MINUTES
Sustainable Green Bay Task Force
Thursday, 12/06/2007
City Hall, Room 604
3:00 PM
MEMBERS
PRESENT: Co-Chair Gary Delveaux, Mayor
Jim Schmitt, André Jacque, Bill Lockery, Derek Lord, Jeff DeLaune, John Miller,
Luann Rudolph, Mark Foht, Rich Krieg, Debra Lindgren, Doug Meek, Heidi Hanson,
Brett Rittenhouse, Nick Reckinger, Rachael Southern, Mary Haupt
1.
Introduction of new members and choice of subcommittee
The meeting was called to order by Co-Chairman, Gary Delveaux at 3:00 p.m. New members, Brett Rittenhouse, Process Engineer and has background in renewable fuels and biodiesel, and Nick Reckinger, Masters Degree in Environmental Science and Policy, both with Feeco, International as well as Heidi Hanson, substitute teacher and part of a Global Warming discussion group, were introduced and welcomed. Mr. Delveaux gave a brief background on successes of the Task Force thus far and said new members would be provided with a copy of the Report To Mayor Schmitt by The Sustainable Task Force, dated March, 2007.
2.
Presentation by UWGB Student, Rachael Southern
Derek
Lord said Rachael contacted his office three months ago and wanted to do
research for a thesis project. He turned the floor over to Rachael Southern, a
senior, UWGB student who has done research about sustainable development at the
municipal level and how to integrate that in the community level and gave a
power point presentation on her research.
Rachael’s
presentation talked about why a community like Green Bay wants to have sustainable
practices, stating that the city can save money, create jobs through
sustainable economic growth, reduce energy and waste costs, and improve upon
clean air and water standards. Rachael made three recommendations for this task
force to consider following her research: 1) Adopting some key planning
principles, the ORTEE Model, which was
conducted specifically to address how a community becomes sustainable and what
kind of philosophies they would use. She suggested incorporating sustainability
with the Green Bay branding initiatives to encourage economic growth and to
encourage people to come here to live and to work. 2) Create an Office of
Sustainable Development. This office would identify city-wide sustainable
goals, develop sustainable marketing and public education program, secure
funding (through incentive programs and grants) institutionalize research and
development, promote inter-governmental cooperation and partnerships for change
and to establish a community connection and coordinate media efforts and press
releases. Suggestion for developing key partnerships like UWGB, NWTC, St.
Norbert College, New North, the Wisconsin Sustainability Council, and talking
with major employers like Georgia Pacific, Humana, WPS, and talking with
surrounding communities.
Rachael
said Milwaukee appointed one person who has established a partnership between
the City of Madison, City of Milwaukee, and the City of Chicago to make a green
triangle. They partnered with MSOE, Johnson Controls and other businesses to
kick start their sustainability program. She said public engagement is huge and
cited the CFL challenge as a great way to get the word out. She said there are a lot of grants
available, adding that the office would need to be fully funded for the first
two years, after that in year three it would be 20% self-funded, by year five,
100% self-funded. She suggested
programs through local schools who engaged the kids to make stencils that were
painted on the gutters in their neighborhood, to engage the public. From here,
the students involved their parents and made rain barrels and rain gardens.
Derek
inquired what grants were applied for in other cities? Rachael responded that
through state, federal and private grants, along with the savings cities are realizing,
the position of Office of Sustainable Development could be funded. She stated
that grants were related to specific projects. She did not come across any
grants that were for funding a position only. In response to a question from
the Mayor, Rachael indicated that the person in Milwaukee reports to the Mayor,
and the position in Austin, Texas reports to Economic Development. Mayor
Schmitt asked that she clarify on her slide what sustainability is and what it
is not. Rachael will make this change and will forward her power point to Derek
Lord. Mayor Schmitt asked at what point
would Rachael say that the City of Green Bay is a sustainable community. Rachael responded that when the Sierra Club
measured what they decided is a sustainable city, she said they looked at the
integration of the sustainable ideology within all the departments of the city
and also the community. They had their
Sustainable Office set up, had funding in place for the office, had partnerships
established with local businesses, had good community outreach and were seeing
cost savings, environmental improvement and economic growth. Gary Delveaux said a part-time staff person
is needed to take this to the next level. Mayor Schmitt agrees with creating an
Office of Sustainability and said he and Gary Delveaux will meet with the Brown
County Executive to look at creating an office and maybe splitting funding for
this position. It was suggested to
invite Ann from the City of Milwaukee’s Sustainability Office to a future
meeting to share information about how they fund their program, etc. John
Miller can touch base with the two individuals from Grand Rapids to get some
guidance on how to move forward.
3.
New goals for 2008 from subcommittees
Gary
Delveaux asked that subcommittees report on their successes from 2007 for the
benefit of the new members and share their goals for 2008. Water/Air – Luann reported that they
have one new member, Lisa Evenson, from the GBMSD. She shared 2007 projects
including a rain barrel program workshop and hybrid parking signs. She stated
that the storm drain stenciling program was put on hold this year pending
budgeting from DPW who will be assisting with the project and Christine and
Rich’s students will also be working on the project. The Pharmaceutical and hazardous materials collection is being
worked on and there are a number of permitting issues. She stated that they are
continuing to work with the DNR and said Indiana is using a solvent to kill the
toxicity of the drugs and then it’s disposed as hazardous waste. The group is considering a possible amnesty
day collection with TV’s or other household hazardous materials. Christine is
working with the Earth Week planning group to coordinate the pharmaceutical collection
during Earth Week. If the collection is successful in spring, they will try to
repeat the collection in fall. Luann
has plans to repeat the rain barrel workshop during Earth Week and has put
together a three prong workshop to include rain gardens, prairie plants and the
composting element in urban areas, how to do it. All three areas will be covered in one workshop; a 3-4 hour
program with people registering for workshop 1,2 or 3 depending on the topic
they are interested in. She said they’ll need to cover Kurt’s cost to build a
rain barrel during the workshop, which is $60. Luann suggested Neighborhood
Associations adopting a storm drain program, which other communities have done.
She stated that the committee is looking at an anti-idling policy and will
check on the savings other communities have realized from this program. The
committee is considering creating a CD with water and air quality articles for
Neighborhood Associations to access and give out. Finally, they are looking at
the road improvement plan for 2009 and seeing if there is a possibility of
applying for a Coastal Management Grant to do some extensions on the curbs to
place buffer strips. The grant would
need to be applied for by the end of 2008.
Transportation
– André
reviewed projects including placing bike racks on city buses, hybrid parking
signs, anti-idling policy which our Fleet Manager, T.J. Sorenson is working on.
They applied for a Wisconsin Coastal Management Grant this year for the
CityDeck, a bike path and landscaping. They were able to secure $875,000 in state
money for a Rails To Trails pedestrian/bike trail on the west side. They worked on a county bike map which will
be marketed next year. Other media events included Bike to Work Week, Walk your
Child to School Day, Leave Your Car at Home Day. Update on biodiesel, the City’s Transit Director and head
mechanic met with Progressive Farmers Coop who buys the biodiesel fuel in
DePere and with Cummins who manufactures the engines for the city buses. He stated that the key issue is that they
need BQ9000 certification and there is not a certified supplier in
Wisconsin. He said without this
certification, we have a warranty issue and a liability issue, adding that if
we do not use approved fuels in our city bus engines, our warranty is void.
André said the closest certified supplier is in Duluth, MN and the transport
cost would not be economical. He said as a committee, they are looking to get a
consortium going through the Wis. Urban Transit Authority to get a group pooled
together to commit to purchasing biodiesel fuel if they would get the BQ9000
certification, which costs $30,000-$40,000.
André said the city’s purchasing agent is working on how to make it
worth their while to become certified. Luann asked if a cost benefit analysis
has been done to lock in the savings? André responded that the cost of the
biodiesel fuel is not a factor and said the cost can be offset because the
detergent in the fuel helps to clean the engine and over the life of the
vehicle, the maintenance costs would be reduced. Rich Krieg stated that when
you begin importing biodiesel fuel, it becomes less sustainable. André summed up by stating that they will
continue to work on the biodiesel fuel issue.
André
said other projects for the committee include looking at environmentally friendly
road construction materials such as rubberized asphalt concrete, which is being
used in California, Texas and Arizona. He added that these materials may not
work in our climate and said we have to take a look at that. Luann said they
had a representative from the Wisconsin Concrete Consortium talk to their group
at UWGB and said they are experts on the climate and what’s appropriate
relative to concrete. André said they are looking at the railroad bridge on the
Fox River being activated to be connected to the trail on the west side. They
also would like to incorporate bike trails into the master plan for the Bay
Beach expansion.
Mayor
Schmitt said the Transportation subcommittee needs to work on less dependency
on the auto, once a week riding the bus, car sharing and reducing pollution by
autos. The Mayor said we have taken 2½ minutes off the time to travel on West
Mason with synchronizing the traffic lights. He said we’ll be taking some
lights out in the downtown and all this helps to lessen the time in the auto
and reduces pollution.
Energy
– Jeff
DeLaune said their primary project was the Compact Flourescent Light Bulb
Challenge, in which they sold 23,000 light bulbs. He stated that they are
interviewing the 29 companies who participated in the challenge. They will
repeat the challenge next year and will begin the planning months earlier. He
stated that they will reform the committee in the next few weeks and will
decide on other projects for 2008 when the committee meets in January.
4.
Development of Home Show Material
7-20th. Derek
said emails will be sent regarding the Home Builders Show January 17-20th. He indicated that he and Nancy Nabak will
discuss items #4 and #5 when they meet tomorrow.
5.
Potential for establishing a Business Plan Committee.
6.
Miscellaneous discussion on pertinent Sustainable Green Bay
topics.
Mayor Schmitt stated that
we want to offer incentives to homebuilders. He said he likes the idea of
forming an Office of Sustainability Development and said he will talk about the
County kicking in maybe $35,000. He said he is very appreciative that this
group has continued to work hard and are dedicated to the issues.
7.
Date for next meeting.
The
next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. in
Room 604 of City Hall.