001e e e to order at 703 and I'm going to read a um my introductory statement here um welcome to the February 25th 2021 electronic meeting of the environmental commission this meeting is an accordance with executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the co9 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 9723 or 888 78899 and enter meeting ID enter meeting ID 7973 um you will be uh to public comment will be via telephone only so this information is also available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast
002of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 AT&T channel 99 and online at www.gov.org slatch CN so um so let's see gayen do you want to read the land Heritage statement alrighty land Heritage statement I acknowledge that the land the city of an arbor occupies is the ancestrial traditional and contemporary lands of the anishi Nai including the odwa ajib and bodwad me and W do peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a
003future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals that's the land Heritage statement thank you do you want to do the roll call next just one second alrighty roll call okay uh commissioner Graham commissioner Graham commissioner Skinner commissioner Needum commissioner Needum thought he was here uh council member dish pres commissioner uh Apple commissioner Apple commissioner Gib Randall here council member geswall here commissioner kwart here chairman Brown present commissioner over here commissioner Mery here Vice chair Mitchell here commissioner bnda here commissioner Ferris here I'm sorry everyone I'm having Wi-Fi issues and I won't be able to have my camera on okay that's roll call thank you U thank you gayen it seems like we have a quorum yes we do have a quorum yep so um let's proceed to the approval of the agenda do
004I have a motion to approve the agenda as written so moved um I hear a second read a Mitchell seconds um um okay all who uh all who agree um raise your hands or say I raise your hands um all opposed raise your hands and for say nay hearing nothing I uh declare it um the agenda is approved unanimously uh we'll proceed to the first uh C of public commentary um this is a bit out of okay there are no special presentations and U so we'll proceed to public commentary public comment this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 1888 78899 tollfree or 5247 tollfree and enter webinar ID 7973 this information is this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will
005select 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 star9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak once 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 an address at the beginning of your comments and please be patient there is a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established let's see kayen do you see anybody yet in the que uh there's one caller but their hand isn't up okay so let's wait a few more seconds okay and um that caller is Dan Vic
006now so he may want to speak later oh okay that's true there are no other callers okay so this ends the public comment period um let's proceed to the approval of the minutes of our last meeting which was on January 28th I think um so um let's see is there U is there a motion to approve the minutes I moved John mki um is there a second I'm not hearing a second I'll second we'll have a discussion though uh are there any proposed corrections I don't hear any proposed corrections to the draft minutes so um all who approve of the minutes is drafted raise your hand or say I I I I all who disapprove say no or raise your or raise your hand I'm hearing and seeing nothing so the approve the minutes are
007approved as drafted um so let's move to the next um item on the agenda here unfinished business uh the first item is update from the chair on article 3 chapter 40 review process um I have contacted the chairs of the uh Transportation Commission and the disability commission about this Kathy and I have not yet heard back from them about an appointment uh remember that the uh this is about um modif about amending article 3 chapter 40 of the city code to provide for uh more Landscaping provide residents more Landscaping options um especially for the extension you know between the um sidewalk and the street so it was decided back in December so that we would have an ad hoc committee there would be one member appointed from um Transportation Commission one member from the disability
008commission one member from the environmental commission and Kathy Griswald would be uh city council member who is um who is also attending so the idea was to draft uh redraft this part of the city code you know to address the concern both the environmental concerns the disability concerns and the transportation concerns so I would hope to get a report back from them within three months or so um are there any questions about this um Kathy um I I think it's also important that we um ensure that whatever is drafted is consistent with a20 and the new new uh Vision zero Transportation plan so that's one of my interests yep okay I'll make sure that um we have that discussion uh during this process okay any other um any other questions about this okay I I
009hear nor seeing anything so um let's proceed to the next item on the um uh what does council want or need is an annual report from the commission um this is not an urgent matter I mean I think it's just something that's worth considering because remember it's part of our bylaws that we're supposed to submit an annual report on the state of the environment so and this was originally established as a you know bylaws in 2010 10 years ago 11 years ago so I'm hoping that we can get an update from Council about what details they would find useful in a report such as this um you know with all the um you know with the mind of what what kind of information Council would find most useful as well as not having to duplicate
010activities of other you know City entities or require much work from the staff so excessive work from the staff so um that's my hope here so I'm hoping that the council that you know Kathy and Lisa will have a conversation at the pro you know over the next few months with Council about this um I'm not sure what else to do um and then maybe they can report back with some recommendations yes Kathy yeah um some work has been done and I I think that council member just has also been involved in some activities um there are so many other organizations that are doing this work that it's taking some time just to to be able to identify all those organizations the office of sustainability which didn't exist 10 years ago uh the Brian steglitz
011from the uh water treatment facility is putting out a monthly newsletter um Gman is you know the Gman cleanup is is getting more priority than than it probably was 10 years ago so uh I guess some progress is being made and I I want to make sure we're not duplicating other reports but maybe just referencing them no that sounds great uh Lisa yeah um that's I want to Second what Kathy just said um I think my concern here is that to do a state of the environment in an arbor is a really complex undertaking and in order to do it right um I think there's no way we can do it without staff and so and it's not clear to me why the environmental commission's reporting duties should be more than what other commissions are
012more than report more than reporting on its own activities and and so while I I I will I hear the directive to ask other council members what they would like from this report and what detail they would like and I hope I can just do that by sending an email because we're never even in the same room so it's impossible you know um so um Kathy's nodding so I can do that and just tell people not to reply to all um the other concern I would have is whatever they want I would want to know is this just supposed to be a council facing doc or is it a public facing document and is there going to be a commitment of Staff time to produce it um so because I think that it doesn't make
013sense for the Commissioners on this committee to take their time from what are some really active I mean we've got a lot of really active working groups that are doing work um and so I just I'm I'm just feeling as though this isn't um that unless it's such a priority to council that they want to ask staff to put time into it I worry about the the the requirement as it's um as it's conceived yeah that's a concern I think um many of us share so um so let's see John mky has his hand up Steve yes John thanks yeah I I'd like to Echo um both council members comments and I think I I I'll put into maybe slightly different words uh council member Dish's comments um that we consider what the return is
014going to be on the time invested um you know a lot of time can go into this we already make um proposals for the the city's policy agenda um and the question is if we spend a lot of time in this what's the level of redundancy how is this going to be read I I've seen the amount of material that council members get just preparing for normal meetings um outside of you know in addition to everything for all the commissions and boards and everything that they serve on and so I'm just I think we should be cognizant of that in in framing what we um what we finally do so thanks very much yeah all right thank you John anybody else um want to comment um Kathy um what might be helpful is more of
015an exec itive summary and a list of what's available out there right now from other sources because that I think would be helpful to councel because there's so much information available and then we could fill in as needed working with staff but that that would be a a very small minority of of what's needed I think okay um Rita you had your hand up yeah I mean my thought is just that it kind of leads into one of our other discussion items for tonight um which is just kind of our task list and it seems like if we are working Along on a task list that is considered of priority that that's probably a good status for us you know um and ideally we will have collectively identified the important things that we should be
016working on exactly yes so um any other observations comments okay um so this would end the discussion for that item I uh yeah this is worth thinking about a little more but I appreciate these comments I'll write them up and we'll um circulate some emails and see what happens um next month if there's anything extra um and then maybe we'll make a decision we'll come to a decision next month about this item in our bylaws which might involve correction of the bylaws okay so let's move on to new business um the first one first item on the new business agenda is a review of the commission task worksheet this is something that I can share with my screen I sent it out earlier and I think let's see let me try to get it up
017here okay is that visible yes yes so I see this is just a a a tool for tracking our our tangible actions and our projects so this could form like a basis for our report to councel um so I I started off with action item one this is something that I'm the owner and the lead person in the commission on this um effort to draft a construction and demolition recycling ordinance so um I can um I can fill it I can uh fill it in with more information later I have a Google doc I'm using to summarize information um that's you know a live document that um people could click on if they want um my big question is how can we properly share this document so it can be updated as a living document
018I'm not sure John I think you had something similar to this in the energy commission so um yeah how how are you able to share this document or manage it so the energy Commission has a um shared Google Drive um and I think the intention is still that that'll eventually be migrated to a Microsoft platform but that hasn't happened yet and we have a lot of different materials on that drive including orientation materials um and then um a folders for different working groups and subgroups even um and on that drive is um our action item tracker um admittedly we spent a lot of time on it um after we Zoom resumed meeting um late in the summer and fall via Zoom um and um in the meantime um we've shifted um our Focus to five
019projects that have been agreed upon with OSI so we need to update that but to your your basic question um it's just in the Google Doc um everybody can access it they can put their you know add information in um or um make make a comment just like any other Google Docs so it's um shared with everybody on the energy commission as well as um with um staff leison okay so um I have I have this document in um in my Google it's a Google doc that's in my drive so um I will do uh I will do this similarly and we'll see when it can be integrated into the Microsoft product which is called um what's it called Rita it's Escape my mind right now we gayin I don't know yeah sorry okay well
020we'll figure that out eventually I think it's called teams te E A Ms okay yes Microsoft teams oh okay all right if I can I make a comment about the natural features we aren't writing a new ordinance we are doing tree protection improvements to chapter 57 the UDC which will amount to very extensive amendments actually how's that good okay and Steve I have a a question on use of this it would be good for us to agree how we will use it in the shared Drive is this intended to show um routine updates or is it just kind of a tracking document as kind of like a peg that this is a target that we're going for right I think a best practice is that I will I will allow I will allow viewing PIV
021privileges to everybody on the commission I will only restrict editing privileges to the owner or the lead okay I think that would be probably the most prudent thing to do um um Lisa you have your hand up yeah just a quick uh question I'm not sure John do you John msky do you still want to be the owner and lead on this I was I wrote down that I was going to talk to you after the meeting um I'd prefer not to be although I'd be happy to be your sparring partner I sort of stepped back um as you know from the waste group um but if you want to collaborate um I'm I'm happy to do that but in terms of actually being a lead or owner I think that's probably a misnomer okay
022that's fine and if anyone else wanted to co-lead with me that would be fine but I'm also perfectly happy to go as we are um that group is clicking along we have a mission statement we have an action menu we have a meeting tomorrow so and I will send out an agenda after this meeting tonight great great okay um thanks Lisa um I can't see everybody's hand so I'm going to um ask Rita I I see no additional hands right now okay they call the teams the team's uh sharing site SharePoint SharePoint yeah that's it okay so I'll keep track of that and see see where that's going uh in the meantime um well if everybody's agreed we'll just set up set it up this way um is there anybody who wants to submited another
023another action item number for this document at this time uh maybe we can talk about um the resolution that um we're going to talk about later under new action it or new new agenda items I don't know that it's going to be necessary because I think it's just going to probably come up in the next meeting for a vote but we can talk about whether that's appropriate to add um actually if I recall correctly what we we used an action item tracker like this um in um energy commission meetings for more than a year and um what we did is we reviewed it at the end of the meeting for additions and changes um and I think that's would be a good practice in this case too that way we can uh for example take
024what we discussed in the meeting and say what if anything needs to be added to or modified in the tracker okay I've been thinking about um putting in action points separately but um I guess we'll just put in the action points pertinent to these goals in this document that seems like a good practice John mki has his hand up yeah Rita you're gonna have to do yep got him John oh I I was gonna say Kathy could go first I saw hand since I I've got the mic on um okay one one thing that I would um recommend that we talk about doing is um and this is from my background in business and it may not apply in this case um since it's a little bit different kind of setting um but in in
025business um we set targets and we tracked our actions rigorously against those targets and in the case of business in many cases you're um talking about things that have an impact to the bottom line um and in our case you know we're talking about some things that have an impact to human health and to The Climate emergency and things like that and um one of the things that we really religious did is we we focus everything on meeting the due dates that we set and um if if we were missing due dates then we really pushed each other to be able to make up time and I think um in some cases that may not apply but in other cases that for example have an impact on um the a20 plan in a 2030 Target
026um and we've all declared U including Council that this is an emergency we really should not be missing deadlines so I think that's something that for further discussion as we go forward on how on how we use this because just having a piece of paper that tracks projects and if we keep on moving dates and things like that it it really serves very little purpose in my view Kathy would you like to speak uh yes I'm wondering if it's appropriate to have a water quality um item here um we want to track progress but I think what's most important is that we um are able to identify all the work that's being done because this uh especially with the 14 dioxan we've got Community Partners with the washoff county S Township and Arbor Township uh
027there are so many players in significant misinformation and so uh in addition to having some targets I think just having a place where uh we're verified information is shared would be good and we're really at a disadvantage because of uh the open meetings act and we can't necessarily have lengthy discussions at Council but we could at least update and share that information without any violations of the open meetings act through this process so I don't know what other people think but and and maybe updates on p as well um uh so I'm gonna call it myself um that kind of leads into something that that is my question is like what qualifies something to be on this list um and again how how are we going what are we going to put in as the
028comments you know is it going to um is each line gonna are we only going to have like three or four lines and just update or are we going to show a trend of of the actions that kind of thing um I just it's just a a question of the function in use that I'd like to understand okay any I don't see any other hands Steve's hand is up Steve okay good hi Steve what would help possibly since we're screen sharing if people would use their rais hand and if uh Rita if you're chairing or Stephen is chairing if you click on participants you will see a list of participants and you yeah thank you I do see them yeah but I'm learning to pay attention so do I have the floor Rita yes you
029do yeah yeah see that's the thing is I can't see the um yeah I'm sorry when I'm sharing the screen that's one of my one of the problems with this so um no I agree I mean I think for me see this is a tool to track you know from I have a SIM I have a business background too and for me this is uh solely a means to track tangible projects with smart goals smart goals for this group um and so if we have a smart goal that's related to water quality we should put it in here but otherwise um I uh in my in my Google Drive I do have a a tree structure that's built around the working groups and it has information in there as well and um I can make
030that um I can also make I can make that whole file system um you know viewable and um editable by Commissioners to me that seems like a decent idea that everybody can um can edit the documents that currently exist there or put them in there if they think they're really relevant to the topic um now I remember back in December you know Bob Needum who's not here tonight um expressed an interest in in continuing with a water quality workg group but we still don't have like a firm commitment from some other Commissioners I volunteered to help Bob especially around posos and some other toxic contaminants um but um so that's kind of where that stands um um any um any any comments about that uh Kathy has her hand up I would volunteer to work
031on that project as well okay great I guess I'm gonna put my hand up um just briefly that so I assume then that this would be placed on the SharePoint drive as opposed to your Google Drive then right Steve just because it's well no my understanding is that we'll just put everything on the Google drive until we can um until we can like upload it to this okay shared argument thank you is that acceptable to everybody yes yes I don't I see no hands up on that okay great so um does anybody wish to make another comment on this um on this tracking sheet and our broader Information Management okay I don't see anything Rita do you want no no hands up okay do you want to give me back the floor uh that would
032be gayen right I will I'll just stop the share yeah okay this isn't too cont veral so so we'll follow Robert's Rules of Order if there's a a hiccup here so anyhow um so let's move on to the next new business item which was a resolution submitted by commissioner Mercy requesting staff analysis of bi-weekly residential trash collection and this will be a first reading so again I'm going to share my uh my screen I have this document up right I'm watching can you see it I yes yeah and um I guess John would you like to intro yeah I'll introduce the topic and then maybe we can have a resolution I mean a a motion to consider it and if we get a second then we can um discuss it um so first of all
033I think it's important to give some uh background um this idea has been thrown around for a long time and has specifically come up in um um meetings and side meetings as a part of um the development of the solid W waste Resource Management plan and among the advisory committee that was formed um it's been discussed also in the Wasa zero waste Coalition group as well as in um this meeting in the past environmental commission meetings in the past um we talked about it in our last meeting and uh I agreed to to draft um a resolution and that's what we see in front of us um the motivation I'd like to explain um I want this to be in the public record um at least from my perspective um and I hope um everybody
034else um feels this way um is that the purpose really behind this is to advance a environmental and social good um we're not coming to from the perspective of a service cut and trying to reduce costs or for any other purposes it's really um looking at this from an environmental perspective and then lastly um before we get into this um I'd like to thank um those of you who um were able to look at this ahead of time I admittedly send it out very late um but um I did get comments um from um um Gabby as well as from eileene Naples um Mike Garfield and Jan Wright um who um very active in solid waste issues um and based on that I made some revisions um that you see here in blue and red
035um the blue ones are from ien and the red ones are some things that I added um today um based on others uh input as well as um recognizing a few points um in the process that I didn't consider in the first draft so um that's where we are and um if Steve or um Rita if we can get uh a motion then we can jump into this and maybe go through it as a first reading um my my hope would be that um we um agree generally on the content and then we leave it open for additional comments um and then hopefully might be able to take a vote uh in our next meeting so thanks for the allowing me to introduce the topic thank you uh so would anyone like to make a
036motion on consideration of this draft looks like is Lisa is that your hand up for that purpose okay we have one and a second from John Cowart thank you uh moved un seconded shall we discuss I see Lisa's hand yeah I would just like to request that maybe someone read through or slowly scroll through the edited document because what we received in our packet is not an edited document so we actually you know I'd like us to be working off the off the same version right okay uh I don't see Steve um which has some comments in the side I don't know if I'm able to do that um but I have the document that I sent out um late this afternoon early this evening um or Steve um uh Steve was sharing that he
037was here but I don't see him right now it would be best I think if John shared it then he can work from this document that is edited and we can add to that did you me to share it yes we email it out to everybody I can re could you could you give John uh mki screen sharing capability gayen a sure K thank you uhuh so I'll give it a whirl see oops right now it's not enabled looks like I'll try again here we are so um let's see how do I do this um let's see basic let me try Rita based on my experience you have to be a co-host in order to activate screen sharing oh no okay so um let's see he he is a co-host I think yes he is
038a coost Steve just sent me a text so you've got to select it now or not open it no we've got something else on our that you're sharing so you go to your screen and you click on the document that you want to share so right now we're getting a world economic Forum yep that's on my um this is a Word document that I have so it's not in my browser um see what am I doing wrong can you scroll through your open apps you would just need to open the document and click open it onto your desktop John and then click on it to share I see let me see sorry about that folks let me stop this first let me try again so open it let me see thats how's that there yay
039just make it bigger yeah let's see view lower right yeah that's true I go lower right you're right and if if uh people who want to make comments if you would raise your electronic hand that would be very helpful so um is that big enough now that's great okay thanks for bearing with me um so um um the the title is that uh it's um a request that City staff do an analysis um of um every other week um single family residential tras collection um it's my understanding that this is the right designation this is something that Gabby pointed out and as I put here in a comment on the side first of all um the city refers to this as trash I looked on the city's website so I changed the title to trash
040I think everywhere else in the document I'm using the word trash and um my understanding is that um what we're looking at our um routes collection routes um in what are typically considered single family residential neighborhoods um those include uh some units um where there are more than one family unit living in there um but they're still using the standard uh trash compost and recycling carts so um I will check back with Eileen I sent Eileen and Mike um an email about two hours ago and asked them if this is the right term but for our discussion purposes um that's what I've used throughout the document um do I need to read through this whole thing or can I just scroll through it and go Point by Point generalizing each point um I I think
041you could generalize yeah I don't I don't I don't think I need I think maybe the next time we might have to read it into the record but I think for right now this is just you can just scroll slowly through so we can see all the changes that would be great and then we can disc come back and discuss the points so um generally speaking um this is a framing and what I wanted to try to do with a framing show a progression from where the city just collected trash um to a number of actions that it has taken um not only the city but also the state um that have um increased the opportunity to divert uh resources what we call now resources um away from landfill um so that they can be
042productively used so um we've been collecting um trash on a weekly basis um for decades I don't know the the exact date and frankly I don't know that it's all that important um so the bottle law was enacted in 76 and we know that that diverts um a lot of different um types of bottle and um beverage containers um the city implemented here um in 1991 or expanded um a service that had been provided since 1978 that's per Mike Garfield um we curbside recycling um the next thing that it did um and this is a date that e gave me um is the city added um single family residence curbside composting and an Organics collection um the 1998 is for compost in general um and um as was pointed out to me Organics um in
043particularly um food waste was added a later date um I didn't break that out I didn't think it was really necessary then in this uh whereas Clause um there's a number of other different ways of diverting resources from landfill um and I attempted to list some of them but as I State here if you can see my cursor not necessarily all of them um obviously there's specialty items that can be recycled at the drop off station um hazardous waste can go through the county program um there's the ability to divert construction and demolition materials on a voluntary basis at the recovery yard that Raa runs um appliances can also um be um diverted from landfill um through also the drop off station and also retailers have programs um Furniture can be diverted um clothing textiles
044um can be diverted maybe there should be an and in here um and then um of course all of these um are provide residents the possibility of reducing um their waste to landfill or their their trash to landfill um I also wanted to point out in this paragraph that the Ecology Center with the support of the city um has been educating our U um children in K through 8 about um recycling composting and zero waste and that has certainly contributed to a better appreciation of waste as a resource um in not in light of but I guess as a result of is a better word um all of the above efforts uh the city has gradually over time increased its diversion rate um for the residential sector um up to 52% that was in the
045report for the end of last year um then uh the other thing that I wanted to point out is obviously we're not just filling up landfill um but we also um with any organic waste that decomposes that creates um methane gas um and that contributes to climate change and then of course we have the a20 plan which sets a Target and include strategies for reducing what we send to landfill um so um I also wanted to point out that earlier this year the um Solid Waste Resource Management plan was approved by Council um and the other thing that I wanted to point out is that while 52% is uh a great uh figure um there are other entities um um cities in the US as well as entire countries in Europe where the um diversion
046rate um approaches 75% I think in Belgium I read that the um overall diversion rate is 75% so um we can still get better than where we are um as you can see here I'm willing to add a whereas statement um that indicates what the trend is on pounds to landfill per person um Eileen um you can see here over on the right hand side um is ask Jenny pataski if we can get some information on that um and then the last where as Clause um is modified in blue with a little a few changes um from me in red um that uh I guess um reinforces the point that I made earlier that what we're trying to do is um take resources that are going to landfill and diver those um so that like
047I said we are doing basically a um social and environmental good and that we're basically asking the city to look into means to accomplish this goal of um even greater diversion than what we have right now and so that all leads then to three resolve Clauses that we are requesting city council to direct staff to conduct an analysis of every other week's single family residential trash collection um that the assessment should include but not necessarily be limited to um these nine items where the last is um potentially um identifying um staff's understanding of what might be good single um offsetting um solid was service expansions and what those pros and cons might be and those could be then defined um according to points 1 through eight and any other ones that might be relevant and
048then finally um I have um indicated that um we would recommend a timetable and you seei question mark here um low later than the end of this year um for completing this where this would be something that would be then finalized with input from City leadership and staff and then obviously together with Council um but what I wanted to do is not just throw a date out there but give some rationale for the date and in in the setting of the date and um those are two points here we don't want to um because of this study delay important elements of the implementation of the solid resource um Resource Management plan but at the same time we also do not want to push this out so far that if other things happen um that it
049potentially would delay or um make the change to the frequency of pickup more difficult or more expensive so I would like to open the floor or Rea maybe you can open the floor to comments uh from other Commissioners sure sure um and just an update Steve is still trying to join us um and uh the floor is open for comments and I'm watching for electronic hands and I see um Jonathan overc I just want to say this looks looks really smart and uh it's nice to be in a community where we're not just looking for good enough but we're trying to lead set an example for other communities so I just want to give it my wholehearted support thank you great uh Chris Graham John yeah it looks good very comprehensively done resolution I like
050it uh how about Kathy Griswald um yeah I think this is excellent we've talked about it many times in the past um I have one question in a couple of comments do we have data right now on how full the carts are when they're being picked up like do they tend to be half full or is is there any data on that I am not aware of any um that's something that um I will write down and maybe it can be captured in the minutes um that we try to determine that um right one one take minute I would at least comment on from my own personal um perspective and that is particularly in the winter time when nothing is getting um smelly uh I I won't take out my waste cart for I don't
051know a month or more um granted it's just my wife and and me but we have a compost pile and um I take advantage of all the other diversion U methods and so we're sometimes only adding a little um plastic shopping bag equivalent of trash per week to our cart um and so um if you were to say how how full is a cart well my cart is somewhat full when I put it out but you know there's a lot of times I don't put it out um so it I think it's going to be really difficult to ascertain but I think it's a great question um particularly for those uh residences that put out a cart every week and and and not only that how does That Vary because in some weeks I'm sure
052it's going to be very little and then you might get a delivery of something that is very bulky and somebody just doesn't want to take it to one of the diversion points and they put it all in their cart and that week their cart is just overflowing or they move or something like that but I I I would I would definitely ask the question oh okay thanks yeah that's a good point in terms of asking also how frequently do you put your card out um I just want to make sure that anything we do does not negatively impact lowincome residents who are more likely to be sharing uh residents and having a larger number of people in the household um and that's just based on my own experience uh I'm mentoring people so I I
053don't have any statistics on that uh and the last thing is we really need a robust education program and we need to make sure that people are not confused if we're only doing it every other week there's got to be a very easy way to for people to check to find out if it's their week or not y and thanks those are those are great comments and I just like to highlight um these upfront education and messaging and there may be cases where um we have to offer for particular for certain households um potentially a different or larger cart I don't know to what degree that's possible um given the uh the trucks that we're using um but these are things that hopefully would be coming back as a part of the analysis oh okay
054okay great and if if not a larger cart then maybe an extra cart at no additional charge based on the number of people in the in the residence exactly size or number great Point um anything else Kathy because I'm gonna I'm gonna start calling on hand no no thanks I'm all set okay thanks um how about Shannon GB Randle um this looks great uh it's it's really nice to see this all put together and it seems very thorough to me the one question I'm just wondering about is um are you envisioning in this I I know this is only talking about trash but are you envisioning that recycling still continues every week and it's only the trash that you're looking at or is it every like just any of your pickup as every other week
055um at least the intention right now is unless uh you advise um me otherwise or we get feedback then as a part of the analysis that we should look at uh other collections differently that the focus of this right now is to Simply reduce the frequency of trash collection okay okay anything else Shannon nope that was it thanks all right uh Lisa dish yeah I want to Second everyone that this is a very uh really well-crafted and thoughtful resolution that has a lot of good information um I wanted to say that I think it's probably worth adding a point to the resolve Clause with all the numbers in it um that we want to have analyzed the potential disperate impact on Lower inome households not quite sure how to put that but um or just
056to analyze the possibility of disperate impacts on households differently located on the wealth spectrum that sounds really bureaucratic but anyway um uh I think the the point that Cath that council member Griswald made I think it warrants a specific uh mention in that paragraph where you're saying the analysis should take uh into account all of these things could you scroll up to the top because I thought I saw something and now I cannot remember it was on the way here um I like your point and I noted it and I agree completely y um so for some reason whatever leftt out isn't leaping out again um I just wanted to make sure that um you have that this resolution gets passed by all of the relevant people on staff who should have a look before
057it comes to council because this is actually a very uh labor intensive thing that's being asked for and arguably it would have been a component of the of the solid waste Resource Management plan and I know that there will be great reluctance to fund something that looks like it's it's somehow replanning that document or redoing that document um both because we haven't had a chance to implement it yet and also because of the financial situation that the city is in so I think it if you have not spoken with Tom Crawford it would be worth doing that and I noticed that you you said that your blue edits were from eileene Naples um I've also sent this to her boss to Molly yeah it hasn't gone to Craig okay but Molly has seen it and
058um I she was copied on um several of the emails she has yet to weigh in um I wouldn't presume necessarily that it has to go to Craig but I'm I'm happy to to raise it to Tom and at least make him aware of it and that way we sort of um go from the top down and the bottom up yeah I mean I would say not just making Tom aware of it but uh asking him how feasible he thinks this is or how it could be made more feasible and I'd say it would be a good idea to reach out to Molly and talk to her um and just not just present her with a document and ask her to look at it but actually talk to her about whether this is something that
059can be done because I think you're right it's going to require funding an outside consultant yeah and uh I just I don't I I think that of all the parts of the city it's possible that Solid Waste has enough money in its budget to do that but it's a question whether they would think this is a priority since they just got their swarm approved um and then finally the point that Cath that council member grisal raised about how full People's carts are I would imagine that that is part of what this study would turn up I don't really think that the city routinely gathers data on that and so part of what it would be the job of a consultant or or whatever happens to to consider this plan would be that we would try
060to start tracking that and how many people trash is overflowing it you know is it certain times of a year is it certain households routinely you know that would be the sort of um that might be the kind of detail that they would go into I would I don't think that we're going to find data on that um right now great points I I agree with allthough and and I didn't specifically call that out but I pointed out earlier you know that type of analysis would would sort of be required in order to make a deduction as to what kind of cart adjustments might be needed in terms of either size or number so I've noted those down thank you um John Cowart thanks um so picking up on a couple of things so I'm
061just scanning through the the solid waste uh plan and it does mention this issue of weekly and bi-weekly so I don't know if you've kind of looked through that already John in terms of aligning it with that plan or saying know to least this point this isn't something new this is maybe building off of the plan um and it actually referenced one point that was first brought up in the 2012 climate action plan so this is something that maybe has been discussed for more than 10 years already of of looking at this possible topic um kind of picking up on other threads in the conversation from Shannon that same issue came up for me that was wondering are we looking at all three um I appreciate the level of effort this is going to take
062but I think that's going to be an immediate question that folks are going to ask and if we're not going to cover it maybe we should explicitly say that in here that this is is not going to be a part of it but myself I find it hard to think about reimagining that without also thinking about realignment of the other services too um and then the last thing is on the second to last resolve uh number six just a idea of maybe it's also Workforce impacts but also thinking about Alternatives that this might create for the workforce in terms of opportunities to put attention to other areas uh that could benefit the City yeah that's that's um supposed to be addressed in number nine um but maybe um this Solid Waste reference specifically could be
063parenthetic in the sense that um it wouldn't necessarily have to be in the solid waste area those people could potentially be reassigned to do something else that's value add for the city and for residents yep great thanks good point but I will just to highlight the appreciation for the work just you know when I first saw the email what the topic was it's like he going to think about this that that that and boom it was all there so thank you um Jonathan overp sorry my hands still up mistake all right okay uh so we got John cart okay um and I guess I'll just make some a comment um that I I agree this is a great idea to um see about diverting and or I'm sorry reducing the the frequency of of a
064pickup and I guess um what what triggers in my mind is kind of like a a garbology assessment you know it's like what actually is in the trash is it the correct stuff and that kind of leads points back to um uh council member or council member grisell's point about um education um it's like are are there the right things in there um and are there some things that could currently if we did our current assessment or if it is already done um is it the right stuff that's going to actual trash that's really my point I I'll that's that's a good point I'll I'll work that in um yeah I'll see if I can work that in so that it's more explicit and and I'm going back to um John's comment um I may
065add a resolved I mean excuse me a um whereas Clause that references where this has been proposed in the past such as in the 2012 cap as well as um any specific reference to it in the shrimp so that um it those those um reference points are not lost okay all right um and um I I want to just report that our chair is having trouble getting back into the meeting um and I'm not sure if if it's going to work um I did suggest to him that he tried phoning in and um I only see one attendee and I assume that that is Dan bnell as previously um indicated so are are there any other comments that we want to make oh Lisa I see your hand sorry I just thought of one other
066thing which was are is is is what we're asking for here an analysis of the impacts or is it both the feasibility and impact s of every other week I don't know I'm [Music] asking um I would say both is what we want okay then I would add feasibility I will add that appreciate that in put good good point any other comments so I have some homework thanks for the homework um I don't think any of this is um particularly onerous um and I will follow council member um just's recommendations to um specifically talk to Molly as well as address this to Tom Crawford um about um the feasibility of this being done um both staff resource wise as well as budget wise um and just to elaborate on the latter Point we've talked about
067it before um there is about roughly by memory N9 a half million dollars in um The Reserve fund um I think we talked about it um a couple meetings ago that actually last year uh Revenue exceeded expenses so we're not in a particularly a precarious position so that might be one more argument that we could use funds from from that current budget and we wouldn't have to dig in somewhere else um in the general fund to be able to to uh be able to finance something like this so I I'm I'm hopeful that this is something that can be done um within the time frame that we've n named identified here by the end of the year um and not have a negative impact on other parts of the city's budget okay um gayen would
068you see about um the second person who's online on the phone I think that might be Steve okay with a hand raised uh no that's Cil member dish oh oh oh I'm so sorry I was looking at the wrong thing darn I was hoping Steve was going to jump in so sorry I keep having things occur to me but as you said that um John sometimes these resolutions do have a statement about where the money is going to come from or if it's going to be Revenue neutral or whatever and that's something that um Tom Crawford would be able to help with in consultation with Mr hoopie I mean he would probably do that figuring out and that might be something to in uh to to see if there's anything you can work into the
069resolution about the funding great yeah um I think we're getting at the point where um we can buy cut off discussion that does not mean that um any or all of you couldn't contact me after the meeting um and I will um try to uh not try to I will distribute um an ated version of this as soon as possible I would say um within two weeks or so so it um still has plenty of time for additional input and revisions um and then we'll have one last bracket this a month from now roughly great thanks John very nice thank you thanks great input for everybody um okay and now um gayen I do see a second person in the attende list I don't know if you can um whoever is listening in um if
070you are Steve Brown can you raise your hand uhhuh chairman BR you can go ahead and speak hello I asked him to unmute himself okay thank you have to do it's like star six or something like that to unmute there star six star N I always get them confused which is which yeah can you hear me yes yep great can you hear me yeah I'm back on the phone good we can hear you oh good I have no visuals so I have no visuals okay um would you like to continue just running the meeting and I'll call call on the hands that may be raised Steve how would you like to proceed well I think it's more convenient if you probably do it um what I can do is I can I'm not in as
071a fan here as a guest I'm not on as a a panelist right so sorry um okay so I'm sorry this has happened well there must be a lot of basketball fans in the neighborhood okay all right so we finished the discussion of um um John mery's resolution about the biweekly residential trash um so let's move on to the resolution that I submitted um which is a resolution in as a commendation of Dan bnell um so I'll ask the group do you want to see that on the screen or do you want me to just talk about it any preference um yeah why don't you can you put the res resol where are we in the agenda we're on on the we've gone through the first two items of new business and now we're on
072the third which is the resolution in accommodation of Dan BN now yeah do you why don't yeah do you why don't you do that um I don't have any graphics or anything okay and I don't know how to raise my hand or anything okay all right um so gayen if you want me to share my screen I will do that yes just hit the green button at the bottom I made you to call screen thank you uhuh now if I can just find it yes okay can you all see um oops there can you see my screen we can see your screen uh part needs to be expanded a bit y looks like it's not the correct document uh boy this is the one that's on top for me I see resolution to acknowledge and
073commend D B down this is this has a resolve Clauses about Gman so yes you need to this is a b Gman resolution but I think this is a different document you have it open in a different tab Rita maybe stop share so okay I'll stop but um thank you for the Q I'll try again um oh I see what you mean thank you how about this all right this is mine says resolution to acknowledge and compel commend Daniel bnell does that show okay thank you all right um so I want to thank John mki for the suggestion to prepare this um Commendation and I also want to um acknowledge kind of what it means to me and I I call back to our Our Land acknowledgement statement in a way because I see um
074the actions that that Dan bnell has taken in our community to be one that is a longstanding um protection of the environment that I think ties in with the land acknowledgement and the care for our resources and our our Earth um Dan has is the person who identified the long what is now a 40y old um of a 14 dioxane plume in our groundwater that is approaching our drinking water source at the hon River um and so this this acknowledgement is just it is a small Point set a series of points and I consider this a barebones acknowledgement of the kind of work that he has done historically in our community over time he discovered the plum he alerted the or the community who then called in the um uh Public Health Department of the
075county um he started his career in public health uh and went off and worked for the EPA and for a long time including working on Super fund cleanup projects it's ironic but also shows a certain level of motivation and and what brought him into this um I believe and um so he has retired from the EPA and has returned to Ann Arbor we're very fortunate that he knows this literally from the ground up um from the professional perspective from a regulation perspective um and from knowing the land um and so he has um brought us to a point I think as a community um that I think we should all recognize and so um that's what this does and the point of this is to show that he has been in had this level of
076involvement um and that we are recommending that he be um given ACC Commendation by the city for his long service and so I'm suggesting through this that we ad Council as we do um to um prepare a more formal Commendation of him and then pass that on to other people who um could also acknowledge his long work I'd also like to say that Dan is a leader in this and his work is extremely important and and needed there have been a lot of other people in the community who have contributed to this as well and so this is just a very small acknowledgement of the the the big group work in the community of nonprofit groups elected officials um people just residents um that have been involved but we wouldn't get here without a leader
077and so this this is an acknowledgement of Dan so um with that I'll stop talking and and ask for any comments that you may have I'd like considerate I guess we have to do it sort of officially if we can get a second then yes would anyone like to um move this and I can I stop screen sharing do you all need to see this anymore because I I don't see any hands and okay I'm gonna stop thank you uh okay uh I there's a move in a second it looks like from John and from um Lisa um thank you and any discussion I I would just like to say um I I'm not personally interacted with Dan but um from what I've seen in his emails I mean there's what I see is a
078great combination of expertise and Um passion and professionalism in what he's brought to this entire issue and I think it's just been a fantastic service that he's provided to the city um and um many cases um you have maybe two of those three elements or maybe just one of them um and maybe I've missed a couple of others but I mean he's really brought together this as a package in just really a tremendous way and I I I'm really thankful that um we have them agree uh Kathy uh yes I want to personally thank Dan um I've had the opportunity to work with him and um sometimes I I may get called out for speaking with greater Authority than one would expect but that's because Dan has provided dozens of hours of expertise um and
079guidance for me both with the science of this problem but also the political process and so I guess Dano to to put it real simply Dano had my back and so I felt confident in what I'm saying because um because I'm relying on years of his expertise uh I also want to say that there are so many people who have worked on this project and um all of the people within the card group and we will we at least I'll I'll take the lead and I'm sure other people uh share my interest in this that uh once the EPA is finished with the um the designation phase and has started um well once they have taken over responsibility for the site and it's an official Superfund Site people keep saying it's already a Superfund Site
080with a small asset and and the only step will be when it becomes a capital S Superfund Site uh under the EPA leadership and at that point uh I hope that we can take the time to acknowledge all of the people who have worked on this over over the decades some of the people I recognize their names but I've I've never met them because it has taken 40 years um and I feel like we are almost there and so um thank you Dan we wouldn't have been able to do it without you any other comments I agree with Kathy and I would just like oh John did you have something to say yeah I was just gonna say you might share what you and I discussed um along the lines of what Kathy um mentioned
081in terms of recog izing um the rest of the people in card and the organization yeah um that that this is just the start really is what I would say um that that it may see feel um a little bit premature but at the same time with has been a 40y year time period And so uh a little encouragement along the way late along the way I think is an excellent thing and acknowledgement of uh some significant work and um I would just say that from my perspective I feel like my words are really um sort of minor and don't represent the full impact of of what I think that he has done um and as as well as others um so that um that's the end of what I'm going to say right now
082is there anything else and if there is not um would anyone like to move to um approve this Commendation see Kathy thank you um Lisa and Lisa a second okay um so uh those who in favor of approving this Commendation for Dan bnell please raise your hand or say I see physical hands looks like unanimous I have a question about formalities here do we need to have a first and second reading of something like this is that necessary um as in the C no not necessarily okay I I'm a big I don't know anyone else come an ordinance an ordinance yes but not a resolution and may I suggest that we um allow Dan to address the group uh would Dan like to do that right now and if so um gayen uh if you
083could recognize Dan bcell who would be the other phone number that's active all righty uh Mr Mell go ahead and speak hi I just want to thank you all very much for the recognition and it's been my honor to work with the local citizens and elected officials to obtain a proper Gman site cleanup protective of Public Health in the environment so thank you all very much and as you all are indicating it's it's it's it's a team effort that's been uh going on for 40 years to get this accomplished but um I appreciate the thought thank you so much Dan and at some point I hope that we all get to physically um acknowledge each other you and your actions um okay um we approved it now let me go back to this agenda um
084and may I ask is Steve Brown are you still on the phone with us would be so nice yes he's there okay great um well I guess what I'm gonna do um is oh hello no yes I am Rita did you great um I wondered if you wanted to uh have me continue with this agenda and I could go through the the various reports from the um subcommittees yeah would you sure I can pipe up and you know for the chair update and the U part of the solid waste after Lisa's done her part okay um so let's do for solid waste sorry you want me to go first yeah I'm not in my normal environment so okay okay so yes so uh the zero waste working group is the is the group that I'll
085update us for and what we've done is we have a mission statement we have recruited a number of members we have some student and Community stakeholders and um and Jenny py and I this week based on the expertise of these members and the interest that they expressed in our two meetings where we discussed the discussed the mission statement she and I drew up a an action memo memo or action men menu of possible projects that the team can work on and we've broken out um it it just got approved or I would have circulated it to you all but um it it was just late in the day so I will make sure that that gets posted to the Google drive but it's basically lays out a number of different projects the resources that are
086available for them if there's a budget um and sort of What kinds of tasks or strengths those projects involved so that people can identify based on what they like doing which of these projects would be the most useful and then alignment with things like the schw the zero waste and the mission of the zero waste working group so we will be getting those projects online and then we can attach some specific dates so that as John has suggested we can hold ourselves accountable that's um that is my yeah thank you I see Steve yay hey I got back maybe I'll do some troubleshooting I'll see if I can find out I don't I rarely have a problem with zoom okay okay so do you have anything else in solid waste that you'd like to add
087yeah you know I've been leading the construction and demolition recycling project and and um I'll just say that um at this point I'll just say we're I have the stakeholder group assembled they include people from the University people from the an Arbor Public Schools some people from the county and uh City staff and so among other people contractors Architects um and uh some um and Sean Adams from recycle and Arbor who manages is the uh current construction and de demolition recycling that's been done as part of uh Leed certification for a handful of projects here in the area and um I plan to have a zoom meeting with all these stakehold there's some 50 people um sometime in early March and then we can discuss uh people's concerns at that point I thought an important
088aspect of this is getting a pilot project so I've had discussions with both um recycle an arbor um with the murphrey build and with an Arbor Public Schools for all the outbuilding that they're doing you know because of the uh um the sustainability bond that was passed uh a while back and there um and so it looks like uh we'll be able to participate in a pilot for aaps that's moving forward quicker wow cool over the summer and so much of this involves um just acquiring some basic metrics so that we can uh we can um adjust uh so that we can estimate costs for contractors and so um so there are models for CN ordinances um San Diego has had one in place for 12 years now and um other cities as well and
089um and I just want to note as a final thing um MSU Michigan state has a department called domestic do do domy that's a very great resource um for this sort of effort um so uh you know a vital part of this is going to have to be emphasizing deconstruction or dismantling instead of the total demolition for future projects and a major a major a major thing that might involve City Staffing at this point is that it's seems to be important to have a city inspector that would come around and inspect buildings before they're demolished or renovated um to try to identify potential health hazards and other things because there's already been a project involved with the in public schools where they dug into they took out part of a wall and discovered that there's
090asbestos behind it so that significantly increased their costs so there needs to be some attention paid to that so that's something else that work group is working on so that's all I had to say right now I'll entertain any questions if anybody has any questions no I don't see anybody so uh I don't see any hands no okay so you can keep the floor Lita put it back to it's up to you I'm I'm happy to have you take it back I'll I'll take notes how about that okay all right fair enough um so next up is the natural features work group our monthly meeting regular monthly meeting is tomorrow at noon um there are a number of guests coming tomorrow not least of which is the city planner and Chris Chang I wrote some
091notes a couple weeks ago about what I thought might have happened uh with regard to the Packard property and how plans got passed through the system without adequate protection for some old trees um you remember Jack Eaton and and an banister came to our meeting more than a year ago um complaining about that project and complaining that we haven't got adequate Protections in place and that's started us off in quite an odyssey actually um I thought to begin with that the provision and the code that allows trees to be clear from a property if there's one single family house on it was the propelling ingredient to a very dense um development on that property much less an up zoning that occurred through the process to a denser development permissible and it turns out I was
092not correct about that um and I surmised it might have been the area plan process which is what the original petition petition um the original petition came to the city and because the area plan process does not require a really thorough review of natural features among many other things a key part of that is um the Alternatives analysis in the site plan process if you're going to disturb natural features you have to do three alternative plans that show your thinking about why and how you're thinking of natural features on the site and how you're treating them and I don't believe that's required in a plant process and might have been more Illuminating in any case uh the city planners are coming tomorrow it's good that they are um as we do the amendments to the
093UDC really very substantially rewriting protections for trees and woodlands in it um they're going to have to be Gatekeepers to begin with as we move up the process so also tomorrow um I think the person who's thinking of developing the property the Packer property in a different way um is coming he's thinking of a larger building in the back half where there very few natural features and a park in the front um I think he's coming to chat with us and so's a council member who's very interested in that idea as well as an um and then there are number of other guests who've been um interested in our work who are coming tomorrow so I don't know I doubt two hours is going to do it but that's that's our schedule so if you're
094interested in come at noon uh let me know and I'll send you a zoom zoom link a couple of you already have that so um I have uh been steadily working on the UDC amendments um it actually has turned out to complicated to really bring an understanding of native Force fragments into the code and uh I think I've got it figured out um and I'm nearly done to go back to Wendy and Hammer through it again we've probably been through it half a dozen times already it's getting uh Tighter and Tighter which is good and um I think I figured out how to do step two which is how to protect Landmark inh Heritage trees on single family properties in y projects um uh and I'm thinking that it will be modeled on how we're
095doing storm water control that is to say if there's a couple hundred someone goes to C the allall to get a building permit a grading permit to add a couple hundred feet to house um similarly if they went to City Hall to do that or add that much impervious surface they would also have to call out the landmark in Heritage trees on that property and go through the process of determining whether they're going to protect them or not and if not um how they going to mitigate him the loss and uh uh and if so then the procedure for trying to keep damage from the tree Roots uh from happening anyway I'm extremely sorry to say people who practice my profession and excavators and tree guys are I won't say without exception but substantially ignorant
096about tree roots old tree roots and old trees and a lot of the trees that we lose in the city go because of lack of knowledge they were not intended to be lost but they are driven on by skid loaders and wield vehicles and back and forth and back and forth to take brick to the backyard to build a Terrace or something and and four or five years later the trees die or sooner and the owners are going what in the world there's a $450,000 lot on the Arboretum that uh got tucked in among some of the old growth trees coming up out of the Arboretum into that neighborhood they built the house in the winter it was very wet um they left trees pretty close to the house and then wallowed around in up
097to their axles with skill loaders and four-wheel drive vehicles on right up next to the stems right on the roots of these trees every single one of them will die so this is a educational undertaking as much as it's anything else though we get it into the regulatory framework you'll see it soon I'm sorry it's taking so long Chris I I think do you want to mention um our se's project oh yes well we did get uh four GIS students Master students to join our C project we met with them first for the first time last Tuesday or Wednesday uh they're pretty exciting and pretty Sharp young people uh not undergraduates they're grad students and um the the predominant focus of the project will will be to get us some more layers in the in
098our natural features pages that also are new um the it manager one of the it managers in the city has created a uh whole page of our natural features which are interactive and uh uh it's I'm I jump up and down every time I talk about this I I don't know if I've sent you all link to to this particular site but I I'll turn right around here and do that um you can see each of the natural features flood planes Woodlands Street trees and there's a database hooked to the street trees so you can see any particular one and what it is um flood planes steep slopes um the only thing we had for the last 30 years until last fall was a big plot color plot that one could put up on the
099wall maybe some of you seen that in the conference rooms in City Hall over the years um we'll be meeting every couple weeks um uh and there'll be a I think a Google page where a lot of the data and so on are pulled together together and uh it's over my head how these guys are going to do this but uh not just guys how these young folks plus Jason and some of the other advisors are going to do this but uh I'm very optimistic that we have information about our woodlands in the city that's way more than than one polygon with some dots in it that won't tell us the difference between a native Force fragment and a Buckthorn ticket very excited thanks R for reminding me right and I just want to add
100that one of the there two things that I found really exciting um one is it's replicable so once you know our goal is to have something that we can use over time um and two um it's not only going to measure the the trees and their species or as close as we can get but we'll also get a measure of turf grass and since turf grass is one of the things that we're trying to um reduce um that could be really exciting to watch over time as well so okay okay let's see any other comments for Chris or Rita okay let's move on to the pollinators work group yes so um we met this past week and we were joined by um three ambassadors from the a20 program and we talked further about the goals
101projects that we are hoping to do this year so that's still being refined um we also had had a pretty productive meeting with nap um last week to talk about what gaps they're seeing or what support that they might need with um pollinator initiatives because they did have a pretty extensive list of things that they're currently doing or that they have done in the past in terms of P supporting pollinators in their habitats so we are continuing to look at that and also considering that for nap their scope is really um public areas public um I guess unmanaged areas so they mentioned that they would like to see more Outreach in neighborhoods and also with private businesses which um the a20 ambassadors will really help with um they are more of in on the ground
102in the neighborhood group and we also talked about updating um the pollinator website and really making that um a hub and a hub for information and resources on the different initiatives that are going on around the city and also point of connection for all the groups that are working on pollinator habitats around in Arbor anything else Rita no I you got it great thanks y thanks Gabby oh I see John mery's hand did you has his hand up Gabby have you any contact with uh the gentleman new um staff person in OSI that's leading the 10,000 tree initiative um you might do that Sean um gayin what's his last name Sean's last name is Sean Reynolds Reynolds right I know it was um so you know obviously um some trees um are um attractive to
103pollinators um there's you know a lot of trees that bloom um not just fruit trees but um that might be something that also might Advance what you do and he might be also a point of contact into the community as he launches that there might be something where he can um carry along the pollinator message and some of your objectives all right that'd be great thank you John yeah yeah that's interesting because I discovered a few years ago that actually Basswood trees are a major po um um excuse me a j Chris Graham was trying to make a point I don't know do you want to talk though quietly 7356 Michigan basketball okay go Blue all right um so I'll just also mention um thanks for that John um Sean Reynolds will also be joining
104the natural features meeting tomorrow um since trees are are our thing that we're talking about so we'll have a couple of connections with him I think it's great um okay that's all I wanted to say uh Steve okay any um any more comments about pollinator report okay thanks Gabby um so uh water quality um Bob isn't here so um well why don't we skip over that right for right now um um now let's proceed to other commissions um energy commission we had the first in the series of meetings that we're planning on having um to educate ourselves as well as the public on um options available to the city to be able to provide 100% renewable energy um the first of that was I as I mentioned in the last meeting um a presentation on
105um what would essentially be municipalization um of the grid um and for forming a municipal utility I should say a better say it um so there was a group a residence group called an Iber Public Power that presented um their presentation is on legistar um and I don't know but soon the video will be up um interesting we had probably 20 people call in which is I'm certainly a record as long as I've been on the energy or environmental commission um so there was a lot of uh interesting discussion and um more importantly or just as important going forward uh we will have a presentation in our U meeting in March um first by Valerie braider who is um the city's outside um energy attorney um talking about what essentially the legal framework is um
106that we're operating within and then we're going to have an expert that's going to be presenting on Community Choice aggregation which is in the a20 plan um and right now what the path that OSI is pursuing um but along the way we're going to have other presentations on things like um virtual purchase power agreements and a whole bunch of other options that are open to the city we've got a long list of topics that we're presenting um or planned to present I should say um over the coming months and I encourage you to take a look at those materials or reach out to me um there's only one other thing that I thought I might mention um it's actually not directly coming from the commission but from a meeting um between a couple of Commissioners
107Missy and someone from the community and that is um we agreed that we're going to try to form a group to do some brainstorming on funding and let's call it maybe carrots and sticks related to CO2 emissions that we might be able to use um in support of the a20 plan um so we want to do brainstorming of how could we access private Equity how could we um maybe apply um different types of um fees or taxes whatever that are allowed within the Michigan framework um to be able to be either incentives or disincentives for um burning um fossil fuels um and if anybody has someone who's um got a lot of experience in these kinds of areas Grant um seeking um access um to how we might be able to access Capital um in
108like I said um carrots and sticks for these kinds of things um please reach out to me um and we're going to try to pull together I don't know maybe you know 20 people or so put them together um in a zoom meeting and then breakouts and do brainstorming where we hopefully can feed off each other's ideas and provide Miss see some additional uh approaches on how we can um support the a20 plan thanks thanks John um so the next item is planning Shannon um the only thing that really relates to environmental commission is we had a a working session on Transit zoning and we had a kind of our first um big public input session on it and uh what Transit oriented zoning or zoning means is basically that you're taking uh highly traveled
109corridors that are well serviced by our AAA uh our AA bus system and concentrating uses and housing especially along those corridors in hopes that people will um will take public transit more and so there's going to be kind of a pilot area for that which is essentially out on the South State Corridor and where is West Eisenhower and East Eisenhower come into that area um and you basically can have much higher density in these areas and and mixed use um and so the idea is to try to get more housing in these kinds of areas um but that can be mixed in with retail or restaurants but not things that are super car oriented not gas stations stuff like that um but like office um or personal services restaurants bars um entertainment um so it
110really could apply to many different areas of the city but the first one that that planning felt like was a good place to start would be the South state area um there's not as many potential um kind of conflicts with uh adjacent residential areas in there and so it's kind of a good place to experiment in that way um there was some talk about including Brierwood or not too uh as that is trying to kind of figure itself out again in in in so many ways long before covid and then with covid and and all that kind of thing so um we had a lot of feedback a lot of people calling in a lot of people interested in it so I would say stay tuned because I think that that um you know getting
111people out of their cars is a big part of what the a20 plan is about and um these kinds of areas are trying to make that um to kind of Grease the wheels for that and make that happen more easily so John you've got a comment um wasn't there also um a discussion and presentation on adus um and if so what was you know the the one or two minute Takeaway on that and what's being actually considered yeah yeah that I didn't think to bring that up just because it's not as kind of immediately relevant to our group here um but it was mostly uh a lot lot of people weighing in on their thoughts about it in terms of people calling in from the community they they kind of showcased a couple that had
112done one um were considering some big changes from the last time around making it easier basically to try to be able to make one happen um and lots of people calling in lots of people interested some people you know kind of a little bit all over the map I'd say most people were interested but there were some people that were like hey you know this I thought that I signed up for a single family zoning area and all of a sudden you're adding more you know other people in but it was it was a real mix and I'd say in general people were curious and interested uh there definitely are some barriers uh out there um especially in terms of the way some of the things are taxed and um and the way Airbnb stuff
113is handled in the city um so uh I would we we had lots and lots of callers for each um for each um part of that agenda because we tackled those two items in one meeting and I would say that it's going to continue to be talked about so I think it's um I'd say it was kind of the beginning of trying to get a bunch of feedback and ways for people to weigh in so that then we can uh um revise the ordinance that went through to make it uh easier for people to be able to accomplish that may I ask one other quick question sure I'm I'm wondering again some of these things um actually have significant implications in lots of different um categories but if we frame some of these in the
114context of a20 I'm I'm wondering if there's a sense of urgency within the commission and in planning to be able to do some of these things that are really important quickly um as opposed to them taking um years to be able to do I'm you know I'll just take the the the the Tod case um know if you do a pilot on South State and let's say it's perfect um but you probably won't know it for it's perfect for 10 years um and and let's I'm just assuming that there's only good good things that come out of it um you know there's all kinds of wonderful impacts there's no resistance and everything else we won't know that in in you know in 18 months it may take years and years and years and if if
115these things are really important um in terms of benefits to the community not just necessarily environmental um what's what's the sense of timeline and urgency to handle some of these things I mean I'm also thinking of the lighting ordinance um that I was um working on and it's stuck been stuck for months in planning and it doesn't have huge implications on on the climate but it does have implications the climate and on safety and these things just are really really slow in being addressed yeah and we we have like our work plan is just ridiculous in terms of all the different things that we that we're tasked to do um and so I would say that the the Adu thing and the transit oriented development thing I would say are moving through more quickly because
116they had already had a lot of work done on them um and so I think those are uh going to flow through pretty quickly we definitely got some comments along the lines of what you're talking about uh with the transfit oran development some people were interested in like why aren't we just doing this in other places what's so hard about this um and I I will bring that back uh to the commission because I feel like um it is something that they're being very careful with and I I don't know that we need to be so careful with it I think I think the the South State Eisenhower uh connection again just doesn't have a lot of neighborhood resistance possibilities to it and so I think that's why they're wanting to kind of try it
117there but I agree I think that the timeline means that we probably should be trying it in other places too and and that we're going to have to kind of modify it along the way um so I will bring that back though because I think we did get some comments like that and I think that it's important that um that the planning staff hears that as well so thanks for that that's it though unless anybody else has any other questions okay sorry I didn't raise my electronic hand um I saw you it's okay when I thought about evaluating this first State Street Corridor uh pilot I was thinking like 18 months just to sort of get it started and making sure it was a relatively smooth implementation I I never thought we were we were
118talking about 10 years so maybe we should better Define what the expectations are I I think it's more about I think the the point that John is making is that you know there's not a bunch of developers all lined up ready to go to I mean by the time you make a a policy change it takes time for it to kind of follow in terms of the development and so uh I think that's what John was getting at is that I think that we can get it through that's not that's not the issue I don't think it's going to take 10 years to get it through the system sometimes it feels like I'm sure the with the ligh or it kind of feels like that um but I think it's just that you know you
119can't make it happen in terms of people wanting to put forth projects um so you can what we're trying to do is encourage that to happen but I think that that I think there's I think I think planning is Keen on getting this uh through the system um that's what I would say Rita um this is perhaps a little too micro and I'm not sure if it's the right form but I feel like there's something that's needed to make the the um mixed use stick um meaning that it seems like we get housing but we don't always get the the the services or the grocery store whatever and almost everybody says they want those things you know those ground floor things are not filling in or in so many places um and so I'm hoping
120that there's a way to incentivize I I mean I only think that it must be that the developers are charging too much per square foot it's it's that all those people that want it also order from Amazon it what we've been finding the retail environment is just tanking it is tanking and I think that we want these things we want to be able to walk to places we but we also I mean we're doing it too Amazon boxes are delivered to my house on a pretty frequent basis too and the places just in terms of my own professional life working for retail places they are freaking out they are freaking out and we can't make the market different unless we really change people's shopping an but even you know that I I just I think
121that it's there may be some ways that we can try to be creative about encouraging people to do that in that Arbor but there's only so much we can do to to I mean there are places that have had that mixed use that sat are on vacant for a long time too you know and so that's the thing that's tough about it is that it's um it's not an easy there's no easy answers on that one um and I think Co is only made it exacerbated the issue so I think people are even less less likely to try to you know jump in the game um given that so many people are now so used to having everything delivered right yeah um but I think um I guess let's just stick with a grocery store
122you know I mean so that's even hard with covid too but it's just there's there's you know it's just I realize it's a big challenge but maybe we need to stop calling at mixed use then you know yeah it's I mean I think that I think planning wants that I think a lot of people want that but I think we're also not necessarily voting with our feet too so okay um Kathy you had your hand up and then Chris um yeah I'm I'm just wondering if there's much developer Demand right now for other Transit corridors because uh my perspective from Council is that we want many things but the plans that are being brought forward by the developers are not matching not just retail but in other areas so it's like we've got this disconnect
123between what we want and reality yeah I think that I think that is the case to a certain extent I think part of the issue uh that um is a tough nut to crack is financing uh and something that we don't have much control over and that um and that uh banks are kind of comfortable with residential in certain areas and there's been some projects that have come through that we've completely approved and seemed great and they could not get the financing or there was another you you know the the financing the financial folks like there was another project in another place that was more of a slam dunk and why risk it when it wasn't in the downtown core you know um and so it's there's just only so much we can do around
124some of that we can do some things with carrots and sticks but there's other things that we just don't have a lot of control over so um they tend to go for the things that are really safe that's been my experience anyway just W working both sides of of that so okay Chris so maybe as with affordable housing we need to get in into the business of affordable grocery stores no I mean we've got enough hardware stores although I still miss s but the corner grocery deal is uh kind of a critical one and I guess I want to just say one other thing about that is a covid kind of thing it's like in a Transit Corridor um I guess I I don't have a good sense of where the aaata is today you
125know but certainly it's writers ship is different and and the roots are different and where's that gonna go you know that's this is a really hard they really are topic right now it's really tough it is really tough yeah they're they're hurting for sure I think they're supposed to be up from because I'm on the DD Partners committee I think there's their um their hope is to be at 90% by August the ATA is you know in terms of where their routes are and things like that I think that's their right but then you know what about the return of writers ship you know and the corers are dependent on that it's like this oh what's gonna happen that's right yeah okay um let's um if there's no more comments on this topic let's move
126John has his hand up quick question does anybody know anything about what's going on with main Mobility like um autonomous EV shuttles they had a pilot in um Columbus and in Grand Rapids it's an an arbor company you know that's the kind of thing where your operating expenses are lower and you're not driving around a big huge bus all the time it's a lot easier to um just just put another another thing on the road and or take them off is is does any is anybody know anything about if that's moving forward and and whether there's a I i' I've been told they're interested in doing a pilot in an arbor um nobody knows okay thanks okay um let's move on to the next topic Parks but Mike isn't here so so let's uh skip
127that and uh move on to council Cathy uh two things we um are working on a snow removal resolution and the goal there is not only safety but also increasing walkability um there's the short term goal of removing um some of the constraints and the the most important one from my perspective um um the snow and ice Ridges at the base of crosswalk ramps and then sometimes in the street because the streets are not always shoveled all the way to to the curb so we'll be bringing forward a resolution in the near future on on that uh and then looking at pricing uh comprehensive snow removal sorry I'm getting tired it's almost my bedtime uh but the the other issue that's um really exciting is I took a phone call a few minutes ago and
128it was an update from another intervenor that had just received a call from congresswoman Debbie Dingle uh she has been working with the EPA eagle and the AG's office and is in the process of setting up a meeting with all of the interveners within the next three weeks so um a lot of work has been happening behind the scenes along with uh help from Dan vickel and and we should have something to show for it very soon yay great thank you Kathy um um anything leis okay so um now we come to the chair report and I'm also only going to mention one thing and that is um on March 31st the city OSI has um set up a sustainability Forum on circular economies on the circular economy and waste minimization so that's going to
129be an online standard sustainability Forum it's being managed uh by um Zach was Smith in the in the department OSI and it's going to be March 31st Wednesday from 6:00 to 8:00 pm so um I encourage people to attend that if they're able I think there'll be a sign up uh sign up on the city's website on the a20 website um and then the other thing is appointments and recruitment uh many of our many of our commissioners uh the standard term is from um from June 1st until uh May 31st so we have two Commissioners uh we have two vacancies right now and uh we also have uh two Commissioners that are whose terms are expiring on May 31st but um they both expressed a desire toh be reappointed and uh the other thing I'd
130like to mention is the youth Commissioners they have they have a uh time of um they have a one-year appointment but because of covid and other delays um you know Gabby wasn't able to join us until July and Lily didn't join us until December so I'm hoping that we can extend that um we extend their appointments appropriately to when they were actually able to start serving on the commission um you know the process is that uh city council has to nominate candidates and I'm happy to work with um both um Kathy and Lisa on this front and um the um and so we have plenty of time right now so please encourage uh people um anybody who would like to serve on the commission please um apply um on this the city website has a
131page on the commissions I can't spell out the URL right now but I can try posting it in the minutes okay and so then it'll be in the public record um that's all I have to say and um so let's move on to if there's no questions or comments let's move on to the report from staff gayen all righty uh I want to report that yesterday the office of sustainability and Innovations held a a sustainability forum and that Forum uh yesterday was entitled um the natural world in an urban environment so um thank you uh chair for also reporting out on the uh one we will have next month on the 31st so that's all I have for the staff report okay sorry gayen um so um okay so um action items I only have
132two one is that any any anybody who can propose carrots and sticks to John you know on funding a20 uh please you know transmit your comments to him directly um John you had a you have your hand up had a real quick question um gayen was the sustainability Forum taped yesterday I missed it I believe so it was yesterday and I can send you the tape uh once we get it in from CTN and I can send it out to all the Commissioners yes please all right you you're welcome so um and then I will inquire about the autonomous vehicle status in an arbor and then report back to the commission next month um and gayen is going to be posting the uh uh the URL to access the uh tape for the sustainability form
133that was held yesterday so um are there any other is there anything I might have missed here in terms of action points for our next meeting okay so um items for the next agenda I think we've got the second reading of your ordinance um John any U anybody else would like to see something on the next month's agenda okay I I'm thinking about Solid Waste issues so uh for next month so um we'll um I'll I'll put together something um in the next week or so and send it out to people for comment um so uh the next schedule meeting is March um let's see it is March would be March 25th 2021 um and so now we'll pass to the second public commentary period um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for
134up to three minutes please call uh one uh uh 213 338 8477 or 888 78899 or 5247 and enter webinar ID 3979 7973 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 star9 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 is a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection
135is established so gayen is there anybody on the line yet there are uh no callers on the line right now okay so let's wait a few minutes or a few SEC a few 20 seconds [Music] seconds I'm tired too I've been on my computer since 8 this morning it's all of our bed times okay well I think the 30 seconds is up so um I declare this meeting adjourned all right thanks everybody thanks everyone good night ni