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2023-1 Agenda SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSION Regular Meeting Agenda Thursday, January 26th, 2023, 7:00 pm Heredia Room, City Hall Commission Members Staff/Others Liaisons Amanda Kueper, Jeremy Barthels, Adam Burnside, Craig Heinen, Logan Thein, Santwana Dasgupta Rachel Lindholm (Sustainability Specialist) Bryan Beltran (incoming commissioner) Matthew Dobratz (incoming commissioner) Ben Whalen (City Council) Jenna Hanson (CSC) Call to Order/Welcome Approval of Minutes/Agenda Regular Meeting Minutes: October 27th, 2022 Public Comment Any resident comment and items not printed on agenda Staff Reports (Lindholm) Commissioner Introductions Organized Collection Partners in Energy Tree Sale Community Gardens Earth Day events Discussion Items Resident Digital Sustainability Guide (Barthels, Lindholm) Action Items Committee Reports Community Services Commission (CSC) (Hanson) Next Meeting Thursday, February 23rd, 2023, 7:00 pm Heredia Room, City Hall Adjournment DRAFT MINUTES UNTIL APPROVED BY THE SC DRAFT MINUTES UNTIL APPROVED BY THE SC DRAFT MINUTES UNTIL APPROVED BY THE SC REGULAR SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSION MEETING Thursday, October 28th, 2022 Bartholomew Room, City Hall PRESENT COMMISSIONERS: Amanda Kueper, Adam Burnside, Craig Heinen, Santwana Dasgupta STAFF: Rachel Lindholm, Sam Crosby LIAISONS: Jenna Hanson (CSC), Ben Whalen (City Council) ABSENT Jeremy Barthels, Logan Thein Call to Order Kueper called the meeting to order at 7:02 pm. Approval of Minutes/Agenda Heinen moved to approve the agenda and previous minutes, seconded by Burnside, approved by all. Public Comment None Staff Reports Organized Collection Assessments are continuing. From November 3 through November 8 – samples from recycling routes will be collected from all haulers. Contents will be analyzed to determine the rebate that all households get back. Feedback on the annual service guide will be solicited and the goal is to print and send out before the end of this year. More compostable bags are available in the Community Center and commissioners were asked to raise awareness. Yard-waste season could go until November 30th but is dependent on the weather (could end earlier with snow). The city will advocate for some leaves to remain on the lawns. Pumpkins can be put in organics carts. If there is glitter or paint, then they cannot be put in the food waste bins. Candles should be removed. They can also be put in yard waste carts. PiE A presentation will be made to the Council to share the data gathered from Partners in Energy. Xcel is working with the city to give free energy audit visits. The city is working also on a toolbox to give to residences that want to go solar. It was suggested that the tool box contain suggestions for talking to neighbors to consider tree plantings that do not obstruct solar panels. Other The goal is to till the community garden site by the ice arena before the ground freezes. Communications will go out on how to apply for a plot next year. The city will share a survey link with Commissioners and asked them to both complete and share it, with the goal of improving bicycle friendliness in the city. Richfield is currently a “Bronze” awarded city and the hope is to get to a higher level. Commissioner applications close on Monday 10/31 and there are two openings on the Sustainability Commission. The youth positions are also empty and the members were requested to network and see if they know youth who can apply. Discussion Items Amending landscaping ordinances on tree requirements for developments Sam Crosby (city planner) introduced herself. The project she is working on is to come up with alternatives for developers if they are not able to plant the required number of trees in the development. This started after a recent developer was not able to plant many trees on their site. After doing research, it was determined that no developments plant nearly the number of trees required due to a disproportionate requirement and this allows developers to easily plant very few trees through a variance/PUD. The changes would make it easier to hold developers accountable to planting more trees than many currently do while also creating a fund for them to pay into if the tree requirement was not able to be met. The commissioners reviewed the proposed ordinance and gave feedback. Concerns were raised around numbers, species, funding gaps, explicitly prohibiting invasive species. Suggestions were also made to be creative about getting trees planted in limited spaces – e.g., in the four corners of a parking lot. In the end commissioners agreed that there should be flexibility in the numbers of trees being planted. Tree Plantings Kueper shared the guidelines for tree plantings and the participants gave their feedback. The letter is open for comments until next Thursday. Heinen approved the motion to approve the guidelines and Burnside seconded it. Available grants Dasgupta will review the email from Hennepin County to see if there are any grant opportunities. Richfield resident sustainability guide Members were encouraged to sign up as SMEs and update the document. This will be addressed in the next meeting. Please update the guidebook before then. It was commented that the link could no longer be found. Lindholm will resend it. Action Items None Committee Reports Hanson reported that a new hockey team is coming to Richfield called the MN White Caps and the tickets are available online. In addition, tickets are on sale for the FOWL dinner on 10/29/22. Other/Next Meeting/Adjournment Next Meeting: Thursday, November 17th, 2022, 7 P.M. in the Heredia Room Adjournment: Motion to adjourn by Heinen, seconded by Burnside. Meeting adjourned by Kueper at 8:39pm.