https://otter.ai/s/oQYsIGdISrynwLu6uK0mYg
0:00
It is time so I would like to call the August 19 2020 long month sustainability advisory board meeting to order. Heather Could we please start with a roll call
0:10
sir?
0:12
Kate colored sin and Violetta menuett manoukian are unable to join us today. But do we have Cody flag?
0:22
Charles Musgrave resin
0:26
Jim Metcalf present.
0:30
Adam Reed
0:32
present
0:33
and Mary Lynn present.
0:37
Sorry, guys. Okay. And for staff members Annie Noble.
0:45
I’m here.
0:46
Fancy Jaffe. Here, Tim Ellis. Yeah.
0:53
otra nosrat. Yeah. Danielle Devine here and Heather max. attire is present. And Polly Christiansen council liaison.
1:06
All right,
1:07
Jim, we have a quorum, we have determined that we have a quorum. All right. So the first order of business is the approval of the minutes of last meeting. I will I will move to approve the minutes from last meeting. I second the motion. All in favor and I believe it can only be the people who were here last meeting voting. Is that correct? Actually,
1:30
all board members from my understanding from legal is that all board members are allowed to vote. You can see that I’m a rookie.
1:38
So all in favor. All right. Any up
1:47
against?
1:50
Well, actually, um, I’m not sure how to work this into the meeting. But there’s a few things that were that weren’t represented quite accurately in terms of the things that I had to say about the Climate Action Plan. And rather than going through and making those changes, which seems like it wouldn’t be very useful to the city, or the folks who represented do that here. I guess I just want to ask procedurally, where I would bring up that we we talk about how we revisit that plan, and any revisions and iterations that might be in the works.
2:27
So the revision of the minutes happens at this portion of the section. So I would just need to know which portions of the minutes you would like to revise.
2:35
Gosh, I’m okay. Let me just pull it up and
2:41
just say that I’m
2:45
in the section on
2:52
the section on gray water. There were several but my main concern there was that it’s a I’m concerned about the use of resources overall, which isn’t water conservation, but the resources that are necessary to reprocess water that could just be used as grey water after it’s already had one use on site. So and that’s slightly different than what was written. Okay. And
3:25
there was a another couple.
3:36
Well, I feel like this is going to take some time that is maybe not as useful as we could be spending it. And I’d rather have I guess I’ll just bring up in other business requests that we have an update on, what the process is going to be for a review and revision of the plan right? They’ve been going through all of that now. They’re okay. Because it’s not going to really make much difference. Okay, because of that outcome of the plan if I go through this here,
4:09
so maybe you want to, sorry. Go ahead, Jim. I just wanted to make sure so, um, what what you’re you’re suggesting is making sure that we have a chance to revisit the plan details that are in our comments last month weren’t our final. Yeah.
4:28
And that’s slightly different than the fact that some of the things I said weren’t fully captured, but it’s related in that if we’re going to review it, we’re going to set up a review and revision cycle then I don’t want to waste our time and I’ll just agree to accept the minutes as written. Okay,
4:44
go ahead, Polly. I was going to ask you about procedure on that. I’m
4:53
sorry, I’m muted because of the phone. I think it also would be good to have another discussion about it. Because we have two new board members, and that would be, you know, terrific. So.
5:04
Okay, great points.
5:07
So
5:09
can I face a question or issue? Yeah. So I just want to alert the sustainability advisory board to the fact that this is going to Council on Tuesday, August 25. And that the
5:26
comments from the sustainability advisory board have been submitted to Council.
5:31
So just so you know, okay.
5:34
Do we have a copy of those comments?
5:37
They are in the minutes
5:39
during the minutes. Okay.
5:40
So I have a question. I think I believe that the comments that were submitted to council are different from those that are summarized in the minutes. And I think that Mary is asking about the summarization that I wrote in the minutes rather than the comments that were submitted to Council on the Climate Action Task Force. Report. Is that correct? Mary?
6:03
I haven’t seen the ones that were submitted to Council. I am specifically talking about the meeting minutes. Where are our comments were summarized in the meeting minutes that were sent out a few days ago from the last month’s board meeting. Okay, as I said, Any changes I would make would not sit if it’s already. So So the question is, when does our feedback go to council? And are you saying that? Okay,
6:30
August 25. Okay, but that has already been submitted to Council. And I just point of clarification, I thought during the last meeting, that the minutes that francy took them in, it’s the notes as you were providing them and had them on the screen. Is that correct or not?
6:51
I wasn’t able to read everything that was written on the screen as we went through one of the limitations of having a small laptop, I guess. But it’s beside the point. I think that if we’re going to revisit the plan, we can move on from this point. Okay. Okay. Well,
7:14
Mary, I think it would be useful if you if you feel strongly about something send dawn Quintana that the city clerk, a message to be distributed to all of city council or okay. Yeah, just send it to all of us again, notice that with your fingers,
7:32
thank you very much. Thank you, Polly. Always learning procedure here.
7:38
And we could probably send the actual final version that was sent to city council we could send out after this meeting. I would like to see that. Thank you. Yeah,
7:47
I think that’d be very good to see and to have as an archive.
7:51
Yeah, I think that actually would be more efficient to respond to that than to the meeting minutes, which were sort of an interim it sounds like
8:00
So the meeting minutes are actually the official record of the sustainability advisory board and was meant only to summarize the conversation of the Climate Action Task Force presentation and all of the votes that you all did. So if there’s something that you feel in the minutes is not representing you accurately then I don’t know how you want to revise the minutes. But any comments that need to go to council regarding the climate action task force report, I believe would need to be done separately. Thank you.
8:36
That, okay, Mary, you’re fine with.
8:39
Okay. We have a procedure to go forward.
8:41
Great. Okay. Great question. So can we
8:43
do that vote because I’m confused. Yeah.
8:47
I moved to approve the minutes from last from the July meeting.
8:54
And then we had a second from Cody, Cody, do you still second that motion.
8:59
I second. The motion. Okay, all in favor? Aye.
9:04
Aye. Aye. All right. Great.
9:08
And then, Mary, just for the notes for next month, I will put in there that you had a question about comments that were submitted as part of the Climate Action Task Force recommendations. Report in that you were going to submit those comments to Council. Later on,
9:24
and it was Ms. Quintana, what’s her first name? dawn da w n. Francona.
9:31
Thank you. And is that and that would be Donna. I’ll just find your email on the website. Yes.
9:38
Okay, great. next order of business is public being invited to be heard. So I’d like to open it up for the public invited to be heard. So as a reminder, just each person wishing to speak will be unmuted by Heather to speak one at a time when it’s your turn to speak. Please state your name and address of record. After you do that. I’m going to start a three minute timer. So let’s try to stick to that. Three minutes and I will let you know when when that three minutes has elapsed or you might even just hear it.
10:07
So, Heather,
10:08
Alright, we’re gonna start with Doe, Kelly.
10:22
I’m not hearing anything.
10:25
So are you there?
10:28
Are you
10:35
muted yourself for a second?
10:44
Oh, there you go. Am I am I on?
10:47
Yes, you are. Go ahead and take your name and address for the record, please. Yes. And I’m Heather. I just received notification from Scott Cunningham that he had not received in the link Get on this call and he has public comments to be heard. Can somebody take care of that? Yes, I will take care of that. Okay, wonderful. Okay, let me get my script. Okay. My name is Joe Kelly and I live at six to two barberry Drive Longmont.
11:21
What am I going?
11:23
I will start the timer now. Okay.
11:26
I spoke to you earlier this year right before the lockdown. I gave my opinion that this committee should do a study session on 5g, like the one held last year by city council in Boulder. I encouraged you to deeply study this stuff smart meter issue before approving any rollout. I invited you to have Tim shekel a PhD, an internationally recognized and sought after expert on wired and wireless communications who lives in our midst to come and speak to this group. And then we were all told stay home. Today you hopefully have before you a paper written by Tim called Emma is here. I believe Tim holds an amazing key that fits perfectly with long lines plan for 100% energy renewability called Emma. Emma stands for energy management and metering architecture. It is based in solar energy and battery storage with embedded software technology that performs metering functions. Emma does not require wireless smart meters instead, it’s based in fibre to the premises and infrastructure Longmont already has wireless smart meters have a wide range of problems both in terms of sustainability, as well as security, privacy, human health, longevity, and obsolescence compared with analog technology including fiber. But this committee is concerned with energy usage and the city with things financial. Tim has handed us something amazing If we are open to it, I implore you to call him in for a presentation or a meeting, ask lots of questions get the information you need. To make a fully informed decision on this topic from an expert who’s been in on the development of his entire field of technology from the beginning, Longmont can again take international leadership in the field of sustainability and innovation through wise wired choices. As a Longmont resident, I tasked you the committee providing advice to Longmont City Council on this to read the AMA paper see that it is in the public interest to explore it, and then set up a meeting with Tim ASAP. Now I have a question. Will the city of Longmont be fully insured against health related or other liability claims such as fire started by smart meters? Should we roll out am I here? We the residents of Longmont deserve to know if i taxes will pay for liability claims from the use of a soon to be obsolete technology. According to Tim, that, to my knowledge, insurance insurance carriers will not insure and a quote from the website of Dr. Deborah Davis PhD, which was recorded in 2017 by the FCC. Even I Tron, a manufacturer of smart meters warn shareholders that we may face adverse publicity, consumer or political opposition or liability associated with our products. We may be subject to claims that there are adverse health effects from the radio frequencies utilized in connection with our products. If these claims prevail, our customers could suspend implementation or purchase substitute products, which could cause a loss of sales from the FCC in 2017.
14:53
Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
14:57
Next, I’m going to unmute amber Hess. You would like to speak. Amber
15:22
is still muted. Looks like she’s still muted. Yeah,
15:27
I’m working on it. Ever you should have a pop up window that is asking you to unmute.
15:36
You press your spacebar you should be able to unmute yourself and talk that way.
15:53
Okay
15:58
let’s move on to Judith black. Burn.
16:09
This is Judas. Do you hear me?
16:11
Yes, we do.
16:13
I had requested
16:14
to listen in on this meeting but not to speak. Okay. Thank you very much.
16:20
Thank you, Judy. I’ll
16:26
go to Tim Skelly.
16:31
It’s checkley checkley. Sorry.
16:40
I didn’t. I didn’t have any comments to make. I just circulated the paper for you to read. The paper was mentioned earlier.
16:49
All right, thank you. Thank you.
16:55
Letting in Scott Cunningham to the meeting and dough indicator He did that he had something that he would like to share.
17:07
Virginia, did you have something that you would like to say today?
17:10
No, I also wanted to listen, but I do not have public comments to make today. Thank you very much.
17:17
Okay, thank you.
17:21
Scott Cunningham we have you unmuted.
17:31
Can you hear me? Okay?
17:32
We can I’m actually going to shut off your video so that we have the same access for all participants.
17:38
Oh, sure. Okay. Um, greetings, advisory board and other stakeholders. Thank you for this opportunity to address the board. We’re here to add to the ongoing discussion about the sustainability of certain proposed additions to Longmont excellent telecommunications infrastructure. We propose to demonstrate utilization of wired smart meters to to complete long month vision of a smart city provides several distinct advantages over the proposed use of ami wireless smart meters. As a review, I want to mention that the AMI smart meters use a radio frequency wave form to communicate and it’s the same 2.45 gigahertz radio frequency wave form used by the microwave oven on your kitchen counter by the way do I need to identify who I am or a good
18:34
please go ahead and state your name and address for the record.
18:38
Scott Cunningham I reside at 3771 South Narcissus way Denver 80237 All right. So and herein lies the rub. In the case of the wireless ami smart meter, those microwaves are broadcast through the surrounding air whereas in the case of the wired smart meters on That radio frequency energy which contains all of our sensitive personal information is contained within the Ethernet wires. As you can imagine, open wireless systems such as ami represent an enormous but enormous potential for widespread security breaches. In addition, since the microwaves in a wireless smart meter system like ami are propagating through the air, not only is the energy consumption several orders of magnitude greater than with a wired system, which is a major hallmark of unsustainability, the speed of internet access is also much slower compared to Wired smart meter systems. As a result of these and many other factors, the cost of both implementation and maintenance for the more efficient wired smart meter system actually hits the pocketbook of your constituents, much less than the less efficient ami system. So I’ll leave you with This next light is the best fiber optics system in the world. Now is the time for decision makers in your forward thinking city to make the next choice that will keep Longmont on the cutting edge with ultra fast fiber optic connectivity, rather than harkening back to the earlier era of slower and much less sustainable wireless facilities. If the board requires further direction into this important project, we suggested the board utilize an internationally recognized authority on emerging safe, high performance connectivity such as Colorado’s own Dr. Tim checkley. Thank you very much.
20:43
Great, thank you very much.
20:45
And I’m going to unmute Monty Whaley if you have something you’d like to share
21:05
Looks like we’re having the same not unmuting problem that amber experienced.
21:12
Okay. I do have several other comments that were also submitted for to be read into the,
21:20
to the record. So I’ll go ahead and do that now. If you’re ready, Jim?
21:25
I am. Yeah, I mean, I actually would we mind trying amber one more time.
21:30
See if we can get the unmute going. Let’s see.
21:48
Okay.
21:50
Um, and I guess I would, I would encourage if people are having a hard time I’m muting that submitting written statements so they can be read into the record is another option to make sure Let their voices get heard by the board.
22:03
It seems that just a point of order, can that be done in this meeting? And then they can be read in a second public comment to be heard. What what are you suggesting?
22:12
I, I will ask
22:17
that I don’t know. procedurally, we only have one public invited to be heard. So I think we could read them at the next board meeting. Polly, do you have any clarification on that?
22:31
Well, yeah, I mean, this board. Most of our boards, I think only have one public comment meeting. City Council has one of the beginning and one of the end. So
22:42
yeah, it’s so difficult with zoom, because, you know, we’re all having trouble with all their
22:50
various and I do want to let all the board members know that I was in communication with all of the people from the community who are on this call and ask them if they want it. To speak to let me know, I did not hear back from all of them except for the ones who did say that shared their comments and then also a few who are unable to join the meeting today. So perhaps the two people who did not unmute themselves when I prompted them to do so. did not have anything that they wanted to share.
23:20
Okay, well, I would encourage you if they did for them to submit comments that we can read on next meeting them
23:25
Sure. I’m the first one that we have is from Dr. Nancy van Dover and she is from Durango, Colorado. She says dear SAP members, although I’m not currently a Longmont resident, I do have friends in the area and I work at the state level to raise awareness about EMF electromagnetic sensitivity. Today I’m writing to ask the board not to recommend the installation of ami meters in Longmont in the developed world. One third of the population is now having symptoms from wireless radiation and 6% are disabled. This comes from the who and other sources. I’m a medical practitioner with MS patients and and now EMF disabled myself. After learning about our ADA and Fair Housing Act rights, I found out that most people including the title two and three entities were supposed to accommodate the disabled don’t know about or understand Ms. It is extremely important that people who make policies that affect our health and lives, learn about it and take their responsibility to protect our rights and public access into account. We’ve been an invisible class discriminated against to the point where we can’t even access our most critical services, like a hospital, er, dentist or eye doctor. In order to be ms safe you need to be able to turn off wireless radiation. In your minutes I read quote, the city of Longmont does a good job of adopting and implementing the most recent building codes and quote, I hope that means that you have adopted the 2005 federal access boards guidelines for the MS disabled. If you have not added those guidelines, please consider doing it. Soon, you also save you are concerned about additional cost burdens, retrofitting before the ADA costs more than it does. Doing it from the start. The financial burden for an MS disabled person to mitigate their home from a wireless radiation is tremendous. Many can’t do it. There are millions of em s refugees in the world, including Colorado, our fair housing acts rights have been violated and we need our leaders to stand up for us so that we can simply live safely in our homes. Longmont is an award winning city because of your fibre to the premises option. I’m trying to convince my own rural Electric Cooperative to follow your examples so we can have safe broadband wired electric meters and be ready for our future with a solar micro grid system. Why would you want to go with an inferior ami meter system when you can go with that with fiber? I’ve studied Dr. Timothy’s sec Lee’s work. You have an international expert Living in Boulder who can help me help you meet your sustainability goals wireless uses 10 times the energy of wired, it is not green, whether it is for broadband or electrical meters, the only way not to violate the federally protected rights. So the EMF disabled is through wired connections. I urge you to go in that direction to use the great infrastructure you have already created. Thank you Dr. Nancy van van Dover Durango, Colorado. Okay.
26:35
The next one is from Kimberly Edmondson from 814 bittersweet lane Longmont, Colorado. Sustainability advisory board. My name is Kimberly Edmondson, currently I’m a stay at home mom to two twin five year olds. Previously, I ran my own massage business in town and before that worked as an X ray tech for 20 years. I’m very strongly opposed to the idea of having smart meters installed in our town. Having studied radiation physics a bit as part of my training to become an X ray tech. There were some lessons you don’t forget the concept of a la Ra as low as reasonably achievable, meaning do your best to avoid repeats and using the least amount of radiation possible, since no one knows how little radiation it takes to create a biological effect to a cell or the cellular DNA. Another takeaway is how much more sensitive children are it’s radiation exposure exposure with the rapidly dividing cells. I know x rays and RF EMF radiation are not the same but still they are all capable of causing damage. I’m also one of those people who are sensitive to all of this Wi Fi radiation as it is already without smaller smart meters and 5g going full bore. I have constant ringing in my ears and I have found that by turning off our Wi Fi router at night it stops for a while. If I use my cell phone, iPad or computer heavily I have numbness and tingling in my hands through my personal health journey and touch of self study I found out I am deficient in B vitamins, and effective EMF radiation. They deplete B vitamins. Despite having a healthy diet not being overweight and exercising regularly. My a one C level suggests I’m pre diabetic. There are studies that show EMF radiation Causes Diabetes and she gave two links here which I’ll forward to you after the meeting. She goes on my husband suffers from many of the symptoms that are listed side effects of emf radiation, many listed in the above study, but refuses to make the connection being a person who works on computers all day. I stopped having brief episodes of atrial fibrillation since we started shutting down the Wi Fi at night. My problem is that with the Smart Meter I will not be able to shut it off. I won’t be able to shut off my neighbor’s either that is pointing toward the side of my house. I will be regularly bombarded everywhere I go. If my body of around 130 pounds is this strongly affected. What will it do to smaller beings children, dogs, cats, birds, bees. insects and plants. What will be the long term effect of these other creatures who cannot show up to date to speak. Lastly, I suggest that all of you watch the Smart Meter documentary put out by Josh Del Sol. They also discuss how these meters use more electricity to operate and often cause higher utility bills for the residents, or the guy whose pacemaker was having issues after his was installed. There should be optional and not mandatory with no penalty for opting out. Seriously, please watch this each and every one of you. The health of the planet depends on it and she gives a YouTube link. If you want to learn more call, I will be happy to share information from the transcripts from the recent 5g summit or arrange a time for those interested in watching what these experts in this field have to say. In summary, it is not good for human health or the health of all living things, Kimberly Edmonson and I will forward that email with the links and everything in it for you. Thank you. The next one is from Jessica Davis, whose address tu tu tu one long speak Avenue Longmont, Colorado. She says I am a hospice nurse and have serious concerns about the negative health effects from the electromagnetic magnetic radiation at these meters in it. There are numerous studies that have shown that exposure to this radiation can cause brain cancer, heart palpitations, insomnia, anxiety, headaches and overall degradation to human cells. I would strongly encourage city council to allow families to have the option for the installation of a smart meter on their house. It is our right to be safe from harmful devices and the Smart Meter certainly is very harmful. I do not want such a meter anywhere near my children as I firmly believe it negatively impacts their health. Thank you for sharing my concerns at the 330 meeting today. And one more from Becky Nelson. Although I do not have an address for her
31:00
Said I believe smart meters are not the way to achieve sustainability and that there are other more sustainable means in the works. There are many arguments that the meters are unhealthy and the smart meters works against the vision and mission of a committee with a goal of 100% energy sustainability. This technology seemingly may create the kind of polarization we are looking not to create in the interests of powers that would seek to expand before obtaining relevant knowledge on the subject. I implore you to help us all redirect the current plan and thinking on the Smart Meter rollout. Thank you for your time, Becky. And then I also did receive the comments that Tim shulkie referred to so I will pass those along to the board as well.
31:45
And that’s all I have.
31:47
Thank you. Okay, next, General revisions and submission of documents, staff, city staff, is there anything that you would like to bring up
32:03
I don’t know of any any deal. I don’t know
32:05
of any. Nope. Okay.
32:09
All right, I will take that as a no and move on to general business. So, just before we move on to the general business, we have three different topics that we’re gonna have today. I’ve been asked to make sure that we reserve our comments until the end of the presentation, just for time sake. So I will take notes in my own comments. And then when each person is done, we can ask whatever questions that we have if that if that sounds okay to everybody. Great. Well, first on our list is francy. Jaffe is going to be talking about our greenhouse gas inventory.
32:51
And Hi, my name is Brandy Jaffe. I’m the water conservation and sustainability specialist and today I am going to give an update On the 2019 greenhouse gas inventory. Next slide. I’m gonna go over kind of how this ties in with our sustainability direction, the methodology we use for our greenhouse gas inventory report. And then I’m going to go through key findings and implement implement implications. I am actually, if it’s alright with the board, I am going to pause twice for questions once after the inventory methodology and once after key findings. Since I thought there might be different types of questions after each,
33:33
I will allow it.
33:36
Great. Thank you Next slide.
33:39
So the sustainability plan calls for the creation of a 2016 greenhouse gas inventory baseline, which we completed in 2018. We are now at any cost for the for the inventory to be updated every three years and we did the 2019 update this year with the overall goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 66% by 2030. Next slide. We use the global protocols for community scale greenhouse gas emissions inventories are the GPC protocol, which was developed in 2014 by the World Resources Institute equally, the local governments for sustainability in C 40. Cities climate leadership group, they have different types of protocols, we use the basic plus, which is their more expensive expansive protocol that covers all scopes that I’ll go into the next couple of slides. And the units that are used are a metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent or co2 equivalent, which combines emissions from three greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides. Next slide. Just for context, one metric tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent is equivalent about 2500 miles driven 113 gallons of gasoline or about 10% of your home’s energy usage for one year just to give you a little bit of a visual. Next slide. So there are three different scopes that make up the GPC protocol. The first scope is what’s within your defined boundary, we define our boundary as the city of Longmont boundary. But we do include a piece of agricultural land that we do have about eight cattle on just outside the city. So that we included in within the inventory. This covers the different sectors of agriculture, forestry, land use industrial processes, fuel consumption from stationary buildings, so that’s mostly buildings in boundary waste and inbound transportation. We also include scope two, which is emissions that may have been generated elsewhere but are used in long run so that’s grid supplied energy. And then scope three which is out of boundary waste and wastewater, transmission and distribution and out of boundary transportation. That is primarily a portion of our transportation of essentially Longmont residents using the Denver Airport.
36:08
Next slide.
36:10
So those the different ones I walked into within the scopes are different sectors that we use, I’ll be using throughout the slides IPP EU for industrial processes and product use in a fo Liu for agriculture, forestry and other land uses. Next slide. To build out the sources on sources go into much more depth on buildings and transportation buildings we look at residential versus commercial as well as by fuel type as well and fugitive emissions and transmission and distributed distribution losses. for transportation we also look by look by fuel type, we also build separate out transit from our local bus systems, railways, electric vehicles, and then trans boundary aviation. So that’s the portion from Denver first inbound aviation which is the person from our blog. airport. Next slide. So we added an information only item, I’m calling it an information only item because this is not part of the greenhouse, the GPC protocol. Essentially we are a we own 26.1% of Platte River Power Authority, and that is called our equity share. So of total Platte River Power 30 emissions, which are about 3 million metric tons, we have about 798 917 metric tons. That’s combined with both what we use on the electric grid. And what Platte River Power Authority is selling on the market. So they sell a portion of their electricity, not to the four owners but on the market. So normally, in our greenhouse gas and study, we only look at what Longmont is using. And that doesn’t actually include our portion of what they’re selling to the market. So we’re referring to this as our additional equity share. Which is about 260 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. So this will be shown in one of the key findings as it informational only just to kind of show the impact of the our ownership of Platte River Power Authority on a broader scale. So I’m going to stop here. Does anyone have any questions on the methodology? Adam?
38:34
Thank you. I have a question about scope 3d out of boundary transportation. Does that include non co2 sources, such as the contrails emitted by airplanes, for instance,
38:50
oh, we, I,
38:53
I would have to look into that. My understanding for trans boundary aviation is that we use estimation that is developed by the Denver Airport and they assign a, we there’s essentially a percentage you can use for different communities. I would have to dive into the data to figure out exactly how that’s being calculated and I can get back to you on that.
39:14
Okay, thank you.
39:17
Charles. I had one question for the equivalent co2 emissions. I think you lumped co2, methane and co2 together. There’s no weighting that takes into account the different global warming potentials, the gases?
39:34
Yes, sorry, I did not add the weighting in that we do factor in the waiting when converting to co2 equivalent.
39:43
So
39:44
I can actually pull that up. I believe it’s 16 for methane, but let me that went very quickly. So the conversions for the global warming potential Sorry, it’s 28 for methane. So you multiply by 28 and then 265 for nitrous oxides, so we are factoring in those. Thank you.
40:11
Any other questions at this point? Awesome.
40:21
Great. Next slide. So now I’m going to walk through the key findings starting on the next slide. So these are the two on 29 emissions by sector. On the next slide, I’ll show it with the equity share, but I’ll walk through this first. About 80% of our emissions come from commercial industrial buildings and residential buildings just so it’s our largest use of emissions for both electricity and natural gas. And then after that, transportation is about 19%. On the next slide, if we factor in that additional equity share, we see that is 21%. So is so just the other percentages accordingly. But this really highlights the importance of our commitment to 100% renewable energy by 2030. As it will not only have an impact on our buildings but honor missions, it from what Platte River Power Authority is selling to other communities.
41:19
Next slide.
41:22
So this slide on this, this graph breaks it out by residential and commercial electricity and natural gas. So for electricity, our total that is our largest emissions. So that’s about 53% come from both residential and commercial electricity. After that we have 24% from natural grass, and then transportation we broke out the aviation for to focus on on road transportation and transit which is about 16% kind of highlighting the key different areas of focus that we should work on to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Next slide. We had a number of information only, um, besides the additional equity share. Essentially, the GPC protocol does not allow for the subtraction of avoided emissions. But we calculated it just to see on how much emissions we’re avoiding from recycling, as well as community generated renewable energy use. The total is about 88,181 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, most of that coming from recycling efforts. We also did a separate effort this year to conduct a waste lifecycle analysis on these numbers are not included in this graph. And in this report, we will actually be coming back to the board enough at a future meeting to walk through the waste lifecycle analysis report as well as when you have current waste services programs.
42:55
Next slide.
42:57
So in comparison, comparing 2016 To 2019 are we over all had a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, you can see that broken out by sector on the right. This is not just due to activity but improved methodology. So for activity, we saw an increase in waste diversion. Our carbon intensity of our electricity mixed, decreased, which had an impact, as well as multiple oil and gas wells were closed in Longmont. Eric travel VC on the graph has a significant decrease and that’s mostly due to improved methodology. Estimating greenhouse gas emissions is a constantly evolving field. And every year they’re figuring out more and more ways to do it that are more accurate. So as we do these updated inventories, we’re going to keep updating the methodology so that we can have the most accurate emissions summary. So that was one of the ones we saw that was an air from airport is specifically an estimating emissions in relation to the Denver Airport.
44:04
Next slide.
44:07
So in terms of implications, our greatest opportunity is to continue the transition to 100% renewable powered electricity as this inventory are, MCs was about 30% renewable energy. And since this inventory has completed We are now at 50% renewable energy. This also highlighted the need to focus on buildings not only transitioning to 100% renewable powered energy for electricity, but improving energy efficiency. And then after that, work on transportation and we will also be coming to the board at a future meeting to discuss the equitable non carbon transportation roadmap that staff has been working on through sustainability tax funding this year to detail how we can meet the goals. detail in the transportation section of our sustainability plan and envision long
45:01
And with that, thank you all. And are there any other questions? Polly
45:15
Okay. Thank you francy. That was really a great presentation. I I would like it if you could send that to the city council. If that’s possible, although your explanation of all of it is kind of essential. one specific question that I had is, as we tried to, sorry, as we tried to tighten up buildings to make them more energy efficient. We’re also coming into problems with sick buildings. You know what I mean? In that there isn’t as much ventilation Therefore, people are getting sick because things are not being ventilated as much as they used to be.
46:08
My house is basically a tent but spilled in 1941. So are we thinking about
46:20
the cost of increasing ventilation systems and the additional costs that the additional
46:29
energy that’s going to consume to increase ventilation to make up for the fact that we have tightened up the building envelope so that it’s more energy efficient?
46:42
Did I make that did I?
46:44
Yep, that was very clear. I also wanted to highlight before I answer your question, that we will be bringing both the greenhouse gas inventory and the carbon free transportation plan at the same time to city council. So I will,
46:57
oh, you’re going to bring it okay. And we Get it. When are you going to do that?
47:02
Um, I believe we have a tentative date in October but we’re still okay. In the roadmap. But I’m Annie noble when she presents the climate action taskforce will touch will highlight some of the results of this inventory and not go into into an in depth. But city council these have.
47:22
Yeah, nations report.
47:25
Okay, just wait because, yeah, we’ll get it all at once. But that’s that’s really an excellent presentation. And I found the the also the report that we got, that was about 40 pages long. That was also an excellent report. So thank you very much for
47:48
Oh, you’re doing a good job.
47:51
Thank you. And then to answer your other question. Yes, ventilation is, is essential. If you’re tightening up, build
48:01
I do not believe.
48:06
I don’t know if we’ve have done an extensive study on the costs of retrofitting buildings at this time. To my knowledge. I do believe that that should be factored in. And I my understanding is that it would be factored in when you update a building envelope you need to update the ventilation but I see tip just click on his cameras have a better answer for you.
48:39
Oh, I have another answer. I don’t know if it’s better. But yeah, you’re absolutely right. Um, if you tighten up a building that can cause some significant health problems. If whoever’s tightening your building does not also do an assessment on how to properly ventilate the dwelling or the business, what they’re supposed to do is to come up with a ventilation plan, because really the bottom line is, it’s all about controlled versus uncontrolled ventilation. In a leaky building, it’s cold and you’re losing heat and air conditioning, and you can’t stop it. If you have it controlled ventilation, you still get actually better health benefits if it’s properly set up, because it ventilated correctly in in the areas it needs to in the volumes it needs to because it can be calculated to have a certain amount of air turnovers per hour. And it should be a healthier building if it’s done. Right. But that’s, you know, part of what a contractor has to figure out if they’re doing seal air sealing and insulation, they also have to take into account the ventilation impacts that are going to occur.
49:46
I hope I hope that helps.
49:47
Yes.
49:50
Right here I had a question. Do we do we know like of the sort of reducing co2 equivalent, let’s say of buildings There’s some part of it that is reducing the co2 production or co2 equivalent production of the energy that goes into the building. And then there’s another part that’s making the buildings more energy efficient. Do what is the mix of that? Like, how much can we actually gain by making the buildings more efficient? And how much is actually going to really be dependent upon us getting the our energy sources to that hundred percent renewable.
50:24
So we do have a modeling spreadsheet. So I’m going to pull that up now see if I can give you a quick answer for transitioning to 100% renewable is really what’s going to get you the significant savings. That’s really when you start to see those large drops. In usage is when you get closer to 100% I’m not sure at what’s the specific percentage where you start to, is it 75 I don’t know where between one and 100 it is or 30 and 100
51:03
with um,
51:07
I mean,
51:09
you can, sorry, I probably would be best if I looked at this and then get back to you, that’d be great. At the same time, you can definitely that will make them building more efficient. But if you have a, you’ll you’ll lose some of your savings because you’re having electricity coming in. That’s not as carbon intensive. So if we kept the same kind of carbon intensity increases, the you’d see more savings than when if we’re not, but it it definitely is a contribution and I can get back to you on specific percentage of the group.
51:51
Great, thank you. Do you have your hand? Well, I’m sorry, Jim.
51:55
Yeah, I just wanted to give a just a broader perspective on that. I think our you know, our city goals around 1% per year energy efficiency. And if you think about 1% per year going up to 2030, we’re saving that much energy on our building. And then we’ll have to come up with renewable energy to offset the rest. So basically, so it’s going to be as far as he said, it’s mainly driven by the renewable energy that the carbon reductions are going to come from. But we’re, you know, we really want to make it more efficient because that saves everybody money, and it’s overall better even if you have 100%. Renewable, you still want to drive energy efficiency to to keep the costs minimized as possible.
52:35
There’s a lot of great co benefits to energy efficiency.
52:40
Adam, you had a question?
52:42
Yes. Thanks for NC for the presentation. I had a question related to buildings, and that is, apart from their energy efficiency. Does the methodology include how much how many how much emissions are generated with new builds, like if you’re building a new car element
53:02
that wasn’t included in our inventories. And so I was just looking at 2019. That was included in our modeling document. And in our modeling document, we also looked at, we also looked at projections of if we created kind of like a netzero, new building development and the impact of that, as well as the electrification of new buildings. And when kind of seen for to help with strategy selection moving forward, and
53:37
again,
53:42
so, but the one thing I do have to say about new buildings is it’s such a small percentage that you really start when looking at electrification or new code. That definitely helps. But if we’re looking at the overall impact of our buildings going forward this new buildings are going to are, are going to be a smaller percentage compared to how many buildings already exist. And then if so, you might not see as new buildings, it’s really important to make them efficient from the onset because it’s more expensive to retrofit. But you’re not going to see as drastic savings of let’s say, making sure all new buildings are really energy efficient and all electric than if you were going to like retrofit, like a large portion of our current buildings.
54:39
Mary
54:41
Yeah, I just responding to Polly’s question about sick buildings. This is just general information. here in Boulder County, we’re kind of a center for the building biology movement, and there’s quite a few different practitioners in the boulder area who will come and measure the levels of the volatile organic compounds in your home. You’re obviously there’s other folks who will measure the radon. The co2, of course, you have to have meters installed, I believe as part of code now, I’m not sure on your on your water heaters
55:26
and you know your your gas
55:29
heaters, but I just wanted to make that information sort of put that information out there and that I can imagine that there is a savings over time with having building biology components come included, like for example, if you need to have the perforated pipe underneath the slab prior to you know, as you’re building the house rather than going in and doing these retrofits later. So I don’t know if we’re there in a that’s sort of a comprehensive Have a look at on buildings. It’s not in building code. It’s not just the carbon piece. And I’m wondering if there’s any place in the city government where that kind of a comprehensive look is taken at any sector, sort of looking at different aspects like that? Or if that’s something that might be interesting to consider in looking at new building, is that including a building biology component.
56:29
I do know, I don’t know I’m not very familiar with the ES CS tool, sustainability evaluation system. But I know that was has been in the practice of being development for in development for certain development projects, is trying to do a certain whole kind of holistic approach for those of evaluating those. I don’t know how much those I think it’s more for the impact of the development on the it’s the in the local area than the building itself, but we do have a plan for updating our building codes in probably the next year or so. So that that would be an opportunity to speak more on the building biology that you were talking about.
57:21
Is there any place in the city where it sorry to just finish my question where we could create a program where maybe there would be an EMF meter or a voc meter, the radon meter you can borrow that from the city where homeowners could sort of borrow these and do some self assessment and get some help with retrofit?
57:44
My call on let’s see, timber the first one, but then both Paulie and Annie were responding to that one directly. So why don’t we do Tim Tim Andy Paulie, and then we’re gonna have to move on to the next one.
57:57
I just, I’ll just be quick. So the building codes in general have a guideline on air changes per hour that is supposed to address issues like that. But as as homes you’re right as host homes become tighter, there are other emissions that are useful to really take a look at like radon and things that are local specific and important that should be taking in consideration. But really the the building codes, the building codes are the area that usually guy gives guidance on that those issues.
58:27
Thanks, Tim.
58:30
Annie, did you know
58:30
I just wanted to point out that we have radon detectors and co2 detectors at the library that are right back out. And
58:41
we’ve recently purchased quite a few more so I know that I’ve checked them out and they’re pretty easily available now. Any we got a really good little voc reader for $75. It got really great reviews from the experts. Maybe the library could get a hold of that. I’ll just send you the info. So you can Look into it’ll be great to add to the library’s collection. Okay, thank you. Thank you,
59:04
Pauline, then we’re going to move on I think we’re gonna need to move on to the next
59:07
next item.
59:10
Yeah, I was gonna point out the library, radon detector although, you know you have to use that for a while and I believe the one at the library is the two week meter and you get it. And of course detecting radon depends on the season and many many other things but about a good proportion of call Colorado homes, something like 35 or 40% have grade on in substantial doses. I just got my house mitigated. But the the one you want to get probably is the long term one that you have out for six months, that will give you a better reading, much better reading. We also have energy smart and they will do an energy audit and they will We’ll also test for different things, not just leaks and stuff like that. But they will also give you tests and advice. So we do have a lot of opportunities. And we do look at of code upgrades every year. But remember, every time we upgrade the code, it costs people more to build houses. And then it costs people more to buy the houses and less people can afford to live here. So there has to be a balance between a code that is so difficult that no one can fix their house or afford to loop here.
1:00:41
I’d rather see the city have tools available like at the library where folks yes self assessment. And maybe I know the city doesn’t usually keep contractors on retainer, but some arrangement where a building biologist can come in for less than the most ridiculous price if there’s any way The city could facilitate.
1:01:03
Oh, you might talk to the people at energy smart. That’s accounting program. So,
1:01:09
okay. Thanks, Molly. Yeah.
1:01:12
Okay. Thank you very much fancy. I think we’re gonna have to move on to our next general business item, which is around news rock who’s going to be talking about sustainability tax?
1:01:27
Can you hear me?
1:01:29
Yeah, you’re a little soft.
1:01:30
I’m a little bit worn out.
1:01:32
Oh, that’s, that’s perfect.
1:01:34
Okay, great. Well, thank you very much, everybody. I’m pleased to be here. My name is Asher. And as rats, I’m the new sustainability grant and Program Coordinator being here as of April 2020. I can go to the next slide. That’s me. So I’m on a steep learning curve. I’m happy to present and to learn here. So I’m going to be giving you an overview of the sustainability tax which I believe this board approved for last year. The programs that we have running currently and we are seeking your input for programs that we want to put forward for funding for 2021.
1:02:10
Excellent.
1:02:12
Okay, so first of all, we are currently funding five projects in 2020. We received $125,000 from Boulder County and provided a 25% match. The two first line items the grant coordinator and the residential program coordinator, were combined into one position and I’m currently occupying that position. The following was the carbon free transportation roadmap, which Nancy alluded to. I believe we just received the draft report from the consultants which is 100 Plus page report. The WAC farmers market, the women infant and children’s farmers markets received $10,000 and a view that extended that funding. We have received their report and they said that they served 486 families through their curbside pickup program, including over 700 children and a further 150 families through their own street market in Longmont, which opened up after May 30. They also reported that farmers have seen over $23,000 in sales as a result of this program, the neighborhood impact granting program that was launched this summer as well. And it is also synonymous with the sustainable neighborhood solutions initiative. And I’ll talk about that a little bit later. But this program is effectively distributes funding to community based projects initiated by at the local neighborhood level for sustainability programs to make improvements locally and it’s a it’s a new partnership with the city. And we provided $32,000 cash match against all of these programs. So next slide, please.
1:03:57
So moving forward to 2025
1:04:01
As you all know, the climate emergency resolution October kicked off the whole Climate Action Task Force, and the report that was generated. And these are the recommendations summarized from that report 27 distributed across six main categories. So, as we think about what kind of sustainability tax funds we want to use in our projects going forward, we want to make sure that they are in alignment with whatever the city chooses to pursue in relationship to these recommendations. And as mentioned earlier in the presentation that Annie noble is going to be presenting on August 25, next Tuesday, and I believe the county city council will be voting on these recommendations. So whatever the outcome of that meeting is, and going forward will be a framing context for us in terms of considering what kind of priorities gaps needs. We want to put forward for funding for the sustainability tax for next year. Next slide. So these are the framing conditions for 2021. So as I just mentioned the sustainability, the city focus on climate action, and how they will move forward, what direction they will take will influence what we want to pursue. There’s a possible reduction in funding from Boulder County. I did speak with a bolus county staff recently and they are aiming to provide the same amount. So we received 125,000 in 2020. So I think we can safely assume that we’ll receive somewhere between 115 $225,000 for next year, probably closer to the full amount, because I’m I think that’s what they had originally aim to do. So with that money, we want to meet some of the existing commitments. So the grant and program coordinator position was budgeted for two years. So that’s $50,000 from the grant funding money that needs to be allocated. And the neighborhood impact granting program. There are a number of factors that will influence how much funding will be available for that for next year. Some of that will relate to funds distributed this year and how much may be able to get rolled forward. So that’s an unknown, but essentially that leaves us with between 65,070 $5,000 to consider for projects for 2021.
1:06:26
Next slide please.
1:06:30
So what we want to do with you is to identify gaps and needs to prioritize, we have some suggestions. So based on what we have identified as a team, the sustainability team, and alongside the city’s priorities and lens we also want to ensure that we bring the following lenses to the projects that we identify so we want to ensure our projects strengthen equity accessibility, support immediate needs and impact from COVID That’s an extra layer of criteria that you want to apply to the program you want to find. And these are the four different topic areas that we’re considering community engagement, adaptation, resilience, expansion of existing programs and workforce development. And then you’ll see that these map against the six categories that the Climate Action Task Force also recommended. The next slide please. So I’ll go through each one of these areas in turn. So for community engagement, our manager who you will be very familiar with Lisa Knobloch, she had identified gaps in the hour and capacity of the team for the sustainability team and to meet the objectives for addressing climate impacts in an equitable fashion, we feel that there is a need for a community engagement and equity specialists. So they would be supporting sustainability and climate action implementation, this position Be either part time or full time, and especially in light of COVID, where we can’t reach as many people at the moment, and we certainly can’t reach people in ways that they would like to be reached potentially. This is actually very timely. And in order to actually produce outcomes, which demonstrate equity, we need somebody to be able to be in that position to reach under represented communities. So this is one of the needs that we’ve identified. Second one, adaptation, resilience. We want to be able to map the vulnerability and risk across long long to communities. So we want to be able to understand the climate impact and the risks by geographic by geographical area and overlay the demographics over that data. So we will need to see for where are the heat islands and how are people being affected, what kind of needs to the community have to address these impacts, and identify potential recommendations. So if you could have the last bullet point, I’m not very familiar with this, but you may be more familiar to you all because this was discussed last year, a low income tree program. I believe it was Brett and Natalie and board members that may have raised this program last year. So this would be a potential option to explore in relationship to this. So if you could go to the next slide, this is a climate vulnerability map at the state level. And some of you may be familiar with this kind of software. So you have overlays where you can select a climate hazard whether that be drought, flood, wildfire, all of them. The climate scenario, whether we’re looking at current climate, moderate deterioration of the climate, or a severe deterioration of the climate, and then a population scenario where you’re looking at the current population or And slightly angry slight growth, or moderate growth or high growth. So those are just examples of overlays that you can actually perform with these kind of vulnerability maps. But what we’re interested in is, well, this is very well at the state level, but we want to be able to see it at the city level in the neighborhood level, and there is software available to be able to do that, which will be very useful for us to then actually help plan projects that address climate vulnerability and the community needs. So this is something that we’re particularly interested in. And there is a possibility that we might be able to apply to go code the great outdoors Colorado funding initiative in the fall for this particular project, or we could supplement it if we have more fun with
1:10:48
the next one.
1:10:50
Our third option identified is expanding existing programs that I’m sure some of you will be familiar with care the low income, energy efficiency program by I forget the terminology. I think it’s outreach Colorado. And I know there’s another program called careers by Longmont but these are slightly different. So this is the home upgrades program. I believe this is currently on hold because of COVID. So people aren’t going into people’s homes, and so is a sustainable opportunities lifestyle and leadership program that has been launched this summer. And it is similar to care but it goes further in helping Longmont residents identify cost saving initiatives across energy, water and other sustainable behavior areas and also connecting people with some of the services available both in the city such as efficiency works, such as the the radon test, as that you mentioned in the library, and we will also be providing upgrades. So I believe one of the upgrades is radon self testing kit, where the resident can then mail the kit afterwards, once the actual self assessment is done. So that’s one of the things we’re actually thinking of providing with with our visits. And in addition to that, we want to support people in just becoming more familiar with what kind of sustainable behaviors they may already be pursuing that they may not term sustainable, but they actually are. And so we want to empower people in that way, and then also connecting them to city services. And I’m involved with that program. So I can say a little bit more about how and then the sustainable neighborhood solutions program I mentioned earlier, it’s synonymous with the neighborhood impact granting program, where neighborhood groups can apply for funding for sustainable programs in their local area and partner with the city. So for all of these programs, we will need to confirm staff capacity, but uh, we feel that these are important programs that you obviously want to continue now Next slide. workforce development. Again, this was identified in the climate action task force report. And I believe the boss supported the generation of a green workforce. The idea would be to support climate action related workforce needs. But given the uncertainty right now of which direction the city may take, or we may want to wait until the next cycle, when there’s more information available about what the priorities will be from the city and what we can do to support that. But that’s still an important option, especially in light of COVID-19 where the economy is obviously hitting people and people need support in relationship to work. So we go to the next slide, please. So in terms of what we’re asking of the board today is to brainstorm some of these ideas that we’ve put forward. We would take back your input to the city council leadership, leadership to ensure that aligns with the city’s plans and priorities. After that, we will report back to you on the next sustainability advisory, sustainability, sustainable advisory board meeting in October. Thank you for your approval and offer letter for support. And then we’ll submit that in between September 14 and October 23. And once we have funding, then we’ll take the IGA to the council for final approval. So that’s the process going forward. So at this point, we’ve received input from the sustainability for the Longmont sustainability coalition. And we’re seeking your input, and then we will take that to counsel and we’ll move forward from there. So if you could go to the next slide, I’m just summarizing the four different areas that I went through. So the community engagement and equity specialists to address climate impact in an equitable fashion and conduct outreach, the climate vulnerability risk mapping project which will really Allow us to zone in on climate risks and impacts in Longmont, city level and neighborhood level, identify priorities for community needs, expanding the existing programs that we have the care program, solid program, and the sustainable neighborhoods solutions program. And then workforce development as recommended by the Climate Action Task Force. So those are the four areas and of course, we welcome suggestions that are not included there, which you feel that we should be considering and prioritizing in addition. So I’m,
1:15:36
I’ve taken take it to the to the board to discuss how to move forward with this if you want to discuss all four items. Now. Ideally, it would be wonderful if we could prioritize the items I mentioned and any additional ones that you would like to consider. And then we’ll be able to take that forward to counsel.
1:15:58
So
1:15:59
that’s the end of it. Have a
1:16:01
great day. Thank you very much. I guess, I guess I’d like to ask the rest of the board about how we would feel most comfortable proceeding given, we technically have 12 minutes left of this meeting. And, and I know that for some of us, some of these are rather expensive. And we could probably have a lot of things to share. So I guess I’d just like to ask the rest of the board members, what kind of level we would feel comfortable with engaging with us right now. Before we have one more item on the on the I’m not sure how long it’s gonna be we have one more item, but I just want to make sure that people feel comfortable with the amount of time and thought that they have. Well,
1:16:49
I am
1:16:51
I’m not sure whether we can legally do this because of the sunshine law. But perhaps we could all have a an online discussion.
1:17:02
I’m pretty sure we can’t do this, but
1:17:05
have suggestions that we would like to see brought forward for this? Since this is coming up, the sustainability tax discussion is coming up.
1:17:16
Because I think it is timely right now.
1:17:20
But that’s my suggestion that we we just offer, what our preferences would be.
1:17:27
I
1:17:29
I don’t understand. And forgive me for not having done this research myself, but I don’t understand the status of the sustainability tax period. You know, when was it initiated? What’s the level of it? What is it currently being used to fund and I don’t think we can possibly do justice to this in 12 minutes or whatever it’s going to take. I don’t want to I don’t think it would be at all fair to honor your offer. Find work to try to cram it in. Is there anything that we can do in terms of the sunshine law in terms of a written a forum discussion where all comments are written in then that becomes part of public record? Is that something the city has ever considered as an additional sort of addendum to this meeting,
1:18:21
so something that you all could do is decide vote to have somebody make a motion and a second, and then a vote to hold a special meeting that would be noticed to the public, and where they would be invited to attend as well. But that would allow us to have extra discussion time, we would just need to let people know we wouldn’t need to know specifically what that meeting would be for since it would be a special meeting. You could only talk about the discussion items that are proposed on that agenda.
1:18:52
Okay, and since we’re still in discussion, nobody has proposed this yet. I don’t want to dishonor them many I want to honor the many community members and larger community members who presented their public invited during be heard comments. And since smart metering is part of the discussion on the
1:19:16
on the sustainability tax, perhaps that’s one of the issues that we could bring up in the special meeting to talk about. I don’t know,
1:19:27
that’s not actually part of our agenda for today and public invited to be heard comments are just received by the committee. And then that’s really all that is done with a if the board decided later on to talk about that topic at a separate meeting, then that would be something that would need to be discussed for the work plan.
1:19:44
So can I just clarify if we did want to have a second meeting just specifically to discuss the sustainability tax, what is the timeline again, where it would be useful for us to do that
1:19:58
and it would need to be fairly Because the application window is between September 14 and the 23rd, and it needs to go to Council for review, prior to submission of application.
1:20:13
Okay, but it’s not like we have to do it by next week.
1:20:17
I don’t think so.
1:20:18
Polly looks like maybe next week.
1:20:23
And he might be able to come in any Do you have a sense of the best timeline for that?
1:20:32
I’m concerned that this caught this presentation. And if we wait X number of months, we just have to hear that presentation again. And but then again, we’re also sort of in the August doldrums. So do we really want to add this to a schedule when people are on vacation and so forth? Sorry, Anna, you were going to speak? Yeah, I was just going to say that. I will be presenting the Climate Action Task Force recommendations to Council on August 25, which is next Tuesday and my help provide some context for this board on what the council priorities are. Okay.
1:21:08
All right. People drag racing down my street. I guess, I guess. I mean, I guess an idea, then is that I agree, I don’t want to wait too long to discuss this. But perhaps I feel that I would need more than that. I know, I’ve wasted a lot of time discussing this. But I feel like I need more time than we really realistically have now to digest and think about it. So I don’t necessarily need to be the one to move to do it. But I would prefer perhaps that we schedule a dedicated, separate meeting outside of our normal. Since we missed a couple we’ll still be on average for 12 for the year, so we can maybe schedule a separate one. Once we’ve had. Once we’ve had time to digest this a little bit more.
1:21:56
Can I ask a quick question on how much time do you need for or public notice of the meeting? Oh, great question. You have
1:22:03
to have 72 hours.
1:22:05
Okay. That’s pretty quick.
1:22:08
So or is it 24? Paulie?
1:22:11
That’s 4872 is reasonable for the public, though. I prefer that we do that just out of courtesy.
1:22:19
Usually what I do for our meetings on Wednesdays I posted Friday before, so we have plenty of notice. But I think technically it’s 24 hours.
1:22:28
Okay. Our our next official meeting is on September 16. So I would, I’ll throw it out as an idea that the first week of September, which the first is on a Tuesday, the fourth is on a Friday that we try to schedule a meeting for that week. With that before I move to do it and get shot down with that. That’d be reasonable. People hunt me down.
1:22:56
Second, second, your motion.
1:22:59
Oh, okay. didn’t move, I will move now. I will move that we that we have that we create a an additional meeting during the first week of September to discuss the sustainability attacks. And just that because I know everybody’s busy and we don’t want it to get too expensive. And in that meeting, we will there be able to have to learn what the council’s priorities are, because Annie will be presenting with them next week. So we’ll have time to do that. We’ll have time to digest the information, but not so much that we forget the entire discussion.
1:23:34
So voting, Mary, will you still second? Will you still suck? Yeah, okay, great. All in favor? Aye. Aye.
1:23:45
It’s unanimous.
1:23:47
Now we just have to make Heather do all the work. So Danny has a comment. Oh, yeah. No, I’m sorry.
1:23:51
I’m waiting to be acknowledged. Sorry.
1:23:54
Why did you say that it might be helpful if we send you a copy of the council communication Yeah. Last year that kind of describes a
1:24:04
wonderful meeting.
1:24:06
That would be wonderful prior to that,
1:24:08
and it would be helpful to you can read.
1:24:11
Yes, yes. That’d be, that’d be wonderful. Thank you.
1:24:14
Also, for one, one note of clarification for that meeting is Wednesday. A good day for you guys at 330
1:24:22
it’s fine with me. Yeah, it’s fine with me.
1:24:25
Cody. Adam. Okay.
1:24:30
Sweet. Thank you so much. All right. Um, well, then, if Thank you Audra. Appreciate that. And we’ll see in a few weeks, I guess.
1:24:39
So the final issue the final, General Business item that we have is a button rock preserve management plan update with Danielle Devine.
1:24:49
Danielle
1:25:00
Okay, well, I just wanted to touch base with sustainability board and let you know where we are with the button rock management plan process. We, we are nearing the end of this two year project and part of our public outreach has been staying in touch with the sustainability board the parks and rec Advisory Board and the water board. And so this week and last I’ve been meeting with advisory boards to give you the results of our third public survey. So just to remind you where we are, we started this project in February 2019. And it in it to look at button rock preserve and gather baseline data and get a sense of what what condition the natural resources are in what’s going on in terms of visitor use. And so this is going to be a management plan looking at all those items. Our first public meeting was in June 2019. And then our second public meeting was November 2019, where we heard summaries of what was gathered in terms of natural resources in the field, the data that was gathered. And then we hope to have a third public meeting in October of this year, it’s going to look a little different. It’ll probably be online. So that is still being worked out. The other public outreach that we have done is we’ve done we’ve conducted three public surveys until our third one was ran through May through August. And instead of being able to have it both at the trailhead and online, we we only had it online, but we had a good turnout through the survey, we had 831 respondents. That’s compared to 1000 respondents for our second public survey when we were able to use multiple methods to reach people. So, so I’m here today to just go through the results of the public survey and answer any questions that you might have. So first of all, none of the questions are required. So not all of the respondents answered every question. So the question one, where are you from? 160 people skipped it, but of those that answered 74% were from Longmont. Question two to alleviate parking at the preserve would you ride a shuttle 72% No. 28% Yes. Three the goals of button rock are to one protect our drinking water supply to protect surrounding ecosystems including healthy forests. Three provide sustainable recreational opportunities. Research indicates that when humans are accompanied by dogs both on and off trail their area of influence noise sent trash increases significantly impacting wildlife behavior and movement. How would you feel if a no dog policy was instituted? Only two people skip this question 64% of those responding strongly disagree with a no dog policy 25% strongly agreed with it. 11% of neutral question for beginning in 2021 staff recommends eliminating the button rock fishing permit and fee once in effect, anglers will only need to carry a state license instead of both a button rock permit and a state license. Do you agree with this recommendation? Again, only two people skip this and 48% strongly disagree with getting rid of the button rock permit 30 or neutral and 22 strongly agree with getting rid of it by visitation is overwhelming the reserve parking lot restroom staff trails staff recommends dispersing use and limiting overall visitor numbers cars people’s dogs by charging a fee on Fridays Saturdays and Sundays between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Do you agree with this strategy? 55% Yes, 28% maybe 17%? No. And then you’ll see
1:29:08
for Do we have a second page.
1:29:11
So check, check out that little chart there that’s got the green and the orange This is how it was presented the options. So, so these are redundant options, you know, but it gets a sense of who residents are and what they might want in terms of their demographic or their preferences. So the first option was a daily past pay per time you go 35% would would choose the daily past 26% would choose an annual pass pay annually. And those are the prices they’re split out by utility customer and non customer and then another 27% for the annual pass, who would be in the senior or disabled category. And then 12% doesn’t support doing this and dispersing our limiting visitors in this way. And then these are still being compiled. So I can’t get into the specifics of some of the comments that people mentioned. But this is just a summary of the the people who commented there were 131 written responses. Most people were talking about dogs then hiking fees, parking, trails, fishing cars, and bikes.
1:30:22
So now I
1:30:25
open it up to you for questions. or
1:30:37
so, last year,
1:30:42
or several years ago, the Ranger came and spoke to us and he was cleaning up 250 pounds of dog poop every day. And so we limited I mean, this is just ridiculous. But if he hadn’t said that, how would we know? No, no. This is the effect that people have. I mean, the dogs have and you know, it’s a we’re all we all love dogs, but
1:31:11
so we eliminated all but one dog I believe.
1:31:17
So now we’re talking about eliminating all dogs.
1:31:21
Is that an idea? Yes. Not sure that bad. Are
1:31:25
they together?
1:31:26
Yeah.
1:31:28
Yeah, well, yeah, if I remember correctly, the Ranger talked about how a lot of people who ran like dog walking services would take a dozen dogs up their window and not clean up. Yeah.
1:31:41
And lay there running freeze that, yeah, you’re chasing down the deer and every you know, it’s just,
1:31:49
yeah. So the rule that you adopted the temporary rule while this management plan is going on, was put in place to one dog per person on a leash with a Pick up bag. So that’s what’s been going on since May of 2019. And has that had a good effect? Yeah, yeah. Anecdotally from the temporary Ranger that we have up there now, yes, that’s had a good effect. And most people are, are obeying that that interim rule. There’s only a few offenders that repeat offenders in terms of, especially people lighting their dogs off leash in the meadow area. Yeah. And we’re seeing this from wildlife camera footage.
1:32:32
Yeah. Well, that’s good to know. Yeah, well, you know, people get very riled up about their dogs. It’s like we it’s the same as if we had a no child role. You know, it really is to them that it’s this is their body and they wanted to take a walk with their body and I get
1:32:50
that but
1:32:52
your body causes a lot of problems too. So I am very, very glad though that we did Institute Just one dog because yes, I’ve seen that to you guys. Somebody with six dogs, there were lots of people like that. And that’s just crazy. So, Mary?
1:33:11
Yes, I want to weigh in about the fishing license. Um, what is the impact of that? Do we need the extra funds? Is it worth it to the hat the extra hassle and the small amount of money that we get from each resident who applies for it? Can we just kind of get rid of it in the spirit of being more generous to community members?
1:33:34
So I’m about the fishing license. This survey was designed to be on a postcard at the trailhead. So not all details could be captured in these questions, and I didn’t want to write story questions. But the problem here is that it doesn’t capture all the information. So the money that is collected from these fishing licenses, doesn’t actually go back into rock. One point. The second point is that when when we had one Ranger up there it is a it is a big administrative duty to deal with these permits and go and collect them and deal with the money and work the whole program all year long on top of other Ranger duties when we’re short staffed, so, that was another, but the a huge reason for this idea of eliminating the permits is because cpW would like to stock, the stock, the reservoirs and the creek and will will do so more and create more recreational fishing. If we do go ahead and eliminate this, this permit. So for those reasons, so for those reasons, staff was suggesting eliminating it. And then the final point is that in all the years leading up to now, we hadn’t been selling out of the permits. Right so like they weren’t They weren’t limiting users and only those users were fishing and we were helping control angler population. We weren’t selling out of them. This year COVID has been a bit of an exception. But those are all the reasons behind this question in this suggestion from staff.
1:35:25
So, I mean, I don’t we’re not are we taking any formal votes? I recommend that we say get rid of that. And that we get rid of it. Can we just I, can I make a motion?
1:35:35
So that goes my quit? Actually. Sorry, Mary. That was my question, actually. Is that Is there something that as a board, we need to come up from down or even give an official recommendation for
1:35:46
not not, not at this time, I’m here to inform you. I do want to let you know that we’ll be back in front of the board and counsel with a draft document and some of these these decision points. more formalized. This survey was meant to put out to the public and get what are probably some of the most contentious visitor issues, some of the most controversial ones out there and gather the data and let you know about it. And then we’re going to come back and do this again. And so then yes, we’d like to get a recommendation from this board on various points, but not at this meeting. Okay. And I have one more question.
1:36:30
There’s a really big difference between the one dog people and the six dog professional Walker people. And I know this has come up in other places I cannot remember where but the two dog people are. They seem to be I live right near one of our fine little parks, and there seems to be as many two dog walkers on leashes as there are one dog walkers and I’m wondering if making an exception because there are so many people That just really want to be able to bring their whole family with just two dogs and wondering what percentage of the local dog owners or two dog owners, and if that actually would make that much of a difference in terms of the mess if we changed it that much. I
1:37:14
don’t have that answer. But I would like to point out in question three, if we can pull that up. Again, I’d like to point out to this board and just that, when we’re talking about these visitor use issues at button rock.
1:37:34
They are they are contained in
1:37:38
the third, the third goal for the preserve. So number one in big, big bold letters is to protect our drinking water supply and protect that local watershed. And number two goal for the button rock preserve and why is to preserve and why we call it a preserve is to protect the surrounding ecosystems including healthy forests. But also protects our our water supply and then way down. Third, third reason for the preserve and something that we offer to our public is passive recreational opportunities at the preserve. And so I just this context is important to keep in mind when we’re looking at all of these issues.
1:38:20
Right. Well, thank you very much, Danielle. Um, uh, oh, yeah, I don’t
1:38:28
think Danielle one question I have is regarding potential bias in the survey. I’m concerned that regarding the shuttle usage that might be looked upon not so favorably given that that was right after cobit or during the colon. So people are probably not so inclined to want to take any sort of public transportation.
1:38:50
But a good point. This survey was written and designed before the pandemic. But you’re right. We don’t have any plans today. Develop a shuttle system in the near future. It’s costly. It’s got a lot of things associated with it. However, we did want to take the opportunity during this management plan process to collect this data. But yes, now we need to put an Asterix by it and say, people were answering this question during the summer of the pandemic.
1:39:22
It’s a very good point.
1:39:24
Are there any other questions for Daniel?
1:39:30
Okay, thank you very much, Daniel. We were now on to other business, which doesn’t have any subheadings Thank you, Daniel. We’re now into other business which has no subheadings
1:39:44
I have to quit. I have two comments on other business.
1:39:47
Um, I think so. We’re items from the board. Oh, sorry. Yeah, that’ll be that’ll be an A, into sorry.
1:39:58
I don’t know who other businesses necessarily From actually,
1:40:00
but you don’t have any other business,
1:40:02
you don’t have any other business. Okay, so we do have two items from staff.
1:40:06
So just the first one is the pharmaceutical take back event is October 24. And this is really just an informational item at that event actually is going to be at Longmont united hospital. This happens every year to help keep the pharmaceuticals out of our treated water system and stuff like that.
1:40:29
So
1:40:30
they are actually going to do a card drop off event this year instead of taking it into the building due to the pandemic. They’re just gonna have you drop it off at the Longmont united hospital from your car. So, and then the other one the additional information in correspondence or attachments that were included in your packet for today’s meeting. Okay,
1:40:50
great. So items from board I know Mary would have an item from the board.
1:40:59
Would you like to
1:41:01
I’ll just some very quickly, what is our plan for revisiting the Climate Action Plan? I, I think that it would be much stronger if though if it was more research based that was one of my comments in our in the, as we went through it last month. And I think it would be great for the folks who have just joined the board to be able to look at it as well. And the second item, I guess, is related to this because when Polly brought up it was related. Is there still a plan to make this board a commission? And if we were commissioned, would that make us responsible for some of these plans in terms of having them live with us and be a home? I think that maybe that’s three different issues. But having been on the board for a year, I would like to, I would like to clarify the second two as well.
1:41:59
me it looks like Have you had some?
1:42:01
Yeah. So I just, um, I guess wanted to let you know what my intentions are as far as presenting to Council.
1:42:11
So
1:42:14
the council communication should be out and you should have it available, I think, you know, it’s publicly available. And so you could see how I described the Climate Action Task Force. And I have proposed next steps in that council communication that I’ll be presenting to Council on Tuesday night. So what my hope is, on Tuesday, when I go through the board comments with Council, that the council feels ready to take a look at all the recommendations of the Climate Action Task Force, and either accept the recommendations, reject the recommendations or request further analysis on some of the recommendations. And then our proposed next step is to take the record commendations that Council has accepted and do an analysis of those recommendations. So look at the cost impacts the greenhouse gas reduction, potential staff, you know, resources needed and kind of do a further analysis of all the Climate Action Task Force recommendations that Council has approved. And and bring that back to council at some point in time with approve proposed prioritization. And certainly, there’s opportunity for the sustainability advisory board to weigh in as we do that process. But I just wanted you to understand what I’m proposing the council don’t know what council motion is going to be or how they’re going to view it. But essentially, what we wanted is for council to take a look at all the recommendations, recommendations and decide which ones they want to move forward with. And some might require further analysis. Some might be rejected some they might say look at them all. evaluate them see what the cost impacts are see what, you know, the greenhouse gases and impacts are so that, you know, then we could kind of have a better understanding of what what level of effort it’s going to take to kind of weave these into different city work plans. So I don’t know if that makes sense. But
1:44:21
I think there is opportunity. So
1:44:22
it sounds that some of it is going to come back to us. So the second part of my question was to follow up on what Polly had to say about this board becoming a commission and if so, if that would change our responsibility for having a more formal sort of pass or authorization, you know, authority over the lifecycle of these plants. these various plants that come through here. It’s probably still with us. Yes.
1:44:54
Yeah. Just as you had to ask city council to change Name and city council prove that and you you had to ask city council to get rid of their prohibition on you discussing anything that council hadn’t given you permission to discuss, which was previously the case 10 years ago or
1:45:18
seven years ago.
1:45:21
You would have to ask for this to become a commission, and you’d have to make a case for that. And, to me, the Climate Action Plan
1:45:33
is a case for that. And having
1:45:38
a much hardier sustainability plan and much hardier sustainability department, all of which Lisa and francy and everybody in and Annie have all been working on is a good argument for that. But that that’s something that this board has to decide upon and build an argument for So, I would like to,
1:46:02
I would like to propose that we put on the agenda for the next 10. I make a motion that we put that on the agenda to discuss in our next meeting.
1:46:17
I believe you can make a motion to put it on a future agenda. Okay. I’m gonna make a motion that we
1:46:21
put that on a future agenda.
1:46:24
I will second that motion.
1:46:28
So,
1:46:29
so all in favor?
1:46:32
Aye. Aye.
1:46:34
All right. Sweet.
1:46:37
Okay, thank you. And then, Polly, but we will go back to you one more time if there are any items from Council.
1:46:49
Well, I think there’ll be a lot of things coming up if it will be. Okay, the only thing like next week we’ll see Annie and so that’ll be really good. Interesting, I’m going to suggest to the city council that they actually want this meeting because we really had a very extensive discussion on many, many things that are that we’ve acted on like button rock, and yet, you know, these, this is something that city council needs to, I think take the time to educate themselves on and now that long my public media is filming everything and recording everything. There’s really no excuse for them not to make an effort to educate themselves on some of the issues that are going up at some of these meetings. It but it of course, it takes a huge amount of time. I mean, I’m already on five or six boards and then if I try to watch all the other boards that everybody else is on it’s
1:47:55
impossible. Well let you know. That’s her job.
1:48:00
Big Bucks Paulie?
1:48:00
Yeah, that’s right. thousand dollars a year for
1:48:05
80 hours a month.
1:48:07
Anyway, big four figures. Well, thanks for your sporting of this meeting folly. But I do think that
1:48:15
Yeah, I don’t I don’t see any, any. A lot of what we’re doing right now has to do with is concerned with COVID. And just to remind everybody who doesn’t know, this council gave emergency powers to the city manager who runs the city Anyway, you know, the council does not really run the city, the city manager runs the city with the city attorney in this and the the judge
1:48:46
who we hire, but
1:48:49
so lots of COVID stuff going on and but we’re doing well. So that’s really important because none of this will
1:48:59
improve until We get covered under better control but Boulder County strength very well.
1:49:06
Right. Okay, thank you very much. And I believe that brings us to a I will move to adjourn the meeting. Second. All in favor of adjourning I awesome. I realized just as an aside, we forgot to have Adam and Charles introduce themselves. So that’s how we’ll start next meeting.
1:49:27
Charles introduce his auxiliary board member, the black fluffy one.
1:49:30
Yes. So at the start of next meeting, we’ll make sure that we actually do proper introductions. I apologize for that.
1:49:38
Great, thanks.
1:49:40
Have a good night. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai