- recording in progress.
- Are those online? Nope, nevermind. Well, we can mute this one. If that's what we're trying to do, like
- pull it off. We can mute the owl one. We'll all just project. It's a little wild, but we can try it.
- that I don't, if somebody else talks, my computer volume's not very high. You can try that, though.
- Well, it sounds like there's sound coming through here, so we can always, if the public wants to.
- downside is the voice quality will probably not be that good. For those online, can you hear us? Oh,
- if we, the ITS person just messaged back, he's about 10 minutes away. Do we want to recess for 10 minutes?
- Yeah. I said it's the very public record anyway, but 10 minutes or helping on the text reading.
- IT professional to help us out, recess. Is there a motion that can we just recess or is it a vote? I
- move that we just recess until 6.30. That's nice. 6.30. Guys remember. Martinez. Okay. Shannon Geich.
- Yes. Adam Martinez. Yes. Mitchell Owens. Yes. Carl Geiser. Yes. Justin Meister. Carrie Albright. Hi. Yes.
- Yes. Okay. Heidi Brown. Matt Halby. Yes. Adam Sudecker. Yes. Okay. We will recess until 630. For the
- sake of pets and everyone else.
- I wasn't relaying it to cats or Zoom or anybody. Is anybody else online? Yes. Can you hear us okay?
- Once you talk, can we hear you? Or is she muted? You all sound great. Can you hear me okay? I can hear
- you now. So turning it off from that home. You did? That's the trick. That's what I was going to do.
- We just muted and unmuted a couple times.
- So you're good. But now, yeah. It needed you to look at it. Thank you, Philip. I'm so sorry, Kelly.
- Thank you. I'm sorry. It's fine. Do we need to stay with this until 6.30? That was technically the motion.
- Harry's still alive. He's the only participant. CG is a member of the Do We Have to?
- And CD message up there, also that. So everybody can't really, because we're in recess. My apologies,
- I have a motion up there. A smaller chunk of time. It's reasonable. Do you want to wait until? Yeah,
- I'll hold out a few more minutes, and I'll just try to call it back to order.
- at motion during recess, right? Correct. Because officially, we can't do any commission business during
- recess. Motion would be just that. It's misdefined, though, that it suddenly started
- students presented their feasibility analysis of implementing a sustainable energy utility. They found
- that it's likely not a great fit for here, mostly because Duke would have to agree to it. And that's
- not really something that they expect to have happen. But they also presented a lot of other data and
- research. It's a good presentation. I also watched the regular BCOS meeting on May 12. They welcomed
- a new commissioner.
- They reflected on the capstone presentation. They passed a resolution on the pedestrianization of Kirkwood.
- And they postponed indefinitely the resolution that was regarding the use of glyphosate that was brought
- up in a previous meeting. So we will see whether that one comes back or not. I also had a conversation
- with a couple members of BCOS about the possibility of a joint resolution on light pollution.
- We're going to still figure out the logistics of that, if that's possible, and the details of the resolution
- is a later date. That is all I have to report today. Any other commissioner reports from this past month?
- Yes, Carl? Yes. So as a newly appointed member of the Street Commission, we've had two Street Commission
- meetings since our last meeting. So I'll just try to give a brief overview of what we discussed with them.
- There's an engineering, a research project for kind of west side of Kirkwood. This is like a $1 million
- state funding project. Overall, like seven trees are impacted. A couple of them are invasive,
- so no big deal. And to compensate, we're gonna plant 17 new trees. So more engineering projects are
- to come, keeping a loop for those. Tree commission is also dealing with accessibility,
- Guideline updates, same as we've been dealing with. Haskell reports that he had 11,000 seedlings that
- he was giving away in the Garden Fair, Earth Day, Harbor Day events held by the city. So that's very
- exciting. Hopefully a lot of people plant these things and we can improve our canopy. A lot of this
- isn't super,
- Mia Williams is the IU landscape architect, and she retired on April 30th. She's still going to stay
- on the tree commission, and she's still going to act as our liaison with the IU landscaping team. But
- she's currently retired, so that's good. Haskell Urban Forester is still looking to plant another 170
- trees this spring and 325 trees for the fall.
- And yeah, not a whole lot of updates other than that. So the Bryant Park shelter, maple tree, there's
- a maple tree there that had a really cool lightning strike. I can try to share that picture with you
- guys later. But other than that, it's essentially a tree commission business. Thank you for your report.
- Any other commissioners that reports for us today?
- We'll carry on the staff reports. OK, questions for the city legal department. So Anadina Kasimian,
- I think a lot of you have seen her in previous meetings. Anadina, I will let you give an update. So
- thanks for having me here today, guys. We've been going back and forth about forum. Was there a question
- you guys had about forum? Another question.
- There is at least one question. We have had some conversations in the past regarding whether it is the
- majority of the appointed members or the number of total seats. So I'm going to give you just a quick
- rundown on that. We went over, I went over, the legal department went over some PAC decisions and some,
- which is the public access.
- and some case law. And we're just kind of reviewing historically what we have found. So quorum, determining
- if you have quorum and how to meet the state's hybrid meeting guidelines requires two separate analysis.
- So quorum is a majority of members of the body.
- more than 50% of the number of seats filled and vacant number of seats on the board of commission. A
- remote member can count toward one. The hybrid meeting, you need at least 50% of the sitting membership
- of the board of commission at the time of the meeting must be present in person. The sitting members
- does not include vacancies.
- only the number of members at the time of the meeting. Present in person. So you have just regular quorum,
- which is a majority of the members of the body. So that means more than 50% of the number of seats.
- 50% plus one.
- So that was seven. For purposes of this commission, that would be seven. Because your number is 12,
- right? The number six is 12. But keep in mind that a remote number can count towards quorum. But when
- you're having a hybrid meeting and you're trying to figure out an in-person requirement, then you need
- at least 50% of the city membership of the board or commission
- at the time of the meeting be present in person. And sitting members does not include vacancies. Only
- the number of members at the time of the meeting. So six? No, because we have five. We have nine people
- on the board right now, so we would need five. Which is why in their bylaws, there's a memo of five.
- I missed the wording on the first type of meeting you described. The second one you said in the hybrid
- meeting. What was the first one again? The first one was just general quorum. General quorum.
- Defining quorum. OK. So general quorum includes the hybrid members. So if we had five people in the
- room, two people online, we'd be quorum with our current number of nine people. Right. Right.
- So the definition, members of the body, is the number of seats, regardless of how many are filled. I
- guess that's what I'm struggling with. My understanding in the past, full disclosure, not a lawyer.
- Well, it's hard stuff. It's complicated. Oh, I'm sure. I work at a law school, and I'm in awe of all
- of them. But I thought from our code, meetings are run
- using Robert's Rules of Order, and Robert's Rules of Order seemed to indicate a majority of the members,
- not the body that would include the empty seats. So I wondered what supersedes what, I guess. So the
- legal department has come up with this based on a patent decision, which is a public access counselor.
- based on, based on case law. Can you send us a reference to those decisions in case law, please?
- Let me see. Yeah. It doesn't have to be during. Yeah. No, no. It would be very nice to see when you
- were able. Can you email me that request?
- All questions, and correct me if I'm wrong, all questions. Yeah, go ahead and email your liaison and
- then she'll send it through us and then.
- Any other updates from you and Nadina? No other updates. OK. I think Nadina's going to be joining our
- meetings in the future. If there are questions for legal that you anticipate, please send them to me,
- and we'll get a response back to writing as well. Yeah, then at the next following meeting, I'll be
- able to expand on that written. Any other questions for legal, including from online? Anything from
- you, Carrie?
- Yeah, thanks. Just to clarify that I'm understanding the first general quorum concept. Can you hear
- me okay, by the way? You can hear me okay? Yeah. Okay. The general quorum versus the hybrid quorum is
- the former for when the meeting is taking place and there is no commissioner that is dialing in remotely.
- Is that the distinction there?
- That's a good question. I am not prepared to answer that question. I'm not sure. I don't want to assume
- a distinction that that's the distinction. If you want, you can send it in writing through our liaison
- if you want more on that. But I can't say that we can assume that that's the distinction. What is the
- distinction then? The state's hybrid reading guidelines require two separate calculations.
- I was gonna say we'll let Carrie continue the questioning and then we can jump in with someone else
- next. Do you have anything to clarify? I think that just to clarify where my question is rooted, it
- sounds like if we are all in the same room, it is 50% of the available seats. But if there's a hybrid
- element, it is 50% of the seated commissioners in the room, which when we have a lot of vacancies, it makes it
- my deduction would be that we should always have someone remotely, so that way we're only having to
- meet that seated 50%. That seems like a silly way for it to be set up, but that's what I was just thinking
- about, knowing that we have a lot of vacancies right now. So I could email that question, but if there's
- any clarification we can have tonight, that'd be awesome.
- I think that'll likely be covered in the question that Carl emails, but feel free to also email Rachel
- on that just so that we have the question passed along. Did we have in the room any follow-ups on that
- or questions independent? My reaction when I first heard it was the same. I thought, does that incentivize
- someone being hybrid? I'm not sure, and I would love to know
- the case law, but I'm sure in due time, we will get more information. So thank you for sharing with
- us today. Yeah, no problem. Was there, I think you had a second item on members training? Yeah, I have.
- Yes, board of commission member training. I don't have a date, but Deputy Clerk of Outreach
- and Communications, Jennifer Crossley, has been putting together a really good piece of training for
- everybody. I think whenever she came at a previous meeting, I think it was the tornado night, whenever
- that was. It was February. It was.
- She kind of mentioned this. So liaisons have gone through training at this point. Most of us have gone
- through training at least. So the commission member training will be rolling out in June. I think she's
- going to be reaching out to everyone very soon, maybe by the end of next week. And so I think, I don't
- know the timeline on when
- that what we do, if it's going to be live, if it's going to be recorded, she should be able to get more
- information on that. But just know that that's coming. Any questions on that? Questions on the training?
- And then I have kind of just a lock-in item. This is probably my last meeting in person, so I will be
- seeing Jackie Scanlon in all future correspondence so she can pick up whenever I take off. So if there
- are questions, please move both of us in.
- I do have something I'd like to pop in here if possible. So in the last few meetings, we've discussed
- the policy that our, when we communicate to the city council, anything coming out of our commission
- has to be passed through the mayor's office. There's been an exchange in the IDS since our last meeting
- that included, it was referring to our meeting.
- to the environmental commission. And there was a response from the mayor's office. Are you familiar
- with? Were you on the email from Deputy Mayor Gretchen Knapp? No. She sent a response. Who did? Deputy
- Mayor Gretchen Knapp. Not to us, or not to me. OK. I mean, what was the title of the email? It looks
- like it's supposed to go to your ID. Yeah. OK.
- Conflict and response from the mayor's office so that the guest column or that. I'm sorry, I did not
- end up on to you for some reason. I will forward you that email. She did respond and send it to all
- of the. Oh, no, it did send. It sent to athbuddhika.iu.edu. It must have gotten on a general mail.
- May 1st. May 1st.
- I'm sorry. I'm sorry for outing your email, Adam. Oh, no, it's OK. I won't do that. I guess it went
- to my junkie. I'll read it, thank you. It says to your Gmail, Shane. OK, they probably don't. May 21st?
- May 1st. OK, thank you.
- I mean, I read the mayor's, the response from the mayor's office and the IDS. I'm glad to hear we got
- a direct email, too. Yes. That's it. Oh, I didn't get that email, actually. Any other reports before
- we wrap up the reports section of our agenda tonight? Thank you, everyone who shared, and thank you
- again, Anandina, for being here with us.
- Time, we'd like to move a quick section of public comment before we get into old business, just in case
- from earlier when people couldn't communicate, a member of the public has anything to share. So I would
- need a second. A second. Thank you, Shane. OK. Mitchell Evans. Yes. Prologizer. Yes. Yes. Justin Nester. Yes.
- Kerry Albright. Yes. Heidi Brown. Yes. Matt Colby. Yes. Adam Bucher. Yes. Shannon Dye. Yes. Adam Martinez.
- Yes. Motion passes. Apologies for our earlier technical difficulties. If CG or any other member online
- on Zoom would like to offer any public comment, you may unmute and do so now.
- Just a minute. Nothing from them. Anyone else in the chat? Nope. OK. I suppose we will then move on
- to old business. Old business item A, environmental commission handle commandments. We have a proposed
- amendment. Yes. So I'm so sorry that comments.
- for some reason didn't relay in like the suggestion mode online on a shared document. So I will share
- my screen so you can see the comments. Or the proposed changes, I should say. Now I get this correctly.
- Because I did try and I didn't see them. So good that I'll get to see them. And I didn't link the correct
- document. It seems to be a sharing issue for some reason.
- Okay. There we go. Okay. So there were technically three suggestions. I'm going to scroll quickly here.
- go down. Were these all commissioner-led, or were some from legal? This first one is stuff from the
- Department of Legal, just a removal of and the office of the mayor for the public positions and statement
- policy. So when speaking in the media or submitting a public comment, commissioners should practically
- clarify their comments to be those of an individual member of the community and are not on the behalf
- of a representative of the positions of the commission.
- That's pretty easily approved by majority vote of the commission period. The second slash third proposed
- amendment is, similarly, just at the bottom for the lobbying section. There you go.
- Commission positions may also be recommended to other legislative bodies or organizations of interest,
- such as the Indiana State Legislature. Again, any position from the Commission as a whole, regardless
- of audience, must be voted on and approved by a majority of the Commission, period. So removal and to
- the Office of the Mayor. The addition, proposed addition, is materials directed to parties external
- to the City of Bloomington must also comply with the current external communication guidelines established
- by the City of Bloomington.
- And this was Commissioner Ludd. Commissioner Ludd. Yeah, so this one actually came from me. My goal
- with this is to just match, essentially, what Deputy Mayor Gretchen kind of laid out in her email. I
- appreciate you taking the time to submit that. I kind of planned to, but then didn't really get around
- to it. My immediate question would be, is this OK with legal? Yes.
- Yes. Was this in the draft that we received? Yeah. For some reason, it was a sharing issue where the
- comments aren't visible when sharing. So I know that for the future. I'm sorry that wasn't conveyed
- in the packet. I see. So I also tried to read it ahead of time. But does anyone have any comments or
- proposed amendments to what we're seeing right now here in the room?
- I suppose. Say what? Can we just not include it? You just want just the strike in the office of the
- mayor and leave it at that? No, the striking all with the green. The green is the proposed addition.
- I know. But I'm proposing not including it. Why? Well, I mean, I think we're going to be
- the commission will be sort of forced to comply with the external communication strategies as it is.
- So I just don't know if it's necessary to include. I suppose that's a fair perspective. Yeah, it does
- seem like that is going to be the scenario, regardless of whether it's... So I think the previous concern
- was that we require approval of the Office of the Mayor and
- Your emails seem to make it clear that that wasn't going to be the case. But still, especially when
- things go external, it's going to have to get reviewed by communications. I don't know. I guess I don't
- see the harm of codifying this personally. But I also see where you're coming from. And we'll vote however
- we see fit when we address this item shortly. Do we have other comments in the room or from Kerry online?
- I can weigh in quickly. I think that you're right that because the process of having to have our documents,
- our externally facing documents approved through the communications person on behalf of the city, that's
- already part of what we have to do. I don't know that, to be honest, that it makes a huge difference
- if it's in our handbook or not. In our handbook, it'd be more of guidance for new commissioners who
- may not know that yet, but the process is required at this point anyway.
- If for some reason that process is no longer required, we have written it into a requirement. I'm not
- sure if there will be a time of that, especially with ADA compliance as well. But I think you can add
- it, but I think that it's already part of the topic. I think it's far less with the room. And I also
- think that it is true that if this changes, then we have to come back and spend
- commission meeting time changing it. I just want to point out a couple of things. One, this is the handbook,
- so new members will be reading this and it'd be helpful for them to understand how our communications
- and processes are handled, which the training is going to help with. I will say that I did include the
- word current external communication guidelines with the intention that if the city drops this entirely,
- The current communication guidelines are nothing and we don't actually have to submit anything for approval.
- With that being said, if the consensus is to just remove this entirely, I'm fine with that as well.
- I appreciate the thoughtful wording. At this time, do we have any other questions or comments on the
- proposed amendments from commissioners? Also,
- very much looking forward to a time where the handbook is a smaller part. At this time, someone would
- either need to propose that we adopt the handbook as amended, or they would have to rescind their proposed
- amendment. Those are the things that can happen at this step. Is this the last change, then? Or is there
- another change? Yes. This is the last change. It is the Carl Added section and the legal struck section.
- I will move to amend my inclusion here to remove the additional section
- and still keep the in the office of the mayor. If that gets voted in, I'll accept it. If not, then we
- can vote on the original amendment. How does that sound? Well, to keep the office of the mayor. Right,
- because this is a lobbying part of the document. So since it would be external documentation being sent
- out, and I don't know if he's correct me if I'm wrong or if I'm misrepresenting, since this would be sending
- External communications, such as Indiana State Legislature. I think that's what Carl was getting at,
- was trying to follow the current guidelines. Yes, this is specifically within the lobbying section.
- So this would be only to external. And Indiana, please correct me if I'm wrong, but thanks to DZA, planning
- commission, city council, you would still be able to write letters as long as it was approved as a commission.
- So the correction here is just the BVA is a quasi-judicial board. So it's a little different than all
- other commissions. There's something called ex parte communication. We're trying to communicate with
- the quasi-judicial board. So I would just take out maybe a little bit. Yes, I'm sorry. The BVA is a
- little bit different. We view that a little bit differently. But all other commissions, everything else
- Sorry, I shouldn't have spoken up. No, that's not what I'm trying to do. What are you saying? The BCA
- is weird. It's applied by judicial board. OK, but this is still the language that's proposed, amended,
- is still? Yes. OK. I mean, you can certainly still advance that language, and I can just go, no. Yeah,
- I was going to say, I think the easiest course of action would be someone proposed that we adopt, and
- it either succeeds or fails, and then any other.
- amending could be proposed. Yeah, I move that we adopt these edits. Second. And with the second. Can
- I abstain from the vote? You may abstain at any time. Keep going. As long as you don't call us your
- name, you would just say, I'm staying. OK. Just semester. Yes. Jerry Albright.
- I vote yes. Heidi Brown. I'm saying. Matt Paulding. Yes. Adam Hudecker. Yes. Shannon Dike. No.
- Adam Martinez. Yes. Mitchell Owens. Yes. Carl Geiser. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you, everyone, especially
- Carl for the proposed amendment, but everyone else for the lively discussion in vote. We move on to
- old business item
- I know the photo link was shared. Is there anything else to share with that agenda item? Those were
- great pictures. Yeah. Yeah, they were some pretty fun ones.
- I can just say thanks to everybody who helped make the day possible it was definitely a busy one and
- when the award ceremony piece came together it was lots and lots of folks lots of excitement and yeah
- it was really helpful having so many people participate and Matt thank you for taking the microphone
- to read everything off especially and Carl for helping with the prizes and everything it was great the
- community responded really really well and I feel like having this breadth of young people in the room and
- interacting with all the different booths and tables and everything was a really nice addition that
- I think the Eco Heroes specifically contributed to. So it was great. And yeah, it was a lot of fun and
- I appreciate everybody who helped make it happen. There are a couple little follow-up things to check
- in on as far as thanking our sponsors, making sure everything that needed to be picked up was picked
- up and things like that. But I would say overall, it all wrapped up nicely. So thank you again.
- Thank you, Carrie. And yeah, I agree. It was nice to see everything come together and do it into a really
- successful event after a lot of work to make it happen. So thank you to everyone involved. With that,
- we will move on to item six, new business. A is annual report discussion. Is that, Carrie, you want
- to take this one? That's me. So as you all may remember, every year we write up a report to deliver to the
- Council about what we've been up to this past year. It typically happens around mid-year, which means
- we're talking about 2025, usually June or so, but what I have is a document that I've written up. It's
- kind of the same format every year, but it highlights the things that we accomplished this past year.
- It talks a little bit about, you know, membership and goals for the future and things like that, but
- mainly it focuses on what we accomplished over 2025. I wanted to just walk through specifically the
- highlights that I'm going to include
- and I would love to have you all share if there's something specific that I should include, that I should
- add a spotlight to, because we can make this as long as we want, but I wanna make sure everyone's
- represented. The main things I am covering in this are speaking to the 2025 Eco Heroes, our contest,
- speaking to some of the outreach that we've done, which at this point I have bug-fest, I have,
- beginning to have more guest speakers come in. And in 2025, Dylan will be doing the Riverwalk presentation,
- and then also the producer of this process. So those are all highlighted. I mentioned a little bit about
- the ECPC coming back. That was a big conversation point for 2024's report. I'm excited to talk about
- it for 2025. And then speaking to the habitat connectivity plan and how that was relaunched,
- last year in 2025 and then I have a note to just check in on any of the other working groups that would
- like or or previously working groups any other focal points from the EC that in 2025 had something that
- you would like me to to raise as something that we're proud of some more excited about that we can recap
- on anything I would like to highlight from 2025 that I did not mention yet I think the city yeah have
- you mentioned
- That is, it's looped into the, the sort of community outreach piece of it, but I have like a little
- paragraph written out that will be specifically about coming together with parks department all the
- organization. So yeah, definitely. That's a good one to highlight. Do you have, do you have anyone that
- you need to hassle for a photo who joined in?
- your late 25 or anything? What a great question. You know, I do. I've got because I turn all this into
- a PowerPoint presentation. And so I let me pull that up. So for the PowerPoint presentation,
- I think Heidi, Carl, and Justin are all folks that I need photos at this point. So if Heidi,
- Carl and Justin, if you all can email me just a photo of yourself that I
- can put into the slide deck. Yeah, you can see in, it was probably May of last year that we reviewed
- the deck, so you can kind of see the layout from last year's if you'd like to, but yeah, pretty
- straightforward. Any questions about that or any other topic people want to speak to? What time period
- does the annual report go to? Is it on January or January? Sure, it's for all of 2025, so January through
- December of 2025.
- Yes, it reflects the calendar year. It just takes us a little while to compile and to get on the council
- schedule. So that's why events are happening at any time between, like, April and June, usually.
- But yeah, it's just to reflect what we accomplished and set out to accomplish. Yeah, what went well,
- how the council could support us, all that. But it's on calendar year 2025. And you can look back. I
- can't remember what the date was for when we presented last. I think it was maybe like June
- fourth or something like that of 2025, you can go back and see the County Council meeting where, sorry,
- the County Council meeting where I presented it. You can see the slides and you can hear what we talked
- about if that's helpful for context. Anything else? I didn't mention light pollution groups specifically.
- I didn't mention water quality specifically just because I didn't want to put too much pressure
- on highlighting anything as I know that we're kind of in a longer run.
- initiative for those. I think that's fair. Working groups existed in 2025, but had a tough time accomplishing
- much. So I don't know if it's worth drawing attention to it being formed or not, if we don't have anything
- to report from it at that time. So I think you have a good handle on it, covering the events we attended,
- the tabling we did. So in care do we trust?
- boards and commissions were, but is that something a chair does at every board commission? They write
- an annual report? It is a chair duty. It's presenting a report to council each year. It kind of varies
- about when, but it's one of the handful of duties that a chair has. Those duties are listed in the handbook.
- There's like nine of them. So if you're curious.
- In a way, as a spoiler for a future item on this agenda, if you're ever thinking about any positions
- that you might want to be on in this commission, take a look at the handbook sometime and see what it
- is they do. And also, feel free to reach out one-on-one to an individual who is in that position or
- who has been in that position, because that would not be a violation of open door law.
- With that, I want to move on to item B of new business, which is the 2026 priority discussion, which
- I will once again kick on over to Carrie. My recollection is that this is just kind of touching base
- on what all we're covering for the rest of the year. And looking through the initiatives that we highlighted
- last, it would have been last November,
- in planning for 2026. A lot of what we talked about was education and outreach, so that means folks
- contributing to the materials that are on the website. I know that we've started to get some traction
- on recreating some of those documents. We would love to have more people if folks are interested. It
- would be worth doing a little just kind of email crowdsourcing on people who are interested in helping
- with that process, but also talking about
- hosting maybe two meetings per year on UDO changes. That was something that we had talked about, knowing
- that it's something we want to get ahead of if there are any changes coming down the pipe that we'd
- like to discuss before they're being recommended. And then also how we want to proceed with the habitat
- connectivity plan and especially any materials we want for outreach. I know we had ideally planned on
- this spring trying to get cards or little scannable info sheets or whatever to
- things like some of the local greenhouses and some of the native plant society and things like that.
- So some of those materials and initiatives that we talked about are making little bit subtraction, but
- I know that those were on the list. And then, of course, talking through what we are proposing as far
- as potential light pollution solutions and water quality reporting. So those are all things that we were
- that we have expressed interest in going into 2026. We are now in the summer months, which means I know
- people are traveling, there's a lot going on, but we are kind of moving into the fall season, which
- will be a perfect time to really make a difference. And reminding folks that your enthusiasm towards
- these goals is always appreciated. And as we're planning 2027,
- Thinking realistically about your time commitments, where your interests are, where you are ready to
- dedicate a little extra time or energy is super, super helpful because we want to set realistic plans
- for what we want to do in the future. So that's kind of where we're at now. Any additional comments
- on this particular talking point? Yes, Mitchell? I was just going to say, kind of akin to the, like,
- regular meetings on UDO updates and stuff like that. I know something I had been doing in the water
- quality working group was bringing in Liz Carter from Stormwater annually and checking up with her on
- how things have been going. What are they up to? We need big changes on that permitting front or what
- I was going in the city that affects water. I think that's something that would be very, I would like
- to keep going in the future because it's very important. But now that we don't have working groups,
- it's something we need to incorporate in
- these meetings, so might be worth thinking about for planning for the rest of the year, like trying
- to link up with her and figure out if there's a meeting that works well for like checking in on that.
- I would love that. I think we've almost exhausted our list of potential presentations for this year.
- So if that's something that folks feel like we want to try and get on the books, that's a fantastic
- idea. I really love the updates that we were able to get from that team.
- That's great. If there's a month that works for her to present, awesome. Additionally, if she doesn't
- want to present or can't find the time, you can still have that dialogue. And you can send something
- into Rachel. We can get an agenda item on here. We can have those discussions in the commission as the
- whole here as well. So I do think that sounds like a good thing to stay on top of.
- Is there somewhere where we can readily access that document where we just arrived at 2026 priorities
- from last fall? That's a great question. The minutes from November. Rachel, I don't know if you have
- a cleaner place where those live. Otherwise,
- That's something I can, I mean, I have my own version of it that I can certainly share with the group
- as well. Yes, I think for lots of reasons that we don't necessarily need to rehash. We've had some challenges
- between that November meeting and now that have kept us from really diving into a number of those issues,
- but there's still plenty of 2026 left. So I think as a homework assignment, it would be really great
- if people peaked
- either at those minutes or if Rachel is able to produce something a little more accessible and share
- it with us, that'd be awesome too. But if that's too much, I get it. Just so that when the call for
- agenda items comes out for next month or the following, any time coming up here, people can have an
- idea of what they would like to focus on or just have a discussion about what the next steps are on
- it. So we can kind of get back into figuring out
- What do we want to do? How can we do it before we arrive at our next planning meeting in November? And
- it's OK if some of those items just roll over. If we didn't get around to them and we would like to
- consider them a 2027 priority idea as well, that's fine. But now I think it'd be nice for people to
- take a look and see where we might want to direct our energy in the remaining months here.
- further questions or comments on the priority discussion conversation. Can we do field trips? We probably
- can't do field trips, because I'm guessing if we had a quorum, it would probably require staff. Staffer
- legal can address that if they'd like to, but I think field trips are a tough sell outside of our regular
- meeting times.
- That being said, any non-coram of individuals can go check something out, tour something, go somewhere,
- see a presentation, and then tell us during reports the following month what they learned. So small
- field trips. Who's six of us? Small unofficial field trips. I think it would be captive five, I think,
- if I understand that correctly. Because it's technically way out.
- Anyway, you may go on small field trips. You're not likely to be able to go on commission field trips.
- With that, I want to move to new business item C, social media post discussion. I'm assuming that's
- Rachel. This is not me. I think I was asked, I think by Carrie lost time. I'll take this one. Well,
- Carrie, once again, new business. The floor is yours.
- And I'm going to take D also, so get ready. For the social media piece, this is partially because we
- have some new commissioners, but also just kind of to clarify how the process works for how the Environmental
- Commission shares through social media. So the process of something that somebody on our commission
- sees that would be of interest to share, how it gets to the proper recipient, if it's something that
- needs a vote, and just kind of understanding that process.
- Um, and, and Rachel, yeah, this is mostly a question for you, but one that I was, I was eager to have
- the group here as well. Just the overall process of social media? Yeah, there's something to get posted,
- yeah. So, uh, the process as far as I'm aware would be, um, the department isn't going to be formulating
- social media posts. So if there's something that you all would like to have posted on,
- the Facebook page, you're welcome to drop that and send that to me, and I can review it and or send
- it to comms, and then it'll get posted by whoever is the administrator of the Facebook page. I'm not
- the administrator for the Facebook page, so I have to send that to them. Do you have a sense of the
- timeline of, if it's an event that it's happening that feels like a really relevant one, do you have
- a sense of what the timeline is for
- sending something first to you and then eventually getting it posted. Probably not same day. I would
- say it would probably have been a couple of days, but I'm not, I mean, it would depend, one, how busy,
- what my other competing priorities are, to be honest, as well as what the, I'm not, for the comms team
- who's reviewing it, I'm not sure what their timeline would be. Okay, and when you send it through to
- comms, that includes the ADA assessment too, right? The ADA assessments,
- So that takes a little bit longer on my ADA to be more so about if there were links and or like images
- associated with the post. If it's just a text post, ADA, the digital accessibility is a bit
- more straightforward. And my last question. Sorry, am I interrupting somebody? No, sorry. My last question
- was just is this a voting item?
- And that's, I think, a question for Rachel, but maybe a question for legal slash the whole group. Is
- this something that we vote on, or is this something that is a pass through with sort of a good faith
- behind it? I personally am not sure. I would, if I still have the bylaws, I don't know. Short answer
- is I don't know. I can get back to you. Because I don't know if it's,
- technically making a public statement. It's being defined as a public statement or shared information
- or how that works. So I will get back to you on that. I'm sorry, I don't have the answer. I was just
- going to sort of sum up my piece and then happy to give the mic over to other folks on this topic. But
- I would say if
- maybe we tentatively just put social media as a voting item on our ongoing agenda so that way if it
- is something that we need to vote on it's baked into that and if it's not a voting item then great we'll
- just pass along what we talked about but one of the things that that was included in the priority of
- education outreach was having was including more of that social media engagement which it's just a Facebook
- account so it's not you know reaching tens of thousands of people but it is a way to amplify what's
- happening elsewhere in the city that are similar
- initiatives or some organizations that we've that we've worked side by side with before. So that's thinking
- through how to incorporate that into just an easier pathway to. I will say jumping in if we do make
- it is I'm happy to make it a social media or make happy and make a social media voting item.
- On the agenda. If that's the if that's the shirt determination,
- I will need those posts 10 days in advance of a meeting. So it makes some of those, if this is the route
- that I'm told that we need to do, that would be the time sensitive nature would come into effect. So
- it probably wouldn't be like, hey, there's an event tomorrow, let's share it. So I just wanted to throw
- that out there to everyone as well. And that's a good note that if it becomes that we have to vote for
- any social media posts, that means it's once a month.
- with 10 days before the meeting that something would be shared. So it does really impede our ability
- to kind of have a fluid process. So I think the voting, if it is required, that'll be helpful to know.
- And if it is not a requirement, then that is a goal. Anything from anybody else on that topic? Yeah,
- I just want to clarify. So the Facebook account, is this the city of Bloomington's or is this a separate account?
- It's okay. So the city of Bloomington has several Facebook accounts, so it's managed by the city of
- Bloomington. Commission members cannot be added as administrators to the Facebook account. But it is
- essentially we're approving posts for the Facebook group? Yes. Okay. Is there any possibility of extending
- that to the city of Bloomington that has other social media accounts on other platforms? They have a
- Reddit account, they have, I don't know if they have a Twitter account, I'm not on Twitter,
- I don't know. Is it possible to like expand, like if we were interested and post on other platforms
- as well, or we just restrict to Facebook? So the environmental commission only has a Facebook and the
- department is not going to be managing other social media accounts. Gotcha. However, if there are social
- media accounts, like if you wanted it posted on like the city of Bloomington Reddit, I'm happy, if you
- let me know, I'm happy to send along that request and it'll be up to you. And I have to make sure. Yeah. Okay.
- Yeah, we've had a little bit of collaboration where we could say, hey, could parks share this if it
- was a real thing? And they've been able to do that. But basically, we just have the Facebook available
- to us. And traditionally, the intern approving it. But someone within the city, none of us are allowed
- to be administrators. Right. That makes sense. But it would be kind of cool to be able to expand our
- reach. Because a lot of people, like I'm not on Facebook either. So it would be kind of cool to.
- Yeah. Broaden our horizon if we can. It has been a challenge to do so outside of periodic Facebook posts
- and periodic guest columns in one, usually the HD, but one place or another.
- That has been our footprint in the media today. And I know historical precedent probably doesn't mean
- much in this. We've been voting on items that are brought to us by outside groups. So if someone says,
- hey, we're showing this environmental movie. Can you guys share it for us? We would vote to prove it.
- But previously, and there weren't many things. Again, it's not a very active page. But I would say,
- hey, can we put something out advertising eco heroes
- I just had to get Rachel the information in advance. I get approved when it gets approved. But I suspect
- that what Rachel and Kerry were both driving at is that it might be required to be a voting item from
- here on out by the letter of the handbook. So I'm looking forward to clarification down the road. I
- would also be interested if it was possible, and maybe the answer is no, to vote
- to delegate a small amount of power to have somebody approve posts, kind of like a scanning authority,
- so to speak, for non-controversial event notifications or something. Again, I don't know if that's even
- acceptable, but it would be very convenient if we could do something like that. Any other comments or
- questions on the social media posts discussion agenda item?
- we are going to move to new business item D, the officer election discussion, and is again going to
- be introduced by Carrie. Hi there. Next month, we are officially conducting our elections for the mid-2026
- to mid-2027 officers of the Environmental Commission, which means that we'll be taking nominations during
- that next meeting. I'm just opening the floor to anybody who
- has questions, wants to voice any nominations that they're thinking about. Self-nominations are encouraged,
- but as Matt said, there's some descriptive language in the handbook. Folks who have served in these
- roles are, I'm sure, happy to talk about their experience. Folks who have served in these roles, you
- are welcome to
- self-nominate to stay in your role, but the people in the role right now do not have to be the ones
- that stay in these roles. It's really a flexible, fluid time. And so I wanted to just take a minute
- to remind folks that we are doing that next month. So if there's any reason that you are not able to
- be at next month's meeting and there's anything that you would like to share, that's when we'll be voting.
- So I'd love to reiterate the importance of attending if you're able to, and then also really thinking
- about the nomination process because we will need
- Any questions or input from the group on this one? I was basically going to open the floor up the same
- way actually. In the past, and even during this meeting, I've tried to encourage people to say, hey,
- you can reach out to these officers and ask how it went. But we also have a moment right now in meeting
- with Cora that anyone can ask any questions of these officers.
- just to learn whether they're thinking about throwing their hat in the ring next month or a year from
- next month. This is our golden opportunity to talk about it, so I would invite any comments or questions
- from the room. It's totally okay. No one's going to say, man, you didn't read the handbook. You could
- have known that.
- to talk about our positions. We're looking to share the wealth of experience here. I know I've winked
- and nodded in the past to I'm looking to remain on the commission, but I'm looking to drop my officer
- role. So ask questions now, but also expect peer pressure in a month. So I'm going to give everybody
- another shot to ask any questions you're thinking about, anybody?
- I'm sorry, how do you go? I'm going to go Heidi first and then to Carrie. To the secretary now. How
- much time does it take to type up all the messages? Well, most of the time it's just in the meeting
- itself and then if there's bits I missed, I just make a note to myself to go back and watch the cat's
- recording later. Type fast? Is that required? It helps.
- Another thing worth noting is it's not like you have to have the word for, and so and so said this,
- so and so said that. It requires that you have the results of votes. You're just providing as much context
- as you see fit. And we've had, over the years, we've had secretaries that have kept it really bare bones.
- And we've had others that have pages and pages of minutes. And we've had commissioners respond positively
- to either of those forms. So it really is a little bit of the secretary's choice. But I think generally
- hitting the most important details and adding a little bit of key conversation points on any sticky
- item is the gist of it. And I'll jump into it. This has been a really recent change. And so Adam and
- Carl, maybe you can jump in on your experience.
- I have been tasked with doing just the memorandum for the meeting, which is the legal requirement for
- the meeting. So it's basically skeleton minutes. So it has everything that's required, and then our
- office manager will contact the secretary for that meeting. And that secretary can add in the supplemental notes.
- So I think Adam probably went through this process only one time. It's still a really new process, but
- how has that worked for you so far? About the same? It's pretty much the same. It's just I did my copy
- of the agenda. I take my notes there. And then whenever I got the email, they just copy pasted what
- I had. The bare bones outline is actually really nice. It hits all the legal parts of it. And then you
- just have to fill in the detail.
- Yeah, that way you can focus on substantive stuff, knowing that the motion and the second and the vote
- tallies are already kept, so you don't have to quickly gather that that's being gathered. So you're
- just adding that flavor. You're gathering all of them. All liaisons are supposed to do this moving forward,
- doing kind of the skeleton minutes or the memorandums. I noticed you might consider updating
- the secretary's duties in the handbook. I know we're more handbook stuff, but it says, secretary takes
- the minutes, and then later says minutes include record emotions and votes, attendance. But
- if the secretary's not doing that, should we have to? I don't know if it matters. I do think we could
- modernize that section of the handbook. And unlike some previous ones, it would not be controversial
- and would not take long portions of the meeting. But I think that's a good idea now that you're
- I gotta recommend that there, thanks. Do you want that as a voting item for the next meeting? Let me
- think about it. Okay. Knock it to this. Sometime at your leisure, you can look at that. In fact, you
- can always email Rachel with a suggested language. And thank you for the question, Heidi Carey. Do you
- still have a question? I was gonna ask Matt, as vice chair and treasurer, about how much time do you
- spend in those roles each month, just in case there's anyone listening who's interested in nominating
- themselves for their role?
- Yeah, so vice chair might sound a little bit intimidating, but since at this point our wonderful chair
- has been running the meetings with great regularity, and I only have to jump in once or twice a year,
- clearly less good at it. I just stay right on the agenda items. I do not have the same, as Kerry has
- described, gift of gap. But each month, some months it is no different than any other seat.
- like zero additional minutes of your time. Sometimes there's a little bit of planning. I feel like anybody
- can be extra attentive to the call to agenda items, but as one of the, you know, in the chair or vice
- chair seat, I try to pay extra attention to that, to crafting it. But in any given month, the vice chair
- slash treasurer might have zero extra minutes, or they might receive an email saying, we're going to
- order a thousand prints of Bug Bingo before Bug Fest. Do you approve? And you just reply,
- Yes, I approve. And you just sort of keep track of that budget line that's very infrequently touched.
- So it might sound like a really big job, but a lot of the time, it's really not. We work a little closer
- with Carrie or whoever becomes chair. And it's just a good way to get a feel for everything and be a
- little more involved. Thank you, Matt.
- I don't want to linger on this too long if people don't have questions or comments, but any other questions
- or comments on the officer election discussion here in the room. Well, think about it. And again, feel
- free to shoot an email to the individual you have a question to, or for, rather. I suppose after this,
- we will move to upcoming meeting to item seven, which
- Yeah, June 11th, this year, same time, same place, 16th Wilbur Conference Room here at City Hall. I
- will be sending out the coverage of the items. I'll probably send that out on Tuesday morning since
- it's a week earlier than usual because of the June 2nd holiday. That's right. I liked the way the agenda
- fell together today, but my attention to detail on this that I would still like.
- Commissioner announcements here before adjournment. So I moved to add just before adjournment Commissioner
- announcements to the agenda. I like the way reports played out, but I still want people to be able to
- have an opportunity to plug something. Would that be, so I added walk-in items earlier. Yes. So instead
- of walk-in items, do the Commissioner announcements at the end?
- I think walk-in items are still a good description for the fact that, because we don't know, like, it
- might be a month where we had Iraq, it might not. So Adam might have something to say on that,
- he might not. Who knows what individual work Mitchell might want to report on, on working towards his
- water quality report, or whatever it is. So I don't think people need to email you to say what their
- commission report's going to be. So I think walk-in items are still nice. But this way, it would be
- our commission or other commissions
- related, and then announcements at the end could be anything. It could be personal. It could be reminders.
- It could be an event from your department that's outside of anything here. So I like the way reports
- worked. I just still want to sneak announcements at the end. Yeah, definitely. He kind of makes the
- meeting end on a wider note as well. So probably Martinez for that motion in second? Yes. OK. Messger.
- Yes. Geyser. Yes.
- Owens. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Guy. Yes. Sputaker. Yes. Halby. Yes. Brown. Yes. Albright. Yes. Motion passes.
- At this time, do we have any commissioner announcements to start with Mitchell? Oh, yes. This is something
- that I forgot about earlier and was reminded by Carrie bringing up Bugfest a few times. Date for this
- year's Bugfest came out. It's going to be on September 26.
- So that's something we can think about in future weeks. I won't be there in my identity capacity,
- as usual, or in the EC capacity, because I'm going to be out of town that weekend. But I figured I would
- pass the news on to you guys, because that's something we have participated in for a number of years
- now. And it's on a Sunday, September 26th. It's outcast, yes. What about environments?
- Oh, that Bioblitz is, oh, I forgot, June 20th, that's when it's going to be. So that will be coming
- up soon. Did you want me to send you the sign-up info for that? I don't think I would do it. OK. Well,
- it's May 9th, I'm sorry. June 20th on the Bioblitz. And yeah, if you want the sign-up information, I
- think registration is officially closing soon. But they're not super strict about it. You just might
- not get lunch.
- No, she might not get it. Yep. Do we have other commissioner announcements? Well, the member of the
- public said it was June 21st. Let's see. Does that sound right? Let's see. June 21st is a Sunday, so
- June 20th would be Saturday. Yeah, so it would be June 20th. June 20th. OK, thank you. Other commissioner
- announcements, either Carrie or any commissioners here in the room?
- Yeah, Carrie. Actually, speaking of bio blitzes, the Bee City committee met last week. One of the things
- that they are announcing this week is pollinator week through the city of Bloomington Parks and Rec
- Department. They are doing a week long bio blitz thing during that same week, the week of the 21st to
- the 28th. They're putting out an announcement and we can have Rachel email the group,
- But it's basically a series of events to talk about native plants and providing nesting sites for pollinators
- and reducing pesticides and all those different things that we've been getting lots of information from
- the Xerxes Society through the Bee City Committee. But there is a pop-up at the Lilly Library. There
- is a documentary screening at the Downtown Library.
- and there is a special green drinks event with Sycamore Land Trust at Upland as well. So there's a bunch
- of things coming up, but that's the week of June 21 through 28. Should be a lot of fun. They're trying
- to really get a lot of excitement around it. So after you finish doing the bioblitz that is down,
- I think, was it Mitchell, the southern part of the state? Yeah, Harmony State Park outside of Evansville. Perfect.
- So after you do that, come on back to Bloomington and there's a lot of stuff going on. But I think the
- announcement hasn't, I don't think it's been released just yet, but either way, we'll send through the
- document that outlines all the activity. Okay, I have an announcement. I found an interesting piece
- of history the other day, a document from 1978 that was talking about city and county government. And
- I found the Environmental Quality and Conservation Commission
- membership 14, including one council member, one planning commissioner, and five with scientific training.
- So that was 12 mayor appointed seats and two ex officios, technically. Three-year terms, no compensation,
- meets the second Monday of each month at 7.30 p.m. So I just thought that was an interesting little
- bit of history from when the commission was something like five years young. But on a barely related note,
- Our numbers are getting a little bit low. If you know anybody, particularly with scientific training,
- but even without, who would like to join, please nudge them. We have a number of mayoral vacancies in
- particular, and I'm sure they would be happy to appoint people if we have applications in. So that's
- my announcement. Anyone else? All right, with that, I motion we adjourn.
- Adam Seconds, thank you everyone.