Sustainability Advisory Board Meeting – January 20, 2021

Video Description:
Sustainability Advisory Board Meeting – January 20, 2021

For a transcript of the meeting, please read below:

Meeting Transcription Disclaimer:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

To listen to the meeting alongside a transcript, please visit:

https://otter.ai/u/ApETzzoOWr9PbN9tStRnGKv-kGI

0:00
But now like to call the January 20 2021 Longmont sustainability Advisory Board Meeting to order COVID please start with a roll call.

0:11
Yes, we have Kate Culbertson present. Mary Lynn.

0:17
Present.

0:18
Adam Reed.

0:20
President

0:22
cave all Meyer muted. She’s muted but she’s here. Charles Musgrave.

0:31
President,

0:33
Jim Metcalf.

0:37
Lisa Knobloch

0:41
is here as well. She

0:42
might be present.

0:44
Okay. Annie Noble. I’m here for Nancy Jaffe

0:49
here.

0:52
Let’s see Tim Ellis is coming in. And Heather McIntyre is here. And no, Polly yet.

0:59
I’m off mute now.

1:01
Okay. Great.

1:03
Thank you. Thank you for realizing.

1:08
So, when we have a quorum, we do have a quorum. Perfect.

1:15
So in our board packets, we received the board rules and regulations. That does anyone have any changes? They’d like to discuss? or

1:31
suggest Oh,

1:35
okay.

1:38
And now I’m going to hand it over to Annie. Okay, thank

1:43
you. So I think

1:47
I just want to check, I think you might need to make a motion even though no one objected. Is that right? Whether

1:52
that’s correct. And I don’t know if during this part of board during in the rules and regulations is kind of where our timeline for the meetings and stuff is set out. So I don’t know if you guys want to discuss lengthening our meetings, as we had talked about maybe in November, or what you guys want to do with that? Or if you want to bring it up at another time.

2:13
Thanks for reminding us of that. What folks think do we do we want to move this to a two hour meeting?

2:29
Could we give ourselves like make it two hours that but but basically, only when we need to go two hours, we basically end early at an hour and a half unless we need to go we just have that kind of built in.

2:43
I’m, I’m fine with that. That’s I think that’s how it’s almost how we’re doing it today. Just stay over if we have to

2:56
what what others think?

2:59
I want to say there’s lots of times that in the past where the meetings have been, it’s one of those things, I think where they kind of they will take the time you give them. So that said I don’t think it’s bad to extend it and have it be a three to five. And if we adjourn it for 30 as a goal. Usually that’s that’s good. And if we need more time a certain day, we can go further. But I’d be willing to bet we’d take all two hours if we had two hours. But Kay makes a good point.

3:32
I think three hours would make more sense if it was three to five rather than 330. To find 30.

3:43
Yeah, I mean, I, I personally could make the three to five work. No problem. That’s That’s easy. I think I’m on my end, I guess the question is whether or not we feel that this year, we’re just gonna start with a new year. Or if we still feel that we have a lot of things that we want to make up, in which case, having an extra half hour makes a lot of sense. It seemed that an hour and a half work reasonably well. Pre world falling apart. But then we just have all these other things we’ve been trying to kind of crammed together and and make up for. So I don’t know if it necessarily needs to be a permanent thing. But we might want to institute it for a while until we feel we’ve kind of like put out fires and caught up on all of the important things that we might have missed.

4:33
Yeah, I’ll second dad as a new board member. I feel like there’s a lot of material to go over. And so I feel like it doesn’t hurt to start out with a two hour meeting this year. And I also like the idea of going three to five versus 330 to 530.

4:50
If If anyone does anyone object to the three o’clock start time, because if not, then I’ll just make a motion. I move that we schedule three to five And that we end whenever we’re actually done before two hours.

5:06
I’ll second that.

5:08
All in favor? Aye. Aye.

5:11
Aye.

5:14
That’s unanimous.

5:16
I assume some tether didn’t say anything that the 330 would actually work from a logistical or three would work from a logistical point of view as well. Yes,

5:24
we can make that work for staff as well.

5:27
Heather has to be there anyway. Right?

5:29
I do. It probably adjust other people’s schedules a little bit, but I think they would probably prefer that to the ending at 530. So I don’t know Elisa, Anna, you guys want to weigh in?

5:42
Works for me, it works for me as well. And to be honest, I appreciate the board’s flexibility on that, because I feel like there are a lot of times in the last three months of the year last year where we were really trying to get a lot of information out. And this really felt like the discussion was cut short. So I appreciate the extra time.

6:07
I might have a little bit of trouble coming that much early to check my audio beforehand. But so I might only be able to come five or 10 minutes before the meeting starts. But I use zoom for six or seven meetings per day. So I’m usually pretty good at making things work. No problem.

6:30
Okay, so I think this is where I take over, right? Yes, I think Okay, so we’re on the agenda item for the election of officers. So this is the time of year when you guys elect new officers. So this is a chair and the vice chair. And so, you know, I know we’ve talked about this in the past, the role of the chair is to keep the meetings going to make sure everybody’s heard, and to get through all the agenda items. And also to make sure that the public is welcome, is able to get comment. So at a high level, that’s the role of the chair. And I really appreciate all the work that Kate did last year and keeping things moving. Because, you know, we transition from having in person meetings to having remote meetings. And I think we’ve done a really good job at like, acknowledging and raising our hand and not speaking over each other. And that’s been really helpful and being thoughtful about the time and that sort of thing. So with that, it’s really up to the board board members to decide on who you want to chair your meetings, but that is the role of the chair. So

7:38
with that, I Jim,

7:44
I’d like to nominate Kate again, actually to be the chair. We’d missed a whole pile of meetings in the middle and i i think that that would be a good thing to decide. I’d like to nominate Kate

8:01
is that a second?

8:02
Yep. Okay,

8:03
um, does anybody else want to weigh in? Not you guys. Don’t take them.

8:11
Who’s your who’s our Vice Chair again?

8:13
Um, oh.

8:16
Violetta?

8:17
Yeah.

8:17
So maybe we should take it one at a time. That that’s a good point. We do need to also. So um, so I heard a motion with a Second. All in favor.

8:30
Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. You’re,

8:32
you’re stuck with this one, Kate.

8:34
Thank you.

8:36
Confidence,

8:38
the curse of competence.

8:41
So then now let’s talk about a vice chair. So the Vice Chair role is act when the chair is not present. And nominate

8:49
James.

8:51
James a second that.

8:55
Just write

8:57
any comments. Anybody want to nominate Anyone else? Any thoughts?

9:01
Now? Let’s get the boy girl thing and longevity on the board. Okay.

9:08
We have to even though it’s a hair situation as well.

9:12
You have a motion with a second. So all in favor? Aye.

9:17
Aye, aye.

9:19
Okay, so we have Chair and Vice Chair and I’ll turn it back over to the chair. And thank you.

9:25
Thank you. So the next item is a designation of posting place. So it’s been recommended that we designate the city’s website as the official posting location and that we continue to post hard post a hardcopy agenda for public information. Historically, we have designated the service center as the official physical posting place But also, we also post one at the Civic Center. So the what’s before us then is to either to either keep posting hard copies at these places and use the city site website is the official place that we post our our agenda is that Am I understanding that? Yeah, okay. Yeah.

10:28
So the city attorney’s office has updated the staff regarding the statute about all of that stuff and suggested now that the city’s website, which is the public portal that we’ve been using, be the official designated space, but also continued to do a physical location in the event that the electricity or something is out, people would still be able to have noticed a notification of that meeting. And typically, we do that at the service center. As our posting place, we could do that as a secondary one. We also always send one up to the Civic Center. So we would continue to do that as well. That’s what you all would prefer.

11:11
By Civic Center, you mean town hall? Yeah.

11:16
It was a physical ones are both still accessible because of COVID things? Like, would it be reasonable for people to pop in and see those?

11:23
they currently are open to the public? Yes.

11:26
Okay. Great.

11:27
And if not, they’re always posted in a window while they once at the Civic Center are posted in a window. So even if the facility was closed, they would still be able to see the agenda there.

11:38
Great, thank you.

11:41
And so we need to vote on this.

11:43
Yes, please. Okay. Does

11:47
anybody know that we continue as, as currently.

11:52
I second Mary’s motion.

11:55
All in favor?

11:56
Aye. Aye.

11:58
Okay. And that was unanimous. Okay.

12:04
Next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from the last meeting. Anybody willing to make a motion there?

12:17
I will move to approve the minutes from the November 18. Meeting.

12:23
I second that motion?

12:25
All in favor? Hi.

12:29
Stan. I wasn’t

12:32
I wasn’t here. abstain? Yes, that’s what I’m looking for.

12:38
Okay, but I

12:42
you’re muted. There’s no

12:43
objection to you guys approving the minutes. All right.

12:50
Okay, um, I would now like to open it up for the public invited to be heard. Each person will wishing to speak will be unmuted to speak one at a time. What is your turn, please state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes for comment. And I will be keeping time.

13:13
So it looks like neither one of our guests have raised their hand to speak. So I think we’re okay to move on.

13:19
Alright.

13:24
Are there any revisions or documents to be submitted from the staff? Okay. All right. All right, then we will move on to general business. I would ask the board members to please hold comments and questions until the end of each presentation after the staff has finished presenting. So, Lisa, the floor is yours.

13:55
Great. Hi, everyone. It’s really nice to see you all. It’s been at least about six months, I guess.

14:04
Welcome back. Welcome.

14:05
Thank you. Thank you. I have a tiny, adorable baby around here somewhere. I’ll grab him if my husband goes by. But yeah, Happy New Year to everybody. I thought before we get into my presentation, I’m unless you all have already done this. But given that we didn’t have a December meeting? I don’t think so. But we have some new board members and I thought it’d be great for folks to introduce themselves. Have we done that yet? Well, no, everybody, you have done that. And I just missed it.

14:38
Okay, the only one that is back so yeah, and maybe maybe they don’t introduce themselves to you, Lisa.

14:47
I don’t know. I bet I’ve not met Charles or Adam.

14:52
So Charles and Adam, do you want to do a quick introduction? I guess I should say okay, you should. Yes.

15:01
Supposed to introduce the black fluffy cat to he promised.

15:05
He’s He’s out and about somewhere else today. Hi, good to meet you, Kay and Lisa Charles Musgrave, a new board member starting late last summer. And I’m a scientist. I’m actually computational quantum Justin, do research in the renewable energy area at the University of Colorado. Good to meet you. Hey, to meet you.

15:32
Hello, my name is Adam. I’m also a new board member. I started in August as well. And I’m a scientist as well. And my background is in quantum information science and I currently work in industry building quantum computers.

15:47
All right. Okay.

15:49
Well, real quick, Charles and Adam I I’m Kay ball Meyer I, I work in environmental engineering and consulting. So I have my own little environmental company here up in Longmont. And I’ve been on the board for two years with the exception of the period of time that you’ve been there. My first term expired in June and I think I was allowed to be a guest in July for lack of having a chair. But I am returning to the board again now. So I had a few months off and Miss Smith for the most part last six months. But I’m hopefully back for a couple more years and glad to see everyone.

16:38
Welcome back.

16:40
Great, thanks, everyone. So I’m used to Knobloch, I’m the sustainability Program Manager. And so I manage the sustainability program. And I’m the staff liaison for this board. So I’m excited to get the year kicked off here. I also want to announce that Violetta has had to step down, she’s traveling for the next six months or so. So she just sent us her her resignation. So I imagine we’ll be getting looking for somebody to fill her spot pretty soon. But Heather, do you want to share the presentation then? There we go. Great. Do you want do I just tell you when to advance the slide? Since I’m a little rusty now on this part? Yes. Okay, great. Every, every format is a little bit different. So since it’s our first meeting of the year, and because we do have a couple of new board members, although I know that we’ve sent you introductory materials, and y’all are probably pretty familiar. I just want to really briefly go over the sustainability plan and the climate action recommendation report and highlight our priorities for 2021. And talk about a little bit of new approach to our work plan for this year. So you can move it to the next slide. I think it’s helpful to just kind of ground ourselves in the sustainability vision. This came out of our planning process when we did the sustainability plan back in 2016. But just as a reminder, from folks, this is really our touchstone that we’re all the work that we’re doing is really trying to build us toward this engaged community that promotes environmental stewardship, economic vitality and social equity, to create a sustainable, thriving future for all. Next slide. Oh, that was nice. I didn’t know that that these are 10 topic areas that are covered in the sustainability plan. You all should have the materials from the plan, and particularly the plan summary, which is a pretty good overview of the strategies that are in each of these topic areas. What I think folks may or may not know, because we haven’t talked about this for a while. But when we did the sustainability plan, it was done very much in collaboration with envision Longmont, which is the comprehensive plan that had sustainability and resilience as really critical and key components. So that plan. And that plan is set up around these six, overarching guiding principles. And then there’s goals and policies within each of those principles. And all of the sustainability topic areas are tied to those principles and goals. We’re going to have Aaron from Planning and Development Services come and do an update on envision sometime early this year. That was one of the things that we had wanted to do last year that we didn’t get to do because of so many meeting cancellations with COVID. And then the focus on getting the climate action report completed. And we will be we have funding to update both the sustainability plan and the Envision plan beginning sometime this year that will go into next year as well. So begin sometime in the latter half of this year. And we’re still working out how how we’re going to be looking at integrating those plans and what that really look like but just so it’s on your Radar will start that process at some point later in the year. Next slide. So just as a reminder to folks, this is probably a little bit hard to see. But we do have the long run indicators website that’s available to highlight our progress that we’re making toward meeting our sustainability targets along with the vision targets as well. This data is updated on an annual basis, it has 2019 data, but not yet 2020 data, but it’s a good resource for folks, if you really want to see where we’re at with meeting our current targets. And as an example, I just pulled out the energy page here. So if you click on the energy icon, it’ll show you the objective from that section of the sustainability plan, you can actually click on that link there, and it’ll take you to that section and the sustainability plan. And that goes through all of our targets and indicators and metrics and our current data available. So I just want to remind folks that that’s a resource for, for people. That if you want to dig down deep into where we’re at with each of these things, next time.

21:08
And then I just want to highlight that even though we’re still pretty new, as far as the sustainability program goes, we do have some notable progress that I just wanted to highlight in some areas that really are advancing us towards meeting those goals. And that’s in the community area. One of our targets is increasing neighborhood initiatives. And we’ve talked to you all a number of times around the soul and the sustainable neighborhood solutions program that we’ve been building with our community services department. And those are really moving forward pretty strongly. And I’m excited to bring some updates to you later this year. The work that Bernice has been doing, particularly with the Sustainable Business program, we now have 41 certified sustainable businesses 13 of which are minority owned businesses have 100% renewable energy goal, we’re just now just over 50%, reducing our waste consumption. So we’ve actually met our goal of reducing household trash consumption to less than two pounds per person per day. And then we are on track to meeting our target and Water Conservation around reducing our water, raw water demand as well. So we’re, we’re doing well, I think that we have a lot of exciting stuff happening. And as we get into those updates of the sustainability plan and envision, I think we’ll be refreshing some of those targets as well, especially some of those ones that were really close to meeting or that we’ve already met. Next slide. So as you all know, in addition to the sustainability plan, we also now have a climate action recommendations report, which have developed recommendations and these six topic areas with equity as a central component, it’s likely that these will be incorporated in some way into those plan updates. But what that looks like is really yet to be determined. Next slide. And then, as you all recall, last fall, this was when I was out on the bed francy. And Annie worked with staff from across the organization to evaluate all of the Climate Action Task Force recommendations, with these different criteria and a number of different waiting scenarios to identify timelines for implementation of all 27 recommendations, as well as make some staff modifications to those recommendations for feasibility. Next slide. And this slide was part of what was presented to Council in December that highlights the outcome of those waiting scenarios, and the proposed implementation timelines of each of those recommendations. So you can see the near term strategies, they identified 12 near term strategies, those are marked in green. And those are the things that will be implemented sometime over the next two year timeframe. So this year in 2022, and then midterm strategies, which are the 2023 to 2027 timeframe, and then there’s a handful of ones that that we identified as monitor over time, which just means that there are some pieces of information that we just want to watch as they evolve. So not that they’re that we’re not going to implement these strategies, per se, but there’s other things that we need to pay attention to in order to determine if those are really the best course of action.

24:32
Next time.

24:35
So that proposal was approved. So francy just took that to Council in early December. And we’re moving forward with the 12 year term recommendations which are listed here. Many of those recommendations are actually programs or projects that were already in existence are underway. A lot of those were just an expansion of existing programs. Those are the ones that are marked here with the stars that you can See, the top five that are highlighted in yellow are ones that are already budgeted. Those were things that were already underway. The next three that are highlighted in pink are budgeted for 2021. But we’ll probably also need some additional funding for 2022. And then the ones highlighted in purple are the ones that staff applied for Boulder County sustainability tax funding for if you recall those 100 stations in the fall of last year. So those will be happening in 2021. And then they are highlighted recommendations are ones that are really going to need additional research in terms of determining budget needs, and how best to implement those. And then we’re now in the process. I just started this week of meeting with lead staff on each of these recommendations to get implementation plans of their way. And we’ll use that as our foundation for reporting. Back to you all answer City Council. And I’ll talk a little bit more about that in a minute here. Next, all right. So as you also recall, equity was a central component of the Climate Action Task Force recommendations. And the just transition plan Committee, which is now called the equitable Climate Action Team, that concurrently alongside the Climate Action Task Force to develop their definition of equitable climate action, to provide feedback to the Climate Action Task Force on how to best integrate equity into their recommendations, and then also develop their own set of recommendations as well that were included in the climate action recommendations report. And I just want to highlight kind of this overarching, sort of not only what is equitable climate action, but what do we mean when we talk about equity more broadly. Next slide. So this is just an overview of the recommendations adjust transition plan committee put together. And we’ve adapted. I can’t say we because I haven’t been part of that process. But granthi has worked with the equitable Climate Action Team to adapt these recommendations into an equity checklist, which is a resource that will be used by staff in the implementation of the Climate Action Task Force recommendations. And so as we’re getting our 2021 planning underway, we’re also chatting with folks about how best to incorporate this into the implementation process and how to continue to work with equitable Climate Action Team to make sure that as we are doing that implementation that that equity piece is really a core consideration. So all of that really serves as background to identify our priorities for 2021, which are the areas listed here. And these are really kind of the higher level bucket areas that came out of the climate action, recommendations report. Climate change, air quality, electrification and energy efficiency, transportation, waste reduction, diversion, and water conservation. And then these pieces of equity and resilience that really will be integrated through through all of these priorities. And in a shift from how we’ve approached our work plan. Last year where we had, in theory, obviously, this is not the way that things played out, because of COVID. We had worked with you early in the year last year to identify what your priorities were, and then tried to lay out a schedule of bringing updates and presentations and things to you over the course of the year around each of those priorities. Obviously, a lot of that didn’t happen. And then as you all mentioned, some of those things were more comprehensive than I think maybe anticipated. And we’re trying to, to do too much in each meeting. So we’re trying to not necessarily scale back but have a little bit more of a flexible approach this year, based on what you all identified as those priorities last year, as well as what we know to be priorities coming down from City Council, excuse me around climate action in these areas in particular here. And then try to bring relevant items to you to review and provide feedback for as those opportunities arise rather than try to have a set schedule, so that you have a more of an opportunity to advise City Council on those particular items. So that’ll be a little bit of a,

29:36
a process to try to get the timing of all of that figured out of understanding what priorities are coming from City Council, what things might be on the city council agenda that we want to bring to this group so that you can provide that feedback to city council as well as playing more of an advisory role. And then we’re also working with our different divisions and departments to identify projects and plans. ends happening in 2021. That should also come to you all for review and feedback. So I’ll show you in a few slides here, a proposed 2021 work plan that shows that kind of more flexibility rather than trying to assign specific topic areas for each one. And next slide. So here’s a couple things that we know that are happening this year. So the climate risk and vulnerability mapping, that’s one of the projects that we submitted for and received funding for through the Boulder County sustainability tax. And so that’s really mapping on an neighborhood scale, existing vulnerability indicators for climate impacts. So things like tree canopy and impervious surfaces, age of housing stock, which indicates potential energy efficiency, areas that may or may not have air conditioning, things like that that might be put people at more vulnerability for high heat days and poor air quality days and things like that. And mapping those across the city on a neighborhood scale overlaid with additional demographic data and things like that. The county is also looking at doing something sort of similar and complementary around projected climate impacts on a relatively local scale, not as granular as the neighborhood level, but we’ll be working with them. Because that’ll be a really complementary piece of information, they’ll also be looking at a mapping an online component to that where people can go on and see their neighborhoods and what the projected climate impacts might be, and that their proposal is still shaping up. I haven’t seen their their final project proposal for that. But we’ll be working with them in tandem with this project, the electrification plan. So that was one of the strategies that was within the climate action recommendations report was to pull together a committee to develop an electrification plan over the next 18 months to identify what are what’s our timeline and strategies over the next, you know, probably two decades or so somewhere in that this plan will help identify that timeline of transitioning us away from fossil fuels. And so we’ll be bringing updates on that to this group is that evolves, LPC is leading that process, but I’ll be participating in that as well. The sustainability plan and envision updates that I mentioned a minute ago. And then also some new priorities around waste services and waste reduction. Bob Allen from our operations group, and Charlie candidatus, who’s come to this group numerous times is our sanitation manager will be going to city council in early February to propose some additional items around waste services for waste reduction. And we’ll bring those updates back to this group as well. And then ongoing updates on some of our ongoing programs as those things are relevant. And then one of the things that I wanted to mention is one of the other projects that we had submitted sustainability tax funding for isn’t it was a climate equity and engagement position, we’re looking for funding for a part time position to really help us with the equitable Climate Action Team, and the implementation of the equity checklist as well as community engagement as we get into implementation of climate action recommendations. And then the we were approached in terms of potentially revising that to be a little bit more broad support and city wide equity work as well. So we’re we’re discussing that and figuring out the details of that currently, which I will be keeping you updated on. And the next slide. So I’m also proposing change to the format and frequency of progress reporting. So currently, what we have been doing for the last few years are these quarterly reports that go through all of the sustainability strategies, which are I think, 50, some strategies. That’s just more of a status report of each of those strategies and some notable highlights, and it’s been in a spreadsheet format. It’s been

34:36
very comprehensive but but not very easily digestible. And I know most of you have been on the board long enough and have seen those reports. And it’s just more of an informational item to this group and to city council, where each of those strategies were at in terms of their implementation, that was direction from a previous city council that was in place When we adopt first adopted the sustainability plan, and I think we’re far enough along now that we really want to move towards a different reporting format. And so what I’m proposing to Council on this is going next week is to transition from a quarterly reporting format to a bi annual reporting format. So we’ll do a mid year and an end of year report. That will be a much more visual based report and a look more at quantifiable metrics, as well as highlights in key areas of things that have happened during that time period, rather than just a long list of strategies. And what’s happening with each of those strategies. And we talked to you a little bit about this, with regards to climate action reporting, back several months ago, was that those reports would then come to you all for review, and appraisal, and then you all will draft a letter of support or recommendation, or any pertinent information and feedback that you want to share, that then will submit will be submitted along with that report to city council. And then I want to move to that this year. But we’ll have a transitional report in probably the march timeframe. So we don’t go, you know, six months and council hasn’t heard anything about what we’re doing on climate action. But it gives us an opportunity to say, you know, we’re moving forward with implementation of our near term recommendations, or moving forward with this new reporting format. And here’s what it looks like. So this year, there will be three reports. And then next year will really move to that mid year and end of year report format.

36:43
Next slide.

36:46
So all of that, this might be a little bit hard to see depending on how big your screen is. But I just laid out a proposed 2021 work plan with some kind of known things like you know, the first of the year, we have our general business, the sustainability plan review and this year’s priorities. Next month, we’ll be bringing the transportation roadmap update to you all, and the citizens climate lobby, which is one of the areas that you all had wanted to look at last year. And again, we didn’t have time with COVID. And then starting in March with that transitional report that I mentioned, and then really after that, it gets into this a little bit more kind of flexible, as I mentioned, present, like topical presentations or updates, for you to take specific action to advise counsel on or provide feedback for different plants and projects and things like that. And then there’s a couple of other known things in here. So we know the sustainability tax application will come out, you know, at some point in the fall. So we want to discuss early on with you what those priorities will be for 2022. And then bring those final priorities back to you for a letter of support, like we’ve done for the last couple years. And then of course, in December, we we don’t have a meeting. So that’s pretty kind of the plan in a nutshell. I know that’s sort of a lot for folks to digest. But trying to hit the ground running in 2021. With hopefully, a little bit more of an ability to stay on track this year. You know, fingers crossed that we don’t have any thing else thrown our way. Knock on wood, I suppose. But the one area that I think didn’t really get captured in that of what I discussed that you all had marked as a priority for last year was around pesticides and pollinators, and kind of that natural environment piece, there’s really not any component of that, that that came into this list of priorities. So I just wanted to flag that and see if that is still an area that folks want to focus on that we can build, you know, build that in as well. So I want to make sure that these priorities also aligned with your priorities as well

39:07
said at least I was gonna bring that up first. Yeah, and I have some interesting kind of new ideas to bring in around that. For example, there’s a Colorado based organization that develops probiotics, and it’s developed one for breaking down glyphosate and another one. I would like to, um, to bring to the city in some way some information on probiotics that can be used for breaking down glyphosate that, for example, could be implemented in a trial at our service center where you know, stuff gets brought in and then it’s ground up and redistributed across the city as mulch. And also, it may be a trial of a probiotic that could be used for the many many many beekeepers in the area. To sort of, to not only, not just be using, working with best practices, and maybe putting in some analysis, systems of analysis in for seeing how we’re doing in these various areas, but maybe try some innovative new ideas and programs.

40:20
I think I’m gonna back it up a little bit, though, before we kind of get into some of those specifics. I do just want to kind of check in with folks. The sound approach for the year generally makes sense for folks aside from the specifics that we might want to get into. Yep.

40:37
Yes, James. Yeah.

40:38
Yeah, I just one thing that I think would be helpful, I think the approach looks fantastic. When it comes to topical sessions. I think sometimes, even when we were meeting in person, you know, like, people will have ideas, and we’re not entirely sure what it is. And it might be good to have some sort of an ongoing process that we’re doing. I don’t know if there’s a message board way to do this, or something else where we can kind of propose and consider topics. And what we’d actually want to be have presented as a topic like, is it bringing somebody in? Or is there some specific piece of, you know, proposed legislation or, or something else that we’d want to recommend and make a vote on, maybe try to do something that we can kind of work through the top of topics that we might be interested in and a little bit, a little bit more of like a? I don’t know what the right word is. Sometimes I feel that it’s like, here’s the topic, make a decision. Here’s the topic, we got to decide about it now. And my brain doesn’t work that well like that. And so maybe it’s something that if we have these topical sessions planned out, we can start some sort of a process where we’re we’re like planning out what that’s going to look like, a few meetings in advance, I think would be very helpful.

41:51
It seems like you have some.

41:53
Yeah. And so I just wanted to ask a point of clarification for Lisa, when you said topical subjects are those? Ms. I was assuming those are subjects that are on councils work plan, and we’re working on and bringing to this board to get feedback and review are not subjects necessarily that are of interest to the board. There may be that as well. But I think there are, you know, a bunch of things that are going forward to city council, like there’s the equitable carbon free transportation roadmap, there’s several projects that we’re hoping to go through the CSX review that we would like to get this board’s input before going to Council. So it would be helpful maybe to get clarity on what that meant. And, you know, how it said, is that takes up in a meeting because, you know, I think if this board really wants to be have the role of reviewing things for city council that needs to line up with what’s on councils work plan, and what city staff is doing that, you know, we’ve been directed to do.

43:03
So I think it’s a kind of a both and answer to that. So you know, that area, that side that I had marked 2021 priorities is, is what we know to be council priorities around climate action. And kind of overlaid with the priorities that this group had identified last year. Like I said, other than the really the pesticides and pollinators piece or that national environment piece, I think, to the best of our abilities, we will be doing that what Amy’s talking about is keeping an eye on the council work plan so that we can bring relevant items to this board. I think that we want some flexibility, because how the timing works may not always align well with the timing of these meetings and the way that information needs to get to Council and how far in advance staff is able to get things on the council work plan. So this year, I’m going to kind of ask you to bear with me a little bit in, in figuring out how the timing of these pieces are going to line up. Because I do think that there’s going to be times in which that will work. And I do think that it was a nice point. In order to really fulfill the mission of this board as an advisory board to Council. That’s what we want to be doing. But I also don’t want to have a meeting that doesn’t have anything on it. If If we don’t have the timing that lines up and given that you all have identified some other areas of interest to potentially focus on. So that’s I’m asking for a little bit more flexibility. And I would love to try to figure out James some sort of ongoing process. I think, you know, part of the challenges there’s you know, there’s only so much time in a day, there’s only so much time in a meeting for us to get into any one topic and decide what you all want, you know, to advise counsel on or make a decision. And around. So I think that as we get into this year, part of my job is going to be kind of, you know, figuring out the timing of how to plug these pieces in to your meeting schedule, as well. So

45:17
I’m not clear what James’s proposal is, and I want to hear more about what you’re proposing. Sure, I

45:23
mean, I guess my point is that, like, you know, as an advisory board, what we really want to do at the end of any process is have some advice that we want to give to the city council. And that is, a lot of times that’s over something that they are considering, you know, even if we didn’t exist, they would be considering, and, you know, and so there’s some policies that the city has, that we are going to give advice on. And that’s great. There might be other times where we have things that we would like to advise the city council, or whomever, to also consider, and that’s also great. But I think that, what I would would just want to make sure is that when we do have these topics, that we kind of have an idea of, of like what the end product is going to be, and that everybody involved has enough time to consider what you know, their thoughts on that end product. So it’s not just, you know, you know, like, oh, we’re going to talk about x today? Or what is it that we’re going to try to accomplish and make sure that all of us kind of feel that as we’re coming into the conversation, that we feel comfortable, like what we want to like, know, or ask or say about?

46:35
Okay, so can we use an example to really clarify this? Like, for example, I’ve seen the people of pollinators Action Network present a city council multiple times, and that I don’t remember that city council had any specific plans or projects that came from that. So but say that any? Maybe your you were going to? Okay, so what I was so like, for example, would we meet with them and ask them to come up with some specific recommendations, and then we would research them. And then we would put together something that we would present to the city and you know, sort of in collaboration with another group? What are you imagining James? And are you imagining that we would chat about it somewhere else, like in a message or a workspace, kind of like a, you know, a sandbox of some kind, I just want to be really clear about what you’re suggesting.

47:32
Looks like Danny has something.

47:34
Okay. Well, I just wanted to clarify on the pollinator piece that I did hear from David Bell today that they are working on a community gardens demonstration garden at Rogers Grove this year. And that pollinator piece is part of that. So it may be? I mean, I don’t know, if it would be helpful to put that on the agenda to have them meeting Natural Resources project manager who’s ever working on that. Come to a meeting talk about that. And maybe that’s a good segue for the specific topic that you want it but that’s specific to that particular item.

48:13
Okay. But to respond to that, any. But that’s not a comprehensive city plan for dealing with pesticides and pollinators. Do you see what I’m saying? So if we decided we wanted that, would we work with that group to sort of create something that was more comprehensive? I’m, you know, I’m still, I mean, I’ve been here sort of a year and a half, and I’m still I’m still learning how we get things done. And I guess I’m still asking James, what you’re envisioning in terms of a process?

48:43
I mean, I think that that that gray area is exactly kind of what I’m talking about is that it’s, I mean, I like the idea of having like informational sessions. I think that’s interesting. But that’s, I mean, that doesn’t really achieve the purpose of the of the group. And so if we do want to have a session about let’s say, pollinators, then I think Well, I think that we as a group want to kind of talk about well, what is what is the what is the goal of that? Are there city initiatives that we should be endorsing? or asking questions about or whatever are their specific policies? I guess, I don’t necessarily know exactly what it’s gonna look like. I just, I want to make sure that, that we all feel that we know what the goal is for any of the topical sessions, whether it’s, oh, city council is going to be considering this next week. So we want input on it. Or this is something that we as a group think we should, you know, ask city council to think about or to act on. I just want to make sure that we kind of know that ahead of time and kind of know what the specific deliverable and goal is at the end and I yeah, I just, I enjoyed a lot of the times that we’ve we’ve just come up with ideas about Things that we think are important. I think as an advisory board, it’s important that we actually are finishing whatever that is with advice.

50:09
So, so it sounds to me like, I’m gonna see if I can restate this, James, that you’re asking that whatever topics we are proposing, we’re also proposing specific outputs specific outcomes around that topic, like, we’re going to ask that there be, you know, an outside group and or city come up with a proposed sort of action plan, or that they propose a project or something so that when we set our agenda for the year, it’s not just generally we’re talking about this, you know, pollinators in July, we’re going to be examining sort of an overview of, you know, what’s the status of pollinators? And we’re going to bring in experts and make recommendations to council so we have the specific outcomes that we’re going to be recommending. Adam?

51:03
Yeah, I was just gonna add to that, I like the idea of having concrete goals, what I think would also be helpful is having some identified open ended questions or items that might need to be researched more,

51:15
so that we could use that to inform decisions.

51:18
I like that.

51:20
Any.

51:22
So I just want to clarify that there are, you know, other advisory boards in the city? So with the pollinator specific topic? You know, it’s a little tricky, right? Because natural resources is working on a project. And I don’t know, off the top of my head, maybe Lisa does, what their overall policies on pollinators, but they may be working on these things and bringing it to the parks and recreation advisory board. So it’s a little tricky about because sustainability, so overarching, you know, like, you know, where what board might be working on this already. So to kind of flush these things out. And, Lisa,

52:04
yeah, I do want to just, I think kind of step in and clarify a little bit. So in the previous years, when we have identified the priorities of this group, to set the agenda for the year, the goal with that was to bring relevant information and projects and plans that were happening around those topic areas, they weren’t necessarily just informational pieces, although there were there were times in which this group, and some of that was when we had previous members. But they felt they wanted more information about a specific topic area before they felt like they could make a decision or a specific recommendation to Council on that. But the intention has been in that approach to bring relevant information about what weapon cities doing to this group in order to provide feedback to counsel on yes, we support this direction, or we think this piece is missing. Or we’d like to see more of x in this particular item. And one just, I feel like 20 just sort of got kind of blown up in terms of our attempt to do that. And with the focus on the climate action recommendations report that really dominated the time that we really did have in 2020, to get into some of these things. So this approach isn’t necessarily asking you guys as much to say, what are the areas that you’re interested in that you want us to just bring information in on it’s more, what are the areas that that you feel like are your top priorities that we can then bring? Again, because there’s only so much time in the day, there’s, uh, you know, the city has, who knows how many projects and plans on the agenda for this year, we need to have some sort of way to filter what comes to this group in order to provide useful feedback on that then goes to city council. So we’re trying to do, like I said, a little bit of a dance to figure out how and when to bring those to this group, again, also based on council priorities, as Andy mentioned, but I don’t also want to say you all can’t then focus on other things that may not be part of that agenda, because part of your role also is to be able to say, hey, maybe the city isn’t doing enough around this particular area, and we want to make sure that that’s on City Council’s radar. If that, if that makes sense. I know that doesn’t quite speak to Jim’s thought or proposal around having some other kind of process for sort of tracking and seeing some of these things through because I agree. It’s a lot to do. Say, you know, this meetings focus on this, we bring it to you, you make a decision, and then that topic is kind of checked off the list for the year because it’s not. It’s not quite how things work. And I do also want to be clear that this is an advisory group. But that’s staff that, that any direction from this group needs to go to Council in the form of a recommendation, and then Council, if they want to take that up, then direct staff to do the work. So I do kind of want to be clear that this group doesn’t necessarily direct staff on what to take up. But it has to go through kind of that, that channel, if that makes sense. And I wouldn’t necessarily anticipate this group in particular, unless you all, you know, have the time and capacity to be doing a lot of outside research on certain things. Like that’s fantastic if you all have the time and ability and the expertise to do that. But that kind of the the more clear cut rule is providing your feedback and technical expertise on the things that the city is doing that’s being directed by city council. I think, Jim, did you have a comment? Or sorry, man?

56:15
I just I yeah, I think that mainly what I want to make sure that I am is useful. And I think that just making sure that I kind of understand what it is, we’ll want to accomplish on a specific topic is my main is my main concern. That that’s, I totally agree, I just want to make sure that when we do have advice to give that I actually feel like I’m being useful in the advice that I give.

56:40
Yeah, and one of the things that we started putting together to that I think will be helpful. On that is is a memo that goes with your packets that will be more explicit of what’s coming to you and what we’re asking you to do with that information, which I think will be and I that was not my idea. I can’t take credit for that. But I do think that it’s a great idea to help set you all up for understanding what are we accomplishing? And

57:08
that’s wonderful. Thank you.

57:09
Well, so then the question comes down to me is how much is this? This board proactive board that is sort of analyzing the scope of sustainable issues and setting agendas and recommending those to Council and therefore to be recommended to staff? And how much are we are reactive and responsive board? And I think that that’s a that’s sort of like a dynamic tension that I’ve been not clear about since maybe this is what you were part of what you were trying to say, James?

57:44
Yeah. Heather, do

57:45
you want to jump in?

57:46
Yeah, if I can just clarify, it might be helpful for you to go onto the website and review the board’s parameters, what the board’s our function is in the city. I know, we have brought that to this board in previous meetings and stuff. But it would be very helpful for you to review that information. Also, next time, a board orientation is brought before you be very helpful thing for you to attend that meeting just so that you can kind of understand what the function of an advisory board is for the city and what your role in responsibility in that regard is. Thank you.

58:28
Yeah, Adam. I was just gonna follow up on Heather’s point. A former board member Cody suggested this new board orientation member or this new board this new orientation program? Do you have a sense of one that might be offered this year?

58:46
I believe it’s coming in February, I can send you the dates for sure. But I believe the next one is going to be in February.

58:52
Okay, great.

58:56
I actually I’m presenting at that presentation. I

58:59
believe it’s February 8, so it’s

59:01
gonna be early February. Thanks.

59:11
Are there other

59:14
thoughts on this topic?

59:17
It sounds like Jim’s request is, you know, from more information ahead of time, it’s being handled

59:27
through the memos with our board packets, and so it Jim is given the thumbs up. All right. Okay. Um,

59:38
Lisa, did

59:39
you have anything else? No,

59:44
I think I think that that’s it if you all feel good with that approach and feel like, like I said, can give us a little bit of grace and patience and trying to, you know, figure out how to best do this, who will work to make sure we’re getting you the right information at the right time. So

1:00:00
the

1:00:04
the the topic of pollinators is, I agree with Mary, I’d love to. If we can squeeze it in sometime. That’d be good.

1:00:18
Well, because it’s so tied in with the pesticide issue. It just seems like it wraps in a lot of a lot of terrain that we haven’t gotten to. And again, I do want to put out, I, I have read the board packets, and I do understand that we’re in large part responding to city council need. But I would like to know, with greater clarity, how, how much this group feels that we can be sort of proactive in, in the questions that we asked that we would like to see. I mean, I think I want to put that out there. With this let board like to put out specific questions that we would like to see addressed in presentations in the study session on pollinators and pesticides.

1:01:03
So just to clarify, the suggestion would be that we send in questions to the presenters ahead of time.

1:01:18
Okay,

1:01:18
you’re on mute,

1:01:20
that we, as a board decide what we would like to see addressed and that we generate sort of questions and sort of an agenda for what we would like to see focused on I’m wondering if that the board would feel that was appropriate and useful. Jim,

1:01:39
I mean, I’ve kind of felt like we, at least in the time I’ve been on the board, I’ve shot fine asking questions. I guess one of my things I run up against is something that Andy brought up, is that for, for every one of the things that we think about, there are so many different parts of the city that are already working on it. That I think it’s important, I think this is where this is where Lisa and Annie and francy and others kind of like hold our hand through some of this stuff is that they’re for any of these topics, I think it’s going to be very important to kind of have the existing expertise, kind of formulate the framework to begin with, you know, like, I don’t feel that I would be in a point right now, for instance, to tell anybody about, about what, what aspect I don’t know, maybe I’m not expressing myself.

1:02:30
I hear your point. I think what you’re saying is, we need to know what other people are doing first, before we decide what to focus on.

1:02:38
Um, I was gonna say, I think my thought on the idea of us coming up with things and requests and asking what we’d like to talk about, and what we’d like to learn about is, I feel like it’s going a little bit down the wrong track, just as we need to be respecting the Longmont city staffs position and their needs. And again, city council what city council needs first, what’s the Longmont needs? Second? If there is something that is has been brought to their attention, they’re like, Hey, you know, we have someone who would like to present on this, you know, are you guys interested? I think that’s more the way that things need to be feeding, as opposed to us kind of saying I’d like to see more on this. And and Yes, that sounds really interesting. And I’d like to learn more on it. If that’s the case, then I think we need to go out and look for the presentations ourselves online and learn about it online. And you know, if it’s useful later come back to it. But, um, I don’t know, I feel like this is where it was going. This is great question. Am I going the right way? James? No, not really. But I was gonna say I didn’t actually say to answer at least Mary, Mary’s question about should we be? Can we be suggesting topics that we should be talking about? I think unless there’s something directly related to that topic that’s going on within the city of Longmont. And with the sustainability program, it’s probably outside our bounds. That makes sense. Yeah.

1:04:08
I mean, I think I agree with that. I think I think that yeah, I think I do. I agree with that point. I think that, you know, at least, I do see our role as being here to be like advice for the city staff that are working on a lot of things already, and that already kind of understand the framework. And I guess in my experience, I have felt like I’ve been able to bring up concerns on these topics. And we do have, I’m not opposed to having some more like board directed openings, I guess. But I also feel that it’s really important that we accomplish all of the all of the topics that the city staff need us to deal with, as our top priority. And then see what what is what what is left after that.

1:04:58
And I want to say I have no opposition to learning about new topics myself at all. That was not to say I don’t it I was gonna say to Lisa, I have a memo that kind of said, This is what we’ll be reviewing. And this is the goal before that, I think would I would hope that would at least address some of James concerns from his question a half hour ago. No. But yeah, I was gonna say, I think I think if we try and stick to at least working on what the city needs first and what council needs first, and if you know, if other things come up in discussion in their good points, that’s great. But also, I want to keep in mind that we did, we did start a Climate Action Task Force, and their job was to brainstorm the ideas to focus on and our job is probably more so still, just to judge them.

1:05:51
That’s not the right word. But

1:05:52
you know, it’s

1:05:53
the right word,

1:05:55
then judging but provide the recommendation on you know, yeah, but but we weren’t, we weren’t hired as the the the brainstorm Task Force. So although we often kind of take that role a little bit, too. And I don’t think that Lisa, or anybody really minds it all that much sometimes when we go off, off topic, um, you know, anyway, I’ll go on mute now.

1:06:22
Yeah, I agree. Sustainability is such a broad area. And there’s so many interesting topics, I could easily imagine being kept busy for a very, very, very long time. To get some constraint in place, I think it’s helpful to know what the asks are from counsel, and what I think would be helpful, is there any way we could have some sort of feedback from counsel to know how our advice or any actions that we pursue is being used and if it’s helpful if there’s anything we can improve?

1:06:53
So

1:06:55
yeah, so a couple of things. I mean, we do have a council liaison, Holly Christiansen, who’s who’s not on the meeting today. But she’s really our conduit to the priorities for city council on bringing information back from this group in particular. So there’s that two way communication in place. As we get into this reporting, the reporting piece, which will be a little bit more formal this year, there will be like I said, you you all will be able to review the report that staff put together and provide information that will go to council essentially that, you know, so yes, we think this direction is great, or we think something is missing, or, you know, we think staff is moving too slow, or, you know, staff needs more resources to do X, you know, that could be a number of things that are included in that. And I think that, that that will be a little bit more direct in terms of the response and counsel has to that information coming from this group. And then beyond that, it sort of depends on on what what the focus area is and what level of input you provide to Council. So a really clear example is back when the city implemented the curbside composting program, this group was very influential in providing in an opinion to city council saying, Yes, we think the city should pursue a curbside composting program, and we think it should look like this, like that was very influential for the city council’s decision making around whether or not to pursue the curbside composting program, which we now have in place. So that’s a really clear example of when an initiative is being discussed by staff that the feedback from this group is, is really powerful. And same thing you all provided really comprehensive feedback to the climate action action recommendations report. And all of that was was very much part of Council’s decision making in terms of how they were prioritizing the what strategies became the near term and midterm strategies. So it’s not as clear cut. But it’s a little bit varies depending on kind of what the situation is. But I think there’s some I will do my best to make sure that if there’s specific feedback from counsel on the feedback that you will, we’re providing that that that that is brought back and some of those things are going to be more direct. Like I think when we get into like the transportation roadmap that will be coming to you in February or the electrification plan, but this group will be very supportive in terms of Council’s decision making process on how or what of those plants they end up

1:09:43
improving.

1:09:45
So they do very much take the

1:09:48
the

1:09:50
opinions of this group into consideration

1:10:00
Thanks, everyone for that great discussion. I think that where we’ve landed is we’re keeping things as is.

1:10:11
I

1:10:13
will move us on this is the fun part. Does anyone have other business that needs to come up? staff? Here any items for the staff? Oh, sorry,

1:10:28
Charles,

1:10:29
these are these are our This is the board items, items from the board. Not yet that what you’re asking or not? Yeah. Okay. Got it.

1:10:38
Next Hold on.

1:10:41
staff is

1:10:43
a wreck. We don’t have anything else. Yeah, so

1:10:50
this this actually connected a little bit with something that Lisa brought up in her presentation to one is just a point of clarification than another kind of these things about being proactive about items. So there’s a goal of being 100% renewable in terms of our energy mix at some point, I guess. 2030. And I don’t think we completely control that. I think part of that step to the Platte River Power Authority, maybe and, and so, which is not just controlled by Longmont, but be interesting at some point to learn how we influence that you know how the city of Lompoc influences that and how we can help with achieving that goal. I actually don’t know, the interesting, and then a concern I’ve actually had just studying recently. In fact, it came up in your presentation, Lisa about decarbonisation, the fuel mix, etc, over the next couple of decades. And I actually think that this transition is going to happen much faster. And the we’re going into the exponential adoption curve for renewable energy as wind and solar becomes so inexpensive. And what could happen is two things. One is, for example, community owned power could basically RIGHT, WE’RE build out wind and solar, for example. But because it’s residential powers becoming so inexpensive, that there may not be demand for public utility or that much demand for public power, because public power both has to generate and they have to do transmission. So we could end up with hundreds and millions of dollars a strand of a stranded asset that’s community owned. And that is not financially sustainable, which is part of I think it might be part of sustainability. So anyway, that that is one of the things that at some point, I don’t know if there’s ways for us to prime input on that if the city thinks about these kinds of things. But there is an exponential adoption curve going on, with the continued reductions in the price of renewable energy, that in some ways we could do great things. Platte River could put in more wind and solar. But we could, if we’re not careful about how we do that end up with hundreds of, again, hundreds of millions of dollars of stranded asset. So I know that’s my one of the things that’s been on my mind recently that maybe we could comment on for the city, etc.

1:13:21
I’ve counted related to that. Charles, I agree with you, I think that we’re moving into a position where there’s a sort of creative tension between distributed and decentralized power provider provision, and a lot of that is the residential adoption, like in the micro grids that Tim shakily presented on to city council, I would very much like to be in a in a trial project of something like that in the city of Longmont in a state like Colorado, especially where the cost of solar and the cost of putting in something like a micro grid and the expertise for being able to do that is becoming very widespread. We could end up with stranded asset and this is a case again, I’m going to repeat the question. How much does this board want to be proactive? And how much does this board want to be reactive? And since we’re talking about what we’re doing in 2020, I would like to add that along with pollinators and pesticides to one of our question areas, and now I will mute.

1:14:33
Thanks, Lisa. I think you had a comment.

1:14:39
Yeah, just to capture that. Sorry, Mary, when you said you wanted to add that. Can you clarify to me what your that was, um,

1:14:47
I wanted explore Charles’s question about future planning for energy. And in centralized and decentralized options, I want to see I want to I want an update on where the city is in terms of exploring that and to see if this board might have something proactive to offer in terms of sort of some study questions or strategic planning questions.

1:15:20
So I, I think that I don’t want to get too far into responses. And so this is this is kind of an area that I do want to, to maybe put back to this group of how you want to propose this, because we kind of this is where we get into that area where folks feel like they need more information before making a decision on something and we don’t, I think that it’s an important piece of information to understand how, what’s our relationship with Platte River Power Authority, and how the influence that we have in terms of meeting that 100% renewable energy goal. I think that ties in with the integrated resource plan that Platte River Power Authority just put out a couple of months ago. So this is an area where people feel really strongly that we need to have a study session or a meeting that’s focused on more of the informational side of this. That sounds like it might be important. So I want to ask you guys if that’s something that you want to do, and I’ll put that to you all to vote on, because that, although that ties to some of those priority areas, yeah. Tim from so we do have a rep from LPC on here. Tim Ellis. I’ll let him chime in in a minute. Well, I’ll let you chime in first him and then we can bring that question back to the screen.

1:16:38
Yeah, no, I think that’s a really important question. And we certainly can provide a lot more information on that relationship. I just want to let Charles know just as a an organizational setup. Both Mayor Bagley and Dave Horne Bakker, the Executive Director for LPC are both on the board of directors for Platte River. So we have a direct input into the plans and how we are going to meet those goals on the highest level. So just throwing that out there. And of course, if there’s any additional informational sessions or anything that’s needed, definitely, we’ll be available to do that. Right.

1:17:16
I feel like typically, we have a few sessions a year where PRP a comes comes in with some presentations and updates and where they are with the renewable energies that might be another another place to kind of ask the questions that you do have and give them a chance to actually provide some some real feedback on it.

1:17:36
No, that would be Oh, sorry.

1:17:40
Quick last question. So Charles, would you be willing to, um, formulate the questions that you would you think would be useful to have answered in that study session? on our behalf?

1:17:50
Sure, yeah, I could definitely do that. I’ve been kind of studying this for a little while. And, and one piece, so I think that’s one, one piece, that’d be very interesting. And I really like the idea of defending against in the city investing in what ends up being a stranded asset. And maybe there’s other things we can invest in, in terms of, for example, you know, the residential, power generation and things like that, and micro grid one thing, right? So, electrification is one of the one of the pieces that’s on our priority list. And if we think maybe even just four or five years out, especially 10 years out or so, electricity is going to become amazingly inexpensive. What are we going to do with those electrons? And so there might be all kinds of things we could do, and some of them related to, to equity, food, all kinds of things that we could do. So we could be very aggressive. That’d be that I think that’d be a wonderful topic. If, if the board would be interested in discussing that.

1:18:56
I saw your hand up a minute

1:18:58
ago. Yeah, I’ll just say I enjoyed this topic as well. I would love to hear more about it. I did have a follow up question to your presentation. Lisa, if it’s possible, just to ask one quick question. Yeah. Yeah, I really appreciated the progress that you provided. It’s like really exciting. What I’d like to know regarding the water reduction, is that just reducing the water usage in Longmont? Or is that also considering programs to reuse grey water?

1:19:25
And let Francey jump in on that one? She’s our water conservation and sustainability specialist. Yes, yeah, that’s

1:19:32
a great question. So the goal was established in our 2004 wall raw water master plan. Its main goal is like the overarching goal is 10% reduction

1:19:45
in our water usage by our projected planning billed out, which is just before 2050. So there are a number of current action items and that’s guided by our water efficiency master plan. So Currently,

1:20:01
gray water is not an included action item in our water, our water efficiency Master Plan, which was in 2017. I believe grey water is listed as a potential action in the future in the sustainability plan.

1:20:18
We have not yet

1:20:20
pursued it, primarily because our main focus right now is looking at land use and water efficiency integration. And that is a primary focus of staff timing working a lot with our planning department. That doesn’t mean we won’t look at gray one their feature, it’s just not a priority at this time.

1:20:48
Thanks, Francine. Mary,

1:20:50
I believe that it was included in the add on for the board to look at it was included in the Climate Action Plan that was presented to us in last summer in the fall as a priority for residential landscape and gardening use. granthi,

1:21:12
do you just want to jump in and clarify what that recommendation was? So

1:21:15
people are familiar with

1:21:17
that? Yes,

1:21:18
so there was a Climate Action Task Force recommendation. That was so the original recommendation. And I do want to note this one, I’m going to say the original recommendation. And then the staff modifications, this was the most extensively staff modified. But the original recommendation was a very high level recommendation with the overall goal to reduce water consumption by between 30 I think it was between 35 to 45% by 2025. So that is a very ambitious and goal. And when we went through the evaluation process for a number of different reasons it for multiple different categories fell lower on the ranking. So based on that, combined with feedback from this board, as well as water board, and our parks recreation advisory board staff provided the recommendation to city council that instead of pursuing this very ambitious goal, that when we do the next water efficiency master plan update, which would be is due in 2024. So we’d probably begin the process in 2023, we would do a much more extensive evaluation of a more ambitious water conservation goal than what we currently have just kind of bring some more detailed information to City Council on what a more ambitious goal might look like and what may be more feasible for the city. So that that, so it’s not currently we’re currently so in the near near term that until we do that update.

1:22:59
We’re we’re going forward with

1:23:02
implementing our current water conservation programs. And then kind of that more extensive research on more extensive programs will kind of probably start in that 2023 timeline.

1:23:13
Great.

1:23:19
Thank you.

1:23:23
So Lisa, I

1:23:27
feel like you you had an action for us. And I lost it. Do we need to do something? Oh, I

1:23:33
didn’t miss dress, if you will want me to set up an informational session with PRP and LPC on power provision and the integrated resource plan.

1:23:47
Yeah, folks, others.

1:23:50
I second that.

1:23:52
Okay. Anyone have the mic it? All right. Yes, we would all like to learn. Okay.

1:24:02
You’re married? You have something else?

1:24:04
No, I’m just hope that Charles is going to have his questions articulated about that maybe prior to the session, it would save a lot of time. If we could just get those answered all at once. I think you did a pretty respectable job of articulate beginning to articulate them in this meeting. And I nominate him to think for us in that regard.

1:24:21
Thanks. I would I would love to be able to talk to Tim for example, maybe and work together attend even with with working on some of those questions if if Tim would be interested?

1:24:32
Sure. Yeah, of course. Anyway, I can help. What I was going to ask is, Do you want something that is kind of summarizing what Platte River is planning in regards to the IEP or the resource planning to reach that 2030 goal or what they have in place now because they cut they agreed on one of the options in the eigrp? Do you want them to kind of give an explanation of that and how it’s going to work or if Other questions that revolve I mean, regarding, like micro grids and community based resources, which is part of the eigrp. But if you want to have them maybe talk about that aspect more, you know, it’d be helpful if, if they got some direction as to what they’re going to where you guys would like to hear about.

1:25:23
I would love to hear just yeah, how they work what the strategy is. So micro grids, I’m trying to remember is that the same thing is like virtual power plants, where you tie together residential power generation into a, with an energy management system and do energy arbitrage and things like that,

1:25:41
thinking that you can have virtual power plants with, with micro grids, or any grid, it’s just, you know, resources that can help manage a flexible grid, it can certainly work in the micro grid. And it’s probably really important in a microgrid, because you have limited resources to work with. So you really need to manage them very closely. So I think but the virtual PowerPoint, we’re developing what in some regard a virtual power plant with this water heater program we’re working on now, where we can call upon water heaters and manage them to align with renewables or to cut peak down. But that’s virtual power, because we’re not generating power, we’re managing the consumption on it. So yeah, I think the virtual power is going to be in a lot of places.

1:26:33
Did you get your question answered?

1:26:39
Well, more detail would be good, because we have to, we would, Lisa and I would have to pass something along to both Dave, my, you know, director, executive director and to Platte River to so they know what what we’re what everybody’s expectations are. That’s to set specific expectation, because there’s a limited time, want to get to the point quickly, and then want to be able to have people on the line that can answer the question, most appropriately.

1:27:03
Well, it sounds Charles, it sounds not not to ask your question for you. But it sounds like you were asking about distributed versus centralized. And planning for sort of like cost and capacity levels, as you know, planning, the sort of like the 10 year strategic planning and what kind of forecasting information is included as that strategic planning is ongoing? Yes.

1:27:33
Yeah, that’s definitely I, you know, I can keep going on many, many questions. But that’s one of the big central ones. So maybe I could go think of my questions and even solicit the board. And then talk to Tim about those and maybe refine them so that we can keep that presentation from Platte River Authority focused, but perfect. Yes, if

1:27:57
I could one more, one more point on that, specifically, if we’re talking about distributed energy resources, but River Power, has hired in conjunction with all the the cities has hired a consultant to do a distributed energy resource study that’s ongoing right now. So that’s going to be answering, I think, a whole lot of your questions, and it’s going to give us, you know, some kind of direction or options as we move forward. But right now, it’s in study phase. And that study is supposed to be wrapped up by May, June timeframe. So I think that may be a resource that can help answer a lot of your questions. But I think if you want a discussion earlier, there’s no problem in trying to,

1:28:37
we could do it all at once, as far as I’m concerned.

1:28:40
Yeah, if you want to wait till the end, we you know, it’d be a really good, I think a plan is to, let’s wait till the end of this distributed energy resource study in May or June, and present on it and present the results on that and how it lines up with the eigrp, then it’ll give you a really good framework, an understanding of what they and the cities are envisioning as a whole regarding the distributed versus the centralized power.

1:29:05
And I think that that would make sense. And then we can we can strategize, trying to get to that action piece of, I’m sure at some point that’ll be then presented to the city council. So this would be an opportunity for this group to provide feedback that then goes to city council along with that study. So I think that that approach makes a lot of sense.

1:29:26
Yeah, I’d like to get this board information as soon as possible because they get better input they need to absorb it and think about it a while so we can really get their ideas as part of what we’re what options we’re going to kind of bring to the city council as well. So the earlier the better, but, but we would have to wait till the results are coming out in that management timeframe to just start that process. I think

1:29:50
that’d be fantastic.

1:29:52
You’re fancy.

1:29:55
I just actually sent this to Heather but Platte River just opened up to More virtual Dr. Strategy workshops. And if any board members are interested in attending, so I send it to Heather to send to the rest of your. Great,

1:30:10
thank you.

1:30:14
Okay.

1:30:16
One last.

1:30:17
Yes.

1:30:18
Okay. So since we’ve dealt with one of the two areas that we’ve identified, that we wanted to delve into more fully, and we did that quite expediently, I’m wondering if this board can come up with our sort of questions and things we’re interested in around a pollinators and pesticides and just send them to Lisa. And she can decide how to structure and when to structure bringing that to us, if we could just sort of do that in the email, or does that work? Does that violate Open Meeting laws? I don’t know.

1:30:48
I’m probably what’s your thought there, Heather.

1:30:52
As long as you do not have more than two members on any email or something, you would be able to avoid that. But as soon as you get three people on there, you have an open meeting, and it is not allowed. So my recommendation would be if you want to do it, is for everybody to email their questions to Lisa and to me, and we can kind of collaborate with Annie and make sure that we get them concise, and then we could present them to the board as a whole to discuss during one of your open meetings.

1:31:25
Thank you,

1:31:26
Mary. I’m

1:31:27
tempted to nominate you to write our questions for us as he nominated Charles,

1:31:33
turning my second that.

1:31:35
Yeah, absolutely up for that. And I even have some folks that I can recommend that might be useful to bring in to speak like the PP. People and pollinators and Tom Theobald. Perfect,

1:31:46
perfect. Jim, did you have some?

1:31:50
No. I was just kidding. Thumbs up.

1:31:54
Alright. Awesome.

1:31:59
I am moving on and the agenda at 502.

1:32:05
Okay.

1:32:08
counsel is not here. So they will not have any items. information that was submitted with the or sent with the packet. Are there any questions about anything that

1:32:24
came? Okay.

1:32:27
I Would anybody like to motion to adjourn.

1:32:33
Sorry, my mute buttons actually on a different speaker over here. So I will motion to adjourn. Second.

1:32:40
All right. All in favor.

1:32:42
Aye. Thanks, everybody.

1:32:45
Thank you. Have a good one.

1:32:48
Take care everyone. Bye.

1:32:49
Bye till next month.