Environmental Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Uh, welcome everybody. I'd like to call to order the May 14, 2025 EAC monthly meeting. And with that, um, the minutes were distributed. Are there any edits, changes, anything to the minutes? I didn't walk. I'm sorry. That's okay. Um, I didn't see them. Well, pending any um in pending any changes or or or edits. Um can I have a motion to approve the minutes? Motion to approve. Can I have a second? All in favor? Okay. Wonderful. Um public comment time. Seeing that we have nobody from public comments, um we will move on student report. Seeing that we do not have James here with us, we will move on from that. There's Matt. He has a devil. There he is. That was the mug shot before. Yeah. Okay, Matt. We just approved the minutes. Uh no, no public comments. Uh no, James. So, we're moving on from that. So, we're going to we're going to keep springing forward here. Project updates. I will go first. Sustainability. I will tell you that again um you know we are one item away and that is a communitywide greenhouse gas inventory. Um we decided not to pay for that and have do it but we have been accepted and will be um uh working with the uh Penn State PSU summer program to do that. So we're waiting to hear from them but we have I have confirmation that we've been accepted. they will begin that and then we will uh we will move forward. So I'm not sure there'll be much to say with sustainability going forward until we until we start you know actually seeing some progress. Um so

there is a uh you know there's an expectation that we'll have three or four meetings during the summer with these these undergrad students. Uh they'll work with us. They'll pull information and then we'll move forward. So um any other questions on sustainability? Okay. Um, senior is none. We'll move on to deer management. And um, you know, we obviously this is this is Ken's thing, but um, I think the uh, the the important parts of this that we're keeping it on here for now is that we had a meeting with the township manager, John Schwend. Um, and you know, I can I can let Ken um, sort of talk a little bit more about that, but there's going to be some needs related to that after after Ken briefs us. and um and and then I'll I'll bring those up and we'll ask for um you know, support and people's cooperation with that. So, Ken, if you want to Well, basically, you know, we harvested three times as many deer with cars as we did with archery this last year. So, our our deer population, as I showed John, I have a the day before we were meeting with him, I had 10 deer bedded down in my backyard. I had a fawn in my front yard this afternoon. Um, we had way way way way too many deer and the ecological devastation is just amazing. And we had uh talked and it had gone through council and things to do what's called a call um that they've been doing in Fox Chapel. The city is is doing currently. Ross is planning on doing this next year. Um, and the paperwork didn't get submitted so we didn't do that this year. Um, but it's one of those things of for a couple years I fought doing that because it's one of those things of uh if something does it doesn't work out if they don't do things exactly as

they're supposed to and a a wounded deer ends up in somebody's front yard or something like that. Um the the PR from that can be very bad. And so we've we've worked through this whole deer program of public awareness and things like that. And we one of the things we talked about was doing another uh public education program. And I did contact uh Jean Flegel, the uh white tail biologist for the game commission, and she's willing to uh she knows me now, so you she's willing to uh come in and do an in-person um presentation. So, that's something we can do as part of our speaker season series. That probably makes more sense to do like in August or September um as we're approaching uh deer season. Um but so as of right now, you know, where where we are, that planning process had gotten to the point where we had uh we had selected nine different spots in McCandless where we were going to be doing the call. Um all the venison from that would have been taken down to CargI where it's then processed and goes to the food banks. Um so nothing's wasted. um and we'd get our deer population under control, then our deer program and and all these other things would start to work out. But right now, you can't planting trees and and trying to get wild flowers established and all that just can't do because of the deer. Um so, we need to to get that problem under control. And I'm sure car drivers and insurance companies would be very happy with this also. Okay. So, so if I could, Ken. Um, so we have some asks, some direct asks. So, as

everybody knows, I did a very brief um in front of council two weeks ago, a brief um and I I sent it to everybody just to sort of give our approval of the purchase of the additional 17 acres for Potter Park. And it was just speaking in a very, you know, it was not opinionated. It was just the EAC through our mission statement support this purchase blah blah blah blah blah for the reasons of sustainability for the reasons of deer management for the reasons of trees for the you know for these different reasons and these different tenants that we subscribe to this additional purchase fit into it perfectly and and in fact I didn't know this but it you know it was sort of quoted in here in a way our our approval did that so uh the township manager has asked us to again give a letter of support from the EAC similar to this Potter Park letter of support uh to council of our support of this deer call program. So I think that we are all in favor of that but I need to see if there's anybody who's not in favor of that. Say motion to approve. Yeah. Motion to approve the EAC presenting a letter to council. M Mark gave a second. Okay, good. Wonderful. All in favor? Good to know. Okay, great. So then I will draft something um a letter of approval for for council on our support of that. Um secondly, uh there is a Ross Township message out there right now and Mark, it talks a lot about the points of this and as Ken just mentioned, you know, people don't like guns. People are afraid of guns. people don't want to see a wounded deer um you know running running you know with a with a with a you know a missed shot or something or the wrong shot. Um so they

are looking to for us to craft a safety brief along with John for us to cra craft some type of safety brief and there are examples out there and one being um who did you say um Fox Chapel Fox Chapel and the other one being Lost Township. So, I'm wondering if you could work with John on a message that we can do some type of communitywide message um and distribution, you know, as per John sees it uh of the points of the finer points of this regarding safety and its effectiveness. Yeah, be happy to just as a all nine of the places they picked were picked like our water catch basins and things like that. So they're away from housing. Um, and shooting would be down so that there's always a hillside behind that if they miss or the bullet goes through the deer that it's going into a hillside and all that. So safety is a big is big part of the consideration when you're picking a site to do that. Got it. Good. I have a quick question. Are there any other deer management programs that ever are successful like preventing breeding or anything else or is calling pretty much I mean Mont Lebanon went through you know that big song and dance and and it's um you know people will say well why can't you shoot them with birth control and all that well then you're still shooting them and you're not going to get all of them and and so none none of you know the only thing that has worked is a call program. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Good. So John, you go with that? Yeah. And actually one more thing, we are probably working on a summer edition of the town crier, which would be mailed to all residents and businesses in the town. And I do want to put in some sort of note about this in there so we can probably all put something together. Probably work with Jack too and such and whoever else is interested with that. Probably work with John S and all that

just to get a nice written message. And what what's your what's your timing on that? About a month or so. Good. So, so the town crier, you you want to put something out there and that's not going to be the Mark and John. Um, you know, probably not. I mean, this would probably be more of an all-encompassing thing. Okay. I'd still like to keep to a page or less if possible, but you know, we probably should start sooner rather than later because the next one we put out November. Yeah. I think you should look at that lead. I had emailed everybody a letter that I had given John. try to use that that's a basis not a per I'll probably reach out to everyone on that deer it's very very difficult to get the insurance company and all of that data that we can really get or what we pick up which does not include 19 and Mcnite and it doesn't include the deer that got hit and died but they ran back into the woods first um the insurance companies can't give game commission can give you by township, right? But then that's including the white tail hunters in North Park and stuff. So it's it's just very difficult some kind of strategic assumption test on if this is true then this is likely the number of loss you know of automotive uh losses annually how much in vegetation loss annually I mean know we have 16 square miles so you know what are they eating uh what's it costing residents and property owners and I mean there's got to be a way to calculate this as a as an economic argument Ken said this two meetings in a row like the three times as many deer harvested by vehicles as opposed to by the actual program is a pretty good number too with it. So but what's then what's

the the economic you know impact of that? Yeah. So what does that mean in dollars like how many vehicles at insurance company 3,000 right the average is 3,000 per accident. There you go. So you know you could calculate that. do that math quickly. Yeah, there's also a nice article I found that was written up a few years ago in the Fox Chapel program that's pretty lengthy that I think to Bernie's point just capitalizes on some of these key talking points of like well here's here's how we want to quantify this and make this real to appeal to the wider audience. Um so I think we could take some keys from that as well. Good. Any other um you have any concerns at all about that, Mark, or you're you're okay with that? No, I'm okay with that. Okay. Any other questions about that? I guess we should show a picture of Bambi then. So that Okay. worried about, right? Oh, as I say in most my talks, everybody loves to see deer until they're in front of the hood of our car. Yeah. And we all love to see the two fawns frolicking in our backyard until we realize mom just ate the gar. Yeah. Oh no. And that they're going to live there for the next six years of their lives. I mean that's what I deal with every day. Or starve because there's not enough of them to eat. That's right. That too. Not humane on I have a little either a little buck and he live weight on him. He can't be 80 pounds. I mean, he's just skin and bones and he's starting to try to grow antlers and his back right foot's he can't put any weight on his back right foot. So, I don't know if he's going to make it or not. Yeah. And and and I think you mentioned this before that John also wanted township manager John also wanted to work with the police chief to start to calculate, you know, you know, numbers in in township. So we

have that that that is already the the guy that picks them up builds the township. So I mean every when I was doing my report um she just pulls it up. I mean it's it's they have that so that that that might be powerful too. That'd be great. Yeah. That good good. All right. Any other questions about that effort? Okay. Moving on. Uh Joanna Rain Garden. Yes. and and please talk about your your exhibit um your experience with your exhibit at the uh uh green roadside cleanup. Oh, sure. Um a lot of people were very excited. I have a list of different people uh interested in learning more. Some are willing to do like group activities like volunteerism for pulling weeds and that kind of thing. some I did have one um some kind of landscaping management type company that was interested in possibly doing a stewardship for at least one section of it. So um once I get a I don't have anything quite set up for that yet just because right now I'm trying to figure out how bad is the situation all of the bets. So, right now everything's coming up and so um and talk a little bit about I went there today actually this morning just to have a idea of where are we in things because I know that there's Japanese notweed. How much Japanese notweed? Um the answer is it's extensive. It is it is the entire length of the park. It is all the way down the creek. It is all through the about half of the beds have Japanese notweed in it. And so if you look back, I actually have pictures of a month ago where it was and see little shoots here and there with me. Yeah. 10, you know, um went there today and the whole thing is filled. Everything's covered and it's probably taller than me. It's the township generally in years past has used the articulated mower and gotten

what they can can get at. Mhm. The remainder part you can try using a a string trimmer, but I think you'll be better off with, you know, shears for like um and if you do that in what the conservies and everything do, they cut that down in June when it's expended a lot of energy growing up. Cut it down and then in August they come back and then they spray it ground up. And that I did that on the the if you're going up the sidewalk toward the ball fields on the right hand side two years ago. I did that and there is no not weeden in that section. I did that. Um so I've been in touch with uh Tim Bayan from uh the Oban Society um because he is one of the main people around here who deals with Japanese notweed management. And then I looked at Penn State Extension Office in additional for like what is it that they recommend for like this extensive and like what especially it being a rain garden. And that's been my biggest concern is this is a rain garden where anything that washes off um could end up in the water right once once glyifosphate is dry it's no longer active. Um he recommends a very specific product actually. It's called uh Aquanet. Okay. Um, so that's one that he said for specifically in a rain garden so you don't get it washing off because I it it should be inactive, but it's one of those things like especially since it goes into North Park and especially if it's something that we're doing like we want it the optics of it to be good of because Roundup there are a lot of people who do not like it. Don't there are some things you worry about as far as pollinators and that kind of thing. You have to worry about drift. you have to worry about um it going into the soil. There's a lot more about it that you have to worry about. So um I do have some the reason I did did it that way is

that's what's on Penn State a extension and that's what all the conservies that have islands on the on the rivers that's how they they've been doing it. Mhm. And he recommended um yeah, doing it that way, but also as it gets a little bit more thinned out over the years. Um he says it's actually more effective to also do stem injection. So stem injection, you use a nail and you go and you make a little hole and then you take basically a large syringe filled with Roundup and you shoot it up into the stem of the plant and it is more effective than spraying the leaves. Um, but either way, the thing that needs to happen is that in mid June, and he recommends mid mid June because I was looking at at the 1st of June, he said wait till mid June and then chopping it down. And they recommend on Penn State Extension to chop it down all the way to the ground. So, it's closest to the ground as you can get, trying to cut off as much of that energy as possible. So, my thought then is there's a lot of it out there, but I also I want to go over some of the good, the bad, and the ugly of what I saw today. Um, there were some very exciting plants out there. So, in the gardens that were taken care of and there's not as much knotweed, um, I'm very excited about some of the natives. This one's the most exciting. It's not the best picture of the ones. I was double checking to make sure it was what I thought it was, but this is a plant called Jack in the Bulbit. Mhm. This is a native wildflower that looks kind of like a pitcher plant and it loves wetland locations. And it's and deer don't eat it that much. And deer don't eat it that much. And Don says she's never seen in in there because I sent her the picture today like, "Oh my gosh, I look what we found. Look what we uncovered." And she's never seen it. She didn't know it was in there. So, it's some things are popping up. There were

other natives in there that were popping up, too. Um, golden Alexander was there. Um, some things that were native, they're a little bit more weedy, like this is just a really cute little flea bane. It's cute. It's a little daisy type thing. Um, the bad, there's a lot of other like [Music] invasive, not as bad, but this is corn flour. That's an invasive, but it's kind of pretty. Um, you know, um, where's some of my others? There's definitely also garlic mustard for sure. Deer don't eat it. Yeah, deer don't eat it. We can though. It's actually edible by us, but you don't want to cuz it it also absorbs um heavy metals. So, uh, that's the bad. But then the ugly is definitely the Japanese. And it is you can see the ground and there was mulch here a month ago. Yeah. When you get in there in mid June it'll it'll be as tall as you are. Wait, where's the can't really see but it is all covered in green almost as tall as me. Not that that's a huge feat but um it it grew a lot. So, the question is with that, since we have the native plants coming in, do I want to have an event with with some of the volunteers that I have to kind of go through, but I can't have kids because now there's poison ivy in there, too. Um, or do we have them come through and like lawn mower it down, but then we have to worry about, well, that's also going to lawn mower all of the native plants that are also growing. So, or using it. I think it's the right thing to use like a trimmer or something and uh trim part of it down. How many people

would it take to to clean this thing up and and how many how how long if we just just did the garden? I think it's something that could be done on a morning and if I could gather eight to 10 people, it would be great. Um I think it's very doable and I think I I have some people that would be willing. Okay. And you would have a direct you you would have you would know what to do. You would say this is the this is the mission. We are going to chop down the knotweed and then maybe when those people aren't there, right? Um you know I'm going to spray them with something. Um so you spray them later on down the road. So in August or so. Okay. Once it comes back, that's when you do the spray. Okay. So So it's just would just be taken down and not weed in June. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um, I even thought of the name calling it hackathon. Um, but yeah. Okay. So, will you do you think you'll you'll organize that and and um as long as everybody agrees? I did kind of check in with Abby before the meeting like, hey, this is something I'm thinking about is do you think it's something like it'd be okay to just use my volunteers? Do you think it'd be something that needed to be advertised? and she's waffling back and forth like is it something public works could do too and I was wondering about that and that's the other thing it's like about that public maybe public works can but I don't know if they know how to identify all the different public works will go through with an articulated mower which means a guy sitting in a tractor he's got a boom that he's reaching out as far as he can and and cutting stuff. So it just whatever is there it gets cut. So, so my opinion is that you don't make this a formal thing. You don't go out in some, you know, civic wreck website or anything like that. You just call your your volunteer list and say, um, you

know, you email all of them and say, you know, on June 12th, um, we're going to do that and you're going to get you're going to email 15 people and four are going to show up and three of us will show up and you'll get your work done. Yeah. Okay. And that's kind of what I was leaning towards anyways, but I wanted to make sure you guys were in agreement. Yeah. I don't know that Dawn ever memorialized, you know, her efforts toward the wrinkle. She just she just sort of went and they have. So, um, so I think that's that could be an handful of that. It could be it could be something that's annual hackathon. I kind of like it. Again, if you do it and and you you get them the second time, um, you're going to reduce it by 90% the second year. And I mean it's a much I mean it's two three years you should it should be gone until it gets reinvested because it'll come down from up above. It is. Yeah. So overall things are moving and there's plants. Wonderful. Any other questions for Joanna? Good job. Okay. Next up is a tree program. So Bernie um uh wonderful tips last month. Thank you. They were they were great. Um and you know you know obviously we'll we'll couple this with you know the event next Thursday. You know your your sign up and lack thereof or whatever that it is. And then also how was your exhibit um at the at the cleanup? Well, that's where can we show my uh Yeah. Uh so I have that covered in the PowerPoint. Um so I have an update. This is um and again I'm giving credit to those who have joined the planning committee.

Um which is Ken. Yeah. Joanna plus again I think we had some other um one other woman join the last. So anyway, so this is just kind of an update as to just real quick beforehand at Friends of North Park meeting last night, um, NAAC is is dissolving and we talked about with their not losing their tree sale program and so the Friends of North Park is probably going to take that over, per se, but they're more than willing to work with us on that so that that that that resource base that doesn't go away and and um people are you know we can still use Latomy for the distribution and all of that. Um, so that's that's in progress is as far as getting that transfer from NA NEAC to to the Friends of North Park and and doing it that way so that we can work on that is is basically a fundraiser and and all of that. It's a fundraiser for friends of North Park. kind of hoping that uh when Beth and I talked at the event, Beth Dutton, um I thought, you know, she had talked about maybe relating that to what we were doing, but but it it fits. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and it's it's still it's still come to the next Friends of North Park meeting. Okay. Well, I Yeah, I don't know when they are, but yeah, you can let me know when they are because you're right. There's a lot of groups we need to connect with. So anyway, if we go to the next slide, um this is just an update. Um because I feel like it's starting to form which is uh we all know

this the the launch now would be tied to the 175th anniversary um driven by this notion of a total um and then to have a monthly focus. So, I've been working on developing, you know, what's going to happen each month and then, you know, our starter activities this year. Some of us went to tree tenders in March. Um, I think everybody was on the first slide. Um, we'll have our speaker for with tree pers uh here at town halls. I think we have enough room for 25. So, I really want to help actively recruit to fill those seats. Um, and that's it. Recruitment for more of a tree team in 2026. And then, um, I, you know, the notion of how do we coordinate with the township staff for the 175th? And yeah, there's been this idea of, you know, um maybe joining either the committee, which I don't want to take one of the 10 seats because I feel like that committee is going to do a lot of township stuff, but maybe we can connect to uh you know to the committee once formed. So, that's kind of more of my thought on that. So, anyway, but that's where and I I still like always saying there's our 16.4 the four square um and looking at how much green there is already and uh yeah someday I'll get a map of all the smaller parks in there too but I still look at this and said you know that's the geographic focus um so I think the biggest updates um last week I met John at the event the volunteer event and was interesting because he's

actually a huge tree in um where he just came from and is it Edgeworth? Edgewood. Edgeworth. Yeah. Yeah. He said they were a tree city and they had a contract arborist and he's like we should be a tree city and so I had to look that program up to see what that was about. Um and that's when we had the conversation about tying in our monthly um kind of slate of activities for next year completely dovetailed into what they're doing. Um, but I would say, you know, he was pretty excited about trees. Um, which is great. There's no convincing. U, you know, he's in he's an advocate. And so he said there were the tree city was something he had hoped to do. So I feel like we can support him likewise and look at that program. Uh, and then Clint is somebody I know from Dukane Light and midappril the storm hit the 29th. So this is like two weeks before the storm. I had called him and said, "Hey, um, the meeting we had where that, you know, that woman who had attended, we had this conversation about how the last time Dukane Light came through the neighborhood, they ripped out a lot of trees that, you know, weren't necessarily needed to be ripped out." So, I kind of said to Clint, you know, is there a way that we could look at doing a different kind of vegetation plan? And he said, "We're upset. um we give, you know, folks contracts and then they goes for the neighborhoods and they because they're going to get paid by what they take down. He said they get a little too enthusiastic. He said, "So, we've been talking about how we kind of want to change it, too." and he said, "We'd be happy to work with you on prototyping a whole new approach for how

uh Dukane Light could dubtail with uh um their vegetation team with Macanist to support what we're doing on the reanopy." So, and then Jennifer Engel over at Lar Ro um she was recruited out of PIT. she had developed uh PIT's lifelong learning program and I met her because I was one of the first 20 people to sign up for this program um a few years back and she now has over 600 people who are over 50 years old in the program. Um so um I have more notes about this later. This is just a highle discussion. Is this the same program that would put people in like because I I do ll being parttime. they'd be on to kayaks and everything and they offer all of that, right? So, um they have a program called adventures and lifelong learning. So, no, you get to use the Lar Ro campus for all kind of uh activities. Okay. You can audit classes. Uh you can attend any course that they offer. They're allowed to do one per semester. Um so, I know I had been doing that. Um and then Okay. So, uh, it's more of a an activities group, but the fact that they have 600 people who all, you know, she said many of them, most of them are retirees. Um, and so she really thinks that's a good starting point uh, in terms of recruiting for the tree program out of that group um, and co-develop programs. And we talked about, you know, again, I'm looking at the calendar like Dukane Light and I talked about more than a couple of activities throughout the year that they could do education, residential programs like um kind of residential education programs on where to plant, where not to plant, that kind of stuff. Um but like then Jennifer, so

Ken, this is talked about like a tree sale being hosted on their grounds. Um, and anyway, there's there's more. Um, and then the recruitment from the roadside cleanup. Um, you know, I'll kind of detail out in the next slides what that looked like, but it was amazing cuz I don't know how long we were there, like 40 minutes, a half hour. U maybe it was longer, but I felt like I recruited a dozen people. It was crazy. Yeah. Um I mean and I think it's because those were people who are already willing volunteers and you know they were looking for places to connect and then of course we have uh have had our two planning sessions on this subcommittee uh and I do hope to in June, July and August to do kind of in person um figure out where to hold them um because I do want to uh you know recruit uh some some of the people have said they really want to get more involved figure out how get them involved with it. So, um, next slide. So, this is, so I looked up what the Tree City program is about. It's the Arbor Day Foundation who runs it. Um, and their standards that they have, um, it's you get people, policy, investment, and celebration. And, you know, so on their website, you click each of those links and it kind of outlines what's involved in doing that. Um, and yeah, I mean they want you to have then there's kind of did if you look it says is your city ready? Um, I clicked that. I looked at it's kind of a survey. So I kind of see that could be one of the goals of 26 is becoming a tree city because I don't think based on what I saw today that would qualify. But I think this is something we could work with John on as a targeted way to, you know, to kind of say what a tree city

is. Um and yeah, it it is about developing they say these four standards um that they've established uh and some of it is yeah the municipality has um budget funding for trees and maybe there's an arborist and you know there's a way to maintain your trees and you might have community standards for trees. So, um, but again, because he, you know, is our new manager, there he is. I'm like, let's and an advocate. Yeah. Yeah. It's his is Evanworth has a shade tree commission. Yeah. And that's one of the ones I reviewed when we were looking at that and we didn't think that was appropriate for Macandas. So, but it's um yeah, getting the town involved with and encouraging land owners to take care of their properties is is a big thing. Yeah. Well, and I do think, you know, some of it is some development standards, which again, I I have not wanted to go there, but, you know, we can dip our toe into this program and see how far, you know, it can take the municipality because that's really who it's for is the municipality um to say we're a tree city. So, um, and then I just put something here about the Dukane White conversation. On the left was his last email. And actually, we've had a bunch of emails since the uh, trees came down. Uh, but this is just kind of the idea of every year they talk about their annual vegetation management program. Um, but you know, so what he said is, "Hey, yeah, we're interested in working with you. We've had a bunch of emails since about how the vegetation management team is a little busy. Um he said they're going to be really busy through this week, but next step cuz we were getting one set up for me to start with their government affairs people who some of them I know.

I don't know if you know any of those folks there but like Lindsay Baxter and no Paul Sabod. Yeah. So they're people I knew actually from the city. Um, they're now with Dukane Light's government affairs folks. So, I don't know who they're gonna kind of throw out to me. A quick question. Does Dukane Light cover all of Macandless? Because my power isn't supplied by them. It's a high level pen. It's a pen power. This building is pen. There's a mixture of definitely light never dawned on me. I'll practice with both. But the the line clearing guys are, you know, they're just tired and and they just go in in whack and and it's like I have a chestnut native chestnut tree at my one neighbor's house and I talk to them every time they're pruning not to to butcher it and they do. Yeah. But that's the kind of thing that, you know, talk to them about is how could we stop this? Like if we're trying to do a recanoping effort and every time we turn around their teams are coming just hacking things and we're working against each other. Likewise, if everybody starts planting under lines and lines importantly, too. That's why we have the planting guide. Yep. So that they don't do like they did over right by LA Fitness and plant red oaks underneath the power lines. Yeah, I know. And I have a neighbor who put three red bugs and I know they can be small but right under power lines. I I'd say within two years they're going to be touching it. And I I don't understand. They're beautiful trees, but they are going to hit the lines. So, they shouldn't get more than 25 ft tall. I know, but the lines are I mean I I keep looking at it every year cuz he just put them in two years ago and I'm like why? You could have just brought them back about, you know, five feet. You would have been better. Anyway, u but so yeah, so that's kind of steps to take with them. And here's Laroo. So, you know, again, I've talked

with Jennifer for quite a while. Um, so Lar Ro when they did the campus, they did a tree catalog, and I think she said it was Ilaw, but it was one of the big landscape companies who put their trees in. They already have a tree catalog. What's where they keep it up when something dies, when it goes down. So, uh, they also have an undergrad program that every year there's kind of a spring and fall planting that happens. So she sees dovetailing that in um uh that storm water big thing that she has. She's like, "If you guys could help us make that look better, I would love you." So again, I think there's an opportunity there. Um she did say the sisters, you know, made that eco village commitment um because they believe in eco justice and um and that's a big part of I guess what underlies Lar Roa's message and the way they work. So again, so she's damed to do host speaker series at their location, uh, or do any kind of promotion to all of their communities for the events that we do. Um, and then she also said, yeah, and I told John this, um, they're not as engaged with Macan with Township as she'd like to be. Um, so this could be a good entry point to start with the lifelong learning folks and um, with those 600 people. And again, we could develop our own, we couldn't call it tree tenders program, but some kind of rolling education program as Macless tree something. And she said they'd be willing to like offer, you know, ongoing courses with older volunteers, the students that could then participate with us. So, I kind of see them as a good source for volunteers and yeah, you could recruit rain garden people out of there. Um, so here's the starter list from the roadside cleanup, which is why,

you know, when you were saying, should we cancel, I was I mean, I just tried to condense this list. Um, but these are the people I spoke with other than the last two I think are um ones that Joanne had, but everybody else loves trees. What? Donart really loves trees. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, then you know it's so funny because you know he was telling me how many he planted and you got like apples, plums, figs, like everything. Yeah. And you know and again I you know you know what how insane it was in that room and I'm just talking to each of these that quickly. So that point of it was very effective because everybody really wanted to uh kind of get involved and people were saying what they did or didn't want to do. Um, so, uh, all the people from the Eco Village, I think I only signed up one, maybe two, but, um, they said that they all wanted to come to the speaker series. So, Oh, good. Yeah, that's what I mean. And there's a bunch of people on this list. So, I do have their emails. I contracted it so you could see them. Yeah. And you remind I mean, you sent them the emails and remind them and please show up. Don't need to sign up. Just show up and let's not fight the system. Let's just put put bodies in chairs. Yeah. That's kind of And yeah, this is like more of what I wanted to do, which is these speaker events are more like, hey, come I mean point of going outside, bring your chair, like come hang out, right? Um, it wasn't meant to be, you know, what's your birth date, you know? And again, I still can't sign up on that app. Um, so yeah, I mean, I tried last meeting and so did Mark and we couldn't get on. So anyway, so I I don't know how many people attempted and didn't make it. Um but yeah, I think these folks I don't know that they'll all be able to come, but you see Beth Dutton's on there and that's when she said, "Yeah, we're sunsetting the organization. She's interested in

getting more involved and uh in what we're doing here, too." And the she's been on Hampton EAC. She's on Friends of North Park and she's also been involved with NEAP for right a million long long time. I'll send you her email and you two talk about the the tree program. I have it on here. I have everybody's email. I just condensed it so you can see their notes. But yeah, I mean she and you're right, she's part of like the who I need to reach out to on here. And yeah, Trish said, "This woman, Cindy Tyler, who is a landscape architect, and I forget the name of her firm, but it's local, but she said she's doing some graduate program and needs to do certain things for it." And uh and this woman had told Trish, she'd be willing to get involved with us. So anyway, but yeah, great event to recruit volunteers. Uh so to me this is you know what's upcoming then is um recruiting volunteers continue to do the subcommittee uh continue to reach out to other organizations in the area to gather everybody. I do need um you know the tree tacker techn uh tree tracker technology uh for you know if we're going to count 50,000 trees then you know what's the tech to drop the pin. I don't know where to go in terms of forestry the the the foresters when they're um looking at land to to log. Um they have tablet um functions that they go through so that they can categorize trees by size, specy and all of that. So that's probably already that wheels are probably already pretty well created. So how do we get access to be able to drop a pin in our 16 square? That's what I want to be able to do is people to

pull in on a GPS map, drop a pin in my yard, right? And I'm going to put three in this week. So, I'm going to drop my three pins and be able to say, "Here's what I just put in my yard." And then they go on the counter of three trees toward the 50. So, there's a active counter. It's almost like the, you know, in the old thermometer where you show, you know, how you're doing. So, is there is there somebody at Penn State Extension that would that would, you know, bring us up to speed on that technology that we can talk to the forester that did some work for me because yeah, he has that. There's also like ArcGIS is a good program that's used for a lot of mapping and documenting and tracking. Um, I've used that in prior jobs just to document where things are and does use it too. So, but I guess what I'm looking for is uh can I get somebody to run point to help find and pull that together so that when this thing's ready to launch, we have that piece ready to go. Someone who isn't me and I'm not I'm not good on all that technical stuff. So, we could probably talk to the engineers since they're sort of the GIS guru. We could get another layer in the towns map and somehow maybe make that public for submission. I'm not entirely sure, but something like that is a good idea. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because with that tool, you can then export it into spreadsheets and everything. It's really good for All right. Good. Because I know John, you know, uh there was a time when you were all saying, "Hey, let us know if you planted something." I don't know when that was, but I know it's that ended 2023. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I think this one kind of wanted to be interactive with the public so they could just do their own pin drops and identify who they are and where they put them. Depending what permissions you have, you can even add pictures of the trees you're planting with that, which is really fun. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, having all kind of

visuals. I mean, I want it to look like uh something fun to play with. Anyway, I've taken way too much time, but yeah. So, so what John and I talked about is again whether it's with the um the 175 committee or just with the staff like how do we how do we dovetail what we're doing here um more integrated now that we know we have a a tree advocate and the other this is the the the old trees. Yes. Um I'm going to try to get around if if you all have a copy of that if you can if we can start checking on that again. That's for the 175. If we can find some of the trees. It's in my monthly calendar. Didn't you attend one of the meetings where I had a projected calendar where I know Jeeoff you said that looks ambitious. Yeah. So by So my point is um thought I had it. Oh yeah. Determine initiatives to publish by September of 2025. So, these next three months I want to land like when we're doing that as part of the 175 and trees and you know what month will we do that? Um, and yeah, I'm trying to scatter them out and have different groups do them. So, and and Nick, somebody pulled me aside the roadside cleanup. I've talked to so many people. Somebody pulled me aside and said, "We feel that there were five other trees that are at least 200 years old or something in the community." Do do you know this? There probably are a few. And I am I'm not a scientist, but the trees there are two trees on the land that we just bought that are colossal. Yeah. That I bet are of that age. Okay. Somebody said there's more than just this point. So there probably are. I'm sure there is. Yes. Yeah. That's so but you and was it Mark uh who were running point on kind of finding out where they are and visiting them or Mark just was kind enough to get

it distributed to all of you. Oh okay. So is somebody going to go visit them? Uh I mean is that that's why I was bringing that up is yeah you know is we need to start to do that scavenger hunt. Well so how do you want to approach that? Because you're right. I think it's really dumb. I mean, I'll go with you on that one, Ken. Like, if you want to go search them together and identifying them and so let's just pick it. You know, we're both retired. That's okay. You are the right guys. We can just go. There's really there's really not that many of them on there, right? Yeah. So, so Jeff and I will run that. Make sure you guys check out the new land that we just bought because there are there is a sycamore and an oak on that. Yeah. We don't want to get, you know, we don't want to get hit with assault gun or anything like that, but we'll uh You won't. Okay. Okay. Jack Jack wants No one. Yeah. Jack Jack will be involved, too. The the people who own that house haven't looked there in years. So, didn't you ever go in somebody's property when you were young and they they shoot us up. Yeah. Well, we didn't buy it. We didn't we don't close until October. So, September. You're laughing about I used to fish potter's a kid and if we went down through the one guy's property he actually shot at us with I know I know this this this activity any comments and you guys started out just fine. Yeah. So, um, so, so Bernie, again, not to turn to more mundane things, but, um, so you feel like we'll have enough people based on signups and unofficial signups and I think I have three people coming. Um, if everybody could again, you know, you know, search their own calendar, um, you know, think about it if they have time, if they could recruit somebody for Thursday. Yeah, for Thursday. We we need I think we need people there and you'll provide me with some type of kickoff. Um and there'll be an agenda and I actually have the agenda. Let me email that over

to you. Okay. Again, so I mean it's it's that's all fine because um um Joe knows what he's doing. You know, it's just it'll it'll be it's not something we have to really prepare for, but just a day or two. Yeah. I have an agenda of you know again with some time and and again Joe's one hour you know from start to finish. Yeah. So we don't want to take much more right and at least not in the front end like we want to hopefully get on the back side through it. Absolutely. Recruit people and absolutely. Yep. I I know that that is the that is the uh the goal of it. Okay. Um wonderful. Any other questions for Bernie? Okay. Um, so let's let's move on then. Keep going. The roadside cleanup recap. Seems like it was a long time ago, but this is our f first meeting since then. So I'll just give some some facts. So we did have 100 plus participants. I would say that we probably had on that day um exactly 100, maybe 99, maybe 101, but we we had about 100. And then we had another 30 cuz I was there. I saw them. Troop 279 had another 30. Um so, you know, we had, you know, as they mentioned, we had, you know, over 100 participants, maybe 130. All EAC members, um, township staff, all council members, PA rep, Vancat, um, US Representative Delusio. It was a wonderful opportunities there. There are great pictures. They were, it was, it was on Vancat's website. We got a lot of good publicity and a lot of good feedback and a lot of good um you know positive responses from council and the community. You have full buy in from us now I think. Yeah. Yeah. I I think it was such an event that um I think

everybody sort of sees the same vision that is an annual community event um that you know again it's the largest largest volunteer event that we do. It's the, you know, fourth long largest community event. We had 130 people. Uh I think everybody sees that vision now that this is something that we want to do and not on an, you know, just sort of a one-off basis and everything. It's a big community event that and and and since then um I've heard from Brad who is the um the manager of the DPW. He saw because I said Brad I said the trucks can't be there next time. We're going to be bigger next time. Uh we have to move the trucks. We have to get more tables. we have to be bigger. We have to allow for more. Um he's like, "Yep, let's meet beforehand. Let's make the room you wanted to make it. We're all in." And then I hear from Lieutenant um who I can't say his last name blah blah blah. I have a hard time like, "Hey, Jeff, that this was great." And I said, "Why don't we next time make teams that and most of this is, you know, you sort of are the are the you know, the the the logistics person. So, if you're okay with it, if a police officer is going to be on Mcnite 1A and these five people are going to be there, they go off together. Hi, this is officer um you know something. We all go together. They go as a team. So, nobody's like, "Where are you? Where are you? Where am I supposed to be?" We talked about that as a lessons learned that we want everybody to who's going to certain routes to be clustered before they even leave. That way they are all going off together whether they are a police route or not. Yeah. That's right. That's right. So, so um the police specifically asked for we we like this so much that we want to be part of it in a way that we will go out as a team and we will all work together. So, everybody bought in. Everybody bought in. And then I'll just I'll just go into this real quick. Um because we put people out there that we thought there were some

some places that were a little bit dicey. Um, one of the fathers, a volunteer fire department captain, came back and said, "We want to recruit volunteer fire men and and vehicles with lights on next year to uh and they called Joe Wall for this to help you with the safety part of it." Yeah. So, we're like, we're all in. So, we we'll go after that that that as well. Y um the uh so troop 279 um it picked up Potter Park, but one troop 171 was there prior. So troop 279 would like to do Vesto next year instead and let 171 do their job. So we actually had another troop in there that we didn't really even count account account for or throw into our numbers or anything like that. We probably had about 210 to 215 bags collected. Um, and I think that's my larger picture. So, Melissa, um, you know, some of your take takeaways. Um, so like John was saying, we had really great turnout. Out of all of those people, we had about 20 students. So, pretty good on their end. From the people that I talked to who were students, they really loved the event and they're hoping to recruit additional classmates moving forward. They also had some great ideas about getting better exposure at the school so more people are aware of the um event as a whole. Uh we collected around 200 bags total on the event day. That doesn't include the troop bag or yeah the troop bags from the other days. Um we also had not everybody filled out the form but at least 29 participants were repeats not including any of us. Um so there were quite a few who came back and even brought friends and family. Um, we did compile a list of lessons learned and potential changes that we want to see. A few of us met afterwards, but if any of you have feedback or thoughts, happy to add that to the list. We can do that

later to be respectful of time today. But, um, yeah, it was pretty exciting and we're looking to expand in the future and keep this going. My biggest question is how many grabbers got returned? Did that system do as far as I know, all but maybe one or two got returned? That's awesome. Yeah, there there's one I think I think I think Don Hart has one. Okay. Oh, I'm gonna beat him up. Yeah, which is beat him up. And um I think there was one other person that we there might have been one. I mean, literally one that didn't get returned. And bringing them back. That's great. Bringing them back, having them come back to DPW, which I thought, oh, no one's going to want to do that. They all came back. They all had more food. They all had something to say. Um it was a it was way better for them to come back. I mean, you can't have them all come back at the same time and have some type of gathering where you're going to have hot dogs and all that kind of stuff, but having them come back and sort of, you know, coming back with, you know, um, you know, their their feedback, their immediate feedback was really helpful and and they brought everybody brought the thing that the grabbers back was amazing. It's great. Yeah. Um, they were all signed out. You could have gone, you can go get them. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly right. Um, so you know there's a lot of things and you know I think I think there's a lot more detail to the lessons learned you know that Melissa compiled that will really help us next year. So I I think we'll um and and what do we want what we want to do ultimately is we want to you know as much as we love Judy we want to eventually relieve her of the you know of the responsibility but she does have the the gizmo that it makes to maps the map process. So, the maps are, you know, that's that's a tough one to pass up. And the maps that she did were pretty helpful. Great. Well, does Judy want to be relieved? She wants to take a step back, but she's happy to help in small capacity. So, printing the maps. Maps. Printing maps.

Yeah. What do you use to print the maps? Like, what do we know what program it is? It's it's a program she has through her job. Oh, yeah. She's That's what she does is traffic engineer stuff. So, Yeah, because I was if if I were to take over the mapping, I would use something that's publicly available, not some proprietary software. And it would it would be nice to migrate to something that we all do have access to. But once we have routes adjusted for the future, we hopefully won't have to be changing them up as often. This year there were quite a few changes. Yep. But uh I you know and then again that by the next day um I gave Nick because council meeting was on that Monday. It was following up with a with a summary and then he read it in front of council and again you know the the success is measured by safety I think in this case and you know from that standpoint you know we had everybody everybody showed up um everybody was safe and um we didn't get really any negative feedback. You know we can we're going to pretty good batter at it. All my members of council had nothing but wonderful things to say and the ones who've been here for a lot long longer than I have also that it's come a really long long long way and that when this first began the council was not sold on it and I think it's been sold. So, it's it's a great community get together. All of you guys for making it what it is now. Yep. Yeah. I threw something in our little Gray Brook Facebook page and I saw one of my neighbors who I never see at anything. He was there that morning and I was like, whoa. So, a younger guy, you know, young family, so he wasn't there with any of his family, but he showed up and I thought that was pretty incredible. Mhm. So, yeah, like I feel like you're getting people that aren't

normally showing up at volunteer activities. So, it's the rare person who likes to pick up a piece of garbage, but I mean I think people like to be involved in something um and then and and if we can make it um you know, an experience like we did, then then we're selling them on something positive and something generational. Um, going back uh Bernie is that I I am going to compose because I I reached out to next door next door with this and again I there was 3,000 people looked at it in my next door. So I'm going to compile something for next door for the tree for tomorrow and I'll send it out to everybody and if anybody has access to next door use the same message and send it out because I'm Babcock Ingamar something like that. You may be Greybrook, you may be something. So, I'll send it out tomorrow and if anybody can reach out through Next Door, I think it really reaches people. Yeah, I agree. I think you know that being one week from the date, that's exactly right. I've been waiting for the week in advance to start from Okay. Yeah, let's let's let's get some bodies here. Does it require you to register to sign up? I just looked at a link. It is requiring you to register. Is that Yeah, it's tough. and and we and we fought Abby on this and I mean no you know people sign up for pickle ball pickball all the time but for some reason I was not able to sign up for this she had to sign me up. Yeah. So then we sent out messages through social media saying sign up through this civic wreck or through the email. Did you get anybody responding to the email? No one responded to the email or just come? Yeah essentially just come. Like for some reason this got a lot of traction on surprisingly LinkedIn. I don't know if it's like Yeah. Um I don't know if that's led to any signups because I checked this evening like only eight people signed up officially. Yeah. Through that, right? Okay. Through through the through Civic W. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. I just

asked Abby yesterday. I mean in the 80s I used to have a public event management company, you know, called the Event Works and we never would have canled anything. I mean, you just don't like I think it's a horrible practice if you look absolutely there's only three people were going to cancel like no because you don't know how many people were really gonna come. So I I mean I I when that was floating like well I I need to float it anyways because it just it it pushes the button a little bit. That's what I'm saying. I know you're not going to cancel but I mean like you know you have to start thinking about it. Is is there a number? Okay. All right. I think that's what I'm trying to say to you. There is never a number. Okay. Right. you go do this stuff. You, you know, you say what you're going to do and you do it and you know if two people show up like your weed garden, you know, if it's two or 10, you go do it, you know. Yeah. Now, we for the sustainability that we had last year, it was not a big turnup, but it was it was still an excellent event. It really, it really was. Like we had 17 people there or something like that. It's about it. And but but it was good to your point. I can push it through my community association as well. Yeah. Yeah. So we we should push push push any way that we can for this to to to get that going. Um do you have like if it rains that day is is there to go inside the council chambers um is the rain location but we would you know I don't know that we're saying that right John no one said that. Nobody said that. I haven't heard that one for at least you're talking about for next week. Yeah. Okay. I've not heard of that one, but Oh, we can Well, I had asked. We can make sure the room's available for sure. Yeah. Well, I asked somebody and somebody said, "Yeah, that would work." Uh, I'll go back in my emails. Yeah, that it's not going to be me. I didn't say that. But but anyways, we we should we should uh make sure that it works. The other thing too, Bernie, is are we going to plant a tree? Um, I can ask Joe, I should touch base with that. Do we know we're going to

plant where we are going to plant a tree then? Um again, let me talk to Joe. Um yeah, what they're bringing. Okay. It So, so I think that's I think that's important. If if Joe says he wants to plant a tree, then we need to get with John right away and find out where we could plant a tree. Yeah. I don't So, this is not the tree tenders. This is just in our talk about Okay. Oh, so Okay. So, he might not be doing that. No, I mean we talked about him doing that, but uh he's going to do it at tree tenders training in October. Um but yeah, kept trying to talk to them about doing all kinds of things. We wanted to hand trees out. I mean, right, they just were shutting me down on all those fronts. Okay. Okay. So, we don't have to worry about that. Um yeah, but I will touch a case with him this week and find out. So, and he um may have um you know uh I don't know I have a different person for there's four people I deal with there and that's why they've confused me about who's on first. Okay. And in in my in my follow-up email to everybody who participated in the in the roadside cleanup, we mentioned the tree presentation on the 22nd and um you know, so so we're we're getting out there. We're We're Well, let's just keep keep pushing this and see how we can do. Okay. Any other questions on the roadside cleanup summary? Quick comments. I can't say for certain that these things are related, but uh the girls on the run group at Mcnite Elementary School chose to do a litter cleanup around Mcnite today as their service thing. So, I'd like to think that we inspired them uh to do that. That's great. Jeff will take credit. Well, what's so

funny is that there were three three girls assigned to Blazer Drive and uh they they I I had to do Blazer Drive the next day. They didn't pick up anything. They were over there horsing around looking at their Tik Tok and all that kind of stuff. So, that's the other side of it. Sorry, Matt. Elementary kids. These aren't these aren't the high school kids that we had at the event. Yeah. Um, okay. So, community outreach. Um, speaker series, we talked about tree Pittsburgh. Um, so that is the first one. Uh, the next one, Ken mentioned um the white tailed dare and I think the question was and you you so you said August to September is the makes the most sense because you're approaching the archery season at that point. Yeah. and and and this is one that's going to just sell itself. I mean, this is not one that we're going to have to pull people out of their their easy chairs. Well, I'm going to have to rely on all of you to get get word out about it because I'm kind of deficient in that aspect of stuff. But, um, I'll look at dates and and see, you know, because that that's, you know, where where are we going to do that, you know, um, so I need a little bit of help on the organizational end of things on where it's going to be, picking a date, and then I can get hold of Janine and make sure that's good for her. Okay. So, we'll figure out, you know, so we know and when. So where um is next and how to advertise. Okay. If we do that through the library and and so forth, right? Yep. Okay. Good. Well, we have some time on that. So, we'll we'll um we'll come back to that. Uh we'll put that on the agenda for next meeting, too. I'll talk to

Janine and see what what works in that time frame for her. Okay. Good. Wonderful. We'll let her pick the date. Okay. She has to come down from State College. So, yeah. So, so based on her schedule. Okay. Um the other one I have on here is Burton um Berton Pennsylvania membership. Um I'm I'm not going to get into that. I sent everybody some breakdown on it. Um Joe Wall suggested that we do that. There are local communities that are also involved. um Pine being one of them, you know, a neighboring community. There's not a whole other lot of other ones around here, but I I looked at this as an opportunity to like other things. Um you know, promote a healthy environment. Um tree tree USA city um you know, you know, things like that. And then also maybe Matt, I was thinking that this would be something that maybe a student could be more involved in. So, I I'm not going to go into the details of this because I don't think it's necessary for this meeting. I'd like to table it for next meeting. Um, but but this is just something I'm I'm I'm sort of poking around with and I want to have a more robust conversation with at meet at future meetings. Talk with Lattomy because they're very into the birds over there too. Okay. Okay. Good. From uh you okay? You guys okay if I table that till next time? Yep. other things being a little bit more important. I don't know. Migration's a big deal this week, right? Well, you know, that that falls into that falls into, you know, one of the other things I wanted to mention. You know, John, I'm getting a birdcast update almost every day because it is now we're starting to it's it's it's not as black as it was. It's starting to be a little bit more yellow and it was heavier um at the end of April. But how do you what's do I just keep sending you? What what what's your thoughts on

that? So, I don't want to turn the town's social media into all birds all the time. Yeah. Just like I'm always concerned it's going to turn into all lost dogs all the time. Yeah. Um if there's a lot coming, we can probably do like almost like a weekly thing and say, "Hey, you know, this week bird, you know, they're suggesting, you know, keep your lights off at night to help with birds." Mhm. So if it's saying there's going to be several days in a row, we can do okay, you know, today, you know, and through probably like whatever day it's expected to end or at least through the first this week saying, you know, keep your lights off when that dark cloud starts approaching, right? That's that's better. Yeah, that's better. Okay. Is there a way to show the map so everybody can see where they are? And you know, I I think there may be a link to that, but I'm not entirely sure. Yeah, cuz I know in the past we've done this a couple different ways. Yeah. But I don't quite recall if the link has like a live map or a rough Ellen. Anyway, isn't this her thing? Like, wasn't she Well, I um I assured her that this is a something that we're we take on. Yeah. So she doesn't come every meeting because I wanted to save her her special time at home. Yeah. So she didn't have to attend every meeting that we would we would make this u you know part of our agenda. Yeah. So which we are and and but I think it's you know always same time every year right we talked about that. Yes. Yes. How do we just kind of you know to your point it's not year round. It's what for about a month? I I don't know. It it sort of is. And um and so so I think that think that's a good idea, John. I think we can manage this in a larger block in a in a more um you know in a in a message that says for the next week it's going to be heavy. Please do this as opposed to me saying today's another day. Today's another day. Today's another I got another one today. Yeah. And what we can do is have a link

to Birdcast or something like that. So someone who's interested can follow through and maybe they can sign up for updates from them. Okay. Okay. Great. and suggestion. Any other questions on that? Okay, moving on. Open initiatives. Um, invasive species education expansion. Join, I'm going to give the the table over to you on this one. You're thinking you're you've got some different thoughts on invasive species. Yes. Okay. Yes. And and kind of what this is is like thinking about how to spin off the rain garden. So it's not okay, so we have the rain garden. This is what I'm working on and then I'm all rain garden all the time and then oh let's build more rain gardens. It's like that's not really what I want to do slash do I think is feasible because the rain garden is a management issue. Um and there's a lot more that can come from it that builds more on the educational piece. It builds more on um even just the people who live here. How can they do things in their property? How can they be aware and how can I we help them build more ecologically friendly yards? And just take a a little bit different tact is we're going to be trying to get stewards or you know trail management in in our parks and things and so this coaleses with that very nicely. Right. Okay. So, and when I went, so I got a sit with Jeff at that um town council meeting and they had um the speaker come from the survey for the parks and one of the things she brought up, she had just like a little bit a snippet and she's like, "It's not complete. It's not everything." But it's like, "Okay, well, let's look at Wall Park." Number one bullet point of like,

"What are people talking about with Wall Park? Invasive species." Mhm. No, that's all that's here. Exactly. And if you go anywhere, that's all that's there because of the deer. But it's like it's all connected. It's all connected because the native species that are there then are get choked out by the invasive species taking over kind of like the Japanese notweed up here. So anything that is there that the deer don't eat then it's being taken over by the invasive species. So you have to manage both. So and people would need that. And I think it's something that's needed on municipal grounds. And I think it's something that, you know, if it's something working on like public works documents for here's how to identify um different invasive species and here's how what best practices are for managing it. And it can also be promoting different things for homeowners um for things to put in their yard. Don't put, you know, here's the things that are invasive. Please don't plant these. Plant these instead. That kind of thing. promoting different programs that promote native plants. So whether it's uh the Penn State gardeners, uh different kinds of yards or if it's even like a monarch way station, something like that is promoting native plants within the community. Um and I've just had a lot of different ideas and it all surrounds like promote the natives but also work on the invasive species. How can we remove that and work on trying to limit how much it's spreading throughout our community? Because the problem is if we just let it sit there and continue to spread because well, if we plant anything else there, deer will eat it. Well, it's just the problem's only getting worse. So, it needs to be managed as well. So, that's kind of my thought about where to spin off. And if you guys like the idea, like I want to start poking around and having some ideas for what next steps should be. Just as as an aside with um the

parks, there's a new director of the parks coming in and I was talking with him last night with the barberry and such in in North Park and um he's very attuned to trying to do something like in settler's cabin are actually doing mechanical uh getting rid of it and that's that's a very expensive way and it doesn't anyway we discuss that but anyway he's He's going to be somebody that we can work with on stuff, too. That'd be awesome. Because that's 3,200 acres of the park is in mechanisms. Yeah, it's North Park. And I know my husband even helped with removing the Japanese barbaria up at a um and that was one of the things that kind of triggered my thought cuz I did go to Potter Park just to see it cuz I've never been there and there was a giant Japanese barberry right next to the trail. was one of those like, yeah, it's going to be there, but you have to be careful cuz that ticks love Japanese barbarian, so be careful not to get too close to it and where your bucks spray and whatnot. But again, it's one of those things like something that needs to be managed like that's it. We see it's right there. If you know what you're looking at, you know, just want to rip it out. But this is like with the the park and stuff, they have stewards for the trails and things. Mhm. and we want to develop something like that with our green space here in McCandless. Um, and so that falls right into what you're doing is is educating people to be stewards and and to take take care of things. Mhm. So, um, we'll need a a McMill tip for June. Mhm. Is that an opportunity to sort of float um at least at least start using the word invasive species again and putting into people's minds and saying uh you know we have this guide out there. Do you know you

know something? Do you you want to put something together? Time to go get them, you know, right? And I think there's definitely some things I can put out there for June about invasive species. Okay. Um, yeah, we briefly spoke that I probably was going to be doing this anyway, so I was going to take something on and decide which direction to go in. Okay, so yes, wonderful. We we we need just that. So, um, so then, uh, not the go-ahhead, but miscellaneous, um, June McMill tips, Joanna will take it with this invasive species. Wonderful. I just want to say I think one of the like really strong points to hit is the why because I it's just one of the things that I we haven't really seemed to mention yet, right? We have like here's how you identify this, here's how you identify that, you should use native plants, invasives are bad, but we don't really have like what like why what's the problem? Like who cares? Like I see a bunch of plants over there. I don't know what they are, but who cares? They're just growing there. What's the difference? you know, and I think like really making that connection for people and really like getting to the like because when when the um spotter lantern flies showed up, like there was kind of this first of all, they were everywhere and people were annoyed by them. But there was like almost this moment of like, hey, we all hate these things. Let's get rid of them. Let's let's all smush them. Let's all kill them, you know? And it was like great, yeah, let's all do that. But I don't know that they I think we need that kind of driving force of like, hey, this is if you get rid of these invasive species, here's the benefits, right? Here here's here's what this is causing as far as a bad thing is concerned. Um is is just a helpful thing to really hit on. I like that. Good idea. Great. Um anything else on that, Joan? Not on that. No, that's just kind of my overview and then Okay. Can I just say I think that's heroic

to say invasive species. Yes. I know. Have you lived that life before 1990? Yeah, it is. Washington, but that's what I mean. Like I'm like the one like I mean I'm not going to be just out there with a machete like doing it on my own. Like it's like where where can I make a dent? Where can I make some kind of impact even if I'm not again? Yeah, this is a big one where where Judy always try to tackle it, but it's it's so big that you know that that you know you just sort of pick at the edges of it all the time, but but it it's it's great to have your enthusiasm and your passion for it. So, we're excited about that. And if you can get stewards created out there like for Vestal and Potter and for Wall, I mean, that's we're starting to tackle the the the big problem. Yeah, I agree. do the education, the training, and then how do you, you know, it's almost like to me it's an important part of tree canopy health is the invasives will destroy and then once once we have the deer population where it's supposed to be, then we can get into restoration type stuff, but it doesn't make sense to do that right now. You're just kind of spinning your wheels. Yeah. Okay. Um, in interest of time, let's let's continue to move on. So Joanna, you had also mentioned that you know you we you didn't know the parks. There were five parks obviously one's behind us right here. Some of them I'd never been to Potter Park and then I learned recently about a couple other features of the others. I was just thinking like I thought it would be fun to go out and almost like a little field trip since it's the summertime coming up. there's going to be longer hours and not everybody has to go, but if we have little like, hey, let's go, you know, walk this trail, you know, let's do um vestal trail and learn about the history of it. Like there's a really fascinating

history behind that. Mhm. And um or if it's um history behind potters is also cool, too. Yeah. The history behind Potter Park. take a walk around and then I think each of us comes from a different perspective, you know. So Ken's gonna be out there telling us about the cool trees. I'm gonna be finding all the, you know, native wild flowers and, you know, happy about that. And every, you know, Nick's out there finding things that would go into Italian meals or something. Yeah. Mustard about, right? Yeah. Yeah. Really? So, so why don't we think about that? And I mean, whoever wants to join can join. I mean, I would walk partner park and vessel. Dawn is a she does a great presentation on Vesto Field. Um so you know we can whoever wants to learn more about it can learn more about it. So why don't you and I tiptoe into that. Are you talking about for this group or for the people of McKenz group like decisions about the town? If we're making decisions about green space and that kind of thing I think it just be nice to have little field trips and be like hey guys. It wouldn't be more than an hour. I mean, an hour on a Saturday morning or something like that. Or just to throw out too, I've been playing around in my mind like in towards the end of June of inviting you all up to my cabin and just taking you I'm thinking that I'm going to have like a time for a mountain bike ride, a time for a hike, but there's also a class A trout stream for people to fish if they want to and and so forth. But it you can have a field trip an hour and 45 minutes from here to uh to see what's going on and and uh you know I've got chestnut orchard up there and I'll you know there's there's just a multitude of things that you don't see around here um to expand people's horizons and and have the interaction together. And I'll I'll supply venison burgers for

dinner. Mhm. Say what? Yeah. It's all everything else. Um so the um and thank you Ken. So I just want to mention on here so volunteer network hub continue to populate that on the EAC website. Uh you you pull in volunteers. I mean we should we should continue to have those and have a record of those in case you know you get transferred to Seattle. Continue for people that that are pulling volunteer names in. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And and what just so you know, I mean what I did is I created a second sheet for the tree program. Okay, great. And then I didn't notice that. I'm going to do sheet for Okay, great. Um then so we talked about the McMill tip and then next is on miscellaneous is the McCandless wants to and and John and and Nick walk me through this. I'm think I want I understand this. They want to either they want to either be an adopt a highway or they want to have an adopt a highway program. Yes. John Schwend would like to start a mechanless adopt a highway program which some nearby places Shaylor and Hampton also do. And this basically would be for town roads. So it wouldn't be county or state roads and maybe parks as well. So So the EAC already has the dot to highway. Yes. So that would be through that would be pen dots. Yeah, that's state. Okay. Okay. So basically Macan was is starting its own program and encouraging residents to sign up. I see. Yes. So man so so we're not going to see John Schwend and and and and Diane out there picking up. They're saying hey people that live in here adopted for your neighborhood or or um you know first watch. Yeah. Cumberland or something like that. Yeah. And I sent those out too. I don't think we need to put them on the screen, but uh public works, our sign shop did put together a

few mock-ups of signs basically saying, you know, this is what if you know a resident picked it up a do of the street and here's one for if a business does it. So, what do you want from us? I guess really just I don't know if it's guidance. It's just like getting your take on it. See if you have any concerns, any ideas, things like that because there's not a whole lot of details right now. It's just he would like to do this um areas areas that aren't aren't part of our organized pickup. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's not going to be not not going to be Mcnite Road with not going to be Saloop. Um you know what could it be Babcock? Uh that's a I think that's a county road. So, it wouldn't be that. So, are you talking more neighborhood roads? Yes, basically. Yeah. So, my thought is this probably isn't going to cannibalize, you know, the spring cleanup that much cuz I don't think we're going to be overwhelmed by people signing up for it. It's probably going to be smaller streets for the most part, smaller stretches into it, though. Yeah. I mean, we can consider, you know, how often going to require it because the state requires two times a year. Uh, Shaylers, who I hope to imitate a little bit at least for their sign up, they say quarterly. Two times is probably sufficient. We can probably encourage them to do it around when the spring cleanup is so we can spiritually include them in that. And I would say the town should probably consider, you know, providing supplies if people want them. And they would need to reach out to us like about a week in advance to say, "Hey, we're going to go out and clean up to make sure that, you know, public works is going to pick up bags, they're aware." And it would be great to track their data, too. Yeah. Exactly. Like we can add that to our total. Okay. And um you know so one of the things that we we find with adopt a highway people is that they don't adopt a highway right um so there is some level of accountability um you know you just don't get your name up there the you know the Campbell family has adopted this and you know yay

but but they never pick it up. Yeah. So you know again some level of accountability I think is something that I think we run put the sign up until after they've done it for a year. So the shailaylor way is they're saying, "Hey, do you want to pick this up for have a year-long commitment or maybe have a three plus year commitment and they're saying they don't get to sign unless they do three plus years essentially or say they're going to do it?" Mhm. Yes. So that's one option. Do I get one for every week after waste management comes through? That would be fun. Yes. One thing you might want to consider is a recognition program of some kind so that like people that do follow through are receive some kind of I don't know if it's just their names in Mcmails or uh an a yearly event of some kind that just says thank you to them. Maybe they come to the volunteer thing or just something that you know maybe that way it like spurs people on to actually do it if they think like you know I mean they should just be doing it out of the good of their hearts but if they also get a little thank you nod maybe that encourages a little bit more participation and and John is there any um liability issue I mean do you guys address that where they assume liability for I would assume We would have to do something like that. We could talk to our attorneys to make sure it's all dotted and crossed and everything, but I would have to assume there's some sort of, you know, old harmless type deal we would have to do. Okay. Okay. Well, I mean, we're we're we're supportive of this. Um I don't think it I don't think at all undercuts, you know, what we what we try to do on the larger community. So, um, no, we and and in fact, you know, one of the things we've mentioned is that, hey, if you have an area, um, you know, you can, you

know, what a legacy event it is to, you know, to to have your family do it. So, adopting it and this is sort of makes this official. So, in a way, we feel like it fits into our program. How about that? I think it's a great head nod and recognition of the success of the litter pickup program, right? it's now inspired others to do it at a even more local level uh in the in the you know the small world that they live in and control. And so I think it's the headline here is like it's it's it's a growing version of the litter pickup program like that. I mean, is there a way to make, you know, everybody who signs up part of like a I know in the city there was a guy named Boris Weinstein that created a group called the litter getters and that's kind of what he would do. He started in Squirrel Hill, but he used to go um to every neighborhood and sign up folks to do it. Um and but he, you know, he kind of had them join. They were deputized and and then he communicated. He used to run Mark advertising. So he was like a hell of a marketer and communicator. So you know he made this like a big thing. Um you know meaning you're now one of us. You're part of this. And so there was like pride in being part of the gang, right? Um, so is there a way that, you know, maybe highway adopters can become, I don't know, called something in the township in some way, like So, I mean, we've actually used literators kind of unofficially for several years. If you see the t-shirt, so we could continue with that or we could come up with a new, you know, a new slogan, but yeah, I think we can do something like that for sure. Okay. Do you have what you need from us then to I think so. Yeah. Unless John has any other ideas, but sounds like we have EAC support to do this and have

some ideas to make sure that we do. Yeah. It's not going to it's not going to conflict. It actually is going to enhance what we're doing. Yeah. Yeah. I I thought Mark had a good comment. I thought and I thought Matt had a a good comment on recognition. That's that's great. The Tom Sawyer effect, right? So, you know, how do you make picking up, you know, the town you know, like cool. Um I mean, that's kind of what that program, I think, is meant to be. Yeah. You know, which is not if they're willing to take selfies or group shots, you know, while they're cleaning up. Yeah. And we get them out every once in a while. I think that would be helpful. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably as good as Yeah. Is there a way to if you want it quarterly, is there a way to say it's the first Saturday of every quarter? I don't think you should force them on a certain No, no, it's sort of like they adopt they adopting this, you know, they do it on their schedule when they can do, you know, when they're available. So, if it is quarterly or twice a year, they can figure out when they're going to do it. Are you going to make it quarterly or twice a year? Should be a year, right? I mean, isn't that the requirement? So the state's requirements twice a year and in the Shayaylor one they said it's quarterly. Oh that's a lot. Yeah. I mean kind of like the idea of quarterly though. I mean it depends on what kind of roadway you're looking at like you know if it's like a culde-sac type road. I mean quarterly would just be really easy but then twice a year would also be easy too because they're probably not getting too much. Yeah. So I'm not really sure at this point case. It will depend on what areas are. I just gonna say the issue going into the quarterly is like if we have like a particularly bad winter, like you're you're just going to have people are like, I'm not going out. Like it's too cold. I'm not going to go out for these these three months. And so then they miss a quarterly thing and then you're like, all right, well then should they keep doing it or whatever? Twice a year makes it so it's a somewhat regular basis and you can also be in

good weather twice a year, right? So six months potentially do three times a year, spring, summer, winter, something like that. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Just that they're doing it is good. Mhm. Great. Okay. Any other thoughts on that? Okay. Nick report from town council. I think everyone at this table knows that at our last meeting we approved the purchase of 17 acres of land to Potter Park. So it's going to be nearly doubled in size. It's pretty exciting news. It's going to create now what is the second largest uh town park. Um, so we're really excited to see what comes of that. I think it coincides really well with the master parks plan. Would love to some point I think it'd be fun for us to all visit that. I know we just mentioned this group walk. I think it'd be great to go up to that new piece of land and you guys can all see it and we can get your guys' thoughts on it. It's it's an old house and a barn. Neither of which are in very good shape. The barn is definitely in the worst shape. the contract we signed the barn the homeowner is going to be leveling the barn. Um, so we will not have that, but there's a house there as of now and it's just a beautiful piece of land. It overlooks the pond. It's on a nice hill. Well, that's the one I want to see. Gorgeous. Pick that one first. Two massive trees there that are super super old. Mhm. Yeah. I suggested to John that uh in North Park they have people that live in in the park in the houses and that gives you some people being present so to speak so stuff doesn't happen and like you know if that house is redeemable um of making it available as a rental for a county for meless employee or something like that. It's an interesting thought. Yeah. Well, and I think that's a question like I was traveling so I was really out of the loop. I don't think I

ever responded to you. Um because I was pulling long days when all of this was bubbling up. Um but what was the intended use? I heard green space. Um did they is it there's there's no real set in stone. Like we haven't truly decided what is going to be of this park yet. That's open for both us as council to decide. We would like public input on that. We want to see what the parks master plan comes up with for this piece of land, too. So, really, it's a I mean, because I always hear everybody wanting like a community center. Is that still alive? And everybody thinks the community center is a good idea. And is that a feasible site for something like that? This is probably not a good site for that. Oh, really? No. The there's a pump station for the sewage down below there that does have a little slot there. once we own all the way down, the sewer authority might be able to just run the line down because right now they have to send somebody out there every day. And so when they would be doing that, they would be make increasing the ability to access Potter Park. Um so you get a you know an advantage out of it too. So MTSA is involved or do they just have a rightaway on it? Currently they just they have a rightaway on it and a pumping station that they have to send somebody to every day to check on. And so if if they can run the line down the m down to Pine Creek, then they eliminate that. But they quit proquo there's some other things Jack's talked about. I'm a little out of a little out of align with that. Good. So, is it meant to be like passive green space? I personally want it to be seen and used as a passive green space. I think that's its best use. Yes. I don't want it to be too developed. That totally takes away from the point and

the feeling of that part. Okay. So, I mean that's I I'm happy to hear that obviously. Yeah. We talked about maybe it gives you much better access to Potter Park. Also, I'm I'm I'm poking at Joanna for maybe a uh floating water floating garden on in the middle of the uh garden would be nice there. It could be pretty. There's a lot of land there. So, well, a lot of land. So, so I saw a presentation uh where you had the floating garden. So, it be something out in the middle of water. They can't get to it. Huh? The deer can't get to it, right? Unless they know how to swim. I think that's also got And I haven't been there, so I don't know. I I am under the impression there's a lot of open area. Mhm. And so that also gives us the opportunity to do something like a meadow. Mhm. Yeah. That that's that's nice. And and 17 acres of beer management. Yes. And the next door neighbor to the land is the master gardener who's in charge of the butterfly gardens over at the um over at the cannon over at North Park. I did not know that. Mhm. Wow. Met her at the meeting. That's really cool. The lady you were talking to and then I was talking. Yes. So, she is Okay. She's the master gardener who is in charge of the butterfly garden program. So, it's like Okay. So, she's right there cuz there's only one of me and I'm not a master gardener. Yeah. I just know a lot. Well, the the countyy's been putting in uh meadows. So we can tap into like that one that that's right off the spillway where that mound is to look they've had a horrendous time Andy Beckley got the the dirt for that for free from Wildwood and what it's turned out when they've done the soil testing they they're having a hellacious time getting anything to grow in it and so they're doing a lot of remedial treatment to get that meadow established. Would it be a crazy idea to propose before next

month's meeting if we're around? We take like half an hour or like 40 minutes before the meeting to all go up there and just Why don't we have a take a walk? Uh have dinner up there. Be nice. It's tough on a Wednesday for me. Okay. It's my later day at work. But I've kind of sort of I did Potter Park and then kind of looked up. That's it. Okay. So I I'll try to organize that. I'll try to organize that. Okay. Um so is that anything else, Nick? That's it. Okay. I'm just looking forward to seeing your guys's note. Okay. So, okay. Good. Yeah. Would love to get you guys to one of our next month's meetings to Okay. Yeah. I I'll put something together and I'll everybody for PowerPoint of some sorts. Look at look at that letter that I sent out. Okay. So, thanks guys. Yeah. Um and then so so topics for next meeting I have on here Burton Pennsylvania membership. um continue to talk about the deer call presentation. Um I think there's some things to be said about the wallpark trail expansion maybe. No, not we had some there was some we had I'm going to forget their name now. A group come in and did did some uh work on the on the trail. Jack and I were down there last week fixing up what what they had done. Um Okay. And a lot of that's just kind of on hold until the parks thing is done. Okay. Got it. Okay. So then um we take that off and then um if we want to if we if we haven't talked about it between now and then talk about the visit to Ken's house. So had to cut that short this time. But we should we should all think about that and and have a nice conversation about that next time. So we are um it'll be a learning experience. Yeah. Sounds pretty cool. Anything else?

uh we can either talk about this asynchronously as a group uh but if we don't then next month I would like to discuss the future of the student EA the junior EAC member program uh because it uh did not work quite the way I think that we wanted to this time and I'm a little concerned about its future moving forward. So just like to see what people have to say about it. Um but again we can do that asynchrony asynchronously if you would prefer. So, just let me know. Since I don't know what that word means, I'm going to say do it via email as as a discussion instead of doing it at meeting. I think we ought to I think we ought to put on the agenda for next time and have it have a group discussion. I like that. Anything else? Okay. With that then um can I have a motion to adjurnn? A motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? All right. Thank you everybody. Hi guys. I'm going to include you in an