Environmental Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening everybody and welcome to the August 12th, 2026 EAC meeting. Katie, is there anything that you need to mention beforehand or?

Yeah.

Okay. And I would like to call to order the August 12, 2026 monthly meeting. Everybody received the agenda in the minutes. Are there any edits or changes from the committee to the minutes? We can move the motion to approve the minutes.

I motion to approve.

Second, please.

I'll second.

All in favor? All right, 1st, up on the agenda then is public comments and we do have a resident here with us. You don't need to stand up if you don't want to whatever makes you feel more comfortable.

It might be easier for Bernie and Andre to keep in August. Oh, okay. Yeah, there's my 1st. Yeah, let's see if I can.

Is that good? Close enough? Okay, perfect. Okay, my name is Aaron Goldman and I'm a resident of McCandless for the past five years. I just wanted to introduce myself because native gardening and ecological landscaping are subjects I care deeply about. Over the past several years, I've been converting our entire property into an intentionally cultivated native and habitat focused gardens. I recently had an experience with the township that made me realize that there may be a broader opportunity for education around native and ecological landscaping. What stood out to me was that some of these landscaping approaches can look very different from a conventional turf lawn, and that may create misunderstandings when people are unfamiliar with them. I was excited to see that the Environmental Advisory Committee is already working on native plant landscaping, birdtown initiatives, ecological gardening programs, and I even saw that you were discussing forming a native plant subcommittee or some sort of group. I think there's a great opportunity to build on that work. I put together a one-page handout that I already handed out with four ideas that I'd love for the committee to consider in the future. A voluntary ecological landscape recognition and signage program, additional education and resources for township staff, a lawn to habitat education program for residents, and moving forward with that native plant subcommittee or some sort of something related to that to help coordinate these efforts and future demonstration projects in the future. I think many of these ideas are already being implemented successfully by other municipalities. Just a quick Google search, I saw like even nearby Pine Township had some forms of like a small like lawn to habitat program with You could buy, I think it was $20 and you get seeds and a sign and the kind of like some guidance on all of that. So you don't really need to start from scratch here. Most importantly, I guess I'm not here to just suggest more work for you guys. I'm happy to volunteer for the native plant or kind of help with like research, implementation, educational materials, outreach, demonstration programs. So yeah, I think that's the long and short of it. So thanks for your time. Thank you, Mr. Goldman.

And you are one of our 32 then auto born native certified backyard habitats. Oh, cool. Well, you said it in your email.

Oh, yes.

You are.

Yes, yeah. I just got certified at the highest level. Yeah.

Well, congratulations. That's wonderful. So you're speaking the same language and the same passion that we are. So we really appreciate that. And Bernie and Melissa, we'll scan this and send this over to you, because it's well thought out and well done. It really, really is.

With the native seeds, that's something that Northern Area Environmental Council did every year and they're no longer in existence. Um, so that's something. Maybe we can pick up the ball on, but that was, uh. 1 of the things that they did every year is they made seed packets available for people to plant at their houses and things like that.

Okay. Yeah, that'd be really cool.

So many other great.

potential partners or I'm still new to the whole like government and how all like the different committees and stuff work but I think there's a lot of other competencies there.

We're disconnected so do you want to say something?

I was just going to say real fast we'll talk about it a little bit more with some of the tree stuff but at our adoption event we're also going to have some native bushes available because a lot of people have expressed interest in adopting smaller things besides just trees so there should be a lot of stuff.

Yeah, so so 1 of the 1 of the projects that we take on that we, we always attempt to be better at is made of gardening is invasive species removal and that you heard us talking about that before the meeting. And it's a big challenge because as we form in this committee, as we form. Subcommittees within the committee with that subcommittee is supposed to do is go out and find volunteers to, to, to fulfill its mission in a sense. And that's where we're hoping that you can add and hoping that you would give your knowledge and your passion to that group. So, you know, as Joanna and Audrey, who like to work on this stuff as they go forward. You know, we'd love to have you as a resource, and we welcome you to, you know, we'll communicate with you through the email, right? We'll develop that relationship and then we'll go from there. Melissa, Bernie, anybody else?

Thank you for sharing today. That's a lot of really great ideas.

Yeah. We want to make sure that you're satisfied and you've reached the right committee, feeling like you've reached the right committee in the right years, which you have.

So I didn't even know this was really a thing until I started looking for it. And I'm like, oh, I've been doing this for the past couple of years on my own and just like connecting with random folks. And I have a lot of like kind of more resources where they can learn more and just keep it. I feel like it's extra nice to have it within like a community because it kind of like builds it like a grassroots kind of thing. But I mean, that's the only way a lot of this gets done. It doesn't.

It's the only way it gets done. And we can't do all that. So we're building a volunteer hub on the sign-in sheet. And I know that we have it. But we'd love for you, I mean, you put your name and your email down, which gives us sort of the ability to know that we can contact you and start to work with you. So we're excited to do that.

I'm interested to, I'm going to talk a little bit about this later, just in proportion, but me and Katie were talking about, you know, applying for the mini grant from Birdtown. And one of the things that the Birdtown grants can be allocated towards is like native plant yards and like signing those and helping people develop them. So I'm interested to, if we're looking at some sort of signage that we want to do, if that's something that we could apply for the grant for and get money towards.

Okay. Wonderful. Okay. Thank you. The other the other inquiry that came through the website was regarded with regard to rain barrels. And the question was, does the tone have any rain barrel or conversion kits to provide to residents? Or does the work with any organization that might be able to provide them? I don't have any experience council.

They don't currently have any, though. I don't know if they have it. That's where I got mine. We don't directly work with them, but they have held rain barrel classes in North Park in the past.

And that's when I got mine.

It was like $50.

I feel like this person is channeling me because I was just searching for this. And so a lot of people have had discounted or how to make one stuff, and there's not anything currently. But I was just on a garden walk in Buffalo, and just about every house had a rain garden or a rain barrel, and it was very nice to see. And they are all. Branded like city of Buffalo, but I didn't know, especially and again, kind of jumping. But since there is an Allegheny county. Cap being worked on if there was a possibility of, like, a county wide discount program or something that would be really nice.

and i know that's long term but it would be nice to see if we had some kind of program because i also need a rainbow um just be careful with some of the ones that they give out you know for smaller amounts of money because sometimes they are a little bit more leaky than um i would prefer because mine i i want to replace with something better um it's not right

Okay, so why don't we, I'll research, I'm not the best Googler out there, I've been told. But why don't we, if somebody could research.

I can do that since I am interested in getting one.

Okay, good, thank you.

Jeff, if I could, on new room growing pains, your laptop is directly in front of that mic, so when you type in, your keys are sort of here.

No, it's not possible.

You're up right against the hot mic and I do type like, I'm like, I'm angry.

Thank you. Okay.

Moving on then to a junior member updates.

Well, I have been away at a living learning program for the past month, so I've been out of the loop. But like I mentioned earlier, me and Katie were discussing over email, hopefully getting some grant applications. And I really want to work on grant applications, specifically if we can find anything parks-wise or sidewalk-wise. But currently, the application that is open is the Birdtown mini grant. which is 30 grants of $1,000 to like various places. So just been looking over the criteria for that and open to hearing any ideas tonight about what we could do with that. It's narrow, but it's also pretty broad because there's things pertaining to, you know, Like, having like a bird house all the way to like native plants and just like ecosystem stuff in general.

So so when is the due date on that?

September 15th.

Okay. And, you know, you can, you could make it easy by saying a swift house. So that's a 1000 dollars that if you went to the art of 1 society and bought 1, you'd be a swift toss. But, you know, I think you could also look at it and say, well, we have these parks that are going to remain in its, you know, it's Ross form. pretty much Pontiac and Potter. And there are birdhouse because the Audubon Society again has a myriad of birdhouses that we can buy. So we can do it where we can have an education class of how to build these. And so anything related to things that are going to you know, benefit those parks, but you could, you could make it easy. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know, you can make it sort of easier on yourself.

Yeah. And just like a specific idea in general, if anybody has certain specifics, cause when I'm applying and when me and Katie are working on the application, there's like some very specific questions, like what project are you putting this towards? How is this going to further Birdtown's mission? Like things like that. So if we can really nail down like a specific thing that we want that money to go towards just like one thing in particular, And I think that's probably the easiest way to do it in regards to answering all of those questions, making sure this project meets the criteria and stuff like that. Go ahead.

No, Melissa, go ahead.

I was just going to add to what Jeff was saying. If we do go along the lines of something like a Swift House or Purple Martins or Bluebird Houses, we will need to be implementing a program for volunteers to be monitoring and caring for these. I know this is something that we've talked about wanting to do as part of being a bird town, but we currently do not have that in place. So just keep that in mind from a timing standpoint as well.

is that going to hinder like if we do an application in regards to a swift task will that hinder like our ability to get the grant for that or will that just make um just make us have to implement that afterwards

I don't know the answer to that. But you did mention that there are a lot of questions to answer. So if it's phrased in a way that this is a program we're planning to develop, so this will be our first step in getting this and then working to develop a volunteer network to monitor and maintain it, that's probably OK. But we just need to make sure that we have somebody in the committee who is dedicated to go out and actually get people to do this work with us.

Um, you can also take some of those questions that are a little bit more, you know, that you, you want to make sure that you, you know, we give good answers to and maybe if you're unclear, take them and send them to the group and we'll help you fill it. You'll get a lot of different ideas.

And if you're looking at Swift houses and things like that, there are a lot of those in North Park and you can check with the Rangers on how they're Approaching that and learn from what they've already been doing over the past 10 years.

There was a grant we were receiving from bird town that is separate from that. It is. Yeah. And was our intent for that 1, a swift house already, or it is, I mean, it's a 1000 dollars and, you know, in the swift house is a 1000 dollars in that.

And that suggestion came from a joint trend that we do the swift house, but knowing that we already have it. And, you know, you're applying for the other 1, and if you're looking for spots to spend it, then we can say swift house and take the other 1000 dollars, which we know we have.

Oh, that's true. So we want to apply for this 1 to be a swift house or some sort of bird house. And then that 1 is kind of for. If we secure this grant, then that is for use in whatever other places that we want to put it.

Yeah, it's the luxury of having to 1000 dollars. So so we can use that filling your application as strong as possible. And if you feel like that, you're, you know, that you're sort of saying, well, I don't know. And we'd like to have some nice plans. If you want to get a little bit more specific, then use the swift house. Okay, and the community in the township manager is aspires to have swift house in 2 different raw parks.

Yeah.

Yeah. Something like that.

Okay. So, as noted, she, and I will work on the application together. So the direction of the committee is the swift house for the application. Is that correct? Okay, so she and I work on that application together. I'm sorry, Jenna. Yeah, no, you're good. I'm sorry. She and I work on that application together. We will facilitate responses to some of those questions as best that we can. And then we'll circulate it to the larger group. We have a long enough lead time now. We can certainly get folks a few days to review and provide any comment, but with the direction of the house will work on that.

Yeah, and that fits into what Melissa was saying is that the swift house does not require us to build an army of volunteers to to maintain it. So, you know, that that we can do.

1 of the things when you have the swift house also that. they've done in some parts of North Park is if you put a bat house on the east side of it, you can make a house for two different insect eating groups.

I have a bat house that I don't know where to hang, so I don't mind donating my bat house. It's very small though.

Okay, anything else Jenna?

That's all from me.

Okay. Naughty, anything on your

Yeah, I've just been doing some work with the CAP subcommittee we've been meeting every couple of weeks as needed. I've been looking at just kind of things that we already have to do just from like DEP, EPA that are also going to meet the requirements for the PA sustainability, like platinum and gold goals that are just, maybe we need to do a little bit more to get us where we need to go for that. So I've just been writing a bit about that, which I'll, it took me longer than I thought I would need, so I'll send that to you. I've also been doing a little bit, Melissa asked me to write a bit for the Town Crier So I'm also just been working on that just to get the last couple things that I have wrapped up.

Okay.

So mostly just paperwork.

Anything else for Nadia?

I'd like to thank Nadia for being part of our committee since this is her last meeting with us. We've really enjoyed having you contribute over the past school year. Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, we really appreciate it. Your time here has been very, very constructive and helpful for this committee and for the community. So you've done a great job with us. So we really appreciate it. We'll miss you.

Always welcome to come back.

Do some weeding while you're here. All right, moving on to project updates. The first one is the tree program with Bernie and Audrey.

Bernie, would you like to start or you can start. Okay, so we had a meeting with some of our people from tree Pittsburgh and Katie to get things squared away for our October seventeenth event. So we will have a tree adoption in the afternoon and the tree tender program in the morning. Katie has all the contract stuff for I think they combine those into a single contract. So she has them and they were, I believe, signed and everything's done and they worked out all the paperwork and how things build. And so that seems to be going well. We got an email today with a confirmation of what trees are in stock this fall. Katie, I don't know if you were on that email. We can forward it to you, but we need to kind of come up with what trees do we want. And so that just came in this afternoon. So we haven't looked or talked about that much. And then we got confirmation of saving the date next year for tree adoption.

And you have that date for 27?

Yes. So that's October 16th, 2027. Thank you.

And then we also got the save the date. from Tree Pittsburgh, so we'll be starting to circulate that soon. October will be here before we know it. So we'll have registrants that day for tree tenders. The town will do some sort of breakfast item and lunch for those that will be joining us this year. And then tree tenders will be over at 3 o'clock with the tree distribution beginning at 3.30 again over in DPW Garage. A little bit of a different event than our birthday giveaway. We'll encourage folks to So that will be that Saturday, but we are working on that contracts.

October 17th is a Saturday. And then I think they had said 10. To 20% of the trees will actually be bushes because people had expressed an interest in having smaller. Plants, so the brushes are included in the list of all the inventory they have. I know Bernie has been talking about because there are a lot of people who want five, you know, cherry trees or whatever it may be, a redbud or whatever, and they would like a row of them, they can only sign up to adopt one tree. And then there's the mad chaos of standing at the end trying to adopt whatever is left over if people didn't show. So she was talking to some people about maybe doing, in conjunction to a tree adoption, a tree sale. And there was talk that that's not something they're really set up for doing currently. However, they are interested in the concept. And I know, Bernie, you've been in contact with some of them more. I don't know if you want to talk about that.

Yeah. I think just to add to that, they follow-on statement from what audrey just said is you know if you're adopting one and you want three uh you could now purchase them so i think right now it's just you um didn't really have a tree committee meeting on monday um so i can talk to myself about it um and how to do that uh But I think, Katie, what I'd like to do is figure out with the township what's the best possible approach to coordinating the tree sale with the tree adoption. And again, we discussed two or three different options. I had hoped to have a recommendation today. But I think we can finalize that within the week as far as whether we just pre order a set number and then set those for sale. Or whether or not we just take the orders as they come in so so we'll see, but I think we need to coordinate that with the township on how that would be managed.

And Bernie, is that the intention to do that for 27? Or is that the intention to do that for this October 16th event?

Yeah, this year. You know, it's, again, the idea being when you're doing your tree adoption, you could also place an order for purchase.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Just as another thing that Northern Area Environmental Council used to do is they had a tree sale every spring. Um, and that's. I can give you context to to the people that did that. But I think that's something that would be worthwhile for us to look at for those people that want 5 cherry trees. That gives them the opportunity to do that.

Yeah, because I know Bernie had mentioned that. When they kind of dissolve, she was hoping that this could.

Take up the slack essentially they had a tree sale every year that. It was how I raised funds.

I had been in the process of bringing Beth Dutton onto the tree committee because that was their event, their activity. And she said she would help us incorporate that. So I'm not sure how to do that now other than just work directly with the township on how that might get handled.

The other thing they noted is that in theory is you are buying in bulk. Anybody can buy like 10 trees from them if you're living in the area. So another thing that might be worth thinking about is kind of advertising. If you want to get together with your neighbors and buy 10 plants, you actually can do that from Tree Pittsburgh. You just have to buy at least 10.

would we be able to field something like that like is that within the township's purview to like say hey here's a here's an application form once we get like 10 people put in that they want trees we'll put the order and you pay us like is that

That is the idea, Jenna. So the tree sale would be, ideally, we do it once a year with the tree adoption event. And we could run it as a fundraiser. Let's say all the trees are $24. We could sell them at $30, $35 and have some kind of... You know, it could go back into the EC budget as an example, if that's permitted by the township or back to, you know, supporting the tree adoption program on an ongoing basis. So, so that's a thought too.

yeah so we're unable just to clarify we're unable to make money on an event in the town but certainly we can talk about that structure or what that would look like or how we make that happen um you know audrey to your point the tree giveaway would be for my canvas residence but maybe a tree sale

Is a larger thing you don't necessarily well, I was even thinking we could put, like, have Liz put out. Hey, get together with your neighbors and y'all submit. Just directly, like, just letting people know it's an option even would be nice. Randomly.

Yeah, I think that could be promoted year round. And I think, you know, we did that last year at some point, but, and so yes, on a spring and fall, like you can always go to tree Pittsburgh and place an order through their nursery. And, and I think just exposing that list of, you know, what they have for sale could be a part of it, but I would love for us to do this as kind of a neighborhood free adoption event or a tree sale where, you know, you kind of promote the idea of the tree line street again. You know, maybe they're not oaks, but maybe there's something, you know, smaller that can line your streets. But I think we try to suggest, you know, the beautification and the health benefits of the plantings as part of the promotion of the tree sale. And again, ideally it's annually, it's tied in with the adoption and the tree tender event. So it's kind of a big tree day for McCandless was the original thought.

And just a random question before we make any kind of recommendation. Is the town able to process payments? I don't know. I'm going to say no, but I can certainly... Yeah, because I know like taxes and all that is like a third party and stuff.

It's very complicated. Yeah. So I can certainly reach out on that too and figure that out.

Yeah, because like if that's not an option, then we'll have to figure something out, maybe with Tree Pittsburgh or something.

Okay. Yes. When you're selecting your shrubs, try to pick ones that are not... The deer aren't going to destroy immediately.

I only want to feed the deer. I don't know what you're talking about.

Okay, there are different. There are different. Yes. Yes.

Yeah, I'm sure we'll be chatting about this with Bernie and I, and I don't know Bernie how you want to handle it. And when we need to tell them tree numbers by, but we might send out to the group to what we're thinking about getting. But we'll have to talk about it since I've just came in.

Okay, so adding adding to that, then obviously we saw the email today from Katie and we've had 7 submissions for the remarkable tree program 8 counting Mary Bates. But we'll see, we'll see what happens. So that is a, I mean, that that is really getting there. And I think the 1 thing that we're missing is we're missing somebody. We're missing the oldest tree. so ken can you and i think about if we think there's a 175 year old tree in this community and go knock on somebody's door yeah you know these old trees in the community right i i haven't you know i i know where different ones are but that doesn't mean i know where all of them are yeah well just one of them you know i'm saying maybe you and i can maybe i can coordinate and try to find that there might be one there might be one east sandal avenue

what is it on east sandal avenue east sandal yes okay i know when i've taken trees down around my house they go back you know when i've had to take them down for whatever reason they go back before civil war and i know we're not the oldest ones you know some of these white oaks are very old

Okay. So I'd like to maybe you and I can get together and see if we can get because I think that's the only category we're missing. And then lastly, I think we want to talk about, you know, and Katie, you know, what, what are, you know, what's the other than winning something? Because I think at this point, seven applicants, you could probably fit them into different categories. Everybody's going to win something, which is great. I don't want to see somebody not win. You know, what would be giving them or what do we do? We have a piece of paper or something?

Yeah, I mean, we'll certainly recognize in the community we can give them some sort of plaque or like a certificate or something, but I wasn't sure if folks were thinking something

else i i don't know what we have a budget for i was thinking earlier and semi-grim but if there was like a rock and you could carve it and i'm like i don't know who does it besides like cemetery people but something that looks more natural than like a headstone of like having a rock that just says like remarkable tree or mccandless remarkable tree because you could actually put it under the tree um but i have no idea that could be very expensive i don't know

Probably could do that with a brick.

Yeah. Or, you know, sometimes you get those little things that say, you know, bless my garden or something like that. I mean, it just comes from Hallmark or something, right?

Okay, but maybe not Hallmark.

Yeah, but I mean, so those things are not, I mean, it's not like it's marble.

Right. What about what McCann's doing for the, like, name a brick thing?

The HCC, the walkway?

Yeah.

I want to be sure to do something to... I think, um, you know, doing a brick or something, or doing it, you know, a little more, I don't know. You know, I know what you're talking about. Not a headstone. Yeah, I'm sure.

I'm sure there's tune stone companies. That'd be more than well.

I'll sit there with a level hand carver. Yeah, I can look at pricing and get back.

Okay, folks good because it sounds like there's, um, we'll have something for each category.

Okay, and then lastly, I've been having conversations with Lorraine was 1 in X councilman. Jack Casey was another where there are tree reductions going on. There's widening of roads at 2 different intermediate schools. And I think the expectation is that we're going to lose 170 trees. Audrey, you've heard this too.

We were talking about it at national night out.

Right? Um, and so, you know, obviously we'd like to add, or at least be net 0. um, so I think that I think is going to bring more information to us and we'll talk about this further. But I just want to sort of get it in front of the committee and say that this is something that hopefully we can, we can add to as opposed to just letting that go away. So, we're not going backwards.

This is a real quick general comment. You know, the cameras township is over 40% canopy covered. which is pretty amazing and it'd be great for us to keep it that way.

Yep. Anything else for Tree Project? OK. Joanna Reingartens. Take a breath. It's OK. Yeah.

All right.

I'm going to try to do this without the anger and rage of a million suns. All right. The rain gardens were initially put in in 2010 with the HCC rain garden being the largest, which was put in 2017. That was a community effort that was done with volunteers and other community resources, including the Audubon Society and others who provided native plants, labor, their own sweat and tears. And then I am upset at the town right now because the largest of those was ripped out without any warning to us, any communication to us. It included multiple native button bushes, trees that were not diseased, not sick. When we're trying to restore our canopy for our town, ripped out with, again, no warning. Town council didn't know, we didn't know. My understanding is in 2014, that was not the plan. Again, but this was put in in 2017. In three years, that plan was made. There are documentation somewhere in this building that that was the plan. And while, We could put it back, we could try to reestablish that what's done is done currently and if we are to spend more taxpayer money on that like. It feels like double work, it feels like. it's disheartening, to say the least. um. We still have four other rain gardens. We can form task groups to make sure that those are preserved and extremely well marked for future people in the town who may not know that something is a rain garden. But what is there now is grass and mud and weeds. where it was mulch and flowers and beautiful button bushes. So that's my plan for now. My plan to move forward from that is again, since we've discussed subcommittees, maybe not the term to use currently, but task force is okay. I would love to see the town work towards planting more natives, especially as they're making other landscapes. I would like to see the town replace those as we're moving forward with making these new town parks, such as Pontiac Park, such as Potter Park. And I am concerned about what the current state of the mud puddle will be moving forwards um because that is supposed to be a rain garden it's not It will hold water now, which is near a playground that I fear is a liability. It will invite invasive plants where they weren't before as they get closer to the HCC. And then, you know, Japanese knotweed is right there next to Pine Creek. So if that's no longer our responsibility, hopefully that is taken care of so it doesn't harm the foundation. And I just worry about what that construction equipment did to compress the soil in the area. I worry about all of the sediment buildup. I worry a lot about how water will rush downstream and hopefully not harm anything because it was being held before by plants and now it's not.

The public works website also needs to be updated because it brags about all the rain gardens and how much water can filter and that was the largest one.

Yes, so that will need to be significantly reduced for the town. And I think the other thing that needs to happen is further education needs to go towards the staff on what rain gardens are and why they are important and where they are. And again, make sure everything is very well marked from now on. Right now there is a large sign out there, but I guess we have to make it bigger.

smaller one at each one of them.

Each one of them.

Any questions? If I could, Joanna, I certainly did not want to cut you off. Joanna and I had the opportunity with Jeff and Melissa to meet before this meeting. Jeff and I also met separately with Town Manager Schwend. The plan that Joanna is talking about from 2014 does not call for that location to be a rain garden. It calls for that to be a retention pond with grass plantings there. So I did just want to highlight that. Again, Joanna had noted that that rain garden went in in 2017, which was several years later, but I did just want to highlight that. And then we had the opportunity to meet for this.

Do we have an accurate map of Things that have been installed rain garden, like, are the other rain gardens accurately mapped. Somewhere in town documentation as far as like a site plan.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

I suggest like, we at least bring those up to date. I don't know if there are other plans, but definitely like, with the parks and, you know. That everything that is currently there looks like. Have we audited town lands recently to know what's there any rain gardens?

I'm aware of this. Are these over here at the bottom of the parking lot? I'm just thinking in general, not just rain gardens, but like, and have people been.

spending money on doing something in wallpark and it hasn't been appropriately documented i have absolutely no idea but just maybe we should do an audit and make sure everything that we have spent money on getting done is marked right yeah i as far as like infrastructure i'm sure that that's math like actual physical and around infrastructure um but um i can see if we have site plans and things like that for those locations yeah

I really don't think there's been much improvement done on the wall park. Once you get away from the ball fields and things, there's very little, virtually none improvement.

At one point, you had put in a trail at some point. Was that marked on a map anywhere?

Did that ever get marked? The grant trail?

Yeah.

OK. Yeah, that's marked.

Yeah, that went through due process. OK.

I just wanted to make sure that it actually got marked.

It's got signs at both ends and all.

And also the, what's the other one, the vestal trail?

And the branch trails currently, we're in the process of putting a connector in between that, between the Walpark parking lot and the branch trail.

We have a grant application.

Oh, grant application, okay.

Will that make it just that little bit extra longer to... To get a mile?

Yeah, to get that whole mile. Katie, is there a way we can stretch the trail?

In the parking lot, we'll do several circles. But yeah, so you don't have to park right there off the road. That's a safety concern. So that's where we have different applications.

Any other questions for Joanna? OK, can a deer program?

The Canlis police give me a readout each month on things, and so it's not deer season, so what are they reporting? They're reporting things that are hit, you know, cars and deer that are picked up and so forth. So, so far through the end of June, not including July, there's been 82 deer picked up. That's more deer than were harvested in the archery season, which is why we are hopefully going to initiate our enhanced deer management program this year. But along with that, this is just a personal thing, I would encourage anyone to contact their Allegheny County council person and recommend or talk about doing some enhanced deer management in the county parks, in particular North Park. When I talk with the new, she's just officially appointed now, parks manager for all nine county parks. She doesn't want anything to do with it. She says that's above her head. So anyway, we're going to do anything there other than their archery program is to get the Allegheny County Council. Why am I concerned about that? About 1,200 acres of walled park is in the Canlis Township. So it'd be great if we can work together with doing enhanced deer programs to lower the deer population so that we can have regeneration of our trees and can reestablish our native plants and things. A lot of the reason we have the invasives and everything we have is that the deer don't eat Japanese barberry, they don't eat Japanese knotweed, and they don't eat Japanese stiltgrass. That's why they're there, because the deer don't eat them. So if we want to be good stewards and try to revitalize our green space, We need to do an active deer management program. Any questions there to the point around my house that they're eating milk, which is just astounding to me.

I hit 1 again. You're doing population. It gets even worse. It survives.

That's part of the thing. Like when it's saying 82 deer were picked up. That's not counting. There's many deer. Like any deer I've ever hit was out in Pine Township. Jumped up the hillside. It comes up. It jumped over the guardrail right into my car. And it was, you know, $4,000 damage to my car. That deer got up and ran back into the woods. and the other part of that is is that because there is nothing you know like when we're watching deer now they're all eating they're out out grazing in grass deer are not grazers they're browsers they eat twigs eat eight to ten pounds of twigs a day and when you see them eating grass that means there's no twigs for them to eat and so this winter if we have a if we have a tough winter with some snow and cold The first deer that die are the fawns, because they're the ones that can't stand up on their hind legs far enough. But down the way back in the woods, you won't see that. And so we don't really know how much mortality we have from winter kill. And there's no way to really measure that. But it is going on. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not happening. Any questions or anything? I'd really like to get into getting rid of some of the privet and things in Wall Park and things like that and trying to get things reestablished and everything. But it's just really pointless to try to do any of that at this point in time.

Okay, thanks, Ken.

Anybody wants to see this?

Okay, local climate action plan. Melissa?

So the subcommittee's been meeting every couple weeks. Carmen and Audrey are in the process of drafting up a tentative plan, which we're going to be presenting for town council as follow-up from their request a couple months ago to provide more information about why Climate Action Plan and the various initiatives it suggests are a benefit to the community. Audrey, do you have anything you'd like to share?

No, I would like to say that thank you for this paper that you handed out because this is about half of what we're writing. I'm sure you'll see this when we scan it and send it to you. But we are trying to incorporate a lot of initiatives that you have mentioned coming out of the Climate Action Plan and we're trying to really narrow it down To broad topics, if that makes sense to try and just provide counsel with, like, an outline of what we want and the recommendations to get them on board. And then spend more effort dialing down into what are specific initiatives. So that's kind of our plan. We're hoping to have that document before this group next month.

Wonderful.

Okay. I know I was out, but if you guys have more room, I would like to. If you can leave me in on the last month, so it wasn't helpful for me to be there because I couldn't meet, but if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to.

Yeah, we'll give you the information for the next meeting. If you're free, you're more than welcome to join us. Awesome. Yeah, thanks.

Okay.

And then I guess the 1 other piece of that, I don't know if. I think Carmen had sent out an email related to the Allegheny County individual that she's been in contact with. I guess, Katie, the question is more for you. We're interested in having the county speak to us about what their plans are, but we do think as a subcommittee that it would be extremely beneficial to pull in some of the town employees so that you can all hear what the county will be doing so that since you guys actually are the ones representing the town, it would help be an educational opportunity. And then you'd also be able to have a better idea of what we may or may not want to do for McCandless. Is that something that you think you'd be open to, or do you need to go discuss with John about the potential of holding a meeting?

Yeah, so is this something where, and this is sort of my point of clarification with Carmen was, is this where you'd like her to be in front of the subcommittee?

first to sort of talk more about that or you think all I don't think there's a reason for her to go in front of the subcommittee if Carmen has it handled already um I I think just one meeting a virtual meeting would probably be sufficient um with those of us on the subcommittee and then a couple of you from the town as well okay unless you have other thoughts around it yeah no so sort of when I left it um Jeff uh Carmen and I had met separately on on the website um information and

Carmen sort of wasn't, she didn't really have a pulse on what the county was requesting or what they were asking. So that's sort of where we had left it and it sounded like she was maybe going to get more clarification on that. Okay. And then bring that back and we could talk about how that sort of, that structure looks. But certainly we're open to that and we can talk about that. Perfect. Once she gets that information, we'll follow up with you to get something scheduled.

We appreciate that. The long-winded answer is yes. I like to hear that. Thank you. Yes. All right, any other questions related to any of the scope right now? All right, thank you very much.

Thank you. Next up is the EEC homepage admission statement. So Carmen and I have met with Katie and Liz twice. We took away concepts and we are, we have I think we've landed on what a landing page looks like. So the first page up, and it's a little bit more splashy than it is now. So that landing page will have more of the highlights of the EAC and the mission statement. And then to the left will be the more of the informational. So the members will be on there, but then it's more drop downs for minutes and um past uh annual reports different things like that but having said all that uh we have basically landed on a concept and what we're going to do is then we're going to try to they're not going to try to then we're going to begin to provide content so we're going to ask all the subcommittees to supply some comment or some content and at least if nothing else um if they're just If they're just links to approve the content. So we are moving forward. We're moving forward pretty, pretty swiftly, I think. And we'll be bringing to this committee more of what we've landed on once once Liz is sort of working through what we've given her. Any questions there? Okay, moving on to fly through some of these now community outreach. The 1st, 1 is going to park recap. Ken was there, I was there, others have joined. Oh, I'm sorry, Joanna was there. That's right, she was there. And does anybody want to give a, you know, it was, it was informational and, you know, it was sort of, you know, introduce who we are. It was obviously not just the canvas. It was many other surrounding communities. So it was, you know, what the EAC does, and it really does a lot of times center on, you know, deer control. So we, so we had a large, large. placard, for lack of better words, about the expanded deer call. We had our bird town assigned, which gathered a lot of questions. And then we had the Remarkable Tree Program sign there. So we had lots of great conversations, I'd have to say.

Oh, I was going to say it like, I liked opening up to people because you could never tell if anybody was from the can list. You can't tell. So just opening up about talking about what your local government is doing to help protect the environment and being able to talk about all of our different programs and. how we support, you know, Birdtown and what that does, and then how even down to the community level, how you can support different programs for native lawns and for all the different things, for, you know, monarch way stations, to things you can do for the water. It's whatever you want in your yard to promote in a different way to promote the environment. And that was a really successful thing beyond just, you know, talking about deer, which of course, yes, people want to do, but there's other conversations happening there too.

I talked to a lot of people about deer, and I asked if they were from the canals. But it's one of those things that, I mean, last year I talked to 37 people, 36 of them thought we had a deer problem. And one couple that didn't think we had a deer problem had only lived here for two weeks. I wish they had come back. But it's universally recognized that we have a really big issue with the deer. And it just is a general rule that I would tell people is if we have an area that has a carrying capacity of 100 deer and we have 200 deer on it like we do now, you need to knock it back down to 50 deer for five to seven years for it to recover. That's just deer biology because their population will double every two to three years. So we had conversations with a lot of different people from different communities. A large number of them were from the canvas. Um, but it's widely recognized that there's a really a big deer issue.

Was there people from other communities who had a dear problem that you found. Like, people from, like, other neighboring countries. Yes. Good. I mean, not good. In fact, it's good that this is a problem that. Well, other residents recognize.

i'm aware of what other townships are doing with their programs and things like that and was able to you know my thing is like i was encouraging all of us to contact our county uh council person um i was encouraging them to to be in touch with their township on on their feelings about things because you know that's grassroots is how you get things done

There also was a live owl.

It was cool.

Yeah, very cool.

Where was the owl? It was at the, like, one of the booths had a live owl.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Who brought you? It was a really good day.

Who brought the owl?

Is it a rehab center?

Yeah, it came from.

Yeah, it did. It's a good point. Okay. Next up is a national night out, which is, which was really, you know, it was, you know, obviously meet meet your, you know, your public safety professionals, but it was also meet meet the. We also had a, you know, a little game, little recycling or composting game. And so, you know, from that standpoint, I thought it was very successful. Melissa and Audrey was there as well. We'll see you have any comments on that.

Yeah, I thought it was a really useful event for us this year. We were able to chat with a lot of people. The recycling game is a fantastic way to teach people and engage with them. We actually ended up running out of the little cheat sheets that we like to give out to show what should be recycled versus what should go in trash. So I definitely think it's great that we continue to have a presence at the deviant.

Yeah, as somebody who compost, I was excited at how many kids compost at their home of their own initiative. And so it was really great to see that. So many kids knew that, like, food trash goes in compost. Yeah.

And maybe that's something because I think you can do like a little home car, but not everybody has a big area in the backyard that they can do that. Maybe there's something that, you know, there's a little compost kit, just like the rainbow little compost kit that sits on top of your thing that has a lid shorts out there. So.

I have two, but not them. So you can do home collection. They also have, if you live in an apartment, you can do a worm bin inside your house. They don't smell. And it makes lots of, we were chatting to some people who didn't have a backyard about potential options, because I'm all about composting. It's a huge form bin set up. It's like five by five feet. Nice.

So we'll move forward on that. I love that. Since we're introducing that and we're promoting it, we might as well give some ideas on how to get involved. Okay, next up is community day community planning again. That is that is on. I don't even have the date down here.

That is the number 19.

Thank you September 19th and that is from 1 to 8. so it is going to take an army of hopefully everybody can be available for a little while. You know, that day is, you know, I don't see that as a big. You know, with the EAC day, that's a, that's a, you know, that's a family day. And, you know, I think that the activity is going to be the most important thing. So, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to flood the booth with with a million flyers are going to blow all over the place or try to do too many things at one time. I think last year we tried to do a little bit too many things at the same time. So, you know, this is the EAC. This is what we do bird town, you know, something, you know, something else that's out there, but. here's our game, here's our craft, whatever that is. So can we have you think about, you know, since you were crafty?

right so just discussing the craft and kind of those of you involved in it as much okay karma's not here but audrey you weren't on last time um kind of just in general my idea anytime there's craft with kids um i want to make sure it's something that's accessible to everybody i want if a kid comes up and they're two they can have some way to access it at the same time if they're 12 if they come up with some disability be able to support them in some way everybody should have access to it and then speaking to other parents um out there nobody wants to walk around with anything with wet paint nobody wants to walk around with anything with wet glue nobody wants to have glitter and nobody wants something that their kid's going to sit there for 30 minutes and try to perfect and they're just standing there um these are all things that people So trying to come up with something that fits all of that has been a little bit tricky. There's been a few things that kind of worked. It's just hard to know exactly how many materials to prepare ahead of time. And then if you're stuck there at the booth, like if you had more kids than you expected and then they're trying to cut things out or something, that's tricky too.

What about again? I don't know what you thought of her. What about something like making seed bulbs?

That was something I recommended last year. I have made seed bombs in the past. Um. I prefer them to be native seed bombs and that gets a little bit more expensive.

Yeah.

Um, we have a budget, so I'm just saying.

This is what we want to use the budget for entry. Right?

So think about that way. Um, well, another thing with it is like, okay, so if you're doing seed bumps and that's going to be like recycling the paper, how are you ripping up the paper? How are you going to get in the water? How do you like, there's kind of that part of it where it does get kind of messy at that point. Yeah, that's right.

Okay, so can we take that away and work on that and say, you know, we need some ideas for a craft, you know, certainly, you know, obviously needs to pass all those tests and that those are all important. But, you know, we need to do that. And then also, I will send out an email that will talk about, you know, when people can be available, if they're available, and if so, what time can they be available so we can start putting shifts together. um and um and i and i think the other thing too is is that we ought to have two signs and two two focuses and and this is certainly up for you know debate but bird town fine ways try to do that and we should get that same big placard for um tree tenders and tree adoption and and so we should get liz to um put together that sign for us because those are the two things that we should be pushing on september 19th

I would say if we are going to be focusing on those two areas, it would be great if whatever activity we're doing can also relate to it and tie in so we can have discussions that are more natural in their flow.

And I want to add one more thing. And I want to have a discussion, too, about the craft or activity or whatever we're doing. Do we want it to be something that kids make and then take away with them? Or do we want it to be a community-based thing, kind of like we do at Winterfest, where kids make and then it stays with the community? So like a community mural or something like that. And I know that people were doing something like that for National Night Out, I want to say. So we might rain on somebody else's parade if we do that.

Well, I also don't know, what was the intent with that? So there were markers and like puzzle pieces. Katie, do you know where that's going to be displayed?

So we're going to put that together. So it's 175 Reasons to Love the Canlis. So we gave everybody, children, adults, the opportunity. Some kids drew pictures, some just wrote their name, you know, whatever, parks, all kinds of stuff. We'll put that together and we'll frame that.

Okay.

Yeah, because I think the big thing is, if we're going to do a mural, then we have to have some place where it actually will be displayed.

I mean, I have that tree and that tree is starting to get. You know, it's, it's on its last legs. I can build new legs for it, but it only has a couple more purposes and, you know, we can, it's just something to put things on or whatever that is. So.

I can make it seem more upright and i'm curious because I know you on like crap slash game thing. And you said the game work really well on national night out, I wonder if you want to try another game thing instead of like a craft thing that makes it a little bit easier for us to like. managed through that, especially since it did go well.

One of the things I made last year that certainly can come back is that I went out and logged what species of tree are out like in Devlin Park and made like a scavenger hunt. I don't know if anybody actually did it, but

Yeah, so on the garden walk that I did there was a lot of them had like activities for kids and was like find them this, find them that.

I wonder if you could do like a bingo like scavenger hunt type thing and then have like prizes back at the booth so like kids can go out run around find stuff and then come back and get like a packet of seeds or something. Interesting.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. And Jenna, it sounds like you have some ideas, so please, you know, as this goes around, please contribute. Okay. Next up is the productive ecological garden presentation, which is September 10th at the History Center. So the night after our next meeting at the History Center. So we are promoting this now. Yeah, we have seven folks.

highlighted this Saturday's Sustainable Saturday. So if more folks want to go ahead and register for that free event at the HCC, this was John Creasy, a Larkspur design that Joanna had initiated the contact with this gentleman to set this up and I was able to nail down that date with him. So we were trying to strategically sort of need to not go too far into the fall and make sure we have something on the calendar for this fall upcoming. So that'll be again, September 10th. Well, if you're on the EAC, you don't need a pre-register. I'll just imagine that some of you are coming. But we would ask the general public to pre-register, yes please.

Okay, good. Bring your friends and neighbors. Very good. Speaker series follow up. And the reason I have this is because I just want to sort of talk this out for a little bit. So we had the tree session in the library. Now we're going to have a productive ecological garden. And we should certainly have one more after that. The Audubon Society could do one in the fall. unless anybody else has one that they think that we should go after this, that's a little bit more important or a little bit more topic related. And if not, I'll just move forward with the Audubon Society.

I would think on a bond on birds and winter feeding and all of that. I think that's appropriate. Yeah.

Okay, good. I'll move forward with that 1 again. I'm trying to put together the migratory bird walk. So, with Jonathan rice, and we will, I will move forward with that and keep everybody up to date on that. Any questions on the speaker series.

Jeff, do you have an intended time frame for the burn law?

I don't.

Because I know we're required to do that event as part of Burntown.

That's right. OK. That's right. OK. Like month-wise? Yeah. It's going to have to be early October.

October?

Yeah.

OK, perfect.

Yep. Um, and then again, going back to the calendar, the community calendar for 2027, you know, Katie asked me, is there any way that we can preload the dates of speakers so that they make the calendar? And, you know, I don't want to just say, no, we can't do that. But I'd like to throw that out to the. When it will be other than the tree tenders. Um, but I don't want to speak for the whole group.

Is it difficult to update the town calendar? Like, is it just done once a year essentially?

And yeah, so that's a physically printed document. Oh, you mean the physical calendar? Yeah. Okay. Excuse me. I suggested this to Jeff, because the 3rd Thursday lecture at the is in the calendar every month. So you might get more interest. You might get. You know folks paying more attention if we're saying like hey February, June and October EAC speaker series HCC. If you want to keep it more fluid that's certainly fine not something we need to do we've not done it in the past. But if we could work say this is the date we're looking to fill a speaker, are you available on that date? If that handcuffs the EAC too much that's certainly fine.

If we're keeping it just general that we're going to have one. And don't have to lose the topic in the speaker.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, if we find a speaker, we want. Making sure they're available on the day, just working out schedule is the hardest thing, but I also don't know that it's bad to establish a date either. And just like, if they can't do it that day, maybe, hey, can you do it in 3 months when our next 1 is scheduled or something?

yeah the only concern i get about like and i and i see where ken is going so you just say um you know on in february in june and in september on you know the the third saturday or the third thursday we we intend to have this but if you don't have it then you might cause more confusion about that do you think that's true katie or um

Yeah, to Ken's point, it sort of solidifies your speaker series a little bit. There's things that were in the 26th calendar, frankly, that we didn't end up doing. But again, if you feel like that's too much of a burden to put it in there, I would suggest it.

I don't know that it's a burden. I want to be open-minded about it. So what do you think about that?

When did you say the cutoff was? Or when we would have to get you dates?

Yeah, so we would probably need to know by end of September.

That's something initially with EAC, we had wanted to have a speaker series where once a quarter we had had a speaker. And I think if it's in the calendar, it kind of gives us some incentive to do that.

And Thursday seemed like a reasonable night, obviously, 3rd, Thursday is out because we shouldn't compete with the, but our next 1, I'm assuming is going to be the 2nd Thursday since it's after our meeting. What if we did, like, the 2nd Thursday.

In random, okay. No, we're tiptoeing toward this.

It follows fails and someone has to cancel. You could always just like. Remember to talk to Joanna's back up. Okay. Yeah.

So, so I'm going to, you know, I'm going to reach out for some input on that 1 and see if we can meet that goal. Okay, great. Last thing, the community outreach is that we were contacted by Allison, I can't say her last name, but from Nash to continue to work with us on their environmental science program. And what they're looking for is to have engagement with their students regarding the climate action plan and bird town. And we have come back to her and said that we would be more than open to do this. And she's going to come back to us with some dates. I think that she was kicking around the week after the 18th, which when school was in session, I wasn't available then, but I think she's going to come up with some alternative dates.

So is the goal that they would like volunteer for a program or is it more educational? It's education. Education. Yeah.

It would be us speaking with the students and talking to them a bit, doing Q&A type things. Yeah.

Okay. Open initiatives. Bird tone update. Um, okay, the grant we talked about that I am going to continue to try to schedule that walk in the fall. Ken and I visited and then I visited separately Beachwood Farms. I bought an additional sign, which I'm using at the events. We know about that. And. currently with Birdtown. We do have a Canvas page. We have some information loaded on it. And we'll continue to work with Liz to load additional events and accomplishments. But at this point, I'm going to start to load our actual formal accomplishments on the site. And With that, I have access to the site and Liz has access to the site and I think that's great. I would like to have additional eyes on it and I don't think Liz is the right person for that. So I want to continue to think about before we hit go on that and we look to go from green to bronze to silver that we are capturing everything that we're doing and we're accurately documenting everything that we're doing. So that's where we are with Bird Tower. It's a lot of words. Okay. Next up is park walks. So we're talking about September and that is coming up fast. So I think what I'm going to do is I will send out an email to everybody and see their open Saturdays for Potter and Pontiac park walks. And we need to get that so we can start to think about what our input can be on those parks and also anything that we can use the grants for. Okay, open grant initiatives and with that, we know that we, we have the 1000. 1 out there and anything else in the way of available grants.

Jeff, you had recently sent me an initiative through pen dot for chargers. That might be an option. Potentially here for town hall. I'm not sure if the talk about any chargers before this is an initiative that the AC would support. I'm not sure, frankly, where this would go for us. The application opens in November. Um, so it is a while from now, but potentially something that we could look into if he would be interested in something like that.

Um, so I know that. And again, way jumping again, but 1 of the things that we are likely going to recommend. In the cap eventually down the road way down the road is that when things start reaching an end of life cycle to contemplate additional things, like, maybe. Hybrid vehicles or plug in or something. So having a grant to have power available to plug in. Could be beneficial if eventually, like, the city fleet wanted to add some additional vehicles that were plug in in some way.

Now, 1 thing you have to think about when we're looking at EV charges is which level. Yes, it's going to be because if we only have a level 2 charger, then that one's going to take many hours to. actually charge up a car, but I don't think we have everything we need for a level three charger, which is like the supercharger. That's the one problem. Say we have someone who wants to use it. They live in an apartment complex. They would like to purchase an EV, and they want to utilize a public charger like that, but that car is going to be sitting out there for many hours if it wants to get to full charge.

I think a lot of it would be requiring some research to look into of what it would take. But I think as a group, we would support that.

Yeah, and Jeff, I haven't had, honestly, I haven't had a chance. I think there are requirements for the level of charger that you need to put in. And I haven't really had an opportunity to really delve into what all those details are. But certainly something that I can do and talk to John about and something we might be interested in doing. So that's something that's out there. The Birdtown, the $1,000 we have in the end, I think that's, is that a two-year grant that we need to spend? It's one year. One year, so we'll need to move on spending that. And then the upcoming application for the switch house that Jen and I will be working on. So those are all things that are kind of in the works of the grant right now.

Okay. With the EEVs, we had, probably seven, eight years ago, we had looked at, there was a lot of tax advantages and different grants and things, and it just never went anywhere. We couldn't make it work. And you might want to look at McCandless Crossings because they have chargers over there and see what their experience has been and what all is going on. Might as well learn from somebody that's already got it in place as to the applicability of the whole the whole issue.

Yeah. And Katie, if once you start taking a look at this, if there are any questions regarding the EV, do you want to run them past the CAP subcommittee to make sure that it's sort of fitting into what they're trying to accomplish? No, absolutely. Okay, good.

And Katie, if you decide to apply for that grant too, assuming that this goes decently, which I hope it will, I would also love to help with that grant application as well. Yeah, for sure.

Absolutely. I know enough to be dangerous right now, so I bring it up as something that I've been looking into.

So I just put into the chat the knife fund for, it's called the Moore Opportunity. It's a municipal opportunities for retrofits and energy efficiency loan program. It's a It could be as low as a 0% interest commercial financing for Pennsylvania municipalities. I've mentioned this before. And so this is not necessarily grants, but when you go to apply or look at this program, they will do part of the service of the organization, NIFE, National Energy Improvement Fund, they do have funding to pay for free assessments to kind of look at your situation and help do the paid you know assessment for free based on whatever it is you might want to do so again this is a loan program but there are still significant grant programs at the state level this one is sponsored from the pennsylvania energy development authority But PADEP still has a significant number of grant and loan programs as well. If the committee wants to make some of these recommendations, I can help steer towards some of these. And I could introduce you guys to the Pennsylvania DEP secretary who could probably better direct some of this. But once you have your recommendations, I would say, take a look at the state. And my understanding is Arvind Venkat is now on the Energy Committee.

OK, moving on to the miscellaneous. So 2027 budget.

we have a current budget amount and um i'd like to katie what is the date that we need to provide um our budget recommendation by tom charter john has to have the budget to town council back june 1st um so we are up against that this for me um was an item talking about uh treated away uh again next year Are there other things that the EAC would like to consider? I heard craft items at community day, some things for night out. Nadia was very generous to donate those items. Thank you, Nadia. But for night out next year, I don't know that we're sitting on anything else. Jeff, there was a minor expenditure for your sign for Birdtown. So just think about maybe, you know,

Seeds through urn seeds for the rain garden. So there's a local native seed company, Urn Seeds, that has a rain garden mix for reseeding and making sure that it's dense.

And so what I'd like to do is, at the September meeting, I'd like to come and say, this is the number we need. This is the number we need.

And that number is no guarantee. Right. Just to clarify. No, no. The whole budget needs to go to town council. Oh, OK. Well, that's not fair. Yeah.

Well, look at me. Yes.

But I mean, OK. Haven't we traditionally just had like a $2,000, $3,000

I can give you an update where you are. That would be great.

So that's very helpful. If you can give me an update on on the budget and let me know where we are. And then what we can do is we can consider each project that we're working on. And also, you know, the, the community events that we'd like to be participating in spending some money. And so we'll think about.

It might be easier to get people to come talk if we could give them, like, a speaking stipend, like, 100 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Also, I don't know, Joanna, with the seed company you work with, if they do, like, seed packets. I don't know if that's more sustainable than, like, going to the dollar store and just getting random seed packets or something like that.

You know what?

I was just saying, I was just saying, we might want to put something in there to pack seed packets.

Okay, okay.

We're just gonna pretend like that didn't happen. Take it back. I have some ideas.

But if you want to like hand out feedback.

We'll formalize that. We'll come back. As everybody has input on the budget, once Katie lets me know what we spent to date, and then I'm going to ask everybody for input on what they think that they'll need for 2027, and then we'll go to council with that. OK, I'll follow up on that one. OK, next up is MacMill tip for September. Was the recycling one the last one we just had? Which one did we just have?

Yes. Yeah, that went very well.

Yeah, that went very well.

They're doing very well.

Yeah, we're getting a lot of traction on them. So September MacMill tip, we had school tips, but I'm not sure. Do you have any memory of that?

Herman had initially volunteered to take that one, but she isn't here this month, so I don't think it's fair to just randomly assign it to her.

Yeah, I was going to say, you could do sustainable school supplies and talk about reusing school supplies instead of I have a fountain pen that's got a refillable cartridge instead of buying a big new pen every time this one dies. That's cool. It's great. And going for things that have a larger component that you just refillable items, reusable items, that could be something to do. If it's a school tip, I don't know.

I don't know what else you'd do for- I know it's your last meeting, but would you like to take this one?

I'll take it.

I'll take it.

I'll take it. I have nothing on it.

Really? I thought you had some Spanish to learn.

I tested out. Yes. Congratulations.

So you're going to do that?

Yeah, I'll do it. Aw, boy. That's nice.

You get an extra cookie.

Oh, thank you.

OK. Thank you, Nadia. And thank you, Melissa. Regional EAC meeting recap. Melissa or Audrey, do you want to mention anything there?

so one thing i learned is that we have a very good working relationship with our town council compared to a lot of other communities yes they can't get town council members to show up or care so um thank you for coming That was quite nice. A lot of people had deer problems and we were talking about that I was talking about we were trying to do an enhanced cull and it would be great if people could like make this a more pervasive area to get like all of the North Hills to do something similar, which a lot of people seem to think they have other things that they need to worry about in it's a problem that everybody acknowledges they don't necessarily have the resources to address it at this time or getting their township to do it. There was discussion of having more of like for some of our presentations getting like group dispersal of or dissemination of the information to try and do more like North Hill EAC Talks and and, like, advertisements and stuff, and several of them are talking about some of them are much more limited space. And so there's limited. Sign up, but some of them, we might have somebody who's very popular and have, like, a larger space and more people attend from various different townships.

It's a collaboration on speakers.

Yeah.

We'll send anything that.

No, I did a great recap.

Okay, great. Any other general updates to share from the group?

Tree Pittsburgh is having a pawpaw festival at the end of the month. I saw that. Would you like to check that out?

Yeah. Is that like explaining what pawpaws are and getting people to try them? I believe so, yes.

Okay. Okay. Report from town council. Jack?

They're very pleased to know that you guys are working on getting the other ESCs and other townships to work on deer. And as from this council member, I appreciate your confidence in me.

Okay, wonderful. Anything else? Nope. Okay. Katie, anything from news from that?

Just wanted to note in keeping with updated town policy, this will be the last meeting where we will be recording and posting to the town website. Would encourage individuals to attend meetings in person as they're able, or please check the meeting minutes as that's the official record.

TAB, Mark McIntyre:" me Thank you so topics for next meeting October mcmail. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" Community day recap our September well if we have them by then of September park walks. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" And a market to a new market or birthday walk date. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" Anything else.

I'll put the budget back on there since they didn't have to refine that a little bit.

Melissa, we should have our cap recommendation by that point, too, I think.

Okay. Yeah, that will be part of just our climate action plan project up there.

Okay. Anything else? Anything else anybody wants to add to the agenda? Any other comments? Okay, then can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting?

Motion to adjourn.

2nd, all in favor. 9 o'clock.

All right, everybody make sure you contact your council. And while you're doing that, take a cookie.