WEBVTT 00:00:01.282 --> 00:00:10.036 - With everyone present and back in the room, we're still recording. We're going to reconvene the meeting 00:00:10.036 --> 00:00:18.705 - here at 627. Mitchell, thank you for sharing those reports. I have a couple to share as well. Hold on. 00:00:18.705 --> 00:00:27.207 - I think, and Adina, did you say we need to motion to resume at 627? You can. OK. I move to resume at 00:00:27.207 --> 00:00:30.910 - 627. Second. We're doing majority, I guess. 00:00:36.898 --> 00:00:48.387 - We'll do whatever we got to do to get back on track. OK. Owens. Yes. Geyser. Yes. Nestor. Yes. Albright. 00:00:48.387 --> 00:00:59.657 - Yes. Brown. Yes. Colby. Yes. Whitaker. Yes. Bright. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Mission passes. Thank you, and 00:00:59.657 --> 00:01:06.878 - we're back. We're going to continue within reports. I have a few. 00:01:07.010 --> 00:01:13.416 - I attended the special session of the Wilmington Commission on Sustainability and Resilience, where 00:01:13.416 --> 00:01:20.143 - the Capstone students presented their feasibility analysis of implementing a sustainable energy utility. 00:01:20.143 --> 00:01:26.613 - They found that it's likely not a great fit for here, mostly because Duke would have to agree to it, 00:01:26.613 --> 00:01:33.275 - and that's not really something that they expect to have happen. But they also presented a lot of other 00:01:33.275 --> 00:01:36.158 - data and research. It's a good presentation. 00:01:37.026 --> 00:01:44.323 - I also watched the regular BCOS meeting on May 12th. They welcomed a new commissioner. They reflected 00:01:44.323 --> 00:01:51.621 - on the capstone presentation. They passed a resolution on the pedestrianization of Kirkwood. And they 00:01:51.621 --> 00:01:58.918 - postponed indefinitely the resolution that was regarding the use of glyphosate that was brought up in 00:01:58.918 --> 00:02:03.998 - a previous meeting. So we will see whether that one comes back or not. 00:02:06.018 --> 00:02:13.200 - A couple members had a conversation with a couple members of BCOS about the possibility of a joint resolution 00:02:13.200 --> 00:02:19.924 - on light pollution. We're going to still figure out the logistics of that, if that's possible, and the 00:02:19.924 --> 00:02:26.583 - details of the resolution to a later date. That is all I have to report today. Any other commissioner 00:02:26.583 --> 00:02:28.542 - reports from this past month? 00:02:29.154 --> 00:02:35.583 - Yes, so as a newly appointed member of the Treatment Commission, we've had two Treatment Commission 00:02:35.583 --> 00:02:42.141 - meetings since our last meeting. So I'll just try to give a brief overview of what we discussed then. 00:02:42.141 --> 00:02:49.021 - There's an engineering, a resurfacing project for kind of west side of Kirkwood. This is like a $1 million 00:02:49.021 --> 00:02:55.450 - state funding project. Overall, like seven treaties are impacted. A couple of them are invasive, so 00:02:55.450 --> 00:02:56.286 - no big deal. 00:02:56.546 --> 00:03:04.146 - To compensate, we're going to plant 17 new trees. So more engineering projects are to come, keeping 00:03:04.146 --> 00:03:11.898 - a loop for those. Tree commission is also dealing with accessibility guideline updates, same as we've 00:03:11.898 --> 00:03:19.650 - been dealing with. Haskell reports that he had 11,000 seedlings that he was giving away in the garden 00:03:19.650 --> 00:03:23.678 - fair, Earth Day, Arbor Day, events held by the city. 00:03:23.874 --> 00:03:34.959 - So that's very exciting. Hopefully a lot of people plant these things and we can improve our canopy. 00:03:34.959 --> 00:03:46.044 - A lot of this isn't super relevant. Mia Williams is the IU landscape architect and she retired April 00:03:46.044 --> 00:03:52.190 - 30th. She's still going to stay on the tree commission. 00:03:52.546 --> 00:04:01.827 - And she's still going to kind of act as our liaison with the IU landscaping team. But she's currently 00:04:01.827 --> 00:04:11.289 - retired, so that's good. Haskell Urban Forester is still looking to plant another 170 trees this spring 00:04:11.289 --> 00:04:18.750 - and 325 trees for the fall. And yeah, not a whole lot of updates other than that. 00:04:19.298 --> 00:04:26.668 - The Bryant Park shelter, maple tree, there's a maple tree that had a really cool lightning strike. I 00:04:26.668 --> 00:04:34.477 - can try to share that picture with you guys later. But other than that, it's essentially a tree commission 00:04:34.477 --> 00:04:41.847 - business. Thank you for your report. Any other commissioners with reports for us today? All right, I 00:04:41.847 --> 00:04:44.766 - guess we'll carry on the staff reports. 00:04:46.402 --> 00:04:54.640 - OK, questions for the city legal department. So Anadina Tasmanian, I think a lot of you have seen her 00:04:54.640 --> 00:05:03.040 - in previous meetings. Anadina, I will let you give an update. So thanks for having me here today, guys. 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:11.279 - We've been going back and forth about quorum. Was there a question you guys had about quorum? Another 00:05:11.279 --> 00:05:14.590 - question? There's at least one question. 00:05:15.170 --> 00:05:24.425 - I've had some conversations in the past regarding whether it is the majority of the appointed members 00:05:24.425 --> 00:05:33.590 - or the number of total seats. So I'm going to give you just a quick rundown on that. We went over, I 00:05:33.590 --> 00:05:43.934 - went over, the legal department went over some PAC decisions and some, which is public access, and some case law. 00:05:44.610 --> 00:05:53.951 - And we're just kind of reviewing historically what we have found. So quorum, determining if you have 00:05:53.951 --> 00:06:03.663 - quorum and how to meet the state's hybrid meeting guidelines requires two separate analysis. So a quorum 00:06:03.663 --> 00:06:13.374 - is a majority of members of the body. That means more than 50% of the number of seats filled and vacant. 00:06:14.370 --> 00:06:22.030 - number of seats on the Board of Commission. A remote member can count toward one. The hybrid meeting, 00:06:22.030 --> 00:06:29.691 - you need at least 50% of the sitting membership of the Board of Commission at the time of the meeting 00:06:29.691 --> 00:06:37.351 - must be present in person. The sitting members does not include vacancies, only the number of members 00:06:37.351 --> 00:06:39.454 - at the time of the meeting. 00:06:43.490 --> 00:06:53.765 - present in person. So you have just regular quorum, which is a majority of the members of the body. 00:06:53.765 --> 00:07:03.937 - So that means more than 50% of the number of seats. 50% plus one, right. So that was seven. Right. 00:07:03.937 --> 00:07:10.718 - And you're, for purposes of this commission, that would be seven. 00:07:11.330 --> 00:07:18.836 - Because your number is 12, right? The number 6 is 12. But if you keep in mind that a remote number can 00:07:18.836 --> 00:07:26.633 - count towards quorum. But when you're having a hybrid meeting and you're trying to figure out an in-person 00:07:26.633 --> 00:07:33.920 - requirement, then you need at least 50% of the sitting membership of the board or commission at the 00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:40.478 - time of the meeting be present in person. And sitting members does not include vacancies. 00:07:41.474 --> 00:07:49.534 - Only the number of members at the time of the meeting. So six? No, because we have five. We have nine 00:07:49.534 --> 00:07:57.751 - people on the board right now, so we would need five. Right, which is why in their bylaws, there's like 00:07:57.751 --> 00:08:05.653 - a memo of five. I missed the wording on the first type of meeting you described. The second one you 00:08:05.653 --> 00:08:10.078 - said in a hybrid meeting. What was the first one again? 00:08:10.210 --> 00:08:18.613 - The first one is just general quorum. General quorum. Defining quorum. OK. So general quorum includes 00:08:18.613 --> 00:08:27.015 - the hybrid members. So if we had five people in the room, two people online would be quorum, with our 00:08:27.015 --> 00:08:35.418 - current number of nine people. Right. Right. So the definition, members of the body, is the number of 00:08:35.418 --> 00:08:38.878 - seats, regardless of how many are filled. 00:08:39.330 --> 00:08:47.609 - I guess that's what I'm struggling with. My understanding in the past, full disclosure, not a lawyer. 00:08:47.609 --> 00:08:55.807 - 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 00:08:55.807 --> 00:09:04.248 - of them. But I thought from our code meetings are run using Robert's Rules of Order. And Robert's Rules 00:09:04.248 --> 00:09:09.118 - of Order seemed to indicate the majority of the members not 00:09:11.010 --> 00:09:24.974 - that would include the empty seats. So I wondered how, what supersedes what, I guess. So the legal department 00:09:24.974 --> 00:09:38.558 - has come up with this based on that decision, which is the public access counselor, and based on case law. 00:09:39.778 --> 00:09:47.538 - Can you send us a reference to those decisions in case law, please? Let me see. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't 00:09:47.538 --> 00:09:55.373 - have to be during the email. No, no, no. Wait, wait. Very nice to see when you were able. Can you email 00:09:55.373 --> 00:10:03.435 - me that request? I think all questions. OK. Yeah, go ahead and email your VA's on initial, send it through 00:10:03.435 --> 00:10:04.414 - us, and then 00:10:18.914 --> 00:10:25.320 - Any other updates from you and Nadina? No other updates. OK. I think Nadina's going to be joining our 00:10:25.320 --> 00:10:31.725 - meetings in the future. If there are questions for legal that you anticipate, please send them to me, 00:10:31.725 --> 00:10:38.005 - and we'll get a response back in writing as well. Yeah. Then at the next following meeting, I'll be 00:10:38.005 --> 00:10:44.788 - able to expand on that written answer. Yeah. Any other questions for legal, including from online? Anything 00:10:44.788 --> 00:10:45.918 - from you, Carrie? 00:10:48.258 --> 00:10:57.036 - Yeah, thanks. Just to clarify that I'm understanding the first general quorum concept. Can you hear 00:10:57.036 --> 00:11:05.989 - me okay, by the way? You can hear me okay? Yeah. Okay. The general quorum versus the hybrid quorum is 00:11:05.989 --> 00:11:15.293 - the former for when the meeting is taking place and there is no commissioner that is dialing in remotely. 00:11:15.293 --> 00:11:18.014 - Is that the distinction there? 00:11:21.890 --> 00:11:29.354 - That's a good question. I am not prepared to answer that question. I'm not sure. I don't want to assume 00:11:29.354 --> 00:11:36.602 - a distinction that that's the distinction. If you want, you can send it in writing to our liaison if 00:11:36.602 --> 00:11:43.205 - you want more on that. But I can't say that we can assume that that's the distinction. What 00:11:43.205 --> 00:11:50.238 - is the distinction then? The state's hybrid reading guidelines require two separate calculations. 00:11:51.810 --> 00:11:58.863 - I was going to say we'll let Carrie continue the questioning, and then we can jump in with someone else 00:11:58.863 --> 00:12:05.645 - next. Do you have anything to clarify? I think that just to clarify where my question is rooted, it 00:12:05.645 --> 00:12:12.630 - sounds like if we are all in the same room, it is 50% of the available seats. But if there is a hybrid 00:12:12.630 --> 00:12:20.158 - element, it is 50% of the seated commissioners in the room, which when we have a lot of vacancies, it makes it 00:12:20.514 --> 00:12:25.883 - My deduction would be that we should always have someone remotely, so that way we're only having to 00:12:25.883 --> 00:12:31.628 - meet that seated 50%. That seems like a silly way for it to be set up, but that's what I was just thinking 00:12:31.628 --> 00:12:37.266 - about, knowing that we have a lot of vacancies right now. So I could email that question, but if there's 00:12:37.266 --> 00:12:40.702 - any clarification we can have tonight, that'd be awesome. Okay. 00:12:43.170 --> 00:12:50.686 - I think that'll likely be covered in the question that Carl emails, but feel free to also email Rachel 00:12:50.686 --> 00:12:58.202 - on that just so that we have the question passed along. Did we have in the room any follow-ups on that 00:12:58.202 --> 00:13:06.011 - or questions independent? My reaction when I first heard it was the same. I thought, does that incentivize 00:13:06.011 --> 00:13:10.462 - someone being hybrid? I'm not sure, and I would love to know 00:13:11.554 --> 00:13:16.991 - the case law, but I'm sure in due time, we will get more information. So thank you for sharing with 00:13:16.991 --> 00:13:22.646 - us today. Yeah, no problem. Was there, I think you had a second item on members training? Yeah, I have. 00:13:22.646 --> 00:13:27.703 - Yes. Board of Commission member trainings. I don't have a date, but Deputy Clerk of Outreach 00:13:27.703 --> 00:13:33.195 - and Communications, Jennifer Crossley, has been putting together a really good piece of training for 00:13:33.195 --> 00:13:38.796 - everybody. I think whenever she came at a previous meeting, I think it was the tornado night, whenever 00:13:38.796 --> 00:13:40.862 - that was in. It was February. It was. 00:13:41.250 --> 00:13:48.302 - She kind of mentioned this, so liaisons have gone through training at this point. Most of us have gone 00:13:48.302 --> 00:13:55.422 - through training at least. So the commission member training will be rolling out in June. I think she's 00:13:55.422 --> 00:14:02.474 - going to be reaching out to everyone very soon, maybe by the end of next week. And so I think, I don't 00:14:02.474 --> 00:14:04.254 - know the timeline on when 00:14:04.386 --> 00:14:11.130 - that what we do, if it's going to be live, it's going to be recorded, she should be able to get more 00:14:11.130 --> 00:14:18.142 - information on that. But just know that that's coming. Any questions on that? Questions on the training? 00:14:18.142 --> 00:14:24.886 - And then I have just a lock-in item. This is probably my last meeting in person, so I will be CC-ing 00:14:24.886 --> 00:14:31.564 - Jackie Scanlon on all future correspondence so she can pick up whenever I take off. So if there are 00:14:31.564 --> 00:14:34.302 - questions, please include both of us in. 00:14:35.938 --> 00:14:44.456 - I do have something I'd like to pop in here, if possible. So in the last few meetings we've discussed 00:14:44.456 --> 00:14:52.808 - the policy that our, when we communicate to the city council, anything coming out of our commission 00:14:52.808 --> 00:15:01.493 - has to be passed through the mayor's office. There's been an exchange in the IDS since our last meeting 00:15:01.493 --> 00:15:05.502 - that included, it was referring to our meeting. 00:15:06.178 --> 00:15:14.840 - to the environmental commission. And there was a response from the mayor's office. Are you familiar 00:15:14.840 --> 00:15:23.762 - with? Were you on the email from Deputy Mayor Gretchen Knapp? No. She sent a response. Who did? Deputy 00:15:23.762 --> 00:15:32.424 - Mayor Gretchen Knapp. Not to us, or not to me. OK. Let me close the title of the emails. Looks like 00:15:32.424 --> 00:15:36.062 - it's supposed to go to your ID. Yeah. OK. 00:15:36.418 --> 00:15:45.541 - conflicting response from the mayor's office so that the guest column or that. I'm sorry, I did not 00:15:45.541 --> 00:15:54.937 - end up going to you for some reason. I will forward you that email. She did respond and send it to all 00:15:54.937 --> 00:16:05.246 - 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. 00:16:06.594 --> 00:16:15.835 - Shannon, they went to your, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for outing your email, Adam. Oh, no, it's OK. I guess 00:16:15.835 --> 00:16:25.165 - it went to my junk. I'll read it, thank you. It sent to your Gmail, Shannon. It probably did. May 21st? 00:16:25.165 --> 00:16:28.126 - May 1st. May 1st. OK, thank you. 00:16:34.658 --> 00:16:43.090 - I mean, I read the mayor's, the response from the mayor's office and the IDS. Well, here we got a direct 00:16:43.090 --> 00:16:51.362 - email, too. Yes. That's it. I have an email, actually. Any other reports before we wrap up the reports 00:16:51.362 --> 00:16:59.713 - section of our agenda tonight? Thank you, everyone who shared, and thank you again, Anandina, for being 00:16:59.713 --> 00:17:03.006 - here with us. I actually, at this point, 00:17:03.298 --> 00:17:12.724 - we'd like to move a quick section of public comment before we get into old business, just in case from 00:17:12.724 --> 00:17:22.242 - earlier when people couldn't communicate, a member of the public has anything to share. So I would need 00:17:22.242 --> 00:17:32.126 - a second. A second. Thank you, Shane. OK. Ritual elements. Yes. Prologizer. Yes. Yes. Just the master. Yes. 00:17:33.474 --> 00:17:43.900 - Carrie Albright. Yes. Heidi Brown. Yes. Matt Colby. Yes. Adam Buecher. Yes. Shannon Dye. Yes. Adam Martinez. 00:17:43.900 --> 00:17:53.753 - Yes. Motion passes. Apologies for our earlier technical difficulties. If CG or any other member online 00:17:53.753 --> 00:18:01.214 - on Zoom would like to offer any public comment, you may unmute and do so now. 00:18:08.930 --> 00:18:19.705 - Just a minute. Nothing from them. Anyone else in the chat? Nope. OK. I suppose we will then move on 00:18:19.705 --> 00:18:30.803 - to old business. Old business item A, environmental commission handle commandments. We have a proposed 00:18:30.803 --> 00:18:36.190 - amendment. Yes. So I'm so sorry to have comments. 00:18:36.290 --> 00:18:44.050 - for some reason didn't relay in the suggestion mode online on a shared document. So I will share my 00:18:44.050 --> 00:18:51.888 - screen so you can see the comments or the proposed changes I should say. Now I think that's correct. 00:18:51.888 --> 00:18:59.881 - 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 00:18:59.881 --> 00:19:04.382 - document. It seems to be a sharing issue for some reason. 00:19:05.442 --> 00:19:27.230 - Okay. There we go. Okay. So there were technically three suggestions. I'm going to scroll quickly here just to 00:19:27.362 --> 00:19:33.795 - Go down. Were these all commissioner-led or were some from people? This first one is stuff from the 00:19:33.795 --> 00:19:40.229 - Department of Legal. OK. Just a removal of and the office of the mayor for the public positions and 00:19:40.229 --> 00:19:47.177 - statement policy. So once we begin the media or submitting public comment, commissioners should proactively 00:19:47.177 --> 00:19:53.739 - clarify their comments to be those of an individual member of the community and are not on the behalf 00:19:53.739 --> 00:19:57.342 - of a representative of the positions of the commission. 00:19:57.506 --> 00:20:08.946 - And that's pretty easily approved by majority vote of the commission period. The second slash third 00:20:08.946 --> 00:20:20.158 - proposed amendment is, similarly, just that at the bottom for the lobbying section. There you go. 00:20:22.466 --> 00:20:27.665 - Commission positions may also be recommended to other legislative bodies or organizations of interest, 00:20:27.665 --> 00:20:32.814 - such as the Indiana State Legislature. Again, any position from the Commission as a whole, regardless 00:20:32.814 --> 00:20:38.013 - of audience, must be voted on and approved by a majority of the Commission, period, so removal and the 00:20:38.013 --> 00:20:43.061 - Office of the Mayor. The proposed addition is materials directed to parties external to the City of 00:20:43.061 --> 00:20:48.310 - Bloomington must also comply with the current external communication guidelines established by the City 00:20:48.310 --> 00:20:49.118 - of Bloomington. 00:20:50.530 --> 00:20:58.389 - And this was commissioner-led. Commissioner-led. Yeah, so this one actually came from me. My goal with 00:20:58.389 --> 00:21:06.552 - this is to just match, essentially, what Deputy Mayor Gretchen kind of laid out in her email. I appreciate 00:21:06.552 --> 00:21:14.335 - you taking the time to submit that. I kind of planned to, but then didn't really get around to it. My 00:21:14.335 --> 00:21:18.302 - immediate question would be, is this OK with legal? 00:21:18.978 --> 00:21:27.098 - Yes. Since we have legal and legal. Yes. Was this in the draft that we received? Yeah. For some reason, 00:21:27.098 --> 00:21:35.375 - it was a sharing issue where the comments aren't visible when sharing. OK. So I know that for the future. 00:21:35.375 --> 00:21:43.495 - I'm sorry that wasn't conveyed in the packet. I see. So I also tried to read it ahead of time. But does 00:21:43.495 --> 00:21:44.510 - anyone have? 00:21:44.642 --> 00:21:53.450 - Any comments or proposed amendments to what we're seeing right now here in the room? Can we not include 00:21:53.450 --> 00:22:02.257 - it? Say what? Can we just not include it? Like you just want just the strike in the office of the mayor 00:22:02.257 --> 00:22:11.319 - and leave it at that? No, the strike and all of the green. Oh, because the green is the proposed addition. 00:22:11.319 --> 00:22:14.622 - I know. And I'm not including it. Why? 00:22:15.970 --> 00:22:22.885 - I mean, I think we're going to be, or the commission will be sort of forced to comply with the external 00:22:22.885 --> 00:22:29.734 - communication strategies as it is. So I just don't know if it's necessary to include. I suppose that's 00:22:29.734 --> 00:22:36.384 - a fair perspective. It does seem like that is going to be the scenario, regardless of whether it's, 00:22:36.384 --> 00:22:42.302 - so I think the previous concern was that we require approval at the office of the mayor. 00:22:43.330 --> 00:22:50.180 - emails seem to make it clear that that wasn't going to be the case. But still, especially when things 00:22:50.180 --> 00:22:56.963 - go external, it's going to have to get reviewed by communications. I don't know. I guess I don't see 00:22:56.963 --> 00:23:03.948 - the harm of codifying this personally. But I also see where you're coming from and can all vote however 00:23:03.948 --> 00:23:11.134 - we see fit when we address this item shortly. Do we have other comments in the room or from Carrie online? 00:23:16.226 --> 00:23:22.321 - I can weigh in quickly. I think that you're right that because the process of having to have our documents, 00:23:22.321 --> 00:23:28.247 - our externally facing documents approved through the communications person on behalf of the city, that's 00:23:28.247 --> 00:23:33.947 - already part of what we have to do. I don't know that, to be honest, that it makes a huge difference 00:23:33.947 --> 00:23:39.590 - if it's in our handbook or not. In our handbook, it'd be more of guidance for new commissioners who 00:23:39.590 --> 00:23:43.710 - may not know that yet, but the process is required at this point anyway. 00:23:43.810 --> 00:23:51.066 - If for some reason that process is no longer required, we have written it into being a requirement. 00:23:51.066 --> 00:23:58.395 - I'm not sure if there will be a time of that, especially with ADA compliance as well. But I think we 00:23:58.395 --> 00:24:05.651 - can add it, but I think that it's already part of the problem. I think it's far less with the room. 00:24:05.651 --> 00:24:12.254 - And I also think that it is true that if this changes, then we have to come back and spend 00:24:12.578 --> 00:24:20.262 - commission meeting time changing it. I just want to point out a couple of things. One, this is the handbook, 00:24:20.262 --> 00:24:27.805 - so new members will be reading this, and it would be helpful for them to understand how our communications 00:24:27.805 --> 00:24:35.066 - and processes are handled, which the training is going to help with. I will say that I did include the 00:24:35.066 --> 00:24:42.398 - word current external communication guidelines with the intention that if the city drops this entirely, 00:24:42.562 --> 00:24:50.052 - then the current communication guidelines are nothing, and we don't actually have to submit anything 00:24:50.052 --> 00:24:57.468 - for approval. With that being said, if the consensus is to just remove this entirely, I'm fine with 00:24:57.468 --> 00:25:05.032 - that as well. So I appreciate the thoughtful wording. At this time, do we have any other questions or 00:25:05.032 --> 00:25:09.630 - comments on the proposed amendments from commissioners? Also. 00:25:10.530 --> 00:25:17.112 - very much looking forward to a time where the handbook is a smaller part. At this time, someone would 00:25:17.112 --> 00:25:24.016 - either need to propose that we adopt the handbook as amended, or they would have to rescind their proposed 00:25:24.016 --> 00:25:30.791 - amendment. Those are the things that can happen at this step. Is this the last change, then? Or is there 00:25:30.791 --> 00:25:37.566 - another change? Yes. This is the last change. It is the Carl added section and the legal struck section. 00:25:38.722 --> 00:25:46.378 - Well, I didn't see both, so maybe I'm just saying. I didn't see it being helpful for new members, but 00:25:46.378 --> 00:25:53.284 - also adding more complications, so I... If we don't accept it, then we'll be in the office. 00:25:53.284 --> 00:26:00.865 - Will you stay in? That's however you want it. We can craft a motion to that effect. I tell you what, 00:26:00.865 --> 00:26:06.270 - I will move to amend my inclusion here to remove the additional section 00:26:06.434 --> 00:26:13.508 - and still keep the in the office of the mayor. If that gets voted in, I'll accept it. If not, then we 00:26:13.508 --> 00:26:20.651 - can vote on the original amendment. How does that sound? Well, to keep the office of the mayor. Right, 00:26:20.651 --> 00:26:27.863 - because this is a lobbying part of the document. So since it would be external documentation being sent 00:26:27.863 --> 00:26:35.422 - 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 00:26:35.778 --> 00:26:42.882 - External communications, such as Indiana State Legislature, I think that's what Carl was getting at, 00:26:42.882 --> 00:26:49.916 - was trying to follow the current guidelines. Yes, this is specifically within the lobbying section, 00:26:49.916 --> 00:26:57.021 - right? So this would be only to external, and Indiana, please correct me if I'm wrong, but things to 00:26:57.021 --> 00:27:03.070 - like EZA, Planning Commission, City Council, you would still be able to write letters 00:27:03.778 --> 00:27:11.115 - as long as it was approved as a commission. So the correction here is just the PVA is a quasi-judicial 00:27:11.115 --> 00:27:17.953 - board. So it's a little different than all other commissions. There's something called ex parte 00:27:17.953 --> 00:27:25.075 - communication. We're trying to communicate with the quasi-judicial board. So I would just take out. 00:27:25.075 --> 00:27:31.486 - Yes, I'm sorry. The PVA is a little bit different. We view that a little bit differently. 00:27:32.322 --> 00:27:38.763 - But all other conditions, everything else, I'm sorry. Sorry, I shouldn't have spoken up. No, you have 00:27:38.763 --> 00:27:45.456 - to try everything you're saying. The BCA is weird. It's applied by judicial board. OK, but this is still, 00:27:45.456 --> 00:27:51.960 - like the language that's proposed, amended, is still? Yes. OK. I mean, you can certainly still advance 00:27:51.960 --> 00:27:58.337 - that language, and I can just go, no. Yeah, I was going to say, I think the easiest course of action 00:27:58.337 --> 00:28:00.926 - would be someone proposed that we adopt. 00:28:01.218 --> 00:28:11.980 - If it succeeds, it fails. And then any other amending could be proposed. I move that we adopt these 00:28:11.980 --> 00:28:22.742 - edits. Second. I move the second. Can I abstain from the vote? You may abstain any time. Keep this. 00:28:22.742 --> 00:28:29.630 - If anyone calls your name, you would just say, I'm staying. OK. 00:28:29.762 --> 00:28:42.170 - Justin Nestor. Yes. Sherry Albright. I vote yes. Heidi Brown. I'm sorry. Matt Pauly. Yes. Adam Henniker. 00:28:42.170 --> 00:28:53.632 - Yes. Shannon Begg. No. Adam Martinez. Yes. Mitchell Owens. Yes. Carl Geiser. Yes. Motion passes. 00:28:53.632 --> 00:28:57.886 - Thank you, everyone, for especially 00:28:58.306 --> 00:29:05.710 - Carl for the proposed amendment, but everyone else for the lively discussion and vote. We move on to 00:29:05.710 --> 00:29:13.041 - old business item B, 2020-60 Co-Heroes. I know the photo link was shared. Is there anything else to 00:29:13.041 --> 00:29:20.445 - share with that agenda item? Those were great pictures. Yeah. Yeah, there were some pretty fun ones. 00:29:20.445 --> 00:29:27.262 - Yeah, I can just say thanks to everybody who helped make the day possible. It was definitely 00:29:27.394 --> 00:29:32.932 - a busy one. And when the award ceremony piece came together, it was lots and lots of folks, lots of 00:29:32.932 --> 00:29:38.636 - excitement. And yeah, it was really helpful having so many people participate. And Matt, thank you for 00:29:38.636 --> 00:29:44.728 - taking the microphone to read everything off especially. And Carl for helping with the prizes and everything. 00:29:44.728 --> 00:29:50.487 - It was great. The community responded really, really well. And I feel like having this breadth of young 00:29:50.487 --> 00:29:55.582 - people in the room and interacting with all the different booths and tables and everything. 00:29:55.746 --> 00:30:01.531 - was a really nice addition that I think the Eco Heroes specifically contributed to. So it was great. 00:30:01.531 --> 00:30:07.431 - And yeah, it was a lot of fun and I appreciate everybody who helped make it happen. There are a couple 00:30:07.431 --> 00:30:13.159 - little follow-up things to check in on as far as thanking our sponsors, making sure everything that 00:30:13.159 --> 00:30:19.002 - needed to be picked up was picked up and things like that. But I would say overall, it all wrapped up 00:30:19.002 --> 00:30:20.606 - nicely. So thank you again. 00:30:23.586 --> 00:30:30.996 - Thank you, Carrie. And yeah, I agree. It was nice to see everything come together and do it into a really 00:30:30.996 --> 00:30:38.127 - successful event after a lot of work to make it happen. So thank you to everyone involved. With that, 00:30:38.127 --> 00:30:45.257 - we will move on to item six, new business. A is annual report discussion. Is that Carrie, you want to 00:30:45.257 --> 00:30:52.318 - take this one? That's me. So as you all may remember, every year we write a report to deliver to the 00:30:53.762 --> 00:30:59.280 - Common Council about what we've been up to this past year. It typically happens around mid-year, which 00:30:59.280 --> 00:31:05.013 - means we're talking about 2025. You usually do this or so, but what I have is a document that I've written 00:31:05.013 --> 00:31:10.370 - up. It's kind of the same format every year, but it highlights the things that we accomplished this 00:31:10.370 --> 00:31:15.835 - past year. It talks a little bit about, you know, membership and goals for the future and things like 00:31:15.835 --> 00:31:21.513 - that, but mainly it focuses on what we accomplished over 2025. I wanted to just walk through specifically 00:31:21.513 --> 00:31:23.710 - the highlights that I'm going to include 00:31:23.810 --> 00:31:31.704 - and I would love to have you all share if there's something specific that I should include, that I should 00:31:31.704 --> 00:31:39.002 - add a spotlight to, because we can make this as long as we want, but I wanna make sure everyone's 00:31:39.002 --> 00:31:46.448 - represented. The main things I am covering in this are speaking to the 2025 Eco Heroes Art Contest, 00:31:46.448 --> 00:31:53.374 - speaking to some of the outreach that we've done, which at this point I have Bugfest, I have 00:31:53.506 --> 00:32:00.689 - beginning to have more guest speakers come in. And in 2025, Dylan and I will continue to do the Riverwalk 00:32:00.689 --> 00:32:07.804 - presentation. And then also the research and research process. So those are all highlighted. I mentioned 00:32:07.804 --> 00:32:14.987 - a little bit about the ECPC coming back. That was a big conversation point for 2024's report. I'm excited 00:32:14.987 --> 00:32:22.238 - to talk about it for 2025. And then speaking to the habitat connectivity plan and how that was relaunched, 00:32:22.370 --> 00:32:29.430 - last year in 2025. And then I have a note to just check in on any of the other working groups that would 00:32:29.430 --> 00:32:36.355 - like, or previously working groups, any other focal points from the EC that in 2025 had something that 00:32:36.355 --> 00:32:43.280 - you would like me to raise as something that we're proud of, some more excited about that we can recap 00:32:43.280 --> 00:32:50.339 - on. Anything that people would like to highlight from 2025 that I did not mention yet? I think the city. 00:32:50.339 --> 00:32:52.222 - Did you mention the morning 00:32:52.866 --> 00:32:58.923 - That is it's looped into the the sort of community outreach piece of it, but I have like a little paragraph 00:32:58.923 --> 00:33:04.979 - written out that will be specifically about coming together with parks department and all the organization. 00:33:04.979 --> 00:33:10.699 - So, yeah, definitely. That's a good one to highlight. Do you have do you have anyone that you need to 00:33:10.699 --> 00:33:12.606 - hassle for a photo who joined in? 00:33:12.962 --> 00:33:20.781 - your late 25s or anything? What a great question. You know, I do. I've got, because I turn all of this 00:33:20.781 --> 00:33:28.373 - into a PowerPoint presentation. And so I let me pull that up. So for the PowerPoint presentation, I 00:33:28.373 --> 00:33:36.116 - think Heidi, Carl, and Justin are all folks that I need photos from at this point. So if Heidi, Carl, 00:33:36.116 --> 00:33:41.278 - and Justin, if you all can email me just a photo of yourself that I 00:33:41.698 --> 00:33:48.330 - can put into the slide deck. Yeah, you can see in, it was probably May of last year that we reviewed 00:33:48.330 --> 00:33:54.633 - the deck. So you can kind of see the layout from last year's if you'd like to, but yeah, pretty 00:33:54.633 --> 00:34:01.264 - straightforward. Any questions about that or any other topic people wanna speak to? What time period 00:34:01.264 --> 00:34:08.224 - does the annual report go to? Is it on January or January? Sure, it's for all of 2025. So January through 00:34:08.224 --> 00:34:09.406 - December of 2025. 00:34:11.362 --> 00:34:17.378 - It just reflects the calendar year. It just takes us a little while to compile and to get on the council 00:34:17.378 --> 00:34:23.336 - schedule. So that's why events are happening anytime between like April or June usually. But yeah, it's 00:34:23.336 --> 00:34:29.352 - just to reflect what we accomplished and set out to accomplish and yeah, what went well, how the council 00:34:29.352 --> 00:34:35.081 - could support us, all that, but it's on calendar year 2025. And you can look back, I can't remember 00:34:35.081 --> 00:34:39.550 - what the date was for when we presented last, I think it was maybe like June, 00:34:39.714 --> 00:34:45.829 - or something like that of 2025, you can go back and see the County Council meeting where, sorry, the 00:34:45.829 --> 00:34:51.884 - Common Council meeting where I presented it. You can see the slides and you can hear what we talked 00:34:51.884 --> 00:34:58.302 - about if that's helpful for context. Anything else? I didn't mention light pollution groups specifically. 00:34:58.302 --> 00:35:04.115 - I didn't mention water quality specifically just because I didn't want to put too much pressure 00:35:04.115 --> 00:35:08.414 - on highlighting anything as I know that we're kind of in a longer run. 00:35:08.706 --> 00:35:17.664 - initiative for those. I think that's fair. Working groups existed in 2025, but had a tough time accomplishing 00:35:17.664 --> 00:35:26.378 - much. So I don't know if it's worth drawing attention to it being formed or not, if we don't have anything 00:35:26.378 --> 00:35:35.010 - to report from it at that time. So I think you have a good handle on it, covering the events we attended, 00:35:35.010 --> 00:35:38.430 - the tabling we did. So in care, we trust. 00:35:38.914 --> 00:35:45.894 - boards and commissions work. But is that something a chair does at every board commission? They write 00:35:45.894 --> 00:35:52.737 - an annual report? It is a chair duty. Yep. He's presenting a report to council each year. Right. It 00:35:52.737 --> 00:35:59.786 - kind of varies about when, but it's one of the, with a handful of duties that the chair has. And those 00:35:59.786 --> 00:36:05.534 - duties are listed in the handbook. There's like nine of them. So if you're curious. 00:36:06.370 --> 00:36:12.974 - In a way, as a spoiler for a future item on this agenda, if you're ever thinking about any positions 00:36:12.974 --> 00:36:19.643 - that you might want to be on in this commission, take a look at the handbook sometime and see what it 00:36:19.643 --> 00:36:26.182 - is they do. And also, feel free to reach out one-on-one to an individual who is in that position or 00:36:26.182 --> 00:36:31.870 - who has been in that position, because that would not be a violation of open door law. 00:36:32.098 --> 00:36:39.850 - With that, I want to move on to item B of new business, which is the 2026 priority discussion, which 00:36:39.850 --> 00:36:47.602 - I will once again kick on over to Carrie. My recollection is that this is just kind of touching base 00:36:47.602 --> 00:36:56.044 - on what all we're covering for the rest of the year. And looking through the initiatives that we highlighted, 00:36:56.044 --> 00:36:58.654 - it would have been last November, 00:36:58.786 --> 00:37:04.850 - in planning for 2026, a lot of what we talked about was education and outreach, so that means folks 00:37:04.850 --> 00:37:11.036 - contributing to the materials that are on the website. I know that we've started to get some traction 00:37:11.036 --> 00:37:17.160 - on recreating some of those documents. We would love to have more people if folks are interested. It 00:37:17.160 --> 00:37:23.467 - would be worth doing a little, just kind of email crowdsourcing on people who are interested in helping 00:37:23.467 --> 00:37:26.014 - with that process, but also talking about 00:37:26.274 --> 00:37:32.396 - hosting maybe two meetings per year on UDO changes. That was something that we had talked about, knowing 00:37:32.396 --> 00:37:38.226 - that it's something we want to get ahead of if there are any changes coming down the pipe that we'd 00:37:38.226 --> 00:37:44.289 - like to discuss before they're being recommended. And then also how we want to proceed with the habitat 00:37:44.289 --> 00:37:50.352 - connectivity plan and any, especially any materials we want for outreach. I know we had ideally planned 00:37:50.352 --> 00:37:55.774 - on this spring trying to get, you know, cards or little scannable info sheets or whatever to 00:37:55.906 --> 00:38:03.220 - things like some of the local greenhouses and some of the native plant society and things like that. 00:38:03.220 --> 00:38:10.680 - So some of those materials and initiatives that we talked about are making little bit subtraction, but 00:38:10.680 --> 00:38:17.994 - I know that those were on the list. And then of course, talking through what we are proposing as far 00:38:17.994 --> 00:38:25.598 - as potential light pollution solutions and water quality reporting. So those are all things that we were 00:38:26.850 --> 00:38:34.500 - that we have expressed interest in going into 2026. We are now in the summer months, which means I know 00:38:34.500 --> 00:38:41.855 - people are traveling, there's a lot going on, but we are kind of moving into the fall season, which 00:38:41.855 --> 00:38:49.284 - will be a perfect time to really make a difference. And reminding folks that your enthusiasm towards 00:38:49.284 --> 00:38:53.918 - these goals is always appreciated. And as we're planning 2027, 00:38:54.082 --> 00:38:59.993 - Thinking realistically about your time commitments, where your interests are, where you are ready to 00:38:59.993 --> 00:39:05.963 - dedicate a little extra time or energy is super, super helpful because we want to set realistic plans 00:39:05.963 --> 00:39:11.815 - for what we want to do in the future. So that's kind of where we're at now. Any additional comments 00:39:11.815 --> 00:39:17.726 - on this particular talking point? Yes, Mitchell? I was just going to say, kind of akin to the, like, 00:39:17.890 --> 00:39:22.890 - regular meetings on UDO updates and stuff like that. And there's something I have been doing in the 00:39:22.890 --> 00:39:27.939 - water quality working group was bringing in Liz Carter from Stormwater kind of annually and checking 00:39:27.939 --> 00:39:33.089 - up with her on like how things have been going, what are they up to, any like big changes on like that 00:39:33.089 --> 00:39:38.189 - kind of permitting front or like what I was going in the city that kind of affects water. And I think 00:39:38.189 --> 00:39:43.538 - that's something that would be very, I would like to keep going in the future because it's very important. 00:39:43.538 --> 00:39:47.838 - But now that we don't have working groups, it's something that we need to incorporate 00:39:48.130 --> 00:39:53.758 - these meetings, so it might be worth thinking about if we're planning for the rest of the year, like 00:39:53.758 --> 00:39:59.331 - trying to link up with her and figure out if there's a meeting that works well for like checking in 00:39:59.331 --> 00:40:05.127 - on that. I would love that. I think we've almost exhausted our list of potential presentations for this 00:40:05.127 --> 00:40:11.034 - year. So if that's something that folks feel like we want to try and get on the books, that's a fantastic 00:40:11.034 --> 00:40:15.102 - idea. I really love the updates that we were able to get from that team. 00:40:21.314 --> 00:40:28.814 - That's great. If there's a month that works for her to present, awesome. Additionally, if she doesn't 00:40:28.814 --> 00:40:36.241 - want to present or can't find the time, you can still have that dialogue. And you can send something 00:40:36.241 --> 00:40:43.815 - into Rachel. We can get an agenda item on here. We can have those discussions in the commission as the 00:40:43.815 --> 00:40:49.918 - whole here as well. So I do think that sounds like a good thing to stay on top of. 00:40:50.018 --> 00:41:00.681 - Is there somewhere where we can readily access that document where we just arrived at 2026 priorities 00:41:00.681 --> 00:41:11.238 - from last fall? That's a great question. The minutes from November. Rachel, I don't know if you have 00:41:11.238 --> 00:41:15.838 - a cleaner place where those live otherwise. 00:41:16.450 --> 00:41:23.134 - That's something I can, I mean, I have my own version of it that I can certainly share with the group 00:41:23.134 --> 00:41:30.343 - as well. Yes, I think for lots of reasons that we don't necessarily need to rehash. We've had some challenges 00:41:30.343 --> 00:41:37.289 - between that November meeting and now that have kept us from really diving into a number of those issues, 00:41:37.289 --> 00:41:43.908 - but there's still plenty of 2026 left. So I think as a homework assignment, it would be really great 00:41:43.908 --> 00:41:45.022 - if people peeped 00:41:45.698 --> 00:41:52.168 - either at those minutes or if Rachel is able to produce something a little more accessible and share 00:41:52.168 --> 00:41:58.575 - it with us, that'd be awesome too. But if that's too much, I get it. Just so that when the call for 00:41:58.575 --> 00:42:04.981 - agenda items comes out for next month or the following, any time coming up here, people can have an 00:42:04.981 --> 00:42:11.387 - idea of what they would like to focus on or just have a discussion about what the next steps are on 00:42:11.387 --> 00:42:14.526 - it. So we can kind of get back into figuring out 00:42:15.298 --> 00:42:21.964 - What do we want to do? How can we do it before we arrive at our next planning meeting in November? And 00:42:21.964 --> 00:42:28.436 - it's OK if some of those items just roll over. If we didn't get around to them and we would like to 00:42:28.436 --> 00:42:34.908 - consider them a 2027 priority idea as well, that's fine. But now I think it'd be nice for people to 00:42:34.908 --> 00:42:40.798 - take a look and see where we might want to direct our energy in the remaining months here. 00:42:42.466 --> 00:42:51.433 - Any further questions or comments on the priority discussion conversation? Thanks. Can we do field trips? 00:42:51.433 --> 00:42:59.978 - We probably can't do field trips, because I'm guessing if we had a quorum, it would probably require 00:42:59.978 --> 00:43:08.776 - staff. OK. And the staff really can address that if they'd like to. But I think field trips are a tough 00:43:08.776 --> 00:43:12.414 - sell outside of our regular meeting times. 00:43:13.346 --> 00:43:22.153 - That being said, any non-corum of individuals can go check something out, tour something, go somewhere, 00:43:22.153 --> 00:43:30.621 - see a presentation, and then tell us during reports the following month what they learned. So small 00:43:30.621 --> 00:43:39.259 - field trips, small unofficial field trips. I think it would be Capt. 5, I think, if I understand that 00:43:39.259 --> 00:43:40.190 - correctly. 00:43:42.882 --> 00:43:49.837 - technically way out, was the quorum and the de minimis. Anyway, you may go on small field trips, but 00:43:49.837 --> 00:43:56.999 - you're not likely to be able to go on commission field trips. With that, I want to move to new business 00:43:56.999 --> 00:44:04.092 - item C, social media post discussion. I'm assuming that's Rachel. This is not me. I think I was asked, 00:44:04.092 --> 00:44:10.014 - I think by Kare, you lost time, except for the song you took up earlier in the night. 00:44:10.178 --> 00:44:16.539 - Well, Carrie, once again, new business floor is yours. And I'm going to take D also, so get ready. For 00:44:16.539 --> 00:44:23.147 - the social media piece, this is partially because we have some new commissioners, but also just to clarify 00:44:23.147 --> 00:44:29.509 - how the process works for how the environmental commission shares through social media. So the process 00:44:29.509 --> 00:44:35.746 - of something that somebody on our commission sees that would be of interest to share, how it gets to 00:44:35.746 --> 00:44:39.390 - the proper recipient, if it's something that needs a vote, 00:44:39.682 --> 00:44:47.592 - and just kind of understanding that process. And Rachel, yeah, this is mostly a question for you, but 00:44:47.592 --> 00:44:55.424 - one that I was eager to have the group here as well. Just the overall process of social media? Yeah, 00:44:55.424 --> 00:45:03.257 - if there's something to get posted, yeah. So the process as far as I'm aware would be the department 00:45:03.257 --> 00:45:07.134 - isn't going to be formulating social media posts. 00:45:07.330 --> 00:45:14.326 - So if there's something that you all would like to have posted on the Facebook page, you're welcome 00:45:14.326 --> 00:45:21.742 - 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 00:45:21.742 --> 00:45:28.879 - by the, whoever is the administrator of the Facebook page. I'm not the administrator for the Facebook 00:45:28.879 --> 00:45:33.566 - page, I'm the send that to them. We have essentially a timeline of 00:45:34.178 --> 00:45:39.876 - If, like, let's say it's an event that it's happening that feels like a really relevant one, do you 00:45:39.876 --> 00:45:45.574 - have a sense of what the timeline is for sending something first to you and then eventually getting 00:45:45.574 --> 00:45:50.816 - it posted? Probably not same day. I would say it would probably have been a couple of days, 00:45:50.816 --> 00:45:56.912 - but I'm not, I mean, it would depend, one, how busy, what my other competing priorities are, to be honest, 00:45:56.912 --> 00:46:03.294 - 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. 00:46:04.834 --> 00:46:12.664 - And when you send it through to comms, that includes the ADA assessment too, right? The ADA assessment's 00:46:12.664 --> 00:46:20.121 - mean. So that takes a little bit longer on mine. ADA would be more so about if there were links and 00:46:20.121 --> 00:46:27.728 - or images associated with the post. If it's just a text post, the digital accessibility is a bit more 00:46:27.728 --> 00:46:33.246 - straightforward. And my last question. Sorry, am I interrupting somebody? 00:46:33.698 --> 00:46:40.856 - No, sorry. Go ahead, Carrie. My last question was just, is this a voting item? And that's kind of, 00:46:40.856 --> 00:46:48.376 - I think, a question for Rachel, but maybe a question for legal slash the whole group. Is this something 00:46:48.376 --> 00:46:55.606 - that we vote on, or is this something that is a pass through with sort of a good faith behind it? I 00:46:55.606 --> 00:47:03.198 - personally am not sure. I would, if I still have the bylaws, I don't know. Short answer is I don't know. 00:47:03.362 --> 00:47:14.090 - I can get back to you. Because I don't know if it's technically making a public statement, if it's being 00:47:14.090 --> 00:47:24.308 - defined as a public statement or shared information or how that works. So I will get back to you on 00:47:24.308 --> 00:47:31.358 - that. I'm sorry, I don't have an answer. I'm just going to say this. 00:47:31.522 --> 00:47:37.061 - sort of sum up my piece and then happy to give the mic over to other folks on this topic. But I would 00:47:37.061 --> 00:47:42.653 - say if maybe we tentatively just put social media as a voting item on our ongoing agenda. So that way, 00:47:42.653 --> 00:47:47.920 - if it is something that we need to vote on, it's baked into that. And if it's not a voting item, 00:47:47.920 --> 00:47:53.513 - then great, we'll just pass along what we talked about. But one of the things that was included in the 00:47:53.513 --> 00:47:59.486 - priority of education outreach was including more of that social media engagement, which it's just a Facebook 00:47:59.842 --> 00:48:07.084 - account so it's not reaching tens of thousands of people. But it is a way to amplify what's happening 00:48:07.084 --> 00:48:14.326 - elsewhere in the city that are similar initiatives or similar organizations that we've worked side by 00:48:14.326 --> 00:48:21.425 - side with before. So that's thinking through how to incorporate that into just an easier pathway to 00:48:21.425 --> 00:48:29.022 - 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 00:48:29.410 --> 00:48:36.454 - social media voting item on the agenda, if that's the determination, I will need those posts 10 days 00:48:36.454 --> 00:48:43.637 - in advance of a meeting. So make some of those, if this is the route that I'm told that we need to do, 00:48:43.637 --> 00:48:50.820 - that would be, the time sensitive nature would come into effect. So it probably wouldn't be like, hey, 00:48:50.820 --> 00:48:58.142 - there's an event tomorrow, let's share it. So I just wanted to throw that out there to everyone as well. 00:48:59.234 --> 00:49:05.845 - And that's a good note that if it becomes that we have to vote for any social media posts, that means 00:49:05.845 --> 00:49:12.327 - it's once a month with 10 days before the meeting that something would be shared. So it does really 00:49:12.327 --> 00:49:18.938 - impede our ability to kind of have a fluid process. So I think the voting, if it is required, that'll 00:49:18.938 --> 00:49:25.614 - be helpful to know. And if it is not a requirement, then that is a goal process. Anything from anybody 00:49:25.614 --> 00:49:26.910 - else on that topic? 00:49:28.034 --> 00:49:34.020 - Yeah, I just want to clarify. So the Facebook account, is this a City of Bloomington's or is this a 00:49:34.020 --> 00:49:40.245 - separate account? It's, okay, so the City of Bloomington has several Facebook accounts, so it's managed 00:49:40.245 --> 00:49:46.591 - by the City of Bloomington. Commission members cannot be added as administrators to the Facebook account. 00:49:46.591 --> 00:49:50.302 - But it is essentially we're approving posts for the Facebook. 00:49:50.594 --> 00:49:56.432 - Yes. Okay. Yeah. Is there any possibility of extending that to the city of Bloomington as other social 00:49:56.432 --> 00:50:02.100 - media accounts on other platforms? They have a Reddit account, they have, I don't know if they have 00:50:02.100 --> 00:50:07.824 - a Twitter account, I'm not on Twitter, but a loose guy? I don't know. Is it possible to like expand, 00:50:07.824 --> 00:50:13.662 - like if we were interested and post on other platforms as well, or are we just restricted to Facebook? 00:50:14.402 --> 00:50:20.676 - I said that environmental commission only has a Facebook, and the department is not going to be managing 00:50:20.676 --> 00:50:26.710 - other social media accounts. Gotcha. However, if there are social media accounts, like if you wanted 00:50:26.710 --> 00:50:32.685 - it posted on the city of Bloomington Reddit, I'm happy, if you let me know, I'm happy to send along 00:50:32.685 --> 00:50:38.719 - that request, and it'd be up to you. OK. We've had a little bit of collaboration where we could say, 00:50:38.719 --> 00:50:41.886 - hey, could parks share this, if it was a real thing. 00:50:42.082 --> 00:50:48.506 - been able to do that. But basically, we just have the Facebook available to us. And traditionally, the 00:50:48.506 --> 00:50:54.867 - intern approving it. But someone within the city, none of us are allowed to be administrators. Right. 00:50:54.867 --> 00:51:01.354 - That makes sense. But it would be kind of cool to be able to expand our reach. Because a lot of people, 00:51:01.354 --> 00:51:07.715 - like I'm not on Facebook either. So it would be kind of cool to broaden our horizon if we can. It has 00:51:07.715 --> 00:51:11.582 - been a challenge to do so outside of periodic Facebook posts. 00:51:11.906 --> 00:51:18.516 - periodic guest columns in one, usually the HD, but one place or another that has been our footprint 00:51:18.516 --> 00:51:25.522 - in the media today. And I know historical precedent probably doesn't mean much in this. We've been voting 00:51:25.522 --> 00:51:32.726 - on items that are brought to us by outside groups. So if someone says, hey, we're showing this environmental 00:51:32.726 --> 00:51:38.014 - movie, can you guys share it for us? We would vote to prove it. But previously, 00:51:38.626 --> 00:51:44.909 - And there weren't many things. Again, it's not a very active page. But I would say, hey, can we put 00:51:44.909 --> 00:51:51.507 - something out advertising eco heroes? I just have to get Rachel the information in advance. Get approved 00:51:51.507 --> 00:51:57.916 - when it gets approved. But I suspect that what Rachel and Kerry were both driving at is that it might 00:51:57.916 --> 00:52:04.387 - be required to be a voting item from here on out by the letter of the handbook. So I'm looking forward 00:52:04.387 --> 00:52:06.398 - to clarification down the road. 00:52:07.010 --> 00:52:14.839 - I would also be interested if it was possible, and maybe the answer is no, to vote to delegate a small 00:52:14.839 --> 00:52:22.440 - amount of power to have somebody approve posts, kind of like a standing authority, so to speak, for 00:52:22.440 --> 00:52:30.269 - non-controversial event notifications or something. Again, I don't know if that's even acceptable, but 00:52:30.269 --> 00:52:35.134 - it would be very convenient if we could do something like that. 00:52:36.834 --> 00:52:44.870 - any other comments or questions on the social media post discussion agenda item. Seeing none, we are 00:52:44.870 --> 00:52:53.305 - going to move to new business item D, officer election discussion, and it is again going to be introduced 00:52:53.305 --> 00:52:55.294 - by Carrie. Oh, hi there. 00:52:55.714 --> 00:53:02.888 - So next month, we are officially conducting our elections for the mid-2026 to mid-2027 Officers of the 00:53:02.888 --> 00:53:09.922 - Environmental Commission, which means that we'll be taking nominations during that next meeting. And 00:53:09.922 --> 00:53:16.956 - I'm just sort of opening the floor to anybody who has questions, wants to voice any nominations that 00:53:16.956 --> 00:53:23.921 - they're thinking about. Self-nominations are encouraged, but as Matt said, there's some descriptive 00:53:23.921 --> 00:53:25.662 - language in the handbook 00:53:25.954 --> 00:53:31.339 - Folks who have served in these roles are, I'm sure, happy to talk about their experience. Folks who 00:53:31.339 --> 00:53:36.777 - have served in these roles, you are welcome to self-nominate to stay in your role. But the people in 00:53:36.777 --> 00:53:41.946 - the role right now do not have to be the ones that stay in these roles. It's really a flexible, 00:53:41.946 --> 00:53:47.384 - fluid time. And so I wanted to just take a minute to remind folks that we are doing that next month. 00:53:47.384 --> 00:53:52.930 - So if there's any reason that you are not able to be at next month's meeting and there's anything that 00:53:52.930 --> 00:53:55.838 - you would like to share, that's when we'll be voting. 00:53:56.386 --> 00:54:03.558 - reiterate the importance of attending if you're able to, and then also really thinking about the nomination 00:54:03.558 --> 00:54:10.398 - process, because we will need both of you to speak. Any questions or input from the group on this one? 00:54:11.970 --> 00:54:18.366 - I was basically going to open the floor up the same way, actually. In the past, and even during this 00:54:18.366 --> 00:54:24.762 - meeting, I've tried to encourage people to say, hey, you can reach out to these officers and ask how 00:54:24.762 --> 00:54:31.095 - it went. But we also have a moment right now in meeting with Cora that anyone can ask any questions 00:54:31.095 --> 00:54:37.744 - of these officers just to learn whether they're thinking about throwing their hat in the ring next month 00:54:37.744 --> 00:54:39.454 - or a year from next month. 00:54:39.906 --> 00:54:47.942 - This is our golden opportunity to talk about it, so I would invite any comments or questions from the 00:54:47.942 --> 00:54:56.136 - room. It's totally okay. No one's going to say, man, you didn't read the handbook. You could have known 00:54:56.136 --> 00:55:04.094 - that. We're happy to talk about our positions. We're looking to share the wealth of experience here. 00:55:05.026 --> 00:55:14.532 - Winked and nodded in the past to I'm looking to remain on the commission, but I'm looking to drop my 00:55:14.532 --> 00:55:24.791 - officer role. So ask questions now, but also expect peer pressure in a month. So I'm going to give everybody 00:55:24.791 --> 00:55:34.014 - another shot to ask any questions you're thinking about, anybody? Matt, I'm sorry, how do you go? 00:55:34.594 --> 00:55:40.947 - I'm going to go Heidi first and then to Carrie. To the secretary now. How much time does it take to 00:55:40.947 --> 00:55:47.555 - type up all the boxes? Well, most of the time it's just in the meeting itself. And then if there's bits 00:55:47.555 --> 00:55:53.908 - I missed, I just make a note to myself to go back and watch the cat's recording later. So you don't 00:55:53.908 --> 00:55:56.894 - have to type fast? Is that required? It helps. 00:55:57.666 --> 00:56:03.914 - Another thing worth noting is it's not like you have to have the word for words. So-and-so said this. 00:56:03.914 --> 00:56:10.468 - So-and-so said that. It requires that you have the results of votes. You're just providing as much context 00:56:10.468 --> 00:56:16.961 - as you see fit. And we've had, over the years, we've had secretaries that have kept it really bare bones. 00:56:16.961 --> 00:56:23.454 - And we've had others that have pages and pages of minutes. And we've had commissioners respond positively 00:56:24.034 --> 00:56:31.292 - to either of those forms. So it really is a little bit of the secretary's choice. But I think generally 00:56:31.292 --> 00:56:38.271 - hitting the most important details and adding a little bit of key conversation points on any sticky 00:56:38.271 --> 00:56:45.320 - item is the gist of it. And I'll jump into it. This has been a really recent change. And so Adam and 00:56:45.320 --> 00:56:48.670 - Carl, maybe you can jump in on your experience. 00:56:48.770 --> 00:56:55.968 - I have been tasked with doing just the memorandum for the meeting, which is the legal requirement for 00:56:55.968 --> 00:57:03.025 - the meeting. So it's basically skeleton minutes. So it has everything that's required, and then our 00:57:03.025 --> 00:57:11.070 - office manager will contact the secretary for that meeting. And that secretary can add in the supplemental notes. 00:57:11.266 --> 00:57:17.755 - So Adam and I think Adam have probably been through this process only one time. It's still a really 00:57:17.755 --> 00:57:24.310 - new process, but how has that worked for you so far? About the same? It's pretty much the same. It's 00:57:24.310 --> 00:57:31.059 - just I did my copy of the agenda. I take my notes there. And then whenever I got the email, I just copy 00:57:31.059 --> 00:57:37.678 - pasted what I had. The bare-backed bones outline is actually really nice. It hits all the legal parts 00:57:37.678 --> 00:57:41.182 - of it. And then you just have to fill in with detail. 00:57:41.538 --> 00:57:48.065 - Yeah, that way you can focus on substantive stuff, knowing that the motion and the second and the vote 00:57:48.065 --> 00:57:54.654 - tallies are already kept so you don't have to quickly gather that that's being gathered. So you're just 00:57:54.654 --> 00:58:01.371 - adding that flavor. You're gathering all of them. All of these, I'm sorry, are supposed to do this moving 00:58:01.371 --> 00:58:07.454 - forward, doing kind of the skeleton minutes or the memorandum. OK. You might consider updating. 00:58:07.618 --> 00:58:13.440 - the secretary's duties in the handbook. I know more handbook stuff, but it says secretary takes the 00:58:13.440 --> 00:58:19.728 - minutes and then later says minutes include record of motions and votes, attendance. But if the secretary's 00:58:19.728 --> 00:58:25.900 - not doing that, should we have to? I don't know if it matters. I do think we could modernize that section 00:58:25.900 --> 00:58:31.838 - of the handbook. And unlike some previous ones, it would not be controversial and would not take long 00:58:31.838 --> 00:58:35.390 - portions of the meeting. But I think that's a good idea now. 00:58:36.578 --> 00:58:42.480 - So maybe I'll recommend that in our next meeting. Do you want that as a voting item for the next meeting? 00:58:42.480 --> 00:58:48.270 - Let me think about it. OK. Knock it to this. Sometime at your leisure, you can get that. You can always 00:58:48.270 --> 00:58:54.005 - email Rachel with a suggested language. And thank you for the question, Heidi Carey. Do you still have 00:58:54.005 --> 00:58:59.685 - a question? I was going to ask Matt, as vice chair and treasurer, about how much time do you spend in 00:58:59.685 --> 00:59:05.475 - those roles each month, just in case there's anyone listening who's interested in nominating themselves 00:59:05.475 --> 00:59:06.366 - for their role? 00:59:06.562 --> 00:59:13.741 - Yeah, so vice chair might sound a little bit intimidating, but since at this point our wonderful chair 00:59:13.741 --> 00:59:20.850 - has been running the meetings with great regularity, and I only have to jump in once or twice a year, 00:59:20.850 --> 00:59:27.890 - clearly less good at it. I just stay right on the agenda items. I do not have the same, as Kerry has 00:59:27.890 --> 00:59:34.302 - described, gift of gap. But each month, some months it is no different than any other seat. 00:59:34.434 --> 00:59:40.549 - like zero additional minutes of your time. Sometimes there's a little bit of planning. I feel like anybody 00:59:40.549 --> 00:59:46.378 - can be extra attentive to the call to agenda items, but as one of the, you know, in the chair or vice 00:59:46.378 --> 00:59:52.379 - chair seat, I try to pay extra attention to that, to crafting it. But in any given month, the vice chair 00:59:52.379 --> 00:59:58.151 - slash treasurer might have zero extra minutes, or they might receive an email saying, we're going to 00:59:58.151 --> 01:00:03.294 - order a thousand prints of Bug Bingo before Bug Fest. Do you approve? And you just reply, 01:00:03.490 --> 01:00:11.554 - Yes, I approve. And you just sort of keep track of that budget line that's very infrequently touched. 01:00:11.554 --> 01:00:19.777 - So it might sound like a really big job, but a lot of the time it's really not. We work a little closer 01:00:19.777 --> 01:00:27.763 - with Carrie or whoever becomes chair. And it's just a good way to get a feel for everything and be a 01:00:27.763 --> 01:00:30.846 - little more involved. Thank you, Matt. 01:00:33.410 --> 01:00:41.823 - I don't want to linger on this too long if people don't have questions or comments, but any other questions 01:00:41.823 --> 01:00:49.847 - or comments on the officer election discussion here in the room. Well, think about it. And again, feel 01:00:49.847 --> 01:00:57.871 - free to shoot an email to the individual you have a question to, or for, rather. I suppose after this, 01:00:57.871 --> 01:01:02.078 - we will move to upcoming meeting to item seven, which 01:01:02.498 --> 01:01:09.637 - Yes, January 11th this year, same time, same place, 16th, so fair conference room here at St. Paul. 01:01:09.637 --> 01:01:16.918 - I will be sending out the coverage of the items. I'll probably send that out on Tuesday morning since 01:01:16.918 --> 01:01:24.271 - it's a week earlier than usual because of the June 2 holiday. That's right. I liked the way the agenda 01:01:24.271 --> 01:01:29.982 - fell together today, but my attention to detail on this that I would still like 01:01:30.370 --> 01:01:37.999 - Commissioner announcements here before adjournments, so I moved to add just before adjournment, Commissioner 01:01:37.999 --> 01:01:45.278 - announcements to the agenda. I like the way the report's played out, but I still want people to be able 01:01:45.278 --> 01:01:52.767 - to have an opportunity to plug something. Would that be, so I added walk-in items earlier. Yes. So instead 01:01:52.767 --> 01:01:57.246 - of walk-in items, do the Commissioner announcements at the end? 01:01:58.242 --> 01:02:03.649 - I think walk-in items are still a good description for the fact that, because we don't know, like, it 01:02:03.649 --> 01:02:09.003 - might be a month where we had an ERAC, it might not. So Adam might have something to say on that, he 01:02:09.003 --> 01:02:14.569 - might not. Who knows what individual work Mitchell might want to report on, on working towards his water 01:02:14.569 --> 01:02:20.188 - quality report, or whatever it is. So I don't think people need to email you to say what their commission 01:02:20.188 --> 01:02:25.701 - report's going to be. So I think walk-in items are still nice. But this way, it would be our commission 01:02:25.701 --> 01:02:26.814 - or other commissions 01:02:27.042 --> 01:02:34.461 - related, and then announcements at the end could be anything. It could be personal. It could be reminders. 01:02:34.461 --> 01:02:41.464 - It could be an event from your department that's outside of anything here. So I like the way reports 01:02:41.464 --> 01:02:48.398 - worked. I just still want to sneak announcements at the end. Yeah, definitely. He kind of makes the 01:02:48.398 --> 01:02:55.678 - meeting end on a wider note as well. So call the Martinez for that motion in a second. Yes. OK. Messger. 01:02:55.678 --> 01:02:56.926 - Yes. Geyser. Yes. 01:02:57.410 --> 01:03:05.417 - Owens. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Guy. Yes. Sputaker. Yes. Halby. Yes. Brown. Yes. Albright. Yes. Motion passes. 01:03:05.417 --> 01:03:13.500 - At this time, do we have any Commissioner announcements to start with Mitchell? Oh, yes. This is something 01:03:13.500 --> 01:03:21.205 - that I forgot about earlier and was reminded by Carrie bringing up Bugfest a few times. Date for this 01:03:21.205 --> 01:03:25.662 - year's Bugfest came out. It's going to be on September 26. 01:03:26.210 --> 01:03:32.928 - So that's something we can think about in future weeks. I won't be there in my identity capacity, 01:03:32.928 --> 01:03:40.126 - as usual, or in the EC capacity, because I'm going to be out of town that weekend. But I figured I would 01:03:40.126 --> 01:03:47.049 - pass the news on to you guys, because that's something we have participated in for a number of years 01:03:47.049 --> 01:03:54.590 - 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? 01:03:54.946 --> 01:04:02.502 - That bioblitz is June 20th. That will be coming up soon. Did you want me to send you the sign-up info 01:04:02.502 --> 01:04:09.985 - 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 01:04:09.985 --> 01:04:17.689 - 20th on the bioblitz. And yeah, if you want the sign-up information, I think registration is officially 01:04:17.689 --> 01:04:23.838 - closing soon. But they're not super strict about it. You just can't not get lunch. 01:04:24.450 --> 01:04:32.235 - No, you'll get mine. She might not get it. Yep. Do we have other commissioner announcements? Well, the 01:04:32.235 --> 01:04:39.944 - member of the public said it was June 21st. Let's see. Does that sound right? Let's see. June 21st is 01:04:39.944 --> 01:04:47.502 - a Sunday, so June 20th would be Saturday. Yeah, so it would be June 20th. June 20th. OK, thank you. 01:04:47.502 --> 01:04:54.078 - Other commissioner announcements, either Carrie or any commissioners here in the room? 01:04:54.434 --> 01:05:01.478 - And anyone? Yep, Carrie. Hey. Actually, speaking of BioBlitzes, the Bee City committee met last week. 01:05:01.478 --> 01:05:08.937 - And one of the things that they are announcing this week is pollinator week through the city of Bloomington 01:05:08.937 --> 01:05:16.051 - Parks and Rec Department. And they are doing kind of a week long BioBlitz thing during that same week, 01:05:16.051 --> 01:05:22.957 - the week of the 21st to the 28th. And so they're putting out an announcement and we can have Rachel 01:05:22.957 --> 01:05:24.062 - email the group 01:05:24.674 --> 01:05:32.288 - But it's basically a series of events to talk about native plants and providing nesting sites for pollinators 01:05:32.288 --> 01:05:39.487 - and reducing pesticides and all those different things that we've been getting lots of information from 01:05:39.487 --> 01:05:46.479 - the Xerxes Society through the Bee City Committee. But there is a pop-up at the Lilly Library. There 01:05:46.479 --> 01:05:50.078 - is a documentary screening at the Downtown Library. 01:05:50.210 --> 01:05:56.776 - and there is a special green drinks event with Sycamore Land Trust at Upland as well. So there's a bunch 01:05:56.776 --> 01:06:03.216 - of things coming up, but that's the week of June 21 through 28. Should be a lot of fun. They're trying 01:06:03.216 --> 01:06:09.344 - to really get a lot of excitement around it. So after you finish doing the bioblitz that is down, 01:06:09.344 --> 01:06:16.222 - I think, what was it Mitchell, the southern part of the state? Yep, Harmony State Park outside of Evansville. 01:06:17.026 --> 01:06:22.829 - So after you do that, come on back to Bloomington and there's a lot of stuff going on. But I think the 01:06:22.829 --> 01:06:28.631 - announcement hasn't, I don't think it's been released just yet, but either way, we'll send through the 01:06:28.631 --> 01:06:34.547 - document that outlines all the activity. I have an announcement. I found an interesting piece of history 01:06:34.547 --> 01:06:40.349 - the other day, a document from 1978 that was talking about city and county government. And I found the 01:06:40.349 --> 01:06:43.166 - Environmental Quality and Conservation Commission 01:06:43.618 --> 01:06:51.078 - membership 14, including one council member, one planning commissioner, and five with scientific training. 01:06:51.078 --> 01:06:58.468 - So that was 12 mayor-appointed seats and two ex officios, technically. Three-year terms, no compensation, 01:06:58.468 --> 01:07:05.649 - meets the second Monday of each month at 7.30 PM. So I just thought that was an interesting little bit 01:07:05.649 --> 01:07:12.830 - of history from when the commission was something like five years young. But on a barely related note, 01:07:13.026 --> 01:07:20.762 - Our numbers are getting a little bit low. If you know anybody, particularly with scientific training, 01:07:20.762 --> 01:07:28.498 - but even without, who would like to join, please nudge them. We have a number of mayoral vacancies in 01:07:28.498 --> 01:07:36.158 - particular, and I'm sure they would be happy to appoint people if we have applications in. So that's 01:07:36.158 --> 01:07:41.694 - my announcement. Anyone else? All right, with that, I motion we adjourn. 01:07:42.722 --> 01:07:44.606 - And seconds, thank you everyone.