- I'll call this meeting of the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability to order at 6, 07 p.m. And we'll
- go through the roll call. Okay, Tara Dunnerdale. Here. Here, Justin Vassel, I'm here, Matt Austin. Present.
- Present, zero rows. Not in the room and not online. Okay, Dave Rallo.
- Here. Here on Zoom. Quentin Gilley. Here. Here. Alex York. Here. Here. Jamie Scholl. Here. Here.
- Evan Nix. I'm here. Here online. OK. Annalise Jenke. Here. Here. Diana Ogrodosky. Here. Here. And Cheng
- Weishu. Here. Here online. OK, great. So.
- So we've got 12 occupied spots on the commission right now. So that puts our quorum at seven. And then
- we've got to have 50% of our members here in person. So that threshold is six. So we're good on both
- of those counts. I do want to make a note, as we learned at the last meeting, that the Indiana State
- Code stipulates that you can only attend two consecutive meetings virtually and not three or more consecutive meetings.
- So that would apply, I think, to two people today. If zero joins up with us, that would apply to him,
- and then also as well for Evan. And so the way that we've been doing that is that that does not count
- for quorum or in any votes that we take. But even with that, we're good to go on the quorum side of
- things. OK, great. So we'll move on to the approval of the agenda.
- debating whether I want to suggest that we move some of the important time-sensitive voting things up.
- I'm going to move that. So I'm going to move that we at least move up the agenda item 7B, which is the
- BCAS-sponsored O'Neill School capstone project, to maybe we'll say after the public comment, before
- the report from commissioners. So I'll make that motion.
- Okay, we have a second, great. And then when we have people attending virtually, we have to do everything
- as a roll call vote. So we will go through with that vote. Okay, so this is on the motion to move agenda
- item seven B after agenda item five and before agenda item six. Tara. Yes. Yes. Justin, yes. Matt. Yes.
- Yes, and zero still absent, I believe.
- Council Member Rallo? Yes. Yes. Quintin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Yes. Yes. Jamie? Yes. Yes. Evan? Yes. Yes.
- Oh, yeah. Thanks. I just said that. Annaliese? Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. And Shengwei? Yes.
- Okay, yes. One, two, three, four, five, six, okay. So we've got 10 yeses. Okay, great. So the amendment
- is adopted. Are there any other suggested changes to the agenda as amended? Okay, hearing none, then
- we'll vote on the adoption of the agenda as amended. Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin, yes. Matt? Yes.
- Councilmember Barallo? Yes. Yes. Quintin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Yes. Yes. Jamie? Yes. Yes. Annalise? Yes.
- Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. Shengwei? Yes. Yes. OK. Perfect. The agenda is adopted. So we're at agenda item
- number four, the approval of the minutes. There are two sets of minutes that were circulated,
- one for April 8, 2025.
- which is a bit of a while ago, so hopefully people had a chance to take a look at that. And September
- 9th, 2025. So I'm gonna move that we approve both of these all in one fell swoop to reduce the amount
- of roll call votes that we have to take. Are there any objections to doing that as a bundle? Okay, hearing
- none, is there a motion to adopt both of those minutes or approve both of those minutes, I should say?
- Okay, there's a motion and a second?
- Perfect, okay. We'll call vote then. Tara? Tara, I'm sorry. Yes. Justin? Yes. Matt? Yes. Yes. Councilmember
- Varela? Yes. Yes. Quintin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Abstain. I wasn't on the commission in April, so I have no
- input on that aspect. Okay. I think it'll pass fine without me. Fair enough. Abstain. Jamie? Yes. Yes.
- Annaliese? Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. And Shengwei? Yes. Yes. OK. So that's 9-4, zero against, one abstain.
- So those minutes are approved. All right. So that brings us to the public comment portion. So we set
- aside about 10 minutes for public comment, up to three minutes per person. Is there anyone from the
- public here in the room or either online that would like to address the commission?
- Seeing any activity. All right. So then that brings us to agenda item 7B as we amended the agenda. So
- let's see. Would it help if I share the packet? Would that be easier? So while I'm getting this pulled
- up, maybe Alex, if you want to give an introduction for what this is and what we're asking. Yeah.
- So I listened to a podcast in which they were interviewing somebody from Ann Arbor, who in Ann Arbor
- had started a sustainable energy utility, which functions as a municipal electric utility that operates
- in parallel with the utility on the grid. Ann Arbor evaluated whether that would be a good idea, decided
- it would, enabled it through a referendum vote, and they have
- since then been implementing it. I've talked about this with some people. It was suggested to me that
- an O'Neill capstone course would be a good way to kind of explore the feasibility of the Bloomington
- community undertaking a similar action. So I reached out to professors I knew from O'Neill, because
- I have two masters from there, and a capstone course has been formed.
- There's a memo kind of describing all of this. There's a description of the classwork attached as well.
- And yeah, we are looking for the commission's blessing to under go this work where a capstone course
- is just looking at, you know, from a wide variety of angles, how practical it is for blooming to do
- this. We're also very open to feedback on
- Home angles of research home we have a bunch of research questions that we came up with home but if
- there'd be things that people think would be useful for the city to know that we're not included home
- that would be great to know before we start the research. Okay excellent so so yeah this is something
- that doesn't require any
- you know, upfront costs on behalf of BCOS or any sort of like material support, right? So we're... Yeah,
- there's no cost. It is free consulting. So that's a nice advantage of having this type of program in
- our community. It will require somebody to kind of be a point of contact, which I have volunteered to
- do given we're heading
- creation of this. And I have a connection about those relationships and things. So yeah, there will
- be questions at times that I'm sure will have to be kind of the students and their research, I'm sure
- will have questions that I may not have all the answers to. And I will have to find the correct people
- to get those answers. But I'm signing up to take on that burden. Yeah.
- Perfect. So yeah, I want to open it up to the commission to ask questions that they might have. I guess
- I'll also note we have Professor John Rupp here, who is the professor who will be leading the capstone.
- So if there are questions about how a capstone works, he is going to be a better person to answer that
- than I am. Excellent. What's the level of city participation that you're expecting?
- In the capstone project, minimal, there will be some questions. I imagine there will be at least one
- question I will need to ask you at some point in time. But honestly, it's going to be more looking at
- kind of utility. I have some. So the capstones are mandatory for all of our master students.
- and they're all applied, practical kind of thing. So a real client, in this case the city, comes in,
- and the obligation on the client's part is to agree with the framed question, avail themselves to an
- initial presentation. I don't know if that's gonna be you, Alex, or some other saying, here's how we
- function, this is the context within which this research question would operate, and then avail themselves
- at some point down the, it's a semester long project. So maybe a couple months in, could they meet with
- some students and ask some questions of them. Hey, we've come to this place, is this a priority? Do
- you think these are avenues we should pursue? We've got these kinds of things. A little bit of a sort
- of a guardrails kind of a thing. And then avail themselves to a final presentation and receiver report.
- So it's pretty minimal actually on the part of the client.
- They just need to be clear about what they want. It's supposed to be a practical. It is a practical.
- It emulates reality. And of course, sometimes bad things happen in reality of a consulting firm starts
- down one trail and a client says, oh, we're changing course. So one of the things I'd like to not happen
- is like three months into it, the city to go, actually, we don't want you to do this. We want you to
- do that. That kind of really throws a bugger on them. So that would be sort of a constraint
- not do that to the students because they're just learning. There is no budget. There's no extension
- of work orders or anything like that. So it's an emulation of a real project with minimal kinds of sort
- of consequences. So Alex would be attending those presentations and things because
- I let Alex know that we don't have the capacity to be involved with this capstone project. Yeah, it's
- pretty minimal, really. I think it's just sort of letting the students know that the avenues that they're
- going down, and they'll go down some blind alleys. And I'm a guardrail. I sort of manage them, but they
- self-organize. That's part of the drill. And I'll keep them from really sort of running off the edge,
- but it's not on the client's watch to do that kind of thing.
- And I think the intention is that we as a commission would be sort of the, you know, the client there
- playing that role. So like, you know, through our points of contact here through Alex or Annalise or
- myself as backups if Alex isn't available. Yeah. In preparation for this meeting, I have to lift up
- Alex and my colleague, Nikos Tsiragiannis, and I worked quite diligently on this. I assume this is part
- of the five-page full description that's in there.
- We would request, this is probably the most work you gotta do. Somebody's gotta look through that and
- go, yeah, we like this, or why don't you rank these questions like this, or have you thought about this
- and take this out? Just some kind of a tweaking, and then get those comments to Alex, and then we'll
- fold those in. And the students are actually getting ready to register for classes. This was a last
- minute thing.
- They kind of knocked on my door last week and said, can you do this? I said, well, you're six months
- late, but we'll do it. So if folks can give feedback to you, then we'll fold that into that description.
- And that's kind of the scope of work, kind of. But they'll get refined later. I have two questions.
- One is the length of the presentation, the time length, typically done. The other is, when is the deadline
- for when you need
- further get feedback for review if there's any changes. We need to vote on it tonight because registration.
- This class was mostly approved this past Friday, and these types of materials were due two weeks ago.
- I think you'll be moderately pleased with it. I don't think it's going to be a trainwreck. As to the
- presentation duration,
- I like to push the students at 25, 25 at most. If you're longer than 25 minutes, you're long. And then
- 25 minutes for interaction with the client. So less than an hour. I can speak from my capstone experience.
- I'm sure we could have students come to commission meetings as well. I know we did presentations to
- people in India at midnight.
- That would be really nice if you could structure it so it would be at a commission meeting. It could
- obviously be virtual, and or others within the city governance structure that could be of interest to
- them. And then, of course, there's obviously, at that time, literally a presentation of a hard topic.
- Could be a media presentation or something. Those are details that can be worked out later. Could you
- scroll down to research questions, because that's kind of the
- first bullets you find. These ones here? Yeah. That's kind of the meat of, are these the correct questions
- to be asking? So my question would be, and I think it doesn't seem like it's a lot of data heavy that
- you're going to need, right? Or am I wrong about that? Because sometimes that can be the hardest part
- on the client side as a consultant.
- says, well, can we hire a consultant? Well, even if it's free, it can be a lot of work. But it sounds
- like it doesn't look like these are real data-intensive types of questions, maybe. Or maybe I'm wrong.
- I would say some of them are. Some of them aren't. One thing to explore would be something like, what
- would be a good place for a simple energy utility to start? So that's thinking. The answer is probably like,
- supporting, like, utility-owned, installing utility-owned solar and storage at people's houses and connecting
- them kind of microgrid style. But to do that, you're going to have to do real financial analysis of
- that world. And that's not going to be light on the data. No, that makes sense. And the other question,
- and this isn't necessarily a question, maybe we've sort of looked at it, but just a sort of comment would be,
- I know that utilities operate in some ways significantly differently from state to state, in some ways
- the same. I know what that gap is, what the expectations might be, approaching it in Ann Arbor versus
- Michigan versus Indiana, where the sort of things are, we have this regulated mandatory monopoly system here.
- That would just be, it'd be interesting to sort of see a little bit of that early on, but yeah. Yeah,
- that is, there are a lot of similarities between the two states, but there could be small nuances in
- the law that in Michigan they found that they could do this, and Indiana this could be already illegal.
- That's what we want to find out. I have two questions, mostly procedural. I read this, but I forget.
- Do we need to specify that BCOS is the client here, or that the city is the client? BCOS is specified
- as the client. OK. In terms of the research questions, like how
- Do we want to spend time, like, wordsmithing research questions, or are you looking more at, like, how
- in stone are these once we vote on it? I guess is the question. Like, could the students adjust it?
- This is just, like, guiding materials for the students. This is the guiding materials. It's really your
- menu. You're setting the menu, and you're setting your priorities on it. I would think of this as, like,
- menu for which to choose and prioritize, amplify, and maybe modify, if you so choose, some of the verbiage
- there and say, you know, you're really down a trail here. This is a sticking point. Because Alex is
- somewhat shooting in the dark here. I mean, he sees a model out there. He thinks, how could it potentially
- work in our community and through some things out there? I'm even further in the dark on it. I know
- a bit about utility law.
- The notion is to do the research to find out what kinds of facets are really important. So really, if
- we're going to change research questions to just if something is missing that we think we want to suggest
- to the students to choose from? Or if there are things in there that people feel like this isn't an
- avenue. Because this is broad. So if there are avenues that aren't worth exploring,
- moving research questions would get us more time devoted to the important things. I can get down the
- rabbit hole on the research questions, so I'm just looking for some guardrails for myself on what I
- should do. Dave's got something. Yeah, Councilmember Rowland, go ahead. May I? Well, one question that
- I have that really isn't answered by us as a city as we've been implementing mostly solar energy
- in the community is they're probably better framed as rebuildables in the sense that they require complex
- global supply chains, a lot of fossil fuel energy, rare earth minerals, and periodic replacement every
- 20 to 25 years. And so there hasn't been really an attempt to have a full cost accounting of what
- renewable energy really consists of. So that's one question I have. Another one is what kind
- of infrastructure would be needed to make a dent in our consumption in terms of really providing, augmenting
- in a meaningful way our source of energy. So that's what I would have coming out of the gate in terms
- of besides the questions that are there, they're very good.
- It's a bit different take, but as we expand renewables, we should be aware that really what they are
- are rebuildables. They do need energy to make and also that's not really accounted for in their evaluation.
- So thanks for that. I just wanted to provide a little bit of context.
- to some of the background on this and maybe some of the project management side. Alex is heading this
- up, and we talked to one of my lovely colleagues who does community projects with courses. That's her
- entire job, or a big part of it. And so I think in maybe our next step after we kind of start on this
- will be to have a more
- official meeting and really figure out a clear scope of work. And that's already been somewhat stated.
- But yeah, we don't have to get everything 100% sorted out right now. And I'm glad to hear that there's
- some flexibility with the students. And we can create that clear scope of work as long as we have everything
- somewhat included in this. If I may, part of the task is for them to create a scope of work. Amazing.
- So I mean, that's like one of the very initial things they do.
- I mean, obviously, in concert with the client. But I don't think we want to impose one on top of the
- students. It is a way to move ahead. And you could do that, but I think it would be more meaningful
- if you included it. Definitely. Thank you for that. This is a procedural question also. When meeting
- with the students, are we running into quorum stuff if we are
- like, depending on how many of us are present and do we need to think about that, like, either that
- they only come to business meetings or working sessions or if there's, yeah. Yeah, I think they would,
- you know, when they come to deliver their report, that that would be at a publicly noticed meeting.
- It might be a special meeting of some sort or something like that. You know, for kind of day-to-day
- stuff or week-by-week stuff, if they have clarifying questions or they're trying to get at kind of what
- we're interested in, you know, the way I sort of envision this is that
- here what we're gonna vote on is to approve to put our name on this and say, we'll be the client. And
- then to sort of delegate some of that authority to these POCs, the couple commissioners here, primarily
- Alex, who can then kind of be the representative of the commission and work with them on a week by week
- basis when they need things. And if there's some sort of major change to the complete, you know, they
- start digging into this, realize they have to go in a completely different direction, then maybe it
- comes back to us to revisit as a commission. But otherwise, we kind of just hang tight and wait for
- the report to be ready.
- Personally, having worked in renewable energy, lived in Austin, Texas, where they have their own utility,
- I absolutely love this. I wanted to move off Duke and push the city to have their own utility for a
- long time. And I especially like the questions about the microgrids, which are further down. There's
- a number of folks in the neighborhoods that have solar renewable energy already. And so looking at potential
- neighborhoods that could have a microgrid, I mean, you're talking about sustainability.
- climate change and all the nasty storms you have come through. That's really powerful stuff. So I absolutely
- love this idea. Absolutely. Just to echo that, I think, well, not that I'm an expert on that, but it
- is an amazing learning opportunity, I think, for a student. First of all, I also think that this topic
- is representative of the things we need to be discussing. It should be prioritized.
- And in the comment on the scope of work, that's really helpful, too. And I appreciate that. And also,
- too, as the IU representative on this commission, if there's any way I can help liaison anything, I'd
- be happy to help in that capacity, depending on how things work out. But yeah. Is this project, is this
- vote subject to the special
- bypassing of a first and second rating or is this just a one rating? I'd also like to make one extra
- point about the idea of actually implementing this post feasibility study and conversations and everything
- that but there is a reality that SB1 passed this year and municipal governments are facing significant
- financial shortfalls so
- one of the research questions is certainly to look at initial funding sources. Because if our expectation
- is that the city of Bloomington provides the funding to start this, I think that there is no way that
- it happens. So just recognizing that reality and making sure that we are all aware that the students
- should be tasked with looking into that as well. May I ask a couple of questions? Sure. I want to reflect
- back on the one.
- More than three of you are gathered. Is there some threshold value? Is it more than half? Yeah, if there's
- a chance that a quorum could be met, if there's a chance that half plus one could be present, then we're
- discussing. The reason I bring that up is we had the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission as a client
- twice, three times, I think, before. And part of the learning process for the students was, OK, this
- is actually because
- when you present, that has to be a public media brand. So it was a learning thing for them. As well
- as the second thing I want to ask about was proprietary or confidential information, the idea of data
- came up before. So early on, if they are made aware that there are things that are not to be disclosed
- and all, that's possible. They can do NDAs. I mean, we did one with Cummins a few years ago. We can.
- We can't even reply all to an email. So if there are sensitivity issues, maybe it's not that rigid.
- Again, remembering that this is a learning experience for the students. The fundamental thing here is
- for them to understand these dynamics that are in play in the real world. Yeah, so I think this is like
- a win all around, right?
- you know the students get this great opportunity to do this research do their capstone project we get
- you know this nice report polish report at the end this this presentation sorry okay and then and then
- you know and then we get to decide what to do with that information right because we're going to learn
- a lot from that report and maybe
- maybe it looks great and we're like, cool, we're ready to make some recommendations based off this report,
- or maybe we need to follow some things up, but either way it'll set us off on a good path. It's really
- in line with also a lot of the priorities that we set out at the beginning of the year around community
- and coalition building and education. So it's stuff we've all said that we want to do as a commission.
- All right. I'd like to move us onto the vote, but real quick before I do just want to ask if anyone has any
- serious reservations about anything that they've read here that they want to bring up, any concerns
- or anything. Okay, great. Then we'll move on to a roll call vote to approve. And again, what we're doing
- here is just approving, being able to put the BCOS name on this as a client, right? And then to get
- that report at the end and to designate Alex and myself and Annalise as primary and backup, you know,
- POCs to liaise with the students when needed. Any questions about what we're voting on? Okay, great.
- And we'll go through the roll. Tara. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Did you move to? I make a motion to take this
- vote. Perfect. We have a motion to second. Thank you very much. Okay. Perfect. Tara. Yes. Yes. Okay.
- Justin. Yes. Matt. Yes. Yes. Councilmember Rallo. Yes. Yes. Quintin. Yes. Yes. Alex. Yes.
- Yes. Jamie? Yes. Yes. Annalise? Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. And Shanghai? Yes. Yes. Perfect.
- The ayes have it. So that is approved. And we're very much looking forward to seeing that get off the
- ground and for the final report. And thanks, Alex, for taking the initiative on that.
- A lot of work in a short amount of time. So that's awesome. Yeah, thank you very much. Yeah, I appreciate
- that. One of the things that I love about these kinds of things is to help students get placed. If there's
- potentially an internship or something with the city down the trail at the end of it. You get a chance
- to look at students. They get a chance to look at you. Yeah. It's a big win. Exactly. Yeah, everybody
- wins. Are climate resilience?
- There's a lot of city commissions that need a seat. There's always good money there for all the great ideas.
- All right well we'll move on then so that brings us back to our normally scheduled agenda items so that
- brings us to reports from commissioners and we'll start off with the chair report and I'll probably
- go through this fairly quickly so we currently have two vacancies on the org chart we were bidding farewell
- to John Eldon who's been with us since December of 2022 so he's been here I think since I know right
- he's been here I think since
- before I got here. I'm still a scientist. Yeah, yeah. And so he will be very much missed, and I just
- want to say thank you to him for his contributions to the commission over the last several years. And
- if you know anyone who's interested in serving on the commission, I'd encourage them to submit
- an application. We have one application already, actually. Oh, perfect. All right, there's one in the
- hopper, so good in here.
- Okay, not gonna really dwell on this too much, but just, you know, take a look at this at some point
- when you get the chance and if I didn't add something that you sent to me, it probably just got lost
- in my infinite inbox and just sent it to me again. I think we're mostly up to date at the moment. Okay,
- Working Group Grant Awards.
- So we're starting to sweat a little bit. But I think things are moving in the right direction. I've
- moved a couple things from the idea column, sort of up to the proposed column, because I hear they're
- starting to get closer to a finish line here. So I think we've got sort of two that are in the hopper
- that commissioners are working with you guys on to try to get the T's dotted and the I's crossed and
- all that. And I just put amounts that I could remember off the top of my head on here. 2100. 2100, okay.
- Perfect. So those numbers are not quite totally accurate, but sort of in the ballpark. And I think,
- Matt, yours is a little over. OK. Yeah. Excellent. So I think those are, if all goes well, we're hoping
- to bring those forward at the next meeting. Any questions about that? OK. Perfect. Upcoming meetings.
- Speaking of which.
- So we've got a pretty busy meeting today. And then our next meeting is going to be November 18th. And
- it's important to remember that because it's not our usual meeting time. And thank you to Jolie for
- getting that scheduled for us. I think it was a holiday that our meeting would have landed on. And so
- this was rescheduled for a time that worked with most people. I will also point out, just in case anything
- comes up that we need to get passed soon before the end of the year or something like that,
- It did look like there was decent amount of availability from people on November 4th or November 10th.
- If we need to call a special meeting for those times, we could do it. It's just an option. Work sessions,
- we've got one coming up on November 4th. I've got that scheduled in the books. I saw on my calendar
- that it says election day. I'm not aware of any election that's happening here. So I don't think that'll
- be an issue.
- But that will be, I'll send out a notice for that, that'll be at the public library again. And I'm guessing
- we'll probably talk about the sustainability assessment report, maybe, but. We pushed it from this meeting.
- Yeah, yeah. But that's still sort of, you know, there's room for other things. We better serve in December
- if we've got two grants to vote on. Sure, yeah, yeah, so it's a fair point.
- Yeah, okay, so good. And then that just brings us to the resources page here that I always show. So
- if you're not sure where to find something, just go through this packet and these links are all clickable
- and stuff. And if something seems like it's missing there, let me know and I'll add it. I also want
- to make a quick shout out because we have a birthday. It's this commission's birthday. We are turning 20.
- years old. So I think, well, let's see. Here we go. I have the minutes from the first BCOS meeting that
- ever happened. It was October 25, 2005, in this room. And there are some notable alums on the attendance
- list. So one of them is, of course, Councilmember Rallo, who sort of got this commission going in the
- first place, got the ordinance passed that created it.
- And then I think for the first couple meetings sort of served as the interim presiding officer of the
- commission before a formal chair was chosen. And that first formal chair that was chosen was one John
- Hamilton, who ultimately went on to become the mayor. So yeah, some interesting history there.
- Around the time that I first joined this commission, I was trying to get some background on kind of
- what we've done. And so I went looking for the minutes, but I can only find minutes going back to like
- 2016 or something on on the city website. And so I did some archaeology on the Internet Archive and
- I was able to find most of the minutes and agendas from all the way back to the beginning. So.
- I think it's an interesting time to kind of look back a little bit on what the commission has done,
- because I think most of us probably couldn't say, you know, what was this commission working on 10 years
- ago today, right? And there's probably some good tidbits in there that would be helpful for us to kind
- of keep in mind as we do our work. So over the next couple of meetings, I'll probably bring a few interesting
- pieces out of the archives to share with folks. And these minutes are all in the shared Google Drive.
- So if you ever want to go and just peruse at your leisure, definitely feel free to do that. But yeah,
- this first meeting was mostly getting everyone together in the same room and trying to figure out, OK,
- what kind of working groups should we have? What kind of things should we tackle first? One of the big
- things was,
- just process, you know, internal process. How should we organize ourselves? Another one was indicators.
- You know, one of the big thrusts early on was that this commission is going to pick out a set of indicators,
- metrics that we can track and track those over time and then make recommendations based off of those.
- A lot of, you know, what we've done in the earlier sustainability assessment reports was based off of
- those indicators. And yeah, so it was mostly just getting organized and kind of getting things up and running.
- But yeah, happy birthday to us. I'm sorry I didn't bring cake. Less exciting than that, but what is
- the best way if we have templates for the SOP stuff to show them? I built a template for the minutes,
- just because I found it's easier than trying to put my notes in a format later that I can share for
- whoever besides me is responsible for minutes.
- I think for basic template stuff, you can just send it to me, and I'll add it to the Google Drive, and
- I'll also send it to you guys, so you can have it on board if you want. And yeah, for things that are
- sort of like, you know.
- like really official policies that we're all expected to abide by. We probably have to vote on that.
- If it's sort of best practices, I think that's fair game to just kind of add it in there. Somebody can
- choose to not use it. Right, yeah, exactly. And then I can always make an announcement each meeting
- when we have new stuff like that, let people know where to find it and what it is. Question? I was just
- going to say, unofficially for the 21st birthday, I might be celebrating down the street here at the
- Trojan horse or something. There you go.
- There you go. Yep. Perfect. Any other questions about the chair's report before we move on? Excellent.
- All righty. That brings us then to Waste Management Working Group report. Matt, what do you have for
- us? Yeah. So finishing up the grant, we'll hopefully have it approved, send it in, need a few edits.
- So hopefully we'll have it for the working session, for everybody to look over on the fourth. And then
- There's the Indiana Composting Council. There's now that nonprofit, which there's 16 states that have
- them. There's the overarching US Composting Council. So I think it would be great if the city or other
- entities that are looking for members, because they need to fundraise. So that's awesome. And then the
- Indian Department of Environmental Management is looking at a new blueprint to replace their long outdated
- waste management plan. So I'll send the article out, but that could
- that's gonna affect every waste management district in the entire state. So that could have some really
- good, there could be mandating of food waste on a commercial scale, things like that. And speaking of
- food waste, the CAC has a meeting on, the Citizens' Advisory Committee has a meeting on Thursday, and
- I've invited Richland Farms to come down. Richland Farms in April got a permit for vegetative
- Composting there's industrial composting which take like two years Vegetative took them only nine months
- and they are looking for food waste and so they're specifically looking for Restaurant food waste they
- can do more, but they've got 12 gallon and 21 gallon bins and so Please attend the meeting if you'd
- like it's 530. Otherwise, it'll be on cats That's Thursday
- This is the waste reduction district? Yep. Yeah, it's this Thursday. And so Richland Farms is going
- to present for about 20 minutes. They're 90 miles away, but they are more than willing to drive down
- here because they were hoping that Lafayette was going to be a good market. Turns out that Lafayette
- offers food waste services as a city. And so people were kind of confused when a contractor came in,
- private company. And so with restaurants that already participated with Earthkeepers,
- seems like a no-brainer. So he would drop off containers, and he would do a one-day a week pickup. And
- so I've already seen the operation was up there with the Neon Composting Council. And yeah, he's really
- looking for a lot of food waste. So that could be, you know, there's no one single solution to food
- waste. There are many different solutions that combine together. And I really see this as one, and he's
- looking for it.
- I don't have a list of what restaurants were participating previously with Earth Keepers. We've tried
- to contact Earth Keepers to find that out. If ESD has any of those lists, please, yes. Yes. How far
- are they willing to go? They were willing to go up to Lafayette? Would they go to like? They're 90 miles
- away. So they're in Vietersburg, or near Vietersburg. Actually, they're more like Newtown, Indiana.
- So yeah, so it's south.
- west of Lafayette, or northeast of Terre Haute. But yeah, I've already confirmed with him, talked to
- him and his wife, who are both owners. They actually live in Massachusetts. A family farm was gifted
- to them, essentially. And so they really want to get this food waste. And they just don't have enough
- volume right now.
- Is this associated with the city waste group? Is that what you said? No, I'm just having him
- do a presentation to the CAC for the waste reduction district. That's the county waste reduction district?
- Yeah, county. They're the ones that operate all the recycling centers. Location and time on Thursday?
- 530, you said? 530 to 630. He's going to start out the meeting, and it's at the other side of the building.
- Oh, it's here? Yeah. OK. On the Monroe County side, but it will also be on Zoom or Teams.
- So I can send that out, I can email that out as well. So yeah, that is definitely one of the solutions,
- besides the fact that I, he was already talking, in talks with Caldwell's, which is out in Shelby County
- on a larger scale, and then trying to get in contact with people at Cook, somebody at the waste reduction
- district has a contact there, and Cook is looking to take care of their cafeteria food. So I'm hoping
- that maybe that could also fit in there.
- So we'll see. We will see. We've got a commercial food waste dehydrator coming soon and there's going
- to be a lot of back-of-the-house food, dehydrated food scraps. That's back of the house and then this
- is front of the house. Oh, they don't want front of the house? No, they'll do front of the house. The
- only back-of-the-house stuff they can do is cooked or raw veggies, I think. There's certainly
- rules when it comes to vegetative, a vegetative permit that he can't accept and he can't accept. So
- he couldn't accept raw meat, but he could accept cooked meat. Yeah, because the location we're starting
- out at is an a la carte, so there's a lot of like, kind of like, popular food from... Yeah, and he's
- looking for as much as he can get. So, but I mean, he's not, they just started in April, so they don't
- have, I mean, he's got a big truck, but he's not
- He's not Caldwell's, which could handle all of Monroe County's food waste. Yeah, it might be more than
- what we need anyway. Right, so either way, I'm looking at every single avenue possible with that.
- So yep, that's enough. Awesome. Thank you. All right. OK, our next item is an update on the Cobb Bench
- project from Evan. All right.
- So I feel like now's the time to make the announcement that I'm moving from Bloomington. So whatever
- the process is for that to depart from the commission, well, Justin and I can talk about that and move
- forward with that. But as far as the cop bench goes, I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in
- taking over the project manageable
- since we have the funding and the location and all of the initiation work done. If anyone would be interested
- in that, we could talk. There's some other partners in Bloomington who could help, who have expertise
- with CAW and are willing to volunteer to help build it. But someone would need to be the BCAS project
- manager. Is anyone interested in that? Don't need to commit now, but if you're interested, you can talk.
- Can I ask if any of the funds have been expended yet? None yet. None. OK. When are you moving?
- Is it imminent? Very soon, like within the next month. Oh, OK. Yeah. Is there a no-cost extension for
- it? Because it has to be completed.
- form needs to be completed by the end of this calendar year, correct? That is true. There is a way to
- extend. I'm not entirely sure what that full process would be, but I could help with that. Do you have
- a contract in place with someone already or anything like that, or no? We have a contract in place with
- Red Bud Books.
- owner of the building and the manager of Redbud, which is the business that's occupying that space,
- have signed contracts, committed to maintaining the bench, and have a network of people who are willing
- to show up and help build it. So they have contracts with the construction manager? No, there's not
- a contract with a separate construction manager.
- project manager need to take on the no-cost extension or are you going to do that before you depart
- the commission? I think we'd have to do that before we depart. They would have to do that? Well, are
- you interested? Yeah, we'd need someone identified I think before we attempt to do that. So Evan, you've
- had a lot of experience with Cobb Bench building and you were sort of the lead on this project. I'm
- concerned that there might be other commissioners that really won't be able to fill your shoes.
- Mm-hmm. At least for most of the stage now, it is coordination of scheduling with Red Blood Books and
- kind of wrangling, which is an unfortunately annoying job. That's the main sticking point, is getting
- response and contact. I've been traveling a lot, so I haven't been able to just go there. But if we
- set a time for the build, I may be willing to come back
- which have to act as, not through VHAS, but could help in the creation of the bench if someone can handle
- the admin stuff in the eyes of the commission. I'm trying to remember, is this like a permitted project?
- Like it is? No, because it's on the private property. But there's no like, you know, engineering permit?
- They have to like call, you know, they gotta call 8-1-1.
- to dig, but it's not. But we have called 811 before, and we know that there's no lines underneath the
- spot we were planning on building. We have the maps. We would just need to call within two weeks before
- the actual digging happens, just because that's protocol. Go ahead. I was going to ask, so who was going
- to actually do the building of it, or has that yet been decided?
- Is it like a company? I was going to help lead the building as well as Danny Weddle. And then he's got
- this company, Tarrin Robotics. And there are some other employees there who seem interested in helping
- on the experienced with cop side. And then we have signatures of 30 people, which I know that isn't really
- a confirmation that they'll show up, but volunteers. And the way that I've run COD projects in the past
- is you just kind of have a training at the beginning of the day. And making the COD is pretty
- straightforward, which you know how to get the ratios right and just kind of oversee it. And a lot of
- the labor can be done by volunteers. That's helpful. I appreciate the context. Sounds like it's sort
- of just like a group project type of deal. How many?
- building sessions are there and spread out how far apart? It would probably be over the span of three
- different sessions. There would be digging and setting foundation, and then building the bench out of
- the foundation in the roof, sorry. And then the posts of the roof would be the structure that we build
- the bench around.
- then that needs to sit in here for a week or a little bit longer, and then there would be a
- day of plastering. If we did have a commissioner or two who decided they really wanted to take this
- on and to file for the extension, how far in advance would you need that paperwork?
- get really busy at the end of the year, so it would be good to have it by December 1st at the latest.
- OK. OK, let's do it. Well, would that extension need to include the names of the new project manager
- or managers? Yes. Yeah. And I would want some sort of confirmation from all the partners that they're
- still on board. They're OK with this extension. They agree to the timeline, the new timeline. OK.
- I have a quick question on the build, having a bit of experience, but it's been some years ago. Not
- so much with cob, but straw bale construction, a little bit with cob. It can be done in one day. I know
- with straw bale, you need to make two or three passes with your clay over top. So the bench itself?
- could be done in a day? I have seen that much material get added in a day. What you might run into is
- the weight, like the cob when you're just having it is slightly wet, and the weight can start to compress.
- But the height of a bench I have seen done in a day, and that's about the limit. And it's full cob.
- There's no straw bale underneath.
- to kind of help with the structure. Underneath, we would pour concrete for foundation and then use limestone
- rubble at the base. I'm sorry, I didn't explain that correctly.
- Like if you're sitting, so if there's like some small, so you can have your straw bale and then your,
- so then it's not completely caught, but you have some structure there from say two straw bales or three
- straw bales. You have one that's the seat and then you break your straw bale down into smaller bales,
- you know, and you flake it off and then put it in like that and then put your cob, you know, slip straw
- or whatever
- over that so it doesn't fall down. So that could be a way to ensure it's not going to collapse upon
- its own weight. Anyway, that's just kind of, I know it's not, I'm not doing the project management,
- but it's something to consider when, you know, if it's getting broken down into one or two or three
- work days for someone who'd be taking that over.
- If we were going to continue and we have to wait until I'm sorry, you can go ahead and respond to that.
- Oh, no, just that that's a good idea. I have seen it be not necessary to add a structure in that way.
- But that's because part of the bottom of the bench is like stones. So that is kind of taking the rule
- that you're saying. Right. Yeah. And just so you know,
- The bench also has an arbor on top of it as well, right? Have we missed a window to get this built this
- season? Is the ground going to get too cold and then we're going to have to wait until the spring? Yeah,
- I think that would be best unless we were doing the build very soon. But yeah, we would need to get
- more enthusiastic confirmation
- to think that that timeline is realistic. So it would be next year, next spring, probably April at the
- earliest in time. I think the cutoff would be mid-November. You know, freezes and moisture and all of
- that. That would delay the drying of the clay. So what I recommend, maybe,
- open to input on this. I can send around the proposal that they had for this project originally, so
- everyone can take a fresh look at it. If anyone reads through it and decides that this is something
- they really want to take on, they can make it happen. You can let me know, and we can start to work
- out the paperwork to put that extension together. And then when we come back at our November meeting,
- we can vote on it, vote to extend formally.
- In the meantime, maybe if I don't hear from anybody wanting to take it up within a week or two, then
- we just assume that there's nobody to take it up. And we just look into getting the funds returned.
- Input on that? Thoughts on that plan? Just so we're not, I don't want to have to rush you guys right
- at the end of the year, the busy season, if we don't have to. Yeah.
- Do you want me to say by the 31st, respond to you by the 31st if somebody wants to? Yeah, I mean. That's
- almost too late, I think. I mean, why don't we say a week? I don't know. I think a week should be enough
- time for people to mull it over, and if they're not feeling strongly about it. I'll just put it on the
- minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A week from today. That's what I was thinking. OK. Does that seem fair to
- everybody? Mm-hmm. Do you think reasonable? OK. Great.
- OK, great. Well, thank you, Evan, for that update. I appreciate it. OK, so that brings us to the next
- item here, sustainability forum recap. So Shengwei just had his first installment of the sustainability
- forum. Just wondering if you could just say a few words about how it went and sort of what you have
- planned coming up. Yeah, sure. So we have already, first of all,
- Last Friday, I think we had a very good conversation. I met one of my friends, Daniela, who's a data
- manager at the Indiana Conservation Voter. So she shared her story, especially some of the turning points,
- the way of her source of sustainability. I think that's a very good way to educate the public
- or any people or stakeholder who are interested in sustainability. And we also got some support from
- Julia and Sean and some other friends who attended the forum last Friday. And I think in the future
- I'm going to, especially because there were not many people to attend, especially from the local community.
- I think in the future, maybe I will reach out to the public library and maybe have some like our next
- forum at the public library. So that's the main, local people can attend. Also, I will reach out to
- some of the student association, IU, to attend that forum as well.
- But overall, I think it was a very good conversation. And the people who attended that forum, they raised
- questions and the engagements were very good. So I think I will continue to do this. And also, I encourage
- other commissioners can join me. We can also host our next forum. It's good. Yeah. That's all. Thank you.
- Excellent. Thank you. And yeah, once you have that next date, let me know and I can push out a notice
- far in advance so that we don't have any quorum issues, even though it's not a formal meeting. Great.
- Any questions about the sustainability forums? All right. Sounds good. Well, thanks so much. And I'm
- definitely looking forward to attending the next one. It seems really cool. OK. Sorry. I'm so sorry.
- I just wondered if you could
- tries to stop sharing and then reshare, just like a start and stop again. I can't really tell on my
- end. I'm just like, what's wrong? Thank you. Turn it off and turn it on again. Yeah, exactly. Real quick,
- when is Evan's last meeting? Well, yeah, so he said within the next month. So I think that might be,
- are you leaving Bloomington before November 18th? Evan? Yeah, I'm currently in Portland.
- And I decided that I'm just going to stay here. So the closing of my lease and stuff like that is handled
- by my friends to help move out and stuff like this. But I'm not in Bloomington right now. Could you
- write us an email? We just need a letter of resignation to forward to the police office. Sure. OK, thank you.
- still bouncing around or is it? It looks pretty stable for the moment. I'm just not going to touch it.
- Okay, that brings us to a report from council. Councilmember Rall. I really don't have a report this
- evening so I'll pass unless you have any questions. Okay, easy peasy. Does anyone have any questions?
- All righty.
- Moving on. Okay, so that brings us to 7A, which is the resilience strategy that Jamie's been working
- on. We sent out a spreadsheet that people could copy and then put comments into and then send back.
- And so I sent out what I had received so far from that, which I don't have in front of me, but it was
- only one comment so far. It is a pretty lengthy document, so it does take a little time to kind of think about.
- So I think ultimately, Jamie, your goal with that is this might be something that we would endorse as
- a commission at some point once it's in a form that everyone's happy with. So I imagine we'll probably
- go through multiple rounds of this process. We've got the one comment in the spreadsheet that you can
- start working on now, but maybe I'll open it up for just a couple minutes for any other commissioners
- who want to
- you know, share their thoughts or recommendations with what they've read so far while we're all here.
- This is something we can also workshop at the working group meetings as well. Can we use the same link?
- Like, it's not a new one for each round of comments, right? Yeah, you can just use the same one. Unless,
- let me think. I suppose if the comments
- from the first round get incorporated, then I'd need to send out the new version of the, you know. But
- I think for now you could probably operate off. Since you only have the one. Yeah. I left a comment
- that was really just a clarifying question. It might not be anything incorporated. So I can ask that
- here and maybe we can clear it. It was about, and I'm trying to remember the wording, but basically,
- you know, growing,
- edible landscaping in places where like rain water is collected and things like that or like in public
- spaces. And I was just curious if there have ever been any sanitation concerns with that or any issues
- that we could run into in that realm when having edible landscaping in those kinds of areas. I'm not
- sure where in this document. Okay, let me go find it. That is...
- Lines 442 and 443. I can pull that up quick. And please let me know if I've misunderstood what was in
- there. Right here. Stream medians and storm water retention areas. For what it's worth, I took a
- urban foraging class sponsored by Parks and Rec in Bloomington. And the city staffer who led it took
- us through, I think it was RCA Park, and we foraged edible things. And one of the questions that came
- up was around pesticide. And she said that that's a reasonable concern with urban foraging, especially
- if you're foraging somewhere. And she said the city is very good about
- signage when they, they have pretty minimal use of pesticides in general in the city parks and that
- they're very good about marking it when they're doing like honeysuckle invasives or anything. I mean,
- this is information like fully, like as a private citizen, I was in this class, but that's the only,
- but it is something that like the city has sponsored before that like, if you find food in the parks,
- you can eat it.
- Yeah. And I have seen the actual signage outside of the community orchard where they did some spraying.
- I was like, whoa. So I did see the signage. OK. Awesome. Thank you. They also use, sometimes they'll
- use, it's got a blue dye to it so that you can actually see what plants have even been treated. But
- it's not recommended to forage in an area where there's been any pesticide. Yeah. And some of this,
- I think, if I
- It's been a little while since I've written this. I think I might have been thinking of cattails. You
- can use different parts of a cattail plant. So with the shoots, it would not be in the water. That's
- like a griffy. You can find them there. But you have to be careful if
- say, in highways and interstates because sand or the salts and things get in it. But in the city, we
- do have so many more codes. And like Tara said, the signage that I think it's something that could be
- incorporated. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, that was really my only concern. I think I've actually taken
- two origin classes with Parks and Rec that let me think about it. One at Griffey and one at RCA.
- I want a median only foraging class. Median? I don't think I would. OK, well, thank you. I appreciate
- it. I was just wondering, I think this would be a good topic to workshop. Knowing specifically why or
- why not we don't have that, I think, is a good thing to know.
- As for what we're doing that I think Starting off sort of heading into that and I thought about it as
- soon as we you mentioned it earlier was You know, we're 20 years old At some point in their time. They
- decided to cause the Commission on sustainability I'd want to know because sustainability and resiliency
- has been talked about since day one Like that's you know intertwined like you use resiliency as a term
- to describe sustainability in the built environment It'd be great to go back and see what day
- if there's anything in there that might give us an indication of why, because I feel like... I do have
- kind of an answer to that. You do? I do. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that either way, I feel like I
- could argue in support of this for an hour, or I can argue against it. It's almost like there's a lot
- there. For an edible green infrastructure, like on edible trees? You're talking about the resiliency of the...
- of the, was this the right thing? Never mind, I thought we were talking about resiliency. Oh, is this
- the resolution that you're looking at? Oh yeah, hold that thought. I apologize. Yeah, well I think we
- could, you know, we can work on the document a little bit more at the working group session where we
- can kind of have more time to fluidly go through it and just kind of discuss.
- Yeah, put that on the list. And for those who want to go through it, and it may be good to just go through
- a section. Because if you go through everything, it does get into a lot of detail at some points. When
- you go through, say, the first section and then the timeline, it allows you to stop and think through.
- It took me a while to figure out a timeline, like an implementation, and how these things could fit together.
- So it may take a little processing time to kind of do short little snack bites, sort of, and then make
- some comments. All right, thanks. Thank you. All right, that brings us to 7C, the working group.
- grants for the sustainability education outreach. Did you have anything you wanted to say about that
- this meeting, Tara? Yeah, well, just so people know what it is. So I wrote a grant, a working group
- grant proposal, which I've sent to Sean and Jolie. They've reviewed it. They came back with some questions
- that I've answered. I think what is still outstanding is maybe some questions for the city attorneys
- to figure out if this is for sure something that could be approved.
- But we talked about this at a working session as an idea. But it is a grant to increase our education
- and outreach efforts next year in 2026. So we did one event. We did Earth Day. And Quinn and I were
- both there. We talked between 50 and 100 people. I counted the stickers. But a lot of people came and
- talked and didn't put a sticker for the priorities voting.
- But it's to buy some materials, so get us a tablecloth so that we are not, it's not just me and a piece
- of poster board, some table stands for materials, printing for educational materials, and then ordering
- custom seed packets that would have our logo and a link to our website, the BCOS website, so that people
- can come to meetings or read our minutes, whatever, maybe a QR code.
- And I've budgeted for ordering 750 of those. They would be native seeds from Roundstone, which is located
- in Kentucky. I priced it out with a few different companies. The prices are pretty comparable across,
- but Roundstone is in Kentucky, just south of the border, just very northern Kentucky. So their eco type is very,
- similar to ours so those are the ones that are most likely to have successful germination and survive.
- But just as like a way of like instead of handing out a flyer or handing out like native pollinator
- seeds to people as a way of communicating, the proposal is that we would decide as a commission in a
- working session in our priorities working session early in the year what events we want to target with
- a goal of being at at least three events and trying to
- interact with at least 250 members of the public over the course of the year. So one of the things in
- there is a clear counter so we can keep track of how many people we talk to and how many seed packets
- we give out and a plastic storage bin to store everything so that whoever is the person who's there
- can carry it easily and it can be
- shared. One thing that I learned through this is I was like, well, what if we buy all this stuff secondhand?
- But we can't do that because I've got to have receipts that say, like an invoice that says what it is.
- So that's why it's new materials, even though that's not the most sustainable option. I did think about
- that. But because we have to deal with the city government and laws and accounting, we're not going
- to do that. That's about it. Yeah.
- The details of how we would select those events are in there, but just prioritizing events where it's
- free for us to be there, things that are aligned with our priorities, or places where commissioners
- would already be, like if the other grant, the Bokashi Grant Project 2.0, being at that event because
- it was already, things like that. And it's $2,100.
- is the budget. So as I think we talked about before, I was hoping this year for the Earth Day event
- that we could do a fix-it clinic, or mending clothes, personal items people bring in, watches, or whatever,
- and not actually necessarily do it ourselves. Provide some materials for people, buttons, so someone
- gets what not.
- I think it'd be a great way to kind of, it kind of hits on reducing waste socioeconomically. It hits
- on all those things. I think people would get a kick out of it, too. I use acquired, like, a traveling
- fix-it clinic. I'm thinking, like, if there was a way for me to get that there, and I participated,
- if there was a way to kind of piggyback on messaging around, like, urban, if we could get space, I'd
- love to do something like that.
- I think that expanding on what we have at our table and what we offer is always, I don't think, as long
- as there's no additional cost beyond the cost of the grant, I think we can do whatever we want. I put
- in some money for printing costs too.
- But yeah, we could add things like that when we decide on the priorities, I think, as long as it's not
- an additional cost for the grant. This is just so that we have something. Because literally, when I
- did Earth Day, I had a poster board and a bunch of stickers and two QNFC tags. It was real. It was rough.
- You did great. I agree. All we might need to do that is a little bit more space.
- That's the only thing. We can talk about that. Well, for Earth Day, we just have to ask Julia to put
- our tables next to each other. That's what happens when we have a good thing. And yeah, awesome. Perfect.
- Yeah, if we could just know how much room something would take up. Since last year, it rained out, like
- the pavilion was completely full. And I'm trying to make sure it's not so loud and crowded and everything.
- And I want to make sure we have that.
- So somebody else who was there last year might drop out. Maybe we'll have plenty of room. And we promise
- next year the music, it's either going to be outside or no music. I promise. I've done the same thing
- and it's too loud on the inside. It was really, it was echoing. Yeah, it was echoing. You're adjusting.
- I could use it to be an harp or something.
- So I think the plan is to bring it for vote to the commission at the next meeting.
- updated materials with all the feedback from Sean and Jolie already to them for review. So if there's
- additional stuff that comes back from legal, I'll incorporate that in and have it at the next meeting.
- Yeah, clarification on that by the end of the week, just to make sure. But great idea. Thank you. Awesome.
- Thank you, everybody. That's good. Okay, great. That's the goal.
- Okay so that brings us to item 9a which is a first reading of resolution 2025-04 to recommend adding
- resilience to the commission's name. I'll pull it up here so it's on the screen and Jamie sent around
- a memo with it but this is the text of the resolution. So just as a reminder this is a first reading
- we're not really debating the merits of the resolution here it's really just a vote to advance it to
- the second reading which is where we'll actually discuss it
- you know, what we think, debate, offer up amendments and that sort of thing. So with that said, is there
- anyone who'd like to offer a motion to advance this to the second reading? I'll make a motion. I didn't
- know if we were going to, because Clinton had a... No, I was going to vote to...
- taking you out. Great. Perfect. All right. Well, I have a motion. Councilor Barallo in a second from
- you, Matt. Perfect. All right. Is there any discussion? So going off what you said earlier, it can be
- argued either way. But since sending this out and seeing our political climate and being aware of what
- is being said,
- and how that's affecting many of us, if not all of us, some of us in stronger ways than the other, that
- adding the word resilience when it's becoming so politicized. If I'm seeing Joel Salaton talking more
- about resilience, and that's leaning one way compared to sustainability, which is leaning another, and
- what we're experiencing now to add resilience, even though it's
- part of sustainability, I think will be help us to remain relevant in this group, this commission remain
- relevant in no matter in how things may change in the future. And we're in quite volatile times. And
- I just think this is a good move. I know Dave has, he's a founder.
- I wanted to have it as part of this as well. Perfect. Well, yeah, we'll have it on the- David has his
- hand up. Thank you. Yeah, Councilmember Rallo, go ahead. Well, I don't know if it's appropriate since
- we're not really debating this now, but just to say that I like the idea. I think that resilience is
- implicit in sustainability, but it provides a clarification anticipating numerous shocks coming that
- Jamie made explicit in the materials. Yeah, question. I just want to comment on the name. Right now
- it's B cause and that will be BSRC. So I'd say Boundary Commission on Sustainability and Resilience
- or otherwise it's BSRC. So just a thought. I like B cores.
- We should move on with the with the vote here so this is to advance it to the second reading so you
- don't have to be for it if you're against it you can still vote yes just to bring it to the next meeting
- OK. Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin, yes. Matt? Yes. Yes. Councilmember Rallo? Yes. Yes. Quintin? Yes. Yes. Alex?
- Yes. Yes. Jamie? Yes. Yes. Annaliese? Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. Shenghuai? Yes. Yes. OK, perfect. It
- advances to the next reading, so we'll see that at the next meeting.
- All right, then that brings us to the report from staff liaison. Hand it over to you, Shawn. I don't
- really have anything to talk about. Maybe the spooktacular, the remaining activities with the sustainability
- spooktacular? Yeah, the sustainability spooktacular events. It's just been partnering with the community
- organizations. And the remaining event after this is a tree planted with canopy Bloomington, the new
- west side one.
- Actually, that's fall. They've been filled up with volunteers, so that's really encouraging. But there
- will be a block party in Butler Park on October 25th, following that, to kind of celebrate the progress
- on the Near West side. What park did you say? Butler Park. Butler Park is called Sustainability Boot?
- Sustainability Spooktacular. This is amazing. I'll be there. OK, awesome.
- A few food trucks and busmen's holiday will be there. But outdoors, they'll be playing. Yeah, outdoors.
- Outdoors, right. I guess one big piece of good news is our Bloomington Green Helm Improvement Program.
- The rebates was full. It's complete. So we expended the whole budget. That means numerous Bloomington
- homeowners have chosen a heat pump, or gone solar, or installed batteries. We had 33.
- rebates this year, and many of them were quite big because it was the solar and the batteries going
- in, lots of people pairing them. So yeah, successful. Have you received any sustainable neighborhood
- grant applications? No, we actually haven't. We've had a lot of questions, clarifying questions about
- how to approach it, which have been great, but no applications yet. Hopefully soon. That's a lot more
- questions you've had previously, interest.
- Yeah. Yeah, and all our neighborhood. I say this is myself and not a commissioner has offered that will
- share like our grant application materials and everything because Megan did such a good job on like.
- Navigating all of that that will share like our proposal and plan with any other neighborhoods that
- want to replicate what we did. Perfect. Thank you very much. We have
- Just under a minute left for member announcements. Is there anything anyone wants to announce, promote?
- November 4th is another workshop at the community orchard on Bokashi. I think that's nice. Awesome,
- if you'd like to learn how to ferment food waste. November 4th. November 4th. I think it's 1 to 2.30.
- It's on the community orchards.
- Facebook page as well. Do that and come to the working session. She's been having raccoons in her compost
- pile. So she puts stuff in there whenever they want. So yeah, this will take care of that issue. Awesome.
- Cool. Well, I'll just remind everyone the working work session on November 4th at the library. I'll
- send out a notice for that. And then remember, our next regular meeting is November 18th, which is sort
- of off cycle. Great. And that brings us to 730. So we stand adjourned.