[0:52] Okay, roll call. Chair Hendrickson. Present. Commissioner Furman. Present. Commissioner Fenton. Here. Commissioner Johnston. Present. Commissioner Vargas.

[1:10] And Commissioner Clark is indicated that he will no longer be with the commission. Staff recognizes a quorum.

[1:21] No public comments have been submitted.

[1:28] Okay. Consent agenda approval of the minutes from the regular sustainability bill.

[1:33] committee meeting held on August 6th, 2026.

[1:38] Everybody have a chance to read?

[1:40] Yeah.

[1:41] Okay.

[1:42] Who would like to make a motion?

[1:47] My button doesn't work.

[1:48] I will move to accept the minutes as written.

[1:53] I second.

[1:55] All right.

[1:56] The minutes from the August 6th, 2026 meeting have been approved.

[2:10] All right.

[2:12] Any?

[2:15] Any?

[2:15] Nope.

[2:16] All right.

[2:17] And it has passed.

[2:34] All right.

[2:34] Right now.

[2:36] If one hold an office election to a point of ice chair to the sustainability commission for

[2:42] 2016-26-2021.

[2:44] 7.

[3:01] Staff has noted that Commissioner Vargas showed at 6.05 p.m.

[3:32] Okay, so as I had mentioned

[3:34] in the email that went out earlier this week at the, and I've already forgotten, data

[3:41] believe is the August 18th City Council meeting, the Council had elected or had appointed

[3:48] Commissioner Hendrickson as Chair of the Sustainability Commission. So that being said, we now need

[3:54] device here. So I will open the floor for nominations.

[4:07] Annominate to your tricky fenton.

[4:13] I second that nomination.

[4:21] Anybody want to

[4:22] self-nominate? Anybody want to nominate anybody else?

[4:31] Okay, we're good to go. Are you willing?

[4:34] Yeah. Okay. All right

[4:50] then. Let us.

[4:52] Yeah, it's a time to like hold the

[4:54] All right, anybody want to.

[5:00] Put this out as as as a yet. What do you have to say? Spit it out. Resolution. Do we have, is it a resolution or how do we, or do we just vote on it? You can vote. I'm trying to think what's. Yeah. How's the right way of putting this.

[5:24] Actually, that's what it is. Is that what is just. In other words.

[5:30] if I have the the sequence correctly, um, nomination accepted nomination, um,

[5:42] seconded of the motion,

[5:44] and then now there's the call to vote. Okay, call to vote. All of those who say yay to

[5:51] to Trixie Fenton being vice chair, say, yay, yay, yay, all right, any nays?

[6:01] You can't say that, Trixie.

[6:02] All right, Trixie Fenton, the motion is passed and Trixie Fenton is the vice chair of sustainability commission.

[6:11] Welcome.

[6:13] I'd also really like to acknowledge all the great work that Sandy Furman has done

[6:18] And as chair over the years and how delighted we are to have, still have her participation.

[6:26] So as we are changing the gavel over, thank you for everything that you're very welcome

[6:35] and thank you to.

[6:36] Yeah.

[6:36] And thanks for always your help.

[6:48] All right.

[6:48] Update non-going discussion about drop conditions and restrictions, purple air monitor,

[6:59] air

[7:00] Did I? Wow. I didn't move the slides back up in the correct order, but they're in here.

[7:05] They're in here. So what we'll get through this. Okay, so what you're seeing here is the most

[7:10] current information provided by the frame. So in comparison to last month's meeting, you'll see

[7:18] that while last month we did receive quite a lot of rain, we didn't receive nearly as much

[7:22] this month and it does show, especially there in the Northern Panhandle area. But in our area,

[7:28] We've got a little bit severe rating to have normally to moderately dry.

[7:37] The estimated population in drought area increased by a little over a thousand, actually approximately

[7:43] thousands, just under a thousand water

[7:53] levels.

[7:53] We are still near the top of the conservation pool, so we're still sitting at least close

[7:58] to a hundred percent, if not quite at a hundred percent, thankfully.

[8:04] And then, in terms of cubic feet per second and the MSL, fairly consistent numbers, however,

[8:15] this was updated on the 19th and the previous one I believe was, let me see, on the 4th.

[8:20] So not quite a much of a time variance between the two, which might explain why there hasn't

[8:25] been more of a change between them.

[8:28] But essentially, kind of in the same areas, stage two critical drought, the area is still,

[8:32] I believe in stage three, if I'm correctly, at least from the last city council meeting.

[8:39] We were still in stage three draw conditions.

[8:43] Looking at historical data down at the bottom, again, we're still showing our reservoir

[8:49] information at 100%, significantly better to where we were a year ago at this time.

[8:56] So thank goodness for that.

[9:01] And then this is just the comparison to last month's information.

[9:04] Purple

[9:08] air monitoring 61, so we're still in that moderate range, and again, the monitor

[9:14] is actually in the enclosed parking area within the PD building,

[9:24] comparison last month's

[9:26] number fairly

[9:31] similar.

[9:37] Oh, let me go back up to the proper slide.

[9:40] I

[9:42] believe that's right one.

[9:44] Oh, yes, okay, there we go.

[9:46] Update

[9:51] and discussion regarding current status and continuing efforts for the City of

[9:56] as International Dark Sky Association Community Cert.

[10:00] Application, application. Okay, so little and there's not even like an individual slide for this, so it's just kind of kind of discussion. Little has changed since the last update back in, I believe, May was the last time the commission discussed it. Basically, what had happened was during in April, city council meeting, the council had voted to continue the city's efforts to continue,

[10:29] dark skies of policies or in the words essentially the lighting ordinances within the zoning section,

[10:39] section two of the UDC. What had been the big sticking point in the past kind of keeping us

[10:47] from getting that final certification was largely sign illumination policies regarding after-hours.

[10:56] Essentially what it had come down to is many of the commercial properties within the city were not willing to kind of bend in that direction and the council kind of reflected that that standing as a result talking with the dark sky or international dark sky association what they had what they had offered was the possibility of a pilot program for I believe it was called night sky communities.

[11:25] where it was basically in that direction but kind of a lighter qualification in order to

[11:32] be able to have some form of dark sky association certification in order to be able to keep

[11:39] those ordinances within our UDC, you know, within what the state allows.

[11:45] Reaching out to international dark sky association, there are still in the processes of actually

[11:51] kind of nilling down what that pilot program is going to look like.

[11:54] So unfortunately, I don't have a lot new to say in terms of progress, you know, outside of we're still in contact with them, they're still in the process of trying to actually, you know,

[12:05] hammer out what those what those policies are going to be in order to achieve certification, get back to us, make it kind of an official thing so we can kind of finish out what's going to what's going to happen with that.

[12:17] As far as actual individual changes between what's required for the dark sky association

[12:25] and the night sky community certification, I am unaware.

[12:29] So we'll have to see what those are whenever they actually have that certified or approved.

[12:36] I have a quick question about that.

[12:38] So are we taking our own independent action regardless of, or are we just in a wait and hold

[12:50] position with this? And my question is really coming from, you know, the whole thing about

[12:55] signage is, is I am sure there is some depreciation schedule that that signage is on from the install,

[13:06] And if, whether they have seven-year straight line depreciation or what have you, would we be looking at when that depreciation expires to be able to maybe either make an incentive program to have somebody change what that signage is so that we could have a transition period to something else?

[13:28] or some type of movement there, just because they were unable and willing to make change,

[13:37] I get the depreciation, the value of that depreciation for that.

[13:43] But if we're looking at commercial depreciation, could we say at the end of that commercial depreciation

[13:49] period, we are going to offer some sort of incentive for them to make a change?

[13:55] I'm unaware of any, I guess, of any of outreach to achieve that.

[14:02] What are, what are current, current ordinance to say essentially, in other words,

[14:07] what, what the Darsky certification had requested or had, is it one of their essential

[14:13] outline elements was to turn off illumination after hours.

[14:19] in other words, whenever the service structure was no longer occupied, excuse me, signage would

[14:28] be shut off.

[14:34] What is actually in our UDC currently is that the light output is actually reduced to

[14:42] a certain amount.

[14:43] I believe it's 1,000 nits, past a certain point,

[14:50] and that's about it.

[14:51] Now, as far as what occurs whenever signage is replaced, replace...

[15:00] Government of any signage are essentially required as a new permit,

[15:05] and new permits are required to adhere to current UDC policies. So there's no,

[15:13] there's no vesting as far as that's concerned.

[15:21] What that'll do is, you know, for example, say company A undergoes a branding change.

[15:29] In other words, same property owner, same franchisee, but the logo has changed for some

[15:38] reason.

[15:39] It's been updated.

[15:39] They've changed the colors on it.

[15:41] It might have a different advancement like that.

[15:43] Whenever they go in to reface that sign, they have to bring them so they have to bring

[15:46] sign up to the current signage code, which includes some portion of lighting policy.

[15:55] Likewise, if you have a change of ownership and they have to change out the face of the

[15:59] sign for literally a new information going up, they would have to do the same.

[16:06] So that's kind of blanket across all properties.

[16:11] Kind of repeating what I said earlier, I don't believe we've offered any kind of incentive

[16:15] for doing so. So staff might look into that.

[16:18] Yeah, because let's say I'm ABC company and I've had my signage since 1994, I'm feeling

[16:27] pretty sexy about it and I'm not feeling any need to change it. Now, had that depreciation

[16:34] already expired on it, you're not getting that tax credit, if we are connecting some sort

[16:41] incentive, financial incentive with a sustainability outcome, right, that says, hey, you've had that sign since 1994, you no longer have depreciation value, right, that you're writing that off of your taxes.

[16:59] What if we connected that spend with some sort of tax credit so that it brings you in line?

[17:09] with the sustainability standards. It is an incentive for them to upgrade, make that change,

[17:19] and connecting the financial incentive to move off of that sign they've had since 1994.

[17:28] All right, so that we're putting together the financial qualifications in order to move our sustainability efforts forward,

[17:37] it in this case for International Dark Sky Association certification.

[17:44] Okay, I'm not certain if the city can, city itself can necessarily extend that possibly.

[17:53] That might require talks with the EDC, the Economic Development Corporation.

[17:58] So we could possibly reach out to that staff and see if there's something that can be done

[18:03] for those purposes.

[18:03] Yeah, so this is kind of a standard thing with other communities.

[18:08] And so there's examples.

[18:09] This is not breaking new ground, other than perhaps breaking new ground here in pewda.

[18:15] But that sort of, if you, let's say we look at any of these, I just unfortunately had to

[18:23] change my HVAC unit.

[18:25] And I'm going to get $600 from the state for having energy efficiency go up.

[18:31] And then there's like another $300, that's going to come from PEC, right?

[18:37] You go and get these things that are like energy star certified and such.

[18:42] There was a financial incentive that went along for you to upgrade to new equipment that

[18:52] was more energy efficient, right?

[18:54] And what I'm suggesting is that we tie those together with the idea that, hey, if we're

[19:02] taking these really out of date type of, whether it's from energy usage, whether it's light

[19:10] pollution, whatever it may be, and tie that incentive so that companies, right, and so they'll

[19:18] achieve that benefit, right? Financial incentive. And then of course, they'll also have the depreciation

[19:25] again on whatever thing knew that they have. So tying those things and thinking about it like an

[19:32] energy store.

[19:40] I think in our current UDC it has some sort of a clause I think where you have to,

[19:47] If you have to replace a fixture, because it becomes effective no longer works, you have to comply with the new standards.

[20:00] Is that my understanding that correctly? I'll have to see. For public lighting, yes. For private, I can't recall. If that's part of, I believe it is. I mean, I'll phrase it this way. Under kind of similar circumstances, whenever you have a change out of ownership or a new use, they essentially have to go through some form of development process again. Yes, that does kick it in. Certainly anything that would require a site plan would require.

[20:29] or new photometrics, that would come in a question when it would come down to any individual

[20:38] external fixtures. Again, I'm not certain if it does call for that or not.

[20:44] Okay, so let's, another scenario. What about this new HEB that's going in over there off

[20:51] an old San Antonio? Will they be complying with the newest UDC on lighting provisions?

[21:01] I'll have to look at their agreement to see if they're if they're vested to an older policy or not.

[21:08] I'll have to find out, you know, and I'll be.

[21:10] HB has a strong sustainability department and there are direct officials over there that you can do outreach to.

[21:31] Which I'll be able to find that pretty quickly actually because that's I mean that those that site plan is currently under review.

[21:38] So, I can actually ask the individual if that is reviewing it, which UDC are they going under current or a previous,

[21:45] you know, or perhaps something else, but yeah, I'm actually not quite certain which one they're being reviewed under.

[22:09] Discussion regarding the Sustainability Commission Plan of Action for 2026, 2027.

[22:26] So something, and this is kind of tied together with a commission requested to come in from the

[22:32] pre-use meeting, but just in general, one thing that kind of needs to happen between now and

[22:38] at least early next years, we kind of need to get back on track and actually setting aside our

[22:45] creating goals for what's happening in the future. And admittedly throughout the course of 2026,

[22:53] We, when I say we, I don't necessarily mean, you know, just in general that we've had

[22:59] kind of a hard time keeping on track with that.

[23:01] So we're going to kind of strive to sort of get back on that.

[23:05] So in general, in terms of plan of action, what we're kind of looking for is, at least on

[23:10] the staff side of things, adherence to strategies and goals that are outlined in MUDA strategic

[23:18] documentation.

[23:19] That being said, I'm not sure if you all have actually seen that individually other than

[23:25] what might have been published by the council itself, so what I can do after this meeting

[23:28] is actually send that out to the group, so everyone can see it and I might highlight the things

[23:33] that are probably are more like sustainability centered.

[23:38] For example, you see here under the Hayes art competition, the monarch pledges one of those

[23:46] things that actually is a outlist, is listed as one of those goals we're supposed to do,

[23:51] dark sky, obviously for example.

[23:56] So I'll do that and we'll kind of use that as a basis

[24:00] to kind of assemble this plan of action over the course of the next couple of meetings.

[24:04] So perhaps during the next meeting I can or staff could put together a what

[24:13] is the term

[24:13] I'm looking for, a work session to have that we can actually kind of discuss what things we might

[24:18] want to look at for that. And what you see here on this slide is just a couple of events

[24:23] to kind of consider on that. And I also probably should have actually put this next to it.

[24:29] But I had these kind of carried over from the last month in terms of some of the events

[24:34] we're looking at for the rest of the year. But a few that I wanted to highlight, of course,

[24:41] Texas Arbor Day, 1st Friday of November, so probably will get drafted between now in

[24:49] the next meeting is a proclamation so that we can actually get that to administrative

[24:54] staff and see if we can have something for that 1st Friday.

[25:01] And that being said,

[25:05] if the commission is up to it, I propose that we perhaps have another meeting in October for that reason that we can kind of agree on things before anything is actually handed over for city council to consider.

[25:22] Outside of that, I believe two meetings ago, I had mentioned the Great Texas River annual fall or spring river cleanup. They do one in October and one on March.

[25:34] And I apologize because that kind of gives us short notice for the October 3rd one.

[25:40] The staff has reached out to Texas State University kind of inquiring some more information

[25:46] about this.

[25:47] What kind of events they might have as far as the third just kind of getting a feel from

[25:54] the group might you be interested for any kind of October participation again.

[25:59] Again, I do realize that that's come out very quickly if we are.

[26:04] So what ended up happening is, again,

[26:07] an October 1st meeting where we might kind of list out what they have available that the state of the commission and

[26:14] or the public might be involved in and actually vote what we might want to be involved with on those.

[26:23] Staff might also have to reach out to crowds and see if we can post on social media what events.

[26:29] the beauty community might be able to get involved with that for October 3rd.

[26:34] So even if October 3rd is maybe a little too close, again, they also have a spring entry for essentially the same activities.

[26:48] I know that October 3rd does not work for me personally, but if this could be a hurry up for others and somebody would want to participate and take that under their belt.

[27:02] Great. If not, we'd head up for the March activity.

[27:13] I already know that the October one can't work for me, but the March one, what I like about that is that we could, and I'm not, I've not been real thrilled about our trash off.

[27:28] Yeah.

[27:28] So, like, let's put our beans into this river clean up instead, anyway, that was my thought

[27:34] on it.

[27:39] Yeah, I like that idea, especially because March is, I mean, not that close, but close

[27:45] to April to where if we do have something going on for Earth Day and everything, like,

[27:50] and we go to this event, we could kind of start spreading that around as well, because I

[27:54] mean Sam Marcus is right there, and I'm sure there'll be other haze people there and

[27:58] what not, but yeah, I agree, March.

[28:01] Yeah, and I'd like to reinvent what Earth Week looks like.

[28:05] I think that's much more, and when we have our work sessions,

[28:09] it's much more communicative rather than performative in this sense of trying to

[28:17] get people involved and clean up and such.

[28:20] I think that if we can communicate one that we exist here,

[28:24] what are sustainability policies? What does, you know, be monarch and pollinator mean?

[28:32] Right? Why do we count old growth trees? Right. Even if we just had it as a big FAQ,

[28:43] what does this city do? Why are we doing that? Why do you see people doing it? Why do we give away

[28:48] little trees on Arbor Day? Why, like, just why? Right? What are these purple ear monitors?

[28:56] What do they do? Right? Why do we tell you we're in stage three drought? It rained

[29:02] last week. How do we measure those things? These are the kinds of truly confusing oftentimes

[29:10] have like service messages and if we could personally communicate these in some way around

[29:19] community oriented engagement, I think we could make something not only really successful

[29:27] from a communication standpoint, but really fun, you know, I'd like to see that.

[29:37] I love that idea because I do think like you kind of touched on people will probably feel like they don't really want to go pick up trash.

[29:46] I don't know. I mean, I think it's great and everything. Yeah, but like, I think if it is like more of like, I don't know like a form or something, something fun where you're like learning and everything kids could find it very entertaining.

[30:00] The parents there and everything and whatnot, but I think there would be a much better turnout was something like that versus the trash off, especially because it's always so hot during that time. Yeah, where it's like really early in the morning, and I'm sure we were like, no, it's like Saturday. I'm not going to go to 100%. The other thing I was thinking about, I know this sounds crazy, but I really like it is I would love to have like a display with an amp farm. One, because no child is going to bypass it.

[30:29] And two, like it's an open-door conversation around almost everything we need to talk

[30:37] about, water, soil health, trees, right, all the things that we talk about here could

[30:47] really come together, even with just a simple display, weirdly enough, like an amplifier.

[30:53] I'm sorry, I gave that to my niece when they were young.

[30:55] my sister was gonna like murder me, but they loved it as like one of their favorite little gifts,

[31:01] you know, because you just watch it. I think like we could, if we have displays like just simple

[31:07] little things like that could be really awful.

[31:14] Yeah, I love that ant farm idea and I've seen other

[31:18] display ideas as well like I know that there's something that you can like put together to like kind of

[31:23] show like the dark skies and everything, you know, and I'm sure it's kind of like an easy project to

[31:29] throw together or whatever, but I'm sure there's like different displays that we could

[31:33] think about until the time comes and get prepared for and I think it will make everybody

[31:40] very excited.

[31:41] Right.

[31:42] I think we can do some really creative low cost things that help express, you know, the

[31:51] interconnectedness of these different things that we do and also put it in like an FAQ

[31:57] type of situation where people ask questions and where we get to answer them. Why do it? Why does

[32:06] this look like this? Why does this city do this? What gets provided? Hey, there's a purple

[32:11] air monitor. If you see it around town, number one, don't touch it and take it. Number two, right?

[32:16] This is what it's there for. That's what it does.

[32:25] So, when we have our work plan, just putting

[32:27] together to like solidify what that looks like, right? And also in the work plan,

[32:34] as you can put that together for that day, is what would be our budget for some of these

[32:39] events? Because I'd like to organize, hey, here's active events where we're engaging

[32:45] with the community. These are some other activities or planning things that we would like to see

[32:53] inside, inside of conversation points, so we can segment out where resources go, you know,

[33:02] because we haven't really been, hey, we've got a budget and we'd really like to do all these

[33:07] things. What would be our budget if we're putting together the annual plan for the activities

[33:13] that we would like to do, you know? And also things on that work plan as well as having

[33:22] having your staff, not our staff, your staff go out and talk to H.O.A.s about water,

[33:30] about grass, about all the things that we've been talking about. I don't know about y'all,

[33:35] I still work full time all the time. So I got to write that, how do we formulate that next

[33:43] level of looking at water conservation, and what can we do?

[33:51] All right, so I'd love to see that for 2027 as well.

[33:57] Yes, I totally agree with that, especially with all the new developments that we have coming and everything.

[34:03] I think it's very pertinent right now.

[34:06] And listen, you know, just put my sustainability hat on from my background.

[34:11] There's four areas in everybody's sustainability,

[34:16] that you know, plan that you look at as what we talk about.

[34:20] There's waste, our TDS, things that we engage with

[34:25] and ask about our site.

[34:26] There's water, which is obviously a huge thing going on now.

[34:30] It's not even people living here, it's a data center, right?

[34:34] So we have waste water toxins, right?

[34:37] Hey, we're going to be making batteries.

[34:40] and from that manufacturing plant, what happens to the waste? Right? We've got toxins that are going out and the last one is energy.

[34:52] These are the four things that everybody deals with waste, water, toxins, and energy.

[34:57] And that's across hatching.

[35:00] When we're talking about programs or making impactful changes, those are the areas that we're talking about. Okay? So I'd like for us to think about that in the work.

[35:30] Turn that on. Kind of report on recent developments with TDS. As of October 1st, in addition to your 10 paper or lawn bags, you may request a 96-gallon TDS green waste cart.

[35:46] And as I understand it, what these will essentially do is they'll alternate with the recycling bin.

[35:58] That is correct. That's their current service. One week, they pick up recycling. Next week,

[36:03] they pick up green waste. Every week, they pick up trash. That's the current service.

[36:08] Okay.

[36:12] And I believe this should be posted to social media pretty well, obviously, before

[36:19] or talk to me first, but pretty soon.

[36:26] I have a question.

[36:27] Did this come about because of the new contract

[36:30] that got negotiated?

[36:32] I believe it did.

[36:36] Can we currently request paper lawn bags?

[36:41] I didn't know that.

[36:42] I know, but it looks like this.

[36:46] In addition to, you may request,

[36:49] I'm like, that way I read it implies

[36:53] You can request paper long bags. I don't think they supply, I'm no.

[36:58] Anybody have a camera seeing that?

[37:00] Yeah, I also believe in addition to the, and I think I have the weeks correct on this, but I think in addition to the green waste picket pickup, you can have flattened cardboard for pickup as well on the green waste week, I think.

[37:24] I did not put cardboard in my recycling bin.

[37:29] I mean, it has to be bound, but I think that's correct.

[37:32] I might check on that to be certain.

[37:34] If we could do that, and not to be a crank on this, but what items go in green waste?

[37:42] The no, not in green waste and then showing the trash and having the same color is not helpful?

[37:49] I think if we add no, I mean it's confusing and this is one of the problems for so many

[37:56] people who just put things willy-nilly because they just don't want to look to figure it

[38:05] out. I would add a third column, I wouldn't call it trash, I call it landfill so that people

[38:12] connect the idea that there is no such thing as garbage, by the way, it just goes into landfill

[38:19] in your water, right? All the things that go in that count as trash, plastic line paper

[38:28] products that cannot be recycled, that goes into your waste stream, right? Wooden furniture

[38:36] that that should be hauled off or you get that in your one time, right? Because pretty much

[38:42] your wooden furniture done and fit into your trash bin, do you know, right? No, not

[38:49] green waste, plastic bags and food scraps, right? That's hard for people to understand

[38:54] that could be compost and food scraps. So if we added, here's what goes in landfill

[39:02] and what is trash, right, goes in here. These are the things that go in green waste and these

[39:11] are the things that recycle. Yes, yes, yes.

[39:19] Because no, not in green waste, but then the trash can

[39:23] doesn't, yes, I get that there's a black top and such. But it doesn't, it needs clarification

[39:34] if you're asking me. Agreed? Or am I just not that smart?

[39:39] you're talking about TDS is I don't know what it's not a meme but you know what I'm talking about the graphic yeah yeah it's it's really it's one of those what's

[39:53] different about these two pictures I'm like okay what's different about them what's different oh the lids are a different color that's all

[40:00] All. Like, oh, that's hard. Make it. Right. Make it simple for me.

[40:07] Right. Let's make these things simple for people to be able to be in compliance.

[40:21] I do see you can put pizza boxes in the greenways. I never would have guessed that. You can't put the dirty side, the greasy side has to go into landfill. The pizza box portion that does not have grease can go into the

[40:37] recycling so if your pizza hasn't touched the top of the box you can tear the

[40:42] top off and put that in for recycling and however the greasy part no does. They

[40:52] must be taken apart. But look here at their graphic I'll say in a food soiled

[41:00] paper they will let you put that in the green way. We're not talking recycling

[41:06] That's the first I've noticed that, that they've allowed that.

[41:10] Maybe they've had it before.

[41:11] I'm just in tea bags, but what's really interesting is I don't have a green waste, you know,

[41:20] trolley.

[41:21] I just put our green waste in, you know, paper bags, so, yeah, this is interesting.

[41:30] Yeah, their waste wizard.

[41:33] Their waste wizard does have a

[41:34] petriva greasy pizza box.

[41:38] And green waste.

[41:51] I have one of these green waste bins.

[41:54] Yeah, I don't know why we got one.

[41:57] I think I just said yes.

[41:59] I opted in, you know, six years ago,

[42:01] but I don't think I was ever asked.

[42:04] We've been at our place forever, right?

[42:05] You've been there longer.

[42:07] Yeah, yeah.

[42:08] I think it had just come up,

[42:09] But we're one of the few people in our neighborhood that asked what most people put out the paper bags.

[42:16] Yeah, that's interesting.

[42:26] Anybody else? Do we need to make a motion about these things?

[42:30] So we, or this is just commentary?

[42:34] Yeah, this is just report.

[42:39] Sorry, I just have a question because it seems like that waste wizard has a lot more

[42:44] information outside of like these graphics and everything. So whenever, I don't know if they've

[42:49] released like this memo on social media or not but can they like conclude that QR code as well

[42:55] since it seems like there's way more info on there and like what you can do with green waste

[43:03] and everything like that little QR code at the bottom. I don't know if that's something they can

[43:08] snip and put on social media also.

[43:12] I can find out because yeah I'm not sure necessarily where

[43:17] these images are going to, well, I say that, I would not be shocked at all. These probably will go out as a mailer. I'm not certain if they might go out as part of utility services, or I mean literally just straight directly from TDS.

[43:35] I also haven't seen what they intend to post on Facebook. I just know that they will, but I wouldn't be shocked if that will show up on there.

[44:03] So, getting in touch with the crads department a little bit as well as city parks.

[44:12] Parks is in charge of Buddha Halloween and we do have a booth reserved for that.

[44:19] So what's going to have to happen, you know, again, between now and the next meeting is

[44:24] kind of putting together what we might want to do.

[44:27] So, I staff will also need to get with crowds a little bit and see if there's anything in particular that they would encourage us to actually post as far as any social media or any outreach on those terms as far as what the commission members of the commission that might want to have at the booth.

[44:50] I would ask that you start brainstorming, for example, conservation day seeds were brought

[44:57] That'd be, that'd be fantastic.

[45:01] I might reach out and see if there were any kind of other pamphlets that we might have, that we could take to that. But start kind of considering because, yep, we have it. We have a booth. We're going to be there.

[45:17] And maybe these are some of the days where we have, like, okay, just go with me on it. We invite TDS to come and bring some of the scariest things that they've ever found in the landfill.

[45:28] And we can make a really scary, you know, kind of a Halloween like this is a tear, is this trick or tree?

[45:37] Here you can have candy or you can have this garbage that's going to go in your water. It would be horrendous, right?

[45:46] Maybe they could do something interesting like that. I don't know. Things scare me in the environment.

[45:52] right? Honestly, I love that

[45:55] idea since the whole green

[45:56] waste thing is like I guess

[45:58] enacted October 1st, but I

[46:01] guess it's already been

[46:01] happening. Whatever, but

[46:03] regardless, we can tie that

[46:05] in as well and be like. Also,

[46:08] you can get this green waste

[46:09] bin and whatever because I had

[46:11] no idea that was even y'all

[46:12] that you don't put things

[46:13] in recycling scares us. Right?

[46:16] You can have some kind of

[46:18] like something fun. Listen,

[46:20] and let's have it be fun. People will learn something, it'll be fun. Right?

[46:28] There's like, look at this extra filth that TDS got to bring and show it here today.

[46:34] I don't know what it's going to be but it could be like bat and hilarious and then you can show

[46:38] like, hey, you could do these other things and then of course give out candy which is terrible for

[46:43] But, but something wonderful and fun, right, and educational.

[46:50] Yes, I was just thinking we could like make these different bins like into monsters or something,

[46:56] like make them cute and fun. I don't know.

[47:00] I like cute and fun monsters. Let's do that. That sounds great.

[47:04] You know, just something that like you could help the kids and help, right? Just get the point across.

[47:18] Another couple of events that Parks have pointed out that they run, but a holiday of lights, I'm not quite certain what we might want for that because it's not necessarily a station as just some kind of a display.

[47:34] But it is a possibility if you all can think of anything that we might want to actually have on display and then perhaps provide some information for our lights recycling program with the library.

[47:46] So think it over. Let me know if you if you if you might want to do that because now now is a good time to start kind of thinking about that and letting parks know if we want to.

[47:57] The other one was of course the conservation fair in May.

[48:03] Staff would be doing that again if the sustainability commission would as well.

[48:06] I

[48:11] think for the holiday lights, if we put like the different things that we that we talk about here would be nice to put some kind of so that when people drive by they know or walk by they know what we what kind of conversations we have.

[48:38] And that would conclude the staff report.

[48:40] Okay, commission requests for future agenda items.

[48:45] Anybody?

[48:46] I have my own.

[48:47] But anybody?

[48:48] I have a question.

[48:50] Did you see that next session is going to be like a more working session that we're

[48:53] doing in October?

[48:55] I could put together a work session presentation.

[49:00] The intent would be to go over a work plan for the 2027 year.

[49:11] I'm just wondering when we would be able to kind of plan what we're going to do for

[49:16] Buddha Halloween since it's like super close?

[49:21] Yes, that would be, I'm

[49:27] trying to think what would be perhaps the best way to do it.

[49:31] Because it would probably require, like I said, brainstorming happening at an individual

[49:37] level, compilation of those concepts at staff level and then basically deciding on those

[49:46] things at the October 1st meeting, it would have to be the timeline on that.

[49:52] So that means we have to put together our own thoughts and then be able to submit them.

[49:57] we sort them at that.

[50:00] Early October meeting, sorry about that, and because work never ends, just never ends, and then put it together so that we can have a go forward plan. Okay, so we can't make the October 1st meeting a work plan meeting instead of a commission meeting, because, anyway, that was my thought. Oh, I mean, it can be both. It can be both. Yes, in other words,

[50:28] Because the work sessions can actually occur as basically a presentation format or a discussion

[50:38] format.

[50:38] Not necessarily a formal voter action, but kind of a compilation of things.

[50:43] And then of course the regular agenda items themselves could actually have a discussion

[50:49] and vote or discussion and action items.

[50:52] So, I would have to ask if it's possible to have a work session item and then afterwards

[51:02] have an action to vote on what was discussed during the work session item or if they can

[51:09] be literally just regular agenda discussion items where the commission kind of puts these

[51:16] things together and then the decision is made then that could be a possibility as well.

[51:23] But

[51:28] regardless, you know, at an individual level, if you could please kind of let staff know if you've got anything in particular you might want.

[51:34] And we could compile.

[51:38] When would you want those things like hard stop dates so you can compile them and everything?

[51:48] I would say, let

[51:53] me see if I look at calendar here.

[52:06] If at all possible by October, dummy October, by September 23rd.

[52:37] All right, anybody else with future agenda items?

[52:44] Without mentioning a partner, there is an art partner I would like to talk to to continue

[52:51] the Hayes Art Contest that would, I think, have a little bit more pool in getting participation.

[52:58] So I would like to discuss that during our work session.

[53:09] Anybody else?

[53:11] All right.

[53:11] For myself, I would like to be able to do a debrief from New York Climate Week and then

[53:18] just share some key takeaways from being there. And if we can't fit it in for the October

[53:27] because we're so, you know, filled up, we can push that down the line and say I have a,

[53:35] you know, continuance about it. I'm okay with that if it's too much, but I just want to put on the

[53:40] record that it's something to be discussed.

[53:59] OK, anybody else?

[54:01] All right, let us move on.

[54:06] Oh, look it.

[54:07] It's a German time.

[54:11] This meeting is adjourned.

[54:13] Oh, everybody OK?

[54:15] We're doing it, because I was just going to roll with it,

[54:17] because there's tools here.

[54:19] Yes, we need a motion.

[54:24] OK, I make a motion that we end the meeting.

[54:31] I'll second the motion.

[54:32] All right. Everybody say yay. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody say nay? No people. Today's meeting of the

[54:45] sustainability commission is adjourned at 6.57pm.

[54:51] Go on with your fine cells.

Sustainability Commission

Transcript