CITY-COUNTY ADVISORY BOARD ON CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY

200 E. Wells Street City of Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 Meeting Minutes CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY Ald. Nik Kovac and Sup. Supreme Moore Omokunde, Co-Chairs August Ball, Pam Fendt, Julie Kerksick, Ted Kraig, Ayanna Lee, George Martin, Janet Meissner Pritchard, Barbara Richards, Pamela Ritger, Erick Shambarger and Rafael Smith Staff Assistant: Linda Elmer, lelmer@milwaukee.gov, 414-286-2231 Legislative Liason: Luke Knapp, luke.knapp@milwaukee.gov, 414-286-8637 Thursday, March 5, 2020 2:00 PM City Hall, Room 301-B 2:00-4:00 P.M. 1. Introduction of Members. Meeting convened: 2:11 P.M. Members present: Barbara Richards, Rafael Smith, Erick Shambarger, George Martin, August Ball, Ted Kraig, Ald. Nik Kovac, Sup. Supreme Moore-Omokunde, Julie Kerksick, Janet Meissner Pritchard, Pamela Ritger and Pam Fendt Members excused: Ayanna Lee 2. Review and approval of the minutes of the February 13th meeting. Ms. Kerksick moved for approval of the minutes. There were no objections. 3. Review and approval of the preliminary report of the body, including any public comments at this time. Mr. Luke Knapp said he did the introduction and some formatting changes, but that was about it. Mr. Kraig said it's rather incongruence and the work should be re-drafted so it's consistent and he proposes a narrative format. He would like to recommend creating a drafting team of four people. Overall, Ald. Kovac was very impressed with the report. The Task Force discussed creating a drafting team, but that was never finalized. Ms. Kerksick thought it had to be a cohesive voice for the entire document. Mr. Smith asked how the table of contents was created in terms of who was listed first, second, third, etc. and he would like jobs and equity moved up to one or two. Sup. Moore Omokunde will contact Gordie Bennett about the county initiatives for "K" for the listing of bullet points "A through qq". Ms. Kerksick also noted that there are some pieces of other work groups' information duplicated in other work groups. Ms. Meissner Pritchard said the economic equity needs to be co-existing with climate and not a subservient objective. She also thinks there needs to be some statement that includes a time table of what the community can expect to see and when. She would also like have a section that includes all the monitoring and accountability City of Milwaukee Page 1 CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON Meeting Minutes March 5, 2020 CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY pieces. She would like the general expectations spelled out for the public; the big picture rather than all the details. She also suggested creating a group of stakeholders who are responsible for tracking progress and ensuring accountability. Ms. Richards was excused at 2:35 and requested that future meetings not be scheduled on Tuesday or Thursday afternoons. Items "C" will be pulled out from each work group - making Monitoring and Accountability its own chapter. The content will remain the same. Ms. Kerksick would like to have more attention paid to what is already being done and that it is critical to show that progress has been achieved. She would like the introduction to have a paragraph or two that summarizes shared metrics and a parallel to that on the job side as well. She doesn't want people to think that the situation is so terrible, so why bother? Members supported adding what current programs do exist as most of the public isn't aware of what is happening, particularly in terms of equity. Ms. Fendt said more could be added to the Jobs and Equity report to add items from the "to do" lists of MMSD onto the "Short Term Projects" in Section D - there are other programs that can be implemented. Ms. Meissner Pritchard recommended pointing out those things that the Task Force can work on in the future. Mr. Knapp will create a draft version 2, which willl then be distributed and work groups will then meet to discuss version 2. Sup. Moore Omokunde would like the work groups to be able to work as Mr. Knapp is drafting. Mr. Kraig thinking 1-2 years as being short-term. Ms. Linda Frank wanted to come back to the drafting going forward that changes to the working group content go through the work group with the understanding that the suggestions to Mr. Knapp will be detail changes, not substantive changes that haven't gone through work group review. Ms. Kerksick thought that would be too unwieldy and impede progress too much. Ms. Kerksick would like duplicative language removed or more elegant phrasing provided. Ms. Fendt suggested that Mr. Knapp flag duplicative language for the group to review. Ms. Meissner Pritchard suggested maybe a box cut to the report with half the page being narrative and half bullet points or lists. Ms. Ball asked if there would be a one-page summary for each work group or the entire report for the public. Mr. Bruce Wiggins suggested a smaller report, with the full report online, but also a 3-page executive summary that is released. He also asked what the next step is and that should be highlighted in the summary. What is the one-to-two-year plan for this body? Ald. Kovac would also like the text added under WE Energies about the change in state law and street car funding and a recommendation to change the state law back. Mr. Martin suggested requesting city and county funding for projects over the next 1-2 years. Ms. Frank also wants the task force to recommend when consultants will need to be hired because staff won't be able to handle all of the work. Mr. Shambarger agreed there was a need for consultants, but also a decision on what specific tasks the consultant needs to perform. Private grants and funds are also available, so a framework would need to be set up for the city to accept funds. Every group stressed the need for community meetings, which would eat up staff or consultant times; Education and Outreach has already discussed how meetings could be set up. Mr. Kraig suggested having the city set up a Climate Action Team - one point person from each city department. Mr. Shambarger said the city does have existing groups, but a main issue is the lack of money to maintain the buildings the city currently has. Mr. Martin said he has talked with folks who are concerned that this may be more of the "same old, same old" rather than new ideas and that we are competing for dollars with multiple other departments and programs. City of Milwaukee Page 2 CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON Meeting Minutes March 5, 2020 CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY Ms. Meissner Pritchard said England was able to dramatically reduce child poverty as it applied a lense across all government programs, as well as bringing in programs to relieve poverty. It was an overarching program across government, rather than piecemeal and there were checkback and metrics regularly evaluated. The metrics also got a lot of media attention at their threshholds. The work groups will meet the end of next week and then the entire task force will review the preliminary report again prior to its finalization. Items for the agenda after the preliminary report is accepted: Hiring of consultants - their roles and who pays Framework for accepting private funds or applying for grants Creation of a Climate Action Team and also incorporating stakeholders. Invite the budget office to explain how the Promise amendment has been implemented and how England's child poverty program was implemented. 4. Announce next meeting date and time, if needed. Thursday, March 19th, 2-4. 191039 Communication relating to the preliminary report and activities of the City-County Task Force on Climate and Economic Equity. Sponsors: THE CHAIR Meeting adjourned: 4:03 P.M. Linda M. Elmer Staff Assistant City of Milwaukee Page 3