[00:00] **Chair Miller:** The February 12th, 2024, meeting of the Oakdale Environmental Management Commission. And the first thing we'll have is a roll call. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Commissioner Yang? [00:00] **Commissioner Yang:** Present. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Commissioner Durle? [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Present. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Commissioner Gering? [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** Present. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** And I believe Commissioner Wilson has said she was going to be absent this month. And I'd also like to point out we have our staff liaison Hannah Dunn present, and also our city council liaison, Mayor Kevin Zabel, is present for our meeting. So, the next thing we'll do is have the Pledge of Allegiance. So, if everyone could please stand. *(Pledge of Allegiance)* [00:00] **Chair Miller:** So now we'll have approval of the agenda for our meeting this evening. I look for a motion to approve the agenda as written. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** So moved. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Do I have a second? [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Second. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** All in favor of approval of the agenda say "I." [00:00] **Commissioners:** I. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Okay, the agenda is approved. And the next item is approval of our meeting minutes from our November 2023 meeting. This was in our packet and I'm wondering if there are any changes to those meeting minutes that you would like? Well, hearing no changes requested, I would look for a motion to approve the meeting minutes from our November 20th, 2023 meeting as written. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** So moved. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Do I have a second? [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Second. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** All right, all in favor of approving our November 20, 2023 meeting minutes say "I." [00:00] **Commissioners:** I. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Meeting minutes are approved, thank you. So, we have a time on our agenda for an open forum. We have no one here, I believe, that would like to be part of that open forum. So, we'll go right into our commissioner review. And the first item—wait, we have on this also our—is that coming? Oh, that’ll be later in the meeting, I got it here, thank you. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** So, our old business item is the 2023 Washington County Recycling Grant. And this grant for last year—we have had various outcomes on projects there and I will turn it over to our staff liaison, Hannah Dunn, to give us an update on that. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** The memo provides the EMC just with an update regarding the 2023 Washington County Recycling Grant. The end-of-grant report was submitted to Washington County on January 31st. Overall, 2023 was a successful year with lots of communication via social media and the Oakdale Update regarding waste and recycling. Other grant activities included creating reusable bags, hosting pumpkin recycling drop-off at City Hall, and conducting the Wastewise assessment in support of the added project of increasing recycling access in city parks. At this time, I’d just like to offer the opportunity for Commissioners to discuss the 2023 outcomes, specifically the Wastewise results. This is the first time the EMC has seen the results, and staff would appreciate any feedback or input for actualizing the results and creating a plan to roll out dual-stream bins over the coming years. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Great, thank you. I guess I can comment that I think going to the assessment that was done by Wastewise—it looks like a good assessment. Going to the dual-stream system will encourage more recycling. And so, I think it's a matter of implementation at this point, which will require some funding. And I see this as being done over eight years. So, that is our current plan? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yes, under the current plan. Yeah, things can change. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** One comment was in discussion—well, that we just had that—again, to look to see if there may be additional money available through grants or whatever to speed up that implementation. I think spreading it over eight years seems long to me. And I think there are probably a few priority areas that were identified that, if we could at least address those up front as soon as possible, because they are parks that are used, like the Discovery Center and the Preserve, and also the Richard Walton Park. There are quite a few of the bins for each of those areas. So, if we can do more up front, that'd be great. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** We chose eight years just to kind of think long-term so that when the end of these waste bins—you know, they're no longer able to be used—that we don't have to purchase a large chunk, you know, 20 years from now. So, it's kind of spaced out over eight years so that in the future when they're at the end of their life, it'll be easier to purchase new ones in another eight-year plan. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** What is the end of the life cycle for one of these things if we take good care of them? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** I don't know the exact lifespan, but if we take care of them, then I anticipate a pretty long time. One thing that Wastewise recommends is they have to be on concrete pads because if they're not, they can start to warp. So, that's part of our roll-up plan is to make sure every single bin that we purchase will be on a concrete pad. And as long as there's not any vandalism or destruction, then I think we can anticipate that they'd last a good amount of time. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** You know, I know there's also a discussion about moving to the bigger capacity bins, the 51-gallon ones. With that, is there any discussion about reducing when they get cleaned? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Those sorts of conversations—logistical maintenance—hasn't been totally discussed with Public Works. Something Wastewise offered is, once we start to implement this, the consultant will come back and talk to the Public Works staff that maintains those. And so that might be a discussion that can be had at that time. But probably in the summer, the same frequency just because of the smell and the heat, but maybe not for recycling. So, a lot of logistics to figure out in terms of servicing the new bins. [00:00] **Commissioner Yang:** My last question is just for curiosity. I know there were recommendations and a lot of these parks already didn't have anything, but what was the decision-making like to not add anything to those either? Was there just not enough capacity? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** I think the consultant from Wastewise has been doing this a long time and has done assessments for a lot of different cities in their park systems, and that's just probably the recommendation that is made for a lot of them. If you don't have trash bins current waste bins, there's no point in putting new ones as long as there's not a litter problem, just probably not to overwhelm the park staff and to throw off their current maintenance schedule too much. [00:00] **Commissioner Yang:** Okay, thank you. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** I also notice that they want to reduce the number of bins. Is that driven by—was there an analysis that they did about that? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Again, I think John from Wastewise just has a lot of experience and he thought we just had too many waste bins. So, if we're going to have two different streams in one bin, we can probably reduce the amount of bins. Again, probably to not overwhelm parks maintenance staff since now they have to service two different streams. But it'll all be kind of a learning-as-we-go. If we reduce bins and it's not working, then we'll just have to pivot and potentially purchase another bin for that park. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Well, regarding the outcomes, I think the project outcomes from 2023 regarding food scraps was really great. That program has really moved forward, getting a lot more people involved. And I think, being at the farmers market and giving out free starter kits, that was a great promotion of getting people to think about that because, unfortunately, there is a lot of food waste. To be able to at least compost that rather than be part of our garbage is great. Also, the reusable bags—I think promoting that and maybe we have some additional ideas for this year that we could do around that as well. I think the grocery stores here in Oakdale as well—if we could maybe work with them to promote reusable bags a little more, that would be helpful too. But I think if we can provide that residence with some options and promote that, that's great. I was also intrigued by the presentation to Guardian Angels. How did that come about? Was that something to expand on? It seemed like it might have been a good example of some good PR. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yes, they had reached out to have city staff come and speak about just various environmental things. They've got a speaker series that's really geared towards environmental; a lot of the churchgoers are very passionate about that. So they reached out. We didn't really take advantage of a photo op or pushing the PR of meeting with them, but I feel like it was a good relationship connection that we'll hopefully continue to nurture and reach out as the city continues to do environmental work. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Yeah, it seemed like it made me think that maybe there was—I mean, not an aggressive marketing campaign towards churches or whatever—but just if there is a—I don't know, maybe they have a bulletin board we could put a thing up about Oakdale recycling efforts or schools? It seems like schools a lot of times will be engaged in environmental related things and maybe they'd be interested in hearing from what the city's up to. When they reach out to us, it's even better, I guess. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yeah, following up after the meeting, I had sent that EMC flyer—you know, "join us"—so hopefully they have that posted on their bulletin and maybe we can fill these last two seats. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** May I ask what the feedback was from the pumpkin event in terms of tons we collected? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** I haven't gotten any results, so I should probably bug the county and see if they've come up with the number because it was very full, so I'm excited. And I definitely think in the future City Hall is the place for it to go. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Any further comments on this item? Well, thank you, Hannah, for putting this together, I appreciate that. And I appreciate the outcomes as well and the work to do that. I think that we had good progress this past year, and I know you came on midway past year, so quite a bit done in that short time frame. Thank you. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** So, the next item, we'll move into our new business, and now we're looking at the 2024 Washington County Recycling Grant projects. And so, we've already kind of started our discussion a little bit about that—what we can further do in 2024. And again, Hannah, if you want to lead this off. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** The memo just provides some of the same background about meeting the Oakdale comprehensive plan goals. There are three draft projects listed for use of funds. And just as a reminder, funds are based on municipality household count, so it's a pretty set dollar amount. Typically, the city receives around $50,000 in funds to support recycling activities, with about 25% going to capital expenses. As was highlighted in the previous agenda item, the city expects to utilize those Wastewise results and purchase dual-stream recycling bins over the coming years. So, Project 3 is anticipated to use a large portion of the capital expense funds. The other projects listed are more promotion and outreach and are low-cost. So, with that, I'd like to open it up to Commissioners for feedback or input. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Well, I think looking at the project deliverables here, to continue to educate people about composting at various events and at the indoor and outdoor markets in Oakdale—I think that's a good approach because it was successful last year. Keep that going and build on that as well. And yeah, I think what we discussed regarding the parks and having the dual waste bins, that'll be a big project this year to kick off and get that moving forward in those critical park areas. I guess one way—I think there are, what, in Walton Park 31 areas? Maybe they can spread them out strategically to start with because that's a heavy-use area—the softball fields and tennis courts and everything, pickleball courts. So, if we can get them strategically placed this year, that'd be great progress. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** When is Oakdale expected to join the food scraps pickup program? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yes, so City Council—at the January or December meeting, I gave an update to City Council that it would be rolling out to Oakdale in 2024. So, they're anticipating about April 1st. We can't publicly promote or do our marketing campaign until April 1st, but that date's pretty set. So, that's anticipated when it's going to be available to Oakdale residents. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** So, with the current cities that are participating, what's the rate that that program is utilized? Did they let you guys know? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** For Phase One, I can't remember what that percentage was. They have certain goals that they want to meet, and you know, they probably sound pretty low to us, but they're just hoping over the next years to keep continuing to roll it out to new communities and increase the participation rates in Phase One. We're part of Phase Two, so I don't know that percentage of household participation off the top of my head. I can look into that and get back to you. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** Sure. Well, a lot of the reason I'm asking is—is it about accessibility? Because when I did review this, I looked at the website online and it was explaining it pretty good, but a lot of it was like, "well, how do you get the new bags?" and the only way was like you had to create an account and order it through them. Is there another way we could make that more accessible? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Because of the way the program is going to pick up the compost—it's going in your trash bin versus Hennepin County who has a separate waste bin—they had to design specific bags that could withstand being transported like that. So, unfortunately, you have to order it through their website. But they do have it—both the website and the phone ordering available in multiple languages—and it's free. I think they anticipate that it will be free for some time. So, hopefully that's reduced some of the barriers, the accessibility barriers. But yeah, there's still going to be some hurdles for some people to overcome. But I think they're trying their best to make sure that it can be available to as many people as possible. Thanks. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Well, a couple ideas about education and outreach. I think looking at other churches—as I remember, Transfiguration Church has rooftop solar there, so they may have an interest in learning more about environmental opportunities. And Commissioner Durle mentioned schools as well. I guess as a starting point, I know that District 622 has a sustainability person. I know she was looking at—this was a couple of years ago—a Solar for Schools program, and she was looking at solar for the renovations being done at Skyview and Tartan. I don't know what became of it, but there may be some interest at the school level. Maybe starting at that point to see what's going on already would be one way to see how to form education if there is an opportunity for that type of education for the schools. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** They may be a good candidate to get some food scraps from, too. Is there a pipeline—sorry. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** No, I was just going to say, I'm not sure exactly how to tie them in, but obviously that's a huge stream of compost-eligible material, I'm sure. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** I was going to offer: is that a pipeline to a student representative, too? [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Yes, it would be nice to get someone from Tartan—a student there that would be interested in maybe making that connection. There might be a way to see if there is a teacher or faculty that could recommend a student. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** I guess just one comment: should we be thinking differently about promotion with the curbside program, or is it kind of one and the same as a drop-off? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** The county will probably lay out quite a bit of that promotion plan. Their communication staff and our communication staff have met, so there's a plan in place. A lot of the material is going to flow through the county and kind of be done—you know, it's their program, so we're just helping promote, but a lot of it will be done through the county and in the way that they want it. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** It's perfect. I was making sure that, from a concept of time, this kind of program doesn't add more complexities to our staff if we have to share something or so. Good. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** I guess I have one other thing that just came to mind. Are we getting good data from our residential waste service providers? I know that in the past it's been an issue, and I think it was supposedly corrected, but it came to mind that if we really have these targets for increasing the pounds of recycling collected, it'd be nice to know we're getting good data and consistent data from all the haulers. And I'm not close enough to that to know how that data is provided and to whom it's provided and if they're using a consistent method for reporting that between the different haulers—because we do have five in Oakdale now, right? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** I know my predecessors had used the Regional Indicators Initiative to calculate some of the recycling tons of recycling and waste. I don't know where that initiative gets their data or who runs that. But I can look further into where they're getting that data and just kind of dive into data sources. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** That would be good. I think at one point the county was trying to correct the issues with getting consistent data, but yeah, if you could look further into that, that'd be good. All right, did you get the feedback you needed on this? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yes, thank you. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Great. All right, let's move on then to our 2024 Environmental Management Commission communication strategy. With a lot of our work tied to communications, as we just were discussing with the waste program, we have various methods of getting communications out there—various channels. And also, over the years, we have developed an editorial calendar with different topics monthly where we stress certain areas like waste reduction or energy efficiency as the year rolls around and try to make it relevant to what's going on statewide and in the country, as well as what's relevant to our strategy in Oakdale. So, yeah, I'll let you go ahead and walk us through this. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yeah, just as a reminder for the new Commissioners, at the beginning of each year the EMC discusses the environmental communications strategy plan, which is pretty much executed through this editorial calendar. It's a flexible strategy; we can veer from it if more relevant or timely environmental content comes up. The calendar and the memo lay out the different themes for each month. I don't know if you want to go month-by-month or if you just want to take a moment to look through all the different months and see if you have any commentary. Some of those are a little bit more set in stone, like April with the food scraps pickup program, but the rest of them are—you know, we can be flexible and move things around. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Yeah, I think going through it month-by-month and then we can see how that all fits together for the year. In my review of it ahead of the meeting, it seemed like it made sense—the monthly topics and with timing being important as well as we go through the year. So, yeah, why don't you just go through month-by-month and see if there's agreement on that. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Perfect. Well, we've already passed January, but we did the Plastic Free Challenge. The city became an official partner of the Hennepin County, Ramsey County, Washington County Plastic Free Challenge. So, in January we encouraged residents to join the challenge. And then we're almost halfway through February, but February 18th is National Battery Day, so the theme for the month was recycling. I'd sent communications material about "Be a Battery Hero." That campaign—the seven counties in the Metro are doing a "Recycling Exists" campaign right now, just to kind of break down the myths that people think that when they recycle things, they don't actually get recycled. So, they've got a really big push for that campaign. I believe we posted something about that just last week. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** And then looking at March, you know, the dates related to water conservation makes that topic pretty timely. World Water Day is March 22nd, National Groundwater Awareness Week is March 10th to the 16th. So, the plan is to have communications content focused on water conservation—that can be rain gardens, it can be grants and funding through the Watershed Districts. The Blue Thumb, Metro Blooms has a lot of information. If Washington County has their rain barrel sale, we can promote that. So March is, hopefully, going to be pretty water-intensive in terms of content. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** I like the timing on that because it gives people a chance to think about planting their garden. And if they want to do a rain garden, to get out in front of that because getting that done in the spring is the best time, and giving people some lead time to figure out contractors. I’m sure work starts to fill up if we were to wait till May to start promoting something like that. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yeah. And then moving on to April, it's going to be mostly the food scraps pickup program because that's hopefully when we're going to start rolling that out. Earth Day is April 22nd, so we can make a good tie-in between Earth Day and food scraps. May—there's lots of weeks and days related to biking and walking. It's National Bike Month, so I think last year that was the same theme, but it fits in super well, especially as the weather starts getting nicer. So, I think it makes sense to continue that. The Oakdale Pedestrian Bicycle Plan is done, but we can—you know, I think last May there may have been some community engagement or some updates that were provided to people, but now we can just kind of highlight that that's done and to take a look at it. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** June—I believe last year was also renewable energy, so I think we'll again focus on that. We can highlight IRA rebates for solar available to people; we can promote programs through Xcel Energy. So, I think that theme makes sense for June. July—while we did have the Plastic Free Challenge content in January, July is Plastic Free Month. So, I think maybe bring that theme back and promote our reusable bags. Especially since July is when farmers markets are up and running and I'll be attending, so it might be another good push for plastic free. August—I kind of left a little open to whatever is relevant for the month. So, if it's water conservation efforts or there's a recycling education committee that puts out content—they have a calendar—so we could align with their content. That one I left intentionally just a little open. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** September—last year was also electric vehicles, but there's National Drive Electric Week and Car-Free Day. So, it really makes sense to continue with EVs in September. We could highlight our IRA rebates for EVs and lots of other tools to help people start thinking about if they want to buy an EV; there's so many resources to help them work through that. October—Energy Efficiency. Again, it just with the different dates and it really makes sense to continue having October's Energy Efficiency. You know, while we don't have the home energy squad rebates yet, we should definitely have them by then, so it would be a good time to promote. And once we have that agreement signed, there will definitely be some pushes promoting that earlier throughout that doesn't really align with the editorial calendar now, but we'll promote those. And then November—it's America Recycles Day on November 15th, so a good opportunity to promote pumpkin recycling and other recycling efforts. You know, another good opportunity to do a promotional push for the food scraps pickup program. And then December—again, low-waste holidays. It's always just a good time to remind people to be as waste-conscious as possible. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** A lot of the monthly themes have stayed the same. The front end of the year has kind of got a little changed up, but kind of keeping the second half. I've got a good list of what different things we promoted in 2023, so if it makes sense to promote some of the same things again, we will, or if there's new content we can push to educate people about other things, then we'll definitely hit those. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** I think it looks good. I like the flow in the months and, yeah, I think as other programs become—we become aware of, like I just became aware of another group-buy program that's available in Minneapolis and St. Paul but I think also for the surrounding cities. And so, if Grow Solar Twin Cities doesn't happen again this year—depending on the capacity of the Midwest Recycling Agency—then we would have a backup to promote information on. [00:00] **Commissioner Yang:** I think it looks good too. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** So for May, the Oakdale Bike and Ped Plan—I love that it's in there because I think even I as a human, we need a couple reminders before things are real. So, I like seeing that. And I mean, thinking of the plan itself, there's probably other themes within it that would lend themselves to maybe some other months here. So, as an asset that you've created, I like the fact that you're not shelving it; it's just done. So, I look forward to how we can revisit that and repurpose that same content maybe across some other categories or other narratives that we're creating. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** And just one idea that I had regarding communications and, in general for this year but especially regarding this plan—do we specifically have ways we reach out to the businesses in Oakdale? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** I think right now the best way for at least some of the businesses is through the business retention, attraction, and expansion (BREA) visits. That is one way to tie into businesses. Granted, that's only X amount of businesses within a year. I can talk with other Oakdale staff about other good ways to connect with businesses more. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Yeah, I think that would be good because, I mean, we had a discussion earlier about Home Furniture and all the things they're doing—just to be able to somehow reach out on these programs that may be available to them as well. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** Was there ever a story done on the Animal Emergency and Referral Center? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** I don't believe so, or I haven't come across anything. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** I think they have solar. I think I can look into it. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Any other comments on the editorial calendar for the year? I think we've got a good start, something to work with. And as we approach each upcoming month, we take a look at this throughout the year and if changes need to be made, it's flexible. I think this is a good place to start for the year. Thank you for bringing that together. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** The next item on our agenda is the environmental fair planning. We've had some talk about this; it didn't happen in 2023. We thought we could maybe do something with that, but looking at having an environmental fair that would be hosted by our Environmental Management Commission and bringing in various organizations that would have booths or tables set up at an event. I think the original thought was to have this at the Discovery Center. And in thinking about this—at least myself—I think, as mentioned here, having it tied to an existing community event, we’d probably get more people out that are already out at the event. I was wondering if something could be done with Summerfest because that's probably the biggest community event of the year? Or connecting to some big community event. Hannah, did you have anything you want to add here? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** No, mostly just that we had these bullet points to facilitate conversation. We can go through them one-by-one or we can just kind of open it up for general comments. Regardless, if this EMC would like to move forward with an environmental fair in any capacity, city staff will present the idea to city council at one of their upcoming workshops just to get their input. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Was there any talk about which community events we could possibly be at? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Some of the different community events we could leverage: summer farmers markets—you know, if once a month we have one or two different organizations come, we could do it that way. Summerfest is an option, though I know you have vendors; there's a deadline for vendors to apply and it's maybe the end of April. So that's a deadline that we would have to meet just to figure that out. Touch-a-Truck is an event, Family Fun Inflatables, indoor markets later in the winter. I think that hits the biggest ones that we would probably consider. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Well, some of the questions here: organizations that we might want to see in attendance. I think it's good to think about who we might want to invite. Since we have three watershed districts in Oakdale, it would be nice to have them all represented there. I know it was really helpful to have the Ramsey-Washington County Watershed present to us in November, and maybe we could talk to the other watersheds this year. To be present so that the programs they have—especially for providing grants for rain gardens and things—that would be great for people to be able to talk to them. Another thought: there's an Oakdale Garden Club that could talk about rain garden plantings; that's a possibility to get them involved. And there's also—there are huge amounts of money for people to buy ebikes and I wonder if a bike shop or something would be good to solicit? Maybe that could be combined with a bike repair workshop. The ebike money is actually pretty incredible what they're giving out and that would be a good one to find a way to get the word out about. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** When you talk about the question here about the commission participating in the planning effort, is there going to be a subcommittee setup for that? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** I would assume it would just be planned at our meetings here. So, I don't exactly know how that will look, but we're just kind of gauging interest and some more of that hands-on involvement with the planning. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Yeah, I mean, adding on then to the next question—do the commissioners plan to attend and staff? I'm always happy to attend and staff as needed. I don't want to put the burden all on city staff. I've personally loved staffing the table for giving away our compost bins or organics bins, so I see this as no different and I would be happy to extend and staff in that way too, or plan whenever you need. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** Just a quick followup—did staff have any guidance as it recommends that maybe they have some thoughts about existing community events that are to be leveraged? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yeah, I think we were thinking over the course of the whole summer, different farmers markets was kind of what we were thinking. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Well, maybe if we did do it related to the farmers market, maybe we rethink this rather than inviting a lot of organizations to one event—is to have it be, you know, invite the watersheds one week, and then have home energy audits and the CUB Bill Clinic another week, and then maybe bike shops another week. That might be a way to envision this, spread that out over the course of the summer. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** I like the idea of a series. I wonder: would the density of people be something that would attract some of these people, though? I mean, these farmers markets are not—there are people there but not as big as a larger event. I just wonder if it would be too small a thing to get a lot of interest. [00:00] **Commissioner Yang:** Well, I have a question. Is this event intended to be an annual event or is this like a one-time thing? [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Depends on how it goes, right? I think it's iterative. [00:00] **Commissioner Yang:** Part of the reason why I'm asking is: if we attach to these other events, one of my concerns is—is our outreach going to be more muted because those people aren't directly there for what we're proposing? Let's say we go to the farmers market; the goal of that event is for the farmers. If we get added on, it's kind of like we're there advertising but we're more pushed in the background instead of being up front. If we have just like one big event where we do it every year, then the main theme is about the environment, and everyone's there focused on that one theme. I know it takes more work to put one together like that, though. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Yeah, I think that's a good point. If we call it an environmental fair, to bring in all of these things in one spot and really advertise it so that we get a lot of people showing up—have it a Saturday morning from 9 to noon or something at the Discovery Center—and really advertise it, that all these different groups will be there. See if we can make it an event, and if it's successful, it could become an annual event. I think the bottom line here is that we'd like to host an environmental fair in some capacity. Probably need to think about this—I do like the initial idea from Commissioner Wilson to do an event at the Discovery Center. I guess we should think about if that's the best option here and if we can draw enough people. I think if we had all of these different things we talked about—the watershed districts, garden clubs, bike shops, home energy audit, the CUB clinic—that maybe that would draw people interested in one or two of those and then they've got other things to be exposed to. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Depending on the type of year—if it is decided that a separate standalone event can happen this year, we could still use the farmers market as a marketing or communications runway to have a booth there every week and then just remind people, or do the introductions of who's coming to the fair. So it ties with what's going to happen later in the year. It could be a hybrid approach. Oh, I used the word "hybrid," oops, sorry, terrible word. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Do we want to revisit this at the March meeting and then bring it to city council? Or do we not want to get too far ahead and get their input before we go down a path? [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** I would personally be inclined to continue this and have a decision made at the March meeting. I think just maybe a little bit more time to discuss would be good. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** I would agree with that. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** All right, well continue this discussion in March and I think that we're all in favor of doing an environmental fair, just give a little more thought as to the way we want to do this. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** All right, next we have the Home Energy Squad rebate marketing. And you know, we have talked in the past to have a program where we would offer a rebate/discount for Oakdale residents to have a Home Energy Squad evaluation. I'll let you go ahead and go through what has been brought to the city council. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yes, so just as a reminder, this item was brought forth by the Commissioners to the Mayor—the commission's liaison—at the September 2023 EMC meeting. City Council discussed the possibility of offering Home Energy Squad rebates to Oakdale residents at their November 14th, 2023 workshop. Council members were supportive of the idea and recommended that the city dedicate $5,000 to rebates and $1,500 to marketing. An agreement still hasn't been signed with the Center for Energy and Environment (CEE), the organization that administers the rebates, but we're just trying to think ahead and discuss marketing of the rebate so that when we can go forward, we have a plan. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** I know other cities have sent out mailers; these are designed by CEE just because Xcel and CenterPoint have some design standards that need to be met. But because of the limited marketing budget, we can't send mailers to every household. Not sure if the EMC could provide some ideas regarding how to prioritize which households or neighborhoods would receive mailers. Other cities typically have the rebates on their website and have information about that. Paid Facebook ads could be another low-cost option to promote the rebate. So those are kind of a few ideas. I'm not sure if the Commissioners have any other marketing ideas that they feel would be effective. [00:00] **Commissioner Yang:** I have a follow-up question, sorry if I interrupt you, Hannah. For these Home Energy Squad rebates, it's open to everybody in Oakdale, correct? There's no income limits? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Correct, nope, it would be open to everybody. The program itself through Xcel and CenterPoint—if you meet an income threshold, you get access to free visits regardless. This is just kind of trying to help those who maybe don't meet that income threshold but still maybe find it cumbersome to conduct a home energy audit. The City Council was supportive of doing 50% rebates. There's a couple different Home Energy Squad visits, and then the city rebate would cover 50% of that. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Well, I think the 50% rebate program seems pretty consistent with what other cities are doing and I like that approach. Also, working with the Center for Energy and the Environment on this and having them administer the program with the rebates and everything would make it easier for the city to administer. So, I’d like moving forward on that basis. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Yeah, what exactly would be the user experience for this? How do people request it and do they need to file a form to get a rebate? What about the income? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Everything runs through the Center for Energy and Environment. So, we would direct people to go to their website and they have the Oakdale 50% rebate programmed into their system. So, when a resident inputs their address, it will just apply that rebate. And then CEE invoices us quarterly, I believe, for how many residents have signed up. So it should be a pretty smooth experience and, basically, we're cut out—the resident just works directly with CEE to set up the audit and get the results. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Is the rebate that Oakdale offers like branded or called out in their—in whatever they go through to sign up for this? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yes. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** It seems—I did have a Home Energy Squad audit last November and it was very easy. You just sign up on the website and they send you an email and schedule a time with you and send you reminders of when they're coming. It was very thorough—they did the energy planner visit where they do the whole blower test and everything. A lot of really good information and recommendations that they provide on what may be cost-effective for the homeowner too. So, I think this would be a great program to move forward. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** I guess question in terms of just marketing: real quick, how "in the weeds" do you want this commission to get? [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** As in the weeds as you want. No, if you have in-the-weeds ideas, feel free to bring them forward and then we can assess them with communications since they're the pros. Would love just brainstorming; send me whatever you got. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Thanks. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** All right, great. We will move along to our next item which is the Oakdale development bus tour update. I will go ahead and let you talk about that. Unfortunately, when they did the bus tour in October, I was out of town, but it sounds like a great thing to do. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yes, so October 2022, advisory commissions and the City Council went on a bus tour of different developments in Oakdale. And then given the number of new developments—it's been a year and a half—staff is looking to host another bus tour tentatively planned for May 7th. That can definitely change, but hopefully we'll have that locked in as soon as possible so you can get that on your calendar. This is beneficial for commissioners that have been on the commission for many years and especially good for new commissioners to learn more about development in Oakdale. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Some of the stops on the previous tour were the Glenbrook area, Willowbrook to showcase some of the apartment complex and different townhomes, the Forefront technology campus, the storm water pond over by Hy-Vee, Tanner Lake to look at the redevelopment parcels. Some of these stops have seen significant progress since then, so again could be worthwhile to stop there again. And then there's lots of new developments. So, really we're just trying to gauge your interest in going on another tour and if you have ideas for stops that you would like to make. You can give them to me now or as they come to you. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** I certainly like the idea and I would, of course being new, it’d be all new to me. And it seems like—I’m on a one-track thing this meeting—but it’d be great to have some introduction to what's going on with this transit stuff, the Gold Line. I know that there's still a lot to go, but looking through some of their plans and seeing the new bridge and how they plan to intersect with our community would be interesting. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** Well, I'm definitely interested. I missed the last one and would be interested if the May 7th date works out or another date. [00:00] **Commissioner Yang:** I also be very interested too. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** Right, yes, good. I'll be interested too. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Perfect. I think some of the Community Development staff are meeting either this week or next week to discuss, so then maybe I can have more of a hard deadline for when we want to finalize a plan and I can follow up with you. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Another—I mean, not to shut off more discussion—but another thing that occurs to me: there's been a lot of school development and it'd be interesting to see what's going on there too. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** All right, well move along in our agenda to the next item which is, in our first meeting of the year, we nominate and elect a commission Chair and Vice Chair. And this year we will be doing that right now. So, we will nominate candidates for Chair and Vice Chair. Nominations don't require a second. You only need to make a nomination of a commissioner for the position of chairperson and for the position of vice chairperson. And then after that we will close the nominations and elect a chairperson and a vice chairperson. So, floor is open for nominations. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** I would make a motion to nominate Commissioner Gering for the position of chairperson. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** I'd make a motion to nominate current Chair Miller for Vice Chair. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** There are no new nominations. I will make a motion to close the nominations for chairperson and vice chairperson positions. And that motion does require a second. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** I second. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** All right, thanks. Since there are only one nominated for each position, what we have done in the past is just a voice vote. All in favor of Commissioner Gering for the position of chairperson say "I." [00:00] **Commissioners:** I. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** All in favor of the motion for Commissioner Miller for the position of Vice Chairperson say "I." [00:00] **Commissioners:** I. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** All right, and so we now move to the election of these two positions and they do require a second. So, a motion to elect Commissioner Gering for the position of chairperson for the 2024 calendar year commencing with the current meeting date. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** I second. [00:00] **Chair Miller:** All in favor say "I." [00:00] **Commissioners:** I. [00:00] **Commissioner Gering:** And I’ll make a motion to elect Commissioner Miller for the position of Vice Chairperson for the 2024 calendar year commencing with the current date. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** I'll second. [00:00] **Chair Gering:** All in favor say "I." [00:00] **Commissioners:** I. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** So, congratulations to the new leadership. [00:00] **Chair Gering:** Thank you, congratulations. [00:00] **Vice Chair Miller:** Thank you, thank you all. [00:00] **Chair Gering:** You want to close out the meeting? I guess we can, my favorite part of cross-collaboration. We’ll close out the meeting with some updates. I think first up is our staff liaison updates and Community Development update. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** Yes, just couple quick updates. The park system plan update is underway. Following an RFP solicitation in Fall, the city signed a contract with SRF Consulting in January to help the city update the plan. A kickoff meeting occurred in mid-January and the consultant is now working to comb through previous planning efforts and data. Community engagement efforts will start to pop up, such as online surveys and conversations with community event attendees. The consultant also plans to present to the EMC at some point during the project. [00:00] **Hannah Dunn:** And then an update about the 3M PFAS settlement. I reached out to Monica Stigler, who's previously presented at the EMC. She told me that there's been some updates, so I was able to find a document with some January 2024 updates. Priority 2 funding will be a two-part grant application. There will be a letter of intent for funding due late spring of 2024, and then the full grant application will be due fall of 2024. Throughout winter of 2024 and 2025, applicants will be notified and then projects will officially get underway next spring, 2025. So now's a probably good time to start brainstorming potential projects. I'll follow up after this meeting and send that document that I found on their settlement webpage so that can help inform potential grant application ideas. Hopefully, Monica will be able to present more details at an upcoming meeting, but wanted to give you that quick update. [00:00] **Chair Gering:** Great, thank you. All right, moving on to any updates from our commissioners? [00:00] **Vice Chair Miller:** I do have a couple of updates. One that I just got today—that there is a Solar on Public Buildings grant program for the state of Minnesota and tribal nations and local government cities to provide grants for solar on their public buildings. There will be a webinar on Thursday, February 22nd, provided by the Minnesota Department of Commerce. So I'm planning to sit in on that. [00:00] **Vice Chair Miller:** And the other one, on a personal note—I was looking back through my records and I was initially appointed to this commission in 2004. So this is my 20th year on the commission, and I think 17 years of chairing. And so, it's good to pass the baton this year, but looking forward to being the Vice Chair and continuing the work of this commission, which I am proud to be a part of. [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** I feel like we may need a Chair Emeritus badge or something for formerly Chair Miller. No, we're very grateful for your commitment to Oakdale on this commission and your passion for all this work. So thank you. [00:00] **Chair Gering:** Any other commissioner updates? Hearing none, I will invite council liaison updates from Mayor Zabel. [00:00] **Mayor Kevin Zabel:** Thank you everybody. You guys had quite the agenda tonight; lots on there, but just goes to show how much is happening in our community. From the city council, not too much other than a slew of development activity to start off the new year. The city adopted our 2024 budget. Some high points in there: hiring three more police officers this year, an additional worker for Public Works, continuing our transition to using cash instead of bonds for our vehicle purchases, and another year of cutting our tax rate as a city. Obviously, a big part of our budget is determined by property values, and as we all saw, values went up yet again in 2023. Because of that, we were able to cut our tax rate for, I believe, the fourth year in a row. Other than that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. [00:00] **Commissioner Yang:** I have a question because right now the home energy audit is a pilot project, correct? What would it take for it to become a more permanent project? Does that mean like the money being used up or the number of residents expressing interest? [00:00] **Mayor Kevin Zabel:** No, when the City Council discussed it, we recognize it's a new program for our community, so understanding the interest level amongst our residents is important. Since we are dedicating funding to it, we want to make sure it's being utilized but also that the improvements are being made in our resident properties as well. For the funding we approved, it's about 100 residents that'll be able to take advantage of it. I think that the council felt that that was a good sample size for us to get an understanding of what works in terms of promotion and communication. We are open to growth, but based on the usage statistics from other cities, it seemed like around 100 was pretty consistent. We'll give it a go and we'll see how it turns out. [00:00] **Vice Chair Miller:** Well, just a follow-up question: something you said—so for the residents that are utilizing the program, CEE does share which ones do go through with the improvements then and which don't? [00:00] **Mayor Kevin Zabel:** They share top-level information. I don't think it gets down to property specific, but we do get that high-level data. [00:00] **Chair Gering:** Commissioners, any other questions tonight? [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** I was just wondering—you mentioned the Public Works project. Is there a rough timeline for that for the new Public Works campus? [00:00] **Mayor Kevin Zabel:** I believe we're still on track for groundbreaking this spring. I'm looking at our Community Development Director [Andrew Gitzlaff]... [00:00] **Andrew Gitzlaff:** That's for the environmental piece, and then summer for the building. [00:00] **Mayor Kevin Zabel:** I knew he'd have the answer. Yeah, there is some remediation that has to be done on the site and I know the city is working through the tree inventory right now, so it's kind of a longer process, but we want to make sure all the pieces fall into place. But I think the vision is still that it would be done sometime next year. It has been delayed just a little bit working with our partner on the land donation, and we expected that, so nothing to be concerned about but it is moving forward. Great. [00:00] **Mayor Kevin Zabel:** All right, well I will stick around till after if you have any questions that you didn't want to ask on camera. Thank you. [00:00] **Chair Gering:** All right, well I will be looking for a motion to adjourn the February 12th meeting of the Environmental Management Commission. [00:00] **Vice Chair Miller:** So moved. [00:00] **Chair Gering:** Is there a second? [00:00] **Commissioner Durle:** Second. [00:00] **Chair Gering:** All in favor of adjourning the February 12th Environmental Management Commission meeting say "I." [00:00] **Commissioners:** I. [00:00] **Chair Gering:** Opposed? Meeting adjourned.