Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutApproved Minutes - 2009-07-20City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes of July 20, 2009 Page 1 of 6 City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes July 20, 2009 I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Jean Baumann called the Sustainability Advisory Board meeting of July 20, 2009 to order at approximately 6:30 p.m. in the Santiam Room of the West End Building, 4101 Kruse Way, Lake Oswego, Oregon. Members present: Chair Baumann, Vice Chair Dorothy Atwood, Matt Briggs, Bruce Brown (alternate), Ron Gronowski, Amin Wahab, Grant Watkinson, and Jacob Shimkus. Craig Diamond, Lisa Murphy and Patrick Rowe were not present. Guests: Gregory Monahan, Paul Lyons, and John Murray. Staff present: Jonna Papaefthimious, Staff Liaison/Natural Resource Planner; David Donaldson, Assistant City Manager; and Susan Millhauser, Sustainability Planner. II. ANNOUNCEMENTS Brown had attended a Metro hearing and asked them to run the streetcar all the way to Lake Oswego. Gronowski had just moved his office to a LEED Platinum building. A local business had begun using a new methane digester. At the next City Council meeting they would proclaim the Green Power Challenge and hear staff presentation regarding the City’s application for funds for electric vehicle charging stations. III. PUBLIC COMMENT (None) IV. REGULAR BUSINESS Board Member Elect Introductions The City Council was scheduled to confirm three new members the next day. Paul Lyons, Gregory Monahan and Bruce Brown each introduced themselves and explained why they were interested in serving on the SAB. Amin Wahab and Lisa Murphy were to be appointed alternate members. Patrick Rowe was to continue his service as a member of a SAB work group. The City Council had decided not to refill the youth member position until school begins. Report: Comprehensive Plan Update & Community Sustainability Planning Framework The group working on the Comprehensive Plan update and Community Sustainability Planning Framework included Baumann, Gronowski, and Millhauser. Baumann reported they had decided to work on benchmarking guiding principles, attributes of a sustainability community by researching what other communities had done, and how successful they were. They planned to offer the framework to the Board in August and then to the City Council in November so the Council could use it for strategic planning. Attwood clarified that they were calling it a “framework” or “process” instead of a “plan,” because they worried that, a “plan” would be adopted and then shelved. The work group City of Lake Oswego Minutes of July 20, 2009 Page 2 of 6 planned to find out what Eugene, Santa Monica, Corvallis, Madison, Whistler, Vancouver and a region in Virginia had done and what those people might do differently if they had the chance to do it over again. They planned to frame a business case for sustainability. Baumann reported the City Council still had many decisions to make about how to approach the Comprehensive Plan update. Update: Sustainability Action Month 2010 Attwood recalled the lessons the Board had learned from SAM 2009. When they put on their own events, they found they were very hard to promote, but when they “piggybacked” others’ events, they were successful. SAM planning needed to be started earlier in the year. Perhaps the effort should be spread out over the year. Maybe SAM should be scaled back and feature fewer events. She suggested SAM should be made a community effort, using one or two SAB members to guide a SAM Committee, which would organize and execute SAM 2010. Other members explained SAM had taken a lot of their time and energy and it might be better to just focus on the Community Sustainability Plan and Climate Action Plan; it might be best to limit SAM to a week, or two weekends, instead of planning 30 days worth of events; the community needed to take ownership of the event (perhaps bicycle shop owners could put on an event); all events, except for the kickoff event, should be piggybacked; many people and vendors who participated in 2009 SAM said they would participate again. Baumann moved that the SAB sponsor SAM 2010, with fewer events and greater community involvement . Watkinson seconded the motion and discussion followed. The group generally acknowledged that what the focus would be and how it got done was yet to be decided. SAB could participate and guide the SAM planning Committee, but would not run the event. The vote was conducted and the motion passed by unanimous vote. Watkinson, Brown, Shimkus, and Lyons offered to help Baumann fashion a proposal to present to SAB at their August meeting. Millhauser announced that the new AmeriCorps worker would start work in September. Part of his/her work plan was to support SAM. City Sustainability Plan / Energy Conservation Baumann observed that part of the SAB role was to look at what the City was doing to become more sustainable and then offer advice. Millhauser’s report focused on the energy conservation aspect of City operations. She planned to report on the other components of the City Sustainability Plan at future meetings. She said a steering Committee had put the plan together and fashioned a vision, goals and action areas. They used the Natural Step Framework. The action areas were energy and transportation; water conservation; waste reduction and recycling, and procurement. They set shorter term and longer term target dates of 2012 and 2017. By 2027, the City would get all its electricity from renewable sources. By 2012, the City would have reduced its discharge of greenhouse gases to 7% below 2000 levels and it would have increased the gas mileage of the fleet (which included street sweepers that went up to 2 miles per hour) by 10%. City Councilors had voiced a commitment to building new City facilities to LEED Gold or Silver standards, but that still needed to be put into a written policy. Donaldson anticipated that the City would replace many existing buildings in the next five to ten years. Baumann suggested the SAB could urge the City to build them to even higher LEED standards. City of Lake Oswego Minutes of July 20, 2009 Page 3 of 6 Millhauser reported that the City had a goal to eventually have at least 50% of employees using alternative modes of travel to commute. Last year they reduced employee commute trips by more than 10% by using a vanpool, reimbursing bus passes, and because some employees biked to work. The City had installed the first electric vehicle charging station. Since then a company on Meadows Drive had also installed one. The City paid the base power cost of $16.00 per month and PGE kicked in for the Clean Wind surcharge. The staff had noticed more drivers using the station in recent months. Millhauser confirmed that the station used nationally standardized technology so it could be adapted to new versions of electric vehicles. She said the water treatment facility used 50% Clean Wind power. The City had saved energy by switching out traffic signal lights. They had made energy saving upgrades to City Hall. Millhauser had just been trained to use Metro’s greenhouse gas inventory software. The City was fueling its diesel vehicles with 5% biodiesel. They had tested 20%. Millhauser hoped to conduct a fleet assessment and then develop a “green fleets” plan. City management of fleets was decentralized, and Police, Fire and other departments chose their own vehicles and managed their own fleets. Last August a survey had been conducted to find out where employees were commuting from and to estimate the impact on the greenhouse gases. A study showed that enough people downtown were interested in car-sharing, but the City had not gotten funding for a pilot program. The City had adopted new outdoor lighting standards for public buildings. They planned to develop a list of draught-tolerant tree species. They were trying to save printing and paper wherever possible. They had eliminated paper paychecks and human resources no longer sent out rejection letters. Hello LO! was still distributed by postal route, not specific addresses, but it was also available online. Donaldson said the City was looking into how they might reduce the cost of meter reading by swapping out old meters for smart meters. • 2008 Greenhouse Gases Inventory Millhauser reported that the City knew that about 50% of emissions came from the water and sewer action areas; 29% from buildings; 11% from streetlights and signals; and 9% from the fleet. By recycling the City reduced emissions by about 4%. They did not yet have a full set of data related to employee commutes. They would track the number of new or remodeled buildings that met LEED standards. Atwood asked how much control the City had over water and sewer energy consumption. She related that the Association of Clean W ater Agencies had a goal to be energy independent in ten years. Millhauser said the City controlled the water system, but contracted with others’ sewer systems. The Durham plant had just been cited for using innovative technology to turn waste into biomass. She had toured Gresham’s wastewater treatment plant and learned they were getting about 30% energy from methane and looking into getting 10% from a large photovoltaic ground-mounted installation. They were also considering installing micro turbines in outflow pipes to the river. Lake Oswego operations emitted just over 11,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. The results of the new employee commuting survey would likely show commuting was a large part of that. She said she was learning about better ways to measure emissions than what the City was using now. Members supported using standardized units of measurement such as emissions per employee, per population, per building square foot, or per gallons treated. They suggested competition between cities might be used as an incentive to reduce greenhouse gasses. Briggs suggested changing to more dense zoning so the City had more affordable housing and City employees could afford to live in Lake Oswego. He added that City of Lake Oswego Minutes of July 20, 2009 Page 4 of 6 Berkeley, California had been able to not only measure the emissions from city operations, but also from the entire city. • Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Millhauser reported the City had applied for a $157,000 Department of Energy grant that was offered to local governments to implement strategies related to energy consumption that would also create or retain jobs. She had already submitted the application. By 120 days after it was approved, the City had to propose how they planned to use it. Then they had three years to spend the money. She listed some ways the staff had suggested it could be used and she invited the SAB to suggest ways to use it. The staffs’ list included looking at how energy from the wastewater treatment plant could be utilized and switching out more outdoor lights around public buildings. Millhauser proposed to use part of it as matching funds for the AmeriCorps position. That person would work on the inventory and set up an energy management program for City facilities. Other ideas were to join with Portland and Multnomah County who were to set up a revolving fund to loan money to people to upgrade their homes to save energy. The City might also use the funds to help people upgrade their businesses or for the Climate Masters educational effort. They could also work on projects with the school district. Clackamas County was to receive $1.3 million to help cities do energy reviews. The SAB agreed to talk about their own ideas for how to use the money at their August or September meeting. When asked, Millhauser confirmed this was the official City report on the energy and transportation aspect of the City’s sustainability effort. She said the City published an annual report at the beginning of each year and it was also made part of the annual State of the City report. Attwood and Baumann saw a need for a more detailed report and for more involvement of department heads. Attwood had been glad to learn that the Public Works Department sent all Capital Improvement Projects through a sustainability review by Papaefthimiou and Millhauser, but she and Baumann thought that all managers needed to take more responsibility for action areas and sustainability should be embedded in all departments. They asked Donaldson how involved they were at the senior management level. He said sustainability was a factor in everything management did. All department heads except police and fire reported to him and they met every Wednesday. Attwood suggested they use those meeting times to have tactical and strategic discussions and review and update sustainability goals. She suggested arranging for the Fire, Police, and other department heads to come to SAB meetings to tell the Board what they were doing to incorporate sustainability. The SAB asked Millhauser to report on the City’s efforts related to waste at their next meeting, and to invite Kevin McCaleb to the meeting after that to talk about the City’s effort to conserve water. Report: Clean Streams Papaefthimiou distributed an informational report and said she would provide the SAB with the draft Clean Streams Plan when the consultant made it available on September 8th. She explained such a plan was a state requirement and it described how the City planned to manage runoff. It also listed and prioritized CIP projects. In Lake Oswego, runoff was either infiltrated on site or directed to the nearest stream. The plan would implement some best practices. When asked, she clarified that it was not legal to connect gutters to the sanitary sewer system. City of Lake Oswego Minutes of July 20, 2009 Page 5 of 6 Papaefthimiou related that Craig Diamond and Grant Watkinson had worked with two NRAB members and OTAK consultants to find ways to improve the latest version of the Plan. Those suggestions were to be incorporated into the draft Plan the SAB would see. The group had recommended that there needed to be a clearer relationship between the goals of the plan and the CIP projects in it. They asked that “Sustainability” be moved form the last chapter to the first chapter. They asked for a plan that called for more education and outreach related to landscaping and irrigation practices and use of herbicides. The SAB would not have much time to review the plan and make their recommendations after the draft plan was made available. Because of that they decided to ask for a joint meeting with the NRAB to review the draft plan. Wahab offered to meet with Watkinson and Diamond before that meeting and go over the draft. Brown saw a need for neighborhood plans to reflect some of the best practices the Clean Streams Plan would call for. Report: Sensitive Lands Papaefthimiou said City Council been studying the Sensitive Lands code issue and meetings where they discussed it were well attended. She said the Council would likely appoint a technical advisory group and Wahab would likely be appointed to serve on it. A public open house would be held on August 8th. Pesticide Free Parks A citizen had asked the SAB to ask the City to test pesticide free parks. Baumann reported that the Parks director was willing to do a couple of pilot projects, perhaps this spring. PRAB would likely be the Board to take ownership of the projects. Enough volunteers who lived around each park had to be found to implement it. Attwood suggested a pilot program to test the concept of “waste-free” park events. Millhauser related that maintenance department staff had worked with all parties at the Festival of the Arts to reduce waste. That was to be the subject of an article in Hello LO! Report: Climate Change Action Plan Briggs said he and Craig Diamond suggested forming an ad hoc advisory Committee of community stakeholders to get feedback about doing what Berkeley, California had done to mandate reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Berkeley voters had voted to regulate themselves in a manner that would reduce emissions by 80%. The city sold bonds to be paid back with property tax increases. The bond money was used to retrofit buildings. The building owner paid it back in their electric bills. Briggs, Diamond and Shimkus wer e to get together to map out a game plan for gaining community input and support and draft a related memorandum to the City Council for the SAB to consider at their August meeting. Elections and Assignments Even though the three members-elect at the meeting indicated they could agree to conduct the vote without them, no one accepted a nomination for chair. Atwood nominated Watkinson to be vice chair and he accepted. He had declined to accept a nomination for chair. The vote was held over to the August meeting. Baumann agreed to prepare the August agenda. City of Lake Oswego Minutes of July 20, 2009 Page 6 of 6 V. NEW BUSINESS (None) VI. ADJOURNMENT There being no other business Chair Baumann adjourned the meeting at 8:55 p.m. L\sab\minutes\July 20, 2009.doc