Environmental Advisory Committee

Agenda for the Environmental Committee Meeting Date: February 22, 2021 1. Opening – Dave Brizzolara “This meeting, which conforms with the OPEN PUBLIC MEETINGS LAW, CHAPTER 231, PUBLIC LAWS OF 1975, is a regular Environmental Committee meeting. Notices have been filed with our local official newspapers and posted on the Municipal Bulletin Board”. 2. Roll Call – X Dave Brizzolara X Dritan Xhillari X Norel Blundo X Boniface Kiamue X Kathryn Cribbin X Councilman Chris Montana 3. Public Forum – Cathy Harrington, Community Garden Master Gardener -one person has reached out about the Community Garden -Cathy wanted to talk to the group about the watering situation -Rick Woods is going to be installing a sprinkler system; 2 sprinkler heads – one closer to Harrington Avenue and the other closer to the baseball fields; still working it out with the engineers to how we are going lay the piping. Sprinklers will be on a timer -2 water tanks (one gravity feed, the other solar powered electric pump) -planning is being done -Norel – Community garden; there is still room to reach out old school methods – churches for example; -Boniface – intends to talk about this with the pastors to get the message out there -Cathy Harrington – the community garden was pretty much all used. We have 5 or 6 people that have two plots; we would need to limit that; getting people one plot upfront and then if the plots don’t fill up, you can then give people duplicates -Norel – need a cut off date -Boniface – we may need to expand in the future -Dave – education on gardening and community gardening at home -Cathy –tell gardeners to print and submit to Karen Hughes or Borough Hall. Could also email to Karen; -Chris – what is deadline for applications? Cathy - May 15 is late planning so by early June if all plots have not been allotted, second plots would be given out 4. Passing of the January Meeting Minutes - adopted 5. Council Liaison’s Report – New candidate members? Chris, we have two available slots; should go off the old list and see if people are interested, give them the opportunity; people should  also get those interested to fill out volunteer forms; will start making phone calls next week – Haley Rosado (lives in Westwood, works at HDR) – Chris spoke to Five Dimes Brewery but they are too busy right now for a meeting but want to meet up eventually; timeline for Brewery is still up in the air – Norel – we should maybe consider some other outlet in town – Chris/Dritan – we need to look at Westvale Park; laid the groundwork with Boswell to look at renewables options; Westvale is always breezy 6. Communication Initiative with the Community – Kate Cribbin -Chris said we can use Rec, Green Team Facebook pages -Dave – Can we create an WEAC Facebook page? Chris – yes -Kate – we can cross promote the information across Facebook pages -Norel – There are a lot of crossover projects with Green Team and the WEAC -Chris – we should drive everything through the WEAC -Kate – we should establish a presence on the website; website is very unclear on -Chris – these groups that are popping up are not technically part of the Borough; we need to take the initiative of defining the group’s role and take the lead -Norel – Green Team is in a gray area because they were established through a town resolution -Chris - Green Team was created as an internal borough planning group; anyone can join, but the key is that the resolution was created back in 2010 and it was meant to be 12 months -Boniface – are there things that we have tried to work with the Green Team on and have we run into issues with them on? -Dave/Kate – who controls the town website? It is very out of date; we should get more recent meeting minutes up and some of the projects we are working on and the new initiatives we are discussing -Chris – the Borough clerk maintains it, but we have to feed the information to -Boniface – has offered to help out and will team with Kate to formulate a way to update the town webpage with the group; will look for the logo and send to the committee Dave – action item for next meeting  we should all do some summaries of our initiatives and get these summaries over to Kate and Boniface for next meeting; Dave will pull records he can find for meeting minutes Chris – need to start Kate and Boniface with the Mission of the committee; there are guidelines for social media to be run through the town Kate – we can share working documents in Google docs; is Sustainable NJ a WEAC initiative of Green Team?  Norel – Green Team maintains Sustainable NJ Certification; Norel will be the new Green Team Liaison for WEAC Chris – Important that we incorporate “green” thinking into everything that we do, not just through Green Team Norel – what is the status of the TREX bench program? Are we going to continue to pursue this program? Dave – to find out who the TREX contact was Ways to communicate in the community: -Boniface – spread the word through the churches -Norel – we should really do something for Earth Day; environmental scavenger hunt; provide clues, read placards; use Westwood’s outdoor assets; prize could be sustainable products 7. Current Initiatives: Community Garden (Catherine Harrington) Renewable Resources and Waste Management (Dritan Xhillari) Home Landscape/Lawn and Garden (Norel Blundo) Nugent Park 8. New Initiatives 2021 Town Clean Up 2021 Planting Day Working with the schools on arts and crafts initiatives using recycled materials?