001e e e welcome to the October 24th 2024 electronic meeting the environmental commission we will conduct this meeting like an inperson meeting so during roll call please indicate your location public comment is welcome and will be via telephone only to speak at public comment call I this information is available on the published agenda agenda in the Public Notices section of the city's website and broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 AT&T channel 99 and online at a2gov.org watch CN Ain will you read the land Heritage statement yes land the city of an arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including Odawa oju and bwami and W do peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable
002ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that's supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thanks Aaron uh we do the roll call now yes uh council member Amman here Ann Arbor Vice chair Brown you're muted Steve here in an arbor you uh chairperson Curtis here Ann Arbor commissioner Dale here and I'm council member dish mentioned she might be late she here not yet uh commissioner Graham I'm here thank you uh commissioner guber mentioned she'd be absent today as did commissioner Marson as did commissioner marski uh commissioner Mitchell you're and
003N Arbor um commissioner nedrich will also be absent today commissioner peterswood here in an arbor thank you commissioner Smith here in an arbor and commissioner whing I said should be absent as well thank you that is a quorum okay just barely so barely we'll get through this um first is approval of the agenda is does anybody have changes to the agenda they want to make I did have a last minute addition of um something in the staff updates um we had some the um a quarter 1 um reports from solid waste so those have been included in the staff report update okay is motion to approve the agenda move first and second okay can we have a vote on approving the agenda raise your hand say yes yes yes okay all right uh does anybody
004want to make changes to last month's meeting minutes is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes Steve yes Anya second so there all in favor of uh approving the Mee minutes raise your hand say yes yes yes I think that's everyone um so next on the business is public comment uh this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes please call 888 78899 and our meeting ID 9620 336 6543 to raise your hand press nine to unmute press star six City staff will select callers who have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number when speaking please move to a quiet area and state your name and address at the beginning of your comments there may be a delay for up to 30
005seconds before a connection is established Aaron do we have any callers no callers okay um next is the unfinished business the uh resolution that we were talking about last month do you want to bring that up and show it and yes so I kind of have to complain about how the calendar legistar Works uh just now when I went to go there to open the resolution I had to download it rather than it promptly opening I don't understand why that has to be done that way why can I just open a file directly into my web browser or whatever happens rather than having to add the thing to my hard drive just the question is that true of Word documents and PDFs or does that just doesn't matter what the file is you have to
006download it in order opening don't mind me being crabby I just I'm generally crabby these days especially till we get through the election do you want me to just laun in sure just I mean we can I would say we should at least discuss definitely discuss the things that have changed since last month yeah absolutely and just page through slowly or pan through it slowly so people can read it as they go if they haven't read it before so I can just um talk through some of the changes that happened sure that sure would you prefer a red the redline version or the clean version H I think the red line just help people visualize what what we're mentioning is fine yeah yeah we do have a clean version of people like it but I'll
007start while she's pulling that up um there was there's one uh whereas that people felt was uh we could remove which we did um and then I added another so in the end it didn't make it much shorter although I did look for some opportunities just to try to take out some uh um some unnecessary text so um I don't we want to scroll down a little bit here um not not to jump out of order but I kind of do think it might be better to do like the more substantial stock first so um here's you notice an entire wet where is removed so um this one there is a little bit of discussion last time about this uh whereas and and again I I started with um creating this resolution based off of
008the one that Detroit had pulled together so um uh and then massaging it from there so um but the some of the discussions had been that we're not sure if we even really agreed with the statement um assuming that banning uh single use plastic bags or single use containers and requiring there to be Alternatives would be a hardship on businesses and consumers and um someone brought up that that's that's presumptive and probably maybe not even the case anyways and so um doesn't to have a place in this um so we just removed it and then if we go down a little bit more there's a new whereas um added that spoke to the other other main point that I heard last time um that that this is just as much about trying to remove that
009barrier of the unnecessary uh um involvement from the state and just bring the control back to the local government and allow us to address any local government really to address an issue that directly affects the community so um so those were the two major things I heard from our discussion last time and I um tried my best to respond to those in this and then I I think I heard that it was just if there's anything we can do just to shorten it and so this is where Aon if you wanted to go back up to the table we can sort of go through slowly I removed words that did not have any impact on the meeting essentially so like there's a part and a couple of whereas is down where it says whereas as
010the Great Lake State Michigan blah blah blah unnecessary language as far as I'm concerned um and then there's a little bit farther down um it's talking about uh that you know fossil fuels are used and greenhouse gas submissions using every stage of production for Plastics and then it goes into to explain what all those stages are not I'm not sure that that's needed so it seems just like extra text so I proposed removing that um and there may have been other small just like removing things like bats and other uh maybe that was it so so those are those are the changes nothing really significant um and I and I think only things that were discussed At Last At the last reading yeah here mute sorry about that what about the questions St Brown add
011it at the end um yeah I I like that idea that's not I I like the idea I don't know what the process is um and I I'm not sure who we would ask to find out what the process is you know I don't even know is that is that a common thing to resolve to ask somebody else to also Advocate on your behalf looks like you might know the answer um yeah maybe um I I've approached the Michigan Municipal League before about posos issues um you know wearing a separate hat not as part of the commission here and um if you look at their website um most of the environmental um um you know they take positions on all the BS in the state legislature and most of the environmental bills like this one
012are under a subcommittee called the there's a committee that they have called um energy and environment and um and if you look at it uh they are just about um opposing all the current bills in the state legislature you know that were put forward um in in this cycle so um and in haror only has one representative um in um in the entire Michigan Municipal League it's um it's in the finance subcommittee which is um and so our Treasurer is on that committee so um you know there's there's um there's an arbor doesn't have any input into that committee but I thought it would be useful because um this is a important um please chime up anybody else if they know um more about this than I do but um they are like the league
013of um you know of local governments in the state and they're their lobbying their voice has um their voice um you know is listened to in the state legislature so I'm not sure how I'm I'm not sure really how to present this to the Michigan Municipal league but it it occurred to me that it might be good for an arbor to raise its profile within this um organization so uh but this is a separate discussion I I agree I think that there are a fantastic resource I I don't know whether and so I'm not saying dis disagree I think it's a great idea to engage them I'm not sure whether or not that's something that is done separately or if that becomes a a you know therefore be it resolved yeah no I don't know
014the process you know I think it should be part of a separate resolution you well there' be way more venues that we might ask if we were going to reach out for help and collaboration with other municipalities and organizations across the state I it could be productive for the goals of the city you know absolutely but um I think it deser we we need to have more of a conversation within City staff with our with our Consultants via the council who do that kind of lobbying and Outreach for [Music] us maybe maybe this resolution isn't supported by the council when we get there but if it is then they ought to add it in the hopper of our lobbying organization whatever it is council member Amman you have a question or comment I just wanted
015to say this is great I wasn't able to attend the meeting last month um so I didn't get to hear the initial discussion about it but um and maybe you talked about this last time but my understanding was that part of the reason why we are not allowed to do this in the state is because an arur started talking about doing it and bad things so anyway I think it should be addressed um anytime I visit another state where I'm forced to pay for a bag I just think we're so backwards so um I appreciate this work and uh you know as far as lobbying the Michigan Municipal League I don't that's not TP typically I think mostly the way that I've heard of the Michigan Municipal league is as a resource um they provide
016training and things like that for uh elected officials um so typically we would you know our lobing efforts definitely focus on the people who uh get to make these decisions and so it's certainly appropriate to include the information about forwarding it to our uh State delegation and the governor so anyway just thank you it looks great I'm sorry what is it we can't do I didn't I don't think uh what I don't think I said we can't do anything I said this looks great when you first started speaking you said somehow we'd been blocked from doing yeah this is the what I've always heard and this you know perhaps I have it wrong but there were a lot several things that were banned at the state level that were in response to Ann Arbor talking
017about doing it and I understand this to be one of these things that possibly you know predates me that we had talked about doing doing a plastic bag ban and lo and behold um the Republican legislature you know made this not something that you could do at the city level which which we don't have anymore so Full Speed Ahead please yeah wasn't that's I completely agree thank you yeah it was it was actually Washton County that passed a that passed a an ordinance I think Yousef robbi was um was behind it when he was working on the County Commission and um and uh the Chamber of Commerce responded within hours so does anybody else have questions or comments on this do we want to have um a vote on it a motion to vote for
018for approval of this yeah I would suggest you strike my comment yeah and um and let's let's consider um exploring you know what the what the pros and cons might be of U being more communicative with the Michigan Municipal League because that might be in multiple things too not just this M oh yeah it would it would it would involve all the operations of the city so someone want to make a motion to approve it Rita do you have a question or comment you're muted oh gosh I'm sorry to move to approve second okay do we have a vote let's have a vote raise your hand say yes I I yes okay that's approved unanimous so we have a short agenda today that was pretty much the only agenda item we had something else lined
019up but that fell through the cracks and then I talked to a couple people last week to see if they wanted to present and they kind of begged off due to short notices so um we have no more agenda items except to go through report outs from the work groups and U so we'll start with that um biodiversity we did have a meeting uh last month um attended by myself Rita Chris Ana Wendy and Sean Reynolds uh we discussed the questions and Bridget also sorry um we discussed the questions from Mai and the sustainability Landscaping workshop and we also discussed what people would like to see addressed in the natural features focus group meeting of the comprehensive plan um I will say we did have that first meeting in the natural features focus group today
020we did I didn't make sure everything was brought up that we had talked about there were absolutely no commitments uh Which Way But anything's going to go on they're still in the I'd call it the information gathering phase they're going to start writing the rough draft fairly soon they will think um rough draft be for the natural features section maybe early next year and I'll get to see a preliminary copy of that at that point in time um so I don't know which way it's going to go I couldn't tell you from the conversation there were no commitments of what will or won't be in there but it was a good conversation but also 90 minutes goes really fast for people who have been in those especially when you have a bunch of people with
021opinions who want to ask answer a lot of questions questions does anybody have questions on that yeah Brooks I was just wondering when's the deadline for completing the comprehensive [Music] plan I don't know off the top of my head um sometime next year I believe but I'm not sure Steve I'd have to go look at their website okay yeah yeah I will too um I also went to the public meeting yesterday at the library just to get an update and you know people were able to vote on things they wanted so I got my little stickers and I found the natural feature of box and I went dot dot dot dot dot Aaron you have a comment I was just curious how many people are at the natural there were seven people invited and there
022was Brett Leonard and one two three four three consultants and one person from Brett staff thanks any other community groups like who was from the planning staff uh Brett Leonard was there is Steph member who was that somebody new to his group who was taking notes I look it up is good okay Michelle Bennett okay very good uh no Steve no one from Wild on is there um couple of professors from ummc's were invited neither one could attend due to other conflicts uh Shannon Gib Randle was there Mike cost was there um Patrick uh last's Jud I'd have to look it up he's do he's landscape architecture local company was there word for peter po who was very famous in town yeah um somebody from the um Drain Commission was [Music] there uh the D
023the director Rebecca from the heran river Watershed was there also good okay so a good group I thought it is and fairly I think in general most we mostly agreed on things on the advice we gave what gets taken you know the Planning Commission has to balance what we were talking about with all the other feedback they get to come up with something that's a workable plan for all parties um so next report out would be circular economy Eve you're muted still I'm sorry um we had a meeting on October 16th um that Sarah Mason attended and um so we were we were asking her basically what uh what goals might um might help City staff with their projects and so Sarah's come up with two things um the first one was the uh County
024was county is is beginning to put together a mandated materials and management plan it's mandated by eagle by the state and Sarah's the city's representative on that body um they uh their first meeting is going to be in November 14th and um and so she'll keep us updated you know through the um circular economy working group about the progress on that front um they've hired um RRS as their consultant for drafting this plan and um you know mostly just make sure that they comply with the part 115 requirements um in the newer state law and um and then the second thing we discussed was the uh City's more life less stuff campaign you know there was contracted to the Ecology Center and I I think maybe some of you have seen some um Communications about
025that in public in town um I wasn't so familiar with that myself um and but basically the city staff is um putting uh the future it's a it's more or less a campaign you know for um just buying less stuff you know with the reduce looking at you know the old reduce aspect of uh of um you know of um of solid uh you know of um of of reducing consumption uh reduce recycle and um you know Reduce Reuse or recycle so the focus seems to be more on just buying less stuff and um doing more um uh exploring more reuse options you know such as with the uh you know with the Kanas Center out on the west um uh out of on West Jackson Road and um and so one thing that we
026were talking about doing was um uh they need more um they needed more uh publicity via social media so commissioner Smith um was interested in helping out with that and so we'll see how that develops um they're looking for three stories that they can put up on the city's website you know about uh you know about more life stuff so they're looking for three stories so they're asking um the uh this working group to help disseminate um the information and try to help get uh stories about more stuff more life less stuff so go to the city's website um and see if there's something you might want to contribute to that um and then one thing Sarah I thought would be useful is if we as if the working group would compile um we could
027uh and this this had had to do with um the last resolution that we just voted on um is there's um we could help staff and Council perhaps in in tracking State legislation uh tracking whatever state legislation relates to um solid waste and um at least for this working group and to try to you know maintain a table um and um and have discussions within the working group about what resolutions might be drafted about um you know addressing state laws just like you know the the one we just voted on so um Sarah Mason thought that would be helpful and um that's it and um and um we talked about oh we just talked about the um Solid Waste fund financials you know that she'd get it to us by um um by early November
028she'll email it to the to the commission and everybody can look at them and then compile questions um send her qu any questions you have about the financials by November 18th and that'll give her time to uh you know to callate them and answer them uh and be prepared to answer them on the December 5th meeting of the full commission so that's it Steve on the questions I would suggest we send them all to Aaron first and have Aaron coate them as opposed to to Sarah doing that seems like appropriate for us to give her a single list of questions yeah that sounds good uh so next would be water quality I don't think I got anything from Sarah NR on that I don't know Steve did you get anything from her on her report
029out uh we did have a meeting of the working group on October 18th um it was attended by Sarah myself um and um and it's actually grown quite a bit Aaron was attending as well as um but Sarah's recruited some people from the some students from the University and uh Kelly mccab from the Heron River Watershed Council and so we scheduled a recurring Zoom U meeting for this working group um every third Friday from 12:30 to 1 and um and then I have an action point to talk about to um to investigate a little bit about the the new EPA rules on posos emissions from Wastewater because EPA announced last year or early this year that um they would start regulating posos distres from Wastewater uh plants like an Arbors and um through the MPD
030process other than that um we have um our major I think collaboration here is with the haran river Watershed Council so Kelly mccave is keeping us updated on on the uh tmdls you know for phosphorus in the river they they still haven't Eagle is is like at least a year behind on on their pering process both for an ms4 permit and the tmdl um determination for the Heron for phosphorus and the Heron River as long as as well as eoli but they're focusing more on eoli right now than on phosphorus so um you know we we have some goals we have some smart goals first one is chloride you know which U comes from Mostly road salt um and storm water runoff from road salt that's been applied to roads and then there's a group
031of us that are going to look at the storm water codes and um and U study up on those and see what we can um and and review what what what was imposed with the green streets the city's green streets you know um um policy that was started in 2012 I believe and then um you know the eoli and the nutrients we have a a group of people that are interested in following up on that and then um and then we've also like uh um you know dived up Outreach and tracking like um attending her on river water Council mid Heron um here on Partners meeting that's quarterly that's the the governmental body that's basically dealing with um you know dealing with an Arbor's consent judgment about um you know dumping phosphorus through both storm
032water and waste water treatment plant dumping phosphorus into the Heron River and then card um and then the card group you know that's following the Gman plume and then eagle and um rrd um aon's taking both of those topics and then um aon's also um going to keep track of what the county water commissioner is doing on various issues that's part of her um assignment as a staff person anyway that's it uh anything else eron okay yeah nothing to add thanks Steve he next is the energy commission John mki sent me his comments um so I'll read them off it say uh the sustainable energy unit is on the November 5th ballot I encourage everyone to inform the themselves on the proposal and support its establishment which is his position not explicitly or formally that
033of the energy commission uh the commission so agend into toping in the last meeting was to consider and approve a resolution of support for the updated green rental housing program the 820 strategy 3 action the resolution was revised to request that a city council increase the certification threshold for landlords using the checklist pathway which most Commissioners deem too low to drive meaningful greenhouse gas reductions and to meet the 820 targets for the program and rental properties generally and B the program formally be revised periodically for Effectiveness and for needed revisions uh some background information the program will affect approximately 8,500 buildings and 31,000 rental units in the city over half of the city's residents live in rental housing units the a20 plan's original timeline for the green rental housing program was adoption in 2021 and
034implementation in 2022 an initial proposal was presented to the energy Comm mission in March of 2022 but it was considered deficient in the accompanying resolution of support never voted on in light of the above quick implementation of the program is key to meeting our CN goals it is important that Pro program which will drive significant sustainability improvements be improved ASAP so that is John's feedback on the energy Commission on the parks an Marson sent me her uh feedback and these are the items were covered in their meeting on October 15th uh Parks is going to experiment with a temporary do dog park in vetfield 4 from November to April there has been demand for a dog park particularly on the west side of town the gallop Park bridge is mostly complete there's a ribbon cutting
035ceremony planned earlier this afternoon uh we approved a Construction contract for repaving the parking lot in pass around at B anonio Park and the pack declined to further explore ing property adjacent to the thirst in nature area I think the next report out would be from Council I can't think of anything council member dish can you I'm sorry acquiring uh school property next to thirston so the Nature Center is better protected ibly don't know the answer that's I don't know the answer before um there's quite a lot of controversy about that yes the school system wanted to um basically build a new school in the nature area you know instead of um instead of demolishing the old school and then building the new school on on on the same um site that the thirston school
036is now so um a lot of people in the neighborhood are upset that they're getting um that they're going to get rid of the nature area you know it's been a feature of the it's been a valuable um destination for the neighborhood for many decades but you know that's um so I'm not sure what the uh you know who owns the nature area it sounds like it could be the public schools because most School owns it yeah Public Schools name for Bill sta who was this uh pioneering environmental uh professor at the University in the 80s um absolutely wonderful man who really led the way on citizen activism about nature centers and nature areas wonderful man student of my grandfather okay council member Amman yeah just wanted to say that um I think quite a
037few of us on Council probably all of us have been hearing getting a lot of email about confusion and some frustration and questions with regard to the school's Capital uh plans and so I think because so many of us sent questions to the city administrator because the school hasn't really I mean I don't have any more information than than you all do from their meetings um but I believe that our uh City administrator is talking with there intendent to get us more information about a variety of things related to their plans so thirston is one but in W four um people are really concerned about how they plan to use some people are concerned about how they plan to use portions of loton park for a playground that would be used by the school during
038the day but would still be part of the public park as well as I hear a lot of concerns about their pickup and drop off expansion plans car-based pickup and drop off expansion plans so those are some things that I've been asking questions about I I don't really have answers yet because I've been getting most of my information from mli um but hope to have some more soon and I guess I would just say I would strongly encourage you to reach out directly to the school board and the superintendent um with your feedback and concerns because a lot of this is in their Court though I hope we have more information and you know we'll be collaborating with them of course on some of the street uh things which is where I hope can intersect
039with them on the drop off and pick up stuff but so next is report from chair I have nothing else to add besides what was in the biodiversity update so I think it's a report from staff sure yeah I can just share my report up apologies and Rita to answer your text since we have nobody from the Planning Commission on the meeting on our list there's no reason no way that we can really get a planning committee report out Cil member dish right oh yeah doing that one yeah okay yeah I mean I'm not nothing jumps to mind right now that we've done that's explicitly relevant to this commission but um I'll quickly look through my notes and see if anything jumps out at me but you shouldn't wait while I do that um yeah
040just a few updates from OSI so we have officially given our 10 10,000th tree uh going out into the community um six years early uh so you can read an update on that um then there's some information about a $3.1 million uh grant that we that um was obtained by OSI um to support equit Equitable decarbonization in the Bryant neighborhood um public services so we'll get started with the LED street light conversion um you know we've talked about um that issue here before um or at least in in the work groups um so work on that should get started at the end of 2024 um and then as I mentioned um I did include some kind of last minute Solid Waste uh fund quarter one fiscal year 25 updates and those um that link will
041take you to uh the lar file so you can find those um those reports there so feel free to to browse and send me any questions thank you thank you to anyone who worked on the lower temperature LED lights and a little less brightness really good idea thank you [Music] dis yeah I found one tiny thing that's a little bit nerdy but um they we've made a change for when people are just repurposing you know doing interior Renovations that enable a repurposing of you use of a property they do not have to do a site plan and um run that by Council it can be administrative approval and that actually means a lot for people because site plans are expensive to have done and then it's an expensive process that you pay for the city
042so you know we really want people to repurpose space we want them to you know create bedroom units in their basements that you know provided that it's consistent with the zoning but there no there's no reason why that sort of thing should go through lots of Hoops so that could be um something that the environmental commission is interested in thank you so next as items for next agenda we'll have a few topics from the circular economy work group that we be reported out on and part of that I'll be going through the finances again so that's why it's important that if you have any questions to get the questions submitted to Aaron so she can get everything Consolidated and sent over to Sarah so Sarah can get the information from the finance people um our
043next meeting would be on December 5th and for the new people because of the holidays we don't have a meeting in November and December but they would both line up on holiday so we just have one in between so we'll have one December 5th and then the the one after that will be later in January back on the normal schedule so next item is um public comment this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes please call 888 78899 enter meeting ID 9620 336 6543 to raise your hand press nine to unmute press star six City staff will select callers who have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number when speaking please move to a quiet area and state your name and address
044at the beginning of your comments uh there may may be a delay up 30 seconds before connection is established Aon do we have any callers uh no callers okay before we have a motion to adjourn does anybody else have anything they want to ask questions on or comment on so is there a motion to aurn and one of will be a second so I think we're all great good thanks everyone thank you you night for