MINUTES

Sustainable Green Bay Task Force

Wednesday, 4/2/2008

City Hall, Room 604

3:00 PM

 

MEMBERS PRESENT:  Gary Delveaux, Ian Griffiths, Karen Kohlbeck, Peter Schleinz, Andre Jacque, Bill Lockery, Derek Lord, Jeff DeLaune, Kim Biedermann, Luann Rudolph, Mark Foht, Lisa Evenson ,Mary Haupt

 

OTHERS PRESENT:  Brittany Deneys, Melissa McCarthy and Anton Williams, UWGB Students

 

 

1.      Introduction of new members and choice of subcommittee.

The meeting was called to order at 3:00 p.m. by Co-Chair Gary Delveaux.  Introductions were made and new members welcomed and invited to join the committee and chose their choice of subcommittee.  Derek Lord stated that the three students from UWGB contacted him and are working on a class project and would like to be engaged in some of the Earth Week activities.

 

2.      Earth Week update.

Kim Biedermann reported for the Transportation subcommittee hasn’t met since early January.  She stated that one event for Earth Week is Leave Your Car at Home Day on Thursday, April 24th.  East High School is mainly working on this and there will be a city-wide challenge where pledge forms are filled out stating how many miles you are saving by not driving that day.  Kim distributed Earth Week posters and encouraged members to put them up at their place of work and to participate in these events.  Luann Rudolph reported that Chris Phelps of Green Bay Metro will be doing something for reduced or free fare for city busses on April 24th.  Kim will email the goal for the number of miles they are shooting for.  André stated that Kathy Johnson is handling this event for Metro and it will be something similar to last year utilizing a voucher system, but said there is a budget crunch which wasn’t there last year, more committed money to their marketing budget than last year.  Andre stated that Rich Krieg will probably be scheduling a press conference with Metro.  Kim is going to contact the Press-Gazette relative to publicity also.

 

Karen Kohlbeck of the Urban Frog stated that they will be hosting an Earth Dinner with a $200 grant from Organic Valley Cooperative.  She indicated that they are able to take reservations for 30 dinners and invited any member of the Task Force to attend and talk to the public about what the committee is doing. Karen said it’s a celebration of local organic foods and sustainable farming in our area.  The dinner will be held on Wednesday, 4/23 with a reception at 5:30, dinner at 6 or 6:30.  Karen said Kevin Kuene who supplies the Urban Frog with a lot of their produce will be there to talk about sustainable foods in our area. Karen stated that Organic Valley will let the committee use this Earth Dinner as a fundraiser next year if interested.

 

André stated that they had been approached about developing a small wind energy ordinance and Tom Lesperance and Paul Neumeyer had a chance to take a look at it and thought it would be good.  André said that with the approval of the Sustainable Green Bay Task Force, and on behalf of citizen Ken Dantoin he would like to put a communication into Council at tonight’s meeting to have the Planning Commission review a model small wind energy system ordinance that was developed by Focus on Energy and see if we could format that for the city’s ordinances.

 

Motion made by Gary Delveaux, second by Ian Griffiths to have an ordinance developed relative to small wind energy system, and the Sustainable Green Bay Task Force would like to be part of that development, and approve the first draft.  Motion carried.

 

André said the Mayor’s Office continues to be active in pursuing appropriations for some of the projects including the swing bridge for the trail system and are very active in the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant and partnered with Sen. Feingold’s Office on that as well as made contact with Sen. Kohl and Sen. Kagen.  He said there was an appropriation request for the City of Green Bay to act as a pilot project for that if full funding cannot be achieved, but said we are in the push for full funding. André stated that the Mayor will be addressing attracting green energy producers in his State of the City address on April 7th which the Governor talked about in a press conference yesterday.  André stated that the City has reached out to the Governor’s Office in letting them know that we have an organization in place who has been active, and added that we have partnered with the Governor in a few energy efficiency items.

 

There was no update on biodiesel for city busses, Chris Phelps is still working on securing a certified supplier for the fuel.  He stated that there is definitely the commitment that we would like to do it.

 

3.      Update from subcommittees.

Energy- Jeff DeLaune stated that there is nothing new with the Energy Committee. He stated that the CFL Challenge is still on the table but they have not decided if they will be doing it. Jeff stated that there are federal regulations that incandescent bulbs will be phased out by 2011 or 2012 and he’ll have to see where Focus On Energy is with their CFL funding. G. Delveaux stated that CFL disposal has been getting bad publicity, even nationally, there are disposal boxes at all the hard ware stores.  K. Kohlbeck talked about the Oshkosh Group, Echoes and a program called Save Energy; Save the Planet. Luann said PBS did a good job with the documentary and she will send the links to Mary Haupt to forward to committee members. Karen mentioned an interest in tap water versus using plastic bottles and said they collected $56.00 for a program called Unicef Project Tap which goes toward supplying the world’s children with safe drinking water. She will contact Rich and Annettee regarding starting a subcommittee about this topic.  Rich also wished to discuss health and environmental issues related to plastic bottles, but was not present.

 

Land Use – No one was present from this subcommittee to report.

 

Water/Air – Luann said they have been putting their focus on Earth Week and have four things going on. She reviewed various projects, on April 19th there will be a Great Lakes Compact Forum featuring Peter Annin, author of The Great Lakes Water Wars, at UWGB from 1:00-4:00 pm, to promote the Great Lakes Compact which includes the eight states surrounding the great lakes trying to agree on a way to stop the diversion of water from great lakes communities; a way to protect our water resources in the basin. Luann stated that this Compact has been stalled here in state government, trouble getting it through the Assembly. They are trying to raise awareness for it and said Peter Annin is the nationally renowned speaker and will do a 45 minute presentation and Q&A. Other speakers include Kim Biedermann, Bud Harris, Cong. Steve Kagen, Sen. Rob Cowles and Patricia Jursik, Milwaukee County Supervisor who will form a panel for discussion.

 

April 26th two events in the Baird Creek area include a demo on municipal composting from 1:00-3:00 at Triangle Hill Pavilion and still to be confirmed, City Stormwater Engineer Matt Heckenlaible may be giving a rain garden demonstration at Christa Mc Auliffe Park from 1:00-3:00, still being finalized.

 

Luann said a grant application was approved to the EPA for a pharmaceutical collection and were funded $25,000 to spend on two pharmaceutical collection drives.  Derek said the EPA ‘s Public Affairs Dept. Manager will be coming up to hold a press conference and to present the check. Derek shared a letter and flyer that will be mailed to all drug stores in the area.  The collection will be held on April 18th and 19th at Streu’s Pharmacy on Main St. Luann said she registered the Task Force with Earth 911, which make the group part of a larger EPA Earthday Challenge, whose goal is to collect one million pills.  We hope to be a large part of that, with Luann budgeting for disposal of four drums. She stated that the collection will require people to come into Streu’s and complete a very brief survey about why they are bringing the drugs. Committee members were asked to thank Wes Damro for all his assistance.

 

Luann shared a 2007 Annual Report of the Sustainable Task Force that she and Derek Lord compiled, and distributed copies.  She asked for feedback and will put the report on the website. The Mayor will have copies to hand out to share what the Task Force is doing.  Kim did a great job of getting $8,000 for sponsorship for Earth Week.  Derek stated that we would like people to attend especially for the events on the 19th and 26th.

 

Transportation – Peter Schleinz arrived and said the bicycle maps are finished and he received them the end of March.  It was a cooperative effort of many municipalities, public and non-public agencies. The maps will be sold for $3.00 each.  Bundles of 25 can be purchased for $35 for agencies, who can then resell them or give them away at that reduced price. If you plan to resell them, the County asks for a tax exempt form.  Peter said the streets will be automatically updated. The maps are available in the City Park & Rec Dept and will be for sale at the Welcome Center. Discussion about the old swing bridge with Derek stating that it’s a topic of discussion with the DNR but structurally it’s not safe and would need repairs and said this won’t happen this year.

4.      Discussion on guest speakers for spring conference.

This item will be put on hold until Gary and Derek speak with the Mayor about when he would like to hold this and maybe call a special meeting to discuss it.

 

5.      Presentation to City Council.

This item came out of the Advisory Committee where an alderman mentioned having one or two members of the Task Force attend a Council meeting and update the Council on what the group has done and what they are working on.  This will be scheduled, possibly for a Council meeting in June; a date will be set in the future.

 

6.      Miscellaneous discussion on pertinent Sustainable Green Bay topics.

Derek opened for discussion, looking at different ways to reorganize the structure of the subcommittees and having three subcommittees, economics, social equity and environment and having each subcommittee work on one project and then move onto another project.  He said we would be sustainable with the three areas covered and committee members wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed. He suggested laying out three things that the committees think they could do in a year and have a narrower focus on one project. Another suggestion was to have the entire Task Force work as one and not have subcommittees. The committee could work on one project and meet every two months.  Ian stated that the committee has lost some momentum at the end of last year.  This item will be on the agenda for the next meeting.  Gary and Derek will meet and bring a draft to the next meeting.

 

Discussion ensued regarding updating the website.  Luann stated that the subcommittee area is stagnant and suggested that each subcommittee have a front page and then have a link to their report section.  She suggested publicizing the results of the CFL challenge from last year and said each subcommittee should be responsible for giving Adrienne updated information to place on the website.   Derek suggested re-writing the report for each subcommittee to a three page report.  Jeff DeLaune stated that we should include key information for the subcommittees.  Derek suggested that the first project the group could work on could be identifying who we are, what the goals are and what message we want to get out there.  Luann said the website should be moving with us.  Derek stated that the Sustainable Green Bay comment form has been closed because he receives numerous emails that do not pertain to that topic.

 

7.      Date for next meeting.

The next meeting of the Sustainable Green Bay Task Force will be held on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 3:00 p.m.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Haupt