Sustainability Committee

Minutes of the regular meeting of the Natural Resources and Sustainability Stewardship Advisory Committee held Thursday, May 23, 2019 at 4:00 p.m. at the Ogden City Municipal building, 2549 Washington Blvd., Ogden, Weber County, Utah. Members Present: Stephen St. Peter Joe Linford David Stevenson Rachael Ballard Bonnie Christiansen Heather Root Bill Hackett Julie Ray Pearl Marden Adam Toby (via phone) Chase Wilson Members Excused: Makenna Hill Bill Hackett Ex-Officio: Jay Lowder Amy Mabey Leesa Brinkerhoff Guests: Anna Cash (Alternate Member) CALL TO ORDER / WELCOME Jay welcomed the committee and called the meeting to order. COMMITTEE RULES OF PROCEDURES Jay explained the purpose for committee rules and member roles. He also went over the committee’s responsibilities in reporting to the council: • Once a year we’ll give an update to the Council. • The Sunset Report, a formal presentation, will be presented in the Council session. Mara explained committee rules and member roles in more depth: • We have an Ogden City code for general rules for boards. • The City has 2 kinds of committees; Advisory and Regulatory. Mara explained the differences in these. This committee is an advisory body. • The Committee Chair will run meetings. The Vice Chair will run meetings when the Chair is unavailable. • The Committee can hold formal strategic planning sessions above the monthly meetings. • The Committee should have their mission, vision, and annual plan to put it together for approval. • Sub-groups can be formed. • There may be times the committee will meet with the Council and other groups. • The committee will work through the Ogden City Marketing Department for all social media and marketing. The Marketing Department is already doing branding for the committee and putting together a web page within the City’s web page. Messaging can get posted through the city social media for internal control. Boards and Committees don’t have individual access to social media. It’s all managed by City staff. Amy added that the ordinance includes allowing the members to have some proactivity with what they do without it having to be vetted. APPROVAL OF APRIL 25th MEETING MINUTES A motion was proposed and seconded for the April 25th meeting minutes. Results - adopted. 1|Page PRESENTATION OF ASSIGNED DELIVERABLES / SCOPE IDEAS AND PRIORITIES Jay Lowder • The council priorities are air quality, waste reduction and recyclables, disposal of hazardess material, power and water conservation, and renewable energy. Adam Toby • Adam had previously emailed his ideas and priorities to the committee members. • He added that the committee consider using social media presence and to have it in Spanish as well. David Stevenson • Air quality. • Put solid waste, hazardess waste, and recycling together. • Water quality and natural resources around water. • Education. • Energy. • Top 4 would be air, solid waste/hazardess waste/recycling, energy, and education. • Need to provide incentives to companies like some sort of pollution prevention award. Joe Linford • Joe mirrors Adam and Bill’s suggestions. • Dividing into subcommittees to have some focus. • Emphasize on areas directed from the Council and Mayor and set subcommittees for each or have subcommittees on education and outreach. Stephen St. Peter • Ways to educate the community, including events. • Recycling avenues to increase what we can recycle. • Challenges towards to city, i.e. trail clean-up, plastic collection, innovative things to do with trash. • E2 business like Salt Lake City and Park City for sustainable commitments. We can model them by getting ideas on their web pages. • Adopt clean air tool kit like Provo City. We can throw a brand on it and get it on the web page. • Elevate buildings projects for commercial size buildings to reduce carbon footprint. • Check out Goevcity.org for electrifying public transportation. • Stephen said SLC has a C-PACE and an elevate buildings program. • Get public more involved by marketing. • Stephen will send members access to these links. Pearl Marden • Reaching out to the community for recycling education and awareness. Rachael Ballard • At the recent Ogden Marathon, Rachael ran the Recycling Station. She said most of the people she spoke with have questions as to who is accepting recycling now and is it under the same rules. • People are grateful we have recycling here and would like to see recycling downtown and for events. • Place education signs on recycling bin stating what can be recycled. Joe suggested putting Ogden City recycling links to the committee web page. 2|Page Anna Cash • Focus some effort on events in the city and be proactive with products coming in. Make vendors responsible to use recyclables for their products and services, such as the “Leave no Trace Marathons” in Arizona. Heather Root • A subcommittee to research an effective cost efficient way to tackle our current emissions and combine it with air quality and energy use productions. Use the Carbon-free City handbook as a template. Determine which are best and most cost effective for Ogden. • Look at the possibility of establishing a re-evolving internal fund, using the money we save from improving efficiency to further improve efficiency. This would allow us to focus on projects that have the highest return on investment. Chase Wilson • None at this time. Bill Hackett • Bill had previously emailed his ideas and priorities to the committee members. Bonnie Christiansen • Air quality and climate change are interrelated, sharing many of the same challenges, and solutions. In addition, each impacts the other. For example, a warming climate led to increased drought, which increased wildfires, which impacted our air quality. While these things are interrelated, there are differences. • Bonnie agrees with Heather’s ideas. • Incorporate education from a social science perspective. Julie Ray • Split into subcommittees. • Climate change and carbon emissions. • Educating people. • Agrees that we should go after the low hanging fruit, which will be easier when we split into subcommittees. OGDEN CITY FACILITIES SUSTAINABILITY Senator Gregg Buxton joined the group and presented the following: • Cautioned that low hanging fruit may stymie other projects and timing is important. An example is when the city entered in the ESCO project with a company named McKinstry for our street lights. There was close to $600k savings to purchase a street light pole and changing the heads to LED lights for all of our street lights. When we were about ¾ of the way through the project, Rocky Mountain Power did an audit and found that many of their poles were not compliant with their own codes. We decided to move ahead without using their poles and focused on ours. Between the poles, LED lights, ballasts, and new valve boxes, will guarantee a savings of $447k. We’ll use the savings to pay for things to create other efficiencies. We’ll pay for pumps, boilers, air handlers, and valve boxes. The project is about $4.4M. We’ll use the savings to pay the bond to finance it and the savings will be paid back in 9 ½ years. • Instead of purchasing gas from Dominion, we’re purchasing it direct from Summit Gas, the supplier, for 6 of the buildings in the city. This has saved us $40k per year. • We went to the State Fuel Man Program and have saved between $80 and $100k so far this year. It also tracks the maintenance for our vehicles. 3|Page  • We did recommissioning in this building 3 years ago. We paid $43k and saved $28k from incentives. Within the first year, we paid it all back. • We have to use the savings to pay off the bond. • We’re going to replace 3 roofs this year. We’re looking at solar efficiencies and where we can put solar on these buildings. We have some roof replacements coming up at BDO. • We’re working with State purchasing and looking at new technology for recycling coming out of Germany, which will allow us to put it all together without sorting it. We have a firm that will come to Ogden without us having to pay them for operations. We’ll be able to take our waste to them and there will be no tipping fees. The committee had a number of questions that Senator Buxton addressed. • David asked if the committee could see the energy audit. Senator Buxton said yes and suggested getting involved with the Air Quality Caucus at the State capitol. It’s open to the public. There is extensive research going on right now with air quality. • Heather asked if Ogden City has an energy manager. Senator Buxton said the closest thing we have to that is our Facilities Director, but it’s not their main focus. • David asked if we have done anything with the C-PACE program with the governor’s office. Senator Buxton said we only had one 4-plex apply, but it didn’t quality. It’s more for small businesses or residential. We need to get more communication to the public. • Stephen asked if Ogden City will sign on with the HB411 Bill. Senator Buxton said we’re getting to the point now where we can consider it. VOICE VOTE FOR COMMITTEE PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT Jay opened discussion for nominating the Committee Chair and Committee Vice Chair. • Joe volunteered to be the Chair. • Bonnie nominated Heather to be Chair or Vice Chair. • Heather volunteered to be either one. • David made a motion to vote. • All voting members in attendance were in favor for Joe to be Chair and Heather to be Vice Chair. • David asked if the committee should have a Student Chair. • Jay asked for nomination for Student Subcommittee Chair. Rachael was nominated and voted in by all voting committee members in attendance. OTHER DISCUSSION We are still planning a tour at the filter plant. NEXT MEETING Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 4:00 p.m. in the council work room, #310 DELIVERABLES FOR NEXT MEETING 1. Come prepared to discuss the ideas presented in this meeting and how to group, assign subcommittees, and prioritize. 2. Discuss Google Share and how the committee can use it. 3. Jay will bring a recycling bin sticker. 4. Mara will prepare a draft of the committee rules. ADJOURNMENT 4|Page With no further business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned at 5:55 p.m. __________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Jay M. Lowder Joseph Linford, Chair Ogden City Public Services Director Date Approved: 06/27/19 5|Page