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Record of Proceedings

Framingham Environmental & Sustainability Subcommittee Meeting - April 8, 2026

City Council — Wednesday, April 8, 2026
BodyFramingham, Massachusetts
SessionCity Council
DateWednesday, April 8, 2026
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:30:35

Transcript — Verbatim
0:39

April 8th at 804 p.m.

0:42

call to order the subcommittee of the city council, the environmental and sustainability subcommittee.

0:50

We have present here, counselors Leara Mallet, Counselor Ward and Counselor Feeney, as well as the city's sustainability coordinator.

1:01

Is that your title, Sean?

1:02

I'm so sorry, I don't know.

1:04

Okay.

1:04

Sustainability coordinator.

1:06

Awesome, Sean Les.

1:08

So what I think hopefully folks had a chance to look through the agenda.

1:14

I tried to put together an evening that builds on the conversations that we had about wanting to start off this session looking at different pieces of sustainability in different ways.

1:29

And sort of inviting in other committees or community groups that have been doing work to learn from them and to hear from them what their priorities are.

1:39

So the way I sort of envisioned it is that we do a little bit of that tonight and maybe at the end figure out if there are some other groups for May that would kind of finalize that roundup of everybody, and that would really sort of establish what our priorities in terms of what ordinances or things we'd want to move forward in this term.

2:01

So that's kind of how I see our flow to you know be continued at the end.

2:06

So the the end of this meeting, the discussion of it to be continued.

2:11

So I wanted to start.

2:13

I asked Sean to present a uh put together some stuff about energy to start us off and the buildings here in the city.

2:21

It came up in our conversation.

2:23

It also came up in the finance subcommittee meeting that um everybody was talking about increased energy costs.

2:31

So I just thought it would be good for us to get a handle here on some of the environmental impacts of some of the decisions that we're making, and then also you know, some of the financial impacts will be um is kind of a piece and extension of that.

2:47

Um with that, I will hopefully Sean, can you share your screen?

2:53

Is that or I can share your good.

2:57

Yes.

2:58

Yep.

2:58

I'm just gonna set that up now.

3:01

Uh let me see.

3:03

All right, I guess I have to send you a request.

3:11

I've approved it.

3:13

Sweet.

3:21

All right, does that work okay?

3:24

Yes.

3:26

Awesome.

3:28

Um I'll just jump into it.

3:31

Um, well, firstly, I want to thank you, Counselor Malik.

3:34

Um and members of um uh the subcommittee for uh allowing me to present tonight.

3:41

Um it's been a while since I've presented on municipal energy performance.

3:45

And I figured given that it's it's been some time, I wanted to just start off with just a high-level overview of what the kind of the situation looks like with energy use across municipal facilities and other areas, and um also lay the groundwork for how you know how do we look for energy efficiency measures across our building portfolio?

4:08

And then what are the kind of current priorities that we have that we're working on right now?

4:12

So that's kind of what I'm hoping to cover today.

4:14

And of course, as I go through, please let me know if you have any questions.

4:18

Um, but I also understand too, there's a lot in the agenda, so I'll try to get through this um in a reasonable amount of time.

4:25

Uh so let's see if navigating works.

4:27

Okay, great.

4:28

So first, just to establish like an energy profile um for the city.

4:34

So what I'm what's shown here, uh, this graph is our energy use baseline.

4:39

And so I'll first go over a couple things here.

4:42

So this graph is in um MMBTUs, which is just one million British thermal units.

4:48

It's uh you know what we typically utilize to combine a bunch of different fuel types and you know, measure the overall energy content um across like gasoline, diesel, electricity, natural gas.

5:01

And so what we're looking at is the total municipal energy consumption across the city, uh beginning in FY 2011, skipping every other year up until FY25, which is our most recent reporting year for the Department of Energy Resources.

5:15

And so uh you could see on the bottom, it's highlighted that FY2011 is our baseline year.

5:21

What that comes from is um, so we joined the the Department of Energy Resource Resources Green Communities program back in late 2013.

5:30

And uh as part of that, we made a commitment to reduce our energy consumption by 20%.

5:36

And we had to pick a baseline year to start as this is a you know, this is what we're gonna compare every you know, year moving forward to that baseline year.

5:44

So we chose FY 2011.

5:46

And it's just you know, it's over 200 um thousand MMBTUs.

5:51

And so um, as you can see, kind of moving down, uh moving down the graph forward in time.

5:58

Um, we've gotten you know close in different years.

6:00

There's some out years, uh like in between years that are not shown here, where we've been at like 17%.

6:07

Most recently in FY25, we're at a 13% reduction compared to our FY 2011 baseline.

6:14

Um the graph is also broken to down to show you the different categories of energy use.

6:20

So you could see um, you know, buildings, of course, is our biggest driver for energy consumption.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Environmental Protection████████████████████████24%
Parks and Recreation█████████████████17%
Energy Management███████████████15%
Solid Waste Management██████████10%
Urban Agriculture████████8%
Shopping Cart Management████████8%
Public Engagement██████6%
Procedural████4%
Land Use Planning███3%
Summary of Proceedings

Framingham Environmental & Sustainability Subcommittee Meeting - April 8, 2026

The Environmental and Sustainability Subcommittee of the Framingham City Council met on April 8, 2026 at 8:04 PM. Councilors Leara Mallet, Ward, and Feeney were present along with Sustainability Coordinator Sean Les. The meeting featured presentations on municipal energy performance, the Agricultural Advisory Committee's priorities, a proposed shopping cart ordinance by Keep Framingham Beautiful, and a resident's presentation on preserving the Knobscott woodlands. The subcommittee also discussed future meeting topics and set the next meeting for May 6, 2026 at 8 PM.

Discussion Items

  • Municipal Energy Performance (Sean Les): Sean presented an overview of the city's energy consumption, showing a 13% reduction compared to the FY2011 baseline as of FY2025, though emissions were down 27% in FY2025 (30% in FY2023). Buildings account for nearly 70% of energy use, with schools comprising 73% of municipal consumption. Key initiatives include heat pump installations, energy performance contracts, decarbonization roadmap, geothermal pilot at Farley, fleet electrification (8 new electric vehicles in last fiscal year), and solar battery storage projects. Sean highlighted the importance of setting energy use intensity (EUI) targets for new school construction and working with schools on energy efficiency.
  • Agricultural Advisory Committee (Linda Kirchman and Diane Sulard): The committee outlined five main initiatives: building capacity (adopting MGL Chapter 40 Section 8L to expand authority), protecting wildlife from toxins (banning second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides on city property, exploring restrictions on neonicotinoids and glyphosate), preserving land (monitoring Chapter 61 properties, creating right of first refusal, working with conservation), supporting food growing (codifying agricultural water rates, supporting Framingham Grows Food's community gardens and farm at new school), and working with Board of Health on animal keeping regulations. They requested help navigating city processes for ordinances.
  • Keep Framingham Beautiful - Shopping Cart Ordinance (Deborah and Mike): Presented the problem of stray shopping carts from major retailers accumulating at bus stops, sidewalks, waterways, and residential areas. Noted potential liability, ADA issues, environmental harm, and financial loss. Many cities (Boston, Worcester, Quincy, etc.) have shopping cart ordinances. Proposed ordinance language was discussed with the previous subcommittee in 2025 but was not advanced. Deborah reported that only three companies (Walmart, Stop & Shop, TJX companies) hired cart recovery services; Target discontinued. Emphasized need for enforcement and suggested wheel lock/gatekeeper systems as effective solutions (85-90% reduction). Councilors expressed support but raised concerns about enforcement burden on city departments and impact on smaller retailers.
  • Preserving Knobscott Woodlands (Carol McGarry, resident): Presented a detailed analysis of the approximately 31-acre parcel at the corner of Edgell and Edmonds Road (including lots 874, 830, 462, 790). Approximately 25 acres remain wooded, but lot 874 has been heavily cleared and blasted. Highlighted benefits of preservation: carbon sequestration (estimated 33 tons of stored carbon per acre, equivalent to 5.5 Manhattan city blocks for 30 acres), biodiversity support (connects over 323 acres of conservation land north of Edmonds Road, named in Swasco biodiversity plan and state Biomap2 habitat), groundwater protection (underlying high- and medium-yield aquifer), and open space expansion for Knobscott Park (currently 4.25 acres, walkable from nearby apartments). Suggested the city could negotiate with developer for cluster housing requiring open space or use state matching grants for parkland. The subcommittee noted the property is privately owned and development approval is before the Planning Board.
  • Future Meeting Planning: The subcommittee discussed potential topics for the May 6, 2026 meeting, including hearing from Framingham Grows Food, conservation commission regarding open space plan and protected land updates, and water quality (beaches, ponds). Councilors decided not to prioritize a trails update at this time but left the invitation open for trail advocacy groups to present specific asks. The next meeting was scheduled for May 6, 2026 at 8 PM.

Key Outcomes

  • The subcommittee agreed to continue discussion on the shopping cart ordinance, with further exploration of enforcement and business impacts.
  • The agricultural advisory committee will pursue recodification under MGL Chapter 40 Section 8L with council assistance; the subcommittee expressed interest in advancing pesticide and rodenticide restrictions.
  • The subcommittee will consider inviting the Water Department to discuss codifying agricultural water rates.
  • The meeting was adjourned by motion (Councillor Feeney, seconded by Councillor Ward) with a unanimous voice vote.

Meeting Transcript

April 8th at 804 p.m. call to order the subcommittee of the city council, the environmental and sustainability subcommittee. We have present here, counselors Leara Mallet, Counselor Ward and Counselor Feeney, as well as the city's sustainability coordinator. Is that your title, Sean? I'm so sorry, I don't know. Okay. Sustainability coordinator. Awesome, Sean Les. So what I think hopefully folks had a chance to look through the agenda. I tried to put together an evening that builds on the conversations that we had about wanting to start off this session looking at different pieces of sustainability in different ways. And sort of inviting in other committees or community groups that have been doing work to learn from them and to hear from them what their priorities are. So the way I sort of envisioned it is that we do a little bit of that tonight and maybe at the end figure out if there are some other groups for May that would kind of finalize that roundup of everybody, and that would really sort of establish what our priorities in terms of what ordinances or things we'd want to move forward in this term. So that's kind of how I see our flow to you know be continued at the end. So the the end of this meeting, the discussion of it to be continued. So I wanted to start. I asked Sean to present a uh put together some stuff about energy to start us off and the buildings here in the city. It came up in our conversation. It also came up in the finance subcommittee meeting that um everybody was talking about increased energy costs. So I just thought it would be good for us to get a handle here on some of the environmental impacts of some of the decisions that we're making, and then also you know, some of the financial impacts will be um is kind of a piece and extension of that. Um with that, I will hopefully Sean, can you share your screen? Is that or I can share your good. Yes. Yep. I'm just gonna set that up now. Uh let me see. All right, I guess I have to send you a request. I've approved it. Sweet. All right, does that work okay? Yes. Awesome. Um I'll just jump into it. Um, well, firstly, I want to thank you, Counselor Malik. Um and members of um uh the subcommittee for uh allowing me to present tonight. Um it's been a while since I've presented on municipal energy performance. And I figured given that it's it's been some time, I wanted to just start off with just a high-level overview of what the kind of the situation looks like with energy use across municipal facilities and other areas, and um also lay the groundwork for how you know how do we look for energy efficiency measures across our building portfolio? And then what are the kind of current priorities that we have that we're working on right now? So that's kind of what I'm hoping to cover today. And of course, as I go through, please let me know if you have any questions. Um, but I also understand too, there's a lot in the agenda, so I'll try to get through this um in a reasonable amount of time. Uh so let's see if navigating works. Okay, great. So first, just to establish like an energy profile um for the city. So what I'm what's shown here, uh, this graph is our energy use baseline. And so I'll first go over a couple things here. So this graph is in um MMBTUs, which is just one million British thermal units. It's uh you know what we typically utilize to combine a bunch of different fuel types and you know, measure the overall energy content um across like gasoline, diesel, electricity, natural gas. And so what we're looking at is the total municipal energy consumption across the city, uh beginning in FY 2011, skipping every other year up until FY25, which is our most recent reporting year for the Department of Energy Resources. And so uh you could see on the bottom, it's highlighted that FY2011 is our baseline year. What that comes from is um, so we joined the the Department of Energy Resource Resources Green Communities program back in late 2013.

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