Sustainability Commission

SUSTAINABILITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE (SAC) Meeting Minutes: May 6, 2021 Attending: Tina Lieberman (Chair), Daniel Kirk-Davidoff (Secretary, Outreach), Jason West (Energy Manager, non-voting), Joe Coffey (Water Department), Lauren Alpert (Planning Department), Ewa Sobczynska (Outreach), Andre Lake (Environmental Equity), Scott Kellogg (Urban Ag), Gabriella Cebada Mora (Vice Chair, Water), Pete Sheehan (Energy), Jackie Gonzales (Environmental Equity), Harriet Lewis (Transportation), Frank Zeoli (DGS) Absent: Hyde Clark (Outreach), Randy Milano (Engineering), Bill Trudeau (Traffic Engineering), Laura Gulfo (Law Dept) 1. Regular Business ● Tina Lieberman called the meeting to order at 6:01 pm. ● April 1, 2021 Minutes Approval: Minutes approved unanimously. Lauren will send them to the Common Council and the Mayor’s office. ● 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): Skye van der Laan described his advance-intermediate mountain bike course on the far side of the train tracks from Tivoli Lake Preserve. The Preserve itself has large areas of undeveloped woodland, and Skye would like to utilize summer youth employment, and working with Friends of Tivoli, build a pump track and other trails that would be accessible to younger people from Arbor Hill area. Would like to teach kids to build trails, ride bikes, maintain bikes, and build a shed for a bike library. Lauren points out that crossing the tracks is dangerous and can’t be encouraged/countenanced by the City. 2. New business ● John Ciovacco (Aztech Geothermal), Jerry Action (GreyEdge) & Chong Lin (National Grid) speaking on district heating. Check out their conference at ny- geo.org . They showed slides explaining the potential to serve Sheridan Hollow’s electricity and heating needs using a ground source heat pump system, including slides on National Grid’s community ground source heat project in Riverhead, Long Island. They are responding to NYSERDA’s PON 4614. Conversation ensued regarding outreach to Sheridan Hollow., os Joe Coffey and John will be communicating about possibilities for district thermal as lead pipe replacement work is scheduled. ● Implementation and Budget recommendations needed for Climate Emergency bill that passed the Common Council ● Our Annual Report is due at the end of June. Gaby asks us to send subcommittee activity updates by May 20 (two weeks). Gaby will be working on connecting our work to themes that cut across subcommittees, and will be looking for feedback. ● Clean Energy Communities Campaign. Capital Region Planning Commission has drafted an application for us – we need to review and work to complete. 1  ● We are co-sponsoring a showing of “The Story of Plastic” on May 13 at 6:30 pm ● DGS announced today that they’ve received a grant from DEC to begin a food-waste composting program. Residents will have an opportunity to compost in their backyard with a city-supplied bin (and kitchen bin). There will also be drop-off locations at Tivoli and at Radix. Information at https://albanynyrecycles.com/albany- composts/ In return for bins, the city asks for reporting on usage. ● South End Earth Day went very well- groups were sent out to clean up six or seven garden sites in the South End. ● Tivoli Park Clean Up on May 1 also went well. About 14 people collecting lots of trash and doing some invasive plant removal. ● Ribbon-cutting for Brother Yusuf trail in Tivoli will be Tuesday, May 11 at 10 am. Brother Yusuf was one of the original members of the Sustainability Advisory Committee. ● Sustainable Futures Conference. Ewa presented. Great conversations, great connections, great sense of urgency to accomplish CLCPA goals. ● Ewa has been sending emails to subcommittee chairs letting them know that people have signed up via our online volunteer form. Tina is hopeful we’ll get more volunteers as we start tabling. 3. Adjournment: meeting adjourned at 7:31 pm. Next meeting is Thursday, June 3, 2021, probably by Zoom. Minutes prepared by Daniel Kirk-Davidoff, May 6, 2021 2