Sustainability Committee Public Meeting

Meeting discussion items:

1. August meeting minutes approval

2. Green Lecture series with library – Karen Cannon with Mobilize Frederick and Barb Trader spoke about climate change preparedness in August to a good-sized audience; October talk is scheduled for Saturday the 28th at 10:30am with Karen Whitehair talking about monarch butterflies; there will be no talks scheduled for November and December due to the move to the new library; shout-out to Gene for getting the Green Talks videos on our YouTube channel and to Jonathan for helping get the videos off iPads and ready for Gene!

3. Little Seed Library –has anyone been attending the presentations lately? Next up: Planning a Native Plant Garden on Saturday, September 23rd at 10:30am.

4. Outreach sub-committee report – the committee met to prepare for the Heritage Festival and Pam or Kristin will give their report.

5. Pollinator demonstration gardens – Memorial Park garden – proposed list of plants to install this fall in space currently filled up with Rattlesnake Master seedlings; Village of Foxfield eyebrow and circle planting – being watered three times a week; need to figure out a care schedule; Cindy plans to spend an hour or so there on Friday, Sept. 15th to do some weeding.

6. Compost project – two more compost bins available for purchase at municipal center – the other two will be used for raffles at Heritage Festival and next year’s Green Expo; we are advertising the Fred. Co. Dept. of Energy & Environment’s fall compost bin and rain barrel program;

7. Tree plantings – tree planting maintenance/inventory schedule (see below); letter of support sent for SilvoCulture grant request;

8. Tree trails – Jim Roessler is working on text for Cone Branch tree trail. New trees to add to Wiles Branch tree trail – white ash and black willow.

9. Tree City USA Growth Award potential projects– Cindy will start recruiting help to work on Growth Award projects.

10. Gift Tree Program – gift tree application came in for a redbud to be planted this fall; QR code decals have arrived and been placed on brochure holders; Ryan cut the plexiglass to place the other decals and Mark will get them placed.

11. Recycling event – fall event will be held on Saturday, October 21st with a time frame for the event of 9am - Noon;

12. Trex plastic bag collection – we can still take plastic bags to MES

13. Battery recycling at the Municipal building – we received the boxes and the response has been overwhelming; first box was filled up within two weeks at 19 pounds and the second filled up within a week later at 11.9 pounds; we need to recruit students to help with the battery collection boxes and promotion.

14. Weed control on Town streets and storm drains

15. Wildlife Habitat Advisors program – Karen is interested in being involved in this program.

16. Frederick County Sustainability Commission meeting – there was discussion about a municipal green team forum

17. October meeting date – third Tuesday – October 17th