Sustainable Madison Advisory Committee

Sustainable Madison Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes November 17, 2020 Due to the coronavirus outbreak, this meeting is being conducted on Zoom. Chairperson Kathleen Caccavale called the meeting to order at 1:33 P.M. STATEMENT IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE OPEN MEETINGS ACT: “In compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act, adequate notice of this meeting of the Sustainable Madison Advisory Committee (SMAC) Meeting was provided by transmitting a copy of the meeting notice to the Madison Eagle and Morris County Daily Record, posting a copy on the bulletin board at the main entrance of the Hartley Dodge Memorial, and filing a copy in the office of the Clerk. This notice was made available to members of the general public.” The following members acknowledged their presence: Kathleen Caccavale, Chairperson/Regular Member Peter Fried, Resident/Regular Member Lisa Jordan, Resident/Regular Member Gene Cracovia, Resident/Regular Member Stephen Tindall, School Board Representative/Regular Member Maureen Byrne, Borough Council Liaison/Regular Member Joan Maccari, MEC Representative/Secretary/Regular Member Marilyn Musielski, Resident/Regular Member Absent members: Angelique Devost, Resident/Regular Member Guest: Claire Whitcomb, Chair Madison Environmental Commission (MEC) November minutes were unanimously approved. Minutes will be submitted to Rosenet. Steve Tindall provided an update on Madison Public Schools. Election results for the school board are still being tabulated. Members reviewed the status of their submissions for the November deadline. Lisa agreed to submit the action for Health in All Policies, despite incomplete participation from the Board of Health. Kathi shared that submission of the Complete Streets action will roll over to 2021. 750+ points are anticipated for Madison Borough Sustainable Jersey participation this year. Peter shared that the dual EV charging stations are all up and running. He illustrated the signage for electric vehicle charging. Peter provided an update on community concerns about lawn care and maintenance, specifically noise and emissions from leaf blowers. Claire provided additional information about Quiet Communities and similar projects being explored by Quiet Princeton and Sustainable Princeton. Peter plans for Christian Wong, a Sustainable Madison intern and volunteer, to present his results on the community wide carbon footprint for Madison at the next meeting. Gene brought up concerns about a negative Facebook comment made about the energy efficient hybrid police cars. Peter agreed to work with the Police Department, and Borough Communications to respond to the comment with evidence. Communications about the Madison police cars were discussed. The EV event scheduled for early November was cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns. Claire acknowledged that a lot of good press and discussion was generated in response to the planned event. Claire Whitcomb provided an update on the Madison Environmental Commission initiatives. Claire and Peter talked with Susan Blickstein, the town planner, about hiring a Climate Action Project Manager. Claire will bring this recommendation to council members. She also shared support for passive house standards for new affordable housing. There was a discussion of maintenance of the meadow at the MRC. Kathi shared that Realogy maintains a meadow. Joan explained that Steve McAulliffe was overseeing MRC meadow maintenance. There was an interest in sharing information about meadow maintenance practices. Kathi discussed the need to update materials on Rosenet. It was agreed to edit a shared Google Doc for reviewing materials and suggesting edits to update existing webpages. A draft of the Master Plan will be posted on Rosenet today. The next SMAC meeting will be on December 15th at 1:30 P.M. The meeting was adjourned at 2:36 P.M. Minutes respectfully submitted by Lisa Jordan.