Climate Action Plan Standing Committee

CAP Standing Committee Meeting Online via WebEx December 16, 2020 In Attendance Committee Members: Hilary Lindh, Karin Hilding, Sierra McCartney, Jen Sybrant, Ben Davis, Ryder Delaloye Other City Staff: Carla Belski, Liz Records Public: Robin Paone, Rhonda Fitzgerald A. Meeting was called to order at 5:35 pm B. Approval of Minutes – November minutes unanimously approved. C. New Committee Members Appointed for 2021 The new Parks and Recreation Department staff member will be Liz Records, replacing Jen Sybrant. The new Member at Large will be Robin Paone, replacing Sierra McCartney. D. Committee Status Updates a. Expansion of EV Charging Stations Karin reviewed the outcome of a recent staff meeting with Flathead Electric Coop about the potential to expand availability of EV charging stations in Whitefish. It seems likely the City could install additional charging stations downtown around Depot Park for a reasonable cost. Staff will follow up with companies that sell charging stations and will eventually present information to City Council. At the meeting FEC asked for a letter of support for their grant application to DEC for new EV charging stations in Kalispell. b. Letter of Support to Flathead Electric for DEC Grant Karin explained the criteria to qualify for the grant include a location within designated interstate and highway corridors. The map showing the designated corridor identifies priority funding communities in the corridors. Kalispell and Eureka are included, but Whitefish is not. Robin thought Whitefish should be included. Rhonda suggested we add a paragraph to the letter asking that Whitefish be included as an eligible community since it’s located in a designated corridor. Ryder thought the added comment would confuse the intent of the letter or it would get lost in the grant process (which cannot be modified in this cycle). Hilary suggested a single sentence be added that Whitefish looks forward to being included in the grant process in the future. Ben moved, Ryder seconded, and the committee unanimously approved support for the letter as written with the addition of the sentence about being included in the future. c. City RFP for Recycling Drop-off Location and Service At a recent City Council work session, Craig Workman discussed a draft RFP for design and management of a new recycling drop-off location on Monegan Road. Ben asked at the work session that the mode of transportation and final destination of the recyclable materials be a consideration in awarding the contract. Ben asked staff at the committee meeting if compostable material also could be added to the RFP. Ryder supported this idea. Hilary recounted previous discussions this committee has had about adding compost to the 1 recycling center. Some of the sticking points were related to the City’s ongoing negotiations with Republic Services for garbage and recycling service and the State Fish Wildlife & Parks requests for better containing garbage. At the time of the committee discussions about compost in summer 2019, the City Manager had asked that we hold off on the compost question until the garbage and recycling issues had been resolved. Jen also noted the following issues: the collection site would need to be manned, and if the City composts the material itself (as opposed to hiring someone to take the material away and compost it), the pile needs to be turned and managed. Identifying responsible staff would be important. Ryder proposed researching other similar-sized communities that collect compost and recyclables at the same location for direction on how to design and manage a facility. Hilary will forward the initial research Sophia completed in 2019 on other communities. Ryder asked if staff could also provide list of issues that should be considered. Ben noted direction on including compost service needs to come from Council, and Karin said any options should fit with the recycling RFP model. E. Farmer’s Market Composting Pilot Program Rhonda summarized their experience of successfully running a zero-waste Farmer’s Market in 2020 and suggested the City could use that experience to build its own composting program or require/offer zero waste events at City parks. She noted most of the compostable waste collected at the market was food packaging rather than actual food. When asked what had changed to allow the market to finally go zero-waste she listed the recent availability of an industrial composting company (Dirt Rich), availability and variety of compostable packaging material, and increased public interest in composting. She asked that the CAP committee make a recommendation to City Council about doing zero waste events and providing a City-wide composting service. She noted that they have started work on a draft action plan/tool kit for the City to use based on their experiences. Ryder like the idea of the school district putting on zero waste events and would like a copy of the tool kit. Carla talked about what the City needs to do to be able to offer zero-waste events at City facilities. She said the zero-waste market helped with garbage management enormously. The tool kit is a good start, but the Parks Department will need to do some additional work to address signage, lids for collection containers, where to store materials when not in use, and costs associated with compost collection (Dirt Rich, any other potential options need to be considered). Before putting more staff time into the effort, Parks would like direction from Council. She noted they could start with one event like the Hootenanny before offering the composting ability to other event coordinators. Ryder said Free Flow and other clubs at the high school could likely provide student help with a pilot project. F. Public Comment – no additional public comment G. Adjournment – Meeting adjourned at 6:45 pm Next meeting: January 20th 2