Environmental Advisory Council Meeting Minutes - June 10, 2025

Environmental Advisory Council Meeting Minutes
June 10, 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
• Staff Present: Abbey Swan
• Guests Present: Debra Town
• Public Comment: None
• Minutes Approved – None (First Meeting)
• Old business - None
• New Business
  • Chair Nominations – The group voted 5-0 to nominate Anne Duzan as the first chair of the EAC, with JoEllen as the co-chair. Abbey will take the nomination to the Board of Commissioners, who, under the First Class Township Code, appoint the EAC chair.
  • Conditional Use Review – Abbey briefed the group on the topic of possible EAC review of Conditional Use plans. Similar to existing reviews sometimes done by the Historical Commission, the EAC will be able to review the sustainability-related aspects of a project plan and draft a letter to the Board of Commissioners or the applicant with feedback and recommendations. The group voted 5-0 that they would like to contribute to the approval process. Lindsey suggested using our Sustainability report as a way to organize our review of projects. Mike described the process used by the Planning Commission when drafting a recommendation. Lindsey asked about consistent formatting of our reviews. Abbey will send out PC and HC letters as examples. Debbie has some experience with issuing review letters and suggested that we work on consistency in formatting.
  • Recording Secretary – The group voted 5-0 to appoint Abbey as the recording secretary for the EAC.
  • Debbie pointed out some valuable information on the County’s Planning Commission web page and noted some areas that we can add to our “to do” list. Abbey mentioned that we’ve got an existing relationship with the county’s Sustainability Director that we can expand on.
  • Abbey mentioned an upcoming invitation to the Meadow Park Ribbon Cutting. We also received a PECO Green Region Grant to finish converting the meadow space.
  • After some discussion, it was decided that Abbey would reach out to tech support to set up township email addresses for all of the EAC members. She’ll also set up a shared folder for the group to access and edit.
  • First steps – It was agreed that some of the outreach items would be good to focus our initial efforts on. Everyone offered to help write a standing column on sustainability for the monthly newsletter. We also discussed coordination with other boards and commissions, where appropriate. The group decided to assign liaisons to each other group and schedule a time to attend their meetings with a brief presentation about the EAC and the action items that are relevant to them.
    • JoEllen – Parks and Rec
    • Cheryl/Anne – Planning
    • Mike – Municipal Authority
    • Lindsey/Mike – Historical Commission
    • JoEllen/Mike – Zoning Task Force
  • We briefly discussed a resident who’d like to discuss a plastic bag ban. We’ll invite him to a future meeting.
• Adjournment