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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017/09/06 - ADMIN - Minutes - Environment & Sustainability Commission - RegularMINUTES ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSION: SUSTAINABLE SLP ST. LOUIS PARK, MINNESOTA Wednesday, September 6, 2017 Westwood Room – 3rd Floor, City Hall MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair Ryan Griffin, Jayne Stevenson, Stefan Collinet, Susan Bloyer, Claire Lukens, Keir Stiegler, Terry Gips, Nicole Ciulla, and Julie Rappaport EXCUSED ABSENCE: Bridget Rathsack STAFF PRESENT: Shannon Pinc, ESC Coordinator and Ms. Allenson (Recording Secretary) GUESTS: Neil Stein, Larry Kraft, Rod Harris, and Lukas Wrede 1. The meeting was called to order at 6:30 p.m. by Chair Griffin and the Commission introduced themselves. 2. Roll Call and Check-in. Chair Griffin and the Commission welcomed Shannon back from her medical leave. 3. Business a. Approve August 2017 Minutes – Stefan requested changes which will be submitted to Shannon via email. Commissioner Bloyer made a motion to approve the April 2017 Minutes with changes. Commissioner Lukens seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. b. Elections – Chair Griffin announced a vice chair opening for the remainder of a one-year term ending in February or March 2018. He stated the bylaws alternate between male and female each term and this year the opening is female and asked if any female commission member would be interested in the opportunity. He explained the vice chair’s duties would include backing-up the chair by running meetings in their absence as well as being the liaison to the City Council. He added the vice chair would also assist the staff liaison (Shannon) in preparing the agenda and helping keep meetings on track, as well as any other miscellaneous light duties as needed. Terry requested that the chair and vice chair also coordinate with Shannon to assist in coming up with strategies with planning the agenda for more involvement. Julie volunteered to be vice chair. Commissioner Gips made a motion to approve Commissioner Rappaport as vice chair for the remainder of the one-year term. Commissioner Lukens seconded the motion. Motion passed. Commissioner Rappaport abstained. c. Fall Retreat – Environment and Sustainability -2- September 6, 2017 Commission Meeting Chair Griffin stated he recently sent out the doodle poll and had quite a few responses already. Upon discussion, it was decided to set the date for December 3rd from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Shannon will find a facilitator and an area to hold the event. Shannon reported the agenda will consist of recapping the previous year, to evaluate any outstanding projects, and to talk about the work plan for the next year. She stated this will provide an opportunity for people to propose and hone- in on ideas for the work plan for voting on. She also stated the opportunity for teambuilding with the facilitator to keep focused and on track. Terry added this to be an opportunity to address topics for direction with or without structure. Shannon will search for a past agenda to share with the group. Chair Griffin will also work on an agenda in the next few meetings. d. Update from Niki on Communications – Niki reported that a few weeks ago she met with Claire, Terry, Bridget, city staff, communications, and Shannon to get bearings on what communications will do and how to work for city items and expectations. She stated a write-up was created for the commission and she provided a brief summary of the main issues. She reported the Sustainable SLP social media individual account had only a few followers and Communications Staff recommended the accounts be deleted, and to move all content to the main Facebook and Twitter accounts. Niki stated communications is responsible for providing content, which goes through Shannon, and then the SLP would choose the platform. Niki asked the Commission if anyone had anything to contribute regarding types of content to include. Certain topics were reviewed and it was agreed all were interested in sustainability, but the main goal would be more education, and SLP is not allowed to recommend certain businesses, but can provide citizens with resources to make decisions on their own. Shannon requested identifying main goals to create more content for the ESC website page. Claire asked for more suggestions or comments and for the ability to link both websites. Terry stated his excitement in having three dynamic people for the rebirth of this dormant workgroup and was happy to have competent people to bring about two- way communication with the community. Julie stated there were conversations this past year with regard to creating a SLP TV show, and that one of the three TV persons are very interested in helping create one. She would like to meet with him to set out what to do for various topics. She also noted Luke provided her with a water footprint test which was very helpful in identifying how much water is being used. She asked if the timely articles she shared on the SLP Facebook were viewed. She will resubmit and re- share by resubmitting the new articles including Tesla’s new solar panel. Shannon stated the work group should come back to Jacque Larson to talk about the TV idea. Julie can summarize details and then submit an email to Jacque, copying Shannon. Julie will put together a list of topics. Environment and Sustainability -3- September 6, 2017 Commission Meeting Chair Griffin extended a thank you to Nicole’s summary regarding Twitter and Facebook, and asked what is needed from the SLP to move forward. Terry requested a follow-up meeting be held to come up with specific recommendations, as well as addressing the possible TV show, and to then come back and share results to take back to the next meeting for approval. It was decided to add these items to next month’s meeting. Claire stated one of the first things to address was social media’s posts, upcoming events, and goings-on in the City. Shannon requested any social media calendar content should be reviewed before posting for proposal and then floated to the communications department. Chair Griffin thought it best to address quick items first to get the process in action and to hold ongoing monthly meetings to stay focused. e. Update from Julie on Comp Plan – Julie explained that Jayne, Lukas, and Neil were part of the comp plan work group and that will each provide a portion of tonight’s presentation. Jayne began with the consultant’s report and recommendations to city council presented on August 28th and provided an update released in August of the visioning and provided an overhead to follow along with their list, including a quote regarding the City’s stewardship. She stated hopefully, in a few years, a sustainability commission would not be needed. She reviewed the Top Five key findings from resident values. She noted four trends from the consultant were identified as top trends for St. Louis Park from the steering committee from the list of 44 top trends across the nation. Jayne stated by 2040 - 40% of people will be of color and 21% will be senior citizens. Julie stated there will be many baby boomers not still alive in 2040 which should cause a decrease in the percentage but the number between now and 2030 would be much higher than in 2040. Julie noted the consultant’s report and recommendations were not well received by the council as it left a lot of confusion as the aspirations did not connect well with the residents’ values and the 4 trends also seemed inconsistent with the actual needs versus what the consultant was quantifying. She stated the disconnect resulted from half the input dealt with our residents’ visioning and the other half was from many other sources of the country with regard to demographic trends across the country. She explained the visioning is what the council uses to help instruct the thinking that goes into the comp plan as well how to decide what projects are considered whether they fit the aspirations or not. She briefly reviewed the five aspirations for advancement based off values. Terry noted that he understood the council was to have a special meeting to discuss how to carve the consultant’s “aspirations” to better fit the values and trends in St. Louis Park. Neil addressed the residents’ value of fostering a community of health and well- being in the SLP community. He explained that equity and resiliency are interconnected. He reported on starting to work with the U of MN’s students from business majors to architects, etc., to become more involved with sustainability through the university’s resilient cities project. He noted the future is grounded in children and education, and informed that the Park-Sci program is being cut, but the teachers have done training in order to incorporate this into elementary classrooms nonetheless. Larry Kraft also noted the loss of the Park-Sci program as disappointing. He also noted this past Monday, SLP released a video about the ballot referendum for November 2017 to improve classrooms and lab Environment and Sustainability -4- September 6, 2017 Commission Meeting spaces. He further reported getting around SLP is one of the most accessible and walkable cities in the nation and that $23 million is earmarked for Connect the Park to continue providing access through bike and walking trails outside of Light Rail which is on hold for now. Lukas addressed the topic of embracing diversity and noted race was not all- inclusive and many other forms of non-equity are not included in the phrase “racial equity”. He reported this included people with different interests, lifestyles, genders, faiths, food insecurities, income levels, and non-racial minorities. He touched on seven subjects comprised of “The Wishes of the Future of SLP” survey responses. Lukas also informed that SLP has completed Steps One through three of the Green Step Cities program, noting SLP just became a third-step city in June 2017, after having completed at least 18 practices to achieve this goal. Lukas reported that Step Four, involves a broader spectrum of city-wide changes involving a set of metrics you have to commit to measuring. He explained the fifth step shows data against the metrics for one year. He noted there are 115 cities in Minnesota that are Green Step Cities. Julie commented on the city’s visioning, Sustainable SLP’s visioning, and community visioning. She touched on sustainability vs. resiliency, which will be required 10 years from now. In this cycle of comp planning resiliency is only recommended, explaining resiliency is what most affects equity and the ability to bounce back from hardship. She requested when reviewing the Climate Action Plan, make sure to consider shelter, food, and water, etc. She and City Manager Harmening discussed the real possibility for SLP to achieve a public greenhouse and reviewed the development. Julie requested more commissioners be involved with the comp plan work group and to collaborate with Green Step Cities to identify goals to become a real leader in sustainability and resilience. Julie also requested to re-incorporate the former work groups such as ‘water land and wildlife’ and the ‘education and action’ work groups and to start a new food work group. She recommended to coordinate a meeting with the U of MN liaison to write a letter of intent, which is due October 15th, to be considered for application for the Resilient Communities Project. She explained if SLP is chosen from the letter of intent, the U of MN will work with SLP for a 6-month period in between to assist in identifying projects through the university. She further explained that if chosen, it would assist in putting together a plan for higher resilience. Terry stated these requests be made as a consideration in looking at the Comp Plan work group. He requested the thought process be to collaborate with other work groups and commissions to make sure the plan takes into account the work group and other work groups for the Comp Plan. Shannon requested more clarification on what the next steps must be. Julie would like to see some shelved items be reinstated. Shannon could talk to City Manager Harmening, along with massive staff support, to have more discussion on this topic. Terry commented on the food work group that was originally proposed but put on hold as the work of SLP SEEDs was doing better to partner than to duplicate efforts. Julie explained this presentation as the first draft of what the comp plan work group came up with regarding the Vision 3.0 process. Terry expressed his concern with regard to his interpretation from this presentation that the number one item of importance was to eliminate the commission in ten years, and felt this Environment and Sustainability -5- September 6, 2017 Commission Meeting too big of a statement. He emphasized not prioritizing topics, as no one item was any more important than another, and should only serve as a brainstorming list to be included in the overall vision. Julie agreed the sentence of “no need for a sustainability commission” to be placed back into the list rather than at the top of the list. She apologized for misunderstanding that the visioning was as if there was no need for a commission if the list below was achieved. Julie explained the presentation tonight derives from the Vision 3.0 report and stated the report went from the vision 3.0 steering committee directly to council and the major trends presented to council in resources and technology, which included 44 national trends, were only 4 of those. Julie ALSO RECOMMENDED the importance of the Commission writing a letter to Council regarding the title of the first Aspiration in the Vision 3.0 recommendations from “Confront Climate Change” to something broader that included climate change as one of the needs in Sustainability, but left out a plethora of other topics that would also confront climate change but would be left out of conversations if confronting climate change were the phrase to determine whether to work on a project or not. For example, Wildlife issues or Soil Remediation may not be addressed under Confronting Climate Change. By recommending that Aspiration to be broader but include confronting climate change, other Sustainability issues would be also included in decision making over the next ten years by city council. Julie suggested “Being a leader in Sustainability and Resilient Equity” is more appropriate and wishes the Commission to vote on this or other phrases to be put in a letter to council as the Vision 3.0 recommendations were supposed to go through the Commission before being presented to Council in the first place, and now are coming to the Commission only after Council makes their changes without any input from the Commission. Comments were made to the confusion the presentation left, as it was hard to determine the work group’s thoughts verses the city consultant’s. Shannon requested that Julie organize the list. Chair Griffin requested to separate out items on the list from ones that can be addressed at the retreat, ones that have a deadline, and ones that are specific to the visioning and involvement in the Comp Plan. Julie stated meeting monthly with city staff about the comp plan work groups’ insertion of sustainable and resilient policies is the goal. Chair Griffin thanked all for compiling and presenting the report and noted the great job done. He requested being mindful and include all regarding involvement. Shannon shared tonight’s presentation documents with all and let Bridget know how to proceed from the commission’s request. Julie stated the actual external source notes came from the August 28th City Council meeting minutes. Chair Griffin requested to clean up the recommendation slide and bring back to the meeting next month. Terry stated the vision documents should be wrapped up for next meeting and to share by email to stay focused. f. Other Updates/Announcements – Environment and Sustainability -6- September 6, 2017 Commission Meeting Chair Griffin referred to the August draft of the Climate Action Plan for discussion. Shannon requested to dedicate time in the October meeting to review for remaining questions, concerns, and possible modifications, and stated this extra time would enable time to review and formulate ideas. Larry Kraft, Terry Gips and Julie Rappaport discussed the importance of an introductory paragraph and closing paragraph. Regarding the committee that sends out RFP and reviews proposals, funding will need to be found if the scope is increased, and delaying this process any longer to expand the scope will complicates things and return issues to the drawing board. It was requested this be a sound first action plan to identify real issues. Larry Kraft will attend the October meeting, although Abby Finis, Great Plains Institute, will not be available. Terry asked what Larry would like to see being addressed. Larry stated the biggest item he would like to see addressed was to map out, more specifically, what happens from 2030 to 2040 that will actually get St. Louis Park to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, as this will enable awareness for what to start thinking about now to put the right steps in place for effectiveness. Shannon provided her analysis of staff feedback, stating their biggest area of concern was the possible financial implications and is therefore intending to get a financial analysis. Another area of concern was having goals that cannot be met, in all reality, and being set up for failure. She needs to meet with City Manager Harmening to develop a timeline for the Climate Action Plan, stating the goal to be year-end. Terry addressed the discrepancy he noted regarding renewable energy and 100% renewable electricity and this should be corrected in the plan. He noted that the city of Palo Alto is doing a Sustainability AND Climate Action Plan, as opposed to only a Climate Action Plan. He noted our city needs to be on the same level to achieve success and to delay the process would not be beneficial. He requested the need for diet to be incorporated, as well as addressing the need to reduce carbon and methane (which only lasts eight years but is more potent than carbon in short term impacts on climate change impact), as this will drop climate change immediately. He reported diet at 18% of global climate change impact, and suggested doing a “Meatless Monday” to make an impact. Julie suggested including a strong mention of sustainability at the beginning and end of the plan to make it clear this is not the only thing we must be doing. Shannon suggested this to be a good focus for what communications could be in the next few months. Terry wished he could see voluntary wedges to gauge impact and address other actions that might be taken. Chair Griffin stated that the climate action plan was intended to be focused on Scope 1 and 2 emissions and diet would fall under Scope 3. Stefan stated the Climate Action Plan included what was measurable and left out items that were difficult to measure or control like diet. Larry suggested that including in the wording at the beginning of the Climate Action Plan, a description of the fact that the plan focuses on Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and that the plan is to also have a discussion about and address Scope 3 (or indirect emissions from things like diet) in the future. He also stated the passing of the Climate Action Plan in St Louis Park stated would be historic. Environment and Sustainability -7- September 6, 2017 Commission Meeting Julie AGAIN suggested the importance of the Commission writing a letter to Council regarding the title of the first Aspiration in the Vision 3.0 recommendations from “Confront Climate Change” to something broader that included climate change as one of the needs in Sustainability, but left out a plethora of other topics that would also confront climate change but would be left out of conversations if confronting climate change were the phrase to determine whether to work on a project or not. For example, Wildlife issues or Soil Remediation may not be addressed under Confronting Climate Change. g. Climate Action Plan – Tabled to the October meeting The commission extended a thank you to Jayne Stevenson and wished her the best in her future endeavors at Stanford. All stated it was a pleasure to have worked with her. Terry thanked the guests for attending. 4. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m.