Environmental Advisory Council Meeting Minutes - August 12, 2025

Environmental Advisory Council Meeting Minutes
August 12, 2025 @ 7pm
 
This meeting was held as a hybrid meeting – both via Zoom and in person at the Township building.

• Call to Order: Meeting was called to order at 7:00 pm
• Attendees: Anne Kadar-Duzan, Mike Irwin, JoEllen McBride, Lindsey Beacher, Cheryl Spaulding, Debra Town
• Staff Present: Abbey Swan
• Guests Present: Marianne Cattell
• Public Comment: None
• Minutes Approved – June 10, 2025 (July meeting was cancelled due to weather)
• Old business:
  • Housekeeping – Emails, Shared Docs – Abbey checked in with the council members to ensure that everyone was able to access their new township email addresses and the shared drive folder.
  • Outreach to Boards and Commissions
    • Golf Committee – The group decided to hold off on contacting the Golf Committee for now and to meet with the golf course manager in the slow season to see how the EAC can support greening efforts at the golf course. Anne offered to attend their meetings
    • Abbey will invite the Zoning Update Taskforce to an EAC meeting and will send out the draft of their updated zoning to the EAC for review.
    • Anne will attend the next Planning Commission meeting to update them on the EAC and Sustainability Report.
    • Lindsey has been communicating with the Historical Commission and Commissioner Evans about green projects at the Spackman-Davis Farm and other historic properties.
    • Mike, Cheryl, and Abbey will attend the next Municipal Authority meeting to update them about the EAC and Sustainability Report.
    • JoEllen will do outreach to Parks and Rec.
  • Newsletter Pieces – Anne authored a piece for this month’s newsletter and the rest of the group is invited to contribute content whenever they like. We will set up a folder in the shared drive to organize newsletter content and assignments.
• New Business
  • Community Day Table – Since Community Day is in less than a month, we’re going to keep this year’s table fairly minimal. JoEllen and Anne are available to staff the table for part of the day. We discussed creating some overview materials to inform people about the EAC and report. JoEllen offered to work on these. Abbey will get together a suggestion box, for the public to contribute ideas related to sustainability. Abbey will also get a sign made to identify the table and print off a large map of the township where people can mark flooding, traffic, biodiversity etc. concerns.
  • Focus on 3 Action Items – Anne detailed her plan to identify three items from the report to address at each month’s meeting in order to keep things moving along. All agreed that we should focus on ordinances and policies as the most urgent needs. Lindsey started organizing our folders with this in mind. Jo will make a spreadsheet to help facilitate.
  • 2026 Budget Request – Abbey discussed putting together a budget request for 2026. The group agreed that a small budget should be requested for this first year, and to include trash/recycling event containers to help increase recycling at events. Abbey will price this out.
  • Trail Update – Abbey provided a brief update about the Beaver Creek Trail. We’ve secured $250,000 in grant funding from the County for construction of Segment 5 of the trail and are awaiting word from the State about additional funding.
  • Stormwater Facilities Map: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/64b211f98037452c96eb3de9020f6c28 The group looked over the soon-to-be-released stormwater facilities map. They pointed out that a key would be helpful for the public to understand the conditions indicated. Cheryl will post it to her Facebook group when it’s published.

 

• Adjournment