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we're saying we'd like to do that and we'll be open and honest which is why i'm saying it here tonight is that that would be our first choice but if it does not pan out the way we think it's going to pan out because the pandemic rears its head again next year let's just say then we may have to make it some adjustments in this and so we'll be having dialogue with you guys on a regular basis as to what's happening with these dollars and what are the adjustments we have to make we have the science and social studies curriculum again we would hope that we would have 10 new teachers and that we would continue to fund them for not only next year but the year after the year after that again if it was only five teachers we might try 10 next year and only get five again it may be that with everybody 100 percent in our classrooms that we think that this is not a wise use of the money so this is just a bridge an idea of what we could do it is not in any way locked in stone for future years we'll just have to see where it is if we're going to add three professional development days to to our certified staff then we're gonna need some help with our coaches throughout the summer to help plan on that so not only for this summer but next summer in the summer after and we've conservatively put it at 25 000.

some people already have some commitments for this summer so not all coaches are gonna be able to help us and we recognize that we're looking to do the additional hashtag four days for the next three years after that again that's the dollar amount that's there the computer initiative to lisa to your question there would be an anticipation where we would have to go ahead and purchase additional computers in 2223 and 2324 which is 400 000 each those numbers could go up or go down depending on the cost of a chromebook depending on the numbers depending on everything else how is this conservative then because we said 5.4 million dollars is what that adds up to but we said we were going to get 6.5 million so we're still a million you know 1.1 million that we have not yet spent and that's not speaking to the potential of additional dollars that we could access out of here because there is no commitment to future years for this there's a bridge and there's a plan we will utilize this to start our discussions a year from now on the budget but depending on any number of factors we may collectively as a board as ccc as administration say we need to do something a little bit different something's come up that we hadn't anticipated so we want to go ahead and put more dollars towards x and that gives us the flexibility to do that and so even though there's a lot of dollars up there and it's a lot of money there's and there's a plan to move forward there is still enough latitude to adjust to whatever we need to adjust to over the next two to three years questions on this part i think and so that's the overall plan for the budget um in terms of what we'd like to do if there's not concerns with this group then obviously we'll talk to ccc and then based on the input we're back we'll also do a presentation it'll more than likely be a virtual presentation to the entire district if so it's just maybe an uh iteration of what's up here because we're not going to go an hour and a half with the entire district on on a discussion but there'll be an iteration here if we get specific feedback you might see some minor adjustments or you might see a situation in april that we bring you option one on option two based on what people are concerned about but so again this is this is not to say that if someone has a major concern or a large group of individuals have a major concern that we're not going to listen to we will then decide what's the next best step if everybody's comfortable with it then you'll probably see many things in april may and possibly june that will just mirror what we talked about up here example you won't see necessarily right away the science curriculum piece it might be a june uh note that you get that says hey we're approving to go out for an rfp for uh science curriculum so you're not necessarily going to see everything in april but we will spread it out over the next couple of months you guys have any questions so maybe they're not questions but maybe some comments or maybe they're question comments so we talked about the seven and ten additional teachers like for online if that were to come to us there would be like a big explanation of like this is how many students we assume are going to be online next year here's what we're thinking here's what we're doing right yes yes we will bring you a presentation of what the instructional model looks like okay and that would be the same thing if we're looking at reducing class sizes what are their current sizes now what are we looking yes again i would caution everybody so that i've said this before and i'll keep saying it it's it really applies at all levels but it's the math is simpler at the at the elementary schools when you only have two teachers the division is fairly simple division and if you add additional teachers number one just so because this comes up every every time not just in this district but other districts there's not enough teachers nor is there enough money to to truly give every grade level and every department across the entire district an additional teacher not enough teachers in the world and not enough money in the world to do that so even if we say we're going to go ahead and reduce that does not mean that every first grade across five schools gets an additional teacher and so what would happen in those situations is we would have to take a look it may be easier in a high school setting where we may be able to add additional teachers that you can spread across all the english classes at the elementary a little bit harder there's going to have to be if we get to that stage pick and choose as to what we think is the most critical area that we're going to have to provide resources to to go ahead and address the situation uh if it if it ends up going for a true reduction versus helping out with the with the online kids does that make sense right and that's and we'll work on that and then that would be presented to you guys so we're not going to move on anything without presenting it to you but just know as we're thinking through it there's lots of tangents to it so as we're thinking through the science and socialized curriculum just i'd be interested to know also when was last time english and math was adopted just as part of that so that we can make sure that we have all that information elementary yeah so just as you present that make sure that's part of the definition we'll do that we'll do that okay anything else so i have a question how i know you guys didn't bang this out in one day so how long did this take to do you don't want to ask him i do they don't like my process you've been working months weeks like what no i mean we've been talking about it as a leadership team and as a cabinet going back to probably we started in january and then the first monday of of spring break we spent all day in here working on this and so again it's it's an ongoing process some of the stuff that you were shown uh relative to how to build a budget carla showed it to the leadership team that might even be in december so it's a process that goes on on for several months to make sure uh again number number one we want to listen to what the concerns are and and i'll be honest if there's two concerns we're listening to we're listening to the staff concerns but we're also listening to administrative concerns what are they trying to do to move the district forward um and so that becomes and then number two transparency this is the level of detail that that we're not we're showing everybody what the numbers are and so we're trying to provide transparency and why we're doing what we're doing and how we're doing what we're doing but it does take uh uh honestly a three or four month process looks good though and um so at the beginning do i said you guys if you had any so do you guys have any like burning i want to stand up and say something no need to wake up first i just have a few comments i want to make before we close out um first i want to compliment you on many and various priorities that have been met all the eggs were not just in one basket they were spread in many different areas of concern and i think you found multiple funding sources i put together a i know shelley laughs at me i love it but my spreadsheet with all the different funding sources that you've used and have counted eight or nine different ways of getting money in addition to just what the m o budget provides and sometimes it's easy to overlook funding sources and i think you've done a great job of capturing many of them and i also want to say that it looks like you have equity in the system trying to be fair to all parts of the district so i want to compliment you on that and all of you on that thank you okay okay so now we want to move to the agenda item do you have anything else i think you were going to work i was just i just wanted to add my accommodation and thanks to everybody and all the effort put into that i know obviously you said you know we're gonna still work with this a bit but clearly there's a lot of work and thought put into that and a lot of collaboration which i think is a hallmark of this district and the way you guys are uh running yourselves as a leadership team so i just wanna commend you on that and thank you for your effort and i think um we've got a lot of wonderful things we're looking at there so thank you for what you're doing once again very professional very incredible thank you i would like to know when you take it to other sources like what their com their comments or concerns about or whatever right you'll see that what way if so for example what we'd like to do at the at the april 14 board meeting is is bring forward the compensation package and so if there's specific issues that arise within our presentations good or bad then that will be part of the presentation on the compensation so i may not give you one that says hey this is what we heard on everything but as we move some of these things through and moving forward then we'll make sure that that we provide updates and some again i can assure you that both science and social studies will have teachers on on the committees to choose but obviously until we get into that you won't see who is on the committee until we actually move a recommendation and then we'll let you know who it is but it'll be across the entire district across the grade levels and so we'll bring that stuff to you to help you to see what's going on okay okay so then with that i think we'll go ahead and move to um the 6 6.1 so what we have with 6.1 again is just to to move forward as quickly as possible uh we have gotten quotes from dale for chromebooks for our one-to-one initiative and so uh we've talked about it and i'm more than happy and craig can come out here if you have some some specifics that i can't answer but in essence based on what we presented into the budget we would then move forward with this recommended nation to move forward with one-to-one computer initiative as presented and that would then allow us to uh order these and and project to have them in by july first so that we can go ahead and start the one-to-one initiative next year we we will get the details of specifics out because what we're looking at with k-6 is they will not be handed to kids to take home they would be stored in in in a cart uh in the in the classroom seven through 12 they would be released to the kids the insurance component speaks to the seven to twelve kids who would have insurance uh for the coverage of the cost of what happens if one's broken um uh so in in some of the cost we're also looking at the replacement of laptops for our our uh teachers in a phased uh situation so it's a it's a comprehensive look at it but in essence gets everybody to where they need to be on a one-to-one uh that we've moved forward with as we as we go and and we would uh look to see if anything comes up you you will not see the server and the backup stuff in this agenda item but it will come forward in april any questions on this yes i do i have a couple too you want to go no no okay in comparing the student count and the current chromebook count there's a difference of 1240 and yet we're thinking of purchasing more than that is that for anticipated student growth there there's some anticipated student growth in there uh there's also craig when we have the numbers at 1250 and we're anticipating uh what's the the differential between that um drawn to blank are we already replacing some well that's part of it right when when you do a one-to-one you want to have you try and have like 10 because if inevitably something's going to happen a student will break a device so that way we'll have a replacement while we get the device repaired so you want to have that that cushion in there for any damage and if we have additional growth you know if we got the exact number then we have to go and purchase additional chromebooks right away so and that's why we get some more and we're and we're anticipating that we're trying to get our order in early is that what you're saying yes okay okay and the reason the reason for that again if you remember last year everybody was buying chromebook many districts were buying chromebooks and if you recall i think there were several districts in the state where first of all they came from china and we weren't accepting product from china at the time and so they weren't even released off the docks in los angeles and everybody's getting ready to start school and people are scrambling trying to get the computers uh and they in fact had to get i think a couple different congressmen to help get them get them released in time if we get in out of the gate quick then then we may not run into those kind of issues because we will have the product before everybody else tries to get it okay and craig could you put the supporting document up there on page three because i have a question about that i think would be easier to take a look at the the numbers if it's up on the screen okay so so when you look at 1500 chromebooks at 623 9116 it comes to about four hundred and sixteen dollars per then you look at a hundred chromebooks at seventy thousand that comes to seven hundred and ten dollars per why the difference in price per when they're the same chromebook actually the devices for the staff are have more specs in them because the teachers are doing more than the students okay so it's got more memory you know more hard drive space that kind of thing it's not the same exact thing no not at all the teachers need a little bit beefier device than the students do okay that makes sense that's why the price is different okay good question yeah all right you're on steve so comes middle school is that count correct so the student account says 683 chromebook count is 883.

is that a yes i mean is go to page one i mean so that is an accurate account but you'll see that if you look at all the schools we definitely have to move chromebooks around so in theory and we haven't talked about how we're going to hand out the devices and where they're going to go and all that we haven't gotten to that detail yet all the devices at the middle school could be handed out to the middle school kids and then we could take the you know 200 that are extra and then you know like um cta needs some ellsworth you know needs a little bit you know harman we're a couple hundred short there so that's how we'll just have to spread it out to the other schools but comes middle school right now is essentially one to one as you can see all right so my next question and probably gonna offend some people here does every kindergartner need a chromebook i mean i i just i don't know i'm struggling with that one well actually it's i mean even the preschoolers will have access to a device as well all the way up through 12th grade right now i'm just saying all day every day do they need access like do they need one so that they can access it any day all day every day if that makes sense okay so oh a couple different things and i'll have the principal speak up because i see heads nodding but but um the piece that you have to understand that that creates a situation with it's a little bit easier at the elementary uh with carts because they're in carts um it's easier just to put the carts in each one than to try to wheel them back and forth depending on what how you're going to use it so teacher a wants to use a teacher b teacher a is a super user teacher b is the sort of user and so teacher a dominates and never gives the computers to teacher b this puts it in every every single classroom now well they use it every single day all day long not necessarily it becomes more dependent upon the teaching assignments that are taking place but yes the idea would be that the kindergartens would have access to it and i'll let some of the they're not taking them home i can also say being a kindergarten teacher myself at one time they may not use it at the beginning of the year but being into going into first grade they better be using it every day if the first grade's using it or have access to it we're looking at the digital curriculum so providing that for kids um learning for all kids the last thing is um you guys are you shaking your head anything you guys want to add forward our kindergarten teachers are begging and asking for those chromebooks in the classroom that the other classrooms do right now they're asking for that they need them as part of rotations and i agree you're not to expect to walk in the classroom and see 25 kids all on a computer at the same time so we might not need necessarily one-on-one although i think that's what we're trying to go for okay thanks are you thank you [Laughter] so any other questions comments lisa do you have anything to add okay bob are you done with your question i'm done chad what do you have i'm good no comments either what don't encourage them i just figured okay so no i agree with what they're saying i i see where i see where steve's coming from with his question as usual i understand what he's saying he has to ask the question i know it was it was a it was a valid question okay so um but i agree that we need them are we ready to make a motion i'd like to move to approve the purchase of computers and computer equipment to implement the one-to-one computer initiative as presented second all in favor motion carries five to zero do we have any announcements please say no i'm just saying it's getting close to my bedtime okay so we don't need any other meeting prior to our next one right no do you know when our next one is is it in your calendar that's also a fair question [Laughter] yes it is okay i'm gonna motion to adjourn at 6 50.

second all in favor

american environmental commission calling in from ann arbor one of the things we'll need to do is uh state uh your name uh during the roll call please state your name and uh where you're calling in from okay um so the meeting is called the order at 702 pm um galen do you want to start with the land heritage statement indeed hi i'm galen hardy and i'm dialing in from detroit michigan um as a staff liaison um i acknowledge that the land the city of ann arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including the odawa ojibway and bodhi watmey and wyandotte peoples i further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the in the united states on land obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous people this taken of the land was formalized by the treaty of detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals and that's the land heritage statement well thank you again so galen would you you want to start the roll call sure okay all right just one second um okay uh commissioner graham commissioner graham commissioner skinner commissioner skinner commissioner needham commissioner needham and hold on one sec i'm gonna check and see if they're in the queue nope they're not all right councilmember dish yes uh commissioner gibb randall commissioner gibb randall is here you need it oh okay uh council member griswold commissioner kylie ward here chairman brown uh president commissioner overpat commissioner overpack commissioner marski here and i'm participating from my home at 505 bursting place in ann arbor all righty uh vice chair mitchell a president calling in from ann arbor all right commissioner bonilla um here calling in from ann arbor all right commissioner affairs commissioner affairs we have a quorum all right thank you galen so the first the next item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda do i have a motion to visit kathy seconded by lisa um discussion i hear no discussion request for discussion so um who uh who approves of the uh agenda that is written please raise your hand or say aye aye aye all those who opposed um the agenda passes unanimously so we come to the part for special presentations so uh this this session of the environmental commission will be basically centered around solid waste so i thought i would invite a couple of uh people here to update the commission on the uh on worma recycling challenges and on and on composting uh don uh dan butinski was not able to be present today because we care organics is uh building a composting facility for the city of uh grand rapids so he's very busy with that um but the first up on the agenda here for a special presentation is theo eggermont from the county from washtenaw county he's going to give us an update on warmup um theo hello you may not have realized he was first up there uh steve do you uh can you text him or do you want me to text him like my head's up um yeah you might yeah i don't have his uh i don't have his text information his phone go ahead and do that and we can start with you brian if he's not ready if he's stepped out for a minute okay i i i sent him a text we'll see what happens um i'm happy to go ahead and get started um i don't have uh control of the sharing screen so if the host could oh okay kathy uh i see that bob needham is an attendee okay he's coming in now okay so um okay why don't we get started um why don't we get started with you brian sounds good thanks for sharing screen can everyone see yes yeah i can see i appreciate the opportunity to talk with you i'd like to talk a little bit about zero waste tonight um i uh as as steven mentioned and i think a lot of you know i'm i'm the ceo at uh recycle ann arbor it's a non-profit uh a community-based organization we're uh been around for about 42 years we did the first the fourth uh collection recycling collection program in the country and the first one for the state of michigan and have done curbside collections for the city of ann arbor since its inception we do uh we also are uh re-equipping the materials recovery facility so we can process our material locally and we have a 10-year agreement to process the city's recyclables um we have a recovery yard out in societal township where construction demolition material is processed and and recycled and we also have a lot of education advocacy that we've done since uh since our inception and and our reuse center uh just was forced to to close and we're looking at reimagining that but reuse is very much a cornerstone and a major component of recycle ann arbor so we're working to to reopen in some way shape or form so do a number of things i think everyone probably already knew that but i just wanted to say that for the record i think the other thing that you probably have seen before is a higher a solid waste hierarchy but i just wanted to show you um the current uh solid waste hierarchy um that's sort of an upside down uh pyramid this is this was created by the zero waste international alliance and that's a group that has been around for uh 20 25 years and implements worldwide a number of zero-waste programs new zealand all the major countries that do zero-waste programs they've uh they're very involved and very involved in the united states as well so there's they're well respected um this is uh the hierarchy that they've come up with and it much more accurately represents um the uh prioritization of of solid waste management in today's sort of infrastructure um and i wanted to say something that we all know but we don't talk about a lot and um it that's that recycling won't solve the weight the solid waste problem the bottom line we can't recycle our way out of this recycling is an amazing tool amazing tool and the impact that it has on climate change and other is just amazing but uh putting more trucks on the road is not the is not the solution so what i'd like to talk with you a little bit about today is um what i do think uh is uh gets at the root and starts uh solving the root problem of of wasting and that's zero waste and i'm sure a lot of you have heard the the term used and it gets used a lot interchangeably with uh circular economy and and good recycling and real recycling and a whole bunch of different things but zero waste is very different and as i mentioned this alliance is uh one that's uh uh put together a lot of uh tools um that more accurately address today's solid waste problem so uh i think the the what i'd like to propose tonight is um we look at uh this zero waste uh issue um where the investments that we're making in the city of ann arbor and and in our community um accurately reflect um our values and uh where we think as a more what we think is a more accurate way to address the solid waste issue so um we have in a lot of cases an integrated waste management system that's currently in place and i'll talk a little bit about the the difference between the two but sort of the the bottom line of zero waste is is that the investments and the the prioritization of redesigning systems you can see at the top there so we're not just sort of standing at the tailpipe but we're actually looking at redesigning and prioritizing and putting our resources toward redesigning and prioritizing as number one priority reduction and reuse we've been working a lot in the typical integrated waste management program and this is it's rare for communities to sort of look at things in this way but uh but it's becoming more and more common um not just uh very progressive communities but sort of uh communities that have been doing recycling for a number of years and and are seeing that there's not as uh haven't been as successful at actually getting at the core of what the solid waste issues are so i'd uh um challenge us to think about zero waste as far as prioritizing what the issues are that where our values are and not starting sort of in the middle of the pyramid so this is a little bit of a complicated slide but i think um the idea is that um the opportunities are different and the programs that are implemented are different with the zero waste perspective and a zero waste model versus an integrated waste management model so um there are a number of pieces here a number of opportunities within this zero waste model but um you know obviously a big one is is uh we get to stop wasting natural resources so you know seven billion people on the planet and um you know fresh water fossil fuel metals um all of those resources are limited and uh zero waste just helps us live within the planet's means by using the resources more efficiently so uh we have the raw materials for future generations and that's kind of the definition of sustainability is as having the resources that we need to to for future generations and making it a sustainable venture i think the other part um that is obviously missing from a lot of integrated waste management plans is the environmental justice so um i think a lot of people think garbage and the waste problem is sort of a technical problem in other words we might be able to invent a magic box or or a tool or a thing that would sort of we we could get out of this mess by with technologies but uh but the waste problem is it is not just a technical problem it's very much ingrained and very much embedded in everything that we do every every system every government every um system that we have put in place as humans is impacted by it so it's not just a technical problem there there's a larger web out there there's issues of health there's issues of equity there's issues of race power gender poverty all of those things play importantly into waste management or zero waste programs so we need to identify that and we also need to to in order to get to and achieve true solutions um all of our systems that we create need to take a close look and work to support those systems of of social and economic justice and ecological sustainability so we're not just looking at this in a in sort of a how do we get it off the street it really we're we have a clear understanding that this is like something that very much impacts every part of every every person's life talk to your neighbor about garbage and see how passionate people can get about it it's very much ingrained in people's lives so we need to make sure that we represent um those those things like gender like power like race in in our systems that we're creating i think a bit you know one of the biggest opportunities is reducing the climate impact uh zero waste is the fast is one of the fastest easiest ways climate action strategies that that communities can implement today to immediately re reduce greenhouse gases and we're you know we talk a lot about you know very very expensive very much all you know land or uh people are altering systems and very expensive systems but we have the systems in place now to reduce these green significantly reduce these greenhouse gases by implementing these strategies so it's uh it's kind of exciting but it's also daunting i think at the same time but if you if you look at it 43 percent 43 almost half of the greenhouse gases that are created from are created from from uh uh consumption emissions from the stuff we use and buy and and and deal with and that's food too so you know there's 43 of the problem for for climate change so there's huge opportunity there i think there's also this issue of you know energy intergenerational equity i think that's a an important issue every single one of us and our kids and we we all have um we all carry toxics toxic chemicals inside us and it's it's because of dirty manufacturing polluting landfills polluting incineration uh we just have those you know micro plastics there's just you know a host of things that we carry around with us and a zero waste model really redesigns those products and those manufacturing processes to make them less less toxic to make them less impactful to your future generations that's just an inheritance we don't want to pass on to our kids we want to create local jobs this is a big one you know look at what we're doing at the murph you know seven billion dollar investment in in a local murph all those jobs are going to be local jobs they're going to be union jobs they're going to be good paying jobs and if you look recycling creates 10 times more jobs than landfilling or incineration that's huge and that's right here in our community you know so so it's a huge opportunity there and i i think the the quality of those jobs is good for this community and they're they're they're set up for low and and mid-skilled workers which is the the priority for manufacturing um creating manufacturing jobs right now so they're the kind of jobs that we need to have here and uh you know strengthening the local economy by keeping those dollars local everybody's probably heard you guys are council members and stuff that that uh you know those those um dollars that stay in the community are you know eighty percent of that money is actually used in the community um versus when it goes away to a multinational where the the uh the benefits aren't as great to the local community so let's keep those dollars local whenever we can and let's keep the the uh the material itself the recyclables that we're creating or the material that we're creating let's keep that local and do good stuff with it we need to keep that circulating in our own community and tied a circle as we can so so there's opportunity there and then the big one i i'm sorry um uh the composting folks aren't going to be able to be here but i'll just mention you know on the healthy soil side of things the composting side it's amazing the the benefits of composting you know we have uh significantly depleted soils in ann arbor and and all around from pesticides from construction from you know poor agricultural processes things like that and keeping that compost local it replenishes our soils right here and what that means is the nutrients stay right here and that creates healthy soil right here healthy soil equals healthy food equals fewer pesticides less water used and most importantly or more as importantly compost actually sequesters carbon so there's this amazing benefit that happens there's these all kinds of really cool programs that are happening with compost to sequester carbon so the opportunities are huge and if you think about it from the perspective of like the the a2 0 carbon neutrality plan and you see how well a zero waste plan would enhance that it's it's exciting to think about you know i think i i need to mention a little bit about what zero waste isn't because i think there's a lot of misinformation it's it's confusing you know so i just wanted to sometimes it's easier to demonstrate what zero waste isn't and that kind of can help folks a little bit but it's not a hundred percent recycling or composting um actually a hundred percent recycling and composting it could actually perpetuate single-use items and and items that we don't want in the first place so you hear me bash and rece it sounds like i'm bashing recycling i'm not i'm looking at it in a more comprehensive way so and i think that's what we need to to start taking a a look at so so it's not a hundred percent recycled not just 100 recycling or composting again those both have amazing benefits but they're not the solution we really want to get to the root of the solution and get to the root of the problem so we can get to the solution um zero waste to landfills you probably hear that a lot subaru says that a lot you know zero where's getting close to zero wasted landfills it just means they're still using waste to energy incinerators things like that and and that doesn't get us to zero waste that's still a linear model where you use it and you burn it and it's gone and that's just not an efficient way and it's not it's not a sustainable way to continue so it's not zero waste to landfills um we want it's not circular in any way we want to create circular a circular model that that where that material gets used again and again and again and yeah you get a little bit of energy from it but then the material is wasted and then you have toxic ash so what do you do with it then you still have to landfill the ash so it's not not not a very good system but zero waste of landfill is a bit of a buzzword um absolute zero items are discarded that's another thing that people think is like oh my god it's i it means i'm only going to be able to generate a jelly jar of waste per year and you see that on youtube all the time where somebody's got just a little bit of yarn and some bubble gum and they say this is what i did for a year it's not like that you know even the the the institute this zero waste institute um talks about 90 being what's feasible today not even in the future today ninety percent using these zero waste models that that we can set up and ninety percent is darn near zero waste and that's close for me that's a lot better than we are now so so we don't have to be so pure in our thinking and and then i think just sort of that integrated waste management model um it just that that integrated waste management model assumes there's always going to be garbage and you're sort of standing at the tailpipe and you're just saying all right what's coming at me and how am i going to catch as much as i can we really need to crawl up that tailpipe and take up a different approach to what's coming at us in the first place so integrated waste management also assumes that waste is inevitable and um instead of addressing on the front end like i showed you the reverse of redesigning and reusing so i'll just finish with this you know uh i i believe a a city-wide plan a city-wide zero-waste plan is needed in in ann arbor and uh and it i think it's very achievable i've seen it in many communities i know it's achievable um but it needs achievable and visionary goals for our community because every single community is different you can't just overlay okay let's bring in a zero waste plan that doesn't work it has to be tailored to our community has to be based on those guiding principles that the the zero waste institute and others have put put in place it needs to be centered on reducing and reusing and designing first and then worry about you know start putting resources toward other other items but we need to resource that part of what we're doing and it needs to be created in a collaboration because like i mentioned it's a living breathing organism it touches everybody's life in so many different ways so it has to be a collaborative model that brings in all the stakeholders and it's part of an overall sustainability plan if you look at the a20 plan there's a big piece of it there but we have a solid waste resource management plan swamp or shrimp or whatever what we need is a zero waste plan that addresses this stuff in a different way so that's that's about what i had on that that's i'd be happy to answer questions too if anybody has any questions okay well thank you brian um let's see if you have a question for brian please raise your hand um shannon oh shannon i can't hear you sorry having technical difficulties with my computer today i'm wondering brian if you've seen other communities successfully be able to um change industry in terms of packaging one of the things that just drives me nuts is is how you know just totally packaged things are in complicated ways and when you're a dedicated recycler it's like wow you know pulling apart you have to be really dedicated sometimes to pull the plastic off of the you know the the cardboard and you know to be able to figure out what parts you can recycle and not and um it just seems to me that boy it would be great to be able to actually shift how people ship things in terms of packaging stuff and i'm just wondering if you've seen any um evidence of communities being able to to influence companies that are making these decisions around design and not around not around um you know not around zero waste design or recycle every once in a while you get something like that but it's not the norm and i remember hearing something about prince edward island in canada um because they essentially were running out of landfill space and it started telling manufacturers that they wouldn't ship their products to their island if they didn't have a like a more sustainable way of dealing with their packaging and it just made me think like wow you know can we push back and and have you heard of other communities that have been successful and being able to move the needle on that i think that's a great question and you know it it it just drives me crazy when um i see uh ads on tv and i hear uh manufacturers say if you guys you you consumers of products would just work a little harder and recycle a little more we could get this done you know at some point it's not about us it's about the manufacturers being responsible for the products that they're generating in the first place and it the major concept that's got more uh i i would say more traction than i've i've seen i've been doing this 30 35 years and the most traction i've seen is actually legislatively as this year there's more uh extended producer responsibility legislation in the various state houses senates and and being introduced on a national level than than i've seen in my career and it is just it's difficult to track there's so much of it but the idea is that um producer pays and and maybe they don't pay at all but they share in the in and and and they make packaging that is recyclable you know i've got i got stuff coming in to the murph all day every day the materials recovery facility the recycling facility it's multi-layered plastic that's got cardboard and plastic around it and you know the resident puts it in there in good faith and says it's got plastic man it's recyclable but and and they know they're kind of wish cycling you know they're kind of like i really want it to be recycled man and i get it i get it but it's not it's just not and it just gums up the system and that's not necessarily your fault as a resident that's the producer's responsibility and they need to share in the responsibility so extended producer responsibility on a state level is what i see and um just like in a lot of other cases well with cigarettes and with many other things that uh people have had to work on um there's this mishmash of different states doing different things and it drives the producers crazy they're just like how can i keep up with this you know and so um what you'll see eventually is a national policy like they have in in canada and there's there is extended producer responsibility in canada and actually they do pay for recycling because right now you pay as a resident your taxes you pay for the all of the recycling and so those producers what they're creating that's not fair man you need to do stuff that's recyclable that that actually pays to recycle so it doesn't make it more and more and more expensive so so that extended producer responsibility and that read the redesigning of products that's at the top of that pyramid that i showed that's what that's a piece of it is lobbying and working on a state level but also on a local level i i lived in boulder for about six years and i also lived in in minneapolis and st paul and i mean yes st paul kind of a midwest city just kind of like a regular kind of city boulder kind of a progre very progressive city kind of like ann arbor is so two different models there but in uh in boulder you can't use styrofoam packaging in boulder you can't use bags in boulder you can't the uh the people can't just dump on you you know they that the city will push back and the same is with minneapolis and st paul and they have a little more cloud in doing it but but there's all these preemption laws where the manufacturers come in and they say no you can't do that you can't do that we're gonna preemptively say you can't do that but you're seeing that turn now with this new legislative session and and kind of what's happened there's so there's this tidal wave of stuff coming at them and they realize oh i gotta do something and even me on a materials recovery facility or recycling level um the producers are coming to me coca-cola is coming to me and saying hey man how can we make this work you know so um so i think you're seeing a lot of change but but we as a city can create a plan and push back together and that has the most power there's nothing scarier than a city that's got a clear vision did that answer it yeah no that's great thanks okay okay thanks rita you had your hand up next thank you um thanks i really appreciate the kind of the way you presented in the inverted pyramid because that's one of the my greatest wish i think is to extend our contribution to that inversion if you have you created or done any kind of auditing of our waste stream to know the percentage of what you consider good recycling from from things that are really totally wish recycling is there like a percentage like or where or where would you put us on that inverted pyramid also it's kind of what i'm trying to kind of two different questions you know one is um kind of what is the wish cycling versus the the uh recyclables and then the other is kind of where do we fit on that specter you know when ann arbor sort of fit on this on the spectrum but you know as there are some real good measures and we do a quarterly audit uh or composition analysis of the recyclables very rare for any community to do but it's what when you work with a non-profit recycler they just got different mission different vision different you know set of standards so so you got that so you know on once a quarter we go in and say what's in there and we call it residual the wish cycling is the residual and so some people they'll put 50 foot hoses in there and you're like dude i know you you know that's not recyclable so that's a little bit on this on the other spectrum of wish cycling versus hey man i just want to get rid of it and my recycling cart is close but um the there's not really a designation of wish cycling versus just residual but the residual and the wish cycling together um right now we're in we're in real good shape we're at less than 10 percent um just as a comparison just and that sounds high i know but that's no i think it sounds really good very good it's very good and it's because of the community we live in you know i'd say that people are very aware um but uh still 10 is a long way from where i came from which was two percent you know and so there's a lot of work needing to be done but uh but just as an example chicago's at over 30 percent of what they bring in is is not recyclable and and so we we really have to redouble our efforts and it's not just about educating people on what's recyclable and what's not but it's also educating them hey man can you avoid it in the first place you know can we look at like what can we preemptively get in front of you know and that's kind of your question about where do we fit on the on the uh on the pyramid and uh i i you know i i know you guys know this but you know ann arbor has been a very progressive community when it comes to to solid waste management and and zero waste issues for a long time but we lost some traction in the last several years so it's time for us to to re-up and to re-look at this and i'll tell you there's so much energy in the community about it and i would say number one there's kind of three pieces or three legs to the stool and and the first leg is to have a willing community and by gosh we got it i mean people are ready in ann arbor and they just need good a good system in place to to be able to to really support it and the second leg of that stool is to have a champion and um municipalities are amazing i mean providing service municipalities are great and ann arbor is no exception man my streets get plowed no matter what you know they plow my sidewalks and everything it's like amazing it's really good but when it comes to actually getting out sort of on the edge and advocating and saying we want you to do something new here you have an advocate and it's not just because i'm the the ceo of recycle ann arbor i've seen this everywhere i am if there's a champion no matter if it's a non-profit for-profit or whatever it is they push the issue man they're the ones that are pushing that envelope and that's what you really need in order to sort of move things forward and the the i think the third most important component is community engagement so it's not just hey we want to do this but we're ready to participate i mean the biggest thing that happened to me when i came to recycle ann arbor is i have a 15-member board and that board rolls up their sleeves and says all right how are we going to get this done they don't just talk about high-minded stuff man they actually do it and the university of michigan's the same way it's such a think tank there's such opportunity here to to innovate and move forward so i would say on that spectrum we're higher up than most communities because we're because we are who we are the nature of of kind of who we are and how we position ourselves in the world but right now we we just need that extra sort of guiding principles and plan so we can all agree and move forward together because it's not either or man it's and you know to move forward so i hope that helped okay thank you okay thank you um john mursky you had your hand up next and then lisa and then bob thank you brian uh first of all i would appreciate it if you would go back to your employees and tell them um all of you and raa are really a local treasurer um we we really appreciate what you do and um hopefully they they understand that a couple of a couple of things um the a to z guide that you have um is also a wonderful resource it's obviously on the raa site and now it's also on the city of ann arbor's page it's in some cases referred to as a recycling guide but i think i've seen it also on the ecology centers um some of their newsletters and things like that where they refer to it as a zero waste guide and i would hope that we can start to consider it that way in many regards it already is it tells um it gives guidance on how to you know reuse things or where where it can be taken um to be resold or things like that and so i would consider or recommend that you consider on how it can be transitioned to a like i said a zero waste guide and one other thing with theo i'm presenting soon i would hope that it would be viewed as not just an ann arbor resource but a washington county resource um and i recognize that that's gonna be a little bit difficult because um depending on on where you live in washington county even where you are in in the city of ann arbor um what you can do with your with your waste depends um you know like glass bottles um can't be recycled as far as i know still on campus um but hopefully we can get to some more unifying um guides on on how to do that um just um one one other comment um that i think um is maybe addressed to shannon um i worked in um the power tool division of my firm former employee employer so it's a consumer products division and it's interesting the culture in sales and marketing is what is the shelf appeal of the product so they're really the culture there is not thinking um how can this product um be where the package be minimized or how can it be recycled they're thinking about what is the appeal to the consumer when they're walking down the aisle and they're looking for you know in our case um a drill and there's a whole bunch of different drills and um they they walk down and what's the packaging that looks the most appealing um and i think that's that's going to be difficult to change because that's what drives companies is what are their sales going to be not what what's going to happen after the purchase um and one thing that we might consider doing steve at some point is and maybe it's not the commission but maybe it's one of the other groups working on this is to invite people from the michigan state um packaging degree program from what i understand it's one of the best in the country it's very it's has a really really good reputation i mean when when i was in the power tool division in chicago we talked about it so it's not just something that's you know state pride it's really um recognized as a top level program and it would be interesting to hear from them um how this is changing and how we we you know as a municipality and even beyond that can can help change that and lastly i would um ask brian um where where was the residual rate only two percent i mean that's amazing it was in st paul st paul minnesota that was 45 years of education it is it doesn't happen very often it's also that way in boulder it's real low residual rate in boulder but yeah it we can get there we can get there well maybe if we put the a to z guide also on the stickers on all of our carts that would help as well i mean that's one of the problems we only have you know stickers on on our on our uh garbage carts we don't have them our trash carts we don't have them on compost we don't have them on on the recycling um or i say the other way around we have it on recycling we don't have it on what's trash and we don't have it on compost so there's an opportunity to i think it definitely john i i think to rita's point um resourcing that um pushing it up the pyramid and actually why don't we put more money toward education and outreach and less money towards solid waste so so we kind of flip that on it's on its head but but education awareness is huge part of this but it's not just up to the resident the resident can recycle until he's blue in the face and that's not going to get us to the solution so maybe when when someone's about to put that 50-foot hose in their recycling cart and it says look at the raa zero waste guide then they can go to the zero waste guide and figure out a way how they can fix that hose or how they can repurpose it or something like that thank you i don't know if you guys know or not i don't want to digress too much but uh the university of michigan has this thing that where they lock people and are these real smartypants kind of guys in the room and they have to invent something uh some application or something and it's a bigger you get the award and the the award winner last year came and talked to us and what he did is created a qr code where um they on the side of the bin you can you can turn it on and then you take a snap a picture of the recyclable item that's that is in question so if you took a picture of the hose and it would tell it would it has you know millions of images and it says now man hoses aren't recyclable so that that opportunity exists we just have to sort of flip that so we can resource that side of things and the other side yeah yeah thank you very much yep thank you i saw bob needham's hand before mine oh okay fleshy hand so okay all right yeah so bob and then lisa and then chris thank you lisa you could have gone um i just wanted to ask brian uh thank you for the presentation but um i'm having a hard time picturing exactly what would be in a zero waste plan and how it would differ from a solid waste management plan could you possibly send around to the commission um some examples of what you consider successful or solid plans and i take your point about each community needing to be different but i'd find it helpful to sort of yeah there's a boston that uh the city of boston has a pretty comprehensive plan other countries have good plans there's a number of them i can send you a couple i'll send them to stephen and he can he can shoot him around but just kind of think about it in this way you know you can with it's composting real simple example right so instead of um putting carts out for a year-round collection or or in also putting carts out for year-round collection why don't we resource also how to prevent wasted food and help people understand you know where that waste is coming in and how they might be able to change their habit and then and then backyard composting enhancing backyard composting um and then go to the curb you know if you can't do these other two things then then do the other things and then it resources it the salt the zero waste plan actually resources it and says look man you need to invest some money in this part and not so much in this part so that's just one stupid example but you get the idea it just kind of turns it on its head and says all right you know back up a little bit crawl up the tailpipe and and see what uh what we can do on the in the first place so but i'll i'll send that boston zero waste plan around and and if i can think of other communities i'll send those around too they're kind of long so just heads up okay alisa yes so i had two questions about working within constraints and so one is um in oh i'm sorry i should say this was a fantastic and really inspiring presentation and i do love that pyramid i want that pyramid i want it tattooed on my head um so the so in your in your conversation with um commissioner gibrano you said we as a city can create a plan and push back and you know sort of affect what we will and won't let companies bring into our community but it in my ex or not my experience but what i've learned is that there are a lot of michigan laws that don't let municipalities exercise the kind of sovereignty that it sounds like minneapolis and saint paul where i also used to live and boulder do so what do we how much could we actually say we're not going to take products that are encased so part of it has to happen on a state level lisa that's just the truth and and um it's called preemption laws and there's a bunch of them out there that's the truth and uh it comes from dart the styrofoam folks and the bag folks and other folks who've really been effective at getting those preemption laws in place but those are being overturned so so what i mentioned about minneapolis-st paul and and uh boulder was uh pre-preemption laws so it was before the big guys came in and moved everything around but what you're seeing now is there's such a big push from your average resident as well as your state senator and so on to make real change that you're seeing those preemption laws sort of overturn so that's an area where we can advocate through the michigan recycling coalition through uh the the swana folks through a number of uh folks who are already lobbying to to help them along but then also on our own you know you're probably as a council person in touch with a number of state senators and stuff and that's how it happens so um that that preemption thing is tough um but it's not insurmountable and i'm seeing them change around so it can happen i had one more thing because you put rightly i think an enormous amount of emphasis on education and also an enormous amount of emphasis on how open people who live in ann arbor are to doing this and i think that's particularly true of younger people people in their pre-teens and teens because they are seeing the future much more than we are who are their elders so they're doing a better job worrying and um one of the things that i'm very sorry about well one of the things i'm super excited about is that the murph is going to be back online in the fall but i'm extremely sad that the education program is not being funded by the source that used to fund it um and so i was wondering if you have thought about or identified any alternative funding sources and if there's any way people can be helpful in helping to get the grants in place i know that the pro the schools subscribe to the program but there but there is a an amount that you know needs to pay for the person who staffs it and you know puts the presentations together and i'm just wondering is there any way to bring that back um through other funding sources absolutely we have a million ideas um but the thing about education is it has to be ongoing and it's like uh from a marketing side john you know man that's it's that minimum five touches on a regular basis that's the way it's got to be so so it has to be ongoing so grants are fine to get programs started and to resource them to start with but long term you need a sustainable funding source and that's why a lot of municipalities put embed into their their contracts for materials recovery for processing of recyclables or for collection of of recyclables they embed an education program as well and i think that's you know that's the challenge we have in front of us is long term you don't want to set something up and then it goes away in two years because the grant's gone and you want to make sure that it's it's sustainable and it's ongoing there are ways that we can do that with the resources that we have right now it's just sort of shifting those resources around and and that's what i'm advocating for is that we create an agreed to zero waste plan that talks about here's how we're going to resource it long term instead of sort of taking it a piece at a time and that that piecemeal approach has found it you know they found it's not as effective as taking a comprehensive approach and saying here's where we need education here's where we need advocacy and so on and so forth so i i i have a lot of sources for funding there are many many sources to sort of get things rolling but i i think the challenge is that we work together to create something that's sustainable and long term for the on the education side okay um chris and then rita oh chris i can't hear you catching up with the mute button brian i'm really appreciating your revolutionary spirit i it seems like the time is right to step up in a lot of ways for example um i'm suspecting elaine and i are recycling many materials that don't actually get recycled and i mean by that packaging carry out materials i we cheerfully put our those materials in the recycle bin and fill it up but i'm guessing they're going to landfill um that brings back lisa's um really important requirement that we do a whole lot more educating we've been doing so that even someone who started recycling when you are down in south industrial where the low-income housing office is now sorting glass into four different bins and taking our stuff down there back in the late 70s or even late 60s um who've cared about it a long time or doing the right thing it seems like a lot of that packaging ought to go in the trash bin absolutely it's so complicated and there's there's a lot of green washing that happens where people just stamp a recycling logo on the bottom and how are people supposed to know if it's recyclable or not it's and the packaging the multi-layer packaging and everything is getting so complicated it's just like what do i do i like i said i've been doing this 30 years i still look at stuff and i say is that or is that not so man education is so important but here's the thing man chris i i so appreciate this question or this line of thinking because um first of all we can feel guilty because we haven't uh we don't have a degree in packaging and we don't know if that's recyclable or not but the the true the truth is that there needs to be truth in recycling and i think that we've lost faith you know in some cases and people some people just give up you know people whole communities have said i don't want to recycle anymore man because that's just it's expensive and it costs i don't even know what i'm doing so so i think the the the challenge is um do you have a recycler that is authentically recycling and who will transparently talk with you about what's recyclable and what's not and tell you the hard truth that that hose isn't recyclable because it's awful easy to say yeah put it in yeah go ahead put it in because that's what you want to do sometimes with your customers you're just like i want to i want to say yes all the time but the truth is that erodes trust in recycling and that's really prevalent now but you know the cool thing that we have and again i'm not just saying because it's rea it you've got a non-profit recycler and that there is 100 transparency there they're not going to blow smoke man they're going to tell you if this is recyclable and if this isn't and it's gonna sometimes it's gonna feel like they recycle less now what the heck no we recycle real you know we don't just say go ahead and put it in the bin you know if it's not recyclable we're gonna tell you it's not and that's that's first and you've got that the city has that to start with you know the next thing now is to have those manufacturers those producers of that material and this is one of the funding sources lisa that we talk a lot about is like that they need to help us you know help the public understand so to chris's questions do i need a math degree here to figure out if i put it in the recycling bin or not we need help with that and there are industry groups like the recycling partnership like the closed loop fund and others that are industry funded who can help us get started we can open that education center back up you know when over over at the murph i hope and that's going to be one point of contact but there are a number of other places where we can do it but it's just it's really frustrating people give up but i would just say if you get constituents that say that just let them know that you know we got a recycling program you want to see how it's recycled go look at it it's right down the street down there on pratt street go look at it and go talk to those people and find out if your stuff's actually getting recycled or not so we we have that in place now which is a good component of it i'm sorry i went on okay thank you for the statement i'm i there's three other things bothering me one is the two big picture things bothering me one is that the way the oil and gas industry are going to compensate for declining fossil fuel using transportation and heating is to make more plastics the infrastructure they're building now is extraordinary they're not going to miss a heartbeat in keeping up their industry uh the big picture thing is we really need to combat that another big picture thing is that um uh well let me go to the local one will we have another reu center soon yes good i know ann arbor is difficult about businesses that have outdoor storage and and you know semi-industrial things happening with the planners and zoners here really would really rather have doctor offices and right and you know clean environments but we need for guys like me that build gardens and landscapes uh places to do business that isn't quite so clean well we have another vu center we will we will have another reuse center we have a a whole committee that meets monthly and it's made up of board members and council not council members but a number of different groups and we call it the innovations committee because uh reuse may not be furniture this time it may not be clothing it may be something else but reuse is like you saw on the on the reverse uh pyramid there that's cornerstone to zero waste and so uh it's an ethic of recycling arbors and it's an ethic of this community it's best one of the best reused uh communities i've i've been in and um it so it it can definitely be supported we had um 12 employees and 20 000 square feet and they were all union paid and they were all um they were all better than uh it really worked on the bus route in the community that we actually serve it was amazing you know it was amazing and and the only thing that stopped us was covet and and uh we weren't able to negotiate the landlord wouldn't negotiate with us so we're going to find another place and we're going to find a uh we're going to do reuse and i don't know exactly what it'll look like but the ideas that are being kicked around if you enjoy that sort of inspirational discussion it's fun to be part of those meetings and talk about and and hear about all the ideas that are being kicked around so yeah absolutely chris he got my commitment man and i think you have uh recycle ann arbor everybody that's working on this project's commitment that there will be so the other big picture thing is is placing the responsibility for recycling upon the manufacturer not upon the consumer and that changes the world and it's not ann arbor who says that's how things work but ann arbor can hopefully begin to step up and start lobbying angling for that kind of world absolutely agree you know that i know that everyone at this table knows that but uh we really need to get there just to put a finer point on it we need a plan we need a shared vision that has all the stakeholders involved once we get that plan in place man i have absolute confidence that uh that this community is is ready to move forward but i i think you hit the nail on the head on what the next steps are as far as focus areas of focus thank you i don't want to steal anymore at least theo's time but thanks you guys i appreciate it i i could talk about this all night i i really appreciate it okay wait brian rita has a question and then i have one okay we'll close okay okay thank you um this is really really fun and uh interesting discussion um i guess what comes to my uh mind is um feedback to people who are involved with waste that you know we produce and whatever and is there um so i if i have missed it then i would like to know where to seek out the reports of the quarterly um audits that you do on our waste i think that would be very educational um for me and but maybe for other people as well um yeah no uh i i think it's public but i don't know you'd have to talk to city staff and see what's public and what's not and all that stuff we're a contractor to the city so we provide we provide that information to this to the city staff i think the the uh requirement of the contract that we negotiated for which is odd you know it's good it's a lot of work but um it's it's our ethic um is that uh it's once a year twice a year that we have to do that so that might be all that the city staff is it can can supply and i i don't know you'd have to talk to eileen and those guys about how it gets supplied and everything but it's there and um i'm sure i could share it too you know that information too so if you can't get it through city staff and that they might want to present it in a certain way and and it's their information so they i'd talk with them first but i'm happy to supply it if that's okay okay all right thanks all right um okay griswold i just want to mention to brian that one opportunity is to better coordinate the non-profits that are involved in um reselling i i was on the uh the board at kiwanis and now i work with the ann arbor thrift shop and um there's also share house where i take some of the things that we don't sell um at the ann arbor thrift shop and so we try to coordinate between the different non-profits but it would really help if someone like your organization helped and got the word out in terms of what's accepted at the different organizations sure yeah that's that's great and there is this that's such a community kiwanis and pto and and uh all those guys they're amazing it's an amazing it's been around for a long long time it's really cool but but that needs to be resourced kathy that's what we you know we can we can track that we can capture that we can get that information out we can even you know convene meetings and stuff like that so that we all kind of work together i think the interesting thing about that is if we're already in touch with them as the city um then why is there a way to capture what's actually being reused how many tons how many sofas how many shirts how many whatevers and actually quantify that as as recovery and have the city actually support that and instead of supporting the curbside program which is great i appreciate it and we do the curbside thing so i'm not talking myself out of a job but i i do think the reuse is so much higher on the hierarchy why don't we quantify this why doesn't the city work maybe with the the different folks and say we sold 60 sofas this month and then that gets quantified into actual um greenhouse gas uh emission savings and toward our 820 uh plan but to answer your question specifically yeah we're happy to do it just needs to be resourced it's not something it's it requires a lot of sort of handling and and work to make that happen okay i'll follow up later because we've made some attempts at doing it but we never there there's it just it's not continuous you know a person leaves and then it falls apart so we need to institutionalize it so okay thanks and that that should be part of that zero waste plan too it's working with all those groups on the reuse side of things okay um okay are there any other questions okay i just have one and it'll be quick and that is that um you know when my son was in fifth grade we took his i was uh i went with him on the tour to the murph um and i we took his cub scout troop on a court tour of the murph and i thought you know this is this is something we did in north carolina too with sun shares and i think that is a is a very good educational tool and i was wondering if you'd engage the public schools the ann arbor public schools with um educating them about recycling because i think you know they'll they'll know something about it you know otherwise it's it's all opaque to them you know they absolutely love the door and they'll go home and talk to their parents about it so that's interesting you knew about sun shares man they're one of those uh uh sort of founding organizations like like uh recycle ann arbor and ecocycle and that sunshare's amazing yeah i was chairman of the board for two years amazing company i'm sorry they're not around anymore a lot of those folks went away but but yeah yeah we have talked to the schools now you know the ecology center has an agreement and a contract with the city to actually teach um in the in the schools so there's a connection there and then um we've reached out you know obviously dan ezekiel and and that group is very interested in sort of starting those tours back up again the challenge we got right now is the elevator doesn't work and the elevator doesn't work because it doesn't meet ada anymore it's too little and what we're going to have to do is a bricks and mortar campaign and we're going to have to figure out how we're going to get this thing back up and running again and there's there's actually a group of folks at ecology center and and our and recycling harbor that are got their heads working on how to get that funded and and who to bring in to that so we gotta get we gotta have a space first but there's so much cool virtual stuff going on right now that how we could engage that murph and how we can have amazing tours we got some great ideas yeah absolutely gotta gotta engage the schools okay uh well thanks brian um thanks you guys let's move on to theo eggerman hey theo hey everyone i'm theo argemont thanks for having me um i'm here tonight to talk to you about warmup i'm going to share my screen here or if galen could put up my presentation one or the other it won't allow me to share right now you got the uh oh you've got the permission now theo oh thanks all right thanks um so empty agroman i'm the public works director at washington county um i'm here to talk about warmup since we started um or at least gathered the group together to form the authority and ann arbor was a part of that they had a lot of input as one of the stakeholders so let me give you a quick overview of who warma is i'll talk a little bit about um what our strategic plan is where we're going what kind of things we're working on um and then we've got a grant coming up this summer which is going to take up a lot of our focus and it's going to provide it's a the basis for a lot of our direction and how we're going to leverage that and i'll talk a little bit just about some of the challenges that we face as an organization so we formed in september of 2019 under public act 179 which allows us to can you go to slideshow um yeah slide slideshow mode yes thank you is that better great uh so we formed in 2019 under public act 179 which allows us to form a solid waste authority or oddly enough a dog pound apparently those needs formed at the same time and we don't have any ability to tax residents or create special assessments um so we're financed by membership fees and for the first two years last year and then uh this year the county's matching those five thousand dollar membership fees and then this year since we won a grant uh that was worth somewhere around 230 thousand dollars the vast majority of our funding um is based upon grants um and i'll talk about that grant specifically uh so we serve mostly central and um eastern parts of the county cities of lean nypsilanti dexter townships of ypsilanti scio and arbor in pittsfield right now we're about 150 000 residents um and then obviously you know that february first dan ever passed a resolution to join um there's a number of steps that we have to take for ann arbor to actually be a member uh the first one is our warm award has to um unanimously approve of that um so we're we're in that process right now we're we have a delegate um who took a different position in a different township um so we're we're waiting for a delegate for that so that we can pass a unanimous approval we're anticipating or hoping for that to happen next month and then all the legislative communities will have to pass the changing of our articles so you could expect to see that in ann arbor first since we want to make sure that in our verb abides by the terms or the articles of incorporation before we send it to the rest of the communities our outreach right now or our focus is on education and outreach um sounds like you talked a lot about education in the prior session um but the epa did a study a number of years ago that said you have to spend about a dollar per household per year just to maintain a recycling system at the current rate if you're if you're trying to do something new or to improve things you probably want to spend closer to three dollars a year since municipalities haven't typically funded this over time we're we're seeing really high levels of contamination um you know you heard you're around the mark uh we're hearing from some of the murphs which also serve outside areas outside of washington county and outside the warmer members that we're around that 30 mark so we're really high so we're we're actually looking at this grant um and the education outreach to reduce the contamination by 40 percent which will put us much closer to where ann arbor is so education outreach and really focusing on decontamination of recycling are some of our first steps we also have support from many members and there's growing interest in some kind of collaborative solution to replace the drop-off station since as you know that's the current drop-off station is not a long-term solution it needs to be replaced so we're both at the county level as well as through hopefully through warm-up either as a whole organization or as a group of some municipalities who adopted opt-in looking to figure out how to support um a replacement so since we're a new organization we're not at the point where warmer would say yeah let's take that on so we're we're monitoring and supporting um that drop-off station and the the change that would happen um over the winter uh we got together and formed a strategic plan and this is available on our our website at warman.org you can find it by looking following that path on the bottom so our short-term goal is primarily to increase the quantity of quality recycling so both quantity and quality we're doing this through the recycling grant and then long term analyzing and pursuing contracting services as a group as well as monitoring and the regional drop-off station so when i say pursuing contracting services what we're looking at there is depending on what point in time we're talking about short term i think the group through the grant we're going to have a lot better data on our recycling as well as our well our recycling and our contamination and we're looking to change that to greatly improve it we want to leverage that to create some kind of long-term contract uh with a murph so that we can say hey if we give you this really clean stream for 10 years with all this volume can you give us a discount on that so we're looking to reduce some of the costs because we put a lot of effort education to create a really good product so that's short-term long-term you know we might look at putting out collective bids for trash because with economies of scale with the members that we have in that volume to put out some kind of long-term contract um could could produce some cost savings for residents as well and then we can put those cost savings towards something else and that might happen for recycling as well but again this is going to be an opt-in process and members will be able to put their terms on it so if you have specific requirements such as like a living wage for ann arbor or union labor or whatever that is the members would be able to put those terms in those contracts because they'd have a part in that process let's see so within this we have some specific objectives a lot of those are fulfilled by the grant and i'm going to talk about that next um we want to continue to educate and promote a common collected list of recyclables so what are the things that are commonly accepted through all our member municipalities and then putting that together and then educating the population hey here's what's recyclable here's what's not because we we do have a lot of work to go to zero waste but we also have to start because we haven't done that education for so long um trying to clean up our stream so that's our first step uh in the process um i mentioned um collecting some of our metrics so we're doing audit this summer as part of that grant and then marketing our recycling as a block of high quality recycling so i've alluded to this brands a lot we got a large grant for through the recycling partnership to reduce contamination it's called the quality improvement grant they partnered with eagle um and we're one of the larger uh recipients of that county also received this and they saw about a 40 reduction in their contamination um we're doing the process in a very similar way and then canton is also going this summer they're right before us so the the general process of how this works you send all your materials or a sample of your materials to the murph and you take an audit of those so you find out you separated into like i think there's 37 different categories of materials that they sorted into and one of those is um contamination or trash residuals things that are not recyclable so you collect all that baseline data and then you put out your treatment sending out education materials what's recyclable what's not recyclable letting people know that this program is going on and then we do a feed on the street program where we coordinate with haulers as well as we contract out people to go ahead of those recycling trucks pop open the lid just look at what's in there they look at what's on top and they say oh you know this isn't contaminated or this is contaminated and then they give a warning to say oh you know you had something in your cart and they mark what that was let people know that if they do that again the recycling cart actually won't be picked up and then they do that three more times and if they track it so if the same house receives um what would be a second warning um they actually reject that load and they mark it and they put an oops tag and they say hey correct this um once you correct it we'll pick it up next week or two weeks if there's every other week um service and then we do another audit on the back end to find out what changed um so it gives us a lot of data one thing that kent county found they actually increased participation so you think that you know how people are rejecting my cart people get kind of mad and they actually found that people put out their carts more often because not every house puts out their cart every week and by doing this they actually saw more people putting out their cart so they've had a lot of positive results and we're looking forward to um to see if we can achieve the same thing um let's see i also mentioned i'd talk a little bit about challenges um one of the biggest challenges is we're we're a new organization you know we just formed in 2019 um so we're still learning how to work together um our focus is um rather narrow we are focused on recycling um and education um and then drop-offs so i think it's going to take us a while to to demonstrate to the communities that we we have value that we are a an organization that can get things done um and it will take down more and more as time goes on um so and then also we we have a long ways i shouldn't say a long ways i think we have some some building to do in order to to get to a place where we'd have full buy-in to say yes let's have warm-up um be the owner of the next drop-off for example or coordinate that through someone like recycle ann arbor to be the owner of a facility like that so i think being a new nascent organization is probably one of our biggest challenges that we've we've got to demonstrate some success first before we take on more and bigger things um our funding stream is obviously membership buy-in so once we take on more and bigger things we'd expect our budget to grow so with that i'll uh open it up to questions steve you're on me yeah thank you theo so um um let's see do you want to take down your shared screen so that we can all see each other and um would you be available for questions for a few minutes yeah absolutely okay so um john mursky you have your hand up i'd like to follow my question before about the recycle guide is warma considering using the raa recycle guide and its education and outreach and could it potentially help fund its expansion and its let's say targeting to all of the warmer members yeah so we're through the grant we're also going to release an app uh which is um an app of what's recyclable where um so that'll have a number of things um it's kind of like if you've ever seen like a recycle coach or there's a waste wizard uh one of those things so we'll be marketing that this summer um and then i'll also mention that um through the county uh we've had an intern for about the last year working on our our trash to treasures guide so we'll we'll be directing through warma to those different resources so we'll link to the available things that we've got okay anybody else well i have a question theo um you know what the the um state's next cycle initiative yeah absolutely there's funding available for uh for small business startups is my understanding and so are there any is there any local um niche that you do you think an entrepreneur uh would be very likely to uh succeed in in washington county um yeah i think there's a couple of different things it's it's hard for me to say what exactly you know i'm i may be one of the less innovative guys of what uh what would be the particular thing to have but um washington county has a sponsorship uh program that we opened up pretty similar you have a sustainability sponsorship fund we partnered with next cycle to allocate up to 50 000 of that per year to a next cycle recipient that would look to to locate in washington county so there's also some some clear development goals that fit within that so there's some some other connections and we've made some connections with spark so there's we're getting some interest in that already for people just hearing about it finding out oh there's some additional funds you can qualify for next cycle funds as well as for county funds it might be something that ann arbor would want to consider as well to try really incentivize and market development because that that makes it um makes it so much easier it's efficient we can save on a lot of transportation and it drives up the market makes those products more valuable um so we've seen some interest there's a glass foam [Music] creator who's looking or at least like seeing what what level of glass is available in this area i think there's also i think there's always a need for more compost i think that's one of the low-hanging fruits the challenge there is always the the transportation picking it up hauling is really expensive so i think that's one that's right for some kind of incentive structure where if governments can help provide some assistance to get over that initial hurdle it might make the the difference okay all right well thank you um anybody else oh well lisa yeah i wanted to hear a little bit more about your app um about what's recyclable where is are you going to include what's recyclable in ann arbor even though we're marginally a member um so it'll be focused on the member communities since it is through the grant so it'll be on the individual's websites if you want to check it out um an example of this you can go to sakura that's the recycling authority in southern oakland county um and they have this up on their website so it'll give you an example of what kind of thing we're we're looking at i think they use the the waste wizard um as their particular app okay but it's also available on your phone i've just used it on the computer well i'm just trying to think because where we we've been thinking about resurrecting this sticker program but if there's an app that could be easier than getting permission from everyone to stick things on their containers we could just go around and hang a door hanger and say get this app um so yeah so but so i mean so since ann arbor is a member community we would be included in the app or we're too late for this round unfortunately too late uh we applied for the grant um in early 2020 um so it was at that time because it's funded through the we tried to get you um for we were thinking of forming in early um 2019 and we had a meeting with everyone for warm on uh the city said um move on ahead without us so yeah yeah that was unfortunate um anybody else okay well thank you so much for your time theo and um yeah thank you um i'll mention one more thing just because i it came up with brian um with extended um producer responsibility uh one thing that i'm interested in creating through the the county um is there's uh something called pink care and it's been initiated through i think about 10 different states but it's initiated through legislation and it's a company that puts a surcharge on paint when you purchase it from like sherwin-williams or home depots or anything like that um i think you pay something like 60 cents per can for a gallon and then it's like a dollar or something for five gallons and then that goes towards the disposal costs and since we operate the the home toxic center it's it's almost half of our expenditures go towards paint there's just a it's it's expensive um where you know you can pay 10 to get rid of a gallon of paint um so it's it is expensive and something that would be great if we could see it's it's something that would have to happen through the state legislature but it would also create a lot of different places for drop-off for paint so that's something that i'm interested in working through like the michigan recycling coalition as well as since we have a home drop a home toxic drop-off uh working with other drop-offs throughout the state uh since we do there's a round table that happens on a regular basis to see if we can you know rise up and uh get some support um but it's something that um paint producers have actually started to get on board with um because they pass it through to their customers um so it's it's something that if it's operated on a large basis it it doesn't um it's a level playing field because you're not facing competition from well if you buy this paint it's more expensive for this paint it's more expensive um it's all across the board yeah that's fair okay um any other i guess chris has a question so here i am a consumer not understanding about paint i would guess that oil-based paints are a problem are latex paints a problem about recycling or disposal the answer is yes and no so if latex paint is dried it is no longer considered hazardous so if it's completely dried um then it's fine to throw away if it's not dried so say you just um if you had a full gallon of paint and you had the cap on it you put it in your trash and then that went to the landfill and then that that can would obviously get compacted and then it would ooze out um it's gonna get lots of other water et cetera on it and then it's gonna become part of leachate and other streams and so it's it's hazardous because it never dries whereas if you dry it out completely you know we we recommend you can mix it with kitty litter that really speeds up the drying process um i've had cans that have you know just like an inch or two left in it and i've just opened it up and left it in my basement for a couple of months and it dries out um but the oil-based paints yes are always hazardous because it's oil-based um and so you can't dry those out and have them be non-hazardous um so so if i'm not patient about drying out my latex paints i've tried to give up oil-based paints but when you put even the latex paints with urethane in them on trim it's not the same thing as an oil-based paint insofar as its durability and wear and tear if i'm if i don't have patience then what you're saying is the cost is ten dollars a gallon even for latex paints in order for someone to handle them uh but and that's like not even including um the labor involved um it's just like our disposal cost it's it's around there so yeah it's it's pretty expensive to get rid of of paint this is not so i'd say between five and ten dollars for per can um that we get in wow i'm getting educated so it's expensive and i think it's something that um we can we can offset those costs and right now we do fund it we get um our funding comes from the landfill um but the landfill is has a lifespan on it and our washington county landfill is going to fill up in the next you know seven or eight years so we we want to be working towards replacing that funding but also if we can reduce our costs while still creating additional drop off sites to make it more accessible because the the sherwin-williams and home depots of the world may become drop-off locations for those paints it becomes more accessible and so then people are more apt to do it let me ask another question let's say i just put my paints in the garbage bin they go to the anne over landfill which has a clay cap on it so not much moisture is getting in it has a liner underneath now and a leachate connect collection system um how expensive is that and where does that leachate go and how is that dealt with and what's that costing sure so i i don't know all the details of that um but i i will say the first thing is that um leachate does leech um it's not always 100 contained uh the landfill has had um leachate um get out um in the past so obviously it's it's not foolproof um and the more toxic the substance is the worse it is obviously like mercury would be one of your your number one things we're always hyper cautious of mercury um but um they they truck it off site and i'm trying to think of what and then they process it off-site i'm not sure what they do in that processing so that's a level i'm not familiar with but they i imagine that they [Music] try to get all the water out of it and then treat that as um like a the leachate is a very hazardous substance once it's a smaller amount of mass i i'm going to continue asking questions oh you on me oh okay so um any more questions for theo thank you yeah okay thanks again theo thanks for your time okay so we pass on to the first public commentary on the agenda um [Music] this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 1-888-788-0099 and enter meeting id two 957-7066-1216 seven this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and again the phone number is 1-888-788-0099 and enter meeting id 957-7066-1217 and please be patient there's a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection can be established anybody on the line yet galen there's no one on the line at this time okay let's wait another 10 seconds or so steve i have a question about the order of the agenda yeah by putting public comment after the presentations we're now an hour and a half plus into the meeting it seems to me it's a disincentive for a public to engage with us and share opinions i mean we're going to have public comment now and then i don't know how much the rest how much longer the rest of the meeting will take and then we'll have public comment again energy commission meetings we have public comment um right up front at the beginning of the meeting and i know we've done it this way a couple times in environmental commission meetings but i'd like us to consider moving public comment back to the front of the meeting again okay yeah i'll put that on the agenda for the next meeting maybe we can discuss it um all right is there anybody on the line galen there's no one on the line okay okay well now we'll pass to the approval of the minutes uh the minutes of our february 25th meeting were posted and uh do uh uh does anyone do i have a motion for consideration of the minutes um john keller and uh lisa seconded um any any discussion does anybody wish to amend them okay who who votes to whoever votes to accept the minutes has written please raise your hand and say aye aye all those opposed say no hearing no one um the minutes are approved unanimously um in terms of unfinished business the next item on the agenda is unfinished business um remember that we uh that john had a first reading of an ordinance uh proposal or a request to staff i mean not an ordinance uh for considering and uh uh for evaluating uh the costs and opportunities for bi-weekly trash collection so we've had a lot of commentary from the community there's um so i think what we're going to do is um table it for for a short time until we get more um opportunity to have a have a good conversation with members of the community about this okay um so there any comments about this oh um uh kathy then john uh for anyone that's interested uh ryan stanton of m live had a a pretty good summary article i'm on the topic so i would suggest that that people take a look at it and uh one of my comments were that it's a great aspirational goal but we really need more education something that we've talked about tonight to better understand what is recyclable um be before we move forward with uh any reduction and it was clear that the community um has a lot of emotional attachment to weekly pick up for whatever reason yeah okay john callaway yeah my understanding of what we were doing was moving it forward to do an analysis to understand it and i'm concerned of putting that off and having dialogue that is not informed and i think that was reflected in my bias a good number of the comments that i read over the past couple of weeks about what was actually proposed so i'm wondering is there still a way to move forward with the analysis that could inform a discussion because i hesitate to kind of continue a discussion that's not informed yeah i think um no yeah okay um let's move on to i think rita had her hand up and then lisa oh sorry sorry got it um uh i understand well first off um if if we set this aside i feel like we need to make a plan that um that allows us to continue the discussion in some way just so that we have something to proceed on um possibly as john calhoun just mentioned um so that's one thing but i also heard that there was a similar kind of analysis done about 10 years ago and i have not seen it but i think we should seek that out at least it looks like four years ago okay sorry thanks lisa um but we should look it over i think um as a starting point um so that we don't restart redo something that we don't need to thanks okay thanks i'm lisa that was exactly what i was going to say that the city did a study of organics in 2017 and it found that we need a lot more education and outreach on composting and recycling it found that there's limited capacity for more composting unless you find money for more trucks and routes it found that multi-family recycling and comp and commercial compost and recycling are the biggest challenges and it found that people people perceived a move to biweekly trash pickup as a service cut and they would expect a tax relief for that so it is not framed for them in terms of the goals of carbon neutrality which is the way we would want it to be friend so that says a lot of i think what we would find again just four years later and i think that given all the talk we've had tonight about the need for education and outreach and the need to coordinate among other groups that are doing reuse and the need to get out there in the community and either get stickers on people's carts or tattoos on their forehead but something about what's recyclable and how can you have more success composting and do you you know if you don't need to if your can isn't full and the weather isn't hot you actually don't need to put it out it's not an obligation um people don't know that you can actually put bones meat bones in your composting i am not a person who consumes them but uh you know to know that i you know i think we're not taking advantage of the services that we have and rather than putting money into a study putting money into some of these education and outreach activities would really be fantastic because what they would take is a core of volunteers who are willing to go out and disseminate some of this information um so that's that's kind of where i am i feel like sometimes we study too much and we don't implement and then we do another study you know and so let's implement the things that we know yeah yeah mom okay uh kathy yeah i i agree with what john and lisa have said i think one of the lessons to be learned is that we really lost control of the message and we weren't able to to respond to it and so moving forward we really need to not only educate but control the press release or what gets communicated out so that people don't feel threatened yeah i'm going to step in here for a second and i agree kathy i mean i read that m live article and i was surprised that it was all couched in terms of just a service cut and there wasn't anything in there until the end about how this was just to provide some extra funding to finance some education and you know enhanced services in other areas and so i found that very disappointing and i think that was the takeaway message a lot of people had so i think though that it's probably a good personally what i would like to do is i'm going to contact people that actually spoke out on you know the facebook ann arbor politics page and on next door and i'm going to just ask them what their concerns are and just have a have a face-to-face conversation as far as we can right now and just you know get more information about what their concerns are and uh and try to see what can happen and i think i think i'm not i'm not i don't personally believe that we should uh forget about this i think that we should just reach out a little bit and have more of a community conversation about it before we bring it back um i don't know does anybody have any other suggestions well a question so does somebody have a copy of that study that was done four years ago because it sounds like there's some overlap but it's not sounds somewhat different in focus at ephesus so i think it'd be helpful to to have that and i don't see why we can't continue to look at this ourselves right and maybe not move forward with a with a resolution but still be one of our priorities yeah i agree i have um i might have a copy of it in my computer here i remember there was a discussion on council back in 2017 2018 about it um and it was something that was the staff just dropped um so i think there was also some funding attached to it that was never used by the city staff so i'll i'll dig it up i'll i'll talk to eileen i'll talk to members of the city staff and get to get the official version and then i will uh disseminate it to the uh to the rest of the commission okay that's one of my action points from this meeting um okay john risky and then chris graham um so one disappointment that i had was that um it seems to me nobody actually read the resolution um had you know ryan actually had a link to the resolution um and had people really um read the way the resolution was constructed they would have understood that it was not and never intended to be a cut in services but rather an ability to be able to use money that for a service that maybe maybe and that was what the feasibility study and analysis was supposed to show maybe was unnecessary in its current form that could be used for other solid waste purposes so that's obviously some of the messaging we have to control we also have to understand i think how the media operates and this is not you know this is media in general but especially social media but you know even m live and that is it's based on clicks and outrage and controversy um and um we need to do a better thing i think we did learn a couple of issues that maybe certainly i didn't think about possibly just because um where i am with my family in life we don't have pets and we don't have babies in the house anymore um and so you know that's obviously a concern um the food waste and this talk of maggots is you know the whole idea is that we want um food waste to be diverted along with all the other organics and that would continue to be collected weekly as far as the study that lisa's talking about i think it was the organic study and i'm almost positive i have a copy of that i received earlier this week an analysis of trash that was done in 2012 from jenny patoski um and i'll send that out i don't know how represented it is anymore um you know certainly the way we deal with the packaging has changed in those almost 10 years but i'll send that out and i'll also send out it may not be the newest one but it's relatively new i checked i have a analysis of recycled materials that was done at an audit in i think 2019 or 2020 um by ra together um with the company that was doing our processing in ohio and so i'll i'll send that out and if i have the organic study i'll attach that too so everybody will have all that in one email thank you hey thanks john um chris when the animal news closed 12 or 13 years ago we nearly totally lost the ability to have reporting about community discussions in our city next door has not replaced it because many of the participants are not well informed ann arbor.com has not replaced it because they have one reporter who has many biases doing the reporting about our city uh we have a shortage of of public information reaching the public in ann arbor and it's not just here it's across the country the new york times and the washington post still are going full speed ahead for national and international news but local reporting is in big trouble i would suggest that the place that we still have that can be unbiased and in depth in these kinds of matters is the ann arbor observer they're also doing an online edition now maybe once a month or every couple weeks um it's not enough but at least that might be a place to go if we would like to reach every property owner in their mailbox once a month a newspaper this is a really big problem folks and communicating with the public is has become extraordinarily difficult especially with unbiased information and we have to fix this somehow i can remember i forgive me for digressing but i used to advertise for job for employees in the annaber news for a week's ad it cost me 800.

[Music] so [Music] so [Music] i'm going to start this out a little a little different than normal um usually when we begin a board meeting it's before executive session and there's there's no one really here uh because this is also live stream i have to start off with by getting a countdown to basically be on camera so i'm going to do that do that now and then we'll start the uh sort of scheduled board meeting so thank you all for your patience better when you are ready just let me know i'm ready to go i like to call to order this meeting of the eastern township board of education pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given by the secretary of the eastern township board of education in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office emailing written notice to the berlin county times in the courier post filing written notice with the municipal clerk of yvesham township may i have a roll call please mrs cappello here this is everhart here mr fizzicaro here miss fleming here mr catherine here mrs noll mr lancelot here mr megan here mrs ryan here we have a quorum thank you at this point in time i ask that we please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance indivisible with liberty [Music] um [Music] um [Music] you [Music] team [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] ah [Music] hmm [Music] um [Music] hmm [Music] ah [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hmm [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] good [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] of the eastern township board of education if we could all please rise for the pledge i pledge allegiance and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all welcome back everyone uh we have uh moving into presentations we have none for this evening all right so we will be moving uh strictly uh first into public comment of agenda items only this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we'd ask you to see superintendent after the meeting since you do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments at three minutes per person all right uh is there anyone here for agenda items only good evening debbie van curan etea president tonight on the agenda there is once again a calendar change that the board is being asked to vote on i want to urge you to vote no to this change remote wednesdays have been a back and forth conversation since the beginning of the school year when we developed our restart plan during this pandemic everyone has been in agreement that remote wednesdays are crucial to making this crazy year work we all want life to go back to normal but we can't sacrifice the students who have chosen to learn remotely this year these remote wednesdays have been crucial for our staff to work in small groups to catch up those students who are behind due to the circumstances of this pandemic remote wednesdays have given our students that time to get small group instruction that is needed and wouldn't necessarily be an option without remote wednesdays our middle school staff will especially struggle to meet the needs of the remote students our staff has been using the remote wednesdays for office hours to catch up with the remote students with upcoming irs meetings id meetings and iep meetings that are already scheduled how will we have enough sub coverage for our teachers who have been attending those meetings during remote wednesdays is this a fair thing to put on our building administrators we are already struggling with getting enough subs to cover absences board members please listen to our concerns before you vote on this calendar and to summarize i have a few questions for dr smith number one dr smith how will you cover our heavy load of spring iep and id meetings when getting subs is already an issue number two is taking away crucial remote wednesday is going to be in the best interest of all students especially our all remote students and those students who are behind due to an ongoing pandemic number three for clarification when do you expect teachers to meet with these remote students and number four can you tell us this evening how this would look on a normal day in a classroom i look forward to your answers before the board members are asked to vote on changing the calendar well first off uh i think um you know in-person board meetings are a nice way to facilitate conversation during public comment the best way to facilitate conversation is to have one anytime you know so i would like to say that i think it's a little interesting that those questions get asked for the first time from you in a public meeting which i'm glad to answer but this is not the way conversations typically occur is there a reason why you waited until today it just was brought to my attention by several members this afternoon that they wanted me to speak on behalf of this topic okay so i'll answer some of your uh your questions in a in a way that i hope um encompasses them but i also don't want this to become a series of questions from one member after another all right when the best way to have a conversation and communication was something you spoke about last meeting right isn't that true that's correct okay so i think that probably that's a two-way street right well i think some of our members met with you this afternoon and they didn't feel like they got answers so they had asked me to bring it up this evening okay so it's very interesting i think that um so i did i did meet with um uh blue seven this afternoon right one person reached out and i met because conversation is much better than email and it's much better than a public format right the biggest takeaway and and this is underlying your question is that reaching kids is hard always reaching kid is reaching kids is hard before a pandemic if you teach 130 kids you're always struggling to find time to reach 130 kids one-on-one so your questions are really driving it education itself in a lot of ways ips inrs all the factors that you named we have talked through an administrative team and we have solutions so you know that that part i appreciate bringing up it is not enough to stop thousands of kids from coming back into school because we want to have a meeting with 10 people okay to your piece about meeting one-on-one i would be glad to meet with any teachers any groups of teachers talk about that but really having meetings in small groups to talk about things shows respect for the individuals respect for the importance of the task and respect for the context and all the variables so i'm not going to have a conversation here about generalities which wastes time but if you want to have a discussion about context and individuals i'm always ready thank you very much seeing no more public comment we're going to close that portion of the oh mr jenks i am so sorry uh thank you i appreciate it um board members i'd like to address both uh you folks and the teachers quite frankly tonight uh agenda's uh item 7.5 attentive budget and uh items we'll start with the exec one my executive summary uh and that is teachers be careful what your union asks for you might just get it uh and of course the revised reopening plan which was just uh just proposed if if you really want to keep your jobs teachers i'd recommend you demand the board approve the following in-person learning and that is five days a week for all students and teachers beginning this monday and the reason for that is fairly clear we all know that the kovid is a black swan for those of you who may have read the book and there are two aspects obviously it's a deadly nature the deadly nature of this thing is critical but it's also there's also a technology response to this issue the deadly nature of the disease is easy to understand however the response by the technology is going to be a sea change and it already has uh in the way that people work and within one year it's estimated of course you know a quarter of the americans are now working at home this fax has not been lost on the entrepreneurs in silicon valley and beyond folks at microsoft twitter facebook instagram now recognize their ability to facilitate this novel approach to work and if it works in the office they're going to make it work in the educational enterprise they see this is a multi-trillion dollar gold mine that is waiting to be tapped california is currently looking at hybrid options for elementary and secondary school learning and the social media and tech giants are pouring millions and millions into startups okay to get a piece of this trillion dollar action let me explain the remote hybrid tech model of of uh learning in uh in the uh enterprise first of all you what you do is you put a 65-inch screen in the front of every classroom and a team of two or three teachers the best in the district perhaps teach that grade level the entire grade level this is being done in california by the way the students fill the classroom and teach your assistants make sure the students don't fall asleep have enough pencils and are not causing any discipline issues and so they have the right notebooks and other materials simple first so for each grade level you need two or three teachers in each grade level look at california look at california [Music] and so instead of having 350 400 certified teachers you need 40.

there i see the live perfect um hi so um i think instead of talking vaccines like we have been starting for many meetings um lately since emma will be joining us soon i thought we'd spend some time talking about ventilation um so first question is um a while back um we had talked about a list of rooms that were do not use rooms that were rooms in each building that had been identified as having air exchanges per hour that were low enough to indicate that they shouldn't be used for students so we're wondering if we can have a copy of that list if that list is still in development i know nexus was just back if there are any updates on that um we that was like six questions in one so um that's that's kind of we'll kick it off with that all right so yeah so the answer to that is yes we can generate that list the fortunate part is that it's an easier list to generate now than it was previously because we've addressed a lot of the issues so most of the rooms that we have that would be i guess do not use rooms are rooms that uh they're like interior rooms without windows at this point so so even some of the do not use rooms actually exceed the the desired air exchanges per hour it's just a matter of you know having like students in a room without windows okay yeah we we actually went back and and retested a lot of the ones that we initially said we weren't going to test that we're all used lists so so we can get and that was i'm sorry was that that was nexus just back in to do that testing this week it did uh starting last week they they hit a bunch of spots and then they finished up this week yeah excellent have they um generated one of their fantastic reports for you yet yes yes so we have an updated report of those rooms and then we have an amended version of our re the the the full report yeah can um can we have a copy of that the probably the full amended report would be best at this point because it has everything all in one place that that has been really nice yeah and that one also includes like it'll look some semi-confusing because it'll say recommended air purifier zero and then it'll say air purifier present that was because we decided that any room that's like a core classroom was gonna have one regardless that sounds great you'll see things that they live in their exchanges with an air purifier that brings it up to 17.

at the end of of the classifieds at the anime news they cut the rate by half for no good reason other than that craigslist had arrived and everybody had switched to craigslist craigslist for nearly free job employee advertising the classified advertising in newspapers was an obscene profit center for all newspapers in the united states for 100 years it supported journalism and good reporting and in the matter of a few years it completely crashed the anime news in the matter of a few months laid off 250 very well paid well-benefited employees to the streets we don't have adequate ability to communicate with the public anymore and we need to do much more if it's not the honorable observer we need to do much more within the city somehow to reach out and speak about these things across the community in a well-informed way speechifying that's fine chris uh i'm sorry that's fine no it's getting later this is an important problem but i'm not sure what the commission's gonna do by itself to deal with it um i'm doing everything i can personally but uh it's worth the public discussion all right um okay um i think it was kathy and then rita had your hands up maybe we could put this topic on for a future meeting but as a council member i want to assume complete responsibility for the lack of accurate and complete information coming from the city of ann arbor we know what the problem is we have the resources but we don't seem to have the political will at this point our communications department focuses more on what nap is doing than on what city council is doing and it's simply reprioritizing and because i think the community wants to know and we have a crisis right now in this community there is very little confidence in city government and some of it is because we're not communicating we're letting other people communicate for us and and they're doing it in bias ways and and their job is not accuracy they're they're for-profit and i would say that we should not rely on the ann arbor observer because i believe that they're actually more biased than m live and uh ryan stanton while he's biased he tends to to sort of capture the sentiment of the community uh what i'm hearing so i would like to at a future meeting discuss how we can better communicate what's happening on the at least within the environmental area and and make a formal request to the city of ann arbor for that because it's it's just a matter of political will and i think john john mursky realizes this in terms of what what we what we need to be funding and where we need to be focusing and the last thing is the county has started uh communicating through social media on their resolutions and their county business yeah yeah i've seen those um so rita uh actually kathy just said very well just what was on my mind that we have a city communications department and i don't in my brief time on the commission um i haven't felt linked to it and if there's something that we need to develop that would be great um and it could have avoided some misunderstandings that i think happened um with this resolution that we considered last time well if people had just clicked on and read the resolution in that m live report that might have that might have helped you know it's something i learned in college that you always go to the primary source when you can and i know and with hyperlinks and everything it's become a lot easier to do that you know compared to the old days so um yeah let's uh let's i i i take these suggestions in stride here and let's uh let's schedule a an agenda item for this in the near future about just discussing communications okay i think we can do that if everybody's comfortable with it okay i don't hear any opposition so uh let's see let's um are there any other points people would like to make on solid waste specifically um is there anything any any concerns right now or any discussion anybody would like to have okay uh well i don't see any enthusiasm for that so let's go move on to reports from committees other commissions council and chair so committees on natural features chris um we're getting closer on amendments to the udc um it's been very tough to um really modernize them and do it in a way that um works in code last time around we were looking at vacant lands primarily this time around we're looking at the rest of the city which will undergo much redevelopment over the next 30 years and the code needs to change to reflect that and um at the same time that we are thinking about changing our zoning regulations to increase density um that might mean that we cut down more trees and if those are native trees and native forest fragments um that might be a collision so we'll see how this works out um but uh we're getting there it's coming soon to you thank you okay thanks chris um um zero waste working group okay we had a a fun-filled meeting on monday i think it was no it was tuesday and we are we divvied up some action responsibilities um john callaward and i are going to work with jenny patosky to write up a metrics grant um to next cycle if we can craft something that persuades matt nod that it it will be something that results in more diversion to uh more diversion from landfills and i think one of the things that i felt is that we heard tonight from the presentations that we heard are that i i i'm going to put this in a way that i don't mean it as a criticism but it seems like in the a20 plan the contributions of composting and solid waste generally are kind of underestimated because of the metrics that are being used and i don't mean that as a criticism i think there's a specific philosophy in a20 around counting things that can be assessed and some of the stuff that you get at through a reasonable zero waste program hits on things that aren't being counted and so brian mentioned the idea of we should be counting that 13 couches got got sold by the kiwanis club or whatever and so that that's something that um we're going to be writing up a grant because i think it's important because if it if it seems like it's not going to register then we're not going to get the resources into zero waste and so i think it's important that we have the proper metrics that give it the proper priority that it deserves steve you are still working on the c d ordinance and hopefully you will find some partners that you need or you will you know enlist anybody you want i can help too in seeking grant funds as well because i think that one is ripe for it um jenny and i met today with sustainability ambassadors who want to work on a composting pilot for multi-family housing and they want to do at least three different kinds so they want to do an affordable one they want to do a mid-range one where they actually have connections and they want to do uh not affordable as in affordable um housing coalition housing but you know less expensive i don't know how to put this but anyway it would be like heroin in my neighborhood where the housing is certainly affordable but we're not dealing it's it's not um it's not ann arbor housing commission housing it's it's so we so it's very well spread over the of markets and multi-family people so we're going to work uh we're going to put together a sustaining ann arbor together grant for that and it'll be public education and outreach um and then we are um al hajj and sam mcmullen and i are meeting with jenny on monday to write a grant to next cycle for a uh to to bring reusable food containers to as many businesses are interested in using them again this is something that chris mentioned tonight that and i think we're all experiencing we're getting this take out food and we're not really allowed to ask them to use containers that come from our house and so you know i have this big stack and you know i don't know i guess i'll make christmas ornaments out of them but um so lots of grant writing activity to make possible some of these things that aren't funded um in this city's solid waste money right now um and yep and that's that's where we are for for now and we're we're just you know next week pens are going to be put to paper or fingers to keyboards oh thanks thanks lisa um so let's move on to other commissions how about planning planning commission shannon um there wasn't a whole lot uh in the last month that there was more on transit oriented zoning and i took back the feedback that we got that i got from you all last time um because uh the planning staff had only focused on the um the transit oriented zoning along uh state and eisenhower and you all had said why not why not other places and so the staff actually put together kind of mapped out some potential districts along uh plymouth and stadium and washington as well and nothing is set in stone but they did the exploration of it and so i'm grateful for all of you for the feedback that we got so that we could take that uh we could take that back to them so that they could then rework um their their kind of initial concepts and studies around that that was also feedback that came from the public too but i think it's great to have feedback coming from other commissions as well so thank you all for speaking up about that last time and otherwise it was things on accessory dwelling units and changing some standards around getting kind of smaller scale site plans through faster none of which are relate really strongly to environmental commissioning business okay yeah thank you thanks shannon um john the energy commission yes um our last meeting was dedicated to two presentations uh one was on the michigan legislative environment related to energy and we had valerie braider present she covered the franchise agreement that ann arbor has with dte and put it in perspective of the foot act which is an act that came after that franchise agreement which says that franchise agreements cannot be perpetual however because ann arbor's franchise predates that foot act we have a perpetual franchise with dte we can however have a second or multiple franchises so that leaves us some opportunities and we'll be talking about what kinds of things we can do within that framework uh the second presentation we had was on community choice aggregation many of you will most likely recall that the a20 plan calls for attempting to change legislation at the state level um to enable community choice aggregation we had a gentleman dial in from boston massachusetts who's head of a nonprofit and does consulting on community choice aggregation he's written a lot of the the legislation in other states uh it's now in sort of its third iteration and anyone who's interested in either of those topics i encourage you to go to legistar and look at that next month we will have most likely two presentations one on the green belt and what potentially we can do on the green belt to basically enable a20 um so obviously part of that would be bio sequestration but we're also going to explore what opportunities we might have in terms of solar or other renewable generation on the green belt um and we'll get a report on that and understand what we can and can't do or if that's something we want to pursue what would that be what would require to enable that the other thing that we're likely going to do is uh have a presentation by an ann arbor based startup called may mobility main mobility is a company that is developing autonomous ev shuttles they have done pilots in columbus ohio and in grand rapids to be honest with you i don't know if they're running right now given covid but post covid hopefully something like that could be really interesting because they would run obviously fairly economically they could connect different kinds of transit nodes and run along routes that wouldn't be economical by using a large bus where you also have to pay a driver and schedule drivers and everything like that and you could potentially even use it on some major routes and just increase the frequency a lot so that people could get on every five minutes instead of getting on every 30 minutes so i think that should be a really interesting uh presentation so both of those are scheduled for our meeting in april and then in may we're going to be talking about the solar faithful model that some of you may be familiar with it basically is a ppa model where investors invest in solar put it on the roof of a non-profit take advantage of the tax credits that the nonprofit can't and that can be done for schools it could be done on a public school it could be done at greenville school it could be done on a government building it could be done on a church that's why it was called solar faithful and we're going to be talking about um the potential application of that and expanding that across the city so that's what's going on right now with um the energy commission okay thanks john um let's see mike apple's not here from parks so we'll skip over that um we'll move on to council who wants to go first okay uh kathy um one thing that i have been working on and is my absolute top priority right now is um the gelman plume and having a viable cleanup plan um and we talked earlier about communications i i think that what's happened with with gelman definitely highlights the lack of good communications um but i just want to give you uh an example of what's happened in the very last week and then um a meeting that we're planning to have so um i've been working closely with the legal staff last thursday congresswoman debbie dingle had a meeting with all the interveners eagle the epa trying to get everyone on the same page again because what's being said in lansing by the head of the ag's office and eagle is quote we're not all on the same page for over a year we heard well you need to have the litigation a consent judgment or some type of litigation in place before the governor will request epa superfund evaluation and that was was absolutely false and finally the congresswoman woman was able to get the epa to put out a frequently asked questions post on their website um in order to get that clarified um monday judge connors had a hearing he denied gelman's motion to reconsider gelman once again tried to delay the process uh judge connor said that he will be having a hearing on may 3rd he will hearing hear both sides and he wants to get a proposed solution through the courts um and in one of the important issues is that the state now has um a different criteria than was in place previously when it was now i think it's 7.2 uh and it's important that that that uh be enforced as well as um realizing that we're continuing to clean up under consent judgment three so again the public has this idea that nothing is happening while we're waiting and that is not true there is cleanup going on there's been action in the courts and and also actions communicating with the epa staff in chicago so that was on monday the next day on tuesday the ag's office had scheduled a meeting with the attorneys to talk about moving forward this was a confidential meeting however some of the interveners decided to attend as well because we thought it was important that we're all on the same page and previously we were being told the lawyers were saying one thing and the interveners were saying something else we we think now that everyone is on the same page however the governor has not sent her letter we've had the motions uh the resolutions you know all the documentation in place with the governor since december so what is being planned is a grassroots citizens rally at the capitol on april 13th at 11 30 if the governor has not sent the letter um at this point we feel like we need to communicate directly with the governor because we're we're just getting uh miscommunication when it's going through the different levels of government so and i apologize for being uh somewhat direct but i had my second kovid shot today and so i i have an excuse but if if anyone has any questions um i'd be willing to answer them but just just know that there is a huge group of community members who basically have been fighting for this every day for the last couple of months thank you for your perseverance and passion yeah oh you're you're welcome it gets me in trouble sometime but sometimes i'm i'm not going to give up we're almost there no thanks a lot kathy oh you're welcome and i probably should summarize that that the plan is to have uh the courts address this and an update to the stricter cleanup criteria in the short term and then the strategic direction is to bring in the epa and so the the dual path is definitely possible uh what's that question right now is whether the epa will get in here before something is finalized in the courts or not but uh it's important that that we continue the pressure thanks okay thank you kathy um lisa you wish to add anything i can't really think of anything that we've been doing that would be of particular interest i might be forgetting something but um and uh yeah i want to really give a big thanks to kathy who's just been you know i think dropping everything especially in these last three weeks because there have been a lot of urgent last minute you know many scrambling communications and she's done an amazing job so yeah yeah okay yeah kathy can i just say on a positive note i have made so many new friends even though we're in a pandemic through zoom so uh and and i feel like we're all working together now the county the townships and so um there is some positive energy there yeah it sounds like there's good momentum finally yep uh john i just want to say thanks to dan mcnelligan he's been yes he we thanked him in the last meeting and we will keep on thanking him because he's still doing a great job well yeah and the entire card group with roger rail and everybody right and yeah dan has been a wonderful advisor i mean he he's allowed me to be more confident in my advocacy and we will be planning another honorary probably resolution as as well as an event for card and i don't even know all the people who worked on card when it was first founded but we we want to make sure that we do recognize everyone okay thanks oh chris did you am i i'm not muted so kathy and lisa and shannon serve on this commission after they already have served on council and planning commission i can remember one or two p a.m nights on the planning commission when i served on in the 90s the chores there are extraordinary and i'm so appreciative that you three come here as well shannon every planning commission meeting agenda that i've watched over the last several months has included a change to the udc which means significant staff time and planning commissioner time to discuss those changes i'm astonished at the pace of change that's going on right now it's way more than it was in the 90s we have a udc which has all of the development code packed into one 250 page document i'm very sympathetic with the staff person that has to take each change and plug it into this gigantic document and renumber every page and try to make them fit i i'm very thankful to you three and to the others that serve with you i sympathize for the energy it takes and genuinely appreciate it thank you yeah thank you chris so let's move on uh just time for the chair so i'm just going to mention that uh um um hold on steve oh do you want to do pollinators oh yeah i'm sorry yes pollinators how did i forget i don't know i had my second covert shot yesterday no go ahead gabby okay um and you can tell me if i missed something but we are just continuing to work with the ambassadors from the a20 program and we are focusing right now on supporting them and working with them on education and outreach and really strengthening um the resources that are available on mostly the nap pollinator website since that is already there we're just trying to make sure that that resource um is up to date and reflects the latest um initiatives that are going on rather than making a website from scratch and we are with that webpage our goal is to make it also a place where all the different pollinator initiatives happening in the city can go to to learn about each other and to connect to um and anything else that i'm missing um no i i think that um just i'll say that um it's been fun to have the ambassadors join in um with their enthusiasm and um i think that um as steve has mentioned to me just recently that um we'll have some information to present you all i hope um in an upcoming meeting that will give you an idea of the direction that we're going um but we're hoping to make a bigger effect in the city to support polyneics so you'll you'll be the ones to help judge okay um john mursky and then chris graham i learned earlier this week that the wolf pack apparently has a group that's working on pollinators i have no idea who's on it or what they're doing but you might reach out to them to see what uh they're doing and if there might be some collaboration that would be productive do you have connection information with that group because i do not uh i would talk to um so the person that told me was tom porter he leads a group that focused on climate and energy and mike garfield is i believe in the same uh group but either one of them would know i assume you could definitely reach out to uh to mike i mean if you want me to i could do that but um you tell me um i think gabby aren't you um working in the ecology center right now i think we might have an easy way to reach to mike garfield ah okay yeah he got me he may not know directly but he could ask somebody i'm sure to find out it may be that it's not an active group but apparently they have um five or six different groups working on different things line five things like that and pollinators is supposedly at least one of the groups and when i heard that i thought well maybe there's another opportunity for collaboration thank you so okay chris so the wolf pack is a cooperative effort between national wildlife federation and its ann arbor office and the league of conservation voters in michigan and its goal is to raise serious money to intervene in issues and those interventions they call hunt teams and one of those is for pollinators and the principal effort over the last year has been to try to get the folks that are working on the border to border trail to plant native plants instead of european grasses in the disturbed areas along the pathway that they are developing across the county and the hunt team has been very successful at doing that um i to whom should i send a contact um some of you might want to become members of the wolfpack it's 500 bucks a person a year um they were the ones the hunt team about line five were the ones that paid for the underwater photography under the straits of mackinac that showed the uh gas and oil lines coming under there that are 70 years old bouncing up and down as they transmitted oil and gas in open water under the straits of mackinac radically changing the discussion about whether those things were really a good idea or safe or not and it's populated by a very interesting group of people so i will let me know who i should send the contact information for about pond rita i will thank you very much that's thanks and i'll um make sure to get it to the rest of our team thanks um those are very helpful and i know that um john mursky has also raised some suggestions for us to um think about for um our larger areas um and i may reach back to you john to discuss some of those thank you okay all right thank you um so the chair report i just like to remind everybody that we have two members to replace and um and two youth commissioners so um if anybody out there would like to apply to the environmental commission um we're still open for applications over the next month so uh go look at the city's website and you can apply for uh to be a member of the commission um let's see rita did you want to talk about the government plume um i i would we'll just say that i am so pleased to hear what kathy just told us um and that the um intervening groups have come to kind of a coalescing of the orientation toward moving forward it's really gratifying it may be the first time i've felt a little more optimistic in recent years so um i just really want to thank as as others have tonight just thank all those efforts that you've made kathy and any anyone else who's made any even small effort to advocate for our clean water in town okay yep and i'll keep april 13th open on my calendar right so um so the only other thing i want to mention as a chair report is remember that on march 31st um osi has a forum on solid waste so go look at the a20 website and check it out okay and uh it's going to be online of course but it's good it should be an interesting community discussion um so let's see um so the next item on the agenda is a report from staff galen okay uh it's a pleasure you know just to hear about the work that that the ambassadors are doing you know i'm really excited about that you know because these are residents you know so we're engaged in residence so i love to hear that but um right now um earth day is currently planned for april 25th at 1 p.m it's going to be a virtual uh event um it's going to be on ctn as well um and then last friday osi donated 250 energy efficiency kits to meals on wheels to distribute to their members so it was a good day for us and that's my report well that's great galen okay um the next item on the agenda is action items so these i'm going to recite the ones that i have and um anybody can uh chime in afterwards if i missed anything the first one is that brian eukana is going to send um let's see it's going to uh distribute is going to send me uh the zero waste plans that other cities have in place uh particularly boston's and i'll distribute them to the rest of the commission my number two is that uh i will um i will see about getting um eileen i will ask eileen about the quarterly audits the waste stream audits and uh see about um see if i can communicate that to the rest of the commission the third one is galen will put me my email contact on the meeting announcements because this was a request that there needed to be some contact information on each of the meeting announcements so i've suggested that we just use my email and i can i can i can screen them okay and then send them to the rest of the commission if they're appropriate otherwise we don't have to all you know be bombarded um fourth one is um ask about the staff study um i'm gonna ask eileen about this uh staff study on on organic waste that was mentioned and john says that he has he has them all in his files and i may have them in mine my own but i think it would be good to get them directly from the city staff so at least the ones that are new at least know that they happened and that where they are and that we have official versions okay so i think i'm gonna do that um and then um i i'm thinking about inviting i'll have discussion with the msu packaging degree program and also the msu has another department called doma which does a lot of work with green housing and and they're also involved in cnd construction and demolition ordinances and things like that so i i think i'll invite them to come and give a presentation to the commission at some time in the future um the next one is uh this uh next item for our agenda in the near future would be uh we'll have an agenda item about the city communications department and about how to better manage communications you know about uh city actions and then the seventh one is that uh chris graham's gonna send wolfpack information to uh the rest of the commission okay you know including gabby and lily so you might as well send it to everybody um did i miss anything okay so uh our next scheduled meeting of the environmental commission is april 22nd so we passed to the second public commentary period [Applause] this is an opportunity for persons to speak up for up to three minutes please call 1-888-788-0099 and enter meeting id 957-7066 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments again the phone number is 888-788-0099 and enter meeting id 957-7066-1217 and be patient there is a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established steve while we're waiting if i may comment briefly uh i we do this uh i do this at the beginning of our energy commission meetings we're asking that commissioners or all members of the commission remain on camera during the meeting the intent is is that these meetings should try to approximate in-person meetings and we also know that communication is not just verbal it's also through body language and things like that so if you can remind all of us to do that in the future that would be great that seems like a good song a good suggestion yeah um let's see does anybody else have a comment related to that on rita oh un unrelated to that um i think that's a good idea um but i just want to acknowledge um galen hardy and all his work on the ambassador programs and i can say that for the pollinator group um it's been a great joy to work with these enthusiastic people who are you've really gotten them started in a great way thank you galen yeah you're here so um so galen do we have anybody on the line uh there's no one on the line okay then okay in that case i declare this meeting adjourned at 9 34 pm all right

in it it's working and it's starting in california so instead of making 100k a year these teachers uh have the opportunity and i'm sure you would give them the opportunity to uh make you know uh be a teacher assistant making twenty five thousand dollars a year if hybrid learning gets a foothold in the state of new jersey or in this district i would really encourage the teachers to take a very s critical look at remote learning do the math you want to save 20 million dollars in your budget remote learning is the answer and if it's going to be approved in california you can be sure it's coming to new jersey your educational association has been an advocate of remote learning if i were you i'd be screaming at your union reps telling them do not let remote learning get a foothold in either this district or this state it's the old story be careful what you ask for you may just get it technology has eliminated millions and millions of jobs mr johnson as sure as the sunrise in the east it's going to eliminate some more i'd be happy to uh i'd really like my comments to be included in the minutes of the meeting all public comments are in one way shape or form included so i appreciate that yeah by the way it was john jenks carlton avenue that's right i i jumped the gun on that i apologize for not for not seeing you get up i'm sorry i apologize for that didn't mean to call you off is there another public comment in the back please come on up and please if i if i um if i close up public comment before you get a chance to speak stop me okay it's just i can't i can't see who's speaking uh and and secondly i will try to give you as much affordable time as possible but do not take it as a sign of any type of disrespect if i tried to close uh close up your your comments so to wrap it up i'm sorry please guys good evening my name is phil woznick i'm a teacher at walter middle school for 27 years i have a question regarding regarding the wording from the part of the revision plan um the wording is the revision is at least six feet of distance the plan now is going to read at least six feet of distance with a maximum extent practicable so i guess what i'm asking is can you put a quantitative value on maximum extent practicable when receiving children 24 25 children in a classroom dr smith sure thank you mr wosdick um so this we've been following cdc and the njduh guidance all year and the update announced last friday by the cdc which was followed up this week by the njduich document establishes three to six feet which we will be within in those cases where we need to go below six feet but always to the maximum extent practicable okay but the wording is maximum so shouldn't it be three to six feet then because this is kind of vague is it not maximum extent practicable if you look at the document it's entirely based on the cdc and doh guidelines all right so thank you anybody else wish to speak seeing none i will close this portion of the board thank you everyone all right we're going to move to item six now uh and that's approval of the minutes i need a motion to approve items six one through six three do i have a motion motion by ms capello uh seconded by miss ryan any questions or comments pertaining to six uh to approval of the minutes seeing none let's go with the roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzagaro yes miss fleming abstain mr catherine yes mrs noll abstain i missed the meeting mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries thank you moving to item seven now this is superintendent's report and administrative items i need a motion to prove items seven one through seven eight do i have a motion motion by mr lanzalata second up mr cantham uh dr smith uh the floor is yours for any informational items in your report thank you mr fizzakero so i'd like to start off my comments by thanking everyone who yesterday emailed called tweeted and more relating to the sos support our students legislative day this is a timely day for us in particular as a district given the financial challenges we're facing due to reduced state funding which was catalyzed through s2 four years ago and is it is a seven year state funding reduction sequence that we are currently in year four of so support our students for those who don't know it's an advocacy group representing the over 130 districts who are having their state funding reduced through s2 i did want to dedicate a few words to an email i received from a parent this week which i thought was um represented a viewpoint that i've heard less often but which is very important basically this is a you know a parent in our district a local business owner whose business has lost significant revenue due to the pandemic this year and i know we all know that the pandemic has brought economic hardship on many families and including many business owners who've lost revenue to even greater amounts than the already tremendous percentages that our district is having to cut this year and uh that's been in our thoughts and in our minds as we've worked to provide as much support as we can for families through in-person learning and the best remote learning that we can provide the uh the budget this year is actually lower than our budget in 2018-19 but our residents have sham won't feel that because even though our budget is less than it was in 2018-19 our taxes have to keep going up in order to make up the shortfalls due to reduced state funding so every year the percentage of our budget funded by local tax levy keeps going up and the percentage funded by state funding keeps going down um regarding our reopening plan so um as mr wallastic mentioned uh the it's a it's a minor but huge revision to be able to enable this option of going less than six feet for bringing work students back in for more days of learning many districts have already done this or are starting to along a timeline similar than our similar to ours so we were looking at april 12th for bringing back all remaining elementary classrooms and april 19th for all remaining middle school classrooms and it just was very fortuitous that the cdc released their guidance update last friday which was followed this week by the new jersey department of health which has been following the cdc all year basically uh you know sort of underlining emphasizing the direction we're already on the um all classrooms have and will continue to have a minimum of three feet as we essentially shift all cohort a and b students to cohort a b leaving us was essentially two cohorts an in-person cohort attending every every day in person and a remote cohort which is attending remotely every day the um and pending approval of this reopening plan this evening our schools will communicate starting tomorrow with families about this shift i will add at the new jersey cove activity level report that was released today shows our southwest region to be in the orange time which is high risk the new jersey department of health recommendation at that level is three feet or more for elementary and six feet or more from middle school we have three more coveted activity level reports between now and april 19th which is the date we've scheduled the return of all middle school students and in the meantime we'll be watching and observing as we have done all year those additional covet level reports and continue to make decisions based on that data supporting health and safety of students and staff so if we are still orange or high risk by the time of the april 15th coveted level report we may need to delay the middle school shift right because that guidance says six feet or more for middle school and we need to go below six feet to bring all the rest of the middle school students in the nj deuce guidance does say three feet or more for elementary when you're in the orange level so for elementary we're good why are we doing this now well for one thing we've been doing school in person all year we know it works and can be done safely and in april and i don't think anyone would have predicted this but it will be 13 months over a year since we were able to provide full in-person learning for everyone who wants it over a year and you think about the young lives we're talking about those kids and it represents a significant portion of their entire life for me i'm in my 40s but if i was in elementary school that would be a huge part of my life that kids have not experienced the feeling of just going to school every day for a full day and our goal is that in april starting april 12th we'll be able to do that for elementary and april 19th from middle school like i said the cdc and the njdoh just are confirming that path we're on so to that end as well on the revised calendar that i've got on the board agenda for approval this evening as i announced uh last friday all remaining remote learning wednesdays have been converted to in-person learning days mrs manchin brought that up in her questions many good reasons for this for one we give back a full fifth of any given five-day week to kids coming into school and our remote classes continue to be served in all the variety of ways that they are the um [Music] the health and safety component of that day which was part of its initial creation to create a buffer between cohorts a and b by now we have had many weeks where court a and cohort b came in on adjacent days we've seen no negative health or safety impact from that plus by having more kids in school together and and merging the cohorts the the health and safety piece of that day which was to keep those cohorts separate ceases to exist so on the scale of needs the arm the heavily weighted arm of all the positives that day surmounts the challenges the adjustments that have to get made to continue to provide as much as we can for example like the meetings that we have scheduled on those days we will adjust and things like that but to to not do those days because of that is a tremendous cost and that is my superintendent's comments mr thank you dr smith doctors i have a question am i allowed to ask just gonna okay i'm just taking a look at the calendar and i noticed and this is just clarification i know the answer but i just wanted to make sure everyone else is aware you do have a and b on the calendar as well um continuing into april may and june and i just wanted um you to clarify why those letters are still there if we're collapsing the cohorts for anyone out there listening thank you miss ryan that's a great question um it's been a year where we've seen you know i think back to uh i think the word that got repeated twice on an opening slide for a reopening plan was tentative tentative right i mentioned tonight the covet activity level reports and it would be you know to remove those days would be a little bit premature just since we don't control clovid in in new jersey in our region in the community so um hopefully we will not need those a and b days anymore after april 19th but again they're there if we do essentially thank you miss ryan any other questions or comments the only comment that i would add on to this um tom in terms of talking about uh families and students uh something i brought up to you before and i just wanted to kind of reiterate it again um we pocket students and families into two groups those who go full remote and those who want to come back full-time and i i know that there are parents that are kind of like in between that they're they want to bring their kids in full time but they're more in a kind of a weaning in factor um i know that there is no way to build that into what we're doing but i i just hope that as a district will be try to be accommodating to if there's mitigating examples of uh you know auto immune disorders or anything along those lines but they're battling you know anxiety at home and there's a lot of issues there and i just want to make sure that even if it's not built here we are just sensitive of that um mr pursue i'm glad you brought that up because um actually two reasons one um so of our two cohorts that we're um planning for one is in person and one is remote so the remote option remains in place our cohort r stays as it is and any parent can choose cohort r and choose remote at any time um and and i i also want to say i saw um governor murphy announced um earlier this week that um there would be no remote learning for um the fall and i think that and our goal here certainly is you know to offer five full days of in-person learning for anyone who wants it but i do you mention autoimmune and i do want to say that um i think you know as more thought is given to that proclamation that there are you know that there may need to be a remote option for particular students who are um in particular medical situations and i i didn't you know i just want to that that sometimes can't be it's a lot of complexity to come to a tweet but but i think that that's something important that we should keep keeping in mind as we look to september i appreciate that yeah it's it's funny as as you talk to people there's people who are like completely elated to come back and those who are still nervous and then there's just those people in between so the idea that we're being thoughtful about that is very important to me any other questions or comments i'm bringing the students back uh more students back so what does it look like for the teachers actually in the classroom are there many teachers that are still having to teach the in-person and then students at home so i know some have to be um i'm just thinking of an example in my neighborhood a first grade class it was full remote one friend decided to send their kids back in the other friend they still want to be remote i'm assuming the remote they're going to have that same teacher that teacher is now going into the school and teaching in person half the class so they're still going to be managing the two cohorts and how often how many classrooms is that happening in yes so i'm glad you brought up because we have a we have a group of all remote classes and some of them have been slowly converting to hybrid classes so that parents who want to stay remote with that teacher we're talking elementary level because elementary level has dedicated remote classes so those students are staying with their remote teacher if the parents want to stay remote but the teacher herself is is coming in person and students in the class who want to choose in person can can come in person then with that teacher if she's able to come in we have some some staff who are teaching for medical reasons remotely and will not be able to return to in person and in that case we find seats for those students whose parents want them to come in person in other classes at that grade level that makes sense classrooms so they're not being taught by that same teacher so yes so if a teacher if a teacher is teaching remotely because of um medical reasons of their own then that they will have to stay remote because of their needs but there might be students in that class whose parents say okay we're ready to come in person and so in order to do that they would have to go to a different teacher because the teacher that they've been having for the remote class can't come in person that makes sense because okay i was thinking like i think it was maybe cherokee that this happened and they also they had a substitute you know managing the students in the class so we're not doing that okay just trying to keep this all straightened yeah it's there's that's there's many many more parts to all this so and continue to be because even as complex as it is the landscape that it it's a complex machinery with many wheels turning and but what it sits on what it rests on is itself always in motion because the larger landscape regionally state nationally is always changing with guidance and so on sure and just one other quick comment because it make what joe said about anxiety and what you're describing elementary now you're putting a seven-year-old in the classroom with a different teacher correct and different students than they've had and that could cause some anxiety which brings me to miss mcgoulick and the federal funding that you talked about in curriculum and there's a portion you're doing the grant writing to get those funds there's a portion set aside for mental health in our district i just hope that we talk about or somehow bring that into the lower grades these kids have anxiety so i don't know what you were thinking to use that mental health money for but i'd like to see more support for this you know at the lower grades for these students that's my two cents and and we definitely are already looking at that and we used to spend that money i know we do a lot but i'm just saying we're getting money now let's you know do everything we can because it's been tough on the kids as it has been with all of us but you know we can't forget about the kids any other questions or comments all right let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzlecaro yes miss fleming yes mr captain yes mrs noll yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes mission carries okay moving to item eight curriculum and instruction into motion to prove items eight one through eight seven do i have a motion motion mr canton do i have a second second if i miss ryan are there any questions or comments pertaining to curriculum and instruction all right seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzycarrow yes ms fleming mr canton yes mrs noel yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries okay now we're moving into finance and operations i need a motion to approve items 9 1 through 9 19.

okay excellent great and that i guess brings me the next question i have is about those air purifiers um so i know that when the air purifiers are doing an amazing job in the classrooms to help actually filter the air because they they are what is providing the filtration for the classroom um the flow the main blower system is providing fresh air in since we're exiting heating season and those air purifiers are what's actually purifying the air but we know that in certain spaces they're not optimal because they actually over they overdo the job we're curious about um staff moving those air purifiers around um we know that um you know if so common wisdom would indicate if one is good then probably two is better or something like that you know or if my room doesn't have one i probably should i'm going to find a way to get one but we know that not all rooms can support having those and still maintain good air circulation so i guess it would be helpful to know and communicate that information with people so that we we're sure that the air purifiers are in the rooms where they are intended to be to help keep air circulation its best what do you think about that yeah that's kind of so that that's perfect timing because that was kind of what our thinking was with with coming up with this new not new version of the report but the more comprehensive report is it like like i'm saying it actually does illustrate whether or not one is necessary for that room and these sorts of things and so yeah i think it's covered in the new report and i think we can do like a synopsis at the end that kind of gives you the the broader view okay of where they are necessary but yeah at this point that's what we're doing is is moving purifiers to where they need to be and as far as like positioning in the classroom did i get that right was that that would be great sure yes because they they're functional anywhere but like what would be common sense to me wouldn't be to other folks right like putting them right next to a unit vent ventilator that's probably not the ideal place to put it because you're you're cleaning air and then you're sucking it right back out of the room so we don't want to do that but yeah we'll do a little write-up on that okay and for some of the spaces that are i think we've talked about this situation before where if a room is is smaller putting in one of these filters might actually overdo the circulation so that's i think that's becoming more of a concern when we're thinking about small spaces where students might have an evaluation done or something like that that people might feel like they should have one of these big air purifiers in their space but that actually would be counter productive to cleaning the air so there's some concern about like knowing which spaces should have them and which should not at the same time and being able to communicate that do you think um so would it be possible to include which rooms should not have these yeah yes the short answer is is yes and that that's kind of what we did with this this newer report i just think you know one some of our common themes in this group have been in times where there's a lot of information and we have new things new safety protocol coming the more clear and concise we can make things for people the higher chances of having successful implementation and so i think if we can add to that list rooms that we know that should not have the air purifiers i think that's going to help people as well so that they aren't you know finding one in a closet and thinking i should have this because more is better right right personally i'm in the more is better camp so i want like three in my classroom but um you know that's probably not going to help my my air circulation so i think if we can have that so have the list of rooms we should not use rooms that should have hepa filters rooms that should not have hepa filters and then maybe some information i guess the fourth point on where in the classroom is the ideal location i think that will help um that'll give people a staff a sense of um you know knowledge is power and will will also improve our safety to the the greatest degree possible yeah absolutely thank you okay so next is another question about air and ventilation we know that most of the spaces in our buildings operate with their own air handling systems and it's not shared air in the whole building but at one point you mentioned that we do know which rooms do have shared air spaces and we're curious if we can have some of that information as well to help people who will be um since we're talking about moving everybody back into buildings um we're using all those nooks and crannies now that we maybe wouldn't have been earlier um so we're wondering about those spaces that do have shared air if you have a map or a list of those spaces so we can plan accordingly so just yes we can we can identify specific zones within and there'd be multiple zones within in any particular area but the the easiest way to think about it is if your room is on an outside wall it has a universe and it all the ones with shared ventilation are interior rooms so like wildwood you're you're thinking like the teach well wildwood and fort river same building you're thinking about like the teachers area you know the central area there i think crocker crocker is unique because it was updated like in modern times so like there i think it's mostly just the main offices but yeah yeah we can identify that okay um [Music] because uh okay and i think gene do you have any questions about ventilation while we're on a roll with ben here um i just noticed that we lost just lost emma so i'm not sure oh oh hi emma sorry i thought i would know you were thinking we were being rude because we didn't know you know somehow i got into the back of the whatever so oh um oh i had one other for you um so in our buildings that have foldable walls we are curious about how those foldable walls influence circulation and whether those then count as shared air spaces um for for those particular spaces i guess um in um not crocker in fort river and wildwood like those if so for me to visualize we're talking about like front hallway would be the small little breakout rooms that turn into one uh we're thinking the the bigger space um there's a space um in those buildings where um part of its cafeteria space with foldable wall and it's i think it's slated for use right now one side will be um classroom one side will be staff lunches so we're curious about how that air exchange happens in that space okay so so each of those are are on a unit ventilator themselves in their uh they're factored in just for that space so then like it'd be a positive if you open the wall you actually would increase airflow but yeah yeah they're designed to work with the wall closed essentially so each of the spaces with the wall closed has its own universe yep for good and for bad like if you've ever been there during like the lunch in the winter one cafeteria will be super hot the next one will be whatever it is and then the third cafeteria will have its own climate that's the reason for it is the universe that's more for my folks at wildwood and fort river watching that that was that was helpful thank you sorry my dog just came in that's the squeaking now the only other question that i had and i think it will show up on the nexus report is that one problematic area in um crocker farm that upper classroom that's in the um the corner there that for whatever reason we have we figured out why that why that specific room seems to test lower yeah that one i haven't been directly involved with i just what i did see recently was the the testing that just came back which i ironically is if i remember the building map correctly that actually will be my son's class but no no that um other end yeah the other end yeah yeah so that it's been mitigated but i don't have uh an exact remedy for you yet but i can figure out exactly what they did i'm talking about the the space that's directly over the preschool coordinator's office that that classroom which will be occupied yep um soon we'd initially have to use like two air purifiers to get it up but when we just did the the uh after the last report that changed so i i need to find out exactly what it was that that are because it was our hvac guy that did it so i have to figure out exactly what he did today okay it would be helpful to know why that specific space it continues um to test low yeah like no no offense to the people that did the remodeling on that building but there there were some things that weren't factored into the the initial engineering there i'm being nice not how we talked about it necessarily but yeah we i i have some concerns as well but i'll i'll keep most of myself um all right emma thank you again as always rockstar um it's particularly around the regional um clinics for educators so i know krista has a list uh that you know we we just wanted to thank you again for the list the regional clinics but krista has a list of some other issues that um we're hoping to get some clarification on great yes and thank you again um vaccines are are so important and we just thank you for helping um to get those get those out um i have a question for you about lunch spaces um so as we're thinking about you know moving people into buildings and we have large numbers of staff entering buildings and thinking about how staff ought to be eating lunch do you have recommendations for us on how staff can most safely eat lunch inside a shared lunch room i know some buildings are planning to have single locations where staff will be told to have lunch while we staff may choose to go eat lunch in their cars on their own that's not always an option for people so having an indoor space where staff can eat is is something that is being provided but how can staff eat more most safely indoors yeah to continue to socially distance when you're eating so anytime that your mask is down make sure that we have enough separation from others or if we are around other people some people prefer to eat if they have a designated classroom or their desk they might choose to do that to be isolated away from others rather than eating in a communal area i i think at this i'm starting to smile because it makes me think of the beginning of the pandemic but people should not be sharing drinks or food or silverware right that we should continue to have our own utensils and everything and food products and and drinks and then to make sure that we are just doing that really good hand washing and hygiene before and after you eat um but i would say the socially distanced part of it is what we're finding is most helpful and in in times of adults eating together is the recommendation for that social distancing still six feet or is there another number that makes more sense given adults and eating with masks off yeah i i'm not sure exactly i would have to see if there's literature about that but i from what i've heard i i think it's still six feet recommended as a gold standard great thanks um i'm gonna gene do you have any other lunch questions no not specifically about launch i think we were also wanting to know about contact tracing still which continues to be um difficult we know it's time consuming but it is it's so necessary yeah i know with the school system um and contact tracing with students that were affected in every if they were affected or staff that the school nurse team has really been tasked with that so i would kind of refer back to robin's super knot on that great thanks um gene you had a transportation question i'm just looking at the clock and i think we're down to about five minutes if um yes um i love math so ben there's a math question uh the average car length is what uh like a full-size first one like would you say like 16 feet ish something like that okay so if we're expecting if we're anticipating 112 cars to be dropping off students at crocker farm and um i don't know ballpark the length of the west street driveway 2 000 feet maybe i don't even want to ballpark that one i should know that because of the crackers um i'm just concerned about uh traffic flow because west street is a pretty heavily used um route particularly in the mornings in the afternoons and what uh yeah i'm you know you're putting on your i'm asking you to put your other hat on as facilities um what is the district doing i think probably crocker is the one that would potentially have the biggest issue since there's just that one access point um and west street again is is a fairly busy thoroughfare yeah i'm just wondering how that's going to work yeah so actually crocker was the the easiest to kind of plan out because of the shay street entrance so so you know you know in a typical year and okay so let me back up for a second so normally people park back there right on the in that street yeah street is is the turnaround and we're losing some staff parking which is going to be my next question where is staff going to park for losing that parking is because i don't want to keep trashing with people for design no no no they're they didn't they did not include enough space turn around space the turning radius for a bus was not included into the parking spaces that were added on so what we've done was to take those away as parking spaces and then use that area strictly for bus and bands so that that frees up that front part of the building in terms of parent pickup which is so what we figured was it does it sounds weird but every bus is two and a half cars roughly on average and we're talking like full size sedan you know taurus or something like that yeah they're like no it's about 16 feet i think yeah so that that frees up a lot of space and then once we did out the modeling there's no no concerns with backup it's you know into uh west street there because we have like the island area and all that we have extra space to to put cars there the the only issue that i would foresee is like the increased traffic volume coming out like it's gonna be a point blinking period it's gonna be annoying if you have to drive down west street during that that period that's that's where i was getting because um there is going to have to be some time frame where the cards need to come to a stop open the door so that the students can exit the car so we're not talking about like a conveyor belt of cars that we're just going to continually go um but they're going to have to stop and so there will be some backup is there has i'm just hoping that there's been some discussion with the town as far as traffic mitigation on this because we're um start of the day well the buses we're going to start arriving at 9 20 correct yep okay and at the end of the day um it just knowing if you know if i were um someone that lived in amherst and depended on west street to get from here to there at those times of days i would want to know i would want to know this right and and uh so we have been we kind of started preliminary con conversations around like you know traffic controls and these sorts of things like you'll notice like the signs that that light up we've been talking to them about that sort of thing and then like traffic patterns a little bit but yeah it's it's it's hard to get an actual read on like how that that exactly it impacts traffic until yeah what happens right right that's the unfortunate part of that is it's all theoretical until it actually happens well what we've got was to increase you know normally you'll see the two people out there i don't want to call them crossing guards because they're not officially but the people with the right no i know um yeah i am concerned with the the i mean this is a pretty large increase in the number of vehicles that will be entering and exiting the west street driveway um with having one person that's potentially you know with other than a vest a lime green vest um a very now extremely busy um traffic area yeah and we've added back up to our staff that's out there so it'll be all hands on that's good that's good to hear but um i will you know me i'm gonna be asking for another update on this uh next friday um oh actually no next friday um good friday yes so we won't so we will not be meeting next friday um but um i think we would appreciate an update on the traffic again i'm going to go back to that educational community and how whatever the schools do affects affects the community at large and it's going to be helpful information for for people to know that the they're on on monday through friday that there is going to be traffic potential traffic issues on west street during at certain times of the day yep and as much as we don't like to micromanage in our department that's one of those we're going to have to have eyes on the objective and monitor it like very carefully in the beginning just so we know where we need to make tweaks where we you know where we're doing the right things i think a lot of what we normally would do for parent pickup will work but in different ways if that makes sense we're going to have to make adjustments it's not going to be normal and like you say it impacts i mean you have you have a residential neighborhood right past there in both directions no matter which way you're going so we definitely impact the community right there right and that's a you know west street is is a busy street that people use to get from point south yep directly into either amherst center or umass at times as well so um it impacts uh whatever happens there is going to impact the greater community yeah so all right anything else any parting again emma we can't thank you enough and ben of course we can't thank either both of you enough because um it's like the you know the image of the iceberg where the public only sees that very small amount of work that you do and what's below the surface is enormous and that's the work that you're also doing and i have several staff members that that would be upset with me if i didn't personally directly and publicly thank you for last night for the uh the vaccination clinic where yeah i can't say that the exact number boom we're safer now than we were before and you are a serious part of that there was quite a number of your staff that were that were at our clinic as with amherst staff i mean it's hard when you pull the data right because people don't always live in the communities that they work in um to really get that granular data to know what was our true distribution of what school system um people were coming from but it by people's addresses it was a it was a good variety um but also a large number of people from amherst even if we're just thinking about teachers and educators and school support staff that live in amherst that were able to get vaccinated at that clinic so strong work everybody but we you know we as ben said we have a lot of uh school staff that don't always get included in the thanks so our facilities and maintenance transportation the food service workers that are essential they are absolutely essential and we want to make sure and we thank you emma and northampton for ensuring that they are getting the vaccines that they need as well absolutely all right thank you everybody thank you have a good weekend thanks you too

do i have a motion motion by miss fleming seconded by miss knoll questions or comments pertaining to finance and operations seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzagaro yes miss fleming yes mr canthan yes mrs noel yes mr lanzalata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries thank you moving to item 10 personnel and motion approved items 10 1 through 10 10.

do i have a motion by miss fleming seconded by miss ryan any questions or comments of personnel miss uh miss everhart i just uh want to say congratulations to those that are retiring i want to do a special shout out to mr summers um i over the last before kovid i guess i went and attended with another board member elaine barbara giovanni and sometimes with miss knowle and mrs ryan we would go to county school board seminars and different dinners where we would learn about a lot of different things as school board members and i want to say that on several occasions several over two years time i attended meetings and there would be stuff there about safety and security and technology different topics and mr summers would be there in attendance as a representative from the school district and he was so respected and revered by other individuals in the same area and i just want to say that i was so grateful that he was you know our guy and uh that he kept us in the forefront with technology um i remember as a board member a couple years ago going to see wow i think ipads in kelly cam's class a long time ago i'm really dating myself there but you know the introduction of ipads at this at the elementary school level with dave dave silver who we were just a little nervous about putting technology in the hands of these little people and he was wonderful just setting them up and having this stuff with little people as they grow and develop in the school district he's kept us along with his staff but it's his night tonight so i just want to say he's doing a great job and and i wish you a lot of luck but i'm sad that you're going but i i see that you're cultivating a nice group of individuals here mr case and i wish you godspeed and a good job and thank you for putting us where we are today so good luck well i don't know how i'm going to piggyback off that but i do want to say um congratulations to all those retiring but i do want to give a special shout out to mr summers i don't know if we could have gotten through this remote learning without you and your team your expertise is invaluable and we thank you for your years of service and thank you for training the up and coming future mr summers and frederick we appreciate you guys more than you know thank you any other questions or comments seeing none let's go to a roll call mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizakaro yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs noel yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan i told him i was going to say no but i'll say yes [Music] thank you all right we're moving to item policy i need a motion to prove items one uh 11.1 to 11.4 we do have policy on here now motion by ms knoll seconded by miss ryan any questions or comments about the policy revisions miss ryan um i just wanted to let the board be made aware that the policy committee met and most of the policies that we are agreeing and approving tonight at least for the first reading are state mandated there is no wiggle room in wording or anything like that it's you know required by the state so the other items that we discussed as far as rewriting a couple of the policies are not on the agenda because the wording hasn't been finalized between mr dante and i and the rest of the policy committee so they'll be on the agenda in the upcoming months but these are pretty much state mandated so i just want to give everyone a heads up on that thank you miss ryan any questions or comments for our policy seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzy caro yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes sir this is noel yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes nation carries thank you and now we're into committee reports uh miss ryan gave her a policy committee report so i appreciate that uh any uh anybody else wish to share uh their committee reports skip okay all right um there are a couple here so bear with me um first of all regarding the reopening plan and this was already approved from the curriculum and instruction perspective um i think we need to emphasize that the calendar as ms ryan uh clarified earlier still has a and b cohorts on it despite us planning otherwise so everything is still tentative we're obviously changing the wording from the six feet down to the greatest extent possible and i'm glad that we waited until the cdc to lower it to three feet so we did that i know other districts were changing it early but i'm glad we we waited on that the other thing is an update on our student population as far as who's in class and who's not we have now 73 of our kids in person at least two days a week uh that is a four percent increase from last month and then of those 73 we have 65 percent of cohort eb so four days a week and that is an 18 increase from last month which is great um the other thing is as far as the grants are concerned so i know mrs noll spoke about the mental health grin so i have an update on that there are three different grants that we applied for it's called sursa and sr2 for the curious that is the corona response relief supplemental appropriations and the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund the first one for cersa and sr2 is around 900 thousand dollars this one there's a lot of red tape with all of these grades but um this one we're allowed to use for air quality which i think is good because we did purchase the ionizers and that doesn't only affect uh covid but it also helps with the flu it helps with allergies help with dust mites things like that so we'll be able to buy replacement parts so we can ensure that ionizers are in the classroom and in the buildings for much longer than covet lasts we're also allowed to use it for bridging the gap of learning loss so i'm not sure how we're exactly going to articulate that but i think that's good um we were also given around sixty thousand dollars for learning acceleration which is another good thing and then like mrs noel said we have about fifty thousand dollars for mental health which brings me to my other mental health update mental health awareness month is in may the town council and the human rights advisory council are currently exploring some sort of round of seminars around mental health awareness month coming with that is a acknowledgement that our kids are obviously the the most affected in this time right i remember back to our august fifth meetings we were all in the room fiddling with our mass right but then kids were in teddy bear like there was no problem at all but just because they say there's not a problem doesn't mean there isn't one so they are at the town council level looking at how they can incorporate uh some seminars for the kids as well so i'll keep you guys updated on that um let's see oh last thing is uh sos so anyone who sent a letter for sos thank you for that um one day is is a good wake-up call for the state legislature but we have a lot more work to do so thank you thank you mr canton any other committee reports miss ryan well mine wasn't really a committee report before i'm so sorry i just um i just wanted to let everyone know that the um board policies that we're going to be taking a look at are policy zero one four five board member resignation and removal um we have to get a couple things clarified as far as language the next one we're looking at um is zero one five two election of board officers we're gonna get more language written for that and then the third one that we're looking at that's not on the agenda is 2415-20 every student succeeds act complaints and we just have like the strauss esme is some conflicting language so we're going to be taking a look at that so those are not on the agenda but they were discussed in policy thank you ms ryan any other committee reports seeing none let's uh we'll close up the reports all right item 13 is old business uh there is no old business in front of us nor an item 14 new business there is no new business in front of us all right this takes us to item 15.

um a couple things real quick about this we're going to open public for any items of interest first off i want to say thank you um two weeks ago we had a budget meeting and i see a lot of familiar faces and i had asked you just in the kindness of your heart to please be respectful and you guys were above and beyond that call of duty and i i really appreciate that and of course i i will ask that again um in terms of that uh just be respectful of of the uh of the people up at the at the mic and of course the people here responding um when you do come up uh you know i'm gonna read this statement and just kind of give you a couple other things and then go forward with this the meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personal items or negotiations we'd ask you to see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person a couple things before we get started number one i have a statement that was emailed me i'm gonna read that one first so we can just you know just do that so it gives you guys the time that you are allowed it a lot it there uh like we said it's three minutes uh but we're going to try our best to allow you to finish up your points uh but please again i am i will never never uh be willfully disrespectful of you uh to to cut you off i will just please ask you to to wrap up that final point um state your name and your address also is incredibly important as well um there's only so much back and forth that we can do all right so i know that there are a lot of questions there but again that takes into that that time account all right first thing before anybody comes up i have a statement here that was emailed from the dion leadership that i'm going to read all right and is is as follows our parent resident and alumni group the diversity and equal opportunity network known as dion appreciates the budget issues the district is now facing and wishes the board well in dealing with the shortfall which is no easy task and affects so many things we wanted to let you know that we will be proceeding with an educational proposal for additional readings and subject areas to be infused into the curriculum for the january 2021 updated amistad law which also strongly supports new jersey department of education amistad curriculum to assist we will also be working on a book drive to assist at the difficult financial time a week like this for example where certain grades are reading colonial time readings is a perfect time to add additional resources and emphasis on the homicide curriculum we wish the district success in addressing the budget shortfall and look forward to additional meetings and working with dr smith and his staff as well as any other ways we may help sincerely deon leadership and members and again what i read was from dion and is not a reflection of the board of education all right um that is the only prepared statement that i have so at this time i would welcome anybody up here who wishes to to speak for any any item of interest and i and if i can i just want to say thank that to that statement i just want to say thank you to dion for the support that they're um talking about and planning with regard to book drive and any other anything else so we appreciate it very much and look forward to continuing our work together thank you dr smith okay just uh just form a line and just please make sure that there's there's distance and space there's plenty of time good evening tracy brown from marlton middle school um i'm actually speaking on behalf of our eta vice president who can't be here this evening hello my name is russ bowles clearly not i'm a teacher at demacy middle school and a vice president for the eshen township education association i wanted to be here in person tonight but i'm attending project lead the way training for our school district over the past few board of ed meetings we've heard dr smith state numerous times that e-t-a-e-t-e-a has done nothing to help the district with their budget shortfall that's just not true at a meeting in early december etea recommended that he approach the township to try to sell some of the properties the district still has we just recently found out during a meeting with members of the township committee they were the ones that approached him to purchase the properties why did they have to initiate this transaction this deal will give the district an estimated 700 000 more for their general fund we also made the recommendation to take away funds that each classroom teacher receives for classroom supplies this would add another estimated twenty seven thousand to the general fund most recently we recommended the district explore switching to the state health insurance plan this move could save thousands more we also have a broker that should actively be negotiating to lower our premiums after making this recommendation mr riccenti did not think it would save anything have you explored this option yet how much could we save and does it hurt to investigate this we continue to hear about the money the district lost but not too much about the money the district has received the cares act provided the district with 764 the second round of ess er allocations provided the district with one million twenty seven thousand six hundred seventy four dollars the most recent american rescue plan provided the district 959 000 that money along with the sale of the property is giving the district an additional estimated two million nine hundred forty nine thousand four hundred thirty eight dollars you've asked the members of eta to give back financially to help balance your budget why as of this morning you've still not communicated any changes to your plan you still plan to increase class sizes you still plan to take away a school counselor in the middle of a pandemic a time when they need a counselor more than ever and you're still planning to strip our dedicated paraprofessionals who have already been grandfathered in of their well-deserved benefits at our meeting last monday i asked you how can you expect eta to give back financially when you're still sitting on that money money that can be used to save the paris benefits so i ask you again what are you doing with the american rescue plan money what are you doing with the property sale money did you investigate switching health plans will you save our powers benefit thank you miss brown and mr bulls just wanted to say a couple comments uh in response to that um the the property sale just just for the record conversation started on that early after my arrival here so you know that the months i don't remember which month you shared in there but it was prior to the those times that you shared prior to december yes um the uh the relief money we're continuing to look at how we can allocate that in different ways you know it's it's we want to be strategic and thoughtful with that so um continue to look at do it dissipate being able to update folks um in the time ahead on that um the idea about um the healthcare um i don't know mr rushingto if you want to um talk about that a little bit i know the number that was shared when we looked at that when mr bulls brought that up was a possible possibly about 70 000 that could be saved you know and we are looking into that possibility if that if that is indeed what our broker feels could be saved um but the number that the total amount of savings from that suggestion was seventy thousand dollars one second the the money from from the stimulus package uh we don't know what the are we we're not aware yet of the riders of what what they're for because it's not just like it's not just a blank check no it has specific uses that you that you can put put it towards so um the sr2 money we have those uh that was released from the doe so we're looking at those and looking at the money and trying to be strategic um the the second round of money the coveted relief from the bill that president biden just signed we have some preliminary information but nothing from the department of ed yet on that thank you dr seuss i'm sorry ms van kjorn and i would add that the property sale um the money from that you know is is will take time you notice on their agenda tonight is a resolution just to apply to the state for the ability to sell the country farms property so you know that process takes quite a long time and it's hard to um spend money that we don't have yet on that so thank you debbie van curan etea president um i just wanted to comment on that 959 000 according to njea we were told that money could be used to fill gaps in salary and benefits so i'm hoping that that information that njea gave us is correct and then that would make that an option for helping out with number one the guidance counselor that's really important and the also the power of benefit so hopefully you know we can come to an understanding and get that same information across i would like to revisit the proposed budget that was recently approved and submitted to the county tonight i'm sure you guys are expecting me to say this i would once again like to express the etea's disapproval of lowering our powers powers to make them ineligible for health care starting january 1st there must be another way to balance this upcoming budget without stripping some of our lowest wage earners of their benefits tonight i employed employer dr smith and the finance committee to look for other ways to balance this upcoming budget i also have a few questions i would like um to ask either the finance committee or maybe dr smith or mr shinty maybe they can give some answers for these number one it is our understanding after having a meeting with township that you were offered their grant writer and as of tonight we just were curious if you had a chance to reach out to the townships grant writer for assistance secondly which grants have you applied for um i was glad to hear that mrs mcgulick is working on a grant but i was just curious if there's any other grants that you've received responses about maybe that you've applied for and are able to tell us any additional funds that perhaps might be able to help with this budget shortfall and number three it is our understanding that the money that you will be receiving from the sale of the properties was not formally attached to any particular line item in the budget so it sounds like legal you have the right to use that money where you would see fit and could that money when we finally do get it possibly go to allow our powers to keep their hours so that they are eligible for benefits so i'm hoping that you know some of those ideas would help fix this budget problem i look forward to hearing some responses thank you can i can i ask you one more question because it just the whatever money we get from from the properties is a one-shot hit so let's just say magically at 750 it would that would only cover for one year but if we're taking an annual hit of 1.6 that's not going to fulfill the obligation past the singular year correct correct okay that's i just want yeah joe could i just make one comment on that if that's true at least that would give more power as a chance to get closer to that 25 year so we're looking for anything anything that can help them of course we want to save all of them and i know that there's a proposal to save a handful of them but we're just going to keep fighting this because it's it's not fair for them to lose their benefits absolutely and debbie i just wanted that to be clarified i didn't want you to think i didn't want you or the memberships to be under the belief that that was just a continual no we do understand that's a wonderful okay all right i i wasn't in in objection i just wanted to make sure there was a clarification thank you and thank you mr and kieran corrine hell of your 13 olympia drive obviously i'm up here again asking you not to cut our hours and therefore eliminating our eliminate our benefits as you start to bring more and more children into school they're going to need our support more than ever not just the special ed kids but the regular egg kids too some of these kids haven't been in a building for over a year they're going to have to be reintroduced to what's appropriate to do in school classroom management they may be struggling with anxiety or emotional or social deficiencies we're here for every student not just the special ed kids you're still advertising for more classroom needs if you're going to eliminate the hours of 56 is it roughly 56 mr smith dr smith uh 66 66 at this point we're able to carry benefits for the the five who are going to be 30 23 years of service or more as of july 1st so it's 62.

okay so at 62 if you're eliminating our benefits how many hours a week are you eliminating our benefits if i'm a six if i'm a 32 hour employee what my what will my hours be reduced to and then how many more additional classroom aids do you need to hire to offset the hours that you're cutting the rest of us i just want to make sure because that you're asking questions as you go along like you have three minutes i don't wanna i'm not trying to i mean this in a helpful way like if you don't mind going through all your comments first and then i'll be glad okay so that was my comment so if there if you're reducing 66 hours what will our hours be reduced to how many more people will you need to hire to cover us you have dedicated employees that have been trained and we've been working here a very long time so for you to cut our benefits is pretty devastating so that's my question so i think i had a chance at the prior board meeting during the presentation to talk about how the hour the reductions of hours that's something that's still being discussed and looked at we certainly are discussing that and we have scenarios that we're looking at administratively none that i would be sharing here right now during public session but someone who works 30 hours or more earns benefits and someone who doesn't work 30 hours or more a week does not so that's the dividing line and um and we will certainly working backwards from the goal we will certainly make sure that we're able to continue to support our students in all the ways that we right and i just want everyone to understand that coming out of a pandemic these kids are going to need support more support more than ever all the kids so i ask you to please reconsidering cutting our hours thank you karen ahern um second vice president etea and a 30-year employee of the school district it upsets me to be standing here again fighting for the promised health care benefits of our paris i'm not going to spend my three minutes telling you about their worth you already know that and i'm sorry if this frustrates you dr smith but i'm going to ask a few questions after threatening to take away health insurance during a pandemic beginning january 1st 2021 you announced at the october 2020 board meeting that you would not be stripping the benefits of these valued employees we had hoped that that meant you would work to find another solution to your budget issues yet here we are again my first question is how many times did your finance committee meet between that october 2020 meeting and this past february 2021 meeting where you announced that taking benefits from our powers was the only way to solve your budget shortfall my second question is at what specific meeting was the decision actually made in other words just how much effort was really putting into coming up with another solution and as a follow-up to that question what were some of the actual solutions that you considered any cuts and programs any cuts salary reductions or freezes for any group or groups other than etea did you consider consolidating any buildings as a result of the ld classes being shifted to vanzant there's no one answer that you can give to any of us that will justify what's being done to our paris i just feel that we are are all looking for and expecting transparency mr fizzicaro at the last meeting you talked about the struggles your dad had when he was on the board i remember your dad well i remember the tough decisions that had to be made by his group i remember this though your dad would have never made a decision that hurt the little guy thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i i i have to be fair on that one um my dad has made a lot of difficult decisions and a lot of people unfortunately got to got hit by things in the lennope regional district uh that that he was a part of unfortunately and i got to be fair on this um my dad is my dad is one of my role models and he is a he is an incredible human being to me uh but my dad was on the board of education in lenape regional when that crisis in 2009 hit and i could be honest with you they risked a ton of staff all right he's not proud of that all right when they had to make those decisions to cut benefits all right they they they did that to us uh and i was a son and i worked there all right so he's had to make difficult decisions just like this and um you know i i don't i don't think my dad would be very happy that we were being pitted one against the other in fact i think he'd be highly disappointed by that idea um and i know that he's watching now so i i take that i take that personally nicole fellaini nine cardinal court um so i've written via email to all of you and only have received two responses um from two board members that in itself is disappointing and um i won't forget that um i'm here to tell you all that um taking my daughter out of bieler out of her home school is doing a disservice to her educationally as long as as well as emotionally talk about mental health and the pandemic these kids have already what'd you say 13 months have gone through a pandemic and now you're going to rip them out of the school that they're comfortable in and put them into a totally different environment um now my daughter used that main email yesterday saying that the vandant teachers are nice i don't doubt that for a second that they're not nice but so were rice teachers silver marlton elementary school teachers so were demacy teachers and silver baler teachers van zandt is the only school that my daughter has not attended so far and that being said she's had panic attacks stemming from her experience at rice different different subject and every morning that she went to school she then spent two years at biller her second year being this year in a pandemic has not had a panic attack once in the morning now you want to uproot her again put her in an entirely new school where she has to get to know all new specialties to specials teachers which means gym art all of those specials i know you misunderstood when i said specials teachers and you told me that she might have the same teachers at vanzana she hasn't feeler special not special not the special ed teacher the special teachers so she has to get to know all of those and they have to get to know her that is important for this for the special ed for the special teachers to get to know each child is important for her education so not only that she has to get to know a nurse who they go to when they're hurt or when they're sick she has to learn where those nurses offices she has to learn where the gym is where the cafeteria is where all of these things are she has to learn and overcome before she even gets the educational piece of it now i understand budget cuts have to happen i get that but you seem to be picking on the little people i mean the paras who are huge in our school system and these kids and there are few of them but you are taking the most vulnerable kid and you're picking on them they don't they it's not their fault that we are in this situation their education my daughter's education should not suffer because you need to make budget cuts she's not a number on your spreadsheet she's not your bottom line she deserves equal and fair education and that means for her stability she deserves stability and a foundation for her education and she does not deserve to be at a different school every year it's not right it's not okay i don't necessarily have any questions for you other because you're not really answering them in my emails you're beating around the bush you're you're you're not helping all of your responses are a joke because they're not answers to my question so you're not fooling any of us clearly so please please stop looking at the budget be a human being be you're a father right come on anyway thank you i just want to say uh miss felia if you if uh it's hard to talk about a specific student during a public comment session but um ms espenberg is here i'm here if you if you stay around or if you want to talk tomorrow i'm glad to talk more but i do think if you haven't had a specific conversation yet with any of our special services staff but yeah but but again i would say a conversation is is a really valuable yeah and my conversation my recommendation was really because again the success of your daughter and all our students is our goal that a conversation with the experts in our special services department dr bland mrs espenberg case manager all good people is all right well i'll just piggy back right off that my name is crystal whalen i'm hr court uh good good evening tonight i'm urging you at this time in a public forum to please reconsider consolidating dealer and vans and special needs children upgrading these special needs kids from dealer vance and will undoubtedly have a negative psychological impact on these children as well as academically and socially have any of you taken into account with the mental capacity for this is the psychological damage we'll be doing by switching them after the year they've just had have you performed any studies i know you've emailed me and there haven't been have you spoken any licensed therapist i know that there hasn't these kids needs continuity and structure all you're doing is moving them to now larger classrooms longer bus rides introducing them to entire new staff which i'm sure is all wonderful a new regime and a new school and away from everything that they know and structure for these kids for my kid is everything continuity is everything i find it disturbing that still most of the parents were not notified and still have no idea about this move but you did tell me that they would be spoken to at iep meetings normally iep meetings will happen after may 6 which the decision would have already been made i urge you to really consider moving these kids terrible for them we need to worry about their mental health and and that's not enough thank you my name is jessica wilson and i live at 31 north maple avenue in marlton i'm a kindergarten teacher at bieler i've taught in two different schools and worked at jaggard for many years before becoming a beeler bear i've taught three different grade levels throughout my years in eve sham and have had the opportunity to work with numerous of our hard-working paraprofessionals i felt compelled to speak tonight as i've witnessed how much they do to support our students and teachers they are a huge asset to our district these educators go above and beyond for the children in evesham township it's been stated that the cuts that are being made are an effort to minimize the impact on students if ours are cut and paras are no longer eligible for benefits we will lose our paras that will have a direct negative impact on our kids i understand that these are challenging financial times for our district we have to find another option let's make the right decision while we still [Applause] can lisa falzone 12 and slight place dr smith and board i'm a paraprofessional at helen alveolar elementary school i've worked there for 11 years starting as a launch aide i've worked at a self-contained ld one two split classroom for many years a multiple disability kindergarten classroom and currently as a resource classroom aide the training and guidance i've received from three principals all the teachers i am fortunate to have worked with other paraprofessionals and students has been invaluable each day i truly learn something new i am filled with pride when i say that i work at bieler elementary i feel i speak not only for myself but my co-workers when i say we love beeler and we love our beeler bears we love the students we work with our teachers and staff simply are the best i believe that the staff working at any of our elementary schools would probably say the same of their school teachers and school workers are considered front line essential workers i believe it is unethical to single out one group of people mostly women by the way and eliminate jobs and reduce hours in order to discontinue benefits thereby reducing staff to be clear not all paraprofessionals receive benefits now there is a small number of us that do there will be a great disservice done to our students if paraprofessionals hours are reduced and benefits eliminated especially when those individuals that cannot afford to work without the bonus of benefits have no other option but to find other employment there will be a great disservice done to our students if teachers are eliminated class size will increase and in-class support will decrease students will not be able to be helped as they could with understaffed classroom my question to you dr smith and board why is it us why don't we deserve benefits don't you receive benefits don't you deserve them why aren't your benefits being taken away i was hired with benefits i believe i should be able to continue to receive benefits just like you we are in this together we need to work together to find a solution if i were in your position dr smith i swear i would do everything in my power to save my people my co-workers won't you dr smith do everything else in your power to do the same hi good evening my name is nina mccluskey i live at 59 king avenue in marlton um i did email my the letter to the board uh just for time purposes i am right i'm letting you know i'm writing i was to implore you to reconsider the consolidation of the learning disabled programs to be sent to demacian vanzant for next school year i've been employed for eshen township since the year 2001 i worked for biller with many of the co-workers here in the self-contained program four years ago i moved to marlton middle school and i work in the sixth grade transitional resource i have to say i'm working i'm actually working in the same classroom that i went to sixth grade and uh many years ago i'm here today to speak to something to give um the voice to the people who don't have a voice in these decisions and that's my students um i'm gonna draw my goal is to draw your attention to how greatly the proposed changes will affect students who most desperately need our help my experience on the front lines may open your eyes to unintended results the ld self-contained programs cannot be compared to md or autism specialized programming when making decisions to have split grade levels these are typical children who often has dyslexia or adhd my children are bright creative and can read on or close to grade level by the time they reach high school with the proper placement and specialized instruction they can and should be mainstream for social studies and science these main amazing individuals are very capable students i've had many former students go on to college and beyond keeping the class model to closely mirror a mainstream class will allow a typical experience and seamless transition when they are mainstreamed my students are only in my room for language arts and math they are mainstreamed with their homerooms for all their classes giving them the least restrictive environment to learn they have my support in social studies and science it's the perfect balance when i worked at bieler one of the things i did notice was the kids were itching to get the middle school and what a lot of them were is because they just wanted to go back to their home school middle school is a big transition a tremendous time for transition social change and growth i've had students who have severe behaviors in elementary school come to middle school with a fresh look a fresh start this includes meeting new students having one class of learning disabled students could result in the same group of students being in the same class with the same peers for up to eight straight years there will be a very clear and distinguished group of students who are recognized as being in the ld class how will this affect their social and emotional learning this is a stigma that we do not want to give our students i've spoken to many teachers in the md in autism classes who also experience the children being together and they say these kids have been together for years they know how to push each other's buttons for some students they may never get to attend their home school with the kids in their development or even their siblings they may always have to have a van show up to bring them across town to dimacey or vanzant thinking of this brings tears to my eyes a big part of middle school is working through awkward social peace this is a challenging part of their development middle school is a painful middle school students are painfully self-conscious i protect their privacy and give them a typical experience at all costs i can't imagine how utterly embarrassing my students will be having to attend a different middle school than their peers it pains me to think that existing students will have to ex switch to demacy after attending mms that's not right we can do better and last what the state says and what we know as teachers on the front line are two very different things learning disabled classes work best with less than 12 students you cannot cut all the students at take all the students at mms and put them into demacy yes i know the class sizes may change but in some of those classes they're going to double i've been in education for 25 years i worked at overbrook school for the blind in pennsylvania and we know the class size is the indicator to student success my students often improve two to three years in just one year if we can catch them up by providing small classes we can save money in the long run because they'll need less services i don't need to remind you again that class size is the key to student success please look at the numbers new jersey teachers are number one in the country eve sham is known for fantastic special education programs people move to our town for the schools and move from out of state for our special education programs we're hitting near the five-minute mark i'm so sorry please do let's continue the tradition of excellence and please let's do what's right for our children and keep these self-contained classes as they are thank you i i also want to thank you for for sending that letter ahead of time uh because in case of a situation like this i we do have that as reference so thank you for doing that i appreciate that yeah i'm back john johnson carlton avenue um and now i know most of the comments tonight are uh you know near-term issues um however what i'm looking at is a much longer horizon at the future of the educational enterprise and there is a technological steamroller out there and quite frankly uh they are targeting the educational enterprise and that includes all your tech companies uh right now um and how how do you know or how to you know why should i know this well i i've got a very close personal uh relationship with a person who is a venture capitalist um who i mean it's a small operation they only do um you know a billion and a half of uh venture capital money but the big guys out there the guys who can afford dumping a hundred million dollars 200 million dollars into a startup looking at a enterprise like education where there's trillions of dollars of potential revenue these guys are targeting the educational enterprise and and who are they they are the the technology the facebook the microsoft youtube these guys are looking for an opportunity to take away uh or to do remote learning all the time and and and i know this because this person that i talk to talks to the people he's a vc guy he talks to the people in california and that's a and his company is too small for them to get in on the ground floor but there's a lot of other companies out there who are looking for exactly that remote learning is bad for teachers and it's bad for teachers salaries and and that's what they're doing they're looking to take teachers salaries ja and teachers jobs away and they're looking to give basically tech you know assistant teachers assistants focus on us it's got to be between us i'm sorry man it affects them they're the ones they're the ones who are going to get targeted i'm well aware and you guys are going to be pressured okay to cut your budget by it could be 20 million dollar you could cut your budget okay by 25 now what person in marlton doesn't want their their taxes cut you the teachers and you folks have to resist this remote learning and that's why i have pressed so hard for you guys and i've heard applauses tonight okay for the people up here these teachers need to applause you folks okay because you guys are starting in person learning a lot quicker than a lot of other operations that's who needs to be applauded is you guys who in the middle of april are ready to send all of our children back to school in person learning that's the goal that should be it and you know what everybody else has to deal with it the kids are going to be better for it the teachers are going to be better for it the entire community is going to be better for it because their parents are going to be able to do what they've always done go to work and get a job during the day that's really with the issue facebook microsoft youtube and twitter are not your friends please come on up it's okay swear i'm not going to bite you janelle dakotas a springmill court washington township um dear dr smith and board members last time that i spoke i discussed the importance of keeping the powers benefits and tried to paint the picture of what they can do or what they do on a daily basis tonight i want to address the challenges some of the challenges that we have faced since the initial loss of benefits to our newly hired paraprofessionals so all of our new paraprofessionals that were hired with reduced hours and i also want to ask you some important question due to the cutting hours our powers have to come at javert and either 7 40 and stay until 2 o'clock or come at 8 15 and leave at 2 30. this has made a short in the morning for student arrival and at dismissal time two of the most critical times in a school day fortunately we have dedicated staff and a wonderful principal that has worked tirelessly to provide us with coverage to be able to safely get the students in and out of the building many of our special ed population require one-to-one physical support getting off of the bus to come into the building and classroom upon arrival the support staff has to help them with eating implementing behavior plans and bathrooming at dismissal many of our students require the same physical assistance that i mentioned during arrival how can we safely complete these essential and personal routines without enough consistent trained staff members as you are all aware fail to fill in sub coverage have been been an ongoing problem in eve sham the consequence of this is losing our support staff to go cover another classroom this in turn is having a negative impact on the students such as loss of one-to-one instructional and behavioral support if we do not have enough support we will not be able to safely meet the needs of needs of our students which could lead them to having to go out of district we know that is the last resort and we do not want to do that the answer is we program for our students that programming requires all of the previously mentioned duties to be performed by support staff so my questions are how are we going to address the anticipated loss of our most experienced and trained paraprofessionals what happens when we are not in compliance from the students ieps how will our students with special needs be able to participate in the after school clubs without the support of paraprofessionals please reconsider cutting hours for a most dedicated experience in trained support staff thank you cindy carey 119 borton's road and little mill section of the township good evening i am a tax paying resident of yvesham township for over 29 years i am also a paraprofessional at rice school for the past 14 years i raised my three sons in this district at marlton elementary school marlton middle school and cherokee high school when my second son was born i stopped working full-time and became a stay-at-home mom i was actively involved in the marlton elementary school pta serving as secretary and president for a number of years i also volunteered for the arts goes to school program for 10 years after my youngest son entered marlton middle school i decided to go back to work part time as a kindergarten aide the next year i was offered a full-time position in the autism preschool program my second year in the autism room we had a child who had a stuttering issue the speech therapist came in one day and put a piece of masking tape across the table she told me that whenever the child got stuck on a word or was stammering i was to lead him over to the tape run his finger along it slowly and get him to slow down his words this was a very active three-year-old the next day she stopped in to check on us and the child was jumping on the classroom trampoline with a piece of tape placed diagonally on his shirt she left the room i thought i was going to be fired she came back with an occupational therapist they thought my idea was genius not only was he using the tape without interrupting his play but he was using his body awareness i was only treating this child like i would my own there are 64 other full-time paras in this district who have used the same motherly instinct in their jobs every day it takes a village a village of well-trained experienced employees who are dedicated and passionate about the children they work with to reduce our hours reduce our paychecks and cut our benefits would be a disservice to the children of our district full-time powers are placed everywhere throughout the school on any given day i have my teacher sub certificate so i am pulled to cover classes when teachers are at meetings with parents or the child study team i do not get paid for this time if i am no longer a full-time para i will constantly have to monitor my hours so that i do not go over 29 hours two years ago my teacher had her baby five weeks early i subbed for two weeks until a replacement teacher was hired last year a teacher had emergency surgery and i subbed as a teacher for six days i would not be able to do this if i had part-time status i have also been a one-on-one aide for clubs which are 45 minutes after school only full-time paras are able to attend the after-school clubs because we already have hours for benefits if everyone goes to part-time status again our hours will have to be closely monitored every day in my three-year-old class we talk about kindness we stress treating classmates kindly it is a pandemic we are working with children who constantly take off their masks we are holding hands toilet training taking temperatures and wiping noses we are essential workers and we are risking our health every day we need our health benefits more than ever please be kind i attended both of the power meetings with dr smith i'm i'm so sorry we're we're just we're heading we're heading in far beyond the territory i apologize can you just it's my last character okay fantastic fantastic at the last board meeting there was a last minute change to the proposed busing issue it seems that selling the property to the township has given the board enough money to keep the sros and resolve the bus issue i don't understand why the money from the sale of the property was not considered to be used for the power benefits while i side with the colts run parents and i don't think their children should walk surely some of the parts of the bus plan to change the children to walkers is feasible the money can be found to save our powers thank you hi joan mclaury 53 marlborough avenue i work at jagger to the paris as a paraprofessional you are taking away from the lowest paid but you are taking away so much more from the children our title is parrot but we are so much more we are teachers and yes some of us do sit one on one every day with children and teach them we are behavioral speech ptot systems we are custodians we are bus aides we're lungies nurses counselors we're detectives trying to find out what what the children need what they want how they learn we are safety patrol we are their biggest cheerleaders when they're successful and even when they're not these are just a few of the hats that we wear they know they can trust us and if we make a promise we keep them we are their advocates most importantly we're their advocates we're the voice when they don't have one we are the ones on the front lines every day with the children and yes that includes all the children just like karen said as one of their advocates i would not feel right if i didn't come to you the board and ask you to come visit the self-contained classes the preschool and see for yourself the most needy and vulnerable population so you can understand how difficult transitions are for them how they can set them back up for a whole day staggering powers would be another obstacle they would need to overcome when they already have so many how is that in the best interest of the children i ask you to come and see the broad spectrum of the needs the children have and how losing and unfortunately you will lose trusted trained experienced caring vested dedicated parents and this will affect the children and their success in school and life if you haven't seen what a typical day looks like how can you possibly make an informed decision also i'm wondering if you looked at how much money the paris have saved you i'm sorry i'm dark by not having to send more children out of district have you looked at the turnover rate of the paris who are employed with no benefit how they come and go this is just a short-term fix a band-aid that will leave lasting scars on the children the paris the district and the town we all know families moved here for the program some of the powers who started this program sit in these chairs today they made it successful that is dedication at its finest you can't put a price on it i asked you to please do the homework the children are the ones that matter and i ask you to please keep all of the children in mind when you make this decision thank you good evening my name is susan beck i live at 548 justice drive and i've i've worked as a preschool a paraprofessional in the preschool autism program for 16 years throughout the discussions and presentations that we've had on the school budget these past few months it's been stated that the goal the ultimate goal is the quality of the students education but what you're proposing to do to reduce the power professionals hours to be able to cut their benefits shows a lack of understanding what the power professionals bring to the special education program in our district the experience that the full-time paris have and the knowledge of how it is applied in various situations is irreplaceable in the end the quality of our district's education will suffer and this is why i implore you to keep us as full-time employees and preserve our health benefits and i do have a question for you i'd like to ask why the paraprofessionals are being singled out they are the to have their benefits cut we are already one of the lowest paid groups in the district cutting our compensation even further seems unconscionable thank you my name is hope phillips i am a fifth grade multi-disabled teacher at jaggert elementary i'm also a product of eastern township school districts having attended van zandt and demacy in middle school here right in this cafeteria i have been teaching in the district for five years during those five years i have worked at demacy elementary bieller and jagger school i have worked in many different special education settings ld pull out inclusion and now m i have worked closely with many paraprofessionals during my short tenure in eve shim and can say without hesitation that these employees are the glue that hold together our schools and classrooms i would not be able to do my job successfully without the support and help of my paraprofessionals they work tirelessly to support each individual student's needs this includes and is not limited to toileting needs hygiene care academic instruction emotional support behavioral data tracking and after-school club support without these individuals our students would not be successful or able to participate participate in an inclusive school environment i fully understand the debt our district is in but who is the answer to the debt that our special education students will feel with the loss of many paraprofessionals at the hands of this proposed plan thank you [Music] [Applause] hello my name is tracy bulke i live at 12 panama road in chatsworth i am the third fourth grade md teacher at jaggard elementary school i've been a jagger for 16 years all of those 16 years i've been in a self-contained teacher with power professionals in my classroom the success of our self-contained classrooms are completely reliant on our paraprofessionals some of our self-contained classrooms can have up to four or five aids and in the classroom for support we do this to support the individual needs of our students many of our power professionals in our self-contained classrooms have been a jogger for over 15 years our students have benefited from the years of experience and training these aides have received over those years they are invaluable to the success of our program unfortunately if the benefits and ours are cut from our most experienced aides our programs will suffer during previous board meetings it was proposed to bringing children back from out of district and my question is to be able to be able to bring students back from out of district we will need these most experienced aides thank you uh good evening my name is joanna inglesis i live at 401 cedric lane uh i'm not a teacher i'm not a paraprofessional i'm not any type of educational professional i'm a parent of two elementary students and i wanted to come here tonight originally to implore you to send the kids back to school full-time five days but you beat me to the punch um and now i want to thank you uh for sending these kids back and being one of the first in the area to do so um so thank you um this pandemic's been really hard on the kid i also want to thank all the teachers and the paraprofessionals because i think that they've all done an excellent job from what i can say um i really i've been impressed with everybody especially you ms knoll i've sat here and your comments especially the last two board meetings i've been at um have really impressed me a lot um and i really want to thank you um i just want to say thank you and i'm a mom too so i've gotten i really um i really want to say thank you your comments on the school busing last meeting i would like to hear more about that and also your comments um tonight about the mental health i think are very important i would like to hear more about the grant and i would like to hear more about the plans for that i know a lot of the meeting lately has been dominated by the budget cuts and it's kind of it is important i agree but i also think that our response to this pandemic and addressing our children's needs is also important um there's been a lot of [Music] issues that our children have been facing and a lot of our children's needs have been ignored during this pandemic and i really think that there's been a lot of mental health issues created by this pandemic that need to be addressed and while the teachers and the board have done an excellent job uh addressing the educational needs of our children remember learning is not the same as in-person learning in my opinion uh i agree with a lot of your points mr jennings about the remote learning i think that it's a dangerous path to go down i work in the private business community and we are trending towards remote environments and i can see what you're talking about mr jennings where it could go down that path and i don't want my kids in a remote school i want them to attend a live school um so i want to thank the school board for their efforts and sending the kids back to school and i'd like to thank the teachers and the paraprofessionals for sending the kids back to school i think they've done an excellent job um and i would like to hear more about the efforts to address the children's mental health because i've heard too many stories about suicide about children facing mental health issues because of this pandemic and i think that we have an emergent need to address that in the school and in our society today thank you i have to lower this hi um my name is uh delena jolene and i'm at marlton middle school and i've been there for 20 years so i recognize a lot of the faces out here um i'm going to keep this pretty short because i know there have been a lot of speaking speakers tonight um as someone who's been here for 20 years these people are like family to me so i know we get a lot of emails where we are referred to as family but you know these people have seen me get married and divorced and have children and and and through deaths and everything and so when they stop me in the faculty room and they're having a heartfelt conversations i'm talking about the paris they have heartfelt conversations with me about what they're going to do when they lose their benefits and how they are going to strategically plan for the rest of their years um i it's heartbreaking um it stops you in your tracks and i feel like as a family member of these people that i would be remiss if i didn't get up here and say something in behalf of those family members um i just like to say that on a day-to-day basis the teachers the paras all of us who are here we love kids and we're in the business of not just teaching curriculum but teaching them integrity of teaching them fairness and in teaching them to keep their promises and if we do this to our parents if we do this to our family members we are providing a poor example we're providing a poor example for them of how to live and how to act and how to be in the world so i would encourage you please to work harder to keep those promises that were made and in doing that we will keep the promises to our family members and we will live the ideals that we're trying to instill in our kids [Applause] alex falzone 12 ensley place i was wondering if you could dr smith let me know what the mission statement is for esham township schools secondly the teachers all the aides all all the staff have been through tremendous hardships no one's fault obviously it's a pandemic budget cuts no one's fault the teachers have had to do a very difficult thing they have put their lives on the line and they've succeeded they have done more in this township we have heard complaints countlessly from friends in other townships compared to what these guys have done it's nowhere close okay they didn't try they did and that's what we need from you guys we don't need trying we can get that from anyone out there on the street trying we need you to do we need you to lead leadership during difficult times is difficult leadership during easy times is easy this is extremely difficult as you have mentioned you could see this train coming down the tracks for a long period of time so why the delay in selling properties why didn't it happen sooner i still don't think you answered the first question that you were asked tonight who initiated the conversation regarding the sale of property there are additional properties that could be sold do we need a an enormous building on maple couldn't we sell that it's prime real estate these thoughts should have happened a long time ago now we're down to crunch time and it's panic city should have never happened okay these things should have happened in advance so as a parent as a resident 25 years and a taxpayer we need your leadership to do the tough things not to go after the easy things or the low-hanging fruit such as benefits repairs or even positions those things should not be happening these guys came through you have to come through for them and in this day and age all we can hear you know we're going to do more for women the majority of people here are women and yet they're getting their benefits taken away in this day and age we're fighting so hard for equal worth i sit home and talk to my daughter and say you know what your generation is going to have things that our generation didn't that they shouldn't have to fight for so we're going to give them an example by cutting the salaries basically less than half and expect them to do the same job that is not equal pay for equal worth not even close thank you very much just uh that there was a just i want to thank you mr calzone i was going to address a couple things that were in there just so they don't kind of hang out as loose ends for people if they they need information so we did it we had an appraisal done on the administration building and the recommendation the very clear recommendation was its best use is to continue its current use as office space okay our operations building on main street is a very uh cost-efficient space centrally located with easy access to roads there's reasons why we're selling the country farms and we're selling the uh the cambridge park property and there's reasons why the other the other properties are not um as to the mission because that that is what it's all about right and it's right on our website but if you look on there you see it talks about students students student students it's why all this is here it's why we're here tonight it's why we have extra budget meetings it's why we listen to voices it's why we appreciate everyone coming tonight because it's really hard to do right by kids especially during challenging times it's this complicated work which is why it is in fact the hard decision to put forward the budget that we have the opposite of easy it's very hard to put forward a budget that affects people negatively it's hard to put forward a budget that cuts over four and a half million dollars it's hard to have cut positions during a school year it's hard to do many things in this budget it's all very hard hard for everyone sitting here hard for everyone involved most of all incomparably more for our staff who are affected if that budget was different if those hard decisions were not made instead of 45 positions being cut it would be many more which gets back to the mission all those supports that we're talking about and there have been so many great shares tonight mental health academics what our kids need imagine trying to do that with 20 fewer staff on top of the 45 we're already losing that's the hard decision it's hard to talk about it but at this point i need to thank you good evening genie guida 9 john quill place i am a faithful loyal jaggered paraprofessional and i'm sure right now you're all wondering gee genie how did you start your morning today all the paraprofessionals at jagger today received a survivor kit from our teachers and a select group of our special education children first thing in the morning this is what we came into they teachers know that we are hurting that we are upset and they wanted to show us that they care and that they support us and have our backs so while i feel dr smith that you may not find value in us our teachers and our children respect us my family friends neighbors will say to me why do you stay when you are being treated this way and the only answer that i can give from my heart is that we do it for the children we love them we care for them every day they depend on us and as much as they need us we need them thank you so much please do the right thing right seeing no one else is lined up i'm going to close that portion of the meeting i do want to make one comment and this is very important a lot of you came up today and it is our it is our job and our responsibility to listen to you no matter what it is how it is we're our job is to take your your anger it's to take your frustration it's to listen to you that is a major part of what we do but i want you to channel everything you said here tonight and i want you to also channel it to the state government we have been urging the entire lenape regional district there's 130 school districts have been pushing and pushing and pushing always come here always express your views to us always tell us how you feel but please take what you said tonight and put it towards that as well because if that egg cracks and weave can solve that everything here simply goes away that is the cause of all of our consternation so tonight what you said it always matters but take what you said write it to assembly to the speaker coughlin write it to governor murphy write it to steve sweeney who i know that name boils many of our bloods write it to them all right let them know exactly how you feel today because that's what we've been doing that's what we've been doing we've told the entire township and and and lenape regional did the same thing and mount laurel did the same thing in medford and so on and so on and so on channel it there too you're always welcome here to come here and express yourself i will never deny you that nor this board but please i am urging you do that too that is just as if not more important than what you say to us your passion in what in your words here express that there too please is it is the one thing i beg of you throughout this whole process please do that for me do that for yourselves do that for for the students of this district do that all right at this point in time uh we will move to uh board member announcements are there any board member announcements mr cantham all right i'll be quick um first for the statement from dion i look forward to the book drive i think that's great and i also appreciate them despite being a curriculum based committee mentioning the budget struggles i also look forward to their proposal about our curriculum in the new amishad law um around the letters to the state legislature again that that mr sacara was talking about i did see a lot of typed statements i guess tonight if anyone has a type statement and you don't want to send it to the state legislature you can email me and i will send it i will compile a document of everybody who wishes anything and i will send it over to all of the all of the leaders on the state level at the state assembly in the state senate department of education whatever it may be um if there's anything we can do as far as getting those statements into other hands that'll alleviate stress from you you can email me and i will do that thanks thank you mr kendall i appreciate that anybody else miss fleming thank you mr canton i also appreciate that i really do appreciate all of you coming um it is certainly heartfelt i i encourage you as i did the last time we had a public meeting for the budget please the passion the the strength that you have as a team of individuals and a group of individuals get the letters together i i would um piggyback on mr canton send them we can get them to where they need to be but it's not just you it is your family it's your older children the children in your classrooms what a perfect opportunity to for maybe a writing lesson or something of that nature certainly you as the teaching staff would know much better than i but i encourage you to do all those things again i also agree with mr fisa caro we have heard we have listened um it but again it is going to take all of us and not just state level your local level your congressman your senators send it to them all um the more voices we have out there they can't stop you know i know they could stop listening i guess but at least in the long run then we've all made an effort to do the best that we could again nobody i don't sit here with any of these members and say let's bring this up let's cut their pay but again it can't be just coming here we don't control those dollars they they we don't go to this state and say yep we would like these amount of dollars cut we would like these amount of dollars given to us so please it's not to to take away from anything you've said today please get the already written letters into the right hands and and i would join uh mr canton in helping get them to where they need to be thank you thank you miss fleming any other comments seeing none at this point i will ask for a motion of adjournment do i have motion motion by miss ryan seconded by miss fleming all in favor aye you

[Music] hello eagle fans and fans of today's visiting team no matter where you're watching from today welcome to the contest i'm brian richards principal of columbia high school bringing you today's contest on our social media while we are looking forward to our bleachers again we are happy and our visiting communities can continue teams in the mean just like when fans are physically at the game we ask you to keep online comments respectful and supportive of your team and not against other individuals or the other team remember to display good online sportsmanship and be a good example for your community we encourage positive comments thank you again for joining us and enjoy today's event [Music] good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to week two of friday night lights here from bree central in clinton county it's a soggy night out here as much rain last week a bunch of rain this week footing is going to be an issue but that's all right we're coming to you outside of breeze central's press box this week going to have to make some adjustments for us this week and we think we figured out the issue with the wire last week this week we're running on a cell phone so we're making everything work alex schlemmer along with jared germain for week two of the caocula conference as the eagles who are wanting to know take on debris central cougars jared how you doing tonight i'm doing pretty good alex how are you not too bad exciting night here tonight we're about 20 minutes away from kickoff and uh a highly anticipated matchup it doesn't matter that we win uh 47 nothing last week against redbud and bree central wins 51-00 we got two good ball clubs here yeah coming in every year brie central is always a great competition for the columbia eagles and everybody's always got their eye on the columbia eagles so and central is a team that's always always looking out for the columbia eagles so going to be a good one to watch tonight absolutely everybody they play columbia i think they circle it on their schedule this is a game that you want to win and this is a game that you know we just got to go and do our job last week we did our job against offensively didn't put up a ton of numbers we only gave or scored about 100 you know what it's a seven different receivers getting touchdowns i believe it was they're sick something like that and uh five players so i learned a little weak on offense though yeah uh well kicked off we didn't even see our offense until midway not even midway through the first quarter we had a kick kickoff return right off the bat and a pick six um on the first try for redbud so uh it was it was a good good start for the offense to come out on the field we already had points up on the board already having a lead which is nice for an offense so um senior colin mclaren came in did a good job through 11 for 11 last week which is a perfect perfect passer rating coming into this week so i'm going to stop you there okay go ahead what's a passer rating oh we don't even know we just say if you go 11 for 11.

93 yards two touchdowns you get a 180. i think that's pretty good yeah i'd hate to see what perfect is yeah you know we had the uh the battle of the quarterbacks we talked last week is it going to be dominic vaguely the south or is it going to be colin mclaren the senior colin gets to start tonight again in week two he deserves it after last week's performance yeah he was definitely slinging it around something we definitely expected a lot this year with coming in with two quarterbacks like you said vaguely and mclaren they both are too tandem different they can both run at different paces so they can both do something different which is a definitely a big thing for coach horner's offense we met with colin this week and we asked him what it was like to start as a senior that first time and get that under his belt and here's what colin had to say yeah i mean honestly i mean it felt different than it did last year obviously because you know last year all we had the whole summer to get ready and everything so the preparation coming in this year was a little different but i mean yeah it was great just getting to go down there and honestly hearing the hell's bells coming down it's it's great great opportunity yeah i mean when it comes to the skilled players yeah obviously i mean there we have speed across the board uh we have the guys that you know can fill in not not those guys but even even the backups too have speed so and and they're great route runners as well so we're able to get the ball out to them and then the linemen as well are doing their job up front so they give me the time we get the ball and uh skill players hands we're good my thing is just execution we have to execute every single play no one can take a play off like i said get the ball in the skill players hands and we'll be good to go whole year um i mean they have some bigger guys up front so we're going to have to take care of that obviously a lot more i would say skilled than redbud so we got to get the ball on the perimeter and just like i said get the ball in uh just go players hands that's going to be the story of the year right at his uh first start as a starting quarterback what was your first start who'd you play against what year well that's oh man i think it was my junior year we played that was my first varsity start my junior year at morton which was about three and a half hours away so um was i was pretty nervous for it we never played up there so um it was a great experience absolutely he also talks about his athletes we kind of mentioned them we'll mention them a bunch tonight we got speed all throughout the field you got whibs you got london you got maulding dom colin mcconaughey what's it like columbia always has those skilled players and this year we got the big uglies too how do you get the ball in everybody's hands whenever you have so many weapons i mean you've seen it over the years these quarterbacks have given the ball to these receivers and running backs over the years to give them all these yards and all these touchdowns and it's just nice and i bet coach horner thinks it's really nice to have these athletes coming in every year and showing showing out i'm sure it makes his job a lot easier so now we've covered offense let's flip it over we'll talk about the defensive side of the ball last week what more can you ask for you give up less than 100 yards of offense or 107 you got four interceptions two fumble recoveries two sacks 39 total taxes big fantasy day for defense for defense but you don't give up any points so now you're getting 10 points on the start right away so you know can we do that how do we do that and uh because we got a pretty potent offense in the central cougars tonight yeah definitely coming in i talked to coach germain and he said definitely controlling the line of scrimmage at least be great in tonight they're definitely a lot bigger than us which is going to be tougher for us to stop the run game in last week we have um men with four attempts and 66 yards and a touchdown also we have um to be good on the pass rush our d-lineman and linebacker's gotta gotta get in the back field and try to contain the quarterback um number four kyle admirer who will sling it around last week he was seven for 12 for 124 yards definitely got a secondary's got to be ready absolutely and you know that makes things complicated i mean we love it whenever it's our offense we're talking about makes things complicated on coach g i was talking to some people this week coach jermaine has had that ben don't break mentality i feel like forever he'll get down into the goal line area and all of a sudden he puts on a stop and we don't give up any points we give up a field goal and that's going to be huge tonight brees comes into the game 1-0 last week they won 51-0 over the westland warriors where they had 401 total yards 260 yards of offense so we gave up i believe 82 yards of rushing last week so now we're going to a completely different situation and it's going to make things complicated and what's going to make it even more complicated senior lineman kyle jackson out this week he was our leading tackler had eight tackles so him going out how do you fill that void next man up mentality yeah next man up mentality i mean that's that's all it is i mean um coming in especially to a six only a six game season um we don't have a lot of men on the roster this year so if one man goes down it's got to be next man up and you got to be ready to go whether you're a sophomore junior or senior that's not playing a lot you gotta you gotta step up and be ready to play i'm sure if we would ask coach germain he would have said gotta play fundamental football you know you might might not be the starting guy but your next man up you gotta be that starter and uh we went down earlier tonight we talked to coach horner and here's what he had to say about tonight's game down here with coach horner week two first road game what's the preparation like for your first road game as prepared being at home and everything easy around your back door i mean the preparation during the week's not much different you know you still gotta you gotta get out and and put your game plan in and do what we always do through the course of the week but certainly uh warning the kids about being on a bus for an hour and and making sure they get off ready to play and you know we gotta start from play one not wait till you know the second quarter to get going but you know we're gonna we're gonna have to play really well and they're big and physical and we'll see whether we how we match up how do you prep on a game like whenever we're at home all the time we've got the turf we're walking around out here in boots and we're in a little bit of a swamp so how do you you can't really simulate that in practice so you make balls wet for the wet conditions or how do you do that well we didn't do any wet balls this week because we knew it wasn't going to be raining at the time i think the ball won't be necessarily the problem it's going to be the footing and that's certainly going to be something different for us you know with us only having the ability to practice in one spot which is on the turf it's going to be something different for these guys so you know they're just going to have to get used to it hopefully warm ups they kind of get a feel for it the game's going to slow down a little bit but it's going gonna be slow for them too so you know we'll just just do what we can what do we expect this week last week only about 170 yards of offense but we had the great defense uh i don't see that happening tonight going to have a pretty good ball game on our hands so what's the game plan offensively and then defensively how do you slow them down you slow them down by keeping the ball out of their hands the best we can we've got to definitely establish a little bit more in the line of scrimmage uh you know 170 yards isn't enough it won't be enough tonight i can promise you that so we're gonna have to establish uh establish our run game early i think and and uh you know let our big guys uh try to get a feel for it but you know at the end of the day you still gotta block you still gotta tackle and we gotta keep them off the field offensively good luck coach hey good win tonight appreciate it thank you so we asked him about what it's like coming out in your first road game of the season um you're about to hear central just took the getting ready to take the field you're gonna have a hostile environment a couple years ago if anybody was listening to me and jared we had somebody yelling up into the into the press box with us we politely had to shut the window on them but you can start hearing the cowbells that's from columbia fans brees is waiting for columbia right now it's time for football so now we talked about coach warner how does he come out and get everybody ready to go what are your predictions for today's game um so i think it's going to be a definitely a grinder up front um both offensive and defensive lines are going to go at it we're definitely some big guys going to be out there so i'm saying 20 to 13 eagles what are you saying alex i'm gonna put up a little bit more points i'm going to go 27-21 i think we're going to give up some points this week just with the conditions that are on the field like i said it is a swamp out there we tried walking across earlier and coach baker coach good luck tonight going across the field though uh it's a swamp so i think we're gonna give up a couple more points but i still think our offense we got the ability we can put up points whenever we want yeah definitely we got a lot of athletes london little if you can get the ball in his hands i mean we've seen it for what three years now get the ball in his hands a lot of good things can happen so um that's pretty much all you got to look forward to for the eagles if you're getting your uh get the ball in your playmakers hands they'll make a lot of plays for you well we're going to get everything set up we'll have the national anthem coming from breeze central here pretty soon we'll be back in a few short minutes you are watching columbia eagles football live columbia high school and the athletic department would like to thank all of our sponsors for their generosity when going out more so than ever please consider shopping local and supporting the businesses that have supported us [Music] get ready eagles fans it's that time we've been waiting for it's eagle football time [Music] number 21 kyle katicki welcome back ladies and gentlemen to bree central where the cougars and the eagles will battle in a week two cahokia conference showdown breeze has got some rubber mats over on their sideline that'll just show you how wet it is over on this side coach kendall was talking already about how what it is out there too and then you got to throw the temperature into it jared you made a comment earlier that you enjoy being outside and now i'm looking at you shaking a little bit here bud well my hands are getting a little chilly that's the only thing here but uh the wind does not help that's that's a big factor here out in this out in this field it's a little uh it's a little more windy than usual like not like back home in columbia when we're in that nice warm press box but um we're spoiled yeah we are spoiled but um definitely uh definitely should be a sloshy one um our white jerseys are definitely gonna turn brown tonight so that's a good that's that's a good thing for coach germain in uh cleaning them jerseys this weekend columbia's going to come out white pants white tops white helmets bree central is going to have i think that'd be like an anthracite is that what they call that i guess it's a dark gray pant purple jerseys purple tops or purple helmets they're not going to have to worry about laundry tonight but columbia will definitely have to worry about that they just went through the starting lineups for the eagles the main one is number 62 grant matheny getting the start at center tonight with jackson being out we talked about how big he is on defense but offensively he's a three-year starting center and if you want a ball to be snapped at your chest i'm going to call kyle jackson every night of the week yeah definitely that's the biggest thing when it comes to an offense the snap is the first thing that that has to go right for your offense to to go right so uh definitely it's going to be a different game actually i believe a couple years ago we had a bryant gotcha had to start this exact game at central as a center also for his first ever career start as a on the varsity varsity team so a little reminisce of that and hopefully uh grant matheny can get it going tonight you know that's the big thing next man up mentality we talked about a couple of years ago whenever we were getting yelled at in the uh the hostile environment we have here columbia lost two years ago 24-28 i believe there is a late possession that columbia had a chance at winning it and i think we threw a turnover or something late so you know we'll talk a little bit later but you got to keep it clean we can't have too many turnovers and columbia comes into the game coach horner will talk about first comes into this game he's 15 and 5 versus brees central nine and two at home six and three on the road uh last season columbia won 20 and 56 18 in the 2019 season and then like i said lost back in 2018 all time columbia and 17 17 verse breeze including 1-0 in the playoffs back in 2015.

this is the second longest i never knew the second longest consecutive season for a series which dates back to 1977 the eagles and the cougars also played in 74 and 75 for some reason we still have to figure out why they didn't play in 76 but for 44 consecutive years we've taken on the cougars yeah central's definitely a team that's always got a target on the eagles backs definitely always coming in here to breeze central they're always ready to play so columbia has definitely got to be ready ready to go out there tonight coach horners 27 and 21 in road openers i'm sorry i said they're on columbia is 27 and 21 in road openers coach warner 14 and five so that's big we're playing with scooter we're playing brees tonight we play water a lot on week one he gets it off in early when he gets his ws that's enough talk though let's play football i'm ready adam willmeyer going to do the kicking for us once again tonight he's kicking from right to left and he sends it deep looks like it will be caught around the six yard line where they're going to slip up a little bit and it's going to be a fake reverse gonna still keep it to the left side number nine's got the edge sealed and he's got a lot of room to run where he's finally gonna be brought down at the 34 yard line that just shows you what they're gonna do tonight oliver schrader second leading tackler last week we're going to need him to make the tackles tonight for us three central going to start on their 36-yard line they got some big boys on the line of scrimmage yeah they definitely do we're gonna have to be ready for that run it's gonna be doubles the right side sniffer back right gonna be a fake handoff they're gonna be running a deep pass play not going to be able to get it off and columbia swarms for the quarterback and it looks like number 52 on the sack for the eagles good job there by the eagles to force them on the first down get in the backfield early and force a sack there on the first play of the game jared what do you got for your three keys tonight in today's game so going back to last week it's always important to um stay stay clean with the penalties i think last week we didn't have a few few of them we'll get back to these three keys ever after this play shotgun snapped to the quarterback looking left right away he's going to lob it to the left side where dominic vaguely and london little are there and it's inner slope dropped it falls incomplete london little looked like on the defensive stop there but back to the keys just like i said uh just staying clean not a lot of penalties like we didn't have last week um also like i said earlier controlling the line of scrimmage um they're gonna be ready to run the ball we got to be ready up front and finally protection give your quarterback time to get the get the ball in your receiver's hands and your offense should be fine third and 18 for the cougars you got to love that for the eagles defense gonna be doubles to the right side same formation quarterback looks to the right side he's looking for the deep ball to number two and he's got him but it's going to be picked off by the eagles number 20 andrew malding and dominic vaguely with the breakup great play there by the eagles vaguely with a nice tip i think they ran three straight verticals right down the middle of the field and vaguely with a nice nice tip ball right to andrew maulding who made a nice sliding catch for interception great job coach g getting that defense going got minus eight yards to start first play two in completions one interception we're starting where we left off last week coach horner should be uh should be ready to get the ball in his athletes hands early in this first quarter colin mclaren takes the field with his offense trips to the right side single back to the left he's going to look to his left side where he's got london where he can't get it out and he's going to be sacked on the play all five offensive linemen turning around looking at him it looked like the ball kind of slipped out of his hand whenever he was trying to throw the outlet out route to london on the left side here jay mistler coming on to the field looks like two train coming off jay mistler is going to be playing that sniffer back position a lot for us as he did last week loss of four on the play for the eagles second 14 from their own 38 yard line we're going to send two men in motion which will be a penalty it's handed off to little who's going to run to the left side would have had about a 12-yard game however the penalty flag will bring it back you can hear coach horner all the way from over here that's never a good thing on the eagles can't send two men in motion that's something i just got done saying on those keys you got to keep it clean it's a big game like this you have to keep it clean i mean that goes without saying once again we are running i'm sitting down in front of jared below mr nickerson jared's standing up above me we're working outside and we're working on a cell phone so we apologize for any delays tonight bear with us trips right running back right mclaren shotgun he's going to take the snap roll to the right side where he's going to hit number 23 who falls in between his legs adam wiblemeyer is the intended receiver not a good start to the eagles offense yeah penalty kind of made it slowed them down a little bit makes it hard to run a second and long now that brings up a third and long which is definitely um something coach horner does not not like to be set up in look for a little screen or just a little jacksonville jet sweep around the outside just under 10 minutes remaining in the first quarter [Music] andrew malding split out by himself to the left side two running backs set for the eagles and it's going to be a handoff to number 21 kyle mcconaughey look at his speed look at him go makes a little quick cut gets up to the 42-yard line and it'll bring up a fourth and ten but not a bad play to end that drive yeah almost got back up to the original line of scrimmage make it uh fourth and eleventh makes it a lot easier for whimer it gives them a little a little more space to hunt the ball away and make it easier for the columbia defense we'll be doing all the kicking duties for the eagles this year it's like number 11 coming on for the eagles drew meganson coming on late split out to the left side webby's going to be punting from the 42 a little bit of wind in his face nearly gets blocked but he gets it off and it's going to give a good eagles bounce where it's going to roll to the 21-yard line by the where the cougars offense will take over we're going to run to a break and we'll be right back from breeze central in a bit [Music] welcome back where it's going to be a quick handoff to the left side for the cougars they're going to get a good put and get about four yards on the play i was busy watching london little in this wide receiver go at it london little got pancaked on this play over here i don't think he was ready for the wide receiver to come up and make a block on him you already look at dominic's right side mud and you look at poultry mud we're only two minutes in you can already see the the feel of this getting brown too columbia coming out in a four-man set three linebackers gonna have trips to the left side they're gonna hand it off to the left side again they like something on that side but that's okay columbia's got it sniffed out for nothing something like we talked about earlier controlling the line of scrimmage great job there to force it back inside i couldn't see who that really was on the right side looked like owen brewer whose first time starting this year i believe no one's taking over in that jackson is he defensive third down and six trips to the right side gonna look to the right side right away and it's gonna be a slant route caught by number two and it's gonna be enough for a first down just about a yard shane becker comes in last week he had four catches for 74 yards four of those catches went for three touchdowns well hey we stopped them from getting the first touchdown so that's all right [Applause] columbia playing looks like a cover two set i don't think they've really switched out of that i think they played it a little bit last week too gonna be a handoff to the left side they're gonna bend it back to the right maybe gain a yard on the play my coach remains the last week bring the juice on swarm tackle that's what we've done so far to start the night definitely got to be ready up front definitely got to be ready on the line but the linebacker's got to be ready for the cougars you got to be ready to plug them holes for the for the linemen so they can get off box and make plays last week bree central's quarterback was seven for 12 for 124 yards three touchdowns hasn't really done too much damage yet he's going to take the snap hand it off to the right side where the running back squeezes his way through looks like he's gonna have it first good for about eight yards and a first down for the central cougars that's something we said earlier got to be ready for the run last week bree central's rushing had really four guys running the ball two of them ran it a lot but you had 77 70 66 and 49 you never know who's going to be running the football here brie central always seems to have one or two big running backs too with a lot of power you can hear coach germain yelling over here it's going to be a handoff to the left side jet sweep far left they got the edge blocked again and great job london little stop a touchdown on that block he probably stopped to touch down there because london was probably the last guy to stop him as we head uh maulding who's a pretty quick guy coming from the opposite side of the field bolana made a great open field tackle there to save a touchdown six minutes 45 seconds remaining in the first quarter columbia on skates right now as brees is moving their way down the field coach warner talked about trying to keep breez's offense off the field tonight and right now they're kind of keeping our offense off the field as well by running the ball all night up the middle once again he's going to be hit when the handoff happens he's going to make his way to the line of scrimmage but we have three guys on the backfield right away some also to look out for looks like london little's following number two shane becker around the field so wherever number two at you're going to see london little right with him for the cougars a little bit closer to the field this week the face mask that the guys are wearing so this year they go into their face mask is that true i haven't seen him last week we couldn't see him at all but everybody's got matching face mask i guess to go over the top of their effects mask doubles the right side gonna be a handoff to the right side two guys in the backfield once again great job garrett poultry getting in the backfield and sniffing that out right away looks like all these i feel like big guys always have fun playing in these muddy games because they're i mean they're probably on the on the ground every every play oh yeah did you ever play in the mud bowl and blue jay ball i never got to play one in high school i played on a lot of turf fields i'll never forget it was a central game my sophomore year kyle breitenstein i don't think he had a part of clean clothing on him when the game was over with he was a mess third down and 13.

all sides offset long pass play to the right side had a free play there let the eagles jump off sides i'm gonna go ahead and just assume that it was oliver schroeder there by the uh the screaming coming from coach germain there that's one voice that carries yeah he can tell me about it when he starts screaming and healing he gets that high pitch in him oh tell me about it it just goes i've heard it one or two times just one or two i had the luxury of playing offense i never had to worry about it i just had that other guy going out yeah you only have to deal with it you only have to deal with it on the field try it at home so we'll try this again third and eight as a defensive coordinator though you want to have those third and long situations and that's what we're getting here tonight sniffer back goes to the left gonna be a shotgun pass it's gonna be a screenplay that looks like a little miami for the eagles and what do you know garrett poulter there to sniff it out and get a tackle i can't even see half these numbers right now with the mud already covering them by the end of the night we'll be guessing i'm gonna go ahead and just assume garrett's the only one that's got hair coming out of the back of his helmet so i think we'll be able to figure that one out i think oliver schrader does too oliver does too yeah so the ever dangerous london little gotta watch out for a fake here too standing at the 12 yard line offside here's your fake straighter again so that gets colombia to jump that's going to bring up a fourth and one definitely go forward now i would i would assume yep penalty there on poultry i believe somebody somebodies guy on the field so fourth and one now you got to shift your defense on and off you got you guys running you got a call timeout that's what coach horner does [Music] looks like columbia's all all clustered up we'll send it to a break and we will come back to breeze central 422 remaining for the fourth and one out of the central cougars where the sun is starting to set we got a beautiful sunset behind us right now pretty nice view out here the nice aroma of clinton county it's not too bad yet so central will line up they're going to have two guys up underneath it's just going to be a straight handoff up the middle and by number 23 power like you said first down cougars [Applause] and that's something central's probably probably came into the game wanting to do keep the ball out of columbia's hands run the ball as much as you can and if you can yeah if you can keep running the ball keep the ball out of mclaren and london little and all the athletes on the eagle side of the ball good things can happen for central we'll talk about the central cougar size here in a second after the run play to the left side it's going to be a just a trap play it look like dominic vaguely running the gaps making the play you like that out of a center or a safety dominique you got a new one there usually we got to worry about being called vogel or vogeli or something like that now we got a dominique dominique so to bring up a second down in nine 336 remaining in the first quarter tied 0-0 then don't break coach g sniffer back left doubles left running back to the right i think he moved early but that's okay it doesn't matter what i think it's going to be a pass play and it's going to be picked off london little high points of football was it london london maybe it's london or mauldin i can't i think it is is it molding i can't tell andrew malding on the end that's his second it's his second pick of the game already in this first quarter so two drives for the central cougars offense two interceptions by andrew mullins ben don't break coach g i love it look like that running back yeah he was the one that was a quarterback was trying to get the ball to there dominic vaguely on the carry up the middle he's going to go right up the middle put his shoulder down take on four central cougars officials blow it dead he doesn't get tackled it's a good hard run out of a sophomore just coming in at six foot two 175 he didn't shy away from any contact there like you said on that uh last last play there by central he looked like a fall start out of the running back um i think that that was who the quarterback was throwing it to so he was probably trying to get on his yeah get on his route probably saw an opening he could uh get to the end zone and try to score but great cut off by mauling the mcpick diamond mcconaughey in the backfield going to be a handoff to mcconaughey who's going to dance around for maybe a yard those big central linemen clogged it up let's see if we can get some numbers on these guys number sixty eight on the tackle coming in at five eleven two fifty five johnny keith senior third and five for the eagles where else we got number thirty four he's one i think it's 34.

68 68 that's who we just talked about johnny keith we'll call it two tight end set running back to the right side it's gonna be a pass play it's your pre-snap post snap read there every quarterback he was open free snap snap though everything changes i don't think he saw that linebacker there that was covering hook to curl that was dangerous pass though he if that linebacker made that catch he had a lot of room no it would have been a touchdown yeah punting once again is adam wibbenmeier who did the kicking for us last week had two punts for 55 yards and this yeah this is something you don't want to have a snap over your head good great snap good drop gets the kick off it's going to hit at the 45 the ball just dies [Music] to the breeze central 47 where they will take over eagles at their own 47 yard line one minute 53 seconds to go i will go ahead and give a shout out we uh of course when you come to breeze you got to stop at wally's and we stopped at wally's today in a parade come through congratulations to the brie central cheerleaders on getting third place in state this year had a nice little parade go through for him fire trucks police cars ambulances so congratulations pre-central cheerleaders those burgers are good though aren't they oh my hand off to the right side of the big running back and it's going to be good for 2 yards we're going to say poultry comes off first and there's another that's a lineman you can tell by that and we'll just call them a lineman yeah these white jerseys hard to see with that blue lettering especially when you've got mud all over them so we'll call it bear with us 70.

he's saying the names here brings up a second down and eight and a half maybe eight and two thirds sniffer back right running back right play action to the right side they like down the middle of the field to number 19 who's got number two two train beat and it's dropped two train was beat on the play but there by number 19 seth becker looked like he just ran a straight vertical right across his face and two train really couldn't keep up with him if it was uh little shorter pass he would have probably scored a touchdown there but a little out of his reach brings up third and about eight i'm starting to get that clinton county perfume out here i think three men down for the eagles three linebackers three defensive backs gonna be a pass to the left side gonna be a slant and it's gonna be caught by number two but i don't think he got it i think dom stepped up and stopped him bring up a fourth down and three great job by dom stepping up and getting that slam that's always a tough spot for a safety too whenever you're about 12 to 15 yards off the ball you got to come up and make plays quickly right whenever the receivers are coming off the line of scrimmage so good good play by vaguely to come up and make a play mono himano here looks like central's missing a player they are number 34 is coming on late everybody up to the line of scrimmage watch the football oh ah a little bit of a twitch nothing though five seconds to go on the play clock hey hey timeout is called 30 seconds to go eagles got a big play here fourth and two keep bending no breaking [Music] i heard some central fans over here thinking we crossed the line but i think it was just a little flinch it doesn't matter what we think up here does it so columbia coming into this game 1-0 after a 47-00 win last week brie central coming in after a 51 nothing last week all conference games this year i believe correct i believe so and then in 2022 season the cahokia conference changes to a large medium and small division where it'll be columbia breeze central well they're the same three central freeburg salem roxanna east alton i believe yep then the other ones with um is that is that the ones with uh i don't even know who's on that other side central coming out in a punt formation oh they get the snap off it doesn't look like anybody was ready for it and he gets the kick london's gonna let that one fall and he's usually pretty aggressive on those balls on the ground but there's nothing going for that one and it's a little different here on this grass whenever that ball hits the ground it just dies on turf it bounces a little bit so that's where london can get get a little bit of his space and he likes whenever whenever you see those punches bouncing around london likes to play with those defenders a little bit and act like he's not going to pick it up and then sometimes he'll go pick it up and take it to the house so this grass definitely makes a difference colin mclaren comes back out onto the field we've got a tight end and a sniffer back right running back right london out by himself as well as andrew mauldin near side to us good snap to mclaren who's looking for a deep ball down the right side we're going to let it air out and one little's going to make an adjustment he's going to make a move and he's going to make himself another touchdown for the eagles [Applause] hey what do you do you get the ball in your playmaker's hands don't you coach owner said hey we're getting the ball right here and we're taking a shot we haven't taken a shot yet tonight look what happens you get yourself an 85-yard touchdown i don't even think yeah i don't even think or mclaren made a read there i think he just caught the ball and said london go get it go get it so the 85-yard touchdown by london little is his fourth of the season i believe that columbia drive goes 85 yards and we'll call it 12 seconds big snap here for the eagles pats always are a big part of the game going to be a low snap it's gonna be picked up by saigon and he's just gonna have to fire and he's not getting anything who is our long snapper now do we know it's usually kyle jackson's usually kyle jackson okay number nine marcus price that's a big thing kyle jackson he's pretty good because like we said earlier i want the ball at my chest my chest my chest but now all of a sudden i need it about a foot off the ground that's pretty tough yeah it's different it's a lot different so now you got that backup center in there if he's got to just get used to getting it up to the chest and be happy with that then you got to throw out that uh that long snap and like you said earlier kyle jackson's been doing this since he was a sophomore so he's got a little more time under his belt doing it on the varsity level so columbia leads this one six nothing 8.7 seconds remaining in the first quarter here in breeze central on a chili we won't call it cold this is like a week eight feel i feel like when we're usually playing central yeah this is a week eight got a little briskness in the air we will see them in week eight i believe in the next couple months weber meyer set the kick once again only the second time we've seen him tonight last week at this time he'd probably been out here five times so he will send it right to left from the 40-yard line a low kick to the left side it's gonna slowly roll and columbia can recover that almost get down there but it will be recovered by central they will get to about the 20-yard line coach calls out the face mask and the white hat sees it tackled by several eagles on the play that ball was just sitting on the ground down there two or three seconds last week whitby had seven kickoffs for 388 yards which is a 55 yard average on the eagles so whenever the uh the opposing offense is starting at their 20 it's a huge huge deal but rather than starting at the 20-yard line they will start at the 34-yard line with 2.6 seconds remaining in the first quarter so one play we will go to the second quarter three men down linebacker to the right side running back is going to run it to the left side and it will be a positive gain brought down by dominic vagaley that'll be the end of the first quarter where the columbia eagles are leading six nothing we will head to a break and we will be back to breeze central in a short minute and lauren jeffrey welcome back to breeze central ladies and gentlemen you know where we are where are you listening from tonight last week we had some south carolina some florida's all over town and i know aces wild has the ball game streaming tonight as we will every week be streaming up there let us know where you're coming from comment on the any social media platform that columbia has and let us know where you're enjoying tonight's game from in the warmth i'm assuming gonna be a play action pass it's gonna be snipped out by the eagles right away they're gonna shovel past the number 34.