Environmental Commission 2-28-19

001good evening everybody I'd like to call the meeting to order ms Drennan would you please call the roll sure let's do this Commissioner Graham I'm here Thank You Commissioner Commissioner Skinner here Commission Chair Needham here councilmember Smith present Commissioner Slavik here commissioner Gabe Randall council member Bannister here commissioner at Cal alert yeah Commissioner Brown absent and Commissioner uphill oh I added you and it didn't keep it I'm sorry thank you we circulated the agenda ahead of time there are a few printed copies if anybody in the audience would like to look at one do we have a motion to approve the agenda second all in favor hi and we had actually three meetings worth of minutes to get to first up August 23rd any additions or Corrections to the August 23rd minutes motion to approve

002so moved second I think it was council member Smith second by Commissioner mirskiy thank you Oh in favor aye and then the minutes of December 6th any corrections to those motion to approve so moved all in favor hi and finally January 24th any corrections to those fantastic motion to approve second Oh in favor aye great thanks next item up is our public commentary are there any members of the public who would like to address the Commission tonight if you would just to come up to the podium here and state your name there will be another opportunity at the end of the meeting if you're interested we don't have any unfinished business and our primary item of new business this evening is a facilitated goal-setting session for our work for the rest of the year and

003Miss drennan is going to lead us in this process in short we're gonna sort of talk about some broad topic areas and then gather some ideas for specific things within those topic areas that we might address and then we'll all vote on both our priorities so I'm sure thank you to Needham I think the the hope of this is that the Commission is supposed to submit a work plan to cancel every year for its approval I don't think it's happened recently so this is a good chance to I think it's a good opportunity for the Commission to think about priorities as well as to meet that requirement I would suggest that we try and be as specific as we can be and as realistic as we can be in terms of what the Commission's able

004to take on we have 10 meetings left in the year of Commission meetings and then one of them may be a metrics meeting or a meeting to discuss what's going to happen in 2020 so the number of meetings that the Commission has to conduct business is limited and I'll throw out one more sort of limitation is that council just passed a resolution that mandates the staff be at every subcommittee meeting and there are staff limitations in terms of being able to be there to do minutes and to facilitate so those are the sort of parameters that I'm hoping that folks are going to be okay working with him does anybody feel anybody else want to talk about sort of the goal for the evening sort of basically that the broad topic areas are likely to

005translate into subcommittees as kind of kind of how we're thinking so just kind of keep that in mind as we go forward so over here you you all came up with some ideas before so that's I just put that up there so that it isn't lost those are Missy transcribed those and then chair Needham came up with several topic areas that you can see behind us they're not meant to be there's a couple pages that are blank so if there's a topic area missing I want to have that conversation now so let's go through them real quick for folks that might not be able to see them solid waste issues natural features water quality climate action and a miscellaneous category are there any other broad categories that people feel like are missing that should go

006up there um Commissioner Brown in his email that he sent everyone did mention parks and open space as a topic area but my sense is we should maybe stay away from that given that there is Parks Commission does anyone disagree with that and some of the things that he right so there's a lot of overlapping spheres one of the things that we're often missing when we come features is how we encourage connectivity to be able to try to get more out of the park system that we have transportation system that we have that is in those parks there's not a real great way right now to be able to do that so with that said the caveat that I always worry about when we get into discussion and put up one one board that says

007natural features is that we start to box in this thinking so I would encourage all of us as we think about that how we link some of these things together to be able to try to figure out how we get the best outcome yeah classic example trees versus solar panels - great night versus not versus well said I have a question as the energy about the climate action topic and I think it deserves to be on the board but what I would ask is that people think about what it is that the environmental commission would do that adds to or collaborates with what the Energy Commission is doing and does not make it entirely redundant so what kinds of things fall under climate action I mean certainly some of solid waste does in the sense

008that we're reducing methane gases from landfill emissions but it under climate action if you if people are adding things or post-its what would that be different than the kinds of things that I've been talking about that the energy is Commission is working on and if there's additional clarification necessary I could I could mention that can I just ask for clarification about maybe it was said that I missed it where these came from these are kind of thought starters that just seemed natural to me and dr. Stahl term is drowning Oh God you know these are topics that have come up before and we have had a natural features subcommittee in the past ready for this meeting was how much do we want to work directly from some of the things that have been presented to

009us already like the sustainability plan what's in the dashboard I'm a new member but it seems like we've got a lot of existing kind of frames already and perhaps there's alignment that's right well um I mean I think what we're trying to do tonight is to set some priorities for which of those things we want to make our highest priorities and what makes the most sense to set up in a subcommittee format which pick up on that the sustainability framework I sort of agree with what John is sort of sort of a starting point yeah and there are seven goals within the framework and for example clean air isn't here at all and I don't know if that should be there I mean and there may be others that at least people should consider potentially

010and I don't know if there was pre discussion between the two of you and Missy that says we don't even want to consider all seven we would really only like to focus in on these four and we'll these down to two so no like I said these are intended as thought starters and certainly we're intending to limit anything I guess I might suggest that if we did one clean air it might go with climate action rather than as a separate thing good I could put clean air up there you know if I might make a suggestion we have ten meetings left some of this is trying to prioritize what we're gonna tackle at each meeting so you know obviously we have two meetings that will deal with the solid waste plan so that's a pretty

011big priority of this group and has been and will continue to be I could anticipate even a third meeting dealing specifically with the MuRF and recycling you know all of a sudden you're down to seven meetings and you know what subcommittees could meet and work on in that group and then I look at some of the things and and what Steve sent was really good getting the the brain going I mean the Energy Commission can tackle one of the things that we've talked about here a lot which is coming up with that energy efficiency program and all of that so that takes that really off our plate as a focus of a meeting I think you know some of what we can focus on in terms of air and water quality are you know we

012will undoubtedly continue to talk about PFS and Gilman and potentially a few other sites within the city and then as I look at some other things that that he threw out there you know maybe we can prioritize in the natural features you know what we need to drill down on because I know councils gonna want to hear from this body on hey what do we do about the deer management program because we're coming up on the fourth year and we're gonna want some advice on how do we go forward with this should we go forward with it if should we expand it should we make it smaller what do we do and I think that as a council person I would like to hear this body's recommendation on that okay so are there other broad

013categories besides clean air that people want to see reflected on the pieces of paper behind us as a topic area okay fantastic so John you would mention the sustainability framework did you how did you want it I could read them off and people could see if they resonate and chair just list them off so one is sustainable systems and I don't have the the verbage that follows that but there are currently two indicators that are on the dashboard one is tree condition and the other is impervious surface so that has some some of that ties obviously then to natural features but impervious surface it doesn't really I to any specific activity here I don't think maybe water quality a little bit then the next one is transportation options we have a Transportation Committee and probably

014those are sampled to some degrees their 1 1 is the indicators is present non-motorized commutes and the other again some of these haven't necessarily been tracked very well but the other one is just a National Citizen survey measure called overall use or overall ease of travel so that maybe was something we do leave out the next goal relative to the environmental Commission was integrated land use and that's also a National Citizen survey metric related to land use planning and zoning and the other one is the overall built environment I believe that might also be an NCS measure the fourth is local food and we really don't have a very good measure there that we and we didn't come up with them when the sub committee was meeting one of them is snap-in EBT purchases at

015the farmers market so that's really not probably a very good indicator of how many people in total are buying and using local food and then the second under that is green belt land preserved which may be something that we consider possibly under Nance natural features I don't know that would be something that group would have to determine the fifth was clean air and water and there's three metrics there actually one is not defined but I'll mention it the first is days of unhealthy air quality the second is green infrastructure the third is again not a very good measure in my view and private belongs more under energy number of EB charging stations the sixth is healthy ecosystems with two metrics tree canopy and watershed health so clean water potentially you know it's that's really looking

016at the watershed health and not so much looking at what I think this is and this is more drinking water quality but I don't know if that was what was intended here or not and then the last one was responsible resource use where one of the metrics is percent waste diverted which really ties then to on solid waste and another one metric there is also solid race-related also an NCS survey question related to recycling collection that's what's currently in the framework and in the dashboard well the first thing that I'm curious about is how folks feel about maybe taking the word quality off of water and just have it be water in general and that would get to the stormwater and Creek shed health does that sound like something that folks are agreeable to okay

017and then I guess following up with what John was able to share with us did anything else resonate with folks that would rise to the level of a topic that you'd be interested in having us discuss tonight John again curious has a relatively new person whether there should be something about the dashboard and indicators Eric that's something that's gonna be contained in all of these or if we should really focus on that as its own category well I would like it to be integrated personally I mean I think we do think Commissioner mirskiy is absolutely right that we need to be paid more attention to all these things but I think that that you know we can each subcommittee can do that as they as they take things up that's kind of how I'd like

018to see it and we may do once a year meeting of really digging into the nitty gritty oh I thought you were so I have a kind of question about metrics John as you were going through a lot of that a lot of the metrics that were using to measure our progress on these things is the National Community Survey data which is pretty nebulous and in my mind pretty worthless for gauging real progress on it I mean I would you know Emily you had mentioned that potentially one of our meetings will be about metrics I think one of the big priorities that we should set this year is to come up with quantitative ways to evaluate the progress that we're making here you know that's way above my pay grade to figure that one out

019but you guys are all really smart and talented and I know you guys can help us do this but I think ultimately that's what we need to be able to to tie things to and I know some of these things are hard to quantify that we don't have data to quantify a lot of these things but the more that we can put the evaluation as a strictly quantitative process I think it makes it easier for everybody to understand and to make assessments as to whether we're making sufficient progress one of the things that we worked on this summer with the metrics committee as we did go through the sustainability framework and we did identify which metrics we were currently using that we thought were useful measures and which ones we could measure differently and some

020of those indicators came from star I would also advocate that we stay with the sustainability framework because it's it's a standardized thing it's a way that we can compare how we're doing with other parts of the city rather than inventing our own thing and if we do that you know we've done a lot of that background work already and I think that we could perfect see that was exactly the answer I was looking for you okay how do other folks feel about putting if there were two folks that were interested in having metrics up there how do you you still feel like you have it up there I think that if you know the work that was done last summer by the subcommittee can be incorporated into you know as we have these topics to

021introduce this is how we're going to measure these things I think that that's probably sufficient to build it into the way we do business you know I think you know I took to heart the email that John sent that every working meeting that we have we consider you know how we report where we are on these things and I think the more that we do that the better and more effective we will be so I'm okay leaving it off of there as long as you know we move forward with thinking that we have to build these figures into what we're doing if I may comment I have no problem with the subcommittee's that are really focused on a topic thinking about the work that was done in the joint subcommittee and looking at that and

022then evaluating whether those indicators are indeed good indicators or if there's something better and in some cases we came up with let's say ideas but not really a final recommend a there are things one or more choice choices from star that looked good but we also said well maybe there's even something better than that and so I think doing those in the subcommittee's that are feet that are really focused on that topic area makes a lot of sense and in the end I think to what councilman Smith said what we really want to do is in the end say that over the last year or over the last five years in working on X we delivered these better outcomes for the residents of an IRA that there was a you know a measurable improvement in

023whatever the group comes up with whether it's tree canopy or whether it's you know water quality as measured by PFS or whatever it is and we just didn't say well we introduced 15 resolutions and passed them and they went up to the state and Lansing and we don't have know any measurable improvement say for example as we have had with diversion rate for five years five diversion rate for for solid waste has stayed flat for five years that's we shouldn't be proud of that none of us should be and I don't mean just this group I mean all all stakeholders working in that area one last thing it that I'd like to add to what I was what John was saying and the work that we did before is that we also identified that this

024city was not necessarily the source of all most relevant data that Walk Score could be a really useful indicator for ease of Transportation and the here on Red River watershed Council might have more data about watershed quality and that we should be open and pursuing those kinds of partnerships again so we're not doing redundant information or redundant work and that we have the best information okay fantastic so no separate Schmitt metrics it sounds like no separate metrics okay so this is the fun part where you get to think of a brainstorm and you should have a everybody up here should have a set of sticky notes does anybody need any now so this is the large yellow ones we're gonna do different things with the other sticky notes so I want to take we'll see

025you maybe like five minutes and if you can write up as many important specific projects that you think that these sections should work on go ahead and do that and then you'll just write them down on your sticky note and put them in their area and then what we're gonna do after that is we're gonna vote on both the topic areas as well as specific projects and if you are able to if you want to be part of it I can bro this for a second um use this small thing and write your name next to it and if you are willing to chair just write chair or something like that so we want to gauge both the sense of the topics the specific projects project ideas as well as and then we'll get into

026voting so let's yeah one idea per note one idea per note okay with our name and if we're willing to chair and if we're willing to be on the subcommittee of those the yeah so the idea of the yellow one oh the okay and then your name and like whether you'd be on the committee or a chair on the smaller one it's sound good yep so let's take let's take some time and do that really big deal so just a time check how are folks doing do we need a couple more minutes I think you're still reading okay so no we'll do a couple more minutes yeah we did it with miscellaneous kind of for that don't even need any more time to come up with topics okay so for the purposes of making sure

027that folks in the audience can hear as well are see the ideas as well as folks at home I'm gonna go and I'm just gonna briefly read off and I don't even know if the microphones gonna catch it but that way at least folks that the audience can hear what's up here yeah solid waste we have MuRF and recycling composting expansion expand the organics collection year-round residential a business solid waste increased diversion organics and recycling mirth or other processing solution get a fully functional MuRF work with recycling Arbor to update the recycling guide in a prominent place on the city website hire solid waste manager reconsider the value of single stream recycling zero organic waste by 2020 something sustainable solid waste management by implementing a pay as you throw programs educate residents on reduce reuse

028recycle consume less products with packaging pays you throw or other incentive to reduce waste and increase recycling and reuse construction and demolition waste recycling is that correct okay recycling collection range of materials diversion rate produced zero waste and authorized the use of reused sub-races resources in our community and as I'm standing here I'm realizing that a lot of these are similar so let's group them so that if folks are voting there's one big solid chunk so I'm going to take work and recycling and I'm gonna put all get a fully functional MuRF all together [Music] your right hand seemed like a good collection of things okay I have a question yeah do we want to go down everything and then come back or do we want to sort of focus on a topic and then

029move and then maybe make a decision or not and then move on I don't know if it's better to consider a topic sort of from top to bottom or if it's better to get an overview and then come back and say okay now that we have an overview what do we want to do is there a sense okay overview okay ordnance inventory of put a value updated for 2019 and beyond as part of the team that begins to address climate change by managing according our natural features thank you so much natural features inventory baseline I'm gonna put that with the inventory up here tree canopy and tree conditions it's a part of it is really an establishing baseline yeah oh yeah I did okay thank you natural features policy opportunities with parks and Planning Department

030planning and okay nature is transportation corridors for walking biking questions that was that could that also be a part of the inventory where we differentiate between that and then maybe would that also then potentially be coupled with an ordinance that's focused on those special categories sort of the combination of the two [Music] so sorry I'm sorry I just wanted to mention I was a little big in the parks parks we keep getting offers for slivers of land from developments that if they were more thoughtfully contributed could become part of more connectivity I think there needs to be some sort of policy solution for this and it's very challenging because you have to encourage people to be able to develop their Lots differently but we do that for all sorts of other things anyway I'm just

031not sure how we come up with a solution for this spatial link across undeveloped sites so how you know how do you take a site that's nothing right now and be able to put it together with two other completely disparate things so this is it just feeds back to what Chris was saying in terms of the GIS system and that helps to look at what we're considering natural features right now from a user's perspective both as human users and also you know wildlife and other things and being able to try and put together some policies that help to steer us in that direction you know certainly though if this is very similar to what you're saying with these with these heritage trees because they are such important pieces of the landscape already how we begin

032to put this together and also with a transportation layer over the top of that so these cut throughs that you know kids use to be able to get from one neighborhood to the other actually can start to turn into more of our transportation corridor a network at the same time - like I say these are these are pretty amorphous thoughts right now but you know this is the place where these various people come together that think about these things to be able to try and make this happen on the ground and over time by itself or would you like to put it with the inventory since you mention that I think it makes sense to go with the inventory as long as folks can also consider what we would be trying to do with this

033in terms of policy solutions after yes and then we have a last-minute addition celebrate chimney Swifts and protect their habitat any other kind of natural features before I move underwater so recommend City actions to combat keifa's contamination revisit stormwater regulations a damn superior part new feature of these dams communications about whether to buy a home filter digital signs by new liveries of today's water quality measurable improvements and quality of Allen Creek watershed Allen Creek goal to raise its score from here on River shed water here on River watershed councils metric so I'm gonna put that with Allen Drake over here anybody need to clarify anything that they put up here no okay so climate action in clean air weatherization of residences emergency hubs and preparedness energy efficiency to reduce emissions I'm gonna put that with

034weatherization and unless folks have a problem with that transportation options work to have less idling in cars encourage clear sidewalks neighborhoods nobody style snow removal to encourage year-round biking or walking with a currently transportation options wanted to be a standalone thing it's nobody that you could fold under under transportation walkability I'm gonna that's okay with folks I'm gonna put that under transportation options as well okay encouraged makes use development so people don't have to drive to the store and explore green roof stormwater credit does anybody see anything else that should be lumped together how do we feel about idling being by itself or with transportation do we have a strong feeling no okay I'm relieved a by itself and then in our last category the miscellaneous path new light ordinance to reduce light pollution in

035the city and community and neighborhood engagement so at this point we're gonna do some voting the blue sorry to make this so complex it shouldn't be this complex but the blue ones are gonna be for the section so the topic headers that the things at the top you get three dots so pick the three topic areas that you would like so you have 3 dots you're only allowed to use two according to the chair and then on this yellow green and red we're gonna do your first choice your second choice and your third choice so your first choice it's like a traffic signal green is your first choice yellow is your second choice red is your third choice and those are gonna be for this specific project so that's the ones on the bottom and

036then your last task because we're gonna do it all at the same time to confuse you is to use your little thing and write your name and on the committee's that you'd be willing to be part of or chair so we're voting on what we think the Commission is red green and yellow and we are assigning ourselves with our sticky notes and we are supporting general areas with our blue exactly clear as mud and in the red red yellow green those can vary they don't have to be all in the same and you can you can put yourself in other people's yeah topics yeah and are we treating yes so the blue dots will go either solid waste natural features water climate action and clean air or missile I don't think anybody's gonna put a

037blue dot on miscellaneous and you get two of those yep so is that clear okay let's take some time and do that and check back in with my red [Laughter] alright anybody else need to vote with your sticky dog Chet okay let's go see if we can make some sense looking at the top topics five six for solid waste seven for natural features five for water quality or water - for climate action and one for miscellaneous I love that we have a miscellaneous subcommittee and then taking a little bit more of a closer look I'm seeing that there are quite a few dots for the Murph one two three four five six and four of them are people's first priority so that's impressive - for pay-as-you-go for for compost collection and I'm seeing a whole

038bunch for natural features inventory one two three four five six for natural features inventory a couple smattering of other things three for Allen Creek including - number one options and then three for transportation options under climate action hey so this is where it gets interesting anybody want to suggest what they're seeing up here in terms of priorities I have a comment more yeah I'm just for information I think it's okay to say this Raa has already made a written general proposal to the city to activate or reuse or develop the MuRF so that's that's under and already moving and the subcommittee could potentially do some work maybe potentially in support of that I don't know to what degree there's action and to what degree we would be involved but there's already some work that's being

039done in that area so I think that's that's of general interest and another one that I wanted to comment on and it's under water quality and maybes related to Allen Creek a little bit and that is and Shannon's involved in this there's already a group of people that have been meeting related to watershed health and the score that was developed as a part of the metrics as an outgrowth of the metrics subcommittee and a second meeting with city staff takes place next Tuesday and there was a pre-meeting already with her in riverside water watershed council they're participating in that so there's already some activity related to that and the other comment that I had is um could we talk about a joint subcommittee say with Transportation on these transportation option ones or is this would

040this be just an exclusive or an or and or and or energy could be all three that's a good point as opposed to just exclusively something that the energy or as community environmental commission would work out I think that's up to you all oh and through what the other Commission's would be interested in Wow right John I I think you know that's a really good suggestion I mean particularly with the transportation options having a joint subcommittee with the Transportation Commission similarly some of the natural features stuff joint with parks and potentially planning so that that all can you know go back to all three places you know for broader review and and an acceptance you know the more that we can you know cross pollinate here the the better the outcomes will be so I

041would want to encourage that that that cross-disciplinary discussion as part of our subcommittees you know just thinking about the way this breaks down into alright so we have ten meetings we've got you know a lot of really awesome stuff so what is our goal for each of those meetings is it to have the subcommittee present a set of recommendations is it to present an analysis of current conditions is it to do a little bit of both like I think that that's where I'm spinning my wheels a little bit you know it's a lot easier to think about the solid waste stuff because we're gonna have stuff to react to you know we're gonna be evaluating the draft solid waste plan and providing a recommendation on the final solid waste plan to Council I think obviously

042we have a big role to play in whatever happens with the MuRF and providing recommendations to Council but I think I view all of the stuff in the lens of what are we what is our end product what is the recommendation and advice being provided to Council in each of these areas and to think of them very specifically as okay you know so let's take for example the Allen Creek watershed health one like you know our is the outcome of that here are some land use policies that we think counts needs to adopt is it you know we have locations we think that it's important to prioritize green infrastructure you know to start thinking in terms of deliverable and so that when each of these comes up we only have you know ten meetings two

043of which will be solid waste dominated that we are producing something at that meeting instead of just having a presentation because I think when we just have a presentation we're not very effective and we're not very engaged it seems like it would make sense to have the members of the subcommittee come up with the goals like these are the things we think we can do and they can use the existing metrics work they can use the sustainability framework and look at whatever resources are available and say here's what we're gonna do and you know it seems to me that we would either think about having updates from subcommittees like every other meeting so we have regular progress reports or we just really buckle down and if there's something that one of the subcommittee's really needs

044to address that we all you know lend our ideas to it and before the meeting chair Needham and I were talking and you were saying that you were comfortable with if we didn't come out with specific projects but that if that the subcommittee's could could make that determination and make a recommendation back to a commission which I think is similar to what you were saying so I guess at this point let's tell anybody else want to jump in okay so yeah I would also like to advocate that we include a calendar on this a timeline when we expect certain things to be done because otherwise you know people get busy things don't happen but if we schedule these meetings you know the subcommittee's reporting in June that organizes the the goals in the time okay

045so talking about which subcommittees to create at this point I should have written down the numbers that they were but it looks like the two that rise to the top are solid waste and natural features with water coming in right behind it so that would if we were gonna restrict the number of subcommittees to two given staff limitations and as councilmember Smith was talking about your limitations in terms of volunteer time and the number of meetings I would recommend that there would be no more than two but that's a discussion that that you all should should have probably now to decide that yeah I mean III think dr. Stults was pretty clear that two was all that we could expect staff support for which is certainly understandable I personally I think if we have a

046solid waste and unnatural features when I had that makes sense to me those were the top vote-getters water is close behind but the number of things on the page is much lower so there would presumably be fewer things for that committee to even take up and one point I think that we should keep in mind too is you know not everything's going to come through a subcommittee we can we can take up something having to do with water just and you know any of us can bring it forward so I'm comfortable with with those two I don't know did you have something to think if I may then what I would what I would offer as for example the transportation related climate action activities I think I've reported here that there is a group and

047it's basically just called a working group that's composed of people from planning and energy and other people even frankly outside of even the city of Ann Arbor that are working on a lighting ordinance I think that's what bob was sort of getting at is it doesn't prevent people that are passionate about those ideas for teaming up with people that are on transportation that are in planning and whatever in forming a an informal working group in deciding we want to really do X and focus on X just as we're drafting we have a basically a final draft of a lighting ordinance and you could you know and we chose to focus on that we were planning on going on to write over right away lighting and street lighting as a second step but that could be

048done with any of these so I just like to echo what you're saying is that there's a precedent for that and anybody can step forward any time with a good idea I just wanted to note that there's been a resource management team that was formed out of like when the climate action plan was being developed that has been meeting regularly for years and years and years with the ecology center folks and recycling Arbour lots of other interested parties I've been super engaged on this for a really long time so they should probably be involved in a subcommittee looking outside it hasn't my understanding and the council members can can verify this my understanding as has been described to me is that legislation was just passed by Council that really specifically says that staff needs to

049be at every subcommittee meeting where business is being conducted so that there are minutes there support there that it's an official meeting and this is a change from before because we've had subcommittees meet without staff before is that sound like what you passed I wondered was this the quinn chris frost standardized the bylaws across all commissions yeah I don't remember this being a specific direction from Council I would ask for clarification on this because you know this was not the the main thrust of any deliberation we had about boards and commissions and the intent from the meetings the open meeting resolution the you pass sorry my computer shut down here I'm trying to pull up our actions remember it and if it was included in some detail that definitely wasn't our intent right at least

050it wasn't my intent can I just speak to the the lighting ordinance what we did is we coordinated with head of planning so we had a meeting with the Planning Commission and with Bret and he knows what we're doing and there's two people from Planning Commission that are meeting with us so in a sense the intent was fulfilled and I would suggest maybe that's the kind of thing that we would want to do is to make sure that that what the general topic is and what it is and that it would be supported by at some point the respective committee will could potentially be enough meetings I think the important thing is and I know councilmember Griswold just indicated you know that that wasn't her intention these committees are supposed to do work you know

051they're supposed to get stuff done like that's that's the reason that we have them to say you can't meet without staff you know that that handicaps their ability to actually produce anything and so I I just can't imagine that that was intentional it was certainly not brought up that any of the three of us can remember I'll draft a resolution saying we should undo that well I really appreciate the clarification because this is something that staff was confused about so thanks for the clarification or is there a way that I mean because we don't want to operate in a vacuum incompletely - and so maybe there's a way to do it where it's like periodic rather than someone is there taking notes but I do remember about a year and a half ago somebody coming

052in front of in front of Planning Commission saying that all meetings need to be open and recorded and I remember thinking wow how much staff time would that take you know and so I I don't know if that was like that because the open meetings act or whatever that that was one of the kind of legal consequences of that but I do remember somebody coming up and and bringing that up at Planning Commission it's a real balancing act because boy not a lot of work is gonna get done if you have to have a staff member taking notes you know what I'm gonna get clarity on that just from Chris Frost just to make sure that we were confused about that so that does take off the let's just say at this point that it

053sounds like that takes off the limitation of two so I'm gonna open it back up for for community you guys to talk about that at this point thanks for looking into that yeah well so two to three is that what I'm hearing yeah I mean if we don't have that limitation and it seems pretty clear that we've got three good options here can we tentatively say three and if it turns out if there's that steps sure sure then we can roll back to two I like to do it yeah just to speak for maybe someone who's not here Steve Brown I know he has a personal interest also in water quality and he's a chemist or some kind of chemical engineering background so he's really an interested involved so I would you know I would

054if I can be so presumptuous as to speak for him I think he would appreciate that and I'm pretty sure that he would be willing to take a significant role in that as well anybody not here can be the chair yep look at these topics and as I think about what we're facing solid waste may be a topic where we're not necessarily driving the bus at this point you know we're able to sort of respond to the initiatives that are going together with the regionalization part and we're probably all going to get updates on this as this as this goes I just put that out there to think of forming the subcommittee around solid waste while it might be nice to have some of us be the go-to people that are helping to get the

055information out to the rest of us I wonder if we're not all going to get it already just as a result of hearing about how this process unfolds at least for another you know six to eight months maybe collection that committee could do some work and think about how that might be implemented or a zero waste I mean there's there's smaller parts of that that I think overseen by subcommittees sure sure I have a question for Commissioner Skinner how the the task force that you were talking about the resource management team how would that how would you see that interacting with a subcommittee or would it are they are they parallel efforts or could they work together or do you see it really being one or the other I mean I guess it depends on

056what the defined goals of the subcommittee are I haven't been as involved as I would like to be lately with that group so I don't there's been a lot happening that I'm not aware of but I could see it being either parallel or kind of a joint effort okay thank you I only know secondhand information about it he's involved and he's going to all the meetings so he's he would be a potential connection and I think it would be good to talk to him in people from Raa as to whether or not they could be merged or if they're parallel if there's a certain amount of overlap but I think further discussion is warranted at least could I make a suggestion that possibly you think about having a solid you you you have folks that

057are interested in a solid way subcommittee come meet and then you can come back to the Commission with a recommendation of what you would work on and how you would interact with the existing groups does that sound like a proposal that would meet everybody's needs okay do we have anybody who would be interested in serving as a chair of the solid waste subcommittee as it is thought of now other than the Steve it could be Steve if we don't have anybody who's willing to step forward that's fine I was gonna say why other than Steve he's not here so he's the chair okay I'm the advisory um the solid waste resource management plant Advisory Committee - and he's been going to all those meetings so he would be a good candidate yeah I mean we

058can all have unanimous consent I'm great and who would be interested in being on that committee I want to capture that for moving forward if you could just raise your hand if you'd want to be on it okay and take me well well I don't want us all to be clustered on the same committee I didn't put me on tonight so who else had their hands up I saw the cat's bumper Smith yeah okay so I okay anybody else okay great so natural features is anybody willing to be chair okay and who else would be interested in serving on the natural feature subcommittee okay anybody else down there you know so we have commissioner gram serving as the chair we have councilmember banister Commissioner murski and Commissioner repeal that correct okay and then water water

059issues I have a question if I may what comes to mind there's no problem in recruiting resident or other people to these committees I think Chris you've already mentioned you have some by people in mind for that right yeah so we're not limited to no our bylaws specific right state that's what I thought yes I know Commission and we should we should actively pursue that yeah good comment thank you so for water is anybody interested in chairing a water subcommittee and I would recommend that maybe Steve not terrible okay if we don't have a chair that makes it hard to well I would be willing chip to chair it I don't know very much about Ellen Creek that's my reticence about that so I would do that fantastic and who else would be interested in

060serving so I've got and you'd be on it okay okay okay so we have three subcommittees and we will come back with some information about the staff thing it sounds like that's not going to be a limiting factor we have chairs and we have folks that are interested in serving chair needham and I and dr. Stoltz will get together and we will figure out an action plan of how to move forward right recommend it to two folks over email does that sound sure and then I think we'll develop an actual written work plan out of this that we can bring forward hopefully for next time I don't know how detailed it will be but it would at least set up the subcommittee's and give us something that we can forward to Council okay and then

061we would want just to reiterate we would want the subcommittee's to meet to talk about their specific projects that they would bring back to the Commission is that correct I think so do we have to wait until you send us the proposal before we meet I think a good first step might be the chairs meeting with Missy and you and I will check those groups and get some direction some next steps that way that make sense I can set that meeting up and we can do it the people can phone into if they need to so thank you so much for going with this process I really appreciate it all the sticky notes and all the dots thank you for guiding us through it it was great really appreciate that back to the rest of

062the agenda and one more item of new business being brought to us I believe by councilmember Smith involving proposed ordinance to amend city code - I think prohibit two-stroke engines is the short version right yes not citywide the it's you know considered kind of a pilot for the downtown district this has actually comes to us via councilmember Ramla we who has discussed this at the DDA partnerships commission committee and took it through the legal review and I suggested that we take a look at it you know it's pretty simple as you know let's let's prohibit the use of to cycle you know outdoor power equipment downtown you know it's noisy it's bad for the air quality you know let's see how that works their discussion the outreach them want major property owner downtown that does

063maintenance is first Martin they have no objection at least as communicated to me by a councilmember Ramla we I think that this is the type of thing that generally comes out of this commission as a policy directive like this and and I think because it's just confined to the the downtown district it's a suitable pilot that we can look at you know broader city wide and I do bring that up simply in the discussion of looking at what mr. Brown had sent us regarding some of his priorities we're you know looking at prohibiting two-stroke engines citywide was one of his ideas as well as you know prohibiting charcoal lighter fluid sales and think this is the first step to see how this this works so if this goes forward with our blessing you know councilmember

064Bannister and I would introduce this at Council and take that through the ordinance amendment process so are you looking for a formal resolution of support yes and I had one question on that I remember when comes my mom Molly told me about this he said that at the time the Parks Commission was looking at whether they too would then get rid of all of theirs and and and so I don't know if Commissioner Apple was part of any of those discussions about how much it would cost to replace that equipment or if we have any if anyone has heard anything about the price to replace the equipment mr. Randall I can I can explain it I think so most engines the the piston writing inside the cylinder there there are four strokes per cycle so

065basically the piston is moving up and down four times with ear tape going in and then compression and then spark and then it going down and then going back up in a two stroke engine it's only two strokes per cycle and though the combustion in those is not as complete you also have to add oil to the gasoline which causes then a lot more particulate matter and a lot more other bad exhaust elements and typically in the past four-stroke engines were bigger and heavier and that's why a lot of portable motor driven internal combustion type engines whether they're weed whackers or whatever were two-stroke and now with battery operated equipment with lithium-ion batteries that replaces the need in most cases for small lightweight two-stroke engines and they also make a lot of four-stroke engines now

066they're a little more expensive to make but they burn a lot cleaner as councilmember Smith said that's basically the rationale behind those it's a good question mr. Brando I see a lot of utility this and trying it in the downtown there's not a whole lot of long so really it seems to me about being a leaf blower situation because the DDA I mean there's a few areas where there's a little bit of lawn between the sidewalk and the road but there's really not much so I guess it's like a baby step which is important but I would say like what about city facilities people that we hire the people that that's that you know you can't get on the writer mower or whatever that that doesn't I mean that just seems like we would actually

067have an impact on air-quality in a way that i mean it so it doesn't have to be like citywide right away and maybe that's like the next phase two or something but there's a lot more long that city facilities have outside of the downtown where you could really actually do something about this so i'm in support of this but i feel like it's a pretty tiny first step so i'm not like you know ready to change the wording and say oh let's take out you know but i would like to set our sights higher because i think that we really can with this and and have the city kind of be the test pilot and well what does it cost you know because then if you feel it yourself the city feels it themselves and

068they have a sense of kind of what it means for citizens to so I mean I'm I'm all for it but I would like to make sure that this is like the first the first little step that we take out of greater steps to come that aren't that far away I guess I would say so we don't actually have a formal resolution text in front of us but just very simply I think the question would be resolved that the environmental Commission urges the City Council to amend title six of the Ann Arbor city code by adding chapter 73 as detailed in our agenda do we have a motion to that effect yeah second any further discussion mr. gray I thought perhaps we'd get somewhere down the road citywide with an hourly limitation on when these

069machines could be used lawn mowers or four-stroke it's not an issue the issue is leaf blowers spin trimmers some snow blowers chainsaws there's still plenty of lawn mowers that are two-stroke - maybe not new ones but there's plenty of people that use to struggle on or some commercial guys not commercial but your average homeowner probably has a two-stroke so mini would I and I don't object to downtown I don't think most spaces are besides that battery-powered ones would be a problem I don't know about parts minutes and I think you make it some serious those guys about the cost of changing to battery or I haven't seen any four-stroke leaf blowers they would probably be very heavy right they're getting better but I haven't seen any on the market that have gotten me excited I

070I just I would ask your parks people how they feel before you work on the downtown and if you want to ask them about the broader parks question and I think the economics really become important insofar as the broad landscape in the city I it will be quite a human cry from the contractors that doesn't mean we shouldn't push them and I shouldn't push myself around about it but not incidentally please thank you I guess I don't know that I've ever even seen a city worker at the leaf roller before because I think really that's more in the private sector that everyone wants all their leaves blown off and into the street and that goes straight into our storm sewer and that has implications for other things and so I think it's really a private

071industry issue not and and like a neatness thing for for business owners and residents and you know I don't ever think I've seen the city leaf blowing in their parks I see the mowing but I don't know perhaps commissioner Apple could fill us in on that activity here's a couple of clever observations from the front line the leaf blowers that I use I have two of them in my business they are powered by a gas oil mix but they are technically four-stroke engines so I guess the question is what are we trying to regulate with this particular ordinance because I think Shannon's point was pretty well taken there are not that many of these sort of fun two-stroke pieces there they're still in people's garages they may be sold at a hundred dollar mower that

072you can get from the big box store um but I don't think that they're being used that regularly by commercial folks and probably very very rarely downtown so that's one thing if we're trying to regulate you know as somebody who needs to use a blower as part of the work that I do this wouldn't affect me according to the way that it's written because my all of my equipment the modern equipment that I have is four-stroke engine the other part of this that concerns me is how much of this ends up being on the backs of the worker if you will these are labor saving devices that help get a lot of work done are we sort of mandating that we return to a broom and a dustpan down and if we are we should

073be explicit about that I often see blowers used incorrectly we use them all the time to clean up a site when we blow dust and debris we clean it up we sweep it up and it goes into the compost they can be used effectively as a way to be able to make a site look good and it's a way to be able to save hours and hours of labor in terms of tidying up a site when somebody's done with work so those are my those are my thoughts were right now first of all I guess I would ask what we are trying to regulate with with with passing this passing a two-cycle power equipment ordinance for the DBA may turn off one or two mowers you know this square mile but they don't think it's

074going to do very much for air quality as a whole in the city and I'm not sure that passing an ordinance but it's not necessarily worded to be able to take care of a problem that we're trying to address would be that effective so I please more thoughts so I I think I can talk a little bit more to the intent that councilmember Rome law we has in introducing this and it is directly pertains to the leaf blowers you know the lot of the maintenance crews downtown whether they are employed by the DDA or by some of the property owners use the blower simply to blow garbage off the sidewalk into the street it is it's loud it's dirty it blows stuff into our storm drains that we don't want into our storm drains just

075up a lot of pollen as well so the his intention is to you know we can find other ways to clean our sidewalks that are more effective and impact people's lives in a much less negative way um in my view that noise has been the issue in the residential neighborhoods a lot of people really object to the leaf blower noise chainsaw noise too for that matter but that's a bit more necessary I wish it weren't but it's not our noise ordinance doesn't apply there it should for lawn mowers - I mean a lot of people will get out there at Sunday night at 6 o'clock to mow the lawn which is kind of obnoxious and normally not the commercial deficits homeowners just two brief points first of all to proper and everybody's been using it

076here but it's the improper term in the in the draft and it is a two-stroke engine not a two cycle engine so that should be corrected everywhere my my thinking is is that if something like this were done to address some of the concerns that were expressed here there could be a phase-in period and I'm not an expert in this but I did work in my company's power tool division for a while and I think electric power tools like I said you know there's the new lithium-ion battery packs and they're not that new anymore frankly are really really effective you can have you know you can buy ten of them and put them on your truck and they can use that and that addresses a lot of the issues that we've been talking about here

077in terms of air quality there there's you you still get the blowing noise but you don't get the engine noise in the background and I would encourage people that are looking at this to consider whether or not you if you really want to address it may be moving as a pilot downtown to battery driven tools and then that would be introduced you know in the mid term to also just battery driven tools city wide potentially so I I have no objection if we also just want to postpone action on this and we can go back to council member from LA we with some recommended changes because it all has to ultimately go back through the attorney's office before we act on it not I don't think that I have any concern about that I don't

078know councilmember banister do you have any concern about no that sounds good and then to address battery driven tools city wide including parks and that could be a second phase I mean I think I like the idea that several people have mentioned here there's it's questionable how good of a pilot this is because it's so limited but at least doing a pilot you know in an area and also have a phase-in period then people can plan for it and I I guess I wouldn't I don't see any problem with putting in the goals of what we are trying to do here if we're trying to keep litter out of the curb and gutter and out of the stormwater then why why don't we put that in there agree you know there are as a professional

079I am always frustrated when I see people using these tools improperly because it's one less you know it's one less vote against the the technology for me being able to use it properly so yeah I think this is a great opportunity to be able to educate people yet again about what that little metal box and the gutter is and where it goes so if the issue is stuff going in the gutter removing blowers entirely from the picture is still going to get brooms pushing it into the gutter or not very good housekeeping at all so I also see guys who mow and blow the clippings into the street and half of them leave them and the other half get their leaf blowers out and blow them back up on the grass which ought to happen

080getting better with even less two-stroke ones than 10 years ago way better I think there is still a challenge with dust however I mean I think that the air quality issue with these blowers is not just the result of the engines themselves but the fact that you know when somebody is using them there is a big cloud of dust that's created and the same with lawn mowers on those kinds of days yeah come on prevalence take a tangential issue to this is I haven't heard complaints this winter but last winter I heard a lot of concerns about blue bristles falling off the snow bobcats that were working in the DDA and I saw you know big chunks of bristles littered around that were then going into the storm drain also they would have been plastic

081like they're plastic plastic blue plastic bristles typically there are typically glass fiber reinforced as well so you're introducing the plastic and the glass fiber reinforcement so councilmember Smith this was your motion are you comfortable postponing indefinitely for okay well that takes care of our new business then on to reports do we have a report from the Energy Commission so I've talked before about the various subcommittees and I've already mentioned the lighting ordinance and what's going on there just as a reminder we're working on our percent clean and renewable projects and we've assigned people to work on specific subgroups within the subcommittee a group of people is going to be working on solar installations on city property another group is working on you the methane that we're currently selling to a third party that's coming from

082the landfill and using that at wheeler it looks like this savings could be substantial though there will be some one-time implementation costs and then also looking at hydro at least one additional dam and possibly upgrading the hydro on the two existing dams and then possibly energy storage where that the benefit of that would be reducing our peak demand and the utility rates that we pay are somewhat determined by what the peak demand is so if you can Lou it lower your peak demand then you pay an overall lower cost then there's an Eevee ready ordinance committee which is really gonna do more than just look at Eevee ready readiness so the EB readiness is basically one would which would target new infrastructure going in any new major development or a major renovation of a project

083I can't remember what the threshold is 30 percent or something like that of the value the property would require that the property be sized or a Sumi electrical equipment and conduit would be sized so that it would be ready for putting AV chargers in and there's various levels of doing that and we're looking at other ordinances some of them require that you just make the electrical box and the conduit big enough some require that you run all of the wire and everything and do that and so we have to decide to what level we want to be evie ready there's some other interest in looking in that same group so it would go beyond just that ordinance we've had some communication and we'll talk next week in the meeting about looking at buses some of

084you may have read the article and the observer where a AATA is replacing some of its hybrid buses with what they call clean diesel buses although that myth has been somewhat busted in the last couple of years now and so we were wondering if we can do something get a ATA public schools and the University of Michigan who maybe work collaboratively to do something with electric buses maybe even just a pilot apparently and Arbor Public Schools is farthest along and doing that and then the last committee that's really active is this home energy score which was basically an audit of the energy efficiency of a home that also determines with that an estimated energy cost of what it would cost to heat and to pay for all the electricity of a home at the time

085of that would be required at the time of market and there are a couple of ordinances in the country that do that already Portland Oregon Austin Texas I think there's a third one and so we have a couple of those drafts and a couple of us this morning actually went through a home energy score audit to get an idea of what that would entail and we talked with the gentleman who potentially could train auditors here in the city so the only other thing from the Energy Commission is that there was a first reading of a resolution that was drafted by a concerned resident that then I took to the floor which would prohibit regulated utilities from making donations to 501 4 C's I think I have the the termination permit C 4 C 4 s

086thank you C 4 s which is basically what you've taught you know heard about dark money where they can essentially make donations to these groups that then run ads or things like that against whatever it might be an increase in the renewable portfolio standard or whatever in in in one of the things that precipitated that is that consumers Edie was punished by the MPSC because of some dark money contributions that they made to influence some elections and so they're prohibited from doing that for the rest of this year and our thinking is why should that happen any time that doesn't prohibit them from making a donation but it has to be clear that it's coming from this entity it was this about a money and it was going towards this purpose and they just can't

087hide those kinds of donations so there was a first reading of that and I discussed it with the administrator and he passed it on to the attorney's office and we have the okay to have a second reading of that in our next meeting Thank You Commissioner repeal anything from perks not much no hiring season is starting three hundreds on people being hired we recently passed a resolution on to council about a four hundred and fifty thousand dollar contract with DD Tree Service because all of forestries money is coming from the stormwater fund that leaves no forestry department to be able to work on park trees so Parks needed the ability to be able to have somebody that could respond to tree situations during the meeting we also tried to introduce invasive species guidelines so the

088new contractor will be following some of the best management practices moving forward for invasive species or preventing the spread of invasive species through equipment and can't a decontamination if they're going to be working in our natural areas we're hoping that they we will help them to use the best practices other than that that's that's parks ice rinks have been open on the climate note so I think they've had about twenty or good skating days over the course of the winter so not great and described by the parks department head as a labor of love yeah tough to keep that ice nice yeah thanks commissioner get Brandel zoning or overlay districts to be able to think about how to concentrate density around the areas where we have well working bus lines and things like that so

089thinking about taking a couple of corridors and and see how it goes so it's all in the super early stages but there was some discussion around that so but you'd increase the zoning I'm not sure how it's actually going to really play out and again it was just the beginning but looking at opportunities to be able to make certain high-traffic transportation corridors that have public transportation along them to be able to allow for certain kinds of development to happen there that may be different than then how it zoned ordinarily so yeah great it's happening in many places so this is thanks a report from council members well I wanted I hit a couple of ads some of you mother if you were reading your email you know might have caught that we have we had

090the big team effort to do the David Fair interview for issues of the environment all about our old resolution about nuclear emergency preparedness and the potassium iodide pills so you would not believe the behind the scenes that went into that with John Mirsky and chip and dr. Stoltz and and everybody so and and I and I want to thank you all I had all ten memos in front of me and made it through the interviews and so that information is out there for the public and then just for Monday night's meeting I just went quickly through the council meeting agenda and there's a few things on there there's one there's a memorandum from the parks commission about turning the center of the city available for public rental for people down at the library black and

091so that's at on the communications from the mayor administrator and then there's a couple consent agenda 400,000 chris for tree planting and and then also our resolution to become a member of the Washtenaw regional Resource Management Authority the WR RMA that's on the consent agenda and then the last two things that might be of interest to you all interestingly the Lower Town area mobility study which is around 650,000 which was required an eight vote majority at the last council meeting and failed its back and its mayor Taylor is directing the city administrator to include that funding in the city budget so that should be an interesting discussion to bring back that in a different logistically at a voting that Lowertown mobility study and then lastly there's a resolution regarding which I haven't read yet of

092regarding the Washington County mental health and public safety millage something about that - yes I have a question about is is that to repeal the 2017 council action allocating the Reed theft the rebate go 40% to affordable housing 40% to climate action and 20% to pedestrian and bicycle safety that's what it is yes that's or something to that effect I haven't actually read the detail it is it is indeed an effort to undo that allocation overturn you know the vote and what is the rationale behind the resolution or is there no rationale given the the discussion had at the council table has been that the new council members there are some that have expressed a desire to overturn that previous direction because they didn't have a part in the in the discussion and they didn't

093necessarily share those priorities you know council member lum who has introduced this was opposed to to this both times it was passed by council in the summer prior to the county mental health and Public Safety millage there's citizen group that that believes that in addition to the millions of dollars were as Ann Arbor contributing to the mental health and public safety programs that we should contribute all the money to those programs so this is what I would call simply a budget and resource allocation debate that we're having it is I'll be very direct like this is about not funding climate change stuff well okay so is it defined in the resolution how the village would would would it float just simply into the general fund or how is it how is it crafted you know

094we're bringing that up I mean the resolution at that specific wording I'm just wondering if it's known yet I mean is that is the the millage rebate simply stay as a separate bucket or is it go into a specific bucket like the general fund is that it just voids it yes I think one of the logic behind it was that council approved a survey of the residents you know that we tom crawford and others worked on to try engage an accurate reading from the residents as to what they intended and that survey is to be released mid-march and so that barely gives staff time to redo their budget they're doing the budget on the 40-40-20 the last 2017 directive so this I think is maybe opening the door for them to be ready to pivot

095and further if if it isn't coming from the mental health millage one thing I'll say just anecdotal evidence from talking to other council members I think people want to fund climate action and pedestrian safety and affordable housing but there's just sensitivity to it coming from the mental health and Public Safety millage bucket so I think that wheel should still press onward with our budgets for climate action and pedestrian safety and affordable housing and it's just going to be getting in the right bucket in my opinion if I may offer a comment in the end we'll see where the money is you know come May 20th and we'll see whether or not you the city puts its money where its mouth is in the end I mean I suppose it doesn't matter in the end whether

096comes from the millage rebate or out of the general fund as long as as the money is perceived to be going to the right places and I would add on to that that piggyback on that that that's of really where the budget planning and the things you and I have talked about offline about measuring the outcomes and the metrics so that we aren't just throwing money at climate action goals but we're throwing it at things that we're gonna have up publicly transparent communicating on dashboards and tracking it and review I think you you were the one possibly who had suggested that we review it quarterly and and monthly and so everything it's constantly being reviewed at least once a year yeah I guess my two senses funding the the plan is the most important thing

097but I and I understand this is not the resolution that either of you are the source of it but I'm I do have trouble understanding how the city can essentially go back on a promise that was made to voters before the vote I mean that's that's how I look at it that you know there was a promise made that that's how the money would be used and um personally I'd be really disappointed supported by 73 percent and as you know I think the opposing argument is that the ballot language itself when the voter is in the booth the ballot language did not say so if they hadn't gotten the email from their favorite environmental agencies or mayor Taylor's email they wouldn't know when they're in the voting booth that there was a 40-40-20 on that

098well I was widely covered in yes paper it was on wamu it was in there I know for sure there at least two major articles in an EM live or in our news so it was covered and I mean I've written this to you and if I can just speak openly it was impossible to put in the resolution climate action because there were eight entities that were getting rebates and there was no way that anybody was going to write by the language that says please approve for money for mental health but because 8 entities already do policing that entity one is going to spend the rebate this way entity 2 is going to do it this way Ann Arbor is gonna do it this way four is gonna do it this way five is gonna

099that's impossible so the argument that it wasn't in the ballot language is not a wreath it just doesn't hold water sorry it was it's impossible to craft a ballot language that says here's eight exceptions and each one of these is doing it differently and some are spending in a climate and some haven't decided and some are thinking of doing this that's ridiculous sorry it's a strong word but that's the way I feel and people in town that feel this way and sadly five of them are on council but yes the rest of us did find out about this and did vote on this for this reason yes well again the public served the survey which is hopefully accurate valid measurements will be out in mid-march or the results will be in in mid-march and the

100survey makes no mention of the fact that council took this action and that they inform people in advance so that people who did vote on it like myself said yes I'm in favor of three and a half million dollars of Ann Arbor taxpayer money going to mental health but I'd also like to see um a nine hundred thousand dollars going to climate action and nine hundred thousand dollars to affordable housing that's the way I voted and I think that's what a lot of the other commissioners feel and I do want to underline I do not see any lack of commitment or appetite for funding those City priorities and and I think it's just semantics and how the of the budget process will see something so looking forward if we are going to have a fully

101sustainable city that has zero carbon footprint in 25 years amount of money required to do renewable energy sources is way more than any of this amounts to the city is going to have to step up financially very significantly to reach that goal yes and that's why I'm excited to work with mr. mirskiy and others on communications so that we can clearly in plain language get our residents on board with helping us in every way that we can yes we do so there's been a lot of work on the green fleets team that I wanted to share the three bolts that Evie bolts are here they're not in service yet but they are here the Chargers were ordered recently we've been working on low use vehicles and looking at vehicles that have less than 200 gallons

102of fuel used in a year with the hope that we could figure out whether we can reduce some of our fleet size to then we can look at electrification options or other options for the the vehicles that are left so that's been an interesting process we've invited so far we've had police and fire come talk to us about their vehicles a lot of the vehicles are staying in the fleet after we've talked to folks but we're doing that process and it's been interesting because this is the first time we're doing it there was a police vehicle out in the parking lot that sat there idling for the entire time that we were in here and there was nobody in the vehicle and so I'm just wondering if there is has there ever been dialogue with

103the police around the idling issue which just seems to be completely against any effort to use better vehicles is there any kind of dialogue or awareness around that that has happened to date yes and in fact that's something that I'm passionate about and so I'm gonna be bringing it back to green fleets after we get through the first couple tasks that we have in front of us because there there is equipment out there that can let them do the things they need to do in terms of keeping their computers on keeping the temperature of the vehicle at an appropriate temperature as well as keeping lights and sirens and all that going as well so there's there's equipment out there it's just a question of seeing if it's a good fit for our fleet okay thanks

104several of us went actually our whole office went to Grand Rapids recently for the Michigan Climate Action network's first conference it was fantastic it was exciting to hear that a lot of things will be changing at the state level with new new leadership at the state so Lisl Clark is the new director of the DEQ which is going to be changing its name but she was there and so it was exciting to hear that we are working on an application for a peer learning exchange through USD n to learn about blue la which is a low-income evey car sharing program in LA so I'm taking the lead on putting that grant together as as councilmember Amina's Commissioner mirskiy mentioned working on the EVD readiness ordinance dr. Stoltz went to her first meeting of the UM

105carbon neutrality committee I think it was last week so that's exciting to be working on I would put a plug for the next sustainability forum C's Dean doctor / Peck as well as yours truly will be speaking about climate change 201 so not the basics but a little bit more deep into that will be March 21st at downtown library at 7:00 p.m. and our last forum was fantastic we had 93 people there so so thank you to everybody who came out to our last forum it was reported many more people than there were at the council meeting the same evening yes in terms of we have a credible amount of people who are interested students who are interested in interning in our office so we're going through the process right now figuring out what we

106need from interns we're gonna be doing cohort 2 of the racial equity training that sustainability focus that Commissioner Marcy and I were in last last time and that'll be kicking off in May so if anybody is particularly interested in being part of that it's a sick session of course let me know the city hired an equity consultant to develop a comprehensive equity plan for the city so that's exciting news and we were part of the selection process for that consultant we're working with two student groups and we're and both of them are interested in working on greening our rental housing with a particular focus on the student renter population we're doing gonna be doing some interesting data analysis by matching up our rental database permit database with our permitting database and seeing where there's energy

107efficiency possibilities and just learning a lot more about our rental housing stock let's see USD n there are several cities coming to Ann Arbor to learn about our rental licensing program with the hope of doing some of these greening rental housing standards ordinances and that'll be March 12th so it's kind of exciting we get to share about our process and dr. Stoltz and John Fournier are in DC right now at a renewables bootcamp so that's the the last update that I wanted to share thank you our next schedule sorry I have one last update since we won't meet before this Friday March 15th from 11:00 to 2:00 there's a global climate strike Washington counties version of that would be happening on the diag I would encourage young people students anyone to come out and join

108us in that action great our next meeting will be 7:00 p.m. Thursday March 28th I think we will be hearing from Jen Lawson with more detail on the status in the situation of Allen Creek not positive but I think I think that's on the agenda there anyone like to make public comment can I make one other sorry no please just state your name if you wouldn't find the remarks to three minutes please yeah I won't take up three minutes Ken Garber I just came in late and I wasn't going to speak at all but since the County millage came up thought this is a free shot yeah I probably wouldn't get my time in at the council meeting and two council members are here so I just want to put my two cents in that

109I support the 40-40-20 split I think it's important to have a dedicated stream of revenue for what is clearly the most important issue of our time and the city needs to take a leadership position on it and it's been sorely underfunded until now and I urge I support many of the comments I heard here tonight from the commissioners and I urge my council members to think hard about this and go forward with the current split for the city share of the county millage money that's it thank you anyone else for public comment one other brief announcement the university has a annual sustainability lecture it's called I think it's called Wege I just one day thank you that is the actually the night before on the 14th is that I believe at Hill and it's quite

110a distinguished speaker it's a Costa Rican woman who's considered to be the architect of the Paris Accords so she was one really behind the scenes putting the whole Paris climate Accord together and she's speaking at Hill so if you're interested check check that that's March 14th anything else right we're adjourned thanks everyone you