- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- All right, well, with past last month's events, thank you again, Adam, for always being on top of those.
- I know we cover a lot of the ground, especially in some of those pre-event meetings.
- So at this point, we'll move on to our public comments where members of the public can come in and if
- they have questions, if they want to talk, if they just want to listen, we'll give them an opportunity
- to do that. And so if you're interested in introducing yourself, you're welcome to share something.
- Sure. Yeah, my name's Steve Stanford. I've been graduated from Miami Jail. I'm still on 85. I've been
- in jail for 32 years. And then eight years ago, I moved into the wastewater.
- I'll send a license channel on this and I'm a certified wastewater operator. I hope this utility is
- with the industrial customers. We make sure everybody's, there's no problem for any of us.
- I'm from Dalton, Hazel and my home is still there, right? I live here five days a week and then I'm
- home on the weekends. But my family's saying I'm moving down here. I'm digging, being back here.
- Well, great. Well, thanks for joining us in our meeting. We've got a couple of different subcommittees,
- and one is specifically about water quality. And so whether or not you've met Mitchell already, or if
- he's a native, you might hear a little bit more. We're definitely working on some opportunities to do
- more with stormwater, and just sort of understanding sort of the health of Ianoir, specifically down
- here in Numa County. So great.
- Great. Well, feel free to chime in and give me questions, thoughts, and hi to you too. You're always
- welcome to raise a hand if you've got thoughts or ideas. All right. So any other members of the public
- in the Zoom call? Nope. Sounds good. Well, then we are going to move on to the new business of the night.
- In the packet, there was a piece that was written by Norm. So Norm, I'm going to give you the floor
- to just kind of talk through a little bit of what you put together, kind of what you're hoping to hear
- from us and before. Sure.
- Why don't I just shoot these, okay? Sounds great. A whole bunch over here, and here it's on the other
- side. This is a graph for discussion. Perfect, thank you.
- To give residents an opportunity to practice the management of Earth's rising temperature, this proposal
- is that we encourage people to think about how often they're cutting a grass. This could be for introduction
- next, late next, let next one be before the grass.
- cutting season begins, possibly as a flyer of some kind that could be distributed somehow by the city.
- The whole idea, as you'll see, is that out of habit and custom and wanting to keep everything looking
- perfect, many of us with homes and lawns like to routinely cut the grass,
- For discussion is the idea that you don't really need to cut it every week to keep it looking good.
- You'll see in this draft discussion some findings from Princeton University about the effect of running
- a lawnmower for an hour producing
- As it says here, as much air pollution as driving a car 500 miles. So it's a serious producer at home
- of greenhouse gases that we have some control over and possibly can put into place without much effort
- at all and just a slight change of attitude, doing something different every week instead of cutting
- the grass.
- This draft is for your review and I'm discussing as the possible contents of a flyer, continuing the
- work of the commission and helping residents to do stuff at home that can really affect the air, the
- quality of our air. That's my intro. Great. Thanks, Ron. Thanks for putting this together.
- So kind of just to summarize the goal of this conversation, it's really just kind of chat through what
- we think of what you've put into the flyer, what we think about the idea of having a flyer and then
- kind of maybe distribution ideas. Is that what you're? Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, the floor's
- open. I see there's more on the back about what concerns me is people like my next door neighbor who
- has a contract with the group.
- Yeah. Wants to mow once a week and he does, whether he needs it or not. So how do you work with these
- contractors? Sure, good point. They need to make money and pay for their mowers and all that. Right.
- Missing from this draft is that very consideration, which is very important and has to be included because
- many of us, including where I live and our condo development on the southeast side, you know, the guys
- come through every week no matter what.
- and cut the grass, and they don't need to. So we have to, and I have suggested to Kerry that we bring
- in for discussion a contractor to address these very points, so that they can be made part of discussion,
- because it's very important to include the business.
- in this business. And I think it can be worked out right so they don't lose any business, but they just
- do business differently. We'll see. Other thoughts or questions to the chair of NAR? So what uses, I
- haven't read it yet, but what uses the most gas in blowers or just the mowers? Mowers, blowers, anything
- that burns gas. Yeah.
- So if you have electrics, I guess you can give it as relaxed, except the electricity comes from a power
- station over on the wall there. So what would happen with this? What do you think you would do with
- this? This text with our work and your approval would be given to the city. I don't know how that would
- work for printing as a flyer, you know, three page flyer, illustrated, nice looking. It could be distributed
- maybe with the water bill.
- I don't know if that's possible or not, but distributed somehow. I wonder if the city is currently doing
- anything with this kind of education? I think there must be some, and we're all probably aware of it,
- because you've walked down the street and seen in front of houses that stood the grass in front that's
- let to grow wild. Yeah. There are a few of them around town.
- You've seen them. That's all I can think of to bring up. I don't know the answer to that question. I
- think it's really well written. So I have a couple of quick thoughts. One is, so in thinking about it,
- I typically try and think like, okay, what subcommittee does this kind of fall under? Like, well, so
- we're kind of keeping our buckets under control. And my assumption is that it would either be
- Um, maybe the air quality working group or, which is kind of some of our, our working groups kind of
- get a little quiet, sometimes get a little more active other times. The air quality or maybe the biodiversity
- working group. And I would typically try and think, is there any city department that this would be
- a good fit with as well? Or to Adam's point, is there anyone who's already starting anything like this
- where conversations about how do we reduce resident, you know, usage of, of, or, or.
- usage of their own or hired mowers. So that might be something to check in on to just reach out to a
- couple of the different department representatives and ask if there's anything that they're doing that's
- already in the works that we could then help create some supplemental materials. And then the third
- thing that I'm thinking about that would be a little bit further down is in talking with
- getting this into residents' hands. And something that I'll bring up in a little bit is talking
- to neighborhood groups about the Habitat and Activity Map. And so it could be that those things tie
- together. If we are talking to neighborhood associations, bringing this conversation to that table as
- well, maybe not at the same time, but getting in the routine of us connecting with more neighborhood
- groups, because neighborhood associations oftentimes have residents who are interested in doing what's
- good for their local area. So this could be a great fit for that too.
- It's also possibly an easy thing to list as like, here's something that you could add to your pledge
- for the connectivity plan. Oh, yes. What a great idea. That could be part of that. Less mowing counts
- as protecting habitat. Oh, well, if you're not mowing and you're letting a more natural landscape develop,
- maybe that's a herbage in. I mean, connecting them in a dosis of a can is a- So when I read it in the
- packet, I didn't know what the intention was exactly, but it read to me like,
- a guest column, which historically we've sent a lot of guest columns into the, um, to the HT. Yeah.
- Um, uh, left on a number of them over the years. And if, uh, if you wanted to coordinate, you know,
- if you wanted to know how to do that or have me help you do that, I have kind of their, um, I don't
- remember what to call it, but there's essentially a disclaimer text, say written by so and so of the
- EC, but not the formal opinion of the city or whatever. There's, there's texts that they want.
- I thought it, not knowing the background, not knowing the context, I thought I read a lot more like
- a guest column than say a pamphlet. And while we do have plenty of resources to distribute at times
- that we do table, I think ultimately we only end up in front of so many eyes and it's very, it's text
- heavy, not
- and it's good content, obviously, but I'm not sure. My personal knee-jerk reaction here was that I'm
- not sure as much as a pamphlet goes, but I would very much encourage it done as a guest column to be
- able to get in front of more eyes in that way, probably more than we'd see at any tabling event anyway.
- So as long as it fits in their word limit, which I can find here in a minute,
- I think that'd be a really good direction to go in personally. So I'll put that out there. Thank you
- for that. Is there any way to get the research on how much we would say somehow quantify if we stop
- knowing this much to the Republic need? Well, it'd be great to be able to state that. I think it would
- be complicated and pull a lot of variables like how many people are participating.
- Yeah. And how many, how long are they using their machines and look at it and so on that stuff. Sure.
- It would be great to be able to quantify it. Yeah. It might be, it might be worthwhile to say, you know,
- running a push mower for one hour, you know, uses or emits this amount running a leaf blower for an
- hour or whatever. And maybe, and then kind of doing like sort of setting up that map for someone to
- say, instead of doing my lawn every week for two hours, I'm going to do it.
- twice a month for two hours. So, and just being able to kind of like quantify for yourself, like, okay,
- well, I typically use it for this long. So I know that I'm no longer producing these emissions. So maybe
- just like a really basic estimate of what things produce over a period of time. Or maybe a distance
- in June. We started that. Yeah. Yeah.
- When I look at Austin, I think they had an electric motor program. They weren't changing it at that
- time. Here's an example of what the city has done. I didn't know about the electric motor program. Do
- you remember, is it the department that is in charge of all cycle law maintenance equipment for Bloomington?
- Do you all remember because I know that they're in the, in the climate. Was it the climate action plan
- that they're like, subbing out the, as they retire the older appliances? Yeah, that they, thank you.
- They, they'll be using more energy efficient things. So whoever it is that does that, that would probably
- be a good department to check into. What department sound am I better with?
- Sorry, it's public works. No, I don't think. Yeah, you can reach out to Sean Nia. She's a primary contact
- for all things of the Climate Action Plan. Her name again? Sean, S-H-A-W-N. And then last name is Nia,
- M-I-Y-A. M-I-L. M-I-Y-A.
- M-I-Y-A. Yeah, she is the, what is it, director of, no, no, the assistant director of sustainability.
- Okay. The buses that are becoming electric. Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of things in the work, so I
- feel like this could very potentially land in a place with lots of other complementary initiatives.
- Exactly. Yeah. And if you,
- I mean, what do you all think about having some sort of contractor, and I don't know if they need to
- actually come into the EC meeting or if you would just meet with them, but to think through how to make
- that a productive conversation. So we're taking into consideration the impact that this will have on,
- you know, individual's businesses or livelihoods or anything like that that does get a little bit
- you know, more touchy when we're really suggesting something change up like that. Well, a couple of
- things. I could speak to the contractor who does the lawns where I live. But also, I think it would
- be good to invite a contractor, one who wants to come in, to come in and talk to us about how this would
- affect the business. Because this draft suggests that landscapers
- says are responding to the reduced frequency of lawn cutting by expanding to include other services.
- I don't know what those services are. We need to know more about it. And if people, if contractors lose
- homeowner business, are they going to be able to pick it up doing other things for homeowners?
- I don't know. I'm not sure. Yeah. Nowadays it's trending towards just landscaping. So they'll also mulch
- through other things. And then the winter season will shovel snow. So they'll keep something year round.
- Um, yeah, I was going to ask what exactly we were trying to gain by having, say, one contractor. And
- if we're trying to get an industry opinion, I feel like it might be good to reach out to quite a few.
- Or if we know that there is one individual or company or something that is enthusiastic about cutting
- emissions, that might be the type of person that'd say, okay, let's have them come speak to us and how
- this worked for them. But I'd be hesitant to take just one opinion in.
- In general, I'm a student that represents the local landscaping industry. Yeah. OK. I live next to Sherwood
- Oaks Church. Sherwood Oaks, as you know, has huge acres of grass. And it looks beautiful because it's
- regularly cut every week.
- whether it needs it or not, depending on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a matter of thinking anew about
- how often we're cutting the grass. Well, keep an eye on what we're going to put. Yeah, I think that
- sounds great. And I think that Matt's idea of putting something together that would potentially be fifth
- of the Herald Times, I think, is a great idea. Their guest columns are limited to 600 words. I'm not
- sure what this draft is currently at.
- But I'd imagine during the ballpark that it probably wouldn't take much editing. I can't speak to how
- people actually react to any of them, but I've felt really good about previous guest columns.
- Guest columns, yeah. And I have ideas for more that I just haven't taken the time to write, but I think
- this is a no-brainer of something to try to fit in there, 600 word limit, and then have them run
- What do you think about timing. I mean, this is the ball where all this is stopping them guest concert
- early spring.
- Yeah. March, I don't know, right before it would matter when it has already started to matter. Yeah.
- So yeah, early, early spring, late winter. Yeah. I think like March is when people start getting,
- you know, the itch to get outside. There's also a way to know just how fast they'll run. Like I've submitted
- some in the past that literally went on the website the next day, but then there've been other times
- where it's taken a couple of weeks. So it's not something completely.
- Reliable. Yeah. A couple of times, some of the ones get burned by them taking too long to publish it.
- Maybe early 2026. Maybe talk to a contractor and find out at what point they make their feedback to
- the people. That's a good point. Yeah. Great. So we'll leave it at that. Are there any other thoughts
- or info that folks want to share with Nora in this moment about this draft?
- Great. Norm, do you feel like you've got some good next steps in place? Thanks so much. All right. Thank
- you for contributing this. Norm is only a few months into being on the ECN already. I love that you
- jumped in with those feet. I love it. It's great. The next thing I want to do is just share, we've talked
- a little bit about some additional outreach for the Habitat connectivity map. And we'll talk a little
- bit more about that later on too. But I have, I don't remember where the other one is, but there,
- I basically put together just like a few new kinds of flyers, just knowing that we have a lot of pamphlets
- that we are handing out at different tabling events. But I think part of what I'm hoping, and I think
- the biodiversity working group is hoping for, is that people will be drawn to not just the tool functionality
- of the habitat connectivity map,
- but also the idea of what it means and kind of what they can do. So I put together this flyer and I'm
- very open to any edits or suggestions or input that folks have on it. This is one that is kind of like
- a one sheet kind of flyer style. And then I think the other two things I have was this was just for
- the table that the folks at Bugfest had, which is more or less a scannable code that takes you to the
- Habitat Connectivity Plan page.
- where the map is found front and center. And then the last one. So this is its own single page as well.
- I'm basically just trying to like get your attention. But one of the things that I was thinking about,
- which is why I'd love your thoughts on it if you have any, is we talked about different ways that we
- might use our budget to kind of supplement some of the things we're doing. And so I've been really,
- I was gonna say really stuck on the idea, but a bit of wordplay with thinking of like stickers that we could
- have at our tables as well, so if people go through the process of going onto the map and adding their
- home and what they're doing to improve habitat fragmentation, then we have these stickers that say,
- thanks for adding your place, here's a sticker, put it somewhere that makes you feel proud or whatever,
- but something that's a little bit more interactive and a little bit like the, you know, just a little
- nudge to encourage people to get in the map and add to it.
- So those are just a couple of things and we've got more stuff that we're talking through, but I figured
- while the biodiversity working group has been working on it, I wanted to get in front of you all too.
- Any input or major issues that you have with this that we should definitely note now before we go forward
- with anything else? First normally thought I have right now is I like the sticker, but if you're going
- to, and I think that design would work well as a sticker, but maybe change like map to pledge because
- that's more like I did a thing.
- Oh, that's a nice idea. I like that thinking. The stickers would be specifically for people who did
- it right on the spot. Only if you do it. You have to do it. Or you show us your, you know, you're like,
- oh, I did do it. I live right there. We planted this tree over there. But yeah, not hand out to everybody
- because that's not the kind of budget we're working from. It's an eye-hogan stick. Yeah, it is. Yes, exactly.
- Any other thoughts from folks on, on any of this or anything that you think is missing from the, from
- the folks that are watching us? Yeah. I think that one is a lot more digestible than the other bloggers
- we have. I feel interested in actually reading that one. It's not just like a wall of text.
- I think for me, kind of like just trying to imagine what people, when they hear habitat connectivity
- math or what the heck, or when they get to it, what the heck does that mean?
- For me personally, I think that that box that says actions you can take is the thing that my brain is
- looking for first, which is, I don't even know if what I'm doing counts. I don't even know what you're
- talking about or if I could do it. And these may or may not be the right examples. I don't know. But
- trying to give people kind of a jumping off point for what they can be doing. And there's so
- many interpretations of each of these things that I don't know if you all have any ideas of things that
- are missing that are really obvious or if you'd like to have
- Adjusting. Yeah. Are there other groups working on the habitat plan or is it just the same? Yeah,
- it's we, we worked with the city to get it onto the website and Matt can probably elaborate a bit more
- on that. But yeah, I was going to say that the, not really the environmental commission came up with
- the map based off of the plan, which they had done actually right around the time that I started. So
- the plan itself was fairly old, but we,
- Um, previous liaison, Linda Thompson and I thought that it was important to push a map just because
- of its ability to, to increase engagement, to get people to participate and get excited about it and
- share it. Um, because otherwise the plan is just a document that maybe no one reads. Um, and so we had
- a previous attempt that an intern had worked on that was not aesthetically pleasing or the most usable.
- It was a big ask. Recently we got the city GIS to help and for them it was a very easy project. Now
- we have a much more visually appealing map. It's about getting it in front of people, particularly in
- certain areas that we want to connect priority habitat. Is it part of the comprehensive plan?
- Want to consider adding open space to the plan and future is obvious. I don't believe it's formalized
- in any of their the city's documents. I don't think so. They not to in the climate action plan, but
- Um, as far as the compliance with that, I don't know if they, you know, if it's anywhere in there, but
- I don't believe it is. Good question. I don't think so. I know that it's been utilized, but I know Parks
- mentioned that they've looked into it. We're deciding where corridors should be. Um, so there, there
- is perhaps a small, um, appreciative audience, but generally we're just trying to, trying to get some
- public momentum at this point. Yeah. And it just started. Yeah. And sort of the make, the made over
- version was just released in July.
- Maybe. Yeah, it was early summer. Yeah. And so I guess the press release went out at that point. But
- this is kind of on the newer end. So we're really working through how to best get this in front of people.
- And it is meant for residents of all kinds. So yes, it used to be more geared towards landowners. But
- with students renting, how does it? I mean, there's plenty of opportunity to do things that are going
- to be helpful for the insects and animals and everything. So yeah, just trying to figure out different
- ways to get in front of people, make sense of it.
- I think, Adam, even though the suggested things like local shops, like the hardware stores or the greenhouses
- and things like that, at places where people who are investing in their space might be interested in
- these. Exactly. Interested in these types of things, giving them, that seems we can have a flyer up,
- but also maybe even like something that could be given to people who are interested, check out or whatever.
- So yeah, working through it.
- But yeah, this is just kind of one of the takes on how we might talk about it. Is there any other feedback
- that people would like to give at this moment? You can always follow the afterwards as well, but I just
- wanted to put a training. Well, it's, I see the underline, how to have pledge. So then that goes with
- stickering and you see those words again, you start.
- And when you click on that QR code, the first thing that happens is there's a pop-up window that says,
- take the Habitant Activity Pledge, and that's what gets you to where you can add your space to the map.
- If you don't go through the pledge, though, you can't add your items in the map. So it's really like,
- it's trying to get folks to understand the pledge is the big, the door that opens into adding to the
- map, but the map is going to exist either way.
- And that's the case with the touch, what happens if they get a regular email once a month or something,
- it reminds them, like, do you want me to clean it, or is it like one and done, never thinking about
- it? Nothing like that. No, we're not there yet. We've been like five years from now. Yeah. At this point,
- we're trying to kind of make sure that the ability to add something works well in a way that's like,
- I don't know, I don't know what language reason, kind of a sort of semi-anonymously so that it's not
- You don't have like a login to the map where you go in and put your stuff. It would just be like adding
- to it. So that sense of like, how do you, can you edit your listing or do you just go in and add a whole
- new one? So kind of talking to the GIS team to start figuring out what's the right level of privacy
- and, and sort of access to it. But I think the idea of having there be sort of like an email that you
- get added to, that then you can be potentially contacted about like reminders or this is the season
- for planting this thing. Or like, here's when you might be seeing these natives.
- pollinators or whatever. I'm not sure people want to suddenly be on email lists and there's no, you
- don't submit your email or anything when you bank the pledge. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that, I think
- that kind of trying to think like, is there anywhere that people can sign up for an email? Is that something
- that we as a commissioner are actually able to do? Cause that might be a big question too, is do, is,
- Are we able to have like a mailing list that we can contact people? But I really like the idea. So.
- I know people don't like it more email that if it was once a month. I have an instrumental question,
- but only from my info. Are we represented at the weekly farmers market? Is one of us tabling at the
- farmers market? Yeah.
- I don't know, we used to do that years and years and years ago. It's a great question. Because, I'm
- never at your standard, you know, I'm just a P.D. bar, that's a great place to... If, Norm,
- I'll be honest, if you're interested in tailing the farmers market, I think that would be wonderful.
- Because of the number of things that we work on, I think that a lot of folks... I have to leave. Sorry.
- You started coughing and I don't want to sit here and cough, so I apologize.
- Thanks for being here. Feel free to add yourself to the Zoom if you wanted to sit there and watch or
- anything like that. Thanks, Adam. But yeah, I mean, I think it would be great, especially with things
- like this, that we have something we're trying to get out of the puddle. If folks want a table, that's
- definitely happening. I don't know how one gets a table at the farmers market. They just show up, and
- they have a little, like, the Parks Department has a little booth, and you just say, hey, I'm here for
- the info alley, is what they call it. You just show up that morning. Yeah, you just show up. Yeah, a
- table there.
- Fairly often for a different thing. And you can just show up and it costs like $10, I think, which I
- assume to cover my budget. Yeah. And I do wonder if because we're part of the city, they might. Yeah,
- they might. I was going to say, pre-pandemic, we did somewhat regularly, like once a month, table at
- the farmers market. I don't remember it costing anything. And it was in foe alley. Yeah. It might be
- different. Well, if it sounds like it's worthwhile for some of the things we're talking about. I had
- the foe leaguer the other day.
- It's up to people's availability and desire. The farmer's market goes on for what, another like three
- weeks? Is there an info alley inside? Technically, yeah, but it gets like really crowded. Another thing
- to prepare for spring.
- Yeah, okay. I will put it on our list of things to chat through and we'll plan for next year. Thank
- you for offering that. Okay, great. And I like the idea about the mailing list. I'll see if we can figure
- out like what it would take us long to do something like that, to figure out logistically if we can,
- because digital communication is very complicated for us. And so figuring out the right channel for
- that might be a little tricky, but I think it's a great idea.
- All right. All right. Are folks comfortable with us moving on to the old business working group
- conversations? Great. OK. So we have all these different subcommittees. We encourage folks to be part
- of at least one of the subcommittees. You can be in more than one. But we have sort of a limit on how
- many people we try to have in each one just to kind of keep things spread out and also not accidentally
- tip into a full environmental commission meeting at a subcommittee meeting because the count of quorum
- starts to become an issue. So we typically try to have some between two and four people on each of the
- subcommittees. So we're going to start with water quality. And since we have a new commissioner, would
- you give us just a quick little, there's kind of a focus on? The water quality group is one that I revived
- when I joined the environmental commission, because that's like all of my work. So I like doing it.
- But a lot of stuff we've been focusing on over the past couple of years, been trying to get a handle on
- The biggest thing is trying to get a handle on what the water quality in the city looks like. Building
- off of something that air quality group isn't up there, but Matt was leading that. And when I first
- joined the commission, he and the air quality group had just finished putting together a big report
- looking at what air quality data was available in the city, where things were monitored, what it said.
- I've been the monitoring as I remember one of the big findings was the singular air monitoring station
- that I didn't have. Little City is probably the jankiest one in the state. I think they've replaced
- it. I think I remember hearing, I've worked down the hall from the air monitoring people and I think
- I remember hearing them say they were replacing that kind of stuff. But yeah, trying to do that for
- water quality in the city.
- Just looking through, like, what all day has been collected in the past. I get an idea of what the state
- of. Even just the state of knowledge and the water body in the city is seems like we found some really
- big gaps, but also been working with the storm water in the city utilities office.
- to kind of get an idea of what they're doing, how we can help them, and just kind of keeping each other
- up to date on what's going on. And that's actually the big update for water quality right now is I got
- Liz Carter and Evelyn Gordon, the intern. Liz Carter is the coordinator for the stormwater group, and
- they will be coming to the next water quality meeting on October the 2nd at whatever room Rachel looks
- for us when she gets back from vacation.
- We just got everyone on board for the meeting this week. So we'll get some updates. The stormwater group
- was trying to do some intensive city-led monitoring this year. So kind of hopefully getting an idea
- of how that went because field season is kind of winding down. See how the big changes in the legislature
- have impacted things with stormwater this year.
- Um, and also hopefully Eric, can you make the second? Okay. Uh, also looking at potentially trying to
- apply for some grant money for the city for, um, non point source proof and remediation, rehabilitation,
- things like that. Um, so should be a fun meeting. I haven't had a meeting in a while because there hasn't
- been a whole lot going on in the holding pattern for a little bit because I've been wanting to see how
- The monitoring for this year went before doing a lot more. So, yeah. What kind of control do eyes or
- resident have over water? It's not necessarily going to make a huge amount in like the
- huge amount of difference in the, like, bigger streams and rivers that have a lot more flowing into
- it. But, uh, even stuff like you're kind of saying, like mowing your lawn less will have an impact on
- stormwater that runs from, uh, your lawn, um, or planting more trees, bushes, shrubs, instead of just
- like turf grass. Um,
- Because turf grass basically works like asphalt in terms of like water runoff. Or that you report the
- non point source reporting. Yes, there's a the stormwater group in town has.
- reporting mechanisms, it's called viewer report. And I think you can get to it through the city website
- of just like, if you see something that's like someone's discharging pollution that they shouldn't be,
- or your, the limitations on construction stuff have been, um, sharply curtailed by our state government
- this year. So there's not as much, uh, as many construction projects that you can report on. Like if
- you see them doing some things they're not supposed to be, or just like leaving bags of
- like piles and piles of unguarded hair by a stream bed or something like that. If it's a project that
- is greater than one acre, you can report it. Does it have to do with what's flowing into Lake Monroe?
- So Lake Monroe is an interesting case study because nothing we do in Bloomington impacts Lake Monroe.
- None of the water that comes from the city. We get all of our water to drink from the city, but none
- of the water that flows out of the city goes into Lakeland Road. We get all of our drinking water from
- the lake, but nothing goes in. That's interesting. All of the water from Bloomington either flows into
- Peer Creek, which merges into Salt Creek downstream of the dam. Just below the dam. Or it flows into
- Bean Blossom Creek, which then goes into the west fork of the White River.
- So we're affected by Brown County. Brown County. Brown County. Yeah. Clowning Monroe, just not city
- limits. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of Eastern Monroe County and Brown County is where most of the water
- for like Monroe comes from. I agree. I think that's a great update. And then the last thing I was going
- to have you add is the Hoosier River Watch option? Yes. Hoosier River Watch, we have
- been discussing, like bringing people in to come and chat and share expertise with us on things. I talked
- with Dylan, the Hoosier Riverwatch coordinator, who, if you went to BuckFest this week, he was co-running
- the booth with me. He was the tall one. And he said he had
- be more than happy to come talk to us and anyone in the community. We wanted to drag out to learn about
- Hoosier River Watch in our December meeting, whether I think currently it's Pennsylvania for the 19th,
- but I don't know if we have frequently bumped the December meeting up a week because of final exams
- and the semester and stuff. So he said it would be good for, it's all his thing about bumping it up.
- But yeah, he will come and talk to us about volunteer water quality monitoring.
- how to do it, how you can learn to do it, what that data goes to, how you can access that data. Tell
- me some of the stuff that would be cool to go into. But yeah, there's a lot of data there right now
- that's actually really cool to look through. So even just learning how to access that kind of stuff
- is very neat and interesting. So yeah, it should be a cool presentation. And if December sounds good
- to you guys, then you can go with that.
- Cool. Great. Well, thanks for the update. The ECPC is the environmental commission planning committee,
- and it's basically our opportunity to talk through any development plans or variances in Bloomington
- that have environmental impacts associated with them. So Rachel will sort of flag anything that has
- a decent environmental element to it. And then this subcommittee will sit down and kind of talk it through
- and potentially come up with a memo that we'd like to send to be considered with that, like with the
- BZA or whoever it is that's hearing that request. So the meeting for the same Remy, Remy, Remy project,
- that got pushed to the next meeting, right? So no meeting on that at this time.
- What was it that happened with that? I remember looking at the email, but I haven't looked at the documents.
- I saw they did some wetland delineation, but not enough. Do you know what's going on with that? I'm
- not sure what Billy used to do. Okay. Because I know, I remember Rachel said that they had submitted
- some documentation, but they were unhappy with what had been submitted. Okay.
- And so part of the idea is that we would be able to say before it's in its final stages, here's what
- we're concerned about, or here's what we think are opportunities, and then potentially adjust their
- proposal. So yeah, it's kind of a nice way to be aware of what's happening in the city too. The light
- pollution working group. I'll pass it over to Adam. Oh yeah, so the light pollution working group is
- pretty new. As someone found earlier in this group, they've said it off
- pretty self-explanatory thing. We're just kind of looking at where light pollution's coming from in
- the city and what we can do to reduce it and that kind of thing. We haven't met in a while, so I don't
- have much of an update, but while data is here, camera away, I wanted to ask about some language in
- the UDO, if you don't mind, that I found annoying. Perfect. So this is, like I said, in the UDO, this
- is the section about light trespass.
- Says all light fixtures shall be installed so that light trespass from any property line except a property
- line abutting a public street shall not exceed one foot candle. To me, that sounds like the light trespass
- regulations only apply if the light is like not on the other side of a street, which would imply you
- could shine as much light as you want across the street into your neighbor's house. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
- I just didn't know if you have any thoughts on this, because it seems kind of absurd to me. And I think
- I can show you this later, too. Yeah. I have not encountered this. Since I've been here, I've not encountered
- issues of like, best pass. Yeah. Another thing, the regulations are kind of weak. So I think they should
- be restricted. My interpretation of this is that there's basically no regulations on like, across the
- street. Only people who like, share your article if they saw it.
- Yeah. You know, we had one enforcement case where neighbors were complaining about a property that had
- a lot of issues, including a lot of environmental issues. One of them being super bright outdoor lights
- that they can use to shine in their party area. They didn't issue a violation, and they did. It actually
- applied to the Americans.
- But that's the only times that I've been here in a year and a half that we've had light trespassing.
- That was a UDF issue. But I wasn't aware that there were the street sort of bumps. The main issue with
- it, I think, is streetlights, like along the street, because those typically are on the property line
- above the public street. So that would mean the streetlights could shine any amount of light on your property.
- it would still be within the standards of the UDO. So I think if I'm reading this right, in order to
- do anything about streetlights, really, this would have to change. And that's, are you familiar with
- the UDO or kind of what that? Unified development ordinance. I was gonna, David, yeah, I was gonna say,
- I don't know, David, if you kind of want to put into words sort of how we think about the UDO, but I
- was thinking about
- our role in proposing if we'd like to see some change in language or we see a bunch of hate. Would you
- mind just kind of describing how we think about the UDO kind of just as a planning department? Sure,
- UDO, inside development ordinance, is our zoning ordinance and our subdivision ordinance combined. And
- so it is the document that directs all development on property and all use of property. So it tells
- you if you're building a structure,
- setbacks required, how high architectural guidelines, things like that. And then it also dictates what
- you can and cannot do on property. That's a nutshell because it's super long and super complex and at
- times contradicts itself. And we're always in the process of refining it and trying to, it's kind of
- whack-a-mole because as soon as you not take care of one thing, another five problems crop up.
- But one of the things that I think this group is helpful for my department is to advise on environmentally
- oriented requirements, restrictions, regulations that can be fine-tuned, improved, made better. So I
- think Anna brings up just the sort of thing that we want to hear from the Environmental Commission.
- Typically, we have an omnibus set of amendments to the UDO once a year, and sometimes there's
- half a dozen changes. Sometimes there's almost a hundred changes. And so we would fold in the
- EC recommendations into those, into that basket of amendments that we take first to the planning commission
- and then to the council ultimately for ratification.
- What's, I can't remember the timeline for when they sort of do the internal collection of those ideas
- then get to the planning commission. We keep a laundry list and then we grow it all year long. And then
- I think we start in earnest looking at what we're going to take in the spring. And then sometime by
- summer, hopefully we have our whole set of them in front of the decision makers. So does the legless
- ordinance only affect
- Residential areas or those businesses there? Well, there's different standards for different zones in
- the city. So residential zones have a different standard than the commercial zones, which is different
- from downtown. But I think most of it is controlled with sound. I'm guessing also that the Public Works
- has a manual, a guidance manual they're using too.
- This is treating light as a potential nuisance. It's more from a zoning perspective. But I imagine there
- are other guiding documents that, if you ever had a chance to talk to Chris or Nalek. So I've talked
- with, oh man, I'm blanking out your name, someone on the public works specifically about streetlights.
- That would be Chris. Yeah, OK. Kind of the problem I ran into was this line in the UDR because most
- of the streetlights are on the public street.
- you know, panel limits, what you can do in that respect. But they do have standards that are stricter
- than what is in the UDO for the most part, at least for the public stuff. And David, is this on? Seems
- like we used to also have a noise pollution group. Did we not? And what happened to that? And that's
- related to the mowers and things and the leaf blowers. It seems to me we have suggested
- that the EDL make at least gasoline-powered leaf blowers illegal. Now, we've suggested that to the city
- council and it hasn't come, I think, but we have suggested that as this group in the past. So, I don't
- know if we actually had a noise pollution group, but it seems we would have.
- Formally had one of the time that I've been on. I know it's been proposed and I know we had a speaker
- come talk to us about the two stroke, uh, gas leaf blower specifically. Um, I know we had a conversation
- about, man, can we at least cap the hours? So someone isn't doing that while someone else is trying
- to sleep or something like that. But I don't remember any actions, um, formally put forwards. I think
- one of the bigger concerns was no.
- enforcement mechanism, who's gonna respond to calls if they're using their gas-powered blower after
- seven, or whatever it would be. So I remember conversations, but at least in my years on, there was
- never an attempted action. Okay, I was reminded of this by listening to Living on Earth last Sunday,
- and there was,
- Their specialty that day was talking about noise pollution and the difficulties for people's health
- as a result, and also wildlife reacting to noise. They were interviewing a guy who had written a book
- called Flemur, which I recommend to anybody who would be an interesting book about noise pollution.
- Yeah, that's a good note. And Matt, to your point, the idea of enforcement, I think that's always a
- really helpful thing for us to keep in mind is anything that we are asking for there to be some change
- to the ordinance or any kind of regulation on things, knowing that the flip side of that is someone
- has to enforce that being done or not done. And that is this
- Something that we are asking of our city services, which at this time are spread very, very thin. And
- there are a lot of places that need a lot of things. And so kind of keeping in mind, if there's stuff
- that we're asking to say, you know, if somebody's doing this, it's breaking this rule. So you need to,
- you can call and tell us and we'll go find them. That is an important tool.
- to be able to access, but also knowing that that's something that if we cut it to a thousand pieces,
- that's a lot of, a lot of requests of the city's services. Right. There are other issues, both environmental
- and otherwise, that we're having the same problem with that enforcement of whether it's someone agreeing
- to plant trees at another site in order to reduce canopy below a certain percentage. And I'm just never
- following up and planning with another site or agreeing to, to our UDOs.
- agreed upon plant lists of native trees, and then they just bring in their landscapers and they plant
- whatever. Well, the trip commission and the city foresters keep a watch out the back. Yeah, but I've
- heard as recently as earlier this week, conversations involving council members and others about some
- of this stuff. Invasives ended up being put in and we don't have an enforcement arm for certain things.
- But it is, it is helpful when it seems like, like what happens bringing up words like, can we just change
- the language altogether of how we think about how things are structured and those kinds of things. Yeah,
- those make a lot of sense. And versus yeah, when a development happens and two years from now, some,
- you know, their natives die. And so they plant something that is, you know, not a great choice and who's
- going to be the one that stumbles past that location and says, Hey, that's not what we agreed to six
- years ago or whatever. It's really, yeah, it's really complicated.
- Yeah. Adam, other things you want to share? A couple follow-up questions. So the language in the media,
- if I wanted to sort of get the correct interpretation of that, is there someone specific I can go to
- to ask? Yeah, that specific language. Yes. Yeah. I would say send me the email, and then I'll send it
- to one of our preeminent
- And then if we did potentially want to change any language in the UDOS, how would we start that process?
- Probably it's going to be, what would be ideal is to craft something close to what you would consider
- better language.
- And then we'll forward that to Eric Grulick, who is the keeper of our laundry list of things that we're
- going to be looking at, which you can send out to me. That's all I had. I don't know if you had something.
- It gives us a lot of time to consider better video. Maybe that'll be one of the topics of our next meeting.
- OK, well, thanks for the updates. Biodiversity working group, well,
- Matt, do you want to share anything about anything in particular before I kind of just bulldoze some
- other things? Shannon is typically kind of like the point person on that working group. So Matt's at
- our service. I was going to say, we just kind of what happened. We did carry especially presented in
- front of the city council and they approved our BC to USA resolution. So pending.
- acceptance from the Bee City folks. We will officially be a Bee City, which is cool because that is
- the conclusion of a project that a former commissioner who graduated in winter and rolled off the commission
- that really wanted to see us become the Bee City. That also includes the Parks Department. The Parks
- Department is going to handle a lot of it. It turns out that they were independently trying to work towards
- the exact same thing as us, we just didn't realize we were both on that path. But yeah, fortunately
- we coordinated with them and Joanna Sparks is going to handle a lot of the stuff that's good that the
- city should handle just because you know, boards are commissioned to volunteer and there's turnover
- and it's good to have someone within the city handling things like a report or initiating meetings.
- We also discussed in a biodiversity meeting, the Mayor Monarch pledge is something we had done in the
- past. They've changed their criteria and we were going to try to determine as a group at some point,
- whether that was something we wanted to pursue. And I signed up for the updates. It's been closed for
- the 2025 year. And so, yeah, we should get an update whenever they open the application. Yeah, you're
- glanced at it. And it looks like they take applications
- from December through March, like it's an early year thing and you have to state at least three actions
- from their list of 30 actions that you intend to do and then you have to do them and submit an end of
- year report saying what you did. Which my
- Again, my gut reaction as a city that's doing a lot of great stuff to support monarchs and all the native
- insights, that feels like a lot of work to get a certain accreditation. But I'm not going to make that
- call. We and also the city can decide whether that's something we want to pursue based on who's going
- to handle all that, the applications, reports, et cetera.
- That is sort of where we stand at the moment in biodiversity, as far as I know. How did Bugfest go for
- you guys? Bugfest was great. We needed to print a lot more Bug Bingo in the future. Oh, good news,
- good news. It was very popular, whereas the other pamphlets were hit or miss. The insects were very
- popular again.
- We let people touch the bugs at our station, so it was a big hit with the kids. But yeah, trying to
- send them off with the homework assignment of bug bingo, finding these bugs in their yard or apartment,
- whatever it is, was great. I remember at least one parent saying, fill that out and I'll get you a reward.
- He didn't say what it was.
- I wonder if we can use the bug bingo sheet to sort of spread more information about it. This is what
- you can do to get more data both. Have you had trouble finding a bingo? Yeah. You guys have any luck
- getting people to sign up for the Habitat 2.0 Play Store? I definitely had some people scan the QR code,
- but it's tough to know since everything has to run through GIS. And if they did the pledge, it might
- take days to appear. So it's inconclusive.
- Yeah, a couple people kind of enthusiastically took the pamphlets, a couple people maybe more reluctantly
- took the pamphlets. If they were down on some people scanning the QR code, I think from a tabling standpoint,
- the big QR code and visuals are a plus. Cool. Hey. I was going to add one extra thing about the habitat
- activity plan that I alluded to is that
- Yeah, the farmers market on October 18th is the Blooming Neighborhoods Celebration Special, which is
- like all the different neighborhood associations getting all these different tables in this big group
- and then you can walk around and find yours or stock others, whatever you do with that information.
- But Matt and I were talking about how the websites that the city offers and also the various websites
- that each of the associations have are really outdated or
- completely defunct or don't exist at all. But these organizations obviously are getting together, or
- these groups are obviously getting together because they're fee-delaying and they're meeting and all
- that. So I'm planning to, if anyone wants to join me, you're welcome. But I'm planning to make some
- time to go to that farmer's market and talk to different tables just about our group doing some kind
- of information sharing about the Habitat Connectivity Plan and that and pledge.
- so that at some point in their conversations and meetings, they can say, hey, here's something that
- the city is trying to help make happen. So in our area, if you have the ability to plant these things,
- if you have the ability to add a birdhouse or whatever it would be, those conversations are happening
- in smaller groups and groups of people who know each other, might wanna work together, that sort of
- thing. So I stumbled across that and was super excited just because getting in touch with neighborhood
- associations is really, really hard in this town because they're all so spread out
- not easy to find. So October 18th, it's the universe making it a little easier. But yeah, I'll be happy
- to show up and chat with some folks. Okay, the last thing on here is special projects. And I'm actually,
- one of the things that I will do for this next meeting is share with you all some proposals for a new
- tablecloth. And also the other thing, oh, a presentation board. We talked about having more like
- a board that has all the ECs, you know, little things that we're doing and examples and stuff versus
- just being like a pile of flyers that we hand out. So doing something that's a little bit more showy
- and interesting. So I'll share that with you all next time we get together.
- The ego heroes awards are going to be here before we know it and it always feels like we are behind
- the ball on this. So I wanted to share that with everyone and say, or is there anyone who knows they're
- interested in helping to plan the theme or wanting to pull together ideas for like resources and outreach
- and things like that.
- for this coming year. The Eco Heroes Awards happen in April. It's typically the big award ceremonies,
- typically around Earth Day. And we invite little tiny children all the way up to college students, adults,
- retirees, anyone in the community who wants to submit some kind of art expression. It's Eco Heroes Art
- Contest, artistic expression around the theme that we have for the year. And so last year it was Bugs
- in Bloom, how native insects help
- Bloomington Thrive or something. I forget what the really, really long subtitle was, but it was about
- native insects. And so we put together the theme, we put together some imagery, we do a call out, we
- send things to teachers, to educators, to different education groups. And we also ask for donations
- or support from different businesses in town. And then all of this comes together over the course of
- the first few months of the year.
- We typically do a big ceremony where we announce the winners of the different age groups. And it's a
- very exciting moment for everyone. But coming up with this theme turns out to be one of the hardest
- parts of all of it. So I am inviting anyone who is interested in being in that conversation to let me
- know. And I will also reach out to folks who aren't here right now to see if they want to be in it.
- I was just going to say, I already have a first donation picked up. Oh, yes. Good for cooks. We were
- a little late this last year, but we'll get it happening. I love it.
- Hopefully it's not food related. It's like a little bag of cookies. It's like going to be a rough next
- spring. Matt, thank you as always. Awesome. All right. Is there anybody else who is certain that they
- want to be in the subcommittee for planning anything? You can always join later. All right. Well, stay
- tuned for that.
- Excited to get that off and running early because it always gets a little wild at the end. Yeah. Okay.
- Last thing on the old business is presentation schedule. We talked last month about potentially having
- people do different presentations on things and I just wanted to run through the notes I have from last
- month so you all kind of know what's out there. We don't have any official presentations scheduled for
- this coming October meeting.
- But in November, we talked about Nadia, who's one of our commissioners. She said she was going to, I
- think have her maybe senior thesis that she wanted to, she would need to be presenting for school purposes
- a little bit, like maybe a couple of weeks after our meeting. So she wanted to have a chance to share
- her work with us in the November meeting. November is also our annual planning meeting. So we'll talk
- a little bit more about that and make sure everybody's ready for that. But that's typically a,
- a big kitchen, sort of dinner and snack situation. And we spend the majority of that meeting talking
- about what we want to do in 2026. So it's usually just kind of a, it's a much more casual meeting. Our
- agenda doesn't have many of these points at all, but it'll be nice to hear from Nadia and then have
- a brainstorm sesh. We also have some notes about Cassie who is doing a project on something with solar.
- I can't remember what it was specifically, but she's one of our commissioners too.
- So she was hoping that she could present her work that she'd been doing probably in the beginning of
- 2026. We've got Dylan from Hoosier River Watch who will potentially be our December person once we confirm
- that meeting date. Nadia does work with the DNR deer hotline. And so she had suggested getting in touch
- with Joe Caudill who was the state deer biologist to talk to us a little bit about sort of the status
- of deer in Indiana, kind of like the,
- deer management, deer impact side of things, maybe in like February or so next year. And then Adam had
- suggested that he'd be happy to talk about invasive animals and their impact in Bloomington, which I
- think is super interesting. So we'll find a time that he can give a little presentation on an area that
- he's specialized in. And then if we end up having something more than we want to do about the mowing
- stuff, that can be something to make time for too in the early next year.
- I forgot Adam had suggested that one or I didn't know about it, but on that kind of thing, would it
- be useful to have, try and get somebody from like MCIRs to come out and do invasive plants or something?
- This idea? Oh yeah, I'm sure they'd be happy to do that. That's a good idea. Okay. On the list and then,
- I think Rachel usually goes to the MCIRs meetings, right? So we can, oh, do you normally go to the MCIRs
- meetings? I don't go. You do not go? No, Rachel goes. Okay. So I'll see if Rachel wants to bring that up.
- Okay. Great. Anyway, those are the things sort of on the horizon down the road. So I just wanted to
- keep you all up to speed on all these notes. Staff update, we received this email. David, would you
- like to share this email that we received? Yeah, I don't have much to add about it. Rachel received
- it on September 8th from Michaela Owens, Communications for Marketing Contact from Indiana University Cinema.
- showing a documentary called Seeds. She can read the little capsule and middle paragraph there about
- what that's about. And Michaela is asking if the Environmental Commission reviews such a media platforms
- to note this movie presentation and send out some information about it. And that's it.
- Sounds good. Does anyone have any? So typically, we have a Facebook page for the EC. So typically, if
- there are things people want to post on our social media account, we'll send them through Rachel, who
- will then make sure they get posted. So does anyone have any strong thoughts on including or not including
- this in our social media feed? I have no objection to sharing it. Yep. OK, I feel the same way, too.
- OK, great. Well, then we'll make sure that Rachel gets the note that, yeah, we're happy to.
- Have them share. Thank you for putting that up there, David. Okay, this is where our team now reports
- on meetings that they went to of other groups in the city. Some are permissions, some are different
- organizations, but they're mostly relevant to what we're doing here at TC. So I'll pass it over to Mr.
- David Parkhurst for TC in Iraq. Yes, the True Commission met this past Monday
- Usually our meetings start with what we're doing right now, reports from other groups. And so we start
- with the city forester's report. And this time, instead of a city forester report, he gave us a quarterly
- tree risk assessment and reporting document. And just to pick a few things off of that,
- his progress report for 2025. He's pruned a few more than 1,000 trees, removed about 100 from along
- the tornado damage. Lidded 142 trees, inventoried 3,500.
- and added 1,100 plus trees in the inventory that hadn't been seen before, I think. And that's most of
- what he reported. So I'll then go on to other parts of the two commissions meeting. The next part is
- for me to tell them about what the environmental commission had done in its last meeting, so I don't
- need to tell you about that.
- Then Mia Williams, who's the Indiana University landscape architect and is a member of the Tree Commission,
- gave us a report. They removed lots of calorie pairs in Tree of Heaven. They looked again at Bradford Woods
- It's some more inventory at Bradford Woods. And there are now some new plants in the bypass area,
- she says. And recently we've started adding reports from Julie Roberts, who's on canopy Bloomington, I think.
- She talked about their fall planning schedule will be October 18th, October 25th and November 8th and
- then use people to volunteer to help with their tree planting. And they have two movies coming out and
- she didn't tell us more about that. What up?
- New business. Oh, our, our chairman of the commission is a fellow named Neil Fong, who's from Malaysia,
- I think he is. And he's now looking for, I don't think he has a job that's continuing in the city.
- Oh, IU won't sponsor this visa anymore. So he's looking for jobs elsewhere in the US and in Canada.
- Oh, and then we talked about a project that the city of Wilmington Utilities, which we often do, where
- they are planting trees and we try to tell them what trees to plant.
- And they're usually pretty successful with that. They gave us a brief description of some project at
- 8th Street and Fontland Drive. And I didn't get the gist of what that was all about. They talked about
- some tree plants that we would affect there.
- There's something about urban forestry in the city on December 9th, the 10th, that people could get
- involved with. I'm not sure what that is. And then they talked about that, that Ryan Park has now become
- an official Arboretum. And they recently had a
- meetings that introduced that change, the upgrade. So that was the tree condition. Next on the list
- is ERAC, Environmental Resources Advisory Council. I wasn't able to make the last meeting, and Adam
- Fudekar goes to those meetings too. He told me he would do
- give the report that I usually give last month, and he didn't make the meeting last month, and he had
- to leave tonight, so we won't get to hear more about the ERAC. I don't have anything to report on Friends
- of Lake Monroe. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for all the details on that. I thought that there's a lot that
- the Tree Commission's been up to.
- Yeah, I watched that meeting. They talked about attendance and other policies. Council member Rallo
- spoke about how the budget hearings had been going in the City Council and possibilities for maybe BCOs
- to weigh in in the future, not this go around. They're pretty much wrapped up. But then the main thing
- that they did during their meeting was they adopted their resolution
- which was to increase urban forestry budget. Basically, it's been steady for a whole lot of years, but
- because of inflation, that means it's being devalued, so they're lobbying for it to not be devalued,
- for it to keep up with inflation, so that it's going to go to the council at some point, and that was
- what happened in WECOS's meeting. All right. MC Iris, yeah, I believe Rachel typically attends those.
- I'm guessing she'll update us on that when she's back. And then the Clean Community Program, Mitchell.
- Well, we do actually have an update. We have gone, Christy just emailed earlier this week saying we
- have moved from four projects that are getting approved to five. The newest one is we just doing the
- paperwork for it. We have passed local ordinances for improving stormwater management.
- So one more and then we get to go to silver status. So the clean community program is a state department
- of environmental management run program kind of recognizing. Cities and counties and I guess other municipal
- governments for doing environmentally friendly things. So it's.
- based on how big the city is, how many projects you have to do to get recognition. You get bronze just
- for signing up for the program and saying you'll do it. And then silver is, the city has done and been
- recognized for doing six of this, like they've got a pre-made list of projects that you can get approved
- for pretty easily, but then there's also stuff that like if you've gone above and beyond and cool things,
- you can get approved for those as well.
- Bloomington, we have to do six to get to silver status and 12 total to get to gold status, which only
- one city in the state has gotten to gold so far. We weren't first, but we were a little slow on the
- draw to joining. I think Beech Grove is the first gold one, and they were one of the first cities to
- join the program. But yeah, we've almost got silver status, which is cool, which is something that we
- Literally just started on earlier this year. It's neat that we just had all this kind of in the change
- that ready to go. Just had to do the paperwork on it. So I know that's like a process to go through
- the administrative
- you know, channels, but it is really cool. And there's so many things that we've been doing as a city
- that are, that immediately qualifies for these different programs. It's just kind of making through
- this, you know, going through the steps of, of qualifying to be for the clean community or be city or
- whatever it would be. So yeah, it's nice. Great. What are some examples of the things we've done to
- get superstated? So far the five projects we've got in the system are become a storm ready community,
- which I think is a kind of,
- recognition, things sort of like Tree City or Bee City. Tree City certified as one of those, conduct
- a greenhouse gas inventory, implement green infrastructure. I don't know specifically what they put
- in for that, but that's the category that it fell under. And then the local ordinances, stormwater
- management, which was a big overhaul of the stormwater
- what's the word, ordinances, I guess, uh, last year. That was one of the big things that we got to learn
- about in the water, uh, during the working week. So, yeah. Um, yeah, I've got other things, like I said,
- I think we've got enough to get us almost all the way to 12, just already done. It's just a matter of
- getting things lined up and the paperwork done correctly to get recognition for it. And I think on the
- item end, it's just like one person,
- doing it for all of the cities in the state. So it's like, however fast she can respond to questions
- and process all the paperwork and everything. I like, I imagine all these people are like, come on,
- you're going first. That's great. OK, that's awesome. And I know that, yeah, you all are doing great
- and moving along. OK, well, this is the time in our evening where we move into commissioner announcements.
- These are typically like semi-environmentally related, but they don't have to be. They could be just
- like a personal announcement that you're excited to share with the group.
- So yeah, I was going to share, because I'm already talking, that once again, there's a debate about
- renaming the Indiana State flower. There have been a couple of organizations that were pushing for it.
- And then the Indiana Named Plant Society, I think, has kind of given it another shove to go from being
- the peony to a species of milkweed. And because there's so much conversation around monarchs and that
- just kind of like,
- Rebuilding those populations. Yeah, they're really pushing for mobility with a safe flower.
- So we'll see. It's not the first time. This is a thought, but I like that it's got renewed excitement.
- So we'll see. And then I also saw there was a press release earlier this month in the city about what's
- about the Hopewell development. We talked before about how there's some areas that need some remediation
- because of I was thinking this one, things like that, but that they were kind of working through what
- was necessary. So
- I just happened to see that and it gives some details on areas that are just going to be as they are
- for now and other areas that are getting developed on and what that looks like. So it's in the press
- release section of the Wilmington website, which I thought was interesting. Other updates from other
- people? I have a bunch of native plant seeds in my bag, if anyone wants any. What? Native plant seeds.
- Seeds? Yeah. Do you know what they are?
- There's a ton of them. Yeah, there's a big list on the back here. I got too many stuff. That's it.
- That's it. Any other announcements from both?
- Okay, well, we have a meeting coming up in October. We already talked about November being the planning.
- You'll get a reminder about that before it happens. But again, it's kind of a pitching situation. So
- wrap your brain around that. And then December or December meeting, we already kind of have an idea
- of having a presenter, which means your attendance would be wonderful. So, as you're looking at your
- calendar and what your holiday season looks like.
- We will very possibly move our meeting up by one week earlier in December, but that was something we
- talked about in that meeting. So just kind of keep an eye on what your books of life in case it's something
- you want to share. And with that said, I suspect we've brought the end of our agenda. A motion to adjourn.
- All right. Well, it's 727 and let's call this a wrap. Thank you all.