Municipal Infrastructure Commission

12/15/2021 - Minutes I. Call to Order Members Present: Laura Dlugolecki, Christopher Page, Cory Mack, Peter Wernsdorfer City Staff Present: Jon Rauscher / City Council Liaison Present: Bryn Oakleaf Call to Order by: Laura Dlugolecki Meeting Start Time: 6:36 PM Minutes Recorded by: Christopher Page II. Public Comment None III. Approve Previous Meeting Minutes Decision: Approved Motion by: Chris P. Second: Corey M. IV. Department and City Updates Will be presenting budget and MIC plan next council meetings. No major revisions or changes. Ideally keep property tax in the 2-3 % range. Shifted some things around to accommodate work for line-striping… found some savings elsewhere, as well. Ideally, every year hit one of the corridors with line striping work. No real changes to Capital Plan compared to what MIC reviewed. Water/Sewer budgets will also be presented; 4.5% rate increase for Water/Sewer. We are catching up; was a 12-yr stretch where water rate was flat. Eating into reserve budget to make those budgets work, not sustainable long-term, lots of capital needs, investment in water sewer budgets. Financers, as well, don’t like seeing City dipping into reserves to fill out budgets. Getting pretty close to a balanced budget, even with Main Street on the horizon. Trying to build up reserve funds. January 3 rd is the date of the budget presentation. Federal Infrastructure Jobs Act passed; City is looking into this. Not a lot of details re: funding and usage, but will run it through existing programs. AOT will get a big increase, will ramp up some additional competitive grants. Foresee about 26 different programs through department, with 20 of them brand new (i.e. car charging stations). Try to see what Master Plan projects we have that fall into these new programs. Bridge work could receive some funding assistance. Funds should be coming to State agencies in Summer ’22. Based on presentation seen by Jon, doesn’t seem necessarily like a “windfall”. Match requirements? Unknown. AOT was not sure. Should be some opportunities for City with some of the capital projects and projects in the Transportation Plan. Main Street Project: Not a ton to report right now. Still targeting bidding in the next couple of months. Various easements coming in, quite a few have been handled (temporary construction easement). Some folks are very easygoing about it, others have required several follow-up meetings before being comfortable. Got a new light pole fixture/sample for the Main Street project in City Hall; check them out.  Main Street Project: Not a ton to report right now. Still targeting bidding in the next couple of months. Various easements coming in, quite a few have been handled (temporary construction easement). Some folks are very easygoing about it, others have required several follow-up meetings before being comfortable. Got a new light pole fixture/sample for the Main Street project in City Hall; check them out. Design based on comments given by MIC. Corey: Different striping on different corridors; on E. Allen, VTRANS project. VTRANS makes striping more and more complicated. What is the plan? Yes, they are putting the green paint down, will have to up our budget for paint striping because it’s getting more complicated/bike lanes. Discussed options with VTRANS. If we can get 2-3 years, might be worth considering changes (vs. having to change annually). Plow edge could just ride over the edge and not scrape it up; water-based paint lasts 1 yr. Looking at several streets with bike lanes/striping needed. Bryn: When is feedback required for light posts? It seems to depend on bidder/bidding situation. Next month sounds good, though it is somewhat more complicated than that. V. Public Outreach - Project Notification Updates for Feedback Council Updates: l City has a Mask Mandate in place now. l No exceptions for bars/particular establishments l Mandate applies to everyone over 5 l Does not apply to folks eating/drinking. l Required by State Law to revisit 45 days after adoption, every 30 days after, up through April. l Councilor Colston is retiring after this term. His council seat will be up for election; Councilor Myers seat is also up for election. Signature requirement in place; waived last year per COVID precautions. l Hal’s Council Seat and Legislative Seat both will be available; full retirement. l Planning Commission has made revisions to form-based code ordinance; next time it can be discussed, it will be a public hearing… provide comments ahead of time or attend that evening if you can. l City Manager hiring process is still in the works. Timeline right now is to do public interview after Town Meeting day with an offer, hopefully position filled in April. l As Jon mentioned, budgeting has begun. Green Mt Transit up 16%. Raising that news to local legislators to request some assistance and relief. City already pays quite a bit for stops that we do have. The % increase has not been finalized, not sure if it’s been baked into estimated City Budget/rate increase or not. 2.88% increase, strong effort to keep tax burden down. Record high inflation and cost of living increase is largely because of overall rate increase. l F-35 noise data; monthly updates available online. Includes instructions for how to read sound monitoring reports. Mayor is also requesting an update on the sound insulation plan that has not yet been provided; acting airport commissioner can hopefully come present to council in January or February on intended plan. More questions coming in, wondering how timing will work with Federal sound insulation efforts. l Schedule regarding City Manager hire: GovHR is the recruiting firm. Suggested schedule is not concrete; no selected candidate at this time. l Parking Plan; sends some comments over this week to get them in the mix. l New City Clerk has been hired; Carol’s last day with City will be December 30 . th VI. Energy Efficiency Goals Discussion  schedule is not concrete; no selected candidate at this time. l Parking Plan; sends some comments over this week to get them in the mix. th l New City Clerk has been hired; Carol’s last day with City will be December 30 . VI. Energy Efficiency Goals Discussion Jon: We’ve been working with Paul Sarne, City’s Communications efforts, to improve the way we communicate information about projects to the public. Keeping in mind that we have a very diverse community in Winooski. Highlights of draft notification sheet with all languages spoken in Winooski, as well as QR codes that would provide translated versions of work scopes. Moving in this direction for all Public Works projects going forward. Running by MIC for feedback/improvements/comments. Note that this is just one way we reach out; we also use social media, etc (Nixel is reserved for more priority issues, city-wide: Parking Ban, Major Traffic Event). Cory: How is this flyer distributed? Jon: Paper copy, provide directly to homeowners in doors or mailbox. Corey: Before parking ban, someone goes and puts flyers on car windshield wipers… is that notice translated as well? Jon: It currently is not, but will be a recommendation to the traffic folks. The QR code approach seems like the easiest way. Can’t put every language on the flyers, so QR code approach allows us to get more people. Peter: This is amazing. Trying to get notices has long been difficult, language barriers. One of the things that helps communities is that kids all know how to use cell phones, and they are the conduits of information for some families. Laura: Good stuff in improving communication. Maybe once it’s out and about, we will receive feedback regarding languages that are missing, or popularity. Jon: Not sure if there are any tracking metrics behind this, because that would be very interesting. VII. Adjourn Bryn: This is in the Master Plan (Energy Goals/Energy Efficiency), as reviewed by this council this past June. How do we want to begin setting a structure for goals, areas of focus for this topic, prioritize next steps for the commission to ensure that we’re making some progress on this for master plan. There are a number of resources that could easily overwhelm commission, regarding what other cities are doing (i.e. separate Energy committees); policies and guidances to inform council for next steps. I asked Jon to provide some baseline energy consumption data for municipal properties. One part of the conversation is conceptual, the other part is more tangible. Jon: This has been a missing piece. It has been in Master Plan for a while. First step is getting an overview. Generated some base usage data for our various municipal facilities. Top 5 items consumes 80% of electrical use. It seems a lot of low-hanging fruit (LEDs, etc.) has already been pursued, as well as equipment improvements at the WWTP. There’s always stuff that we can do. Peter: Kw/H consumption has hardly gone up in municipal buildings. Are we talking about just electric? Or talking about energy, which includes heating? We’re going to start shifting away from talking about Kw/H and start talking about Carbon. Should figure out how to speak that language before it becomes legislation as well. Three different tracks at my company: not quite an energy audit, but a “treasure hunt”. Always savings to find; we could probably find 3 or 4% at WWTP right away. Peter: Kw/H consumption has hardly gone up in municipal buildings. Are we talking about just electric? Or talking about energy, which includes heating? We’re going to start shifting away from talking about Kw/H and start talking about Carbon. Should figure out how to speak that language before it becomes legislation as well. Three different tracks at my company: not quite an energy audit, but a “treasure hunt”. Always savings to find; we could probably find 3 or 4% at WWTP right away. Bryn: Treasure hunts reqire very little cost commitment and also provide/inform capital improvement plans. Peter: Number 2, are we going to consider this as energy and talk about gas? We’re further going to address what we’re burning. Jon: Is a Greenhouse Gas inventory kind of what we’re discussing here? Peter: Yes. Jon: I will put a summary of gas information. Bryn: What was Peter’s third piece? Peter: Use that information as the basis for decarbonization. Also, lost in the details; we can have an outsized impact here in Vermont just by tightening up our burning and shifting to electric. There isn’t a single Kw/H coming from Vermont that comes from burnt coal. There is also legislative work, council can address. Laura: Is goal to come up with a plan to address energy? Bryn: I think we get to decide what our next steps are. It feels like it would help to have enough information to make an actual plan. OK, based on State’s comprehensive energy plan, our own goals and priorities, these are things we would like to focus on, we need to do the work to get more information to make an action plan of sorts. Better to have some kind of structure of guidance vs. grasping at snowflakes. Things that inform what Peter said about efforts for our own infrastructure ot move towards decarbonization; but another piece is how to help residents/businesses also move towards decarbonization. Laura: Someone from CCRPC came to commission about developing a renewable energy plan for the city (statewide initiative). Winooski being so small, we don’t have big open cornfields to build solar fields, but we do have an industrial park; at that time, there was not an interest in rooftop solar in industrial parks. Is that still the practice? There’s a lot of real estate available to generate alternative energy in Winooski. Bryn: Decarbonization is the move to get off fossil fuels. Essentially moving towards electrified buildings and homes. Not necessarily one and the same as putting solar panels up. We do see some Federal Money, would be good for the Commission to focus on how to spend that money. I.E. Commission wants to focus on decarbonizing WWTP. OR do we want to focus on EV charging stations? If we’re going to accept money from State/Fed gov’t, how are we going to help guide staff and council on what those priorities should be? Corey: On one hand it sounds like we are trying to decrease electrical consumption (i.e. efficiency), but on the other hand it seems more like we’re trying to increase consumption in place of burning carbon. Peter: VEIC and Efficiency VT… great organization with a lot of answers and people who can help us with this process. We could enlist help… A couple things folks should know. In 2014, scoping and design study done for solar facility down at WWTP. Generation business is ultimately unrelated to consumption side. To really unpack this, would probably need more than a couple hours. EVT is consulting arm, we could reach out to them. Bryn: May help to look at some particular examples: South Burlington committee is very active; not necessarily mimic, but it could help us to develop some guidelines/guidance around scoping and design study done for solar facility down at WWTP. Generation business is ultimately unrelated to consumption side. To really unpack this, would probably need more than a couple hours. EVT is consulting arm, we could reach out to them. Bryn: May help to look at some particular examples: South Burlington committee is very active; not necessarily mimic, but it could help us to develop some guidelines/guidance around priorities. A good thing to consider; we have a separate tree committee… should there be a separate energy committee? That would go to Council to decide. But we get to inform what we think is beneficial to the City. Laura: There was an official Energy committee that met for a while several years ago. I’m sure there are folks who are interested, or who want to get involved. They opted not to at the time become a chartered committee and it fizzled out, but probably met monthly for a year. Bryn: Don’t want to add more complication than necessary; MIC should take opportunity to sink our teeth in. Chris: What about vehicle mileage? Jon: Will provide that. Also, found 2015 meeting notes of now-defunct Energy Committees. Also, their meetings had IPAs and french fries. Peter: I actually put a kibosh on meeting in a bar. It was going to be a public meeting; not open access in a bar. Corey: I would want to make sure our policies/projects doesn’t preclude any of this stuff. Also, building codes, multi-unit dense buildings; are people able to have an electrical care there? Charging stations? Easily added in future? Jon: We talked about both of those items today… GMP, determining if amount of conduit we’re burying will be adequate for when all these cars get electrified. Also, spoke with Planning Directory over what drives the Car Charging stations… is it the market, or do we put it in the regs that developers need to at least be putting in the conduit? Corey: A bit of a class issue now; only homeowners can have electric cars, renters do not have access to the same infrastructure. Bryn: Current building codes enacted September 2020; no requirement at residential level for vehicle chargers as part of new construction; at commercial level, some requirements, but perhaps not enough. If only two chargers in, how is that influencing overall accessibility? It appears to be both market-driven and ordinance-driven. Corey: There are opportunities for getting past a lot of these issues here. Peter: If you can afford to own a house and buy an electric car, GMP will install an electric charger ($2500) for free. One question: what are we doing at a corporate level to manage decarbonization. Municipalities are starting to ask these same questions. Almost like a personal question. Bryn: I don’t know what would be best exercise to get the most from the commissioners, but it would be helpful to talk about value statements. If the city was to focus on, what is it you would like us to see us focus on? Jon: We thought about these big questions, but also did some internal housekeeping and found some habits that could be changed and save a ton of energy. There is a lot of little stuff in City facilities. Space Heaters under desks, etc. Bryn: One tool I’ve found to take a very dense topic, taking a self-assessment and the attached link can do a sample assessment. Could be one way to help inform what questions we can ask, as well as help guide some structure. Where are we even going to begin? some habits that could be changed and save a ton of energy. There is a lot of little stuff in City facilities. Space Heaters under desks, etc. Bryn: One tool I’ve found to take a very dense topic, taking a self-assessment and the attached link can do a sample assessment. Could be one way to help inform what questions we can ask, as well as help guide some structure. Where are we even going to begin? Peter: Mentions an adaptive test; gives you an idea of what it looks like if it’s finished, if you’re in world-class energy efficiency mode. Bryn: What precedes Treasure Hunt? Peter: Energy Awareness Training. Corey: Northeast is notorious for having highest elec. Costs in country. Perhaps I’ve been brainwashed by the gas energy, but gas has seemed like it’s a cheaper fuel source for heating. Are we letting our aspirational goals ultimately less affordable for the community? Peter: Everything is going to be designed based on Kw/H vs BTU, atmospheric load. It may increase some costs. Treasure Hunt Process does inform Capital Plan and tells you what to do. House is currently unheated; we got rid of gas furnace and stove and are now all-electric, abandoned gas line. Based on calculations, we should save about $100+ a month on energy charges. The capital side is there, but put the money up-front and reduce O&M costs; needs to be worldwide goal regarding energy production. Corey: It’s ultimately best when the two go hand to hand. Peter: another thing, I’ve always thought there’d be a fungible carbon market for municipalities. Kind of out there in the long term, but if you’re able to write a policy that’s favorible to those things, let’s do it. Bryn: Climate change is happening, it’s real; climate refugees are already moving out of CA because of fires or middle of US because tornadoes; insurance companies aren’t going to protect those homes in high-impact areas. While it’s not a direct cost to the user, being on natural gas is proving to impact us all, and gravely impact our economy. But it’s not just moving off fossil fuels, it’s ensuring that the energy source we move toward is efficient and affordable. LED bulb is a strong example of this sort of technology. Heat pumps as well. Not as tangible as trash and compost, requires a lot more data analysis and work that folks like Peter do to help inform and guide us. I think one of the reasons I’d like to see the MIC put more conversation in here, we don’t want to be left at the end of the line because we don’t have some priorities outlined/ energy assessments completed. We know state funding for weatherization, federal funding for electrical vehicle chargers; is commission going to be bale to identify what we need, or is it a bit more chaotic? Jon: To reinforce on the staff side, most of these grants will probably be competitive, so if we can point to a plan that shows this is what we want, it makes us much more competitive. Chris: Perhaps we recommend reaching out to EVT? Laura: Agreed, there are experts on this subject, and a completed an assessment would get us in the queue for when this money starts coming down the line. Bryn: John, let’s get heating data. Both electrical and fossil fuels data will be useful in determining next steps. Does this need to come to council for a next step, or is Staff able to engage with EVT from the staff level? What is threshold for council? Jon: I can do that without council approval. Was also going to reach out to CCRPC; new energy planner, doing facilities and other things. Curious what grant opportunities would be available for audits. engage with EVT from the staff level? What is threshold for council? Jon: I can do that without council approval. Was also going to reach out to CCRPC; new energy planner, doing facilities and other things. Curious what grant opportunities would be available for audits. Bryn: Peter, anything else there as far as next steps? Peter: It makes sense to reach out to either VEIC or EVT, or both, as a next step for this process. Also, do we have a relationship with gas/electrical utilities? You have to be able to talk to the folks who will be implementing the policy. Jon: I work with Phil quite a bit and he’s super for us. He reaches out and provides; does a lot to help Winooski. THANKS TO COREY: BEEN THERE SINCE THE BEGINNING! HAVE ALWAYS APPRECIATED INSIGHT… WILL MISS SEEING YOU!