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 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 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.