March 16, 2022 Meeting Minutes

Meeting Held at Ambler Borough Hall

Original Link

Attendees: Hannah Lloyd, Wes Pipitone, Jill Sanchez, Judy Baigis

Absent: Nancy Roecker-Coates, Shelly Grinar-Boyd

• Call to Order / Introductions (7:00-7:10)

  1. Please state your name, affiliation, and contact information 

• Presentation: None 

• Public comments (7:10-7:20)  

  • None 

• Ways to Get Involved (7:20-7:25)  

  1. Join Ambler EAC Earthfest Committee - email amblereac@gmail.com

     1. Next meeting Sunday March 27 at 3pm in the Borough Hall Gym

  2. Help Upper Dublin Tornado Re-leaf Effort 

     1. Sign-up to plant trees Saturday and Sunday April 23-24

     2. Non-Tree tender sign ups above

     3. Three time slots for three plantings 

     4. This will be in place of the Ambler Borough Tree Planting 

• Formal approval of minutes from February16th, 2021 (7:25-7:30)

  1. All motioned to approve

• EAC Updates (7:30-8:00)

  1. Draft of Single Use Plastics (SUP) is under way and was shared with Faran at Penn Environment for input. 

     1. Afterwards this will be reviewed internally.

     2. The EAC has been given permission to create this draft. 

• EarthFest 2022 (8:00-8:30) 

  1. Kick-off meeting held on 02/06 

  2. Two additional meetings were held 2/27 and 3/6

  3. Earth Fest Website has been updated with up-to-date information

  4. Next meeting Sunday March 20 at 7pm in the Borough Hall Gym 

  5. Invitations are being continuously sent out for exhibitors and vendors. 

     1. Recycling educational exhibitor was recommended to help answer questions and clear the air on this issue. 

     2. Would the EAC like to do a field trip to our local recycling facility? 

  6. Sponsorships have been received for the event and recognised on our web page. 

  7. Eco-collaborators will also be recognized for non-financial contributors who are putting additional time and effort into supporting the event. 

• EAC Membership (8:30-9:00) 

  1. Two open seats on the Ambler EAC  

• Committee Chairs (8:00-8:30) No new updates from Climate Action Committee, Open Space Committee, Creek Monitoring on Rose-Valley Creek. 

• Education and Outreach Committee (Shelly)

  1. Absent

• Treasurer (Wes)

  1. Some Dec reimbursements are still outstanding.

     1. In progress and should be received soon.

  2. Borough has new treasurer: Albert Yaghooty 

     1. Wes will look to plan a meeting with the new treasurer to introduce and inquire about more electric payment systems and digital receipt systems. 

• Keep Ambler Beautiful Committee (Nancy)

  1. Nancy absent

  2. Ambler Borough Park Clean - Kanna Gym Staff 

     1. April 23

     2. Kanna is a cross fit gym in the Ambler yards that wants to get involved 

  3. Team Up to Clean Up - Saturday May 21

     1. The EAC will partner with Borough Council again for this.

     2. Nancy is working with parks and rec for this. 

  4. Litter/Trash ordinances - no update

  5. Research, Outreach and Education on Plastic Ordinance

     1. See above under EAC updates 

• Shade Trees Committee (Jill)

  1. Held a PHS Advance tree pruning workshop in Ambler on 3/13

     1. Pruned 5 trees at Locust Street Park 

     2. Did not make it into downtown to prune

        1. The EAC received permission to prune some downtown trees and will plan to do so at another date. 

  2. Ambler Tree Tenders will partner with Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commision and Upper Dublin Tree Tenders to plant trees in UD Saturday and Sunday April 23-24

     1. Sign up genius above for volunteer effort. 

     2. Some Ambler Tree Tenders will plant with the Upper Dublin Shade Commision and Ron Ayres. 

  3. In March we’ll relaunch the adopt a tree program to include the new trees that were planted in fall 2021

     1. 3 residents have reached out wanting to adopt a newly planted tree.

     2. Hannah and Jill will update the tags and add new tags where needed.

     3. Will also do some more research and testing on how to better preserve the writing on the tags. 

        1. We have found that some writing has worn off due to high winds and weather over the past year. 

• Climate Action Committee

  1. Single use plastic ban. 

  2. The EAC has received permission to draft the SUP ordinance 

  3. Looking to have verbiage available soon for review. 

  4. A town hall event will be held for public input as well as a time to answer questions

  5. The goal is to have the ordinance draft ready before Earth Fest so that it can also be an opportunity for answering questions, taking concerns and having discussions with the public. 

• New business (8:30-8:35)

  1. April 19 Ambler Borough Meeting

     1.  Two students who have been heavily involved with the EAC and our volunteer efforts will be recognised by the mayor.   

• Updates from Borough Council: 

• Closing Thoughts (8:35-8:50)

  1. The EAC would like to propose to move our monthly meeting for April one day over, to Thursday April 21 instead of April 20. 

     1. Jill will reach out about this possibility and what that the EAC would need to do in order to make this happen.

• Next meeting: Wednesday April 21th, 2022 at 7:00pm (8:50-8:55)

  1. This meeting will be an Earth Fest Preparation meeting.

Adjournment (8:55-9:00)