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HomeMy WebLinkAboutApproved Minutes - 2009-06-15City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes of June 15, 2009 Page 1 of 5 City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes June 15, 2009 I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Jean Baumann called the Sustainability Advisory Board meeting of June 15, 2009 to order at 6:38 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, Craig Diamond, Lisa Murphy and Amin Wahab. Bruce Brown (alternate), Ron Gronowski, Patrick Rowe, Grant Watkinson, and Jacob Shimkus were not present. Guests: Craig Stephens and Michael Hall. Staff present: Jonna Papaefthimiou, Staff Liaison/Natural Resource Planner; and Susan Millhauser, Sustainability Planner. II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (None) III. ANNOUNCEMENTS The Northwest Earth Institute Eco Challenge was scheduled for October 1 – 15, 2009. Portland Energy Conservation planned a fundraiser. PSU was putting on three energy system management workshops. Sustaining Cascadia met the second Saturday of each month. IV. PUBLIC COMMENT Craig Stephens asked the SAB to advocate a program that would make at least one City park “biocides” (pesticides and herbicides) free for three years. The City would chose a park that had sufficient residents nearby who would be willing to volunteer to keep it weeded. He acknowledged that it cost more not to use pesticides, but he thought volunteer labor would help defray the extra cost. He related that the Parks Director had advised him that the City kept use of pesticides to the minimum necessary and she thought they were necessary to maintain the appearance of parks and for cost reasons. However, Stephens held that using biocides had health costs and did not really work anyway. Baumann then asked the staff to look at the material Stephens offered; research what City policy was; and research what other communities and agencies were doing. The SAB would then invite the Parks Director to come speak to them. V. REGULAR BUSINESS SAB Liaison Meeting Updates Wahab reported that the June TAB meeting that he and Brown had planned to present at had been cancelled. Diamond had made the SAB presentation to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board (PRAB). They agreed to consider sustainability in their work. City of Lake Oswego Minutes of June 15, 2009 Page 2 of 5 Sustainability Action Month (SAM) Report The total numbers were not yet in, and it was not possible to estimate how many people had talked to the volunteers at the Farmers Market, but Atwood and Baumann estimated that there had been at least 350 [transcriber’s note: this number was not clear on audio] people at other SAM events. Atwood reported that 129 people had signed up for energy audits at the events, and she did not yet know how many had signed up online. She concluded that the results showed that when the SAB effort was joined with some other group’s regularly scheduled event there was more turnout than when the SAB held their own separate event. She suggested that the SAB try to partner with more groups putting on established events next year. She said feedback the board had received suggested holding fewer events next year and taking more time to plan it. The Board had planned to ask people to sign up for a pilot program to track their energy and water conservation efforts, but that did not get done because audit signup forms did not have a place for them to sign up for the tracking program too. Briggs said his experience was that the people he talked to were ready to take action. They had wanted to know how to install solar and who to contact about installing it. They had wanted to know what LED lights cost. He suggested next year buying a container of LED lights to bring to SAM events to provide to people who signed up to install solar in their houses and tracking how many people installed programmable thermostats. The results would be measurable. The program would require the City Council to budget funds for it. Baumann indicated she thought SAM results were reasonable for a first year effort. The members discussed how to proceed. Should they continue to plan a SAM every year, or should they spread events out over the entire year? Some volunteers had experienced “burnout” by the end of the month. Diamond supported spreading activities out. Baumann suggested that now that the SAB had “birthed” SAM they could spin it off to a separate group, like the SAM advisory group they had used to plan SAM this year. A couple of SAB members could lead it, and some of the people who had unsuccessfully applied to serve on SAB could participate in the advisory group. Atwood agreed that the SAB should give SAM a two-year trial before the SAB changed it. Diamond suggested there might be a need to build the “sustainability brand” among the citizenry. How could sustainability be marketed? Atwood suggested the SAB offer to put on the program at each civic group meeting in May. The focus would be an aspect of sustainability that group might be interested in. Diamond suggested looking for corporate sponsors to help pay for things like the LED lights. Murphy said partnering with the library had been successful because the kids had been drawn to the regular story time event there. Millhauser advised the SAB to keep their energy conservation focus so she could apply for an energy conservation block grant that might help pay for the AmeriCorps position match and help the SAB accomplish some of the other activities they wanted to accomplish but did not have a budget for. The AmeriCorps worker would start work in September. Atwood related that the library staff had already thought of many more things they could do during the next SAM. Baumann reported that PGE representatives wanted to know how they could better support SAM next year. Atwood planned to get feedback from this year’s SAM advisory group, too. Wahab suggested the board should work more closely with other regional groups and invite them to come talk to SAB. The SAB did not make a decision about future SAMs at this meeting. City of Lake Oswego Minutes of June 15, 2009 Page 3 of 5 Green Power Challenge At their last meeting, the board had considered an invitation from PGE to participate in the Green Power Challenge and voted to recommend that the City Council declare that the City would participate in the Challenge during August and September. The details were to be worked out by Rowe and Griggs. Griggs presented the report. He said the Mayor had agreed to meet with the PGE renewable energy program manager. The Mayor wanted to be sure that citizens would see the door-to-door effort as a positive thing. Then, the SAB could present their recommendation to the City Council. Meanwhile Griggs, Rowe and Papaefthimiou had worked out the details with PGE representatives. Griggs had been concerned about what PGE’s contractor for door-to-door sales would pitch. He did not want Green Mountain Energy employees to push “Clean Wind,” because that program actually offered wind power as a percentage of a mix of energy sources that included coal and natural gas. He said he wanted the canvassers to point to charts that showed that “Clean Wind” was actually 50% carbon source. He circulated a copy of their handout. Griggs reported that the vendor who installed solar on his house was a member of the Oregon Solar Energy Association. The vendor had reported that large utilities were manipulating to position themselves ahead of the solar group members to get Energy Trust status and valuable future carbon credits. So he wanted the door-to-door effort to be used to sell renewable power; distribute a handout that described the top ten things residents could do to save energy; and that told residents how to sign up for energy reviews and water audits. Canvassers would also hand out giveaways like shopping bags. He reported PGE expected a 70% to 80% increase in new connections from the door-to-door effort. He said PGE would email their customers to tell them about the effort and the City would announce the Challenge in Hello LO! , the local newspaper; and in emails to neighborhood associations and others on the City’s contact list. The EPA awarded a plaque to each Green Power Challenge City. Lake Oswego had already achieved a level of market participation to merit that, but PGE’s goal was to raise it from 13% to 15% by getting 300 new signups. PGE had agreed to let SAB members accompany the canvassers to hear the pitch and ensure they were not really “pushing coal.” Griggs volunteered to present the recommendation and details at the July 21st City Council meeting. Members considered a suggestion to use the door-to-door effort to do the sustainability survey, but Griggs advised that might be too much and the focus should be on energy and water conservation. Comprehensive Plan Update / Community Sustainability Plan At the May SAB meeting, the members had agreed to ask the City Council to conduct community visioning at the beginning of the periodic review process. They had formed a committee to frame a proposal suggesting how to go about fashioning the Community Sustainability Plan. Baumann had presented the SAB request at the May 19th City Council meeting. The SAB Community Sustainability Plan Planning Group (Baumann, Atwood, Rowe, Diamond and Briggs were there and Gronowski had not been able to attend) had met and discussed an approach to the Plan. Baumann distributed and read aloud her memorandum to the SAB that described what she had learned since the last SAB meeting (see her June 15, 2009 Report to the SAB). The Councilors had asked the City of Lake Oswego Minutes of June 15, 2009 Page 4 of 5 SAB to help them understand what were guiding principles and attributes of a sustainable city so they could use them during 2010 goal setting. The Mayor had suggested presenting it with a scope of work and budget request at the October 20th City Council meeting. The Planning Commission was working on the Comprehensive Plan update. The staff had suggested that a change of name could prevent confusion about which “visioning” effort was to support periodic review and which was to support the community sustainability plan. The SAB Community Sustainability Plan Planning Group had met and brainstormed a course of action that Baumann detailed in her memorandum. They wanted to run it by the full Board and then refine it later. They suggested that staff and Planning Commissioners should receive sustainability training and the SAB should provide a guide for them to use during the periodic review process and to fashion the Community Sustainability Plan. They listed what the components of the plan could be. They suggested utilizing the City’s random monthly survey to understand how the community felt about sustainability. Baumann anticipated that she and Gronowski would stay actively involved in the Comprehensive Plan updating process as the voice of the SAB. Members suggested developing a vision statement for the visioning process; researching what other cities - like Portland and Berkeley, California - had done; and describing the “end point” of being a sustainable city for people to keep in mind. Diamond and Atwood advised the planning group still had a lot of work to do to develop a framework for the community plan and Diamond said it might be better to slow down and take adequate time to develop it. The SAB might need to act quickly to offer a guide to the City Council and affect the Comprehensive Plan update, but the community visioning process needed to be a very thoughtful, well researched, process. The SAB needed to determine what resources they would need and ask for a budget. During the remaining discussion, Papaefthimiou confirmed that City Council had approved the staff work plan for periodic review and it began in August. There was a budget for it. Perhaps the SAB could ask the Planning Department to use part of it for training. A community visioning effort did not start until late next year in that work plan. Atwood moved that the SAB strongly recommend that the City pay for and arrange for staff and the Planning Commission to receive sustainability training in advance of their Comprehensive Plan update work to help inform that process. Diamond seconded the motion and it passed 6:0. Baumann was to write a memorandum to the Long Range Planning Manager to inform him of the SAB action. Atwood suggested using the August SAB meeting to organize their efforts by assigning members to each category of the Comprehensive Plan. The Board needed to work on a climate action plan too. How that could be related to the Comprehensive Plan update and community sustainability plan? Diamond, Griggs and Shimkus were asked to make related recommendations at the next SAB meeting. VI. NEW BUSINESS Millhauser reported the City was going to apply for a federal energy efficiency conservation block grant of $157,900. The application was due June 25th, but the details did not have to be submitted until much later. She asked the Board to suggest how to City of Lake Oswego Minutes of June 15, 2009 Page 5 of 5 use the funds. They might be used as matching funds for an AmeriCorps position that could help the SAB accomplish the community sustainability plan. The staff was considering using them to retrofit public parking lots with LED lighting. Portland was using their grant money to create a revolving fund to help people who had had energy reviews make the recommended improvements. The Board planned to think about how many and what kinds of projects to spend the money on at their next meeting. Millhauser recalled the Board had asked for a City Sustainability Plan status report at the July meeting. She suggested focusing instead on report on energy use. Baumann agreed. Baumann related that the Mayor had invited the SAB to increase their participation at City Council meetings and offer both the Councilors and the public the sustainability perspective on issues Papaefthimiou was to send the members the link to online City Council agendas. SAB members who commented at City Council meetings needed to be clear whether they were speaking as individuals or they were reporting an official SAB position on the matter. The terms of service of Wahab, Murphy and Rowe were ending. Wahab had reapplied and alternate Bruce Brown had applied. New officers were to be elected at the July meeting. Baumann thanked the members and the staff for their efforts. She planned to circulate a compilation of SAB accomplishments for members to examine and add to. VII. ADJOURNMENT There being no other business Chair Baumann adjourned the meeting at approximately 8:45 p.m. L\sab\minutes\June 15, 2009.doc