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.