Minutes

Sustainable Greater Green Bay Task Force

Thursday, 8/20/2009, City Hall Room 604

3:00 PM

 

Present:  Paul Linzmeyer, Andre Jacque, Mary Haupt, Ned Dorff, Josh Beaton, Rich Krieg, Erik Hoyer, Karen Kohlbeck, Nancy Nabak, Crystal Osman, Amanda Griggs, John Stoll, Kevin Vonck, Jennifer Pollitt, Dan Lindstrom, Steve Smet

 

1.    Call meeting to order

The meeting was called to order at 3:00 pm by Chairman, Paul Linzmeyer.  Introductions were made and Steve Smet was welcomed. Paul read announcements as follows:  Sustain Dane will be at the Saturday Farmers Market on Saturday selling rain barrels in collaboration with the City of Green Bay Public Works and Economic Development Dept. Paul Rentmeester is stepping down from participation in the Task Force due to personal and other commitments, Amy Kox will not be present due to her daughter recovering from surgery. Nic Sparacio was scheduled to give a presentation on city projects planned for the next couple of years but is on vacation this week and will present at the next meeting. Paul stated that John Miller will no longer be able to chair the Sustainable Building Committee and Tom Lesperance from City Inspection will be taking his place.  Paul Belschner and Steve Smet will also be joining this subcommittee.

 

2.    Approval of minutes from the July 16, 2009 meeting.

Motion made by N. Dorff, second by K. Kohlbeck to approve the minutes.  Motion carried.

 

3.    Continuation of discussion on Mission and Vision Statement – facilitated by Mike Troyer

P. Linzmeyer indicated that Michael Troyer was not able to be in attendance today and this item will be on the agenda for the September meeting.  Paul will send out the information that was discussed on the mission and vision statement last month for members to review before Sept.

 

6. Update on Des Moines Trip - Karen Kohlbeck, Nancy Nabak, Crystal Osman

Karen asked everyone to jot down thoughts that come to mind when they think about Des Moines and said many brochures were spread around the table for members to look through but were asked not to take anything with them. N. Nabak shared an older newspaper article which was the impetus with a couple of other things that started the thought that they needed to visit Des Moines.  A power point presentation followed with key points as follows:

Des Moines is twice the size of metro Green Bay and is the capital of Iowa.  Many demographics are about the same as far as diversity, median age and population.  There is a more detailed written report which will be made available later but will not be on the website until sometime in the future. Nancy said they arrived at midnight on Thursday and had a full itinerary.  They visited various places, the Downtown Art Center, which is a staple of downtown has a budget of $5.3 million, with the center celebrating their 60th anniversary.  The Executive Director, Jeff Fleming demands excellence.  Karen talked about flood pumps and said they made the pumps aesthetically pleasing as well as handling the flooding problem. Jeff said “If you’re going to be a special place you have to create a special place.” They discussed various fundraisers such as Eat Your Art Out, and mentioned the Young Professionals Network to attract and retain young professionals. A Sculpture Garden is in downtown which covers 4.4 acres and is valued at $40 million; 24 sculptures were donated by John and Mary Pappajohn.  Some of the insurance and security companies donate security for this garden. Crystal said they have been working to purchase properties and take them down and create a mini waterfront park with a great social quality of life with the Sculpture Park and library being the end caps.

 

Tim Leach, VP of Economic Development Dept. of the Downtown Community Alliance which is similar to our DGBI, Olde Main Inc. and On Broadway Inc. was next on their agenda.  Des Moines has $2.8 billion worth of re-investment from corporations, private investors and from the city.  Crystal said corporations are very supportive of this is so many ways.  Downtown Des Moines employs 77,000 people.  She reviewed the Neighborhood Investment program in which they asked major companies in the downtown to back a $25 million loan to build residential condos and development downtown.  The Tax Abatement Program allows people to live downtown and not pay property tax for 10 years.  Another program is Envision Iowa a funding mechanism where the state of Iowa bonds for millions of dollars and works with gaming revenues and pulls together resources for many things like the convention center and Hyde Hall come to life. The next step is to encourage any vacant property and new development to meet LEED Platinum standards.  Other programs are Operation Downtown which makes the downtown clean and safe and they have ambassadors to handle these functions and to work with the Police. Des Moines has a shuttle called D Line which people can ride for free Monday through Friday.  This program costs $360,000 annually and is paid for by the state and the city (50%) and the other 50% comes from the Alliance. They are working on a Tram study to spur development and will post their feasibility study results. Karen stated that they do have a sky walk system which has affected retail on the first floor.

 

The group visited the Des Moines Farmers Market on Saturday morning which covers 13 blocks and has two off duty police officers who control traffic and get 30,000 people attending.  The cost to blocking the corridor and side streets is approximately $15,000 annually and the police officers allow traffic to move every 5 or so minutes on the side streets.  They have a bike valet as well as a program for vendors to donate fresh food to be donated to non-profits in the community.  A weekly email blast is sent out with what’s new at the market that week and a vendor is highlighted each week.  The market has two full time staff members and has been in existence for 30 years.

 

Chris Diebel is a young professional and works for Orchestrate Management who runs their temple for performing arts and some restaurants and he is the Vice President for the Downtown Neighborhood Association.  They have about 500 residents and businesses in their NHA and charge residents $15 and businesses $100.  Chris said he took advantage of the Tax Abatement Program and moved downtown and is very excited about what is going on there.  Nancy said they are gearing toward retail, business and active night life to recruit the younger professionals.

 

Karen talked about the East Village and the communal garden area which is run through the Parks Dept and is utilizing unused land in what was a dying park.  The community garden has 70 plots with 50-55 plots being used, kids can have their own plot.  Karen stated that they are having a problem with theft of food from the garden. Matt Russell is an organic farmer who works out of Drake University and is the Buy Fresh, Buy Local Coordinator, National Program.  This program is a marketing tool for local farmers so they can compete against some of the other food outlets and encourage people to spend 10% of their food dollars locally.  School lunch programs were discussed with Mr. Russell feeling that the society needs to look at the nutritional value what we are feeding our kids in schools.

 

Crystal shared photos and said there is art everywhere with a $30 million dollar contemporary library with a green roof, many bike racks and well lit parking garages. Maytag washer doors were converted to LED colorful lights in the parking garage. Dump no waste signs are mounted on their grates and there are plantings under each tree.  Principal Riverwalk is a $70 million project underway that will include a pedestrian bridge connecting two sides, an amphitheater and a skating rink. 

 

They visited the Arts Festival which featured a mural collage billboard on a grid system.  People could work on individual 8½ x 11 tiles.

 

Wrapup:  Local Food Program which is already in process, with food being donated by vendors at the Wednesday Market and given to the Salvation Army and the NEW Community Shelter. They brought back and shared ideas regarding art ideas, fundraising and membership like the Billboard Collage and the Mayor’s Neighborhood Leadership Council, the Life of the River Committee is looking at the Gateways to the City Deck and the possibility of a collage project .  DGBI is looking and researching the Operation Downtown Program.  The Urban Ambassadors’ director was out of town so they didn’t get to meet with them but have been in communication and are the Sustainability Group and they would like to have a partnership with us and want to share some programs with our group.  They would like to bring some ambassadors here to meet with our Sustainable Group. “If we don’t lead, we’re always playing catchup” is the philosophy Des Moines believes in and our group adopted.

 

The Mayor of Des Moines is behind the Green Des Moines Project.  Crystal said there is no grocery store downtown but there is Gateway Market one within a mile of downtown and other grocery stores have not made it.

 

Paul thanked them for the presentation and opened the floor for discussion, with comments including:  a bigger city than they expected, they have some things going that we are trying to get going like a community garden and trying to get the downtown and riverfront developed.  Suggestion to put the powerpoint on line with Crystal stating that we’d like to put together what Green Bay is doing and put that on the website.  Paul stated that it takes big dreams to make big things happen and said it would be interesting to see how they got the urban planners, city government and businesses together to start building and to realize that young professionals are important and more importantly when are we going to fight to have a vital urban downtown.  How do we get the Chamber of Commerce interested, how can we start approaching these things and said it would be exciting if we can facilitate the dialogue between the builders and developers to start building green projects.  Paul said we need to stop being so humble and build on big dreams and stop letting obstructions get in our way. Crystal said two things that were noted in Iowa is that the Midwest is too humble; we can demand the best and get it and collaboration; defining and identifying what is in it for all stakeholders and identify what the people outside of downtown will benefit from it.  Erik agreed that the Midwest is too nice and said he recently visited Portland and Seattle and said they set rules and laws and it’s either too expensive to not do them or it’s so easy that you can’t help but do them and said that’s what they’re doing.  He said there is large resistance against a lot of ideas that we have here and we can figure out ways to embrace that change.  Paul would like to see the power point condensed and shown to different groups such as the Building Committee.  He said right now conventional wisdom says that building LEED or building Green is more expensive and that is not the case if you’re comparing apples to apples. He said our committee can help drive some of those things and can help educate, but cannot make those decisions.  He referred to the Young Professionals group that was started and handed off to the Chamber and is in existence and said we don’t have these people participating on boards and commissions partly because they need to be allowed time off during the day to participate in meetings. Suggestion was made to show this group the presentation.

 

Further discussion ensued regarding bringing the staff from Des Moines here and we need to talk about how to get the most bang for their buck when they visit. Crystal stated that we are doing a lot of great things in this community and people don’t know about them. Nancy suggested the potential for a brother/sister program a state away.

 

Committee reports

·         Local Food – Karen Kohlbeck

Karen distributed flyers about what is the true cost, covering various things like water, tomatoes, etc. and how we can make better choices and support our local agriculture.

Suggestions for the food group to do a cookbook with recipes month-by-month what is fresh produce and it could include how to can food.  Karen said the Extension has a list of what’s fresh now and has some recipes and the Urban Frog is holding a cooking class tonight.  Rich said there’s a book about using the Farmers Market to cook your meals.  Amanda said as a committee maybe we could do something and have the information available in one place.  There is going to be a fruit & vegetable assessment by the Brown Co. Extension Office in Northeast Wisconsin.

 

·         Communication and Marketing – Lisa Evenson

Paul said Lisa indicated they are working on the web page and will be meeting with the Press-Gazette next week for an article in PG Green.

 

·         Improving City Hall – Andre/Derek Lord

Andre deferred to Derek in whatever they are doing in terms of the EECBG.

 

·         Community Events  - Crystal Osman

Crystal said La Vida Local is being put on hold until next summer with the uncertainty of when the City Deck completion would happen.  She said they could have scaled the event down but decided to wait and hold the event next July 23-25 and will be picking up planning of the event after ArtStreet.  Paul said he would prefer to have the event in October with a fall event.  Crystal said there is more produce available in July and this falls between Bayfest and Artstreet. Comments that a fall weekend was preferable.  Karen commented that Arts Events would be busy in July but Crystal said it is a good time for them. Crystal said it was critical to keep the event on the CityDeck.

 

7.    Discussion on re-establishing an active Transportation Committee

Rich stated that he would like to kick in the Transportation Committee and see them be more active like the Food Committee.  He indicated that he was planning to review the initial report and see what goals and projects were listed there.  Also helping the Mayor with the Green Bike Program, bike trails and assisting in getting walkable community were goals.  He said he would chair the committee and would like to meet once a month.  Paul expressed concern with the number of committees and the number of people and could some of the initiatives fall under another committee.  He stated that some of the things in the report are being handled by New North, like mass transit, regional transportation.  He said he is supportive of having this committee but need to identify short term goals, with Amanda stating that more bike sign routes and there will be more students taking the city bus to school.  Josh commented that we need to identify specific goals such as putting a bike lane on Main Street, rather than creating walkable neighborhoods.   Paul said the committee needs to be staffed with enough volunteers and asked to meet with Rich before he sends an email. Comment that the committee goals should reflect the mission and vision.  Paul said the mission and vision is taking longer than he had hoped and next month the discussion will be finished and we will have a presentation from Nic on city projects and they can discuss this committee after that time.

 

Andre said the creation of a Regional Transit Authority is a big issue that is in the news and will be discussed at an Advisory Committee meeting on August 31st with a presentation by Chris Phelps.  Paul commented that support coming from Governor Doyle is support with a mixed blessing, stating that we can readily afford passenger rail that goes 79 mph but said the Wis.Dot plan agrees with that but when they talk about the requirements, they talk about requirements at 110 mph which changes the cost by 4 or 5 times.  He stated that if we could get the political pressure focused toward something positive, we could conceivably have passenger rail within five years.  Paul said there is a group from Green Bay and the Fox Cities, a citizen group with 1,000 members and a group who are meeting with politicians and they want to present them with the facts, adding that if Chicago gets the Olympics, we could be a part.  He suggested we quit spending so much time and money in upgrading the highways and start putting money into infrastructure that is going to be sustainable.  He said the economic impact that passenger rail does for cities is phenomenal.

 

8.    Adjourn                               

The meeting adjourned at 4:35 pm.