 I would now like to call the September 15th, 2021, Longmont Sustainability Advisory Board meeting to order. Could we please start with a roll call? Yes, Kate Collardson. Here. Adam Reed. Here. Charles Musgrave. And Robert Davidson. And I got emails from Mary Lynn, Jim Metcalf and Cable Meyer that they'll not be able to attend tonight. For staff members, we have Lisa Knoblock. Here. Annie Noble. Here. Tim Ellis. Here. And Heather McIntyre is here. And Council Member Christensen is here. All right. Chair Yavukorum. Fantastic. Thank you. We acknowledge that Longmont sits on the traditional territory of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Yute, and other Indigenous peoples. We honor the history and the living and spiritual connection that the First Peoples have with this land. It is our commitment to face the injustices that happened when the land was taken and to educate our communities, ourselves, and our children to ensure that these injustices do not happen again. Yes, Adam. I'll just say something on that note. I was delighted to see that Longmont announced in their newsletter that they formed this sister-city relationship with the Northern Arapaho tribe. I actually found that out when I was up in Wyoming. So that was delightful to hear. That is great. Yeah, Polly. Thanks for pointing that out. To a student. They're coming down on Saturday and there'll be a public ceremony at the museum. I think that's open to the public at three o'clock. Okay. And so if you would like, you should check with the museum. But I think that's open to the public. And they're really, you know, wonderful people and it's a very long drive. So, but it really is. It's very nice that we can, that our children can go back and forth. I hope that this continues after, you know, forever. I don't want it to be yet another bunch of broken promises, which, as we know, the history of racial relationships. And you worked on that to make that happen, Polly? Polly, is that true? Yeah. Yeah. And I've been up to the Wind River Reservation and that was, it was very, very nice. They were extremely generous to us. They put us up and they, we did a sweat lodge and only one person keeled over. So, you know, he didn't die. It's good. It's good. It was, it was very, very nice to have a chance to talk to various people and to meet the kids. The kids have come down one time, but that was before COVID. So hopefully by this spring, we can do that again and keep that relationship up. Because it's really, really important that we learn to understand other people's experiences. And there's, the experience of Native Americans is something that I don't think anybody can picture unless they are Native Americans, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for your work on that, Adam. Just a quick clarifying question. How late will that run? Because we have that Fiesta food truck rally. And I don't know if it's possible to catch the Longmont Museum event after that. Um, I don't know. I know that you could, as I said, you can probably check the museum. But what I have down is we have a lunch with them and then we have a ceremony that I thought was public. It's at three o'clock. I don't think it'll be very long, maybe just 45 minutes or so. And then we have a dinner with them, which is really, I hope I get a chance to talk to people. So yeah, it's three o'clock at the museum, but also the information I have doesn't say how late it goes until so. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Polly, for all of that, all of your work and all of that background. Sure. My honor. Okay, the next item is the approval of the minutes from the last meeting. Does anybody have any amendments or would anyone like to make a motion to approve? I'll move that we approve the minutes from last week's meeting as presented. Thank you. Any second? I'll second that motion. Great. All in favor? Thank you. Okay, it is now time for the public invited to be heard. Do we have anyone who would like to speak? Don't have anyone who's joined us, so we can move on. Okay, great. Are there any revisions to the agenda or documents that need to be submitted? From staff? No? Great. Okay, on to general business. Lisa, that's you. The GO EV resolution. Yeah, excellent. So we had a couple of other agenda items that we're supposed to be on tonight that got bumped because they weren't quite ready yet. So when was the sustainability tax priorities? And they actually haven't released the application yet, so we will have time to come back to you in the October meeting for that. And then Tim also had something that we put on the October agenda. So tonight's meeting might be pretty short and sweet, but we'll see. You never know. I'm going to pull up this presentation and see if I can... Heather, are you going to pull it up? Sorry, I realized I said it to you, so that probably makes more sense. Oh, there we go. Perfect. You can see it now, Lisa? Yes. Yes, thank you. All right. So I want to chat with you all about the GO EV resolution that is going to council on September 28th, so you can go to the next slide, Heather. So the GO EV cities is actually a statewide initiative to encourage cities and counties to accelerate electrification in the transportation sector. The resolution itself represents a commitment to develop policies and strategies to meet cities' emissions reduction goals to provide cleaner air, more affordable transportation, and leadership for greater EV adoption nationwide. And the impetus of it was really to when the state came out with their EV plan with a goal of getting a million EVs on the road in Colorado by 2030. So this initiative really came out of what can local cities and other jurisdictions do to help meet that statewide goal. To date, there are eight EV cities, so kind of the folks that you would think of that are involved in a lot of these areas. So Avon for Ponds, Boulder County, Denver, City of Boulder, Summit County, and the City of Golden are all designated now as GO EV cities. And now Longmont has an opportunity to do that as well. You can go to the next slide. So just a bit of background. Transportation is one of the 10 topic areas in the sustainability plan. This is our objective here, and these are the targets that are noted in the sustainability plan and where we're at in meeting those targets. The first one kind of has that red X on it because we have, we've had quite a bit of challenge and internal conversations about how do we best measure equitable access to transportation infrastructure. And we've been working with some of our GIS folks to try to map things like a walk score and bike score and sidewalk, completed sidewalks and things like that. But we've just really, we haven't really landed on really good ways to do that. So we do hope to have that better defined as we get into the sustainability plan and envision Longmont's updates next year and really use the transportation road map, which you all are familiar with, to inform that since that was really rooted in equity and I think will help us better define those equity metrics with regards to transportation. We're doing pretty well in the air quality area other than ozone, which as I'm sure you all know, we are not doing well on in the front range in general is and it's not in compliance in terms of ozone. And then the third target came out of our greenhouse gas inventory and we're really holding steady there, but we've also modified that target a bit, which I'll talk about shortly. You can move to the next slide please. These are the strategies that are already listed in the sustainability plan and I've highlighted just the ones that are related to EVs, which are looking at both our fleet and then also encouraging EV uptake in the community and improve charging infrastructure. And these got incorporated into the transportation road map. And then just a reminder, if you all recall EVs, particularly focused on charging infrastructure in the downtown area was also identified as a priority within the climate action task workforce recommendations. So there's a lot of focus on EVs so you can go to the next slide. And then as I mentioned just a minute ago, we kind of modified that transportation emissions target to be more of a straight target for greenhouse gas emissions related to the transportation sector rather than a mobile fuel consumption target, which was just confusing to folks. So it's essentially the target itself really hasn't changed just more of the way that we're measuring it and the units associated with that has changed. So it's really reducing transportation emissions 40% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. And that'll help meet our overall greenhouse gas reduction goals. The two main components of that, and most of you I think have seen this slide, it was part of my climate action update a couple months ago. But just to reiterate, the two main components within that are increasing EVs, which we have a goal 30% by 2030 and 90% by 2050. We're at 2.13%. So we have a long, long way to go on that front. And then also increasing mode share, which we were actually doing pretty well in 2019. But as you can imagine, COVID has really hit that sector hard. So it's going to take a while for us to recover from that. And you can go to the next slide. So in order to create a really coordinated action plan to achieve our goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector, we applied foreign gut funds from the Bullard County Sustainability Tax to develop the Equitable Carbon Free Transportation Roadmap. And as we've talked to you about before, the roadmap really pulls together a lot of the transportation and equity-related plans to really give us this roadmap on how we can get to those transportation goals. And it establishes three base priorities and four equity priorities, priorities that really help to support the creation of a healthy living environment that effectively engages all members of our community. So I've marked just on this graphic here all of the places that are related to EVs. So you can see it really shows up and builds upon each other as we get toward that goal in 2050. And one of the strategies that was identified was a GO EV resolution. And we had initially identified that for 2023, but we are actually approached by some folks from SWEAP, if you all are familiar with that organization. It's the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. And they do a lot of technical support and research around all things energy and electrification-oriented work. So they actually approached us and they said, hey, there's a lot going on in this area. The last week of September is EV Drive Week, which you all may be familiar with, and it's a good opportunity to bring this resolution forward. So we decided to go ahead and jump on that opportunity. So you can go to the next slide, Heather. Thank you. So the Longmont GO EV resolution details Longmont's leadership on climate action and our commitment to developing those policies and strategies to meet our transportation electrification goals and the areas of fleet, public transportation, ride sharing, and private vehicles as well. The resolution was included in your packet, but these are just, I just wanted to touch on the highlights that are included in the resolution. It does lay out some specific targets where we could identify them, as well as more of a general commitment to pursue policies and strategies in these areas, and then really a central focus on equity using those equity priorities that were defined in the roadmap. So we can go to the next slide. So as I mentioned, the resolution will go in front of Council as part of the Consent Agenda on September 28th. So we won't have a presentation that goes along with that, but I will be available in case Council has questions on that. And then as I mentioned, that is Electric Drive Week. So hopefully Council will pass the resolution. It will give us a good opportunity to talk up the work that we're doing around EVs. And then Sustainable Resilient Longmont is hosting an EV drive event on Sunday, October 3rd. And we'll have a table with that event, and Tim from LPC is going to be speaking at that event as well. So hopefully that'll also be a good opportunity to talk up that Longmont is hopefully at that point ago EV City. We also have the DOE grant, which we've talked to you all about before, and a follow-up plan from that. We have not heard back yet on that grant, but hopefully pretty soon in the next couple of weeks, hopefully we should know by the next SAV meeting coming up in October. But regardless, that really helped us build a pretty strong foundation and a pretty strong team internally with some external partners to pursue a lot of that work in the transportation roadmap, particularly regarding transportation electrification. So we're really excited about all the work that's happening in that area. And then we'll also continue with the roadmap implementation. Next slide. All right. So that's pretty much it. I do apologize that the timing didn't really work out for us to get more direct feedback from you all in terms of crafting the resolution itself, but it did seem like an opportunity that really made sense for us to take advantage of with regards to the timing. But I would like to be able to note in the communication, the Council of Communication, that we'll go along with the resolution that the Sustainability Advisory Board is supportive of the resolution itself. So I do want to, one, just get any feedback or questions or comments, but also hopefully have you all give me the okay to include your support in that communication. And there will definitely be more opportunities to craft specific targets and action as we get into the updates of the sustainability plan and envision on that next year as well. So with that, let's have questions, comments. Yeah. Yeah, Lisa, I'd just like to say that this resolution is really impressive and it's great that the city is considering it. And I especially like how I'll highlight some of the steps that Longman already took. So that's great to see. I do have a question. Are we able to provide some feedback on the resolution itself? Or is that pretty much carved in stone right now? It's pretty much, it's, it's, we had to get it done and get it to our legal folks with time to get it finalized and go out in the Council packet. So it's pretty well set in stone as it is. That said, I will say, please do give me your feedback because if we can use that to inform what we do, kind of with follow-up steps, that's still helpful for us. Okay. I did have one comment, apart from like it looks really great. In terms of the section that said, I think it was about zero mission vehicles, there was something about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. And that caught my attention because I've worked on those before. And from my experience, I'd recommend removing that from the section. And now I think that might sound pedantic, because everything is written really well. But the main reason is that those cars are a distraction from more effective solutions like battery-powered electric vehicles. And we've talked about how electric vehicles are really showing promise in the market. But in contrast, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, those are not so viable. And so just a little small point that caught my attention. I appreciate that. And I had a similar thought. And the only reason we actually left it in there when we were talking to the folks from Sweep is because they are included in the definition of plug-in and hybrid electric vehicles that the state uses. So if we're using the same terminology, they're part of that umbrella. But I think that that's helpful for information when we really get down to what are we actually going to prioritize, that we will get to choose locally whether or not we pursue hydrogen as an option. Sure. My understanding is there isn't any plan in place to have a hydrogen infrastructure for fueling cars. Not that I've heard of. Other applications like aerospace and local power is a totally different story. Thanks, Adam. Charles. Yeah. So I actually had an issue with the same whereas as Adam had. So just to first quickly, a significant fraction of my day job is spent on working for the Department of Energy on how to produce hydrogen. And I would second Adam's comments about hydrogen. So I have to be careful about that because I'm doing research on it and want to make it happen. But at the same time, I don't think it belongs there in this initiative or this resolution. The other thing actually is I have a much stronger opinion on actually is that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are absolutely not emission free vehicles. And 90% of the time they're running on fossil fuels. Most people who buy plug-in hybrid electric vehicles do not plug them in. And they are also a distraction as Adam commented for the hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are also a distraction. And they're unfortunately, they have typically seven kilowatt hour batteries in them, for example, somewhere in that range, you know, seven to 10 kilowatt hour batteries. So it's incredibly small batteries. So it's a real, they're basically a fossil fuel vehicle with a big battery in it and a big alternator. And, you know, a good electric vehicle will have anywhere from a 60 to 100 kilowatt hour battery in it, you know, somewhere in the order of 10 times the size of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. So, so a plug-in hybrid, you know, the hybrids, when they say hybrid, really it's 90% of fossil fuel, gasoline power vehicle, and maybe a 10% electric vehicle. So I very strongly disagree with that aspect of the resolution. All right. Thanks, Charles. I appreciate that. Any other questions or comments? Yeah, Adam. I had two questions. The first one that was on my mind, I think there was something about the social cost of carbon. And I don't think this needs to change in the resolution at all. But I'm just curious, what costs were you going to use? Because like that can be anywhere from like I'm one end to like a carbon tax to anywhere on the other side of the spectrum, which is like including all the known and anticipated costs of carbon. So I'm curious what the plans are there to calculate the number? Yeah. And I wouldn't say we have specific plans at that point in time. If we did do that, we would probably utilize the current number that the EPA is using, which I haven't looked at for a while. But last time, I did see it was somewhere in the $40 to $50 range. So that's what we would probably utilize. So my thought is about the equity piece. And it's kind of broad. And I just I assume that as this happens, the details will be very forthcoming. Yeah. Yeah. And resolutions generally are pretty broad. Their commitments, they're pretty high level. So as we get into the actual implementation, as we dig into what are we going to actually do, we'll utilize particularly resources like the equitable climate action teams, equity lens and equity recommendations that they put together for the climate action recommendations report. We've been working a lot on those internally, particularly with the work that Francie's been doing. And she's not here tonight to chat about those. But we've been really building those up. And we've been supporting different folks across the organization who are implementing this type of work to really use those as criteria for the implementation or design of any strategies. So that very much would be really that when we would bring that component in. But the criteria for equity priorities are kind of our starting point for transportation as identified in the book. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for that comment. Yeah. So my follow up question is how long are the buses going to remain free of charge? That's a good question. Polly, do you have the answer to that? But you are on mute now. Yeah, I'm here to turn off my buttons. I'm one of the people who promoted that idea. So I do hope that the next it's a year to year thing. So I would rather have council make at least a five year commitment because that takes it out of the realm of politics and other things. And it isn't a year to year thing. It's what the people of this town need. When we did that, it up the ridership by 30%, people would love to be able to ride the bus, but they can't afford it. If it's like $5 each way, that's $50 a week. That's crazy. Anyway, so it depends upon who's in city council. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions or comments for Lisa? Okay. Is anyone willing to make a motion to that on this that will support this that our name could be added to the supporters list? Yeah, so moved. Okay. Second. I mean, I do have a question, Lisa, like when it's carved in stone, does that mean like council can still mark it up? I guess I don't know how this resolution process works in full. Sure. Yeah, council can always make recommendations to staff to make changes to their resolution. So we, I mean, we could do that. The other thing that I will say, you know, for better or worse is our resolutions are not binding. It's not an ordinance that actually lays something in code. So they're generally used as guidelines for what staff does in terms of implementation. So but city council definitely is council members can make recommendations of staff to make changes before it's finalized, but then we would have to bring something back for them. So yeah, Holly, Holly. So yes, when you do a resolution, you do have to write it, run it by the legal department so that they make sure there's nothing untoward. So it takes a little bit of time. But once it gets to council, it also, you know, if you have suggestions, send them to me, and I will try to add them. Then it'll have to go through. Well, if it's a resolution, it just can be passed. But if we make changes, then it has to come back. But it'll still be passed if the majority agrees. But you do have to be sure in every stage that you're not doing something that's illegal. Yeah. And that requires time because we have a fairly limited legal department for the city. The thing that I can definitely do is in the council communication. If assuming that you all vote to support it, I can I can definitely make a note based on your comments tonight saying that sustainability advisor advisory board members noted the need to prioritize electric vehicles over hydrogen or plug-in hybrid vehicles or something along those lines. Just to say, yes, we acknowledge that this is in the resolution and the direction is or advice from the board members is to not pursue those particular options. So I can craft language in the communication that also captures that sentiment as well. Yeah, I think that would be a better way to do it. Yeah, I would also prefer not to have to revise it and come come back because that's a whole process in and of itself. So if you all feel okay with us doing that, that's probably the route. It would be cleaner and faster. Yes. So say that again, Lisa, you're going to craft language that says what exactly in terms of how does this work? It just advises council that the advisory board has issues with it or what's I didn't get. So I can just note in with every item that goes to city council, we draft what's called a council communication and it provides all the background information and staff feedback and all of that sort of stuff. And so I can include I have a kind of placeholder sentence in there right now that says that this was brought to the sustainability advisory board at your September meeting and you all were supportive of the resolution. I can modify that statement to say something along the lines of just noting the concerns around hydrogen and plug-in electric vehicles and that your feedback is to prioritize electric vehicles rather than those two options. Just so then when city council sees that they they know that that's your specific feedback with regards to the resolution. Does that make sense? Yeah, I understand that. That sounds good, Lisa. Thank you. The one, I don't want to be too strong on this, but the one issue with that one whereas is that it's factually incorrect. So it's more than just an opinion about what we want to prioritize. It's plug-in hybrid electric vehicles have a tailpipe. They have emissions. They are not zero emission vehicles, so it's factually incorrect. So I'm not sure how you want to word that, but I think it's more than just I mean I do agree that we do want to prioritize battery electric vehicles over hybrid or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, but that one statement is just it's sorry it really bothers me. Yeah, I'll figure something out and I'll chat with the sweet folks too because like I said we're using the language that the state is using and so because we were also initially we had initially expanded it to be to include renewable natural gas and we had a whole conversation with them about that that explicitly doesn't fall into the category of zero emission vehicles for other reasons and so we decided that it made more sense for us to use the length the standard language that the state is using. So that's what I can note in the council communication of this is why we chose this language. This is the feedback from the sustainability advisory board if you are comfortable with that and I'll I can share with you the final communication for your for the next meeting as well and I'll give that feedback to those sweet folks. I'm not sure that I'm not sure what power influence they have in that process but they're the ones that are really helping advise communities on this work so I think that's helpful information and feedback for them to have. I can imagine there's interests interests that have resulted in that language in the first place but I don't can't say I know the history of all of that. Yeah Adam. Yeah well just second what Charles said and Lisa thanks for doing this really appreciate it. Yeah thank you. Yeah I agree. I appreciate you doing all this and accommodating all the the concerns but they're legitimate and so I don't think we actually voted. So we have a motion on the table but we need a second so we had a motion from Robert to support the resolution. And maybe we could add with the the notes that were that Lisa took. I'm sure that is not the language we have to use. So with that is that is there a second? I'll second the motion with the amendment that Lisa will add the comments then forward to council. Thank you Charles. All in favor. Okay great. Awesome thank you all and I think that's it for me. Thanks Lisa. Yes I appreciate it Lisa. Okay so the next item is other business and there's nothing on the agenda so I'm assuming there is none. Okay then we have two items from staff first is the carbon fee and dividend act resolution. Yeah and so that's just an announcement to let you know that council member Joan Peck did bring that to council a couple weeks ago and recommended that staff bring back a resolution. So that's similar to the resolution that you all saw several months ago from the citizens climate lobby folks. So I went ahead and put that all together so that is also on the consent agenda for the same evening September 28th. So I just wanted to let you all know that and similarly I did put a council communication together I think for was the end of July when I brought that forward a month or so ago and similarly noted how you all had voted on that resolution and that some of you also had concerns so that's also noted in that as well so but that's going the same the same night. Great thank you. Yes Adam. I'll just add that regardless of where you stand on that particular resolution there is a lot of activity in the U.S. Congress right now and specifically in terms of climate policy and it's enough to make your head spin but I think there's just so much going on that regardless of how much time you spend looking at any one of those topics it would be helpful just to give you some sense of some of this going on the national level and how it might impact Longmont and some ideas that that could be used here but it's definitely a fire hose to drink from at the moment. Right. It's exciting though. So Adam are you talking about the three and a half trillion dollar social infrastructure bill that's being debated now and the climate aspects and the electric vehicles aspects of that is that what you're referring to I wasn't quite sure. That as well as a bunch of bills they got a bill that got passed recently through the Senate and then legislation back in back in last year where there was a lot of climate and legislation rolled into a big package so not just what's going on now but what has been going on recently. I think there's just a lot of activity just beyond EVs just in terms of like very broad policy related to climate in general. Yeah there's a lot going on. Yes it's exciting. Okay so the next item is the PRPA meeting topics agenda and agendas. Yes Lisa is that you? Yeah so I also just wanted to bring that information back to you all at our last meeting when we were talking through the questions from that you all have from PRPA and the responses and there was a suggestion to potentially get meeting agendas ahead of the PRPA board meetings so that you all could potentially review the topics that are being discussed and if warranted make recommendations to city council based on some of those and we did chat with Dave Hornbacher who's the director of LPC who let us know that the the timing of those meetings their meeting agenda packets go out a couple days before the meeting and their meetings don't it was it's like the meeting agendas come out the day after the SAB meetings and then the PRPA meetings are like the following Tuesday or Wednesday or something like that so the the timing wouldn't allow for us to do that what you all had suggested but we did chat with LPC folks and decided what we would propose to you all essentially is for Tim or somebody else from LPC to do like a standing quarterly update to you all on progress and priorities and focus areas that PRPA is focusing on so that you all can stay more in the loop on on some of the things about where are we at with regards to renewable energy the DERS work other things like that Dave all said a lot of their meetings are pretty just general business oriented but that'll allow Tim to really consolidate that information and keep you all in the loop and if something is coming up that provides opportunities for you to provide feedback to city council or direction of city council that we can bring those opportunities to you Tim do you want to add anything to that sorry no I think you covered it you know we'll do our best to go through what they talked what they talked about their directors mean I don't even attend those or see those meetings either I kind of just rely on Dave to give us the direction going forward but I can for for the the the needs of the sustainability board I'll I'll get together with Dave and see if I'll go through the agenda afterwards I can ask him for some notes on some of the items that may be of interest to the sustainability board and like Lisa said a lot of them are just general business things that are of no interest to anyone but certainly there are things that come around that you would be interested in and would like to take a deeper dive on if there's any like if they're voting on any kind of movement forward on you know purchasing generation or or future transmission you know like like there there's a whole goal with excel energy to partner with pisco to build a lot of wind out in the east side of colorado and they have to build transmission there so there's a lot of like long-term plans I think they're considering now and but they're in a very general planning process the one I one of the items I think we'll definitely play into it and which is I'm a directly involved is we had the DER study which recently wrapped up and and there's two committees coming out of that one is involved in planning and one is involved in programs I'm on the programs team my director and Lutz is on the planning team so we're going to be directly talking with not only Platte River but all the other owners member cities on how you know we're strategizing around DERS which is I think is going to be really interesting for this group to to to hear about and uh because it's going to be you know the the biggest role the city's going to play potentially in our in our in our future for meeting our goals is how we have distributed energy resources locally in all four of our cities how we know where they are how we interact with them manage them operate them or or just uh understand how they're operating in order to to manage the grid to become 100 renewable so so DERS is a really big role that I think a lot any other cities are going to play in the future and and we're and you know myself and my director are directly involved in that process so I'll be reporting up on that pretty easily whenever you know we have some kind of resolutions or plans or or meetings even we're starting our meetings I think in mid-October sometime and they're going to be probably monthly so I can give a little blurb about what what the meetings were about at every you know sustainability sustainability board meetings so you guys can keep up with it okay thank you um Charles I see your hand up yes um me again so uh sorry so so I made the suggestion the at our last board meeting and it was primarily motivated by the idea I think that we have you know each member city has two voting members um or representatives with uh river power authority and the idea that you know I don't know the mayor and and who the next mayor is going to be after that they're elected in November um but it seemed like they might not have the expertise to be able to evaluate some of these items that come before them to vote on and that the advisory board could help you know provide some input um on on things that you know in a combination of not having the expertise necessarily because who knows they could for all we know they're a you know real estate agent or something but um the and then it's a little concerning that the packet goes out only a short time before um they're voting on some of these sometimes very complex and technical issues and so um that was the motivation and so knowing what happens after the fact is fine I'm I'm not sure if that's even maybe it's already available through you know the publication of minutes or uh you know the recording of the meetings but um you know basically it was you know one of the it seemed like an opportunity for us to help that we we could provide um advice to council but providing advice to the voting members of the pat river power authority for logmont seems like it just seems like that's something we should push on or try to yeah for them to just say the packets don't go out early enough for this to happen seems like okay well let's maybe maybe they need to change your bylaws that the packets go out um sooner give them more time to evaluate some of these important things that they're evaluating that they're voting on um you know Charles that's a that's a fair point you know because you want to be involved in the decisions that need to be made for sustainability for the city but I think what the general idea about the the packets in the board meetings is the general business of Platte River is is really around how the business operates the major decisions of sustainability would be should be involved in is when they develop a new IRP you know when they're coming up with those different planning documents uh those are are times when I think your input will be really valuable but on like a month to month board basics around how a Platte River's economics are looking for next year that's that's the type of thing I think Dave is saying you guys really it's not really part of what the sustainability board is interested in and has to evaluate for the mayor but what you're saying makes is valuable you know if there is a decision about how what generation resources are being purchased and how the resource planning is going that for sure would be something that you would be looked in and that's not just a normal one director meet one board meeting and they're like yep it's fine there's a long process behind that and you know the drafts come out they're reviewed by you know multiple people not only the board members and then you know that's where the input would come in that the board meeting would just be like after all that study and evaluation and input they just say yep it looks good let's go you know what I mean so the board meeting itself isn't that important it's the process leading up to those board meetings where you guys would be involved in getting giving some input on the direction that Platte River is taking with its resource mix and and other you know items if that makes sense got it but yeah thanks Tim that that helps a lot yeah because I was you know in my original suggestion or question it wasn't really about you know getting the agenda for individual meetings but was more like helping the you know giving the the mayor input information advice for exactly what you're talking about the times when it's actually you know useful not just general business yeah no I you know when the draft IRPs come out I think it would be great if you guys could take a hard look at them and give your input because they they put them out it takes months if not a year to do the final approval on those and there's plenty of time for a review and comment on that up to that final board meeting great thanks thanks Tim yeah Polly I see your hand up sorry um yeah Charles I do think that's a good idea actually because you know Tim is right that these are business meetings and all that but you know if we had left them just be business meetings nothing would have moved it was Councilwoman Peck and I and Councilman Martin who brought forth the idea that we should be um fossil free by 2030 um so the mayor is the the the head of LPC is of course the expert and thank god he's there but um but the mayor has a voice and needs to be informed and um I think it'd be very useful for this board to be an advisor for the mayor for PRPA just because nobody can learn everything but um do think when you're voting you know who who actually has had for all all of city council who's actually stood up for things and regarding the sustainability and but I I think this board can really serve a good purpose for helping the mayor be more informed so thanks for suggesting it yeah thanks Polly and Lisa I see yeah I also just was gonna say something similar to Polly in terms of just reminding folks that Dave Kornbacher is the other voting member and as the director of LPC he's very well informed on all of these issues so um but yeah I do think that that that's also an important point the other thing I just wanted to note that if you all didn't know and we can send this link out that all of PRPA's meetings are also public so people are able to attend those if those if that's something that you're also interested in doing it at any point and participating in that one okay thank you um and thanks I I just want to say thanks to Tim for being willing to to keep us informed and and to Charles I think that you're exactly right this we want to be involved in this and I appreciate you uh stating the case very clearly um okay uh so the next item is uh a discussion and thank you for putting this in here on on making the bylaw provision for future remote meetings and meeting times um is I'm not we can we can do this I'm not opposed to to having this discussion and and making this uh provision right now and right now are the city buildings that there are are we meeting in person right now is anybody yes yes Polly yes we are meeting but some people for their own little various reasons don't want to meet anymore because they don't like masks so we are City Council is meeting um it's difficult now because we are supposed to wear masks all the time so we can't really can't hear what's going on okay I'd still rather meet in person because I think there's value especially for City Council I I think we've all gotten kind of used to Zoom meetings and it has some advantages in terms of time and convenience but I don't think it's really a substitute for meeting in person you know I I think there's a lot to I think it depends upon the the group that's meeting and um so I don't really have a dog in this point okay you know I I just think whatever works and gets the most of us here um is the best thing for us for this board I agree yes Charles so um is is there so I think the um Planning and Zoning Commission meets on the third Wednesdays at 7 p.m is is there is that a problem at all to have overlapping meetings or in terms of like a conflict my my guess is there's more than one meeting room and at city there's enough city staff to support both those meetings and things like that or is or is it or is it a conflict when you have two different um city boards or commissions meeting at the same time uh yeah probably um the long the um Planning and Zoning Commission meets in theory twice a month but if they don't have enough uh really to make up a long meeting then they just confine it to one meeting which is usually more than long enough so it's not a matter of rooms there are there are rooms in the city hall where they could meet otherwise but there are fairly large board and yeah so they usually meet in the council chambers I don't know that that was because of a lack of meeting space I think it was because they just didn't have enough stuff that's going on to warrant meeting twice a month which is twice as much as most of us meet you know so that's um but you know we meet we were meeting um out of public works we weren't meeting in the city and people meet all kinds of places so it's that's not usually such a big deal it depends on the size of the board and what they're what they deal with we don't have usually on this board many um people from the public but boy planning and zoning does you know it's very contentious often okay um so what we're discussing is whether or not we're going to make a provision for all of our meetings to be remote remind me what we're really it's to um make a provision for if you needed to meet remotely and wanted to do that because of things like the pandemic or something that you could do that um make that provision in your bylaws um and then also the meeting times you guys had kind of talked about um switching the time to an evening evening meeting um so I don't know if you want to change that at the same time okay I'm I'm feeling hesitant with the the low attendance from board members at this meeting to make this kind of uh official change um I we have talked about it and not everyone there I can think of at least one member board member who hasn't been here for any of these um discussions and have have y'all had feedback from everyone that the or anyone about this change Annie see your hand up I was actually raising my hand just to get clarification about what this provision allows so it doesn't as I understand and Heather correct me if I'm wrong but this just allows you to meet remotely if you so choose it doesn't mandate that you in the future meet remotely it just gives you that option correct great thank you for clarifying that but but on the other one on the the meeting time it it is it's not an option like it well and my understanding in our discussion a couple weeks ago was that the board wanted to try out this time and see if it worked to see if you know more members of the public were showing up and if it worked for everybody that was my recollection but you guys can weigh in on that yeah so our previous meeting when you all decided to do it at 6 p.m. instead it was like a we made a provision for a special meeting time for this month and then we are going to evaluate if we wanted to move the meetings to the 6 to 8 p.m. I did get an email from Kay Volmeyer who is not going to be able to do evening meetings so okay thank you that's helpful and and she is the the sole the center thus far okay as far as I know I know that Mary is not feeling well today so she wasn't able to come and Jim is out of town so he wasn't able to join either okay so the their absence has nothing to do with with the evening time okay okay um I mean we we do have one member of the public who's able who's here um but it hasn't significantly increased the number of public uh members of the public who are joining um what what does the board think um I'd love to hear thoughts on this over for the next few minutes yes Pauline well when we when people signed up for this they did sign up at a particular time that that they could make so I don't even if it's just one person who can't make it I don't think we should make it a decision that shuts them out because they in good faith applied to go come here at 3 30 in the afternoon so you know I and I also don't think that people should um that we we have too few people here today to make that decision you know so that's my opinion I appreciate your opinion thank you um Robert so for me the evening works better it's more reliable for me but I totally agree with Polly's point that yeah we can't just box out someone who I expected a consistent meeting time but how do we consider that it looks like Kay's term expires in June of 2022 is there a way to consider options for whoever may fall on the board starting at that time so you're suggesting that when when Kay is uh like her term expires that the next person we make it clear that we are I think considering moving to an evening um time is that I just want to clarify that's the suggestion yeah yeah if it seems like the remaining members of the board would be happy to to move to that time it would be better in general for people then it'd be great to advertise that as the meeting time for the board for future applicants I like that idea I don't know how to do it in practice um Adam regarding the number of folks at the public waiting to be heard right now we only have one meeting where we're having it at six so that's a pretty small sample size just a sample of one so I'd suspect we have to do a few trials just to get some sense of how many people start to trickle in is that one metric we want to watch or um are there other things that we want to pay attention to as well like how does this work out with the staff and you know are there other times that might work for everyone like I can imagine filling out some whole thing like doodle poll or something and just see if there's like some magical time that just happens to work for this group I suspect probably not but just a shot in the dark like your optimism please I also just wanted to throw out there that that I would say given the time that we're in and still dealing with COVID I'm also not sure that we're gonna what might work or not work at this moment in time might not be the same for the future you know when we can all hope for post pandemic days as well so you know just to be thinking about that if it makes sense for you all to try to shift times now and see how it goes giving COVID but also you know my sense right now is that people are people are also sort of retreating back into kind of day-to-day focus um on managing life stuff and family circumstances and things like that so it might also not I agree with Adam one night is isn't going to give you the best information but also just given everything people are dealing with right now you know I don't know if it's the best period of time to be engaging that either um but just to just to be considering that as well thanks for that yeah Charles so in terms of the ability to meet remotely I like the fact that that gives us flexibility you know who knows what comes down the pike in terms of what's happening with the pandemic and things like that in the future so I like that aspect in terms of times if we meet remotely I can make the normal time or an evening time if we meet in person I can only make the evening time so for me personally it yeah it's just next after December you know starting in January my schedule will change and I can probably make the three I'll make my schedule work so I can make the 330 time but until until January I can I can't make 330 unless it's remote okay thank you for that um so what I'm thinking is that we should go ahead and and have the well amend the bylaws to allow for remote meetings um and then as far as the time goes I'm I'm a little more stumped on on that one um it it seems that we could in theory have um say we're gonna have remote meetings through the end of the year and go back to the 330 time and hope that um you know that change will allow kata to join um I I don't I don't feel I feel and then maybe reevaluate it the type the meeting times next year I yes Heather so at the beginning of the year usually in January we review the by bylaws and meeting times and all of that anyway so if you wanted to finish out the year really we just have October and November left if you wanted to finish out the year remotely and then I don't know if you want to keep the three o'clock time that we've been having or move it back to 330 but we had changed it at the beginning of the year to three o'clock to allow more time for the meeting since we are running over so frequently mm-hmm right I I do remember that change and and we do tend to I'm I'm feeling hopeful about today all but we do tend to use up the two whole the whole two hours uh no pretty regularly um so I so let's start with the uh the what do we need to do to as far as the the remote meetings just say do we need to have a vote on that okay so is there well can somebody make a motion to amend the bylaws to allow for remote meetings I I'll make a motion I'd like to motion that we amend the bylaws so that we have the option to hold our sustainability advisory board meetings remotely thank you in a second thank you all in favor perfect okay um okay who who wants a three o'clock meeting for the next for the rest of the year I'm fine either way this will this will allow k to join in theory okay the Adam Charles I can't do three I can do 330 but not three okay okay I have a 230 to 330 meeting every Wednesday that I can't I have to attend it's not one of those optional ones the night yeah okay uh would and would you be okay hanging on till 5 30 if needed yes okay um and do you and Adam I saw you had a hand up I think sure I can do either of those times I have a slight preference for the evening one if possible but I would prioritize with the staff and members of the public prefer and would also maximize the chances that we can get the largest group of folks in the board here right I do think that Polly makes a really good point about you know the agreement when when k signed up was you know afternoons not evenings and I do think that there's something to be said about sticking to that for her her term at least if if that takes her out of the running that's just not quite fair so let's can can we move it back to 330 then is that going to be an issue do we have to do another motion for that it would need a motion to move it to that time but you could definitely do that if you want to okay uh Charles uh Robert um anyone go ahead I'll move it we uh we change our meeting start times to be the same day of the month but at 3 30 p.m for two hours great second thank you all in favor great thank you thanks for walking through that with me everybody okay um the next item on the agenda is items from council do you have anything for us Polly um have any of you been to jack solar farm do you know anything about jack I went last night it's the most amazing place oh it's great and they have I think every Saturday morning um they have a tour but I think it's such an amazing place and I think that because what has always bothered me about solar array is that it's originally it was just stock you know it didn't move around uh then it started to move a little bit but it was still on the ground so it takes all the ground out of use this raises it up uh so that you can actually get a tractor under it you can get ruminants underneath it like cows and sheep and goats and whatever little kids but you know as climate change gets worse in the west particularly it is way too hot we have way too much sun for the plants I was really amazed to see the kinds of plants that are going bananas underneath these arrays so you solve several problems of solar in that you don't eliminate the use of the land under it in fact you shield it and make it more productive you are able to um have to work underneath it and um he has of course a very elaborate system of irrigation but so does every farmer now I mean farming has always been among the most technologically advanced and yet we think of it as oh those buckwheat farmers I'm so dumb actually it's always been at the forefront of everything because we have to eat so go to jacks if you have a chance because he's doing many many experiments in addition to providing solar energy and providing uh thriving plants for that are used for the hour center that are used for sale that are used for all kinds of things and he's also doing research for the Audubon Society for CSU in terms of carbon sequestration and water absorption and all kinds of things it's a really interesting thing and it's just down on just south of Olan Farms um a little bit down and on the other side of the street yeah the other side of the road so um it's a great place to visit amen I I'm so glad you brought that up I meant to I wanted to say something along those lines so I'm really glad you did oh and he he's an um he's a very clever man because he used to be a diplomat so before he even started installing this he started delivering jars of honey and cookies and various plants to his neighbors and getting to know them so that they could not start some rile up some uh anti solar garden thing and he's a very smart guy and it's his grandpa's farm that's who jack was so go yeah absolutely and just just an amazing story amazing research n rel's there Arizona University of Arizona they there are just so many cool things going on there and he it's it's a great story um tim yeah thanks I just wanted to say absolutely that's an awesome place I got my free summer squash when I saw Byron last year there so I was really psyched about that yeah and he went with that with me too we had a great time great idea I hope the economics work out around it right now they get a lot of grants to have a lot of grants from the Department of Agriculture and n rel and you know so they're getting some money to make it work I'm really interested to see the economics afterward and I hope that it can be a viable way to to put up solar in this area in the future I would love to do a community solar project with agrivoltaics in the future there are areas around our city not so many in them anymore but locally at least it'll be local northern Colorado local solar combined with agriculture I'm very interested in the idea and LPC is interested in the idea so so we're we're going to be keeping our eye on that one and I'm looking forward to see how economically it shakes out I know Byron has offered his consulting services to us already to try to put up more of them in the area so that's encouraging for a fee of course not for free yes he's interested in the fee oh I also wanted to say one more thing last next month will be my last meeting here and then you'll get whoever god knows whoever but I will miss you all but I will be here next next month so we'll we'll look forward to seeing you next month um yeah and on Tim's note that I think he said there were 50 farms in Boulder County that had the potential to do this kind of thing because they're on right on the three phase line and good you know space for it so I I'd love to see more really it's a first of its kind kind of thing and it's it's really exciting work what's happening there um Charles I saw your hand yeah sorry this is probably the wrong part of the agenda to make this but Tim Tim commented about the financial liability of Jack's solar garden and reminded me something that could change that maybe and just a question general is it I thought I saw something about the city is looking into adjusting the rates for power we're always adjusting the rates for power because you know we have a lot of well technology is changing and we also have a huge amount of maintenance we have to replace the water place and the sewer place and the pipes and you know everything it it's hugely expensive and so yes we're we're going to be raising the water rates but it's a small percentage roughly but it's hard it's very hard on people even though it may be only a couple of dollars that's very hard for people who are old and or poor and it's um but we can't we can't not fix things so otherwise we'll have worse problems and more expensive problems so yes we're planning to do that Lisa I see your hand yeah Tim please jump in but my understanding is that Jack's solar farm is outside of LPC territory though so anything that we would do rate wise wouldn't be applicable to them so we we we the city can't buy power from Jack's solar garden no we have an all electric you know contract with Platte River but you know there's that's a done deal and they have they sold their subscriptions out you know so they're doing fine you know the the boulder bought a whole bunch of it they also have the advantage of you know excel actually pays for wrecks through this through their rate structure which we we don't do um but but um you know there are there are lots of as Kate mentioned there are lots of other areas if we're going to do a new project we're going to do a new project it's not going to be Jack's and even if a new project is located outside the city border you know we're looking into our contract with Platte River what is it all what does it say we know what does it exactly mean when you know we have these interconnections are there is there some flexibility for the future if we want to get more local solar so right now we have an all requirements contract with Platte River but you know to to meet the hundred percent goal and also to to spur things locally and to have a very efficient grid and support local economies I think the opportunity is there for the future for for this type of setup and we're definitely very serious about trying to to look at these I get I I've gotten calls from folks that from HOA's and from people who have additional acreage that want to put up you know a megawatt or two and you know right now the way things are we can't do it according to our contract but we are in discussions with our legal team and we're talking to the other cities we're going to be talking with Platte River very soon about things like virtual net metering you know right now maybe we can do it maybe we can't it's not specifically defined the contract is is loose enough I think so we can go in and negotiate it you know that the Platte River is not opposed to say you can't do anything unless we sell it to you it says you you know we got to talk about it before he do because we got to manage the whole grid and we got to also pay our expenses you have to pay your expenses we got to make sure it all works for everybody but they're not adverse to it so that's the process we're kind of starting right now and I think it's encouraging because there's a lot of interest in this type of solar farms and lots of other renewable energy opportunities so it's going to be exciting great thanks for that input this was a great little discussion here at the end thanks for bringing it up Polly um okay uh we are at the end of the agenda amazingly uh one last thing I'll draw your attention to the informational items that were included in your board packet um be sure to read those and um that's that is there a motion to adjourn I'll move that we adjourn uh the September 15th 2021 sustainability advisory board meeting a second all right all in favor thanks everybody thank you everyone have a good night