Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutApproved Minutes - 2009-10-19 City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes October 19, 2009 I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Co-chair Grant Watkinson called the Sustainability Advisory Board meeting of October 19, 2009 to order at 6:30 p.m. in the Santiam Room of the West End Building, 4101 Kruse Way, Lake Oswego, Oregon. Members present: Co-chair Grant Watkinson, Dorothy Atwood, Jean Baumann, Bruce Brown, Ron Gronowski, Marshall Kosloff, Paul Lyons, Gregory Monahan and Amin Wahab (alternate). Co-chair Craig Diamond, Matt Briggs and Marshall Kosloff were not present. Guests: Cindy Thompson, Centennial Events Committee; Joanne Brickland and Sarah Costelles, Cascadia Region Green Building Council. Staff present: Jonna Papaefthimiou, Staff Liaison/Natural Resource Planner; Susan Millhauser, Sustainability Planner; David Donaldson, Assistant City Manager; and Justin Bates, AmeriCorps/Sustainability Outreach Specialist. II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (None) III. ANNOUNCEMENTS Brown asked for volunteers to meet with him and the group fashioning the neighborhood plan template. He said the SAB members could help incorporate a sustainability overlay into the template. Atwood volunteered. Lyons announced that he was part of a group that would make an affordable housing presentation to the City Council the next evening. Papaefthimiou pointed out the new Boards and Commissions Guidebook was available for members to take with them. Bauman announced the Green Power Challenge results showed the SAB had exceeded their goal to sign up 300 households. Millhauser announced that City Councilors and staff were to receive sustainability training. IV. PUBLIC COMMENT (None) V. REGULAR BUSINESS Lake Oswego Centennial – SAB involvement Cindy Thompson, the event producer hired to produce Centennial Celebration events, announced the theme was “Honor the Past, Celebrate the Present, Imagine the Future.” She invited the SAB to suggest how they could participate in the Community Festival Sustainability Pavilion in July and the Sustainability Dinner and Auction in August 2010. She asked the SAB to suggest where the proceeds should go. She said the City was looking for sponsors for the pavilion and the dinner. She distributed information packets. Atwood suggested using the proceeds for sustainability training for local teachers. The Board planned to discuss the Celebration again at their next meeting. Atwood invited Thompson to come to the next Sustainability Action Month (SAM) steering Committee meeting. Thompson agreed and suggested the Board talk to Lake Oswego High School science teacher, Jeff Goodrich, because he was very interested in sustainability. City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes of October 19, 2009 Page 2 of 4 Cascadia Region Green Building Council Presentation Gronowski explained that the Cascadia Region Green Building Council was this region’s connection to the US Green Building Council. He introduced two Cascadia representatives. Joanna Brickland was Vice Chair and Sarah Cosalles was Director of Development. They reported Cascadia had been looking into how to help eco-districts, which could be neighborhoods, districts and cities. They offered copies of reports they had prepared for the City of Vancouver and Clark County. They said they had identified and suggested how to remove code barriers to green buildings. One example of a code barrier that Washington had removed was not being able to use rainwater to flush toilets. They had helped the City of Portland craft policies that allowed developers to trade green roofs for increased flexibility. Cascadia also provided a forum for exchanging information between cities and institutions and vendors. They were developing a best practices database. They had found green building could be less expensive in jurisdictions with streamlined, progressive codes. Baumann observed Cascadia could help the City prepare for the Comprehensive Plan update. Brown anticipated they could suggest tools that could be incorporated into the neighborhood action plan template. Atwood asked if Cascadia had a list of speakers. The SAM planners were looking for speakers. But the representatives said they had not yet compiled a list. During the discussion the Cascadia representatives explained that a Living Building was the next step up from a LEED building. It captured all its own energy and processed all its water on site. They were about to initiate a Living Building Challenge. They said they contracted with various jurisdictions. They could provide a range of services from a one-day boot camp to a very customized program. They said if SAB sent them a description of what educational program they wanted, Cascadia would submit a proposal. The Cascadia representatives then left the meeting. Presentation to City Council on October 26 / 2010 Budget and Work Priorities – City Council recommendations The Board examined documents Diamond had drafted. One was a memo to send the City Council in advance of the SAB presentation on October 26th . The other was a revised budget recommendation. Brown wanted to recommend funding for code work and for staffing resources to use to sell the community sustainability plan to the public. Papaefthimiou reported the Planning Department was going to do a code audit. The Board added two more line items under Consulting Services to fund the code audit and green building best practices support. The group discussed what amount of money would be necessary for Climate Change Action Planning in 2010-11. No one was certain. Some stressed that work should have a budget that reflected the SAB’s recent decision to “fast track” a Climate Change Action Plan. Watkinson observed that no one had volunteered to lead the Climate Change Action Planning effort yet. Millhauser reported that $25,000 of block grant funding the City was getting was to be spent on climate action planning over a two-year period. She reported that the greenhouse gas inventory baseline assessment of City operations would require 150 hours of work. It was to follow the new Local Government Operations Protocol. The SAB adjusted the amount of recommended funding in order to speed up the Climate Change Acton Plan. Gronowski moved to approve the budget recommendations . Atwood seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous agreement. City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes of October 19, 2009 Page 3 of 4 The Board then discussed the October 20, 2009 memorandum to the City Council. Diamond had drafted it. Baumann summarized it. It highlighted SAB accomplishments. It said the SAB’s priority goals were the citywide sustainability planning process; the climate change action plan, and the second annual SAM. They would take on other projects when they had time. The SAB planned to continue to refine their budget recommendations. SAB members were doing a lot and they would appreciate additional staffing assistance. During the discussion the Board agreed to add another priority: code work. They added the report that they were going to integrate SAM into the Centennial Celebration effort. They added their accomplishment of getting over 300 households to sign up for energy audits. When Millhauser explained that the current year AmeriCorps position was funded by a grant, the Board agreed to specify they were recommending a budget that would fund two AmeriCorps positions in 2010-11. The Board members also agreed to a goal to develop a community wide climate change action plan by 2010, with implementation continuing into 2010-11. Diamond and Baumann were going to make the presentation to the City Council on October 26th . The group agreed that Diamond could add some slides about SAM and about the budget to the slide presentation. Baumann moved to adopt the memorandum to the City Council with the changes the Board had just discussed. Brown seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous agreement. Community Sustainability Plan – City Council Presentation, Next steps Baumann was preparing to present the SAB’s accomplishments and their goals and priorities for next year. The City Council had asked all City boards and commissions to present. She said she would tell them about the things the Board had done, but she would also ask the Councilors for guidance. She would present the recommended budget the Board had agreed on and she would explain those were ballpark figures. The group then discussed whether the climate change action planning work they wanted to do was more urgent that community sustainability planning. Some members who had stressed the importance of the climate change action plan at a previous meeting were not present at this meeting. There was a question whether the Board would have the time and resources to work on both simultaneously. Baumann reported that it had been a challenge to schedule sustainability framework planning meetings that all of the committee members could attend, and that had slowed the process. She asked the Board members if they wanted to change the priority to the climate change action plan at this point in time. Board members observed the SAB presentation to the City Council was on October 26th. That would happen before the Councilors received sustainability training on November 23rd. The SAB was already charged with fashioning a community sustainability plan. They reasoned that the community sustainability plan was the “umbrella,” and climate change action planning fit under that umbrella. The SAB representatives would discuss the big picture with the City Council at the October 26th presentation. Baumann observed that the community sustainability plan and the climate change action plan did not have to be on the same time track and they did not have to be managed by the same team. They could be on parallel tracks in parallel efforts. Millhauser anticipated the community sustainability planning effort would be a longer duration effort than climate change action planning because it was wrapped around the Comprehensive Plan update process and involved a process of engaging stakeholders. Atwood observed there was no difference in importance between the two planning City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes of October 19, 2009 Page 4 of 4 efforts, but they would be different in terms of speed and duration. Baumann planned to ask the four sustainability framework committee members to meet twice a month to accomplish their work by January. Atwood suggested asking non-SAB members to help with the efforts. She had some people in mind. Baumann thought of several others. Baumann asked Papaefthimiou and Millhauser to ask their manager to assign one of them to help support the effort. Baumann related that an e-mailer had questioned using the Natural Step framework. She asked what the Board thought. Atwood suggested that the determination of what process should be used should come out of the framework process itself and not be predetermined. But someone else pointed out the City had already adopted the Natural Step process. Energy Block Grant proposal Millhauser asked Board members to review the documents she had emailed to them and forward their comments. One of them was the Draft Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy (October 15, 2009 version). That was part of the information she was submitting to satisfy the grant requirements. The other document was a spreadsheet that listed and briefly described specific projects and activities that would be accomplished with the grant money. She indicated those projects could help inform both the community sustainability plan and the climate change action plan. The submittal to the Department of Energy was to be considered by the City Council for approval. The DEO deadline was December 11th . When asked, she confirmed that the Engineering Department had confirmed that they would look into methane capture if the City Council wanted them to. Atwood left the meeting. Watkinson asked Donaldson for his input. Donaldson advised the SAB to do everything they could to help the City Councilors understand what a City could do and what results they would see. He noted that the Councilors were scheduled to participate in sustainability training. That would increase their level of understanding. Then they might be more likely to allocate the requested resources. He recalled they had already approved the toilet replacement program. SAB Liaisons – Filling Vacancies This discussion was postponed. VI. ADJOURNMENT There being no other business Chair Watkinson adjourned the meeting at 8:45 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jonna Papaefthimiou Natural Resource Planner L:\Boards & Commissions\SAB\Minutes\2009\LO SAB2009 10-19 APPROVED.doc