- All right, so it's six o'clock exactly on June 26th. Welcome to the June EC meeting. It's nice to see you all on the date, if you're dialing in at some point. Sorry to miss you, but it's nice to have so many faces in person during a summer meeting. First things first, we need to go around and check that you all are here. Yeah, Kerry Albright. I'm here. Naudia Cain. Here. Matt Halby. Here. Casey Chappelle. Here. Adam Fudeker. Here. Shannon Gight. Here. Adam Martinez. Here. Mitchell Owens. Here.
- David Parkhurst is absent. All right. And then last month's minutes were in the packet. And unless there's any, I don't know if anybody sent through any edits to be made, or if you have any thoughts on anything that needs to be updated from the notes that Adam so graciously took last month. It looks great. I move we approve May's minutes. OK. Nice.
- And then on to number four. Three participants, are any of them visitors from the public that would like to chime in?
- Well, then on to new business. Okay. So there's something that was in the packet that you probably saw, but if you have not, I assume we'll be able to share it up here. Um, but it was a set of slides that were passed along to us. So Justin Bessel, Bessel from Bicos connected me with Dave Huber.
- who has proposed this to a couple of different groups and wanted to have us look at it, think about it, and provide any thoughts. Basically, what Justin said along with Dave presented at a recent Be Coast meeting about supporting the installation of a pollinator garden in the city-owned space at the corner of 4th and Washington. There's a couple of photos of the mock-up of it, and actually what it looks like right now, but it's basically like on 4th Street,
- Um, on the back corner of the bus parking lot, kind of. Yeah, I've worked in Washington. So kind of. Yeah, so if you're heading down 4th street or the bus station. Used to be, yeah. Oh, my God. Really? Really? Yeah. It was not much the bus station.
- These slides are pretty straightforward, so there's not a ton on them. Basically, the garden would be designed and installed by an internationally recognized garden scapers, also a resident Bloomington, Andrew Mars. Former EC member. Indeed. If we don't support it, we've got to really get his ear and how we got a problem with it. But Dave, who is proposing this, has already received furlough pays from several city departments,
- and has raised outside funding commitments of, sounds like at least 15 grand for the project. And so BCOS is talking about what they can do to help support from that angle, but also just getting verbal letter of support or a statement of support will be super helpful. And so Dave specifically just said, if we wanna take a look at this, put together any thoughts, any questions, any recommendations we might have for improvements or what we might want going forward if we were to endorse it,
- He's super open to that. He wants to show its planning, parks, and downtown Bloomington, and basically say, this is how much interest we have across different boards, commissions, departments, things like that. And he says, he basically is trying to increase the visibility of support from city bodies on urban meadows, basically, and having more nature in our downtown spaces, and promoting environmental stewardship. And then, yeah, he kind of quotes the UDO and knows that this is something that supposedly
- we should already have baked into what we're trying to do anyway. So, yeah, so that's about as much as I know about it, but I'm happy to take down any thoughts, questions, anything past the date, and he'll come in and talk to us if we want.
- So I'm assuming this is city owned land. Oh, sorry. I zipped past that. This is a city owned lot. Yes. Good question. Will the city then maintain and do the work that will need to be done? That's a great question. The slide that has kind of like the pricing piece of it, it does say price does not include required annual maintenance. So I don't know what that looks like. And I assume it will be city maintained because it is city property and we're not, I don't believe they're proposing to purchase the property, just get it started.
- That's a good question, Mark. That would be good because they're the ones who do all the flowers around town and they do a good job. Presented to Bicos and I watched that presentation and it was indicating that it's very, like the other work he's done, is very densely planted. There is little to no weeding and not even watering after the first year. He made it sound like there'd be watering in the first year and then someone would essentially mow it in the spring one time. That makes sense. It's supposed to be very low maintenance.
- at least after a year. I didn't have a chance to do this. Is there a description of the potential trees? You know, so that is often something this person might not overlook this, but we're like thinking about pollinators. But if there's a native fruity tree like a cherry, then that could be nice. So there are zero trees. There's one tree on a site.
- which they just pasted something in there to indicate what it'll look like when it's more grown up. But the rest of it is full sun plants. So they're really trying to propose urban meadow type situations. So the one existing small tree is the only tree that would be on site. Do you know what my tree was? No, it's just whatever. I've walked past it in a little while.
- This is an existing tree. This is really specific, but has anybody thought about like that bringing deer to that area? Yeah, so originally there was one planted in the middle of the heart structure over there. It was hoping to kind of funnel water to it, but I guess it didn't live.
- And then at some point down the road, someone planted a tree off to the side of our installation. And so that one tree that is there is, is to remain and the rest of the plantings would be not trees. This seems like a good idea to me, but I wonder if Parks will want to sort of do this and sort of manage it instead of having sort of paint and someone else to come in and do it. Maybe a good question would be just, you know, do we know if Parks has any
- any similar or related initiatives that could also be doing this for a very low cost. Although Dave is raising the funds from various places, so it seems to be a low to no cost to the city directly, but they also need something to do so. I found the presentation to be very interesting and I would support it, but I know there were questions about
- the plant list, because I think while he is trying to do overwhelmingly native, I think there were cultivars, there were a lot of, I think the planter wanted to know basically how restricted he would be with his choices. And so I know that's not a question for the EC directly, but just having seen the presentation, I'd pass along that that was probably going to be the biggest hurdle.
- Do you know if the landscaper, the green scaper, the garden scaper, is considering just for straight aesthetic purposes or is there anything else that seemed like it was being considered as far as why certain species would be chosen? I do not know this process. I was just curious because I assume it would be all natives. It kind of seems a little strange not to, especially if they're seen to be really low maintenance, then you'd expect just to be
- I think just some people are stricter than others about native cultivars. He did the garden in front of Bluestone, which is very close to where I live, and I can confirm that it is pretty right now and very densely planted. But again, I don't know what his plans are or would be exactly for this one. I just know there was some question of a plant list and whether he'd be able to do what he wants to do.
- Rachel, you look like you have lost. Oh, I mean, I've talked to both a paper and anymore about this project, and I don't. I have not seen a playlist. I do. I have conversations about. I mean, the question that I would have is.
- just knowing that this is kind of in the center of some of the downtown spaces, if this area does not thrive, similar to maybe a tree that was planted with great focus injuries and very soon to thrive, is there any plan for what happens next? Will they try to revisit this? Are they saving back any budget to sort of do a second planting or something like that? Is there anything as a backup, should this not thrive on the first go?
- fix the soil in any way? I would assume that the garden scaper, that's part of it. It said in the budget, I forget how it named the specific things that he was going to be doing, but it seemed like it was designing and then installing the details of it. I don't think there's any park benches around there. Is there a plan to have a place to sit?
- It seems like it could be a good spot. It does look like there's like a green trail. I think he's just taking pictures from elsewhere. It does look like that. I have a broader question, which is I think it's
- a fantastic idea to do something in that little plot of land. But would it make more sense, and this is not what they're offering, but to plant trees there or to try to do that again, just thinking about the heat of downtown. There's not a lot of trees. Is this really the best solution for that space? It's beautiful. It would be just really beautiful, good for pollinators.
- And I realize that's not what he's proposing, but I'm just thinking about, again, the- But that's a good question of why aren't there- I mean, there's lots of- the city has plenty of trees and that looks like white. Why aren't there new trees planted there? There might be a reason for that that has to do with the root systems or infrastructure or something like that. So that might be a question of, is it possible to get more trees out of there regardless of this project that's there? That's a good question. I think this is one of the only green spaces because there's a bunch of apartments like
- right there off the side. And no, because I've had a friend live in those apartments, that this is where all those people empty their dogs. This space, would that be a problem with the maintenance? Because the closest green space otherwise is across the street. And I think it's like a privately managed area. Yeah, I think it's fence. So would that affect the maintenance if like they lose the space
- Or if they're still emptying their dogs there, would that affect the plants if they are there? That's my question because I haven't thinking about the whole block. It's like purple right there. On the other side, there's no grass on the other block. This is the most convenient spot for people.
- It's a really good insight, for sure. Is he planning to come speak to us, or is that a, he will if we ask? He will if we ask. I don't think he, I think he assumed if we, if we had any concerns or pushback or questions, we'd be happy to talk about it with him. I know when we presented to Biko, he was asking for funds, and I know they have working group grants, and that seems like a good fit, so fingers crossed, but I,
- At the very least, unless we learn something alarming about this that I'm not aware of, would be at least in support of the letter. That's great. If you're asking him, he's not already done so, he should probably reach out directly opposite of this is a big church and they might actually be interested in First United Methodist interested in supporting this or helping with meat nuts or
- They have a preschool too, don't they? They're the ones that own that big lot, too. Yeah, the big green patch across the street, which something cooked up to be double. And that is interesting, yeah, that there's a lot of space. Maybe this will inspire them. Okay, that's a good question. Would it be like,
- helpful to put, I'm still thinking about the dog thing. To put like one of those receptacle things like off on one of the sides of the space just in case people do that. Or would that like draw people in to do that? It might encourage people. I don't know, but I know like dog pee is still very bad for people. That's what I would say. But it is important to think about people that live right there.
- Is there a park behind the police station? Yeah, it's like a block diagonal from where this is. And the apartments are connected to that building? They're literally like in this parking. See that white car?
- Like they're in that parking lot. Yeah. Like above the exit, like the back doors are like in this parking lot right here. Just funny that they don't just go to the courthouse. You can just put a no dog sign. This is so funny.
- I think it's because this is just more private than going to like courthouse. Yeah. It's like I live across from Bryant Park, but I'm like, I'd much rather go in my little yard to let my dog get them walk all the way to Bryant Park. So it's a good point. This is a really interesting insight though, because that is, I mean, that's a reality of people going downtown. They're going to need green space and their animals need green space. Okay. Other thoughts or questions that you're going to pass along today? Are you interested in
- me asking him to plan a visit, or do you want me to wait until he has his response and he can talk about it or we can revisit once you hear back from him? What were the options? So I can, I can send these questions and then I can respond to us. We can say, oh, cool. That's all interesting. Cause this isn't all, I mean, we're not hearing, besides, I think the main question is about the species list and about, I think that the dog usage of this area.
- It seems like most of them are curious, but we're not saying, I don't know if I can support that unless X, Y, Z. So I don't know if a visit would be useful for his personal time while he's still just gaining support or maybe further down the road. But he totally will come in if he wants. So my question was, do you want me to see if you can come in or do you want me to wait until we hear back and digest some of his responses? I like the latter. Thank you. I don't see a need to jump in here. No one has any major difference.
- Yeah. Thanks. Okay. All right. So I'll share questions and comments with David and share his response back and then we'll go through that. I didn't hear such a thing, right? No. Thank you for the question. Okay. Thanks everybody for giving us some thought and thanks Matt for the inside scoop on the video. Thank you. We've got like four feet from one another.
- All right, here we go. Oh, business, what? It's 17 after, let's do this. Okay, so the first working group update would come from the light pollution team, if you've got anything. So we met a few weeks ago, I don't remember exactly the date, but we sort of discussed our overall goals, what we're trying to achieve. I think we sort of split, we've got three main areas, which is the city,
- campus and that just general outreach. For the Dark Sky certification, I think that's sort of the distant guiding light that we're working on. That's probably not a guiding light. But yeah, it's just something for us to work towards, but not necessarily something we're specifically trying to achieve. I met David Hiddle, Director of Planned Transportation,
- asked him about how the city chooses where street lights go, how we figure out color and that kind of thing. And he recommended to someone else where I do not get heard back from, but I have a contact which is good. And he also talked about maybe renting out the little display case downstairs, you know, city, people can put their posters and stuff. He also said a little thing there about the black pollution.
- Another working group. Yeah, that's where we're at. Christina doesn't get back to you and send me email and I'll push her a little bit. Okay. I have a question about that. Have we ever considered using the covers for the top street lights that direct all the light downwards? Yeah, that's part of what I was planning on asking. I know a lot of the city lights,
- Mainly the clerks, I'm thinking along the V line, they have the shielding. It's like a cone on top of them, so it won't close down. But most of the streetlights I've seen along the road are just kind of open. I think the current UDO says, like, I think the shielding is a lot like this. And I think the dark side place encourages this. But as far as previous lights, I mean, as they get replaced, they'd have to conform to the new ordinance.
- I think the UDO applies to, like, not city property. It applies to city. It's supposed to apply to city. Yeah, I'll talk to her about that. Yeah. Roger for us. Awesome. That sounds great. Do you need anything from your house that you see right now while you're kind of picking up? Maybe brainstorm ideas of outreach,
- Other than that. Cool. Sounds great. I have a question. So you said there are three areas. In the second one, there's the city and there's campus. Yeah. So it's like a next step, reaching out to people. I realize it's kind of maybe beyond our jurisdiction in that space, but. Campus is basically like the leading distinction in the city. So it pretty much just begins being like, hey, wouldn't it be cool if you sort of chilled with us on this? Yeah.
- If someone that I intend to reach out to at the university, I just haven't yet. OK. Anything else from the light pollution group before we move on to about diversity? Input search. That's great. Thanks for the updates. All right. Biodiversity group. That's all we got. Is there any update on V-City at all? No.
- connectivity, we have some items, if you're able to pull up, yeah, both the link to the map and this conversation about our website are important items on the agenda today because I'm hoping that we can, the city has mentioned, the GIS people have mentioned that the site is ready for launch, but we need to make sure we have these little steps finalized first, such as
- the link on the map taking us to this page, which I don't think is the way we want it to be. I have some proposed language for the site, but I don't know how we go about that. In a distant past, we would have been able to email to everybody and get suggestions and finalize something, but I hate to have to wait a month to say, yeah, change the site.
- Just to clarify, what were you saying about the link? The link is going to warrior versus warrior. So the connectivity map links to our site, including this page, which in addition to having the text seem to be more oriented towards the city than towards individuals, it also has more links at the bottom to outdated pamphlets,
- and actually the old map, which we really don't want. So you're saying the current map, the map that we're about to launch, the problem is that the link takes you to content that is not updated, and so we need to update that content. Before we launch a map. OK, that makes sense. Yeah, this page in particular is where it's what would be linked to the map. Well, I know it's a...
- It could be one of those things we all get out early, or we could use this time right here in front of the whole family to go through any of the language if you want to, if you have specifics, you want us to talk about it. I was going to say, I emailed you something. I don't know if that's something you can easily pull up. I think it'd be better than me finding it on my phone and trying to read it.
- the three links at the bottom, one of them's to a pamphlet, one's to a how-to, and the other is to the original not-so-attractive map. The three links at the bottom of this city page. And so I was recommending the two that are no longer relevant be removed, and the other one's linked to be changed to the new map so that it's circular from our page. You can get the map from the map, you can get to our page. Okay, so you want the pamphlet link removed.
- You want the, do you say it's the brochure? Yep. The previous brochure link removed. And then the, sending you right back to the, the map link updated. The new map rather than the old map. You also want to change somewhat the side. I'd like to change a lot. That's the body of the text here. I feel like the blue text up top is fine. Um, self-explanatory and you can link to the, uh,
- It links to the PDF of the plan, I think. I'm going to do some funny stuff so I don't expose your feed out. Basically went through one of the brochures about why habitat and activity plan and kind of cherry picked some of the language from there, but then also tried to
- Just kind of focus it on an individual and outreach type of level, rather than reading as guidelines to the city on how they plan their land use, because I didn't think that would apply so much to residents. I think that's a great idea. I think making it as easy for someone to say, what is it that's interesting? And then open it and find something that they can actually use as perfection. All right. Well,
- So we can get into this as soon as Rachel's got it open. Is there anything else as far as the map and everything that would be useful to share or talk about before we get to the edits? Yeah, I guess I should have shared with everybody before. I mean, I have to look at the map and make sure you're happy with it because, I mean, they are ready to go from a map standpoint. I think it's good they've incorporated multiple rounds of suggestions from us. I'm mostly just excited to
- to heavily promote it and see more commitments displayed on the maps. I think we just gotta get our language right on the website, get language for some sort of press release, and then move forwards hopefully next month if we can. And the link is in the packet for tonight, right?
- I think so. And it was in New York, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that that law on Forth and Washington is on here. Oh, wow. Skinny pledge. It'll be a much better city pledge if they make a group. So graphic.
- Definitely fertilized by the dogs. Check that soil. Everybody leave that, OK? They're going to need to zoom in a bit more. I think it's multiple. OK. So I know that some folks have devices that they can see the previous page or the current page's content. But for folks who don't, do you want to have them side by side or is it OK to stick with the dogs?
- Let's try and make this as easy as possible. Okay, there we go. Beautiful. Adam, I can send you this language so you can include it in the minutes. Okay, so take it away. Because if we were able to approve language tonight, it would be an easy thing for IT to update on the site. But I was looking to leave the blue header unchanged. I think it's fine.
- Um, next there's a bold section, um, that I added a little more text to. I'm going to push the blue header on the left. You know, there's a link there, hyperlink that goes to a dead visual definitely. What did, I don't know. That's super. Ooh, that's not supposed to do that. Yeah, I feel like, I feel like it went to something recently. Did the Seedless websites also get attacked like I recall?
- Not from my knowledge, ITS is looking at like, that's what I'm looking for, just updating the entire Bloomington website as a whole. So I don't know if that's part of it, but I think. In at least a month, but I think it linked directly to the, to the report, like to the 2017 PDF is in our reports tab is what I believe that that linked to. And so I thought that was, was useful because again,
- allows someone to read it if they want to read it, but otherwise they've got these couple paragraphs. I have a quick question about the blue text. Do we say anywhere else in the Habitat pages that it was created in 2017? I ask because as a person who clicks too much and has no patience for anything, if I see 2017, I immediately think, God, that's like eight years old. I think about how dated is this thing that's linked.
- How do we feel about potentially taking the language away and just say, who is the environmental commission that has created, offers, posted, whatever the technical plans? It doesn't bother me. If the release date makes you feel bad, wait until you learn when the data within. No. There, that at the bottom, we're going to get now. If that's OK, I'm so excited. It doesn't make it feel like it's an old page. Yeah. Yeah, if you could press release for something, it'd be a little older. Yeah. OK.
- If people are comfortable with us removing the date, um, and maybe just say the Bloomington environmental commission has created, has released like something that maybe has a little bit more of a current issue to it. Shannon, what do you think? You're great with words. Oh yeah, I think it's just, I was looking at the,
- numbers. Can you just change it? I'm trying to fix this. I think the plan would be awesome. I didn't realize it was broken. So your suggestion is to take out the
- The VHCP resulted in da, da, da, da, da, and said, say, with this project, the environmental commission names, like, just swap those bold paragraphs? Yes. Cool. And then for the... Again, people can definitely edit the text. It was something I just typed up one morning, so... You know, I was going to make sure I was thinking about, like, is it... It may not be flopped. ...replace everything with all of this? Is there anything that you want to keep between these two pages, I guess, is what I mean? No. Cool. Okay.
- So everybody feel your feelings on the right-hand side compared to the left. One small thing is sometimes, like on the left, we're calling it the Bloomington Habitat Connectivity Plan. And then on the right, we're just calling it the Habitat Connectivity Map. I don't know if that's a big part of the map. Because there's a different kind of map. So what we're launching is the map. Yeah. The plan, which we've got linked over there, hopefully, is
- to the plan. The map is a rizzle of the plan. We're trying to drive up engagement. So with the exception of the blue header, I just made it referring to the map. I appreciate that there's more warmth on the right side. I appreciate that, but it's awesome. The numbers are clear in some ways. I think it's just easier to see, oh, these are the things that we can
- We can do, I'm perfectly fine with just using the one on the right, but I wonder if maybe we can bullet point some things. Yeah, I agree. I think they're having a couple like actiony type items. There we go. What's that? Nice, you can include it. Bullet points that you, like, sorry,
- zoning out first. We don't want to go any language, we could also fold main phrases, like in the first paragraph, like, we can just fold the, we can improve our community by creating connected habitat corridors, like the main point that we think are important that people's eyes go to, which is what I normally do if I have a big chomp.
- Totally open to formatting suggestions. What about the tense? So if it were to be, how would it feel if instead of we're going to do this, we are aims to prioritize instead, we were to say that we are prioritizing it.
- just like the CC prioritizes the stronger language. I would probably take the second sentence of the bolded bit and actually, because that moves into the action bit, which is what is in the next. So just let the first sentence be the, maybe with the tense changes, be the bolded bit. I think the We Ask Presidents is good.
- Is it too like pushing a person to say, you can help us by? No, I like that. I like that. I don't know. I don't know. Is it sort of less pressure? Yeah. Yeah. It's less, it's less talking about someone else though. You know, it's talking to if we, when you're inviting you to. But at sort of starting new in the paragraph, there are new like you can help us by and then
- bullet points. Yeah. I love that. By planting and preserving, native plants, removing invasive plants, marking. But I mean, those are the three main things, but then we'll have more things in the next paragraph, right? Okay. Okay. So we talked about the very first sentence, the environmental commission, instead of saying aims to prioritize, saying either prioritizes or is prioritized, something like that. Like prioritizes. Yeah. And then you can help us in these goals.
- Put that into a new form without a back. You can publish these goals. You can help us achieve them. Achieve. Move forward. Work towards. Work towards. Achieve, work towards, work. Work towards. Get at. How? And did you want these and bullets? Not necessarily. What do you want?
- And Matt, is this your... No, I don't have terribly strong feelings. I think this is with the way that group work is not allowed. I figure the only way to make anything happen is to just do something and then put it in front of everybody. So I'm not feeling beat up by all the change suggestions. I literally typed it one morning.
- Well, you did a good job. It was an attempt in these challenging times to make something go forwards on a timeline. I'm totally okay with that. No one's robbing the spirit of the text. What's below this last paragraph you can see? Are the dashes, are those? Yeah, that was just the end of the- No. This was a separate point. Yeah, I was just in my email to her about
- We need to figure something out for press release language as well. But, um, so yeah, I just put in the line, but I was done typing. No strong feelings. I think maybe the two questions are, um, what, what is the map asking people to do? But then what are the steps to get in? And it's probably.
- go to this link and do the thing. But I guess the question is, are we trying to say, here is how the map is encouraging you to do things in the city, like plant things or fill things or whatever? What are we hoping to list out? That can tell us what we're looking at here. If there's anything to pull or if we need to create some new points. I was thinking that this is an explanation
- in a conversational tongue, because the map itself gives a little bit of info, but if people want to know what it's all about, the link is on the landing to take us here. And I think a lot more people are going to find our site via the map than find the map via our site. So I wasn't looking to do any map instructions or anything like that in this section. I just wanted to kind of say, here's why it matters.
- And then, yeah, of the three links at the bottom, the only one I would keep would be the one that goes right back to the map as long as we have that updated to the map link, the new map link instead of the old map link. Is it too cheesy to say something like, it's easy to add your crude space to the habitat. Is this too cheesy or too accurate? I just think of it.
- I might need that and then have like a hyperlinks in there. It is. I literally just did. Okay. It's certainly easier than I think. Yeah. It's just making sure it's clear what the pledge is and what you're pledging to do because that's not super on the map right now. So I think you're just laying that out really. Yeah. Between the previous round of suggestions,
- We've had some privacy-minded changes there where the name is still optional, but now it's first name, last initial suggested so that no one goes and outs exactly where they are if they don't want to. We also have it where once you zoom into a certain point, the marker disappears, so you will know what neighborhood they're in, but you won't necessarily know exactly what their address is. There have been some nice changes here on the map front.
- Yeah, once you get it close enough. I was like, easy. Put the blue ones in there. The blue ones represent city pledges. The orange will be the rest of us. It'll all come in on a delay because GIS approves each one. Cool. I was like, there's my house right there. So for the folks who haven't been in this new version, if you saw the website and just had a bit introduction, like there's a habitat connectivity map and I can do something and it's important and I don't know why.
- Is there anything knowing what that you would click and you would get to this? Is there anything that would be helpful to see on the website before we get to this page that would be useful for us to include? Because I think that's narrative. Truthfully, if you, if you refresh the map, what you actually see first is their dialogue. You don't see the map right away. You see this where it tells you these are the three largest critical areas. This is, yeah, it's got the links to all sorts of info.
- and you can go ahead and do your pledge here before you can go into the map independently. Or you can access out of the ground with the map and then click on the add your pledge. So people can do it at whichever way they want to do it. So what do you all think after kind of knowing that, knowing what you're going to get when you get to the site? Any thoughts on how the content on the website looks right now?
- Yes, right now we have an intro paragraph, kind of supporting sentence, and then a couple of paragraphs about why it's important. It looks a lot better than it did a few minutes ago. Yes. So this is the landing page. This is the landing page. This will replace that. And then from this, you click the blue one. I don't think it's planning to be done. Or the ground. That would take you to the
- original document. Okay. Oh, and the one if you scroll down a little bit says, let me say activity map would take you to this is to the old ugly one. So what will, what will this take us to now? When you click that, Oh, that, that, that, yeah, it takes our old map. I had back to the, the new map we were just feeling, but with the refresh with the,
- the verbiage initially. You have a little pop-up over the first thing. I actually think it would be clarifying to add a little bit of language that says something like, I was just suggesting, it's easy to add your green space, so the habitat connectivity map, period. Just click here, identify your
- Do you want it to go at the top of that there? Yeah. So just click here and then instead of figuring both more. Yeah.
- I guess this purges like a book here. This got accessible with, um, like the main reader. So I wasn't even like have tactics. That's fine. Yeah. But I can add that to the top. So then the green button, so at the bottom. And then you could just put below. Yeah. Or you could just say, you could just say, add your green space to the link habitat connectivity map and do it that way versus that click here. So you say like.
- I think it's a little confusing sort of what the relationship is between the pledge and the habitat connecting them, which is why a little bit more direction I think would be useful because you have to take the pledge to be put on the map. Putting on the map means taking the pledge. Yes. That's a good idea. It might just be me, but I find it a little confusing that this big, bold wing at the top is
- Not necessarily what we're trying to get people to go into. I totally agree. I think it's one of the PDF. I think going to the map is its own textbook. Yeah. They could just not be linked. The verbiage could remain the same. Everyone that's on site, you could put that at the bottom. Read the whole and have a connectivity plan and have a link. I definitely agree with those. Well, they're supposed to be linked to the connectivity plan on the map.
- at the web page as well, but that link is also dead. So whatever the old Thanksgiving link was, it broke somewhere along. Yes. Okay, so updates are the thing at the top, we're no longer going to try and send people out to that link. We'll just include the link further down in the page. We'll still save this and be excited. We're going to then add language
- to the paragraph on the right that says adding your current space, but instead of saying, it's easy to add your contributions that have that connectivity map with the link in the words have that connectivity map. And then when you visit this page, you can edit that, like something that has like an action or however you want to say it, Shannon. Yeah, I think just a sentence that explains what they want to see. Yeah. I think it's you saying that. Yeah, saying that literally. And again, you can choose that.
- Matt, I hope, I think, I'm advertising this like when where people buy native plants, so like sycamore has a very evil cell and there are different, is that one way you're, how are you gonna reach like people that are actually planting native plants? I don't know. I mean, I've just been trying so hard to release the math. Yeah, yeah, just work on math. So I mean, it's one step at a time, but I,
- I haven't eliminated any ideas as far as promoting it. I'm willing to knock on doors in like areas that connect and say, hey, have you heard of this? And showing it to people. So where people buy native plants, there aren't many options for that. There are, you know, three or four places where you can buy native plants. I get most of mine mailed to me.
- We've also disabled it like garden, garden events and stuff. Yeah. It seems like it would be actually. Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. This is anywhere that we outreach. This is a part of our outreach, but I'm, I'm not trying to be dismissive. I'm concerned with this plan. That's where you're at today. Yeah.
- And then I think we think of though, like, so they're like, there are some nurseries, stranger holds nurseries and there might be, you know, four or five local nurseries that can get the word out as well. You could probably put information at the MCI risk plant sale. We could probably anywhere we can be, we can do that on their websites, the nurseries. I think that's a really good question. Or at least like.
- share on our social media or something like that. But I think it's a really good idea. I think just saying, like contacting and saying, hey, if you're selling native things and you just want to tell people about it, we can make little cards. We can, you know, provide you with whatever. If we've ever done this before, since I've only been on the commission for a few months, but I was, my brain went to yard signs. Like I know like when my neighbors get a yard sign, I'm reading that. I'm nosy. I love reading a yard sign. And we can have the pledge QR code on it.
- So people would be like, I have made a fence in my garden. You can do it. I was going to say, I think that it would be like a donated. Yeah. That's what I was like, someone would have to donate it. Right. So I didn't know about like a funding thing. Yeah. I don't think we can sell stuff, but it's a really good idea.
- I think it would have to be a city initiative at that point, like the thousand households, we mull shirt or whatever. I mean, with this look, with the, this is building to the map. I haven't shared my screen, so I can't look, but this makes to like the new map. And then instead of saying the habitat connectivity map was made by DC, just expanding the language that it resulted in by recommendations.
- Or does the new language might change? I can't remember. Yeah, the language was different. But then, I mean, I do think this makes sense. The linking to the map and the big bold blue, and then the linking to the plan in one of the little green links at the bottom, or in line text at the bottom. Either way, later, so that people can see that if they want. Because this way, we're really promoting the map. But I like that first line. When you're heading is really not threatening. It's very easy to take in. Yes. Yeah.
- Would anybody be opposed if I say to like this and then I'm going to update with the new language soon. And it's been updated. I do. I mean, actually I do like that. It says with the habitat. It starts with the math goes into the plan and then in that bowl, the easy helps to establish replace it with the language that Matt provided and any and it's going to that.
- That's nice. To follow up on the yard sign idea, I think that's a really cool idea. And I think my, my thought would be that we would use our budget to create yard signs that we would then give away. If people want them, they would just have to like, we'd have to either have them when we table or have them here and they make an appointment to pick one up or something, but have something. Could you put a little checkbox on the form when you submit it that says, do you want a yard sign? But I wouldn't want something else.
- That would require somebody's personal information too. One thing about yard signs is my team actively removes yard signs from public right-of-way so there would need to be construction to put it on your private property because we would just confiscate it. I was thinking it would start to say something like,
- contributing to the habitat connectivity or whatever. Like I was thinking it'd be like a personal thing, but I don't know, maybe we would have people who are like. If somebody would like buy like their tree that they planted on the other floor, that's fine. If it's within like the tree plot, the street tree plot, that would be great. And maybe that's what we say is like, you know, we have yard signs available for free for private property, you know, display or whatever. Yeah, that's important because technically some of our parks are beautiful corridors, but just maybe not worth it.
- So let's make sure the budget's going. Nothing wasted. Yep. Okay. Well, and if you confiscate it and you just get to reuse it. Okay. Okay. I know we've been all over the place. These are such good ideas. Thank you everybody. Thanks everybody for giving me. So any other additions to the text or be good with the text on the right?
- Um, so the Shannon's point, I think maybe clarifying, take the pledge. I think wherever the word pledge comes up, making sure that we're introducing the pledge is the action of uprooting the habitat connectivity map. If you want to do the map, it is pretty good pledge. Like something that's like, it's not two separate things you'd have to do one if you're going to do the other.
- Are we going to be taking the link down for the pledge instructions or will that be staying up? It's on the... I was hoping it would be removed. Yeah, because it has some language about like this pledge and the associated map, which basically seems like what we're trying to do there. Yeah, I think this text replaces the little pledge instructions as well. Yeah, because it has the old map there.
- Thank you, Rachel, for the impressive juggling. So I really, really like the suggestions that you've made. And Shannon, you've been helping with it too. So it's been nice. While we're on a roll with language, is there anything that we need to put together for press release? Or is it pretty, would it just be like,
- where a few things from this and stick them in the template, like that kind of whether language. If you want to see, I was trying to think about this. Would you want this test to be recycled in a fast release? Is that the idea? I think that no matter what the office of the mayor is going to, uh,
- rephrase it. Any press release I've given them, it changes a little bit. So I can give that to the Communications Director Desiree and see kind of what she comes up with if she wants me to do it. I can. Is that something you would like to be emailed as soon as possible or presented in the July meeting? So it seems like a fine
- starting point to give them whatever language we have. You said that you're going to change it no matter what. Yes. I mean, I don't know. I even feel confident enough in the city's folks there to say that, do we need to approve their press release, or is it going to be satisfactory if it's built around our language? Is that a question for me or the group? Yeah. You and you, but I guess also the group.
- I mean, uh, I am happy to submit, uh, since we have agreed on this language, I don't see them changing it to be, you know, misleading from what we've discussed. Uh, if I feel like there's a question, I'm happy to send it out. Or I'm happy to send it out anyway. Maybe I'm too trusting. I mean, I feel like if we give them the representative content that, you know, the changes they make are going to be stylistic, not
- substantive, like I'm not terribly worried about how they would alter it. Because it'd be hard to mess it up too bad. Yeah, we wouldn't have a hard deadline or anything either. But part of me when we say like, well, let's approve it at the next meeting, I think, man, that means at least another month before we before we do the thing. So I anticipate contacting GIS and saying it looks great. And then the next steps
- press release and whatnot are kind of over my head at the moment here. I think I'm comfortable with sending what we have and just saying, this is the language that we're suggesting, and then let them cut it down. My guess is they're going to have me draft something. So if you trust me to do it, I'm not going to take offense if you don't. But they have guidelines presented to all of these staff. So I would just try to fit this within the guidelines.
- I'm perfectly okay with that. My biggest, my bigger fear was that either the site or the map wouldn't be ready at the time that we launch it. And then people are going to things with outdated links. Do you want to have, I'll check the plan to, to see if it has a link to the map. Um, so then I can update the actual plan. Do you want the plan linked or would you rather just have the map and the website linked to the press release?
- I think the map on the website makes sense for the press release. I do like the plan being linked on the website, so people can go further if they want, or I believe it's linked on the map too, but yeah, I don't think we need the plan to be in the press release. I have a question. Is there anything on this page that we would like to
- say to invite people's feedback, questions, confusion, ideas, things, or any response from folks if they have anything they'd like to share back with us? Within the mission? Like to, in response to the Habitat connectivity page, if we want to say something that's like thoughts, questions, comments, concerns, whatever, like we want to invite them, email environment at Bloomington, do you want to say it?
- anything about that or do you just want to let it go? I'm curious because I don't have any questions. I'd say that the map, like the Habitat connectivity map under information resources, there's a feedback form that's linked, but it's just for GIS. I don't know how they did on their map. So that could be good to give them a VC feedback as well as map feedback or make that clear that if they get feedback there, it's not going to.
- Any thoughts on that? Nice. Is this good? Yeah. I just want to get that period at the end of that all. Yeah. It does have that on the about for the map as well. For additional information, please contact BCAD environment. That's good. I can hyperlink the email so that it's not diffused.
- And that's a little card for the horse. Would you all be cool with me trying to design a few different signs and show you some ideas for what yard signs would look like? Like me? OK. Just for fun. I don't know. They could make a purpose for it, like, for shoes or something. Do you? Mm-hmm. You might be opposed to that. You would? So you saw those bugs once. It was getting wild. This is the way the commission has to work now. Yeah, go ahead. Independently make something and then bring it to us. And we'll see what happens next.
- If anybody else wants to do it, I will not feel offended if anyone else is like, well, I brought my own that I made also. And then you can vote. If we decide on a brochure. I'm going for that. I love a trifold. Okay. Any other things you want to say about the habitat security plan or map or anything? I mean, is everyone happy with the language on the screen?
- Because the, I mean, it doesn't need to be live completed during the meeting, but. Exactly. Right. Well, are we as a commission, I don't think we need a formal vote, but are we as a commission, okay, with that language going onto the website and that language being used or edited according to city guidelines to be incorporated into a press release that Rachel can share with us by email.
- I'm, I'm happy where we're leaving it right now. I want to make sure that we collectively are. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Excited to see more orange dots on the map. I think that's a really good point. Yeah. I think when it's live live, it'll be like, Oh,
- As long as it's within a business day, like they'll review it and make sure it's serious. Also, if you play with the map, there's a lot of buttons to hit that show a lot of other layers. Like the tree canopy layer. So by the next meeting? Very possibly. So can we discuss our reach of the next meeting? I think it'd be a good thing to have on the July agenda.
- Because yeah, I'm assuming at that point it'll be live. We'll have done a press release. The EC socials can share that. I'll definitely be sharing it on my own. But then further outreach absolutely sounds like a good plan for the July agenda item. OK. Anything else from the biodiversity working group? That is where we're at. Nominal. OK.
- water quality. Any updates from little water quality? Nope. Yeah. Such projects. Nope. Let's see. That is it for our subcommittee. So thanks everybody for joining in and for all the stuff you're doing. If you are not involved in one of these working groups and you'd like to be, that'd be amazing. You've heard who's talking during the different gatherings. So feel free to reach out to those groups and say, hey, I'd like to be involved in the next meeting that you have.
- We're doing a lot of meeting in person, so maybe keep that in consideration if you are able to join a working group. All right, annual report. So we delivered the annual report to the council, and it was fireworks and fun for everyone. It was a pretty straightforward presentation. As you may or may not remember, we went through the deck last week, but basically just introduced who we are,
- Reiterate that we have a new mission statement. Talked through some of the things that we did last year, which it was like, what, June 6 or something. So it was very surrobing like that. But went through some of the initiatives that we did. And, you know, a couple different themes that we focused on, like outreach, table and stuff, eco heroes, and just kind of having our hands in a little bit more of the visible parts of the city. And then,
- I talked through how in our annual planning meeting that we had in November that we went through and kind of made some priorities for the coming years and just sort of that's where our sales were sort of directed. I think it's great for us to, and I was actually, I have a note for at our next meeting for the rhythm, please visit these and say, where are we on these? How are we doing? Do we want to do something differently? But that could be a good month meeting.
- but just looking at these different goals and kind of giving the council a chance to sort of hear what we're prioritizing and things that we identify as being top priorities for this year. I talked through these items. I belabored the communication issues to the point that I think it garnered a lot of sympathy, which I very much appreciated from the council. I think they heard loud and clear how it was pretty tough. The other items,
- I think all kind of move pretty smoothly, but I will say that the concept of how we're communicating the challenges that we have, one of the things that came up from that was basically that the council themselves are restricted from communicating in a similar way. So they are not emailing each other directly either. They are not able to have, you know, any sort of like group exchanges that are not fully visible. There's some,
- suggestions from Kate Rosenbarger on how they do things a little bit differently. And so she had suggested that she delivered a 60 slide presentation or something on this. So she had mentioned that she could send that through. So I'll kind of follow up on how to see what she can share with us. But what they said was that they are using Google Docs and things like that. But it sounds like, which was a surprise because that's something that we are not advised to do, but it sounds like
- what the city legal team is advising for us as a city commission is different from what the council's legal guidance is. They actually may be working off of different strong recommendations on how they proceed versus what the strong recommendations that we received were. All that to say, it doesn't make anything necessarily easier for us, but it does mean that there might be things that are just being interpreted differently or done differently. Whether that means we have more flexibility than we knew,
- Whether that means it's just not apples to apples, we'll find out. But if nothing else, they know that it's rough just to do things the way that we are being asked to do them. I did, let's see, yeah, show these different things, which was helpful. But in the questions, the things that really came up from that were,
- I would say that the main stuff that I would highlight and Matt, you were recording and you were there. So you might have other thoughts too, but, um, Dave Rolla, who was an OG, uh, commissioner and involved in a lot of things that city council person. Um, he had a couple of questions about the status of things. So he, you know, said that it's not really difficult to communication lines sound like they're the big slog and making it hard for you to do what you aspire to do, but.
- He asked about two things that I had included in the handbook report that are different now than they used to be. And he had offered to come and talk to us. I'm not sure when that will happen or if I need to reiterate an invitation. But the two things that are really different that have just been a big shift for us are the existence of the ECPC, which is that subcommittee where we would sit down with proposed variances to
- to like for developers and builders, things like that, that will come through the planning office. In the past, the environmental planner will look at them, say, does this have environmental relevance? And then the ECPC, Environmental Commission planning committee, would sit down and say, yeah, let's put together a memo to send to the plan commission and say, hey, these are things that we would advise you
- require this person to do based on experience, if they have, because we're kind of doing things differently. While we're doing it, let's go ahead and get this on the radar, but it should be happening for the better of the environment. We did that for a really, really long time. And then the last couple of years, we don't do that anymore. And that was something that we were, in my understanding, and the encyclopedia may change our perception of it, but basically it was just no longer a priority and not something that we were really invited to do.
- to the extent that we were doing that. Didn't we do it last year? We did it for the summit. Yes, and that was a huge one, and that made a lot of sense. It would have felt weird not to do that, but it used to be on a regular basis. It was meeting once a month. Almost every meeting, we'd learn something. Interesting. The ECPC would meet separately, and it was every other week that we would meet to go over our plans, or at least when I was here.
- Planning and Transportation Director wanted to shift away from that and basically look at what we're regularly telling people to do and get the best version of it we can codified in the UVO so that we would stop doing this every time, so that it would stop being a large use of liaison's time, so that we didn't oversee every little thing.
- And the UDO has been improved considerably since then. And that was one of the reasons that we were given that we were not being invited to these conversations is that it used to be because there were not actual regulations in place. Yeah, and I'm at peace with it not being as regular of a thing as it used to be. I was just discussing with Rachel right at the start of the meeting that I still like the idea if it's a really, really big one,
- summit, or if it's one that seems obviously controversial, like they're looking to remove the whole tree canopy or something, then I think it would be good for it sort of to be like a ECPC to be an ad hoc working group there, where we pop up and make recommendations where needed. But I think the idea is that we shouldn't be too with that quick petition. And I think that's probably right. But yeah, it seems that Dave Rallo
- believe the ECPC was important and would like to see more of it. Um, so I don't know, we'll have to find a middle ground between what it used to be. I mean, I don't know if that's even absolutely obsolete. I don't know if it's even available to us, but I know that Dave Rallop felt very passionately about it. And he did say when we have, you know, these meetings, I would look for the memo from the EC and that was an old habit of lots and lots of memos all the time. But that did stand out to me as something that, that,
- Is that happening? And there was some concern expressed about, is there a reason that we are not part of these conversations? Like, if there are things happening, shouldn't we be weighing in on them? And I think that it hits to what Matt is saying, which is like, is it that big a deal? Is it that important that we do it? And it's just kind of this gray area, and it's obviously not our decision either way. I mean, it's our decision if we don't feel like doing it, but if it's our decision if we want to do it, that's not necessarily our call. But it sounded like something that the Dave was eager to talk to.
- Dave Fiddle, the planning transportation director, about what that looks like or could look like. So Dave Rallo may join us in a meeting at some point to talk about this. He may be interested in hearing our perspectives on it, our questions, concerns, interests, whatever. But that was something that definitely shot up very quickly of where's the ECPC and what's going on. Yeah, I'm kind of in agreement with that. But I think it makes sense for really bigger, obviously, environmentally, what you say,
- Yeah, because what would happen is we would say, hey, I see your proposed landscaper, just put these standard non-native trees or whatever, and it needs to be native. Or I see you have way more impervious surface than you actually need on your plan. And we were making the same suggestions over and over again. And maybe that is still useful at the zoning meetings or whatever to have a body saying,
- We want to see these changes. We want to see these changes, even if it doesn't carry a ton of weight, it then gives them something they can refer to and go back to the petitioner with. But I think, generally speaking, I think we're in a pretty good place. I would just definitely like to see any really big or controversial ones. I know that's more work for you on the front end, Rachel, but. Yeah, I think that's like the purpose and intent. There haven't been like a ton of environmental like,
- The strong environmental variances, what I've been told is you're welcome to sign up for the VCA link commission. Whenever they send out the packets for that, it would be kind of a tighter turnaround to develop a memo from receiving the packet between the email when the VCA would meet. That was a hard thing about the ECPC is that it was just like,
- It didn't need to be within two days and then reply with the memo within three more days or whatever. It goes super fast. So, I mean, if that's something like... If the ECPC... If there was an ECPC to exist, so... I mean, I probably wouldn't be presenting everything. But if you had a meeting like the day before BCA to create a memo based off what was in the packet, that would be presented at BCA, I think.
- I don't know about including that as far as like open door laws. I would have to admire about that if that's something you guys want to pursue. Yeah. Yeah. So that's something that's out there. And so again, there are some practices that are no longer active. And there are some practices that were in place for a long time that may or may not be the most efficient choice. Like there were a ton of times it was just like more trees, less
- And first, like, it was just like, just the same step over and that's how, you know, we have changes and that's how there are, there are ways that we're consistently saying this needs to happen and again and again. And so I think that's part of the practice of improving how our city's functioning, but at the same time, it's yeah, figuring out whether the middle ground might be or the better ground might be. Yeah. If you're, you know, willing to specifically extend an invite to, to Dave Rallo for one of our future meetings, we can, can also take his brain for
- what he's looking for and when, and have a conversation about a potential process. Cause even if this doesn't, you know, change anything right away. And again, if there aren't, there aren't controversial or, or huge, you know, items on the, on the horizon there, then it's okay. No actions required, but I think it would be good to just sort of explore potential processes. Well, yeah, he'd be a welcome member of that conversation.
- Well, not the... You said there were two things. Yeah, and the other thing was, and this was just because Dave asked about it, he was asking about if we were gonna get another intern, and I just shared that we are not, we don't have access to the intern in the way that we previously did, where they would put together an Eco Heroes award, they would do like odds and ends stuff with like making new brochures, stuff like that. That's just not something that we, that is part of, as my understanding goes, part of our interns sort of work.
- So just kind of clarifying, too. But yeah, generally, I think that was it. So all in all, they know what we're up to. And I know that they seem all to really like the EC and look forward to the stuff that we're doing. So I think all the different issues that we're doing right now are a nice reflection of where our interests are and where our skills are and things like that. And I do have a note later to bring up something about that. But I would say generally, yeah, they appreciate the share.
- Real quick, ECPC is Environmental Commission Planning Committee. Yeah, it was a committee. It's a lot of the same words we already say, but in a different way. So thanks for the input on the deck last month and for watching that and for attending Adam. And Rachel, for you being there too. Any questions about any of that?
- If you're a chair, you get to do that. You can imagine. So if you're interested in speaking and being up there at the podium, you can do it any time. But you can definitely do it as a senior chair. OK, back to the agenda. We've got a bunch of stuff under staff update. So I'm going to pass it over to Rachel. Yeah, so as promised, I started working on the working group.
- document as well as the mystery documents. I put draft on here because I have not done a kind of a sweep of, do these words make sense together? I just copy and pasted from what the documents I found. So, I mean, I won't walk through all of the words here, but I put in all of the working groups that I found in a previous bylaws document.
- My aspect view, I guess, would be if there is a new biodiversity working on description and what publications, if you want, for these numbers highlighted, kind of getting that information into me. Life pollution is a big slate. So let's see. There are a lot of working groups that I don't know if they have been active in the recent past, or if these are kind of historical, but the hazards working group,
- It's been a long time. Yeah. So I don't even know if they published anything or if there are previous numbers that anyone knows of. Technically, I think it was Waste and Hazards and Waste died not long after I joined. So like in the late teens. So I mean, if there's stuff that you just would like to have removed, I can easily do that.
- You're welcome to look over that in your own time. I don't think anyone wants to read through these 30 pages altogether. It is in the packet. So if you chair one of these working groups or want to be involved with one, consider drafting some language. Yes. Thank you. And then the history of the Bloomington Environmental Commission. This is Michael Littman drafted. I don't know what year he drafted.
- I think it was 2021. I think it was pretty recent. Okay. Again, I don't, I think most of these words make sense together. I think I caught a couple of typos, so it wouldn't surprise me. Maybe there's a couple more that I've missed. It looks nice. He left off
- in 2010s and included some of the 2020s in the 2010s. So I separated the 2010s out and there's nothing for 2020s as of now. So if somebody wanted to take a stab at making consent, I can also include that. So I guess as far as, since these are drafts documents now, I think the working group document probably needs a bit more work than the history document.
- I can remove the 2020 page and post the history from the 1970s to 2010s while we edit the 2020s on the website. So does anybody have any thoughts on any of those documents? So it sounds like the priority is look through the working group document
- and maybe we'll do that as working groups, like the next time we prioritize, like sitting down and talking with you, or put it in a language and saying, what do you think about that or whatever? Do you know if this is considered, I mean, this probably is considered that the kind of communication we can't do electronically, probably, if I do know. So yeah, maybe just like working group by working group. And if the working group that is no longer active, feel free to message, like just, I assume it's okay to email and say,
- Hey, I'm going to try the hazard one. It's just going to be a, this used to be a group and not anymore. And if we did, we can't even reach out. Well, yeah. And if you, if there is a working group, uh, meeting taking place and somebody has, you know, draft language, I can include that kind of an agenda or packet for that working group. Uh, so then everyone has it, uh, and can pre-read it before the meeting. So I'd say maybe we do the working group. Everyone take a look.
- If you obviously, if you see anything like, oh, this is an error in typing or whatever, um, you can share that, but also give me actual thoughts on the content within it. And then within the history, yeah, just, just doing a quick scan to make sure what you're reading makes sense. If there's anything that feels like it, if, if things don't make sense, it's okay to say, I don't know what that is. And I don't feel like the context of what I'm reading tells me what it is. Raise your hand. Cause that's some folks have been on EC forever. Some people have.
- been on EC for months, so it's okay for us to say if things don't make sense and we can update them. It doesn't have to be locked in. So where are these documents going to go? Are these going to go online? Yeah, so let's see. On the EC website, these will go under the reports section. So currently, there's just a monopodge of reports. I'm trying to make more of an effort. I mean, you can see
- There's been three reports this year so far, kind of even a number of like stuff that is published that makes the website. But you know where to find them now in the packet. Okay, so send me an email if you have any comments or suggestions on it. I won't publish anything yet. I'll wait until folks start to read it.
- thing in the staff update. I received this email, excuse me, environmental, or environment, it was an email from Buster Chumley. They wanted to know if you guys would be open of advertising or kind of marketing these environmental films on Facebook. So I just wanted to make sure that it was okay to do so.
- It is flattering when anyone thinks we have a good enough volume that we're going to draw people to their event. But their final graphics they had at the bottom, I thought looked fine. And I have no issue all the way down. Yeah, so it has the location and all that stuff. I see no reason why we wouldn't share those flyers for them.
- And the last thing I had, I apologize if somebody sent this to me. I couldn't find it. Did you send it to me? I had it. I got the same email. I don't remember if I sent it to you or not. I feel like it was something. OK. I have this saved in the meeting packet folder I have in this meeting. So whoever sends me, I'm sorry. I forget who sent it. It's OK. It is the truth.
- So, uh, does anybody know what the ask of this is really? Um, yeah, basically it's people just volunteer to set up a weather station at their house, uh, and then upload data from it to a citizen science website. I actually use this data occasionally for work to figure out if like I'm going to get flooded out of the site or something. I think, I think David Parkhurst is one of the people with one of these. Yeah.
- Well, yeah, it's basically just, I think if you sign up for it, they give you the stuff that you need. So you can join us on our social media. Yeah.
- That is the end of the staff update. Awesome. Thank you so much. Oh, I'm sorry. It's not. I forgot about the planet resilience now. This is from VS Steve.
- um let's see so they have it's not in different layers um it's on evolving to true canopy temperature models i think this is helping use the um the data that some of you i think participated in in the last summer um so there is i think there's a press release about this as well so um i just wanted to let everybody know this exists um and ESP uses it i think this was part of the
- Um, recognition that carries nothing email about, uh, with a press release at the end of the day. So it exists. Uh, I think I'm happy to have Sean come in and talk to you more about it. If you weren't rich about it. I think that's the difference. Um, do you know if. Do you know if they're doing any, I don't know, any sort of like.
- demos of that or anything that's like helping people understand what they're looking at or how to use it or anything like that. Do you know if they're doing anything? I do not think so. I'm just thinking about the, the citizen science link that you just shared a second ago. I'm just thinking, we talked a little bit about having more intentional resources for people, especially because we're like environmental commissions. People can come to us for anything that they think is environmentally related, which is great.
- But just thinking like, is it worthwhile for us to be collecting some of these things as like examples of like, hey, are you trying to get involved with your kids? Are you trying to figure out what to do? Like what is happening in Bloomington? Here's some links to that. And just like creating more like, not necessarily building brand new materials, but saying, if you're coming to us because you think we've got all the environmental answers, well, we may not, but we have lots of things that you can use. So that might be something to kind of think about as we have materials that we're either sharing or that we are
- Learning about ourselves or whatever. Just like, do we want to start kind of organizing how we are gathering for other people to access? And then we're at a tabling event. We're like, oh, what's the EC do? And we're like, we talk about a lot of stuff. And then we have some things that we do sometimes. And it's a lot. It's hard to encapsulate. You might say, go to the website. Cause there's lots of little, there's easy ways to find stuff. And it's getting better and better. Thanks to the help everybody's been doing on the website.
- Good. And one more thing. The open door laws for this have changed a little bit. We are now required to put everyone's names, their terms, and who they are provided by within our public notices. So I just wanted to give you guys a heads up that this is active as of July 1st. I was told to go ahead and start doing it. There's a totally little look prettier than this in the future. It looks great. This is just a screenshot of the website.
- But I don't know, this may be helpful to show there's vacancies, but I just want to let you know that your names will be more publicized, I guess. I mean, in a way that it's going to make a new packet. It's already on our website and it will be on the printouts in front of you.
- Is that just when they change, like when the appointment windows are happening, or is it like every single time? Every single meeting. Yeah. That's a lot of information. The less social ones. Every turn. I know exactly. Every time, like, January, got it, got it. It makes it easy to see who we need to fester about the vacancies, too. One particular office. All right. Well, thanks for the updates on everything here, Rachel. And yeah, the Climate Resilience Math is super interesting. I'll be eager to see
- what happens with it, because I do know that some people get really into that stuff, and other people see that, and it just goes blurry. But I don't know where I'm just going to go to stance. So I'll be here to see how we incorporate that into conversations. Any questions or anything for Rachel before we move to the report section? Sweet. Tree commission. Well, Dave's not here. And I don't think I saw any notes come through from him. And so we'll go from there.
- Heavy rack. I was about to get to that, Matt. He was taking notes. I did not. There's nothing I can hold. That's great. Thank you. Sometimes it's how meetings go. Franklin Lake Monroe is
- usually doing this well, so we'll just come back to that. And then, because I know you watched the- Yeah, I did not have a lot to report on them. They focused on a lot of procedural and organizational things. They talked a little bit about their working group grant process, and they had the presentation on the Urban Meadow. But otherwise, not a lot to report.
- Right. And if ever, if ever you're like observing things, like they're doing a lot, it seems really effective or just think of a lot of traction. It seems really effective. Like, feel free to let us know what you're getting from, from there, because I know we're really different structure. There's different moving parts between the two that are just not, not comparable, but. Yeah. They have like multiple grant structures and it's now getting into the time of the year where they, I mean, they were really backs against the wall end of the calendar year last time. So now they had mostly just.
- pushing each other to get, get things done sooner, which, you know, is what we're going to do next time you go here as comes around. But yeah, so then their meetings are, aren't terribly long either. So that's, I mean, there's only so much that I have to report that is relevant to us. Sounds good.
- MC Iris, Rachel, were you able to? Yes, so they are still doing their reduce invasive species challenge of this year for calorie pair, Japanese barberry, and burning bush. So they have applications on their websites of replacement programs and removal programs. The replacement program is for calorie pair,
- as well as Japanese barberry and burning bush. And then the invasive tree removal program is calorie pear, white mulberry, and hood pebbin. Dave Rollowitz ended to talk about the landscaping requirements for the city. He talked about being native and non-invasive species for landscape plans, and talked about how he's been seeing different invasives around town, and just kind of how painting's dealing with that.
- We talked about the city planters at the courthouse, how that was changed from some downtown businesses came to unsightly. And so some of them have been planted with non-natives like annuals. So they just didn't think that was a better alternative. Let's see. And then invasive species in yards.
- Let's see, there is a question about why invasive species aren't enforced uniformly. So let's see what the discussions were. They talked about how you could kind of report invasive species or dead plants and landscaping plants, and you can always submit your reports. You can contact your council member, you can post it on Facebook, contact V-Square.
- I think that was most of the discussion. And then they talked about the park's weed wrangles, which is on the park's website. September 6th is the native plant sale at the maintenance building at Switchard Park. And then there was discussion about reporting invasive species on county property or county jurisdiction.
- The county currently doesn't have an avenue to remove invasives, from my understanding. Their ordinance just doesn't include it. The spotted lanternfly was found in Bartholomew County, which I think was either a Beeswere or Herald Times article recently. But they love tree of heaven. So I mean, it's multiple issues there. I think that was most of what we discussed.
- Thank you for sharing. Any questions for anybody? Any commission or announcements? Mitchell? I have two. One of them is bugfest got amassed again. It's going to be September 13th.
- We lost our point person that usually organized that for the council or the commission, because it was Megan, because she's above person, and she's not here anymore. So I'm probably still going to be doing it for the big job, because it's nice to get paid for events like that.
- We might be able to still like ask Megan if we could borrow her stuff or something like that. And this would also be a good opportunity to learn the laptop out from the connectivity place. Even tied in to the eco hero stuff from this year of like, here's how bugs connect to the connectivity, connect to our connect. Kids touch these bugs, parents check this out. Bring back the bug stencils and the bug thing.
- That's really about touching the bugs. Yeah, they really abuse the bugs. OK, so I'm just going to ask Megan for some... I'd like to see the live bugs. I'd like to reach out to Megan, but I would rather not be her point person for BugFest in general. But I do sometimes reach out to Megan, so I can do that. Would it be helpful to provide a description of BugFest? Do people feel comfortable with it, what the concept of BugFest is?
- At least in years past, it's, yeah, just a bunch of booths from various organizations, groups, a lot of people from IU to be one of them. I come for IDEM because my job was bugs.
- Yeah, just kind of doing a lot of information about what different bugs are, what they do, where you can find them, how neat they are, uh, all kinds of cool stuff like that. Just it's geared more towards children. I feel like a lot of the time, uh, but it's, it's good information for everyone. It is just a big event. It is actually like, it is, it is a very nice event. Like it's been well over a thousand people. Yeah.
- Yeah, it's been a curse the past couple of years. It used to be on campus. And they have some food trucks and everything. I think I'm going to be out of town that day, but I do have two years of entomology research. Honestly, if you've got a collection, then that's still- I know Megan's got the collection. I have a collection.
- her fashion, like artist drawn mosquito pictures that I can contribute to the table. Because I did mosquito work. And well, this is the bug. Is there anybody who feels particularly strongly about leading the potentially tabling a book fest? Just a question.
- Not forcing anybody. I know you're not looking into Shannon, it's fine. You can put it on the July agenda. No, no. I can do the prep work if someone else is physically there. Yeah. This is just like an announcement. It's tend to, so it's usually been like a couple trips. Yeah. I was going to say, I'm happy to drive some stuff and then if you figure out logistics later. They had tend to do a pretty reasonable window as well. It's usually like an hour set of hour tear down on either end.
- All right, I'm putting Cassie down as potentially having some tricks we can get into. Is there anybody else who'd be interested that I just put your name on a list? Anybody else? No. Yes.
- I'm interested. Okay, we're getting a costume. Yeah, there's so many people. Oh, I know that the IE student athletic board has cockroach costumes. Well, they're definitely going to be wearing them. Distract free throw shooters. They have like a real box like last time. Like someone brought. So Megan's students would. Yeah. Megan was, yeah, she brought just a bunch of her
- Uh, most her students would do collecting and then the ones that were bad. I think she had a ton of, yeah. It was just like a tank of like kissing hawkers. Yeah, somebody usually does have something like that. That's usually the common, yeah. The girl, the girl, the kid. The kids would not be gentle. And so the wings and everything would be off by the end of it. Yeah. Most people bring like dead bugs or things like that.
- I get to have fun because I just go collect a sample and the crew can bring it straight out there. So it turns into a missing contest between kids if they have the biggest crayfish with their back hands. Our nice nature. I like this. Good announcement. Good update. I'll put you back together now. Yes, I did. This is one times out on June 30th. I figured you guys would want to know about it. IDEM is looking for public input on
- The announcement was public input on evaluation of existing regulations, but trying to get input on things that you think IDEM could do to be more efficient. So if you have thoughts or strong feelings or opinions, now is a good time, today is Fire Month, to efficiency at idem.in.gov.
- And if there's a whole, like, announcement press release thing, I can send to Rachel and pass it around. But, yeah, this is just a good time to let people know what you think of how items do and what could be done better, ways we could be doing things more efficiently. Like, say, give us more resources so we have enough people to actually do things we need to do.
- I was going to say, are there any topics that you would expect that you'd be like, oh, that's probably totally kind of something. Honestly, I have no idea. It's going to come through the cracks on this. I don't know who would respond and what they would say, which is why I saw you guys contribute. All right. Efficiency.in.gov. Efficiency.in.gov is the email to send your thoughts and comments to.
- They're going to get like stop regulating my Yeah, that's what I'm imagining most of it's going to be so that's again. Maybe other executive order.
- Mike Braun, it is a result of like six different Mike Braun executive orders. I know that there was that one that was like, oh, you're not allowed to have any regulations stricter than EPA regulation, but you have to- That is part of this. But then there was a separate one that was like, we need things to be more efficient. Everyone needs to investigate their efficiency and come up with an efficiency by their same thing. Mike Braun, five things you did this week. I don't have to do that. Thank God.
- Are there any other announcements that folks have? I know we're getting close to the time. I've got one more thing I wanted. Two more things I want to share, but is there anything else that folks know? OK, OK, well then let's almost get out of here. I had one question to talk about a lot of different things tonight and some of those things require money to do them. So I want to do a quick check on one. Do we know where our budget stands or would that be a good thing for us to kind of figure out for the rest of this year or half of the year?
- We have not utilized anything from our budget yet. As far as putting a request for an invoice for specific things, I think we usually had a pretty good turnaround for it as far as if we knew we wanted to get something that we could put in that request and that would go through somewhat best. Yeah, so we've been talking about a couple of different things. Kind of have some money earmarked for B-City, but otherwise,
- Yeah. How much is the thank you? Well, yeah. Is it like a use it or lose it situation? It's a use it and then at the beginning of the year. I don't know if it's actually the academic. I agree. We request the same amount every year. Whatever is not used, it goes to the general fund or the rainy day fund. But I think in the past few years, it's been the same amount every year. Yeah. It's been a while.
- It's amazing that we've been getting it every year because we definitely don't use it every year, so I'd love to start using it. Yeah, it's starting to hang out about all the, anyway, so ideas there, but one of the things that I wanted to, so getting that checking will be good and then being
- mindful of like, is this an opportunity for us to like, put something into action as far as I'll bet you goes. The second thing was that we did talk about an annual meeting, having more sort of like learning opportunities in the EC meetings, whether it's somebody in this group sharing about what they know, whether it's something that they do and that it applies to how we think about what we do as the EC.
- Or is this inviting somebody in? And it could be a paid guest, just like we said, we have a budget that's kind of floating around, but inviting somebody to tell us about what they do. If we're noticing things coming up where it's like, I'd love to talk more about this. I just don't really know a lot about the topic. And if folks are interested, let's talk about it. Let's learn about it. So this is kind of a homework for next time is to really think about, is there any kind of specialty that you'd like to share? Which would be very, very cool. And we'd love to hear it.
- or any other individual, like specific person or topic that you'd like us to cover so we can learn more and be more knowledgeable as a group. So you can think about it. Shout out if you have it. But if you just want to think about it, that would be excellent. I have some. What do you have? So the ERAP thing in this group, and we talk a lot in the city about invasive plants. We don't talk a lot about invasive animals and the impact that they have on the environment.
- So that's something I'd be happy to share about. I'd be happy to try to open the head of Hoosier River Watch to come down and just talk about the program, what all they do, what benefit it presents to the community, all of that kind of stuff, just voluntary water monitoring in general.
- Yeah, we wouldn't have to take away either of those. Is for either of those, for on behalf of yourself or for your kind of thoughts around having the Hoosier Overwatch person, would it make sense for us to try and like actually like let people know that about our month and you'd be like, hey, at this meeting, we're having this, you know, conversation coming up and then with people who might be interested, keeping an eye on us, anybody who'd like to join, if they're comfortable. Okay, cool.
- I'd be interested in asking my former boss and former professor, Joe Caudill, to come in. He is the state deer biologist. So if anyone had any qualms with deer, he could tell you, she could tell you anything and everything probably about that. And he's a great guy. My plant's really spiky so it's not a big issue. We'll just do that. Just even get a little bigger.
- Uh, now is he in Indy? No, he works at the field office in Bloomington. Oh, cool, cool, cool. Okay. Awesome. Great ideas. It's not very controversial. Like, I love the deer. People are the most invasive species that we have. We are the deer. Cool. Well, great. Great ideas right out of the gate. I love it. Um, so I will add, I mean, we have them in our events, but I'll make sure that we follow up on kind of like how we think about timing and we might be a good fit because obviously we want to
- Get it on whoever's radar to plan appropriately into the top of that. Awesome. Okay. Any other announcements? Motion. We adjourn the second. Okay. Well, let's get out of here. It is that is boarding board. Thanks everybody for a great meeting.