in the schools to to get a message out. And I think that, you know, the one we had last year, Arch Archie, um, you know, she she spoke of that. I think that she led us to believe that that was the case and that and that was something that was had had probability of happening. Um, so it would be the right candidate. You know, maybe it's the right candidate or no candidate. Um, I mean, I think we all felt very mediocre about this last candidate and um, you know, just there were some red flags going up that, you know, I'm going to devote everything to this to this and and you were like, whoa, whoa, whoa. School comes first. um you know so I so I think I think we we saw a few red flags that might have um he might not have been the candidate if we had somebody else certainly uh you know just a little bit stronger but um what is our current target grade slash age high school uh senior high 11 12 okay 11 or 12 okay because I wonder having being a person who was on a youth town thing back when I was in high school. Um, I was targeted for that because of not it wasn't just out there to apply to. It was also I was targeted because of other activities that I was in. And I wonder if when we put it out, I don't know if we just put it out to the school or if we targeted like the scouting programs and we were trying to find somebody who already has an interest in that environmental, they already have an interest in like volunteerism and we go through more targeted like going after like an Eagle Scout or something like that would be more beneficial to us. But

they just started a sustainability program in school like somebody who actually is excited about that. So we did reach out to the the teachers that we had connections with for so there were groups that had done volunteer work with us. Um I mean this particular candidate did have a particular interest in birds and and bird migration and things along those lines. So we we did reach the the problem was we had one applicant. I mean that's what it comes down to, right? And um so we didn't have a choice and we we just went with this with this one applicant. So increasing the number of applicants I think is definitely would definitely be valuable. My one thought uh Jeff as far as what you were saying like having somebody in the schools. The one thing that we have to remember with that is this this is not a necessarily a person they're going to have access to more students than we are but they may have access to their friend group and that is the end of the story right they are not necessarily getting the word out to the entire school. They're not getting on the announcements. they're not whatever like our teacher connections are touching more students and getting more information out than I think a an individual student would be. I I would almost propose so I I personally think it's a really great program. It's really valuable as a student to get experiences on part of a committee. But perhaps we tell them that part of what it means to be on this committee is to take back and to maybe talk at an assembly or do some type of outreach for their peers. And we can give them some type of information, have them develop some pamphlets or some type of information that can go on our website as well, but that they'd also share with the students at the school. Yeah. Sorry. We've definitely talked about that um in uh in a casual way, right? In that like this is kind of part of the reason that we want a junior EAC member.

um getting them to be able to speak at an assembly or stuff like that that I feel like we need to have a better connection to the school for that cuz I don't know that a student like speaking personally as a when I was a student and when I was a teacher like a student can't just be like hi I'd like to give an assembly now please right like that's something that we would have to teachers to orchestrate and then find a way for them to have a voice at that thing so I'm not saying that's impossible and certainly Maybe that is, you know, maybe they're maybe instead of saying, "Hey, you have to come up with a project idea," it's, "Hey, you have to come up with a presentation that you're going to give to your school, and we're going to get in touch with them to orchestrate." If their project is maybe for Earth Month, they have to help come up with a concept for an Earth Month project for their school and within the community. Something like that could be really beneficial. possibly thought on that, but stink during I was just going to mention that we got lucky this year with junior town council applicants and got about seven. Mhm. Of course, one of them is our current junior EAC members. So, we could probably leave them out of the picture for next year, but if we're allowed to, perhaps we could just use that pool for secondary interviews for a junior member next year and see if there's someone who's interested. It wouldn't hurt. Yeah, if if they're if they're interested in it. Yeah, I think that we did. I want to say we did reach out to those applicants to see if they were interested or something like or maybe we reached out to the applicants from the year before. So the year before we had like four applicants. I think two of them at least one of them became the junior council member actually. Yeah. I think we had trouble. Yeah. She was in every I mean I get the local rag and she was Yeah. She's in everything. I mean I can't think what what her name is but you you remember her Matt. Yeah. Hey Matt. So there there was a sustainability class or something or curriculum or something you were saying? Yeah. Well, Matt reported a while back um a year or two ago that the high school was

starting a sustainability program. Okay. So sustain sustainability program. Are you talking about the AP environmental science class? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's an AP environmental science class that started this year was its first year. So, so if if one of the requirements could be just that that this person presents the EAC concept or or what they learned or what they what we try to accomplish or something and just it's you're not going to get in front of the whole school, but maybe they get in front of this class for for a 15minute presentation on what the environmental advisory committee is in McCandless. Yeah, it's it's a great idea. I think um unfortunately the teacher for that course is not super responsive. Uh so I haven't I haven't had a chance to interact with her very much. I've sent a lot of emails to her. I get a lot of response from National Honor Society and the Interact Club. Um and there's one other group that's that gets back to me, but uh I she barely ever responds. So if I can somehow form a relationship there and actually get in contact with her, yeah, I think that that's that's a great idea. Um, it sounds to me and and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the majority feel that this is something we should at least try one more time, explore options for and do do in 2026. Does that sound correct? I agree with that. Yes. Okay. All right. So, if that that being the case, I will start investigating. Um, I'll take all of these ideas as well as try to come up with a couple of others, too. Um, if anybody else is super interested in in uh brainstorming, just email me and let me know. Uh, and uh, I'll try to put together a thing. But I think we want to get the applications uh, well, the application is always up now, right, John? It's on the It's on the website perpetually, I think. What I'm saying is, yeah, I'll check back to make sure there's a page under junior member under. Yeah. So, so we'll just make sure that that gets updated with the, you

know, whatever the current information is going to be for next year and make sure that we get our deadlines updated and everything like that. Um, I I will also say we should reach out um to all the individuals who came to the roadside cleanup who were students of the right age because several of them were expressing very strong interest in being involved with our group. Same with rain the first time. So you have noticed uh between the two events um I mean why don't we recruit somebody we easily could there were were very passionate and who seemed like it's something they can we change that instead of like have them apply recruit an active person to do it not just like I mean there's really no official rules governing a junior position as far as I know I want to go back and see if we had some sort of resolution but if we just want to take on someone who's interested as generally a member of the public who's a volunteer and participates. Yeah. There's nothing that says we can't do that. Even if we just sent a an email to those who were here saying just there will be an opening if you're interested. So let's let's let's talk about let's be realistic about that. Do we have the emails? We we do. Yes. We identify those emails as being students. We can. We have a separate list of that we collected. It's a student specific. Okay. How do we how how do you how would you like us to craft a message? Um or how would how would you proceed with that? That might be part of Matt's brainstorming that Matt brainstorming. Yeah, that's fine. I can put together some language for that. Uh I I think it's pretty I think it's going to be fairly straightforward, but I I guess I would prefer to keep it an application type thing right now. uh just because I would like to I don't know the back like there might be a student who's like I'd love to do that and I don't know anything about that student right the application

gives us that background information and if we get more than one it gives us like something to to work off of and and you know rather than just the interview so my thought is to keep it as an application for now um but if we get like my hope is that we get like let's say we get 10 applications this year Right? Like that's I I feel like I'm asking for too much, but let's say we do, right? And let's say that uh obviously we only accept one of those. Five of them are seniors, so they're gone. We've got another we've got that group of people to pull from again next year, right? So, if we can kind of like build up and like continuously go back to people and say, "Hey, this this thing is because that's what Arch like Archie applied for the the um the council member position and she didn't get it and then she applied for it again the next year, right? So, like maybe there's some kind of there's people who are interested and we can build off of that and I don't know, something along those lines. But uh I'll I'll put together some language for uh for an a message that we could send out. Why not just with these these people that are interested asking them to apply? That's what I would Yes. Absolutely. 100%. That there's an application open. Yeah. I agree 100% on that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good. Yeah. Let's It's a great idea. We should um should not miss that that opportunity because it is um it's set it's just sitting there for us. So, okay. Thanks everybody. Anything else for Matt on that one or thoughts on that? It's it's important. Okay. Um, back to open initiative. Did you have something Bernie that was related or Well, on the open side, I I I was trying to find a message again. I've just been so busy this week, but I think on Monday, Ellen

um great um Oh, yeah. She sent me a message about something that was going to be at council having to do with trees. We're we're going to get to that. We're going to try to get We're going to get to that through next week. Good. And then absolutely. All right. Yep. Got it. And so, is this open floor or is this just You have an agenda? Oh, no, no, no. We're going to talk about that. It's It's going to be part of Yeah. Nick's going to bring it up and we're going to talk about it. That's what I'm saying. That's why we're trying to skip through things to to get to that. So, if it's still open, can I just say one thing about uh air quality because of the Canadian wild park. Um, so there's an app called Purple Air. And what I show you right now on Purple Air, this is the town of Macanas. And this is, you know, the rest of, you know, the country and the world. And so there's only one house in Macanless that's doing citizen science and reporting you know about uh this is both indoor and outdoor air quality is what this represents. So when it's purple is when it's bad. When it's green, it's good. But I I keep thinking like, is there a way for us to do something more with getting more people involved with uh you know, having um air monitors so that I don't know, we could raise awareness on, you know, air quality. the with the official air quality they used to have a whole bunch of stations they measured that and about probably almost 20 years ago now they've reduced that to three right by the Claron coke coke plant right by the uh right but that's why this exists right by where the buses sit at the at the point between trips and and so we always had really bad air quality because of the three places they chose to measure it

Yeah, but I you know I I'm pointing out on you know as an environmental awareness issue like the note of air quality matters and uh even if we did something like got a there was a cost to participate in this you have to buy the monitor but even if we put one here at town hall you know on the outside of the building and then everybody would say you know that's the official Macandless you know air quality indicator be good too since there's more activity there heavy breathing yeah if you just put it they have a weather station there now also do they yeah but I think you know something like that where we have more of a participation in kind of uh and and again this is cloudbased you know or cl crowdsourced um data and it's global and it's uh you know uh so they're all over the world and it's just uh organizations Like I know CMU have a bunch, you know, in some of their labs. Uh you can do them indoor, outdoor anyway. So I just want to throw it out there as well. Can we can we somehow you know work on this at another time? Maybe you could send us the link to this and we can research it and and you know and move forward with it. Yep. I think it's relevant today because this is our best in a week. Absolutely. Um okay. So, open initiatives, um, invasive species education, expansion, anything on that, Joanna? Um, I think the first thing I'm going to do is everything I'm doing with notweed, and then as we move into other things, uh, I was talking to Brad from public works, and I'm going to start working on Canva and typing up some like best practices, identification type guides just for public works just to have as a quick reference so they don't have to go and like dig through the research. It's like kind of there at their fingertips to be able to know what to do like If you're looking at Devon Park and you're like,

"It's full of notweed. What do we need to do? When do I we need to do it? What's that timeline look like? What do I need to use?" It's all right there in an easy to read type pamper. I don't know. I'll work on it eventually. So, that's my first step. Um, other than that, um, I might have a couple other things that come to mind as I'm looking to see how different things work and where to educate people. And right now, it's just a bunch of ideas. Well, and and you did the tips last last month and they did great links on there and um so I I thought that was a you know really strong tip. So that was also a good step forward. Okay. Um uh EAC park walks. I put that on there because since you're back um and you are a bit of an expert on par park uh you know if you think about EAC park walks Vince mentioned we don't we don't necessarily need to do no um here we don't need to do although although there there's a little stream here and we could take five minutes and you know if a meeting if we whatever we could meet here 10 minutes before at 7:15 one of these times and take a walk down there and we could do that. Um so that so that then we know um uh then we go to potter and we go to vestal and we go to wall and I think I mean I would be interested if you could lead us at a pter. I'd love that. I'd love to show you guys the new land too. Yeah, that would be really cool. Okay. I'm going to be walking it Friday morning with Jack. Okay. See you if you're interested. Um, it might be a tough one for me, but yeah. So, so you know, but why don't we make it because I I just walked I just Jack and I just did the the the wall park the Branch Trail again, which is a fascinating trail. It's a it's a great trail. 93 miles. It's a great trail. So, could you throw out some dates to

everybody? Maybe we can get together on a Saturday morning or something like that or or whatever that is and whoever can join can join. But we should at least put a step forward. Um it you know since it was proposed that we have these walks on a property that we sort of purchased. Yeah. You know and will purchase and we'll just move forward on that. Do we want to look at like the next month or so here? Yeah. Are we all I mean around? And then you go you go for you know what what most people can do and we know we won't get 100% but people will join who can join. Who's around next Saturday? You say next. What date? The 21st. Well that's the um I'm guessing that date. hackathon. Um, I mean, we could do it like I don't if it doesn't take too long. It's one of those things like maybe like early afternoon we could do. I don't think Okay. So, that could work. So, just throw out your open days. Yeah. Throw your open days. I could do the 21st. Uh, I could just You're throwing out your open 22nd. I can do in the morning or the afternoon pro probably. But that's my mom's birthday, too. So, she would probably be upset if I didn't get her cake cuz I'm walking around the wood. Yeah. Was late cuz I was trying to get cupcakes for Joan. No, I've had too many cakes this week. I We had Sorry. Um, other than that, um, the weekend of July the 4th, I'm around, but that's like holiday weekend, so that's kind of a bust. Other than that, uh, the 12th or the 13th. July 12th or 13th. Yeah. Okay. What do we try for July 12th or 13th? Start with that. Yeah, start with that. Families are invited. Everybody's invited. Yeah. I want to take some photos for social media, too. So, okay, that'd be great. Video. And on and once we firm that date up, I'll let Abby know too. Okay. Do you want to shoot for like I don't know like

morning or afternoon? Much better in the summer. 9 10 9 9 Mhm. on the 12th. This is happening. Oh, let's put it in. Which park are you going to walk? Potters. Okay. So, you're going to start with the 12th at 9:00 a.m. Yeah. This would be the main entrance or Yeah, we can we can do the main and then if we want to do the main part of park first and then drive up to the land that we just bought. You can walk up the walk. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean it might only be an hour, right? Yeah. So, we could then we could go we could just drive Yeah. We could just do Yeah. We could just go right over to Brand Trail, which is which is Br and four minutes away. Brand and Vessel are both super close, right? Okay. So, we can maybe block out 9 to 12 on that day and see three parks. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Whoa. Yeah, sounds good. Sounds strong. Yeah. Okay, let's do it. You having a barbecue at your place afterwards? Well, I'll tell you to be sort of fun. That'd be awesome. Okay, great. Everybody check on that. Um, and um, I'll probably just got an email reminding everybody it's July 12th at 9:00 a.m. Um, you know, and and get sort of a show of hands, make sure everybody can, you know, because if we start getting, oh, that's a bad Oh, boy. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, boy. You know, now there's only two of us. Then we'll we'll move on from there. Um, okay. So, let's move on then to Brooklyn Park, blah, blah, blah. Um, now we're going to go to July McMmail tips and I'm going to segue right into something that

um, John sent us. John B sent us and that was from Franklin Park and it was a message regarding energy audits. And if anybody got a chance to look at that, uh, I thought that was really valuable and really interesting. Um, so, you know, I look at that and I say, you know, did did everybody else feel like that had value? Um, is that something maybe we can sort of, you know, they invited us to use it? Um, and we just sort of, you know, maybe maybe bring it down to the level of, um, uh, you know, acceptability in your in your, you know, in your McMail and, um, and, you know, use the links and all that kind of stuff and send it off. Yeah. A guest article, call it. I think I think that's good to for the town, you know, the the residents to to know that that's available. Yeah. And and to check that. I mean, and that goes with all of our goals on on what we're trying to do. I mean, so I think that fits perfectly. Okay. Okay. Was there any was there any other message that we needed to get out before that? Are we missing an opportunity to get a me? We We just did, you know, we just talked about deer. We don't really have a deer message. Sean's going to come up with a big one in the, you know, in the crier. Uh, we did invasive species. We've done a lot of other things. Historically, our July has been a blend of different things ranging from fireworks, took awareness, sustainable living tips, water pollution. So, this fits right in with just the random July topics. Okay, good. Well, I'm going to take this one on and um and John, you and I will work to uh get it to a point where it looks like Well, I don't know if you can put the whole article, but we'll talk about it. I'm going to go look at it again, see the word count, see what we can do with it. Yeah, it was it was a nice it was a nice article. They I mean there was some graphics in there and everything. So, you know, maybe cut it down, but but I thought they did a great job with it. Okay.

Uh next up is garden in a park event on July 26. Um do we as a committee now nobody's nobody's committed to doing anything. I'm just going to say as a committee because Ken and I will probably go to Ox thing. I I live you know point4 miles from it. So um you know do we want to participate in garden park? Can I go back to them and say that we are interested the EAC is interested in participating in garden and park. Okay. Go ahead. I think they count on us over here. Right. They sort of do know. Um get free Penn State ice cream. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You'll hear Ken talk about the Penn State ice cream for free. I mean, so nobody should know that a bad gig. What? It's like 9 to 9 to 11 or 9 to 12 or something. 9 to1. Throw it on my phone. But you just sort of take turns. I ran it to you last year. That's right. You did it. So did Mark and so did Bernie swung by. That's right. Yeah. Okay, good. So we'll we'll be able to man that then. Okay. Yeah, we should get it. Good. I will respond back to um that person who Ken knows the name and I forget the name that we will be respond or we will be um participating. Um next up, not on the agenda is um as you've seen in McMail or on the website, Abby is still soliciting uh residents for the McCannis 175th anniversary committee. Um I'm going to not put my hand up for this one. I think I'm on enough committees, the parks and you know, comprehensive plan committee. I'm going to actually be around next Thursday for the open air event and Jack and I have a booth and we're going to try to answer questions about, you know, what's happening, everything. I I think I'm I put my hand up enough. Think about it. Nobody has to say anything, you know, but if anybody has interested in

interest in being in that that small group about the the 175th anniversary, know that that opportunity is out there. Okay? And I think it's actually ends on Nick. It was it was in this past month. This past Monday's meeting next next week's thing out there. No, no. Uh Abby Abby is going to close. Oh, for for the June 15th. What is it? June 15th. Okay. Which is Sunday? Couple days. Yeah. Can I just say I was hoping somebody I thought you were gonna be on the committee or somebody would but and mainly because Yeah. I told them I, you know, I'm fully loaded and couldn't do it either. But I feel like the coordination of what we're all doing with what's going to happen there, unless you know, it's John. Are you on the committee as a staff member? No. No. [Laughter] I mean I I so I find it problematic like because I saw the stuff you know at least the tree stuff integrating into you know their whole calendar of events for the year uh even though I know it's a singular day of the celebration fits in with two two things that we've just been talking about is we have that uh output of our old trees and mechanless that Jeff and I talked about briefly. And so two two parts to that. One is when we're doing a walk in a park, we really need to do a walk where we go check out these these trees. Um you know, that's something that I think would be worthwhile for us to do, but that's also part of the 175th uh anniversary. So they they kind of coingle uh with the two of them. So just throwing that out there as to how we want to approach looking at at looking

finding those trees and identifying them and also that's being part of the uh 175th anniversary. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying is I saw that being part of the whole like we respect and honor trees. We want them to age nicely in our community. Let me put it this It's part of our message. If I could join this this group um in in in a in a way that it benefits the EAC and does not commit me to fundraising and meetings about, you know, like on a weekly basis and everything. I mean, I I'll explore it, but I I I have to be a little bit I have to be cautious here about the time that I commit to this thing. I'm certain that's that's why I don't want to get involved. I'm starting to be a full-time volunteer for, you know, the community and and you know, it's messing up my retirement. So, uh, my playdates. So, uh, I I will I will I will thoughtfully consider it. Yeah. I don't want to push into it. No, really. You get that feeling. No, I mean, there's around the table. We'll do the best we can and I'll I'll end up doing the right thing. Can we should could we just offer like our consultancy? Could we just be in touch via email with them? You know what I mean? Like if they have questions or here's our thoughts like we just send it to them. Oh, I that's what I I had offered to do that and I you know but it it sounded like it was going to be a tight planning group and whoever's in the room is in the room. our contribution to it can be you withund you with our centennial trees um and and coming up with how people can do a walk on that or whatever um that can be our contribution to that but we need to figure out how to do that first. Well, I see a planting I mean I see a lot of other things that I want to do with it but you know in Okay, we we'll get

representative some way that Matt that's that's a that's a good compromise. I like that. Okay. Um, you know, maybe a a an adjunct membership to the committee. Yeah. Okay. Very good. Um, next up is um I'm sorry, I was going to say I'd tag team that adjunk role with you. Okay. Okay. Good. Do you know what I mean? Like where we didn't have to Yeah. Okay. Let me write that word down because that was sort of a fun word. Okay. Um Joan, I heard that there is going to be a dedicated Did I hear this? A dedicated um w with waste management is going to have some type of um dedicated line or help line or something like that or whatever. So yeah, we found out early last week that there is going to be like an online hub specifically for measles since we have basically our own funny contract. that's not like the other ones in the North Hills. So, that does exist. We're discussing one sticking point with them right now related to the extra bag disposal. I don't know if you guys have ever run across that. Okay. Yeah. So, basically, it used to be three up to three bags were considered a free bulk item along with list of other things. And now they're saying actually it's $6 a bag because they don't consider that a bulk item. So, we're the only place in the North Hills really that offers extra bags. They really want people to buy a larger part essentially. So, we're trying to make sure that that is an option on there to actually schedule a bag cuz right now the only way we can do it is call through their line and they seem to have fewer customer service reps than ever. So, people are having a really hard time getting through. So, this hub exists. We're trying to work it out for publicizing it though. So, the hub would be for what purpose? essentially certain requests, you know, if you want to schedule bulk items, extra bulk items, uh, cart repair, you

know, pickup. Yeah, I tried prepaying for the year and getting um that was a that was a little tricky earlier this year, too, but we're trying to figure that out now. Yeah. And I So, it didn't happen. And, you know, I always prepay and for the discount. Yeah. Well, no, I've never gotten a discount. I didn't know it existed. I prepay. So when I fold them and say I have a bulk item and they say, "Well, if you don't give us $5, we're not picking it up." So yeah. So they need prepayment for those types of So I would have like, you know, $40 in surplus so that if ever I had that, you know, so I always had a, you know, but my point is that's why I could never qualify for the prepaid annually because I was always already ahead. So anyway, but I tried getting it this year. Now they're yelling at me saying, you know, anyway, but but yeah, I mean, you do have a problem with them, but it's no, too, because we do we do spend a lot of time. I've been calling you guys for months about it. Um, so yeah, I guess you're talking to Debbie about that. Yeah. But that's my point is I can't no matter what. I can never quite get it right with them. So, but yeah. Anyway, enough about me. Okay. Well, this is uh Bernie's meeting apparently, but trying to solve all the problems of living here. I got a bad steer. I got trees falling. And well, that's the something that's more interesting. So, we're we're um I'm sorry. Um report from town council. So, sure. Two things and we'll get the quick one done with first. Uh we approved Monday night the adoption sign for the neighborhood litter that we're going to try to uh do. So that's fun and exciting. Uh less fun but exciting. Um we had a church by Peebles which is right across from the

Vincension baseball field approach us and re re request a waiver to log. Oh yeah. Um so they have a large parcel of woods. I think there's like 70ome trees. I think it's they have like 65 65, right? I guess I round it up. But um so they want to log the trees. Uh they were asking us for a waiver. I guess there's some serious and legitimate safety concerns from the neighbors that they have these mammoth oaks falling into their property onto their fences close to their homes. The church can't afford it. They found a logger that is willing or they found a forester that is willing to log some of the trees for the church. The the forester could not provide us with a accurate count of what was living and what was dead. There is a very murky gray area of what he knows is living and what is dead and if he can if someone can actually profit from taking these trees down. We as council decided to obviously table this and ask them to get more info to us. So we will we will probably see this again at the next meeting. But in the event that this does end up getting logged, you guys will be a wonderful partner in planting trees back there. So So correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue is we charging them then we get I I I had a conversation. So, so the issue is is that I don't believe that they have to come to us with a logging question. The ordinance says that you cannot log if you're going to cut these down. There is a uh 40% there's a percentage. There's a percentage that the ordinance currently says that you can um 40% of the trees I I No, no, I've lost my mind on what the ordinance actually said. It's something along the

lines of like if it's above a certain percentage then you need to request a waiver approved by town council. If it's if it's below you do not That's exactly right. So there's 65 trees and what he has to do is he has to discover that 20 of them are dead and that's 13 trees. 13 out of 65 of these trees that there were they're going to find 13 dead trees. Yes. So my my thought was they don't even have to go to council. They're gonna find I mean they'll they'll g give Joe Wall and John their answer that yes 13 trees are dead uh and so therefore we're going to meet your 40% rule because 20% are or don't even fall in the rule. So they're going to those trees are going to come down and I'm pretty convinced of that. Nobody's going to say those trees can't come down. There's 65 trees they are they have already fallen on people's propert those trees are going to come down. It it was an oh my gasp from Ellen Wright. It was a gas for me. Oh my. But they're going to come down. So what I said was as I said because he said, "Well, when they come down, they might just lay there and regeneration might start within 2 years." And I said, "Well, that might may or may not be true, but could you could you give us access the EAC access to replanting on that property so we have a zero net?" I mean, you know, what do you think about that, Bernie? Well, are they paying for the replanting? Well, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how they do that, but I mean, are we playing for paying for replanting? I mean, if we're trying to plant 10,000 trees, there's 65 right there or there's 50 or whatever. Yeah, but those are mature trees. I mean, it would take you What species of tree are they that there's so many that are dead? You see oak? I heard oak. Oak. Yeah, you might have oak wil going through there. um when you log and and you leave part

of the reason you leave the tops and things there is this the smaller branches and the bark is where all of your nutrients are. Um that's why you leave the tops when you log and you take the logs out. Um and that brush also inhibits the uh deer and stuff from from getting at the natural regeneration. Um in Macanas that's not going to work. You know if there's deer going to any anything. Even if we plant anything there, we're going to have to put wire around it. I mean, you don't you can't grow anything here without wire around it. Yeah. So, or you get your deer fence, that movable deer fence, and you fence off that area, woods, you know. Yeah. But, you know, from a forers's perspective, he just getting it cutting the trees down and and be god aful expensive to try to haul that to anywhere to get it cut into lumber. Yeah. And it sounds like this could be being done by this logger at a net loss. And yeah, so it's an interesting conundrum here. Why did they need to get any permission to cut trees on their own property? Because if it's over a certain percentage, over x% of the number of trees. They didn't know that existed. Yeah, those are because it's for a specific purpose of a commercial gain. Is that what it is on the term logging? I'm not sure. I'm not sure because how many how many trees you have on a like on my one acre? Well, now there's fewer of the big huge oaks, but it get like less than 50 trees because they're all big huge oaks. And if you have small trees, you have couple hundred or a thousand. Yes. So, like when the developers come in and they cut down all the trees, did they get permission to cut down all those trees? I think that that's that goes through the zoning I

think and they're bound to certain like like a different set of rules. Okay. I think our deforestation problem is, you know, whatever the rules are. I mean, I've been wanting to not necessarily go dive there, but we're clearly up against it everywhere between, you know, development, building lots, and then stuff like this. Um, no. Yeah, I'd have to see this property to to really understand what's going on, but sounds like you might have some oak wilt in there, which is just going to eventually kill all because of the root transmission. Um, and I don't know where the houses are that that they're causing peril for houses. No. Yeah. Yeah. Neighbor the neighbors were there like they were What's the property owner? It's um Oh, I think forget the name of the It's not Alliance. It's um forgot my uh agenda from that. I think I have it in my It's one I Bernie, you know, whenever you go um you know, you you come down people. It's in It's at four-way um right by that garage. It's right there in the stream. Um then you start going up the hill on the right. Do you know it's Ascension Lutheran Church? Yeah, it's it's on right on the right hand side and they always have um it's right before Remington and on the left here. I'll pull up the map of it here. I'd appreciate that. Give me one second. Yeah, but unless it um looks like ascension. It is. It's those woods right there. Get me started. Were sension's that little red circle with the cross and then the woods right here.

Isn't that Isn't that further? Home there, home there, and homes here. I mean, but they're talking about more than just the ones near the homes. They're talking about potentially. Yeah. And I mean, like we can't afford it. We we you know but but we but we have to do something it works well for me to walk on if you can you can actually get me to where that is. I'm not relating to this is this is near my house. I drive by that every time baseball field is right there. People's road is right here. The church is right off of it on the left and then it's the woods behind there. I'm just drawing a blank on where that church is. Oh, I I know where it is. Why don't you and I go together here? I'll show you again. That's Padlet right there. I don't know street names. Oh, wow. So, the cemetery the um Okay. And the memorial cemetery is right there. And this is uh you know where uh the giant eagle is. Um there's actually a church in there. There's a giant eagle uh right here. Oh, it's right up here. Yeah. Nordstrom here, McIntyre Square and then it's right there. This is the intersection of People's Babcock and uh yeah, it's just right down the road. For whatever reason, I'm not relating to it. Okay, that's a different ball field. Okay, I'm thinking of different ball fields. Yeah. So, it's down in that valley. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to walk that. So, yeah. I mean, it's disconcerning cuz when you do look at green space around meas, this is like one of the very few that are left. Yeah, I I know. I know. Um,

and I and I just thought the number the number it's going to happen. I mean, there's there's, you know, they did table it and that was a smart thing to do and that's, you know, Ellen said that, but I think they would have come, you know, you guys would have come to your own conclusion that to table that. Yeah. Yeah. None of that was going to be. Yeah. We need more. Uh but but it will it's inevitable before. What's that going to do flooding in the area? Is that going to make all those backyards flood then? That's not a Right. Absolutely. That'll give me a chance to look at on the um county website to see where the property boundaries are and stuff. Okay. Okay. Good. Is is there any value in trying to get like an independent assessment of some kind? Like I know You know, Arch from Northwood has been in here before. Like their their organization's really good at going through and figuring out what can be done with trees rather than cutting them down to try to preserve them. Yeah. I mean, they used to have an arborist on um contract when he was at his last place. So, that notion of having But I mean, Ken is an arborist, right? and uh you know and so I mean can you give an official you know word I can give you a pretty good handle on what can be done and what can't be done and yeah I mean I don't know how far their boundary goes but that's that's why I say I want I want to look at the uh do you think it's okay that we do that yes absolutely okay yeah would love to get if you if you can email me essentially yeah sure I actually just Okay. Okay. Because then I can find it on the county Yeah. map and I can see what their property is and where the issue is with the adjoining properties. So it is in your inbox. Okay, good. We'll take a walk on that. Ken, anything else, Nick? That

looking forward to showing you guys our new land. So, yay. Next month. Okay. Um, so what? I missed that. I'm looking forward to showing you guys our new land that we bought next. Parking it down at the site now, walking up and around and then it's downhill back to the car. Yeah, I'm lazy. You're not lazy. You're smart. Um, topics for next month's meeting. Um, I'm going to I'm going to put uh Bird USway, whatever the heck that is, Birdtown PA community. I'll put that back on. I want to see if I can get a, you know, a little presentation going there or something that will uh make that flow. Any other topics? Yeah, if you put the purple air monitor. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. That was on thinking about, you know. Okay. Purple air. Absolutely. She dropped ball. I did just for the wreck. Okay. She's busy, too. I know. I know. Anything else? We'll update progress on junior EAC. Okay, good. Thanks, Matt. You two will get them all. Any other topics top of mind? Yeah, I'll give a review of the rain garden, but yeah. Well, yeah, you're you're on there every time. Sustainability, deer management, rain garden free program on every time. Um we Okay. So, um with that, anything else from anybody? Okay. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? A motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All in favor? I. Wonderful.

Thank you. Thank you. So you both and this was the nurse.