Environmental Commission 1-23-20

001commissioner Graham present Commissioner Hutton absent Commissioner Skinner Commissioner Needham yeah commissioners councilmember Smith absent Commissioner Slavik yeah commissioner uphill commissioner get Randall councilmember Bannister here commissioner callewaert chair Brown here commissioner over Peck and Commissioner murski here here I believe you have a corns great so do you all have a copy of the agenda are there any sort of motion - does anybody want to add anything to the agenda or lead anything do I have a motion to accept it yes sir so move second all in favor say aye hi okay we'll move to the minutes from our last meeting on December 5th are there any suggested amendments to the minutes as written okay do I have a motion to accept the minutes a second second woloson seconds who approve say aye okay now it's time

002for public commentary if you wish to make a comment please step up to the microphone and state your name and I guess not so let's proceed that's close to public commentary and go to unfinished business can you hear me now oh I'm sorry okay so so did you hear that I opened the floor for public commentary okay yeah so please state your name and now you have three minutes and I would just like to say that any resolution that does not strongly phase-out if not completely ban the use of a lot of the very very very toxic chemicals and toxic pesticides that are in use it really is unconscionable we cannot rely on our federal government we can't rely on our state government the EPA is dead the city needs to take a stand become

003the the green city that it often proclaims to be and replace turf grass with wildflowers and natural fauna that then the natural flora that then the pollinators and birds and I'll have a place to thrive and there are some comments in some of the papers saying that yes it is true that some pesticides are toxic but that these things are not in heavy use and that is outright false that's just totally false and the city just really needs to step forward show some courage and do the right thing and that's just that's just the bottom line is resident I expect this city to care about the health of our water our air our ground and ourselves and unless we move in this direction we are not doing it and that's all I have to say

004thank you all right thank you does anybody else wish to make a public comment okay I guess we'll close the public comment period and move on to the unfinished business which is a IPM resolution I hear there's a presentation I'm sorry Oh is there a presentation oh okay so yeah all right so we have a coffee we have a copy of the resolution that was submitted by and danced or a few days ago I think it's been updated repeatedly over the last couple of days so I think how many of you all have seen the update song there was some emails going around so okay so let's see do we have so do we know any let's see handouts over here they represent one that so may need a minute probably need some amendments I

005am looking for it right now so give me a minute I guess one of them one of the complications is because of the Open Meetings Act we have to publish you know we have to post online the current document that we're gonna be considering so so this just complicated things a little bit we'll get - okay all right I wanted to start with the document that was circulating by email I think yesterday late yesterday and only today which isn't the version that we have printed out here so yeah sorry so Emily you did you made some amendments to a boat that was never posted on I posted it about half an hour okay so it's unregistered now the version that you saw on my computer okay those are we everyone to access it just on

006their computers right now I can print okay should I should we print out copies I can print up the copy yep I will go to register and print up copy all right I mean in the interest of time I can kind of start soon yes why don't you introduce this reduces health because the the edits made were kind of in the same vein as the overall thrust of this resolution first of all my name is Alana Jerry G I'm here to introduce the resolution on your agenda tonight several different organizations have collaborated on this including members of the environmental commission members of the parks department and members of our organization which is called pesticide-free Ann Arbor so as a Ann Arbor citizens we appreciate all the work that parks department and Knapp does to maintain

007beautiful and accessible parks and natural areas throughout the city well at the same time minimizing the use of pesticides through their environmentally responsible integrated pest management program and everybody who is here last month was able to see their presentation about kind of what they're doing to reduce pesticide use and the parks department has also been able to reduce some turf grass areas by converting these areas into more natural grasslands which use less water and don't require any chemicals to maintain I think for the most part except for in the case of invasive species and so we are also concerned about the continued maintenance of large areas of turf grass throughout the city and the use and overuse of harmful pesticides on these areas a growing body of scientific evidence has shown the harmful effects certain

008pesticides have on people pets and critical insect populations some lawn chemicals like life estate have been linked to cancer and have been shown to harm developing fetuses others like the Anika - noise are linked to massive die-offs in honeybee and other pollinators with these concerns in mind we developed this resolution to help educate annarbor residents about the parks department integrated pest management program and their best practices the resolution asks the part the parks department to create materials to show how they've been able to reduce turf grass and maintain grass without the use of pesticides these materials can then be distributed to property and business owners throughout the city the resolution also asks the city to compile a list of property owners of large turf grass areas so that we can distribute these materials to individuals

009and businesses that can make the biggest impact they were to reduce their turf grass and/or eliminate the use of pesticides we join a growing number of municipalities including Portland Maine and LA County in looking for ways to reduce or even eliminate the use of certain pesticides we believe it is in our community's best interest to act on what is known as the precautionary principle which is that you wait you don't wait for the chemical to be proven harmful before you act so like in the EU for example you have to prove that the chemicals safe instead of in here we hear the u.s. we kind of wait until there's enough cases of certain diseases and then we act so we believe it is simply too soon to tell whether many of the over 85 thousand

010different chemicals registered by the EPA are actually safe as in the case of pee fest we were told these chemicals were safe only to learn too late that they're actually posing a great risk to our drinking water we believe in the same will most likely be shown to be true for many of these pesticides and so we believe that we need to take a stronger stance against the use of chemicals and a way to do that as well as to just reduce turf grasses in general that requires pesticides so this is kind of a two pronged resolution that asks Parks Department to help us educate the city about how we can both reduce large turf grass areas and reduce the use of chemicals on these areas and so we thank you very much for all

011your time and consideration and for the members who worked closely with us on this and we would love to answer any questions or kind of help flush this out as we decide how to proceed while Anne's making printed copy I can read out the resolution I think there's the title in the memorandum I don't believe it changed there was a typo in the title that I just took out the word of yeah okay so the changes were made in the you know in the body of the resolution itself so the this is the most recent version we have so I'm going to read it out to everybody whereas the city of Ann Arbor sustainability sustainability framework contains the healthy ecosystems goal to conserve protect and Hance and restore our aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and whereas

012this Ann Arbor City Council designated Ann Arbor as a bee City USA and is committed to working towards a pollinator friendly community with the creation of a pollinator subcommittee where as to that end the Natural Area preservation and Parks Department have adopted an environmentally responsible integrated pest management program that reduces both pests and pesticide risks by incorporating low risk control options and whereas the city of Ann Arbor wishes to promote land care practices that minimize the need to apply pesticides to control unwanted pests and whereas large areas of turf grass throughout the city continue to be treated by property owners with harmful pesticides and whereas the use of pesticides has been known or suspected to cause harm to people pets and pollinators and it's not necessary to grow and maintain green lawns and ornamental landscapes

013given the availability of viable alternative practices and products and whereas the maintenance of turf grass on large areas through the city requires excessive water and energy and is inconsistent with the city's sustainability framework goal of maintaining healthy ecosystems and appropriate stewardship of our natural resources being resolved that the environmental commission urges the city to compile educational material about current Parks Department Parks Department integrated pest management IPM best practices and circulate these materials in the community resolved that the environmental commission urges the city to identify owners of large turf grass property that's defined as one acre in size or larger for the purpose of outreach and education resolved that the environmental commission urges the city to examine the possibility of implementing a certification program for chemical-free lawns that meet the standards set forth by the parks

014department IPM and resolved that the environmental commission urges the city to encourage residents business owners and especially entities with large property holdings to not only use IPM but also reduce turf grass and replace it with diverse natural plantings so that's the resolution as it's been prepared so far yeah thanks for making the coffee I think it needs to be introduced and seconded and then we can have discussion right someone needs to introduce the res the resolution it needs to be seconded and then can be discussed okay discussion no one to say oh yeah any nays okay do you want to start off the discussion or or okay well I have a question do we have a statement from Parks about this you know usually when where we resolving something that has to do with solid

015waste and has to do with energy that has to do with Public Works we hear from those folks I'm wondering if we've got a statement from them and supported this resolution yes Colin a lot yes we don't we don't have a statement from them but we were in a meeting with several of the with Colin Smith and Dave borneman yeah and I have spoken with Scot Spooner and so they helped us to kind of draft this or two we talked directly with them like what would you know what would it take how many man-hours would it take for you to kind of do this type of project and and they were amenable to it being like if it were you know if they were directed to by City Council kind of the way it runs

016down the like the work chain that they would be able to to accommodate this but we haven't you don't have an official's I have a brief go ahead Bob um I just wanted to offer a a hopefully friendly amendment to the resolution which i think is great um I would like to suggest as the second resolved clause just in addition saying resolved that the city adopts it follows these IP on best practices on all city-owned properties I think it's great that parks is doing them but there are an awful lot of city-owned properties that parts does not control and I think these practices would be good for that would be in the first result I would make it a second result do you mind passing down the text or reading it out loud again sure

017result that the city adopts and follows these ipm best practices on all city-owned properties [Applause] I remember that being part of the discussion during their presentation yeah if they don't maintain several little city-owned properties I have a couple of brief comments I was involved in some of the email exchanges leading up to the final version of the resolution I appreciate the changes one thing that I'd like to put out there for discussion is the possibility of striking [Music] references specifically to city of Ann Arbor best practices I'm sure to some degree or maybe even to a large degree the city's best practices are based on what they've done in terms of looking at what other entities have done so far but my sense is is that it would be worthwhile in creating materials for outreach

018that we just simply provide best practices period whether they come from the city of Ann Arbor or they come from Knapp where they come from local or other landscaping landscape architecture companies botanist whatever and there may be some really good material that we can get from someplace else in the country photographs case studies etc so my proposal would be a friendly amendment that in the title we just simply say materials about integrated best plant pest management best practices and can cross out Knapp turfgrass reduction strategies and then in the resolution itself the other one in the first resolved statement basically the same thing resolved and then strike current parks department integrated or just current parks department so what about integrated pest management best practices and circulate these materials and I think everything else can remain

019the same including Bob our commissioner items friendly amendment I don't know if there's any comment from any Commissioner or from the audience about that proposal thank you want to get a second for these amendments yeah then you can vote on the amendments okay so we've had the first amendment suggested by Bob Needham um is there any further discussion on that amendment before we vote on it all who approve worse being of Commissioner negan's great it was covenant yeah any do I have a vote Paul who approved of adding bought leaders amendment which was just suggesting that the city adopt these practices and all city-owned properties not just those that the city is maintaining themselves so all who approve I'll say aye aye any opposed abstain okay so then the second proposed amendment that cha was

020advanced by John mirskiy on a title change striking current parks department and nap in the title and then striking current Parks Department in the first result clause which makes it basically neutral does it mean that the recommendations can't be based on current press practices but it opens up the door to looking elsewhere but there has to be some Authority for whoever issues them well so the city is is tasked with doing this so the the the task remains the same and the task is not now according to my proposal wouldn't be just to simply pick up I mean they could choose to do it just pick up what they have right now and use those but it opens the door to looking elsewhere and including those in outreach materials and education etc any comments just

021so you all know I have a dog in this pie so to speak I do laundry duction in environmental restoration as part of my work so yeah just full disclosure here will not be voting on anything that encourages the city to promote this okay all right thanks Mike thanks bye so I saw some we did you have on an edition can you come up to that podium please I'm Rita Mitchell I'm one of the cofounders of be safe in Arbor and I'm also part of pesticide-free Ann Arbor and a question I have is is your expanding the use of these practices which i think is a great went to all of the city departments is there a responsible you know will the process be transferred from parks to and other Department as opposed to having

022a purse responsible for managing all of the city properties is that something that you all need to consider I mean my thinking and bringing the amendment was that the parks would share their information with the other departments right okay I just want to be sure that that we don't put a load on on parks that is not right helpful to them at the same time I'd truly appreciate your suggestion in that amendment I find I concur with commissioners Needham's if I were to read that I would interpret it the same way that all were asking is that the same practices be applied on all properties and it's up to whoever whichever entity is responsible for maintaining those to apply those practices so it's no additional burden on parks it's just that those practices would be

023applied uniformly across all properties and just on parks and natural natural I just thought maybe it would be good to be explicit about that if I can jump in real quick I think of the city administrator would be the one who would be responsible for figuring out which department for implementation for this so I wouldn't think you would necessarily need to add that into the resolution and it just is assumed that if City Council instructs the city administrator to and the city staff to do something he'll be the one to sort of figure out who's going to do it best okay is there any more discussion about the proposed by mirskiy so we do we need to vote on the entire okay we go through the amendments one by okay good poses so I apologize

024for missing the meeting when when when this is hammered out and secondly I was not working today with the current resolution I don't know how I missed that also but I did be sure you're close to that Mike and the weeds are a bit complicated whereas number four whereas the city venable we should promote lawn care practices since most of this resolution is talking about lawns grass not the wider discussion on dealing with pests and trees etc whereas large areas of turf grass throughout the city continue between about property owners with harmful pesticides I don't think that's an accurate statement or more importantly it's not one that's likely to be accepted by the many businesses that serve our community who don't think they're putting harmful pesticides on grass and it's not just large areas these

025pesticides if you don't like them are being put on small grass areas much less than an acre primarily it's not the size of the grass areas on which pesticides are being placed it's that we have way too much grass which is out there for looks and not function and so I might amend that that one was there before so are you I'm the fifth whereas are you proposing in strike large areas whereas turf grass throughout the city continues I would change it entirely to a different thrust whereas it is evident that many areas of lon across the city could be greatly reduced in size resulting in very considerable cost savings in water use in fossil fuel use and in the use of pesticides that doesn't step on people's toes and it does where we really

026want to go which is a sustainability goal the resources we spend on grass that's really not needed for recreational purposes in Ann Arbor is ridiculous and we can get rid of the pesticides at the same time we get rid of grass so let's see so we're thinking about we're thinking about amending the fifth warehouse statement large areas of turfgrass or you'd like to strike that and propose an alternative I would suggest that strongly do you mind passing that down if you're or do you have others have others but you can do that one first if you like no I don't you do all of yours together it's my lair I need to adjust my my to fit the resolution I haven't seen so let me have the time while you work on this one do

027you mind passing it down so I can work on that one thank you okay great thank you so sorry should I go on or do you want to deal with the fifth one first cause five first odo you don't have to wait for me oh okay so yeah what's the next job so Clause 6 has changed since the one I saw and there are more that weren't there before most of which are fine I think except for the one acre in size constraint and Clause 9 resolved I think we need to apply this everywhere to everyone and really work to and work with the applicators that work in the city and somehow with home owners to agree on what best management practices and good integrated pest management procedures would be we this what works for

028parks is not going to be very good for people at want green lawns with no weeds because a lot of the parks grass areas have a lot of dead lions and a lot of other invasive weeds in them and you can't sort of pulling them by hand in a much more expensive procedure get them out so there's there needs to be a process not that the city decides but that we work with the especially with the applicators because they know a lot more than homeowners do how do we how do we get them all to subscribe to an agreeable course of action that has them advocating to their clients a routine that minimizes the use of pesticides and fertilizers and that's a little different from what this language says yeah and so I'm sorry we're

029getting in the weeds where I haven't even figured out the wording yet I have a proposal and I hope this is acceptable to everybody I don't think that we should be rewriting and wreak rafting a resolution during a meeting right I think my perception is that this resolution has broad support among the Commission I believe some of the ideas that Commissioner Graham proposed be added also strengtheneth and would also be supported by the Commission and so my recommendation would be that we table this that we work to incorporate Commissioner Needham's and my amendment also those that are being contemplated by Commissioner Graham maybe there's some additional insights that also happen in the community now that we've discussed this and we take that input and then have something that's a final draft for consideration by the

030Commission in the next meeting it is difficult to go through a lot of this in the time that's allocated to us now but you know it seems to me that it's you know it's always a difficult it's always difficult to try to capture more and more detail than more and more specifics I think part of the part of a resolution such as this and it's just a set broad policy broad policy points and I'd get too much into the individual details so I agree with the sentiment myself but I'm wondering we've already spent like and many months I think going over this and in different different meetings so I'm hoping that maybe we can resolve it at this meeting [Music] I agree that um I think the idea is to develop a positive approach in

031the city to building sustainable practices around pests around pesticides use and I have other things to say but go ahead councilman well I was just gonna agree with chair Brown that I know what it's isn't optimal to be making these amendments as we are but we did get a flood of good ideas just in this week and the concern is that if we postpone to our February 27 meeting we are maybe getting too close to getting the word out and missing the 2020 season so that would be in favor than of pressing through tonight and then even Commissioner Graham's suggestions could maybe be added in the process like at the for the council resolution at that time could be late could be added as an amendment then it wouldn't be the pure environmental Commission original

032one from today if we pass this today but we could still get those in perhaps I might like to just suggest that since the focus of this seems to be on large turfgrass areas most areas of turf grass in the city that are over an acre are also going to be professionally managed by bringing in a professional lawn manager who I am NOT you might be able to get some ideas about low-hanging fruit for pesticide reduction I would say it is far better to come late to the 2020 season with a great idea than to forge ahead with something that as Chris mentioned in his email might offend people or might just seem out in left field and seem unattainable I think the opportunity would be to make better policy than speedy policy on this

033that's my two cents from somebody who's going to abstain from the vote any way I can I say something I think that this resolution is broad enough that it can be tailored and if we Rhian reactivate this pollinators working group this is something that they can work on with the city and talk to professionals talk to maybe some large rental companies and large property owners and this is an opportunity for the pollinator working group to help the city do something that they might not otherwise have the resources to do but I think that this is a broad enough resolution and it gets us going in the right direction I have a question of council member of an astir if we adopt this as is do you still have the opportunity to take this to Council

034with minor revisions I mean this doesn't you can say that we passed a revision resolution and say that there was additional input that was taken and included in the resolution that's now before you and then council can pass that without having to wait a month and then another two or four weeks after that for council to consider it yes I think that that would not be out of order to tab to do with that as you described so that would be a compromise that means we could vote on something tonight tonight knowing it's 90 percent of what we want knowing there's a couple of concerns potentially that Commissioner Graham has those could be worked on with council member Bannister and some other representatives in the community and that could be done within the next couple

035of weeks and then the final or a revised version of this could be brought and introduced by Councilman or member Bannister to in a council meeting and that way we hopefully cover all of all of the points to me that sounds like a reasonable compromise I mean if Chris and and okay well not just us too but yeah right well not just here yeah elana going Alana and Graham so I think it's the I mean I guess your concern seemed kind of like a separate maybe like a separate issue the idea of like working with applicators are working with professional management companies I mean these are companies that their whole business model is selling pesticides so I think that's a little bit at odds with our idea which is using some thing that the parks

036department created because they don't have a vested interest in passes and selling pesticides and so by using their model and bringing it straight to you know property management companies you can save water you can save money you don't have to go through pesticide companies or you know lawn care companies that are the holes into Pacifica site companies in order to get the kind of lawns that I think people in an hour actually want and I think it does take a little bit of culture change I agree that it's not gonna be a pristine lawn that you're used to but I think when you when presented with the facts of kind of the give-and-take of like you know do I want these chemicals or do I want a few dandelions I think that a lot of

037being Arbor residents do want to be able to make that choice thank you there's a big outreach and education component to this resolution has to be yeah and there's a part of me that takes a bit of offense to your comment yeah as the person who is you know as Chris may also be as a licensed pesticide applicator but not so much that because we don't do this to sell the pesticide applications we do this to be able to get a certain job done in my case it is you know exotic invasive species control you know I spent the first 10 years of my career doing organic invasive species management and all of those places took another decade of work to be able to go back and actually finish the work there were not organic

038techniques that worked to be able to get that job done so I changed my mind and my approach to be able to use tools that would actually work to restore the earth sorry those concerns from the parks department as well and Knapp as well and so this is not about invasive species so we would we just want to talk like this is about lawns this is like when you drive down Packard and you see you know the ponds at Georgetown or whatever that big apartment complex is and you just see lawn and lawn and lawn and then and you see the little sign that says pesticides have been applied here so these are the the point of this is a kind of low-hanging fruit of like this is just a huge swath of land by

039the roadside there isn't anything native growing there there's not it's not necessarily an invasive species it's just turf grass and is there a way to kind of keep them from just spraying you know right there on the on the huge area of want so that's kind of how we develop this is like what's the what would be the most effective the most like someone mentioned low-hanging fruit and we work closely with Shannon Gibbs Randall get Brandel as well you know got her buy-in and so I just think that maybe there's some confusion about like what we're targeting we're not targeting pesticide applicators who are working on an invasive species this is more like true Green comes to your neighborhood you know is that and like I say I'm thinking if you sort of increase your

040outreach to be able to look at the broad swath of lawn care companies that are out there there are many that are out there that are not trying to sell yet another chemical application process yeah and that's what that's where I would encourage you to get out of your own silo here and start to look a little bit more broadly at the full spectrum of what people are trying to do in terms of caring for their property I just think you're a fundamental due respect I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding what we're trying to do here and that we reached out to you several times and asked for your input so for you to come back now and say that this is you know hasty policy instead of good policy it's just you know it's like

041difficult to hear that now when we would have appreciated your input earlier also I just think this is not I think we're talking apples and oranges and I mean it would be great to have the opportunity to like hash this out more in a separate meeting I guess but I think this it does have the broad strokes that we want in order to just to get more education out to the community about certain types of harmful pesticides that maybe people don't actually want on their lawns I know this is all very unusual well Chris hey this is difficult it's delicate the state has been protecting lawn care companies quite deliberately they do not want those businesses banned we are not able to go from where we are now to a policy in Ann Arbor that

042says we shall not permit pesticides to be put on lawns in this city we're not able to do that but that's not what this says it is not what this says but the motivation behind some of the language here seems to me to be saying that and what some of the suggestions I made was that soften that portion of the language that's stepped on those toes and to try to instigate not just parks department policy which is not going to be satisfactory that to the many people in our brother want bright green grass with no weeds and include the people will really understand what they're doing out there with these things bring them to the table and devise a policy for Ann Arbor that minimizes the use of these pesticides they're not going away secondly

043and more importantly I believe we can make far more progress on that subject as well as the larger sustainability subject if we really focus our efforts on getting people to get rid of so much turf grass period and that's not here no it is exactly that's the last Rose result though wait a second or a second I mean our bylaws well I'm not sure it's our bylaws but we have to restrict public commentary to the public comment period but I appreciate what you said because you've played an active role in drafting this resolution so so I'm happy to go forward tonight with it again the general perspective that we would like to have less pesticide use in Ann Arbor and less turfgrass in Ann Arbor is a good one it's a great one no doubt

044about it no I mean I would agree but Tom you know in this resolution as it's written now seems to embody like that spirit and it is difficult getting through all of the legal ramifications here so I was just whispering with with Bob here and a question that I would have then is would would this receive broader support if we or or is it getting into maybe more difficulties if we just eliminate all references to large he just crossed out in our when I was just whispering with Bob here large in resolved Clause number six that's the last one which would also then mean in resolved Clause number five we would cross out large areas of and it would just say we're as turf grass throughout the city you wouldn't have to add it s

045to continues in resolved clause number two we would cross out large and we would also cross out one acre in size or larger and then we would cross out large in the last result clause and none of this is dictating anything so we're just basically asking that there's outreach and education to the community as a whole I think obviously in the implementation of this the first phase can be targeted according to the 80/20 rule the 20% of properties that maybe have that 80% of impact the same things with applicators etc so there still it still leaves a lot of room open for how this is then finally implemented but what it does is we move with this it gets in count in front of council and it gives an opportunity for this to get out

046into the community as a council Minutemen council member Bannister said before the 2020 season what do people think of that and if that sounds reasonable that now formalize it with a with another friendly amendment to me that seems reasonable and I I'm reading this as an education and outreach so I'll repeat it Emily do I need to redeem dinner together yeah so in results applause number five we would say we're as turfgrass throughout the city continues to be treated by property owners with harmful pesticides and we would strike large areas of in resolved Clause number two we would strike the word large after the city urged urges the city to identify owners of turf grass property it's probably most of us but it would just cross I would strike out large and strike out one

047acre in size or larger so it basically then applies citywide and then finally in the last resolved clause strikes the word large well actually I guess we would strike out encourages residents and then we have to have and business owners and then strike out and especially entities with large property holdings it would simply say then resolved environmental Commission urges the city to encourage residents and business owners to not only use IPM but also reduce reduce turf grass and replace it with diverse national natural plantings I think that's the message we want to send not prescriptive outreach and educational it allows us to implement this in a targeted way and it allows us to do it in time for 2020 do you mind passing down your proposed amendment at all thank you that's that gets me

048to shut up because I won't be able to refer to anything anymore any other ideas in this in this role thank you sorry about the weeds I'm pretty happy with all this call it question okay well you had Christopher you have Commissioner Graham's amendment a couple of amendments in there do you want to one only I think and then John the one only was changing land the word land and then cause Florida lawn okay otherwise John's okay but I also have you deleting I think it's the six square as Clause large areas of turf grass that one and then I had you reading I mean we changed that don't know so there were two well and then so then you added another whereas clause talking about savings and water use fossil fuel use and the

049as'f esta sides and then I thought you were gonna be deleting the following whereas Clause the use of pesticides has been known or suspected to your right so I substituted a new one for Clause five other than changing law lon plant alone in clause for substituting whereas it is evident that many areas of law and across the city could be greatly reduced resulting in very considerable cost savings and water use fossil fuel use mowing etc and the use of pesticides and then you added whereas the use of pesticides has been oh you deleted the following one about the use of pesticides has been known to or suspected I didn't think that one changed at all it didn't okay I it's different than it was in the notes I was making to people so I won't

050pursue that okay you have my copy to family I believe I do have your copy would you like it back no proposed I like that amendments in the in the positive approach that that sort of Reece says the same thing but said it in a more reason the reason why we're doing it instead of just harmful pesticide if that's a negative or offensive word okay let's see I mean I just say that I think this just underscores the need to maybe have have this all done you know well before the meeting and have the final version submitted at least like three or four days before the meeting so that so that this doesn't happen as a regular course of practice just from a practical point of view and that you know and we'll never be

051able to come up with something that's totally comprehensive here but I think this is a great first approach you know to encourage in the city to do some outreach and education on minimizing turf grass as well as not spreading Cometh is being very considerate in the in the pesticides that you're using okay so is there any further discussion on this resolution or the amendment yeah yeah we haven't done the amendment yet so if there's no further discussion on the amendment do I have a to approve this resolution as amended although approved I understand sure okay all right so it passes okay so let's see let's move on the agenda we need to vote on the whole thing I'm sorry do we have any more discussion on the whole resolution anybody I think you've all done

052a lovely job in terms of making this seem less antagonistic most large lawn owners seem very attached to it and writing a proposal that introduces that there are alternatives seems to be a a better use of City time I would say then telling them how wrong they are because I seem it seems to me that that's a that's a sure way to not get very far and I hope you will accept that as you know catch a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar in this instance in my experience yeah yeah I also think that the certification program would be a great idea to reward people for a good behavior rather than we should always have carrots not just sticks and and I would agree and I think this is a good opportunity for

053the pollinator except 22 2014 that regard yeah okay so let's see do I have a motion for to accept this resolution your councilmember banister in a second okay okay all who approve of this resolution has amendment say aye aye what abstention okay so it passes its passed as amazing okay well there's been a lot of work put into this and I think I hope we could all be happy with it and that there's certainly a lot more work to be done so the next so now let's go on to new business the next item is workgroup goals for 2020 I'll begin as the besa League as the lead on the environment environmental Commission solid waste working group during the past year we've been done quite a lot of work around the SW RMP process that

054the city was you know was updating its strategic plan for dealing with solid waste and then there was a lot of discussion about the MuRF and things like that so one of our smart goals for the year was to do metrics to propose metrics for the city solid waste management elements of the sustainability dashboard as you all know the cities had a sustainability dashboard for since 2013 and there are metrics in there but they they have not been updated regularly and there's some confusion about how they're calculated so part of what we wanted to do is to propose metrics going forward for the sustainability dashboard to be updated quarterly and so this is what I handed out there was some spare copies up here if anyone in the audience would like to see them so

055the proposed metrics are material flow and tons by both sector residential and commercial and by waste stream and the grand total of the material flow to landfill tracts progress to its his long term zero waste goals of the city I have a question do you want me to wait until the end I'm just not sure how we can track construction and demolition waste last time I looked into it there's not no way unless we do like a permanent thing yeah I'm not sure if it's really I'm not sure if anybody really wants me to read through all of these they're all distributed but let me just say that the work group is meeting with city staff regularly once a month to to refine these and also it's a bit complicated because of these cities a

0562-0 initiative there is a technical advisory committee that's working with materials which it will also be suggesting different metrics and gun goals for 2020 so in the area of solid waste there's a number of players here I'm not just the environmental commission that have been recently been engaging there's a new city solid waste manager named Eileen Naples who's just getting up to speed and so construction demolition were part of that discussion earlier today the city already is we're discussing whether you know quite a bit of the asphalt in the city is recycled you know you've seen that you've seen the trucks that grind it up and then take it off for processing and bring it back for new new roads so definitely one of the major some of the major areas here are trying to

057account for construction and demolition waste if I may weigh in briefly or sorry Steve do you want to finish your thought no that's that's it so we're not voting on anything this isn't that in the form of a resolution this is just a set of recommendations to the city specifically to the solid waste question the solid waste resource management plan proposal that's still in front of Council was tabled includes an element where C and D construction and demolition waste would start to be reviewed and analyzed and hopefully captured in that would lead to a metric like what's mentioned here so we recognise some of these things may not be able to be done immediately I'd also add we haven't really talked about which of these would actually be posted on the sustainability dashboard some of

058these may be indicators that are sort of in the background and maybe only one or two of these would actually be on the dashboard but the the proposal is is that the city would be using all of these to not only track outcomes and results for the city for example diversion rate but also looking at some of these other things that might also help them do things like optimize costs improve customer satisfaction and things like that so in this calculation of greenhouse gas emissions that are involved with recycling and landfill and things like that so what I really all I really wanted to say is that we've been working on these proposed metrics we have a list here a preliminary list and I think our major goal for this workgroup for the next year is

059to work with city staff flush it out a little bit more you know and and make it consistent with the zero waste goal long-term goal for the city as it's being defined by the a20 process are there any questions there's nothing to act on on this tonight uh no it's just a personal experience that I had that I've already brought up with the new solid waste coordinator about micro plastics and in the city mulch I got a very bad batch of mulch over the course of the summer and proceeded to inquire if we have any standards for what what makes mulch okay to sell or what makes it need to be converted to waste energy or sent to a landfill because certainly I am not enjoying picking up what I need to out there right

060now and it would I'm one of the few people that would actually get out there and do that so and certainly I would hate to be somebody who would sell back to somebody as a service as I imagine many landscape companies in town do I haven't heard back yet if there is a standard in the contract currently for how they are measuring assessing and reporting on micro plastics in the mulch but I will mention that to those of you that are on the solid waste committee in the hopes that you can keep this discussion going over time I've experienced the same thing so duly noted are you talking about remnants of plastic bags or micro plastics I guess you they'd be macro plastics this case because you see them yeah plastic bags yeah a lot

061of polyethylene films but also a lot of plant containers and a lot of plant tags pieces of edging okay Flags gas flags with the plastic sticks how big the whole flag no usually they're you know chunks out there chopped up so I wish they were the whole flags they'd be a lot easier to pick up and find that way but the question is are they screening as well as they have been traditionally you know I may have gotten the end of the screening I think they are screening all the time and I think this is a problem that they have all the time but yeah I may have just been the lucky person who got the end of the pile as opposed to the beginning of the pile so yeah I put that out there

062I don't know if it's in the contract but you know we do contract with Denali to be able to or what is it we care organics now so and I don't know if there's anything in that contract that says you know plastics and mulch they'll not exceed X Y or Z okay that's a good point anything else about solid waste issues that people want to flag okay so I think so and then the other issue that's come up is the regionalization of solid waste management through the WR mm a process so I think it would be I think the Commission should be paying attention to what can be done to get in Arbour engaged with this process so I don't know do you have anything any new information about that in not other than Howard

063Lazarus the city administrator did attend the wash in our regional Resource Management Authority meeting on December 16 and they were the group they're the members of the worm expressed hope that the city would join and but they weren't interested at this time in revising their proportional voting or their to they can Arbor more of a larger vote given the size of the population that we represent and and they weren't necessarily interested in the employee protections that that we do here in Ann Arbor with responsible contractor language and so forth so I was encouraging mr. Lazarus to continue to attend their meetings or send a representative from city staff to attend their meetings and continue to work with them and their main focus according to mr. Lazarus was policy and education this year so I think

064there's still time Oh the third issue about whether or not municipalities and other cities can bring their recycles to our MuRF whether that apparently that does not require a warm a style agreement that those other you know groups could come to us anyway it doesn't the brewer MoU with or without Orman does not preclude it and so the issue of them bringing contaminated recyclables to us can can and should be addressed anyway in any case okay all right well thank you yeah I did him one other update though this may or may not be the time but in regards to our food gatherers resolution that we had passed there were let me go I've actually wait for the reports from Council sure okay so I think that's all I have to say for the Saugus

065work group if there's no more questions let's move on to Crescent natural features natural features so you all asked that we develop an agenda for our committee for 2020 and I sent it to some of you and I just email it to Marv you there are five things none of which are easy develop and seek heritage tree amendments heritage tree amendments to chapter fifty fifty-five or the university development code or our body of development ordinances and that would probably mean expanding about upon the landmark tree list to include heritage trees which our trees probably have at least a larger size if not other criteria second develop and seek a tree protection amendments in Chapter 55 55 for trees not already regulated in the site development process we're losing a lot of trees in the city

066on single and two family properties that have building projects tear downs rebuilding projects or completely new subdivisions such as happened on Packard in a single family zone and there are some I think certainly a majority accounts of members who really want to regulate that big hole in our regulations will help with amendments which are ready for flood plain provisions in Chapter 55 they promise to be if I'm hearing Jerry Hancock correctly quite interesting and maybe a little controversial but I hope by now not develop sustainable landscape outreach model for two neighborhoods one with a significant chunk of native forest fragment and one hopefully nearby that was farm field in our history where the native forest floor of seed was destroyed in farming and fifth to seeking concerted effort by the city to accomplish an early

067update to the city's GIS woodland maps which date back to 1990s and we have bleeding green polygons on our woodland map from 1990 that don't distinguish between the buckthorn thicket and a high quality native forest fragment that's the best we have and this will take a chunk of money to accomplish hopefully and put our oar in the water about that in the budget and it probably requires a consultant who has a capability to fly probably more than once and this time unlike our normal procedures to fly for a storm our impervious service efforts flying during leaf on at maybe three times a year three times in a year so that we can get different read like reflectivity from leaves and be able to distinguish different at least communities from different reflectivity in the leaf different

068colors of green essentially and it would require a consultant who is able to do the computer processing and interpretation and field checking to rectify multiple images and make them read across the city all that's normal procedure it's just a different time of year with a different set of goals from what we normally do that's our five things thank you so thanks Chris let's see Susan's not here today she was the head of the water and water quality and stormwater management group so we'll wait for that we'll wait till the next meeting for that one see so the overall Commission goals for 2020 I think Darrin body right now within these work group goals because those are the workgroups that were set up last year are there any other work groups yeah we would like to

069I would like to reactivate the pollinator work group pollinator used to be pollinator subcommittee know be a working group and we'll come up with them our goals I just remind you that yeah last time I read the bylaws of the Commission I think it's only required to have one person on me we can have workers and it's only required to have we have some people in the audience that we can recruit yeah I think so so there Eddie does anyone wish to make a comment on Commission goals for 2020 or suggest any additional goals besides what have been mentioned so far okay so let's see we had an item on the agenda for metrics discussion I know for myself I wanted to talk about this for the solid waste working group these were what I

070had in mind was metrics for the sustainability sustainability framework that the city has so from my reading of it it looks like per the original time when these workgroups were set up last year it looks like we've kind of covered most of what the environmental Commission is supposed to look at but I think it would be useful maybe for all of us to review that just go and look at the city's website the sustainability framework and think about what what other areas we might think about getting engaged in I'd like to come in if I may you know be a broken record on this I'd like to remind the Commission and frankly um residents that a year ago roughly in February of last year I presented a topic board I called it regular review progress

071review of energy and environmental Commission smart goals in monthly meetings with a subtitled what gets measured and reviewed gets done and we talked about that at some length I pointed out the fact that the sustainability framework has seven environmental Commission related goals and statement that I made was it's important to review all goals and their indicators at least annually even if they aren't considered a high priority if an outcome degrades significantly the goals may need to be reprioritized and also targets need to reflect priorities etc I'd like to remind ourselves that we had as far as I know one review of goals last year and that was the review of greenhouse gas emissions which is actually the work of the Energy Commission not the environmental Commission so we've gone we went through all of 2019

072without reviewing any goals or metric metrics that relate to outcomes tied to important environmental results or outcomes that we should be looking at for example we never had a formal review although the data is out there of solid waste metrics we talked about some of those today there's diversion rate information out there it's never been put and discussed in the public domain and presented we never had here a review of water quality or watershed we had a watershed metric review in 2018 is presented by the Han River watershed Council based on input that we gave I'm trying to develop an index that could be tracked and trended year-to-year we haven't had any review of any air quality metrics it seems to me that if we're serving the city we the city all of us working

073we need to be looking at what are we delivering and if we're making progress great if we're not making progress why and what do we need to do to get better like I said what get measured and reviewed gets done and if you're not doing that consistently then it's very likely that you're not making progress and I think solid waste is a great example of that we haven't had regular reviews of solid waste and in any formal way and our solid waste diversion rate is the same last year as it was in 2012 so I would just remind us of that and I think we all come here to make a difference and I would say we don't know because we haven't been reviewing things whether or not we're making a difference and one just

074last comment on this in the professional life that that I lived this is a bigger organization with formal processes I had a performance review every year I had to go into my performance review every year by the way it's not a not a an old-fashioned performance review this is a performance review to talk about how do we get better results myself my organization in supporting the rest of the organization so it's not something that's a wrap on the hand kind of thing but going into every one of those I had to right and accomplishment report and I think it would be helpful for this group to annually write our own accomplishment report what did we accomplish and some where some of our accomplishments are maybe writing and approving a resolution that's something but I would

075not say that's really significant accomplishments and I think we should look in the mirror once a year and really judge ourselves and say how are we doing and if we're not doing as well as we like then how do we improve that so that coming here and spending you know time every month and then in working group meetings we really think about how do we really provide and deliver value and benefits from the time that we invest you've heard it before sorry no I think I fully concur with John in fact I was we're jumping a little bit ahead but I was hoping that aren't the agenda for our February meeting was going to consist of exactly this well I'd be willing to work with others on drafting our accomplishment report I could put something

076together and send it out there and people could add to it strike whatever and then maybe we can review that as an agenda item in our February meeting and then talk about most importantly what do we do the same when we're doing something well and what do we do something bad what do we do differently to improve well this should be an ongoing process - it's not something the way and do it once a year in terms of metrics though are weren't we supposed to be getting updates from the solid waste stuff on on these numbers so we can actually measure our success you know the intent would be to invite them to present that where where it's appropriate so we would schedule a meeting where we would say in whatever month we want to

077review on the solid waste metrics that are available we generally know what they are and then we have a discussion about you know what's planned and what if anything the environmental Commission can do to contribute to the achievement of those goals yeah I'm just thinking like asking for some sort of regular report out rather than inviting them to a particular meeting just requiring monthly updates via email or something like that I think maybe monthly is going too far they quarterly sure let's try for quarterly before we go for a monthly let's try for once well this is already I was be happy with annual to start and then what we can do is this would be my suggestion when we review something for the annual result then we can discuss if this is going great

078then why do we need to spend a lot of time there's an hours on reviewing something quarterly when something's going well when when things are not going well those are the things you want to review quarterly or whatever maybe semi-annually so that you can intervene before you lose a whole year to something going bad no I I agree as a man once something is established but I think at the beginning it's good to have a quarterly process so that you can work out all the details you know about what do you think is valuable reporting what you know what the trends are things like but yeah what hopefully would just go it would eventually become an annual review this has already been discussed with the city solid waste staff because you know we had that

079whole that whole saga for years about the about the you know about the solid waste fund so that's definitely we have a lot of promises that that's going to happen every three months crust ins already done that over the last year so so hopefully we can all think about this and think about what we can do and and John were you thinking about just sticking with the sustainability framework as it currently exists as a starting point I mean we're not even doing that and frankly maybe we shouldn't do all of that to begin with you know if we just focus on a handful at least we start and we we tried the process and we say even from a process perspective is this working or not rather than agreeing to do all seven environmental metrics

080I would say we do three and try it out I mean the sustainability framework includes quite a lot of a lot of things that really aren't the purview of the environmental Commission they're more the purview of the Energy Commission or the Transportation Commission there are 16 sustainability framework topics I believe originally there were thirty something in the range of 30 some metrics and um you may recall there were as a Joint Commission that's now probably two years ago since its disbanded I should say a working group of the energy and environmental Commission that went through those and I think that's where I got the numbers that I mentioned a little while ago that there were seven environmental and three Energy Commission related framework goal and I don't I'm we proposed some metrics for each of

081those but like I said I think would be huge to try to work with all those let's take baby steps and and see how that works I mean some of the the big ones relate directly to what we're talking about here today solid waste water and watershed quality we had that we had you know there's a precedent for that and then maybe we do something on air quality and I think that has to be reported federally anyhow and maybe that's we just review that data or we say we don't have a working group maybe we don't do that maybe it's something related to I don't know the natural features group or something like that okay so well maybe you could send does everybody have a copy of that soft leave that the energy environment mission

082did a couple of years ago about that maybe John you could distribute that among the commissioners it's on register I could resend it again I think okay I don't get it it goes into minutes as a reminder I'll do that okay all right is there any other any other comments anybody wants to make about metrics or the Commission's role in tracking these metrics and helping set them okay so reports from committees one other comment if I made yourself to emphasize the point I'll use something outside of our purview but maybe something that all of us including residents can relate to you know the city can say we paved 20 miles or repave 20 miles of of streets and we that was great we completely met our plan we said we were gonna do 20 miles

083we did 20 miles well that's great but if 30 miles fall below the the standard of what we considered a good quality Road then the City accom pushed paving 20 miles but in the mean time 30 fell into disrepair and if you do that every year then you can't out the 20 that you paved but the 30 that fell into disrepair add up and add up and add up and that's what you have today so we have to frame our discussions around are we really making a positive impact on the bottom line and not just report on compliance or projects done or something like that did we deliver better quality of life and for the residents of Ann Arbor duly noted so okay so let's move on to reports from committees other Commission's Council and

084chair see my community parks okay let's see Shannon's mine okay so let's see Shannon's not here so she's our council I should do some energy briefly oh yeah energy sorry for talking all time I think maybe some interesting updates though Energy Commission had a report on initial studies and work towards a twenty five megawatt solar installation on property that's basically where the wheeler Center is and potentially longer-term parts of the landfill right now the landfill is not a priority because it's nesting habitat for a not endangered what's the right the next level down and threatened threatened the threatened species bird species so it's city-owned property but much of it is in pencil Township and so the city is working with pencil Township and with DTE the energy would be purchased by Pittsville township and the

085city for municipal operations potentially also at some point maybe in a community solar kind of thing but that's not allowed right now so work needs to be done to advance that we passed in the Energy Commission a resolution in support of ninety thousand dollars being allocated by the city to be able to do that so if anybody's interested in details they can go on the city's calendar legislature and look at that presentation excellent well done so one thing we were working on was a solar access ordinance and that sort of stuck in the mud right now with a lot of legal concerns so that's sort of been tabled we were still working on what's called an EB readiness ordinance I've talked about it here and that's basically now in final form it's been reviewed with

086a subset of the Planning Commission and with planning and the intent is to Emily do you know when we meet with was it set yeah we wanted to meet earlier but the earliest we could get in from Bret Leonard was in April and April okay thank you and there was a resolution that was proposed on banning new connections natural gas connections for new construction in support of the city's climate emergency and movement towards carbon neutrality by 2030 that was tabled for the time being there was some discussion about how what's that what's the impact going to be there's a fair amount of new construction but one of the big issues is all the built environment that's already in place there's some cities that are looking at even banning that entirely but with a due date

087so by 2040 or something like that all appliances would have to be replaced there may be other other ways of addressing this through permit fees or connection fees so that was tabled and then the last thing I think of interest solar installations we've been tracking this now for many years and last year we had by far the best year so just 2017 and 2018 had been prior than past years before that but we had roughly 35 permits for residential solar last year there was almost 90 and it was 88 and the number of kilowatts installed went up from roughly 250 kilowatts to almost 900 kilowatts so a really huge jump shows increased awareness shows prices are coming down shows that the fact that the property tax repeal is making a difference the only thing that

088I would remind people of is that the Energy Commission I'm talking about what gets measured gets done and holding a mirror up to our own work we said we wanted to install 2.3 megawatts per year Oh ten years so between 2015 and 2025 and last year was by far our best as I mentioned but we still only installed 900 kilowatts so we still we've much better and hopefully we can see exponential growth but we still are below our targeted rate that's it Thanks oh I mean the Ann Arbor Public Schools recently passed that millage part of the funding would be targeted towards sustainability such as maybe solar panels and things like that there any plans for the however how is the Energy Commission going to maybe interact with an urban public schools so I think

089through the overall a20 initiative there is a technical advisory committee that's working on projects we have representation from in our public schools on that Advisory Committee we have some projects that are specifically targeted or I have possibilities put it that way for public schools right now public schools really hasn't specifically said exactly this and that and the other is going to be done and sustainability measures not includes not only includes things like solar it includes things like improved envelopes of buildings so meaning more insulation that our ceiling it includes things like potentially geothermal so right now we're working together with the city jointly in this community-wide target but right now there's not anything specific yet as far as what would be done at what school there's some a broad table of identifying schools and what

090kind of measures would be taken with some dots but this is just preliminary and the public schools have said all along that any final decisions will be based on deeper public engagement and and more detail plans okay what if one more question I mean what about at least half of all the residents of Ann Arbor are either renters or they don't have rules that are amenable to putting panels on so is there any progress to its community solar options to provide residents or there are two packages of energy related legislation that have been introduced in the Michigan House co-sponsored by use of Robbie or yeah and one of those includes it's called the energy freedom package and one of those three bills directly addresses community solar and what enable community solar to be projects to

091be implemented in Michigan community solar for everybody that doesn't know is basically where an entity would put in a large solar array and I could buy 10 Sol or these men panels of that and get get the energy proof from those 10 out of the thousand or the 10,000 babka by 30 and could buy 5 etc etc or somebody even a school or a business could buy a large chunk of those that way you get much much lower costs and you get the economies of scale but that's not right allowed right now because the utilities have a monopoly supply position and it Frank it was just not simply allowed in Michigan right now okay let's see chair I don't think I'll say anything at this point and yet any further information from Council couple short

092updates at Tuesday night's meeting week the council approved the resolution to add two youth members to the environmental Commission so we will be going from a 13-member Commission to two new youth members up to 15 and the only change we made that there was a lot of discussion about whether ages fourteen to twenty five was the right age and we actually moved it up to age sixteen as the youngest yes sixteen to twenty five sixteen to twenty five after a lot of discussion and even some input from some high school kids as to whether they felt they'd be ready at 14 or whether 16 was better and they thought 16 inside so yeah so so that was approved and those folks will have a one-year term and I think that'll be coming really quite soon

093now that we can start recruiting them I'll wait to see how that unfolds but they'll they'll have to apply like a regular commission member and be reviewed and selected and the Energy Commission will be updating their bylaws next with a similar so we did that um our the food gatherers resolution that the environmental Commission had passed has gotten slowed down a bit in the attorney's office because there's some complicated issues related to the IRS and public charities and waiving their fee giving them a fee exemption so there they've been meeting with Aileen spring from food gathers they're gonna meet with her again on February 10 but then we expect after then after February 10 things will go more quickly and I will be on the way to incentivizing food recovery and waste diversion and so

094that one's got slowed down but it's still in progress and I could answer any questions from folks because so many things have been happening at Council but I did just want to let you all know that our issue of the 57 Oaks and and the other woodland trees out at 28:57 Packard it's not quite over yet they have submitted the trees aren't down yet they've submitted a signed development agreement but they have not submitted a permit to actually remove the trees yet so council gave them permission to move forward with the development because we couldn't prolong the lawsuit however council simultaneously as you may recall gave permission to pursue that Packard Road for affordable housing so they said yes and no both at the same night so Jennifer Hall did an analysis and unfortunately because

095that 28:57 down by cobblestone farms is not considered walkable by the low-income housing tax credit system it didn't score well for the Housing Commission to leverage it so so so Jennifer halls sadly had to give it a lukewarm to low response for affordable housing but I'm still working with Howard Lazarus and others and you if you have further suggestions to try to piece together sources of funding so there could be a Shannon give Randall a nose Jennifer Hall and and I won thanks Shannon if he was she was here tonight because she stepped in and tried to and successfully explained to Jennifer Hall how you could have a narrow driveway through the trees and then build the housing on the back of the light so we're working on piecing together a little bit of affordable

096housing and then other sources of funding such as we know cobble stone farms has overflowed and very successful so this being a a nearly adjacent property neighboring property could could be part of that system and then also the watershed melet's creek as the county commissioners pointed out is de MF for quality and so the part is concerning people is that we just don't know what the impact is if we remove eight acres of urban forests and woodland we don't know you know we don't know and so nobody wants to look back and say what were we thinking to take that down and take down those all those trees and of course all the wildlife and all the unknowns of what that is actually providing in the critical root zones and all and then so we're

097speaking piecing together sources of income one other source of course as we know is the six million accumulated and the Greenbelt funds for purchases within the city and another source of funding is potentially the Michigan Natural Resources trust fund and they've just updated their criteria to weigh natural resource conservation and urban area recreation so solid B so if we could so we're still working on all those pieces and mainly I wanted to let you all know that if you have any second thoughts or ideas that would help in this manner please let me know thank you I got a question for for an when are we gonna read the Ann Arbor news where you're on a hunger strike a hunger strike chained up in the in the trees you're not letting them cut them down

098are we gonna read that someday not be part you have to answer that some residents who are thinking that it's been done yeah okay so report from staff great so the biggest news not unsurprisingly is the a20 work we've been moving very very fast on that we've held over 30 events with our partner organizations and we have five in the next week alone we've had internal staff meetings with the fire department management team the safety unit clerk's office attorney's office and we're gonna also be talking with the IT department about how to get them involved in a 2-0 we have four technical advisory committees for each sector and they are currently meeting for the third time they actually have all met and are going through and prioritizing some ideas that came from the ideation phase

099for partners we've added common cycle and Arbor Main Street Association NRDC National Resources Defense Council Earth Sciences pesticide-free Ann Arbor and slow-food Huron other things we've been doing I know roughly like 50 55 or higher really impressive yeah we wrapped up the first public engagement survey and we shared some tack evaluations we launched a second public engagement survey which can be found on a 2-0 org and that focuses on gathering input on what potential actions the public supports as well as talking about funding mechanisms there's gonna be a really important town hall on February 22nd at Pioneer high school from 12:00 to 5:00 it's open to everybody and that's a really good time to come and see the actions that will be recommended and you'll get to put together your own Carbon Reduction budget and

100we created materials to help with engagement and there's a meeting in a box for residents to gather feedback in the fact sheets other things include the sustainability forums for this year are gonna be centered on a 2-0 not unsurprisingly I'm Thursday January 30th at 7 p.m. at the downtown branch library we're going to talk about carbon achieving carbon neutrality in the energy sector and then monthly forums following that we'll cover carbon neutrality in the transportation sector resource sector and adaptation and resiliency sector that's my report all right thank you so let's see so the next item on the agenda is items for the next agenda in February so we've already heard about metrics discussion and it goals discussion in a performance review over the last year an accomplishments review an accomplishments review yeah so I

101call it performance review let's see is the staff have anything that would like to have discussed at the February meeting I think you and I've talked about stuff but I don't have it at the tip of my fingers yeah and another overreach I've I've talked to people at the Huron River watershed council and everything about getting an updated report on the health of the watershed and about different issues that are emerging such as microplastics and Huron River so they are actually just completing their a review update and it will be available by March so I'm thinking maybe we'll have water and air quality topic for the March yeah okay so we've got something to think about for the next couple of months in terms of action points this is something we've never done but I

102think just if John could remember to distribute that the metrics thing for people to review before a February meeting I think that would be a good thing are there any other suggestions for topics for the February meeting they're going forward okay so so the next scheduled meeting is February 27th you know 7 o'clock to 9 o'clock do I have a motion to adjourn sorry forgot about page two so this is the second public commentary period for the meeting anybody who wishes to speak come up to the microphone and just say your name my name is Eddie Smith I'm a resident of Ann Arbor and I want to start out by saying how much I really respect this commission and the mission you serve I think it's incredible and it's great to listen to the discussion

103and the debate I also want and I mean it's 9 p.m. and everyone's here away from their homes away from their families serving the public's interests I'm one of the most important topics which is environmental sustainability for the city that's phenomenal I also want to say I really respect high ethical standards and practices recusing oneself from voting on a matter where there's a conflict of interests between the public's interests and it's private interests is the right way we should be doing at Ann Arbor that's great it really is but I want to go further down that vein and offer a critique to this Commission if a matter is inappropriate to vote on it's certainly also inappropriate to discuss you shouldn't be debating it you shouldn't be commenting on it you shouldn't be recommending that the

104vote be postponed you shouldn't be saying the language is inappropriate you shouldn't be doing any of these things that happen here tonight because if it's inappropriate to cast a vote on that matter it's also inappropriate to influence the policy recommendation and any other matter it's just another mechanism of trying to affect policy and citizens of Ann Arbor have high ethical standards from our government they deserve it and I know this commission probably use it the same way so I think an issue is that the rules that are codified are incredibly gray on this matter they say that City Council and its appointed Commission's must recuse themselves from voting on issues that are conflict of interests but it doesn't explain what voting means all right there's no definition of voting is voting simply just casting your

105vote at the end or is it include discussing the topics recommending language changes all the things that happen here tonight between the second motion to consider the issue and the actual vote so I am again with the highest respect coming forward here and with positive intent and looking to the future but I would encourage all the members of the Commission to interpret voting with the highest ethical standard interpret voting meeting engaging in any way whatsoever on influencing policy including discussing it making recommendations debating anything like that and then I would encourage the chair of the Commission to interpret with the same way to rescind the floor from anyone who makes a mistake and to make sure that we are delivering the highest standards of ethics again so that's all I have to say thank you

106well thank you anybody else they must know the most important issues thank you thanks for being here Oh service or a motion to adjourn you