Ann Arbor Energy Commission Meeting 4/11/23

001uh my name is John mursky I am chair of the Ann Arbor energy Commission and as chair I'm calling this meeting to order I am participating from uh Edmonds Washington uh welcome to the April 11 2023 electronic meeting of the energy Commission um this virtual meeting is to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we will conduct this meeting like in-person meetings Commissioners during roll call please indicate your current location also during the meeting please remain on camera just as you would be visible in during in-person meetings finally mute your microphone when not speaking public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the two public comment opportunities please call one of the following two toll-free numbers 877-853-5247 or 888 -788-0099 and enter the meeting ID number nine

002five six eight seven one eight 7876 on your phone this information is also available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 and 18 T channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org backslash watch CTN Joe would you please read the land acknowledgment statement yep um I acknowledge that the land the city of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including Odawa Ojibwe and bodewadmi in the Wyandotte peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways 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

003change 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 flourishing Injustice for all individuals great thank you so uh hopefully everybody has had a chance to take a look at the agenda is there a motion to the agenda as posted as well as a second so emotion from commissioner Macomber and a second from commissioner harp any discussion any changes requests as far as the agenda is concerned hearing none or seeing No Hands raised um Commissioners please raise your hand um if uh you're in favor of approving the agenda as posted uh and say I I any opposed seeing none the agenda is approved um approval of the minutes is next is there a motion the minutes before we

004go into that do you want to do roll call First oh yeah I jumped over that thank you thanks for being observant uh yeah first before I do the roll call um uh Joe and I both were informed by commissioner overpeck he is out of town and he is uh unable to event uh attend because he's attending an event this evening and council member Briggs is traveling to Colorado so she's also unable to attend as well so um thank you Joe um let's go ahead and do the roll call then thanks um commissioner maycomer president from my home in Ann Arbor commissioner Levin here in Ann Arbor chair mursky here from my Airbnb in Washington Vice chair Colvin Garcia here Ann Arbor as we said councilmember Briggs is unable to make it tonight council member

005radina you're an Ann Arbor commissioner McCoy not present for now um commissioner Kerber here in Ann Arbor as stated commissioner overpeck will be unable to make it uh commissioner Smith for my home in Ann Arbor commissioner cohenen not present for now uh commissioner zittleman president Ann Arbor commissioner McKenna president Ann Arbor commissioner harp uh here from Ann Arbor and commissioner Berkowitz here in Ann Arbor chair you have a quorum great thanks everybody for being present so we've approved the agenda and now we move on to approval of the minutes is there a motion to approve the minutes as posted and a second moved by council member Dina in a second by uh commissioner Colin Garcia uh any changes I have one minor one Joe in the vote that we took on the um one resolution

006I don't have it here in front of me um you indicate the council member Briggs voted nay but the count shows zero yeah the software and legendstar for some reason um when it comes to the council members it doesn't give them a tally of a number um I am not sure why I've talked to the person we're looking at it but yeah as of and it's similarly for others when um yeah Regina wasn't here and same thing it said didn't count the number for it okay okay yeah I know that in some commissions they don't have voting rights but in both the environmental and energy commission they do so okay good to know that okay so um anything else uh meeting minute wise if that uh then all those in favor of approving the minutes

007as posted please raise your hand and say aye aye all those opposed so it proves uh unanimously thank you very much so now we have arrived at our first opportunity for persons to speak uh and provide public input for up to three minutes if you're watching on CTN please call 888-788-0099 or 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 956 -8718-7876 this information as I mentioned is also displayed on the agenda in the video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when please or when speaking please move to a quiet

008area and mute any background noise so that we may hear you clearly and finally please state your name and address and at the beginning of your comments I don't have any hands raised but just going to give it a few seconds here okay um caller ending in one three four thank you Mr Lang and chair mursky this is Ken Garber 28 Haverhill Court calling about the gas ban ordinance resolution the Planning Commission which was taking the lead has given up on the ordinance at least for now it was last discussed there in December the commission chair has cited lawsuit threats as a reason to step back but there's only been one threat I've seen from lawyers for the Home Builders Association of Michigan or hbam hbm also threatened the state of Michigan over its state

009energy code revision this is a very backwards looking organization which has sued the state before and lost and which our local Builders split off from several years ago hbm's lawyers shouldn't be dictating City policy I mean did we really think that we could meaningfully reduce the city's missions without antagonizing companies invested in the status quo change doesn't work that way the a20 plan three years in is failing in plain view because it's coming up against forces that are determined to resist real change that includes the construction industry and most developers and DTE Energy but the answer is not to back down over 90 cities and Counties have now restricted gas and new construction there have been a few lawsuits but those cities are holding firm 830 did have a strategy the state would pass the

0102021 iecc zero codependence that didn't happen predictably I would say and we wasted three years while approving 22 separate gas burning developments then we got the gas ban ordinance and presumably there was some legal basis for putting that forward but we quickly caved to hvam and DTE on that there is no plan C that I can see the heat franchise discussion has nothing to do with this I don't see ending new gas connections on the list of ideas for tonight and even if it were it would happen too late every two to four weeks we're faced with another gas burning project tomorrow the design review board will consider the course basis project on William 16 stories 230 000 square feet gas heat apparently this building alone will put 1 580 metric tons CO2 equivalent emissions

011each year into the atmosphere from burning gas in two weeks or a month it'll be something else this is madness we can't be locking in new fossil fuel infrastructure for decades to come 30 seconds yeah so please approve the resolution tonight we need to send the most forceful message possible as fast as possible even consider removing the second resolve clause it's carefully worded but no matter how it's worded I fear it will be an excuse to ignore the first resolve cause the ordinance itself I think this is already happening thank you for your comments thank you um we have one more caller ending in two to eight hello can you hear me yep yes awesome thank you my name is Greg Woodring I'm president of Ann Arbor for Public Power ing in for one to

012also uh and full heartedly endorse passing the recommendation on the gas ban ordinance uh as uh the previous speaker fantastically put it it's absolutely impairment that we move on Banning these gas connections well uh renegotiating the gas franchise agreement with DTE is prudent and uh just good governance absolutely should be done and we should get every concession we can uh we can't continue to continue to allow these gas burning buildings if we ever want to reach our climate goals it's simply locking in costs that we're going to have to pay and pay off later um but I also wanted to call in to just raise attention to the fact that we are moving into budgetary uh season uh the feasibility study on municipalization that this commission uh recommended back in December of 21 and was

013approved in January of 22 by city council uh will be finishing here in June uh however we are looking to approve a budget in May for the city uh just a reminder on the timeline for uh moving forward with municipalization should the city choose to do so the next step after this feasibility study would be to get a heart valuation of phase two feasibility study uh which would tell us more directly what the actual cost of BT's assets would be and would help the city in legal processes during the acquisition while we may do not know currently if the city wants to move forward with municipalization and certainly the results of the feasibility study will inform that it seems prudent to at least entertain the idea that the results may be positive enough for the

014city to want to move forward with municipalization and given that uh issues uh P2 is recommending that the city put a budgetary placeholder in for the study of half a million dollars to uh be prepared in an event that the city wants to move forward with that that way we don't need to worry about moving around funding or figuring out where it's going to be cut from if we decide to fund such a study uh throughout the rest of the year um so just wanted to put that on everyone's radar if you are interested in more 30 seconds so process looks like and what next steps would be I encourage you to reach out to Ann Arbor publicpower gmail.com we'd be happy to set up time to talk you through it also the um July

0152021 energy commission meeting Chris bizdoc was in attendance it's still on YouTube and he's a energy lawyer from Traverse City that laid it out very well is very informative I would recommend that you all give it a look so thank you very much for your time looking forward to a great meeting thank you thank you yes uh no more callers okay good I think we'll go ahead and move on then uh we're now in the body of the meeting um and the first point on the agenda is a presentation about um an Ann Arbor heating franchise discussion or our gas franchise and we are honored to have Missy Stoltz present to us tonight everybody forgive me hi it's good to see you all thank you for the opportunity to be here uh I don't feel

016fabulous and my voice is probably gonna go so I'm sorry but I'm gonna I'm gonna do my best uh I'm really excited to be here today you are the first in our public engagement process I'm gonna share my screen here in just a second and so as you know city council authorized the administrator to begin exploring a new uh heating franchise and you are the first stakeholder group that we want to talk to and got just a few slides and I want to walk through for today just want to share a little bit about what a franchise is as well as what a franchise is not a little bit of background about what we've been doing and then I want to kick it over just to a listening session so we want to hear from

017you your ideas and I have some initial kind of thoughts just they're really nothing more than just kind of conversation starters to get your head thinking about the kinds of variables you may uh want to give feedback on and then I'm going to end with next steps and of course there's lots of ways to engage in this process so don't worry if you didn't get a chance to look at the agenda until right now and weren't prepared for this conversation that's okay uh we we will have lots of opportunity for your feedback so let me start by sharing what a franchise is some of you may know this but a franchise is a contract between a local unit of government Marcus the city and a utility and that franchise really covers governs two things it

018governs the use of the public rights of way right our streets think where um someone like Comcast or dtecas might lay pipes or their infrastructure it governs how what they do what kind of quality they have to return infrastructure to the kinds of communications that may take place between the city and that utility kind of all elements about the use of that public rights of way and the second thing in Michigan that a franchise does is it sets the conditions under which that company doesn't have to be utility but that company May for a set period of time provide that specific service right so one governs use of Rights of ways the other governments kind of if you will the way they operate in the community and we've also seen in recent years franchises have

019included some additional terms including in places like Chicago Salt Lake City and San Diego where they've successfully Advanced affordability equity and clean energy goals via their franchises or via Associated agreements afternoon excuse me often known as City utility Partnerships which come out of franchise negotiations thanks y'all and you can find more about this on our website but I do want to take a moment and I'm not going to go through this image many of you know this but for those who don't and for our viewers the guest system is actually quite complicated it's not as simple as we get gas out of the system we move it through pipes and instantly it's in your home there's actually a lot that goes in to natural gas use in a home or in a business all the

020way from kind of the production side of things where we're drilling we have to do separation within that system we have to refine the materials that are coming out and that can take lots of different forms depending on the specific gas and where we get it from there's of course the transmission system and then there's our distribution system let alone uh the point of use in our homes or businesses and what this means is one is complicated but two there's actually a lot of energy that goes into this process to extract energy and there's a lot of opportunity for the system to be inefficient and we've learned more and more over the last several years about methane leakages as an example and of course I should I should not take this for granted natural gas

021is primarily methane right so there's an incredibly potent greenhouse gas up to 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide as it's released into the atmosphere and so any leakage of methane through this system is really significant in terms of our clinicals and objectives so I just want to share that this is important for us as we're looking at how we get our homes in a safe healthy and affordable way and of course we've got our climate goals and so we want to understand how we can minimize both the impacts in terms of climate from the way that we heat our homes and the impacts on you know family issues like pocketbook uh issues that people are facing as our energy process arising so just a little history here about Ann Arbor seating franchise our last

022eating franchise was adopted in 1997. it's a 30-year franchise this is pretty traditional in the field in fact in Michigan most franchises are 30 years it's a traditional franchise largely governing the rights of way it expires in 2027 but also in Michigan the franchises are revocable at will unless they go to a vote of the people and a vote of the people can allow them to extend beyond 30 years but that's rarely done because things change right and 30 years is a lot a lot of time so we're going to get the best deal you can and then you you go about your business no I do also want to point out that in Michigan you must have a franchise to provide a utility service in a second I'll talk about some of the research

023we've been doing on our side there are parts of the country right now that have continued having Utility Services while still negotiating an expired franchise that would not be legal in Michigan so we must have a franchise to provide a given service and we are very very interested in looking to integrate our residence desires for Clean safe healthy affordable and reliable heat into any future franchise and I have franchises because we are open to lots of different Pathways for how we can achieve these goals of Clean safe healthy affordable Reliable Heating for our residents and I'm going to use the word heating but I want to name heating it's truly what we're talking about here if you think about you heat your food you eat your home you heat your water okay so that's sorry

024that's a framework we'll stick with on this so just quickly in terms of what we've done today we have been uh reviewing a lot of City franchises especially newer franchises and franchises from peer cities that have similarly aggressive climate and Equity goals we've spoken to a number of our peers around the nation so certainly we've read the materials that they have but we've also talked to them about their experience why they chose to do what they did how they negotiated for what they did the kind of the rationale and their thinking we certainly reviewed Ann Arbor's previous franchise and you can find that actually if you're interested it's listed online um and then we started speaking internally with our other staffs about opportunity for improvement right so thinking about the folks that work in the

025rights of way what what's working really really well right now in terms of coordination and what's not and where are there opportunities for refinement uh and then we have continued to look at and start talking to other utilities that are doing really aggressive uh things around affordability safety health and climate action to understand kind of the heating solutions that they're pursuing and then you know this Council adopted a resolution a few weeks ago directing the city administrator to begin negotiating a new franchise uh importantly that franchise and that resolution is agnostic to the provider of the service but reiterates the goals and the objectives we also launched a website that we're keeping up to date as we're finding more information and you can see that and we have launched an email address to start Gathering

026feedback and we have received some feedback from residents it's franchise feedback at 82gov.org where we're just looking for residence ideas they're concerns uh what they're hopeful for in terms of what a franchise looks like what they want to make sure that we're thinking about we're seeing some stories of individuals their lived experience and what they want to make sure that we're very intentional about addressing as we move forward in this process so this is the last kind of talking thing I'm going to put out there this slide and the next slide just has some general seating questions this is generative only please don't take this there's anything other than that but the idea as we looked across all these other franchises and we've been thinking about the goals that we have in the community some

027of the things that we've started talking about are negotiating around contract length certainly the rights of way how people operate the communications in that system finding alternative sources of heating such as District geothermal or network geothermal systems having deeper Energy Efficiency programs creating new low income programs enhancing safety gas is not an inherently safe system so what are we going to do to make sure that we have safety improvements working on air quality and health enhancements price stabilization right we've seen fluctuations over the last two years in terms of our Energy prices what can we do in that space a greater accountability greater transparency into how things operate coordination or and of course climate action so these are some of the variables I just want to put forward as you're as you're starting to think

028and now I'm going to be quiet I'm not meant to answer questions in this session as you can probably tell I don't think my voice could take much more I'm just going to start taking notes but these are up here just to kind of get you thinking um so chairman I think I'll turn it over to you and I'm going to grab a pen and paper thank you missy so um I think that's really an excellent Framing and one that leaves things wide open for uh our input and for discussion and that's exactly what we wanted to do tonight and I think I can safely say since uh this is a process that is likely to take a couple of years that um just because you don't say something tonight that doesn't mean that you

029can't raise a point next week or next month or potentially even next year so keep that in mind and I'm sure that we will be as a commission as well as the city and as well as any maybe support resources we're using we'll be looking at developments in this field across the country so that we'll we're able to use those lessons learns and best practices here so um with that said um I'd like to open things up for comments and discussion Council or commissioner Macomber I'm um curious to know how much leverage we have um have other cities have been able to exercise leverage to um achieve some of these goals through their franchise negotiations so I'll take that question but I really don't mean to have a q a right now I'm not going

030to be my voice isn't going to take it I'm sorry so um I'll just share that yes they have and there's that's why we pointed to some other examples happy to come back with more yeah that's good so what we'll do here is um where where it's appropriate and possible we're just going to capture these points and um the city has a website uh as was shown and so hopefully some of these questions Missy maybe uh I maybe we can just say that um I can't remember if there's an FAQ I think there is is there FAQ already there and we we do point to some other cities so right um explicitly right with with that in mind let's let's take this as an opportunity to add questions that could be addressed on the FAQ

031not only for our purposes but also to inform the general public so um commissioner Smith okay thank you uh yeah so certainly um a great starting point in terms of uh you know ideas to consider as part of uh you know franchise here uh I'd be interested and totally understood that this uh you know answered me uh need to be forthcoming um but if you could share the outcomes um of the peer City review and any learnings um in that process to uh you know help us potentially leverage this opportunity to not only further decarbonization goals but provide uh you know clean safe uh reliable energy um uh here I think that may be helpful if if at all possible um and then I think we could provide you know be able to let better

032lovers out to provide more specific recommendations in terms hmm thank you commissioner McKenna thank you um first of all thank you so much Missy for being here and for sharing this with us it means a lot to me that we kind of get to um to look at it together first before it really goes out um to the broader audience and I look forward to participating along the way um I want to share a couple of of things that come to mind um you know having worked in um kind of uh I guess policy strategy not specifically in policy but in strategy like I mentioned uh previously in my work with Massachusetts cities and towns that were um trying to ban Natural Gas there was an effort there and I know that that Missy may

033be already looking to this but there was an effort there in Massachusetts because of actually a natural gas explosion that occurred I believe it was in 2017. um there was a um I think there was a utility gas utility bankruptcy that happened there and ultimately there was a chance for actually it was um like a self-organized non-profit along with with city um Town governments to come together to actually propose a change like almost um you know very similar in the nature of what's being proposed or at least the idea that's being proposed and the kinds of goals around affordability safety um definitely climate was was at the top of a list of goals and what was proposed um in Eastern Massachusetts was was this idea of a geothermal Network that would provide heating Services um

034to businesses and homes um in these mainly residential districts on the east coast and and so I looked at that as one of the um I believe that they're implementing it now it was funded through like I mentioned this um bankruptcy um of the utility and so it's cool because they had a lot of funds going into it and a lot of um movement around right like a bit of a crisis um so I don't know I wasn't intending to say this but I guess I would just um advocate for us all to think about actually what we're in as our own kind of Crisis and our own kind of opportunity and although it's not being um motivated by you know something incredibly tragic I think that that's great for us um but I think

035that we should still move with urgency and I really support what's being proposed um but I will say um I love the idea of um these um the research being done with other cities uh and States but I I would like to kind of raise my concern for I think the most intricate part of what um what what would need to happen to actually make an alternative heating franchise work which is that uh that Baker basically proper um in measurements not a great word from psychology but like um mixing of Energy Efficiency retrofits and whatever Alternative Energy System or Energy System is proposed um I think that that's a place where Ann Arbor could really be a leader and I know that um a lot of work in Energy Efficiency retrofits has already been proposed

036we heard some great information last time Missy about um the kind of like deeper um engagement with with citizens um through the concierge process or just like really getting folks what they need and so yeah I would just stress my support for high quality retrofits coming along with anything that's proposed in terms of uh renegotiation or franchise or a potential alternative energy source I think like uh just Ann Arbor has the potential to really go above and beyond even what other cities have done and I think that we shouldn't limit ourselves to just um kind of sitting within the uh what others have done but really taking the opportunity given the opportunity that we have with this two and a half or three years to renegotiate to really dream this up I think putting everything

037we have behind it um is is a great a great move so thanks for sharing thank you uh before I call on the next Commissioners I just want to piggyback on that uh for other Commissioners and for the general Public's interests um there's a non-profit in the Boston area called heat h-e-e-t and I encourage everyone to look at their website um there are also um a couple of videos um actually several videos um where they're um like webinars or talking about the the piloting process I think um Claire mentioned there's Pilots that are already at least in process um so um I encourage all of you to look at what's going on there and there's probably other other such uh developments because this is something that's obviously starting to catch on there's a lot of

038other people that are looking this at an opportunity so um uh I uh maybe Missy you can just give a thumbs up or thumbs down is is he mentioned on the city web page for the gas franchise and I don't know if they are but we've talked them a lot so I can easily ask them I am going to risk it and say two things really quick one um commissioner Comber uh just and Claire you mentioned this too the examples I gave are from other franchises right like so the ideas of contract length or efficiency like that's coming from other franchise agreements so you're starting to see like that right the kinds of things no one has asked for everything that I put on that list but some that last for many of those things

039and then secondly um I've heard uh it a few times that this will take until 2027. it's actually not the direction we've been given we've been given to move as fast as possible um and so we have a we have a goal of within a year and a half to have a renegotiated franchise because they're permeable at will so I just want to name that uh you have a lot of time to think about this but this is not oh ho hum let's swivel our fingers to 2027 I love the franchise good points uh commissioner I thanks for that um you know this I think my comment is just a clarification about um I think Heating in the franchise and is it it's as much a question about what are we really after in the

040outcomes and it seems to me that a big part of it is really about thermal Comfort um and how we achieve thermal Comfort through a variety of different means and so part of that is just to raise the question in terms of how how you know what are the limitations what are the requirements what are the you know is this about heating or is this really about the comfort of people in their homes in you know in their ability to have warm water cool water uh and comfort in a variety of contexts versus heating writ large and so I you know I don't know the extent to which repitching um that kind of approach changes or diversifies the conversation some but it it's just a look you know across a variety of different ways in

041which we might be able to achieve Comfort through a variety of different options others I think commissioner Calvin Garcia you had your hand up but you took it down or did you have anything to say or share uh several of the uh Commissioners who have spoken already and and also um Missy you answered my questions yeah I had several questions and you guys covered it so thank you great uh others um so I'm going to Rattle off a couple of things and that may allow people also to come up with their own ideas um first of all I'm wondering and all these can be answered later so I don't think you have to attempt to answer any of these tonight uh are there compliance reviews with the current franchise and um has a DTE been

042in compliance with um the uh let's say requirements in the franchise um then related to that I think one of the things that we definitely want to think about are what kind of smart goals we want to have for all the different kinds of parameters that you've talked about and what those Associated metrics would be and what the associated benchmarks or or targets would be not just as a a goal 10 or 30 years or whatever it might be out but hopefully you know like goals every year or every five years or something like that um some other things that I wrote noted down was um who else if not DTE um and uh and that that doesn't again need to be answered um and is could that for example be a city-owned um heating

043or natural gas franchise and could that be for example an extension of the seu or an extension of a fully Municipal utility like we've discussed on the electrical side um could do those have to stay separate or could they be merged or could they be merged with their still two franchises but maybe the same entity like a city-owned entity um holding that franchise um and then you talked about the aggressive timeline that's good to hear the question that I have is if we are not able to achieve the timeline in the desired uh let's say one and a half year Target it sounds like then we would still have another year and a half roughly to be able to go out and find an alternative solution and I think that that's very prudent we don't

044want to negotiate negotiate negotiate and then be feel like we're backed backed into a a corner without having a um some some fallback plan um and and not just obviously one that we um don't really favor but a good fallback plan and then um I almost certain that this is uh part of the plans so there's not only uh geothermal but we also have a large Wastewater um infrastructure um and if you think of all of the showers that we take and all of the other things that we do and we flush that now I'm down into the sewer system that's one massive geothermal Network so hopefully that's something that we can also consider that potentially could be leveraged and utilized in in the new franchise agreement that we that we negotiate so those are

045just some of the things that I wanted to put out there I'm pretty sure all these things have already been thought of because I know we have really capable staff and that you've been talking to other other entities but these may be particulars that lead to other kinds of ideas so those are the ideas that I had and hopefully others in the meantime have come up with a few more comments and insights that they want to share uh commissioner Levin uh yeah thanks John uh I first of all I agree with uh some a lot of what's already even said uh the geothermal possibilities I mean that would be great if we could get something like that as a potential option or I don't even know what other Technologies could possibly be similar to that

046but um but I I guess possibly it could also have more incentives that would allow a person to transition to something in their own home I don't know if that's something that could be part of the franchise or not agreement um I also I don't know how How likely it is or other places have done this but getting a shorter time period than 30 years um certainly would give us more leverage and we could see where things are going and I mean what we'll know you know where we are with our climate goals you know maybe 10 maybe a 10-year agreement possibly um you could also make you could also maybe get more uh sophisticated with it in terms of certain things that we would like to see certain conditions that would uh we'd want

047to be met within a certain number of years in order for the agreement to continue uh that would give us more outs from the agreement if they're not doing uh the things that we want them to do with in terms of climate goals or Etc and yeah I think that's all I wanted to add thank you others I'll I'll raise two other points that I forgot to mention that have been expressed to me and um that is um whether or not um or the franchise agreement should should be transparent in terms of its use of uh green natural gas I think there's a lot of concern that um we had a presentation for example from DTE on what they're doing in the gas area um and um there's I think probably concern in the uh

048in in the residents among residents that potentially this is an opportunity for DTE to be able to provide green gas I think another question that we'll want residents want to understand is uh what if any role um hydrogen might play as far as I know hydrogen can be mixed in with natural gas or possibly even used as a substitute um with a lot of its own um questions and issues so I think we want to make sure that we're transparent with the the general public on what we're doing in both of those regards as well any go ahead Missy do you want to say something I was just going to close out um unless yeah so I will personally thank you all so much for your comments um there were two issues I just want

049to really quickly name which is uh we probably will not form uh Municipal utility on gas because we want to face down gas and that would be like we could make that business model work right if you're trying to drive your model down uh that said there are other like things so I just wanted to name that that's the one that we're not I'm not personally super keen on getting a gas franchise if gas isn't safe healthy affordable and reliable um and then for biogas just want to share I don't think we updated you all because we are working on lots of things but we submitted comments to the Michigan Public Service Commission for the carbon Reduction Program a lot of applications that came into that program were biogas based applications and uh we requested

050denial of all of them as staff based on the elements of that so biogas is it's going to have to be something like a biodigester at the wastewater treatment plant where we're taking you know something that's a continual product and transitioning it over um that is my opinion on this issue but there's very few I would argue actual green gas Solutions and perhaps again this is just messy speaking I I think that we may want to preserve those for the hard to decarbonize Industries but that's just my stance um all right let me close out here with just what's next and thank you all so much I know this is a kitty heady Petey that was maybe not intentional but I'm enjoying it a lot that was a heavy uh conversation so coming soon we've

051got uh Town Halls that we're starting uh we're just starting to look at the kind of calendar right now you were our first uh group to go have conversations with so we're gonna go not just get ideas from a slew of different stakeholders especially folks who have like no idea about this topic but really obviously want to make sure that they have heat when they need it we also are working on a request for ideas this is for anyone in the public but also and perhaps more for industry and our Utility Partners around the country to come and give us their ideas what do you think you could do to help us decarbonize our heating system to make sure we have safe healthy and affordable heating for every resident in Ann Arbor so there were

052basically basically saying to the marketplace bring us some really good ideas too we'll release all of the ideas section so the public can see them and then in the interim if anyone has other thoughts or feedback the website is open so please do share any thoughts you have at franchise feedback h2gov.org and that can be as I mentioned before um we've already got some but it can be of any flavor a really great idea that you have a concern that you're holding something you want to make sure we consider in the negotiations uh anything is is welcome as we move forward and then the last thing I'd share is Staff I've started to reach out to the two utilities including DT gas but others that have goals of decarbonizing heating to understand the services they

053provide and to honestly build build a bench if you will of organizations that we could be in discussions with to make sure that Anna Marines get the very best deal and best solution to ensure that they have safe healthy and affordable heating because you've seen this on our website but in the end I believe this with my whole heart no one should have to sacrifice their health to he and cooler homes and that's what we believe fundamentally in our office and we're committed defining Solutions that help people do that so thanks thank you missy by the way missy unless I misunderstood the image on the right we might want to switch that because it has the Heat going into the ground and has the coolness coming out of the ground so that in a normal

054geothermal system we want to do both obviously but the in this particular case since we're taking a something as a substitute for natural gas we probably want to extract heat from uh from the ground so take care of your voice take care of your health and thanks for joining us so the next point on our agenda is uh the resolution that we considered in the first reading at our last meeting that's the resolution and support of action on an ordinance to ban natural gas um in new construction and then also interim measures to incentify or incentivize I should say all all electric uh construction and just um to give a little bit of background on um what has happened so um as you may have seen in the materials that were posted um this was

055uh this resolution was also taken up by the environmental commission and it along with um I can't remember what other commission it was um the the housing rental commission I think it was also provided some feedback and Claire I know that you also provided some feedback and that was taken into account in um the version that was considered in a first reading by the environmental commission and um since then I shared a Google doc um with uh Claire and what you're going to see is um what uh is the current state of what we are considering since we already had um in our last meeting a a motion to consider this resolution and a second um I don't think we need to go through that formality again this is still open so it's open for

056discussion so what I'd like to do is Joe ask you that you uh please bring up the resolution so that everyone can view it and we can go through it it stands more or less as it was with some minor uh minor changes we also heard some comments uh in the public comments section um so um again in in in in in black or as in this case now in in uh in in white print um is the original version of the resolution that we considered last month um read our changes that emerge out of the environmental commission and its meetings and blue are some additional recommended changes um that came up in the last month so if you can scroll down I don't know that we have to read all of this since we

057read it um so let's look at um if you can go up a little bit so we can see the original and then this so you can see there were some minor changes here in red and these are what you might call some factual changes or some technicalities um that were changed or some additional clarification in red hopefully everybody's had a chance to scan that and then if you can go down to the next section with a contrast between what was striked out and what the new text is I'll let everybody read this so hopefully people have had a chance to read that and make any notes of comments or questions that they want to make so can you scroll up again or the other way sorry down I mean sorry so no changes were

058made here so opening things up for discussion I see that commissioner Calvin Garcia has her hand raised go ahead Carlene can can you scroll up just a little bit or just a little bit more okay stop okay go down just a little bit okay so the paragraph uh in red at the bottom of the screen yes okay cold climate heat pumps that that paragraph or that warehouse I would recommend adding the word differences after the word operating um or difference before costuming right there where the cursor is correct what do you think of operating cost difference I'm sorry after the word cost okay difference okay yep thank you anything else okay commissioner thank you um yeah it's just to say that you know I'm I'm primarily in inclined um to support the resolution and then

059I was there was just a couple things that have come up just recently that I just wanted to draw attention to it sounds like as of last week the Bureau of construction codes may have withdrawn um the rule making around the uniform energy code um from what I'm understanding to clarify sort of how they reference and and our design the role for rule sets I believe that's going to be going out once they do that for public comment again so all of that to say is from what I understand of where the process might be is is that that's going to further perhaps delay adoption of of an updated energy code and potentially Net Zero appendices and things like that um for my understanding that was just from um an email today about uh the

060the rulemaking process itself that came from uh Lara and the Bureau of construction codes um so that's germane to this obviously in a couple different um whereas Clauses um but I do think that still that language obviously they're not going to adopt it in sort of the near terms so that seems to still apply um I did want to make um and perhaps suggest um some some changes to the second result Clause primarily based on the comments of one of the callers uh today and it would be to strike the word interim right before carrot and stick um and also to um add in addition to all electric and sustainable um the notion of healthy reliable and affordable um to to that as well um and to sort of um find ways to um both

061balance and prioritize all those in in the ways that uh whatever whatever construction incentives are designed can help help support all of those values um and further to um potentially strike the part where it says after construction until such a time that a criminal match ban ordinance and other measures such as and perhaps substitute in addition to other measures such as an updated state of Michigan energy code and Adoption of zero code appendix um you know the primary impact of that being that this resolution May then urge the city council test the city administrator to work with the Planning Commission um and to pass I recommend recommended measures around sustainable all promote all in all electric sustainable construction not necessarily as an interim measure or or irrespective of any natural natural gas limitations but in

062addition to did uh Kushner harp did all of your suggested comments get uh reflected yeah what was that last part yeah where should I put that yeah let me let me let me restate that so starting um uh it would say um healthy reliable and affordable Construction um uh in addition to other measures such as an updated state of Michigan energy code and Adoption of the zero code appendix so you're saying like remove this part here yeah essentially remove remove everything and that everything after until okay and so then say such as zero code appendix yeah or such as such as an updated State Michigan energy code and zero net appendix so does zero code Joe is spelled all caps yeah zero code yeah just like E20 no Z all the whole world yep exactly

063nope nope zero yep z-e-r-o capital and then code yeah thank you so um we'll probably come back to that let's get other Commissioners comments and then um discuss some of those um commissioner Levin it's kind of a technical thing but if you go up to um the environmental commissions editions um Tire up but uh particularly the blue part uh where they're referencing um them they represent nitrogen as well as carbon monoxide in another spot as a criteria air pollutant and I sort of get why they're doing that um those that you don't know there's very little if any uh legal regulations or laws when it comes to indoor air pollution um and these as well don't really apply to indoor air pollution these are based on the ambient outdoor air so kind of like it's

064not the worst to include them but I don't know that it really adds a lot to the argument to have it in there yeah admittedly yeah correct that uh you only regulate regulations are you hearing are you hearing so Noah do you recommend that we that we strike that yeah I'm I'm kind of leaning just to leave that part out I mean a lot of people probably won't even necessarily know the difference and they'll just kind of maybe gloss over it but my recommendation would be just to leave that part out I I wish there was something we could cite to that was a little bit better but there just really isn't unfortunately in terms of the health issue yeah I I agree with that let's go ahead and strike that commissioner Smith uh yes

065thank you I was hoping we could go back to the the resolution causes for a moment I too wanted to just raise consideration or concern um as it relates to the second clause in particular um same you know consideration or concerns raised by commissioner harp and Mr Garber uh earlier um that perhaps uh the second Claus is indirect uh the second resolve Clause is in direct conflict with the first resolve Clause wanting to acknowledge the importance and the value of you know a near-term interim solution while we work towards a more comprehensive long-term solution but perhaps maybe a question in you know I should also add that you know these updates made May mitigate against that um but if um I don't know if it's you know commissioner mersky if if you could uh speak

066to like the vision for this uh second Clause like how long um you know you would think about uh it for kind of the implementation period um and perhaps to the extent I don't know if this is you know uh Joe that could speak to it sounds like perhaps some of this may already be in process as well so maybe I can speak first to it and then Joe can comment uh so actually the original version of this that was written uh was drafted by um Mr Garber and it only had the first Clause um however as he mentioned in his comments today and I knew at the time that in a package provided to the Planning Commission as he mentioned there was a letter from legal counsel representing the Home Builders Association indicating that

067they would sue the city if the city attempted to affect a natural gas van or at least severe uh restrictions on the use of natural gas and when it would be allowed um and if that indeed was the case and that would be litigated then my thinking was that that litigation could take anywhere from a couple of weeks or a couple of months to potentially a very long time and in the meantime there's nothing that the city would be able to do or at least it would be put put it this way there would be nothing necessarily in process that it could do to incentivize uh all electric construction um and that could be any number of different things it could be um incentives that are Financial incentives it could be processing um incentives uh

068where potentially uh all electric uh facilities uh or developments would be processed more quickly there are also fees that the city charges for new construction for hookup fees and those could be modified for example they could be increased uh if if it was a natural gas connected uh development and they could be decreased or and or decreased for those that are all electric uh former energy commission chair Wayne Apple Yard I think mentioned um in a call in last month but I know that also for sure in an email to me and a couple of others I believe I don't know if they were energy Commissioners or not had suggested that there could even be some type of moratorium on natural gas uh development he cited the fact that in other jurisdictions during municipalities there

069have been moratoriums so this second resolve Clause was simply an attempt to have a fallback plan where we don't put all of our eggs in one basket and then have that uh that effort um be undermined or delayed so that there's something that's being done in the meantime to uh push developers um together with their Architects and their other partners in projects to move to all electric or to a higher degree of electrification than what they might otherwise do um if there were no other let's say requirements in place or no other regulations in place that was the intent Joe do you wanna comment on anything else that I haven't addressed or um I don't really have anything more from my end like what you're saying and stuff makes sense um but most of the

070most of those things will be outside of my purview of what I'm working on to be kind of in other other areas um but that's yeah some text um and I guess you know to that end uh I'm wondering if it would be helpful um to ensure that kind of the second resolve Clause is more of a complementary approach um as opposed to perhaps the near-term interim step that may prolong I think you know ideally you know the resolution that would come in that uh first paragraph do you have any specific wording suggestions the question um I mean what you have to bring things to paper so um yeah I totally understood absolutely um so you know something to the effect of you know uh provided that um yeah the resolution could not be passed

071then you know um the the second resolution you know with uh you know uh be in effect essentially yeah so this my thought was that if you take the first resolve Clause um that there are two possible scenarios one is that even if uh the city together with uh the Planning Commission um and any other entities that it's working with is working on regulating natural gas connections um that could take a long time um to do that and to seek the problem possible legal counsel and the input from other cities that have attempted to do this by understanding that is that planning department has done that um and that whether that takes some time or whether it's actually even passed very quickly but because of legal action or something else beyond our control that that's

072delayed the implementation of that is delayed one way or the other so that that that that's um the concern um that is addressed then in the second one so that even let's say there was a a timetable to implement um without any kind of challenge some type of restrictions but what what this does is it asks that um there are measures that are taken that could be taken potentially immediately so for example it could be that in a matter of days or weeks or maybe a month or two that the city could say well we're going to do X and Y and Z um X and Y are carrots um and Z is a stick to uh drive all or to promote all electric uh sustainable healthy reliable and affordable construction that's that's the thought

073yeah very helpful and so I I think you know to that again to that end uh the the kind of suggested updates by commissioner Harper I believe with you know eliminating interim and suggesting these are additional measures uh would satisfy you know um uh that need done or my recommendation yeah okay Mr harp your hand was up for a second there you go yeah I um you know just to I think a little bit just to follow on commissioner Smith's comments I think yeah part part of the motivation is also that even if the construction were all electric part of the fuel mix may not be um entirely sustainable and so anything that can be done um to improve um sustainability reliability affordability around that as well I think will be will be helpful and

074contribute to the goals um I may also suggest in addition um some additional languages as I was looking at that in addition to the carrot and stick measures um you know and this would go after uh where it says such as tax credits comma and I would suggest um uh helpful guidance um in order to promote it and so where it's not where where the goal is also not necessarily just economic incentives but also informational ones and once they can be helpful whether it's guidance or examples um uh case studies things like that that help um Builders and developers identify how to get there in ways that contribute to uh the other the other measures that we might might ask for good idea I know that there's some activity going on outside the energy commission

075where there are there's a couple of people that are working on taking one of the projects that was recently approved in reviewing their calculations um with uh at least uh of let's say a a strong sense that uh the the differences between in cost in particular and utility costs between all electric and natural gas uh heated uh construction is not as great as what was originally believed so that's this hopeful guidance kind of thinking that you're promoting here and I think that's a good idea uh commissioner McKenna uh yeah I I just wanted to add some comments here um you know I I have experience working in uh on the developer side um you know in the city of Boston where the city was trying to actually um they hadn't passed um any kind of

076natural gas ban or ordinance yet but it's a matter of this like carrying stick like what is the reality of that interplay when you're thinking about um developers and and and city government ultimately um planning approval for a project um I don't know I just feel uh kind of disgruntled around the idea of providing guidance like I just don't see that I mean it's definitely like it's like a a really positive take on it but like I just don't see that that actually helping move our goals forward um and I just wonder if there isn't any legal uh basis for requiring uh the change is there a basis for requiring uh you know a study like that's kind of how I saw um the city of Boston kind of moved towards an ordinance is that

077they were requiring developers to provide information about what what that project could do like tell us like provide a report on engineering report why is this not hey why are you not capable of doing all electric like prove to us that this is the system that you have to use um and and I think um I don't know I I just feel like it's it's definitely not my place to suggest uh you know how the planning department should should go about their business and and approve projects um but you know ultimately I would want to see more um if I can provide my own pie in the sky like the way that I think for my experience working with developers and and and cities to move um climate goals forward is uh to put the

078burden of proof on the developers and again I don't know if the legal basis if we have that legal basis um but I would want to see yeah more uh more of that that lift being taken by the developers themselves even if it's not to change the project um systems but just to um kind of build a resource at least of these reports where we can say well you know this was what was provided and um I don't know sorry that's a little scattered but but it's something I've been like holding on to for weeks and months and I just want to kind of throw out there like where where are we at on I see that it feels like a little bit of a pullback and now we're talking about guidance and we're talking

079about carrots and sticks but like ultimately is that getting us any closer um so what the goal is here uh I I think that is helpful um I'm presently not aware of uh any specific index or calculation that can be done that uh would indicate whether or not uh one I mean what we're trying to do is optimize on a number of different uh variables and you know it could be partially natural gas it could be all all electric um I mean we know probably or some I think if you know that um Robertson Brothers is doing a project on the north side of town where um they made some uh changes to their proposal where the single family residences are going to be all electric but the garden departments are going to be electric

080except for um each the HVAC the heating the air heating portion of the uh proposal uh I don't know how they arrived at that I don't think they provided um detailed calculations although I knew do know that they provided some information to planning what I would say here is that this is not prescriptive um we're just suggesting that the city uh with staff and the city Administration look at a variety of carrots and sticks and that could be indeed what you suggested that they had would have to provide some type of engineering calculations it could be tax credits it could be as I said a change in the fee structure for hookups it could be any number of different things and I don't know that we need to list all of those but what we

081want to get across is that uh as Mr Garber said there's roughly one new project that's been approved since a20 itself was approved that our natural gas connected and so this is just simply saying um hey we want to call this to um city council and administration's attention not that they don't already know but we want to give them a a nudge or a push to be able to do something as quickly as possible because what we we see the outcomes are one new one new project every month commissioner McKenna yeah then that's great um thank you I just want to add one one element then that's maybe more clear from my experience working with developers um and also seeing the projects going up in an hour and frankly talking to developers in Ann Arbor

082um I think that the major obstacle to actually getting rid of gas um if that is the goal uh is the the reticence on the the depart the the part of the developers um so even uh agree that they have an understanding of what is possible um you know from what I've heard talking to developers um both in our city and across the country um there is and it's actually similar to this this Home Builders Association take on it right I think the construction industry has a bit of a um a cohesive approach to uh fighting back on on changing the Status Quo related to our Energy Systems and um and frankly I think that the one of the biggest obstacles right now that the city faces is um yeah getting developers to come to

083the table to admit that there are options um and I think the longer that they can uh stand on their Hill and deny that there are other options um I think that that every single day gets us one step backwards and so um you know I don't have specific language to propose but I'd like to just share with everybody here and everybody listening on the phone like that's that's what I see that's the biggest obstacle I think when we had the presentation from Tim McDonald who is president and CEO of onion Flats in the fall of last year um we talked about people operating under old paradigms and new paradigms and I think that's what you're addressing is that there's a lot of old paradigms that are governing uh projects uh and that's that's to

084be expected because that's uh what we that's what we all do to some degree or another um Even in our in our own daily lives as we operate under paradigms so I'm not hearing any suggestions for any additional changes uh again these are several things that are listed as such as it's not intended to be all-inclusive um The Hope is that uh City staff as well as Council will look at the various levers that has uh and do its best to reduce the number of all of of new natural gas connected or let's say uh projects that are heated one way or another with natural gas whether it's cooking or whether it's hot water or whether it's heating of air any any other thoughts before we take a vote on this council member Adina thanks

085for Mercy um I appreciate the conversation and listening a lot I also just want to add you know I think we have heard um from a lot of developers about the challenges around all electric but we'll note that at our very last council meeting we did approve a new 79 unit apartment complex that will be all electric from day one and so I think it could potentially also be helpful for the commission to engage with some of the developers doing this work in the community to develop a framework that might be able to get shared out to others who are telling us this narrative that they they can't do that um and so I I think that could be something to add to the queue for future conversations for this body um I will say

086this is this is another one of those kind of awkward circumstances where I have a vote on this commission um for something that we are having a lot of conversations about at the council table and so I am not sure if we are if I am allowed to do this necessarily but I'm going to try um I will likely be abstaining tonight um simply because this it's not necessarily reflective of my position on the merits of no new uh gas connections but rather because we are having these conversations uh with our legal staff about our various legal Pathways forward uh to achieve our a20 goals and because this resolution will undoubtedly be subject to further analysis and discussion I just need to engage in further discussion with our city attorney's office and our city staff

087before supporting this particular pathway fully understood and um indeed we hope it that is indeed the case that you do that other comments so Joe if you can stop sharing and we'll go back to screen where we can see everyone um I'd like to call for a vote um again we already had a motion um to consider and a second so I think we can move on directly to a vote all those in favor of the resolution as amended please raise your hand and say I I I all those opposed and any abstentions yes okay so the resolution as amended passes and thanks for all of your careful consideration of it and the comments that you made I think we ended up with a better product so great so the um next thing on the

088agenda is a discussion about the energy commission chair and the vice chair elections and there are um no documents prepared as far as I know on this there was no link is that if I recall correctly but I thought what I would do is open up the discussion it's really more for your information than it is discussion but we can certainly include discussion at the end the bylaws uh has an article number six which is titled officers and paraphrasing the bylaws it states officers consisting of both the chair and the vice chair shall be elected each year for one-year terms by a majority of the Commissioners that are currently serving on the commission it says no member Shall Serve more than three consecutive full terms in the same office and finally that the term of

089each officer's has shall run from June 1st through May 31st of the following year so um Carlene and I and then Carlene and Joe and I had discussions about this uh because uh Carlene and I have both served for three years in our respective positions and we didn't want to just bring this up in the main meeting and not have everybody fully aware of what the circumstances are and um with the duties and things like that are so what what we just basically want to inform everyone is that we will have officer elections on the agenda in our May meeting and that Carlene and I um cannot serve in our current positions uh I think what I'd like to do is go on and mention a couple of other of the duties of the chair

090so um but basically the the vice chair serves as a backup if you will in a aspiring partner with the the chair so uh generally speaking I I do my best to keep Carlene informed of everything that I'm doing from my side Carlene does the same um for me and Carlene then is there should I not be able to make a meeting I think that's happened once maybe or twice in in the three years that I've served as chair um so what are um our our duties or what are my duties primarily as as chair um first of all one of the things that we do is that we take a leading role or a significant role in the nomination process for new Commissioners so as you know Commissioners are appointed or nominated by uh

091the mayor's office and they are voted on by city council and we provide nomination recommendations to the mayor's office that doesn't mean that the the mayor necessarily has to follow those but we we provide those as recommendations um this year for example um at the end of May we are going to have four openings so that means uh you know there's a fair amount of work um we have had basically openings almost every year and occasionally we've had people step down early um and what that then entails is we get a list of all the um nominations or excuse me all the applicants I should say and um we get as you probably know from having applied we get an application that's filled out as well as a resume and then the application includes personal

092comments and some short essays so um we review those as a group um I have uh taken all of those and put those into an Excel spreadsheet so we have one document that is an easy reference uh document that we can all look at in a meeting and we're not shuffling between a whole bunch of different papers um so there's some some time obviously involved in that both in the reading of the applications um as well as in the meeting and then some prep time in front of that meeting another thing that we do as chair and vice chair is we have a meeting with uh staff liaison um eight days before every meeting so we meet on Tuesdays so on the Monday of the preceding week we have a half an hour meeting and

093we discuss agenda items uh both for the upcoming meeting as well as for future meetings that's like I said a 30-minute meeting maybe another 30 minutes preparation um one of the things um that I always do as chair is review meeting materials in advance um in their is their posted Joe has done an excellent job of doing that but in the past we've had cases where um something wasn't posted or it wasn't linked properly or whatever so I always double check that the agenda the minutes and the presentations um another thing that I do as a chair as I review all the resolutions that have been proposed uh I I in many cases I've coordinated those uh putting them in Google doc form um participating in in reviews outside of this meeting um you may

094recall for those of you who are on the commission at the time when we voted on the feasibility study that was debated over a number of different meetings and um that feasibility study resolution also went through a couple of iterations so that's another duty of of the chair another duty is simply communication with those in the community who want to communicate with the chair of the energy commission so occasionally there are people in the community that feel that they have something to share with the commission or with the commission chair and um just like in some cases where they're probably reaching out to you individually that often happens to me um I guess finally I'd like to say that this is probably just like any other volunteer job so you um as a volunteer you

095can do the job with um very limited uh time involvement and just come to the meetings and read the scripts and uh do nothing else and you can sort of go with flow or you can be really involved and put a lot of time in it so um you know that I think is those are the kinds of things that I would ask all of you to consider um in terms of either nominating yourself to fill one of those roles or nominating someone else and we will do that in the next meeting so we will take both nominations as well as we'll vote on those openings in the next meeting um I had made some notes and I think I've covered everything and what I'd like to do is recognize uh commissioner Calvin Garcia uh

096as uh co-chair to see if she has anything that she would like to add uh before I open it up for any comments or discussion I'd like to um underscore what commissioner mursky was talking about with regards to the um review of applications for energy Commissioners and uh the selection process that we've gone through that's something that we have that we've taken very seriously um in our role and uh one of the contributions that commission risky has brought to the commission is onboarding the new uh members so that's something that would be um I would present I propose as a recommendation whether you you know if you do it as a team or if um you do it with the with the city liaison however you would like to do that I'd like to make

097sure that the onboarding is something that is that's part of what you're aware of many of you went through that process and you can remember what what you what how that benefit you and and your participation on the energy Commission yeah that's a great point I'm sorry I forgot to mention that um yeah generally speaking we've tried to do those in groups but that's not always the case so sometimes those have happened individually um Joe you had comments and then commissioner I mean uh council member Adina after that yeah um I want to know um we'll still continue doing that we're also working um myself and some of the other staff Liaisons working with our um clerk's office to develop a more standard set of onboarding um so that'll take some of the pressure off

098would still obviously like involve um being in that process like getting to know people getting to getting everyone up to speed um but just letting everyone know you won't have to like create a whole you know whole set of documents and everything here's all the things you need to know on what it is to be a commissioner stuff like that um a lot of that back end stuff will be will be handled just as an FYI an attempt was made in the past to do that and that individual then left City employment and then it fell back on on the on the commission chairs so it that that's certainly welcome and that would standardize things and allow for uh best practices unless and learn to be um developed and and done as far as that

099onboarding but um there's probably an expectation that uh new energy Commissioners are wanna going to want to hear specifics about the energy commission so keep that in mind um councilmember Adina thanks chair mersky uh I just wanted to also just briefly emphasize that the reason we're looking for a new chair and vice chair is because uh John and Carlene have put in so many years of service in these roles and so um they are this is not a knock on other commission chairs but they are some of our hardest working the hardest working chairs that I've worked with um that does not mean that somebody who is stepping into this role fresh will immediately be able to fill their shoes exactly the way that they are doing it now and so so I also just

100want to add that because I know it can feel like a lot and a heavy heavy burden and a heavy lift but um they have years of experience and and learnings and and uh time that they have put into this and so if this is something you're interested in I really do encourage you to think about it um but I also just want to acknowledge all the work that they've given and the time that they've given to the city into this Commission because um because they do put in a ton of work um you know I I hear from uh John probably more regularly than almost any other commission chair and it's both for both for this and all of the other things he cares about in the city and so um so it is

101one of those things that it's you know the amount of time that you put into it I do think there is kind of a bare minimum expectation that does require a heavier lift than if you were just a a member of the commission but um but I certainly would not expect anyone to be able to step in and immediately be doing everything that John does day to day because he set a lot of time to to really learn how to do this role yeah thank you very much and and that's I I should make the point Carlene and I are not running away um we we remain on the commission and we will certainly be there to help anybody through the transition Joe has really done a great job as staff liaison I I I

102want to you know be uh sincere about this Joe's been really really good to work with and when Joe Knows things he's always chiming in and when Joe doesn't know things he is someone who says you know I'm going to go out and I'm going to figure that out or I'll talk to Missy or whoever else and he comes back and he's really really reliable on that so one of the things that I'd like to point out is that you know you have others that you can depend on and that includes our our council member Liaisons they regularly call me and talk to me about our discussions in this meeting and they give me guidance they tell me their thoughts so that that's also very helpful so you can really depend on a number of

103uh people helping you from various corners any other questions or comments so what what I should have paused a little bit longer there um you can still raise your hand but what I wanted to say is you can talk amongst each other you can talk to Carlene or me you can talk to Joe you can talk to the two Council Liaisons but um think about this um give it uh please some thought between now and our meeting next month and hopefully we'll have some people step forward and fill our shoes and do hopefully even a better job going forward councilman Meridian I will add the caveat to that that you can absolutely talk to someone encourage them what you should not do is talk about who you all might support for chair or something like

104that don't do something that would be a deliberation yeah um so so I just want to add that caveat right yep good point thank you that has to happen in this in this forum not behind the scenes very good okay any anyone else any questions of us and again you don't have to pose these tonight um you're free to uh yeah go ahead uh commissioner McCumber two of you um have served your three consecutive terms as chair and vice chair um but there's nothing that says that the two of you couldn't serve in the other role that is correct okay I don't know if either of us are willing we probably still want to sleep on that yeah okay between now and then and Carlene and I have discussed that and uh you know we

105can each share our our thoughts uh in in the May meeting but yes strictly speaking yes that's true right and just to clarify at the main meeting um the in the intention is to have an agenda item where uh nominees are nominations election of the new officers okay yeah thanks so you have this next month to deliberate on this and have conversations with each other and with yourselves okay and be in contact with us too if there's if you want to like throw things um you know like that isn't like any ideas or yeah please do absolutely I'm available and remember it's a one-year commitment it's not a three-year commitment or anything like that right okay great so um winding things down here uh we next have um an energy report um news from energy

106office and um from Commissioners including council members double double questioned myself sure um yeah thank you um so yeah as we mentioned previously a lot of the updates uh We've we've been switching over our um our newsletter so every everything should should be in there um so please please check those out if you haven't already you should be um subscribed but there is is a couple things in there let me just check to make sure there's any way that discussed here um uh we do have a couple of events coming up um there'll be a couple things on earth day one at the Leslie science and nature center um our sustainability series is ongoing I think it's the last Wednesday of the month the next upcoming one is on April 26th um it's around Renewables

107um looking at uh future Renewables in Ann Arbor um which is fairly relevant everything you got going on here so if you're interested in checking that out you can sign up it is both uh in person and Via Zoom um we uh as as you saw we're currently recruiting people for uh this commission as well as others um where we'll be reviewing applicants soon as John had already talked about but if you know anyone who might be interested feel free um to reach out to them um we also the I think we've talked about a little bit before but the commercial solarize program has launched um in collaboration with the 2030 District um they're currently piloting the program with a couple different entities um this is fairly similar to the solarized process um that you're

108all know and love um but yeah it's just kind of one-on-one assistance um with uh specific commercial entities um speaking of Pilots we are also going through uh the pilot for the energy concierge uh we're working on a couple different naming things so it might not end up still being called the energy concierge but it'll be the same thing that's happening um but we are currently um conducting that pilot and also looking out uh for additional people who might be interested in participating in it um we're very much looking to get as much of a diversity as we possibly can uh with the people in the uh in the pilot so we don't just you you know one solely single family homes we don't just only want renters but kind of everything and anything in

109between so we can make sure that the program is addressing um as many constituents as possible um some of the things we still um certainly have need for are any landlords renters and individuals with lower incomes to kind of help better inform that pilot um that is all I have for now we're also very busy-ish in not necessarily Grant season but lots of Grants are ongoing um we have a couple that I've already been submitted a couple have been a process of being submitted and then some others um and that we were hoping to hear back from by now would kind of have been pushed down as the grantors need more time to decide so hopefully hopefully by the next uh meeting we might have more information on any any of those grants but that's

110where we are now back to you thank you uh before I forget um one of the commission openings is a youth commissioner uh so uh as Joe said please get the word out that we have openings on the commission and uh one of the obviously steps that we've taken or city council actually took was create these youth commissioner positions on both the energy and environmental commission and uh hopefully we get some good candidates so those of you who are interacting with people that are interested in energy and climate uh that are young that would be interested in serving please encourage them to get in an application yeah thanks for mentioning it John and also just for um folks who who aren't aware those those systems are only um they're they're one year term so if

111you're you know sitting there you're say you're in in college or in high school or something like that and like I don't know if I can commit to three years right now um it does not have to be a commitment of uh the traditional three-year term exactly is it possible to uh to uh submit like a renewal if um any of our youth want to do that yeah so it certainly could be uh you know year over year term if that is of Interest as long as you're still I think it goes what does it go up until 25 I think go ahead that's what I was going to clarify I think this one is 25 it does vary by commission um some some commissions I think use commissioner is younger than that but I

112think it's 25 on this one and I do believe it's renewable until they hit that um they can I think if they are appointed before they are 25 they can serve after they are 25 for the remainder of that term okay uh updates from other Commissioners news of interests and then we'll move from there to council members council member update any thing of Interest uh council member Adina do you want to update us on anything coming or happening uh from Council yeah I don't have any additional major updates um other than the one I just gave about the all-electric uh uh approval that we did at the last meeting um and that as you heard during public comment we are very much moving into our budget phase um budgets will be formally presented the administrator's

113proposed budget will be formally presented to council at our next meeting um and it needs to be approved the final budget is required to be approved by the second meeting in May uh which is May 15th and so we're going to enter a period here of um all budget all the time pretty much because it's a relatively short time frame for us to dive into the budget um negotiate out any amendments things like that and so um but if there are particular areas of interest um that to you there's a public-facing website for the budget process where you can see existing presentations that have been submitted to council um and then I believe the administrators full budget will also be posted there I'm going to put you on this spot and it's only based on

114the public comment that we had at the beginning of the meeting do you know if there's any provision in the budget for a potential second phase feasibility study for a municipal utility I wrote it down as a note to look into uh but I don't know it off the top of my head if that is currently being budgeted for or not right it would just have to be some kind of provision either a willingness to dip into the reserve or whatever it might be to be able to fund that if it's indeed deemed necessary great if you maybe um go ahead well I was gonna say and that that is the case also I mean if it is not necessarily budgeted for um you know a super majority of council can can pass an expenditure

115beyond the or outside of the typical budget it's all easier to include it in the budget because then we have to find out where that money is coming from um but I I took that note as well to make sure that that's something I pay attention to great great uh anyone else I don't have a last minute question yes please did did we ever get the electric uh refuse truck still in process um there's been lots and lots of delays I'm not sure what they all are um but it's all been you know in process I wish I had a better answer for when that was coming but yes okay thanks great um I don't have the agenda for me I just penciled down some things so I hope I have this in the right

116order I think the next thing is a report from the environmental commission and as liaison I'll tackle that quickly um first of all there was a presentation and a discussion on new and existing Construction in floodplains uh that continues to be a an issue because uh particularly in the Allen Creek area but not just limited to there um there is new construction that is being proposed or contemplated and so there was a general presentation on that anyone that's interested in the atomic topic I encourage you to uh either watch the video or go to the agenda and look at the presentations uh presentation was given by Jerry Hancock and Brian stiglitz was also there so they talked about that the next thing that they talked about was uh or we talked about was this same

117resolution uh related to natural gas so I don't think I need to go into that you saw what what they considered and what we finally passed um and then the last thing was that in preparation for 2024 there was a kickoff a discussion on policy recommendations for that uh that time frame so um I think most of you know that uh the city has a lobbyist and they have other means of focusing attention on certain policy issues and there is actually a formal document that is adapted every year by city council outlining its priorities and the environmental commission um missed providing input on that when it was updated I think it was actually approved in January and so um they had an initial discussion of that and raised a couple things that were related um

118more to things unrelated to climate and energy things like pollinators and water clean air clean water things like that so there was initial discussion on that um that's it from the environmental commission Joe remind me what comes next agenda for the next meeting or public input public input Okay so uh we will have on our second opportunity to for public comment um and this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes if you're watching on CTN the instructions are the same is that the Vera at the beginning of the meeting call 888 788-0099 or 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID nine five six eight seven two eight seven eight seven six the information is displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed City staff will select callers who have raised their

119hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number to raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak plus star nine on your phone you will hear an automated message that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking move to a quiet area and so that we may hear you clearly and finally please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments um caller ending in one three four thank you Mr Lang and chair Mercy it's Ken Garber again um thank you everyone for passing the resolution tonight and for the great discussion I agree with commissioner McKenna on the need to put the burden of proof on Developers for why they can't Electrify Planning Commission to its credit does ask this question but it doesn't require any documentation

120and it's forced to take developer statements at face value I don't have commissioner McKenna's experience but I've been meeting with some developers on this issue and what has most struck me is the complete absence of any sense of shared responsibility for the climate crisis instead of joining our Collective effort they basically say it's not their problem most don't even pretend to care a few do they raise technical issues but usually in bad faith in a self-serving way they don't like to change the way they do things and they don't like government telling them they have to so we really need an ordinance we're not going to get voluntary compliance except at huge cost to the public purse I mean the North Maple project is great but it was a PUD so they had to come

121in with a public benefit and these days that means electrification but for buy right projects we're just going to see resistance going forward um unless we take forceful action um one thing we should not do is use public funds to pay private developers to install heat pumps and solar panels and we're already starting to do that chair mersky mentioned the Robertson Brothers project and the electrification of the for sale homes the impression given all along was that Robertson was paying for those heat pumps as well as solar panels on their Clubhouse and to power their street lights I thought that too but it turns out that the public in fact is paying through the non-environmental portion of the Brownfield plan for this site to the tune of 2.9 Million Dollars including carrying costs basically a

122gift to the developer from taxpayers this was done behind closed doors with almost no transparency I talked about this last week in County Commission the public should not pay private developers to do what they should already be doing on their own terrible precedent now developers can say why should I put in heat pumps and solar panels on my dime you want them you pay for them this really needs to stop right now thank you again for all your work and for the great discussion tonight thanks for your comments um no further callers okay I'll wait just 10 seconds or so okay next on the agenda or last point on the agenda in German is uh topics for the next meeting so uh we've already heard elections will be on the agenda uh we also still

123anticipate a review of hydroelectric power generation on the city's dams uh that has been planned so unless something unforeseen happens we expect the presentation on that from public works department uh just FYI we have four dams two of which generate hydropower um so we'll talk about that and then uh Joe correct me if I'm wrong but there's a possibility that we will have a an update on the home energy rating disclosure ordinance um in May is that still possible to yeah we'll have to check to see um but certainly hopefully coming soon yeah so they would expect that in either May or June um any other proposals any other uh desires not only for May but for upcoming meetings okay silence is golden uh any ideas can be submitted obviously to Joe Carlene or me

124um so you don't have to raise them in this meeting um and that indeed that's what happened on the hydro um Power one Alex reached out to me and we were able to secure staff to make that presentation so um you can follow Alex's lead in doing that um I think that's it uh as chair um I'm calling this meeting I'm joining this meeting it is 7 56 pm and I can tell my wife that uh we did finish in less than two hours so uh she was very doubtful that that was going to happen but we did it this time so thanks everybody have a great rest of your evening thanks all take care