Minutes

Sustainable Green Bay Task Force

January 15, 2009

City Hall, Room 604

3:00 PM

 

Members Present:  Paul Linzmeyer, Andre Jacque, Nicolas Sparacio, Mary Haupt, Derek Lord, Tom Lesperance, Erik Hoyer, Nancy Nabak, Crystal Osman, Kathy Lefebvre, Paul Rentmeester, John Stoll, Jeffrey Hays

 

Guests:  Amanda Griggs, teacher in the Green Bay Public Schools, Paul Wozniak

 

The meeting was called to order at 3:05 pm by Chairman, Paul Linzmeyer.

 

1.    Introductions

Amanda Griggs, Green Bay Area Public Schools was introduced and welcomed. She indicated that the School District recently formed a district wide green team and said Rich Krieg told her about this meeting.

 

2.    Approve minutes of the December 18, 2008 meeting

Motion made by Andre Jacque, second by Nancy Nabak to approve.  Motion carried.

 

3.    Committee reports

Communications – Lisa Evenson- N. Nabak asked to table this item until Lisa Evenson arrived. 

 

·         Improving City Hall – Derek Lord

D. Lord reported that he had received the reports from WPS regarding energy consumption from City Hall for last year as well as gas consumption and the cost of that.  He indicated that he is going to get more data for the last couple of years and see what we are trending, adding that Paul emailed him with a way to calculate the carbon footprint for this building but he has not yet plugged in the information.  He stated that a meeting is set up for the end of January to discuss some wind turbine projects for the city with WPS.  Derek said he is looking to calculate the energy information for the past three years.  Paul L. said the carbon footprint only gives you a snapshot of where you are and as you start doing things, you’re going to trend somewhere.  He suggested in the scale column, considering what could change the carbon footprint in a way that even though you are doing good things, could make the result look bad.  He gave the example that in a company as your business grows and you do more work, you may be actually be using more carbon.  Derek said part of the plan is looking at water usage and the amount of paper city hall uses.  Derek indicated that the Clerks’ Office is working on a paper reduction policy, adding that this could be a significant reduction in paper use and the city could see an annual savings of $4,000.  P. Rentmeester inquired about paper towel use in the bathrooms, adding that one downside going to cloth towels is the cleanliness issue and said the next step would be using blowers.  Amanda added that the School District is looking into buying only recycled products.  Paul L. inquired if a percentage of the savings realized would go to the budget of this Task Force.

 

Mayor Schmitt said if the city realizes a $4,000 savings from paper use, he would need to run this through the City Council to approve the Task Force receiving a percentage of the savings. 

 

·         Food – Nancy Nabak

Nancy reported that Karen is the chair but works every Thursday so she will report out.  Nancy stated that the group has taken the concept of community gardens and ran with it the past month.  She said she and Karen met with Andy from the Neighborhood Division and looked at parcels with him around the city and talked about two sites, one to be used as a contemporary basic garden and another planted with raspberries or some such fruit bearing bushes that would be good for habitat and would beautify without requiring a lot of maintenance. Nancy said they are having a food committee meeting on January 23rd with Bill Wright of UW Extension regarding community gardens.  She indicated that they are looking at partnering with UW Extension and said Andy contacted the Parks and Rec Dept. who works with the Chapel Hill Community Garden and they said they have a waiting list, which shows there is a need for this.  She summed up by saying that they are trying to pull in all the different players and are looking at a good collaborative effort and said there is a lot of excitement surrounding this project.

 

Nancy stated that she, Karen and Karen Early from the Extension went to the Food Summit in Wisconsin Rapids last week, which was very informative.  Nancy said she had the opportunity to talk with Jamie Rose Scott from UW Madison, researcher who was talking about community gardens.  She indicated they had a conversation about the WIC Program and suggested maybe there is a segment of the population that they can start monitoring and how they can get more low income people to have access to fresh food.

 

Karen is checking with On Broadway Inc. relative to a possible safety issue with traffic at their Wednesday evening Farmers Market, adding that this market is advertised as a family event and if there is a safety issue, the group wants to discuss what can be done about it.  Karen is waiting to hear back from the On Broadway Staff.  Nancy said she and Mary Haupt, who manages the city’s Saturday Market have talked about the vendor complaints regarding some vendors not growing the produce they are selling.  Nancy said we do have quality control and would like to place a couple of the forms on the website, and asked Mary to explain how complaints are handled.  Mary explained why the complaint form was instigated stating that she was receiving verbal complaints from vendors against other vendors and paid an inspector overtime to go out and inspect three farms.  The inspector found the complaints to be unsubstantiated and a complaint form was introduced the following year whereby a complaining vendor would be fined $100 for filing a complaint that was found to be unsubstantiated.  If the inspected vendor was found to be in violation of the growing policy, they would be fined or could be removed from the market.  One such case happened two years ago and a long-time vendor was stripped of their stalls and not allowed to participate as a vendor.  Mayor Schmitt said people appreciate the quality of the market and said the city’s weights and measures person goes out to the farms and does the inspections.  The Mayor said this committee needs to get a strong connection with the Farmers Market when talk comes up to moving or expanding the market.  P. Linzmeyer said the Farmers Market is an incredible sociable event and said the Wednesday market has another flavor and is great as well.  Nancy said other cities have used evening markets as economic tools to improve their flow in downtown.  Nancy indicated that she is still working on reducing the amount of plastic bags used at the Farmers Markets by having mesh bags made. She indicated that she is working to find a cottage industry like Aspiro to make the bags.

 

Mayor Schmitt said he likes the idea of a community garden on city property.  He said the city spends about ½ a million dollars a year picking up blighted property and then have to mow the grass, adding that there is a lot of vacant property.  Paul L. said it would be a good idea to have such a garden in low economic neighborhoods and have the citizens take ownership of the garden, adding that these neighborhoods don’t have as much access to fresh produce.  Nancy said the sites would bring different assets, and will bring a map of the various 12 plots to the next meeting.  Mayor Schmitt asked that she take photos of the sites and said Gauthier Construction has been very helpful and would possibly till the site, and said the neighborhood associations would get involved in these gardens.  The suggestion was made that students could get credit for service hours for working in these gardens.  Amanda said there is a different requirement for service hours at the high schools next year and shared the name of an organization called Kids Gardening.org.  Nancy invited anyone interested to join their Food Group meeting on January 23rd at 9:30 a.m. in Room 608 of City Hall.

  

Paul Linzmeyer asked the Mayor for his thoughts on the Task Force holding some kind of event to get the community engaged.  The Mayor said we feel a responsiblity for educating Northeast Wisconsin and said he is leaving tomorrow for the US Conference of Mayors meeting where they will talk about best practices. He said we need to share the information from this Task Force with others and said the Wis. Alliance of Cities will be holding their meeting in Green Bay on July 23 and 24th.  The Mayor indicated that he would like someone from the Task Force to share what they have done at the meeting of Wisconsin Mayors in July, adding that the community garden is a great idea.  He agrees with Paul that we need to also connect better with the public.  Nic Sparacio agrees with Paul and said the Planning Dept. would be happy to help with what this event would look like, such as a half day event where people would be working on their own sustainability plan.  Paul said our charge is talking to everyday people about three things that would make a difference.  Mayor Schmitt said he would support whatever the Task Force decides to get the ground swell out there, with Paul adding that the Mayors can have the single most significant effect on people in their community.

 

Communications -

      Lisa was not in attendance and Nancy distributed a report on Community Awareness for 2008.  She reported that the Press-Gazette Community Snapshot is distributed to 90,000 households in Brown County, many of whom do not subscribe to the paper.  She reviewed the awareness report and said the Task Force website is going the wrong direction.  Amanda said the website has unfinished sentences and incorrect information. Derek said Adrienne would like to overhaul the website and said the information Amanda is referring to was taken from the report compiled in 2006.  Nancy said if we are able to have a paid person, they would be able to devote more time to making a solid website.  She said the 2008 total awareness is 4,151,086 and added that some of the numbers are very difficult to track.  She said this shows that this Task Force has a solid presence.

 

Nancy said last year they worked on a fact sheet for the Home Show which is now posted on the website.  She said we do not have a booth at the Home Show this weekend but they will have the energy checklist at the show as well as on the website.  She said Berners Schober is sponsoring having 100 of the checklists printed on heavier paper and Doug Meek will sponsor having these at his booth at the Home Show or the Green Builders while they are having their talk.  Nancy said the first article for the Press-Gazette was about overall what the Task Force is about and what they are doing and said the February article will be on things that the city is doing, both in and outside of city hall.  The Go Green insert will be in March and Nancy asked for articles for this insert.  Derek said we have received about $1100 for the energy audits and the suggestion was made to have an ongoing feature article with a homeowner who has done such an audit and what energy savings they have experienced.

 

4.    Presentation by Paul Wozniak on Peak Oil

Paul L. introduced guest speaker Paul Wozniak, stating that he spent 30 years at WPS doing customer research and data analysis and has been a life-long environmentalist.  He co-authored a book with Gaylord Nelson a few years back.  Paul Wozniak addressed the Task Force stating that he is a resident of the near east side of Green Bay and came to the city in 1975 because of environmental problem solving to attend UWGB which publicized itself as the first university to focus all its curriculum on teaching people to solve environmental problems. He studied Environmental Sciences and raised a family here and ended up working for WPS.  Paul said there are problems that are urgent and some that are important and can become urgent if they are not addressed, citing having a retirement account and starting early to save for retirement.  He said if we had people with vision looking at the financial banking industry the last 20-30 years we wouldn’t be in the crisis that we are in now.  Paul said Green Bay had the first Earth Day in April of 1970 with a week- long of events with an event at the arena wrapping up the week, called Survival 70’s and a man called M. King Hubbard spoke to 3,000 people.  Mr. Hubbard was a petroleum geologist for Shell Oil and in 1956 had been studying the operation, production and depletion of oil fields around the world and looked at the United States.  He told people that the U.S. was going to peak in oil production in 1970 or 1971 and said oil people didn’t want him to talk.  He is now a leader in the scientific community as someone who speaks the truth. 

 

Mr. Wozniak gave a powerpoint presentation and said the oil situation has become an urgent situation the past year and one half but said the fact is that throughout the record of government and physical science reports, and in 2001 a Bush appointee, Spencer Abraham, stated that “America faces a major energy supply crisis over the next two decades, the failure to meet this challenge will threaten our nation’s economic prosperity, compromise our national security and literally altar the way we lead our lives”.  He stated that even a conservative administration knew what was going on.  Mr. Wozniak said we only know what we are told and said the oil companies and oil producing countries are not obligated to follow any protocol to report what they have in the ground or what they think they have in the ground or what they are producing.  Matthew Simmons, biggest energy investment banker in the U.S. said we have such unbelievably fuzzy data and said it would be fabulous to someday have data reform.  Mr. Wozniak said he is just trying to get the members of this task force to question what they know and what they are going to hear from the mass media. 

 

Mr. Wozniak reviewed a graph which showed data and projections from 1990-2015 and said we are about reaching the peak of oil that can be produced per year in the country.  He said Mr. Simmons and numerous other people are saying that the oil companies and OPEC countries are not giving us accurate information. He said the situation for the local person is that we don’t think we’ll be limited to oil usage in the future and cited the example of the financial situation and credit limitations we are experiencing.  He cited Jim Mulva, former president and CEO of Conoco was the first CEO to say that there was not an oil problem. Paul said big events happened in energy assumptions in 2007 and 2008 and there was denial after denial that there was not a problem, we’ll find new oil and said then there was a crack in the dam.  He said a website called Oilpeak.net is available for those wanting to learn more. He said few people in this area are concerned about the world picture but said this could have a big impact on schools, households, businesses and households in planning for the future.  He said his main point is to get people to start looking at this issue.  P. Linzmeyer cited gas prices going to $4.00 a gallon and said the oil producing countries and oil companies would be concerned if enough revenue was created to create alternatives and are heavily motivated to give misinformation.

 

Mr. Wozniak said for every barrel of oil being discovered, we’re using 4-6 barrels. He said if all the oil we had was what was produced in the U.S. we would have had to begin pulling cars off the streets in 1971 but we didn’t go with high efficiency/high mileage vehicles but increased imports.  P. Linzmeyer said Denmark went the efficiency route and now they are not anywhere near as dependent on the oil situation and said these are real choices we could have made.  Mr. Wozniak said oil production is close to at peak but said it’s important to know that the Pentagon is taking this very seriously and started funding studies to say if we don’t have oil, how are we going to drive tanks, fly planes, etc.  He said coming up with a new fleet of vehicles would be a bigger cost than the cost of fuel.  He said to look under “Hirsch” on line for more information. Paul Linzmeyer thanked Mr. Wozniak and said he learned some things from the presentation.  P. Wozniak said the difference is between stock and flow and sometimes flow is the gap not the stock. P. Linzmeyer asked how to get the average person to understand this? P. Wozniak suggested contacting www.postcarbon.org. and www.communitysolution.org. 

 

Tom Lesperance inquired if there is a way to find how much fuel we are using for our everyday activities, in our living environment, adding that this is what people can understand and would be more interested in.  P. Linzmeyer added that everything is so subsidized and said the other side of that is what is the true cost of what we use?  T. Lesperance said as a group we need to shrink this all down to mean something to the everyday person, with Paul L. adding that this is something we need to discuss in planning an event. Cathy said with community gardens we could realize a savings in growing local and multiple things like this and help to understand the savings. Erik said we are looking for penetration into the market.  J. Stoll said we are looking for a community sustainable festival to include seminars.  Cathy suggested possibly having a contest such as useful ways to use a soda bottles and gave two examples how she uses them. Suggestion to piggy back off people’s ideas as they exist, such as involving master gardeners and hunters, adding that price signals work.  T. Lesperance agreed and said if he needs to be shown that if he does this, he’s going to have a benefit, ethically he will choose to do it because it’s the right thing to do. Jeffrey said it’s an education on universal ethics.

 

Paul Linzmeyer said we have to communicate messages that are clear and concise and to give people things they can work with. Nic said in working in the City of Green Bay’s Planning Dept., it’s going to come down to how can we change how we spend money on infrastructure and make the communities more livable and walkable. Jeffrey said he lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years and their residents must return plastic to get money back.

 

Paul thanked Mr. Wozniak for his presentation and said members can read the book “The Smartest Guys in the Room” to see what happened with our financial meltdown. 

 

Paul Linzmeyer announced that the Oneida Nation and Brown County were the recipients of the 25x25 grant.

 

5.    Other issues as required by law

Paul said we have a lot to think through on the discussion and the complexity of sending some of the messages.  He will think about this and may call a special meeting.

 

Paul said even though we did not get the 25x25 grant, Bayfield and Ashland were recognized for the work they have done.  He indicated that we said we would support the County if they were the recipient of the grant.

 

T. Lesperance said he is re-writing the building code and may include a sustainable energy section where he may reduce the permit fees for sustainable building.  Paul suggested a presentation to the City Council, which Tom agreed would be a good idea.

 

Jeffrey suggested using recyclable paper for the agendas and printing half sheet agendas/two per page.

 

6.    Adjourn

The next meeting will be held on February 19th at 3:00 pm.  in Room 604 of City Hall.