Sustainability Advisory Commission Meeting

APPROVED CITY OF URBANA, ILLINOIS SUSTAINABILITY ADVISORY COMMISSION Council Chambers, Urbana City Building Tuesday, March 5, 2019 Commissioners Present: Chairperson Stacy Gloss, Claire Johnson, Todd Rusk, Andrew Stumpf, Morgan White, Tesfaye Wolde-Medhin, Maddy Garbacz Commissioners Absent: Dustin Allred Staff Present: Scott Tess, Amanda Flores Call to Order, Roll Call, and Declaration of Quorum Chairperson Stacy Gloss called the meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. Amanda Flores called the roll and a quorum was present. Approval of Minutes Todd Rusk motioned for the approval of the minutes from the 12/04/18 meeting, Andrew Stumpf seconded the motion. The minutes were approved. Todd Rusk motioned for the approval of the minutes from the 02/05/19 meeting, Andrew Stumpf seconded the motion, the minutes were approved. Changes to the Agenda There were no changes to the agenda. Public Input Chair Stacy Gloss welcomed students from the University of Illinois were welcomed and opened up the floor for public input with the instruction of filling up the sign up sheet and limiting their comments to a few minutes. Morgan White provided further that students were instructed to limit their comments to 3 minutes or less, and to focus on Waste Reduction strategies that either the City or people and business within the City could pursue. Students were expected to turn in printed copies (see attached). Jacob Sanders spoke first and commended the City for increasing recycle collection by 212% from 2011. However, he noted that Styrofoam is not currently being recycled. His recommendation was to expand the scope to include this. Mr. Rusk mentioned that Dart Container Corporation in Urbana has a sytrofoam drop-off. Hasan Oguz Saglam, Masters student, Construction Management, commented on the use of electric vehicles within the City. His recommendationis providing free parking specifically for electric vehicles with charging stations to incentivize more people to purchase and use them. Scott Tess noted that there was a study with the Regional Planning Commission to see the efficacy and value of publicly accessible charging stations. It was concluded that value would be most seen, if funding was available, to have these charging stations for people who commuted further and could not make the round-trip on a single charge. Yan Liu, Masters student, Landscape Architecture commented on the importance of zero waste. Ms. 1  APPROVED Liu shared that the City of Phoenix, AZ has a Zero Waste team that aims to educate the community through various activities. She also mentioned that as an Urbana resident, residents in her apartment complex do not classify their garbage or don’t know what items can and cannot be recycled. Her recommendation is constant education for residents would help raise awareness. Todd Rusk asked Ms. Liu if she had a reference for further information this case study with data on the impact of the program and further waste trends. Ms. Liu responded that information is available on the City’s website. https://www.phoenix.gov/publicworks/zero-waste Xuejing Li Mar’s comment was on Zero Waste goals with emphasis for Reduce and Recycle. Ms. Mar cited a couple of ordinances from the City of San Francisco, California that included the “Polystyrene Foam and the Food Service and Packaging Waste Reduction Ordinance” and the “Checkout Bag Ordinance” prohibiting all single-use plastics that imposes a 10-cent charge per checkout bag that helped the City diver 80% of its waste from landfills. Another recommendation was for different color- coded bins for easy sorting of waste. Morgan White asked Scott Tess for an update on the “bag law” that the State’s General Assembly has been trying to pass. Mr. Tess shared that is a plastic bag bill that has been reintroduced to the General Assembly where there will be a fee that would generate revenue to the retailer, the State and a special State fund that will remit some of the revenue to the County level for their solid waste management. Ms. White wanted to clarify that this is basically a single-use bag fee. Ms. Gloss wanted to clarify that “we” is not the Sustainability Advisory Commission, but rather the State of Illinois. Mr. Rusk share that Senate Bill 1240 is available on the Illinois State’s General Assembly website and explaining the debate for this bill. He also stated that this is still open for comments and encouraged the body to advocate with their local leaders. Xi Liu, student at Landscape Architecture commended the information on the City’s website regarding sustainability. She, however, feels that in her apartment complex, residents do not place their recycling at the curb or it seems no one is aware of this program. Her recommendation is to have sorting bins that are publicly accessible. Another recommendation is to do more in handling food, agricultural and garden waste by formulating and implementing policies for these. Ms. Gloss wanted to note that one of the challenges of educating multi-family dwellings is the high rate of turnover of residents. She did suggest reaching out to the City’s recycling coordinator and volunteering time to help educate residents about the U-Cycle program. Mr. Tess wanted to highlight the resources that are currently in place in the City, such as the Landscape Recycling Center, and the upcoming release of the Food Scrap Survey. Carlos Jimenez shared his comments related to the single-use plastics. His recommendation was for business to sell their own reusable bags and encourage people to use them more often. Instead of proposing a law or ordinance, the City could talk to business owners about this. Ms. Gloss asked Mr. Jimenez of any recycling practices or alternatives to the single-use plastics in Barcelona. Mr. Jimenez noted that in 2007, supermarkets started charging for the plastic bags and eventually the government approved a law that would implement. Mr. Rusk asked if there were any resistance points or obstacles encountered since at the onset of the implementation, Mr. Jimenez responded that there was the usual apprehension in the beginning, but people eventually learned to bring their reusable bags with them. Presentation Staff Report Scott Tess reported on the Solar Urbana-Champaign 4.0 project activities for the coming year. Ms. White asked if solar power hours were still going to happen. Mr. Tess shared that there will be approximately 20 solar power hours throughout the year. Mr. Tess shared that the solar power hours 2  APPROVED provided residents with valuable information and almost everyone that signed a contract attended a solar power hour. Additionally, Staff is expecting the Illinois Power Authority to conduct incentive lotteries for solar incentives starting mid-March based on the different carve outs. Mr. Tess updated the commission of the publication of the invitation to bid for bulk rain barrel and compost bin sale due on March 29th and the sale expected on May 4th. Mr. Rusk about updates on the Food Scrap Survey and asking about the timeframe in which this would be achieved. He noted that the Compost Bin Sale would be great times to push the survey. Mr. Tess noted that the City was leveraging the mail out of U-Cycle tax to take the survey, cutting the timeframe shorter. Ms. White suggested that the Sale would be a good event to share results of the survey. Ms. Gloss noted that the commission members, who are also members of neighborhood associations, would be good ambassadors to promote the survey. Ms. Gloss asked about including mosquito control and pest-management would be another piece of information that can be share at the rain barrel sale. Ms. Gloss asked if information about the Food Scrap Survey was included in the Mayor’s All About U newsletter. Mr. Tess to follow up. The next meeting is scheduled for April 2, 2019 in the Executive Conference Room due to elections being held in the Council Chambers. Annual date and draft annual report presentation and discussion Scott Tess shared the current raw data that has been collected and will appear in an Annual Division Report. Mr. Tess went into detail about the attached report. Discussions on water consumption, data collection and potable water ensued. Ms. Gloss posed the idea of inviting engineers from either the University or from Illinois American Water to future Commission meetings. The next topic reported was on Municipal Energy consumption, where there’s a current promising downward trend of therms due to maintenance and tuning activities with respect on natural gas heating boilers in city facilities. Discussion on the City’s energy consumption commenced, including greenhouse gas inventories. Mr. Tess concluded the presentation with sharing the draft layout of the report and the commission shared comments and suggestions on making the report more visually appealing. Announcements Morgan White shared that the University of Illinois facilities just published a request for proposals for a 2nd Solar Farm on 54 acres on the north side of Curtis Road. Adjournment There being no further business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned at 8:42 p.m. This meeting was recorded. Respectfully submitted, Amanda Flores Recording Secretary 3