001April sure council member here councilmember you here Commissioner lung skiing here commissioner mirskiy your Commissioner Cleve II yeah your Appleyard here commissioner 11 here Commissioner Colvin Garcia aye approval of the minutes from the March meeting I moved to approve the minutes Oh second thank you I need discussion on the minutes all in favor aye post public input we have some public do we have any input if you'd like to say anything about related to energy in the community and we will move on to energy report we have a lot of exciting things going on with energy office I guess we'll get started here fire station number 6 crowd funding is now live so we have a crowdfunding campaign that we put together to try to raise some of the money for the solar panels on
002fire station number six so if you haven't checked it out please go ahead and take a look we also have a volunteer solar component of as well so if anyone from the audience or anyone at home would like to go ahead and join us and putting solar up on fire station six please contact us and we'll point you in the right direction you are for that sure do you that's the volunteer site or not I'm yeah so there's two different that one is a crowdfunding campaign and then the second one is it's kind of more of a volunteer side of it so yeah this is on the same URL you know I don't have the URL with but I didn't see the volunteer no yes yeah okay we also have solar power hours so we
003already had one of the power hours that happened at the Senior Center in burns Park it went really well kind of just informing the public about opportunities on energy efficiency side as well as some opportunities with solar installations so if anyone's interested in installing solar we had some solar installers they're really helpful to have the community kind of talk to the solar installers and look at the potential for their own homes 47 total attendees 47 200 attendees it was a good turnout we have two more one coming up April 11 so that's this Thursday that's Lawson middle school at 6 p.m. and then the last ones at cobblestone farm at 6 p.m. April 29th all right there's also a sustainability Forum coming up April 18th it focuses on race and class equity and it's it's
004occurring at the downtown library at 7 p.m. let's say finally we have Earth Day so Ann Arbor's Earth Day at Leslie science and nature center April 28th from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. it's a very family-oriented event it's a lot of fun so anyone who can come out and join us greet marriage green fair yeah marriage breeding fair so that's a little bit further it but I guess it's good just to have on the radar June 14th will be Mayer's green fair our annual green fair usually there's tables relating to sustainability we usually close down Main Street I kind of have walked through traffic there so if the public wants to join in that it's a really fun event additionally the big news today is that U of M has decided to buy two hundred
005thousand megawatt hours of clean green renewable energy beginning in 2021 from D T's my green Power Program so with that they claim that they will be meeting their 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 which is great news our friends it to you my understanding according to what schlissel said this afternoon is that they'll actually meet the twenty five percent target by 2025 with the signing of the contract he may have misspoken but that's what he said less than an hour ago any other energy news people we should thank our friends at DTE also one other thing that may be of interest I just came from his town hall type event and there was a question regarding well there are lots of questions but the one I think is most relevant to us was
006a question was would the university consider being responsible and accountable for greenhouse gas emissions to U of M related travel so the scope three travels related to commutes related to U of M paid travel like flights visits to hospitals and things like that the question was framed would they be is it the responsibility of the individual the city of Ann Arbor or U of M or potentially all three and why doesn't U of M include it right now and he indicated that from his expected the U of M should be responsible and accountable for that to some degree and in a shared kind of thing so that really I think is important in that it opens up the door for U of M being response or having shared responsibility for that and I think that
007opens up the door for lots of other things in terms of traffic and parking and all the other kinds of things that drive behaviors that lead to transportation related greenhouse gas emissions so I think that's a positive opening of the door carriage gas so I think what you're getting at is could dte off for a program similar to my green power on the gas side which would be to say an option to be buying something that you knew to be certified or monitored or some other way to be cleaner I mean the vast majority of the impact in the natural gas value chain is in that at the wellhead stage that's an interesting question I don't I don't personally know whether that's been explored as I was telling Commissioner cleaver before the before the meeting
008GT does have a sustainability program we're working on for natural gas looking at the the supply chain and what we can do with our you know the suppliers that were purchasing gas from to encourage the you know best available controls at the wellhead and so forth to reduce emissions so that that question did come up also and whistle indicated that that would be something that he would look for for guidance from the the carbon neutrality Commission but he felt that that was something that the university would consider doing and he said the idea is that with his commitment that is not just focus on the university but also the region is that if you of M procurement practices drove better practices in industry in terms of fugitive methane then he would see that as a
009good thing so I'm guessing that the University will pursue some type of didn't that came in conjunction with the central power plant which is going to be driven by natural gas so there was a lot of questioning related to that at the student forum the other question basically maybe one last thing is he was questioned several times on divestment and made it pretty clear that the university is not going to divest yeah we have a pretty active program I own some wells myself so we're in the process that they're not valuable else they're being permanently capped that's a means of assuring we don't have methane yes you also have to understand when we find natural gas there's a tremendous amount of co2 that's captured too at the same time so it's a it's a pretty
010dynamic problem to avoid all greenhouse gas but isn't it true with regards to gas most of the emissions related problems are well capturing other energy news if not we will move on to a resolution that we have before us there's one thing sure yeah in on April 17th in Lansing there's an electric vehicle ride and drive is it's a pretty big one the Greater Lansing area Clean Cities coalition is hosting it along with some other organizations and a particular interest maybe not everyone will be interested there'll be an electric school bus there one of the models one of the kinds that are being purchased through the statewide consortium of schools that are paying it's being paid for through the VW settlement funds and then also there's going to be a Tesla motor home prototype there
011for folks who would be curious enough to see what that is it's on April 17th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Michigan Agency for energy office I wonder I guess we've discussed this before I would move that the resolution be considered and look for a second and then discussion I frankly don't have anything else to add discussion don't need a second to have discussion okay sure I guess I won't I will join in the discussion here or launch the discussion so I missed the last couple of meetings so I was not here for those discussions I quite frankly wasn't planning to engage that deeply on this resolution my general perspective about where we can have the most impact as a commission is to work on things that are really at the municipal level
012and within the control of the city of Ann Arbor you know to make the best use of our time and here I see our sort of humble little Energy Commission advising City Council to advise the state to do something that I'm no lawyer but my gut feel is might be constitutionally questionable in a post citizens united world so I guess my you know my reaction to this is it seems like quite a symbolic resolution not to say that there's anything necessarily wrong with that I've voted for plenty of other symbolic resolutions here and I know that you know those can be powerful when coupled with many voices together but but I guess my reaction knowing or at least feeling personally that this is largely symbolic is that our choice of words really matters when when
013that's what we're going for and that's where I struggled the most with this resolution it really read to me as less about transparency and about the positive what we were asking for and some of the adjectives in here I just felt like this was really a resolution that was trying to make a point about vilifying an industry and you know I guess I'll just say that that is particularly concerning to me given that we're sitting here having a lot of conversations about how we need to partner effectively with the utility industry and and so I just brought I act up for consideration not expecting it to be a change in the approach or what's voted on tonight but as something may be food for thought to reflect on the language that we use in these
014things an alternative version to this resolution I'll read that now so where as contributions by state utilities to political issue advocacy or so-called dark money 501 C 4 or 527 organizations have recently come to light following a settlement between the Michigan Public Service Commission and one of the state's largest utilities whereas these contributions allow utilities and other companies to advocate about issues of significance to their customers and communities with limited or no transparency where as utilities products are fundamental to the health safety and welfare of communities and are among the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions with electricity generation contributing 28 percent of all u.s. GHG emissions whereas the unique nature and impacts of the utility industry are already recognized by national and state law as reflected in the fact that the industry is regulated
015requiring greater transparency and disclosure of financials and other activities than most industries whereas transparency about the advocacy positions of companies in this unique unique position is key to the ability of the state to effectively regulate and the citizens to themselves advocate for policies and their best interests resolve the Ann Arbor Energy Commission so forthright you could have the same the same resolution so as I say two results I'm not proposing this as an alternative I'm really putting this out there for food for thought right it's a different set of whereas that I hope I mean I we didn't read for the public audience what the what the prior one was but but for those who have the language in front of them I I just put it out there for you to consider and understand
016like just how different sounding those are in the tone and and what I think what kind of symbolism or message it sends while essentially accomplishing the same result so I just leave that there as food for thought in the discussion proposed an alternative resolution it essentially takes shown as resolution and adds the last resolved resolved the owner Commission requested a council to support enactment of legislation all of us take a strong stance supported full transparency requiring full disclosure and political Lobby opera contributions and leave it at that and replace this with shown as as I do believe that the dark money thing is worth doing it the context of the recent case gives us a reason to weigh in to this and we're asking the legislature to do essentially what they're asking here which is
017do something I have a question for clarification are you requesting that the first resolved clause be I'm saying the cancel all everything in this be eliminated except the last resolved and all be replaced with what Commissioner Lenski just read so just if we're commenting back and forth I don't have a problem from at least having listened to your Restatement of it I do feel though that the first resolved makes sense in the context of a whole bunch of whereas statements that only address yo use and what we're doing is putting that with the second resolved in a broader context saying that we are for transparency and disclosure broadly so I think if we're going to have a bunch of raised clauses related to yo use that it makes sense that we have the first resolve
018class I have no problem then the two resolves would go in the rest of it would be eliminated and replaced with Commissioner olinsky's language so councilmember hater also man behavior and I are also on the policy agenda committee and it's the council's committee that drafts our legislative agenda and perhaps whichever of these to you you adopt the revolt resolve Clause should address that committee to add it to there we have a laundry list of things that and this informs our lobbyists and our legislators as to what is important to us in Lansing and so if if we resolve to ask that committee to add this concern to the their list of policy agenda items so as the last resolve the Energy Commission requests that what City Council policy is it an and statement or an
019striking City Council and replacing it right I would replace replace okay because we're currently working on our list of things and if that committee adds it the whole list goes to council and council approves the whole list and they're typically isn't in quibbling at that point okay I just think that functionally this will be the more efficient way to do it and I don't have a preference as to which way you word it no I would be more cautious if we were taking it to Council the harshness that she observed might not play well there but if we're just taking it over to the policy agenda committee I don't have a preference there but you know might be good practice for us to be well mannered so is that the only change the Energy Commission
020of course the policy agenda committee to support the enactment of legislation or consider the enactment support I would say support okay does that eliminate the first resolve and again I don't have a preference there but again they would direct it towards the agenda policy committee in net the city culture well ultimately we need the City Council to do that so and that the way we're getting to the first resolve is the last result right so maybe we should say supports resolve the Energy Commission supports a formal it's just I think City Council's replaced in both clauses by the policy agenda okay I think that's a so my I have a general comment and that is my preference would be not to vote on something that we've only heard but that we have a chance to
021read and postpone any action on the proposed alternative language until our next meeting I'm perfectly comfortable with the alternative so then I'll warn you that if we don't pass this before the next policy agenda meeting I'll still bring it forward I can do that but you know no I just mean yeah in the interim it might just happen without without formal action but we're not required to wait for another month because we're dealing with this resolution which is already modifying so we could based on what we've heard yeah okay so you feel comfortable not having read it comments questions I I having when I having read this one and then listen to that one I I must say this I think that the this this second version but I would like to read it in
022front of me of course it just sounded more like something that city council would be able to it yes I understand the concerns about the language it's the first thing I felt when I read this one and because it well just just for the reasons that that you said it just um just seems I don't know it's it's it's the right thing it's it's the right emotion around the issue but it's the it just be calm yeah possibly yeah something that was just something about it but I think it's I mean it's absolutely something that we should consider in these 527s are policy at all levels and on all different matters it's really is it a danger to the to our democracy so I definitely support that and I think I'll it's a will too
023but I'd love to see what you brought in writing because it sounded better somehow I have a motion on the floor no second right procedurally here it's John's motion and I've offered us a friendly amendment okay that includes two additional amendments so the I think the point of order that was in front of us was whether or not we should have it in front of us before we vote on it we could have Jared for three minutes and good take them to a copy machine mr. chair I have access to a printer if you want one right down the hall right if you want to email me a copy of excess toward a printer but not a cop here so then we move on I would move that we table this until yes right I
024come in second second favor aye it's table for the moment I'm moving on to updates so as we talked about a little bit last meeting we've gone ahead and included solar access ordinance which takes the place of the hundred percent cleaner renewable subcommittee 100 percent clean renewable some committee is still ongoing but it's now working groups mm-hmm and I can do a quick update on the working groups if you guys think that'd be helpful sure we are currently I'm working with Chuck to look at hydroelectric dams Larry Kerber as far as peak shaving and some of the the solar things and so we're moving forward to those things we're also currently looking at some larger projects as far as the potential for solar on a whole bunch of our different buildings municipal buildings Larry is
025helping me vet some of that and then looking for some efficiencies just basically using systems that we already have using them on-site like for example our landfill gas system so all of those things are currently it works I have a quick question sure are those all meeting on an ad hoc basis is that good yeah per work sessions basically it's kind of you know the Commissioner is interested in being involved on a certain project we work on it on an individual basis based off the timing that we feel is appropriate my only request in that regard is that those working groups to find some kind of time bound targets of saying we would like to have I'm just gonna make up one one as an example we'd like to have an evaluation of all city
026properties or these City properties evaluated for solar on whatever basis by date X not that you know we implemented by a certain date but at least the evaluations and a internal proposal looking at the technical and financial feasibility would be complete by some date and we just don't say well we're meeting and we're meeting on an ad-hoc basis and you know 20 30 or 20 whatever we don't know when we're gonna be done sure yeah a lot of the the things that we'll be working on with these working sessions will come back to the Energy Commission in one way or another so yeah I mean the end product will always be it's more to allow some flexibility just as projects come out and to that timeline we should know that we're currently trying to schedule
027adding photovoltaics to fire station number six yes before the end of May yes we do have an check a lot to talk a little bit afterwards but things move in as far as permitting and making sure that we have the right inspections so what about the RFP for the third-party Thunder so we have explored different parties who'd be interested in doing a PPA model and had some preliminary conversations with a few local as well as national groups I guess it would be able to provide that component of it we did talk a little bit more in depth with chart house as far as what they didn't have Salema and who their providers were and how they go through that so that it is currently in the so he's going to do an off here is
028this we're gonna try to do a PPA as part of the know but you're gonna have do naki first and then do the is that yeah I mean there's the process Majid's you're gonna yeah yeah yeah basically there'll be a fair process sure that yeah yep to make sure and is there time to get that done before yeah last week as far as solar access ordinance check do you want to talk a little bit towards that we had a timeline wherein we are attempting to have a solar access solution all those call that whether it's an ordinance or whether it's something else of some recommendation going back to Planning Commission back to council at some point probably in the November timeline this year we set out some interim milestones to accommodate John SMART goal concept
029which is we wanted to have a committee formed sometime this month I don't think we have formally reached out to the Commission so I'm always looking for volunteers to support this obviously I've got a lot of momentum behind this and there's a fair amount of research that's been done I have a lot of community members who have actually contacted me and said smart idea let's do it it was in the newspaper if he read the n over news a few weeks ago so any Commission member that wants to participate in this I think it'll be kind of fun it'll be proactive it won't take a lot of time I think by stretching it over a year we'll have good enough time to pull it all together we are gonna fit in as many of the
030offices within the city which we can sustainability the legal department etc so good plan in place I think to get to the finish line I'm not sure we'll have an easy solution at the end of the day but it's difficult to put it together something that's not a barrier to growth not a barrier to vertical construction and yet protects what is built and that's our main focus it's not so much you know becoming a turf war where we actually carve out portions of the city you can't build it because we have the solar access requirements so it'll be a friendly type approach but it will also protect investment any volunteers I'd love to take names now mark and Wayne okay sounds great we have met once already we talked about how to publish documents up
031to the website so we already have some things up there and I will send instead of update to the Commission so everybody's on the same page communicating all these goals and what we're trying to accomplish I've been in meetings all day yesterday and today so I haven't kept up with all of my email but the intention was to provide a final draft of the lighting ordinance to planning to Brett Leno yep Leonard by yesterday so over the weekend there was an email that that would that was the intent and I presume that that actually happened so there is a final draft and it was planning and was going to be provided also to the design review board that saw an earlier draft as well as the historic Commission that also was presented an early draft
032and the hope is that that would clear planning and then could potentially come back here through both Commission's to go to Council in the next let's say 1 to 2 months question yes it's new and major renovations and there's a clause in there that has to be discussed with planning and whether it's even possible that after a certain period of time existing lighting has to be brought up to the new ordinance level so I think it was within ten years but there was some question from planning whether that even could be included in the UDC where there's an amortization I think they called it clause so I don't know that that's gonna be determined in the end by planning so apparently someone from the dark sky group got to somebody at the county level and
033so they're considering an ordinance and come to find out that the lights in front of their building the lights in front of a building are owned by the city yeah so my question is how would that baby in the clause that says sometime in the next ten years we'll fix that what if they wanted fixed so the lighting ordinance I think I mentioned here before does not deal with the public right away so street lighting and pedestrian crossing lighting and things like that that's in the public right away that's governed by the so-called orange book and the intent is once the lighting ordinance related to private property wouldn't apply by the way to U of M either U of M has not unfallen der city ordinances that once that was let's say well received and
034went through then we would proceed to look at the orange book and modifying it relates to street lighting so we didn't want to bite off both if there was not an appetite an agreement that we would be regulating these kinds of things and if there was an council accepted that then we would go and look at orange book together with the city and what how that lighting should be addressed okay I think that answers your question right okay John I walked in as you were speaking yeah that's right tell me that timeline again how long before it might be an ordinance well it's it's in final draft sent to planning and as I mentioned it's also going to the Design Review Board for comment as well as the historic Commission so that would be funneled
035back through planning and I just surmised that potentially within one to two months something might be able to go in front of Council I don't know if that's unrealistic or not but the Planning Commission has already seen I had a presentation on the general concept of a lighting ordinance we met with both planning as well as with Bret they saw an earlier version of the draft roughly a month ago maybe five or six weeks ago there was a lot of detailed comments that were then revised in the latest draft that they received on Monday and the reason I ask is that I would like to see the city move forward quicker than you need our own purchases then in our regulation of other people's purchases and a month ago we signed a contract this year's
036street lighting right and it doesn't include any of these considerations so if they're if in this ordinance that you're building there's a set of criteria or guidelines or whatever it might be that we could start putting into RFPs as we purchased lighting for whatever purpose I wouldn't mind sending a resolution out of this commission to City Council in hopes that they would adopt some standards for staff to use in our purchases I can take that back to the working group because essentially our work is done with other than just some minor iterations presumably that we might have with planning and since we're done with this and there seems to be an appetite for having rules related to lighting not only on public but also better practices for our own City lighting and in the public
037right away that we maybe then could immediately start to take up the regulations in the orange book I think that's what yeah yes in fact council is is always considering improved lighting yes as an aspect of pedestrian and other for safety right and if we're gonna spend all of this money in the short term then then we really should be addressing yeah and we met with Kathy specifically maybe two and a half months ago and of course her primary interest is in the public right away in crossings although glare and light trespass on public property also affects pedestrian crossings and things like that so if someone has a bright light on a porch or something on a light post that's very close to pedestrian crossing that that glare or that light trespass could also affect
038the public right away in any kind of crossings or traffic that's on those streets so we did talk about that with her but yeah I agree and probably the biggest impact in terms of safety and things like that is in the pub the lighting in the public right away so council member Griswold when I attended a Sierra Club presentation in dark skies yeah we're Sally oh he presented yes yes yeah and she's on the working group by the way yeah and councilmember Griswold is a strong supporter of all of those concepts yes no hmm and she she expressed that when she met with us so I'll definitely take that back and I'll address her and the other two people that are on the working group both of whom serve on the Planning Commission so I
039think hopefully that'll paved the way through the planning but that we then start looking at that right away yes yeah is just a real quick one John can this commission receive a copy of this in advance well it's still not a copy was supposed to be sent to you have you received it yet yeah you could that's the current draft yep formal resolution for this to make it to our administration and when they consider it when they're considering very near-term purchasing can't we just we've been passing on to Howard and say it the problem is is that the the lighting specifications in this are very different than it would be for in the public right away because the lighting is generally different I mean some basic concepts will apply like fully shielded and things like
040that but especially things like pedestrian crossings and lighting near pedestrian crossings that might be affected I think it's gonna be very different I'm I'm I was on the committee but frankly I'm a layperson so that's my my sense I did take the hint from councilman Eaton two meetings ago about the $500,000 and purchases roughly and I mentioned that to the city administrator when I met with him when I meet with him every every other week and alerted him to the concern that was that we all shared that were proceeding to replace city lighting with potentially substandard lighting and that doesn't really make sense and so he he acknowledged that and I had the sense that he was going to address it but I don't know if that actually happened so if I have the criteria
041that we want to apply I can walk in and ask city administrator Lazarus if he needs a resolution from Council I would assume that comes down to lumens so as long as the that you have to have a certain amount of lighting for safety and crosswalk and stuff like that dark sky you're just talking about not wasting that movements by going up so the shielding and things like that you know to you know a good adhere to the principles of the dark sky and about a fire accordingly probably have to put a light bright light in maybe or a reflector so in the half million dollar purchase that we just made all of the equipment you know and so absolutely it would go all the way back to so I have a question if I
042may then why didn't count Souls simply vote it down and say let's take this up I mean it was there an urgency for this lighting could it have been delayed I'm just gonna make up something until August where maybe we would have had something that maybe was 99 percent of the way there or 90 percent of the way there I'm just wondering if that was even discussed I'm sorry I just I wonder if they wanted to slip by us on the consent agenda I believe that I asked the questions as the contractor delay the construction I mean we're weighing two separate set of values we guess we want those extra lighting for safety but we don't want to light up the sky and those are two separate things yeah and I actually don't recall whether
043I asked that question at the meeting or elsewhere but um it seemed to me that someone indicated to me that a delay would just put it off for those so it was it was tied to some other street construction or something like that well it was that it wouldn't happen this construction season if we went back and rebuilt the contract with the specifications that would meet the dark skies criteria so jack is it I'm sure that the contract has a modification Clause built into it it might be worth exploring if some of this could be done with dark sky they I mean they were respond to a bit you didn't ask them for dark sky stuff but they may be perfect I just started to recall the conversation because I remember looking through the drawings
044now and a lot of it was the work on the ringpost the Bates they know the post work but well it changed I'm right exactly I remember there's no sensation it's was there and they were saying well we'll come back and get the right heads if we have to so it's entirely possible that that maybe even worth it just to shuffle that order as it were is here right I mean they got a contract now so how we're talking about a modification and they're they're adding price to it it was wonderful of course they're gonna add a price now take it as an action item to see whether we can take this up right away and whether or not there's any ability to influence the current contract yes great thanks for the reminder change things
045if you can on Curtis expenditure on to the energy audit disclosure ordinance yeah so council member keener Commissioner mercy and I met [Music] and we talked a little bit of a disclosure we also had a I had a conversation with Portland concerning their ordinance we had a few questions as far as enforcement there's a few things as far as condominiums as well so we got a lot of those questions answered we went over those right as well so yeah that was a very successful meeting Jay I believe and we talked about kind of it was more of a holistic evu work plan maybe we talked about kind of separating out the specific kind of EB ordinance stuff that we were trying to work on on the infrastructure side and from the maybe more more aggressive
046kind of implementation side I guess so we're going to go back and kind of separate those out and then what else we talked about this week yeah they said kind of separating out those two different timelines trying to get our timeline on the infrastructure ordinance within this year what's gonna target within about 12 months just like to make a remark about the situation I've had several constituents asked me to ask me DDA to install more electric vehicle parking in our parking structures especially on Forest apparently there's a total absence of easy infrastructure on at the forest street structure that is sorely needed people are parking at Manor Thompson and walking you know across the die essentially to their offices and things so they can take advantage of the Evy parking here and so it seems
047like there's the that need has already been there what we've given has already been is fully being used and we could use more as what I'm hearing from constituents so I'm not sure how we move that forward but I'm all for it if if we're starting to see people's behavior and they they like parking clothes whatever the deal is they want it and they need it so that's I think that's positive news but I'm not sure what we if we need to do anything here on energy to encourage deviator to get with that but I just some talk of it I don't know if you were going all exactly but I'm not sure where they sit as far as how maxed out their services because I know that was the big limiting factor or how
048much how much power they had to the facility how big their transparent performers were I think that they were getting pretty close we could potentially bring Dave Conklin and I'm sure he knows he was we couldn't put things like storage in because the feeders are just tapped and matter so so as soon as you reach that situation you start adding time to chargers now you're looking at rhe conduct during the whole facility and now you're talking about a pretty big expense so DDA would have to look at budgeting for a conversion with adding any more than two or three spots would be probably pretty tough from experience mm-hmm so if you've not done it from day one I heard the retrofit so it's there probably is but the conductor's feeding all that restriction I'm not
049sure what's being done you know they're adding source to the hand parking garage NIDA and I don't know whether they're doing anything with Dave's got the record set up so we could certainly ask him to another suggestion I think we had early on was to maybe bring someone from the DDA to the subcommittee just to be able because you know it seems like the DDA is such a large part of evey charging especially when it comes to commercial downtown area so that's something I could definitely talk to Emily about saying if we can find someone to to join the subcommittee as well so we've been urging the DDA for some time to install solar panels and it is a consideration in the expansion of the and street parking structure mm-hmm but that's a couple years
050down the road I think but certainly if they start installing solar than then you have that capacity to charge vehicles during the day just off from your solar panels that would hope yeah it's a little difficult because you never know when the sun's gonna shine or not well intermittency are they doing batteries though well I explained net doing anything at all yet so yeah they did install a small installation as a test you know on a surface lot and that was I think two years or more ago and they haven't moved forward on any other solar installation but they have a promise that the expansion to the Ann Street parking structure will have the structural capacity to install solar panels I mean they'll design it in rather than retrofitting it after they do it so
051that's a positive mm-hmm but it's not the same as including solar panels in the reconstruction so it occurs to me that the county is leasing a large portion of that structure currently which is one of the reasons that we need an expansion and perhaps the county would be interested in moving their electric vehicle Parker's up to the top good yeah of course we would want to make sure that I think if you had three floors to that particular structure it's gonna be taller than most anything they've built in that neighborhood but I could type in bro Wow why not main is probably still taller and I guess it probably isn't an asset they could do something to the east that's why we're rating gun commissioner how come the solar access solution I feel the pressure
052get like it moving right along outreach to schools [Music] I'll just read you the statement so the Ann Arbor Public Schools recognizes that climate change is real increasing and caused by human activity and the Ann Arbor community is committed to practices that support a healthy environment for present and future generations and the district has a responsibility to help prepare current and future generations to respond to climate change through the reduction of harmful human activities the promotion of human activities that restore the environment and the development of strategies to adapt to climate change so the district will support the prioritization of environmental sustainability education that prepares the present and future generations to become thoughtful stewards of the environment and developing student leaders prepared to succeed in an assertive Climate Change future and maintaining and operating district
053buildings and grounds that reduce the environmental impact of human activities promote restoration of the environment and adapt to climate change and building and enhancing partnerships that support the Ann Arbor community's environmental principles superintendent and or designee x' will report annually to the board of education on activities related to this policy so the in May of 2018 the district formed the environment and sustainability Advisory Committee of which I was a member and in March we wrapped up the comprehensive sustainability action actions so these recommendations are broken into like short-term medium-term long-term priorities and are based on the four different categories that the district prioritize and its commitment which are environmental sustainability education student leaders district buildings and grounds and partnerships so the recommendations that we created over the last year will be presented to the anti
054Republic School Board of Education in an upcoming meeting and so that's really great news on another topic could be update on the solar power project at the Ann Arbor steam at Northside school the an iris team project is a ten thousand dollar mark in its donations and and grants and in order to meet the June 30th deadline for spending some of the grant funds the school district will put up bids for a ten thousand dollar expandable array to be built on the gym roof I'm leading this week with Jason being at the at the site to go over the exact location on the roof where that's gonna be so students will be able to access data on the performance of the system and then on the gym roof there'll be plenty of room for more
055generation capacity as additional funds become available that's my update okay wonderful news school system is wonderful I have a question too has the school system allocated any resources towards the ends of that are defined in this new language I forget what you called it whether it's a clause or a paragraph or would you call it again 8000 its board policy policy yeah so it's setting these policies but apparently there's no specific metrics or targets or resources to find is that correct yet not yet okay and the intention is to do all of the above yes okay great question so I guess it's more of a statement is it it would be would it be helpful if this Commission were to acknowledge and commend the fourth with this board policy hundred thousand we can do that
056ourselves and we could also add suggest the City Commission might want to do the same thing it's it's it's laudable and the fact that you do have a system in place to add SMART goals and smart things to it I think it's just excellent you know if you were to put forth that have a resolution second okay I've never written the resolution before so I'll have a lot of fun doing and I'm very excited okay okay I think it's just you know this commission recognizes it and gouges and commends the you know the school board for their board policy 8,000 and the subsequent work and and we can do that and we can do a second one to the City Commission saying that we we think they should commanded okay okay City Commission that I'm
057sorry you know City Council oh so you can't say okay yeah so your doubt the right you did the resolution we adapt it and then we will do a second one say we should pass about the jacket okay great report from the environmental Commission so I do have a little bit of housekeeping before we go on so we do have to vote John back in as the liaison so they'll still want to be that's up to you I'm willing to serve as the liaison yes okay motion yes I motion that John first give me a point is that representative to the environmental Commission discussion do I need to leave the room [Laughter] as the renewed lays on so that the the primary work of the environmental Commission has been to I think I mentioned the
058last time we're breaking up into three I think they're working groups I think they're not subcommittees one natural features one water issues both watershed as well as clean water and the other is on solid waste each one of those so that was two meetings back each one of those groups came back and defined specific goals for the coming year in terms of what they wanted to accomplish in some cases it's basically defining certain types of policies or recommendations and things like that establishing metrics where there are no metrics for example natural features really doesn't have metrics other than tree cover which is really not necessarily the best metric and so those goals were all presented to the environmental Commission and accepted to be honest with you I don't have them me and I can't recite
059them by memory and if I recall correctly those I think went to council in the last meeting in consent agenda and I think were were approved if I'm not mistaken so that was the first first meeting if it was in the consent agenda yes but it was there was nothing controversy we didn't slip anything yet no it wasn't okay maybe I'm mistaken or maybe maybe it's on the next meeting because I did look at to it to city agendas council meeting recently and I can't to be honest with you now recall whether it was on the upcoming one or the one that yeah it so it must be the one that's I thought we had the bylaws on April 1st didn't that come before us was that pact okay in any case they need to
060go in front of council and if it wasn't if I'm mistaken then though it'd probably be the next meeting cuz those are now have been approved by by the environmental Commission and if anybody's interested then let me know when I can get them to you and just maybe one other thing related to environmental Commission the next solid waste advisory committee meeting is on April 23rd I believe and we're supposed to get recommendations from the city and optim in advance of that meeting what they're going to recommend in the solid waste resource management plan update so the intent is that those on the advisory committee can review those and we can have a lot of dialogue in that meeting before final action is taken in the last Advisory Committee meeting in May and then all the
061recommendations are supposed to be finalized and presented I think in the June or beginning of July right so I I can't tell you what those are yet because I haven't seen them but well we will get them and I can report out on some of those them in the next meeting and in the beginning of May okay well let's go back to just fun to be clear because we've been talking about different terms that dark money is bad dark sky money is good do you want me to read this into the record she'd already confusion we have is the resolutions yeah well except with the change that City Council is now replaced by the policy agenda in both results today I asked just a question about generally what it says in the first where has
062causes Michigan Public Service Commission and one of the state's largest utilities what what settlement said referring to specifically well I'm sorry what settlement is that referring to oh that was a settlement between the MPSC and consumers energy where consumers energy agreed for one year to 18 months 18 months to I'm looking is limited it was limited just to consumers energy okay thank you I guess I do have you know a question on the resolved clause I didn't I wasn't trying to adjust that but I just noticed now I mean it says like AI OU's and their parent company is right which refers to electric investor-owned utilities that's what that stands for not sure if there was a rationale behind kind of specific specifically talking about a io u--'s or I mean because there's other utilities
063that are not so anyways I don't know what the what the thinking was in this space well maybe I'll just say prohibiting consider monopoly is prohibiting regulated utilities can we ask someone to speak from the public because the original draft came from one of the people in the public and maybe we can get at least if we just if we just invested utilities yes yes we also worried about MPP a problem I have with this is I think it was raised once it is focused on two companies where the reality of this dark money is massive it's 527s on steroids yeah so should we be focused on 527s on steroids in our resolution and distance where do we want to focus this on the electric industry or the gas industry or well I guess another
064sight of why we're doing but what's wrong with saying you know investor-owned or well regulated utilities know that fixing the muties and but but the MPA it's related to the NPS deals with yeah then we got a problem since we have our elected officials in this first we saw the MPs he's not elected they're appointed at least the commissioners are and the staffs just hired so they're not really well but this this is directed at legislation that would be passed by elected officials that would then guide but yeah it's it's more complicated yeah if we struck the first result and just kept a second wouldn't it encompass everything that's already in the first well that's what I thought of initially I think the second clause is too yeah it's not just the full disclosure it's
065the it's don't do it legislation all those takes in support full transparency and you could expand the second clause then to say prohibiting right yeah right and you know and or requiring full disclosure but you get rid of some of the complication first one prohibiting and/or full disclosure of transparency requiring support for inhibiting Pro yeah really no bro evening I I recommend that we not do this on the fly I mean with there's no no urgency to this and rather than people blurting out ideas and one person writing it down and then reading it aloud and so on and so forth I think it makes sense that for example Shawn and I look at this and come up with one piece of paper that addresses the overall the overall topic and we bring it back
066I mean that would be my the essence of my statement that it would be withdrawn difference to know you can go ahead and postpone it to the next meeting and if we have a policy agenda meeting in the interim I will bring this up I mean directionally you know between the two actually the sooner you send me a draft of this that's - the more informed that would be so moved any would like to speak or should close not for items for the next also update to greenhouse gas inventory looking forward to for some time now do we get our our DTE data where did we did good after after a nasty Graham I hundred so we'll be presenting on that and then the energy efficiency residential energy efficiency programs anything else I just wanted
067to float something out there briefly if I may I had I had a couple of constituents pitch an idea to me that I wanted to share with the Energy Commission and it stopped me if I've said this to some of you before but they if you may recall the bookmobile that used to go around and bring books to people well this idea was a bald mobile that goes around and it replaces people's energy hogging balls with balls with high efficient LEDs the ball mobile and he could schedule him to come over and for a small fee they would send someone over who knew how to do it safely and had the tools to do it and could also drop off some other information to the homeowner and I just want to throw that out there
068because it sounded like a pretty good idea to me and I was at a thing earlier where Missy dr. Stoltz was giving away a grant so there was some sustainability grants that the city is doing and I wanted to you know I wouldn't be for me to do it but it seemed like the kind of thing that might be perfectly appropriate for one of those sustainability grants and might really go a long way towards public education efforts and also really you know reducing energy use here in the city so I told him I say the words bald mobile and I kind of like it I don't know how to move it forward but it just seemed like an interesting idea to me and I wanted to share it and see if anybody had any input
069on something like that well DTE does do I recall the East to have the kit and it would have the showerhead and the pipe tape and it's time it might be a good item for the agenda for next time after we hear what Dee T's programs are we've had conversations in the past here about how do we think about the city's programs building on but not replicating what's already offered by DTE so that you know but in the interim you can also inform them that they can call DTE and sign up for a home energy consultation and the bulb mobile will come by along with other other things like insulation for hot water pipes I mean a certain number of feet if they don't have a programmable thermostat I believe they still will replace that
070for free so they offer a number as well as showerheads so a lot of what they're asking for is already in the program and then we can talk after the presentation about how we might ought meant that and build on that okay yeah that's that's interesting I remember that I didn't know how active its to us so I think that's a good time to speak speaking this again they're required to have a certain percentage of energy reduction every year the only disadvantage is that as was report at least at that time was that DTE has as well we're talking about DT primarily at least for Ann Arbor is they have a certain amount of money that comes from their race and I believe they said that they typically run out of that money in the
071fall so if people wait and call in September or October then they may get an answer well we're not conducting any more but if they were to act in the near term they should be able to get in line and have the bulb mobile come by in the next several weeks all right but you're absolutely right that we need to do more outreach education well that was part of our conversation around the funding of sustainability that the city is only responsible you know we can only do so much for our own selves their own buildings in our own and our own homes but and we know that and so yeah I think that was sort of something that was sitting on the nexus of outreach and also you know you know practicality and the idea
072that it would have somebody's graphics on the side of this truck just kind of appealed to me somehow so Commissioner Murphy brought up the environmental Commission work plan and it is on our next agenda but it's not an action item oh it's not many things are sent to council and end up at the end of the agenda just as Communications have been received we're not gonna do anything with it you're you're communicating to us what your intention is yeah it takes no no real approval or action on the part of the council to let you go do that Thanks okay right well if there's nothing else call this meeting adjourned at 26 minutes after 7:00 you