Minutes

Greater Green Bay SustainableTask Force

Thursday, 4/16/2009, City Hall Room 604

3:00 PM

 

Members Present:  Paul Linzmeyer, Andre Jacque, Derek Lord, Jeff DeLaune, John Miller, Mark Foht, Ned Dorff, Rich Krieg, Douglas Meek, Nancy Nabak, Crystal Osman, Renee Wery, Amy Kox, Sandy Stokes, Kathy Lefebvre, Paul Rentmeester, John Stoll, Mary Haupt

 

1.    Call meeting to order

The meeting was called to order at 3:00 pm by Chairman Paul Linzmeyer and introductions were made.

 

2.    Committee name

Paul said an Executive Committee was held to discuss changing the name of this task force and had asked D. Lord to check into Task Force versus Committee and any parliamentary issues involved with this.  Derek responded that the Task Force name gives the impression of short term; having an ending date.  Committee formalizes it to what could be perceived as a formal, standing government committee where we have an alderperson assigned to the committee, adding that we could still be a committee without following the open meeting policies, etc.  He believes there is a better name than Task Force, but is not certain that Committee is the only alternative. Paul said we have been following the intent and laws of the open meeting laws and would not object to having an alderperson assigned, adding that the original group of members were invited by the Mayor.  He stated one change we may want to do is to invite certain individuals to either be members on a permanent basis or ad hoc based upon certain areas of expertise that they might bring, adding that this does not have to be decided upon today. Andre stated that in terms of the Mayor’s Office perspective, we have referred to it frequently in the past as the Sustainable Greater Green Bay committee and talked about it more in terms of it being a Task Force like it was when it was initially formed and said we don’t have any organizational history when it rolled over from a Task Force to a committee. Paul said he talked to the Mayor about taking the word “greater” out of the name to include the other groups that are out there. Brief discussion ensued about a name that signifies “movement or some type of action” such as Upward or Onward Green Bay, adding that we need something that signifies something very broad, very sustainable.

 

3.    Mission Vision Values Committee

Paul said the committee name discussion ties into the mission and vision and said they would hold a facilitative session and invited everyone to be part of this and asked for suggestions for the name of a facilitator.  Suggestions included Laura Warner, Mike Troyer and Phil Clampett.  John Stoll indicated he will contact Laura regarding being the facilitator.

 

4.    Committee reports

·         Local Food – Nancy Nabak

Nancy reported that Karen Kohlbeck did a great job in facilitating and coordinating the Growing Power Tour in Milwaukee and got 22 people from around the state to attend.  She said it was very educational and said they learned more about process and concepts versus capital gains. Karen was able to get other communities who are looking at sustainability involved with this.

 

Nancy said they are still meeting regarding the Community gardens and have met with the Parks Dept.  She said there is a community gardens person on the payroll at UW Extension and they are are working with partnering with them.  She indicated that their timeline may not get this moving this spring but said they are being very thorough and it will be good when they are ready to go.  Nancy said they are still looking at the potential sites with the Parks Dept. believing that these sites would be doable.  Some Neighborhood Associations may also be looking at community gardens, with Nancy stating that their group is looking at something more community oriented and the potential of having some of the land split and are looking for people in the neighborhood having ownership.

 

John Miller stated that he met with Major Bob Fay of the Salvation Army who said they are moving forward with the property just off of Lime Kiln, which will primarily be developed area for play fields and the back section of the site that backs up to the trailer park may be developed 35-40 plots for people in that neighborhood.  He said their goal is to have that up and formulated by the end of the year.

 

·         Sustainable Building – John Miller

John reported that their subcommittee met and tried to get themselves reorganized.  He stated that he handed off the checklist to a graphic designer in their office to take a look at trying to develop that into a tri-fold pamphlet to pass out at events or give to mortgage brokers, bankers and real estate organizations to distribute.  John stated that the checklist has been in the newspaper in a modified format and is on the website, but is difficult to find. He said they are continuing to push the checklist idea forward.  He stated that they also brainstormed to get ideas for La Vida Local for interactive partner booths, and partnering booths such as WPS and Focus on Energy.  John said that Nancy found information relative to Chicago’s Green Program and they have several pamphlets specific to areas of the home and are very informative and user friendly. He stated that Chicago modified this information from Seattle and said we could do the same and develop our own local pamphlets for distribution and use. Kathy stated that Chicago has bee hives on the roof of city hall and said Austin, Texas has had a longstanding green build program.  John commented that Seattle and Austin have the benefit of direct buy-in from the city government and said that Tom Lesperance is looking at the city codes. Rich stated that the Council unanimously passed the resolution supporting sustainability with Paul stating that we need to start feeding the City Council and the Mayor with these initiatives and said La Vida Local will be a great opportunity for us to do some grassroots and advocacy.  He would like to have another practice that we can start on this year and work with planning, which would be a positive.

 

J. DeLaune stated that part of the tax code in the stimulus package allows you to fund energy efficiency improvements and pay them back with property taxes. He said a municipality can apply for this, take tax credits that they are eligible for, get Focus On Energy dollars to buy down the cost and said everything would be paid for over twenty years through property taxes.  Jeff will forward information on this to be sent to all members. Paul commented that the whole idea of the stimulus is to create jobs and said the idea for a property tax credit would be an incentive for people to do things which would drive down utility costs.  Jeff inquired what the city has applied for through the Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant?  Andre responded that it’s an entitlement fund, like a community development block grant with a million dollars.  Derek said we have to submit a plan to the Dept. of Energy for approval and we don’t have the details yet. Jeff commented that half of those have to be encumbered by the middle of June and asked if the Sustainability Comm. is providing guidance?  Paul asked to place an agenda item for the May meeting to discuss stimulus projects.

 

Kathy L. said she was contacted by Clean Wisconsin and they expressed an interest in doing a program in mid May about green jobs and want to get a push to government to expand green jobs.  She said she gave them the names of a few people to contact and inquired if someone knew a contact for doing solar.  Discussion ensued that the May meeting may be too late to discuss stimulus projects with Derek responding that there may be different work group meetings leading up to that point and at Paul’s request agreed to head up getting people together for this discussion.  Paul stated that he is a member of the Clean Wisconsin Board and accepted an invitation to speak in Italy and Paris in June on green jobs and said this would be an interesting topic to have people to weigh in on.  Ned Dorff said Bob Fuhr, Facilities Director for the Green Bay Schools has a lot of projects ready to go that need seed money and they are mapped out for payback.  Some small projects of $300 to replace windows and larger projects to upgrade boilers, which would have a quick payback.  J. DeLaune said the School District can apply for stimulus dollars for these projects and will connect with Ned and/or Bob Fuhr to pride information. Paul stated that this committee could be a conduit for this type of information to the various entities and said the deadline for some of these things is coming up quickly as Doug Meek mentioned. Amy said in complying for the competitive grants the role of this group could be a supportive partner. Paul suggested inviting some of the experts to the table together with the partners, i.e. representatives from the various school districts. 

 

·         Communication and Marketing

Nancy reported on behalf of Lisa stating that Kevin Rompa called and is interested in getting a story and asked for a visual for a photo shoot and they are scheduled to be on the Noon Show in June.  She asked that members share ideas for stories.

 

Nancy stated that tomorrow is the pharmaceutical drop at the ShopKo store on Lineville Road in Suamico from 8-1:00. Nancy secured someone to take the empty pill bottles to Appleton where they will be refilled and shipped to Africa.  This person also has volunteers to peel off the labels of the bottles.  Derek commented that at the first pharmaceutical drop they had six bags of pill bottles that had to be taken to the landfill.  Paul added that he and Lisa will be meeting with Adrienne and looking at the website and would like to jazz it up.  Discussion ensued regarding finding another way of passing along information to all members which has been done through M. Haupt.  Suggestion to hit reply to all on an email that has been sent and change the subject line and discussion on Facebook and Linked In. Paul stated that the committee should try to use the most recent technology and asked the group to think about suggestions; he and Lisa will discuss this with Adrienne when they meet on Monday.

 

·         Improving City Hall – Andre or Derek Lord

Derek said they closed out their grant with the EPA and are working with them to showcase what they’ve done and said we’ve done a good job of how we’ve spent their dollars over the past year and hope to get that highlighted in the EPA’s materials. 

 

Derek said we are still in communication with our consultants on wind studies and are at the point where we have the estimate on the cost to install the equipment to study wind patterns on specific locations in the city to determine whether or not it’s feasible for some type of urban turbine type situation.  He said the estimate is about $1,000-$2,000 for someone to come out to put the equipment up to study wind speeds and said he recently noticed on the Channel 2 weather vane there is something measuring wind and hopefully he can contact them for the information.  He inquired if anyone knows where funding would be available to set up equipment to study patterns on specific buildings in the city.  Suggestion that Focus on Energy might do matching funds. Amy stated that some of their NWTC students could provide the labor for the matching.  Sandy suggested the College of the Menominee Nation has a sustainable institute that is up and going and they may be able to help with this effort.  Other suggestions included a wind study assessment that had been done at the UWGB campus which should be available on the sustainable UWGB website.

 

Derek reported that a pilot project with LED track street lights will be done on Lombardi.  He also reported that they are working on a recycle plan for the mall and are working with consultants on a plan and hope to have a presentation on a formal recycle plan in the next few weeks.

   

·         Community Events

i.              Earth Week

ii.            La Vita Local

iii.           Symposium

Crystal distributed a copy of Earth Week events beginning with the Pharmaceutical collection drive tomorrow and going through Sunday, 4/26 with the Teddy Bear hunt in Bellevue.  The brochure was electronically sent to the Task Force members.  She stated there are many opportunities for volunteering and cleaning up and said the book The Lorax will be read in 50 schools.  Kevin Rompa will be notified about the reading in the schools. St. Norbert Abbey and the Readers Loft donated copies of the book to the schools.

 

Crystal stated that the Mayor announced La Vita Local (which will be held on Oct. 3 &4th) at his State of the City address.  They are gathering a list of vendors, sponsors, educators, etc. and asked for suggestions on any groups they may have missed contacting.  This will be the opening event on the CityDeck and press releases will be coming out next week with Earth Week. John Stoll will mention this event at the UWGB Symposium.

 

John Stoll said the Green Innovations Symposium is going on now and reviewed the various events and speakers including Larry Weyers, Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton and Cong. Kagen. He indicated they should have between 100-200 people there. Amy will check with Tina Quigley regarding publicizing La Vita Local.

 

5.    NEW North Sustainability Committee update

Paul stated that the speakers he had lined up fell through but said next month they will have a great speaker from WPS.  Paul updated the Committee on the NEW North Sustainability Committee stating that there are five subcommittees who meet quarterly: Healthy Lifestyle Committee which is doing similar things around food and is trying to put together healthy assessments and such things; a Research Committee which has not met yet and John Stoll has agreed to put together will be an important committee with members from UWGB, the Technical Colleges, and UW-Oshkosh.  Paul said this committee takes off after something that his company and three others, Bay Towel, Goodwill, Afinity Health Systems and Town & Country Electric started 4 or 5 years ago. They had 7,000 employees represented between the companies and were all doing triple bottom line sustainability initiatives and decided to collaborate and called themselves the E-3 Team, Economy, Environment and Equity.  He stated that they did a lot of neat projects and included interns and college students.  He gave a history of the success of these projects including generating best practices that are still being used today, creating 5 or 6 jobs for Goodwill Industries, saving a company $50,000.  Paul said one of the pieces we are missing now is that we no longer have investigative journalists. Suggestion to invite Victoria Goth to serve on this committee.  Amy stated that NWTC just put on a digital media lab and could work with journalists.  Paul said the Transportation subcommittee is going to take up high speed rail and said there is a meeting tonight at Titletown at 6:30. He said we need to forget about the existing system like Amtrak and develop a new concept and said one of the problems is the cost to do this.

 

Another subcommittee is called the Rural Landscapes & Agriculture committee and looks at the concept of organic farming and grazing farming versus the mega farm with 8,000 cattle.  He stated that he went into this totally against the mega farm and has moved toward the middle after talking with some of these farmers who are passionate about their land and animals and are not polluting. He said we need to find a way to feed the six billion people in the world and need to look at best practices for both types of farming. He stated that he’s talking about looking at this issue as unemotionally as possible, looking at the system and making a good decision based on good science and humaneness. Discussion ensued regarding the importance of looking at how we’re raising our food and looking at the big picture. Rich stated that we are letting some of the best farmland to be developed and on a tour of a factory farm learned that each day 55 gallons of water is used per cow. Paul believes a very healthy discussion about food and land and all sorts of things will come out of this committee. Brief discussion regarding humaneness of mega farms, how they’re feeding the cows and the greenhouse gas, with Paul commenting that we have to look at it with humaneness and scientifically.  Sandy Stokes will send information to Paul regarding the University Center for Food In Community and Culture at UWGB. The final committee is Brown Fields Redevelopment and this committee is looking at holding a conference with LEED construction and green retrofit renovation practices with brown fields development and said Johnson Controls, Aon Insurance, the EPA and Focus on Energy have all expressed interest in this.   Paul said the NEW North Sustainability Committee is looking to be a conduit for the EPA on specific projects. 

 

6.    Other issues allowed by law

Crystal stated that the email from Peter Schleinz listed the wrong date for the Sustainability webinars and it should have read Tuesday, April 22nd.

 

            The next meeting will be held on Thursday, May 21st at 3:00 in Room 604.