Green Island Ice Arena Negotiating Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. It is Monday, March 10 at 04:02PM. I'll call to order this meeting of the climate action plan steering committee. We have Natalie Hennigan, Andrew Erickson, Erickson, and Steph Hanna, as well as myself here in person. All others are absent and Excused. Excused. Thank you. And, so we do have a quorum for this meeting. First up, I have the approval of last month's minutes. Any questions on last month's minutes? Okay. Then I'll ask for a motion.

Make a motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Andrew Erickson, second by Natalie Hennigan. Any discussion or comments? Okay. I see none. All those in favor of the minutes, please say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimous. Any items for notices and discussion?

Andrew. On April 3 at 7PM, we should be hosting Peter Anon for our annual Prairie Springs Lecture Series. He is the director of the Mary Greggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation at Northland College and will be giving a talk about water purification and its kinda untapped potential in water scarce areas and how that could help protect the Mississippi River and other major freshwater systems from being diverted through these outlandish proposals. Hopefully

April I'll see you third at UWL. You can find more information at uwlax.edu.

Wonderful. Thank you. Any others? Natalie. On March 27, Habitat for Humanity is hosting an event called Upgrade and Save, which is a panel slash expo for homeowners to learn about home energy upgrade, repair, incentives, and rebates, and programs. So we'll have representation from the city, from Cooley Cap, from Green Homeowners United, Excel, etcetera. So there'll be a couple panels, but mostly it's like a drop in, you know, visit with representatives from each of these groups. It's in the evening at the main branch of the library.

Excellent. Thank you. So the audience would be anyone from the community interested in learning more about home energy efficiency and how they can save money. Right? Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Lewis, did you have any items for notices and discussion? No. Thank you. Alright. With that, we'll move on then. We have 250292 request to have La Crosse Area Community Foundation administer the Youth Climate Action Fund. Do you have the MOU attached? I will have Lewis introduce the item.

In the second round of funding, we were able to work with the La Crosse Area Community Foundation to administer the grant. With the timing, the money still went to the city, but what we would do is, give the full amount to the community foundation, and they would do the administration of the grant. The steering committee would still judge the awardees, but the community foundation along with the Sustainability Institute, are hosting information sessions, ideation workshop, and grant writing webinar on on the subject. So, yes. So the the grant includes, 15,000 for, administering the grant program.

And so that would go to across community foundation. The MOU is based off of our scope of work from the first round and then also includes some language from, the city's agreement with the community foundation, when they did the administration of the ARPA funding. So yeah.

Thank you, Lewis. Any questions? Okay. I have no questions, but I am grateful that, we have the community foundation to administer this so our staff do not have to. Alright. If there are no questions, I need a motion. To approve by Andrew Erickson. Second by Natalie Hennigan. Any discussion? Alright.

Seeing none, all those in favor, please vote. Aye. And that is unanimous. Then we have resolution, 25Dash0172. Resolution to contract with Baker Tilly to help the city of La Crosse claim elective pay incentives and appropriate tax credits to fund climate action plan implementations. You have the resolution, staff report, and then the actual contract. Lewis.

This is, in following up on our energy saving performance contract with Johnson Controls. The solar panels that were installed in 2024, were on the La Crosse Center, Fire Station Number 2, and Fire Station Number 4. And the financing for those panels included the consideration of the savings and also incentives available through Focus on Energy and Xcel Energy. The, tax credits were not, factored into the financing. So even without the tax credits, the solar panels would pay for in less than twenty years.

So, this is an opportunity for the committee to use these funds to on on future climate action plan implementation. I'm estimating at least that it'll be a $175,000, depending on different factors such as, the fact that, you know, Lacrosse or the Lacrosse Center is downtown and part of a Justice 40 census tract does figure in to the, you know, potential bonus incentives, so that might be an opportunity. But yeah. So this is I mean, obviously, as a city, we don't pay taxes, so there's not a lot of IRS, interaction that, hence, we're working with accounting firm. And yeah.

So the the the the $34,250 that go towards the contract would, be repaid through the tax credits, and then every everything remaining would, go to the, the same fund that we had our Xcel Energy tax or Xcel Energy credits.

Thank you, Lewis. Questions, comments?

Andrew. To just to confirm what I think I heard. So the the $34,250 would go That's the price we're paying for Baker Tilly's services. We'd get the direct pay incentive back of $175,000 or more. That cost for Baker Tilly would go back to whatever fund that was being taken from. And then the remaining funds would stay within the climate action steering committee's purview. Yes. Great. That sounds wonderful.

Yes. That's correct.

Any other comments? I'll need a motion on that.

I'll make a motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Andrew Erickson, second by Steph Hanna. Any comments? Allow me to. When we had the last round of CIP funding for the climate action plan implementation funds, our mayor and finance department made the recommendation, not only, you know, to us, but everyone using CIP funds to implement plans like this. We're given the directive to figure out how to get it off of the climate off of the CIP program, and this does that.

And I wanna just say thank you to Lewis for doing this because this is more money, I believe, than was even, for the CIP. And so our staff is doing exactly what they were asked to do, and this is a great example of that. Can't wait to support it again. If there are no other if there's no other discussion, then I'll call the vote. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye. And that moves on. Thank you again, Lewis. 25Dash0294, request to pursue Great Lakes Environmental Justice Thriving Communities grant for energy efficient or, excuse me, the efficiency navigator program.

Initially, when I sent out this the agenda, it included a link to the municipal investment fund, and I'm I'm sorry. I got those these two confused because I was looking at them at the same time. But this is a program, let's see, that is through the I mean, it's coming from the Minneapolis Foundation, but it's actually I mean, it it's for the Great Lakes Region. And gosh. Sorry.

I'm having I couldn't open my notes. But it's there's different tiers, and the tiers are we'd be focusing on tier three to fund this efficiency navigator, and that's, assessments of healthy homes and also, you know, energy efficient upgrades to homes. So it fits really well within those categories. And I believe the funding amount is in the realm of 36 or sorry, 360,000 for a one to two year implementation window. So the idea behind this and, you know, we had talked about grant ideas last month, but what is that, this would build off of the existing program with Green Homeowners United, and we had talked about how Green Homeowners United would mostly focus on, probably one or two, dwelling unit buildings, maybe up to four.

This efficiency navigator focuses on small and medium multiunit dwellings. So, that's that's, you know, a gap that that this will cover. And then also, it's well, there's an existing program in Dane County. There it's a slight there's a slightly modified version that o Eau Claire was, pursuing, so I think we'll likely go that direction. They were using their EECBG ECGB money, for that.

So, this grant amount is is a lot higher than that. So there's a lot of potential here.

Fantastic. Natalie.

Are we voting on whether to pay for grant writers to write a grant?

Yes. Your the the vote would be to just give this give staff the go ahead to pursue this grant opportunity.

We'll just follow-up on that. This funding, as I understand, originates with the EPA. Is it in does the Minneapolis Foundation have that money?

Currently, my the information I have is that they do. Okay.

Any other questions? Okay. I'll ask for a motion.

Do you have a question?

Do you have a follow-up? You can still ask it after the motion.

Mhmm. I'll make a motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Andrew Erickson, second by Steph Hanna. Questions, Natalie.

I don't know if if this if this would mean recommending an amendment or something like that to the motion, but, I would like to guarantee that this funding is available to us and not tied up in the federal government still, before paying for time to write the grant.

That's fair. Lewis, do you have thoughts on whether you'd like an amendment to state that contingent upon availability confirmation or something?

If that's the way this if that's what the steering committee wants to do, I can that's it's doable.

Okay. I'll I'll ask staff. Luis, do you have any, like, qualms about amending it like that? No. Okay. So, Natalie, you are welcome to make an amendment.

Is there any way to actually check that for sure, though?

Good question.

For the example of the energy innovation grant program, that was a federally funded grant that was awarded to the state, and then the window for that was began in 2023 to 2024. So and then we didn't start or we didn't get the, like, award until October, and then we're not starting we didn't start until January. So while the money is coming from the federal government, it is was distributed to the state in 2023, so that's not something you can take back. There might be a similar case here.

So with what you heard from staff, it's up to the committee whether or not they wanna amend.

Natalie? So I'd like to make an amendment to the motion to approve this that, our approval is contingent on guaranteeing the Minneapolis Foundation has the funding for this grant.

Thank you. Do we have a second on that? Second by Andrew Erickson. Are there any questions on the amendment? K. I see no questions on the amendment. We need to vote on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment, please say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimously approved. Now back to the main motion motion as amended. Any other questions or discussion points? Back Thanks again, Lewis, for finding ways to fund climate action against all odds. All those in favor of the the main motion as amended, please say aye.

Aye. That is unanimous. Unanimously approved, that is. Next item on our agenda is 25 dash zero one seven zero, leadership in energy and environmental design for the Lead for Cities program update. Last month, we presented on the baseline indicators collected by the Lead for Cities program.

We do have Lewis and an intern working on data collection. Collection. There are no real comprehensive updates that I wanna provide tonight, though next month, we'll look at natural resources and ecology category. One item that jumps out to me and staff and others is that we are looking at light trespass and light pollution across the city as well as the city of La Crescent and have been in discussion about how we can put policy in, you know, into action to decrease light trespass and pollution across the the Cooley region. So we'll provide some updates on that next month, though I will state that the neighborhood revitalization committee has taken up the issue already.

So it will be a a good time for us to collaborate and provide some data, some real data for our own city as other commissions and bodies and departments take that forward. Okay. That is just a status update. If there are no questions, we'll move on. 25Dash0052. This is outreach and engagement update. Lewis, if you wanna start us off.

So Paul sent out a newsletter, on Friday, which included the announcement for the youth climate action fund and a the energy innovation grant program, in addition to the series of Instagram posts that he has been able to do since now we have permission to do that. So those were you should have gotten that newsletter Friday. And then in working with action, still preparing for the intercollegiate competition with Viterbo, UWL, and and Western Technical College. So far, I've only seen Viterbo promoting it, but I'm sure so shortly, we'll see UWL and Western. And then they're also talking about more engagement with neighborhood associations on, like, neighborhood level challenges be or, I'm sorry, like, challenges amongst neighborhood associations for, you know, making the most taking the most action on their platform.

So I've been working on introductions and, figuring out the best way to organize that as well.

Thank you, Lewis. Nelly.

How can, steering committee members share things with Paul for him to talk about? Thank you.

They can be sent to me, and then I can send them to him.

Any other questions on what Luis said? Do any committee members have updates to share? I will share briefly. Natalie and I met with to talk about c and d recycling that is construction and demolition recycling. I do have numbers that I can share next month as well, which breakdowns the amount of you know?

I I did share last month municipal solid waste and our diversion rates, and our diversion rate is sort of in limbo. It's not quite updated. But we also do have C and D recycling well, C and D landfilling in in the city. And one of the indicators that our Lead for Cities program involvement requires is how much c and d waste we have. And so as part of that step, Natalie and I met with to learn more about what CND recycling would entail and and also, collating all of the best practices of CND recycling in municipalities and local governments around the country.

So that is, you know, sort of where we're at. It's a big project. Certainly not going to have a deliverable in in one month, but just taking that first step. Any other updates? Okay.

Also, to plug, since our fearless leader, mayor Mitch Reynolds, is here, very excited for the second round of the Youth Climate Action Fund. I personally have seen a lot of, like, citizen engagement on all of the socials with regard to the Youth Climate Action Fund. So it's pretty exciting to see the second round going. And, yeah, a $100,000, and very grateful to the La Crosse Community Foundation to partner with us and administer that grant. It is a lot of work, and this will certainly help us get the the word out further.

Let's move on then to our last item, 25 dash zero two nine five, climate action plan implementation update.

Alright. In January and February, I shared or I didn't share. I had I put together a slideshow just going over what progress has been made, what, next steps I see, and then what, help, I would request from the, steering committee. And I broke it into the first five mitigation actions and then the second five adaptation actions. So I put those together in a Google Slides so they could be any sort of living document to revise and share, but those are available in your in the in the agenda.

In terms of progress since then, you know, still working on the energy innovation grant with Green Homeowners United. Hopefully, you all received in the mail, as I did, a sheet showing that or, you know, soliciting participation in the home energy audits. And, yeah, they've got their office soon to be up and running and then are looking to do a press announcement in next week. And then things are moving along with the annual residential solar purchase program with n o MREA. Dylan Constant from the county has been sort of taking the lead on soliciting members for a steering committee to and we're, you know, making sure we're getting a mix of both city and county residents.

And then he's also I I think we've got the city of Onalaska on board as well. So that's good, and we should be we'll be meeting in a couple weeks to talk about that. And that's all I've got for now.

Thank you, Lewis. Any questions from the committee? Okay. I see no questions. Thank you very much, Luis, for those updates, those slides. And, you know, next month, I should actually log in to Zoom so I can share online too if that's a barrier. But the slides with the implementation updates are very, very helpful to refer to, even throughout the month when, we're in between meetings. So thank you for putting those together. I appreciate that. Alright.

We are at our next meeting. Meetings are every second Monday at 4PM. There's been no change with that. If you have agenda items, please contact Lewis and, or myself, preferably Lewis, to communicate any agenda items that you'd like to place on the agenda. And if there is nothing else from the committee or staff, we are at the end of our meeting. If there are no objections, I will adjourn the meeting. Seeing and hearing none no objections, we are adjourned. Thank you all.