Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025/10/07 - ADMIN - Minutes - Environment & Sustainability Commission - Regular Official minutes Environment & sustainability commission St. Louis Park, Minnesota 10/7/2025 1. Call to order – 6:30 p.m. 1a. Roll call Members present: Chair Jessie Hendrix, Shaina Ashare, Marisa Bayer, Tatiana Giraldo, Ryan Griffin, Ethan Kehrberg, Avery Kuehl, Bennett Myhran, Adam Oien, Sasha Shahidi Members absent: Kati Helseth, Avital Krebs Staff present: Emily Ziring, sustainability manager Guests: Nancy Rose, resident; Council Member Sue Budd The commissioners and guests introduced themselves. Ms. Rose noted an item at the city council meeting related to violations of the weed ordinance in the city code. She said that she hopes the ESC will consider addressing this issue with council by recommending changing the language to allow boulevard plantings without a permit. She suggested the ESC request that council table the ordinance and send it to the ESC for review. Ms. Ziring stated this is a clean-up ordinance intended to align city code with state statute. She recommended that if the ESC wants to propose something related to native plants that it be a new item and it would not halt this ordinance from going through the process. She suggested this could be discussed and brought up to the council in a few weeks as a new item for consideration if the ESC votes to do so. 2. Approval of minutes – Sept. 3, 2025 – The minutes were approved unanimously as presented with one abstention. 3. Business a. Presentations – none. b. New Business – none. c. Unfinished Business Human Rights Commission (HRC) collaboration – Chair Hendrix stated the HRC is interested in collaboration with the ESC, and both commissions will be brainstorming ideas for collaboration. Environmental & Sustainability Commission Oct 7, 2025 Chair Hendrix stated the HRC agendas and work plan are online, and that ESC members are welcome to attend the next HRC meeting. Commissioner Shahidi stated that promoting events and doing events together has been discussed. Chair Hendrix stated she will follow up with the HRC chair to discuss collaboration further and to invite HRC commissioners to the next ESC meeting. 4. Staff updates Ms. Ziring updated the commission on the following items:  A $50,000 EPA grant was awarded by the Minneapolis Foundation for research into climate resilience projects and priorities in the Aquila and Texa-Tonka neighborhoods, doing outreach and data gathering, and identifying climate leaders in those neighborhoods. The input will be folded into the Climate Action Plan amendment.  Climate Action Plan amendment work  Electrify Everything MN public workshop in November  Bike ride and Climate Action Academy events  Aquila Resource Fair  Scavenger Hunt  Upcoming roundtable discussion with solar installers and staff from Edina, Hopkins, and Minneapolis  Climate Champions postcard and environmental justice projects Commissioner Bayer asked if there were concerns around the new administration and the EPA grant funding. Ms. Ziring stated she is partially concerned and noted that half the funding is in hand and the other half will be found if the Minneapolis Foundation is not able to secure it. a. Progress reports Ms. Ziring provided a quarterly update on staff outreach and engagement on Climate Investment Fund programs. 5. Work plan update a. Climate Action Plan amendment update – discuss draft strategies, part 1 Ms. Ziring updated the ESC on the project. She stated that some changes to the strategies will need to be made and she recommended changes for several of the strategies. Environmental & Sustainability Commission Oct 7, 2025 Ms. Ziring noted the efficient building operations goal that by 2030, 143 buildings are actively engaged in meeting best management practices. She stated her concern is that there is no way to measure this and no data to track this goal. She stated her recommendation is to delete this goal. Ms. Ziring noted another goal that by 2030, occupants of 52 buildings will be engaged in sustainability practices. She noted again that there is no way to track this behavior. She recommended deleting this goal as well. Commissioner Griffin stated that each of these strategies is a contributing factor to climate change, and it seems like a negative discussion when it is talked about like this. He added that each item was chosen specifically as a goal for climate action. Ms. Ziring stated she did not mean to be negative, but stated there is no data available to track, so therefore no way for the city to be accountable for it. She added that if there are strategies that have more trackable data, then she would prefer to incorporate those strategies instead, and look at influencing behavior through campaigns. Commissioner Griffin added that it is important for everyone to know that to get to net zero, many things need to happen. This really shows how hard it is to get to net zero. He stated it is not necessarily supposed to be easy. Commissioner Shahidi asked if, instead of deleting these, there is something that can be set as policy or requirement for behavior in commercial buildings and have annual sustainability trainings for those working in a building. She added this is really about the systems. Chair Hendrix asked if there is a new law where businesses over a certain size have to report to the state on benchmarking. Ms. Ziring stated yes, that is correct, but industrial buildings are exempt because of the difficulty distinguishing between industrial process energy use and building energy use. Ms. Ziring stated she is looking for feedback from the ESC members on the strategies in order to revise them and still meet the net zero objective. Commissioner Griffin stated that the plan to meet all requirements by 2040 is ultimately very aggressive so possibly this needs to be changed to 2050 because the goal will not be reached. Ms. Ziring stated she does not intend to make this a 2050 plan, adding she wants to put more pressure on other strategies, such as moving away from natural gas, as a way to achieve the goal. She stated she will take all of these revised strategies, work with the consultant to crunch the numbers, and then produce a 5-year work plan that staff can implement. Commissioner Giraldo stated that maybe weatherization and electrification should be separate goals. Ms. Ziring stated that strategy 3 will include weatherization only, while Environmental & Sustainability Commission Oct 7, 2025 strategy 4 will include electrification. She added that renewables will be discussed in depth at the next ESC meeting. Commissioner Bayer asked about how calculating costs for implementation will be crucial information when presenting these updates to the council. Ms. Ziring stated she is planning to ask for the financial investment by both the private party and the city and then calculate cost per metric ton removed. Ms. Ziring asked if lighting should still be included when so much retrofitting has already been completed and payback is so short. Commissioner Bayer stated tracking lighting would be fine, but strategies for lighting do not need to be included. Commissioner Griffin stated it might be helpful to reconvene the Climate Action Plan update workgroup. Ms. Ziring stated she appreciated that consideration, but with the strategies she prefers to hear from the whole group. b. Events – the ESC is encouraged to promote the sustainability scavenger hunt. Commissioner Shahidi stated the art fair tabling went really well, adding that the group was tabling with the solid waste department. c. Curbside organics – Commissioner Shahidi stated that when tabling, it was interesting to see how many people have common misperceptions about organics and recycling. Commissioner Oien stated the workgroup had a brainstorming session with city staff for the postcard campaign on messaging and themes. The goal is to increase participation in curbside organics. d. Value of trees – Ms. Ziring shared this group is doing wood waste utilization research at this point, but there is no ask at this time. Commissioner Myhran said he is working on finding information related to how much wood waste was collected last year, how much was spent, and how wood is being utilized. He added that the city was making money on wood chips and compost, but now that will change. He noted offering rebates to residents who opt to keep their wood waste is a way to incentivize residents to have wood decompose in a slower manner vs. taking it to the city to make wood chips. 6. Sustainability issues a. Kudos – The Minnehaha Creek clean-up went well this past weekend, with 40 people in attendance, including six ESC commissioners. Council Member Budd became a Climate Champion. b. Item share-out -- Commissioner Shahidi noted that the program to measure U.S. greenhouse gas emissions may be ending due to lack of federal support. This program has been a model for other countries, and there is a lot of conversation now about which Environmental & Sustainability Commission Oct 7, 2025 entities, if any, might step in to fill that reporting gap in the U.S. She noted that the data from this inventory has been used for many purposes. Commissioner Shahidi added that there is a new tool at climatetrace.org that shows how plumes of pollution flow from emitting sources across geography. The goal is to use this data to target pollution-reduction strategies. The tool shows New York City as one of the top 10 most polluted cities in the world. There is data for the Twin Cities as well. 7. Items to discuss at a future meeting a. Water use Commissioner Myhran asked if the city provides residential water irrigation metering. Ms. Ziring stated she will have staff look into this. Commissioner Kehrberg asked what programs are funded through water revenue. He noted incentives can be included here to reduce water use. Ms. Ziring stated she will look into this as well. b. Status of council direction for the commission’s work Commissioner Bayer asked where things stand related to the commission getting direction from council and how that will lead into the 2026 work plan. Ms. Ziring stated the boards and commissions redesign process was completed in 2024, and it was decided by council that advisory boards and commissions will be advisory to council and not to staff. Each commission now meets with council one time per year for direction on their workplans. The ESC last presented to council in May 2025. Ms. Ziring stated that at that May meeting, council did not give the commission any new work direction. The 2025 ESC work plan will stay in place until the ESC meets with council in 2026, at which point council will give direction to the ESC for the commission to draft their 2026 work plan. She added that going forward, there will no longer be an ESC retreat because the purpose of the retreats was to draft workplans. Council Member Budd stated, however, that there will be input from the ESC as well as direction from the council on the 2026 workplans. Commissioner Shahidi asked for clarification on when the workplan will be worked on and established. Ms. Ziring stated that the date for the next ESC meeting with council is still to be determined, and the workplan will be refined after the commission gets work direction from council at that meeting. Environmental & Sustainability Commission Oct 7, 2025 Commissioner Griffin asked how the ESC can advise the council as to what the workplan should be. He added that this would behoove the ESC’s interests to do this, adding that this is what the ESC has wanted. Commissioner Bayer asked if any commission had received direction from the council through the advisory form and noted that the ESC still has no direction from the council. Commissioner Griffin asked if there could be a standing agenda item for topics from the ESC that should be directed to the city council. c. 2026 ESC workplan – none. 8. Upcoming/proposed events No events noted at this time. 9. Adjournment - 8:20 p.m. ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Emily Ziring, liaison Jessie Hendrix, chair member