Documents › Conservation Advisory Council, 2026-02-17

minutes 3 pages

Croton Conservation Advisory Council Meeting Minutes January 13, 2026 Meeting called to order at 7:30pm Present: John Ealer (Chair), Rachel Bernstein, Halle Clarke, David Daly, Jason Mencher, Eva Thaddeus, Madalyn Bozinski, Mayor Brian Pugh (Liaison), Trustee Nora Moriarty Nicholson (Liaison), Planning Board Member Steve Krisky (Liaison) 1. Minutes a. December minutes unanimously approved. 2. Earth Day (John, Brian) . Set for Saturday May 2nd, with a rain day of May 9th, the following weekend. a. Proposal to memorialize the current Earth Day procedures, and hand off operational responsibility to village staff in the Recreation Department. The CAC would still guide the event, providing recommendations through the chair to the rec department. The intent is to offload most of the organization load from the committee, allowing the committee to focus more fully on its mission, and the parts of the Earth Day celebration tied to that mission. b. The committee would still have the ability to reduce the number of vendors down to a more curated list, aligned with our Earth Day goals as previously discussed. The committee would give a list of vendors to the village, and the village would take care of the logistics from there. c. Still likely to move the event to Senasqua as previously discussed. That would be by guidance from the committee. d. Discussion on waste streams at the event. The village can bulk buy compostable utensils, plates, etc for vendors to use. The committee could schedule volunteers by the cans to help make sure waste gets sorted into the correct streams (recycle, compost, landfill). e. The Food Pantry day is scheduled for the same morning (first Saturday of Month) at Holy Name of Mary. We should be mindful of scheduling. f. There was general agreement for and support for the proposed change to leverage the recreation department for Earth Day. g. The committee will write up a guide for running Earth Day, for the recreation department. h. The committee would still be responsible for things such as bird walk, bike ride, guide hike, etc. The village would handle promotion for the event. 3. Leadership update (John, Brian) . John is filling in to chair the meeting today. He will remain on the committee, continuing to organize and lead CLEAN. Due to travel requirements, he will be missing some committee meetings. 4. Trails (David) . Updated village trail map essentially done. Just figuring out the final steps. a. We shared the updated map with the NRI folks. b. We'll look to restart work days in late March when things warm up. We'll get the volunteers together sometime before that to set out a plan of attack for the spring. 5. Dark Skies (Jason) . Starting the process to propose dark sky code for the village. The committee will come up with a proposal for the village board. It will be a multimonth effort. a. The first step is reviewing existing example codes. As such, Jason shared copies of the dark sky codes for the towns of Yorktown and Cortlandt. There is no county guidance on dark skies. b. Steve to look into and share any relevant current village regulations. c. Everyone was encouraged to review the existing references, and come to next month's meeting with thoughts and questions. d. Preliminary questions about regulations by time of day, and on defining regulations in terms of light emitted, as opposed to kinds of light sources (e.g., rope light). 6. Repair Cafe (Halle) . Date: 2/28 at the Croton Free Library. a. Request for people to sign up for 2 hour shifts to volunteer at the event. b. Currently there are 10 coaches signed up for the event. We still need a sewing coach and a bicycle repair coach. i.The bicycle coach is on the agenda for the bicycle and pedestrian committee. c. We need two new lawn signs with the updated location and date. d. The library is printing fliers and doing a lot of promotion for the event. 7. NRI (Jason, Madalyn) . Hosted a meeting in the municipal building with a lot of logistical discussions. Next meeting is March 11th. a. Ongoing discussions and coordination between NRI, engineers, and building departments between meetings. b. Trails map shared with the NRI organizers. They are following up with the county to try to get matching GIS data. c. At some point, we will bring in NRI maps for the committee for review. 8. Clean (John) . Starting again in March. Figuring out plans over the next month. 9. Garden Club (Eva) . NYS seedling sale. Eva reserved 100 seedlings for the committee for Earth Day. To follow up with John about getting a purchase order and having the village pay for the seedlings. 10. Committee Scheduling . The planning board meets every second and 4th Tuesday at 8 PM, creating a conflict for our liaisons. a. Brian to check about switching the CAC meetings to the 1st or 3rd Tuesday of the month to avoid that conflict. Meeting adjourned 8:27 PM.