001and this is um the Thursday August 24th meeting of the environmental commission and I'd like to ask Sean to um read the land Heritage statement please thank you I acknowledge that the land the city of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the an shanab including Odawa oji and badmi and W and do peoples I further acknowledge that are City stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally and unconscionable ways from IND 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 supports human foring and
002justice for all individuals thank you Sean and I want to just step back and read another thing that I'm supposed to read at the beginning of this meeting which is to welcome you all and to this electronic meeting of the environmental commission it's in accordance with executive orders that were put in place in 2020 by the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of Co 19 we intend to conduct the meeting similar to an in-person meeting and ask that you be patient if there are technical issues um public comment is welcome and will be via telephone only to speak at public comment please call and enter meeting ID 922 96961 1664 it's a lot of numbers I'll repeat them in a minute um this information is available on the published agenda in the
003Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 AT&T and channel 99 and on a2gov.org slatch CN um so I want to thank everyone for being here um and now we'll proceed with the roll call please Sean sure all right uh council member Amman here Ann Arbor thank you Vice chairperson Brown uh pres in an arbor thank you commissioner kwart here thank you uh commissioner Curtis here and Arbor thank you commissioner Dale I know Anya was having some trouble but I do see her here so call a yes yeah council member dish here you thank you uh commissioner Graham commissioner gber here and an arbor thank you commissioner Marson uh commissioner mki you're AR thank you chairperson Mitchell here in an aror thank you uh commissioner
004nedrich and commissioner weing all right uh that is a quorum great thank you Sean um and now um I'd like to um ask for approval of the agenda like I still move thanks second moved by Brown and seconded by commissioner Grier thank you and um next I'd like to ask for approval of the minutes and we have two sets of minutes and I'd like to um ask your leave to approve both the um May 25th 2023 minutes as well as the June 22nd 2023 minutes at the same time so all in favor sorry um sorry I think we have to vote on approving the agenda after it's been moved in second oh yeah okay all right well would everyone like to approve the agenda as written I'm gonna say yes thank you thank you Sean
005keep me in line um and now well let me just ask is it acceptable to approve um two minutes in one vote everybody okay with that I'd like to have a a motion to approve the two sets of minutes Richard ker and seconded by Brooks Curtis thank you thank you um and now um we'll move into public commentary um public commentary person Mitchell we have to have the vote for that one as well okay all right sorry and you should you should open it up for discussion in case there is any too yeah thank you all right any discussion of the minutes I see no hands um but I appreciate the QE and would you all like to uh vote to approve the minut show of hands I see 100% thank you I appreciate being
006directed um all right thank you now I'd like to move into public common um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 888 78899 and enter meeting ID 1644 City staff will direct select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand please press star n on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please State your name and address at the beginning of your comments and thank you Sean that's perfect I love having that on the screen um is anyone here to
007make a comment we do not have anyone on the line yet we'll give uh 30 seconds oh uh we do have someone on the line and they have just raised their hand um so caller ending in 815 I'm going to now allow you to talk great and do we need to do we have the cue for um unmuting the phone uh is star six six to unmute thank you uh caller 815 if you can press star six to unmute there hi can you hear me I'm uh Prine dalalu I'm uh at 809 bookside drive in an arbor we can hear you thank you um I am I'm calling I'd like to comment uh thanking the board for taking my call and um acknowledge uh that there's you know a climate crisis and one of many
008things that we can do in an arbor because we have to lead is is to plant a variety of native plantings um providing more food for our birds and animals and insects and uh less requiring of pesticides herbicides and watering um I have a native Prairie Garden which I've had for the past 10 years in my lawn extension and uh it is generally been well well received I I I got it approved by our homeowners association despite it being uh uh rather um kind of used to just the traditional Green Lawn and I when I argued for it it got a lot of support um I um I'm calling because I would like the the board to recommend an update to the uh ordinance that talks about an arbitrary minimum for the grass height and
009I think this needs to be clarified for Native grasses and the grasses have seed heads at the top that are very attractive um and many of the best ones like little blue stem and uh pyot Grandma which are encouraged in other towns can grow three feet sometimes it's two and a half sometimes it's four and I think an arbitrary limit is uh both forces the homeowners to cut off decapitate the seed heads and the garden does not sustain itself in addition it is very difficult for the uh uh Community standards office to enforce this um and they have admitted that they wish the ordinance was changed so because they are not Bist and they and and so I think the bottom line is um it would be nice to have Aesthetics updated for uh the
010needs of our era and for uh these kinds of ordinances to uh be simplified um for the good of everybody thank you thank you Sean are there any other callers uh there are no other callers no other callers okay so I'd like to thank our caller um and say that um I appreciate those comments um and hope that we can move forward um a little more swiftly than we have on our um vegetation ordinance changes that were passed actually two years ago by this commission so it would be great to keep moving forward so that we can respond to the the climate crisis and um yeah just be more up to date so um thank you uh all for this um and I want to thank everybody for and just say hey I've missed you
011all it's been like more than a month um since our last meeting and um the last time was because of a power outage who missed uh this meeting and this one has been somewhat rearranged um I think in ways that will ultimately be good for us all as a commission and um I welcome the our um first uh speaker Brian steglitz to join us and talk with us about the new environmental manager position and its relationship to um the environmental commission so thank you Brian for being here and for um uh being available to respond to some questions tonight sure thank you for me um so I guess I'll start I think I don't I know you might have received it last minute but I I think Sean maybe distributed to you the job description
012for the role is that true so you have that great um so I won't read through that whole thing but I guess I'll just give you a little bit of background on how we got here um so I think you're all probably aware of that this position was there was environmental coordinator position in the city and with the the onset and the forming of the office of sustainability and um Innovation that position was um uh ceased and um and to some degree some of the respons abilities of that have been absorbed by that office um but there's also some things that have been sort of distributed through the organization and have been picked up in other ways so over time we've been assessing you know whether we have the the need for returning this um
013position in some form to the city and in my role um you know and I've had the opportunity and the city administrator has given me the opportunity to sort of reassess what art we think our needs are in public services to support some of the initiative environmental issues um and we um for support for bringing this position back' seen the job description for as part of our 24 budget um and Council has approved that um so we are in the process of filling that role and we're and your chairperson is sitting in on the interview panel um which will be next week so we're forward to making some progress here pretty rapidly in filling this position um um so how does this position fit into services so I think you're all quite familiar with public
014services but we are we oversee um all the three water utilities St storm water um drinking water and waste water as well as engineering Solid Waste programs um there are several areas where the environmental manager sort of fits and dubils well into the services that we provide um we're overseeing for example respond the um the Gilman plume um we're dealing with you know making sure that we're achieving our Solid Waste diversion goals and metrics um we operate the and are responsible for compliance with the landfill that's closed and that we're still monitoring um the storm water program has of water quality and environmental related issues associated with it that we deal with so from our perspective like we really needed to have some support from a position like this for just General Environmental Compliance um
015and then also Ser all the commission um know that the office of sustainabil is doing an excellent job over that over the past several years um but I also we also had many conversations with Missi in terms of um that we think maybe there's a better fit ination for being that that liaison role moving forward will be working in Partnership um very much um I I work with Missy all the time issues so there's a lot of overlap and we hope that the transition for you all will also be seen um you will still see Missy and her team they're very much engaged um in a lot of the important to you all but the direct leaon to the commission would be transitioning eventually to the new the new person um once we on board
016um the POS will sit as a manager in public so it'll be you know a parallel role to city engineer our drinking water quality manager um our systems planning manager so it's a a senior level role in the organization um I'll stop there and see if there's anything you want me to elaborate on um I'd be happy to uh Steve please proceed yeah hi Brian thanks a lot um um for uh you know for this announcement um I just had I had one question and that was that the storm water was not mentioned in the in the job you know description but I just heard you say that so um I I'm glad that this will be part of the purview of this position and then I was wondering if um this person will become
017the liaison to the Herod River Watershed Council for their mid you know mid uh here on um Consortium or and whether this person will also be expected to work with the county water commissioner directly um you know all good questions and um you know I guess the answer to some of them is you know this since this will be a new position I think we're going to be working closely with the new individual um and the people who are currently providing some of those services for the city and working towards you know what makes the most sense so I guess I don't really have answers to some of those questions now except that you know we'll work with existing staff and the commission to see what um who is best to sit in some of
018those roles there's a pretty large purview for this um job um so we also need to be careful depending on who's who we end up selecting that we um make uh you know uh the right transition and we you know it may not all be all at once so some of these roles May transition over time um I think you know the our person who sits on the board of the your remember Watershed counil has been doing it a long time and has been doing a great job and we may want to maintain continuity there so um I think some of these things really just need to be open for discussion as we as we progress through time um and also I think you know one of my goals would be to make sure that
019we have an opportunity to have that person um sit down with you as a group um in the appropriate format maybe a working session if possible to talk about what your goals are and we I think making sure that there is you know strong alignment between the things that they're working on and also the things that are important to this body um so we look forward to having that opportunity in the future yeah yeah thanks Brian that's great um commissioner mki Brian thanks very much uh first of all for for recreating this position and secondly I really applaud you appearing before the environmental commission to uh gain input from us um I had uh three points first of all uh I remember interacting with Matt nod and one of the topics that he would often
020refer to is himself being responsible for brown Fields um I um looked through the job description I never saw the term there um on the other hand I recognize it's um both a technical as well as a lay person's term um but it might be helpful to include that term somewhere in the job description um second um I would if you haven't already done so I assume you have but um I think it might be appropriate to talk to Matt even though he's been um retired now for quite some time just to get his input um on on the position um I I assume you've done that and the third thing is that I wanted to mention um I don't know if you're familiar with um r rcic or racc matrices um that's an acronym
021that um is really helpful for a position like this it defines for a variety of actions and Communications and tasks who is responsible who approves who does support reporting work who informs um and um basically processes and receives information and who consults with um uh various other um individuals for all these tasks there's one uh line in the job description um that I wrote down which is respond to Residents and city council inquire um inquiries related to a variety of environmental topics um I I think your comment earlier in response to Steve was great um that you want to um when you're on booing this person look at their experience look at their expertise look at other kinds of um internal uh staff members and what what they have but I think you you would
022you would find that the creation of some such a document would really be helpful in clarifying roles and responsibilities internally and then also it be really helpful for communicating that externally so um if you're not familiar with that term or that uh tool I suggest you look into it I'd be happy to talk to you about it um those were my three suggestions thanks very much thank you um CHR callow hi Brian thanks for being here uh sorry if I missed this but did you mention uh time timeline for what you're hope when the person would start hopefully so our plan is to um our interviews are scheduled for next week and this is a second round of interviews so where we have um some finalists who are going to be willing to be talking
023to next week um so really it depends on the results of that and their availability some of the candidates are not local so they're potential relocation um so I would anticipate um and our our goal would probably be within the next couple months thank you council member dish thank you thank you for being here Mr stegas um I wanted to ask what kind of feedback you envisioned this position could give unite plans what what kind of feedback so um so that is under the scope of the position and that's a question that we I think is one of the questions we'll be asking about their experience with in the interview um will you know there is some overlap here in terms of some of the roles and responsibilities that Community Services area provides so we'll
024be working you know and and when uh Mr mky disc talked about Brownfield like again that's a little bit more of the perview of um Derek's team but again we all work together and we'll need to be working with this person and community services and figuring out you know once we bring in some of this expertise in house because some of that work a lot of that work we're Contracting out um and in fact that's one of the ways that we've been able to um you know financially um support um this role is that we we're going to be bringing in services that we're currently Contracting out to Consultants inhouse um so some of that will need to be developed but again depends on the candidate but our hope is is that some of the
025environmental review components will become an internal responsibility of this role thank you that is excellent um I I remember us talking about that at budget time but I hadn't remembered that and we're having a really good rapport right now um with OSI who's been really helping us with um sustainability focused issues but that's not the only part of environmental review so um I'm appreciative of this and um yeah thanks um anyone else any other questions so I assume that um I'll I'll just ask um I assume that we're we'll work out our schedule also as to um how we interface with this person and um what specific tasks or asks that we would um expect or to direct to whoever this may be is that reasonable that's a fair statement yes yeah okay all right
026um is there anything else you want to tell us Brian um um no we'll just I mean I'll be sure to keep you in the loop you'll know obviously know a lot more about where we're moving because you'll be participating in the process next week um but happy to keep the commission up to speed um we want to make this as smooth a transition as we can and I'm sure that um Missy and Shan and and their team will um will be working very closely with them to make sure that um it goes smoothly right and I want to just say I appreciate the work that Sean's been doing for us and um it's really been very helpful so I'm hoping that we can keep up that that um level of of support because it
027really helps the meetings move smoothly um very much I'll be advocating for having Sean continue to support us so we'll I'll be talking to Missy about that okay but I'm hoping we can work something out great good all right um okay one more time if anyone has any question for um Brian otherwise we'll move on to the next thing thank you very much Brian thank you um uh so um thanks everyone this was something that um kind of just came up and um was a little bit news to me and I was really glad that Brian was available to um speak with us all personally today because um I have the feeling that this when um looking over the kinds of things that that um are provided the services right by Brian's Department I think
028it's a really good fit for what we're doing and I actually think that this meeting is a good one to follow um uh that anticipation of of a new person to work with us um when we go through our bylaws which is the the next part of our meeting and this is our annual review of bylaws um and although it sounds like boring and and um really administrative I think it helps at least for me keep us on track um of what we're supposed to do and um having us think together um how we can accomplish our goals so um Sean I would really appreciate it if you could display the share screen of the bylaws and and if we could just go through some sections um I have some things that I that I
029think um have been thinking about would be good for us to chat about uh and hope that we'll all join right in adjust my screen can everyone see the screen share yes perfect thank you so here we are this is our officially um uh lodged in the city's documents um bylaws of the environmental commission and um I'd like to just scroll through slowly the the um purpose and and um duties and um as we go through this I've got a few comments of my own but I hope that others will um raise your hands and um let us know if you have any comments or concerns or um this is our opportunity to propose some changes um and maybe we need them and maybe we don't um but the purpose um to make sure that
030we've got these integrated policies to protect our air water and land is really important to me and I think that that's where we kind of need to think each time when we take on a project or something that that we want to assess as a group um so that's what I see as like to me that's like the leading feature of this commission um we are advisory to council that's absolutely true um and I think that the opportunity is for us to work with the other commissions that are represented on this commission is really a good thing for us um and I hope that at some point perhaps maybe those commissions would be asking us questions that we might address um so that's what I see as my comment about um 3.1 um and I
031don't see anything to change does anybody have any comments on this particular section and some people I can't see hands or I hope that if hands come up that they get bounced to the top of the screen so I can't okay let's go on two we're responsible um we report we work collaboratively okay G to advise had something in mind here oh yeah okay um on let's see here's this one what is that 32 three I just want to point out that about 10 years ago the environmental commission itself actually um advised Council to um establish the green streets program that I believe is still in effect and I think at some point um I I was going to be at this point of of um asking Sean to help us look at the status
032of green streets you know to find out um how's it going how many of the streets that have been repaved have used the green streets um approach and if there's any way to measure that Improvement so that's just a comment on that one and further down on number five um um t mitell we have a couple of hands council member thank you council member Amman I'm not sure I've heard of the green streets program can you tell me what that is um my understanding of it is and I'm not fully um uh firsts in talking about it but it's a method of constructing streets that supports um water absorption so sometimes it's um an underpinning of gravel underneath um the the asphalt so that water can be temporarily caught and held and slow released more
033slowly during the event of a storm so it's an attempt at addressing Water Management I think there are some other components of it um and it just would be good to know where we are with with that um I believe it also includes some some aspects relating to transportation in terms of like the um the bike lanes that are instituted but yeah needs a little review and if you want to be involved in um talking through that that would be great since you're on the Transportation Commission and I can uh forward you the originating resolution I have that thank you yeah um commissioner grber yeah thank you on 3.2 there are a number of points that specifically mention some of the topics that we advise city council and the city administrator on Transportation Solid Waste
034environmental risk and pollution and water yep I just wonder if we if it if there needs to be an added um Point here about on biodiversity or natural features given that we have working groups that focus on those and we a caller today that brought up um the vegetation ordinance so I mean I'm not sure perhaps that falls under one of these other points but it doesn't explicitly jump out at me I think that's a good suggestion because I don't believe that that biodiversity is called out um I'm not aware of that and in what I recall of just now reviewing these so thank you I put a note in my copy um and on 35.5 there's an issue of um referring to pesticide use um pesticide and herbicide use I know that I just
035want you all to know that I've talked with Sean about um obtaining a a kind of a report on how much um pesticides and herbicides the city uses um in its integrated management Pro program just so that we know we have an IPM program that the city follows and I think it would just be good for us to know um where we are with that and I see um commissioner Cowart yeah just to add on in terms of kind of current priorities that I know we're all focused on but aren't really identified here something around you know a20 I think should be included here yes or whatever we think is the you know the term that we'll live on yeah okay so I think it seems like that would be something we need to figure
036out where to put that in if it's could be uh app seven yeah do you have any um particular wording that you think would work otherwise we'll mean I would be inclined to use a20 but I know that maybe 10 years from now we're going to look and say what was that um hopefully we'll have acheve at all but maybe carpet neutrality would be the more kind of generic [Music] term right yes thank you I think that's perfect right there okay good John mer here your hand yeah I support the idea I think it's important to differentiate the domain of the environmental commission versus the energy commission when it comes to a20 and decarbonization um so if we do add a20 we might want to indicate for example that it's primarily related to Solid Waste
037um possibly to um carbon sequestration um associated with natural features and things like that just so that it's clear to the public as well as the commission what is the energy commission focused on and what is the Environmental commission focused on because I know that people when they've applied to the new commissions haven't really understood I've seen the applications and read them and it's sometimes it's not clear to them not that they're necessarily read the bylaws but it should at least be clear to us um and it should be documented so right General support but just with that qualifier yep I think it's it's reasonable and and correct to have that separation because you're dealing with the more the energy features and Energy Efficiency and many other things that are really different but I think
038this is good because this is where we need to um this could help us in terms of the the um addressing natural features as we move forward one of those things that we've been talking about great okay um looking for any other hands here um I've got one on number nine um I would like us and um I think I'm gonna tag you Steve to uh work on kind of setting up a template for reporting for our annual reports so that we kind of are ready you know that we can sort of plug things in I think that would be really helpful for us um I can't read my notes oh yeah okay all right this is what based on pollinators um number 10 um advising advocacy for outside of the city um I think
039it would be great if we um wrote up something to advocate for um reduction or or management or elimination of neonicotinoids at the state level I think that's probably the level that we need to do it for do it locally great um but we might want to do it on an advocacy level for uh for a very big goal and a good one um so I'm thinking that that might be something that the biodiversity group could work on uh when we get to that uh okay any others going down the list that's on for number I just have a question on number 13 um meeting with other commissions and in other jurisdictions and other environmental organizations we haven't reached out to others but I wonder more [Music] um reflecting our makeup we have representatives from
040or we will have one from planning we have council member issues on planning but the other um commissions that are are represented just to have a um make sure that we have a kind of a give and take with with those so this is number 13 is really dealing with other jurisdictions so that's my comment wasn't really quite right but okay that okay any other comments on this section which is our um purpose objective Ives and duties in in general so we've got a couple of things that are potential mod modifications um I'm going to suggest well I'll ask the group if this is okay if if um if I work on some modifications of these and and put these in with a like a um Redline version and send it out to you for
041review does that sound like a reasonable process fore Steve no that's good it's good to um maybe have a small group work on a draft so um um I just wanted to mention I put up my hand because um for paragraph 14 there's been a confusion about committee using work versus working groups y so the language around there could be cleaned up a bit okay let me see where I am on that okay that's um like article n 14 oh oh oh okay 14 here um yes and it's also there's a whole section article nine committees and work groups yes um great communities okay do you have a comment on this that you'd like to add that's specific uh no just that they mention committees but no not working groups so that creates some confusion
042yeah okay so we language right so on um as we go forward on this um I think we can probably almost speed through some of the next sections that I consider super administrative but there's a section called committees and work groups um it's it's called also article 9ine so the question will be reflect reflect back to this number 14 um on this section on committees because I think it's a little clearer in this later section of the of the bylaws but I agree with this um with your comment on this yep committees are much more formal is really a way to say this um yep okay all right anything else on these okay and we've got number 16 kind of follows in with that year annual report um the annual work plan that's where I'm
043thinking template and I don't have one yet if anybody's interested in knowing okay let's go to the next page membership this part I think is pretty easy I have no suggestions for modification on this but if anybody else does John mki like to throw out one idea for the group's consideration admittedly we've not discussed this in the energy commission but both the energy and environment commission have in its bylaws uh under membership this uh approach of including two youth members between the ages of 16 and 25 that serve one-year uh terms and one of my observations has been that a one-year term seems pretty short to me someone is just sort of getting their feet on the ground just getting a sense of what's going on and then they're going off the commission that doesn't
044preclude them from extending an additional year so maybe it's not a problem but I just wanted to throw out for discussion whether that should potentially be extended to possibly 18 months or two years so I just wanted to raise that point for others to chime in on okay um council member Amman my thought about that is given the fact that they can be reappointed I'm assuming that the shortened um obligation term is to be more inclusive to people who may have kind of a more transient I guess situation um but I mean I'm open to either I don't have super strong feelings that was the thinking of the at the time is that um if you're taking high school students that are leaving for college or university students at the University of Michigan who are
045potentially then leaving for a career or for a graduate degree that one year was appropriate um I just wanted to have it discussed but yeah yeah thank you um I I want to ask I know that we have um commissioner waying here who is a youth commissioner um and ask if um you commissioner weing have any comments on the term and I know that you got re pointed are you there there you are yeah I'm here um I would say I think there's definitely some truth in like the one-ear term being too short because I definitely like feel like it does take a while definitely to get like acclimated to the commission and then sort of like by the time you're like ready like you're like you got it down it's like the your term
046is up but also I know like it'd be easy for like Juniors and seniors I I know I joed as a sophomore last year so I still have a lot of time in high school so for me like maybe if the term was two years it would make more sense but I know definitely for like upper classmen that are definitely going away like they're graduating soon a one-year term is definitely better um yeah that's but is the the renewal is pretty simple too so I'm pretty sure the like the one year to twoyear term like it the transition is not too hard so I think the one-year term is fine for youth members okay so you didn't feel like it was a deterrent to have to um reup which you did right because you were
047appointed sort of laid in a term and then you you renewed um and we're happy to have you um okay I think that's possibly part of the question I mean we certainly can encourage people to stay if they're available um and I I think the oneyear term would encourage more applicants because it's uh like a less of of commitment and you would again you would get more Juniors and like seniors in high school okay all right we should probably talk about [Music] um onboarding anybody at any point you know so that people feel like they know what they're going to do on this commission that probably is something that we all could um that could be improved in general I'm just going to say that um it doesn't have anything to do with membership um
048okay um any other comments on uh membership that you should include thank you everyone um we move on oh Rita oops is there a hand hi yes I have one comment um and you know looking at paragraph four here um um you know do we have a uh do we have somebody appointed by the Planning Commission yet to replace Shannon we do not so that's a a followup required okay and the park advis um and the park commission we're still we're still good there right we are um commissioner or yeah commissioner Marson is still on um council member dish do you have any sense of um the appointment process from planning nope um I think we are I know excuse me that we just got a replacement or a person who's been appointed to step
049in to sh so I will um oh I'm sorry I I muted I I devided myself rather than muting myself earlier so sorry I hope you haven't heard me banging away as I take notes um I will find out uh I I mean I will remind the staff that we need to make a selection but I'm sure that that hasn't been pursued because until now we have been um down the m so right and I assume that it wouldn't necessarily be the new person that joins the Planning Commission it would be how however it's determined right yeah yeah exactly um though it is definitely true that the existing members are pretty tapped out um also undertaking the cont plan process so there might end up be some juggling of things I I'm not really sure
050but it may not uh it may take a minute to work out but I will definitely Um send a quick note to Mr R thank you yeah um okay thanks for raising that Steve um all right anything else on membership um right let's go into the ethics I have read this um I feel like it stands pretty well in terms of content and intent um and I feel like generally our group doesn't have opportunities to have conflict of interests that I'm aware of um because usually we don't deal with financial things and we're making advisory comments um oh there is one 5.7 if we could just look at that there we have there's this thing about an annual disclosure of organization affiliations that could conceivably present a conflict of interest I don't think we've ever
051talked about that or done it um does anybody have any experience with that is it something we need to pay a lot of attention to or it just need to be there John mki I'm almost certain this whole section is the same or very similar in the energy commission uh bylaws and I think probably in others um as far as I know uh this has never been requested or administered um either by the chairs myself included um or by City staff part of that is perhaps related to the fact that there has been turnover in the position on City staff that has sort of been the liaison to Commissions in general so if in my recollection was that some of the there were some upgrades in both of these um bylaws and in others that
052took place a couple years ago in this section and if this is deemed necessary then I think this needs to be administered by the city where there's just a calendar reminder by the staff person who administers that that this form goes out and that it has to be resubmitted by such and such a date I don't know that it really can is going to be effective if it's left to uh the the commission's individually right right so I think it this should go back to the city attorney and ask is this really necessary um and if it is appropriate necessary because it may be necessary for transparency purposes then it needs to be administered in a way that is going to be done um in an effective and efficient way um by the way there
053there there have been issues in the past in energy commission where we've had DTE representatives and other people that have been associated with utilities that have been on the commission I could see that it could happen in the environmental commission where we've had people in the landscaping business and actually do um with um Christopher Graham and we're talking about an issue related to um land scaping and ordinances and things like that so I think this this is is important and we just need to keep it in mind as we talk about these issues thanks thank you um commissioner Brown um yeah we did have one um incident like this where a member of the uh um our r leaone with the parks advisory commission had a potential conflict of interest so he was recused during
054one discussion but um after some reminders were made um but I when I first joined the environmental commission I submitted a disclosure of my affiliations I was asked to but I U you know haven't updated it but on the other hand my affiliations haven't changed so I think it's a good idea to do it annually I would agree with John that's just a reminder and entering should actually be part of the application process right I assume uh oh did we l Sean I think we may have I think it was at that time yeah okay we need to get Sean back wonder if he lost power could happen there's another there's another thunderstorm warning tonight I know all right um okay I'm just going to look at my notes Here Sean RS my power flickered
055and I lost internet oh my gosh okay hold on a sec oh really you can put it up on the screen did the meeting end no we're okay let me just with Sean for a sec we'll text sure um all right um it looks like I can share my screen so anybody else that can pull up the bylaw should be able to right I just have to I just have to find those bylaws and get them on top so I you may not be back for a few minutes okay we'll watch for Sean I will do my best to pull this up everything says environmental Commission close one second sorry y' okay Sean are you back I am sorry about that sorry about that for you um and I could not I'm sorry I'm lame
056doing the uh screen share um I apologize to everyone um I will pull it back up okay thank you just a quick comment while that's happening you used to be able to do it through the environmental commission and the energy commission web pages but with this the redesign of the website I can't see where that's possible anymore I'm used to I used to go to legistar and then to the commissions and click on the web page for the commission and you could get to bylaws but I don't see where they're posted anymore so maybe that someone can check that right and you know I guess we'll have to find out where we're going to be housed you know um at present we are sort of on the OSI website um I don't know if that's
057going to change or not um okay all right Sean thank you for being back and um if we could proceed do anybody have any um updates that they would like to see included in officers going to move forward with the next section on meetings so we have our regular scheduled meetings um I did not have anything to add except let's see oh just to call out the and point out for us all that a our Quorum is eight um our goal is to have 15 members and um so our sub Quorum count is Max is seven um okay we've got then the agenda and order of business that's our ual that we're doing tonight um I did not have any changes for that um and then we got article n which kind of gets us
058into the Committees and work groups so my interpretation of all this is that committies are quite formal and have um I think a specific goal um they're appointed they have more actual restrictions I think in terms of of um having agendas um posted and noticed to the community um and they require staff support is is my interpretation of this um but we can also have as in point uh 9.6 um we can have our work groups and designated in those people to perform research and develop recommendations on specific topics without creating committee so it's a little more informal and that's kind of the direction that we're going in our next discussion for tonight um does anybody have any concern or comment about that commission committees committees versus work groups and Steve you raised that point
059earlier do you think that as this is written that this is adequate for us yeah no that's good that's good um it's not clear though what um except that you know it's not clear what differentiates a committee from a work group uh says here research and develop recommendations members on the commiss Committees do assist in [Music] work committies have specific tasks that are delegated to them and um I'll just call in uh council member dish for your comment I just wondered if anybody knew what committees we currently have I'm only familiar with working groups as far as I know we don't have any that we've had sort of established working groups that have been in place for a while um that have worked on natural features specifically the pollinator group water quality um so that's
060we've been work group oriented um yeah um yeah to and in my experience here on the commission um I mean um there was a natural features committee I mean Chris isn't here today um unfortunately but um Chris Graham was participated in a committee that included Ed quite a few council members as well as um commission members and other members of the community to help you know write the um to help strengthen the natural features uh um um you know in the city's ordinances to help strengthen the treatment of natural features and that that was like um that was like 15 years ago so um you know as far as um so Chris I remember when I first started Chris was think was know we had like three council members on this committee I mean John
061Mery was a regular participant as well and so this was always counted as a committee but um um uh that's all I I remember about you know his that's my historical memory okay thank you um commissioner yman it seems like as I read this maybe moving towards having committees in instead um gives us some of what we need you know namely some structure around what the charges and ensuring that you know we're able to have the appropriate staff support um because of my experience on the Transportation Commission we've created committees and they've had a very clear charge and I think that's useful to ensuring that uh that the whole um commission is on board with what they're doing and there's kind of a defined uh point to it feel like that would be [Music] helpful
062um M dish that's those are really good points um coun um yet as I as I read this paragraph it seems pretty it seems like a lot of work to set of a committee the the committee May um may may contain community members who shall be appointed for a Time certain the commission shall forward the city council the names and qualifications of the community members appointed to committees um committee shall comply with Rob Law section of the city C I don't even know what that section is but I would wonder what's in there so um I'm wondering if rather than um I mean it it I can see how the natural features committee probably made sense if it was setting up some kind of program and had a specific outcome but if what were using
063now are work groups and the informality of the work group serves us but we really do want work groups to to have um closer relationships with staff so that people's time isn't wasted and so that there isn't friction when you know um people have invested a lot of hours into a work product that ends up not to be in a form that that the city can easily assimilate maybe we just want to I mean and other alternative so one alternatives to is to as council member adman suggested more firmly institutionalize what are now work groups and make them committees the other alternative would be to um make sure that all that we do not have so many work groups that they can't be provided sta staff support and have them work more closely with staff
064to um coordinate their tasks with things that fill gaps that that uh OSI and solid waste which are our kind of major departments actually need so um th that's just two ways of of thinking about this but we we might want to have a broader discussion of our goals before we sort of get into the nitty-gritty of deciding whether we want to be more committed these are more work groups or whatever thank you um commission Brown um yeah Lisa those are great points um I should have said this earlier but um in my mind um I have the difference between a committee and a working group over over the years has been uh the Committees are for much larger uh projects that uh go over many years uh that are likely to include more than
065a Quorum of Commissioners and council members and so uh so that's basically um the distinction is that uh the committee a committee would be a very large group working on a major multi-year project that would have over a quorum of the Commissioners and council members involved um whereas the working groups are are are under a quorum and therefore uh to conform with the open meeting acts meeting act they don't require um as much staff support there's a major distinction there uh between uh the staff support that's required for committee versus a working group I do feel like we have operated in the informal realm generally um uh commissioner Amman yeah just for comparison sake I was looking at the bylaws of the Transportation Commission and they only Define Committees and it's defined I would say
066it's kind of a middle ground basically it doesn't have all of this it doesn't have a ton of formality around it not it doesn't have the degree of formality around it as is here but it has some formality and anyway I'd be happy to share it after this meeting just in case it's helpful to look at yeah seems like we need a Clarity on this right um commissioner Dale Anya it is really hard to hear you it's your voice is going in and out um how about now yeah that's better okay so I I understand um the potential benefit of doing committees right if that means that we're going to have a um um if we're going to have if that means that it might be easier to have a deliverable move towards implementation right
067um but I think I also want to be really cognizant of the amount of staff time that gets put towards it and also the Restriction that that could happen with having to um meet all the quum requirements and stuff like that um is there the possibility to do something where you basically have you have a workg group and then when it comes time to sort of move something a little bit farther moves into committee I mean is there is there an opportunity for fluidity between that or is that something that's just is not done I don't have an absolute answer on that um looking for help there's commissioner mki uh I agree with most everything that's been said that's also the experience in the energy commission we had U subcommittees or committees and we then
068moved to working groups we don't really have any right now um my advice would be we can spend a lot of time on this in terms of the bureaucracy of this and it may not change much of anything I think uh this defines um some basic structure the one for a working group is a floor that doesn't mean that it couldn't be any more formal and we may spend a lot more time on trying to te tweak language here that may have very real very little return on the time invested um well I'll just say that I had been going into this um with the assumption that we wouldn't be making any change in this because I had the next agenda item is to talk about work groups for us um and assigning in and
069try to introduce a little bit of formality to those work groups in terms of of providing something that is kind of like a deliverable or something to to the commission as well as to our um what I see is those we we are to serve is um as advisers to council so [Music] um yeah um do we have any strong sense of where to go with this this group any strong feeling for change um commission acman just I I no it's no problem I agree with um commissioner Mery it's probably you know we should think about the value of our time in in tinger with this and if it's not you know maybe it's more important to talk about actually the working groups than it is to fle with this okay all right um does
070that mean that we could move on because I think we're close because I only found actually in the whole rest of this the only thing is that um would be the miscellaneous item 12.1 at some point we need some advice as to whether this would remain as the office of sustainability and Innovations or if it's going to be changed over to Public Services um and I don't know if Sean if you know that or if we need to just wait it's this is hardly something that's going to stop our work but just for documentation yeah my understanding is that it would switch over to Public Services um but I don't know exactly when that switch will happen and I don't know if it necessarily has to happen in this document before it happens okay okay
071so um it seems to me that there were some some elements in the purpose objectives and duties that could be modified a little bit um and looking through this and I think that's mostly it uh and and our clarification so if we can move on to our next item which is discussion of the work groups maybe the work groups thing can be finalized but I would like to say um would anybody like to uh raise a hand to just help me like tweak these these minor elements um of the purpose objectives and duties yay thank you commissioner Curtis is all right you're on um I with um your permission I would like to move on to our next item which is talking about our work groups we have um a listing of who's in which
072of the existing work groups and at our last meeting in June we had discussed creating a new biodiversity worker um oh and um Sean before we move forward I got a text message from commissioner Graham that he was waiting not sure if he says he's here I don't know if you can see him in the yes I just admitted him apologies um I forgot to check after I got back on from my power outage Journey so all right great hello um okay commissioner Graham welcome to the meeting um and the uh our next thing was to talk about these word groups so we had um a circular economy work group and I don't know Sean do you mind sharing screen again and just doing that little table because I'm thinking that we could um shuffle
073a few names around to create our new list of members and see if everybody likes it sure um also to uh commissioner mki your point earlier about um the location of the bylaws on the website uh those are uh if you go to the office of sustainability Innovations homepage and then the about section then underneath of that there's sustainability related boards and commissions and that's where you can find it right let me pull up the work groups document great thank you so what um I put together this table um actually based on something that commissioner Curtis put together thank you very much um and uh just so right now let's just look at like who's listed we have and then the work groups that are listed we've got circular economy um and with the members
074listed I'm just going to ask whether you wish to continue in your role in that group in working together uh and that would be commissioner Brown commissioner Cowart commissioner Dale you were listed as an observer and that was sort of like a kind of not so well- defined but it's like get to get to at least see what's going on there um participation um commissioner dish and commissioner weang was also listed as an observer and that was five of us just to keep the Quorum issue in mind are those members of that th that work group the circular economy those that still want to be on that and is anybody else interested server I don't think can I ask a question I remember some people saying they wanted to kind of like keep up to
075speed what what's going on but I don't remember us kind of creating a role of Observer and in my mind that kind of goes against what we're trying to do with working groups um I think each of us have been bringing you know or we can bring you know what's going on as an updates we've been doing at each of our monthly commission meetings so I mean I'm I'm I want any everybody to be connected to it who wants to but I also I mean we've we've I think all of us all the different groups have thingss they want to move forward with and I I my sense is I I think it should be folks who can commit to kind of doing um you know whatever it is the group charts out for themselves
076okay I think that's a reasonable kind of expectation um commissioner Dale yeah likewise yeah the Observer um designation is kind of a funny one for me I think like for in my case with the circular economy um the spot where I'd like to fit in is actually be of heal where I can but specific to as it relates to you know anything that involves University or um or construction and demolition way right so it's it's not so much an observer role it's more like as me yeah and we have a plan for you anyna let me say and is there but yeah just in terms of the connection with the university just what you said yes so as that's um as I guess as long as that is clear to the work group to know
077when to tag Anya to join in it seems like that would be a way to address that does that seem right and Anya um did you want to say anything else with your hand up okay um commission Gruber I just wonder if we want to start with the new groups because if we are moving away or mushing the pollinator and natural features group together we're going to have more people than we can as it is and so if that's the case it might be that some of us on those groups would like to be members on these other groups and I'll just say that I have interest in the circular economy group as a member if there isn't enough space for all of us that are currently on the pollinator and natural future group so
078I'll just throw that out there okay okay thanks um well sure we can switch over um so biodiversity I think this so this was in response to rec recognition in that last meeting that there's great overlap in natural features and pollinators and so the thought was to make this combination so it has yet to meet um and Define itself I will say um so with that in mind um let's look at biodiversity um and I guess I could just go down and and say among the pollinator among those who are participants in pollinator and natural features I'll just go from the top um commissioner Amman council member Amman would you like to be in the biodiversity group and is it um something that interests you and yeah yes okay but I'm also happy to you
079know we have a quorum issue that can be yeah okay so let's just see where we are when we go through this um I see your hand um commissioner Brown oh I just wanted to say I mean there's no reason to include all 10 people it would just mean promoting it to a committee instead of a working group you know especially because um you know the you know the Strategic plans going on now things like that that they might require enough work that um you know that all T people you know could be busy or would it would be good to have the input of 10 people you know for work product gonna come before the the the entire commission right so I'm not aware of how that's going to work just yet um I
080was just thinking that we would say yes or no whether they want we wanted to be members of the biodiversity work group right now um so I'm not sure how to address your comment think you're muted um uh I mean I'm just saying that if all 10 people want to want to transfer natural features in p Ator to biodiversity you could just redefine it as a committee and then have and then follow the open meetings act okay got it thank you well let's see how it goes um you're next in line of uh commissioner just dish let's be wary about that because that is huge that means the meetings have to be noticed they have to be um uh there I mean there has to be a an intensity of Staff support that I do
081not know if is available for this kind of work and um it does sound like there has to be greater clarity about the group's Mission and a term limited appointment so I would sort of I would be hesitant I mean or I mean I don't want to be on this group but I really want it to get off the ground so I don't burden itself with um you know so many any requirements that it may not uh be right so maybe I'll take another tact on on on dealing with this because I have an idea of people that um are interested and I could suggest some names um and I think that the question will be what to do with others um so I was going to suggest that this group include um this work
082group include commissioner Curtis commissioner Dale commissioner Graham commissioner group U commissioner mki myself and if we had Comm council member Amman that would be seven um that would mean that for dealing with that that we have a few members and and so this is like the discussion of these work groups right we're started shuffling like shuffling cards let's figure out where to get people um where they want to be and as best possible where they can serve and in their interest levels um that is my suggestion and what we have here then is um I guess a question of do we have we don't have commissioner Marsen in a work group and I guess the question is it's like I guess you don't have to be in the work group either right um Mr mki
083yeah in terms of a quorum I probably should know this uh the answer to this question but if all 15 seats are not filled on the commission is the Quorum number based on the number of filled seats or the number of total seats including open seats because if we have a situation which I think we have right now with some openings then that potentially would vary the threshold for a quorum and might put um some of these groups into Jeopardy that's something we just probably should check and uh verify once we've put together these committees and know the number of members right my understanding go ahead Sean if you know this uh my understanding is that the Quorum is based off of the number of current members So currently we have 13 members which would
084mean a quorum is seven um so having seven members in the working group would be reaching that Quorum and would not be possible for working ah okay all right thank you uh F Brown oh um yeah I've got a lot of I got a lot of things on my plate so you can take my name off the biodiversity group okay I don't think I could really find the time for that okay between the construction and demolition stuff quality plus all the other things I'm doing I don't think I could make a meaningful contribution all right in good hands yeah um so all right so we have a seven issue on the biodiversity do we want to talk about water quality are those members who are on the water quality work group those that want to
085remain on it Mr grer I I would like to be taken off that work group okay thank you anyone else um Comm Dale I think I also I so far I have not contributed much so um for anything so very interested I can probably be taken well and that's the water quality as well is that right water quality y thank you okay so currently we've got Steve um myself Sarah nric and Macy um could I be switched to Observer okay we probably need to Define that a little bit better but okay all right and all right any other comments on this so really so pollinator just basically cross off all those names natural features cross off all those names and [Music] um then we've got circular economy is um commissioner Brown commissioner [Music] caart um
086commissioner Dale as oh there you are you have your hand up commissioner Dale I just don't know how to put my hand down on my phone okay all right okay um okay um commissioner dish uh commissioner weing are you okay with being on the circular economy um work group yes it is my life I live in breath it good all right okay so we've got um then commissioner weing also as a member on circular economy that means a little more commitment great um water we've got commissioner Brown myself commissioner nric and commissioner weang okay um all right so here we are uh commissioner Amman we've got a tough issue here with our Quorum so until until we get up to like increase our numbers I guess yeah um we could invite you back in would
087that be reasonable oh yeah no problem y okay with commissioner Brown dropping out uh we would have seven or six members in biodiversity which would not be me with Council two three four five six see I've got seven so I've got I'll go through what I think U commissioner Amman then we'll leave it um commissioner Curtis commissioner Dale commissioner Graham commissioner guber uh commissioner mki and myself apologies I had left commissioner gero four five six seven yeah okay so um commissioner Amman I appreciate your flexibility and we'll call you in we're gonna get staff we're gonna get back up to our numbers um and we'll take it from there so um I believe that we have these groups established I think that we need to um do a little bit of of um clarification for
088each of them as to um kind of like a mission and plan for the year I think that would be worthwhile what we can expect from each other as as members of these groups um and maybe that's something that we could talk about at our next meeting um so with that I would like to conclude this discussion if unless there's someone with something else to say and then thank you all I know this is this is like not what we're used to um I'm hoping that we get back up into content in our coming meetings um we are we can now go through our reports from committees and staff [Music] um okay um and what I'll do is I'll just name off the the work groups and we'll see how things are going um circular
089economy commissioner Cowart do you have any anything to report uh we've got our meeting Wednesday at 9: uh invitations was circulated for that a while ago we're going to build out the of goal areas that we talked about at the June meeting and um we are really going to I think Focus on construction and Demolition and then the other two you know will we want to wait on the circular economy strategy because there's also a open staff position in the city for that that it would be good to wait and coordinate and then there's still a lot of conversations going on around metrics but we think we can move ahead with some really significant and I think useful work with construction and demolition at this time right look forward to hearing more um so next
090on my list is pollinators but pollinators well we do have a little bit um I'm gonna ask Sean um to talk about what's coming up for pollinators that's now going to be moved into biodiversity um if you don't mind Sean talking about our September event sure uh on September 10th please correct me if that's wrong I have several events in September so I'm keeping track of mple dates I believe it's the 10th uh which is a Sunday um from 2: to 6: p.m. we will be doing a pollinators walking tour um that is going to be uh we're going to have a central location at uh Blom me Works uh where we'll have tables for folks to come in and learn about pollinators and how they can help to protect pollinators by planting native plant
091species um leaving the leaves in the fall otherwise uh following our suggestions under the pollinator or a y Care Program um and then from there uh we will have a virtual map that they'll be able to go uh visit as many spots on this walking tour as they want uh they're all downtown areas um city parks uh University of Michigan sites um a few private residences of folks who have agreed to have their their yards open during that time period um to go around and take a look at uh the um infrastructure that we have in place to support bators whether that's you know native plant Gardens or beehives um or what have you uh and I believe there will also be honey and apple tastings at Blum um and yeah so it should be
092a really fun event uh if you are available then we encourage you to stop by yeah and I want to thank Sean for doing a lot of the background work on this and getting it started it's G to be fun you should all come um okay water quality do we have a report on water quality yeah yeah um we haven't met since may actually but um we have some ongoing things um one is that's uh commissioner nedrich is um inquiring with the city about the use of brine in the city she's following up on chloride pollution and um which comes mostly from road salt applications and um I myself I'm looking into U um into looking about into inquiring with City staff about storm water where floods have uh which neighborhoods have experienced flooding recently
093and um we're also participating in the uh as observers in the Heron River wack council's mid Heron um working group which has quarterly meetings uh there was one um within the last month uh where various items were discussed um of interest to this group would be the uh the response to the uh um you know to the uh eag the the eaga consent judgment regarding nutrient pollution to the herant river you know which which is mostly phosphorus rather than nitrogen and so um there's a working group within um the Heron River watered Council it's coordinating governmental actions on that uh but I don't have any details about that yet and then um we're also looking into uh reviewing the green streets um initiative and um and so uh and also I'm pursuing um uh part
09420 known part 2011 sites in the Allen Creek upper Allen Creek drainage because of some residents have noticed a lot of uh often there's a a strong petroleum smell coming out of the ground in West Park so we're going to see if we can track down where that's coming from and maybe get some um action on a part 2011 site U but we haven't located which one is the problem or maybe maybe there's a new part 2011 site who knows that's it all right thank you very much um natural features so this will be the last report from natural features we're going to be biodiversity next time um Chris Graham is there anything that that you have to report that on the natural speeches work diversity and natural features are all going to be one
095committee yeah wow yeah wellow we haven't gone very far with natural features except some of us met with Derek Dort and he expressed great affinity for natural features in the city and warned us that uh there were lots of competing priorities and I suggested to him that protecting natural features was established policy by unanimous vote of the council 20 years ago and it's not something that ought to be set aside for new priorities and he said well we'll do the best we can uh meanwhile uh the master planning process apparently is not even begun yet and we again asked to be party at the table not as commenters from the public but as other City officials involved with um that process at least in so far as the natural features master plan part of it
096is concerned and he said well there are a lot of other people want to be part of that process and I said okay we said okay and so we'll see how that works out in any case it's wonderful to have um things happening with pollinators it kind of refreshes the wheels and U I'm not sure Sean was talking about the Monarch festival at Lessie Park if that's what he was talking about then it's coming up in early September and Lane and I went last year and it was wonderful apparently there's a fundraising dinner the night before or Friday night and I guess the festival goes all weekend but um that turned out to be a very fun event and um well worth your time um there's a pollinator hunt team as part of the wolf
097pack that has made a major donation in support of that Festival um and they met today and have a long list of things they're trying to do too um pollinators are flying and certainly they been butterflies in our garden um black swallow taals yellow swallow Tales monarchs um it's late summer the flowers are out there and things are great for pollinators thank you yep thank you um the next group I have is uh planning board M dis I see your Hann now um I wanted to offer just a little bit of perspective on the meeting that we had with Mr delort in terms of planning uh are I don't think that there's anything I don't think there's anything directly of interest to this group um but I did miss the last meeting and um so
098in any case we'll have to I will have to remember that I need to be reporing to you guys since we don't have a a member yet but I did just want to say that I I my understanding of what this notion of computing priorities is it's not that their competing priorities in natural fatures scores low the idea is that um in any decision that we look at we are looking at natural features we are looking at other aspects of sustainability like electrification we are looking at creating housing in the context of a housing crisis and that the comprehensive planning process is the appropriate place for people to deliberate the relative weight of all of those things and that any one group may have its leading issue but it is through the comprehensive planning process
099that we get full public engagement and feedback around how um how people generally want us to prioritize those things or how we work through because it's it's not as if I say oh well today natural features doesn't matter to me um but tomorrow it will and then the day after I'll prioritize housing you're always weighing all of these things in every decision that you're making and you're never coming up with something that is good all the way around and Derek sometimes likes to say if a decision pleases no one you've probably actually gotten it right because you've gotten something right about every little thing but nobody is totally happy so I don't want anyone in this group to feel that natural features is taking a backseat to other things it is absolutely Central to this
100comprehensive planning process and that process is underway the planning team is in town in a week and doing stakeholder interviews with council members um and I think I don't know if there's other parts of the city going on right now and um it's series of public engagement meetings are going to be planned and up and running very soon so um you know I just I I really don't want especially Chris to feel like that work is wasted or or not honored um thank you C dish I think we'll all be feel better when we can see it and understand it you know right now it's kind of a theoretical and until we see it it'll that's when we'll um understand and be able to discuss better I think um um I know that um commissioner
101maren is not here um council member Amman do you have comments on Transportation I do thank you one thing uh this isn't Transportation Commission related but it's Transportation related um Friday September 22nd is world carfree day and there is a carfree day challenge going on actually for um the week of September 22nd to September 29th from the get downtown program um you can Google that and participate in it just as encouraging people to take bikes buses scooters and more uh you can show your environmental impact and win prizes um the other thing Transportation related is that we just passed in Transportation Commission a change to the neighborhood traffic calming program that makes it easier and more accessible to add in changes as we reconstruct roads that make the roadway um safer and more amenable to
102people who are outside of cars um right now that program is completely separate from Road reconstruction it's a petition Le process um certain elements that are useful for calming traffic are only used in that program and so they're not used outside of the petition process and so a funny thing can happen where basically they're reconstructing a road and they know that there's a speed problem and there's a certain set of elements that are completely off the table because um they're part of the petition Le neighborhood traffic homing program so anyway Transportation Commission and a subcommittee of that has been working hard on changes to that um for probably nine months and now has something that they're they forwarded to council and I'm bringing that forward hopefully for the next meeting a couple of other random
103non-transportation related things I'm not sure if people know about the um hon River Watershed Council fundraiser that's on the 7th sluds on the river I'll be there hopefully maybe I'll see some of you there too and uh last but not least some of our colleagues on Council myself that included went to Boston recently to learn about how they're doing District geothermal and it sounds like that was a really fruitful trip for all involved Dr staltz was there um the mayor was there a couple of other of my colleagues were there and they also I think spoke to someone who has I think I don't know if it's like a citizen science type of project or what but he goes around and he measures gas um because basically gas is leaking sort of all the time
104and he's targeted certain neighborhoods where the levels are off the charts and I think from what I understand from my colleagues we are having that person visit an arbor to kind of show us what he does and to create a map of our city uh with this kind of like gas leaking so I thought that was pretty interesting and relevant to this group that's it that's great um the next one I have on this list is Council and so we have our two council members here J do you have anything that you would like to um comment on from Council we just passed the first reading for the second time for the home energy uh home energy rating ordinance um it was a first reading again because OSI made some changes based on questions and
105feedback um from the first first reading so that passed and we'll advance to a second reading I believe on September 5th um that's a OSI has done a really good job of putting together fre frequently asked questions as they' gotten a lot of these so if you're wanting to know more about that's a good place to go I can't think of anything else can you council member dish um probably nothing of partic specific interest in the environmental commission other than that one that just mentioned thank you very much um I so I'm going to do a a chair's report I just want to say that um since our last meeting in June um Steve Brown and I went to the um Compost Facility and participated in the audit of compost sorting through a selection of
106composted composted delivered materials to find out what we get and there was plastic there was some treated wood there were some things that were inappropriate for that um and right now we're wait waiting for um the full analysis of what's going on with composting and that will be used to direct um information that will be given to the public in the future um I want to remind and encourage anyone who um uh know some youth candidates that we are seeking those youth candidates and we do have a form that we could distribute to all of the Commissioners to um pass out to um people you know or to post in an area that would be visible to um get an additional commissioner it would be great so um either Sean or I will forward that
107form to you it's just a quick write up of of what the commission does um I welcome your help um and then just to report on the ongoing monitoring of the one4 dioxine plume um there has been some testing that was reported just today in mli um that identified some low levels of one4 Dio saying in private wells in Township area s Township in an area that's north of the boundary of the um oh gosh the the plume boundary that's been determined um and so this is what's um not known at this point is whether this is actually new or if it's been there for a while so there will be some subsequent testing um ideally this will be used to support the expansion of the ongoing monitoring um as well as just support moving
108toward an EPA super fun um designation so stay tuned on that um the other thing is we had a big rain event yesterday um pretty intense not so much necessarily in an arbor but it was surprisingly intense so um we are living through climate change right now um I would say yeah four and a quarter inches in my house four and a quarter yikes the road and yeah yikes okay um that's the end of my report um and Sean provided the report from staff thank you very much Sean if there's anything you want to add to um that that well apologies I may have missed it um but looking at my notes I don't know did we have an energy commission report out oh I'm sorry you're right thank you commissioner mki sure uh at
109our August 8th meeting we had two interesting presentations first of all one about the grid electrical grid with a representative from the University of Michigan who studies grid and grid reliability and then from DTE uh the second was uh the updated greenhouse gas inventory for 2022 uh if I can just summarize both of those real quickly uh I I'd call everybody's attention to the DTE report it was covered I think fairly accurately in M live and the reason why I want to call people's attention to it is that um it really was devoid of any specifics um there was a lot of talk about improvements and reliability a lot of improvements about improvements in the grid and that the grid was going to be was one of the best in the nation in 10 to
11015 years but in terms of real specifics real measurables real commitments something that we could hold DTE to there really was was nothing um and given that we have a carbon neutrality Target of 2030 and they're talking 10 to 15 years there seems to be a mismatch there um Missy in her opening or very early in the Monday meeting to council she talked about the fact that it's likely that we'll have more meetings with DTE and I think it's really important that the energy commission and also city council holds DTE accountable um and not just give really sort of anecdotal information about what they're doing um so if you're interested go to legis star or go to YouTube and watch city government Channel and watch that um the other uh topic was as I mentioned
111the greenhouse gas inventory real quick summary it's not yet posted to osi's greenhouse gas inventory web uh page U but you can also find the report on legistar greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 were up 99.6% over 2021 they are down uh 3.3% versus 209 the last year before the pandemic um if you look back all the way to 2020 or to 2000 I should say um and the the inventory was done a little bit differently but basically um we're reducing emissions at the rate of about 1% per year um it's been a little bit faster than that um between 1 and 2% since 2015 but we're basically reducing emissions at at about that clip so if you look at what we need to get to by 2030 we have really a tall task um in
112front of us let's see if there's anything else that I wanted to say [Music] um I think that's it thank you very much thank you sorry for missing that earlier um all right we are now [Music] uh um items for our next agenda you can see on on our agenda that we're looking for um a presentation from the group called Perpetual um that will deal with the um circular economy if any other council member wants to propose something for the agenda please let me and Sean know that'd be great um so with that um we are at our second public comment time unless I missed anything else Sean uh believe the next scheduled meeting is announced before the public oh okay the next scheduled meeting is September 28th at 7 pm so we will see
113you here on the little screen um and John Kart has his hand up oh I'm sorry uh just the the question I had was I if I missed it I'm sorry but Sean were you gonna be circulating that updated list of uh working group members it would just be helpful to have that sooner rather than later yes I will uh distribute that with the followup from this meeting thank you thank you for checking on that all right um and with that I'm going to move to the second public comment this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 888 78899 and enter meeting ID 922 969 9 61644 UM City staff will select the callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of
114your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand please press star n on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that you may hear we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and um Sean do you see any people listening or with their hands raised we do not have any callers currently okay we give it a brief wait okay Sean do you see anyone now there are no callers okay so with that I would um appreciate a motion to adjourn the meeting commissioner kver I see a couple of seconds and move to adjourn anybody say I thank you thank you very
115much for sticking through this me meeting um administrative stuff um still will help us I think in the end so um thank you I appreciate it there'll be some follow-up messages coming and um we'll see you in September bye good night everybody thank you