Documents › Conservation Advisory Council, 2026-06-16

minutes 4 pages

Minutes of the CCAC meeting of Tuesday, May 26, 2026. Dave Daly and Tom Smith of Quiet Clean Croton gave a presentation on their mission to convince the town to enact a yearlong ban on gas-powered leaf blowers without exemptions, with police enforcement, escalating fines and coordination with other towns. Members debriefed the Earth Day event, heard that a train station cleanup collected 300 pounds of waste, and voted unanimously to formally recommend that the village engineer investigate the stability of the dam structure and spillway at Kaplan pond after a letter said the spillway is clogged and overgrown.

CCAC MINUTES TUESDAY, May 26th, 2026 7:45PM In attendance ● Eva Thaddeus (Garden Club), Chair ● Halle Clarke ● Jason Mencher ● John Ealer (CLEAN) ● Madalyn Bozinski ● Rachel Bernstein ● Sherry Horowitz ● Shiloh Shea ● David Daly Not present: Liaisons: ● Mayor Brian Pugh ● Board of Trustees Member Nora Nicholson Public Attendance ● Michael Balter ● Tom Smith ● David Lowell Recording Secretary ● Shiloh Shea CALL TO ORDER ● The meeting was called to order at approximately 7:45 pm ET in the Recreation Room. The meeting was adjourned at approximately 9:00PM APRIL MINUTES ● The April minutes were approved unanimously. QUIET, CLEAN, CROTON ● Dave Daly and Tom Smith of Quiet Clean Croton gave a second, more in depth presentation on the goals of and motives for founding Quiet Clean Croton. They also handed out materials and resources explaining their mission to convince the town to enact a yearlong ban on gas powered leaf blowers without exemptions and with police enforcement, escalating fines, and coordination with other towns. ● Further discussion was had about information to be gained. Anecdotal stores about Landscaping companies and local opinion were discussed but there is no polling on private citizens on what they believe in regards to a ban or information on how many leaf blowing and landscaping companies there are in town ● Rachel Bernstein has previously gathered data that could be sent over to the Quiet Clean Croton organization for their use. The town also has information on noise and air pollution that can be requested to be shared with the Committee and also Quiet Clean Croton. ● Princeton was used as an example for its Quiet Princeton organization, as was Larchmont and Irvington as a local example for its laws and programs. ● The issue was also raised about the need for a code enforcement officer or additional police officers to enforce such a ban, and if Quiet Clean cCoton should incorporate an increase in officers and the budget for them as part of their program. EARTH DAY DEBRIEF ● Halle is to be added to the Everyone message tag that the CCAC uses, as she had been accidentally excluded from the email chains for this month's meeting. ● A pair of letters received by the committees about the Earth Day festivities were read aloud by the chair. ● Tree giveaway was signed up for by many, but actually collected by few. ● No complaints about no food trucks ● Music went well, and was significantly cheaper than previously ● There were not enough tables and chairs, and recycling bins had to be sourced on site ● The parking situation was mixed, but given the size of the town there might not be anything to be done about this. Material Storage ● Storage has been found at the Municipal building for Earth Day supplies. The location of the store room is known to Amy MacNamara. Additionally, there are about 26 signs and some other promotional material stored by John Bouchard advertising the Senasqua location. Event Followup ● In the leadup to next year’s Earth Day, Emails will be sent out to those who picked up trees and a blurb will be sent out in the village announcements asking for photos of the trees to use in future publicity, and also to get a small sample of what happens to those trees that are given away. ● There was also concern raised that the event was using the tree giveaway trees in a way contrary to the nursery's purpose of environmental restoration works. It was suggested that Eva contact the state nursery that the giveaway trees were purchased from and ask if the distribution of the trees fits within their mission. If not, then Eva will not run the tree giveaway program next year, though she is open to someone else taking up the program if they wish to. ● Parking was also noted to be an issue but in discussion it was found that there are no real improvements to make about that situation. Future Event Considerations ● Kid events had very little messaging despite good attendance, and so next year an effort should be made to make the kid table more educational. Additionally, some people mixed trash into recycling bins, thus undoing the efforts to reduce waste. To improve this, It was suggested that the recycling truck should be brought in to teach kids about the importance of recycling and how to sort it in households of the town, and also make for an easily supervisable area for recyclable material to be deposited by attendees. Failing that, a trash sorting activity even without the truck would suffice. This will address both of the above objections. ● Franzoso of Franzoso’s contracting has given the committee a standing offer to hang one of its larger signs on his property for publicity. ● It was suggested that we look out for more contacts outside of official communications or physical outlets, like the daycare centres, parent teacher groups, local business, and other organizations and clubs that could put out the word. ● Depending on the response gotten from the state nursery, the tree giveaway could be replaced by a native plant sale instead, as that would be similarly inexpensive and also act as a pull for attendees. ● The CCAC needs an official point person aside from the chair to facilitate smoother communications with the town and DPW during the. The mayor suggested this role be filled by the committee Vice Chair, who has not been selected by the committee as of yet. CLEAN The train station cleanup was rainy but successful and collected 300 pounds of waste. The next cleanup is the 6th at Silver lake park at 10. GARDEN CLUB Spring cleanup was completed. The Club was asked to garden around the new Peace Poll at the riverfront, and this was also done. The location was put on the village watering schedule but weeding maintenance will be needed. NRI UPDATE More GIS map progress has been made, Final product is expected at the end of summer including a map and writeup of natural resources. TRAILS Saturday, April 25th the Cub scouts cleaned up barberry near the swamp on the north highland loop alongside the Trails volunteers. The scouts planted native shrubs in the same area. Further cleanups are planned for the 28th of May near the arboretum and Saturday June 13th on the upper village loop. DARK SKIES Jason is working on a memo for the village board with general recommendations, to have its draft seen by the CCAC before the next meeting. Once things are in the final stages the whole committee will be able to see a draft of the work before its submission. MAYORS MONARCH PLEDGE Little progress has been made in fulfilling the pledge. There are leftover milkweed plants from other village programs that Shiloh will contact Eva about acquiring. OTHER LETTERS A letter was sent to the committee chair, also read aloud, concerning the state of the dam spillway at the Kaplan pond that the writer claims is clogged and overgrown. It was decided that this writer did not need to be heard as a committee The Committee voted unanimously to formally recommend that the village engineer investigate the stability of the structure and its spillway to ensure it is up to the standard acceptable to the village engineer. WEEDING AT THE BRUCE LAEMMEL MEMORIAL GARDEN Rachel is overseeing the weeding at the Gottwald garden and the Bruce Laemmel memorial garden and has a list of volunteers, but would like committee member support. Interested members should email her directly. PUBLIC COMMENT There was no public comment. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned following completion of agenda items at approximately 9:00pm ET.