- All right, I'll call to order this meeting of the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability and Resilience
- at 6.01 p.m. And we'll go through the roll call. Tara Dunn-Bitt. Here. Here. Justin Vassel. I'm here.
- Rebecca Payne. Here. Here. Christopher Miles. Present. Present. Zach Amerman. Here. Here. That's Mova
- Rollo. Not online. Alex York. Absent. Maria Arstad. Here.
- Here. Here. All right. Seven. Perfect. Good to go. Okay. So we'll start with the approval of the agenda.
- Any changes anyone wants to propose to the agenda as it was circulated?
- All right. We don't have anyone online, so we can do voice votes and stuff for the time being. All right.
- Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Motion. Second. And a second. Perfect. All right. And all those
- in favor say aye. Aye. All those? Any abstentions? Okay. The agenda is approved. That brings us to the
- approval of minutes. We'll start with the
- April 28th, 2026 minutes, which was our special session where we received the report from the O'Neill
- School capstone. And we circulate around a really more, almost like memoranda than full-blown minutes,
- but it has all the important details in there. Any corrections anyone has to offer to those? Nope. There
- was no business at that meeting. No, there wasn't, no.
- While we're here, we'll bring up the June 9th minutes for the regular meeting that we had last month.
- Are there any corrections to that? We can just approve both of these in one chunk if there's no corrections
- to either. Okay, do I have a motion to approve both sets of those minutes? And a second? Perfect, all
- those in favor say aye. All opposed, nay? And any abstentions? Okay, both of those minutes are approved
- as circulated. Brings us to public comment.
- I don't see anyone in the gallery, and I don't see anybody online. Great. We're almost done. No. OK,
- move on to the commissioner reports. We'll do the chairs report. How's everybody doing? Staying cool?
- Yeah, no kidding.
- We could stay later, actually. OK, so just some organizational updates to start. So we're bidding farewell
- to Quentin Gilley, who is in our IU sustainability spot on the commission. So he's moving on from that
- position. So wishing him the best and greener pastures ahead. And just want to thank him for his service
- on the commission. He's been with us since, I think, November of 2024.
- And so I want to thank him for that. And yeah, we'll look forward to the next appointment from that
- position. But yeah, so at the moment, that puts us at four vacancies. Oh, and Alex is here. Welcome,
- Alex. So yeah, four vacancies, including that IU seat.
- Yeah, I think that's, do you guys happen to know if there are applications in the queue? It seems unnotified.
- OK. Is that an explicitly, is that appointed through a particular path? Is there a position where if
- someone holds that position, occupies that relation for IU to the commission? Or is it something that
- anyone there can apply for? It's appointed by the IU Office of Sustainability. So yeah, Quinton was.
- of that role on behalf of the IU Office of Sustainability. So we'll reach out to them tomorrow just
- to hopefully figure out. They just picked someone. It's from somebody on the staff in that office,
- I think. Yeah. Because before it, it was his boss. Yeah, that's right. He was in that role. Thank you.
- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and there's some mayoral vacancies, appointment vacancies as well. So if anybody knows
- anyone who might be interested, invite them to go to onboard and apply. Mayoral three or mayoral or
- any of the counseling. Yeah, three mayoral. And then the fourth is the IU Sustainability.
- I was gone last month, so thank you for Zach for standing in and sharing that. What was that? Sorry,
- I said, wow, that was just a month ago. It feels like three months ago. Not any reflection on that meeting
- specifically, how much has happened in between. Speaking of things that have happened in between, everybody
- got a copy of the new
- like grant, working group grant processes that Sean and Julie sent out in the past month. So you might
- also be aware with the old ones that we have, because it's been a little while since we've gone through
- the process, and we've had some new folks on the commission since then. So basically, there's some funds
- that are available to us through ESD every year.
- In the past, we've sort of set those aside for what we call working group grants, and there was a process
- by which a working group could apply for a specific project for some of those funds. There's a couple
- changes to the procedures going forward starting from this year. It's, I think, a little more streamlined,
- which is good. So something for folks to be thinking about are ways in which we might want to use this money.
- For example, we've had Canopy Bloomington go and replace some trees that had died after being planted
- at various spots around the city. And so that was a great use of those funds. We got some new trees
- out of it all around town. So stuff like that. We don't really have a very organized working group sort
- of thing anymore. But any group of commissioners could get together to sponsor a project.
- Some of the key changes now are that you'll have to have a community partner of some sort. So that could
- be a small business, a nonprofit, a school, neighborhood association, that sort of thing. And the idea
- is that they would be the leads who are actually implementing the project. And let's see what else.
- The funding levels are one of the new things. So $7,000 total for 2026. And by the way, if I get any
- of this wrong,
- feel free to jump in. 1,000 of which we can dedicate towards supplies. So that's a new thing. We've
- already spent some for the Earth Day stuff this year. So I think 575 is what's remaining for the rest
- of this year. So anything that you think the commission needs for those sorts of events or anything
- like that, yeah.
- The question I have is whether there is an existing list of needs or desires that would help guide where
- to allocate funding, and if not, if it would make sense to create a repository of project ideas or things
- that would benefit from having money spent on them. I think the answer to that is no and yes. Can I?
- Yeah, please.
- uh like outreach to different orgs last year trying to get some of this money out um so i can like put
- together what who i've already talked to um a lot of them didn't pan out just because it was the timing
- of it was such that they were like we can we don't have capacity to do this now but maybe start now
- this was maybe like october september october of last year and then i corrected the
- This is for calendar year 2026. This is $6,000. The funding has to be encumbered. Encumbered, is that
- the right word? By December, before December business meeting, I think. It's in the actual deadlines,
- but we have a year to actually complete the project. That's what the previous one was. I don't remember
- if that's part of what's changed.
- So say you reach out to the organization in November, you come up with your project idea. As long as
- we have a really good proposal put together, we can get a grant agreement put together. It doesn't have
- to be executed, but as long as we have that draft, we can cover the terms. OK. There's a list of community
- partners, or can we just add any if they're not already on there? We don't have one. OK. Yeah, I mean,
- yeah, so the document spells out what kind of
- partners would be yeah the criteria for a partner but if they're not already kind of on file with the
- city I think they have to fill out some paperwork to kind of become an approved vendor through the city
- but if they're already on the list that makes it even easier yeah and then yeah I encourage everyone
- to look through look through the document that's a few pages and
- give you a pretty good idea of kind of what goes into it. And yeah, so maybe just ask if anyone has
- any questions about that process. So in terms of what we could actually do with this stuff and how do
- we brainstorm these things, maybe I'll transition into the next topic here, which is we talked about
- doing a strategy planning session at some point or a retreat or something like this. We called it a
- few things.
- there might be a really good candidate for that. We're part of, you know, in addition to talking about
- what do we wanna do as a commission in terms of things like resolutions or other work like that,
- you know, is there a list of sort of initiatives that if we just had some money, we could make some
- progress on, you know, let's build that list and prioritize it and maybe think about what kind of supplies
- we need. We were gonna hold off on scheduling a planning session like that until we,
- had an opportunity to go through the training, the city-wide training for the boards and commissions.
- So that's passed. I think we could probably talk about getting something like that scheduled again.
- I'm thinking that maybe September is an ideal time to target, just because, as we'll talk about a little
- bit later, we're hoping for an extra meeting in August to do a joint session with the Environmental
- Commission. So I don't want to overload August with a bunch of extra meetings.
- So maybe September, we sort of talked before about doing, do we just do an extra two hour session or
- something on an off week than we normally would meet? Or do we do like a weekend thing for a couple
- hours? I think we're probably not going to be meeting at any one time for more than two hours or so,
- just to kind of keep things focused and be respectful of everybody's time.
- But whether we try to fit two of those in a month or maybe just one on a weekend or whatever, yeah,
- we can try to nail down those details and get it scheduled. And come up with some goals for things that
- we want to actually walk away from those sessions with, that sort of stuff. Yeah. One resource that
- we might be able to look into for community partners is, for a list that's already generated, is
- the Monroe County Public Library maintains a list of nonprofits, I think. It's not necessarily the most
- up to date, but it would have a lot of, I'll see if I can find that resource, yeah. Nice. Yeah, and
- speaking of the grants,
- I'm sorry, I'm just looking up a message. So a couple years ago, I think now, we used to have another
- set of funds that we could issue grants through called the Sustainable Neighborhoods Grant. And one
- of the projects that we did there was to, I forget in which neighborhood it was, Covenanter, I think.
- buy some of these bins that people could put things that you normally can't recycle into those bins
- as like a community and then they get shipped out to a place where they can get properly recycled. The
- company was called TerraCycle. And Matt Austin, it was
- commissioner here until earlier this year, you know, reached out to me today and mentioned that the
- Waste Reduction District of Monroe County is participating in a hefty pilot program through Rumpke that's
- very similar to TerraCycle. And so you can basically buy these orange hefty bags at like online from
- Target or Walmart or Amazon or whatever. And you can pick them up and then you can basically do that
- same sort of program, ship them back and
- send all sorts of kitchen waste that you normally can't recycle out. So that's kind of cool. Matt pointed
- out that, hey, we did that first here in Bloomington. Now, maybe it's because of that trial, or maybe
- it just happened. But hey, it's a wider sort of service that's kind of being trialed now. So something
- exciting I just wanted to mention to everybody. Let's see. OK.
- For resolutions, so we passed resolution 2026-05 last time about the anticoagulant rodenticides and
- traps. And so that's been transmitted to, at least I think, a vast majority of the recipients.
- There's maybe, yeah. All the city. Right. So I think there's still a few stragglers that we have to
- send, but Zach and I have been kind of splitting that up and getting those out. Let's see.
- Thinking back to resolution 2026-02, which was our automated license plate reader, you know, flock cameras
- type stuff, no new announcements from our end, but just things that have developed since then, which
- I'm sure most people have probably heard of, that the mayor had announced in April that the city is
- going to transition away from flock, but there wasn't a timeline specified. I think, as far as I can
- tell, the LPRs are still installed around town.
- If we're interested, we might consider sending a letter to the office of the mayor or something where
- we ask for an update on that transition timeline and process. That's something we could pass at the
- next meeting or something if people are interested in that. Resolution 2026-03, which was the Kirkwood
- pedestrianization, just an update on that. Coordinates 2026-12 pass the council.
- before they went on recess. And that one was, so that would have reestablished the closing of Kirkwood
- during the summer months. And then that was vetoed by the mayor. And so the council, if they want to
- override that veto, would have to do so at their next meeting, which would be when they come back from
- their summer recess. So just wanted to provide those as sort of news updates on things that we've passed
- recently. Internal updates, so strategic planning retreat. I think I've mentioned before that all
- you know, send out a Google thing to try to help schedule that. I haven't done that yet, but I will
- do that. And we'll try to get something on the books for September. One other thing that I think would
- be a good topic of discussion for one of those sessions would be looking at bylaws rewrite, something
- we sort of talked about
- a little bit in passing before. I know Zach's kind of taking a look at that. He's got some ideas of
- changes that could be made, but there's some things that just need to be changed, like old references
- to parts of the code that no longer exist, because they've been moved to other parts of the code. There's
- a couple typos and things like that in there, and things that would make life just a little bit easier,
- like not being so strict on exactly how the agenda format needs to look, so that we can kind of change things
- around ahead of time. But then we can talk a little bit more about what sort of procedures and stuff
- that we have in place that are working well for us, which things are causing friction that we might
- want to think about doing things a little bit differently. And we can have some of those discussions,
- try to put that all together into one big package. Can I ask a question about the letter that you brought up? Yeah.
- if we wanted to write a letter as a commission, does it follow the same process as a resolution
- business-wise? Is it effectively a resolution or is it a different? You could read it in different ways.
- My reading on it would be that it's not because it's not really formally stating an opinion
- of the commission, but just asking questions. I would read it as it's not, we could pass it in one meeting.
- But we never really strictly define anywhere what exactly a resolution is. So it could be argued away,
- probably. So if anyone feels strongly about that. For the capstone project, I wrote a memo and we passed
- on a meeting. Yeah, that's a good point. You can do that, you just need to vote on it. Not you need
- to vote on it twice, not you need to write. So if our bios are neutral, we can just follow the city guidance.
- I would thank you for something like that, especially for requesting additional information. The longer
- it took us to write the letter, that information might come out and then it may become irrelevant. Yeah,
- yeah, it makes it hard to write. Yeah. So things like that on a more time-sensitive. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- Yeah, good question, though. And then just something just on the back burner is the chicken flock size
- ordinance, which came out of a resolution we passed last year. So Zach drafted up some specific UDO and BMC
- changes that would support that resolution. I think we're mostly just waiting on a sort of more opportune
- time to engage with council and try to kind of get that on their radar, which might be coming up soon
- once they're back from recess. And I think they've got, I think they have a permanent, I think a permanent
- council council now, right? Or maybe. They're still hiring one that they have. Oh, they are, okay. Temporary
- one. Ah, okay. Experience, yeah. Okay, gotcha. Either way, yeah.
- We'll probably just look to Councilman Barallo for guidance on when is a good time to kind of bring
- that forward. But just want to keep it on people's radar. A couple external updates. IU is doing their
- Economic Development Summit that they do every year. It's on August 3rd this year at the Alumni Hall
- in IMU. I don't think they have an agenda yet, but I
- Right before this meeting, I typed up some chair report notes, so I'll send this around to everybody.
- There's a link on there if you're interested. I think that's mostly it from the chair's report. I mentioned
- the joint session that we're hoping to do with the EC in August. We're talking about that resolution
- today, so we'll maybe kind of hold off on that for the moment, but I think
- There's the logistic challenge of just getting two commissions in the same place at the same time. And
- then there's not quite a challenge, but just some logistical planning that needs to be done in terms
- of how does that actually go. And I think we have a pretty decent, you know, Zach and I talked about
- this a little bit. I think we have a pretty decent idea of like how that would actually flow. You know,
- both sides has to notice the meeting, of course. And each commission is subject to their own independent
- forum. That's right. Exactly.
- Each side, once they were there, and we called to order, there would be one chair, either myself or
- the chair of the EC, and calls the meeting to order. And then both sides takes their attendance, establishes
- quorum. And then when we do votes, it's the same sort of thing. One side goes first, then the other
- side goes. Essentially just two meetings happening simultaneously at the same time. Yeah, just coordinated
- meetings. Less complicated than it sounds. You just. Like there on one side and there on the other.
- Not even necessarily. The main thing is you have to keep track of each commission's votes independently.
- Yeah. Everything else is like a regular meeting. If we were going to pass something, we wouldn't need
- a majority of the people in the room. We need a majority of the EC members and a majority of the PCOS
- members. Yeah. That's the main logistical challenge. Everything else is just people in a room, like
- we normally are in a meeting. Yeah. But it should be fun. Hopefully, yeah. Yeah. And so I'll send an
- email to you guys tomorrow because we're targeting April
- Sorry, August 18th. August 18th is what we're targeting. Council chambers is the obvious choice for
- that because it's a big space. I didn't see any meetings on the public calendar at the moment, so fingers
- crossed that the space is available, but I'll touch base with you guys and we can chat.
- the EC talked about it, and I think that most of them are available on that date. Yeah, and that's the
- main reason we're going with August 18th, because that's when they're available, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
- So if people want to check their calendars at some point before we leave today, and you could let me
- know if that date works for you, that would be helpful. It does work for council chambers. Awesome.
- Cool. OK. Very, very good. There's one for at least one of you, too? Yeah. OK. OK, cool. Yeah, do we have to?
- staff liaison from each commission or just one? I think technically, but I'll let you guys see for yourself.
- I'll review things for sure with the clerk's office just to make sure. Okay. Perfect. I think that's
- the end of my report. Sorry, there's a little scatter brain that just put it together. That's okay.
- That's very good.
- Thank you. Any questions for me? Okey-dokey. Oh yeah. First, tell me if this is more appropriate to
- discuss later, but in terms of a retreat, have you discussed sort of the nature of that? When that term
- is used, I think of something that is sort of
- That plus wanting to spend money on it suggests sort of like other place where we all go and sort of
- engage. And as I remember, there were issues with quorum and open door laws. Have those issues been
- sort of clarified or is it still a kind of question of how we would gather together without violating
- open door laws? Yeah, I think as long as we have a quorum, you know, for the full body and we publicly
- notice it appropriately then.
- We should be fine. I think, you know, retreat is maybe not quite the best word for it anymore. I'm excited.
- I think it's like wine coolers when I hear that. Yeah, that probably won't happen. No zip lining.
- Happy ones. That's right. It's the last structured planning session. Yeah. So it's subject to the...
- Yeah, workshop maybe. Yeah, exactly. No campfires. Yeah, I know, yeah. That would be nice, but yeah,
- it's, you know, tough to get all those ducks in a row.
- In terms of where we would have it, I think it would be nice to get out of the building a little bit.
- One place I've thought about is I've got a membership to the mill, so we could reserve the space there.
- They've got a pretty large conference room. We'd still be in a conference room, I guess, in that case.
- Different conference. Yeah, it would be a couple of minutes walk that way instead of right here. That
- was special. If anyone has any other ideas of wherever we go, it just has to be publicly available and
- accessible. In city limits, yeah.
- If you go to the southeast branch of the library. I think there are interesting opportunities there
- then, because I think there are some locations within the city that are maybe owned by the parks department
- that might be of interest. The mill is a possibility. You will understand my hesitations around the
- mill in some regard. I wouldn't rule it out though, and I am interested in, I think it's gray, go somewhere else.
- Good thing to look into. Yeah, if anyone has ideas of places, definitely would be open to consider.
- I'll put it on the Google form. You know, the parks department property is, even if another department
- is borrowing it, they still charge our department a fee to use it because they have to staff it. The
- parks department staffs it. So yeah, so it would be free to do that, unfortunately.
- But that is, like, the idea is we would earmark some of the budget toward that purpose of, like, facilities
- rental for this meeting, if I understood you correctly earlier. Yeah, would that be an appropriate use
- of the supplies fund if we decided to go somewhere where we had to pay some money? Like, a strategic
- meeting feels like a non-controversial way to apply that money. Is it, like, very expensive?
- Or is it? Probably not. I think like less than $100. OK. So we're not, like, in the house. Nothing easy.
- Yeah. OK. Yeah. We're going to blow the whole rest of the budget. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it used
- to be, like, shelter houses or parks before. That's very reasonable. Sometimes, I didn't know if they,
- like, give a discount. Yeah. I just didn't know the order. The public rate is reasonable. I imagine
- if there's a discount city rate, it's more reasonable. Yeah. Right.
- And we've used library spaces before, the downtown branch. But with the cut to library hours, it's a
- lot harder. Those spaces are, there's just fewer of them. Especially the larger. But that's outside
- of city limits. What? The Southwest branch is outside of city limits. I think we could be on the library.
- I know this because I reached out to the library about doing one of those working group grants for some
- native plantings. And where they really need the money is the Southwest branch. But it's outside of
- city limits.
- I'll keep air conditioning and public access and accessibility in mind, and I'll see if I can find anywhere
- that's good. That's possible. Excellent. Awesome. Any other questions? Not a question, just a comment.
- I think the mill is a good option. However, the door's locked at 5.30. Yeah. Yeah, it's not technically
- open to the public either. Right. I'd have to check with people here about how that would work. Yeah.
- Maybe not an option, but. Look, I'll switch here. Oh. It's fun. Yeah. The pavilion echoes so much.
- That's it. It's so hard to hear in there. It could be in the band show. It'll be sweet. It'll be September.
- It'll be like only like eight years old, right? It's a cool party. That's the fun part. We'll go to
- Burn Park. Yeah, there we go.
- Well, yeah, give it some thought. And if you come up with clever ideas, shoot an email or something.
- Yeah. I think that this is also a really good indication that there are not enough indoor third spaces
- in our community. Maybe that's something that our commission could push from there. There you go. So
- now we've got a topic of discussion as well. Excellent. OK, anything else? Comments or questions?
- Okay, well, we would normally go to a report from council, but Councilmember Morales is not here. Does
- anyone have anything interesting that they've seen going on at council during this recess that they
- want to mention to people? Does anything go on during recess? I think there's been a handful of hiring
- committee meetings or something. That's about it. There is a draft ALPR ordinance that's been circulating.
- It's not public yet, but they are moving on something that potentially completely banned
- ALPR is in the city, so that's good. How long is the recess? When do they come back? The end of the
- month. Getting close. No, the end of the month. The end of the month. 22nd. Oh, so next week. Next Wednesday.
- Maybe of limited relevance, not connected to that, but you just reminded me, as of today, New York has
- imposed the first nationwide moratorium on data centers for an entire state. Yeah. Very proud.
- Yeah, that's good. Exciting news, precedent set, so worth keeping an eye on. Indianapolis just did a
- temporary moratorium as well. They've had a ton of them there, so anyway. I happen to be, as part of
- my work with you, I happen to be reviewing the ordinances, municipal ordinances across the state for
- Language related to best battery energy storage systems. I think I'm going to be reviewing solar arrays
- coming up. And so I'm not too deep in it yet, but it did make me think of this group, because Indiana
- doesn't really have, to my knowledge, or at least on this report, this analysis that I'm reading doesn't
- have any language around.
- or ordinance language related to technology. So it might be something worth exploring because we have
- not too far away a data center coming in. So to think long and hard about what we would want our community
- to, what rules we should have in place if we think they're coming. Yeah, absolutely.
- Well, we'll move on to discussions, not the subject of resolution. So update on Kirkwood. I'll pass
- it over to you Zach. Yeah. Ross present. Hello. Hello. Okay, yeah. So on Kirkwood, I mean, basically
- just jumping on what you said, the mayor vetoed. So there was an ordinance passed that would have reinstated
- the car-free Kirkwood program as our resolution kind of asked for.
- The mayor passed 5-4. The mayor vetoed it in order for it to be overridden by the council. They need
- six members to vote for it. It's not impossible. So if you feel so inclined, I would encourage everybody
- to maybe write to the council members that voted no. There's some cases that you could make about why
- that's a good thing. If you want to talk more about that, you can talk to me about it after this. I've
- got some ideas on that.
- kind of a group of us trying to encourage the council members to override the veto. But yeah, so that's
- the main thing I just wanted to say. Like you mentioned, the mayor vetoed it, and we'll see what happens
- next. Yeah. So the veto would have to take place, like you mentioned, at their July 22 meeting. So that's
- all I had to say. Yeah. Nice. Thank you. I realize the next item here is commission priority finding
- meeting. I think I already kind of went over that. Yes.
- All right. Resolutions for first reading, 2026-06, minimizing light pollution and attaining dark sky
- certification for Bloomington. So Zach, back to you. Yeah. So typically, we'll first read if you don't
- do a long discussion. But considering this is a fairly complex one, we thought maybe it might be a good
- idea to just kind of walk through briefly what it would do. So all of you have a package that I printed
- off as a memorandum in there. If you didn't have time to read the whole thing, that's fine. But please
- read it before our next meeting. That would be great.
- Basically, what this resolution would do is it makes a whole bunch of changes to the UDO, so our zoning
- code, to strengthen light pollution laws. I'll just briefly walk through some of that. I didn't prepare
- anything in particular, but I'm just going to briefly walk through some of the main changes it would
- do. It would change color temperature standards on public lights. If you look on page three, there is
- a diagram of lighting temperatures measured in Kelvin. It would require all city lights to be at the
- 3,000 Kelvin.
- which is that line right here, which the American Medical Association and a bunch of environmental
- organizations have said is you don't want anything higher than that, that's bad for things like bats
- and birds migrating and things like that, and also bad for human health. A lot of the lights that have
- been put in place on public lamps and things in recent years have been in the 4,000 to 5,000, 6,000 range.
- Yeah, I just put one literally next to, I'm on a corner by Brian Carter, and it is like day. Yeah, they're
- awful. Yeah, I agree. And you can tell what they've been put in place. So on that point, piggybacking
- on that, this chart down here shows 311 complaints to the city about bright, glaring, annoying streetlights.
- Sometime in 2022, the city started changing. It's from the old sodium lights that are like the old style.
- In the decade prior to that,
- they got, on average, about 11 complaints about bright or glaring streetlights a year. If you look at
- 2022 and thereafter, and keeping in mind, 2026 is just through April. They've shot up to 100 a year
- around that every single year. So they're extremely unpopular. People hate them, the newer, bright,
- really glaring streetlights. So this would be popular with people, I think. But this chart alone,
- I think, shows that. People really hate the really bright glaring lights because they're awful.
- So that's one of the things it would do. It also, hold on, let me go back to my list. So I'm on page
- two, I'm gonna read through the main things it does. Number two is an amortization schedule for non-compliant
- fixtures. Basically what that means is it requires the city to change all of its lights that don't comply
- with the regulation as written within 10 years. That's probably gonna be the hardest sell. The goal
- of this is to get us to get dark sky status.
- So I basically just took what the Dark Sky organization's rules are and wrote them into, and that is
- one of the rules. So that will probably be one of the harder sells because you'll have to, that will
- have a cost associated with it replacing all the streetlights. Dark Sky International though, just as
- a point on that, is flexible with cities. If you can't, like there was a city, I think Breckenridge,
- Colorado was recognized as a dark sky city, but couldn't quite make the 10 year thing.
- but they were making good faith progress towards it, so they gave them a couple year extension. So they're
- not like a super hardcore stickler on it. As long as you're making good faith effort to get towards
- the goal, they're not gonna rescind your status. So that's probably the hardest sell, and I will admit
- that. It also will restrict exterior uplighting, so lights shooting up straight in the air. There's
- a very narrow exception for, it's already existing in the code for flags,
- I would get rid of that for me, but politically that's a very, you can't say, they're trying to take
- away my flag at the sound. Anyway, so I left that and I also left one for historical, like historic
- buildings, but you have to have a lighting plant of some sort in place. Probably the strongest thing
- is number four, which is, this comes from Dark Star International, would require all public lighting
- to have a strict,
- a really strong reason for it to be there. You couldn't just say, safety. And you have to say something
- specific to that site that requires a light. That's another one. And on top of that, I added, which
- goes beyond dark sky, a suggested thing that says, near environmentally sensitive areas, so wetlands,
- creeks, and things like that, it would be even stronger. And basically, you would have to prove that
- lighting is the only thing that can solve the problem, and that nothing else can solve it. And even
- if you can put in a light, it would have to be the lowest
- luminous brightness and the lowest color temperature possible for that thing. Number five is an extension
- of the light curfew. So currently in the code, there's a curfew on lighting that is 11 p.m. for a couple
- of categories. I would make it 10 p.m. for all categories, so they're extended all the way to a whole
- bunch of different categories that aren't covered at all by light curfew, and move it up to 10 p.m. from 11 p.
- m.
- Finally, the last two illuminated signs would have stronger rules, which I just took directly out of
- the Dark Sky rules. And seven is strengthening rules of light trespass, so that is lights going off
- of your property into someone else's property. There's a lot more detail to it. I encourage you to read
- through the resolution before our next meeting and read through this as well. For your help, starting
- on page five, the part two, is the entire code
- that I'm suggesting changing with the actual changes suggested in the code. The deletions are in red
- and the additions are in yellow. That would be what we would be suggesting to the council. And based
- on feedback that we've gotten, it seems like they want more specific wordings. That's what I did. So
- this is something they could theoretically just copy and paste directly in the code if they wanted to.
- They could obviously tweak it as they see fit. But the idea here is to really get this into code, ideally.
- And I have spoken with a couple of council members already who seem very, very interested in this. Now,
- whether that actually means it will get passed, I have no idea. Whether that actually means we're going
- to get any of this in, I have no idea. But several members have expressed strong interest so far. So
- that's where I will leave it for now. Do you have any questions? And this is a logistic question. My
- understanding is because we're doing this, the EC is considering this resolution
- like exactly this week the identical resolution meeting on Thursday yeah and we worked with them as
- you can see on the rose illusion co-sponsor list I was the main author but I had quite a bit of help
- from Alex Justin on three members of the EC as well we all got together and worked on this and went
- through several drafts yeah any other questions or comments it's very complicated I understand like
- it's a lot of
- my technical jargon on lighting and stuff. A lot of that comes directly from dark sky. I will say the
- goal here is to get dark sky community status. That is the goal. My actual goal, that's the goal for
- the city. My actual goal is to reduce light pollution. And I don't really care whether we get dark skies
- or not. That'd be nice. That's like a cherry on top. This is one area where, and there's a lot of areas
- where this is not the case, but this is one area that is rare where incremental, even little bits of
- progress make a big difference here.
- So even if we don't get all the way, even if we only get 50%, 75% of the way there, that's still a meaningful
- reduction in light pollution. I think we have a human right to be able to see the night sky. And that's
- being denied to most people who live in cities today. And I think that's not needed. So yeah. We're
- right in that big, big migratory corridor, too, for a lot of migratory areas. Absolutely. And this came
- up in our neighborhood, because we actually wanted an additional light.
- because we had no sidewalks. And there was a corner that was terrifying because it was a blind corner.
- And then the light that they put in was like, this is just day to them. We just wanted to not get hit
- by cars. But it came up on our neighborhood that we were like, well, we want ones that don't mess with
- the ability to see. Because they have the capped ones. Yeah, that would be another thing this would
- do. It would fully define exactly how they have to be covered. And the covers wouldn't be that crazy
- to install even on existing lights.
- And because of right now, it just kind of vaguely defines it in the code, just with fully defining it
- and not allowing any uplining at all. Or it has to come down, basically. Do you know how any of this
- would be enforced with IU? And I say this as a resident who lives on the north side who is frequently
- bothered by light pollution coming from the stadium. I'm curious how that falls into the... We can't
- force IU to do anything. Of course.
- that would be a big question mark on what's getting dark sky status. Because I've talked, and Alex has
- as well with me, talked to the dark sky people, because I had a call with them just to go over this.
- And they were very curious about how that would work out. It's a shame it's a meeting where we don't
- have our IU representative with us. Because that would be my big question. Because I know that, at least
- for me, that's the single biggest contributor to light pollution in my area. You could quite literally
- see it from my backyard. Absolutely. And it's pretty glaring and obvious.
- That'll be one of the biggest roadblocks, so that's for sure. It'd be interesting to see how other college
- towns have partnered with their universities. It strikes me that if this were carefully presented, there
- is a really good opportunity for political inclusiveness here. I think it's very easy to make a pitch
- that is broadly appealing to most people with the exclusion of the kinds of holdouts that I could imagine
- would be private property owners who want to do whatever they want with their lights.
- that is something I think you need to be more. There's a needle to thread there. But I think at the
- same time, I can imagine it's easy to go in the opposite direction where I think I share exactly your
- goals and for probably identical reasons. My concern would be that if we were to phrase things in the
- way that I think actually reflect our motivations, it would be easy to alienate people.
- To your point, this does not very little to private property. But I guess what I'm saying is I think
- this is a great idea. I think it's very easy to present this as practical, both in terms of overall
- human environment and ecological purposes. I think it's a mechanical change that's relatively simple.
- It really requires will and money. The longer-term strategy is I'm thinking about this in relation to
- something like IU, which is that weird carve out
- like literally the whole quadrant of the city, is that if you were to actually start making progress
- on this, it would require a longer-term strategy, but you could exert pressure through success and evidence
- of mitigation and improvement in the city that might leverage IU into making changes down the road.
- I'll probably be more willing to follow than lead in this situation, especially
- current admin but like yeah I think it's I think it's very doable personally. First comment thank you
- very much for providing all of the information and the expert that's that was very helpful I really
- appreciate that. Second comment I fully intend to vote to pass this to a second reading because I do
- believe it's within the purview of our commission and
- I think in order for me to vote to pass it at the second reading and for it to have a chance of the
- city council actually considering passing a version of it, there are some changes I would want to see. OK.
- or perhaps some more information I would want. So some of these recommendations to the UDO changes that
- mention they exceed the dark sky community requirements. I would be interested in knowing, so why do
- they exceed that minimum set? And who came up with that metric? And why did you decide to go farther?
- To me, I think it's good to go farther when you can. And I saw areas where we could. But my concern
- is that by going farther than what is just required, it might be pushing too far where it'll just be
- completely taken off the table. I haven't read this, but I do need to spend more time with it. But that's
- just one initial consideration. A couple other things.
- I'm curious about, so I'm very interested in seeing that Flagstaff has attained the certification. And
- I'm wondering, so the requirement of illuminated signs being turned off an hour after sunset, I don't
- see that being popular or council wanting to vote for that. And I'm wondering, does Flagstaff really
- turn off all of their signs? I think so. And ma'am, we're talking.
- Primarily, like billboards. Billboards, yeah. That's what we're talking, not... Billboards, not...
- You know, there are many other signs. Big sections for, like, roads, security, signs that are needed
- for safety and security. But, like, signs on Kirkwood, like, for businesses that have neon there. I'm
- not sure I'd have to look into that. It's primarily billboards that they're talking about, though. Because
- I don't think those would violate... I think what we're talking about, you know, you've got the big
- upward shining lights on those billboards, whereas if you've got, like, you know, yeah, you've just
- got letters that are illuminated, I don't think that would... Okay.
- OK, good. Well, then, yeah, I would need to know more about what the illuminated signs is. And also,
- yeah, if all the cities that actually have this certification, do they actually meet all these requirements?
- Which of them have received variances? One other thing, and I hate to say this because I love it and
- I think it's lovely, but the first whereas clause, I would probably move to strike that.
- Because I think the data-driven arguments in the following clauses are so strong, like the you report
- complaints. And this, again, is a lovely paragraph. But I wonder if it might undermine the following
- arguments for people who are already maybe
- not looking to support it, if they might just roll their eyes. So those are just some things that I'll
- look into more, and I would like to talk about more before voting to pass this. But I will certainly
- pass it for a second reading. OK. Hi, Alex. So since I helped work on some comments to some of those
- things, first,
- that first wear-as-clothes used to be three wear-as-clothes in the first draft. So this is the paired
- back first, if that helps. And it was beautiful prose, but we had a similar feeling of like, this might
- be too much. And so I will say having talked to some other people about it, they were very engaged in like,
- the humanity of the rights and the spiritual aspect of it. So I do think that that clause does speak
- to people. But personally, I'm a data-driven person. So I read it, and I was like, I recognize that
- this is beautiful, but it doesn't speak to me. So I have a very similar take, but I know that it does
- speak to. It will speak to others, but I'm just dumb, me, and maybe not you.
- The Dark Skies is changing their certification process. So one of the reasons to do this now is that
- potentially gaining Dark Skies certification could be a reason that would help get it past that people
- would be interested. I know cities sometimes like being bicycle friendly USA and all of these things.
- So we need to get this moving. If we don't get it moving, the new Dark Skies certification is going
- to be performance based.
- where they will actually measure how much darker it is. And between the presence of IU and our proximity
- to Indianapolis, they just flat out told us that it would probably be impossible for us to get full
- certification. But they did say, just to be clear, that if we show good faith effort on these current
- status, we can get it if we are moving within the next year or so, approximately. Yeah. But that also
- is potentially kind of a reason why where we can to
- go a little farther, because we already can't get to be a dark city from a performance-based standpoint.
- So if there is a place where we can go a little farther, I think that there is some rationale to do
- it. And we should weigh benefits and costs of going farther, but I was generally supportive of that,
- to the idea that it being
- kind of uncontentious, I actually expect there to be pushback on the idea of safety. In this process,
- Zach primarily, but I mean, I did too. We looked at trying to find evidence that lighter equals safer,
- and there isn't really much. But,
- people think that there is. I can tell you, I came to IU in 2006 as an undergrad and campus is much,
- much brighter and they, you know, during my undergraduate years, they had a very concerted effort to,
- you know, light up the dumb worlds because it was deemed to be an unsafe location when how dark it was.
- And the lighting on campus has grown considerably
- in the name of safety. And I think that there will be pushback in the name of safety. Much of that,
- I think, will not be. I don't think that, in general, the pushback against decreasing lighting in the
- name of safety is data-driven, that removing this lighting makes things less safe. There are exceptions,
- obviously, but people will
- feel very passionately that lighting in places, the lighting on your street corner, that it makes people
- feel very passionately that, oh, you want to take away the lighting. People are going to start breaking
- into businesses. I don't know. I expect there to be some level of pushback on that front. I think that's
- exactly right, personally. The reason I emphasize the idea
- property owners, because that's an intransigent sort of position that has basically only a
- sort of principle-based counter-argument, where there's no sort of way to make an argument rooted in
- other kinds of arsenals. And I think with the safety argument, it is absolutely available to kind of,
- A, I think you're correct in terms of my understanding is that
- Light versus no light does matter, but the form and sort of shape and expression of the light are absolutely
- manipulable in a way that can preserve both of those concerns. I think that to your point, you arrived
- on campus at a time also when LEDs were becoming available, cheaper and different nature of lighting
- being installed.
- I guess I just think that kind of an argument, I think you're right, it will be the number one pushback.
- But I also think it's open to really robust kinds of argument that are not against it, but that can
- demonstrate it's possible to preserve both concerns. That's not the right way to put that.
- And I think it's about doing that carefully and effectively. That's what I've meant by that. I think
- it was on Dark Sky's website that there was a picture that we found in this process where they show
- a garage with a bright light shining from the garage out, and they show a person standing behind the
- light, and they're completely invisible, and then they turn the light off. And there's a person that
- just appears. Yes, it does. Yeah, I mean, you need to be smart about how you light things for the purpose
- of safety.
- Sorry. Two things that, well, one thing that I would like to know more about is in this 311 data, was
- there an overall increase in all 311 calls or you report tickets that would potentially explain this?
- Not to the scale. OK. Not to the scale. I think it's worth mentioning in some
- capacity that this is independent of just more people being aware of this resource and utilizing it.
- Yeah, because we're talking about the timetiming. Yeah. And I think on the safety thing, I'm not sure
- how this would work into the resolution. I think this more works into the way that we talk about it
- in session or in any kind of outreach to council or anybody else about this, is that there is data,
- pedestrian safety data for young children.
- It's part of why our schools start so late is because when kids are waiting for the bus, when it's darker,
- there are more instances of people hitting children with their cars. Now, the solution to that is not
- pollute the skies with lights. It's people to not drive dangerously in general, but especially around
- children. And like I said, in my neighborhood, it was literally that it was a terrifying corner to walk
- on, because people would just whip around the corner.
- and it was dark, and you would either be like a deer or someone and their dog. And you're like, maybe
- tonight I die. So I think making it clear that this is not about like, no, we're not saying no street
- lights so that you stand in the dark waiting for the bus, but that those lights do not need
- to be illuminating the heavens in order for somebody to not hit you with their car. Because there is
- data around that, and that does drive local policy decisions around like,
- when our elementary schools start because we should actually be on the central time zone and we're not.
- To be clear, this is not, I know you guys know this, but for the record, this is not about eliminating
- all street lights. It's about being smarter about where we place them and not having them,
- like you said, illuminate the heavens as well as pointing the light downward instead of everywhere.
- and changing the color temperature. Yeah. I don't think that it necessarily changes the context of the
- resolution itself, but just how we communicate it, whatever we communicate to Castle or other bodies
- in trying to drum up support for it if it passes. Legislators are the people who are the most excited
- about, quote unquote, data-driven language. People who are not in that population are much more interested
- in felt experiences of reality.
- For them, you can turn a light on and have it turned off, and they'll be like, I like this other one
- better. So I think it's very important. Again, that's what I meant with my initial comment about messaging
- and not starting in the wrong place and not being like, well, look, you don't know what you're talking
- about because the data shows that you're actually, people are like, no, and I hate you now. So that's
- the kind of thing. That's like creating defensiveness. Yes.
- If there's one thing in my entire history as an educator and as a member of my family that you want
- to avoid, it's getting people's hatles up. I think introducing this carefully around exactly this, because
- people will go buck wild if you challenge their sense of safety of their children in particular, as
- you're pointing out.
- You'll just shoot yourself in the foot instantly if you were to do that. I think there are probably
- ways to express this in terms of strengthening safety and strengthening other things because I think
- that's actually true. It's not like a marketing approach, it's more about ensuring that whatever ethos
- it is that you and I might have in terms of right to the next guy and concern about other species,
- there are also these other things that are there. Well, driving down a dark street and then suddenly
- there's a 5,000 lumens light is also not very, it's a disconcerting experience. And I mean, like, I
- think that this image that you put in here is incredibly compelling because even though this is a photograph,
- I am having a visceral reaction. I know, I made them too, right? I'm like, oh God, these are the lights
- that make me
- And that is a life-friendly thing. They literally trigger migraines for me, but that I'm like, make
- my teachers. People associate those with environmentalism, though, also. The super bright ones? Yes.
- Because those were installed for environmental efficiency, people associate these really negative things
- with environmental and ecological initiatives, partly because of canny strategy of opponents to those things.
- Yes, I actually think there's a there's a win-win. I'm so sorry to use that language, but like here
- in exactly what you're pointing out. It's actually it's why I think this is such a strong idea. Yeah.
- Yeah. This graphic like I would I think go so far. Yeah. We want these.
- It's not on the purview of this, but it makes me think of cars that have those LED lights that are genuinely
- dangerous when you're driving, particularly if they're right behind you because you can't see anything
- in front of you. Personally, I have a similarly very strong reaction to those because, again, I'm very
- light sensitive and it makes it hard for me to drive at night. Those are the arguments that really pull
- people in, I think. Because I think a lot of people have those kinds of
- of experiences with this type of thing. We're not going to take weird street light. We're going to make
- it not feel like it's weird. We want to make it more pleasant. Yeah. I genuinely think if it's presented
- well, this will be extremely popular, the main components of this. But I do think that, back to what
- you're saying, it doesn't matter what the data show. If you feel unsafe walking through Dunn Meadow,
- and there's all kinds of Dunn Meadow, Dunn Woods, you're not going to care what the
- what the technical situation is going on out there. So I think it's just this, I think the challenge
- is gonna be the language that we use because this is about how people, this is about people's feelings
- around safety. And so it doesn't matter, you can tell them all day long that you are actually safer
- because we're using this particular lower level light. So I, yeah. Yeah.
- Yeah, but it's also an opportunity. I mean, not that resolutions are meant to be tools, but we're going
- to have to educate a lot of education about, no, it's not less safe. It's OK. An angle of this that
- we have not discussed this evening that resonates with me, too, is that also if we are using lower wattage
- lighting and removing excessive lighting things, we reduce energy consumption.
- Yes, as well. So at a time when city budgets are particularly limited, we can kind of have that long-term
- view of it would reduce operating constants. I think there was also a, one of you might have to remind
- me of the exact details of this, but there was some benefit related to the length of the pollen season.
- Yes. Doing this would actually reduce how much people suffer from pollen allergies. It's a weird connection
- you wouldn't expect, but that's when we talk about how we sell it. Artificial light tonight significantly
- extends the duration of the pollen. It's not like a small ink. It was a study that came out this year
- thanks to, I think, Alex sent it to me, or Matt from the EC sent it to me. There was a dramatic increase
- in the pollen season because of artificial lighting, way more than they expected.
- Again, I think like this image is like, that is something that people will be like, to breathe. And
- one thing I want to point out for staff is that we can lead the application process. The commission
- can, according to Dark Sky. So it's not something necessarily that staff would have to do. We can do
- that ourselves. And that's also for the commission as well to know, a good thing to know. What was the
- other? Oh, on your energy thing that you were talking about,
- The dark sky told us during our meeting, this is anecdotal, but Jacksonville, Wyoming airport got certified,
- what was it, an airport could get certified as a dark sky airport, but again, but they said that when
- they converted over to dark sky lighting, their energy use for lighting decreased 30%. I mean, it's
- just for lighting, that's not all energy, but still, that's a substantial decrease in energy costs over
- time. So even though it might have some costs initially upfront to change lighting to conform to code,
- So the new code, if this ever gets passed long term, the savings would be substantial. So. It's also
- extra impressive considering that airports are meant to be these giant beacons of light so that the
- pilots can see it from miles away. That's impressive. Yeah. Did you have? Yeah. So there's a lot more
- we could go into, but yeah, that's legit. I have one question. So for the light trespass, do you know
- like this is obviously I would think a it's driven by like citizen complaint if it's currently happening
- and so if there was like an increase in the restrictiveness do you know like how many complaints the
- city's currently getting on like yeah I have to look into that or like how much staff potentially could yeah
- you know, increase costs, if that was like. For sure. I mean, I could look into that. The main thing
- that would do with that is for future development. I mean, there is, things would have to comply with
- the amortization requirements. So things would have to comply within 10 years. That's primarily for
- public streetlights, though.
- the amortization requirement. This is all lighting fixtures. So on private property, there's not an
- amortization requirement. So it would be, primarily for new developments, we'd have to comply with this,
- is the main thing. So they would, when you go through the planning commission or whatever you have to-
- So it would be during the planning process? Yes. It's not like there would be on the back end a lot
- of potential staff- I don't think there would be a lot. I mean, technically, you might be able to file
- a complaint or something like that. I mean, I think you can now, because there are light trespass rules
- now. These are just stronger ones.
- So I don't anticipate a substantial increase in that, because we're just slightly changing the rules.
- It would be more newer developments. Yeah. I can't find it now, but one thing that I thought was really
- cool, in my head, I pictured it being creating a corridor of dark skies. And I assume that meant across
- the nation. And so I was like, that's a really neat concept. And I don't think that's going to be
- But it's a really neat piece to consider in the overall goal. Yeah, so the idea was that IU,
- number one, we have an astronomy department here with the Kirkwood Observatory. And we're surrounded
- by state forests and state parks that are relatively dark. We could become, if we do this right, play
- this right, we could become an astrotourism destination, theoretically. That's one angle that I was
- trying to push.
- And I mean, as a sort of community partners or people to tap into, I have learned about this from birders,
- people that travel up and down that Northwest corridor in the migration times to go see particular birds.
- That's how I've learned about turn off your outside lights during this period of time and things like
- that. So that's an impassioned.
- group of people that know a lot about this, that are a potential partner. If there are communities in
- the city that are engaged in that hobby. Yeah. We have a lab on IU's campus, the Kettersen Lab, that's
- an expert in bird strikes. And lighting, in particular, is what causes bird strikes during margarita.
- Birds hitting buildings. So lighting at night is what they signed off. They wrote a letter in support
- of the rodenticide thing. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I'll look on their side in front of them.
- Yeah, I think she would. And just worth mentioning, I did talk to the IU astronomy department. They
- were like super on board, so I'm hoping they'll be writing a letter. For obvious reasons, it would help
- them recruit. And also because there's a thing in here suggesting, because you require a monitoring
- program to monitor whether or not you're having an effect. So I suggested to them, would you be interested
- if they were very much on board about having maybe a student project to monitor lighting?
- long-term. So I did float that with them because of the resource that we have in towns. We might as
- well use them. They didn't obviously confirm, but they said they would be interested. So that's worth
- mentioning. I could add one positive project that we're working on here. So ESD is providing funding
- to Parks and Rec to install a wildlife-friendly solar light aggregator. Oh, that's awesome. And by a
- manufacturer called Stepco. OK. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Can you send me your phone number? I appreciate
- it. Thank you.
- I suppose I have one question, and I wonder if anyone here can speak to this. The motivation for this
- question is entirely anecdotal, so maybe someone knows more about this than me. But the more I think
- about it, the more concern I have that, as I understand it, this would apply to everyone, commercial,
- municipal, and residential property owner, ordinary type person. That's the way it would be put into
- effect is,
- I own my house, I own my yard, I go to Home Depot, buy this light, install it, and then I get a bill
- or a warning from the city, that kind of a thing? No. Okay. To a certain extent, like on light trespass,
- I think that might be the main thing. Everything else, it does not apply to single-family residential,
- for the most part. If I'm recalling correctly, it's been a while since I wrote everything, but I don't
- think it applies to single-family. I intentionally avoided targeting single-family residential being
- multi-family. That's what my question is.
- I think some of the light trespass rules would apply, and there's also a general limit on the amount
- of lumens per acre, but it's so high that it wouldn't, unless someone's shooting a spotlight in the
- air, it wouldn't impact it. Okay, because that's the American sort of Rage Against the Machine principle
- of I'll do whatever I want, I think is the source of a lot of revenge effects for ostensibly well-intentioned
- things that actually make people be like, I don't want some faceless city
- representative coming to my house and, you know, shaking their finger at me for putting a light in a
- way that I want on my property. This is the United States. I should be able to do what I want. I think
- people don't tend to do that unless they're being challenged. And then they're like, I'll do whatever.
- And then they react that way. Yeah, in particular. This is like very anecdotal, but I also think that
- there is, I appreciate that it doesn't focus on residential. I think because it's proportionally, what
- they're doing is relatively small. But also, I started looking into the ticket data on snow removal
- tickets. And again, anecdotally, I have intentions of doing proper analysis when things are quiet in my life.
- noticed a pattern that is not, I cannot confirm, but a pattern of residential homes being ticketed and
- developments and commercial properties getting a warning. And so I think that if we included residential,
- the way that it would potentially play out in enforcement is that the enforcement would disproportionately
- fall on the smallest contributors to the problem.
- That's a larger issue in how these things play out in code. But hopefully I'll have more data on that
- before the next snow season. OK. So yeah, from a logistic standpoint, so EC is meeting this Thursday,
- right? Yeah. And they're going to do their first reading of this.
- You know, if we pass this here today, you know, we won't revisit it until we have that joint session.
- We do have another meeting for B costs in between then and now. So that gives us an opportunity. If
- we had amendments that we wanted to do, we could do it there. The way to do this is a little bit different
- than usual. We probably at least want to know what's coming down the pipe a little bit and try to give
- EC a heads up of what kind of amendments we might want to make. Because they're not going to have another
- meeting until
- the joint meeting with this date of August 18th works for me. So we've got to thread the needle a little
- bit, but I think if there's some of us who want to make their own, there's certainly ways to make that
- happen. So we've done this in the past with some resolutions, especially more complicated ones, where
- people make a copy of the spreadsheet and then send reference to the line numbers and say, here's what
- I would propose as an amendment.
- And if we get those all in a relatively short amount of time, we can sort of correlate them and try
- to figure out, OK, here are the big pieces. And try to figure out a plan. Maybe at the end of the day,
- EC has to do a special meeting or something before the joint meeting to have it. And if the membranes
- aren't too numerous or lengthy, we could also have them at the same time. We could have them at the
- joint meeting. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But it would be good to know ahead of time what's coming to it.
- They're not seeing stuff for the first time. I thought about that.
- And of course, you have to do this all the way that's compliant with open rule. Yeah. I would request
- that you provide it. If you have an amendment to suggest, that's fine. Please suggest it. But in writing,
- maybe before our next meeting, maybe, I don't know, ideally. Obviously, we can't make that a rule, but
- that would be, I think, ideal. Could we compile any suggested amendments in a letter to the other commission
- and transmit it to the other commission following that meeting?
- Yeah, we could, but we wouldn't even have to. We could just, you know, I could, whatever we, you know,
- if we voted some amendments or something, I would just email it to them. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So make sure
- that this moves on correctly. Can I make a motion that we consider this resolution for a person? Oh,
- yeah. That's a great idea. Second it. All right, with the motion, I have a second.
- I said, I can second, yeah. Perfect. And this is to consider this resolution for first reading and to
- advance it to a second reading. I also want us to get so you don't have the next thing and be like,
- oh, we never acted out. We never brought it in. That's right. That's right. Excellent. OK. All right.
- Does anyone have any objections to moving to the vote to advance this? And then we can try and figure
- out exactly what things will look like between now and the next meeting. OK.
- Perfect. Since this is resolution related, I will do a roll call vote for this. This is to advance to
- a second reading. Tara? Yes. Yes, Justin, yes. Rebecca? Yes. Yes. Christopher? Yes. Was that? Yes. Yes.
- OK. Zach? Yes. Yes. Council member Lowes, absent. We didn't get anyone else in. Alex? Yes. Yes. Maria? Yes.
- Yes, Diana. Yes. Yes, and Ross. Yes. Yes. OK, perfect. Great. Yeah, I'll be in touch with instructions
- over email. That's the best way to do that. It'll be a similar thing. Everyone sends stuff to me, and
- I'll compile it and make sure nobody has a chance to discuss all that until we're at a public meeting.
- I also will say, I mean, presumably, if we are having an entire special meeting in conjunction with
- the Environmental Commission for only this,
- we'll have the time to have some discussion, right? I mean, if we're gonna have at least an hour, an
- hour and a half, like a typical meeting would be, yeah. If we just go, vote yes, and then leave. And
- then leave, yeah. We've been there for, even with two commissions and everything, yeah. Yeah. 15 minutes,
- yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think it'll be fine. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Cool. Well, thank you, Zach. Yeah.
- Okay, we've got no resolutions for second reading.
- So this is the staff liaison report. Oh, I didn't know it was on the agenda. Thank you. I wanted to
- let everybody know that we have published our 2024 greenhouse gas inventory report. It's on our website
- now. The press release hopefully will go out on Thursday. And I wanted to give a shout out to Zach for
- your help with the Google data that you mentioned in the report. Cool. And you were acknowledged for
- your work on that. Cool.
- So that will be available. We'll be launching a new solar grants for income qualified homeowners, hopefully
- next month. We issued an RFP. We're waiting to get our proposals back. So that will be providing a five
- kilowatt system to income qualified homeowners. That means residents who earn less than 80% AMI will qualify.
- That's awesome. That's cool. As long as their roof is in good shape, it's going to be a turnkey program.
- That's awesome. What's the limit? What's the AMI?
- If you Google housing and development 80% AMI chart, you'll find it. Are you guys using it with your
- head? Yes. Cool. Something to keep an eye out.
- on legislatively is lots of states have passed, like, balcony solar provisions. And Indiana, you know,
- there was a bill to consider that this year. They didn't go anywhere. But they've been passing state
- houses generally, like, unanimously. But in the future, there could be a program to have, like, smaller
- systems and have a lot more of them. But I'm not allowed now. But, like, future programs, hopefully.
- Yeah. Yeah. Have there been sustainable neighborhood grant applications since that was posted? We haven't
- received any. A press release is going out hopefully tomorrow, I believe. Yeah, yeah. Just to get it
- back in the news. Try to get the word out. Yeah, so if anybody here wants to help promote that program,
- we would appreciate it. Grandview Hills can share our blueprint for what we've been in neighborhoods
- that are interested in.
- So for those who don't know, we provide $1,000 to neighborhoods. So at least four neighbors, if they
- get together, they want some sort of sustainability project, such as composting bins, a native flower
- bed, veggie beds. If it's sustainability-related, we will most likely approve it. So $1,000. Cool.
- My wild bergamot is seven feet tall. Oh my gosh. Approximately. I'm almost six feet, and it is well
- above my head. That's insane. Six and seven feet. I kind of regret planting somehow. Like, wait a second.
- I didn't know it could get that tall. My plant's been a septic leach field. This makes sense. Seemed
- to be that, a septic leach field.
- Awesome. Okay. Well, that brings us to member announcements. Anyone have any announcements they want
- to make? Okay. Cool. No new business. So, hey, we're early. Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion. Second.
- All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? All right. We're adjourned at 720 PM.