Environmental Commission

Madison Environmental Commission Meeting Minutes September 28, 2017 1. Call to order by Chairperson Stephan Stocker at Hartley Dodge 2. Announcement of meeting notice Statement of Compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act: Read by Stephan Stocker, Chairperson. This meeting of the Madison Environmental Commission complies with the Open Public Meetings Act. (P.L. 1975 c. 231) Notice of this meeting was provided to the Madison Eagle, Daily Record, Star Ledger, and to tapintomadison.com. Copies of this notice are posted on the bulletin board at the main entrance of Hartley Dodge Memorial and were made available to the general public. 3. Present: Stephan Stocker, Ann Huber, Trina Mallik, Claire Whitcomb, Ellen Kranefuss 4. Absent: Brian Monaghan 5. Events:  Bottle Hill Day taking place October 7th from 10am to 5pm 6. Guests: Joan Maccari, Bob Crescas, David Cohen, Frank Curran, Lisa Jordan, O’Neil Van Horn 7. Continuing Business:  Minutes from last meeting approved  We have one alternate seat and two full seats open on MEC; need to be filled so we can conduct our work and have more manpower for events such as Bottle Hill Day.  No site plan reviews 8. New Business:  Claire can help in updating MEC’s website  We should get more people to visit the Community Garde, which is quite a learning center with a bee keeping center, pollinator garden, and rain water catchment  Launching Solar Task Force o Stephan gave historical background of solar in Madison o David Cohen offered that the town needs more education on solar; there are schemes such as community solar, which Madisonians would buy into therefore owning the solar that feeds Madison o FIRST, we need to see what town is comfortable with. Must schedule a meeting with Jim Burnett. o David also suggested we could put a solar farm in Western NJ to serve Madison o Mayor and Town Council are decision makers. o There is currently an ordinance that no solar project can be greater than 100kWh. We would need to change that ordinance. o ‘generation180’ aggregates impact of small projects, e.g. schools: http://generation180.org/ o Vineland, NJ owns its own utility and has 20% renewable o Rozella Clyde says guest speakers are an effective way to get town to accept solar more o Bob says its important for the town to see solar; David agrees but still the majority of the solar may come from Western NJ if that is more economical o O’Neal brings up what does solar mean for this town? Where do you get pride from? Is it the environment? Job? Economics? o We need messaging on solar around town like Friends of Madison Shade Trees did on Main st. o Bottle Hill Day could be an opportunity to message solar more o Perhaps we get a Solar Task Force FB page