 But now I'd like to call the January 20th, 2021 Longmont sustainability advisory board meeting to order. Could we please start with a roll call? Yes, we have Kate Collardson. Present. Mary Lynn. Present. Adam Reed. Present. Kay Volmeyer. Muted. She's muted, but she's here. Charles Musgrave. Present. Jim Metcalf. Present. Lisa Knoblock is here as well. She might be on mute. Present. Okay, Annie Noble. I'm here. Francie Jaffe. Here. Let's see. Tim Ellis is coming in and Heather McIntyre is here and no Polly yet. I'm off mute now. Okay, great. Thank you for realizing. So when we have a quorum, we do have a quorum. Perfect. So in our board packets, we received the board rules and regulations that does anyone have any changes they'd like to discuss or suggest. Okay. And now I'm going to hand it over to Annie. Okay, thank you. So I think I just want to check. I think you might need to make a motion, even though no one objected. Is that right, Heather? Oh, that's correct. And I don't know if during this part of the board during in the rules and regulations is kind of where our timeline for the meetings and stuff is set out. So I don't know if you guys want to discuss lengthening our meetings as we had talked about maybe in November or what you guys want to do with that, or if you want to bring it up at another time. Thanks for reminding us of that. What do folks think? Do we do we want to move this to a two hour meeting? Could we give ourselves like make it two hours, but but but basically only when we need to go two hours, we basically feel and early at an hour and a half, unless we need to go, we just have it kind of built in. I'm I'm fine with that. That's I think that's how it's almost how we're doing it today, because we'll just stay until it's over if we have to. What what others think. I want to say there's lots of times that in the past where the meetings have been as well as things I think where they kind of they will take the time you give them. So that said, I don't think it's bad to extend it and have it be a three to five and if we adjourn at 430 as a goal usually that's that's good and if we need more time a certain day we can go further, but I'd be willing to bet we'd take all two hours if we had two hours. But Kay makes a good point. I think three hours would make more sense if it was three to five rather than 330 to 530. Yeah, I mean, I personally could make the three to five work no problem. That's that's easy. I think on my end, I guess the question is whether or not we feel that this year we're just going to start with a new year, or if we still feel that we have a lot of things that we want to make up in which case having an extra half hour makes a lot of sense. It seems that an hour and a half worked reasonably well pre world falling apart. But then we just have all these other things we've been trying to kind of cram together and and make up for. So I don't know if it necessarily needs to be a permanent thing, but we might want to institute it for a while until we feel we've kind of like put out fires and caught up on all of the important things that we might have missed. Yeah, I'll second that as a new board member. I feel like there's a lot of material to go over and so I feel like it doesn't hurt to start out with a two hour meeting this year. And I also like the idea of going three to five versus 330 to 530. If anyone does anyone object to the three o'clock start time, because if not, then I'll just make a motion. I move that we schedule three to five and that we end whenever we're actually done before two hours. I'll second that. All in favor. Hi. Hi. That's unanimous. I assume some Heather didn't say anything that the three 30 would actually work from a logistical or three would work from a logistical point of view as well. Yes, we can make that work for staff as well. Heather has to be there anyway, right. I do. It probably adjusts other people's schedules a little bit, but I think they would probably prefer that to the ending at 530 so I don't know Lisa, Annie, you guys want to weigh in. Works for me. Works for me as well. And to be honest, I appreciate the board's flexibility on that because I feel like there were a lot of times in the last three months of the year last year where we were really trying to get a lot of information out and it's really, I felt like the discussion was cut short so I appreciate the extra time. I might have a little bit of trouble coming that much early to check my audio beforehand, but so I might only be able to come five or 10 minutes before the meeting starts, but I use zoom for six or seven meetings per day so I'm usually pretty good at making things work. No problem. Okay, so I think this is where I take over. Is that right? Yes, I think. Okay, so we're on agenda item for the election of officers. So this is the time of year when you guys elect new officers so this is a chair and the vice chair. And so, you know, I know we've talked about this in the past the role of the chair is to keep the meetings going to make sure everybody's heard and to get through all the agenda items and also to make sure that the public is welcome. It is able to give comment so at a high level that's the role of the chair. And I really appreciate all the work that Kate did last year and keeping things moving it was, you know, we transition from having in person meetings to having remote meetings and I think we've done a really good job at like acknowledging and raising your hand and not speaking over each other and that's been really helpful and being thoughtful about the time and that sort of thing. But that it's really up to the board, board members to decide on who you want to chair your meetings but that is the role of the chair. With that I. Jim. Florida the. I'd like to nominate Kate again actually to be the chair. We missed a whole pile of meetings in the middle and I think that that would be a good thing to decide. I'd like to nominate Kate. Mary. Is that a second. Yeah. Okay. Is anybody else. On the way in. Not you guys can take them. Who's your who's our vice chair again. Um, Well, the letter. So maybe we should take it one at a time, but that's a good point we do need to also. So, um, so, um, I heard a motion with a second all in favor. Hi. Hi. Hi, you're you're stuck with this one. Kate. Thank you. Confidence. The curse of competence. So then now let's talk about a vice chair. So the vice chair's role is to act when the chair is not present. I nominate James. I second that. All right. All right. Any comment anybody want to nominate anyone else any thoughts. Balancing out the boy girl thing and longevity on the board. Okay. We have to even out the hair situation as well. We have a motion with a second so all in favor. Hi. Hi. Okay. So we have a chair and a vice chair and I'll turn it back over to the chair. Thank you. Thank you. That. Um, So the next item is a designation of a posting place. We also have a service center. We also have a service center. So we continue to post hard. Post a hard copy agenda for public information. Historically, we have designated the service center as the official physical posting place, but also we also post one at the civic center. So. Um, Either keep. Posting hard copies at these places. And use the city site website as the official. Um, Place that we post, uh, our. Our agenda is that. Am I understanding that? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So the, um, the city attorney's office, um, Um, I think we have a lot of regarding the statute about all of that stuff and suggested now that the city's website, which is the, um, Public portal that we've been using be the official designated space, but also continue to do a physical location in the event that the electricity or something is out. People would still be able to have noted notification of that meeting. So we could do that as a secondary one. We also always send one up to the civic center. So we would continue to do that as well. That's what you all would prefer. By civic center, you mean town hall? Yeah. Um, just with a physical ones are both so still accessible because of COVID things. Like it would have been reasonable for people to pop in and see those. They currently are open to the public. Yes. Okay. Great. Um, If not, they're always posted in a window. Well, the ones at the civic center are posted in a window. So even if the facility was closed, they would still be able to see the agenda there. Great. Thank you. And so we need to vote on this. Yes, please. Okay. Does. Anybody move that we continue as. As currently. Okay. Hi. Hi. Okay. And that was unanimous. Okay. Next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from the last meeting. Anybody. Willing to make a motion there. I will move to approve the minutes from the November 18th meeting. Okay. All in favor. Hi. I wasn't here abstain. Yes, that's what I'm looking for. Okay. But I. You're muted. I have no objection to you guys approving the minutes. Perfect. All right. Okay. Okay. I would now like to open it up for the public. Invited to be heard. Each person will. Wishing to speak will be unmuted. To speak one at a time. What is your turn? Please state your name and address for the record. And you will have three minutes for comment. And I will be keeping time. So it looks like neither one of our guests have raised their hands. Are there any revisions or documents to be submitted? From the staff. All right. Then we will move on to general business. I'd ask the board members to please hold comments and questions until the end of each presentation. After the staff has finished presenting. So Lisa, the floor is yours. Great. Hi everyone. It's really nice to see you all. It's been. About six months, I guess. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. I have a tiny adorable baby around here somewhere. I'll grab it. If my husband goes by, but. Yeah. Happy new year to everybody. I thought before we get into you. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be here again. Unless you all have already done this, but given that we didn't have a December meeting, I don't think so. But we have some new board members. And I thought it would be great for folks to. Introduce themselves. Have we done that yet? You all know everybody. You have done that. And I just missed it. Okay. The only one that is back. So she started. Maybe they should introduce themselves to you, Lisa. I was going to say. We're going to introduce ourselves to you. We're going to introduce ourselves to you, Lisa. They're either Charles or Adam. So. And Adam, do you want to do a quick. Introduction? And K you should yes. Also supposed to introduce the black fluffy cat too. He promised. He's, he's out and about somewhere else today. Hi. Good to meet you, Kay and Lisa. Charles must grave. New board members starting late last summer. Next, I'm actually a computational quantum scientist and do research in the renewable energy area at the University of Colorado. Good to meet you. Good to meet you. Hello, my name is Adam. I'm also a new board member. I started in August as well. And I'm a scientist as well. And my background is in quantum information science. And I currently work in industry building quantum computers. All right. Thanks, Adam. OK. Well, real quick, Charles and Adam, I'm Kay Ballmeyer. I work in environmental engineering and consulting. So I have my own little environmental company here up in Longmont. And I've been on the board for two years with the exception of the period of time that you've been there. My first term expired in June. And I think I was allowed to be a guest in July for lack of having a chair. But I am returning to the board again now. So I had a few months off and missed, for the most part, the last six months. But I'm hopefully back for a couple more years. And glad to see everyone. Welcome back. Great. Thanks, everyone. So I'm Lisa Nelblock. I'm the sustainability program manager. And so I manage the sustainability program. And I'm the staff liaison for this board. So I'm excited to get the year kicked off here. I do also want to announce that Violetta has had to step down. She's traveling for the next six months or so. So she just sent us her resignation. So I imagine we'll be getting looking for somebody to fill her spot pretty soon. But Heather, do you want to share the presentation then? There we go. Great. Do I just tell you went to advance the slide? Since I'm a little rusty now on this part. Yes. OK, great. Every format is a little bit different. So since it's our first meeting of the year, and because we do have a couple of new board members, although I know that we've sent you introductory materials and you all are probably pretty familiar, I just want to really briefly go over the sustainability plan and the climate action recommendation report and highlight our priorities for 2021 and talk about a little bit of new approach to our work plan for this year. So you can move it to the next slide. I think it's helpful to just kind of ground ourselves in the sustainability vision. This came out of our planning process when we did the sustainability plan back in 2016. But just as a reminder from folks, this is really our touchstone that all the work that we're doing is really trying to build us toward this engaged community that promotes environmental stewardship, economic, vitality, and social equity to create a sustainable and thriving future for all. Next slide. Oh, that looks nice. I didn't know it did that. Great. These are our 10 topic areas that are covered in the sustainability plan. You all should have the materials from the plan and particularly the plan summary, which is a pretty good overview of the strategies that are in each of these topic areas. What I think folks may or may not know because we haven't talked about this for a while, but when we did the sustainability plan, it was done very much in collaboration with Envision Longmont, which is the comprehensive plan that had sustainability and resilience as really critical key components to that plan. And that plan is set up around these six overarching guiding principles. And then there's goals and policies within each of those principles. And all of the sustainability topic areas are tied to those principles and goals. I'm gonna have Erin from Planning and Development Services come and do an update on Envision sometime early this year. That was one of the things that we had wanted to do last year that we didn't get to do because of so many meeting cancellations with COVID and then the focus on getting the Climate Action Report completed. And we will be, we have funding to update both the sustainability plan and the Envision plan beginning sometime this year, that will go into next year as well. So it'll begin sometime in the latter half of this year. And we're still working out how we're gonna be looking at integrating those plans and what that will really look like. But just so it's on your radar, we'll start that process at some point later in the year. Next slide. So just as a reminder to folks, this is probably a little bit hard to see, but we do have the Longmont Indicators website that's available to highlight our progress that we're making toward meeting our sustainability targets along with the Envision targets as well. This data is updated on an annual basis. It has 2019 data, but not yet 2020 data, but it's a good resource for folks if you really wanna see where we're at with meeting our current targets. And as an example, I just pulled out the energy page here. So if you click on the energy icon, it'll show you the objective from that section of the sustainability plan. You can actually click on that link there and it'll take you to that section of the sustainability plan. And it goes through all of our targets, and indicators, and metrics, and our current data available. So I just wanna remind folks that that's a resource for people that if you wanna dig down deep into where we're at with each of these things. Next slide. And then I just wanna highlight that even though we're still pretty new as far as the sustainability program goes, we do have some notable progress that I just wanted to highlight in some areas that really are advancing us towards meeting those goals. And that's in the community area. One of our targets is increasing neighborhood initiatives. And we've talked to you all a number of times around the Soul and the Sustainable Neighborhood Solutions Program that we've been building with our community services department. And those are really moving forward pretty strongly. And I'm excited to bring some updates to you later this year. The work that Bernice has been doing, particularly with the Sustainable Business Program, we now have 41 certified sustainable businesses, 13 of which are minority-owned businesses. The 100% renewable energy goal, we're now just over 50% of reducing our waste consumption. So we've actually met our goal of reducing household trash consumption to less than two pounds per person per day. And then we are on track to meeting our target in water conservation around reducing our raw water demand as well. So we're doing well. I think that we have a lot of exciting stuff happening. And as we get into those updates of the Sustainability Plan and Envision, I think we'll be refreshing some of those targets as well, especially some of those ones that were really close to meeting where that we've already met. Next slide. So as you all know, in addition to the Sustainability Plan, we also now have the Climate Action Recommendations Report which have developed recommendations in these six topic areas with equity as a central component. It's likely that these will be incorporated in some way into those plan updates, but what that looks like is really yet to be determined. Next slide. And then as you all recall, last fall, this was when I was out on leave, but Francie and Annie worked with staff from across the organization to evaluate all of the Climate Action Task Force recommendations with these different criteria and a number of different waiting scenarios to identify timelines for implementation of all 27 recommendations, as well as make some staff modifications to those recommendations for feasibility. Next slide. And this slide was part of what was presented to Council in December that highlights the outcome of those waiting scenarios and the proposed implementation timelines of each of those recommendations. So you can see the near-term strategies. They identified 12 near-term strategies. Those are marked in green and those are things that will be implemented sometime over the next two-year timeframe. So this year in 2022. And then mid-term strategies, which are the 2023 to 2027 timeframe. And then there's a handful of ones that we identified as monitor over time, which just means that there are some pieces and information that we just wanna watch as they evolve. So not that we're not gonna implement these strategies per se, but there's other things that we need to pay attention to in order to determine if those are really the best course of action. Next slide. So that proposal was approved. So Francie just took that to Council in early December and we're moving forward with the 12 near-term recommendations, which are listed here. Many of those recommendations are actually programs or projects that were already in existence or underway. A lot of those were just an expansion of existing programs. Those are the ones that are marked here with the stars that you can see. The top five that are highlighted in yellow are ones that are already budgeted. Those were things that were already underway. The next three that are highlighted in pink are budgeted for 2021, but we'll probably also need some additional funding for 2022. And then the ones highlighted in purple are the ones that staff applied for Boulder County Sustainability Tax Funding for, if you recall those conversations in the fall of last year. So those will be happening in 2021. And then the highlighted recommendations are ones that are really gonna need additional research in terms of determining budget needs and how best to implement those. And then we're now in the process. I just started this week of meeting with lead staff on each of these recommendations to get implementation plans underway. And we'll use that as our foundation for reporting back to you all and to City Council. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute here. Next slide. So as you'll also recall, equity was a central component of the Climate Action Task Force recommendations and the Just Transition Plan Committee, which is now called the Equitable Climate Action Team, met concurrently alongside the Climate Action Task Force to develop their definition of equitable climate action to provide feedback to the Climate Action Task Force on how to best integrate equity into their recommendations and then also develop their own set of recommendations as well that were included in the Climate Action Recommendations Report. And I just wanna highlight kind of this overarching sort of not only what is equitable climate action, but what do we mean when we talk about equity more broadly? Next slide. So this is just an overview of the recommendations of the Just Transition Plan Committee put together. And we've adapted, I can't say we because I haven't been part of that process, but Francie has worked with the Equitable Climate Action Team to adapt these recommendations into an equity checklist, which is a resource that will be used by staff in the implementation of the Climate Action Task Force recommendations. And so as we're getting our 2021 planning underway, we're also chatting with folks about how best to incorporate this into the implementation process and how to continue to work with the Equitable Climate Action Team to make sure that as we are doing that implementation that that equity piece is really a core consideration. Next slide. So all of that really serves as background to identify our priorities for 2021, which are the areas listed here. And these are really kind of the higher level bucket areas that came out of the Climate Action recommendations report, climate change, air quality, electrification and energy efficiency, transportation, waste reduction and diversion and water conservation. And then these pieces of equity and resilience that really will be integrated throughout all of these priorities. And in a shift from how we've approached our work plan last year where we had in theory, obviously this is not the way that things played out because of COVID, we had worked with you early in the year last year to identify what your priorities were and then tried to lay out a schedule of bringing updates and presentations and things to you over the course of the year around each of those priorities. Obviously a lot of that didn't happen. And then as you all mentioned, some of those things were more comprehensive than I think maybe anticipated and we were trying to do too much in each meeting. So we're trying to not necessarily scale back but have a little bit more of a flexible approach this year based on what you all identified as those priorities last year as well as what we know to be priorities coming down from city council, excuse me, around climate action in these areas in particular here and then try to bring relevant items to you to review and provide feedback for as those opportunities arise rather than try to have a set schedule so that you have a more of an opportunity to advise city council on those particular items. So that'll be a little bit of a process to try to get the timing of all of that figured out of understanding what priorities are coming from city council, what things might be on the city council agenda that we wanna bring to this group so that you all can provide that feedback to city council as well and play more of an advisory role. And then we're also working with our different divisions and departments to identify projects and plans happening in 2021 that should also come to you all for review and feedback. So I'll show you in a few slides here a proposed 2021 work plan that shows that kind of more flexibility rather than trying to assign specific topic areas to each one. Next slide. So here are a couple of things that we know that are happening this year. So the climate risk and vulnerability mapping that's one of the projects that we submitted for and receive funding for through the Boulder County sustainability tax. And so that's really mapping on a neighborhood scale existing vulnerability indicators for climate impact. So things like tree canopy and impervious surfaces, age of housing stock, which indicates potential energy efficiency areas that may or may not have air conditioning, things like that that might put people at more vulnerability for high heat days and for air quality days and things like that. And mapping those across the city on a neighborhood scale overlaid with additional demographic data and things like that. The County is also looking at doing something sort of similar and complimentary around projected climate impacts on a relatively local scale, not as granular as the neighborhood level, but we'll be working with them because that'll be a really complimentary piece of information. They'll also be looking at mapping an online component to that where people can go on and see their neighborhoods and what the projected climate impacts might be. And that their proposal is still shaping up. I haven't seen their final project proposal for that, but we'll be working with them in tandem with this project. The electrification plan. So that was one of the strategies that was within the Climate Action Recommendations Report was to pull together a committee to develop an electrification plan over the next 18 months to identify what are, what's our timeline and strategies over the next, probably two decades or so. Somewhere in that, this plan will help identify that timeline of transitioning us away from fossil fuels. And so we'll be bringing updates on that to this group as that evolves. LPC is leading that process, but I'll be participating in that as well. The sustainability plan and envision updates that I mentioned a minute ago. And then also some new priorities around waste services and waste reduction. Bob Allen from our operations group and Charlie Caminidis who's come to this group numerous times who's our sanitation manager. We'll be going to city council in early February to propose some additional items around waste services for waste reduction. And we'll bring those updates back to this group as well. And then ongoing updates on some of our ongoing programs as those things are relevant. And then one of the things that I wanted to mention is one of the other projects that we had submitted sustainability tax funding for is it was a climate equity and engagement position. We're looking for funding for a part-time position to really help us with the equitable climate action team and the implementation of the equity checklist as well as community engagement as we get into implementation of climate action recommendations. And then we were approached in terms of potentially revising that to be a little bit more broad at support city wide equity work as well. So we're discussing that and figuring out the details of that currently which I will be keeping you updated on. And the next slide. So I'm also proposing a change to the format and frequency of progress reporting. So currently what we have been doing for the last few years are these quarterly reports that go through all of the sustainability strategies which are I think 50 some strategies that's just more of a status report of each of those strategies and some notable highlights. And it's been in a spreadsheet format. It's been very comprehensive but not very easily digestible. And I know most of you have been on the board long enough and have seen those reports and it's just more of an informational item to this group and to city council where each of those strategies were at in terms of their implementation. That was direction from a previous city council that was in place when we adopted the sustainability plan. And I think we're far enough along now that we really want to move towards a different reporting format. And so what I'm proposing to council and this is going next week is to transition from a quarterly reporting format to a biannual reporting format. So we'll do a mid-year and an end of year report that'll be a much more visual based report and a look more at quantifiable metrics as well as highlights in key areas of things that have happened during that time period rather than just a long list of strategies and what's happening with each of those strategies. And we talked to you a little bit about this with regards to climate action reporting back several months ago was if those reports would then come to you all for review and appraisal and then you all will draft a letter of support or recommendation or any pertinent information and feedback that you want to share but then we'll be submitted along with that report to city council. And then I want to move to that this year but we'll have a transitional report in probably the March timeframe. So we don't go six months and council hasn't heard anything about what we're doing on climate action but it gives us an opportunity to say we're moving forward with implementation of our near-term recommendations. We're moving forward with this new reporting format and here's what it looks like. So this year there will be three reports and then next year we'll really move to that mid-year and end of year report format. Next slide. So all of that, this might be a little bit hard to see depending on how big your screen is but I just laid out a proposed 2021 work plan with some kind of known things like the first of the year we have our general business sustainability plan review and this year's priorities. Next month we'll be bringing the transportation roadmap update to you all and the citizen climate lobby which is one of the areas that you all had wanted to look at last year. And again, we didn't have time with COVID and then starting in March with that transitional report that I mentioned and then really after that it gets into this a little bit more kind of flexible as I mentioned, like topical presentations or updates for you to take specific action to advise Council on or provide feedback for different plans and projects and things like that. And then there's a couple of other known things in here so we know the sustainability tax application will come out at some point in the fall. So we'll wanna discuss early on with you what those priorities will be for 2022 and then bring those final priorities back to you for a letter of support like we've done for the last couple of years. And then of course in December we don't have a meeting. So that's pretty kind of the plan in a nutshell. I know that's sort of a lot for folks to digest but trying to hit the ground running in 2021 with hopefully a little bit more of an ability to stay on track this year, you know, fingers crossed that we don't have anything else thrown our way. Knock on wood I suppose. But the one area that I think didn't really get captured in that of what I discussed that you all had marked as a priority for last year was around pesticides and pollinators and kind of that natural environment piece. There's really not any component of that that came into this list of priorities. So I just wanted to flag that and see if that is still an area that folks wanna focus on that we can build that in as well. So I wanna make sure that these priorities also align with your priorities as well. If you hadn't said it Lisa I was gonna bring that up first. Yep. And I have some interesting kind of new ideas to bring in around that. For example, there's a Colorado based organization that develops probiotics and it's developed one for breaking down glyphosate and another one I would like to bring to the city in some way some information on probiotics that can be used for breaking down glyphosate that for example could be implemented in a trial at our service center where, you know stuff gets brought in and then it's ground up and redistributed across the city as mulch. And also it may be a trial of a probiotic that could be used for the many, many, many beekeepers in the area to sort of to not only not just be using working with best practices and maybe putting in some analysis systems of analysis in for seeing how we're doing in these various areas but maybe try some innovative new ideas and programs. I think I'm gonna back it up a little bit though before we kind of get into some of those specifics I do just wanna kind of check in with both does that approach for the year generally makes sense for folks aside from the specifics that we might wanna get into? Yeah, yes. James, yeah. Yeah, I just, one thing that I think would be helpful I think the approach looks fantastic when it comes to topical sessions I think sometimes even when we were meeting in person like people will have ideas and we're not entirely sure what it is and it might be good to have some sort of an ongoing process that we're doing I don't know if there's a message board way to do this or something else where we can kind of propose and consider topics and what we'd actually wanna have presented as a topic like is it bringing somebody in or is there some specific piece of proposed legislation or something else that we'd wanna recommend and make a vote on maybe try to do something that we can kind of work through the topics that we might be interested in and a little bit more of like a I don't know what the right word is sometimes I feel that it's like here's a topic we gotta decide about it now and my brain doesn't work that well like that and so maybe something that if we have these topical sessions planned out we can start some sort of a process where we're like planning out what that's gonna look like a few meetings in advance I think would be very helpful. Annie, it seems like you have some Yeah, and so I just wanted to ask a point of clarification for Lisa when you said topical subjects or those, I was assuming those are subjects that are on council's work plan and we're working on and bringing to this board to get feedback and review on not subjects necessarily that are of interest to the board there may be that as well but I think there are a bunch of things that are going forward to city council like there's the equitable carbon free transportation roadmap there's several projects that we're hoping to go through the SES review that we would like to get this board's input before going to council so it would be helpful maybe to get clarity on what that meant and how much that takes up in a meeting because I think if this board really wants to be have the role of reviewing things for city council that needs to line up with what's on council's work plan and what city staff is doing that we've been directed to do. So I think it's kind of a both and answer to that so that area, that slide that I had marked 2021 priorities is what we know to be council priorities around climate action and kind of overlaid with the priorities that this group had identified last year like I said other than really the pesticides and pollinators piece or that natural environment piece I think to the best of our abilities we will be doing that what Annie is talking about is keeping an eye on the council work plan so that we can bring relevant items to this board. I think that we want some flexibility because how the timing works may not always align well with the timing of these meetings and the way that information needs to get to council and how far in advance staff is able to get things on the council work plan. So this year I'm gonna kind of ask you to bear with me a little bit in figuring out how the timing of these pieces are gonna line up because I do think that there's gonna be times in which that will work. And I do think that as to Annie's point in order to really fulfill the mission of this board as an advisory board to council that's what we wanna be doing but I also don't wanna have a meeting that doesn't have anything on it if we don't have the timing that lines up and given that you all have identified some other areas of interest to potentially focus on. So that's why I'm asking for a little bit more flexibility and I would love to try to figure out James some sort of ongoing process. I think part of the challenge is there's only so much time in a day there's only so much time in a meeting for us to get into any one topic and decide what you all want to advise council on or make a decision around. So I think that as we get into this year part of my job is gonna be kind of figuring out the timing of how to plug these pieces in to your meeting schedule as well. So. I'm not clear what James's proposal is and I wanna hear more about what you're proposing. Sure. I mean, I guess my point is that like as an advisory board what we really wanna do at the end of any process is have some advice that we wanna give to the city council. And that is a lot of times that's over something that they are considering even if we didn't exist they would be considering. And so there's some policy that the city has that we are going to give advice on and that's great. There might be other times where we have things that we would like to advise the city council or whomever to also consider. And that's also great. But I think that what I would just wanna make sure is that when we do have these topics that we kind of have an idea of like what the end product is gonna be. And that everybody involved has enough time to consider what their thoughts on that end product. So it's not just like, oh, we're gonna talk about X today. Or what is it that we're gonna try to accomplish and make sure that all of us kind of feel that as we're coming into the conversation that we feel comfortable with like what we wanna know or ask or say about X. Okay, so can we use an example to really clarify this? Like for example, I've seen the people and pollinators action network present to city council multiple times. And I don't remember that city council had any specific plans or projects that came from that. So let's say that any maybe you're gonna clarify. Okay, so what I was so like for example would we meet with them and ask them to come up with some specific recommendations and then we would research them and then we would put together something that we would present to the city and sort of in collaboration with another group. What are you imagining James? And are you imagining that we would chat about it somewhere else like in a message or a workspace kind of like a sandbox of some kind. I just wanna be really clear about what you're suggesting. Looks like Annie has something. Okay, well, I just wanted to clarify on the pollinator piece that I did hear from David Bell today that they are working on a community gardens demonstration garden that Rogers wrote this year. And that's pollinator pieces part of that. So it may be, I mean, I don't know if it would be helpful to put that on the agenda to have them meaning natural resources, project manager who's ever working on that come to a meeting and talk about that and maybe that's a good segue for the specific topic that you wanted but that's specific to that particular item. Okay, but to respond to that Annie but that's not a comprehensive city plan for dealing with pesticides and pollinators. Do you see what I'm saying? So if we decided we wanted that would we work with that group to sort of create something that was more comprehensive? I mean, I've been here sort of a year and a half and I feel like I'm still learning how we get things done. And I guess I'm still asking James what you're envisioning in terms of a process. I mean, I think that that gray area is exactly kind of what I'm talking about is that I mean, I like the idea of having like informational sessions. I think that's interesting but that's, I mean, that doesn't really achieve the purpose of the group. And so if we do wanna have a session about let's say pollinators then I think, well I think that we as a group wanna kind of talk about well, what is the goal of that? Are there city initiatives that we should be endorsing or asking questions about or whatever are their specific policies? I guess I don't necessarily know exactly what it's gonna look like. I just, I wanna make sure that we all feel that we know what the goal is for any of the topical sessions, whether it's oh city council is gonna be considering this next week. So we want input on it or this is something that we as a group think we should, you know, ask city council to think about or to act on. I just wanna make sure that we kind of know that ahead of time and kind of know what the specific deliverable and goal is at the end. And I just, I enjoyed a lot of the times that we've just come up with ideas about things that we think are important. I just think as an advisory board it's important that we actually are finishing whatever that is with advice. So it sounds to me like I'm gonna see if I can restate this James that you're asking that whatever topics we are proposing, we're also proposing specific outputs, specific outcomes around that topic, like we're going to ask that there be an outside group and or a city come up with a proposed sort of action plan or that they propose a project or something so that when we set our agenda for the year it's not just we're generally we're talking about this, you know pollinators in July, we're going to be examining sort of an overview of what's the status of pollinators and we're going to bring in experts and make recommendations to counsel. So we have a specific outcomes that we're going to be recommending. Danny, I'm gonna call. Adam. Yeah, I was just going to add to that. I like the idea of having concrete goals. What I think would also be helpful is having some identified open-ended questions or items that might need to be researched more so that we could use that to inform decisions. I like that. Annie. So I just want to clarify that there are other advisory boards in the city. So with the pollinator specific topic, it's a little tricky, right? Because natural resources is working on a project and I don't know off the top of my head maybe Lisa does what their overall policy is on pollinators, but they may be working on these things and bringing it to the parks and recreation advisory board. So it's a little tricky about because sustainability is so overarching, where what board might be working on this already. So I don't know if you could flush these things out and Lisa maybe come to that. Yeah, I do want to just, I think kind of step in and clarify a little bit. So in the previous years when we have identified the priorities of this group to set the agenda for the year, the goal with that was to bring relevant information and projects and plans that were happening around those topic areas. They weren't necessarily just informational pieces, although there were times in which this group and some of that was when we had previous members, but they felt they wanted more information about a specific topic area before they felt like they could make a decision or a specific recommendation to counsel on that. But the intention has been in that approach to bring relevant information about what the city is doing to this group in order to provide feedback to counsel on, yes, we support this direction or we think this piece is missing or we'd like to see more of X in this particular item. And one just, I feel like 2020 just, I sort of got kind of blown up in terms of our attempt to do that. And with the focus on the climate action recommendations report that really dominated the time that we really did have in 2020 to get into some of these things. So this approach isn't necessarily asking you guys as much to say what are the areas that you're interested in that you want us to just bring information in on it's more what are the areas that you feel like are your top priorities that we can then bring, again, because there's only so much time in the day, there's the city has, who knows how many projects and plans on the agenda for this year, we need to have some sort of way to filter what comes to this group in order to provide useful feedback on that then goes to city council. So we're trying to do, like I said, a little bit of a dance to figure out how and when to bring those to this group. Again, also based on council priorities, as Annie mentioned, but I don't also want to say you all can't then focus on other things that may not be part of that agenda because part of your role also is to be able to say, hey, maybe the city isn't doing enough around this particular area and we want to make sure that that's on city councils radar. If that makes sense. I know that doesn't quite speak to Jim's thought or proposal around having some other kind of process for sort of tracking and seeing some of these things through because I agree it's a lot to just say, this meeting's focused on this, we bring it to you, you make a decision and then that topic is kind of checked off the list for the year because it's not quite how things work. And I do also want to be clear that this is an advisory group but that staff, that any direction from this group needs to go to council in the form of a recommendation and then council, if they want to take that up then direct staff to do the work. So I do kind of want to be clear that this group doesn't necessarily direct staff on what to take up but it has to go through kind of that channel if that makes sense. And I wouldn't necessarily anticipate this group in particular unless you all have the time and capacity to be doing a lot of outside research on certain things. Like that's fantastic if you all have the time and ability and the expertise to do that but that kind of the more clear cut role is providing your feedback and technical expertise on the things that the city is doing that's being directed by city council. I think, Jim, did you have a comment first? Sorry, Mary-Lynn, I just, yeah, I think that mainly what I want to make sure that I am is useful and I think that just making sure that I kind of understand what it is we'll want to accomplish on a specific topic is my main concern. I totally agree. I just want to make sure that when we do have advice to give that I actually feel like I'm being useful in the advice that I give. Yeah, and one of the things that we started putting together too that I think will be helpful on that is a memo that goes with your packets that will be more explicit of what's coming to you and what we're asking you to do with that information which I think will be, and that was not my idea. I can't take credit for that, but I do think that it's a great idea to help set you all up for understanding what are we accomplishing in each meeting. That's wonderful, thank you. So then the question comes down to me is how much is this board a proactive board that is sort of analyzing the scope of sustainable issues and setting agendas and recommending those to council and therefore to be recommended to staff and how much are we a reactive and responsive board? And I think that that's sort of like a dynamic tension that I've been not clear about since, maybe this is what you are part of what you were trying to say, James. Yeah, Heather, do you want to jump in? Yeah, if I can just clarify, it might be helpful for you to go onto the website and review the boards parameters, what the boards are function is in the city. I know we have brought that to this board in previous meetings and stuff, but it would be very helpful for you to review that information. Also, next time a board orientation is brought before you, it'd be a very helpful thing for you to attend that meeting just so that you can kind of understand what the function of an advisory board is for the city and what your role in responsibility in that regard is. Thank you. Yeah, Adam. I was just going to follow up on Heather's point. A former board member Cody suggested this new board orientation member or this new board, this new orientation program. Do you have a sense of when that might be offered this year? I believe it's coming in February. I can send you the dates for sure, but I believe the next one is going to be in February. Okay, great. Francie. I actually, I'm presenting that presentation, I believe it's February 8th. So it's going to be early February. Thanks. Are there other thoughts on this topic? It sounds like Jim's request is more information ahead of time is being handled through the memos with our board packets. And so Jim, it's given the thumbs up. All right. Okay. Lisa, did you have anything else for us? No, I think that's it. If you all feel good with that approach and feel like I said, to give us a little bit of grace and patience and trying to figure out how to best do this, we'll work to make sure we're getting you the right information at the right time so that you can provide good feedback. The topic of pollinators is, I agree with Mary. I'd love to, if we can squeeze it in some time, it'd be good. Well, because it's so tied in with the pesticide issue, it just seems like it wraps in a lot of terrain that we haven't gotten to. And again, I do want to put out, I have read the board packets and I do understand that we're in large part responding to city council need, but I would like to know with greater clarity how much this group feels that we can be sort of proactive in the questions that we ask that we would like to see. I mean, I think I want to put that out there. Would this board like to put out specific questions that we would like to see addressed in presentations in a study session on pollinators and pesticides? So just to clarify, the suggestion would be that we send in questions to the presenters ahead of time. You're on mute. That we as a board decide what we would like to see addressed and that we generate sort of questions and sort of an agenda for what we would like to see focused on. I'm wondering if that the board would feel that was appropriate and useful? Jim. I mean, I've kind of felt like, at least in the time I've been on the board, I've felt fine asking questions. I guess one of my things I run up against is something that Annie brought up, is that for every one of the things that we think about, there are so many different parts of the city that are already working on it, that I think it's important. I mean, this is where Lisa and Annie and Francie and others kind of like hold our hand through some of this stuff, is that for any of these topics, I think it's gonna be very important to kind of have the existing expertise kind of formulate the framework to begin with, you know? Like I don't feel that I would be in a point right now, for instance, to tell anybody about what aspect, I don't know, maybe I'm not expressing myself well. I hear your point. I think what you're saying is, we need to know what other people are doing first before we decide what to focus on. I was gonna say, I think my thought on the idea of us coming up with things and requests and asking what we'd like to talk about and what we'd like to learn about is, I feel like it's going a little bit down the wrong track, just as we need to be respecting the Longmont city staff's position and their needs. And again, city council, what city council needs first, what the city of Longmont needs second. If there is something that has been brought to their attention, they're like, hey, we have someone who would like to present on this. Are you guys interested? I think that's more the way that things need to be feeding as opposed to us kind of saying, I'd like to see more on this. And yes, that sounds really interesting and I'd like to learn more on it. If that's the case, then I think we need to go out and look for the presentations ourselves online and learn about it online. And if it's useful later, come back to it. But I don't know, I feel like this is where it was going. Is this the right question? Am I going the right way? James, no, not really. But I was gonna say, in a nutshell I'd say to answer at least Mary's question about can we be suggesting topics that we should be talking about? I think unless there's something directly related to that topic that's going on within the city of Longmont and with the sustainability program, it's probably outside our bounds. Does that make sense? Yeah, Jim. I mean, I think I agree with that. I think that, yeah, I agree with that point. I think that at least I do see our role as being here to be like advice for the city staff that are working on a lot of things already and that already kind of understand the framework. And I guess in my experience, I have felt like I've been able to bring up concerns on these topics. And we do have, I'm not opposed to having some more like board directed openings, I guess. But I also feel that it's really important that we accomplish all of the topics that the city staff need us to deal with as our top priority. And then see what is left after that. And I wanna say I have no opposition to learning about new topics myself at all. That was not to say I don't. And I was gonna say too, at least that I have a memo that kind of said this is what we'll be reviewing and this is the goal before that. I think I would hope that would at least address some of James' concerns from his question half hour ago. No, but yeah, I was gonna say I think if we try and stick to at least working on what the city needs first and what council needs first. And if other things come up in discussion and they're good points, that's great. But also I wanna keep in mind that we did start a climate action task force and their job was to brainstorm the ideas to focus on. And our job is probably more so still just to judge them. That's not the right word. But it's part of the right word, non-judge them, but provide the recommendation on yeah, but we weren't hired as the brainstorm task force. So although we often kind of take that role a little bit too. And I don't think that Lisa or anybody really minds it all that much sometimes when we go off topic. You know, yes, anyway, I'll go on mute now. Out of it. Yeah, I agree. Sustainability is such a broad area and there's so many interesting topics. I could easily imagine being kept busy for a very, very, very long time to get some constraint in place. I think it's helpful to know what the asks are from council. And what I think would be helpful is there any way we could have some sort of feedback from council to know how our advice or any actions that we pursue is being used. And if it's helpful if there's anything we can improve. I said that, Adam. Yeah, so a couple of things. I mean, we do have a council liaison, Paulie Christensen, who's not on the meeting today, but she's really our conduit to the priorities for city council on bringing information back from this group in particular. So there's that two-way communication in place. As we get into this reporting, the reporting piece, which will be a little bit more formal this year, there will be, like I said, you all will be able to review the report that staff put together and provide information that'll go to council. Essentially, so yes, we think this direction is great or we think something is missing or we think staff is moving too slow or staff needs more resources to do X. That could be a number of things that are included in that. And I think that that will be a little bit more direct in terms of the response that council has to that information coming from this group. And then beyond that, it sort of depends on what the focus area is and what level of input you provide to council. So a really clear example is back when the city implemented the curbside composting program. This group was very influential in providing an opinion to city council saying, yes, we think the city should pursue a curbside composting program and we think it should look like this. Like that was very influential for the city council's decision making around whether or not to pursue the curbside composting program, which we now have in place. So that's a really clear example of when an initiative is being discussed by staff that the feedback from this group is really powerful and same thing, you all provided really comprehensive feedback to the climate action recommendations report and all of that was very much part of council's decision making in terms of how they were prioritizing what strategies became your term and midterm strategies. So it's not as clear cut, but it's a little bit varies depending on kind of what the situation is. But I think there's some, I will do my best to make sure that if there's specific feedback from council on the feedback that you all are providing that that is brought back and some of those things are gonna be more direct. Like I think when we get into like the transportation roadmap that'll be coming to you in February or the electrification plan that this group will be very supportive in terms of council's decision making process on how or what of those plans they end up improving. So they do very much take the opinions of this group into consideration. Thanks everyone for that great discussion. I think that where we've landed is we're keeping things as is. I will move us on. This is the fun part. Does anyone have other business that needs to come up? Staff, are there any items through the staff? Oh, sorry. Charles. So these are, are you, this is the board items, items from the board? Not yet. Is that what you're asking for? Oh, not yet. Okay. Got it. It's next. Hold on. Staff is... No, luckily we don't have anything else. Charles. Yeah, so this actually connected a little bit with something that Lisa brought up in her presentation. So one is just a point of clarification and then another kind of these things about being proactive about items. So there's a goal of being 100% renewable in terms of our energy mix at some point, I guess 2030. And I don't think we completely control that. I think part of that's up to the Platte River power authority maybe and so, which is not just controlled by Longmont. But it'd be interesting at some point to learn how we influence that, how the city of Longmont influences that and how we can help with achieving that goal. I actually don't know, it'd be interesting. And then a concern I've actually had just studying recently, in fact, it came up in your presentation, Lisa, about decarbonization, the fuel mix, et cetera, over the next couple of decades. And I actually think that this transition is gonna happen much faster. And we're going into the exponential adoption curve for renewable energy as a wind and solar becomes so inexpensive. And what could happen is two things. One is, for example, community-owned power could basically, that's the right word, build out wind and solar, for example. But because it's residential power is becoming so inexpensive that there may not be demand for public utility or that much demand for public power because public power both has to generate and they have to do transmission. So we could end up with hundreds of millions of dollars of a stranded asset that's community-owned and that is not financially sustainable, which I think it might be part of sustainability. So anyway, that is one of the things that, at some point, I don't know if there's ways for us to provide input on that if the city thinks about these kinds of things, but there is an exponential adoption curve going on with the continued productions and the price of renewable energy that in some ways we could do great things. Pat River could put in more wind and solar, but we could, if we're not careful about how we do that, end up with hundreds of, again, hundreds of millions of dollars of a stranded asset. So I don't know, that's my, one of the things that's been on my mind recently that maybe we could comment on for the city, et cetera. I've comment related to that. Go for it. Charles, I agree with you. I think that we're moving into a position where there's a sort of a creative tension between distributed and decentralized power providers provision, and a lot of that is the residential adoption, like in the microgrids that Tim Shekali presented on to city council. I would very much like to be in a trial project of something like that in the city of Longmont, in a state like Colorado especially, where the cost of solar and the cost of putting in something like a microgrid and the expertise for being able to do that is becoming very widespread. We could end up with a stranded asset. And this is a case, again, I'm gonna repeat the question, how much does this board want to be proactive and how much does this board want to be reactive? And since we're talking about what we're doing in 2020, I would like to add that along with pollinators and pesticides to one of our question areas. And now I will mute. Thanks. Lisa, I think you had a comment. Yeah, just to capture that, sorry, Mary, when you said you wanted to add that, can you clarify to me what your that was? I want to explore Charles's question about future planning for energy and in centralized and decentralized options. I want to see, I want to, I want to update on where the city is in terms of exploring that and to see if this board might have something proactive to offer in terms of sort of some study questions or strategic planning questions. Right, so I think that I don't want to get too far into responses and so this is kind of an area that I do want to maybe put back to this group of how you want to propose this because we kind of, this is where we get into that area where folks feel like they need more information before making a decision on something. And we don't, I think that it's an important piece of information to understand how, what's our relationship with Platt River Power Authority and how the influence that we have in terms of meeting that 100% renewable energy goal. I think that ties in with the integrative resource plan that Platt River Power Authority just put out a couple of months ago. So this is an area where people feel really strongly that we need to have a study session or a meeting that's focused on more of the informational side of this. That sounds like it might be important. So I want to ask you guys, if that's something that you want to do and I'll put that to you all to vote on because although that ties to some of those priority areas. Yeah, Tim from, so we do have a rep from LPC on here, Tim Ellis, I'll let him chime in in a minute. Well, I'll let you chime in first, Tim and then we can bring that question back to this group. No, I think that's a really important question and we certainly can provide a lot more information on that relationship. I just wanted to let Charles know, just as an organizational setup, both Mayor Bagley and Dave Hornbacher, the executive director for LPC are both on the board of directors for Platt River. So we have a direct input into the plans and how we're going to meet those goals on the highest level. So just throwing that out there. And of course, if there's any additional informational sessions or anything that's needed, definitely will be available to do that. Thank you. I feel like typically we have a few sessions a year where PRPA comes in with some presentations and updates on where they are with the renewable energy. So that might be another place to kind of ask the questions that you do have and give them a chance to actually provide some real feedback on it. You know, that would be, oh, sorry. Quick last question. So Charles, would you be willing to formulate the questions that you think would be useful to have answered in a study session on our behalf? Sure, yeah, I could definitely do that. I've been kind of studying this for a little while and one piece, so I think that's one piece that'd be very interesting and I really like the idea of defending against and the city investing in what ends up being a stranded asset. And maybe there's other things we can invest in in terms of, for example, the residential power generation and things like that. Micro grids. One thing, right. So electrification is one of the pieces that's on our priority list. And if we think maybe even just four or five years out especially 10 years out or so, electricity is gonna become amazingly inexpensive. What are we gonna do with those electrons? And so there might be all kinds of things we could do and some of them related to equity, food, all kinds of things that we could do. So we could be very aggressive. So I think that'd be a wonderful topic if the board would be interested in discussing that. Adam, I saw your hand up there to go. Yeah, I'll just say I enjoy this topic as well. I would love to hear more about it. I did have a follow-up question to your presentation, Lisa, if it's possible just to ask one quick question. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I really appreciated the progress that you provided. It's like really exciting. What I'd like to know regarding the water reduction, is that just reducing the water usage in Longmont or is that also considering programs to reuse gray water? I'll let Francie jump in on that one. She's our water conservation and sustainability specialist. Yeah, that's a great question. So the goal was established in our 2004 Raw Water Master Plan. And it's main goal is like the overarching goal is 10% reduction in our water usage by our projected planning build out, which is just before 2050. So there are a number of current action items and that's guided by our Water Efficiency Master Plan. So currently, gray water is not an included action item in our Water Efficiency Master Plan, which was in 2017. I believe gray water is listed as a potential action in the future in the sustainability plan. We have not yet pursued it primarily because our main focus right now is looking at land use and water efficiency integration. And that is a primary focus of staff timing working a lot with our planning department. That doesn't mean we won't look at gray water in the future. It's just not a priority at this time. Thanks Francie. Mary. I believe that it was included in the, Adam, for the board to look at it was included in the Climate Action Plan that was presented to us in last summer or in the fall as a priority for residential landscape and gardening use. Francie, do you just wanna jump in and clarify what that recommendation was so people are familiar with that? Yeah, so there was a Climate Action Task Force recommendation that was, so the original recommendation, and I do wanna note this one, I'm gonna say the original recommendation and then the staff modifications, this was the most extensively staff modified, but the original recommendation was a very high level recommendation with the overall goal to reduce water consumption by between 30, I think it was between 35 to 45% by 2025. So that is a very ambitious and goal and when we went through the evaluation process for a number of different reasons, it for multiple different categories fell lower on the ranking. So based on that combined with feedback from this board as well as water board and our parks reclamation and advisory board staff provided the recommendation to city council that instead of pursuing this very ambitious goal that when we do the next water efficiency master plan update which would be is due in 2024. So we'd probably begin the process in 2023. We would do a much more extensive evaluation of a more ambitious water conservation goal than what we currently have to kind of bring some more detailed information to city council on what a more ambitious goal might look like and what may be more feasible for the city. So it's not currently, so in the near term that until we do that update we're going forward with implementing our current water conservation programs and then kind of that more extensive research on more extensive programs will kind of probably start in that 2023 timeline. Great, thank you. So, Lisa, I feel like you had an action for us and I've lost it. Do we need to do something? Oh, it was just, if you all want me to set up an informational session with PRPA and LPC on power provision and the integrated resource plan. Yeah, folks, others. I second that. Okay, anyone have a... I would like it. All right, yes, we would all like to learn about that. Great. Yeah, Mary, did you have something else? No, I just hope that Charles is going to have his questions articulated about that maybe prior to the session. It would save a lot of time if we could just get those answered all at once. I think he did a pretty respectable job of articulates beginning to articulate them in this meeting and I nominated him to think for us in that regard. Thanks, I would love to be able to talk to Tim, for example, maybe and work together with Tim even with working on some of those questions if Tim would be interested. Sure, yeah, of course. Anyway, I can help. What I was going to ask is, do you want something that is kind of summarizing what Plot River is planning in regards to the IRP or the resource planning to reach that 2030 goal or what they have in place now? Because they agreed on one of the options in the IRP. Do you want them to kind of give an explanation of that and how it's going to work? Or if you have other questions that revolve, I mean, regarding like micro grids and community-based resources, which is part of the IRP, but if you want to have them maybe talk about that aspect more, it'd be helpful if they got some direction as to what they're going to, but what you guys would like to hear about. I would love to hear just, yeah, how they work, what the strategy is. So micro grids, I'm trying to remember, is that the same thing as like virtual power plants where you tie together residential power generation with an energy management system and doing energy arbitrage and things like that? I'm thinking that you can have virtual power plants with micro grids or any grid. It's just resources that can help manage a flexible grid. It can certainly work in the micro grid and it's probably really important in a micro grid because you have limited resources to work with so you really need to manage them very closely. So I think but the virtual power plant, we're developing what in some regard, a virtual power plant with this water heater program we're working on now, where we can call upon water heaters and manage them to align with renewables or to cut peak down, but that's virtual power because we're not generating power, we're managing the consumption on it. So yeah, I think that the virtual powers is going to be in a lot of places. So did you get your question answered, Tim? Well, more detail would be good because we would, Lisa and I would have to pass something along to both Dave, my executive director and to Platte River to, so they know what everybody's expectations are. That's to set specific expectation because there's limited time. We want to get to the point quickly and we want to be able to have people on the line that can answer the questions most appropriately. Well, it sounds, Charles, it sounds not to ask your question for you, but it sounds like you were asking about distributed versus centralized and planning for sort of like cost and capacity levels as planning, the sort of like the 10-year strategic planning and what kind of forecasting information is included as that strategic planning is ongoing. Yes? Yeah, that's definitely, you know, I could keep going on many, many questions but that's one of the big central ones. So maybe I could think of my questions and even solicit the board and then talk to Tim about those and maybe refine them so that we can keep that presentation from Platte River authority focused, but. Perfect. Yeah, Tim. I could one more point on that, specifically for talking about distributed energy resources, Platte River power has hired, in conjunction with all the cities, has hired a consultant to do a distributed energy resource study that's ongoing right now. So that's going to be answering, I think a whole lot of your questions and it's going to give us, you know, some kind of direction or options as we move forward, but right now it's in study phase and that study is supposed to be wrapped up by May, June timeframe. So I think that may be a resource that can help answer a lot of your questions, but I think if you want a discussion earlier, there's no problem in trying to. We could do it all at once as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, if you want to wait till the end, you know what would be a really good, I think a plan is to, let's wait till the end of this distributed energy resource study in May or June and present on it and present the results on that and how it lines up with the IRP, then it'll give you a really good framework on and understanding of what they and the cities are envisioning as a whole regarding the distributed versus the centralized power. And I think that that would make sense and then we can strategize trying to get to that action piece of I'm sure at some point that'll be then presented to the city council. So this, it would be an opportunity for this group to provide feedback that then goes to city council along with that study. So I think that that approach makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I'd like to get this board information as soon as possible because to get better input, they need to absorb it and think about it a while so we can really get their ideas as part of what options we're gonna kind of bring to the city council as well. So the earlier the better, but we would have to wait till the results are coming out in that May or June timeframe to just start that process, I think. And that would be fantastic. Yeah, Francie. I just actually sent this to Heather, but Platt River just opened up two more virtual DER strategy workshops if any board members are interested in attending. So I sent it to Heather to send to the rest of you all. Great, thank you. Okay, well, let's, yes. Okay, so since we've dealt with one of the two areas that we've identified that we wanted to delve into more fully and we did that quite expediently, I'm wondering if this board can come up with our sort of questions and things we're interested in around pollinators and pesticides and just send them to Lisa and she can decide how to structure and when to structure bringing that to us if we could just sort of do that in the email or does that work? Does that violate open meeting laws? I don't know. It probably does. What's your thought there Heather? As long as you do not have more than two members on any email or something, you would be able to avoid that but as soon as you get three people on there, you have an open meeting and it is not allowed. So my recommendation would be if you wanna do it is for everybody to email their questions to Lisa and to me and we can kind of collaborate with Annie and make sure that we get them concise and then we could present them to the board as a whole to discuss during one of your open meetings. Thank you. Mary, I'm tempted to nominate you to write our questions for us as you nominated Charles. Turning mic. I stuck in that. Yeah, I'm absolutely up for that and I even have some folks that I can recommend that might be useful to bring it to speak like the people on pollinators and Tom Theobald. Perfect, perfect. Jim, did you have something? No, okay. I was just giving a thumbs up. All right. Awesome. I'm moving on in the agenda at 5.02. Okay, council is not here so they will not have any items. Information that was submitted or sent with the packet, are there any questions about anything that came? Okay, would anybody like to motion to adjourn? Sorry, my mute button's actually on a different speaker over here so I will motion to adjourn. I will second that. All right, all in favor? All right. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Have a good one. Thank you. Take care everyone. Bye. Take care, bye-bye. Until next month.