DALTON, Mass. — The Green Committee chipped away at the development of its community engagement for its climate action plan. 

 

During Wednesday's meeting, committee members were assigned responsibilities to help plan the upcoming Oct. 13 education event, which replaced the virtual public meeting. 

 

The event aims to raise awareness about the climate action plan, gather community input for its development, and answer people's questions. This is an opportunity to engage the public and kickstart the community engagement process.

 

The event will include a 15-minute presentation by the town's CAP consultant, Blue Strike Environmental. 

 

Committee Chair David Wasielewski recommended that the committee invite the Berkshire Environmental Action Team and 350 Massachusetts to participate in the event. Wasielewski will contact the organizations to gauge their interest.

 

The committee also discussed logistical aspects of the event planning, such as where to hold it and how many snacks to put out. 

 

The committee hopes to reserve a space at the Stationery Factory and will prepare for 100 attendees, including the presenters. 

 

The committee also discussed developing a logo representing the Climate Action Plan or Green Committee. Blue Strike recommended this as part of the Community Engagement efforts. 

 

"A picture is worth 1,000 words," committee member Antonio Pagliarulo said. 

 

Pagliarulo said he had contacted the Wahconah Regional High School to see if a teacher was interested in doing this as part of an assignment but had not heard back yet. 

 

This is not surprising given that school just started, he said. 

 

Blue Strike has a graphic designer. However, they are meant to "clean up and tie up a few key concepts" that the committee brings to them, said Cisco Tomasino, climate and events manager.

 

Whether it is a painting from an art contest with youth or a few icons that the committee thinks represent Dalton, these items should be brought to the consultant so it can be digitized and made into something that can be used as a logo, he said. 

 

"There's different things, whatever you guys are proud of, and you're going to want to see in that logo for this project," Tomasino said.

 

"We can sort of incorporate that in, or you can use that to guide the kids projects, and we can digitize that work. There's a number of ways to go through it from there."

 

A subcommittee was formed to develop the design elements the committee wants for the logo. Committee members Laurie Martinelli and Pagliarulo will collaborate on this. 

 

The committee has also been working with Blue Strike to develop a survey as part of its community engagement. 

 

Committee members emphasized the need for more Dalton-specific questions so the climate action plan best meet all of the communities needs and concerns.  

 

The survey will be made available online and in-person and Logan suggested a QR code to make it more mobile friendly.

 

To encourage more responses the committee could consider making the survey anonymous, not including any demographic or economic identifiers, Pagliarulo said. 

 

"What I would say is for the next meeting, because this really is, I totally understand where [Pagliarulo] is coming from on this. This is something we need your you know, Blue Strikes past expertise with," Logan said. 

 

Even if Blue Strike can provide contact information to previous towns for members to reach out to and determine what their experiences were.