January 15th, and here we are for our January meeting. So I have to get rolling with this super interesting
agenda of things and updates from the team. So we'll go ahead and kick off the report. OK, here we all
go. And that's Heidi Brown here, Nadia Cain. Here.
here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
and especially those of you under the weather, you're champions and good sports. They are having a little
trouble hearing us. Is it just me or is it everybody? I feel like it's mostly- As more people have been
talking, I think it's mostly Rachel. Yeah, it's mostly Rachel. I'm having a hard time hearing everyone,
but I'll turn it up. All right. I'll try to project more and-
We'll just pass the owl around. Perfect. Okay, great. Well, thank you for joining us, lovely remote
joiners. We are now going to hopefully take a look at the December minutes. Hopefully everyone had a
chance to look through those and supply any feedback or edits to Rachel as needed. I move we approve
the December minutes. Thank you.
Okay. There's quality in Parkhurst. Okay. Okay. Heidi Brown. Okay. Not anything. Yes. Matt Colby. Yes.
Norman Cranston. Yes. Adam Fudegard. Yes. Shannon Dyke. Yes.
Adam Martinez. Yes. Mitchell Owens. Yes. David Parkers. Yes. Carrie Albright. Yes. Motion passes.
Thank you. Thank you to everybody for weighing in on that. At this point, we are moving along to our
new business for the evening. First things first are the Title 20 Unified Development Ordinance, basically
UDO amendments. So we have Jamie with us who is going to step in and share. Hi, can you hear me okay?
Yeah, that's great. Okay, so I'm Jamie Kreindler. I'm the senior zoning planner and one of Rachel's
co-workers in development services. So thanks for having me. And for starters, I'll go over the affordable
housing incentives. This is something that went before council
yesterday, I believe, but I think it got continued. So a definitive decision wasn't made yet. But what's
proposed, or I guess, Rachel, can you just scroll down and show what's existing? Sorry. If you could
go back. Back up. Oh, you're good. Is this existing? No, go one page. Maybe one more, sorry. One more.
There, okay, so this table shows the four of the zoning districts for residential, R1, R2, R3, R4, and
the maximum pervious surface coverage that's currently existing in code. So for R1, maximum pervious
surface allowed is 30%, R2 is 40, R3 is 45, and then R4 is 50. And now Rachel, you can go to the,
proposed amendments. So in the UDO, there's some incentives for develops. Yeah, that's a good spot.
You can go up. Yep, right there is perfect. So in the current UDO, there's incentives for developers
that use affordable housing as a part of their project. And this is already in the code, but one of
the changes that is being proposed to council
has to do with the maximum impervious surface coverage and increasing that to 80 percent for developments
that are using affordable housing. That is a somewhat substantial change. Obviously, it hasn't been
decided on yet, but council wanted us to share this with you. Jackie Scanlon, our assistant director,
worked on this memo. If you have questions after this meeting, I would say she's probably a good contact
in planning
You can get in touch with Arthur Rachel or me or whatever works best. But that's the main change with
the affordable housing incentive that I wanted to share. There are also some language proposed that
it's intended for owner occupancy. That's a little bit challenging to enforce, but that's a goal of
council that they want to encourage occupied units rather than just rentals.
Are there any questions I can answer about that change? May I clarify just to make sure I'm thinking
about this correctly? Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So in these developments where there
is an incentive to have more affordable housing, it doesn't change the volume of residential spaces.
It is just the price point for it.
that right so far? I honestly don't know all the intricacies. I'd have to go back in and read the code
just to know exactly how it works. But I guess it's saying here so proposed changes are intended to
incentivize developers in creation of affordable housing units. So the what basically we're offering
offering is, you know, some
modifications to the dimensional standards if they're using the affordable housing incentive. But I'm
not prepared really to answer all the intricacies of how that works. The reason I ask is because in
my head I'm thinking if it is affordable housing, presumably lower income residents, if we are saying
it is okay to have more impervious or basically thinking about what is the green space, what is the
natural space, what is the
How is the soil of these areas being treated? And are we baking in some, what some might be considered
like environmental justice issues about the ability for, or the priority of green space and how that
land is being used. Are we incentivizing the use of it being more parking lots, more,
So I want to understand the benefit of increasing impervious services that you're reducing the lot size.
Is that the or increase density? Yeah. So I think with the incentive, how it is now is it allows developers
to reduce the lot sizes. So if you're
If you can maybe think of like a habitat for humanity project. So there's like smaller lots. And if
you increase the impervious surface that's allowed, then that might allow for like a bigger house to
be built on a small lot. So I think that's where some of the challenges come in with impervious surface.
I mean, I totally get it from an environmental perspective. I think the idea is if you're reducing the
size of lots, if you have a,
you know, impervious surface coverage limitation, then you can only build a house of a certain size.
So by increasing it, then you're allowing maybe a bigger house to be built on a small lot. Dan, do you
have a question? Yeah, I just, I wonder why the huge jump to 80% from, you know, the 40s or 30s. I can
sort of understand the rationale you're giving, though I do really want a second.
carries larger concern about the kind of justice issues around this, especially long term, and the need
for green space but but also why is it so huge why wasn't it wasn't I could understand if we're a little
more moderated. That's honestly a good question and I did not write the memo I'm kind of presenting
on behalf of Jackie so I apologize if I don't have all the details.
Maybe that's a question we can, Rachel, that we can go back to Jackie to clarify. And I know it was
important to at least some of the council members to get input from the environmental commission on
this proposed change. So I don't know if there's the possibility of the commission writing a memo or
something like that, a letter. I'm not sure how it typically works, but there may be an opportunity
to do that too, so they can get your input.
They discussed the idea of if there's going to be a reduced lot size and increased impervious service,
if there could be like communal green space, which might be a reduction, overall reduction in or increase
impervious service, but there could still be the additional. Have they talked about that, like requiring
a green space?
Um, I don't know if they talk about requiring green space, but I know with a lot of the developments,
there are common area requirements for tree preservation and whatnot. So, um, like with the, the North
Grove subdivision that some of us looked at the last, or the first time I came here, uh, they had common
areas included with the development that's set aside for tree preservation to meet those requirements,
stormwater, things like that. So that's a good question too.
or anything that would be helpful to share with Jamie? I think there's more conversation to be had.
Is there anything else we can read about this? Can you shout it into the speakers? Is there anything
else we can read to learn more about the proposal or how soon do you need an opinion? That's a good
question. I think they had it before council last night, but I think it got continued maybe in two weeks
is when it's going back to council.
Say that again. February 4th. Okay. Yeah. So you say February 4th, that's in like three weeks. Yeah.
Okay. So that's, that sounds like when it's going back. I know that council usually provides their packet
the Friday before. Um, I don't know how early before they provide the packet, uh, that they, that their
team prefers to have a letter. Um, I can ask on that though.
Um, yeah, I'll ask, but as far as the memo, I mean, it's in the packet. It was in the council packet.
Yeah, it's in that packet. Um, it was in the council packet. That was the best last night. Um, so those
would be the areas to find the most information right now. Yeah, I mean, I understand that, um, affordable
housing is a, is a crisis and it's something that we want to address to the best of our ability. Um, but I do
some of these numbers that jumped to 80% feels kind of wild. And under tier two projects, projects that
meet the tier two affordability standards may increase the maximum impervious surface coverage allowance
by 10%. Does that mean we'd be at 90% impervious surface? Like I want more units, but at the same time,
stormwater will still exist. So I just, I want to know how well thought through this is, if there's
going to be sufficient, you know, detention or retention ponds on these sites where it's going to get us
enough affordable units that then won't flood. I just, I just have some concerns. And I did not write
the memo and I wasn't really involved with any of the conversations. So sorry, I'm not the best translator,
but doing my best. Yeah. And if there's informal comments, you're welcome to pass that on to me and
I can pass them on to Jackie slash the department. And I will find out how
earlier, like a memo would be needed, but I didn't think that you all thought I needed some. I'm just
trying to understand. So the goal is to have more units on site. Yeah. So you have less information
that you can spread out. Yes. And Jackie had a really good, I think she was using like a post-it note
diagram in her meetings. I can't replicate on the board like how she described it. She described it
pretty well.
but obviously there's some concerns, so happy to pass those along. Yeah, it seems that it's being designed
to encourage density, which we generally support. We just want to make sure it's sensible density,
I guess, and that, right, that tree canopy can continue to exist, that stormwater can be reasonably
managed, that- That the people that are living here don't have a lower quality of- Yeah, just, you know,
that we got units in but at what cost.
Again, not targeting the presenter, just some curiosity as to how the percentages were chosen, but then
also would love to hear assurances from somebody about how that's going to function well for the future
residents. What Rachel said reminded me of something that Jackie was sharing with us.
Like you said, part of this is to encourage density. So, you know, preventing sprawl and the environmental
concerns that come with that. So, are these all multifamily units? Or is this? No. It says in here,
single family and duplex residential lots. Okay.
Jamie, can you describe the differences between like R1 to R4, if you know on the top of your head?
It's okay if you don't. Yeah, so the R1 through R4 are generally the lower density zoning districts,
so not the ones that are for multifamily and those bigger projects. So yeah, some of the differences
are the maximum pervious surface coverage, minimum lot size, setbacks, things like that. So generally
the R1 would have the bigger
lots though they're still relatively small i would say in city of bloomington do the remote like the
the zoomed in commissioners have any questions i know we've been talking a lot i'll just also say that
you know i spent some time trying to make sense of this document which is there's a lot here um and
it would be nice if we
had a little bit more time to sit with it and try to understand it. It'd also be nice if we, I mean,
Rachel, can we send questions to you about it? I do think that all of the issues that have been raised
are really important issues, but I can't entirely get my head around all of these. I mean, there's the
sort of the changes you just mentioned, but then of course, there's all the other environmental changes
also below in the document.
It's unfortunate that we only have before February 4th to weigh in on this. If there are more specific
questions for Jamie, to get a temperature of the EC as far as this goes, like we just said, there's
a council meeting on the 4th and we would likely need to get this to them
At least by the Friday before, but probably days before that. So the last week of January, do folks
want to make some time to write a letter, write a memo? I know that we want to make sure we are well
researched. We understand this. We're saying we want to say, um, we also don't have a lot of time. So
how do people feel about prioritizing this in one way or another? I think I'd be curious to hear the
answers to some of the questions we had before.
going either way on it. Okay, so the questions I have written down are Carrie's question. And I want
to note, you know, we aren't allowed to use environmental justice as reasonings for our decisions. So
I just already incentivizing areas that are utilizing affordable homes and reducing the amount of green
space for those areas. Did that kind of capture the spirit of the questions? Yeah. This quick notes.
And if there's, if maybe a clearance threshold for the surface occurs, can a communal marine space be
required? And then overall, once I understand the jump to 80 and just how that 80% how's that was chosen?
Does that kind of cover? And then that's a question about like stormwater drainage retention ponds,
anything that might be needed to offset if the. If that's also been competing to or outside of the 80%.
Yeah. Yeah.
to clarify something. So when I read this, it seems to me like this isn't talking about building an
entire neighborhood that is 80% impervious. If there's an existing lot, for example, you could increase
the amount of impervious coverage, but that wouldn't necessarily mean the entire neighborhood has the
full 80%, right? Jamie, is it by what or is it by entire development?
You know, I think it's specifically for the developments that are using the affordable housing incentives
and following the regulations and that section of code. Yeah, so I guess it could be an individual law,
but it's more likely to be a larger development. Yeah, I think that's fair to say.
Looking forward to hearing answers. With what we know so far, I'm interested in writing a memo. But
getting some answers may shape that or even potentially make me walk that back. I also might try to
attend on the fourth. But yeah, looking forward to more information and tentatively interested in writing
a memo. Yeah. Okay. I think that sounds good. I think the best next step is
Please, please, please try to read this. Please, please, please try to educate yourself on anything
you have questions on or if there's more questions you have. We have a wonderful senior environmental
planner that is our liaison who can likely answer basic questions about city planning and things like
that if you have them. It will really, really help us write a letter more efficiently and probably more
effectively if we are looking into the things we have questions about. And that's why these kinds of ad hoc
you know, spitballing conversations are a little hard. We, you know, it's health lacking presenters.
So thank you, Jamie. Yeah, no problem. But it sounds like if we're able to get Jackie's responses, do
we want to set a tentative sort of, sort of ECPC-ish within that bucket, a tentative ECPC meeting right
now, and then we cancel it if there's suddenly this great consensus of, okay, we don't need to weigh
in. Do we want to set something now so we follow through with it? I can go over here.
We love meetings. So fun. So the last, so the, we have all of next week. And then the week after that
is the final week of January. We have to submit whatever we're going to do. Does it make sense for us
to try to schedule something next week then to write a memo? Rachel, is it expected that we'd be able
to get answers pretty fast?
I can send Jackie an email first thing tomorrow morning or when I get home tonight. I know the questions
are important and time is of the essence. So I'll send her an email and maybe try to shoot for a meeting
with her first thing. But yeah, I'm hoping that she can answer questions pretty soon. In the past, we've
scheduled ECPC meetings on Tuesdays at 530.
Um, that would be the 20th at five 30. Do we want to tend to the plan? We could do that or we could
do, we can't do that one. It's within the 48 hours since Monday's holiday. Oh, okay. So Thursday,
for example, what are you as, I mean, anyone who wants to join can weigh in. We obviously have a maximum
of how many of us can gather in one place at one time, but, um, especially for folks who are on the ECPC.
what time works for you what day works for you we have a light pollution working group meeting wednesday
at seven aside from that i'm good yeah i'm only probably ever going to be available like 6 30 or 7 in
the evenings just because i'm driving back from indy every single day but that's like doesn't have to um
necessarily determine anything, but if it's later, I'll be more likely to attend it. Okay. Thank you
for that. And thanks. Thanks for doing this, even though you're driving so much all the time.
I'm so sorry. Um, so like Thursday, seven, that Thursday, Rachel, can you see if it is, I guess, mainly
clarification is who, who wants, who are the five people who want to be physically present? Because
if we're picking a time based on
Yeah, I don't know. The ECPC is officially Adam, Matt, Kerry, Mitchell, David, and then Norm and Nadia
have thrown their hats in to maybe stay in the loop. So technically if all five of us go, that's full
roster. Okay. And if people know they're not available for that, especially those five people I just
named, you won't be. You won't be. Okay. So we've got an opening.
Yeah, we want all the input that we can get, but. Right. Okay. Right. And Nadia, it sounds like you
would, if it was like at seven o'clock that you would be interested in joining. Yeah. Okay. Mitchell,
if it was seven o'clock next Thursday, is that a time that you would be able to join or would you like
to offer your seat to someone else?
to come, because I just was out this entire week and need to catch up on life and stuff. So I don't
think I'll be able to make it. Thank you. Thank you for your honesty. OK. OK, so we have Heidi. I would
be happy to go. Matt would like to go. Anne would like to go. And then? No, mix five. OK. Great.
Well, if that works for seven o'clock next Thursday. Let's see what rooms are doable. Back in Ellie
room. Yeah, I think Kelly's the best option. No, you have to say. Or the unlock room, which is over
here. They're about the same size. I think Kelly's might be a little bit bigger. So, okay. Okay, there's
five of us. That's true. All right. Okay, so.
7 o'clock in the Kelly around. And we will go through. I'm so sorry. Would you? OK, so I tried to get
the buffers and nobody's running over and class keys available starting at 7. I don't know if there's
another group that not run over though. Give me to stick with Kelly. This could be safe. Honestly, Kelly's
OK with me and we can get past the doors. OK, yes, I'll make sure that OK. Thank you.
Great. Great. Okay, we'll look forward to hearing back from Jackie and putting together a memo. Yeah.
Any other thoughts or input people would like to share before we move to the next event within our agenda?
Okay. Okay. And I also think I have to show everybody on here. So I'm trying to figure out how to best
do that and share. Yeah, I think when everybody splits, I don't know if I can do that easily.
You may have to show everybody if we're voting, right? Use the windows and then the arrow keys. I'm
going to pin the three people that are commissioners. That's a good idea. No, no, it's not a good idea.
The CRSFs. We don't need the CRSFs. Mm-hmm. Wow, does it only let you do one? No, it should let you
do multiple. All the others are just asking for a place pin. Oh, okay. Well, if you did it all for voting, I wonder
Okay, Jamie, moving on to the environmental amendments, I will zoom in a little bit and see if I can
finish the list. Okay, so I will run through some of our proposed amendments that have some environmental
considerations for.
2026 and I will definitely credit Rachel since she worked very closely with me on putting this list
together and she was involved with a lot of the conversations about the proposed amendments. We also
worked some with Haskell Smith the urban forester and he had some input from the tree commission so
you'll see some of those changes in here. For example the first two or the first three actually first
three rows
are cleaning up some of the language to remove ornamental trees, just to remove the word ornamental
from the code and just clarifying the size of canopy trees. So clarifying small, medium canopy and large
canopy trees when appropriate. And then row four here is adding a new allowed
disturbance in the streamside zone for zone one, riparian buffer. So it's allowing demolition of existing
structure with some conditions attached to that and requiring a remediation plan to be approved by Rachel,
in this case, senior environmental planner. So that's what that's about. Okay, expand on this one to
build something in the riparian zone. If it's not in a lot of disturbance, that would still require
a variance.
This is so any like sheds or other structures that are currently in there, it gets it out if they want,
and there can be a remediation plan. So then it's going back to more of a native, healthy streamside
landscape rather than having a building that people might be going in and out of, or if it's abandoned,
not letting it be run down. Are there any questions about this one? Were you saying that the removal
is now no longer requires a variance?
The removal does not require a barrier. Gotcha. Okay. And were there any questions on the ornamental
trees? Go ahead, Jamie. Sorry. Oh, you're totally fine. Feel free to jump in whenever. So the next one
is changing right now. It's a two acre threshold. Uh, it's changing the two acres, reducing it to one
acres for minimum required, uh, vegetation and
we are kind of cleaning up some of the language. So we're adding language preference, maybe given to
protecting heritage trees that are of particular value due to their type, size or age. And I know Rachel,
you were involved with this change too. So feel free to add anything that you want. I'll jump in here
too. So this is part of the tree preservation section. This piece of code gave the director some, an
authorization to provide smaller parcels
of two acres or less, we need to see on the tree preservation standards. So we are reducing that to
one acre. So one plus now needs to comply with those and doesn't have that kind of discretion with the
director like it used to. They would need a variance if they are exceeding the tree preservation
requirements. Who's the director? David Piddle. He's been at a couple of these meetings.
Any questions about that one? Go ahead, Jamie. Okay. And then the next one is modifying the language
for slopes. And this is to be consistent with the change in state law. So just changing that from 12
to 25%. And then Rachel and I worked on these next few too. So there's just some formatting changes
with the flood, floodway section and
If you go to keep going, Rachel, the last one here says any activity exempted from a floodplain development
permit does not need a conditional use approval. So that's the language that would be added on here.
Yeah. So the formatting errors, the rest of the code uses the Roman numerals. This piece of code is
the capital letters. So just making that consistent. This new section is things like signs don't need a
development permits and put a sign into a flood zone. So right now when there's a list of things that
need a conditional use approval through the Board of Zoning Appeals. And so we're saying for the activities
exempted from the permit side, they also don't need that conditional use approval. Any questions?
All right. And then this next one is adding language that says for auto sales, electric vehicle charging
requirements are only based on customer and employee parking. You need a second to digest this one. Okay.
So I'll say I think this one's coming from Jamie, correct me if I'm wrong, but you've received a couple
of petitions of car sales businesses. And so the way the code reads is per the entire parking lot. So,
you know, these display spots of these vehicles for sale.
they were technically contributing to what is required. And so the Board of Zoning Appeals was going
ahead and approving these variances from the standards. So this is making kind of the pattern of what
the VCA was approving and putting it into code. Makes sense. Yeah, makes sense. Thanks for clarifying,
Rachel. Yeah. Okay, you probably know some more about the recent history than me. So the next one is
um regarding street lighting plans so there was a change i think last year with the tro overlay district
with the street lighting and this is just adopting that same language in the the md downtown district
of code anything go ahead keep going okay and then the next one is
having to do, so we're adding language that only the urban forester and the senior environmental planner
have, they can approve columnar trees, but otherwise they're not allowed. So that's just clarifying
that. And now let's add a request from Haskell, the urban forester. Oops, sorry.
that we're proposing to add some language about stormwater management facilities. So regarding
the substitutions, it says a maximum 30% may be substituted or as approved by the planning and transportation
director. And I think that had to do with conversations with CBU. Do you know more about that, Rachel?
I don't know the full history. It was kind of in brief from my understanding
there were development complaints about what was required by CBU in addition to planning. So I think
it's consolidating that list and having that substitution to be a maximum of 30% whenever stormwater
plantings are being utilized at the site. Does that sound right, Jamie? Yeah, I think so. Any questions
about this one?
So this one would be overall reducing the amount of landscaping required. And then the next one is regarding
street trees. So it's allowing for street tree plantings. They can be reduced to one and a half inch
caliper if approved by the urban forester. So I think some of this is to maybe be a little bit pro developer or just
Yeah, so right now it's two inches, so it'd be giving the developers some flexibilities to reduce that
to one and a half inch caliper, if approved by the urban forester. And this is only for street trees.
Yeah, and Haskell was a fan of this, and we put this for only street trees and not interior trees, because
street trees are highly managed. And that first year, the developer has to keep them alive. And then
after that first year, it's turned over to the urban forester. I think it's the year.
and turn it over to the urban forester. And then it's kept alive by the city and managed by the city.
So that's why we are requiring the approval from Haskell, but it's only fine to street trees. Okay.
The tree protection barrier language, that was actually already adopted in code, but it wasn't in Munich.
What was it? It was like in our PDF, but not in Muni code. So we just wanted to make sure it was consistent.
Making sure it was consistent, but this one was just for moving. There was a dot-dot at the end of activity.
So this one's just one of the periods and not making it a confidence. Yeah. So that's a minor typo cleanup.
The next one is,
Adding language mulch or decorative stone is allowed within 12 inches of ground mechanicals. And later
in this document, you'll see that we add a definition to define decorative stone as well. The plastic
net. Oh, sorry, Jamie. Go ahead, Dave. What are ground mechanicals? I think those are like air conditioning
units or if there's outdoor
freezers. Is that what that is referring to Jamie? Uh, sounds right to me. I can look it up. Okay. Not
all of these were presented by Jamie or myself. These are, you know, um, things that we assess as a
group, but I'm not intrinsically familiar with everything. Um, anything that seemed environmental, I
pushed to present to everybody. So, um, if you want a definition of what the, of what kind of biomechanicals could be,
I'm thinking it's like HVAC units and outdoor refrigeration. Go ahead, Janie. Okay. And then the plastic
netting language, this, if I recall correctly, was previously in code and then it got removed and now
it's coming back. I don't know if that had to do with certain titles that manage it, like MS4. Yeah.
This one was in the UDO in Title 20 when we monitored erosion control. Erosion control was moved to
Title 13, which is the title CBU administers. New state law doesn't allow erosion control agencies to
have this type of ordinance. So we were putting it back into Title 20. All right, and then the next few
are changes that Haskell worked with us on. So we're adding chokecherry single stem as a tree. And for
the smoke tree, the parentheses is referring to, with the parentheses, it means it's prohibited as an
interior tree. So we're removing the parentheses so it'd be allowed.
And there is a typo with the shining sumac, so that's being fixed. And then a new, is it called taxonomy?
Is that how it's referred to? Yeah, so there's new taxonomy with, I don't even know how you say that,
but. That's easy to know. Okay. And then we're adding some language about the separation for street
trees. So it's,
for feet or as required for utility separation. Sometimes you see those conflicts. So we just wanted
to allow that in the code. We did some work with our engineering department as well and just cleaned
up some language. So right now it's referred to as transportation and traffic engineer and we're changing
that to city engineering department.
And we're adding language for parking lots with 20 or more parking spaces. There should not be more
than 10 parking spaces in a row without a landscape bump out island or end cap. I can clarify on this
one. So this language, theoretically, if there was a parking lot with like 50 parking spaces, they could
put all of their islands or bump outs in one section. So this language is just adding so they are more
evenly distributed.
I think does have some climate benefits, too, that you mentioned, Rachel. Yeah. The next few are similar
to what you saw earlier, just cleaning up the ornamental tree language and clarifying when it's a small
medium tree or a large tree. And these changes, we were already interpreting in that way, just clarifying
for the sake of developers. And I think are we on?
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So this one would be removing the last sentence that says a minimum of 75% of
the required trees shall be canopy trees. Do you remember some of the reasoning with that one? I think
the way that we were setting up, there is no way if, or it was either, it was always possible. I think if there,
being required to do these minimum amounts, it's always going to be 75% or greater. So it just seems
redundant or confusing. It's basically covered by the first sentence. So like Rachel said, it's a bit
redundant. All right, I think we can keep going unless there's questions. Yeah, just the additional
clarifications of removing ornamental, adding small, medium, or large.
Okay. This next one is taking out the last sentence where it says in cases where a stormwater management
permit is not required, no development shall occur unless the site development permit has been issued.
So this one's for the floodplain development permit. Usually they're hand in hand whenever a floodplain
development permit is required. Previously or currently I should say that a site development permit
is always required.
The proposal is to remove the site development permit part of it. So it would just be a standalone permit
in some cases. There can still be another permit if it meets the threshold for site development permit.
And then I think if you need more clarification on what common area lot is, I'm happy to provide that,
but this is
refining the definition for common area and just clarifying that a common area does not provide relief
from zoning requirements that would normally exist between a property and adjacent properties. I don't
know if there were attempts at a loophole in the past or whatnot, but basically, the common area isn't
supposed to be the buffer between adjacent properties. This is just preventing
any loopholes that might try to do that. I think why Rachel wanted to bring it to you is that common
areas oftentimes are used for environmental benefits, tree preservation, and things like that. Now we're
on the last page. This is the proposed definition for decorative stone. It says natural stone that is
washed or finished where the total aggregate utilizes at least two inches in size.
as an alternative to mulch. And the last two are, again, just cleaning up that ornamental tree language.
So that's what I have. Any questions for Jamie for right now? And this is all in the packet from the
agenda tonight. And at this time, I think this will go before Plan Commission
in March. On March 9th is the date that we have right now. So to include these proposed changes, and
there's a bunch of other ones too, but these are the ones that we flagged as having the most relevance
to the environmental commission. And so Jamie, if they wanted to write a letter to the planning commission,
would that be needed by the department about like 10 days before?
Yeah, that sounds right. We try to get the packets out about a week in advance. So yeah, I would say
if you could shoot for 10 days beforehand, then that would definitely get it into the packet by then.
So as folks are able to review this, if there are things that stand out from this specific proposal
that we want to weigh in on, or people feel strongly about considering writing a memo for this, we would
just need to lock it down everywhere I'm getting.
So. Okay. Thank you, Jamie. Okay. Appreciate you all. Yeah. Thanks for having me. All right. I'm going
to sign off, but enjoy the rest of your meeting and thanks for having me. Thanks again. All right.
See ya. All right. That was a lot, but hopefully people felt like that was cool to have like the walkthrough
of the proposed changes. I feel like that's something that we talked a lot about. So being able to hear it and
have somebody, have multiple people explain it through business. If there's questions as you guys go
through it, feel free to message me or if there's more context needed on why a certain change is being
proposed, feel free to message me. Sounds good. Okay. I think the next agenda item is me, their handbook
update. So I don't think everybody was here last meeting, so I'll just cover it quickly again. I think
this is the page.
Placement 37. Yes. Okay. So I recently said I recently found this out, but going to municipal code has
attendance requirements for commissioners. So the rule is you cannot miss more than three or if you
miss three consecutive meetings or four regularly scheduled meetings within a 12 month period, it's
potential reason for the removal.
While the EC itself cannot remove you, the council or mayor, whatever the appointing body that appointed
you can remove you. So I think the EC thought previously that would be good just to put this in the
handbook for clarification. Just I don't think we have attendance notes in the handbooks before outside
of the Zoom requirements. So were there any questions about the attendance?
And this is just a monthly feeding. So it's not in group stuff or anything. It's just for the month
events. Questions? Cool. I think this one called for a vote because it's a modification. Yeah. I move
that we approve the handbook as amended.
Thank you. Okay. Naughty of pain. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
All right, well then we're gonna move on to the next item. Here we are. Next item on the list is the
commission residency requirement. That was basically a follow-up to what Matt Flaherty came and talked
to us about last month where it was discussing if we had any strong opinions on how we consider commissioners
that are not within the city limits that are potentially within Monroe County as far as being eligible
for the EC.
And looking at my notes, math, language. It was a little bit like, if we have a problem, we should say
something. I think that's what it was. But let me double check to make sure I'm correct. Let's see.
If we want to change, OK, so I have the potential to have a maximum of residents who live outside the
city. And it's that.
So mightn't say that if it's something that we want to change, that we want to recommend that they extend
some form of the EC's commissioner positions or any of admissions positions to include county, that
we would want to write some sort of document supporting that. Our conversation last month had to do
with thinking about what
benefit can it bring to have somebody from outside the city limits who's still part of the Monroe County
community, specifically when we talk about things like air, soil, and water, which doesn't necessarily
follow the lines of the city. What do we think about that? Is that something we want to intentionally
say we would like to have that consideration or would we support that consideration being worked into
the language for commission or consideration?
As of last month, we didn't say we have a strong, yes, let's write something up. We were kind of like,
we're open to what they decide on the larger scale and don't have particularly strong feelings one way
or the other. Does anyone want to revisit that stance while we have a moment? Nice, okay. Sounds like
we're all okay with writing the tides of what that committee is considering. I haven't heard anything
else from Matt as far as if this is
leaning in one direction. So we can continue that conversation as it comes here. I did put it as a voting
item. Do you care to take a quick vote on just that's the stance of what we're doing? My thought is
that because we are not doing anything. Yeah, because we're not responding to anything at this time.
Does anybody have any strong opinions on that? That's how I felt as well. Since we don't have a particularly
strong stance, I don't see a point in recording it as a vote at this time.
Excellent. Okay. The next thing on the list is Tree Commission Seed. So Dave has been serving as our
amazing Tree Commission representative at the recurring meetings and has been reporting back to us every
month. But I believe Dave's last meeting was this week? I resigned from the Tree Commission this past Monday.
All right. Officially. Officially. Okay, and so what we know is that the Seedtree Commission takes place
every third Monday of the month. Except for... Except for when there's a university, what, Dr. Martin
Luther King, they... Yeah, I assume if...
the second Monday instead of the third Monday, but. Gotcha. I was at a holidays. It'd be third Monday
of the month at 9.30. It sounds like they are now meeting in city hall for these meetings. Yes, except
that as it gets warmer, they'll probably meet in city parks as well. It had to do with they couldn't
meet out at the. Cemetery.
out by the cemetery because it wasn't open for wheelchairs and things. But if they could pick out a
city park that was available for lunch wheelchairs that would probably meet there at some point as the
weather improved. Did you get the impression that if we have a few months without a designated EC rep
that that would be okay or do they need to
have a clear run for us alone. Is there anybody that knows they'd be interested in at least going to
maybe a few months worth of these meetings that would like to raise their hand on it? I don't think
there is a virtual option for these meetings as far as I know. Okay. All right. Well, please, please
think about it. Think about your Mondays. Think about your schedule.
In the past, it's been really helpful just because there is so much that the Urban Forester is doing
and that the Tree Commission is working towards that is relevant to us. It's really, really helpful
having that representative there. But obviously, if this mix of folks doesn't have availability for
that, that's okay too. Okay. We'll think about it. Thank you again, Dave, for doing that for us for so long.
Speaking of things that the EC does, we're at the working group update section, so I'm going to go ahead
and pass it to Matt, who I believe is calling on biodiversity. Biodiversity has not met since we last
met, and we have not set a regular meeting time either. Still looking forward to particularly
habitat connectivity reach or work, and that'll probably blend with outreach working group at some point,
but do not currently have a meeting set. In this moment, do you want to set a meeting or just wait until
you feel like you've got a more concrete agenda? I must admit, I am not in a big hurry to schedule those
meetings, especially with the amount of effort EcoHeroes is going to take up until April. Perfect. So
I'm going to probably
unless there's a call for an urgent matter, we're gonna wait a little bit on biodiversity. I think between
the outreach and the eco-heroes, there's biodiversity is probably going pretty well. Okay, great. Eco-heroes,
so we are off and running and Rachel was kind enough to print out some of the flyers that we've made.
If you are somebody who is interested and able, sorry, remote folks, interested and able to put these up
Around town, there are a handful of different designs. We are going to be sending them to the different
educators in town to share them with their students, share them across their faculty. And I'm going
to actually pass these around to the group. If you think you have a place that you want to put these
up, please do. Please let us know. We're trying to cover as much ground as possible to get the word
out about the submission. Can you share a PDF or PowerPoint
And then I have to share my box. Yes, absolutely. And so these are, these are basically our call for
entries. And we are at our last meeting, we got through a lot of stuff, but we talked through the sponsorship
and donor list. And so Rachel, I wanted to ask you, we have this great big list that we've come up with. And
I would love for anyone on the EC to be able to look at that, to say that they have a personal contact
that they can reach out to. Is there a way for me to give you that list and you share it with the group
or for us to do something with that? Or does that need to be like, I can ask. I think it might have
to be in a peddled setting. Okay. Okay. That'd be great. And in the meantime, we're basically,
solidifying the language store sponsors, the list of sponsors, the places that we'd like to put some
of these flyers up. If we need more flyers, we can get more of them. But ideally, we'd have a really
good turnout this year. There's a lot of excitement from our group. Heidi has put together a big resource
list of a ton of different ways to think about the theme and lots of supporting material for educators.
And oh, is it on there? Yes.
Okay, awesome. So this is this great big list of all these different resources that you can use to learn
more about the topics if they're looking for some inspiration on what to do. So that's the QR code?
The QR code takes you to the Ecohears page. Sorry, where did you get to this? How did you get to this?
It's linked on there. Yeah. And then we also have this great list of ideas that Adam came up with of
ways to interpret the theme. So people are trying to think of like, I don't know, what am I supposed
to do? Like make a painting? I don't know. It's a bunch of really creative takes on the topic of our
nature at night. So hopefully that will help people kind of unlock some creativity when it comes to
thinking through the theme. We are starting to accept entries on St. Patrick's Day and we will accept
them through the 7th of April knowing that we might have to extend it by like 24 hours if
when we inevitably have everyone submit theirs for the last second. But yeah, this is out. I think,
Rachael, you said that you were working on a press release that the city who had to review all of our
materials has agreed to help share some of that stuff. We obviously can post some of this on social
media. So I think we're just trying to get the word out, get people excited about it, really think about
the different interpretations of this theme. And to our guests here,
Anyone can submit something. It can be any, I mean, ideally from limited, but it can be whatever take
you want on it. And yeah, we're eager to get this up and rolling. I will say from the city side, I've
done the website update, the budget I set with the controller's office. So they can get moving on that
too, whenever you're ready to order. And then there is an upcoming Earth Day meeting, the first Earth
Day meeting planning meeting as a group.
I'll be able to read that. Awesome. Do you have notes from last year about anything from our group that
we shared? Like, oh, this part was really awesome or this part wasn't awesome? I think the biggest thing
I remember is that it was hard to hear. Was that the main item? They're aware of the audio complaints.
I think that was the big thing. I think that was the majority of it. I think the rest of it, unless,
Adam, you remember anything else, was us deciding what we were doing with our time. And, you know, we
had like some, some interactive stuff that people were doing, which was really cool. So, um, if we're
still hoping to get like pictures, I think we ideally would have like a sort of streamlined like,
When you go on stage, you get the thing, then you can step here and get your picture and stuff. Kind
of a flow through it. Yeah. So maybe just kind of verifying that that flow of things makes sense. Like
we'll have the person come up, they get their handshake from a city representative, they get a certificate,
they get their prize and they get a photo. And I think last year, yeah, it was a little bit of trying
to make sure that was working and also the sound being so. Okay, then here's that flow chart again.
So they get a handshake from a city representative, they receive a certificate, they receive a gift
bag, and they get their photo. Maybe not in that order, but. The photo would be with the city representative.
Yeah. Okay. And then lighting up for all of these things. Yeah. Big question. Do we have city legal approved
language for either the emails to the educators or to the potential sponsors. I don't remember on our
timeline when one of those things sent out, but it feels like now-ish. I think the educators, they said
that was fine. I think the sponsor letter was included in that for a while, so I think they said yes
to that. Is there a specific date you want me to have those sent out, on or by?
the so I can't remember from our it was it was supposed to it was supposed to be on monday but because
of just a brutal process we're so waiting um it would be I mean I guess it would be like as soon as
you're able and it would include in theory it would include like specific links to the resource list
maybe to adam's idea list and then to a couple of these graphics so we can get you that okay and you
can send all those things great and again it opens
So our idea is to get people interested and thinking about it. So when the doors open, they already
have it ready instead of starting it. Anything I missed? That's kind of the big thing we're doing right
now. So I feel like it takes a little bit more space. Anybody? Okay. Then passing it along to the ECPC.
Which Rachel was there? Yeah, no. Dean hadn't heard or it was canceled last week, I think. I will say
the 2511 North Dunn side, the north road that ECT2 decided, and that's where I went around, had a lot
of public comment at Plain Commission. I was off work, but I watched some of the Plain Commission and
some of the comments. So it will be going back to Plain Commission.
And then going to the Board of Zoning Appeals. So if there is a change of heart of writing a letter,
something can still be submitted. But for now, I think the decision was I wanted to be written. And
then I think our next meeting is scheduled outside of the meeting on the 22nd. The next meeting will
be on February 5th during the day at 1130, and that's if
there are petitions that should be presented to ECPC and then a meeting on February 10th without staff
for a letter to be written again, if you so choose. What time is the February 10th one? That one is
at 5.30. Any questions for ECPC? I believe so.
So we have a meeting, I just said, Wednesday, next Monday at 7 p.m. here. I think we only have four
people planning on attending right now, so four more persons can join and more will welcome. We're probably
gonna keep it pretty easy again because of the Eco Heroes thing. Yeah, that's it for us. I did get a
sense, I was in a meeting today with Parks and
they might be somewhat open to reducing light at parks properties. Their number one priority is safety.
So I think that might be a discussion that could reach them. Outreach and education met just before
this meeting. Do either of you want to share kind of what you had to go through? Adam, you want to?
Look at you, you're so pretty.
So primarily we talked about the organization of the resource materials that we have on the Environmental
Commission website. So the landing page has a, the bottom of the page has a brochures and fact sheet
link. And that link, the information is, the title of the page once you get to it is natural landscaping.
that. So what we're thinking is this would be a landing page for all of the educated the beyond just
landscaping other materials that we'd like to include. So we would change the title of this page to
brochures or and then have subcategories beneath it, which will include natural landscaping. But then
what other categories did we
think about. We discussed that some categories could be kind of inspired by working groups. It could
be a category with water type information. There could be a category that has some of our dark sky resources
from the light pollution group. We don't want to flood any particular subject matter. So we want to
decide what the most important and or current resources are to us. But this way, it can be more than
just landscaping. It can be kind of a landing spot for various environmental information.
And we talked about, because we have all these great working groups and all these lovely leads to the
working groups, our thought was to be able to flush out the brochures and facts page that we would ask
each working group to provide three-ish links to resources that are either sort of good starting points
that are, you know, well kept up that are appropriate that our city will approve us putting on city website.
but also thinking about what's relevant to Bloomington. And people who are in the city of Bloomington
are most likely the ones who are gonna be looking at these pages. So when it comes to light pollution,
if there's any material that is relevant to Southern Indiana or whatever it is in a way that is an easy
link that would be approved by the city for its content and its quality, we would love to ask each working
group to provide maybe three links. And it could be a PDF too, if that's the right fit. It just needs
to be something
And then we just have those subtitles for each of those topics and then have a little material on each
of them. Yeah. Anything else? I have a question about informational brochures. As you know, we have
talked a bit about producing some info for homeowners with lawnmowers about cutting the frequency of
the grass, frequency of grass cutting.
I've been thinking about it. You've seen some copy that may become part of it. I just wanted to very
quickly show you what it might show like. The whole idea is very simple. Don't cut your grass every
week if you can let it go two weeks. And that will
you will then have a very important effect on your personal production of greenhouse gas. And you've
seen some copies of this already, and I'd like your advice on proceeding, like design and distribution.
It should be a flyer of some kind. Where might it be distributed? Through the city, perhaps? I was thinking
of stuffing it into a water bill,
I don't know whether the water department will approve that. There's one way to get it out to everybody,
but some kind of mass distribution that's easy and doesn't cost much and gets the idea out. Preferably
before we all start fitting grass again in the spring. I think this has actually been on our agenda
for the last few months to make sure that we had time to talk about it. I know it's not on this one
necessarily, but when it comes to the copy, I think our first step was doing like maybe an op-ed.
that we were talking about doing something for the, for the newspaper. It's kind of like our first.
Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I remember what was, what was last shared with us. And I can't remember how
months ago, how many months ago that was. I thought it, I thought it read a lot like a guest column
and that that would be a very reasonable place to start. Um, and there are one time reach, which is
a bit of a drawback and the paper has a decrease in circulation. Although it's, it's online.
In other words, I don't think it's a very good place for this information. That's my personal opinion.
The appeal to me, I suppose, was also how immediate it can be. That is something that if you have a
copy, if it's going to go out as the EC, I don't know if we need to vote, or if you're just going to
publish it as yourself,
than I don't imagine that it would. But that's a thing that can be done on any timeline rather than
having to make sure we have a brochure, right? And have a distribution plan and everything as we're
already, as spring is a lot and that you see. I will say like, uh, where you done? I didn't mean to
interrupt. Um, if, you know, if anything is making the newspaper or getting anything being posted online,
if you are referencing yourself as a member of the environmental commission, it has to be approved through the city.
If you're representing yourself as a resident of Wilmington or whatnot as an individual person and not
referencing your affiliation with the environmental commission, representing the environmental commission
I should say, I think that's fine. But any type of language as a representation of the EC that's largely
distributed should be reviewed by the city. I don't think that this is a Norm Crampton project at all.
It's an EC project and I'm assuming
that I would bring in copy for you all to review and say, yeah, okay, go ahead. That's how it has to
be done, I think by the commission. I think what you've talked about before, I think you're talking
to the right folks about the kinds of priorities we have. In the annual planning meeting, one of the
things we did was we talked about the different initiatives that we thought would be
useful for us to prioritize in a year and education and outreach were one of those reviewing our materials
and all of that. Part of it is being on either being in one of the working groups to help escort that
along or being being able to provide the materials through whatever channel has to be to get to the
working group that then can look at and decide what to do with it. Do you
Do you have interest in joining the outreach and education, we're working group to help with this, or
would you prefer to craft something that then gets sent through for our next meeting? That's gonna be
the smoothest way to do it is to learn something for the next meeting. Okay. Yeah. So I would say if
I, what I think would be helpful is especially if it's like a fire that you're wanting to have, like
be a little jazzy. Um, do you mind if I say this real quick? Um,
So like if you had like a flyer, it could be that you just like write whatever the words you want and
just like draw a little circle of like, this might be a picture or like, this might be a thing that
has detailed information or whatever. Like it doesn't have to be finalized, but just an idea of what
you're thinking. And then the education outreach group can then take a look at it and either give feedback
on it or figure out how to workshop it or whatever it would be. And then we can bring that back to,
you know, whatever the next BC meeting is.
And then ultimately, depending on how the group feels about it, then running through the city communications
person to get approval on, like, is it okay for us to even make this? And then where are we going to
put it? How are we going to share it with whomever it is? So it's like a multi-part process, but that
might be a good way to start. So at the next meeting, if I bring something in that looks exactly what
it should be and circulated and everybody can look at it, would that work?
I mean, it's an idea on paper. Yeah. Even if it was perfect on paper that everybody decided that's something
to move forward with, at the February meeting, people could not take copies of that and distribute it.
Oh, no, absolutely not. No, I'm thinking purely for discussion and recommendations and revisions by
you all. Perfect. Yeah, that sounds great. If you want to do it at the next meeting, that would be great.
And we'll move that to the agenda.
Cool. If you can send me a proof or something before the meeting, I'll put it in the back end. Awesome.
Okay, great. All right, so I'll add that to the notes. Anything else on the education and outreach side
of it that we didn't cover? Oh, I have a question. Yeah. Is there any way to change how many people
are going to the left page and what's the length they're actually using? Yeah. Like how useful is that?
I can ask. I can't say it.
RITS might be able to see it. I don't know. I can figure out who to ask if we can. Yeah, I'm sure that
everyone is out there. No one's going there, really. It's definitely possible whether or not they actually
keep track of it. Yeah, yeah. They may not put it, but it would be nice if they did if we were to actually
post it. OK. All right, the special projects work group has not done anything, although Mitchell will
probably start talking through the item stuff, assuming it's still
out there probably start putting that on the agenda soon. So TBD, speaking of Mitchell, how's that water
quality working group? Can't hear you. We can't hear you. Well, I met with him only the two of us were
there and we didn't accomplish much.
It does show you it's unmuted, so I'm not sure why we can't hear you. And we heard you in the boats.
We heard you in the boats before. There we go. Yeah. Weird. I don't know what happened. I'm going to
play my talk.
Um, yeah, we had a meeting that was just me and Dave, uh, last week, I think. Um, but we were chatting,
uh, trying to get some ideas about kind of building on the education outreach stuff, like what we wanted
to do for that. Um, and, uh, had a couple of ideas that we were spitballing around. I also saw in the
minutes for last month, let me pull it up again.
I can find it. Somebody mentioned something about wanting to potentially tour the new stormwater or
like the new water treatment plant. Yeah. I think that's something we could get ginned up pretty easily
if people are interested in doing that. Because I can just shout out to people at utilities and
see if they could schedule us something. They also, the stormwater folks, told us if we ever wanted
to tour any of the kind of stormwater installations or projects that had to go in as mitigation stuff
for construction projects in town, like any of the rain gardens or anything like that, if there was
ever interest in that, just let them know and they'd be happy to because they can just do inspections
whenever they feel like it and bring us along.
If there's ever any interest in that kind of stuff, let me know. I can get it organized and that can
be some water quality working group stuff. Yeah, hopefully. Was that Dave? Where's the new water treatment
plant? I don't remember. I see. I remember them talking about it. I don't remember where it is.
Okay. Cool. I'll probably start bothering her and try and get more regular meetings on the schedule
soon, but not too many before eco heroes to try and start thinking about that. Uh, and also, uh, getting
in contact with the utilities people again, to see like how the follow-up if from
because I'm assuming they've talked to their board about the data collection they did last year and
how they want to follow up and how we can help with that and everything. So we'll schedule things when
I can get them. Awesome. Thank you, Mitchell. That sounds great. All right. OK, great. Well, then we're
on to the next stage of our meeting. We're buzzing along at 719. We are now at the public
comment section where members of the public can have five minutes to introduce themselves or just say
hello or, yeah. Yeah, I'm Carl Reiser. Yeah, I attended a couple meetings ago to come and say hi again.
I just wanted to point out a couple things. A couple meetings ago, you guys were having your big planning
meeting and you mentioned reaching out to
potentially sending people out to like HOAs or neighborhood associations. I did have some informal discussion
with my neighborhood association and they'd be totally on board with you guys coming out. I also talked
with Park Ridge East, some members of Park Ridge. Some members of Park Ridge East would also be interested.
And I also talked to the leadership of Blue Ridge. And they would also potentially be interested in
having you guys talk about the initiatives and you go heroes, that stuff.
Thank you so much. That's incredible. Okay. That is fantastic. And I think, I can't remember, I think
we had your contact information from a previous visit. Is that if we, if we're interested in following
up on this stuff? Yeah. Okay. Great. You don't have to say it. Yeah. And your social security.
Well, we will. That sounds great. I would love to keep nudging all of this along. And thank you so much
for bringing that up in those conversations. That's really, really helpful. Great. Well, thanks, Clara.
All right. Any other questions? Yes. My name is James Ford. And I don't have a lot of formal comments,
but some response to some things that have been said this evening. The first is a plug for a media outlet
called V Square Bulletin, which is
quick goodbye and then they would ask instance, and he wrote a nice article about the meeting from Monday
night, the planet mission that they talked a lot about in North row. So if you missed that meeting,
I advise that you go to the B square bulletin and find the article about that meeting. It's a very thorough,
non-partisan, academic, intellectually written piece that will explain everything that we're gonna need.
Second thing, the comment about the lawn mowers and these flyers about lawn mowers, I live in a neighborhood
where there's a lot of student rentals. So the people who cut the lawns are these lawn companies, which
are very aggressive about trying to convince the property owners that they need to have the lawn spent
this week, even though they don't, because they charge it again. And then they followed up with
meat eaters, which they don't be. They follow that up with the lawn, the leaf blowers every day,
every week, they have leaf blowers and they charge their owners and property owners. And so it's frustrating.
Who do you talk to? You can't really talk to these property owners because they're controlled by their
lawn companies. They have to have it done and you can't talk to the companies. In my neighborhood, the
last several weeks, so there was a little bit of snow.
They came out with their leaf blowers, not the snow blowers, the leaf blowers, to blow the snow around.
And it was very frustrating and I thought it would be nice to have some city code regulation about maybe
loose rates when you can, or loose rules rather than leaf blowers and weed eaters and gas powered equipment.
I think you've raised a very important question, and that is getting to be contracted. I live in a condo
in Cochertree, and everything is run by the big companies, you know. And it's much easier to contract
at all and forget about it than it is to manage it well. And I think that's what we're seeking. The
third question I have is for Rachel. She made a passing comment, and I'd just like to clarify.
you said we cannot take into consideration environmental justice at some point. And I want to, I was
hoping that you could explain what that means. I'm sorry, I'm naive. No, that's okay. That's a federal
and state executive order. So things like social and demographic data are not able to play into government
decisions. So we aren't able to make decisions based on like race,
social status, things of that nature, and that's coming from the state and federal administrations.
Thank you very much. Under the current administration. Under the current administration, yeah.
One more thing, you're looking for a liaison between this group and the tree commission. Does it have
to be somebody who's on the commission?
I believe so. It has to be somebody appointed from the Environmental Commission. Yeah, thank you. We
have open seats. Technically, anyone could attend that and report to us. But there is a standing ECC
on the Tree Commission. Are you on the Tree Commission? Thank you, Gene. Thanks for sharing your thoughts
and asking your questions. Okay, great. And there's no online members of the public? Yeah.
All right, okay. Then moving along to the staff updates. Okay. Did I put these in the right order is
the question. I think I did. No, I didn't. Okay. So Council Member Piedmont-Smith asked us to, or asked
liaisons from the Marlowe Commission as well as the Commission on Sustainability to share this great
opportunity. I think that we can carry on that email.
Um, but so the waste reduction district is doing a community grant program. I think the deadline is
coming up pretty soon. Um, I don't know much about this program personally. Um, so there are project
guidelines in the, um, in this, the, I think the last page of this packet. Um, so let's see.
Preference will be given to innovative solid waste reduction reuse and recycling programs that can serve
as models to other communities and institutions in Monroe County. So if there's any ideas that each
of you would like to propose and follow up on, this would be a chance to do that. I don't really know
much about this other than what is provided on this sheet. And then the waste reductions website
to share this too. Is this something that Special Projects is interested in pursuing or if there's any
ideas that anybody would like to share right now? What's the date for this? I think it's January 31st.
I think it's really soon. Who's funding the grant?
I believe the Monroe County or Waste Reduction District of Monroe County. Okay. And I heard of this
district. Yeah. That's different than election and recycling. Yeah. So this is I don't know. So city
residents, I assume. I'm not a resident of the city. So this is a little bit of assumption for me. I
assume the
Wilmington has a trash collector or has contracts out of trash collector. I've been in meetings in the
past where there's been confusion of how to track the amount of trash because the Mineral County trash
in the city of Wilmington trash gets sent to the same place and sometimes the same trucks are used.
So there's contracts in here. The Waste Reduction District is a somewhat separate entity, I believe.
No, they probably work together. I would say they work together. Maybe they're addressing an issue that's
going on and looking for ways to solve the overflow. Okay, the waste reduction district looks like they
might be the ones who run the recycling centers around Monroe County as a whole.
Yeah, I think they offer like, yeah, different educational programs and stuff like that. So they had
a name change last year. Yeah, they were the district. Yeah, they're back to Waste Reduction District.
So as Rachel said, these grants can go to nonprofit schools, libraries, civic organizations, clubs,
businesses. And they said it obviously is just like a jumping off point, but some ideas for things like
Purchase permanent bins for recycling. Purchase or recycle content playground, park, trail equipment,
composting equipment, disposal containers for like cigarette butts or pet waste. And then also funding
environmental education outreach activities. I think looking through this grant, I'd be open to what
other people think. I think it's worth us really like giving it a hard look, but I think that
this kind of thing might be the perfect opportunity as we're building out how we think about outreach.
Does it make sense for us to like try to work with another organization or like help them do the grant
like to do something where it's like it's not necessarily environmental commission is receiving the
grant because I don't know that a lot of physical material belongings is what we're trying to necessarily
fund. And it seems like that's another direction that this is going so like hopefully like
Um, items that are needed, but it's something we're thinking about as far as like, what are things that
we would like to promote, especially as, as far as like what's disposal does and stuff. Yeah, thanks.
Any other thoughts you'd want to say out loud? I mean, maybe they're also funding that the time it spends
with various systems approach. And I don't know what does the funding go for.
Yeah, they try to outline without being like too restrictive around like, it has to be this or that,
but trying to say like, these are the kinds of things, but I think it actually might list a few things
that are not eligible as well. So I think you have to find out what is the wave streaming consists of,
parts of the wave stream can be diverted or some kind of recycled. Yeah. And I think do some research.
Yeah. And I think that the idea is like,
for the EC especially, you know, what are our priorities? What is our role? What would make sense when
we think about waste management as far as, you know, recycling, food waste, things like that. When we
think about who we are as a group, what makes sense for us to have as part of our initiatives or what
are priorities that we have or groups or organizations that make sense for us to be thinking about as
far as it pertains to the work that we do and then saying, okay, in that view, is there something that
would make sense for us to try and say,
we could use a grant to do that. So I think it's kind of like figuring out like who we are and what
makes sense for us and anybody else that might need to be in that conversation and then go from there.
Cause yeah, thinking about all of like, what does waste look like in Wilmington? It's just overwhelming.
And it's a mess because human, you know, like our consumption and our waste is just a huge issue.
So yeah, kind of figure out like what's relevant to us.
I'm sure there's a lot there's a lot of there's departments there's entire district you know groups
in charge of this stuff so yeah yeah so people have thoughts on this please feel free to shout it out
but that's kind of I think it's a it's nice to try and like push ourselves into the mindset of like
okay if we're gonna do this what's it look like and really try and make it happen even if we don't end
up doing it getting ourselves into the habit of really trying to consider what opportunities are out
there okay
The other staff update I had is I had an email from the Monroe County Master Gardener Gardener Fair.
So that will be taking place on Saturday, April 11th. And it was an application for if any group would
like to table. So does the EC typically table this event? Would you like to?
We have in the past. What do people think about that? I think we missed last year, maybe just because
not enough people were available. We have in the past. You said it was April, what was it? 11th. Oh,
we did it the weekend before. Yeah, I think that's why we didn't do it last year. I think we all were
okay with that when the moment came. But Matt, you've done that Garden Fair before, right? Do you want
to describe it for folks who maybe haven't seen it? I mean, it's just kind of the switchyard pavilion
packed with
I mean, everything from vendors to other groups like MCIRUS and people have a presence. People distribute
literature or yeah, some people sell things. I think one of the things we did a couple of years ago,
the last time I was at it was we brought a big pad of paper and asked people their environmental concerns.
It was just like a way for kind of public facing feedback and to maybe potentially inspire things for a future.
Uh, planning type meetings, but we also had some of our lit there to hand out and it was just, uh, it
was a good way to have conversations with members of the public. So I think if we do have people who
can attend, you know, I, you know, a couple hours at a time or something that it would be worth doing.
Um, but it's going to come down to availability. You can talk about the hat. Can you change your hand?
And there are stickers now. And by that time, is it possible that we will have reviewed some of our
materials that we hand out and had the opportunity to like, you know, freshen things up or anything
like that if Tion is able to present her? That piece of material I showed you before during the meeting.
I think that would just be as a digital format. So I can see if the, I think more than special need
to be had, like what exactly, like the brochure, if we were wanting to pronounce it, like what that
looks like. Not for Fiona's document that she'd worked on, but using that as a reference for the things
that we have that we currently would have handed out, were there not to be some discrepancies in like
what's in printed material versus what Fiona's got.
I mean, it would be like a couple of months to be able to like cross-reference what's in there and make
sense of what we're handing out. Yeah. I think that would be enough time. I might ask you after the
meeting, just to make sure I'm like understanding your question correctly. I think that would be enough
time. Is there interest? It's a lift, but is there interest? So if you don't have that, the virtual document,
Is there interest to update the brochures based off what is in the virtual document with like copy and
pasting the brochures to be printed out? Yeah, I think that's one of the things we're talking about.
I don't think it would have to be every single thing. I think she could do one brochure. I don't know
if she could do like all of the different brochures, exact replica, but kind of solidate a brochure
with, you know, the information. Yeah, I think if it's okay with you for us to kind of like keep
trying to see how far we can get this in and see if we can come up with it. That would be nice. Do you
know if there's a deadline when we'd need to sign up for this event? Would be, I think it works. Would
you guys be a vendor, maybe?
like there's a. I haven't seen a deadline but I will. There we go. Maybe by March 15th. At least by
March 15th. Okay. Is there anybody who is somewhat interested in in tabling for me to do that?
April 11th. It's a I think it's Saturday. We'll be out of town. I feel like we need a part of the day.
We have to
Oh, for sure. Yeah, we wouldn't want to have to do. Yeah, we wouldn't want to do the whole day. Yeah,
if it's from was it 94? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I think, I think we have a few, a few priorities going
on right now that will be hopefully kind of primed for that. It'll be after the cutoff for eco heroes,
but that's okay. We can still promote the fact that there will be
supposedly an eco hero ceremony and stuff like that, but there's, you know, obviously lots of materials
that we have, um, and the habitat and activity plan for sure that we can talk about. Jane admitted she's
out of town otherwise she would. Um, but, uh, so just to talk about schedule of that week. So there'll
be voting for eco heroes, whoever wants to come in and vote on the heart, um, there, which that time
is not set in stone right now. Uh, I think we,
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. And then so there'd be the mineral kind of garden fair on April 11th. Um,
there is a environmental commission meeting the following Thursday and then, or the day, the following
Saturday. So it would be a busy couple of weeks. So I just want to make sure everybody is okay with
dedicating that amount of time. Then we think about it and everyone is not required to attend the garden fair.
and attend the Eco Heroes event. We of course would really, really love it to have all of the people
that are available to help with these things, but that's how we do these things. But yes, those things
are not required and we're just. Just for fun. Just for fun. Just for fun. We'd love to have more bodies,
especially when it's like sharing shifts and things like that. It's a well attended event. So I think
if we confidently believe that we can have at least two people there at a time for that,
that time period, I think it might be wise to do the indoor single space. If we don't collectively think
we can pull that off, then this is still a good event, generally speaking, but it might not be earlier.
But if we have enough people who think they can put in at least a little bit of time there so that we
have a table, it would be a good opportunity to promote habitat connectivity plan, just have conversations
with residents and have sun lit on hand.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So you can also just Earth Day in general. Yeah. Just make sure I captured who
is interested. I think I heard Heidi. Matt, were you interested in tabling or no? Yes, if I can. Okay. And then
I heard Adam Martinez. Okay. Thank you. I'm gonna be a strong Navy. I think it's a great idea to do
it. So if nothing else, do you want to sleep on it for a month and decide formally at the February meeting?
Since it seems like we have itself a little March 10 register. Let's do it. Let's do it. I do have a
comment I just realized. Unfortunately, I can't be there, but this would be a good place to advertise
the... Yeah, absolutely. Just through a laptop or an actual paper mat? We can do it on phones, too.
It's one of those we have.
we have lit with the QR code and that's been the most popular way at, or at least it was at Bugfest,
so at our last tabling event. That's the chosen route. Cool. I think that's all I have for the staff
update. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. Well, rounding the corner to the reports, we'll go ahead and go through. So Dave,
I know that you ended your time at the Tree Commission, but was there any major takeaways you'd like
to share with us from that meeting? Well, we took notes on Monday, so Tree Commission meetings will
basically always start unless there's outside business with the Urban Foresters Report, Pascal Smith's
report. This year he talked about, this month he talked about
Removing a lot of dead trees. I miss where those were from. Well, from all over the city, actually.
And a lot of calorie payers were taken out. There's a $50,000 grant for adjunct tree assessment. And
so they have a grant to do that.
to the Tree City USA is somewhat different from Tree City, but we're now involved in that. We're very
likely to get approval and unlike with the B city
that's free. So that was basically his report. And then I gave a report about the Environmental Commission
and what we had done last. Then we had a report from Mia Williams, who's the IU landscape architect.
She talked about they didn't plant much last year.
She wants a map of where trees on campus could be planted. And she's in fact going to retire from her
job as landscape architect, I think she said in late April. So whether they will have somebody on the
tree commission from the university after that, I assume they will. Well, that's what I have to say
about the tree commission.
Perfect, thank you. Was there an Iraq meeting? I told you about the December meeting at our last meeting
here. Nothing new from France, like from Rome. All right, thank you, Dave. Matt, any viewings of the
because? Yeah, I caught up. I was able to view
On cats, the one that I missed from December, they welcomed two new commissioners they kind of discuss
their 2025 and review and talked about how they wanted to do 2026 priority planning discussion and meetings
and whatnot I don't think they made any decisions on that they just discussed.
Um, and their January one I watched, uh, they had a really informative presentation on, um, transportation
emissions, how they're measured and their impact on our, uh, climate baseline. Um, was that from a local?
Yes. They were, and I don't remember the names. There was a person in, um, at the table presenting and
there was someone else for the city who was virtual that had
kind of provided some context, but it was a good half an hour presentation, I'd say, about the ways
it should be measured and the way that that's affecting the city's data, because we were making a change
on that. They also discussed, I guess it's funny seeing this back, they had three members rolling off.
So yeah, gain two, lose three, I guess. They discussed planning,
officers, rules, but again it seems like a lot of that's going to be determined either at a special
meeting or a next meeting. So that's what I got from Bicos. Awesome, thank you. Great, and then lastly
MC Iris and Rachel we just talked a little bit about. I was not able to attend a meeting yesterday.
Their agenda though, they haven't passed out minutes, but their agenda indicated that
They were talking about the reduced invasive species website, or part of their website. And so they
are giving a $30 gift certificate if you need to replace a calorie pear, tree of heaven, or an Asian
bush train supple. They've also talked about distributing yard signs of just how to, the yard sign basically
says, how to control invasive species and gives a QR code to NCIRS website.
And then they talked about weed wrangles and their native crate sale. Okay. Um, okay. So at this point,
I believe we are onto just commissioner announcements. So anything that is relevant to the EC thing.
Yeah. Uh, I would like this to be my last environmental commission meeting. I plan to retire from.
this commission as well as from the tree commission. Oh, okay. We're breaking our hearts. Give us a
heads up. Oh man. Well, Dave, thank you. I know you've done this for a long time and you've been supporting
the Bloomington community and all of in various ways and caring for it. So thank you for doing this.
This has been, it's been really amazing having you in the commission and also in all the different working
groups and contributing so much.
Yeah, well, I haven't been contributing very much lately. Yeah, I thought it was because you were moving
to Tahiti and they're like, I won't be in Bloomington anymore. I'll be on the tropical islands. The
pre-commission meeting was down in the McCloskey room downstairs. Frank McCloskey, when he was mayor,
appointed me to be in Barnsville. Wow. How long have you been on this commission? Back in 1975. Wow.
50 years. Wow. Well, I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say I'm so sorry to lose you. We loved having
you. You've been such an important part of the commission. And I'm excited for you to have your Thursday
nights free in future months. Who knows what you'll get into. But yeah, thank you so much for all you've
done for the commission.
We know your boss is your garden, so hopefully it's a good boss moving forward. Well, it let me down
last year. I'm planning to come back with it this year. Well, thank you, thank you. To make the announcement
that our February meeting says officer elections on it. That was on my list. Yeah, we don't seem, we
don't have like a
nominations type process or anything at this point, but I just generally wanted to encourage people
to go for it. The positions aren't scary. I would be perfectly happy if someone else wanted to do this
spot. I could also stay at this spot, but I'd help people along. Don't be afraid of taking on a little
more on the commission. The roles of each
officer is listed in the handbook. So it's in our most recent packet. It's also listed on our website
under reports. So I will get the most recent one updated. So it'll say January 15th probably, but it's
in our handbook. So if you're curious about that, feel free to review and or ask me questions or ask
questions for officers.
Yeah, that was on my list, too, of things to talk about. So the way that officers work, we have a chair
who's a real mouthy leader, bossy person, and anyone is welcome to fill this role. We have a vice chair
who is also our treasurer, so helps with how we handle the EC's budget. And then we have our secretary,
who is the hero of the group, who takes notes on everything that we cover and then shares them with
Rachel. We all look through and publish them each month.
So all three of those positions can go to whomever. You don't have to be the most tenured person on
the EC. It is somebody who is ready to be engaged, ready to come to as many meetings as they can and
really be part of this group. But anyone who is interested in being nominated or being considered for
one of these roles can just let us know. They can let me and Rachel know. You can say it out right now.
And between now and the next meeting, I will be reaching out to a few of you to be kind of the nominating
committee. And the goal of that is to basically come up with at least one nominee for each position
that we can vote on. So those folks will just be chatting with each other or communicating with other
commissioners to say, would you be interested in being on the docket for treasurer this year or vice
chair treasurer? I know what you're thinking, Matt.
We will need to have a formal meeting set for that conversation to happen. So when I will work with
that. That task is commission business. Yeah. I was more going to say, yeah, prepare to self-nominate
at the February meeting. Yeah. If you have any questions, is that a thing we're allowed to talk to each
other about? Are you allowed to email the current chair and ask them about being the chair? Because
it's a voting item.
Because that's correct. Because I actually think it might be easier to not. I mean, we've had like a
kind of slate committee in the past, but I don't, I don't know if we need to. I think it might be, I
thought it was in like the nomination. Yeah. Um, I would say he needs to be publicly noticed because
it's about a potential vote.
It's about business and the duties of the commission. I don't want to give that answer. I think that's
the right answer though. Yeah. So look forward to that and it will be your option to say no if you don't
want to be on the nominating committee, but it's also a great way for you to help shape the future of
this commission. So please don't say no right away is what I'm saying, but I will be in touch about that.
You can always do that. You can always do that. They can decline the nomination, but you can always
bring in snacks and then ask. I'm just joking. I'm joking. There's no variety. One way or another to
be prepared in February, we have to fill the pre-rolls. And also we have vacancies still and I haven't,
I didn't see anything about the
confirmation about the end of January position. So that's part of why we don't do it until February.
Yeah. Um, so, uh, commissioners who have terms expiring, um, if you have not heard about your reappointment,
you can still serve in your role for 90 days after, um, appointment ends. Um, so I know several of you
have any fear. You're one of them. We haven't heard by being January and still not by February.
I think you're allowed to serve in 90 days after January 31st. The two vacancies or soon to be three
vacancies, do you know the breakdown of council versus mayor? I don't know. I'm mayor. Okay. Dave, I
guess I want to formally ask you if you would like to withdraw your application for next year. Yes.
Okay. I figured I just wanted to make sure it's okay for me to email them. Yeah.
One council, one mayor. I was going to say, I know there's someone in the room who's applied and I wondered
if there was any way you could nudge either the mayor or the council to help us get him on board. They
are aware of all of the applications. All that to say when it comes to voting in officers, if for some
reason someone gets voted in and then they are serving up to 90 days in a floating position and then
they do not get reappointed to the commission, then we will have to just elect a new
I did notice that we are, the Environmental Commission is appointed to, I think, interview committee
B, if I'm remembering correctly, and there is not, whatever interview committee that we are assigned
to, they don't have a meeting set up right now. So if that, I can reach out to your council members
to encourage a meeting to be scheduled. Awesome, awesome.
the tree commission that's getting new officers as well. Okay. All right. Okay. Well, that was one of
the bigger things. The other thing I just wanted to mention was, Nadia, at one point we had talked about
potentially having Joe Cottle do a guest spot, and we had originally marked February as a potential
date for that. So I just wanted to check in on if that conversation's happened, if you want to
propose a different date or if that's something you want to check out and then let us know if that's
something to plan for. Yeah, I can definitely reach out to him. I stopped working at the DNR office
in Bloomington in December when I graduated. I kind of like had everything come to an end. So I can
reach out to him because the holidays are over and he's probably back now and proposed February and
I can let you know as soon as I hear something. So that sounds great. And then
We talked about Adam doing a presentation in March, if that still sounds good. Any other announcements
from folks? There was a correction. If we are on committee B, Matt said they did have a meeting today.
Today at 5.15. I don't know the outcome of that meeting, but they met. Cool. We'll take it. Any other
announcements from commissioners when we've just got a few moments left?
Amen. Okay. Well, it's 7.55. Motion adjourned. Okay, I step in. Thank you. All right. Thank you. 7.55.
Have a great rest of your Thursday.