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HomeMy WebLinkAboutConservation Commission - 03/10/2015 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2015 7:00 P.M., CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Greg Olson (Chair), Laura Jester(Vice Chair), Margaret Powell, Prashant Shrikhande, Lori Tritz STUDENT MEMBERS: Ashray Manipalli, Anthony Polyakov, Sophia Modeas STAFF: Regina Rojas, Planning Division Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary GUESTS: Jane & Josie Abbott Terri &Nicollette Johnson Ocean Salazar I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Olson called the meeting to order at 7:02 pm. Manipalli, Polyakov and Modeas were absent. Rojas said Margaret Powell has resigned from the Commission. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION: Shrikhande moved, seconded by Jester, to approve the agenda as published. Motion carried 4-0. III. MINUTES A. Approval of the Minutes for the January 13, 2015 Meeting MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to approve the minutes of the January 13, 2015 meeting as published. Motion carried 4-0. IV. PRESENTER A. Girl Scout Troop--Terri Johnson and Girl Scouts Terri Johnson, leader of Girl Scout Troop 17155, passed out information about the Monarch Butterfly Bronze Award Project that the 12-member troop will be working on. She said additional information about saving the monarch butterflies is on the website, saveourmonarchs.org. She introduced Josie Abbott and CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 10, 2015 Page 2 Nicollette Johnson, members of Troop 17155. The girls gave a presentation about the project and noted they would like to partner with the City of Eden Prairie and the Conservation Commission toward the common goal of helping to create and maintain monarch habitats. They asked to partner with the Commission in the booth at the upcoming Home and Garden Expo and to hand out milkweed seed packets at the event. Olson said the Commission would be amenable to sharing their booth at the Expo. Rojas noted there may be more opportunities for them to partner with the Commission at upcoming events, such as the Arbor Day/Ecopalooza Fair on May 2. Ms Johnson said they were hoping to create a community movement rather than just offer seeds for gardens. She asked if the City could also plant the seeds in parkland or other City land. Jester noted the City has an initiative at fire stations and other locations to plant native gardens that might work well for their project. Rojas said Rick Wahlen has headed up the change to native landscaping at fire stations, while Matt Bourne would be in charge of the park property. She offered to contact both of them to see if they would have opportunities to include the girls' project. Ms Johnson said they will be working on this over the next year and are just starting a conversation. She would like to add "supporting pollinators" to the Commission recommendations listed on the website. She will be contacting Stan Tekiala at the Outdoor Center to see how much water milkweed can tolerate. They want the project to be done right and are concerned about the information that flowering plants are being sprayed with insecticides that are poisonous to pollinators. Jester suggested they contact the group, Metro Bloom. Rojas said Ms Stovring has ordered 100 packets for the Expo, and she will check to see if we could order more. Jester suggested ordering a total of 300. Tritz noted the group, Wild Ones, has a program where everyone brings in milkweed seeds to distribute. V. REPORTS FROM STAFF A. Commission Appointments Rojas said the City completed the annual recruitment for Boards and Commission appointments and there were a number of applicants for the Conservation Commission. We will be adding three new Commission Members, so there will be a total of seven members on the Commission. She noted the City Council again recommended Greg Olson for Chair and Laura Jester for Vice Chair in 2015. Jester asked if they will start in April. Rojas said they will start at the April 14 meeting. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 10, 2015 Page 3 B. Ecopalooza Update Rojas said the Ecopalooza event will be combined with Arbor Day and will be called a Green Fair. The Commission may have a booth at the event. Jester asked if the watershed districts are invited. Rojas said they are. Olson asked that the Arbor Day event be put on the Commission's April agenda so we can make plans for the event. Jester suggested the Parks or Forestry Departments talk about the identification and control of buckthorn within the City. Rojas said Jeff Cordes will be there, and she will make sure he could talk about that. Jester suggested he bring a sample of buckthorn to the event. VL REPORTS FROM CHAIR A. City Council Workshop Recap Olson reported on the Commission's presentation at the January 20 joint Council/Commission workshop. He presented the work plan to the Council, and the Council Members gave their feedback. Council Member Nelson requested we try to make an effort to learn about conservation best practices in other cities. Council Member Case asked the Commission to advise on a successor program to 20/40/15. Mayor Tyra-Lukens asked that the Commission to track the progress of the sustainable features in the Eden Gardens project. Olson asked if our surrounding communities have conservation commissions. Rojas replied St. Louis Park reached out to her a couple of years ago, and at that time they did not have one. Edina has a very strong, active commission. Chanhassen has a conservation commission, or an equivalent one. She noted some cities are more active than others. Olson suggested we could look at one of the neighboring communities' commissions at each Commission meeting. He thought there is benefit to cultivating some kind of dialogue with them, and he volunteered to contact either Edina or Chanhassen. Jester suggested asking the other commissions for one or two things they have accomplished in the last couple of years. Rojas said she would add that as a standing agenda item. Olson asked if Commission Members had any ideas about a possible successor program for 20/40/15. Jester believed we need to tell other entities, such as the School District or Eden Prairie Mall, about the success of 20/40/15. Shrikhande agreed and suggested using something out of the Regional Indicators Initiative or some of the things we don't do now for the GreenStep Cities criteria. Olson suggested we get a synopsis of what we accomplished in the 20/40/15 program. From that we might learn how we could communicate the successes to other groups. We would get more insight into how the program has been implemented and the lessons learned from it. What the City learned can be transferred to another entity. Shrikhande said we would need to know how to interact with other entities and what opportunities we have to share the information. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 10, 2015 Page 4 Jester asked if staff would prepare any final report to the Council on the 20-40/15 program. Rojas said the final reporting won't occur until the end of 2015, but they are in the process of preparing an interim report because the replacement program will be a big topic at the City Council's goal-setting session in early June. They are in the process of coming up with ideas on a successor program, and those ideas would be brought to the Conservation Commission. She thought using the Regional Indicators Initiative and other similar programs would be a good idea. Olson asked when we could get a report on progress being made at the Eden Gardens project. Rojas replied it would be in May. B. Home and Garden Expo Preparation Rojas said the Home and Garden Expo event is scheduled for Saturday, March 21, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Jester said she plans to get the stormwater display from Hamline and will be able to spend the morning in the Commission's booth. She can also help set up the booth either Friday evening or Saturday morning. Olson said he could come in for the afternoon shift. Shrikhande said he could do the morning shift. Tritz asked if the education display will be the same one as before, which was primarily the stormwater display, and if that is always what we do. Olson commented the message is broader than just stormwater management, and we always have had giveaways. He said we have medication disposal bags this year. Jester said we have several messages at the booth, but the stormwater display is the hook that draws people in. The display board behind the stormwater display includes information on recycling, and the other display board has water conservation information. We also provide information on native planting and rain barrels. Tritz said she had no other specific suggestions, but she would like to understand the thrust of the display. Jester said we have also gotten into recycling quite a bit in an effort to get residents to do more recycling. Tritz asked if there is something we could do with rain gardens to go along with the water conservation theme. Jester said in the past she has done a display of a rain garden using a kiddy pool, but we wouldn't be able to get any plants for such a display this time of the year. She also thought it would be good to zero in on more than one message, but we are at least letting people know the Commission exists and drawing them into the booth. Olson said we should plan to evaluate the display in April or May. Shrikhande said it is very good to interact with the community. He suggested we capture questions from people and keep a library of those questions from year to year. He thought we might have a question box and give away a prize like a raffle. Rojas suggested using beeswax wraps as prizes for written questions. Olson noted the wraps are to use to keep food items fresh and are reusable after just rinsing it off, thus providing an alternative to plastic wrap and helping to encourage pollinators. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 10, 2015 Page 5 VIL REPORTS FROM COMMISSION Shrikhande asked if the Commission Members had any comments about his email regarding water levels going down. There is a lot of concern about decreasing water levels. Olson said it would be interesting to know if the City tracks water levels at the various well sites. Rojas said she could get that information. Tritz said she circulated information on the Wild Ones meeting tomorrow night at the Glen Lake Activity Center. She noted the watershed has grant money for individuals to plant rain gardens. Olson asked if they would have a speaker who could explain how someone could request the grant. Tritz said they do. Jester noted every watershed district has somewhat different requirements. Tritz noted she has just returned from a course in Costa Rica that dealt with sustainable living and touched on a lot of the subjects we are interested in. At the course they emphasized the idea that nature produces no waste and presented workshops about recycling and composting. She would like to pursue the idea of encouraging composting and composting techniques with a goal that composting would become as common as recycling. Olson noted at the Council presentation he made a point that the Commission would like to get composting active in the City again, perhaps by having a dedicated site to collect composting or by having the haulers accept composting. Rojas noted we have that topic scheduled in the third quarter. Shrikhande said Living Green has information about kitchen pails for composting food scraps that have filters to reduce the odors which is one of the most frequent objections to composting. VIIL REPORTS FROM STUDENTS IX. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. Work Plan Rojas said the work plan is finalized except for adding comments from the City Council. It will be posted on the website when it is done, probably by the end of the week. B. Topics and Sunestions for Living Green, Life in the Prairie, Facebook, etc. Olson asked when the next update will be made to Living Green. Rojas said Ms Stovring has a new template to add event information onto the Living Green handout and website. Life in the Prairie is printed 4-6 times a year. There are always opportunities to update the City website and the City Facebook page. She noted we do need to be cautious about what type of information we post and are not to post a link to a for-profit organization. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 10, 2015 Page 6 Olson asked if the Communications Department has any idea what kind of viewers we have. Rojas said she could request analytics on how many hits they get and provide that information at a future meeting. X. INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS/HANDOUTS A. Upcoming City Projects and Development--Proiect Profile Olson asked about the stormwater code amendment item. Rojas said this deals with stormwater regulations to match our code to State and Federal regulations. Staff is working with the City Attorney to bring that into compliance with our stormwater permit. She said any change made to Chapter 11 of City Code must go before the Planning Commission. Olson asked if stormwater permits are issued by the Metropolitan Council. Jester replied they are issued by the State Pollution Control Agency to allow the City to discharge stormwater into the state's water resources. Jester noted there probably will be more ordinance changes coming because of the Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District's changes. Jester asked where the Wagner property is located. Rojas said it is south of Pioneer Trail. Jester asked if that project will be using any conservation techniques. Rojas said it is a standard project as far as water quality. The property is currently one single family house that will be subdivided. XI. UPCOMING CITY EVENTS A. Chamber of Commerce Home and Garden Expo--Saturday, March 21, 2015 XII. NEXT MEETING-April 14, 2015 XIIL ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 4-0. Chair Olson adjourned the meeting at 8:07 pm.