- All right so we've got quorum so we'll call this meeting of the Bloomington
- Commission on Sustainability to order at 6 p.m. and we'll call the roll.
- Tara Dunnerdale, Justin Vassel, I'm here, Matt Austin, Zero Rose, John Eldon, Dave
- Rallo, Quentin Gilley, Hunter Hawley, Jamie Scholl, Evan Nix, and Shenghuai Xu.
- All righty so yeah I think a couple people will probably trickle in within
- the next few minutes and maybe jump in online. Great okay so we'll move to the
- approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? And there's a
- second okay any debate? All those in favor say aye. All opposed nay. Any abstentions?
- Okay the agenda is approved. So we have approval of the minutes next but we
- don't have the minutes quite ready yet. I don't think Zero is probably gonna make
- it tonight he was feeling a little under the weather and I know he set some
- technical issues recently so he wasn't able to get the minutes ready quite yet but
- should have them ready to go for next time. So that brings us to public comment.
- Three minutes per person for a total of ten minutes. Are there any members of the
- public in here or online that would like to address the Commission?
- That's right.
- Oh yeah would you mind doing that? Thank you appreciate that. Okay perfect not
- seeing any public comment that brings us to report from Commissioners. So the
- chair's report is up first.
- I can jump on.
- Yeah trying that out largely for myself to keep myself on track. Yeah right we'll
- see how it goes. Okay great so the upcoming tentative calendar pretty
- standard. We were meant to have a work session between this last meeting and
- this one and I had things come up in my own schedule that didn't work very well
- for that and then also at the same time I did try to actually book a room at the
- library and they were all booked up. So gonna try to get on top of that this
- time I'll probably book that tonight for two weeks from now. I think we'll have
- stuff to work on at that point so I think it'll be worth doing. And it's
- actually Earth Day. Yeah, that's a good point. So yeah, it's appropriate. Perfect.
- We'll move on to the org chart there. Not a whole lot new since the last time
- except for we've got the updated executive committee positions filled in
- there and we've currently got three vacancies.
- Before we're on this, we had talked at one point, I don't know how much influence we have on this,
- but would it make sense and if so could we actually do it to have like a IU student position? I
- think they bring a lot of energy and a lot of potential networking. Is that something we have the
- power to add? If so, where would we go? Could we just recommend somebody to the mayor? But would
- that make sense as like a standard representative along with
- Clinton representing IU sustainability? Yeah, I would have to look at the municipal code and remind
- myself what the rules are for that. It's possible that we might, we certainly can't change any of
- these positions that are up here, but it's possible that maybe we can add to it. I mean, I could
- suggest students apply for the vacant one. They can apply if they're city residents. What's that?
- They're city residents. I mean, there's nothing to apply for because the mayoral appointments.
- Okay, could we appeal to the mayor? Well, you still apply to them away. It's the same application
- form for all seats, I think. And the city clerk directs them to either the council or the mayor or
- in the case of the county one, the county commissioners. They don't have a separate application
- form.
- A few people I talked to, I don't know about you, Hunter, but they said that they weren't, they
- didn't even necessarily apply. They just said, here you go, would you like to do this? Yeah. I had
- to apply, though. Okay.
- I've been applied through the council, but your seat is mayoral. Or it's like applied through that
- same form. The city clerk directs them to the mayor.
- So yeah, so we can see if we have that power, but while we have vacancies, we'll try to fill those
- first.
- Yeah, that's true. We don't want to make it harder for ourselves.
- Adding a seat does add to the needs for people. Yeah, and I don't know if adding a seat or just dedicating
- a seat that currently exists.
- Yeah, a lot of it might just be on me saying like, hey, this is an option, you all might want to
- get involved, and I can just kind of advertise it as it is.
- Yeah, yeah, that's probably the best way to go about it. Does that interest folks to have a kind of
- student, a student representative, either formally or informally?
- I think it's good. There's Jamie in the waiting room. I think it'd be a good. Yeah, I mean, I think
- having a student on here, you know, even if it's informally, it would be good.
- I think this would be a good experience for a lot of students that if you put something on
- something, I think a lot of students don't even realize that this is a thing.
- I assuredly, when I was in school, didn't realize that I would even be allowed to apply for
- something like this, but yeah, I think they would bring a lot of enthusiasm to it.
- And we might already technically have. Sorry. I have some suggestions for some outreach for getting
- those seats built for the birthday thing.
- So we can. Clinton, we're just looking at some vacant seats and discussing whether we should
- encourage IU students to apply, whether we can have kind of a.
- Semi-designated student seat, that's probably a lot harder, but whether we should try to get a
- little more IU representative from people half our age with more energy.
- Yeah, well, I think. Is it one of the new? Also, are you OK as well?
- Yeah, he's the sustainability officer for GPSG graduate student professional graduate professional
- student government.
- Yeah, OK, but I yeah, I think yes, somebody. I think for sure.
- I think it's definitely good to have student perspectives and, you know, especially folks that are
- wanting to get involved in some way, it never hurts to have more people applying for these
- positions, right?
- The way in which those seats get filled, we have no control over that's written into the code.
- But yeah, if you know people that might be interested, definitely encourage them. Yeah, building,
- building kind of like community connections between the university and we can have more.
- In line with our priorities as an organization, right? There's some opportunity there.
- And then a lot of other people, you know, they'll live here while they're in school. A lot of them
- will live here a lot longer, you know, even afterwards.
- And there's Ivy Tech as well. That's a good idea. Cool. Anything else on Porkchart recruitment?
- Upcoming events, I'm sure there's some more that probably should have gone on to this slide, but I
- just put a couple up there.
- Obviously, Earth Day event at Switchyard Park coming up on the 19th, not the 22nd, as I had listed
- last time.
- And we'll maybe circle back around to that in just a minute or two.
- And then I don't know if everyone's like plugged into the email announcements for the green drinks
- forum that happens, I think, once a month.
- But there's some cool talks that come to Upland Brewing Company at their wood shop every month.
- So if you're not on that email list already, it's worth Googling and getting onto it.
- And so this is what they've got coming up this month. It's all about birding, celebrating warblers.
- So I don't know anything about birding, so I might go and try to learn something.
- I don't know my list. Did you check one of those out? I just haven't had time yet, but yeah.
- Yeah, and since I've got kind of a blank space up there, are there any other like events that
- people know of that are coming up this month that maybe folks should be aware of?
- Okay, cool. Well, if you learn anything, it should be an email or something. I'll try to keep this
- list populated each time.
- Okay, general updates. So the annual report for 2024, we talked about it a little bit before that I
- was working on a draft for that. I sort of got the first full draft ready to go and sent it around
- to folks. We'll dive into that in a little more detail here in a few minutes.
- Bylaws reform is the other thing that we're going to be chatting about today. So we had sort of
- come up with a few steps last time to take on this step one is just identifying the parts of the bylaws
- that might need some work.
- Things that are maybe outdated need to be removed or confusing and need clarification, that sort of
- thing and then discuss, you know what those areas are here. Step two is then to take that input and
- actually draft some new language, bring it back to the commission for us to discuss and then step
- three would be, you know, incorporating those those final changes into the bylaws and taking an
- actual vote on it.
- So we're on step one today.
- And, yeah, the Earth Day BCOS table so I just spent a few minutes talking about that this to make
- sure we sort of have a game plan for this because we're going to have some table space.
- And I know Tara said she's going to be there. I think another person or two said that they were
- definitely going to be there but I can't remember who.
- Zero, zero, and Matt said they'd be there with Father Ornstein.
- Yeah, right, right.
- So, that's April 19 to switch our park. I think we need to make probably a final decision about
- what materials if any do we need to like, bring with us.
- And if anyone else is available to volunteer for part of the day to hang out and answer questions
- about sustainability.
- I have it on my calendar, I can be there for a visit from noon to four, is that right?
- Maybe, if I take a shift, maybe the second half would be better.
- Okay. I forget, it's a separate agenda item to talk about that, right?
- I don't know if I actually put it on there or not so I figured now would be a sneak it in.
- So we have a table at Switcher and we talked a little bit about what to do.
- Sean had a recommendation to like have our priorities that we identified at that work session and
- talked about more at the last meeting.
- Sort of like the high level things that we as a commission have, are like focused on in our work.
- And having folks like take a sticker and vote, not vote but like, you know, kind of give their,
- which of those they think is like the highest priority.
- I got some poster board and stickers from Art Remains, so all like secondhand stuff, you know, reused
- stuff and the stickers are very random.
- They're like Christmas and feet and stuff. So that we can do that if that's something we want to do.
- The other thing that I was thinking about, I have some NFC business cards that I was thinking we
- would have out on the table.
- And we could also put a QR code and a link, but the nice thing about an NFC tag is that you can
- just tap your phone to it and it will open something up.
- So you don't have to like figure out which app opens a QR code as long as your phone has that
- feature.
- You just touch it and it can work a little faster.
- But having kind of like get involved, so like get involved as a citizen and apply it and take it to
- the application.
- Get involved, like come to a meeting with a link to our webpage where our meeting calendar is.
- And then maybe get involved for organizations, because we've talked about wanting to partner more
- with organizations and working group grants.
- Which again would probably just bring people to our website and get our contact information.
- So that's all I have thought of. I am open to other ideas.
- It might be good if we have materials or things to hand out, but we don't have to.
- If we want to like push other things that we know are going on for the city,
- maybe like the grants or home improvement grants or other things like that, but I'm sure the city's
- table will also have that information.
- But, you know, multiple ways of getting that information and the public isn't bad.
- I'm happy to print out anything that you need.
- Okay.
- Yeah, maybe we could do like a one pager, put together one pager or something just about the
- commission and like some of those, you know, grants that are available,
- ways for people to get involved, how to reach out to us and that sort of thing.
- We could have those for people to take with them.
- Open to other ideas as well.
- So that was one of the things I thought of.
- I figured of people that are coming to the Earth Day Festival might be an audience of people that
- don't know that this exists but might be interested in applying to the commission and filling some
- of those seats too.
- That's a way of getting close. I've certainly talked to lots of people and I say I'm on this
- commission and they're like, I didn't know that existed.
- In a way, kind of demystify the process a little bit.
- I like the NFC tag thing. That's a fun, futuristic sort of thing.
- We use them for ADHD accommodation around our house.
- Would it be a great time to promote the sustainable neighborhoods that are still going this year?
- It is. We're working on getting it uploaded to CIBI form. We've had all of our other programs
- uploaded and so that's the next program.
- Yeah, as mentioned, it's at your table anyway. Speaking of things people don't know about, joining
- the commission, okay, maybe, but get some money and do something in the neighborhood.
- I think the green home improvement plans and the sustainable neighborhoods, if there's literature
- we can hand out or even something we can just have at the table, I think these are good.
- Yep.
- I can't guarantee that that sustainable neighborhoods will be uploaded to CIBI form before, but at
- least people will know about it.
- Okay.
- Any other ideas.
- Easy demos.
- I used to be having some, some sustainability related events open to the public.
- One on the 11th, 11 to 3 and the other one on the 21st, 11 to 3.
- The one on the 11th is in front of the Ballantine Hall building and then the other one is in front
- of the Wells Library on 10th Street.
- Anybody who shows up, it'll be outside.
- Yeah, on the 11th and on the 21st, 11 to 3 p.m.
- Yeah, the one on the 11th is in Ballantine Hall, there's like a bike hub right there by the main
- entrance.
- Yeah, if anybody shows up, first comes first serve, they're happy to check out your bike.
- We're working with the local company Revolution Bike and Beans over on 10th Street.
- The 21st one's at Wells Library, yeah, there's like an overhang sitting there.
- And then I think anybody who wanted to, if they were interested, want to participate in our campus
- river cleanup event,
- that's going to be on April 18th, 10 to 3.
- And that's a cleanup and restoration project?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, so there's no RSVP necessary, anybody who wants to show up, just...
- Where is that?
- Right off of Eagleson, there's a parking garage there.
- Yeah, where the, like, overpass is to the...
- It says Riverbank Near East Parking Garage.
- Like over to the theater, to the auditorium?
- Yes, yeah, that sounds right, like across the street from there, kind of,
- or then that little bottleneck area there, yeah, by the new Eskenazi Building, I think.
- There are no bottleneck areas on campus, do you think?
- I wish that were true.
- You said April 18th, 10 to 3, that's where I get mad at every time I go to a live show because
- nobody knows how that's different.
- They just waste.
- Yeah, I mean, this one is, I don't know that this is open to the public or not, it probably would
- be, but I'm not really sure I'd have to ask.
- But we're going to pilot a fix-it clinic, and I know this is something we were talking about maybe
- doing in the city,
- so we're purchasing some supplies to, you know, we don't really quite know what we're going to get,
- but I'll at least have some lessons learned maybe from the event coming up, doing that on the 21st
- as well.
- Fix-it clinic, what's that?
- People bring in stuff that maybe if you could fix it instead of throwing it away and buying
- something new, you can fix it, repair it.
- We've got anything from clothing, sewing on a button, fixing watches, eyeglasses, you know, shoes,
- these little things like how to fix, repair a keyboard when there's something on your computer.
- We'll see how it goes.
- But if I find out that this is open to the public eye, I can send a note out.
- That's the sort of project I think would be great if somebody pitched to us.
- I mean, I also think it's pretty tough if you don't scope it to something, but like you scope it to
- clothing, it would work really well.
- Preparation, it might be glasses, it might be a phone, it might be a shirt.
- It's hard to get ready for that.
- Discardia does mending clinics once a month at the library.
- Maybe eligible to apply for a grant from us?
- That's one of the things that at Earth Day, what I would like to try to do is to connect with other
- organizations that are there as like,
- hey, what project do you want to do, but you can't because you need $1,000.
- Come talk to us, let's do a working group grant.
- Because that was one of the things we talked about in the work section in setting our priorities is
- that us trying to do everything from the ground up, it's not sustainable.
- But those are just not realistic. There are tons of organizations that have the groundwork laid
- already to do this.
- And they just need resources for access.
- Where do we stand on working group funding if we spend anything this year?
- I think everything that's approved for the 2024 budget.
- And I can give an update on where those are.
- Do we know how much we get for 2025?
- $10,000.
- Yeah, I would love to see projects like that come through and kind of seed fund them or whatever.
- And then as we're funding some of these, is there a resource that we can point people to for where
- they get their next round of funding if it's a successful pilot or something?
- Like, they get $1,000 from us to try something, if it works, and they want to kind of scale it up,
- do we have a resource?
- Pretty volatile right now in the economy and industry.
- So I've heard.
- The nonprofit industry is upside down, let's say.
- We need to see what happens and make it a little bit better than what it looks like.
- That's a really good idea, though.
- But it could bridge, I mean, there could be lots of organizations that need to bridge their funding.
- I'd like us to kind of be linking Oliver in for the project.
- There is a grant that I was, well, I don't know if now is the right time to bring it up.
- There is a grant that I'm going to look into.
- It's through the Department of Transportation.
- And it sort of builds on some of the work that was done.
- In order to apply to it, you have to have completed this city's transportation safety action plan.
- And if you've done that, then you can go for additional funding.
- And it sounds like there might be a good amount there.
- Would it not hang our hat on any federal funding right now?
- No, no.
- Yeah, definitely not.
- But like I said, if I was reading through this campus safety or the city safety,
- Bloomington has one, a safety transportation plan.
- Is it the Safe Streets for All?
- Maybe. I have it right here.
- Yeah, Safe Streets for All plan, yep.
- And it looked like there were potentially like opportunities that would overlap
- where safety, sustainability, city, university could work together.
- Regarding the $10,000 working group fund,
- is that something we want to kind of put out to the public
- to be like come with us for an idea and maybe we'll find something
- like Beyond the Sustainable Neighborhood grant?
- Is that something we want to kind of distribute ourselves?
- How do we feel about that? I'd love to see it spent.
- You mean like advertise basically?
- Yeah, do we want to say like, hey, pitch your sustainability project
- beyond the sustainable neighborhoods, which is how much again?
- $10,000 for a sustainable neighborhood.
- But that's cashed at $1,000 per project, right?
- Where the working groups theoretically could be more.
- Yeah, and I don't think we want to say, hey, there's $10,000 available,
- but something to just like come to us with ideas because it's hard to do stuff on our own.
- And that's what I want to do.
- Yeah, so I don't know quite how to phrase that.
- I mean, what the money is, is it's like money for BCCOS working groups to like do their work.
- It's very loose in terms of how it's described.
- And so basically it's like we sponsor.
- If somebody else is doing BCCOS working group stuff, then great.
- But one of us is like, you know, sponsoring or like the connection to it.
- So, yeah, so I don't know if it's like a thing on the website
- because I don't know that we want to field that many potential applications.
- Well, the sustainable neighborhoods, how are they?
- Are you getting applications this year and it's been out for a little while?
- We haven't uploaded it to set up yet, but we will be hopefully within the next couple of weeks.
- Well, we should definitely use Earth Day as a venue to at least, you know, verbally.
- Yeah, verbally.
- Start looking for opportunities out there and seeing.
- You got some cool idea, pitch it to us.
- Yeah, because I think like, you know, the one that.
- Partying with us is maybe the verb.
- Yeah, right.
- Because I think the one that, you know, that Andrew initiated,
- the canopy Bloomington was like a great example of somebody else already has like the
- infrastructure
- and the plan ready to go and he found them and like they were able to get something
- worked out really quick.
- Great.
- Yeah.
- So.
- And any of us can do that if we know we work like we don't have to do it through.
- But that was that that was sort of like how I was going to frame it for the, you know,
- get the like materials that we have out is sort of like get involved, like be a part
- of the commission, get involved, like come to the public comment period or just watch
- a meeting or partner with us, like like work with because for organizations for that.
- And I'm not quite sure what the best like venue for like getting them in touch with
- us is.
- I don't really want to put like my personal email address on there.
- Oh, sure.
- But I can direct it to the website.
- Yeah.
- Which I think directs to Sean's contact info.
- Right, yeah, there's the IU sustainability email I think on the website and I assume that
- goes to you or somebody else in the office.
- It's like a general info.
- Have we in the past thought about like working with local high schools, as you know, a lot
- of them probably have.
- Okay, I don't know what I'm talking about.
- My kids are way too young.
- I would suspect they have some sort of sustainability clubs, projects, classes, and can be like,
- hey, you know, come up with a plan for a thousand bucks and pitch it to us and that's a great
- way to get money out doing something in a really kind of visible, high-impact way.
- Yeah.
- Like, you want a greenhouse?
- Yeah, pitch us what it would take.
- I don't know.
- I just, I hate that money.
- Oh yeah.
- Yeah.
- There's definitely a priority for us this year.
- It's something that we specifically identified, you know, in the process, right?
- So yeah, we don't want to be waiting until the end of the year.
- I think we do want to keep moving on.
- We've got a little off track here.
- But just to wrap up the topic on Earth Day.
- So we've got at least two volunteers for, like, the table.
- There will be others from the commission that are there as well.
- Maybe you guys can, like, coordinate.
- I'll be there.
- I plan to be there the whole time.
- If somebody else can be there, give me a break.
- That's great.
- I'll look into putting together maybe, like, a one-pager or something.
- So we can have, like, a flyer to hand out to people at least.
- Something like that.
- And I can reach out.
- If you have materials about the grants that are going to be at your table,
- we can submit ours as well.
- The more we can get the money, opportunities in front of people, I think, the better.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Absolutely.
- Great.
- The next bullet point I have on here is about the Council 2026 budget priorities process,
- just to make people aware.
- And this is good timing for Council Member Aralo to come in.
- I could probably speak in a lot more detail about this than I can.
- But from what I understand, they're doing the budget priority process on the Council
- side a little bit different this year.
- It's an outcome-based budgeting model.
- And there's just a list of dates there just to kind of give you a sense for what the
- timeline is looking like.
- I think, you know, budgeting stuff is something that a commission like ours should always
- be at least aware of and kind of following along with.
- We might not always necessarily have something that we want to say about it, but we might.
- And so we should be aware of kind of what the timeline looks like.
- So there's going to be, you know, the members of the Council are bringing their own sort
- of priorities to Council, I think, tomorrow just for the initial discussion.
- And then there's going to be a special committee that kind of workshops that and brings it
- back to a vote.
- The actual, like, you know, budget process where the administration proposes a budget
- and the Council votes on it is not going to happen until later in the year.
- But this is sort of getting the ball rolling on that.
- And just so folks are aware, you know, this might be a time where we're kind of following
- along with what some of these priorities are.
- We might want to, you know, have input on that and say, you know, we think this should
- be a priority or something along those lines.
- Speaking of policy, on the next slide here, I want to say a few words about resolutions
- because we've -- I think the policy side of things is something that we could, you know,
- get more active with.
- We've talked about this before.
- It's something that we kind of want to do a little bit more of in 2025, you know, really
- kind of lean into that advisory role where we can actually make recommendations.
- So I want to just like take a few minutes to talk about resolutions because I think it's
- a tool that is underused in this commission.
- We could do a lot more with it.
- So I just want to make sure everyone kind of understands how it works.
- So what is a resolution?
- Really, it's just like a formal expression of our commission's collective position or
- maybe a recommendation that we want to make or some intent that we want to declare.
- It generally doesn't have any sort of power to it, right?
- We can't pass a resolution and force anybody to do anything.
- We don't have any authority.
- We could, you know, in principle, pass a resolution directed towards ourselves and maybe that
- would have some, you know, some authority.
- But we can only affect, you know, what we have here in the commission.
- They're usually split up into a couple different sections.
- So you've got the whereas clauses where you're kind of explaining, you know, background information,
- context or rationale behind the resolution.
- And then you have the resolved clauses, the therefore be it resolved clauses that actually
- give the specific recommendations or positions or what have you.
- And it sort of serves as an official record of the commission's consensus.
- So you can go back in time and see resolutions that this commission has passed in years prior
- to get a sense for what issues were important to them.
- It's nice to kind of have that trail to follow.
- So there's a few different ways that we could use resolutions here and because we could recommend
- policies to council or city administration.
- We could, you know, use it to really emphasize, you know, commission priorities and action plans
- that we have.
- We could request other people.
- We can't force anybody to do anything, but we can of course request for them to do something if we
- wanted
- information or studies conducted.
- We can organize our own internal initiatives and working groups.
- Again, just documenting like consensus positions if we really want to take a stand on a particular
- issue
- and just let the world know that that's where we stand.
- We can do that.
- And again, just to create that historical record.
- So I want to make sure folks understand that you don't have to come to the commission and say, you
- know,
- can we draft a resolution about this thing or that thing?
- Any BCCOS commissioner can draft one, and you don't need permission to start.
- So you can always just work on something and bring it to us when you think that it's ready.
- Or you can start working on something, get it kind of halfway there, and then bring it to us just
- to review
- and get some input on, and then you take it back and keep working on it.
- So it's not too hard to start.
- You can just choose a topic that you're passionate about that you think we should take a position
- on
- and figure out what you want that outcome to be.
- Do you want to make a recommendation to somebody?
- Do you want a change in policy?
- Do you want just to make a statement?
- And then consider some of the arguments that you would make in order to support that position
- and then start drafting it using the new template that we've created for resolutions.
- So there's a link there on the slides you can click to get to that.
- It's also on the shared Google Drive, the read-only shared Google Drive that we have.
- And then just real quick, we'll walk through kind of what a resolution looks like.
- The next slide there.
- So this might be reviewed to some folks, but this is sort of what the template looks like.
- Well, actually, this is just a copy of the resolution we passed last December.
- You know, it can have a sponsor.
- There could be multiple commissioners that sort of want to be the ones that are putting this
- forward.
- It has a resolution number, which is just the year followed by a sequential incremental number.
- And then there's sort of like a title, which is just a description of what it's doing,
- starting with the word "to" to support changes, blah, blah, blah.
- And then in the red, you have all these "whereas" clauses, which kind of lays out the rationale.
- And then the blue section here, you have the different "therefore" clauses, which is where the real
- meat of the resolution is.
- So not too hard to decode.
- On the next slide, I borrowed this chart.
- I sort of adapted it from what I found on the IUB Graduate and Professional Student Government
- website, the resolution process.
- So if you're not totally sure where to start and how it works, you can just kind of follow this.
- Step one is just to brainstorm an idea, come up with an idea for a resolution.
- Step two is sort of to think about, is this the right place for this idea?
- Is it appropriate for BCOS to take a stance on this thing? Is it within our purview?
- Then do some research, collect your ideas, collect your arguments.
- And then you might strategize sort of what does this really need to look like in terms of crafting
- the resolution to get the desired effect.
- And then it's time to start writing. So you can draft it.
- And then submitting a resolution, you can just send it to me or whoever the chair is at the time.
- Maybe for just a quick spot check to make sure the formatting and stuff looks good.
- And then we'll get it circulated to everyone on the commission just to get a chance to read it.
- And then we'll bring it up at the next meeting that we can.
- And for resolutions, the bylaws say that we have to do two votes on it. So we have two readings on
- it.
- So we bring it up in one meeting as a first reading. Folks can discuss, ask questions.
- And then we would bring it up again at the following meeting for a second reading, a final vote.
- And as we've done in the past, there is a way to do all that in one meeting, but it's a slightly
- higher bar to do.
- And then step 10 is also an important one, which is follow up.
- So if the resolution is like making a recommendation to council, for example, then, you know, in
- that case, I would probably take that to a council meeting or translated by email or something to
- say, hey, because did this thing, you know, here's what we believe.
- I wanted to let you know.
- Yeah, so we want to make sure that those resolutions are actually having an impact.
- So, that's all I have on resolutions but I just want to encourage folks to be thinking about, you
- know, what kind of policy stances can we take, you know, if we were.
- We can put out a handful of resolutions, this year, I think that would be a good thing helps helps
- keep us active and keep us thinking.
- I'm just curious if there's any like specific times of the year where it would try to make sense to
- line up resolution areas that just sort of as it's ready we can bring it.
- Content so so for example, you know, since we were just talking about the budgeting process if
- there was a resolution that we want to pass that specifically recommended a budget priority or
- something like that, then it might be time sensitive
- we might need to get it in by a certain time to have people consider it right.
- Other than that, I don't think so.
- What does it take to be an official resolution from because, like unanimous agreement, 51%
- agreement. I believe it's a simple majority for the two readings the two separate readings.
- And that's a simple majority of the field seats on the commission.
- And, yeah, and that would be like a recorded vote.
- And we can, if I understand correctly, we can.
- If we want to see what the city is done. Previously, we can look at the climate action dashboard.
- And that's sort of the hub for all the information so that way we're not recommending something
- that's already been done.
- Yeah, I think that would be sort of part of the like the research phase is to figure out what, you
- know, is there a way that we can already if we're going to make a recommendation, how can we get
- information about what's been done already so that we're making that in an intelligent way.
- So yeah, in that case, like the climate dashboard would be a good resource to go to, you know, and
- then, you know, following up with the SD, you're right, if there's something that like isn't on the
- dashboard, it might, it might still be in progress, it's just not on the web page yet.
- Yeah, good question.
- Yeah, it's something that I think it's important to do this.
- I think it's a great idea for this commission or other commissions, because it helps to guide city
- policy, I think, you know, adopted by a commission presented to the city council and to the mayor.
- It does have an effect at times.
- But, so for instance, the whole climate action process began with a resolution to support Kyoto
- back in 2003.
- And something I know that Jamie Scholl worked on was a food, food charter, was a resolution to
- endorse a food charter to help guide community decisions about policies and programs that affect
- the local food system.
- So when she was chair of the food policy council, that was in 2015. And we've done some, some
- things directed at food policy, for instance, the farm stock that was supported.
- Certainly supporting the farmers markets and going in for one time, but the point is, is that I
- think that it's not just empty air, it can be, you know, it can be adopted and we can pursue it,
- try to put money toward
- the aims that are, you know, endorsed by the council or commission like the sustainability
- commission.
- Thank you.
- Okay, great. So, yeah, I put those timestamps on the agenda. I'm already behind so you can see how
- effective they really are. I think we'll make up ground a little bit later on.
- So yeah, we can move on then to Waste Management Working Group report. Matt, do you have anything
- for us this week?
- Yeah, as everybody's heard, or maybe haven't heard, Taste of Bloomington is coming back, and the
- Taste of Bloomington.
- And, as some of you know, I tried to do a food waste working groups grant last year for Lotus.
- Well, it makes complete sense just to move that to the Taste of Bloomington.
- So I sent an email out to, what's his name? Last name Davis?
- Yeah, Jordan Davis.
- Jordan Davis, who's spearheading the taste with chocolate mousse, trying to get him to come in and
- speak to us.
- Because ultimately, if we're dealing with food, it would be a great place to educate the public
- about food,
- options on how to deal with their food waste, specifically bocaccio. So I'm going to just take that,
- all the work that we did previously and apply that to the Taste of Bloomington.
- Still going to ask for $5,000 and on Thursday I'm going to be doing public comment
- at the race reduction district board of directors meeting to put this on to their radar.
- Because the exec committee last year loved the idea.
- And then the other part of it is we're talking to, this will be an extension,
- talking to a farmer who wants to set up a black soldier fly larva set up.
- He's given us a quote of about $7,000 to set that up with the idea of all festivals in Bloomington
- would now ideally have some sort of bocaccio component and then they would be tied to the farmers
- and that food waste would go out to the farmer who would then grow black soldier flies from that
- which would then feed chicken, pigs, so on and so forth, keeping that whole circle.
- Which farmer?
- His name is Larry. He was all part of the food policy council, Harvest Partners.
- That's where we get a lot of our meat.
- And he currently does take food prep, food waste, which he's allowed to for his pigs.
- But he's really wanting to do this black soldier flag thing.
- So we're trying to tie that in at a higher level.
- So I'll be rehashing from last year that, but specifically for the taste.
- So we're going to try and ask Jordan Davis to come and speak to the commission,
- hopefully next month or the month after that.
- When is the taste scheduled?
- August 2nd, and it was just announced last week.
- So we're trying to get on that as soon as possible.
- I can help with rewriting the grant if you need.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- I think a lot of what we did we can re-supress.
- Yeah, just change a couple of words here and there.
- Yeah, but yeah, I want to definitely get them in so we can show that they're interested in that as
- well.
- Just a fantastic opportunity to introduce it to the community
- and start to build a consensus that this is what the community needs to take action on.
- Awesome. Yeah, that sounds great.
- Cool.
- I had sort of a question just sort of on that, you know, sort of same line about,
- because it's great that, you know, if we get farmers that can use the food scraps, that's amazing.
- I'm thinking like, okay, you know, a future where we scale up composting, you know,
- it might be a little bit harder to, you know, maintain the quality and things like that.
- I was looking on the dashboard on the City of Bloomington website,
- and it was talking about how we've looked at anaerobic digesters
- at the wastewater treatment plant in the past.
- Did that go anywhere?
- There wasn't enough.
- There wasn't enough?
- Sewage.
- Yeah, there wasn't enough HSOW, high strength organic HSOW.
- So there were three scenarios when they were looking at it,
- and one, the city would have lost money on it.
- One would have been a breakeven, and one, they would have been in the black,
- and they weren't able to find enough material.
- Food waste.
- It's not just food waste.
- Or like any organic material.
- Yeah, they'd have to find, and they made a call out to companies within,
- I don't know, 100 miles, I could be in grief on that,
- and they just didn't get enough responses to show that they would have enough material.
- But I did have the field trip to Colwell's Inc. out in Shelby County,
- and they have permits already for an anaerobic biodigester 366 miles away,
- but they're doing all that stuff, and the field trip was very enlightening.
- They have everything that Monroe County, they can handle all of Monroe County's food waste.
- It's just we need more stakeholders, we need multiple entities,
- like IU, like Cook, like the city of Bloomington, to split.
- So could they potentially take IU food waste?
- Yes, it's just collection and getting it.
- That's not worse than trash going in.
- Correct, it's almost the exact same amount of miles.
- So yeah, 66 miles both ways.
- That's interesting, because we're going to pilot a digester, or I'm sorry, a dehydrator.
- Dehydrator, yeah, you mentioned that.
- And that might make it easier, but we shouldn't touch on that.
- The waste reduction district already has the infrastructure to take smaller cans and aggregate into
- a larger.
- Once again, the waste reduction district's budget can handle the cost for two years maybe,
- but we just need to split it up between larger entities to start.
- I'd contact Kido Foods out on the east side of Indianapolis.
- It's the biggest produce and fruit packing plant in the Midwest.
- So Colwell's already has a de-packing facility.
- Like I saw them have boxes of insurer.
- And there was one employee that was just opening the boxes and dumping the bottles of insurer there.
- And then another machine was picking it up and dumping it into the de-packing, and they just
- crushed them all.
- And all this went into a pit.
- And then from that pit, they sucked that up into a tanker.
- The tanker took it over to their, I call it facility, which is an outdoor area.
- And there's a pit that they dumped it all in.
- And then they took manure and wood chips and put it all in there to suck it up.
- And then it went into the windmills.
- This is Colwell's?
- Yeah, this is Colwell's.
- They're getting stuff from major corporations, like you're talking about, from Colorado, from New
- York.
- They have the capacity.
- They've got 4,000 acres of which to turn those windrows into compost and use them.
- So they have the capacity to take care of everything that the program has got.
- It's just you can't have one entity paying for it all.
- That's why we need a collaboration of stakeholders.
- We should probably move on.
- Is there anything else for voice management?
- We can keep going on that.
- Thanks.
- I appreciate that.
- Okay, next on the agenda, we have the Ad Hoc Committee Sustainability Assessment Report from TARA.
- And there is a draft document for us.
- So after our meeting last week, I incorporated some of the feedback from the commission.
- I've added the 2025 approved numbers to all of the figures to show sort of the trend in all of
- these areas.
- I added also just a little bit more language of what is in this section, why we're looking at
- budget numbers as a way of assessing the city's investment in sustainability.
- And remember, specifically, we're looking at the climate action plan goals around energy in the
- built environment and reducing emissions from our built environment in the city.
- So if we scroll down a little bit, so these are all the same figures that we looked at last year
- just with the addition of the 2025 adopted numbers.
- Can you scroll to the next page?
- I added also the natural resources disaggregation in here to this breakdown. This is within the
- parks and rec budget and these are only inflation adjusted numbers for golf, which is like cascades
- basically urban forestry, urban green spaces and natural resources.
- I also added some context around specifically urban forestry.
- I had some communication also with some folks in the city about urban green spaces that's less
- inventory. So it's harder to provide appropriate context there. Urban forestry was really
- interesting.
- The city's website is a little out of date, but the urban forester shared with me his inventory,
- which is like a website, it's publicly available, that we have at least 23,000 trees that the city
- has inventoried and probably that many more that are in like wooded areas and right of ways and
- things that are not inventoried.
- And that tool also includes the software that that the city uses for inventorying trees also puts
- in an assessed sort of like financial benefit to the city of our canopy, which is, I put it that it
- saves the city about $60,000 in carbon sequestration stormwater
- mitigation and air pollution removal and then I add a little bit of analysis that like we've seen
- small increases in urban forestry's inflation adjusted budget but effectively like every year, they've,
- they've basically doubled the number of inventory trees
- that they're responsible for and in the same period of time their budget has barely increased over
- time so sort of like some commentary on what's in there.
- I did, I had some feedback from Sean and Julie about splitting out the sustainability actions
- specifically I couldn't.
- The way the budget I couldn't find like the line items that would specify the, the sustainable
- action so what I haven't done in here and what I would like to do.
- After this, or add to this draft is adding in some of the grant money and stuff that's been given
- out by that department I also tried to pull out like the tech trades and like some of the areas
- where there's the, the, there's been budget
- approvals for that like that department that maybe are not relevant to this report.
- It's not the data is just like not perfect for doing that but just try to provide that context.
- Can we scroll to the next page.
- And then I also looked at Oh, so this is ESD and then the last thing that's new. Can we go to one
- more page is I added in housing we talked about last year.
- The housing first policy approach that the city should take for dealing with issues of issues of
- housing insecurity and any of the related policy issues that come up for that.
- And so I pulled the housing numbers this was a fascinating one, because it's been really volatile,
- but it's sort of averages out, I put the inflation adjusted average for the years that are included
- to kind of show like about each year, which is
- only slightly more than we approve for golf is also mentioned in the text there. The other, the
- other portion of this report that I'm responsible for that I intended to get for this meeting but
- then I got coven is just some, some other city action
- policies just documenting some of the stuff that yes, that they have on their website, and some of
- the things that the city talks about, and then what we what is still missing from this is if we.
- The other section that Evans working on, and then combining the two, and me, and if we want to make
- any recommendations or conclusions before we finalize the draft and submit it to counsel.
- I can incorporate feedback or those questions.
- Yeah, yeah, it's looking really good.
- Is there is there a public golf course in Bloomington, what is that cascades.
- To spend money like what is that housing budget look like.
- What is it. What are like the wine items within it.
- It's probably my understanding is it's the it's it's the budget for like public housing that is
- managed by the city.
- But people know we can add that context and that's based on my research.
- Is that like building units public units.
- I think it's I think it's management of the public units.
- Yeah, I can look at the disaggregated like line items and see if I can get more insight into like
- what it is.
- But mostly it's the way that it's split out is line items is like salaries maintenance.
- It's not specifically specific facilities like tripling or something between twenty two and twenty
- three.
- Yeah, I wonder if it also might if it's.
- If voucher like housing vouchers are included in that there's particular budgets.
- But yeah, because it was so volatile, that's why I put that line in there to sort of show like year
- over year.
- And also I should note that all of these are basing on approved budgets, which are like the budgets
- that have gone through the approval process.
- Actual expenditures can vary, but I chose the approved budgets.
- I think this is I put this in the introduction, and if it's not clear, I can add some additional
- language that like kind of treating it from the perspective of that.
- Budgets are like moral documents or their document, their statement of like priorities, even if
- like things change during the year and the actual expenditures.
- Yes, I did put that in there, but that it's sort of a proxy of the intent to invest in these areas
- is the analysis approach that I'm taking here.
- Yeah.
- So this is new like city on the public as far as far as I know, but what I can what I can glean
- from from the city budget documents and how they describe the budget items, but I'm pretty sure
- that that it's the city housing authority.
- It does public housing. You know, one thing about this. Is it worth going to people who could desegregate
- this a little bit more and say, hey, you know, before we put this out, can you confirm what this
- number amounts to or why my fluctuate so much or give
- thoughts on this Sean or people we can talk to him be like, hey, could you explain this thing that
- thing.
- I'm wondering for.
- I only if it's included if it's a separate line I this is based like just I've downloaded like the
- CSV is of the budget of the line items but it doesn't.
- Another department's budget it wouldn't show up this is specifically like the urban forestry budget
- line item.
- So there might be other ways and that's maybe context that we can put in here that there might be
- other ways that some of these things get funding.
- But these department like this is what's yeah.
- For residents who have a tree that needs to come down or needs to be proven.
- They can request funding for that, especially for low income residents.
- ESD is providing funding for that and then also the tree tenders program. I don't know if that's
- exactly urban forestry, but can people maintain training high school students on tree maintenance
- throughout the summer.
- So that's another program. So there's three different programs that we're supporting that supports
- the urban forestry.
- And it might still be worth noting what is like regular city budget versus Allen, you know what I
- mean, because those programs might come and go so yeah, but I just hate to put this out with a
- stamp when there's in fact other things that are included in it.
- Yeah, I can look into what I can find and I can also put in, like, that's, that's also why I sort
- of been focusing on just looking at the approved because the expenditures can be so supposed so
- buried.
- There's projects and grants and matches and all that it's, it's, I've sort of reached my limit of
- my area of expertise of budget analysis. I'm not an accountant but, but I think, seeing what else
- we can find and then framing it to say that we're really specifically
- looking at just like where the light outlays are during the budget priority process and also see if
- we could find for example what what does this increase in urban green space investment amount to
- that's what so that's what a handful of questions of like, Hey, what's going on in 2023 housing.
- Yeah, I had a I had, I communicated with it with a couple of folks at person rack and the planning
- department and stuff and the green spaces. They're gonna, they're trying to help me figure out like
- the acreage because that's what I wanted to figure out but it's, it's a lot of it's like right of
- ways
- to kind of reverse and some of the edge for it started putting in butterfly gardens and city hall
- and it's just a lot more work. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's our in our parks acreage is
- documented but the green space.
- The meridian that's like the city is responsible for is included in that and so it's like a harder
- number to get. So I'm trying to find context for that number the same way that I did with the trees,
- but it's a little harder to pin down so I'll update this also to sort of add that
- context that it's just like, but there's been an increase in plan spending there probably because
- there's been an increase in like the number of urban green spaces.
- So it's looking really, really good.
- So once we have both sections of sort of how we split it up to avoid running a foul of open door
- policy, then we can, I can combine them and make some sort of like summary, like make a final draft
- of everything combined.
- Once he's had an opportunity to share his half with the commission.
- Yeah, but everything we've done because it's part of our packet materials is like publicly
- available now if it's I know the budget processes is happening now.
- Is, is anything being left out, you know, maybe you've got all this in spreadsheets, some kind of
- the year and any item that it was the money was directed on maybe Sean do you think, you know,
- maybe the spreadsheets.
- Maybe we should go to the control office and say, is anything missing.
- Or, or the various departments I mean I guess.
- Yeah, I can reach out I mean that's why I'm not suggesting more work for you, thinking maybe the
- commission can pass it on.
- This is every, everything has been downloaded from it's just I just straight downloaded from open
- finance.
- So, any spreadsheets that I have the city has, and everybody else has because it's publicly
- available data.
- So it's just CSVs that I downloaded from there I don't have. I haven't done any like the only thing
- that I added, like, by hand or the 2025 numbers because those aren't in the spreadsheets but those
- are, they're just in a different, they're on a different dashboard.
- They're not in the exports yet. Although they might be now they just they weren't when I did the
- export originally.
- Well, it's a lot of work.
- These are my fun free time graphs, the graphs that I do at my job. Yeah, what's going to be really
- helpful.
- And I'm using the CPI inflation calculator from BLS to calculate the inflation adjusted numbers and
- I'm using January for all like January of that year, it's all it's in there for context but.
- So it's all inflation adjusted to 2018.
- It's all inflation adjusted January that year to January of 2018.
- Awesome. Well, thank you.
- We'll move on next to report from Council ex officio.
- I don't have a report.
- You know more than any questions, we do have, just to add on to what you said.
- We've got a couple of, it has this fiscal committee and it has a budget committee. And so we're
- looking at this, you know, outcome based budgeting as, as the optimal way, you know, getting
- results, essentially.
- So we're in the process of examining the budget right now, previous year and with the idea of
- proposing our club, what we would like to see.
- So this could come in a very good time.
- I think so I mean I can add based on the feedback that we've had at this meeting to my section and
- then we can either.
- If we want to try to, if you want to incorporate the components that Evans looking at, which are
- some more like policy kind of action things, less boring budget numbers.
- We can combine them and or we could do it as two separate reports, if we think that the timing is
- important to get it out faster.
- Well, we start.
- Actually, I don't know what the schedule is this year, but I think that we would begin considering
- the budget early summer.
- And then we kind of look at it in much more detail in late summer.
- And so, so we have lots of time. Yeah, so I think if Evan can share his stuff at the next meeting
- for feedback from the commission and then we can combine it into a final document for hopefully for
- our June meeting to finalize the report, and I'll, and I'll work on some additional feedback or
- context around the numbers.
- So I had to like, at least in this draft like not do too much editorializing about like what the
- numbers mean like just make some very like apparent, because I want the commission to weigh in on
- sort of like.
- So what does all this mean.
- And what do we, what, if anything, are we recommending to counsel, based on this information.
- Great.
- Thanks so much.
- Okay, our next agenda item is the bylaws review. So, these next two items we can go through fairly
- quickly we had a lot of time on the agenda to flex but.
- So, I'll point you towards the proposed focus areas here in this memo. So, you know, where should
- we look at actually making changes to the bylaws here this is the list that I've come up with and
- interested in input from this.
- So number one is just a kind of structural reorganization of the document so right now there's sort
- of a mix of like Roman numerals and numbers and stuff and it can be a little tricky to like
- reference a particular verbally particular section.
- So maybe just a, you know, making that a little more intuitive, a little easier to navigate.
- Number two is a pretty minor thing just some editorial improvements. There's some areas where the
- language could be a little bit more clear couple maybe grammar spelling things or some formatting
- inconsistencies, nothing too substantive there.
- Number three is municipal code references is the third one this one I think is a little bit more
- substantive. There's a lot of spots in the bylaws where we are just verbatim repeating what's in
- the municipal code.
- And that can be helpful if you're just looking at the bylaws and you kind of want to get the full
- picture and you don't have to go across reference with with the municipal code.
- Number two is if the code changes, you know, in a particular section and now our bylaws are maybe
- out of date, because we're not just referencing it or like, you know, replicating the text doesn't
- happen that often but of course we just had some changes recently to our part of the code.
- So some of that might be out of date now.
- So, you know, my recommendation for that would be basically, you know, instead of actually just
- repeating verbatim the text, you know, referring to the BMC so saying, you know, as pursuant to the
- BMC section and blah blah blah.
- And then here's additional text right on top of that so that it's always deferring back to the code
- is sort of the ultimate authority there.
- Number four is the annual meeting requirements. So March is defined as our annual meeting that's
- when we're supposed to hold elections.
- And we're also supposed to review the bylaws and publish this sustainable assessment report.
- So that sustainable assessment report is no longer a requirement in the code.
- And I would recommend that we don't include that as a requirement in the bylaws, either.
- We may from time to time decide that it would be a good idea to do that.
- I think it's a little cumbersome to require that it's done once per year and at a certain time of
- the year.
- And what was the other one? Oh, the bylaw review.
- I don't think we necessarily need to do that every year either, at least not like a big review.
- Maybe just to check up to see if anything in the code has changed that's now requiring us to make a
- change.
- But I don't know if we necessarily need to do that at a certain time every single year.
- But elections we should still do.
- Number five is the sustainability assessment. I actually just mentioned that in number four.
- Number six is the meeting structure flexibility.
- So right now the order of agenda items is defined in the bylaws and it's fixed.
- This shall be the order of events sort of language.
- So I would recommend prescribing certain things that need to be in an agenda like approval of the
- minutes and that sort of thing and certain reports.
- But maybe providing more flexibility in terms of the order of events, right, so that we're not so
- locked into a particular structure.
- For example, I've kind of got this like member announcements thing hanging out at the end of the
- agenda.
- You know, maybe that's something we want, but we don't really use it for too much and it's required
- that it's there.
- So that's why it's there.
- Number seven is resolution definition.
- So we've had a little bit of like talk in the past about like what really is a resolution and we
- talked about it today.
- So we we kind of know what a resolution is, you know, for the most part.
- But, you know, what things are there, you know, we've had some confusion about like, is this a
- resolution?
- Do we have to vote on it like it's a resolution?
- Like if we're, you know, awarding some grants or something, or can we just do that through normal
- business?
- So it might be good to kind of define a little more clearly what things are resolutions and what
- things are ordinary business.
- And then thinking about the two readings rule revision.
- So like like we've mentioned, we've got the two readings rule for resolutions, which is, you know,
- can be really helpful for, you know, for making a statement to the rest of the world.
- It might be good to have the time to really deliberate on that and give people time to kind of
- absorb it and recommend changes and not do anything too hastily.
- At the same time, it can potentially if we have a quick turnaround that we're trying to get
- something out, it can actually be sort of constraining, especially for a group like ours that meets
- once per month, and sometimes only once every two months.
- You know, we don't have a quorum or something.
- So maybe kind of re-examining, you know, what the rule is for passing resolutions, if there should
- be a little additional flexibility there, is something we could look at.
- John, question.
- As I recall, the two readings is basically like, the first time is a pretty formal proposal of the
- resolution discussion, the next time you vote on it.
- Is that right?
- Yeah.
- I like the idea of seeing it two times, but even just knowing that somebody's working on a
- resolution that will be proposed next time, and like discussing it earlier, where it's maybe less
- formal, but still you get your eyes on it twice, chance for feedback, that sort of thing.
- Yeah, it could actually be part of it.
- It could be like, what constitutes a first reading?
- Yeah.
- Does it need to be like, the full text ready to go, or could it be like, here's the stuff I'm going
- to put in the resolution, but it's not written yet, and that's maybe like a first reading?
- So, yeah.
- Definitely things to think about, where can we make it more flexible without, you know, like, just
- tearing all the walls down and going crazy.
- So, like I said, next steps would be to start actually working what, you know, draft changes would
- look like.
- But is there anything that folks might want to see that's not on this list yet, or anything that's
- on this list that you don't think we should be touching?
- I think there was also something that we brought up at the last meeting on the responsibilities of
- the officers.
- There was like, the vice president had some responsibility that was something that doesn't exist
- anymore, I forget what it was.
- It was like making recommendations for some committee or something that is like not a thing that
- exists anymore.
- Yeah, that's a good point. Good. Anything else?
- Okay, well, I'll start working on some language changes and then bring that to our next meeting and
- we can workshop that a little bit or talk a little bit more and then sort of get it finalized and
- buttoned up for the following meeting.
- Justin, one quick question regarding resolutions in first or second readings. I'm sure it refers to
- some need for public notice. Do you happen to know what that is?
- So, I mean, we have to do all these things at a publicly noticed meeting, either way, whether it's
- a first reading or a second reading or we're doing it all in one go.
- I don't know if there's, you know, any requirement that's specific to resolutions versus ordinary.
- It's something that's worth checking out. Just make sure you don't run a foul of of that.
- When you have your draft bylaws, I can send them up to legal for review.
- Okay, that would be great.
- Thinking about open door policy, which I know is set by us, I'm wondering if there's any additional
- flexibility that we could build in to the bylaws.
- Because our working groups, specifically working groups, start to shift into a more formal
- structure, which can kind of get in the way of collaborating.
- I don't know what that would look like, but that's something that we've kind of diverted into
- talking to a lot.
- That's obviously a sticking point.
- And the thing is that working groups aren't even defined in the bylaws, so we've sort of built them
- up and structured them on our own, just through regular business.
- But yeah, it's not specifically defined.
- So that might be one question, is whether we want to define something like that, like what a
- working group is and how they're formed, or not, if we want to keep the flexibility and not.
- So something to think about for next time.
- Cool.
- Okay, so let's move on to the next section, which is, let's see, if we scroll.
- We've got the bylaws as an attachment to this one, but then if we scroll a little bit farther.
- We're not going to, a couple more pages.
- So, we're not going to go through the whole draft annual report right now, we don't have the time.
- And also it just wouldn't be fun to read a document like this all together at once.
- So, you know, hopefully between now and the next meeting you'll have a chance to read through this
- at your leisure, mark it up, you know, make some notes or whatever.
- I'm thinking maybe one way that we can do input on this is, you know, I could, I could send around
- like a Google form for submitting feedback on this, you know, got line numbers on everything.
- So if you're like I think we should word the thing in line 10 differently or there's a typo here,
- or you need a figure that shows this, you know, you can fill out the form, list the line number,
- list your comment, that sort of thing.
- And then that can all come to me, and I can review all those and I can start to make those changes
- between meetings.
- And then we wouldn't be running a file of open door a lot because we wouldn't be collaborating with
- each other. I would just be collecting input.
- So, yeah, since we don't have too much time to really go through like, what's covered in the report
- so far and you know what might be missing or what did we not describe well enough.
- Maybe doing that sort of offline, read it in your spare time and then start sending, sending
- feedback, and then we can have a longer discussion about it next time.
- How's that sound to folks. I really like that approach. I think I'll incorporate using line numbers
- into whatever final draft we share for the whole commission.
- It's a great. Yeah, I've used this approach before in large scientific collaborations of like
- hundreds of people where we all have to review a paper before we submit it to the journal and that's
- that seem to be a pretty good system for collating all the different
- things. Cool. Yeah, and I'll just say you know it's basically, you know, the perspective here was
- sort of like looking at what we accomplished in 2024, where we saw challenges in 2024 and then
- looking ahead 2025 what are our priorities.
- You know, what are we hoping to achieve in the year ahead. So that's kind of the basic flow.
- Okay, so look out for an email from me with instructions on how to submit, you know, a feedback and
- comments and stuff on this document that we can start to craft it a little bit more next time.
- Okay, great. We don't have any resolutions for first or second reading so that brings us to the
- staff liaison report from Sean.
- As you all know we lost to city attorneys earlier this year.
- Thankfully we're starting to see some movement on contracts that we've been waiting on.
- And so I have some updates for you. The canopy Bloomington tree replacement project that you
- approved at the end of last year. The contract has been signed by all parties, and the payment will
- be made during our next time cycle.
- So that one's out the door. And then the Grandview Hills neighborhood associations pollinator
- garden project.
- That contract is out for signatures now, as well as the contract with Alicia sphere for the TerraCycle
- 2.0 project. That one's out for signature as well.
- So hopefully those two will be signed soon and we'll get the payments out. That's great.
- And then the only other thing is just Earth Day. I just want everyone to be there. All of our
- vendor tables are filled.
- So it's going to be jam packed with fun and lots of educational opportunities. So I hope to see
- everybody there. April 19th, noon to 4 at Switcherica.
- Awesome. Thank you. And thank you for all your help on the different grant applications that we had
- come through.
- I know there's a lot of, you know, sort of work that gets done behind the scenes to make sure that
- they're kind of ready to go for the legal and financial review and all of that.
- So thank you. Okay, that brings us to member announcements. I'll ask in the room, but before I do
- that, Zero had asked me if I could make an announcement on his behalf since he couldn't be here
- today.
- He wanted to say, quote, Blue Bee is currently involved in installing an organic community
- gardening project at the South Noel apartment complex in the Prospect Hill neighborhood for low
- income tenants as a food as medicine, mental and physical health care program.
- Anyone else. Can I go, I'm going back to the Earth Day thing. I was going to use the priorities
- that we outlined in our last meeting there, they should be in the agenda packet from our last
- meeting, unless anybody has a problem.
- Me using those for the Earth Day event for the board that I'll put up verbal approval from the
- group information or handouts or anything.
- I'm going to follow up with Sean to get some of the stuff that some of the grants that ESD does and
- then I'm going to have some contact information for people to apply.
- Any other member announcements or new business? All right. We're going to get out of here early. We'll
- adjourn at 721 p.m. Our next meeting is at May 13th at 6 p.m. in this room.
- Thanks, everybody.
- Thank you.