HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020_10_13 Sustainability Collaborative Minutes Town of Mamaroneck Sustainability Collaborative
Meeting Notes, October 13, 2020
(Meeting via Zoom, 6pm—8pm)
Attendees: Mitch Green, Sue Odierna,June Wallach, George Roniger, Karen Khor, Marc Karell, Mark
Kramer,Tony Gelber, Karin Weisburgh, Kevin Crowe,Jason Rudolph and Eliza Pertz, Beth
Radow, Frank Owens, Arlene Novich, Michelle Lewis, Steve Altieri, Denise Dunn, Karin
Weisburgh, Ellen Martin, Matt Thomas, Lisa McDonald, Steve Moser, Nicole Gassman, Mark
Manley,Jeffery King (audio only), MHS OCRA student Arielle
*Also, George Latimer made a guest appearance
Notes of September 15th meeting were accepted.
Mitch welcomed everyone to our Zoom meeting. He mentioned that Nancy requested the Collaborative
reinstitute our annual budget discussion to focus on priorities for 2021. Mitch will send budget proposal to
the Collaborative for comments.
ToM Trees
Arlene informed the group that she has been working with Perri McKinney and Luke Brussel with the goal of
getting an accurate tree count and also hoping to revise and update the Town's tree policies. Perri is creating
a tree survey in her Rockingstone neighborhood area. Arlene mentioned that the Village of Mamaroneck just
upgraded their tree code and is aiming for 40%tree coverage. She reported that the Villages have arborists
and that there is no mention of this or an explanation as to how or why Town trees are removed within the
Town's code. Arlene also thinks the tree program where residents can purchase a tree from the Town should
be better promoted.
Steve Altieri explained that tree work is part of the day-to-day operations of the Town, that it is not part of
the code and that the Highway Department does have two trained arborists and a Tree Preservation
Committee that consists of the Environmental Planner(Elizabeth Aitchison), the Building Inspector and one of
the arborists(previously residents were part of this committee too). There was discussion of better promotion
of the Town as a "Tree City"and advertising the Tree for our Town program,perhaps borrowing VoL's idea of
a Mother's Day "Buy/Plant a Tree"gift idea.
Action Plan: Elizabeth Aitchison,the Town's Environmental Planner has been asked to provide the Collabs
with the tree survey that currently exists although it is quite dated. Perri will continue her neighborhood
survey which can be added to the Town survey.
Action Plan: Sue will get details from Liz to start to promote the "Trees for our Town" program and our Tree
City status through Facebook, NextDoor and can talk to Nancy about newsletter mentions as well.
Action Plan:Arlene, Matt, Michele, Eliza offered to initiate a tree sub committee (with Perri)
Community Marketing Webinar—Community-Based Social Marketing(CBSM)9/21—9/23/20
Nancy extended the opportunity for Collaborative members to participate in a community marketing webinar
given by "Community-based Social Marketing"Founder Doug McKenzie-Mohr, Ph.D. June W., Elizabeth P.,
Karen K., Michele,Sue and Nancy participated.
Karen explained that CBSM is a methodical approach to designing and delivering community programs, with
the goal being to change people's behavior to achieve sustainable initiatives. Steps are:
• Selecting the behavior to target
• Identifying benefits and barriers to achieving this behavior
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• Selecting strategies to change this behavior
• Piloting the behavior change strategy
• Full-scale Implementation
Behavior change is the cornerstone of sustainability. Without behavior change, education, raising awareness
activities and marketing materials have little to no impact. It is critical to determine the barriers to change.
Keys are to make the environmental activity convenient, repetitive--and visible-so neighbors see;this will
make the practice more of a social norm.An example of this visibility,June suggested, is the Healthy Yards
sign. June emphasized for each initiative we want to promote, we need to decide on the endgame and go
through the steps above(five bullet points) to properly structure the program.
Community Solar
Steve A updated that the Hommocks roof has been inspected and is structurally sound, and has therefore
received clearance that it can support the solar panels. The developer,Sunlight General, will now complete
their pre-construction work with Con Ed. Construction expected to start in Feb or March, 2021. Nina Orville
will help with the marketing of the plan to Low-and-Moderate-Income Households. Frank O. asked about
additional coating for the roof and its longevity as that was questioned earlier, but Steve A. said it was
determined that wasn't necessary and that the roof is in good shape.
Mitch reminded the group that several years ago, when 73 residents purchased solar panels benefiting from
incentives, there was the understanding that lower/moderate income residents didn't have this opportunity.
Now with Hommocks panels, lower income residents have a chance to buy into this.
Mark M. asked about interconnection with the school, as well as the possibility of adding energy storage
(adding a battery pack that might be separate from the electrical grid)which could provide power during an
outage, and/or a whole set of other "services"to the grid for a customer that the system might be tied to.
Mark M. also mentioned that NYSERDA is looking for projects that have energy storage components.And
what's interesting about how they do it is that you can site the energy storage anywhere in New York, it
doesn't have to be directly tied to a specific project. This might be a benefit to the ice rink project, there might
be a way to tie into that. Mark M offered to reach out to NYSERDA to see if there are opportunities here.
Update: Mark M. has reached out to his contacts and is awaiting response.
Extreme Weather/Generators/Flooding
In terms of quality of life issues with regard to generators, Frank mentioned June's idea of connecting an EV
to power part(s)of a house during power outages to alleviate the generator noise and pollution. The objective
is to find "off-the-grid"ways to provide households in the Town with emergency power supply in extreme
weather events when our grid connections go down.
Tony G. discussed the popularity of the solar panel program of six years ago, but that people assume you can
power your house when there's a power outage. The challenge with many solar installations now is that they
are not set up to provide power to the house that they are sitting on if there is no power coming from the
grid. Better would be the ability to have battery storage that could have off-the-grid capability. Tony
proposed that if everyone put 1kw of solar on their houses, and you have stored battery power, you could use
it when power outages occur.
Virtual Visit by George Latimer, County Executive
George Latimer stopped in and suggested if any of our initiatives have a "county connection,"to let him know
how he can help. As to what the County is doing;they are working on transport related to food waste to help
out municipalities financially(cost of moving food waste will go down dramatically), installing EV charging
stations on county properties, converting county buses from diesel to hybrid and ultimately to electric,solar
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panels on top of bus garages and county courthouse. Frank O. complimented George on the food waste
report the County produced earlier this year. Said it was very well done and readily available and he thanked
George Latimer/the County for preparing and publicizing this report.
Boston Post Road (BPR)Complete Streets
Steve Altieri reported that regarding the Comprehensive Plan, the Town Board is beginning process of
preparing for public engagement. The Public engagement portion of the Comprehensive Plan will be kicked
off at the end of the year, or early in 2021. The Consultant(AKRF)is under contract. Questions related to the
BPR include... how should/could zoning change? Where should mixed use development go?George R. would
love the aesthetics of the road to be improved, with wider sidewalks, lots of trees, maybe even
benches. George would love to hear beautification ideas from others.
Mitch reminded all that Steve M. along with others from the ToM, VoL and VoM met with traffic consultant,
AKRF(the consultant on the Comprehensive Plan) to discuss a$2,000 "litmus test"study for the BPR, to make
the Boston Post Road safer, more walkable and bike-able. The "litmus test"study would evaluate the concept
of taking the present"2 lanes in each direction"format and changing it to "1 lane north, 1 lane south, 1 left-
turn lane, buffered bike lanes on each side,"all within the existing curb-to-curb width.
Shannon Purdy mentioned a NYS waiver due to COVID-19 that could temporarily put bike lanes on the Post
Road. Applications were due to NYS by October 31st and Shannon is checking to see if we could get more
time. Mitch asked if Shannon and Marc K(both of VoM)could speak with Mayor Tom Murphy to emphasize
importance of this project and if Lisa McDonald could check with Larchmont.
Update: Shannon sent the link for the NYS DOT waiver for us to review: Permit for_the Temporary Use of
State...H!ghway/NYSDOT Property for...CQVIID-_1 Recovery
Update: Mitch discussed this with the Town Board during their October 27 Work Session. Discussions are on-
going about the "litmus test" study.
OCRA(Original Science Research Action) MHS Students"Green"App
Michelle explained she had been contacted by MHS OCRA teacher Joe Liberti regarding working with his
students in the OCRA program who are creating an app on green infrastructure for residents of the town and
the two villages. It would be a "go to"site divided into five headings containing environmental projects that
the Collaborative is working on. The app is called glide and currently, the Village of Larchmont is using it as a
communication tool with their residents.
Update: See attached memo from Michele for details
Update: Michele L and Mitch G held a Zoom call with OCRA teacher Joe Liberti and two of his students on
Friday, Oct 30.The student researchers demonstrated how their app is constructed and how it would "run".
The concept is very exciting and will be discussed at the Tuesday, November 10th Collab meeting.
Collab/ToM Board Issues Update—ToM Wireless Code Revision,5G
Steve A. reported that the Town Board is looking at whether to put a moratorium on future cell tower sites
(excluding the Bonnie Briar site)and that a draft of a moratorium has been created, as there's a certain
demand for that--both from the residents and from public safety needs.
Steve A added that in terms of going forward and looking at revising the telecommunications code, that's
something that will likely be done;just a question of when to do it. The board discussed putting it on the
agenda to look at a redraft of the law to see what it really needs.
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Eliza asked if the TB will review the new code that Rye put into effect and Steve responded that the Town has
to go through a process to upgrade the code. There was concern—what if someone installs 5G before the
prospective moratorium begins?Then, what would happen? Steve concluded by saying that this is unknown
and needs to be discussed amongst the Town Board.
Update: the Town may hire a consultant to review the current law and study changes to the Town law
Collab/ToM Board Issues Update—Leaf Blowers
George and Mitch discussed the successful VoL new leaf blower law and that it would be helpful to have a
boiled down version of the VoL Environmental Committee's excellent presentation to be shown to the Town.
There seems to be less interest amongst the TB to put a ban on leaf blowers similar to VoL's. The thinking is
electric blowers won't do the job well and there's also the potential added expense(and time)if landscapers
are not using the blowers.
Action Plan: George and Mitch will revamp Leaf blower/noise sub-committee,gather appropriate materials
from the VoL Enviro Committee and --using some of the marketing knowledge that Karen/June, etc. can
impart-- help educate the TB on the importance of a stricter leaf blower ban.
Collab/ToM Board Issues Update-LMJGDC(Larch/Mamk Joing Garbage Disposal Commission)
Karen welcomed MHS OCRA student Arielle(and Cameron is also participating) to the Zoom meeting, letting
us know they are very interested in the food waste recycling initiative and potentially going to curbside
collection. Karen expanded upon County Executive George Latimer's report earlier tonight that the county
has moved forward with this new program: "residential food scrap disposal"which is a transportation and
disposal program where the county will lower the cost for municipalities to divert their food waste by
contracting out with suburban carting to haul the food scraps from municipalities that wish to participate.
Steve A. discussed the continuing efforts for the Sanitation Commission to determine if they can go to
permanent curbside collection of trash which could help pave the way for food waste collection at the curb as
well. Much discussion ensued about how strongly residents feel about back/side door trash pickup and that
the Town Board needs to hear from residents who feel similarly to the Collaborative. Sue suggested Collab
members talk to their food waste recycling friends and neighbors and email the Town Board!
There was also discussion about conducting a survey to see how residents'opinions on food waste recycling
(ie would they participate if it was picked up curbside). Karen asked if perhaps the Commission could have a
pilot program where maybe 50 residents have their garbage picked up curbside once a week and food waste
picked up curbside once a week.
Action Plan: Mitch asked the Collabs to talk to two or three of their neighbors/friends who feel similarly and
ask them to write to the Town Board to express their desire for curbside trash collection and ultimately
curbside food waste pickup as well.
Update:the LMJGDC held a Public Hearing on Monday October 26 concerning the proposal to make curbside
trash collection the "default" option going forward.The LMJGDC continues to study the issue based on
community feedback received.The LMJGDC will next meet on Thursday, November 12.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:15pm.
The next meeting will be held on:
Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020 via Zoom, details to come
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