- I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. It is June 11, a week early, so that we can celebrate
- on our Juneteenth next week. But I'm excited to have you all join on this really scorching summer evening.
- All right. So Jackie, if you want to do the official roll call, we can go through. Yep. OK. Albright?
- I'm here. Brown? Here. Alby? Here. Martinez? Here. Baser?
- I believe we have. Oh, we have the approval of tonight's agenda. Move we approve tonight's agenda. Thank
- you very much. I have a second. Thank you very much. Oh, there we go. Sorry.
- Yeah, that'd be lots of little calls to start. Yeah. Yes. Um. Brad. I'm sorry for a little minute. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mitchell Owens has entered the chat. Mitchell, do you want to
- vote to include them? Yes.
- Okay, so we. Okay, so we. Okay, so we. Okay, so we. Okay, so we. Okay, so we. Okay, so we.
- That's it. Sounds good. That was actually just tonight's agenda. We're going to do the minutes here
- in a moment. Yeah. We used to do the pro-clock and the June agenda for both, but now we're really into
- considering the remaining minutes. I move we approve the minutes. Sorry, sorry. Let me get it, Sam. Adam.
- Let's see. Aldi? Yes. Martinez? Yes. Geyser? Yes. Mesher? Yes. Collins? Yes. Utica? Yes. All right.
- Yes. Thank you. Excellent. We're just going to cruise right along into the public comments portion of
- our agenda. We've got a few members in public. We'd love if you're interested in
- Introducing yourselves, or you've got about five minutes to share how we look. And I'm gonna start first,
- is there anyone in the Zoom? Yeah, it's just us and Kat. Great, anyone in the room care to introduce
- themselves?
- I'm Justin Vassel. Not much to really comment on here. Just want to kind of introduce myself for those
- that don't know me already. I'm the chair of the Board of Commission on Sustainability and Resilience.
- And yeah, just talking about it. Kind of see what people are up to. Thanks. Glad to have you. We have
- a couple other guests, but they will have a moment to shine just a bit.
- All right. Well, then I'm going to roll on to the commissioner reports. This is where, if you have any
- area of interest that you've been working on things, thinking about things such as light pollution and
- water quality, maybe biodiversity, some of those familiar themes that you've always enjoyed discussing,
- this is your opportunity to bring those up, share any updates on maybe what you've been discussing,
- thinking about it. Yeah, probably.
- We have a couple of reports. One is while we haven't met since last time, a couple of us are talking
- with FECOS about a joint resolution on light pollution. I'm not sure how logistically it's gonna work
- out yet, but I think in August we're gonna try to find a way to do like a joint special session so we
- can both approve it on the same day. So surely you'll hear more about that at some point when we figure
- out how that works.
- I also wanted to report on watching the BCOS meeting. They had training presentation from Jennifer Crossley
- that some of us went to last week, and that's also happening right now, so none of us can be attending
- that. Councilmember Dave Rallo, the report on the dangers of AI before then, a very similar report to
- council last night.
- They adopted a resolution to ban anticoagulant rodenticides and blue traps. And at the end, Shawn Mia
- shared that she is seeking suggestions for speakers for climate talks in 2027 at the Bus Creek Chumley.
- Well, that was announced to their commission and not ours. I bet we know people and have feelings. So
- if you have any suggestions for potential speakers,
- We're going to have four climate talks in 2027. Send Sean an email. Is emailing Sean the best way to
- do that? As far as I could tell. Great. Thanks for the updates on what's going on with ECOs and sharing
- about the potential to add resolution. I know there are some conversations being had over the ECOs.
- Is that how we're saying it? Yeah, I guess so.
- Any other folks have any updates that they would like to share or bring to the table? I mentioned this
- at the end of last week, but the registration for it is actually open now. Bloomington Bug Fest is coming
- up at the end of September. Got the exact date. I know I cannot be there this year for either helping us or
- my usual role with IDEM. So it's on you guys, I think, but it is, I believe, September 26th. Do you
- remember if that's a paid one? No, it's free. You just have to register. And I don't know if Rachel
- would have been the one to register us last year, but whoever did the registration, and then Parks sent
- emails to all those folks. You must have been, Rachel. I have to take it. OK.
- So maybe that's something that folks think about their availability to table for it, and then our next
- move is to confirm if that's something they want to do. President Bunk and the boss, can you explain
- what BuckFest is? It's a celebration of bugs, basically. It is an honor of just booths of people from like
- City Parks, DNR, I usually come out for my den with some people. There's like people from Griffey Lake
- I see and just everyone that works with bugs in any former fashion will be there, displays, educational
- things. We get over a thousand people every year that I've done it so far over the past three or four
- years. So it's like a high traffic event out at First Farm.
- And it's a lot of fun. Awesome. Thanks for the update. Yeah. Other things from Commissioner? I actually
- remembered that I have yet another report. Yeah, I forgot. I watched the planning commission meeting.
- Anyone who's on ECPC would be especially familiar, but perhaps others might also recall back in January
- or February when the 2511 North Dunn
- subdivision was brought before us. We opted at the time not take any action. The plan has changed pretty
- dramatically. They introduced a different layout with I think 11 houses instead of 15 and a cul-de-sac
- instead of the through street, which staff wasn't thrilled about that idea. There was a lot of
- neighborhood opposition to it in the meeting and there were some variances requested including a repairing
- buffer variance that essentially the layout of that area they were trying to avoid a stream part with
- houses but still within the buffer they need to have stormwater infrastructure so they were modifying
- the buffer language
- Basically, so that if CBU needed to, they could do stormwater work within it. So normally, you wouldn't
- be able to disturb it at all, not even moat. But because this project would require stormwater infrastructure
- there, they're seeking a variance to riparian buffer language, among some other things. I just wanted
- to bring that before people's attention, because if we wanted to write a letter now,
- second reading where it could be passed. It's going to be a next month's meeting. So we'd have a relatively
- small amount of time to do so. I still kind of feel like leaving my thumb off the scale, but I'm open
- to other people weighing in, even if that just means doing some homework and then shooting me an email.
- But yeah. Is the right variant buffer variants new? Because I don't remember saying that when you first started.
- a part of it in January or February. I guess the plans would be available then in the Plan Commission
- packet? Yes. Okay. Yeah. That was a bit of a whirlwind. It snuck up on me a little bit too. Like I'd
- looked at the packet earlier on. Monday was the meeting and some of the slides changed between when
- I looked at it same day and the meeting itself. But the information was all
- there, it just was sometimes in different places or easier or harder to find. But yes, that is new.
- Just wanted to report that. Thanks for the update on it. Thanks for watching the planning. Any other
- updates from folks? This would be where you might get a tree commission report if there was a meeting.
- There was not a meeting. Yes, like any era. Mary, you're going to discuss the year management, right?
- Historically, yeah. Yeah, I can say where we're at and the process this year. I'll mention two things
- from Iraq. It's exciting to me that Leonard Springs is being
- considered by DNR as a Nature Preserve Reservation, which my understanding is functionally it will just
- add additional protections and potentially resources. And the other main from our meeting that I'm about
- to mention is that
- The parks department has been working on a five-year master plan. You're here, so you can correct anything
- I say. And so you've had community involvement, and now there's a five-year plan with four main goals
- that have been approved, including meaningful community impact, invest in what we have, financial
- sustainability, and connected strong staff, and the action that it has to meet those
- Goals are balance, recreation, protection, technical setup. Objective, maintain B in Bird City
- and maintenance and updates to Wapahome. These are the three main tasks, balance, recreation, and protection,
- maintain B in Bird City and maintenance and updates to Wapahome. And that's all I have heard.
- Thanks, that's what I'm saying. At this point in the master plan, is it for public input? Yeah,
- so accessibility is the only barrier. So we're working on making an accessible document and then it
- will be made available. That's what I'm saying. Thanks for the update. Other updates from the team or
- things that they have
- been referring to on other board commissions or things they've been discussing on the move? Well, I
- would do the economic development commission meeting, but it would be hardest than the first. You're
- related to tax abatements. All right. All right. Well, there aren't any other updates. We can keep moving
- on. But any last applications? OK. OK.
- Um, all right, we'll move on to the staff reports, which is planning a transportation department. If
- you've got any reports, I'll pass it to you. Um, Rachel's out and uh, she'll be back. It's doing fine.
- It's doing great. Um, so I am trying to money through, sorry, you know, so I was like, I'm not picking
- up Thursday. Um, the next one should be more, should be smoother. You have a second month like trying
- to do the special session or whatever. Just let me know. Uh, figure that out.
- Uh, otherwise, um, I asked the dean at, well, and if you know, yes, don't mean attendance, but I asked
- her maybe again to clarify the quorum question, which is like my least favorite to talk about. But because
- I thought I watched part of last month's and it seemed like they're, I just want to be sure we understand
- what it means to have someone on zoom and how that affects me. Are you, is that okay if I ask? Oh, yeah.
- So I think I already addressed that.
- Did everyone feel like they understood it? That was what I wanted to clarify is if the quorum is less
- when someone is on Zoom, which is what it sounded like. You can go back to emails.
- So for a hybrid meeting, the in-person environment is at least 50% of the city membership of the board
- of commission. At the time of the meeting must be present in person. The city members does not include
- vacancies.
- Only the number of members at the time of the meeting, so I did this in writing to. Okay, I just I just
- looked at that. So we're only at eight number. Okay, so they have five and first step. The number can
- vary. So yes, the minimum would be five and that's sitting up. But then what is if they have vertical
- tenants? How does that change? So
- It just depends on how. All eight are coming, but some are online. How many have to be in the room?
- At least 50% of the city troopers have to be in the room even if some of them are in the room. Oh, they
- have eight and some nine. They have eight. Some of them resign after glass feeding. Not because of glass feeding.
- Yeah, so the analysis was based on the city. Oh, that should be analyzed. OK, I mean, that is in this
- week. That is not my grandchildren, right? But I thought it was a thing where there's a number of people
- at the action meeting, right? But at that time, the city membership must be present.
- I don't know if that answers the question. Now that the number has changed to eight, that's something
- I can probably look at, but according to what legal has passed, the majority of the members of the body
- with more than 50% of the number of seats still been vacant on the board or commissions. I don't know
- if that answers the question.
- So, but a real member can count toward or
- So they have to have seven in the meeting to even have a meeting. And then five of them have to be here.
- I think what I'm putting together is half of the seated members have to be in person if there are remote
- people involved. Half of the seats have to be present physically.
- still applies in that it is 50% plus one, but you can't have the majority on hybrid, for example. 50%
- are in the room of the seated people. And the total number is how many people are interacting virtually
- and face-to-face.
- Is that what you think? Yeah, it's total. OK, so that's what it's definitely complicated, but I do think
- that you can always err on the side of safety. But if you have 150%. Interim president it will be fine.
- I think that since we're such a small permission, we have so few seats, so the forum is set it has to
- have seven have the meeting.
- Those people don't have to be in the room. Yeah. But five, you have to be in the room. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- So seven of you have to be in the room at this point. Half of you in the room. Half of you in the room.
- Half of you in the room. Half of you in the room. Half of you in the room. Half of you in the room.
- Half of you in the room. Half of you in the room. Half of you in the room. Half of you in the
- Yeah, for quorum in general, it's state of the majority. They used to say 50% plus one, but that's messed
- up. Quorum is seven. In hybrid, the language that I just provided said at least half. Given that we're
- an even number right now, I think that would mean if three were online, four in the room, that's quorum.
- That's exactly right. Quorum concepto. Perfect. I felt like
- But actually, I don't know if I got it. I certainly struggled with it. That's why I put it in writing,
- because you have to kind of just read it over and over again until you're like, oh, thank you. So we'll
- have you in room 72. Does anyone have questions about that? Yes. Yes.
- I mean, I feel like I understand it as it was put, but I'm wondering if there's anything from PAC or
- anything from state law or any precedent that leads to us interpreting it the way it is, because both
- in city code and in our own language, it says, quote, a quorum means the majority of the members serving
- on the commission are in attendance.
- Um, yes, I struggled believing that a vacant seat is a member serving. Um, and so I'm just trying to
- get clarity on the numbers. So it would be possible to forward this email to everybody. I wasn't able
- to do it because it's an open door law thing, but yeah, you can share it with the whole commission that we love.
- Basically, what we're taking away from this, put a bow on it, is right now, all this content, we need
- four people to be in this room for every meeting. We also have to make sure that we have seven of us
- involved in the meeting, whether they're online or not. That means we only have one person that can
- be absent per meeting for us to have quorum, which means if you're looking ahead at the schedule, please,
- please look ahead at the schedule.
- And if you think you're not able to make a meeting, please shout it from the rooftop so we can decide
- if we want to reschedule, if we need to cancel, or what we want to do about it. But it's super, super
- important until we have a meeting. So that we're very creative, that people be aware that we have a
- lot of work to have a meeting, and so if we have to cancel, we could lack the cost. That's what we said.
- OK, I just sorted it out. Thanks. Thank you, Jen. Thank you. Yes, and no problem. I think, also, we
- talked about making sure
- If you have a question or they do a question and you get it over to Jackie, Jackie will get it to me
- and then I can respond or I can talk about it at the next meeting. But we want to have those questions
- in writing. Like, for example, we just have now, like, our oldest, those have to respond or he has the
- program so then he can share it.
- Additionally, there was a question that came up at the last meeting regarding whether the commission
- has to vote on social media posts. So Indiana's Open Door law explains that board and commission speak
- through their events. So a vote is something that is needed for board action. The board or commission
- is a collective and therefore
- should vote on what they want to post to their social media vote to their social media page. You guys
- also have the option of voting for one person who votes on social media page but then there's a risk
- of other commissioners not knowing exactly what to be posted if you just delegate it to one person.
- So the board of commission doesn't typically speak through one person unless the majority has voted
- for that person to do so. Since the basic foundation of
- is that it takes the majority vote for action to approve. It's recommended that CC vote for each social
- media post, but not required. If someone wants to host an individual capacity on their own social media,
- on other commission sides, that would be just an individual fashion. Great, thank you all for that.
- Yeah. Thanks for this. Oh, thank you.
- previous conversation with Taylor, when we were talking about letters to the BCA or to planning commission,
- he mentioned that we can approve, even if we hadn't written it yet, we could vote in the meeting, so
- and so is going to write a memo and we can essentially preemptively approve it. Could we accomplish
- the same thing with a social media post, just like if we were at our meeting,
- I'd say so-and-so is going to send language to Jackie for a BobFest post, and that we both can prove
- that even though it hasn't been formulated yet. I'm assuming that's okay. I just wanted to make you
- guys feel good. Well, yes, so we don't want to assume everything. Legal doesn't like assuming things,
- but so the first one I just want to place that I wanted to go back to is we keep bringing up this term
- in ECA, and the Board of Zoning Appeals is a quasi-judicial
- board. So it is this distinct from all of those words. So there's something called
- Maybe it's a different commission. For example, we keep bringing up the VCR. It just so happens that
- they and planning commission are the ones that we have written about those two. So it's about two examples.
- It wasn't defined in Google. In terms of planning commission, if you wanted to communicate with them
- through a letter, your question is? Just because we often get their packets like
- the same day as we have a meeting, and then their stuff happens soon after, or I think sometimes maybe
- even on the same day, I don't know, it becomes a really tight window for having any additional meeting
- to collectively write the letter. So what Taylor indicated, and I can't remember if that was the March
- meeting or the February meeting, but one of them that we had had a notice,
- indicated that he did his research and didn't see any reason why we couldn't vote to approve a memo
- that members of the ECPC are writing. And so with that information, I just wanted to see if the same
- thing was true about the social media posts. If it's, you know, not give so-and-so full permission to
- post whatever they want, but, you know, in the same way that it would be a memo on blank, you know, post
- such and such, if that's enough specificity to allow us to vote right before it happens. Yes,
- I think you can. Your question is drawn out, so my line of hearing is that if you want to vote for a
- social media post, can you do that? Before it's actually written. So the theme of posts we agree on,
- But we're not actually voting on the exact post yet. But we're voting to vote first. That's kind of
- falls into the same situation. Just having one person be the designated poster. And if you want to vote
- for that, to have that, then you can vote for that. But that just means that that one person who's posting
- the rest of the mission may not know what's going to be posted.
- But you're basically putting all your trust in that person to know this is, you know, whatever it is.
- And it is considered, you know, they're speaking as the commission. So it's kind of similar to that.
- So yes, you can do that if that's what you all choose to do. There's a wandered for one times of the
- essence, but all right, thank you for clarifying. You can, yeah. That sounds like that might be something
- we can talk about in future meeting tours in Vermont.
- Yeah, we can put it on as a potential voting item for that process. Great. Were there any other staff
- or people topics that we need to cover? I don't think so. No, thank you so much. No, thank you. Okay,
- well then we're going to move on to new business, which is exciting because we have a special guest
- with us tonight who is going to give us a presentation about a topic that kind of comes through our
- doors from time to time, but it's always nice to have a deeper understanding of how
- When we can or places like that for if you learn and then damage that. Sure. And I'll just be presenting
- I'm not going to have a presentation. So I just have provided this for you all for reference, but I
- won't go into too much detail. Is it accessible? This is not accessible. So I pull it down with vendor
- 2025, which I don't know that we will make it or associate from our contract. If I can, I'll sell it
- to you. Is it already on your website? It is not yet on the website. It may be on our website. It's
- on the website, so it's currently accessible.
- And I don't think we're going to go retroactively making these documents accessible. So yeah, they're
- provided as reports by a contractor. So that's another hurdle to achieve. But I just wanted to give
- you a really amazing report provided by a contractor we've used to date for deer management. A little
- bit of history of deer management activity, the zones that we use.
- We name it where examples of where we have a hunter stationed on a particular day and then also goes
- into the whole process of screening hunters. It goes into the deer taken year to year as well as percentage
- male, female, amount of deer per zone and then the first time this year we actually
- to chest measurements to start getting a better idea of overall deer health. I wish we had the resources
- around where about we begin that at the beginning. We've got the data point. Though I have heard that
- the model that they're using may not be as accurate as we would like here in the Midwest to estimate
- deer weight. So we may look into other options in the future.
- All the things, but I just wanted to, that's just the part of our deer management work at Berkeley.
- So just to give you a quick update for 2026, 2025. We did our deer management during the first two weekends
- of the deer rifle hunting season.
- Ironically, the first date was homecoming. So if you can imagine being out in Berkeley hunting deer
- and all of that is going on. And then also keeping the public out of Berkeley that day was a pretty
- interesting challenge. And we hire a security service to be at our two main entrances throughout the
- entire weekend. So 24 hours stationed. And then we have staff
- during the day, because the countries aren't really out there during the day, we want to keep people
- out of the park at all the entrances that are public trailheads. To complement our deer management efforts,
- we began deer browse monitoring because our main threshold for success
- is going to be the recovery of the plant communities accurately after heavy deer browse hysterically
- in the landscape. So we began monitoring with a contractor in 2028, but some initial data was taken
- in 2017 leading up to that. So we monitored at the beginning both herbaceous vegetation and the woody
- understory.
- The woody understory we discontinued. It reached a kind of a plateau within the first three years. We
- may need to go back and revisit how we're looking at that data because the ash trees, emerald ash borer
- has put a lot of young ash in the landscape because the ash trees have been using a lot of access for
- it. So it ended up being a lot of ash trees in the understory. So it's kind of throwing off our metrics of other
- We might need to narrow in on certain types of herbaceous or woody vegetation. But we used deer browse
- indicator herbaceous vegetation and various transects that need it every year. And we've shown increase
- in plant height in one of the two types of vegetation that we're actively monitoring. Solomon's seal,
- which is one of our deer browse indicator species, is a direct, directly indicating
- impacts or lack thereof on deer browse. So it's, it's basically shown a 50% increase in heights and
- that happens again. Our other indicator species is jack in the pulpit. It's not as directly correlated
- to deer browse, but it is correlated to compaction. So deer also add compaction on the landscape and
- based on the root systems of that particular plant, compaction is a little harder to recover from. So
- there is a lot more complicated with what's going on in that recovery there. So it's not shown as much
- of a recovery. But the plant height is directly related to reproductive success of those species.
- So yeah, the results of the deer hunt, just to summarize from this report, we took chest measurements.
- We had 22 hunters that participated
- It's pretty up and down, but usually right around 20 by plus or minus. And in 2025, 26 deer were taken
- as compared to 1924. So it's a general decrease trend. But I think the bottom line is we have the number
- of deer we remove each year is
- is more than the deer than we've been advised that the park can sustain. So the work we're doing is
- important, and deer aren't just in the park. They're coming in and off of our land from neighboring
- properties, including we're adjacent to the IU Research and Teaching Preserve and the golf course, which
- is not hunted. And the deer, in each year, hunters are not guaranteed success. So one of our challenges
- is to retain hunters. And the hunters that we choose
- They're not just really proficient at accuracy with the gun use, but they're also just showing a dedication
- to community service. So they're not out there for trophy hunting, they're out there because they want
- to help make a difference in the environment. This year we are not going to be working with white buffalo again.
- limited staffing and priorities elsewhere in the world. So we're currently evaluating a few different
- options for our deer management for this year. And yeah, I feel like there's lots of questions I could
- answer and going to, but if anybody had any questions about that. Oh, and my name is Mary Wells. I'm
- the natural resources manager. I apologize. And this is just shy, just above my,
- first year here on my job. So all of the previous year management efforts leading up to this were under
- the watch of the person that I replaced. But I can say that our first deer management activity happened
- in 2018. So we actually, the first
- Activity was a poll, which was conducted by White Buffalo. They're using their sharpshooter staff. We
- opened it up to kind of a community fund to use it through the DNR chat program. The chat program is
- discontinued, so those funds are through non-rewarding funds within Parks and Rec and academic services.
- Do you have in this the tables or figures with the tenant biodiversity measurements?
- And that I can also, I'll get it, I'll work with Julie to make sure it's up on the website and send
- to you the 425 report from Eagle Legend, the deer browsing commission. Just to add to that, I know you
- said you guys have chosen kind of chest measurements as a proxy for deer health. I was wondering if
- you guys did a little thing else for like,
- I don't know if there's anything feasible, but looking at ticks or anything like that on the deer, because
- I know there's so many of them. Yeah, it is a human health risk due to tick-borne illness. So we haven't
- done that study. I will say that the Monroe County Health Department does do those studies every year,
- and I believe they've expanded their efforts for 2026.
- That will be another agency that I would check in with to provide that data because they also monitor
- the mosquitoes populations and incidence of mosquito borne from this swath. There's something like dovetail.
- And then there's apogam, which is just another can of worms. It's not a pathogen, it's an allergy.
- So overall, you all have seen an increase in your plant? Yeah, we're seeing results. There's more indicator
- species available to us, but we have transects, and they don't occur within those transects. So we narrow
- it down to just the two species. So woody plants, is that right? So woody plants would be woody vines, shrubs,
- and young trees. And you're seeing an increase in the age? So they have increased. The way that we've
- done a study before, we need to reset our parameters because the ash are throwing it off because we're
- counting for all or none presence of woody vegetation and not by them to leave. So I can say
- Yeah, I think we just need to read those metrics. And I think people, and I'm not gonna say too much
- more, but I do know that there's been some updates to recommendations for what do you plan on monitoring
- or geographic. Some books I've heard you have some additional information as to consider.
- Are there any questions about what she shared or thoughts? Yeah, Buffalo has been doing it for quite
- a while. They're kind of the worldwide name in it. Unfortunately, they're not available to us again
- this year. Are there other companies?
- There's people that were trained by Wright Buffalo and there's also the USDA APHIS. Don't ask me what
- APHIS stands for, but they're based up in Purdue and it's based up at the U of A that offer calls as
- well as management services. I was going to ask, so I don't know a ton about kind of the workings of
- how you're doing that sort of
- that fluctuation of the plants, especially. But do you work with any other, are your conversations about
- the data at all informed by what's happening with invasive species removal or any of the other things
- that are being done to take care of? Yeah, I'm glad you asked that. I meant to mention that one of the
- observations is the transects are showing us from the woody vegetation that, and then just from observations, that deer
- Over winter, kind of in the upstream areas of 53 basically if you go out of your field, it's the wetland
- trail area. We have a high percentage of woody invasives in that industry. Deer selects or the data
- shows that deer browse favors invasive species and then also they're spreading it through eating and
- depositing the propagules. But
- Interestingly enough, we have undertaken a nine acre evasive species removal in that wetland area this
- year. So we'll see how that changes things down there. And we'll be staying on that for a while and
- make sure that that's all we're doing. Any thoughts or questions from members of the public?
- for coming in and talking us through that. It's super helpful to see them. We might have a report too.
- Yeah, and I'm just, yeah, I want to make sure that that's accessible. Oh, yeah, that's cool. Right.
- Well, thanks. Okay, well then, if that is our presentation, then moving on to one of the hot button
- items, which is officer elections. This is where we will
- through nominations for who will be in the roles of chair, vice chair, slash treasurer, and secretary.
- We've been talking about this for about five months now. So hopefully you've been thinking about it.
- If you have somebody that you would like to nominate for in these positions, we would need a nomination
- and then that person would then choose to accept that nomination or not. If you'd like to self nominate,
- that would be wonderful. I love the enthusiasm. And then we need to identify who our candidates are
- for the different roles.
- Um, if there's more than one, we will vote for the rules individually. But if it's just one per position,
- we can do it as, um, one blanket vote. But I would love to open the floor for questions, thoughts, or
- nominations. Do we want to- Mary, you don't have to stay around for a bit. Do you want to stay? You
- can stay for the fact that you know that. Okay.
- All right. So I'm not going to, we can go through the different positions and talk about them or people
- can just kind of surround their thoughts or ideas, but I don't want to get on that. So generally it
- starts at the top with chair. Do you want to go through chair responsibilities? I know we've talked
- about this a little bit and I know it's in the handbook. Would you like more? We don't have to belabor
- this honestly, like we can just, if people know that there are people they want to nominate or they'd
- like to raise their hand, we can just jump right into it. So,
- Do you have any folks who are interested in being considered for the chair position or you can nominate
- someone else? Think about it, think about it. Other folks.
- Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Other folks who are interested in it. If you make eye
- contact, it doesn't mean that you're nominated. I do not intend to self nominate for chair.
- Carl, how do you feel about accepting the nomination? Can you go over the time commitment for this?
- Yeah. Everyone has their own styles of being chaired, so it can really be as, it can be more involved,
- but it can also be a little more hands-off, obviously. Actually, you know, I can pull up the handbook
- too and read you what it is officially on.
- Yeah, I don't want the official. I want the like, you want the like, yeah. So what I can tell you is
- that the way that I feel about being shared is it's a lot of making sure that people are one
- like participating that we're hearing their thoughts and concerns and really working to keep people
- included and involved. It means making sure I try to
- But most oftenly, I try to stay kind of neutral just to kind of help cultivate a very safe and open
- place for people to express an interest or concerns or whatever. I spend, I definitely spend time before
- the meeting looking over my previous minutes. I look at the packet, things like that. I prep my agenda
- ahead of time. I, you know, so I put time into just the meeting piece of it. I'm kind of like the default
- contact person for doing my stuff. So Rachel emails me
- pretty frequently with either just not like communication things or to nudge conversations or to say
- like, you know, this person was interested in whatever. So being kind of that point of contact for Rachel.
- And that's something that it's because of her availability and like work hours to kind of it's sometimes
- it's time sensitive, sometimes it's stuff that takes a while. I think it's really important that the
- chair be involved in the commission. So whether it's
- one of our theme areas that we're talking about, like biodiversity, or why we can respond to the eco
- heroes. I mean, but that's the thing is like, you don't have to be the head of the eco heroes and maybe
- stab them, forget somebody to be the head and not be also doing a lot of things. Um, but it really is
- about like, in my opinion, it was keeping, you can, you can be yourself and have all of your own things
- like that, but as leading the meeting and communicating with the group, trying to keep that even keel of
- Are people being heard? Are we identifying when we need to say something as a group or when that's not
- even a service? You do such a lovely job of that. Thanks, Kyle. Why don't you want the position? I didn't
- say anyone wanted the position. I'm just trying to make sure. My way is not the only way to do it is
- the thing. This is how I do it. This is how I operate as a human being so I can help it.
- But there are lots of other ways to be a chair. And Matt has seen buckets of chairs. Interim chair.
- I did less than a year when a chair rolled off. It's a terrible story to tell. Yeah, right. But you've
- seen lots of different styles of being a chair. It's true. Everybody definitely has, you know, puts
- their own stamp on it. What you specifically asked, the time difference, and that is mostly that you're
- communicating with the liaison, whether that's to, you know, make sure you
- have a full understanding of the final drafting of the agenda, or whether it's just, I don't know, there
- was a simpler time where everyone emailed everyone, but it's not the case now. So you have to be a little
- more hands-on, like Carrie said, about things, especially time-sensitive things like eco-heroes,
- but that is, you know, covered once out of the year, depending on how things work. So, yeah, generally speaking,
- unless you're someone who really, really likes to put a lot of time into your meeting prep, it's not
- as heavy a lift as you'd think, but there's more communicating with the liaison in particular. Yeah,
- like writing an annual report, delivering that, or somebody might want to talk to the chair about some
- thing that we're doing or an event or whatever it is. I think it's being ready to be the face or voice
- of what we're doing when those moments are appropriate.
- being conscientious of what that means to be representative of our collective group. So, yeah. Okay,
- that was very helpful. I'm thorough. Thank you. If I could fill out a separate nomination, Carl, would
- you be willing to accept the nomination? So, it was not my plan actually to get involved in many of
- the leadership positions today. I would consider it only if you were very not interested in
- in the role anymore. Otherwise, I think you're very experienced. I think you do a really good job, especially
- the facilitating the discussion aspect of it. My preference would be to keep you as chair, but if you
- really want to step down, then I would be willing to accept the nomination. Flip the question, Kerry,
- do you accept the nomination?
- I came in here worried that we weren't going to have any nomination so I mean I'm willing to accept
- the nomination for sure but I do not need to be the chair if if there's enthusiasm around it. I would
- say that like I think it's I think that the way that our commission is structured right now
- with non-individual working groups we're figuring out the communication stuff we'll be getting there
- I would say that
- the chair can look at a lot of things. And so depending on kind of, depending on your interpretation
- of it, I think it can be a good fit for however much time or energy you have for it. But at the same
- time, we also have a vice chair slash treasurer position. We also have a secretary position, so yeah.
- Okay, so you're, you'll accept the nominate, you'll, are you on? I will accept.
- Okay, great. So officially, we have two nominations for chair. Anybody else after I gave that long-winded
- description? Anyone else interested or interested in nominating? Okay. Well, for vice chair slash treasurer,
- are there any folks who would like to self-nominate or name a commissioner to nominate?
- do not intend to self-nominate as vice chair slash treasurer. Can I ask another process question? Do
- you basically nominate them all before you vote? I think to find out if we have multiple, if we need
- to have multiple votes or if we just do not get votes. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't actually specify in our
- handbook the bylaws either. Well, I was just curious, like, when you finish now, that is a lot of receipts
- they have to fill. We do them, the big ones one at a time so that
- It's like if Carl takes it and here he doesn't, then here he may be able to share. Fair point. And if
- it is easier from your seat, we can absolutely go position by position. We don't have it written in
- stone. We don't have a strong precedent. Would we have to, since we have two nominations, where one
- of the positions are always? We'll have to vote one at a time? Yeah, we'll have to vote one at a time
- either right now.
- I guess it's a good point, then, that we should probably call the vote on chair so that we know who
- is and isn't in next votes. I don't know that's my opinion. Yeah, that way. Separate votes? Yeah. Yeah.
- Yes, I think it'd be good to go forward with chair. I don't know. In fact, I've looked behind the commission
- when we haven't had just one per person. Yeah, it's hard to convince people to do it.
- such that I don't have to know the procedure. Do I have to motion that we call a roll call vote for
- position of chair? That's the thing, I mean, I don't know if you have a problem with that. Oh, there's
- yes or no. So you're like, either Carl and Kerry are not beforehand, and then we're voting for one of
- them, or you're voting for Carl and Kerry would be by experience. Usually, it's where we decided who's
- going to take it.
- Let me think that on council, sometimes two people want something, but then they vote. Like, I think
- they vote. Do they just vote in separate, like you would say? I think that around its rules, you get
- one issue at a time. So it would be one candidate who gets considered at a time. And then there's neither
- one of those then. Okay. I think you're right. I don't think it's like, choose a name. I think it's
- like, yeah, comedy. Okay. So remember which one you vote for so you don't vote twice.
- or don't. Okay, so yeah, I'm just trying to figure out how that would be worried. Honestly, anybody
- can make the motion. So so I moved to have a vote of the candidates for
- Chair. I vote, I move to vote. I move that we, I move that we vote on electing Kerry as chair of the
- commission. Second. Okay. Yeah, that would have to be a yes, no roll call. Yes, that's yes. Can I just
- make a suggestion? So Adam moves to elect Kerry as chair. Yeah.
- Okay, sorry. So the motion on the floor is to the left. Very all right. A share for the coming year.
- Adam Budiker. Yes. Adam Martinez. Yes. Mitchell Owens. Yes. Earl, I don't want to say your fault. Yes.
- I'm sure. Yes. All right. Abstain. Brown. Abstain. And Colleen. Yes. Okay.
- 602 is enough. What's your policy? Yeah, yeah, 602, but I'm so sorry. I hate you guys. We only get a
- majority of 400.
- You mean you only need the majority of numbers present? I think, yeah. That's what your rules are. I
- know your rules to change 100 times. I think that's it. Okay. What did she say? That's what I had to
- do. Oh, okay. I think if we had the people to do it, we would have five. Yeah. Okay. Six here. Most
- should pass it. Yeah, so the majority though. There's a tag here. It's back to the same, but
- it's unprofitable. Okay.
- So if it passes, then she's chair. Yes. So we don't need to vote. And if it passes, then the second
- issue is moved. OK. All right. Well, thanks, folks. Thank you, Robert. So this works. Great. Well, then
- let's move on to the next position, which is the vice chair slash treasurer. I'm going to nominate Carl.
- We'd be a potential leader for if the chair's not here and also being treasurer helps you get a little
- gauging of what we're up to and kind of help with opportunities to do things with the community or do
- things to build out what we're doing as a commission. So I am going to nominate Bart. I'll second that. Yeah.
- I know this was covered last month, but I just want to volunteer it anyway, because I can't remember
- who was here and who wasn't. The vice chair slash treasurer position in terms of extra responsibilities
- per month ranges from absolutely nothing to a couple more emails and running a meeting, usually with
- notice, but every once in a great while learning same day that you're running a meeting. That being
- said, the agenda is already laid out. It's pretty straightforward. You can't really mess it up. You
- can just come across as a little
- It's a little awkward at it, which I do every time that I lead it. So honestly, no pressure. Treasurer,
- it's a very small lift. We have a relatively small budget. When we decide as a commission, we want to
- do something like print 1,000 pages of bug bingo for Bugfest, which is something that I expect we will
- choose to do next go around. Or if leadership decides to do something like that, then the liaison would
- just email the treasurer and say, do you approve of this? And you say yes or no.
- That is the extent of it. It's a great opportunity to be a little bit more involved with leadership,
- but to generally not have much, if at all, additional on your plate. If it's not a lot, then why are
- you not interested in it? I've done this a long time. I would love to see other people develop, get
- more involved, and also, yeah, I'm not sure what my future holds.
- I want to see. Yeah, I very much support Carl's nomination, but I'd also love to see other
- people considering. I think everybody in this room could do it if they wanted to, and it's just a matter
- of sometimes you don't know until you're doing it so. If anyone else wants to self nominate, obviously
- here for that as well, but just wanted to share the info. I'll accept the nomination if
- No one else wants to do it. I say that like I'm getting my arm twisted. I do care about this commission.
- We'll do a good job with this. It's just I know personally, I'm going to have very busy schedule coming
- up. But you make it sound like the lift isn't very heavy. It usually isn't. All right. Every once in
- a while it catches you off guard. It is usually very much not.
- Are there any other folks who are interested in Vice-Chair of the Treasurer or someone they'd like to
- nominate? I'll see no other self-nominations. I move we vote for Carl Geiser as Vice-Chair slash Treasurer
- of DC. Sorry.
- Thank you. So this is a motion is for approval. I assume the vice chair slash director. Martinez, yes,
- oh yes, geyser. That's sure. Yes, all right. Yes, Brad. Yes, I'll be yes, yes.
- Awesome. Well, how exciting. Well, then we have one officer position left. It is the secretary role.
- I know that Adam has talked a little bit about what the secretary position is like, but is there anything
- else, Adam, you want to elaborate on about the role? I think I said most of it in the last minute. It's
- pretty straightforward. It's just taking minutes. The liaison usually
- gives you the rough outline and then you're just adding on whatever votes you take during the meeting.
- It's not too much of a lift outside of meeting itself, like 10 to 20 minutes maybe outside, just reading
- through it and fixing your typos each time. Are there any folks who are interested in nominating themselves
- for secretary?
- I am willing to continue doing it, but if anyone has a burning desire, we also vary of them possibly.
- I'm going to add into the little thing. Any of the folks who are feeling on the fence interested,
- potentially, in groups that throw their name out? They're really like avoiding eye contact. I love it
- when I say that.
- Oh, I love it. That's what I needed to hear. Wonderful. I love it. Great. Well, I think this is great.
- Well, I move that we vote for Adam Martinez as our secretary. Second. Is that you, Matt? Yes. So the
- motion is to vote Adam Martinez as the secretary? Yes. And then it will start with Owens? Yes. Geyser?
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I love it. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. Well, thanks so much,
- y'all for for participating in that and yeah, excited about the
- The next thing is coming up, and yeah, thanks, Anne and Carl, for being part of the team that keeps
- us moving. All right, well, then we're going to move on to our last bit of new business, which is the
- inter-report presentation. That's actually, well, they're not here for you to view, but I just wanted
- to share that I need Carl and Justin's photos to go onto the slide deck, please. So if you could send
- me a photo of yourself, that'd be great.
- Um, and I wanted to confirm with Rachel, but Matt, you probably know this. How many ECPC memos we wrote
- last year? I have to look. Okay. Um, but Jackie, is that something that you would be able to? I may
- be able to figure that out. Okay. I think it's only a couple because it's, it's because the ECPC just
- kind of came back to life last year. Right. I think two.
- And so remember which ones were like a last year and which ones were this year. This year we've only
- done the one so far at the Saint Remy. Yeah. Is that the one that we had to do the extra vote for? Yeah,
- it was like back in February or something. I think it might have been maybe two in 2025. I'll double
- check and just send it to you and see what you think. Thank you. That's perfect. I appreciate it. And
- I want to see, Mitchell, is there anything specific that you want me to do about water polish? I didn't
- remember if I put it on the outside. OK.
- Okay, cool. Easy peasy. Great. Well, I think that Rachel put it out there to the council for us to get
- on the books for now. Oh, yeah. I'll let you know when that comes up, but it will be a revenue presentation.
- You're going to love it, but they're always very engaging and interested in the stuff that we're up
- to, so it's always a nice conversation. Great. Okay. Well, then I'm going to move along, too. Old business.
- Looks like we don't have any old business.
- Wonderful. Commissioner announcements, this is one we usually will share if there are things that are
- relevant to the commission or useful to share that are going on, we'll be able to talk about. I know
- that we talked about the BioBlitz last, no, I guess it's two months ago. You talked about it. And last
- month too. That is happening next weekend. Awesome. Registration's already closed, sorry. Well,
- it'll be fun. Yeah, the city of Bloomington has its big.
- big thing going on too. Are there any other announcements that folks want to share? I have two things
- that I need to talk about. One is, CDU is doing a great infrastructure tour next Thursday from five
- to seven. An hour ago, they sent an invitation to you all who'd like to join the very first pilot program
- version of their long degree infrastructure tour.
- Next Thursday, June 18th, from 5 to 7, they will load onto a Bloomington Transit electric bus at the
- Utility Service Center located at the system release and motor drive. The bus should arrive at about
- 445 and they plan to head up promptly at 5. She sent me a link that I will forward to you all if anyone's
- interested in going to the bus for you to attend. Go on.
- And you said or actually called nexus on back. OK, can I get any work and have a bottle? Yes, OK, perfect.
- I don't know what it is, so I do remember. Sorry, directory handle another one reason he square is leaving
- so I don't know that that will directly affect you all or how that, but if. If there's any like I don't
- know if that will further discussion about are we
- through being a B class or now that will be like more diverse or less than four or whatever.
- It was in on, you know, at the admin. I've always said they want us to focus on, but I just wanted to
- make sure you guys heard. Thank you for that. Heidi, do you think if, well, actually anybody, if you
- go to the green infrastructure tour, if there's anything to work like taking pictures of or anything
- like that that you want to bring back to the next meeting, I'd be super, super interested in knowing
- about. We'll take just a picture on that.
- I know it's the middle of the year, but it feels like the new year and a new officer and all that.
- I want people to think about goals some before the next meeting if at all possible. I know
- that we technically don't have our planning one until November, but now that we've gotten through EcoHeroes,
- that we're getting some of the core and other things figured out, think about what you'd like to do
- if you already have something like Mitchell. Think about what help you could use from your
- fellow commissioners so that we can get through it.
- Yeah, that's it. Just take a look and think about that before the next meeting. I guess another announcement
- I'd like to make is thank you to everyone who accepted nominations to be a part of the leadership here.
- Much appreciated. Other announcements from the folks? Oh, wait, one more. Pressure people, you know,
- particularly
- qualified and enthusiastic people to submit applications to be on the Environmental Commission so that
- it is easier for someone to have a vacation or work or whatever and still meet for it. So there is one
- council vacancy and a few mayoral vacancies. If you know anyone that feels like a fit, please nudge
- them to apply. That's a great note. And unless folks have any other announcements, I think that's a
- good time to end on, which is
- As we're thinking about how the year's going on, I think that the current world climate has us all feeling
- very, there's a lot going on. We're busy, we're tired, there's a lot of things that kind of are appropriate
- for us to feel like we need to kind of take some space for ourselves and that's really good. I have
- someone that this commission works with best when people are doing things that they really care about.
- So whether it's light pollution or getting materials together that we can share with the community about
- what our water quality situation is or
- what, you know, maybe we're right into the paper about things that we really, you know, have time to,
- you know, show them the resources they're ever for. I think it's my favorite time on the EC is when
- people are doing what they really care about. So as you're thinking about how the rest of the year goes,
- and we're thinking about our different kinds of, you know, having committee or commissioner reports
- and stuff like that, go through and bring up ideas that you have or things that you've been doing or
- if you're curious about if anyone's
- still talking about the habitat and activity plan, stuff like that. Like that's all totally stuff that
- will keep us, keep our heart and heart rate strong and keeping it easy doing good stuff and negative
- healing. For more commissioners to join us in our forum, give me something that allows us to have sick
- days and whatever else. Great. Okay, well just a reminder that our next meeting is July 16th and as I
- mentioned, we need all of us here. So if you do not think you'll be able to come to that meeting, please
- raise your hand as soon as you know that and we can either negotiate another meeting time or figure
- out what we can do about that meeting. Otherwise, a motion be adjourned. All right. Well, thank you
- so much. It's 712.