2010-07-28 Climate Advisory Committee Minutes

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July 28, 20 10 Reading Advisory Committee on Cities for Climate Protection Program Committee Notes for July 28, 2010. 7PM (Next Meeting- August 11 at Town Hall) Present were Ray Porter, Michele Benson, Tracy Sopchak, Ron D'Addario, Laurie Ann Sylvia;; Tozy_Ca~obianco, Joan Boegel and Stephanie Anderberg. T Meeting opening - Chair Ray Porter opened the meeting. Minutes - The minutes of the July 14 meeting were approved. 1° 2 3 Other Business to add to agenda - 1. Possibility of having Dianne Dumanowski visit Reading as an outreach speaker. 2. Solid Waste issues. Home Energy Efficiency Actions - HEET: Joan brought the grant check to Paula and we can invoice against that amount. She talked with Charles at Joe Green to begin checking possible dates for blower door parties. Next steps include contacting people from sign up sheets that we got at Family Day. On the EMARC house, Joan has been in contact with the new point person for this year. Next steps involve selecting an event date with EMARC and which EMARC property to do. We also need to do outreach for weatherization volunteers. Using the 350.org date probably won't work as it is a Sunday during a holiday weekend but maybe we can schedule a blower door party near 10/10 as our 350.org action. Business 1-2-3 Pledge - Previous contacts with the business community have led to some positive things like the conversion to LED holiday lighting in the town common. We need to re-connect with the business community and find out what they need in terms of things our committee can help with. What issues are they facing? What green efforts are they making and how can we help highlight those? Ideas include a green business awards program, decals for business entry doors, an energy roundtable and promoting the RMLD energy audits to businesses. First we should ask the Rotary and the Chamber about these ideas or other ideas. We could also ask contacts in other towns to ask if they have experience or know of similar efforts. Community Outreach Programs - 1 Sky: Ron will attend their meeting in Boston to see what it's about. Seems to be about advocating green causes to Congress. 350.org: This year's event will be a universal climate work day on 10-10-10. Dianne Dumanowski: a climate advocate and writer who lives in Boston. Ron emailed her to ask if she would speak at an event in town. We would need to think about how to make that work. School Outreach - Stephanie will forward an email with information about green curriculum materials. The local schools told Ron & Dave to check back in September. Dave has also been working on talking to school contacts about composting programs. Solid Waste Management and Recycling - We're not sure the bottle bill will pass. Some recycling changes include that new guidelines are to keep caps on bottles for recycling. Joan attended a meeting on DEP's draft solid waste master plan. Climate Action Plan Updates Town meeting is in November so we should check the warrant to see if there are other items we should weigh in on. School outreach was covered above. MassRIDES: Waiting on feedback from Peter regarding next steps. Green Sense: Ray will work on an article. Municipal Energy Efficient Buildings: RMLD is working on this with Mary DeLai so we should move this item to the "Maintenance" level on our list. The library meeting is still due to be rescheduled. Community no-idling: Selectmen are supposed to do a resolution to support the no-idling campaign. We need to check whether this has happened. Some materials were gathered for launching a campaign. - w RCTV: on old for the summer. What works best for now is to tape events that we're already doing. We still need confirmation that the first show was aired. Other Business - Covered above.