MINUTES

Sustainable Green Bay Task Force

Thursday, 11/20/2008

City Hall, Room 604

3:00 PM

 

MEMBERS PRESENT: Paul Linzmeyer, Gary Delveaux, Ian Griffiths, Annette Weissbach, Nancy Nabak, Crystal Osman, Lisa Evenson, Andre Jacque, Erik Hoyer, Dr. John Stoll, Nick Sparacio, Mark Foht, Rich Krieg, Sandra Stokes, Mayor Schmitt, Mary Haupt, Cheri Salmon, Michelle Stokes

 

Guest: Jim Krol with Honeywell

 

 

1.    Call meeting to order

The meeting was called to order by Chairman, Paul Linzmeyer. 

 

Mr. Linzmeyer gave a brief background of himself stating that he has transformed and turned around companies around the country and most recently and is the former president of Bay Towel.  He indicated that he has been using triple bottom line sustainable practices in his businesses, with good success, long before he knew what the term meant. He indicated that he has started his own consulting business to work with companies and organizations to use sustainable practices in their businesses. Mr. Linzmeyer chairs the New North Sustainability Committee and is one of the founders of New North and is a representative to OECD which is an organization of 31 countries based out of Paris and has been around since 1961. This organization works on sustainable manufacturing equal innovation and also works on a lot of policy things. He hopes to bring some of the best practices used by this group to this committee.

 

2.    Introductions and brief overview

Introductions were made and new members Cheri Salmon of WPS and Michelle Stokes of American Transmission Company were welcomed.

 

Lisa Evenson wished to add an agenda item regarding sponsorship for a speaker’s series. Mr. Linzmeyer stated that he would like to have a guest speaker for most of the meetings to keep our learning curve going and asked members to contact him if they had an idea for a guest speaker on any related topic.

 

3.    Overview of energy improvements performed by Honeywell in various city facilities, by Jim Krol

Jim Krol of Honeywell addressed the Task Force with a power point presentation regarding projects on energy conservation that his company performed for the city. Mr. Krol stated that he is an energy services representative for Honeywell which is an energy service company and said he has been working with the City of Green Bay since 2001.  He said based on the foresight of the Common Council, Mayor, DPW Director and other city staff, he has been successful in reducing energy consumption in the city by improving the facilities and infrastructure and the city is using the money from the savings to pay for these improvements.

 

Mr. Krol said in this last phase they are trying to work in sustainable improvements which have a long-term payback, which make it difficult to invest in and you many times need grants to assist in placing these improvements.  As a result, the Common Council was not able to approve all of these improvements.  He reviewed performance contracting, the vehicle he used to implement the energy savings.  He stated that performance contracting is like energy design built contracts, and this is one that is covered by legislation in the State of Wisconsin called Wis. Act 33 and which allows local governments to enter into contracts where the savings offset the cost of the improvements and the vendor is required to guarantee the energy savings and be held accountable for the project for the life of the contract which usually lasts ten years.  He indicated that these capital improvements usually impact the budget but in this case the energy savings is offsetting the cost.  He indicated that the energy company has to perform an audit to insure that the energy savings are there year after year and if not, the guarantee of paying the difference of what was projected to be saved and what the actual savings were, has to be paid by the vendor.

 

Mr. Krol said in 2001, 2003 and in 2007 Honeywell has done performance contracts.  He stated that Phase 1 included improvements at City Hall and the east and west side garages.  At city hall they added building automation that previously didn’t have any so the building didn’t have to run 24 hours a day.  They also installed variable frequency drives on air handling equipment and pumps so if the demand wasn’t there to run the motor at full speed, it would throttle back and save energy.  At the public works garages, they made ventilation improvements and said there were some code issues that had to be addressed and items that were able to be incorporated that saved money, in the vehicle storage and repair areas and also installed monitoring equipment. Mr. Krol said they are trying to implement some sustainable improvements at NWTC which would be a working classroom, used for instructional use in training. He said Amy Kox, Task Force member is working with him on this project.  

 

Phase 2 was the Police Dept. and Municipal Court, where they did some lighting control and put in an energy management system and said that phase is doing real well, as is city hall.  He said the savings is figured on simple payback and does not take the time value of money into consideration.  Paul Linzmeyer said not using the time value of money doesn’t give a true picture and the aldermen are making a decision maybe not based upon the most accurate information. He believes it would be helpful to show two different scenarios so they can come to a better decision. Mr. Linzmeyer said to look at people’s homes and gave the example of placing a tankless water heater in his home and when he looked at all of the numbers, said it was a good decision to do this.  Mr. Krol said it’s helpful to have a committee like this one to make recommendations to do these things.  He said the good short-term paybacks come with things like lighting and said the L.E.D. traffic signals were one thing Honeywell had proposed but said Chris Pirlot and his staff are going to be doing this so they took it out.  Mr. Krol said they were able to work with the Engineering Dept. and the State and said there are some very attractive incentives for the L.E.D. Traffic signals.  He said the cost was projected at just under $500,000 and the incentive was just about the whole amount.  One requirement was the state has to manage the contract, so they took it out of their program.  He stated that with the L.E.D. traffic signals, the material savings include about $5,000 a year, which is not shown here.  L.E.D. traffic signals use about 10% of the energy that incandescent fixtures use. Mr. Krol said there was approximately half a million dollars of incentives to the city, adding that both Focus on Energy and the state provide incentives for implementing these energy projects.

 

Mr. Krol said the other thing in Phase 3 is the chiller in city hall, which was installed about 30 years ago and said they were able to put in a new frictionless chiller on the roof.  He indicated that one of the requirements with a performance contract is there is a performance payment bond that has to last through the life of the program. He stated that if a municipality does projects in a comprehensive manner, there are additional savings. He said they installed more efficient computer room units for city hall and for the Police Dept.  Mr. Krol said they made weather proofing and sealed cracks in some of the buildings and said city hall could use an upgrade in windows.  He stated that his company has to audit the savings on an annual basis and he will provide those results to the committee, which Mr. Linzmeyer said would help articulate their case. He stated the estimated savings to the city was $131,000 which would need to be guaranteed, less the traffic signals which is set up on a separate contract with the state.  Mr. Krol said they do a lot of occupancy sensors and with interior lighting, he said changing the T12 flourescent tubes to T8 would be a savings. He indicated that Honeywell doesn’t guarantee the grants but said they work closely with Focus On Energy and have seen very good success on Phase 1 and 2.

 

Mr. Krol reviewed Energy Conservation Measures stating that some of the things that could be done on this phase is power management for PC’s, adding that this puts your computer to sleep if it’s not being used for a period of time and placing vending misers which are motion sensors on vending machines. He indicated that these sensors back off the compressor when it’s not being used and turns the lights off on the vending machine and over a period of time it protects the machine from being worn.  He said the elevator controls in city hall are very antiquated and is something for thought for the future.  He discussed bio mass and said the Forestry Dept generates wood chips which could be used to go into a bio mass boiler, which is a process where the chips are firmed in a slower burn and generates a gas which is used for fuel.  He said a lot of paper mills use this process and NWTC is looking at this right now.  He said the Water Dept. has some opportunities because of all the water they pump throughout the city.  He said there were other things but his directive was only to look at improvements that would give a 10 year or less payback.

 

The Committee thanked Mr. Krol for his presentation.

 

4.    Committee reports

·         Communications – Lisa Evenson, Nancy Nabak, John Miller

Lisa reported that she, Nancy and John met with Terry Anderson of the Press-Gazette and he has offered to put them in the Welcome to the Neighborhood Section and they can write articles and provide photos, talk about goals and accomplishments of the Task Force and discuss some of their wish list.  They are working on an introduction article for the Task Force.  Nancy reported that on Monday she, Mayor Schmitt, Paul, Derek and Mary H. met with three reporters of the Press-Gazette for the Go Green Insert and they are going to give us quarterly space and learned who we are and what we’re doing and we established a good rapport with them and they will do follow-ups on what the committee is doing.  Lisa, Nancy and John also talked about a Fox 11 website “Green and Mean It” and said they will look into that as well and possibly see if they could have guests on their morning show.  In December Leadership GB is having Government Day and the intro in the morning will be given by the Mayor or Derek to talk about the Task Force.  Nancy indicated that LGB Environment Day was held last Tuesday and went very well; they are working on getting the word out and finding various outlets in the community.

 

Paul L. said marketing and communication are the key components of what we do; getting the word out to people about what sustainable practices mean.  Nancy said they are discussing what the concepts and goals are and will write up something about the Home Show even if we are not at the Home Show.  Brief discussion on the Home Show and having a booth or sharing a booth and using some information that Jim Krol presented.  The fee for a booth is $450; Mark Foht will talk with Doug Meek and the Brown County Homebuilders regarding a discount or compensation for a booth. Annette said there is booth space available if we could find a sponsor with Rich adding that it was worthwhile being there last year. Paul said if we could get a discount, he would seek a sponsor.

   

·         Improving City Hall – Deb Lindgren, Andre Jacque, Derek Lord

Andre said one of their projects was to get Jim Krol here to present to the group and he was able to be here.  He will acquire a summary fact sheet of Jim’s power point and will share that information with the committee and said he has a spreadsheet from DPW Director, Carl Weber regarding the original baseline figures and said they have been exceeding the performance savings.

 

·         Food – Nancy Nabak, Sandra Stokes, Rich Krieg, Karen Kohlbeck

Nancy reported that the food group is working on a mission statement on encouraging local consumption buying power of local food while reducing our negative impact on the environment and are working on reducing the use of plastic bags at the Farmers Markets.  She indicated that they are looking at other models around the country in buying local food and where citizens pledge to buy a certain percent of local food.  She said they talked about community gardens and many other things and said their next meeting will be Dec. 3rd at 4:00 at Harmony Café.   Sandy S. said UW Extension is having a convention on local food in Wisconsin Rapids on January 8th and 9th.  Nancy said Jeff Metoxen from the Oneida Tribe and Karen Early from UW Extension will be invited to give input and Karen will share an initiative that she would like to get going on.  Sandy said she would like to invite Roberta Schmitt, principal of Richmond Elementary School in Appleton as a guest speaker.  Her school won an award for the Fourth Healthiest School in the United States. Paul said Erik Kramer has connections with the Fox Valley Community Gardens and said he met someone who is active in the finance community gardens initiative in Madison and said they are willing to come and work with our group and share what they have done.

 

Crystal Osman distributed the Farm Fresh Atlas to members which is a resource for finding local foods.  Rich said they are trying to move our school district toward purchasing more from local food producers. S. Stokes said 80% needs to come from one source. Rich said a group of students met with the new superintendent, Greg Maass and he was very receptive. Sandy said the 80% law is a federal law which was initially put in place to help businesses like Cisco.  Paul commented that we could go to the school districts and ask if this law is benefitting the school kids, and said we could go to the Conference of Mayors stating that we are trying to get a local food initiative started but there is a federal law.  Sandy said the Appleton District uses Aramark as their source of food and they have been bringing in some local food, adding that Appleton has been somewhat successful in getting a large corporation to adopt healthy sustainable practices. Paul said through a combination of maneuvers, we could get the desired outcome, such as bringing best practices from the Appleton Schools and starting to build a case here, with Sandy suggesting inviting the Superintendent of Schools and the Food Services Director to that meeting.

 

·         Sustainable Building Practices – Annette Weissbach

Annette said they have been looking at a check list for realtors to list homes that are more sustainable than other homes and said Matt Norem is the realtor they have been working with.  She said they have been talking to the Wis. Green Building Alliance about getting more membership up here and said Carl Kirschling is their liaison to the Home Building Association. She indicated that they would like to plan a luncheon with a power point presentation by the Green Building Alliance. 

 

Annette shared an email from the Lake Largo Neighborhood Association which stated that they were not pleased with the Land Use Subcommittee’s recommendation that the Committee could work with the County on the County farm project to incorporate sustainable design principals and maybe by 2015 showcase a parade of green designs.  She said the president of the Lake Largo NHA is against traditional neighborhood design and has said that this recommendation is on the city’s website and inquired if this is the city’s recommendation. Mayor Schmitt stated that this is a very controversial development and said the Lake Largo NHA doesn’t like what’s being proposed by the County, adding that the county needs city approval for rezoning before the project can move forward. He indicated that he has talked with the county and with the Lake Largo Neighborhood. The Mayor said he is not comfortable with everything the county is proposing at this time. Nick Sparacio of the City Planning Dept. said the Planning Dept. is actively working with the County to explore options for the County farm project.  He offered to find out what the email is all about and see if he can do something to work this out.  Suggestion was made to invite this person to a Task Force meeting and talk to the group.  An email was received from the Schmitt Park NHA as well suggesting that something more sustainable than a TND could be done. Annette stated that Andy Rosendahl of the City Neighborhood Division gave a very good response to the email explaining that the Task Force is a citizens committee and not stating that they are supporting the county’s plan as such. Further discussion ensued regarding inviting other groups to meet with the gentleman or to change the wording to a broader sense to include all neighborhood development be sustainable and remove the county farm wording.  Nick said there is a forum for addressing the county farm project with Mayor Schmitt adding that he wants the NHA’s to support the efforts of the Task Force and would like to see the words Traditional Neighborhood Development removed since we don’t know what will eventually be built there. Nick said the County Planning Dept. is setting the meetings and suggested that a couple people from the Task Force be part of one of those meetings and will notify the Task Force of the next scheduled meeting.

 

Mayor Schmitt had to leave for a ribbon cutting and thanked Paul Linzmeyer for chairing this committee and invited everyone to the Holiday parade on Saturday. He said that he and his family will be riding on green bikes in the parade.

 

5.    WI 25x25 plan grants from Wisconsin Office of Energy Independence

Andre reported that he attended a forum for local government officials at the County with the Office of Energy Independence last month, where they talked about rolling out this 25x25 grant which they are basically looking for 25% renewable domestically produced energy by 2025 and talked about increasing public awareness of energy conservation and energy efficiency.  He said statewide up to $500,000 is being appropriated for up to 10 pilot communities and said that money would have to go toward the energy independence plans and assessments that would have to be completed by December 1st of next year.  He indicated that the city is pursuing this grant and said the questions is, is the funding going to be used toward a new temporary hire with the possibility of making that position permanent or do we go through contracted funds and they basically want an energy independence coordinator. He said at the present time we don’t have a person who has the time to staff full or half-time in this position.  He indicated that there is a power point that gives more information about the grant at power.wisconsin.gov.  He said the staff time and member time that has been put into this committee would give us credit in the grant application and asked for committee members to assist him in giving a more accurate count of their man hours and also their bios which would give the city additional credit for backgrounds. 

 

Andre clarified that the man hours would be calculated from the beginning of the Task Force.  Paul said there are a bunch of communities applying for this grant, including Brown County.  He indicated that 3-5 grants will have some flexibility.  He mentioned a partnership with UWGB or the Technical College, a new program that would target students, and said from past experience, collaborations/neat collaborations may give us an edge.  Another comment was leveraged funds which gives Paul said would give us room for inkind.  Paul asked Andre to let him know if he needs a team formed to come up with creative things for the application and suggested bringing together representatives from other communities in Brown County and leveraging new partnerships, which would be helpful.  Paul commented that Brown County is also applying for this grant, which hurts us. Andre will contact Paul if he needs assistance with this application.

 

6.    NEW North Sustainability Committee

Paul reported that New North has a sustainability committee that is brand new and will be working on a couple of issues, some that are similar to this committee and some that are totally different.  He stated that they are planning to hold a conference at UWGB during Earth Week.  He said they are working on a transportation initiative and ways of moving freight which is a huge issue and said we don’t optimize moving freight.  He indicated that we need to start a discussion on mass transportation in the future.

 

7.    Presentations for future meetings

Discussed above.

 

8.    Dates for next meetings

Paul indicated that the fourth Thursday of the month does not work for him seven times during the year.  After brief discussion, it was decided to schedule future meetings on the third Thursday of the month at 3:00 p.m.  The next meeting will be held on December 18, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. in Room 604 of City Hall.

 

9.    Adjourn

There being no further business, motion was made by Sandy Stokes, second by Rich Krieg to adjourn.  Motion carried.

 

Mary Haupt, Recording Secretary