Ann Arbor Energy Commission Meeting January, 10 2023

001I am chair of the Ann Arbor energy Commission uh and as chair I'm calling this meeting to order at 602 pm on Tuesday January 10th 2023. welcome everyone to the meeting this is a virtual meeting to affect social distancing to mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus and other viruses including the common flu which are now having to deal with um we will conduct this meeting like in-person meetings Commissioners during the roll call please indicate your current location also during the meeting please remain on camera just as you would be visible during in-person meetings finally mute your microphone when not speaking public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the two public comment opportunities please call one of the following two toll-free numbers 877-853-5247-4888 -788-0099 and enter the meeting ID nine

002five six eight seven one eight seven eight seven six on your phone this information is also available on the published agenda in the public meeting notices section of the city's website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel I believe it is is it 19 tonight Joe not 16 or is that maybe the environmental commission that had a conflict I can't remember I am unsure so I mean it still as normal I think it's still 16. okay an 18t channel number nine and online at 18 or eight to gov dot org backslash CTN Joe if you could please read the land acknowledgment that would be appreciated um I acknowledge that the land of the city of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the Ocean Ave and Wayne dot

003peoples 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 Injustice for all individuals thank you very much next uh on the agenda is um well first of all well actually on the agenda is a roll call and then we do the agenda um roll call um I have received in advance um notices from um Carlene Colin Garcia and from commissioner Kerber that both are unable to attend tonight otherwise

004it looks like we have a pretty good attendance so Joe if you would take the roll call that would be great yep a reminder if you can state where you are calling in from uh when you are saying present um commissioner maycomer um present and calling in from my home in Ann Arbor commissioner Levin here in Ann Arbor chair mursky present calling from my home here in Ann Arbor advice to your calendars he is absent uh commissioner or council member Briggs yeah here in Ann Arbor uh council member redina here in Ann Arbor commissioner McCoy Aaron in Ann Arbor Mr Kerber is absent uh commissioner overpeck happy New Year calling in from Ann Arbor commissioner Smith here from Ann Arbor commissioner Conan here and I'm calling in from Park Ridge Illinois uh commissioner zitelman here

005in Ann Arbor commissioner McKenna you're calling in from Ann Arbor commissioner harp president calling in from Ann Arbor and commissioner Berkowitz here from my home in Ann Arbor back to you chair uh we have a quorum correct yes we do yeah very good so thanks very much and I would like to Echo commissioner overpeck's New Year's greetings hopefully everyone had a good holiday season and spent quality time with family and friends or maybe just got away from it all so uh in any case welcome back and glad to see you all tonight uh we haven't uh published agenda um hopefully everybody's had a chance to look at it uh can I get a motion from someone um to approve the agenda as written um and then a second and then we'll open up for possible

006changes uh moved by commissioner Macomber seconded by anyone commissioner McCoy um any discussion or proposed changes so seeing none all those in favor please say I and or raise your hand I passes unanimously thank you so um next is approval of the minutes um there were minutes of the meeting I think it was officially a work session but I still think it's worthwhile that we then approve those um so that that's uh duly noted uh as with the agenda is there a motion to approve the minutes also from commissioner Macomber a second second from council member redina any revisions or comments necessary seeing none all those who a favor approval of the minutes please raise your hand and say I I all opposed that was approved that was uh unanimous so we don't have any

007other votes so the minutes are approved um the next is uh public input um and I will read my spiel um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes if you are watching on CTN please call 888-788-0099 or 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 956-8718 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 to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star nine on your phone you will hear an automated message that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly

008and finally please start by stating your name and address all right we have a couple um you'll have three minutes talk and I'll give you a 30 second warning uh or 30 seconds out caller ending in zero one zero color ending and oh no okay you're good hello good evening uh this is Wayne at the yard a former member and chair of the energy commission for many years and a long time uh green architect uh who's been doing uh solar stuff for 45 years I want to First congratulate the city and the Senate its citizens for approving the climate millage having been pushing for more funding since well before we wrote the 2012 climate action plan it's great to see more adequate funding for this uh our most existential problem I totally endorse the proposed

009reduction a resolution on transparency which although always important becomes more so with the new Village funds and the ever increasing urgency of climate disruption especially with rapid growth often comes chaos that allows money to not be spent well transparent currency involves communication with the community I do not think that there is currently enough if you look at the city's web site many pages have information that is several several years old and out of state I'm also a bit concerned that the pros allotment of the first year funding spends too much on items that do little to reduce our emissions time is running out funding should go where it's going to re create the largest reductions enthusiastically endorse the proposed ban on the use of natural gas new construction as Ken Garber has shown any new

010hookups commit us to building commit buildings to Decades of increased emissions natural gas is a health hazard and the city should immediately Institute at least a temporary ban a new new natural gas installations until the items that cause the postponement of the ordinance be are flushed out I hate to say negative things about climate work at the city because it's probably the best in the state of and high up in the country however we are in a crisis and things have to move fast after reading the January OSI newsletter I find that it appears that little Improvement has literal little movement has happened on heard the energy home energy rating disclosure the green rental housing and uh the web portion of the energy concierge concierge program um when I was a member on the commission

011and for some time afterwards we had subcommittee 32nd Street projects um so um we need to move faster um I some of these appear to be stuck in in legal and I would uh suggest that Council needs to ask legal to move more quickly on these items um it's you're not we're not moving fast enough uh we need to do more thank you thank you um caller ending in one three four thank you Mr Lang and chair mursky it's Ken Garber 28 hammerhill Court um yeah I'm looking forward to tonight's discussions of the climate millage budget the transparency and accountability resolution and gas and new construction um a few comments on each uh like Mr Apple Yard I'm excited about the possibilities raised by the climate millage funding um however the slides show a large

012sum that could go to vppas or virtual power purchase agreements we should invest in new Renewables as soon as we can I'm very wary of vppas with these deals there is no physical transfer of electrons from generator to buyer rather the buyer in this case the city and its residents guarantees a price to the generator over a period of time in exchange for renewable energy certificates or wrecks so vpbas our electricity Futures swaps a kind of financial derivatives and almost all of them are done by for-profit companies I can only find one Municipal municipality that's executed one Arlington County Virginia um besides the complexity and Financial Risk with vppas we still pay for dirty DTE electricity and support its fossil fuel generation better to use those funds to finance local generation and Energy Efficiency reducing

013demand for DTE power um with the DTE landfill solar deal apparently dead at least for now let's instead gradually build it out under City ownership taking advantage of the Ira's 30 direct payment to cities um we can put in limited transmission to City facilities starting with a line to the wastewater treatment plant which uses almost 13 million kilowatt hours a year I think this is at least worth discussing um regarding the performance transparency resolution this is badly needed I just looked at the city's performance measures web page ask Mr Apple Yard just mentioned the most recent data for public services are from 2019. uh for police 2018 Community Services 2018. and frankly it's almost all self-promoting PR fluff instead of real analysis as taxpayers were entitled to the whole truth including when we fall short

014of our goals uh finally on the gas ban we don't need a transition period we just had one seven all-electric projects over two years along with about two dozen projects using gas 30 seconds anyway great yeah anyway gradual implementation makes perfect sense for other policy areas but for climate it's the wrong framing each time we approve a gas burning project we're putting CO2 into the atmosphere for 50 years where it remains for at least another 200 heating the planet so it's not like we delay for a year or two and we're good with every decision now we're screwing the next 10 Generations let's get an Ordnance done so we can move on to the really hard stuff that's time thank you any other callers that is it okay thank you callers for your comments so

015um next on the agenda is uh a reflection on 2022 energy commission work uh so when Joel uh and Carlene and I met we thought this was worthwhile and we'd like this to be a little bit different Focus than the work session that was held in December where we talked about comment or our our topics for 2023 and a little bit more about what went well in um what could have done better in using those lessons learned that hopefully we can capture tonight we can do a better job in um advising Council and providing a forum for discussions on energy and greenhouse gas emissions here in the city of Ann Arbor the commission is has a primary function uh the uh role of advising city council and in particular our city council Liaisons on energy

016and in greenhouse gas emissions related topics and so um I thought what I would do first is ask council member Briggs and council member redina to offer their Reflections on 2022 and then opened it up for the rest of the commission so either one of you if you'd be willing to go first uh that would be great all right well I'll kick it off I guess then um yeah I think um in terms of what I think was particularly helpful from kind of my role as liaison um and the council's work I think that obviously there were a number of different agenda items that got moved forward but the the times where energy commission really dug into a subject um for example and brought in some ex expert speakers um and um around the seu

017and municipalization um I think that was really valuable um both in terms of bringing me up to speed feeling like that we were really doing our due diligence um as a commission and putting forward a recommendation to council and then also being able to provide really strong resources to the community later on to be able to look at and dig into a subject um I thought the um the speakers that were brought in about Green Building from other areas that was really helpful so that's personally I think what when I kind of think quickly back to 2022 really pops out to me and what I would love to see uh Stewie Warren in 2023 and Beyond so in quick response to that and to also guide everyone else's comments um the discussion on the SCU

018and all the aspects of that actually all took place in 2021 ending with a resolution that we passed in December of 2021 but I think certainly the year flew by didn't it so um but I think the general comment and certainly the the one about buildings and our our external uh presenter on uh green construction to McDonald that was definitely something that was I think positive this year um anything else to add council member Riggs or I'll let you chime back in at an appropriate time later if you want um council member radina anything you'd like to share with us yeah I I started taking down a couple of notes with this item and [Music] um because the uh the seu conversation was in the in the municipal energy conversation was I think actually such

019a really good example of the commission diving in and bringing in experts from other communities and um and I think also because Council voted on that voted on the RFP Midway through this year it was still fresh on our minds this year um but I looked back a little bit and I think um I agree completely with Council breaks in in kind of the important role this body plays in educating me as a liaison and as a council member kind of the deeper dive that we get to take on some of the issues during the time in this meeting uh makes it a lot easier for me when when issues come before for Council itself and provide me with I think a better perspective to talk to some of my colleagues when they have questions

020as well and so I agree completely and kind of that bringing in issue area experts and doing some of the deeper dives into the issues facing the community I think that's really helpful um and I know that sometimes I think particularly for those of you who are often bringing your own levels of expertise to this body sometimes it can it can feel like these might be things that some of you already know or or you know you can chime in at times and add your own expertise as the expertise that we've brought in is speaking um but in your your role of advising Council I think that also demonstrates exactly why many of you are you know around the screen is because you do have benefici's um but you're helping to provide advice and guidance

021to us which I think is really helpful um I look back at just a few of the the resolutions also that that were passed this year and um I know that we we discussed Workforce housing solar installations um all electric appliances green rental housing um home energy rating disclosure and so I do think that there was some really substantial work that was happening over the last year um and so I I don't want to lose sight of that as well I think the education piece is important but this group is also moving recommendations through to council which I think are helpful as well um and and I think from that perspective you know encouraging weighing in on in areas where we can continue to advance climate-friendly policy and things like that is really helpful for

022my colleagues at the council table to hear as well and so I think when there are those opportunities to weigh in I think we've appreciated that um and then I would just say the one thing that I think you know this isn't necessarily uh specific to this group but uh because you are charged with you know energy and climate policy and other boards and commissions are charged with others one of the things that I find with a lot of my commissions that I serve on is trying to to also just keep in mind the bigger picture when we're doing some of this work and there are times that we want to charge forward with something but may also need to remember that you know it could have impact on housing policy or rental policy or

023environmental policy and and just kind of making sure that we keep that broader perspective so that we're not um there are times I think council member Briggs and I find this quite a bit in in our roles in different as different Liaisons to different groups that at times we have a lot of competing priorities in the city and sometimes it's really easy for us to move things together um in a really cohesive way and other times where there is tension and so trying to just keep in perspective that there are times that we may all feel really really passionately about something but have to acknowledge that that if we move something really quickly in One Direction it may slow something else down that's also been highlighted as a priority of the city and vice versa

024and so just keeping that broad perspective um and then the last thing I'll add is not necessarily a reflection of the work but just something that I continue I've noticed and I think we brought up once before and um as it's that time of year I think where we might uh have to renew our own bylaws and things like that um this is the only body where as council members uh that I serve on anyway that as a council member I do have a vote also which I just think is a an interesting I sometimes find it a bit challenging actually because because you guys are trying to provide advice to council but I'm also voting on it at this table and so it might be something to think about because it is um I

025it adds kind of a different perspective when when I have to vote on advising my colleagues um it's not often that I want to to shy away from being able to vote or say you should take some power away from me but there's kind of a different responsibility that I have on this body than I have on different commissions throughout the city so just something that I I reflect about thank you very much for both of those perspectives uh uh council member Regina your last point was interesting to hear I I serve as everybody knows as liaison to the environmental condition and the council Representatives have a vote there and as far as I know council member Dish as liaison to the Planning Commission also has a vote on that commission yes I do think

026it's pretty I think it's pretty inconsistent throughout the day yeah something that I thought I'd bring up it is the only one that I'm on three commission that I have about interesting and I think interesting for for everybody amongst us uh I'd like to open things up um Lessons Learned I'm good and bad uh how can we improve uh what are your reactions to last year and I recognize that we have a number of relatively new members so it's going to be harder for you to to comment but hopefully you followed the work of the commission a little bit and have some opinions even if they're relatively um new um based on your limited uh participation so open it up just for General comments and discussion much so seeing none I'll offer a few of

027my own and that might also spur some others thoughts on the matter um I I agree um with both council members about um the really positive things that have happened um I think we passed a number of resolutions uh that were I think spread a lot of conversation um certainly among this group um and also as mentioned by councilman Regina also were considered by Council and and passed the council and I think that's something that's really indicative of the kinds of things that we can do is to take on a subject as council member Briggs said discuss it in detail uh have that lead to a resolution and then hopefully have that result in in action um in that the city council level so I think that's that's really positive another thing that I found

028helpful um is the presentation that we had from Washington County and their climate action plan and I think we see a direct connection um between what we did in Ann Arbor and what the county is doing I think a lot of that is attributable to the work that this commission has done over the last couple of years and certainly also to the work that OSI did um it just so happens that some of the lead Consultants on the County's plan were Consultants that Missy engaged for the A200 plan and obviously that carried over and I think there's also some good Lessons Learned in that plan um one thing for me that was both a plus and maybe a minus is that we had presentations as mentioned earlier by those who called in for public comment

029about the herd ordinance and also the green rental housing program on proposed ordinance um on the one hand it was disappointing that those really still had yet to move forward I think on the other hand uh given the option of not having those presented to the commission and not having the opportunity to weigh in probably would have led to potentially even greater delays and bigger problems and I think the fact that they were presented relatively early on um at least certainly with green rental housing program herd had been in in process as most of you known for two and a half three years um but certainly with green rail housing program I think we raised um during the meeting and then in a subsequent separate meeting a lot of issues that were then able to

030be considered by staff so I think generally speaking Joe at least message for me is you know the earlier that things can be brought to the commission um and be considered with the expertise expert input of the commission the better outputs that we're going to have in in the long run and then just that also to reflect and I put these down independently before the meeting um I I'm hoping that we can see progress accelerated on uh our activities and that also accelerate activities on greenhouse gas emissions and I also see um legal as having been a historic bottleneck and if this is indeed a climate and energy is indeed a crisis for the city and for us um across you know the United States and the globe then I think we really need to

031think about how we can accelerate things through legal it's been an issue ever since I've been involved with the energy commission since 2016 and it might be something that we need to talk about when we talk about climate Village funding that more funding for climate goes specifically to Legal resources so those are my thoughts and I see that that uh or your own ruminations led to a couple of other ideas uh commissioner McCoy and then commissioner overpeck yeah similar to what others have said I think um I particularly appreciated the times that we've had presentations that are clearly linked to next steps um whether it be you know a draft of um a resolution to pass or clear plans for follow-up discussions um I think you know it's useful both to be able to get

032the information and use the space to do that but then also to feel like we're serving a purpose of like carrying that information through um and I feel like sometimes when we have presentations that it doesn't automatically lead to something like that it can feel it can get lost and hard to pick back up um and also feel like it's unsure what what the purpose of us having the presentation was so I I just wanted to emphasize that I I really have found those useful and particularly when it's clear what we can do with the information next um that yeah that was my main thing um I had another thing and I can't remember it so I'll raise my hand if I do commissioner Peck yeah I I like all the comments we've had and

033including those from the public at the beginning um I'd like to see us in 2023 really be more action-oriented and uh so by the end of this year we can really feel more tangible progress as a city and going carbon neutral and allocating resources as a way that really puts that number one on up first and foremost uh I don't think we should uh bury our concern for a just Solutions in doing that though so we have to be a little careful on that front and the other thing is over the holidays or since we last met I had a chance to get to know uh University of Michigan's new CFO Chief Financial Officer Jeff chattis he's the guy who's in charge of uh all our physical um processes on campus and going carbon neutral

034and he wants to speed up the University of Michigan's carbon neutrality um and he's really thinking big and outside the box uh and ways to do that um I mentioned it would be cool to see the university work better with the city and he's enthusiastic about that as well and if we wanted to have a session with him to hear his latest thoughts on what we're going to do what we're doing at Michigan University of and how we might collaborate you know where we would all have probably some input on you know what could this University of Michigan do better to in a collaborative Spirit to move the needle faster um I think we could talk him into it and uh just need a good enough warning I did follow up on methane leakage and

035that a whole uh debate is really got a lot of uncertainty uh but I would I will be on the record right already to say we got to get we got to ban natural gas I mean it's just that's the curse and it's going to be there for a long time as one of the early commenters made uh their comments focused on uh and I did follow up with Greg keolian too if we wanted to hear more uh about the nuts and bolts of the different ideas that are coming out of Michigan sort of state of the art Urban neutrality ideas mostly focused on campus but uh increasingly we're trying to focus more on how can we speed things up in society in Mission you know in Ann Arbor could be a great way to

036test some of these ideas um and the last thing that I still feel kind of like murky um and this might go to Embers point about let's get you know um see if we could ask for some really good presentation some research it's just I think we're still pretty um unsure about how the federal money that's in the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the even bigger pot of money in the inflation reduction act how that money might uh spark quicker change in Michigan and make sure that we are surfing those waves as well in a in a very uh thought out way well thought out way thanks thank you great great input um commissioner come Smith and then back to commission required yes thank you um so yeah I just wanted to kind of echo two

037points um first just wanted to Echo uh commissioner overpeck uh and commissioner McCoy's uh uh ideas on you know making um some of our discussions more actionable and so kind of building off of that if there's an opportunity similar to how we presented topics in our December working session of where you know we presented a kind of a clear objection objective excuse me for that topic and then if there's you know an opportunity to be a bit more intentional about at the conclusion of that topic discussion of next steps that lead to you know tangible actions um you know whether it be gathering more information you know to ultimately build to a resolution or a recommendation um again just to further support uh the council in making some tangible progress here uh and then my

038second point was uh building off of commissioner Howard um or excuse me council member renita's comments on you know uh ensuring that we're bringing in some broader context recognizing that environmental commission I understand we have a liaison position there but if there's an opportunity just to evaluate if there's other commissions of which we should have uh Stronger collaboration and connection with I think also in the December working session understanding that there's a lot of great discussion and progress being made on the transportation committee for instance and recognizing there's some strong synergies with some of the work that we're doing here um you know maybe not every meeting but think about what's that appropriate Cadence to bring in some updates to understand where there could be closer collaboration to take advantage of you know uh kind

039of identifying some synergistic opportunities to work together to make some stronger recommendations here great thanks thank good input and I would suggest to all of us myself included that as we hear about these kinds of uh let's say things that are happening in in other commissions or in the community at large where there may be conflicts where there may be synergies that we bring those up in topics for future agendas um and also even bring them up as commissioner uh updates or Council updates so um don't don't hesitate to use those opportunities in our in our regular reading agendas um commissioner McCoy and then commissioner 11. yeah the the other thing that I was going to say is that um uh I think Queen Apple art yard mentioned how we had this year a handful

040of things pass through Council that we had been working on for a long time which is pretty exciting um and and on the flip side of that we're still working on a handful of things that we have been for a long time like the things you mentioned chair mursky um like around the rental ordinance and the housing ordinance and some of these concierge and you know even the natural gas ban we've now talked about for several meetings and so it's not clear to me exactly where the bottlenecks are like if they're um you know there's not enough staff at OSI to work on some of these things if there are things with the city lawyers or if you know there could be places where um you know people those of us as commission members you

041know just need to help writing some of these resolutions out and so um you know similar to what others have said I'm I'm interested in you know not only working on new topics in this coming year but also finding ways to push the things that we have been working on you know throughout this last year or even the year prior finally across some to get to City Council mission 11. uh yeah I I would I call yeah a lot of things people are saying with uh trying to connect the presentations more with actual items and I do think there's just yeah just a general frustration with some things that have gotten slowed down for various reasons either the legal department or some things in OSI that we didn't know exactly what was going on but

042just yet hopefully trying to you know as we are in this climate emergency to try to as best we can move some of these uh items forward and uh the other thing I I believe uh commissioner Smith uh touched on this as well but I I do also think um coordinating with other commissions particularly the Planning Commission um if that's going to be one of the Avenues that we're going to use to uh get some new regulations like the one we're talking about with uh potentially uh Banning natural gas I guess I don't fully follow how that flow happened it seemed like it was an idea that we had for a while and then somehow it got to planning and I Know It's Tricky with you know all these meetings that conflict I think planning

043tends to have on at the same time as us but that that um that Commission in general I think would be one to try to get a little bit better connection with foreign other thoughts from anyone else uh commissioner Harper thanks um yeah I I think I feel similarly as as well as some of the other Commissioners and just a thought um you know I'm trying I do I do very well when I can sort of see the Horizon ahead and some of the items that we we might be thinking about and working about and just thinking ahead to some of the um some of the topics for this next year I'm just wondering about what capacity we might have to to um identify the agendas sort of with a sort of further runway in

044advance you know at least either and sort of um uh even intensively um to be able to sort of Ally and and and assemble whether it's presentations or or even even coordination with other other commissions and things like that and so you know in a sense trying to trying to look ahead whether it's six months or otherwise just to get a sense of sort of What kinds of topics into the future will be will be tackling and how we might begin to sort of bring a bit greater Focus might be helpful to the work of this commission um as well and that you know then just just the last little Point too especially as we consider um the climate millage and sort of relative priorities of that um and and what kinds of topics we

045might have to might need to address associated with that as well in the future great they keep on coming anyone else yes council member Edina I have I have more of action sorry my camera I I updated zoom and this has been happening all day um so I uh I had a question more for the group I I've kind of heard from a couple of people about some frustration with with um bottlenecks potentially and legal and and I guess I was wondering if if there were some specific examples recently that I could point to um in large part because I I I know that this has been a frustration on a couple of the commissions I'm on that are particularly interested in working towards ordinance changes and and things like that and acknowledge that our

046legal staff is relatively limited um in in their staff resources as well and and that they follow direction from Council and so I know that when commissions are asking for their time often that does get put pushed back if council is directing them to do things instead and so as I think about kind of processes and how we can make sure that as a government and as a system we're functioning a little bit better Are there specific frustrations that have bottled up because or that have come up because it may be something that that actually isn't the fault of legal staff but rather simply the way we're structured currently so I I we don't have uh Vice chair calling Garcia who's been on the commission for a long time um but two that come to

047mind uh are the Ed charging resolution that I think went back and forth to Legal a couple of times at least that's the way I recall it being portrayed and certainly that's the case um with her uh the housing energy rating disclosure uh as mentioned there was um I mean I have a copy of what I would call an 80 to 90 finished res um ordinance that's two and a half years old and um here we are hearing in the latest update that OSI sent out that it's um still in legal or back in legal again um so those are two that come to mind um and I can give that some greater thought and give you some input um and maybe it's just a legal budget that legal has that where they can go

048outside to uh to to use resources I know that you need to cultivate who that resource is or what that resource is and what their competencies are and trust that that resource that that the relief valve so to speak um when when the professor internally is is uh is so high that you need to go outside and relieve it um but those are two that come to mind does anybody else um commissioner Macomber does anything you've been on the commission for a long time does um commissioner McCoy um anything else come to mind from your perspectives and and I will also acknowledge all you guys are thinking too that you know the way that this works even at the the council level too is everything that we would make if there's going to be an

049ordinance change if if something gets bounced around if we rework a draft it all has to go back through legal simply because I mean we are drafting laws and we want to make sure that nothing's in conflict with other ordinance or with state law or and so so it can be a tedious process um so I I know that that can that can be slow as well um but but this is helpful as I think you're kind of just system processes too thanks so I I encourage anyone that has thoughts on the matter to um email our true Council Liaisons um don't email the entire commission um but um please provide that input um commission or council member Briggs and then commissioner McKenna yeah and this is a reflection sort of similar to councilmember radina's

050um in terms of you know hearing number of Commissioners kind of talk about the frustration of what happens next with this I do think um it may be useful to um build into this process um around the table just um as we as we hear updates Maybe um thinking about why thinking about why there there is a hold up um councilmember radina referenced this a little bit earlier though too in terms of sometimes what we find is there are some conflicting priorities or we have to wrestle with those in some sort of way and so um certainly that's coming to a head right now not only in our community but all across the country and world I suspect um but you know we have to figure out as we I I suspect that um as

051strongly as all of us feel around um ban on on gas there's there's also the implication of one we needed we need to make sure that if we make that make those steps that we're doing um we're being doing our due diligence making sure that um that we are in good legal grounding legal you know legal ground but also um you know what are the implications if if the implication of that would be that there is is no building in Ann Arbor um of of significant um impact what what does that mean to our other goals on our housing work um what is the impact of sustainability on affordability um and I think that the more that we come back to this commission with those questions to wrestle through there's a lot of expertise you

052know more than probably any other commission that I'm on not only are there passionate people here there's really very knowledgeable and um people around this table and so I think you can bring additional um insight to those those issues that we're wrestling with so I'm not reflection on that commissioner McCann thanks I wanted to share um on top of those really wise comments about uh conflicting priorities that um you know issues of jurisdiction and preemption with state law come to mind I'm thinking specifically about natural gas ban in new construction um and thinking about the work that I've done with the city of Boston the state of Massachusetts um and I know that that was a major issue there and we haven't gotten into the details yet um with what's happening in Michigan but um

053you know I think a pattern of what we see with climate change policy is that you know often cities have been taking the lead and have um through the past five years plus I've been finding issues with where exactly that jurisdiction lies um and so that's that's kind of the large legal mess of figuring out climate action um and I think all of us know that from working in the space but I'm just kind of wanted to add that point last call for comments seeing No Hands raised um player other than yours if you can take yours down just so we know going forward is not a new comment um I'll let's go ahead and move on to the next uh point which is um a discussion on the millage and proposed spending in the

054millage and Joe if I may I'd like to hand it over to you first and then maybe have the council members comment and then open it up to further discussion yep I will share my screen here um and just run through a quick presentation overview uh for people who are familiar others who are not familiar um just going over quickly what already is in place um Joe by the way is this posted to legendstar yeah it should have been attached to the agenda okay because it's not uh oh it is okay it is yep underneath yep okay now I see it good thanks all right um so yeah like I said this will just be a quick run through of kind of what's already in there and where the process is at the moment and

055kind of the next steps um for those who've kind of been following along a lot of this is going to be pretty familiar just because a lot of it was prepared in preparation for people to understand what they were voting for um so we're sticking as close to a lot of that as we could just because again that's what people um voted on um you can also check out more information at any time at www.a2gov.org 2022 Community climate action millage um which has all the latest information uh when we have it um so on November 8th 2022 Ann Arbor rights voted in support of passing a one mil 20-year millage to fund local climate action as outlined in a 2-0 plan since millages are based on property values the amount generated from the millage will

056vary year to year but it's estimated that the millage will generate approximately 7 million a year in 2022 dollars for the 20-year life of the millage um like I said in advance of the public vote we put a bunch of materials together including a proposed budget which can be found on that 2022 Community climate action website um and you can see some some more details on the different types of Investments the city proposed making here's just a few of them um there's there's more in the entire document there um so as we go through I just want to kind of break out kind of what some of these things are and kind of share at a at a high level what what those terms mean and kind of where that that uh funding is going

057in the context of a 2-0 plan um some of these will be more you know more energy related others less so but just to give the full overview of where things are going um so to start with uh strategy one and v20 which is about powering our grid with 100 renewable energy uh so in the first two years of the millage so fiscal year 24 and 25. um we anticipate advancing this goal by providing direct incentives to Residents and businesses for making investments in renewable energy uh the incentives are being designed to stack with the inflation reduction act to help more households invest in Clean Energy Technologies such as solar and energy storage um the specific amount of rebates per you know per household per business is still being determined but the goal is to

058help more households and businesses be able to take advantage of renewable energy to help uh help us achieve our 100 carbon neutrality goal um funding will also go to conducting any necessary studies design work and construction of renewable energy installations at public sites and in public spaces including at the Ann Arbor Housing Commission sites which we have a goal of making Net Zero Energy operations resources will also be dedicated to advancing the sustainable energy utility if it is enabled if that is a not enabled by city council the funds at least for the first few years of the millage will be reallocated to either direct residential and Commercial incentives or to installing more Renewables at City facilities um and funding will be allocated to support renewable energy and storage installations at sites that are being

059turned into Community resilience hubs thereby ensuring these sites have power 24 7 and are able to continue providing their critical Community Services for strategy two of a20 uh this is supporting beneficial electrification so here the millage will support the installation of more public EV charging infrastructure transitioning the city's Fleet to all electric and educational programs about the public health safety and general benefits of electrification additionally in the first two years of the millage we anticipate providing direct incentives to Residents and businesses for making these beneficial electrocation Investments um as I stated on the previous slide these incentives will stack with the inflation reduction act so we can help more households invest in things like cold climate air source heat pumps electric cooktops and electric dryers among others again the specific amount of these rebates per

060you know per household is still being determined but the intent is to help more folk be able to take advantage of beneficial electrification than are currently able strategy three of a20 focuses on Energy Efficiency or energy waste reduction uh so here at the proposed millage budget will support incentives and rebates for Energy Efficiency initiatives in homes and businesses again similar to the first two categories these incentives and rebates will be aligned with the inflation reduction act to help residents and businesses further in their Energy Efficiency retrofits these programs will also include support for renters and landlords and a special low-income sustainability grant program that will help offset the cost of sustainability improvements from some of our most vulnerable residents once again the specifics here are currently being determined um funding will also be allocated to

061expand weatherization Services meaning that Ann Arbor residents eligible for weatherization support will get more funding to help their improvements go deeper uh there are also dollars allocated to expanding and growing our Aging in place efficiently program to help income qualified older adults age in a place of their choosing for longer we've also allocated funding to sustain a people-person focused energy concierge which as we talked about last session we're current we're piloting this spring and of course there's General um education dollars available to ensure that folk are aware of and able to engage in these newly created or enhanced programs through the millage strategy four of a20 focuses on uh reducing the miles of travel in our vehicles by 50 in the plan itself a lot of the actions focus on Transit which is not the

062purpose of the community climate action Village itself um instead the millage will the millage funding for the strategy will invest in expanding creating and sustaining the city's non-motorized Transportation networks through making investments in protected bike Lanes in support of city-wide bike infrastructure upgrading and increasing the number of crosswalks to ensure safe and viable Pathways for pedestrians installing street lights at all uncontrolled crosswalks to ensure they're properly lit and launching a bicycle discount program strategy five of a20 focuses on moving towards a more circular economy so in this area during the first few years the millage will support comprehensive compost and Recycling services throughout the city including for commercial and multi-family units which is something the city has wanted to do for a while but has lacked the sustained resources to implement funding will also be

063allocated to support construction Waste Recovery and diversion programs the enhancement of existing in the launch of new reuse programs and services and enhancement to refrigerant Recycling and replacement programs additionally funding will go towards enhancing knowledge and the use of sustainable food throughout the community including at City facilities and events the sixth strategy of a20 is resilience uh in this area the millage will support the creation of neighborhood resilience centers hubs ideally in every ward of the city millage resources will also support Neighborhood emergency preparedness activities including neighborhood asset mapping resource sharing and Community Building resources will also be allocated to build out a robust heat and flood monitoring system and to install and maintain green infrastructure such as trees and rain Gardens in underserved or vulnerable areas the final category of proposed uses is around

064capacity building so here we propose resources to support general public engagement and education administrative and ancillary costs to operate all the programs and services we talked about as well as some dollars for external Professional Service assistance this also includes matching funds for funding proposals such as the Americorps program or the U.S department of Energy's various proposals in terms of Next Step um this slide details just kind of how the city budgeting process works for those who are unfamiliar we're currently finalizing the details of our budget this month so that it can go to the city administrator towards the end of January during the months of February and March will be in discussions with City Council in April the final full City budget as determined by the city administrator is presented to city council and in

065May Council votes on the budget and then on July 1st 2023 the adopted budget begins so that was a lot of things really quick in a short period of time um so but just want to let you all know that and kind of set the context for uh more discussion here again you can always see more on our website www.a2gov.org 2022 Community climate action millage um look forward to now answering the questions that I can and taking all of your input and advice on how we can direct These funds to most deeply impact Ann Arbor and our carbon neutrality goals in the coming years thank you very much Joe uh before I open it up I'd like to uh give an opportunity to our two council members to add anything uh or comment on anything

066Joe presented um if you don't have anything then we'll just open it up for General discussion okay um other Commissioners thoughts on The Village on Village spending priorities advice to our council member Liaisons and to council Lord generally what are your thoughts commissioner Peck thank you I wonder if it would be good to just go through those at some point um and Joe could do it perhaps uh when others could chime in you know where do you need or help uh and if you don't need our help on them uh we could focus on other uh initiatives in other words uh one one way to look at it this is wonderful do we have the millage wonderful it's well thought out and planned and um all kudos to everybody who's involved but it's not enough

067to go carbon neutral by 2030. uh so we need to do some bigger things uh probably if we're going to achieve that and maybe this commission should be focused on the complementary uh and hopefully bigger things that would help us get to that goal um faster thank you yeah just just to chime in from my own perspective um you know like you said and also like uh this is going at the end of January to uh the administrator so and it was presented to the voters before voting so there's not a ton of flex of what's already in there um but again just kind of saying like yes this makes sense again there's opportunities to adjust down the line um so you know as we see things as they're going if there's room there um

068but like you said always open to hearing kind of what what additional steps there are because the end of day seven million is a lot but it's not a lot in the sense of here's how much can be solved in seven years now so Mr eleven and then commissioner Harvard uh yeah I just had a quick question about the incentives or or rebates what have you um is there an income component to that or is it going to be open to all residents yeah we're working through all the details but the anticipation is that there will be um kind of similar to the way the inflation reduction Act is structured well there'll be portions that are generally available to everyone with additional incentives available to those with lower incomes um that way to kind of

069have a more equitable distribution while also realizing that you know even for people who are in certain areas some of these um some of these things can still be a little expensive so having those extra funds can still be helpful in pushing towards that change thanks um that was great the description was super helpful as well and and I think my question was just about um what's guiding the sort of priorities among this list right now and whether sort of each of those areas whether it's renewable energy or or some of the sub items underneath um sort of where are you at in terms of the priorities and then I think as you mentioned the number of them are aligned for example with the inflation reduction act a number of them are about reducing vulnerabilities

070that that might that already exist and so if is there some existing thinking about that in terms of both in terms of budget priorities but also implementation priorities about where you're at with that sure um I can't speak necessarily to all of where the prioritization came from just because that was still slightly before uh when I when I started here but I know a lot of it again was kind of based on where we can you know kind of start making some of those changes where we have the ability to just start making some of those changes um and kind of where we have current funding gaps um you know some things we can kind of fill with different uh grants for instance um but there there just happens to be more grant funding in

071a certain area while lesson and other um so kind of just starting to prioritize by where having those funds would make the biggest impact from day one because you know some of the some of those funds will be you know they'll be allocated for a certain year and they have to be spent in that year um so if you kind of put something in there that might not have the ability to take place in that year you know it's hard to use the the funds and that to that capacity um so I think that that's where some of it was again A lot of it was based around a20 what we heard um from different feedback sessions both both in the creation of a20 itself as well as over the subsequent years and seeing where

072we could go with some of our different partners who kind of work on these different areas hearing uh what what would help help them and help Advance their goals kind of in that area help Advance our goals in that area and kind of in that Mutual Way um and then can you say your second question again sorry I I think you know part of what I was alluding to is there some of these items are aligned with other programs that are rolling out so for example the inflation reduction act and and there's obviously some simultaneous co-benefits that have to do with aligning some of these programs around that um in terms of the timing of when the incentives and things like that are going to happen so it's just a question about whether I think

073whether or not um how that how that's influencing the relative priorities of of these items or if there might be other areas as well sure um so yeah for you know just to talk about like the incentives rebates um that we're kind of talking about for different things like around electrification renewable energy Energy Efficiency things like that um as we've kind of talked about a little bit here as well as in in our our last meeting um a lot of the stuff on the inflation product is kind of unclear at the moment of like when exactly it will take place we have a better idea with some of the um tax incentives uh that they'll be taking place for 2023 but with the rebates we don't exactly know when it's going to be happening um

074but we also know that like action needs to take place now um and especially when you get into some of these appliances that uh people traditionally kind of just replace at time of use um you know talk about your furnaces your air conditioners um vast majority of people you replace it when you need a new one you know you're not sitting there being like well I'm ready to make this upgrade so I'm going to do it now even though I got five ten years left on this Appliance um so we really want to get things out there as soon as we can um so that way even if some of those rebates aren't available through the IRA there's something in place so that people who you know say they're not entirely relying on the you

075know the IRA rebates things like that but they just need that little push to kind of get going are still able to do that or again if they're in the spot where you know my furnace dies in you know this upcoming you know September October November and you're like I I don't want to be cold this winter um so I need to make something now there's at least something there even if there's not yet those structures in place um but at the same time once those all come in then everything's compounded we can get more and more people into it potential um also already having some people who are familiar with what's kind of going on so they're more receptive to now there's also this and also getting those um signals out there to contractors

076manufacturers things like that to really start pushing these changes as we go so we want to have something out there as soon as we possibly can even if IRA and other things like that aren't ready um but really combining them once everything is commissioner Smith uh yeah you may have just answered my question in part Joe but I was just curious um you know building off of the question understanding that some of the priorities are based off of a to zero but have also been reimagined given some of the challenges that you all have experienced is there a clear action plan or timeline associated with some of the the initiatives that you mentioned understanding some of it may be in progress but is that something that you could share with the commission uh if not

077now in the future yeah we will definitely um you know talk more some of these things are more are more finalized um for instance the you know incentives rebates things like that um you know it'll need to be ready by the time everything comes out um we've been talking or we've been starting to talk with a couple different communities who have different um of those like incentive and rebate structures in place to see kind of like what systems processes you know how working through that has worked best for them um so that's happening later this month a little bit in February um so as of right now it's kind of again starting to work through uh some of those things to get them ready by the time it it all it all comes forward and

078as those are are finalized definitely would be happy to kind of come back talk more about it um if there's any other specifics you know feel free to uh if or if there's anything specific I can answer now I'd be happy to answer now but some I might have to just check back in to see with like who's specifically working on what Porsche portion portion excuse me of it um any other comments or advice so as I've done previously I'll share some of my own and hope that others either respond to those or come up with other ideas I have one specific question and then a couple of General uh suggestions for consideration for our council member Liaisons um the plan the meaning the age of zero plan mentions bulk buy programs for a number

079of different let's say devices or appliances uh specific uh kitchen appliances uh HVAC systems EBS you we talked about some incentives that were align with Ira um are any of these going to be coupled with bolt Buys in the kind of sense that we have with a solar ice program where uh if you are able we are able to bundle a number of people going solar then we're reducing the cost of sales to the solar installer and the solar installer is passing on that cost of sale reduction or expense reduction that um that it is seeing to the solarized customers is there anything like that in in let's say in the planning and that could be reviewed by the commission before it's launched in the community yeah um I I know there's some like early

080thoughts of that in like a couple like we've had a couple um communities within Ann Arbor that have reached out that are thinking about doing that um so we're starting to talk with them to kind of see you know how that would work uh talking with like installers manufacturers um how it would work for them um because you know some of them can be a little it can get a little bit different in some of the stuff you know such as heat pumps where like you know it's not every home doesn't necessarily have the exact same system put in place um but you still have the scale uh so kind of just trying to see some of that um I don't know if there's specific funding within this like directly for setting up a program

081like that obviously having the incentives and rebates kind of help so even if you're not in a system like that you're still saving on it um but yeah some early work has been done looking into a program like that to kind of see how it works see kind of what we can learn from that uh depending you know how how that would go I'm starting to think or starting to set up more and more like that on a on a broader scale so from my business background particularly for products that are sort of emerging in the market one of their significant costs our sales costs attracting customers convincing them getting them over and what we're doing through our programs through the city is really helping them on reducing their cost of sales and um if

082we can do that then we can pass like I said those savings on in addition to using monies from the millage to provide further rebates and incentives so if we can couple the two of those together we're going to get a double benefit for those in Ann Arbor that are relatively early adopters I'll let uh commissioner or mechanic respond to that thank you so much Karen Mercy I just wanted to make a couple of comments um in this space I think uh first it's a little bit more difficult to have a group buy um with heat pumps let's say or any kind of Home Appliance compared to solar because it's um like Joe mentioned these are not optional kind of uh appliance changes like uh households would mostly only opt into them because their current

083system is failing or kind of a risk of failing so that's that kind of shrinks the opportunity on the outset at the same time there's a huge need for a contractor training and Workforce training um and I didn't hear anything about that um you know in Joe's presentation but I'd like to um kind of post that up say that I'm I'm wondering what the focus is there um that may not be money that comes directly from the city but I think Partnerships with the unions and with the minor on the you know groups that we do have um both organizationally and um you know the businesses locally that can do this work whether it's you know Seoul heat pumps or do um you know air ceiling that kind of stuff um just want to hear

084a little bit more about that if we have time otherwise we can kind of talk about it later yeah um I'll say it's something where as well as pretty much everyone in this space is thinking more and more about and have been thinking more and more about for a few you know years now because we we do know it's a thing there's not necessarily enough contractors in place um to do everything at once um that just wouldn't be efficient for them either um but yeah we're definitely working more and more on it we have several of the local trade unions are a20 collaborators so we do have existing relationships with them have been talking with them um in our and are moving further into those conversations uh to see what kind of can be done

085um what you know what is the role of us as a local government for that um which a lot of things we've read is you know having things like these different incentive structures um in things in place kind of sending those Market signals out is one of those big areas where we can have a role but also starting to communicate uh again with you know places like that uh trade schools apprenticeship opportunities um to kind of be figuring out where that at so even if there's not necessarily in the millage itself is a thing we're spending staff time on thinking about um also with our work with Michigan saves um the state Green Bank they're doing a lot of it um we're having a lot more conversations with them about their electrification badge program um

086and other things of that nature that's also pushing forward from again another entity outside of the city but someone we're working with um as the city yeah quick follow-up comment um this may be an opportunity for a working group I don't know if any others are interested but I'm super interested and also was kind of skilled in the workforce area so Joe just uh to take note that um it kind of does come to that I'd be happy to participate um and kind of supplement thanks so I mentioned I had a couple of other General comments um four in particular um the a20 plan has uh in the very beginning somewhere like on page 11 and 12 or something like that a summary of all the actions um it includes a cost to implement and

087an estimate of CO2 tons of CO2 equivalent reduced and then a dollar per ton of CO2 is sort of efficiency measure um I would strongly urge Council as you review um the proposed spending to make sure that spending is tied to those actions that have the best return on investment um it's likely that some of the actions that don't have a very good return right now as technology changes and things like that that we can shift to those later on in the plan but spending a lot of money now on maybe a technology that's not yet ripe to me doesn't make a whole lot of sense especially if there's low hanging fruit Energy Efficiency being one example um I'll um cite two examples um or just maybe just one General example from the solid waste

088area um the two of the suggestions in the solid waste area had costs roughly a thousand to Ten Thousand Times Higher per metric ton of CO2 red reduction than many of the other actions those calculations may not be accurate they may have been based on on bad assumptions at the time but if they are even close to being accurate even if they're 50 off it seems to me that we should be re-looking at those and focusing on the low-hanging fruits early especially because we know that um the area under the emissions curve is really important here and so doing the things that are really easy that give us a big bang to the buck are really the things that we should be doing uh secondly um I would hope that there's also and this is

089related to the first that there's a clear line of sight between money being spent in actions and those actions really leading to clear benefits to the community ideally in the case of energy and climate reduction um it seems to me that there may be things in the plan that are great in terms of the benefit to the community but are not necessarily tied to climate action and I would say one of the things that councils should be looking for is when we're looking at spending whether or not spending should be coming out of the climate Village or whether it should be coming out of another part of the budget that more ties to that particular area and as an example um and and I don't know what kinds of means testing will be done for

090example for Aging in place it's it's in the plan um but some of the things that I think we need to be careful that we're not doing is for example um providing incentives for um an elderly person who's in a 3 000 square foot house um and there's one person in that house where they raised you know four children in that house 20 30 years ago and we're providing incentives for that person to stay in that household as opposed to providing that money for something that to me has a more direct benefit on on climate action and then the last thing that I would ask is that when the budget is presented in March that Council asks for a summary of specific climate spending and what the actions are and what the outcomes are tied

091to so that this is not buried in 50 different line items um in that's scattered throughout the budget but there's no no sense anymore and that will certainly decline over time if we don't adopt this practice of what are we spending money on how does it where is the source and what kind of outcomes is it actually going to be delivered so those are my general requests of counsel as you approve this money um so that we really see true benefits um in terms of energy reduction greenhouse gas emission and let's say resiliency kind of things that really matter and are tied to to climate issues council member excuse the commissioner Peck yeah I think he did a wonderful job John uh of sort of saying what the articulating what I think a bunch of

092us are thinking uh hopefully at least me uh and I would love to see also a real clear our uh analysis and articulation of how our choices in spending that money uh for the best bang for the Buckle through in terms of carbon reduction per dollar uh also leverage other monies that are and policies you know because one thing we also need to get at is how is the new majority in the state house uh going to hopefully improve the situation uh in some tangible ways for carbon uh reductions and lastly um maybe one of the things we gotta you know when you still need to have that conversation of metrics and accountability but we really need to design that way that the city is uh being transparent and revealing how much carbon is being

093reduced per dollar we really need to be tracking that in a way that's really Crystal Clear um and broken down by various uh approaches so that we could start to see uh where money is maybe not being well used when it comes to carbon reduction and your point is a good one in the sense that uh you know five years from now some of the things that are not cost effective now will be much more cost effective and it really does pay to sequence these things carefully so Justice isn't my way of saying good job others so I assume that we will probably come back to this topic especially maybe in the March April time frame as the budget is assembled and presented to the public and before it is approved or goes to a

094council for approval in May um I think it's um the first um what is it the two meetings in May subsequent meetings in May where the budget is considered and then then approved so hopefully we'll have a chance to weigh in with any more specifics that anybody has uh in the coming months we still have two pretty consequential um agenda items that might take some time so um unless there's anybody else that has any final thoughts um I'll wait a second or two yes councilmember Ritz okay I think um thanks just real briefly I think um as you mentioned this is going to come back to this commission um the budget um discussion prior to going to council and I think the you know so the request that you made um and the commissioner overpeck

095made as well I think that's really helpful if this if that if it comes very clearly to this commission how the how the funding obviously certain things have been promised to the voters right now and those things were promised because of our I assume staff's understanding of how we could leverage dollars the best right now and have the most impact um that's how I presume those those decisions were made and so just but being prepared to come to the commission with um kind of a full presentation on that on those items and um kind of the impacts I think will be helpful to get the feedback and buy-in hopefully of this commission so that when it comes to council we can feel really secure in knowing that when we're voting on this issue it's really

096been weighed in and gotten the support of this Commission great thank you so the next point on the agenda is a resolution to improve transparency of city of Ann Arbor performance um I hope that all of you have had a chance to do two things first of all skim through the draft resolution and secondly to read the email that Joe sent out I tried to send it out but as he mentioned I had email issues so I couldn't send it out last week and Joe was out for a couple of days last week so unfortunately it just got in your hands um today I guess it was right um so uh what I'd like to do is just maybe mention a couple of things um and some of these are I would say stated in

097in more or less general terms in the whereas Clauses of uh the resolution um so first of all I think um good performance metrics they're tracking and their reporting is really fundamental to efficient and effective work to continuous Improvement and the policy and decision making um and then also just in generally participatory government and and governance and so that is really the idea behind um the resolution was something that I drafted in early 2022 I shared it with a city administrator um in March got feedback from him in April asking that I delay action on it until September um I reached out to him in September uh I didn't hear back from him and so what what has been done is what's reflected in the email is that I introduced this through the energy Earth

098committee through the environmental commission and in the September and October meetings um it was considered and was approved in the October meeting by a nine to two margin um rather than me rambling on a lot what I thought maybe I would do is just simply um ask for a motion to consider uh the resolution and the second after which we would open it up for discussion um the intent would be that if this moves to that point that this would just be a discussion and essentially a first meeting of the resolution and then if it had some level of support then this would be considered in a future meeting potentially in February or March but I thought um the best thing to do is is just make sure that we have at least uh a

099motion that the commission agrees on that it should be considered for discussion so um can I get a motion to consider um the proposed resolution in a second um and then we'll vote on it and then we'll have open it up for discussion so I have a motion from commissioner McCoy and a second from commissioner um Kenneth uh and or McCumber um so um we have um the Motions on on the table now for consideration I I don't think I need to take a vote on this right we just have two motions for consideration so um what I'd like to do now is just uh open it up for for discussion and for comments and I I those can be also questions there this has a long history um I've discussed this with um um

100Carlene um and um as I mentioned this went through the environmental commission so I've had a lot of discussions um with the chair and the vice chair of that commission as well as with um the two council members that were Liaisons to that commission at the time um and I can share that with you as appropriate so go ahead um council member redeem thanks chair Mercy into that background as well um without getting necessarily into the substance of the resolution itself I have a few comments I would say maybe on um Framing and process that that Drew my attention as I was reading through it um I in particularly I got concerned I think with with some of the the language in the resolved Clauses itself simply because as an advisory body the commission can't

101really direct the city administrator um and so that the city administrator shall language and things like that is I think process probably a little out of out of the norm for one of our advisory commissions um I would be much more comfortable if this was uh framed in a way that was advising City Council on on policy um and then I guess I would also just request as we're having the conversation I think there are a few areas where we could potentially frame this in a more constructive feedback way particularly I would like to avoid any um critique or characterization of Staff work in here and so I'm particularly referring to the uh the one that Drew and I think whereas the performance measures web page is generally both poorly executed and maintained um I

102would like to rework some of that language in order to make it yeah more positive in the framing of what we would like to see in a constructive way rather than kind of a critique of what exists today because I also want to acknowledge that we are undergoing kind of a A reframing or a redo of our website and everything and so there may be many reasons why some of our website is clunky we have it as a city have acknowledge that and are working towards completely revamping the website and so I would like us to avoid some of those characterizations and staff work if possible um and so that that doesn't necessarily into the substance but kind of my feeling on the resolution itself is I think we has a body probably need to

103do a little bit more work on it to get it more in line with what I think an advisory commission should probably be pushing out if I can respond to those before allowing council member Briggs to comment uh the version that was posted the legislar was the original version with a lot of whereas Clauses that provide an additional background information we got similar feedback from the environmental commission many of those whereas Clauses that you called into question were ultimately uh eliminated from the version passed by the environmental commission um I think that's reflected in the version that was sent out uh to all of you from Joe in his email um in addition um I I sent a or I had Joe send a link to the one the resolution as it appears in legistar

104um has passed by the environmental commission but I have another version um so that that is the official record in legistar of what was discussed but what I have is another version that addresses some of the questions that you raised about the commission directing the administrator and the the language was changed in in this version that I could share with the commission saying resolve that the environmental commission recommends that city council do such and such so that that addressed both of both at least to some degree both of your points and there may be other more specifics that need to be taken into into account um yeah council member Briggs if you're still there um go ahead with your comments yeah thanks yeah I turned off my screen because I'm having some internet um connection

105issues right now but um I uh definitely agree with um sort of uh councilmember radina's thoughts on this um I also in terms of if as we're reworking it um I personally think it might be more helpful to more narrowly tailor this to um performance metrics that would be helpful for uh from the perspective of energy commission and looking at sort of our our energy work in the city so um I have certainly have thoughts as well around improving our performance performance metrics and um making being much more transparent and accessible with that data and I think it's necessary for for all aspects of the work that we're doing in the city and um councilmember radina spoke to one of the issues around um uh website being redone but there are there are a host

106of other issues as well in terms of conversations that I've had with the city administrator around this but um so I I guess I would hope that we might um more narrow detail of this in a way that would be perhaps a good model for thinking about it um kind of across different units of of the organization and obviously energy touches a number of different units and so um it would likely be a little broader um for that reason um but that would be my recommendation thank you like to open things up um specific concerns or comments questions um any general thoughts on the matter uh commissioner Smith okay thank you um yes a couple um I also would like to think about how to be a bit more specific in terms of what we

107see I noticed uh in the resolution as drafted there's a number of best practice dashboards that are referenced if there's specific elements of those dashboards that we could pull out that we think that represent those those best practices I think that may be beneficial in our recommendations here I you know uh offer to you know take that review and provide some thoughts there um also I'd like to you know um ask that we can consider the timeline in which this dashboard is being updated um I think a year is a good start but I think it's a start due to the nature of the crisis that we're under hopefully that this dashboard is something that is simple enough um that we could update as frequent as a quarterly basis um here and just would like

108for us to consider what time frame is is reasonable if I can just respond to those um I I share your thoughts um because this was written generally um it was uh the idea was annual would be a place to start um but I agree completely in some cases more frequent updates absolutely make sense in other cases um some data isn't really even generated until the end of the year I mean we know from the greenhouse gas inventory for example that we don't get data from DTE until the end of the year that doesn't mean at some point it wouldn't be possible to get more frequently but right now some some some of these things can only be updated annually so um I I think those are great points just as far as your first

109point is concerned um I think the main thing that is um to some degree called out in the whereas Clauses is that performance transparency provides context so rather than just a data point um the the context is how does that data point compare to previous uh performance so basically trending the performance it provides context to um smart goals that have been set for example by city council it provides context to how peers are performing so if we're saying that we want to do X but there we know that already a bunch of other pure cities are doing much better or much worse than it calls into question what our goals are so context is just sort of a general thing and all of the better dashboards do exactly that they Trend sharp they show goals

110um and they show how those goals are essentially set and how that relates to peer performance foreign did you have another comment no I don't sorry I'll lower my hand others so um I'd like to gauge people's thinking on the matter um if there is at least General support for a resolution of this type then I would offer with the support of council member Briggs and council member Medina working off the final version I think of the environmental commission which already took into account um some of some of the concerns that have been expressed and which I agree with that I propose a an updated version of the resolution that maybe focuses more on energy and climate related issues and takes into account like I said some of the other other related uh concerns that

111have been brought up including those um from commissioner Smith and that I bring that back to our next meeting how does that sound or put it this way um does anybody object to that approach or would they like to amend that proposal if you re uh have a different um proposed process speak up yes commissioner Peck I just want to say go for it good so that is what I will do um so you have now a lot of information you have a very old and original version of the uh resolution you have the one that at least was posted to legendstar but I don't think was complete um so you have some of that history you can read through that and then we will provide um something that is reworked that's hopefully even more

112succinct and more On Target um for your consideration than uh in our next meeting very good thanks for your input and thanks for your guidance so if I can find my agenda here um the last Point um is a discussion on natural gas and new construction and what I would like to do is have Joe and I discuss this it's also been discussed between Joe and with input um from Missy originally there was a proposal for a resolution addressing this and we decided rather than considering the resolution um that there may be a better uh let's say course of action on this and I'd like Joe to introduce that and then I may add some additional comments and then we'll open it up for discussion yeah thank you um so I've mentioned this uh but

113just wanted to have it here um so as many of you know um next month uh February 14th uh the Planning Commission they're having their special work session dedicated to the proposed ordinance change that would require all new buildings be Electric um my understanding is the agenda for this meeting is still still being put together but the Planning Commission would welcome having uh everyone here the members of the energy commission attend as participants to learn from the various speakers there um given that this meeting date and time uh they I think they start at seven where we start at at six um overlaps with our February meeting uh we have a couple routes we could go with that um one of the options being canceling our meeting next month um and instead having all energy

114Commissioners attend as participants for that planning session or potentially having a reduced session where we you know still meet for our first hour and then uh or with the commitment that we finish with that hour and then head over at that point in time um for either those two options um that way all you energy Commissioners can both listen and learn from the presenters uh but also have the opportunity to call in during the public comment to share feedback uh if you desire that with the Planning Commission um in just overall context given this tight timeline for the ordinance coming through planning um it's my understanding it will not be coming to the energy commission before a formal vote by the Planning Commission um however it will be coming to the energy commission after it

115has cleared planning and before it goes to city council um there's a lot of moving Parts here I know that um it's a lot kind of to keep track of um but from talking with uh Planning Commission folks um and they're they're planning staff joining the meeting on uh next month February 14th seems to be the best way to kind of keep a Planning Commission and energy Commission in alignment um so now I'll just kind of open it up go through talk a little bit about kind of the process um you know discuss our options and then decide kind of how we want to handle our next meeting um and kind of go through those different options see what kind of works best for all of you um John anything I missed or you would

116like to add in uh let's just go ahead and open things up for discussion I've got a few thoughts that I might share later but um I'd like to hear what other people think commissioner McKenna you're muted still I'm wondering if we could open up a discussion about what the best person I want to put my support in for supporting this meeting and and going to the Planning Commission meeting I think that's a great idea um you know it's really coincident um topics and and desires that we have both to focus on the natural gas ban so I support that um but I wanted to kind of uh move the discussion um if we may after hearing from others towards um how best to participate in that meeting um I'm not sure right now that

117calling in as a participant and having this like one-way you know stand up at the mic so to speak and and speak um is the right I guess the way to provide the most helpful support um or just you know being kind of an expert in this topic I'd love to have a back and forth if possible and so could I propose that maybe um we propose the Planning Commission if anybody curious to hear from anybody thinks this is a good idea but maybe um do it like as a presentation like there's a an agenda meet an agenda element for us um to kind of have like an open conversation where we are present at the meeting as if a presenter would be um and then do it that way I will say just as

118as some background we've had a couple of discussions with the the planning staff um about kind of some of the different options and kind of this is this is where they've landed at the moment of just based on everything else that they have packed into that time um I'm more than happy to kind of have further discussions to see if there's there's other options but this is kind of where where they've come um at the moment um but always you know as always open hearing more from others um and if there's overwhelming you know support can definitely reach out back and see if there's um additional options there so Joe I think for everybody's benefit certainly for mine and apparently also for Claire's I'd like to understand what it means that we would participate as

119participants so for everybody else's um edification Planning Commission meets in purpose or in person so if we are participating as participants um does that mean we attend in person does that mean we dial in like we're doing now and provide public comment potentially at the beginning of the end and participate in no other fashion Joe I think you saw a list of about eight questions that I pose to Shannon gibrano who is chair and to Bretton um little who is the staff liaison asking for specific clarification because it's at least important to me that if we are going to cancel our meeting and cancel our business I want to make sure there's value add versus let's say the alternative of us all watching a videotape of their meeting and having our own meeting and then

120using um our reactions to watching the videotape to provide input then when it comes to energy commission so I'm I'm personally very conflicted on us making a decision tonight about what we sacrifice in terms of our meeting and our agenda items without knowing really what our particip what the rules of participation are so if you can illuminate those a little bit more closely and more detailed I would appreciate it and maybe I'll let uh commissioner Peck speak first before turning it back to you Joe go ahead commissioner you know I'd be happy to hear Joe say something first but I um but I also just to get it in quick is I think it's very important for us to have a very thoughtful discussion of this topic you know we're good planning is going to

121have one perspective uh we're gonna be focused on the climate emergency and the climate crisis um and hopefully there's going to be some good overlap in our our my sense of what needs to be done but we really needed to make sure that we're coming at this from all angles in a very thoughtful way so I love your idea of just watching their uh proceedings and their talks I want to learn more for sure uh and then having a thoughtful discussion but Joe might have a better solution sorry uh because my Briggs do you want me to go first or do you have something on this as well okay yeah um yeah kind of like you're saying uh chair murski it would primarily be yeah as participant means you'd either be attending uh the session

122in person you're able to watch and call in as well um but yeah it would be more in the context of providing input through you know the public comment three minute um you know opportunity there it would not you know being in being in the full group everyone kind of part of that discussion collaborating back and forth in that context um just again that's kind of where you know we weren't necessarily able to get together that whole joint kind of meeting where everyone's talking like that just given time frames with everything planning had to work through on their end um as and just you know getting the timelines from that perspective um so that is kind of that is the context of what it it would be is you know sitting there attending obviously you

123could you're able to watch it back um but watching it back the you know the only downside to that is you're not able to provide the comment during the time period um others won't hear it um you know either be a community members uh Commissioners at the moment um so that that is what would potentially be lost um if we're not directly there um but from the rest of it yeah it would just be those those comments during those those three minute Windows where you're able to call in or speak um if uh physically present so that that that's clear if we were to have our own meeting we should all recognize that we would not be able to call in certainly at the beginning of their meeting because we would be in the midst

124of ours there is the potential that we could call in at the end of the meeting and provide contact uh suggestions but that would be um without having had the benefit of being able to listen into to their meetings so um that that's one something we have to to weigh uh council member Briggs yeah so I was just looking at um it looks like if I'm looking at the dates correctly on this and please correct me if I'm wrong on this Joe it if it's conflicting with ours next month that's February 14th the second Tuesday of the month which is usually when they have a work session as a is this coming to a work session or a General Session up there they're having a work session for it okay and so their work sessions

125are on Zoom still um so it would be possible for everybody to attend remotely I think one of the pieces that might be helpful and perhaps more beneficial for this group is if obviously if there may be balancing a lot on their agenda I assume and trying to not make this be too unwieldy um if there was an opportunity to have that that discussion at the beginning of their agenda um for example um you know maybe there are some there are some general comments that members of this commission might want to make be at the beginning in public comment to inform their discussion going into it um and things to think about but I but I do wonder if it's more helpful one of the benefits of everybody watching this at the same time is

126supposed to say no we're going to go back and watch it because I know from experience that often doesn't happen um you know making a commitment to all watch it is that we all have the same body of information um you were it then informs the recommendation the energy commission discussion so you what we would have is not so much that Planning Commission is being informed by energy commission but that energy commission is being informed by Planning Commission and we're able to take into account you know what are the things that they're debating um and helping Council wrestle through um there may be some very different perspectives I suspect there are some very different perspectives and issues that are going to be brought up um and to be able to hear what those things are

127um you know even if you know the first meeting is the first hour is is listening to Planning Commission debate that and then coming here and and doing a brain dump of um you know what did we just hear what was problematic what was what made sense um and then helping that inform the Future Energy commission discussion um that's one possible possible route that might be productive in terms of just making sure that when this gets to council that we've had a really thoughtful analysis of how this goes forward and maybe identifying what information we don't yet have which is something that I suspect that I'm going to be wrestling with a lot breaking point I'd remind everyone that Planning Commission is in a sense to advising Council on this just as we would be

128advising Council so we would have the opportunity to weigh in and advise Planning Commission by participating and providing comment um and then we would have a second let's say opportunity when we discuss it and we perhaps frame our own resolution to also then advise counsel so I I appreciate those comments council member Briggs council member excuse me commissioner Levin uh yeah I mean depending on who the speakers are I apologize I haven't looked to see who's speaking at this meeting but um it would at least be nice I don't know if we can designate one person who would be able whoever we think would be best maybe to be able to at least ask some questions asking those at the very end during public comments I I don't know that that's going to be the

129most productive so I I get the logistics of you know we're not going to be panelists I know we did have that one meeting a long time ago where we did a joint meeting with them about another ordinance and that's I I guess this is different but um I don't know if it's possible to move the timing of when they do their I mean it's their meeting but having the public comments more in line with one of uh the speakers or being able to have one person that could ask some questions that might be helpful I assume we're not having these same speakers when it comes before us so I guess that's just my my biggest concern is being able to have some thoughtful questions even if we we're not conversing directly with uh the

130the Planning Commission but yeah thanks for those thoughtful ideas I'm commissioner Smith yes um what I'm hearing from other Commissioners and kind of echoing my own thoughts here I just would like to ask since I didn't hear it directly in the options is there a pathway for by which we could have a joint meeting so that it could be a two-way dialogue a more collaborative discussion and uh ultimately resolution I guess my concern is kind of coming out of it with two different perspectives of which both of which will be valuable but perhaps um you know uh being conflicting in nature and being able to have that dialogue and discussion being very important to the ultimate recommendations and resolution that go to council um so even if it's a little bit further out in terms

131of timeline hearing that that may be part of the issue Joe is there a pathway for it I'd just like to ask on having a joint discussion um I think it seems difficult at this time um largely because I know and going back some of earlier conversations like the the time to get this done and implemented um you know some of this has already been pushed back a few months and then once you know everything were to go forward be voted on and then go into place um does take time as well so if we were to you know try to get something scheduled it would kind of further push back the overall timeline and be you know that which is just a trade-off to make um it seems like at the moment this is

132you know this is kind of the path forward that they they're working for they originally were looking at this and the what their December meeting and they you know postponed it to voting in their March meeting um with you know February being the work session and then the months of December and January being time to gather as much information as they could from the planning staff side as well as others in recognition of a lot of people were in and out throughout the holidays um so I you know it is certainly possible to ask and see if something like that could happen um but it seems like it would be difficult um to do given the given the timeline because again their their their timeline is have their work session in February vote on their

133um recommendation in March at which point it would then you know go through you know we'd have opportunity to have um you know look over that provide our own recommendations uh before going to council is my understanding I'll speak up and give my opinion here um I I second the concerns or the desire maybe is a better way of putting it that commissioner Smith expressed on the other hand um we we do have an acute need for new housing um in in Ann Arbor and the Planning Commission and city council is really working valiantly to address that um and there are a number of projects any of you who follow MLive probably saw Ryan Stanton's recent argue uh article at the end of December I think it was listing 30 projects in Ann Arbor that

134are in process um some are in construction but others are proposed several of those proposals are involved hundreds of units of new um housing and those housing units in some several of the cases would be would be fired by or hooked up to natural gas so if we stretch out this discussion too long then we risk more and more units potentially being approved or going ahead that are going to be hooked up to natural gas so we have to wait um acting on this and this has been something frankly that's been discussed for a couple of years going back to um how to try to influence the state's energy code and that didn't work then looking at whether or not we could take a different novel of interpretation of the energy code um that did

135not well let's say was not viewed favorably by by legal then this new idea came up of addressing it through zoning um we feel that the legal feels that and as does planning and everybody else I think that that has um pretty strong support and Foundation based on on health related reasons and so um there's a lot of history on this topic I would work with Joe and planning to share some of that with you so that when we go into this we have a better understanding of what's been considered up to up till now and how many months and indeed years have led to this um so those are those are thoughts that I wanted everybody to to consider and wanted to share with you others um before we maybe take a vote on

136on what we do in our meeting any other comments so I'm going to weigh in with my recommendation my recommendation is that we cancel our meeting I think this is an important topic I would encourage all of and we'll put this up for a vote um but I would encourage everyone to attend the meeting in person or at the very least to dial in I would encourage everyone to read some Preparatory materials that will pull together so that you understand the background and I would encourage everyone to provide public comment at the beginning and maybe even ideally at the end if you want to react to something that was discussed and then we will all have an opportunity to discuss this in in our own meeting to prepare our own resolution and to address any

137concerns that we have before Council um finally votes on us that that would be my recommendation to the group um and what I would like to do is um allow anybody else to maybe make their final recommendations or speak and then I'll take a vote on whether or not we will hold the uh the meeting or not um but any other final thoughts from anyone else so I'm going to make a resolution a frame a motion that we cancel our meeting in February 14th and that we all make our best efforts to join the Planning Commission meeting as outlined by Joe um is there a second to that motion second from commissioner Peck um so I'd like to put it to a vote um all those in favor of canceling our meeting and joining the

138Planning Commission meeting please say I and raise your hand I I all those opposed and any extensions so I think it passed unanimously um so with that um we will join um the meeting and remember that's at seven o'clock we will make sure that we get out um the meeting particulars the link and so on and so forth um and we'll also get out some materials to you um for your consideration um one thing that I will tell you in advance that I'm working on um with the support of Ken Garber Ken Garber some of you may know has put together a list of development projects um that have been approved already since the approval of a20 and whether or not they're hooked up to natural gas I asked him to update that based on

139Ryan Stanton's um article um he's uh given me a draft of that it's 43 development projects um it lists um some of the key characteristics of the project whether it's proposed to hook up to natural gas or not or whether it's it's unknown and that will be one of the things um that will forward to you so that you can see what is at least already been approved since the 820 plan was approved and then what's in the pipeline um and then like I said we'll also try to get you some summary level information about some of the other actions that have been taken um by the city with other parties to try to affect um let's say more sustainable construction and why we are at the place where we are and what specifically The

140Proposal is relative to zoning so that you can read on that read up on that before the meeting on the 14th okay so we are um over the hill I think and and sliding down towards uh bringing this to a German we have remaining um OSI reports as well as news um from Commissioners um Joe you want to kick us off first sure um and just to give two logistic commission things before the overall OSI reports one um I know some folks have been having difficulties receiving emails um from the energy commission group um obviously I don't know if people are not receiving them um and you might not either so if you haven't been receiving emails recently from that would be sent to the energy commission the most recent one would have been this

141morning um please reach out um and I can work with it just to make sure that you all are getting those emails um and additionally um I think I I think I sent out at one point but relatedly some might not have gotten um our meetings will be held virtually for the rest of this year um if that is changing at any point I will reach out and let you know but for the time being plans are for all of our meetings this year to be uh virtual as well um commissioner harp did you have a question on either of those yeah sorry just just for quick awareness about how many emails may have been sent out recently so that one might know if whether they're having a problem or not sure admittedly not a

142ton most have just been around the agenda has been posted or a quick update around that um I believe the most recent one would have been but I know I sent one last Wednesday at 3 41. um one was the transparency resolution email so if any of you did not get that email let Joe know because then we would know that was sent out Joe when um was it actually this morning yes yeah let me I think it would have been yeah this morning around 9 41 would have been the most recent so this morning at 9 41 or last Wednesday at like three something in the afternoon so yeah not a ton but they're mostly just around here as Jen has been posted any changes or other little updates as they come um outside

143of that things are moving forward at OSI uh like we mentioned our stuff all our budget stuff is due to City administrator by the end of the month so a bit of a lot of work has been done just kind of around our respective programs and stuff like that getting those budgets prepared um we also just put out our newsletter I think it went out yesterday or something so feel free to peruse that to see any any things that have been updated just a couple a couple highlights um you double checked the mailing list of that and ensure that all Commissioners are on it actually I'm not positive that I'm even on it um I read it but I think I read it because someone sent me the link and I don't know that I

144got the link uh or the email or the announcement um um directly from OSI so I think all Commissioners should be getting that for the newsletter you're saying yes yep I can okay I can check in on that um and yeah if if you're not uh there's it's on our website it is our website which is sometimes difficult to navigate so fully understanding uh that aspect but yeah it comes out I think we're moving towards doing it once a month instead of bi-monthly or every other month um yeah a couple couple quick highlights um this was put out a little bit ago but um Ann Arbor has once again been named a climate action leader on the CDP A-list uh so we're one of 122 cities that received an a rating on that um obviously

145still more work to go but still good to be kind of um kind of there um several programs are moving forward a couple things we've been looking at are um solarize in a commercial setting with the 2030 District um so some work is being put towards that um and that is kind of one of the the main things as well as just general strategic planning with everything that's kind of been been going on um more detail in the um in the newsletter also as we mentioned last time energy concierge there's a pilot going this spring report will be um later this year um those are some of the main things a lot more detail in the newsletter so please check that out if you're more interested or feel free to ask any questions here updates

146from uh council members and Commissioners cosmen race foreign but I'm going to use this opportunity to to say what I might think uh just to talk a little bit more about the February um meeting one thing that obviously Planning Commission will be thinking about a lot is the impact of a natural gas ban on on all types of development um and so we often talk a lot about housing but I know that they're going to be thinking a lot about what does this mean for industrial what does it mean for labs you know like just the whole scope of a different type of development um we are beginning as council members to to hear from different types of developers that are saying you know I um you know I cannot build a large-scale hotel for

147example in Ann Arbor um if uh if you do something like this I'd you know we're not seeing models of this and so to the degree that folks have um information and and expertise to be able to inform this Converse that conversation around different types of development and different things that Planning Commission should be thinking about in this process um I think that would be really helpful for them and obviously ultimately helpful for for Council but those are some of the questions I can anticipate they might be thinking about thank you commissioner Paxton hey I'm wondering if Claire is hiding somewhere uh because I have a funny feeling you would have an answer to some of these questions or at least know who to go to can you envision someone you know some type of

148development a big hotel uh I think a University of Michigan will figure out a way to do it without gas if we built something big so I I don't I think that that would be one part of the answer but is it reasonable that a developer could say hey you're just making it possible to do this um I don't think so anymore but you might have a better answer is it okay if I answer or would thanks um yeah not to get too long-winded here but I worked on projects in Boston that were basically the city of Boston you know as an engineer on the developers team the city of Boston asked us the same question um here's a new new hotel that you're proposing like what proved to us that it can't be all

149electric that was kind of their stance um and so I've done the engineering analysis on the development team um and we basically weren't able to prove it um right because like the technology is available and it's just a matter of uh cost and sure the developers are talking about their bottom line when they say that they can't do it um but I guarantee you that there are developers in this country um on on the East and on the west and in other parts of the country that are doing it today and if you're talking to a developer that says they can't do it then they need to move on because there's somebody else I can foreign and and you know commercial kitchens can use um induction uh and electric cooking just like residential units can

150um other other comments uh updates from commissioners anything else well I I will again um offer a brief comment um I don't know if you have seen um that uh it's now generally estimated that 2022 um Greenhouse gasoline missions in the United States Rose where I wrote down 1.3 percent um they're almost back to pre-pandemic levels uh apparently GDP Rose so on the emissions at per GDP drop slightly which is good news but we're not worried about relative um emissions we're worried about absolute emissions so the curve that we're on is certainly not something that we can be happy about and relative to what we'll be talking about with the Planning Commission certainly on the housing side and um then you know we're treat some of these other issues like labs and things like that

151hopefully differently but what was interesting is that housing and building related emissions were up six percent over the prior year so overall emissions were up 1.3 in housing and building related missions are up six percent so we obviously need to do something and I think that's what we're all grappling with and we'll talk about in the week that's the one thing that I wanted to um to share and by the way I think when we talk about this I recognize that our discussion on the 14th is going to be focused primarily if not almost exclusively on the natural gas ban but I would offer to all of us and to counsel that this is just the beginning um we've talked about um Energy Efficiency and for example passive house construction um that's not going to

152be a part of this ban um and we know that if a building is energy inefficient for example the envelope is leaky or poorly insulated that you're you're even if it's powered by renewable energy then all of your systems have to be bigger um all the solar power and renewable energy that's generated has to be more all of that has embodied energy so this big this issue is a lot bigger than just um being all electric or a natural gas ban um and that's something that I think we'll want to talk about on the 14th or later I'm commissioner Peck you're muted we don't I don't want to be contentious but I think on that issue when we were doing the carbon neutrality plan for U of M we did a lot of analysis and

153it was concluded and this is where Greg keolian could come in Andy maybe that it's not efficient to focus on Energy Efficiency relative to renewable energy in other words um from a cost point of view dollars you know Carbon for unit or carbon per dollar it's better to go with renewable energy rather than spend money on uh Energy Efficiency in University buildings um and we're still going to do some you know obviously we're going to build these new buildings that we're now building since we passed that department neutrality plan are going to be very very efficient but um in terms of retrofitting it might not be the most cost effective way now Claire is going to tell you how I'm wrong no go ahead Claire that is that grip um yeah I just want to

154kind of add a little bit of nuance to that I think for commercial buildings and and University buildings that makes sense you know you have more um you don't have as high heating demands um but for a heating dominated climate and heating dominated use what we think of residential um actually Energy Efficiency is the number one uh stuff we have to take and that's because it enables um you know all electrocuting with heat pumps and so um and I know that we mentioned earlier um several Commissioners mentioned earlier that you know we want to focus on the highest um you know greenhouse gas emission savings maybe for cost but I would also kind of warn against that um I think that that's the mentality that worked earlier but now we have to dig into the

155nitty-gritty of what the phasing is um of some of these more complicated changes so I know that's a big topic for right now um towards the end of the meeting but I just wanted to kind of put that in it thanks so um we're then on to um working group updates and report from the environmental commission Carlene is in here I don't think the transportation electrification group is has met so I don't think there's any update there on the environmental commission side um I already mentioned that um two of the most recent meetings really focused on this transparency resolution and um we didn't have a meeting in December we're having a special meeting in uh on Thursday to set topics um for this year and that's going to be in addition to our regular meeting

156at the end of the month so I'll be able to provide more insights in our next meeting uh we're now back to public input so uh let's see this is again an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes um if you're watching on CTN please call 888-788-0099-4877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 956 8718-7876 this information is also displayed on the agenda and the video feed City staff will select uh callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number to electronically raise your hand uh to indicate your desire to speak please press star nine on your phone you will hear an automated message that the host is allowing you to speak and when please or please move to a quiet area when speaking and then

157finally again state your name and your address at the beginning of your comments right um I have caller let me give you permission um caller ending in zero one zero uh good evening again this is Wayne Apple Yard uh five seven five zero Prospect Hill Road Grass Lake Michigan um and former energy commissioner just quickly a couple of things I think John's right that uh you need to try and use the charts that are in the climate action plan are in the 8-0 plan uh for prioritizing the problem is the charts are faulty the charts don't have numbers for a lot of the items and so for instance if you use the chart for green rental housing no money would be spent because it's not calculated uh and the same is for uh the energy

158conservation concierge and Community Education so uh some work needs to be done on that and some of those numbers I don't think I would necessarily agree with so I think somebody needs to check those items um I think someone talked about the uh possible uh legislation on Banning Banning natural gas I think that's dead now that the energy the Democrats have taken over at least I certainly hope so at the state level someone mentioned the problem with people replacing their units only when they fail and we need to teach people that if you wait for something to fail then you don't have the option of getting the right thing because it may not be around especially considering there are sometimes time lags freaking into things like heat bumps especially uh particularly good ones um and

159finally uh I've been hearing that the website is being been is being redone for well over a year and I think uh that uh tells us something about the process and the ability to have good websites and I think that the um City should reconsider uh using an outboard website for the web portion of the energy concierge and I'll quit with that thank you thank you anyone else Joe yep um caller ending in one three four yes thanks this is Ken Garber again um very fertile discussion really appreciate the thoughtfulness everyone brought to it tonight just a quick comment hopefully helpful on other building types besides housing when it comes to feasibility for full electrification um yeah I appreciate commissioner McKenna's remarks on hotels yeah it's ridiculous to say that hotel can't do without gas

160plenty of examples of those around the country um at this point restaurants obvious I think councilmember Briggs mentioned labs yes these are difficult the problem there is that um you know they employ Fume hoods that require um very frequent air Exchange um for safety reasons and um so this issue came up during the Sartorius debate last year and um I I did some research into this I don't expect I don't say I'm the expert I'm sure commissioner overpeck knows far more than I do but there are several Innovations now available to reduce fume Hood airflow so that the need for constant air exchange is minimized uh these allow major Energy savings they can't all be used in all situations but if they're built into the building design they can really reduce its energy use and

161the need for constant air exchange and heating we know it's possible to do this because such lab buildings are now going up I mean there's the Integrated Science Center at Carleton College in Minnesota which employs geothermal another example is the integrative genomics building at the Lawrence Berkeley natural National Lab which uses a heat recovery Chiller and air source heat pump and I'm sure U of M experts are grappling with this as we speak um you know I I'm I'm still mourning the fact that we allowed Sartorius to go forward with gas but I think that can be the last one um so that's my last comment again I really appreciate um the uh expertise thoughtfulness and passion that everyone's bringing to this whole subject thank you Mr Garber I appreciate and we appreciate your comments

162as well and I appreciate all the Commissioners input and comments tonight uh with that we're on to our second or basically our last agenda item which is uh items for our next agenda we've already decided our next meeting will be in March I'm not in February um we've just discussed uh in your the December work session what the topics will be for discussion is there anything to add to that or are we pretty well set does any was something overlooked um that somebody's recognized since the December meeting any other additional suggestions I'll note one thing um we were potentially going to have someone talk about uh the dams in February um so I'll see what would be a time that works best for them if if March Works cool but I'll see what availability they

163have great thanks anything else seeing none uh I adjourn this meeting at 8 29 PM thanks to all of you uh and have a nice rest of your evening