Environmental Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome everybody. Welcome to the April 8th, 2026 EA monthly EAC meeting. Um I'd like to uh call to order meeting and uh I think everybody and I'm sure everybody received the March minutes. Um Katie, thank you for those very sure comprehensive. Um any changes any any edits to those meeting those minutes? Okay, I'd like to have a motion to approve the minutes. I motion to approve. I'll second. Thank you. And um from there we open it up for public comments and seeing we do have someone with us. Ellen,

um first of all, yes. Hello. I just want to thank you guys for all the amazing stuff you do. It's like this keeps growing by leaps and bounds. One of the old things of is the litter thing. And I will I haven't signed up for that, but I will show up for litter day. What day is it? It's April 25th at 8 8:30. So even a little bit earlier would be better just to if you're not going to sign up then there'll be a little bit more work with you filling out the you know the disclaimer and things like that. But we'd love to have you. All right. I would be happy to do that. Okay, good.

And um I saw that Pontiac Park is on the agenda for tonight. It's not on the agenda necessarily, but we're trying to brainstorm and just think about things that would would the EAC have a role in that. Um, you know, can we can we um have have you know, some vision about how that would look sort of, you know, all Potter part to keep it very very um, you know, very in it in its natural state. Oh, that would be sounds wonderful. um passive green space

mostly. Very cool. And then I looked at the parks report and somewhere near Pontiac Park there's a rare orchid. Um and I was I just saw it in the um picture. No, it's let's see. I'm pretending I don't need glasses. Sometimes it's worked better than other. It's the shining ladies dresses

and I don't see it. I I just I just put together it's really copying and pasting from what was online. Um but this talks about the uh rare orchid and the but I don't see the appendix but I just saw it in the stuff out here right now. Um there's a possibility that it's there. That's what the the parks plan has highlighted that it it may be in that area um and that we should be aware of. Yeah. and they talk about like making sure he doesn't get overwhelmed by invasives because it's easier to find. So, that was pretty exciting.

Um, but they in the parks plan, it also references how since it was a public fill site that there's like some additional testing that should be done. And um, so that's so one was the orchid, two is the additional testing, and three is there was a DCNR grant that went out and I was just the the council. It was just the signature page and it didn't say if the grant was for taking care of the testing for the um possible, you know, see if there's any contamination from the public fill or for supplements. So, yeah, the brainstorming sounds very cool. So, that's it. I just thought I'd sit here and listen to all the good stuff.

Absolutely. You're welcome to do so. We appreciate you bring that up. Um and we'll we'll discuss on you know if there is any knowledge to what that what that kind of strategy. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Um so time for junior EAC member updates. Jenna.

Hi everybody. Sorry I wasn't able to join you in person today. I am a little bit under the weather and I'm still recovering from being sick all week. So I figured it was better I not come in and get everybody else sick and bring you all down with me. But um I've been in the busy season of just a lot of things that I have to do. So I haven't had quite the chance to uh talk about grants and things yet since I had the conversation with Mr. wall where he said it wasn't going to be possible for me to get the grant for the section of road that I wanted. So, um I plan to continue to do that in this next uh coming month. I've had just a lot of a lot of different things wrapping up for the season. So, I haven't been able to do as much as I've wanted to do, but as those things wrap up, I do want to continue to pursue finding ways to both help with the sidewalks that he told me that we would be putting in place as well as uh talking about ways to get grants for maybe other sections of my neighborhood or of surrounding neighborhoods just to improve park connectivity as a whole. But that's all I have for you today. Sorry again I couldn't be there, but

quite all right, Jenna. Thank you. and thank you for um you know making the the wise decision to to not be here when you're not feeling well. We appreciate that. Um so Nadia did um send in a report and I think what's important about that is um she has put up posters the the roadside cleanup posters at the senior high school. Um the event was approved for North Hills or NHS North Hills High School and North Hills High School volunteers or no National Honor Society volunteers, excuse me, National Volunteer. um she did make contact with her environmental advisory um environmental science teacher um and they could help out with EAC projects and we'll follow back with that um and uh see if there's anything else. And then we we do continue to talk about the catch basins and that is a project that um you know Katie and I were talking about and having uh Nadia and I know that she is willing to do this to continue to um work off the latest list and those latest list might be 2024 maybe 2023. So we're still trying to catch up on past paving and we'll work with her and we'll work with um the DPW staff to assist her in that.

Correct. Is that right, Katie? Yes. Okay, good. Wonderful. And Jeff, just to build on what you were saying, she did specifically ask if we have any questions for the environmental science teacher. Um, they're specifically looking for projects that the students would be able to help with during the months of April and May. So if anybody does have projects that they can participate in, we'll let Nadia know specifically about what those are and what the needs would be there. That way she can pass along any information as well. Thank you, Melissa.

Okay, next up is project updates. um climate action plan with Penn State University. Melissa, do you want to comment on that?

Sure. Um so we're still waiting on the students to prepare the draft climate action plan. Um we'll be in our meeting this week looking at it a little bit more in depth than we have so far. Because of the graduation schedule, they won't necessarily be able to present to us during our regularly scheduled meeting or during a town council meeting. So, we're going to be having them present their findings in just sort of an ad hoc environmental meeting. We're going to schedule that ideally at the end of this month. The date is still to be determined, but we will open it up for any of you to join as well if you'd like to hear directly from the students. We'll also make sure that we take that information and bring it back for those who are unable to attend. Um, but I imagine that meeting will be virtual rather than in person simply because the students are based in another location anyway. So that might make it a little more flexible for people's schedules here as well. Um, are there any questions around that project right now?

Is that um Melissa if I could we would invite the general public to hear about that plan or is this I'm not sure what the level is. Yeah. So, at this point, we're not going to invite the general public, but we will be including if I think Jeeoff, correct me if I'm wrong, we were talking about including a couple of the town council members or town of McCandless staff as well. We just have a limit to how many town council members can attend because we can't have it be an official meeting. Um, so we were hoping to include some of you as well, but then we will also be taking that information and cleaning it up to present it to a bigger Macandas group and potentially general public as well once we incorporate it with broader strategy. Yeah, thank you for clarification.

Yeah, great question.

Yeah, and and the other um part of that that we've never delivered, which Penn State has delivered to us, but we've never delivered to council is the communitywide greenhouse gas inventory. Okay. And there's a lot of and it's it's not extensive that that doesn't take a lot of time. It just has some great graphics and it really tells the story of uh you know where we're where our footprint is the largest and greenhouse gas um usage and so forth. So it's not and also you know they'll make they'll make some predictions about um you know weather in this area as it goes forward and importance um of of of paying attention to some of these issues. So, um, it won't bog the thing down, but I think we could maybe couple those together.

I I will say, Jeeoff, I don't necessarily think there's great value in bringing the whole greenhouse gas inventory to that particular audience. It's a little more in the weeds, whereas this is a bit higher level. Um, we could also summarize it into like a one-pager, but I don't think there's Yeah, the the whole report is a little too in-depth for what that audience would care about. Okay. Hey, any other questions on the climate action plan with Melissa? Thank you.

Um the tree program. So, let's see what we can do with that. Um Audrey, we know that we had I mean we can talk about the um the outreach of the the 175 trees. Yeah, the we had our tree adoption event and that went quite well. I think we ended up with what, like five extra trees. Um, and lots of people came out and had great discussions and lots of thank yous and that seemed to go really well. Six-year-old dominated the place. It is so true. Is that one of our kids? Uh, yes.

I I even know which one. Yeah. But it it went really well. Yep. It it it really did. Um I got a lot of good comments. Oh, good. About it as well. Fantastic event. Yep. The only other um comment that I want to make that is with the tree program right now is that in the 175th committee, uh you know, one of our uh

one of our deliverables is the remarkable tree program. And so we do need to figure out how to start that. we, you know, we tentatively said or, you know, we we shot for beginning April 1st um through community day in a way. So, in a way, so September. So, I think that we have to think about how we want to sort of launch that and maybe we can work with Liz Haiti and and and maybe Abby and start to think about how we can, you know, bring that roll that out to the public that this is happening. Um, you know, these are social media campaigns to do that. And so, um, I think that we can, you know, we can kick that.

Yeah. And one of the things I wanted to ask was, um, Bernie's not on, but so we're kind of modeling the program off of, uh, Franklin Park, and they, um, used just like a PDF uh, application. Um, and so I don't know, are are we wanting to do that and just having them email it in or do we want them to maybe do some kind of form that's online that they can fill out? Um, I did create like a mock um form just as a word document. I sent it over to you and Melissa, you saw it. Um, but they did have people calculate the ex like supposed age of the tree. And so they have to look up on a list like a multiplier and then like take the diameter of the tree and divide it by like 3 point might have actually been pi, I don't know. And then um something else. And so I'm like, do we want people to do that calculation or do we want to try and just for every tree that's like figured out, can should we on the back end be calculating the age of the tree? I feel like that would go better than trying to make people do math

because Yeah. Um and what value is that really to to have them, you know, right? I think that we just want them to participate. Yeah. And and not and not say this is too much, right? So I can alter the form that I created, but I also just I don't know if we have like online fillable form type software or

Well, to that I would just say we should probably just have a you know a 30 minute meeting um and and and just brainstorm. So you and Bernie and me and Katie and and Liz um and just and and maybe Abby and just say how can we you know we need some ideas on how to rule this thing out. What how where would it go? What does it look like? um you know this is what we're trying to accomplish. How do we be more concise y and not scare people away and just sort of get this thing kicked off.

Okay. Yeah. And Jeff keeps um Liz Anzy is our new communications uh she's our community engagement uh manager. Um she started about 3 weeks ago. Um so she's been helping us put out the word on cleanup day. Um she's been working really hard on Facebook and cleaning up the website and things like that. Um but uh I love your idea. I'd like probably to do like a QR code that links then to like a fillable Google form um that we can then process um through the website

um and do that that way. But as far as like rolling it out and how do we talk about it like Liz will be a great asset in that um and how we discuss what that looks like and where it goes into all those points um that Jeff had brought up. But yeah, if we could just do even like a quick meeting to talk about um because certainly we want to roll that out sooner rather than later um and get some, you know, interesting feedback and engagement on that. So, and Audrey, you're you're open to having that meeting? Yes. And what times or or you know, just so these guys know, are you are you out on anything or No, Thursday afternoons are bad, but other than that, pretty available, right?

Yeah. And it doesn't have to be long. We just need to sort of talk about what the program is and then how we get it out to the masses. Wonderful. Anything else on the the uh tree program? Uh I don't think so specifically. We have our subcommittee meeting, but it's not till next Monday because of how this month work. Okay. And will there be a a 50 50k um newsletter after that, do you think? Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. Good. Good. Gather help. Okay. Thank you. 13. Yeah. This Monday or until this coming Monday. Okay. The 13th. Thank you.

Yeah. It's on the second Monday. So, it's supposed to be the Monday before this meeting, but it just got Okay. Thank you. Did you anything on Rainard?

Um, I think I might have just had my question answered actually. So, right now I'm waiting on seeing what the treatment looks like, like how many of the Japanese knotweed are going to be coming back up. Um, but the other thing that's in the back of my mind is we're getting into garlic mustard season. Um, and if we want to look at pulling that, it's one of those like there's a lot of research that's being done on how garlic mustard is affecting soil, affecting the tick population. That was a something I just read recently. Um, and it blooms around the spring. So, it's one of those things that if we could get it before it goes to seed and spreads everywhere, planting some, but it's

it's one of the first things that's up. So you this is a great time to get it cuz other stuff isn't up. Yep. So are there other invasives at the rain garden site that there's lots of invasives in there. So So this is just like Melissa said, this is the great thing for the environmental science people to be involved and maybe that's where reach back and say, "Hey, we have this idea. We'd like to do this on a Saturday." Even if you get five kids coming out and you say, "This is an invasive. This is an invasive. This is how you remove it. And that gives it I mean that's that's solid work right there. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

There. And there's a lot of different things in there. And you know, I'll have to double check to see which things should it's okay if they're just hand pulled. Um and it's not going to leave roots in the ground and make a lot of things pop back up. Um but I know that there are some that you can do that with. And as long as nothing is like if I go through and I mark things like poison ivy or anything else that could be they need to be aware of because not every kid knows what poison ivy looks like. Um I think that's something that could work. They learn.

Oh yeah. It was in in dendro class forest tree identification. They gave poison ivy without leaves on it and it's got a dose sulfur covered bud and a couple that I was coming down from archery hunting ran into the group and the grad student because we had people they were breaking it sniffing it. Oh and I'm like Nemo you can't let them do that and he goes they'll never miss it again. So, Melissa, based on Nadia's email,

um is there is there a way that we should communicate back to her that um about about the rain garden idea? Oh, she's in the waiting room again. Oh, thank you for letting me know. Are you back and listen? It's me. I'm sorry calling in from the phone this time. I got disconnected on the computer.

Okay. So, we were just discussing the rain garden and um Joanna uh she said there's a lot of invasives that are coming up and we thought that was an opportunity for the environmental science class uh you know through Nadia suggested to maybe help have some of those um students join us. Is there should we communicate back to should we communicate back to Nadia that um you know we do have an idea and to think about this that sounds like a great strategy. Okay, very good.

Um moving on to the roadside cleanup. So it is again April 25th with a rain date of May 9th. Uh, today is April 8th, so we're, you know, we're two and a half weeks out and I think we're up to 60, Katie. 60 registrations as of this morning.

Okay. Very good. So, I I did drive all the all the routes and uh rated them and rated them for uh their their priority, their safety, the number of people that are needed. And you know, at that point, we came up with if we can get 105 people, we can cover every route. Again, we can't cover the ones. We can't cover lower um Highland. It's too dangerous. We don't have the We don't have the coverage for that. I want to ask for a smaller volunteer network in the fall. So, when we get to April 25th that morning, I'm actually going to announce it. We weren't able to do this. Sorry for the residents that are in that that area, your area, but we'd like to put together maybe a safety um you know, net around some people and do this in the fall. So, going back to that. So, so we need about 105 people. Um, we have four adopt a highway groups which we're going to stay away from their area. Uh, so that is that is that 105 does not include them. Um, we have put together uh Melissa and I have put together Melissa if I'm if I'm getting off target here, let me know. Uh, but we put together, you know, routes and maps and information coordinated with with with that and uh and we're working with Katie and Matt at the township to come up with uh, you know, the actual maps to hand out.

Um, we are, you know, we're we're we're locked in with five police details and I think at this point two um, volunteer fire departments. Three would be the perfect number, but um, two will be okay. Um, so you know, we're working for that. It's also the last morning of the draft,

so we want to make sure that people that are leaving in a hurry or trying to get there in a hurry are not putting our our, you know, participants on Mcnite Road and so forth, Babcock, uh, in harm's way. So, we want to be very, very safe on those days. So, that's a that's a big concern. Um, so again, we're up to 60. I think that there are, you know, there's a number of people that I that I know will still sign up. Um, so I think that we'll get close to our number, but Jack, we've only heard from at this point, we've only heard from one council person. So this Monday's meeting, I will bring it up.

Please ask them to sign. I mean, it just helps us to have people sign up so we know where to assign people. Um, for example, say Nathan signs up, I can assign him to Thompson Run Road, uh, in his area that is that is in need and and put some people some of his constituents with him. So, it would be helpful to know if they could. Who was the council member signed up? Um, Doug. Okay.

Yeah, he did right away after I sent that initial initial email. He did right away. And I know Trish wants to take um Babcock um the hot harder part of Babcock to Pine and she wants to put together a group from her network in in um um Lake Marshall and so we just need them to sign up basically. So we know it's Am I in there? Am I signed up and all that? I don't know that you are. Okay. Yeah. I'll I'll take a look, but I will be there. I I know and I know you will. just in the like like um Audrey and her husband were to be there. Uh John and Joanna, you know, Ken's gonna be there. We know that. Um Jenna, do you know if you're going to be there that morning?

I should be able to. I am lucky enough to be off of school on all of the draft days. So, I don't see any reason why I couldn't be. So, you can definitely put me down and I'll get that in my calendar and then I'll let you know if something comes up. But, I can't imagine I'm going to be very occupied at that point in time. Yeah, because the, you know, picking up um litter is one thing, but the the logistics of that morning are is a lot. And, you know, last year we had you um you had to rain garden, but we're going to use you for different functions this year. We we need, you know, Melissa is going to be, you know, um juggling plates trying to get these these, you know, people assigned to routes. That's the hardest job, right?

So, we'll have we'll have tables. will have um you know um the forms that people bring in. Did you get one? You didn't get one. Okay, fill this out. What's your you know your name? Did you sign up? Blah blah blah. I'm with this. I'm with that. And then and then moving those people along and getting them over to Ken where he'll be giving out supplies um you know ultimately and then keeping them all in the same place and then sending them out. It's it's a big job for 30 minutes. Do we need more volunteers to do any of the table jobs? Um, my wife will be helping unless we find somebody and then she'd go thank you for that. You know, if we find somebody who can help me voluntarily.

I definitely I definitely love to also help with the table jobs, I'm sure, because I don't have like anything to do for three days in a row that I would that I will enjoy like showing up early and getting that stuff set up if you need me to show up even earlier than that. So, you can put me down for that and then if you want to let me know now or even closer to the event what time you want me to get there and I can figure that out and make that work. Yeah, I was going to say, do what time if we're helping out beforehand? What time do you want us there? What was last year, Melissa? Was it 7:30? That's what you emailed me. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it was 7:30 last year, which was enough time. We started having some people trickling in around 8, but it got really crazy closer to 8:30 and hopefully this year it will be a little more streamlined.

Yeah. So, the DPW will have our tables set up and and you know, we'll come in and again it'll be it'll be um forms um registration, go get your route, there'll be food, get your supply. Well, hopefully what we'd like to do since Bernie is is really, you know, not able to um, you know, assist in actually being out on the roads, I'd love for her to try have something that would highlight her tree program, her remarkable tree program, her tree program. Last year, we were pretty ambitious with a lot of with a lot of, you know, advertisements about what we were doing. But this year, if we could just highlight the tree program,

um, have people sign up as tree tenders, whatever that is, you can keep selling that. maybe have better visuals, maybe again work with Liz on to have, you know, better presentation and if we can get a QR code up and running, then they could do that. But it's kind of quick turn around, too. So, we'll have to work on that. Yeah. And then then again, lastly, moving on to getting supplies, getting, you know, getting um uh grabbers, signing out those grabbers, getting flags, signing out those flags, different things like that. And, you know, sort of Ken's the last, you know, the the last stop. So, it it does take a lot Do you need any help with anything setting up and all that? Absolutely. Count me in. That Thank you very much. We're doing well.

Jeeoff, on that note, um, where are we with the laggers and the grabbers and having them labeled for checkout purposes? They're all labeled. Um, we have them here. They're numbered. Um, great. And I just need to get into the SharePoint and see how we signed them out last year. But I think we also talked about maybe changing that up a little bit. changing it up and making a new sheet. I'll talk with you offline and we can set something up. But they're all here. We have close to a hundred. They have uh Tom McCla stickers on them and they're all numbered and Sharpie um to come back here. So Okay. And that's the grabbers. Same for the flags. Yeah. Do we have We have the flags here. We have the vests.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and when when I make my announcements before we go out, it it will be uh if you have a flag or a grabber, you must bring it back to the DPW building and it's in it's a central location. So, we found that that was almost 100% um adhered to last year. So, it's not like, oh, it's a major inconvenience, you know. Yeah. They they'll bring them back, they'll grab a little bit of food, they'll grab a drink, they'll say what their experiences were, share some pictures, and then then they'll leave. So it actually it actually is a nice way to bring people back to get feedback. Yeah. And and to get pictures. So yeah. And I sites they know their name and numbers on you know so they have to come back. Yeah. We'll hunt them down.

Okay. Anything else on the roadside cleanup? Wonderful. We're moving on to community outreach. We've already talked about the tree giveaway recap. Um then the indoor air quality um that Bernie is working on and she said in an email that she is still working with the library um on a couple different dates. Melissa, did you get that? You always help me out here.

I did. My computer froze up on me, so I don't have it open on a second. So she say um so she the the the ROCIS speaker series at the library didn't get it finalized but we were discussing three sessions perhaps in August. So that's the update on that. Um next up is native landscape talk. Now Joanna you said that you had talked to somebody. Can you give us an update on that please?

Uh two different uh speakers that I reached out to and one was specifically about bees and the other one's more about native landscapes. Um, both of them have gotten back to me and are interested in doing a talk. So, I was trying to figure out which one I might want to do at like the heritage center. So, then you have the rain garden right there. And the other one I was like, well, maybe the library and since they were wanting to do something monthly. I like that idea. The bee guy has slightly ghosted me. Mhm.

And I am a little frustrated. I gave him a bunch of dates. I'm like, "Hey, what any of these were?" Cuz there were a couple I was hoping for more than others. I think it'd be funny to have it on my birthday. Uh but um but then he never got back to me

and then I followed up with him and haven't heard back. The other people have been more present in like trying to organize something. So I'm now I'm wondering like do I just kind of hold off on the bee guy and then we put the native landscape people then in the heritage center and then figure out other things for uh the library as that comes along. So that's kind of my thoughts on that. But I do have um it's it's a group. They work at the um oh with the master gardeners with the one that's in the city and then they own a uh landscape design business that does uh native landscape. It's called uh Larksburg Designs. Um and they they work only with natives. And I thought that'd be really cool to show like yes, we talk about like how to bring in native plants, but how can you do it in a aesthetic way? How can you do it for something that's specific to here? And there's a lot of people get worried with natives sometimes that it looks weedy or whatever. So just how do you do it? Do you just plop one, you know, milkweed in the ground and call it a day or

should you put other things around it? So yeah. Have we had these in the past? I mean, do you have an an history of having speakers or trying to bring education for native species? We haven't done anything like that. We've we had a few programs when we were we were when we were trying to bring up and do a quarterly program, then COVID stuff came around and so it kind of killed everything and so we're kind of everything seems to restart again after CO. Yeah. I just wanted to I mean, you know, so we haven't had it for a long time. It's a good thing to roll out, I think. So,

um it's a also a good good way to advertise our landscaping guide um on our site. So, um you know, in Penn State Extension or whatever or you know, whatever whatever um you know, if you need um if you need help from the Ottabon Society or anything like that or whatever of these people, but the it sounds like they they they would have it covered, but and they're going to have a background on the B side of things, right? I would say that that's that's more compensive. I think so, too. I like that. So, okay, sounds good. I will follow up with them and get something on the books. that heritage center makes more sense for that because you've you've got that landscaped and

that's as soon as that was brought up to me, it made me think like you have that landscaping around there and you have the rain garden right there that they're able to talk about. So, I like that too. Okay. Was there a time frame you were thinking about just for I was thinking Juneish. Okay. My June is a little bit busy, but we'll see. Try early June because then people can still get plants in the ground. I was kind of chuckling to myself that if I make it on my birthday, which is early June, that that's a nice birthday present to myself. Come learn about bees. It's very me.

Okay, next up is our open initiatives. Um, Burton PA update. So, um, I attended the first I think I'm trying to think what it was. It was really across the whole state. um Birdton um which was a meet and greet but it was really to roll out so we B birdeone is sort of rolling up to be part of Bird City USA the Bird City network and so it's a it's a larger um it it's it's global it's global so it's here in the United States but it's also there's also you know Colombia and and different places so um you know so sort of all rolling into the same larger organization which will change the metrics and it's less numbers like before it was a you know it was a spreadsheet do you do this do you do that you get four points here you know now all of a sudden you're moving from green to silver or whatever that is this is more have you accomplished this have you accomplished that um they they want to make sure that you have a a real working bird tone committee which we do they want to make sure that you are educating people on birds with a bird walk or you know so which we'll do in Potter Park. Now the other thing that I I'd like to propose is because I have uh you know we we have a contact with the Ottabon Society now and we I'm also talking to somebody who is um who works for Carnegie Melon um and and I don't I'm not going to go back and try to figure out what his title is. Um but I've been talking to him and you know he's like how can I be involved? And I thought, well, maybe what we should do is we could do a kayak tour on North Park and do the birds of North Park through LLBAN.

Nice.

Because I used to work for Bean and we can get a we can get a rate a better rate and we would advertise it through um you know, so through Abby. This is an activity that would would be in conjunction with Bird Tone PA or whatever that is. Uh join us on a on a 8:00 PM kayak tour um on North Park to talk about the bird. of of North Park and the aviary society can do that. Um you know maybe the autobar society can do that but that in conjunction with a Potter Park walk in October um might be you know would fulfill two big parts of of of our obligations for bird time. Uh also continued education, bird strike information, um you know, darkening, you know, so so birdcast uh you know, so so um darkening the uh the community information, continuing that like we did that um two months ago. We we did that that that tip. So continuing that that all goes towards our Burton certification and our requirements. There's there's requirements. There's no you we're just not a bird. We we have to do things. Yeah,

if don't forget Lottoy's got a lot of, you know, firsthand experience doing the bird stuff, too. Particularly if you're going to do the uh kayak in North Park, they they may well be something to add to that. Okay. They're great. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah. Just found out they're not 270 acres. They've always been 400 acres. That's quite a large amount to be raw.

I I was teasing them about that. Um the other things I want to mention is that um so Pine is going to host the first regional Bertton gathering, the Clutch, um on on May 14th, the same night as the volunteer gathering. So, we'll have to we'll have to think about that a little bit.

Yeah, very nice. I I really enjoy that. So, um so we do have to think about that. And then also, um I want to remind everybody that when we do have volunteer hours that we have to keep track of those because that's something that we have to um you know, we'll show on. um volunteerism through the community is a big part of um you know what what Bird Tone is is required. Yeah, I'd be happy to set up a tracker for that. I I want to build a tracker out where we list out our events, how many people attend various volunteer events, how many hours, all of that. So happy to help with that. Like put it on a spreadsheet.

Yeah. in SharePoint. So, we have the metrics going yeartoear and it will make it easy to update anything for sustainable PA or for bird town or just for writing articles or telling stories or our year-end summary report. Lots of great uses. Okay, wonderful. And um I I just noticed in my notes that I had that John Hill is the urban bird conservation coordinator at the Carnegie Melon Carnegie Museum of of Natural History. Very cool.

Yeah, that does sound cool. Um, so that is the bird tone update. Um, catch basin project. We did discuss that um in that we will have a further conversation Katie with Nadia and a DPW about how we can start that. Okay, great. Thank you.

Um, EAC dedicated web page plan and Audrey I did see your email and it is packed with information. it is a bunch of chaos. And so I was trying to kind of get an idea of the type of information we want and the amount of information we want. Um, and like re referencing and linking to documentation we already have and things like that.

Um, and so part like a large part of that document was just all the McMail tips that we haven't updated since last. I went ahead and pasted it in there. So, if we, you know, get it to somebody, they can just copy and paste it. Um, but I'm also going to need um like information to put on the pages. And so, I don't know if I should be the only person coming up with this or um and just saying, "Hey, put this on the website." Or if we need to be doing back and forth and talk about like what we need. Um,

yeah, I'd like to do back and forth. I'd like to, you know, before we before we take it to prime time and and and say, you know, this is let's let's work um and I saw who you copied on that. Let's just work together and say let's let's make it concise here. Let's do this. Let's do that. Let's not give them that. That's too much. But let's let's let's just, you know, here's a topic. Here's a link, right? And if we want these as like separate word documents, so it's not overwhelming like

six pages as McMile. And so I can do that if that would be easier for people, but I can break it up. But there are things that if we have previous tips, not just McMail tips, but like ways to improve for like bird town that that can go on like the bird town web page like here's some tips to improve bird life in your neighborhood or whatever. Some stuff like that or like here's the in the thing the initiatives we have put in place because we're a bird town, right? that that's important, too. That's exactly right. So, I do want to make sure we get all that down. Um, and a lot of it is just stuff that I'm making up. So, I will try and make that more digestible and kind of

reach out again. Uh, yeah. And then and allow us to give feedback, too, too. So, we want to, you know, we want to I don't think we want to get this fast. I think we want to get it right. Okay. So, um, yeah. So, let's just let's just all poke at it a little bit and and see if we can get it to a better place. Yep. Um, Department of Conservation Grant ideas. I know that we had a conversation about that last time. I don't know if there's anything new to say anything about that, Katie, or

No, I mean, like I said, if this group has ideas for for possible grant applications or projects you want to work on. Um, I know Jenna had previously talked about some sidewalk grants. Um, you know, I'm happy to talk about those things or if there's something that comes to top of mind. anything for the Pontiac Park project as far as applications. Yeah. So, uh town council at their last town council meeting um approved the resolution 2 um for Pontiac Park um that application is due at the end of April. Okay. Um so we're still working on that. Okay. Can I plead to ignorance? Where is Pontiac Park? Um

it's right by CCAC North and 19th North Apartments. Um, I can show discussing this last time. It won't have a parking lot, right? It's like a neighborhood block. The intention for that park is to be more of a neighborhood, I believe. So, um, let me just just a few acres. Yeah. Um, I'm going to pull it up for you, Ken. Um, but like it's right next to like CCAC North and the 19th North apartments. And yeah, it's basically an area of land that's not developed. Yeah, cuz it's that's that's that's a difficult one to difficult site to develop.

I guess I can also say um for the count since we're on the sub the um topic of Pontiac Park, um we are town council and administration, we are looking at using the Alageney County vacant property program to acquire some land, small amount of land to slightly extend the park. M um it's about 0.45 of an acre. Um and council council's perfectly fine with it. There was no concerns or anything and it looks, you know, I think it makes sense and you know, I'm I'm honestly very excited about Pineapp Park. Mhm. So,

okay. So, so you know, going right into that topic. So the national or natural park vision Pontiac and Potter Park I mean there's not much we can say other than we know that um you know I I think I think our opinion can be heard about this. Um I think it is an open initiative to have that conversation. It's not a conversation we're going to solve right now or have right now about but I think we need to walk it you know. So we should probably just think about you know going like Ken's question was a very good one. you know, where is this? And most people don't know where it is, right? And we should have, you know, as a committee, we should be walking through it, seeing, you know, get ideas from when we walk through it. And I'm

Now, are you are you very familiar with Potter Park? Like, have you walked Potter Park? I have not walked it personally, but I'm aware of like its situation and also the land acquisition. So, so I think that that's a good opportunity for us all to to walk both of those parks. Yes, definitely. And then and then we can Yeah. and then we can come up with some ideas after that. So, field trip, I'm always in for a field trip. Yeah. So, you know, we'll we'll we'll keep as an ocean open initiative and um you know, we should think about a time that we can all get together on a Saturday morning or something like that or Sunday morning and and go go see these parks and have a have a nice walk. Okay. Okay. Very excited.

Yeah. Okay, so May McMail tip and I and I want to mention that um Nadia's McMill tip I thought was particularly strong last time. It was just it was really good. I mean it was it just it just jumped out at you and it had uh had everything. And then the the uh the McMill tips for the tree stuff is just they're just so good. I mean they're just they're just so valuable. Um, May McMail tip I have in here parentheses stream Karen. I'm not sure why. Melissa, why do where where are we on this? Do you think

with what? I'm sorry. Cycle like the like the McMail tip like I have stream. Did we just sort of we just did that in a way because because Nadia's was about she covered the storm water catch basin. Yeah, that might have been a note that was overlooked. Okay. I know. I was talking to some people say it was at the tree like volunteer event where people are talking about like their neighbors just don't know and they mow right up and like weed and string trim like in creeks that run through their property when they really should be like letting fight and vegetation.

And so maybe something like that instead of just specifically like storm runoff. Uh, but well, it's an interesting thought. So, you know, this is grass cutting season. This is, you know, this is getting rid of weed season. Um, do you think there's enough information out there about this? That I don't know, Ken. I don't know if you have a better idea. I just understand it from forestry. Yeah. Um, we don't we don't cut in viperian and you know.

Yeah. So, I don't know. I I could look and see, but maybe not this next month. Yeah, because I don't know for sure. So, maybe we could do something else and then we can look and see if maybe the next month I can do some research on that. Okay. You you and then we're going to do that development up Pine Creek going out before you get out to uh oh, I can't remember the names of all my roads out that way, but when they they were going to be doing a development, we were going to actually have a a small park in there. um because what is what had been there, they just mowed everything

and so we were going to have a small park to try to reduce some of the runoff and all of that and that all kind of fell through. Um so I'm not sure where any I'm not even I don't get out that way. So I don't know if that field is still getting cut right down to the grass and stuff, right down to the water. There's a couple areas like that. There's one off of Is that right? It's over by you as you turn by Hickory Hills and they Yeah. And by the apartments where they took out all of the vegetation and it's just grass and a creek. Yep. If you want to pull that up on the map.

And Melissa, do you normally do what we've done in the past? this whole area that you got all the trees in. Yeah, I know you're talking by Arvin's office. Yes. Are you talking about?

So, our May McMale tips have historically been all over the place. We covered topics from insulation to tree planting program, sustainable living tips, solar electricity took awareness. In 2024, we didn't have a tip. So, it's open for whoever would like to take it this month and talk about really any topic. I will just say before anyone commits um we would need the article by April 20th. So that's about a week and a half from now. Okay. It's scrambling. Yes. So the other option is we could do double the tree information. I know

Bernie has half of it reserved for that, but if there there seems to be a lot of tree stuff. We've had two maze where we talk about tree planting in particular. So maybe I'm pretty sure if we give Archie all the words, he will use every single one of them. So I don't think that's ever a problem. Okay. If we wanted and since our meeting's next week, I can just tell him he has all of the words and that we need it by the 20th. You said okay. Thank you very much. That that's great. Thanks. Makes it nice. 250 words. And if you can keep it towards period, that would even be two birds. True. All the words are typically between like 350 to 500. Okay.

Um, so he does have some more room there. If you're giving him 350 We gave Bernie gave me his article last time and I had to go back and ask that he cut it down for us. 350 and it was pretty aggressive. Good information. Yes, it could have been the whole McMail have like a special go nuts. Yeah, we needed to just ask that he he rained himself in but not that much. Yeah, that he could have had the whole whole kitten kaboodleoodle. Thank you.

Okay, next up is the regional EAC reboot recap which happened on April 2nd at Pine. um attended by uh many Pine people um three of us from Macandless uh Ross Marshall, Franklin Park and Hampton.

Sounds great to me. Um and so we we had a very very good discussion. Everybody took turns and uh went around and talked about things that they were working on um how we could work together and um you know sharing ideas about um the successes and and you know some difficulties and some you know realism was thrown in there about recycling and you know different things like that. So any anything else um you're thinking about Audrey that we talked about? Um, no. We did like a nice little bird walk on like bluebird houses and how they were tracking those, which was nice to see. Um, a lot of struggles. It's very interesting because there's a lot of really established EACs and then there's some people with brand new ACS and so I really think the restart will be great for everybody all around. Um, a lot of people have really good volunteer bases and other people are struggling to get volunteers.

Very true. Um, so it's nothing. It was a lot of introductory stuff that was kind of thrown around and chatted around, but um, a lot of people seemed very interested in like the the canopy work that the trees subcommittee is doing. Um, so it it'll just be interesting and I could we should definitely develop and and and I agree there were there were you'd be surprised that um you know they they can't get a quorum for a meeting um and they can't they can't find people to you know join a committee and they can't get volunteers and asking about like do you have rules on how many meetings you have to attend because it seems like they might be trying to like kick people off their EAC because they're not showing up which

yeah that that was that was that's exactly what that question That's right. Melissa, anything else?

Yeah, I I thought that it was a really great meeting. We definitely have a lot of opportunity to just share best practices and really come together and work as a region. We're all these little individual municipalities. Pennsylvania is very unique in that regard. It makes it hard. uh some of us are more ambitious than others, but when it comes down to it, working with the whole region and sharing and using using each other's networks and communication information and everything will really just help us all do more with less people. So, and especially when it comes to Bird Town, I was very very excited to see what Pine has done with that and we'll be able to learn a lot from them as we work through that program as well. Yeah,

there's also going to be a follow-up meeting. Um, the next scheduled one, was it Marshall who was hosting that? I don't have my notes on me. I think it was. Yeah, it wasn't part. It was Marshall. That's right. And do we have a date defined or you were going to be meeting with them to I'm going to be meeting with Peggy and we're we're going to come up with a date. Great. So, obviously everyone will be invited to attend that as well if it works with your schedule. We'd love to have anybody from this committee.

Yeah. is worth um next up is the um have here the the EAC um meet and greet which was the Alageney County EAC meet and greet and um you know that was something that that that some of us attended and again it was basically um you know was more hearing from their speakers than it was anything else and I don't I don't remember anything else that was real we had some breakout rooms we had breakout rooms and we talked about um you know some of the things but but I don't have a

I have had somebody reach out to me cuz um somebody reached out to Olivia and asked if she could share my email address with somebody again they were interested in some of the tree programs we had been talking about but I mean a lot it was everybody had like 30 seconds to introduce themselves and like what they're doing and so like a lot of people are bird towns a lot of people are working on you know very similar stuff so I don't know how useful that was. But it seemed like from that a lot of people are interested in an alaganywide regional EAC type of meeting like we're doing with like Pine and like the northern hills.

Um but I don't know if anybody's actually taking the lead on like trying to put those together.

Yeah. So I I think um we conserve PA is the organization who had helped to host that in partnership with I forget it's one of the Alageney County organizations but re we conserve PA does host um like statewide EAC meetings and I think they would be the one who would set up that one in Alageney County. That's what I gathered from the way that meeting went. Usually they host them in either the center of the state or closer to Philadelphia. I I think that I don't recall the exact numbers, but she was saying there are over a hundred EAC's out in the east and only around was it 16 or 20 or something over in the west. So very different numbers. Um but because of the interest, it sounded like they will try to get one out here sometime this year or next.

That's common with a couple like with American Chestnut Foundation and other organizations. Eastern Pennsylvania is much more developed, for lack of a better term, than than western Pennsylvania. Excellent. The other side of Harrisburg, it's it's completely different game over there. Yeah, we're learning that.

Okay. Um Michaela's 175th update. Uh again the remarkable tree program was um you know something we needed to we have we have to sort of move sort to move on and then secondly is um we may be asked and I can't say this for sure or not but um we may be asked to participate in a kickball it's happening. Yes it is absolutely happening. So this EAC would like to get out there tournament or committee versus committee. Yeah. Yeah.

Um I know that Abby was uh trying to get through the the bunny the Easter bunny egg hunt. Um and then she was going to focus in on some more of these things that were a little longer term, but um I think June is the intended target. So certainly we need to to maybe get on that. Um but yes, that's we could definitely defeat a couple of the other committees. Yeah, for sure. Industrial development. I mean, come on. about team up, you know, you husband. Oh. Oh, you're good. Oh, well, Jack, we need you. No, everybody needs a

I have to say, you know, I knew I'd be doing new things, but I didn't think I have to dust off my skills from middle school to this to bring to this council. I have to say, as long as we set very low expectations, my husband and I are both very clumsy. I will the benefit of 65. I will say I will say I will say I'm a very good kicker and in middle school everyone hated me because I kept bumping but I was a little skinnier then so I was a little go before the four square torn oh my god is this middle school again Katie did you say a date for this or just June I didn't catch the

I don't know that it's been solidified yet but I will certainly okay committee Did we get t-shirts? Lots of t-shirts. So, I don't doubt that that will happen. Okay. Have t-shirt names. Yeah. Our nicknames as well. All right. So, more to come on that obviously. Okay. Um, anybody have any general updates to share from contacts that they have um, you know, that they talk to regularly or anything in their um, you know, autonomy? um uh friends in North Park, anything like that or

it's just general. Um I'm excited to see that uh Michael is accepting uh plastic number five again in recycling. Very good point. Yes. What else? There was it was plastic number five and something else. Coffee cups. Uh yes. Yes. The paper coffee cups. Yeah. And and if you remember on my Melissa will remember this on my wheel of of fun last year, coffee cup was one that you know like oh recycle. I'm like no you have to throw it away. So it is just it is just switch teams be recyclable.

On that note though we do need new pamphlets from um waste management for distributing at our various events. But also the coffee cup thing is still a little confusing because they still don't accept styrofoam coffee cups. So we do still need clarity there because not everybody Do you think it said like specifically paper paper? Yeah. Yeah. Not not you know not your Monroe muffler uh you know little piece of styrofoam. So we get that from waste management.

Yeah. I will also say I did I did see that post and I went digging um on the website. I there was the link for waste management through Macandas but even when you go there it it's it's not clear. They don't give you very good information on what is and is not recyclable. It's very vague pictures. So, if they could provide a little more information that's slightly more detailed, that would be very helpful. That may be because different communities have different current different allowances, so to speak. Yeah, it's when they're changing it up so often though, they should let us know. Dedicated page for Macandvas. That was the one thing they do have one. Yeah.

Yeah. But it still just doesn't show detailed enough information. And I would love to see a campaign to tell people to not put their recyclables in a plastic garbage bag because everybody does that. So that's actually something that one of the other EAC's had mentioned that they do little waste audits every once in a while. So, there are opportunities if we when we get our new member, maybe they'll want to take on waste or something, but there are ways to educate our community about what you can and cannot do when it comes to recycling. Yeah. Well, and I think one of the things they were talking about is with the waste audit is also if we had ever done an audit when we do the the pickup.

Yeah, they did bring that up as well. and we're just like there's not enough time. But it would be interesting just to kind of mentally know if we're out there like the types of things and is there targeted campaigns we can run to try and get this trash picked up. But I really doubt anybody's going to stop littering if they enjoy littering. Yeah, there there are definitely themes to that. We It's a lot of the vape pieces, cigarettes, bottles, and wrappers, which we'll see for sure at the end of this month. But we could ask people to take pictures of things as they're going just to capture notes as well. I have noticed like on trash day, the next day there is so much trash just in the neighborhood because it falls out when they're emptying trash.

And I've gotten complaints about that. like especially glass being like my district's pretty hilly so there's like the situation where you'll see these glints at the top of the hills and I didn't know what it was at first and I realized it was it was glass. Yeah. So the glass is like falling out. Well that's why they uh didn't have in the recycling for a long time cuz it contaminated it once it broke and then everything got covered in glass shards. So that's why we separated for a long time. Mhm. down at the top of the hill when the wind blows that way. So everything that that doesn't get into the truck blows into my bottom of my driveway.

Thank you for your service of collecting all our trash. The one I wish they my one neighbor does auto body work and he just sweeps up the uh garage floor and dumps it in in the garbage can and then uh had two flat tires with sheet metal in Yeah. Okay, next up is um the master calendar and I don't know if there's anything more to say about that other than it exists on SharePoint and Okay, I wanted to quickly ask yeah so last month I had emailed out an email summarizing all of the events as well as the link to that. Uh was that email helpful? Should I keep doing that on a monthly basis? And

I thought it was really nice. Okay. I mean, I I don't know if it's difficult for you to do or not. No, no, I could just build upon it each month. So, because that might be better than the Well, it's the calendar is I don't know if anybody had a chance to click into that and see if they like that or not. That one's a little I like the calendar that I I went right to the calendar. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, perfect. Email me. I'm sorry for something. I'll send a followup again today with all of the updates I captured from this meeting. So, you'll get the link again.

Okay. Just as we were talking about, North Park is we were talking before the meeting about uh they're finally the the ninth park getting its environmental study done. So, they'll be doing that this year. And since you know basically one6th of Macandas is North Park um that's pretty appropriate for us to pay attention to and how can how do they present that stud like the results of that study when when that's presented they'll be doing that at a Friends of North Park meeting and I will let everybody know okay again that that that is what's going on and and uh I'm hopefully going to be a be able to participate in some of the field work on that.

Sure, that's great. And do they have a targeted completion date? They don't ever say anything like that. Okay. It just appears. I would expect it in the fall. Fall. Great. Okay. Thank you. Also, backing back up to the general updates, uh May 9th is the Ottawan Society National or Native Plant Sale. Um starts at 9:00 a.m. and it is swamped with people. And I wake up for that morning like it's Christmas morning. Uh it's a fun time. It's a bunch of plant people. They get really excited about plants. Where's it at?

At uh Beachwood Farms where the native plant store is there. Um they have a good selection of their trees, their bushes, their uh perennials. Um, they have everything labeled as far as like this is good, you know, for deer resistance, this is good for, uh, rain gardens, this is good for full sun, this grows to be 10 ft tall. Um, all of that's labeled. So, uh, they're very helpful with their native plants there. Great.

Anything else to share? Okay. Um, next is report from town council. Jack, I stated that we're doing the land acqui the um small land acquisition for Pontiac Park um just through the Aligi County vacant lands program. Uh makes it easier for us and it also puts the land back into use as it's been vacant for a long time. So hopefully Pontia Park will be slightly bigger. Time frame is about 9 10 months. Um, council did give the John asked if we, you know, we, you know, take a temperature and we were all fine with it. So,

is that something that would work for that one property at the very top of the uh pond at Potter Park? I don't know. I can look into that. Um, there's certain criteria and it's through the county. So there's also, you know, we have to send paperwork to the county as well, but he actually owns that, but they don't really have access and and and all that, but look because that one basically a one acre at the top corner of the uh bond.

Okay. But if it's actively owned and the land's paying taxes, it's probably not going to be eligible. That's like this is like land that's just essentially forgotten. So that that's essentially the how it works. But I can I can still look into it and see what it it would be. It's worth it's a property that really should be part of I was going to say are we looking to requirements for like things like imminent domain or something like that or is it even possible? I'm not a big fan of eminent domain. Oh, the the people that own it own a house about a half mile away.

Mhm. And so it's one of those things of of the council people that were involved with that aren't there anymore. So it's it's you know picking the ball back up and and maybe getting in touch with them and see if they're interested if they're willing to you know get rid of it. But if they don't I mean Oh yeah. I'm I'm not I'm against eminent domain. No. The thing is is it's it's out. It's literally a quarter of a mile from any road. Yeah. And there's no utilities there or anything. So, and it's about a half an acre. I think it's almost an acre.

No, I think45. No, no, no, no. Different property at Potter Park. Oh, Potter Park. Okay. Oh. Oh, the little part on Van. That little that little right at the top corner of the of the Yeah, sure. Sure, sure. Sure. And we can when we do the walkthrough, you can also point it out when we do the walk through. Yeah. I don't know the boundaries on the upper end. Okay. And when you're going upstream on the on the hillside up to the right the left of easy there's an old fence line. Mhm. Okay. Katie, anything um from township standpoint?

No, you just have noted here we have the open EAC position. Um, we are accepting applications through April 20th. Um, and then we'll begin that interview process. So, um, if you know anyone that would be interested, um, have you gotten any new applications? Not that I'm aware of. Um, but if there's folks that would like to serve on this committee or friends of yours, I mean, it actually comes down, please let us know. And actually is right right in here. If I'm if you go on the um topics for next month's EAC meeting, we know it will be the um roadside cleanup recap, the June McMail tip

for June. I will volunteer now to do bees. Let's just make that D. Don't sting us. I captured the note. Okay. any anything else for the ne I have EAC historic information. I'm not sure why I have that. That might be in reference to all the stuff on SharePoint that I don't know if anybody's looked at. I think Melissa, you mentioned that as well. Yeah, I don't know if if we want to talk about that with the group next month or maybe just Well, we could we could add that on there. Okay.

Because there's like an action plan from like 2022 or something. Yeah, we need to get information onto there and clean up and delete things that are duplicates or unorganized. We'd love to see all like the bird town information and the sustainable PA application information and all of that, but that's for next month. Okay, got it. Okay, now now I now I Okay, sure. And what what you what we talked about and also it will make um the project of the EAC dedicated web page. Okay, got it. Okay. And if if anybody's interested to please give me a monthly report on deer pickups and and so forth if you're at all interested in that. I have a copy of that here.

Could you could you summarize that for us? That'd be great. Anything? In March we had, you know, nine accidents caused by deer. We had six deer picked up by Big Daddy. And again, that doesn't include McNer 19. Um 17 calls to the police. Um, so last year we had we harvested three times as many deer with cars as we did uh with archery. The unnatural predator of deer. We all love to see deer until they're in front of the hood of a car. So saw traffic blocked by a turkey last week. So

yeah, they've been getting bombs coming through the backyard. Um, we'll also have a um, no. No, we won't have that. The burnt home clutch. Okay, we won't have that. All right. Any other topics for next next week? Yes. Planning our kickball team. All right, then with that, if there's nothing else, like to make a motion to uh have a motion to adjurnn the meeting. I'll move to adjourn. I'll second. All in favor? I

you estimate 14. Wow. Ch.