Thursday April 18th 2024 and I'm calling the meeting to order for the Sustainability committee. And we have a role called please. Yes. Hair person. Denise Menino here. Uh, Vice chair, Dorie Larson is absent. Their mantle is absent. R Singer is absent. Doctor Carroll make it Present. Forgive me. Um ok. Are present. I'm present, OK? And Peggy Mars is absent. And we have three. That's we have five voting numbers. We have a quorum and we have received, um, word from Robin for asking for an excused absence. So I move to excuse her from today's meeting. We have a second All in favor. I. I Hi. You You can vote even though your brand new to the meeting, OK as a really, That's a great initiation. The process we do have a known absence for Miss Farre as well. OK, and I need a motion. I moved to Uh, excuse Peggy virus. Um We have a 2nd 2nd sorry. To this, uh all in favor, so Just to be clear. Denise is chair can't make a motion or sicken it. OK so that's why we have. That's why I have to do that, OK? So we welcome you and we're really glad to finally meet you seen your name, and it's been Really a mystery to me of how it's pronounced the way it is, But I did look it up a couple of times on YouTube pronunciation have it there. Yes, they do. Yeah, it's Irish. OK so, um, there is nobody here from the public at this moment. Oh, wait. We're we're Has everyone had a chance to look at the meetings from last month. I have, um, and you were weren't here so you probably wouldn't know. So what do we do about that, Tommy? Uh, the it's up to the consensus of the group to approve the meeting minutes. OK, well, I move to approve the minutes from March 2024 meeting. And I second it All in favor. OK? Thank you. I love the new portal. I just have to say that it's the best thing that's happened since sliced bread. I will say we do have one little hiccup if you look on the agenda under public comments at auto generated a. There was no public comments. It was a holdover from the last meeting, so we will fix that in the next week. It's in the template. We're we're still learning. Um I have a question about it, but I'm not sure whether this is the appropriate time. But I'm just wondering how long there are archived because I wasn't sure whether I should save downloads into my computer for future reference or whether they're going to be accessible. That's a that's a really good question. Um you can go ahead and save comments or you could I would go ahead and save them on your personal files. If you'd like, Uh, we do archive everything, but, um, You know, it'll go on. It's just it might be easier if you're trying to go back and look at old stuff to have everything all organized on your own as well. All right, well, We have, um, the Tommy show tonight. Hm? And um, he's we're gonna take a look at now. The draft of the FY 25 Sustainability Agenda ST budget Sorry about that, Um. Yeah. All right. Uh, my name is Thomas. Er I'm the public services director , Um, for the city of Tarpon Springs, and we've got a really quick overview of our proposed budget for fiscal year. 25 for sustainability. Uh, For, um Miss Heinz. Uh you know information. Uh, this isn't comprehensive as to all sustainability initiatives throughout the city. This is unique to the sustainability budgetary division within public services. So uh, for example, Uh, two years ago, we had a very large solar project that was approved in the, uh, water. Uh, utilities budget for the water treatment facility. It was about 1.21 $0.3 million as I recall, and but because it was attached to that facility was budgeted in that way. So there are A lot of sustainability projects and things going on throughout the city. Uh and this is really just the administrative budget for the sustainability coordinator to administer her program and capital projects and even things like planning and zoning initiatives related to sustainability or house within those other budgetary divisions within the city. OK? All right. So, um A quick overview of general budgetary framework for the city. Uh, we follow state of Florida standard budgetary, uh, practices and the budget's kind of divided up roughly into Uh into three different categories. We have personnel costs, Uh, operating budget and capital outlays. Um personnel and operating or things that occur every year. Capital outlays are one time expenses for particular projects or physical assets, like buying a vehicle or something like that, Uh, you know, Building a building a building that sort of thing. So um, I will note that all the personnel items are obviously draft. Uh, we're very early in the budgetary process. Um, we included some placeholders just to give an order of magnitude of what we're looking at there. Um obviously once finance and personnel get there, and, uh, HR get through, like insurance costs and things like that. And those are things that are largely outside of our budgetary control. They're just administrative costs of having staff. So, um And it's also noteworthy that that this position for the sustainability coordinator is split 5050 between the, um Enterprise Fund for Water and Sewer and the General Fund. So you also note that the wages there might look a little bit light, and that's because it's only half of the personnel costs. So don't let that throw you. We're not trying to hire anybody for, uh 20 $26,000. We've got a reasonable range of salaries on my you too. I was wondering that also. Yeah, that's that's an interesting one. So yeah, because sustainability reaches across all parts of the city, the sustainability coordinator like many Positions that are multi jurisdictional it it's shared between water and sewer in the general fund. Um and is that the same for They retirement and insurance and workman compensation Or is that the full amount of those? Yes everything except for Uh, other salaries and wages. We've got a placeholder in here right now. For the interns and again. We're we're just very early on and this is draft. I would like to also point out that this you guys are getting kind of the first. Look at this. We also have, uh, I'm sorry. This committee is getting the first look at this. We also have, um other review within the city by the finance Director, um by the uh, Budget advisory Committee. They have a chance to look in and weigh in and make recommendations and also by the governing board. So again, this is our initial proposal to start the budgetary Process for the year. Uh, for next fiscal year. Um Probably the most important highlight. I'd like to point out here is the $40,000. We've slated for professional services . This is an increase from last year. Uh, last year, we did not put anything in there for professional services. Um And this is, uh What we did when we started off with the budget was the first thing we looked at was the sustainability plan and we looked at what are our action items are supposed to kick off next year. And uh, one of them was a solar feasibility study. And it's Yeah, That's something that's probably beyond the scope of our existing staff to handle, so we're gonna likely work with a consultant on that, Uh, like an engineering consultant or some sort of, you know, energy efficiency consultant because there's a lot of things that go into that, you know, assessing different buildings and things like that. There might be structural considerations, uh, related to potential installation of like rooftop solar, For example, on a particular facility, Um, and also there's an important cost estimating element that will likely be included in that project. So we've budgeted for that, Uh, Year, two action item. Um Everything else is largely administrative and substantially similar to what you saw last year. Uh, we've got a little bit of budget, uh, for operating supplies for community events, Um, marketing materials. Um We do also, we did also budget for two additional, uh EV Chargers for city facilities. Um And again that will be in addition to any other types of projects that might go on throughout the city. Um Excuse me, and we also budgeted for, um Sustainability organization membership like the , uh, Southeastern sustainability Directors Network , Um, the US or the. I'm trying to remember the US DN is that the acronym is slipping away from me. But our our aly membership which is our, um they do our greenhouse gas accounting software. We're a member of that , Um and then also some training opportunities for the, uh, the next, uh, sustainability coordinator to attend some conferences and trainings of, uh and maintain their certifications that will likely encourage the individual to achieve. Um Again. We don't have any capital, but because that's largely housed within the facilities. Uh, the sustainability program doesn't have any physical assets. At this point. Those all get purchased and allocated to, um, the facilities that they belong to, uh, for maintenance purposes. Uh, Interesting to note pretty healthy increase because of that, uh, increase in the professional services, So we got about 58% more dollars than last year, So that's pretty nice. And um, we think that this is gonna be a good baseline for the Feature coordinator to administer the program. Do some community events, uh, do some outreach and, uh, also get started, really focusing on solar feasibility and alternative energy. And with that, I'll be happy to entertain any questions. Car. OK? Have a bunch So, um Is Let's see. 12. So the salary is about $53,000 a year. Again That's really a budgetary place holder. You know, um I want to say we Use just the base salary as a budgetary placeholder, but that would get updated upon, uh, any hire that we make which it'll that'll be updated before the beginning of the fiscal year. Once you wake up that, um, comparable 53,000. Uh, that that's probably a little bit light compared to some to some comparisons. But again, that's that's kind of a standard practices. We budget the and then the base salary and then we adjust it based on the actual offer made to the personnel. Because the person does a lot of work. I mean, based on what Robin did, um OK, so When I look at the things under, um The operating issue. Sure so the printing and binding the promotional activities and books , publications and subscriptions have all been reduced, Um this year and one of the thing I'm so I'm sort of surprised. Um, because one of the things that we've been focusing on or promotional activities and we want to have more of those. So by cutting the budget, it looks like it. It's sort of been adjusted in order to Compensate for the training. Um So it seems odd to cut those especially the printing and binding as well because we want to put out Materials. Sure um, within the printing and binding the region. We have that, uh, a somewhat larger budget for that last year was to create new fresh copies of the, uh Formally printed copies of the sustainability plan. Um We anticipate having plenty of copies available. Uh, so we did reduce that a little bit because we're not gonna have a new brand new physical reports, and we also want to kind of transition more to paperless. Um And we've had some success transitioning to paperless as well. Uh, I don't think that's gonna hold us back from doing any sort of events or anything like that. Um OK, so I. I just would like to suggest that the salary seems very light . Especially when you're gonna hire a consultant for 40,000 to do one project in the person that we hope we're gonna get Is going to Do as much work if not more as Robin did, which was a lot No, I can assure you that's something that's near and dear to my heart as as a manager, Um I like to make sure that we have fair and equitable compensation for our folks and, um We'll, We'll make sure that we make a Competitive market offer for the individual we like to hire. And how does this the grand total Let's say 100 and 10,000 compared to other managers in in the city. Um That's That's an interesting question. Um It really varies, You know, So we do have some budgetary divisions that are largely like, for example, we have a budgetary division within utilities that's largely cash capital assets and has no personnel allocated to it. Um for like historic water quality wells and things like that. So, um I, It's you really have to evaluate each one on a on a division by division basis, so it wouldn't be fair to compare this to say like, Oh, Um solid waste, which houses like all of the money for the whole solid waste program. But I, I think on an administrative basis , this is comparable to what we see. And probably a little bit more than we see for some other, uh Uh, like administrative functions. It's a coordinator position. It's not a manager position. There is a difference, and I think that that gives an opportunity to move up. In grade eventually, but they still do the same amount of work. Now they and, um One more question. So when we do hire a new person, that person has the ability to negotiate for a higher salary. Yes. That the Yeah, um That's common so because I don't think they negotiate for lower supply. Uh, we have not hired the last two coordinator positions at the base salary. If that's an indication of where we're likely headed. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have any questions? Um how long so the coordinator's name. Is Robin and Or we have had we had, um, the first coordinator was Robin Reeves. And she, um, resigned last July. To move to Orlando because her husband needed work there. We had another interim Coordinator. So we're we're in the Process of the city is in the process of doing interviews. And my only question is, um if other opportunities for, um You know, involvement in conferences arise , you know they develop over the next year. Is it Is it somewhat flexible to be able to send our new coordinator to Other events besides the ones that are Noted here. Of course, yeah, these, you know, priority change. This is a preliminary budget. You know, No one can predict with a crystal ball. Exactly What our answering target. Yeah, For example, if we had some other training needs for a particular individual based on their level of experience or their desire to participate in certain types of certifications or things like that. We have flexibility within these to adjust as needs arise. Right? So when the so in that regard the budge. There's money in the city that can be allocated on top of this budget. Uh, I would say we try and stick within our budget as much as possible. But within these line items just because we have a particular uh, For example, if We have $120 as a line item for canvas canvas, A Uh, publishing software to make flyers and things like that if we had someone on a very simple basis who was not a fan of canva, and they like some other software, we or if it was more or less expensive, we could, you know, figure out a way to adjust and make that happen. Or maybe they prefer to work in PowerPoint or something like that. We already have a software license for so we could reallocate that fund within this budget to another priority. OK? No. I'm I'm good, OK? Thank you, Tommy. Thank you. And the next item is, um, the EV protocol. Yes. Very interesting. Yes, and I'll go ahead and stay right over here for this one. So um, he's not here to tell. Yeah, that's a That's a real shame. Um So, uh, this was an item that was brought, Um, initially by one of our, uh Previous commissioners talk about like, you know, what's the city? How's the city planning for vehicle replacement and stuff like that? And I will. So we've been working with F. I will say this is very preliminary and draft. It's not like an official written SOP. But this is based on our discussions with the Fleet Department. Uh, and sustainability staff, uh, over the last few months, and, uh, we're trying to create like a Preliminary framework this year for determining all right under what circumstances would we get an EV? We want to kind of create, like at least the Um, proactive. Uh, Analysis that when we purchase a vehicle, we should at least have the thought processes. Could this potentially be an EV or so would this be the right fit for the job? Um And so, um, this is our first year going through this, So we're still kind of building the airplane, uh, in the air, And here we go. Uh, Very timely. Uh, We were just discussing electric vehicles. Um. So, yeah, that this is a again very preliminary sort of First set of questions and over time that will develop into a little bit more formal procedure. But this is the kinds of things that we'll be working with fleet to consider, as we work through the budgetary process for vehicle procurement. Um And this relates not just to EVS, but also to hybrids as well. We wanna be more efficient. Uh, with our energy with our dollars with fuel all of those things. Um so the goal was really to have some sort of relatively standardized method to assess if an EV or a hybrid vehicle, uh, might be a reasonable choice to purchase during, uh, the annual budgetary process, which is when we evaluate new vehicle purchases. Um this is sort of our draft assessment process and we really wanna make sure that we're being proactive, but we also want to make sure that we're considering all of our options and finding the right tool for the right job. Um So the first question that we're gonna be asking is an electric or hybrid vehicle available as a budgeted replacement. So for example, if there was something very specialized, like, um, like a street sweeper, and there's no one's yet making street sweepers . We could go ahead and just say , all right, we checked. We looked into it. There's no street sweepers. We're gonna go ahead and move on by the street sweeper. Um The next question that we're gonna be evaluating is the vehicle necessary for emergency operations if it's not necessary for emergency operations that might give us a little bit more flexibility to evaluate something on a pilot basis. If something's essential for emergency operations, then we would go to the next step, which is Uh, if there is an EV available, that is roughly equivalent would it have the capabilities that would be required for emergency duty as far as like downtime and things like that towing capacity? All those sorts of things. Um And that would look different for any particular vehicle and what's its job might be if it's a Truck for a UM, manager, for example, and it won't be expect reasonably expected to be like towing or delivering parts, and it's more of a response vehicle for supervision that might the bar might be a little bit lower if it's something that would be expected to do lots of towing and deliver generators throughout the city. In the event of a hurricane. We want to make sure we don't lose that capability, either. Um Next. Are there any specialized functions for the vehicle? Um And is the EV or hybrid capable of meeting those functions, so that might be something as simple as we need a utility box truck where we need a van so Uh, we already have, like a, uh four E transit. Uh in the fleet. It's a utility vehicle. Uh, you can put toolboxes inside of it. It would potentially be a good fit. Um, for that type of application, um You know, we've already piloted it, And that's goes right into our next question. Which is? Has there been a pilot? We This is something that we want to work through with fleet to give a level of comfort. Uh And this is something that we've always talked about. Like We, uh especially with new model years. We've all the city has always been a little bit, uh, historically trying to make sure that we're getting good, reliable vehicles, so we tend not to jump in on new model year vehicles like the first year they get produced. They tend to have kind of more than their fair share of You know, ma manufacturing issues and things like that. We usually like to, um You know, some get the second or the third model year once it's kind of been out and had all the kinks worked out and things like that. And also we like to. We wanna use this as an opportunity to evaluate experiences from within our own fleet. Hey we've tried this vehicle. We've tried the Nissan Leaf. We've tried the E transit. Are they working? Well are they doing well, uh, have other nearby Fleet departments evaluated a similar vehicle for, say, police purposes or something like that and what's been their experience and that would weigh in on the decision. And uh, the last is, uh is it cost effective? You know, so We'd looked at like some there we are starting to see some EVS come in. Some are very cost effective and some are still a little bit out there on the but a little bit of a stretch. Budgetary wise, so Uh, For example, we don't really procure procure school buses, but, um, there are some EV school buses out there on the floor to vehicles. Uh the Florida sheriff's vehicle contract now, but they tend to be about four times as much as a standard school bus and Financially. The city is not quite ready to make that level of commitment. It would be a tough sell, but from a budgetary perspective, But in some cases these things could, uh these vehicles could be much more cost effective. Um depending on you know the bids and things like that. And also from a fuel and energy savings perspective. Which leads us, uh, we've developed a interim cost effectiveness tool. Um this is a classic, uh, cost benefit analysis and we've got an example that we've thrown up here. Uh for you to look at to see how this process might look again. This is our first year, so we're kind of looking through it so This might include things like how many annual miles does this vehicle expected to drive? Um you know, we would weigh in for that particular model. What's the energy efficiency in which is unique to say, Um, that was kind of new for me abroad. It was so used to talk about fuel efficiency, and now it's energy efficiency. You know how many miles per kilowatt hour and compare that to the fuel efficiency and say, All right, what's gonna be the annual operating cost for this on a electricity or a fuel BA, uh, fuel basis. What would Reasonable to expect on the energy savings. Uh, is there a payback period and, um We do want the payback period be roughly within the lifetime of the vehicle. Uh, to make sure that we're making a cost effective decision, and in some cases that might not be applicable because we actually did find a few cases, uh, particularly with some of the new electric utility vehicles that are being, uh, sent out to market where The purchase price is equivalent to a conventional vehicle, so that might not be as much of a consideration on the overall operating costs. If it's Uh or even slightly cheaper in a few cases, So that was kind of, uh, a little bit of a pleasant surprise as well. So that's um again. This isn't a final process. This is the sort of things that we're starting to look into. And uh we'll work through it this year, and from there, we'll take our lessons learned. And um, start to and improve upon that next year and make it a more formal process. Stuff being said. Are there any questions? Yeah I think so. I apologize like it. I was hung up in Apologize for being late. Um so thank you for bringing this. It's super timely because there's like all sorts of conversations happening with tax credits and things like that as well. So, um I'm wondering like who And don't get don't get mad. I'm gonna like totally like, turn this on its head. I think, um, but who is the decision maker on like That would be going through that flow chart. Is it the fleet director? Like how do we procure? Is it the department manager? That's requesting the vehicle like how would that work? We're we're still working on that fleet's gonna be heavily involved. So but we do envision this being some sort of collaborative effort with potentially some sort of like review committee or some sort of a small internal committee or something of that nature of staff. But it would be staff that would Include fleet cause. Obviously they have to take care of all these vehicles. Um and they're most in tune with , um what's going on in nearby fleets and things like that, But we would expect that the sustainability coordinator would be involved as well. Do. You may wanna tell Siobhan what you do? Oh, I already know what she does. Oh, you do OK. OK so I guess my concern with the flow chart is like there are lots of ways to say no. Instead of like assuming that we're going to purchase like in prioritize electrification and then, like work backwards from there so like our goal with our S sustainability Action plan Action, 16 is like looking at EVS and alternative fuels and then action. 18 is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So like to me, like our starting point should be Mhm, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and then, like kind of working backwards, and there's um I'm wondering like Do we already have a fleet analysis where we know like all of the vehicles in the fleet, and like what year they are, and How many miles they're driven and do like do we have all of those data points already? We already have. And a lot of this data was collected, Uh, you know, and analyzed in detail during the greenhouse gas inventory. Um so, yeah, we do have a database. It's got all the vehicles. It's got mileage That's all tracked through our, um fleet software and asset management. So we do have all that. And, um Uh, yeah. So we'll be able to use utilize that for this type of analysis. OK, So what I sent over? Um, this afternoon? I don't know if you've had a chance to look at it, but there's a probably not, um, there is the electrification Coalition is a national nonprofit and they've got it's called the Drive Tool and what it is, is a fleet analysis like software that's free to use and you put in, like all of the vehicles in the fleet, like the VIN numbers, the mileage the annual mileage and then it spits out for you. Um like this whole analysis, where it compares vehicle cost. It compares, um like maintenance cost in detail. Which that just, I think just has fuel cost. Um but it also includes fuel costs. It also demonstrates like missions and then it also recommends which vehicles could be transitioned now and like. These are the vehicles that could Like be used . So instead of having to go through, like, is this gonna work, is it you know what I mean? Like you would We know that like there is a vehicle that meets the needs of the city for this particular vehicle that we wanna Well for the whole fleet. Really So then you could analyze and be able to go like annually and no like this truck. Has an EV truck that meets all of the specs and all of the needs or it doesn't and we move on. And you know what I mean? So that You're kind of working from the starting point of Knowing which which Vehicles are appropriate in an electric model . And then like assuming that that's what we would want to look at, Um Like and have, like a tiered structure of like first EV that can't be done. Then plug an EV, then a regular hybrid, then a gas, then a diesel. Um So that's And the link that I sent was a They're doing a webinar on the 24th. So if it could be sent to everybody on the committee, I think it would be beneficial for us all to understand. Like what That tool looks like and how the fleet can use it. Um And like, and to me that would get around like Whoever the decision maker is like, does this work does it not like we would already know? Like if the vehicle is appropriate to be transitioned to EV or not, And if not, then You know, and also not just looking to me not just looking at EV or not, but also looking at like, um You know? And I don't know if like how we're doing this as a city. So like a lot of this is just questions that I don't know. But like how how we are analyzing. Like appropriate vehicles like Can we downsize a vehicle? Do we need to have an SUV in the fleet? Or can a Chevy Bolt do the same job like it can fit a ladder in it, And it can carry a ladder. Like if you know what I mean. Like, why aren't we Inherent like, Are we inherent? Maybe that's the question. Are we inherently like assuming that a vehicle for a vehicle like a truck? A truck or a you know what I mean? An SUV for an SUV when we could be Being more efficient with with the vehicles themselves. You know what I mean? So that's one thing like looking at the like downsizing and then also looking at right sizing in the fleet, like Are we doing an analysis to see Like If a car is driven less than 5000 miles. Do we really need to replace it? Or can we just not replace it? Um and I don't know, like how that is being done. Um at this point, but then also looking at trying to reduce vehicle miles traveled like, Can we look at Like You know what I mean? Like being more energy efficient with with with travel and making sure that we're trying to reduce, um you know, Miles traveled within the city with any vehicle and then also, like obviously like idling policy. I'm pretty sure we have an idling policy. Um but that's but that's a big one that we're actually following it. Um But the other thing with the with the drive tool is it will do the total cost analysis and it'll also show the return on investment so it'll show like how many years it will take to Um So like it kind of does all of these things without taking like a good time saver, Right? So I was like perfect timing that we're looking at this and then the other thing that I wanted to mention, Um In this, um, cost comparison is that and I'm not sure if you guys are already on this or not, but, um, the IRA. The inflation reduction Act, um, has tax credits that now are applicable and attainable by nonprofits or agencies like local governments that do not have tax liability. So previously, like local governments could not. Apply for and receive tax credits because there is no tax liability. But now, um it's called direct pay. Or, Um, uh, I can't think of the other word that they call it, But it's direct pay is it's a mechanism that allows local governments through. It's called 45. WN 30 C. So S $7500 per car for all of the vehicles that would be procured in the city through the commercial tax credit. And then there's also the tax credit for the charging infrastructure. So it's 6% up to 30% if, um, prevailing wage and, um, apprenticeship requirements are met. So Those are like some ways that like if a Chevy bolt right now runs about like 27 grand $7500 tax credit, it's it would be under $20,000 right, So that on top of, you know, I think we need to do total cost analysis. Not just like the purchase price, but also look at like the fuel costs over the life of the vehicle and the maintenance cost over the life of the vehicle To get that full picture of what The city would be saving because it's you know, part of the Sustainability action plan is not just environment. It's also like the economic case, and I think often The TC for electric would be better than the traditional vehicle so Certainly, Yeah, So I said a lot of stuff, So I just figured I may as well keep going. Uh, yeah. I. I will say that, uh, we kind of preface this conversation with this is our first take on it. And these are kinds of things that we've been discussing with fleet. Uh, I will say Fleet has also been making a lot of really important strides on, uh, continuing to have a vehicle age miles. Traveled Um, you know, vehicle replacement policies in general beyond just EV, Uh, maintenance costs life cycles for vehicles, replacement plans, so they're actively working on that right now. And, uh, We're kind of trying to bring all this together at the same time. So, um I'm definitely interested in taking a look at that tool. Be sure to pass that along. And, uh, see if we can incorporate that. And, um Definitely take all the other comments into consideration as well. OK? Um I, uh My background is in, um, advertising. I was a creative executive. And now I'm a landscape designer. So um, I'm always thinking of ways to promote things. And um, I saw this car and I took a picture of it. Anticipating. Being on the committee and it's from Safety harbor, and it's an EV and they have sunflowers and things on it. You know, a wrap. Uh, And, uh, It's a stink green, So it's a Good way to promote the use of It is. So, um I think that one of the things dory touched on is there are things that aren't Um Money. There are other issues so T time. So we know that city people Go out and leave their vehicles on. But if you're an electric car You can Leave it on . You can put your air conditioning on. You're not polluting. That's a big deal. Um, maintenance, of course, is a big deal because you don't need an oil change. I mean, the only thing we get notices for us to rotate our tires, otherwise we don't do anything. Maybe replace a filter once in a while, but all of those things, um And there's the bigger thing that An intangible thing that maybe it's the big thing. Is it going to really, really help the environment and we don't have time to keep putting fossil fuels out? So those things I think need to be put in Um The analysis. What are these intense , so called intangible benefits, even though they're really tangible when you look at How fossil fuels in the carbon footprint affects everything. Certainly. That that is one thing we have had some discussions about, too is you know, even some of the practical aspects it's you know, we were talking about electric pickup trucks, for example. It's like, well having that front trunk for some extra storage space, you know, being able to throw like an air compressor or something like that in there and run it off of electricity, like there were charge up power tools and things like that. We discussed some of the functionalities that might be gained as well. Well, we just My husband and I just read an article this morning about a new truck. I can't remember if it's a Ford or a Chevy that will actually power your house for like three days. If you're out of electricity, it'll put the back in. I mean, it's expensive, but I mean those things. Are extra. You know, for a city that could be very good, and if we could get more solar, we could have the charging stations in a solar area and then it wouldn't cost anything extra. Yes. So the upshot is The gay Ask the ice vehicle should be like This benefit and the electric vehicle should be like this. I. I can say we our goal is to make a good, honest assessment. So that is a good Yeah. So we'll, uh You know, we'll take a look at the drive tool. That's very interesting. And uh, we, uh, we do wanna be realistic with ourselves and say, Hey, you know, there's a an opportunity for something that's more energy efficient, more fuel efficient. We ought to implement it, especially if there's going to be monetary savings. Um, and but they also are gonna be cases where, OK, this quite is. This is a quite a marquee. Yet this is still an emerging market. You know that there's not a utility box truck or a boob truck or something like that. And that might be an application that still needs to stay ice for emergency purposes or something of that nature, But we wanna be Honest and realistic about what we're doing and try and be proactive. Mm. So is this You said this is like the first draft of it like, what is the timeline of getting it? Revamped and then brought back Are you like, What does that look like? Right now? We basically have like a small working group with, uh, sustainability and fleet. Uh, so we'll be working through that this year and II. I imagine this will become more formalized over the next year again. We're we're kind of building the airplane in the air. We're in the budgetary process right now. We don't yet have like a formalized written policy of that nature. We also don't yet have a greenhouse gas reduction target that relates to fleet so and that's coming this year. So we wanna, uh, that was one consideration too is you know we wanna evaluate I have an opportunity before we formalize everything to look through what these analysis might look like, weigh all the different factors and Kind of pilot it, you know internally as to what these sort of evaluations might look like and then Once we've got a consensus, you know once we once we get through this budgetary process look towards a more formal process moving forward. One other thought, too, that I didn't mention, um That as we're looking to Buy some electric vehicles. The infrastructure has to be set first, because otherwise you kind of put the cart before the horse. Um and I think that I mean, I know that you guys probably already are. But having conversations with Duke now about like where we can put the infrastructure like where the power lies to be able to do that, like realistically, like what upgrades need to be done and get a cost analysis of that is really important to be doing now. That's Yeah. No, I appreciate that, that that's good feedback for sure. Do we know I mean, maybe this is a question to dory. Do we know other cities and municipalities that have gone more fully electric that Can be looked at to see what how they did it. What What the pros and cons were . Yeah, Absolutely So, like the some of the recommendations that I gave, like are from like the fleet procurement policy for other cities, Um Charlotte and um Ann Arbor and, um. The developing like the fleet policy from NC State, but in in Florida , like the city of Coral Gables is like population 56,000 like it's not huge, huge city compared to Tarpon Springs. They've they've already got, like over 70 EVS in their fleet, and they did it pretty cost effectively in terms of like the charging units and like Doing it like in house, Um, and just like it's so row a bank of, um non meter charging stations outside, like on an exterior wall. Um and they've got like a whole system. You've seen it in person. That's awesome. How about fire trucks? So there are electric fire trucks that exist and they're like being piloted in cities. Um and there's like great money for that as well. So Like the $7500 tax credit that local governments can Apply for, um it's also for like like they do have, um, refuse trucks. Ocala has got like, five in their fleet right now, and turban doesn't have their own refuse trucks, but just as an example that tax credit can go up to $40,000 if the weight of the vehicle is over £14,000 So will Carlo uses. Electric trucks to collect Residential trash their their own. Yes true. Yeah Wow. Yeah because I started looking into that. You know, I was just just wondering whether there's such a thing And there are you know, uh, there's actually Francis te testing. Um a bidirectional charging for waste collection vehicles, and it's actually, uh, returns some energy to the grid. I have no idea how it works, but it sounds amazing. I was just thinking, you know there. There's gotta be a way. I mean, the city owning their own fleet would be amazing . But I don't know what the parameters of accomplishing that would be, But you know, that's that's a source of Pollution that I think needs to be considered. That happens in our city that's outside of our control and I think Waste management is looking at that for the future, too. I will say waste management does seem to be quite proactive on this. Um and, uh, for it's been a little while and so don't quote me on the exact numbers, But I want to say it was either a plurality or a majority of the, uh, vehicle miles traveled for, uh, waste management for our solid waste program. We're actually driven by compressed natural gas vehicles, which are, you know, not quite electric yet, but definitely a greener options. There's still fossil fuels. Yeah, yeah. Hm? But yeah, but definitely lower carbon footprint relative, you know, And those have been in service for quite a number of years. Uh, you know, Uh, before the electric vehicles came to, uh, to market, so we've we've already they've They've got a plan that they're working through trying to green up their fleet as well. Okay Well, thank you, Tommy. Yes. Very. I have a question How much support is coming from the state? And guidance on And this subject zero I, You know, I. I already knew that, but I thought I'd ask a stupid question. But there is a lot of federal dollars coming to support this so we should be. Grabbing it with both of us and using it. Is there any county money? Or the No. But there's no um There's no word from Tallahassee that this can't be done. Correct Not at the moment. Don't don't. So don't think those thoughts Um Pell came out with their sustainability plan at the same time last year that ours was Completed so we might take a look at it and see whether that's part of their their plan as well. I think it has to be. I think it is or thinking, Yeah. And one thing I do wanna say is we do wanna be intentional. So once once we get through the greenhouse gas reduction target and things like that, and that all gets adopted inherently. Some of the other policies related to that as far as you know, procurement and energy and fuel and things like that. Well we will loly flow from that target. Once established with the With our consultant. Mhm. But I please use me as a resource like I'm happy to, like, Give you examples of things and talk through things and meet with you guys and I'm seeing some meetings in the future. And if you were to buy a mass, I'm sure a company would even give you better deals. That is one thing we do already have some really nice, uh, economies of scale. So most of our vehicles we procure through a competitively bid contract that the Florida sheriffs, uh, association. Uh, it's a statewide contract. They administer it. Uh, we've been quietly keeping an eye on what they've been bidding, and, um, they purchase on a statewide level and many, many counties and government, local governments and state entities in the state procure through this contract, and, um so it gives you a Tremendous amount of buying power that you can leverage for economies of scale and we're already starting to see an ex Even a few years ago, when we were first looking at the 40 transit for utilities in the first couple of Nissan Leafs, we elected to pilot um the options for procurement. As like a stock option through this contract, we're very limited. And now we're starting to see the uh uh Relatively rapid expansion of options that are available as like a stock offering on this contract that you could just go through the normal procurement process, which may really reduces impediments to, uh and barriers to entry on on procurement pro process and keeps costs down, too. And what's nice about the tax credits is like there is no limit. So you can purchase 1000 vehicles if you want and you're gonna get the tax credit and it's also It's a sure thing, Like with grants, you know you spend all this time like applying for it, and then fingers crossed. You get it. You don't get it, Then you know what I mean. Whereas this is like, it's a sure thing Like if the city invests in like big, you know, going through the steps to get You know the tax Situation all set, then, like it can be counted on to be savings, and it's also different than the individual tax credit with EVS where, like for the individual credit. It has to the battery components have to be Made in the United States, and they have to be sourced from like minerals source from Friendly sources. The Commercial credit, which is what the city would be able to. Apply for there is none of that. So it's like The sky's the limit on the models that are available for purchase. That's very interesting. Thank you. I'm so glad you were here. Sorry I'm so sorry. But I, I do want to say thank you as well. This is something this is our first kind of cut that we're working with with fleet and we wanted feedback, and we definitely gotten that so we'll we'll take that back and, um, work through it. And uh, I imagine like I said, probably be some. No I mean, I'm really like thankful that like we're talking about it, and we're having this conversation now, so Hm? OK Tommy, are you ready for the next item? I spend a lot of time with the Green Building Council CERT certification discussion. OK Yeah. So this is an interesting item. Um it's a little bit of a sea change or not a sea change, but like a minor change from what we've done in the past, So, uh, there's no backup material. No This is just for discussion. Only um, so in the past, uh I don't recall exactly when it started. But uh, Florida Green Building Council operates a certification program for local governments. Uh, we're currently silver certified. We've been so cer certified for a number of years, and it's a, um It's an assessment where you go through. They have a laundry list or a menu of all these different options that you can or policies that your city can implement to get a certain number of points. And if you get enough certain points much like lead, you qualify to get a certain certification, and we demonstrated this through several renewals now and Um We've continued to be silver. We haven't had any significant policies like drop off the list. We've added a few here and there, um And we're in a renewal phase. And so we started working on this, and we've actually have a former director Paul Smith, working on it, Uh, in his role as a Oh, Senior Policy. Administrator something something of that nature. I can't remember exactly. I hope he's not watching. Um but but anyway, so he's he was looking at this, and we've also been working on this for a number of months. Uh at, you know, starting to treat triage, the level of effort in the project and also the expense and what we what, Uh, former director Smith actually came to was that it might be a good opportunity for us knowing now that we have a sustainability plan we've achieved all the as many of the policies as we're likely to achieve. For the foreseeable future, and we wanna be stay focused on the sustainability plan that it we might not pursue . This uh, this certification again this year. It's a $4000 renewal cost that goes into getting another certificate for number another five years, And it's a tremendous, uh, staff lift, so we really want to stay focused on implementation and, um other current sustainability items as opposed to doing what's largely like a Policy accounting exercise for the next number of months that it's gonna suck up quite a number of staff hours. Uh, so, uh, they made the recommendation to, um, go ahead and we have our sustainability plan. Now that's our ultimate guiding light for sustainability for the city. Um And we want to stay focused on that. We'll probably go ahead and move on from the Florida Green Building Council and reallocate that, uh, renewal expense to other priorities, which has actually already been done in the budget. So we just wanted to bring that to you all for, uh, acknowledgment and discussion if you have any, um, but that'll be us moving forward to try and just be smart with our staff resources and our dollars. Yes So will the, um, money that would go to that? Is it being real? Located to a sustainability item? Yes. You know what Uh, that's that's in the, uh um Solar feasibility study currently The work that's currently reallocating the solar feasibility study. So and that it'll just give us a little bit more flexibility, moving forward. Mm. What are your thoughts? Makes sense. I mean, Yeah, I think it's largely probably ceremonial. So that's yeah. Is there any thought of like in the future looking at like lead certification. Uh, we haven't looked at. Uh, I believe there's been some discussion on lead most of our discussions around lead and related to, uh, buildings. Um and, uh, I believe what? Uh, Bob our public. Uh, I'm sorry, Project administration director. I like to say, uh, we don't pay for leave. We pay for the lead elements that we want, and so we try to incorporate a lot of the lead principles. Uh, but again, it can. It can add cost to projects so we try and incorporate as much of the good side the best parts of lead in as we can. So Efficiency. Water efficiency. Uh, some of the green building materials and things like that, Um But we also wanna make sure that we're exe executing project and we've got a pretty good history with that of making as we build, continue to build to make things focus more on outcomes, as opposed to certifications. That's that's what we like to say. We like to be lead conscious. I think it provides a great road map, but I think to try to Get the certification is jumping through a lot of needless hoops at a time where there's really a lot to do for very few people. So I'm in support of Not using that money. To just get a certification again. Mhm. Yeah, I think the best thing about the Florida Green Building Council certification was early on it. It did have a menu and we did a lot adopt a lot of the policies and we, uh, went through and used that as a menu to select sustainability policies from and that was really valuable exercise at the time, But now we have a whole sustainability plan that's tailored specifically to our city, and we're more focused on that than to try and pull individual sustainability. Potential options out of the, uh Out of the Green Building Council checklist. But even if For this year. We tabled that it can always be revisited as the lead stuff can be revisited. Certainly Yeah, if we if we were to come back, and you know, perhaps the certification costs were to come down in the future. Or um, you know, we had some additional, uh, budget. Uh More. Budget flexibility or something like that, or more staffing or something like that. That would be something we call some benefit you get from being certified with in terms of getting grants or recognition or all sorts of things, so those should be monitored. See if it's if it becomes a better idea for the city. Yeah. So one example of a cert or our membership that we are continuing to fund because it's a really smart investment is our membership in it because they offer the software support. They offer services you're paying for A, uh , a membership that's valuable to the city, but it provides Good return on investment, too. Mm-hmm Any more comments on The certification. OK, Thank you, Tommy. Thank you. All right. I'm gonna go back to my seat now, OK? We are looking at, um, creating a communication plan, actually, let's go ahead and go on to the second slide. If Uh um. Hope you were comfortable shoes today. I did, um All right, so there was a lot of discussion last time about, uh, communication. Um We hear you, Uh, we know that that's been something that you've wanted us to focus on. And I kind of th the coordinator transitions. We had a little less time to focus on that we would have liked personally, um so we're gonna try and reen on this and one. Denise and I had a really productive discussion, uh, while setting this agenda And, um I also took the opportunity to go back and revisit some of the discussions from last year, uh, which largely revolved around the plan and getting the plan out there and things like that. And um, we're gonna continue to stay focused on that. But we also want to move on to some other like newer environmental initiatives. I think the committee might like that. Um so Uh, one thing that we really wanna stay focused on while we're setting our communication priorities is what are our goals . What do we want to communicate with the public? What are we trying to achieve? Uh, because we've talked a lot about creating community doing more communication, more engagement, and I think one question that we could we would appreciate some guidance from the committee is to what end? Right What are we trying to achieve? What are we? What are the outcomes that we desire from communication and, um Then we can take that information work with the new sustainability coordinator and, um Design a plan around that. So um I also do want proactively let you know. Uh we're already working on two new newsletters. We've got one that's anticipated to be coming out relatively soon . We're get we I did go back and look and we have been a little bit remiss on the sustainability newsletters. Um we have a new intern on board. She's really great with, uh, newsletter Creation. We've got our looking through all of our, um current events and things like that. So that's getting captured now and, um, we'll be having another one. We'll hopefully put one out in the next Weeks, and there'll be another one coming out in the summer to focus on summer and like eco fest and things like that coming up. Um I think the a key theme for the next one might be water conservation because it's very topical this time of year during the dry season, and particularly with the kind of prolonged drought that we've been experiencing over the last year. Um So we want and actually , I do wanna give a shout out to, um Or, uh, an acknowledgment. I should say to Megan Stacy our sustainability. She did this whole this presentation, which is great. Um So, uh, we put some together some best practices, and I will say we're in a little bit dangerous territory here because we do have an engineer talking about communication plans. Uh, so that's that's always a little bit of a dicey proposition. But we'll try our best. And, um So these were some of the guidance that that we found, uh, work, you know, with our intern collaboratively. Is there an event tomorrow? Yes. OK? So I have to say I've seen nothing. To tell me that there's an event tomorrow. Other than what I learned at the last, are you on social media at all? Yeah I do. So I think it's been all over Facebook. For this every single time I've opened Facebook. I've noticed it. Mhm That's been our social media. For what? Uh for the hors d'oeuvres and the presentation or celebration. What? Social Media Facebook. For what? For? For the city. Hi Brother. Sustainability. I'm sure I'm on it. And I, they've been doing targeted ads. I'm not even really on Facebook very often telling me like, Hey, did you know that they're advertising this hors d'oeuvres event for? I was like, that's cool. Now I have seen nothing. Yeah This is what I'm on the That's what was on there, and every single time I opened it up . I saw that sustainability Plan presentation meet and great City staff. I'm not in the Harp and community Facebook, not the citys Facebook. I know, but it's not on that at all. And So you're saying it could have been on more? Well I'm just saying that I look at things I read the beacon. I do all of that. I haven't seen anything. So the only reason I know is because of being in here and maybe I'm not on the city Facebook. Um So we do. We have had some advertisements on this. And uh, for the for the event tomorrow for anyone watching is the Earth the hors d'oeuvres event? It's gonna be our kind of Earth Day kickoff event for the sustainability plan. We'll have an informational presentation on the, um Uh, the sustainability plan that city adopted last July. Uh So we've actually been working very closely with the recreation department on this. They're probably the most well versed in planning events and driving attendance to events, so we really relied on their expertise. In this case. Um And, uh, we did allocate some budget to this to direct to drive turnout. Uh, we've had 23,000 views on the ads and 11,000 ish engagements, which is a I. I forget exactly what the Facebook metric is, but like multiple views are unique accounts that have seen it or something like that. And um, we've got over 50, RSVPs and 300. Plus uh, interested in attending RSVPs. So I, I think we're being pretty successful here on on trying to drive turnout. Well, obviously. See how this works. This is a little bit new for us on Doing targeted advertising. Um so this is also a learning opportunity for us, but we're also kind of viewing this as a pilot for you know how to drive more. Turn out to sustainability events and things like that in the future as well. So um, but it seems to be working so far. We'll see tomorrow night so I still I mean the shredding event. I got all sorts of things about Which is Saturday. But I'm on the Facebook page. City of Tarpon City of Tarpon Springs face Um It. It's been cross posted between the city page and, um I believe it's been cross posted between the city page and the city Recreation Page, the recreation group that manages all our events where most folks go to look for a city events. Uh, that's where the primary posts have been. Facebook, Uh, city of Turin Springs. Recreation. Yeah. I was on connect tarpon, or, uh, we didn't do a connect tarp and post we looked at that last, uh, go around, and also we want to kind of drive turnout from new folks that might not be experiencing in the sustainability because everyone in the connector has already had exper. Uh, exposure to, um Uh, sustainability and, uh, one thing we kind of learned last year is that for driving turnout to events? Uh, we got a very low click through rate on, uh to city events on, uh, connect Harpin relative to directed advertising on Facebook. So that was kind of a lesson learning there that we're trying to focus more on what we find to be most effective. Yes I thought it looked great, too. It really was nice. So the only thing I have to say is You know? And see it at all. And I get every morning I get the Facebook for the community. Uh And I guess I don't get this But, um But I bet a lot of people don't get this and a lot of people aren't on Facebook. So, um I think we need to think. About how to get people to know about these things who don't have those? Sure. You know, are not like man . I'm on things all the time. Point of order. Can we get back to the best practices Because I feel like we've gone on to this tangent that people at home may not be following along at all. That's Yeah, That's a good point. OK so, um, yeah, so back to communication moving forward. Um We know that there's a lot of sustainability messaging. We could potentially implement. Uh, one thing that you know, I might pitch as a goal that we might like to focus on would be water conservation. It's continue to be very topical. Um One of the Really good best practices is to have a few specific objectives focus on a handful of clear messages. Um And, uh, really try and focus on those and stay focused and to find your target audience. And so that's one thing we want to kind of Foster today was like, what are the messages that the committee's interested in putting out there? What are the goals that we'd like to achieve, and we could have some discussion, But I would actually we're discussing potentially Having some discussion and then coming back to the next meeting, uh, kind of similar to what we did with the star framework of Bring back everyone's the committee's top A members top three ideas or to goals that they would like to achieve. Compile that into you know a consensus top three or four and have that be the focus of, um You know our communication plan moving forward and we can take that and formulate a good, solid plan, and we'll continue to obviously do the newsletters and things like that, Um But knowing what we want to achieve is a really important uh, for first step, I think. And so here's some other. Oh we did have a We got a letter that dangled there. But uh, so some of the other examples of like things that we that might be good goal examples, right increase awareness about a particular initiative or series of initiatives. So if we want to focus on, you know Driving awareness for city events. You know, we can we can we can. That's a specific target that we could achieve, Um, promoting engagement trying to that might be a little bit different. That's more related like social media, and things like that. Keep people coming back for clicks and that sort of thing. Um Changing behavior would be example of like for water conservation. We have a specific outcome that we want to achieve. The message is water one day a week. That's the rule water. One day a week. We focus on that. Or, you know, uh, indoor water conservation, You know, save every drop that you can, uh, soliciting feedback. Um That's specific. We have done a lot of that in the in the last couple of years, especially around sustainability. I would probably Uh, steer away from that because we do have a plan. So, um We don't wanna create, like a sort of false narrative that we're soliciting all this feedback for a plan that was just adopted. We really want to stay focused on what we've already Have a strong consensus on Uh and then, obviously like measuring impacts that that's a little different, but, um Yeah. So these are examples of the types of outcomes that you might want to achieve. And now the question is, Are we? What are our goals and, um I might also encourage folks to go back and look at the Action items for this year and particularly for next year. Coming up about what we have going on, and, um How we might support those through messaging. Very Thoughts. So I just want to make sure that I'm clear of what we're being tasked to do is to look at Like coming up with some goals and objectives and then some target audiences for next. Yeah I. I think that'd be really good. One thing Denise and I discussed was, uh, you know. We know that there are some folks that, um Maybe focusing on folks that might be a little less environmentally minded the folks that are environmentally minded uh, where sustainability minded might already be aware of a lot of things, or maybe trying to reach new folks about you know, water conservation or whatever, you know, environmental initiative or sustainable initiative we elect to pursue, so that might be one thing. Um When we do, um Uh, We did a little communication plan last year, and we did our first career fair for the city. And so we looked in. Uh, he said, All right. What's the message? The message was we're hiring. Please come apply for jobs. We have jobs, and we need people and the audience was all right. Who are we trying to reach and Actually, the Facebook tool really helped us winnow that in. It's like OK, well, let's focus on these areas in this radius within this city, and we said all right, well, our audience should be everyone within 15 miles of city limits. Those are the people that could reasonably expect it to come and commute to the city. That would be highly likely to want to apply for a job in that city. So Um If I keep. I do keep going back to things that I know well, so, like water conservation messaging, if we're focused on Water conservation and outdoor water conservation in particular , then you might be focused on homeowners specifically. You know, so that would be one thing that we could take that. Um if the committee elected to have us focus heavily on water conservation, then we would Probably try and develop a plan that relates to homeowners. And outdoor water use. Well to my mind. The biggest connection point is going to be the res, You know, I mean, I would hope that we get everybody on board, but the way that it seems like it has been thus far is that people that show up or it's more or less. We're preaching to the choir, rather than making new converts to the concept of Sustainability so Is, um, an interesting Interesting puzzle to put together, you know, be able to inspire those that don't know much about sustainability. I think the word is getting out. You know, and hopefully we'll see what happens tomorrow night. How many people are there and I think it would be really great to encourage those people to start spreading the word, But we've got to find a way to let everybody know that there's a There are goals in mind that everyone can participate in. Even though it's the city that has a sustainability plan that's been incorporated into the comprehensive plan and really woven To it. Pretty completely. I think that the what really makes, um the community. A sustainable community is when we get businesses and residents to participate in the party. If that's possible. The 11 thought is if we had a series of Handouts. For each item like water conservation, and so on. Well for example, when you go to the commission meetings There's a whole diverse group of people that go there because they wanna make public comments or something is being raised that they want to talk about. So if at event like that we hand these out at other city Meetings. Are or workshops where communities like the, um Sponge. Do When they're meeting to talk about that at that event. These things get handed out, and those are people that are very diverse in in the city, so we should take advantage of that and come up with some You know Nice handouts , maybe on heavy, recyclable paper that people can keep. Maybe they're like bookmarks or something and hand them out in a different one. Each time we can repeat. Um, and that way we're we are contacting people that Probably wouldn't come to the Earth Day thing. Certainly. Are you going through the past resources there? Yeah well, and I'm thinking about the implementation plan as well. And like what we Should be messaging around. But there's also like some populations. I think that That we probably should be like making more of a targeted approach to like. Last Tuesday night, the all of the kids there we haven't really like. I don't think made like intentional inroads with Mhm. Students. Mhm. So that might be an idea. Of an audience like of specific audience. Yeah that that would be an excellent goal would be to like promote engagement with Students in the community. You know, and it increased knowledge of sustainability and environmental initiatives within the student population. That would that would be something that we Very interesting. I think it would be fantastic because we're looking at the future generation of Tarpon Springs, hopefully in kids are very aware Yeah, and where where we're headed and really upset about it. So You know, there's a lot of anxiety and you know, we can help. Um With their anxiety by by communicating with them. You know that there are some solutions. I was just watching a show on PBS last night about that that very subject. You know that there it's not all doom and gloom. There are some opportunities. Uh, you know, and try to get kids to go in, you know, uh, say that there are career paths. Uh, In the, uh, sustainability. Sector and they probably never thought about that, you know, like being a sustainability coordinator. Or, you know Law, all kinds of things, you know. Flooding. You know? Their Children bring their ideas that they glean at school home to try to implement them. You know, even if their parents aren't necessarily as aware as they are, they Are motivated to get their parents. On board, but certainly how I wound up here. So one of the recommendations last Tuesday night. I guess it wasn't last night was to have a student representative on this committee. And I don't know what the legalities are of that. But it would be great if we could. Um, do that. And then that person or persons can go back and talk and we can hear their ideas. No I. I noted that comment as well. That was we haven't had a chance to look into it. It was It was just a couple of nights ago. Um, but That That's certainly an interesting idea. So, Tommy, do you think that we should take this and, um, reflect on it? Right? The ideas down, Um Prioritize and Bring them back to the next meeting. Yeah um And I'm trying to recall you guys. Uh, the members might remember more clearly than I do. Um As how as far as how we did the star framework. So if everyone wanted to Over the next couple of weeks. Uh take your top three or four. You know ideas for what Your goals are for the S for a for a potential communication plan, so to me, I'll try and compile them and we can come back. Uh, next month. Yeah, I. I think it's a lot of work to go back through it that maybe, um you you have this. You're the most organized person I know. And you gave me a lot of your notes and I will go through them too. And I still have notes that I wrote during that time on Communic community engagement. Yes I love this because this gives us you know, kind of a framework right here on defining what our objectives are and what the target audience would be. And, um I still think social, you know, every platform is one of the best ways to reach young people. And it might not be reaching, um, the people that don't have computers, which you know, we have to maybe come up with another plan of action. You know something? Posting things in the library, for instance, or having some opportunity to connect that way. But um, social media is really The Way that young people get their information. And I think if we want to reach the next generation, that is the way to do it. We're all gonna have to start learning new dances for Tik, Tok. I was just thinking that did he have a tiktok? No. Um OK? Actually I believe it's uh, not allowed on city networks for security purposes. And I do wanna point this out. We just provide Instagram's owned by Facebook, so it's Does the city have an instagram account? Do you know? I don't believe so currently? Um it might be a good idea to get an instagram account , though. Yeah cause you can you can post back and forth on both of them. So you know you reach would be increased. With an N. Sure Yeah, write that down for next month, and we'll Instagram all the time. Yeah and I do think we have a path forward. But I did wanna make note that we did provide this in the backup document. So if you wanna go back and revisit this over the next couple of weeks, uh, this was our plan of action for, uh, that we came to last year, and it really was heavily revolved around the plan and things like that, But again there you see, you know, we've got the plan and we are starting to kind of move on to a specific outcomes and messaging and things like that, too. So this is, uh you know something you can go back and take a look at for kind of what we arrived at last year, but I think we can also Start to look forward as well. Thank you. Okay? Items for, um, next month's agenda. That would be one of them is right. There is community engagement. Ideas on that. Knowing that we have a little bit lighter turnout today. Um, next month might be a good Month to Provide The chair's report from the BOC meeting on Tuesday. And along those lines that it might also be a good opportunity for the chairs report from the Earth Day event. Okay, That'd be great. Uh as far as staff initiated discussion items we Might have, uh, I believe we might be able to come back and do vulnerability assessment next month and provide some results from that. I've been having, um Conversations with Shannon Brewer. Ever since, Um Tuesday because of some tree removal that happened and my misconception on tree removal and what Duke Energy Has the power to do a lot. Yeah. So you know, there's um You know, I wa I was talking to her about it, and she sent me some information on there. Their perspectives on on why they're doing tree removal. And, um I don't know whether she's willing to kind of present the reasons for that. But you know, I think that what happened to me the other night when? Well, I came home in a very, very large tree in our neighbor's backyard. That was like the Shire. Bilbo's birthday tree. You know, it was a beautiful, beautiful tree that I thought was a live oak. But it was a camper and it had, but it was completely away from any power lines. So um, I came home and my husband was freaking out about it. You know, he'd been just grieved over it all day, did they? They took it out at all altogether. Tree out. There was no nowhere near Power lines that I perceived, But then I went online and I saw that that was happening in Clearwater, too. And people were quite irate about that. So we've got to understand. I mean, a lot of times we're working on. You know, we all thinking. Increase in the tree canopy, and we're looking at the urban Heat Island . The fact you know that it mitigates and we can't understand any of the tree removal and that one that one didn't make sense. To me. It was a really old tree, and it didn't make sense. It was very healthy, but Um Shannon sent me some info on it, so I'm not sure whether you know whether it's worth going over some of the parameters of what they're looking at, or, you know. And how that lines up with the city. But from what I heard from her, they can do whatever they want to do with tree removal, so I don't know whether it's an agenda topic at all. I think that if I had been more educated on How they make their decisions. I might have been a little, um Less upset. But I read this morning that They can remove things within 25 ft. Of The power line. So that may be their justification. For that, But I, I would really like to have the discussion with Shannon. And to talk about Um. Is there anything one can do? And how can we replace trees that Won't have that impact. Mhm. Um Because we do need it. And it's part of our, um, plan that we wanna tree canopy. We know it works for many, many reasons. So if we're finding them eliminated How can we counteract So, Shannon, I think would be a great person to come and Have a discussion with I I'll discuss that with Shannon and I also Like to point out, too, that we do have an action item of this year for the net zero canopy loss policy. So instead of focusing narrowly on power line corridors, and, uh, easements and whatnot it I'll talk with her. And maybe that could. Also that might be a future item, too, as well would be to maybe focus on bringing like a draft policy or policy limitations, as opposed to just defining an existing problem or legal framework for how these things are currently happening so kind of along those lines, but switching gears a little bit, Um We? I'm looking at the implementation plan. And There's a climate action plan. 2024 but we're already in April. So like Is that Complete in 2024 is that started in 2024 like Where are we with that, like is that something that we could have a Conversation about like I know some of these are part of the, uh Plan update like the Sea Walt Ordinance, and the buffer for wetlands is part of like that's being handled like that, But like I'm feeling in the dark about where we are, with the greenhouse reduction target and the climate action plan and the solar feasibility study, um so solar feasibility says definitely next year that'll that's budgeted for October 1 so that would be kicked off then, um, the greenhouse gas reduction target and climate action plan. Um We're just now got through procurement that took a little the procurement phase of that took a little bit longer than anticipated. We have an existing scope of work. We're going to be starting the ST the core part of the study relatively soon it has a 15 week project schedule. So, uh, as Uh, we just got through procurement like in the last couple of days, So that's really getting ready to get kicked off. And, um I'll It might be a little early to bring that back. I'll see how we go as we get through our like project kickoff meeting with the consultant, and if there's something substantive to bring, if not, that might be something that would be, um The timing wise might be better for the following month, potentially , but I'll I'll see where we are on the on the project scope, but I it minimally Mary Price some sort of short update on How the study will proceed and things like that. For both the climate action plan and the greenhouse gas production target. Those are going to be done as one overall project. OK, Thank you. So yeah. The reduction target will inherently flow from the climate action plan will They'll be done done jointly make sense, OK? Thank you. Okay? I think That might be enough for next month. Mm-hmm That's quite a bit. Staff comments. Uh, I did wanna provide a quick update on recruiting for the new sustainability coordinator doing really well so far. Uh, we're hoping to shortlist in the next few days. Um, we've got a lot of really good applicants. We're really hopeful. Uh, we've got, uh, I believe just on indeed we had well over 100 applicants. Um You know, And indeed it's always a little bit of a an interesting game. So you get a lot of Um We did find some interesting idiosyncrasies like we put greenhouse gas reduction in there, and we found that we were getting lots of applicants who worked in greenhouses, which is not quite the same. Um so we're continuing to learn as we get through our new online recruiting tools, but, uh, we've got a lot of really qualified folks. We've also got it posted on LinkedIn. Um We've got a few more of the city applications that are kind of pending, and once we get those in, we'll be shortlisting and hoping to start interviews in the next few weeks. Uh I suspect with the by the time we get to the interview and background check, uh, check period, it would probably not have a new coordinator on board for the next meeting, but a good target would be to have him back at the at the This is April, perhaps June. We'd have an opportunity to introduce them. So we're we're moving along on that, and we're Very optimistic. We're getting a really good batch of candidates. Hm? Maybe a good question to add is connection communication implement? You know as part of the implementation, I'm just wondering whether they might have any ideas on that. Certainly that's whether that, you know, it's a good interview question. I used to throw things out like that when I would be interviewing people. Yeah I. I don't wanna tip my hand too much on the interview questions, but we, uh in the last go around, and we will continue to do so in this go around on the interviews. We do tend to tailor our, uh, questions to the things that are coming up over the next year, 23 years in the sustainability action plan, So any folks that have experience related to those or really unique perspectives on some of the upcoming items? Um we wanna make that apparent and that will definitely be a factor. Okay. Committee comments. I'd like, um just to revisit, um The request to have High school student or something on the committee. Um It was really interesting when we were doing the series for PBS that Um, for WEDU that, um The people who made it were young. And During our discussion, one of the things they said Was Oh, you you two are really Unusual, but the upshot was They blame. My generation our generation for what's going on, and they made that clear. And they said Were surprised you really different. And whether that's the case or not certainly growing up. I wasn't You know? Contributed to it as much as anybody else. Um But I think that that would be also a good reason to have young people involved so they can Come to learn that Our generation. Namely older than that. Um, is really Putting effort into it, and even if we did, as we were growing up Contribute to it that we are doing what we can to mitigate it, And I think that would be a really good message to younger people that were in this together that it isn't them. Having to remedy what we did, but we're partners in this. We're a collaboration. Mm. Okay. Thank you. Um one of the reasons I was interested in being on the committee is, um Something very close to home, Um, which is flooding? Uh and I live on, Um Charlotte. Of North Florida. And, um The other day. Uh, I have two routes to get out. I can go like straight to town. Uh uh. And north spring. Well, the other day, I was going to see a client in tarpon. And the flooding was so bad and Uh, North. No spring. Mm. It went right across the road there. And so it's blocked and then so Uh, if it's blocked, you know if it's a if it's a heavy rain. We don't even consider going that way because it's so bad. Um, and a Chesapeake and Riverside. Yeah and there's an empty lot right there. There's power over there. It's like it. Yeah, it's um It's a really huge problem. The other thing I'm really interested in is trees and we're talking about, uh, Trees. Um In relationship to the power to Duke. But um the state has really changed the whole ball game. Mm. And uh, the power of municipalities, and now you can pay a arborist $400 to get a letter. So they put all the power In the hands of the arborist. And if they're not, uh, moral They'll just You know? People will pay them $400 to get this letter. And I because of what I do. I'm highly aware of all this stuff. So You know, it's it. It was devastating when that happened. And when the municipalities are working so hard, like ours to, uh have a, uh, a wonderful tree canopy and you know, which brings down the temperature here. And the water. Yes and after the summer that we had last year with hardly any rain. You know, in the high temperatures, Uh, trees are so important. That's the other thing that we could communicate to young people, the value of trees. Absolutely. No. So why can talk about Chesapeake and Riverside. Because I've talked to the county that's a county road. And when they, um The repairing going to replace Beckett Bridge, which is supposed to take place starting January. 2025 But the first thing they're gonna do is, um do a whole drainage plan for that area. So um, and I sort of have the feeling that what they're going to do is they Do these? Drainage ditches, and they raise user to raise the road and then partly it look its access a certain natural sea wall and the water can be put underneath and moved out. So There's a plan to Alter that and I certainly have been, yes. Good I'm glad. I'm glad to hear that. And I to say, you know, I talked to Tom And they are gonna put in a sidewalk. So that we don't have to keep walking in the dirt. So I mean in some was Quinn and the other thing is bicycling. There is unbelievably difficult, dangerous. You know you go. You go on the bridge, and it's like you're taking your life in your hands. And you know you have to circumvent across the street and this way and that way and it's brutal. And you know, uh And I'm I like to sometimes cycle the town and go to a restaurant or something. And it's, uh, Between the flooding the bridge and the it's part of the strategic plan to make everything more accessible for bikes and for pedestrians. But because our rating is gonna be some painful growing You know, that's gonna be a lot. I'm gonna have to go between everybody who live over there is going to have this impact and go up to mirrors right? The bridge is not going to have a dedicated bike line. Yeah. It'll be wider and I asked about that. They said they can't make it wide enough to put her dedicated bicycle. But the bridge will be wider. Yeah, and it won't have that little narrow sidewalk. Which you can't you can't crazy. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you very much for the good meeting. Or To move to adjourn my second it All in favor. A I'm so glad you showed up. Dory I'm so sorry, guys. I'm so you you should have. I was shaking. I was showed up at the right moment. So or just what boys text I even if it was screwing it look weird. I know you were OK. Sorry The implementation plan that you were looking at. Yeah, uh,