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Conservation Commission - 03/13/2012 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2012 7:00 P.M., CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Laura Jester(Chair), Greg Olson (Vice Chair), Sue Brown, Ray Daniels, Prashant Shrikhande, Anthony Pini, Kurt Lawton STUDENT MEMBERS: McKenna Campbell-Potter, Rebecca Ebert, Yasmin Atef-Vahid COMMISSION STAFF: Regina Rojas, Planning Division Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Jester called the meeting to order at 7:10 P.M. All Commission members were present. Shrikhande arrived late. A. Thank You to Ray Daniels for Service to the Conservation Commission Jester thanked Ray Daniels for his six years of service on the Conservation Commission. She appreciated his thoughtful participation and his many hours of work at the Commission's informational booths. Daniels said he believes the Commission is going in the right direction and it was a pleasure to work with everyone during his time on the Commission. Jester noted Mr. Daniels will be recognized at the Commission banquet in early May. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Jester said Mr. Shrikhande wanted to add Item VI.A. She reminded Commission members to get additional agenda items to Ms Rojas before the agenda is sent out. MOTION: Brown moved, seconded by Lawton, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion carried 6-0. Shrikhande arrived at 7:17 P.M. III. MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 13, 2012 Page 2 A. Approval of Minutes for the February 14, 2012 Regular Meeting Jester said the fifth sentence of the first paragraph of Item IV.B.1. on Page 2 did not make sense to her. After discussion, it was decided the sentence should be deleted. MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to approve the minutes of the February 14, 2012 meeting as amended. Motion carried 7-0. IV. REPORTS FROM STAFF A. Conservation Commission Appointments Rojas said Laura Jester was appointed as Chair and Greg Olson as Vice Chair for one year terms. Sue Brown was reappointed for a three year term. Stacy Bettison was appointed for a three year term and takes the slot that Ray Daniels is vacating. Jester noted Ms Bettison attended our January meeting as a guest, and she will join the Commission next month. B. Southwest Light Rail Transit Community Advisory Committee Appointments Rojas said the City Council also made recommendations for appointments to the Southwest Light Rail Transit Community Advisory Committee (CAC). Commission members received an email a couple of weeks ago regarding their interest in serving on the committee. She said Ms Jester, Ms Brown and Mr. Pini sent feedback and their names were forwarded. At the last City Council meeting Anthony Pini was recommended for appointment as a primary representative from the Conservation Commission to the CAC and Laura Jester was recommended as the alternate representative. Sue Brown was recommended for appointed as an alternate for the At-Large representative. All of the terms are for one year. She noted the Council discussed including other commissions, such as the Human Rights & Diversity Commission and the Heritage Preservation Commission, in future appointments. Jester said the CAC will meet the fourth Thursday of every month. Rojas said the representatives will receive feedback and information, but she was not sure how the communication will be handled. Jester said the three of them will keep the Commission apprised of the CAC meetings. V. REPORTS FROM CHAIR A. Planning for the Home and Garden Expo CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 13, 2012 Page 3 Jester said the Home and Garden Expo will be held this Saturday from 9:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. We can set up from 1:00 to 5:00 P.M. on Friday or early Saturday morning. Leslie Stovring has her own booth on stormwater, and she would like us to have our set up done by 3:00 P.M. on Friday to make sure we don't duplicate anything at her booth. Jester said we are using two display boards--the Conservation Commission's and Ms Brown's. Brown said she is working on art for the display panels and will turn those files over to Ms Rojas so they can be printed. She brought a flash drive with the files on it to show tonight but we do not have a computer available to download the files. Shrikhande asked if his information was included. Brown said she did not receive anything in time so she downloaded some information from the Freshwater Society and the Hennepin County Recycling Center. Shrikhande said he would like to add some things if possible. Jester suggested Ms Brown forward them to Ms Rojas who can send them out to everybody. We will need any feedback tomorrow. Daniels said he will clean up his rain barrel and bring that for display. Jester said she will bring a recycling container. Jester asked if Mr. Daniels still has informational material. Daniels said he has materials and display items and plans to be at the booth on Saturday. Jester said Leslie Stovring has bags to give away. She noted Ms Brown and she will have to coordinate setting up the display boards. Brown said she could probably get there by 4:00 P.M. on Friday afternoon. Jester said she will have to leave by 3:00 P.M. on Saturday, so she will not be able to help with the clean up. Pini said he can be there Saturday morning. Brown said she will be there Saturday afternoon. Daniels said he will be there all day. Lawton said he could come around 1:30 P.M. and stay to help with clean up. VI. REPORTS FROM COMMISSION A. Communications With Robert Ellis--Prashant Shrikhande Shrikhande said he had phone conversations and emails with Robert Ellis to discuss groundwater. Mr. Ellis told him he will be contacting the DNR to get more information on the groundwater flows for our aquifers. In response to the Commission's request, Mr. Ellis requested information from the Accounting Department on the distribution of water usage at different levels. We wanted information on more recent water usage levels that showed the information with a finer granularity. He asked Mr. Ellis if we as a Commission could provide any specific communications or could investigate certain situations like that of Gary Johnson. We could develop some case studies and use those to educate residents. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 13, 2012 Page 4 Jester said it is good for Mr. Ellis to know we are here and are available to use as a resource. Rojas said on Monday she found out Mayor Tyra-Lukens is taking the National Mayor's Challenge for Water Conservation pledge on the website, mywaterpledge.com. The website has a competition between residents of cities across the U.S. where residents pledge to conserve water by doing things like only doing full loads of laundry. She said information will be published in the City newspaper and is available on the website and on the City's Facebook page. Brown suggested including information on the pledge at the Expo booth. Jester said she will work with Ms Rojas to get something ready for the booth. Rojas said one of the things that came up last month during the discussions with Mr. Johnson was to suggest that he do soil amendments or use different grasses. She forwarded information about testing soils and watering suggestions to the Communications Department to be included in Life in the Prairie. Shrikhande asked if it is within the purview of the Commission to recommend the amount of lawn that can be watered be limited if the property has a certain gradient or has soil that would lead to a high amount of water use. He thought we could encourage preserving native conditions by specifying a certain percentage of native landscaping for each property. Rojas said we would have to put forward a recommendation to the City Council for that, and the Council would then have to pass an ordinance. Shrikhande said that would help address Mr. Johnson's concern. Jester said the more we can do to promote native plantings the more water conservation there will be. Shrikhande thought we need to have some kind of regulation about certain situations. Lawton said we could probably develop some case scenarios that would calculate how much water should be needed. Residents could read about those scenarios and determine where their property would fit. He thought passing an ordinance would be next to impossible. Pini said he understood Mr. Shrikhande to be suggesting the City zoning ordinance somehow be changed to prescribe the cover requirements in a yard. He thought that could be done in a new subdivision and asked if the City specifies a maximum amount of hard cover for properties. Rojas said we do that for shore land property but not in a typical residential area. Pini asked if it would make sense to prescribe that you can only have a certain percentage of yard as lawn. Rojas said cities in places such as Southern California have such restrictions,but any change like that here would require an ordinance change. Pini thought it might be possible to do that in the long range view as the housing stock in the City ages and is redeveloped. Jester thought it would be interesting if we found another city in Minnesota or Wisconsin that had such an ordinance. Pini said the culture here is that we have a lot of water available; however, in areas of southwest United States people understand there is a water shortage. Jester thought we could look CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 13, 2012 Page 5 into ordinances in place in other cities around here,but we might have more progress if we were to further incentivize native plantings like we do rain gardens. Shrikhande said we need to have a good way to assess the payback from any marketing we do. Jester said Leslie Stovring has some pots of money for use at her discretion so we might want to talk with her about incentives. Pini said there are places that discourage homeowners from doing native plantings and where residents can get in trouble by not mowing their lawn. He noted he does see a change in the way people are thinking about these things. Jester suggested developers might be required to at least give information on native landscaping as an alternative to turf for homeowners in new developments. Pini thought it was important to encourage native plantings any way we can. Rojas said new homeowners receive information when they come in to homestead their property. Jester thought we could take a look at what is in the homeowners package. Shrikhande asked if the City could incentivize a package that would include a native plant mix. Olson said this is getting at the issue of our best practices around this topic. These are all great ideas and he would support it if someone wants to investigate best practices. Jester said there is a lot of information out there,but it would need to be pulled together. Lawton said it could be something as simple as letting the lawn go to three inches before cutting it. Shrikhande said there is a wonderful education piece on the urban water cycle at the Minnesota American Water Works Association (MN-AWWA) website, and we might include a link to that organization on our website. Jester suggested we put this on our list of best practices to be looked at in the future. She thanked Mr. Shrikhande for talking to Mr. Ellis. Shrikhande requested that Commission members receive the meeting minutes earlier in the month. VII. REPORTS FROM STUDENTS Ebert said the Tree Huggers group at the High School is observing April as Earth Month. They are trying to get reusable silverware in the lunch rooms. They are also trying to get the AMC theaters and the Eden Prairie Mall to do recycling. She thought it may be easier to get AMC to do recycling because they will be showing the movie, The Lorax. The Tree Huggers will do park cleanups,plan field trips to get students outside and sponsor an Earth Day concert. Jester asked the student representatives to let the Commission know if there is anything we can do to help with the Tree Huggers' events. Ebert asked if more help is needed for the Expo event. Jester said the student representatives are welcome to come and help at the booth. The interactive display CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 13, 2012 Page 6 requires one person to show how to use it. Ebert said she will mention it at the Tree Huggers' Friday meeting. VIII. NEW BUSINESS A. Disposable Bays--Plan for Educating Residents and Business Rojas said the City Attorney is of the opinion the City does not have the legal authority to impose the fee. She brought up the idea of using a disposable bag fee for conservation education but apparently it would not matter if the fee were to be used for a specific purpose. Anything over the amount needed to cover administrative costs would be considered a tax. Jester said she was curious how the franchise fee differs from a tax. Rojas said she did not know everything behind the franchise fee,but there is a State statute that gives cities the authority to charge franchise fees. Jester said it appears that we could not get very far with the fee so the next thing was to check out the possibilities of educating residents and businesses. Brown said she hasn't been able to devote a lot of time to this subject recently. She would like to seek the City Council's approval to talk to our State legislators about what we have been doing as a Commission and if there is something we could do at the State level. She would like to approach the State or work as a Commission towards targeting changes in legislative measures. She would also like to have us talk to commissions in other cities. Olson said our mission is to act as an advisory commission to the City Council and that is our focus. That is not to say we can't informally talk to members of the legislature to see what is going on,but he didn't think it falls within the scope of our Commission to approach the legislators as a commission. Lawton thought that might be deemed as lobbying. Jester asked if the Zero Waste group is still together. Brown said it is, and the Alliance for Sustainability is very interested in this as well. The Alliance is sponsoring a big event in the next two weeks. Jester said she did not think we would have to avoid going to other commissions to see what is working in other communities; however, she didn't think we should gather together a bunch of commissions to go and talk to our legislators. Brown said other cities were interested in the fees if we were going to lead the way, and they are now trying to figure out what to do as well. She wanted to get some kind of clarification so she could respond when they ask what we are doing. Daniels said we have raised the question about the road block and what needs to be done about it at the State level. Brown said we would need to seek an allowance under the law to allow an environmental fee. Jester asked if it made sense to keep working with the Alliance for Sustainability and let them be the CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 13, 2012 Page 7 entity that approaches the State. Brown said we could do that, or the citizens of Minnesota could start an organization to promote the fee. Olson thought there is a case to be made for discouraging the widespread use of plastic bags and asked if we have looked hard enough at that angle to know if it is practical. Brown said she was not getting the sense that the City wants to pursue that. We talked to them about working as a liaison with businesses,but she thought they were reticent to take a stand because of the potential for backlash. She thought businesses were hoping we would do this for them. She also believes there is a lot of education left to do. Jester said it sounds like this is something Ms Brown is passionate about. Brown said she is feeling a little defeated at this point. Jester asked Ms Brown if she could see what other communities are doing as far as education on the issue of disposable bags. Jester said it would be easier to react to someone else's plan than to hammer out our own education plan. Brown said there is a perceptual change that has to occur. Jester asked if there are any upcoming meeting with the Alliance. Brown said she hasn't attended any meetings recently but it would be great to attend their upcoming event. Jester asked Ms Brown to keep us informed about the Zero Waste group meetings. Shrikhande said he is trying to organize an Environmental Day at his work and asked Ms Brown if she would be willing to attend that and answer questions. Brown said she would be happy to do that. IX. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. Green Step Cities Program Rojas said we will find out in late April or early May if we qualify as a Step 2 city. She did receive feedback from some of the City department heads, but she has to do some follow-up work with them. She will put that feedback together for the next meeting. She noted Paul Sticha will attend the next meeting to give us an update on the 20-40-15 program. Jester said at the last meeting she mentioned forwarding a nomination for the Environmental Initiative award for Eden Prairie's 20-40-15 program. She has since found out that only partnerships are eligible for those awards, and the 20-40- 15 program is not a partnership. B. PACE Legislation Olson said he made some progress on this topic. He found out from Scott Neal that the program is up and running in Edina. Mr. Neal sent him a set of documents for the one deal they have done for$30,000. The program has some appeal,but it CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 13, 2012 Page 8 seems to be somewhat limited in application. One of the big stumbling blocks occurs if the building is financed with a first mortgage because this program could trump the mortgage. They need to figure out how to work around that. He said he plans to visit with the owner of a title insurance company who is familiar with real estate law. He will also try to contact the Clean Energy Fund, the money lender for the deal in Edina. Brown said she and Ms Rojas attended a meeting sponsored by Senator Franken that had a lot of discussion about how to the PACE program. At the meeting they learned that Edina is looking at ways their city could be an actual lender as well as ways to offer the PACE program for residential properties. Olson said he was under the impression Edina shied away from lending because it might affect their credit rating. He thought it might be possible to consider the type of changes made for the PACE program as enhancing the property, which would be the same premise as new curb and gutter. Shrikhande asked if it is limited to commercial property. Olson said at this point that is where the opportunities are. C. Communication Strategies--Website,Life in the Prairie, Facebook, etc. Rojas said the new website will be unveiled on April 17. There will be a link to Living Green on the home page. She has not seen the new version but has heard the model was Plymouth's website. Lawton said he was anxious to see it so we can look into what is there and how we can promote it. He asked if they have considered additional blogs on the website because he would like to see an environmental blog. He was not sure if Leslie Stovring would be the front person for that,but he would be willing to help with it. Rojas said over time the number of blogs has increased, and she would be willing to throw the idea out there. She thought there would be interest from the public on a variety of subjects. Jester suggested the City Manager blog about the Mayor's water conservation pledge. Jester noted the deadline for Life in the Prairie is March 30 for the May/June issue. She thought this issue would be a good one to include information on sustainability and lawn care. She asked if there is one particular source that would stand out as being good for water conservation and turf management. Brown suggested the material from the Fresh Water Society. Lawton said he would look into it. D. Upcoming City Projects and Development--Project Profile Jester asked about the waivers requested for the Juris Addition. Rojas replied that is the existing Metropolitan Ford site. They are just dividing the property and are selling off a piece of the property to the former tenant. Vehicles will be stored on CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 13, 2012 Page 9 the north part of the property, and the south part will be sold off. As part of the approval, they will do a conservation easement around the existing wetland area. Rojas said the lot subdivision at the Flying Cloud landfill parcel was approved by the Planning Commission at their meeting last night. Allied Waste is turning over additional land to the MPCA. There will be a series of open houses about this in the fall. Pini asked why they are turning it over to the State. Rojas said they are turning over the landfill portion. No liner was put in under the landfill when it was originally created and they plan to fix that. We will hear more about that in the coming months. Pini asked about the earlier proposal for a landfill deal with Hopkins. Rojas said that was never approved. X. INFORMATION MATERIALS/HANDOUTS A. Recyclins!Update Jester reviewed the material on residential recycling that was included in the meeting packet. She noted the tonnage went down in 2011 and she planned to talk with Ms. Stovring about that. Rojas said there was a big increase in single sort and that is a big positive. Pini asked who prepared the material. Rojas said Ms Stovring provided it to her. Lawton suggested we have Leslie Stovring come to our meeting and present the information in plain terms. Rojas said she will ask her to give us an update. B. Local Government Sustainability Workshop Jester said this event is a week from Friday and she may register for it. Shrikhande said he is also thinking about going. Brown said she has been researching environmental education and could give a presentation on that. There is some really interesting material about how we are educating kids on the environment and how that will impact the next generation. She thought we would have to work with the School Board on that. Jester thought it is an interesting topic and wondered how we could go about making inroads into the school system. Brown thought we could bring it up and see if there is something we as a Commission can do. Shrikhande noted he is doing Junior Achievement with Prairie View second graders. They want to develop a curriculum around upcycling. He thought we might start with something like that and expand it out from there. Rojas said the City has an internal website for City employees. She learned about the Mayor's challenge on that website as well as the fact that the Park & Recreation Department received an award to work with Prairie View School on a raised garden to help foster sound nutritional choices. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES March 13, 2012 Page 10 Brown said so much can be done and there are some things we might be able to do as a Commission to help at the school level and to help with environmental education as a whole. We need to educate parents and families about environmental education. Shrikhande thought Ms Brown's presentation would be of value. Brown thought ideas might come from a discussion of the topic, and she suggested putting it on the agenda a couple of months from now. XI. UPCOMING EVENTS A. Home and Garden Expo--March 17, 2012--9am-3pm XII. NEXT MEETING--April 10, 2012 XII. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by Brown, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 7-0. Chair Jester adjourned the meeting at 8:45 PM.