Environmental Commission - Regular Meeting

7 o'clock so I will call the environmental commission meeting to order um roll call we're just going to have start at Gina if you could just say your name and and you know that you're here Gina hutter and I'm here Virginia Schmidt present Jonah pette present Michael won present Sue Metzel present John MacArthur present Patrick Jeffers present David post present all right and then we have uh if you want to Christie rinsky christe rinsky in the audience as well from tinker's Watershed Partners um next on our agenda we have the approval of the minutes did everybody have a chance to read through the minutes sent yes I have one change I'd like to make I I'd you know like to move to correct the spelling of my name from Mr pette to Mr pette in the first bullet point um are there any objections to that or could we you know accept that by acclamation yes accept good idea accept it by acclamation okay there we go um you know I then move that we we adopt the am our minutes as amended second seconded by John are there any objections all those in favor please say I all opposed please say nay and the minutes have been approved as amended with the corrected spelling of my last name next we move on to presentations and chrisy you are up if you wanted to take Center Stage right there the show is all yours this is a little but I brought um the funny thing is I just inherited this presentation today at 2:00 so I made a couple of changes to it last minute I apologize that I don't have enough for everybody it's going to be just like school you have to share with your neighbor not a problem I apologize thank you we go in here do you have one to share we can share we'll

just lean in lean in okay so my name is Christy rinsky welcome this is a long explanation but I am the Watershed Stewart for Tinker Creek Watershed Partners if you can do me a favor and just talk into the mics talk yeah that way they'll pick it up and it'll it'll just record it for the sure okay I'll start again then all right all right so I'm Christy rinsky I am an Amer Corp member first serving the nowe program I The Watershed Steward for Tinker Creek Watershed Partners okay so we are located directly behind this building in the house that's right behind you and Tinker Creek Watershed Partners is a 5013c so it's a nonprofit it's been around since about 2006 we have a board of directors with 15 members we have five full-time staff members we have two nowor members like myself we also have 24 Community Partners and we also have community volunteers so our number one thing is to protect and restore the tiers Creek Water water shed and the Brandy Bine Creek Weds so you have a map in there I actually took GIS last semester and I created that map so that shows you the boundaries of the watersheds and um that's the area that we restore and protect so what is a watershed does anybody know what a watershed is go ahead David it's an area of land that drains to a river river system lake or other water body very good we learning here that's fantastic so essentially it's a basin so as you know as precipitation Falls it falls on the terrain and it's going to run off into those lower line areas or The Valleys Peaks and valleys so all of that runoff in storm water is going to flow somewhere into a river or a stream

so those lower Ling areas in the surrounding terrain is considered a watershed all right so Tinker Creek and Bre Wine Creek are two of the streams that make up those water sheds and they are tributaries to the kyoga river and then the kyoga river all that water comes together and it flows into Lake Erie so that's how the breakdown happens with the watersheds and how everything flows into Lake Erie so as many of you probably know the kaga river has caught on fire not once not twice about 20 times in the last several decades and there's been such a push to clean up the river they've done so much but those little tributaries that flow into it are just as important and the watersheds are just as important so some of the things that happen with the Watershed is some of the same things that happen with that cager River you get pesticide run off you get fertilizer run off you have development of those areas you might have soil erosion climate change is something else that's really big right now with all the storm water we're getting from storms that we haven't seen in a hundred years so those are all things that affect our Watershed and our primary purpose is again to protect and restore so we do a lot of community outreach I'm really focused on getting Outreach out to the libraries and the schools right now um we are doing a rain barrel program right now with the art department at Twinsburg I don't know if any of you are affiliated with the Twinsburg schools but they're doing rain barrels and they're painting them in the art club and then we're going to install the rain barrels at 15 locations in submit County and that's one thing that I'm here at asking for help we need 15 locations within Summit County to get those rain barrels installed does anybody know what a rain barrel is sure yes yay I'm so excited to know what a rain barrel is so we actually get our rain barrel containers from Coca-Cola Consolidated they give us a 55 gallon

plastic drum that they actually keep Coca-Cola in and we get it we rinse it out and that becomes the rain barrel for the installation and then you you get this entire kit that has all the hoses the piping and even the drill bits because you have to drill into that plastic rain barrel to put a spigot on it and housing hosing so it connects to your uh gutters the kit is $60 so the rain barrel itself is $60 for the barrel and the kits but we do education programs on what their uses are and how to install them on your house and we're actually going to be doing one at the Twinsburg Arbor Earth Day celebration that's on April 26th so Jonah you know I know you were at that meeting that we were at together yes and so we're going to be taking registrations for the public they can sign up to do the rain Barrow Workshop that day and they can take a rain Barrow home with them there will be a fee with it but they'll get educated and we'll show them Where to drill the holes if they want us to drill the hole while we're there we can do that too um other things that we work on that I'm working on right now is we're going to do water quality monitoring testing we have 17 18 water quality monitoring sites we test April through October I've been with the organization now since October and um in April we start that process so I'm going to be looking for volunteers we have the community volunteers that do these 17 18 sites for us because they get tested once a month and um we need a lot of people to be able to do that so anybody who's interested in volunteering you can contact me my contact information's on this packet as well and and then uh the other thing that I wanted to mention briefly is on the back it has all our upcoming artre things that we're doing with Twinsburg I mentioned the rain barrel art program that we're doing we're also going to be collaborating with frogs and sound maners Fest which I believe is the Twinsburg habitat

Association has that every year um we're doing bee houses we got a grant to install bee houses so people can come and build a bee house for their yard um grant money is covering 60 bee houses for us to give out to the public we have summer camps that we're doing with Twinsburg Community Center um I'm doing a microplastics program with the library as well this summer and again we have our Watershed family fund day I don't know if anybody came to that last year it's an annual event that Twinsburg has and um I'm going to be in charge of that this year I just found that out two weeks ago so I'll be working and looking for volunteers to help with that as well it's a really fun event we have tabling for the kids um we have vendors that come they sell plants and uh you get to just learn more about our watered and how to protect it what's the date of that it's August 9th and it's right on the FL sheet okay it's on the back side so I condens that down into a really brief talk um is there questions that I can answer for anybody are people signing up for the rain barrel through you guys what's happening is for the Twinsburg one yeah so we're working with Jennifer B yes so we're going to send her a registration link we're supposed to get it to her by February 15th and then she's going to promote that with all the information for Earth Day Arbor Day so people can sign up through that and then we'll find out how many barrels we need to bring for that event because I think that event is 9: to 11: that day so if we fill up one whole rain barrel Workshop we're going to offer two of them when you first started you said something we needed 15 locations what was that for yes so the art Club at Twinsburg are painting rain barrels and it's part of a grant so we need 15 locations within Summit County for those

rain barrels to go once the kids are done painting them in the whole County in the whole County that could be libraries that could be a government building so that's one thing that my director really said I need to enforce to this group that we need to look for 15 locations for those rain barrels I'm sure the city would be willing to to host one somewhere on some of our our City properties here if uh if you're you're looking for locations wonderful it's a really easy hookup it goes right to The Gutter and then it fills with gray water that you can use for any type of gardening got a couple in my house and my daughter's actually in the art Club working on the on the ones at Theo oh that's wonderful I'm so excited to see them painted I mean it's going to be so impactful to see them painted and not just a blue or a white Barrel are those 15 places uh meant to be be more commercial locations or residential or does it not matter I think that they would like them to be more commercial where more the community can see them I don't know if they can be residential I'll go back and ask because my director got that Grant so she'll know the specifics I thought she was going to be able to come tonight but she had a conflict so I can ask her and get back to you it might be nice at each location to put up a sheet if Le you don't normally do that that explains what it is um why you know a phone number in case anybody wants to get interested in it so anyone who sees that ask that if there's something that we could we did have signage made for our water quality monitoring sites it's actually going to be a stake in the ground that says this is a water quality monitoring site I don't know if they were thinking that for the rain barels but I'll mention it to them just thinking it it' be good for people who are interested then they can reach out and more of an Outreach I suppose just thinking great idea Christy how and when will The Bee houses be giving out be given out we have three libraries scheduled right now so Bedford is one on March 3rd see if I can remember the other two on the top of my head cuz I just wrote them down today there's one in

Streetsboro I want to say the middle of March and then the Twinsburg one is in April what I can do is I can send the links electronically who's the best person in this group for me to send that information to so that it'll get disseminated Jonah probably me I can make sure everybody gets it yes okay I can do that tomorrow so in other words 60 residents of these communities will have an opportunity to we have 60 houses all together our goal is to do five Community programs three of them are scheduled already at those libraries so we're taking 10 houses to each one of those libraries assuming that we'll have 10 groups there that'll take home at least one house um we're also looking at Hudson to have one there we're also looking at Solen we just made a a connection in Solen so hopefully we'll have one there so that accounts for 50 my site supervisor is overseeing that project I'm not sure what he's thinking for the last 10 but that might just be a buffer in case we needed a few more at a location but we're definitely going to have 50 that are go out to residences will people get trained how to take care of them that's exactly what we're doing with the education program so he we get to build them it's almost like a little woodworking Workshop so you build the bee house they have the re that go in them too so there is some maintenance annually you want to swap out the reads so we're offering the first year when you have to swap them out you can come directly to our building and get a free swap out after that there is a cost incurred to swap out the reads once a year but we're going to cover the first one with the grant nice poor bees need a couple new places to hang out they do they do and you can paint them I think my site supervisor stained our first one black which I wasn't quite sure why he chose black but that was on him okay but you

can stain them too uhhuh very very cool thank you are there any other questions for Chris uh Christie no Christy thank you so much I really appreciate it um I will make sure I contact you and so you have my info and send everything over that sounds good can I stay for the rest of the meeting are more than welcome to stay I was just about to say you're more than welcome to hang out you're more than welcome to go whatever you have going on I'd like to stay I'm interest in the work that you do too absolutely I just I always like to give that disclaimer you are you are free to go you're not you don't have to stay but we'd love to have you if you do want to awesome thank you thank you so much all right so next up we move on to audience participation I don't see anybody in the audience so uh we're going to going to move past that and then we move on to commissioners reports I started on my left side last you know for the the roll call so we'll start on my right side with John today I have nothing other than it's good to be here finally John it's good to see you so to be SE yes so we'll move on to you okay I just have um just an observation I'm not collecting your garbage but I just brought all these bags and this used to be the you the Blue Giant Eagle bag I'm sure everybody's familiar with this and what they're doing is you can put your hand in here you know feel the thickness and then they went to these for a little while and now they're to going with these now look you can see how thin this is see through it yeah and they they put this on here for stability I'm sure so things don't go crashing out now I don't know anything about the cost I don't know you know who's decided to do this but I just found it kind of interesting

in and if anybody wants to you know see them help yourself and then um I'm going to research this a little more why they're doing this and you know who else might be trying to lessen their carbon footprint or whatever because I would assume if it's thinner it's going to decompose faster or do these not dis decompose at all I don't know yeah I don't think they really decomposed much in the in the envirment they're using less Plastics and Les material saing this one says made with a minimum of 30% recycled material so that's you know that's a good thing they're Recycling and I thought this was interesting too this came with my Bank of America bill it's made of you can pass it around it's made of paper I mean I'm sorry it's made of plastic instead of paper it's made of recycled plastic so I'm not sure Bank America sounds like they're trying to Green up a little bit and and um so PE you know corporations are getting the the word what you know what we're trying to do and I think that once certain ones catch on you know just like people are used making things out of recycled plastic they never used to everything was just thrown out you know and now everything you get if you can take the minute to read it it a lot of it will be you know 60% 20 you know recycled so that's a good thing for us actually it says the card is made from plastic this is paper but the card oh is that what that was referring to enclosed card is made from recycled plastic oh Goa so but that's good yeah I thought that piece that felt so slippery okay anyway that's all I have so again I know you guys have been here lots of weeks and this is my first

week back here I was on the environmental commission a while ago and um but I just want to make so those I just want to make sure you know are not recyclable in a recycle bin we all know this right okay I just want to make sure we all know whatever oh for sure can you explain where they could be recycled we're going to put you to the test you're new here yeah you holding up a uh at your Supermarket that's part of my oh am I steing your report I just yeah I'm sorry Council no no no cuz I I still see a lot of people throwing those into their recycle bins all the time really yes all all the time we need to put something out again about that some people are still doing styrofoam too A lot of people think egg cartons and styrofoam and everything is all recyclable and the plastic clamshells and all that I know many people you know put those in there too so that's our education right process we have to work on a little more education is there anything else okay I don't want to I don't want to cut you off Su cut me off Michael you are up I have nothing to report Michael it's good to see you and I'm glad to be back everybody glad to be back okay Virginia will bounce to you all right we'll continue on the bag program um this is from uh you've heard of tracks the um deck decking material tracks this is from Nex TRX the company and um they have a recycling program and giant eagles are participant and kohs that you can take basically anything that stretches if it's crinkly no but produce bags uh like with your apples and stuff uh Ziploc bags cereal box liners um the plastic that's on like a case of water uh Amazon package the bubble wrap mailers um so uh dry cleaning bags any of those can be recycled at the Giant

Eagle drop off bag so I have a a bag in my uh on my basement stairs and I just shove everything in there and um I am not always trustworthy of some of the recycling things that people you know like the green washing and make it seem better than it is but it it seems like this is the real deal hopefully and Giant Eagle is a good source for that um the other thing in the past we had spoken um about composting either through Rust Belt Riders is like kyoga County and then Rubber City re reuse is in akan and they have um programs where you can have um home pickup you have your bin and they pick it up every so often but they also have public drop offs and Rust Belt Riders the closest one is Solen Community Center and Rubber City reuse there's one in Hudson and they uh the one in Hudson is at a church and I was wondering if that's something that the city could investigate or we can investigate through the city to maybe have uh a drop off Place either at the city or maybe a local church or something I mean Hudson's pretty close so it's not much of a stretch um I I can't remember which is which but at least one of them was $12 a month for the drop off so you have your own bucket at home and then you take it to these uh drop off boxes and you have a code and you put it in there as often as as you want so not everybody body can compost at home and maybe if they do they don't compost very well we'll say because it takes a long time sometimes to build up the heat and um Virginia I'm sorry that was rust Bel Riders you said rust Bel Riders is kyoga and that's the one in Solen drop off and Rubber City reuse has the

location in Hudson Rubber City gotcha thank you yes and I'm on the board of the Twinsburg native habitat Association we uh form the group in uh August so we are a new 501c3 in Twinsburg and our goal is to um educate people about Native habitats and uh hopefully get into restoring some n native habitats not us doing the work but getting grants to have things done the on March 15th is the Frog and salamander festival and that's something for people that had kids in Twinsburg uh Stanley Stein used to be the did you have kids that went through that program well I I know of him and he did so many projects at the parks right and walks and stuff like that so there's three um two former teachers and one current teacher that in the group and they're going to head up that program so the 15th at the community center from 1: to 3 and then on um may3rd Saturday we're putting on a native uh habitat Workshop in Plant Sale it's from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m there's three speakers there's going to be five or six native plant vendors and 10 or so other vendors including Tinker Creek that will have tables or information tables that's free and open to the public and we'll get some more information about those two events later sorry I missed that where's the um workshop on it's Christ the Christ the King Church yes and they have beautiful native Meadow that I think it's either three or four years old now so they're one of their missions is to promote native habitat so they've been very friendly to the group and that is it all right and can I

ask a question what's the Frog and salamander Festival it's more for kids and I don't know if anybody has been through it or like they make um salamanders out of clay and they do face painting and they're going to have a display from someone from Ham like a tree frog they're bringing a display and more interactive things mostly for kids I think and it's here it's at the community center sounds like fun very cool um about City composting is that something the city and I'll I'll refer to to Pat here has the city ever thought about you know a city composting drop off place she brought it up reg brought it up so figed there in terms of putting on your your own composting site um there's a lot of EPA requirements that go into that uh I've helped set one up in in Rena in my previous job um there's you need a you need a large area to to work with there's a lot of um kind of best management practices and recordkeeping stuff that goes along with setting up the the composting site um the city I don't think has a lot of good locations to be able to host something like that to to take the the yard waste and the and the leaf compost and whatnot and and create uh your own compost the city's been taking Leaf waste to uh different landscaping companies around the the the area I believe Sager soils is one that they've used in the past I'm not sure who they were using this year but uh and taking the the leaf waste to them to have them do the the composting work to to get it down to soil and they they sell the products then uh the city just this this past fall uh had a pretty steep increase in the rate that they

were getting charged for for dropping that that material off so I'm sure it's something that the city would be interested in looking into a little bit here but uh in the past conversations haven't really had a good good location to to be able to deal with that volume of of there's a lot of leaves and yard waste that goes on in the city and having a good location kind of away from a residential setting to to try and do that okay I appreciate the explanation um I just know you had mentioned the rubber this the Rubber City re Rubber City reuse you know they charge a fee of residents so that that might be something even to offset a cost on on a city's behest um if there is the land available obviously you can't just make land out of thin air but if that land does become available by action of council um should there be a couple acres of space that were one day to be available um and it's just not near resident residential area you know maybe that conversation could continue and residents could be invited for a nominal fee as as Virginia mentioned of offset costs and some of those regulations but it's just obviously if the conversation's been had can't really beat the dead have a question too what happens where the gardens are what does anybody do anything those uh vegetable plant you know leaves and stuff yeah that I think mostly I think a lot of that gets tilled into the into the soil at the end of end of the season they go through and they they till the till the fields there to and a lot of that kind of gets worked into the into the soil there so no room for composting there Susan um so I've been a part of the garden and every year they'll um do a a tilling of the the whole thing and then you can choose to do that again or not you know but at the end of the

season you don't necessarily get your same square back you know um there is turnover in that regard as well of people and stuff like that but we have never done a a compost pile exactly there any or anything like that we just kind of you're in charge of your space uh just to clarify these programs you're putting it in a bin kind of like looks like a trash container okay so it's not an open thing it's that you're taking your bucket dumping it into their giant bucket and then it gets locked I see afterwards yes and then they take those take and take it to their SES a registered site so just like you were saying EPA you know they have like some for food waste so like rustbell Riders they are registered with oea right and then you have yard waste and like Kurt's brothers and a couple other places I know of the are they're different classes of um composting so it's mixed Solid Waste class one like food is class 2 so Source separate is class 4 so or class three I'm sorry so and and chrisy I saw you you wanted to jump in there so if you could come to the mic just so everybody could hear on the recording most of it was said already but rust Bel Riders there is a fee I think it's a different fee for monthly residential versus a community one um I did just look into Rubber City cuz that was Summit County I don't know too much about theirs but I just went to a fibershed presentation with rust bu Rust Belt Riders were there and so they were explaining to me how it goes but there is like a residential versus Community fee and I think you can sign up annually okay thank you I got a question so if you did do um a community one how much spases I think what they meant is to have a community

site where these bins would be set up as right how many I mean I I can't even Vision it cuz I don't know I do they have 20 bins there do they have 10 b a few pictures on the website and there were three or four oh three or four the commun they look to me like our Waste Management bins they could have been bigger but they weren't like dumpster sized okay so they just have three or four garbage PS there for the community to dump their compost in those right okay so it's not that big a space and I would imagine and it depends on how many um subscribers they have said they have to subscribe to it to so they know about how many people are in the area and have a right bins appropriately sized for for that many customers and do those people get to use the compost after it's I'm not sure I I I know Rust Belt sells like tilth yes soil and things like that so I don't know if you get something literally or you have the opportunity to buy something cheaper or or what so I'm not not sure okay all right I just I wanted to make sure there was all the conversation had passed before I bounced it over to Gina I don't have a report all right well it's fantastic to see you and shant bounce it over only thing I have because I know we were talking about composting I was trying to see what we can do with the businesses and stuff too cuz then that's when I found out I was like oh okay makes sense cuz it's solid waste so um you know that's what I was trying to look like hey what can you do and you know what the liabilities are and everything all that so and it gets pretty expensive and getting buying you buy the compost it's like anywhere from $75 a yard to 225 yard depending on who you go to for delivering so the only

thing I have was um hHw at resource recycle will start June 5th uh they're going to start then so that's the only thing I have for could you repeat that please I'm sorry June June 5th is what when they're going to start you know the hsw program up restart at reworks oh okay what I I didn't still get we didn't hear reworks the Summit County reworks colleting household hazardous waste oh okay thank you that's when they start up again that's when they're going to collect yes okay you go there juneth June 5th you take it there oh okay we almost need to play telephone down the line shant anything else no that's it thank you all right um so I'll go ahead and go I save myself for last not because I'm best because I I talk the longest so um oh when I we last met in October you as a body had asked me to to do a couple things you know just to make our life easier instead of seven people trying to do one thing it's just one person um and so we laid out some short-term and long-term goals and some short-term and long-term tasks for me um you know I'm going to talk about a couple of those and there's actually agenda items for other things um the website update we wanted our our web page on the city of Twinsburg web page to mirror that of the Jedi commissions um a big shout out to our our it guy Mark katowski he he had that done within a day um it looks fantastic you know now it it shows some pictures of of our commission events I believe last year's shred day is on there uh I believe our last Earth Day events on there as we start going to some more events you know we'll make sure we take some more pictures we'll get those on

there but Mark had updated it with pictures um there's now a contact button you know uh all the members are updated so now your names are on there instead of you know three commissions ago um and so Market updated that for us and it's much more seamless and I really appreciate that and so that was done that was the one thing I remember being asked to do um I also was asked to kind of reach out and try to find you know some designs we talked about t-shirts and you know some various other things I I have one past over there I'll pass this down but I asked Jenny uh our marketing coord for the city of Twinsburg if she could kind of get some designs maybe drafted for our commission the Jedi commission also has you know t-shirts and they have a logo on that shirt and we do go to a lot of community events we host our shred day we have our our Earth Day now this year we'll talk about it in a second but our Earth Day Arbor Day event and we often find ourselves invited to other community events and so I I think it'd be fantastic if we as a commission had a t-shirt we could wear to say hey we are the environmental Commission CU again we're one of the commissions that always has seven people here there's somebody typically in the audience and that's not standard I I'm very proud of that and very proud of all of you guys and I want to make sure we're able to be proud of that and show the community that and so I'm going to pass those designs around flip through them though because we will kind of need to make a decision on what we like what we don't like so I can get back to Jenny and say this is what we we you know we like what we want to change she's able to make changes to the designs entirely she can redraft them as she mentioned she can pull some things out so do you guys have any thoughts on those designs as you're flipping through I have a question yeah so I noticed this one here says city of Twinsburg environmental commission yeah this one this one

doesn't say Can it can we have that if we let's say if we pick something like that can we make sure to get at the bottom it does say it at the bottom I think so little oh so little yeah from my understanding conversation with Jenny and it was all via email but she made it seem as if she could move this around redraft or make it appear however we want Okay the reason they're all one color I will say this is to keep costs down if we are able to get t-shirts it's going to come out of a you know a city's budget I believe it come out of the econ Economic Development director's budget and so we have to make sure that cost is minimal in that regard and so one print is is cheaper than two Color Prints okay but yeah we could we could easily blow something up you guys see them I did I don't think there's a one-sided t-shirt two-sided t-shirt I it'd probably be one-sided just on the front I imine the number on the back pardon what was that like I imagine I Envision just something on the front printing on the back would like raise the cost right and if we're looking for minimal cost just something to say hey this is who we are I I think something on the front would be a okay unless we wanted just something on the back and nothing on the front you [Music] know I have a favorite of mine one of those things has a star on it but I didn't notice that oh yeah this pack yes yeah I'd like to move the font around a little bit if I had my dream world it's the the green one with to keep it green mhm but that one yeah so if I had a favorite it would probably be what did I write if I had a favorite it was probably

this I would personally so it would have that dark green I think so I would personally just scratch this keep it green though I would eliminate those words and i' just put naturally beautiful there you know it's kind of what city's tagline and I would just put naturally beautiful there if it was just me personally making this decision I like the the look of that logo cuz it's recognizable we could probably just see if we could just have that logo on a t-shirt with environmental underneath it like that probably would something like this or this or that stylized Leaf that's on the other one that has leaves on it too is is this supposed to be all green no this my my printer was running out of hence there's two of them here so um we wondered about that yeah I would suggest that you have the environmental commission stand out for sure because there are so many Twinsburg shirts out there you want to separate yourselves from all the other shirts that should really be the focus is the Environmental commission yes I agree with you aren't Jedi Jedi like big J dead di I think I don't know yeah it just we need to stand out because everybody sees the Twinsburg like yeah there's a million Twinsburg t-shirts you want to promote the environmental commission so Virginia what did you say you said something about no I just said like the look of the logo with that type style and everything but I agree to have that smaller and less noticeable in the environmental commission bigger okay just a thought I like the slogan keep it green you like the slogan yeah okay on there somewhere age you like it as well I mean it could be smaller you know whatever but I think it's it's a good slogan for us to have like we are keeping it

keeping it green we keep it green or whatever we're trying and I can see like changing the you know the Twinsburg logo to the more stylized one for more of a consistent branding look okay but you know to the point that everyone's making keep it smaller because you know all the Twinsburg shirts look like that right so blow up the stylized whereas my notes for this blow up up the stylized one blow up yeah you could steal that high blow up stylized logo yeah and then we want keep it green on there so does that mean we have a favorite as a commission being this one just make sure our logo is there blown up this we're at the end here the end I like we did too but we were thinking we were outnumbered the um but I think that there are two different kinds of trees and then I was like well we better make sure it's a tree we actually have a native tree like a native tree yeah so you are we doing this just on a pocket kind of thing or you want it on the whole shirt I'd rather do on the whole shirt so you can see hey you want to stand up I was thinking whole shirt yeah I I think you should find out what the cost for a two-sided might be as well okay because you know if you're if this is a billboard right mm I would recommend having it front and back so there's more again it's all about visibility right so if you have it on front and back it's more visible I also think how many shirts are you buying here you know true and to go front and back to spend you know even if it's six bucks more for shirt for 10 shirts you're talking $60 I don't think anyone's going to you know I don't think anyone's going to nickel Diamond that bad um but if you're really trying to promote yourselves you should really advertise it front and

back my opinion you guys of course do whatever you want so people so when you're walking away or people see you on all sides again my opinion from that perspect do the tree on one side One logo on the other the other logo on the back on the back of the tree tree on the front TS Virgo yeah we could do yeah we could do tree on the front or we could do like just a pocket you know a pocket tree and then environmental Commission on the back yeah there's a couple different ways we could do about this did the where is keep it green yeah it was Jenny our marketing coordinator so does um somebody here need to call RDP or something like that is that what we will be a deciding piece or how does what what you want to do next do you know who Source Jedi I do not I could find out for you though okay figure out what the process they went through if somebody from the the city did it through RDP or if the commission went out and did it themselves I can find that out for you he said he ran out of well I I think thing here too I think as a commission we could probably see how much it would cost to have a a one color print on two sides of a t-shirt from RDP and so if if they should be you were volunteering I was that's what it was that would be a fantastic if you could go and price that out from RDP just what it would cost for seven shirt back with a a proof or a you know like a what it's going to look like and then we can make sure we're oh right yeah I'm just going to start the conversation and say what's the cost front and back one color that we'll start there and then um Jen Jenny can do some play some more with it um and then we can keep the conversation going after we agree on what we really want to tell them does that seem like a plan yeah that works for me thank you Gina next question when is when is the

first event you'd want those shirts to be worn so I'm just thinking of working backwards you know like is it ideally probably Arbor Day 26 so we have a couple months so you're so you have time we have some time yes awesome yeah there's there's no rush here I mean there there's a slight time commitment but there's no immediate urgent Rush here but Pat will you tell me what the procedure is like I don't want to be calling and yeah be going out of order whatever yeah we'll find whatever the rules are they'll find out here this week what how Jedi went through it and the city would put place the order for those or if you guys should go out and place it yourself try it any but that's that's golf shirt as opposed to t-shirt would you think that would be golf shirt inste I was I'm a t-shirt guy when it comes to stuff like this um I wear I wear enough golf shirts and and stuff like that throughout my day working and so I'm a big t-shirt guy when it comes to community events and so that's just me personally I don't know I think it's easier to brand t-shirts you have real estate because with golf shirt you're only going to you're only going to get a small logo on the front so I'm I'm having a brainstorm here um you could I I don't know how many you would sell you could sell these t-shirts as well if the cost is $10 I don't know if you only want them for you guys but if you sold them it could be a small fundraiser yeah and you could donate the money to one of your environmental causes I'm just thinking out loud if the shirts are cost you 10 bucks 12 bucks sell them for 20 make eight bucks a shirt sell 50 Buck 50 shirts I'm I I'm just thinking outside the box good idea or not whatever I'm just thinking okay while we're pricing it's it's worth investigating if there are options I'm I'm I'm a big sweatshirt fan and you know it's cool a lot of the time here so

that's another option just I mean if nothing if we're checking pricing we might as well see what it would cost okay and that's that's kind of what I had on Shir it's Gina it sounds like you're going to price it out once Pat tells you the procedure rules all that um but I just wanted to at least show us these logos see thoughts where we're at on all of that um all of my other business that I was meant to do it's these small other agenda items and we'll get to those here in a second um but next we're going to bounce over to councilman post for his Council report well thanks uh again my name is David post I know some of us haven't really talked that much I'm very excited to be uh part of the commission this year um I actually put myself on this because uh I really like the en environmental commission I was on it a while back and I I just I really like it and so I it's been years since I've been here and so I'm back um the only thing that I have said multiple times Jonah you've probably heard me say this at some Council meetings is that you know I think that one way you know one of the goals of the environment actually most of the commissions is just um communication to the residents and I think that you guys have so many great things here even just that the plastic bags like where to recycle it um even something small like that on the sewer bills you know I think every every time there's a sewer bill it's a great opportunity to put something small sometimes I think less is more you know like these things are not able to go on a recycle B I'm just thinking of when you said was talking about the Plastics I'm like that's a great idea Virginia when you were saying you know they're doing these things put that in a sewer bill maybe that um you know these things cannot go in a recycle bin however Giant Eagle is you know something like that just for more outreaches just you know I think every time

there's not something there it's just a missed opportunity to educate the residents so that's my two cents so it's very much appreciated anything else that that's all I have sir thank you the floor was yours so I I had to ask next we move on to unfinished business new business miscellaneous and we actually have a couple you know pieces of unfinished business here uh one being that Earth Day Arbor Day event and Christy had mentioned this briefly during her presentation uh last last week maybe the tail end of the week pre previously we had a a large planning meeting with uh Tinker Creek Watershed Partners the school uh the parks and recck Department um uh who else a native habitat Association was there and it was essentially trying to hammer out how is this new event going to look because every single year we have hosted an Earth Day event and last year Parks and Rec Department held their first ever Arbor Day event and it was a week after ours I went shantanu was there it was a great event and I informally had reached out to director bentons I said why don't we just combine these events we're we're stealing each other's you know participation involvement or one weekend after the other what if we combin join forces did this together I'm very grateful she was she was on board with it she was beyond happy beyond excited to accommodate um so at this meeting we essentially had a conversation about what this looks like Parkson W is taking the lead the department itself self is taking the lead um the date is set it's going to be April 26th I think time I agree I think it's 9 to 11 a.m. um April 26 9: to 11:00 a.m. at the community center at the community center yes and so it's a different venue this time so April 26 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. at the community center now in that conversation we had a discussion about you know who is allowed

to be there who who can do what and the conversation kind of circled around everybody should be there if they can do something whether they're providing education Outreach or an activity and I said our commission could easily provide some educational components you know I I know we have some flyers we've used previously I know we could easily provide that but I suggested that we also might be able to come up with an activity um I suggested a scavenger hunt and I said that's not set in stone by any means but we might be able to create a scavenger hunt that fits around the community Center and and you know that seems to be something that we might be able to do I just can't do it alone I need some help from one or two other Commissioners to maybe help me kind of create a scavenger hunt for this event Parks and Rec would be happy to supply prizes for that um to make sure that we could give away prizes for that event but we do need to decide kind of right here right now what we want to do at this Arbor Day Earth Day event because I have to let Jen know by February 15th what we're doing and so if you guys like the scavenger hunt idea we're able to do it if you don't like it you hate it now is the time to let me know and propose what else we do instead but I definitely think education like Virginia mentioned plastic bags where you could recyc them stuff like that would be important but also some activity something that we could you know have others do whether they wander away or do it at our table is important um the Historical Society has um I don't know don't know if they call it a scavenger hunt but there's certain grades that the teachers provide this list of things and they have to go around and find I don't know Aaron will Cox's birth date or something like that there's a list of things that so it could be finding things at other people's tables because you know or will

know who all going to be there and what their message is so that would get some traction for kids to go around the tables unless you meant literally like looking under a rock or and finding something I don't know I I was thinking looking under a rock but I very much like this and this is why I'm not the only guy making decisions here and so I very much like that idea it's remote involvement it would get people to to move around to the other tables right um like go to x table and find three whatever you know native three native plants the three colors of native plants or something it could even be a hybrid a mix of go around and look around you know it doesn't have to be one or the other it could be a mix of ball if I was a kid though I would know what a native plan is with well I don't know either so whatever would be appropriate to a kid's age okay maybe seed pods or something like that or yeah okay I like that that's a good idea more than they started and that's the whole point so we're winning all around with those ideas you know seed pods native plants now let's be outside um I mean the whole thing outside yeah from tables or something I think it's inside is it inside I believe it's hybrid inside and outside yeah I think they also talked about doing a biot teen thing where the kids would be outside finding actual things in nature yes that was that was Poss what they were talking about for me maybe and our our group um but we were we were put pause in that possibly so that might be picked up by somebody else okay so they they talked about a um thank you yeah they talked about a possible like a bio Blitz I think it's called it's like an actual scavenger hunt where you go out to the woods nearby the community center and you look for under a rock you

look at all that and I said well let me talk with the commission and see what you guys would all want to do because again I'm going to need some help crafting this getting this all set up and situated um from at least one other commissioner it doesn't have to be all seven of us working together but I need somebody else helping me on this um that was some idea that was proposed and talked about during this event we could also have like a display of these are recyclable these are not and that's where you could be educating with the styrofoam and the plastic bags I think um Cindy Kurt is doing that oh okay Twinsburg High School teacher is doing that bringing that they've brought that to a number of events in the past they already have that all kind of set up yes okay how about this I remember when we were I was talking I don't know we were all talking about posters could we um have that be part of it get poster board and have markers and let the kids possibly or we could have quarter sheets or something small where they could make a poster about the environment and then we could have some of the ideas or they could make their own slogans remember I said litter is pollution you're the solution you know some of that those kind of saying um I believe there are going to be and I'm trying to pull it up right now I believe there are going to be craft areas provided by the high school as well um I'm getting shut down every left and right I'm not shooting down I love the ideas they're such great ideas somebody already that's right and so yeah I'm pulling this up now okay um so right now I believe the stations are you have the pick this or not that so it's it's what can you recycle what can you not yeah um okay there is a uh an option to to show you what is a better op a better environmentally friendly option so you're going to have a choose this or that so you're looking at soap

and then what's better for the environment does it choose this or that a craft station is there um it's looking like fingerprint pollinators and so they're going to be able to make fingerprint inators um it's targeted towards younger students it seems like uh seed station dandelion station uh Native versus invasive uh which is provided by I think the Twinsburg habitat Association a scavenger hunt from us or and some educational component um and then bees it looks like there might be uh beekeeper and the beekeeping assoc will be there to present about bees that' be great cool if if you think like that bio Blitz is um another option since it's going to be hybrid we could potentially come up with something like it's an inside activity going to the tables for a little people and or you know just have two options because maybe you have an older group as I would hope cuz with the teenagers from the high school you know maybe there can be an in and out typing the bile Blitz seems like fun and I think that could be doable yeah I think since it is a hybrid it does kind of lend itself to doing something outside yeah and or or both like we mentioned earlier where it's like you kind of the I guess the check off is you have to visit particular tables and I'm pulling from experience on this because I sell it at conventions and I've I've been at conventions before where they kind of have a thing for people to do where they you know especially like the younger kids they have like I have some where it was like you have particular stickers at certain tables and they would but it would kind of force them to visit everyone to make sure that they and it would you know since they going to be there's going to be educational opportunities there also going to be

vendors there that kind of helps I guess ass suades the fears that you know okay we're going to have vendors come and they're going to feel like okay am I going to sit here and not do anything at least this way it would kind of drive people it would drive traffic to their tables because they would all have to come and check to see you know are you a part of this are you participating like you is there anything at your table that we can check off that we've seen so I think that's I think that's a really a a good go a good draw for it I really like that idea see this is why I I can't be making all these decisions Alone um I like that idea and so are we okay as a commission with this this scavenger hunt idea possibly hybrid all of that does does that sound like where we want to go I've been writing down all these ideas yes yes yes yes okay you mean for our contribution our contribution yes yes and we'll have educational piece I imagine as well we have um plenty of stuff we've used in the past but we'll have an educational piece but I I'd really like us to have an activity this time at a lot of our other events in the past it's been just education we've relied on others and it's time we start providing a little bit more I I think in that regard and so I I think a scavenger hunt whether it's high or we just decide one way is the best way I think that's going to be a great way to start okay I I could definitely work on this is I'm in Gina you're willing to help okay I'll be out of town but I can help help create perfect I will just what I'll do I'll create a a Google doc and I'll just share it with all of you guys and you know I I will kind of type out you know what I'm thinking and it'll all be right there and we could we could work to prepare this um there okay does that work for everybody yes okay P were you going to say something no okay looks like you're going to say something do you so I know you had a February 15th

deadline are we going to do anything from I know we decided on the scavenger hunt uh anything on education or we going to let it we going to let the school teacher I can't remember her name now Cindy Cindy Kurt yes we I was going to have some educational I was just going to well I just have to let director Benton know that we what we are doing so I could simply say education component and scavenger hunt Okay and we could come back and try to decide what exactly our Ed component will be at our next meeting um I wasn't Gravely concerned about trying to figure that aspect out today more so the activity piece okay that's good but I I do think we should have an education piece okay whether it be items like Virginia presented where where you could recyc plastic bags and it's aimed and geared towards adults more so or it's a combination of that and things for children I I think we should have some educational pieces for just you know general knowledge related to environment because again we're one of I think six groups there so so will we be allowed to use the prizes that the park and Rex is going to provide yes and so the scav during our conversation there director Venton said they would be able to provide prizes for the scavenger hunt for us there so that that's I'm going to reach out to her and let her know that we're we're doing the scavenger hunt like those prizes would like to be able to utilize those kid so you can have it that everyone who completes the scavenger hunt goes into a drawing or something and then you'll pull the names from all the everyone who completes it we should have enough prizes from our and I have to double check to see where we're at and this might change depending on the availability of prizes but if you complete it you should get a prize and so that's again I have to see the availability of the prizes 12 and under or some age group this again we'll have

to iron out these details a little bit more yeah you I need to see the availability prizes if we have a million we have a lot more availability there's 10 prizes you know we then have to change what we're doing the events in April you know we have next meeting where we could iron out all these questions I just needed to make sure we had what activity we're doing you know this meeting for certain but again those are are great questions as to who's getting the prizes and next meeting I'm going to bore you guys with those same questions again um here okay is there anything else on that Earth Day Arbor Day event went over the date we're good on the scavenger hunt we're all going to help kind of work together a little bit there um we'll have the scavenger hunt education component anything else that we wanted to discuss on the scavenger hunt Okay next on our agenda it's that award program uh at our last meeting we discussed you know how we wanted to bring up the awards and so for councilman post you know I'm just going to give fill you in kind of let you know what we've been discussing my first term on the commission my first time a couple meetings in the commission I proposed this concept of environmental awards given by the Comm commission to Residents a business and like a friend of the commission and and so it was this concept to help generate uh an outward expression from the commission saying you are doing great things on behalf of the environment we recognize you as a commission we've gotten a little sidetracked we we lost the chair these people decided I would take over and and so it's been a learning curve for me um but we want to make sure that you we keep this conversation going and the commission really seemed to

appreciate the idea of awards for residents and so last meeting we said we continue that discussion and I I wanted to see if right now is the time or do we need to table that for our next meeting I can table it table it well that's my my vote I'm not opposed to talking for like a certain maybe five minutes more or something like that just to steer us you know what here use this you proba you created this use that to tell them what awards we were we had decided on just just like an overview yeah yeah I don't I don't think we decided either and that was part of our problem I think we have the The Good Neighbor award the friend of the commission student of the future good business environmental commission just a like a recognized residence I propose like five or six you know and again I think as a commission we might just start with one I I think realistically in instead of shooting the moon we just start with one we're starting we have zero currently start with one if I was picking if I was the guy who makes all decisions maybe the good you know maybe the what was it the Good Neighbor award you know uh where you're giving this to somebody who acts as like a good neighbor to all there's somebody on my street who rain snow sleep hail Sunshine they're always picking up trash you know on my street and the street over it's a good neighbor right and they do good things for the environment that award once right about maybe eight 8 years ago did you for picking up the trash on my dog walk and you remember it and I'm going to bring it in to show you I would love to see it there's a guy in Ethan green who does that every time he walks he's walking with a garbage thing and he's walking around constantly I actually stopped and rolled down the window and thanked them personally and and people that do good things they deserve to be recognized especially you know on behalf of the Environ Al commission and you

know I I think that's important you know they are really helping the environment they don't have to they could do what 90% of other people do and and you know walk past it or pick up some things not others but they make a conscious effort every day to do good things and so I that would be the one that I personally would like to start with but again I I am not the one that makes all decisions it's us that decides I agree y with that so that's kind of what we were discussing oh this is your paper I'm sorry just put a star on that I will over here everybody should probably get one so good neighbor award is kind of where we'd like to start and so what they do might be more than what I can do but I they could inspire me to do better than I do now absolutely and and you know it's just so good neighbor award that's that's kind of where I'd like to start um I think when we're looking at this I think we run in this is where Pat and post you guys would be very helpful I think as a commission we run into the technicality of actually going through an award process that's where we run into problems you know it's it's how do we as a commission hand out Awards give out an award like this because again that's I I don't understand the technicality as that's certainly something that you can present at your at your meetings you can you want to start with a some kind of a a nomination process how you're going to collect nominations whether it be uh through brochures Flyers your Facebook page uh City website however you want to collect nominations what your criteria is going to be um what criteria you're going to use to to weed down the the nominations to who you want to give Awards to and then in terms of a a

uh a venue for for presenting the award if you wanted to do it at your at one of your environmental commission meetings or I'm sure city council would be willing to to do something at one of the the City Council meetings I'm sure the the mayor would be willing to to come to whether it's a council meeting or environmental commission meeting and and help with that um in terms of what your your award would be I know uh I think you've already talked to Rebecca little a little bit about uh finances uh she said that she had some money available for doing t-shirts and whatnot or if you want to put together a a small budget for some type of award or awards that that you'd like to to present okay that's very helpful so we could potentially collect nominations on City website on our our page for example and we would just need to figure out how we narrow that down if we're sticking to the same criteria you know I propose this with um but that's what we' need to figure out so I don't want to take all night talking about this but also then we could start promoting it at Earth Day we could start promoting it at Earth Day so next meeting I I'll send it out again to everybody this way post will'll also have it but if we could look at the criteria I proposed originally for the good neighbor award do we like it decide how we're going to want to weed down those nominations and then we could start to get the ball rolling you know at our next meeting and I think that should give us enough lead time you we'll have over a month two meetings then where we could start advertising it even if we don't give the award out to lock October we should have enough time to advertise go through this process in my head as I'm thinking does that sound yes everybody John what kind of award did you get like a plaque or what no it was just a uh a certificate that you get out of uh Office Depot or something oh cuz Okay we were thinking about I I don't

mean it that way but it was Fancy with the right ink scalp from not okay the they do like proclamations from the city to those things but I I think um there was a bunch of us that got the good neighbor or something like that and each council person um nominated for each Ward for for this special Good Neighbor thing and I I'm taking out of context but that's that's what I think because a group of people that were standing in front of very cool that was kind of cool yeah that is cool and I did find $5 one day along with the other ni The Good the good car paid you um okay was there anything else on the award program before I move us on okay next we have that short-term goals I asked uh Shannon Collins to add this onto the agenda just so I could update you guys on you know the short-term goals from the last meeting uh um you know and I I mostly did that during my report we had talked short-term goals to continue with our our participation annual events um Earth Day we just discussed that in shred day and Pat do we have we don't have an official day for shred day yet I'll talk to the service director and see if I can find a date for you guys thank you I just know it was important for us as a commission to keep doing what we're doing try to do more um Jedi page has been updated and we had our t-shirt conversation so I don't know why I asked to add that I I apologize um it must have been a late night and so I apologize is there any conversation that you guys needed to have or wanted to have in the short-term goal

category where do you find the on the um the web page for the for you said the Jedi page was uh updated the our commission page so if you Google city of Twinsburg environmental commission and you find our our page on the city's website it should be updated your name should be on there mine should be on there okay all of our pictures should be on there I'll try again it I saw it all there Spectrum so it was Mark katowski did a fantastic job do we still have the Facebook environmental commission group yes we have not posted since our last meeting I know because it yes it looks bad we either have to take it down or there's something we can't take it down um because it's all government record and subject public rec request we can't take it down and so it just sits idle if we can post if we'd like to we have not been not we have not been directed to stop posting yet okay but I I have nothing to post and I don't believe in posting for the sake of just posting just post um all inform all current information and then direct to the website that could be like a kind of nice closure and keep keep it simple I could do that tonight or tomorrow morning that'll get done and then that's one less responsibility to have to monitor that of course I could do that tonight and it will be yeah cuz we're not really going on there and saying hey how you doing John or you know or like what do you think of that idea that you know we talked about when using it like that so and the public doesn't even know about it really do you have a QR code that could take you to the website thinking that if you got a QR code anytime you did a sewer bill maybe throw it on your shirt so when you're talking to someone they could just go right I'm just scan me thinking that you know scan

me know uh find out all the environmental you I'm just no that's it's easy enough to make to get a QR code and then you could you know on your shirt like yeah if you're talking to somebody hey scan this right here it'll take you all of our stuff I don't know I'm just I'm just thinking that you know you could put that all over that be good on the back and then if you have if you're um on the front you know your website has all the information all your timelines all your dates all your everything I'm guessing I haven't seen it I didn't even know you have a website specifically just a city page it's not like a I thought you had a I thought you said there's a link to take you to a separate environmental page that Mark made yes it's a like yeah I've never seen on the boards and Commission Section on the city gotcha I've not seen the new updated website for Mark but um I will go check that out but a q code that could take anyone right there and you can put that QR code on anything that you put out um could have that QR code it's easy enough to make you're the idea man I appreciate it I really like the idea of being in the sewer um bill every single time like that's a missed opportunity if we don't start maybe put that on the next agenda like what's our first so when is our next sewer bill we just had one quarter I don't know exactly what what month they come out so April would be the next one April I think April July October on it's it's been up since 4 but nonetheless we could advertise Arbor Day Earth I think it would be right before if I'm thinking correctly it should be right before Arbor Day Earth Day and so I could even reach out to director Benton and see if she'd be willing to to get something put in there I'm sure she probably has Graphics already made see if she could already just see if something could be put in on on behalf of all of us to drag more attention to that would that be okay absolutely okay

all right any other miscellaneous new business unfinished business speak now forever hold your piece okay um we have no absent members there's nobody to excuse our next meeting date is March 4th 2025 7 p.m. in city council chambers uh and at 8:14 I'm going to or all those in favor of adjourning the meeting please say I I all oppos please say nay at 8:14 I'm going to adjourn the meeting we are adjourned