Good afternoon. This is the meeting of the Sustainability
Framework Advisory Committee
on May 27, 2026. We have a quorum today, so we will proceed
with approval of February
25, 2026 minutes. Any discussion regarding those minutes?
Any motions to approve? Okay,
Mr. Helms, seconded by Mr. Richter. All in favor of
approval? Second item, item B is
to consider approval of the March 25, 2026 meeting. Any
discussion? Motions to approve?
Motion to approve. No. Second. Richter. All in favor of
approving? Aye. I've got abstain,
I think, from these ones. Okay. Mr. Briegel is abstaining
because he was not present.
Do I, I mean that's a process question, I guess. So, you
know, if you wish to abstain,
that's permissible for you to do that. Okay. Dr. Briegel
abstains. Item C, oh wait, did we
vote on that? Yeah, we did. Item C, receipt will be court
hold discussion and give staff
direction on the update of 2024-2025 fiscal year and 2025-
2026 fiscal year to date, sustainability
framework fund incentive programs. The sustainability
framework fund incentives programs estimated
greenhouse gas emissions reduction. And we're by discussion
. Mr. Chair, did you do the April
22 minutes? I thought I did. No, we did too. We did do the
April 22. Oh, it's not, what,
oh no wonder. I had the April 22 agenda. Pardon me. Okay.
Third, consider approval of the April
22, 2026 minutes. Any discussion? Any motions? Motion to
approve. Seconded. Dr. Briegel?
Abstaining? I could vote. You want me to approve these?
Yeah. It's not what I want you to do,
it's what you want to do. Yeah, no, I'll vote for this one.
Yeah. Okay. So majority
in favor of adopting those minutes of April 22. Now, the
next item is to receive a report,
hold a discussion and give staff direction on the update of
the 2024-2025 fiscal year
and 2025-2026 fiscal year to date, sustainability framework
fund incentive programs, estimated
greenhouse gas emissions reduction. We have a presentation.
All right. Good afternoon,
committee, committee chair. My name is Caitlin Mather. I'm
one of the conservation program
coordinators in the sustainability division. It's a bit of
a mouthful, but I want to talk
to you guys about the sustainability framework fund
incentive program, the results and greenhouse
gas emissions avoidance from starting last fiscal year
through quarter two of this current
fiscal year. So just a brief background, mostly for those
watching at home, the sustainability
framework advisory committee was established to advise on
the implementation of the city's
sustainability framework, which is a living document. And
the sustainability framework
fund, its revenues and expenditures is adopted annually as
part of the annual program of services.
And the framework fund provides funding for many one time
and ongoing projects, including
our ongoing residential incentives for electric vehicles or
EVs, as well as e-bikes and electric
lawn equipment. And these programs are meant to incentivize
and encourage city residents
to reduce emissions from gasoline power transportation and
the water. So this table right here shows the
rebates awarded by fiscal year. So just a reminder, the EV
and e-bike rebates were originally
offered as part of the greensense energy efficiency
incentive program. This program was funded by
Denton municipal electric and starting last fiscal year in
the spring, the rebates were relaunched
as part of their own incentive program. And the electric
lawn equipment program started as a pilot
last summer and last fiscal year. And so far, what's
looking like just like last fiscal year,
we will, we are on track to reach the funding expenditures
for electric lawn equipment.
It's looking like that will be the case for e-bike and we
are seeing an increase.
It isn't the same, it doesn't show it. It's a little old,
but we are, we are having an increased
EV applications as well.
So to help gauge performance of the framework fund
incentives, staff sent out surveys
to recipients of the framework fund incentives. These
surveys were designed to gather information
to better estimate greenhouse gas emissions avoided by each
rebate type. Rebates provided,
sorry, respondents provided information like vehicle trips,
miles traveled round trip,
use of e-bikes in place of gas powered vehicles and use of
electric in place of gasoline
lawn equipment. So we had a lot of surveys distributed and
even though we only have about
30, 40 percent response rate, it was just in a few weeks.
So we had a lot of people reaching
out and talking with us about these rebates.
Excuse me, could we possibly get copies of what these
surveys were, what the questions were and
percentage of the answers and that sort of thing?
Of course.
Yeah.
Thank you.
So next I'll just go over some survey highlights and some
greenhouse gas emissions estimates.
Again, these are estimates just like we did for the Green
Sense rebates a while back.
So between last fiscal year and through quarter two of this
fiscal year, there were 135
EV rebates awarded. So how did I go about calculating
emissions avoided? So the EPA
reports that the average gasoline powered car produces
about 4.6 metric tons of carbon
dioxide in a year or about 8,900 grams of carbon dioxide
per mile. And again, this is
just carbon dioxide. This is not including the other
emissions associated with car exhausts
like NOx or volatile organic compounds, things like that.
And then the Federal Highway
Administration reports that the average Texan drives
approximately 15,000 miles in a year.
Texas is big, we really like to travel.
And then of course the average fuel economy of the average
gasoline powered car is about
25 miles per gallon. So using this math and looking at the
135 EV rebates awarded,
these rebates helped contribute to the avoidance of 500,909
tons of carbon dioxide in one year.
And then we've got some interesting survey highlights down
below. So starting on the left,
figure one, majority of our survey respondents, about 86%
of the ones that completed the survey
report that they travel anywhere from one to 50 miles per
day. And then figure two on the right
shows the percentage of trips made using an EV are survey
recipients. Majority of them are using it
for at least a quarter of their trips, if not every trip.
Can I ask another question real quick?
I have owned an electric vehicle since 2019 and I haven't,
I didn't receive a
survey. Is there a reason why it was certain, just a random
selection or how was that done?
So we can check. We can check, yeah. Okay, I appreciate it.
Thanks. Of course.
Next we'll go into the e-bike. So these are conservative
estimates. So between last fiscal
year and through quarter two of this fiscal year, there are
188 e-bike rebates awarded.
And nearly half of the respondents of the survey that have
received an e-bike rebate
report using their bike to travel around one to five miles
round trip. So in figure three on the
top right hand side, these are our survey results. And
again, 28 people total, nearly 50% report
at least using their bike for one to five miles round trip.
We've got several that are reporting
using their e-bike even further. But if we use the same
math that we use for the electric vehicle
greenhouse gas emissions avoidance, and we just look at the
28 respondents who report traveling
at least five miles round trip, this is equivalent to the
avoidance of 33.46 tons of carbon dioxide.
Again, this is a very conservative estimate and it's just
based on the 28 respondents who
reported traveling at least five miles round trip. And then
figure four on the left of our e-bike
rebate recipients who completed the survey, they report
that they primarily use their e-bike to
commute to work or school, running errands, either
exercising or fitness or other forms of recreation.
And of the recipients who listed other, they say all of the
above, which we love to see.
And then figure five on the bottom right hand corner shows
of the survey respondents,
they report almost 50% report using their e-bike at least a
few times a week.
Almost 30% report using it at least daily.
And then finally we'll talk a little bit about the electric
lawn equipment.
So most people don't think of lawn equipment when they
think of air pollution, but it's a
large contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the local
environment.
The research is a little spotty. So of the research
available, some of them are EPA reports.
EPA reports one hour of operating a new gas powered lawn m
ower emits the same amount of
volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxide that's
driving a new car 45 miles.
Additionally, the emissions from powering a two stroke gas
stream trimmer for just one hour is
equivalent to driving a gas powered car for approximately
300 miles.
So based on the limited research available on emissions
from gas powered lawn equipment,
we can conclude that just from the lawn mower rebates and
stream trimmer rebates alone,
which is 366, these electric lawn equipment purchases help
to avoid approximately 11,617
tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted to the
environment.
Again, these are very conservative estimates.
It is likely the greenhouse gas emissions avoidance is a
lot higher if we include it
in the other rebates. Quick question on the second bullet
point, it just says emissions.
Is that VOC and NO like the first bullet point? It's a
great question. I believe it's carbon
dioxide, but I can confirm. Okay. Thank you.
All right. And again, these are conservative estimates just
based on the limited data that's
available. That's the only, I only included electric lawn
equipment and stream trimmers.
And figure nine shows from our survey respondents, many of
them report they choosing electric over
gasoline powered lawn equipment. Reasons for choosing
electric, they like the lower maintenance.
They like the quieter operation. It's lightweight and
easier to handle. So it's more inclusive.
And then finally, throughout all of our rebate types, our
respondents reports that environmental
health benefits are the main contributor to choosing
electric.
I'm assuming in the survey, they were able to select
multiple responses.
Yes, that was a mistake on my part. No, no.
Yes, there were multiple respondents. So it's used the
results a little.
Okay. So this is reflective of all the respondents
selecting
all the reasons that they elected to come to the reading.
Yes, that was an oversight on my part, but they also had an
open response where people could type
in what they wanted, I believe. And it just corroborates
the results that we have.
All right. And finally, an additional $50 is awarded to
residents who purchase an electric
lawnmower and subsequently disposed of their existing gas
powered lawnmower, either through
a curbside pickup or a drop off at home chemical collection
. So this table shows the number of
lawnmower rebates awarded by fiscal year and the number of
turn-ins. I want to make a note that
the 83 reported for this fiscal year is the correct number,
not 85 that's on your agenda.
And so of the 262 total residents who received an electric
lawnmower rebate, 73 of which disposed
of their existing gas powered lawnmowers. So that's about
28%, which further ensures that these gas
powered lawnmowers are not being in use in the community to
air pollution in our local environment.
And we can see it's really starting to pick up the
popularity of turning in the gas powered
lawnmower. We can see in this fiscal year compared to this
time last year, we're getting more people
that are turning in their existing gas powered lawnmower.
Did anything change with the incentive
or did it just happen? I think just with the word getting
out. Yeah. You know, last year was the pilot
program. So the word's getting out and people are taking
advantage of it. So finally, some next steps.
We're just continuing with all of our rebate programs. We
're continuing to track effectiveness,
program allocations and continuing to live up to the
program as needed. And we're continuing
working to identify opportunities for municipal operations
to incorporate electric lawnmower
and move to our inventory. And with that, I thank you very
much for your time and I'll take any questions.
Any questions?
I guess I'm just kind of curious because just by the
numbers and I understand the
purpose of this was just to kind of explore the direct
impact as best as we can assume
for what these rebates are getting us for avoided emissions
. If we were to go kind of crazy with this
and look at, you know, all the wraparound needs or
infrastructure costs, I guess for the record,
just looking at the numbers, it would show that our EV
program is really good at avoided emissions
compared to an E-bike program. When if you look at the
total embodied carbon of the construction of
the car or the infrastructure needs for that vehicle, it
just feels like we're waiting at like,
oh more EVs you guys. That I'm just curious for what we're
interested in regarding the
impact of what we're doing with these rebates. Is there
some way that you would consider the
total value perhaps in a dollar term or however we'd like
to think about it for what might help us
prioritize or direct additional programming to each of
these different categories? Like is there
some sort of equivalency we could consider that might just
make it a little more even
for each of the separate? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah
we can look into that and look at equivalencies.
Because yeah we're just looking at direct emissions within
the city. Right, yeah right.
Yeah I just wanted to say I'm sort of in a way on the
ground floor of this program because
my wife and I were adamant pushers of this, gosh I don't
know how many years ago, but I just want
to say that's not the point of what I'm saying. It's great
to see that from that perspective the
progress that is being made and I thank you for all the
work that goes into this and I hope we
will continue, I know we will continue to build upon this
because it's a great great positive thing
for the city and it's really setting an example for what we
need to do in the future. Thank you.
Can you tell if these are repeat applicants or are they new
applicants? Is that something that you ask?
Yes we can tell. For the different rebates they can apply
for multiple rebates. For the e-bikes
you can get two per home so we do account for duplicates. I
'll just add that we are seeing a
lot of crossover from rebate programs. We may get them in
the door on an EV or e-bike and they get
long and then vice versa. I personally was not answering
your question but we've just seen since
we've launched our new sustainability incentives webpage
they're all on one landing page. We've
seen a lot of crossover. Anything else? Thanks. Thank you.
Okay our next item is to receive a report, hold a
discussion and give staff direction regarding
projects and programs and prioritize funding for the
development of a fiscal year 2026-2027
sustainability framework fund work plan for city council
consideration.
Okay.
I'm going to take this one today even though it says Jalisa
. We've changed back and forth on this
one a couple of times. So today I really want this to be a
conversation about the framework fund work
plan. Sorry I was writing my notes. I'll go through a few
highlights for us to think about as part of our
conversation
but that I really want to get the committee's feedback. So
just some highlights. Framework
fund was established in 2021. It's guided by the annual
work plan and funding is adopted as part
of the annual program of services. For 26-27 we do not have
a budget estimate yet but we're going to
work with a planning budget of a million which is what we
've used for this past planning window.
We can look at a mix of ongoing and one-time projects and
then discuss caring over our existing programs.
So on the ongoing projects and programs we have 150,000
identified for EV rebates, 100 for e-bike,
100 for lawn. The minor home repair efficiency program we
have 350 budgeted for that. It's had
a little bit of a slow start. We're not going to reach that
but we're seeing a lot of movement
for the homes that we are working with. It's interesting to
see what needs to be
addressed in these minor repair homes. And then the air
quality monitors ongoing maintenance and repairs.
And while we're here I'll just go ahead and update where we
are on EV. We're at 89,000 on EV
rebates right now, paid and pending. We're at 78,600 on e-
bike. We're at 70,500 on lawn.
Yeah I have reasons too that you don't think that I am.
The city fleet support. We have four or five new EV
vehicles that we've helped support this budget
year. I think one more coming. We bought another round of
the park's electric mowers. Those are
working fabulously for them so they bought an additional
round of those and we'll carry that
forward into the next budget year. We've committed to three
years of those mower purchases. And then
we're working with parks on identifying. We've identified a
handful of median projects that we
want to do for the low water use. It's going to be an
interesting mix. Some are full sun where we're
going to try some buffalo grass. Others are plantings in
shade areas. Some of it's on carrel. So
there'll be a mix around town where we can try different
tactics and see what works.
Okay and that moves into the discussion.
Do you have any feedback about ongoing, existing?
Just kind of picking your brain a little bit on the fleet
support. Just in your conversations with
I guess it's supposed to procurement mostly. Is that
triggering an actual opt-in where we would
have gone for a combustion engine? We are going to go for
an EV because that support exists or
it's already in some plan a fleet to lean in that direction
with their much more significant budget
than our sustainability fund? The sustainability fund is
just to help with that income and cost.
So if they have a vehicle replacement funded and they need
additional to go to an EV, what we've
done is 10 percent of that cost roughly is about that
increase that you would see to go from
the internal combustion to EV. So that's what we're
focusing on.
As we get more EVs in the fleet, I think we'll see more
departments asking for them.
Right now it's more we're making that option available and
we're trying to encourage them
to to choose an EV option whenever they go for fleet repl
acements.
Hope to have a little bit more push behind that going
forward.
Right now it's just an option for fleet to go with EV. All
right thank you. I have a question.
Are the sustainability framework fund and the green sense
fund separate? Yes. Okay.
And just a reminder for everybody, green sense is the
energy efficiency portion of the incentives
and then the framework fund are the air quality related.
Great. And the mic.
Catherine, those dollar amounts, were they just were they
tied to any kind of emission reduction
goals or are they just arbitrary? They're not tied to the
plan. And then the $7,500 for the air quality
monitors, what does that buy exactly? That helps cover the
ongoing data fees and then some maintenance
that we have to perform to replace the payout sensors. Okay
. Things like that. Okay can we just
so big picture we've got most of the money going towards
incentivizing electrification
in one way or another right and then another big chunk for
water basically water reduction.
And I'm just like you wanted to have a big picture
conversation so I'm looking at our focus areas
like in the sustainability framework plan. It kind of makes
I'm just wondering like does it make sense?
Well the electrification touches on a lot of those focus
areas so I feel like that is a good way to
spend the money right energy air quality right with those
emissions.
It helps us reach our climate goals right the and
transportation some of those goals.
What's not represented maybe worth discussing is maybe more
land use
ways to spend that money and also like materials management
but maybe
that's not where this money is best spent. Plus there's
like we have these programs going already
so they they get their own momentum and it kind of makes
sense like Ed is saying to build on
what we have and it does seem like it's going well so I'm
not proposing that we make radical
changes just in the spirit of you saying we could have a
discussion about maybe some of the focus
areas that aren't represented. The the medians tie the
water in land use so I think that that
I think that's going to be a good program it's just taking
a little bit more time to get off the ground
looking at other land use. When you start looking at the
budget available
it's not a big impact on a lot of land use projects
and there may be money in other budgets that address those
right instead of the framework right.
I think I share that perspective frankly I feel that
perhaps it's more of the jurisdiction of P&Z
and council to make land use decisions and land use
management decisions than our fund as small as it
is I think we do have the most direct impact in as you said
like meeting that last step that last
mile of I was evaluating buying a new combustion mower and
this incentive is here that I'm going
to switch over this and perhaps that build up the momentum
you mentioned of more people on bikes,
more people need these helps guide the more general
conceptualizations of how we engage in
space around town. Well I agree yeah it's proportional to
what we have access to in these resources that
I don't know if we can really step into that. I mean I
think it's good it's a bit extra I should
think to rethink it all but I agree that it seems like we
're it is a limited pot of money but it's
with what little we have I think we're doing really good.
I'll just add that whenever I add in the green sense reb
ates we have already processed 1227 rebate
applications this year. Wow. Wow. 665,000 of that is green
sense but we've paid over 900,000
already rebates to community this year.
I'll jump off of that I have been thinking I mean we've
been here for you know five six years almost
working with this pot of money in these programs and that's
grown a lot over the years and that's
great we are feel having a more direct impact on residents
but perhaps also we keep adding
workload to the office and I'm just curious if there's any
interest in perhaps taking a portion
of this and helping you guys with staff line even I don't
know how that works but perhaps like an
internship even just to help you guys process the volume of
applications that we keep dumping on
you guys over the years and you know say the ROI of the
funds this account keeps growing and these
projects keep getting larger or we add new more ambitious
things it's a lot of overhead and admin
load that I don't I don't want to add additional burdens to
staff who might have other roles and
positions or focuses that that feels a little uneven is
that something that would be welcome or helpful?
I don't know we will have to see if that's even possible
the way that the fund was established.
If you're able to find that out I would love to explain.
Sorry this is a good point I didn't think about that. A one
-time project I spent a lot of the last
few months over in Sweden where public transportation is
amazing. Part of what makes it great is
of course the frequency of the buses running but another
part is just the shelter infrastructure
and when I come back to Denton and I see the few folks that
we do have waiting for a bus and there's
like nothing and I know I think we talked about this in the
past I don't know if it's our even
our jurisdiction or we could do something if you had a more
pleasant place to wait for the bus I
know it doesn't solve everything but is that a something we
could do with this money are we
interested in that I'm leaving so I don't know if I should
have much of a say in it if but it would
I don't know if the properties within city right away even
if the bus itself is DCTA operated do we
do we have a stake there?
I will have to dig into that there's moving pieces there
yeah yeah I'm sure there's it makes it hard
but just an idea I know in the past when Eileen Brock was
mayor I think that this was brought up
and discussed quite a bit and some of the city actually I
don't know if the city partnered with
DCTA or not but they did update some of the bus stops at
least they had a canopy and a bench
but it didn't go very far so there has been there's a
history of trying to fix this problem for sure
I'm sure the routes have modified as well and I don't know
if you travel on Ibre ever but that
gets pretty frequented because most of the bus routes we
have in town now serves three human
teams and many of our students utilize those routes and if
you pass by on you know the middle
of the afternoon there's a degrading human experience
happening on the side of the road there
where there's candy than 110 degrees and there's 15 people
waiting on the bus plus you get dropped
off on this side of what's going to be a six lane road and
you have to get to that side with no
crossing infrastructure at the stop you know so there I'm
just I don't know if this is this fun
but there's definitely work to be done eventually it would
be worth a couple hundred bucks right it
would be a small I think a small cost would that what would
you feel about what was the initial
fund amount
when we when this was we we've had a wide range of
estimated revenue projections
the year two was four million I think we planned for four
million and achieved less than six hundred
thousand that year I believe so we were working on the four
million dollar plan for a period of years
this would be a completely new work plan that will go to
council for approval
whereas the four million dollar multi-year plan we carried
out over for most of years so
well would it be out of line to boost this estimate up just
say another five hundred
thousand dollars since the program is growing
I would have to talk to finance and see what the revenue
projections are that I would be curious
because if there's if there's an opportunity to bump it up
even a little I think we should take
advantage of that or perhaps is there a way to have
alternatives or backups should the ROI
deliver beyond the estimate would you have to come back for
to us and the council for approval of
additional items or could we set out here's what we really
like and should the funds exist to
deliver them here's kind of a prioritization of how that
could pass through we have planned and
estimated higher than revenue projections in the past so so
we could have more dollars for projects
than what is actually estimated at this point and take that
it almost could be helpful to have kind
of tier one our top priorities we like a lot of the
transportation related projects as you were
saying we have momentum behind them perhaps there's some
secondary interests like the bus stop question
just brought up that if that's allowable just to put that
in the packet to say tier two if the funds
exist we can do that and then some of our programs are
scalable so there's additional funding you can
do a bigger push forward yeah in regard to say something
like the ev fire truck which was quite
expensive i see that as a foot in the door and ob and of
course also i don't know what the status
is now but there in the past there was discussion about
electrifying the garbage pickup trucks and
and usually the response rightfully so is is it's not
financially feasible yet
so i wondered if if if these projects are like the fire
trucks electrification of the city heavy fleet
if that is is becoming becoming more economical and if it
is is there a say a master plan where
by such and such a time we hope to have this this and this
and this and so that we actually have
a a proposed plan of what could be if if the funding is
necessary so that we can say yeah
waste management would like for sees this and such and such
and such and such would that would that be
i think that's something that can be built into our
we need to update our clean policy so i think that that's
something that's built into that as we work
with fleet on that operationally the trash trucks weren't
there we tested one truck and
didn't work out great for us but solid waste is open to
trying those and i think it's good i think
it helps us i think it helps the manufacturer understand
where there might have been a limitation
sure solid waste is open to electrifying other equipment so
there's still opportunities there
they purchased i guess they had four or five evs now that
they purchased without assistance from
dme has moved to some electric pto on some of the smaller
bucket trucks and they're great
they can hear each other now you know it's amazing it's
like hey i can hear the guy on the ground
talking to me so they're having good luck with them good
and i think as we get more in the fleet
folks are seeing that they work and really enjoying them i
've noticed that the more e-bikes
you see around the more people start talking about and you
start thinking well i can do that
you know so that's the same way with lawn equipment yeah i
see you out mowing your lawn and
it doesn't smell and it's not noisy where'd you get that
yeah what was interesting to me on that
graph was the highest response was people and they bought
them for low maintenance that was a
practical reason of it they bought one more thing on the
low water use stadium pilot is that restricted
right now to city streets like city right away is do we
have any influence with denny county or
text dot for those right away that they maintain we do have
some some of them we can actually
we're operating for those text that right so i can work
with parks those are all the
road people parts department where it is that so we're able
to enforce that so the roads that
they're putting in you know by bonnie bray in 35 i was
surprised and disappointed see them rolling
out big rolls of bermuda grass so we need to let you know
whether we want to carry over existing
programs etc etc or a mix of ongoing and one-time projects
anybody have any suggestions recommendations
for me well i would stick largely with what you've got
because the momentum is going and it seems
like a lot of positive feedback i like this idea maybe
another tier or maybe a couple of one-time
things you try out just to see but the the bulk of it it
seems like we're doing a good money
good work with the money so yeah i agree and as long as
what you said about the possibility of a
one time when when we can say put in another program as a
test program pilot program and
so that we're continually still growing the money that the
fund as necessary for our for our needs
but i i agree with adam stay with the uh program as it's
now okay and i'll go ahead and add to we
had some great conversations over the last few weeks with
our transportation folks and our new
bike tech coordinator i think we've identified some
sidewalks and bike lane gaps that we're
going to be able to go in and help fund those connections
which only helps for all of our e-biking
pedestrian traffic to have this connectivity have that
connectivity
does sometimes the last slide says staff recommendation i
didn't know if it's appropriate
to ask what the what you all think i mean you're you're on
the day-to-day running this
i like the programs that we have in place now and i do
think that the momentum's there
and i don't want to lose any traction with those the
community is really embracing them
it's been great i may have a recommendation for a little
bit of change in the funding levels
when we started we didn't know that we were going to have
as much uptake of the e-bike so we thought
we were going to have a little bit of room there so we may
want to add a little bit of funding for
a bike for that low income um e-bike program um i think we
could do that through vouchers
i've got some positive feedback about that so that may be a
recommendation to come back with
the pilot for that program for next year um it'll be a
smaller amount but definitely to try to get
something off the ground i may recommend a little bit less
money for the minor home repair it's just
a little bit more slow going than than we thought it would
be remind us when that when did the first
actions in that program begin this past fiscal um october
november i believe is when we started
doing the the audits for the applicants i think the
applicants could apply october 1 maybe and then
once they get approved and they go through the the audit
program we have the energy audit come
back and see what needs to be addressed in the home we run
into some hiccups with some of the
older homes with altered duct work don't work well with the
higher efficiency
air conditioning units so we're we're trying to figure out
how much disruption that is and
can you go in and replace the duct work now instead of
going with a lower efficiency
still something that needs great sense but could we go with
the 17 instead of the 15.2 if we have
right in the deck as well sorry we're learning which
department are we working with
it's the minor home repair program that we're able to add
that actually
did you get any feedback from the applicants maybe through
the surveys
and things that they suggest be done differently with the
program
i can't remember anything off the top of my head kate went
through the survey results we asked for
all right that was a great question we asked mostly for
pros and cons and if you would
recommend to the debate but if there's we can reach out and
ask if there's any additional feedback
okay because i guess as you said prior the update is pretty
consistent within a general
demographic group of population that if we have a strong
base of support who've engaged in a number
of our programs they might be able to provide some
substantive feedback to you know what was
working well or not but i guess really we're asking these
questions like are we missing something
in where we're allocating these resources but my only
comment again was if we could explore
leaving some of that overhead from you guys i think that
would just kind of help
with the delivery of some of these programs and i'll let
you guys focus on
what your focus areas are and if possible i will say we
took the feedback about allowing two e-bikes
to heart and you know i don't know how many couples get e-b
ikes together it's really great
like y'all are so nice to each other y'all can go high
right that's great
that's cool anything else um i do recall a while ago we had
a previous framework
that talked about like local food and now i think that's
kind of under a land use generally and i
know citywide there's been a focus on delivering bowling
green and updating that i'm just curious
if there's any appetite to me and there was a former staff
member who called who was really
working in that area as well and then we seem to have lost
the staff is there something that we
could focus on in that area that might be helpful in
pushing projects or sustaining existing ones
there may be some room to work with parks on additional
community garden space they're going
to be using raised beds at bowling areas my understanding
and i think that may give them a
better handle on what kind of maintenance will be needed
going forward so we may be able to push
that a little bit more we're still doing the level food
programming we actually have a preserving
and canning and pickling series of workshops coming up
partnering with the extension office
it'll be a four-week program and those classes do so well
is there such a thing as a community pollinator garden
slash beekeeping community
that would be cool um what are these city um and we do work
with the different kind of beekeepers but
i don't know if there's an opportunity for folks actually
involved in planting and maintaining
we've tried yeah i mean i've always wanted to do that my
wife won't let me
yeah that's wrong maybe there's other people this city had
them right yeah
we used to have landfills
any other discussion
do you have what you need i think so we'll bring a document
a fleshed out document to you
for adoption for the future great thank you
all right next to staff staff reports
over here and grab a different cap um the first memo i
believe is about the committee
appointment process um you requested the information about
that
and all the committees operate under that board's
information tan both in those rules
and if there's no questions about that then we can go i had
one question okay should is it is it
all right for previous applicants who weren't appointed not
because they were disproved but
because of the breakdown in the system uh should they apply
again
i think anybody who's interested should fill out an
application okay yeah
and is it uh i don't sit ask this
well well is there any has the system been fixed so that
this breakdown won't happen again
you know whatever i really don't know what where the
breakdown was myself
the the process is council members with vacancies are
providing the application right and then they
choose to nominate to boards and commissions based on that
list of applicants
right because the problem was it's the council some of the
council people never responded
to the split at any rate i just hope that that's going to
be a pass now so i that's good is that
is that is that allowable uh this is maybe a legal question
if there's a vacancy and it goes to a
city councilor can they just let it sit there there's no
mechanism that the city law to
compel them to fill vacancy what a full interest is long
one um reticent to provide legal advice
to the committee well it's just a question i'll look for
them interpretive question
it's something we can discuss separately if you'd like okay
that's a good way to break down this
okay thank you for that
and uh is there another no we just had the memo um
following up on some matrix items
and then the matrix
is there a june we do with the june
okay anybody have anything for the matrix
when appropriate we could we request that community
improvement provide uh just to
check i'm not familiar with the low-income housing program
largely and with the what program sorry
the program we just discussed in the work plan the low-
income housing to go over there um thanks as
we deliver that which it's a big chunk of our budget it
would be really cool to kind of see how
the progress is tracking how the program works what impact
it's having there's tweaks we might consider
leading up into next year's fiscal that would be really
cool
we can work with them to create that
anything else
uh i i have something um would it be possible to uh or has
it has any
has there been any discussion or examination of city
buildings
municipal buildings that would be good candidates for solar
installation
has there been any talk talk about that if not i'd be
curious to know how many buildings would be
good for solar installations or and or parking lots too
we have that presentation from our facilities manager
where he provided the list of buildings that could possibly
be yeah an option has there been any
update on that or especially the the parking lot i don't
know if he discussed parking lots did he
i don't recall i'm i think the back end is just check yeah
presentation yeah
anybody anything else
all right with that at what time is it 152 152 at 152 we
will adjourn all in favor of a journey
we are