- Okay, well, it is officially at 6.03, a nice leisurely start to our July meetings, July 16th.
- And here we are, Maryland Commission, ready to talk some summertime stuff. So we can kick off with a
- roll call, Jack, if you wouldn't mind. All right. I'm here. Brown? Here. Colby? Here. Geyser? Here.
- And Martinez? Here. Thank you.
- Yes, here. Thank you. As far as the documents for this evening, I am pulling it up, but we should first
- go ahead and approve our July agenda. I just need a motion and a second. Move that we approve our July
- agenda. Second. Nice. Great.
- Are you ready for a vote? Okay. Brown. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Yes. Thank you.
- All right. And then the next item is the June 11th minutes. So we're presuming that everyone had a chance
- to review them. We're open to voting for them unless anybody has any commentary they'd like to make for them.
- Move that we approve June's minutes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- Yes, thank you. Perfect. Okay. Well, we're the part of our meeting tonight where we're open to public
- comment. Um, I know that we've got, um, well, we've got in one individual joining us remotely. So you
- are welcome to, um, introduce yourself, say hello or, um,
- Or we can address your question, which is, there are no meeting materials published for either June
- or July. Good evening. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I couldn't move myself. I raised my hand. Oh, sure.
- No, that's great. All right, great. My name is Eric Ost, and I originally was going to attend this meeting
- to just follow along and see what you folks are talking about. Since I got your attention, I was curious
- if you had previously discussed the
- the petition that appeared before the Plan Commission for the development at 2511 North Dunn. And so
- in endeavoring to research that, I looked for prior meeting materials and I did not see a packet posted
- for June 11th on the Environmental Commission onboard site. And let me just double check to make sure
- I didn't miss it.
- Um, no, there's nothing there. And then there's also nothing there for today's July 16th, 6 PM meeting.
- Sure. Well, thanks for checking on that. Um, the first one. Oh, go ahead. First meeting. We actually
- canceled that one. So there was no materials to, to, um, post on that one on June 11th, June 11th. Okay.
- All right. That, that explains it. Cause there's no recording for it either. So that, that makes sense.
- Yeah. Thank you.
- Sure. And then as far as the... I messed that up right now. Gotcha. And we're working, our liaison for
- this commission is on personal leave right now. And so we have a wonderful member of the department
- volunteering to help us with our meetings in the meantime. Is that Jackie? Yes. So Jackie, yeah, I don't
- see it on the website. I'm refreshing that.
- Okay, I'm refreshing And then so but my general question if I was going to ask one this evening is is
- there a process whereby Petitions that are for development that are going to be sent to they'd be routed
- through of course planning and transportation and maybe there's permits that are requested from Murnau
- County Building Department, but does the Environmental Commission receive a
- you know, notice, timely notice of these, and are you able to review materials and possibly provide
- recommendations or ask follow-up questions for those petitions before they're approved? That's my question.
- Thank you. Yeah, that's a great question, and that's definitely something that we have done over the
- years and have recently resumed. I'm actually, I can feel Matt Haldy, my fellow commissioner,
- I'm chomping at the bit to chime in because he's followed the planning commission pretty closely, including
- this development, which is one that's been on our radar for a bit. So Matt, do you want to? Yes.
- So again, everything is a little bit different with our regular liaison on leave, but we are typically
- given a heads up about anything going before the BZA or the planning commission if it involves sensitive
- environmental features.
- Also, a number of us individually are just on the city list where we see those agendas and petitions
- ahead of time, so we can also scout for any that are relevant to our expertise here. We became aware
- of the 2511 North Don one. I want to say back in January when it first went up before it was revised,
- we discussed it some, a letter was sent to us by a member of the public,
- Ultimately, we decided not to write a memo, though we have written memos before and we are capable.
- We just, we stayed out of this one. Did you, so Ms. Johnson is your liaison? Correct. I believe she
- also was the staff who was mentioned at the planning commission meeting as having visited the site.
- And I'm curious, did any members of the commission go with her to visit the site?
- No, that was done independent of us. That was through her function there with the city. I heard she
- had two visits and designated that it was not a wetland, but we were not involved in a site visit. Did
- you get a report back from her at one of your meetings? Regarding that, no, we did not. But again, I'm
- not sure how that lined up with her going on leave prior to this second going to the
- petitioner going before the planning commission. So it might've just been unlucky timing that we weren't
- sure. But yeah, I was just following up. You said that you had discussed it and decided not to send
- a memo or anything. I'm just curious what evidence you considered in terms of not doing that. And that
- her report might be one of those things. But I'm just more wondering about the general process. And
- I think you or your other, your other, your fellow member said that there is a,
- normal process whereby you do receive notice and formally and you're able to. Okay. All right. Good.
- Thank you. Yeah. And this is something that I think as a member of a public coming in to chat with us,
- that's something that we're really open to as new developments or variances are requested.
- that as they do have environmental implications to them, that's something that it is on our liaison's
- radar, it is on our radar, as we're able to stay in the loop for those petitions coming through, that
- we do want to be mindful of what is happening and where there are areas that we might want
- to put recommendations in whatever direction in front of the Planning Commission or BCA or whomever.
- So yeah, I appreciate you asking. Are there any other thoughts that you were having or wanting to share
- with us while we got you?
- Well, I'd like to follow up on this. I mean, use it as a case example. I just like to learn more about
- what kind of metrics you're tracking and whether there's any aggregate tracking. I mean, even if you
- don't write a memo, I'm wondering what kind of metrics you follow in terms of development, especially
- development that is in this case, I believe it was Greenfield.
- I mean, of course, it was that was all clear cut at one point, but I'm just it's there's no structures
- on it now. I'm just wondering how you follow along because one development impacts others as well.
- You know, they're not isolated. So, you know, but I'll follow up with you later. Appreciate it. Yeah.
- And we always welcome letters from members of the public as well, just in case.
- we don't get briefed on something or we miss it when we're looking over the agendas of those other bodies.
- You're always welcome to chime in at or between meetings. Thank you. That's a great point. The environment
- at bloomington.ion.gov goes to our liaison and to the individual covering it. If there's anything that
- you want to pass along, that then gets distributed amongst the commission so that we can take a look at it or
- decide if we want to have any conversation in between meetings. So you're very welcome to share stuff
- as things maintain progress. Great. Well, thanks, Eric. Are there any other members of the public? It
- looks like the screen is just note takers and other kinds of supportive technology. So for the folks
- in the room, would you care to introduce yourselves?
- Most people here are going by now. I think I'm just an asshole. Nothing really diverse to the question
- just kind of for today, but yeah. And I'm Zach Anerman. I'm also a Christian on sustainability
- and resilience. I was the main author among several others of the bioblution revolution that you guys
- are considering. So I'm just here to observe and answer any questions if you have any. Great. Well,
- thanks for coming. Great to have you. All right.
- All right, well, then I believe we can move along to the next item on the agenda then, which is the
- report section. So we've got commissioner reports that could include if you're sitting in on any other
- commissions meetings, or if you're representing the EC in any other way, or if there's anything that
- is not on the agenda, but you would like to talk about, such as,
- biodiversity or habitat connectivity or perhaps education and outreach things like that that might just
- be themes that you feel like talking about. The first one here is the city committee update and that's
- for me that is as you know the city is officially and and IU both have been recognized as the city and
- the campus USA and it's it is a
- Part of the agreement to be considered obesity is to have an active committee that is represented by
- different bodies.
- across the area and we are lucky enough to have the Parks Department being kind of that core piece of
- it. But part of it is also having the Environmental Commission have some representation on this committee.
- There's also folks from like Sycamore Land Trust and the county and all sorts of other great organizations.
- Shannon Geith was one of the BCD committee representatives and because she's no longer on the commission,
- it would be ideal to have another member of the EC
- coming to these meetings, being part of them. I can tell you that we, at this time, meet quarterly,
- the second, I think it's the second Thursday of the second week of the second month of the quarter.
- So it's consistent, like 9 a.m. on a Thursday. And basically everyone kind of can meet here. You can
- also do it remotely. And we talk about just any of the initiatives that the Bee City group is putting together.
- There were a ton of things that came out in June as far as doing the bioblitz and the film at the library
- and just different activities in town. So it's not a huge lift for an individual, but it's a role that
- the EC has in the BCB committee. So I'm going to put that out there in case anyone in this moment will
- be interested in even for a single quarter representing the EC in that group. But either way, I'd love
- to have you all think about it.
- eager to put their name down. It's a great group. It's very low lift, but I'll let y'all think about
- that. This is that thing where you just can't make, I'm not going to fall in. All right. It was, I'm
- going to open my calendar real quick. I believe it's the second Tuesday of the second month of the quarter.
- Okay. I think it was, if nobody's jumping at it, I can maybe swing it remotely. Yeah. And you can usually
- can be remote. Yeah. By all means, everyone can sit. Okay. Say what time. Yeah, it's a nine a.m. I think
- I'm on the internet. Yep. Okay. It is the second Thursday of the second month of the quarter.
- And I was just looking because I didn't see one in my calendar for this quarter, but I suspect they're
- just happening. So feel free to let me know. I don't know if I can send you the details, but it's a
- great group. And it's kind of another fun little thing to be in touch with not just the city, but with
- a bunch of different organizations. We're all really excited about the status and increasing pollinator
- protections and things like that. Great. OK, well, that was it for me.
- Be city update. Are there any other reports or updates from folks on the commission? Yeah, I can talk
- about the tree commission. So, uh, we'll see. The urban forest has been focused pretty heavily on grooming
- as a major activity, um, specific the line trail jukebox center. Um,
- We have, St. Wilmington has a homeowner assistant program for the trimming removal of trees. And that's
- fully subscribed now with about 24 participants. It'll be, you know, getting help from the city and
- financial help and printing those trees. Our bicentennial tree planting is ongoing. I think we have
- like 325 trees planned for that. So that's really nice. So cowl repairs are going to be removed along
- with Eagle Sim.
- In addition, there's going to be some ash tree removals and inspections planned. There has been a workshop
- announced for how to care for ash trees and special considerations regarding those types of trees for
- contractors in the public on August 26th. I'll beat you more details as we get close to that date. Again,
- the meeting, next street commission meeting is on Monday.
- And then new landscaping is also planned for Westerth Street and College Mall mediums. And this will
- involve about 41 trees planted there as well. Canopy, we got a report from Canopy that they've planted
- 248 trees, which brings, for the month, which brings that 805 total for the year. And as always though,
- they're interested in getting more tree tenders or volunteers for their program. So it's essentially
- what we got for the tree commission.
- Nice. Thanks for attending that. All right. Other folks? Hi. Go on in. Yeah. I watched Picos's meeting.
- They had a number of discussions around processes and whatnot. But the main thing accomplished was they
- advanced the light pollution resolution to a second reading, as I hope we will do tonight.
- Additionally, this feels like a while ago now, but I don't think we've had a meeting since
- then. I participated in the CBU's Green Infrastructure Tour along with Adam Fudiger and Heidi Brown.
- It was informative and great. So just wanted to put that out there, listen to my reports. Can you describe
- what the tour was like a little bit? Yeah, they went to the green roof at, what's the name of that building?
- The Forge. I think it's the Forge. Yeah, right by them though.
- same kind of park there, but looked at some rain gardens that are like right out of the curbs downtown,
- went to Miller Showers. They were, I think, four stops, but basically to show various pieces
- of infrastructure and to kind of discuss how things work and how often they have to maintain them, which
- was a lot. Every time it rains. Yeah, every time it rains. Some of these things had to be shoveled out
- of any of the debris from the street. And then that chuckled out stuff has to be shipped off somewhere.
- It's been on our own length of... Yeah, it was very informative. It was the two of you and at a booting
- curve. Heidi, what did you think was either interesting or surprising or anything from Mitchell or anything?
- It's just the amount of maintenance required to physical labor, shoveling out the
- greats the filter greats because they run off as well. From cars, chemicals, dust, or construction sites.
- You have to shift that off. You get another step.
- Yeah, it's so interesting how we've had different conversations about different ideas that people have
- of what we can do in the city. And it does seem like it comes down a lot of the time to love it. How
- will we make sure that for the next 20 years, it still works and we've, and we're taking care of it.
- So yeah, that's really cool that y'all get to see that. Yeah, they did have kind of an active enforcement
- problem going on by Miller showers for their construction site was causing some of the, some of their
- infrastructure to
- to get real gunked up, so they were actively working that out. Cool. That sounds like it was going to
- be really interesting. Was it just environment? Were there just the three of you, or were there people
- from other commissions? It wasn't the public, right? No, there were some members of some kind of utility
- commission or board. The people that are maintaining the infrastructure. I don't know, 10 to 15 people.
- Supervisor.
- Well, so is there utility service for me? Yeah, I think there are four of them. Maybe. Okay, thanks
- for the update on that. Are there other folks who have reports or updates or things that they'd like
- to share as far as Mr. Kauffman points go?
- Well, then we're going to keep moving along. I'd like to welcome a member of the public. Hi, we just
- did our public comment section, so if you want to say hello or introduce yourself, or if there's anything
- here that you're wanting to share in particular, you've got five more minutes to do with it with you.
- Hi, I'm Joshua. I actually came because I wanted to comment on that proposal that I read yesterday.
- Well, the dark studies. That's one of the things on our agenda, sure. Yeah. So I've actually been doing
- my internship project on the street lighting in Wilmington. And one of the pieces of text that I mentioned
- about the street lighting inventory, which is the kind of old brand of ramp project. And I think I would
- want to point that out specifically, because without that, the project does not seem reasonable.
- like cartwheels. Yeah. But yeah. Okay. All right. That's that's great to know. Yeah. Yeah. Because basically,
- it's an engine in there. Um that dude has their own inventory on their sheet by repair model and then
- the city also has their own but it's like 160 lights and we have like thousands. Yeah. And it is a very very very
- complicated situation that street lighting is divided amongst multiple different people in multiple
- different departments and it's an often salivated element. I just thought I'd come and offer what I
- found out. Yeah, that's perfect. For the folks who are kind of behind some of the language of the resolution,
- do you want to chat about that now? I have another thing too.
- aspect of that resolution. I forget what the exact thing was, but it mentioned the responsibility of
- getting all the utilities. I think it's important to note that Elwood Works is the one who does street
- planning. So that would be Cheyenne, Olinda, Nathan, Claire, Kristen, she is retired and she does all
- the planning for street planning.
- Another important person is Miranda Heber. She, she was building. So I think if we're going to do any
- sort of inventory, it's going to have to be from building, unfortunately, because software all the time.
- So it's going to be like a backwards inventory. It's going to take a lot of time. Interesting. How far
- along are you?
- Following along with my inventory inventory. What I've been doing the same as I've been interviewing
- staff members and writing a report on the state of the inventory. Okay. What needs to be done? Yes.
- So we basically just need an inventory. We just don't have that video. Okay. Which there are, I would
- say there's a lot, but every now and then there are discrepancies in building.
- or has like work pain or something like that. And, or like, like holes on the surface and stuff like
- that. So it's just like, since there isn't a good morning and there's one person going through and doing
- it, that's the state of the situation right now. Yeah, I was wondering about the energy portion of it.
- Like, yeah, so the lighting today, I'm doing it to talk. Yeah, so the way that works out is that, well,
- I don't need to beat that.
- essentially these are our street lights from Duke Energy. And like we don't, it's basically like subscription
- service, like old timey appliance leasing, but it's on a 10 year scale. So you pay for the lightables
- and the lighting fixtures over a 10 year scale. And then the city owns them? The city does not pay for
- them. Yeah, the city owns them and maintains them.
- And that's one thing that a lot of people don't understand is that we have humor reports and people
- submit humor reports about street lighting. Well, they actually need to go to Duke and submit it that
- way instead. But there's like Scheinman even does street lighting repair, has to manually go in and
- then make those reports herself. And also it's a big guessing game
- what a streetlight is, what, because people just don't have that information and they don't have that
- information and how are you supposed to put it where it says. So I think that's also the issue with
- it as well is that- They're not labeled in any way? Visibly, we don't hold it in this. Yeah. Oh, okay.
- Yeah. And then there's like endpoints on the Duke Energy flow, so that you can kind of guess where it
- is. But that's not what the platform is.
- We looked at a fair amount of information from Duke's site, and I think this will contribute to the
- conversation for sure. I think we might have some more info on that as well. Given that we have a lot
- of members of the public with interest and expertise in this item, I would move that after staff reports
- here, remove the light pollution and dark sky resolution from new business D up to first in new business.
- ahead of our idea and action requests. I'll second that. Jack, can we please vote on moving a new business
- deal? Thank you. Very considerate of you, Matt. There's still some reports, but we'll get to it soon.
- Yes. Martinez? Yes. Heslater? Yes. Owens? Yes. All right. Yes. Brown? Yes. Sinhal? Yes. Thank you.
- All right. Are you all OK? Are you able to sit back a little bit more? OK. And thank you all for being
- here, too. And you're all welcome to join us at the table when the time comes. It's great to have you
- sitting with us while we talk this through. OK, well then. And there's plenty available. You don't have
- to do anything. They're just there for you.
- Um, okay. Well, then we're going to, to, let's do the next section of the agenda and then we'll be able
- to get to that, um, location and competition a little bit. But as far as any, um, items from
- the commissioners, nothing else wrapped up while we were chatting. Great. Okay. We've got staff reports
- then. Jackie, is there anything that you, um, uh, Rachel's still out and, um, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
- So now I'm getting late this week or this month. Um, if,
- Thank you to those of you who sent stuff to me. I did try to make those attachments for all accessible,
- but we don't technically have to do it until next year, which says practice. I reached out to Jennifer
- Crossley about what kind of training everybody else is taking it. Like you guys are basically training
- on how to do it in full docs. So we'll let you know as soon as I know. Yeah, I think that's basically
- it. Congratulations, we love you. Thank you, Jackie.
- And I thought Nidina was going to be here. I don't know if she's here. Maybe she's here. So if you guys
- have questions for her, we'll do. Thanks so much. All right. Well then, and it sounds like we're able
- to move through the planning and legal then and into the new business. Great. OK. Well, honestly, y'all
- are welcome to join us at the table. I'm going to turn this over to Nidina.
- This group, yeah, obviously we kind of jumped into another part of the conversation, so feel free to
- lead it as you want. We should have a cookie if you want one.
- Okay. It's an important role. He's been doing great at it.
- Members of the Environmental Commission who have been interested in light pollution have been working
- for the past couple months now with the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability and Resiliency. And
- basically, the draft in front of us is kind of the product of that. Honestly, Zach, who was here with
- us today, put in a lot of work, perhaps even a majority, on this resolution. So we're very, very grateful.
- But we're kind of here to entertain any edits or suggestions that people may have. Essentially, the
- goal that we've kind of had in mind is to get Blumchen certified with DarkStri to more or less reduce
- the amount of light pollution that we're kind of contributing to the environment. This has a lot of
- I'm not going to kind of rehash the whole draft, because I don't know if I'll do a good job, and I know
- you wouldn't mind about it more. But essentially, it helps pollinators not to have so much light. It
- helps animals. It helps us as well. We don't see the stars. It interferes with our REM sleep. And it
- would be very nice if we can move toward this. It's kind of my thoughts. But I'm happy to open the floor
- to all of you. I wanted to comment real quick about the
- kind of unusual nature of how we're doing it. So we're trying to do this joint proposal thing. Our goal,
- I think, is for us to talk about this now. And then if we have any questions, comments, concerns, to
- address those before we have a future joint move in with both commissions, which hopefully will be smooth.
- Yeah. So I think it'd still be of value to any questions or concerns we do have now to discuss them.
- And in fact, what we're hoping to do at the end of the discussion is to advance this to a secondary.
- And then basically, while both commissions are together in August, entertain amendments then and hopefully
- pass the identical versions. So get everything we want to chat about out here, but also between now
- and the joint meeting, you can study up and decide if you have more input. And back, I can interrupt.
- Will the joint meeting be the second meeting? Yes.
- And I think tentatively, that is 18th and 6th PM. Tentatively. Yeah. Well, wait. 15th, two days from
- now? August. August. It's all right. It's all right. Reasonable concern. Yeah, 48 hours.
- Yeah, so I guess if anyone has questions, comments, or concerns on the introduction or the resolution
- itself. Can I just, so just to double check, so this was, I know that you all started working on this
- a few months ago, and I know that our commissioners were talking through, was kind of doing some research
- and sort of getting a baseline for it. When it came to the resolution, is that, my assumption is that
- we basically took sort of the framework that you had laid
- reiterated it to a degree? Were there any major changes or have there been overlapping drafts or how
- did that come about? I'd be- So I wrote an initial draft. I had no idea you guys had been working on
- something as well. So when I met you guys at the Earth Day thing, several of you mentioned that you
- had been working on stuff so we should combine. So anyways, I came to the table with the draft already
- written and we've gone through several different versions now and updated it substantially since then, I think.
- But the base is the thing that I came with and just added tweaks and things. And we've added tons of
- whereas clauses and stuff based on research that people have done and tweaked the language a little
- bit. I think when I originally came, I had language that was more broad recommendations. And I changed
- it into explicit things that we could put directly into the code based on feedback we've had from city
- council members that they kind of want that. So the idea is that they can basically just copy and paste
- this into the city code if they wanted to. Obviously, they might tweak things if they want to.
- But there's a main main changes, I think, listen for getting somewhere. Since we started. Yeah, I think
- that I think the version that you have in front of you now is the exact same version that we have that
- we have a couple days ago. So we'll look at it from the same point at this stage. And the hope is that
- once we get to that during the meeting that people in both sides have
- chance to talk through things like that. We can sort of as a group introduce amendments and kind of
- two meetings at the same time, one room, right? In terms of voting and stuff like that. And then hopefully
- we stay in sync. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Well, obviously we've got the sort of question about the
- inventory and how we're thinking about that. And we can definitely jump into that. But do any of the
- other commissioners have points from the resolution they'd like to sort of bring up or talk about or
- ask questions about?
- question that will hopefully be easy. I was looking through like all the line changes to the code and
- everything. And what's the difference? What's a fork handle? It's basically a measurement of like
- How bright the thing is. It is slightly, it's different from... It's different to Lumens, but you can
- convert that. Okay. Yeah. I was just trying to figure out what the difference between like 45 foot candles
- and 45 foot candles. You can convert to Lux. Yes. Lux and Lumens is... You got super technical all this
- stuff. Lux is Lumens over an area, if I remember. Yeah. It like takes into account, it's the amount
- of light hitting a specific area. Okay.
- But foot candles is what are used to measure light trespass. So light going from one property into somebody
- else's property. Yeah. It's basically a measure of how much light is going. Where it shouldn't. Yeah.
- Can you get an app in front to measure it, or do you need a special? Your camera is probably not accurate
- enough to get an app. We have light readers, and they'll let you know when. It's already in code now.
- There's no need to change. Yeah. And so we already use the light readers to enforce the code cap.
- A side question, can citizens use it if they have a question about their neighbors' lighting? I think
- they'll learn about it. I'll be able to hold them on Amazon. They're not, I don't know, it's
- not a plant-based system. I bought like a kind of cheap one for like $20. It's just the most curious.
- Yeah. Do those fit here in women's or like down? Maybe the pen. I think most of you can just look it
- up and think which unit it is.
- Um, back to the proposal. It's just, uh, most of the recommendations we're going to do at Bloomi can
- do specifically. Yeah. And what are your thoughts on, like, involving Duke Energy? I think that they
- would obviously have to be a player. As you mentioned, um, 95% of our street lights are known by Duke.
- Um, so they would obviously have to be a player, but the city, what I'm essentially proposing we do
- is we would add something to our contract with Duke, um, saying you have to set them up in a specific way. Um,
- And I mean, they would kind of have to do that. So Duke would obviously be a player and they would need
- to be involved in the process at some point. But I think that's further down the road if the city decides
- to implement this, we can start those conversations. Yeah. Do you know of any cities that have that
- kind of relationship with Duke for their energies? We would be among the largest cities in the United
- States to have dark sky community status. There are others.
- in primarily in the Southwest that are approximately the same size as, but that's not Duke. So I don't
- know what Duke, what the relationship would be to something like this. I mean, I'm just guessing that
- they're not gonna wanna lose the entire city of Bloomington as a customer. I mean, they might raise
- costs or something. I don't know. I don't know exactly how that might work.
- Because we would be the first entity. There's one other tiny town on Lake Michigan called Beverly Shores
- that is a dark side community. That's the only other one. I don't have no idea whether they used openers
- in there or not. We can maybe reach out to them and see. But like I said, a very small community, yeah.
- So I don't know. We'd probably be in uncharted waters a little bit with Duke, at least. Yeah. That is
- going to add something. Duke does not like
- And then they're contracts, not all like contracts that we receive. The city signs is the same contract
- that they would give you as an individual. And a lot of it, a lot of the language in there isn't even
- like, it doesn't even follow the law. The IURC imposes certain rules. But another thing, I guess my
- biggest concern with that is like getting them to change the language because they just like will not.
- So that's one thing I've heard a lot. Like, yes, that's the point.
- And if we are going to change streetlights, is that cost going to be on the city? Because if we decide
- to change a streetlight, we have to pay for it. If it blows out or it falls over, Duke will pay for
- it. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, there will be a cost associated with it. Yeah, yeah. Long-term, I think
- our energy costs will go down, though, if we, but. My understanding is that regardless of the contract
- we had, Duke still would have to
- obey UDO, like the zoning. Yeah. So theoretically changing the zoning laws would produce slight trespass.
- They don't still have to follow that? Yeah. So they follow the IORC and then some things they are exempt
- from. Okay. So we would have to verify that. And they don't, we don't always agree with that. So then
- that becomes an issue. Is that something that is sorted out?
- in real time or at the end of 10-year leases? Oh, I think my old minds with it is going to be different
- than my personal experience in DPW, but it's more, it's like case by case. Like when they build the
- stuff, stuff's here off, but it was like some things they agreed to do, some things they didn't do.
- They, in my experience, feel that they very much are. So they're planning both planning and zoning.
- Cause you know, state-owned property isn't, other large places have been able to, or other large, um,
- sort of maybe utilities or having people tell us to be exempted and they have in some place because
- they're affiliated by that person. Your research on safety was interesting. It definitely increased
- safety. I feel like that would be one of the main arguments against strategize. I anticipate that being
- probably the biggest hurdle we'll have to go across is the public's sort of
- signature, but yeah, their public perception that light equals safety, which isn't actually backed up
- by, yeah, by science or data or anything. But it's hard to argue that with someone who has a visceral
- emotional reaction to something. So how are we going to cross that bridge? That's another bridge we're
- going to have to cross at some point. And again, I think that, I mean, it's good for us to consider
- it now. It's good for us to consider a lot of this stuff now, but a lot of this stuff I think also can be
- I mean, this would ideally go to the city council later. There's going to be a debate at the city council
- when it goes there. There'll be more debate after this. And that's when we, I think, are going to need
- to have the conversation about how we strategize tackling the notion that light equals safety. And that,
- I think, is more the area we could go in. Yeah. Yeah. And I'd also volunteer that it isn't, you know,
- we're not waging a war on light. We're waging a war on light that goes up. Yeah.
- instruments are properly shielded, so the light is pointed down. If some can be on timers, if some can
- be on dimmers, there's a whole bunch of control theoretically we could exert if we have the will to
- make these changes up front. It's not about suddenly making scary places dark. It's about making sure
- that that light isn't going up and affecting birds and bats.
- and everything else. That's a great point because we're not trying to eliminate all light, we're just
- trying to direct it to be the most helpful. There is some we would like to dim, there is some we would
- like to change the light temperature on, there's a lot we would like to strategically direct, but it
- isn't about making Bloomington dark. I love that clarification. I don't know if you wrote about that
- in that proposal, but it might elicite some fears initially to have some of that.
- And there is something, Dark Skies, on their website somewhere, we found this when we were looking at
- this, they had a photo of someone, a garage with a floodlight coming off of it. And with the light on,
- you see the light, you see where the light is going. And they show another picture with the light off,
- and suddenly there's a man standing back behind the corner that you couldn't see at all. So your eyes
- actually adjust to darkness. And when you have really strong differences between darkness and brightness,
- it actually makes it harder for you to see things.
- But it's hard to make people feel that when they feel that light is safety. So that'll be a challenge
- for sure. I do have one thing to add about the safety issue. I think it's good to acknowledge the difference
- between safety, between roadway safety and crime. Yeah. Because people can flame those together. Whereas
- street lighting
- doesn't necessarily affect the crime at all. There's been so many studies done that there's mixed results.
- There is no direct answer. But there are studies that have been done that it does increase safety for
- cars. Especially in Bloomington with all the raised crosswalks, I know that you could hit those going
- Pretty fast in the don't even see him. That's also a concern. Yeah. Other comments from the commissioners
- just to raise any topics that we haven't talked about yet. Really shouldn't talk about the inventory
- thing, but this is kind of a question. You mentioned the temperature of the light. I know some people
- have very strong feelings on the inside.
- And I don't know how long ago it was, but they made that big shift across the U.S. from those yellowish,
- warmer lights to the LED lights. I remember I said I could see some of it better. Is there a temperature
- that kind of is the best? So this, in the packet that I, apparently some of the photos got cut off,
- but I had a thing in there, in the packet. So the resolution would recommend that that one has very,
- I didn't fully, but anyway. The resolution would recommend, let me just hold it there for a second.
- So the resolution is, if this became city code, would say that the maximum color temperature would be
- 3,000 Kelvin right here. Many of the lights that were introduced in recent years since the switch over
- to LEDs is more in this range over here, which people hate, and I'm gonna, this chart down here tells
- you why I'll tell you that in a second. And then it would also impose a requirement, a maximum of 2,200
- Kelvin for environmentally sensitive areas.
- So much more yellow, almost reddish light near environmental sensitive areas. This chart down here is
- 311 complaints for bright glaring or obnoxious lights. In around 2022, the city started switching to
- the LED lights from the old sodium style lights. Yeah, there we go. I'm going to try to share it. Cool,
- that'd be great. Definitely do.
- You can see right here, immediately when they started switching them, in the decade previous to them
- starting to switch, they got an average of 11 complaints about brighter blaring lights a year on 311.
- The moment they started switching, it shot up to like 100 a year. People hate these lights that are
- out. And I think genuinely, this will be a very popular thing to switch to less bright blaring, warmer
- color temperature lights. So I think if we can frame this the right way, genuinely will be very popular.
- I mean, I remember that
- I remember the ones they put it on at water like blue. I think I was in a video game and they must have
- been responsive to complaints because they did change. I did do a couple. Um, well, I also just think
- some of the contracts are online on the city website. I also did a public records for other contracts,
- um, up until
- Part way through last year, most of the lights that Duke was installing was in probably the 45,000 Kelvin
- range, which is far on the right end of that. Recently, Duke on its own has started, without the city
- requiring or asking, which we could do, that's what I'm saying, they started switching to 3000 Kelvin
- lights. Because I think, and they did that on their own, I think because so many cities were complaining
- about them and starting to ask and require it, that they just started doing it on their own, which is
- why I think we should start asking and requiring things ourselves as well.
- So they are responsive to complaints that also that point also is important to know because basically
- they're already starting to replace the lights on a normal schedule with 3000 Kelvin lights. We would
- just need to add like a physical thing over pointing the light down is the only real thing that they've
- already switched to 3000 Kelvin for three plates.
- So just adding a physical cover of some sort, which would have a cost for sure, but I think it would
- be popular over it. That's something either the city can do or we can ask Duke to do. I don't know exactly
- how it would work, but that's beautiful. Is there a monetary incentive for Duke to use the brighter
- ones or is it boss-wise? It's the same. The LEDs are the same. I mean, the really low ones might be
- more expensive than the $3,000 note. And I just think this is
- aspirational, I guess, who knows to what extent the university will want to comply. But I just also
- think there's a golden opportunity when we're lighting areas like the Arboretum or the Dunmetter or
- places like the tailgate fields up by athletics or something. We're at a university that's colors are
- green and crimson. We could do redder lights in areas that are full of critters and it would,
- I don't know, save money, pay dividend, look cool. I mean, I don't know. There's a lot of interesting
- options here.
- But yeah, primarily we're hoping that the city is able to shield and keep the color temperature from
- getting out of control on the lights. And that would go a long way to more pleasant lighting and energy
- savings. And just to point out, I think the single strongest thing in this is a two-parter, a public
- warrant for lighting. What that means is it would require, the city would put something in its code
- saying, in order to install a light somewhere,
- You have to have a strong reason for the light in that specific case. And you cannot just say, well,
- safety or security. It cannot be vague. It has to be specific to that site. That's for all public lighting
- in the city. Number two, near environmentally sensitive areas. It would be, you have to prove that lighting
- is the only thing that can solve the problem. And this burden of proof would be on the city to prove that.
- And if they can get over that burden, that threshold, they would then have to use the lowest Lehman
- count and the lowest color temperature possible for that site to solve the problem. And I think those
- two things alone would probably be the strongest thing in the entire religion, personally, in terms
- of lowering unnecessary light, that plus the color temperature and the shielding and things like that. Yeah.
- Do you have any consideration about IU? Yeah, we can't force them to do anything. The resolution isn't
- just to go to city council, there's a whole lot of bodies that it will be sent to. To my understanding,
- Zach's had some conversations with different groups, astronomy, a bunch of places that are interested
- in being involved. One of the members of our commission last night,
- Tuesday night, whatever, how many days of it. Had a good point that if the city adopts something like
- this, we could theoretically kind of pull them along a little bit. Like once we show that it can be
- done, like the university can maybe be pulled along as well. So I don't know, that's a thought to consider.
- Is there like a dark campus equivalent? There are, but I think this week, I had a call with Mark Skye
- and I would be by far the largest campus.
- I think they're willing to assign status to almost anything that gives a certain bar. They have the
- Red Sky Airport. They have the Dark Sky Stadium. If you can meet their standards, you can meet their
- standards. My way of thinking about this one is on a sort of every little bit counts basis. In the middle
- of Indiana's Sentinel landscape, we're surrounded by state parks. We're like, if we can make
- The sky darker, it will be better for the humans and the non-humans alike. And on that point, so the
- goal of this is to give the city the goal of getting dark sky status. I don't actually care whether
- we get dark sky status, to be blunt. I care if we reduce light pollution. So this is one area where
- even if we don't, it's good to give the city the goal of getting to dark sky status. That's good, but
- if we can't get there and we only get 50% of the way there or 75% of the way there, we have
- still meaningfully reduced light pollution.
- the dark sky thing is just a thing like a cherry on top to make this like to dangle in front of the
- city a little bit to try to maybe anyway we could put a sign in front of her as people come into this
- you know the things that he likes but anyway do you have a sense of if the status would be more of a
- driver than the improved quality of nature it can be both yeah and it depends on receiving it as far as
- pitching it and it like leading with this is what we're trying to accomplish. Do you feel like the status
- would be something that people would be more brought in by then? It's good. It's good for the people.
- Unfortunately, I think some people would be the former. They would rather have the be able to say that
- they got a sign to put on the front of the city. But like when you come to the city for certain, it
- depends on who you're talking to. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I care about the ladder. Yeah. Yeah. I was just,
- I was thinking about just even
- Even just simple things like the title, like minimalizing life solution, attaining dark space certification,
- and just thinking whose, whose brains, whose eyes, you know, would respond to either of those and wouldn't
- be the immediate, but they come with, you know, either of those. Yes. It's likely not going to be,
- you know, perfect for any one individual, but there was a lot of consideration given between titles,
- whereas clauses, so they're trying to see, you know, what moves who. It was, uh, many, many iterations
- we, we arrived at this. Yeah.
- So this really interesting point about how the lower amount of light will actually reduce the like severe
- pollen season, which I feel is like a big sell here. Yeah, that's the one. It's like, even if you don't
- care about the animal, you know. It's shocking. I was kind of shocked by how much pollen is produced.
- Yeah, hearing how much artificial light extended the pollen season wasn't
- It wasn't a surprise that it happened. It was a surprise. It was by nearly two months. Yeah. Yeah. It
- was an average three days. Yeah, it was the previous. Neighborhood competition starts by neighborhoods.
- Yeah. That would be the target. Yeah. Yeah. At the Neighborhood Association. I think we got that. I
- think we're going to want to move that we advance this resolution to the second reading.
- Second. Wait, who moved? I did. I think that that could be a huge either stopping point or a sticking
- point as far as how much. Under section 2A,
- The first thing that it says in the general recommendation is recommending a full inventory of all city-owned
- lights, because as you said, it's kind of a cluster right now. Duke does own about 95% of the lights.
- From what we can find, that you found a data set, I found it, I did a public record to request for a
- data set, but we see two separate ones from the city that do not match. We found one from Duke that
- doesn't have the same lights that are in the other two data sets, so they're all over the place.
- And so absolutely the city should have an inventory of his life and they need that needs to be like
- the first thing they do. Um, and so that would have a cost to obviously, but I think the city would
- benefit from knowing where the lights are and where there is a cost to not. Yeah. As you mentioned,
- like there were, we're paying for things that aren't actually there in some spots. Like one person who's doing it.
- Yeah, it was assigned to that. Yeah. Well, we would need to invest more in it, obviously, to do a full
- inventory on but long term. I think the city would benefit enormously from knowing where the actual
- lights are Even divorced from light efficiency. Yeah, they should know this is just about government
- efficiency. Yeah, it's, I don't know, it's crazy to me that we don't have a
- Yeah. The city's own inventory. So like they sent me a map showing here's where all the streetlights
- are in the city. And then I found another one that said, here's where all the streetlights are in the
- city. And they don't, there's like zero percent overlap between them. And then none of them included
- any of the lights in the park and park lights. So it's like, that's a completely different dataset floating
- somewhere. I have no idea where. And then Duke Energy had, we pulled from their website, thanks to Justin,
- all the data from that. And it only matched on like, like it had all of the Duke lights, but then
- Only some of the city lights are on there. It's marked as city light. Anyways, we don't know where the
- lights are. It's not like there's not an active requirement for us to have a full street light inventory.
- It's just a thing on the list that we're getting to as quickly as we can with a single person doing
- multiple things. So some of these, like, sheds light on this? As the resolution goes, it's recommended
- actions. They might not.
- choose to do all of them. The main reason I was pushing it to a vote is we have a fair amount of agenda
- left and there's still a whole month worth of time to scour over the document, plan any potential language
- you might want for an amendment and such. Yeah, I don't want to cut anyone off though. Is there a new
- important thought before I move once again? My concern is how long that's going to take.
- in touring, like there's thousands of them. It's gonna take months, maybe even one year. This calls
- for asking for 70% compliance within three years and full compliance within five years. So you would
- have several years to get there. At least it's according to this timeline that I kind of laid out based
- on the ArcSci's requirements. So we would have a couple of years. But yes, it would be a large scale.
- Yeah, and as Zach previously mentioned,
- If those benchmarks aren't hit by that time, we're still reducing light pollution. Yeah. Um, what's
- that gonna ask? What would the trend been looking at, Matt, this whole time of where a lot of the dark
- sky places are and trying to figure out where else besides Flagstaff are like kind of the bigger cities.
- Cause I was curious because it looks like Flagstaff is ground zero for this. I think so.
- There aren't really other, I was trying to figure out if there were other examples of like cities that
- came into this that had to do the conversion thing versus like Flagstaff is like, oh, we invented this
- thing. Right. So. They had to do conversion, what do you mean? Well, it looks like Flagstaff was the
- very first dark sky. Like that's where all that stuff, but like a bigger city that's like kind of going
- through older. Bigger cities we would try to figure out like.
- What was the process that they went through of getting their lights converted and all of that kind of
- stuff? If there were examples we could talk to or pull from, but if it's only Blackstaff, I don't know.
- We'd be among the mixed, yeah. Yeah. It could be placed in the trail. Is there anything else that's
- like, when I was like, poking through the clock, it was like, even more urban places, it was like, highly
- sacred. Yeah, they are.
- Light pollution first, dark sky second. Again, it may not even be technically feasible, just given the
- light that comes off of India. But still, we're trying to do our work. Yeah, achieving status is the
- cherry on top. This is all very helpful. As far as any, I think that
- I mean, I understand that you all have been talking to lots of different folks in different ways. Just
- while we have you here, as far as like any thoughts that you want to share with us before we move to
- the next item, are there any other things that you would recommend that we, I don't know if you've had
- the chance to read? I don't think our documents were up on the web just yet, but are there any other
- thoughts that we've not discussed that you would like us to kind of keep in mind as we start getting
- together to discuss this? Knowing who the city staff are and that, do you think they're inviting? Yeah.
- There's a few people that do it. I don't know if you got back down earlier, but and talking to those
- people because they're probably going to be the ones that have to do. Unless they get someone. Or interns.
- I'm trying to look at the GIS project for the university, get a group of students together, go around
- on their bikes, take all the points.
- You know, it's a good problem for us in other ways to neighborhood association. We're going to just
- map all the streetlights in our neighborhood. You know, that could be given to the city. I'm sure we
- can get maybe some social collaboration, which would be maybe use the burden. And I use strong means
- here they they might be willing to help.
- I did reach out to them about, because it's part of the, to get to exercise with the vacation EFM on
- regular skylight monitoring program. So I did reach out to them to see if they would be theoretically
- interested in handling that. I mean, they obviously didn't firmly commit to it, but they were very on
- board with the idea. So maybe we could lasso them. You know, when we were doing the, when they were
- preparing the climate action plan, we're doing the heat mapping and things like that. That was something
- where the city sort of
- coordinated it, but then had volunteers come in and drive around or, you know, put things up or whatever.
- So that is kind of an interesting idea of if this is something where the inventory is just not feasible
- with a single employee for a single apartment. Yeah. Thinking about how can neighborhoods or individuals
- who are interested in participating be volunteered? Yeah. I mean, assessor should factor in.
- Before and after, thanks, Tim. Yeah. One more thing, sorry. I didn't mean to dominate your turning.
- One forced while we're talking about staffing issues, we are meeting our two permissions can leave the
- dark sky application process and shepherd them through the city staff does not have to do that. If they
- want to, they can. But we are. Anyway, that's I figured that was fine. But we are able to do that on
- our own. That's a that's a potential selling point.
- Is there a cross associated with this? I don't think so. Gosh, James, that's right. Yeah. I can also
- look into that again, but I don't think so. I think there's applications being added. Maybe, I'll look
- into that again, Todd. There's a certain number of applications. Yeah. What if we're out there,
- and we say, that'd be C budget. Okay. I'm not going to get you around there. Oh, yeah.
- Yes, but I'm happy to do it again. I will move that we advance this resolution to a second reading.
- I'll second. Well, we're in the middle of that one. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Martinez? Yes. Professor? Yes.
- Ellen? Yes. All right. Yes. Brown? Brown, yes. All right. Yes. So good. Yes. Great. OK. Great. Well,
- thank you so much. Thanks for coming in. Thank you all for having a great conversation. Thank you. Awesome.
- Yeah, it's great. Awesome. I was just like, it's very enlightening if you get to sit up for a moment.
- You're the one that I'm afraid of. That's OK. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I'm OK.
- You know, we're going to make it sweet. Oh, sure. Speaking of which, that's the next thing on the list.
- Shh. Just leave the goodness out. All right. OK, well then, we are going to go ahead and keep moving
- through. Members of the public, you're welcome to go if you'd like. But you still have to stay and have
- cookies. So you can only have one cookie for the road. No more. Thank you. Thank you. OK, great.
- for taking the time for that conversation. I feel like it's a really exciting idea. And I think there's
- a lot of different ways to make this possible. So cool. Great. OK. Well then, oh, you may remember that
- there was an email that went through. And there was some requested homework for the EC. So if you are
- suddenly feeling nervous that you don't remember that, I will clarify.
- So one of the things that I love about this group is that we each year sit down and think about what
- are we going to focus on next year? How do we want to spend our time? What things are we going to produce?
- Whatever. And it's a lot of fun. And we have a bunch of new commissioners that are within their first
- couple of years of being on EC right now. And so my pitch was to have folks come in tonight. And I'm
- not going to make you go around and say it, but I would love if you would volunteer. My request is to
- have like,
- One or two topics that is for you to have mine right now as far as environmental or or sustainability
- or you know whatever whatever way you kind of want to shape it, but a theme that makes sense for the
- EC to be thinking about.
- And ideally, it'd be a topic that you personally are interested in. Part of what we do in the coming
- year is identify, are there things we want to do? And having people who care about that topic is super
- important for making it happen. So if we don't have anyone who's into the life solution topic, it's
- not going to go anywhere because there's no one who's just waking up going, let's have these conversations,
- which is great. So I'd love if any of you have any thoughts on a topic that really matters to you. It's
- not committing at all, but it's just putting it out on the table for us
- or play a little? And ideally, my request was, is there any kind of small action that you associate
- with that idea that could be something we think about if we want to put it on the list for the coming
- year or even in the coming months? Does that make sense? So my idea is item B. I really think it's important
- that this commission expand the efforts of outreach. And we can talk about that in item B if you want.
- You know, I discussed with the city, they're, they've given us some green light to do outreach and create
- emotional materials. And my thought is we could put these in my cafes, we could put them, you know,
- in an employee room, you know, break rooms. You know, anywhere where there might be, I have environmentalists
- found, that's where we should be targeting. So, but we can discuss that in D if you'd like.
- piggyback on that a little bit. Cause one of the thoughts I have is specifically targeting outreach.
- Cause a lot of the stuff we've done previously is like at big events where we get to talk to individuals,
- but trying to target like groups as well. Whether it's like, I don't care. It's much easier to try to
- talk to churches or things like that. But some people could mobilize theoretically a large group of
- people at one time, or at least like get them all on the hook for something at one time, if we get the
- whole group involved.
- Um, and figure out ways to do that. Yeah. And it's like group outreach a little more effectively. This
- is kind of my, uh, bug bearer about this is that at, uh, three-fourths of measurement, uh, three-fourths
- the capacity, we're running at three-fourths the strength. Like if we had four more people, the amount
- of things we could do as a group would just, would be that much stronger. So I think like it should
- be kind of our priority to get to at least full, close to full strength as possible.
- It becomes something that allows us to more easily comment to table and also to introduce new ideas
- and new polls. We also don't have to be concerned every time we meet whether or not we reach more and
- we really conduct business. That's great. I like that y'all are thinking about how we just are a presence
- in our community and how we're engaging people a bit more.
- Great. Are there other things people want to contribute? I may or may not have understood the assignment
- properly. So things that I was thinking about was just the importance of native plants and trying to
- preserve mature trees, because I love how much planting the city does, but I hate seeing big trees get
- cut down. Those aren't specifically action-oriented for us. Those are just two things I'm thinking about
- that you may or may not
- shape some kind of future endeavor. The only related possible action item that came to mind was maybe
- it would be possible to collaborate, whether it's with Canobie or any other local groups to see if we
- could target plantings within a corridor of our connectivity map. See if we can collaborate in that
- way. Be strategic with plantings, whether it's trees or anything else or different groups, churches,
- schools, whoever.
- Um, to kind of look at what we already know about, about areas that we consider, you know, priority
- green spaces for connectivity and see if we can't harness, um, any other partners in, in the helping
- plant in those areas specifically. I'll be back again. Because bringing that canopy in like partnering
- with them to try and like, you know,
- Find places to plant things that would help connect every plan. The other idea I had was, like, trying
- to find ways to be a facilitator between, like, the community and things like Riverwatch or the weed
- rankings or anything like that. Figuring out how, like, we can use our role of, like, we know what all's
- going on. Yeah, we know.
- You're a person here talking to us. Why don't you go do these other things that would help the environment
- and the community? Here's all these opportunities and things. So you're talking about getting
- our commissioner announcements in front of other groups. Yes. I love it. That's great. Other thoughts
- from folks? Other things that are like top of mind for you? Okay. I have one then. Um, and this is a
- little bit because of my.
- my involvement with the radio station, but I just talked to somebody from the Plastic Reduction Alliance.
- It's a nonprofit up in the Valparaiso area. And they're, they're basically the, from my understanding,
- really the only organization of their type for Indiana. And it's around, I mean, they do stuff with
- education. They do stuff with like cleaning up at the dune. They do, they're kind of led by some researchers.
- So they do a lot about looking into like microplastics, nanoplastics and things like that.
- As you may know, Indiana has a awesome law that makes it so that we can't ban, practically ban plastic
- bag use or D, I guess, I guess fine for plastic bag, whatever. There are a lot of things that are,
- I think, right in front of us that can be ways to reduce unnecessary plastic use. And I think that some
- of the even legislation around plastic use or non-plastic use are things that I'd be interested in like
- talking about because it is
- I think it's a timely topic and something that we really, um, uh, there's a lot of people that care
- about it. So for me, I think plastic is something that we've not talked about before, but it's something
- I think about constantly. So that's a topic for me. And I think that, I think collaboration is the name
- of the game with this group. We're volunteering our time. We do not need to invent things from scratch
- when there are people or organizations who are already either leading the way or very interested in
- collaborating.
- Um, the other thing that I've been thinking about, and I don't really have like a action for it, but
- it's something I want to think about as a group is the environmental implications of AI. I think about
- it, I think about it more than anything about plastic, which is a whole lot, but it's something that
- I, I would be interested in having a conversation about. Is that something that we want to make a statement
- about? Is it something that we want to talk about on, and then we want the city or
- counsel to be aware of? Is it something that we want to have? I don't know, any other stance
- or recommendations or maybe like guiding concepts or philosophies, anything like that. I think about
- it all the time and that's something that if somebody said, can we do something, I would say, heck yeah.
- So those are my two topics. For what it's worth, before their summer recess,
- council did pass a resolution about AI and basically, I don't remember the phrasing, it was council
- member Rolo who proposed it and he had experts available and a lot of other stuff, but I think they
- unanimously passed. It wasn't exactly a moratorium, but it was a resolution kind of opposing this careless
- expansion of AI and
- And like data centers and stuff. It was it like data center specific stuff, or was it like integrating
- AI technology into city? It was going to say that I watched the meeting, but I can't remember all the
- specifics. More along the lines of what you just said. Okay. Okay.
- the Hoosier Environmental Council, they put together a lot of materials on data center stuff, because
- it's been a front-line issue. Yeah. So I don't think the resolution the City Council passed was environment
- first, everything else second, but I know it was a consideration. I know that it was mentioned, the
- environmental arms as well as other societal arms. So it could be something to look back at and find
- the text of that resolution and see if not that that would
- satisfy what you're looking for, but at least it'd be a jumping off point. Be like, oh, hey, I see you
- guys just did this. Can we, can we keep talking about it? And especially the environmental events. Yeah.
- Yeah. And I think that like data centers is, it's, it's a whole conversation and an AI is also
- a conversation. It's definitely something that's like in front of my eyes for public people. Cause I
- had a landowner turn up, almost blew up at me this week because he thought my sample was data center.
- I had to knock them down. Yeah. And it's really interesting. I would pass the mic to whoever else wants
- to share, but I think it's really interesting that there's so many people from an individual basis have
- their own personal, here's what I hate or fear or know is dangerous or whatever it is. But then as soon
- as it kind of moves into a larger body, it gets a lot more nebulous as far as what is okay? What are
- we talking about? What are alternatives? What are hard lines? What are all of those things? So I just
- find it super interesting. And I think that there's,
- there are a lot of different conversations that the EC could have if they want to. So, yeah. I think
- my other part of that is, you know, people will say, I don't want the data center, but at the same time,
- I'll hop on the computer, go to some AI platform. You know, hey, I don't have this problem with this
- question. At the same time, I don't want to say I'm going to want it right here. That's exactly right.
- And then what community does get this, you know, imposed on them. And what is that for? I know we don't
- say the EJ word out loud here, but we, you know,
- it is definitely a concern that way, too, of which communities are being put in that harmful situation.
- It's a very not-in-the-backyard position. I dedicated a whole meeting we just had in that conversation.
- If we want to make a statement like laying out that as well. One thing about data centers, there was
- a state law recently passed that there's a tax incentive to convert old minds
- into data centers and you know, we have around here. And it was, that was done by Cook. She was from
- Lawrence County, also a bunch of quarries. And so, yeah, that is a concern of mine, what they could
- possibly do here. But I'm pretty sure there's already a moratorium on data centers in Bloomington that
- was like past like
- Three years ago or so. We only had one. It was expiring this summer though. Oh, great. I think that
- was part of what prompted even the Council on Derellas was more about AGI than anything else. But like,
- I think that was to put it back on the table as well, to redraw attention to it because it was either
- a two or three year mortgage and whatever it was, it was running out. There's only one here.
- data center. Yeah, I feel like that's Bloomington. The university has a data center over there that
- leads to the hospital. It's been there for years and it's not grand. It's not that big. It's more of
- just like a building with a super computer in it and understanding. Yeah, it's just not like a small
- campus. I feel like in the city limits, it's probably a very attractive spot for a data center because
- they want lots of land for cheap. Yeah, and also Bloomington.
- is its own. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. I think that that's a part of it too, is what makes sense for
- us to really try and make a statement and whereas it's like, sure, fine, make that statement, but that's
- probably not the biggest concern or the highest impact that we're going to feel. The county maybe, but
- we're in the city. Okay. Well, thanks for undertaking this conversation. I appreciate that. Other things
- that people have on their mental list that are standing out to them these days that will be worth
- in tune to keep around in conversation? Yeah, I kind of was a bit more, when I was thinking about it,
- I was thinking about where we're standing currently with outreach and then we talked about more outreach,
- but with where we're at now with a lot of our stuff coming through these tabling events, I kind of focused
- a little bit more on that and kind of what we can provide at a tabling event. For me, water is kind
- of what interests me. So, you know, runoff related, stream related, you know, I think one of the big
- ones is, you know,
- People don't always know where, where it goes. Um, you know, I think easy materials would be something
- like the layout of Bloomington and where all the different areas flow to it. So you can see your neighborhood
- and say, Oh, my runoff goes to Jackson or all my runoff goes here. And it just kind of makes it more
- kind of relevant to you that anything that goes down to this train in front of my house is going to
- end up in the playground that we go to in the afternoon to get something like that. It just makes it
- a little bit more in the front of the mind on
- you know, while you're grasping, they're all in the sucker living industry, they're all like, you know,
- the candy wrapper you got, all that's going to end up there at some point. So just, you know, simple
- handouts for information on, you know, what goes where and what's bad to go in those places, I think
- would be an easy kind of educational material. You may have done something like that in the past when
- I looked through before I didn't see that specifically, but. I know some places will put,
- like physical placards on storm drains and say this drains to X location. That's a little bit more than
- we would probably have the ability to do, but still providing that information just in a more casual
- way. It sounds like a really cool idea, especially just for like a big map where someone could look
- at the other neighborhoods too and take pictures of theirs or their friends. There's a lot of different
- areas where our stormwater runs too and where it's healthy stuff.
- be like an awesome visual aid, even if, even if not a pamphlet. So like that I realized that like there's
- water running, there's a river, there's a creek running under downtown and stuff. There's, I know that
- in the past we've had so many great ideas, but in the past we've talked about, um, different
- grant opportunities. And I know that the city does offer grants in lots of different ways. And one thing
- that, because we are a city commission, it would be potentially thinking about how can we help
- Provide things like this within an easy avenue to, Hey, you're from this neighborhood. You're from this
- part of town. You can apply for a grant or your, you know, whatever organization ever can apply for
- this grant. We can help you know how to do that to mark your strong dreams or to, you know, whatever
- it would be. So that might be something to do. Speaking of grants, that reminds me, I don't think we've
- talked about this, but next year problem. There's the 319 grants. We can do septic with them now.
- Okay. I'm going to put that on the list. You didn't bring it in for that, but I'm going to put that.
- Yeah. So that's closed out for this year, but for next year, because we've talked about that and that
- kind of immediately what we circled as the biggest issue. And now we can use the money that changed
- this year. Well, that's perfect timing then. Okay. Cool. Great. Justin, that's a great idea. Do you
- have anything else that you want to share?
- before it passed around. Yeah, I'm good. Pass it. Cool. Other folks have anything that they've been
- thinking about or that they want to toss out to the larger group? I don't have anything terribly specific,
- but kind of similar to Matt's. I've been killing my grass and planting native plants, and it's so fun.
- I have to mow less. I get these full flowers and bones and stuff, and I feel like spreading awareness
- that it's not
- really that hard to do. Like I put cardboard down, I wait two weeks, I lift it. A week later, I put
- it back down, grass is dead, plant stuff. Just that raising awareness that it's not that hard to do.
- It'll save you money and time. And it's good to clean time. And it looks good. You get flowers. You
- can keep them in my neighborhood. I'm very jealous of what they've done with their front yard. They're
- very aspirational from me.
- It reminds me of the eco-heroes theme that you, I think you suggested. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Which is a
- fun. It's like some areas that are very successful and some of it have a lot of grass mixed in, but
- guess what? It's still better than just turf grass. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I didn't come prepared to Justin
- about stormwater. One.
- thing that I see a lot on the ground are cigarette butts. And I was thinking of like, what is the possibility
- that having like cigarette canisters downtown? Like we have trash cans. We can't stop people from smoking.
- They're going to smoke. Like what's the possibility of like putting those alongside trash cans downtown?
- Do they used to have those? I swear there used to be.
- And they maybe just replacing when I walked out the trash or something. I don't see any downtown people.
- Yeah. Especially downtown. Yeah. Yeah. Especially outside of all the trash. It is a fire hazard. Yeah.
- It's the same concept with trash cans. Like if you just have more trash cans available, people are just
- more likely to just toss it in that rather than just toss it on the ground. Yeah. I think people want to like,
- have to sit and wait for their put out cigarette to cool down and then be something they can walk over
- to like, there's, I think it's like studies. Yeah. Yeah. The grounds and stuff on it. Then you pick
- it up and fill them with pretty, pretty solid filter. Um, but that's a good question of, are there,
- are there studies about kind of like the hotspots? That's a good idea.
- Some cities also have the watersheds signs delineating when you're crossing the next watershed. We have
- two watersheds, well two major watersheds, major watersheds in the town that we couldn't do that for.
- I'm always like, that's like my fun fact. I'm just like, you know what, here's something, what are you
- saying about watershed? That's, but I think it's, yeah, I think it's kind of cool, like that kind of
- concept of just like the things that
- to build awareness to somebody that they realize they don't know what that thing is or have not seen
- it before. So it's good to have curiosity. Mostly to slap a bunch of signs on the 17th. And that's about
- the line. OK. Well, I know that we've got more things on the agenda still. But are there any other thoughts
- people want to share? I really, really appreciate you all taking time to talk through this. It's kind
- of fun just thinking, like, where are people's headsets? And what do you like? And it's also sort of
- a head start on the planning meeting. Like, we can be thinking, right,
- And that rolls around in November or whatever. And say, OK, how do we build on all this? And we'll bring
- new things. And this is in a minute. And I know you all are taking this, too. So keep this stuff in
- mind. Yeah. Anything else people want to add to this section before we move to the next round of talking
- points? All right. OK. Moving down to the commission vacancy discussion. Well, we already talked about
- it a little bit. But this is something that.
- I know a few of us have just kind of like chatted about as far as we have some vacancies, which is totally
- fine and normal, but it does make it hard when we wanna have initiatives that we just don't have enough
- bodies or enough brains or enough time in the day. A lot of us, you know, work or have obligations that,
- you know, make it hard for us to spread ourselves too thin. So this is just a quick moment to refocus
- on conversations we're having, people in our communities that might be a good fit. And I really appreciate
- coming with that being something that's on your mind a lot, that's really helpful. And I think that
- part of it is remembering to kind of think outside the box of thinking about the people that you know
- who, when you bring up water, they've got something to say. When you bring up plastic, they've got something
- to say. When you bring up native plants, they're really excited to talk about that. You run into them
- at the native plant sale every year and it's a buddy you've had for years, but that kind of thing where
- the EC doesn't have to be any one thing. I mean, we have certain
- things that we would fulfill as a body, but we are not really beholden to a single specific, you know,
- course or track, which means as we populate with people who have different interests and experiences
- and trainings and roles in our community, I mean, there's so many different ways that we contribute
- because of who we all are. I would love to just kind of like remind everyone here that besides you need
- to look within the city limits at this time, it's really just kind of,
- who wants to be here and are they dedicated to caring for our environment and having time and ideas
- to help make that happen? Yeah, I know, Matt, you've done a great job of just being relentless about
- like, did you know that you have public spots, which I really, really appreciate. Yeah, but I mean,
- obviously the application process is pretty straightforward. And once we, as we get cycled
- through applications, you know, it's,
- is something that we're always looking for people to put the name on the list. Yeah, but just
- also contribute, just kind of think outside the box. There might be like, obviously, we value expertise.
- If you know any specialists in any field, that's great. But there might be a ton of involved people
- in your community or teachers. Or there might be people you never thought of that, oh, yeah, they're
- actually really passionate about this thing and might like to volunteer a little bit each month.
- So yeah, just think about it.
- We, over the, over the last couple of years, um, I think we, we dipped down to eight members once before
- we got back up to 11 and then it's just been kind of bad circumstances of, of people rolling off here
- lately. So we're down to eight again. I think there might be like a perception that we always struggle
- with quorum, but I think the reality is it has a little bit more to do with the definition of quorum
- than it is with getting people to be on this body. However, the more people we get.
- on this commission, the less we have to worry about anyone's interpretation, of course. So if you know
- anybody, you might give them a nudge. Yeah, easy peasy. Or they can come and they can talk to us, or
- they can come as a member of the public who doesn't even know that we are now going to start to actually
- know. But yeah, I mean, it's very open and we're all, you know, we all can talk to our own experiences
- and obviously it's really flexible groups.
- Well, so share with your friends and neighbors. Great. OK, that's all I'm going to say for that. The
- next item on the list is social media. So we are currently at a place where we have to approve social
- media posts. I know we talked about what this would look like differently. But if nothing else, I passed
- this along to Jackie because this is something that the city committee put together, very cute little
- thing. But we have to get a vote before we can post it on the EC's Facebook page. OK.
- in being non-stop.
- So, simple enough, how would folks feel about us sharing this on our Facebook page?
- Okay. Mesture. Yes. Yes. All right. Yes. Brown. Yes. Yes. Yes. Awesome. It's going to show up in our
- feed. I can't wait for you all to watch it and share with your friends and mention that we are also
- accepting a new commissioners. So baby.
- Okay, that's it. That's it for me. And I know that we're moving on to the old business, which there
- is none, which means we're just zipping through. We now have commissioner announcements. A reminder,
- your announcements may be environmentally based. They may be about something you're doing in
- your professional world. They might be something you just want to share with us and also everyone watching
- cats. It could be really your choice of what you want to share. Yeah, I'll open up.
- I don't know. This was just weird and random. I spent all week in Terre Haute doing, uh, it was our
- first week of, uh, field season. We have our, we're doing an intensive watershed on the south side of
- Terre Haute. And I didn't realize before this week that you could just find a whole chance of coal,
- just fresh coal. It is free. Uh, so yeah, I had a bunch of coal, uh, because we brought some home because,
- but yeah, there were, it was a,
- extremely weird watershed, because there's a bunch of that former coal mine activity. And I went and
- did some sampling and thought some of the landowners was like, yeah, the mine shut down. Like one of
- the pharma companies started just dumping their trash into mines. And that got cleaned up, but it's still.
- But yeah, I just thought it was neat that you guys might like to know that you can find coal just straight
- up. You should have stashed that away and then put it in your kids' stockings. That is stockings that
- fit. Every year, the recipe. They cry, say, I'm just kidding. Here, here, here, here, here. Other folks,
- anything to share? Yeah, I guess I'll share with y'all.
- I actually quit my job. I'm actually, after about 10 years, I'm no longer going to be a scientist. So
- I'm having a bit of a shift. I'm actually going to end up spending a lot more time with math. I'm attending
- the law school now. Oh, that's really exciting. Did you do this because of math? No, this has been a
- while coming.
- But yeah, so. That's really exciting. But I'm still very committed to the environmental commission,
- and I still have some expertise. So happy to share with you. Love it. Do you start classes, I guess,
- this fall then? Yep. It's all right. It's coming up. That's so exciting. Well, congratulations. That's
- really fun. There's a big shift going, so. Right, yeah. A little bit of a change there. That's cool.
- Well, that's cool. I can't wait to hear kind of how
- this world and that world intersect for you, or just how it used to move? Nice. You got here now, you
- want to give your science background some tips? Yeah, yeah. Well, there's a lot of ways I can apply
- my science background, so, but I don't feel at all, so. You're a nice guy, I find. Virgil Harson, which
- is decided as a term. Ryder. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Other folks, any announcements? I guess I just want to
- Thank everybody who worked on the light pollution resolution. I know that was, I mean, fortunately,
- Zach gave us a great running start, but that was still a bit of a lift and I'm excited to see where
- it's going, our joint meeting. And I also want to thank Kaida for bringing us snacks. Yes. Well, this
- is not environmentally related, but it's Bloomington related. Next Saturday night, the 25th at
- Seven o'clock at the Busker of Chungley is the annual Girls Rock Bloomington Showcase. So Girls Rock
- Bloomington, as you may or may not know, is a nonprofit here in town for growth trends, not binary kids.
- So learn to play musical instruments and write an original rock song and then perform it on the big
- stage at the Busker with their little seven-year-old friends. And it is amazing work. And I volunteer
- with them all year long, but I definitely do the camp as well. So next, a week from Saturday,
- at the Busburg is by donation. Um, I think it's like 10 looks to me that they asked for, but it is just
- a nice, a very cute little weirdo musicians doing their thing. So I invite you to come or you can follow
- them on social media and just get it from a distance and you can mute it if you need to, but it's actually
- a really, really great. Anybody else? Well, in conclusion, our next meeting
- is August 20th. As you know, we love having as many bodies in the chairs as possible. If you know you
- cannot make that meeting, please shout it out. If you need to reschedule, please raise your hand. And
- that will kind of help us make sure we're being effective. Next meeting, August 18th special meeting
- with, yeah, technically right before the 20th, so. Which I, I don't know if that's. I don't know if
- it's officially on the books that I just taped. It's not officially on the books.
- Okay, yes, but our monthly, obviously, next monthly meeting is at 20th. But yeah, great. Well then,
- in that case. And motion re-adjourned. Second. Nice job, Adam. Okay, great. Thanks, y'all. Really appreciate
- it. Adam, what to say?