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HomeMy WebLinkAboutApproved Minutes - 2009-04-20City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes of April 20, 2009 Page 1 of 4 City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes April 20, 2009 I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Jean Baumann called the Sustainability Advisory Board meeting of April 20, 2009 to order at 6:30 p.m. in the Santiam Rood of the West End Building, 4101 Kruse Way, Lake Oswego, Oregon. Members present: Chair Baumann, Vice Chair Dorothy Atwood, Matt Briggs, Bruce Brown (alternate), Craig Diamond, Lisa Murphy, Patrick Rowe, Amin Wahab, Grant Watkinson and Jacob Shimkus. Ron Gronowski and Jeff DeWitt were not present. Guest: Heidi Schrimsher. Staff present: Jonna Papaefthimious, Staff Liaison/Natural Resource Planner; and Susan Millhauser, Sustainability Planner. II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Watkinson moved to adopt the Minutes of December 29, 2008, January 22, 2009, and February 19, 2009 with edits suggested by the members. Atwood seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous vote. III. ANNOUNCEMENTS Millhauser reported that she had described how Lake Oswego had accomplished its initial operational inventory at a Green Cities forum sponsored by Local Governments for Sustainability. She said the City might be eligible for $160,000 in direct stimulus funds through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program. The staff had talked about using the money to retrofit City buildings and enhance outdoor public parking lot lighting. Portland and Multnomah County were considering using the money to start a revolving fund for home weatherization. She related that she was looking into using stimulus money to fund some of the activities the SAB members had listed last November. Attwood said she was working with the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance. That organization was in line to get money from the US Department of Energy to implement energy management systems. Corvallis was thinking about using that kind of funding to meet the energy strategy requirement of stimulus funding. She suggested the funding might be used for private/public partnership projects related to water and wastewater systems. IV. PUBLIC COMMENT Heidi Schrimsher explained that she was about to build a house and had found the code required her to plant street trees, which would block her access to the passive solar she planned to use; and she had to design a little “bump out” in the wall to comply with the regulation that called for breaking up a sidewall plane. She had moved to Lake Oswego from Boulder, Colorado. She said Boulder had a points system a homebuilder had to City of Lake Oswego Minutes of April 20, 2009 Page 2 of 4 meet that factored the size of the house and favored a rectangular house because it generated less waste. She held the Lake Oswego Development Code pushed people to be irresponsible. SAB members assured her that Brown, Rowe and Gronowski planned a code review after Sustainability Action Month. The SAB also planned to participate in the Comprehensive Plan update process. Ms. Papaefthimiou suggested Ms. Schrimsher talk to the Planning Commission because that body advised the City Council about code changes. V. REGULAR BUSINESS SAB Liaisons – Meeting Updates The SAB had assigned members to be liaisons to other City boards and commissions and give the SAB’s sustainability presentation. Atwood reported that she had met with a few members of the Citizen’s Budget Committee. Committee members had asked for more documentation and suggested the SAB look for incentives. Diamond and Watkinson had met with the NRAB, and Diamond had met with PRAB. Both Boards had been very receptive. The NRAB invited SAB liaisons to come back every few months. PRAB seemed to want to work with SAB to make the parks more sustainable. Atwood said PRAB would be a logical partner for SAM next year. Millhauser reported she had given an overview presentation to the Chamber of Commerce Leadership Program and plugged SAM. About 40 people were there. Baumann planned to ask for time on a City Council agenda to make the sustainability presentation. She said she had revised the presentation. Any SAB member could have it to present to the general public when they had an opportunity. Report: Sustainability Action Month Planning Atwood announced the SAM events schedule was on the City website, in the local newspaper, and on posters. E-blasts were to go out. The first one announced the kickoff event with Bill Bradbury. She asked every member to commit to contacting 50 to 100 people to let them know about the event and to bring 10 to 25 committed people to the auditorium to hear Bradbury. The auditorium had 600 seats and she wanted to fill it. She said every science and social studies teacher in the School District had been contacted. Formal written invitations would be sent to city councilors, school board members and principals, neighborhood association chairs, and others. Members took posters to distribute. She asked the members to use the website to report back to her and Ms. Papaefthimiou by the end of the week. She planned to distribute a packet to each volunteer that contained the materials and information they would need. The group arranged the volunteer schedule together. Report: Clean Streams Plan The staff distributed a memo about the Clean Streams Plan. Diamond explained it was an updated surface water management plan for the City. The original plan had been fashioned in the early 1990s. OTAK was the City’s consultant. Over the past three years, there had been a lot of input from stakeholder meetings, a technical board and a citizens’ board. OTAK had then drafted the report. Diamond had participated in an April 20th meeting with Elizabeth Papadopoulos, Bill Gaar, Watkinson, OTAK and Stephanie Wagner, Executive Director of Friends of Tryon Creek State Park. The main idea that came out of that meeting was that the draft plan contained a lot of technical information City of Lake Oswego Minutes of April 20, 2009 Page 3 of 4 and data and recommendations for Capital Improvement Projects, but it lacked vision and there needed to be more emphasis on education and outreach. It should promote low impact development and facilities that prevented pollutants from getting into the water in the first place. He suggested SAB and NRAB work together and submit a joint recommendation for the consultant to incorporate before the plan was presented to the City Council. Brown suggested that the neighborhood planning task force should ensure the template for neighborhood plans had a stormwater management component. Other suggestions in the memo were to create an Oswego Lake watershed council and let people know how to manage runoff at the same time they had a water and energy use review at their homes. The SAB planned to examine the plan again at their next meeting. Report: Electric Vehicles & Charging Stations Briggs reported that the Obama administration had allocated money to be used to double up on gorge wind power transmission lines that would transmit over three Bonneville dams worth of electricity. Since the wind typically blows in the afternoon and at night, he suggested the SAB should push for “smart meters” that would use wind power to fill up electric cars over night and then turn the electricity off during daytime hours of peak electricity demand. Millhauser distributed her memorandum, “Federal Funding Opportunity for Electric Vehicles and Charging Infrastructure.” The City was going to apply for US Department of Energy grants and look for business matches to use to install more electric vehicle charging stations. She asked the members to let her know about property owners or employers who would be interested in participating. She said future updates of the code should allow builders to install the necessary electrical conduit in new buildings. Tri-Met was considering installing charging stations at Park & Rides. Mr. Briggs related reading that new technology was about to be introduced that replaced the electric car battery with a component that charged in five minutes and had a range of 400-500 miles. Report: Urban/Rural Reserves Wahab reported that he heard the staff report on draft City aspirations at a recent DRC meeting. They related that the Mayor had directed the staff to incorporate concepts found in Metro’s “Six Attributes of Great Communities” into the document. The SAB agreed that Baumann and Wahab would download a copy of the aspirations draft and edit it to incorporate “sustainability-mindedness” into each of the aspiration categories. Then they would circulate it among board members for comment before forwarding the edited document to the staff. Wahab recalled the staff had reported that there was less urgency to expand the Urban Growth Boundary because the economic downturn slowed the increase in the number of new housing units that would be needed by 2017. Report: Comprehensive Plan Update Baumann reported that the City Council was to decide the scope of Periodic Review of the Comprehensive Plan on May 19th. The scope might be limited to technical changes required by the state, or expanded to a broader public visioning process. She said she, Diamond, and Rowe had submitted comments as individual citizens that they wanted to see a visioning process. She asked if the SAB wanted to submit a formal request. When asked Ms. Papaefthimiou clarified that the SAB could undertake its own City of Lake Oswego Minutes of April 20, 2009 Page 4 of 4 community sustainability visioning process, but it would be necessary to address it in the Comprehensive Plan update in order to implement the results in the Development Code and City plans and policies. A visioning program could cost as much as $120,000 to $300,000. The technical review would be in the budget, but there might not be funding for the larger program. Watkinson was concerned that the City would not move forward without a sustainability effort. The visioning process was important to that effort. Watkinson moved that the SAB weigh in on having a community visioning process to help frame the technical review portion of the Comprehensive Plan update . Atwood seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous vote. Baumann agreed to draft the memorandum, circulate it to members, and submit it in time for it to be included in the Council’s hearing packet. She also planned to attend that City Council meeting. VI. NEW BUSINESS The Agents of Change group had asked if the SAB would be willing to continue to sponsor their use of the West End Building for meetings several times a year. Atwood moved that the SAB would sponsor the Lake Oswego Eco School Network’s use of the WEB for meetings . Watkinson seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous vote. Baumann announced that she and Atwood planned to present at the City Council meeting the next day. They would update the Councilors on SAM and other things the board was working on, including their decision to support the visioning process. When asked, she agreed to ask each of the Councilors to sign up for water and energy reviews at the meeting if they indicated beforehand that they were willing to do that. A photograph of the SAM planning team was taken at the meeting so it could be inserted into a newspaper article during SAM. Wahab and Briggs had left the meeting early in order to make an SAB presentation to another board. VII. ADJOURNMENT There being no other business Chair Baumann adjourned the meeting at 8:54 p.m. L\sab\minutes\April 20, 2009.doc