2020-12-08 Green Acton Minutes
Attendees: Danny Factor, Jim Snyder-Grant, Kim Kastens, Mike Boss, Nyanna Tobin, Karen Root Watkins, Matt Liebman, Jane Moosbruker, Caroline Tripp, Carolyn Platt, Terra Friedrichs, Sue Jick, Debra Simes
Facilitator: Sue
Note taker: Terra
AGENDA
• Meeting intro, tasks, treasurers’ report, the Fundraising Committee will report, and money is already coming in
• Check-in + Community Comments & Queries
Terra talked about the facebook page: please check with specific committee involved before posting so that greenwashing info doesn’t get promoted. Example: MCAN (Mass Climate Action Network) is partnering with MAPC and others on some affordable housing / Smart Growth initiatives. Seemed like it was trying to sell growth as a climate solution. The land use group had talked about this initiative, and would have recommended against posting the announcement of this group.
Is posting about an event an endorsement? In some ways, yes.
‘Smart Growth’ might be a red flag term, or at least a trigger to talk to land use committee.
Discussion ensued. Admin committee will ponder.
• Committee reports Questions/Responses
LWV to hold a plastics forum. Do we want to be a co-sponsor? It’s expected to be similar to PFAS forum. General support, but suggest the Plastics group come up with a specific proposal to discuss/decide on at the next meeting. Re-Use owner to speak. Suggestion: Bring containers and examples of stuff to reuse. In the write up for the reports, the proposal exists.
Decision: Green Acton will be a co-sponsor of a February event with the WV / ACton Area on plastics.
22 Elm hearing on Tuesday
GA memo: https://greenacton.org/2020/11/21/statement-on-planned-elm-street-pcrc-development/
Important for GA members to show up to advocate for reducing the number of single family homes and to protect the intent of the cluster housing “PCRC” zoning bylaw
Redoing plea for people who want to work on toxics issues. It doesn’t live easily in only one committee’s purview (Materials, Water, Land Use, biodiversity all related). Please,anyone who is interested in this cross-cutting issue, get in touch with Debra or anyone on admin. Need someone(s) to be the “drivers.”
• Status updates:
> new WR Grace Ad Hoc Committee: approve initial membership
Had their first meeting, Jim Snyder-Grant (solar), Kim Kastens (water), Ron Parenti (abutter and former AWD commissioner), Ariel Wright Newman (expert in environmental risk assessment and abutter). Topic is too big and complicated and interdisciplinary for Water Committee, which had been carrying this. Includes solar panels, transportation (possible bike path), Land Use. Four people met. Initial task is to ensure the public meeting that WR Grace and EPA are organizing for Wed Feb 3 is well attended with a wide range of questions. Ron started assembling a map for our education and discussion that includes the different pieces, boundary of property, record of decision, solar panels. This is a working group that spans across other committees. First week in January, another meeting. If interested, speak to Kim or Jim. Kim’s not leading, just helping. This may be short lived because one of the BoS long-term goals is to somehow address reuse of the property, so it’s possible that a town committee may be formed. Would we then need a group outside the town structure, or might GA’s working group then be “done”? Terra wants to be on it, too.Can add land use perspective and experience. Initial committee membership approved with Jim, Kim, Ron, Ariel, and Terra. Our second task as a work group is to see if there are recommendations we can agree on for GA to consider as positions with respect to re-use.
Notes from the WR Grace working group https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dx_-7ycBaVkCt5H1t__0UbpNNBfCYM9x6TURsdUliNI/edit
Work plan approved last time.
> February 3 EPA public info meeting on WR Grace [see last item]
> Acton Sustainability Director hiring process is happening (woot!)
Jim: after the STM where the Town meeting members passed the climate declaration, the town manager who was thinking of doing something like this, and he would normally hire after the budget cycle, but he proposed that he hire full time sustainability manager with funding scheme, and he got a job description out there and got a lot of really good responses, large number of people applied, wide variety of backgrounds, at least one person is among us… someone either Green Advisory Board or GA or something, and so Town Manager didn’t think GAB or GA should be involved, but Debra and Jim were brought in to look at some anonymized writing samples. That was last week. Hoping to hire someone by 1st of January. Explicitly, stuff about transfer station. Deeper issues about recycling. Climate action plan. Explicitly includes reducing human impact from land use.
Danny: Transparency issue. Has there been a circumstance, has any job search included public applicant comment/review? No. Sometimes Town Manager does bring in specific people to advise him on particular hires.
Jim: there is a privacy concern; what if they don’t get the job? Would candidates want the public to know that they applied?
T: concerned and would like to see the language they used to see if there are land use red flags
Debra: GA approved Jim’s and my participation in this ad hoc Sustainability Working Group; Jim and I meet with John M., Peter Berry, Cameron C of GAB. So inasmuch as John invited us to review, they were blinded; it was a “take-home test”; we were asked to review those responses. In response to answers, emphasized sustainability issues beyond climate.
People generally OK with Debra/Jim involvement with hiring and not pushing for wider involvement.
Interest in working on toxics/pesticide issues in Acton? Let’s talk! [see materials note above]
• GA Committee autonomy: review of guidance document + potential approval
Link to that document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t0UNUEuUQA_YqFJpkSUPchqwolR0wIbBom1Z_fZm8k0/edit
General support.
Kim: Water committee, Kim invited to go to big gov’t meeting, brought that to co-prez, got an apprisal, so things that come on short timeframe to go through the process, successful to deal with through the formal process. Future issue to think about, what if someone has multiple possibly overlapping roles.
Danny: like that we start by saying grass roots, that’s good. But shift after that, there’s a whole list of reasons, credibility, etc… so it kind says, that although we’re grass roots, would like to figure out what grass roots really means, umbrella to what we do…the best ideas that we have aren’t top down but are bottom up reaching out to communities that are unheard and have ideas bubble up, rather than bubble down.
Jim: my experience is that the overlapping role thing is an issue, but I notice that when I’m speaking with people about environmental topics in other settings, I feel compelled to explain which hat I’m wearing and that seems like a good thing. Might be a good improvement.
T: agree. How would the promoting MCAN housing webinar thing fit within this?
Sue: we come up with docs, and they are not cast in stone, we may come to realize something’s missing, there will be time to go back and amend. Danny has talked about adjusting the tone, about committee autonomy…
Approved the committee autonomy document
Kim notes that Debra and I have been invited to meet with Chris Smith and the Grace remediation manager and the EPA community involvement coordinator,about the Feb 3 meeting. Would like to make sure there were no issues with having this meeting. Only concern expressed: watch out for the risk of stating implicit or explicit GA positions on re-use, since we don’t have any yet.
General support for Debra/Kim to help set up forum
• Check out
Caroline: Need to have “substantive” material different from “adminis-trivia” on the agenda [perhaps at time-certain] so new people know when to come for the substantive
Danny: how about we have verbal updates from the committees like we used to
Matt: agree with the others don’t want to mis-understand our positions, but we get bogged down like the discussion about plastics, more about whether we should approve it rather than the substance of approving it, when Carolyn sounded like she did everything she should have. What Danny said might help newcomers feel more like staying
Kim: Now that we have committees, a lot of the interesting environmental work happens there, and this meeting is where we do administrative stuff. New folks might enjoy coming to a committee meeting instead of the GA meeting where we hash out adminstrative stuff. Supports Danny’s idea about committees reporting which might help new members hear about what the committees are doing.
Danny: friend visiting from out of town came to Land use committee, and said that she didn’t realize that Land Use could be so interesting
Carolyn: is this meeting for Directors? Or new people?
Jim: that’s the question… we think of it as a gateway for new members, but it’s not really a greeting place, maybe we need more events like salons where environmental ideas are discussed, especially designed to get non-Board and other new members involved.
Sue: Admin will consider these ideas very seriously
Kim: like the idea of separating out director type stuff, but don’t want to close off the meetings. Future directors start as new members.
T: agree
Sue: everyone is welcome to our meetings,but here’s a heads up that admin will take all these ideas under advisement, and may try new things.
Sue: enjoy the holidays!