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Berlin myself kind of take a look and review them and so we can probably pull something together okay with that all right upcoming events okay not a lot but none at center school Huckleberry ER in middle school but at the high school again the grad party walked through this here at the high school on Saturday from 1:30 3:30 rehearsal for graduation is on Friday June 21st from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m.
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at Western Connecticut State University and graduation is this Saturday June 26th 22nd at 6 o'clock at Western Connecticut State University thank you and now we have an executive session anticipated recommend a motion that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing a confidential student matter and the superintendence evaluation second any discussion all in favor aye opposed okay this concludes the public airing portion of our meeting thank you everybody have a great evening [Music]
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beating of the environmental Commission to order treinen will you call the roll for us sure commissioner Hutton parks advisory mr. Skinner yes councilmember banister commissioner Cala we're here and Commissioner Brown here okay Commissioner Graham here chair needham yeah commissioner uphill great first order of business is approving the agenda dessert anyone have any additions or Corrections for the agenda motion to approve second all in favor and then we have minutes to approve from the April 25th meeting any corrections to the April 24th minutes mr. Stover it had one small one on page three of third paragraph under the presentation where noted I'd ask for clarification which was correct but I'd say all I received was an acknowledgement that the system needed work thanks any other Corrections is there a motion to approve the minutes a as amended so move all in favor our next item of business is public commentary has anyone hear from the public we'd like to speak to the Commission hi I'm Kathy Griswold and I'm speaking as a member of the Transportation Commission we've divided up some of the the work of the Transportation Commission based on the 60s and one of those e's is evaluation so evaluation means collecting data looking at it evaluating at doing benchmarking and what I would like to request is that the environmental Commission provide any data on the environmental impact of transportation decisions and that would be short-term as well as long-term decisions because long term of course we're honor reduce the carbon footprint but short term we can't just say we want to reduce the carbon footprint with our encouraging people to get out of their cars and providing other ways to get around town so I see that on the agenda tonight you're going to be appointing someone to the transportation master plan CAC so I want to thank you for that as well thank you anyone else is like to speak hi I'm Rita Mitchell and I'm just here to give support for your second agenda item on urging the Washington County Work Commission to reduce its use of pesticides herbicides and to be very specific there is some other consideration which is there are certain types of invasive plants that may require some use of herbicides but they need to be very selective so I'm thinking of things like I'm Japanese hedge parsley Japanese not grass etcetera there's some really pernicious once that needs some careful assessment but definitely to reduce the broad-based spraying would be a good thing thank you Thanks anyone else you'd like to speak there will be another opportunity at the end of the meeting if anyone so desires our next point of business is Commission elections for a chair and vice-chair for the coming year I'll open nominations for Commission chairperson I nominate Robert Needham I appreciate the vote of confidence but I would rather not I think it's best I've got a lot of commitments right now and I appreciate that but I was going to nominate Commissioner Brown huh second I'm overwhelmed any any other nominations all in favor of Commissioner Brown aye congratulations thank you and you can slide over quickly within cuffs of the back steps how fast can you read Robert's Rules of Order I've skimmed them okay so I appreciate everybody's help Mom with following proper procedures and thank you for your vote of confidence now my only concern at this point is that I don't have a very loud speaking voice so I'll try to use the microphone as much as I can okay yes sir all right so let's see you there any other there's a vice-chair election are there any nominations for Vice Chair I nominate Commissioner murski if he's so willing I decline I'm no vice chair of the Energy Commission two vice chairs adds up to a single chair if no one else is willing to do it I would do it because really you know Steve would be carrying the main load so but if somebody else is interested I'd appreciate somebody else stepping forward it'd be great for somebody else to get involved quick point I think it has to be a mental Commissioner that's true I matter I'm not a liaison yeah gosh you're right you're true yes could I look one seat to your left and perhaps mister or my left you're right mister no callewaert dr.
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calwork would you be willing to serve in this capacity having only been on the board for roughly over a year I feel not quite ready for that type of role hi any neighborhoods so the next item on the agenda is selection of a commissioner to represent at the transportation master plan CAC Emily could you update us yeah so this is for the Ann Arbor moving together towards a vision zero which is the transportation master plan update it would be for meetings they have their first meeting I believe in May in May and it'll conclude in the summer of 2020 you like Earth who's one of our transportation folks would be willing to sit down with anybody to catch them up and get their feedback for that first meeting it would be basically representing this commission and serving as a liaison back to this commission from what you've learned and that kind of thing that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge about this I have a question if I may like the co-chair position doesn't need to be a commissioner or could it be a liaison because there's several liaisons sitting up here I believe that for Advisory Commission being ignorant of the rule song I'm not it sounds about right to me does anybody want to weigh in on that I just would like to comment as a person who drives all day every day in Ann Arbor there's a distinct lack of balance and some of these discussions a lack of representation of the people who drive even if we convert completely to electric cars we're still going to drive in Ann Arbor and I hope that happens more rapidly than it is a lot of the decisions that are being suggested and made really interfere with the flow of people real life people who need to drive driving in Ann Arbor our traffic light system is antiquated it has five systems that don't talk to each other I've heard it said that we have a state of the art system which means that each intersection controls traffic at that intersection and there's really minimal attention to the progression of flow on the main roads through town the idea of parking on Huron Street was crazy thankfully the highway department agreed it's the most important roadway in town we only have two east-west roadways and they need to flow they need to get people across this town I don't want to get into another whole thing I'm not putting my name out there but I I hope whoever goes up there for that master plan will bring some balance and insist on some balance on these committees the great majority of people if we took a vote really want the roads fixed and traffic to flow better and it really can if we work at it without interfering with the other priorities of pedestrians and bicyclists we can't do pedestrians and bicyclists on the cheap we have to integrate them with the ability for cars on motor vehicle roadways to flow and that means even pedestrian crosswalks on major thoroughfares need to be coordinated with the light systems so nobody's booby-trapped it means you need to put in flashing lights where you put crosswalks on major roadways or don't put the crosswalk there were people hurt killed and crosswalks that didn't have those signals to begin with because we rushed to make safety for pedestrians crossing the crosswalk at Chaffin and first or second or whatever that is down there at the bottom of urine street needs to match the rest of the crosswalks in the city everybody is confused by red flashing light everybody in the crosspiece thinks it's a stop street across a traffic light and they pull out there meanwhile it's at the bottom of a hill you don't want to turn that thing red in the face of people in the winter coming down both directions to the bottom of the hill with a pedestrian marching out there not thinking that they need to worry I'm sorry I don't mean to spout off but no no that's fine Ann Arbor needs to balance their activities in this direction motor vehicle roadways are for motor vehicles not for pedestrians in any pedestrian walks out in one better be paying attention then we need to do things that do not make them feel like they don't have to thank you okay well thanks sorry well just like the Commissioner represent at the transportation master plan I see a lot of people look it up it's only for meetings folks just for three maybe even four it sounds like starting in the fall and the final reports due in the summer of 2020 well if you'll nominate me I'll go up there and bark I just nominated you got off your work I'm sorry I believe in electric cars and I believe in pedestrians and I do ride a bike and I'm not trying to be a bad guy but balance is important no no so so this is up for a vote for selecting Commissioner to be to represent the board the environmental Commission at the transportation master plan CAC I'm all in favor Thank You host I'm sorry thank you very much but don't leave a unanimous graduation and I will bring the environmental Commission viewpoint also which is electric cars as soon as possible and more safety out there and more more streets that are friendly and bike lanes without potholes - not just not just segregated from traffic yes I mean I personally take all modes of transportation whatever is appropriate so no I appreciate your concerns I think there would be good it's good to have a voice good it's always good to have a variety of voices present any importance so so the next item on the agenda is unfinished business is there any okay we'll move on to the next item new business so the first item is expansion of the number of environmental Commission seats to include two new seats for youth members so Emily can you sure this was an idea that came from the Office of Sustainability and innovations and we're just bringing it to you for your consideration as an idea the idea is that there would be two new youth seats that would be voting seats for folks who are between the ages of 14 and 21 they would be full commissioners and the reason this is being brought forward is a lot of the environmental and climate policy work that you all tackle has significant impact on youth much more so than older folks and so the hope is that this kid to youth members might bring a different perspective and could be useful to have on the Commission this is following some precedent on the absolutely sustainability Commission and we have new seats we've had a very hard time filling them but I think it'd be easier for you all here in Ann Arbor to fill them and when I was living in San Francisco they actually have a full Youth Commission for different topics so that's the that's the thought behind it and as part of that if it does pass if this is something you are interested in I would suggest possibly thinking about maybe moving the meeting back to start at 6:00 at the beginning of 2020 just to respect kids needing to get home earlier so that's pretty much what I have and I'd love to hear what your thoughts are I love this idea I think it's fantastic it's overdue I believe it's something that we want to bring to a lot of our boards and commissions not only because the decisions that we make really don't impact us tremendously but it does impact their generation but also to give people involved in the Civic process I think that there's nothing but good that can come out of that so I I can't wait how long would their term be would it be the four to five years however long our terms are I believe years or three years okay I'm just not sure that when I was between the ages of 14 and 21 that I could ever commit to something for three years but that's just me I think that's a fair point um I have talked to Laura Revati who is the executive director of the neutral zone and there's an environmental group there and I know that they benefit you as well and they are fully supportive of it and there are our high school students who are interested in doing it I do think three years is in an awfully long term for a high school student I would suggest that we think about doing an annual term and I'm also not sure that moving the meeting back to 7:00 would be beneficial with kids sports practice schedules my teenagers 7 o'clock is a pretty standard meeting start time so I think that maybe that should be we should look at that before we make a decision you're saying seven is not glitter that it is good that it is good six o'clock I I think would interfere with teenage schedules and I understand say maybe we just asked our ages 14 to 21 but it that's it just in the proposal that we're bringing for you so it's open to any edits including the term length if you want to add that as a an amendment so the process would be that a person in that category would raise their name to a council member and the council member would raise that named after vetting to the full council and then there would be an appointment I don't think those details have been figured out I think what you're doing if you're interested in this concept is approving it in concept and then sending it to counsel and counsel obviously make the decision it would be a change to your founding ordinance that would need to happen my assumption is is that the process would be the same as any other Commissioner that they would be nominated by the mayor and they would be voted on by council right actually it's a council that brings forward environmental commissioners okay first of all the reverse of everything else okay and there's an application yes right I'm just curious as to why 21 years old rather than 18 presumably an 18 year old could just apply for a regular seat right of course yeah I mean it's I think we were thinking about bringing in some college students that would fit that criteria but it's again up to you if you'd rather move it back to 18 that's up that's your prerogative absolutely it just had a question following up on the age piece I looked through the code and didn't find anything about age eligibility kind of criteria to be commissioners I don't know if I had missed it but that made me think that we should be thinking about updating 18 and younger so I was also had questions about up to 21 because but if we're thinking about this as a general youth or a younger adult position that would be a one-year piece I could see the value at that to another question I had was about voting or non voting and the materials that were sent out of the examples of the other communities I thought I read that they were all non voting so I'm just wondering about a kind of thought behind voting or non voting and this is definitely for voting so is there any additional information I think it was just to empower the youth commissioners to actually have a voice as opposed to be more of a token voice to give some actual power to the youth I was certainly my thinking but it's just me I would agree with that [Music] so that you could kind of get to the end of typical and anyway I've sort of grad school type level at a surrounding University so like 14 to 25 something like that I think maybe that feels kind of like you're really capturing that so that would be my and if the term was different then it would be easier even for a college student to make a commitment right yeah I would have a question in that instance about residents because we have students who live in Ann Arbor for the time that they are students at the University who don't have their pardon me oh I'm sorry sorry thank you I had just the question about residents because we have students who come to the University of Michigan for four years whose home it you know their voting registration may be in in some other city or some other state and would we be flexible about that similarly I know that a lot of the kids who have been particularly active in the environmental movement here have been students at Washington International high school which is a countywide school and there are cities that go to that cities whose students go to that school like its landing where there are opportunities but there are a lot of others where there are not and I would also just be interested in exploring the idea of allowing a student who is a resident of Dexter or Milan or Canton to be a participant if this is something that they were particularly interested in because we are the county seat and we're influential and it gives activist students more exposure to not activate just civic engagement any other comments I have a couple of comments first why I support the general concept I support also the idea of increasing the age I'm a little less enamored with the idea of allowing people that are not residents of Ann Arbor you know I think we're making decisions for Ann Arbor and hopefully there's younger students as well as University Michigan students that reside here and what there'd be sufficient interests amongst them and I think that the question that would beg the question well there's an adult in Pittsville Township that works here that does everything here that sees this as the county seat that would like to be involved I mean we allow that right now with the 7 vote and maybe we do something like that where we look at those candidates if they're really really good and there's a different threshold for them than there would be for a resident but still showing some kind of preference at least for for the the youth etter that are in the community and last comment I had was actually a lot of the climate related policy is actually in the Energy Commission and a lot of the activities and so my question is pinging up on council members Smith's comments about this being considered potentially four other commissions why not for the Energy Commission as well why not for transportation whatever and you know I think initially potentially those two because those are the ones that may have the longest or the greatest impact on their lives but you know I support the general idea of expanding this more broadly but especially for the Energy Commission okay how many more comments I would support the idea of there being an extra an additional standard that a person who's not a rest I'm Ann Arbor would have to meet ya know I sound like good point so at this point what should we do Emily should we write up our recommendations to the council we could do it sounds like you have maybe four amendments and I think you've had a person suggest an amendment and now you need a second so if you wanted if we can do that in order you can vote on it and then if that appeals to the first amendment I offered was changing it to one year terms so then you would ask for a second second honestly second one I heard was extending the age 25 from 14 to 25 second anybody amendment in terms of voting privileges I would say that they're entitled to full voting privileges so no Mike I don't think there's an amendment the next one would be residency requirements that there would be special additional the non-residents could apply but there were no prefer residents in Ann Arbor but some some measuring stick if not but we have the suppose by staff I have Bob we have a city ordinance that Borden Commission members outside the city of Ann Arbor require seven votes Friday so we could have an outstanding candidate like Susan mentioned and that would have to be recognized by five seven seven billion votes so I'm gonna suggest that possibly I'm gonna take out the words that reside in Ann Arbor Michigan or should I leave that in and then council rules would probably go into effect yes okay you'd have to change the rules to do something different so I think you're suggesting it's fine okay so all all those in favor say aye all opposed was there a second second okay well you did first so I'm gonna give it to okay I don't think so I think we addressed the term right we did the term I believe Commissioner muskie was talking about the preference for youth in the community which I think we just took care of and staffs interest is also expanding it to the Energy Commission but we were gonna come there first I think that's the end and now you should probably vote on the whole thing okay for a consideration of the amended proposal from city staff all those in favor all those in favor say aye all right all those opposed passes okay so the next item on the agenda is urging the Washington Rock County Road Commission to reduce herbicide yeast through the adoption of the strong integrated pest management policy and there was an information packet applied isn't it submitted as an attachment so I I glanced over this it looks entirely reasonable to me I'll move this consideration okay all right second second it's too bad that Commissioner Apple isn't here tonight because he is very much involved in using targeted herbicide used for invasive species and is very good at it so it would have been nice to have this voice here tonight but I will do my best to represent my own view and also channel him because he knows a lot more about specifics than I do I was a little confused number one I used to be an IPM person integrated pest management for MS use Biological Station for a research project I was on and that was insect oriented and so I feel like there's some terminology here that is a little confused because they're talking about herbicides but IPM standards are as far as I know I'm not steeped in it are much more insect based in terms of pesticide use and those I see is two very different things they're related but they're very different things in my book so any of those things can potentially cause harm I think insecticides have a lot more potential to cause harm because they're living creatures like we are and so they can you know the the targeted chemicals that are used have a better chance of affecting us too not that Versailles don't affect us as well but as somebody who in my work is constantly constantly trying to figure out how to manage some of the invasive species that we're about up tonight in addition to many others it would be basically impossible for us to even hope to catch up to deal with some of these issues without the use of targeted herbicides so it just feels a little broad to me in terms of the way this thing is put together and it also feels like it's not quite clear in terms of some of the language around it and so I'm not quite sure how to amend it to get to that point night I wish Commissioner Apple were here tonight to be able to talk more about his own experience but boy there's a lot of invasive plants out there and hand pulling it's it's just not gonna happen and so I am NOT the broad spraying I understand that we more targeted way but sometimes there's just a big area of some something awful and you have to do foliar spray like that so I can I can definitely get behind like you know how on the railway right away on the road right away where they're doing just broad you know for a half mile at a time like I don't think that's a good thing but I would I just want to be careful about setting some sort of precedent like oh we're just gonna do this with the Road Commission that it starts to filter out into other things that this would be some sort of template that then could be applied to other situations as well so I can't support this away that it is written right now I'm not again quite sure how to rewrite at all because I think some of the language is a little confused but if perhaps somebody could give a little bit of background as to kind of how we got to where we are with this particular piece of work that would be really helpful to understand is this like some incidents that happen is this is stuff that we got emailed about a few weeks ago I'm a little confused about sort of how that all came about so how did we get here and then how can we so just be be wise about how we handle herbicides okay so and would you speak to that yes well I want to yes I think that's an excellent point Shannon we got an email from a resident who's actually here with us tonight thanks for coming and and another 1/2 of a fifth Ward resident and emailed in because they had received the Washtenaw County roadside herbicide spraying notification and so that swung a lot of us into action and I want to thank everybody who's contributed to all the emails that we shared with each other about what we knew about the program and what we could do as an environmental Commission about it so one of the things is specifically about this resolution about the Washington County Road Commission they are going to talk about it at their meeting on July 10 Wednesday July 10 at 6:30 and one of their things that they allow is residential residents residences to individually opt out of their particular property of this Riverside spring if they do so no later than July 15 and if they clear the right away next to their property of all weed growth and brush so I'm going to go on July 10 to the four devotional Board of Commissioners meeting and see what they say about it and but I agree what you're saying I think in our effort to swing into action and get this all ready for tonight's meeting we may have in our enthusiasm you know maybe not thought it through quite as well as what you're bringing up that's an excellent point that the pesticides and insecticides are also part of the picture and we want to be careful with the her herbicides so that's how it all came about and I've got all the emails here of all the different things dr.
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Stoltz outlined different things that we could do like working with Knapp to do just more public education for people like I'm there private residences to see how effective that would be and and then I think it was a you Commissioner Brown who brought up and others that the state has already preempted cities from banning these pesticides herbicides and fungicides and so we are in process of confirming with legal that that was in fact our our situation but as was also mentioned we have lobbyists in land sing-through GICs and kirk profits group so we could work on the state and then Commissioner Brown also wisely brought up that Senator Stabenow at the federal level does farm issues and so that's those Roundup Ready GMO seeds that you brought up which is a whole other direction separate but related and then we also have with us tonight Rita Mitchell who founded the be safe and Harbor and was a co-founder of be safe and harbor about pollinators and just overall education about reducing harmful chemicals so we I want to thank everybody for swinging into action and as far as how to address our particular resolution tonight I'm open to our discussion about how we could move forward with it but without with a pared down version to be amended you know I might make the suggestion I understand that we're under the time constraint of wanting to voice an opinion to the Road Commission you know I I can tell in the discussions I've had with Katie Scott you know she's well aware of this she's communicated with the Road Commission about this but I do believe that this this needs a bit of technical precision and I think as Miss Mitchell was talking about there are I think we need to be very specific about it I I would encourage us to postpone to table this until our next meeting with the intention of having perhaps Commissioner Apple he's not here so I will nominate him to chair this subcommittee and perhaps so miss miss Mitchell could lend her expertise to this if she's willing and able because she has been a fairly leading voice in the community about this and maybe Commissioner Jim Randall can share some thoughts just via email about adding some technical precision to this - hey you know we see these applications as being okay and these other ones so that that it's not just this broad broad brushed resolution that probably has a lot of unintended consequences but also makes us perhaps look not very organized I agree fully yeah no I would have create - because mom sorry so it really is important water spraying that is what chemical what thing is there spraying and how they're doing it one of what you specified here from the standpoint of pollinators if you're mowing roadside vegetation in the middle of summer or twice or three times a year it's not very good for pollinators either there's some indication here that the spraying that they're doing last some number of years which means it's not glyphosate it much is probably if they're doing herbaceous vegetation they're doing like the railroads do which is really killing everything for a while which means the chemicals durable in the soil and that's not a nice herb aside yeah if they're just using it instead of mauling the trees or they're growing up going in to the roadsides using spray to kind of slow them down and that could be glyphosate and very minimal injury to pollinators it really depends on exactly what they're doing and I don't see it specified here or anyplace on the website and it's not really contained in this resolution very well but there any other comments I think the intention is is good you know could be a weed I think and could also be an insect it could be any living thing so what we're what what what the resolution is asking for is that it developed a comprehensive integrative pest management plan it's not telling Washington County use this for this application use that for something else we're basically telling them that they should be consulting best practices other people to develop a plan similar to other best practice plans and I think that's the right approach I agree though with previous comments that it probably deserves a going-over by a couple of people before we take action on it and if the county knows you know what's what we're doing here or what our intention is in advance I think that's that's the proven approach and and they obviously can start to take that into consideration I would just say that the main thrust for me would be to move away from just broad spraying everywhere in order to manage vegetation and to be much more targeted about their particular herbicide use to match it to whatever invasive species they're trying to take care of that I'm in complete support of what I'm not in supportive it's just sort of willy-nilly spraying because you don't want to cut stuff back I think that's the and it's hard for me to know exactly what this was getting at you know in terms of the the initial you know actions that caused their residents to just to speak out so that's the direction I think that I would go is that because I don't think we want to take tools away to manage invasive species that you know are vegetative and I'd say past like pests it's in the industry pest is like it's a bug so it's an insect yeah yeah yeah so I think it's not so easy to just use that yeah right yeah so that I think that's the in terms of broad direction that's what I would like to see more of it's like get away from the big you know overspray because you just don't feel like dealing with cutting everything back but still allow for targeted herbicide use against specific species in order to be able to manage some of these really tough cookies out there that basically it's really hard to do it without it it was sad to say no I think I concur with all of these suggestions I think it's important to not get too technical it would be good to just send a message to them that the city environmental Commission feels like they should do something to for example use consider the most environmentally friendly or in one of the most specific agents that they can use and whenever they're putting together their plan I mean I have some personal experience here I was approached through my position in the Sierra Club by a resident of Lima Township who is concerned because they'd sprayed the Road Commission had sprayed widely and killed a bed of peonies that he had there was set back pretty far from room they sprayed the roots of some landmark oak trees there were close to the dirt rights a dirt road textile road and they also sprayed close to a wetland and I got the information from the I forget where I got her from that they were using tort on K plus two a few other things as well so and it was clear that they'd hired a company from Indiana you know who came and went and there was no real on-site supervision so those are all things that are not good right so I like the phrase best management practices as opposed to integrated pest management as a guideline the difficulty where the county is is and with any government so you want to spend the least amount of money to manage whatever they're managing and in this case vegetation going in the roadways means maybe this spraying which is new for the county relatively new or in the last generation these great brush hog machines that can go up sideways and just desecrate roadside vegetation and in the old days who was mowing which is a lot more labor-intensive and undoubtedly a lot more expensive and and if necessary sending guys out there were chainsaws to properly cut trees on the roadside a best management practices would not permit a lot of this baloney and okay it costs more so I'm working on an amendment to this that might be tolerable to the body striking the three whereas clauses that referred to hi p.m.
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and then replacing the therefore be it resolved clause and I'm and I'm just throwing stuff at the wall here to see if it sticks so please this is wordsmithing there is no pride of authorship here therefore be it resolved that the environmental Commission recommends City Council urged the Washington County Road Commission to develop a comprehensive herbicide application plan based on best management practices that's as far as I got you know I think Shannon probably used some language that's a lot smarter than I can come up with on the fly but I would suggest develop a comprehensive Road vegetation management plan based on best management practices road management Road vegetation management plan based on best management practices for that process as opposed to just herbicide and best management practices not include a highly soiled durable herbicide it is their wide recognition of things like that like IPM is is a set of rules eventually in best management practices is a lot more nevertheless yeah yes but yes there's plenty of stuff out there pretty boy it's not quite as comprehensive it was the last thing that you said you said which excludes something I didn't mean to include that in there okay all right without the plan the Mannings vegetation on the roadside is this really really works at best management practices could we add in something about environmental conservation because my concern with best management practices could be interpreted as cheapest quit list and we're done yeah any suggestions here I just try to work in environmental conservation minimize negative environmental impact environmental management practices particularly for pollinators okay so what what I've got then eliminates the three warehouse clauses referring to IPM and our resolved clauses now therefore be it resolved that the environmental Commission recommends City Council urged the Washington County Road Commission to develop a comprehensive roadside vegetative management environmental management practices that contains the so all right so the next item on the agenda are reports from committees other Commission's Council and chair so on what order should we I'm not sure what committees are I guess they're the energy the workgroup to work through instead of working so Chris do you have anything to say about that no I'm working on a couple co-chairs for the ball keeps flying well I'm in dire straits I have one and I'm gonna work on a second I'm kind of in trouble business-wise we do not have an update from the water store management okay I have an update from the solid waste working group we met for the first time earlier today with Jenny Petoskey he was a member of the city staff who Molly pitch s Keys assigned to help the to help the working group the solid waste working group work on metrics as he remember the sustainability plan that the cities had posted for some time has metrics for things like solid waste for diversion greenhouse gas things like that so the idea here is that we will develop some smart as a smart goal will by the end of the year we're going to develop some metrics in collaboration with the city to follow through over the years and they all center on percent diversion the greenhouse gas emissions that are are reduced by a particular action and by the cost as well the cost per resident per so there's some discussion about how do we normalize all these things so we need to also collect information about a number of households number of employees for business number of residents per household and it's not yet clear where we'll get that information but we're going to ask city staff about that that's right Alison had made the suggestion that we look at the a few years ago there was a star committee committee star communities initiative that the city had that presumably has this data available so I'm going to ask Missy's office about where that information is I can help find it and then and then the city already collects some the wait rots both for the trash that goes to the landfill for the recycling trucks and for the Uruk and X trucks so we will have these data and then there is not really any data collected currently for bulky waste for anything that's diverted to reuse you know such as the recycling arbors where you center the PTO thrift shop st.
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Vincent de Paul the Kiwanis Club things like that so we're going to look into that and then also construction and demolition waste recycle and Arbor currently has a recovery yard then not I don't think many residents are aware of that son Jackson Road near Baker Road and so they already collect some construction waste there I mean I myself abroad box springs and a mattress there which was disposed of properly so that's what we're working on and the intent is by the end of the year we'll have some documents that are almost like standard operating procedures you would have an industry there would describe how the data is collected how it's supposed to be documented and who it's to be a provider for and Protestant words to be posted that's it for working groups or other Commission's yeah I would say I'm pertinent to this commission we I think I've talked about this project that's on Platt Road that had a couple of huge old burr Oaks that were we had talked with the developer and a working session about keeping them but then as the plan progressed it ended up they ended up you know getting the way and he ended up wanting to cut them down and so we didn't pass the the plan there's been some lawsuits but those are on hold right now as he's going through ap process for that site to be able to condense some of the development so that they can keep the oaks and so that came through Planning Commission and it's been tabled to be able to get much more fine-tuned about how to deal with the area around the Oaks with targeted use of herbicides actually so apropos to our discussion tonight and kind of the standards and how they will be moving forward over time to be able to steward this area so that and it's all hinging basically on the idea that these very old Oaks which won't be around forever will be able to regenerate underneath them so it's not just a matter of keeping the oaks and having lawn underneath but actually having a little habitat around them so that it can they can perpetuate and we can have this the same genotyped that have been here for a long time I still remaining so there's some fine-tuning that's going to be happening with their management plan for these Oaks because that's basically what we're getting out of the PUD is is preserving these are not all of them but some of them and creating an area around them that allows them to be able to regenerate and and have both babies and keep going on you know so we can have so we can have that particular strain survive because if you put an oak tree and now it likely comes from Tennessee it's growing somewhere else so this allows our our area Oaks to be able to keep it going so that's where the status of that is they'll likely come before us again with a more fine-tuned plan and I will just shout out that boy it really would be nice if we had a heritage tree ordinance so that we could have more teeth because he was completely within the rules to cut them down and just have to mitigate for them that's what our rules say and it really would be great if we could have something that gives exception to some of these real old trees they're really big old ones y'all know where they are right you know cobblestoned firearm a long division you know I mean there's that no in the business school there's just a few of them that are just huge and iconic and we're here long before any white settlers were so it's those I think that would be great if we could have the existing to add a new natural feature right could that be done they needed to see that so that be done as a part of the natural features working group just a short summary of the last meeting first of all the Commission passed a so-called sense of commission honoring Wayne Appleyard service on the Energy Commission um he served over 26 years on the Energy Commission was not reappointed by Council and so we wanted to honor his service there was a presentation by a Pioneer high school student on lighting some of his concerns are addressed by the new lighting ordinance but most of his concerns were related to the amount of lighting and the spacing of lighting in residential neighborhoods and that potentially could be addressed by a next step with the lighting ordinance working group or we're gonna be working with city staff on potential revisions to the orange book related to lighting in the public right-of-way which is not addressed by the lighting ordinance we elected a new chair and co-chair the new chair is Shana Lenski and as I mentioned earlier I'm the new co-chair and then briefly on ordinances we continue to work plug away on ordinances lighting ordinance I don't know what the latest status is from the Planning Commission but I heard that one key feature which was an amortization clause which would basically require that lighting be updated after a certain number of years is considered to be not feasible I don't know if Commissioner bramble can provide any insights or feedback from the Planning Commission yeah I don't I don't know that level of detail around it we had a version of it maybe two or three months ago something like that so it's been a little while since we've looked at though because we've had several I mean I don't know probably three different sessions on it and each time it's gotten closer and closer and I'd say it's getting close that's what I would say I don't remember a memorization yet that's my understanding so exactly that that it's getting very close in the last real issue was this amortization clause and that most likely is gonna be dropped there's as I mentioned in previous meetings EB readiness actually Wayne Appleyard and I met yesterday and we have essentially a draft that will be reviewed by the working group on Tuesday so that's getting pretty close also and I think everybody knows what that is right I think I've talked about that and then we also have another ordinance that's a little bit farther away excuse me I miss both the EB readiness one the basic ordinance is there but we have to generate a table defining what percentage of parking spaces have what level of EB readiness and we've gone through maybe a quarter of that table and we'll do that next week the other ordinance where we are pretty far now is on what we're calling a head ordinance which is a home energy audit disclosure at time of market and there we took an ordinance from portland and revised it with some additions and mostly deletions that's in pretty good form and that will go ahead with the whole working group so hopefully something like that can go to the city attorney and then to counsel within the next couple of months and then we had a solar access committee but I understand that may not go forward I heard there's some concerns about that but and so there was some emails just recently trying to ascertain whether that has a future or not so that was basically what's going on right now in the Energy Commission I had a couple of other solid waste issues that I could bring up now or later under new business I just feel right now so first of all the Commission will remember that we had been received a commitment from the city to get quarterly solid waste reports while there has been a lot of reporting to the Advisory Committee and to also this commission of the work that abdomen we haven't gotten any reports recently on diversion rate in the past we had gotten forecasted diversion rates we have also gotten anything on expenses revenues and what the status of the solid waste reserve fund is we're reaching the end of the fiscal year so my request would be that hopefully at our next meeting or at the very latest we get a quarterly report with the final diversion rate for the year as well as an overview of the financials and in addition to the financials what I'm particularly interested in there's been a lot of discussion about how commodity rates are affecting City revenues so it would be really interesting for us to see potentially broken down on a quarterly basis how is changes in the commodity market affecting our overall solid waste revenues and therefore our net costs or revenue in total and then how that impacts the solid waste fund that's one issue I don't know if anybody has any comment on that second is it's widely known that at the end of April Raa submitted a proposal for reactivating the MuRF and I think it would be of interest to all of us to get a copy of that proposal and more importantly to get a report from the city on the city's evaluation and the status of potential implementation of that and I know that there were some changes that were considered by council I don't know exactly what the outcome of those were I heard that there was something passed at the last council meeting that would enable that to the acted on but what I'm also interested in is not just the approval issue but what does the city what are the city's concerns or evaluation of the proposal is this going to happen or not can you comment on that you know I will just I've been told that there's a resolution in the process of being developed that will be on the July 15th agenda leave this probably news to both councilmembers Griswold and Bannister that separates the discussion about the purchasing order purchasing rules ordinance from this Raa proposal and the resolution will authorize the city administrator to distribute and entertain you know entering into such an agreement so at that time I expect we'll all see the the proposal it'll all be public you know that was the the update I got it at 6:10 walking up here so okay I haven't seen the resolution I offered to co-sponsor that I think you know perhaps my colleague councilmember banister would be interested in that as well but I think it separates out to two different issues that are thorny for their own reasons yes and perhaps it gets us to and I think we're all very conscious of we want to move quickly on this and evaluate it quickly if we determine that we're gonna bid it then then let's do that quickly but let's not draw this out for another you know nine months well especially since at least we're talking about a savings of twenty thousand dollars a month at least and I think I may have mentioned it in this group before I was originally told that there would be some type of proposal presented to the city in July of last year there was a verbal proposal in October there was a partial written one I think it was in January there was a final proposal in April and we're sitting here spending all of our taxpayers money shipping things to Ohio burning greenhouse gases there really needs to be a sense of urgency on this from a dollar perspective as well as from an environmental perspective as well as from an economic development where we have jobs in Ohio instead of having jobs here in Ann Arbor so I think that's second point so maybe by our meeting at the end of July I think we have a meeting in July or do we not we do not in August so maybe we can get a copy of the rules Oh as well as what's the status of the proposal in the city's evaluation and then finally I'd be interested in a status on the update of the warm of the Washington Solid Waste Authority regional waste management authority we I believe passed a resolution unanimously in favor of that and I thought with that latest resolution we address two sticking points labor as well as voting rights especially if the city were to enter into into some type of a contractual agreement with the authority that would require significant additional investment so so I'm happy to provide that update all right I put it back on the agenda and after polling my colleagues it was clear there was not support to move that forward the the the rationale I got for that was that they want to wait until the solid waste plan has done and adopted so I withdrew the motion I thought it better to withdraw than have you fail right okay as far as I know I mean we haven't seen any draft language yet but you got buried we got a report I was not here that day from Optim and the city and I don't think the abdomen report is gonna go into any detail frankly on the authority so I understand the rationale for waiting but I don't think it's going to fundamentally change anything that has been known up to now and frankly I think our resolution hopefully addresses sufficiently addresses all the concerns that are legitimate concerns but we address those with measures that the city can take to ensure our interests are covered I mean that's very concerning you know to me as well because the current investment I understand is only five thousand dollars and it's just to enter into planning discussions there's it's clear that the solid waste that's W RMP and the regional plan that W our MMA are really on parallel tracks and have really no commonality in the near future even until maybe we reach six months from now so well they're there to other folks in this room that you can lobby and the argument that I continue to make is this is really about expanding the network of drop-off services figuring out how to fix the drop-off center as it is now this is about recycling it does not outsource anything it doesn't pave the way for outsourcing anything the city of Ann Arbor's resolution passed by Council to do all solid waste use our in-house union employees to do that that carries all the weight of the world in this discussion so doesn't matter what kind of regional entity we would enter into our resolution supersedes that you know this isn't about labour you know every municipality and that's part of this has their own way of doing it and this the the regional authority isn't about trying to make everybody use the same collector or the same method it is really about volume of materials trying to aggregate that and improve the volume here so that we have more ability to create and market so that we have enough material to do that and I just haven't you know that's about saving money for everybody I wish I was a better debater but I'm not okay because um this is the way to capture whatever synergies you can capture to save money across the board and also to make a common outreach and education platform and to capture economies of scale for recycling and organics so I'm not sure what the Commission in do about this at this point I there we've we've spoken twice I know that one of my colleagues was very very unhappy that I had reintroduced this motion thought that the the environmental Commission in her words was being insubordinate you know it was a heated discussion you know I and rather than risk this not passing you know my understanding is we have until September to be able to make this decision you know the water resources Commissioner was here to talk about it and it just didn't just didn't move okay well all I can say for myself right now is just that I hope council people who have concerns about it would come to members of the environmental Commission and explore what the you know and make sure we agree on the facts and then see what we think about what the implications are and what we can do to address those concerns that's I think all that can be done and so there's some disconnect between the knowledge that you all have done researching it and what well has the City Attorney um generator and an opinion on this I mean I think a lot of the confusion was nobody really looked at the language of the new resolution which was different you know and that was was a frustrating thing for me but the the I don't I understand the the union representatives being nervous about their their base and their people having jobs but you know I don't know that we can say enough to instill their trust in us that hey this City Council resolution is policy until another City Council resolution would undo that doesn't matter you know if it's 30 years from now if there's not a formal resolution to undo that that remains the policy of the body okay are there any more clarity comments I just have a question D is it a matter of education or is it just a matter of wanting to get this report before council takes action in favor of this so my understanding is that this report I think it was originally supposed to be due by July 1st but I think it'll be postponed to at least the end of July so maybe we can revisit it okay so let's see okay well I don't have any updates from the chair report from staff so report from staff so dr.
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Stoltz is working on modules to be developed based on based on the power hours that are that have been pretty successful mmm this year looking at possibly doing modules on water natural features and solid waste and so hoping that the working committee the working groups might be able to help develop these modules these would be particular to residential folks how they can manage water how they can manage the nashville features around their home and how they can do solid waste the most effective way to be environmentally friendly so that's just something that's coming up and thought we would throw it to the working groups to see if there's any interest if I can elaborate on that fairly heavily involved so traditionally the power hours as implied by the name have focused on entered related issues so renewable energy energy efficiency we had an introductory slide that showed sort of a cutaway of a home and talked about this home being the smart energy home of the future type of the things so there were solar panels on the roof and an e V and smart appliances and things like that and we decided that with some input from Commissioner Graham that that was a little bit of a narrow focus and so we changed that slide and we now call it the sustainable home or residence and we have not only the energy related kinds of things but planting trees for sequestration rain barrels having a garden reducing your turf grass and replacing that with other types of natural vegetation and so on and so forth and so we wanted to open with something that says we're gonna focus in this Power Hour on energy efficiency and renewable energy but there's a lot of other things that you can do if you can't put solar panels on your roof or whatever and what we would like to be able to do is augment these power hours and we might even change the name into something like you know a sustainability hour as opposed to a power hour where we can have a couple of slides or maybe even an entire presentation focused on these other elements related to natural features related to water management and things like that and initially the idea was that we would get at least two slides from solid waste to from natural features and to from water that we could integrate into the power hours and then potentially as time goes on like I said dedicate hours to these other more targeted topics thank you for the elaboration that was super helpful um let's see there's an energy efficiency RFP out for municipal buildings it's out now there's going to be an RFP out for munis little buildings for solar and that'll be coming out soon so that's exciting that we're moving forward on those fronts dr.
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Stoltz and I will be at Summerfest on Saturday night if you want to come by we'll be tabling we're always looking for volunteers for public events so if anybody is interested in tabeling with us it's getting close to the end of outreach season for the summer but we would love to have you there will be a dr. Stoltz is working on hosting 30 sustainability directors from across the country through an NSF grant they're gonna have a meeting here in Ann Arbor in early July the sustaining Ann Arbor together grants open again on July 1st all the money from this current fiscal year has been allocated so that's an exciting thing to be able to report so if people out there or have any ideas for grants feel free to submit them after July 1st there was an Eevee event at SPARC this morning that a couple of us were at I think that went fairly well dr.
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Stoltz wanted me to put it out there that we're looking to do neighborhood block parties and the reason for that would be to build resiliency in communities that neighbors that know each other will help each other in the disaster time so if there's anybody who's interested in hosting a neighborhood block party in your neighborhood contact dr. Stoltz the green fair was a success and hopefully we'll have a presentation from staff about greenhouse gas inventories at our neck at your next meeting so I just had one comment if you're looking for volunteers um where would citizens find a place to sign up for opportunities very good question it's not formalized yet we're actually gonna be meeting with a group from University of Michigan that have developed an app for volunteering and so we're gonna be talking with them soon so maybe at some point near future there'll be a nap if I can also elaborate on that some of you might remember that there was an idea of recruiting and engaging volunteers something that I initially started and chasten Frenzel myself and Joe Oren who's agreed now to take a leadership role for this working group it's really not specifically affiliated with any Commission we met with dr.
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Stoltz earlier this week and we're going to be meeting with United Way there's also this app where there's gonna be a meeting with the group that developed it from the University of Michigan it's called backpack and so the hope is is that we can make regular progress so that there is a formal approach for volunteers to be able to register and say I'm interested in doing this kind of work I have these kinds of skills I have the time or geographic limitations and that would be sort of one side of the database and the other side would be organizations that say I need this type of help and then the database would hopefully then match up volunteers with volunteer opportunities that's the conceptual idea there like I said nine way of Washtenaw County does that to some degree and we're gonna talk to them about piggybacking what we would like to do on top of what they're doing that's what we have first off record thank you okay so let's see the next item would be items for the next agenda were there any proposed items for a meeting in July I had something to toss out see if people think it's worth discussing I think I think the full Commission was copied down at least some of the emails about a recent situation along longshore and adjacent streets above Argo pound with gravel was being put down and residents smelled of petroleum odor and it was it was quite an ordeal to get action taken on it and I don't I don't think that the gravel has been removed yet but that was the outcome you know the complaint seems to be valid it just got me thinking about situations like that when there's sort of an environmental emergency like that what do we do as a city I think in the past maybe Matt nod was sort of the point person for dealing with things like that but with his retirement I wonder if there might be a vacuum and I just wonder if you know might be a discussion topic as far as do we have a formal sort of environmental emergency response plan should we should we have one you know nothing elaborate just a page or two of this is the person to contact who can you know who has the authority to to stop work on a project or to get the fire department out somewhere or whatever it might take you know rather than you know the poor residents trying to sift through bureaucracy and not know who to call and before you know what two weeks have gone by just food for thought yes council member Bannister was very involved I believe according to her email today they were removing some limestone and she was still know expressing that it should be sprayed down first because as they removed it more dust was being left in you know and so yeah I think council member and I and other council members have said anytime there's any complaint or anything of note happening in our ward the council members should be copied because we're the ones that then will follow up with the residents with staff to stay on an issue and luckily in in the case you're mentioning of this 2180 limestone smelling like petroleum and actually as was removed the city did swing into action but I think a quick response team I wonder if that would be in the Office of Sustainability even when it's an environmental issue to make the quick response even quicker well in that regard I mean how are potential hazardous waste spills you handle exactly you could just treat it like a potential hazardous waste it this industry this would be a part of the emergency response plan and a big part of responding to an emergency in industrial setting is some type of issue related to a release you know whether it's a spill or it's an atmospheric waste so I entirely support Bob's proposal and someone should be looking at the city's emergency response plan and if it doesn't include cases like this it should and you know this is just a in a sense a spill of a different nature you know this is a chemical that was in a sense spilled somewhere else and transferred here and there should have been a response according to the city's a sort of emergency response plan and that's the way it was handled where I worked I was the incident commander for North America and that would have been handled through exactly the procedure like you're discussing so I I entirely agree with your proposal well and we do and this is ring from the cave I incident we do have a person on staff and maybe miss drennan can remember his name because he's escaping me right now but we have a full-time staff person who is our emergency preparedness person and so we should look him up and and strengthen his responsibilities in regards to spills and Atmospheric and as you said bringing in contaminated okay or at least have the channels of communication to find it open I just took a quick look through an arbor fix-it and there's not a reporting mechanism there too and that may just be you know just as a way to open up something to the public something that says emergency or environmental concern or something of that nature just to accelerate it and you know maybe that also has an automatic response to alert the ward council people at the same time I will work with staff to try and find the right person to come speak great any other items for the next I have one question of staff or Emily in particular the format of meetings meeting minutes is there a requirement that meeting minutes describe blow-by-blow he-said she-said and/or can we limit meeting minutes I think you did this actually for a while where everything is recorded on tape or if at least it's supposed to be recorded on tape if it's not then potentially um we do need a more descriptive set of meeting minutes but I think it would it would save time and it would help all of us if we could focus on specific recommendations and action items and who's responsible and I don't know if that's possible but it seems to me it would help everyone he added me to answer your question meaning minutes to meet the laws can vary from action minutes which literally are just votes that were taken and who voted how they you know or all you can go all the way the other extreme and do the the blow-by-blow it's really up to the sense of the Commission about what they want it does seem certainly something I've thought about is that if somebody's really curious about something they'll probably just watch the video as opposed to reading five minutes if someone's really interested in the details yeah I might my work experience was we had our meeting minutes at least imprinted former also and there was a right-hand column and in the right-hand column if there was an action item you know it said so-and-so was two or something something was to be done than in the right-hand column it said you know Sally Smith was responsible for this and it was to be done by this due date and it made it really easy for everyone to simply read down the meeting minutes and you look for Sally Smith and you know that's me even That's not me in this case but that's me and I need to do this and I don't have to read through three pages as a reminder of where was my name in here and what was I going to do and I don't really see if it serves a whole lot of purpose for you and for us to be reviewing meeting minute details in great detail you may disagree with that because you picked out a word that you wanted to change but it seems to me that that would be an efficiency measure for us and for staff I certainly wouldn't disagree with you so I encourage you to take it up with Missy and Josh and maybe harmonize familiar with the contaminated limestone spit on roads probably at all but I have for quite some time been upset with the use of limestone on our gravel roads it's cheaper than using road stone which is really a crushed granite with fines in it but it is extremely dusty which has to bother and everyone who lives on a gravel road when they apply that stone it's a much lighter weight stone in soil erodes much more easily and a lot of it just goes right off the road the next heavy rain you get there seems to be a lack of understanding of how to crown gravel roads so there's a drainage way on each side and water never crosses the road and I it's another whole transportation matter that I'd like to mark about but contaminated materials being put on a road is not a good idea yeah but lime stones not a good idea to begin with but and I'm just follow up on that if you want to put that in a short email I know you're busy but you know a short thing like that too and it's gonna raise a total raucous out here well that's how that's a good point that in all this episode with the contaminated limestone it didn't even come up that limestone itself was a problem extraordinarily dusty when it's dry its pasty and muddy when it's wet I mean it's just not so you know he's talking about dirt roads which we don't have a lot of within the city limits we have a few but this is a base material which is completely standard the way all of the Satan city underneath asphalt that's another matter entirely different situations it works be careful not to conflate these things absolutely not a matter I understand you know strong opinions about materials I do too but let's focus on it's covered it's no problem good base right so so I heard somebody say that it was contaminated gravel or contaminated limestone but I followed this fairly closely with the City Engineer Janet Allen and it's really a natural petroleum kind of deposit there was recognized there's geological reports from the 19th century that tell you that this limestone and the in the Dundee formation is you know it still has carbon a lot of carbonaceous matter in it a lot of stuff and in fact you can you can google it and you can find a lot of media reports about people driving down the us-23 and complaining about the petroleum odors coming up wafting over from the quarry there so yeah so it wasn't it was naturally contaminated I have a question about our next agenda concerning the optoma report we have not traditionally held a meeting in August and if there is a deadline that needs to be hit by September if we haven't I'm assuming that we will see the draft report before it goes to Council and I'm wondering if it will be ready for us to see broad July meeting otherwise I'm afraid there's going to be a a timing conflict that's a good point I'd be happy with scheduling August meeting it's actually already scheduled oh okay great made the mistake of scheduling something I guess but it's already it's already been approved and it's up on the city's website great well representatives of the of the meeting just if we could if you could mention that our when our meeting is in July to see if it's possible to have that report prepared for us for the July meeting that would be super okay yeah so the next item on our agenda is the next scheduled meeting it's for July 25th is the fourth Thursday of the month so I think what I'll do is I'll check in with the city staff that'd be great thank you about that okay so the next item is public commentary does anybody wish to come on up to the microphone more specifically about the use of herbicides by lawn care companies so I have a toddler daughter we walk we're having a lot a lot of my other friends who have young children we're playing in parks and you often see those little sigh and saying that an herbicide isn't sprayed don't play here for two hours and it's you know just alarming to us as parents like what you know is that really enough of a warning children are much more vulnerable to these types of chemicals and just kind of is there anything we can do I know we're constrained by state laws about restricting the use of these chemicals but I kind of just want to bring it to attention and think about like other other ways we can raise awareness or restrict use or think about like I was sitting in that park right on North manes by Kerry Town and I could smell the chemicals and I thought to myself there must be someone spraying right nearby and sure enough as we walked out of the park right in that Lake condo complex there was a little sign and put up and I was like we were sitting right there and someone was spraying and this is my 18 month old daughter and just the thought that we were like you know braving it all in so just kind of wanted to bring that to attention and you know I love to partner with be safe as well and I'm also thinking about like rain gardens and you know just is there anything we can do to say like you can't spray near rain gardens you can't spray near you know access to where there's runoff to the river and I'm thinking about kind of how to integrate that into like I like your idea about the you know when we think about green spaces like native plants and reducing turf which would also reduce the amount of urban space and we could include something in those slides that specifically mentioned homeowner use of them I'm curious if Commissioner Graham can comment on your colors well the good news is that smell is added so you know it's there okay things were used in the 60s and 70s our band mm-hmm the stuff that's used today is much less worrisome mm-hmm the good news is they use a tacking agent which sticks the material to the grass and things that they're spraying so it's not once it dries volatile in the atmosphere or damaging to dog feet or kids feet the bad news is the state has preempted us from really doing much we can do something with people who suggest they're chemically sensitive and make sure warnings are given in excess of the state standards and so on but I do go back to what I've been saying for a long time turf grass is nuts mm-hmm and all of this happens because of that and if we had a lot less of it in town except for really intensive recreation Ares or moms and dads that have football kids in the backyards we'd be doing a lot better on more channels than just this one thank you well thank you okay well I think that ends the agenda so the motion to adjourn the meeting I should say one more thing a lot of the turf care companies want you to sign up for a seven course menu which includes at each stage whatever they have on the talk which includes in the summer not just fertilizer but broadleaf herbicides to kill the dandelions and often insecticides because some people have grubs that really can destroy your grass but they have it on the truck and so everyone on the route gets it if people would demand far less than the menu these turf care companies are selling you it would help most grasses need fertilizing in the spring in the fall some grasses need broadleaf herbicide control some grasses not pre-emergent control which is not terribly toxic to keep crabgrass and coming almost no grasses need insecticides what's being sold in the marketplace is overkill and we don't need to do it and everyone should stand up and say I don't want all that so what are like oftentimes they see the signs on larger apartment complexes or condos and so I'm assuming there's a property management company that's hiring these people and that the residents aren't even giving consent they don't maybe don't even know what's being used like if they're I mean I know we were constrained on the state level but is there a way to say you have to have up you have to have like buy-in from the residents before you can hire a company to spray in their yard where it's wafting into their windows and probably weekend but the organization that controls the property could okay so it would still be on like the individual like the property management would have to agree to to that it's not something that you could do they're all an automatic pilot right about all this stuff and it shouldn't be automatic pilot it should be do things that are genuinely needed to be done for the sake of the vitality of grass and the people that use it not this 7 course menu of overkill right and and then what about like one year so if the environmental Commission is approving new development is there a way to talk on like you have to include a certain number of like native plants the city records yes the city might be an artist native plants as Shannon would tell you they encourage it but they couldn't like require we do it because we're these condos going up right in our house and I'm like oh they're you know just it even gets me thinking like I know that the I know the council had to approve these condos because I was at that meeting too and so wondering like you know is there a way that we can provide and on the point of being able to really curtail the installation of turf grass mm-hmm that's the cheapest ground cover and so it's another step in our long-standing process of trying to bring natural features and natural systems to more importance in this area to get there if we could do better about that in demands we make on developers in site plans and have left Lester press we solve a lot of this trouble but a lot of its automatic pilot and as I say the ground cover that's the cheapest thing to do is grass it doesn't turn out that way in the end run because it costs a whole lot to maintain it right compared to a nice pair of garden yeah but to begin with when the developers paying bill and not having to account for the long-term effects it's the cheapest I would encourage you though to go to whatever the I mean any of those places like they're likely condos right that are doing this or to go up to a homeowner and let's talk about your concerns because I think mr.
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Graham is right it's like people just aren't even thinking about it and if they're if they know that there are options that maybe it's not the perfect lawn but it's a lot safer and you feel fine about your kid walking barefoot in it are you walking barefoot in it that I think the more we just spread awareness about it there's not very much we can legislate about it but we can have the peer pressure to and you know develop old flyer and talk to people about it or tell your story you know I think that if people know then they're coming oh yeah I didn't even think that we're really doing that so I would encourage you to get out there and talk to people about it because there's only so much we can do in terms of state law and in terms of development as well and we're doing everything we can really but we can't force people to have you know prairie and I will say you know thank you again for getting this ball rolling and I think what we have seen is that there's a lot of expertise in on the environmental Commission and so I will I will continue to work on this and I'll work with dr.
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Stoltz and I work with mr. Graham and you had mentioned Commissioner appalam it's not here tonight it has you know so so we will and I think what we can do is educational pieces through power hours and and flyers and and so you and I can work offline but thank you again for bringing it forward because we we will improve on where we are tonight which is a free and voluntary program that actually goes door-to-door asking people to pledge to not use herbicides and pesticides in their yard and so the success of it in at least the old west side of Ann Arbor was quite high for at least one round of knocking on doors the goal is a cultural change toward orientation toward lawn care and just thinking about the whole environment so it I just wanted to say that it's one more little thing that's out there that sort of organized that would be happy to participate okay and he's safe an arbor has a website that people can go to sorry ok so do I have a motion for adjournment you don't need oh I'm sorry all right I'll adjourn this meeting 47 so good you
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a councilmember eatin commissioner Coleman Garcia Commissioner hukum Commissioner murski their chair Olinsky and we have the agenda in front of us do I have a motion to approve the agenda so moved we need to take a vote we just approved and the minutes were emailed out for everyone's review second all in favor aye can we can't can we actually approve minutes and agendas and everything like that even though we don't have a quorum we should have a little all right open input if we have any members the public would like to speak about just climate countess energy all right yeah my name is Ken Garber live a 2387 Hilldale looks like you have a light agenda tonight so maybe you'll indulge me while I tell you how I view the climate crisis let's go back to first principles atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane allow energy in the form of visible light to pass freely through but not infrared radiation this has been established science for 140 years since the experiments of Irish physicist John Tyndall now the sun's radiation is mostly in the form of visible light which passes we need three greenhouses guest to reach the earth but when the earth radiates back heat energy which is an infrared it's partially blocked by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas it's heating the atmosphere with the large-scale burning of fossil fuels the level of co2 in the atmosphere has arisen from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million to about 410 parts per million now global temperatures have risen about one degree centigrade with the five hottest years on record coming in the last five years and the 20 hottest years in the last 22 know all this I know you know already climate models allow us a certain carbon budget before reaching two degrees centigrade heating which is considered the threshold of global catastrophe the IPCC and other modelers estimate the carbon budget to be about 700 billion tons of co2 that's 700 billion tons of co2 that were not that we are allowed to pump into the atmosphere going forward and that's it no more right now we're pumping about 42 billion tons of co2 into the atmosphere each year and that number is rising do the math that gives us 16 17 years except that the principle of global equity dictates that the poorer and less industrialized parts of the world deserve a larger carbon budget to pull themselves out of poverty University of Manchester climate scientist Kevin Anderson calculates that the industrialized world needs to even reach net zero emissions by 2035 at the latest in order to allow poor nations up to 2050 to reach Net Zero now to be clear at two degrees centigrade heating many people will die from extreme weather events droughts and floods agricultural collapse and disease but they'll be poor they'll be non-white they'll be low carbon emitters and they live a long way from here we've already shown how little we care about them from how much co2 we pumped into the atmosphere given the front-loading of co2 it's realistically too late to keep temperatures globally at 1.5 degrees and pre-industrial so two degrees is the best we can realistically hope for so the industrialized world must achieve Net Zero by 2035 and we must take decisive action now because we're talking about overhauling our entire economic system which you can't do overnight we've shown over the last 30 years that incrementalism does not work annual carbon emissions have almost doubled since 1990 the year of the first IPCC report the baby boomer generation my generation has completely failed in its great generational mission we've wasted our 30 year grace period doing absolutely nothing to address the problem now the world is run out of time and only radical action could save the earth from complete catastrophe thank you thank you thank you energy from the Energy Office and commissioners and I thought that sitting knew and this he and John mirskiy next to me knew in his role as vice-chair we would you know speak for a couple minutes just about about that and I wanted to just start by saying you know that in my six years on the Commission I can recall only one other 5-4 vote before last month's election and that was about nuclear energy which we all know is the topic that is the most divisive thing to environmentalists so I just want to say I recognize and acknowledge that hope I can lead in a non divisive way and just recognize that the kind of surprised non reappointment of our illustrious prior chair and the election last month may mean that we need a little bit of healing and I'm gonna do my best to help facilitate that on the Commission the other thing I wanted to mention is just maybe like a couple minutes of background about myself because I know when I joined the Commission I had the opportunity to share a little bit my bio with the folks who were on it at that time but many of the people here were not and so I just thought it would be helpful to share I I want everyone here to know just how deeply I share the environmental values I think of the fellow commissioners here I got my master's degree at the University of Michigan in the school of environment and sustainability in sustainable systems I put solar on my house in 2012 I drive an electric car of cloth diapers my three children I'm still close to bringing the third of them we're a fully vegetarian household so on and so forth and I say that not to Pat myself on the back but I wanted to make sure for those who didn't know me that you know that I do share those values and and you know while those actions are important to me as I know they are to many of you to kind of live your own values I believe strongly that kind of as we heard in public input you know we're not going to solve our sustainability challenges via those kinds of actions and the change really has to come at a large scale fundamentally through our biggest institutions places like municipalities like the city and like utilities so that's why I'm here serving on this commission and that's where I worked for why I work for DTE so that's my background I guess the other thing is you know as I mentioned last month during the nominations you guys know the leadership positions on this commission is not like a powerhouse of authority right so we're not going to kind of change things up here the direction that we take is a commission is the direction that we democratically vote on and choose to pursue as a commission that said vice-chair mirskiy and I have discussed some ideas we had four things we would like to see and wanted to just kind of put out there for folks consideration largely related to kind of the efficient use of our time on the Commission here and operating effectively the first thing was we wanted to respectfully request that of our agenda items that we want to discuss and any resolutions that are up for discussion are provided at least a full week in advance to Josh so that they can be shared with Commission members and with the public it's the respectful thing to do for those on the Commission obviously for the public and hopefully then you know we can help our meetings run more efficiently if everybody has had the time to and committed to for example reading a full resolution in advance of getting here the other item I wanted to share and one of our fellow commissioners raised this is an idea last month was we're planning to create kind of an action item tracker to use when we commit to something in these meetings whether it's a resolution we passed or you know something we say hey I'll go research that I'll bring it back or let's invite somebody to speak just have those tracked so we know who's responsible and how we're progressing along on those and then lastly and this piece is a little bit more related to the content we talked about here I did just want to kind of encourage all of us to think about the work that we do on this commission being in support of and leverage to the city's sustainability staff they finally have kind of funds to do the work to take meaningful action they're the professionals who are spending 40 plus hours a week working on this so I think there will undoubtedly be times that we as the Advisory Commission will do you know what our name suggests to advise different directions or things that we feel that you know they need to consider that they aren't that's necessary and appropriate for us but I also think it's really appropriate for us to ask the staff what we can do to help them to execute the strategy that we helped them you know we gave them guidance and counsel along the way of developing it and you know there may be areas where we could be more effective putting our time into something that is high priority for them and they additional guidance or expertise or actual kind of getting our hands dirty work then you know coming up with new ideas that it obviously if we believe they're important we should talk about it but may sometimes serve as distractions to the staffs limited time and many times I think we won't know the answer at first about whether something is you know mission-critical or a distraction right and I I guess I would encourage I would love to see us use our time together as the Commission to explore some of those topics to educate each other and ourselves on them and to get the staffs input and find out whether it's something we want to take action on or whether okay we've educated ourselves and we'll put that aside if we're gonna take action on it is a resolution always the right path I don't know sometimes I think it probably is and sometimes we might decide there's another course of action that will be more meaningful so all of that is is really just food for thought like I said you know this will run as we collectively choose to run it and we'll cover the topics that folks here are interested in covering okay that's I'm done with my schpeel and I'll turn it over know if I can come in very briefly so as chair Lensky mentioned the two of us met and talked about these things I fully support her comments and her agenda this whole thing from my perspective I think from both of our perspectives is not about status or about titles or about anything else we really want to be something that is about shared values mission and vision and really be performance and outcome oriented and that's what we have committed to in terms of how we want to lead the Commission not that we want to steer anything you know we all have one vote anybody can propose changes to agendas and things like that but you have our commitment that we share your values and we share your desire to have a positive impact on the city in terms of energy efficiency and terms of having a positive impact on greenhouse gas emissions and the climate in the environment in general other Commission news energy updates so I guess this is a great segue kind of a collaboration between staff and Commission to talk a little bit about fire station number six so Chuck's been helping us out a lot as far as fire station number six goes I figured Chuck do you want to just kind of highlight some of the things that you put together here I sent this out a little earlier today and we do have kind of the copy here you have a bow so you can kind of scroll through and all that was done by Honeywell of city facilities where and we tried to come up with some ideas on what we should do spending wise on our infrastructure to improve it both energy efficiency and what else on the renewables front and so I think fire station six caught our eye as being one of those that could do both and the document that was produced by Honeywell we walked through that as a Commission briefly one night about a year ago I think and then we think we had a vote on whether we should recommend continuation of their services and I think we decided to take it offline and we're still in that mode of what makes sense from a city point of view holistically but I think what we said is fire station six represented an idea that could be a community facing solar system that had a lot of benefits and so the city decided to tackle the idea of working with U of M and they're in a group of um students were very interested in the volunteering aspect that we've nurtured in in Ypsilanti and take that into an Ann Arbor based alignment so this project has a lot of those elements in it in the sense of volunteerism so I decided I'm a professional engineer I do a lot of solar projects around town to volunteer my services as well on this to help move this along so I'm working on this from the perspective of design and hopefully smart procurement construction it's a 1981 facility it's I think 8000 square feet of roof space it has lots of exposure not a lot of shading so it has a great opportunity for adding solar it's a flat roof at one time the city put up some solar thermal on the roof and that didn't work so well so that system is still up there needs to be taken down doesn't look like it has any viability to move it forward it's an older system as well so the suggestion was what can we do to maximize our our investment here so we've looked at this Josh did an analysis I've done an analysis to look at how much solar could be put on the roof realistically and then looking at it from the perspective of different benchmarks you know looking at the demand of the facility what kind of solar PV makes sense looking at it simply from the facility as well as is there more so that we could put out on the on the grid so at this moment I guess Josh I'm not exactly sure the city filed the application with TT on the category 2 yes we have interconnect paperwork in two grandfatherís into the old net metering and we've done this for about 13 buildings friendly large city buildings far as large users as well as kind of iconic spots parks things like that that are in the community do you recall what we put in number wise for kilowatts in this I think we did 60 maybe a little above 60 kilowatts a little higher just to be safe okay yeah good so what you'll find when you go through this I'm not gonna I'm not gonna walk through this I think it's a lot of information for you to for you to look at in your light reading I'm one of these people that always look at charters I'd like to see objectives stated goal stated metrics defined schedules identified budgets then we can always go back and use that as a metric - are we on track are we doing things to plan if something happens mid-flight we can make adjustments and move forward so what you'll find is some technical requirements in here you'll find the code requirements of how what we have to meet what we found when we went to the firehouse was a lot of electrical information it was out of date it was not ever designed updated we've got some very gas-fired generation and our backup generation which is typical for an emergency facility so we looked at how do we best interface the solar with the building and so we came up with a strategy I think that works well we have an electrical room we have a way to tap into the system and so at this juncture we have and you know I'll get to us a picture here in a minute I won't go through all this in detail like I said but you'll see a rough system that's on the screen now we've got an upper roof that's on the west side of the building we've got a lower roof on the east side some other features I guess I'll just point out oops that's what most is fast tonight I'm not you might be able to if you do that scroll bar so you've got up here you've got the gas fire generator that's the back-up generator sits outside you've got the DTE interconnection coming into the building there's an electrical room about in this space here that provides the spot to tie in so it provides pretty good access for us and we looked at making sure we had enough room the worker on this area so in maintenance mode we can actually work around this facility we're not jamming too many panels up there for that we looked at an arrangement which is ballasted so it sits on the roof it's easily placed it's easily removed if we want to upgrade or change it we can the solar thermal is in this space here we have a little bit of shadowing that we're still playing with here in terms of how much shadowing is too much so there's some panels over here that might get shadow shadow had been a fulsome summer summer sun's it's us but in general we're southern facing fixed array and we have very little shading that's really going to impact this so it should get good solar insulation on the system I haven't modeled how much yet I don't know exactly how much we're gonna get in terms of generation at this stage we haven't really totally optimized panels but we're still in that mode I wanted to understand what our what our capabilities were so this is kind of a least cost if you look at what we're doing these days was single and dual access tracking and some really fancy technology this doesn't go there we just simply want to generate with with practical Tier one suppliers we've looked at some of the tier ones out there Mac and Mac is a local supplier of electrical they've apparently muscled up and said they would help us on some fronts so we're planning on going down a pathway of logic the one place I'll stop here we have about 210 modules we're looking at about 300 watts per module DC we're an aggressive ac/dc ratio or basically a fifty seven kilowatts AC the building demand is far lower than that so what will be pushing power out on sunny days to the grid pretty regularly I put together division responsibilities the owner of our energy Commission's on here guess what all the folks on the Commission are gonna be the owners engineer so as long as Jess what's that happen the documents I create and the information that we pass along which are gonna happen for I think fairly quickly now because we'd like to get this thing moving very quickly will flow through this commission so I actually have some technical eyes on things which I think works well so Josh's office is the owner um as is the fire department the fire department will also be supporting some of the labor and helping out in the field um there's an architect that separately doing the energy efficiency work that's not related to this project or budget and here's kind of the schedule we're looking at and it shows that we're gonna be basically energized this year which i think is a pretty strong goal will have labor coming back into town in September when the students to have nothing to do at the beginning of the semester hopefully we'll have panels from the stuff up on the roof and get them rolling so I think this is still achievable the budget still being refined you can see that down at the bottom it will be a much greater detail here shortly I need to work with Josh and the C on that front and you see the personnel involved so you've got Wayne John and the rest of us is Energy Commission supporting the project so here's kind of some thoughts on how we're gonna move it forward I think it it makes sense there's a lot of good involvement I think there's a lot of community engagement so at this time I open it up for any any questions I have a few questions as usual first of all my understanding is that we had I don't think it was called a GoFundMe but it was the equivalent to raise money and I was wondering how much we actually did raise it was around 12,000 wasn't it at one point or was that wishful thinking yeah I think we had a target of 10,000 I think it got closed out around 3000 so it's how much we actually ended up raising okay and I do want to I didn't want to take a second just to thank Commissioner hukum for all of the work he's done it's it's been incredibly helpful and I don't think we'd be where we are now without all of his work so I just wanted to take the moment to thank you and then also say that things are continued to move on the site there's a safety component of it we want to make sure having volunteers that you know we go ahead and make sure that they're they're safe so we actually have a ballasted rail system that's been put up on fire station number six so that's already up I think the piece and I've emailed some of the we have a kind of fire station group I guess a working group the piece that we're working on and I think it's probably going to take the longest is the kind of PPA model so currently we're trying to see if we can get a power purchase agreement with Michigan saves and that's probably just from the kind of legal aspect the legal component we've got to just make sure that you know everything looks good as far as the contract and all the terms are worked out so I think that's what's going to probably and has already pushed the project out this far there is also another piece of that as well which is I think as Chuck has mentioned that when students come back in August September because they really did help to start this project it's going to be I think the timing will be right to have them come back and kind of help with the volunteer labor on the fire station number six so in the end that the timing actually might not be so bad but I do think that PPA is what's holding things up the two bigger urgent things to just add on to that are getting their permit from the city which hopefully they'll just be all over because it's kind of a city related idea yes which I'll work that system that they need my drawings to do that as well as procurement so we need to get some things procured yeah so we've been in touch with a few different options as far as procurement as well to see what what the options are there for wholesale solar panels yeah so things removing I had one other comments last question so I reviewed this this afternoon and forwarded it to Wayne Appleyard and asked him about the status of the solar hot water system because when we were on site I think those of us that were there will remember there was some question as to whether it might indeed be something that could be resurrected he indicated that he hadn't done much although after I forwarded this to him he called the company in Canada and said that they're still in business the product is still essentially a viable product I think it's it's still even in manufacture there are some protections built into it that probably make the basic panels usable so the question is what he said he could potentially get together with Dave Conkel and review it but he wanted to leave that up to us and primarily to you Chuck to see whether it's something that's worth while looking into it could probably be moved if it's not in an optimal position right now he said that there's it looks like there's some problems in terms of the piping not having been insulation insulated properly and things like that so the initial installation was not as good as it could have been and so I I thought that I would bring his comments to the Commission and in particular to you and with the request that you think about it or let me know right now and I can get back in touch with Wayne and he could potentially do an inspection to see if it's salvageable well I've inspected it to be able he the via piece definitely needs to be reworked so if we were to save that if the balance of it still worked and I've done solar thermal so I know the the panels are what's critical right I can't tell if there's internal damage or not the fire chief said and I don't remember I can't quote him exactly what he said but basically said it's never worked since he's been there yeah something within a couple of months it was it was not functional so it may have been bad at training it may have been nobody did maintenance one of those things happened yeah I'd be more than happy to take that on and see if we could salvage it but basically at this juncture based on his input I'm not sure it's in that space so what I'll do is I'll I'll close the loop with Wayne I'll copy you and the the two of you plus Dave can decide to what level of investment timewise it is worth looking into it and then we can go from there his role is well Dave I guess is also familiar with his systems and it would just be a second opinion okay that's all okay I guess I'm weighing it talked with Dave and dave was in the indicated that he'd be willing to look at it together with Wayne okay and they could do that you could do it as a threesome sounds good I like foursomes I'm a golfer but the employee was installed probably yeah yeah he seems like you did some degree of familiar that's a good point yep just another coming I guess there's an absolute worst-case that's a possibility right and second question from my perspective ie I know you guys submitted the interconnection application the time for the net metering deadline I was under the impression there was another deadline that needed to be met I got six months later there was some point is that aligned with the timeline here so we do have we actually have energy efficiency RFP that's hit the streets we want to make sure that these thirteen buildings that they're as energy efficient as they can be before we put solar panels on there and we also have a solar RFP that's also hit the streets or at least should be hitting the streets very soon here for the actual installation of the solar panels on the thirteen buildings okay what about for this one specifically I thought it was a physical installation completed within six months but achieve that okay fine I just some details I haven't heard till tonight which the RFP I'm not sure how that works this is gonna be it's a good point this is going to be a separate project from the other twelve buildings I guess this would be the thirteenth just because the nature of the install the volunteer labor and then yeah just trying to intimidate this going as quickly as possible so for safety purposes obviously the electrical side of this project will be contracted out by a licensed contractor and hopefully but between me as building the electrical will end up with a better situation that they've got now which is we're not sure what we have we're looking at the breakers and not sure what's live and what's not you know what percentage other than they needed funding isn't so that has to do with the kind of PPA process so if we end up doing a power purchase agreement it's kind of a way to lease and then payback is it's almost like and that's we're currently trying to figure aside from what's been discussed here is there anything else Josh that you or Chuck that you guys assistance from commissioners over the next month before our next meeting I think the big thing would read the read the Charter and let us know if there is something that anyone wants to participate in in more detail if they want to work on design or anything you want to work on anything would be welcomed and then maybe what I need to do a little more granularly is advise the Commission what's coming next and when so there's a heads up that we don't surprise everybody with we need this response tomorrow so that'll be the plan a little more detail on that so given the importance of this in the timing maybe we can have a monthly update the other sites just where they stand great excellent all right and into your comment earlier we should look at progress against the target timetable because obviously we'd like to generate energy as soon as we can and we also don't want to miss any deadlines like the connection type of deadlines that you were talking about December's not a great solar month that can that is true we'll get it ready then it won't do much for a couple months that's a good point fair point and the solar thermal will have to move on quickly yes that's true and I'll mention that to Wayne - okay yeah thank you thank you okay moving right along we have a resolution to acknowledge the Ann Arbor Public Schools second all right discussion we had some comments that were provided over the course of drafting the resolution I would you like to read this before we vote on it or do we want to I have one question as I understand it the real objective of this is in effect if you distill it down to congratulate and to encourage me and our public schools to move aggressively on a wide array of environmental issues focusing and the priorities that have been outlined is that that's really what's behind the resolution right yes the original motive was really to acknowledge anarchic schools for having adopted a policy and a regulation into their their regulation in policies manual title environmental sustainability it's an entire category and the resolution actually includes the elements of the policy and so we were very interested in encouraging them and acknowledging them for for having done this passed on the Commission provided recognition sustainability goals any further discussion questions or concerns I look forward to the next resolution when there's a major accomplishment as I mentioned to you that's that's where I think it's really impactful is when we really see something significant then we really want to chime in and congratulate the public school system what they've done is laid a great foundation I think that's great and it deserves recognition and then hopefully we'll be having a drumbeat of resolutions lauding them for action taken well the the priorities right now as have been presented to the Board of Education the short-term priorities are focusing on energy and water the to reduce utility consumption establish a building energy improvement plan for each building as far as the focus for energy and water and then the second priority there's three primary priorities the second is focused on recycling program to enhance and repair current recycling system to reduce landfill and increased diversion rate of the waste stream as well as to reduce a single use product item items such as styrofoam trays in plastics and water bottles straws and plastic ler the third of the short-term priorities is to focus on supporting living and learning initiatives so at the elementary schools to transform them into neighborhood centers of engagement and sustainability and using school campus and buildings as living learning labs and curriculum for curriculum integration and also to enhance gardening programs and planting trees for shading so in addition to that there is going to be an effort to document current school-based initiatives and then also to create more opportunities for volunteerism and service learning so that's what they're working on those are the first things that they're going to be it's part of this this policy if I can comment make one other comment it was recently reported that the school board voted unanimously to go to voters in November asking for a 1 billion dollar its a millage the millage increase mm-hmm and I don't know if you're the appropriate person to take this back but I think from those of us sitting on the Commission I would hope that one of our interest is that as the details of that bond request are flushed out and are made public that one of the things that we would be looking at certainly is what is reflected in the bond in terms of sustainability types and investments that the public schools will be making I think the article said that the average age of public schools is something like 63 years old so that means there's probably really significant opportunities in terms of energy efficiency which should also lead to comfort benefits use of renewable energy and so on and so forth and I think it would be a pity if they went to the voters and said we're gonna spend a hundred million dollars to me a billion dollars and we want a 1 in 1.6 mill increase and there's really not anything significant included in that package related to environmental sustainability and climate action well maybe we can invite someone to speak to us and describe to us the different aspects of what the anticipated changes would be that do specifically relate to environmental sustainability at the structure of the building structural level yeah absolutely I'll take that on okay anything else all right shall we vote all right all in favor aye all opposed okay it passes moving on we have a Youth Commission resolution and this is something that the staff member Missy Stoltz mentioned last meeting it is a copy of a resolution that was passed by the environmental Commission looking to add two seats to the Commission to each of the Commission's for youth members you have that in front of you and again that was posted do we have a motion I move to consider the resolution questions so I think missional s meaning that other commissions were doing a similar thing it passed the environmental Commission in the last meeting what the plans are beyond that I don't know council member Eaton do you have any idea is this something that's intended potentially for other Commission's I don't think is potentially necessarily for all part of the rationale was that um environmental sustainability is going to have a bigger impact potentially on the youth as opposed to people in my generation that's not necessarily true of the work of all other Commission's can you comment on that I I'm not aware of any plan to universally include youth Commission's I know that there have been some preliminary discussions about having a Youth Commission to just actually opine in all issues I think this is a probably a more suitable way to go about this rather than having to general of a scope of authority I will note that the environmental Commission already has 13 numbers and to add two more members is makes the body cumbersome and so I think that that will be a topic of discussion and council I think there will be general support for youth numbers it's just whether or not that size of commissioners is manageable yeah and part of that is based on I think there's three liaisons including there are two council members there's one from this commission there's one from planning yeah one for transportation but yeah that's one from parks so at some point in time with a body becomes too big to be effective yet and the environmental Commission has so much on its plate right now that um I don't want to hobble them with excess population I'd be pretty mad so I'm not sure where that bracket came from usually youth I guess you're an adult after 18 I guess we're trying to fit a an educational profile maybe university students here so I guess I'm not going to get too hung up on that but maybe that's just the generality that it's generally between that group that age bracket I would also say that students tend to have a shorter attention span so this may not be something maybe we look at more of a transitory member that doesn't have the same term you know I remember when I was in that age group I would be interested for a semester and then I'd want to do something else I just we need to be a little bit flexible on how we bring this out I think them real rigid rules yes this one does have one-year terms okay length term certainly for college students schedules there's evening classes and schedules might change so that possibility of extension to a second semester John I think you maybe speak to us a little bit more yeah I think probably can the group was already originally 14 to 21 it was it was because I as your liaison there's some benefit so I can bring some insights from the environmental Commission the one-year term originally started out being three years just like everybody else and we recognized as you have and others that that's probably unrealistic and I think we didn't get into great detail but the sentiment was that one year is long enough where there's some continuity yet it's not too long where someone is committing themselves where they may be leaving town to go to college or going to graduate school the increase in the age originally it was for me that formulated 14 to 21 and what we wanted to be able to do was include graduate students because many graduate students particularly as our chair are studying topics that are particularly relevant to this and we would potentially be excluding them with an age limit of 21 so we didn't think about the word youth I guess maybe that was because all of us mostly there were were relatively older and they were still youthful that would still be youthful but that we did increase the age to 25 for that specific reason maybe before the brackets here we could use that word student instead of youth does that work from my perspective yes because presumably presumably they would all be students although can you know someone over 18 who is passionate about this maybe isn't going to some is not a student anymore and they're in a professional role now or they're in a job role and they still may be a good representative one last thing while I have the floor and that is I don't think it's reflected here but we also agreed that we would increase the threshold for non-resident youth members just as we have for non-resident commissioners so we didn't want to exclude an outstanding candidate from let's say a Township right outside the city limits maybe even going to in our Republic schools but not a resident of Ann Arbor so we said let's increase the threshold so that they require 7 volts votes from Council to be approved and obviously we hope that the the process in the case of a tie so to speak in terms of qualifications we would favor a city resident over someone outside the city those were the main topics that we discussed would that be covered under this final resolved clause about the city codes and the membership section those that should cover the voting required it's correct ok it's in the Charter so we we can't pass a resolution or ordinance that any further considerations recommendations I guess I have one last question this goes to Council for final fashion correct we're not making this decision ourselves you're passing the resolution in favor of it recommending yes correct I don't see it on on Monday's agenda actually the issue that that raises is that the Charter says that if you're not an elector of the city it takes seven votes to confirm you and so somebody under 18 even if they live within the city would require that seventh vote I don't think it's gonna be you know that big of an obstacle but because this Commission and all of our commissions are just advisory having them participated in that picnic of a deal we had youth numbers and our police oversight task force it presents some unique challenges but it was something that worked for a while let's take in the game so just one last thing I think that I don't have to vote on this but I think I know how this is gonna go I think that we should consider on resolution asking to add a youth numbers of this commission that's what this does mm-hmm I thought this was for the environment it was what as it was originally sent out it was for environment oh I'm sorry changed then my main concern about the the number of numbers isn't it so they're not going to do it for their Commission so this is just carefully I thought this was about the environmental Commission so you're asking your advising Council that we should add to members did this or youth numbers by one year terms okay so this is the advice that we're giving to Council so we just have to modify this presented as a council resolution I don't see a big obstacle there I believe our fourth whereas now therefore be it resolved covers that correct me if I'm wrong but I think the the Energy Commission for the city of Ann Arbor urges City Council to amend the city code to expand the membership so was this Commission established by resolution or ordinance think it was resolution I think so we would only have to pass the resolution to to unknown that previous resolution okay are there how many voting members are there on the Energy Commission I thought it was 11 so that would bring it to 13 instead of 15 right like voting members yeah I guess that would because the idea would be the youth youth commissioners be able to vote so to change 15 voting members to 13 voting members yes we gotta change that as well yeah in all honesty we grab this for the environmental Commission so there's a few changes we should we need to change it instead of the City Council amending city code it would be or just City Council to expand the membership of the Commission right that would Portland and and so we can literally just delete you know a few things there to pass a resolution to expand is that with and then I would remind the Commission that the bylaws that we previously approved that haven't been approved by the City Council yet because they're still under review by the City Attorney's Office it's both the council numbers as voting numbers as well as all right so that would bring us up to 15 here as well but you know what you decided it okay so we'll delete to amend city code title chapter 1 chapter 8 so forth to say pass a resolution and revise the 15 voting members to 13 at least based on current bylaws subject to change any further and it spokeswoman maybe one last question that we've seen students enter before I think it was a commitment I think that once students find out that this is an opportunity for them there will be some perhaps there's some teacher who give extra credit we have some aspiring politician one last minor comment and I can't remember how we came out on this there was some discussion about the time of the meeting whether at least for environmental Commission because it meets from 7:00 till roughly nine 9:30 we meet an hour earlier that may be something we may want to consider once we have youth members what is the best time based on their other extracurricular activities you know family mealtimes whatever else that might be constraining their participation so that I think we can take that question on at a later point and one further consideration is getting a quorum tonight was a problem but if you add two members it actually increases the number of people you have to have present to create that quorum to be able to vote on things and just okay we were unable to meet our City Planning groups whether it's the staff and Commission who those folks might be and start processing this with them because I want to make sure we don't get out of line with them particularly legal staff obviously ultimately we'll get there with them but I think we still need to understand who that is yeah we have identified someone in the city planning I don't think they could meet on the times we generally meet so it might be a conversation as to whether we could be flexible with our meeting time but I think as long as we can find out you know maybe a Friday or something like that a day that works for all of us we can set up that okay meaning the lighting ordinance is still hung up on the issue of amortization in other words when existing fixtures would need to be updated if at all the draft has an amortization included in it it's based on a national standard it is with the City Attorney's Office and between it and the Planning Commission and I don't have any specific due dates of when it's anticipated out of there beyond that we will have a second meeting or really first sort of official meeting on potential changes to the orange book related to lighting in the public right away on the 18th of this month so that's not this ordinance but it's sort of a follow-on activity from the ordinance as I've mentioned here before the energy audit disclosure ordinance committee sure I can comment on that so we we continue to meet we now have a first draft resolution based on a what's called best practice from Portland if I recall correctly so that that's been reviewed it's posted to our Google Drive and the next meeting will be devoted to going through that bit-by-bit with all the working group people and trying to finalize that that ordinance Josh anything dad yeah I just have one quick update that happened after our meeting there were I think the realtor's are very interested in being involved so they reached out and I think that might be something we talked about our next meeting kind of starting to involve them at this point that we have kind of a draft put together yeah I can speak to that the on June 27th there was an event that was hosted co-hosted by the city of Ann Arbor the University of Michigan energy institute spark in the ecology Center and the purpose was based on the recently announced incentive program called charging forward by DTE it was it was invited businesses in the Ann Arbor area to come and learn people who were property owners and managers of retailers retail businesses offices restaurants government properties to learn about being hosts charging Evy charging station hosts in what it takes to install charging stations everything that's entailed in in the all aspects of being a host a charging station host and we had three different companies represented who we had green works and charge point and II motor works reps were there to to answer questions DTE explained what the program was and it was very very well attended you were there right John yeah so folks learned a lot it was very interesting all the questions that were being asked the concerns that were being posed and I think it's gonna I think it's gonna be there's gonna be some some interest and some movement on increasing charging stations throughout the city as to the ordinance itself there is also a first draft now posted to our Google Drive of the ordinance we are using an existing parking table that's currently in the UDC so there is a table that looks at what defines and looks at all different types of property usages and defines the number minimum number of parking places or stalls required for that anywhere from none to you know a certain number per square foot or whatever Plus also bicycle parking spaces and we've simply added on to that and we now have that table filled out so that there's an initial starting point for us to review actually when Appleyard nine met yesterday because when we when we first have filled it out we had thirteen different let's say groupings of EB readiness requirements out of about a hundred and forty different types of uses if I recall and we sat down and simplified that down to six so it's not quite so complex and what we have done is we have some basic rationale for each one of those groupings we're gonna try to refine that and the agreement from the rest of the working group members is that they will review that before our next meeting which is two weeks from today so they can go into the Google Drive and provide comments and then our task will be to go through jointly and reuse every view everyone's comments pros and cons or making other suggestions and hopefully then arrive at at least an initial draft that we can start to bounce off of other stakeholders I don't have any update at this point in time so a couple of things I think are noteworthy first of all a comment made to open the meeting that I think is relevant actually for this commission council member Griswold who's attending this evening asked the environmental Commission to provide input on environmental impacts of transportation projects and my sense is that at least from an energy perspective we are potentially more or the appropriate body to do that working together with staff than the environmental commission of course that doesn't mean that there's other not other environmental impacts of transportation projects but if we're looking at any type of changes to transportation plans or policies that's potentially something that we should be looking at and weighing in on so we would potentially do that together with the environmental Commission the Commission also held elections Steve Brown was elected chair Susan Hutton was elected vice chair and Christopher Graham was elected as the representative on the transportation master plan CAC as we discussed the environmental division passed a similar resolution to the we just passed on youth members there was another resolution passed asking Washtenaw County Road Commission to reduce its use of herbicides through the adoption of a comprehensive roadside vegetable plant based on best practices it was brought to the attention that there's in some cases seemingly indiscriminate spraying of herbicides where they're just going down the road and spraying large swaths of vegetation and the hope is is that that we'd be done more judiciously not to eliminate it because there's indeed justifiable reasons for using herbicides especially with some invasives so we're encouraging them to come up with a vegetation vegetative management plan and I think maybe most interest is a couple of other things the committee the Commission I should say asked for a solid waste update report the Commission has normally been getting those quarterly in the past but since the solid waste resource management plan project and update project has been worked on there haven't been any update on for example financials so what our revenues what our expenses what is the net impact on the the reserve fund so we asked for that to be provided through fiscal year nineteen that's now or will yeah that's that that's now over we also wanted to get a read some insights into how commodity markets have impacted the city's income and his revenue related to recycled materials so the statement has been made for example by apt them that with significant decreases in commodity costs that that's going to in revenue not only last year but going forward so we wanted to get a better understanding of how that's actually fluctuated and what the impact truly is in terms of dollars and cents terms and then the last thing we asked that the city provide a status of the MuRF reactivation proposal that's been submitted by recycle Ann Arbor the city compared to when it was operating a MuRF locally or had a contract with someone to operate our MuRF locally we're spending at least $20,000 a month more to ship recycled materials to Ohio that obviously has a negative impact on greenhouse gases it also means that where we would have jobs processing recycled material locally and most likely Union jobs that those jobs are now in Ohio processing our recycled materials so it really makes sense to try to to bring that home so to speak as quickly as possible and I guess the only other thing is there was some discussion there's been a lot of issues related to heritage trees significant trees that have been cut down or put in jeopardy by various projects and so the request was made that the natural features working group look at a heritage tree ordinance based on best practices and that group has agreed to to look at that assisting and evaluating the energy or climate impact of transportation plans does the environmental Commission have a plan for how they will kind of be aware of and you know identify which plans are under consideration that they need to and and we should then consider addressing not that I'm aware of this was a request that was made in principle it makes sense that we should look at projects from a sustainability perspective and what the impact might be on greenhouse gases or other sustainability aspects but it was just Qwest that was made and I think that's something we need to discuss between OSI and Council and see what potentially might be expected and then I would assume that those projects that meet that that threshold they would go potentially to staff and both Commission's to evaluate and to provide input on so right now this is just conceptual okay we can we can put as an action item to make sure we follow up and understand how how we will get involved in those Mindy okay thank you all right that is the end of our updates from our subcommittees at this time I'll open it up again for public input if any members the public wish to share any input no seeing none discussion of items for the next agenda and on this our next meeting is our next meeting that's formally on the calendar is our September meeting we have typically taken August off I wanted to propose in some years in the past we have gotten together in August for a work session often a longer one than our typical meeting some kind of off-site used to talk about strategy for the upcoming year make sure we're aligned with you know we could use it to make sure we're aligned with staff think about whether the subcommittee's we have are the ones we want to continue conduct you know other other commission business obviously would be a public meeting given all of us getting together there but really use it as a working meeting throw that out there and see if there's interest yes I will not be here in September I'll be out of town but I support the idea of having some type of working session in the coming weeks scheduling is always tricky and I know I'm gonna be gone for a few days in August but yeah the concept is good I also like the idea as well I just have to figure out the right date yeah so if we do have that general interest what we can do is put together a doodle poll with some options and you know we'll have to think about let make sure that we've got a quorum enough people to make it worthwhile and if not look for other dates but you know there's nothing saying it has to be in August just since we don't have a regular meeting then then it tends to be a convenient time okay anything else then that for next agenda either things you'd want on the agenda for the special work session if we have it or items to add to the September agenda that we're aware of at this time it's not an agenda for the next item but maybe it's something to put in our calendars as a reminder maybe Josh you particularly this Friday the annual rolling sculpture which is sort of an exhibit of classic cars takes place in downtown Ann Arbor I've been there several times and literally hundreds of people show up and I think it would be great I did some some inquiries as to whether potentially a slot could be reserved for this session but apparently that's not passable for v's I mean if we're gonna be talking and there's gonna be hundreds of an arbor residents looking at the past of mobility and transportation and vehicles it would be really nice if there is also an exhibit where people that are knowledgeable about the future of Transportation and mobility could be there I mean there's also some antique v's in fact I reached out to the Michigan electric vehicle association head and they have a couple of like 19 19:20 type v's it would be great to have you know a bolt a Tesla yridian and a bunch of other vehicles at future events that is run though apparently by the Main Street area Association it's not I don't think officially a city event although obviously the city is involved and it seems to me we should try to get in line sometime like maybe April or March and inquire whether or not we could get X number of spaces to be able to promote v's at least our last induct greenhouse gas projection showed that transportation emissions was going to increase to be the majority of our emissions I don't know how it's looking now but it's probably not gonna change a whole lot that's what a lot of other projections are showing so transportation is going to be really a hard nut to crack and this was an opportunity to get in front of a lot of people and I think we should try to do that every year rolling hopefully just to uh set up Bahia track around the harbor yeah go from from zero to 60 in three seconds so everybody can get there geez that's a great idea put a reminder in our calendars every year did you know when our foreign events they need to reserve us but I don't it was just something that after the event that Carlene described a light went off because I had put it in my calendar because it's fun to go downtown and there's a lot of people out and so it's fun to car watching people watch and I thought why aren't we getting v's there and I talked to a couple of people and I got a feedback today that all the slots are taken like I said I reached out to the head of the electric vehicle association and they're willing to do it and to help and we'd have to work with potentially manufacturers slashed some automotive rightward not to retailers but what do you call them thank you to be able to do that but if we get you know a handful that would be really great yeah yeah then I can go ahead and look into what the timing would be yeah yeah I'm sure there's some point personally I guess give it those kind of details yeah that's it Thanks I can I can ask someone from the public school district a know public schools you possibly have someone here in September okay yeah especially if it looks like the resolution will be presented in August at City Council then they would be perfect I'm segue very nicely thank you excellent okay and that would be great since I think it's gonna be on the November ballot and we want to get that out and then if there's this kind of endorsement or position that we want to take that can't come just a week or two in front of the the Ballentine exactly okay and you know I just captured four main action items coming out of this aside from you know the general subcommittee updates one is to have at each of our meetings so we'll add it to the agenda the updates on the fire station and the other city solar sites the second was inviting the speaker from the school's the third is to look into how they want to identify the transportation plans where we would weigh in on the energy or climate impact and then the fourth is to have the city work with the rolling sculpture car show to look at opportunities to daddy bees anybody have anything else on this okay all right well do we have a motion to adjourn you
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[Music] you [Music] all right good evening everyone this is Wednesday July 10 2009 I called this regular meeting of the Board of Finance to order their own could join me for the pledge we have any members of the public that would like to give comments usual we move on to communication and correspondence received however none received move on to the approval of minutes from previous meetings I make a motion to approve the June 12 regular meeting minutes as distributed to the team and included in here okay any discussion on meeting out in the minutes okay hearing none all those in favor aye aye motion carries 4-0 okay now we'll move on to the report of the First Selectman sir thank you sir I've got a few things I want to go over with you you know we had a conversation with Moody's they asked to have the conversation we had the treasurer CFO myself the Board of Ed chair Colette and a couple other people on in case there were any questions we had a very good discussion with Moody's they came out two days later they have upgraded Brookfield from a - with a negative outlook - just simply a a - that's a good thing because we're gonna be borrowing some money in the future then it what's interesting is when Moody's rated us a a 1 about 7 years ago we had about an 8% on assigned general fund balance now Moody's is saying that to get an AAA one they want to see a 15% balance and they're also saying that the average time with an AAA one in Connecticut has a 14% balance we're checking that because I think that number is high I don't think there are that many towns who have 14 15% balances the second thing on this is well before we even had the meeting with Moody's our financial advisor told us listen they are not going to upgrade you to like AAA one unless you purchase their rating service now the last time we did the rating we hired S&P for two reasons one they were less expensive than Moody's and 2sp hadn't traded us in in depth in many years so our financial adviser said don't expect a full upgrade without going through the entire process okay it's the way it works but at least they took the negative outlook which is very important and I think most investors look to Moody's when it comes to municipal debt yeah that's a little stronger reading agency and they have more confidence in it you know we have we have a senior housing in town Brookfield quarry it's off of Laurel Hill Road we have the small cities grants where residents can come to us and for zero percent loan they can get their furnace fix their roof fixed leaks things like that we have not found anyone who qualified under the program in about six months there are income requirements you can't be underwater on your house you have to have some equity in it so we've been frustrated by that even though we've been doing a fair bit of advertising so what Lisa Lowe the administrator of the small cities grants did was come to me and say hey you know occasionally we can apply to the state and we have about three hundred thousand dollars left and that's available in this fund and get the state to agree that we can use it for Brookes Quarton books bard needs a lot of work it really does they just started a 401 C 3 to try to raise money for it as you know it's income limited for the people who live there so the income generated does not barely cover the costs of operating it and basically has no money to improve update kitchens update the infrastructure last year the town did pitch in no two years ago the town pitched in and we helped them pave their parking lot which was just unbelievable they've been patched like 50 times the state just came back to us two days ago and said no and we'll keep on trying but I thought you guys want to be aware of it all on our streetscape those rents inter-island units they're they're rentals you have they're all rentals for phase four we're flying we the cost will be about 2.4 million dollars we're applying for a grant through West cog we've been working on in about six months I think I mentioned to you this to you before it's a competitive grant so we go up against other grants within Wescott and then we go up against other cogs in the state we were the number one choice of Westcott for to this 2.4 million dollar project that will go from the four corners up to Newberry village with the streetscape we we have to have our final application into the state by August 14th it is looked on much more favorably if we have the town portion of the funding locked in they say okay they're serious so we are going to be asking the Board of Selectmen approved and sent to you today asking for an appropriation of four hundred and eighty thousand dollars for the town portion of the streetscape it is possible we will not get the full grant and we'll have to look at it then and see where we can get other funding but it's looked out much more favorably if we actually have the Town Committee the town funds committed on Phase two I think is if everybody's been through downtown the town center we're building it right now it's we're about four or five days behind primarily because we are hitting ledge luckily the ledge of sandstone so that's pretty easy to jackhammer out so it's holding us up a little bit there is contingency in there we're still on target for budget than spending and we are still on partner for finishing this in September the part of this that I really like is this will be softening our downtown because we're going to be putting in quite a few plants and trees along federal Road as you drive in from the north it's going to really soften it up I think make it a much more attractive downtown legal notices this is gonna be a problem the Pennysaver has gone out of business they stopped publishing that's where we put all our legal notices at incredibly low cost our only option right now is to go out of yours times we're double checking the state statutes with our legal counsel but it doesn't look like we're gonna have any choice but to use the news times that could Quinn Quintel quintuple or even higher our costs for land use town-clerk first electron's office so fair warning right now they were going to be over budget on this no matter what we do does it have to be in a recognized publication it does and it has to be one that is available in Brookfield so you know you go to the new town b-but virtually no one in Brookfield gets to the new town B we're you know I've talked to Steve Harding about this only about ten percent of the families in Brookfield get the news times so it's really not a viable buy a doctor to put this information out postcards yeah it would be cheaper to send postcards on us but then me with an assignment I'm sorry Rob on the state requirement does that meet the requirement setting postcards no I do not believe it does we'd have to check we'd have to check so what we're gonna do is we're in try to make all our announcements smaller tighter cleaner because it's you know by inch in the news times so we'll keep you up to date and if the if the law if there's any way to get around them does anybody question that requirement I mean it's so old-fashioned that that's every every legislative session they question it and the newspaper lobby is very strong and they fight it tooth and nail because it's one of their biggest stream legislator passionate in some way that's a different company they just dump them in your driveway drives everybody crazy I don't working so I get the new signs image yeah works morn different options but most people take that I know I do and it hits the circular file the information distribution can be much the same yeah our job is to find a good distribution it's not to make people read it so we're looking at every option we possibly can where you can yeah and okay so next thing is Jay Purcell has been working on something for a couple months and we're looking to combine our dispatch with new Millford if the primary goal is to save money we know that the state is pushing for regionalization of various services GIS land juice tax collector tax assessor some of them might work some of them might not but we do not want to be forced into a marriage with another community that we would not want to be married to in dispatch so it seems to make sense that New Milford and Brookfield form a regional dispatch we have notified the unions involved that this is something we're looking at and I think we can make it happen and it would save some money second thing on the police the lake little-known of patrol they've been keeping their boats up way up in New Milford this year we finally got a dock fueling station fueling tanks and pumps put in it little annona Shores which is right next to the route 133 Bridge to Bridgewater it's directly across from a long trip for individuals you know for the public it's working out really really well it takes our officers 1/10 the time to get there we'll have faster reaction times because most of our officers and a Marine Patrol live in Brookfield or the surrounding area and it's working out really well and it also gives us the presence we have had difficulty in the past and it's I can't guarantee this but swans pond last Saturday morning I was up at 6:30 in the morning and I've just listed into local radio Swan spawn was closed at 6:30 a.m.
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to any new traffic they get an amazing amount of people and we had had some run over from them looking for a place to go swim and take their kids there's no swimming at Lilla Nona Shores so we have had to send our police down there to say hey you can't swim but because of the remoteness and the inaccessibility of it we can't send one officer by himself we have to send two officers two cars walk down there so with them already stationed there and we widen the road and put the gravel on the road it's much more visible much more easier to manage that so that's working really well and the Lakeland loan Authority and John Pugliese II who is the captain of the he's chief know he's the chief I'm sorry of the Lakeland ona Patrol he's our major is very very pleased with it our new boat for Candlewood is coming in in the next few weeks I would expect you'll be getting an invite to go out and take a ride in it you know I think it's gonna be really nice we're also gonna be cross training both the center company and our police department on operating that boat in case somebody from Candlewood is not available to operate the boat we of other qualified operators so these guys can just go out get on the boat and go out so in the on the town side you know there's a new strip shopping mall across from the BMW dealership they have two rentals that they sign one will be the window Rama that's a forty nine federal now and it looks like a yoga space with a cat they may go in there and we're gonna get another restaurant and it's your favorite it's Italian so you know there has been their husband rumors around town that there is very hard to rent commercial space and nobody wants it it's just not simply not true that it is renting it is renting the Brookfield property line goes right through the car wash that's on down on federal Road you know the car washes so everything weren't they that is in Buffalo it's really weird you think it's Stanbury but it's not and then oh just one last update as you know a car went off a federal Road across the Stila River Greenway and into the woods after further investigation found that the individual driving that car is probably going to be charged with driving under the influence we have gone to the state to the local do deed Division five and asked them to put up a guardrail I think that's a reasonable thing to do damn word on doing that but what they are willing to do at this point time they will pull up the delineator stakes and also a rumble strip so both people on the Greenway and driving their cars will get an audible warning I personally don't think that's gonna protect us so we're gonna take this step by step we have a very good working relationship with them they do not like it if I go past them to the commissioner but I'm more than willing to do that I've done it before we we have to look at this a little more carefully in my opinion our chief of police believes that the delineator strips and the rumble strip are going to be enough to protect our residents he does that he believes that the accident that occurred was obviously a very 100 off kind of thing because it's not a real steep you know it's not a real hard curve it's a slow-moving curve all the way around but still in sections it's 15 feet from the still river Greenland so we can't ask duis not to drive on federal road to protect people so we'll continue to keep you up to date on and that's pretty much it for the first workers report questions comments concerns for the first elect reason that we want to move border than financials got it okay alright then move on to report of the finance director welcome back Marshall thank you very much the revenue and expenditures that read no change from last time that and I have to say that we're a little overwhelmed we haven't been fully staffed since April with vacations and sick time and things but the tax collectors the tax collections will be significantly over an excessive budget which is good for revenue all grants that we were expecting have been received the expenditures at this time all departments are in good shape they're all under budget there's nothing that's big that's under budget other than health insurance which we've discussed in the past and right now there looks like small underages in every department how and if they're using purchase orders properly that should be that should hold there's some departments that were worried might be coming in with things that aren't done purchase orders but still we should be we should be in good shape that other information ISA our accounting and payroll clerk has retired that and we have ads out that she has sick time that she's not sick time vacation time and personal time that she's being paid for we have a temp in now just because we didn't want to fall behind I've done payroll for the last three months that we didn't want to fall behind because and not the other stuff done so we temp started this week to try and help you some of the burden we are had our first interview today but the the applications don't close until Monday to try and fill that position and as far as filling it that I think our first criteria is how the person will fit into the culture that try to say this politely we don't want somebody that is watching the clock saying oh or saying no that's not my job that we want the culture is more important than any experience and boorda vet hired just hired somebody in a similar position with no experience and it's working out very well this because it's easy enough to train somebody is that a union or non-union yes yes we are in the process of closing 2019 so we've asked all invoices be to us for July 31st we talked in advance about what encumbrances will stay open we still have to close the encumbrances that we didn't talk about we are in the process of opening 2020 fiscal year to that end on Friday of next week is Finance Friday that you're welcome to attend if you'd like that that we are some departments are struggled and they've also had their own little separate systems we want to get everything into munis we want them to be using munis as their tool and not something off to the side and munis is just a necessary evil so to that end we're preparing to on some of them we're preparing to go through and start with let's take that budget worksheet and let's go through what purchase orders need we need what bids we need what quotes we need and just worked with them in that level of detail we've got some that have told us that they can't do purchase orders because they the people in their department haven't been trained or don't have they don't have rights to munis so I Dan from idea is going to be there with us some of them we've already given them rights as one department we're training separately tomorrow that so that everyone can get on that we're having written instructions for how to do all the different tasks that they would need to do what reports to pull to monitor so that is next Friday that you're gonna have to show up and accounting games that I'm sure we'll be counting beans that see who gets the closest but anything to get them their food and non-alcoholic beverages but and and who knows what our turnout will be but I went to all the department heads this morning that we want to work on some some policies that I've started working on but I need to get them out to Steve and then to the board's fund balance being one of the biggest policies that and how we get where we first where do we want to be and how we get there the GFO a has a little worksheet on what percent you you might want to have for fund balance and to be honest that it's their worksheet is geared so it's rare that it's going to be under sixteen percent that just from what having former clients use it but I've worked through that a few months ago so I'll go back to that now learn more every month that we want a debt service policy and an encumbrance policy the auditors had asked for the encumbrance policy when they come back and to do this year so I don't think there's a there's currently the debt service we want to tighten it up and get a little more meat to it right we have we do have a rough policy but I don't think it's detailed enough to meet the requirements of either the boards or the town or the rating agencies it would be they look at those long superseded that yes that's it and and to pull other things into it loans and leases and compensated absences that that's a way that and it's all part of it's all part of debt that that if you look at the town of Monroe for example they are about the same size that we are compensated absences that's accrued vacation sick time and other time that you would pay out I think that there's is seven eight million dollars that we don't want that to happen that I wait and we have nothing to stop it now to say that you know that somebody and I always pick on the Board of Ed cycle in that but but not this Board of Ed but another Board of Ed might go in and say hey you know we can't give you a raise but we can give you an extra four weeks off that or or whatever and that's not controlled in the budget that so we need to control it someplace that that's not happen we don't believe it will happen we have very responsible people working on our boards but it's good to address hi Dean he's talked about that before I even heard of Brookfield so it has nothing to do it for a field the auditors they finished up their preliminary work today that they've been here for the last three days so far so good that they are coming back on August 26th they've got a three week scheduled they're hoping that they won't be here for three weeks last year that and they never came out for preliminary work they did everything in the field work and this few months ago and finally we I think that's finally that we're upgrading to munis on August 10th we keep threatening to upgrade we were going to do it in the fall and I wasn't ready because I didn't have a handle on anything then we were going to do it in the spring and I forgot why that slipped again but August 10th is now the date the reason we have to upgrade is w-2s that we need to be able to produce the w2's and this is the last year that that our program will be supported our our version will be supported so we could slip a little bit longer but not much after that Pat me yes yes that's a very good question that we had it scheduled run we were going to do it in April we had it scheduled over the weekend but there are a lot of things that need to be done before then to make sure we've had balances make sure we've got things closed down and it's not gonna be too close to where we're hoping that no databases are blown up at all that but but there will be a back up and give me the vapors here yes yes but these are the kind of questions why we didn't do it in the fall but and then Ricky had asked if we would look at the budget transfers and so I'm not particularly thrilled with the form that that I had developed and so I'm gonna try and do one that shows what would Ricky wants what would the buy one and come back to you with reporting committee it's not just not just you then but that you're the only one on so that we can fit everything into one form a little more concise a little when we do these mass transfers from one department to another little less time-consuming that any questions there was just one thing right at the beginning when you talked about tax collections being ahead and you said it might affect collectability in 2020 I'm just running why notice oh so because she's collected so much more that several hundred thousand more than the budget that there's not a lot out there to collect and so every time she says she just says oh you know we did really great at collecting but I'm not sure that I've got more that I can collect for next year that because it's a so it's kind of number representing back taxes everywhere and we've funded that correct yet we've enhanced our enforcement and collections by hiring a marshal to chase down these debts and it has been much more successful than we originally envisioned let's say we've gotten over $300,000 in back taxes paid so that means the whole list is going down and where we went after the biggest first you know 25 30 40 50 thousand we've collected most of that and now we're going to be going after the two thousand three thousand so there's just not as much to collect so with any residents or businesses both both but mostly businesses okay mostly businesses a lot of personal property tax yeah yeah that has been avoided yeah so we're very happy with that you know no one wants to go there it's not fun to have a marshal show up at your place of business but some people have been not paying their taxes for 10 12 15 years and that's not fair to the residents and the other businesses in this town it's just not fair okay and the other questions so for your the meeting in August that we should have much better numbers preliminary numbers for the end of the year and we should by that time be working on pulling them together into statements all right no matters of old business on there new business we have a couple items I move to approve the recommendation of the Board of Selectmen to fund the request of the Board of Education for a special appropriation of eighty four thousand four hundred ninety dollars to fund the initial kindergarten teacher from the 2019 2020 school year based on the most recent demographic results and we open the floor for discussion Colette was there anything any color you wanted to add to the request please yeah these numbers are accurate as of this morning so I broke it down a few different ways based on the last five school years and this is really just to show how we predict how many kindergartners we're going to have because it's tough because we don't have a class coming up it's not like first grade or second grade that's we know let's do what we had prior to that so we usually base it on Illumina mcbroom projections their most recent update was June of last year June of 2018 and that was in preparation for the new school project and as you can see by the number students starting each year now this isn't our official enrollment number which we get and post from October to every October but this is the actual number of students starting each year we're usually right on target give or take a few with our melanoma crew projections this year they projected 147 and as you can see as of now we have a hundred and sixty registered we have others that have registration packets out eleven of those that we we are absolutely confident that we they will be returning either they have siblings in the district they have made appointments to turn in the paperwork they are going through with the pre-k program one of the other so we're confident about those so that puts us at 171 students now since I did this report at the Board of Selectmen meeting by the week and a half ago we have actually had two new inquiries and requests for packets as well so that maybe even another potentially to students in 173 but if there were 171 students in eight classes that would be 21.3 students now of course you can't have a point for students so that would be five classes of 21 students and three classes of 22 students unless we get those other two in which case at full flood with nine classes though we're down to a very reasonable 19 or 20 if we get those extra owns to students students per class which is within our board guidelines which are 17 to 20 students our target is 19 so we came out of the blue so we're just asking for the appropriation of 84 490 to fund that additional kindergarten teacher what does that do for first grade next year um we'll need a new we'll need an additional first grade teacher as well but we can we are better able to build it within our budget construction well though if this little bubble class goes up you might need one less kindergarten teacher next year perhaps you don't know no but if we look at the melona McBroom projections they actually predicted above a class for next year they're predicting 181 students next year because of the uptick in births and 2015 so they go bye-bye Good Earth rates this video they go my burglary so within you know within the town now we are requesting or we are looking to see if they do a nother deep dive into the development into the demographics into the birth rates because we absolutely need to depend upon this and run these Roman figures for the new school project so that has just been a discussion that's taking place over the next last two weeks really it needs to go now from the MPC with because in addition to that we are requesting we are going to have some additional processes you know if I can just say one thing here you know all I'm not an expert on this but it's clear to me that having 19 kids in a class versus 22 kids in a class is a big difference for teachers especially with kids coming in for the first time it's it that seems an outrageous amount of cast to me the hard research is out there that [Music] sizes are directly related just in success but it's especially especially critical in kindergarten first grade that's where the smaller classes make the largest difference where's the 85,000 coming from the appropriation no no we're weird like with what's where's what's gonna find that so for right now it would come from the general fund I think unless we can find it in the budget throughout the year and transfer it or if they can find it in their budget in the Board of Ed budget right just I strongly support having teachers over two weeks into the budget so we know we have more money coming in for the grand who then expected that was previously budgeted and we also have that 130,000 that we have a sign for me right now from the teachers pensions so eight to the general fund yeah I feel like candy we would prefer not to dip into the general fund because we don't want to do additional appropriations we just look better if we can stick within our budget so I would say we should transfer from the hundred and thirty that was previously discussed as if you want to do it previously discussed as teachers pension that we no longer have to pay taking the money from there and transfer it to the Board of Ed what about the excess from the grant so that would be revenue and in order to take that we could show that it has no effect on the bottom line but it would still be considered an additional appropriation for the budget which again we want to try not to do that because we want to show that we can one of the things that the bonding companies want to see is that we can work within our budget so it would love the the two it really wouldn't make a difference to us it's all this it's to us it's all the same but but to be able to say that we're not we didn't do any additional appropriations we would be better and the way to do that would be to take out the 134th oh yes okay is that something to designate now where that comes from um I think you want to designate guess where it's coming from there's a completely separate budget line item so we probably should state that we're gonna move 84 and change what's the line item teachers pension teachers might join us on the board of that side it was there but it wasn't an order that budget per se all right I will amend the motion that I made as follows I moved to approve the recommendation of the Board of Selectmen to fund the request to the Board of Education for a special appropriation of eighty four thousand four hundred ninety dollars to come from the teachers pension fund budget line item to fund an additional kindergarten teacher for the 2019 2020 school year based on the most recent demographic results any further discussion on the matter okay hearing and seeing none call the motion to a note all those in favor and to give a saying aye aye aye motion carries 4-0 you get all that time all right so this next item there's a just a typo on the agenda this was for phase 3 that's what I had communicated to Eileen so I apologize for that it's actually a phase 4 this is this is a long but you don't have to read the entire resolution so what was going to have to move into it well first the Board of Selectmen has to approve it we're having a special meeting tomorrow at our board meeting we actually had although we did not have the detail needed to make a formal resolution and our bond Council was on vacation so tomorrow night the Board of Selectmen is gonna meet we're going to forward this to the Board of Finance for action and with a suggested date of I'm not sure the date for Town Meeting so that we can get this in by August 14th notice was to discuss and you have to sign a special meeting date right there was no there was no actual business for this okay thank you yeah this threw me off yeah yeah well we got this today and just wanted you guys to have a copy of it so what we'll be doing just so people are aware residents it's a 2.4 million dollar project you have to fund at least 20% the town funds we would appropriate four hundred and eighty thousand dollars for phase 4 and it gives us a much stronger argument when we go up against other cogs because the people who make these recommendations and I've seen this dozens of times where towns put in a project and never fund their portion of it the project is approved and sits there for three four five sometimes six years well more if we funded it they know we're ready to go with it and so they looked so does that become a line out of my next year's budget tell me become a borrower yeah the kappa wait we don't turn cast and the 480,000 comes friend barri we would anticipate because it's a capital project and it would last that would be our suggestion three and that's the total of the town's commitment to his face yep at this point in time it is possible that this grant west cog has named us number one but the whole state grants there's a limited amount money they may come to us and say okay we're only gonna give you 1.5 not the one nine twenty that we need so then we'd have to go find other grants or other sources but right now we're basing it upon what our application is and the 20 percent all right so the first selectmen had asked us to look for a date in August our board meeting is on the 14th that's too late yeah and then we have to we need five days to post in the newspaper before the town meeting when you want to have the town meeting around but eight we could do the town meeting on the 8th but then we would have to one two three four five you would have to meet oh and I'm looking at you have your next time sorry I was looking at I'm low I was looking at July I apologized as an export that's the 14th so you shall meeting I'm thinking if we could we could do it at the board before the Board of Selectmen meeting on the 5th or we could do it between the 5th and the seventh birthday meeting which would give us enough time so any date we pick for the Town Meeting we need at least 5 days before that so let's say we pick the 7th of August so when are you gonna have your Board of Selectmen tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow so you can do it anytime I think the sooner the better is anyone available to fall in like for a five minute meeting anytime in the next two weeks I feel really good okay you mean the week the second week the week on the 15th another week in the 15th yes yeah yeah yeah Wednesday that's what was 14 July 17th oh you told me this yeah yeah yeah I know I know I won't be young here the whole week which is that day the whole week and the following week at least second half pretty much less divorce it's back from vacation 31st ok first might work I'm gonna tell you first that give you time 31st should be good for us let me just double-check yes a 30-person work because I'm gonna need one two three four five six boy that's cutting it tight yeah it is that's kind of real tough doesn't this you have to be on a Wednesday well if you do it on Wednesday we get it to them on Thursday they put it in the paper on Friday that is that'll just give us one extra day in case they don't get it in until Saturday that's a little tight if we could do it in July come on des the 29 that would work here that would give us a couple extra days that works all right then so be it we will notice that in the next couple days after you have your meeting Emily gonna propose only have language we can put in there we'll get that out right well the time and everything like that and location please does anybody care maybe something that seven is good my location TBD alright other items to come before the board I believe we would like to add an executive session to discuss some real estate matters okay all those in favor of entering into executive session right the first year yeah yeah the agenda item get a second all those in favor of entering into an executive session to discuss real estate matters indicate by saying aye okay move into executive session then go to that room as long as it's not locked its storage so it is locked
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I think most of my questions have been answered since I've just been listening the one question that I had it's just more of a clarification regarding this the staff report at the very end of it you mentioned sort of sort of suggest that one of the benefits is that there are sidewalks on both sides of the street I'm encouraging pedestrian travel and I guess I was assuming that that was a requirement of our development is that is that not required it may not be a requirement but I requested it in the planning comments and a connection so you could traverse through the site so I was part of the pedestrian connectivity I did request it and the petitioner did respond okay so it's but it's not required I mean you you requested it was provided does our code need to change to make that no I believe it I would have to double-check but I think they would want sidewalks the engineering department would request sidewalks throughout that throughout the site okay I just wanted to that snot part of our our standard practice and rules I guess another clarification from what came up in in the comments and the questions so the the sanitary the sewage that is my understanding that it is not there's enough capacity currently there to handle what the site is producing is that what I heard there's no make sure I heard that yeah I just looked up the previous sanitary sewer I believe the utilities are adequate to accommodate the proposal okay okay that's that was one piece and then in terms of what we require in terms of mitigation maybe I'll just follow up with that later so I understand those okay further discussion I'm sure survey the basements the gradient plan we talked about walkouts at least on the eastern side of the property are the center connected units also walkouts looking at the kind of site section it looks like they might just to understand like the capacity of some of those units like you would think their view out in the center and along that northeastern edge in order for us to basically meet the grades that exist either to preserve the trees at the edge of the trees at the central location of the site linear line from the eastern line yes so the central block connected units if you're standing at the sidewalks at the roadway you'd slightly rise to the front doors of the units you'd go into the unit that first floor elevation is roughly four to five feet above the grade behind the unit so that you basically have the exposed basement foundation there and the reason to do that is to get that grade to drop in that area to preserve the trees that exist central to that block and then on the eastern side you're talking on the northeast corner we kind of do the same thing with the building foundations so that we can drop down to the existing grade because that northeast corners lower point and then from a building standpoint as they're attended for egress windows or any sort of windows in those basement foundations you our intent was to make the basement you know a normal eight foot which is kind of a typical basement we if we do that we're required by the building code to put an egress window in so yes there would be however when we talk about the whole reason why and we could probably have a long discussion that the basements I want them for storage and I think everyone lose to say the fact that you're not supposed to finish the basement without a permit I mean that's that's what you have a building department for it and we're putting it right in the actual documents that you cannot finish them they know that right up front so it's not that oh gee I have something that maybe could be turned into a habitable space it's right in there that they can't you know the other is is we just make it 8 feet 5 inches I mean 7 feet 5 inches and then it can't be finished and it's just the world's tallest crawl so it just is being more conventional trying to be up front and say let's make this so people have a good storage space because people have stuff and rather than set it outside or fill the garage and have the car set out and people complain because I'm trying to give the people storage in a 2,000 square foot house because it costs out saying whether I make it usable for storage or not that's been part of the conversation is trying to understand that 2,000 square foot you know first and second floor 3000 would be the basement finishing what I'm hearing from you is the language says you can't finish the basement so you can't go above 2,000 square and that's where we're proposing it you're you're open to that as the condition cannot be finished that's correct we propose that we won't put it right in there from a staff perspective we looked into this and when we're gonna find difficulties yes they would have to come in for a building permit but not everybody actually comes in for a building permit to finish their basement then we're gonna get ourselves into enforcement of okay they finished a basement staff is now gonna have to enforce on a finished basement I did have a brief discussion with their assessor's office they do not count anything above the basement as part of their floor area they assess for a finished basement but they don't count it in their calculation so staff thought it might be easier at least in the future for a building department planning department zoning enforcement that to allow those finished basements you know I just don't know if we're gonna be able to enforce or our building departments going to recall they're gonna have to put a hold and deny any type of finished basement permit that comes in that language says you cannot finish her basement I mean it's always an enforcement condition but if a permit did come in it would have to go through zoning compliance review that's correct it would look at the PUD and understand that the permit would get denied there's a complaint sort of circumstance so if that language is true and we're trying to hold a certain square footage intensities I actually feel more comfortable with the language is in there to catch it if you go through the proper channels I think in all circumstances of the city people can find alternative ways and we can only enforce what we know okay Commissioner Millis staff we do have our 1e another r1e district on the north side of town how does that include basements it does and they that was under the previous end definition of habitable space they constructed basements that were not habitable space that exceeded the 2,000 square feet we have had numerous requests for people to now come in and finish those basements and it's been a it's been a challenge on how to respond to that so what we have as you're the petitioner refer to it they are finishing many of those basements with a shorter ceiling height that makes it illegal to finish those basements in the future it's a messy example of how we're trying to clarify the language in this circumstance can you recall I don't know either I'm not know is there I don't know that there was anybody on this table that was around when we established the r4 r1e district oh yes our chair see about what the what the intention was the intention at that time I don't remember ever having a conversation about basements I think it was it'd be I actually don't think it ever came up and my thinking behind it was it was like any other district that they are able to finish their basements I think ultimately the goal was to get smaller / - to get smaller homes build smaller units to be built whether a basement was finished or not I don't think that really ever came up this is the first time hearing about this conversation and now because I've sold several of the properties on north sky that makes a whole lot more sense as to why they're building them the way they are but I don't remember ever recalling that conversation I I think we just read it like every other zoning district got it so what I see right is that there's this tension here between what are the public benefits and what's the risk of leaving it as it is right versus what what are the benefits then that become of the PUD so and you got I can lay it out or or I can defer to staff who I'm sure has grappled with this to some extent like because that's what I'm trying I'm trying to weigh in my mind there are the there are the benefits of this PUD in terms of the storm water detention retention especially from the off-site requirement that's above and beyond and there's the Natural Area Preservation benefits right it's the same number of units in either situation there are there's the benefit of having a different housing product here in terms of the duplexes or the attached units that we couldn't do in the r1e underlying but at least as developed or there's there's got to be a price differential by it being able to finish your basement versus not and so in the existing r1 ease owning right there potential particularly for those houses houses at the perimeter right those would be more affordable units because you cannot you could not finish the basement under current ordinance I want to share with like the people listening on TV and the people here like yeah there are always trade-offs in this and I really don't know what the you know what the right one is but these are the kind of things lucky us that we get to grapple with on a regular basis so I will shut up I'm concerned about the basement thing just because again it potentially 3,000 square foot well no you can say that you can't finish it but if you are allowed to build it to the height where people might like that's I don't know I think just to add a little bit my personal experience is that I would estimate that 75% of people who finish their basements whether they hire a contractor or they do it themselves will not pull apartment sorry mr.
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to the July 16th 90 Planning Commission meeting we'll begin the meeting with a roll call Commissioner Milstein here commissioner Mills Commissioner get Brandel here commissioner aprons Commissioner Ackerman here Commissioner Briggs Commissioner hammerschmidt Commissioner sauvé Commissioner woods we have a quorum thank you and our next item is introductions today we're joined by two new commissioners Commissioner Abrams welcome and Commissioner hammerschmidt welcome yeah do you have any other introductions no approval of the agenda do have a commissioner he'll move move back mr.
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Leonard but that is my experience when I do research on a property and I look at the building permits they were pulled ah I am I am pleasantly surprised when one is pulled that's that's it's a surprise to me when one is pulled as mr. moe steam I know so even though mr. Heisler saying this will be in the association bylaws and the city won't issue permits those basements some of those basements will be finished and I can totally understand where the staffs perspective is all right they started to finish in their basement how are we gonna enforce that they've taken it apart I don't know they answer that question commissioner Mills so the solution there is to say that the way the we are identify square footage which includes all of the floors including the basement right you can't exceed that right that's the what this also means though is that these people can't put an addition onto their house if they max out at 2,000 feet right they can't add a sunroom in the back they can't right and so again though one of the benefits of the are the the benefit of the r1e is to have reasonably sized homes says the woman who lives in 1,300 square feet right look like reasonable a smallish footprint house and so that's tricky that's the one as far as how you enforce it if they did it it's right in the bylaws that is that they have to remove it if they finish a basement and the association by state statute has assessment powers and that they'll assess against a homeowner if to remove it I mean it's right in there that's what I planned on doing I didn't plan on making it a problem for everyone else it's it's right there it's law basically it's you know a statute here it is here's the bylaws we make them we have to live with that and the people buy it they know it will it decrease the value of it so yeah but I want I think we should think about how people live and have the storage for all the different things kids have you don't really want place that setting out the little type things in the winter and app you'd rather see them inside downstairs where kids some activity that type of thing that's what I'm looking for that livable space and I'm willing to make accommodations not to put it on the city to do and you can do that with assessment powers with condominium documents mr.
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Mill's I can by commissioner get Brandel do we have any changes to the agenda please say aye opposed it's approved before us this evening we have three three sets of meeting minutes from the May 21st 2019 June 4th 2019 and June 1829 teen do I have a commissioner they'll move all three move by Commissioner so they seconded by Commissioner give Randall any discussion on the minutes before is this evening Commissioner Mills I always googled four I always search for my name to make sure that what I say sounds quasi intelligent and this one was less intelligent than even normal I think there's like verbs missing on May 21st page 14 the second full sentence if it can say Mills encouraged pilet to quantify the number of Brown lot surface parking spaces being lost showing how this addition blah blah blah all right make that change thank you any other changes to the minutes all right all those in favor please say aye opposed they are approved moving on to reports from city administration City Council Planning Manager Planning Commission officers and committees written communications and petitions we first have a report from our City Council representative Commissioner Ackerman Thank You mr. chair city council met last night a few updates of note the city in the state have reached an agreement about the Allen Creek railroad opening this is an exciting project that would open Depot Street to Bandemer Park and Argo Pond connecting both the pedestrian walkway on Depot to the border to border trail but it'll also serve as a stormwater outlet to to the river as well so a win-win for the city and exciting that it's moving forward 3:25 east summit also known as the garnet which this body passed on to City Council with a recommendation for approval moved on from first reading to second reading although there were some comments of opposition with respect to the zoning type that is being used 2705 newport road was zone from township to r11 of the are ones I think are one a and a number of UDC amendments that were corrections that were incorrectly transitioned from chapter 55 into the UDC or moved forward last night as well and then finally three special assessments for sidewalks on Pontiac trail on Scio Church and on Devoran all went forward so we'll be getting some new sidewalk gaps filled throughout the city great Thank You mr.
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