all right everybody welcome to the sustainability framework advisory
committee it is Friday August 25th and it is 1 o'clock we are in the City
Council work session room and we will begin our first item for individual
consideration we do have a quorum by the way so we will move to item a consider
approval of the July 28, 2023 minutes. Did anyone have any corrections or get a motion to approve?
I'll second that. Adam second? All in favor? Aye. Okay so great job on the minutes we will move to item B
receive a report call the discussion and give staff direction regarding
sustainability framework fund work plan.
So just here today to talk a little bit an update on the framework fund and the
work plan I'm just going to let you know where things look for this year with the
revenue and then what we're expecting next year. So whenever the fund was
created it was initially funded with five hundred thousand dollars and for this
this move year there was an estimate of four million so that's what we built the
work plan around was a four million dollar budget and we needed to have a
little bit more than four million but it was all scalable so we could work
through that plan. So we have the expenditures that were guided by the work
plan that was recommended by the staff and approved by the City Council and one of the
caveats with that is that we were not going to spend the money until the
revenue came in so we were going to spend as it accrued. The first year the first
five hundred thousand the climate action and adaptation plan has a cost of
$104,000. We worked on the permit removal and restoration efforts at Rolling Green
and Alfred Spencer about $31,000 so far. We have an item going September 19th for
the neighborhood air quality monitoring so as soon as that item gets through
council we'll start talking about the siting plan for that. That'll be 12 million
dollars. We're also talking to PD about helping cover the cost of an e-bike
evaluation for use at special events around the square so that we don't have
cars having to idle and work around while we have events going on. I think it's an heat
program. Parks will have a couple, PD will have a couple, and fire. So we have um, don't fire these things as well.
Can I just ask a real quick question? Sure. So the e-bikes are just for city use? This pot of money, yes.
Okay. Yes. And the green sets proposal, we do have a rebate for an e-bike proposed through that.
And then the electric vehicles are still delayed. We think they're going to come in later this year and then we're still looking to fund the difference incremental cost to move to an electric vehicle. We're going to wait on that.
On the, Catherine, on the air quality monitors and the council approval, when is that supposed to go to council? Do they have a presentation on that or is that just sometime in the future?
It's scheduled for September 19th. Okay. Yes.
Do you know how many units for the electric bike program are able to purchase with that $25,000?
The full six bikes with the extended equipment needed for PD and fire is six bikes for $45,000.
And we're still talking about that and how we're going to fund it. If that's the total cost remains under percentage, we're still talking with PD about that.
I have one more question. It's sort of, I don't know if it's related or not, but is there going to be the opportunity for further discussion about e-bikes in relation to the green sets program?
We can ask about that at the end.
At the end?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, because the green sets is kind of on there.
I'm right. Yeah, that's why I'm supposed to share.
So, the current fiscal year, the budget was $4 million, but again, we're not going to spend that until it accrues.
The revised estimate that was presented at the August 5th council budget workshop was $500,000 in revenue for this year and then $2 million budget for next year.
So some of the projects that we have pending, working with facilities and energy efficiency projects, so both HVAC upgrades and lighting retrofits, really working on some of our front-facing buildings and getting the energy consumption down on those.
And then also the fleet electric vehicle adoption, we're trying to encourage additional departments to use e-bikes, so there may be some more support going through that as the vehicles are available.
I think one of the issues with the electric trucks is surely stop their port truck version of it, so it's a nicer truck, so we're still trying to evaluate that. It's not necessarily best for port purposes, but we're working on it.
And then we'll also fund charging, because a lot of departments are nervous about getting a vehicle, but they have to take somewhere else to charge, so we would put charging in city locations.
And we're still working with parks on the restoration piece and the food removal and replanting. I think we have one more round of removal and treatment at Bowling Region, and we'll be able to start working on restoration.
So today I just kind of want to talk about prioritization with the work plan. With only having $500,000 expected for the $4 million work plan, what would the priorities be in your mind? What would you like to focus on from the work plan that we have in place?
We have our first stab at what we would suggest working on, and it kind of tracks what we've been learning through the climate action plan presentations, transportation, energy conservation, and efficiency. Those are kind of the back-of-the-book scenarios.
And then we don't want to walk away from what we started with the removal and restoration, so continue to fund that piece of it. And then hopefully we can bring in some water conservation strategies.
That was front of mind for y'all when we had the presentation, and then it's front of mind for us as well. So you're spending a little bit of that framework fund on some of those.
And I guess at this point, is there a focus area that you think we should focus on more or look at more than what's presented here?
Can I ask a question about the nature of the fund first? Because I'm a little bit confused. It's $4 million. Is that a pot of money that we're drawing down until it's gone, or is this going to be continued allocations for the foreseeable future?
And the $4 million was what was budgeted for this year. It was just based on projections. They didn't have any hard dollars to back that up. So that's why the commitment was to spend the funds as they accrued.
So I don't know how that has accrued. I do know that they presented a $500,000 estimate for this fiscal year.
Okay. I guess what I'm asking is, do we think there's going to be this fund in future years so that projects that may not be completed will have funding, or should we think of this as stuff we want to get done with this pot of money because we're not sure?
I think that would affect maybe some of the prioritization, how we think about the money. The proposal for next year for the fund is a $2 million budget. So there is the consideration to move forward with additional funding next fiscal year.
With spending the money as it accrues, it may make more sense to kind of have our work plan and work in arrears. As we build that fund balance, we spend that fund balance. We're not spending the projected money for this year. We're spending what we can build with that last year.
So it may just be a shift in philosophy of how we think about the plan this year and how we implement it.
Where does the money accrue from? What's the source?
DME revenue.
Is that tied to the Bitcoin company?
The fund was set up to use revenue from one source.
I would have concerns without going any deeper about having our funds dependent upon an entity such as that.
The business. And I would like at some point, I'll bring it up for the matrix, discussion about finding other avenues of financing of the fund so that we're not dependent upon the ups and downs, possible ups and downs of the actual business.
Does that make sense? Am I way off base?
What's an item? We can discuss that.
Okay. Well, I just wanted to throw it out there.
We can bring that up for another item.
Okay.
On the private removal and restoration projects, because that caused a pretty big uproar.
And when is the restoration part coming? Is that already funded and coming in? Because you did mention more removal in the park and I can't imagine that there's anything left.
Like, as far as removing more from this one location. And at what point do we bring in the restoration projects and has that money been funded or is that something that we have to budget for again?
There is regrowth of the privet that needs to be addressed. So there will be at least one more removal treatment cycle. And so we have to let that happen before we start restoration work.
It's not going in and removing large stands like we did in the initial removal. It would just be coming back and treating three groups. So we can address that before it gets out of control.
I would have to let Parks speak to that. Go ahead. Is there a scope of work that we could have in a report for a future meeting that just talks about the process and maybe who the contractors are and what that protocol for the removal and restoration can be?
Well I mean it's on our prioritization and I feel like a little bit more detail about that process and what the restoration projects are and what might be needed for at least myself before I can prioritize that back into this.
And that just might be me. And what was the amount associated with that? I know I think I've seen...
We spent $31,000. It was $32,000 so far for Spencer and Bowling Green. And so we would just want to stay with that and be able to do the restoration associated with it.
Within that $31,000 already spent? So I think we have about $50,000 earmarked for Bowling Green. So we would have about $18,000 remaining to work on wrapping up that project.
Okay. Actually we have a little bit more. I would just feel more comfortable seeing what the restoration part includes for those projects and the cost on that. But that's just me.
And I can say undertaking that was a multi-year effort and that's how it was staged. There is a preventable SOP that parks follows for park property. So we can share that with your future meeting. I think this is probably more appropriate for the matrix though.
Yeah. Well I mean I'm talking about the restoration projects and the prioritization of these projects. Like I don't want to make it number one if it doesn't make sense what the restoration part of it doesn't complete or it doesn't make sense to me.
Because right now we're asking if we want to continue with what we're doing or change what we're doing with the priorities.
Or continue, the larger question is continue with the improved framework fund that was proposed and to prioritize how we pull projects out of there by focus area. Okay. So do I have any comments, Grant?
The direction element. I'm kind of echoing what Keely is saying here that it might just be more background would be necessary to fully support prioritizing the removal projects. And I witnessed a lot of the debate and blowback that happened with the Bowling Green project.
It just seems that before we continue with these types of programs, we really make sure that our public outreach is there. And then we're reaching especially the community members that feel kind of a sense of ownership of those spaces that are in their backyard.
It was a lot of the adjacent neighbors that first witnessed what was going on and maybe didn't fully understand the process. As much as that is my whole schtick. And I love that we're putting this on the work plan just because maybe we do hit the brakes a little bit.
And so that we're not creating these stirs that might lessen the public support going forward for these types of projects.
Well, and I guess I need to be more clear. We're talking about finishing that project, not a new project. It's wrapping up Bowling Green and getting it through all of the steps that we talked about. So the removal, the restoration, the three-year process to get it to a point where you feel like it could succeed.
I thought you had said that there was one other area? There's a small area up at Spencer across from D&E that was cleared and we're looking at that. It's actually been treated a little bit differently.
The bike trail area? Yeah, the bike trail. And so it's got a little bit more regrowth. So we'll go back in on that one too. But that one is one that we want to do some way stations. So the restoration piece is what I want to focus on going forward, not the removal.
Okay, thank you for that clarity. In that sense then, I guess, do we have any sort of quantifiers for how this does help us meet what was outlined in our climate action plan or at least the data that we have preliminarily about ways that we can jot down and work towards those carbon goals?
Are there ways that we can quantify how many trees we're putting in and evaluating what the lifetime of that carbon removal for these types of projects will be so there's a way we can compare apples to apples with where the money's going?
I think that that's something that we can explore as we identify the projects under each of these areas and bring back a benefit.
I'm glad you just said that, because I think you're saying raw and level, these are the general areas that we're prioritizing, and then we'll later talk about specific projects, correct?
Then I would largely agree with this raw and high level, what we've learned over the past couple years of doing this, this is where we can really get a lot of bang for the buck. So that's my two cents. This seems like a pretty good list to me.
I have a question. What are the restoration projects?
That's what we're working to determine. Bowling Green does have a master plan, so we're going to make sure that it meets with their design guidelines, but we want to go back to native plantings, probably some walkways, some pathways through the area, and some signage with explanation about the process.
Who put together the master plan for Bowling Green?
From my standpoint, in terms of prioritization, I will look at this as which initiatives do the most to reduce our carton footprint, so that's just where I'm coming from.
Yeah, and on that, again, I'm sorry to keep coming back to it, but you said walkways in the master plan, which would mean more concrete, and so is that coming from our budget, and is that part of the restoration, if it's in the Bowling Green master plan?
I mean, I just don't want, you know, like our specific budget needs to focus specifically on certain things, but our framework is included in our framework, and you know, like, so I just, I know that it's like, you know, in the weeds, and this is an overall scope of major things for the prioritization,
but for me, I would like to know a little bit more specifically what this means coming up in the future, if we're putting our budget towards it, because the last thing I want is for someone to say, you know, well, your funding just paid for, you know, like two miles of sidewalk through my park,
and there used to be, you know, trees and a wildflower prairie there, or something like that, you know what I mean, so just, let's just really thought on it for the future.
But as far as, I guess everyone is concerned here, you want to, I think we're good with this slide, so. So the options are to just extend the FY23 work plan into FY24, use the identified projects, and just work with the committee to bring forward specifics on each area as we go through it.
The other option would be to start over and create a new FY24 work plan, identify priorities, and then we would have to scope, cost that, and then present that to council.
Catherine, I'm sorry, I had one more question I forgot to ask, on the LED lighting retrofit, is that for just, and I think you mentioned it, but I'm just seeking some clarification, that doesn't mean the streetlights or any other, it's like just.
That would be facility lighting, so indoor and exterior building and parking lot lighting, parking lot lighting may come into that as well.
The LED streetlight retrofit has been completed by DME.
Okay.
And just on that, so those lights, if they were, they would be bird friendly and dark skies oriented, right?
Absolutely.
Okay.
So option one or option two?
Adam?
My favorite option one, understanding that the priority list we just looked through is the continuation that you're talking about.
So I personally don't see a need to revisit those priorities.
It kind of seems like we need to evaluate what the outcomes of these first year projects are doing, and I'd hate to just stop it in the middle of it if they're still ongoing.
But we should finish these initiated projects and see what the return looks like, and maybe in the next year consider alternatives for what worked or what didn't work.
Okay.
So option one.
Option one.
Adam?
Well, the questions I have, I would like to go with option two, both from the standpoint of priorities.
Priorities are going to change just as with what's going on outside of us.
I think we need to think about funding as Keely was brought up.
I have my concerns about funding for the overall fund.
So I would really -- I have encountered issues which I didn't encounter before, and that's why I would like to go with option two, without sacrificing what has already been started with that caveat.
But I would like to look ahead in terms of the overall work plan.
So if that means option two, that's what I'd like to do.
So I guess, Catherine, does that mean that if we did option two, everything would just kind of stop and projects wouldn't get finished?
Or we would just be back to like ground zero, basically?
I mean, and like if Brent said we did continue with option one, like we could set a certain date to kind of revisit this again and maybe see if the progress being made is satisfactory or --
I don't know how we would continue projects that were not yet started.
So what we already have in the work through procurement, I don't think we would have to stop.
But I don't know about obligating additional funds if we don't support continuing the work plan.
Well, I definitely don't want to stop any projects.
There's just some more information that I would like to have on the one specific one that's discussed.
Yes, and we do plan to revisit this quarterly as we address the funding.
So we'll be bringing this back much more frequently to talk about where we are and how we move forward.
And this may not be in this discussion. You've stopped me for this question.
But is it possible that say we do option one, we continue.
But on the priorities, if you go back to it, say like before one of these things is going to get done, you can send an email to this group so that we're aware of what's happening or --
We can even include an update in the staff reports every meeting about what's on the horizon, what we see coming out potentially.
Okay, I guess I'm going to be okay with option one with the caveat that it's the removal and the restoration projects and the parks that I'm not necessarily in sync with at the moment.
But I don't want any of the other projects that we funded to be harmed because I do think that they're beneficial.
So I guess we can keep going as we're going.
And then I just mentioned, so we'll keep you more up to date on tracking revenue and expenditures. We'll continue to progress and identify projects and then have a quarterly report on the fund to this committee.
That would be super helpful, yeah.
And that will help us address if we want to consider other priorities going forward into 2024.
Okay, okay, so we can -- this is a good continued working process. So even if we do, we choose option one and we go, that doesn't mean that we can't --
We can store buy and we can come back to it.
Okay, all right, thank you.
Thanks.
And then add those to your hand and we can time the discussion.
All right, so we will continue with our next item for individual consideration.
Receive a report, hold a discussion, and receive feedback on Denton's Sustainable Schools Program.
We have Kim Jennings.
Hi, Kim Jennings.
Welcome back.
Hi, community members. I have brought you gifts for later in this wonderful presentation.
I can get it to pull up.
All right.
There we go. So I'm familiar, y'all.
I've spoke with you before, but it's been a minute.
So I just kind of wanted to give a recap of where we were, what we've been doing, and where we're going.
So I am -- the city of Denton has two waste reduction program coordinators.
Julisa is one of them. She focuses on multi-family and residential, and I focus on the kids and the outreach for the community involving the students.
So today's focus, we're going to talk a little bit about the background, touch on our audits, explain our recycling education,
a little bit about our challenges that we are offering the schools through the program, some highlights, and then the next steps.
So y'all know that it is a program that's a comprehensive sustainability education that highlights all the different areas of our sustainable framework.
So really any time that you're trying to reach kids or trying to reach any audience is that you want to be authentic and you want to meet them where they're at.
Like, for example, I put on my high-heeled shoes just before this meeting. I was wearing some Converse and a pair of jeans.
So when we go to the schools, we really try to get down on their level, make sure that they're excited about it and understand why and that they're moving forward with these changes.
So Julisa and I just came back from the Resource Recycling Conference in Orlando, Florida, and every single session that we sat in on, there was an overarching theme of education.
It was targeting the kids. It didn't matter whether you were talking about budget or policy or contamination or marketing.
Every single thing circled back to having education in the schools and starting them young.
So the fact that Denton has already been on this track is exciting.
I did not know this, but the recycling partnership, we use a lot of our marketing from them for pictures and phrasing and such.
They said that 88% of Americans like recycling, which is great, right? We hope we'll increase that number.
But 75% say that they don't have enough information given to them about their specific program, so they're not confident about what they're doing.
And about 40% of the population, they still don't know that you're not supposed to put food in your recycling bin.
So a lot of times people, they hear about recycling and they're like, "Great, I understand it. I see a symbol. It tells me what to do if it's a yes or a no."
But it's really not that simple. The fact that people still aren't confident in it shows that we have work ahead of us
and that we're steering in the right direction just by knowing that we do have something that we need to address with our education.
So our background. We really try to have a hands-on learning approach. Kids don't want to be taught that.
They actually want to get down, they want to touch items, they want to have a first-hand, real-life experience with recycling.
And this is something that's a life skill that you can teach them that they'll take throughout their entire life.
So we use this parachute a lot. We'll put recyclable items on there, or then non-recyclable, and they're like, "Hey, let's launch this trash out."
Kids love it. We do it inside, outside, inside the libraries. We can do it in this room. I should have brought it so we could all have some fun.
But one of the things is that they remember this. There was a little girl, we were at one of the preschools, and she came up afterwards.
She did tell me this about one of my coworkers. She grabbed her, she looked through her eyes, she was like, "I'm going to dream about this tonight."
So the fact that they will have a positive experience with recycling and playing with these items and touching them and knowing where do they go will really stay with them their whole life.
We do sorting games, we do recycle relays, or they're actually sorting things themselves. Our drivers, we go out to career days, and they love that.
And we try to pair that not only with a recycling message, but also a message of safety.
Safety is huge with the City of Denton, especially for our sawdust and recycling department.
So the fact that the kids can receive some first-hand education and know that this is why we don't play in the car. This is why we don't hide in the car or do anything.
Whenever they see those large vehicles coming, they know that there's a danger zone.
Because when we have them, we'll do a demonstration, we'll set up the cans, the driver will grab it, pick it up, and dump it.
And they're like, "Wow!" It's so exciting. We'll do it two or three times.
But the fact that they can see why we've got cones around it and they can first-hand know this is an area that is not safe.
And so we really try to touch on that with those kids.
And also, even when we're going to the schools and we have them, it's very hands-on.
"Here, hold these items in your hands. Hold this plastic bag. Hold this styrofoam cup. Hold this bubble wrap."
Like, no, these are not things that we can put in our recycling.
And then having that peer accountability is huge.
They will totally help each other out, call each other out, and support each other.
So the fact we can use this in the classroom setting is really encouraging.
The City of Denton, they service 44 different campuses.
And so it's important that we make sure that we have a big outreach for the program.
Last year, we had a total of 12 schools that were enrolled.
This year, we're already ahead of that number. We have 14 school campuses.
We have nine that are returning and five campuses that are new.
And then the audits.
So again, you don't know what you're throwing away or what you're recycling was right or wrong unless you look.
Because a lot of times people think, "I know how to recycle. I got it. We're good. Thank you. Please move on."
But no, you need to actually take a look.
And so we teach kids to have this personal accountability.
When we go into a school, it rolls into the Denton Sustainable School Program.
The very first thing I do is I go and I meet with the teachers.
I meet with the students, and we show them how to do an audit.
Julissa and I and Shelby, we all do audits out in the field.
And we show the kids, "This is actually what staff members are performing, and you're going to do the same exact thing."
So we're going to show you how to put a little bit of science, a little bit of common sense, and a little bit of accountability
mixed in with doing these recycling audits.
So like these examples here, this is Cohen School.
So they have their own recycling, and they go through the school's entire recycling.
Dyer does the same thing. They have their student council members.
They go and they collect the recycling from their campus, and they go through it.
They literally lay -- they have a whole room dedicated just for this.
They lay it all down on the ground. They pick through it.
And then they take the recycling and they put it in the blue bin.
So those students are very familiar with the process.
And just looking at it, they take a minute to think, "Can I recycle this? Is this a good thing or not?"
When they are filling out these recycling audits, it's an online form through our City of Denton website.
So they're clicking, "What percentage of the material that you see is trash?"
That's also, you all know, is contamination.
And then, "What do you see? What is the most common item that you see in there?"
So they can make these connections.
And then because we offer a recycling audit challenge and a sustainability activity challenge,
schools can look -- and this is just a screenshot of it -- but we have an active Power BI dashboard
on our city website that ties to these schools' polling data.
So they can look and see where their standings are, how many audits they've done,
and just have an idea of where they're at for their peers in that recycling education.
Another thing that we learned at the conference was when you're trying to teach recycling education,
it's not best to hit them up with policy and numbers.
And it's like, if you really want somebody to learn something connected to this specific topic,
they said that, like, emotions and empathy are the way to go.
So we really are trying to have this as a part of the Sustainable Schools Program.
You know, we want them to practice.
You know, when we do tours, we have an education room.
We have a public-private partnership with Pratt Recycling.
They process all the City of Denton's materials.
And our education room, like, will sit down and, like, with the young ones, like, "I pull out a book."
I read them the stories so they can kind of see, like, "What does this mean? How does this tie into it?"
And they pick up on it. They may not even use the word "recycling" in the book,
but they understand the process, they understand why it's important.
You know, they'll put down a bail, and by the end, like, the kids will know,
will walk out, will look at the bail, and they're like, "Oh, that shouldn't be in there. How'd that get in there?"
Like, they understand that it's not a perfect process,
but that it's something that they can be involved with and it's something they actively --
their hands touch it, they put it in there, they make a difference, they're contributing.
One of the best tours that I've been involved with was this summer,
and this kid's mom, she called, and she was like, "This might sound kind of weird,
but my son really likes recycling, and it's his birthday on Monday.
Can we set up a tour?" I'm like, "Absolutely." I'm like, "Please, bring the cake."
So this kid loved recycling so much, he literally had his birthday cake,
and we taught him about recycling. He was really, really good at it,
to begin with, but he brought some friends and some brothers and sisters.
So when you do these tours, these kids just don't come on their own.
They're also bringing their parents, so you're educating the parents as well,
which is what we want to do. We want the kids to bring that message home,
and then the parents have different questions than the kids, but it all ties back together.
So at the end of the day, you're going to have something that's worth their time.
We also have a recycling game, speaking of time.
There's not a picture of it on there, but it's like a free game.
We all may have seen it, but we pulled some metrics off of it,
and the average game play time was shocking. At one point it was 18 minutes and 56 seconds.
So an average person's attention span is quite short,
so a lot of these are kids that are playing it,
and they get addicted to being rewarded for them to get it right or get it wrong.
So they'll just keep playing for 20 minutes on a simple game like that.
For recycling, it's pretty impressive.
We also do recycling bingo. We really try to make the education component of it
something that just reinforces that message over and over again.
So I mentioned some of our school challenges.
So we offer two school challenges, the recycling audit.
So it's the number of audits that a school will perform,
and they're broken down into elementary, middle school, high school, and other.
So this is an example of one of the sustainability challenges at Hodge.
They did recycling wraps. I'm not sure if you all can read that.
I'm not going to wrap it for you or the mic drop or anything like I've done in previous presentations,
but I'll just read it to you.
When you drink your water, don't forget to put it in the recycling bin.
Then they're going to make it into something new, and then you can use it again.
Water, water in the stream, I just want to keep you clean.
Classic in the stream, I like water clean.
We must keep you good like we should. I recycle flood.
So they get the idea. They want to connect that to real life.
So our recycling audit winners, if you all are interested,
for elementary, Hodge with Concrete had a tie.
DISC Virtual Academy, unfortunately they're not progressing into this new school year,
but they placed second.
Forman Elementary took third.
And for the middle school category, we only have a few.
First place for those was Strickland High School with Geyer,
and for the other section was Conwin.
Then for the Sustainable Activity Challenge winners, Hodge Elementary was first,
Schulz was second, and then in the middle school it was Strickland,
and then other was Conwin School.
So what these students did for their, received for their efforts,
was we went and got them STEM kits, garden supplies.
So for example, Strickland got some garden tools, they got a compost tumbler,
some peat moss, things that they specifically needed for their garden,
not just like random tools, like the ones that they picked out that they needed,
they needed raised garden beds.
Conwin School, they were really excited about some STEM kits,
and so they got their teachers together and they submitted specific STEM kits
that they needed for the classroom.
So we really wanted this to be something that was valuable for them to do,
and something that the kids could see straight away.
Some highlights.
I'm sure you all will hear about this in other upcoming presentations,
but just some highlights from '22-'23 for the regional conference presentations.
Dulce and I both went and presented at Texana and Starr,
and we had received the Exceptional Recycling Partnership Award winner in 2022,
and then we received honorable mention for the public outreach,
but was even more impressive, was on a national level in Orlando.
The city of Denton won the small community category four program of the year,
and that was from the efforts of all solid waste and recycling
from their marketing to their operations to their car typing program.
Denton Central School was just a small part of that,
but it was a component and it is important of all of us working together.
So there's the golden recycling bin, yes, it's 24-plated, gold, yes.
We had to use that under lock and key and could not bring it for you today,
but it is displayed proudly in our office.
You all would like to come by and take a look at it.
But Jaleesa was up on the stage representing St. Deming very, very well.
I was really proud to be a part of this organization.
So if you all might -- I know that you guys are very passionate about what we're doing,
and I see it in your questions that you're asking,
and I get it, and know that Denton is right up there with everybody else,
and it's because of the support that they have from the community like you guys.
So I just want to say thank you for that.
And then last year for school year 2022-23, if you want to look at some metrics,
we engaged based off of like tours, tabling events, presentations and activities,
school special events and career days that we touched, we reached about 5,457 students.
Next steps, if any of you have had the opportunity to drive by the landfill off of May Hill,
you can actually see it, some of it, a portion of it from the road.
This is our recycling mural.
I'm inviting you all to come to a dedication that we're having next Thursday at 6 o'clock.
We're going to -- this is -- if you all have kids or something, this is for coloring.
Or if you're on your lunch break, sometimes like we'll like, you know, color ourselves.
But what was really, to me, was impressive about this was how many people were involved to make this mural happen.
So we requested submissions from Denton ISD students for their artwork to be utilized in this mural.
So you'll see that there's 24 different children's drawings from various schools
that are involved in the Denton's Assembly Schools Program.
And you'll also see that there's a logo.
There's Pratt's logo.
There's the City of Denton's Solid Waste and Recycling's logo.
There's the City of Denton's logo.
We just really wanted to highlight that it is a partnership that we have.
So this wall is about 38 feet long, about eight or a little bit more feet high.
And right behind there are the glass finds that are produced from Pratt.
So right behind that wall is just the glass.
The glass jar actually came several times during the process of this mural being painted to take out the glass.
But it is -- it was just a white wall before.
You probably never even noticed it.
But now it definitely stands out from the street.
We had to receive approval from the Public Arts Committee.
The mural itself was designed by Casey Martin.
She's an intern who works for our department.
And she's obviously very, very, very talented.
And we had the students whose drawings were selected for this project come out on a Saturday with their parents.
And they all painted on the wall.
We all painted on the wall.
In fact, I still have some paint on my lanyard from that.
So it's a really great project.
We're recycling -- I'm sorry, we're reusing this design.
Actually, Parsons is using it as a traffic wrap for another traffic box.
And here in the near future, I think it was out for print.
But this was just a great partnership.
I hope you all will come out.
We're also going to pair that with a behind-the-scenes tour at Pratt.
So they aren't going to be operating on the line at 6 o'clock on a weekday.
So if you're wanting to come out, please join us, give me a cookie, someone when they didn't show you the cool stuff at the recycling center.
So in addition to the mural, like I said, the schools are signing up.
They're continuing to sign up.
And I'm meeting with all the schools, some more than once, because some of the new ones, like they're unsure of -- they're new to the program.
So I'll explain everything to them.
And then they're like, oh, well, can you come speak to this class, this class, this class, and this class?
Absolutely.
As much as we can get in the school, the better for us.
So those meetings and opportunities continue to increase.
There's been more since this slide was approved.
Thank you all very much for your time.
If there are any questions I can answer for you, I'd be happy to take them at this time.
Okay, I do have a question.
First of all, thank you for the presentation.
It's heartening to see all the good work being done.
So I appreciate it.
I'm just curious, when you talk to the kids of different ages, do you get questions about what happens to the plastic and the recyclables after it leaves that facility?
How curious are they about the life cycle of that?
What I've noticed they're most curious about is not really that, but it's -- honestly, it's the messaging.
Sometimes they feel like they've been misled or lied to, like the numbers, the one through seven, when we say we can't take this plastic.
But it has a number on it, but we don't take it.
They have a hard time figuring out black and white with them with the messaging.
They don't like that.
It frustrates them.
Or especially when you get with the older kids.
We talk about let's make some sustainable purchases.
Remember, they're trying to sell you on something.
It may not be sustainable.
It may be sustainable for some person, but having all these water bottles just because they're recyclable doesn't mean that that's your best choice.
But they really try to hone in that message.
So getting them to think one or two steps beyond why the pressure for this or why it's being marketed towards them is probably a lot to do with their social media, how they're being targeted and the messaging they're receiving from them.
So just trying to connect those ideas on how it relates to them is kind of like where they're interested in going.
Some of the science will, I think it was Borman, and they were interested in this whole entire solid waste process.
They were interested in that.
So a little bit, but more so just as the messaging.
They want to know.
They want to they don't like they don't want the gray area.
All right.
Go ahead.
Just to the contamination rate is dramatically lower than some of the other audit programs that we've seen around the city.
Would you contribute that to any particular facet of the program?
Like, is it the auditing that somebody's watching you?
Is it the education component?
Is it just the in totality, the intentional focus on the students?
Are you looking at the fourteen twenty five?
OK, so so this is a is a power of the eye that's titillated using the information that's being submitted from their own self audits.
So that number is all of the audits that have been submitted.
The average.
So again, it's very subjective.
They're trained on the same, but it's whoever's reporting.
And we want to we want to let them know that you can't click on a school and see like what school is more contented than any other.
Because we want to be honest.
We don't want anyone to be like singled out or feel like they had to mislead and make themselves look better because they didn't want that.
So that's where that fourteen point three five number that is that is that is lower compared to our our usual contamination rate.
But it's you know, again, it's just it's just numbers just from then looking at what that what they have.
And I can't remember.
I know you presented on the progress of this year ago.
But could you just reiterate your biggest challenge for scaling across the district and then kind of get some pushback or disinterested in the program?
Or what does that look like for the schools that don't register?
So I would say it's just they're worried it may be too much work.
That's one of the things that I try to address with them when I first meet with them.
Mike, I show them it's not that hard to fill out this form if you want to be involved when the challenges.
And then, you know, if you have a specific topic that you like, a member of our sustainability team to come and speak with you on that, you know, we can we can crack that for you to let them know that we're a resource.
We don't want to be a burden to you.
We want to be an extra bonus for you.
A lot of times like working with their school counselors, you know, they want us to come back like I spoke with them.
Then they're like, we want to come out and talk about wildlife.
So you kind of get in that routine of knowing I didn't know we had that.
I didn't know we had that as a resource.
So I've had like some principles say, hey, I'm interested.
I'm passing this along to so and so.
I follow back up with them.
I don't hear anything.
So I just know that, you know, teachers, they have a lot of things that they're going on.
A lot of teachers that are involved with it, you know, they're they're doing they're doing extracurricular extracurricular stuff as well.
So it's just really like trying to meet with those teachers one on one and like let them know, hey, this is this is a good thing.
It's cool.
Really easy.
I'll walk you through it.
What is the number 94 on the D.I.S.?
Yes. So the D.I.S. participation, that would be like number of like tours, presentations, tableings.
That's just like what was generated off of off of those forms.
So, again, it's just the forms that have been submitted through there.
But that's what that we change it so that the D.I. or the Power BI dashboard now instead of it stating D.I.S.D. participation, it says engagements.
We realized that was that was confusing.
Yes. Yeah, you pointed it out. So that's what that number includes.
Just along what was said earlier about the trying to get the more participation in the program.
As I recall, I guess it was last year or something when you made your previous presentation.
There was discussion about rather in addition to going to individual teachers, perhaps going before the board of trustees or actually one on one with the principal or with the superintendent to at least maybe just the fact that if the superintendent or the board of trustees said this is a great thing.
And it might might in some ways encourage teachers to become more involved. I don't know if there's that sort of connection.
I think like the word of mouth, just having some of these new schools come on board was exciting because we didn't have participation from those schools last year.
So moving forward, I think that is that is good. You know, we've been in contact with them, letting them know about the program before the school year started and they didn't pass around that information.
And we do work with the administration for the program. I think there was a lot of teacher fatigue still coming back. A lot of teacher what? Teacher fatigue. And a lot of teachers who are in different roles and maybe not sure enough to take on something else or not wanting to take on another project.
I know that was one of the struggles last year and I haven't really heard of a good set of feedback yet on how things are rolling out this year.
I don't know if you're aware of this, but a couple of PTAs that I've been on, one of the positions is like an environmental position. So it may be an opportunity to get a parent volunteer to do it instead of a teacher.
We don't have any. They're all they're all teachers. How many schools are in DISD? There are 44 campuses. 44? And we have how many are signed up? We have 14. 14.
I'll give you a little bit of Brian Berger, Slotted Waste Director. First of all, I think the results received from this program are tremendous. One thing to remember when we talk about 44 campuses and only 14 are signed up,
is that DISD is much bigger than it itself. We go all the way off to Paloma, Union Park, down south to Aubrey, Lantana, and they may not, we may not service for garbage in that area. So it goes back to that message also about what you can recycle in a program even if they have a partial recycling program.
So there's a lot of, you know, we get the message out there, but then trying, you know, in the school itself, trying to promote it and reinforce it with the recycling aspect, you know, is a big hill to climb. So that's one of the things, one of the concerns that we also have is how do we broaden this, you know, outside of what we can actually control within our municipal boundaries.
Yeah, I guess that was always, it's a good point, like just a point of discussion, since it is labeled the city of Denton, and this is a city of Denton program that's funded through the city, you know, going out to schools that even if it's Denton ISD, not necessarily in the city of Denton, so I understand that can get kind of confusing, especially if you're using all, you know, different solid waste services.
Correct. Thank you.
Thank you.
We do have resources for the campuses that are outside of the city of Denton, so if they have, and I don't know, we probably need to update that information, but we can provide them like this is your contact with Corinth PD, or this is your contact with Aubrey, if you want somebody to come out and talk about something, you know, that we don't provide there.
And we do have a lot of displays there as well, like, we'll pick like our top contaminants, you know, plastic film and plastic bags, put out giveaways, and really describe that message and people go, oh yeah, I don't live in Denton, but we go, yeah, but your recycling may be service at our plant, and so those rules actually may apply to you, so we try to help them out when we can.
So this question is kind of going back to one of Adam's questions, when you're having a group discussion and they're kind of getting takeaways from it, do they make the connection that the more recycling they do, the less waste that goes into the trash piles?
Yeah, we talk about the why, but we talk about the real estate in Denton, and I always say, what's the most valuable real estate in the city of Denton, where do you think it is, and they never guess the landfill, and then we talk about the time it takes to fill it up, and then we talk about like neighboring facilities, like what happens when they fill up, and what happens when they close, we talk about being good neighbors, how we help surrounding communities out.
So we tie it full circle all the way back to absolutely to the landfill operations, for sure, they go hand in hand, I have videos to show them, this is what it looks like on the working face of the landfill, it looks like the beach with all the seagulls, and then we'll show them, this is real, and in one of the videos I have, you can actually see that there's cardboard there, and I go, hey look, what could we have done better, this is clean, good cardboard, this could have been recycled, and they always pick up on that.
So we try to let them know, and I ask too, hey how many of you have visited the landfill, it just depends, sometimes none, the age, sometimes like one or two, I say, well what were you doing there, and then they tell me, I was with my dad, I was with my cousin, and then they'll tell me what your experience was, and they share that with everybody, and they're always curious, because it's sort of like this mysterious behind the wall, you know, the working face, you can't really see it from the road, so if we can help demystify that and let them know, it goes somewhere, and it's really cool.
It's really close to where you live, I think that kind of makes that connection on the gravity of the situation for them.
So last point of clarification, we do host birthday parties at the market.
I wouldn't say we host birthday parties, but we definitely celebrate recycling.
Thank you so much, I appreciate your presentation.
Just a indulgence, if you don't mind, we can bring Jaleesa up, I want to congratulate Jaleesa on the recycling award too. Jaleesa, come on up please. Jaleesa led the charge on the recycling partnership application, and she went on stage with her golden dumpster, or cart, so I just want to congratulate them on everything that went into that.
Thank you all very much.
And Brian too, and Brian.
Thank you.
It's very special.
Okay, that's good fun.
So we will move on to staff reports, if there were three items in the matrix, do we have any questions or comments about the three items before the matrix?
You're talking about the funding opportunities?
Yeah.
I have a question.
Go ahead.
Has the city explored any of the incentives or grants offered by the IRA Act?
Everything listed here is part of that funding.
Okay, that's good.
And there are more.
Good, that's good.
At some point, could we get a, if not a presentation, just a print out of what is being sought from the government, the IRA?
Yes.
Okay, thank you.
All right, so we're on matrix now, so we'll just go ahead, I know, and you can say, we'll just add that to the matrix, what you just said, and then you have a couple more things, I know.
Yeah, I have more than a couple.
Okay.
The modern geosciences gas well report, inspection report for 2022 was just released, was put on the website today, and I would appreciate a presentation regarding the findings and how those findings might have a bearing on our climate action plan.
Then, as I mentioned before, I'd like to put e-bikes on the matrix for further discussion in relation to the Greensense incentive program, and I'd also like to have a discussion of funding opportunities for the sustainability fund,
and what criteria is in place for funding actual city department projects, rather than where the city comes to us to do something through our funding.
What criteria is redeveloped for, do you start making those decisions?
I'm sorry, could you re-stick that?
Yeah. Is there a criteria, say, if one of the city departments comes to you and says, hey, could you folks do this and take care of this, in other words, that department wouldn't be paying for it.
What is the criteria for a situation like that where a department asks us, say, like the privet removal, is there a set of criteria in place that are looked at before you say yes or no?
We can or cannot fund that for you.
I feel like that is outlined in the work plan.
The adopted work plan talked about the different types of projects we would do.
Okay, but I'm just thinking, like, the IPM plan was done without any funding from sustainability, and so I figure, I mean, okay, if there's a criteria there, I haven't seen it, so I need to do my homework.
But if there's not a set criteria, then I would hope that we can discuss that.
Is that all?
And in addition to that, a discussion about what I talked about earlier about just funding for our plan, for the sustainability fund.
Adam, do you have anything you want to discuss on the matrix, take off, add, a question about anything that's on it?
I just wanted to emphasize the IRA comment. It sounds like that's getting on the matrix.
I don't know if somebody on staff is educated about that, but I think that would be really interesting and valuable to learn where that money is going and how it's available and what we can do to take advantage of it, because I do think that's a big opportunity for us.
I know the city's thinking about it, but I'd like to learn about it. But it sounds like that's on the matrix.
Okay.
I'm good.
Could you include as a staff report the Privet Removable SOP for a future plan?
We discussed in the previous item about the work plan, the Privet Removable Restoration Project, and it was a little bit that there's an SOP that kind of guides parks decision making and implementation of that project.
Does that significantly include it as a staff report for next meeting?
Thank you.
Yeah, that was something I was looking for. Just the restoration part of it, what that includes. And then also in the back up, and this may be just something that we can reach out to parks for just to see the Bowling Green Parks Master Plan that might be listed on the website.
Make sure it's on the website. I'll double check.
Okay. That's something I can probably just research on.
I have one more question.
I put a thing on the matrix on February 24, 2023.
It says a presentation on current city green building codes, department development services, and then it says status presentation August 2023.
That was the plan, and we had to postpone that.
Oh, okay. I thought I was losing my mind.
No, no. We didn't hear that today.
Okay.
You didn't hear it. You're good.
Thanks.
Yeah.
What a relief.
All right.
And Bowling Green is on the DiscussedIt.com.
Okay.
All right. Well, thank you very much, everybody, for your time today. We will conclude at 2.07.