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Conservation Commission - 08/12/2008 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY,AUGUST 12, 2008 7:00 PM, CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Eapen Chacko (Chair), Ray Daniels, Laura Jester, Sean Katof, Geneva MacMillan, Jan Mosman STAFF: Leslie A. Stovring, Staff Liaison Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary Cale Anger, City Intern I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Chacko called the meeting to order at 7:05 PM. Katof and Mosman were absent. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Stovring added Item IV.B. Next Newsletter. MOTION: Daniels moved, seconded by Jester, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion carried 4-0. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. Commission Meeting held July 8, 2008 Daniels said Sentence 1 of Paragraph 4, Item VILA. on Page 6 should be changed to "...and also will have a court." MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Daniels, to approve the minutes of the May 13, 2008 meeting as amended. Motion carried 4-0. IV. REPORTS FROM STAFF A. Report on Status of 20-40-15 Program Stovring said she talked to Cliff Cracauer, Fleet Manager, who said they are still waiting for the vehicle delivery. Once they receive the vehicles, they will get together with the employee group to discuss best practices for vehicles. They will start looking at emergency vehicles for further efficiencies this fall. Stovring distributed copies of an email from Mr. Dietz regarding LED signal lights and a chart with the monthly power cost comparison. She noted costs at Pioneer Trail Conservation Commission August 12, 2008 Page 2 and Dell Road went down significantly beginning in March after all the intersection lights there were replaced with LED bulbs. MacMillan asked why only the yellow and green lights were replaced on some of the signals. Stovring replied yellow and green are the used more and are a good place to start. Stovring said they will be scheduling a meeting soon to start talking about Phase 2 and the Commission will start discussing it at the next meeting. B. Next Newsletter Stovring noted fall is coming up fast and we need to talk about the newsletter tonight and at the next meeting so it can go out in October. She said we usually do one article on recycling, and she thought we might write one about the glass/metal/plastic initiative at Hennepin County. Jester asked if we are talking about recycling at the curb or items you would take to the store. Stovring said we could add an asterisk regarding taking them to the store but this is basically about curbside. Chacko asked how waste hauling works in Eden Prairie. Stovring said Eden Prairie has an open hauling system, which means that the City does not contract with a single vendor, and any vendor may service households. Minnetonka has open hauling for garbage but organized recycling. They also work with Randy's Sanitation who offers organics collection if residents want it. She said Plymouth is considering switching to Eureka Recycling but she was not sure what kind of difference it will make in their numbers. Stovring asked Commissioners to let her know if they would like to write an article for the newsletter. Chacko suggested an article on energy saving at home. Stovring agreed that this would be a good possibility for an article. Daniels thought we could have a report on the LED lights and the savings with those lights. He asked when the LED lights will go into the parking lot at City Hall. Stovring said they are still on order, so they are not up yet. Daniels noted the LED lights do not have to be replaced as often. Stovring said they have a longer life and are more energy efficient; however, they do cost more up front. V. REPORTS FROM CHAIR A. Enemy Conservation Promotion Chacko said he wanted to discuss a programmable thermostat promotion for the fall and to decide if we want to go through with it. Stovring said we would have to get permission from the City Manager first. Chacko thought it would be justified Conservation Commission August 12, 2008 Page 3 because fuel costs will be 30-50% higher than last year, and there can be a 20% savings with a programmable thermostat. He checked on thermostats available and there are two models at Home Depot that are Energy Star rated. One of the models is $50 and the other ranges as high as $100. Both models have digital readout and a seven-day schedule. He thought we could structure the program to settle on the $50 model. Stovring said one alternative would be to rebate $25, and they could buy the model of their choice. This is similar to what we do for the appliance rebate. The city would likely limit it to Energy Star models but we couldn't limit it to a particular brand or model. Chacko asked if we would try to target households who does not currently have a programmable thermostat installed and who would have difficulty paying the higher fuel costs. Stovring said we haven't done means testing for any of the other rebates we provide. She thought we might be able to work through the Housing Department to target low to moderate income groups. Chacko thought we could market it online, but he wasn't sure everyone has online access. Stovring said Home Depot has been really good about putting up the ads in the store. Chacko thought it might be effective that way. Chacko said he had no information on what the installation would cost, and he didn't know how to address that. Stovring suggested he call a handyman service to check the cost. Chacko said Xcel will not participate in this kind of program, and they referred him to CenterPoint. He could not find the right person to talk to at CenterPoint. Xcel offers a rebate on an energy audit but not on thermostats. He suggested picking a preferred vendor and getting a quantity discount. Stovring said that was not something we would normally do. We don't want to be in a position of recommending one vendor. In order to do that we would have to go out for bids, receive the bids, and then pick one vendor. That process would take time and effort. Daniels said if we can't be in the business of helping out people who need to upgrade he thought we might work through PROP to do this. Jester thought we could advertise there. Daniels thought it would be nice if we could find one or two companies that would be willing to install them as a service project. Stovring suggested asking the Eagle Scouts or Hennepin Technical School. MacMillan thought this would be just the thing for the Eagle Scouts. Chacko asked if we should work on writing this up. Stovring said she needed to talk about it with Mr. Neal and see what we could do. Jester thought if it is modeled after the appliance rebate program it shouldn't be a problem. Stovring said it is a matter of funding, and we would need to determine how it will be funded and the extent of the funding. Jester thought it would be a great program. Daniels noted he has a number of thermostats in his home and he wondered if we would limit the rebate to one per household. Conservation Commission August 12, 2008 Page 4 Daniels said he appreciated the article Commissioner MacMillan distributed about plastic bags. MacMillan said she was trying to think what we could do about that. Jester said we could ban plastic bags in the City. Stovring thought we could hand out cloth bags at events and maybe have a bunch made up with the Eden Prairie logo on them. Stovring thought the bags can be practical and an easy sell. MacMillan said she got a green one from Lakewinds. Jester said Target's is very large and folds up. She thought we could do an article about cloth bags that would include tips on how to remember to use them. MacMillan asked when the article would have to be done because she would like the challenge of working on it but is going on a three week vacation soon. MacMillan asked what the size should be. Stovring said there are two articles on the front of the newsletter and two on the back. She asked Chacko if he would do the article on energy conservation in the home. Chacko agreed. Stovring said she will do the final editing of the articles. Stovring said she will do an article on plastic do's and don'ts. Daniels thought we should have one about LED cost and brightness level. Stovring suggested we use the sidebar on the newsletter to present the information on the LED lights. A discussion followed about the continued use of plastic bags and the need to manufacture them from biodegradable materials. VI. OLD BUSINESS A. Antique Fair at Dunn Brothers, Saturday,August 9th/Change-A-Light Promotion Stovring said she talked to Sean Katof about the event. He gave out about 25 of the 100 coupons that were printed. We could also give them out at Sunbonnet Days and at the Open House on Saturday October 11. The coupon was for $2.00 off a beverage at Dunn Brothers if the individual agreed to sign the pledge. She said Mr. Katof reported the event went very well and a lot of people stopped by, but some of them didn't want to give out their email addresses so they didn't sign the pledge. She noted Ms Mosman was disappointed that no other Commission Members attended the event. Jester asked if both Commissioners Mosman and Katof were there. Stovring said Ms Mosman was there for the Heritage Preservation Commission, and there weren't so many people there that Mr. Katof couldn't handle it. B. Sunbonnet Days, September—Recycling Container Set-out Stovring said Ms Mosman agreed to work at Sunbonnet Days which is coming up on Sunday, September 14 at Riley Lake Park. Chacko said he will take one recycling station. Daniels said he would be there and asked if there would be room to set up a tent. He has the board and could set that up. Conservation Commission August 12, 2008 Page 5 Stovring said she would find out how fast we could get the cloth bags. Chacko suggested she ask Lakewinds where they order. Stovring thought we could give some out without a logo in order to get them faster. Chacko asked if Sunbonnet Days is an outside or inside event. Stovring said it can be moved inside if necessary. They have music and food. Chacko asked what we will do with the bags of recycling after the event. Stovring said she will talk to the Parks Department. Chacko said he had talked to the recycling coordinator from Chaska, and he said that we could drop them at the Chaska facility. Stovring said she will be around that weekend so she could come down with a City truck and load it up. Chacko asked if Hennepin County could supply recycling bins for events. Stovring said they supply stands with clear plastic bags that have covers that fit on top free of charge to cities. We would need to figure out where they would go and how many we would need. Chacko asked if people would be buying pop cans or other containers from the vendors. Stovring said they either buy them or bring them from home. Stovring stated she would also contact Suburban Waste Services to see if they could provide recycling for the event as that would make it easier to distribute and dispose of the recycling collected. Jester thought next year we should pick one park to do a recycling can next to the garbage cans. Chacko thought Sunbonnet Days will be our "coming out," and we will see how much interest it generates. Chacko said we can ask questions about recycling when Tim Goodman of Tim Goodman Associates comes to speak at our next meeting. He is a recycling consultant who has worked with several cities on these issues. Stovring said he has done studies on recycling with state agencies like MPCA. VIL NEW BUSINESS VIIL INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS/HANDOUTS/COMMUNICATIONS IX. UPCOMING EVENTS A. Nine Mile Creek Watershed District Summer Education Series/LEED Certified Facility Tour—August 13,2008 at 6:30 p.m.—Quality Bicycle Products Stovring asked if anyone is planning to go to this event. Daniels said he could go but he had not sent in his RSVP. Stovring said she would call and ask if he could still attend and send him an email if could. B. Sunbonnet Days—September 14th from 12:30 to 4:30 pm X. NEXT MEETING A. September 9,2008 Conservation Commission August 12, 2008 Page 6 MacMillan asked if this is really the date for the September meeting since it is also the date of the primary election. Stovring thought maybe the meeting was supposed to be scheduled for the 16"" but she will find out for sure as the City web site shows the meeting as the 91h XI. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Daniels, to adjourn. Motion carried 4-0. Chair Chacko adjourned the meeting at 8:05 PM.