- So I'll call to order this meeting of the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability at 6.02 PM. And we'll
- go through the roll call. So folks on Zoom, be ready to turn on your cameras. OK, Tara Dunderdale. Here.
- Here. Justin Vassel, I'm here. Matt Austin. Present. Present. Zero rows. Don't see online. OK,
- John Elden. Here.
- Dave Rallo? Here. Here. Quentin Gilley? Not here. Alex York? Here, virtual. Here, virtual. Jamie Scholl?
- She let me know she'd probably be rolling in around 630. Evan Nix? Not here. OK, Annalise Jenke?
- Here. Present. Diana Ogrodowsky. Here? Here. And Zhengwei Xu. Here. Perfect. All right. So we can go
- ahead and get started. We'll move to the agenda. So we've got a couple things on the agenda tonight,
- a couple of discussions. And I think Jamie will probably be here by the time we get to the one that
- she's leading.
- And then we've got a resolution for second reading, 2025-02, about the urban forestry budget. I think
- Evan just joined online. I think that's Evan's email address. Yeah. Do I need to specify in the minutes
- when people came late, like what time people joined, or just? I think you might as well. Yeah, you can
- note it down. All right.
- Okay, so we've got Evan on the line now. Evan, are you here? I am here and unmuted now. Perfect. Thank
- you very much. All right, so that's what we have on the agenda. Is there a motion to approve? Motion
- to approve. Okay, is there a second? Second. Okay, perfect.
- Any discussion, any changes anyone wants to suggest? All right, then we'll move to a vote.
- And as a reminder, we have to do everything as a roll call vote, as long as there are people attending
- virtually. So we'll go down the list. This is the motion to approve the agenda. Tara? TARA CHEUNG. Aye.
- Aye. Justin? Aye. Matt? Aye. Aye. Zero? Zero's not here yet. John? Aye. Aye. Councilmember Rallo? Yes.
- Yes. Quintin Gilley is not here yet. Alex? Aye. Aye. Jamie is not here yet. Evan? Aye. Aye. Annalise?
- Aye. Aye. Diana? Aye. Aye. And Cheng-Hui? Aye. Aye. All right. The agenda is approved.
- That brings us to the approval of the minutes from August 12, 2025, which was sent around the other
- day. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Motion to approve. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Perfect.
- All right. Are there any corrections that anybody wants to offer up to those minutes? All right. Nothing
- that I saw. Nothing that you saw. Perfect. All right. Motion to approve the minutes from August 12,
- 2025. Tara. Aye.
- Aye. Justin, aye. Matt? Aye. Aye. Zero is not here yet. John? Aye. Aye. Council Member Arallo? Aye.
- Aye. Quintin is not here yet. Alex? Yes. Yes. Jamie is not here yet. Evan? Aye. Was that aye? Yes, that
- was aye. Perfect. Yes. Thanks.
- Hi. Diana? Hi. Hi. Shengwei? Hi. Hi. All right. The minutes from August 12, 2025 are approved. So that
- brings us to public comment, which we have 10 minutes set aside for up to three minutes per person.
- Is there anybody from the public who would like to comment? I don't see anyone in the room. Just a quick
- update. Quentin texted or emailed at 612 that he'd be here in five minutes. Who was that? Sorry. Quentin.
- Quentin? OK, perfect. We'll expect him shortly.
- OK, I don't see anyone from the public online or in the room. So we'll move on to reports from commissioners
- with the chair's report up first. All right. So I tried to make this a little shorter. I didn't include
- all the slides that I normally do just to try to keep things moving a little bit quicker. But where
- there's updates, I have that information.
- Okay. So this one I always show is just the org chart. Um, we currently have the one vacancy there for
- the, from the Monroe County commissioners. Um, but nothing's changed since the last time that we met.
- Um, next. Okay. Um, so some internal, um, updates, um, so resolutions 2025-01 and-03 were the ones that
- we approved, uh, at last, at our last meetings. Um, so that was related to the definitions for urban
- agriculture type stuff.
- and then also the the chicken poultry flock size resolution. So this was a fun opportunity to learn
- once we pass a resolution that we want to make a recommendation to council what happens next. And some
- of it is you know depends on the particular resolution it might need to go to to different different
- groups depending on what it is. But we sort of
- tried it out for the first time on this one. And so ultimately, both those resolutions just got forwarded
- on to the plan commission, the office of the mayor, and city council. And so ultimately, that was Sean
- who wrote a letter just forwarding those along. And yeah, so thanks to Sean and Julie and Julius, who
- we met at the public comment last time as well for helping us navigate that. Julie, is this from the
- mayor's office? Yes, I believe that's right.
- um great and then the 2025 uh sorry i keep putting this typo in here the 2024 annual report uh 2025
- has not been completed yet i do not have that sort of vision um we approved that back in may um and
- we got on the calendar to present to council on september 3rd which was last week and so i went in to
- do that um i ultimately i put together slides for it but i ultimately ended up giving them a verbal
- update um i i was not aware that there was a
- requirement to get slides into them by a certain time, and I didn't get it in time. But there were not
- too many graphics in that report, so it was pretty easy to just do it verbally. And they have the actual
- physical report included in their packet materials that they were able to reference.
- So I think the report was well received. We just got some clarifying questions about the Sustainable
- Neighborhood Grant for the TerraCycle project and some follow-ups regarding some of the fund matching
- that we're expecting from the Waste Reduction District of Monroe County. And we also got some follow-up
- questions regarding the document management challenges that we had last year. Matt was there.
- for that at the city council meeting. And so he was able to help field some of those questions as well
- where I had blind spots. So that was very, very helpful. How did you think it went? Did you think it
- was? I thought it was great. It was the first time I'd seen that since before 2020. Yeah, right. And
- then there was an email sent to clarify some more of those questions from Garden Quest. Yeah, right.
- OK, perfect. Awesome. Yeah, so that went well. Well done.
- So thanks to you for preparing that and taking your time to do that. Appreciate that. Yeah, so they
- know what we're up to now, and they're expecting updates for next year. So that's exciting. Nothing
- else really on these kind of internal things that are new. Just the things in blue and bold are kind
- of the new updates. Focus areas, we've been starting to fill out this list. I know some people have
- sent me some things, and I think I've added it to here. It's possible I missed something.
- If you see something that doesn't look right by your name, shoot me another email. I'll get updated.
- Hello. Oh, no problem. All right, so we've got Quinton now. Better late than never. That's what I figured.
- I don't try to show up no matter what. OK, so I wanted to say a few words about attendance and voting
- policy, because it's been a while since we've talked about this with the full commission. We've got
- a lot of new members since the last time we have.
- and I needed a bit of a refresher myself. So there's a couple things that we have to kind of keep in
- mind when it comes to meeting attendance. There's a couple things in our bylaws about it, but then there's,
- especially when it comes to virtual attendance for meetings, there's a decent amount of requirements
- in the open door law in Indiana code that we need to be aware of.
- So just for general attendance type stuff in our bylaws, we've got a requirement to not miss more than
- three consecutive meetings in a 12-month period and to not miss four regularly scheduled meetings within
- a 12-month period as well. So just for everyone to be aware of, if you think you're going to have to miss
- lots of meetings in a year or something like that. Best thing, especially if you know it's coming, is
- to let me know. Things like illness and emergencies and stuff, of course, we're not gonna hold you to
- that in a strict way. So if you've got something like that, just let us know. As far as the open door
- law goes, you can see the last, the bottom five there. There's sort of a couple categories this fits
- into. First is the percentage of
- of physically present members when it comes to electronic meetings. And so at least 50% have to be physically
- present at the meeting. So we can't all be virtual, for example. There's a rule about percentage of
- meetings attended virtually in a given year by a member. So you can't attend more than 50% of the meetings
- in a year virtually. And there are some exceptions to that. So again, illness.
- I've actually got the exceptions listed in small print there. Military service, illness, or other medical
- condition, death of a relative, or emergency involving actual or threatened injury to persons or property.
- So again, if you think this is something that might affect you, just let me know. Frequency of virtually
- attended meetings. So this one says that a member shall physically attend at least one meeting between
- And I paraphrase this next part, two consecutive meetings that the member attends by electronic
- communication. So you can attend virtually two meetings in a row, but then you have to be here for that
- next third meeting. You can't attend three virtually in a row. And then there's a couple rules about
- putting together memoranda or minutes and taking votes. And so this isn't so much about attendance,
- but just more about when there's a virtual
- you know, an aspect of virtual attendance at these meetings. Um, there's certain things that we have
- to note down in our minutes, like whether somebody was in person or virtual when they were, you know,
- uh, when they were here. Um, and, and what means did they, they joined by? Um, and then for votes, um,
- as you've seen, we'd be doing roll call votes for just, for basic business and, um, and that's required
- by this, this aspect of the law. Um, so that's,
- My understanding of attendance and voting policy per our bylaws in Indiana code. Any questions about
- that or anything that somebody knows about that I missed? Yeah. So how is that enforced? Yeah. I know
- it's not enforced by us. It's enforced by council. So the bylaws, of course, are enforced by us because
- we make those rules. And these particular provisions are in the removal section of the bylaws, so basically
- laying out
- If the commission were to vote to remove somebody, on what grounds could they do it? Disattendance is
- one of those grounds. Are we required to do that if they, is that? I don't believe so. I would double
- check the exact wording again, but I'm pretty sure it's like the commission may remove somebody for
- cause, and this is the cause. And then kind of to Matt's question, but council or the mayor or whoever
- the appointing body is could
- could also revoke an appointment through whatever processes they have. Yeah, the city might have its
- own internal policies about if somebody, say, just stops showing up to meetings entirely or something
- that they can really just remove them entirely. I don't know if they have any strict thresholds about
- when that kicks in or if it's just a thing where a commission has to come to them and say, hey, this
- person's been MIA for a while.
- Can we bump them off? And they do it. So yeah, that would be a good question to ask Sean maybe at the
- next meeting to. What, if anything, does the code say about if we don't, if we opt to not?
- So if we have, I mean, I think certainly for the virtual one, we probably have that. If we opted to
- not pursue the removal, are there implications for us as a commission in the code?
- Dave's got his hand up, so he might know the answer to that question, maybe. OK, perfect. Yeah, go ahead,
- Councilmember Morrell. Yeah, just to say, I mean, generally speaking, it's been pretty rare that we've
- removed somebody from a board of commission. But of course, boards of commissions require a quorum to
- carry on their business. And if the chair of the commission reports to the council that somebody hasn't
- been in attendance,
- that becomes grounds for removal and it usually then requires some notification I think by the clerk's
- office to try to contact the person and then we have essentially a discussion at one of our meetings
- and a vote to remove the person and then we can reappoint someone else.
- So that's our process. I think probably the mayor is in a similar role. The mayor has her own. She can
- decide herself without having, I think, a formal meeting. Yeah. And I know there's been at least one
- instance since I've been on this commission that we did actually go through that process where somebody
- just kind of stopped attending. And yeah.
- That sounds familiar to me. I think we sent out, or the city, the clerk or something, sent out a letter
- saying, are you still planning to attend the next meeting if you still want to be on this commission?
- Otherwise, we're going to take you off. Yeah, so good question. As far as enforcement of the Indiana
- code goes, I mean, you know, there's
- I don't think there's anyone who's doing a lot of tallying on that to check everything. But anyone could
- submit a complaint if we're not in compliance with these. And those complaints would go, I think, then
- to the public access counselor. And they could issue a finding. And there could be other legal consequences.
- Does the code specify? So if I came to two virtual and then the third one,
- Would the code consider me not there because I'm not allowed to attend? So is the issue there that my
- votes are quorum or whatever or not? If somebody fought, obviously in practice, it's not. I'm just trying
- to understand. So if somebody comes to three virtual meetings in a row,
- is that third meeting considered effectively, according to the code, they're absent. And so they're
- like, if they were the, if we had six people and that seventh person, that means we didn't have quorum
- and we had a meeting without quorum. There's sort of like those cascading issues in terms of somebody
- going in and being like, great. Yeah, they count that we can't vote. So you're not there. Yeah. OK.
- And so if we did allow them that,
- Sorry, I'm talking like, I'm speaking like retroactively or like if we didn't know or something like
- that. If we had the issue there is that the follow-up, somebody filing a complaint would be somebody
- who wasn't present was recorded at the meeting effectively. I'm just trying to, it's, legal stuff is
- hard to. These might be questions that we put up to the city. Yeah, right.
- answer questions directly. As you kind of keep in mind some of these questions, you might want to see
- if that can happen. Yeah, that's a good point. If we do have questions that we'd like a lawyer to answer.
- I'm going to be a little less cagey here. I ask in part because we have members currently at this meeting
- who I'm marking down their votes in a minute who I can't legally do that for. And I'm asking what I
- should do. It's part of I'm going to be a little less cagey.
- OK, yes, that is a good point. Maybe I'll make some notes as we go to some of the other reports, and
- we'll figure out who we maybe need to be cautious about. Yeah, good point. Thank you. OK, any other
- questions on this?
- have here. Oh, this is just a summary of that. A couple bullet points there. And then we've got the
- resources slide as per usual. OK, any other questions for the chair's report before we move on? Awesome.
- OK, then we'll move on to the report from Waste Management Working Group. Matt. I don't know. To start,
- I'm going to talk about something that I did two weeks ago with Sustainable IU.
- They're currently doing a pilot project around recycling at tailgates. And they're definitely looking
- for volunteers to help. They have put a lot of work in with them. And do you want to jump in? I mean,
- we're essentially trying to revamp and scale up our recycling waste diversion from the football games
- with all the hype around our new winning football team that we have.
- Yes, so we've deployed a lot more, essentially, resources for people in attendance to have options to
- recycle people that are off the ground, that sort of thing. We're handing out bags teaching people about
- the rules and things like that as we go around. And we have sort of waste ambassadors, I guess we would
- call it. But yeah, appreciate you and you guys helping. And they're looking for more volunteers.
- passion about that and would like to volunteer Dr. Quinn because it's very important that we get those
- habits set for all the tailgaters. Thank you for doing that. Otherwise, Garden Quest took the 150 pounds
- of food waste from the Taste of Bloomington, took that out to Will Detmer Community Gardens and put
- it in the pit. Will Detmer Community Gardens has also agreed to
- Master Rental, thank you Master Rental, is donating some equipment to dig four more pits so that there
- will be more than enough space to handle conference food waste, festival food waste, so on and so forth
- because we'd really like to pursue that as the default method for food waste management at public events
- around Bloomington and Monroe County. And then I attended the
- Climate Leadership Summit on Friday and the Circular Indiana Conference on Monday. And the Circular
- Indiana Conference was focused on extended producer responsibility. If you're not familiar with EPR,
- essentially the idea is that you make a widget and you have your planned obsolescence, but that's not
- the end of your responsibility. Your responsibility is when that widget is no longer being used, that
- you're responsible as a business for it. So my analogy is a cigarette, right?
- You smoke it, you have health issues, and you've got the cigarette butt. So the company that produced
- it should be responsible for those health issues and the cigarette butt, because all those costs are
- lopped onto society as a whole and a lot of municipalities. And with municipalities losing funding,
- especially here in Indiana, where can we find that we could use the EPR model to hold these companies
- accountable so that the profits that they're gaining are also being used to clean up their messes?
- so that municipalities aren't having to take that on. And so since I do food waste and waste reduction,
- I'm trying to think of how could we do that? And so could we partner with a Kroger? Now, they don't
- make the food, but they make a lot of money to where we could have some maybe a grant fund funded through
- them towards food waste or towards waste reduction. So just kind of trying to think outside of the box
- when it comes to extended producer responsibility and whatnot.
- And there are some really cool conferences coming up as well. So I encourage everybody to look. A lot
- of these conferences are free. And you can really network really well and get some new ideas. And I
- was not familiar with EPR until this conference. So that's it. I thought I'd just mention one thing.
- Sort of in a similar vein to that, I was just
- Looking up to see the current status in Indiana. I'm interested in the idea of right to repair walls.
- Some states have them on the books. Some don't. It doesn't look like Indiana does. But according to
- my search here, it says House Bill 1060 in 2025, previous bills, Senate 53 in 2024, sought to require
- manufacturers to provide owners independent repair shops with access to service documentation, parts,
- tools, consumer electronics, and agriculture equipment.
- Now, I don't know exactly how our work here could get anything changed at that level. But I feel like
- this is an area that has a lot of bipartisan buy-in and just general approach, especially for farm equipment
- and consumer electronics and everything. And I think it aligns with sustainability generally.
- I think the path to influencing state law is that we would write a resolution to the council or to the
- city government that they should write a resolution to the state in support of a particular law, I think
- is sort of the mechanical way that that would happen. I appreciate that.
- Yeah, and we could actually write a resolution for the council. Instead of saying, we want you to write
- a resolution, we could write one that they then adopt. I think the Environmental Commission just did
- this for the Bee City designation that they voted on. So just give us that. That reminded me of a couple
- of other things. The keynote speaker at the Circle of Indiana was a gentleman, Chad Pendraki, from Living
- Land and Waters. Absolutely incredible what he's done. His nonprofit that he started when he was in
- his early 20s.
- and he's probably in his 50s now, has pulled out 14 million pounds of trash from rivers all over the
- country. He lived on the Mississippi. And just two years ago, they started a new business because a
- lot of the plastic they were pulling out was not recyclable. So they're now making plastic pallets.
- And if you're familiar with wood pallets, I wasn't aware of this. Wood pallets typically have a life
- cycle of three uses. And there's issues with splinters, nails,
- destroying product, these plastic pallets will get used over 200 times. So it was really profound to
- see the impact that one man has had. And the lesson of consistent effort over a long period of time
- creates great results. And so with the things that we're trying to do here, sometimes it seems hard,
- but you just got to keep plugging away. So that's why I wanted to commend you
- once again, on what you're doing. And that's what we need. We need these small efforts to continue on
- throughout the year. So. I was just to, and the last thing I was going to mention too on that point,
- sort of, I think you mentioned earlier, towards the spring, we hosted our first fix-it clinic,
- we call it. So it's like you're trying to, you know, people can bring in items to try to repair, keep
- things in service.
- It went really well, and we sort of geared up to start doing these more often over at our office on
- 10th Street. And I'd be interested in any potential volunteers. I think it'd be a great thing if we
- could participate. Like, maybe do something like this for our Earth Day Bloomington or something, do
- like a fix-it-clinic type of repair thing. Something simple that we can teach learning experience plus
- you know, support socioeconomic and all forms of sustainability, really. So, yeah, I might be asking
- around for volunteers for that, too. Or if you want to come to the tailgate, need help for that, too.
- Oh, and the last thing is with the Living Land and Water, we have multiple companies here that are making
- pharmaceuticals and they use a lot of plastic. So, you know, maybe there's something out there where
- we could build a resolution that we say, we would like you to use your plastic instead of trying to
- recycle it for another product, and here is
- a company that's doing exactly that, that you can turn into a usable product that's going to get used
- for years to come, right? Because where is that plastic that they're using with these pharmaceutical
- companies? Where is it ending up going? So not really our purview, but it is sustainability. I thought
- I'd at least put it out there. Awesome. I had a question about the Bokashi, the working group grant
- thing. So is that, do you know when you're
- planning to have that? We're still looking for another festival. So don't reserve the money. I know
- it's not reserved, but. Is there anything? Yeah, well, OK, because we're going to spend it. Sorry. Is
- there any way it could go forward in some form without a festival component?
- I mean, right now, with the Waste Reduction District, there is a TRY program, where it's available to
- community members, where they can try the system. They have to come to a training at the community orchard
- or at Will Detmer, and they can try the process for four months. And they just have to buy the Bokashi
- brand, which is $4 for all that time. So yeah, so that would be the option to do it. But it's really
- about education and to get it out there. We already have the TRY program.
- the waste reduction district, which is for all Monroe County, which includes Bloomington residents.
- So yes, we could do that. What about the tailgates? Could you pilot it with the tailgates as the festival,
- or a tailgate as a festival, like hometown or something? Because it's related to IU, probably not. It
- has to be city related, and IU has its own money. But it's in city limits. Yeah. It impacts the city.
- So Quentin and I talked about that. There's one area specifically that is open.
- tailgate area that's open to fans. And I already talked to the food service company, the caterer, and
- they'd be open to it. But it wouldn't be that much food, and it would just be them dumping it into a
- bucket. So it's not the educational component. Because that's the point of it, is to get the community
- aware that this is the solution to residential food waste. It's not the large scale, but on a residential
- neighborhood scale, this is the solution, the best hands down.
- So yeah, so if there's any other ideas, like we were really waiting for, what's the music festival at
- the end of the month? Lotus. We want to talk to them, but they've got their hands full right now, so
- we were kind of waiting for that to end to talk to them so that we could set it up for next year or
- maybe the Strawberry Shortcake thing with Boys and Girls Club. So we just have our hands full of a lot
- of stuff right now, so we really haven't been reaching out to festivals. So if anybody wants to,
- has connections with festivals in Bloomington and Monroe County. Please, we would love to help. So pride
- would be great if we had just done the taste of Bloomington. We had our hands full with all that. Because
- you can write the grant this year to encumber the funds for the festival that happens in 2026.
- That's great. All festivals can happen in Ellitsville also, which is in the county. It's not in the
- city. It has to be in the city. It has to be in the city. Have you talked to the grand saloon team at all?
- No. That is an IU event, but it happens. It's early summer. Yeah, downtown. Yeah. And I'm close with
- that team, so I'd be happy to connect you with them. Sure, let's do it. Yeah, any help. We have so many
- pilots going on. We've got an urban farm and so much stuff. We can only take on. So I know you're at
- Taste of Wellington this last time. Is there more you can do there?
- Yeah, I mean, 150 pounds was not very much. We probably had somewhere between 750 and 1,000 people scrape
- their food in. And we had just under 30 National Heart Society students volunteering. We also had a
- food reclamation aspect that was separate from it. So yeah, we could definitely do more there. Write
- it as a year two pilot for Taste of Bloomington, right?
- You know, it worked this year. We want to increase the number. Because I also think that Taste
- of Bloomington, as like a festival I went, could have been organized better. Because I saw the book,
- it was like, it was chaos. It was, I don't think they worked. I don't think they thought so many people
- would come. So it may also be like a case that this wasn't an optimal test case for it because
- It was the festival returning after six years. The format was different. They weren't necessarily set
- up for the volume. I guess I'm saying you could probably apply that grant proposal. It's a year two.
- It worked a little. We think it could work better with more planning and more time to get the volunteers,
- get the equipment set up, get the word out about what that's going to be.
- What about the Farmer's Market? I'm already there with the Citizens Advisory Committee with the Waste
- Reduction District. Well, I'm trying to be there two weekends a month, two Saturdays a month, easier
- said than done, and I am promoting Bokashi there while trying to increase membership for the CAC.
- So yeah, that is an option. We've also talked about Food Truck Fridays. Yeah, I'm just thinking like
- higher traffic things that people come out. Right. Yeah. But that would need to be multiple.
- You need a lot. You need a big team. You need sustained volunteering as opposed to... Yeah. And we wouldn't
- be going to everyone to be like one a month or something like that.
- for a couple of months. So, yeah. I think if I were to get their first one of them every month is the
- Fair of the Arts. That would probably be the one I would go to. Saturday morning. Because it's the biggest.
- Yeah. Because they have art vendors and other things like that there. Yeah. I would at least think about
- rewriting it as a year two pilot for Taste of Bloomington because you have evidence that it was like...
- I mean, we did... It worked. Like people used it and people learned about Bookashi and I know at least
- one person who signed up afterwards because it was my parents.
- But yeah. And that drove people to the trainings that happened a few weeks ago when there's another
- training happening on Sunday at the community orchard at 2 o'clock. So everybody's interested in learning.
- And that's how you access the free Try It program as well. So OK, yeah, I'll propose that to the director
- of Garden Quest and say, let's propose this as a year two.
- And then I guess on that note the Waste Reduction District did approve a grant fund of $20,000 for projects
- like this and it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for what we're doing and the money asking from
- them. So there's going to be more money out there for projects like this. And they're still interested
- in doing the match? So the match, right, they already used those funds. Yeah, they funded it.
- So the match would have only been if BCAUSE also was able to do that on a larger scale. OK, I see. Yeah.
- That makes sense. OK. Sorry, that took more than five minutes. No, it's OK. My report will be short.
- Speaking of which, we're on to a report from Ad Hoc Committee, Sustainability Assessment Report. And
- I will just note, because I meant to say this in my report, that you're not crazy we were indeed
- meant to have a working group meeting between last meeting and this one, I got my weeks confused. And
- I thought it was the following week, but it was that current week. And I never sent out a notice. And
- at least one person showed up to the library for that meeting. So I apologize for that. And yes, I hope
- we will have one in this next month.
- Anyway, on that point, I'll pass it over to you, Tara. There was not a working group meeting. And also,
- I've been sick. So I will have something next month for us. Whatever I promised last month will be in
- October. Perfect. End of report. Well done. Thank you, Tara. OK, I want to report an update on the Cobb
- Bench working group grant.
- Project from Evan Nix. Yeah. So we were not able to line up at times so far to get the excavator out
- to Redbud. The goal would be to level part of the yard, use that dirt for the cot bench. The contractor
- Redbud has a friend who has an excavator, so that's going to make it affordable. Otherwise, the quota
- I got was $1,000 for the excavation alone.
- So that's one of the sticking points. And then also just needing around three weekends in a row to make
- sure that this gets completely finished. There's time for the coffee to dry between each layer and then
- the plaster. So we haven't been able to line that up yet. And it's been kind of challenging to get consistent
- contact from our partner. But I'm still reaching out and, you know,
- setting meetings and trying to keep it moving. And then have been continuing learning about construction.
- Just went to a workshop and built a roof. So I'm trying to get more of that on my hands. So you need
- less input from Danny Weddle and others who will be helping on the project. Additionally, they added
- some concrete planters out to the front.
- Zero and Sean and I have been in conversation about that. It's not gonna affect where the ventron dip
- going and it still fits. But there was like a little bit of a question there. We mapped it all out and
- it's fine. So yeah, I'm just gonna keep on reaching out and trying to get it moving and getting space
- coordinated. But that's where we're at right now. What is the volume of dirt that needs to be moved?
- that it needs an excavator. Or I guess my question is, could 10 people in shovels accomplish what an
- excavator could accomplish if we got some volunteers? Yeah, 10 people in shovels probably could. We
- need to go kind of deep to get below the frost line to the foundation. So that's part of it. And then
- there's also a hill. So it would be about maybe four feet of digging.
- 8 by 6 square of that. So I mean, it's definitely doable if we had the volunteers who are willing to
- dig that much. Do you know what type of soil it is? Is it a clay, which since we've had so much dry,
- no precipitation, make it very difficult?
- without an excavator to do that, as well as if there's any kind of blocks or stones that might be in
- there? Yeah, I'm not sure about blocks and stones. I haven't dug up a ton to see because we don't want
- to just leave a hole there. I guess we could fill it in. But yeah, I'm not really sure about the composition
- all the way down. To me, it seems like it's kind of backfill material.
- Yeah, I mean, we could find something to put down that is completely different. I was just thinking
- that it would be very difficult. Having dug out a pond by hand that was bigger than this myself, I know
- that there are some surprises that you may not anticipate. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and since it's
- in a public space, we'd want to keep that in mind, of course.
- But also having dug and gardened and laying patios and such in times of drought in compacted soil that
- may have gravel in it. That year, 2000, whatever, I even had a contractor that could not get some things
- dug out for some drainage pipe. So that was an extreme.
- year for drought. So just kind of throwing that out there. It may sound great that we could do it, but
- it may not be possible, depending upon the soil. This is maybe a question for Justin, or maybe that
- we need to direct to the city. So if I remember, it was within 12 months of encumbering the funds the
- project had to take place.
- a case where we would need to vote on a no-cost extension? Would they need to apply for a no-cost extension?
- Because we're going to get run into the ground as frozen. Yeah, that was going to be my question is,
- how much longer do we have to get this done? And then I think that would be a question for Sean is,
- OK, is there a way that we can extend the execution of those funds? Well, let me just throw out here,
- if it's 12 months from the end
- like the distribution of the funds that happened in June. So I thought it was 12 months from when it
- was approved. Yeah, we did. We'd have to ask. The soil can be kept where it's not frozen if you're putting
- on some straw bales. So about $7 per bale.
- now, depending upon where you're purchasing them. So that's a way to keep the soil from freezing. Cool.
- Well, we need to try anyways for the count, so we can just try it a little bit. Cool. So are you going
- to follow up on that question, Justin, of whether the clock starts at the approval by the commission
- or the distribution of funds from the city or the approval of funds from the city? Yeah. Cool. Thank you.
- Yeah, thank you. All right, any other questions for Evan before we move on? OK, great. Thanks, Evan.
- That brings us to a report from Council, Councilmember Rallo. Yes, thanks. Just a couple of things to
- say. First of all, Justin, thank you for coming to our meeting and giving the because report. It was
- very informative and appreciated. We just finished budget hearings.
- two-week process, essentially, where the administration and the department heads present to the council.
- And you can watch that on CATS. It took place over four evenings, over two weeks, four evenings. There
- were a lot of follow-up questions. I can't go into those in detail. But essentially, the context of
- the budget was, in response to SB 1,
- which was a bill that was passed by the state legislature to cut residential and business property taxes.
- And so it creates some challenges for local government. And the controller hasn't fully addressed those
- yet for the future, but the administration's exploring ways in which
- other revenue streams will be tapped. And I think there was a general consensus to try to minimize those
- streams, minimize a regressive manner of raising funds. And so maybe that's a discussion for because
- the take on because it's concerned about social equity. And we need to make sure that those who are
- least able to pay don't pay
- and exorbitant amount to fill the gap. So in the meantime, we've had to dip into reserves in order for
- this budget to go forward. One proposed cut in the budget was to only raise wages by 2% across the board,
- even though the Social Security Administration estimates COLA of 2.7%.
- So there was, I think, a near unanimity, or at least everyone who spoke on the council were in support
- of it. And the controller recognized that and said that could be accommodated. And then lastly, I just
- wanted to bring up a subject that I brought up repeatedly during the budget, and that is a term called
- concurrency, which is whether
- government, whether we provide levels of service in the various functions of government with this pace
- of growth. That could be both infrastructure, so things like roads and stormwater and fire stations
- and so forth. Or it could be services, public safety, sanitation, city department staff, and so forth.
- So generally, cities often don't keep up.
- And what happens is they ironically propose more growth in order to pay for future needs. And I used
- to detect that this is what's happening with our municipal government, our municipal budgets. And it
- often takes the form of debt, which is generally selling bonds, which requires paying interest on those.
- So a case in point.
- It is the 21% increase in the water fees that was just approved by the utility service board, partly
- for maintenance, but part of it to finance a $43 million public work service center down at Winston
- Thomas. So I just wanted to bring this to your attention because cities are expensive to run, but costs
- are usually not paid upfront.
- there are hidden costs of growth. And they are charged to the public later on. So the public, in effect,
- subsidizes growth. And the question should be, well, what kind of growth do you want? And is it appropriate?
- Or are the benefits being shared by everyone? So those are questions I'd like to discuss maybe sometime
- in the future with because you're in a unique situation position to, I think,
- advice on that for the council and the administration. So that's all I have today. Thanks. Thank you
- so much. Any questions for Councilmember Rau? I do have one. I'd love to discuss that in the future.
- But also in regards to the COLA and the 2% increase or the 2.7% increase, I remember Councilmember Stossberg
- had in one of the meetings explained how when cost of living increases are by percentage, that it extends
- those at the top getting more compared to those at the bottom. And seeing that it increases, say, a
- wealth gap from top to bottom. And I'm sorry, I can't remember the professor's name.
- to TED Talk and talked about how whenever there is a certain percentage of this growth, from the haves
- to the have-nots, that we see an increase in crime, violent crime, maternal, babies are dying, and things
- like this. I mean, it affects everybody. I wasn't sure if that was something since Senator Stossberg had
- mentioned that before, if that was brought up in the meeting since I wasn't able to attend. That's an
- excellent point. It wasn't brought up, and it should be discussed because I agree with it. So the idea
- is that people with greater incomes, a certain percent increase, they already are in a position of having
- greater discretionary income
- for spending on things that are essentials. And so, and also I think a discussion has to be made about
- whether the Social Security Administration really gives the full costs of things like the effects of
- inflation and so forth on working families. So no, that wasn't brought up at this meeting, but I think
- it's another great discussion for the Council
- because to engage in and explore and advise us. What's the timeline from here for if BCOS was going
- to present a resolution suggesting a graduated percentage scale or a flat fee, flat amount or something?
- Would the October business meeting be too late for that to be in effect? Well, I think the final budget
- is October 8. So there isn't much time.
- I think that's the date of our meeting. Oh, it's our next business meeting is after that date. Yeah.
- So it's a little late for this body to advise maybe on that topic. I see that you've got a resolution
- regarding the urban forestry budget.
- that is still very timely for the budget. But it could be sent to us for consideration later on, even
- though this budget is probably going to be moving forward as it is. I think the council still wants
- to discuss this topic and explore it. Would it be too late for council to do anything
- to modify that. I know for nonprofits, we would have kind of an emergency session if we found something
- that was really important. I don't know if that is something the commission could do since our meeting
- happens before. I think this is a very, very important topic right now for us to take on, to ensure
- that our community, especially for the government sets
- a lot of pace, and we look at that, not just IU, but the city government, if that's something other
- commissioners would be willing to meet to kind of draft a resolution or something like that. Because
- I'd be willing to do that. Do our bylaws specify? We can call special meetings. I think that this topic,
- there's a lot of information we have to go through.
- Because I think about sustainability most of the time. I think about the idea of resource efficiency,
- because it kind of gets at everything. And I've seen numerous occasions where you can reduce costs,
- improve sustainability, improve safety, and improve the socioeconomic situation and save money at the
- same time. It doesn't have to be one or the other. But the key, generally, is to challenge assumptions
- So look at where our costs are coming from and figure out what we can do. But yeah, these are the topics
- I like the most. I think it may be something that would be worthwhile for the commission to take on
- to still make a resolution to recommend. I mean, they're going to have a budget cycle every year. Like,
- we might not be able to change. But I think to Quinton's point is that it's something we don't want
- to rush and do wrong.
- But I would still, I mean, as an individual commissioner, I would still be open to meeting special if
- we need to. Yeah, I would too. Especially, you know, I work in my day job as someone who works with
- low income families. And I don't know if everyone in this room is familiar or not with the MIT living
- wage calculator, but they calculate by county for every state in the country as to what a livable wage
- is based on household members. So one adult working, two adults working, how many children are in the
- household,
- And so if you're thinking your typical family in Bloomington is a two adults working, two children households
- of four, living wages 27, 24 an hour, I don't know a single family who has a working parent who's making
- that much money per hour, if they even have two working adults, which for many low income families is
- not the reality. So there's a lot to be said about the economic sustainability of Bloomington for families.
- Does Bloomington calculate the self-sufficiency
- Is that the same as the self-sustainability, self-sufficiency index? I think they're separate, but I
- think it uses similar data. OK. Yeah. The self-sufficiency index is basically the index that is the
- amount of money that a household with a particular configuration of adults and children would need in
- order to meet basic needs without relying on government assessments or public services, the self-sufficiency
- index, which is I think it's, yeah.
- And it's often much higher than the poverty level. It breaks it down by cost. There's food, child care,
- medical, housing, transportation. You can see all the different categories for all of the different
- household sizes. So you can see how the costs really change if you have one adult working, two adults
- working, things like that. It might be a good use of word. It's a good reference point, yeah. I was
- saying the working session that we were going to have, if we wanted to call it as a meeting, we think
- we would have quorum.
- Yeah. Dave, I'm curious, how realistic do you think it is that if we were able to call a special session
- that we would be able to influence the budget so close to voting time? To tell you the truth, I think
- it's fairly unlikely. I think there was point made that budgets, well, wage structures in the city tend
- to be kind of complicated process.
- And it would have to be vetted and analyzed. And I should say that there was a substantial wage increase
- last year. This administration is made up for the past administration not raising wages at the cost
- of inflation.
- So that was a pretty extensive analysis that was done by a consultant and then was implemented last
- year. So right now, I mean, so, but ironically, the administration when they presented the budget said,
- everyone got a pretty hefty increase last year. So we think we can just do with only 2%. And I think
- that was seen as the wrong way to go because
- We don't want to have to be in a position of trying to catch up again. But I'm very much sympathical
- with the view that large organizations like government, they set the wage floor for a community. And
- it's important that employees can pay a living wage. And we do have a living wage ordinance, but that
- people are able to afford housing and all of the needs that they have in order to live in the city.
- And that's becoming more and more difficult for people. So I think it's a really great topic. And I
- would really appreciate this commission investigating it. I don't think it's going to be realistically
- implemented this time. OK. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah.
- I was hopeful that maybe we would be able to influence, but if not, maybe we can really put some energy
- into a well thought out and really detailed argument for next year. Could we simply write something
- that's not a resolution, but a concern from BCOS that about COLA and extending this like council member
- Stossberg has mentioned
- Because I really didn't understand this until she, once a math teacher, explained how this worked. And
- then it clicked in with other knowledge that I had that I, the spirit level is the book with extensive
- research on how this affects societies. I think anything, any official statement that we would put out,
- it would have to go through a vote, just like a resolution would.
- Dave, can I ask really quickly, the cost of living ordinance, is that still at $15 an hour, or has it
- gone up since it was originally passed? It's gone up. It has. But I'm sorry, I don't know the wage per
- hour. I know for a single adult with no children, living wage is currently around $20 an hour. Is that
- about accurate, or do you think it's probably lower than that? I think it's lower in the city. It does
- include part-time workers, though.
- insist on that a couple of years ago so that everybody was being paid what was evaluated as a living
- wage at the time. And there was a metric for it. And I'm sorry, I just don't know that offhand. But
- we didn't just pull the number out of the air. There was research involved in that. But it should be
- revisited, definitely. OK.
- Great. Well, I guess I'll just say, so I'm hearing a sort of general consensus that it might be better
- to focus on next year's budgets for some of this stuff. But just when it comes to time-sensitive things
- like this, either now or in the future, if you've got something that you think we should all convene
- on, let me know. Shoot me an email. Wait till you have something concrete, and then I can send out
- a poll to everybody, and if enough people are happy to meet off cycle to do that, then I'll call a special
- meeting for that. I think, yeah, it sounds like for this particular topic, it's maybe a long shot to
- be able to really influence anything. But. I'd love to make us do another voice vote for basic business,
- but can I move that we swap seven and eight in the agenda just
- so that we can get through voting. Yes, of course. Because then we can get it before the budget. Yes,
- yes. I was thinking the same thing. Sorry, Dave, did you have something else on that topic before I
- move on? I saw you come off mute. I saw you come off mute. I saw you come off mute, so I didn't know
- if I had cut you off. Oh, I was just going to say that there are a lot of progressive cities, and I'm
- sure they've visited this topic of wages. And there's probably some good, you know,
- case histories and best practices and things like that that could be used as a reference for what to
- do. So that's all. Thanks. Good. Well, thank you very much. There is a motion to proceed to the resolution
- 2025-02. Next? Is that the proposal? Yeah. OK. Is there a second? Is that second?
- OK, there's a second. All right, we'll do the roll call vote. And real quick, before we proceed to that,
- I just want to double check. Yeah, so we were talking before about the rules for virtual meetings. And
- I think we've only got one person on the line who, well, no, actually we don't.
- Oh, yeah, we do. So we've got one person on the line who this would be a third virtual meeting. So that's
- Evan. So we'll just, I guess, in the interest of. Yeah, right. OK. OK, so I'll skip over your name for
- this, Evan. But apologies for that. OK, great. So this is for the motion to amend the agenda. Tara. Yes. Yes.
- Justin, yes. Matt? Yes. Yes. Zero is not here. John? Yes. Yes. Councilmember Borrello? Yes. Yes. Alex?
- Yes. Yes. Jamie? Yes. Yes. Annaliese? Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. And Shengwei? Yes.
- Yes, OK. The yeses have it. So we will now proceed to agenda item 8a, resolution 2025-02 regarding urban
- forestry budget. So I'll pass it to you, Tara. Do you want me to put up the supporting materials that
- you had sent around? Yeah, just so you could. Most of them are just links so that other commissioners
- could access them. But there were a couple of questions that came up last week around the supporting
- documentation and supporting research for this.
- as well as some suggestions for amendments. So I have a proposed amendment that I'll share at this also.
- I pulled up the Bloomington Urban Forestry Plan, which the amendment that I'm going to propose, we had
- a few different amendments that it turns out are all covered in what Bloomington's Urban Forestry Plan
- says the goal of their Urban Forestry Department is. So my recommendation for an amendment to this is
- to say, whereas the city of Bloomington
- says this already and just use the text of their documentation, because they address all the things
- that we talked about, like human health, equity, healthier neighborhoods, things like that. So it's
- already part of city policy that they maintain the urban canopy to those benefits. So to minimize the
- number of amendments, but also to point out that this is already
- language that the city has adopted, and this is already an area of intended investment from the city.
- We've pulled together a couple of additional resources. One is a really interesting case study on municipal
- care practices for trees and the impact of basically
- insufficiently funding or staffing your urban forestry departments results in more reactive tree care
- policies and more incidents of like a limb crushed a car. We have to cut this tree down because it's
- so sick. Whereas more funding and staffing and more full-time staffing, less reliance on contract work.
- meant more proactive tree care management could take place, including planting beyond replacement planting,
- planting full stock and making sure that you can, when a tree dies, replace it, but also put a second
- one somewhere else in a vacant spot, and also make sure that the trees are all thriving.
- There's also a literature review included in there about the cost of tree maintenance, but also on the
- cost of not maintaining the financial costs. Kind of the big takeaway from that literature review is
- a lot of the research focuses on this is how much it costs to maintain trees in a municipality. And
- there is some research on the sort of opportunity cost or
- future cost of lack of tree care, but it's insufficient. And so a lot of municipalities are making their
- decisions based on the absolute dollars of what it costs today to what Dave was saying earlier, failing
- to consider what are the long-term costs and what are we offsetting that we're going to have to pay
- for in a year, in five years, in 20 years. So those are those resources. And then I've also just put
- in the figure that we've looked at before.
- which is the inflation adjusted budget for urban forestry, which is that red line, which has when we
- adjust using the CPI calculator for the approved budget dollars for the urban forestry department, that
- that has decreased over the last six years, while the number of trees that the urban forestry department
- is responsible for has increased dramatically. So that's just sort of to answer some of those questions
- that came up during the first reading.
- and also the basis for the amendment that I'm going to make a motion that we add to the resolution as
- currently written. And so just a reminder, the resolution is talking about the benefits of the urban
- canopy, the decrease in the real dollars funding for this department, the increase in the responsibilities
- of the department, the financial and environmental impact or benefit
- our canopy, and the importance of tree health in mitigating long-term issues. I have a question. Now
- that it seems that tornado alley has moved and we're now in it, with these massive storms, were you
- able to find any information of how much cost the city had laid out for some of these
- massive storms? For those instances? Yes, because the cost of hiring contractors, like you said, is
- going to be a lot more than that. So I wondered if there was a cost comparison of how that has increased,
- which would then offset, make it a convincing argument for this amount to be approved. Yeah, I mean,
- that's a good question. We're not actually proposing a specific dollar amount so much as we're proposing that they
- Effectively, the dollar amount has not changed. And so the city has continued to approve roughly the
- same amount, but the sort of value of that. And so we're not proposing a specific dollar amount so much
- as higher than now. And also that it should continue to think about, I think we're sort of side long
- saying what Dave was saying earlier, which is that you can't
- If you cut today, because it's going to save you some money today, you may be paying more later. And
- the cost could be much greater. Yeah. The implications could be much worse. So real quick before we
- continue the conversation, can I get a motion in a second to adopt this? And then that will bring us
- to discussion. Oh, yeah. Amendments can be brought forward, and more discussion can be had.
- OK, so there's a motion to adopt. The motion is to adopt the resolution. To adopt a resolution as submitted
- here. OK, perfect. So now we're in discussion. Carry on. Just one question I had was, I understand a
- lot of times it's the hardest thing to try to keep in place is the older trees, but they provide the
- most sort of benefits.
- Is there anything that kind of, in the existing sort of practices, are they prioritizing the older trees,
- or is that something that should be mentioned in this? Do we know? I think that in this case, in this
- resolution, what we're really saying is that this department, in order to make those kinds of decisions,
- needs to be adequately resourced. And that whether for that department, that means having more
- arborists and foresters on staff, or whether it means full-time crews, or whatever. What that means
- in practice, I think, is more the purview of that department. But to your point that, yeah, if you don't
- have enough resources, you're going to have to focus on, you're going to have to make decisions that
- focus on imminent issues rather than investing in the long-term health of.
- Yeah. And I think the other piece of this is that there are other ways that the city may ad hoc support
- the canopy. But those are, and this is in that case study, is that those one-time investment don't promote
- those long-term practices.
- If you get a big grant or something to help you deal with a bunch of problems, that's great. But it
- doesn't contribute to your ability to plan and be proactive in the long term, which is true of pretty
- much everything. So did you have specific amendment text that you wanted to?
- Text is amended. I didn't write it on here. I don't know the best way to present it, but is to say,
- is to add, whereas the city's urban forestry plan says, and then use that piece of text that I put in
- the earlier part of the packet. Because that addresses kind of all of the areas that we felt that the
- commission felt was missing when we talked last week about the why of this. And so that's the.
- The city of Bloomington has a legal and moral obligation to maintain healthy and safe trees on municipal
- land and public streets. The urban forestry plan is a reasonable and, boy, I should put my glasses on,
- responsible plan to make the city and its neighborhoods healthier for humans, aesthetically pleasing,
- and reduce tree-related problems, which were the things that the commission talked about last week,
- is that it's a health benefit. It's a societal benefit. It's also a safety issue.
- Yeah, so that's my, I guess, motion to amend, yeah, is that we add whereas. The Bloomington Urban Forestry
- Plan states and then quote that, yeah. States quote that text, okay. God. Okay, that would be the final
- whereas? Yes. Okay. Is there a second? Seconded. Okay, perfect. Is there any questions or discussion
- about the amendment?
- OK, then we'll move on to a vote. So this is just for the amendment to the broader resolution, and we'll
- come back to the full resolution as amended. OK, Tara. Yes. Yes. Justin, yes. Matt. Yes. Yes. John.
- Yes. Yes. Councilmember Rallo. Yes. Yes. Alex. No, I'm sorry. Quintin. Yes. I'll miss you on the line.
- If maybe. I apologize. That was my bad. OK, Alex was a yes, I believe. I heard. Jamie? Yes. Yes. Annalise?
- Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. Jane? Yes. Yes. OK, perfect. The resolution is amended. And so now we're
- back to the discussion on the resolution as amended.
- further discussion, and also noting that we're about 15 minutes away from the end of the meeting. Thanks.
- Go ahead, Alex. So kind of two-part related question things. First is, in 2018, was there potentially
- a large capital purchase that made them more efficient at taking care of the same number of trees with
- less funding for anything like that?
- It does need to increase over time, but maybe they can do more with less than they could at that time.
- And then the other question would be like, is 2018 the sensible year to look back at kind of earmarking
- this towards raising it back up to that level from that? Yeah, I don't know the answer to your first
- question. I used 2018 because the most recent data, the data that was available
- They said there were 12,000 trees, which also is what was used for the forestry plan and stuff,
- was from 2019. So it was from sort of that same era. And that was the data that we were looking at for
- the, that's when the climate action plan uses. The climate action plan for the city uses 2018 as their
- emissions baseline. So I use 2018 as the budgetary baseline as well.
- And they have, yeah, so there were 12,000 inventory trees in 2019. As of over the summer, there are
- about 24,000 now. So it's doubled in size in terms of the number of trees they're responsible for. Just
- one thought. And I don't know. I'm not a tree expert, but I know people
- a little bit, but it's my understanding that the most expensive thing you can do with a tree is cut
- it down. So I mean, theoretically speaking, could they be working on a lesser budget because they're
- not cutting as many down? I'm just trying to think. I wouldn't want to necessarily enable more tree
- cutting or that sort of thing. But yeah, it'd be interesting to talk to the people on the tree.
- I don't know how that would work. I think I remember you mentioning at some point, Tara, that there
- was like one or two people who kind of were. I did communicate a little bit with the urban forester,
- not about budget stuff, just about the data. It's one person. It's one guy. It's a guy. It's one person.
- And there are crews and stuff that are, some are maybe city employees and some may be contractors. But
- it's a person.
- And I didn't want to reach out to a city employee and be like, do you want more money for your department?
- I didn't want to put them in that kind of position. But I don't know the answer to how they've used
- the money. I'm more running off of the math of that it's twice as much physical number of places to get to.
- with the same. Just the in-between alone is going to take a lot more time. Yeah. The tracking of the
- tree health and all that. I mean, I generally agree. I'm just a devil's advocate trying to think of
- it. I appreciate it. And Mark mentioned all of the calorie pairs that the city wants to take care of.
- That's a good point. Yeah, there is actually a lot of remove and replace projects going on in the city.
- Dave has his hand up, too.
- I just wanted to echo what was just said but say that there were some climate related bonds that were
- passed in 2022 trails and plantings and so forth and one of them one of the purchases was 300 trees
- a year for planting for sequestration of carbon
- And yeah, there's this ongoing program. And I spoke to Tim Street during the budget process, who's director
- of Parks and Rec, who does the tree replacement. And there are whole neighborhoods filled with calorie
- payers. And they're going through sequentially taking them out and replacing them. So this is really,
- I think, well needed. It hasn't impacted that particular project yet. But I can see in the future if
- cuts continue on that trajectory.
- It might affect that program, and it's really important. They're going through neighborhoods to deal
- with the municipal calorie press. Because I know there are also private homes, but those are not funded
- through that urban forestry department. Those are the ones that are in the right of way. Yeah, OK. Might
- that be, not that I know what the other priorities might be, but might that be something we can mention
- there is that
- We'd also ask that they prioritize expediting the removal of the invasive species or something. Yeah,
- maybe a whereas amendment mentioning the cost associated with the removal and replacement of invasive
- species. Yeah. Worthwhile to add is another whereas cost. We'll need to go through and vote for that.
- I would be much more supportive, I think, of the resolution, thinking about it in that vein, I guess.
- But not that I don't support it now, but I think it's a great idea to add that on. Motion to amend?
- We got to come up with a text. Oh. No, no, I mean, that's fine. He's right. I'm ready. I would actually
- just like it more general. I know they've, for several years now, been going around doing a calorie
- repair removal.
- I just, it feels a bit like micromanaging. They may have moved on from that and have other projects
- coming. They might be looking at more like, you know, climate migration, playing black gum and the like.
- It doesn't, to me, feel necessary. It feels like a bit of just telling them not to do their job. I don't
- know that it does either. It's just, I was just thinking about it as a way to sort of signify the meaning
- behind it. We're aware that they have,
- David. Well, just to say, I actually think it's a really good idea. I think that the whereas clause
- that says something like removing and replacing invasives such as caliber pairs should continue. Because
- we're a point of propagation for these things.
- If you go into the county, I mean, they're just spreading them on farms everywhere because they're all
- coming from neighborhoods dispersed by birds from Bloomington. So anyway, I just want to put it in my
- two cents that I think it's kind of a good idea to continue this program until they're removed. Unless
- there's some reason to think they're going to stop the program they've been doing for several years,
- it seems to me like just
- Wouldn't that be covered under well-being of the community? Yeah. They're aware of the problem with
- calorie pairs. They haven't been working to remove them. So us saying, hey, you should remove calorie
- pairs. And they're like, yeah, we are. Yeah, we know. Well, I don't think we're saying you should remove
- calorie pair. I think the whereas statement is, if you want to continue removing calorie pair, you're
- going to need to spend money to do it. Because the therefore is give this department more money. And
- so we're saying that the whereas is this ongoing priority of the city
- is another reason to do it. It is. It's significant. But I think it's potentially covered under that
- that's yet. But it's not specifically mentioned. I wouldn't just say calorie pair, but removal of invasive
- plant species. There's a number of invasive plant species in the city besides calorie pair.
- But in this case, I mean, maybe it should be prioritized. I'm almost thinking, to your point,
- leave it up. They know what they need to do. We can mention it as an example, just to say, this could
- be something, but you guys know what you need to do. There's something else that, you know. Can I move?
- Can I make a motion for an amendment? Yeah, of course. OK.
- Steve has his hand raised again. Go ahead, while I write. Oh, just to say that, I mean, this is not
- a slate on people's, you know, the city and their intentions. But when push comes to shove, sometimes
- good programs just get starved. And so regarding invasive species, this is a different department than
- the planning department.
- is supposed to be the one that enforces, you know, the planting codes. These are conditions of approval
- for various developments that they were to put in native species, and oftentimes it's not followed up
- on. And so what you end up with are developments that then have not only non-natives, but non-native
- invasives. And this is an interest of mine, and I talked to MC Rotmeier about this,
- This needs attention because it's part of our code and it was condition of approval for those developments
- and they need to follow the planning scheme plan. But the problem is that we need people to enforce
- it. And so when push comes to shove, you end up with budget cuts and you end up removing somebody whose
- job it was to do that. So anyway, this is how it comes about that well-intentioned things might taper
- off and get cut.
- I wonder if that's making a recommendation about the enforcement of invasive planting as a separate
- resolution, if it's a separate department that's invested in it. Especially if it's planting in general,
- not tree-specific. So in the interest of time, I'm not going to make a motion, because then we also
- have to have a voice vote to lengthen the meeting. Which we'll have to do anyway. But I think to the
- point, if somebody else wants to move,
- To change the text, that's fine, but I'll pause. Well, maybe I'll give people a moment to think about
- that. I'll make a motion to extend the meeting time. I have a hard out at 7.45. OK. So that means we'll
- have to end it. OK. We're looking at it here. Oh, OK. All right, so to 7.45 or sooner if we get through
- the other two agenda items. Is there a second? Second. OK, perfect. We'll go call the roll. Dara? Yes.
- Yes. Justin, yes. Matt? Yes. Yes. John? Fine. If you all want to stay, I need to leave at 730. So I
- can vote yes, but then. Sure. I don't want to vote so yes. OK. Coram was impacted, right? Coram should
- be fine. Yeah. Councilmember Rallo? Yes. Yes. Quintin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Yes. Yes. Jamie? Yes. Yes. Annaliese?
- Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. OK. We're extended until 7.45 at the latest. All right. So if anyone wants to make a motion
- to offer up an amendment, please feel free. Or we could just go to the vote. Hey, Justin, can I just
- ask you to clarify? So the idea was that,
- a later resolution regarding invasive species would be considered. Is that what you're proposing? Yeah.
- I can work on, since I've already started this, some of this research. But if anybody else wants to
- do it also, go ahead. I'll jump in and help you with that, because I have experience with that, too.
- Wonderful. Excellent. Alex has a question.
- Okay, so are you making that motion?
- Motion to adopt that language. Second. There's a second. Perfect. OK, any discussion on that?
- I like it. Great job, Alex. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to a vote then for the amendment.
- So let's, real quick before we do that, let me just ask, where would that whereas clause go? Are we
- tacking that one on as the last one or inserting it somewhere else in the middle? I'll just put it,
- I think, at the end, yeah.
- OK. OK. So this would appear at the end, after the other whereas clause that we added. OK. Perfect.
- Let's do the vote. Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin, yes. Matt? Yes. Yes. John? Oh, John just stepped
- out. Councilmember Rollins? Yes. Yes. Quentin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Yes. Yes. Jamie? Yes. Yes. Annaliese?
- Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. Cheng-Wai? Yes.
- Yes, OK, the amendment is adopted. So now we're back on to the resolution itself with the two amendments.
- Motion? Do I need to make a motion to move this? I know we already moved. Are you asking to proceed
- to the vote? Or is that? Yeah. Oh, right, because we moved to adopt. And then in discussion, we did
- the amendment.
- So we're back to discussion. Alex has his hand up. Is that still? Do you have something additional?
- No. OK. Perfect. All right. I think we can move on to the vote then. I'm not hearing anything further.
- Do you need to second? I second. Oh, no. We already did. All right. So this is to adopt the resolution
- with the two amendments that we've passed so far. Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin, yes. Matt? Yes.
- Yes. John is gone. Council Member Rallo? Yes. Yes. Quintin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Yes. Yes. Jamie? Yes. Yes.
- Annaliese? Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. And Shenglai? Yes. Yes. OK. Perfect. Alex, it looks like you put
- in the chat the exact words. Oh, the text? OK. The language. Yeah. Good. Perfect. OK.
- And I realize I haven't been announcing these votes, but it's 10 yeses, zero nos, and zero abstentions.
- So the motion passes, and the resolution is adopted. Who should we send this to? City Council, obviously,
- but is there anybody else? Oh, good question. Well, send it to the department. Urban Forestry Department.
- Yeah. But probably the mayor's office as well, because they're involved in the budget process. I mean,
- council votes, but there can be some.
- Reconciliation, I think, after that vote, too. I will make the adjustments, and then I send the final
- to you. Yeah, you can send the word doc or whatever to me. Perfect. OK, great. Well, thank you very
- much. That brings us back to agenda item seven. So we've got a couple of things here, and it is
- currently 733. So first is this idea of sustainability forms. So I'll just pass it to you, Shengwei,
- to maybe just explain what you're thinking to the group. Thanks, everyone. I will be quick. Yeah, so
- regarding the forms,
- Because I said there are still some people from the local people because I talked to some local people.
- They still don't know what was the meaning of sustainable things. So I discussed this with Justin before.
- I think maybe we can invite some of the people who practice in the subject of sustainability to come
- here to share their works. Also, we can do some forum to invite different types of people, like professors,
- non-profit people and also the government or the lawyers because I come from a more school floor so
- maybe I already talked to some of my friends they agree with me they can come here to share their work
- for example the conservation law center the director in Bloomington they are doing some like they provide
- some legal aid for some non-profit
- Yeah, so I think I can invite them to come here to share that kind of thing. Also, I noticed that whenever
- you guys are saying something in your project, there's a need for the volunteers. So I think we need
- a platform, especially some public platform, to let the people follow us. Because so far, we don't have
- any public platform, like social media or LinkedIn. Because I watched some of the, I attended some conference
- before. There's some other,
- office of sustainability, they are involved in that conference. They have their social media, like LinkedIn,
- so they will post their project. And then, so some people, they are interested in that kind of thing,
- they will follow the account. Also, if we post them, or we have needs for the volunteer, people will
- fill in the form if they post on their social media. So I think I can start to invite some of my personal
- contacts come here to share.
- their opinion, maybe the topic will be very interesting to the local people. So there will be more and
- more people engaging in our bigger events. And then we create some platform to let the people follow
- us. Also post our work, for example, your waste management project, or I use sustainable things. So
- I think that's my proposal. So I welcome you guys' comments.
- I think there's two things there like you're proposing like a like a speaker series or like some talks
- that we would host And then the like our kind of outreach we just for context because I think not everybody
- Well, I know not everybody was here about a year ago We had a conversation about social media and like
- a social media presence for because specifically And kind of the answer we got from the city was no
- We can submit things to be
- put on the city's social media if we want. But we would submit them to Sean, and it's sort of at her
- discretion if she has capacity to go through the approval process and stuff for them. So I don't think
- it's a bad idea, but it's an uphill idea. Because the city also has some very specific guidelines about
- posting and stuff like that as the city. But yeah. So you can make a fake because.
- This is the not official. It's from me. It's from me. But in terms of a speaker series, I think some
- of the things we'd have to work out is like, where are we going to have it? And how do we get the word
- out? And what else do we need to know in terms of logistics for hosting an event? And this is a working group.
- grant, like we would use working group funds, right? Yeah. I was going to say to you, outside of having
- a social media presence, I do think there's a lot of value in coalition building and having community
- partners that are invested in the same goals as BCOS, both in informing the members of the group, but
- also just generally supporting the work and ensuring that things are being
- done at all various levels of city government, both within the city and outside of the city. So I think
- that there's a lot of value in having those people on our team and knowing who they are and those things.
- So there's some amount of benefit to the commission for that, too, in being connected. That was one
- of the priorities that the commission also, in our January meeting that we talked about, was trying
- to focus less on doing the work of fixing everything ourselves and more in
- partnering and connecting the organizations that are already engaged in this. Ideally, some people are
- already doing some of that work. Right. We don't have to reinvent the wheel for everything. There are
- people. So I think to that point, there's a lot of organizations that we could partner with and say,
- hey, can we host this at your place, at the community orchard, or whatever. I was just going to mention
- a couple of thoughts on that. So another avenue, potentially, is
- My office, from time to time, will host sort of a career panel. So people at different levels in their
- career or different areas within sustainability, if we can get a group that makes sense, that could
- be something that we could host at IU. It wouldn't have to be only IU people. It could be open to the
- public and everything like that. And I also want to mention sort of alongside of similar vein is sort
- of thinking about
- I feel like it would be helpful if we could just get a glimpse of all the different departments and
- then get a 10-minute presentation. Here's what we're doing in public works and the tree management and
- all the different areas. I think that might help us get it. Well, you're asking for an open house. Yes.
- If there was a way to do that efficiently, and we could get a little bit better understanding of what
- they're doing, where they're pushing, then where they're at.
- We might be able to. That would be for our benefit, right? Yeah, for our benefit. It'd be something
- different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I thought about it when you mentioned it. Yeah. So the details
- that we would need to work out if this was something that we were going to pursue would be sort of like
- how many, where, and then what are the associated costs and the associated labor of getting it done.
- Yeah. So if anyone wants to work with them,
- on it and reach out. And I think we just need a couple people to kind of like hash out the details and
- try to get it going. Awesome. OK. I'm also happy to help with the actual construction of the grant.
- I write a lot of grants. Perfect. Well, thank you very much. Food Resilience Strategy. Jamie, we only
- have like less than five minutes, I think. So I wonder, I mean, we sent out the document to everybody.
- Um, is there anything we could dedicate more time to this for the next meeting to have more of a discussion,
- but is there anything you want commissioners to be looking at specifically between now and then that
- you want to draw their attention to or grants? Um, we already from pulled from this, uh, that's going
- to city council is the chicken ordinance. I know it's not exactly in here, but this was modified. Um,
- you know, after speaking, um,
- to animal care and control. It'd be great to have some feedback on this, see if there's any, what the
- thoughts are. Just kind of wanted to note that, like on NPR this morning, there was also brought up
- Trump kind of panning the UN's sustainability goals, and that's some of what's been brought into this.
- I think that's something to keep in mind that maybe we
- You never know what's going to go on at the federal level and international level. So I've used the
- word resilience. So I'm going to put out the word resilience out there just to keep in mind. I also
- had just kind of in general wrote a letter to the editor on eight that was published on 829 that I did
- research on the beginnings of the Bloomington community farmers market.
- I had to go microfish and all of this. I've been looking for this for over a year. This is going to
- be somewhat related to this because there is an assumption that residents could sell what was grown
- on their own properties. And that was verified by what I found, which was that the mayor at the time,
- I believe it was Frank McCloskey, had
- And it was during the 1970s. There's oil embargo. Things were in a deep recession. And so it was both
- named community market and farmers market at that time. And so for those who didn't read that or have
- the paywall for the HT, that's something good to know because I know that's come up with planning. And
- those are things that had come through before that we voted on.
- Uh, just kind of laying that as a background to kind of keep in mind for the next time we discuss this.
- So would it be helpful to send out a, um, kind of like we did for, I forget what it was, but I sent
- around sort of like a spreadsheet that people could put comments into. Would that be helpful? And then
- people can kind of read it in between now and the next meeting. Cause it is a little bit longer, so
- you have to sit down with it for a bit. And, uh,
- And then we can bring all those comments to the next meeting and then have a broader discussion. I love
- that idea. We do have, if you go to the page 22, grant funds and opportunities to create local resilient
- food system. I have a select list. We've already missed one deadline of August 15th, if that was something
- we were wanting to do. The next one is October 10th. It's the National Institute of Food.
- It's administered by the USDA Community Food Project, and that's for food hubs, education, infrastructure,
- and our local. I talked to Bobby Booze at the Farm Stop in Kirkwood. They have tried to apply for that
- in the past, and they made again this year. But then the following month in November is a Resilient
- Food System Infrastructure Grant.
- That's for aggregation, storage, and local processing. So you'll see the ones that I put on here. If
- we're looking at the entire document of creating a local resilient food system, each one of those could
- be used in some way, whether that's helping to purchase refrigerators or whatnot. There's various things
- in the infrastructure that we would need.
- So I'll just kind of pull that out there. I know we're one minute to go. Yeah, 30 seconds. So yeah,
- I'll send out a comment spreadsheet matrix that people can just fill out and then send to me. And then
- I'll collate all of them and bring it to the next meeting. And I will also include that strategy document
- into the packet. And I'll send out a revised packet, because I included it in the email, but I didn't
- actually put it into this document. So perfect. And that brings us to five seconds left until the end
- of the meeting. So thank you, everybody. We stand adjourned at 7.45 PM.