Environmental Services Division - Regular Meeting

Alright. We will go ahead and get started with today's environmental sustainability board meeting. It is November 20 at 05:30. We will go ahead and start with item number one, which is roll call. Let's start with Joe.

Joe Chandler, present.

Shannon Blair. Sue Barnes.

David Hampton.

And we are missing Eric, Keller, and Rebecca. Wait. Yeah. We can start, though.

Right? Yes.

We have four. Okay. Sorry. I got confused with math there for a second. Alright. Do we have any public comment? Just a reminder, this section of the agenda is reserved for comments from the public on items that are not otherwise included in this agenda. It doesn't look like there's any comments in chambers. And, chair, there's no

there's no one that's raised their hand online to make public comment.

Okay. Sounds good. Alright. So item number three is approval of the agenda for today's meeting. Do we have a motion to approve today's agenda?

I move that we approve today's agenda.

I'll second.

Alright. All those in favor? Just raise our hands. Perfect. Alright. Today's agenda is approved. Alright. So item number four is approval of minutes from our last meeting, which was the 10/16/2025 meeting. A motion to approve?

I move that we approve the minutes from 10/16/2025 of the environmental sustainability board as written.

Okay. I'll second.

Alright. All those in favor? Alright. Minutes from last meeting approved. Awesome. Alright. We will move on to board business. Our first presentation is a presentation of Green Los Alamos certification program and possible action with Abby. And let me read your bio here, Abby, if she gets in here.

I forget there's a bio.

So Abby Hayward is the energy and water conservation coordinator with the county, and she will present on the Green Los Alamos certification program and seeks ESP support for the program.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Good evening. And fellow ESP members. You can see we will are you good to go? Okay. Green Los Alamos recognizes our commercial community's commitment to stewardship and supports, their ongoing improvements. Their efforts help foster a healthy, vibrant community and strengthen our shared goal of lasting positive change for everyone. Next slide. This is a screenshot of what the initial form looks like. Green Los Alamos allows business owners and other types of organizations the opportunity to complete a simple self certification via this online form. Once submitted, the form is automatically emailed to myself, Anhelica, Anita Barela, and Ellen Fenton.

I will explain that partnership a little bit more. At which point, we will all review application. Businesses are eligible for recognition at three different tiers. And here you can see that a bronze seal will get you 15 completions. You'll achieve a silver seal by 25 completions and a gold seal at 35 completions with a verified site visit.

We've determined it's easiest to make this a self certification process to kick it off to best approach interested businesses within the community. This will allow us to work out any kinks in the program itself. It will kind of self motivate the business community also And sorry, train of thought. And make it as simple a process as possible for those businesses. We realize they're really busy and we don't want to encumber them with additional meetings and processes and find your paperworks and all of those things.

We can open the form at the end of the presentation to get a more in-depth look at it if you're interested. This is a free program and designed to help businesses improve inefficiency and reduce wastes. Maybe that's streamlining operations, reducing a utility expense, or better meeting the needs of employees as well as customers. More importantly, its its existence is to recognize the hard work that's already been done in the community. We have a lot businesses who have put in a lot of effort and it's good to recognize those and encourage them to move forward.

Green Los Alamos is a tiered program to meet them where they are and support them as they grow. Self certification allows business owners to work at their own pace and on their own time completing the application. We can always provide additional assistance as needed. The form is designed to have a save function, so if something comes up in a regular business operation, they can save it and come back to it. We can also even set up an email reminder if they haven't touched it in a week or so.

We can gently nudge them to say, hey, this thing is still out here if you're interested in continuing. So whether the business business is an owner or a tenant, there are achievable topics within the abilities of both. So there are 24 that are solely, we think, tenant based that are achievable. You know, make sure your lights are on a timer. Make sure you know who is operating your heating system.

It's not necessarily that you're in charge of your heating system, but do you know where to go if there's a problem with it? And there are 45 items in total. There's also space within each area of focus to highlight additional sustainability initiatives we may not have covered because we don't want to make it a list that's hundreds of topics long, right? That's, you gotta scroll through it and you're like, oh, this is just too long for me. But we also didn't wanna make it too hyper focused that if your business doesn't do that at all, then don't focus on it.

There are five sections that we just break it down into for kind of ease. They're based on focus area. So we have energy management, water management, waste management, sustainable operations, and transportation. Additionally, there are still free services. They include a building walk through. Those are some of the things that are highlighted on the screen and a utility bill assessment. We have a a volunteer with GPU who is willing to do that. He's retired from the labs, that's his background. So it's a qualified volunteer to do those building assessments if business is interested in learning more or understanding their building more. As we said, there are it's applicable to either a tenant or an owner.

The way the form breaks it down is it's yes, no, and interested. So does this apply to me? Yes or no? And then they can mark interested if they wanna learn more about it. They don't have to mark anything if it doesn't apply to them at all. So it's not you must complete this to move on. It's I've completed these or I'm interested in these or really the no is arbitrary. You don't have to complete that. Upon review, the applicant will receive a recognition packet once they are approved and we've counted that they do indeed meet so many. Again, is a self certification so it's on them to be honest.

There's a signature at the bottom that says I have told everything to be truthful, blah blah blah, that kind of language. So they'll get a recognition packet. It includes a letter, a certification, a physical seal or decal for their door or window wherever they want to put it, as well as digital versions for their own marketing. Next slide on. So the Green Los Alamos program supports the county council strategic goals and objectives, specifically the environmental stewardship and economic vitality.

This program also helps fulfill several implementation considerations in the cap, specifically item CC point one which is to develop a sustainable business certification and it feeds into about a dozen other ones that are steps toward achieving other goals. It also fills the need and several departmental priorities that overlap, hence partnership between the Department on Public Utilities, the Sustainability Office, and the Community Development Department. The second d always gets me. So CDD, they're working on enhancing communication and outreach with small businesses and and beginning to introduce compliance with their outdoor lighting ordinance. The sustainability office in reducing carbon, improving energy efficiency, lowering utility expenses, and reducing PFAS contamination, as well as my own office's interest in expanding outreach and programming beyond what is traditionally residentially focused education and program initiatives.

All of this falls within existing staffing description and utilizes existing tools so we're not looking at any additional out of pocket expenses. The self certification process is designed to minimize extra unnecessary staff involvement and to break down the silos in performing the same work. Next slide, Angelica. We are bringing this before you, the ESB. We'll be bringing it before BPU on December 10 and county council on December 16 just to to show that additional support.

So from the community perspective, the Los Alamos oh my gosh. Commerce and Development Corporation. So many labels. LACDC is what I'm gonna be referring to them from here on. And the chamber of commerce are fully supportive of this initiative.

We originally brought this concept before chamber about a year and a half ago, I would say. But in subsequent conversations, we were it was revealed to us that LACDC would be a better partner organization at TOP because they're the umbrella over chamber and main street and all of that would be a more suitable partner. The partnership will consist of all the county supporting a website with the info. We will host the self certification form and conduct the reviews. The business organizations, chamber and LA CDC and Main Street and all those other ones we haven't even reached yet, will promote and communicate the program to their membership.

This isn't limited to only those members. So we will also be working with the CDD who does business licenses to make sure that even nonmembered businesses are still made aware of this program. It's it's not limited to to who can apply for it. Additionally, LASA, in its zero waste days, did a survey in 2019. They spoke to about 13 restaurants and found that they wanted to be greener. Granted, this was in 2019, but we've reached out to several of those businesses again recently, and they're still interested in doing some sort of recognition program. They want the education on how to be greener. They want the energy audits. They want convenient recycling and composting and a prestigious award for taking actions. Those were specifically identified points.

Several businesses have already parts in motion that we're not recognizing. Compostable food takeouts, dollars off for bringing your own coffee cup. I mean, you've probably seen it across the board. It's time to give them a little encouragement for doing that. And Green Los Alamos, like I mentioned before, is applicable beyond businesses.

So we envision maybe schools, nonprofits, and other types that aren't traditionally seen as businesses, maybe themselves can also apply for this. Next slide. So here's our launch plan. We need to finalize the recognition packet and public program information. We'll finish out the website, coordinate with the bottom line newsletter that is the CDD's business newsletter to businesses who have licenses and sign up for their newsletter, as well as coordinating with LACDC on a timeline for messaging and implementation.

Obviously, we didn't wanna do too much work into that before it was supported. Otherwise, we'd have a fully robust program that went nowhere. We will speak about green Los Alamos at business focused events. This could include chamber breakfast, women in business meetings, rotary, koanas, any of those type of public engagement meetings. CDD will coordinate messaging in business licenses as in new applications and any renewals that do occur. We hope to pilot or or self soft launch this self certification program in January post holidays. Alright. These are just what an example of the different logos look like for gold tier, silver tier, bronze tier. I should mention, they won't be different sizes. They'll all be the same size.

I just needed to fit them on and make it look cool. So I will stand for questions, and I will also open up the Angelica, if you wanna click on that image, it'll just open up the form if you have more questions and wanna see that.

I don't know if I I don't have

the form.

Okay. If you have the website, I can give you the short link to it if you just wanna open up a tab. Lacnm.com/greenla.

Okay. Questions? Sue, do you want to go first?

I think I already did lots, so and I did it in writing, so please, everybody else, ask what you might have to ask, and then

So just to add, so Sue did I don't know if everyone saw it, but Sue sent out an email to us with some questions that she had asked Abby previously. So I didn't get a chance to read through more than a couple of them, but please do that at one after the meeting. Does anyone else have any questions? I guess I'm curious, like, what kind of like, once they once they do this, they'll get some sort of certification, but, like, what other incentives are there? Is there any, like I mean Like, do it? Right? Yeah. Exactly. Like, having a free energy audit is awesome. Like, that, I think, is, like, you know, worth a lot.

Yeah. But what other kind of incentives are there?

That's a great question. We were trying to figure that out ourselves. Like, great. Do it. But beyond the feel good, like, why why why bother? Right? So there will be the utility tracking for any again, we don't wanna just force this down people's throats. But if they're really interested, we can track the utilities and show, like, you are really seeing a decrease in whatever your focus is. Yeah. Additionally, we can do the building assessments.

We are trying to figure out a lot of other communities offer incentives. That's the the barrier we're coming across. So just some examples that we could maybe look into further given all partnerships. Some communities offer chamber discounts or or business organization discounts if I am a green business. We will definitely be able to provide information on any funding resources that we do find that are available.

So if you know you you want to improve your windows, let's say, because we have a lot of older buildings and windows often go first, we can try to point them and and get them as much support as we can for for efficiency funding sources. Yeah. That is something that that we're still trying to figure out, to be honest, because there's so many different types of businesses out there. Is it what's gonna mean the most to it? Like, an office versus a restaurant versus something else. So I think as the program develops, we'll figure out more metrics and and working with businesses. Like, we've asked them, would this be fun to do? Would you be interested in it? But until they actually go through the form and figure it out what's working for them, I think we'll figure out more answers. Yeah.

Those are some things that are on the table right now.

I think, like, for me as if I think about being a consumer of stuff, like, that is something that I value. So if there's two businesses that have the same thing, I'd be more likely probably to pick

I will mention business. Anita, who is with CDD, we did work. She put together a really brief survey just to get a feel for what businesses were thinking and increased, consumership from biz from from customers Yeah. Was identified on the list, but nobody marked it.

Interesting.

So those couple of businesses that did respond to her survey didn't think it would be a driver. Maybe that was the type of business, maybe it wasn't. I'm not sure. Yeah.

But yeah. Interesting. Cool. Yeah.

Hi. Really interesting. Just want is there like a and I might have missed it at the start. Sorry. Yeah. Fog outside. I was driving so

It's super sick. Yeah.

Yeah. Is there a recertification process? So like if someone, you know, only achieves the bronze or the silver, can they go through the process again?

Yes. They can at any time increase their certification. We're still trying to figure out if there needs to be and, again, not knowing all the details of is this program gonna be well received or is it just gonna be like crickets. Right? We're not sure if there needs to be, like, after five years, you recertify yourself

Yeah.

Just to make sure you indeed still have green products in place. Right? Are you still ordering compostable cups, or have you gone back to a Styrofoam based one? But, yes, anytime a business does want to improve their tier, they are certainly welcome to do that at any time or even ask us, hey. I wanna move up to the next level. What can I do in my business operations? Yeah.

Are we gonna maintain some sort of list or something where they get some sort of advertisement or acknowledgment for this factor?

So between the county and LACDC, they do plan on making some sort of green business page or at least a highlight on their website saying that these businesses have gone through it. Now now from the county perspective, we can't promote one over the other. We can't say, like, oh, go to this coffee shop because they're green certified, but not necessarily mention this one as much. But it will be kind of a highlighted. That way if you are a consumer who is interested in green businesses, there'll be like a green business directory type both through CDC and through CDD.

David, do you have questions?

Yeah. Miss Hayward, can nonprofits participate also? Yes. Thank you.

You can. We would love you to not to to participate. That would only emphasize that this program is above and beyond just a business, a typical business.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Awesome. Any other questions?

I have one or Would you like input from us in terms of editing or making comments on your online form or is that done? It is definitely an evolving form.

And if you see one that is glaringly missing, I would say, let us know. But I do keep in mind, we don't wanna make it too long. Yeah. Right? Like, would probably go max of 50 items, and we're at 45 right now just because we wanna try to keep that spectrum of items but not keep it exhaustively long.

That's why we did include the spaces for them to upload any additional initiatives that they might have done that are kind of one off or really unique to this particular type of business. Right? But, yeah, certainly, this is this is just foreheads looking at it from a couple of checklists and, you know, Google going, you know, we know these are regular standards and practices that could apply to business type organizations.

Yeah. I noticed just going around the Internet this morning, are several many cities that already have these kinds of programs in place. And did you consult their criteria in in the latest?

Handful of them. So the one of the initial programs that kind of at least drove my again, this program this some driving something like this has happened since 2019. I got here in 2020. So we started looking initially with chamber probably 2022, 2023 post me having children. So one of the re driving factors for me was sustainable BREC.

So Breckenridge has a program that's similar to this. So we looked at their what their program looks like. I did look a super aside, Sue sent out something from Denver, and I looked at Denver has a sustainability a green certifiably green Denver program, and it is very comprehensive, way more so than our initial program needs to be. So we're just trying to launch something here. And whatever that evolves into over the years might might look differently, but just getting something off the ground.

And that's why we're kinda looking at a pretty simple self certification program. And if it becomes overwhelmingly popular, then we can try to rope make it a little more robust so we don't have a bunch of gold level businesses that maybe aren't doing as much as they could be. Right? Mhmm. So good question. Yeah.

Will there be a mechanism for people, for businesses to self report on things that they've you can track utility use and tell them over time their utility use has gone down. But things like the amount of waste that they generate or the amount of, I don't know, air quality infractions they have or something like that. Will there be a way for them to self report on improvements that they've seen as a result of taking this program on?

We don't currently have any mechanisms in place for them to do a self reporting. Again, we were just looking at ease of I don't want you to be committed to sending me a quarterly report or anything. But if that's something that's interested, like I said, we will try to set up because we do have a data analyst within utilities, and I'm not expecting overwhelming participation at first. So I think those handful of businesses, we can easily track utilities. So that's why it'll be if they wanna check into us, they can. And, like, I'm not sure how waste works for commercial facilities. Like, if if they request that's not my world. Do they request dumpsters to be picked up when they're full? Like, I don't know how they could track waste necessarily outside of I get one dumpster of trash a week. I don't know if you can get more granular than that.

Yeah. We don't track, like, per business or even per dumpster, so that would be hard to track. We track in general, like, general character characterization types, like residential versus commercial.

It's a good question. We just haven't explored how to do it without becoming super staff intensive or business intensive. Right? They're they're busy people.

Right. I was just thinking that we have we have the climate action plan goals, and we now have a nice dashboard that shows how we're moving towards them, and we're always looking for actual metrics as to how we're achieving various goals and if there

was some Yeah. Some of the easier ones, like, do they now have a bike rack in front? Like, physical numbers or an EV charger. But some of them are a little trickier to track, I think. Unless somebody knows of something, please tell me. But yeah. Yeah. Think waste can

be really difficult to track.

Yeah. Definitely, it could be. But it can also save them money. Mean, when when we were looking at at reducing food waste, for instance, there were primitive AI assisted systems that could take a look at what was coming off of plates in restaurants to help them figure out what was being wasted, and thereby cut back on the amount of food waste that they were producing, and save money, obviously, cause they're not wasting food. So things like that that might that they might be able to do.

Yeah. Those are those are options in the form, like, I want to be more interested in food composting or generally providing recycling within my facility, but it's not more detailed than that. It's just kind of a we provide recycling. We collect glass. You know? It's it's kind of a broad, but individual, but not by the numbers. Right. Yeah. You don't

wanna make this too too fussy for them unless Yeah. Although providing providing the resources that they might use to be able to cut down on things that would save them money might be Yeah. Well received.

Definitely the partial intent of that interested column is I want to do this. Right. You know, who can I call who can I contact to get more details about from AI assistance to just general composting resources? So for example.

Cool. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

Any other questions for Abby? No? Alright. Abby, thank you so much. Thank you. Talking to us.

Tonight, we are asking the board

to Oh, I forgot. I'm sorry. Mhmm.

I forgot too.

Let me read it. Okay. So the recommended action is to I move that the environmental sustainability board supports the green Los Alamos certification program and forward this recommendation to council. Do we need to have further discussion with anything? No? Any anyone object to that motion? Do we need to adjust it? No? Okay. Cool. Do we have a motion then to recommend the action?

I move that the environmental sustainability board supports the Green Los Alamos certification program and move forward with this recommendation to council.

Any seconds?

I second. K.

Alright. All those in favor? Awesome. Alright. Well, thanks, Abby. Thank you. And when are you presenting to counsel?

December 16. December 16.

Okay. Sounds good.

So we will mention that ESB has supported it and whether or not BPU also supports it. Yeah. And then the program will just be evolving. So

Okay.

Look forward to it. Thank you.

Well, as you evolve, yeah, let us know how we can help.

Yeah. I think the biggest thing would be if you are part of a business or you know of a business specifically and you wanna talk it up just to try to get that soft launch early, like, hey. There's this thing coming. Even if they just wanna look at the form, we'll get all that messaging out too, but, you know, personal nudges always help.

Yeah. Definitely.

Thank you. Cool.

Thank you. Alright. Our next item is to begin drafting the 2026 work plan.

Okay, chair. It's that time of year again to start working on our work plan. And, really, what I did was or the process for, I would say, new member, but you're very familiar with this process, is that we would revise the plan. It's, you know, it's a formal document of what we wanna achieve this coming year. We should consider, like, the climate action plan and the goals that are in that plan, for additional items like supporting the sustainable the green Los Alamos program.

Just any other initiatives that we wanna work on should be in this plan to give us focus for the coming year. And then so we can look at it today. We can kinda just do a good review of it, give you some ideas of what we're, wanting to update, and then we can review it, revise it again in December, and then it should come back in January for final approval, and we'll forward that to counsel. So I just I started with some high level updates just to to set you off on the right direction, and then figured I should probably stop and and wait to get some buy in from you all. So so the front page is just a list of term dates and things like that.

So I updated those.

And, Nelka, can we go back up to the Yep. The process timeline? Yeah. So okay. So on December, this will just be our only item on the agenda.

Is that what that means? This and also this fleet conversion plan.

Update. Update. Okay. The draft update. Cool. Sounds good. Yeah. Thank you.

You're welcome. Anything else on this page?

No?

Uh-uh. So we really for tonight is we could take as little or as much time as you want on this, but it's for you to review. You can add you know, go in and do your homework, take a review, see the things that you want to change for this coming year.

With my term date, does that get adjusted in there? Is it just gonna be removed?

It'll be removed next month. Okay. Yeah. Because this is Rebecca's last meeting with us.

I'm very pregnant.

Okay. I think we should just go through the whole thing, like, just, like, briefly go over it. Sure. And then we can see what time it is and then probably just, like, have some homework to do. Does that work for everyone?

No. Okay.

Sure. Okay. So this form, it's I think the way it's opening in on SharePoint, it's like, the format looks a little weird, but it doesn't look this strange if you open it directly in a Word document. So just ignore that. So what did we accomplish this previous calendar year?

What were some of the highlights? So and this is more focused on activities. So I just, you know, I focused on the Peak Earth Day Festival. That's a big event for us and our board and supporting Peak. Of course, the DPU and Peak Water Festival is a big opportunity for us to share information to all the fourth graders across the district, supporting cleanup Los Alamos Day, as well.

And then this past year was the first eco club summit, so I hope that's something we'll continue to support. And then, of course, the different booths that we had at Farmers Market. I don't remember if we did one at summer concert series this year or not, but then as well as peak. So there's just the different venues that we're at to share information. So, like, Science Fest could go in this one, for example.

It's weird I can't type into it. That's gonna be a problem. Let me see. That's weird. It, like, converted it into a Word document, but it's, like, acting like a PDF. Okay. Well, I might just have to handwrite your Yeah. Notes

Some of our accomplishments could be the endorsing the Green Los Alamos.

Yep. Oh, yeah.

I see. Very easy.

Yeah. That's so strange. Okay. So so this, I think section one point o is really just on activities. So I think unless you could think of anything else, let me know on that section.

K.

And then moving on to 1.2, which is the top five accomplishments that we can add, supporting green or Los Alamos. We've also been supporting the implementation of the climate action plan to achieve the 2050 carbon neutral goal. Many of you, Sue Barnes, served on steering committees specifically for climate marketing and engagement services and then as well as the fleet conversion and community wide EV charging plan. So those were two big initiatives, right, under the climate action plan this year. And then evaluated the single use plastic bags, which was a council initiative.

And then, of course, just working with Lassa and through Lassa to have our Facebook group and help with events and volunteer activities and newsletters and things like that. So lessons learned. Well, let's stop there. Anything else in that area?

I have a couple comments. I actually wrote a lot of revisions, and so at the end, maybe you can tell us how we're going to how best to get all of our comments and revisions compiled and sent to you. I also found it impossible to edit this document, so

I realize you couldn't type in this, though.

It was I converted it this way and that, and I still couldn't do anything with it. So it would be great if there was some way that we could all, you know, make comments and give you feedback and that sort of thing. But in the interim, it seems like for 1.2.1 that it should be broader, that is that we didn't just support the cap, but also other sustainability issues, initiatives like trash recycling and so forth. I realize that a lot of that is under the cap, but I'd also would want to call it out that we're doing more than just working on the the cap action goals, because we do. We also let's see.

And the very last one I just I'm on LASA. It'd be great if other people were on LASA, but I just wonder if we actually are I mean, we none of us, including me, maintain the Facebook group or publish articles in Nature Notes, or it was all your office that did the articles pretty much in the newsletter and so forth. So it seems like ESB involvement there is pretty minimal, but we can keep it if you'd like. I think that there was a couple of other things we might add to that instead. We one of our big things has always been to continue oversight of environmental services programs and results.

And, we also routinely review and discuss other county issues as they pertain to sustainability, including the artificial turf study, bicycle working group study, the LAC energy management proposal and net zero air program, the water and energy conservation plan updates, now the green certification, green business certification program. So that, I think, is also a big function for us is is looking at other county issues as they pertain to sustainability. So I might say that that would be a better thing for that last box than talking about what LASA does. But I could be wrong.

Well, maybe we could say because I think, technically, LASA is one of our working groups, right, under ESB. We could say we support LASA and then just leave it as that and not do the additional stuff, but add the other stuff that you mentioned.

Yeah. It's well, what I hate to do right now because we're stuck in this terrible form is I wanna capture everything you're saying. Maybe it's just best by saying, why don't you submit all your Yeah. Feedback to me. I can incorporate it. And the next month, we go through and go through more with the fine tome fine tooth comb and, you know, flush out all the things that were missed or not missed. I think that's better because right now, it's it's pretty bare bones.

Mhmm.

So I'd rather have your feedback. So if you're okay with that chair.

Yeah. That sounds fine. Yeah. Yeah. As long as it sounds like Sue already has everything typed up anyways. So

If you have it typed up, whatever is easier for you

guys to scan it too. Yeah. But I suppose.

I could so the PDF document, I'm pretty sure you could just type into.

Okay.

So Cool. If you have that.

Yeah. If you

If you have that feature. Oh, got it. So otherwise, you could just start a Word document and say in 1.2, write this or Okay. If that would be okay. I don't know how you've compiled your notes already, Sue.

I just wrote them up in OneNote that I can put them into a Word document. I had

OneNote's fine. Yeah. Just send them that way. Okay.

Cool. Sounds good. Okay.

Yeah. There's a lot we have done. So I will just say for the work plan, just because we're here, I think we left kind of befuzzled. Is that a word? Like I know what you mean. Be we were just like, what do we do with this whole plastic bag? Oh. The recommendation we made. So one of the recommendations I heard was that we put that in this plan as something to follow-up on. So

but yeah. That's If directed by if directed by council,

I mean, it's Well, council will review this plan. Right.

But but I are we not still waiting to hear if they want us to do anything more with the plastic bag thing? I well,

that's kind of this this will give them the opportunity to say to do it or not. I know it's not, like, the exact direction. We were looking for more specific. So that's up to the board. If you don't feel comfortable with that, then don't put it in there. But that was one advice that I received.

Who gave you that advice?

The county manager. Okay. Deputy county manager. Alright.

So I think do do we wanna keep going through the rest?

I don't see it as good use of time just because I can't update the form.

Okay. Alright. So let's see. Our next meet

Unless there's questions from anyone?

Yeah. Are there any questions?

Oh, okay.

Alright. Our next meeting is the December 18. So when should we try to get our comments back to you by Angelica so we have time to update or compile everything? I it's

not the fifteenth. Yeah. This next month is gonna be tough. Fifteenth.

What about the fifth? Or the I know. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, like, really crazy. Yeah. If you can get him back by, like, December, that would be great.

Okay. Sounds good. So, a little homework. Everyone please read through, make your comments, and then we'll get them back to Angelica by December 5. And then, you can cc me, and then I can help compile too. We can figure it out.

I can do it. I'll send you guys the PDF document. If you do have that ability, you could type right into it. Yeah. I'm gonna still have to compile notes, so maybe I can find a Word version and do track changes. That might be the easiest. There's not a good way because we don't have a goo like, a share a doc share feature with the county.

I don't know if this would work, but you could put the PDF into ChatGPT and see if it can convert it into a Word doc for you. I mean, we have editable Word doc.

Yeah. We have those features at work to do this.

I don't know.

That might work. Okay. Okay. Cool. Alright. Sounds good. Alright. So the next item is discussion of board and commission member term limits and a possible action on that.

So I'll start the conversation. I was hoping for a little bit of help from Sue because she was there, and then also David Hampton was at our meeting. So we had our b and c luncheon this past last week. And at the luncheon, they started discussing BNC member term limits. And really from the purpose that they noted that some board members are struggling to recruit new board members.

Right? We've we've run up against that as well. And in several cases, current members are willing to continue serving on that board. So but by the current code ordinance, they're prevented from doing so. So instead of just saying, like, we will extend your term or, you know, you can serve a third term or a fourth term.

The way the code the way our ESB code reads is that we can serve two consecutive terms for two years. Right? So you could serve a total of four year four years on the ESB, and then you have to take a break. So they were just curious. They wanted to hear from board members what their thoughts were on revising some of those, like, term limits.

And they didn't want it to be, like, let's set term limits to five years, and now people are discouraged from having to serve such a long term. Right? Yeah. So they really wanted to hear from you all. And the chair asked the chair and councilor Rieger asked that we would submit our remarks back to Jackie Salazar as soon as possible. So I don't know if Sue, you wanna add anything or David.

So one of the ideas I had at the meeting was because I don't like the idea of extending the terms themselves. It's might be the discouragement. But in the same way that council allows me to serve on multiple boards at their discretion, because it says you can only serve on one board without council saying you can do more, we could do that with terms too. So after you serve two terms, if you'd like to continue serving at council's discretion, you could exceed the the two term limit, I think.

I think that yeah. I could see that working well because you don't want like, if there are other people who are qualified to serve, you don't want it to just be, like, they don't get the opportunity to do that. Yeah. I think

it's hard. Like, I think I think term limits are good because you want that constant influx of activity, you can always come back. I I would almost open it up where, like, if the council wants to, like, give you discretion to go, maybe it's because there's not other candidates. Right? Like, if you qualify it and it's like, no one else is ready to step up, then please take the person that's there. But, like, if there's qualified candidates, I'd be afraid of council re upping somebody and losing that kind of new influence that comes in. Because especially in sustainability, it moves so much, and you gotta gotta keep the pulse.

But you'd still, like You'd still have to reapply. Yeah. And then And openly compete. So

but we we I mean, that could be part of the recommendation. Right? Yeah.

And and to support that, so there's some boards I've applied to where I didn't get on because there's other people available who to give other people opportunity. But but on the other hand, there's boards like planning and zoning where it's it's a little bit more technical. And there's two members, and I'd I'd say these are the the most qualified members that they have, and they're terming out next March. So to replace those people, if if they wanted to continue, it's gonna be very, very difficult.

Yeah.

I think I mean, if you're able to extend it and then, you know, the reapplication so it's an open pool, I think it's great for, like, even boards like this. I mean, the experienced people on our board, I feel like, add a lot. Yep. And I think that when there's enthusiasm in the community and especially to contribute, you know, specifically like the ESB, when you have the the knowledge of sustainability issues and and then also the enthusiasm to really contribute, I think it's highly valued. So I've, like, really valued learning a lot from the experienced people on the board.

I mean, coming into being new in the town and then suddenly joining the board, there's a lot to learn. And I think you guys all bring a lot. And I think that if there's vacancies versus continuing to allow experienced people on, I think there's a benefit there.

Did did anyone discuss, like like, say you got re upped, not keeping it at two years, but maybe doing one year? So that way, like, the next year, there would be an opportunity for somebody else to apply. So They didn't talk about that. I feel like that could also kind of limit some of Joe's concerns. Yeah.

The I I kinda like that because it it it keeps looking at this person who's a serial board, you know

Yeah.

Person. Yeah. Look at them every year to see if they wanna

I mean, is it is it worth instead of trying to remove the term limits to try to make more of a pipeline? Right? Because your point is there's only a few technical people and maybe other people need confidence to come into it and step into it. And it's like, hey. If you're interested in this sort of work, like, here's some stuff and, like, building people's technical breadth up.

Like, I don't know if they have to have, like, a certain education requirement for planning and zoning or if it's just sort of I I don't know what the requirements are, but, I mean, for us, we could probably do better if Shannon could pick her successor or likely victim or whatever you wanna call the next person who goes into that role. Just work with them on like, hey. Here's the requirements. This is what goes on. This is kinda what you need to do. Because I don't think it's deep knowledge a lot of times. It's just trying to place the situation with the people and make the right decisions.

I would push back on that because our meetings are open, so people can come and view and, like, they're more than welcome to talk to us individually. So I don't like, I don't I guess maybe you could do an extra step of trying to recruit people, but I don't know if it's appropriate to, like, try and add like, I don't know.

I know a lot of people just sit on the sidelines because they're intimidated at the idea of being on a board.

I mean, I I was, like, very nervous to apply. And the only reason I applied is because I knew Eric. Like, I never would have done this.

I mean, Eric could run a workshop. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. I I I see what you're saying. Yeah. I don't yeah. I think that's, a separate issue, though, like recruiting, trying to attract people versus, like, term limits. I don't know.

That is something interesting, though, to share with them, like, learn how to become a board member. You know? And that might be Yeah. Like, break the ice for people who are interested.

Maybe, like, doing an open house or something, like like, with counsel. Like, super low key, you could do, like, coffee or something and just have people come

chat. Yeah. Like a mixer.

Yeah. Exactly.

Once they realize that we don't know anything more than that.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exact yeah. And just, like, yeah, people just do everybody all together and say, yeah. If you are interested in a board, do you even know what a board does? Like, I didn't really know what a board did. So I think I like that idea. Yeah.

Think it'd be good to differentiate too, like, just the term of service on one of these boards versus, like, being a county counselor. Right? Because that's probably what a bunch of people associate it with. It's just like, wow. Those people do a lot of work, and they're up there all the time. And they've got a lot of decisions that regardless of what you choose, one side's gonna be angry with you. And that's not the typical board service that you have. And I think just familiarity with that would help a lot.

Yeah. What were you

gonna say? And to this point, like, this I think all the boards operate very differently. Yes. So tonight, like, our recommendation will be directly regarding our board, like, not all boards. Just because, like, health council operates very differently than PNC and you know? So this is just very specific to what we know about our board. Right? Like, not all boards. So and I think that's what they discussed even at the meeting was that all boards are different and should possibly be revised. You know, the the revision should be specific to each board Okay.

Is how I understood. Like, because health council, they have to have a certain number of people and certain categories and certain lanes versus us. Like, we you know, it's just two years each term. So one opportunity one possibility would be just to allow counsel to appoint you to serve a third term, for example, if you were interested. And that would be you it would still go open for recruitment to try to get new members. But if there wasn't another member, you know, Jane Doe could volunteer to serve a third term.

So Currently, what what's your process for because we always have a vacancy. It used to be that there would be a vacancy open and then three people minimum would apply. And then you we would go through the process and select one of those people. But but we're constantly low on people. How does it work now in terms of, replacing not that we can replace Rebecca, but or filling the vacancy that we have. How do we how how does that work for you? Does that impact what we're choosing here?

Can I add? I think that's only been in, like, the last year, really. Like, when I first started, we didn't have any vacancies for the first Right. My first three years.

But we so yeah. So I don't know how it's gonna be going forward.

Will Yeah. Continue to

the pattern. Difficult.

Do you So the current process is, like, now that we've received Rebecca's resignation, we'll recruit. So we'll recruit using, like, the county line, sustainability newsletter, BPU, billing search, just word-of-mouth. And then once we we start receiving applicants, for example, we'll try to we'll try to interview as soon as possible. So even if there's just one applicant, we'll leave it open for a while. But if there's not you know, if after a couple weeks, we're gonna interview and then move forward with, you know, asking counsel to appoint the new member.

In the past, yeah, we we did like to have more than one candidate, but sometimes that's just not, hasn't been the that hasn't been the case. So then is that your question?

Yeah. Yeah. And along those lines, would there be a mechanism for us to or should we propose that we enable people to re up sooner? I mean, if excuse me if Herman wanted to come back on the board, for instance, could you reach back to Herman and say I don't know why my voice is going and say, We have vacancies. Would you like to reapply? Could we make gap shorter if we're going to potentially be able to offer people to just extend it to a third term? Is it not also make sense to allow people to reapply sooner?

Right.

I think it's kind of the same thing. Right?

Yeah. So this could be part of this.

Yeah. I I think that's a good point, though, Sue, because, like, we have had like, Eric, for example, where he had to wait. I think it's a year.

Mhmm.

And then he could reapply. Yeah. And, David, I think you were gonna say something before maybe.

And, I mean, if you think about it, we lost Eric. We had to wait a year. We did all the recruiting. We replaced him, and then probably, you know, one of the members has come off since then. So it's like

Yeah. We're still down someone.

Yeah. It still takes it takes a lot of staff time because and county counselor time and chair or vice chair time to coordinate those interviews. So yeah. I mean, I don't think we're ever gonna get away from that part of it of just having to go through the recruitment part, but being able to extend another term would be great, in my opinion, with the open recruitment. So I I think that adds a level of fairness.

Can you just make some, like, emeritus position where it's like if you served and they have a deficiency until they replace that, you can call back an old member to make you make sure you can get quorum.

I actually like that idea.

I don't think that's a bad idea.

Yeah. But once again, it's it's kinda similar to to to counsel being just being able to add another term onto it.

Yeah. Just one or something. One year.

And I I've actually thought about having, like, you know, bullpen. Right? So, like, if you think you're not gonna be quorum, you have people you can call on, but I I don't think that is the intention.

Yeah. Because then it'd be hard to, like, keep consistency and get stuff done. Yeah.

It's like having a substitute teacher. Yeah.

Exactly. We're gonna watch a movie today.

In theory, at work. It's just I don't know how much gets done.

Right. I think it's pretty rare for this board, if this is supposed to come pertain to us, it's rare for us to have to not make quorum. It's happened maybe once in the last year, if that. So we usually can. I don't know that that's so much of our problem at this point, but we do wanna keep our board full of people Yeah. For for other reasons. So I don't know that we need some way to we don't necessarily need a bullpen because because we can usually make quorum. And it's usually not a big deal if we can't. It's not like we're holding up anyone's zoning application or something. Right. Yeah.

It's a little different. Yeah.

Yeah. One thing that I didn't think was attractive I'm sorry. I can never see Sue. One thing that I didn't think was attractive was extending the length of a term. Right? Yeah. That would be a deterrent.

I don't think that's a good idea at all. Yeah. Yeah. Two years is, like, a fairly significant commitment, I think, in the first place. So

And it feels like, oh, I can do that. It's not like five years.

Like, oh, let's go. Palatable. Yeah. Okay. How long are counsel terms? Four. Four years? Okay.

Do it twice.

Twice in a row, and then you have to take a break? Do you guys have a mechanism where I think this would never happen where, like, if there were no one else running, you could be reappointed?

I have no idea. Okay. You do see where sometimes a counselor has to resign, and in that case, they appoint someone.

Yeah.

And then that person can run for two terms.

Yeah. Okay.

I think there are a of pieces.

It's like a partial term or something, and then they can fill yeah. That's like what I did. Yeah.

Yeah. Ended up surveying, like, nine years

or something

Okay. Or more. Yeah. Okay. Alright. So I'm just I wanna steer us back a little bit to this because there is a pot there was a possible action requested. But, I mean, I guess I'm just confused what the benefit of giving an action would be versus giving our feedback and kind of what we discussed. Okay.

That's what you're recommending. Okay. So it's just that you have consensus with the board that an action's taken, and that's your overall recommendation.

Okay. So I guess what is our yeah. Go ahead, David.

Couple more things.

Okay.

So I think there's there'd be some benefit to some level having discussion. Does party balance something we still wanna pursue on boards and commissions. And I, you know, I understand the arguments either way, but I I'm not quite sure it has served us having that limitation.

Do you think it's like a detraction? It's like a a negative?

Well, it's it's another reason why sometimes we can't fill

out the

boards. So Yeah. And in the in the seven member boards, it's it's less of a problem. But in the, for instance, health council again, they have 15 members. And it's yeah. So

Yeah. That would be that could potentially be difficult, I would see.

I mean, isn't it just that you don't have a super majority?

Right. You just have to have a simple majority. One plus half is the most you can have. So in ours, it'd be four.

No. For political affiliation. Isn't that what you were saying?

Yeah. You but you can have a simple majority for either political affiliation.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But not a not a super majority.

And when that was brought up at the BNC luncheon, they talked about just not opening up that can of worms at this time. So right? Yeah.

And it seems like if you do the do not disclose, does that like, could we have everybody would be do not disclose or would that be a problem?

You can I don't think it's a problem?

So you just can't have a majority Of of a party Correct. Of the defined party. Okay. Yeah.

And I would

say that's true.

Before there was d t the DTS option, which several people have taken, That was a problem in the past in getting people to apply, was we would not have we already had a majority of one party, we could not take on more. And we didn't have applicants that were of other stripes. So that I I think it would be great to get rid of that. But if council doesn't wanna talk

about it, will make the recommendation. They could choose not to do anything with it.

So yeah.

I don't think it's bad just because, I mean, I think it's more powerful when you do have that mix. I think it can come to consensus and everything.

But if it is limiting our ability to, like, attract people and have people apply, which I don't think that's the case here, but it sounds like other boards are having that problem. But maybe that's

I mean, part of that's the recruitment. You gotta figure out how to reach across the aisle and make them feel like they have a voice. Right? Like, that's

Well, everybody would still be able to apply regardless of of what party they're in and if they're the the best The best candidate or if the board thinks that it would be good to have other that perspective would be good for the board, then they can get appointed. It's not like we're saying you can't. It just makes it a little easier to get more people applying.

I can see why a counselor doesn't want to talk

If that's off the table, then it's off the table. One more.

Yeah. Go

ahead. So and I thought of it today. So one of the impediments to getting people on boards is the interview process. And not it's just it's it's burdensome on on staff council and and and us. And for people who are known quantities who who are re upping, and there might be people external, so you need to interview them because you've never interviewed them before, that maybe once again have a discussion about not having to do the interview for people that everybody's familiar with.

In all instances, are you recommending that or in just if there weren't other applicate applicants?

Well, I I I I'd say that the reason to have it is for people who have not served on Lab Board before.

Yeah.

But if they're re upping, I don't see that. I mean, you're checking the box saying, well, either know this person's good or you know they're bad. So there's no real value added by the interview other than checking the box.

I think everybody's criteria is gonna be different. Right? Like

Yeah. Someone might might not agree or whatever. Yeah.

I mean, I I think you almost need that just to add validity to it. Right? Like, we went through a process. It's a checkbox that happens in a backroom, like, it just doesn't feel transparent. Yeah.

And I I would say to that is that yeah. Even you're doing it just to make it look transparent, but it's not.

I mean, if that's the case, that's a legitimate problem and that should be rectified. Like, if you're not actually doing a transparent system and your interview is not actual credible evaluation of the candidate for the position, then that person shouldn't be doing an interview in any case.

Well, may maybe not transparent was not was a bad word. I mean

It's hard. I understand exactly where the direction is that you're going, but I also like if you take those two things and stack it together, all of a sudden, you're able to pipeline people onto the board without any sort of process and without any sort of register towards what the community representation might be and trying to bring in all those ideals and everything. And I don't think that's the pipeline you want, for what's ultimately out there in the community because I think that's gonna shut people down. And especially if there's a controversial issue and a board weighs in on it, that input or that or that board weighing in on it is not gonna be looked on very well.

I hear you.

A possible middle ground there might be to have people that are already board members who are reupping just do the written part of the application, not because the time consuming part is the interviewing. And so if they have already served on the board and they're just re upping, or they previously served on the board maybe, then they just have to do the written part. That document, would then also be available to counsel in terms of for them to review when when they appoint people so they could check and see, well, is this person really the best choice based on their written comments even if they don't do the the interview part.

And and I think that would be acceptable too in a in a case as well. Like, if there's no other applicants and you have one person and they fill that out or in some of those extenuating circumstances, As long as it's documented beforehand and that's the process, then I see no problem with it. But I would just I'd be hesitant to make that a process unless you have very clear designations on, like, what the evaluation criteria was that they went through to do that.

Okay. Alright. So based off of this discussion, what's our what's our recommendation for counsel? Seems like we're we're pretty, across the board, comfortable with, like, having third and fourth terms with approval from council. Do we wanna consider that they would just be a year at a time? I think that makes sense. Okay.

So third and fourth terms, but only for one year.

Yeah. And they'd have to be reevaluate every year. Reapply if they wanted to keep going, I guess, at that point, which I know adds more work for you guys, but I I think that, like, I think you would you would have a greater chance of limiting kind of what Joe was talking about of, like, just the same people applying to everything and not allowing, like, new people to to join a board.

And so this would only apply if there were no other applicants then?

I think they would I think competing.

They could compete.

Yeah. Compete. So they would be allowed anyone who's currently serving could reapply and be part of the pool of the of the applications.

And then if there would be no other applicants not doing a verbal interview like David was mentioning, but having some sort of written interview process, that that that would be the the what's the word I want? Qualification. Thank you. The qualification. Yeah.

Do we want also to address people, the requirement that people step off for a given period of time. And

I can be rerecorded.

Right. Get rid of that or or something. Because currently, you have to step off for two years. Right?

For a year?

Yeah. One year, I think. For one year. Okay.

It's just be

just limits the number of people that can reapply. That's all. It seem it seems arbitrary to me. I don't really know what the value is. But why is it why why do you think it's a good idea to have?

Step away. Mean, you you remove your supposed to push the buttons to do

in there.

Mhmm. You step away. I mean, you just get you go find something else to do with your time, and then when you come back, you're you're fresh from it. Right? Like, that's one of the things is it's almost like if you write your own paper, you shouldn't be the editor of it. Right? Like, you have to step away a little bit or get a fresh perspective on it, and it helps for people to, like, cycle off the board. And if they cycle off sustainability board, maybe they go to planning board, maybe they go to utilities. And so, like, these people that are participating are active in the community, and I don't think they're just gonna, like, disappear. But maybe they cycle around and maybe those people get utilized on some of the other ones, maybe the health board or something.

And that's, you know, giving them different terms and different perspectives is never a bad thing. I don't know. I mean, I just

But in I think in the instance that Sue is referring to, it would be like like, for example, using Herman as the example. Like, we have an open position. Herman hasn't been gone for a year. Could Herman come back even though he hasn't been? Or do

you still rules he could. Like, if he wanted to, he could ask the

So you think that the way we've framed it, it would that would encompass that.

So in general, like, for the standard person that doesn't wanna ask permission, they they go take a year off, and then they can apply whether counsel wants them to or not.

Yeah.

But if they want to, counsel could grant them the exemption, and he could come back and fill that open position. So, I mean, we've got an avenue where if the passion and the desire is there, they can do it. I would defer to the lawyer. Right?

It depends how it's drafted. But I guess I also see the value in capturing enthusiasm as you have it. Mean, especially like someone like Herman or myself, like young children, sometimes you like, life happens and then, like, new habits build and new new schedules happen. And you might not be able to capture that same, like, consistency in someone's schedule when they're, like, they're already built into, you know, coming to meetings and being active and then also understanding the current issues. I think there is value in, you know, that making it easier to have that kind of cycle back.

I don't know if I gotta think about whether the best option is to completely remove it, but it just that's my feeling is, like, the the enthusiasm factor, I think, is really important for our board, essentially. You know, just people not doing it as, like, a a hobby. I mean, there's a there's a lot of lot of issues that require, you know, dedication or, yeah, just thinking that enthusiasm. Keep going back to that.

And, Helica, I think for number three, it'd be no verbal interviews required if if there are no other applicants only.

Yeah. I would I'm gonna still I'm gonna still just try to I like the idea of having a full term because then what's I mean, if you're removing a term, if you're removing, like, you have to stay off the board for one year, then what's how is that different than just saying serve a full two year term? Like, I like the idea of just serving, like, a third or a fourth full term.

Do you think at that point then you should only be allowed to serve an extra additional one term and not a fourth term.

Sure. I mean, I just I think to me, it makes sense. You just keep that, continuity. You keep that knowledge. You keep that enthusiasm. And, again, like, you're still opening this up for recruitment. Right? So if there are other willing members of the public, then please apply. You know? And if there's a better candidate, then that's going to be the person that's going to be recommended.

I mean, I I just said that because I think like, I think that's a happy medium, but I'm if people disagree with me, I'm not married

that yet. Another perspective. So, yeah.

What do you guys think? Anyone have thoughts on that?

And these are just draft so we

can Okay.

This is what I heard. So Yeah. Something needs to be changed.

Oh, I like that. I liked Joe's idea about, you know, subsequent terms after two would be limited to one year. But I agree with Anhelica saying that it might just be easier just simpler to say that at counsel's discretion, a person can serve an additional two year term.

Okay.

I I wouldn't lose sleep over that.

I don't understand. I yeah. Okay. I think that

I just try to devil's advocate everything.

Okay. So but in terms of what David said at council's discretion, applicants could serve an additional two year term. Would it be indefinitely, or would you wanna cut that off at some point? I think you cut it off. Yeah. Okay. So one additional being the keyword.

Okay. Cool.

One additional full term.

Yeah. At counsel's discretion. Yeah. All of this will be at their discretion. Yeah. We don't really get to

that. So

Well, just means that that's something they're actually gonna have to acknowledge when when it happens.

Yeah. Does it need to be in there for revising the code change? I don't know. They can do you wanna add that?

Well, I mean, I'm just thinking, you know, in the spirit of if you wanna serve on more than one board, it says in the ordinance that you council has to approve that. K. And at least acknowledge it.

Yeah. Did you want to talk about term limits, or do we wanna stay away from that?

Term

limit? I mean, party affiliation.

I think if council doesn't wanna talk about it, then we should talk about it. Yeah.

Well, you started talking about it, so I just didn't wanna totally not hear you all. So okay. So we have one of the first recommendations was to host, an open house to recruit members from the public who might be interested in applying for a board and commission?

I would say if to I think council should be involved in that, and I think it we should call that out.

Yeah. Cool.

And board and commission members maybe? Or

Yeah. And yeah. I think yeah.

And I think we should make a little video that we can post

Oh, that's a great idea.

What it's like to be on the Environmental Sustainability Board or any other because people aren't necessarily gonna make it to this open house or the open house is gonna happen and they're gonna read about it in the paper and say, oh, I might have wanted to go to that, but I didn't, so but I'm still interested. And that way we can tell them, it's not scary. We have fun. And other things.

We never the requirements are.

Come to

our meeting to calm any fears

of joining.

Okay. Alright. Maintain to your limits. Yep. Do not extend.

As this may be a deterrent. Is that what you mean?

Oh, sorry. Okay. Sometimes I think I'm thinking of other words. Thank you, Sue. Yep.

Do we want to add a line, or have we already sorted this out, that discusses the necessity of stepping off for a year?

I think we agreed or I think it's I think the way it's written, a third term like, if Herman, for example we'll just keep using him as an example. If he wanted to apply, that would count as his third term, and that would be at counsel's discretion. So it's included in the language the way it's written.

Makes sense.

It's okay to say it, though. Remove

Do you wanna put in a thing for, like, garden leave where it's like, if you serve your thing, then you can go take your sabbatical for a year. And then if you decide to come back, you can automatically be put in a queue in case there's an opening that you can fill that. Like I mean, I I don't know. There's tons of different ways you could do stuff.

Right. These are your recommendations that will change how boards and commissions operate for years to come. Because I've been on staff liaison for eleven years and this is the first time they're asking for feedback on term limits and all those things. So it's good.

David, what do you think?

Yeah. Because if if someone wants you, they'll recruit you. So

And you only know who you know. Right? Like, Eric has a deep bench, so he's like, hey. You. Yeah. Or you know? Barbecue. So he's I don't

know. Maybe we could say instead of removing the one year, we could just say members who are within their one year sabbatical can be reappointed to the board at council's discretion.

For the third term?

For the third term. Yeah.

For me, why don't we just borrow from your idea of a bullpen? Right? Like, after you've served a certain amount of time, like, you could step back, but you go into a little bullpen and they can pick you out and put you back on. I don't know. I don't know what's help.

Well, I think we want them to wait a full year, but after their third term. Right? Like so now we're allowing A third term. Serve one additional full term up to three terms. Right? So that's Yeah.

Yeah. So take off fourth terms.

Okay. So then in this case okay. Herman could reapply for a third term

Mhmm.

And then he'd have to wait a year.

Yeah. So I think the Okay. One year waiting period is good after you've served three full terms. So that could still remain in place.

Yeah. I agree with that.

Okay. What did I do, Sue?

No. You that was fine. My my other thing the only other thing I would put back in for discussion to be sure we really want it is that the that they don't we're not gonna require verbal interviews only if there aren't other applicants. I thought

that was we thought about that just for the third term.

Maybe I misunderstood. Require only it says second. Yeah, Require think only written applications for second and third terms, which I think is fine, actually, because after you've served a term, then the people who would be interviewing you and so forth know you. But I don't know if that makes it in some way unfair to the people who are new and would have to go through the verbal inquiry inquisition, if you want to look at it that way. That is that, I don't know, you do get additional information on someone from talking to them, but, is it necessary, and would it is it sufficiently onerous to, and consuming of everyone's time to get rid of it for the second and third terms?

Well, think I think because she wrote, if there are no other applicants, that that

Yeah. So it Captures it.

They should have to go through it if there other applicants. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Cool. I I'm fine with it. Okay. Either way, it's mostly not my time.

Okay. I think this looks good. So in this case, this is, I guess, a question. Could the motion be I move that the environmental sustainability board recommends the attached?

I think so.

The attachment and requests the recommendation as forward to county council instead of having to I mean, you

can read it. It wouldn't hurt, but it's either way.

Think it's fine. Gonna know what maintain sabbatical means?

Oh, I mean, we've talked about it. So is there a better way to say it? It's that one year gap. Right?

Yeah. It's not sabbatical means You guys said it. I love you. It's a great word. Say lot of stuff that doesn't

mean it should Pardon me,

radical. Gotta say, Ask I anybody that's surprise surprised me. Or confused by the term makes because I didn't a find

one year waiting period.

Call it garden leave. You can call it a bunch of different things.

That was a new one that I had

never Maintain required Yeah, garden. What's the word? Required?

One year waiting period. I think that's what Rebecca said. Yeah. One year.

Sure. Cool.

Alright. Any more discussion before we make a motion for this? Nope. Okay. Would anyone like to make the motion?

I can try.

Okay.

I move the the environmental sustainability board, share the attachment that we just made with

I think

county council.

I think Angelica said to read each one.

I don't I mean, you don't have to. You could just say the rep the recommendations as noted.

Okay.

Recommendations. I move

that the environmental sustainability board shares ESP recommendations regarding the idea of board limits, and term limits and possible other actions with county council for evaluation and consideration.

Okay.

Anyone want a second?

I second. Okay.

Alright. All those in favor? Awesome. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Angelica, for taking notes.

You're welcome. I just wanna make sure this is gonna save in OneDrive. Okay. Yeah. Yay. Okay. Thank you all for your input. That was a fun exercise. It was kind of interesting too at the BNC luncheon. So

Alright. Our next item is an overview of the New Mexico Recycling and Solid Waste Conference circularity in action. Before we start, does anyone need to take a break? Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Alright. We can get started.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I had the ability to attend the New Mexico Recycling and Solid Waste Conference entitled circularity in action. This was back in October.

It was in Santa Fe. There was a 180 attendees from around the state, a few out of staters, 94 organizations. So I wanted to just share with you what I thought was most interesting from the conference on some of the plenary sessions that I attended. So this is hosted every two years. They do a big conference, and then, on the alternate years, they do a big meeting in Albuquerque.

So it's a great place to just stay in touch with what's happening in the state in solid waste and recycling. So on the statewide level, there has been a policy, to ban PFAS in consumer products. So for for us, people who don't aren't familiar with PFAS, it's short for per and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They're toxic. They're man made chemicals that do not break down in the environment, like, ever, and they're often called forever chemicals because once they enter our bodies, they stay there forever, which is terrible.

They're known to have exposure to these chemicals are known to have an increased risk in kidney and testicular cancers, changes in liver functions, thyroid disease, elevated cholesterol. I mean, the list goes on. So they're pretty terrible for humans, and they can persist and build up in the body even small and repeated exposures over time. So like I used to tell the guys at the eco station, do not warm up your food in plastic ever. They still don't listen, though.

So, anyway, so the situation in New Mexico, our PFAS contamination is most severe as we know today near military bases where firefighting foams were used for decades, including Cannon Air Force Base in Curry County and Holloman Air face Air Force Base in Otero County. So what has been really exciting is that our government said let's do something about it. So they passed PFAS legislation. We're the third state in the country to sign into law a comprehensive ban on the intentional use of PFAS. So in a nutshell, all products containing intentionally added, which by the way, I'm not entirely sure what that means, PFAS will be banned from being sold in New Mexico with exemptions for used products.

So in 2025 legislative session, New Mexico lawmakers passed and government governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed two bills two key bills that will help New Mexico tackle PFAS contamination. So house bill two one two PFAS Protection Act phases out consumer products with intentionally added PFAS, making sure forever chemicals don't find their way into New Mexicans' homes. So what does that mean? Starting in January 2027, products such as cookware, like this Teflon coated pan, food packaging, dental floss, juvenile products, and firefighting foam are banned. So just for perspective, anything that's, like, waterproof, water resistant has PFAS in it.

Anything that's slick, glossy, probably has PFAS in it. Anything that's fire resistant, like pajamas and carpets and couches, probably has PFAS in it. Your waterproof mascara. I mean, the list is it's it's a lot. So I'm really curious how our state is gonna enforce this.

So that was the first bill. And then house bill one forty, it amended our state's hazardous waste act. So what it did was it explicitly classified discarded firefighting foams containing PFAS. So they're commonly known as aqueous film forming foams, and they were a hazardous waste. So what this will do is it'll empower the environment department to enforce cleanup and regulatory measures for forever chemicals.

So it'll shift the burden from taxpayers to polluters. So big big big big bills with big, huge, long lasting impacts. But, I mean, PFAS is out there, so it'll be there forever. So it's really just trying to stop the use of PFAS in our state going forward. So but they're really clever about how they label things.

They'll say like, oh, this doesn't contain PFAS, but then it's a different chemical. So be aware of, like, the greenwashing they're trying to do around PFAS. Yeah. So that was really fascinating to me because it's interesting. Okay.

So moving on to something a little more light. Now that you guys are like, oh my gosh. Yeah. So organics diversion, which is something near and dear to my heart because I love all things food waste and waste and things like that. So we had a presentation from SES engineers who conducted a study for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture.

So it was a mandate from the Healthy Soil Act, and they looked at composting across the state. So if you're interested in that, take a look. It's pretty amazing. They what they did there. Then this amazing gal from NMSU, Franny Miller, she has a huge effort trying to connect, and she had the funniest presentation.

She, you know, was saying that she had the crappiest job, and she loved it. And she was just talking about manure, and she had us all going. But she's trying to connect people who have manure to people who need need manure, right, to create these, like, healthy ecosystems all across Southern New Mexico where they're dealing with, you know, growing and cattle. And so it's really cool what she's done. She's created these little networks kind of, you know, she's creating a a market, really, for manure.

So it's she was fascinating and very enthusiastic about her work. And then our very own Sandra West, who used to be an ESB member, a member of our community, has moved on to the big city, and she is working on community scale organics and circularity, which is a fancy word just to say food waste composting. So I wanted to share with you just a few tidbits from her work. So here's a snapshot of city of Albuquerque's, where their food waste is being generated. And we we kinda had an idea based off of our numbers, so we just extrapolated.

Right? We said, okay. We have 17% food waste, and that must be coming from you know, that that much is coming from residential. That much is coming from commercial. So we made we made we did a lot of math to figure that out when we were looking at this.

But I thought what was most interesting and what's true with all food waste, if you've studied anything about it from, like, the Natural Resource Defense Council and just some of our numbers, the majority of it is coming from residential customers. Right? And then the next next highest amount is restaurants and caterers. So that's where Sandra West is focusing her her food waste efforts, her food waste prevention efforts, her food waste composting efforts. And why it's so important, not only that we're wasting food and resources, is that wasted food is causing, like, 58% of the methane emissions from municipal landfills.

So keeping that food waste out is really important to helping us tackle climate change. So why I bring this up is that I we have approval right now from our county council to develop a food waste composting program, and I hope that effort won't die. We're right now, like, we've hit a wall with finding a location within our community of where to put it, but it's still a initiative that's near and dear to my heart. So I hope that something we could continue serving supporting as a board and trying to work through that And where we would focus our efforts and that kind of aligns with our plan, right, of focusing on restaurants to start with because there's fewer than 8,000 homes. Right?

You have, like, thirty, forty actual restaurants that would participate versus 8,000 homes, so it just makes it a more easy lift to start our program with. So they've done an amazing food waste pilot. So they for year one, they had two sites. They were, I think, near, like, senior centers. They diverted seven and a half tons of material.

You know, they reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and then they sorted. They had sort they sorted to, you know, continue promoting education and lessons learned, and they got grant funding to do some of this. So mayor Keller is a huge proponent of food waste prevention and composting. So I think they, you know, hope that they'll continue to have that support going forward. So just some great work.

They're doing work that's near and dear to my heart, and I hope that we can implement that soon in our community. So moving on, back to the state level, they launched this really cool, campaign called Breaking Bad Habits. If you're a Breaking Bad fan, it's like the number one rewatched show in the country or something. So they did a really fun anti litter campaign. On the left is, like, phase one where they've used so they built this brand awareness, right, about breaking bad habits.

So they used the famous actor from Breaking Bad, and I will I will admit I haven't watched the show. I tried, and it was a lot. So need to go back and try again. And then phase two, after they've built this nice little brand, was they started, you know, infiltrating our own local, like, New Mexico culture using social media influencers from New Mexico that would drive traffic to the Breaking Bad Habits website, and that actually helped to increase the number of cleanup events around Albuquerque, around our state, increased volunteers participating, and the number of bags of trash being picked up. So in the ads on the right, you can see they used the hashtag keep litter out, and they featured the top left is Kenny Thomas, who's a famous basketball player, Bella Himes, and then Johnny James is a social media influencer.

So it's really cool to see it trickling down. There's a next phase where they've done like, they've highlighted, like, a county counselor and you know? So it's really it's really cool. I'm trying to get Armando to do one of these, and then we could put him on our truck. So let's see. They've they're offering a partner toolkit to organize an event. They've launched a pledge to take action to keep our state beautiful, clean, and sustainable. So that's really, really fun. And, you know, who doesn't wanna see litter going down throughout of our state. Okay.

So another important topic, hard to manage materials. And the focus of this was PFAS, which I'm not gonna get into, and lithium ion batteries. So lithium ion batteries are everywhere, and I think they asked I think they said somewhere like the average number of lithium ion batteries a single person has in their home is like forty, fifty lithium ion batteries. They're in everything. Your phones, your drills, I mean, your AirPods, your I mean, your watch, they're everywhere.

Well, they're dangerous. They're really, really dangerous. And the problem is is most people don't really understand the difference from, like, alkaline battery that's in your remote control of your TV remote, to a lithium ion battery. So the EcoStation has had a few fires this year because of lithium ion batteries. So that's something that we could work on and help them and help the public to know that this is a problem, and they are literally causing dumpster fires.

So we and it's expensive. Right? The year one of the last years I was at the Eco Station, it was the night before Thanksgiving. We got a call that there was smoke going across East Hemis Road, and one of the trailers was on fire. So they it took thousands and thousands of gallons to put out the fire, to put out the smoldering, and what it was was an old laptop that had gotten scraped across the concrete floor. Nobody noticed it. Loaded, put in the trailer, and then it just started smoldering and reacting. And yeah. So we lost a trailer, tons of water. Yeah.

Time. So very important topic. So a little bit more about this is there's a big effort on the state level to implement some extended producer responsibility initiatives where, for example, you would say, okay. Lithium ion manufacturer, you need to have a take back program for these lithium ions so we can manage them safely and not rely on I mean, we have a great program, but there are communities that don't have take back programs for batteries and things like that. So number one is just letting our community know that we do have take back programs for batteries.

So and then two would be to support initiatives like the extended producer responsibility, resolutions, and things like that. Okay. I have one. Okay. So then the end of the conference, the back to food waste.

Just wanted to share with you. So Lydia Montoya from the public education department, she's doing all this great work. They have to serve, like, 50% of lunches have to be made from fresh foods, which is and local foods, and they're getting, you know, peaches and apples from local growers. So it's, like, really cool that they're doing stuff like that and feeding our kids healthy food. Lucy Stanis, who was previously with New Mexico Clean and Beautiful, she's now the sustainability, I think, coordinator for Santa Fe Public Schools.

She's doing really cool work too. So I wanted to share with you. They're doing share tables in schools to, you know, encourage. So as a if you're a student, most schools are getting free lunches right now, but you're required to take, like, a piece of fruit, a carton of milk. You know?

So they have certain requirements. So they've developed these shared tables where you can put it on the table and, you know, you get hungry, come back later and get a snack, or somebody's more hungry, they can, you know, pick it up at their table. So these are just different ideas that would be amazing to do here. Additional strategies that they've done to reduce waste is a bulk milk dispenser, so you only pour what you need. Right? The obvious things. Students only take the amount they want, and they're not forced to take a milk carton. Right? If it's being dispensed, they slice their fruit. Kids like that.

If you slice an apple, it's gone. Right? You put an apple on the table, it's gonna stay there forever. So it's kind of interesting. So research shows that slicing fruit increases consumption, and salad bars allow students to select items that they will eat.

Student involvement. So they had these really fun videos of students talking about how to reduce food waste, and, of course, that that gets their buy in. They're more interested in participating. Let's see. And then, which is amazing, they work work they work with Unity Resources to collect all the food waste from their cafeterias, and they also take field trips to their site just to learn how to how to compost and garden and, you know, just get back to nature. So it was a fun conference, always inspiring, and just wanted to share

a little with you all. Thanks, Angelica.

You're welcome.

Anyone have questions or comments?

Let's do all the things here.

I'm sure the eco club at the high school would definitely, like, be interested in some of that. Right. Yeah. Cool. Alright. I think we can move on to reports then. I can go first. So I just wanted to thank Rebecca for her service on the board and wish her good luck with everything. Yeah. And when when you have more time, you can always reapply as we just established.

First three terms.

Yeah. Yeah. And then introduce David, who is our newest board member. So I think I don't know if you got a chance to meet Rebecca yet, but yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And then, of course, now that Rebecca is stepping down, we do have an open position. So please encourage your friends and acquaintances and coworkers to apply. Alright. We can go on to board of public utilities. So I did go to last night's meeting. Did you was there one in between?

There was a

A working session.

There was a work session on on the fifth. Unfortunately, they did not post a recording of it, and I did not attend. I I did look at their slides, but and I can mention what they were about.

Okay. Go ahead. Alright. So I did not say for the whole meeting, admittedly, because they get quite long. But they approved two waterline replacement projects. I don't quite remember the age of the waterlines, but I think it was, like, 1949 or something. So they definitely needed to be replaced. And the the gas line project at Elkridge is still ongoing, and that's going well. There are currently eight jobs within I I think it was specific to public utilities within the county. I I believe that's what they said.

So if anyone is interested or knows someone, definitely consider that. The Jemez Mountain fire line project is moving along. So that's the project that takes water from town up to the ski hill so they can do their snowmaking and then also, potentially, I think, is some sort of has a benefit to fighting fires were that to happen. So that's moving along. It sounds like they're done with phase one, and I and I think they were somewhat done with phase two as well.

Let's see what else would be of interest to this board. So they did have a fairly in-depth and robust conversation about the chromium plume that has been recently reported on. So I'm not gonna go into all the details. But if you are interested, I think there's been multiple articles posted and locally as well as, like, at the state level, and you can watch the recording as well. The Foxtail Flats energy renewable energy project is slated to have a January mobilization.

And I don't remember off the top of my head how much energy that would give us, but it's all renewable. And that was the replacement for the San Juan Generating Station. And the demo is ahead of schedule, and it's on track or no. The demo of the of the gen station is on track to finish in February, and then the mine reclamation is a year ahead of schedule. And I I didn't write down when that was supposed to be done. And then after that, they can, like, do the reseating of the area and that kind of stuff. And I think that was that was pretty much it from last night's meeting. So any more questions?

Did they for Foxtail Flats mention when that when it's expected to come online?

They didn't mention. There was a funny discussion about requesting to put a camera out there so we could, like, watch the process. But yeah.

Yeah. So I do have a a few additional comments because Chair Gibson gave an update to the boards and commissions luncheon.

Oh,

okay. And so you covered some of these things, but one of the things he said about Foxtail Flats is actually they pushed the start up date now to early twenty twenty seven. It was supposed to be next year, but, they're having trouble getting parts, not surprisingly. So, but, hopefully, that will come online. And that that's slated to provide us about 50% or more of our of our power needs from solar and batteries backup.

For the county's power needs?

County and Atlanta. It's a it's big.

Oh, I don't think I knew that.

It's That's amazing. Very big project. Yeah. And so that's that's the plan. So we're wait hoping that that will happen.

Other things, like I said, let's see. The other things that that came up were I think I've discussed previously that there was a big transformer that failed in White Rock, this year and was one of two, but then when it failed, there was no redundancy. So now they need to replace it, and it's supposed to arrive next month. And in the meantime, they've come up with a a an agreement with Lantel to have a redundant tie line to their power source so that, again, if these things go out, they'll the White Rock won't go dark. The good thing the really good thing about all of this that's coming out of this is that they're replacing this transformer with something with considerable more capacity that will allow for the projected electrification of all of White Rock, which so it really had to happen anyway.

There's let's see. The the power pool agreement with with the lab expires at the December.

They they did talk about that.

Oh, okay.

I extended I figured no one would know what the ECA was.

Okay.

They extended they got a ninety day extension on the ECA.

Oh, yeah. Good. Because otherwise, that would be a big problem. There's new gas lines installed in Elk Ridge, and the county is helping with individual inspections and hookups so that people can have new gas distribution. And then one of the things that was covered at the BPU work session that was not recorded, but I looked at the slides, was this survey that's being been done by UNM and MSU professors and researchers looking at natural opinions on natural gas in the community and its and and use.

So natural gas use and sentiment, how we how how how much people like their gas, how much they are open to converting from gas to electricity or not. They they presented some preliminary survey results, which you can look at online because the slides are posted, they're sort of interesting. But they suffer from the same issue that we've seen with the with the CAHPS survey, with the EB survey that we've done, and that is that the people who respond to these surveys are very it's very skewed with respect to our actual demographics. So in each case for these surveys, the people who respond tend to be older. I think the median age was 58.

40% of them were retired. Their median income was $150,000 they're almost all white, there's a preponderance of male people who respond. So and this is what we see again and again with these types of surveys that we give. So you need to look at these results in terms of the fact that it's not really that it's skewed away from what our overall demographics look like. And I think until we fix this problem, we shouldn't be doing more surveys, because we're not getting information that's particularly useful for the community.

And that's the end of my editorial. There was also a discussion apparently on November 5 of the extended day ahead market for electrical power, which is a way to buy and sell electricity. It's extremely complex. It was really hard to understand just from the slides. So again, have a look at them if you'd like, and and maybe they'll post the video with some explanation.

Cool. Thank you, Sue. Mhmm. Alright. Transportation board is vacant. So, David, if you are interested

Yes, please.

Okay. Alright. We can add that to next month's agenda and make it official. Parks and rec board, I have not been going to parks and rec board. Oh, but I will say the hopefully, I'm not overstepping. But the artificial turf preliminary plan, I guess, did get voted on with council, and I think it passed five to one. So, yeah, that's To do it? Not to do it. Just to adopt it. Yeah. Or to consider it, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Alright. Counselor Herman, do you have anything for us?

Thank you, chair and board members. So we had a meeting on Tuesday evening, November eighteenth. The biggie really was the we passed an ordinance authorizing the issuance of bonds, $40,000,000 worth of bonds for the broadband communications system. And I was also going to tell you about the artificial turf, that that was accepted. That doesn't really mean anything.

They accepted the plan. It doesn't mean they're going to do anything with the turf at this time. But they accepted the plan, which which was well done. So the other thing that I wanted to share with you that was of interest and I've seen in social media was we did pass action on regarding elected officials' salaries. It doesn't impact anybody.

Right now it's future counselors and a few different positions, probate judge, assessor, those kind of things, the next time people are elected. And my personal opinion on, for instance, the counselor's salary, I get paid $12,000 a year to do this. And it is being raised to $37,000 And I think that's a really good thing. I think more people would consider running for council positions instead of just old retired people. So so I think that's a good thing.

And and those were really kind of the biggies. Do you have any questions?

I'm curious. Do you feel like being a counselor is a full time job? Like, the equivalent?

No. It's not. It's it's different hours. You know, it's a lot of late evenings. Tuesday's meeting went till about 10:30, I think. And that's not uncommon. That those are those are hard for me. And I think those those kind of things would be hard for people with young families too. But it's not full time. You know, the weeks where there aren't meetings are pretty relaxing.

But there's a lot of reading. There's a lot of these kind of, you know, you're a liaison for different groups. And then there are a lot of other things you just want to be a part of and attend and be at. So it's a commitment for sure, but it is not full time

Yeah.

By any stretch.

Thank you. Mhmm. And I also just have to say, I appreciate that all the meetings are in the evenings. I was talking to somebody else who lives in Colorado, and their council meets, like, Tuesdays at 09:30AM and no one ever goes. And I'm like, what is the point of that? Like, you're not like, the community can't participate. So I I feel like that's such a benefit to us.

I certainly appreciate that view. A number of years ago there was a counselor who was a full time she had a full time job. She was a mom. And she wanted she when she was the chair, she had one meeting a month that happened during the daytime. I I don't know what time it was at. But she felt like it gave an opportunity for a different group of people to actually attend the meetings. And I see that

think having that variance is good, but not I'm having every like, that's so weird.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd sleep more if they did

it Right, that exactly.

Yeah. No, it's been a big experience for me doing this, you know, and I'm almost a year into it now. I

feel

like I'm just now getting my feet under me, And you it's been wonderful being a part of this board for sure.

Thank you.

Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving.

Yeah. Same to you. All right. So the inclusivity task force is next, and I think Kokyoung is online.

Yeah. I'm on. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. So, this will be my last meeting with you guys as your liaison to the inclusivity task. I mean, is that a way around to you? Starting in in December, we will be settling down to analyze the data that we've taken, and this we'll be spending the next two months, analyzing the data and writing up the report, which is due to be presented to the county councilor in February. And at the at the end of our presentation, the task force will probably dissolved. Our term will be over.

Thanks, Kokyang. Why will the task force be dissolved and not continued just because it is simply a task force?

Because we sign up for a term for that term. Got it. And if the council wanted to do anything further, they'll have to reinvent or reappoint. Okay.

Sounds good. Thank you. Well, thank you for reporting to us monthly. Anyone have any questions? Nope. Okay. Alright. Let's move on to working groups. Do we have an update from Bee City? I don't think

I think they're right now. Kind of on hiatus while the bees are sleeping.

Because it's cold

out? Yeah. Oh, okay.

Fair fair enough.

I can report a little bit. Yeah. Right. We are on hiatus. We just published our latest newsletter that says we are taking a break from publishing the newsletter until January.

Okay. Sounds good. Thank you, Kokyung. Los Alamos Sustainability Alliance. Do we