MINUTES
City Hall, Room 604
MEMBERS PRESENT: Gary Delveaux,
Ian Griffiths, Annette Weissbach, Debbie Lindgren, Nancy Nabak, Crystal Osman,
Lisa Evenson, Andre Jacque, Erik Hoyer, Nick Reckinger, Paul Rentmeester, Scott Wallace, Derek Lord,
Douglas Meek, Sean Gates, Dr. John Stoll, Mary Haupt, Kathy Lefebvre
The meeting was called to order at 3:00 pm by co-chair Gary Delveaux.
Introductions were made and new members Sean Gates of Ameriprise
Financial Services, Inc. and Dr. John Stoll, Professor of Public and
Environmental Affairs at UWGB were welcomed.
Business/Marketing Plan - Lisa Evenson
said a press release was written for Douglas Meek regarding the Sustainable Task
Force’s rebate of $75 for home energy audits. The release was sent to all media
and will be sent to the Business News as well.
Derek stated that he has received a check for $150 for audits and will
open a separate account under the City Economic Development Dept. and will log
in and receipt the money received. Derek
said he will not expend any of these funds without a vote by the Task Force.
Doug Meek said that six more are coming and it takes six weeks to get a rebate
check, his goal is for 40 energy audits by the end of the year, which he feels
is a realistic goal. Douglas and two other people are working on these audits.
Mark Foht is working on an email blast to get the
word out and Task Force members are asked to spread the word regarding the home
energy audits as well and to tell them that the Task Force referred them so we
get credit.
Nancy Nabak
said the Press-Gazette is doing a Go
Green insert in December on the City of Green Bay’s efforts. She indicated that she will need a brief
description on what the subcommittees are doing, what we’ve accomplished,
future goals, etc., with a deadline of November 27th. Derek said we should cover city wide
initiatives in city buildings outside of city hall as well, and include
Honeywell energy savings. Nancy said they contacted Terry Anderson at the PG as
well, and she, Lisa and John will be meeting with him after the elections on
Thursday. She said we need to have an ongoing partnership with the Press-Gazette.
Mayor Schmitt
addressed the Committee stating that we have been looking at funding and talked
with U.S. Cong. Kagen and through state government as
well, adding that we need to fund an office of Sustainability. He indicated that the funding from the
Federal Government we are looking at is a significant amount and would be
through the Community Development Sustainable Block Grant. He said this two billion dollar program went
through Congress and was signed by the president but is not funded. Toward this
end, he said we need strong leadership on the Task Force and Gary and Ian have
been putting in a lot of time and have done a great job, and said the three of
them sat down with Paul Linsmeyer, who is well
connected with what’s going on, locally and nationally and maybe even
internationally. Mayor Schmitt said he asked Paul to chair this committee and
said Paul was excited about doing this.
He indicated that Gary and Ian will remain involved. Paul will be attending the November meeting
and is going to keep us organized and moving forward. Gary said Paul will help bring this committee
to the next level and Ian feels very good about it as well, adding that we have
made a lot of progress and need to take advantage of Paul’s involvement to move
this committee forward. He stated that
he doesn’t see the structure of the committee changing, but will broaden the
horizons. The Mayor said Paul also chairs the Sustainable committee of New
North.
Mayor Schmitt
said he attended a Water conference in New Orleans, where our Water Utility
received a very prestigious award, adding that we were one of the smallest
communities at the conference. He said
Green Bay’s water was rated in the top 10 for best tasting water at the US
Conference of Mayors conference last year, and said we are going to stop buying
bottled water. He said the guy in Alaska has a water truck and brings water to
all the races and events and said we need to do something like this. The Mayor said Mick Cornette,
Mayor of Oklahoma City, put his city on a diet and said its working. Citizens
log on to a website and record the weight they’ve lost and said all the fast
food restaurants got behind him. Mayor
Schmitt said Mayor Cornette is willing to come here
and would pay his own expenses if necessary, and give a presentation to the
committee. The Mayor said Mayor Cornette would educate us and we would put our own program
together. This is something the Task Force will look to do in the future.
Derek said
there was an article in Monday’s Press-Gazette
which covered the storm drain marker program.
He said their neighborhood association partnered with students from
Green Bay West High School. He indicated
that he and the city’s storm water engineer gave a presentation on the
importance of storm water and educated the students regarding not dumping
things in the storm water system. The next day Derek and city engineer went
with the students and installed the markers.
He said the engineering department has received two calls since the
article has been in the paper from organizations who want to partner with the
city to help put these markers throughout the city. He indicated that they have 1000 markers this
year and they’re estimating that there are about 10,000 drains in the
city. He said this would be a good
project for neighborhood associations to undertake and would like to get Boy
Scout troops and other groups involved and hopefully they would tell their
parents about it.
Focus on City Hall Building and
Leading by Example –
Deb Lindgren said she feels like she has to hand this over to someone else
right now as she is too busy with the tax credit change and said she can’t put
in the time that is required right now.
Once January hits, she said things will slow down and she should be able
to resume this project. She indicated that Amy Kox of
NWTC is also very busy right now. Andre
said Jim Krol of Honeywell was not able to attend
today due to attending the League of Wis. Municipalities Conference and will
plan on giving a presentation at the November meeting on energy savings the
city has realized through their contract with Honeywell. Andre said we were approached by Sen. Russ
Feingold’s Office about a press event on November 14th
, 11:00-12:00 with the Senator and the Mayor and the Sustainability
Committee. He said the Senator has an E4 initiative, education, energy, economy
and employment and has worked with the city on the Energy Efficiency Block
Grant and wanted to highlight that as part of his E4 initiative. Sen. Feingold
would like to work in a tour of some facility in Green Bay that has undergone some
energy efficiency upgrades or a newly constructed building. He invited Task
Force members to email any thoughts on how we can highlight the accomplishments
of the Task Force during this press conference and also for suggestions on a
facility to tour. Scott Wallace said we
need to look at existing buildings and said he had talked with Paul Nygard of Innovative Control Solutions who targets
companies who spend $5,000 or more a month in electricity and was able to save
Festival Foods15-18% on their electrical costs.
Mayor Schmitt
suggested the NeighborWorks Green Built home and
suggested finding something that is closer to city hall and is connected to
businesses and residents. Andre
responded that he mentioned the NeighborWorks House
as well as the Packers and some of their energy efficient upgrades that they
are looking at. Annette mentioned the
Vincent Urban Walker business which was highlighted in the Business News for
their green roof and retrofitting the building and it was agreed that this
might be a good building to tour. Scott
inquired about what is involved in the City Hall building. Gary responded that a baseline needs to be
established first, with Ian responding that Honeywell should have a
baseline. Andre said Honeywell did an
audit of sorts but is not certain if a complete baseline was done. Debbie Lindgren was going to look at
blueprints and establish how we can reduce our carbon footprint. Derek also said we should have a
baseline. Annette inquired if the
project for city hall was only looking at energy? Derek said right now we are looking at energy
savings and can look at water and other things after that. The Mayor said it
shouldn’t be that hard to look at water with Derek responding that we have the
data from 2006 and can update that information from last year. Deb said she believes we could reduce the
energy load in city hall by half but would need to look at airflow in the
building and even the materials in the walls to get a carbon footprint. She would then look at water use and see how
that could be reduced with toilets and faucets. Garbage data and recycling was
mentioned. Derek said some of the information is easier to get than others and
said we could save reams of paper by not copying or printing some things that
are probably not even looked at. He
stated that the anti-idling policy has been in place for 10-12 years and we
need to get the word out. Derek will try
to update the information from last year for the next meeting.
Food Group/Buying Local – Nancy reported that only 3 people
could attend their last meeting and said the subcommittee decided that they
need to take a step back and try to figure out what is their vision for the
local food concept and said food security was one concept that came up. They
need to set their goals but need to identify where they want the focus to be.
She said their next meeting is November 13th. She said a few people are working on the WIC
program and a couple of people working on mesh bags for the Farmers
Market. Kathy L. said they need to get
the schools involved and said right now the schools have to get their fresh
food from one vendor and said we need to start with a school garden. Annette suggested taking the lead from the
school in Appleton that received an award. Mayor Schmitt said he’d like to work
toward getting people to change their eating habits and maybe have an eat local
one meal or one day a week and the comment was made that it’s difficult to get
local food here in winter. Nancy said
food security they were talking about is “are we food secure?” rather than food
safety. Deb Lindgren said she found a
grant for using the dump loads for solar energy for supergardens
and said she can double the growing season that we have in Wisconsin just by
using the heat from buildings that is not needed in summer, for gardens. She
said by using this heat, she can increase the amount of vegetables coming out
of a garden tenfold, without pesticides, herbicides or any of that stuff, on a
small plot of land and said she is looking for a spot of land to do this. Suggestions included East High, West or
Preble greenhouse which could be heated in winter. She also said she wanted to
use this garden as a teaching tool and suggestion was made to hook up with FFA
groups. She stated that she feels we are
food secure and can produce more with this method. Suggestion was made to
challenge people to buy a local meal.
Dr. John
Stoll addressed the committee stating that they started a new Institute for Environmental
Management and Business (EMBI) at UWGB and are trying
to get themselves as a place for people to go to for things related to
sustainability. He said they’re just
getting things off the ground right now and will establish a Steering Committee
and right now are working on developing a Certificate Type Program related to
environmental business management and can add on to some of the things they are
already doing on campus. In the longer haul, they hope to have some kind of
major and minor degree program in something related to sustainability. They are planning to hold a major conference
during Earth Week in Spring and bring in a speaker on
Tuesday night, the next day will have some type of plenary type speaker and
hope to have an environmental business showcase with 35-50 businesses on campus
linking them up to students and to each other.
He said the conference will be called Green Innovation 2009 and they are
starting to get the word out right now.
He said they’re trying to partner with as many people as they can and
this will be an educational tool as well.
Ian commented that he believed they will get good response from small
businesses. He said they hope to develop
a major and minor in something related to sustainability.
Annette
inquired if the Task Force will have a booth at the Builders Expo in January. Derek said the fee is approximately $550 and
said Douglas Meek was kind enough last year to pay the fee. Annette said their sustainable building
practices subcommittee has been talking with folks from the Wisconsin Green
Building Alliance who will have a booth there and said if we want to focus on
that part of it, we could partner with them and help staff the booth. It was agreed that the Task Force doesn’t
need an entire booth. Annette said Tina
Quigley’s group met yesterday regarding a Greenfest
in September 2009 and a number of things a streetfest
would include Farmers Market, renewable energy, greening events, education and
Annette said her subcommittee will have a green building component and will
focus on this for the next couple of months. She said this Green Fest sounds
like it will be an ongoing event and said this could tie in with the local food
fest that has been talked about. The Mayor said when he and staff took the tour
of the Oneida Tribal land, they showed how to can food which is something we
can promote more, in addition to mulching
leaves , canning food, taking your bike to work and lead by example. Deb
said she’s long had the idea that if you superinsulate
your house you could heat your home with a pellet
stove and said we should find a way to turn leaves and other yard waste into
pellets to heat our homes. Derek said we
are working on a couple of businesses that are bringing in equipment to
pelletize a lot of things and he will bring this up with them.
Gary said
Team HEAT did 60 homes with 10 teams.
The next
meeting of the Task Force will be scheduled with Paul Linsmeyer
and the Task Force will be notified when the date is confirmed.
Mary Haupt
Recording
Secretary