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SAB 052024 Approved MinutesCity of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes May 20, 2024 Page 1 of 5 CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes May 20, 2024 Approved Call to Order / Roll Call Whitney Street called the May 2024 meeting of the Sustainability Advisory Board to order at 6:33 pm. Members Present: Buzz Chandler, Jay Hamachek, Kara Orvieto, Mark Puhlman, Matt Schaeffer, Whitney Street, Nathan Chen, Margaux McCloskey Members Excused/Absent: Robin Palao Staff: Councilor Trudy Corrigan, Amanda Watson Public: Linda Ganzini, Lisa Adatto Approval of Minutes Kara noted one typo that Amanda will correct. Buzz made a motion to approve the minutes from the April 2024 meeting, Mark seconded, minutes approved. Public Comment None. Regular Business A. Youth Member Updates Margaux shared that later this week her sustainability class will be taking a tour of a net zero emissions buildings downtown, the PAE building. Nathan’s school has been working on moving towards more composting in the lunch area. They also visited a nuclear reactor in Reed College. B. Electrify Oregon Campaign Linda Ganzini and Lisa Adatto from the Lake Oswego Sustainability Network (LOSN) shared information on the Electrify Oregon campaign. Electrify LO is a practical, consumer-oriented campaign by LOSN to increase home and vehicle electrification in LO through information, motivation, and removing barriers. Focused not on advocacy but on behavioral change, and encourages people to plan ahead to electrify big- ticket items. Electrify LO hosts the Electrification Fair/Electric Home and Vehicle Show, puts out educational newsletters, conducts outreach to the business community, has an alliance with the locally based, nationally focused organization Electrify Now, and is a founding member of Electrify Oregon. Electrify Oregon brings together local electrification-focused volunteer-powered grassroots groups in Oregon (now 23 organizations). It’s mostly about behavioral change campaigns. Behavioral change is really important now because there is a window of opportunity with the Inflation Reduction Act, billions of dollars of incentives between now and 2032 for people to electrify their homes and cars. Electrify Oregon’s theory of change is about community-based social marketing: giving information doesn’t help people change their behavior, but financial incentives and social norms do. People will change their City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes May 20, 2024 Page 2 of 5 behavior if they know people they trust and talk to have. Electrify Oregon groups are conducting education and outreach activities, giving direct assistance with the shift to clean power and electric upgrades—such as through coaching, contractor connections, and finding incentives and gap financing—and a little bit of local policy advocacy, although they are not a big policy group. Electrify Oregon strengthens participating groups through information sharing, capacity building trainings, and measuring outcomes. Electrify Oregon also has a website with lots of resources, including a list of contractors providing electrification services that can be searched by town. Electrify Oregon Collective Action Teams, doing activities like electrification fairs, yard signs, house parties, coaching, are drivers of change. In Lake Oswego, the focus is going to be on coaching; not enough capacity to do house parties and yard signs currently. House parties share the benefits of home electrification with friends, family, and neighbors by inviting others into your home to talk about your electrification efforts and answer questions. Lisa talked about coaching, which a lot of communities across the US are focusing on. Coaches serve as experts and cheerleaders who guide others through electrification. The national group Rewiring America offers electrification coaching training. Electrify Oregon is partnering with them to encourage people to take the free training; Rewiring America has made Oregon a priority because they want to see a statewide program like theirs succeed. Participants will take one session focused on what is happening in Oregon. Electrify Oregon will have a network of trained local coaches who they can connect with local residents who want to electrify; they will help connect coaches and clients to make it easy. Coaches will also attend a monthly meeting with other coaches for mutual support. LOSN is calling for people who would like to be a coach, and asked if SAB could help recruit people who may be interested. This fall, they would like to market the program to the community and could use SAB’s help with that too. Jay asked how we are going to convince people that things like induction cook tops or heat pumps aren’t a wild idea, but actually an affordable premium product and a great alternative. We have a lot of opportunity to start showing people through venues like the farmer’s market and he doesn’t see a lot of that happening outside of the Sustainability Resource Fair. How can we think outside the box? Mark noted the Electrification Fair is another venue, and there is an induction cooktop in the Library of Things available to check out. Jay pointed out the need is to mainstream and reach the general population; a cooking demonstration on an induction stovetop at the farmer’s market, where there is a much broader audience, might be one way. Linda responded there are a variety of ways to attract people—health benefits and cost may be more convincing to some people. For an induction stove, it’s also really easy to clean. Kara suggested targeted outreach to realtors, high end kitchen designers here locally; partnering with them to have an open house and have them learn about the electric equipment. Jay liked the idea of reaching out to builders; maybe six builders build probably 90% of homes and remodels in town so that’s where they could start. How can we think outside the box? Jay offered to contact builders that he knows to get their thoughts on what they think it would take, what SAB and LOSN could do to help them. Buzz suggested for induction cooktops, show something that’s not part of the sustainability sales pitch, such as pitching how safe the equipment is. C. City Council Update Councilor Corrigan gave an update on City Council meetings in the past month, including: • Proclaimed Earth Day in April • Heard a presentation on Stafford-Childs intersection improvement from Clackamas County; unfortunately had to tell the County we couldn’t go forward with that because of Chapter 10, there will be some work to figure out if there is some way forward for that • Approved Municipal Grant awards • Got an overview of the Hillsdale to Lake Oswego regional trail, a 6.3 mile trail City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes May 20, 2024 Page 3 of 5 • Finalized Metro Local Share project money; Willamette Greenway will be partially paid for, access at Luscher Farms, and a trail through West Waluga Park • Looked at Lake Oswego Parks and Recreation branding • Proclaimed Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders Awareness month and Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May • Had “If I Were Mayor” contest winners • Joint meeting with the Lake Oswego School Board on the Lake Grove community center and library concept • Awarded $1.1m for 2024 pavement rehabilitation • Approved an intergovernmental agreement with the Riverdale Rural Fire Protection District so that we will continue fire and emergency services there • Approved an agreement between the City and Clackamas County Human Services Department Social Services Division for the next 3 fiscal years • For the new wastewater treatment plant facility, the City previously off-ramped with EPCOR and is now ready to proceed again. City Council authorized a special procurement to enter into a design-build-operate-maintain contract. We are at 90% design now, the design is really good, appropriate for the spot and it is the way we hope to move forward. Also approved a special procurement for owners’ advisor services for the facility with Carollo Engineering, which is the group that brought us to this point. We think we probably have a one-year delay due to the off- ramp. D. Expanded Recycling Services Amanda briefed the Board on a policy question that will be coming to City Council this year to get their questions and feedback, and eventually a recommendation to the Council on whether and how the City should provide expanded recycling services to Lake Oswego residents. She provided background on the City’s solid waste management regulations and their purpose, Republic Service’s exclusive franchise for collection of solid waste and recyclable materials in Lake Oswego, and Ridwell, a Seattle-based startup that began operating in the Portland Metro area in conflict with some local solid waste regulations, including Lake Oswego’s. When the City renewed its franchise with Republic Services in 2022, it added in language to Ordinance 2901 that preserves the ability of the City Council to decide at a later date whether and how to provide expanded recycling services to residents for difficult to recycle materials. Amanda provided information on the service Ridwell provides, a subscription service available to single- family households for the collection of certain items that can be reused or recycled, but are difficult to recycle and are not accepted in commingled curbside recycling service. She also gave an overview of the Recycle+ service Republic Services and other franchised haulers in the Portland Metro area have started to implement in some jurisdictions, including Washington County and unincorporated Clackamas County, after working with local governments to develop a standard opt-in service. She outlined materials accepted, pricing, and service levels for both of the services. Amanda also provided a brief overview of the statewide Plastic Pollution & Recycling Modernization Act (SB 582) for the larger context. The legislation is currently going through rulemaking; the new recycling system will go into effect in July 2025. The law is focused on modernizing Oregon’s recycling system and requires packaging producers to pay into Oregon’s recycling system (extended producer responsibility) to make improvements and expand access to recycling across the state. In addition, there will be a uniform statewide collection list, the same across the entire state, that specifies what is a recyclable material and what is appropriate to be commingled curbside. For the non-curbside part of the list, the Producer Responsibility Organization has to provide the opportunity to recycle those materials, such as through a City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes May 20, 2024 Page 4 of 5 network of convenient depots or potentially a separate type of collection service. How this connects to the expanded recycling services question is that a few of the materials currently collected by Ridwell and/or Recycle+--specifically plastic film, plastic lids, and Styrofoam—will be on the statewide list, not suitable for curbside collection but the other part of the list that needs to have convenient options to recycle. It is possible that there could be a role for one or both of these companies to help meet the requirements of the legislation; both are interested in having a role in collecting the items on the statewide list. We don’t yet know exactly how the Recycling Modernization Act will change the landscape for Ridwell and Recycle+ services, but we know there will be an impact and the City is tracking it closely. Amanda outlined policy options for SAB and asked for their thoughts and questions. • Kara: There are 800 people in LO who have Ridwell, and there has been no enforcement action since cease and desist letter. Because Recycle+ is a service our franchised hauler offers, does Ridwell being here compete with what is available? • Amanda confirmed Recycle+ is not currently available in Lake Oswego, the City would have to take action to implement it. Republic is capable of providing it. Amanda confirmed that either option would not cost the City anything; Recycle+ is an opt-in service and if it is implemented in LO would not impact rates for customers who do not participate. • Whitney: If we were to do an ordinance, we wouldn’t require anything of Republic Services, they would just choose on their own to then supply [Recycle+] here? Amanda: Yes; she is not sure whether they would, they may decide not to, but they could. • Whitney: It seems that all of this is changing, not only statewide but maybe the entire country, there’s a ton of other things that may come along, and if we go with Republic Services and then get cheaper options or better options we are stuck with them, it feels like it might be better to let it be a free market for a little bit and see what else comes out. Assuming Republic Services wouldn’t decide not to take the contract if we allow other businesses. • Buzz: Could be seeing opportunities or business models coming out for picking up a lot of the items. Might be good to say okay others can provide it and see what comes up. We are also all lazy humans sometime, may say rather just deal with one waste hauler once a week. We should wait out how to approach it. • Kara: Opening it up to more than just Republic could open it up to other companies too; if it’s not Ridwell it could be something else as long as they operate within the rules the city sets out. May be a more forward-thinking way to go. • Mark: If we said we would go with Republic to exclusively provide expanded recycling, would that lock the city into having to enforce against Ridwell? Amanda confirmed yes. Mark: that could be an increased expense to the city because of the legal process; they already know they are in violation so aren’t going to stop. • Buzz: Will depend on DEQ rulemaking, it could turn out that they fit the rules better; nobody knows yet. May want to think outside the box, it doesn’t have to be curbside recycling. LO previously had a really good depot where you could take recyclable materials, run by Portland Recycling Team and then Far West. It got a lot of traffic. Maybe LO and West Linn could go in together with a provider for depots. City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes May 20, 2024 Page 5 of 5 • Jay: How often does SW franchise agreement come up for renewal? Should give the franchisee the first bite of the apple, ask if they can do it and at what price, and then open it up after that. • Kara: How long would it take the City Council to pass this and Republic to get it up and running? If that will take 6 months, and we are closer to the 2025 deadline, we’ll have more information. Amanda: Republic Services currently has 20 customers for Recycle+ in jurisdictions where they operate in Clackamas County, thinks they have the capacity to roll it out fairly quickly In Lake Oswego. • Buzz: Could we get Republic to come in and talk about Recycle+, and where the DEQ is and what they see coming down so far. Amanda: Yes, both Republic Services and Ridwell would be willing to present to SAB. • Kara: From a sustainability mission point of view, the more people can recycle, and the less barriers for people to recycle is what we would like to be able to do. E. Farmer’s Market Debrief Amanda reviewed feedback SAB received while tabling at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday (5/18) on the prompt, “What’s stopping you from switching to electric yard tools?” It worked well to have a specific prompt and narrower focus. A couple people already used electric tools, two people said that electric leaf blowers were too heavy for them as smaller adults, others noted the power differences, cost, and battery life being a challenge. Others came up to SAB’s table with specific questions about getting an EV charger or rooftop solar and Amanda and SAB members were able to refer them to the QR codes for resources. Buzz shared how he saw that during one-on-one conversations sharing his experience having made conversions to electric, he saw positive reactions, people were happy to hear from someone who had done it. F. Staff & Board Updates • Amanda reminded the Board about an opportunity she shared by email—Solar Oregon is looking for people who have net zero or electrified homes to be part of a virtual home tour in the fall. • Whitney shared that she and Amanda will be meeting with staff at Luscher Farms on Thursday morning to talk about their programs and how SAB can support; other members are welcome to join. • Buzz shared that the Fire Department presented at his neighborhood association meeting last week on CERT and wildfire preparation. They were talking about how the Parks Department is making parks less susceptible to wildfire by creating fire breaks, including by cutting back and mulching using debris from the recent storm. Maybe Parks can come to present on this at a future SAB meeting. • Mark shared that his acapella group will be performing on 5/27, Memorial Day at the City’s veterans’ ceremony at Foothills Park. Meeting adjourned at 8:20 pm. Respectfully submitted, Amanda Watson Sustainability Program Manager