Minutes

Sustainable Green Bay Task Force

Thursday, 12/18/2008

City Hall, Room 604

3:00 PM

 

Members Present: Paul Linzmeyer, Andre Jacque, Annette Weissbach, Nick Sparacio, Derek Lord, Jeff DeLaune, Kim Biederman, John Miller, Mary Haupt, Mark Foht, Nancy Nabak, Crystal Osman, Sandy Stokes, Lisa Evenson, Paul Rentmeester, Sean Gates

 

Others:  Marcus Grignon, student at The College of Menominee Nation, Jami Harrington, City of Green Economic Development Dept.  Jeff Haes, student at UWGB

 

1.    Call meeting to order

The meeting was called to order at 3:00 by Chairman, Paul Linzmeyer.  Introductions were made.

 

2.    Approve minutes of the November 20, 2008 meeting

Motion made by Andre Jacque, second by Nick Sparacio to approve the minutes of the November 20th meeting.  Motion carried.

 

3.    Committee reports

Communications – L. Evenson reported that the Press-Gazette included the Task Force in their Go Green insert and listed all members.  She distributed copies of the insert.  Nancy, John Miller and Lisa met with Terry Anderson of the Press-Gazette and said the first article about the Task Force will appear in the Dec. 29th Neighborhood Section.  Terry committed to running an article once a month and is asking for photos.  The second article will be before Jan. 15, before the Brown County Builders Home Show and that article will emphasize sustainable building practices.  Lisa contacted the Fox 11 Morning Show and said her contact is on vacation and if she hears back from them she will be looking for volunteers from the Task Force to be guests on this program.  Lisa said Nancy is collecting past articles, interview information and activity information to be included in a media impression report that will track our improvement and general awareness to the general public.  Nancy took photos during the meeting, said the PG asked for photos.

 

Lisa inquired if they could have direct access to a city staff member who handles the website.  Derek said he could provide Adrienne’s email, but asked that just one person from the Task Force contact Adrienne so she doesn’t receive several emails regarding the same thing.  Anyone who has information for the website can forward the items to Nancy Nabak and she will contact Adrienne. Lisa reported that they are finalizing a brochure and postcard that was done for the drug collection drive. She, Derek, and Wes Damro met and are working with the designer of the brochure. She indicated that this will be paid for with the $25,000 EPA Grant which must be spent by the end of the year.  She passed around the draft brochure and postcard.  Derek said they will print thousands of the postcards and will mail them to pharmacies and hand deliver some and ask them to hand the information out when people pick up their medication.  He said we will own the card as a Task Force and can update it in the future. Paul suggested having the brochures and postcards printed on recycled paper.  Lisa said the Task Force recently sponsored Dr. Daigger’s presentation on sustainability and said they received positive feedback on the Edge of the Lake Series and hope to partner more with the Task Force, UW Sea Grant and the UW Extension to get speakers. 

 

Derek said last year they put together a year-end report of the accomplishments of the Task Force which was very useful throughout the year and suggested that the Communications Department do a similar report for 2008.  He will forward an example of the report to Nancy Nabak who will work on this report.

 

Paul said the presentation by Dr. Daigger was very informative and asked if a copy could be received. He suggested having an hour following the presentation to have panelists weigh in.   Lisa will check to see if she can receive a copy of the presentation. Sandy Stokes suggested putting such presentations on public television to attract a wider audience.  Annette mentioned the inconsistency of the name of the Task Force. Derek said the formal name on the logo is Greater Green Bay Sustainable Task Force and said he thinks we should come up with a different name; adding that the current name sounds like work and is very literal.  Paul suggested forming a small committee to identify a brand and put a name that matches that brand.  Anyone interested in being part of that committee can email Mary Haupt, and the names will be forwarded to Paul.

 

  Improving City Hall – Derek and Andre are on this committee.  Derek reported that as a benchmark they have not collected all of the information at this point.  Andre said G. Delveaux was going to provide a figure for what the city hall carbon rates were for electricity, adding that they have the utility information.  Paul said Gary should be able to give them the reports and said if they could give him the information he could get it put into a template. Derek said they are collecting water data and diesel fuel that the city uses also.  He said the energy information would be pretty straight forward.  Derek said the possibility of wind energy at city hall has been coming up more and more and the possibility of partnering as a pilot project to some small turbine for wind electricity and said this is something they may look at after the city hall footprint is established. Andre said he believed the point of that would be mainly for PR, adding that this would not be the most efficient setup.  Andre shared an email from Deb Lindgren where she gave suggestions for energy improvements at city hall and said for the time being until she finds a job, will have to step down from the Task Force. She hopes to rejoin the project at a later date.  Andre said the goal of this project is to reduce the carbon footprint and the energy costs in general.

 

Paul said we would want this to be a demonstration project for the future and will need baseline metrics showing improvements.  Andre said some of the information is dated (2006) and said they need to get 2007 and 2008 and show a trend if it’s going up or down. Paul said WPS typically gives a three-year history on energy use.  Derek will contact the city account representative and request the printout.

 

Food – Nancy reported that Karen Kohlbeck was elected chair of the food committee but Karen has to work on Thursdays.  Nancy reported that after months of meeting, they discovered that they put together an inventory of what’s going on in and around the community as far as food concepts and said there is energy surrounding the concept of enhancing the Farmers’ Markets.  Suggestions were reducing the use of plastic bags and increasing WIC coupon use.  She said there is some talk of establishing a Coop at UWGB or NWTC and helping schools buy local. She indicated that she and Karen are working on a position paper specifically aimed at the Farmers Market initiative and what they see as things that could enhance the Farmers Market with bullet points.  They would like to present this paper to the Mayor and to this Task Force and ask for input before it’s placed on the website.  She stated that they want to identify what local and organic food means. She said they also looked at educating people regarding washing fruit and buying fresh.  Nancy said she and Karen are planning to attend a Summit in Wisconsin Rapids on January 8th.  Sandy commented that if a coop is established we could talk with the schools about purchasing their food through the coop and said there is a law that 80% of the food must be purchased from one supplier.

 

Nancy said Karen asked her to mention a report she received from Fred Depies which states that one out of every 10 people are on Food Stamps and this becomes a health issue. Nancy said one of their initiatives from the WIC Program is to increase use of this program and make the application more user friendly. Paul commented on the seriousness of people on poverty and said their access to fresh food is not very good and therefore they continue the cycle of poverty, adding that diet and health care are so closely related.  He mentioned a Madison group who would be willing to work with our food group. Jami Harrington commented that in Michigan they expanded the WIC Program for their Farmers Market and to seniors. Nancy responded that they have this information and said Wisconsin has a very successful WIC program with seniors.

 

Derek added that the City and RDA own so much vacant property and suggested having a goal of turning 5 parcels into a community garden.  He said this committee could help in getting this project organized and the neighborhood associations could get on board, adding that the Parks Dept. could till the soil twice a year and said this would get people into growing local as well as buying local food.  Sean added that this would serve as an education tool also.

 

Sustainable Building Practices – Annette said their group has been working on a check list project where existing homes are checked off on inside and outside sustainability.  The back of the brochure shows where trees should be planted relative to what exposure they have.  She said realtors and buyers alike could use this information.  She said the flip side of this is what about the houses that do not have sustainable features? She passed around the prototype and asked members to jot down their input for changes. Lisa said this could be used as a communication tool and said the final copy should be placed on the webpage. Nancy said their subcommittee spent a lot of time working on the brochure and she agrees that it is a good tool.  Paul commented that he’s hoping after the new administration is in place in Washington, we may have new programs that would encourage people to reinvest in their homes to implement energy saving measures.  Mark Foht suggested putting the score card in the books listing available real estate that are in racks in grocery stores and Derek added having the Press-Gazette do an article on the card and having it on our website.  Annette said they envisioned just having the score card as a piece of paper that perspective buyers could use and possibly having a training session for realtors.  Suggestion made to get Energy Star to back this but said that only applies to new homes.  Annette commented that there is a Green Built score card out there for existing homes as well as new construction.  Suggestion was made to add another section to list what you can do to improve the home and to get people to focus on energy efficient measures.  Annette and her subcommittee will revisit the brochure at their meeting today and welcomed input from the committee.

 

City Clerk/Finance Director Doug Daul stated that Ald. John Vanderleest brought forward a communication at the Finance Committee regarding the cost of postage for the City.  Mr. Daul said the biggest item is mailing the property tax bills, which the County sends out sends the city an invoice for the postage.  Doug said elections are another big cost where absentee ballots that are mailed require two envelopes, and said another cost is mailing hearing notices.  Derek brought up the Friday meeting packets which are printed by our Printing Dept (120 copies each Friday) and are mailed to 50 people.  He also mentioned a health insurance packet from HR which was mailed to all city employees, each costing $1.25 and said these could be placed on our desks rather than being mailed. Derek said we purchase 100 boxes of paper each year just for printing the Friday packets, with Paul stating that this comes under improving city hall. Derek said much of this information could be read on line and not needed to be printed. Sandy said if everyone who reads on line prints out the information, the cost would be even higher, with Derek agreeing.  Mr. Daul said the Council members want a paper agenda and we will continue to do this.  

 

4.    Andre Jacque report on 25x25 grant submission

He said he submitted the 25x25 grant application earlier this week and said we formed a consortium with the Village of Howard, Village of Ashwaubenon and the City of DePere and partnered with UWGB and NWTC and said Dr. Katers would be a lead investigator for UWGB’s involvement.  He said we created a component for creating an RFP and contracting out for doing the energy audits and preparing the IE plan and included a small amount of money for training and travel reimbursement for this committee as well as the Seeds DePere Group and the Go Green Save Green Howard group which is affiliated.  Andre said the Mayor did make an outreach attempt to the County Executive to see if we could do a combined application with the county since we are competing with them, but said the County Executive wanted to go alone, which frustrated the other municipalities that we partnered with. Andre stated that with our partnerships with the three other larger groups in the county, because these involve public works and public safety in these municipalities, we are dealing with large square footage.  We have partnerships with educational institutions, which the county does not, but added that he is not saying that if one group gets a grant, it would preclude the other one.  He said the County Executive said if they are awarded the grant they would work with the city and other municipalities. Andre summed up by stating that with the good group we have and good leadership, it makes a desirable application and said if we are not awarded the grant, we have laid the groundwork to work with other municipalities next year.  Paul stated that he had a meeting with Randall Rake, Chair of the Seeds DePere Group and Larry Delo and Ken Pabich of DePere and said they responded favorably. He also met with Jerry Menne and Steve Kubacki of Ashwaubeon and hopes to address the Municipal Issues Committee in January.  Paul indicated that he also spoke with Tom Hinz and understands his reasoning. Paul stated that we have an unusual opportunity here and regardless of who gets the grant, if we could have certain communities working on things they are good at and other communities working on other things, along with involving students from UWGB and St. Norbert helping to work on research, it would be great. Paul believes we are positioned much better than other cities for the grant since we have these partnerships.

 

Andre will forward the application to the members.  Andre stated that we continue to pursue the EECBG, Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant at the Federal level and are pushing to include that in President-Elect Obama’s Stimulus Package. Discussion ensued regarding the city’s wish list with Paul stating that the stimulus package will come most likely through the state’s administration office with the intent on those states who are positioned to do infrastructure stuff and said infrastructure includes many things besides roads and bridges, and those states who are ready to make meaningful investments that they couldn’t do with normal taxation revenue sources will more likely be funded before others.  He gave the example of mass transit, healthcare and medical records improvement, broadband, things that are very expensive to do and can really accelerate the reduction of energy and said the time to get this work done is today. Paul said he’s looking for ways of reducing energy and creating alternative fuel and said the Technical Colleges and University systems have to be able to put people out that can actually do the jobs, to build this infrastructure. Derek will submit the city’s wish list to Paul.

 

5.    Presentation by Marcus Grignon on Permaculture

Paul introduced Marcus Grignon, student at the College of Menominee Nation and who was awarded a scholarship to work in Washington, D.C. for the next four or five months on policy issues.  Marcus has been doing some work at the college on permaculture.

 

Marcus addressed the committee stating that sustainability is a relatively new topic for him.  He indicated that a concern some students at the college had is that they do not have a cafeteria, only vending machines.  He and student organizations met and formed a Seeds Group which started the fair trade coffee shop and juice bar and have applied for a P3 Grant that would brings in caterers and the student group would have their own guidelines for the caterers, stating that they would only be allowed to bring in bio-compostable products.  Marcus said these bio-compostable products would be put into a compost pile and they would generate top soil for their community gardens and the yield from those gardens would be sent out to caterers, to generate some income for the students.  He said the main focus right now is the fair trade coffee shop and the coffee grounds are put into the permaculture (worms) and they would be able to make top soil and put it in different areas for a permaculture site.  He said in summer they are looking at having different native tree species like maple and apple and will make spiral gardens with different berry bushes and will make different teas.  He said these teas could be used in the nursing program for an alternative medicine certificate with herbal remedies.  Marcus stated that he is part of the CMN Sustainability Coalition which will sell coffee and make juice.

 

Marcus defined permaculture as a design for the environment so that the natural landscape and humans do not damage the other, using onsite resources to keep a sustainable coffee shop.  Paul said they use permaculture on the west coast in very dry areas where they grow their own food with limited rain water; self sufficiency.  Jeff Haes said in adapting the environment, going from machines to humans for providing food, forces students to deal with people now and involves the psychology of business.  Paul added that the colors used by Mac Donalds gears people to eat their food quickly and leave, adding that communication is so important and we need to understand the system. Marcus explained spiral gardens stating that they allow accessibility to all sides of the berry bushes with paths placed around the bushes, and said these gardens are very common to permaculture.  The committee thanked Marcus for his presentation. Paul shared information about a flower show in Thailand where they are able to grow a large amount of things in a very small area of ground.

 

6.    Green and Healthy Schools Initiative

Paul said this is a Governor’s program and said he was approached by the West DePere School District to help them figure this out for their district and he will be meeting with their superintendent.  He said if this is something this group is interested in taking on as a project, he would have to have it approved by the group.  He said his grandson is in middle school there and wants to start an Environmental Club and will need to see what steps they need to follow.  Annette suggested that Christine Fossen-Rades would be a great source of information as she started this club at her school. Marcus shared that the Menominee Tribe has a week- long camp where students must live in the rough for a week and are issued one dish bag for the week and they are encouraged to leave as little waste as possible and said this is a good learning experience on recycling and sustainability.

 

7.    Other Items

Derek said he received a call from Doug Meek who said he has received 11 referrals for the home energy audits and this would bring our account balance up to $1100.  Nancy commented that some of the improvements they needed to make as a result of their home audit were covered in part by their home owners insurance.

 

Kim Biederman announced that Conservation Lobby Day which will be held on Feb. 25 next year and encouraged members to attend and said all legislators should be present. She said one of the issues will be addressing Karst Geology and protecting our drinking water through addressing waste management laws, as well as taxing global warming in Wisconsin, reducing our dependence on coal and oil and preserving our groundwater in Wisconsin and the independent DNR Secretary. 

 

Nancy said the gentleman who heads the Go Green/Save Green Howard group would be willing to speak to the group and she will arrange for him to speak at the next meeting.

 

Annette announced that she needs to step down from the committee because of budget cuts and will continue to be involved in some of the areas outside of the 3:00-5:00 time slot.  She is hoping to find someone to take her place at these meetings.  Paul and Derek thanked Annette for all her work on the committee.

 

Crystal mentioned the Greening events subcommittee and said their committee is working on a Green Festival in conjunction with Arts Events, On Broadway, Olde Main Street and Wes Damro.  It will be a buy local event, act socially, economically, and environmentally responsible; live healthier, be healthier and promote sustainability.  It will be a street festival and two locations up for consideration are the City Deck and On Broadway.  The first year it will be a smaller event and hope to grow from there.  She indicated that they hope to get people to start thinking around the river and they hope to be an example for other events and try to be as waste free and sustainable as they can be while having fun. 

 

Every third Sat. of the month Baird Creek has a guided hike at the park. Crystal passed out the list of the dates for the hike.

 

The next meeting will be held on January 15th at 3:00 in Room 604 of City Hall.

 

The meeting adjourned at 4:30 p.m.