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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016.09.07 CEAP Minutes Minutes for the Climate and Energy Action Plan ad hoc Committee September 7,2016 Page 1 of 3 MINUTES FOR THE CLIMATE & ENERGY ACTION PLAN ad hoc COMMITTEE Wednesday, September 7, 2016 Siskiyou Room, 51 Winburn Way 1. Call to Order Councilor Rich Rosenthal called the meeting to order at 3:30 p.m. Committee members Bryan Sohl, Cindy Bernard, Stuart Green, Jim Hartman, James McGinnis, Louise Shawkat, Claudia Alick, Greg Jones, Marni Koopman, Roxane Beigel-Coryell, and Isaac Bevers were present. Staff member Adam Hanks was present. Consultants Andrea Martin and Jill Simmons were present via speakerphone. 2. Around the Room Group did an around the room team building regarding how they think the process is going and one thing they think we can do better. 3. Public Input Ken Crocker— stated that he appreciated today's around the room check-in and thinks it's a nice way to start and a good way to improve the process. The wanted to re-emphasise the importance of using science as a guiding principle in this process. He thinks the group needs more emphasis on what that 8%per year reduction actually does. How does using 8%per year reduction guide the selection of the over one hundred actions the group is reviewing? He wanted to know if a process was in place for making good selections of options. Some of the actions are incremental improvements but others need to be complete paradigm shifts—or does the group not have paradigm shifting action in the list of options? Robert Block-Brown—stated that he has similar concerns as Ken regarding the need for transformational pieces—those things can be daunting but he believes that education is the key to making long-term, effective progress. He stated that he just received notification of a discussion regarding a potential new city hall. This would be a great way for this group to lead by example in an actual project. The project should include solar, zero-net landscaping, LEED certification, etc. James Stephens—gave a review of the recent City Council's approval of the 1 Ox20 ordinance. He thinks that there are three takaways from this approval: 1) this is a great thing for the city to have done; 2) the City has to step up and do lots of work now; and 3) the 1 Ox20 ordinance wasn't giving staff specific direction—this is instead about the Ashland community coming together. He stated that this ordinance dovetails into exactly what this committee is doing. He offered to provide technical expertize if this group needs it. Huelz Gutchen— stated that last night's Council meeting was beautiful—he is glad the Council made the right choice. He stated that he knows how to do the financing for creating the local energy, but only on this side of the grid. He stated that the price of gasoline will go up due to Minutes for the Climate and Energy Action Plan ad hoc Committee September 7,2016 Page 2 of 3 OPEC having no reserves at the moment. He stated that science is measuring and data watching, but that's not very interesting to most people. He talked to the Land Use Division of the State of Oregon who have no information on climate change, so they don't know how to make land use codes to reflect that. However, we can make those codes ourselves. 4. Approval of Minutes Group approved the minutes of August 17, 2016 with two minor edits. 5. Plan Development Rosenthal read aloud the committee's Scope of Work as a refresher. He stated that he did so because this group has now been meeting for one year and he thought it was important to remember the challenges they are committed to working through. Rosenthal introduced Jeff Golden and, via telephone, Jill Simmons who gave information on her experience creating two climate plans for the City of Seattle. She stated that she had a few lessons from doing those plans including: 1. The plan is both critical and not nearly as important as what we might think it is (i.e. having an overview of what we hope to achieve is more important than making every single action `shovel-ready'). 2. Remember that the plan is just the beginning—things evolve, change, become more or less important. 3. Have a clear implementation and check-in/update process. 4. The plan cannot provide enough detail for every action to be ready to go immediately. Lots of cost/benefit and planning must occur after the plan is in-place (and that's a good thing, or the plan would never be finished). 5. The plan needs both staff and financial capacity to keep it going (i.e. there needs to be buy-in from those who will implement the plan whether that's city staff, budget members, or master- plan creators). 6. The most important role for the committee is to get the community involved and excited about actions. The group needs to propose ways to keep the community and City connected on an on-going basis Group had a short discussion with Ms. Simmons about her thoughts on the current process. Group decided that there are several topics they still need to discuss, but don't currently have time in the regular meeting schedule. Rosenthal proposed that the group meet on one or two Saturdays to tackle the following: • The ordinance • Next steps on the 1Ox20 ordinance • How to incorporate science-based targets (does that change the overall goal?) • How/when to use subject-mater experts • Should there be a separate consumption-based goal? Staff will send a poll to determine the best date(s) for this potential meeting. Minutes for the Climate and Energy Action Plan ad hoc Committee September 7,2016 Page 3 of 3 6. Open House Plan Group discussed with Cascadia(via speaker phone) the current plan for the open house. Hanks requested that the group distribute the flyer by the same methods as they did for the previous open house. He will send the final version next week. Group discussed the desire to have more clarity on goal choices. They also discussed a desire to have a way to get people more emotionally involved. Some members of the group expressed concerns that it was premature to show the public the actions proposed. Cascadia clarified that these will be shown only as examples of what could be done—not as items for the public to vote yes or no. Group discussed whether or not to have a speaker talk about the upcoming ordinance. Mr. Golden and Cascadia agreed to consider ways to do that. 7. Geos Vulnerability Assessment Koopman stated that as each community is unique, it is important to do an assessment to understand our specific community issues. She gave an overview of the process used to create the report and stated that the focus of the report is on adaptation strategies. She expects that this assessment will be final soon, hopefully prior to the September 25th open house. Rosenthal stated that he would prefer if Geos changed the titles in Table 1 from, "solutions" to "potential actions," so people don't get the idea that we are implementing these suggestions. Koopman agreed to this request. The group thanked Koopman and Geos for their work. 8. Strategies and Actions Mr. Golden gave an overview of how the strategies and actions will be used at the open house. They need to show at least a small number of actions to help clarify/define the strategies. Group discussed some of their confusion over the layout of the actions in the packet. Cascadia stated that some of it might be sorting errors, which will get straightened out. Also, for the sake of clarity at the open house some actions which were ranked lower by the committee members may be used as examples,just to show the community the broad range of possibilities to consider. 9. Next Meeting Hartman asked if the group could alter the early meeting time to 4:3 0 p.m. Staff stated that the challenge is in finding a meeting space at that time (the Siskiyou Room is not available)but that they would search for an alternate space. If none found, the time will have to stay the same. 10. Adjournment Meeting adjourned at 5:35 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Diana Shiplet, Executive Assistant