- With everyone present and back in the room, we're still recording. We're going to reconvene the meeting
- here at 627. Mitchell, thank you for sharing those reports. I have a couple to share as well. Hold on.
- I think, and Adina, did you say we need to motion to resume at 627? You can. OK. I move to resume at
- 627. Second. We're doing majority, I guess.
- We'll do whatever we got to do to get back on track. OK. Owens. Yes. Geyser. Yes. Nestor. Yes. Albright.
- Yes. Brown. Yes. Colby. Yes. Whitaker. Yes. Bright. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Mission passes. Thank you, and
- we're back. We're going to continue within reports. I have a few.
- I attended the special session of the Wilmington Commission on Sustainability and Resilience, where
- the Capstone students presented their feasibility analysis of implementing a sustainable energy utility.
- They found that it's likely not a great fit for here, mostly because Duke would have to agree to it,
- and that's not really something that they expect to have happen. But they also presented a lot of other
- data and research. It's a good presentation.
- I also watched the regular BCOS meeting on May 12th. They welcomed a new commissioner. They reflected
- on the capstone presentation. They passed a resolution on the pedestrianization of Kirkwood. And they
- postponed indefinitely the resolution that was regarding the use of glyphosate that was brought up in
- a previous meeting. So we will see whether that one comes back or not.
- A couple members had a conversation with a couple members of BCOS about the possibility of a joint resolution
- on light pollution. We're going to still figure out the logistics of that, if that's possible, and the
- details of the resolution to a later date. That is all I have to report today. Any other commissioner
- reports from this past month?
- Yes, so as a newly appointed member of the Treatment Commission, we've had two Treatment Commission
- meetings since our last meeting. So I'll just try to give a brief overview of what we discussed then.
- There's an engineering, a resurfacing project for kind of west side of Kirkwood. This is like a $1 million
- state funding project. Overall, like seven treaties are impacted. A couple of them are invasive, so
- no big deal.
- To compensate, we're going to plant 17 new trees. So more engineering projects are to come, keeping
- a loop for those. Tree commission is also dealing with accessibility guideline updates, same as we've
- been dealing with. Haskell reports that he had 11,000 seedlings that he was giving away in the garden
- fair, Earth Day, Arbor Day, events held by the city.
- So that's very exciting. Hopefully a lot of people plant these things and we can improve our canopy.
- A lot of this isn't super relevant. Mia Williams is the IU landscape architect and she retired April
- 30th. She's still going to stay on the tree commission.
- And she's still going to kind of act as our liaison with the IU landscaping team. But she's currently
- retired, so that's good. Haskell Urban Forester is still looking to plant another 170 trees this spring
- and 325 trees for the fall. And yeah, not a whole lot of updates other than that.
- The Bryant Park shelter, maple tree, there's a maple tree that had a really cool lightning strike. I
- can try to share that picture with you guys later. But other than that, it's essentially a tree commission
- business. Thank you for your report. Any other commissioners with reports for us today? All right, I
- guess we'll carry on the staff reports.
- OK, questions for the city legal department. So Anadina Tasmanian, I think a lot of you have seen her
- in previous meetings. Anadina, I will let you give an update. So thanks for having me here today, guys.
- We've been going back and forth about quorum. Was there a question you guys had about quorum? Another
- question? There's at least one question.
- I've had some conversations in the past regarding whether it is the majority of the appointed members
- or the number of total seats. So I'm going to give you just a quick rundown on that. We went over, I
- went over, the legal department went over some PAC decisions and some, which is public access, and some case law.
- And we're just kind of reviewing historically what we have found. So quorum, determining if you have
- quorum and how to meet the state's hybrid meeting guidelines requires two separate analysis. So a quorum
- is a majority of members of the body. That means more than 50% of the number of seats filled and vacant.
- number of seats on the Board of Commission. A remote member can count toward one. The hybrid meeting,
- you need at least 50% of the sitting membership of the Board of Commission at the time of the meeting
- must be present in person. The sitting members does not include vacancies, only the number of members
- at the time of the meeting.
- present in person. So you have just regular quorum, which is a majority of the members of the body.
- So that means more than 50% of the number of seats. 50% plus one, right. So that was seven. Right.
- And you're, for purposes of this commission, that would be seven.
- Because your number is 12, right? The number 6 is 12. But if you keep in mind that a remote number can
- count towards quorum. But when you're having a hybrid meeting and you're trying to figure out an in-person
- requirement, then you need at least 50% of the sitting membership of the board or commission at the
- time of the meeting be present in person. And sitting members does not include vacancies.
- Only the number of members at the time of the meeting. So six? No, because we have five. We have nine
- people on the board right now, so we would need five. Right, which is why in their bylaws, there's like
- a memo of five. I missed the wording on the first type of meeting you described. The second one you
- said in a hybrid meeting. What was the first one again?
- The first one is just general quorum. General quorum. Defining quorum. OK. So general quorum includes
- the hybrid members. So if we had five people in the room, two people online would be quorum, with our
- current number of nine people. Right. Right. So the definition, members of the body, is the number of
- seats, regardless of how many are filled.
- I guess that's what I'm struggling with. My understanding in the past, full disclosure, not a lawyer.
- Well, it's hard stuff. It's complicated. Oh, I'm sure. I work at a law school, and I'm in awe of all
- of them. But I thought from our code meetings are run using Robert's Rules of Order. And Robert's Rules
- of Order seemed to indicate the majority of the members not
- that would include the empty seats. So I wondered how, what supersedes what, I guess. So the legal department
- has come up with this based on that decision, which is the public access counselor, and based on case law.
- Can you send us a reference to those decisions in case law, please? Let me see. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't
- have to be during the email. No, no, no. Wait, wait. Very nice to see when you were able. Can you email
- me that request? I think all questions. OK. Yeah, go ahead and email your VA's on initial, send it through
- us, and then
- Any other updates from you and Nadina? No other updates. OK. I think Nadina's going to be joining our
- meetings in the future. If there are questions for legal that you anticipate, please send them to me,
- and we'll get a response back in writing as well. Yeah. Then at the next following meeting, I'll be
- able to expand on that written answer. Yeah. Any other questions for legal, including from online? Anything
- from you, Carrie?
- Yeah, thanks. Just to clarify that I'm understanding the first general quorum concept. Can you hear
- me okay, by the way? You can hear me okay? Yeah. Okay. The general quorum versus the hybrid quorum is
- the former for when the meeting is taking place and there is no commissioner that is dialing in remotely.
- Is that the distinction there?
- That's a good question. I am not prepared to answer that question. I'm not sure. I don't want to assume
- a distinction that that's the distinction. If you want, you can send it in writing to our liaison if
- you want more on that. But I can't say that we can assume that that's the distinction. What
- is the distinction then? The state's hybrid reading guidelines require two separate calculations.
- I was going to say we'll let Carrie continue the questioning, and then we can jump in with someone else
- next. Do you have anything to clarify? I think that just to clarify where my question is rooted, it
- sounds like if we are all in the same room, it is 50% of the available seats. But if there is a hybrid
- element, it is 50% of the seated commissioners in the room, which when we have a lot of vacancies, it makes it
- My deduction would be that we should always have someone remotely, so that way we're only having to
- meet that seated 50%. That seems like a silly way for it to be set up, but that's what I was just thinking
- about, knowing that we have a lot of vacancies right now. So I could email that question, but if there's
- any clarification we can have tonight, that'd be awesome. Okay.
- I think that'll likely be covered in the question that Carl emails, but feel free to also email Rachel
- on that just so that we have the question passed along. Did we have in the room any follow-ups on that
- or questions independent? My reaction when I first heard it was the same. I thought, does that incentivize
- someone being hybrid? I'm not sure, and I would love to know
- the case law, but I'm sure in due time, we will get more information. So thank you for sharing with
- us today. Yeah, no problem. Was there, I think you had a second item on members training? Yeah, I have.
- Yes. Board of Commission member trainings. I don't have a date, but Deputy Clerk of Outreach
- and Communications, Jennifer Crossley, has been putting together a really good piece of training for
- everybody. I think whenever she came at a previous meeting, I think it was the tornado night, whenever
- that was in. It was February. It was.
- She kind of mentioned this, so liaisons have gone through training at this point. Most of us have gone
- through training at least. So the commission member training will be rolling out in June. I think she's
- going to be reaching out to everyone very soon, maybe by the end of next week. And so I think, I don't
- know the timeline on when
- that what we do, if it's going to be live, it's going to be recorded, she should be able to get more
- information on that. But just know that that's coming. Any questions on that? Questions on the training?
- And then I have just a lock-in item. This is probably my last meeting in person, so I will be CC-ing
- Jackie Scanlon on all future correspondence so she can pick up whenever I take off. So if there are
- questions, please include both of us in.
- I do have something I'd like to pop in here, if possible. So in the last few meetings we've discussed
- the policy that our, when we communicate to the city council, anything coming out of our commission
- has to be passed through the mayor's office. There's been an exchange in the IDS since our last meeting
- that included, it was referring to our meeting.
- to the environmental commission. And there was a response from the mayor's office. Are you familiar
- with? Were you on the email from Deputy Mayor Gretchen Knapp? No. She sent a response. Who did? Deputy
- Mayor Gretchen Knapp. Not to us, or not to me. OK. Let me close the title of the emails. Looks like
- it's supposed to go to your ID. Yeah. OK.
- conflicting response from the mayor's office so that the guest column or that. I'm sorry, I did not
- end up going to you for some reason. I will forward you that email. She did respond and send it to all
- of the, oh, no, it did send. It sent to athbuddhika.iu.edu. It must have gone on my junk mail. May 1st. May 1st.
- Shannon, they went to your, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for outing your email, Adam. Oh, no, it's OK. I guess
- it went to my junk. I'll read it, thank you. It sent to your Gmail, Shannon. It probably did. May 21st?
- May 1st. May 1st. OK, thank you.
- I mean, I read the mayor's, the response from the mayor's office and the IDS. Well, here we got a direct
- email, too. Yes. That's it. I have an email, actually. Any other reports before we wrap up the reports
- section of our agenda tonight? Thank you, everyone who shared, and thank you again, Anandina, for being
- here with us. I actually, at this point,
- we'd like to move a quick section of public comment before we get into old business, just in case from
- earlier when people couldn't communicate, a member of the public has anything to share. So I would need
- a second. A second. Thank you, Shane. OK. Ritual elements. Yes. Prologizer. Yes. Yes. Just the master. Yes.
- Carrie Albright. Yes. Heidi Brown. Yes. Matt Colby. Yes. Adam Buecher. Yes. Shannon Dye. Yes. Adam Martinez.
- Yes. Motion passes. Apologies for our earlier technical difficulties. If CG or any other member online
- on Zoom would like to offer any public comment, you may unmute and do so now.
- Just a minute. Nothing from them. Anyone else in the chat? Nope. OK. I suppose we will then move on
- to old business. Old business item A, environmental commission handle commandments. We have a proposed
- amendment. Yes. So I'm so sorry to have comments.
- for some reason didn't relay in the suggestion mode online on a shared document. So I will share my
- screen so you can see the comments or the proposed changes I should say. Now I think that's correct.
- Because I did try and I didn't see them. So good that I'll get to see them. And I did link the correct
- document. It seems to be a sharing issue for some reason.
- Okay. There we go. Okay. So there were technically three suggestions. I'm going to scroll quickly here just to
- Go down. Were these all commissioner-led or were some from people? This first one is stuff from the
- Department of Legal. OK. Just a removal of and the office of the mayor for the public positions and
- statement policy. So once we begin the media or submitting public comment, commissioners should proactively
- clarify their comments to be those of an individual member of the community and are not on the behalf
- of a representative of the positions of the commission.
- And that's pretty easily approved by majority vote of the commission period. The second slash third
- proposed amendment is, similarly, just that at the bottom for the lobbying section. There you go.
- Commission positions may also be recommended to other legislative bodies or organizations of interest,
- such as the Indiana State Legislature. Again, any position from the Commission as a whole, regardless
- of audience, must be voted on and approved by a majority of the Commission, period, so removal and the
- Office of the Mayor. The proposed addition is materials directed to parties external to the City of
- Bloomington must also comply with the current external communication guidelines established by the City
- of Bloomington.
- And this was commissioner-led. Commissioner-led. Yeah, so this one actually came from me. My goal with
- this is to just match, essentially, what Deputy Mayor Gretchen kind of laid out in her email. I appreciate
- you taking the time to submit that. I kind of planned to, but then didn't really get around to it. My
- immediate question would be, is this OK with legal?
- Yes. Since we have legal and legal. Yes. Was this in the draft that we received? Yeah. For some reason,
- it was a sharing issue where the comments aren't visible when sharing. OK. So I know that for the future.
- I'm sorry that wasn't conveyed in the packet. I see. So I also tried to read it ahead of time. But does
- anyone have?
- Any comments or proposed amendments to what we're seeing right now here in the room? Can we not include
- it? Say what? Can we just not include it? Like you just want just the strike in the office of the mayor
- and leave it at that? No, the strike and all of the green. Oh, because the green is the proposed addition.
- I know. And I'm not including it. Why?
- I mean, I think we're going to be, or the commission will be sort of forced to comply with the external
- communication strategies as it is. So I just don't know if it's necessary to include. I suppose that's
- a fair perspective. It does seem like that is going to be the scenario, regardless of whether it's,
- so I think the previous concern was that we require approval at the office of the mayor.
- emails seem to make it clear that that wasn't going to be the case. But still, especially when things
- go external, it's going to have to get reviewed by communications. I don't know. I guess I don't see
- the harm of codifying this personally. But I also see where you're coming from and can all vote however
- we see fit when we address this item shortly. Do we have other comments in the room or from Carrie online?
- I can weigh in quickly. I think that you're right that because the process of having to have our documents,
- our externally facing documents approved through the communications person on behalf of the city, that's
- already part of what we have to do. I don't know that, to be honest, that it makes a huge difference
- if it's in our handbook or not. In our handbook, it'd be more of guidance for new commissioners who
- may not know that yet, but the process is required at this point anyway.
- If for some reason that process is no longer required, we have written it into being a requirement.
- I'm not sure if there will be a time of that, especially with ADA compliance as well. But I think we
- can add it, but I think that it's already part of the problem. I think it's far less with the room.
- And I also think that it is true that if this changes, then we have to come back and spend
- commission meeting time changing it. I just want to point out a couple of things. One, this is the handbook,
- so new members will be reading this, and it would be helpful for them to understand how our communications
- and processes are handled, which the training is going to help with. I will say that I did include the
- word current external communication guidelines with the intention that if the city drops this entirely,
- then the current communication guidelines are nothing, and we don't actually have to submit anything
- for approval. With that being said, if the consensus is to just remove this entirely, I'm fine with
- that as well. So I appreciate the thoughtful wording. At this time, do we have any other questions or
- comments on the proposed amendments from commissioners? Also.
- very much looking forward to a time where the handbook is a smaller part. At this time, someone would
- either need to propose that we adopt the handbook as amended, or they would have to rescind their proposed
- amendment. Those are the things that can happen at this step. Is this the last change, then? Or is there
- another change? Yes. This is the last change. It is the Carl added section and the legal struck section.
- Well, I didn't see both, so maybe I'm just saying. I didn't see it being helpful for new members, but
- also adding more complications, so I... If we don't accept it, then we'll be in the office.
- Will you stay in? That's however you want it. We can craft a motion to that effect. I tell you what,
- I will move to amend my inclusion here to remove the additional section
- and still keep the in the office of the mayor. If that gets voted in, I'll accept it. If not, then we
- can vote on the original amendment. How does that sound? Well, to keep the office of the mayor. Right,
- because this is a lobbying part of the document. So since it would be external documentation being sent
- out, and I don't know if he's correct me if I'm wrong or if I'm misrepresenting, since this would be sending
- External communications, such as Indiana State Legislature, I think that's what Carl was getting at,
- was trying to follow the current guidelines. Yes, this is specifically within the lobbying section,
- right? So this would be only to external, and Indiana, please correct me if I'm wrong, but things to
- like EZA, Planning Commission, City Council, you would still be able to write letters
- as long as it was approved as a commission. So the correction here is just the PVA is a quasi-judicial
- board. So it's a little different than all other commissions. There's something called ex parte
- communication. We're trying to communicate with the quasi-judicial board. So I would just take out.
- Yes, I'm sorry. The PVA is a little bit different. We view that a little bit differently.
- But all other conditions, everything else, I'm sorry. Sorry, I shouldn't have spoken up. No, you have
- to try everything you're saying. The BCA is weird. It's applied by judicial board. OK, but this is still,
- like the language that's proposed, amended, is still? Yes. OK. I mean, you can certainly still advance
- that language, and I can just go, no. Yeah, I was going to say, I think the easiest course of action
- would be someone proposed that we adopt.
- If it succeeds, it fails. And then any other amending could be proposed. I move that we adopt these
- edits. Second. I move the second. Can I abstain from the vote? You may abstain any time. Keep this.
- If anyone calls your name, you would just say, I'm staying. OK.
- Justin Nestor. Yes. Sherry Albright. I vote yes. Heidi Brown. I'm sorry. Matt Pauly. Yes. Adam Henniker.
- Yes. Shannon Begg. No. Adam Martinez. Yes. Mitchell Owens. Yes. Carl Geiser. Yes. Motion passes.
- Thank you, everyone, for especially
- Carl for the proposed amendment, but everyone else for the lively discussion and vote. We move on to
- old business item B, 2020-60 Co-Heroes. I know the photo link was shared. Is there anything else to
- share with that agenda item? Those were great pictures. Yeah. Yeah, there were some pretty fun ones.
- Yeah, I can just say thanks to everybody who helped make the day possible. It was definitely
- a busy one. And when the award ceremony piece came together, it was lots and lots of folks, lots of
- excitement. And yeah, it was really helpful having so many people participate. And Matt, thank you for
- taking the microphone to read everything off especially. And Carl for helping with the prizes and everything.
- It was great. The community responded really, really well. And I feel like having this breadth of young
- people in the room and interacting with all the different booths and tables and everything.
- was a really nice addition that I think the Eco Heroes specifically contributed to. So it was great.
- And yeah, it was a lot of fun and I appreciate everybody who helped make it happen. There are a couple
- little follow-up things to check in on as far as thanking our sponsors, making sure everything that
- needed to be picked up was picked up and things like that. But I would say overall, it all wrapped up
- nicely. So thank you again.
- Thank you, Carrie. And yeah, I agree. It was nice to see everything come together and do it into a really
- successful event after a lot of work to make it happen. So thank you to everyone involved. With that,
- we will move on to item six, new business. A is annual report discussion. Is that Carrie, you want to
- take this one? That's me. So as you all may remember, every year we write a report to deliver to the
- Common Council about what we've been up to this past year. It typically happens around mid-year, which
- means we're talking about 2025. You usually do this or so, but what I have is a document that I've written
- up. It's kind of the same format every year, but it highlights the things that we accomplished this
- past year. It talks a little bit about, you know, membership and goals for the future and things like
- that, but mainly it focuses on what we accomplished over 2025. I wanted to just walk through specifically
- the highlights that I'm going to include
- and I would love to have you all share if there's something specific that I should include, that I should
- add a spotlight to, because we can make this as long as we want, but I wanna make sure everyone's
- represented. The main things I am covering in this are speaking to the 2025 Eco Heroes Art Contest,
- speaking to some of the outreach that we've done, which at this point I have Bugfest, I have
- beginning to have more guest speakers come in. And in 2025, Dylan and I will continue to do the Riverwalk
- presentation. And then also the research and research process. So those are all highlighted. I mentioned
- a little bit about the ECPC coming back. That was a big conversation point for 2024's report. I'm excited
- to talk about it for 2025. And then speaking to the habitat connectivity plan and how that was relaunched,
- last year in 2025. And then I have a note to just check in on any of the other working groups that would
- like, or previously working groups, any other focal points from the EC that in 2025 had something that
- you would like me to raise as something that we're proud of, some more excited about that we can recap
- on. Anything that people would like to highlight from 2025 that I did not mention yet? I think the city.
- Did you mention the morning
- That is it's looped into the the sort of community outreach piece of it, but I have like a little paragraph
- written out that will be specifically about coming together with parks department and all the organization.
- So, yeah, definitely. That's a good one to highlight. Do you have do you have anyone that you need to
- hassle for a photo who joined in?
- your late 25s or anything? What a great question. You know, I do. I've got, because I turn all of this
- into a PowerPoint presentation. And so I let me pull that up. So for the PowerPoint presentation, I
- think Heidi, Carl, and Justin are all folks that I need photos from at this point. So if Heidi, Carl,
- and Justin, if you all can email me just a photo of yourself that I
- can put into the slide deck. Yeah, you can see in, it was probably May of last year that we reviewed
- the deck. So you can kind of see the layout from last year's if you'd like to, but yeah, pretty
- straightforward. Any questions about that or any other topic people wanna speak to? What time period
- does the annual report go to? Is it on January or January? Sure, it's for all of 2025. So January through
- December of 2025.
- It just reflects the calendar year. It just takes us a little while to compile and to get on the council
- schedule. So that's why events are happening anytime between like April or June usually. But yeah, it's
- just to reflect what we accomplished and set out to accomplish and yeah, what went well, how the council
- could support us, all that, but it's on calendar year 2025. And you can look back, I can't remember
- what the date was for when we presented last, I think it was maybe like June,
- or something like that of 2025, you can go back and see the County Council meeting where, sorry, the
- Common Council meeting where I presented it. You can see the slides and you can hear what we talked
- about if that's helpful for context. Anything else? I didn't mention light pollution groups specifically.
- I didn't mention water quality specifically just because I didn't want to put too much pressure
- on highlighting anything as I know that we're kind of in a longer run.
- initiative for those. I think that's fair. Working groups existed in 2025, but had a tough time accomplishing
- much. So I don't know if it's worth drawing attention to it being formed or not, if we don't have anything
- to report from it at that time. So I think you have a good handle on it, covering the events we attended,
- the tabling we did. So in care, we trust.
- boards and commissions work. But is that something a chair does at every board commission? They write
- an annual report? It is a chair duty. Yep. He's presenting a report to council each year. Right. It
- kind of varies about when, but it's one of the, with a handful of duties that the chair has. And those
- duties are listed in the handbook. There's like nine of them. So if you're curious.
- In a way, as a spoiler for a future item on this agenda, if you're ever thinking about any positions
- that you might want to be on in this commission, take a look at the handbook sometime and see what it
- is they do. And also, feel free to reach out one-on-one to an individual who is in that position or
- who has been in that position, because that would not be a violation of open door law.
- With that, I want to move on to item B of new business, which is the 2026 priority discussion, which
- I will once again kick on over to Carrie. My recollection is that this is just kind of touching base
- on what all we're covering for the rest of the year. And looking through the initiatives that we highlighted,
- it would have been last November,
- in planning for 2026, a lot of what we talked about was education and outreach, so that means folks
- contributing to the materials that are on the website. I know that we've started to get some traction
- on recreating some of those documents. We would love to have more people if folks are interested. It
- would be worth doing a little, just kind of email crowdsourcing on people who are interested in helping
- with that process, but also talking about
- hosting maybe two meetings per year on UDO changes. That was something that we had talked about, knowing
- that it's something we want to get ahead of if there are any changes coming down the pipe that we'd
- like to discuss before they're being recommended. And then also how we want to proceed with the habitat
- connectivity plan and any, especially any materials we want for outreach. I know we had ideally planned
- on this spring trying to get, you know, cards or little scannable info sheets or whatever to
- things like some of the local greenhouses and some of the native plant society and things like that.
- So some of those materials and initiatives that we talked about are making little bit subtraction, but
- I know that those were on the list. And then of course, talking through what we are proposing as far
- as potential light pollution solutions and water quality reporting. So those are all things that we were
- that we have expressed interest in going into 2026. We are now in the summer months, which means I know
- people are traveling, there's a lot going on, but we are kind of moving into the fall season, which
- will be a perfect time to really make a difference. And reminding folks that your enthusiasm towards
- these goals is always appreciated. And as we're planning 2027,
- Thinking realistically about your time commitments, where your interests are, where you are ready to
- dedicate a little extra time or energy is super, super helpful because we want to set realistic plans
- for what we want to do in the future. So that's kind of where we're at now. Any additional comments
- on this particular talking point? Yes, Mitchell? I was just going to say, kind of akin to the, like,
- regular meetings on UDO updates and stuff like that. And there's something I have been doing in the
- water quality working group was bringing in Liz Carter from Stormwater kind of annually and checking
- up with her on like how things have been going, what are they up to, any like big changes on like that
- kind of permitting front or like what I was going in the city that kind of affects water. And I think
- that's something that would be very, I would like to keep going in the future because it's very important.
- But now that we don't have working groups, it's something that we need to incorporate
- these meetings, so it might be worth thinking about if we're planning for the rest of the year, like
- trying to link up with her and figure out if there's a meeting that works well for like checking in
- on that. I would love that. I think we've almost exhausted our list of potential presentations for this
- year. So if that's something that folks feel like we want to try and get on the books, that's a fantastic
- idea. I really love the updates that we were able to get from that team.
- That's great. If there's a month that works for her to present, awesome. Additionally, if she doesn't
- want to present or can't find the time, you can still have that dialogue. And you can send something
- into Rachel. We can get an agenda item on here. We can have those discussions in the commission as the
- whole here as well. So I do think that sounds like a good thing to stay on top of.
- Is there somewhere where we can readily access that document where we just arrived at 2026 priorities
- from last fall? That's a great question. The minutes from November. Rachel, I don't know if you have
- a cleaner place where those live otherwise.
- That's something I can, I mean, I have my own version of it that I can certainly share with the group
- as well. Yes, I think for lots of reasons that we don't necessarily need to rehash. We've had some challenges
- between that November meeting and now that have kept us from really diving into a number of those issues,
- but there's still plenty of 2026 left. So I think as a homework assignment, it would be really great
- if people peeped
- either at those minutes or if Rachel is able to produce something a little more accessible and share
- it with us, that'd be awesome too. But if that's too much, I get it. Just so that when the call for
- agenda items comes out for next month or the following, any time coming up here, people can have an
- idea of what they would like to focus on or just have a discussion about what the next steps are on
- it. So we can kind of get back into figuring out
- What do we want to do? How can we do it before we arrive at our next planning meeting in November? And
- it's OK if some of those items just roll over. If we didn't get around to them and we would like to
- consider them a 2027 priority idea as well, that's fine. But now I think it'd be nice for people to
- take a look and see where we might want to direct our energy in the remaining months here.
- Any further questions or comments on the priority discussion conversation? Thanks. Can we do field trips?
- We probably can't do field trips, because I'm guessing if we had a quorum, it would probably require
- staff. OK. And the staff really can address that if they'd like to. But I think field trips are a tough
- sell outside of our regular meeting times.
- That being said, any non-corum of individuals can go check something out, tour something, go somewhere,
- see a presentation, and then tell us during reports the following month what they learned. So small
- field trips, small unofficial field trips. I think it would be Capt. 5, I think, if I understand that
- correctly.
- technically way out, was the quorum and the de minimis. Anyway, you may go on small field trips, but
- you're not likely to be able to go on commission field trips. With that, I want to move to new business
- item C, social media post discussion. I'm assuming that's Rachel. This is not me. I think I was asked,
- I think by Kare, you lost time, except for the song you took up earlier in the night.
- Well, Carrie, once again, new business floor is yours. And I'm going to take D also, so get ready. For
- the social media piece, this is partially because we have some new commissioners, but also just to clarify
- how the process works for how the environmental commission shares through social media. So the process
- of something that somebody on our commission sees that would be of interest to share, how it gets to
- the proper recipient, if it's something that needs a vote,
- and just kind of understanding that process. And Rachel, yeah, this is mostly a question for you, but
- one that I was eager to have the group here as well. Just the overall process of social media? Yeah,
- if there's something to get posted, yeah. So the process as far as I'm aware would be the department
- isn't going to be formulating social media posts.
- So if there's something that you all would like to have posted on the Facebook page, you're welcome
- to drop that and send that to me. And I can review it and or send it to comms and then it will get posted
- by the, whoever is the administrator of the Facebook page. I'm not the administrator for the Facebook
- page, I'm the send that to them. We have essentially a timeline of
- If, like, let's say it's an event that it's happening that feels like a really relevant one, do you
- have a sense of what the timeline is for sending something first to you and then eventually getting
- it posted? Probably not same day. I would say it would probably have been a couple of days,
- but I'm not, I mean, it would depend, one, how busy, what my other competing priorities are, to be honest,
- as well as what the, I'm not, for the comps team who's reviewing it, I'm not sure what their timeline would be.
- And when you send it through to comms, that includes the ADA assessment too, right? The ADA assessment's
- mean. So that takes a little bit longer on mine. ADA would be more so about if there were links and
- or images associated with the post. If it's just a text post, the digital accessibility is a bit more
- straightforward. And my last question. Sorry, am I interrupting somebody?
- No, sorry. Go ahead, Carrie. My last question was just, is this a voting item? And that's kind of,
- I think, a question for Rachel, but maybe a question for legal slash the whole group. Is this something
- that we vote on, or is this something that is a pass through with sort of a good faith behind it? I
- personally am not sure. I would, if I still have the bylaws, I don't know. Short answer is I don't know.
- I can get back to you. Because I don't know if it's technically making a public statement, if it's being
- defined as a public statement or shared information or how that works. So I will get back to you on
- that. I'm sorry, I don't have an answer. I'm just going to say this.
- sort of sum up my piece and then happy to give the mic over to other folks on this topic. But I would
- say if maybe we tentatively just put social media as a voting item on our ongoing agenda. So that way,
- if it is something that we need to vote on, it's baked into that. And if it's not a voting item,
- then great, we'll just pass along what we talked about. But one of the things that was included in the
- priority of education outreach was including more of that social media engagement, which it's just a Facebook
- account so it's not reaching tens of thousands of people. But it is a way to amplify what's happening
- elsewhere in the city that are similar initiatives or similar organizations that we've worked side by
- side with before. So that's thinking through how to incorporate that into just an easier pathway to
- long term. I will say, jumping in, if we do make it, I'm happy to make it a social media, or happy to make
- social media voting item on the agenda, if that's the determination, I will need those posts 10 days
- in advance of a meeting. So make some of those, if this is the route that I'm told that we need to do,
- that would be, the time sensitive nature would come into effect. So it probably wouldn't be like, hey,
- there's an event tomorrow, let's share it. So I just wanted to throw that out there to everyone as well.
- And that's a good note that if it becomes that we have to vote for any social media posts, that means
- it's once a month with 10 days before the meeting that something would be shared. So it does really
- impede our ability to kind of have a fluid process. So I think the voting, if it is required, that'll
- be helpful to know. And if it is not a requirement, then that is a goal process. Anything from anybody
- else on that topic?
- Yeah, I just want to clarify. So the Facebook account, is this a City of Bloomington's or is this a
- separate account? It's, okay, so the City of Bloomington has several Facebook accounts, so it's managed
- by the City of Bloomington. Commission members cannot be added as administrators to the Facebook account.
- But it is essentially we're approving posts for the Facebook.
- Yes. Okay. Yeah. Is there any possibility of extending that to the city of Bloomington as other social
- media accounts on other platforms? They have a Reddit account, they have, I don't know if they have
- a Twitter account, I'm not on Twitter, but a loose guy? I don't know. Is it possible to like expand,
- like if we were interested and post on other platforms as well, or are we just restricted to Facebook?
- I said that environmental commission only has a Facebook, and the department is not going to be managing
- other social media accounts. Gotcha. However, if there are social media accounts, like if you wanted
- it posted on the city of Bloomington Reddit, I'm happy, if you let me know, I'm happy to send along
- that request, and it'd be up to you. OK. We've had a little bit of collaboration where we could say,
- hey, could parks share this, if it was a real thing.
- been able to do that. But basically, we just have the Facebook available to us. And traditionally, the
- intern approving it. But someone within the city, none of us are allowed to be administrators. Right.
- That makes sense. But it would be kind of cool to be able to expand our reach. Because a lot of people,
- like I'm not on Facebook either. So it would be kind of cool to broaden our horizon if we can. It has
- been a challenge to do so outside of periodic Facebook posts.
- periodic guest columns in one, usually the HD, but one place or another that has been our footprint
- in the media today. And I know historical precedent probably doesn't mean much in this. We've been voting
- on items that are brought to us by outside groups. So if someone says, hey, we're showing this environmental
- movie, can you guys share it for us? We would vote to prove it. But previously,
- And there weren't many things. Again, it's not a very active page. But I would say, hey, can we put
- something out advertising eco heroes? I just have to get Rachel the information in advance. Get approved
- when it gets approved. But I suspect that what Rachel and Kerry were both driving at is that it might
- be required to be a voting item from here on out by the letter of the handbook. So I'm looking forward
- to clarification down the road.
- I would also be interested if it was possible, and maybe the answer is no, to vote to delegate a small
- amount of power to have somebody approve posts, kind of like a standing authority, so to speak, for
- non-controversial event notifications or something. Again, I don't know if that's even acceptable, but
- it would be very convenient if we could do something like that.
- any other comments or questions on the social media post discussion agenda item. Seeing none, we are
- going to move to new business item D, officer election discussion, and it is again going to be introduced
- by Carrie. Oh, hi there.
- So next month, we are officially conducting our elections for the mid-2026 to mid-2027 Officers of the
- Environmental Commission, which means that we'll be taking nominations during that next meeting. And
- I'm just sort of opening the floor to anybody who has questions, wants to voice any nominations that
- they're thinking about. Self-nominations are encouraged, but as Matt said, there's some descriptive
- language in the handbook
- Folks who have served in these roles are, I'm sure, happy to talk about their experience. Folks who
- have served in these roles, you are welcome to self-nominate to stay in your role. But the people in
- the role right now do not have to be the ones that stay in these roles. It's really a flexible,
- fluid time. And so I wanted to just take a minute to remind folks that we are doing that next month.
- So if there's any reason that you are not able to be at next month's meeting and there's anything that
- you would like to share, that's when we'll be voting.
- reiterate the importance of attending if you're able to, and then also really thinking about the nomination
- process, because we will need both of you to speak. Any questions or input from the group on this one?
- I was basically going to open the floor up the same way, actually. In the past, and even during this
- meeting, I've tried to encourage people to say, hey, you can reach out to these officers and ask how
- it went. But we also have a moment right now in meeting with Cora that anyone can ask any questions
- of these officers just to learn whether they're thinking about throwing their hat in the ring next month
- or a year from next month.
- This is our golden opportunity to talk about it, so I would invite any comments or questions from the
- room. It's totally okay. No one's going to say, man, you didn't read the handbook. You could have known
- that. We're happy to talk about our positions. We're looking to share the wealth of experience here.
- Winked and nodded in the past to I'm looking to remain on the commission, but I'm looking to drop my
- officer role. So ask questions now, but also expect peer pressure in a month. So I'm going to give everybody
- another shot to ask any questions you're thinking about, anybody? Matt, I'm sorry, how do you go?
- I'm going to go Heidi first and then to Carrie. To the secretary now. How much time does it take to
- type up all the boxes? Well, most of the time it's just in the meeting itself. And then if there's bits
- I missed, I just make a note to myself to go back and watch the cat's recording later. So you don't
- have to type fast? Is that required? It helps.
- Another thing worth noting is it's not like you have to have the word for words. So-and-so said this.
- So-and-so said that. It requires that you have the results of votes. You're just providing as much context
- as you see fit. And we've had, over the years, we've had secretaries that have kept it really bare bones.
- And we've had others that have pages and pages of minutes. And we've had commissioners respond positively
- to either of those forms. So it really is a little bit of the secretary's choice. But I think generally
- hitting the most important details and adding a little bit of key conversation points on any sticky
- item is the gist of it. And I'll jump into it. This has been a really recent change. And so Adam and
- Carl, maybe you can jump in on your experience.
- I have been tasked with doing just the memorandum for the meeting, which is the legal requirement for
- the meeting. So it's basically skeleton minutes. So it has everything that's required, and then our
- office manager will contact the secretary for that meeting. And that secretary can add in the supplemental notes.
- So Adam and I think Adam have probably been through this process only one time. It's still a really
- new process, but how has that worked for you so far? About the same? It's pretty much the same. It's
- just I did my copy of the agenda. I take my notes there. And then whenever I got the email, I just copy
- pasted what I had. The bare-backed bones outline is actually really nice. It hits all the legal parts
- of it. And then you just have to fill in with detail.
- Yeah, that way you can focus on substantive stuff, knowing that the motion and the second and the vote
- tallies are already kept so you don't have to quickly gather that that's being gathered. So you're just
- adding that flavor. You're gathering all of them. All of these, I'm sorry, are supposed to do this moving
- forward, doing kind of the skeleton minutes or the memorandum. OK. You might consider updating.
- the secretary's duties in the handbook. I know more handbook stuff, but it says secretary takes the
- minutes and then later says minutes include record of motions and votes, attendance. But if the secretary's
- not doing that, should we have to? I don't know if it matters. I do think we could modernize that section
- of the handbook. And unlike some previous ones, it would not be controversial and would not take long
- portions of the meeting. But I think that's a good idea now.
- So maybe I'll recommend that in our next meeting. Do you want that as a voting item for the next meeting?
- Let me think about it. OK. Knock it to this. Sometime at your leisure, you can get that. You can always
- email Rachel with a suggested language. And thank you for the question, Heidi Carey. Do you still have
- a question? I was going to ask Matt, as vice chair and treasurer, about how much time do you spend in
- those roles each month, just in case there's anyone listening who's interested in nominating themselves
- for their role?
- Yeah, so vice chair might sound a little bit intimidating, but since at this point our wonderful chair
- has been running the meetings with great regularity, and I only have to jump in once or twice a year,
- clearly less good at it. I just stay right on the agenda items. I do not have the same, as Kerry has
- described, gift of gap. But each month, some months it is no different than any other seat.
- like zero additional minutes of your time. Sometimes there's a little bit of planning. I feel like anybody
- can be extra attentive to the call to agenda items, but as one of the, you know, in the chair or vice
- chair seat, I try to pay extra attention to that, to crafting it. But in any given month, the vice chair
- slash treasurer might have zero extra minutes, or they might receive an email saying, we're going to
- order a thousand prints of Bug Bingo before Bug Fest. Do you approve? And you just reply,
- Yes, I approve. And you just sort of keep track of that budget line that's very infrequently touched.
- So it might sound like a really big job, but a lot of the time it's really not. We work a little closer
- with Carrie or whoever becomes chair. And it's just a good way to get a feel for everything and be a
- little more involved. Thank you, Matt.
- I don't want to linger on this too long if people don't have questions or comments, but any other questions
- or comments on the officer election discussion here in the room. Well, think about it. And again, feel
- free to shoot an email to the individual you have a question to, or for, rather. I suppose after this,
- we will move to upcoming meeting to item seven, which
- Yes, January 11th this year, same time, same place, 16th, so fair conference room here at St. Paul.
- I will be sending out the coverage of the items. I'll probably send that out on Tuesday morning since
- it's a week earlier than usual because of the June 2 holiday. That's right. I liked the way the agenda
- fell together today, but my attention to detail on this that I would still like
- Commissioner announcements here before adjournments, so I moved to add just before adjournment, Commissioner
- announcements to the agenda. I like the way the report's played out, but I still want people to be able
- to have an opportunity to plug something. Would that be, so I added walk-in items earlier. Yes. So instead
- of walk-in items, do the Commissioner announcements at the end?
- I think walk-in items are still a good description for the fact that, because we don't know, like, it
- might be a month where we had an ERAC, it might not. So Adam might have something to say on that, he
- might not. Who knows what individual work Mitchell might want to report on, on working towards his water
- quality report, or whatever it is. So I don't think people need to email you to say what their commission
- report's going to be. So I think walk-in items are still nice. But this way, it would be our commission
- or other commissions
- related, and then announcements at the end could be anything. It could be personal. It could be reminders.
- It could be an event from your department that's outside of anything here. So I like the way reports
- worked. I just still want to sneak announcements at the end. Yeah, definitely. He kind of makes the
- meeting end on a wider note as well. So call the Martinez for that motion in a second. Yes. OK. Messger.
- Yes. Geyser. Yes.
- Owens. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Guy. Yes. Sputaker. Yes. Halby. Yes. Brown. Yes. Albright. Yes. Motion passes.
- At this time, do we have any Commissioner announcements to start with Mitchell? Oh, yes. This is something
- that I forgot about earlier and was reminded by Carrie bringing up Bugfest a few times. Date for this
- year's Bugfest came out. It's going to be on September 26.
- So that's something we can think about in future weeks. I won't be there in my identity capacity,
- as usual, or in the EC capacity, because I'm going to be out of town that weekend. But I figured I would
- pass the news on to you guys, because that's something we have participated in for a number of years
- now. And it's about that's it. What's the date? September 26. It's out of past. Yes. What are the bio points?
- That bioblitz is June 20th. That will be coming up soon. Did you want me to send you the sign-up info
- for that? I don't think I would do it. I won't be here. OK. Well, it's late on that. I'm sorry. June
- 20th on the bioblitz. And yeah, if you want the sign-up information, I think registration is officially
- closing soon. But they're not super strict about it. You just can't not get lunch.
- No, you'll get mine. She might not get it. Yep. Do we have other commissioner announcements? Well, the
- member of the public said it was June 21st. Let's see. Does that sound right? Let's see. June 21st is
- a Sunday, so June 20th would be Saturday. Yeah, so it would be June 20th. June 20th. OK, thank you.
- Other commissioner announcements, either Carrie or any commissioners here in the room?
- And anyone? Yep, Carrie. Hey. Actually, speaking of BioBlitzes, the Bee City committee met last week.
- And one of the things that they are announcing this week is pollinator week through the city of Bloomington
- Parks and Rec Department. And they are doing kind of a week long BioBlitz thing during that same week,
- the week of the 21st to the 28th. And so they're putting out an announcement and we can have Rachel
- email the group
- But it's basically a series of events to talk about native plants and providing nesting sites for pollinators
- and reducing pesticides and all those different things that we've been getting lots of information from
- the Xerxes Society through the Bee City Committee. But there is a pop-up at the Lilly Library. There
- is a documentary screening at the Downtown Library.
- and there is a special green drinks event with Sycamore Land Trust at Upland as well. So there's a bunch
- of things coming up, but that's the week of June 21 through 28. Should be a lot of fun. They're trying
- to really get a lot of excitement around it. So after you finish doing the bioblitz that is down,
- I think, what was it Mitchell, the southern part of the state? Yep, Harmony State Park outside of Evansville.
- So after you do that, come on back to Bloomington and there's a lot of stuff going on. But I think the
- announcement hasn't, I don't think it's been released just yet, but either way, we'll send through the
- document that outlines all the activity. I have an announcement. I found an interesting piece of history
- the other day, a document from 1978 that was talking about city and county government. And I found the
- Environmental Quality and Conservation Commission
- membership 14, including one council member, one planning commissioner, and five with scientific training.
- So that was 12 mayor-appointed seats and two ex officios, technically. Three-year terms, no compensation,
- meets the second Monday of each month at 7.30 PM. So I just thought that was an interesting little bit
- of history from when the commission was something like five years young. But on a barely related note,
- Our numbers are getting a little bit low. If you know anybody, particularly with scientific training,
- but even without, who would like to join, please nudge them. We have a number of mayoral vacancies in
- particular, and I'm sure they would be happy to appoint people if we have applications in. So that's
- my announcement. Anyone else? All right, with that, I motion we adjourn.
- And seconds, thank you everyone.