2014-02-12 Climate Advisory Committee Minutes

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OFq O� r '639 lNCORO0 Town of Reading Meeting Minutes Board - Committee - Commission - Council: Climate Advisory Committee Date: 2014 -02 -12 Building: Reading Town Hall Address: 16 Lowell Street Purpose: bimonthly meeting Attendees: Members - Present: Time: 7 p.m Location: Town Hall Conference Room Joan Boegel (chair), Ron D'Addario (Member), Ray Porter (member), Michele Benson (associate), and Gina Snyder (associate) Gina Snyder Members - Not Present: , David Williams (member), Laurie Ann Silva (member) Others Present: Bob LeLacheur, Bob Connor, Mike Scola Minutes Respectfully Submitted By: Ron D'Addario Topics of Discussion: Welcome to everyone. • Minutes were approved for January 22, 2014. • Bob Connor, speaking of Sustainable Winchester, asked if they could publish our Green Sense articles in their local newspaper. They would use our by -line in the article recognizing our committee as the source. The committee voted unanimously to allow them to print our articles, and Gina gave Bob a chip with many of our past articles. • Bob LeLacheur spoke of LED street lighting. He said that he was in favor of it and that Coleen O'Brien, RMLD general manager was also in favor of making a total conversion of our street lights to LEDs. He added that Coleen informed him that before she could act, she needed the results of three studies underway at RMLD. Their results would likely give her leverage to act on various initiatives. • Bob also referred to a DOE bulletin which would provide funds for various types of healthy community projects. Because of this funding, the south Main Street project, to change it to a three lane road with a bike lane, was back on the table. His staff referred to the project as the South Main Street Diet. The project would include new pavement, water pipes, trees and possibly gas pipes by National Grid. Bob stated that coordinating the project was a challenge. • Bob discussed bike paths for north Main as well as with a three lane approach. The difficulties of the task were discussed. Ray suggested minimally we could use a bicycle presence road sign without an actual path. Bob said he thought this was now illegal in Massachusetts. Bob added that Jesse Wilson has put together a major bike path proposal for the town. He added that Walker's Brook Drive was also a candidate for a bike path. Page 1 1