Environmental Services Division - Regular Meeting

I'm calling the meeting to order. Roll call shows member Chandler, member Grow, member Hampton, member Blair, and member Barnes in attendance. Members, Lekel and Blair are absent. Public comment for items not in the agenda. Is there anybody online?

Chair, there is no one online.

Alright. There's no public comment. Is everybody okay with the way the agenda looks, or do you have any suggest some modifications? Alright. The agenda is approved unanimously.

Approval of the minutes. Has it, does anyone have any recommended changes to the, or corrections to the minutes? Minutes are approved unanimously.

Give me one second there. You're not finding the Zoom link, so just make sure that they have it.

If not, we can just go to liaison assignments and

Yeah. That would be great.

Alright. While we're waiting for the consultants to write, we we can do a liaison assignments. So we try and liaison with, currently, with five other boards, planning and zoning, parks and recreation, transportation, public utilities, and it's not a county board, but the Los Alamos Sustainability Alliance. Does anybody have any desires to be liaison to one of these orgas I think Sue wants to be a remember, Barnes wants to be a Sustainability Alliance. Right?

Yes, chair. I already, attend those meetings, so that makes sense. I and Shannon Blair and I have worked out, co liaisoning schedule for board of public utilities for this year. So I would say that we're both willing to continue in that position. If someone has a burning desire to take on liaison positions, we could negotiate that. It's also possible, maybe even likely, that our new members don't necessarily know what liaison positions entail. Maybe you could outline that for them so that they'd understand what they're getting into.

Good idea. So our liaisons attend the other board's meetings and report back to us what happens and bring work back to us if there's if there's something they want us to do for them. It's pretty fun. I'm I'm actually on two of the other boards, transportation and planning and zoning, so I could do liaisons there. So BPU. BPU, where we don't have a liaison or someone who's attending that meeting right now, that that's probably the biggest lift. I think they they meet twice a month?

Yeah. Shannon and I are are liaisoning to them together.

I thought sustainability wise. I'm sorry.

I do I do both, but Shannon and I are also are are liaison to BPU, and we've worked out a schedule where we're doing alternate months, basically. The other thing I'd like to point out is that all of the county I believe all of these board meetings are recorded. And so if you can't actually attend one of them, for some reason, you can, you can watch the recording. You can also they're also live streamed. So you could participate, as a as a participant, as a liaison remotely if you can't make it to the meeting. Those are all options.

Thank you. So the only one we're desperate for is parks and recreation, and they meet once a month on the second Thursday.

I can help you on Parks and Rec.

Excellent. And should we make nominations?

I'm also curious not to take that away from Joe or anyone else that's interested, but sometimes it's helpful. Like, if our counselor is a liaison to another board, they could provide updates as well. I'm not sure what other board you're liaison liaising to. Oh, health council. Okay. Yeah. So not parks and rec. Ship. Okay.

Are you guys okay with me making one big nomination? I nominate member Chandler to be our liaison to the Parks and Rec board. I nominate member Barnes and member Blair to be co liaison to the Board of Public Utilities. Thank you. I nominate Member Barnes to be liaison to the Sustainability Alliance. And I nominate Member Hampton, myself, to be liaison to the Transportation Board and Planning Zone. Can I ask someone a second?

I second. All in favor?

Passes unanimously. Thanks, guys. And I see that Stantec's here, so can we go to that presentation?

Yes. Sure. Thank you for that extra minute. Okay. Good evening, Josh and Anna Lee.

Just like to welcome you to your final environmental sustainability board meeting, and we've been working on this project for almost a year now. We started last, March, and, you were recently presented the draft fleet conversion plan and the draft community wide EV charging plan. Tonight, in front of you, our consultant, Stantec, will be presenting, final updates from those plans after we gathered public comment, final revisions that were made to the plan. And then we're asking for the board's recommendation to move this forward to county council. Our county council likes to know that the boards have vetted the plans and made sure that, you know, that has board support or bore a board recommendation, either in favor or against.

They like to see what the outcome is. And then, also, I would just ask that you look at it from the eyes of it being presented to counsel. So if there's something that we should flesh out a little bit differently as it moves on to counsel for the final presentation, that would be good to know too. This is going to council March 17, and then and then it'll go to the board of public utilities April 15. So there's a little bit of a gap just because of scheduling, but, just so you know in terms of timeline what will happen with this plan.

So, I'll hand it over to Amelie to to get us going. And, so just so you have some insight what's happening in the room, we have two new board members with us tonight that they may or may not have had the chance to read the plan over the weekend. So just for some context, and then we have three of our board members who have been kind of on this journey with us throughout the process. So, yeah, I'll hand it over.

Thank you so much. Good evening, chair and board members. Can you guys hear hear us okay?

Yes.

K. Perfect. Well, thank you so much, and thanks to Helica for the introduction. We're really, really excited to present this final deliverable. We have been actively engaged with your community, your staff, and we're really proud, and excited for the outcomes of the studies.

And we also wanna thank you, all of you, for the different times where, feedback was provided. We have been trying to incorporate, to the best of our abilities within the scope that is allowing this to incorporate all of those great recommendations. And, I would like to say from my experience as a consultant, the level of engagement that we got from the different boards and the community has been really, like, an example to us. So thanks again for the opportunity to present, and for the benefit of, the the the new members, so welcome. We do have, the presentations for this time around.

It's kinda, like, focused a little bit more on, like, the main outcomes and kinda, like, critical things to highlight from the plans. There is a lot of prior meetings that we have with the different boards to go over the methodology and approach itself. So today, it will be a little bit less of that, but please feel free to ask, any questions. We'll be happy to, answer as we go. So, my name is Anna Leigh Castillo. I'm the CEO of Michigan technical lead with Stantec, and I've been serving as a project manager for the last part of this project. And I have with me presenting Josh. Josh, wanna give a quick introduction?

Hi, everyone. Yes. It's great to see many of you again, and and great to meet the new members. As Emily said, honored to be here and excited to share with you some updates on this plan.

As for the agenda of today, we'll go over a quick summary of the public comments. As Angelika mentioned, that was a a big, cornerstone and scope for approach to be able to receive, feedback and provide as much exposure to the outcomes of the study as possible. And we have of the key findings, like I mentioned, from the fleet conversion plan as well as key findings from the community wide EV charging. So I'll present, starting with the public comments. So we had a last in person community meeting that was, held on December 3.

Unfortunately, that day was, I think, one of the first days that you guys got a heavy snowfall in there. It was beautiful, for us, but I think that might hinder a little bit the attendance for the in public. However, we did had a a bit of attendance for online, people, and we overall, we received about 13 comments that were either live or through the in person meeting. There were also a period for public comments that was starting from December 3 all the way to the seventeenth. And that actually provided a full access to both reports, and there was a a form that that people could go and see and leave their comments.

And we also collected a little of feedback regarding, you know, things like additional locations, if they perceive that the goals of the both, classes that work as one were able to be accomplished. During this period, we also collected feedback from, yourselves, the council, and the board for utilities. So in total, we received about 41 comments and edits to the reports from boards and councils and also about five comments from the public through the online form. However, there was also an extensive review that we conducted with the staff. We were very lucky to have Sue Michelle.

More member Sue. Sorry, Sue. I'm spacing on the last thing. But she has been a key member on on the review process and feedback. And together between her and the staff in Los Alamos, we did about five different routes of revisions for both of the draft between the draft form and the final form.

So, we feel really, again, fortunate that there's been this level of involvement and care for this, and we feel confident that the final deliverable is also answering some of the main concerns and feedbacks throughout the different points of collection and reviews of the reports. So, we'll present to you guys today the the two final, versions of this plan, that already has incorporated all of this feedback. So on the next slide, we have, just a very quick summary. We we do have a section with the report that outlines in more detail some of the comments and and collect that information. And now we have, one of the main things during the in person board meetings, public meetings, overall just, comments left in the reports was how to better address equity across the county for the community wide EV charging plan.

Additionally, that was a bit related to it, but being able to expand the charging, sites and options in wire up. And specifically for the fleet conversion plan, the there was the need to have more actionable next steps that could guide the county, into the conversion to EV, for for this immediate future. So we'll try to focus on some of these comments through this presentation. But, overall, like I mentioned, two final reports will have the final incorporation of that. So starting in more detail with the fleet conversion plan, and just to get for the benefit of the other members, the new members, the fleet conversion plan was really focused on analyzing, the current, all the services that the county provide that have vehicles around by the county and assess the their feasibility to, sue emission.

And to that end, we analyze two implementation strategies. The first one is continue with the EV policy, which is about two, electric vehicles per year that are new, not just replacement. And if we were to continue with that strategy right now, the max, percentage of EV that will be accomplished with the fleet will be about 31% by 2050. We also analyze what we call a cap policy for the climate action plan, so it kinda will be able to align with the carbon neutrality and emission reductions goal outlined in the plan. And following this, we identified about 86% of the EV fleet to have a potential conversion by 2050.

This the reason why we didn't accomplish a 100% is because there were exemptions, due to high sensitive and specialized vehicles that are required to provide a certain level of reliability that is not currently available or feasible through some of the EV technologies. So in the next slide, you'll see this, a lot of this into some of the abstracts. This executive summary of the report. So this in here outlines the year by year conversion and number of vehicle procurements, and you can kinda see the difference between the vehicle count for the EV policy versus the cap policy. What this might be the conclusion of it, but what was behind on that was a very detailed comprehensive approach to identify a correct timing for the fleet to be able to match their operational needs with the market, accessibility and readiness as

well

as being able to comply with the county's own policies for replacement. That way, we would avoid any early retirement and try to alleviate also the the additional capital cost from some of those vehicles and the infrastructure. And in the next slide, we'll have a a financial evaluation. So in in essence, this was simulating a total cost of ownership and has the year by year cash flow between now to 2050. And the total cost of ownership, focus on everything from capital, like, the cost of the vehicles, the infrastructure, savings of fuel, potential savings in maintenance, as well key items like inflation.

So, but it's again, it might pull it down to a few, graphs, but the the background behind this was, like, quite extensive. And what is key to highlighting here that the the cap policy is about 25% higher in cost than the EV policy and a bit related, obviously, to the increased amount of EVs procurement and the charging infrastructure. And in the next slide, another key finding, oh, sorry. Before we get into that, some of the really great feedback that we collected during some of the, meetings coming from the poor public utilities, was that the savings from maintenance, seem too low, but we're assuming about a 10% savings on an EV compared to, like, a conventional vehicle. So we conducted a sensitivity analysis to evaluate what if we are less conservative and assume a higher reduction.

So we assume a 25% reduction in maintenance cost instead of, like, a 10%. Now for the EV policy, that is about, initially, if you have a 90% cost of maintenance, that is only 1% in savings when you compare it to the base case. But when you have a more, aggressive as a cost savings, that only increased to 2%. So while there is a significant, you know, the feasibility that there is gonna be, reduces in maintenance, Overall, that doesn't move the needle, extensively to the total cost of ownership in general. For the capital c, the increase, you know, we went from, and I can I put those numbers from 8% to to 4% of the of the savings?

So in essence, what we're trying to show is that with the sensitivity analysis that while maintenance is a critical component, it was not a heavy driver for the total overall, cost of ownership when compared to the base case. So in the next slide, we have, a very important component of why are we doing this is the greenhouse gas emissions. So what you see in here on the, yellow line is how we will have a normal base emissions from the current fleet if compared to the EV and the cap policy. So, the EV policy allows to save about 9.5% emissions on the accumulation between now and 2050. Because we gotta remember, like, while we're doing that transition, we're still gonna be operating conventional vehicles.

So we wanna make sure that we capture as the accumulation. With the capital, let's see. We're able to save overall 30% of accumulative emissions. In another metric was just that we showed in other in other presentations, but it's also that once that conversion is full, we are able to cut the amount of emissions that the cap policy is outlining, which why we call it the cap policy. So and then the next slide, we have the very critical for ongoing coordination with the work of the utilities and the utilities with San Jose, having an anticipation of what that power load is gonna look throughout the county.

So each of these facilities will have an increase of of power capacity, and this is mixing both the the fleet the county owned fleet, Atomic City, vehicles, in their load at those at the location as well as, count to fleet. Sorry. As long as, public available chargers. So a bit of what we're gonna see ahead with Josh is already kinda, like, put into consideration here, for the public available chargers. So this is, like, a critical piece of information and moving forward for implementation to coordinate that availability of power at the different sites, and we're gonna dive into some other metrics in in the next portion of the presentation.

And in the next slide, we have, kinda, like, responding to some of the comments to be able to have something that is more tangible and actionable in terms of implementation For the recommended vehicles, if they were to be, following the cap policy, we know how many vehicles and at what locations they go so that we're able to correlate that to where that charging infrastructure is needed. So for each of the locations that were accounted for, we can see, the number of vehicles and the period of implementation that is required, to be able to support the upcoming EVs, again, if if the capital is were to be assigned into the strategy moving forward. There are some correlations between vehicles sorry, chargers at a county on location that can be used for the community to access them as well. So that's why you see in the yellow in the blue column, how many of those vehicles between phase one and phase two, they should be implemented. Now the exact timeline for some of these community vehicles have many factors that need to be further investigate in terms of, like, just the funding prioritization in coordination with other ongoing capital projects that might be happening at these locations.

So the recommendation I was able to be if already gonna be doing installation for chargers at certain locations for the fleet to utilize that opportunity as a way to also have community available vehicles so that they can be that share infrastructure and incentivize more of the public use. And in the next slide, very overall takeaways, and I'll try not to focus too much on the, reading part. But the EV policy, basically, continue with what the county is already doing, was also allow for a reduction in greenhouse gases and does a conflict and environmental impact. But it does have a cap to only reaching about 31% of the fleet conversion. Following the cap policy, that from our perspective is very sensitive to the realities of the county, then the feasibility of of this conversion allows for higher environmental benefits just in terms of the accumulative reduction.

It reaches a way higher percentage of of fleet conversion up to 86%, but it does come with the trade off of a higher overall total cost of ownership cost that has actively continued to be, troubleshooted to close that gap, specifically with the capital higher capital of the buses and the increased, investment into the infrastructure. So, that that concludes the part with the community the fleet, piece, and I I'm guessing we'll continue going with the presentation unless there there is any burning questions. But I'll pass it off to to Jeff for the community wide part.

Great. Thank you, Annalie, and thank you, chair Hampton and members of the board. As Annalie said, if you do have any questions, feel free to jump in both on the first half or any part, moving forward as we go through some of this community wide, charging piece. I will say that, for the members of the board who are new, there's, as Annalie was pointing out, a a whole back story here that I'd love to take you through. But in the interest of time, I'll summarize really quickly, which is that this half of the project, the community wide charging piece, was done in four scenarios and across four scenarios.

And those four scenarios were at home charging when people are plugging in in their own garage, community owned, county owned charging, think, like, at at the municipal building, for example, or at the library. The third scenario was privately owned but publicly accessible charging, like one of, the Smith's locations. And then finally, the fourth scenario is DC fast charging. So really, really fast accessible charging on mostly big transit corridors, and travel corridors. And so I say this just to to give you a sense of kinda how we went about this.

In terms of the recommendations, all the recommendations are made with all of those scenarios in mind. Right? And what you're seeing on the map here for those who who aren't familiar with how this process was done, is the output of the suitability model for just one of those scenarios. This one on the screen happens to be the county owned charging scenario. So, again, charging at places like the municipal building or the library.

And the areas in here that are darker orange are areas that were rated as more suitable, based on all these datasets that we pulled into the model. And those datasets included things like land use, environmental factors like where water was running, community feedback on where people actually wanted chargers. All of these datasets were compiled into one system that was able to look at this and say, you know, these these pale orange areas out here are very, very unsuitable. And then if we could zoom in, you'd see, within these more orange areas, super dark orange areas. And those super dark orange areas are where the, recommended charging locations ended up being.

And so, again, just wanted to give you a a really high level overview of the process here, but what I'm gonna focus on now is the revisions that were made between the draft charging plan and this final charging plan, which we're excited to share with you. But if there are any other questions on kind of that backstory, please just just hop in and and let me know. So in terms of these revisions, all of them are fundamentally getting at ensuring that this these locations that are recommended are giving Los Alamos County an equitable charging plan with equitable charging. Something that we talked a lot about in previous presentations was equity for people who may not have a garage where they can do at home charging. Right?

And so one of the big revisions that we made is increasing, charging in residential areas. We'll talk about each of these three bullet points in-depth moving forward, so I'll stay at a high level here. The second one was adding more locations in White Rock, which was a bit sparse on the first draft plan, and then finally adding clarity on the prioritization of multifamily housing, which was always included in the approach and in the report, but I think the story is told much better now. And so these are all things that that I'm gonna give you a quick update on. So that first one, adding charging in residential areas, you know, originally, the the points that you see on the map here, these are the the locations that have been added since the last time that we presented.

Originally, this, the charging was very prevalent along this travel corridor and along a lot of the commercial businesses that exist there, around a lot of the multi family housing that exists there. And so there was an interest in expanding charging up into the North community here, And, and so these two locations, especially at the top in in Los Alamos proper, are, the Hilltop Shopping Center in in Urban Park. The Red Square means that that would be a privately owned charging location that the county could work with the private landowner there to, incentivize them, encourage them to provide charging. The blue circle means that this is county owned land, where the charger could be installed. The same is true down here in White Rock, but, for this slide that we're looking at in terms of adding charging in residential areas, we're really talking about these two additional locations.

The next one is the White Rock scenario, which is is that we simply expanded the charging available there. One of the biggest, highest priority locations for the community, for, for this board, for the county, for the board of public utilities was, the the White Rock, Smith's marketplace location. And so that has been added. Another one that we talked about was Overlook Park, which, not only is a a high destination for, people where they spend a lot of time there when they go, but it also, fits very well with the cap recommendation to install chargers at sports complexes, and those fields there make this location make a lot of sense. And then this third bullet point was adding clarity on the prioritization of multifamily housing, and what we wanted to show here was just give you a sense of where the parcels are that are multi family parcels, apartments and condos, and where the model found high suitability.

So what you're looking at here is a really zoomed in view of of Los Alamos, Downtown Los Alamos. We have the same view for White Rock, but in this image, we're looking at sort of the municipal building down here. These purple squares are apartments and condos and and multifamily housing parcels. And what you'll see is that where you see these specs of hyper dark orange, these are the areas that the model found to be highly suitable. And so what we're hoping to show you here is just that multifamily housing and providing charging to those who cannot charge at home has been a part of this process.

And so what this report and this revision of this report do is really tell that story a lot better and make sure that we're emphasizing that that that component, that equity is was a big part of this model. And so with those revisions noted, what we wanted to pull out here was sort of the next steps for the county. Right? So the phase one locations where chargers are recommended to be installed specifically on county owned land within the jurisdiction and the purview of the county. And so these are the locations.

You can see them spread out on the map there. These are the chargers where we have level two charges as well as at the justice centers and level three charges. Annaly was showing some of the impact on anticipated power and the associated power of each of these locations, and we've got a a relevance rating here that is basically just saying these this first grouping is slightly more relevant than the others. The relevance and the order of these is based solely on the suitability model on what we heard from the community, and how all that ties into these recommendations. And in terms of other kind of high level key next steps, we've talked about these first two a lot, streamlining the permitting process for easy installation of chargers and obviously, continuing to pursue funding, for these kinds of projects.

But, the next two, we added, we have you know, working with privately owned charging locations, showing them the suitability maps that are included in this report so that they can see why and how they are suitable locations for charging, how there's a business case, for them to be out there. And, again, kinda tying up to the first one, streamlining and permitting wherever possible for those, those locations. And then, engaging with the community. This is really about making sure that people have avenues to purchasing electric vehicles beyond just the availability of public charging. That's a key and essential first step, but what else is the county doing to incentivize that?

And, again, really high level update on this. We've got a lot of updates included in the final report that we're really excited for you all to get to see, and we're welcome the opportunity to have any questions from you now.

Thank you, miss Castillo and mister Shacht. Any questions or comments from the board? In fairness, it's a very good presentation. Very well done, you guys. And most of us have actually seen it several times in fundamentalist form.

One thing we wanted to talk about, though, is probably between us is Section 5.3.2 in the EV charging plan. And it's in context of what Community Development Department is doing with Chapter 16 development code and with this year's comprehensive plan update. So some of the things that are in 5.3.2 currently are things that are already in our development code, like the parking. Provide like if you have 50 parking places that are required for your parking minimum, if you make them all EV chargers, you can be reduced to 25. And another one is on the permitting.

And as you guys know, that's one of the criticisms that has been leveled against county staff is that the tank's permitting too long. But now we're at a situation where the average residential permit is three days and the average commercial is five days. So we already have expedited permitting. And parking, in general, is something that's going to come up before the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee in how much we actually want to have. So of the things I wanted to recommend is that and I'm speaking a little bit out of line is that I prefer to have a motion tonight where we approve the plans, because I wouldn't want to hold them up.

They're excellent. But with the exception of that one, that 5.3.2, and have environmental sustainability and community development staff work on a revision.

And I guess I would like to ask one or two questions just off of what what you presented, and I I follow what you're saying there. But one of the things that that we haven't really talked about kind of in your presentation here is that on page 73 of your report, you're actually showing negative NPVs on this. And, like, you know, how do we reconcile that with the fact that we're showing internal rate of returns that these things are never gonna pay out for themselves, or am I reading that wrong?

Chair, thank you. And and board member, if I if I can address, I first, I wanna just make the clarification that this is not necessarily like a scenario that was used to say if this is gonna be viable or not. This is presented as an example for, like, a active live tool that the county will have access to to use for the evaluation of return of investment for each individual site. So we are not saying necessarily, like, every case will this be the internal rate of of return on or of the investment. This was just, like, kinda like a preloaded scenario because from the approach in this in this scenario was that we cannot assume every single location.

We'll be able to have the charges that we're recommending, the timeline in additional variables until, like, what is the rate gonna look like. So there was just too many variables from our perspective to present the recommendation of what is the expected return of investment for every single recommended charger. From our perspective, the charges recommendations right now are kinda, like, only one component into evaluating, feasibility. Right? So this is, we're saying from the data that we're seeing, the methodology, dislocations, will help incentivize the use.

However, in kinda, like, how we describe it into our approach, the investment feasibility in prioritization for each of the sites needs to be evaluated on the daily and active basis. So to your question, no. Like, the internal return of investment for all of this is not necessarily always gonna be negative. It would actually be a tool that the county can use in low width data to evaluate the return on each specific site. Within this tool, there are specific kinda, like, feedback that is provided into saying, you know, this is how you can assume the consumption, and these are, like, the parameters to estimate, like, demand and create the inputs.

So, again, this is kinda just an ex like, bit of a screenshot and an example of what the tool itself is able to provide. So I hope that answers the question to the business. It's not that necessary, like, it won't be viable. Is this an exercise that has to be done for each specific site to be able to justify investment from that perspective?

I mean, it helps, but it hurts. Right? Because what's in the report is actually showing negative NPV values for this. And the caveats you gave are good, but that's almost what you need because if something doesn't go right or if, like, you're putting forth a plan to go forward and this is a final version, and it's showing from the start that the financials of this don't meet investment criteria that would be required for most things. Right?

So that's really hard to advance when you look at that. And when you look at some of the demand projections on, like, page 24 in this report, like, we've got, I think, roughly 3%. If we look at the amount of EVs that are out there per population, and then we're showing even in the lowest growth that we're almost doubling that each year. And I don't know that that's synced up with it. So it's like if you've got this and we're installing these and they're not showing an NPV, but we don't even really have the demand synced up on some of the projections that we have here, like it just it it questions the viability of the model, in my opinion.

We have a lot of good work that's gone into this, and I do think that things are moving this way. But it's just sort of in the presentation overall of everything and how we should approach this. I don't know that the actual recommendations follow what the data is kinda showing. And so I I'd love to get kind of input on that or or if my take is wrong.

And, chair Hampton, a a board member, do you mind clarifying what you what do you mean by saying that there is, like, a disconnect with the projected load? Was it the load that you were seeing on this page, 24?

So right now, we're showing the 3%. Right? The EV share of light duty vehicles on the road. And then if you go down slightly on the page I think it was on this page. There's one that shows a chart that shows for every five years, you've got what the numbers are actually going to be that you're putting in your model for like a high use case, a mid use case, and a low use case.

And in that model, if you look at the low use case, each five years, you're essentially doubling what that value is, which is a so, I mean, the the whole thing of EV structure is you're putting this in here to meet the demand and make sure that you're hopefully ahead of what the demand is so that everybody has facilities and everything that they can use. But when you look at those projections and what the uptake has been to get us to where we are right now to all of a sudden ramp that up dramatically. Like, the assumptions and stuff that are put in here and listed, I don't think that that backs up what those numbers are showing on the projection. And and I could be off. Right?

Yeah. No. I thank thank you, Sharon. Remember, I think from a bit of of context on this, I think, this is kinda like having, like, a bit of a snapshot of what is happening right now. And with the different scenarios that we brought under the two different values that you alluded to, it was it was source of, one, an input to have a different projections of potential power requirements for the first scenario, that the Josh would say would represent.

Past that, the different scenarios, there was a selection of one of the scenarios to anticipate, like, the increased demand within the specific vehicles. But I would like to say, keep in mind that the main objective for the charging infrastructure, the charging for the charging plan was to identify the suitability of different locations that can continue to incentivize, and, you know, support the development of EV. They're not intended to sustain all of the load of the EVs. Like, in fact, throughout the report, you'll see that a lot of the needed assumptions for reaching the different levels of adoption on the three scenarios is that there is a heavy well, the assumption is there is still a lot of heavy reliance on at home charging. That was a bit of the the things that Josh alluded as well.

There is definitely gonna continue to be the the need for at home charging. There is the consideration that even multifamily housing and additional locations, but it might not be, you know, necessary, like, every single garage. It could be different ways, but the home charging from one way or from another through the recommendations is gonna happen. So I think the output, in the way that I will ask the the the board members to see this is that first is a is a leaving document. Right?

And as we're making projections and and recommendations on different scenarios that should require a bit of, like, that, sensitivity in playing with the different, you know, adoption levels that we're gonna be seeing. So at the same time, that requires an ongoing review to all of it. So none of our recommendations are necessary. We'll see that we're telling the county, you have to build everyone and every each single of these sites, from the best of, our model abilities and the fact that we've been collecting, we anticipate to start some of the critical locations, right, that can help put that seat for adoption. We absolutely believe there will be a lot more charging infrastructure throughout the county as the adoption is needed.

We absolutely do believe there is gonna be the need for additional charging way beyond of what our, recommendations are aligning here. Now to your point of, like, is this gonna be something that is gonna, you know, be able to return at least of the investment of some of these public ones? Again, that's something that we're saying with this tool and with the recommendations that needs to be assessed, case by case before asking for that investment. But the critical thing, from our perspective is that while there might not always be a return of investment, the benefit for this is, like, how much of this can actually enable potential, at risk communities, low income communities, or communities that might not immediately have access to EV infrastructure at their home, that this can be a factor to incentivize the EV adoption itself. In addition to continue working with breaking all those other barriers for the adoption.

So, again, not to say that we have to do this just for the goodness of the of our heart in terms of, you know, just because. I'm I'm sure that there's gonna be several of these recommended locations that we're looking into more detail for the investment. They're not gonna show a necessary, like, positive income on all of them. But I idea would be to continue to incentivize that, for the overall well adoption of the community. So, I I I believe I kinda tracking some of your feedback, and and I appreciate it.

But, and and not that I have a necessary response of how this plan can, at this point, you know, change to adapt that. I would just welcome the different perspective that this is not step by step. The county needs to do each of these locations. In fact, throughout the report, we try to highlight very heavily that this is an initial methodology, a citing prior priority, and have backup information that can help assess other aspects of investment besides just the economics of the individual sites. And even just to be able to start looking at what sites need to have that more in-depth analysis for returns of investment.

No. Thank you. I mean, the table I was referencing was on page 28, and it was talking about overall for the different scenarios, what those numbers look like. And I think for anybody reading it, it would be very helpful to kinda reconcile that and be proactive in talking on those costing numbers and almost have it where you have the sites that are positive to put those forward. Because right now, like I said, with the report showing that when I went through it, that jumped out to me is, like, this doesn't meet investment grade criteria, and you don't want that to undermine all the good work that's gone into it.

Yeah. Absolutely. And if, chairman, if I may, while we wanna avoid, you know, going back and and producing, something different that that you have seen, that the council have seen, what we can do from our end is that this, the tool that the tool that you saw, the screenshots on that, a financial piece, it is a live Excel model. So we can load that with the specific sensitivity scenario where we can outline what are the required criteria as to obtain a positive return of investment. So while the report might be able to show that if somewhere, you know, the county or anybody else were to open the Excel file and the Excel tool itself, this should be, an easy way for them to see that it is possible to have a a a potential positive return of investment under the kinda, like, criteria and clarifications that we can load into the model.

So I appreciate it. I appreciate the feedback. And, hopefully, that can be a comprehensive or an in between approach to to your concern.

I guess one last comment was you do a really good job of talking about the differences in greenhouse gas reductions. And if there's any way, again, not modifying your report, I agree. I'm I'm not trying to make you guys go backwards. But in your presentation, if you can emphasize some way to put a value on that where people can look at what that difference is because metric tons of carbon doesn't necessarily jump out to a lot of people and, like, what the value of that is or how they should think about that and conceptualize it. I think that would help your presentation a lot.

Chair and board member, thank you for that comment. We we actually in a a few iterations, we kinda had a equivalent calculator that was saying x amount of tons equals x amount of trees or on the road vehicles, and and it actually caused some confusion with the port of public utilities, because they I think they were interpreting wrong the the what we're trying to to to do. Right? Like, what is a ton of c o two? You know, we're trying to put that into perspective, and it kinda caused a bit of confusion. But, I appreciate if, like, we're gonna troubleshoot how to add something equivalent that can be, none open to other misinterpretation like it happened last time.

Joe, thank you for looking at it with your financial lens. He's our financial expert, so I appreciate that. I'll just say from the county's perspective, this is something that we are very concerned about is making sure that we're clearly good stewards of the county funds that we have, for EV infrastructure. So one of the things I mean, you all seen that we just installed the new, the 12 level two chargers here in front of municipal building. And one of our goals before we build any more community charging is that we will under better understand usage, utilization, and, actual revenue associated with the chargers.

So we clearly, if it's being underutilized, there might not be the need right now for more public chargers. So that wasn't, like, indicated exactly in the study because we've asked Stantec to help us find these highly suitable locations to build chargers, right, once we have the the demand for that. So, yeah, we'll keep analyzing and keep reviewing and making sure that there's an actual need as we move forward. We haven't had that data. Right?

The ones that we had out here before were not networked, and we had no clue how how often they were being used. People would park and sit on them all day. We didn't know how much usage they were getting. So now we'll have that, and that'll be able to help drive decisions as we move forward. Thank you.

And, Jerry Hampton, I just wanna, acknowledge your earlier comment as well about section five point three point two, and, and then we can make sure that that is in line with the comments you made. Thank you for those clarifications.

Thank you for that, mister Shak. Any more comments?

So just please clarify for me what are we doing with section five point three point two.

Well, what I propose is that we approve both plans, with the exclusion of five point three point two out of the EV charging plan to allow the environmental sustainability and community development staff to work together for on a revision that would take the current development plan and the comprehensive plan into consideration.

And I'll just add to that to for some context. I did speak so this is all regarding the public comment that you all seen from Stephanie Nachley. Did you see that? K. So I think it was forwarded to the board last night.

So, or yesterday. So we got a comment saying that there was a little bit of a concern regarding the parking minimums that were recommended in the plan. Let me find it for you so you know what we're talking about. So here it is. It's about the parking minimums, and there was concerned concerns just that it might be prohibitive, I think, to building more housing.

Right? Chair Hampton? And and we have so I spoke with our economic development department just to clarify, and we actually have a pretty the point of the recommendation from Stantec, I think, was to incentivize incentivize developers to build out EV infrastructure. Right? And we have we have something in our development code now in chapter sixteen thirty, table 30, and it's so for exam it says electric charging stations.

One electrical station may be counted towards two required parking. So in essence, if you had to build a 100 or if you had to have a 100 parking spaces and you decided to build them all EV, you could, you know, reduce that down to, like, 50. Right? So it's half. So it helps you to reduce the number of parking spaces that you need for your business.

So my recommendation, and after speaking with economic development, would be just to align to what's already in the code. And, you know and right now, as it's written, it just says, to reduce barriers, you know, the county should update its building and zoning codes to encourage EV ready construction. So, again, it was just a recommendation. And then they they went on to say, for example, this is what they do in California. So chair Hampton had a recommendation.

And then after speaking with our economic development department, it sounds like we already have a great incentive, maybe just educating about what that is. So that's another option for you all.

So I have a comment on that if I might. First of all, I think this section is really important because it is in terms of equity, the ability to do do something to help private multifamily property owners put in EV infrastructure for renters and low income people, I think, is critical, and we are limited in what we can do. I don't see anything in this text that mandates additional parking. It says, let's propose that there's a proportion of that parking if it's already in planned, that has, EV infrastructure. So I would be inclined I I very much like Angelica and and the, economic development department's approach.

We already have these codes, and, maybe some clarifying language from those to inform this piece, but I don't want to take this out of the plan, because I don't think that's necessary, and I think this is a very important component of this plan and and of of it going forward. So, I support proposal, to update it with our current code, requirements and leave it at that.

Do we know the percentage of people in in the demographics that we're talking about that are actually in EVs and what that projection is for uptake?

Thank you, chair Hampton and members of the board. Just to clarify, are you are you asking how many people are currently, owning EVs, and how many we expect to be by year?

Your report is really good. Right? And I actually like the way it's written where it talks about the demographics that are making EVs in Los Alamos something to consider and everything. But everything in that analysis emphasizes higher education level, higher disposable income, etcetera. And then when we get into the equity conversations around moving this out there, do we actually know the percentages of those populations that we're trying to target with these equity considerations that are projected to get EVs or move into these vehicles and have these at these different locations? Like, have we done any study that helps us differentiate that or look at it from a national level to understand that population that we're citing here?

Thank you for that clarification. Something that we did include initially, and I mentioned all these different datasets that got merged into the suitability analysis. One of those was an equity justice index that basically compiles many different factors from language spoken at home to income level to racial demographics, etcetera, and all geared towards this one blend of both climate justice and demographic equity into one index. That was what we intended to use. Some on the board may remember the hit.

It turns out that there was, no gradient across the county, in terms of that index. It was by census block, so there was, it wasn't hyper local to the, the street block or anything. But within the census blocks across the county, that index had the same value across the board. And so, beyond there, the the demographic, variation, I think, was not included in terms of the the charger recommendations. You mentioned the the country as a whole.

Feel like I can provide the the link to that resource, which does show that, gradation, for example, throughout the rest of the state or through the nearby states. But I think that due to that, we leaned on the housing type and the the zoning of these parcels as a primary indicator of equity. And much of the equity conversation that we've been having, as I've heard it in the in the last few months, is specifically around equity for those who can't charge at home. And so I I think it's it's a really valuable consideration to have, and but that's just a little background on the the nitty gritty of the data that we looked at.

And, remember, I think of to allude to one of the stuff that that Josh is referring, section, 4.5 has, like, a sum of that data that was utilized. So figure 4.6, for example, has, like, a help charging map that reflects the methodology that that Josh was it is for dash six. Sorry. Dash six, no point six. Yeah.

So so to to and and I don't wanna assume that I'm I'm, interpreting the question correctly, but, basically, for each of the multifamily locations, basing on the data that I just alluded to and the assumptions of EV projection. We are accounting for for the different, home types to have the charging need. So it was considered as part of, like, the criteria. I don't think we necessarily have, like, a a table that will say x amount are multifamily in x year, for example, because it's everything is just, accounted as a whole for the, for the the county for for the whole region. Right?

But, I hope that the the map and the methodology in this section will highlight, what Josh was referring to in terms of how we use that data to do some of the projections and make sure that we are not, under considering the adoption of EVs in multifamily houses or locate or apartments, complex, or non single family houses.

Just to clarify, I agree that 5.3.2 is extremely important also. And my proposal is not to eliminate it permanently. It's just because we don't have CDD at the table, and we don't have someone to I mean, I could represent the development code to some extent. But it would be better if environmental sustainability, in my opinion, and community development got together and made it so that it will not wind up being in conflict with the comprehensive plan when that comes out towards the end of the year. And, yeah, I would hope that it would be able to be brought back in a fairly quick manner to be included in the whole plan.

I was just worried about delaying the plans themselves until we can do it.

Yeah. And and, Sherhelm, if I may, I think that that that you just said was exactly the goal of this piece. Right? Like, to be able to have these discussions and to figure out the specific incentives that will work for the community with that in mind. So, again, I think from Angelica's perspective and what she was reflecting, we are not dictating what that investment should be or what that parking requirement should be.

The the message and to echo Sue's sentiment is is that this is extremely important. It has to be created, to incentivize that. We are not in any way or form in this text or in this section, trying to dictate what is that incentive and that requirement should be. It's exactly what you just said. Like, somebody needs to have these conversations and be able to identify what is the best path forward that aligns with all those other components that we don't have, you know, a saying and and access to it through this study.

Thank you.

Correct. And I do believe counselor I'm sorry. I didn't think of it before, but counselor Reidy did ask us to you know, that code should be written to incentivize these sort of things for multifamily homes. So

Would someone like to make a motion?

Are there any last questions, I guess, from our new members? I was curious not to put you all on the spot, but the comments. I know it's a lot for

Yeah. I don't mind making a motion, but it seems as though we're proposing that there be some change to this, and I don't know what the language would be for that.

I I don't know that it needs a change because it's not even mandating. It's just saying to consider it.

Mhmm.

Right? And, I mean, it's not even saying that you install the infrastructure there. It's just saying when you're building something, make it accessible and new because then it's a very low portion of the cost to do something there. I mean, it to me, it it reads fairly well, and it makes sense for new construction. I think I would have more of a problem if it was talking about, like, existing properties to go back and try to retrofit. But, I mean, I think the way that it's worded is actually fairly carefully worded. The only thing I would do is just, I think some people bristle anytime they see California listed. But I I think it's it it actually makes fairly good sense to have in there for planning purposes. But

I guess the only word that throws maybe I'm not maybe that was of concern was, like, update. Right? It says, should update its building code. So it doesn't consider that we already have an incentive for it.

But it doesn't require. That's why I'm saying, like, the wording is actually fairly good right now for consideration. It gives the optionality of the county. I would say it throws it back to the planning commission, which is probably where that particular choice belongs.

Okay. I agree. So I move that the environmental sustainability board supports the fleet conversion and community wide electric vehicle charging plan and recommends forwarding this plan to council as presented.

Would someone like to second? If no one seconds, we'll have to have another motion.

And I guess to follow on that, I don't think that we necessarily have to modify the plan, but I think the way that it's presented will be important. And so is there a way to capture the stuff that we talked about tonight in moving this forward without necessarily having to change the plan. I'm just curious to get anybody else's thoughts on that. Like I said, I think we I think we have a a packet with good work that's been done that can be used to decision work and help things. But I think there are some caveats to to how we should talk about it or how it should be presented in the context for adoption or consideration by council to preload their questions that would probably come on the sustainability part, if that makes sense.

I think the the plans themselves already have wights widespread support on council. So they they probably accept it as presented.

That's my understanding is that we won't be asking council to adopt it. It'll just be to accept the plan. That's their new approach.

We're just forwarding this plan for their consideration, basically.

But I think I mean, if you'd like to help us tease out, like, the final presentation to counsel, is that what you're saying? Just to well, we're I mean, we welcome your feedback. Right? So we've been strengthening it and and fine tuning it, so I don't think that's a problem. That doesn't really change the scope of the plan or anything, just the way it's laid out. So

I mean, I guess maybe if we could clarify what the difference is between adoption and then the execution or what that means. Right? Like, if they're gonna consider it as done and go with it, how does that translate? Or am I lost in the Nuance? That can happen.

No. I think that's a a very that that's a good question. What happens if if we forward this to counsel? What does that actually mean?

Like like, my biggest fear is, like, if we if we stamp this and we say, go go forth, conquer. Environmental sustainability board does this, and then they pick two or three of the locations that are negative NPV and they don't work out, and we shoot ourselves in the foot where then nobody wants to do this stuff in the future, we've done ourselves a big disservice. And so that's that's my big fear on putting something like this forward with the numbers that I see is that it's not gonna be able to guide the decisions that have to happen early on because we can't afford missteps that would potentially set us back on something that's important like this for the way things are happening.

Yeah. So my understanding both from working on this and also what Angelica has said is that the the consideration of where we will put in chargers will be heavily informed by, on a case by case basis by a number of factors. And and what what showed up in the in the plan, as Annaly, spoke to, is an example of a they built a tool for the county to use a spread basically, a big spreadsheet to put in all of these factors for specific for each site. How much does it cost to dig a hole to put this thing in, and how much does it cost for us to buy this charger from this company? How much is the electricity gonna cost?

How much are we gonna get back? How much depending on how much we sell on a site by site basis. And so I think that it's going to be an ongoing process, excuse me, site by site to decide to make those kinds of decisions and decide whether or not we think this is a good investment. So I don't think that we're and and this should be obviously, since we're a little confused about this, this is something that should probably be explained in some depth. In the presentation.

Yeah.

So that people so that counsel and and so forth don't think that we're saying this is what's going to happen for sure, and we think that this particular charger that's in this example is what should be installed. That it's that that's an example. We have a tool that we can use to evaluate. We have some recommendations on places that chargers might go, based on a number of criteria, and then we'll move forward and evaluate as as time progresses. But, at least this is a start.

I support that.

Who's taking minutes?

Well, then second the motion.

So we're we're essentially recommending the tool as as this is go forward to the board to to use in the future as we gather more data, and then they make recommendations or we make recommendations based on the data and the tool that Stantec has provided us.

Yes.

Is that okay?

And, Terhempton, remember, I would say not not only the tool, but the the report itself and the methodology itself, right, as a as a guiding, methodology to help on the assessment of those case by cases. Like, from and I think from our perspective, we can make sure to highlight that is the purpose of the notion that, you know, should be considered by the county. So I think that is absolutely critical modification that we can do to how we present this to the board. So I I really appreciate that the feedback, and, we'll make sure to, work on a presentation that is very explicit about that. Because, like, we're not, you know, asking for the stamp of approval for every single siding.

And if anything, we're asking for the stamp of approval for the methodology and the the kinda, like, support to the county to continue to make these efforts to develop, accessible charging infrastructure with, all of the recommendations, caveats, and assumptions that we put throughout the report. So I think you guys nailed it really great with with this, and we can work on, updating how we present in the language throughout the presentation for the board.

Thank you. If there's no second, I would go ahead and make my motion that involves five point three point two. If no one seconds member Barnes' motion, I would go ahead and make my motion that includes five point three point two. That would be my preference, but the the motion that she made is on the table right now.

I move that the Environmental Sustainability Board supports the fleet conversion and community wide electric vehicle charging plan and recommends forwarding this plan to council as presented.

I'll second the motion.

Alright. All in favor? Passes unanimously. Thank you, and thank you, miss Castillo and mister Shaq. Excellent work.

Thank you so much. Thank you, chair Hampton. And and I would just say thanks again for participating throughout the in person meetings and the feedback. It was really great getting to know a lot of you in person. And if to say one final thank you to Angelica and board members to Barnes. They have been amazing throughout this process in addition to the other staff from Los Alamos. We're kinda sad to get this to the end, but we're really proud, and we're we're really excited for what's ahead for for your community. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Stantec team, Hana Lee and Josh. Appreciate all your help, and we'll circle back and flesh out some of these things that we talked about tonight.

So Yes. Thank you very much for allowing me to participate in this. It was a a wonderful process, actually. I have the utmost respect for your work, and I will miss you.

Oh, you're okay. I was trying not to. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. We're we're we anyway, thank you so much. We appreciate it. We will touch base with Angelica to address this comment. So thank you so much for the feedback.

Thank you. Thank you all. Alright. Next item, chair support. So, main thing I wanna do is, thank, member Grow and member Blair for joining us. As you can see, we wouldn't have had a quorum if you guys hadn't been here. So thank you very much. And these plans are very important to get moving, and get to counsel. I also want to say, and I think, Ms. Gurule might address it further.

But at counsel on Tuesday, when she's giving her presentation, was it from Counselor Reidy that it came up about the, green, building code? And Mr. Isaacson got up, and he said that we can't really make changes, green changes, to the building code until the next go around to the IBC or IVVC, which is interesting because it's I mean, did you want to address that in your part?

Go ahead.

I mean, do you recall what you said?

So, counselor Reidy so I was able to give our quarterly update to counsel Tuesday night. And one of the items that we're working on, which is a cap recommendation, is to adopt green building codes. So one of the things that we're doing as staff is reviewing the code against, you know, other, like, efficiency standards to make sure that they're it's even worth pursuing. Are our code is our code good enough, right, as is before we start layering it or making additional changes? So I think that was his point.

They've already done some of the research, and then we'll, they'll present those findings to council to see if council wants to further pursue any other changes, or does it suffice as it currently is written. So the county follows the state. They we follow the state. So when they adopt the new building code, then we automatically adopt the building code. So sometimes it takes a while, but we're at I forget what version we're at right now. Maybe 2021.

So right now, we're 2021.

Okay.

Thank you. The state lags behind to give people opportunities for training, upkeep, outreach. We just finished our last set of classes that we get federal money for to teach 2021, and we'll be updating that when that rolls over to the new one. But, yeah, we we purposely lie behind to allow for accounting and training up all the contractors and getting everybody familiar with it and being able to

do outreach on what the changes are gonna be and why this is step forward and gradational. But So the plan would be I thought mister Isaacson's response was if there were any changes, it would be made as part of, like, the larger changes to the code. But now is the time. Right? So it'll be the next steps will be that to for them to present their findings to counsel and then start that discussion. Do we wanna make any changes? Then we can incorporate it into the larger changes. Or is it fine as is? So that's what you know, we'd like to present that information. Is that what you were talking about?

Yeah. So the reason I'm bringing it up is because I know that's in our work plan that we're talking about when pursuing changes to the building code. So alright. Board of Public Utilities liaison.

So this month, last night's meeting, unfortunately, both Shannon and I were out of town. I will review the video of that and report on that meeting at our next meeting.

Thank you. Transportation board. I can't recall what we did at the last meeting, so I have no update. Shannon miss Shannon. Sorry. We have two Blairs now. I didn't really think about that.

Shannon Blair.

The other member Blair

Related to Carly Blair.

So, yeah, so no update on Parks and Rec. Counsel liaison, counselor Hand.

Yes. And everyone says, is she related to Shannon? No. I asked her that. That was my first question to her.

Good evening, everybody. I, really look forward to working with you over the next year and, welcome new members. So I'll just give you a oh, I brought the wrong one. Just a minute. I'm writing on two different agendas, the one for ESB and, also, I have the regular session agenda with me, to help me, give you a report tonight.

So, we met on February 17, Tuesday, this last Tuesday, as a regular session. It was relatively short meeting, which is a little unusual, but, we were able to accomplish some great things. I would like to mention that we had a recognition of the government finance officers associate association Triple Crown honor, for the f y twenty twenty five budget and audit accountability award for Midsize County. I know that's not related to ESB, but that's very important and, you know, very commendable. So, whenever you see, Helen Proglio and her staff in administrative services, please give them a thank you for all their hard work.

We also had the, quarterly climate action plan implementation update from Angelica, so, I shouldn't have to go into too much of that. Had a a number of items on the consent agenda for approval, basically one, five items. Everything was approved. One of those was for a budget revision, in the amount of $435,388 for the New Mexico Department of Transportation grant funds, and and Helica was the person who was the presenter on that or or the the sponsor on that. We had a public hearing, and this is for the broadband project.

It's a very long statement here. Let's see if I can it was for, $40,000,000 for the purpose of acquiring, extending, enlarging, bettering, repairing, and otherwise improving a broadband communication system and other public buildings, facilities, and infrastructure authorizing the distribution and use of a preliminary official statement relating to the bonds and authorizing related action in connection with the preliminary official statement. So, it's basically about issuing bonds for, the broadband project. Okay. Let's see.

Then we oh, we had welcome to Carly Blair who, who was appointed, and approved through county council, to be a part of your board. And that's about it. It was a very short meeting. Shortest one I've been to yet. So, anyway, are there any questions?

No? Anyway, I, look forward to, seeing you throughout the year, and, great work. Thanks.

Thank you, Councilor Hand. And thank you for joining us. I guess there's no one Ms. Dunharrel's not here from VC City. I think they're doing a class maybe next Saturday on

On seeding wildflowers.

Yes.

Come out and learn how to plant wildflower seeds.

That is next Saturday? Yes.

Yeah. The twenty eighth.

K. Right. Oh, the twentieth. So this is Saturday.

No. Twenty eighth.

Eighth. Okay. Thanks.

Set that Saturday. Yeah.

And is there any update from the sustainability lines?

We did not meet this month.

Alright. Do we have an actually have an education outreach work group?

Yes. So that's our new firebrand group, climate marketing and education. We can put a a name on it. So Sue Barnes is a member of that team. So the county adopted our first climate action plan in 2024, and one of the big initiatives for that plan was climate marketing and education.

So building campaigns and education messages around energy efficiency, waste and recycling, food composting, alternative transportation, like busing, bicycling, carpooling. So those are our, like, main focus areas, EV adoption, of course. So we just hired our first our consultants. Third name, Firebrand, and they'll be helping us build out these campaigns. So Sue is part of the RFP process.

She helped with that. And then, now we're about to hit the ground. We're gonna have a big many community meetings next week. So if you're interested in attending any of those to provide input, we'd love to have you. Let me know, and I'll invite you to one of our meetings. But, also, you can be part of our working group, and we meet every other week right now. We're about to find a new time that works for everyone. And then, you know, you'll be able to provide input on messaging, building if that's your cup of tea. Right? So it it's it's kind of fun.

I that's the fun part of what I get to do. So if you're interested in joining us, you're welcome to do so. Unfortunately, we do meet during the day. So that would be the only criteria.

And that sounds like a good one for new people to get on too because that's like miss Gurley said, that's the not only which I think she enjoys doing most, but it's also the meat of what we do. So

Or tofu or salad.

Sorry. Yeah. Tofu.

Yeah. Well yeah. And I mean, so you'd we'll bring messages, and we'll bring things back to the board. That's the purpose of these. If you have more time to dig into an issue, that's where, you know, Sue will go, and then she comes back and shares with the group. So you can ask questions and still be part of it even though you can't, you know, make the weekly meetings. And then there'll be lots of opportunities to help us share the messages once we develop them at, like, Earth Day or, you know, Science Fest or some of these other things. So

Alright. Thank you. And with that, staff report. Nice segue.

K. Great.

Where are my notes? Okay. So, February, if you haven't signed up yet, we have a sustainability newsletter, and that the February edition focused on fast fashion. These have all been written by our summer student, Eloise Shepherd, who, she doesn't work with us year round, but she was here last summer. So we continue to increase in readership.

This month, it was only a small tick from one twenty five to a 126 subscribers, but the people that do subscribe read the newsletter. So we have, like, 75% engagement rate, which is pretty good. That means they're opening it, and they're reading it. It's not just going into their spam and trash. So pretty cool.

So sign up if you haven't done so. And then the EV charging infrastructure. So you've seen the chargers here at Municipal Building. And we have I think between January and February, there's close to over 400 unique charging sessions. So it's pretty good between you know, it's our first month and first, you know, month and a half of data.

So once I have more, I'll start to share that with you kind of like I do with this report that's in the back of your, you know, packet. And then we're also building the two DC fast chargers at Mass Public Library. We just finished design, and thanks to council, we got the budget revision for the grant, so we'll start to order equipment and work on the next phases for that project. Let's see. Outreach and education, like I mentioned, Firebrand, the climate mark climate marketing and engagement consultant will be here next week starting from Monday all the way through Thursday.

So we'd love to have your input. If you can't make it during the day, we'll be having dinner one of the evenings. If you'd like to just join in and share your perspective on on anything, I think they're just trying to get a sense of the community, the culture, build relationships. So we have lots of meetings focused on our educators, youth, large employers, community partners, and internal staff that's actually working on some of these main things like Atomic City Transit, environmental services, department of public utilities. So we're excited to have them here and to start building good, you know, relationship with them as our consultant.

We signed a seven year agreement, so we wanna make sure, you know, we start setting those stages. They've already developed some, like, slogans and things like that. So we'll be doing, like, market testing, a little bit next week. So, yeah, if you have a chance, please, I'll if you're interested, message me, and I'll share with you the schedule, and you can see where you might be able to pop in to a meeting. So we learned that we were selected to receive a $1,200,000 grant from EPA to build a food composting program.

We're still working through some constraints that we have because we're of where the property is situated and things like that. So, and then I think we for our new members, we have been asked by the Hemis Mountain Trail Run folks that are volunteers there to set up a zero waste station at the end of the race. So it sounds pretty amazing. They there's about 600 participants that come from all over to do that run. I think it's, like, a 50 mile run or something.

It's pretty intense. So we're excited to have the opportunity. We've never really partnered with recreation in this way. So if you're interested, it's May 9. It's It's like an all day event because people trickle in all day.

So if you're interested, there's time slots that you can sign up for. Just a great way to showcase some of our sustainability initiatives and also perhaps share things that we're working on with some of the runners. So one of the things on the, one of the actions we're working on this year is a commuter trip reduction program. So now that we've we're about to wrap up the fleet conversion plan, we have two more hurdles sharing it with council and then BPU. So I'm starting to switch gears to a new project.

If you're interested in helping with that to find ways on how to reduce commuter trips for county employees and things that we might be able to share with the community, let me know. So I'll be starting to look into that. And then, like I mentioned, I gave an update to council on Tuesday. If you're interested in seeing that, you can find it on Registar. And then the January report, let me see if I can find it.

So

this is for our new members. Keep saying that. So this is our residential sustainability report. So this is what is happening on your curbside community wide. So you can see the blue represents recycle, the green are yard trimmings or, I mean, the green is trash, and then the yellow is yard trimmings.

Kinda corresponds to the color of your your trash bins, except we don't wanna put brown for yard trimmings. So you can see so we look at it year over year. And in January, we were able to divert 20% of all of that material from the landfill through either recycling or through the yard trimming program. So if you look at it year over year, it was slightly down this January compared to the year before. I'm not sure the reasoning why that is. Recycling was slightly down too. You can still see it's still pretty high. Right? 83 tons versus 91. And then trash, everything kinda decreased in January.

So it might have been the collection schedule. I'm not sure exactly what happened there. And then we've been tracking it. We've been tracking this since 2014, you can see the trends over time. You could see the big spikes in 2018 and '19 when we introduced the yard trimming program to Los Alamos, and it's been widely accepted.

You can see that with the spikes in the yellow graphs there. And then just for a perspective, we the county hauls all of our trash to Valencia Landfill, which is a 120 miles one way. And by offering these programs like recycling and yard trimming, it helps us to keep that material out of the landfill and keeping keep it from being trucked a 120 miles one way. And then in January, they sent 20 trucks of trash to the Valencia Landfill. And could you imagine if that was your monthly trash bill?

$38,000 in trash. So it's a pretty hefty program. This, again, doesn't include anything commercial, lanel, things like that. That's all separate. This is just purely what's happening on the curbside, so residential curbside. So, yeah, it's kind of fun to see, what our efforts you know, the impacts of our efforts. With that, I'll hand it back to you.

Thank you, and I'll hand it back to you for a preview of upcoming events.

Okay. So

upcoming agenda items. So you all had well, council had recommended councilor Herman had recommended that we should hear a presentation about Mozart DevCo. Right? Council just heard that presentation. So I reached out to them, and they're reviewing on they're deciding on whether they wanna come in March or April. So more to come on that.

Thank you.

Yeah. And then the other item was the state released their climate action plan, and they would like to present it to the board as well. So depend I don't want to overlap two presentations in one, but maybe you don't mind. So I'll offer them the March or April time slot as well.

Yeah. And I think member Barnes and myself have already heard it, but it's it's it's it'd be work it'd be okay, I think, to have it at the same meeting. It's a good presentation.

K.

Do you know who's gonna be presenting it?

I'm not sure, but the gal who reached out was Amy Rosenzinpa, I think. So

Alright. Thank you. Anything else?

No. Is there any other items that you all would like to see? We should have our work plan probably approved by then.

So we were we were looking at it today. I'm on the work plan review team, and we were looking at that and all the other plans today. So we're gonna have one more meeting. Should I go off there to

Yeah. Sure.

So just an update on the work plan review, committee, that consists of me, Beverly, or I should call her counselor Neil Clinton and counselor Herman. And, so we met today. We reviewed the plans. There's going to be a few, revisions and and modifications. We'll meet again next week, and then, it will be presented to council on March 3 at our council meeting for full approval.

So that's the schedule. So we we have been looking at your plan. I thought it was great. You guys have a lot of detail in it, which I thought was excellent. You know, you you really, paid attention to a lot of different things that I think, you know, the entire committee, appreciated.

I have a question for you, counselor. Sure. If you haven't been. A few months ago, counsel asked us to revisit our our scheduling and our process for bringing on new members and and recruitment because we were having a hard time recruiting. And we put forward our we put together our thoughts on that and sent it to you all. Have you have you seen that? Has what has become of that?

I don't recall seeing that about how you were going to recruit new members.

Well, changing the requirements for participation on the board, I think we decided making it a three year proposing making

Oh, I remember staggered terms. Term.

Yes. Three terms. Yeah. That sort of thing. We had a few different suggestions that we thought might improve our

Well, that may be part of the exercise that we're doing on council as far as the charter is concerned. So, you know, that is something that's you know, boards and commissions are listed in the charter. And so the three three counselors that are going to be working on that is me, the chair, and I think it's chair Cole. So, you know, I received their comments. I was going to compile them, and then we have to set up a meeting to look at everything that has been merged into one document.

And then it will be presented to, the full counsel for consideration of whether or not this should be you know, like, there are a number of changes that have been suggested. So is this something that we want to take to the voters in November? And that's how it would change.

Okay.

Thank you. I'm pretty sure that's you know, if you're talking about things to do with boards and commissions, you know, there were a number of things like staggering, you know, memberships and and length of memberships Right. And stuff like that. Yeah. That would encourage more membership.

Okay. So then that would that would have to go to the voters, actually.

It has to go to voters because it's a charter.

Okay. Interesting.

So yes. Great. Thank you for the update. Decide whether or not you know, as a council, we're going to decide whether or not we're going to do that, you know, or if we're going to just focus on one little, you know, piece that is most important to send out to the voters, or are we gonna send the whole thing, which you know? I mean, that's a decision for council to decide which which is going to be most feasible for getting, you know, the the charter revised. Okay. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome.

Thank you, councilor Hand. And with that, we're adjourned.