001you know that a couple people are going to be joining late so good evening it is 602 P.M my name is John mursky and as chair of the Ann Arbor energy commission I'm calling this meeting to order I am participating from my home in Ann Arbor welcome to the February 14 2023 electronic meeting of the energy commission this virtual meeting is to affect social distancing and to mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we will conduct this meeting like an in-person meeting Commissioners during roll call please indicate your location also during the meeting please remain on camera just as you would be visible during an in-person meeting finally mute your microphone when not speaking public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities at the beginning and at
002the end of the meeting please call one of the following two toll numbers toll-free numbers 877-853-5247 or 888 788-0099 and enter the meeting ID number five excuse me nine five six eight seven one eight seven eight seven six on your phone this information is always also available on the published agenda and in the meeting Public Notices of the city's website as well as on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 18t channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org backslash watch CTN Joe would you please read the land acknowledgment yep can do give me a second uh couple people are in the uh attendees list let me add them first um yes uh I acknowledge that the land the city of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe and
003Wyandotte 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 change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you very much and if you now uh take the Roll Call yep um commissioner maycomer uh present from my home in Ann Arbor commissioner Levin here from my home in Ann Arbor uh chair mersky you're calling in from my home in Ann Arbor uh Vice chair Colvin Garcia you're still on mute there
004here from my home in Ann Arbor council member Briggs is not here yes member Briggs will be 10 minutes late she texted me just a little while ago okay um council member radina will not be able to join tonight um commissioner McCoy she just texted me she's also not going to be able to join she did send me some input that I hope to remember to uh provide to the rest of the commission and some of the agenda items and I also forwarded that to commissioner Calvin Garcia so be hopefully between the two of us we uh share that with you great thank you um commissioner Kerber here from Ann Arbor commissioner overpeck you're from Ann Arbor commissioner Smith here for my home in Ann Arbor commissioner cohenen let me know they will not be
005able to make it today um commissioner zitelman you're in Ann Arbor commissioner harp you're joining from Ann Arbor and commissioner Berkowitz here my home in Ann Arbor all right chair you have a quorum great thank you very much so um I'd appreciate it if you could yeah um commissioner McKenna do you have a question or I know I didn't get to say that I was present but I am person oh okay my apologies thank you uh so um we have a pretty busy agenda tonight hopefully you all had a chance to look at it as well as the materials we're going to be covering and I would uh like to entertain now a motion to approve the agenda in a second motion from commissioner Colin Garcia second from commissioner Macomber uh any discussion just one
006point from my perspective the last agenda point was a last minute ad so if we are running really late then I'll drop we'll drop that and consider that at the next meeting um so everybody in favor of the agenda is published please raise your hand and say hi hi that's unanimous so that passes thank you very much um approval of the minutes uh the minutes are also posted pretty straightforward uh and I have a motion to approve the minutes and a second so a motion from commission result man in a second from commissioner McCumber any discussion seeing none uh all those in favor approving the minutes please raise your hand and say aye aye any one uh have any objection to the minutes seeing none uh the minutes pass thanks very much so uh public
007input this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes as I mentioned earlier if you're watching on CTN please call 888-788 -0099 or 877-853 -5247 and enter meeting ID [Music] 956-871-87876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand by 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 nine on your phone you will hear an automated message announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet place and mut any background noise so that we may hear you clearly and then finally please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments
008all right um caller ending in two four five hello you can hear me yep yes uh good evening energy Commissioners I'm Kathleen Murphy I live at 315 Linda Vista Street in ward 5. I have comments on several parts of your agenda tonight one osis drafts climate millage budget includes seven hundred thousand dollars next year in six hundred and ninety thousand dollars the following year for quote landfill solar or community-wide renewable energy program slash Buy this part by refers I believe to lead ppas or virtual Public Power agreements these are Energy Future swaps and renewable energy generated in another remote era area while vpas may allow for the construction of new wind or solar they will not reduce carbon emissions unless they replace fossil fuel Generations by comparison renewable energy generation built locally could be directed
009used directly used to reduce our demand for fossil fuel power two City councils Outreach resolution include the part that says DTE should meet with the energy Commission on a regular basis I think this gives DTE an outside voice at the energy Commission meeting the energy commission can however invite DTE to its meetings at any time DTE should not be as energy to Mission meetings on a regular basis three I support the resolution calling for City climate action performance transparency measures transparency is particularly necessary during this time of rapid changes four I strongly support the gas ban ordinance the city's a20 climate action plan calls for all new buildings to be all electric and Net Zero Energy starting in 2022 the city has approved seven all-electric development projects since 2020 demonstrating the feasibility all electric new
010construction mainly the gas ban seems like the surest way to ensure reaching Net Zero by 2030 and maintaining that thereafter thank you for your comments thank you caller ending in two to eight hello my name is Greg Woodring I live at 1012 West Cross and I am also the president of Ann Arbor for Public Power I'm calling in to speak on several uh items within the agenda you all have a pretty packed agenda today full of some really fantastic stuff um I share the previous speakers concerns around virtual power purchase agreements while that is a backup for if the landfill solar deal does not go through from what we've heard the landfill solar deal does seem to be delayed uh likely indefinitely um in that case the budget item would mean that we would be
011investing about 10 of the millage funds into virtual power purchase agreements uh virtual power purchase Agreements are a very complex and risky investment for the city to be undertaking well it certainly could accelerate the construction of renewable energy generation elsewhere uh as a result we're not really going to be entirely sure at least as far as I'm aware that that generation is going to be replacing fossil fuel generation it is simply servicing increasing or expanding demand well it would be better than that demand being serviced by fossil fuel generation it doesn't actually do anything to reduce carbon emissions uh furthermore that money could be going towards uh pursuing a project like city-owned landfill solar which is a proposal than a number for Public Power has proposed to uh OSI and uh sent a draft proposal
012around to various members on the energy commission um if we if you would all like to speak more of that about that in our Public Power be happy to discuss our proposal with you for pursuing a city-owned landfill solar installation additionally uh I would like to point out that that while the resolution on the DTE outage contains many great points it would be great it uh it does seem as if the DTE speaking spot on the uh EC agenda would be a little out of place it would uh from our reading give a outsized voice on energy commission to DTE and provide a platform for them to spread uh likely propaganda uh you know just recently we had this math 30 seconds oh thank you the day after DTE bragged their shareholders that they had
013been depressed thank you so much for your time thank you yes thank you color ending in 998. hi can you hear me yes right I'm calling from an area without the best connection so please stop me if you don't understand what I'm saying um my name is Zachariah farham and I live at 222 Fuller Court I'm also a member of the renters Commission um and I I'm calling in to share some of the concerns that we have Justin mentioned by some other residents including my concerns about new gpas I am very concerned that this is going to be pushing off the climate problem onto another Community rather than really developing here in Ann Arbor that the means to become a sustainable model city which was my understanding of what the 820 plan is trying to
014achieve I don't think that these ppas do that I'm also calling into support um the gas span ordinance I think that this is a very good idea I think it's overdue and I'd like to point out that the a to zero plan operates on the assumption that buildings uh that are being built right now are not being built with natural gas it's already operating on the assumption that we've passed this thing so I think that we just need to get this thing passed I I fully support it and I'm introducing a version of this resolution to the renter's commission I'd like to give a shout out to the OSI staff who made a released a draft letter which is very well written and had a lot of good uh great sources about why this about
015the dangers of natural gas appliances um and uh and I I know that there's some talk about renegotiating the franchise agreement for guests but I don't see how that would interfere so I think that the city should go full steam ahead on both on both uh from both angles I guess um and I'm also calling it to support the the resolution uh demanding accountability for DTE um I like those previously stated by other speakers it has some great points and I'm glad that the city is recognizing and agreeing with the frustrations of of the residents of our city and Beyond um I I do share the concern that um if I understand it correctly that if there is going to be a slot at every energy commission meeting for a DG rep talk I am
016very concerned about the um how they will use that platform I've seen how they've used other government platforms uh they had a table I think last spring green fair and it it they were trying to sell something called renewable natural gas subscriptions so the idea is you could offset your fossil fuel impact by buying more fossil fuels but of a different kind of quote renewable natural gas I just think that's complete nonsense and this is how they're going to use the platform if we give it to them so I'm very 30 seconds um and I also would finally like to say that I fully support this resolution on transparency I think that if the 8-0 plan is going to be a living document a living plan for our city uh we have to have transparency
017so I think it's physically written um I'm very excited to see how this meeting goes and I'm very grateful for the work that's been gone into these resolutions thank you thank you for sharing your thoughts um color ending in zero one zero color ending in zero one zero if you're talking you're still on mute uh good evening uh this is Wayne Apple Yard I'm a former energy commission and I live in Grass Lake uh and I'm an architect I've been a green architect for over 40 years I have two comments here Stephen first and and most important we do have a climate emergency and we have to act quickly um we have to stop new natural gas installations as soon as possible Ken garber's report clearly shows us that to continue is not acceptable every
018new installation commits uh to an increase in Ann Arbor's greenhouse gas emissions for 20 or 30 years there needs to be an immediate moratorium installations and ordinance permanently Banning them um as enacted as soon as possible in my opinion all who have the ability to stop these emissions and don't should be held directly complicit for the emission of the additional greenhouse gases from this day forward it should become considered part of their personal carbon footprint after viewing the proposed usage of the millage that funds it's going to be shown tonight I find It ultimately lacking an enumeration as to how many tons of greenhouse gas emissions will be eliminated by these actions going back to the 820.4.0 uh plan and still couldn't find much in the way of uh amounts of greenhouse gas emissions that
019were going to be reduced for many of the items that are listed tonight um this list is different than the one that was on the website uh before the village was passed so that's okay millage funds should be spent wisely and to directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible the citizens passed this Village to address climate change and are relying on Council and staff to determine how best to spend these millage funds but it needs to be openly Quantified this is labeled the draft and I certainly hope that it will be reevaluated for greenhouse gas emissions and altered if necessary to AJ to achieve the greatest production I also hope that the city will move forward an up-nosed taste The Institute the sustainable energy utility because I think that's the best way to
020greenhouse gas emission reductions uh in the short and long tumor thank you thank you um caller ending in three four zero good evening thank you Commissioners I'm Lauren Sargent 36-year resident of Ann Arbor 2815 Ember way co-founder of wasana 350 and one very unhappy air quote customer of DPE I'm calling tonight uh to support all three resolutions before you but I want to highlight number two transparency of climate energy and a to Zero Performance we are on the precipice of a climate disaster and as we heard at the um weigey lecture last night we have seven years maybe to begin to mitigate the worst of what is coming to do this we must ensure that the community is fully informed and engaged and we need to be able to track progress toward our a20 goals
021figures that are clear specific measurable and achievable resolution number three accelerated action to ban gas Connections in new construction and major renovation and incentivizing all electric construction this is an action that we can take that is specific measurable achievable relevant and urgent when we are in a hole as we most certainly are step one is to stop digging literally no new infrastructure for fossil fuels communities across the country have already taken this step no new infrastructure for fossil fuel zero as in A2 zero let's do this now the hour is late we must act with the urgency and resolve that this crisis demands and vppas are not such an action that doesn't give us one kilowatt hour of savings on our local energy burden that doesn't save anybody on their energy bill it's a complicated
022and difficult to track or measure method and we can do much better resolution number one we must hold DTE accountable for their growth failure during our recent ice storms they tell us that they're doing a Cracker Jack job of hardening their infrastructure while simultaneously boasting to shareholders of 97 million in deferred maintenance 1.1 billion to Wall Street in 2022 in profit and yet another rate increase to mpsc and no that is not in response to our recent ice storms because they filed that on February 10th I hope that there will be a friendly Amendment so that DTE can be summoned to speak before energy at any time but they do not need a de facto seat at the table giving them a Podium to greenwash I urge you to take action on all three into
02330 seconds the seat at the table Podium for marketing from DTE we know that they do not tell the truth we must hold them accountable thank you very much thank you um I have one more caller with a raised hand I see a couple others in there or in the in the queue with no raised hands so if you're wanting to speak please make sure to raise your hand um color ending in one nine four hi Commissioners this is Rita Mitchell calling from 621 Fifth Street I am an environmental commissioner but I'm speaking for myself tonight and I agree with the statements that you've heard um I also recall out one thing that's slightly different from you've heard tonight and that is when I dialed into this meeting I saw a brief ad for DTE
024on CTN um 15 seconds maybe 10. it just was really um odd to see that and uncomfortable for me um I specifically support the transparency resolution that you'll be discussing tonight in particular because I really believe that we need those clear-cut goals and we need to assess them in an ongoing way so we really know that the direction that we're going we need we do know the goal we know that we want renewable energy and clean air water land Etc but without measuring measuring along the way it's almost as if we turn on a MapQuest and then take one look at it and put a phone away and then try to walk towards some place that we've never been before we really need to use the measurements that are available to us and constantly assess
025the way we're going use them as real metrics and it'll help guide us quickly I also support the natural bath scan yes Dan and um a big concern about that that I know you know is that we have the opportunity to stop this right now and if we continue to place natural gas lines in new buildings we'll be using those buildings for perhaps another 100 years who knows but why would we do that when we know it's not a good idea now when we know that we'll have to retrofit them in the future when we know it's extremely expensive to retrofit buildings this is the time to do it right the first time and I'll just say lastly that having DTE at the table on a routine basis is not a good idea you've heard
026it I agree with this college too spoken so far so thank you and I appreciate all the work you're doing tonight and I've got a big agenda good night thank you thank you I have one more at the moment um caller ending in five three four good evening this is Tom stallberg calling from the north side of town Lower Town I'll be brief because a lot of what I would say has already been said by the previous caller and other callers as well I will focused on one element then if you watched any of you watched I know some of you spoke actually at the last city council meeting there's a development that I've been following since it's pre-pud presentation up on North Maple and I really want to applaud that and those of you
027who haven't been following it take a look at that what that is uh a developer looked at what the city's goals were and said how do I design a project to meet the city's goals including affordability and sustainability and I want to applaud that developer because they came forward with the project that meets those goals we can do this for every development that says we're not gonna or we can't or for everybody who says we have too many competing interests I want to point out the examples of those that believe in it and practice it and start from scratch on a project to design it to work it can be done I think every new development that comes in along with a lot of other things could have essentially an environmental impact measurement there's some
028things we might have to approve we don't have the ability to turn them down but as part of that decision at the council table at the Planning Commission table should be measurements every home that's built that isn't electrified what is the carbon deficit that that puts us into that we need to make up for if we're going to meet our a20 goals every decision we need every every decision we make if we're going to hit a number by 2030 and that number being zero we need to know what all the negatives are that we need to overcome and we need to know the measurements the numbers and every single project that comes before our city for approval thank you very much thank you thank you um color ending in two zero zero hello can you
029hear me okay yep okay um my name is Kim taiking at 2701 International Drive I'm a resident of this area and I strongly support what other callers have said I really appreciate their input um I am calling specifically in support of the gas ban ordinance um I feel like it's very necessary to help us create a sustainable future going forward um and like crucial in helping like from further contributing to The Climate crisis like I have seen a lot of damage and I continue to see like corporations be in control of like the steps that we're taking so I'm also I also support um the other resolutions involving DTE um being held accountable in the transparency and seeing like what steps are being taken because I don't want to like I don't want to sit
030around and have knowing that DTE is having more of a say in the future when I know they can't be trusted um which is why I'm calling in today to share my voice on the matter as well um so I also very much appreciate what you guys are doing tonight um and I hope to see this meeting go well and I think that's all thank you thank you very much thank you um color ending in four six four hi can you hear me yes oh thanks my name is Linda barrower I live at 421 3rd Street wow I didn't expect all these speakers but I pretty much agree with everything everybody said I want to thank you so much for putting forth this I don't know who wrote it but the transparency and accountability resolution
031is wonderful I hope everybody will support it um we really need metrics for the performance of the A2Z plan a to zero plan and also for um how the climate knowledge funds are being extended I from the very beginning I supported the 820 plan but honestly from the beginning I was a little bit concerned about specific goals and metrics it seemed kind of vague and I know that it can be strengthened and I think if you recommend this to council uh this transparency accountability recommendations um we can get some improvement so thank you for that I'm concerned that some of the budget items are a little bit vague and I agree with the speakers who voice concern it's something called virtual I'm sorry I don't remember what it's called exactly but it sounds like Carbon
032offsets on the marketplace and I know that's very complex and I really think we should be using the limited millage fund for more direct action in terms of really cutting emissions here where we live um so that's one thing I totally support the gas ban I spoke in support of it at the Planning Commission meeting um whereas you know it was tabled I think I think council is concerned um about the legal issues and I think that they have legal staff looking into that um I believe that I believe that the Planning Commission staff have some ideas of you know we can't do it via the building code until hopefully our new Democratic legislature changes the building code and allows it that way but they're looking into doing it via zoning and I urge you
033to make this recommendation because I think hearing it from the energy commission will make a big difference to council I think they just need a little bit of encouragement you know I think maybe they want to do it but they're afraid and the other thing this is very important the argument I hear at many many public meetings people are saying well if we make it too hard for Builders they won't build and we want density because density will cut emissions because it will reduce reduce commuter traffic into the cities because more people will live here but I have read analyzes um I think Ken Garber did one um in terms of the cost benefit between cutting emissions by reduced commuter traffic versus not having a mission 30 seconds from new gas hookups and it's very
034clear I'm not a mathematician but I believe the work of whoever did this analysis that that's true and I there's this Mantra in the public that you know reducing increasing density to reduce commuter emissions is the only solution and it's obviously not please pass the ban and guest hookups for new construction thank you so much for all your work thank you uh no more hands thank you very much it's gratifying to have all the public engagement I have to say and we're going to hear soon about uh engagement and hopefully it will be even better and more Equitable going forward um so that's it right you said Joe nobody else okay no more hands okay so um we are now into the meat of our agenda the first is um a presentation or maybe more
035a discussion um about the climate action Village and propose spending and we have Missy Stoltz joining us and so missy I'll turn it over to you and you can talk about how you'd like to structure the discussion sure thanks chair mursky so I just want to start by thanking you for having me back uh the slides are identical to what you saw before and there's a reason for that that things haven't shifted because we've kept pretty high fidelity to what we told the voters before but I also understand you have some questions and so instead of walking through slides that you've already seen I would love to take your questions and answer those most directly and I do um actually want to take a moment and start with what we heard a lot of public
036comments on I was a little bit surprised to see the vppa pop as a topic of discussion for folks I would just remind everyone that listened and that called in and for this body and city council that you actually adopted energy criteria and principles and Council uses those two which actually guide our energy decision making and some of those core criteria are location meaning we were never looking at locations outside of Michigan and DT service territory and they were additionality and so everything that we bring forward in terms of energy choices has to go through those criteria and principles so I recognize that it can feel like a big scary term or Concept in the field is very very complex but I just want to assure folks that this body as well as city council
037give us very clear Direction on what we're supposed to evaluate with our energy choices and there's so many moving Parts I just wanted to bring that back up for folks to kind of hold in their mind so chairman I'll turn it over to you if you want to facilitate questions or if you want to start with them uh no I like to take them um from uh the group um I mean I have a few as I mentioned together with Carlene um and actually I'll recognize Carlene to uh maybe pose her own or those that were submitted by Commissioners that couldn't make it tonight so and by the way thank you for those clarifying remarks we've talked about some of that here in the past but uh obviously it Bears uh repeating so thanks very
038much um commissioner Calvin Garcia thanks so much John um you see great to see you um yeah thank you very much for like like starting right away with clarifying the the your core criteria that was that were originally you know part of part of the the climate action plan and can you just elaborate a little bit further on how that connects with uh you know the virtual power plant agreements like does that connect at all or like how does that because you mentioned both in this in your in the same statements that you just were making can you please connect them for me yeah yeah so we have there's many ways to sort of take this so I'm going to start a little deep and if you want to go deeper you let me know
039and we'll we'll go down we'll go as deep as you guys want to go on this one what I would say is we put money in the budget to either move the landfill solar project forward or um and let me say and because we have money for on-site Renewables in the community too like there are line items to deploy more solar at City facilities there's money for rebates um actually the two largest chunk of uh chunks of dollars that we have are for direct rebates to Residents and businesses to make improvements in alignment with 820. it's actually the largest source of funding that we have at almost two million dollars just shy in year one and then almost at it in year two so the most majority of the money is going to actually go
040right back out the door and there are procedural things I want to flag we're working on an assessment that everyone has to get for free so we have a staff person we're looking to hire you know what I need to start with a qualifier this is a proposed budget it has not been adopted so everything I'm saying is only proposed right so please bear that in mind city council adopts the budget so I'm telling you what OSI has put forward okay just I don't want you to go I'm like guess what we have a good thing we don't yet council's going to do their job on it uh so what we proposed is creating this a20 assessment which we already use in Bryant and we would hire someone in the city and then we would
041pay for other additional capacity like energy assessors to come on board and every person would get this assessment and that puts them in the queue for an A200 rebate or incentive and we learned this from our peers outside of Michigan who have they run programs like this like in Colorado Denver Boulder Aspen they have rebate programs like this and what they realized is uh people go for the big ticket right I can get the majority rebate on this thing but that may not be what they need John may not need a heat pump today because he just got a high efficiency system but he really needs a dryer right but the dryer rebate is less because the dryer costs less than a heat pump so he may be inclined to go for a high rebate
042but we don't want to do that right we want we want John to have a strategy to decarbonize his home that is different than what PEC strategy looks like because Pax home is different than John's home and my business is different than your business so we first want to create people or work with people who create their own decarbonization roadmap then they're eligible for the incentives but I'm sort of I know I took it in a different direction I'll get to vpa in a second but I want a name that's the largest source of funding for the village is getting people rebates second is infrastructure and that's on-site Renewables that's things like setting up for recycling you can't just recycle or compost we've got to buy the trucks and the equipment right like in in
043the early years so we have that infrastructure that's in play and then there are policy kind of initiatives and I put like the vppa sort of in there it's it's a contract that we would have if that goes forward then it gives us the opportunity to go to the market and say we want brand new Renewables we want them in Michigan we want them with certain labor standards basically take the energy principles and criteria and we say we want as many of these as you can give us now bid right so it's not a wreck it is not going out and buying like whatever already exists because we have said we want new we want additional and we want it here so we would put out a contract for a firm to bid that now
044why it is virtual is because those electrons do not go from wherever they are built directly to Ann Arbor they go into the grid right so that's what makes it virtual helpful Missy I have a question if I have any to follow up on that um when the millage uh was conceived I don't know that the IRA was uh necessarily foreseen and so we had a two-year budget and um some of the things that you talked about the assessments and the incentives incentives I think have been talked about for quite a long time but um is are we interpreting in other words some of the line items in the budget fairly broadly which I think is a good idea to enable us to do some of the right things that's what I'm sort of hearing
045from you yeah yeah like a rebate so we're leaving it intentionally oh because we also need to see what comes out from the state so we can stack those rebates so people go can go further faster and more people can come in to making the kinds of actions that we want you can imagine low-income programs we might be able to take low income households pretty far in doing this work whereas the IRA gets some people in but for others it's still it's just still too high of a bar to hit and so we are going to be flexible and what I like about candidly doing these um we need to come up with a name so if anyone's really creative I call it the a20 decarbonization assessment which is terrible naming but if if we
046do those right and and you you apply and get this free assessment it helps not only you get your own kind of road map but it tells me where we have the most opportunity in the market right now it tells me that the majority of our money actually needs to go to Range Replacements because we have really terrible indoor air quality right and so it allows us to be really purposeful and where we put those dollars to have the largest impact both in terms of climate and in terms of Public Health Commissioners yeah I have a few things jotted down like I said from emails and um some both from Commissioners and people outside the commission but let's take commissioner questions or comments first so I want to say thank you very much for that
047explanation it really helped me oh thank you it's a complicated question the energy system is very complex that's why we're here yeah and we don't run it one thing you all run at everything so gets muddled I'm missing maybe one question because you touched on it already while other people think about what they may want to pose uh it was mentioned earlier the landfill solar um could you give um something to confirm or maybe put a different uh light on what was already expressed here through public comment and what other people may have already heard about which can you just landfill solar like where we are in it or yeah I mean you and I've exchange information um but I don't know that it's been shared with the commission as a whole comments and something
048very briefly um I'm just opening the door up for others to ask questions on about that are you for you to give a little bit more detail sure yeah of course so the lionfield solar project is still on hold we are right now looking at some funding opportunities we're waiting that there's a really strategic opportunity from the state we're waiting for the governor to release uh the request for proposals on it as soon as it goes live we'll evaluate and hopefully apply we have already identified um or started talking to people about the project we have it's a specific funding proposal for redevelopment of landfills and you can't really do a lot on a landfill but you sure as heck can do some solar on a landfill um and that's what's sort of holding it
049up at this point if that falls through I will terminate the project almost certainly because we can't make Economics work on our own other commissioners go ahead commissioner Smith yes thank you um just curious it occurred to me um you know is do we think that um or I should say have we thought about the opportunity to potentially partner um or kind of Leverage the free home energy Consultation Services that are provided to to DT do we see any uh kind of synergies there that we can capitalize on thank you for the question so what what carbonization assessment that we're talking about is a true decarbonization assessment so it's Energy Efficiency opportunities as well as electrification on-site renewable energy potential and air quality indoor air quality opportunities for improvement most energy assessments do not go
050that far right they're really looking at efficiency and sometimes a really good one is also looking at air quality we don't um because our goal is so aggressive we are trying to stack right in that moment to figure out how we do these things together and go as far fast as possible which means we're working instead of kind of using someone else's system we're creating our own and then asking folks to come with us in our community to actually Implement that so we'll be providing it for free um but folks are still welcome to use any service that's available um it's just our rebates are more than just efficiency and so we need to understand on-site renewable potential electrification potential in order to make really smart choices with those limited dollars and seven million is
051a lot of money but it sure is heck not enough for every household so we've got to be a little bit more searchable yeah that's very helpful insights and just curious even if we think about kind of the lead generation process is there opportunity to kind of Leverage that or kind of you know cross-share knowledge of these are the folks that are interested let's get in from you know uh let's layer on top of a home energy consultation because we can go deeper on something like that yeah absolutely we've been talking to our friends at weatherization about a very similar thing right if you're getting in for weatherization you're getting an assessment weatherization also comes with dollars um right now weatherizations wait list is really long um so that's a like we're trying to work
052through that it's about a two-year wait list here in Washington County that's just that's just too long for people to wait especially low-income older adults uh to wait for programs so we're working with them to try to figure out how do we maybe not jump the queue but how do we work collaboratively in this landscape because the other challenge I see I could cannibalize the contractors yeah very helpful thank you commissioner thank you so much um I was I was wondering if you could say a little bit about how you are um thinking about particularly I'm queuing a little bit on the second presentation but how are you really thinking about engagement and strategic Communications across all the programs I'm looking at slide number 10 for example of other uses public engagement and education program
053Administration capacity building and things like that and how you're how you're thinking about Communications and engagement on one hand but also with respect to the separate programs and whether that's sort of a separate you know Communications engagement is a sort of separate its own piece or how it's integrated into the specific programs themselves in ways that um provide sort of authentic and impactful engagement across across the program thank you for the really thoughtful question and the answer is yes uh and I get to the point where you said are you thinking about kind of Engagement broadly are you thinking about it in in the individual programs and that's where the answer is yes and yes right that there are um taking a step back structurally the office can't look like the office has looked before
054as we launch all of these different initiatives and so one of the things that I'm joined with is creating a community engagement unit in the office that's very very focused on customizing like what the experience is like to do community engagement across the board but everyone running a program and initiative has to do community engagement right it's inherently part of the ethos of what we do in OSI so that's not going to stop um what is probably going to look a little well I don't know that it'll look different because it's it's what we're doing now um with one caveat we have historically got a lot of really big tent conversations we're going to keep having some of those like our sustainability forms are a20 a week big Community town halls and some um we
055are also going to start spending a lot more time in really deep kind of neighborhood work especially with Frontline populations because it takes a really long time to build trust and Rapport and get that work done and that's for example what we've been doing in Bryan we spend a lot of kind of engaging in Bryant and that's why I think that's right I would say based on the values of a20 that is what we should be doing so you're going to see the reason we're trying to scale up our capacity up in that space is so we can have more folks go to peace neighborhood center and spend deep time there with them because we're all working on a resilience Hub with them and Bonnie is a trusted incredible broker in our community and we
056need to make sure that money can function and what about working with Derek at other sites and what about working with Jen and Aubry at the Housing Commission sites you know we need to go deep in places in certain places and use trusted Brokers to do that so yes and yes is the answer and we do anticipate hiring someone to lead kind of Neighborhood Place based engagement commissioner pack thank you thank you for the question hi Missy I I personally do value virtual ppas and understand their utility um when they can displace renewable energy and I believe they will displace renewable energy as a less expensive source of electricity than the fossil fuel ones and I also believe that we're we're not building renewable energy nearly at the rate as necessary to meet goals such
057as ours or um you know the Paris agreement or President Biden's basically any of them we're not building renewable energy quick enough so whatever Ann Arbor can do to do that and sort of implicitly will address the additionality issue but I just wouldn't mind hearing you say it in your own words um how that is um so that some of the folks who called in for example can understand uh why this is virtuous for Ann Arbor to invest in these I and I I get a get the feeling a big part of this too is that to get the really low cost renewable energy on the grid that is necessary we just don't have the options in Ann Arbor and that's one of the reasons you're you know we're looking to invest in this way
058am I getting it right yeah I mean it's it's a really complicated it's it's complicated and it's not so let me take it from it from me to like further elaborate if I missed where you want me to go we are not looking at one thing and and I hope people know that especially let's let's stick with energy on and renewable energy we are talking about incentives so people can put Renewables on their home and on their business in this community right now right we are actually um I don't know if you know this but when the University of Michigan released their RFP for 25 megawatts of solar we worked with them and released a parallel RFP for one megawatt of solar at City facilities we work together on language I mean that that is
059a big deal that may not feel like it but that's the most I've ever done with the university in that case like that's great so we're looking to deploy more Renewables we're breaking ground on the four four and a half Renewables that we're putting in the community I'm still committed to the landfill solar project which would bring 20 more you know megawatts of Renewables into our system so like we are looking at deployment locally we're studying that seu we are studying the different options available to us so like that is not dead that is still going and yet we have more demand for energy than what we have on the grid today and then what we'll have available in our community by 2030. and we have a goal so we can also invest in brand
060new Renewables in our grid maybe not in our geographical boundary but real close or somewhere in the system that displace fossil fuels and fundamentally switch the system that we could invest in the migraine power program we could buy racks like those are also Pathways but the vppa is a step up at least the way we've been thinking about it and because we set the energy criteria is in principle it's not Rogue we have links that we have to report in when we bring recommendations forward and that's why I'm not nervous about a vpva that's why I think actually we can use affordable renewable energy and just snowball more renewable energy into the system so I think it's a I think it's a tool in our toolbox I thank you for doing that that DTE or
061you know they're not an energy developer but they can they can bid on it too if they want us to try and utilize one of their um vehicles for getting that energy on the grid but it's not going to be the cheapest way to do it I mean almost certainly part of the way we make our the energy we invest in um additional is by making it very inexpensive relative to the fossil fuel options others uh commissioner yeah thank you Missy I just wanted to ask a little bit of clarification on the landfill solar so say it doesn't go through with DTE it doesn't work out have we like actually studied the financial feasibility of doing it on our own and like like why would it just automatically be shut down as a project we
062can't do it with DT there's a few reasons that's a good question and thank you for asking the further clarification number one if we don't do it with DT we're back at the end of the line we have to redo all of the studies because we assumed we were using their infrastructure so we are years back right so so one there's an opportunity cost right a pulling that trigger that means that I have with our limited capacity is that the project like there's a real serious calculus that has to happen are we going to go back into the queue or are we going to use our time and resources another way that's one two while the IRA helps us uh in terms of like lowering getting that that rebate for the cost it is still
063a very inflation hurt us and the Department of Commerce investigation hurt solar and so the price tag on this while it was never we were not fully locked in at the moment it went up significantly and so the IRA helps buy part of that down but the cost of the asset is still whatever it is so I'm going to try to do this visually if we imagine this is what it cost right and the IRA brings us 30 in that's great you still have to depreciate an asset at this cost you still have a replacement cost at this cost right so the IRA helps you in this part but I still have to financially make sure that I am building my books to cover the full replacement of that asset so it's not actually as
064cheap as 30 cheaper yeah and then it becomes very seriously becomes a calculus so we've done some behind the like preliminary numbers because we don't have final costing because the market moved really fast when we were for those who weren't with us just so you know we were there right this body took up the resolution to move landfill solar forward the next step was going to council to sign the contract we didn't do anything wrong no one on this call did anything wrong the world moved around us and we're victims of that and so we're trying to navigate that landscape I just want to be transparent this isn't this is nefarious this isn't nothing malicious here it's just bad timing yeah thank you yeah uh perfect did you have another question no you're good yes
065um oh go ahead yeah um what I'm interested in my other my another question is the world moves around us as Missy you just said is there any I want to move as quickly you know obviously Ann Arbor has an audacious goal we got to move as fast as we can to displace fossil fuel that's what you're doing and we're trying to help you do that um but with uh the change in the political situation in Michigan is there any chance uh good chance that the situation will the world will move around us again that could make other options uh investment options a lot more attractive and those I don't want to wait for that to happen if it's you know low probability but I'm just wondering um you know because DT is obviously not
066is trying to do whatever they can to slow things down and I'm I know that people in Lansing are thinking about ways to speed things up any Intel or insight there yeah I think people on the line might actually even know more time so separation ID saw Community solar legislation introduced that's a that's a big deal but it is not a given that that is going to pass even in a democratic legislature so it is important that we make our voices heard on that we have listening sessions from the public that's that's in you know thinking Lansing but we've got the public service Commissioners and we don't have that much longer with our three sitting Commissioners and they are very serious about this work and they're going on a listening tour about the recent outages
067they'll be in Jackson and Dearborn on the 20th and then they're doing a virtual listening session on the 21st we did invite them to Ann Arbor um and we'll see if if they stand up a separate event but this is this is sort of a moment where I think we have attention on the issues but it's I don't think we should take for granted that it's just gonna happen because the Stars aligned I think it's going to take some continued pushing to get folks to pass the legislation hold the accountability accountable accountability principles do the do the work that we all think we want um I'm going to ask a question if I may because related to the landfill solar or make maybe a statement that you can respond to um not having looked ever
068in detail at a pro forma for the project I think what a lot of people don't understand relative to the financials and I don't as I understand that nothing that's currently proposed at the state level is going to change the financials it may change like you said um Community solar and things like that may give us some options but it's not going to change financials so recognizing that landfill solar is a little bit more difficult because um you're sitting on top of a landfill and you can't make penetrations and things like that but um I think the the question that probably a lot of people have that I still have in my head is if there are record levels of solar being installed Across the Nation and across the world why is it that this
069project financially isn't working while all these other ones are seemingly being able to go forward and I don't know if recently uh OSI has asked for example commissioner Kerber or former commissioner to look at the financials again and see if there's anything that might have changed so I I think that's probably the people that I talk to that's a lingering question in their head what is so unique about this project that others are going forward that this one isn't but if you if you point out uh some landfill solar projects that are making good money at a large like at the size that we're talking about I would love to see them because we are getting recognition for having one of the largest landfills well for a minute the largest landfill solar project in America
070landfill is landfills are expensive they're challenging to build on and it's our largest source of land and so we pushed it um and we we knew we would it was going to be a premium project it was going to be a premium it cost more you can't penetrate there are environmental species we have to protect for their seasonality of when we can be in the ground and when we can't be in the ground we better watch for contaminants we got to make sure we can still get in because it's the landfill is settling right methane is still coming out so we have all these um I don't know what the proper term is I do somewhere in my mind uh but they're they're not vents but it effectively right the method can't build up and
071explode on site so there's mechanisms I'm way out of my league here but they're the system itself we have to be able to monitor the system and get on site so we can't just blanket it right and so there's all of these design features that you have to mitigate for which are good that's good right we don't want anything bad happening at this landfill we don't want to break the cap but that means it's not a green field right like it's not a normal build where you just go in and you put solar as far as the eye can see you have to design around that you have to engineer around that and that just that takes customization and that takes cost customization is cost so that's part of the reason and boy oh boy
072um the permitting process has been really hard you know there I say this sort of ingests but it wasn't in the moment we had to search for a species that was last seen on site in 1902. like we had to send people to look for it right and and we didn't find it it's not there but it delayed everything because then if it was we had to do different mitigation techniques and so like the time and effort that goes in and you don't some of these assessments are only good for two or three years and then you've got to reassess so you incur a lot of costs and part of this project like it is a it was a labor of pain and love for me is working with the state at every step to
073say we need to change this you're making it too hard I know the governor wants to see more of these developments we are going to fight through this because we're going to be stubborn but you you got to sit beside us and help us change the code change your regulation change the permitting process and that's perhaps great thanks that adds a lot of expense too John yeah I mean some of that is some cost but obviously some of it is not it's reflected in the execution cost so that's clear commissioner commissioner Levin uh yeah I understand you're still you know working on the solar project but um is there a thought to what where the money would go if that doesn't happen I mean is that possibly where it could be a vppa kind of
074thing or I know it's early so maybe you don't even know but yeah it's a is the city the city item budget right in that um I'll say John John kind of called me out in on this and the rebates like being intentionally vague so we could see what people need right the same is true for that particular line item if what we discover is that the rebates are wildly effective and we are seeing emissions be like just dropping and this is the right vehicle I can actually make the call that we're not going to fund something else in there and put more money towards the most effective thing so I don't know how to answer your question exactly where the money would go in that sense all I can tell you is that we're
075we are always looking at multiple things we have way more projects than we have money for um we're always fundraising that money might be directed towards a sustainable energy utility you know and standing up the preliminary costs of it or that money might go uh to finish the Net Zero Energy fire station because we're close but we haven't yet closed the Delta to get that over the hoop or over the loop it might go for match for our next electric refuse truck in the system you know like so I'm holding it for landfill solar but if landfill solar does not materialize we will use that money to affect emissions other comments questions I'm going to Rattle off several and they're really more just for uh people the commissioner or council member Briggs go ahead your
076last statement um Dr Stoltz just made me raised a question for me in terms of you know thinking about how additional funds might be able to be used and obviously they're going to be used strategically to try to advance are the goals of our plan um in alignment with what the voters um allocated were sort of promised in passing a millage but um is there what's happening behind the scenes I guess to help identify um there's there's always going to be gaps there's always going to be more funding that we need but to identify that um that it is directed towards the projects that are going to end up delivering you know impacting our emissions um lowering our emissions the most I mean as opposed to sort of what's maybe the greatest need at the
077moment to move a project forward there are a handful of variables uh it is not a secret sauce of one thing to be honest right we have a two zero so we already know where we need to make investments and that is an incredible directive we also have things that this body has talked about that aren't in a20 we don't have an seu right in a20 but that doesn't mean we're not working on that we don't have telework in a20 because we evaluated it and it didn't make the cut but we were wrong right uh the pandemic shows we were wrong so a20 is like the North Star but the the mother metric is greenhouse gas emissions reductions that however is also Guided by Equity so we look for the things that have the highest
078impact but we also have to hold space for the things that are going to take a lot of time right if we eat all the low-hanging fruit we don't leave if we if we're never working on the harder things we're never building momentum towards them and so we're trying to simultaneously build the movement and the systems to do the really hard systems change work that will be the most transformative that we do while we're all also getting these wins in the system right so the the things that we evaluate are obviously cost per greenhouse gas reduction that we can get public willingness to engage in an initiative because it won't matter if theoretically I get a high Roi on it but no one doesn't right so we've we've got to build in um is the
079public ready what do we have to do to get them ready right those public engagement dollars may not be much there may be only 50 000 in the budget but they may be the most important 50 000 that we spend right depending on kind of what that individual action and strategy is um and then there's there is certainly opportunism that comes into play I I would be lying if I told you that wasn't true right the department of energy released a geothermal Grant I went for it we have money in the budget for a geothermal study if I win the federal government grant I'm not going to put it towards I'm I freed up dollars over here that I'll reallocate right because I'm able to use federal dollars so there's opportunity that we we also
080bring it to the equation thanks for the question so as I mentioned because it's uh time is ticking here and we've got Michelle waiting and we've got a couple of other things to deal with I'm just going to Rattle off a couple of things and I think really some of these um you don't need to respond to um so first of all I'm just going to State one thing Missy that you and I have corresponded on but is also posed as a question to me and that was um if there are issues that arise and are seem likely to arise that will require additional legal resources um that was not a specific line item that was called out into your budget but um it's my understanding that there is at least an understanding or a
081provision that that will be uh money will be spent for that because that advances particular causes it just may not have been tied to legal fees so um that I think everybody on the commission deserves to know that and that that's welcome news um a lot of people myself included are concerned um about um for example well I'll say generally spending money on what seems to be um High hanging fruit as opposed to low hanging fruit particularly from the perspective of dollars per metric ton of CO2 emitted reduced and one of the categories where that is is that I as um in solid waste or um circular economy I think we all recognize the need to reduce scope 3 emissions but at least the calculations that were done at the time indicate that those are
082among the least effective and we don't even have data that at least the environmental commission has seen yet that shows for example was Organics collection year-round Organics collection affected it all did tonnage go up at all that our diversion rate decrease so before we spend lots and lots of money on those things um that we aren't sure really are going to have a significant impact and in fact may even have offsetting emissions because we have trucks running around that I think it's really important that um staff and Council examine those items and spend the money where we have low hanging fruit where we know if we spend um a dollar for example on Energy Efficiency measures or we incentify those kinds of uh actions that we know we're going to get a really really good
083payback on that and that may be some of the higher hanging fruits are things that we do later down the road I'm just going to continue um someone wrote me and asked about millage funds um potentially being devoted to either incent developers to build without natural gas or to build more high efficiency or high efficiency new construction that was something that was thrown out there I think that personally that's that's a a two two uh two bladed sword where on the one hand it could do good on the other hand it man sent every single developer to come to the city and say hey please pay for my all-electric uh whatever it is or please pay for my um better envelope so there are people that are asking those kinds of questions um I think
084that's it and I'm really just asking that uh those those issues be considered and debated when budget is is reviewed I appreciate that and I'm not going to hammer them in detail but I want to say uh you brought up some things I had hoped to say and that they just evaded me one is uh OSI is asking for an attorney in the attorney's office um so you're asking for full-time capacity because we the way we this is a further conversation but the way our attorneys are structured is they sort of are appointed to service areas and we don't have someone so we always get kind of the end of the line and that's that's part of what we're looking at then we have external uh Professional Services dollars if we need more or a
085different kind of attorney so yes um thank you for having that uh High hanging fruit sure um what I would say is we know that we under calculated the life cycle emissions associated with with waste and the circular economy because there is not a standard methodology but we are all in the team helping create the standard methodology for what it looks like to capture those emissions so I would say maybe maybe that's true maybe that's not true when we really understand the true emissions associated with things uh like Solid Waste also solid waste is sort of a Gateway uh it's very personal when people come into the field from it so it wouldn't totally uh take that off the table in terms of importance but to your other points about justification of impact totally hard
086and understood yeah efficiency I wish everyone did it they don't uh it's bees and carrots we can't get people to do it so instead what we're doing is feeding it into the things they want to eat like solar they just love solar so then we give them efficiency when they do solar so we're yes and is what I would say to that and then lastly incenting developers interesting idea um I would say our Focus most of the buildings that we're going to have are already here so we're focusing more on incentives and rebates for our existing folks to make sure today's Ann Arbor rates get the benefit good thanks very much um one last uh opportunity for Commissioners to weigh in going going gone Michelle your next my turn your turn okay good evening commissioners
087thanks for giving me some time this meeting to go over the Equitable engagement initiative let me make sure first you all can see my screen okay great and thanks to Missy again missy you're welcome to stay um but we also understand if you need to go so go ahead Michelle thanks okay my name is Michelle Bennett I'm a community engagement specialist with the city in the systems planning unit so that is um separate from OSI but um there are a few of us with this title that do this work at the city and in full transparency I did not start this project my former colleague Heather seifarth and Missy Stoltz really got this off the ground um but I am here to help wrap it up as Heather's moved on to the Housing Commission so
088as part of the the project wrap up we are taking it around to different commissions to give an overview of what um this initiative entailed and some of the the highlights and findings so to start the Project's broad aim here was to Define what Equity means we did this with a steering committee and I'll get into the details of how they were selected but this really was kind of a ground up um process where they defined what Equity means and we spent a lot of time discussing not only what the definition would be but how that could be incorporated into the city's policies guidelines and practices so that we could create a more inclusive engagement process so before we started the staff did quite a bit of pre-work um starting in fiscal year 2019 we
089started collecting demographic data through our surveys and public engagement events um in person and virtually these graphs here only show that the survey respondents and they are compared to the Census Data well the 2021 estimates and I think that this confirmed largely what we already knew in that most of our attendees are um white wealthier empty nesters or retirees that own their own homes and so in comparing that that data to the to the census we can see where we're lacking certain representation right definitely in the renting group definitely in the younger age categories um ethnic diversity is really lacking racial and ethnic diversity and you can see here where the the incomes are sort of concentrated here in the higher brackets um as a part of our pre-work we also looked at promising practices
090from other communities our own practices and then did a little research on some of the local and by Regional we mean mainly Washington County um conditions kind of documentation reports that are related to to equity so this is kind of our existing conditions research as a part of our current practices we have an engagement toolkit and that is something that is asked of project managers to go through with a community engagement specialist so we can discuss you know what stakeholders do we need at the table what's the what's the best um process and engagement techniques for our desired outcome for for specific projects so that's something that's already in place and actually is right now uh being updated the demographic collection I just shared with you we started doing that to get an idea of
091who we're reaching through our engagement efforts um we also work with the International Association of public participation they're a non-profit with a global reach that's dedicated to public participation so they um came this was right before the pandemic and signed about 50 staff members um on best practices for for engagement we've also worked with the youth pre-pandemic that we're hoping to start again but that's really explaining to them what the Civic Prof process is how they can get involved and get them to start critically thinking about you know the outcomes of Engagement and how it should be done and then this is outside of systems planning I think this is mainly through um the planning and development but there is an ordinance on file that requires developers with new development to do some public engagement
092so this was also thrown up right before the pandemic as everything was switching virtually they created a a hub which I'm going to talk a little bit more about later um but we have seen actually through research done by the University of Michigan School of information students that it's not heavily uh visited as you can see here by these visits per month and then it also doesn't direct you to all the engagement opportunities that are available and this is partly because of how things are organized on the city Side um that we all have our own departments and it has not yet been all funneled into one page so you have to find information about engagement by project page that could be scattered across the website so meanwhile uh while we were doing some of
093this pre-work we were also putting out um these kind of Flyers around the city that were really strategically thought about how we can um reach out to these groups that are not well represented so in that call we got about 80 applicants and 30 members were selected to be on the steering committee and they were tasked with meeting monthly uh for about 18 months and as I mentioned they were defining what Equity means what our core values are and ultimately through these discussions um developing recommendations to take to council so here's their definition of equity um you can see this is a big conversation now as Equity versus equality the idea here is that you can see in the graphic here on the right that giving everyone the same exact resource does not necessarily lead
094to um equal outcomes or everyone thriving right so if you can see on the bottom there that everyone needs a different style bike in order to ride safely and so that's kind of the direction we're moving in in terms of equity is that if we if our standard processes are getting us the same types of attendees that I shared in the demographics that we need to put more time and effort into engagement and Outreach so that we can get a more representative group to attend so here's some of the topics that were covered over those 18 uh 18 months you can see it's quite a range here and I will say this third to last bullet point came up quite a bit and uh some of our recommendations actually veered a little bit I would
095say maybe On The Fringe of what we would consider to be engagement but still very important um and so I will get into that in the first recommendation um so we created this little paw um for a five um Toad animal that we're not really sure what it would be but the idea was as we took notes as we listened over these 18 months these were the five topics that kept coming up um and we were happy to discuss them because as we know Equity touches everything and so what we tried to make here at the Paw at the center of all of your discussions is how can Community engagement establish an equitable footing on all of these topics so again just trying to bring everything back to how the process and how to make
096sure that our processes are equitable so towards the end of that 18 months they the staring committee came up with um recommendations and I'm going to go through those briefly uh or pretty quickly but I'm happy to take questions on those afterwards this is really the Crux of the of me coming here tonight is so that we can hear your feedback or any thoughts or questions you have on these recommendations so the first one and again these are all in the words of the steering committee members um demonstrate the city's committed to advancing Equity um here's where they really want to see uh accountability and where you can see that the city's hiring practices come into play um they were saying before you even get into your engagement series you have to understand that people
097don't feel comfortable attending these events if the city staff does not reflect you know the demographics of the city um and so we had HR on a lot of our calls to talk about these things um but you can see here that they wanted Pathways created for um mainly bypoc was the main conversation we had about that of how to get them into staff and into leadership positions and you know ideally running these kind of Engagement sessions um to attract and build trust with um the people of these groups they also want to see policies adopted and enforced by city council and they stressed a lot of being authentic and that came across in several ways of being straightforward being to the point being honest not using jargon um using language that you know everyone
098can understand and where people feel comfortable asking questions um was a big part of how they want to see engagement change okay the second recommendation here provide Ample Ample and targeted invitations to engagement opportunities so this is a recommendations about our Outreach as well there was a lot of emphasis on using non-digital means so really getting out into the community and this touches on what what Missy was saying as well in the direction we want to move in is they really want us to be on the ground meeting people face to face putting flyers in their businesses talking to business owners um not just throwing a link up on the the city's calendar um they want you know materials translated for our non-native English speaking folks um and they do if we are going to
099stick to some things online which of course we have to they want they wanted an engagement Hub uh an improvement to what we have now so I'm going to talk more about that later the third recommendation here is kind of really saying put your money where your mouth is if you care about Equity then you need to dedicate resources for staff and training so they want to make sure there is money in the budget to um hire more people or have more staff there and make sure that they're constantly keeping up to date on new practices through training so in terms of what we already do that would mean probably working with the International Association of public participation more um and creating metrics and Milestones um for us to to follow and to meet and
100to come up with those takes a team and hold each other accountable takes a team and then this is the last set of recommendations to make engagement events more accessible and attractive um so this is kind of asking us to maybe Branch out of some of our standard practices so holding hybrid meetings which is possible in this setting but when you want to do exercises with the community having people in person and online we have not nailed that yet we are still working that out in certain locations um they want it to be structured in such a way that we mitigate grandstanding that we have rules that we enforce that keep the environment respectful um and then again going to this being authentic of really communicating what's the decision what's the process who's making the
101decision and what level of influence do we have so those kinds of questions for number five are in the toolkit that I mentioned we do discuss those at the beginning but they mentioned that there's definitely room for improvement there so I went through quite a bit of material in a short amount of time I know you guys have a busy agenda so um let me just touch on a couple more things um when we researched promising practices the engagement Hub came up over and over again we've done some research on that and have put in a budget request and so I have an example here of what one looks like for the City of Pittsburgh um this has different project cards all centralized across all departments onto One landing page it allows users to select
102projects based on category type or location so that they can customize this page to their interests or to their neighborhood and then when you click on a project card it would provide all the engagement opportunities available to you along with who the final decision maker is what the timeline is a much more transparent process um than what we currently do have although we do provide them that a lot of that information like I mentioned it's pretty scattered and it would be hard for some people to find so that's uh hopefully something we'll find out if we get the funding for that in the next couple of months and would be one of the bigger projects that we uh plan to pursue so I will end there just letting you all know that um if you
103go to this link there are more project details there's also the draft report um that explains everything I discussed in Greater detail and if you have any other thoughts or questions after this evening then you can email this email address um Heather and I both have access to that and can respond to you thank you Michelle before I recognize you commissioner McKenna um Joe could you put one thing in the meeting minutes as an assignment for you me and Carlene to look at the recommendations from this and see how we might be able to apply those specifically to the work and meetings of the energy commission um I think that's one thing that we should definitely act on um and while I have the floor I'm just going to say one other thing real quickly
104um and that is um it's really more a question I guess to commissioner Peck and I'm wondering you know the city is updating its comprehensive plan and the university is updating its master plan and those are going to be hugely consequential for the city um and I'm wondering if the university is equally attuned to some of these inequities in how information is being gathered and who is there to provide it to make sure that um these these really significant planning activities are really going to be reflective of the true needs and desires of the whole diverse community that we live in do you know if the university is attuned to the like what we saw those those bar charts where you know there were certain communities that were just basically left entirely out of the
105process yeah I mean the the community that we're working with I think you know it's not really super clear yet exactly what we're doing um you know in other words we're sort of planning the process as we go it's like learning to fly a plane while you're starting to fly um I think because we've got it you know the president wants to do it very quickly and I and I applaud them for that you know there are a lot of things like climate action that just can't sit around away for two years to figure it out what we're going to do but um we're really focused on the university community you're talking about our Master planning uh and not as much our visioning uh and I think that effort we're not going to use the
106term Master by the way yeah which is indicative that we are a little aware of equity uh is um you know that will involve reaching out to adjacent communities and and really understanding how the University of Michigan can operate not just on its own property but in collaboration with those other entities around us in a more effective way and so I would imagine this will be very important and I wish I could tell you the answer um you know there will certainly be a focus on ensuring that what we do is Equitable but will it be successful um you know we still haven't proved our ability to do that and it includes like for example what we're doing in Detroit um you know we have to I'm hoping it will work very hard and I
107I really enjoyed this presentation because it it made sense you know it's like how how do we engage and maybe these uh if I can send the copy of this which I bet I can because it's a public document uh to some of my colleagues it might help thank you great commissioner McKenna thank you uh hi Michelle thank you so much for sharing this with us um it's lovely to hear that that there's quite a serious engagement process happening and concern for Equity um so as I think about some of the uh agenda items upcoming especially the resolution requesting the city administrator to engage on um on Equity um and uh with them uh sorry the uh Michigan Public Service Commission on our access to Utilities in our city um you know I'm just thinking
108about uh kind of ongoing engagements with um underrepresented groups and I'm hoping you could talk a little bit about you know maybe spinning off of the work that you shared with us what your intention is or or how you kind of see the city continuing to do this work and specifically you know what what actions are you going to take um you know around maybe keeping a group assembled or you know ensuring that there is um because I know uh the effort that it takes to you know gather um first of all Define equity and then you know gather a group and into a steering committee and then you know through a process of what 18 months or whatever you said um kind of uh you know work with them consistently to kind of get
109the information that you provided with us but knowing that there will be ongoing issues and we have them you know ongoing currently yeah what is the plan for for keeping that equity yeah that's a good question so most of the community engagement uh I'll say at least in systems planning is Project based right and so you know oftentimes if it's not happening right on your street um it's hard to get people to engage and so one thing that we have been talking about because the the steering committee the Equitable engagements during committee there's several of them that um want to remain active um but this project is wrapping up right because our engagement is is typically Project based so we are thinking of ways to extend that and to continue to work with them one
110of the thoughts we've had is a community liaison program and that's again getting at really stakeholder building kind of on the ground um of going to communities who may or may uh not trust us or just not know the process and working with liaison Liaisons helping to train them to facilitate and work with those communities and maybe relay information back to us um you know also being more of service to them so not just coming to them this is what a Committee Member told me and it's really stuck with me it's like don't just come to us to ask things of us um like an actual relationship is an exchange so how can we be of service to them as well um you know how can we get involved in the work that they're doing
111where appropriate um so that you know they are also likely to be more candid with us and participate with us um and really build a partnership so I would say that you know we're trying in a couple different ways to take their take their recommendations of being more on the ground um right now it is just me Heather has moved to another position so as we hire someone else that's one of the first things I want us to work on together is kind of stakeholder planning and being really strategic about what um you know is it neighborhood groups community centers is it religious institutions like what where are we going to go to spend more time to build to build these relationships and how can we include the the steering committee in this effort with
112us so those are some of the things we're thinking about right now to it extend this effort thank you any other comments or questions uh seeing none or Michelle I should say um thanks for uh spending part of your evening with us and um everybody recall this is posted on legislar and go back and refer to it I think it should continue to inform our work so thanks again very much yeah thank you all have a great evening great okay let's point on their agenda um are uh we have three resolutions um the last is going to be a first reading so I I'm anticipating not a whole lot of discussion and that hopefully most of that will be then in the second reading but um the first is a resolution I'll give a little
113bit of background and then I'll let council member Briggs and Missy uh chime in if uh appropriate so this is a resolution that was considered uh by Council uh last Monday uh it um council member Briggs brought it to my attention a couple of days ahead of time um and asked if I had any input on it I provided her some insights that I thought potentially could improve uh the uh resolution uh Council decided on Monday that they would defer action on it refer it back to the energy commission for comment um the intent tonight is not to vote on this resolution the intent is not to Wordsmith it um the intent is to gather ideas that um I'm going to ask that um Joe you uh do your best job to make note of
114them and also I assume that council member Briggs will do the same as will Missy and the intent is is that we get that back to council as soon as possible for their considered operation so that they can act on this on Monday so their next meeting is Monday they want to act while the iron is hot so to speak or strike while the iron is hot and that's our intent tonight and councilmember Riggs please add to that or contradict me where appropriate nope that was perfect I just will add to it a little bit so um yes this was a um the agenda Evan that we're talking about is um one that was a resolution put forward by council member Ghazi Edwin um sponsored as well by council member song and Harrison and it
115is um basically working to advance our energy equity and um and resilience it was in reaction I think in in part what we in large part to what we saw in our community um following the these winter storms and sort of the performance of DPE in our area and so you'll notice a lot of the whereas Clauses are around that um because of the um desire to get this to the council table and have some public discussion around that um it didn't come you know immediately to energy commission where we might sometimes see it go to energy commission and then to to confluences gone to council and back here to energy commission um but council member um Regina and I had just wanted to make sure that folks had an opportunity to there's a lot
116of knowledge on this Commission you know take a look and see as in those resolve Clause specifically um are there bullet points that may be missing in terms of things we want to call upon the legislature to do or the Michigan Public Services Commission to do um we also obviously heard a number of Commissioners um talking about the resolve quad or number of members of the public talking about the resolve Clause around DTE you know coming to the commission um so just welcoming some feedback it can be tonight if you haven't had the opportunity to look at it feel free to take a look at it after the meeting tomorrow um we do want to bring it back the council for a final vote next Monday so um you know which is Tuesday I would
117say maybe if you could get feedback to um back through staff To Us by Thursday that would give the sponsor of this resolution the ability to reflect upon the feedback that the commission has provided so happy to answer questions or listen to feedback great so um I provided some things but I'm going to let everybody else go and anything that you guys don't mention that I'll bring up at the end um commissioner McKenna then harp and then brookwoods yeah hi councilmember Briggs thank you so much for uh providing this for us um a lot to talk about here um but um kind of want to keep it short and maybe I can provide some more comments uh written comments um number one I'd just like to um kind of bring our attention to the the
118idea of compensating folks for for lost um food and you know whatever costs that may have been incurred due to relocating um I think that's a great start but I would want to encourage emphasis on um Equitable access to those resources I don't know if this you know maybe belongs here but I think a lot of the breakdown in equity in our infrastructure um is you know while there may be attention paid to creating more resources for um for folks that that kind of suffer inequities or that um that may not have had the access that they needed and you know or who are disruportionately affected by these outages um you know their ability to actually access those resources when they're made available actually becomes um quite difficult so I just wanted to add that
119um I think additionally a point maybe for discussion then I'll then I'll pose um is that I think the language around um resilience and strengthening the wires Network and and some of the undergrounding efforts um maybe isn't as strong as I'd like to see it for instance I see resolves um that the Ann Arbor calls Michigan Public Service uh commission to hold easy accountable by directing underground efforts um I don't I don't understand what that means um you know reading through this and being pretty knowledgeable in the field and I frankly don't think that we're at the directing Point anymore um I want to see language as strong as passing legislation requiring um which I see above um in terms of having the city be compensated for their losses um so I just want to
120talk about President around language and those kinds of requirements um and just yeah just emphasize that I think undergrounding is the very most important thing that needs to come out of this commissioner thank you I had a just a couple of comments um when I was looking in the section around utility redlining I was looking a little bit more to try to unpack what that means more specifically and and with a greater description and personal my reading that might relate to lower hosting capacity things like lower and uneven grid modernization um outdating an increased age of production and distribution assets um and things of those sorts as well as informational resources that might be available depending on different customers abilities to pay for those resources or or other areas so it's just just a closer
121look at that and what that might mean Beyond just outdated assets um and in a few areas I was wanting to draw attention just to the informational services that are available as well a number of folks have mentioned not only the maps but also the ability to analyze bills and Energy Efficiency and use practices that they might be um using not only through the website and the bill paying service but also in addition there's an app and an energy Bridge tool it can be um that one can rent effectively to provide an additional layer of information and so there's just a major difference between those informational resources in terms of not only how they're presented but what's presented on them and um that can itself um create certain inequities as well and availability of information
122so I just wanted to draw attention to that um and the other there was one line Associated I think it was in the second section unresolved of just um asking the Public Service Commission told DT accountable by um it was the second bullet point and proactive on issues of climate change I was wanting to better understand what what proactive around issues on climate change means in this in this context whether that's adaptive in making more adaptive distribution or whether that's improving um Renewables and reducing fossil fuels in the Energy Mix or what that might be and more specifically so do you have any hands that was it nope those were just those are some of the comments I was I was wanting to add to that yeah and if anybody has you know specifics that
123then would enable that language to be fine-tuned please submit that in writing it right yes commissioner McKenna that applies to anything you said too if there's anything in detail yeah that's great um commissioner Berkowitz thank you everyone I really appreciate the conversation uh topics near and dear to my heart um and uh I just have a few things that I would suggest adding to the resolution to improve and strengthen it um I've got some notes that I prepared right before we hopped onto the zoom so I will email that to Joe and the pertinent folks uh when we're done talking or when when I'm done talking and multitasking but just to speak them into this meeting um uh the line about undergrounding I think would be strengthened by adding something about generalized grid hardening I
124think that's the intent or at least that's what I was getting at or I think it's trying to get at the first half so maybe grid hardening I think could be a key term to strengthen that bullet and then I have four things on my wish list that I think should be on the city's wish list for the legislature um candidly my comments are geared towards the legislature because I think the commission and the city administrator seem to be doing the most they can with like the limited resources and the enforcement and implication like mechanisms and Authority they have under State Statute so we gotta just improve State Statute potentially to open some of those things up um the first thing is passing legislation to require performance-based rate making for utilities handled by the Public
125Service Commission or through the Commission in like contested cases or dockets this is just a best practice for holding utility companies accountable and essentially tying their financial compensation to reliability affordability whatever metrics you want you know Equity pollution reduction and you can also create mechanisms for penalizing utility companies when they fail to meet these things which is I think something you know we're all in agreement is quite missing right now another thing to name that I think is kind of like danced around in a couple of the bullets talking about resiliency um I would like to see the word microgrids added in microgrid is just like the technical term for when there was a portion of a grid that cannot operate like an island um and you know one of the two of the bullets
126talk about like the essential services like hospitals fire police you know School shelters non-profits um having them be able to operate within their own microgrid can be really beneficial it can you know also help out the grid even when there aren't power outages and just when there's Peak Demand on the hottest hours of the year or the coldest hours of the year it can help shave demand for running gas or other fossil fuel powered people plants Elsewhere on the grid and delivering benefits to impacting communities tangentially so microgrids are a great option all around and currently our barred uh by state statute for the most part sorry two more things on the wish list um one is a Statewide establishing a Statewide storage standard um I actually just read um that uh state representative Jen
127Hill uh from the Upper Peninsula is working to introduce legislation on this right now but essentially it would um require utilities to invest in utility scale uh storage um I think the resolution talks about local small-scale storage um the third bullet point in particular I think we should also push utility scale storage because it just largely helps insulate the entire grid and not only Ann Arbor but all of our brother and sister communities across the state to help us more systematically be insulated from extended outages over large periods of time and also delivers benefits to the grid you know displaces the need for running fossil fuel peaker plants just like microgrids last item on the wish list um and again Joe I'll email this to you sorry I told me to take uh make you
128take hard notes on all this but um I think we should explicitly expand the authority of the Public Service Commission through legislation um to directly address and enforce utility reliability grid planning affordability uh decarbonization and environmental justice a lot of these things are kind of like peripherally in their purview or they are afraid to kind of stick their necks out because statute maybe isn't strong enough in backing them where there isn't legal precedence so I think directly explicitly expanding their authority over some of these things would go a long way that's my five cents thank you that was at least six thank you uh commissioner zillman yeah thank you I have uh three things I'd like to suggest um I want to apologize to Erica because I popped out of the zoom call for a
129second so I'm not sure if you already talked about this at all but um the first thing is I personally would like to see the language about the um DTE member coming to the energy Commission meeting every month removed I don't think they need that platform they have more access to the city than most people and I just think it's unnecessary they do do a lot of greenwashing in our community and I don't think we need to provide a greater platform for that secondly on February 28th Pontiac city council unanimously passed a resolution calling on the state legislature to start a committee researching the feasibility of a democratically accountable state-run utility in Michigan I think through this resolution we should at least include a resolved Clause of like support for that to investigate what all
130of our options are and my last piece is just that I think Washington County also passed a resolution to investigate the feasibility of establishing a county-wide energy utility and we should also State our support for that as well so thank you thank you commissioner McKenna thank you I just wanted to Second um Commissioners littleman's uh request that the um the the clause about having to deal at the energy commission meetings be removed strongly in favor of removal of that I I also oppose um their involvement in this Commission other comments I'm going to Rattle off a couple real quickly some of these are in writing already so I won't go into detail um first is eliminating or lifting the one percent cap on distributed renewable energy generation resources um as a means of increasing reliability
131um second utilities there is a comment about passing legislation broadly on regulating utilities utilities are unique in that they've been granted a monopoly by the state yet they're still able to use what are ultimately you know it's ultimately revenue from us as rate payers to to Lobby on on their behalf and not necessarily in our interest but in their interests and so um I have indicated that there is an entity called the energy policy the energy and policy Institute and they have a uh a number of recommendations related to essentially better rules about what utilities can and can't do um then better disclosure against those rules and then finally better enforcement or put it this way stronger deterrence when those rules are not adhered to so a lot of the rules that we as commissioner
132bergenowitz mentioned there's um they're they're not very clear and therefore the mpsc is is not so clear on what they can and can't do and so and then that applies also to the investor own utilities so doing something there to really better Define those rules um which should be obviously in in accordance with the values of the state and then finally then obviously enforcing that through first of all better requiring good disclosure um and then uh like I said um better enforcement or or deterrence um then another thing that I think Michigan should consider and you know depends on how how wide a scope we want to have but um the state of California I know and maybe this is true in other states um they actually have legislation which funds something they call their
133public Advocates office and so when issues come before their Public Service Commission of course the utilities are there and they are presenting information and evidence um and by the way that requires a lot of technical expertise in many cases um and so what the state of California does is it provides funding for this other entity to go in and essentially Lobby on behalf of rape haters um so it's there's a balance in in in in the equation and then um I know another commissioner here has uh and this essentially what uh commissioner burkowitz said but uh another commissioner has talked to me about um essentially tying um and I don't know if this is possible but bonuses and things like that essentially a compensation up and down the the whole utility utility as a whole
134but even um something that would incentify um the right behavior on leadership so that means bonuses for example would be tied to the right kinds of behaviors I don't know if that's possible that may be digging in too deep but those are the kinds of things that I think that also should be considered um uh that those were my name points and um commissioner Irving council member Briggs has those um but um Joe we probably want to put these all together in one document and share them with all the other council members um does anybody else have any other ideas in the meantime and if not uh then again uh please submit them to Joe by Thursday um as soon as possible so that he can have something as a deliverable by the end of
135the day on Thursday um commissioner Smith thanks commissioner mersky uh yeah I would just like to add in response um also in agreement with the removing kind of DTE regular attendance in energy commission but I would just like to kind of ask ourselves the question happy to kind of share some thoughts on how do we Garner the right insights um to ensure that they are making meaningful progress without the green washing um it to better hold them uh accountable you know is that through legislation is that through some of these other resolutions but wanting to be sure that weeks two can hold them accountable um and those insights likely being a a helpful part of that council member breaks yeah I just want to say thank you to everybody for providing this and um preparing
136um more on writing later uh obviously I'll pass this along and um I know it'll be not everything will get be incorporated I know the resolution sponsor is trying to you know keep to the heart of what she was trying to create here but I think this is really good insight and I know that she'll be pulling pulling from this to strengthen the resolution um also if you're seeing anything in there you just feel like is um you don't need a word Smith but if there's anything you really think you know would be stronger um if it was praised a different way I think um sponsors would probably welcome that as well there may not be um that many of these documents for our especially for our local debt legislative delegation to draw from and
137so we want it to be a strong guiding document for especially for our um our legislators so thank you so much oh and if there's I'm not hearing support here for the resolve Clause around DTE kind of coming regularly to to hear for some reason there's a silent majority here that really doesn't want to have that happen you know send a note on that but thanks yeah I think we we broadly all agree that um that if they if they appear would be at our requests and with specific uh requested information that they report but not something where they have a platform on a regular basis yep and and I think um you I can speak for the whole commission um and thank um all of the drafters of this that they acted on this
138um in in and did so with a great sense of urgency and that um you didn't hear any any overall concerns with the the the the spirit of the resolution at all we I think we all really heartily endorse this um like I said we're not going to take a vote but uh it's uh definitely you can say meets our approval our games our approval right okay uh three topics down two to go so um the next is uh the second reading of the uh performance transparency resolution I thought I'd just give some background first rather than allowing that to come out sort of haphazard in the discussion so just as a recap there was a a broader resolution that was passed by the environmental commission um last year we looked at that and in
139our meeting uh last time we agreed that we would um go ahead and proceed with that with a second reading um but that there were a number of inputs that would be considered and so let me just read off some comments first of all I think we all understand that city council and consultation with the administrator um should this resolution be taken up by Council will potentially change the language of this resolution um it may be something closer to what we do it maybe something um more broad like with the energy or excuse me the environmental commission did but um we I think we should all recognize that we don't have to perfect this because it's most likely going to be changed anyhow and that includes some of the due dates or some of the
140dates that appear in there um so since the last meeting I shared a version of the resolution um on uh in a Google doc um with uh our two Liaisons uh Council Leon Liaisons and with Joe and Carlene um Joe and Carlene provided input uh via email or it can be in the document and the two uh Council Liaisons provided uh input um via email and um first of all um councilman member Adina stated in his communication that heals that this resolution should be just one element of creating a higher performing organization that delivers better outcomes to City residents and I think we all agree on that and um so you know we're doing this in the spirit of that recognizing we're just looking at one one element it is um uh based on his
141input um I modified one the first resolve Clause as follows um be it therefore resolved that the energy commission recommends that the city council and the city Administration will review and then this is the change with input from City boards and commissions when appropriate and that is leaving that to their judgment the completeness accuracy and format of all uh above mentioned kpis so that just um makes it a little bit less prescriptive um and it leaves them discretion as to when they come to us for that input um based on input from uh council member Briggs this was mentioned in the meeting but also I think afterwards in our communication we talked on the phone also a couple of times thank you council member Briggs um so I added aware as Clause whereas in the
142November 2022 city of Ann Arbor whereas in November 2022 city of Ann Arbor voters approved a 20-year one mil climate millage that will generate over 140 million dollars in revenue for spending on climate and a20 carbon neutrality plan related projects and programs where their performance outcomes should be transparent and public facing so it's just sort of a broad statement saying that by having performance transparency we'll have better insights into how that money is being spent and what kind of outcomes they are delivering so just a couple of other points uh I think everybody here knows that the a20 plan has um what I would call leading indicators of success um they're called indicators of success slash goals and timelines and initial actions um many with important intermediate targets that are key to achieving the overall
143Target of Net Zero by 2030 and is I think it's also important for us to realize that the count the county has passed its resilient uh resilient Washtenaw County climate action plan and they have for virtually every action goals and evaluation metrics for essentially all of their actions and the county is only going to be able to to track those goals and and progress against those metrics if it has performance input from the city of Ann Arbor um so what else did I want to say here I don't know if I have to go through all this um so um there is one other comment from both council member related to the resolution being overly prescriptive um and first of all um council member uh Briggs recommended um the first resolve clause read so um
144maybe Joe can you put that up so we can start to look at the result classes because that's probably the most important thing yeah I'll do that here yeah in theory once I find the right thing yes the second uh yeah the first one oh I meant on Zoom trying to find words okay always hiding all right if you can go down to the resolve clauses um so the first one um is um that um it's simply read um that uh the energy commission recommends that city council engaged the city administrator to ensure that Key Energy climate and A200 related policy objectives so this um I'll mentioned about all of the above kpis that that basically is just distilled down to key City policy objectives and strategic goals and kpis be published and updated regularly
145on the city's website um so um just I'm speaking for myself um that kind of language I think is fine whether it's called the city's performance measures web page or some other web page in the future is really sort of irrelevant I think uh what's important maybe in the language or that as a key takeaway that there be a central repository that they're not scattered all over the place on the city's website that doesn't mean that they can't appear in two places but that there's a place where people know that they can go to to get um information so it's uh not on distributed on just you know hundreds of different web pages that people have to search through but that it be somewhere um on the city's website and that'd be a central Repository
146um and I think I'll leave it at that and open things up for discussion commissioner harp and then commissioner Smith thank you um I had two two questions um one was sort of the question about kpis in general um and the extent to which their outcomes based and holistic in what they're measuring and indicating um and so maybe that's just a question about a clarification of what might be implicit in how kprs are described here and then the second question you know based quite a bit on some of the previous presentations and and discussions earlier in this meeting is um where equity and engagement might exist in among these kpis um as they as they relate directly to the climate energy and HR u0 related policy goals um and whether that needs to be made
147more explicit in this resolution or or whether that um is is already assumed primarily through the A200 plan um taking the second first I from as far as I'm concerned that's sort of assumed in the a20 plan based on these indicators of success um and and uh the timelines that are in the plan and by the way it's a living plan So the plan is likely to be updated with what frequency I don't think is all that important at this point um the debt the data address at least your second point I think so yes yeah and your first Point again can you clarify that again for me sorry I'm curious about what's assumed about kpis and and what they are what they Encompass um what is it that you are looking for what is
148it that that are they outcomes based one both in to some extent that's um I think clarified in both specifying leading and lagging indicators um and so I was just trying to get a sense of um how holistic the kprs are that we're aiming for and what they're measuring so um you know I I don't know if that needs to be fully explicit in this or not um and it was just sort of a question for clarification I think well I mean I'll speak for myself um I think that's um in a sense um for um Council and the administrator to decide but I'll give you a couple of examples um so the the plan calls for a 50 reduction in vehicle miles traveled so you know that that's that's really an important indicator um
149there's also specifics about um the number of um uh whether I think it's a percentage of weatherization there's a number of housing units to be created um It's relatively modest gold but there are there are specific figures in in the in the plan and the question is uh how are we performing against the targets that are that are in the plan um and part of this is so that we're not just looking in the rearview mirror where we get the the the um the index the the that's not the index the but the inventory um for the last year but that we're actually monitoring some of these main contributing factors along the way and by the way again remember this was not written with a specific focus on the a20 plan because we are an
150energy commission and we're focused on climate and energy this was sort of adapted there's there's other other areas um where the city is performing where those that level of transparency that we're getting from OSI which frankly is is exemplary in many regards compared to other parts of the city but there's still room for improvement I think even um as related to energy climate and a to zero related goals uh commissioner Smith yes thank you um as a follow-on to our conversation around Equity earlier um I guess I don't know if it necessitates an update to the language directly but just ask that we kind of think about um is it within the context of the work plan um that we think about non-digital forms of sharing this information to be transparent recognizing the language kind
151of focuses in on web page um you know being that uh opportunity for transparency but can we leverage you know Community engagement sessions to also share some of this information as well right um the the last can you scroll down to the last results Clause um I think it's um that there's a statement here about um that there is some kind of um annual review and that would likely happen in the public domain could be attended in in person so that somewhat addresses that but I don't think probably to the degree it deserves to be I I like the general thrust of your of your your point um can I go back to the first um statement where we crossed out current and replaced it with key so now I just remembering what my thought
152was here so my thought was that anything that is currently tracked in this case now a to zero climate energy related but thinking more broadly anything that is tracked the link to the city's performance webpage by June 30th that's why the date is so soon it's just simply taking information that is on individual sites for example in this case OSI webpage and if someone goes to the city's performance web measures web page there's no mention of the greenhouse gas inventory there so it's just simply creating a link to information that is somewhere else already on the city's web page so that would be applied to solid waste because I know the solid waste or the the solid waste uh Team tracks diversion rate and other kinds of things but that's not on this web page
153there's other kinds of things so it's just simply asking that current object objectives be linked to this web page um so this is not talking about the long-term uh ideas of of what might go there this is just looking at the short term so my recommendation if it's okay with council member Briggs um that we leave it as current that res that actually um limits the scope of that resolve class to just what is currently being done by by OSI OSI that wouldn't have to do anything except put a link on the performance web page so that if someone goes there they can get information directly without having to search for it on the osi's web page council member breaks thank you and um I want to thank you for continuing to be an advocate
154for the sort of work in the city we've had a number of conversations over the years about how important it is um you know I think from I find myself on a tricky position in a tricky place on this commission I honestly don't think that council members should be voting members of any commissions or either Advisory Board to council and so I see it with my my job here to be through the liaison to the commissions you know what's going on at Council and then taking it having a better understanding of what's going on the commission than bringing that board to Campo um but um that is not the case uh in many of my commissions I'm also voting member as is the case here so um I view this commission differently I think than
155is necessary for a number of commission for Commissioners to view it but I will let you know how I'm looking at this so um you know when I look at this resolution the last I can't find my phone now sorry um so the last three whereas Clauses um I think are what's the heart of really what's critically important about this in terms of you know the that we should have complete transparent easily accessible information about government operations and performance that we passed it um you know voters approved a millage and um need to understand you know the performance outcome um that there are other municipalities out there across the country that are have these really outstanding public these dashboards that are providing um stronger information about their progress towards their their Community goals and so
156there's a lot for us to be learning however for me when I look at the result Clauses um as I've talked to um chair mersky about these are very prescribed exactly how the city administrator should reach those whereas Clauses and so you know I know from my perspective that the city um is working on redoing a website and I don't know to the degree that we can get this these you know things up on the information up on our website or we'd even actually want to take the time right now in the midst of everything to spend the staff time to do that as we're transitioning over um you know sort of the the work plan with the with the timeline and due dates you know however the city administrator um chooses to manage this
157work is is fine by me as long as we have this outward facing information we're reporting back um in a way that's clear and transparent to the public so for myself this evening I'm going to be voting against this not because I don't um support the general purpose of it because the prescription for me as a council member this is a bit overly prescriptive however as a convention I don't think that Commissioners need to be as concerned about this um unless you are sort of a you know you know there's more that you want in here um councilmember Regina and I will be taking this environmental commission has passed something similar um and trying to work to implement this in some way um this moves you know in our in our city so I just
158want to explain myself a little bit and explain my thinking and on an happy to answer any questions too uh other Commissioners what is your perspective on this what's your recommendations um we've commissioner Colin Garcia as you mentioned uh John I did have some input into this already and so my question now is I'm really really grateful that you shared with us Cosmo Briggs what your perspective is on this and if you wouldn't mind um elaborating a little bit on how in even though you would be voting against this tonight like like what aspect of it would you be bringing forward um with council member Robina thank you yeah and so for me I mean I have to look at resolved Clauses that's how I read a resolution I look at within the result clause
159and this is what I mean and I if I'm voting for The if I'm as a council member I want to be able to take something that is in a resolved clause and feel like I'm going to move poor really wholeheartedly move forward each element in a resolved pause um and I I can't commit to doing that um this evening however I think the spirit of this resolution is great I think the general substance of it is is is spot on um the details of how we work it out um is is what we need to work with um Our IT department on our city administrator um I think there's a rule for um yeah working with other council members to hear what they're hearing in other commissions as well but I think the the
160piece around you know for what I'm looking at is in many ways you know this this public services dashboard piece around how we're improving transparency on our um in progress towards our stated Community goal um that's that's the piece that I'm committed to moving forward thank you very much for explaining that elaborating any other comments so I think from a Robert's Rules of orders perspective we had a motion to consider this we had a second we had discussion about it it was then reviewed and updated it was uh changed and is in front of us uh again my personal uh hope is even actually that this resolution does not go to council as is for approval that this be recrafted reviewed uh in terms of overall priorities of the city um best practices um not
161only within the city but outside the city and that something in this Spirit as well as in the spirit of the other uh resolution passed by the environmental Christian moves forward um I'm hoping uh is again speaking for myself and I won't take it personally if people vote otherwise but I'm hoping that the energy commission approves this um simply to say we we believe that this is necessary and appropriate not only for a20 and climate and energy but more generally across the city so I'm gonna let others speak again and then I'm gonna ask for a vote does anybody else have any other comments Okay so um all those in favor of passing the resolution please raise your hand and say aye all right all those opposed okay so the motion passes the resolution passes
162um I didn't count the number but it's uh one all votes four except uh council member Briggs voted against as she indicated that she would and I think we all understand why so thanks very much great so it is 8 26 and I know it's getting late but I would like to at least introduce the last resolution simply um as something for our consideration um so hopefully people have had a chance to at least skim it um obviously we had public comment about it I'm wondering if we can get a motion to consider it and a second and if so then we can take brief comments and then based on some of those brief comments uh get an indication of um are there key elements that need to be reworked and to provide uh maybe
163a subgroup of this group to look at reworking um the resolution as appropriate um between now and a second reading uh is there interest in this and can I get a motion to consider the resolution moved by commissioner Peck and seconded by commissioner McKenna so I'll open it up for discussion Mr Sharp I just had one one um clarification about the whereas statement with the state Bureau of construction codes not adopting the zero code appendix um my understanding my current understanding was that it hadn't it had neither been explicitly adopted nor drafted so it's just um or left out so it was that was just a clarification yeah that my interest may be that we need to look at that language my understanding is it's not any of the drafts that are currently being considered
164for approval so the light the the assumption is that it will not be approved but maybe we need to retweak that language to reflect the less certainty there but okay great good point other thoughts councilmember Briggs um and we talked about this earlier today um this is we're gonna read the resolution um again a future meeting I think it would be helpful to change um the last couple of resolve Clauses so Focus very much on directing um city council um just specifically to do certain do work in this area um and to leave out references um necessarily even to the city administrator or City Planning Commission um just being cognizant that maybe it's not appropriate for we generally try to stay away from other missions directing other commissions to do work um but I think
165you know urging city council to be focused in on on um on specific issues is helpful um I also think it's important to know that we are evaluating our options and reviewing them very carefully and so um sorry sometimes we I have to think very carefully when it comes to sort of Legally related issues and so um I guess I'll just leave it at that I I sometimes I'm careful uh I just don't I want to be very careful in my wording here um this is something that I find to be very important as well um so council's action on this doesn't have anything to do necessarily with um lack of Desire on the private Council to do things other thoughts or questions so I'll leave you with two thoughts um there's really I think
166two points that are being made by this resolution and the first is that um we're just simply encouraging with the first resolved Clause that the city move as quickly as possible recognizing that it is doing so um in many different ways as uh in some ways uh that are not so visible even to us as Commissioners and certainly um to lay people and the second I think is the second resolve Clause simply saying um that whatever approach we take um and there have been a number of different approaches that have been looked at the possibility exists that the preferred routes may not be something that can go into effect immediately um and therefore it's just simply asking um that the city look at other levers it may have and there's just a few examples that
167are given here and it's not meant to be prescriptive it's just to be to give some examples that there may be things that the city can do in the interim to really drive the type of Development and Construction that we would like to see here I think that's really the message that we're trying to to deliver if indeed we agree to pass this so I I I prefer not to take a vote I don't see that it's necessary to take a vote we've already discussed this um we have one council member that's participated tonight I know that council member Dean has also looked at this um so um it's there's no real urgency to do this there are some things that I think we can do in terms of tweaking with the language and um
168then we can vote on this uh a month from now and maybe craft this a little bit more precisely but I think we heard the messages from the public and I think if we speak with one voice that provides another um push to look for Action at these two levels uh commissioner McKenna thanks um I agree with you thank you for your comments there and just offering uh help to revise this if if anyone's interested um I know I'm seeing something right now that I think is technically inaccurate um just from a technical engineering standpoint so um I'd be happy to read it over and provide comments if if anyone wants to read them or do that with me you have another volunteer right here um any other volunteers which doesn't mean that someone can't
169uh propose language changes uh when we take this up again but if anybody else is has interest um either let me know now or let me know later otherwise I will work with commissioner McKenna and probably in consultation also with staff and with the two council members and then we'll bring this back um in in uh our April meeting unless something dramatic happens in the meantime which would be wonderful okay good so uh we may actually get out of here in a few more minutes the last couple of things on the agenda is a report from the energy office and then we'll open things up to reports from commissioners sure um yeah first thing I'll say you all should be subscribed at this point to the uh OSI newsletter um if you're not feel free
170to either let me know or go ahead and get yourself subscribed on there um but that there's lots of great news that'll come out of there um there's a couple couple things that have come up just recently and by recently for this one is just today um we've just been awarded two different grants um from semcog for a couple different uh a couple of different things um the first is for uh fiscal year 2024 um it'll be the for the conversion of some street lights to LEDs uh the award is 980 000 plus a local match of 245 000. um we'll we'll be replacing over 4 000 low efficiency uh bulbs into high efficiency LED fixtures um the new ones will be one to 1.2 to three times more efficient um meaning we'll be saving
171money and um this is an action 820 and should save us around uh what 3417 kilograms per day of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions um the second project is will be for fiscal year 2026 and is a build out of the Washington bike Boulevard uh for this project we won 200 000 with a fifty thousand dollar local match uh to build out a 0.8 mile long all ages and abilities bike priority Corridor as a low stress alternative to biking on Huron Avenue uh this will reduce daily carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 476.75 kilograms Missy anything else to mention on that one in particular this was the first match of the village and so that's how we were able to get these dollars by putting the match already in play so pretty exciting cool um yeah several
172other things that are kind of happening all over um I can't remember we've talked about this previously but we had the launch of our commercial solarize uh program um they are starting to recruit recruit folks um and kind of get them in for the um for the pilot phase of that that's in collaboration with the 2030 District um concept is very similar to the existing solarized program um this one is just working more um you know with with commercial entities as opposed to single-family homeowners um a couple other things that have come up um like I saw city council released funds for um administering some of the the low income sustainability program um we are currently working with a couple of our partners um just given the timeline it's going to be working with the
173color of our local Partners in the Housing Commission and Avalon to be getting getting some good work on some of their different facilities to make sure they are able to access a couple different sustainability features that they're um their funding did not previously allow for um as I said there's a few more things kind of in the newsletters here or there so make sure you're checking those out um that is what we have right now great I'd like to open things up to updates from commissioners Mr McKenna did you have your hand up still or not nope okay um other reports from any of us of general interest or maybe even to the public that's listening in commissioner Peck great uh evening last night thanks for sees continuing to hold those uh lectures with great
174speakers councilmember bricks yeah um a few from updates from Council um as one of the public commenters noted there was an exciting uh QD plan unit development project on the anniversary that was approved by Council that's all electric and has a lot of sustainability components to it so that was a nice new development that was approved last council meeting also The Villages of the Ann Arbor move forward with something that I know this commission took some time to to provide some input on as well um that was sort of a mixed uh it it has more in it than we would see by by right at what was required out of our zoning code um it's all electric for the um the single family homes it is not all electric for the um many um
175sort of uh multi-family uh units that are on the um on the site so uh I know there was some Community concern around that um but just did want to let folks know that that had moved through Council um and um Brownfield um dollars were also approved uh something that may be of interest to you that's on the next um the council agenda um hold it up because I wanted to give you the number for it it's ca20 um on the next Council agenda resolution directing the city administrator to begin negotiating a new natural gas franchise I suspect you have seen uh information in the news about this um obviously this is something that uh this Council still needs to approve um it is um an exciting stuff that the city is taking um in
176terms of negotiating um what we want our new franchise agreement to look like and the benefits that we want to have for our community so I know that the this moves forward um there will be some listening sessions out in the community and also um staff will be making presentations here more on that as well and giving more commission input on it um I think there's anything else pressing um I guess just from a staff feedback to staff certainly the power outages that we saw I have heard a lot of feedback from community members around interest and wanting to know more about solar I have seen that I saw that in the last newsletter but I think there's there's a lot of appetite right now to understand how people how homes actually for those that
177are for folks that have done those Investments um what what those storms look like for them and so I think there's an opportunity to to um to be doing some more presentations on that and talking to Residents about what the experiences look like depending on sort of different improvements that they made in their home any other updates okay next agenda item is committee updates um I'm actually not aware of any active committees or working groups right now Carlene I think the last one was Transportation electrification but it's really not active so if that can is indeed the case then I would say we strike that from the standard agenda and until such time we have either a an ongoing or an ad hoc committee or working group then we could add that back in is
178that correct that Carlene okay good um next is report from the environmental commission as you guys know I'm in the liaison um so real briefly we had uh presented um the same Equitable engagement presentation that Michelle gave us tonight um there was a discussion about the city's handling of biosolids and concern with pfas levels in biosolids and whether those should continue to be uh essentially uh dispersed as a form of fertilizer on agricultural fields or whether biosolids given pfas uh contamination should be going to landfill and so that's an ongoing discussion that's being reviewed by staff it was presented by staff there's no final decision um but there's likely to be action on that obviously um we're conflicted um with that I think everybody is um but we have a a new significant and emerging
179problem with bioaccumulative persistent toxins and we don't want to just be spreading those around the environment on the other hand we don't necessarily want to go to to landfill where they then uh turn into methane and potentially cause uh contribute to greenhouse gas and Global and and climate warming or climate change um so and the last thing we did is we had a brief discussion on the solid waste budget there's going to be another discussion and the April meeting but at least I can report to all of you that um the solid wage budget is in good shape the um revenue and expenses were basically balanced the last two fiscal years and the solid waste fund uh uh Reserve fund has about 15 million dollars in it several years ago it was projected to actually
180go below zero the target is for it to have 25 percent of the annual um uh estimated expenses I mean that would amount to roughly or just a little bit less than 5 million and we have roughly 15 million in there so the reserve fund's in good shape and that will enable us potentially to do some good things um with the build up of funds in that in that Reserve so those are the key report outs from the environmental commission um we are now winding down and somewhere here I have my little script or public input here we go so this is the second opportunity for public input uh with the ability for persons to speak up to three minutes if you're watching on CTN uh or calling in call 888-788-0099-4877-853-5247 and enter the meeting
181ID nine five six eight seven one eight seven eight seven six this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and 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 two raise your hand electronically to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated message that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet space and uh state your name and address so that we know where you're calling from and who you are at the beginning of your comments don't currently have any hand raised but give it a few just in case we must have made everybody happy tonight must have yeah don't have don't have
182any other hands raised so I think we're good to move on very good so um I want to thank all of you for your service I also want to especially thank um Missy for staying on for the duration of the call and appearing to us and to staff and to our Council Liaisons um thanks all of you have a nice rest of your evening um as chair I'm calling this meeting to a close at 8 46 p.m thanks and have a rest like I said a nice rest of your evening hopefully do something more fun than a uh an energy Commission meeting what could be more fun than that John that good if it can be more fun than that take care everyone thanks everybody