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HomeMy WebLinkAbout 5-14-2008 policy minutes1 LINKED MINUTES OF THE POLICY MEETING OF THE CITY COMMISSION BOZEMAN, MONTANA May 14, 2008 ***************************** The Commission of the City of Bozeman met in the City Commission Room at City Hall, 411 East Main Street, on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 from 12-1:30 p.m. Present were Mayor Kaaren Jacobson, Cr. Jeff Krauss, Cr. Sean Becker, Cr. Eric Bryson, Cr. Jeff Rupp, City Manager Chris Kukulski, Finance Director Anna Rosenberry, Planning Director Andy Epple, Public Service Director Debbie Arkell, Assistant City Attorney Tim Cooper, Sustainability Coordinator Hattie Baker, Assistant to City Manager and Neighborhood Coordinator Brit Fontenot, and Deputy City Clerk Cynthia Jordan Delaney. 0:10:29 A. Call to Order - 12-1:30 p.m. - City Commission Meeting Room, City Hall, 411 East Main Mayor Jacobson called the meeting to order at 12:08 p.m. 0:10:31 B. Pledge of Allegiance and Moment of Silence 0:11:05 C. Public Comment Mayor Jacobson opened and closed general public comment. She reserved the chance for members of the Climate Protection Task Force to give public comment during the policy discussion. 0:12:04 D. Round Table Discussion (Identifying potential future agenda items arising from the City Commission Meetings since the last Policy Meeting of April 9, 2008) 0:12:25 Cr. Krauss Cr. Krauss stated that if the policy meetings are going to be on Thursday, they need to avoid the third and fourth Thursdays. 0:14:04 Cr. Rupp Cr. Rupp wants a listing of those subjects that we need to meet and talk about. 0:14:44 Mayor Jacobson Mayor Jacobson brought up the issue of not requiring the developer to correct the intersection of Peach and Rouse. 0:16:23 Mr. Kukulski Mr. Kukulski verified that the Commission will stick with that last policy meeting on Wednesday, May 28 and do the infill/road issue as scheduled. Then, we will switch to the first Thursdays for policy meetings starting in June, and that will be taken care of at the next Monday night meeting. 0:17:05 Cr. Bryson Bozeman City Commission Policy Meeting, May 14, 2008 Cr. Bryson requested a policy discussion regarding the creation of a UTD and Streamline/Galavan advisory board make up; invite all interested parties to come and flesh out where we're going with that group. Cr. Rupp seconded the topic. 0:17:25 Mr. Kukulski Mr. Kukulski stated that the gaming ordinance is one identified topic with five thumbs up to discuss, and the Streamline issue can be added as a policy meeting topic since it's on the Work Plan, and he saw three thumbs up. 0:18:24 Cr. Krauss Cr. Krauss wanted to add some policy meeting topics onto Monday night before or after the meeting. 0:19:03 E. Policy Discussion 0:19:06 1. Climate Protection Task Force Municipal Climate Action Plan Recommendations (Baker) 0:19:10 Hattie Baker, Sustainability Coordinator Ms. Baker introduced the members of the Climate Protection Task Force in attendance: Steve Bruner, Mel Kotur, Matt Madden, Scott Bischke (Co-chair), Otto Pohl (Co-chair), David Boggeman, and Pat McGowen. 0:21:20 Ms. Baker Ms. Baker gave a presentation. This City of Bozeman Climate Action Plan is a working draft developed in one year, and they want to discuss their recommendations before bringing the final report to a Commission meeting for adoption. All recommendations in this plan were developed with unanimous consent. She outlined the historical context and process of creating this plan. There is a need to complete a Community Action Plan. See page 12 of the plan for recommendations from the subcommittees. 0:33:37 Mayor Jacobson Mayor Jacobson congratulated the task force and Hattie for their hard work. She asked if any task force members wanted to speak. 0:34:02 Mr. Bischke Mr. Bischke stated that it is difficult to get exact budgetary numbers for this entire program and carbon reduction numbers. It would take more work and time to put recommendations in an order of what to do first. 0:35:11 Mr. Pohl Mr. Pohl stated that for some recommendations, you can put in a little bit of money and save a lot of money. Others will have a slower payback. Think about this like venture capitalists. Take the savings accrued from the low-hanging fruit and apply to some other ones so the savings don’t disappear into the general fund. Consider this as a package and think of the savings as returns on investment that can be re-invested. 2 Bozeman City Commission Policy Meeting, May 14, 2008 0:37:01 Mr. Pohl Mr. Pohl clarified that low-hanging fruit means greater payback: larger carbon reduction or immediate cash savings. 0:38:04 Ms. Baker Ms. Baker added that getting grants will help with some of these recommendations. Looking at payback time, operation and maintenance is where you're going to get the return on that investment as well. 0:43:58 Cr. Bryson Cr. Bryson is cautious to adopt something that says, "LEED Certified." Rephrase that language to say "some aspect of energy efficiency." If we are going to stick with LEED, he wants to know the proportional cost increase for requiring that certification. 0:45:41 Cr. Bryson Cr. Bryson suggested this change to the draft: take out the requirement (in PBE-5) that every City employee reads the Climate Action Plan and discusses its contents. Having the department heads read it would be more reasonable. He asked for a description about green tag purchases. 0:48:17 Mr. Kotur Mr. Kotur stated that green tags (buying the environmental benefits of renewable energy) can be purchased through Northwestern Energy or Bonneville Environmental. If you are interested in pursuing that, call them. 0:48:57 Cr. Bryson Cr. Bryson referenced section TLU-1 and wants suggestions for time frames for a schedule for traffic lights to go to blinking yellow. He wants blinking traffic lights. 0:49:16 Mr. McGowen Mr. McGowen stated that the task force is hoping that the City will do more analysis before choosing to implement these recommendations. 0:50:27 Cr. Bryson Cr. Bryson asked about the ballpark cost of the electricity-producing turbine for the Sourdough Creek Plant (page 27, WWR-1). 0:51:28 Mr. Bischke Mr. Bischke stated that the financial analysis of the turbine needs to be revisited given the change in charge for electricity and to determine how long it would take for payback. 0:52:10 Cr. Bryson Cr. Bryson stated that in this draft form the suggestion should be "that we evaluate the installation of the turbine" and not to say that we are going to install it. 0:52:17 Cr. Krauss 3 Bozeman City Commission Policy Meeting, May 14, 2008 Cr. Krauss stated that he thinks that goes for everything in this plan: if he understood the task force, it is saying investigate these recommendations further. 0:53:21 Cr. Krauss Cr. Krauss stated that the trade off for flashing lights is safety; it is something to be revisited. He suggested an anti-idling awareness policy. 0:55:19 Cr. Krauss Cr. Krauss stated that we're going to have to say that part of departmental budgets will be contingent on hitting some of these targets. He suggested that after the capital costs are paid back, then take those savings going forward and put them into the plan. He doesn't want to ignore the capital costs. If you make a capital investment, that has to be paid back over time. Do we have electric meters on all of our buildings? 0:57:54 Mr. Pohl Mr. Pohl stated that the important question is whether the buildings get monitored for energy usage; it's smarter management of what we do. If we eliminate the waste in the budget through smarter management, it's one of the best things we can do to achieve immediate gains. 0:58:52 Ms. Baker Ms. Baker stated that the task force's recommendation is for the City to start monitoring what our energy usage is and create graphs to track it every month in order to target an anomaly and fix it right away. 1:01:38 Cr. Rupp Cr. Rupp asked about how to take the municipal plan and then have the community conversation to create a community plan. 1:03:13 Cr. Rupp Cr. Rupp just wants to go off the municipal work that has already been done and not make it larger or lose enthusiasm. He asked about whether municipal recommendations had been vetted with City staff. 1:04:10 Ms. Baker Ms. Baker stated that the task force recently passed this report to the dept. heads one last time to verify that the information we got from them is factually correct and that they don't have any problems with it. 1:05:03 Ms. Baker Ms. Baker asked if there are any recommendations that the Commission feels strongly about or wants removed. 1:05:13 Cr. Rupp Cr. Rupp questioned the absence of transit in the plan. 1:05:23 Mr. McGowen 4 Bozeman City Commission Policy Meeting, May 14, 2008 Mr. McGowen stated that the task force felt transit would be part of the community plan. There is an appendix that is a rough sketch of a start of a community plan. 1:06:54 Ms. Baker Ms. Baker stated that if the Commission feels it should be part of it, we'd be happy to include transit in the municipal plan. 1:07:08 Cr. Rupp Cr. Rupp stated that getting people in buses is very important to him as a City official. It is important to keep transit front and center in our conversations with the community. He wanted to add the transit discussion into the recommendations. 1:07:48 Mayor Jacobson Mayor Jacobson stated that land use patterns dramatically affect CO2 emissions. She sees it as part of a community study. 1:10:08 Cr. Becker Cr. Becker stated that either we have to redouble up our effort with the growth policy, or take a run at expanding out your recommendations. Part of the first recommendation is to hire a full- time coordinator so it would be their job. 1:11:35 Cr. Becker Cr. Becker stated that the Planning Board wants to put these concepts into place in the 2020 Update. He suggested that the community portion of this should be a part of our own community plan of the 2020 Update. He wanted to ensure that the dam design that impact fee money has been put into has had turbine design included. 1:13:59 Cr. Becker Cr. Becker questioned why hauling trash, using machines, and picking trash up from the highway isn't included since it's all part of waste and should be included. 1:15:31 Cr. Becker Cr. Becker stated that the National Association of Home Builders has a green building standard that goes from 25-75% of construction without increasing cost. He hopes that this document would be amenable to revising building codes to include LEED or NAHAB green building standards. He suggested sending a staff member to start LEED certification and NAHAB green building professional certification. Appoint our City Manager to look into this immediately so we have a better sense of what the standards are and how it fits into what we're asking our dept. heads to consider. 1:18:19 Mayor Jacobson Mayor Jacobson suggested how to approach implementation: develop a strategic plan where we separate out those things that aren't going to cost anything, and those things could go to dept. heads for further examination and implementation. Then, look at those things that are going to cost and send those back to dept. heads to work on that and see where they could come up with funds. Ultimately, set priorities for the next ten years, like the CIP. She needs a graphic picture. 5 Bozeman City Commission Policy Meeting, May 14, 2008 1:19:52 Mr. Bischke Mr. Bischke verified that Mayor Jacobson would like the final draft with cost breakdowns of items in the table on page 12 (Table 2 Summary of recommendations), and a table that's a sorted list that has no cost. For the full list, have three categories: free, needs to be further examined, needs to go to dept. heads right now because it's a big cost. 1:21:14 Marcia Youngman - Public Comment Ms. Youngman stated that members of Citizens Concerned about Climate Change are thrilled with what's in the report. She requested that the public be given as much advanced warning as possible about the upcoming public hearing so that citizens can come and give input. She recommended moving forward as expeditiously as possible with the community portion. They recommended reaching out to appliance stores to market good information about Energy Star appliances. 1:25:25 Ms. Youngman Ms. Youngman stated that the revisions to the 2020 Plan should be very practical to make sure measurable changes are achieved in energy efficiency. Don't miss this window of opportunity to advise the 2020 Plan, Transportation Plan, and the community climate plan task force. Ask for informal input specifically on this subject. 1:27:23 Mayor Jacobson Mayor Jacobson wants the final draft of this plan linked to the City homepage. 1:27:49 Mr. Bischke Mr. Bischke highlighted the recommendation to hire a full-time Sustainability Director (EDU-4): the task force believes this plan is a tremendous effort that can't be implemented by a half-time person. It is critical. We think Hattie has done a fabulous job. 1:30:25 Ms. Baker Ms. Baker asked for direction about where to go from here because this task force will dissolve at the end of May. We will bring it to the Commission in June. 1:31:00 Cr. Rupp Cr. Rupp noted that he needs more time and help to go through this with due diligence; he is supportive. He asked for more time as a Commission. 1:31:59 Cr. Rupp Cr. Rupp suggested that we start with the chart the Mayor spoke of and organize it, get responses from City officials, and if there is a cost associated with it. He wants to learn the magnitude and if the commitment is there. 1:32:29 Mayor Jacobson Mayor Jacobson stated that we could say we support this and will implement it as we have funds. 1:32:42 Mr. Kukulski 6 Bozeman City Commission Policy Meeting, May 14, 2008 7 Mr. Kukulski stated that for a master plan for implementation it is critical for the Commission to set targets for what you expect out of the organization, and he has a high level of confidence that dept. heads can show you what should be implemented, at what cost, and how quickly you can do it. 1:34:57 Cr. Krauss Cr. Krauss gave ideas for moving forward: he doesn't see this plan or the community plan as a way of getting around a larger community discussion about transit. For the community plan, it is hard to affect this without buy in from them. We can accept your recommendations and make it high on our goals list to say dept. heads will implement these or bring us reasons why you can't in a short amount of time. Bring it back in next year's budget or the CIP things to do within 60 days. Accept it with the caveat that the next step is implementation. We must go ahead with community planning. 1:38:42 Mayor Jacobson Mayor Jacobson suggested that at the public hearing Hattie give the overview she gave today, and one person from each of the categories on page 12 can talk about these things. 1:41:02 Mr. Kukulski Mr. Kukulski stated that the whole team of the City is accountable to implement this. If you expect the City to take the lead on the community plan, it is a discussion we need to have about goals and budget. 1:43:02 G. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned. ____________________________________ Kaaren Jacobson, Mayor ATTEST: ______________________________________ Stacy Ulmen, City Clerk PREPARED BY: ______________________________________ Cynthia Jordan Delaney, Deputy City Clerk Approved on ___________________________.