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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018_10_09 Sustainability Collaborative Minutes Town of Mamaroneck Sustainability Collaborative Meeting Notes, October 9, 2018 Attendees: Mitch Green, Michele Lewis,Arlene Novich, Sue Odierna, Nancy Seligson, Marc Karell, Colin Goldberg, Katherine Pannell, Shannon Purdy, Kristen Andersen, Karen Khor, George Roniger, Diane Neff,June Wallach, Elizabeth Poyet, Steve Altieri,Jeffery King, Mark Kramer, Denise Dunn Minutes of September meeting were approved. Mobility/Complete Streets/Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations Steve A noted as reported previously, the Town was approved for 4 NYS DEC grants for four EV Charging Stations. A separate grant for a$5,000 rebate for an electric vehicle was also approved. Two electric vehicles are currently in use within the Town's fleet for parking enforcement and code enforcement. As a reminder, the planned locations for chargers are Hommocks Parking Lot, Town Center, and Myrtle Blvd by parking garage, and Baldwin Ave/Memorial Park. Charging stations need to be installed. (There is also an additional charging station already installed in the back lot of Town Center for Town vehicles.) Each station can charge two cars. Initially, there will be no fees for charging vehicles as an incentive for use. Nancy added that the charging stations have data logs that report all usage. Shannon P. reported on the "Walking Safety Assessment—VoM" She hoped her report would be useful to the Town as a consideration to take into account pedestrian and biker safety issues for the Comprehensive Plan update. Marc K. was a resident volunteer participating in the VOM assessment, along with the Village's mayor, a trustee, the engineer and a representative from DPW. The group embarked upon a 2%hour walk on along Halstead Avenue to the Harrison border and also along North Barry Avenue to Boston Post Road. Shannon reported that Mayor Murphy wants to make VoM more walkable/bikeable and less car-intensive. The walk was organized because of complaints to the Traffic Committee about speeding. These corridors were chosen because of a high level of crashes, excessive speed complaints and also proximity to schools. Summing up,Shannon said this report can be part of a comprehensive plan but also some of the actions can be done right away. She also suggested if the Town does a walking safety assessment, we should choose streets where there are safety issues. . Councilman Jeff King asked if it be prudent to do a similar assessment in the evening. Colin asked if the Town has considered blocking off particular streets for pedestrians only. Steve A and Nancy said no but that they have received complaints about traffic and parking, especially in the North Chatsworth Avenue and surrounding area. Sustainable Energy--Community Solar Steve A. updated the group on the proposed community solar project on the roof of Hommocks Ice Rink. The RFP was issued and four developers responded. Steve A/Frank 0/Mark M are interviewing the candidates. A recommendation will be made to the Town Board in the next few weeks. Electricity generated from the project would be offered to residents of the Hommocks Park Apartments first and then others should there be enough energy to power more than one building. The panels will produce 500 to 600 kWh of electricity. Residents will get a 10—15%discount off of their monthly electric bills. Lease agreement to be created with developers. Community Choice Aggregation Nancy reported that the bids for the renewal were very favorable and that Westchester Power will move forward with Constellation Energy again. They have negotiated a two-year fixed price that is still lower than the 12 month trailing average for 2015. Reusable Bag Initiative(RBI) Sue updated the group: • 1,000 reusable bags were donated by "Mothering Mother"and are currently at local print shop having one of the winning students'artwork applied • The RBI support sheet names/email addresses/etc. are currently being gathered at the Farmers Market on Saturdays and at other events including the Murray Avenue Fair on 10/12 and the Food Truck Festival on 10/120. Current count about 400 names, need at least 1,000 • Volunteers are needed to solicit more names—soccer games?Other sporting events?Door to door?Girl/Boy Scout events(need GS contact name to set up) • Discussion regarding "New Castle Model,"a hybrid law combining a fee on paper with a ban on single-use, carry out plastic bags. This model seems to work best at eliminating most plastic and also encourages reusable bags as there is a 10 cent fee on paper bags. Discussion ensued.... Comments included questioning allowing dry cleaning bags. Michele and Diane felt that they should not be exempt. (The New Castle model that many municipalities have passed is a "hybrid"law which exempts dry cleaning,produce/meat/fish and loose/bulk candy thin plastic bags from the ban on plastic bags and charges a fee for paper bags of 10 cents).Jeff commented if you don't offer dry cleaning bags, you must offer an alternative to protect clothing. June mentioned as more and more municipalities pass environmental legislation such as this, there comes a point where residents expect it. It was decided to distribute free reusable bags after law is passed. Kristen and Elizabeth P mentioned the County is ramping up their efforts to get a county-wide RBI law passed. Nancy thought it best for the Town to draft its own law in case the County effort stalls. Mitch made a motion to recommend the New Castle model RBI law to the Town Board and most agreed this is the best option. Action Item 1: Mitch to write letter to TB advising to adopt New Castle type bag legislation Action Item 2: Volunteers(students/teens especially)needed to get signatures at various events, locations around town and specifically at Farmers Market and Food Truck Festival Action Item 3: Per Steve Wolk's recommendations,please remember the following when you shop!! Thank all stores in town for supporting the Reusable Bag Initiative. Best to thank the manager, but even if you thank someone at the register that is good. If they hear it enough,it will get through to the manager and then corporate HQ.You can do this even if you haven't heard that they support it yet. If they say they don't support it,then people should act shocked and dismayed (but not argumentative,just deeply disappointed as you would really feel). It will have an impact. Action Item 4: Sue has contact information of corporate heads/community of CVS, Stop and Shop, Walgreen's and Trader Joe's stores. Waiting on a longer signature count and then expectation is a Collab (Mitch?) should call and ask for their support, explaining that hundreds of their customers WANT this. Action Item 5: Katherine finalizing Town Stores list. Collabs please see if you have contacts at specific stores and can visit with support letter in hand. Food Waste Recycling Karen discussed one year anniversary of food waste recycling event. Speeches and giveaways were fun and well received by crowd, band played, kids colored and LMC-TV filmed the event and interviewed both Nancy and Larchmont Mayor, Lorraine Walsh. Food waste drop off at market and Maxwell is going well. Karen reported that September had the second highest collection of food waste to date, after June. Regarding update on schools' and houses of worship progress, Karen reported that Larchmont Temple is now fully zero waste,the Murray Avenue environmental committee has grown into a large, involved group and Chatsworth wants to see Murray's initiative so that they can emulate it. St. Augustine and Larchmont Temple would like to arrange pickup with the Sanitation Commission but current tipping fee of about$28/ton for trash vs about$70/ton for food waste makes this currently impractical. The Commission is considering charging a combined $400/month to pick up from Larchmont Temple, FASNY, and St. Augustine. Mark K. said what if all residents had to put trash out at the curb? Would this save enough money/time to enable the workers to also pick up food waste at curb? Denise mentioned that Larchmont Acres Owners Corporation will have their annual meeting Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 7:00 PM. She suggested that someone make a presentation regarding the program at this meeting. June suggested we could use a marketing campaign to get food waste recycling on everyone's mind and that we should broaden this potential campaign to include healthy yards and reusable bags. The goal being to raise awareness of the Collaborative and the Town's sustainability commitment and activities overall in an integrated way. Though it's important to promote each initiative,when we do so,we need to think about the parent brand, the Town striving/innovating towards a healthier environment, higher quality of life. Mitch asked June to draft something up. Karen also mentioned a Food Waste Reduction Donation/Recycling grant that she will work on after meeting with Nancy and Steve later in month. The grant awards a minimum of$1,000 to a maximum of $250,000 for a program that reduces food waste. Karen thinks the program is more geared to reducing food waste at its origin, rather than recycling it into compost. The grant is due in March 2019, awarded in April 2019 and is a three year grant. Healthy Yard Initiative Michele distributed a "white paper"containing the description of the Healthy Yards program. She also handed out a budget and proposed calendar for the launch of this program next spring. There was discussion regarding how to communicate to the residents about this program:expectation is there will be flyers,posters circulated/posted around Town, electronic communication via FB and the website and events at which this program will be publicized. A book entitled "The PRFCT Earth"will be ordered and can be given out or sold. Diane created a beautiful "Healthy Yard"sign with lovely photos of plants/flowers that can be duplicated and used in residents'lawns(as a nice alternative to the yellow pesticide signs). Town seal or text saying "Town of Mamaroneck"should be added so residents realize this is an initiative of the Town's environmental committee. Sue distributed "Land Use Practice Guide"books to the Collabs and mentioned to all that there are several hundred copies of this book at Town Center. Please think of ways to distribute them. Reminder: Courtesy of our friends in Rye—there will be a "Healthy Yards, Healthy Pets"presentation on Tuesday, October 16th at 5:30pm at Pet Pantry Warehouse. They asked the Town to promote the event as well. (Sue posted to Facebook.) Noise/Leaf Blowers Mitch opened up the discussion by saying that the notion of a healthy community is an outgrowth of the Collaborative's original three principles:quality of life, resilience and sustainability and that the leaf blower issue encompasses these principles. The hope is that the committees of the three municipalities work together to get legislation drafted. The VoL committee is waiting on feedback on the VoL's increased summer enforcement and hopes to have data before the November Collabs meeting (11/13). Elizabeth reported that the VoL Police stepped up their enforcement from June 1—June 15, that there was gardener pushback including "watchdog"gardeners stationed at the curb to warn working gardeners in the backyards of police cars. However, the positive news was that Elizabeth estimated that her neighborhood is 70%quieter than before there was a leaf blower ban in effect. Next steps in Vol is the environmental committee will meet with the Trustees. They'd like to request that the Trustees consider registering landscapers. They will also meet with VoL Police to see how many summonses were issued. Mitch asked if we could do the same in the Town. George agreed with Elizabeth that his neighborhood is also much quieter than it has been in prior summers. Nancy added that when she spoke with ToM Police, they seemed very much on board with enforcing violations. The following is an update Sue received after our Collabs meeting regarding Town leaf blower summons data from this past season: From Lt. Hoffman/ToM PD: • Town issued one summons during the 6/1 to 9/30 leaf blower ban season. Lt Hoffman emphasized that the only time period when there was NOT stormy weather during this period was from 6/4—6/12 and 8/19—8/24. During the balance of the season, the use of gas-powered leaf blowers were permitted to allow for after-storm cleanup. • Lt. Hoffman also told me that police officers distributed notices just prior to June 1st to landscapers in English and Spanish stating the law(see attached). These notices were given out to landscapers regardless of whether they were using leaf blowers, as a preventative measure. • The Police Department received 30 complaint calls during the season—sometimes the leaf blowers were electric which is not an offense and sometimes the blowing work had been finished when the officer arrived. From Greg Comito/Code Enforcer, Building Dept: • The Building Dept issued 3 summonses during the leaf blower ban season. Meeting was adjourned at 8:45pm. The next Collaborative meeting will be Tuesday, November 13,2018 at 6 pm at the VFW/Senior Center in the large dining room.