Ann Arbor Environmental Commission Meeting 10/27/2022

001executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call um toll free 877-853-5247 or 888-788-0099 and enter meeting ID 925-8215 -8705 again you can call um either of these toll-free numbers and enter meeting ID 925-8215-8705 this information is also available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 ATT channels 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watchctn okay so um Sean would you read the land Heritage statement sure thank you I acknowledge that the land the city

002of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including Odawa Ojibwe and badewad me and YN dot peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us and our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you John Sean would you do the Roll Call sure all right we'll start off with commissioner Needham thank you commissioner Needham all right council member Desh I believe is phoning and let

003me allow them to talk briefly council member Dash all right well they may be unable to unmute right now but they are present um all right moving on to commissioner Graham I'm here thank you uh council member Griswold here in Ann Arbor commissioner kalawork here uh chairperson Brown here in Ann Arbor commissioner mursky you're in my home from Ann Arbor Vice chairperson Mitchell you're an Ann Arbor commissioner oriel all right uh commissioner Gabe Randall commissioner Gabe Randall not hearing you Shannon we do see you but we can't hear you um commissioner Marson I'm here in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner Gruber not hearing me either oh there you are okay here in Ann Arbor great thank you uh and commissioner nedric here in Ann Arbor great thank you uh and that is a quorum

004all right thank you Sean so the next item on the agenda is the approval of this agenda um has drafted um um let's see um does anyone wish to change any any part of the agenda are there any additions or edits that are suggested I moved to approve the agenda as posted okay do we have a second hello yes we have a second uh let's take it from uh commissioner Gruber okay yeah I'm on my phone so I can't see everybody on that on the call all right um um all those who approve the agenda as as written um say aye or raise your hands right hey hi hi any opposed any abstentions okay the agenda's approved unanimously uh the next item on the agenda is the approval of minutes um these are the minutes

005of our last meeting on September 22nd um so let's see the uh so do I have a motion for accepting the minutes I moved to accept the minutes um do we have a second second uh commissioner whoops commissioner Morrison yes seconded okay so the floor is open for discussion is there any uh anyone want to discuss anything okay so um so all those who approved the minutes as written raise your hand or say aye say no any abstentions okay I hear CNN so the minutes of our September 22nd meeting are approved has drafted um so the next item on the agenda is public commentary so this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 1-888-788-0099 [Music] foreign enter a meeting ID 925 -8215-8705 [Music] again that's 888-788-0099 and enter

006meeting ID number nine two five eight two one five eight seven zero five 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 in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there can be a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established is there anybody on the

007line yet Sean I do not see anybody on the line right now okay so we'll wait another 30 seconds just to see if somebody uh calls in and raises their hand okay is there anybody on the line there is not okay thank you um so this ends the public commentary period there will be another opportunity to submit public comment near the end of this meeting so there is no one finished business on the agenda today so let's move on to new business and when we do because I'm I have to attend this meeting on my cell phone um I'm going to pass the chair responsibilities on to read a Mitchell device chair if there are no objections are there any objections okay Rita you have the floor all right thank you according to our agenda

008we do not have any new business um and uh or unfinished business I'm sorry so we can move on to the new business and our first topic tonight is an overview of our Ann Arbor water and we have a guest joining us tonight staff um uh Brian steglitz and um he we've asked him to be with us tonight to talk about the the new unified Ann Arbor water department so with that um Brian if you would just take over and give us some some overview that would be great okay great um can you hear me okay yes all right well thank you first for asking us to come uh speak about this tonight we're trying to take this opportunity we'd like to take this opportunity to continue with the messaging around our new brand so

009I'm really actually pleased that you asked for us to come because we probably would have reached out to you anyway so um but what we've been working on over the past um it's probably the better part of the year is looking about looking about how we can Rebrand the utilities right now we we operate I think as you all know three different utilities that have typically operated in silos being the drinking water system um Wastewater resource recovery and storm water management and what this branding has allowed us to do is to talk about this around a singular water you know water is a singular resource you know we use it for all of these purposes there's been a trend in the water space to begin to talk about water as a single singular entity one

010water and we're we're taking this opportunity to really get up to speed the industry has been there already for several years so I wouldn't say we're behind but the time was ripe for us to start looking about how do we start talking about this as a singular resource um so you know what you'll hear in a lot of upcoming Communications as we start to continue to talk about this is the connection of the utilities again managing the similar resource um really talking about the value of water in the community um it provides all you know the three things that I just mentioned associated with our utilities but people on use it for recreation we use it for power production so it's a really it's a central part of the an arbor Community we all probably

011touch water in some way every day um so again the brand Ann Arbor water um is is to really just illustrate the importance of that um for the city and the community there were some questions that were sort of posed you know about strategic goals um performance-based indicators you know right now we're really just focused on communicating so people are aware they understand that you know their services won't necessarily be uh changed as they as they receive them as they interact with the city but are messaging and again and public engagement is all going to be more focused on the singular resource we've had multiple periodicals that we use um we've used our quality water matters brand um for drinking water and that's been in place for several years so all of the things that

012are going on are going to be Blended underneath this new umbrella so actually beginning um I think on November 1st so next week we'll have our first Ann Arbor water newsletter that goes out that will replace the the several that we've been historically doing and it will be blending communication about all the utilities underneath that so that'll be a subscriber base we can send you the the link to that so you can get access to it and then if you're interested um you know through our gov delivery you can subscribe to get our monthly newsletter so we're really excited about it I've already seen the draft and it's really it's really great so um I think we're really proud of what what our team has put together um in terms of kpis I think that

013was another question that was asked um of me to potentially address you know we have we have many kpis and we have had them um associated with all of our utilities and we continue to track those things those things include things like compliance um for the water and wastewater utilities um you know I think you all know we've been tracking pfas in our finished water so we have metrics around that um and thing also maintaining our buried infrastructure so we we have a goal of cleaning a third of our stormwater catch basins annually we track and Trend sanitary sewer overflows we look at condition assessment of all of our varied infrastructure so water storm water and sanitary collection and we Trend all of those things um in the past year just as for some statistics

014to share you know we've lined 60 000 linear feet of sanitary sewer and um over 15 000 feet of storm sewer so lots of really good work um that has happened um and I see you know Molly is on the call so a lot of this work is stuff that she her group is working on um trending and also you know completing so kudos to the folks in public works um and then I'll just add too um I was I was sort of reviewing to sort of prepare for this to see some other some of our other metrics and um we televised and cleaned uh about 500 000 linear feet of sanitary sewer um in the last year too so really pretty impressive work done by our Public Works crew so those are just a

015sampling of the types of metrics that we have in place associated with this new Ann Arbor water brand um so I guess with that I really wanted to see if there were any questions that's sort of a brief overview but I'd be happy to answer any questions you have um about this topic um council member Griswold uh yes I really appreciate this and I was frantically looking for the first newsletter today and couldn't find it so I'm glad to know it doesn't exist yet and uh I I did mention uh in an Administration meeting probably six weeks ago at the most a couple of opportunities for improvement regarding um water information and it was taken more as a criticism than the opportunity that I uh had mentioned I'm glad to see this and based on

016the timing I know it had nothing to do with my comment um but I think this is great and my question is will this include um the one for dioxin and Gelman or will that continue to to be a separate update foreign we have a a responsibility I think in a previous resolution to report on that back to council and that's how we've been we've been following that that um communication obligation so uh I think that's probably going to continue separately but if we get feedback um from Council um that we that it should be Blended we can consider that there's sort of a lot to talk about typically associated with that um we don't want to maybe distract from the rest of our messaging um but I you know I haven't really given that

017a whole lot of thought so if there's there's direction that you think is appropriate we can take that into consideration as we continue to communicate about these things oh okay thanks because I probably get more questions about the Gelman plume and dioxane than I do about anything else but I agree we don't want to distract uh and lastly um I appreciate the visibility that the the water department or whoever's out there that little drop Guy and um and the the testing for the three types of water now what I was told is that people who drink Ann Arbor water during the test they prefer Ann Arbor water and people who don't drink Ann Arbor don't necessarily is is that actually statistically true I don't know if we've done a lot of statistics on our taste

018tests at our events um I can tell you that Ann Arbor tends to win out if we were actually scoring and ranking but um yeah I think what are the experience that we I think when I participated in those that we hear is that people get accustomed to what they're used to and that tends to be what their preferences are so typically people who have grown up on Ann Arbor water prefer that and that there are people who we run into who um you know maybe they're they're from the U.P and they grew up on a well water and they tend to like the the flavor of hard water so um yeah it's a personal preference I would say but in general Ann Arbor water Stacks up well I think as you know aesthetically we've

019won a lot of Awards in the state on um the taste of our water so we're pretty proud of that oh okay thank you and and again water issues are something that most people just take for granted so you don't hear from constituents unless there is a problem or a complaint so again uh thanks for everything you two do th I'm glad that you appreciate Huron our water drop because I think a lot of people um really enjoy that particularly the kids so we're glad to have volunteers to fill the suit when we have our events I was dancing with him recently so maybe I could volunteer after my time on Council always looking for volunteers um commissioner Graham foreign I think you're admitted sorry Brian how how are we doing on beginning construction on

020the Water Treatment Plant upgrades yeah thank you for that question um so we're we're still really in the infancy of that project so we have we're right in the middle of doing some of our initial planning and one element of that is um building a pilot plant that mimics the full-scale treatment process the reason we're doing that is we're going to evaluate some treatment modifications um that will allow us one to do some challenge testing on some of these emerging contaminants that the council member raise dioxane pfos so we'll look at if there's Technologies we could Implement that could position us to be better able to remove some of those if we needed to in the future the other thing that we're going to be looking at is new softening technology um and really the

021the real driver for that is is it there's technology that exists now that will allow us to soften the water which is one of the the critical processes that we use in a much smaller footprint and in that case we could potentially save a significant amount of money on rehabilitating the plant if we can um do our softening in a smaller space so there are some significant economic reasons why there we're going to be doing the this pilot work so the pilot work is anticipated to take probably about 18 months um and then the results of that will inform the decisions that we would be wanting to make on what types of treatment we think are appropriate for Ann Arbor for the future so in terms of when full-scale construction it happens we're still many

022years away from that but we're doing we're doing the beginning parts of the work to make the decisions on what treatment is appropriate for the city so um you've also been working on doing a better job controlling order from the uh sewage streamer plant how's that coming that seems to be going very well we have um you know we get intermittent intermittent complaints but it's been um we haven't had them um in recent history so I I would I think it's going well but you have made improvements in the last year or so I would have to get back to you because I don't know the details on what the the recent changes have been um but I know that they've been they've done some Odor Control studies I think one of the things that

023they do is they use um a chemical um that helps control odors and that's been very successful so um we've actually been thinking about setting up a time to come to talk to you about some items associated with the Wastewater system so that would be a really great opportunity to maybe dive into some of these questions and I can have Keith Sanders here be better suited to to answer some of those than I am thank you uh anyone else that looks like oh John risky thanks Brian by the way I've been on my bike a half a dozen times at least um by the wage treatment plant in the last couple of months and the order hasn't been noticeable so take that as uh feedback for your for your tracking thanks very much great um

024I have two sort of main topics um short on one is um as I understand and now all the water departments are under one organization is that right and in other words what I'm basically getting at is do you have now greater later labor flexibility and productivity by combining the three utilities because that part of the design so we haven't made any any structural changes to Staffing associated with this at this point in time um you know we all of our utilities fell under the purview of public services and they still do and when we've always built the utilities together so they're all built as a singular bill so there we've we've received we already received some of those economies of scale on organizational benefits so this is really more about communication [Music] um and

025branding and trying to get um an understanding in the community about the value of water as a singular resource and to ensure that people take it seriously protect it and make sure that it's available for all these important uses great okay thanks the other couple of questions that I had relate to kpis so I very much appreciate the regular reports um that we get via email on water quality you talked about a number of other metrics or kpis are those available in the public domain in other words can you go to the city website and track some of the figures um that you talked about some of the metrics so you can actually see what those what those look like I don't think that they're at this point um available through our website so that's

026something that we can I can explore okay I don't want to put Molly on the spot but she may be able to answer about some of the metrics that her group is tracking and we can discuss if there's if they're not means of maybe making them available in the future yeah I I don't know that we need to get into that level of detail what I would hope is that they um become available in the public domain that they're trended so we can see not just a snapshot um that you know X number of feet were done in this year but how was that compared to Prior years and even more important how did that compare to the goal for that year so if you did you know 500 000 feet or 60 000 feet

027or whatever it was was that meeting the Target or was that 50 short of the Target or was that above the target that's really what I think is is helpful for us in judging um how we're doing against you know some of our key key indicators and um what our what our objectives are in order to be able to maintain and operate the system effectively so those are just my thoughts on on that topic yeah that's really good input and I can tell you we've been thinking about this um also we have we've been working with our I.T Department um we have some new tools that are available to us that will allow us to to share information um more timely also so I think this is something that I can bring up with them

028and we can we can get back to you on how we think we may be able to do that and in what time frame that would be but I think it's a great point and I've made some notes and I'll I will be sure to get back in touch with about okay and I can add to that if I may Brian um sure that so for the galvanized service line replacement project we have created a dashboard and it is my understanding that it's live we're making some tweaks to it recently based on some feedback we had from our water advisory Council um but that was just sort of the first of what we hope to be you know sort of many dashboards that are public facing on our web page excellent excellent there is a

029City website called um performance measures and there's only about five departments that link to that page and all the measures that are posted there are about three or four years old so um it would be great if we had that level of um transparency um that I think also is helpful for not only Commissioners but the public and potentially even for staff so thanks very much uh Steve Brown oh yeah Brian I just had a quick question of whether the dams are part of this is um maintenance and supervision of the dams part of this new Department so the maintenance and the operation of dams falls under the umbrella of the Water Treatment Services Unit so the answer is yes from a structural standpoint okay great that's all I wanted to know and um I

030have a question which has to do with um uh tracking contaminants in groundwater specifically I understand that there is some tce that's being ident that has been identified at least on the west side of town and and possibly other areas and I'm just wondering if if that um this information on that kind of testing and tracking will also be available to the public I'm going to have to look into that and and let you know I don't know off the top of my head okay all right thank you um oh John mursky has another question no well just one quick comment um for everybody's knowledge uh I think Brian correct me if I Wrong the city um owns and controls four dams and two of them generate electricity so we get hydropower from two of

031those dams um that we then send into the DTE grip that's not very widely known that is correct it's about one and a half megawatts uh any other questions or comments all right um thank you so much for this and I look forward to an ongoing discussion of of these issues and and um keeping the importance of water in the four it really is something we all need uh thank you thank you for the opportunity to talk to you tonight yeah thanks all um we're gonna move now to uh discussion of the annual Solid Waste report and we have Sarah Mason and Molly masajewski and Molly please correct me if I really mangle to your name it didn't do too bad it's machiaski oh thank you you're closer than most so thank you for that

032so yeah uh we'll turn it right over to Sarah Sarah okay this is Sarah's show tonight okay oh gosh thanks Molly um okay so I think I tested this earlier I've got a short presentation to share with you just to kind of help um guide the information I have so let's see make sure I can get this to work okay I think we're there and can everyone hear me okay I've had some microphone issues so glad to hear it um and good evening uh thank you again for having me uh as a reminder I'm Sarah Mason I'm the resource recovery manager for this city I first met most of you last year shortly after I began working with the city um and I'm excited to be back here with you tonight to share some of

033what we've accomplished in the past year some of our challenges and some of our opportunities I also want to just highlight that many of the things that I'm going to talk about many of the programs are directly tied to recommendations in our most recent Solid Waste Resource Management plan so we are making work our progress in that work uh the plan included you know 24 different recommendations under six different Focus areas around residential commercial downtown area Services education and Outreach diversion related facilities and funding and in almost each of those were were doing some work and making some progress towards some of the recommendations so what I'd like to do this evening is um share some in-depth detail on some of the major initiatives we've been working on and then uh touch on a few

034other programs that we've got happening and then talk about some of our challenges and opportunities and of course leave some time for questions and answers so the first thing I want to talk about is the recycling education cart tagging campaign and some of you may recall the city was involved in the planning and organization for the Washington Regional Resource Management Authority or you may know it as warma over a few years and I'm happy to say that earlier this year the city was able to join as a member of the authority to help work on messaging around Recycling and it's all agree services in the region our membership brought access to some education grant dollars that were awarded to warma from Eagle for improving the quality and quantity of recycling collected and curbside programs the

035other seven member communities of warmer were able to complete this work last year and we focused on our residents for this year which came at a great time for Ann Arbor as our new processing agreement did have a few small changes to the items that are acceptable in our curbside carts for recycling so the the cart tagging program which is designed by the recycling partnership began by sending out this informational postcard to all residents and single-family homes that identified that we were going to be doing the project and what can go in your cart and then some of the comment items that we see in the cart that don't go in the cart then over the next five weeks there was a period of cart tagging carried out using temporary staff from lead point which

036is a staffing agency that the recycling partnership works with and they went by to look in carts and leave a tag if they found items that were in the cart that were not supposed to be in the cart and they did that just by quickly lifting the lid and looking on top and um so these were the tags that we used for that program and there it's an oops tag it's meant to be um it's not meant to be punitive we really want everyone to do the right thing it's just meant to say um you know oops we found something in your cart that shouldn't be in there so please correct it and take that out um to measure the success of the campaign they do a audit oh material before the cart tagging and

037on and on a sample of material after the cart tagging to see if there was an impact on the quantity and quality of material collected as part of that scrap metal items were one of the items that was previously accepted in our curbside cart but are no longer part of that program you can still take scrap metal to the drop-off station but it's just not a good fit for the curbside program it doesn't act the way packaging would act in the Murph in the Sorting equipment so we actually had quite a bit of it in there we send out this as a top issue mailer focusing on that change to let our residents know that that was something that could no longer go in the cart and we did see a dramatic reduction in the

038sample collected before and after so we do think that this messaging was helpful Additionally the results from the five weeks of cart tagging showed that for the households that were visited uh we had an 80 an over 80 participation rate which is excellent and we saw a 20 decrease in the contamination from the pre-tagging sample to the post tagging sample and so um that was also really excellent to see some of the top contaminants that we saw included bagged recyclables plastic bags and plastic wrap bulky items tanglers which are long things that can get wrapped around the Sorting equipment so think of the garden homes or like a chain or other long things um Christmas lights uh and then shredded paper and shredded paper is another item that was previously accepted in our curbside cart

039and it's not now it um shredded paper in a Murph is like a party uh just goes everywhere it's really too small to be recovered in that type of environment so it's better to I say party because it's like confetti uh it's better to take that to a drop off so that's the first thing that I was going to mention um the second big initiative I want to talk to you about is the solicitation process we've undergone to secure a new franchise collection contract for commercial solid waste the city does have a franchise for the collection of commercial solid waste the current agreement has been in place for over 10 years and it was amended and extended because it was coming up for renewal when the salaries Resource Management plan was in development and we

040wanted to wait until we had the recommendations from that plan before moving forward with this contract we did a lot of stakeholder engagement we talked to our internal City staff we talked to downtown stakeholders we talked to other businesses that sent out a survey to gather feedback from other businesses that receive collection under this contract and then we put together our RFP which was issued in May and then the original due date was the end of June an extension was requested and granted uh and so we that should say July 16th I'm sorry I have a typo it was extended to July 16th um you know that's correct extension granted June 16th due July 14th and then we have the evaluation committee which was made up of City staff including um we had customer service

041staff uh staff from OSI the office of sustainability and Public Works staff we conducted vendor interview vendor interviews we had two responsive proposals and one response of no proposal and after the vendor interviews we selected Waste Management uh as the intended vendor subject to a you know successful contract negotiation which we have been in place now we've had three negotiation meetings with them we have a fourth tomorrow um just to work out some of the details around optional Services requested in the uh contract and then we hope to have the final contract to city council for approval the end of this calendar year very early next year so the current agreement expires on June 30 2023 and collection service under the new agreement would begin July 1 2023 but in the intervening period we're asking

042the vendor to do a right-sizing analysis of the current level of service and make recommendations to improve efficiencies where they fit some of the other areas of focus under the new contract include moving to direct billing and customer service to be handled by the hauler instead of by the city this is a pretty significant change and it is to create a better efficiency and a better service quality for customers under the agreement the city especially around customer service was in the spot of being the in-between of receiving a phone call and then having to contact the vendor get the information back and then call the customer back this will allow better communication directly between the customer and the caller the city will remain in an oversight capacity for any escalated customer service concerns if things

043are not being handled appropriately they can certainly reach out to the city to have that conversation with a hauler and then the billing will also be handled directly um that is the proposed plan at this time The Proposal included an online application for customer service as well as having uh customer service available by phone and by email so this is a big need that we responded to that we heard from stakeholders since they felt like there was an opportunity to improve that communication City customer service is very responsive and they were very happy with it but they do have a little bit more limited hours than what will be available um for folks that need help on the weekends or after hours in the evening the other big thing that we looked at and this

044was also talked about in the solid waste Resource Management plan especially in the downtown area is a need for seven day a week collection the current agreement offers collection Monday through Saturday but we know that in the downtown area especially the weekends can be some of the busiest times and that gap between a Saturday morning collection and a Monday morning collection there can be a lot of trash generated so we did make that a mandatory part of their proposal that proposers offer us um pricing and service for seven days a week and they were responsive to that also we asked for subscription-based Organics collection so there's no um broad scale program for Organics collection from commercial properties and there will be that option under this agreement they've partnered with Waste Management has partnered with migraine

045Michigan to be able to offer that service to those customers who would like to have it and then we also asked for an on-demand bulk collection for larger items that won't fit in your regular collection containers so that you can get those handled distance I wanted to also point out that um you know with the commercial RFP we did have a focus on both customer service and also looking for a vendor that would help us meet our meet our a20 goals so we did have a focus in the evaluation criteria on customer service and a sustainability plan in addition to their work plan and qualifications this is a project that goes along with the procurement for the new commercial franchise so we are undertaking an audit of the downtown Solid Waste collections uh we have

046contracted with ohm advisors to assist with completing this audit and for the purposes of this project the downtown area was defined using the DDA boundary and the audit is focused only on trash collection and it's looking at how businesses dispose of their trash their frequency of service and the sharing of containers among other items and the goal of this is to be able to help us better understand maybe where containers could be Consolidated where there could be efficiencies to make sure that there is um equity in the cost and that uh like businesses are being charged like costs for the level of service that they need this will also help us understand if we have an opportunity to establish minimum service levels to prevent the Overflow of trash in order to do this work um

047we had to gather a lot of existing data sources see what information was available find those holes and then try to fill them so this work is ongoing but once completed it will be able to help us analyze the data and look for groups and tiers of like businesses to establish opportunities as I mentioned for establishing minimum service levels and then also look at revising our fee structure for those containers that are shared which there are many of those in the downtown area the next item I'm very excited to share and you might be aware the city's existing drop-off station was located on a closed landfill it's been settling for some years it has quarterly inspections by an engineer to monitor it um and I'm just really happy to say that um you know staff

048before me applied for and was awarded a grant to help make this project help a new uh drop-off station come to life so the grant was submitted last summer we found out right at the very end of last calendar year that we were awarded 850 000 towards this project there's an additional one million dollar sort of earmarked from Washington County Solid Waste funding to go towards this project as well that's still subject to approval by the County Board of Commissioners and the remainder of the funding will come from the approved city of Ann Arbor Solid Waste capital budget I I am I I really enjoyed about enjoyed learning about the regional collaboration since I've been here and this project has really representative of that we've had Washington County Recycling Arbor in the city of Ann

049Arbor and many others uh you know working towards this for years we've known since 2008 at least that we needed to have a new site for this facility so we've had a project team as I mentioned of the city and the county and recycling Arbor working together on planning for this we wrote a scope of work for a contract that was awarded to RRS to complete the drop-off site design and Engineering work the facility is uh targeted to be located on a parcel of property at the wheeler service center it's known as the Hilton parcel I don't know for those who may be familiar um that is geographically located in Pittsfield Township so that will be subject to approval you know by their Planning Commission and that's slated to happen hopefully by late spring between

050now and then we've got quite a bit of work to do we've been in the planning process of uh with the project team talking about what the new site should include what we would like for it to include and um that you know there's many benefits of a new facility trying to maybe expand the types of materials have more hours of operation it will be designed from the ground up as a drop-off station so that will allow for a better flow of traffic and better movement of people better location of equipment on site and a big part of this a critical part of this is that we have to have Community input insight and buy-in for this to be successful and so part of the work that IRS is doing is they will be working

051with the key stakeholders to develop or prioritized list of options that best accomplish the objectives of maximizing recovery reuse and recycling minimizing of waste to landfill and maximizing environmental stewardship and education through an Innovative design that helps meet the needs of the community but that does not duplicate services that already exist in the region or close by and so they will be developing a community outreach plan that will include meetings with key stakeholders as well as two meetings with the public to give feedback on a final conceptual design so they will be making three conceptual designs that will be narrowed down to one and then we will have a minimum of two public engagement meetings uh before taking a final site plan for and we're hoping that if we get approval we'll be able to

052go out for the construction bid early summer to have it be started maybe late summer early fall next year foreign a lot of big things happen this year uh one of the other items is that we've long partnered with the Ecology Center to do education around our trash recycling compost programs and the work that they've done for the city historically has been focused more or less on youth education and we've heard through the solidaries resource management managing process planning process and others that we needed to have a broader reach with that education and so we did again a lot of stakeholder engagement talking to internal stakeholders external stakeholders to see what that should Encompass and developed a contract that has five major work areas including the development and the marketing of a community-based social marketing

053plan campaign uh commercial sector education Outreach at community events multi-family education and then also youth education the community-based social marketing was one of those items that was a direct recommendation from the solid waste research management plan and so that will be developed by engaging the community different groups of folks we have some priority audiences um our partners our industry stakeholders those that operate them or if operate the Compost Facility and then community champion so that plan has not been developed yet we're just in the very early stages of putting that together so you will probably be hearing more about that work as it progresses some a couple of the other programs I just wanted to touch on are that um we also completed two successful move-in and move out events this year one in the

054spring one in the fall both were held at 2000 South Industrial for drop-off operations we also provided extra collections of four days in the spring for free and five days in the fall event for free um to those uh customers who requested them in advance we also have had several of our contracts up for Renewal and under negotiation so the contract for our compost operations uh the current contract the operate the current operations contract for the existing dos as well as the recycling collections for commercial multi-family um and then on top of all of that we continue to monitor issues we have um you know trash in downtown alleys and we continue to work with a various stakeholders to find more Sustainable Solutions for some of the things that happen there and then also we

055have winter compost collection is on schedule for 2023 we did that for the first time last year we did once a month and we'll do that again for January February March to help collect more of the food waste in the winter foreign that we do have some challenges and some opportunities and some of the uh this is my last line sorry okay um the challenges and opportunities uh staggering remains a major challenge as there still is a national demand for CDL drivers in response to that Public Works did secure funding um in this year's budget for four new full-time employees to work in the solid waste collection program however because of the demand for drivers we've launched a trainee position and program to hire in employees without experience and give them on-the-job classroom and field

056training to prepare them to take on a permanent position that that is for more than just Solid Waste positions within public works but it will help us to get folks in the door for those full-time positions that um do not have the experience as it is now we could do be we need to do some greater Outreach to multi-family and Commercial businesses to increase the recycling collect it and also to make sure that they're doing the proper handling of their recyclables we have a real issue with breaking down boxes and you know trying to achieve space in some of the dumpsters we're looking for opportunities to collaborate on promoting the circular economy you're going to hear a lot more about that great work shortly um and then continuing to look for ways we can increase

057the capture of reusable materials for move out and reduce the landfilling of those items and um that's just continue to look for other ways to explore programs and services that help us move towards the recommendations of the plan and ag0 that's it thank you very much for your time thank you Sarah um I'll open the discussion with for some questions and first up Chris scram uh Sarah two things one uh the last I heard the new review station would be out on Jackson Road how did it come that it moved to um that road I think there are maybe two different projects so the the drop-off station the city's drop-off station that's currently uh reuse station is that injection yeah so the the ReUse is a separate project that I think recycling Arbor is doing

058and I think yes that's still slated for over there at the recovery yards so you're talking about property just south of the wheeler Center off plat or coming in the other way uh yes so people want to be determined people won't have to go through the scale to get to the drop off center I trust so we're still in the preliminary design stages right now and in conversations with Pittsfield Township so we do have to go through the Pud approval process and we'll see you know where that goes um secondly um I've always put my white paper shredded in my white paper to recycle in a clear plastic bag and put it in the recycle bin I thought that was the rule and now you don't want it like that I'm supposed to take that

059to the drop-off center right yes you should take the shredded paper to the drop-off center and just get your other items I understand that I always have we went in a clear plastic bag so it's clearly identifiable as white paper to be saved pulled out of the stream yeah my understanding is that the Murph doesn't want any bagged material okay um oh sorry someone I was going to move to Shannon um we don't hear you oh bummer uh I think we I think we don't have Chad on this either um okay all right I'm so sorry Shannon um if Shannon if Shannon texts or emails one of us then we can read it that would be good wait let's do that and I'm gonna move to um um commissioner Gruber and then we'll come back

060to you Shannon thank you Sarah that was that was really helpful information to hear I wonder I I'm a parent and so I observe the waste stream at the schools and I notice at least at this one school that I'm at Daily there isn't in some cases there's no recycling bins we have our own composting program but I don't think a lot of schools compost so I wonder as part of your education Outreach and marketing plan do you you listed a lot of really great groups does the the aaps School District fall under any of those groups do you do Outreach to them so um yes so the the youth education program um we we did change it uh it used to be there would be like a menu of options and different teachers could

061select programming and we've revised that so that and we are working with aaps so that all second graders and all seventh graders will get a program around materials management and through that we've partnered with the Freeman Environmental Center where they um and so the the second grade trip is like a half day field trip there where it's half day with the Ecology Center at the cities program and half day with the Freeman Center staff doing a program with them so yes it includes them on that side of things but not necessarily on like reaching out to the administration to see if they have recycling bins but all schools should have recycling so that's definitely something we could follow up on um yeah again they do have recycling bin but like for example at lunch there's

062a lot of material used that it can be recycled but it doesn't it goes in the trash it's not stationed in places where staff or students can recycle and that might be an individual school thing but maybe some Outreach on that would would help it seems like maybe each School kind of does their own thing or at least that's my perspective okay it's not like a central message sent to the schools about Recycling and composting I I don't know if you guys do composting for each school or if they have to specifically request it there's a lot of space that could get composted right uh so that's good feedback and I'm not familiar enough to know with how the school system is organized and how they like disseminate information to their different facilities how they

063set it up but that's good to know um and we can keep in mind when we're talking with them I'll just I'll just say one more thing I'll give you a number we did a um uh we did a waste audit at Eber White Elementary School with their permission and we um we only measured food waste we didn't measure recyclable materials and there was 200 pounds of food waste every day at one Elementary School which comes out to about 36 000 pounds of food waste over the entire year at one Elementary School we were accomplishing it now but we're composting it in a pit on site so it's not going to the city compost but I don't know how representative that is of the entire District but I would guess um it's pretty close I

064mean other schools are having similar numbers thank you thank you yeah uh John mursky and Shannon did you send a question and I'm not sure who you sent it to it didn't go to me I hope it went to Steve no chance Sean Sean okay bless Sean to come in okay so but first to John mursky okay thank you I want to make sure that I understood the new commercial contract is uh trash to landfill collection only right um yes also with uh subscription-based compost course right with a subscription composting but in terms of any changes to recycling um there's nothing related to that right that's I know part of this shrimp but that's completely different activity right yes and yes so you're right uh there was a recommendation originally to it didn't go quite

065like you know there were a few options there and yes so it's not consolidating recycling into that but nothing has changed with our recycling collection just with the trash right am I correct that recycling in the commercial center is in the low teens in terms of diversion rate does that sound right I think maybe I think it's above 20 so I don't think it's quite that oh okay that I would have to double check yeah okay and Sarah if I could just add one thing about recycling collection so the one thing that has changed in the last year is in July we started Saturday collection in the downtown uh that was something that we've wanted to do for a very long time and with the additional funds to hire for more people we were able

066to make that happen um I agree um I was looking for something else actually in preparation for this meeting and I came across something and this is going way back so I don't know if anybody can copy uh comment on it let me um let me look at my other screen here just a second it says um so this was on a March 2009 resolution to authorize commercial solid waste collection contract with waste management and it says in the statement related to it that the results of this effort indicate that the recommended programs can be implemented to enable the city to achieve 50 diversion of his commercial waste stream while maintaining a positive net impact on the bottom line of solid waste Enterprise funding that what happened if we were targeting 50 in 2009 what

067what's different about today or what went what changed can anybody comment on that I can't speak to this program specifically however I will tell you that generally diversion rates have been a trickier thing in the industry because we've seen a light weighting of the ton as packaging has evolved and what goes in the recycling stream um that might be a little bit different on the commercial side but on the the residential side we've seen that really um a shift you know we've seen newspaper drop out no one really takes the newspaper that much anymore you know we've seen cardboard go up the packaging has become thinner and lighter weight more plastic less other materials so um in general tracking those diversion rates which are done as a weight-based metric because there's been a lot of

068discussion about you know uh is that the best way to measure a successful program because your volume could go way up but the weight may not we look into diversion rates in Greater detail um another thing for for my uh education and understanding uh I remember past reports on the status of the solid waste Reserve fund used to indicate that there was planned spending for rebuilding the drop-off station there would be you know a footnote saying that you know X number of dollars were being planned for that and what you mentioned As I understood it is that the funding for this Capital project is coming out of set the capital Solid Waste um budget uh or capital capital plan with what I write down the capital budget basically what is this I know obviously the

069solid waste Reserve fund is used to some degree depending on commodity prices to buffer that and things like that is it used also to fund capital projects like the drop-off station or was funds from it used for the Murphree construction I don't think so I think Ria did that on there what's the solid waste Reserve fund used for other than these buffers to buffer us against uh Market let's call them Market uh fluctuations that's a good question uh I'm probably going to have to defer um to finance and like find out a bit more I'm a little bit new still and knowing the history of the fund and everything so I'll have to out for you and get back okay I will I will just add though that um you know you mentioned you talk

070about sort of saving for rainy day or fluctuations and we are already seeing some pretty big shifts um in the market in the recycling Market in particular the Commodities markets have fallen for paper we we are seeing um pretty significant price increases coming for almost all of our contracts well I should say virtually all of our contracts that are up for Renewal and um also the even our preliminary engineering numbers for the drop-off station look like we're going to be spending quite a bit more than we originally planned so those you know those things do have an impact and I know you know again we don't want to speak for Finance on the particulars but that is that is something to think about um you know on top of you know we continue to look

071at ways that we can improve service and add service and of course then we've got to figure out how to balance that and we don't want to necessarily use fund balance for that but we we do have to factor everything in and look at the whole picture when we're making those choices right okay and then related to that um posted the legislar prior to the meeting uh there was um a sort of budget summary for solid waste collection revenue and expenses and it looks it looked the way I understood it is that Solid Waste ran a circle so two years were posted 2021 and 2022 I think the two fiscal years I think they were fiscal years and it looked like there was like a This Is Now by memory three and a half million

072dollar Surplus two years ago and roughly half of that last year does that sound right yeah uh um I you know I'll I let me get back with um with you on the particulars around the finances okay I can do that yeah and then one last question sorry talked about with uh the Ecology Center and I know that while ra is affiliated with the Ecology Center it's a separate entity with a separate board and separate finances and in talking um with Brian weinart um and those another associate from Raa I was told that the maintenance of the r to Z A to Z recycling guide um is is which you might call an educational activity but there's no funding for that from the city in other words they don't have any resources even you know

073a percent of an FTE to maintain that um and it seems to me that that's uh an important resource certainly it is for me I look at it all the time when I'm confused or when I you know someone asked me particularly my wife can I recycle this or can I recycle that and it seems to me like that's something that needs to be addressed because that I think you know it's even linked on the city website um so maybe that's something you can look at together with the Ecology Center and Ria to ensure that there's some resources to maintain that um because you know there's been some changes with some of the new materials that you send up about what is and what isn't recyclable and things like that so um just a hint

074to pursue that potentially going forward that's it thank you all right thanks John um I am going to read Shannon Gibb Randall's question and thank you chin for sending it we got a little confused in the background here um Shannon says that she has a question about school as well um her husband wants to start a composting a program for the open school but the once in a month in the winter makes that impossible the pickup I guess it is on-site is impossible due to the volume is there any way to consider a more frequent service for schools due to the volume and that's for composting specifically I believe so as it is now I think there may be a couple of schools that were piloted where the city does collection for compost but mostly

075we're not providing that service directly and so the service that will be available under the new franchise agreement will have service up to six days a week so because it is focused more on that food scrap and certainly food heavy businesses or other locations would need more frequent collection than once a week and that would definitely be with the schools with the public schools they received their trash collection under the agreement yes okay but this is composting I would have to look at a specific instance but I think yes they should be available to have that service if they're under the contract okay Shannon did I ask the question correctly one more thing okay send it over so just to clarify your question was about subscription-based composting under the new contract or was it about

076residential no this was about public schools composting in public schools and so the the example was the open school map open right so servicing if we can service a school um that sits along a residential route that has carts then we're able to absorb that into sort of our current operational structure if they're looking at something larger like getting a dumpster then in servicing compost that way that would fall under um the commercial compost subscription base that we're looking at starting with waste management and their subcontractor under that new contract okay but right now large-scale School composting is not offered uh-huh so what about um Shannon I'm sure not I'm not sure I'm getting in this because I'm not familiar with the program but winter service is is there service in the winter so right

077now we do winter compost uh just once a month uh we have very very low volumes um so low it's almost hard to measure they're so low sometimes especially when they get frozen in the carbs um but um we piloted that last year and you know we felt that it was successful that we hope to grow participation but we don't really plan to grow the the frequency right now just because the volumes are so low yeah if I may under the the subscription service under the new contract that six days a week would be year-round yeah yeah that's different yeah right okay all right so right sort of apples and oranges as far as you know it really depends on the container type and where that school facility is located and what type what volume

078they're looking to get rid of okay and I'm hoping that you'll kind of address or you know assess the schools as well because maybe each one has unique situations and and I would guess that there's a lot of interest in it certainly there's an educational value yeah I do know that some of the schools have tried composting you know I don't know what service they've used and what success they've had but um you know with the uh contract with the Ecology Center that's something an opportunity that we can look at okay um commissioner Gruber did you want to pursue your question with your hand up I think it mostly got covered I just would encourage you to reach out to the schools because I I do think there's a lot of interest and I do

079think that the district is going to be is hearing from the community that they want more of this and so they they would potentially be in I hope they would be interested in the subscription I don't know how that works but that um I I would encourage you to communicate with the district on that option for them yes thank you we will definitely look into that all right um and I'm a little worried about time y'all but um Steve uh Brown you had your hand up I'm gonna pass okay all right I actually feel like we need to move forward with our next um topic but I really want to thank um Molly and Sarah for being here and answering these questions and it sounds like there's some some um important kind of follow-up that

080we can do and we'd be happy to do that so um let's let's collect our questions and pass them along um and so um I am going to ask that we all move to our next topic uh which is the circular economy and we have presentations um led by um Commissioners Cowart and council member dish and the students staff that have joined in and prepared information for us so um yeah okay if I take it over okay thanks yeah I've just got a brief intro here to a two-part uh overview that we're going to be sharing about the circular economy uh this support builds out of the environmental commission zero waste working group uh for nearly two years uh council member dish City staff member Jenny Petoskey and myself have been meeting weekly or even

081more frequently than that sometimes to focus on strategy 5 of 820 how to move forward how do we move forward and move towards a circular economy our Guardian objectives with all of this work has been to Define measure and promote the circular economy in Ann Arbor this work has been extremely successful in in my opinion in garnering financial and other support to kind of move it forward and accelerate the work and I think that's been due to kind of this effective Partnership of a council member or commissioner and City staff so that we've been very coordinated in our efforts from the very beginning just some examples of the resources that we've been able to pull together for this we've had two interns supported by the office of sustainability we had a micros Grant from what

082we have a Michaelis Graham from next cycle uh that was initially to support the interns but due to timing that's been redirected for outreach we also had support through next Cycles i2p3 the intergovernmental initiatives for public-private Partnerships that has really helped us refine and focus our message and uh the outcome of that is going to be what Jenny's going to be sharing with you in a minute uh We've also been very fortunate to have a group of students from the school for environment and sustainability with us for their Master's project for about a year and a half and they've also leveraged additional funding to bring resources and support to the work and finally we just got funded with a twenty thousand dollar Urban sustainability directors Network Grant to help us with some focused community outreach

083that we'll talk a little bit more about in a minute and I just want to recognize one of our great Partners in all of this Kathy Duchamp from the Ann Arbor Thrift Shop is one of the attendees tonight so just want to thank them for all of their work uh and you'll be hearing a little bit about what we've been doing with that partnership so with that I'll turn it over to Jenny to give us kind of the overview hi all can you hear me okay I'm going to share my screen all right so I'm Jenny Petoskey I'm the solid waste Outreach and compliance specialist I originally gave this presentation at a pitch for the Michigan recycling Coalition Conference as part of the next cycle challenge track so you'll hear me asking for funding that

084was part of the pitch I left this in here to help illustrate the innovative ways that we are seeking support which John just uh enumerated and to highlight the significant support of the state for funding for materials management there's a lot of money out there right now um as you know city council unanimously passed a carbon neutrality plan um for the entire city to be carbon neutral by 2030. one of the strategies in there was to move toward a circular economy that's under strategy five so our project is showcasing the role that reducing consumption can play in reducing carbon emissions and also in promoting Equity by expanding opportunities to reclaim products materials skills and valuing people circular economy is all around us but it's not a household work word our project has inventoried map and

085now we want to brand and Market Ann Arbor circular economy to make it visible accessible and enticing to all who would shop sell or participate maybe the circular economy isn't a household word because it addresses parts of our carbon footprint we don't often think about when think about people think about reducing their carbon footprint they typically think about energy solar panels electric cars they don't think about the goods that they buy this is where the circular economy comes in 45 of greenhouse gas emissions are from the consumption of products and materials I just want that to sink in a bit everything we buy produces greenhouse gas emissions so if we can reduce the consumption of goods we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions the circular economy place also plays a role in resiliency which we measure

086as connections and skills that enable people to thrive as climate change progresses and equity which we see as ensuring everyone has access and equal outcomes or the outcomes that they desire through our one-on-one engagement we have discovered that equity and resilience are inherent to and developed by the circular economy over the last day hold on a second over the last 18 months through a literature review and one-on-one engagement we discovered that the circular economy is vast and it's grounded by those whose participation is a part of their lives rather than a term this is historically our black indigenous people of color and lower income communities some of you may think of the circular economy as product and business focused what we discovered is that is that it is also about people governments skills and services

087while the linear economy creates emissions by linking consumption to waste the circular economy reduces consumption-based emissions by keeping consumer goods in circulation read the items on the list on this list do you do any of these items raise your hand if you do any of these items if you do you're part of the circular economy it's not a household word yet we need to brand and market so that it is I'm going to take you on a journey of our discoveries when you think of the circular economy think Social Services these entities employ reused Goods to help house and resettle people many times these organizations trade goods amongst themselves a circular economy in miniature these organizations build equity and resilience in our communities think food redistribution and growing local that build resilience and Equity through

088access to local healthy food as you may know food production especially at scale is fossil fuel intensive anything that maximizes the use of food reduces greenhouse gas emissions think buying in bulk and buying local to reduce the need for creating new or even recycled packaging to build equity via investment at the local level and to shorten Supply chains think re-skilling for the circular economy Workforce which will build equity through opportunities for good paying jobs think reskilling for people repairing their own Goods which helps them to be more resilient think communities participating in swap days repair cafes and Fix-It clinics to recirculate and extend the lives of goods while building connections think hyper local online communities like buy nothing groups think Innovative reuse this is the Ann Arbor Thrift Shop after completing considerable one-on-one engagement we

089did three case studies to better understand how the circular economy could be measured one of one of our discoveries is that the Ann Arbor Thrift Store creates an on-ramp to the circular economy by mimicking a more traditional stores displays and layout think borrowing raise your hand if you use your local library to borrow books now raise your hand if you've borrowed something besides a book from your library all right the Ann Arbor District Library has been loaning more than books since 1969. they also offer free workspaces and internet access promoting Equity through access to space and internet to build people's resilience they offer re-skilling resources think Innovative Recycling recycle Ann Arbor's zero waste focuses on the highest and best use of its materials you can see this is their highest and best use analysis for

090glass they focus on local end markets that are less than 200 miles away and full-time living wage jobs with benefits they also hire formerly incarcerated citizens and support them with finding housing and transportation while also providing them meals as you can see on this journey we have discovered a lot about the circular economy and how it recognizes and builds equity and resilience while reducing greenhouse gas emissions we know this and now we want everyone else to know it through a branding and marketing campaign we made this map so people could find circular economy entities almost four months ago as of last week it had 719 visits people are really interested in this map and utilizing it it is an unramped to the circular economy this work has the support of many organ local organizations that

091will help move it forward we are working with economic development agencies including spark the entrepreneurship Center and the Michigan Small Business Development Center we're working with business groups and with social services including the Community Action Network we have created connections with about 20 other entities through our one-on-one engagement and several of them are willing to be featured in our stories of circularity video series the first one to be featured will be El Harissa a local restaurant and boutique shop we'll either show that presentation that video after this presentation or we'll send it around afterwards and then finally through the fully staffed office of sustainability and Innovation we have links to over 100 other sustainable Community organizations this is a preliminary budget for investing in circular economy branding and marketing you may recognize this from a

092different um project at the city we want to change the way people purchase and value goods and services we want the circular economy to be the first option instead of a quick online purchase or a big box store we are looking for funding for this work through grants Partnerships and the upcoming a20 millage we've already done broad one-on-one engagement our next step is to hire an independent consultant to design and insist assist with the next phase of Engagement that will further ground this work in Black indigenous people of color and lower income communities as well as with residents and consumers at Large following that work and informed by it we want to kick off branding and marketing imagine these entities in the circular economy being advertised on billboards and bus stops across the city help

093us make the circular economy a household phrase there is demand in Ann Arbor there's support in Ann Arbor we need funding for Branding and marketing as well as Workforce Development and map improvements thank you thanks Jenny and I don't think we're going to be able to share the video because we weren't certain about the audio but I'll share that out with the commission right after this meeting before we move to the C students why don't we see if there's any uh questions for Jenny on her presentation just now okay yes John Mercy great to see the progress just in the last couple of years on this I mean compared to just a couple of years ago it's really fantastic um one of the things that I was thinking about in advance of the meeting is

094a um a way to sort of look at a at a high level of what kind of progress we're making on circular economy and I think um John in the same group um councilmember Edition others were working on metrics um for circular economy and it seems to me there was a presentation that you made I don't know if it was a final one but just one of the thoughts that I had and I I just looked up some numbers um before the meeting just to get a sense of what or Herculean task we have in front of us is I looked up what is the typical annual sales value for typical stores and it would be interesting to compare that to the sales volume of the stores that we have that are involved in the

095circular economy and the typical grocery store I couldn't find a number but I could I found the total number of grocery stores supermarkets um and divided that into um the total sales so this might be off but it's roughly 20 million dollars a year but a typical Target a single Target store is 50 million a year a single Walmart is 80 million a year in a single Costco is 220 million so when we look at the circular economy competing with all of that and then Amazon and everything else I mean it's it's it's it's it's daunting but it's something we absolutely have to do um so I think the the seeds that you guys are planting and the idea of branding and everything like that is fantastic so I just wanted to share that and

096maybe we can think about how we measure our progress um the other question that I had and it doesn't have to be answered today I know that the climate millage uh a lot roughly one million dollars if it's passed to Circular economy zero waste and you showed 150 000 so it'd be really interesting to see how we might spend that uh additional money and I think some of that might have been for some collection services and things like that but at some time it would be really interesting to see um how that is going to be allocated so just to plant both of those seeds and I'll turn it over to Kathy well okay thanks um I'm a hundred and ten percent behind this just to make an incorrect statistical comment for John's benefit here

097um but this this is wonderful this is absolutely something we have to do um I'm 70 years old I started shopping at the Goodwill store when I was 10 and then would have my grandmother sort of uh alter whatever I was buying um and so I I one word of caution is that there are many people who have been committed to this um I belong to Kiwanis for many years I uh was a merchandising chair at the Ann Arbor Thrift Shop I'm still a member and I have watched people retire from their careers and spend more hours dedicated to making the Kiwanis Thrift Shop a success and for anyone who hasn't been out to Kiwanis on a Friday or Saturday afternoon you need to look at the operation they have more customers than a Walmart

098they have probably 20 uh credit card machines they use Square going at the same time the average age of the volunteers there is probably close to 80 years old so it's really funny you know it's just so wonderful and so what you're reporting uh a lot of it is already happening and maybe we need a little boost but I think you have to be sensitive to the idea that you're coming in and taking credit for decades of work that's already been done and so how do you bring in the concept of a circular economy and branding without while at the same time enhancing the operations of the Ann Arbor Thrift Shop Kiwanis and those other organizations so again I want to be positive but I think that there is a delicate balance there and please

099go out and see the operation that that Kiwanis runs we used to be downtown Ann Arbor and due to real estate values and a lot of other reasons we move but it really is an Ann Arbor operation so thank you oh thank you very much for that comment you are spot on this work is here we just discuss we rediscovered it and we and we want to promote it is kind of what we're saying like we know it's already here we know a lot of people have done a lot of work and and we want to showcase that and and help other people see it and be part of it we also want to do business incubation to help bring in um fresh people into it um younger you know people who can continue on

100um so I hope I hope that helps thread that needle a bit and I'd also just add and also to what are the opportunities definitely to recognize and acknowledge the the volunteer efforts in this but are there also opportunities to create waged employment uh through the circular economy so that's part of where we're going with our ideas around a circular economy business incubators oh okay and uh Kiwanis also has a number of employees and they tend to be people who um I'm going to be critically try to be politically correct people that they're trying to uh support entering the workforce um and so people that need more support than the average employee so there's there's also that going on right now um and so I guess just to summarize how can you um really acknowledge

101and support all of the great work that has been going on so that the people who are doing that are going to join you rather than see this is just the city of Ann Arbor taking credit for what's already been done with with a new logo no and I don't believe that but I believe that there's that risk out there in the community definitely I'd say our approach with this from the beginning has been one of partnership and co-production of work and what are the ways we're just starting an inventory the students have mentioned it a little bit but an inventory to get at what are the things that businesses would or or organizations would need to help you know promote their activities so it's definitely not kind of taking credit for what they're doing

102but how do we promote we've got video series stories of circularity but uh what you've identified Kathy are definitely things that you know we've built an awareness around and are trying to think about strategies to promote organizations so um why don't we shift now to the second part which is the the student presentation uh these are the students from the school for environment and sustainability a group of five Master students and Zao is gonna get things started and introduce us to the group yeah hi uh good evening everyone yeah I'm going to share my screen here yeah um so yeah we are these Master project team from University of Michigan we work with the CT Security economy team on the circular economy but today um yes so first uh we are introduce our team member

103so we have a very like diverse team um so we have Brooke Naya tariku uh and me so today Anaya Jing and me are going to present to you so first let's go through a watch we'll present today um the first thing is the pilot uh case studies uh we've done with the city team this summer uh the one is another series shock another is recycle and number and the second thing is uh we're going to present the enabled circular economy locator map ancestors is the circular economy actions tracker and we are also going to present the buy Park business inventory and communication a community outreach and stories of circularity video series so I'll get things started with the pilot study of the Ann Arbor Thrift Shop a thrift shop serves the circular economy by

104changing the experience of thrift shopping and also reducing the carbon footprint as we can see this is a floor plan that we created after one of our team members visit and also interview with the shop um here we can see everything is set up just as a department store and those pictures in the circles shows um some of the beautifully displayed and arranged sales area of the thrift shop as a customer you can go and easily find what you want in your designated area and then we're going to the next slide to talk about the potential environmental benefit from operating a thrift shop um so this pie chart shows the annual sales number of their number Thrift Shop we put the numbers of every items that belongs to the industry of manufacture of textiles wearing

105apparels and leather products which is the like the most part of what is cost drifted in the strip shop and after running the environmentally extended input output model we can see the result is the potential annual benefits from a thrift shop is around 250 000 of apparel production avoided and nearly 9 000 kilograms of CO2 equivalence reduction and also since the apparel industry is of a great potential of employment creation there's also a nearly one employee equivalence increase and we're going to the next slide here what we want to highlight is the thrift shop is actually a circular economy in circular economy from what we can uh see in this pie chart which shows for those items that is unsellable for the thrift shop they actually got recirculated through different channels um apart from 20

106going to the recycling other items um got sold online by different channels and they generate the revenue to cover the daily operation of the surf shop and then I'll hand over to Zao to talk about the recycle Ann Arbor so our next uh next uh case study is recycle another so when talking about recycling center you're missing is just like handling with the recycling stuff actually the recycling this is the cycle and number is doing more than just recycling they are aiming for highest and best to use so you can see the pie chart here so the majority resource resources of the recycling materials are curbside recycling which is the single stream recycling and I is having 17 soldiers and seven administrators um to run the uh merge and small uh and they are also

107having the returning community members also they focus on the regional markets which means the markets are like are not far than 200 miles and then we take a deep into the conversation by Community that's our a is dealing with so we can see here um so around seven percent of the recycling materials are actually paper the one is cardboard and mixed paper and the news so and and uh we can see the mixed glass so this pouch is quite interesting because uh re aims for the highest and best use so they can deal with the clouds by the uh handle it to the third party to do the bottle to bottle recycling in order to make sure uh the recycling process is in the highest and best use and we can also see the residual

108rates um here is around 10 percent and the residual rate means the materials that can't be recycled so the 10 percent residual rates shows that actually uh in the city uh people are well educated and they have good environmental awareness so um everyone is working hard to make the residual rates very low and we also look at the environmental benefits that ra can offer so here we do a multi-community analysis by using EPA World model we created two scenarios one is recycling scenario which is uh what I is doing now and another is landfilling scenario so the landfilling scenario that means all the materials are going through landfill so you can see the total row here if all the relaxed recycling materials are going to landfill instead instead of recycling center it will actually generate

109500 more metric ton CO2 emissions but by doing the recycling another HPR reduce around 14 000 metric tons JG emissions uh so I want to mention that data is obtained from December 2021 to April 2022 so that's the j3 emission reduction for five months and let's hand over to an area to talk about the locator Max so another element of our circular economy locator man and so this map shows places where we can advance the circular economy and uh on the city's website it's getting a lot of hits so a little bit about how we went about creating it is that first we identified the potential uh circular economy sectors within the city and then collected and organized the data including names websites and address as well as categories of each of these organizations or

110businesses and um so we later categorize them into all of these categories that you can see here in the legend of the map um after that we kind of uh collected special data that is the latitude and longitude of each of these places and uh created this map using our GIS and if we click on the map yes so if we click on the map and toggle to each of these uh places or organizations we can see that there's a bubble that pops up and we can see information about each of these places and uh we're also working on updating what kind of information uh could be included in these um in these small apples about each of these places the next kind of element that we wanted to add to the map was to

111kind of incorporate environmental justice so we added another layer uh using the Washington opportunity index map and uh that actually that tool actually measures the access to Opportunity by looking at access to health jobs economic well-being Education and Training as well as Community engagement instability so when we kind of added or superimposed that layer onto our map the CE locator map we kind of understand how it um it can help us identify certain areas or places where we can focus on incubating the circular economy within the city of Ann Arbor and one of our group members is also working on adding a access to Transportation there as well and here we are also utilizing this action tracker to keep track of the ideas from all the interviews and partner meetings takeaways those actions are categorized

112with 7R and they are also ranked um based on its influence level from local to National we've got 30 more circular economy actions planned so far and we're keeping updating it uh then the Bible business inventory and so there are 146 winners in Ann Arbor and surrounding areas in our bipolar business inventory and the inventory also contains the discoveries from our community outreach and we also plan to add the bipolar business inventory to the map also the city has secured funding to hire an equity consultant to help improve the bipolar business imagery another key element of our project is the community outreach and so uh this is one of the examples of such an event so project grow is uh it provides Ann Arbor area residents with space know-how and inspiration to grow their own

113fresh organic food and there are Gardens that are located throughout the community many near public transportation so one can choose a site that's closest to their home and so in this event as an exhibitor for project growth 50th Anniversary which was on August 20th we showed our concept of circular economy kind of showed our promo video that we created and the data visualization or the locator map that we went over and this in turn attracted new people to be enrolled in the mailing list for circular economy and we also got to meet Chris mayor Christopher Taylor uh the other part of our community outreach is the stories of circularity video and we're showcasing different organizations and businesses that are already involved in the circular economy and so El harisa is a family-owned restaurant in Ann

114Arbor that participates in uh Ann Arbor's returnable container program which is the a2r3 program so uh we created this video kind of by interviewing the owner and uh collecting footage uh at their restaurant and kind of compiling uh both of those elements so our our group next up the next steps through the end of course have uh we have five vaccines to do one is We are continuing uh creating the inventory survey to create uh turkey Economy based on uh the second thing is that is uh we are also going to upgrade the gis map with other layers and details and at the end of the course we're going to do the final project reports also uh we assist with the community outreach and next month we are going to present our work in American

115Center for livestock life cycle assessment conference that's all thank you thank you Zhao zi Jun and nanya um Steve and Rita do we have a couple minutes for questions Steve I see your hand up go ahead you're muted yeah I have just one question and that is I know this you know this this is wonderful work um it's it's absolutely fabulous but um what's going to happen when the Seas project ends um and uh is this uh all gonna get transferred to the city for maintenance and uh future use well it I'll I'll take that and if anybody else wants to add on um I think that's part of kind of the intention from the beginning is that we've been working directly with City staff so like the gis map the students are heavily involved

116in it but it's being done by City staff so we've got kind of the continuity plan for it and Jenny has been you know involved in leading this project from the beginning to make sure things will be continuing Jenny I don't know if you've got other comments on that or continuity yeah John you're you're spot on um the the circular economy website it's a City website and um the gis platform is hosted on the city's website as well so there's the continuity there foreign we could also say that the Outreach we're doing is is going to feed directly into the city's circular economy strategy so um everything is we're we're just getting a whole lot of momentum going and we're hoping that uh so that that uh with the millage there will be more funds

117to have uh people to work on that in the in the city um thanks and one of the categories on the map was social and environmental um and I was curious what's an example of one of those organizations Jewish Family Services got it thank you okay well thank you uh so much uh for letting us share this this work with you and I am going to shoot off that email with the second video on El Harissa so you can kind of see their work and that's we plan to continue there could be a whole series of them but we've got a general overview one now which is on the website and then uh alvareza will be posted soon okay oh and just help yourself day um done by Sister Lakes Association will be done also

118very soon the next one's coming up will be Bryant's uh just help yourself day and um common cycle and maybe a maker space are all hands active that's great thank you oh this was really very good um so that ends our our presentation part of our meeting and we have um actually about 10 minutes left for for this meeting as scheduled um our agenda next item though I would like to present and or have a discussion of and that is the topic of the resolution to improve transparency of City uh the city of Ann Arbor performance um and I hope that you all have had a chance to look at the resolution that's in our packet um and I would ask if John would you like John mursky would you like to leave with some

119comments of yours um so briefly uh what happened after the last meeting is council member dish spoke with administrator dehoney uh and indicated uh to me then that um he'd be willing to further engage with me on the topic um we had an email exchange I can read some of the detailed comments uh but summarizing them he indicated and by the way um Rita Steve council member Griswold and council member dish were copied on on these exchanges um so they've seen them um he indicated that uh that he sees that this resolution would strengthen the organization he indicated that it's not one of his current top priorities he mentioned hiring and onboarding key new staff members um implementing uh performance reviews um and uh I then responded to him and indicated that the dates in

120terms of actions in the resolution uh are the end of the first quarter of next year which is basically just linking existing information to the existing performance measures web page and then updating that webpage for the remainder of the year so that by the end of the year things like format is improved that chart that data is trended that goals are also included and things like that which is not currently um available on the on the measures page um and um the last response that I got from him today um just second let me pull it up and read it um he indicated he said thanks for your feedback John I understand the process you are following and we'll look forward to the discussion once it reaches city council um so the other thing is

121um reading Steve I don't know if you want to talk about your thoughts on this but um both of you have agreed to co-sponsor it and so maybe I'll turn it over to you and I'd be willing to comment anymore answer any questions but maybe the two of you have something to say go ahead Steve yeah I just want to remind everybody that we had a reading of this resolution um alongside our September meeting and we had some discussion um so I'd like to advance this to a vote during this meeting um so and John John outlined a little bit about the background here um and so he in the city administrator Mr dehoney has not pushed back on any of these dates that are in the resolution and when uh which is the end

122of March the end of the first quarter next year and the end of next year so um so there's quite a bit of time to accomplish these and so I think I think it's important that we send this message to the city administrator and the city council has a sense of what we feel collectively as a reflection of the community so that's all I wanted to say at this point and uh we should open the floor for discussion could I just say something first just for for framing as well I see this as something that actually can support our success in the city that that it will strengthen almost any project that the City Works on to have the kind of goals that are discussed um and I think from my perspective it would be

123something that should be um motivating for staff to accomplish goals and and to show progress or to redirect as needed given whatever circumstances may come forward and certainly I think of it as a positive kind of measure that's it thank you foreign Kathy I'd like to be listed as a co-sponsor um I've had previous corporate experience where we used metrics uh extensive training and quality uh Improvement continuous quality improvement I've seen the benefit of this and I think it's very important that we sell it in a way that encompasses many of the information requests that are being made right now uh usually when someone asks for some data or information they're not thinking about performance uh measures they're not talking about metrics and so we've we've got to make sure that that it's integral to

124what people are thinking about for example today the chair of the Transportation Commission requested um some crash data pedestrian crash data and that data is actually included in the city administrators monthly newsletter so we get it monthly uh I requested it probably a year ago but there's no automated way to produce it so it's very labor intensive for for staff to use other reports like the ud10 crash data and in order to prepare this um and so let me see what I'm I'm sort of tired this evening but I just want us to be knowledgeable and sensitive to the fact that some of the resistance is not that people don't want to do it it's because we don't have the systems in place to produce this data and it's just it's amazing in this day

125and age that you've got to have someone look at a bunch of pieces of paper or screens and then transfer it somewhere else uh but that's actually what's happening and so again I'm a hundred percent behind it I've seen the value of it but some of the resistance is not because people don't want to it's just very very hard so and again I'd love to be a co-sponsor foreign yeah to follow on uh council member Griswold's comments there that was my one of my questions here is that are we aware of at this point in time if the city has the technology that's oh um that facilitates uh publishing I mean both collating um kpis from various organizations within the city within the city uh different departments and then packaging them in such a way

126that they're easily published to a website I come from the tech sector so I know how challenging and um how many different types of software packages are out there and how costly some of these software systems are and so um if the if the city does not currently have the A system that facilitates this um that will have to also be taken into account and budgeted for um I I also I I want to also say that I I am behind this uh this effort and I think the the rewarded um resolution is certainly an improvement um but uh a couple of things that um occurred to me in reading the what what we have for us right now um in the third whereas Clause um it it reads as though we're equating goals with

127kpis and when it says that you know uh uh policy objectives are best expressed in terms of smart goals also known as key performance indicators I think kpis are not the same thing as the goals that they support I think the the work that we're asking the city government to do here is taking our policy objectives and our strategic goals and translating those into kpis that we can then publish and make available to everyone and I think that's important that distinction is is important to make and should be reflected in the wording here um and then also just in that Clause where we say that policy objectives are are best expressed in terms of smart goals I think it's a debatable statement I I almost wonder if the use of smart goals I mean maybe

128just you know right now the city government thinks in terms of policy objectives and strategic goals um you know how they're phrased how they're how they're constructed like that's maybe more of an implementation detail that's best left to the the organizations that are tasked with taking what city council delivers to the city government and um and turn that into key performance indicators um I I feel like I personally feel like that would make for a stronger resolution um John Cowart yeah thank you um support the the kind of objective here of having more kind of like smart goals and key performance indicators I have just a lot of uncertainty though with some of the timelines based on what we've been doing with a circular economy and trying to get to specific uh metrics with that

129and the timeline and also kind of seeing just a little bit of what the OSI is trying to do around the sustainability dashboard it's it's really complicated work yes to be moving towards it but I really questioned of how this could be done in a year um and the kind of work that needs to be done to go through everything and identify it and figure out a platform that would support all of this um the timeline just doesn't I I don't know how that can be done thank you um John mursky just to respond to some of the comments first of all one of the reasons uh well first of all I recognize that the dates that are in the current resolution will likely be discussed further between council members and City leadership and potentially

130be changed one of the reasons why the dates are as they are and one of the reasons why I think it's important to act on this resolution now um maybe even with some of the imperfect language is what this does is it identifies the desire in the community hopefully hopefully it's supported also by council members um that this is needed um it would be then approved prior to uh the December uh meeting that Council has every year when it's talking about priorities that feed into the budgeting process so if if indeed resources are needed for this then you know it can be any number of different resources whether it's staff whether it's Consulting whether it's I.T platforms that can be included in the budget the budget then would be approved by May of next year

131and that then provides the resources necessary to meet the Target that is currently set at the end of next year and frankly I would be fine that I'm just speaking for myself if that was pushed out another half a year or whatever it is but that at least there is a time-bound expectation that something is done in terms of providing transparency on performance so I just wanted to to respond to that as far as the language and kpis metrics smart goals these are often used interchangeably perhaps incorrectly so um but what I'll I'll give you just a couple of examples of what I would call Key outputs that are impossible right now to really find on the city website um that was as was mentioned by council member Griswold it's impossible at least I can't

132find any public safety data I went to the police site today the police department I went to the performance metrics site the data that's posted there is 2018. it's one year of data so I can't compare that to the prior year to goals that had been set another for example is progress against affordable housing targets so in Council in 2015 set of goal of I think it was creating 2 800 new affordable housing units um there's no place to go to to see what the status is on that I also looked for diversion rate on statistics you can't find those you know these things are really just fundamental to Citizens interactions with city government and um when I said when I say a smart goal I think everybody knows the acronym you know it's it's

133a goal that is specific that is measurable that is attainable that is relevant and that it is time-bound um so you know some of the things that I've talked about um and by the way road condition is another one the city city road uh condition is has an objective measure it's called a paiser rating there are goals that have been set multiple times for achieving certain levels of uh Road quality you cannot find anywhere on the city's website any kind of trending of are we making progress against that goal um or what the goals are and and things like that so I just think these these things are are fundamental and you know whether Council then uh sits together with the attorney's office and with the city administrator and changes out some of the terminology

134to me that's not really important the specific due dates aren't all that important I think it's important that it's we we communicate that this is important to us as commissioners as residents at council members that this kind of data is really important to us that we want to be able to see outcomes and we want to see progress against those outcomes and if we're not making progress then maybe it's a number of different things where the city administrator can go back and say I don't have enough resources maybe City comes back the council and says I have an unrealistic goals that are being set and when frankly when progress is being made that as someone else mentioned earlier that it can really be celebrated so those are just some thoughts that I had as relevant

135to some of the um comments that were made up until now so thank you Kathy Griswold um yeah I just want to say that a lot of work has been done and there's positive movement and recognition that this is needed uh I'm aware of projects that were started by two former city administrators um and it's not that they didn't have the knowledge and staff support the there wasn't the political will to implement this and so I think it's very important moving forward that we have the support from our elected leaders and I was talking to my replacement on city council and he had already had discussion with some of the new incoming council members about the need for data so I think that's really a positive and um so we're really building on the work

136that's already been done uh we heard from Brian steglitz tonight he's he thinks that way he's done some of that work already but we haven't had sort of the systems to uh to publicize it and the ability to to put it out there on a dashboard the way it should should be um so I would like to have this resolution passed tonight while at the same time if there are Commissioners who have concerns I would be willing to work with them and with with John mursky between now and the next council meeting which isn't until Thursday the 10th and offer a resolution at the meeting but I I just think we really need to move forward right now it's it's critically needed there's it's it's almost like we're we're moving in silos within the city

137of Ann Arbor and as a result we're not as effective and we don't recognize the Excellence of some of our staff members because we don't have this information out there oh yeah I see Steve stand up um yeah um I agree and I really appreciate the comments that commissioner Morrison Advanced um but I think um I think that that's not um to me that does not uh present a problem with um with accepting it as it is because I I've seen the same variety of definitions and different contexts but it's just important to put those three items in there somewhere that there's policy objectives that are clear and well expressed um they're budgeted through smart goals and that the kpis are are agreed on so you know they're they're not all the same thing of

138course but um they're all things that need to be thought of as pieces of the implementation of a real Performance Management program and um and I think it we have talked about this for many times um you know for for years actually on this sort of thing has been a matter of conversation among Council and the commission and the city staff so I think just leaving the dates as they are is not is not it's fine because um I agree that of course the implementation will all depend on what budget is provided by Canada approved by Council so I'm very happy to just uh pass this as it is to vote on it yes as is and um and um and see how it progresses through the true authorities which is our elected representatives on

139Council and the city staff but I think this is an important thing that needs to be um an important activity within the city government over the next year and that the dates of achievement really depend on things that are out of our control um I would also remind people that um I'm sure there are certainly quite a few foia requests that are made regularly to obtain this information and when the city's thinking about its budget they should think about the amount of time that are spent by staff on a fulfilling foia requests you know they should all they should think of that as a potential Time Saver and I'm not talking about emails between city council you know I'm talking about foia requests for this kind of information so Steve there are two more people

140with questions that you know sorry to sort of um into late time here um um councilman verdish yeah I really really appreciate the work that has gone into this and I think it's very much in the spirit of uh support for what residents expect from a democratic and and transparent government and so I think that it's very much worth talking about um it is a great idea the feedback that I've gotten from the city administrator is that it just can't be a priority right now and so um I'm I I think it I think that we probably want to make sure that we have he also indicated that in terms of a channel for bringing forward some this kind of a proposal it's great to get the residents feedback through the environmental commission and the

141energy commission uh and all of that but um yeah I think as as uh commissioner Calvert mentioned creating the infrastructure for this kind of thing um and budgeting for it is is that's quite a big deal and I think that we would need to have a staff champion before um I think it'd be appropriate for Council to pass a resolution because a resolution is really saying we are making this a priority for you and I think that it's really important to consider where the thing I mean there's this is important and there are so many important things and we I think do need to take some guidance and feedback from staff in the city administrator as to where this fits in the larger constellation of priorities that they have and so um I'm I'm not

142you know I I'm supportive of utterly the principles that inform this but I'm trying to be realistic about uh the resources and budgeting and um you know and just the months we've seen OSI go through interviewing different people who might be able to sustain a dashboard for them it is a pretty involved process I see another question or a hand up um from commissioner Graham um I'm [Music] very much in favor of proceeding down this line but and without commenting I further on that uh the environmental commission is really advisory to the council we recommend things to the council and yet the resolved Clauses here sort of see us directing the administrator and stepping I would say a bit out of our bounds I realize we have a couple of council members here and maybe

143they're um they have the sense of the rest of the council and we're okay doing that but uh I'm a little uncomfortable um resolve the city administrative State accounts of will review based on the advice Etc I'm we um the began telling what to do we can only suggest and advice John moski I just have a basic question and that is this has been where the city administrator since March um we discussed this uh a month ago there were several email exchanges with him um I haven't had any other proposed language changes or date changes from anyone um as I indicated before um this this will not set City policy as you know as commissioner Graham implies this goes from us to council and is then we'll be revised as council member Griswold said between

144council members and the city administrator will probably be modified again when it comes actually to a discussion in front of council I think it's really important that this move forward so that it is considered in the budgeting process so it is considered among other priorities and so that there are resources and there is a discussion about this um in in the broader context otherwise if this doesn't get acted on now um it will move out another year and I'd like to remind everyone what I said in the last meeting the last meeting I asked the city administrator in an email um when when to bring this back up and he said to bring it back up this is in May in April he said to bring it up in September and I brought it forward

145in October meeting and since then uh we are where we are so what what I would ask is that we move forward on this with the recognition that this will be revised and hopefully we can get to a point where everyone recognizes that this is fundamental to uh any organization and how it operates but but particularly one that serves residents and taxpayers and provide services to all of us so that we have some idea of are we actually meeting the key the key objectives policy objectives um that that we've all set together through our Collective Democratic processes thanks John anyone else sorry John I I this is the first time I've seen the resolution or even heard about it so forgive me for not being up to speed um nor am I objecting to going

146to going ahead with resolutions I just the wording is a little forward to me as it as I see it for the first time foreign any other comments would we like to move to a vote or consider a vote would someone like to call the question yeah okay okay Steve Brown we'll call the question and so I don't think we have a motion on the floor yet okay foreign like to move to approve I moved to consider having a vote on this resolution okay is there a second okay all right so all in favor of passing this resolution for transparency in the city um raise your hand or say I and okay all right all right would you all keep your hands up account nine um are there any Nays nay two Nays all right

147any abstentions thanks Steve I think that was everyone who was a voting number here um so I declare this to be passed uh with nine Eyes Two Nays and ask that um councilmember Griswold um who agreed to join us in in supporting it uh take it to the city council for next approach and um actually I should ask John mursky do you need anything additional from the environmental Commission in order to take it to the energy commission if you so choose no okay and I just want to entertain any amendments before it goes before city council uh and so feel free to reach out to me or or I'm sure uh Lisa would also be willing to talk to to people about their concerns because thank you all for this discussion I think it raised

148some issues that that I see is very important too and but I do feel that it will be a good thing for us um so that um leaves us at 9 20 with um a good good meeting I think with everyone and I appreciate it um Steve I want to ask your um recommendations on the remainder of the meeting with um reports out and um items for next agenda Etc do you want to take over at this point um yeah I'm willing to take yeah I will take the tour back okay thank you all right thanks for your thanks for doing this and I'll try to get my computer working better next time with the internet well so um so the next item on the agenda are reports from committees other commissions Council and chair

149um so um let's try to be brief um let's start with um with pollinators okay back to me um I've been working with the A2 pollinator Network including um commissioner Gruber and we are moving forward with sort of an informal uh program to leave the leaves in the fall which is a voluntary approach suggesting people not move their leaves into the formal compost City compost but leave them in their yards at least their yards um and so with the intent to preserve protection habitat for pollinators and [Music] um to have them there for next year um we will be preparing and we've been working with Sean with um for which I really appreciate it um to prepare some materials more formally for next year to address how we'll approach the seasonal changes so um stay

150tuned um and watch for our next newsletter we'll have more okay thank you Rita how about um natural features um I've been inactive forgive me this has been a year in business that I don't want to relive please forgive me back in the horse saddle uh coming up shortly okay Chris thanks yeah it's good to see you back um so let's see how about um from Solid Waste we've already had a presentation um is there anything that um um the John commissioner calart or nope you heard everything okay now I believe we have all right thank you um so let's see in the water quality um we have not met we have not met during the past month so we'll have a report next month on water quality work group um other Commissioners let's start

151with planning uh I think I'm doing the report because we can't hear Shannon so um the the we're working on um eliminating parking minimums didn't we do that already though I thought maybe I'm just yeah I thought we did that um we set maximum parking maximum with tc1 and we'll be looking at Citywide parking maximums this year as well but that's complicated so we don't know how that's going to go um we are moving on to uh We've okay Council will be voting on the extension of the amending the map of tc1 or amending the city zoning map to extend tc1 to Stadium um and then we'll be moving on to the other two areas from there um we're very excited that proposed UDC changes around solar energy system flexibility and electrification will be discussed

152at Planning Commission on November 15th others have suggested that we pursue simultaneously um putting those requirements in the building code but it is the opinion of um our planning staff that that would not withstand a legal challenge while we have a better chance of doing that in the UDC um and we I guess the question has been raised about using um using connect connection fees in a way to incentivize sustainable development and I don't think that that has I don't think we've seen interest in that from the public services but I think that that's an area to open a conversation with them because there is one of those places where if you can get interdepartmental cooperation that you know maybe that opens up I don't know um Shannon what am I missing I know there's

153well oh I should be saying that the master plan is coming our way and it's going to be a huge amount of work for planning and so we expect that to take quite a bit of time Steve I need your cues because I don't have the list of the next group I think I'm probably up with energy thanks John so just briefly uh the 2021 Greenhouse uh community-wide Greenhouse uh gas inventory has now been completed it was presented in the last meeting it's posted under the energy Commission on legistar just very briefly um emissions were up last year over 2021 which is or over 2020 I should say which is to be expected because of the covet's impact in 2020 uh they were still below 2019 levels although last year we still had some covet

154impacts so it's really hard to compare year-to-year differences there were some drops which were significant um related to electricity U of M has uh moved to some renewable um Supply and that had a discernible impact there's also drops in a variety of um in reductions in various building areas which sort of also is probably related to uh the pandemic um and then um finally transportation is also down which is also related to the pandemic so I encourage you to look at that because it's really important it'll be really interesting to see the inventory for 2022 and to compare that to 2019 because we're more or less in a normal year this year with the University running in the hospital and everything else and the last time we had that was in 2019. um the other

155thing that I think is important is uh the commission together with OSI has been working on implementing benchmarking and disclosure um for essentially all building sectors um One Step was taken a couple of months ago when Council implemented an ordinance for the commercial sector where there has to be disclosure and benchmarking the energy commission voted on the next leg of that which is for single-family residences that at the time a property is to be marketed a home energy audit would be uh conducted according to a doe process is called a home energy score and uh that would have to be divulged our um in the MLS listing so that the buyer just like when they buy a car they know the miles per gallon they also know something about the energy performance of the building

156so a resolution in support of that passed and that's now with Council to act on the last leg of the three-legged stool will be a green rental housing program requiring certain levels of Energy Efficiency improvements in order to get a certificate of rental or occupancy or whatever the right term is um so we're basically halfway through the second or three quarters of the ways through the second leg and it's looks to be like it'll be early next year that will get the green rental housing program um out of OSI and pass by the commission those are the two main actions that we act to that thanks and by the way this month some of you may have been asked uh DTE is offering my green power um to residents of Ann Arbor at the same

157rate so renewable energy 100 renewable energy for the same price as what you're getting your current uh electricity and they're making a presentation on that and hopefully also there's a new program Where They are promoting green gas natural gas and so we want to have them prevent prevent excuse me present both of those so that we better understand exactly what the offerings are and what their limitations are so that'll be in the November meeting thanks Steve you're muted sorry thank you John um so um sir parks and advisory commission uh yeah yes uh we just met this last week on the um every five years the parks and recreate uh the parks department puts together a prose plan parks recreation and Open Spaces strategic plan um they have put one together this year um they've

158just completed a draft of it and it's going to be open for public comments starting in November and I think it'll be open for several weeks um so if you have opinions about it um it's a it's kind of a long document but um it should be available soon and I hope you all have the opportunity to look at it and then one item that they brought to the parks brought to our attention um is that there's going to be some uh work done in Fuller Park they're going to be um two two things are happening there um Fuller Park is adjacent to the hello the University of Michigan's helipad and um uh they have been notified by the FAA I believe um that there's some trees that are that uh pose danger to the

159helipad so um there are some trees that are going to be removed near it um but the University of Michigan has worked out an agreement with the parks department to compensate them for those trees and the university will be performing the work and then the other thing is at the bridge the Maiden Lane bridge is going to be um rebuilt I believe uh there's gonna be significant work done on it and um once again Fuller Park is right is the bridge goes through Fuller Park and um the park will be used for some staging and there will be a little bit of disruption as a result of that and that's all I have right thank you man um so let's see I think that's uh commissions uh Council any extra Council reports from either Lisa

160or Kathy um I just want to say that much of our work is becoming newsworthy in that channel 7 ran two segments regarding the Gelman plume and yesterday WWJ 950 in Detroit had a segment on our deer management program in Ann Arbor so that's all I know about but it's for some reason Ann Arbor uh seems to be of interest to the Detroit media market and uh so far they've they've all been accurate and informative you know segments I shall try to keep my mouth shut sorry I muted myself so anything um anything to add Lisa that you'd like to add um okay I don't hear Lisa so um let's move on to the chair or the chair sorry I was shaking my head but you can't see and I forgot that yeah oh okay

161so and um so the next item here is the chairs report and I have nothing to report I will I will report things in December that are remaining on December uh first so um the next item on our agenda is a report from staff sure yes thank you um I will just briefly go over a little bit of what um we have done at OSI recently uh the 10 000 trees initiative has now distributed over 3 500 trees following our latest giveaway event uh our a20 ambassadors program is starting up with our fourth cohort uh next week they will be getting their training um we are the Community Action Network was awarded five hundred thousand dollars to support uh decarbonization work in the Bryant neighborhood uh our energy options analysis is underway uh for the

162seu and traditional municipalization um and other particular strategies for um full uh renewable energy uh youth here in Ann Arbor uh and then also uh two weeks ago we had a local Food Fest at the Harvest Market in uh conjunction with Argus Farm stop um to separate uh local food and we hope to make that an annual event uh and then those are the updates that I have right now hey great thank you so much Sean so um next item on the agenda are items for the next agenda so are there any items people would uh like to see us discuss or uh bring a put on the agenda for December let's see I can't see who's got their hand up I guess it's Sean stand up Sean you have your hand up uh yes

163uh so next meeting is our last meeting of this year so I've been asked uh to uh have us discuss uh the meeting calendar for 2023 at our next meeting okay okay do you want to do that um as new business or as part of your staff well yeah let's do it as new business sounds good thank you okay um John mursky has his hand up Steve yeah okay oh John you have the floor yeah real quickly I was wondering if we're planning and I got the impression from email that we were um another session related to Solid Waste will work at what is the current diversion rate um what is how we doing against the budget what is the status of these um Solid Waste Reserve fund what are the uses of the solid

164race Reserve funds some of these um bigger questions um Beyond uh some of the actions that the the team is working on what are some of the outcomes in other words yeah I was thinking maybe more for January that's what I thought okay you know you know given you know given all the end of the year activities and um and I should note that I have two two notes for things for future meetings myself and one is the uh having Keith Sanders here to talk about the wastewater treatment plant and um you know and uh emissions you know from us you know from untreated sewage from a wastewater treatment plant then another one is um you know and then also the solid waste fund uh which would be in January which I would project for

165January so I'm only thinking about December uh so I've just heard from Sean on that so um Steve didn't we in years past use December as sort of a planning meeting or you know kind of a discussion for like setting priorities for ourselves um so that's not a real specific kind of thing to say but we certainly could encourage our membership to identify issues that we would discuss and set priorities maybe they could dovetail with the calendar yeah no thank you Rita that's a great suggestion so we'll have that as an agenda there's a year-end review and some goals for next year okay um um any other suggestions for December oh I don't hear or see anything so uh how about the next scheduled meeting is going to be December 1st the first Thursday of

166Jan of December which as usual will be our combined um you know November and December meeting given the holiday season so um and uh so this uh the next item on the agenda is the second public comment period so this is another opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes so please call 1-888-788-0099 and enter meeting ID number 925 eight two one five eight seven zero five so this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star nine on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to

167speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning beginning of your comments and be patient there can be a 30 second delay before a connection is established so let's see Sean do you do we have anybody online yet we do not have anyone on the line okay okay so let's wait another 30 seconds um and the next item is adjournment uh let's see okay is there anybody on the line now there is not okay well this ends the second period of public commentary for this meeting and so I declare this meeting adjourned at 9 40 PM thanks for your patience everybody thank you good night everyone good night