001miss Stoltz could you call the roll here here great our first order of business is of proving the agenda do I have a motion to do so second second all in favor aye aye opposed right approval of minutes we've got two meetings worth the first is June 28th motion to approve the June 28th minutes so moved second from council member Smith all in favor aye high post and minutes from our joint meeting with the Energy Commission on September 27th we have a motion to approve those all in favor aye opposed great next order of business is public commentary is anyone from the public here to speak to the Commission this evening no there will be another opportunity at the end of the meeting should you choose to do so moving on our new business major
002item on the agenda tonight is amending our commission bylaws and I believe someone from the City Attorney's Office is here to help with that if I bring this up to her so my name is Chris frost and I'm with the City Attorney's Office and I handle bylaws for boards and commissions so I was spoke with staff I understood you all we're looking at the bylaws to make some changes we have a standard template that we were directed by Council to develop and so I went through the bylaws as they are and put them in the current standard format there's a couple of changes most of them are for clarity and consistency with this new format some of them are for consistency and compliance with other requirement resolutions and laws and a couple of them were
003some items that were identified by the Commission for change and so I'm just going to run through these quickly and then if there are any questions I'll answer those just to remind everyone we're not voting on these today the bylaws are presented at one meeting and then they voted on at the subsequent meeting so if there's any changes that need to be made we can do that so I provided redline copies and I'm just going to go through that the first main change is or issue rather is section 3.2 which is the purposes for the body I know that some folks have pointed out that there were some items in here they're out of date or moved this is in the ordinance unfortunately so we can't change that so we without amending the ordinance so
004we're just gonna kinda have to do the best we can with what's here and if something is mood its mood the next changes are in article 4 under membership 4.1 these changes are just to come comport with the language of the ordinance more closely just to avoid any confusion there's a section below that two paragraphs that I've commented that were moved to a different section these are about committee appointments and they're more properly in the canoe section section 4.3 has a lot of red in it most of that is just removing something that's not really relevant about initial appointment staggering section four point four the Charter requirement changed you not have to be a registered electorate at the time of appointment section four point six again just a little consistency with the code language has
005changed Article five the ethics and conflicts of interest section removing some gendered language in there adding a section five point nine which is new pertaining to commissioners appearing before the Commissioner on behalf of a petitioner before the Commission the idea here is that the Commission shouldn't be influenced by a commissioner standing up to advocate for someone who's appearing before the Commission on a matter they might be voting on section five ten just clarifying that commissioners should go through the staff liaison when they have a question or an issue that they want to communicate with the city on just keeps that point of contact consistent so everybody's on the same page and has the same information sure I understand the intent but it seems rather sweeping so can you kind of unpack that a little bit
006more yeah so for example if you had a matter of for you that maybe had some planning implications and you think oh I should talk to someone in planning the temptation might be to pick up the phone talk to the planning staff then the staff liaison maybe doesn't know what's happening maybe the other commissioners don't get the information it's just a kind of funnel it through a single point of contact and the languages allows for different contracts direct contacts if if it's expedient so if there was an ongoing project or something you need to have ongoing communication it's just more of the reminder that the staff liaison is really the point of contact that you want to be going through in order to keep everybody in the loop as the staff liaison ultimately is responsible
007for you know your agendas and keeping track of your work plan and all that sort of thing I did wonder about that to that I mean in practical terms if we're going to email the staff liaison does that mean we should refrain from seeing other people who maybe invoke that to them as long as you're copying the staff liaison that that's fine so this is for the city staff liaison that would be I'm on Planning Commission and I'm here yeah I'm speaking about yeah no that's fine it's no it's really just if you're somebody shouldn't contact me even though I'm both yeah the term staff liaison here is strictly that I'm but I'm a liaison from another Commission right so in other words if I'm wearing my Planning Commission hat because I know what the
008project is about I speak during the meetings but offline it needs to go through staff well no not necessarily you're speaking to another commissioner you mean about somebody from an environmental Commission knows that I've been reviewing something on Planning Commission yeah that's fine but I'm on both that's okay for them to talk to me yeah it's just when speaking to city staff but they're not supposed to contact another planning Commissioner though is what you're saying too it should go through staff to be able to go to the Planning Commission to Commission contact this doesn't this wouldn't apply to that it's not just for city staff contact interpretation I would feel more comfortable if it said something related to active work of the Commission as this is written unless I miss reading it it's it's oh
009I can contact the city yeah we can that yeah that is the intent that's a great point can I follow up another yeah um I didn't related this I think you said that it's permissible to contact someone on city staff when I at the same time CC the staff liaison this says that I have to do it through the liaison to me copying them and going through them are two different things yes I really it's it's also too through is the correct term I don't think they would necessarily be an objection there may be a case if there's a lot of volume and a certain staff member you know might be busy it's also to control staff times or rationale so through is really correct the CC'ing is it's more of a convenience that I
010think everyone's okay well CDC is permissive is common practice okay any other questions on that 511 just adding imploring people to be civil and respectful since these days political situation doesn't seem to take that into account very much at least in our little corner of the world we'd like it to remain civil moving to the next section mostly again just minor tweaks clarifications under the section 6.1 the election was for officers was scheduled in September I understand that maybe not when you do it so we've just taken that out and it's just annual now so whenever it occurs to you is the best time to do it you can do it annually section 7.2 moved a little bit of a special meeting discussion down to another section where it is in the standard form Section
011seven four and seven six just rearranged it a little bit and rephrased it for compliance with our Open Meetings resolution and consistency with the standard form section seven point eight about the quorum this appeared that it was somewhat backwards in that it required only a majority of members serving for the quorum but then required a minimum of seven to pass anything so you know conceptually you could have five people serving have a quorum but not be able to do anything so we reversed it which is the more usual which is a majority of the members to have the meeting and then a majority of those actually present to pass them if that makes sense to everybody section seven point nine clarifies and that's just consistency with the standard bylaws that roll call votes are not
012required but may be requested if it's not unanimous section seven ten just simplified it down we now have a policy administrative policy on minute keeping and so all of that is handled in the policy and it's really the staff liaisons responsibility more so than the Commission's moving all the way down to committees section 95 that's where that language was added as part of the standard bylaws before creating committee just check with staff we have had some instances where Commission's get very enthusiastic and want to create multiple committees and then there's an issue with scheduling them with rooms staff resources and all of that because we do have a resolution that requires they'd be done in compliance with section 3 of the Open Meetings Act so this is just to have the Commission check since this
013body has been in existence for a while I don't anticipate that being an issue you probably know how to handle that and then lastly in the miscellaneous section 12.1 just correcting or updating the reference to the Office of Sustainability and innovations as the staff liaison so that is the five to ten minute version there are any questions at all desires for changes um I just want to be clear so the bylaws are solely adopted by us as a body or does the council also sign off on them are yes there's a council resolution so you consider it but what you like in there with the guidance of our office once you've approved it goes to City Council and then it takes effect one City Council approves it okay and the points that you say are
014outdated but are included in the ordinance by that ordinance are you referring to the ordinance that established the Commission in the first place the Charter is that known as the Charter or it's an ordinance is it it is in city code it's part of the city code okay all right and if you have any questions in the meantime before the next meeting if anything comes up feel free to email me and I will housecleaning you're going through with all commissions Milo we do them as they come up but yes every Commission that comes through gets put on the standard for what comes through our office your office for the City Attorney's Office for some stimulating event that caused our bylaws to come to your office I think we were just we had a change in
015staff and they were looking at them and realized we realized they had never been have never been correct no that was kind of what set it off they weren't they were they had been redone not that long ago so there aren't too many changes so I have a question that's not part of the revision at 7.5 it states that meeting announcements are posted at City Hall yes I don't know if there's an online option as well this is just referring to the physical location a couple of boards and commissions meet at CTN for example so they would have their meetings posted there but we do would it would it be worth including and online it you we could it's a state requirement for the Open Meetings Act so it's not really necessary where you post
016it physically depends on where you're meeting right oh that's just a clarify for the individual boards and foremost at City Hall any other questions great thanks a lot appreciate the work and this will be back before us at our next meeting for consideration the faction the next thing on the agenda is a resolution supporting some state legislation dealing with recycling and brownfield mitigation and this is coming to us from our newest commissioners even Brown would you like to explain a bit about this please yeah I first became aware of this personally through an article in the media I think it was Bridge magazine back in January where Rick Snyder had announced that he wanted to provide some more money for recycling and to raise the tipping fees you know in the state which as you
017can see and in the document are very low and and so death and so the next event that I was aware of was that Mike knows Senator Mike Knox submitted this legislation as it's written on April 17th for this year so my understanding I heard recently that that it's gonna be considered in the lame-duck session after the election in a couple of weeks so I thought it might be a good time to apprise the council of this I'm not sure if that's appropriate or not but it seemed like an important thing to you know like both the council and the staff know about if they weren't aware of it already and the chair in because and I've heard that it would help get this passed if there was support from various local governments that was
018expressed to the state legislature so that was my motivation so let's see are there any questions about it I know there were a couple late changes to the draft language suggested is that realloc des correct no these are not incorporated in this document so I can that's the next thing I wanted to talk about so yeah I'm grateful to city staff who want short notice we're able to look over this resolution draft and made some suggestions that I thought were entirely appropriate and because I just drafted this last weekend and so the first change was on should I just do this orally yeah that acceptable I think so yeah okay so the first change is on where as number four where I've crossed out the current the language on this printout and I wanted to
019replace it with where as based on current tonnage --is from the city the increased fee will cost the city solid waste fund a minimum of two hundred twenty five thousand dollars per year but will fund increased opportunities for residents and businesses to recycle more I know this is an upper bound because clearly it's statewide the tipping fees were increasing that's going to promote more behavior to minimize throwing things in little landfills and the basic idea of the legislation is to use these increased fees earmark them more or less for both brownfield mitigation and for joining to enhance recycling within local governments in the state so the language around that is fairly general as it's written at this point it could be for planning purposes it could be for helping start new recycling enterprises and new
020methods things like that and was that the only text change I know where as number eight I wanted to strike out the existing line and suggest where as the city of Ann Arbor could potentially receive grant or loan funding in the future for programs through the state of Michigan which were anticipated to include facilitation of solid waste management plans and promotion of recycling in general okay so with those text changes if we have a motion to approve we can then get into a discussion do we have a motion to approve yes or a motion to consider so second Thanks any discussion Commissioner Brown the original version of this in the governor's thinking was some portion of it maybe five million would go to state parks is that gone you know I have not noticed that
021language so far our tipping fees are absurdly low it's completely ridiculous we're getting to trash from Toronto coming to Michigan and big huge trucks up and down 401 it's not and meanwhile the even if it's not state parks the benefit to the state from the increased fees which aren't exorbitant are likely to be very significant and meanwhile our landfills fill up a lot more slowly good incentive in the right direction other discussion I didn't get the language of the changes exactly and I at least for me I would like to know the exact language before I vote on it jizo if you could at some point repeat the new language for RIT or where I have number four has where as well as rad where as number eight that would be appreciated sure so um
022where as number four is now where as based on current tonnage --is the increased fee will cost the city solid waste fund a minimum of two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars per year but will fund increased opportunities for residents and businesses to recycle more I didn't get it all but can you repeat it or someone else do you ever repeat it no where as based on current tonnage --is the increased fee will cost the city solid waste fund a minimum of two hundred and twenty five thousand per year but will fund increased opportunities for residents and businesses to recycle more got it and the question that I would then ask I guess Steve is is that true does the additional money that the city will pay go in it does not flow directly back
023to the city nor it is not right no the city has to apply with a grant okay I don't know if the language made that clear it provides an opportunity for I guess is what the language that's right so that principle is okay and then can you read them the change to whereas number eight that's the bottom of the first of the page one right yeah so I'd strike the Korean language and whereas the city of Ann Arbor could potentially receive grant or loan funding in the future for programs through the state of Michigan which are anticipated to include facilitation of solid waste management plans and promotion of recycling in general okay any other discussion I have won a couple of other questions is this is your language did this come from a template from
024any other municipality that is also in support of this or did it come from an NGO that is driving this or is this basically your language that you put together yeah the template originally came from the Michigan recycling coalition AHA okay you know which is an umbrella organizations really cycling organizations lawn around the state so I checked the figures against what I and I changed the language a little bit based on my reading of the you know after current drafts of SB 9 43 and the part 115 there there are a couple of hundred pages long so I haven't had time to review them completely and certainly not from the legal point of view but and then I presented and then I presented the draft that I first completed on the weekend to crescents log
025and he'd had a chance to review it for and for a couple of hours and made he suggested changes for whereas number four number eight and are you familiar or are you aware if other municipalities have adopted similar resolutions either based on the template that you originally got from the recycling organization that you mentioned or based on something that they did on their own are you from I'm not sure if they've been adopted it yet but I know that several counties have also submitted similar resolutions mammoth County in particular you know which is around Petoskey right and some other counties I've forgotten which one the reason for my last question was I think Steve knows this in the Energy Commission we originated two resolutions in support of House bills that relate to alternative and solar
026energy and those were then ultimately passed by Council and the good thing is that those are being used as templates for other entities in Michigan to also create and approve similar resolutions so it's not just us in Ann Arbor that are doing this in the case of the ones that we originated Detroit it's Eleni Grand Rapids have also all approved already those resolutions and more working through in that case because it's energy related and climate related we're working through the Michigan Climate Action Network to contact other municipalities to use what Ann Arbor is done along with the other ones to pass similar resolutions so the ideas is that we want to build support across the state for these kinds of initiatives and I think the same thing would apply here and that would make sense
027in this case that we if indeed this is passed by us and supported by council that we would do the same thing to try to get this out through other organizations to build support so with where is number four I'm just curious it's pretty different than what the original one was and I'm just curious if that 444 per household is actually accurate ish or is it because it it's a total shift in terms of how you're quantifying things well I'm just curious if that is going to be sort of the average cost or is it based on how many you know how often you put your your you know garbage out on the street or anything like that do you have any sense of how this is operationalized well I'd used some rather older figures
028of how much tonnage the city puts in the landfill every year and then I divided it by the number of residents and other households so that was just a rough calculation crescents lot and suggested a change in this language because because he he added out he calculated it pretty much similarly by just using a current figures for the tonnage and the fact that the that the fees would go from 47 cents of time to four dollars and forty four cents of time because you don't do a per household in your new language correct you dogs brew as the city which would be paying this to the state and then we would get back you know potential money for programs and things like that so basically our tax bills will go up slightly in order to
029be able to accommodate this the tax would not be affected not it's the money is coming from the solid waste millage I see the pace for the solid waste okay so that's why you're keeping it away from a per household yeah that's that's might introduce a misunderstanding okay if it's okay I maybe I can provide some clarity on the financial side so I sent commissioners a summary of the solid waste expenditures and we're supposed to get as I was informed by Cresson an update he was originally intending or hoped hoping to come tonight and provide some explanation but he's traveling so that'll be at our next meeting but if you look at expenditures over the last several years let's say after the Murph shot down our total expenditures in fiscal year 17 were 18 point
0301 million last year they were sixteen point two million so if you take the two hundred and some thousand dollars you know that's a third significant digit change to the total expenditures that we talk we're talking about and last year in fiscal year 17 there was so in fiscal year 17 there were a bunch of extraordinary charges because the Merced found in things like that but last year revenues were sixteen point seven million normal operating expenses were sixteen point two million so if you were add two hundred and some thousand dollars that would roughly balance out and would not affect the overall fund balance but as Steve mentioned if there were to be an impact in a difference between expenditures and revenues that would eat into the total fund that is right now and last
031year it ended at 9.5 million and the budget for this year projects it ending at nine million dollars so there's a substantial buffer there to put that though into broader context in fiscal year 15 the unrestricted fund balance was five million dollars so it's eroded significantly most of that was due to some pension related one-time write-offs one of those was 3 million 3.1 million dollars I don't know if that helps hopefully so basically what I'm trying to say is $200,000 in the big scheme of things is not all that significant and if you look at the projections or last year in the projections from this year where revenues and expenditures more or less balance out it's not like we're throwing that completely out of kilter never question our process and particularly in terms of when
032this has been done before when's the right time for us to show a sign of support for this my understanding it's been referred to committee perhaps might change so when it this has been done before you know when it was done in the legislative process I don't know that there's necessarily a right or wrong time I don't frankly know how much influence it has but I think potentially a moving target yeah that's true well that's why that's why when I drafted this I didn't really mention SB 943 or part 115 because of course who knows what the final product will be so this is this is why I wrote the language is just supportive of the governor's suggestion to raise the tipping fees but then providing a fund for financing you know planning for recycling
033and you know and promoting businesses local businesses things like that these are the kind of things that have been spoken about in the case of the energy bills that I mentioned we stepped in in one case after they had passed the house and were pending action in the Senate in the other case the bills had been drafted and been considered in the house but had not yet been passed by the house so the same situation was in the second case of the energy bills we've we endorsed something that had yet to full and formally even pass one of the legislators at the state level yeah I guess I mean for me the short answer is we do it whenever we're able to you know only meeting once a month at most yeah thanks any other
034discussion I think a lot will happen and lamed up it's probably with our agreeing to this resolution if we care about it all in favor opposed motion carries the vet takes us to reports will start with committee reports if we have any which I suspect we do not write our Commission liaisons commissioner get Brandel planning anything yeah a few months ago we tabled our first project because of dioxane plume and it's so controversial because there's a lot of projects that are in the dye example so it's a little hard to know where we draw the line with that and I think that we're going to be learning along the way and the petitioner was going to go back and do some further testing subsurface it's it's very close to the original you know site so
035a little bit unusual in that way so it will be interesting to see how that unfolds over time as this thing spreads around and really at at some point a lot of the city's contamination is close enough to the surface that there might be some sort of the issue no the issue is that our stormwater ordinance requires infiltration and if we are promoting water infiltration are we speeding up the process of the dioxane moving so yeah right I know makes your head hurt so so it's it's not at the surface and there's some pretty good guesses about how deep it is and things like that but we don't really really know and so it's just the first that it's come up and it seemed like it is something that we should all be aware of
036as well and to see how those things interface and that it's just going to evolve over time I think and again I think this case is a little bit specific because it's so close it's probably hot I don't know maybe a half mile from the original site so three quarters like as the crow flies over near the sister leagues presumably infiltration adding water to it could all suitable pushes in another direction yeah exactly that's what that's what yeah so I know it's you know cuz I do a lot of work with storm water so it's like wow really so we just want to just dump all the storm water in the river instead you know I mean it really feels not very hopeful but I do think that this is kind of a unique situation
037too in terms of its proximity to the original the original site so we'll see what happens but I just thought you all might be interested to know that that has taken place at the Planning Commission level the other piece is that I was able to bring up some of the good works that's been done on metrics actually because we did a working session with the new development that's going to be taking place hoping to take place behind the existing train station near the Broadway bridge and there's going to be a you know Park near the water and and they had this wonderful property this is the DTE property correct and it was a big brownfield that there's actually most of it's been cleaned up there's one section that still needs to be cleaned up but
038they had all these wonderful renderings of you know the big stone steps going down into the water and I was just thinking huh that's after the Allen Creek dumps into the river there and the cascades it's just above you know where that is and we had that really interesting report on all of our metrics and being able to see what all the different creeks are how they're rated and and you know Allen was a very distinctive different then everything else was and so I brought it up but more as a spur to get us to do something about Allen Creek rather than saying nobody in the water ever you know but I do think that it's something that it's really one of those out-of-sight out-of-mind kinds of creeks that we have there's only in one
039place where it comes to the surface and that's in the middle of a private golf course so you know it's it would be tragic to me that we don't encourage people to be able to get their feet wet because of that and so I'm hoping that we can continue to be able to encourage the city to do things to make it healthier so that we can put our feet in and feel okay about it so are you saying there's dioxane coming out no no no I'm not talking about dioxane totally totally different topic yes this is a few weeks ago we had our metrics it I don't think that one of them I mean I'm sure that in fact we did talk a little bit about point-source pollution but I think that that was really
040not the thrust of the metrics because um I don't think they've done the kind of expensive testing frankly that would need to happen and all the creeks with all the various chemicals that are out there um so this I don't know probably 15 different categories of things that they were looking at the watershed yeah well different cat was it 12 yeah well up to 12 it varies by Creek shed sure and I think the rating for Allen was five out of a hundred everything else every other creature shed was 50 or above and that brought the overall weighted average down for Ann Arbor within Ann Arbor to 30 those are the numbers that I have in my head and that's what she's referring to is that if we were to have this development all right
041along the water right at a point below where Allen Creek shed is coming into the urine with a rating of five that sort of is a problematic yeah I don't think a lot of people understand how sprawling Allen Creek Watershed is and how much of the city of drains yeah burns park on the east way up to Stadium Road on the fast way down to what most of downtown really where is the point where it comes to the surface I didn't it is at the Argo dam if you're crossing the day right but you said I'm a golf course it oh where comes to the surface oh that is in the middle of the golf course and arbor golf and outing across from the stadium there is one place where it comes out to the
042surface there otherwise the headwaters are under the Pioneer parking lot so part of that portion of the headwaters are there and when they redid that big storm water the big treatment area that murmur went pioneer was all ripped up you could actually see the old clay seams of where the water would have been at the surface before it was all filled in with the fill that came out of the stadium so pretty interesting to see that that brief little window there when everything was opened up so yeah it's at that in the golf course there so not very not very many people get to see what the actual water of Allen Creek looks like before an umber golfing outing for filling in the creek they're still exciting so anyway I hope that it can be
043a way for us to spur further action on what happens with Allen Creek because it is suffering in a lot of ways and there's a place where I cross it every day in West Park and I'd say 50 percent of the time I smell gasoline coming straight out of it there's just a lot of illicit connections I think that are old and there and you know it's just one of those like sad City Creek stories but I think each time new things happen then all those connections get checked and I know there were quite a few scary things when they redid the why there were some serious connections there that went there were bad news and they got fixed you know so we continued to unearth some of those old unhealthy relationships with the creek
044and but they're still there too and I just hope that with this possibility people being able to have contact with the river that it Spurs us to be able to take further action on making sure that it's something that we feel good about getting our bodies into there might be an action step of some kind in here because this particular Broadway Park development is in Ward 1 mm-hmm and we're in general the neighborhood has been happy when the development of it mm-hmm we are aware that there's there used to be gasification of coal right in the ground and so several environmentalists are worried about that and so this is an addition to that concern now the developer we don't want to scare this developer away or make it difficult for them and their I think
045their position if I could paraphrase was that if we pass them DEQ that's good enough for us and then we'll proceed but the action step might be that this what you're saying dovetails with the guests would kick the bad ground they are - it's more it doesn't have anything to do with the on-site contamination it has to do with everybody else upstream that is you know dumping paint into the search basins and things like that it's what the water that's flowing off of our streets and the stormwater connections to the creek upstream that's the problem this developer has zero to do with this it's just that it happens to be a few hundred feet downstream of where this flows right into the Huron River so they just this has nothing to do with the site
046itself other they would love to be able to have recreation opportunities for people to be able to get down and put their feet in the water much like the place in the ARB where you know the big stone steps but people aren't swimming but you know they're putting their toes in and kids are kind of splashing around a little bit you know have a little contact and so it again this has nothing to do with the developer at all it really has to do with us taking more responsibility for what's happening upstream of this developer I would I would hate to see them pulling back these opportunities to be able to interact with the river I think that would be tragic I think it the onus is on us and those of us who you
047know are part of the Allen Creek I live in it you know that that we that we really try to fix the places that are messed up and and make it something so it I mean that's quite a I don't remember those specific numbers - I think that's quite a skewed I mean that's a I do remember the colors on that sheet and it was a totally different category Allen Creek was so again I think this is the temperature was cold because it was all underground okay exactly else is basically a rope so I don't think this has I don't think this necessarily scares the developer away and it has nothing to do with their behavior or their design whatsoever it's more that I want it to be a reminder and a spur for us
048to be able to take on you know which we've we've done in little fits and starts but I just think that this is a way for us to maybe to face it a little more fully as and think about it as an opportunity to be able to get our act together yes I would agree and and I think this does dovetail with while everyone's talking about the new park there exactly sell rights on people's minds and so is there any pretty so you this came about if there's anything you could send me for follow-up or something I could to have that in the file and it might be you know I don't know again that that it that it's going to change how they handle their site plan submission yeah because it really this they
049have zero responsibility with this it's it's really all the rest of us that are contributing to the stormwater in this area it's all upstream they just happen to be the first ones out of the gate of where this water comes and hits the Sun again after being underground for miles and miles and miles so I in some ways I would I think it's almost thinking about how we can interface with other initiatives that are happening within the city so that we can focus our attention on how we can try to improve the water quality of Allen Creek so that we do feel good about getting in there so I think that I I think that the development so far I'm really excited about what's coming and there's not a lot of things I actually get
050excited about on Planning Commission but this is exciting what they're proposing I think and the last thing I would want to do is to stymie that process because I feel like they're doing a lot of things right but I again I feel like it might just be a way for us to be able to think about other programs that we have to be able to think in a more targeted way about how we can try as a commission to the support the process of looking for opportunities to really deal with some of the issues with Allen Creek to a certain extent though I think it has more to do with general stormwater issues yeah and and as of right now the tree line is really like using it right now as its proposed is mostly
051is using existing pavement infrastructure that's there and and there are some places where they're going to be able to add small amounts of water quality treatment but nothing that would be a comprehensive like wow we could really change this with with that that's my sense of it thank you mainly as an opportunity for education yes yeah certainly right yep yeah so so has there ever been a report generated about how to mitigate some of the concerns about Allen Creek curve I think the Huron River watershed Council has all kinds of things on yes great Maps and resources and what you can do and all that kind of stuff so City might add things too but I know watershed council has wonderful resources on it so it may just be some more concerted effort on our
052part to be able to think about some targeted ways that we might be able to really I don't know what it is if it's all open right now I'm just bringing it up and I and I guess I would just say that I'm grateful for the metrics effort that happened because I feel like this is the kind of thing that it can help feed so that we can actually say there's data on these things and here's the way that we want to try to move the needle so that we can make things better in targeted areas where we want to focus our attention it starts with a witness and now we're right exactly right thanks commissioner repeal any news from perks no Commissioner murski energy yes brief update on energy the last meeting energy meeting
053was devoted almost entirely to a report out from Honeywell an energy efficiency audit that they did of city municipal buildings and just the summary that that was shown to us and there's a whole binder but just it alone was 40 slides so it's rather in-depth what Honeywell essentially did is they went through each one of the facilities looked for opportunities for energy efficiency savings and their interest is not just ending with that their interest is in coming to agreement with the city on a contract to essentially address all of those energy optimization opportunities to do that basically on their dime and then to essentially reap savings from that with essentially we share those savings with them and on the surface their contracts look rather attractive but the total of the total savings approximately sixty percent
054come from assumed operational savings only about 40 percent come from actual reaction in energy costs meaning if something is done where light bulbs are put in LED light bulbs instead of incandescent or inefficient old fluorescent light bulbs you get a certain amount of energy savings but the new LED light bulbs don't need to be replaced as often and therefore there's labor cost savings in having to go around and replace the labor replace the bulbs so that's in the operational savings and those amount to 60% of the total savings so our belief is in the Energy Commission that those operational savings are very very optimistic that actually the city would not really save anywhere close to that amount and therefore the payback in contracting with Honeywell would not be as advantageous as the way they're presenting
055it obviously they have an interest in making money out of this - so there's a certain amount of profit built into this as well so there have been a group of us that have been meeting regularly with Honeywell sort of behind the scenes as I said they presented this summary in our last meeting and the Energy Commission is I'm gonna look at developing a response if you will to the analysis of the Honeywell to finding the Honeywell report out and some alternatives that we think are more viable and have a greater payback to the city in the end we could go with Honeywell if our analysis is not going to be as favorable as what we think but we think with that there will be better alternatives so the whole money the meeting was basically
056developed to around or ran around that particular report out just two other comments energy related ordinances that we're working on I think I've reported on these before we're working on a lighting ordinance and we're working on a time of marketing meaning at this time the single-family residence would go on the market that there would be a requirement of a rather high level energy audit that would be conducted on the home that would generate a home energy score and that would be then included in the MLS listing so that the buyer would get information about the energy efficiency of the home on a score on a rating of basically zero to ten and that would then correspond also with some anticipated utility costs with the idea that the homeowner in beginning information about opportunities to improve
057the energy efficiency of the home would make some of those improvements before the home went on up for sale and/or that the buyer then would be aware of what energy efficiency opportunities there are and would make those at the time of the purchase and wrap that up into the mortgage for example where you get a very very low rate and where you could finance new windows or insulation or whatever the case may be in the case of both the lighting and the time of market ordinances there are other ordinances like this that have been implemented around the country so we are using those as templates in the case of lighting there are a number of different ordinances in the state of Minnesota Arizona Pennsylvania and case of time of market that's being done in Boston
058Texas and in Portland Oregon so we're using those templates as best practices and their lessons learned we have teams formed there are regular meetings that are now happening we're setting up Google documents folders so that we can go in and collectively provide comments on draft resolutions or Draft ordinances I should say that are being developed the timetable for the lighting ordinance is we're targeting implementation meaning approval by Council in the latter part of the first half of next year where the ordinance would go into effect roughly in July we've also identified stakeholder groups in both cases where we want to make sure that we talk with and reach out to those stakeholder groups in the case for example of the time of marketing we've already met with three representatives from the realtor's association including the
059incoming president so we're very much aware that this is not something that we want to do in public meetings but with no stakeholders there we actually want to reach out to stakeholders involve them and so hopefully we would be able to meet that timing on the lighting like I said July roughly July of next year we haven't said yet a target date for the time of market but we are using what we've done from the lighting side and we'll put together a similar time table for that ordinance as well that probably won't be quite on the same timetable that's probably sometime in the second half of next year so those are the things that we're working at yes only energy so we're not looking at at other types of utilities only gas and electric if
060that was your question right well yes partly and also because for example I mean you can say the same thing to some degree with water but water is for example gonna be very dependent on the owner and what they're doing in terms of watering plants and things like that so we can get good data and the home energy score by the way that we're using which is a deal we approved methodology and score that is what we're going to generate and use in the MLS or what we're recommending and that only focuses on energy related utility costs so not water and storm water or things like that but that could be an opportunity and that might be something that this group which is more focused on water kinds of issues maybe could look at at
061some point in time well it's publicly available information well I guess it's not necessarily publicly available but the informations already out there and want af-- I'd yes if we were passing an ordinance that was designed to be able to give a future buyer the full environmental impact of the house it might be something that we would want to encourage them thinking about just in terms of McKay's of developing environmentally literate citizens true I made a note include water question mark water sewer and that's something we can think about yep thanks and by the way we're starting with single-family it's as I said it's easier because there's already best practices and templates out there from other municipalities but we would eventually like to move in to multifamily with some type of ordinance there potentially as well
062it's a lot more difficult and it may be something that is instead of tied to a listing something that's tied to inspections and we'd also eventually like to move into the commercial space but that could be a couple of years out or something like that but we will essentially what we want to do is though increase awareness and have an incentive for people to make energy efficiency upgrades and this discussion prompts me to relook again at that EPA what's my carbon footprint calculator which does gets into the nitty-gritty of your Energy Star appliances and individual yes and I think it's the Public Library we also have some different devices to measure what your refrigerator using and all that so I'm glad it's exciting all this is coming together did you want to talk about this
063listening tour the Energy Commission or a group a subset of Energy commissioners came up with the idea actually started with Commissioner CLE V with the idea that there would be a listening tour sustainability listening tour that would help hold a series of meetings in each one of the wards where we would go out and for example meet at a district library branch or some other public space indicate to residents that we commissioners from both energy as well as environmental so the idea is to have roughly three to four commissioners representing both Commission's present hopefully also in attendance with people from the office of sustainability innovation at least a representative and to simply engage with residents from every one of the wards to here what their concerns are relative to environmental sustainability so if you look
064at the sustainability framework that the city has there's 16 goals under 4 themed areas one of those is community and that includes things like economic development education serious crime things like that we would we would not focus on that theme area but the other theme areas are very much related to energy climate environment clean water things like that and the focus of the sustainability tour would be to focus on those areas and get input from residents where their concerns are where they think the Commission's need to put more focus where we may be potentially even solutions and things like that just to have an opportunity other than in meetings like this where we're actually going out to people in their neighborhoods and get the input on yeah and their concerns and and hopes and desires
065for the city so the ideas it's it's in a white paper form up until now it's been circulating only among a few people and the Energy Commission along with Missy and people and her office and the idea would be then to send that out and hopefully the next couple of days once we are at a 90 percent draft to commissioners from the environmental Commission and then hopefully to get support well first of all input on how to improve the proposal and if it's supported then to actually start with meetings potentially already at the end of this year that may be difficult with the holidays but at the very latest say in January of next year and that would be different than the sustainability forums that are held at the downtown library which are much more
066scripted where we have typically panelists that are presenting on a particular topic autonomous vehicles whatever the case with some Q&A at the end this would really truly be a listening tour as opposed to a presentation tour so we can look forward to seeing a copy of their proposal in coming days yes okay great thank you thank you reports from our council representatives comes member Smith anything I know there's been a lot of hoopla whatever you'd call it a lot of concern since the October 15th meeting the eight-hour meeting by the way and I and I would say yeah yeah it's been hard to please everyone with that process that we used I think the good news is that there is a strong appetite amongst council members and incoming council members to support the in particular
067the solar NetZero on the solar and electric vehicle chargers and things dr. Stoltz I'm sorry I got your email thank you I haven't had time to reply yet but you've been on my to-do list and and and so I and I think the concerns I know a lot of you were disappointed I think the concerns had to do with it being a budget amendment outside of the budget process and also that the new council is just coming on board and so that some of those process concerns but I just sort of wanted to tell you all that there's a lot of enthusiasm for the Office of Sustainability and innovation and the exciting work that they can do and collaborating with U of M on their new plan and and I like dr. stoked refers to
068being a disrupter slash advisor and I think there's a huge appetite for the and I think people are looking forward to the communications that can come out of the office and helping all of the departments of the city improve and get up to speed and the role model that we want to be so I'm happy to take any questions on that but I think the good news is is that this is just the beginning and a lot of the momentum that it was created this month is going to be used for all of us going forward and so that's just what I wanted to say about that and if anyone if that wasn't clear or if anyone has any questions I'm I'm happy to hear that Mike yeah with all this enthusiasm what was your
069vote on this because of the my vote was no on this as you may recall and that was partly because of it being a budget amendment and the new council coming on board and my understanding is that the voters spoke on August 7 when they elected this and they would like for the new council to look at how we do this but I want how we do our sustainability and innovation but I I want to reassure everyone that my understanding is there's a huge appetite that we do this and do these things and we just want to do them in the right process and after a more thorough discussion so it's I believe its back on the agenda for November 19 so I know that new council avens I speak with them daily they are
070getting ready for that discussion yeah I think 15th was disappointing to everybody here that voted affirmatively to support that funding amendment I was certainly quite disappointed I postponed it so that it wouldn't wouldn't be struck down in the hopes that the incoming council would perhaps feel a bit differently and we could perhaps muster eight votes but I'm not confident that eight votes are there I would just remind all of us to continue to advocate for this you know the work can't get done without people here to do it the the appetite to do this if we're not going to fund it then we don't really have an appetite to do it so I think to continue to call all of us out at Council for our inability to get together and act on this is
071fair I think it's something that the community has expressed considerable interest in I'm very interested in the listening tour that the Energy Commission is talking about when I talk to folks this is you know this an affordable housing or the two most important things that I hear and we have not made any progress on either of these things and it's frustrating and I'm very hopeful that the new council will be able to work collaboratively to find solutions that work for everybody but until we actually you know put pen to paper and start funding this stuff you know we're just talking a good game so I think many people know my thoughts of this at least on the Energy Commission I missed some of the meetings because I was out of town when the resolution was
072being drafted in the joint meetings both the working session as well as the final one preceding the City Council meeting but what what I would encourage council to consider is it's in my view it's not just this resolution which is for fiscal year nineteen budget but you will be working on the fiscal year 2021 budget and in my view that will really reveal what is council's appetite for climate and I'll say environmental sustainability in general and if you look at funding the office of sustainability or its let's say roots the last several years the funding has been minuscule for programs so we've had a few people where we've paid for their compensation and with including benefits they've been able to do outreach and education but they haven't been able to do any kind of community
073facing programs or anything else so I think the new council will truly reveal how important it is how important environmental sustainability is not only in the vote next month but in the final budget that evolves and if they're really if it really is a priority then we will see that and what I'd like to point out and I've made or quoted these figures in other forums so for how do I say excuse me for if I'm repeating it here but the total city budget is roughly four hundred million dollars so that's general fund and all the other funds that's what total city expenditures are total expenditures for climate action is around and this is something that I've clarified with both Missy as well as dr. Stoltz as well as tom crawford climate action related spending
074including staff working on that is around five hundred and sixty thousand dollars which works out to 0.15 percent of total city expenditures so if we look at everything the city is doing and we look at the priorities my hope would be that out of 400 million there's more than 0.15 percent that is directed towards climate action given the impact of climate action on so many different things food security watershed and ecosystem health and so many other different things so my hope is is that in the council approves at least some of the expenditures for fiscal year 19 but then also follows that up with spending in fiscal year twenty and twenty-one and beyond because we can't have effective programs if we fund them with 1.5 million dollars in - in a two-year cycle and then
075it goes down to 500,000 and then it goes back up and down the kinds of things that we need to really do to address environmental sustainability in general and in particular climate action requires relatively stable funding so that we can have stable programs we can have stable staff and so on and so forth thank you for the opportunity to a pine on the subject anyone else have comments did you have anything else councilmember ban well I just wanted to I'm a big person on like communications and education and so as I stated during on the 15 that I really think and I'm not trying to scold people or or school lecture people but I really think that our pie chart that says the municipality is 2% of our community's greenhouse gas emissions the other 98%
076is is us and and what we do and businesses in the university and such so I think those sort of there's a lot of we don't need to be sitting on our laurels and waiting for for not that any of us were but I just I look forward to communicating to the public about how we can all monitor our own carbon footprints come to member Smith touch of anything else the only thing I was going to mention is chair was we will be considering at our next meeting adopting bylaws which include a requirement to adopt an annual work plan which will then mean we really need to adopt an annual work plan which we've done only sporadically in the past with that in mind a couple meetings ago I think I asked for suggestions from
077all of you on topic areas that we might address in the coming months and I got a few responses and thank you for those however listing all of them we end up with sort of a list of basically everything that we might possibly consider which is of limited usefulness when trying to sit down and come up with a list of things that we might actually do so I think that was probably the wrong question to ask so tonight I'm going to ask if everyone could just think a little bit about particular actions that the Commission might take in the coming year things that we might specifically tackle I think we've already heard a couple possibilities tonight as far as the Allen Creek situation you know if everybody could just give some thought to specific ordinances
078that we might tackle specific policy changes we might recommend in the coming year and funnel those to me that we can talk further about things that we might do but really like to see us make some substantial progress in the coming year and in particular I'd ask if we can think about things that would improve the metrics behind our 16 sustainability goals they could be great if we all look back at those and see where we're at and try to come up with some ideas it would start those numbers getting moving in the right direction and I think we'll have a good year ahead if we can do that next item is a report from staff dr. Stoltz do you have anything we have a lot so sorry to do this at the end it
079feel bad excuse me just let you know we awarded a gold award from the Michigan green communities for the commitment that our council made to 100% clean and renewable energy for meanness operations it's a beautiful poster in my office if you'd like to see it we also just wanted to call out how happy we are for the University of Michigan moving forward with their commitment to pursuing carbon neutrality and I think that's extraordinary we look forward to partnering with them and we have been reaching out to the University to explore opportunities certainly great leverage and I can foresee a future in which we similarly make a such a commitment and then unlock potential together I also wanted to let you know that you may remember Emily mentioned we had one of grants to bring in
080an equity advisor to look at our programs and we have started working with dr. Toni reams at the University he's already scanned the work plan that you have seen and it's gone to Council given suggestions he has signed off and helped us really think about how we implement that to make sure the needs of our most vulnerable populations are front and center his next task is to look at our 2012 climate action plan and identify missed opportunities and we're gonna be using that and you'll get a report he's gonna we put it in his work plan to come to you and share what he has found through that we also have asked him to create a process that's replicable for other departments so they can similarly start thinking about equity and how it integrates into
081the work that they were doing so we're pretty excited about how that unfolds and I would say when we think about sustainability for us it's very important that we're people centric and remembering those living on the margins so that that's pretty key for our staff just some kind of random things all over that stuff shared next year that we're part of something called the urban sustainability directors Network it's about 240 municipalities that are really actively pursuing sustainability and it looks like next year's meeting is gonna be in Detroit we're pretty excited about so we're gonna try to steal them over here to Ann Arbor show some of what we got bring in some thought leaders and so stay tuned you're gonna see I hope a lot of community events with some of these folks doing
082really great things around the nation we also have been asked by peers to host them a group of cities have reached out based on our rental housing program and you may remember in the work plan we've got an opportunity we'd like to pursue a green rental housing program where we try to make all of rentals as efficient as possible without raising rents for again our vulnerable populations and we have were able to think about that because we have a really strong rental housing program and so others who want to do something similar like a green rental housing program they have to set up a rental housing program first to do inspections and make sure those positions are or those offices are staffed and operating and so we actually had a group of cities reach out
083to us so we're gonna put in an application to host them and I'm pretty excited so good job for all of our colleagues and community services they're doing great work we also have two proposals I'm getting like I'm at the halfway point did you agree to proposals into something called the Innovation Fund which is through the urban sustainability directors Network one is to explore resilience finance facility and the thought there is resilience as the climate continues changing how are we going to fund the massive amount of work for storm water or for heat mitigation I mean where's that money gonna come from and so we've got a national finance person who is a city person by trade who's working with us on that proposal so we raise our hand to be guinea pig working with
084our finance department to figure out what that might look like and then we put in a proposal for some seed some additional seed funding for resilience hubs and this is a little tricky because we have to demonstrate we're committed to a resilience hub in order to unlock this extra funding but we're gonna proceed and this isn't the work plan Figment has questions let me know you heard the budget amendment was moved to November 19th and we are preparing a short executive summary of our work plan that we'll be sharing with Council especially since we have so many new council members stepping forward and it outlines the greenhouse gas reduction potential of every measure which we had the cost of every measure the cost per ton of co2 and then also of other benefits so is
085this an equity driven project is this a project that has water quality benefits etc so that'll be a short summary and will obviously show that with you in the public just to kind of promote the work Lane Bryant Community Center is moving forward with a six kilowatt PV installation and by the time you meet again it'll be on so we have helped finance that and we're pretty excited on September 17th we sent our strategy for the hundred percent clean and renewables for city operations to council and that was well received and so now we're running at that to try to get meanness cooperations off is closed we can to zero emissions as possible just to point out though our work plan the bigger thing that we went to council for is for mostly community programs
086community facing programs so this is something we're working on very much internal and then to sort of calls for those who are interested there's something called the National Climate Assessment that is released it has to it's mandated by the federal government to come out every five years and they are about to release the next one we expect it to have very little fanfare incredibly little fanfare from our federal administration there was a chapter a science chapter that's like the build into this that was released on Friday at four o'clock and we expect this to be a very similar kind of release because they don't want to draw attention we would argue to climate change so we are raising our hands to host a really big launch party because we have a lot of authors in
087the area so if anyone wants to help me make a little splash and draw some attention to climate change in the state of the science would welcome that help we don't know when it's going to drop because it's being really kept it's very tight to the chest it's gonna be December January but we're mobilizing some folks and then the last opportunity actually comes from the Energy Commission and there are subcommittees as commissioner mirskiy mentioned and they have offered if you want to serve on one of those subcommittees and help advance things they would welcome that so if you are interested please let Jon myself or Josh McDonald know it's the easy ordinance so Evie readiness throughout the community is one the time of marketing and then the hundred percent clean and renewable strategy so if
088you're interested please that's all any questions for dr. Stokes do you know of any news on the Gillman plume negotiations no I don't have any updates on that but I can certainly make sure it's um it's included in your next movie we're always interested and I think I'm that the plume that because it's in litigation and Commissioner Smith might want to weigh in on this but I think it's just in litigation chugging along in the background and we're not even talking about it we we've had a couple of close sessions so we can't share any of that information but it is the the discussions we understand are ongoing Thanks does anyone have any items for the next agenda they already have several things would anyone from the public like to make any closing comments please
089come forward and tell us your name and we'd ask that you can find it to three minutes but we'd ask that you can find it to three minutes my name is Kristen Hayden I'm a student at the University of Michigan and I've been in resident of Ann Arbor for the last 19 years so this is my town this is my home and I'd just like to commend you guys for the work you're doing but also ask that you continue to push as hard as you can because I'm gonna be living through this hopefully for the rest of my life hopefully to be a long time hopefully climate change will be mitigated as soon as possible and I'd also like to ask on behalf of the student groups that I'm part of that you consider students
090in your movements forward we're really interested in getting hands-on experience both politically scientifically with you guys working with the city of Ann Arbor and other community partners so I was talking with John he has my contact info and so if you have any ideas any thoughts I would love to work with you guys and so thank you so much that's all I have to say but yeah good work thank you any other public comment anyone have anything else come on so members I sent an email of the city administrator earlier today asking for a work session dedicated city council work session dedicated to climate change and local response you know by my reckoning and councilmember banister you might know better than I we don't have a free work session period until January which is unfortunate
091but I think you know that gets us set up for the run-up to the budget discussions it might be a very appropriate time to do that I'll double back and let you know what he says about that generally you know staff determines what's gonna be the topic of each of our work sessions unless we ask for something in particular so I'm hoping that we could dedicate you know two hours of our time to to having a pretty detailed discussion not just of the Office of Sustainability and innovations work plan but more to have some experts that we have access to here at the University come in and talk about what the difference our local actions can make in the broader efforts to mitigate climate change anything else all right thanks everyone will you're adjourned at
0928:27 you