Environmental Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

All right. Well, good good evening everybody. Um, welcome. I'd like to call to order the April 9, 2025 EAC monthly meeting. Um, we had uh the February revised minutes and did everybody see those minutes? And are there any objections or revisions or edits to those minutes? And I think those minutes are officially we did based on contingent upon some of the changes. Dr. with those. Yeah. So, they should actually already be approved then since they will. Okay. Good. And then the March minutes. Um we'd like to approve those. Any edits? Um objections, changes to those. Okay. Can I have a motion to approve those minutes? I so move. Okay. Second. All in favor? I Good. Um, at this point, um, we welcome anybody from the public that has anything to say. Would you like to Yeah. Hi. Um, stand up or whatever you want to do. Be comfortable. You can dance, whatever. I I'll try to keep it brief. I um I I was uh Okay, sure. What does your name say? Okay. My name is Tim Triplet and I live in 9009 Street. It's happens to be adjacent to the Rachel Carson development that's going on. Yeah. And I was assured by the project manager and the architect that they could not put a building or parking lot near my property because it was webcam. And he assured me this a year ago at the zoning commission meeting that they couldn't do so. But apparently there's planning right now. there's plans to put a parking lot in. So my

question to what I'm hear is, are you aware that they're planning on putting a parking lot and replacing what used to be beautiful forest with a parking lot over the wetland uh when they assured me they weren't going to do so because like I said, uh I'm sure there's regulations of putting environmental impacts and putting a parking lot over where there was once woods and and But that being said, it was who performed any like water studies before, you know, it was approved. Um, the other concern I had was there was along Cumberland Road is there's a culvert that was put there, I suppose, 15 years ago when they put the road in and it was partially removed from probably my property line to the entrance of Coverland Crossing. Mhm. and they removed the culvert and out after these few rains we've had the water has been coming right off the street and right into the parking lots. So my concerns are, you know, what are the environmental impacts? Is is there going to be landslide or I mean I know they have plans on putting a retaining wall in but it it is there are natural springs on under the ground there. No Tim that that's Cumberland Road up by past passive on the right hand side. Yeah. The park correct on the perimeter of their park their property. They put the parking lot as far away from their residence as possible which didn't make sense to me. And I brought it up with the planning commission and they told me that's where they wanted it. I said, "Well, yeah, but you know, are they within regulation with the DB or what to put when they assured me they couldn't do it do a building or parking lot because it's wetland and I I'm aware of that. There's natural springs that come off the off the hill there and I have,

you know, you go I have photographs of it from just the other day. So, like and then they remove the culbert. Well, there's more water there and there's standing water there. So, what happens if they pave it or like who who did the water study? I'm I mean I would think is that your committee that does that or is it they that would have been our town engineers? Yeah, that the town engineers would have to approve of. Yeah. So, I mean, those are my concerns because like like I I specifically asked them if they could respect my privacy and leave me a buffer and they pretty much didn't either. And you know it the parking lot is completely clearcut up into my up until my my property line and I I have a meeting with the the town manager to to review the plans and you know I and I you I figured what I was told is kind of they kind of went against their word with telling me a year ago oh we can't build out there it's wetland and sure there is a parking lot there right now and and it's permanent, but it doesn't hurt to ask if somebody can maybe move it where they said it was going to go or is it safe there? I mean, there's water issues there. So, that's basically where I'm coming from. So, okay. I think if anybody could, you know, just I don't know if you have to review it or, you know, just to see if everything's coherent with the the you know, I'm sure there's the D has some regulations that are they adhering to. And you know, of course, I'm not happy about the fact that it used to be a beautiful forest and green space. It's clear it's gone. You know, it's gone. But that's that's a whole another issue. I said, you know, that's a privacy issue as me in the township. But I just was I'm just curious if you're aware that

that they're planning on putting a parking lot over wetland because I'm sure there are regulations in in place. Yeah. So, so the EAC is not a part of that. Um, you know, we don't approve of that. It's not what this body does. We work on separate products. It's project. It's not as if we don't care or as if we shouldn't have an opinion or we shouldn't at least ask the questions. Correct. So, at least we can do that. We can we can ask questions. We can find out a little bit further and um you know, find out if there's anything that would be um you know, I I don't have any other answers for it, but we can at least ask questions and express the fact that you were here and you know, publicly asking us to do so. Yeah, that would that mean I'm I'm concerned that like Cumberland Road is safe because if you know if that caves in or whatnot that's right connection to the hospital and the ambulances but uh I was surprised that they moved the culbert because the water stops in my apartment and bleeds right into their parking lot and I you could drive by there right now there's still standing water after 3 days ago it's like up and down there the thing I and it's you know I'm not trying to stop any project or But I just wanted to make sure before it goes any further that this is it's within what they're supposed to be done because I mean I I was you know they they didn't keep their word of of you know I asked them about the clear cut all the way up to my property and they did so but you know so they they plan on putting new trees in and whatnot and replacing the beautiful green space that once was there. Yeah. Yeah. And I've been living there for 23 years and right, you know, one day it was just clearcut and gone and that's so so we would have an opinion about that about the replacement of tree. So yeah, I mean I'm meeting with the manager. He's going to show me the plans. But it's just,

you know, as long as they follow through and it's just coherent with what the regulations are. I mean, I I'm I'm not here to fight anything, but I do have questions. Yeah. Concerns. And who's who's the um council member for that area for Cumberland? Yeah. What what's the address there? Do you know who you're Well, I'm on N Street, but where the hospital is? You mean it's across the street from the hospital? So, whatever. Passing. Let me look that up. Sister Divine Pro that red dot. One second. is 909 correct null. Yeah, look it up right now. And if you look right, you know, behind my house that was at one time just uh this was a farmland and it was green. I have photographs of of the green space that used to exist in they put a farmland there. Okay. Which I believe is Dawn Dawn. Yeah. Yep. Dawnard. Okay. Okay, Tim, we can ask some questions. Um, can make sure that it's not, you know, you know, contradictory to what we're trying to accomplish. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt to ask question, right? Right. Like I went to the planning commission. I said, I know the Earth movers are still there. Maybe they can put it where they claim they were going to put it. Have you been in touch with your member of council? Yes, I have an appointment with them next week. to go over review the plans and be exactly you know like I said I'm you know I'm I'm easy to please and I'm willing to get along with it but but when you go against your word I'm I'm concerned that maybe the planning

process is is kind of like usually at the end of a project. So you know I'm concerned that it's going to get done and or if it's safe. Yeah. Yeah, we appreciate you sharing this with us. I mean, we can make no promises, obviously, but at least you're touching all the right the right places. So, yeah, I I just want you to be aware that, hey, they it's they're planning on putting a parking out there. They were informed me that it wouldn't be there and it's being it's not on file yet, but it's wetlands. It's difficult approval. Yeah. I mean, that's if it's wetlands, it's it's really hard to to be able to do anything to it. Mhm. Well, that was that was what that was to, you know, they assured me and I said, I'm aware that there's water coming off the hill and there's natural springs and you can see where they're coming out right now, right through the ground. But uh you know I have pictures but that not yeah it's not necessary but I appreciate what you're you know you take your input and me being just to make sure you're aware that there there could be environmental impacts. Yep. That's what we're here for right now. Yeah. Absolutely. And we promise you we'll follow up. Yeah. Make no other promises but we'll but we'll follow up and we'll ask the questions. I really appreciate and like I said I have I have a meeting with the file manager. So yeah, join. Yeah, John. Yeah, right. Good, good, man. Yes, exactly. So everything's been cooperative like just I just wish I didn't have to compliment this because if they would have just left me a buffer like I asked them respecting my privacy, I would have never pursued anything. Yeah. But they clearly did not do so. We'll see. Okay. Well, thank you. Thanks, Jim. Thank you. I appreciate Appreciate the shared first. Okay.

Okay. Think you and I will get together and Yeah. If that is is wetlands, it's it's very difficult for them to get permission to do that. Yeah. Okay. Um next on to the student report, James. Um James had sent an email. We all saw that he couldn't make it. Uh Matt, do you want to share some of the things that James um shared with us? Sure. If anybody missed it, just in case uh he was letting us know he was unable to attend this evening, um he mentioned the Interact Club's uh projects that they were working on. I think a lot of these were mentioned last month. The Fairfeld Ch fair child challenge on biophilia encouraging participants to track outdoor engagement and reflect on the effects of nature on mental well-being. The sustainable bingo card and catch basin labeling campaign in collaboration with the AC to educate and engage youth in environmental protection efforts and the earth hour participation and early act environmental outreach with letters and crafts for younger students. Um, and he said that there are students, volunteers who are getting ready for the roadside cleanup, which I'm sure we're going to talk a ton about today. Um, finally, he talked about his sustainability project with Yuki, uh, saying that they were still collaborating on the birdhouse painting and placement initiative. They're looking at, uh, contrast between developed areas like McCainless Crossing and preserved green areas like North Park, replacing birdhouse in both. uh planning on including an educational signing signage explaining the importance of sustainable development and green space retention. They said they've reached out to some township officials for approvals and support including possible funding or venue co coordination and discuss the project with the interact club members who are interested in helping during cleanup day. They're still working to finalize the details especially regarding logistics materials and any necessary permits. So uh they mentioned they reached out to township officials. I don't know if they've gotten any

response. Um I don't know which township officials they've reached out to. Uh Nick, do you know if anything has been said like at a council meeting or anything like that? Word of this. Yeah. Okay. So I I don't know, you know, there there was not a lot of um information on the progress on any of these things, just the fact that they are happening. So um good to know that that's the case. Uh I am assuming that he will be there on Saturday. Um and uh if we figure out what exactly I know uh Jeff you reached out to me about some things that are going to be going on that day for him and for myself. So uh once we get those finalized at the end of the meeting today I will reach out to him and let him know uh what's happening with that. Very good. Any other questions for Matt? I mean I think we all saw that but great. Thank you Matt. Yep. Okay on project updates. um sustainability. I'll take the first one. So, um I I can't remember if we talked about being in C in front of council. Um, I reached up back out to John Schwend and asked what his opinion was about how to move forward and he agreed with me that that that working with Penn State um and their summer program with their undergrad students um although it would be delivered a a a greenhouse communitywide greenhouse gas inventory would be delivered at the earliest fall, the latest spring uh at no cost to to us and um uh we both agreed that that was the best way to proceed as opposed to joining and is would have been would have charged us for the membership $1,800 $7,000 for the work and then $2,000 for the product would have been about $11,000. Um so we're moving forward with Penn State. I reached back out to Penn State asked to be involved in a program.

They have officially accepted us into the program. So that will begin. Um, and from that standpoint, I think that it would be um, you know, there'll be some calls during the summer, but they'll compile the data, they'll pull the data, they'll they'll work with us on that, and then we'll uh, hopefully have a product and we'll we'll update the group as we go forward. But I think at this point, we're just waiting for that to begin um, as a summer project. Great. Great. Thank you. Any questions about sustainability? Okay. Um, next is deer management. Ken, you want to wrap that up for us? Yeah, there's really nothing um as far as the program this last year. You know, archery season was done the end of January. Um, just my normal comments that we're harvesting three times as many deer with cars as we are with archery. Um, that's not including Mcnite Road or 19. It's not including the deer that got hit and ran off into the woods and didn't get picked up. That's just going by pickups. Um, from my view of things, there's no regeneration in our woods at all. All the young trees are munched up and because each deer is going to eat 8 to 10 pounds of brows a day. Um, all of our native plants are gone. Um, so we have a severe over population of deer. And when I watched the dozen or so that bed down in my backyard every day, um they're not looking too good. Um meaning if we would get a another real good cold spell, I think some of them would not survive it. Um, so we need to to up our game with the deer management uh simply for the sake of the deer that they can be healthy and for the sake of the environment that we can uh start to get some restoration of our native trees and plants in our wood lots and and I so

last year remember that we ended up with 61 by 60 this year. Oh, it is 60 this year. Yeah. Okay. Okay. we because of a program that we had council approval for and everything and and it kind of fell off the radar um uh that we didn't have uh white tail hunters hunting in uh Wall Park and uh Vestal Park that was open to public hunting. One of my buddies shot a nice eight point in in Wall Park. Mhm. Um but so we didn't have the uh white tail hunters in in the three parks this year. Okay. They needed to be open to public hunting. And there is a desire by myself and some of my fellow members of council to really try to tackle this issue head on and take a a more vigorous approach towards trying to improve this. But um we would love to have your your guys's buy in and we would like to have more public input too before we would ever move things along. So it's we have so many you know we could take a couple hundred deer out of Macanas and you really wouldn't notice. You'd still be seeing deer all the time. Mhm. Um, and that wouldn't even put a dent as far as with with a forest once it's been overbrowsed. Um, you have to knock if an area can hold a hundred deer and it's had a couple hundred deer for a period of time and and the ecological devastation that occurs, you have to knock that deer population down to 50, well under its normal carrying capacity for 5 to seven years for the seedlings to get established and for the weeds and things to get get growing again before you can let the population come back up to 100.

So, it's a matter of of uh it's a pretty radical thing to do to knock the population down that far and it's not going to be done with archery hunting. Do we do we know of any places where they've had success with this? Have we heard any anecdotally Fox Chapel has been doing they've been doing it since 1993 I think working? Yeah, it has. we start to look at what they're doing and try to follow their lead at least or something. I don't know. Like I feel like we talk about this a lot, but we need to like figure out a plan on this and get it moving right if it's going to be in place for next year. Well, agree. You make a good point. Um, you know, and and you just said if you had our buy in. So, I mean, I think, you know, and I I'm just I'm just trying to figure this I don't know anything about um you know protocol here or anything like that but maybe maybe four of us like it and three of us don't like it. So we want to make sure that everybody gets represented and we want to make sure that you know it is it is fair and we agree as a committee that this is something we want to back and and and how do we back it if we do want to back it we say the EAC recommends um and there might be others that don't recommend it. I mean, I don't know. I I don't know. And I'm not asking anybody to to give their opinion about that, but I think we have to think about how how we do that and how we represent every every committee member's. Couple couple of points. Yeah. One, City of Pittsburgh has also been doing that this this past year doing a call call main you're harvesting deer outside of deer season and not necessarily using sporting methods to do it. Um because of the deer population is so bad in the city. Fox Chapel's been doing it for a long time. Um, Lebo, we've we had we've worked through what we wanted

to do. It's just that the ball got dropped at the last minute. Um, the original plan was is that we were going to harvest an additional 150 deer this year to see how things went. Um and then if everything went well, we were going to look at the results and see where we could go from there. Um 150 deer out of Macanas Township really is almost insignificant. Was it going to be targeted in like one area to see if there were nine sites that we were going to be doing it at? Okay. I'm I'm trying to get attention and uh ask for the floor. I mean, can we put together a proposal? Jeff just said he wants to know, do we stand with it or not? I mean, I feel like Matt does. We've talked about it a lot. Is there a plan that we could get behind and say, "Yes, we support this." And what would it look like? You know, what's the comprehensive plan? Cuz can you convince me not to proceed with the tree program till we get this under control? I want to get that launched, but you've convinced me we've got to manage the deer issue. So, I say full speed ahead. What do we need to do? What's the plan? To Matt's point, and let's get on with it. And and I don't know that it's EAC's responsibility to do it. I'm sure it's a township, but I think that question of how do we get this rolling uh aggressively so it can support some of the other programs we want to everything was done with the game commission. The reason there wasn't the reason the the parks had public hunting this year was to satisfy a requirement of the game commission. Everything was done. The ball got dropped at the very end. Everything was planned. Everything We had everything together to to

accomplish this, but the ball got dropped at the end. But it sounds like we need more than that anyway, right? Continuing to do the whitetail archery hunting and in adding those three parks will be helpful, but it sounds like we need something more than that, right? That's what what I'm that's what I'm speaking to is we had a plan to take out an additional 150 deer. Right. I'm saying we need to go even bigger than that. It sounds like but but I don't I don't know. I mean, you you know more about this than I do. So, if you think that that's where we start and then we expand, cool. Uh but it sounds to me like it needs to be even more than that based on you know, you're saying take that out. We're barely going to see a difference. So, is that is that worth taking the time to do that or should we move forward with something more aggressive? We wanted to start the first year with 150. Um there's costs involved with it. So it also has to be a budget item, a line item um which was approved and everything. Everything was done except the ball got dropped at the very end. Um we wanted to do 150 the first year just to to get our feet wet and get the procedures done because you have to then remove those 150 deer and get them to deer processing so that they go into the food banks and all of that. It's it's a fairly big thing. Um so we wanted to start with 150 and uh see how things went, see how the public reacts, um and then go from there. So does do all of those approvals and things like that need to happen again for this next year or because that all happened is are is the table set and we just need to make sure that the that it gets carried out this year. The paperwork needs to be submitted and everything should be this year should be much easier since all the

the homework and what we needed to do and everything is is we understand that now and it's just a matter of uh getting things through and you know finalized. Would you agree? Yes. Correct. Um question then about since the public parks then were open for people to the public to hunt. Do we have any idea on what those numbers were? Because if they're not part of the suburban white hunters like do we know that we even have an accurate number if we have additional to hunt the the the three parks you needed to register with the police department downstairs. Okay. So they they did a back so everybody that did that the police have done a background check on um and any deer that you harvest had to be reported back um to the police. Okay. So was that included in your reports then? And um is that the same with the game commission too? Like do they do hunts out there and report the same to the police or do they have their own counts? game commission when when a hunter harvests a deer they have to report it and but it's only it's the detail that level that they can get to um they can get to Macanas but you don't know if that was white tail hunters in north in North Park you don't know if that was somebody in their backyard in Macandless township you just know it was harvested in Macanas okay how successful was having private hunting like did did we have less people out because of that or was it about the same? The problem you get with with the average hunter going out is they're trophy hunting. Like this over here, there's at least seven guys that hunt in there and they're all trophy hunting. After after Christmas, they might shoot

a mature dough. Um, so the white tail hunters and suburban white tail hunters, um, they're in there to harvest deer. Mhm. Um, so if they shoot a buck, that's great, but they're really harvesting mature does, which is how you control your population. The deer population will double every two to three years if you don't uh harvest sufficient numbers. Okay. So, it sounds to me that we we can't we can't force it to be bigger. We we I don't know that we can force the program to be anything else. Like Matt said, why don't we go bigger? It's it's not our call to go bigger. I think I think it's our call to support it and to and to keep the momentum going. So and and public education on on the the problem that the number I think that will be big. Mhm. Okay. Okay. So so there so there's where we can make a difference. I think truly everyone in the town, everyone in Western PA understands that we have a problem here. Yeah. It's just how do we manage it and how do we fully explain to the public what those problems are and why it impacts everyone's lives and why it needs to be okay. So, I don't know if it makes a difference, but it' be it would be nice to say and and everybody should probably um reach out to me through email separately and tell me, you know, if they support it or not support it because I don't want to, you know, show of hands here, but um then we can say we're either unanimously supportive of this program. The EAC is unanimously supportive of this program um and wish to see it grow even larger in the coming years. uh and we support we will support it through education um you know initiative. We'll have a speaker, you know, something like that or we say we're largely in favor, you know, so we don't speak, you know, if if there's somebody who's opposed to it that we don't speak for them and say they're they're for it when they're not for. I'm

just thinking maybe that's the first step. And so we say that the first step a lot of you can take is um if you can find on our township website um during COVID uh Janine the the whitetail biologist for the game commission and I did a uh presentation um we had 200 spots available and all 200 of them were taken. Um, so it was a pretty wellreceived program, but it's it's, you know, I would encourage you to start by viewing that the um the program that didn't launch this year. Is it based on uh the hunting season? So we have to wait a full We have to wait until after hunting season. Okay. So we got a year till we could do like a put in place action to change that from the public sentiment perspective, right? I think that's something we should start talking about in advance of that program actually happening. Right. It might be our second speaker series second speaker. Yes, B. I was going to say, yeah, that's a great idea to do this as a speaker series for the you know the fall or you know late summer. Is that what it would be, Ken? Is that what is that when we have it? Is that too soon or too late? It won't the special program won't start until after all the hunting seasons are done. So, it's not until the end of January. Yeah. But that's okay. For 2025 speaker series, we could educate the public on the issue and how they can participate, what they could do. And and Jeeoff, I I want to object to this need to do kind of a secret email to you on how we feel, why couldn't we discuss this openly. If somebody on this uh organ, you know, on our committee disagrees with this philosophically, I mean, shouldn't we

hear that out right now? I'm I'm for that, too. Just want to make sure everybody's comfortable, that's all. Yeah. Why wouldn't we anything openly? I think it's great to start it on the smaller scale like you were proposing before diving into anything too crazy for tests, but I think it's extremely important for the entire area. Yeah. And I think especially when you're talking about like the health of the deer that we do have, we're not looking to wipe out the entire deer population. I mean, that's what happened, what was it, early 1900s or so when it was like there were no deer in Pennsylvania and they brought them back. We're not looking at doing something like that. We're looking at doing something where it's like for the health of the forest, for the health of the deer, you know, especially given like, you know, sustainability. Sustainability also just for if we can even phrase it as, you know, we don't want to keep hitting them with our cars. Cars are expensive. There's so many talking points. There's so many reasons. It's tick. It's This is like the most dunk story. the force perspective. I understand opposing it on the grounds of animals and and all like completely understand that. But in terms of you know everybody else the the logic driving it. Sure. You're not going to have a more complete story to go to the public with some there's 10 different angles here that somebody's impacted by more than one. I think everyone here has had someone they know that has hit a deer with their car or they themselves have hit a deer. I mean from the animal perspective too it's actually it it's more cruel to the animals to not do this right you're leading to more suffering you're leading to more pain for those animals so if you really believe and you're caring about what the animals then you got to that this is the way to go for that too I think one of the things that we need to figure out though is as far as public education is concerned I love the speaker series idea I think we need more than that and I

think we need to figure out good ways to get our messages to the public cuz we don't we still don't really have that yet. We we're we're getting so much time into one place. A very very small amount of people are reading what we're writing. We put this in Mcmail. Could we in social media posts and then putting that out there is a good way. I think that's to write like a big article about it potentially. Yes. I would want because it is such a big topic I would want a lot of involvement for council before voting for be looking over it too. Yeah. Yeah. A bigger a bigger like public education, you know, stance is something that would have to happen if council was involved. The majority of us are on board with this. So I will say though, not a good topic for wearing a costume. Yeah, please. But if you would like try to spend an hour on that presentation that Janine and I did. Ken, do you know where exactly that is? I was just looking through the website and I couldn't track it down just on cursory glance. I'm going to send everyone a link uh after the fact. Probably the easiest way to find is on our YouTube channel, but again, we're going back a few years, so dig it up a little bit. Um I'm also looking right now at the uh the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's website. There is a I believe an education course in there about like this exact type of thing. Um they've got well no I'm going to take that back. It's more about like learning to hunt and education for hunters. What I'm looking to find and I'm hoping exists is something about this topic for for school age kids because I think if we can get this into the schools as well that's going to be helpful eventually too.

Well, looks like we're unanimous and I think moving forward. I will say kids do not take to some of the hunting as well as someone who works at a place and the kids are enamored with the deer. Yeah, sure. This is in Hampton. Yeah. But it's like at my house like I have roodendrrons, you native roodendrrons that I'm I'm watching the deer on their hind legs. There's no leaves on those roadendrrons from my eye level down. So they're on their hind legs and who who's the first ones who can't reach the food are the young ones and the yearlings from last year. Um they're the first ones to starve to death. So it's it's it's a it's a big thing. It's not placed to starve deer, you know, right? So So what is our next step? Just to back the program as we go through. Everything's pretty well in place. It's just a matter of we we didn't do the final eye and didn't cross the final three. Okay. Should should the EA should we send an an email saying we're supportive or is that does that matter? Please. Yeah. Okay. Please. Okay. Go ahead. It'd be great. Would we need to go back in front of council at some point to endorse and educate on the program and need I don't think that wouldn't hurt if if we had that. Yeah. To put emphasis behind it. Yeah. I'll send you an email and you can look look it over. I mean every it'll come from everybody. Everybody will be copied on it. Sure. Um but we support the program and we support it through um you know whatever whatever we can do education whatever we want to be a part of. Okay. Thank you. Very good. Say your name. Any other questions for Kevin and um Joanna Ringard. Yes. We had a Ringard event and it went great. We had

somewhere around 20ish people total. Some came and went. Um, the ages for the events ranged from 70 something to two. Um, and everybody could have a job. The 2-year-old could move rocks. It went great. But we could pick up the rocks. We could get the paper down cuz what keeps happening with the rocks, the vines and the different weeds want to grow in between the rocks and it's harder to pull them out. So, being able to pull some of the rocks out, lay something down to help protect as a weed barrier. Put the rocks back on top and then it looks so cute. Some of them made like a heart. Some of them made u the Boy Scout symbol. Sometimes we just just threw them into a blob. Um but it looked a lot better by the end. Um with that, like since everything's kind of torn up, I did put down some different seeds um of native flowers and things and hopefully if it's planted densely enough, hopefully that will help things kind of grow back so it's better than having densely planted invasives coming back in. And then I'm going to keep a close eye on what's coming back in until I can get the full stewardship program up and running. Um, so my next moves, I've already been talking to Abby about making flyers and getting them out there as far as getting stewardships for all the different uh gardens in the different areas. Um, and then in addition to that, um, I want to have like for the stewardships, I want to have folders for whoever's doing that. And so that will involve things like what you can plant, what you can't plant, um just how rain gardens work, what the like there's a whole bunch of information. Penn State has some great resources for it. And so that way if somebody does sign up for this, they're not just going in blind like, I guess I'm going to do something. It's like, no, there's guidance on this and here's how we can do it. And you know, some things are fine. You know, just don't

put a Japanese barberry in there. Don't want that. Um, but that's my next steps for that. And then I'm working on uh the trifold board. I have it at my house and it's partially completed for um the event on Saturday. So, um that's about it. I do have some stuff left over from the event that I can bring to the litter pickup, too. Um I have some actual water bottles and things that Okay. I tried to have the jug and most people had their own water bottles, but I brought water some water just in case because I knew they were Girl Scouts and they don't always remember to do things. So, I didn't want them to get dehydrated out there. Mhm. And I happened to stop down while they were doing all of this. And it was just wonderful to have watched the kids running around having fun and getting stuff done and everything. It was it was really quite quite a good event. Mhm. that we stopped down afterwards and um and there were some scouts down there taking pictures by their little um were so proud. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Big success. Big big big success. And I might be able to put a little bit more mulch down. I am um I secured today actually um somebody I know moved and had a bunch of boxes they were looking at getting rid of. I was like, "Yes, I will take those boxes so we can put that down as additional uh weed barrier and I might be able to talk to Arch and get just a free drop of uh wood chips." He said he could do that for me. So, just What about a giant pile right there? That's not mulch. It's more of a leaf compost and there's a lot of trash. The worst of it's left now. People think it's right now. No. Um, but I can get free wood chips from Arch and as long as I say like no disease, no bugs, nothing like that. Uh, no walnuts, it works the same. It's the same thing. So, any questions? Any other? Great job.

Yeah, great job. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you. Thanks. Big success. Okay, Bernie, you're up next with the update on the tree program. Yeah, I had been looking at my notes. Um, so I I'm not sure if we had a meeting um since we've gone to the tree tenders program. So, uh, four of us received certifications uh, having attended Tree Pittsburgh's tree tender program and that was Jeff, Ken, Joanna, and myself attended the one down at the Tree Pittsburgh location. So I think they sent us our certification so we're official. We would know how to uh you know trimmetry or not trimmetry. Yeah. So um we are scheduled to do one um October 18th um in Macanless for 20 to 25 Macandless residents. And so my intention would be this upcoming Saturday and from now on, you know, during the speaker series on May 22nd, you know, we'll continue then to promote um and recruit members of the McCandless community who would be interested in attending the tree tenders program. And the other thing that uh Tree Pittsburgh had promised was to give me a list of everybody from Macan list who has passed already the tree tenders uh course since they've been offering it. So we can try to find again a larger volume of people interested in tree and tree care and tree maintenance and planting. So, so I think that's, you know, part of the strategy of how do we get the ball rolling? Kind of see this

year being kind of a recruitment and strategy session. Um, we have a subcommittee meeting now for trees and the tree program which once again the same people attended that meeting and Archie also attended and that was Jeff, Ken, Joanna, um, myself and um, Archie and we held that the Thursday after our meeting last time. So that meeting would be upcoming on April 17th. So, anybody who would like to attend, I'll send a Zoom link on that. Um, because we're continuing to do that. Uh, try to limit it just to an hour. I think we did 6:30 to 7:30. Did I get that right? Because wasn't 6 too early, Joanna? It was a little early. Yeah. So, we did 6:30 to, you know, 7:30 limited to an hour. Um, you know, I had notes from that meeting. Um, but what I'm primarily trying to do is uh organize leadership um like Jeff is really takes the lead on the speaker series and you know so that program with Joe from Tree Pittsburgh um we talked about you know how we would support you know and and the activities we would do to support um that evening um I I will tell you I've tried registering and I cannot not. So, I'm a little concerned. Uh I can't seem to get an account on the uh you know because you can't just sign up to attend. You have to create a profile. I really object to giving my birth date out to anybody. Um but to register, you have to give like, you know, all that information. And despite that, I know I cannot register to even attend the event. So I I just want to

raise that on typically pretty techsavvy. Uh but it's not allowing when I hit the submit button after I filled out all the fields. It's just not going anywhere. So um so John, I don't know if uh has anyone and see if she sees anything or I can log in and see if there's anything going on too if you're already in there too. Yeah. So, so, um, and so thank you, John and Abby, for putting together the flyer and then getting that information out and the McMail on the speaker series. Uh, my question would be, do we know how many people, if any, have signed up yet? At this point, I do not know at this point. Okay. So, how would we know and track that? Uh, we would just really log in through Civic Recck. Abby is sort of the master at that. So, she'll probably be the one who's keeping track of most of the attendance, but I do have a login there as well. I can log in, probably give you a number, too. Probably after the meeting even. Okay. Yeah, that'd be great. I'd love to know if anyone has signed up and if so, um uh you know uh what we could uh you know, plan for uh and accommodate. and Treat Pittsburgh really is bringing all of the materials that are needed for that evening. Um I I have had a couple calls with them. They have pushed back on handing out trees because they feel like people will not be ready to plant them. They won't know that they're getting a tree. They're really sticklers about who gets a tree. Um but they do have their tree adoption events. Um I don't know if everybody saw that or not. Um there's one here in in for the spring planting where they do give out trees and you can sign up to get them. Um and then there's usually one in the fall. So what I've been trying to work with them on is doing a tree adoption for Macan

this fall. Um and ideally we could do it adjacent. What we discussed was uh for our tree tender program and I think Jeeoff this was just a conversation you and I had. We could do uh my request to McCandless was to hold it in council chambers um because it really is just presentation style and then after we finish um because it's usually a six-hour program but they'll do a walkound as part of that and do tree identification. And we could do that on the township grounds. And then ideally afterward, we could do potentially some tree planting, say along Grubs Road or somewhere else that could work and uh kind of get get us kicked off uh have the tree tenders that went through the course to actually plant a tree rather than just watch somebody plant a tree. So anyway, so um but John, um what's the procedure for getting the approval for using council chambers on that day? Or is there another facility I just don't know about that we could use? I mean, council chambers right here is probably a safe bet if it's going to be a small number of people. And yeah, 20 would be fine here, I think. So I've not heard back from my initial inquiry, but this is several months out. We should be pretty okay with it. Well, the thing is I needed to confirm with them, get on their calendar and you know and that's why I was just looking for the okay to do that. Yeah. And and there is a cost to um you know that gets charged for them to you know do that. Uh, and I think, you know, I don't know how to best present that. Um, the way I did it with the tree tender

program we did, I just agreed to underwrite it. Um, and I to get on their calendar, I also agreed to personally underwrite it. Um, but we can charge people who from Macanistas who want to attend to offset the cost. And once again, I don't know if EAC has budget to do things like this or if I just go try to find a sponsor and underwriter, you know, on behalf of, you know, our activities. I don't know how to do it. I've just been making personal guarantees so that we can get things scheduled and rolling because I have not done anything with EAC that would require uh budget. And based on my understanding, or should I ever think about spending any of funding for anything at any time and any day? Is that right? Yeah. Here's what's good. So, basically, the only real money that's budgeted for EAC officially was $1,000 for equipment related to the cleanup and we lasted right through that because we have a lot of people signed up. Uh there are some other places we could find money for that. Um because we do have different budget, you know, budgets, money under like things like arts and communications where you could probably find money for this. I mean, what's the charge for this particular event? 1,700. Uh I think it's 1,600 for the course and 100 for something else. So it was a total of 1,700. Um so um and I got the invoice for you know the five seats that I u put in our march and and I'm fine to pay that bill. Uh but the 1700 again I I can personally guarantee it or you know I could work with you John on I mean we should definitely talk about that. Yep. Yeah we should be able to fund that but we definitely need to ask council for that amount of money for sure. Yeah. So, and and the other thing to do is we could charge people who want to come.

You know, it's usually there typically there's a $40 fee for people to attend at Tree Pittsburgh. So, it's usually not completely underwritten. Um, but because I would like this to be the recruitment of a volunteer core of people and we, you know, we could even frame it that way. you know, uh, if you come and take the course, we'd like to see you committed to, you know, the tree challenge in 2026 and here's the things we'd like for you to do, you know, uh, or you can just pay and learn it on your own without any kind of volunteer offset. So, we could do either of those uh, without complicating it. So I mean I but you know the the gross number would be 1,700. Um and again uh whether we get it underwritten, whether the township has budget for it um or uh people pay for it, you know, any and all of those could work. I do a combination. Yeah, that's right. So, um, but I would, you know, I just need to confirm with them the October 18th. I told them, you know, we're 99% there. I just needed to confirm a location. And John, you're what what were the concerns about uh using council chambers? There was no concerns. I wanted to make sure that, you know, the folks who basically the higherups, you know, in here are aware that this is being asked and we think we're okay with it. So, no major concerns. I mean, we clearly the room is set up for stuff like that, right? But I can follow up tomorrow to see just, hey, you know, here's what's going on with this. Okay. Uh, that'd be great. Um, uh, so, um, so I think Jeeoff, you know, when I think about this upcoming Saturday and

having a table to talk about the tree program, those are going to be the primary, you know, activities. the speaker series and the sign up for the tree tenders in addition to you know kind of um I I had wanted to do and I know it's probably too early uh but like a property owner pledge for um you know I keep envisioning you know property owners being willing to do three you know a tree or two a year getting those signed on having pledges for you know how we'll hit our 50,000 tree goal um would be you based on that kind of uh strategy as well. But I think it's probably too early to roll out something like that this Saturday. So this Saturday will focus on, you know, getting people to sign up who are interested in trees, the tree tender training in addition to the speaker series promoting that event. I I think that's the right plan. I do. It's a good start. Yeah. So, I'm looking forward to Saturday because that's our next big activity and our way to do outreach and um you know and that's probably the you know the biggest thing going and then again I my hope would be you know sending out the invitation following this meeting for the tree committee um you know to meet again and to start kind of growing that group as well kind of breaking off into different activities and supporting Okay. And then after this Saturday, because it it's just I can't focus on this yet, but we can talk about the event on in May and exactly, you know, what you expect from me and how and you know, what you'd like me to present and we'll we'll just we'll we'll fine-tune that. Yeah. I'll do what I did last year, which is just kind of do an agenda, you know, who should be doing what when. Right. Right. Okay. Okay.

Good. Any other questions for Bernie? Bernie, I just tried signing up for the the website too to get an account and it's very problematic and difficult to do and I run e-commerce for a living. So if I can't figure it out, is it through Tree Pittsburgh or what? No, no, it's the Civic W. Civic wreck, which is a software we use as Macanas to break. So it didn't work in Firefox at all. I did it in Chrome. Somehow it worked. Didn't tell me that it worked. I had to reset my password. Didn't know. So it's I can't imagine an average person trying to go through this process. No, it was really aggravating and and that is my concern if people want to attend but they've got to go through I think it's um you know uh the idea that all that data is required including a birthday to sign up to attend a tree talk is just doesn't seem we ask less less information to go pick up trash, right? I mean it's just a simple form that Abby put out there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We We'll see if we can get Abby to maybe tweak that as as it was for the trash pickup. Yeah. I think she she used a different form for the trash pickup. Yeah. Yeah. Like more of a signup genius type deal. Yes, it was signup genius. Yeah, it was easy. So, you do something like that, John, and ask her to switch that over. I know we're still more than a month away, but something simpler, less wieldy, less um red do a regular form through the website, too. So, this makes sense if you're running a pavilion. I get it. But like Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, we'll we'll ask her to do that. Will she have that ready for Saturday or signing up day of probably figure something out? I mean, there's still a couple days until then, but you know, she's off on Friday, so she's off Friday. keep track of the at least the other four but yeah we can okay I can

take a look at the website tomorrow okay good and I will just get names and uh emails of people who want to attend that's my plan is not helping them for that's pretty safe too I mean that's fail that's pretty much fail safe so okay good we ready for roadside cleanup pretty much are we ready for roadside clean up well um let's let's take some of Easy things first. So, we have 98 shirts and anybody who um doesn't want to wear a shirt or we run out of shirts, we have plenty of vest, at least 100. Yeah. Yeah. So, so we are good from the standpoint of of safety um and visibility. We have I'm sure we have over 500 bags. Um you know, we have we have about 100 participants and each participant should probably take four bags. So, it's going to be close. So, but I'll I'll you know, we we'll have some extra bags. I'll probably actually buy some extra bags. Um, we have 55 poker or 55 grabbers which John has 50 actually. Okay. 50 and two of the actual we've already lost five. Yeah. Uh, which John has um numbered and and marked as Mac's property. We'll talk a little bit about those, but this is just sort of an inventory what we have. Um, we have probably probably over 200 pairs of gloves and we have tick spray. So, we we have we have that um about 100 participants. Uh, with that is every EAC member um a a decent amount of municipal staff. um as far as we know uh six out of seven council members maybe seven out of seven council members and we have um you know PA representative and blah blah blah and all that kind of stuff. So you know so we we're we're represented and we have u one brownie

troop which is going to clean Potter Park just in we just don't have a lot of I don't I mean I think we had more troops last year. This seems like a lot of twos and ones. We have so many singles. It's it's it's hard to believe. Um, you know, we have a family of four and we have a family of two. Um, but we don't have a lot of families of fours. Um, or or like, you know, or troop troop, you know, 376 from something something. We just we just don't. Um, but we have 100 people. And, you know, I guess maybe um, you know, from the standpoint that's probably that's probably better. That's probably a better place to be. I mean, we have 100 real real life garbage pickers, you know. So, um I so I think I think we are a a hearty group from that standpoint. It can assign people almost anywhere. Um John, do you want to bring up the DPW layout on screen, which I have since changed, but it's um Huh. Oh, how do you open the most common file? I know, right? How do we know that? Hey, Jeeoff, while this is happening, let me ask you a real quick question about the shirts and vests. Yeah. Um, sizewise, do we have things that are on the larger side? And the reason I ask is because it looks like the weather is going to be kind of chilly, so I think people are going to be wearing coats and they're going to need to wear these things over those coats. How do we How are our sizes looking? Um, John, I I don't know. How are sizes looking? It's that makes it it's a range from a it's a range from M to 2X basically with the idea being we make it small but really the idea is that it's supposed to be put over someone so okay someone's closed that day and and and Matt you do raise a good point I mean it's you know it's all for not if the weather doesn't hold out and it is you know I'm I'm hearing uh

channel you know channel 4 is saying it's not going to rain and channel 2 is saying it is going to rain and um you know and people are worried about if it's going to rain, but we just we just don't know at this point. The rain seems to be going back and forth on the predictions I've seen. Right now, they're not calling for any, so that's good. But it is it is the high I think that day is 50. So at 8:00 in the morning, it's going to be probably in the 40s at best. So yeah. Yep. Uh so just for my edification, Jeff, what's protocol? Like if it's sprinkling, we're fine. We're going to keep doing it. If it's raining a little bit, we're good. As long as there's no storms or heavy downpours, we're going Well, what it is is that um so I I talked to the police. I confirmed the five police details today and I talked to lieutenant and he didn't raise any concerns at all about it. But the way that it goes and John John has been here before is that the the public safety call is up to the police ultimately. Okay. And they'll say this is fine. It's a little sprinkle. We're going to go, but until they say this is now unsafe, you're calling it off. Okay? We we go we go. I think people will be all right. Yeah. I don't think so be pouring. No, I don't I don't think so either. That's that's the So we may lose people. Yeah. Um but I but I don't think it will be doing anything like that. So um everybody can see this obviously. So they so they come in here. Bernie and Matt can't see you. You guys Okay. But but you can see it though. Yeah, I can see it. I'm imagining what you're doing Jeff. It's exciting too. Trust me. He's standing to the left side of the screen. Yeah. So like imagine uh you know standing side of front of a green screen like the weather. Um so they come in here, they're going to sign up. This is my wife Mona. They're she's going to take the A's and M's. Um her sister Kim is going to take the NZ's because this is where we had a big bottleneck last year. Um I had waivers here, but waivers is going to be moved over here and um at

that point it'll be, you know, do you have a waiver? Yes, you do. Um do you know do you need one? Here it is. I have a big question on that. So, I know you're already receiving some waiverss back, so I'm marking that on our list as having received them. Yeah. Um, are you you'll just keep us updated on the sentences? Through basically through probably the end of today, Friday. Perfect. If I get any overnight, we'll try to let you guys know as well. But yeah, otherwise morning of if I don't have a yes marked on their list, we'll ask them to sign another one. Yeah, they may start bringing them in, too. Like they may print them out. That's there's a good chance of that. That's a good chance of that. Um, so we we have another person who has who said she can't pick up litter, but she would volunteer to be at a table, so we we may use her. Um, then they come across in this room assignments. Um, Judy, Melissa, Mark, uh, would be here with the people that are non- studentents coming in to Mona and Kim. And then I asked Matt to be with James to take in the students since we're not going to assign the students, right? We're not preassigned. We're not preassigned to students, but when they come in and we know that that Jenny wants to be with Cindy um and you know can you know and I can drive and oh I can't drive. So asking those key questions about you know where do you where are you doing this drop down um in the student area. Okay. Uh these two and they can drive and now they come over here and you you assign them to some place you know going up Babcock. So Matt will get that information from them, send one of them over for rap assignment. Exactly. Right. So So Matt and James are going to flesh out the information um about, you know, who this person is and what what value they can add and and if they can drive and uh so forth. Any thoughts on that, Matt? Um just how are we passing that information along to the folks who are assigning the routes because they're going to be working with people telling them what

route they're going on. we're not going to be able to just tell them right directly. So, is there a way that we're passing that info? Matt, um after you learn whatever you're learning from them, once they form their little groups of people who want to stick together, just have one of them be sort of the lead and then have that person come to Judy and me and say, "We have x number of people we can or cannot drive." And got so we will we will form their groups and say, "You're the person who's going to be driving now. go over to this table, tell them that you have a group of six and you're the person driving and they're going to assign you. Okay, great. Perfect. That's a really good process. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys own this corner. So, I mean, I'm going to have another table here. So, down below, MISK is going to be another table. So, there'll be enough room, Mark. I mean, now now since Mark and Melissa have gotten, you know, in in detail, gotten into detail of the the allocation of the routes, you know, a lot. You're starting to know the names. You're starting to know the route. I mean, but but you know, you know, Yeah. Um, so so you know, Matt, you're as close as, you know, to Mark who's playing as a liazison between the two tables, basically. Yeah. You know, you hand to him and say, "I have these three people." Mark goes, "Okay, Melissa, I have these three people. They can go here. They can all go together. They can drive." Yep. You know, and then you move them up. Uh, I'm floating and I'm just talking, you know, and and saying, um, you know, as best I can, trying to, you know, get some information before they come over here. Um, and then, you know, they're going to get their food. Please go get your food, your coffee, blah, blah, blah. Aby's presenting her parks plan. Um, and there'll be somebody there from the engineering firm at the parks plan. Jelina's going to be doing her rain garden. Birdie's going to be doing her tree program over here. Um, supplies will be going to, you know, from Nick, Ken, shirts, and we have a spreadsheet for flags and grabbers because we want them all back. And, you know, however we can tell these people to bring them back, you know, what's the best way to

say get these things back, John? To to bring them to you to I mean I mean, they're going to be coming. You mean after after the event? Like they should be bringing them back? Yeah. Let's talk about this as a group. Like, when can they bring these things back? Should be after right after they're done, right? Yeah. If it's not then, then it's going to be Yeah. You're never going to get on them. Yeah. Okay. So, bring them back to DPW when you're done. Yes. I think it's safe. Okay. The only chance someone doesn't, they should just bring it to town hall during the week probably. But that's what I forgot. That spreadsheet with all your journey today starts and ends here. Can we add on to the sticks like please return to say, can we add it on the thing? because I don't trust people. Okay. So, I like that your journey begins and ends here today. Bring back your your rabbers and your flags. Okay. It it might be good too if those things have a uh phone number on them so that if somebody forgets and is like, "Oh, I brought this. I don't remember where I got this from." They could call that number to then say, "What do I do with this thing?" They will have there are phone numbers on the maps that the routes that they'll be given out, but that is a good idea to have it physically sharped on the grabbers. Well, John has already done all that, but it does have the it does have the official mechanist. It's got the logo and I put on like a basic sign number on there three times. And this did actually take a while. I would hate to write a phone number on your As long as it has label, that should be enough. That should be enough. Yeah. Yeah. We'll tell everybody there's Apple tags embedded in them and we're going to check. Yeah, that's what I mean. And just like you used to be told the water turns blue if you Yeah. Well, you Yeah. Uh driver's license is a deposit. Uh why we're not um you know, why aren't we getting another 25 grippers, right? Why

would we if we're going to have a hundred people and and and you know better the assignments. I don't know how many people were being assigned in the field to pick up trash, but again, as somebody who got the short stick of, you know, not really having a good gripper, I actually went and bought one uh a good one because I didn't want to be in that same position again, having, you know, uh nothing to pick up. You you become the person who's not doing a whole lot. Uh but I I I I just think, can we not get 25 more? Um, I mean, we could talk about that, but I mean, we had zero. We went from zero and had 100 people picking up garbage. And I'm not saying that we need to go back to, you know, we're not going to go back to caveman times, but the woman who I was working with last year, her company had brought she brought what, 25 of them, right? Um, grippers. I don't know that she ever got them back and I forget what company she worked for, but um No, we had grippers last year. We had the We did. We had I don't We might had 15. I don't know. I'm not sure if it was anything more than that. Yeah, these were always like at some point after we had a couple, Jason Singer bought maybe like 10 or 20 and they weren't even like the grabbers. They were like the pokers. And you know, we're down to one or two of those now. And then a few years after that, Jack Casey wanted to buy some of the actual rammer grabbers. And again, we're down to like five of those ones. So, we purchased about 45 more this year. These are $10 a piece. If we can maintain these when we hold the big clean up again next year, we could buy, you know, 25 30 more to be safe. Build it up over time. It was only, it was always an optional item that people seem to like occasionally, but now it seems there's more of a demand. That's okay. But if even if we order tomorrow, they may not get here in time, you know. That's true. Yeah, we're bringing our

own. I've got the kids ones because they love them. Okay. Um Yeah, I just that's what we're picking up. I was going to say, yeah, somebody could always hold a bag and wor I know you don't want to pick up some things with your hands, but plus some of these routes do have the flaggers instead. So, yeah, you might only have 25ish one would be ideal. Might only have 50 50 people actually. if we we get those back and keep adding to it and eventually we'll have we'll have a hundred of them or so. Um any thoughts on this layout? It's not it's not the I I change it since then, but I mean not not dramatically. That's great. Looks good. Yeah. Okay. So, that that's what it'll look like. Um and then at the very end, um well, let me let me let me you can get rid of that, John. Um we do have and I spoke to the uh the lieutenant police lieutenant today. We do have five overtime details that will start at 8:30 and work till 12:30. We've picked out five routes that will be supported by police safety. Um u and and and we'll let the people know and the police know. So I'll be I'll be speaking to them um you know where to meet and and how to you know stay safe. Um we do have flaggers um uh um assigned. So we'll see if we can um if we can sort of carry that out and then about 5 minutes before we go out 5 minutes and 9 um that's whenever I'll take the floor um introduce uh you know sort of welcome everybody here. Um, I'll mention that we have all um all the EAC members, and I'm I'm not going to mention everybody by name. Um, because I don't want to bog people down if everybody's okay with that. Uh, we have all EAC um members, including our student representative um and then I'm going to mention township staff or um or town council, I'm sorry, Jason Singer. I'll mention

them by name. Um and Abby Lucostic. And then um and then a few other special guests. And then I'll just go on to uh talk a little bit about the EAC and a little bit of things and the housekeeping items. Um uh we've handed out maps to Root Stewart. Um your route number, meeting place, and our phone numbers are on that map. Um please refer to that route number when communicating to us. Um if you need more bags, if you need more people, need water, feel unsafe, call me. Um please tie up your bags when you're done with them. We don't want the weather to undo our hard work. For some of the larger bags, it may be tough to tie. So, please take electrical ties. I have a bag of electrical ties this big. Um, hopefully they won't be the next thing that we're picking up next year, but um, you know, they could take some electrical ties. Um, do not pick up broken glass or needles. We're not recycling today. And signs can be tricky. So, they could have they're going to have to use their discretion. If it looks like an old political sign, you know, Harris, Trump, something like that or whatever. This is this is out of John John um Schwen's words. Um you know that it's trash if it looks new. If there I'm not sure if there's a special election, but I'm seeing that some of the name vary now is starting to show up on signs. Judge. Yeah. Okay. So, he's already out there. That's a new sign. We're not pulling those out. So, people are going to have to use their discretion um if they want to pull signs out and and you know, if they think it's old or new. Um, uh, please make sure you have gloves, bags sprayed with tick spray, um, bribers and flags, and I'll I'll change that up a little bit. Um, at the end, I want them to text pictures and their bag count to me or one of the phone numbers on a map, but it's easier if it just comes to me. It it really is one person because otherwise we just we just lose track of it. Um, hopefully you wear long pants and long sleeves. Tuck them in for additional coverage. Perform a tick check when you go home. And then after that, we just get a group picture.

And we're supposed to be there at 8:30. 8:30. Um I will be there at 7:30. Um other people um will probably I mean it'd be good if we were there at 7:45 because Ken, you may be um you know sorting the shirts, that type of thing. You may and there might be people that show up early. Um you know, so 8:00 something like that, but I can arrive at 7:30 to help you out with stuff. I'm also gonna Okay, good. Good. Come early. Um, we'll be setting up tables. People will be setting up their their little displays. Um, we'll be, you know, bags and we'll be, you know, just trying to get good displays going. And, um, and there'll be lots of food. The food's coming at 7:45. Yep. So, you know, we can, you can, you know, meet, we can talk to DPW. We're going to need to give DPW. This gets a little bit tricky, but they're going to know they're going to need to know all the all the roads we're on. So, maybe that's Judy's map. Melissa one that she's planning to print. Yeah, that's the one. So we can So we might need two copies of that to give one to DPW. It does. So we should email her and let her to print out copies rather than Yeah. Could you do that, please? Yeah. Okay. Um the police already know their their five routes, so we don't need to do anything there. They they always um they're always about the same. And I'm trying to think of anything else. Did you come up with a playlist? No, that's that's not how Okay. I was just curious. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot that the moment I said it. Actually, I'll bring I'll bring a speaker. You want to There's trash theme songs where you I just put on like a garbage CD. I don't know. Sure. Spot something. It's not a bad thing. Yeah. I mean, if somebody else wants to do that, that's that's great. Just have some So, really quick, yeah, regarding the papers that we need, the general signin sheets where people are going to be signing in and turning the waiver. Who

is going to be printing those off? Okay, so I have signin sheets, right? I have to remember everything you just gave me. We at least have equipment sign sheets. Oh, that we have equipment signup sheet. That's right. We can print other or create other and that's why I sent you that email today. That's what I want to double check. Yeah, because I don't know. I mean, like I I'm happy to make that. And if I can if I send that to you end of day tomorrow, would you be able to print? At least print it up on Friday. Friday. Okay. Okay. So, I can prepare the sign-in sheet and on that signin sheet, we will want to mark whether they've turned in the waiver. Correct. That's correct. And then on the table where we're assigning the routes, we need separate sheets. So, we're marking what route they go to. But we also then need a separate sheet for the student table to mark which students or just skip that. And so, there's another version of your master sheet. Okay. Just so that you have reference to the names in case they show, but also blank rows on all of these for people who are not already signed up in case people bring a friend. Yeah. Y All right. Just wanted to double check on all I just print a couple extra copy those somebody I could jump in and help you guys that I Yeah. Okay. So I will send you tomorrow by end of day uh the signin sheets the route signin sheets and then just another generic list so it can be a table with the Okay. So going over what you just said Melissa. So, so, so Mona will have a signup sheet and so if you're A to M, then they come over there and she she has their names and they they say, "Okay, we're we're the Smith family." Um, okay. Smith family, is this your correct email? Yes, it is. Um, do you do you have a waiver? Okay. Yes, I checked the waiver. Is that does that make sense? I mean, what's what's the waiver pro like like So, we have to know that they gave a waiver, right? Yeah. And if it already went to John being marked as a yes and then morning of we could fill in any last minute ones that you received. Okay. Otherwise they need to hand in a physical copy that day and that goes to or already. Okay. So they

come over here and they say yeah we did the waiver. Oh I see that you already gave a waiver. Very good. Go over to the where you're going to get your assignment. No. Okay. That that's she doesn't even have to say you're 1 C. It doesn't matter. That's not going to mean a lick to them. Right. you that that sign in table won't have routes. It will just be their names and whether or not they have their waiver done. It'll be name, email. Okay. And it's nothing that Abby like Abby wanted to say how did you find out about us? Like she was like she was like information gathering. That's why I asked. I I haven't seen that list. So if she wants additional information on the assignment sheet, um I'll send her an email. Just double check. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. making making sure that she because I think she wanted to use this as a little bit of a you know you know how did you find out about the how did you sign up so she can use it for for future well do you have a do you have the signin sheet that she provided because I haven't seen it so if it has is it on is it on the it's not on the share okay let's try to connect those two guys I'll just email her okay okay good good um so so Mona and Kim are just going to say okay the the um the Anderson family here the Smith family here um there you are you gave gave the waiver and this is your correct email and thank you very much and go to the other table. Is that right? Mhm. Okay. And then and then what it's going to be is I see students come in and I say, "Okay, students go over to that student table, right? Should they still be signing in first?" And then they should still be signing in. Yep. They should waver first. Yeah. Everybody should do waivers. Okay. So the student the students we have to Okay. Then we have to do at that table. they can then say go over to the student table instead. After they sign in, they're going to be told which either route table or student table. Okay, good. And and we need we need extra spaces for people that that didn't sign up that that they're you have the waiver table for any newcomers or who didn't have a waiver, right? Yeah. So there will be blank rows on the bottom. That's what blank rows on the bottom. That that's what I'm going for. And then secondly, you'll need to

alphabetize the student names. Okay. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. They'll the student names will be in that master signin list just mixed in all alphabetically to make it perfectly perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Okay, good. Separate list. Okay, so they come in. They're now now they're advertised. Okay, we've determined they have a waiver. Great. We determined they don't. Okay, they did the waiver. Now we check it that they gave the waiver. Thank you very much. Check it. Now go over and students go to Matt's table. Um adults go over to the other table. They wait in line. Little thing, little it builds up. It builds up a little bit, but there's three people sort of moving it along. Um, and I and I and then they then they go then they go get their their their their bagel and their cup of coffee. And then they go over and they get their supplies. And at the route table, they're given a map and they are told which route they will be. That's right. What basically where to go next, right? And where they meet. Uh, yes. And where they meet. Judy also put on there the meeting place. She put a preferred meeting space. Preferred meeting. They can do what they want to do. But Right. Okay. Okay. All right. Jeeoff, I'm sorry. The the waiver thing, if they don't have a waiver, they're getting one at a different table and then coming back to the sign-in table. Is that No, it's the first the first will be the waiver table. Okay. So, they're not they just turn that in at that same table. They're not coming back to get it checked off on the same sheet that we're checking off the other ones on the signin table. They'll bring it to the signin table. They will bring it back to the signin table. So, my concern my concern there is that you're going to get a a little bit of a a backup for PE people are going to get frustrated when they're like, "Well, I was just here. I signed in. Now I went and filled out my waiver. Now I have to get back in line again." Like, is that going to cause issues, do we think? Or are there not going to be enough people that it's a great question. So, the I think the idea is when they come in, there's going to be somebody sit there and say, "Do you have a do you have a waiver? Yes or no?" Like that's the

first question. Do you have a waiver? Yes or no? and and she grabs on her legs and, you know, doesn't leave them go, right? And and they say, "Um, yes, we do. We we sent it in or we have it right here. Okay. Go to go to the head of the class." Um, no, we don't. Okay. Fill on out right here. And now, please go over and sign in. Got it. Got it. Pass the table. That's a good idea. Yeah. Well, that was an idea that somebody else came up with last night, like make the waiver table the first day. Yeah. So, that was that was that was key. Yeah. Got it. So, you guys are all thinking the same way. Yeah. No, you're right. We have to we have to stop any type of bottlenecks. And Judy remembers bottlenecks intimately from last year. So, I think we've gone u I think we fought pretty hard to to to get through that this year. Well, I think your shave lends it well, right? Because as people show up, you could say start on this side and just do the U basically and you're going to get everything you need and come out the other side. Yep. Any other questions about that, Melissa? My only other question would be would you be able to do one pass through of the routes and just maybe let me know which ones are super top priority in case we are in real life people because I do I know we preassign some but I I like knowing where we need to throw extras as our why don't you why don't you just text me tomorrow or email me but because tomorrow's a nothing day for me well you know isn't it isn't but but why don't we hook up tomorrow and do that I love this plan okay I like that anything else. Anything else we're not thinking of? No, we'll all be there a little bit early so we'll have time to chat before people start showing up. Yeah. And when they drop off grabbers, same spot, doors will be open and everything still or Yes. Um, so so we're going to have, you know, we have 110 people now. You know, some people dropped out, some we had some people drop out and maybe there might be some people that that that sign up because you were saying somebody was

saying there might be two people from staff. Mhm. that might want to sign up. So, um you know, we're going to be somewhere around there, but I'm guessing that Aby's not going out. Uh I'm guessing that I I know I'm not going out. So, I can Yeah. So, Judy Judy might not be going out. She may or may not be going out. Melissa may or may not. So, if they need um if we need somebody to like be a be a team leader on something, those two might go out, but I'm not going to go out. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. And I and and I I think Aby's going to be there. Okay. So, we're going to keep it open this year. Okay. And different than last year is that DPW is going to pick up the same day. Okay. So, it's not like they're going to close up and and you know, like I went back and see the doors closed and what do I do? And that happened last year. Okay. That happened last year. So, is there any way to just leave the grabbers with the bags? Made things easier if DPW is able to They're picking up that same day. Or are we afraid that people will walk off of them? I I don't love it. I think people I don't know if you're going to get them all back. Yeah. I I don't know if we're going to get them all back anyway. But that's true. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's for some people it is very far to drive back to the meeting location, especially if we're sending them closer to their houses, which I know some of the assignments. Yeah. Yeah. We might get more back if they just let them leave them there rather than having to drive back. Possibly. I don't know. I have no idea. I mean, this is all Well, reckon go get them. I can go pick them up. Yeah. If you let if you ask people to let us know when they're done. Yeah. Leave it with their bag. Like leave them up against a trash bag and you know DPW is not going to go out until a few hours later, right? We could go around and just grab them. It is a lot of routes. Yeah. But between like four people would Yeah. It wouldn't be too bad. No. No. Yeah. I think that is my question. How

many routes are there? Um there are up to 27 a few of those are backups um for if we have extra people or for certain things with children. So low 20s for actual use which is why we need to prioritize in case we're not actually getting as many people as we think. So it's like teams of three or four. Is that what you're doing? It varies. Yeah. Now Bernie, I didn't see you signed up. Are you are you able to stay or I I just signed up now while we were talking. I I didn't see the link to sign up earlier, so I've just signed up while we were talking. So, I'm I'm Yeah. Uh willing run. Here we go to Red Coach. Yeah. Well, Red Coach. Um Yeah. Red Coach. You're gonna do Red Coach? Well, to Red Coach. So, Thompson run. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could do that same area last year. I I will say I've had a horrible cold. I've been taking antibiotics today. I feel like a human again. Um, so if it's raining badly, I don't know that I want to risk it again. But every time I travel, I get ill. So I'm, you know, week and a half into it. So I'm sure I'll be fine by Saturday enough to talk to people. Well, we all understand either way. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? Please email me with any other random thoughts, anything at all. This is a I will give you random thoughts but no no just as a question is any of the routes at the beginning of Brandt Trail down down towards the because that's the beginning of that trail is really bad. We there's some trash there able to quickly go to the um they are not so so are they harmony oh you mean down the sloop down my little wall park. Yeah, we you know what? Because it's going to take police

coverage real bad and that's going to be a targeted area. In fact, when when you come on to Brandt Trail Yep. Between that and the guardrails, there's a lot of junk. Yes. Yeah. They they we we don't have um we don't have the coverage to do that this time, but we do need to do it. It needs to be a separate EAC sponsored. Get 20 people, get police coverage and and do that. Is that on a road or is that is that like going down the trail? The part I'm talking about you'd be on the trail so you wouldn't actually be exposed to the road. If you're not exposed to road, that's something we could even reach out to about. Yeah, we could do that. Yep, we could do that. Spring just go up the trail and just stay on the side of the guard rails. Maybe you an older scouter can easily do that just so everybody can see. But it's I was amazed how much there's a lot of junk there. Yeah, there is. Open the other one. The other one is PDS. It's just not the full. Is that Judy's map? Yeah, but he doesn't have a for it. Okay. the combined the 202504 combined that should be individual pages that will be distributed. Not all of these are in use, but the majority are. I'll quickly run through the rest of the meeting, which will Yeah. Ken, if you were curious, that's along night. You don't need to layer too much. But in your speech when you talk about photoseneral you ask people to tag if you want a closer look if you go to the share social media that has all of them um tag I gota say they'll find it if

they're social media savvy you don't have to give my hand okay I think one of these Jeff is that kind of amplifies your word about because it's more individuals who can Yeah. So I say um at the end text pictures of bag count. Um and please tag my township with your photos. That one has to be done. So you have to get it back. Pretty good sections. Okay. Have we posted on social media to ask people to volunteer sign up? Because I guess I missed it if we did. I was actually I was driving over near crossing today and on the big billboard it even had a a display for it. It was really exciting light that I saw. Oh, so when they send the pictures just tag Well, when they upload pictures to social to their own social personal social media, just tag meas and that way they track them. already printed off your list. But do we is this the largest as well? Just another give yourself a round of applause for being the largest. Yeah. Saw them down at Wood Road last Saturday. No. Okay. Let me try to finish up the meeting. Um, sorry. So, uh, speaker series, we've already talked about that. We're we're already locked in that with Bernie, so we can we can get through that.

Um, open initiatives, we continue to talk about um, EAC mission and project messaging. I don't think we have anything new there. I mean, we just we could just table this stuff and and move it. Volunteer network hub. There's there's really nothing there. Um I want to table municipal solar funding opportunity. Um I just I just think we just need to get through this and then and start new next month. Um and um May McMail tips. Any any thoughts here? Historically in May, we've covered topics ranging from house tips, specifically insulation, solar, electricity, sustainable living, tick awareness, and tree planting. Those have been the historic May talks. Do we want to talk about trees and sell the speaker series or would that come up in time? Yes, that's a great idea. Yeah, I would like that. Um, can I write something up for that? Okay, perfect. Yeah, thanks. No, that's a perfect idea. That's That's awesome. I mean, I'm shocked I didn't come up with that. I'll give you credit. Reflect. That was Jeff's idea. I hate always asking when's it due, but it's due in like two weeks. Is that right, John? Yeah, I think April 30th is safe date. Okay. I'll try and get it done this week. That'd be great. Good, good, good. Um, okay. Uh, Nick, nothing really to add other than we're going to get moving on deer here and, um, look forward to seeing you guys all on Saturday to go clean up some trash. Thank you guys. Mhm. Okay. Anything else? Um, I think for next meeting, you know, we'll just we'll just sort of push

forward some of these things and we'll have talks about those and obviously we'll have a recap of this and we'll continue on with I think the project updates just need to excuse me continue the way they are and um make sure that we just keep moving them forward and moving them forward. You're going to send me the one page that you did last year to read, right? Um, you sent me like a roundup sheet of like we found we we collected 76 bags worth of trash and we had 120 people show up or cuz you did a sheet like that last year and sent it to me and I shared it at one of our meetings. Oh, I will do that. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That's what you're saying. So, Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. doing an email back out to everybody to even absolutely volunteer. Yeah, have that again. Just Okay, got it. Close the loop. Yep, I got it. Okay, thank you. I sent an email to everybody about it. It's a good primer on, you know, what what what you're looking at when you're assessing streams and stuff. And the only that's really germanine to us is is North Park. Um and it's not very good w water quality going into the lake and all that. So, okay. So, with that then um any other any other thoughts? I I mean just the thought that Ken just had about bad water quality. Are you proposing to do something about that, Ken? anything we could do anything about really is the you know Pine Creek here but that's it's all private you know the banks are owned by private citizens there's really not a whole lot we can do other than at the upper end and that's been discussed a number of times uh where it's an open field up there and and it was going to be developed and and

so forth but uh there isn't really a whole lot other than stuff that Jason's doing with the uh storm stom water management and things like that's really the things that we can do maybe. Well, it's with NAC with the uh you know viparian cover and stuff like that is making people aware of that's really about the only thing you can do. I mean I'd like to talk with you about that. I mean part of my day job is working with people who do clean water. um depending on what's in it and you're right what the possible options could be like when you say only a repairarian yes one of the things that is mandated is up training all the uh storm water holding and all of that and that's something Jason has been very active on doing you know at town council level and stuff like that uh Jason being singer singer singer Okay. Yeah. And he and I have actually talked about the storm water issues. Obviously, that's his business, but um I mean to the extent I do work with the PD and the Army Corps uh research lab and and the Army Corps, but I mean if there are things that you think could be done, I'd be happy to find somebody who we could work with to do it. Or are you saying Jason is working on it and solving it? He's doing a lot of work on bringing us into compliance with the new codes, the storm water codes and stuff like that. Um, you know, where the old cinemas was, that was Macandless was originally going to purchase that and and make that into a wetlands and stuff, but the both sides of the stream are owned by private people. So, it's really hard to do any

any anything other than you can't really do much. Well, um, again, you know, it doesn't have to be discussed here. I know everybody's prepping for Saturday, but I I'm interested in the topic how the trees can mitigate with storm water. And I'm pretty sure, you know, McCandless residents need to brace for a storm water tax that's coming, right? I know it came to Hampton a year ago and it seems like the consultants who do that storm water tax just go from municipality to municipality and apply it um and then use that funding for certain things. But I I mean I remember hearing Trish talk about that's coming. Is that right? Is that part of what Jason's working on? I I suggest you have to really speak with him on that. Yeah, I I I apologize. I know I don't tune in the council at all. Um but I just, you know, remember hearing that uh I mean everybody around us has gotten a storm water tax. I don't like them, but I hear it's coming to Macanas, right? Um Nick, you would probably know more. Uh we I mean that is a talk that is amongst all the various townships, but it has not hit us yet. Really? So, we're not going to see it this year. I'll be happy about that. I mean, not this year. No. But next year is what I'm hearing. To be determined, but I don't think that'll happen also. Oh, okay. I think we're a few years out from it. Okay. Well, we're really lagging. But yeah, I mean, I know that's the latest tax that um and again, I think as EAC, if that's going to happen, we should figure out, you know, how that

that funding could go into programs that we're trying to mitigate storm water runoff with. Um anyway, I'll just throw that out there. Um I I don't want to get involved with starting any kind of punitive measures on the citizenry. So, but I think if it's going to happen, I think EAC should weigh in. I'll just say it that way. It's something I have in the back of my mind with Wallpark, whenever we get to the point to do stuff, there's things that can be done there. Yeah, I think uh as rain events keep getting worse um and they are um I mean I have a huge issue um and uh yeah I mean I know I'm not alone uh it's it's such a huge issue uh storm water runoff and uh how how to mitigate and manage it especially if it keeps getting worse. So, you know, I I think that could be something this committee looks at which are what are the best practices, you know, um and there's all kind of uh you know, sustainable practices that we could also do speaker series on um and talk about that. I I worked uh with the heavy equipment operating engineers on uh the development with the West Morland C conservation district. We did an entire curriculum on um you know um all kind of mitigation techniques for heavy equipment operators uh like bio swells because when they get spec to do this stuff now on any kind of construction project uh you know people do the excavation need to understand what a bioell is or a rain garden or any of these uh techniques that are used and uh are used particularly in m municipal

full infrastructure. Um, so I think you know, educating the public as well as maybe some of the business community on what those practices are, how to deploy them on their own residential property or commercial property. I'm sure, you know, the community requires it in a storm water study um for any new project, but I think trying to reach back to what's already built and what the problems are and how to mitigate could be useful to uh to the people in the community. I'll just throw that out there as an educational part, but I know let's focus on Saturday. Great job, by the way. It looks like it's going to be a good one, Jeff. Thank you. Okay. Um, can I have a motion to adjurnn? I'll motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? Okay. Thank you everybody. Thank you.