Sustainability Commission

SUSTAINABILITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE (SAC) Meeting Minutes: February 4, 2020 Attending: Tina Lieberman (Chair), Daniel Kirk-Davidoff (Secretary), Jason West (Energy Manager, also representing Chris Spencer, Planning), Joe Coffey (Water Department), Lauren Alpert (Planning), Randy Milano (Engineering), Ewa Sobczynska (Outreach), Andre Lake (Environmental Equity), Scott Kellogg (Urban Ag), Hyde Clark, Gabriella Cebada Mora (Water), Sarah Valis (Law Dept), Pete Sheehan (Energy), Frank Zeoli (DGS) 1. Regular Business ● Tina Lieberman called the meeting to order at 6:07 pm. ● December 3, 2020 Minutes Approval: Minutes approved unanimously. Lauren will send them to the Common Council and the Mayor’s office. ● Tina proposes a Special Meeting for March 4. Speaker: Jill Henck from Capital District Regional Planning Commission. Approved unanimously. ● Public comment period (meeting was open to the public via the Mayor’s Office of Energy & Sustainability Facebook page and the Sustainable Albany Facebook page and via emails to sac@albanyny.gov or Sustainability@albanyny.gov): 2. New business ● Officer elections ( are done in the first regular meeting of the year, ). Tina is willing to stay on as Chair. Dan is willing to stay on as Secretary. Pete Nominates Gabby as Vice Chair. Tina re-elected unanimously as Chair. Gaby is unanimously elected as Vice Chair. Dan is re-elected unanimously as Secretary. ● Energy Subcommittee letter from the SAC and/or Mayor’s Office to the Energy Efficiency and Housing Committee of the Climate Action Council (Pete). The letter is attached to these minutes. Pete wrote the letter as a summation of the work the Energy Subcommittee has done over the past years. The Energy Efficiency and Housing Advisory Panel to the CAC met today, and the deadline for written comments is February 18. The letter as drafted has six major points, summarized below. o Implement more stringent building codes for all of New York State (excepting perhaps NY City which recently put forth their own stringent standards) o Codify the Home Energy Score (HES) system into New York State law for real estate valuations and listings o Strengthen funding sources and provide both tax credits and subsidized front- end financing for middle to high-income households for energy retrofits. o Ensure that outreach and education, including technical support of the general public for energy efficiency programs/incentives are as effective as possible in order to be well understood by all New York residents. o Make the Empire State Plaza and Capitol a model of renewable energy infrastructure; o Prioritize disadvantaged communities for implementation of renewable energy and energy conservation measures. 1  o Provide needed resources to develop a much needed “energy efficiency workforce. Tina moves that we advise the Mayor’s office to send these recommendations to the Energy Efficiency and Housing Advisory Panel of the Climate Action Council. Dan Seconds. Motion is approved, Gaby abstains due to conflict of interest, all others voting in favor. ● Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory (Jason): Jason presented his revised GHG Inventory (attached). Discussion of costs of potential actions to disfavor or ban new gas hookups and uncertainty of those costs. Tina brings up rapidly changing economics of air- and ground-source heat pumps. Jason wants to put this data out as a grounding for a structured conversation, and then have the conversation about mitigation options. ● Clean Energy Community new guidance and grant (Tina). Point system that awards up to $150,000 or more for various actions (e.g. having an Energy Efficiency and Heating and Cooling Campaign, or Electric Vehicle Campaign (need to get 25 people to purchase an electric Vehicle). Adopting the Stretch Code would also generate a lot of points, and associated grant money. The program is competitive (first-come, first served, so we need to move along quickly to rack up points). We need to pursue regional plans to adopt the Stretch Codes to avoid worries about development fleeing to surrounding areas. Jill Henck from the CDRPC will send a letter of invitation to regional governments in hopes of coordinated action. ● Proposed By-Laws changes (Tina). 1) Propose to change to monthly meetings by default. 2) Detail changes to email, website, etc. General approval of these ideas. ● U. Albany student interns (Tina). Sonny von Tiedemann (City recycling coordinator) and Tina are working on composting, food waste reduction, hazardous waste drop-off days, recycling days, and will have three interns. One will work on social media at DGS. Tina will take the other two. Dan will work with two interns for Energy Efficiency Efforts. ● Tulip Court (Tina). They’re interested in helping out with publicity for their remaining term in office. ● Discussion of online/QR code forms for signing up interested folks and volunteers at tabling events, etc. Frank Zeoli and Lauren offer help getting this set up. Zero Waste interns will design and post a flyer that lists all the subcommittees. 3. Commissioner Reports ● Joe Coffey (Water): Continuing to work on the lead water service replacement plan. Broad review with the Mayor’s team, hoping for formal adoption by the W ater B oard in March, announced to the public in April; goal is to replace all lead service pipes by 2040 (about 10,000 services). Much praise from SAC for Tivoli Preserve Daylighting Project. ● Frank Zeoli (DGS): A couple of programs to be announced shortly. o This month, a relaunch of the City recycling program. o In April, the food-waste composting program will be announced, contract with Scott should get to him shortly. o Recently received a grant to do a tree inventory in the City, announcement shortly. 2  o 2025 Tree-planting program is in full swing. Donations are coming in, lots of trees will be planted in 2021. Some trees will be removed and replaced as well. ● Randy Milano (Engineer): Helping out with Tree replacement plans. Replaced over 200 trees last year. 4. Subcommittee Updates ● Outreach (Dan Kirk-Davidoff): Recruiting interns from U. Albany, setting up weatherization volunteer corps, working on clean energy workforce development plan. Subcommittee will meet on 3rd Wednesday of each month going forward. ● Agriculture Subcommittee (Scott Kellogg): planning exciting initiatives with AmeriCorps for the Spring. Maple sugaring will start in a couple of weeks. ● Water Subcommittee (Gaby Cebada Mora) o Met January 26, will meet last Tuesday of the month. o Helping Joe and the Department on education and outreach. Discussed Indu’s report on sustainability actions from U. Albany. ● Zero Waste Education Subcommittee (Tina Lieberman): o Gave great presentation ng on food waste reduction sponsored by the Library, planning to do more around the city, and Tina’s working up a special one on Composting. o Eva suggests recording the presentation, using slides with Audio, so that it’s easier to give the same presentation in lots of situations (colleagues can participate in the Q&A only… ) ● Transportation Subcommittee - no chair currently ● Legacy/Environmental Equity Subcommittee (Andre Lake): o First meeting last month. o Working on a video show on sustainability/housing/wealth-building/career building themes. o Reached out to Virginia Rawlings of Building Blocks Together, discussing grants for victims of redlining. o Meeting again next week. ● Energy Subcommittee (Pete Sheehan): o Working on clean heating flyer. o Will be meeting 3rd Tuesday of each month. o Planning follow-up on LED lighting program impacts. o Will be talking about interactions with state policy developments. 5. Adjournment: meeting adjourned at 7:37 pm. Next meeting is Thursday, March 4 , 2021, probably by Zoom. Minutes prepared by Daniel Kirk-Davidoff, February 4, 2021 3