Sustainability Commission

SUSTAINABILITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE (SAC) Meeting Minutes: June 4, 2020 Attending: Tina Lieberman (Chair), Peter Sheehan (Vice-Chair), Daniel Kirk-Davidoff (Secretary), Jason West (Energy Manager), Scott Kellogg (Urban Ag), Joe Coffey (Water Department), Lauren Alpert (Mayor’s Office), Randy Milano (Engineering), Ewa Sobczynska (Outreach), Laurie Wheelock (Water), Zach Powell (Planning), Sandy Misiewicz (Transportation), Andre Lake, Gabriella Cebada Mora Absent: Frank Zeoli (DGS), Chris Spencer (Planning), Randy Milano (City Engineer), Bill Trudeau (Traffic Engineer), Sarah Valis (Corporation Council), Amy Lavine (Corporation Council) 1. Regular Business ● Tina Lieberman called the meeting to order at 6:04 pm. ● April 2, 2020 Minutes Approval: Minutes approved unanimously. ● Public comment period (meeting was open to the public via the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability Facebook page and via emails to sac@albanyny.gov or Sustainability@albanyny.gov): No comments from the public were submitted. 2. New business ● Developing climate action commitments for the Climate Emergency Resolution: Ewa will discuss the City’s current greenhouse gas reduction goals. Her slide presentation will accompany these minutes. Peter Iwanowicz will speak about the NYS Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). His slide presentation will accompany these minutes. Peter invites us to view his seat on the Climate Action Council (see www.climate.ny.gov ) as our seat, and push him to make progress towards the Climate Action Plan. DEC/NYSERDA comment deadlines for regulations with respect to spending RGGI revenue are coming up: July 13 for NYSERDA, June 29 for DEC. More information here: https://www.dec.ny.gov/press/120316.html. Peter points out that there aren’t representatives of cities on the panel, and is hoping that groups like ours will contribute opinions and information. Tina introduces discussion of emission reduction targets, working from the Albany GHG Benchmarking Worksheet (attached). Joe suggests reaching out to department heads to see what may already be in process. Tina says subcommittees need to reach out to appropriate department heads. Jason says we can keep updating the numbers into the future. Tina asks us to follow-up on action items. ● Discussion of Present Emergency. Sandy invites us to be thinking about community engagement, ways of engaging with the energy of young people involved in Black Lives Matter protests and neighborhood cleanups this past weekend. ● Energy Subcommittee Letter re: Energy Efficiency and Building Codes. Pete brings a resolution recommending adoption of NYSERDA stretch codes. The proposed 1  resolution is attached. There were objections from committee members who believe that this should not be a resolution, but rather a letter. Lauren comments that Corporation Council does not believe that the City can legally pass a more stringent building code. Pete will investigate and agrees to withdraw this resolution for the present. ● Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) Update; Tina explained that NYSERDA will supposedly be announcing Clean Energy Community Incentives for communities who join a CCA; Consolidated Billing for Community Solar is supposed to be in place by 1/1/2021; CCA bid has been delayed due to energy market conditions under the Covid-19 emergency. ● Buy Local, Grow Local Update; Resolution Passed and website is being developed. Common council has passed a buy-local, grow-local resolution unanimously. We have permission from the Mayor’s Office to put the Grow Local section on the city’s website. This section provides information to people on local agricultural activity and composting initiatives. ● New Pedestrian Master Plan + Update of 2009 Bicycle Master Plan (Zach). The City aims to make conditions for walking and bicycling safer for everyone in the city. Working with technical and citizen advisory committees to update current conditions and plans. They are planning seven virtual meetings over the course of June, starting next Wednesday, specifically for cyclists. Following that a meeting will be held that is intended to pay special attention to the needs of pedestrians that may have been neglected in the 2009 plan. Additional meetings focused on particular neighborhoods will be held after that, with dates to be determined. The Planning Department is developing a WikiMap to allow easy annotation of problem spots for bicycle/pedestrian safety. They are looking for advice about groups that they need to reach out to. Meetings will inform demonstration projects that will be carried out over the summer. Draft plan to be presented in a public meeting in the fall, followed by a final plan, taking into account input from the fall public meeting. ● Proposed Amendments to SAC By-Laws - Update. Tabled to the next meeting due to time constraints. ● Summary Reports from subcommittees due by 6/26/20 for Bi-Annual Report covering activity from August 1, 2018 thru May 31, 2020. Gabriella shared revised report forms for subcommittee members to fill out to enable Tina and Gabriella to compile subcommittee milestones and membership. 3. Commissioner updates ● Joe Coffey (Water): Working on replacing lead water services at private homes for health reasons. Will be developing a program to help residents replace lead water services if they lack resources to do that. The Department received an award from the 2  Hudson River Watershed Alliance for its work daylighting the Patroon Creek in Tivoli Preserve. ● Randy Milano (Engineering): Working on energy efficiency projects for Municipal buildings including firehouses. 4. Committee updates ● Scott Kellogg (Urban Agriculture): The subcommittee has been working hard in the South End to scale up food production. They are working with youth funded by AmeriCorps to do this work, hoping the City will restart the Summer Youth Jobs Program. ● Sandy Misiewicz (Transportation): CDTA was recently awarded $60 million in Federal Funding for the Washington Western Bus Rapid Transit Project (https://www.cdta.org/sites/default/files/images/news/WWBRT- ProjectSummary_forpublic.pdf ) ● Pete Sheehan (Energy): Met with the CEO of the Albany IDA, to think about creating a new baseline requirement for sustainability in working with potential developers in Albany - insulation, efficiency, car charging ports, etc. ● Ewa Sobczynska (Outreach): Ewa has been working with the University of Albany’s Sustainability Council to organize collaboration via meetings with the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. ● Tina Lieberman (Zero Waste Education): The subcommittee has been working on community compost drop-off sites. Radix and Tivoli Preserve and eventually the Victory Gardens will open for compost drop-off. ● Laurie Wheelock (Water): The committee met in a virtual meeting in April, working to create a sustainable practices working document that could be used by both the Water Board and other City Agencies. They have been working to grow the subcommittee (since October 2018). The committee has met on January 29 and February 26 in person, and via computer on April 24. Members are working to develop a plan to achieve our goal of creating a "Sustainable Operations and Facility Planning" document for the Water Department. Our hope is that the Plan can be shared with other City Agencies so they too, can create a Sustainability Plan. The SUNY Albany Sustainability office is assisting us to achieve this goal. The water committee plans to meet over the summer. 5. Action Items/ Discussion of next meeting on August 6, 2020 6. Adjournment: meeting adjourned at 7:50 pm. Next meeting is Thursday, August 6, probably by Zoom. Minutes prepared by Daniel Kirk-Davidoff, June 4, 2020 3 4