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Approved Minutes - 2010-02-22 City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes February 22, 2010 CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Co-Chair Grant Watkinson called the February 22, 2010 meeting of the Sustainability Advisory Board to order at approximately 6:30 p.m. in the Santiam Room of the West End Building, 4101 Kruse Way, Lake Oswego, Oregon. Members present: Co-Chair Grant Watkinson, Co-Chair Craig Diamond, Matt Briggs, Bruce Brown, Gregory Monahan and Amin Wahab. Dorothy Atwood, Ron Gronowski, Marshall Kosloff and Paul Lyons were not present. Staff present: Susan Millhauser, Sustainability Coordinator; and Justin Bates, AmeriCorps/Sustainability Outreach Specialist. APPROVAL OF MINUTES The members examined and corrected the draft. Then Brown moved to accept the Minutes of December 21, 2009 . Monahan seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous vote. ANNOUNCEMENTS Brown was to serve on the City’s Lake Oswego-Tigard Water Partnership citizen committee. Millhauser noted that staff had prepared a memorandum suggesting how solar might be incorporated into the water treatment plant rebuild. Wahab reported that over 100 persons had attended the recent Second Look Task Force open house. The Task Force was to meet six more times and then forward their recommendations to the City Council. This was Diamond’s last meeting as an SAB member. The City Council had recently honored him for his service. The Board wished him well. Millhauser planned to present her progress report on the City Sustainability Plan to the SAB at their April meeting and then present it to the City Council in May. PUBLIC COMMENT (None) REGULAR BUSINESS Election of Officer Watkinson nominated Bruce Brown to serve as Co-Chair of the Sustainability Advisory Board . Diamond seconded the nomination and Co-Chair Brown was elected by unanimous vote. Update: Sustainability Action Month and Sustainability “Branding” Bates reported the Sustainability Action Month steering committee had been meeting monthly and had planned a series of events in May that would occur at a rate of about one event every two or three days. They had decided to advertise May as “Sustainability Action Month” and only use “SAM” as an in-house acronym. The SAB had learned from last year that the most effective events were those hosted by partners who already had a following and a communication network, like the Library and Chamber of Commerce. Anther lesson from last City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes of February 22, 2010 Page 2 of 3 year was that advertising and fundraising for events should begin earlier. They saw a need to find ways to target a broader audience for Brigg’s movie, Deep Green, which they decided to show at the Presbyterian Church at 7:30 p.m. on May 15th. Atwood, Millhauser and Bates had talked about SAB members’ ideas with the Centennial Event Coordinator. Two events were to take place at Luscher Farm: the Centennial Celebration event with Past, Present and Future themed pavilions was to be in July, with the Future pavilion focused on sustainability, and a Sustainable Supper in August. The group discussed what the School District and churches were doing. Millhauser reported the Eco-School Network was meeting monthly, and that Atwood was a member. The Network included a representative from every school in the District. They were talking about a Sustainability Action Month event in which high school students would fashion a curriculum for grade school students. Watkinson reported the Zero Waste Alliance’s Sustainable Oregon School Initiative program had sponsored a conference of schools, but Lake Oswego had not sent a representative. A recent Ecumenical Ministries conference had highlighted churches’ “green teams” and projects, which Bates attended. Bates was going to ask the United Church of Christ if they would hold an open house to show what they had done. Brown suggested the bike tour that was already planned around the City’s Century Trees could also be routed past “green” homes. Briggs offered to hold an open house at his home. Members suggested talking to neighborhood assocations and homeowners associations about participating by becoming eco-districts and putting solar panels in open space and on rooftops. Ellensburg, Washington could be a model for that. They had a community-owned solar array. Millhauser reported the State legislature had approved a solar power feed-in tariff. The rules and rates were not yet worked out. Brown suggested the Future pavilion at the Centennial Celebration could focus on renewable energy and highlight innovative projects; the new Bloom Box fuel cell technology; and the agricultural-oriented village-planning concept the City of Damascus was looking at. SAB Work Plan / Action Items Brown facilitated a discussion on SAB work plan refinement for the year. Monahan noted he would like the outcome to include identified goals and deliverables necessary to meet those goals. Millhauser displayed the SAB’s draft 2010 priorities presented to City Council in late October that addressed the following: • Community-wide sustainability plan • Community-wide climate action plan • Second annual sustainability action month • Development code and zoning Members confirmed that since then, the first item, community-wide sustainability plan, had been wrapped into SAB support for the Comprehensive Plan update, and that item two had been dropped due to lack of City capacity/funding to support. Diamond noted that the SAB can help establish a long-term framework for Council decision- making for on-going and future planning. Wahab concurred that Council adoption/commitment to sustainability would be key. He added that funds to implement projects and outreach materials with tips for things everyone could do to be more sustainable were important, as well as incentives, code updates and recognition specifically targeted to business. Briggs City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes of February 22, 2010 Page 3 of 3 suggested focusing on projects that cost little to nothing to implement, such as a home solar bulk purchase like Solarize Portland, connecting residents to farmers and community- supported agriculture (CSA) farms, renewable energy sign-ups, bulk purchase of LED light bulbs, deep recycling demonstrations, and promoting home weatherization. SAB members discussed the importance of community-wide initiatives to engage the community and build support for sustainability. Brown suggested that members of the SAB could assist with the Community Development Code audit, and that the SAB could recommend the formation of a task force to oversee the process. The group agreed they needed to spend more time to develop specific goals and action. SAB members saw a need to encourage City leadership to be more supportive of sustainability. They discussed how to do that. Diamond advised them to arrange for City leaders to talk with their peers in other communities, such as Santa Monica, California. He encouraged the SAB to keep giving them ideas and frameworks to think about. He noted that although the SAB was not satisfied with the pace, the City had come a long way in the past four years. They should try to keep that pace going and accelerate it. Millhauser reported she and the City Manager had talked about training the executive team to use sustainability as a decision-making tool. Brown asked the staff to provide the members with a rolling calendar that would show them what meetings, classes and conferences were scheduled in the next three months. That way the SAB would not miss an opportunity to make a statement or comment on something that Metro, the County, the City Council or some other board was doing. The Mayor had asked for time to address the SAB at their March 15 meeting. The Board members discussed sharing work plan ideas with the Mayor at that meeting. Members wondered if they needed to have a special meeting for a brainstorming session. They asked the staff to arrange for them to hold a special March work session. Watkinson anticipated the SAB would spend a future meeting prioritizing the action items. A special meeting was scheduled for Monday, March 8, location to be determined. Members were asked to flesh out one to two priority areas to discuss at the special meeting. SAB Open Position Millhauser confirmed the administrative staff was going to contact Lisa Murphy regarding the open SAB position. She clarified that the City Council only recruited youth members once a year. ADJOURNMENT The next regular meeting was scheduled on March 15, 2010. There being no other business Co-Chair Watkinson adjourned the meeting at 8:40 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Susan Millhauser Sustainability Coordinator L:\Boards & Commissions\SAB\Minutes\2010\LO SAB2010 02-22 APPROVED.doc