Ann Arbor Energy Commission 3/11/25

001e e e Joe will you let me I think all right there we go hello everyone good evening I will uh call my name is uh Gabriel harp I'm chair of the an arbor energy commission and it's chair I'm calling this meeting to order I'm participating from my home here in an arbor um welcome to the March 11th uh 20125 electronic meeting of the energy commission we'll conduct this meeting like iners meet like inperson meetings and Commissioners during the roll call please indicate your current address um also during the meeting please remain on camera and just as you would be visible during inperson meetings and please M mute your microphone when not speaking uh we uh public comment will be conducted by via telephone only and to speak during the public comment opportunities please call

002one of the following two toll-free numbers 877 85352 47 or 99 and enter the meeting ID number 956 8718 7876 on your phone this information will also be available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section on the city's website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 AT&T channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watch CN Joe would you please read the land acknowledgement statement yep um I acknowledge that the land the city of an arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anab including oawa oju and bodwad and W do peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in United States on lands obtained generally in unconscious ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit

003in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing concept quences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals okay and we'll move on to the roll call Joe would you please take the roll call yep um commissioner burwitz president Nan Arbor council member Briggs Ken Manson Wisconsin commissioner colen Garcia I see you I see there we go sorry you see me and now you can hear me I am present and I am in an arbor good uh chair harp present here in an arbor Vice chair Hans not currently seeing um commissioner 11 here and I'm aror council member Malik here from Ann Arbor's second ward commissioner mki here

004in Ann Arbor and commissioner overc has a late running meeting and is hoping to join us here shortly um chair you have a quorum thank you okay we'll move on to the approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda as posted and a second so moov commissioner coven Garcia in a second Commission burkwitz uh Commissioners please raise your hand if you'd like to propose changes or discuss an issue seeing No Hands raised all those in favor of approving the agenda as posted U please raise your hand and say I I all those opposed please raise your hand and say no okay the motion the agenda passes the agenda is approved um we'll move on to the approval of the minutes there there a motion to approve the minutes as posted please

005raise your hand and say commissioner colen Garcia and seconded by commissioner mki um although uh any changes to the agend to the excuse me to the minutes um okay all those in favor of approving the minutes please raise your hand and say I I I all those opposed please raise your hand and say no okay the minutes are approved thank you so much um we will move on to the public input this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes if you are watching on CTN please call 888- 78899 or 877 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 956 8718 uh 7876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits

006of your phone number to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement in the host allowing allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly and please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments do we have anyone on the line Joe um first up caller ending in 134 thank you Mr Lang and chair harp Ken Garber 28 h Hill Court thank you for bringing back the carbon pollution impact fee you discussed this at your September 2023 meeting the current version tries to address all your concerns requires little staff time since it only affects buildings of 20,000 square feet so reporting

007is done through the existing benchmarking ordinance two reporting paths both of them easy no energy modeling required real world example provided electrification cost specified emissions conversion factor explained I read Dr st's Friday email stating that this ordinance is quote almost certainly not legal in Michigan end quote and that the city cannot quote penalize someone for following building code end quote it's really too bad that staff already decided this state law does not directly address the question it's a gray area I've shared a legal argument that notes that there is nothing in the state construction code act that explicitly permits gas and the energy codes are written to be generalized standards usable by governments across the world giving local governments in theory considerable leeway especially in a strong home rulle state like Michigan so legality is

008an open not closed question a separate question is whether the fee is actually a tax according to the bald Fe Lancing president if deemed a tax fine it could be put before voters Burlington voters approve theirs with with a 2/3 majority but I'm a realist this ordinance is going nowhere still I hope you at least discuss the problem it tries to address fossil fuel infrastructure and new construction this somehow continues five years into a20 in violation of the plan um now on the question of combining the energy and environmental commissions please don't go along with this the energy commission's work has been vital you you developed the Dark Skies ordinance the EV Readiness ordinance and heard true combining commissions will make local government more efficient just like the new Administration is making the federal government

009more efficient by getting rid of advisory boards for economic data school safety and food safety I worry that the new sustainability commission will just be an OSI Echo chamber without initiatives of the zone why does this matter it's clear now that the a20 goals will not be met 30 seconds that's on all of us not just OSI what we need now is more expert and committed citizen involvement and input not less to address our Collective failure to decarbonize and we need an active and independent energy commission both to support OSI and to hold it accountable thank you um caller and ing in 945 caller ending in 945 if you're talking you're still muted hi my name is Larry junk I'm a resident of Van Arbor 2128 Wallingford Road Third Ward and I'm uh speaking to

010you tonight in the hopes that this resolution or measure similar similar could be passed this is the uh same resolution to which Ken Garber was speaking resolution 0519 ordinance to promote Energy Efficiency and decarbonization I'm not qualified to speak on the uh legal or political aspects of this my comments will adjust the larger picture our world is careening into a worsening climate crisis caused by the burning of fossil fuels with excess release of CO2 and methane an example in the news recently which you're all familiar with is the LA wildfires caused in large part by a year-long drought due to climate change these fires caused 29 early deaths and many deaths are yet to come due to delayed effects of the deadly air pollution and damages are estimated at over $250 billion another is Hurricane

011Helen in October 24 where the worst damage was in Ashland North Carolina this hurricane caused 221 early deaths thus far many more yet to come and estimated losses have surpassed 75 billion as a physician I'm particularly concerned about the more widespread effects of fossil fuels and of climate change on health it's now recognized that indoor gas appliances especially stove tops release methane which can contribute to respiratory irritation worsening asthma and deaths among infections caused by climate change lime disease and Deni are among those already worsening in this country and many other infections are expected to worsen deaths caused directly by excess heat now surpass 10,000 per year in this country and the highest risk is in agricultur workers elderly and disabled persons and persons of low income the proposed resolution would help an arbor to

012reduce its carbon emissions in accord with the provisions of the city's carbon neutrality pledge passed by the city council in November 2019 and a day20 plan approved by Council in June 2020 in the past year the majority of developers of large residential development have found a way to go fossil free and this attest to the workability of doing so supported by the recognition of a long-term economic benefit to the residents the desire of many of their potential home buyers and renters to have clean sustainable energy and to have the energy of the present and the future rather than the dirty energy of the past I hope that this uh commission if you cannot approve this resolution will'll find a way to incorporate its principles that of encour thank you devel free thank you thanks um

013no further callers okay thank you so much um okay well we will move on to the first item then on our agenda um and this is a resolution that was uh brought forward um to the commission um this is a resolution recommending an orance to prod promote Energy Efficiency and decarbonization and new construction and major Renovations through a carbon pollution impact fee and this was a revision uh revision of a uh this was revision of of one that was Prior introduced previously um before we get into that um Joe I want to pass it off to Joe um who I think wanted to just uh add a few notes about our discussion um potentially today today and then um and then I will come back and I believe I believe we need a motion to

014open discussion on this as well is that accurate yeah so move in a second commissioner M thank you yeah um just one quick note uh for those listening in case they hear any of this problem and just as a reminder Commissioners too um a privilege confidential memo was distributed to the commission members earlier today on some of the potential legal implications of this resolution uh but I do want to note the spe the specific contents of the memo are not able to be discussed due to that privileged nature so just as a reminder to folks here and then in case anyone is wondering on the call back to you thank you um and just just to set up the the conversation one one um or the discussion and I'll open it up in in in

015just a minute and if if we might um if Commissioners could um as your uh perhaps sharing questions or comments if you might uh try to bundle those together and and and if you raise your hand I'll I'll try to move move through folks as as we work through this um you know one one of the reasons that that as as I said before um this was brought previously to the commission there was some feedback given um uh draft was circulated um to a few uh different Commissioners and also I believe to members of the other members of the public um and I believe it was important to bring this resolution uh forward again to a discussion of the commission sort of broadly um around some of the incentives disincentives and measures that we might

016have um to reduce um carbon emissions and in particularly buildings in in an arbor and so um with that said um I will say you know some one of the things I hope we can also think about in the discussion of this resolution is also uh what other um measures might be appropriate um as well and to think about what kinds of things uh might be done to improve this resolution or um perhaps think about other ways that it might uh modifications that might be made um to the resolution as well um in ways that might uh achieve its goals um and and imagine that there's a variety of different ways to accomplish that um so with that said I'll open it up for discussion if everyone has any any comments or clarifications or or

017questions that they they would like to um address commissioner mki um I was hoping that I might be able to introduce the resolution um since uh I've worked on it um a significant amount first of all I want to acknowledge um the work done on this by Ken Garber this is largely um done at his initiative he was the one that um brought it to the Commission in uh 2023 and asked for that it be considered um he wrote the initial draft um with a little bit of input um from me but um this is largely his work he's continued to put a lot of work into it I also want to acknowledge that um in December when we discussed bringing this back to the commission um that we agreed that a small group a

018non Quorum um subset of the commission would look at it again um and um chair harp stepped up and um met with uh Ken and me I met once with um Ken alone we reviewed the entire text and I should say the entire video of the September 2023 uh discussion and we noted all of the various comments that were made at that time so uh first of all it I just really want to acknowledge the work that's been done by by various people there were also people from the community that reviewed this and provided input including some of the content that's in the footnotes um I want to also because I think it's important for our second topic tonight um review the context and um Ken Garber has done that already but I think all

019of us know the last 10 years have been the hottest on records in in the industrial EGS and since we've been keeping records um CO2 concentrations are now 425 parts per million what a lot of people don't know certainly any lay person listening to the meeting um won't know necessarily that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was between 170 and 300 parts per million over the last 800,000 years so as long as there have been humanik um species on the planet it's between 100 and 70 and 300 PPM we're now at 425 and what's really key is that the rate of change is far faster than that's ever occurred before that means it's very difficult for species to be able to adapt to this rapid change in our climate another point of context um an

020Arbor's current emissions are roughly very very actually very close to two million metric tons of CO2 per year that's um the city of an arbor including the University of Michigan we have been decarbonizing according to the greenhouse gas inventory the expanded inventory um that we reviewed in November of last year since 2015 at the rate of 0 038 metric million metric tons of CO2 per year that's a little less than 2% per year if we are to reach our stated goal of Net Zero by 2030 we have to decarbonize at a rate that's 7.5 times faster than that that's not 7.5% that's 750 per faster than what we're doing right now if if we wanted to if we were to move the date out to 2040 it would still be three times faster than what

021we're doing right now 300% I think most of us have worked in organizations before that have tried to make change and I think we all know that that rate of change in in a human organization is really really tough in indeed it's almost unprecedented in an organization like we have reflected here where we're not in a command control environment we are in an environment where we have essentially 120,000 independent actors so I think that context is really important as we think about what is it that we can do to accelerate our decarbonization activities and in that spirit this is one of the the reasons that we're looking at buildings as we know make up about a third of emissions um by the way at the University of Michigan buildings make up almost 98 % of

022its scope one and scope two emissions our our our inventory includes a little bit more than that I think as we know Transportation but um it's buildings are really really important um let's see I wasn't got my notes here sorry um so as the whereas Clauses State um there have been 32 developments that have been approved since the a20 plan was approved that have are natural gas connected and um the number of square feet are there but what's important is that the emissions from those buildings eat up about the equivalent just these new buildings eat up the equivalent of about 2third of a year of decarbonization activities so it's not insignificant especially if more and more buildings um are built um with natural gas applian um the trend is a positive trend but nevertheless they're

023still being built in ant Arbor and certainly in in the surrounding Community we know that there's two ways of addressing this one is with carrots and one is with at sticks and this has been also emphasized in this meeting and in memos that have been given to the commission um most recently the Planning Commission approved a new development um where a 30 % height bonus was given that's a significant benefit in my view to the developer um there's another option of course and that's what's reflected in this this um resolution which is that there can also be regulations that have sticks and I think we've all been in in in entities that have used a combination of carrots and sticks um I can look at my family and there was a combination of caran sticks

024when it had to do with my behavior and we know that the city uses carrots and sticks we know that the county the state the and the country uses carrots and sticks and so what we've seen so far is that um carrots um have worked in in some degree in some cases but also those come at a cost and some of the cost is is that we're seeing very very tall buildings throughout the city and a lot of people are are pushing back on that um as been mentioned in some of the comments sent to uh the uh the commission um there are cities albeit in other states that have taken action along these lines um Burlington Vermont did so we discussed that back in 2023 um since then Ashlin Oregon is charging a fee

025for all new natural gas um appliances um that are are purchased um Los Angeles has an all electric building code granted these are all uh in other states but these are not completely foreign to the environment that we're in in operating here these are not examples from Japan or um a European country or something like that so we known all along that the legality of this is an issue um we um have been provided with um now three different uh perspectives on this we have a memo from missy we have a memo that I sent out with some um input from Ken that came from a uh graduate of Michigan law school who's now practicing law in Minnesota hopefully Commissioners were able to read that and then we have this new memo that we received

026uh as confidential uh input this afternoon but clearly that's something that's hanging over all of this um I would just close by saying that um there is value in US discussing this um just by the mere fact that we are indicating to the community that this is important to us that we think it's really important that we accelerate our decarbonization activities um you can see the Trump Administration doing this where it's taking clearly illegal action but it's doing it with a purpose it's doing it with a purpose of communicating to the country this is the direction that we're taking the country in and I think um we should think about that and what we do not only in this commission but what we do in council chambers and with staff Etc is that we we

027stand really strong behind our principles and we do everything that we can to push the envelope on on what may potenti may we may feel is is uh is limited in terms of what we might be able to do so I I I appreciate the opportunity to talk for three or four minutes in that regard this some of this carries over to as I said to the next the next topic so um I'll just leave it at that and then have other Commissioners weigh in and we can talk about whether or not we read through the resolution or what we do as far as um next steps are concerned thanks thank you council member Briggs yeah um thank you for that background and that um reminder of where we're at John this is um uh

028the science behind this is is really clear right it's horrifying to see um a new presidential Administration come in um and not even um no longer support um climate work but not even discuss sort of allow those terms to be used right um it's um and we're seeing um it's scary times to be living in um in terms of of the work that we're trying to do and then also the levers that we have to use um in in the state that we live in and so um I do want to start by saying thank you thank you to you and to um Mr Garver and um Cher harp and others who've contributed on this I do you think it's important that we're talking about this um and talking about okay what are the tools

029that we have why is it that um we're not seeing certain types of um uh legislation move here forward here in an arbor because this is something I would absolutely support um if there was the opportunity to do so um I think we we are one of the things that we can do in terms of demonstrating that this is something we support there there are ways um we've done this in the past we've encouraged our um St State Legislative delegation to consider changes and it's I'm happy um to bring forward resolutions to council that talk about the changes that we would like to see in state law that help would allow us to um to make more progress in Michigan whether or not we think that those have the opportunity to move forward or not

030sometimes those are symbolic actions that we can take but um as um as um Joe mentioned earlier I think having a continued conversation around incentives um that's a place that we I think have the opportunity to continue to to press further on in in the city um and that it's something an area that we struggle with um but it's something that you know we really need to be identifying you know what is um what are we doing what what more could we be doing so I'll leave it at that thank you council member Malik hey thank you uh I would Echo council member Briggs uh in my also adding thanks to uh commissioner mki as well as Mr Garber and Sher harp and any anyone else who worked on uh this resolution I'm of course

031relatively new to both city council but also this commission so I sadly wasn't here for the discussion in 2023 um but I understand you know this is a a long time coming and a lot of effort went into this so I appreciate you know prompting this discussion uh the push to decarbonize requires bold ideas uh especially for the city to meet its otherwise ambitious climate goals uh overall on the consideration of the tools available to us uh the resolution that we're discussing is one that does seem to make the city susceptible to challenges you know and while I agree with the spirit of the resolution I do fear any potential legal challenges uh this would prompt could ultimately be a discr discr distraction for otherwise you know uh full steam ahead climate efforts um as

032has been mentioned you know there's other likely less legally fuzzy ways the energy commission could pursue Energy Efficiency uh rather than punishing the least efficient approach which you know it's ideal to you know punish the least efficient but I don't know if it's possible here um I was able to tune in earlier today to a u ofm presentation where they discussed um their various climate efforts including considerable geothermal activity solar and other unique ways of thinking about climate impact with many of their new construction projects if we could find ways of basically taking their model of new con approaches to new construction to many of the approaches to new construction that exist and finding ways to you know eliminate the least efficient uh energy approaches and incentivize further the best ones I think you know

033it's doable I don't myself know how to do that um but I know some of the expertise here and with City staff I know it probably does exist so again conversations like this kind of help bring ideas together so I think we're on the right path but I appreciate the the good discussion thanks thank you um I'll I'll jump in and just share share a few comments and sort of questions that that I've been thinking about as I've um been reading through the um the resolution itself um you know and and I think one has to do with sort of what we're bringing forward to uh council members and I think has always been mentioned that the most perhaps the most effective um policy is going to be a mix of incentives of disincentives and

034other measures and so I would really encourage the commission to try to um think and bring forward this this represents one um perhaps a disincentive um to uh uh fossil fuel combustion in retrofits um but I would consider I would encourage the commission to bring forward a variety of different options in addition to in addition to this one as well um both because I do think that um I hesitate to call it a menu but I do think that having a a number of options available can provide not only a more um uh a broader set of topics for discussion but also a way to get at um those topics in in in a sort of you know an an efficient way and one of the things that calls to mind is I believe city

035council may have um put a request I believe this was last spring um associated with some of the economic development and sustainability uh resolutions from city council perhaps uh requesting um City staff to investigate what some of the possible measures and incentives could be and so this calls into my mind um perhaps it's worth um uh trying to better understand what may have been done in that space and what might be brought forward and what we might be able to discuss as a result of that as well as whatever uh commission members um might might bring forward as well um because I think combined with the resolution on the table um things like and I think we've discussed this previously things like um uh helping to facilitate projects um that are uh uh working both

036with City staff with developers with with contractors um and that achieve these kinds of goals can itself be an incentive um because there as many of you know there's there can be um just lots of collaborative challenges associated with navigating different policies and and moving things through uh the the permitting approval processes and and and other Associated issues and so that was that was one example um and there might be others um I I think that that would be important to discuss um one of the things that this does make me wonder about from you know with this with the sort of question of how it's How how it's framed um is is there and and and this gets to the question of options for the city to undertake is is there anything prohibiting uh

037city council from for example um uh creating a zoning ordinance that in general would cover the whole city or or large large uh portions of the city that would be a would be uh intended to reduce the impacts of some of the the combustion or or the uh emissions from fossil fuels it in it of itself um and I don't know the answer to that but um it's it I think this resolution sort of invokes that um as a question um in my mind which would be something different from the way that it's currently framed um in terms of a focus on specifically new construction and specifically buildings um and and that may have diff different implications um as Ken Garber in in the comment public comments earlier noted um I believe there there was

038some qu this this is um framed as a fee um and I believe that he he raised the question of whether or not um it was a tax or or something associated with that as I sort of parse that issue I think about some of the kinds of um some of the kinds of things that the city does um that may need fees um to uh provide those kinds of um the responses and the kinds of um things that it does um so I I'm thinking about things associated with climate impacts like insurance rates I'm thinking about things like storm worm water and water treatment infrastructure associated with increased rainfall I'm thinking about things like River surges and Associated contamination events associated with that uh I'm thinking about things from increased wind velocities um associated

039with some of the climate impacts I'm thinking about emergency planning and responses and and all those kinds of things that the city experiences so um just in the sense of how we think about um fees versus taxes I think one of the key Provisions that I written into this resolution is that it outlines a fee in that has a a particular amount uh in this in the resolution it's $190 per metric ton of CO2 equivalent and my understanding of how that's calculated is it's basically a way of pricing or valuing the future impacts and and of pricing that into the current um sort of economic calculus that that's being made and So currently we're saying that that amount is zero um and we're not accounting for those impacts but as we perhaps um consider pricing

040that in that may be um well in this case it's $190 per CO2 ton equivalent in the future it may be much more than that um and so I think part of what we're considering is sort of how much are we valuing the future um relative to to the kinds of things that we're doing and so I think that's one of the key considerations in one of the the conversations I think that perhaps um this body might have have in terms of sort of where are we setting that that uh fee rate um do are we valuing at $10 are we valuing at $250 um how much does the future matter in terms of the impacts that we're that we're experiencing now but also potentially in the future um uh just a couple of other

041comments one is I believe this in the conversion factor that this resolution is taking into account both the emissions produced at the source um let's say from heating or or I believe it says um it's Focus primar looks like primarily focused on on um heating domestic hot water cooking appliance process heat and things like that I believe in the converion factor that that's taking into account both the emissions produced at the point of combustion in the building itself but it's also accounting for Upstream emissions as well so to my reading it's not focusing solely on what's happening within the building but it's also thinking broadly about the impact of of um uh fossil fuel emissions as related to new construction and these retrofits so that may be an important consideration in terms of how the

042city conceives of um whether or not this is focused on um sort of where the the scale of this is focused um I guess is the best way of put best way of putting it um and so those are just a few things that I wanted to to to put forward but um as we as we think about this but um I'll I'll pass it on if anybody else has any any comments or questions m mki i was a pregnant pause before I raised my hand so hopefully others if they if they have something to say they will raise their hand um I I appreciate um the discussion I appreciate all the uh ways of looking at this and potentially thinking out of the box that came from chair harp um I would like to

043pose two questions I guess to um the commission and to um City staff and our Council Liaisons um the first is I'll go back to the various memos that have been going around regarding the legality um I would appreciate some feedback as to whether or not the perspective in the email that I authored quoting input from Mr Garber and also um Mr Hall whether that was or not was shared and considered um by City staff and the legal department um maybe that can be answered tonight um the other thing that I wanted to offer is um a reminder to the commission that um the Ann Arbor environmental group called The Wolfpack um has a climate action team I'm a member of the Wolfpack and that team that group has devoted the greater part of the

044last two years to looking at building electrification and what we are now calling zero emissions buildings and how we might be able to really provide carrots and sticks um a combination mostly carrots um to actually drive that in the city um there have been a number of reports well first of all there were two two um sessions that we sponsored Ed with um a number of developers involved the last one actually was um just last fall in something like October uh it was attended by Missy um uh a previous one was held about a year before that the Lessons Learned if you will from that were summarized those have been shared with um the city I shared them I believe in email form with this commission but what I would like to offer is that

045that uh if without necessarily dropping this idea of a carbon fee with the open question honest legality even though there seems to be a preponderance of um opinions or views uh uh and and Technical arguments that it it may not be legal but leaving that on the table um I would offer that maybe we consider a working session with members of the Wolfpack in particular the chair of uh the climate action team to work with us to review all of the ideas that were generated with the input of developers so this is not just the Wolfpack members sitting we actually um involved a number of developers um mostly local developers um but a number that have developed in in an arbor but also some outside an arbor um and I think uh those should be

046Revisited uh I mean frankly I mean let's let's again put this in context the the a20 plan was available as a draft five years ago so we've had five years to deal with this it in the plan as it stated in the whereas Clause it very clearly states the assumption that all buildings from 2022 where is it it say says right here all new construction from 2022 through 2030 and Beyond is built to Net Zero standards which includes no natural gas consumption we've all known this for 5 years and we have yet to come up with something that's really really strongly in support of that whether it's a combination of or whether it's just um carrots or sticks are a combination of the two so I think we really deserve together with staff and legal

047support to devote a work session to this and and see what the best Minds can can come up with I mean there were some Provisions in the ira that uh that help that um you know when when the plan was drafted there was a trump Administration when it was approved there was a trump Administration we had no idea there was going to be a Biden Administration that there was going to be an IRA and now we're back to a second Trump Administration so it's not like we can say well this is just because of trump that we can't do this so um th those are so I guess I'm posing a question and I'm posing uh a path forward so that we look at this broadly and we look at um as we've been discussing

048here what could be effective and legal both carrots and sticks thank you thank you and and I'll just note I believe we we do still have a a standing working group um that was uh created specifically for that that purposed in in in some ways and so that that could be a a a mechanism as well um within the the coming coming weeks to to do exactly what you're saying commissioner mki Joe yeah um and just to an to one answer the question yes that information was shared and evaluated as part of that consideration um and the other is you know just in response to moving forward and stuff like that too I think you know however we kind of do that um you know whether it be in a working session working group what

049what have you I think it it would beneficial to make sure that we have various you know members of staff to the extent we can too just so we can be you know trying to catch these things and working on it in a way to make sure we're you know able to do stuff and do it in a way that you know we um you know don't come up with something that we can't do or you know just making sure we have that kind of consideration involved as we go um just to and also to make sure that you know folks are on board we're not just sitting and you know and this I'm saying Beyond OSI as well so we're not just sitting there and you know coming up in our in our own

050corner or anything like that but making sure we're getting all the different holders involved both in terms of you know folks out in the community as well as folks um on you know in City staff as well to help move all that forward so definitely in favor and would would be open to um you know making those connections and getting all that that going Mr burtz uh you know what everyone has said before thank you for everyone who put work into this um I very much support the carbon pollution impact fee or TA or whatever um mechanism would make sense um by pending you know legal component um a couple comments on on that um and then the broader topic for some of legality um I just want to flag there's like a coalition of

051nonprofit legal centers um that I'm connected with through my day job um that often does like so Bono analysis of stuff like this and trft building decarbonization policy and legality all across the country I would love to at some point maybe connect um OSI or any staff with this uh entity perhaps they could you know take a look they're you know obviously not as expert on the state of Michigan's laws but they um um you know they do webinars like every few months on the status of like every legal talent to it's a preemption around the country and um in tes and Tes on on gas sign are buildings and things like that too so um I think they might have some more like ideas best practices examples from other places to share and they

052might even be able to take a look at Michigan Statute and see how that compares to you know what has has or hasn't happened in other states um okay and then let's see the um our working group um came up um so I'm going to just kind of uh respon to that um forget exactly um timing but you know we we put together like a working group just to like take input and try to take a look around and do some research of like what options are out there take look at the menu um we did take a look at all the recommendations provided by the wolf pack and we try to like pull out um and consolidate some things um and potentially um there are some you know options there most of them are

053like incentives um I I think the carbon pollution impact fee or attacks on gas um and whatever shape it takes form would be the strongest possible mechanism and the strongest possible way to get at this and actually create gain of anything that we reviewed or considered um I think it was referenced earlier that you know sticks are a little more powerful than carrots often and um we've seen it both in practice and just in theoretical discussions but um so I think think you know I would be happy to go back to the drawing board or you know reconvene or jump into another process looking at this in more detail um but I'll just say like I think that you know um there was like a natural gas connection fee or a carbon pollution impact fee

054both came up during that process and they were I think the two strongest mechanisms um except for there was one other thing um we talked about this during the Ben marking meeting we had um a month or two ago um and it's a building performance standard or building submission standard um again I think there were questions around the legality of that in Michigan um but those were the three mechanisms that seemed like the absolute strongest that would you know actually get some momentum some traction on this um I think a lot of the stuff that the work group came up with otherwise were mostly incentive and you know may or may not be there comments or questions okay commissioner mki question uh how do we bring this to some type of closure do we table

055it do we um take a vote I I'm I'm I I don't know the answer to this question that's why I'm posing it um even if we take a vote knowing that potentially it isn't legal does that make a statement that we collectively agree that needs to be made um and then uh maybe it dies after the energy commission uh what are people's thoughts on how we bring this agenda point to closure so that we can move on to other things um while necess necessarily you know putting a spike in the heart of this thing um in terms of the general topic as well as the specific topic what do other people think I I don't I don't know I I see Joe's hand raised so I'm I'm gathering that he may have uh two

056process thing I mean one um since technically this came back with revisions and all that this would be a first reading so if we wanted to actually vote on it itself we would have to bring that at another meeting and vote at the the second reading um the other is depending on how folks feel do not let me influence whatever I say here is if we you know feel a certain way and we don't think it's going to go one way or the other and we don't want to have a vote on it we can postpone it indefinitely um so that's that's the other option if you don't want to have a direct vote on yes or no on the resolution so two two Pathways there depending on whatever uh folks want to do commissioner

057Coen Garcia did you have a comment I um I I think it's important that um we do somehow um present a statement for for moving forward with this um I also really support uh this um this effort this endeavor and um I would I would be give a statement of you know we should have a group work on it further polish it hone it see what we can do to have this be um something that's more palatable for our um city council but also that does align with our with our goals with our a20 goal as a path potential path for for moving moving this forward um perhaps a postponement with the intention to um perhaps make further changes um with feedback I as John suggested from say the working group that Encompass different actors

058uh as well perhaps broadening the provisions of this resolution um might be a way forward and and so if the commission were to for example postpone it um and and additional work were to happen from that working group uh we might be able to bring it back again for another first reading council member Briggs yeah I was going to suggest something um somewhat similar to that so um since you have to when you're postponing you often have to postpone to a date certain or an action you could we could postpone pending a um recommendation from the working um group and that would come back um to us with you know potentially something um or um and perhaps having an opportunity for us to have some of those other conversations that were were brought up within

059the context of this conversation tonight as well that that sounds excellent I would I would certainly support that path um just speaking for myself commissioner mki um as do I um and that includes the working group potentially interfacing with Mike and this group that he mentioned um they that's a possibly you know a win-win uh opportunity where they get a better appreciation for what the situation is in Michigan but we also here in ant Arbor in Michigan gain perhaps an appreciation for what kind of legislative tweaks might be um necessary to enable something like this so I I think um tbling this um um pending uh let's say action from the um the working group maybe we could uh to council member Briggs this point um put uh a date on there so we also

060have a sense of urgency so we say that um the intention is to bring it back by I'm going to make up a date um by May or June or something like that um I mean that'll be somewhat dependent on what happens in the next agenda Point uh but uh yeah I I would I would support um uh council member briggs' framing of this council member Ricks yeah just to clarify I wasn't suggesting adding a date um even though I understand your idea the it can be an action so we had a conversation around this Council relatively recently around postpone it because we weren't quite sure how to respond so the feedback is that we can you know we can postpone pending a recommendation from another committee and I think I believe that we I

061believe it is possible to say postpone pending a recommendation um from the working group would be then you know doesn't then it comes after us you know after some action although that's not a formal group so you know there's not a formal vote there so I don't know I'm I'm a little bit out of my scope of you know legality here but I Joe is got his hands braced not on that particular point so if there's anything you had to wrap up on that go go ahead okay um yeah the only other thing I just want to say is if you know going to the working group side of things if we and to be clear I'm not saying this in a way of like to influence or anything like that but just to um

062if we can just include staff in that just so again we can be there and we can be having conversations like this um just that way that we can help you know help guide the guide it in the direction of you know what we have capacity what we have legality to the extent we can um just to you know I fully understand in this situation there's definitely some FR frustration folk are feeling just because you know we've gone so far going through all this to get something up there and so just want to make sure we can try to catch things um early on as as we go forward so having staff in that capacity I think would be helpful so just want to note that if I can quickly say Amen to that that

063um I spoke with um another commissioner uh recently about this and uh we talked about some of the things that commission has worked on in the past some of the ordinances they were mentioned Also earlier um and in in all of those cases um carlen will remember that other people um perhaps who dialed in will remember that um in almost all of those cases not necessarily the lighning ordinance but certainly herd and certainly the EV charging ordinance we worked hand in hand that was always a staff person in those meetings and I think um that would be really helpful certainly as we go forward to make sure that we stay within boundaries or know that we're pushing boundaries that maybe have a little bit of flex as opposed to Jumping way outside boundaries that just

064are never going to be politically or legally palatable and I want to welcome commissioner overp um and also just brief the sort of discussion of the resolution seems to be uh migrating towards a proposal to postpone um the resolution um and um sort of uh pass it to the working group um to make prospective changes with uh um others others involved um as well from from across sort of different uh actors as well as City staff um and that the working group would then make modifications to the proposed resolution um to and and and bring it back to the commission do I have that correct um and so I suppose this is a good time to ask is is is is that the appropriate process um to ask if there's a motion for that proposal

065or a motion to vote on that particular proposal um uh to move forward on on this I see counc council member Briggs and commissioner Coen Garcia thank you okay all those in favor of postponing the resolution and referring it to the working group to work with City staff and other uh groups to uh improve and add other um uh incentives disincentives measures um as as appropriate or as they see and then um bring that back to the commission all in favor please say I all those opposed okay the motion is approved and thank you everyone thank you for the discussion and look forward to um uh seeing some uh some further uh modifications made on that and taking it Forward um okay thank you very much we will I believe next on the agenda agenda

066is commission business um and um I believe so this is a discussion on combining the energy and environmental commissions to create a new sustainability commission and um I will first maybe pass it to Joe to introduce um this briefly or council members um and maybe you can kick us off with the sort of General nature of of of what this is I I I know all of you received an email from me sort of basically outlining um the the Contours of this but I wanted to leave it to City staff and and to to council members to sort of um uh describe a little bit more what the sort of current current thinking and plan is um as they're as they're thinking about moving this forward council member Briggs yeah thanks um yeah so uh

067as this has been a sort of t IC in the background as um commissioner mki brought up at at our last meeting and um I do want to you know make sure that everybody around this screen recognizes that um any delays in this conversation I I personally take um great responsibility for um this is one of these conversations that I think under the best of circumstances would have occurred a lot more quickly so that um it uh didn't drag out over um having having conversations in the background to see if this is even an idea worth pursuing and bringing to the commission um and so my apologies that um uh it's kind of been delayed and we've seen that sort of reflection in terms of whether or not to to bring forward new sort of

068commission appointees that has zero to do with how much we respect um and admire the work that you guys are doing as volunteers here so thank you so much for doing that um and bearing with us as we just struggle with schedules and um and busy busy life um happening um outside of these commission meetings so that said um the idea of this is really been sort of a long time in incoming in the sense that over since the idea of an energy commission and environmental commission have been conceived of by the city or by Council in the by past councils um in advising Council the structure of the city as an organization has has shifted and so we now have an office of sustainability and Innovation um and that is where a lot of

069our work um obviously of of this nature happens and and yet our commission structure hasn't shifted to sort of reflect and respond to this new um new city structure and so you know we wanted to at least um you know bring forward this concept that we might be better off um realigning our our commissions a little bit so that it better supports um and reflects the the work of of the organization um I do want to kind of tackle head on uh respectfully some of the comments that were raised during public comment this is not an idea to become more efficient in this in the concept uh uh in the way that the Trump Administration or the musk uh um apparatus might be conceiving of it we are not thinking of a efficiency in terms

070of uh getting rid of people and uh you know crushing Concepts and ideas and good work that's happening that is that is not the goal of this at all um it's really sort of the idea of just um structuring it so we can actually hopefully accomplish more um it's also I do want to know note um that the concept of what the role of the commission is and sorry if I'm rambling right now um but the role of the commissions are um we want to make sure that they're good advisory bodies to council and obviously Council doesn't always know exactly what sort of advice um we need so we really respect that um but it is an intermediary between staff and and council is a body it's not to be an independent independent sort of

071check on our office of sustainability Council and our city our city administrator runs you know is is responsible for the staff council is responsible for policy um commissions don't serve as oversight bodies over staff that's not how they function in the city and I think it's kind of dangerous to think of them in that capacity so as much as I respect the work of of advocates in our community I see that as an really important citizen engagement role um I don't see that as a function uh a healthy function of commissions um and how we should conceive of them so I did want to bring that up because it came up in public comment but um anyway uh this is really a concept of just um restructuring our commissions combining energy and environmental um in

072ways that um we wouldn't lose any bodies here um but that we might be able to more effectively accomplish and um address the the challenging work line ahead of us Joe do you have your hand rais yeah I just want to um also just give a couple thoughts and we can get more in discussion on what everything is would potentially look like and all that but just some again higher level things uh just to throw out there is a real you know driver for this kind of like what council M Briggs was saying is using everyone's time in a more effective way including in you know largely using Commissioners time in a more effective way as well as we think about it um one of the things that you know it's kind of um and

073I I say when people have either left the commissioner or things like that and i' I've talked to folks to just kind of hear their kind of input on some of it that was kind of one of the things people have have felt in various ways is that we're not doing as much we're not my time doesn't feel um valuable and all that and that's where some of this comes from as well um but as we move forward want to make sure we're doing this in a way that we can use everyone's time in a way to drive this this work forward rather than kind of spreading out in a whole bunch of different directions um I'm to kind of just take our you know example we were just talking about here you know where

074we came forward you know have some sort of you know uh potential resolution goes through and then we come to the point where we've spent a whole bunch of time on this but then we get somewhere where we might not be able to move forward um want to do something where we can work together to get to a spot where we don't run into a potential situation like that rather where we're all working together collaboratively all throughout so that everyone is able to work towards something that we are able to do aligns with you know city council and to some extent staff priorities of what we're able to do um you know with the resources we have um and then get all the valuable input that folks have that you know we just would not

075be able to have either as staff as council members but the you know expertise experience you have um so I want to make sure that we're doing that in a way that you know again I keep saying the same thing but working together collaboratively to achieve those kind of goals in line with again what we are able to do um and that's kind of some of the the driving focus of this is just making sure that we can be more effective use everyone's time more effectively uh to work together to accomplish those goals and that's from staff perspective what we what we were thinking of um in these discussions commissioner colen Garcia can you give an example of how um it would look to be more effective to have the combin for example um like

076like but we're just topic we just finished something like that if that would come before a combined commission yeah I mean so oh sorry go ahead yeah just an example please yeah um so yeah just purely taking the you know the resolution we just went through so one as an example of broadly what we're thinking of for potentially looking at this would be um again the combin structure and again when I say that we're not asking anyone to step down anyone resign like nothing like that everyone who's currently on the commissions would still be on the commission um but basically kind of somewhat similar to the um where the environmental commission is right now and they have their work groups thinking about doing that in a similar capacity but each year um at the you

077know we can decide how that structure best Works whether that's on the calendar year on the fiscal year what have you um but working together um you know with uh with led by Council but with input from staff on creating a work plan that would then come to the commission the commission would work through it of seeing here's the things that are um you know specific focuses um that align with again what is happening uh both from again City staff city council things like that where the commission fits in um you know have those discussions make sure we're all in alignment with those kind of things and then from there um establishing work groups based on those various topics um Commission ERS would then you know be able to you know select into those work

078groups um and would be able to move forward from there being able to go you know diving deeper into that kind of work in that workg group structure those um those work groups would be supported by staff so that again we're able to go through all these various um you know topics that might come up from that perspective so um to you know and then you know going from those work groups those work groups would come back to the broader commission everyone would talk about it we'd go through what we learned what we've you know suggesting going forward with and then the broad commission can then you know have their discussions from that perspective vote as Mak sense going through the normal procedures from there um if we're just taking the topic that we kind

079of just went through just purely as an example you know say we were you know going through and during that um you know that that um uh that that plan for the year the work plan um going through and being this is a topic that has been identified say we'll just use building electrication broadly um that is our topic for the year that's what we're all working working on there would then be um you know voting to establish a workg group on building electrification saying during this year or setting up very specific time frame for both the work group and a deliverable for the work group of what they are going to do um so then over you know over that time frame the folks in the workg group would find um would beat with

080um within the workg group as well as with staff be able to go through and then you know have those kind of discussions periodically um coming back giving reporting out to the uh commission to get input things like that um and then you know at the conclusion there's that set deliverable that was said this work group is going to do in this time frame they're going to present this provide this provide whatever um or if anything comes up that can also be included in that um so that way we're able to go through we're able to dive deeper into those because I think that's also been kind of one of the struggles at times is you know we have these broader meetings and it can feel a little hard to um you know really dive

081into some of the subjects as deeply as we might like just due to that kind of structure this so this will allow more of that um but also throughout again because you're able to um you know we're working with staff we're able to bring in you know those staff resources to be able to go through and if we get to something it's like hey here's what we're able to do here's what we're not able to do here's what the resources you know just resources we have what are the resources you have um so we can go through that kind of collaboratively to come to something that you know is both something that's you know really Innovative and really you know driven by a lot of the expertise that's on the commission but also just making

082sure we're grounding it in some of the real realities that we might face um because a lot of that stuff is very you know hidden in the sense of we don't you know you don't we're we're not necessarily in it every single day and so being able to you know have those come up and make sure that we're not working on something that is just not possible not a possibility so that's kind of what we were thinking of so again say in that situation we went through where like we started off okay this might not be feasible what else could we do go through come up with different ideas suggestions bring those back to the commission and be able to move forward from there as as a commission so that was a little wordy and

083I probably jumped all over the place so happy to have others fill in council member Briggs yeah I was just going to add a little bit to that the other component of the working groups is that they while they would also be made up of staff and Commissioners that they'd also we could also have members who are community members on that those working groups as well um and that the working groups um they could be better aligned potentially with our um in addition to the work plan they could be aligned with our our climate work um so that we are really more strategically thinking about um how we're moving forward um but so that that would be the goal um I think we kind of heard in that last conversation you a desire to bring

084all of those entities in and we recognize that the the issues that we're dealing with right now are pretty complex um and uh so it allows us to to have more substantive work being done um and it might take a little bit more time but it's you know but I think what we're hearing is the community is ready to put in that type of work just highlighting off of that too um by having those work groups being able to bring in other people is another thing that we you know we've heard from some folks is they're like I would really like to participate in something like this but I can't dedicate a three-year term coming in every single month to something like that so um we know there's a lot more folks in the community

085too who have a lot of valuable feedback and want to participate and want to do more and they you know definitely can rais the point where it's it's hard for me to communicate by just doing a three minute public comment period at the beginning and end of each meeting I have more to contribute I want to contribute more and this this enables that um that ability for some more folks who might not be able to commit to say a full term on a commission or anything like that um so noting that as well council member Mal and I I you know council member Riggs and Joe said a lot of what I kind of had planned to say as well but um I also wanted to add that I saw it floated that you know

086combining these commissions was due to council member time uh as the only council member uh on both the energy and the environmental commissions this year uh I can happily say I do enjoy them both um and despite my workload uh do enjoy attending both in a given month uh but the advantages I think of combining them does you know outweigh uh my enjoyment of attending both uh but uh you know I think there is just a strong need to refocus and kind of align um the the aims of the commissions and I do think you know there is a lot of synergy to be gained between kind of the perspectives that both could bring um but I did want to push back on the idea that it's because of council member time which is just

087not the case thanks I was wondering if um either council members or or Joe might be able to speak to a little bit to the current um timing or timeline for for how this is being considered and sort of what what what that process might look like sure um unless anyone else wants to jump in before me all right um yeah I mean broadly like I said this is the first time we're talking to you all about it we want to make sure we can get any feedback to make sure you know we're not missing anything um as well as just make sure we get that full understanding um if you know if say everyone well one I just want to note we're we want to get all the feedback we can but we also

088as we've clearly demonstrated we want to be moving forward on this where we can because you know we pointed out we we've gotten smaller as a commission we haven't filled because of this thing um so we want to try to do that as quick as we can but with respect to making a well-informed decision um in a world where we are all you know all aligned Everything feels okay um we would be looking at hopefully by the end of May is when we would have a decision kind of made and then being able to move forward um starting and you know probably potentially take that following month off so if it was may take June off to go through all the logistics of getting everything all set um to have the new um group going

089forward by July again that's say we're all align but if there's significant differences things like that um we do not have to stick to that uh but that's just kind of the situation where if everything was in alignment that's about how long it would take to to go forward so apply that to whenever Everything feels good that timeline thank you commissioner mki uh before I speak carlen you had your hand up and I want to make sure that you have an opportunity to talk that matter any sorry y I just really quick wanted to um commissioner har perfectly took my questions but I also wanted to mention about your participation on the environmental commission and since you're talking this is perfect I have nothing to say does anybody else have any comment or should I

090go ahead and and share some thoughts on this so if anybody else has any other comments they can raise their hand yeah so um first of all I want to make it um clear to everyone by starting out with a statement that I think this is this discussion is absolutely necessary um the discussion outside the commission um preceding this um and what we're discussing here today um I talked before about the context that we're need to increase our rate of decarbonization by a factor of 7.5 or even 3.3 times to reach carbon neutrality by 2040 so something absolutely needs to change you know at multiple levels this is you know something as Ken Garber said this is not just the commission this is not just staff this is everybody in this whole city um and

091and well beyond that um let me if I may just mention a few things there is a whole field of study or science behind um Performance Management continuous Improvement um a a basis of it is um the shuart cycle or the Deming cycle it's plan do check at so we have an a20 plan we've been doing that plan um we do a greenhouse inventory every year that's a check and the ACT is also often referred to as adjust and I think what we're seeing here is that we need to adjust um we need to adjust at every level in in in in societ because we're not we've had plans we've had all kinds of good ideas but we're just not doing it so to reinforce what I said at the beginning this is absolutely necessary

092and I and I really welcome this and I'm glad we're finally discussing it in the commission and not just among council members and staff in one meeting with h the two chairs that took place last fall so a second comment um why we have a new department that we never had before I mean when I first joined the energy commission 2016 we had about a quarter head working on energy and climate literally a carlen knows this she joined a couple years after me a quarter to a half ahead Nate gisler some of you might remember him that's it so the situation has changed completely um but if in terms of the structure of the commission being changed I would like to recommend we're supposed to be making policy recommendations that people really think about the

093structure of the city behind this um when Missy was hired and uh the office of sustainability was created um I had a role that was called the executive policy advisor for sustainability I uh met every two weeks for an hour with a city administrator um I reviewed the job description for Missy's position I was on the interview committee um I fully endorsed uh Missy's selection she was great and she still is great um but what I want to point out is that job description initially and the title of the department um and actually as Howard Lazarus the the then City administrator introduced her to city council I was present she her scope of work was really going to be um a wide breadth of sustainability topics not just climate and energy but what's happened in

094the meantime is that really she's been focused and the the Department's been focused on on a20 plan related activities and solid waste is still in public services um water quality is in public services um natural features and biodiversity uh is in in public and in yeah I guess it's in public services and some other areas I may be even um and so we really don't have alignment between what is proposed as a sustainability commission and sustainability structure and uh hierarchy Within in the city so if we're really going back and doing pdca and looking at acting and adjusting I think we have to consider what else we need to do um I raised a concern um a couple of meetings ago and with a few other people and I'd like to repeat it here um

095because um you know actions um are really important and and not just words and I'll just summarize it with one with one statement and that is we've been we've been seeing this develop over several years this top first came up um with between Howard me and other people Howard Lazarus at the time in 2018 but what what frankly really bothered me is that the most consequential policy discussion that relates to climate and energy that I'm aware of that's come up in the last year is whether or not the city should spend $1.7 million on a phase two study for the feasibility of an meu the phase one study went through this commission we devoted the greater part of three meetings to that so if the commission really is a partner in policy issues why didn't

096that topic get discussed at all in the energy commission so again when we think about pdca and acting and adjusting if we are really going to be full partners then topics like that need to somehow I don't know in which way but they need to somehow go through the energy commission otherwise really um we're we're not really advising Council on policy issues and let's see I would only offer one more thing and that is a concern that if you look and having served on the environmental commission as the liaison and I appreciate the the opportunity to represent you on the in the environmental commission for something like six of the last seven years um these topics and and uh uh uh commissioner peek um Dean over peek certainly understands this as as the dean of

097of seas there these are this is a huge breath in an an environmental if we're looking at this sustainability you know water quality um biodiversity natural features uh energy energy systems climate uh air quality you know these are independent fields of study and if you really want to have good policymaking it's absolutely necessary that there is not only an sustainability uh commission but there are really strong well staffed with expertise people that are that are knowledgeable in these areas and if it's just a sustainability commission and people aren't willing to put the time in to the working group and that's frankly not always been the case on on both commissions at least from my perspective um then the breadth and scope of a sustainability commission without these really strong Wells supported well staffed uh staffed

098meaning also from the commissioner side we're we're going to run into problems and we're going to be looking back again and say okay we've now done another two years and we've gone through another pdca cycle and we haven't accelerated our decarbonization and we have to do something different again we don't have time time is running out so thank you for allow me to expound on on those thoughts thank you commissioner overc yeah again I'm sorry for being late uh my boss required me at a meeting and uh life is fun at U ofm the uh yeah I I have to agree I mean with everybody's what's you know the common denominator of everything everyone's saying is we're not going fast enough and that that requires adjusting I think the way John said was really makes

099sense um and I think what you got to at the end of your presentation John if I heard it right maybe I just wanted to hear it is that um you know we're an innovator we're a leader trying to be anyhow um part of being a leader in this space is being a systems oriented uh effort you know where you don't just go carbon neutral or you know clean up your Parks and Recreation and things you you do everything simultaneously to achieve a true uh sustainable City and a sustainably low carbon city um and I don't think I'm you know we're not going to get a huge staff uh we're not going to get a huge amount of resources we've got to figure out how to do this in a a differently um and that

100requires commitment from people so somehow I think what you're saying John and and again I don't know how to do it uh but I think we got to try and really put effort into it is to uh and and by collapsing this into a sustainability committee rather than the separate ones is to try and get more of our fellow citizens involved because we have in this we're blessed in this town with some amazing this city the some amazing expertise and um very passionate expertise too um and I'm not saying just the U ofm um obviously but uh U ofm brings a could bring a lot to the table so I just hope that you know I'm willing to try and help here the timing isn't optimal I me given that you know the university we

101really there's a lot of dealing with the existential threat that is you know the new Administration in Washington but you know um I I sense a lot of people want to step up you not fight you know step back and give in but to step up and do more um and I think in the University we have to do that or else higher education will you know be made obsolete in America um we really have to do more as University and hopefully we can focus some of that on partnering with the city um partnering with the state to really set an example for the kind of sustainable world we want to in our our future generations to inherit so I'm all in and I just need to figure out how to find the time to

102do my share of the work council member Briggs yeah thank you thanks for those comments um you can hear just in the last couple of minutes it's the the pros and cons of why you know why this seemed like a great idea at sometimes and maybe not you know a challenging idea at other times and so um there's been a little bit that's been part of the the EV and flow of you know how do we restructure if we were going to restructure how do we restructure in a way that um um sets us up for the for more success because I think that there has been um regardless of how many folks are on the commission at times just a bit feeling of spinning the wheels and are we are we aligned as much

103as we want to be um and are we using all of our talents and energies and you know uh in the best ways so um you know this proposal is an attempt to try to to get us closer to there um I think you know we can all acknowledge that there's some really big challenges outside of you know even as outside of the city right we've got the state constraints we've got the federal constraints um got International challenges when it comes to this topic right um there's no there is no easy path forward there is no one structure that is going to make us go wow gosh that's solved it for us um but um you know I think we're hopeful that um this is an opportunity to to have some of those tough conversations

104and and align us for um you know better align us essentially um so you know I'll just say I'll just say briefly from my perspective um as I've heard these conversations I think there's there's value I think I think there's oftentimes a tendency in in different kinds of organizations sometimes to add complexity when the challenges are complex um other times there's opportunities in simplifying um and and focusing and and and that I heard it in either commissioner msky or commissioner overc's statements too um as well as the overview from um council members finding ways to sort of Matrix how the city operates both in in staff and governance and different organizations whether it's the university whether it's different groups that are working on this different forms of expertise is is really critical and and there's

105something about the commission structure that makes that sometimes challenging in terms of doing action and and and putting together ideas and Concepts and and working them forward and I think if anything um if there's you know as as Council takes this forward thinking about that kind of structure that makes it sort of open participatory in ways that that can help enable ways of working that that bring together um expertise from across and make that even more workable I think that's that's a really positive thing um and in ways that help sort of as as others have alluded to um build build alignment so that we can have focus and and and get more inertia around some of the major major things that we're trying to solve commissioner mki you and and again I want to

106encourage everybody else to to speak up so not that you know I'm I'm talking over other people um uh commissioner PE thanks for teasing out some of my thoughts and and elaborating on them I agree entirely and what again as a suggestion to staff and councel is to to think of this more broadly as I mentioned before look at the city of the struct structure of the city and aligning it um look also at the climate and energy advocacy Comm uh Community I mean if we're going to do an adjustment here and we're going to act on on that um there's some people that are really interested in let's say the advocacy community that just really want to be Advocates but they're also in that Community people who really want to do something and maybe

107those people can be brought into um you know these new subcommittees or something like that I mean the Wolfpack is certainly an example that they we want to do things people in an climate partnership and then the other organizations Sierra Club CCL some of those people don't necessarily see them as polic themselves as policy experts and um and in a situation where they can advise Council and and potentially indirectly staff but think other people do I mean that's how you know look at Mike's background I mean he's a great addition to to this commission and so my my suggestion is that we take on this topic more broadly and not just look at the commission structure um and then I want to point out one other thing and I've talked about this I think probably

108with some of you um and the fact that I worked in business um is is completely different than working in in in in government but in business you know it's really outcomes and only outcomes that matter and that's not always the case in government but in this case I would make an argument that it is I mean we're dealing with physics and we're dealing with the laws of nature and so it's not plans it's not efforts it's not um what else did I write down um actions it's not accomplishments the only thing in the end that matters if we're going to reduce uh the impacts of climate change is outcomes and so we have to be totally focused on outcomes granted accomplishments and efforts and plans and all these other things hopefully eventually lead to

109outcomes but if we're not getting the outcomes then we have to re-evaluate our plans our efforts our actions and what we Pur receive as accomplishments if they don't lead to outcomes that's not true of everything that government does but in the case of fighting climate change it's outcomes and we need to think of that we will not change the physics or the chemical the chemistry aspects of this or the other laws of nature if you will we we have to be focused on outcomes thanks commissioner orac I'm going to get a PO focus on something besides an outcome but I think you're right um to get those outcomes we got to focus on um strategy and for a strategy one of the thing one of the ideas uh is like I'm I'm thinking I'm like

110I've made these promises let's I'll drag some U folks in from the University um Gabe can do that too I mean we have multiple uh University guys men and women on this committee through time and uh but I think one of the strategies I've used on working groups or committees like this commissions is to think strategically about um pairing individuals so that you don't have one person who's like having to really do the carry the water you have uh small teams in the critical areas where things have to be done and so um couple of us have sort of you know Joe and Gabe and I for example have been talking about how do we get the city and University to work together more effectively we haven't done anything my fault but um certainly I

111think all three of us have thought about it and I just think um to make it happen uh we need to be committed to working together to make it happen and um we got to make sure whoever is on these small teams has the time to do that uh and the the the sort of passion to do it um and so we need and so I'm only raising this because I think we need to think of those other areas the second thing about strategy is we got to come to grips with the 2030 uh goal uh and and how we how we deal with that you know I don't know what everyone else is thinking but I'm I'm thinking uh it ain't going to happen um and it's not like the end of the world

112but I think if we're we got to we've got to convince our colleagues in the city that it's a good thing for us to be realistic uh and still be highly aspirational in other words we're not going to do it by 2050 we're not going to do by 2040 but you know let's at least get a little more realistic in 2030 I I don't know where the answer is um and you know we're coping with the same problem U ofm where you know you literally have to move out people out of buildings for extended periods of time and you can't do that all at once and you got to drill all these bore holes I mean it's just like physically impossible to do it before 2040 probably um even though I think you know some

113of us thought 2035 so we we've got to really come to grips with that um and I think that will help us because there are people on this University who might be like I'm only going to do this if if their targets are realistic they can be very ambitious but they got to be realistic thanks can I speak to that real quickly yeah and I could be totally wrong you know I'm I'm just my own thought go ahead Eric yeah I was gonna I don't want to cut you off okay um yeah I completely you I think you raised some good points um you know around the concepts of strategy and and goals it's something I certainly struggle with there's on on Council we have a number of goals we're trying to reach um I

114tend to focus a lot on our as well on our transportation plan and our and our goals there um as well as our our climate action plan which they're they they they are they are connected of course um you know I think in the transportation world at to use another example there's what we see sometimes at the state level is that um for example in transportation deaths that they are projecting an increase the goal is actually an increase in deaths um because that's the trajectory but it's a more modest increase in deaths than we would like to see on our roadways and so and so you know that is a maybe a realistic goal um and yet it it doesn't Inspire or seem to set the tone that we want to have in any sort

115of way and so you know we are we are working with our you know our 2030 um carbon neutrality goal um at least for now I personally think it has some merits because what it suggests is that our resources and our time and our energy needs to be aligned to the greatest degree possible in achieving those goals and that that should be the focus of our budget adoption and our all of our how we're aligning our resources recognizing that um it is an aspirational goal at the same time um that we're not going to um we we can't achieve it by 2030 right and so I think the question of when that gets shifts shifted is is is a good question for all of us to have a good conversation it's one we have to

116have as a city um at some point um when it comes back to this conversation around the structure of the commission um for this I I so far in the conversation I'm not I'm hearing questions I'm hearing I'm not hearing significant I'm not hearing opposition to the concept what I'm hearing is that if we proceed with this we need to be very thoughtful about how we're structuring it so that we are um if we if we are moving into in a new form that we are thinking very strategically about how those working groups are set up and um thinking through the details so that we are hopefully lining ourselves up for um better alignment more success um in in achieving the outcomes that we want to see um and you know that's what we would

117need to kind do next um is to further refine some of that work and that thinking that we've already done um so if as this conversation proceeds if there are folks that are saying you know absolutely not this is just not a trajectory that direction we should be headed I think we do want to hear those opinions too if not you know further refining this so that we are um you know saying okay we got an interesting idea here how do we how do we capitalize on in a way that that um sets us up well I think I think in the interest of time we might move move on um from this discussion for the moment um and I think as a as an opportunity to um as this has been sort of the

118first introduction um maybe if there's other thoughts or comments that that Commissioners might have um uh you might be able to share th share those also with the council members and and staff as well um and I was just going to I just want to give us just a few minutes for a Qui a quick break before moving on to the rest of the agenda and sort of capping off off for the evening's meeting did you have a quick quick comment um John Comm I I if I may sorry again um I I think that the due date um of or the target date should be negotiable I've heard Missy say a number of times um everything is negotiable except for the date um I I think it needs to be negotiable um looking back

119at the the the how the date was set the two commissions energy environmental both passed resolutions in support of a climate emergency and set a Target date of 2040 when it was taken to by to council by council member chip Smith he wanted to be aggressive and suggested 2035 in the meeting when it was approved by Council council member Eaton raised his hand and said I think it should be that was in my view I mean I'll say it he may not appreciate it um but I think it was essentially virtual virtue signaling and I think given now the fact especi back then University of Michigan didn't have a plan University of Michigan has a carbon uh neutrality plan of its own or or targets that it set in scope one and scope two emissions

120will not be zero until 2040 so the university is one-third of emissions so in light of that um the city's not going to change that and because it's also a realistic Target I think we really need to talk about the Target and I think that will engender trust and I think what the transportation committee is doing engenders trust that's a smart thing we we we have to be able to have our citizens or in any organization the people in it understand what our goals are and that they make sense and then hopefully get behind that and then not just be totally frustrated at the end because the goals have been held up held up as this has to be met and everybody sees that it's unlikely to be met so and and the last thing

121is I came into this meeting being I would say somewhat opposed to the new structure um but if we really look at this holistically um I'm certainly open to it um and if hopefully we can come up with um better plans better structures better strategies that really start to accelerate our our activities thanks for allowing me to say that again commiss burkwitz yeah sorry to uh delay the the break but um I I don't have um thoughts one way or the other about the commit fure game for anything and always support you know more collaborative thoughtful um engagement so happy to go however wherever um regarding the 2030 date as the you know the a20 clan uh timeline and goal um I do feel like it's maybe preemptive to uh push that back at this

122point um uh and um I have a few reasons why um one you know right now it's the most aggressive um uh carbon neutrality commitment in the country um I think that makes the city of an arbor much more attractive to all sorts of different um funders foundations corporate philanthropists uh formerly the federal government um maybe no longer for three and a half more years um and so I think there's value um in having that I'll also say like I'm recalling a conversation we had I think last year where um I don't know if it was Missy or someone else was talking about how the city was starting to explore um entering into a virtual power purchase agreement to get our electricity to 100% Renewables um you know uh if you know there are um

123the other mechanisms like the sustainable energy utility don't um fill up all the electricity Renewables by then so you know essentially I think there's like one lever away from getting all of our electricity from complete renewable sources and I know that doesn't fix transportation and the building sector but it has major dividends power sector I think is the most really important of the three seers um in in the carbon neutrality plan so I'll just say that you know I I feel this everybody talking about like we have to move faster um and we're way behind a much to things we are but I also think we're closer in some aspects of it than we realizer that we're talking about tonight thank you okay um let's just take a a quick uh three minute break and

124if we could come back at uh 7:54 and and we'll just pick back up with the remainder of the agenda next would will be the staff report thank you everyone e e e thank you for the quick Break um next on the agenda is the uh staff report yes um yeah first thing I want to just note um there was an attachment in this area this was something that was um brought to council as well but basically it's just a report that's just kind of going over all the various things we have been doing um around the various Michigan public service commission proceedings over the past few years um I'm I'm not going to go through everything because we'll be here for much longer than any wants to be here um but I really encourage

125everyone to check that out wanted to make sure we shared it here um as well just because I think it's it's definitely one of those things that kind of is in the background and it's not you know the most fun thing to to go through and be like legal proceedings um but you know there's a lot of really good work being done there so I highly encourage if you haven't to check it out um additionally um just want to go through through a couple quick reports here of just saying um mentioned it before but we are um we're now in the when it's available but um designed to help lower the cost of transitioning from gas to electric lawn care equipment uh with the leaf blower ordinance um discounts for electric lawn care equipment are

126available as well as rebates for electric leaf blowers um through May 31st so for more information including rebate and discount amounts as well as the different eligibility requirements you can go to OSI a2gov.org Le blowers um for our next sustainability Forum uh moving away from an unsustainable linear system that focuses on take make and waste requires rethinking the social and physical infrastructure that drive material flow throughout our society uh so you can join us in the third session of the 2025 sustainability Forum series to learn more about our circular economy initiatives their role in uh the city of an arbor circular economy efforts and how you can get involved you can attend in person at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library or virtually on March 27th from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. um you can also

127reserve a time slot to pick up 1 to Four free tree seedlings to take home and plant yourself uh registration is required and the registration will open on March 15th uh you can go to OSI a2gov.org freet tree2 um all trees will be small be root seedlings that'll fit easily inside a vehicle you can even take it on your bike um additional information is available at a2gov.org 10K trees uh tree planting and Care information will be provided with every tree volunteers are also welcome and those who are interested in volunteering can learn more about the opportunity and sign up um at os. a2gov.org freetree volunteer um a little bit in advance but coming up very quickly um a20 week which is the week celebrating an Arbor's commitment and progress towards a just transition to carbon

128neutrality CommunityWide by 2030 uh will be June 1st through 7th U if you're familiar with this we always do a whole bunch of different different events all around sustainability and so if you have an idea for a sustainability event you want to host one or you want to uh or just have an idea that you think would be fun in general uh send us an email at sustainability a2gov.org um otherwise we look forward to seeing you there and last but certainly not least uh the job posting for the sustainable energy utility executive director is now live uh so if you have any one you can think of send it to them or send the names of any candidates to Missy uh or have them check out again City's website uh Additionally the seu ordinance will

129be going to council for first reading um on March 17th and for just more information and to sign you can also sign up for the seu weit list and um keep up to date on all the different announcements at a2gov.org a2u that is all from me thank you next up we have reports from other Commissioners commissions and Council and we start with a report from the environmental commission and then move to reports from Council uh very briefly environmental commission we had a presentation on uh the County's um rain Garden program um other than that there wasn't really anything substitute um that I think is relevant to this group what I would say though is that um let's see I have to double check my calendar here I think it's on the 20th yes um so

130on the 20th the environmental commission will be considering the same topic we did tonight and that is the combination of the two commissions so some of you may want to listen in on that or um listen to the recording afterwards because um I think it should be interesting to see how this topic is viewed from the perspective of both commissions that's it thank you and any updates from Council M BRS counc M Malik feel free to to jump in because I was not actually at the last city council meeting um but the big uh piece is that uh Council um opted to not move forward with uh the M uh phase two study of the M uh Municipal energy utility at this time yep yep and it was I don't know if any of you

131had the chance to watch the meeting from uh March 3rd where we debated uh the meu but there was a lot of really good discussion um there was also a lot of community engagement um in addition to just public comment during the meeting I tried to do a of all of the Outreach I received as just one individual council member on this topic and I think I received over 300 emails on it so uh for someone's comment earlier that there 's a lot of Engagement in our community around these energy issues I I I see it it is true um so you know ultimately the uh meu study did not Advance uh but you know we're still uh you know evaluating Alternatives you know the conversation doesn't stop here so uh encourage everyone to remain

132engaged uh you know as we move forward and I'll just add to this because this was a huge comment topic of community conversation um council member Malik and I um had different opinions on this so you I was I was not at the meeting but I was pretty um clear in my communications and my Council newsletter that I wouldn't have supported um the phase two study at this point in time um and council member mik did vote for it so just you know there's these are tough issues um and uh you know whether it was uh appropriate or not I think given how political this conversation was um we tried to insulate the commission a little bit from um and so you know sorry if we we're protecting you too much maybe that's you know

133that's on us if if you don't want to be protected us so much let us know okay let's move on we'll move on to our second public opportunity for public input um again this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to 3 minutes and if you're watching on CTN please call 888 78899 or 877 853 5247 and in our meeting ID 956 8718 7876 the information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video and video feed City staffs will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number uh to raise your hand Tok or deire to speak please press star N9 on your phone and you'll hear an automated announcement allowing you to speak uh please speak clearly and move and

134move to a quiet area um and please state your name at the and your address at the beginning of your comments Joe do we have any callers in for the second public comment g a slight pause see if anyone but no callers at this time okay thank you um barrowing any other further comments um we'll move on to items for the next agenda um one of the things that I'm hearing is that the uh given that the uh there's a notice um for an executive director for the seu and also a first reading associated with the suu coming to city council um it's an open question in my mind about um whether that might be a a good time in our April meeting to uh uh similarly uh perhaps look at um whatever is coming

135to council or or something related to that um as part of as part of uh a discussion around the seu um but I'll just I'll leave that there and see if anyone else has any other comments um associated with items for the next agenda commissioner mki uh thanks um one thing that I would hope we do when we look at agendas is and this by the way applies to the environmental commission as well is look at are we presenting something just for information and there's no decision or policy change or anything else that's necessarily tied to it um or is this something that is a presentation where we can really have a dialogue that does lead to what should be our mission and that is advising on on policy and I don't know that that

136necessarily relates directly to your suggestion of the seu I think it probably doesn't but I think just going forward we shouldn't be looking back at a year and say oh gee we devoted 50 70% of our meetings to information presentations I mean we can all read we can all go on YouTube we can all do these things we can go to the County's website or whatever and read this stuff um there is certainly value in us talking amongst each other and developing thoughts but I think sometimes we really need to ask upfront is this really just truly for information purposes and if it is then let's just send that out as as a presentation yeah and I'll say in my role as chair at 100% agree um I you you know I know in our

137in our agenda discussions um prior to the meetings we've tried to uh to the extent possible hone things in a way where we thought where we think substantial feedback and and and and Advising can happen both for City staff but and and council members around around these topics and and and hopefully if if if something Rel to seu um were brought forward it would be with the with um uh perhaps presented in a way that would or any other topic presented in a way that that there would be some discussion and an opportunity to really leverage leverage the um expertise and the experience of of this commission for sure other comments or items for the next agenda um or in the next next uh next few months um please as always feel free to um

138uh share any agenda items with myself and and and City staff and Joe um and and we can uh um take those up in the meetings and and and think about how we bring those forward sometimes it takes a little time for prep um but but oftentimes we've been trying to bring those forward as quickly as we can okay hearing nothing immediate um I will now say that it's uh 8:07 p.m. and we can adjourn this meeting and thank you everyone for the thoughtful discussion um around the resolution this evening and around the um the the discussion around the commission the commissions U moving forward and um please stay tuned um I think since this resolution will be moving forward to the working group um please stay stay tuned for for some of those Communications

139as other email Communications over the next the next few weeks as well so much appreciated and please have a great week thanks everyone thanks good night thanks [Music] everyone for