Oct 27, 2023 Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee on 2023-10-27 1:00 PM

All right everyone, hello welcome to the sustainability framework advisory committee. It is October 27th and we are beginning the meeting today at 101. We do have a quorum, very small, but we do. We will go ahead, we are in the city council work session room and we will go ahead and get started with our first item for individual consideration. Consider the approval of August 25th, 2023 minutes. Did anybody get a chance to read those? Comments, questions? I move approval. Okay, first and second, all in favor? Aye. All right, we will move on. I do want to say, I forgot to do this at the beginning, we are going to be pulling item B for a future meeting date, so that one is off the agenda today. So we will move to item C, receive an update, hold a discussion, and provide feedback regarding simply sustainable framework, focus areas, education, communication, community involvement, and resiliency, and public health. All right, so Catherine Barnett, sustainability manager, just want to talk a little bit about updating the sustainability framework. We showed the schedule back in August. We're going to be working through the focus areas, looking for feedback, are the goals still where we want to be, the actions, strategies, anything that you all would like to add. So I just have a few slides to remind us about where we are. So we're just going to review these two today. So if you remember, the framework was adopted in 2020. We had a delay in the adoption of that, so it's a little bit dated already. We're pushing up on that four to five years, where we want to go ahead and get in and review that. Since it was adopted, the 2040 plan and the conference of solid waste management strategy have been adopted, as well as the urban forest master plan. So we want to acknowledge that in the framework. So for education, communication, engagement, we have three goals, just all around community engagement, community sustainability programs, education awareness, personal responsibility. So just remember those. I think that you probably have a copy of the framework as well that you can look at. But we'll make sure that those are still where we want to go. Do we need to pure them down, make it a little more targeted? Then we have the strategies here, though there's eight of them, if I remember correctly. So we've got check marks, but I have one of those, because of the work we've done. STAR and League for Cities is kind of something we're re-evaluating. STAR communities change their format when they combine with League for Cities. They still don't have one that's been issued for communities to join again that's easily attainable, I guess. And then equity and environment, we are still working on expanding our education and outreach to try to improve that as we work along through it. So first question, any suggestions for modifying the goals and strategies? Education? I have a question, but it has to do, the item that was pulled was part of that question. No, we can discuss after and see if it's something I can help you with. I was just curious about effect on one or the other. Oh, effective. I mean, I guess go ahead and ask and then we can determine. You want to shoot me? No. We're made up. Yeah, we'll just stay within the parameters of this testing. So, yeah, thanks. Just thinking about the climate action adaptation plan when it's in place, will this be affected in any way by, will there be a crossover between the two? Will there be a synthesis where they're all on the, to put, use a terrible term on the same page. So everything relates to one another. So they all interplay. All of the plans, the comp plan, the urban forest plan, we acknowledge those and cross-pollinate on all that education. Okay, great. Does that help? Yeah, that helps. Thanks. Did you have any other questions about the this one? No. We're good with the current. Is everybody okay, Brian? Since one of the main topics under this section is the education component and it's not necessarily explicitly called out under the goals, most of this relates to the communication and engagement side. I wonder if we might incorporate that target not as like a strategy, we can talk about that, but just an item in here that says that is something we really want to focus on actively promoting community understanding about some of these issues or ways that we can increase those personal responsibility and awareness goals. I don't know if that would be helpful just to lay out in the plan. So you want to kind of expand number three maybe? It might fall under number three. I just don't know where like, say like our sustainability programs that are hosted or the ones that are like those irrigation courses that we sometimes have, where those fall into some of our strategies, like we have a water reduction strategy, we have a lot of conservation programs about our V-Cities and Monarch City stuff, where those programs fall on how we can build that inescapable. You're explicitly saying that we want to recruit a type of community here? So I think the easiest way to think about that is this is kind of the overarching education, but if you go through each of the focus areas, there are education requirements in each focus area, but then it kind of comes back to this chapter to go out in these things, so maybe it's more of a strategy of how we want to tackle individual programs or highlight individual areas a little bit more. Sure, no, that makes sense. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to say that the presence of this education communication engagement aspect, I think it's really, from what I've seen on the internet, Facebook postings and all that, is really growing and taking off, I think it's great, everything from composting to the whole ball of wax, plus the material that's put in the bills, utility bills, is also very good. I want to echo what Ed said, I think there's been a lot of good work in this area, and then just thinking about these, I don't know if this is worthwhile, but what popped out to me is at the end it says that we want to increase personal responsibility, but we know so much of environmental and sustainable issues are about collective responsibility, and I don't know if it's in our purview to adopt that as a goal, because, you know, that makes it sound like if we've all just recycled or something, when we know that it would also take, like, the community coming together and doing something above and beyond individual actions, but I'm not sure if that fits here, I'm just kind of throwing it out there, if that isn't one of our education goals, or if that doesn't really fit, maybe. I think it kind of all ties back to everybody has responsibility, the city has responsibility, the community has responsibility, but we're trying to reach people and let them know what their action can do that will benefit, so it does tie more into the personal benefits of the entire community. That's true, and yeah, if you take a personal responsibility, then you get involved with the collective, so. Right. Right. I follow. On these, so we have the different strategies within each one, the goals, and the metrics, I guess, I mean, are we going to get an update on our metrics for each of these coming out, because for me, it would help to see how well we're doing on the metrics that we created, to see if those go hand-in-hand with the goals that we've made, because if they're not movement or they're stagnant, then we might need to readdress the goals to match. That's a good idea, we could give you a couple years history on metrics, whenever we come back with the next one, and we can bring this back as an information item. Yeah. In a memo with the metrics later. Because it may give us some more data to go from, like, okay, well, these goals sound good, but they're not necessarily, our targets for our metrics aren't moving, so maybe we need to re-evaluate some of those. Yeah, and our engagement numbers, they go up every year. Yeah. So, do we want to just make that increase, so we want to talk about those metrics as well? Yeah. What do we want to get out of it? Do we want to get more outcomes, rather than just the number of folks and the number of activities we did? That's important to know. Right. What's the outcome? Would that, oh, I'm sorry. Oh, go ahead. Would that include metrics for all, metrics for all of the various? What I'm thinking is, we can bring them back whenever we review that focus area. I'll just go ahead and include the metrics in future presentations. Okay, that'd be great. Thanks. That would be helpful. Yeah, that's a great idea. Which one got it? Okay. So, I mean, I guess for this one, for now, I mean, we're good until we have a deeper dive. Okay. And then, resiliency and how it helped. So, we have the goals about lovely produced, organic produce. We have the environmental hazards and then appropriate resiliency and a city of different planning efforts. And, you know, we have some really good strides on additional gardens right before COVID. And we lost some of those. We lost some of the urban farms along in that same time period. So, we're still working with parks to try to increase community garden space. And then we're working across the city and incorporating resiliency into our planning efforts, which ties in with other plans that have been adopted and are still pending. And then just some of the strategies here. We have the Bee City, Monarch City, the Wildlife Federation, Community Wildlife haven't had resilience. We did do that workshop with the consultant right before the big shutdown. And then, of course, we're still encouraging community garden backyards. Grant? Go ahead. So, I know this has had also a long history, but I would like to keep it on strategies just as an attainment goal to try to qualify and attain the Bird City USA designation. I just see that as an important integrative factor, especially if we're using the public health as like a moniker for how a lot of things relate to our environmental well-being. But I think a lot of the Bird City goals build into what we've listed as our goals under resiliency and public health. That'd be nice since, you know, what we've listed as our strategies so far have mostly been completed, just to add that as another bar. But I know that's been a long history and there's some back and forth there, but I'm getting it back. On our certifications, I have some good news today. One of our team just got back from the Bird Conference and saw the preview of the requirements and we should be able to issue. That's good. Ed, do you have any on this? I have a question. Has there ever been like a resiliency fair or big community get-together sponsored by sustainability and parks partnering together where something that like in the spring and people are planting gardens and everything? We do participate with some of the existing parks programs, the Red Bed Festival. We get out with that. We, up until this past year, we've done several classes and they had to kind of pare it down based on the weather this past year. But we usually offer a series of classes, usually based around gardening, wildlife habitat. So we had a whole education track through that event, I guess. Do you folks have any presence at the community market? We haven't done that in a bit. I thought that might be a good thing to do too. Yeah, that's a good time. Adam, do you have any comments on this? I just had a question. So resiliency is a big, broad, kind of nebulous thing. So I guess goal three is a way to catch all of that. So I'm wondering if you just say a bit about, because when I think of resilience, I think also of, you know, like electricity, systems working, and you know, are, have we, do we talk, when we talk about this, you talk about incorporating it into other planning efforts. Does that, across the board, like how wide-ranging is that? And do you have any like stories or data from other departments that are doing resiliency efforts, or are, that you should partner with them? I'm going to tell you that that took us a slide back. When we lost a lot of staff, we had one big meeting about what we were going to do for resiliency, and then it was in November of 2019. So we lost a lot of traction there, and it's something that we do need to bring back. And some of the other plans that are pending may be a mechanism to help bring that back to the floor plan. Okay, that's really interesting to hear, because I also think that, and the number two about the sort of justice aspect of this, I imagine, will go hand-in-hand with having more resources to develop to this, right? Right, and then we think a lot about, you know, what can each resident do at home to be more resilient? So can we do anything with their home? Can we weatherize their home? Can we make their home more comfortable during the two or three weeks? You know, what does that look like? So that piece comes into it as well, through D&E, and through other elements. Thank you. Yeah, I think, I think it's a great, it's a great word, and it means really great things, but what are we doing? I, I like the goals. I think they're wonderful, but I also think that do we need to address in this to bring it back to the climate action plan at all? Like, do we need a goal that says, because we do talk about resiliency a lot in the, in the action plan, do we need to, like, it kind of goes back to what Ed said earlier. I mean, in this plan, do we need to keep it in and of itself, or like on these, resiliency and public health, that specifically is addressed in the other one. Do we need to say, on this one, to, to refer back to the plan to make sure. And I feel like that could, I feel like it could reference that. Yeah. Or do we just need to, in this overall, like, before, I mean, if we're going to keep these two separate documents, do we need to just say, you know, this is in line with this other document, or do under each one of these, do we need to, because not, not all of them are addressed in the, in the action plan, but some of them are. Right. Resiliency is a big one. It is. I'm trying to think, because it crosses over other focus areas, which we're not talking about today. Yeah. And I think that it may be in a different focus area where we housed that previously for the action. So it may be better to talk about it there, but maybe, maybe we do talk about adding it here. Whenever we come back, like, with a summary of everything, maybe we can talk then about how all of these interplay, and how we want to recognize them among the focus areas, and, you know, how they interplay with each other. Because sometimes it, it's hard to tell which ones, they all have so much crossover. So it gets a little muddy sometimes. You're like, oh wait, but no, that was in transportation, but it's energy, but it's. Right. Yeah. But I, yeah, I mean, but when we talk about climate and going forward, and I mean, resiliency, it's a, it's a big one. Like, I mean, that's really, in and of itself, what, what we're doing here. Yeah, and I think we could add something in this one. Yeah. It just seems. What that looks like. Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, all of these, the, the, the goals under this focus area are great. I just, like, I also want to see, going back to the, the goals and the updates. Like, how, how are we doing in this area? Because I just, I want to make sure that. The metrics. Yeah. How we're doing with the metrics on this one as well. Yeah. So when you bring this back to us. Yeah. It's just, it's a, resiliency is just kind of like a hype word right now. And maybe just bring it back down to like the core of it and the definition and like what it is. And what we're talking about education for the community too. Okay. Maybe there's certain other issues too, which in some ways are, might be more important as, as to improvements in Denton's air quality. That's certainly part of resiliency and public health. And if that would tie in with the county or, or, I can't think of the name. Cog. Governments, whatever it is. Water, water issues. Let's see. That's where I was confused about the crossover between the cap and this is because I can see each one reinforcing the other. Yeah. And I think that this, this subject in particular is one that, I mean Bee City and Monarch City is great. The Wildlife Federation. But basically it boils down to really pretty simple things when it comes to public health. Clean water, clean air, et cetera. And we do have water and air quality focus areas in this document that we'll review later. So maybe we talk about education in line with that whenever we come to that section and what that education could look like and maybe memorialize it here. Yeah. I mean simple things like when I walk by Woodrow Wilson or Nettie Schultz now, there are just lines, same way with Wendell School. There are just lines of cars idling, people waiting to pick their kids up. It's just incredible. Yeah. And you think, don't these people know, number one, they're wasting their money. And number two, do they have any idea of the impact of what they're doing. So I, that might be obviously part of education. I went by the Nettie Schultz today and in the bike rack there were two bicycles. Well, maybe this is something that we can do at ISD that's a little different than our plan. But yeah, Catherine, so like when we see resiliency in public health, that just sticks out to me as like something super important. And then it can also be applied to water, air quality, energy, as Adam said. You know, it's like, so and that's all public health too. So I mean, I don't know how that looks on our goals and if that needs to be changed or not or moved up to the top or, you know, integrated somehow. But I think for me that that's a really important one. Okay. And we can keep that in mind as we work through everything. And if we want to change any of the headings, any of the strategies, the goals, we can still do that. I'll start including a crosswalk of what we talked about already along with the agenda items. Okay. Do you have any other questions or comments, Brian? I know we're talking about the arrangement of how some of this document works. And given that it is a little bit dated, and some of our conversations over the past couple years in this committee have drifted somewhat, I wonder if this is an appropriate section to mention, like, taking it back maybe like two years or so, I think JT gave us a presentation about, you know, what some of the climate impacts for projecting for Denton might be. And we've discussed like, increased excess of heat days, we discussed flooding. I wonder if maybe the city's operational scale, if those, you know, mitigated behaviors that we can deal with, we talked about, you know, like our cooling centers, we talked about ways that the sustainability fund could support those, this would be an appropriate section to add some of that language in, because it relates to the resiliency and public health factor, or if that would fall under more, like, you know, we're talking about water, and the flooding impacts of water, something like promoting detention basins, or, you know, like biospills, or something would be more appropriate for that section. There may be a high level way to mention it here, but get more into the meaning of it in land use. So, yeah, it calls over so much. Yeah, I think what, what I'm hearing you say is that resiliency and public health seems so much more impactful than say, like, a B-City or Monarch City. Like, those are really great things that we're doing, but it gets down, like, you know, really, really deep stuff that can benefit our community. That's not just kind of... Can I discuss that thought? Because if I like that, could we completely do away with this section, and just put it in a header somewhere, like a preamble that these two items do connect, and should connect with each of our other focus areas, that maybe we try to build in strategies under each of those that address these explicitly, and that way we're not, you know, because we're looking at this, and we're like, oh my gosh, it's like this, this is like where the rubber really hits the road for most people, if we're talking about, you know, like, the excessive drought we had over this past year. Or, you know, the five inches of rain that we just got, and how that impacts people. I think I would want to see that represented more uniformly across the planet, instead of trying to pack what seemed like really big-ticket items with stuff as Ed mentioned, maybe isn't as so big-ticket, like, you know, the wildlife federation gardens aren't going to necessarily solo us into addressing public health concerns. It maybe would be more appropriate to distribute this throughout. I think that might be a really great idea, added to, like, a key performance indicator, kind of like, how is this going to affect our resiliency or, you know, public health, this strategy that we have overall. Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. It seems like resiliency is a goal in itself for all of the other sectors, maybe. Yeah, it's kind of why we're doing them. Education, both of these are a little bit different than some of the other chapters, where it's, like, water, air, energy, land use, transportation, and material resource management. And then, those all seem like sectors, something like that. Whereas, I don't know, education and then the resiliency of public health, there's something different about those. I kind of like this idea of, at least this one, showing up in all of those. Well, I wonder if the items, like our different certifications, would fall more under a communication and education component, that, you know, if we do away with this section and we plug these strategies and goals in other areas, that those might be more, you know, because people drive by those signs, everyone has them. We're required to do a lot of communication as the city through these certifications, that if that falls more evenly in that section, and then we do that overhead incorporation of these two items in the rest of the focus areas, if that feels right, it's just a suggestion. Yeah, like community involvement and then some of them in land use, like they can all kind of be distributed somehow. I like that. I like your suggestions. I'm trying to think of what it looks like whenever we do it. And maybe it's an implementation piece for each focus area where we talk about the communication engagement and resiliency, you know. What does that take off whenever we look at everything together and we all have education communication? What does the resiliency piece of, or the public health piece of it? That kind of makes it feel more connected. Yeah. I'm so sorry. There were some comments saying that are the work session that was on Tuesday about the cap that related to understanding what this, how the benefits of these actions are realized within the community and maybe if we do in the framework document, call out the rationale for addressing that focus area. How does this, how does this go with some more resilient community? How does it, how is the city or the community promoting education and both like your neighbor, as well as like you as an individual meeting these different goals or collectively meeting these different goals. But I think that might be helpful in the justification, you know, like why are we all here? Why are we building out this framework? Listing that out explicitly, I think would be really helpful to if you're just reading this like an overhead, like written right there explicitly about the why, you know, and how it connects. I have one more thing. And that is just, I just want to reinforce the idea of getting the metrics updated. But I look at this and you know, this was written in 2020. And I see that by presenting the metrics can actually avoid having to write a whole new, whole new document. But I think that would make a huge difference, make it a living document like that where there is regular updates of the metrics in all the different categories. Yes. I don't know. Any Catholic present in the video to you with the metrics? That was the tool she developed. Yeah, she had like the bars that were, yes. Yeah, it was that her beginning stages. Right. And so as we work through this, we want to think about how the metrics can translate into that system so that it can be much more easily captured and recorded and then it will relate to all of the other things. So, in this video, it's going to be a great tool for the city as a whole to report what we're doing on the strategic plan, on our other plans. Each plan will have a section. Did you have what you need on that? I think so. We'll bring back some comments and drafts. Okay. All right. Next, item D, staff reports. There were three staff reports and then the matrix. So, did anybody have any, do you want to go over any of those exhibits, Catherine, or anybody have any questions about those in regards to what they were or any questions, if not those, the matrix? Go ahead, Brian. Remind me, we can do discussion over the reports, right? Yeah, we can, it's on, it's posted on the agenda so we can ask questions. This is Ed's request. On the e-bike, two questions. First, I was really curious through the amount that we've allocated out toward that and I know that the application window has already been opened. Do we know where the disbursement of those funds are at and if there are still available funds in that program? We can get an update on it. I just need a log record. And then my second question was, there was some language concerns in the initial Greensense program where because this was initially built out as like a, it's a DME incentive fund, right, that DME customers and a lot of those items related to the owner of those facilities, whether it be a home or what have you, that the language in there said that a homeowner was who qualified for these programs and we've added some, and we've added some new items in here that don't explicitly need to be living in a home like an e-bike and I wonder if that had been updated within the Greensense incentive program, making sure that people were aware that this type of program within Greensense is available for any resident that has a DME account. Yes. That's all updated. Any question? So, are the incentives in place now? Yes. For the e-bikes? Yes. Okay. So, the last paragraph, other considerations for e-bikes that will be reviewed include road usage, safety training, off-street bike, age of riders, charging infrastructure and all. To me, some of these seem like they should be done, mandatorily. I mean, I've been reading about safety issues and what other communities have done. And I just wondered if the, if they're age, does the city have age requirements for? The state has age requirements for e-bikes. They do, okay. They also have, to be considered an e-bike, it can't be over the 750 watt. So, if you buy a thousand watt, it's not illegal for an e-bike. So, those are the faster ones, I guess. And then, they should be using it as they would a bicycle. They shouldn't be riding on the streets. I mean, they should be riding on the streets. They shouldn't be on sidewalks. They should treat it as a bicycle. Okay. Does the city, or they must, do we have any figures on bicycle accidents in the city? I think the police generally keep those. Yeah. It's through the dashboard, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So, I could find that on the police department website, okay. Well, I think it's a great idea, but I'm just reading some of these other articles about safety issues in communities. That I want to make sure that we're presenting the best, safest manner that we can, in terms of our infrastructure. Anybody else have questions on the exhibits, 123, or the matrix? I have to thank you for the criteria for framework funds. Sure. Yeah, thank you. Adam? Just to follow up on the transportation, which is on the matrix a couple of times. Forgive me if I'm forgetting that we have... No, we still owe you something on transportation. Yeah, okay. I'm just rooting for that one again. Just a friendly reminder. Just a friendly reminder on transportation, so... Again, it's a crossover thing. Yeah, it's like, I don't know. Yeah. Given that in our cab, it's the biggest sticking point for the mitigation element. It'd be really interesting to hear. I know we've said that many times. Corrine, do you have anything besides the... And Catherine, did you have an update on the funds for the e-bikes, or was that something for later? I've got it. Oh, you have it? Okay. So, yeah, so it's... 17? Yeah, it's still at 17, and 25 individual rebates. Sorry, what's the 17? $17,000 is the current spend. Okay, wow. Yes, we earmarked $20,000 for that, and we're at 17 spent, so it's being used. It's being used. Can I ask? Go ahead. Like, this is a communication and education thing, too. How do you let people know about this? About the rebates? Yeah, let's take this. Any of them? Yeah, this e-bike one going. So, emails have gone out to every municipal electric customer about the changes. It did not come out in the October bill stepper, because this is the rate brochure month to go with the utility bills, so it will go next month, correct? Yes. So, there will be something in the bill stepper, and then the emails that everyone gets with a bill with information about the rebate program. And I will say that I saw several bike shops posting about it on social media and sharing it. That's part of the reason I asked, because I actually was just looking for a bike for Max, and I was in one bike shop, and I said, "I think there's rebates for these now in the city." And their response was, "Hmm, I think you're thinking of the federal government or something." So, I was wondering if there's also outreach to retailers, if that's allowed. I mean, I don't know. That's an area we haven't explored, because we work with installers on all of the other rebates. Right. So, e-bike and e-vee, we don't really get to the sales folks. I don't know. I didn't know the ethics or the reality of that either, because maybe it looks like you're favoring somebody if you don't inform everybody equally. Right. If we miss one by accident, then we don't know. Yeah. To Keely's point, it did seem that most of them followed what we were doing or were well aware that that was an incentive. Okay. That just wasn't the clueless shop, I guess. So, I think it was more of, it was publicly posted and in public meetings that we were doing this, and then people who were interested grabbed that information and shared it. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. I have one. Okay. Ed? Yeah. I want to thank Michael for the explanation of the leaks and nothing. Thank you very much. Makes sense. I'm glad to be as thorough as I could. You were. Okay. Any other questions in the exhibits or matrix? All right. Do we have any concluding items? Any future things you would like to add to the matrix or any other presentations? I'll just add the one we pulled today. I'd like to make sure that it comes back to us at a certain time. And then we did have the solid waste management study update. I don't know if we actually had a presentation on the results of that, and I'd like to see if we can get somebody in here to explain those in depth. Just where they are with implementation? Yeah. Well, just what was adopted? Yeah. Okay. That would be helpful. Okay. Ed? I just -- there was at one point where when the -- and this may tie in with what Keeley just said, but the solid waste was looking at -- I can't remember the technical name of the facility to produce gas. And that one has been postponed. That's still postponed. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I think that was all. A lot of it -- some of our items on the matrix were pending that study. So that's what I was asking to come back, some of those updates. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for coming today. We will conclude at 1.40. Thank you.