Welcome to the Environmental Commission meeting for Thursday, September 17th, 2026. I'm Karl Geiser.
I'm the Vice President. Carrie couldn't make it tonight. This is the first time I'm running a meeting
like this. So if I am doing something wrong, please call it out. I welcome the correction. I think what
we need to start with based off of our typical conduct of business is the roll call.
I can ask Rachel, our liaison, to do that. OK. Harry Albright is absent. Heidi Brown, here. Matt Caldy,
here. Adam Martinez, here. And I think Mitchell Owens is on his way. We will introduce him. He's here.
Carl Feiser, here. And Justin Mischer is absent. Adam 92, Adam Martinez. OK. I'm sorry about that. And
I'm Rachel Johnson.
Excellent. And so the next word, business, I'd be happy to entertain a motion to approve the agenda
or to change the agenda if anybody has any thoughts. Second the motion to approve. It sounds like you're
making the motion. Oh, so you're making a motion. I won't make a motion. I will entertain motions. That's
my understanding of how the president works.
of the person who doesn't make motions? Not usually. Not usually, yes. I mean, I guess if I had, we
won't stand here forever, I suppose. Do we have, under new business, the social media one that has Kerry's
name next to that? Do we want to strike that, or do we have anyone else who's willing to present that
one? Anyone who presents it. OK. I move we approve the agenda. Second. OK. Would you mind throwing a
call again?
Penny Brown. Matt Colby. Yes. Adam Martinez. Yes. Carl Weiser. Yes. OK, next we have our approval of
the September 17, 2026 agenda. I would entertain a motion. That's what we just did. Oh, I'm sorry. Approval
of the July 17, 2026 meeting minutes.
Move approval of minutes. Second. Just a second. Matt Hardy? Yes. Martinez? Yes. Geyser? Yes. Brown?
Yes. Motion passes. OK. Looks like the next thing we have on the agenda is public comments. Anybody
in the room or on a line that would like to
Uh, speech, uh, limit five minutes per person, 20 minutes total. Seeing no one in the room. Anyone on
a line? Okay. I'm seeing nobody on a line. Um, so I guess we move on to reports. Um, let's see. Commissioner
reports. Does anybody have any walk on?
walk-in items that they would like to present. I viewed Bicos's last meeting on the 8th. They had a
guest presenter, Meredith Katz, who was CEO of RetroCycle. They made a really cool product called the
Colorado Cup, which is cutting down on single-use disposable waste in Breckenridge, Colorado. It's a
plastic cup that replaces reusable cups in the way that it
works is they charge an extra $2.50 upfront. And then they can swap it for another one any day they
come back. And they eventually close out and return it if they don't keep it as a souvenir.
They get a $2.50 credit. She gave a really cool presentation on the amount of waste that's cut down
on over there and the way that they've started the program. And I guess she herself is an IU grad and
wants to bring something similar to here.
So that was a really cool presentation and I hope to hear more from them down the road. Then the commission
approved a letter to the office of the mayor concerning plot cameras. They approved a letter to the
city council concerning proposed tree preservation changes to the UDL and they advanced a second reading
resolution to protect significant and heritage trees.
Excellent, thank you for that report, Matt. Do we have any other business? Dr. Adams? I went to the
blood shirt and pants tour, should I mention that? Yeah, it's very cool. We have it as an agenda item
later on. Okay, we can hold off then. That's a good idea then. Okay, moving on, I'll see if anyone has
any objections. Staff reports, financial and transportation department reports.
Yeah, so Adam Fugger was the former seat for the EC on the Environmental Resources Advisory Council.
So their liaison reached out to me to see if there was any interest of an EC member taking that seat.
Whenever we looked at their bylaws, it's kind of similar to the tree commission. The EC just has the
power to appoint somebody. So it doesn't necessarily have to be in person on the commission. So I just
wanted to...
see if there's anybody interested. I'm not sure. What was this for? ERAC. ERAC. That's another board,
right? Yes, another board. Let me see what they need. Just for the benefit of the commissioners and
the public, what does ERAC do? I can pull up.
their link. It looks like they meet on the second Wednesdays of the month in the evening. So here's
a synopsis of what they do. They are under the Parks Department. So they
work with park commissioners in policy matters pertaining to the operations of city natural areas or
facilities. They assist with the formation of policies related to the use and protection of the park
instead of the natural areas. So my decision is to have it be made tonight. I went into Heidi Schumacher
who stacks that council. So if there is interest from the EC,
Please let me know. We can bring it into the commission meeting. Otherwise, I wanted to touch base to
see if the tree commission process of reviewing applications went well for the group. And if that is
kind of a similar process of how you want it to be wrapped. So if there's any thoughts, welcome to hear
it. Otherwise, I'll follow the tree commission out of that.
Do you have any thoughts at this time? Well, if we come up with anything, we can also reach out. Yeah,
if you could also email the whole commission just so that some people are ready, it would be appreciated.
And then hopefully we can figure it out.
And whenever there is an open seat like this for e-recurricular commission, do you all like seeing kind
of the application of why they're interested and why they're qualified, or would you rather just have
a staff recommendation for that? I don't have any strong feelings. I don't have any strong feelings.
I kind of wouldn't mind both. Staff recommendation is, of course, very insightful, but it's also cool
to have a complete picture as well. It kind of puts us in kind of an awkward position sometimes
of recommending. You don't want to influence you all. I don't want to influence you all because you
have a certain feeling. But I know other boards of commission make recommendations, so I just wanted
to open the floor. So if that's something you prefer, I can definitely give it a site.
I personally would be open to having your recommendation. You do have valuable input inside, so I don't
know how other members feel. OK. Thank you. Sounds good. So that's that update. I also wanted to bring
up the website materials and resources. Whenever the accessibility guidelines came out earlier this
year, IT has recommended
and accessible documents come off the website. I'm actually almost here now. So those were removed,
they're still retained. So if there's any materials that you all need for the interim, I'd be happy
to print those out. I've been working on updating some of the documents. I still need to review them
from a prior to the number I left to make sure they're all in our facility guidelines.
For things like the brochures, they need to be updated. I think Karen was working on some update. She
has copies of everything. So I guess connect with her on what you would like to have updated if you'd
like to be part of that project. I don't think there's a staff hand list to update them, but I will
check for accessibility stuff. Are there any questions about that? And I should probably.
This is for kind of this page on the natural landscape. There used to be several brochures here. I had
a question. Yeah. I assume stuff that we're handing out physically that we print out has probably different
requirements than something we post on the website. Because PDFs are kind of a nightmare to make accessible.
Yes. Yeah. So I was thinking maybe some of the brochures and stuff, we could make it. It's easier to
make them accessible physically, probably.
So some stuff maybe we just hand out physically and then we have like a non-PDF version on the website.
Sure, I can ask ITS what they think about that. We haven't, as far as I'm aware, we haven't been providing
guidelines for accessibility for physical documents. So it's more so the digital accessibility. So we've
been kind of encouraged to use Google Docs for kind of the digital platform. So if that information
exists on a Google Doc, it'll still be decorative.
But I'll ask about that. OK. I just wanted to ask, even if we end up with a standard for the physical,
for the brochures that are handed out, that technically isn't until April, right? I mean, like, we could
hand out existing brochures. We could print more of existing brochures. Is that right? India has the
next deadline, April, 2027. It seemed like they extended it a year. Oh, for the accessibility. Yeah.
It's, I thought it was January of 2017. Okay, that I, true, yeah. Like starting in the beginning of
the new year. Okay. But I can definitely confirm that and then email you. Okay. And then you can email
them. Cool. Any other thoughts about the documents online?
Just a reminder that there's a required Boarding Commission member training. The next one is September
30th. I emailed those that had not completed the training yet. So please register. If you are unable
to make that day, contact General Costly. And then passing it off to the legal department. Thanks. So
as you all may have seen, I know this is a little hot talk
talk about farming. We've been going back and forth. So legal has finally decided, it's more
like interpretation that's been going back and forth, that it is the number of those currently serving
not the total seats in your calculation. So your bylaws are fine. And that's it. OK. Thank you for that
clarification.
Can you provide the basis by which we both made that determination? So yeah, from our preparation council.
Did she provide any? No, there's not a lot of detail. I mean, that has always historically been our
reading. There's been some confusion, and there is more than one attorney. And how is that interpretation made?
How is it named? Yeah, right. It's made through our Louisville municipal code. Does that make sense?
Exactly what you guys have been saying. So it's just from a plain reading of the statute? It's just
a plain reading of the statute. And it's a statutory. OK, thank you.
Do we have any further questions, clarification? Is there any additional comment from Sayulevo?
There is not, thank you, I'm happy to be here. Thank you for the update. Yes, thank you, I got that.
So now I suppose we'll move to new business.
So Carrie sent along some materials to me about, also we received kind of an audio complaint, so I'll
try to speak up for those online. For the Bee City committee, they are having the bio-list this month,
so she wanted to propose a vote for a couple of social media images. Let's see. This is the email that
was in the packet,
So there were quite a bit of information. I think each of these could be a separate post. I put them
all under one vote. If somebody would like to have them broken up into separate votes, we can definitely
do that on motion. So I'm happy to leave this up on the screen if those haven't been able to review
the packet beforehand.
to read those, and then this was a flyer also proposed to be posted. Any questions about the material?
I don't have a question about this specifically. Going forward, starting in January whenever, does everything
we post on social media have to be digitally accessible too?
I can ask. I am under the assumption that yes, it does, but I can ask to confirm. So that could theoretically
limit what we could share from other sources if they didn't make it accessible? I think so. OK.
But again, I will ask to confirm. I'm not super particular about this, though. I'm just curious.
But given that this one in particular is a lot of information and dates and events and whatnot, if one
we vote to approve it, will any specific action be needed to approve specific posts or any posts drawn
from this? It would be in the clear. I'm just trying to figure out how this actually works as a multi-page,
text heavy document. Yeah, so I agree.
I listened to previous meetings from when I was on leave, and I think there was a discussion of how
social media can work, maybe if somebody, the easy to designate somebody, right, to make these social
media posts, or you could approve kind of the general theme of the posts. So I would probably work with
Carrie, or if there's another person tonight that wants to kind of take this on, to draft specific social
media posts. That's how I think of it.
I think that makes a lot of sense, much the same way as when we decide when something needed printed
or not that a treasurer approves. We designate someone to approve so long as we as a commission have
okayed the subject matter. It makes a lot of sense to me. So yeah, I guess I move that we approve both
the flyer and this information for social media posts.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
on, I guess the next discussion would be my item of the proposed reduction of environmental commission
seats. So let's see, how do I reduce this? So essentially, the city council, the council on commission
processes is proposing a resolution to reduce the number of environmental commission seats from 12 to nine.
Although the precise numbers still kind of being debated in council, but essentially that's the proposal
on the table. And essentially, I would like to get your thoughts on this and perhaps we can provide
feedback to council regarding this, you know, what we think just so that they are informed
by our perspective. Does anybody have any thoughts? We've got to start.
I'm not sure technically how the motion works. Do I move to suspend the rules to allow public to participate
in this agenda item? Do we have to move to suspend the rule? I think that would be fine. I think there's
probably a different motion we could use, but I would be fine if we use that one.
Or, I mean, I guess we have... I'd love council member Stossberg to be able to introduce this and give
us her thoughts, but I also, if anyone else wanted to chime in who is present online, I'd welcome that
as well, which is why I thought opening it, like this agenda, the public made sense as a motion.
To query, are you moving motion, making a motion? Yes, that's what I intended, yeah. Okay, I hear a
motion and a second regarding
that we suspend our rules for the purpose of this item so that we can have public comment and help me.
Would you please roll call or is there any discussion rather on this topic? Seeing no discussion, would
you please roll call, Rachel? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Okay, with that, would we like to allow Commissioner Stossberg to join the conversation if we can unmute
her and let her speak and we can have maybe a dialogue back and forth. Hi, good evening. This is Hope
Stossberg. Can you guys hear me okay? Yes. Great. Thank you. Thanks for
I'm glad that this conversation is finally able to happen. I started working on this legislation,
I think, and I don't even know when, maybe April or May. And I was unable to get to your July meeting
because of my own schedule. And then last month you didn't have a meeting. So the legislation is pretty
simple to cut the seats from 12 down to nine. And that would not,
Eliminate anybody's current seat who is currently serving. So it doesn't affect current members in any
way. And the rationale is because there's some long standing conceits on the commission. And then in
addition to that, it's just kind of better to have an odd number of commissioners. And so that's about
it. And I'm just here to hear your discussion, to see what you guys think.
Um, and, uh, answer any questions that I might, might have. Thank you, Commissioner Stossberg. Um, it
opened the floor. Does anybody have questions for Commissioner Stossberg or any thoughts on the, on
the proposal in general? Yeah, I guess, yeah, not a specific question, just a part of, um, commission
discussion here. Um, just kind of want to think aloud about the,
the purpose of boards and commissions and the reasoning for any particular number of seats. I know we've
been going pretty much since COVID, it's been difficult. We've not been at 12 for long, but there've
been lots of times at 10 and 11. And I guess my concern is that should it be reduced and then there's
a lot of interest, there's no seats. So my,
just thinking aloud is do we want the number of seats to be such that there is demand or a queue or
anything for participation in a commission or do we want the number of seats to be so that should enough
people become interested or enough people move to town or enough people with expertise suddenly after
time that they're able to join a commission as readily as they can be appointed by either the administration
or council. So I guess I just wanted to
to apply and allow it about art. Obviously, the number of vacancies we've had for a couple of different
periods here are problematic, but are vacancies in general something that is bad? Just to the room.
I had a question. So the seats that would be eliminated, would they be council seats or mayoral appointments
or both? I have the same question.
The three seats would be eliminated right now. The proposal is two mayoral seats and one council member
seat, leaving five council member appointments and four mayoral appointments. Any other comments? How
long have we had this vacancies?
Some of them have been going on two years. Some of them have been much more recent to big mix. I just,
seeing your additional comment, I guess I'll chime in now. Would you be opposed to, are you set on keeping
the number nine versus, you know,
Moving up to 10, perhaps. I know you like the odd number, but would you be open to considering a different
number, up or down, depending on, I don't know, just kind of throwing that out there, I guess. Well,
I didn't create this by myself, right? This was a collaboration, you could say, with the Committee on
Council Processes. Sure. And so the Committee on Council Processes
proposal is nine. And part of the reason why I'm the one sponsoring it, you could say, is that this
is bundled with a transportation commission thing. And so I was really interested in making
the transportation commission thing. And every time we changed code, it cost something. And so when
this came up, it was like, oh, it seems like a natural thing to bundle these people together because
they're both talking about commissions. And so then, I mean, in a lot of ways, I'm indifferent.
Uh, but I, the, the administration counter proposal actually wants to move it down to eight to keep
four and four with, uh, mayoral and council appointments. And, um, I don't, I don't want to just move
it down to eight. At the time I started this, that would have actually meant eliminating somebody who
was actually seated. And that seemed really wrong. So, um, I, I guess 10 is certainly, uh, not off the
table and this is not a decision that I would make alone.
Just out of curiosity, is this only an issue for the Environmental Commission, or have other commissions
and boards been having these kind of vacancy issues? Are any of the other ones in line for getting seats
reduced as well, or is this just an us situation? So, if I'm remembering correctly, we reduced the seats on
commission last year at some point, because the cap commission also has issues with vacancies. There's
a couple boards or commissions that have specific vacancies that are hard to fill seats. But this is,
I think, the one that's been most longstanding. This is the one that's been pointed out to us by Jennifer
Crosley, who really has
her finger on the pulse of what's going on with boards and commissions. I think Historic Preservation
also has had some vacancies lately, but they're a state statute board, so there's not necessarily local
power, you could say, to change the makeup of that particular board. It is not personal to the Environmental
Commission. I know that you guys have been through the wringer a little bit this year.
Um, with different things, uh, and that is, that is not, uh, at least on my behalf, that's not where
this is coming from at all. And I also, uh, the environmental commission is actually one of the larger
commissions, um, in terms of the, uh, uh, advisory commission. So. Bringing up that other boards have,
uh, specific vacancies that have been difficult to fill. I know.
At least some of that will be an issue as well if we have our board reduced because we have vacancy.
We hold positions on the Tree Commission, URAC, spots like that that have been at times difficult to
keep from because of the turnover or the lack of new blood on the commission. So I feel like having
the seats is helpful on that front as well because more people have to do more work.
That's an interesting point. I would be interested in knowing exactly how many of those sorts of appointed
positions you need and knowing for sure if in your bylaws, you can, sounded like earlier in the meeting,
you could appoint somebody outside of the commission to do some of those appointments. And I'll just
point out right now that that actually happened with the plan. That happened with the plan commission.
And there's several different
appointment for planning commission members on other boards and commissions. And that gets to be a bit
much. And then transportation commission got added and nobody could really do that on planning commission.
And so planning commission actually appointed an outside person who is not on planning commission to
represent to that particular appointment. So that is always an option. And
That's something that I think that Rachel mentioned that there are sometimes applicants for those different
positions that you could look through. But sometimes you might just know someone that then you could
recommend to your peers or somebody else from the community might show interest in those different things.
So there are some options with that in terms of spreading out the workload.
I kind of did provide my opinion a bit on this last night. I'll kind of just rehash it a little bit.
It echoes Mitchell's point. And that the Environmental Commission does, you know, is in charge of a
lot of these joint, or these special appointments, tree commission and the like. We also do a lot of
community outreach involvement. I brought up, we have Budfest coming up. We're going to be tabling.
We have, you know, usually something for our first day, our day, we do, here's our contest. And I'm
not going to lie that these, these community outreach
events are very gratifying and fun, but they're also a lot of work. And what I worry about when we have
a reduction in the numbers, and I realize we don't have the numbers now, but when we have a reduction
in numbers is that's either going to cause members to be a little bit burned out or they're going to,
you know, want to cut a lot of the community and outreach that we do. So for that reason, I kind of do
I like the idea of being able to include more members of the community into the commission. So I just
reiterate that point for the benefit of the commission tonight. And I just want to point out that commission
member Arillo made a good point in that the environment is a very broad topic and nobody
can be an expert in all the areas. We have, just on commission now, people who are expert in stream
or water science. We have experts in tree science. We have advocates for animals and light pollution
and all these disparate interests that all are encapsulated under the environment. And it can often
be helpful to have a broad range of perspectives that we can draw upon, because again,
Any one of us is in no way we can know everything about everything. So I would kind of, again, I do
appreciate where this resolution is coming from, truly, but I'm sad that we might have fewer people,
I guess. So that's kind of my comment, my two cents. Matt. Yeah, I just want to express, I know this
was a whole committee decision, not just a Hopi decision, so I'm not
This isn't directed at you, but as someone who's now on his 10th year on this commission, we've had
more than nine people for a large share of that. So my feeling is, yeah, there's ups and downs. And
to be honest, the last two years has not been a fun time to join the EC, our last member to roll off.
One of his reasons was it was too hard to get anything done.
put his energy somewhere that doesn't have some of the obstacles we were facing. So if in an environment
when it becomes easier to fill the seats again, we suddenly have filled seats, we can do more. However,
if the opinion of the committee is that this commission is too large and has been too large and we're
right sizing it at nine, I don't
agree, but I understand. So I guess that's kind of why I made the comment that I made earlier about
just about how hard it is to, sorry, I lost my train of thought a little bit. But there's, yeah, there's
a lot of work potential that can be lost if we remove those seats when we've spent a lot of time over
that number of seats. So I guess that's my main line of thinking here.
Yeah, even without 10 years of experience, but when did I join Colby? 2021, 22? Something like that.
Four years of experience on the board. I think even the majority of that time we've had nine,
10 plus members. It has been a very recent, like, not even past two years, but like past year and a
half, if that. No, I just worry about a scenario. It's like the recent issues with, yeah, having productivity
and working groups.
being able to do anything has been challenging. And I know that's caused a lot of burnout and extra
turnover. As I poorly articulated, like I do expect demand to tick back up at some point. And if the
reason for a certain number of seats, like if we want people who'd say, oh, I'd love to join that. I
want to find a way to get involved, but it's full. Okay. Like that's, I just, I don't actually know how,
a right size for any given border commission is determined. So I guess that's where my main thought
experiment is here, is what should that be? Any other thoughts?
And again, we also open this up. If any member of the public would like to speak, I would entertain,
just raise your hand on Zoom or in the room. This is Justin Vassel. I can't find or raise the hand button,
but I've got a few comments if you'd allow it. Please continue. Great. Thanks. Yeah.
I've been doing some, some thought on this for the, for the past couple of days. And I dug into the
data a little bit just to try to, you know, the vacancy, the vacancy data on the, on the EC to try to
understand a little better, you know, what the, what the impacts would be, you know, certainly long
standing vacancies is an issue and it's, you know, it's good to address that issue and try to resolve it. And,
what's the right way to resolve it can be kind of a tricky question. One of them is that you reduce
the total number of seats, right, to a level that's more sustainable. But I think as you're thinking
through, how do we right size this? Is nine the right number or is something else the right number?
Looking at what the mission of the commission is and sort of what its purview is, the first question
is, can we
Can we actually effectuate that mission with that number of people? That's number one. Another way to
get at it is to look at what have we done in the last couple years? Pick a timeframe. Would we be able
to maintain that level of activity with a different number of folks? And if so, then great. That means
you can maybe be a little more agile, work a little more efficiently in getting those same results.
Some people were mentioning that it kind of feels like, you know, for the past couple of years, the
level's been at about 10 people or something like that. And I think the data backs that up. You know,
I pulled the last 10 years of seat history from onboard. And if you just ask on an average month for
the past 10 years, how many seats are filled, it's like 10.2, I think. So if it were to switch down
to nine, you know, that would mean that
you know, best case scenario going forward a couple of years, on average, you could expect nine best
case scenario, probably a little bit lower than that because there will always be maybe a vacancy here
and there. So maybe, you know, call it eight and a half. So that would be a reduction in capacity for
sure. Doesn't necessarily mean it would be a reduction in productivity. You know, things get reconfigured.
Sometimes efficiency levels change. So but it's one way to look at it.
And there are other levels that levers that could potentially be pulled to get at the vacancy problem
as well. It could just be that a lot of folks in Bloomington aren't aware of this and they don't know
that the environmental commission exists or what it does and they don't know how to get involved. So
potentially there's a way to increase the demand side of the equation rather than decreasing the supply
side of the equation. So those are just a few thoughts
I'm always happy to chat about these things. Thank you. So again, just balancing off what Justin said,
I am interested in, and I brought this up previously in our commission meetings, I am very interested
in increasing our internal efforts to do recruitment. I've done a bit of that myself on the side, as
I mentioned yesterday.
I think there's still more we could be doing. And, you know, I would like that opportunity to kind of
get more applicants in before we make this reduction. You know, that would be my preference. But again,
actually, Matt, I understand the logic and I appreciate the consideration that, you know, you're trying
to get the commissions to be operating effectively and, you know, right sized. So I guess that's my
final maybe two cents on that.
Let's just think of something else. But adjacent thought that I might leave unfilled now, but you would
know the answer to this. Does the county still have their EC equivalent? I was looking at that the other
day and I couldn't remember. It became a commission on resilience. It's adjacent, but not as literally
adjacent as before. OK.
All right. Any additional topic? I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I'll just say in closing that I just really
appreciate y'all's feedback and discussing this and kind of asking some questions about capacity and
that kind of thing. So thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner Stosper. What about meeting next
month to discuss ways to recruit?
Do you have a plan for that? I think that's a great idea. I personally think that even, regardless of
what happens with this particular resolution, that we should be doing that anyway. It would be good
to have our commission at the forefront of people's minds. But I guess we can maybe discuss that later
or now if the commission would be applied. What about doing one of the posts on Facebook? Yeah.
Yeah, that's a great idea. Any further thoughts or comments before we move forward with our agenda?
I think technically before we do anything post-wise, we need it to be approved by the commission. So
do you want a motion that we
to sort of a recruitment social media post? Were you wanting to say that for next month or go ahead
and do it now? And maybe we should figure out the content of it first before. Fair enough. Just ask
them before we move on to finish business. Sure, yeah. I'm always ready to entertain motion. So we can,
if you want to decide this now,
If we want to think about it and submit something substantive to next month's packet, that would be
up for us to decide. But we need to hear a motion for that if we want to do that. I think it'd be good
to sit on it and think of just pondering for the first board. OK, we don't have to decide it in, right?
Yeah, we can do that. We're going to go back and the post is going to be about recruiting.
Okay. What was the timeline on the council? So it's going to a second reading and so it could go in
motion as soon as the next city council meeting or it could be pushed to later dates. No, we don't know.
As a point of information, the next regular session city council meeting is not for a month.
So I think it's October 14th. OK. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Stosberg. OK, I think we've, unless
anybody objects, I think we can probably move on to the next item on the agenda. Hearing no objection,
no other inputs. I guess the next topic is discussion on BUGFest, which our president
Albright was, this is her action item, but I think due to Bugfest being next week, it is still probably
worth the discussion to talk about it. My understanding is that we need to print materials, specifically
Bugbingo, and then I believe we also have staffing figured out, but generally if we can kind of begin
the discussion of talking about Bugfest, and maybe Rachel has some more input as well,
on this topic, so. You really covered it, so. Okay. Just the only tip that I have to add is just let
me know how many materials you would like to be printed, what materials, kind of what size. The process
of that would be I would request a quote from our office manager who reaches out to vendors and I coordinate
with whoever's requesting that and then that request ultimately gets sent to the treasurer,
which is Carl. Yes, okay.
Personally, I don't know how much materials we need. If we want to discuss this now or if we can, or
maybe I can prefer to carry later. Might as well, at least briefly. I mean, historically, bug bingo
is very popular for the adults, the natural landscaping and deer resistant plant fact sheets. Also the
creating habitat ones get some significant use. So I think the main thing is knowing what we have or need.
in each of those documents and also ensuring, I know that Carrie's done some like scheduling organizing
for which of us will be there when, but I don't know how we're actually getting the tote of materials
and table cloth and all that stuff too. So I think logistically, that's the other missing piece. So
getting the materials and then literally getting the materials to the event. First for keeping tabs
on how much materials are needed, it's been about like on the above a thousand
people coming through the past couple of years, like last year was 1,200 or something like that, and
it keeps kicking up. So if I remember right, we are either out of Bug Bingo or basically out. I think
we're basically zero currently. I think you're right. I don't know in the other brochures, but I think
we're in through Bug Bingo. Yeah. What about our KrootNet flyer at the Bug Bingo table? There's some
negative comments about if they're
In the past, we've talked about a QR code to the vacancy application thing on the site that we could
just have sitting on the table. But I don't know if that's worth creating take-home material for when
we can talk about it during the event, too. When we're discussing things with the adults while the kids
touch the bugs. Who signed up for that table?
I'm going to be in Texas. I know I'm doing it. I was about to pull it up. So I'm brand new to the event.
If you guys have any idea on hard numbers, we're expecting numbers. I'm sure if we print too many, we
can use it again at some other point. We should definitely print more than we want. Yeah, I agree. It
would be kind of unfortunate if we ran out.
full printing discount, a couple thousand bookings. In terms of logistics, like picking up the tote
and stuff, do you know how that's done, Rachel? Do you have any, like how did we do this in previous
years? We've been porting that outside of the meeting, I think. It's just logistics for the public outreach
event. I will say I have not checked that it's out. I haven't checked the tote. Was the tablecloth ever
returned from a previous outreach event? I think that was the one thing before.
Yeah. I'm not sure if the tablecloth ever brings me back here. I think usually it's just someone takes
the tote home, the meeting before the event, and just brings it with them. Well, possibly Carrie knows
more. She probably doesn't know a lot more about this. So maybe we can follow up with her. If we need
to, I can show up here at some point before Budfest and grab it. I know.
Yeah, I don't think I didn't hesitate with this year because I couldn't do it. It didn't seem like anybody
else could. So if you guys want a stack of the aquatic macron workbook posters that we get out every
year, I can slip you guys a box. As far as I know, we have an infinite supply. That was all printed
off in 2000 and we just cannot get rid of it. They keep showing more. If they're actively trying to
get rid of materials, I'm sure we can find a space on the corner of our table.
But yeah, I think that pretty well covers Budfest. OK. That's fine. We'll have to do some follow-up
then, just to make sure we're all squared away. And then moving back onto old business. We want to discuss
the Binghamton Commission Sustainability Environmental Commission Special Session. It's on our agenda.
Essentially, all I have to say about that is, you know, we passed the, you know, the light pollution
resolution in conjunction with the Commission on Sustainability. I think it was very helpful and informative
and I really enjoyed working with the Commission on Sustainability and Resiliency and I appreciate the
collaboration and the inter
communication that our commissions have, and I look forward to working with them in the future. But
that's all I really have to say, so if anybody has more comment. I would add that I agree. I think it
was a really well-run session. I think it was fun to collaborate, and I'm looking forward to next steps.
Yes. Okay, now Heidi, next.
order of business, the modern mineral water treatment plant tour. If you were any other member that
went, I did not grow. So I went last year as part of the Residence Academy, and I thought it was really
cool. But if you guys want to talk about your current trip, that'd be welcome. You took notes, right?
Took a few notes. I thought it was a great tour. Justin did a great job explaining everything. It was
really interesting. It was fun. It was really hot that day.
They built the treatment plant in 1967, I believe. They treat an average of 14, 15 million gallons a
day for all the residents of Monroe County. And I think Ellsville, too, and maybe a few other surrounding
cities. They've also got, I guess what's it, a grant, a resilience grant to upgrade the backup generator
system. So that was good to hear.
If we lose power, we don't lose water. That was a great tour. I highly recommend the public go on the
tour. Tell all my friends about it. Tell my son about it. Are you going to make a video? Is it in the
media school? Could it be a good documentary? Yeah. Last year when I went, it was really, really cool
to see how the city operates a water treatment plant. It's incredible how much technology goes into
it. And it's really, really cool.
All right, any other thoughts on the topic? Yeah, I mean, I also took the tour. I also want to say props
to fellow commissioner, to Justin for doing a great job running the tour. I'd be very interested in
seeing it different times a year, too, because they mentioned that as you look in different places,
things are different colors or different levels of fall or whatnot. But it was cool, I think, to be
on what they called the inaugural public
tour, so the non-residence academy folks. Yeah, highly recommend if they keep doing it that people check
it out in the future. Okay, moving on to permission announcements. If you have anything exciting in
your personal life or out in the city or, you know, whatever you want to bring up, now is the time.
We'd love to hear anybody that wants to say something.
Oh yeah, I was gonna say, this might have, it's a little bit of an update from earlier. I'm guessing,
did you talk about the community stuff that are? Okay, yeah, big update on the Clean Community program
that we're, the city is doing with IDEM. We have officially obtained silver status, which means, so
the way this program works, you get bronze for signing up. So good job, you took the first steps. Silver is,
For all communities, depending on the size, you have to do so many projects. For Bloomington, we had
to do six. And then gold is you do another, the same number of projects, which for us will be another
six. So we have officially gotten certified and did all the paperwork and approved for doing six projects.
The list that Evelyn sent me that we have done is community resiliency becomes a strong ready community.
Community Resiliency Become a Tree City USA Certified Community Resiliency Conduct a Greenhouse Gas
Inventory Land Use Conservation Implement Green Infrastructure Environmental Management Pass Local Ordinances
Improving Stormwater Management and then Waste Management and Reduction Host Community Talks Away Events
and she said we're also working on getting a program or a
approved for a project that we did for implementing food waste reduction through the City of Akashi
composting program. I think Bee City might be one of the things that we can get approved for on here.
Oh yeah, Bee City is one that is currently working on getting approved as well, so good job of us helping
contribute to this.
So that'll get us to eight submissions once we get to all of those. And I'm sure we've got more things
at the works. So I don't think we can get the distinction of being the first to gold. I think Beech
Grove beat us to that. But we can still be one of the first to gold. And then maybe we can do a victory
lap around everyone else and keep racking up the projects after that. Because people seemed hyped on
that idea, making new levels above gold.
just to dunk on everyone a little bit. That's all I have on that front, I think. Yeah, if anyone has
any questions or if I get other updates, I'll let you guys know what's going on. That can always be
something where we could, if we wanted to at some point, review the list of projects and see if there's
anything else we could help with or that we know we have covered already or anything, so.
Yeah, we've been mentioning that a couple of times. We're trying to get to silver, so it's cool to hear.
Anyone else? I was going to say, far less exciting and less informative announcement. I just really
like late season flowering plants. Like the goldenrod right now, the asters, there's a number of them.
It's really cool, even while it's as dry as it is outside, and most flowers seem to be well
well past their prime. I like watching the active pollinators on the late season bloomers. So check
them out where you can see them while they're last. One of my favorite late season flowers, it's a little
usually more of like wet areas, but jewelweed, touch me not. Like it's fun if you haven't seen that
before. It's got little seed pods and you touch them and they explode. It's a good time. And they have
very pretty
It's like a very on-board sidekick. I have something. So the Bloomington Bike Party is hosted every
month, the last Friday of the month. It's just a very easy bike ride with a bunch of people just hanging
out. It's very relaxed. They make sure no one gets left behind. It's very slow paced. And it's just
fun hanging out with people. So I recommend everyone check that out. It's the last Friday of the month,
I think, 7 PM at Building and Trades Park. Cool. Beautiful.
And also, we're in the middle of like third migration right now, so we're going to turn the outdoor
lights off. Yes, unless light pollution is impacting the birds right now. That's it. I was surprised
that there were light pollution on the map submitted by one of the public as much as any of us is in
intensity. It's a green net.
I don't personally have any updates. I'm just kind of keeping busy because I'm looking forward to BuckFest
and continuing today to meet with you all. Our next upcoming meeting is October 15th, 2026 at 6 p.m.
in this room, Hooker Conference Room at Wilmington City Hall. I'll be on Zoom with Katz at this time
unless there's any
additional business, I would entertain a motion to dismiss. Just saying, that's actually one of the
only ones the chair can actually do. You can just... Oh, is that true? Yep. Okay. Well, I guess I have
the power, so I will motion to dismiss.