- Well, we have a quorum. Do you want me to start the meeting? Sure. OK. I think we are recording, so
- you're good. Yeah. I did hear that, yeah. Sorry. We have a quorum this Thursday, March 26. I have 6.02.
- Call this meeting to order. Start. Let's see.
- Do we do attendance right away or do we go right into the? I have no policy can be attendance right
- away. Gotcha. OK. Gary Albright is absent. Looks like Heidi Brown is absent. Matt Colby here. At the
- fair here. And Martinez here. Mitchell Owens here. Carl Geiser here. Justin Mester here.
- I'm Rachel Johnson. All right. First item of business is the approval of the agenda. Is there anything
- that anyone wants to add, move, or strike from the agenda tonight? Seeing nothing, that's indicated
- as an item to be voted on. So will you all call the roll again to approve the agenda?
- Matt. All right, I'm sorry. Adam Boutiker. Yes. Adam Martinez. Yes. Mitchell Owens. Yes. Kyle Geiser.
- Yes. Despy Nester. Yes. Matt Colby. Yes. And Heidi Braun just entered. Heidi, do you want the vote on
- the meeting minutes? Yes. That was actually just approval of intent. I'm so sorry. I heard something. Yes.
- I'm so sorry. Did we have a first and second for that one? We do. We did not. We can restart. We'll
- draft that vote. So I need a motion and a second. Motion to approve the agenda. Start again. I'm so
- sorry about that. OK, we'll start with Adam Martinez this time. Yes. Mitchell Owens. Yes. Carl Dyser.
- Yes. Beth Semester. Yes. Heidi Brown. Yes. Matt Falby. Yes. Adam Hudecker. Yes. Math motion passes.
- Excellent. Thank you, Rachel. And I guess while we continue the run of procedural items here, I hope
- everyone got a chance to look through the February minutes. If you weren't here or weren't a member
- yet, it's totally acceptable to abstain from such a thing because you might not know exactly
- how representative it is, but I will entertain a motion for approval of- I move to approve the meeting
- minutes. We need a second.
- Thank you, Adam. Rachel, when you're ready, we'll do again things called a roll. Mitchell Owens. Yes.
- Carl Beiser. Yes. Dustin Mester. Yes. Heidi Brown. Yes. Matt Colby. Yes. Adam Budicker. Yes. Adam Martinez.
- Yes. Motion passes. Excellent. Thank you, everyone. At this time, we have public comment, limited to
- five minutes per person. Is there anyone here who would like to speak during public comment?
- saving it for the related agenda, I'm assuming. Good deal. Anyone online offering to give public comment?
- If anybody wants to public comment, please raise your hands. And we'll hear her later. Fair enough.
- Just wanted to give it a moment anyway, because I know things online sometimes lag a touch behind. But
- seeing none, I suppose we will move on to new business.
- The first order of business is to welcome the new members. Thank you both so much for applying and going
- through the interview process and joining us here for your first official meeting. Carol might have
- been with us for a few already. I was hoping we can all go around the room and kind of briefly introduce
- ourselves, but I'm especially excited to hear from the new members. But I suppose I'll start. My name's
- Matt Caldy. I'm the vice chair and treasurer
- I've been on now for nine years, and I'm not actually any subject area expert whatsoever. I'm just a
- try-hard guy who has not yet missed a meeting. That's what I hang my hat on here. Next to my left. I'm
- Adam Martinez. I'm the secretary. It means I take notes. I'm in a similar boat, but not really subject
- matter expert, but I like birds and
- It's an area of interest. Yeah. I'm Justin Master, one of the new members. I don't know the background
- you would like, but a little bit. My background is mostly in the sciences, environmental science. Previously
- it was kind of coastal sciences and wetland ecology.
- Which, you know, a lot of coastline led me to Bloomington in the end. And now, previously, apparently,
- I'm the water quality coordinator for the city of Bloomington and Dillis. So most of my work has not
- been any sciences, water quality, any climate change. But these are true facts. Excellent. Glad to have
- you. Okay. I'm Farrell Dyson. Met some of you. I'm a fresh lighter.
- microbial ecologist. I work at Indiana University, which is also where I got my bachelor's from. Since
- my bachelor's, which was way back in 2016, I've worked in the same freshwater ecology area in Loyola
- and then in Seattle and worked a bit more in applications to human health and disease. Now I'm back here.
- And my interest in terms of the commission is basically everything, but, you know, specifically I was
- in attendance for our subcommittee meeting earlier for the black pollution and I'm very interested in
- outreach as well, so. Excellent, outreach is always a big one, so good to hear. All right, Heidi. Hi,
- everyone, I'm Heidi Brown and I'm a former GIS coordinator for Transparency in Texas
- I went to UT SIN Planning School. That was my first career. I stepped away from planning for my second
- career, which is homeschool mom, to be a teacher. I went to the other, but I joined the board, so I
- could get back into planning a little bit. But again. Thanks. My name is Adam Feudeker. I trained as
- a biologist. My background is in
- related to conservation. I'm going to talk here later today. I'm currently primarily focused on education,
- and I've been on the mission for about a year, a little over a year. Hi, I'm Mitchell. I am also a water
- quality person. And you two both just accidentally volunteered yourselves for the water quality working
- group by telling me about friends. And you can help me get some things done.
- because I had not been able to for a while. So this will be good. But yeah, I am a PhD candidate at
- IU doing water policy stuff. And I also work for the state with IDEM doing water quality monitoring
- with bugs. So I have lots to talk about. And I've been on board the commission for three years, two
- or three years now, something like that.
- Sneaks up on you. Yeah. And now it doesn't say, well, here I was appointed originally on the thing.
- I have not. That keeps going around. Thank you, everyone, for being here. I'm not sure uniform process
- is now with the status of onboarding for new members. But if there's ever any questions about whether
- it's procedures or if we start using a bunch of acronyms, you don't know what they mean. Just holler.
- And I guess this serves as a reminder to other members to try to
- Trying to be clear about that here initially while people get up to speed. Next in new business is department
- update and accessibility discussion. Yes. So I have Jackie Scanlon, Assistant Director of Planning and
- Transportation here tonight. So we wanted to talk about accessibility updates because that's affecting
- everybody as well as some department updates.
- So I'll get the department updates out of the way because they are pretty easy and quick. So I'll be
- on leave this summer from about June to September. So if somebody complaining, we'll be staffing these
- meetings. So I will let you know who that person is, depends closer. And then I just wanted to remind
- everybody for those who did not fill out the conflict of interest forms yet, please do so. I sent a
- reminder out to those yesterday who haven't completed those yet.
- I don't see it, so the clerk's office in legal sees it. So, not just, please fill those out.
- And then we can, did you have any other non-accessibility updates for now? No, I think, well, I was
- trying to think business accessibility. Sorry, I have to scale on it. In a sense, we are trying to make
- a consultation. The minutes, we're going to be doing differently. It's not an accessibility issue, but
- it's more of a process across the organization issue. We met legal with some money.
- And I know that historically your secretary has done once. There are actually only two boards
- of commissioners in the city that do it that way, us and me, he costs. So what we're going to start
- doing, there's like a very limited skeleton that's required legally. So Rachel, first of all, needs
- to be reported. Also Rachel will be taking notes. So we have, most of her still is our office manager.
- So she will do the skeleton and then she will send it to your secretary, right? Yeah. She'll send it to you.
- probably like a Google Doc to share with you. And so then you can decide if there are like, what color
- or things that you think are important to add, like for, you know, austerity in the official minutes,
- then you can add those things into the skeleton that she's created. And then that's what we go ahead
- and pack it. And for now, like Adam, I'll still send you the meeting agenda, like I did today. And so
- you can actively take notes and then, yeah, you'll just work with Melissa on incorporating those for
- the formal. Yeah, so you'll get the meeting agenda to be ready to take whatever notes you want to in
- the meeting.
- And then probably within the week after the meeting, then Melissa will send you the skeleton and you'll
- populate with whatever additional information you want to get there. Does that make sense to everybody?
- Okay. Okay. So do you want to talk about Sicily? Yeah, so there was a federal rule. It was finalized
- April 24th of 2024.
- Basically gave municipalities of limited size two years to comply with this new standard of digital
- accessibility. So I wrote down what the city's complying with. I don't know if this means anybody to
- anybody, but it's the web content accessibility guidelines that we have with 2.2. So those are, I can
- send those over email because there's more guidance online on how to comply with that.
- But that's the standard that the city has chosen to pursue to comply with this federal rule. So that
- means everything that the city provides to the public has to be digitally accessible. So that's why
- we're transitioning to this Google Doc form. So even, and all of these deadlines have to be met at the
- latest of April 24th.
- So the city started to do this early, really just to train staff as well as, you know, who we work with
- our collaborators to start doing this. So while this packet is not 100% accessible tonight, next month,
- that's the goal, even though we're before that April 24th deadline. What this means for the commission,
- all of our packet materials, such as Adam's presentation, those would have to meet accessibility guidelines
- because the commission is a branch of the city.
- So anything that the department receives from the commission, if you want it in the packet, if you want
- it distributed, it has to meet those accessibility guidelines. So first off, I'll open it to questions.
- I have more to say, but are there any questions about what I just said? Do you all have someone that
- we can share documents or things with that can see if we're meeting the guidelines? Great question.
- If everything goes to me, so I will be the one responsible to make sure everything's accessible. Is
- there an app? Yeah, so there's going to be a training, legal student that I'm training to describe some
- of this, and then they will also present resources. So, or like, yes, how we could go about determining
- that on our own. Yeah. That's what we're, it's all kind of still in fussing and curve. It's ITS. Okay.
- So we met legal this morning I think they're gonna like working conjunction so they so that the boards
- of commissions can work. Yes, so that so that you can access the documents, because otherwise we can't
- accept that thing. So as Adam alluded to it at IU.
- They've been talking a lot about PDFs in particular, near impossible to reach accessibility standards.
- One of the ways that they seem to be circumventing that is that it's okay if they provide a link to
- one instead of providing a PDF itself. That is why we have things on our agenda. So whenever we have
- something, now anything submitted by commission members, you are considered as part of the city.
- Say we have, for example, the representative from DNR that we had 15 months ago.
- Um, that gave their, who's your Overwatch presentation. We can accept that and we would put that link
- on here with the tag that's third party content. So, um, that's how we start to navigate that. However,
- you guys would all have to comply with city accessibility. Okay. So generally speaking, this won't probably
- have a large impact on commissioners unless say.
- outreach is trying to determine what they want on like website changes or anything like that. Yes, like
- they could flyers and writing letters for council or those many things. It's all going to have to be
- accessible. Some of that stuff, like we'll have a template, we can give people a letter like that. That
- would be good. But putting a flyer together is a bigger lift probably, you know, unless you can find
- a template. So yeah, it's all brand new to us as well. We've literally known about it for a while. Not long.
- You know, Rachel's done a great job of kind of starting you guys out. There's only one other, the VCA,
- which is being right now. So they have their packet, mostly accessible, but none of our other students
- do yet. Um, so you guys are a little bit ahead of the pack, but yeah, we just wanted to make, make you
- aware that that is going to start changing after this one. Yes. Or next month. So, um, kind of moving
- on to some of the other points I had, which I think will cause other discussions. Um, so.
- Part of what this means is that anything that is on the website currently that does not meet
- these accessibility guidelines, it's either removed or it goes into an archive. So I've removed some
- of the more outdated items. Like for example, we had a report I think from 2001 on our ECU website.
- So things like that have been removed. I still have copies of them, but there's not available on our
- website. I am remediating some documents such as the bylaws, Wilmington Habitat Connectivity Plan,
- met the most recent air quality report. And I think there's another document I'm working on remediating.
- I don't know about have them all remediated by April 24th. So that means it might, there might be a
- gap. I'm working on remediating them for now. But things like the brochure, one of those things were
- updated. That's a heavier lift to update a brochure. So those have been removed for now. Like I said,
- there's still copies of them internally. Is there, right. So would there then, are we likely headed
- towards a place where we'd have
- say an archive of brochures or is that something you would prefer leaving down? I think I don't have
- an answer to that right now. We could have maybe have an archive of brochures. I have to talk with ITS
- and we know about that. However, since I know some of what we're trying to remediate to is physical
- accessibility too. Yes, Taylor. Can I ask for verification on when you can buy archive brochures?
- Well, I guess when Rachel mentioned they neither have to be archived or brought down. I guess I don't
- exactly know for sure. We pulled off a website. We were told to clean our website. We just send ITS
- brand and show us all our BS that don't match. So then we were told if they're outdated or not helpful,
- then take them off. And then we could either update them so that they're accessible and then they'll
- be left on or
- on the weekend of birthday, they will pull all of the ones that do not meet accessibility guidelines
- and they will go in something called the archive. And there's a webpage where we will be able to direct
- people. So like, if you're like, oh, I used to get this on the website, but it was something that didn't
- update because it was a 10-year-old plant, they can go to the archive and still read it. And the archive
- is clear that like, this stuff is not accessible. Is that accurate? Yes. Okay.
- So if I wanted to make sure I had this right, the RFI is kind of like the, we may make the rule, every
- municipality in the world when I have to make all of my jobs even successful, and I've existed since,
- you know, like some of the ones in Boston, which are like, hey, back to 1776 in old England, you'd want
- me to make those accessible, right? So they said, okay, you can put them all into a database essentially,
- the RFI, so you don't have to do that. Now, I mean, oh, sorry,
- No, you're good. I was just going to say, so the archive exists, but it's not something that would be
- linked to on the page. So what we can do is like come up with like a template, you know, like for instance,
- legalized, maybe working on templates for clients for the city. So it's like, we gave you like an accessible,
- real sure template, right? That you can then, you know, move it, you know, plug in whatever you need
- and that kind of thing. But the archive will be on the city website sometimes. Yes. Yes. I mean, through
- the archive. It'll become clear to people.
- Really website that is. Yes, and hopefully. So while we're remediating some of the older documents,
- some have been removed. Some are going to be remediated. New documents will have to be received by the
- department. So the documents I've already mentioned, we're kind of tag teaming. Yeah.
- And like you guys said, there are, if you want to update research from NAICS, like you all can do that
- and we will put that on if they're accessible. We just have to kind of make a decision based on what
- prioritized signs there are some types of update and the things that will go in our archives or in your
- log. Yeah. I personally very much appreciate the remediation efforts on the more recent ones. I'm sure
- that my report did not remotely meet accessibility standards.
- But yeah, especially the things we've had in the last decade seem important to be up there. And if they
- obviously, if they need to be pulled before the 24th to not break federal law, that makes perfect sense.
- But then hopefully they are returned once they're completed. So thank you, Rachel, for your efforts.
- Yeah. Any other questions about that? I have one more question. And you probably already, but I'm still,
- if we create an argument, how do we know if it's accessible?
- Uh, good question for binders. I've asked about this. Um, I've asked that, uh, They, if there are any
- guidance documents being created specifically for boards of commissions, the answer right now is no,
- that we're really relying on the training to do this. Uh, the training should roll out sometime in the
- next couple of months. From my understanding, other department has made a document, uh, for their collaborators.
- And aligning what we're looking for. So we'll get a document. Yeah. So that I'll send out to you all.
- Okay. And you submit ratio will be able to run it. Yes. And there's something wrong. She can tell you.
- Is there is there software that we can run just to check about us. It's called grapple.
- Okay. It's like citywide. I have no idea if that's, if it will be for city. Yeah. There are websites
- that do that, but I cannot attest to how reliable they are. Okay. Um, I think those were the main items.
- I wanted to cover about accessibility. Jackie, do you have anything else to cover about accessibility?
- No, that's all I have. Okay. Anyone else have any final questions or comments on the accessibility
- discussion? Seeing none, I suppose we'll move on to new business. Business item C, question and response,
- the Civil Meets and Legal Department. Okay, so we have
- attorney Taylor around with us. He joined us last time. So because the discussion was really interrupted
- by the weather emergency last month, we wanted to continue. And I think there were some outstanding
- questions for legal. So Taylor, I'm just going to let them open the floor unless you have anything you want to.
- ODL pulled up, I've got the BioLos pulled up, I've got Blooms and Toad pulled up, Rapid Fire, once again.
- Okay. I have several lines of questioning, but I'd like to open the floor to other members of the commission
- before I get gone. But are you screaming for the data so you're not like talking at them and I'm looming
- behind you? No, I mean, it doesn't really bother me, but you're more than welcome.
- The only thing it's here for is the camera. I'm just going to wonder why I'm always looking different
- ways instead of at it. Well, you know, some people get itchy when it's like looming behind, you know
- what I mean? But OK. Commissioners, any questions for legal? I know one of the places we left off was
- trying to figure out how to make ECPC memos work, given that it's time sensitive often to get it before
- BZA or plane commissioner, whoever it is, given very short amount of time between Gondati's meeting
- and the others. Yes. So one of the things we've started talking about last time, but you won't have
- more time to look at it, which is completely understandable, is look at a framework. Since in the handbook,
- we have to approve anything done by a working group. If there was a way we could vote in the meeting
- before to approve of
- a memo that the ECPC is about to write. You seemed to indicate that there were possibilities. Yes. I
- guess that's my first question is, do you have any update on that process? Yes, I haven't found so.
- I was a two-year-old that asked why 10,000 plans and I never grew out of it. I try to give a little
- bit of why whenever I give context for these kinds of things, especially if this legal stuff is just so like,
- I could not find anything that says otherwise, which means yes. But when trying to prove a negative,
- when I don't have an immediate answer, it means one or two things either doesn't exist and you're good
- to go, or it means something is hidden somewhere and that makes me nervous. So it was me verifying that.
- I went and looked in all the nooks and crannies that I could think of. There was nothing there.
- So you should be good to give kind of like a, you know, we give this commission, you write that up,
- the subcommittee, is that right? Yep. Write that up, we vote and, you know, yes, you know what you're
- doing, go for it, and we'll get you going. Very much appreciated. Yeah, it's one of those things that
- was so tight on time that it's like, it's already not all that many days for the subcommittee to write
- the memo. So then after call a special meeting just to vote for it and then send everyone home feels,
- feels like a little much, so I am very grateful that it seems like we have a method here. Yeah.
- Before I ask. Thank you for your patience. And I made sure, you know. I know you like to cover your
- bases. Yeah. I can't help what I am. You chose this life. I chose this life. Sure. Before I continue,
- I again want to check in with other commissioners and make sure I'm not hogging the floor.
- One of the questions I previously sent in, let me find it in my notes. Well, say we had nine people
- on the commission and three of them were interested in researching and discussing light pollution. Working
- groups didn't exist. Could those three members email each other about light pollution? In this situation,
- it would not
- be a quorum of the commission falling well short of the majority of members. And according to the definition
- of a meeting in open door laws, it's a gathering of the majority of the governing body. So
- it's my understanding that emails would not constitute a meeting in this scenario. Does this sound right?
- And the response that I got back was that it sounds right. So I guess I just wanted to confirm that
- the main reason we're
- So handcuffed and be able to communicate with one another is our working groups or subcommittees as
- they be legally known. Um, I just wanted to air that publicly because previously I didn't even know
- that's understood. So let me give you a little bit of a why there, right? And why maybe asking different
- attorneys will maybe give you slightly different theory responses. The whole purpose of what we're trying
- to do is avoid what's called a serial meeting.
- Right. Which is essentially for those who aren't as familiar with Google, by the way, I don't know who
- wrote the bios, but I looked and saw like the leader. One of it was, it was like verbatim, the OVL.
- And so I was like, whoever it was, did such a good job, whoever did it. But a serial meeting for terms
- of open global assets is essentially an attempt by commissions because somebody did something
- to try to avoid a public meeting. So for instance, if I went around to each and every one of you and
- asked you the same question, hey, would you be good with this? Yes. Would you be good with this? Yes.
- And then I go to each and every one of you. And then we kind of all know that that's already happening.
- That would technically be a decision that is being made between parties of the commission while not
- being voted on. That's still a, like, information being kind of, it has the,
- color of, is what they use it. It's, it's, it's icky, right? It hides, you're hiding the ball essentially
- of how you're coming to decisions, which is why the ODM exists, right? So in your specific example about
- like three of the nine for light pollution, if those three, you know, oh, we're going to get it for
- light pollution, but we're also here, right? We are also subcommittee members of this thing and
- While we're here, by the way, did you get my email right now? Now we're in trouble. And so that's why
- we have this like, some attorneys are like, nobody talked to anybody else until we show up.
- Some are like, yeah, you're fine. Just don't talk about anything substantive, right? It all depends
- on the attorney. It all depends on whether or not
- There have been issues in the past with some commissions about trying to get things done outside of
- an open reading, which then leads to liability for the city. So hopefully I give a little bit of context
- and I think you should be fine if you wanted to talk about that. And there's no, you know, no corn is
- being met with those three, if that makes sense. No, I appreciate the clarification. That was pretty
- much what I've gathered from when I tried to research it myself. It's been good again to have that out
- in the open here.
- A question I didn't prepare to just hit me is, once upon a time, many, many years ago, certain commissioners
- that they found a really interesting environmental article would just forward it to the whole group.
- Is that a thing that isn't allowed because it's considered commission business or it's really more just
- they're sharing something from somewhere that they found about
- how highways contribute to air pollution or whatever it would be. So now here's where it gets into that
- legal independence area, right? What's the content of the article? Why are you sharing it, right? Is
- it to discuss in a meeting or is it just because, hey, this was a nifty thing that I think is cool?
- And other people that are in the committee, the commission with me also think these things are cool,
- right? Thinking things are cool, awesome. Senator, right? No problems there.
- If it ends up being something you want to discuss at a commissioning like, Hey, can we do something
- like implement something like that here? That's where I, my flag will go off. And I'd say, let's send
- that to the staff liaison and say, let's put these in the material. So that way we can discuss it.
- That was, that was going to be my follow-up hypothetical. If someone did say, Oh man, this is actually
- really cool. They could then get it to Rachel to get in the, in the packet, essentially. Precisely.
- So that way it's more, so that way it's exciting, you know, because again, in taking information, right?
- So the public will know.
- Here's where we got the idea from. It's that kind of transparency that is, uh, what we're hunting after.
- Got it. Yeah. I just, I know that in open door laws, an email can constitute a meeting and that it was
- definitely a form of the body, but as long as it wasn't commissioned business. And as you indicated,
- it wouldn't have been yet. Right. Commissioned business. Yeah. Seems. And again, I had, so I, so maybe
- let's follow that example that if you down the article, just a smidge, right? So.
- Say you send something out, I think this is cool. Another commissioner goes, oh, I'd love to talk about
- this. Don't reply to the email and say, let's talk about that, because that would constitute a quorum,
- which then constitutes business, which then, you know, right, all of them are down this fall. So that
- commissioner who says, oh, this is really cool. I think you should talk about this. That commissioner
- sends it to the staff and staff and liaison and says, let's talk about this at the commission meeting.
- Can I get, just as a point of clarification on that, obviously they shouldn't reply all and say we should
- talk about this, but if they reply to that one individual to say- That is fine. They just accept it,
- right? Yes. That would be- That would be- Especially if it's- Either of them can send it to the liaison.
- Precisely. Yes. Absolutely. Got it. Sometimes when you know the why behind some of this stuff, it becomes
- a little bit more or less like, oh my gosh, I can't send an email. I'm more like, oh, okay, it's just
- because I can't.
- Accidentally critical right so just making sure we don't have you aren't mixing the wrong ingredients
- and ending up with something we don't That Really was the bulk of what I wanted to know so I'm gonna
- again Call out to other commissioners if they have any questions for they know if we're not gonna have
- legal every day So I have a question. It's a very basic question. I'm gonna finish you need all this
- open door stuff is new to me and
- But for an advisory board like the Environmental Commission, what would be the liability to the city
- if you were to violate that law? I'm just kind of curious to see what the, how heavy the ramifications
- are, so to speak. So that question makes me very, okay. What do you want to do? No, it's more of like a,
- By liability to the city. I mean, like, we just, we just finished a federal lawsuit based on business
- that may or may not have been conducted at a Board of Federal Works meeting from 2022. Three years.
- Outside council deposition witnesses went all the way to trial at a bench trial and federal court. Right. So
- liability could be huge. I don't know what the business is getting conducted, right? If, you know, come
- up with an example, you know, there could be huge, I mean, like attorney's fees alone, right? If something
- comes back, like you go through all that time and all that energy, and then they come back and win,
- the attorney's fee is associated with the imposing part, right? So then all of a sudden, they're sitting
- on the hook for all of the attorney's fees of the opposing side.
- That's just one of the consequences of potentially doing something. Do I think it's going to be that
- bad all the time? That's kind of what we're all a little bit, all the lawyers are a little bit doomsday-ish
- and emergency management-ish, right? Very risk averse. And so we don't want to have an opening where
- something could sneak in and drive through, right? Which is why like the accessibility staff, we want
- to make sure that everything is accessible and comply with federal rules, right?
- A, because we're good people, right? We want to make sure everybody can see stuff. And two, it's a federal
- rule. But three, there are penalties associated with not having proper documents. And then some people
- would not hesitate to file actions based on a perceived slight indignity.
- saying the city is discriminating because this particular action item wasn't accessible, I couldn't
- read it on a screen reader, and now all of a sudden I couldn't say my piece in public, right? Which
- then would set back a whole thing. I could, I mean, I'm sorry, I dig into a little bit of professor
- mode, because I have my Tweed jacket, there's not a whole lot of patches, right? But there's whole,
- I mean, the web of multiverse realities that we could go down is endless. Very long story long.
- It could be anything. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Sorry for the profession. No, yeah, I think we know
- that, you know, Carl wasn't up to anything with that question. I just probably wanted to know what it
- is. Is it funny? Is it a fine answer?
- Why are you taking this opportunity to learn from our expert in the room? Any other commissioners with
- questions for Taylor? So going back to some of Matt's questions, the gist I got from what you said was
- basically if we're not meeting quorum, a lot more is permissible. Well, I mean, obviously, I guess if
- we're not meeting quorum, what exactly can we talk about?
- things related to the environmental commission? Like if I run into Matt on the street, can we say something
- about? See, that was like, pants encounters are always okay. But if, yeah, if we planned to have lunch,
- would we be allowed to talk about anything? So, okay. I'm going to say that and give us the two stages.
- Technically, no. Technically, no, you're not violating. Technically, no, you're totally fine.
- If you had say three people that you happened to meet and you were like, okay, let's chat. Right. And
- then all of a sudden you were like, Hey, this was cool. Let's do this again sometime. Right. Or like,
- Hey, we're meeting with the same, the same three people are meeting consistently at this place.
- At this time, you have not created a customer breakfast. Right. Which then indicates there might be
- some sort of information or some sort of deliberation happening there.
- Would that constitute a subcommittee from the purposes of the commission, right? Is it just an unauthorized
- subcommittee, right? Or something like that. That's where I start getting purpose. Does that make sense?
- So three, you know, three people really interested in this topic. I totally get, and let me share some
- articles if you want to get it together every now and again to talk about something that's important.
- Absolutely. When you're like, Hey, let's meet every week.
- Let's talk about this stuff. And then you'd be consistently bringing that to the commission. Right.
- It's again, it's creating the intake of information is kind of the overarching thing. Yeah. I mean,
- three people that's assuming you're not meeting the quorum for a subcommittee. Does that make sense?
- You think so? I don't know what follow up question I would ask.
- Yes. Because I can try to explain it in another way. No, I think I'm following. I'm talking
- larger subcommittees. Well, you see they just can't get so large that they would meet quorum of the
- body. Yeah. Got you. That's the idea of the thread. Also say working groups and subcommittees are going
- to be going away next year. Subject to mayoral and council approval. That's another solution.
- Well, then that goes along with something that I was eventually going to bring up later on this agenda.
- But that's an interesting glimpse by the curtain of the future of boards and commissions. So any subcommittee
- at that point would need to be approved by which body or bodies? Mayor's office and council.
- So there's going to be like, of course, like standing committees, blanket or full, yes, of course, we
- have rules, right? Staffs for committees, that kind of thing. But then otherwise, it's going to be like
- a, hey, so you move this up committee, I want to make sure that we're not just creating three serial
- leadings. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, take them in front of you. What we're protecting ourselves
- from, yes. I'm sorry, legal, I beated that at work. So that's kind of my job is kind of, shh.
- You're forgiven. Thank you. Appreciate that.
- Rachel, did you happen to know? I don't think our working groups or subcommittees are actually listed
- in the handbook or bylaws or anything. Are they? They were removed because I made that subsequent document,
- which is not accessible. That's fine. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something in there that
- says, we have a water working group. We have an eco heroes working group. Thank you.
- I will say Taylor is not staying for this handbook discussion. So if there's any pressing questions
- about the handbook, this would also be the time to ask Taylor. I assumed you weren't staying for that
- discussion. I mean, depending how long it is, if you need me to stick around for the handbook discussion.
- We could always reorganize the agenda. That would be up to the commission. Would you be able just to
- pull up the proposed amendments and have
- Taylor say whether he believes those are problematic. Is it the one with the Anna Holmes's edits? Yeah,
- there's some edits for Matt. Oh, from Matt as well. Yeah, a specific proposal. I didn't post that because
- they were official. Yeah, I think if you're willing to just take a look at those for us, that would
- be the best way for us to not abuse your time and to not
- Maneuver the agenda into an order that doesn't make sense. And if it would be easier for the Commission
- on how could you just wait until that comes up on the agenda. I had until eight on my calendar anyway.
- So. Well, I will leave that completely up to you, because if you. I would of course like to go. That's
- why I wanted to.
- Right, because coming up soon, we have a presentation from Adam that I'm sure you'd enjoy. But again,
- we don't need to hold to your honor to be here. I wonder if the handbook discussion makes the most sense
- here in our agenda. I guess we could still move to modify the agenda if we felt like it. But yeah, if
- you're just willing to glance at those and see if there's anything that we should not be able to propose
- that is proposed,
- Uh, that that's pretty much easy to answer that for me. So I put, um, what type of edits they were.
- So, um, some of these legal edits, um, council moves some stuff in the morning from the municipal code
- of how, or where they talk about work missions. So simply 2026-04 is the ordinance. They haven't updated
- the code yet, but these are basically just a consolidation. Yes. So that's what some of these numbers are. Um,
- Let's see. Just making the sea on city lowercase. Yeah. It wasn't throughout the document. Okay. I want
- to try to get to the meat of some of these. So here are a couple of the legal edits. Oh, this is the
- code of conduct. I haven't shared all our commission members yet. Okay. I can't remember Jennifer Crossley
- mentioned this last month.
- They are going to start rolling out some sort of form for you all to sign, saying there's like, you
- will comply with the rules that we propose, acceptability requirements. I don't know if you had to sign
- something as main members. Okay. So I haven't rolled that out yet, apparently. That's what we'll be
- rolling out. In the works. Yes.
- I'm assuming legal is gonna be okay with legal edits, right? I'm more worried about mine. Oh, your edits?
- Okay. Yeah. Yeah, legal edits. Okay, I will go to Matt. Sorry, I don't need to push you to skip anything.
- No. So, Matt, you offer, or you suggested removing some of the language about the nominating committee
- and how we do elections. So, did you wanna explain anything on that? Sure.
- Is that where my first one starts? I believe so. Yeah. OK. Basically, very simple, we moved the time
- of year. I don't want to make that consistent, but there were a couple other things where we'd have
- a nominating committee that didn't feel necessary at all. I didn't really see as a thing that was happening
- in other boards or commissions. So I just struck it all together. There was an item there in three.
- that talked about what happens in a hybrid meeting versus what happens in an all-in-person meeting,
- and it included secret ballot, which we've never done, but I know is opposed by every level of open-door
- laws. So I thought I'd better, to be honest, I was surprised that that wasn't struck before me looking
- at it. I would have thought that the word secret ballot would have jumped out to legal. Well, it's now,
- so thank you. Just really kind of simplified it to say that,
- I mean, I think in the years that I've been here, I don't think we've even had any position to be contested.
- So there's been no need for any form of balloting whatsoever in the last nine years. But it's making
- it very transparent and open, regardless of whether it's a hybrid or not. Well, yeah, I was there for
- two minutes and already it was a fight over the secretary. It's going to be contentious in June,
- just wait. No kidding. I think those were the only two simple ones in that part. And then I had some
- in Quorum just a little farther down.
- What was this? Or was it rather Buffett? I can't remember. So it was 5F. 5F. I know Legal had contradictory
- language to you. Oh, there we go. I see. So Anna Holmes, one of our attorneys, she wanted
- She suggested have replacing it with a majority of the numbers serving on the commission are in removing
- the 50% removing the de minimis. And I think you added proposal was to remove the de minimis and if
- she wants to change the language on the 50% plus one, that's fine. I'd only rolled with that language
- because it was the existing language. Majority sounds absolutely fine to me.
- And the majority of the total numbers would be a majority of the 12. And whenever we spoke with her
- this morning, she was pretty firm on the anonymous, like really shouldn't have, we shouldn't be doing
- that. This is the language we should be doing is the majority of the totals. I can get a little bit
- of why, because if there are nine members and there's an anonymous of five, all of a sudden you are
- now dealing with a, you have to meet, we had this issue with
- one of our wards where they set a minimum of four people to conduct business and it's a six person form.
- And so we only had three members of the commission, so we couldn't do anything and everything sat there
- for a few months. So what we were trying to do is make sure that we were learning our lesson and eliminating
- the requirements for a minimum number and just using the word majority in the event a few years down
- the road and membership changes because she's getting bigger or smaller or whatever it is.
- My contention then with legal change is we still, if at all possible, would very much prefer a majority
- of the appointed members rather than of the possible 12 members. There are times we've gone years without
- a seat being filled and there was a time we dipped as low as six members, I think. And if then Cora
- met 100% attendance, it felt that's not just a majority of members, that's all the members required
- to even talk.
- Um, so I, I noticed from, is this happening across all the boards and commissions? Because I, I believe
- some had it as a majority of the possible seats and some had it as a majority of the appointed seats.
- And when I learned that the first thing I said to Rachel is we want to clarify that it's appointed.
- We, we have- This is something we are trying to standardize. Okay. Unfortunately, it's, it's a,
- Because so, for instance, if every seat is vacant, except for one, then that person becomes the call,
- right? And if that person is doing everything that, I don't know, say it's a mayoral appointee, you
- have some mayoral appointees, you have some council appointees, if it's a mayoral appointee, or if it's
- a council appointee, then they can just kind of, like, for instance, if it's a council appointee, they
- can just start doing things on behalf of the environmental commission. The mayor can't remove them because
- it's a council appointee.
- You see what I'm saying? And so there are ways to game the system if that were the lead. All the other
- body would have to do is appoint a member. So there are always readily available volunteers,
- I would say. Understood. So the legal rationale to make it
- a majority of the possible seats rather than a majority of the appointed seats is essentially to keep
- a de minimis type situation from happening anyway. I mean, because in that a majority would be one example.
- Because I was already proposing we remove any de minimis thing. Yes. Okay. I guess I'm not a lawyer.
- It just feels harsh to say that a majority of the appointed seats need
- are not appointed as the possible seats need to be present when we have no control over the flow of
- seats being appointed. I agree. And even if we know that there are applications in front of both bodies,
- we can just be held hostage by either or both groups then if just, you know, to take a total hypothetical
- one, the mayor or the council decides we're not gonna seat anybody. Now it's six and we'd have to all,
- no one's allowed to
- It'll work with something. I'm realizing as I speak that if the city decides this is the way it has
- to be, that's the way it's going to be at some point. My proposal was for majority of appointed seats
- to preserve as long as we're allowed to an ability to function.
- I guess then now we are accidentally on this item. But regarding forum determination, what of mine or
- legal suggestions do you think could stick? So I would go with some legal edits, basically, because
- those are the ones that I was looking at. These were fine to me.
- It's actually their wording. The majority of the members serving on the council are in. Serving on the
- council to me wouldn't suggest that they're filled seats, that it wouldn't be the empty seats. So I
- think the language change that legal put forward is totally okay with me because it preserves my intention.
- It just uses better language. His vacant seats can't be members serving on the commission.
- I actually feel fine with it at this time, and I'm just nervous about that train coming down the tracks.
- Just to use an example, if these two had not gotten appointed, when they did, we would not have been
- able to have four of today's, I guess, because we would only have five people today because two of you
- are professionally out with them elsewhere.
- We've talked about this a lot. Let me just make sure that I'm not leading you astray. Are there any,
- is there anything else? Are there any other amendments that we're looking at? Those were mine regarding
- elections and quorum. I mean, is there one in working groups? There was, but the kind of subcommittee
- kind of is a quorum discussion. Oh yeah, so it was also quorum. It was just within working groups, right? Yes.
- Yeah, I was getting rid of the deletion list of two. Right, which sounds like that's what legal wants
- anyway, so I was... Do you have it, Matthew, or anybody, because do you have any questions about the
- legal edit regarding some of these, this content here? Sorry, I know this is a lot for a new member
- to take in right away. It's written into the legalese of the handbook.
- So it's something different. So the subcommittee has to be defined, and we have to find the subcommittees,
- right? This is going away, right? Eventually. We'll still have them. Yeah, we'll still have them for
- the rest of the year, and then they could be approved by the mayor's office and by council next year.
- They want to approve. So legal, let's say, out of the set subcommittees, Peyton, Taylor, Frederick,
- other sets of committees, a quorum of a majority of its members. So, it has to be present at the minimum
- of two. Yes, or that was there previously to an end.
- Yeah, because I was actually looking to get rid of the de minimis again, and to treat working groups
- exactly the same as the commission. So instead of a majority of the appointed members of the commission,
- it's the majority of the members of the subcommittee. I would say that or for two minimum members is
- due to the electronic reading rules. Okay. So if it's, for instance, like a board of directors,
- three people, you can form two.
- They can't just have one online and get in person. They both have to be in person. Does that make sense?
- Yes. So minimum of two of its members. But if that's, you know, statutorily a three-person body, that
- makes more sense than it would make for us in this instance. So, well, for subcommittees, right? If
- you have a subcommittee of three. So if you're having a committee of two, that's us.
- Basically what the large quality work is down to the majority would be perfect attendance, but that's
- reasonable. Yeah. One person can meet on their own. Yeah. Making sure that one person subcommittees
- can't exist. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it taking information in your brain? Still have to be approved.
- I mean, no commission. If the ODL could include a mysterious wasp that goes into your brain, I'm sure
- they would, but I mean, unfortunately we're limited by the technology of our time. Okay, yeah, I have
- struck the minimus there because I thought it was restrictive, but it sounds like the goal. I will say
- that present is the key word there, I think.
- So this just has to do with like electronic readings, if you have the in-person requirements. It's just
- everywhere that's kind of. Okay. I also did check quorum. It is based on the full number of seats, not
- just the abundance. So if you want to go back, if you would mind. I'm so sorry. Oh, that was our commission
- size determined stash for it.
- So the council sets the number of seats by legislation. So if you wanted to, if the EC wanted to like
- lower or raise their total seats appointment, you could contact council member and see if they believe
- about it. Is that kind of the right method to go about it? That's a survey on the commission is what
- she was trying. So number of members able to
- The importance of serving on the commission. So there are 12 members serving on the commission. Okay.
- They can see it's countless members. Yes. There's something today. Okay. That would be online. Okay.
- Um, I wanted to make sure there was one thing that I thought there might be a session on later. And so
- I'm going to put you on the spot for this one. Okay, it was something about if the working group wanted
- to make a yes, commission positions may be recommended. Any position from the commission as a whole,
- regardless of the audience must be voted on and approved by majority commission and opposite the mayor.
- Am I reading that if they wanted to make a
- letter to write to BZA or Planning Commission about development and make a statement about that. A position
- as in a policy position, not actual position? Yes, a policy position. Okay. Would they need to receive
- approval from office of the mayor to submit that letter? Yes. Okay. Questions on that? I felt like that
- one might get reactions. I wanted to bring it up now. Is that a number? Have you done that in the past?
- Nope, that's new. Would you mind scrolling up just one, but I just want to see the context so that one
- I can't remember what it falls under. Okay.
- So that we help, we'll find data like 75% so you can see it all. So when that, this is new, this is
- a new thing from the city? Just the green, yeah. So where did that come from? The office of the mayor.
- So this just became the thing, that now the office of the mayor has to approve our positions? Correct.
- And where did that come from? From the mayor? That came from, technically the commissions are,
- under the executive branch. And we want to make sure that there's harmony within the executive branch,
- recommending policies, procedures, that sort of thing, speaking with one voice. So before a commission,
- a position can be recommended, it has to be approved through manpower. Gotcha. So we're restricted by
- the mayor? Essentially. I will say, unless other,
- I'm going to hold my tongue here. Because I know this commission creates reports at council direction.
- Sometimes, in the past, not nearly report, but you have made the air quality report, which I think has
- been sent to council. What was that process? I presented it to council. There was no ask. It was just
- a report. I think that's what you're getting at.
- I feel like for instance, if council gives a resolution that says, hey, environmental commission, I
- want you to tell me these three things, tell them the three things. It sounds like they don't really
- want the environmental commission's opinions anymore, and I too. My impression is this is something
- we don't necessarily have a say on, and my biggest immediate concern though goes back to the time sensitive
- nature of say ECPC members to planning or
- BCA or whoever. I mean, it's already hard to meet and write a memo, even though now we do know and very
- grateful for our ability to kind of preemptively approve it and to trust our working group there. But
- if we then theoretically, if the office of the mayor was not expedient in their reply, we could be weighted out of
- presenting a memo to someone at the time that we have been told that it would be ideal to present the
- memo. It's best to not wait until it's before council. It's best to get it in this setting. So my biggest
- concern right off the bat is that the thing we do outside of outreach that has the most potential impact
- could just be outright thwarted with those few words.
- smell a potential conflict of like we are recommending things to a different executive branch with the
- planning department through the ECPC especially. I'm sorry, different executive branch? Not different
- executive, like the planning department basically, because that's still under these. Which I will say
- that yes, the planning department reports to the mayor. Yes. We are making recommendations to the planning
- department, but then that has to get approved through the mayor to then become a recommendation to the
- planning department.
- Yeah, that's, that's essentially part of my concern. Well, cause again, they can, they can take it into
- consideration or not. I just want to make sure there are memos get into the packet. Yes. So it's like,
- again, they don't have to listen to a word that we say, but my, my fear is that this will hold up.
- So if, if we go here, the commission may also be recommended to other legislative bodies or organizations
- of interest, such as the legislature.
- Must be voted on and approved by the majority of the profession and the office of the mayor. So this
- is basically if the Christian wants to write a letter to the legislature. If there's something that
- I would say external to the city. Okay, it's gotta get So if we had a position related to a council
- by the city council. Yeah, that's my follow up. Yes.
- Apply to that. Yeah, because actually, in the context of recommending it to planning, it's fine. Technically,
- the city council, that's what I just said, it's so like, so it's not fair. There's legislation, just
- commission, but in the first place, the opinion that's listed for
- the personal position of the period. That's what he says. So long as it's internal, the approval process
- will be nice to you. Well done. It's good promise rules. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- My little minor part was happy. I didn't even get scared. So I was like, hey, nice. But yeah, if it's
- internal, we don't need approval. But if it's external, so I will confirm this. So it'll be good. However,
- I believe this, because I know where this came from, because that was part of those discussions. This
- is basically making sure that we're not surprised by something. And it's like, hey, there's this thing
- going down the pipeline. All of a sudden letters are going to the governor's office. We're negotiating
- with other things.
- And so they're like, Hey, what the hell is your commission doing? And they go, what are you talking
- about? Right. That's basically all that they just want to avoid surprises here. Um, so they know kind
- of what the temperature is. I don't think it's a matter of preventing things. I think it's just making
- sure that they know what's going on in the city. I think this just for external. I, again, if.
- I think it's just, again, I think it would just be a matter of, I don't see him. But the first one is
- to say that the mayor doesn't say provide it to the mayor's office.
- Right. Right. Cool. So I'm making sure that that, as written? Yes. I want to make sure that that wasn't
- a typo or oversight. Because also down here it says, any position on the equation as a whole, regardless
- of the audience, must be voted on. Right. And they're separate sentences. They're separate sentences.
- However, it says any position, regardless of the point. So I want to make sure that I'm reading this
- correctly. I appreciate you looking into it. I mean, we look forward to it. I'm sorry I didn't have
- that immediate answer for you.
- But let me confirm. As written, it could be interpreted either way, you know, and I can nerd out on
- it. As you explained it, I'm much more comfortable with it than I was before. Yes. We had other boards
- of commission tonight. Again, there are other boards of commission of the city that are very much at the base.
- And are very aware of what the current state of legislation is going on or being impacted. They wanted
- to write letters and started just sending them because they're like, which Senator do I get this to,
- and we have lobbyists and things and they were like, Hey, your commissions are I'm screwing with me
- and my efforts to go talk to people. Right. And so we want to make sure that we're all just seeing from
- the same end.
- I also want to say thank you, Rachel, for pointing that one out while we still had legal in the room.
- Are there any others that you? Not off the top of my head. That was really the one I thought the EC
- might want to have a legal bottom of this. With that being the last one, that was real exciting, unless
- opposed by
- commissioners here, I think we should let Taylor off the hook and move into our next order of new business,
- Adam's presentation. I have one more quick question. Go ahead. We were discussing in the life pollution
- meeting earlier, if the subcommittee or working group, whatever the term is, if we wanted to talk with
- someone in the city, the member city staff, could more than one of us talk with someone from planning,
- say, about, I guess,
- what we're doing in the working group. So outside of public meeting, or would that have to be like a
- public meeting or eight hours notice and everything? Technically, no, it would not have to be a meeting.
- If no, the form requirements are being met. I start getting nervous though, because if you're meeting
- with them, it's because you're trying to seek information about something.
- Right. One person, no problem. You're getting your questions answered. Two people, sure. You have the
- same questions. Three, I start getting worried. Right. It's kind of like how this looks, if that makes
- sense. If three of you want to go meet and talk to somebody about something, I would recommend ask that
- person to come to the next commission meeting. Or ask the commission, Hey, I would like to ask this
- person these questions. Could I, could this commission ask for a report on something? Does that.
- It makes sense. You know, these commission meetings, like if you're having a meeting with a city staff
- member, say it's two o'clock in the afternoon, we can set up a room and, you know, publicly notice it.
- And it's, you know, technically a publicly noticed meeting. It's meeting those requirements that would
- be the same difference as if you set up a meeting otherwise. Is that fair? I just know that, you know,
- jobs and things, it's, you're like, oh yeah, let me just take off at two in the afternoon. I'm here,
- it's great.
- Yeah, okay. And if there are any other questions, please feel free to send them to Rachel and then I
- will, I was slow this last time, but I won't be anymore. I was out of, I was out of, yeah, I'm sorry.
- Um, but I will readily answer them as we go. So feel free to just keep questions. And I was being flippant
- earlier, but I will come back as often as you need. I feel totally satisfied pending.
- clarification on the- I've already added it to my to-do list on the top. Thank you, sir. Awesome.
- Thanks guys. Thank you for joining us and we will move on to our invasive animals implications
- for biodiversity presentation. Last fall, Kerry asked her people to present
- short presentations that might be of interest to the meeting or to the group. So I'm going to make this
- really, I won't be long here because we don't have a long time. So this is going to be over here. Yeah.
- About me, so I'm going to talk about
- biology, so I'll pitch about my background, my research background is really in what eco-physiology,
- understanding how organisms, how their bodies respond to their environment and like flexibility and
- how we can respond to changes in the environment. I've been at IU since 2013 and currently I teach
- I teach conservation, animal conservation and animal physiology. So those are my credentials to talk
- about what I'm going to talk about. Again, my background is mainly in understanding how organisms respond
- to changes in their environment physiology. So we can apply that to climate change and a lot of different
- things. But I'm talking about invasive animals. That's because
- I thought it would be a good topic to bring up to this group because we think a lot about invasive plants.
- We don't think a lot about invasive animals. In fact, so I'm on the Parks Council, Environmental Resources
- Advisory Council, and my first meeting, there was a member of the DNR at our meeting proposing to stock
- Griffey Lake with an invasive fish.
- for fishing. So that was my introduction to brown trout. They're native to Europe, Asia, and Africa.
- They're not native to North America. And an argument that they make is that, well, they're going to
- die in the summer. They won't survive the entire annual cycle. But is that a good thing?
- So invasive, we're going to make some, I'll have some definitions here first. So native, well know what
- a native is, is a species found in its native range that are introduced species that, like we have lots
- of introduced ornamental plants that have been moved to an area outside of their native range, but they
- have to, they're maintained by humans. They're not, they don't, they're not invasive.
- invasive organisms are introduced, but then they are a species that can establish populations and grow
- rapidly. Often when the most concerning invasive undergo explosive population growth, and they can dominate
- a community. Ultimately, that when you have an invasive organisms, they compromise the ecosystem and
- all the animals with plants and animals in it because
- Let's see. They can cause different harms. So invasive plants, the elder peat gator plants, they reduce
- plant biodiversity. That's a major concern of conservation, it's biodiversity. And they also reduce animal
- biodiversity. The primary objective of conservation is to maintain biodiversity. We try to remove invasive
- plants because often they out-compete native plants and then that reduces overall biodiversity and the
- ecosystem resiliency. Invasive animals also, they out-compete native animals, which
- results in a reduction in animal biodiversity, results in a reduction in plant biodiversity, and our
- primary objective in conservation is to maintain biodiversity. We're concerned about invasive plants
- and invasive animals, and we all know about invasive animal plants. I think we talked less about invasive
- animals, which I think is important. What are they introduced by accident?
- for controlled pests, live bait release, for game, like the DNR. We'll introduce invasive fish for aesthetic
- reasons. Many colonizers introduced non-native animals to North America because they were interested
- in seeing house sparrows in Central Park, and suddenly they're the most common bird in North America.
- So why are they a problem? Why aren't they a problem? They modify ecosystems. They out-compete native
- species for limited resources. So usually, bases are really resilient. And there's something in animals.
- Often, they're more aggressive, or they're a generalist, and they're able to make use of resources.
- The natives aren't able to, aggressive. They can be a novel predator. They can be herbivorous and wipe out.
- plant populations, and they also often introduce new pathogens and parasites. I've got two case studies.
- I'm using animals that don't occur in Indiana because we have some, there's some really good data here
- so we can understand actually what's happening. So you all have probably heard of cane toads. They were
- introduced to Australia. They're also introduced to Fiji and seven filler.
- locations where they're not native to for pest control. King toads, where they occur in Fiji, they co-occur
- with Fijian frogs, a native frog. When King toads, after King toads were established in Fiji, the Fijian
- frog populations declined very rapidly.
- So we can count animals and we can see a reduction in biodiversity. That's important, but also understanding,
- I think it's important to understand why that happens. There's a nice study, and we can think about
- native or invasive animals in this as well. They have nice data showing what happens. Basically, what
- we have here is body condition, that's like the health,
- essentially of the feeding frogs, corticosteroids, which is a stressful hormone, testosterone, which
- should increase in males during reproduction. These are males up here, these are females down here.
- The data that we're looking at on the x-axis is
- So he's had an entire annual cycle looking at these three measures of the physiological condition of
- the native animals when they're co-occurring with the invasive toad. So red, those are the experimental
- frog measures. So these are the frogs that are flirting with the toads. And body condition of, compared
- to the, what's here?
- that males, sorry, I'm trying to go too fast here. This is the body condition. So it males and females
- on this. In white, the white circles are male Fijian frogs with toes. You can see without toes, their
- body conditions higher and most of the year than the males occurring with toes, with the invasive animal.
- The same for females, which are the triangles.
- Um, the corticosterone, which is a measure of stress in animals, it does some multiple things, but it
- increases during stress. I can see that the, the frogs occurring with the invasive toads, they have
- elevated, uh, stress. And then over, this is a urinary testosterone. This is, these are just nails.
- And if this wasn't there, can we move that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can see that.
- The male frogs that are occurring with the invasives, they barely have a signal that they're really
- reproductive within the anicycle. So most of these male frogs are probably not. So these are the frogs
- controlled without toes. These are the frogs with toes. The gonads are not growing. They're not reproductive.
- We've got similar reproductive measures for females. You can see the control females, they have a clear
- reproductive cycle.
- progesterone, another signal in females, and then proportion of females laying eggs or laying clutch
- insects and see it. So we can see what's happening with this aggressive non-native animal is stressing
- the heck out of these frogs. It's native animal, which is resulting in them not being reproductive.
- The reproductive and
- stress axes, the physiological mechanisms interact, and if an animal's stressed, their whole reproductive
- system shuts down. What's happening is primarily competition for food and aggressive interactions with
- the toes. Another example, this one's pretty amazing. American beavers don't occur in South America.
- Oh, sorry, I have a quarter down here. Oh, okay.
- In 1946, though, the Argentinian government introduced 50 North American beavers to Tierra del Fuego.
- for fur trade to encourage a fur trade. So they introduced 50 American bee-whipped beavers. Now the
- estimate is the population is 100 to 200,000. And you know the disruption American beavers can, they
- fit within ecosystems here, they don't fit within ecosystems there. So they've spread into continental
- South America, there's a huge problem. And they're threatening over 16 million hectares of indigenous
- forest. So they're just destroying the,
- where they've been introduced and that the populations have exploded. So those are a few,
- I think, well-documented examples. This is a list of the DNR's website of what they recognize as an
- invasive species. There are many more invasive species in the state that they don't recognize. In fact,
- I'm a fan of the DNR, but the fact that they want to introduce non-native
- fish to our lakes is concerning to me. And they are. Cats. Cats are actually, we think of them,
- conservationologists think of them as free ranging cats, as invasive animals because they establish
- colonies. And this study came out of Nature 15 years ago, and it's been followed up on several times.
- cats are the greatest cause of mammal and bird mortality in the United States. Free-ranging cats kill
- more birds and small mammals than any other species. A non-native predator that our species have not
- evolved to respond to. Other common invasive animals in Indiana not recognized by the DNR
- European house sparrows, European starlings. I've done bird estimates across Indianapolis. So about
- four years, I had 16 sites across Indianapolis. The two most common birds in Indianapolis are starlings.
- So European starlings, European house sparrows, you see them all over the place. These are not native
- to North America. They were introduced, eight pairs of house sparrows were introduced in Brooklyn in 1851.
- and there were several small decade, several smaller duchies after that, and now they're the most common
- bird in North America. The problem is that both of these birds compete very heavily with our native
- birds, so they decrease. Can you know where our sparrows are heavy? They have low bowel accuracy. Where
- do you know? Starlings are cavity nesters, and they're very aggressive and they'll outcompete our native
- birds for cavities, a very limited resource.
- to them. That's all I have. That's my presentation on invasive species. Yes. I have one small point
- on your invasive species listed. Have rusty grayfish listed there? Yeah. I want to clarify. Yes. They
- are native to Indiana is their own. The whole, like pretty much the entire state except for the Lake
- Michigan Mason. It was on the DNR list.
- So that is a yes that's a yeah I agree that's a very strange range map some places you will see where
- they will say that they are well they're not native here. I think they're there is that maybe it's the
- Basically the whole Wabash Basin and the Lake Mary Basin in Indiana is their native range. Like most
- of Indiana and Ohio, but like the far north west, like you get into the region, if you find a rusty,
- that's invasive. And everything like further north is where they're actually kind of being invasive
- species. So like Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, that's where they are. They're pretty aggressive. And
- I think where they occur like with Clearwater crayfish, Nailed.
- hybridized with them and they'll outcompete them. They do. It makes them very annoying to identify.
- Yeah. Right. Yeah. You look for the red and the... Yeah, the red helps, but yeah, most of the time you
- have to have like very mature males to identify those. Well, if there's ranges to be taken away, is
- the cloud just going to show the ranges are expanding? Yes. Yes. And, you know, there's a question of like,
- When is an animal invasive and not? I typically think of animals that were brought to a new location.
- Most birds, their ranges are expanding north. Every year we're seeing populations occurring farther
- and farther north. I would not consider that as an invasive species. They're expanding their range because
- new habitats open that they can use.
- Okay. Thank you so much for your presentation. Well, now we've kind of got to race through an agenda
- here. I'm going to move on to new business E tree commission. I understand that our recent appointment
- must have resigned. Yes, Davis board resigns the day after he was appointed.
- Not really. We do have it in the whole office on zoom. The full I have to give you commissions. I'll
- work on that task while I talk. So I think Carl Fizer has also applied. So I don't have to explain my
- application if I can do that. Yeah, sure.
- So there was a lot of consternation and discussion and concern last month about the EC appointments,
- the tree commission, not being EC, from the EC essentially. Logistically, I was talking to Rachel,
- you know, the tree commission appointment, TE will have to still attend two meetings, much like,
- you know, EC appointments.
- In that interest, I put my name on the hat. I'm happy to go into detail about my qualifications and
- so forth. But I'm also actually curious to hear what Nicole has to say. And one thing that I, if I can
- critique the Environmental Commission boldly as a new member, I really wish that we interviewed James,
- our previous applicant. And I would like to interview Nicole on this. And I'm glad that she showed up
- today. Because reviewing her application, I see that she has
- the wealth of educational experience, forestry, horticulture, and us. And that would be somebody that
- would be, I think, very prime for that position and in her position. But I would also like to see the
- tree commission appointment come from the Environmental Commission. And seeing how we have three vacant
- slots, I would be interested to hear from Nicole if she would be interested in also serving
- on the Environmental Commission.
- Does she have the permissions to unmute at this time? I believe so, Nicole. You should be able to unmute
- and meet your co-host. There you go. We have read the information where you explained your interest
- in your qualifications, but still feel free to say a few words. Hi, I'm Nikki. So,
- When I filled out the form, I was like, oh, this is like a silly little form. I didn't realize everyone
- was going to see it. So I'm mildly embarrassed by how sparse it is. But yeah, I'm Nikki. And as you
- can see, I did do my undergrad in forestry at Texas A&M. And then I eventually got an MS in horticulture
- from UGA. Right now, I'm fairly new to Bloomington. I moved here in August of 2024.
- Currently, I am an academic advisor for the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department at the university.
- And I think I may have actually met Adam at the last college preview, and I think you gave me a cookie.
- OK, I'll see you then. I was thinking, I was like, huh. But yeah, my interest is that right now I'm
- not working in the field that my education's in for a lot of reasons. But I do love trees.
- That's what I studied. Actually, in my grad work, I studied rare and threatened trees of the southeast.
- So I spent a lot of time working with trees, oak trees, specifically. And when I'm up here, I spent
- a lot of time thinking about the quality of our street trees, especially. And like, I have a lot of
- thoughts on them. And when I saw the
- opportunity to apply the encouragement to do it. I was like, you know, this would be something lovely
- to get kind of more involved in my fields that I had my education in and, you know, contribute to my
- community. So that's kind of a lot of what I am and what I'm doing and who I am. Questions
- Thank you so much for applying and don't worry about it looking sparse on the application. It's not
- like we needed a resume and cover letter or anything like that. We appreciate your interest. I have
- a question that is basically directly inspired by some of Carl's previous words. Would you be interested
- in applying for the Environmental Commission?
- I wouldn't be opposed to it. Um, I just, I hadn't thought about it I was like trees trees are good trees
- are where I kind of fit, but also forestry, while tree. Also, the way it's taught it and it is more
- of an ecology kind of realm.
- like natural resources. Um, so I do have an interest in that and I care about those aspects of everything.
- So I wouldn't be opposed to it. I just kind of want to know a little bit more about kind of it. I haven't
- looked into it like intensely. Um, can I jump into a question? Uh, Nicole, just for like, um, clarification,
- like the tree commission is going to build this probably only on publicly owned trees for the environmental
- commission talks, or kind of focuses on the entire environment of Wilmington. So I don't know if that
- kind of helps to learn what the focuses are on each commission, but I did want to point that out. Yeah,
- trees are definitely in the umbrella of things that we talk about. We've got, you know, a habitat
- connectivity plan and interactive map basically that we're trying to promote at some point here. We've
- had an active biodiversity working group at times that
- trees and canopy would definitely be a part of that. But I do understand that it would be, at the end
- of the day, it is preferable to have someone who is on the EC be our representative on the Tree Commission,
- but it isn't required. I appreciate you stepping up to serve. Depending on how seriously Carl feels
- about also potentially filling that seat,
- I want to have strong feelings and be happy to have him. Again, inspired by his comments, if you would
- consider looking into the EC a little bit and deciding whether you'd like to apply, we have three mayoral
- vacancies. When several of us introduced ourselves, I don't know if you were listening at the time,
- Some of us have less expertise than you. It's just about caring and trying and being able to attend
- a meeting every month and chip in where you can on outreach. So I generally support your application
- here, but would also nudge you to consider the EC. Would I apply for it the same way I did for the Tree
- Commission, or would it be a difference? Yes. OK. Cool. Yeah.
- Mitchell has a question. I was going to ask, if she is R represented on a true commission, she kind
- of has to kind of argue the executive. Or at least send a report. Yeah. So you would still have to deal
- with those monthly in addition to. To clarify, that's why I think it would be a really good idea because
- she would attend this meeting, but she would also have a voice in what we are doing. So it would be
- very helpful if
- she wanted to be on the free commission for her to also be on the environmental commission. Sorry if
- I didn't make that clear. I mean, I think it's a great point. I obviously support all the engagement
- we can get. And yeah, we'd be happy to have you on the full commission. The trees definitely fall under
- a lot of environmental quality type stuff that we work towards. I guess the one thing I'm trying to,
- So I would like, I personally believe that our government is best served by meritocracy. So I'm going
- to start from like a high, high level. Um, I am absolutely willing to do it. I can meet, meet the appointment time.
- I don't have the educational background, but I do have the, you know, my dad was a landscape architect.
- I know about residential and commercial considerations. Growing up rural, I've had to take trees down.
- I understand how to care for trees. I've been working for the Canopy Bloomington. I think I could do
- a good job on this role. But at the same time, you know, somebody with a background in forestry and
- horticulture, I also think is very qualified.
- And also at the same time, I want the environmental permission to be as strong as possible.
- So if we can, essentially, if you just want to take on the role and join the environmental permission,
- I would be happy to withdraw my application. Well, I don't want to put her on the spot exactly, but
- I appreciate the explanation because I do see making the time slot is the biggest thing. You're already
- here, so you'd already get the meetings. It'd be easy for you to report to us.
- But yet again, that's something that Nikki can do as well, regardless of whether she joins the EC. We'd
- just really like you to consider that at least. I've spoken plenty. Does anyone else have feelings about
- it? Because this is a voting item, but there's no motion yet. We're still just discussing how we feel
- about our options here. Can you delay the vote?
- Uh, we can, we have gone a couple of months without a tree commission. Nicole to have the opportunity
- to think about whether or not she wants to apply for this commission. Nicole, do you understand why
- that we're interested in that having one of our, uh, so is it correct that they, that the tree commission
- member would, needs to attend our meetings as well? Is it?
- There are representatives, so they would need to communicate with us, but I don't think it would actually,
- they don't count towards our quorum. I don't think they have to physically be present. But I think if
- we have a report and we have questions about it, it would be important to be able to ask those questions
- at the meeting. I guess if someone was going to make themselves available during this time slot virtually,
- They could make themselves available during this time slot in person. Again, the addition of peer pressure.
- If you consider being a member of the EC, but is there a desire to vote on our appointment to the tree
- commission today or to postpone and consider how each Nikki and Carl feel about it, maybe have more
- of a discussion next meeting when we're hopefully not as far behind?
- How do people feel? I like the latter option. I don't think it'd be fair on her to say, right now, choosing
- the easy way, go away. We're definitely not presenting you with an ultimatum by any means. We're just
- trying to properly consider all of our options. Again, we very much appreciate your application and
- we're not saying no, which is it sounds like we're going to vote to postpone disappointments. I hope
- you remain interested in it.
- In the tree commission seat on our behalf and they kind of take a look into into joining our board all
- together here. So, and if you have questions about the environmental commission, you have my contact
- information. So feel free to reach out. Okay. I can see the application. So I can.
- I don't know if the appointment will be made. The appointments available right now are all from, they're
- all day-long appointments. So it's up to the office of the mayor to make those appointments, but I would
- be able to see whether she applied or not. To clarify, if she applied, could we send a letter to the
- mayor in support of her appointment? I think so, as long as the EC voted on it. Yeah.
- Yeah. Full disclosure, it's been a lot of years, but I'm a mayoral appointment and I treated it slightly
- like a job application. I put my application in and then I followed up some number of weeks later and
- it was a previous mayor, but then he just appointed me. It would just be like, don't let it sit.
- If you apply, if you consider any apply, follow up and if for some reason, the city isn't moving on
- it, we would definitely entertain pushing.
- the administration to consider your application. Again, I very much appreciate you applying and being
- with us through this whole meeting. Thank you for being here to speak with us tonight. Do we formally
- need to vote on this item or can we just- Can we vote to do that? Yeah.
- I move to table this until next month. Until the April meeting. I think you need to lay out when it
- is. I move to table this until the April meeting. We'll meet a sec. Yeah. When Rachel is ready, we'll
- take a roll call vote. Let's do a message here. Yes. Brown. Yes. Caldy. Yes. Whitaker. Yes. Martinez.
- Yes. Owens. Yes. Geyser. Yes. Motion passes.
- So we're going to delay this to our April meeting, which hopefully you're able to attend either virtually
- or in person. And again, yeah, we're not saying no. We're very happy to have you here. We hope to see
- you again in a month. Exactly what is the date for the next one? April 16th. 16th, yeah. 16th.
- Thank you. Yeah, you too. Thank you so much, Nikki.
- Moving on to old business, handbook discussion continued. The good news is we have had most of this
- discussion when legal was still here, but I don't know if Rachel, if you'd be willing to pull that up
- again, just so we can see particularly anything substantive, anything that isn't changing a capital
- letter or a choice word. Yeah, let me figure out what screen I want. Okay.
- Is it changed often? We have changed it most months, the past six or seven months. From my understanding,
- it has not changed. I think that's basically because of former environments. For my understanding, it
- hasn't changed that often in the years of 3Ds. It would be correct. What's the impetus for the third
- wave changing? Yeah, there were a lot of things.
- and mostly forum related recently that have just been trying to make things function in spite of low
- numbers, mostly. Yeah, previously it would just happen periodically the same way that any kind of,
- you know, city, you go at it or anything, just look at it when we look at it. And it seems like now
- we'll be changing directed by legal regardless. And it sounds like within a year, we will again see
- changes of some kind or another put forth by legal.
- Yeah, I suppose it has to change with the times and the fine. It can technically be changed at any meeting,
- but you're right. It's been active lately. Yeah. Okay, so going into these changes, I recommend the
- changes. A lot of them, like I said, whenever Taylor was here. So these are just where the new boards
- and commissions rules are going to live within the fluency municipal code or the BMC. I think
- That was just a correction on what our title 2 says. There's some capitalization edits. This was a change.
- This is being added to our title 2 apparently. Such funds received by the commission pursuant to this
- subdivision shall be deposited in accordance with the administrative regulations of the commission.
- Just more clarification that all appointments shall be made from residents of the city. That was kind
- of a rule anyway. So just making sure it's in our fire laws. Okay, and we talked about this earlier,
- how there was a form coming out where everybody on the commission will have to comply with this form.
- The clerk's office hasn't released this. I think I've seen an edit, not in my inbox, but like in my
- presentation.
- And it's basically just saying, you'll comply with the Title II ordinance, and that you'll do your duties
- in the best possible way, no conflicts of interest, comply with accessibility, things of that nature.
- Let's see. There's some clarification about the term limits. So striking definition shall serve approximately
- two-year terms, and that
- terms for the commission shall be a period of two years. I think this is just like an open door legalese.
- This clause for removal, this was, some of the language was already in the code. There was some legal,
- or I guess it's just me moving it down to make its own subsection.
- and making sure it complies with the BMC with the new reference. So it's still the three consecutive
- meetings, the missed three consecutive meetings, it's cause for removal. You miss fourth in a year,
- it's cause for removal. And that either the council or the office of the mayor can make that removal
- depending on your point to body. This was a small change.
- Later on in the packet, it says, or later on in the bylaws, it says that things must be submitted to
- the staff leads on the packet within 10 days of the meeting. The secretary said one week of the meeting.
- I thought just to make it standard and to help with accessibility stuff, 10 days, making sure that we're
- all on the same page. We talked about some of Matt's edits already. Any additional comments on Matt's edits?
- which is about shifting elections from January to June. And we talked about that last month,
- that it just, the parts that were changed weren't necessarily voted on. Okay. Legal edits,
- types of meetings. So special meetings can be called by the chair, the mayor, or a majority of the members
- serving on the EC, request data, meetings, section writing. Upon receiving a request, the chair shall
- call a special meeting to be held within 20 days.
- And this meeting should apply with open door laws. This is all just the Indiana photos of remote meetings.
- So this is the forum discussion that we already had. So from what I understood from Taylor's, when Taylor
- was here, we're going with the legal edit.
- Uh, with both the forum and the subcommittee. So we're all comfortable with that. As comfortable as
- they can be. Yeah. Okay. Um, that is the settings. Yeah. With the groups. Okay. Commissioners made up
- of fault number six by the city council, six by the mayor, uh, legal, citizen striking. It shall be
- a priority to have fault.
- members of the commission. I don't know. It's kind of assumed. And paper applications, this is part
- of the accessibility that PDFs are super accessible. So you can contact the clerk's office if you can't
- do the website application and they can help you with that. Let's see. See if that's our mayor evaluates
- applicants and that's an interview before determining whether the applicants are qualified.
- I think that was just a typo change. This is my edit. So because of all the accessibility stuff, just
- Office of the Mayor has a standard design and colors, templates, whatnot. So I'm suggesting striking out the
- I don't know how you say that font, Tribute 20K, and the template colors. ITS in the comms office has
- said Roboto is our city's font. So I'm just kind of saying you should just follow digital accessibility
- guidelines by city of Bloomington, ITS, and office of the mayor.
- We talked about this one already. Taylor is going to get back to us on, and those are the edits. Any
- questions on any of those? This is a voting item. Should we have a procedural question? Yeah. I was
- going to ask if we're still waiting on Taylor to get back to us about that line of receiving approval
- from the office of mayor. Yeah. Do we want to wait to
- I was going to take it the same way. I was, I can't do the motion, but I would entertain a motion to
- approve the, uh,
- handbook as amended, and then I'm obviously looking forward to Taylor's explanation on that one. Okay.
- Yeah, if you feel like that one's- if the change is going to happen because it came through the equivalent
- of- Yeah, I think it'd be an investment to pass it because then we don't have to do the same thing next
- time. Yeah. Or not. I'm going to ask you to approve the benefits. Thank you both.
- I forget which order I've gone, so I'm going to go a little sporadic. Let's both call me. Yes. Owens.
- Yes. Martinez. Yes. Geyser. Yes. Meister. Yes. Brown. Yes. Buecher. Yes. Buecher. Thank you all. Continuing
- an old business, Bloomington Commission on Sustainability and Resilience cast on update. There's going
- to be a presentation held in council chambers on April 28th, which is a Tuesday.
- At 5.30, this is what Bicos specifically, I think Alex York helped spearhead at the O'Neill School and
- the students will be reporting. That was the time that worked best for them and Bicos, but we and others
- are also invited to attend. I think those who are able would probably find it very interesting. I think
- Rachel would have to,
- notice it as us potentially having quorum, but then I think that's all there is to it because then any
- of us could attend. We're not doing any voting as a commission or anything. Correct. If you could let
- me know if you would like to attend, maybe the week before, that would be helpful because we won't notice
- it as an EC meeting if only one person is going to go because multiple people will go ahead and notice
- it. How many people
- would need to be present. It depends on who it is, if he's on the working groups. Yeah. Yeah,
- and even then, it's not necessarily, I don't know, it's noticing that a forum may appear. Yeah, I'm
- just kidding. Still no agenda, still no idea, right? I hope to attend, but can make no guarantees as
- far out. We'll check again in April. Yeah, that's just the update. Put it on your calendar, think about
- it. It's about the feasibility of doing it.
- Electric utility, independent of Duke. I am interested in what they have to say. Item C is working group
- updates. I'm not sure exactly what we're looking to cover in this one. Yeah, so I wanted, we have eight
- minutes left unless we add additional time to the meeting.
- I want to ask the new members if they would like to hear more about each worker group or if we want
- to fast track this and you guys want to move on next. Next up, we'll probably also do a heavy agenda.
- We've just been having heavy agendas over the summer. Yes, new members, I promise this isn't normal
- that meetings are going two hours or longer each time, but it's a tough time of year and we had a tornado
- last month. Could be a brief overview. Well, okay.
- And we only need five right from you now. I guess we just wrote it on the bylaws, but. Yeah. Trying
- to think of how many people you should, anyway. Carl and Justin, what do you prefer? Would you have
- to care about the working groups? A quick sense or two on each one would be pretty helpful.
- Okay. Biodiversity, Matt, do you want to take that?
- Biodiversity is a working group that I only very recently joined, so I can't tell you about all the
- things they've done in the past. They're working on habitat connectivity. Last year, we worked with
- the city to help become a bee city. Biodiversity has been up too recently. Eco-heroes. Eco-heroes crops
- up this time each year to make our art contest happen, which is currently active.
- closes on April 7th, and the awards and presentation and pickup of items will be at the Earth Day event,
- the 18th of April at Suchard. Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts to try to make it happen, and that
- group is active for a good less than half the year, but then very active when they are active. I'll
- cover the environmental efficiency committee ECPC.
- This is a working group to work with the planning and transportation department to review different
- plan developments that are going to BZA commission that has pretty severe environmental implications.
- Light pollution, Adam, do you want to take that on? Yeah, that one's pretty self-explanatory. Just looking
- at the light pollution as it exists in Bloomington and trying to figure out ways to mitigate it when we can.
- We're probably going to be maybe working with the parks department. I'm going to call on you for outreach
- and education. And I'm so sorry, Mitchell. I forgot the water quality. We have two meetings, one or
- two meetings. And so far what we're doing is trying to clean up our everything we have online on the
- environmental commissions informational
- resources online and clean it up and update it. At the end of the day, outreach is probably going to
- be the most effective thing through this commission in general. Looking ahead, tabling where possible,
- maybe letters to the editor, all that. We're just going to try to keep it in front of eyes and ears.
- Special projects work. That's right now mostly me and Kerry, but if grant opportunities come up or any
- other big things,
- special projects there to tackle that kind of stuff. And then water quality. Water quality is water
- quality. And I already told you two, you're both going to be on it. So I'll catch you up when we have
- our next meeting. Okay. So as far as, that's the gist of it. But does biodiversity have any updates?
- No, no updates.
- Eco-heroes. Sorry, I don't mean to take over. You can go ahead. No, that's okay. My notes are a mess.
- So actually, without looking up, I don't know where we are. Eco-heroes. Oh, yeah. Goodness,
- there's updates. I can start out with some updates if you need a chance to pause. Okay. So I sent this
- sponsorship spreadsheet to Matt today, this morning, or yesterday. Yesterday afternoon, I think.
- was a new process that we had to confirm with legal. So I think that's part of the reason why I'm not
- legal this morning to kind of smooth out stuff for next year. So we'll talk more about how next year
- can go at another time. If he hasn't already, he will reach out to those businesses soon. I did meet
- with the Earth Day trainers on Tuesday. And so they were asking if the event has to be moved indoors.
- They were acknowledging that last year there were some audio issues during the presentation. So they
- wanted to see, they kind of outlined a few options on how we can do this this year. The options are,
- we can do the same as last year. It's gonna have audio issues again. They seem to want to avoid that.
- The other,
- options were the owner had having a presentation with images during that time. So without a speaker,
- without a formal decoration, I guess, of the winners. And then one of the planners also suggested doing
- a video live stream. I'm not sure how that's any different than being on the podium and doing the audio
- issues and whatnot. But those were kind of the three of status quo presentation for live stream.
- Is there a preference on any of those? Not for me. I like avoiding the audio issues. If we did not do
- a formal presentation where there is a photo opportunity and whatnot, and they just stop by the eco
- heroes table to pick up a prize and get a certificate and a sticker, is that okay with you all? And
- we have a presentation in the background
- You know, that set time? I mean, at the end of the day, it's whatever they're willing to accommodate,
- right? I mean. Right. They're willing to accommodate how it went last year. It's just the audio issue.
- Yeah. Yeah. No one wants a repeat of audio issues. So whatever the smoothest way we can do it is without
- totally downplaying the event. Yeah. It's fine with me. OK.
- We have, at this time, I'm going to ask if someone would move to extend the meeting. I will extend the
- meeting by 10 minutes. Sorry, sorry. You know, quick roll call. Okay, Brown. Yes. Whitaker. Yes. Martinez.
- Yes. Falby. Yes. Owens. Yes. Geyser. Yes. Master. Yes. Anything everybody?
- Motion passes. Okay, printed materials, that's a voting item? Yes. Also, I've requested Office of the
- Mayor to be there. I haven't heard back yet, so there's a chance that staff will be there. I'm not able
- to make it again, but I will, you know, that's to set you all up. Okay, for the printed materials, Harry
- sent this over. This is a sticker to give to every eco-heroes
- submission or artists, I should say, because in the past only the winners got something. So it's going
- to be a sticker. Let's see if I can rotate this easily. I guess I'm not. This is a certificate for the
- Eco-Heroes, just so they have a formalized certificate for the winner. Again. Oh, I was going to say
- that was the participant. Oh, thank you, Matt. And then this next one is the fancier one on card stock
- for winners. Yeah.
- So everybody would, non-winners would still get this. And winners would get the fancier one. So because
- it's a document by a working group, we need to do a formalizing vote. Is there a- Technically means
- someone needs to motion, somebody needs to second. We approved the written materials, yeah. Thank you,
- Mitchell. Yeah, I got it. Yeah, that's fine. OK. Mester. Yes.
- Geyser. Yeah. Owens. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Boutiqueur. Yes. Falby. Yes. Brown. Motion passes. Any other
- updates from the Eco Heroes? Rachel, do you know at what time during the Earth Day event the ceremony
- will be? 1.15 is the formal ceremony. I encourage whenever we reach out to participants to tell them
- to line up at 1 o'clock if it is outdoors. If it's outdoors, it's
- presentation as scheduled. And we'll know about two days prior, either way. It would be in our best
- interest. I think that we are allowed to email each other about matters of scheduling, but do we know?
- I'd like to kind of get a feel for who was able to attend the event. 1130 is probably a set up time.
- for tables, organizing prizes, laying things out. And on each of these slots, I'm hoping that maybe
- two people can be there. What's the date on this one? This is the 18th of April at Switchyard Park.
- I know why I cannot be there. Yeah, you have a good excuse. It's not a terribly long event, so I may
- try to be there the whole time.
- But knowing that I wouldn't be setting up or tearing down or handling people picking up their submissions
- by myself would be awesome. So if anyone wants to commit in the moment to any particular chunk of time,
- awesome. If not, we can email about it since scheduling is allowed. We'll be there for insert chunk
- of time later. OK. I guess given our time constraints today, I don't want to take the time to actually
- try to write out every slot. So anticipate an email.
- I can attend. I do need to iron out the time. Yeah. Excellent. Well, we appreciate anyone who can show
- up because it's just a good time to be the face of the group a little bit. We could do that. I don't
- know if we have something like a big sheet or big pad of paper available so we can take suggestions
- from people who walk up or if we're going to not do that. If somebody sends in a request for order,
- we can approve that over e-mail. Got it.
- So it's one of those, so we'll figure out what kind of tabling activities we'll do. Yeah, we'll notice
- this is a leave-in at the time. No, public events like this don't need to be noticed. Yeah, we just
- can't like vote or do anything, but I appreciate that. Talk about business. Yep. What about their submissions
- again? City Hall. So there's a table up front at the atrium, so they can sit. So they can sit out there?
- Yep. Early, taking submissions. Yep, until 5 p.m. and April 7th. And if it's digital, they can email
- environment at
- Bloomington, Diana. We have that one digital on three physical submissions. That's a good start. If
- it's really windy, you're going to need links and stuff to like for paper art. And I think we have some
- geodes or something in the tub. We have some. We have had this problem before at the same event a couple
- of years ago. That was awesome. It was awesome. It was just difficult. ECPC.
- Do you have any updates on ECPC? We don't have anything new for the ECPC member. I was going to cancel
- the April 2nd meeting. Do you guys want to have the April 7th meeting in the evening? I think with nothing
- new, I'm okay with both being canceled, but I don't want to speak for everyone. Yeah, if there's something
- good. I'll go ahead and cancel this. Another quick article of information.
- For the subcommittees that are interested, do we need a formal vote to join or do we just show up? Email
- me that you'd like to be on that committee. I'll put you on a committee email list. Each committee basically
- has a chair and they kind of organize stuff. So yeah, for what it's worth, I would like kind of working
- group reorganization on next month's agenda. Just say that in advance.
- I think you already told basically what light pollution's at. Yeah, we met right before this meeting.
- Like I said, we're probably going to be reaching out to the parks department. Rachel, you mentioned,
- and at the January meeting, I think, there were some. Joanna Sparks, I think. Okay. Because you have,
- they send you her information. I don't remember. Okay, I'll send it to you. That's pretty much it.
- We might, or actually, we might be trying to get some information down in this case. Okay.
- Do you need a contact for that? I don't know who that would be, but do you need a contact? Okay. And
- what month were you on? Whatever month we can get it. Trying to learn the process. Yeah. I'll figure
- that out for you. Bye. Outreach and education did not meet. Special projects working group did not meet.
- And I forgot water volume, so sorry again. You're good.
- Well, equality does not exist. I would certainly entertain a motion to push any reports in the next
- month's meeting. So I passed that. But again, I need somebody to make a motion. I motion to remove reports
- the next month's meeting.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- A few people took flyers for Eco Heroes 2, so I think hopefully we'll get some submissions. Yay. Yeah.
- No brainer, commissioner announcement. Tell people about Eco Heroes. Yes. Tell people with kids, tell
- people without kids, doesn't really matter. Get your friends to share with their friends. You don't
- even really have to be a Bloomington resident, just be local, be in the county, I guess. I mean, we're
- not trying to shut down nearby submissions. We just don't want any pro from a ways away submitting something.
- We already talked about, yeah, see, I went before the City Council last night and I hope that people
- were watching that just to announce it. Dave Asmonds was kind enough to put it in his B-square email
- this morning. So we're circulating. We just gotta keep pressuring people to not forget and to get their
- submissions in on time. That's my announcement. I can cover upcoming events. I did forget the STEM event,
- so I apologize. Thank you for bringing that to the mesh.
- Does somebody want to take the tote? I will need help carrying it down and back downstairs if somebody
- doesn't want to take it. Ego here is judging Thursday, April 9th. I will be here from eight to five
- on suite 130. Contact me with questions. So to anyone who's new or just doesn't know that it's voluntary,
- you can decide whether you'd like to help
- judge and rank the submissions. If you can find any time during that day, it's kind of like, Rachel,
- no, when you're gonna drop by, we'll have a simple, you know, like first, second, third in each age
- group. And then we'll kind of aggregate that, whoever does vote on it to determine winners. So that's
- the kind of drop by and judge day. If you can't, that's okay, plenty of us will. But if you'd like to,
- it is kind of fun to come check it out ahead of time, so. The Master Gardener Fair is occurring on Saturday,
- April 11th from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Switchard Park.
- Heidi has been finding out to be the lead on that. So I did not look up Heidi's contact information
- in our public packet, but we, is email okay to share with the rest of the mission if there are options.
- And then Earth Day, Saturday, April 18th from 12th to 3.30. Matt, I did check set up is at 11 or so.
- All right, so then they're set up against the 10.30. I'm going to go there. Carrie is the lead on that.
- So I think everybody has Kerry's email information. I did forget about the STEM event. I think it's
- April 16th because there was the conflict. Yes, at the same time. So it'll be that night. Yes, I did.
- So I think Kerry will reach out about making sure we have people at the Earth Day event at time slots.
- And Heidi, thank you so much for taking point on the Master Gardener one. Could you be the same? Could
- you email people just about
- when they can be there with you, just so we know that the scheduling is being overdone. What is the
- schedule for that? It is just slightly higher on the screen. Saturday, April 11th, nine to
- four at Switchyard. Yeah, so we'll need to coordinate volunteers. I guess that's the last part of it.
- Right. I'm approaching that earlier. Yeah, I wouldn't expect anyone to be there that long, but would
- you basically email all the commission members and see when they might be willing to do that, just so we can
- know whether we have things covered inside. With that, we are out of time. And so unless there are any
- motions to extend for anything else, I motion we adjourn. Thank you, everyone, for being here. I know
- that one was a little bit of a slog. It's going to get better, but probably not till May.
- They're in the, they're in the centers. They're, yeah. We have like a hundred. Recording stopped.