Climate Action Committee - Regular Meeting

At 931, there we go, with amplification, which makes it even more official. At 932 now, this meeting is called to order. And now, may I have a roll call, please?

Member Gallagher? Here. Member Gift? Present. Member Painter?

Here.

Member Narvaez?

Here.

Member Joseph?

Here.

Member Lamatina? Here. Member Reeves?

Here.

Chair Eisenberg?

Here.

Thank you.

Okay, if you are able, please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Right hand over your heart, please begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Thank you. And now it is time for public comments for any subject on the consent agenda or a subject that is not on the agenda but relevant to the Climate Action Committee. So you have three minutes per comment. And if you'd like to make a public comment, please come up to the lectern.

Good morning, Chair, members of the Climate Action Committee, Napa County staff, and the Napa community. My name is Mariela Herrick. I am a Senior Community Development Manager with MCE. And for those of you who might not know, MCE is the local electricity provider for Napa County. We've been serving Napa County since 2015, and our mission is to confront the climate emergency by eliminating fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions, producing renewable energy, and creating equitable community benefits. In partnership with Napa County's planning, Department, Bay Ren, Napa Valley College, we're hosting a contractor workshop taking place on October 9th at the Napa Valley Community College Room. Through this workshop, we want to support contractors, general contractors, plumbers, electricians, HVAC professionals, and industry partners who serve the Napa County communities and help these contractors expand services. in growing residential electrification market. This free event will provide complimentary lunch and attendees will learn from industry experts on the benefit of strategic electrification and receive guidance on selling, installing, and serving heat pump water heaters. MCE County staff and NVC staff will be conducting outreach across the county for this event and we encourage you all to share this opportunity with the jurisdictions. I have flyers and we will also share a digital flyer so that you all can share with your networks. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Climate Action Committee members. My name is Madeline Chu. I'm a rising sophomore at the University of Chicago, a graduate at Vintage High, and most importantly, the former secretary of the student-led environmental advocacy organization, Napa Schools for Climate Action. This past year, as I became involved in UChicago's sustainability community, I noticed a common theme being reiterated in regards to the climate crisis, the importance of urgency. According to NASA, anthropogenic pollution has caused carbon dioxide concentrations to rise to 432 parts per million, which is well over safe pre-industrial levels, which would be below 300 parts per million. Global mean temperatures have risen by over 1.5 degrees Celsius, surpassing part of the goal set by the Paris Agreement. We know that these changes increase the frequency of climate driven disasters that impact both our local and global community. Hence, urgency amongst decision makers like you all to make bold decisions that drive climate action forward are critical. That being said, today I ask you all to approach our collective goal of reaching net zero emissions by or before the year 2030 with a renewed sense of urgency. One step in rapidly closing down our fossil fuel energy system is to implement prohibitions on the construction of new gas stations as well as the expansion of existing infrastructure while simultaneously researching ways to make electric appliances such as EVs more accessible. To Mayan Schools for Climate Action's understanding, the city of Napa's moratorium on new fossil fuel stations has now expired, and a recently published zoning public review draft indicates that construction of new gas stations might indeed be permitted. I urge you all to question this recommendation as more gas means we will continue to turn up not just the heat, but health risks. Gas stations release volatile organic compounds into the surrounding air, increasing risks of respiratory issues and cancer. A 2026 study by Resard et al suggests that residing in close proximity to gasoline stations may be associated with an increased risk of childhood cancer, particularly leukemia. I commend the town of Yountville and the cities of St. Helena, American Canyon, and Calistoga for creating prohibitions on new expanded gas stations, and I urge the City of Napa and Napa County to do the same. This past year, I also watched my team with pride as they worked hard to advance climate restoration through House Concurrent Resolution 46. We are beyond grateful to the Napa Valley Unified School District, Napa RCD, the Napa County Board of Education, the City of American Canyon, and the Napa County Board of Supervisors for passing resolutions endorsing this federal policy and urging each city and town in the county to follow suit. It's crucial that we prioritize climate restoration as much as our goal of net zero. At this late stage, even if we meet the net zero goal, we still need to remove the heat-trapping pollution that will continue warming the planet so long as it remains in the atmosphere. Thank you so much for listening to my comments this morning, and I hope that today you prioritize the urgency of climate action in each decision that you make. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. And let the minute show that Member DC is here. We are now at the consent agenda. And we have one item, which is the minutes from the June 26th meeting. Do I hear a motion to accept the consent agenda?

So moved.

And we have a motion and a second. Did you get the names? Yeah, okay, great. Are there any public comments? No, we already did that. All in favor of the consent agenda? Aye. Opposed? seems to pass unanimously. Now we're at item 5A, and this will be a presentation. Oh, I'm sorry. Were there any online? Thank you. We're going to receive a presentation from Ascent Environmental on the status of the RCAP and initial study proposed mitigated negative declaration. And This will be virtual?

It will be hybrid. We've got Eric DeCock online and we've got staff from Ascent Environmental here in person as well to deliver a hybrid presentation on the final RCAP and the proposed ISMND.

We're so multimedia, live and virtual. Okay, thank you. And let's leave it to Ascent.

Good morning, Climate Action Committee members. As stated by Ryan, we are here today to provide an update on the Napa County Regional Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. My name is Honey Walters. I'm a principal with Ascent in Sacramento. I'm also joined by Eric DeCock virtually. He's a director in the climate team. He's dropping off his daughter at college today, so we'll send him some well wishes. Also have Brenda Hom online. She's a manager on our climate team, and she's overseeing all the technical work for this project. And I'm also joined by Greta Brownlow in person. She's a director in our Berkeley office, and she oversaw the CEQA documentation. So we do have a brief agenda today. I'm going to talk quickly on where we're at, recent activities, so we can all get on the same page and remember where we've been and what we've done. I'm going to toss it over to Eric. He's going to talk about some themes on the draft RCAP comments, where we're at with the final environmental review, talk a little bit about a story map that's fun and exciting. And then I'll wrap it up with next steps. And then we can go into Q&A. And we have the whole team here, like I said, to support that. Recent activities, as you all recall, we released the draft RCAP in 2025 for public review. That was wrapped up in then the fall. During that time in August, September, we're doing a bit of a road show and doing some outreach. And we've had quite a few community workshops at the county, across the region, at various cities. And similar in attending public hearings, giving updates to the individual city councils and also to the county board of supervisors. Recent activities, we have the draft RCAP public comment survey and responses, the final RCAP, the story link map is new, and the draft ISM&D. And that public period for that is going to close at the end of August. All these items listed here are posted on the project website, and they've been there since the end of July. I'm going to toss it over to Eric. Hopefully he can hear me.

I can't. Can everybody hear me okay? Great. Well, good morning, Chair, members of the committee. Eric de Kock with the Ascent team. We wanted to just drive right in to what we heard in public comments on the draft Regional Climate Action Adaptation Plan last year. There were quite a few comments received, as you might have read in your staff report, over 300 discrete written comments from numerous individuals and organizations, as well as over 450 discrete ideas or comments shared with us. by public workshop participants and others during the public review phase. So quite a lot of input engagement. We're really excited about that. And just to boil it all down, this, of course, does not represent every comment or every even theme that emerged, but we wanted to highlight the top five common themes that were heard across the full arc of comments. Number one, we heard that we need to take action, and we need to act swiftly. We need to keep climate action affordable. We also need to be prioritizing incentives over mandates wherever we can while also recognizing that those mandates still might be necessary to move the needle toward the very aggressive goal of carbon neutrality by mid-century. We also heard loud and clear that we need to be thinking about what kind of infrastructure or workforce readiness we might need to support implementation of this plan. We also heard a lot about the need for more detail or clarity on how implementation will occur once the plan is adopted. Finally, we also heard again, as we've heard throughout the process, concerns or need for clarification about why we're thinking about targets that use different years, different methodologies for identifying those targets. How do we arrive at 2045, for example, versus 2030? So really important questions ongoing there in that theme as well. Next slide, please. So again, we heard a lot of public comments and just wanted to give an overview of the process also outlined in your staff report. We did work carefully with staff to review and consider all comments that were received. As I mentioned, we did identify recurring themes and concerns and prepared kind of top level thematic responses rather than respond to each comment that said the same thing individually. So those topical responses became really important in getting those right. We did check everything pursuant to comments to make sure we were understanding what was calling out a technical concern or about an assumption we made or how we might need to sharpen details. Once we went through that full process, we did begin to refine the cap. We made sure that if there were substantive comments or really important points being made that were salient and moving the needle on the effectiveness of this plan long term and achieving our goals for climate, We needed to do that. So we did identify some changes, which I'll go over shortly. And last, of course, but not least, we did document all responses that were made to comments, both individually and thematically. And those are included in the response to comments document that are posted on the project website and appended to your staff report. Next slide, please. So what changed in the RCAP and what does the final RCAP Well, how has it changed in response to comments and what's presented now available publicly for everyone? Well, we did want to start with some broad changes that were made, not an individual page or measure number or anything like that, but just broadly across the suite of measures or themes in the plan, we did make sure that those affordability considerations were addressed, whether that's phasing in mandates over a longer time period, bringing more incentives, rebates, or funding to the table So those issues were addressed in numerous places in the document, and we feel it's stronger for it. We also did true up some actionable steps for numerous measures where we know and they're heard loud and clear that workforce development and having the workforce ready to support implementation will be key as well as technical assistance that might be needed for individuals, households, business owners, organizations that are now wrestling with the scope and scales from the changes that are going to be phased in countywide over that 20 year timeframe. We did work on making a stronger and clearer implementation framework, really understanding how individual jurisdictions, but most importantly, how all six jurisdictions working together in collaboration really will need to come together to support implementation. Of course, different actors might play different roles. So we tried to get that as clear as possible while also not even getting ahead of the really important implementation process, which also needs to be collaborative on day one after the plan is fully adopted. We did some work also to make sure that how we're explaining what funding or financing possibilities are possible, how that relates to implementation, while also thinking about the need to clearly outline who's monitoring what aspects of the plan, thinking about metrics, and then, of course, reporting language is also important there. And lastly, again, pursuant to that fifth theme that was on a previous slide, making sure that we're clearly explaining our targets, what assumptions we're making and compliance pathways all the way, to get to those targets in the short and long term. Next slide, please. We know that some of the building energy measures were some of the probably the most parts of the RCAP that brought some of the highest concern or volume of comments, and we understand those. And so just wanted to call out for measures BE1 and BE2 in particular. We did make some measure specific changes that I think are worth highlighting. This, of course, is not the full universe of changes that were made to individual greenhouse gas or adaptation measures. But these were really important. So just calling out BE1 in particular that we worked with staff to really think about how to prioritize incentives, our electrical grid readiness in the region, Workforce development, again, and taking a phased approach to zero carbon buildings before we phase in future regulatory actions. So again, that phasing approach, making sure we're addressing and setting a program like that up for success is really, really critical. And then Measure BE2, the work that was done to thinking about how we incentivize audits for existing buildings. We are now emphasizing free or subsidized audits for existing buildings where funding allows, supported by outreach. And of course, making some minimum commitments at the agency level, where we know really important leadership. Leading by example could still be really, really important and critical to thinking about holistic energy retrofits for buildings. Next slide, please. But now I'd like to go over the environmental review document. We did prepare an initial study and propose mitigating negative declarations. Sometimes we call that an ISM&E for short. The purpose of that document, as those that know CEQA know, is to disclose the potential impacts of any discretionary decisions that public agencies will be making pursuant to the requirements of CEQA. So we did prepare that initial study. Some of the aspects of the plan could result in potentially significant impacts And that's identified in the document. But all of those potentially significant impacts can be reduced to less than significant with application of some standardized countywide mitigation measures. That document, of course, is still out for public review. Comments are due this coming Monday, August 31. Close of business. I believe there's information in the staff report about where to direct those comments to Mr. Gutierrez. There will be some staff level and consultant team review of those comments to determine whether we need to make any clarifications or changes to the analysis. But we believe that this is a good, solid starting point for understanding the implications. And of course, any subsequent implementation of this plan pursuant to the initial study will have to apply mitigation. And that's explained in the initial study. And all of this, of course, the CEQA document will go forward with the proposed plan to decision makers at the legislative body level when it's time to have those hearings. Next slide, please. The last thing we wanted to highlight is something that's fun. It's a story map. We've got links on the screen for those that might want to access that story map. It's also linked directly on the project website. You know, the purpose of this is really to communicate key RCAP topics and content in that plan in a more interactive and accessible way. And one way we can do that is more of an interactive website where folks can stroll, click around, look at images. There's a lot of links to resources that live outside of the plan in there as well. So it really just serves as an ongoing communication engagement tool that we worked with staff and NAPA RCD staff in producing this resource. And as we go through the next few slides, we'll just be showing some examples of what's on that website and some of the intent. The next slide, I believe, shows just the landing page and what folks will find as they scroll really orients the reader to understanding the different pieces of the story map. Some of the successive slides show deeper content where we summarize parts of the plan in terms of what is climate change? What is climate change? How is it manifesting in Napa County and in the region? Um, another slide deals with, uh, climate, uh, greenhouse gas reduction, uh, trends and targets, kind of a no action and action taken scenario and really communicates again, those targets and the trajectory that everyone in the county needs to be on to hit those targets. Uh, a few other slides highlight, uh, what the community can do. Of course, there's a lot of measures and actions in the cap that are community facing. Many of them also are things local government will lead or collaborate on. But we really felt it was important to highlight and lift up the really important work that's being done in the county and the broader region about incentives, whether that's the work that Bayrin does, MCE, PG&E, Rising Sun, Center for Opportunities, and numerous others. So that's just a nice page where we've begun to itemize those resources and allow folks to drill deeper on different facets of climate action and how they can be part of those actions. I believe this mostly wraps up my part of the presentation. I'll hand it over to Honey to close us out. Thank you.

Great. Thanks, Eric. Yeah, just briefly here, our next steps. Today is Friday, August 28th. We are having the meeting. We can check that off, review and comment. We will be coming back to you all towards the end of September. We do have a scheduled vote on the recommendation of approving the RCAP. Early November, we'll be going to the County Board of Supervisors for adoption hearing. That's scheduled. But yet still be announced are the hearing dates for the five incorporated jurisdictions. So still need to get that on the books. And at this point, we'll open it up to the Q&A. I'll probably stay up here and we'll probably round Robin depending on the questions.

I imagine there'll be several questions from the board. Maybe we should start with public comments and hear what our audience here and at home have to say. Please come right up to the lectern if you have a public comment. Any public comments online?

We have no callers.

It looks like it's all up to us. Oh, hold on. You're just trying to fake us out, I guess.

It's not all up to you. Where to begin? The affordability. Let me start with Calistoga, please. This goes back to the adoption of the climate emergency resolution of 2021 in Calistoga. You had just reformed and reformatted your green committee. And this is a quote from the chair, Antoinette Maillard. who was there the day that you voted to adopt this climate emergency resolution with the non-negotiable of net zero climate pollution by or before 2030. You started it for all the good reasons. But also, as Ms. Maillard points out, to show the community the commitment is real. and the attention to it becomes part of the culture. And that's what you guys have done so well in doing, I think, in Cal State, part of the culture with your green team members sitting out in the streets. Whatever the cost is, she says, it's going to be less than what it will cost our future without it, end quote. I want you to think about that. We've all talked about this. But we gloss over it because as the representative here today from Schools for Climate Action pointed out, we have failed already. We're basically scratching 1.5. So in essence, we failed to achieve the aspirational goal of Paris. And we have this written into our various general plans. And we have it written into all of these climate emergency resolutions that we are here to prevent that from happening. And we are on a trajectory of two degrees C. We're on a trajectory with the El Nino of 1.7 here, okay? So this is what we're dealing with. And then our vice mayor from American Canyon talks about, for me, we've already passed our 2030 net zero. And I think I understand what he says. He said it more than twice. to my ears and that is you know we have underestimated this the the sensitivity of climate to to anthropogenic perturbations this is where we're at today and so we're an overshoot so in effect we're managing from behind because it's it's hard to understand that because climate change is characterized by delayed response and amplified feedback. It's hard for humans to understand nonlinear processes until you see it a lot on the page. Now, if you go to the Sonoma County Climate Protection Authority's website, right up on top They talk about their climate mobilization plan. And the very first graph you see up at the top of the page is this graph we just heard Mr. de Kock talk about. Only the graph shows a very rapid drop in greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2030. And so this is where the science is pointing us. We have to have this discussion today about are we going to bury all these commitments

just let the kids continue continue to scream or are we going to face them thank you thank you for your comments good morning good morning my name is yvonne baginski and i am here today To just do a big sigh, every time I go to these meetings and every time I hear everything, they always say it has to be done at the local level. The work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a big, big project, but it has to be done at the local level. And yet when I go to the local councils and commissions, everything seems almost impossible. It almost seems impossible because we continue to build the parking places. We continue to build the parking garages. We continue to economically develop the area, increasing our greenhouse gas emissions. And as I watch this, I go, well, we're really not stopping anything. We really haven't pulled back and said, let's do a moratorium and see how much we can actually lower greenhouse gas emissions. We continue doing it. And so I'm feeling, after watching what happened in Nepal this week, I'm feeling like we're on a trajectory that we're not going to be able to stop. And I know Little Napa County certainly isn't going to be able to stop it. But we're not even making an effort. I'm seeing all these statistics and all these graphs, but I see city councils continue to approve development. I see all of this continuing. It's not really stopping. And I'm asking whether the rest of you feel the same way, or is it just me? Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Are there any other public comments? And we have online.

We have one caller.

Thank you.

David, you will have three minutes.

Thank you. My name is David Graves, and I'm very much grateful for Jim Wilson and Yvonne McGinsky's comments. I really think there's a complacency and kind of business as usual acceptance in this process. The barriers, I think it's pretty clear from the discussion about the adoption of heat pump water heaters, that we really need a whole bunch of funding that's not obviously out there. We are not communicating with individual homeowners. And yet, we also have to communicate with people who are making decisions for commercial properties, for hotels, for multifamily complexes. That's just speaking about building emissions. So there's a sense of urgency that is, I think, conspicuously absent. And over 100 years ago, William James wrote an essay about motivating societies, and its theme is the moral equivalent of war. And I invite you all to look for that. It's not very long, but we need to be on a a mobilization footing that is equivalent to facing an existential threat from an external enemy, because that's what climate change represents. And checking boxes, thousands of PowerPoint slides later, we cannot be performative. We have to be effective. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Any other comments? OK, we'll close public comments and clarifications and questions from the board. Thank you. Member Painter.

Thank you for the information and for all the public comment. My question is on the story map, which was very exciting to see. I hadn't seen that before. It's clearly sort of absolutely a living item. So my question is, what is the plan to continue to update it, and who and how will that happen? Who will do it and how will that happen?

I can take that. Yeah, I feel like you're right. It is a living document, which will require constant updates, not only of events, but also monitoring and reporting on how each jurisdiction is doing in terms of implementing the RCAP or moving sustainability and climate action forward. I see that as something that staff will probably lead in terms of updates. I don't think we can necessarily rely on a consultant or a cent to continue to do that. So it's definitely a local initiative, I think. We do have the all staff working group. currently just a small group but I think that's where we could probably get a lot of information that can be posted on the story map but really can kind of morph into whatever we need it to be depending on where we are in the in the process in terms of needing to communicate with community so it's also a great engagement tool and it is in English and in Spanish so I think we can use it for a lot it's very flexible

MS. Good, good. I'm really happy to hear that because I think that is critical moving forward. So as we look at how we present to each of our jurisdictions, how that information is gathered, what the ongoing budget is to do that, I think the communication piece and gathering all that, because there is, and I hear what the public commenters are making, but there is a lot of work happening behind the scenes. And there is a lot of effort that I think we want to make sure is more in the forefront, like the workshop that you heard from MCE about. Full disclosure, I serve on the board of MCE. That didn't just happen. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes work to say this is why this is important. And so getting that through the storyboard or other ways out to the community, I think, is a part of our charge. to try to say what is happening out there and how do we get that information to the community. So thank you for adding that to the presentation.

Member Gallagher and then Member Deese.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I want to say to the public commenters, I absolutely understand your frustration. I think that watching this process is sometimes like watching paint dry, right? I mean, the government process is slow. And this is not really a time where going slow is called for, but it is slow by nature. I think that what is important is you know, matching our actions to our words. So I think again and again, we hear from people about our cities and our county passing ordinances and doing things that we can be doing while we're doing the RCAP, right? So I will go back to the county and revisit what is happening with our gas station moratorium. I had thought or I think what had maybe been suggested was to move forward but carve out Berryessa for now. I understand that is not the 100% wish of, you know, of the public to, in terms of a moratorium on gas stations, but it can be a really good start. So we can be doing that. Foodware ordinance, you know, the county passed that, but the city of Annapolis hasn't passed it. I mean, I think that maybe we could at least be looking at what our other jurisdictions have done. And if we, the jurisdiction we represent, haven't done it, take a really close look at why is that that we haven't done it and how can we get it done so that we can be making some level of progress while we... you know, go through this process with the RCAP and do all of the necessary steps to have it be legally defensible and all of the things it needs to be to really work long term. So I do understand how you feel. I think that it is absolutely a frustrating process at many times because you want to just see things happening and To committee member Painter's point, there are things happening. They aren't always visible, but it's a process. And when government is in a process, it takes time. And I understand that doesn't necessarily make it any easier, but maybe it helps you to know that I feel like we are very serious about this, and we want to see change. We want to be good stewards, and we want to do the best we can as a regional community. So hang in there with us.

Member Deesey. No, you're up. You're up. Oh, yes.

Sorry. Thank you for the presentation. I think my question is around next steps. And the questions I'm being asked in St. Helena are sort of around process. And so we have this very large RCAP with a lot in it. And then it's going to come to the cities for adoption. And we're going to have a lot of conversation, which is already happening now. So I have no idea where anything will end up. But can you tell us what happens if one city, not necessarily ours, but doesn't adopt a a part, you know, the RCAP in full or part of the RCAP? Is that just how it goes and this is all a big recommendation and we take from it what we can and are able to in our process? Or does non-adoption of certain things blow the whole thing up? I just don't get it yet.

Eric, would you like to first stab at that question?

Did I hear somebody calling me out? Yes. Quiet. Thank you. Apologies for that. Yeah. Madam, I think it's a really good question. And I think having a regional plan where everyone needs to take action can be confusing. And of course, we've laid out some steps That we believe will get everyone to success and kind of vetting these measures for over two years making sure we're doing all the studies We're hoping that everyone does take action To support this plan. It is aggressive and it is long-term in nature as well So, you know if there are things that a local jurisdiction can't commit to adopting We need to know that before we get too far down the path will also say that The county as lead agency for CEQA purposes will take the first action, and that's really important that the lead agency takes the first action to potentially adopt. Each of the cities, of course, is a responsible agency under CEQA, so the cities will be asked to take action following the county's decision. And if along the way there are concerns or reservations, we will want to try to resolve those. A lot of the measures in the plan that are quantitative and more specific are essential to preserving the CEQA streamlining benefits that are conferred through this plan as a qualified greenhouse gas reduction plan pursuant to CEQA guidelines. So we have designed the entire plan to meet the substantial evidence standard in CEQA so that individual measures that are some of them in the plan can be used for subsequent projects that qualify for streamlining in any of the jurisdictions in the county. So it is really important that those specific and enforceable and quantitative measures be preserved in some form, ideally as they are now. If we begin to turn the dials or change assumptions that are less restrictive or less binding on future projects, that could create some concerns and challenges for this maintaining qualification under those standards. So that's the one real tangible outcome, I think, if jurisdictions, only some choose to adopt and some do not.

Thank you. Member Joseph, I believe you had comments. Thank you. And then Member Gift.

Yes. A couple of clarifying questions. I appreciate the modification to measures BE1 and BE2. My question is, did we work with the realtors group on the language or letting them know so that they're aware of where we're at? And I don't know who to ask that to, but...

I'll let Eric respond. I think he's going to take the first stab at most of these, and then we can come up and support as needed.

I actually can't speak to that. Maybe we'll defer to staff on asking them how they responded to individual commenters. We, of course, as the consultant team, did support staff in the response to comments effort focusing on technical issues or items that related to the document. We did not have any direct interface with individual commenters.

Yeah, we did receive the board of the Realtors letters and did kind of review each of the comments. We broke out their letter by comment and then reviewed kind of the best way to move forward and that's how these measures were revised. I don't think we met with them one on one exactly. I know they were at several meetings and maybe at different workshops, but we never sat down with them directly and fine tuned these measures with them directly.

I do believe we did correspond via email with the director or president of the North Bay Association of Realtors. So they were involved at least via email correspondence, but we did not meet with them directly.

Well, the main issue from my perspective is to make sure that They are aware of the revisions and that hopefully they see it as addressing their concerns at least to a level in which they may not like the language, but they can live with it. I think that's the standard I'm looking for. So we'll see. And if there's anyone from the Realtors Association who want to step forward and comment up, down, or sideways, that would be even better. My second question relates to comments that have been received on the draft ISM&D. I know that the period doesn't close until the 31st, but are we getting the same kind of magnitude of comments that we got for the draft plan, you know, 300 or 400 comments, or are we down to just a handful or to any?

Yeah, significantly less. And even during that public draft, there were a lot of comments. I don't know if you remember, but the draft kind of had interactive, where people would just kind of land on it and make comments. There was a lot early on in that way, and then a lot of these formal letters at the very end, like the very last day. This is kind of shaping up the same way where we've gotten a few agencies asking for a little more time or that they're looking at it. But we haven't received anywhere near the same amount of comment as we've had for the draft RCAP itself.

OK. Well, and it's probably true, you'll get 90% of your comments on the deadline date, but OK. In general, I know everybody's frustrated that we don't seem to be as sincerely committed to 2030 as we are to state mandated 2045 dates. I understand that. I think the notion that the cost of inaction will exceed the cost of action, I think, is probably true. I think we've already seen that with the forest fires that we had five or 10 years ago. And we're probably spending billions trying to fix something that's costing us even more. The points are well taken. On the other hand, government, and a bureaucracy in particular, doesn't work fast whether it needs to or not. And it's all frustrating. A case in point, ironically, is the initial study mitigated negative debt was advocated because of its opportunity to expedite the process, and yet it's taken a year, which is probably a little less than the EIR, but certainly not the kind of time savings that was envisioned. And we're not done with it yet. So I can't try to assure anyone that we're really moving fast. As I've said before, I think we already missed the 20, 30 was too late of a deadline anyway, so we're in overtime. And so whenever and however and how quickly we can do anything is critical. For me, a philosophical approach is somewhere that I read, and I don't know where, it was either Sonoma or somebody, that just focused on you electrify everything, vehicles, heating, whatever, as much as you can, convert as much of your fuel from fossil to renewable non-fossil, And if you can do those two things, you will probably make a huge dent in the problem. And those are things that can be done that frankly aren't necessarily at the expense of anybody or at the expense of economic development. Granted, electric vehicle cars are going to get rid of fossil cars, but it's still going to be a car company building them. Renewable energy might take out the oil companies, but if they're smart, they've already invested in renewables, and they're going to continue. So I do think there is a broad strategy. that the local level can't really do. But that broad strategy is really how we're going to get ourselves out of it. And being somewhat pessimistic, I will just say, and we're going to suffer a lot until we get there. It's a shame. We probably should have started this in 2000. And maybe a different president would have altered that whole paradigm. But we can't go back in time. So the last thing I will say is at the local level and not government local, I ran into a contractor in Lake County who commented the bulk of his business is installing water heaters and heat pump heaters. So the good news is, slowly but surely, the economics at the local level, at the residential level, is beginning to drive the market and will probably accomplish a lot more than all of our efforts up here because we are a government and we operate in a bureaucratic mindset that isn't designed to deal with urgencies unless it's a fire on your doorstep. This is a slow-moving crisis, and it's hard for government and individuals to wrap their head around a slow-moving crisis. That's why we're moving so slowly. I'm not sure that that's a source of comfort for anyone. That's just more or less my observations on the issue. Thank you.

Thank you. And we have Member Gift.

Yes, thank you. And I really want to start by thanking members of the community for your comments. I know many of us here on the committee hear you. I absolutely certainly hear you. There is nothing slower than local government, unfortunately. i'm really proud of this committee for forming in 2019 only adopting the jpa in 2021 we went right into covid and where we are on this rcap now i feel like it's a lot of progress that we've made in the past two years and i know it's not at the speed that you all want to see but i can say just from looking at what the jurisdictions are doing what we're doing in calistoga we are all individually doing things to move forward in the right direction, starting with us up in Calistoga with leading the foodware ordinance, getting rid of our diesel generators, moratorium on gas stations. And those are getting picked up by other jurisdictions. So at the county level, in this room, on this committee, in all of my neighboring jurisdictions, we really do care about this. And I do apologize it's not moving at a rapid pace, but there is the importance of that public comment that has to come into place. as well as all the work that goes into staff and our contractors to make sure that what we're bringing forward is going to be something that is sustainable for the long term and we're not just shooting from the hip from short term. So I'm really proud of us and the work we're doing and apologize to the community. It's not going as fast as you would like. I guess I just have one more question to build on another member's comments here. So to start out, this is really incentive driven and not punitive if you are not adapting this, correct, staff?

In terms of the measures themselves being focused on incentives and education or

For the adoption process, yes.

Can you rephrase that?

Oh, I'm sorry. So if jurisdictions aren't adopting this, there's no punitive measures to it. It's just incentive driven to try and incentivize them to adopt it, correct?

Yeah, I don't think there's anything. The negative would be that, like Eric mentioned earlier, in order to be CEQA qualified and for all these projects to kind of tear off it, there are these measures, these kind of forecasts. And if one jurisdiction says they can't meet that or don't want to, then those numbers kind of don't really work anymore. So we'd have to go back and recalibrate. That doesn't mean that all the other jurisdictions can't keep moving forward as fast as they want. And even that jurisdiction doesn't . So yeah, it's not punitive in any sense. It's a framework to move forward. And talking about being aggressive and urgent, that's where the kind of secret qualification part comes in. There are targets, 2030, 2040, 2045. If we just wanted it to be like a framework, it could take as long as it will take. But the idea is for all jurisdictions to adopt so we can move at a faster pace.

implement it out of timeline. Okay. So then I guess that leads into my next question would be understanding really what that implementation looks like because especially for small jurisdictions like ours up in Calistoga, from the very beginning we instantly recognized there's going to be an increase of staff needs. So at what point will we have that information? Especially being so rural, it's hard for us to find good talent up there. I'm sure as a city we would like to and want to start recruiting. as soon as possible for implementation. And I know some other jurisdictions have already done that. We just don't have the budget. So yeah, we're very interested in when that is.

Yeah, I think in terms of implementation, it really is. We're kind of just waiting for adoption, and then we can start thinking implementation. And even that implementation planning or strategizing will take some time as well. But that's another thing to think about. What happens in the interim? From adoption to when that implementation plan is done, there are things that are happening now in terms of sustainability and climate action. That's regardless. But when we start thinking about how to implement this plan and its strategies, it is going to take conversations with each jurisdiction, each jurisdiction's agencies, staffing needs, even prioritizing certain measures that we feel maybe make the most sense because there is state funding for them now or because another jurisdiction already has a model ordinance. Those things can move a little faster. So that's, I think, all part of the implementation strategizing that we're waiting for adoption to happen first before we can even move on that. But I think that will become clear in terms of staffing needs at that point. There are several measures, and I think it's mostly the quantified ones, that were looked at and studied as part of this. And it's one of the appendices. And that's where a big astronomical number comes in. But it's a lot of incentives and a lot of staff that are built into that. So that's available now if you wanted to look at that.

Clearly I didn't read it.

It's deep in there because it's one of those kind of like, you know, a lot of tables and spreadsheets. And, you know, it's like one of those that, you know, people see the big number. But if they look at each individual measure, you start seeing like, oh, yeah, it's going to take a lot of money to hire staff. Or we're going to need, if you want to incentivize every home to be electrified and a lot of homes need help, that adds up pretty quickly. Right.

Thank you for that. It is a huge document. I obviously didn't have a chance to get to the staffing information. I appreciate that it's there, and that allows me to go back to our city and our city manager and look at our budget, especially as we're going into our mid-year budget cycle, having somebody on the team that's working with you guys already, I think as Napa already does, I think is the best way for us to move forward as a city. So thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Representative Narvaez? thank you love all the comments so far um a couple things on measure be1 i'm sorry no let me go back on on the key revisions made on the enhanced funding monitoring and reporting language when you mean reporting language? Is it clarifying the message within the documents or is it reporting out to jurisdictions or to the public in a way that we can communicate effectively? I just want to understand what that revision looks like. I'm not sure if that's

Yes, sir. Yeah. You know, the section of the RCAP called monitoring implementation and monitoring is really where we made some of those refinements to make it clear kind of what are we monitoring? What are we going to be reporting on the RCAP and its effectiveness and maybe updating it over time? So we heard most of public comments and some ongoing discussions with staff that we need to kind of tighten up that language in terms of how we're reporting or what kind of mechanisms we might use. And as you might recall, the implementation framework that you've considered as well as a committee does begin to speak to some of those opportunities, whether it's identifying key metrics or indicators that we want to track over time in terms of which measures or actions are we actually implementing. Should we report to the board monthly or quarterly on those, those kind of decisions. So we did a little bit of work with staff to make sure that those reporting and monitoring provisions were clear and that there were some really important signals about how the plan will be monitored and reported on over time.

Thank you. The reason I ask that is because in the key revisions, in previous comments and other meetings I've talked about engaging with the community to get buy-in from others. I believe, you know, us as climate champions, we know how important it is to continue to move forward, to be effective. But there's also a community outside of our climate champion bubble, I would call that, this may be foreign or may not have this as a priority because there's a lot of things that they're addressing. So I just want to make sure that we're not just looking at reporting to jurisdictions, to staff, but a really clear way to communicate to the public in a way that the public can understand from a non-technical point of view. So whoever's going to... You know, lead the PR, the marketing, we want to make sure that we also want the consumer, the end user, the residents to really understand the effort that we're putting in and what that goal is and how we're going to execute that. We can't do this by ourselves. We need buy in. I know that we want to move faster, but part of the process for local jurisdictions is to allow the public to see what's going on, to get buy-in. That's often the biggest challenge. Some of the comments was made that at the end, that's when you get a lot of the concerns. You get a lot of those comments, and that happens in a lot of different issues that we face when we agendize items. And we can name a number of issues. So I just want to make sure that I hear you clearly about moving quickly, but I don't want to lose buy-in from the public because if we don't take care of that part of this process, then we're going to be more friction. We're going to be with more friction, right? global warming to climate change has always been friction from people challenging whether it was real or not. And I don't want that to, what I don't want this to develop is do we need this, right? Because we didn't communicate effectively that we need to implement this. I don't, I just, so my recommendation is to have a clear path to the consumer. That's one thing. The other one is the retrofitting. I mentioned this before. It's affordability. The affordability that I mentioned is not just for jurisdictions to afford to implement this, but as we look at tangible changes in infrastructure, buildings mainly, residential buildings, I know we talked about incentives, but that's going to be a really key factor in making all of this very effective when we implement this, because we got to understand that the income demographics of our community, just in the city of Napa, almost 20%. earn under $50,000 and almost half is rent burden. So if we retrofit and we don't focus on incentivizing the landlord or the homeowner, I don't want to lose them as partners in this process. So how do we address that part? Because we can do all this work, but we don't get the buy-in from the public, from the people that really follow climate. Because we have the general public. Many of them are really interested in this. Some of them may not know. And if they see this at the last minute without engaging, then we're going to lose partners to help us do this. So that's really, for me, the biggest part. Meeting with the realtor group, as an example. And sending the invitation to meet in person. Who else can we meet? that potentially could be a good partner or maybe somebody that comes in later on that might cause some friction in the process. So I want to think about who are other stakeholders. You know, HOAs, I don't know, you know, the meeting that Barron's doing with contractors, that's a good opportunity. Maybe you've already done some of the meetings that I may not be aware of. The buy-in is huge. I just want to make sure that the public gets informed as much as possible during this so we can be effective. And that's part of the process why some of this takes on. If we move too fast, we lose some of those partnerships, and all this work could be made more difficult. So that's all I have for now. Thank you. I'm sorry. Sitting that but we did instruct staff to look at the footwear ordinance to come back and agendize it so we're gonna have that conversation because you know we want to make sure that that's something that we move forward with but we're gonna agendize that so please follow that so we can have that conversation get public comment. Thank you.

Further comments from the committee? Yes. Member Lamatina.

Thank you. Just to piggyback, I'm a social worker with the county of Napa as well. And unfortunately, most of my folks are focused on where their next meal is coming, if they can afford their rent in two more months. And so I think, yes, we need public education and to realize that The focus right now on many people is if they can afford their prescriptions, is their health insurance, are they gonna lose that? So we're in a tricky time right now and I think we also have to keep in mind that not all of us can afford these things and people's priorities are a little different right now. Thank you.

Thank you. Further comments from the committee? I have a couple of comments. First of all, I think the modifications were wise decisions. I'm sympathetic to make everybody do it now, but as many of our committee members have said, that could actually have negative consequences. And I think by making these modifications and looking at real costs and getting everybody working together. In fact, doing this will make action happen faster than adhering to a demand that cannot be realized. So I think we're on the right track. I do have a question about the collaboration between jurisdictions to make things happen faster. Just reading through it, it looks like that would be part of the all staff working group that would be able to collaborate for efficiency to jurisdictions or more working on the same thing. Is that going to be the avenue?

I think that's definitely the first point of entry since we have been having constant communication with that group. But it could expand. I mean, we're going to need to talk to agency leadership and municipal leadership as well. So that group might get bigger. It might need to be a different kind of type of working group. But yeah, we envision that that all staff working group will continue to be kind of a link between all jurisdictions.

Right, I actually see the collaboration as being just an essential element to the RCAP. It's let's work together so that we can do it efficiently at lower cost. And that's what I hope will happen. And as far as the question about, well, do we all have to endorse it? Well, I'm just, my message is to every jurisdiction is to, I think it was Benjamin Franklin, we must all hang together. We shall all hang separately. Actually, it'll be just die of heat or something like that. We won't actually be hung. Also, I do appreciate the story map. I think that is a good way to spread what is going on. People can be referred. Our government agencies can be referred to the story map and say, well, take a look. Here it is. And it's easy to read, which is a really good part. Any further comments from the committee?

Okay, well I just we have a horse right here go ahead take all right a couple of things that I wanted to add first I do think as it relates to building retrofit I The approach we're taking, which is to avoid mandatory elements and encourage rebates and incentives, but we can also focus on the individual economics. People are beginning to realize, and it was Gopal, I forget his last name, used to always say, don't focus on how it's gonna save the planet, most people don't care, but focus on how it can save them on their utility bills. And I think that's the secret to success on building retrofitting. Making your home more energy efficient, replacing certain appliances with more efficient appliances all reduce your PG&E bill. And ironically, because those rates are so incredibly high, the savings become more meaningful. So I think we're going to see a lot of individual homeowners beginning to do things to save themselves their PG&E bills and therefore help address some of our climate issues. So I think there's an internal market economics that's going to work arguably faster than government sometimes. Where I see that breaking down is in apartments, where the landlord is making the investment, but the tenant's going to reap the benefit in terms of the energy bill. So we're going to have to figure out how to work that dynamic. And that'll be a good implementation challenge. The last thing I want to say is, despite how pessimistic I sound, I would still encourage the members of the audience to keep giving us engaging your elected officials at public comments and every other opportunity because the best way to get us moving a little faster is to put the pressure on us. So keep doing what you're doing. It may not be, you may not feel like you're succeeding or altering the things or getting what you really want, but you are moving us in the right direction and we need to be prodded on a regular basis. Thank you. Yes, Member Reeves.

Let's see. There it is. OK. I agree with all the comments that have been made so far, but I think this whole idea of being depressed about how slow we're moving is actually a stimulant to everybody. The emphasis on education and incentives with the story map is really exciting, I think, because it's really something we need to build enthusiasm with everyone and if we can make the idea of retrofitting go viral through whatever means we put on this story map about how much savings we're having and how much people are thrilled with the results of taking climate action. I think that's a really important concept in this particular time of our social media acceptance. If we can have that cascading effect, I would hope and really kind of predict that as we as jurisdictions move forward and provide those beginning parts that are mentioned in the RCAP where we're responsible for retrofitting our own buildings and updating our own fleets, that those kinds of things also need to be published so that the public needs, will know that we mean what we have said and that their participation, their responsibility then comes in as a natural progression of our movement forward. And I think, just like a commenter said, Nepal is a really important event right now to re-emphasize that yes climate change is dangerous climate change is here and we are all in the battle together and i think it is a battle because we have this um resistance to action and i think if we start these incremental actions that um it's possible that we will meet those required dates early if we actually put our money where our mouths are. And speaking of that, I am hoping that the county can take a lead on acquiring grants because the smaller jurisdictions have not as much staff time available to us for that. So we need the cooperation of the big players to make these incentives actually real. So I'm hoping that that will be part of our overall plan for implementation. and implementing, I'm hoping, to get the biggest bang for our buck and go back to what Linda Brown was talking about as far as what will make the best non-heating incentives happen. I think the collaboration is important, but I think the message needs to get out to the public, and we need to start making those internal changes so that it's an example and move forward rapidly as we can.

Thank you. Yes. Member Deasy. Oh, sorry.

Yeah, thank you. I'm still stuck on my main point of understanding how this is going to be presented to the councils, and I'm a little bit running in circles with we can pass this, and I want to pass this, so that's why I'm trying to make sure that I understand so I can represent this well. we just need to pass this, it all makes sense, and we'll get to things in the implementation, and then trying to understand what we are responsible for, for sure, and what we're not responsible for. And so I just want to flag that I know in our council meetings, someone is going to need to be able to represent that really clearly, and I don't feel like I can do it at this point. And I've been reading and trying, but... So I think that's what we're going to need in our council meetings. Thank you.

Thank you. Back a few minutes ago with my comment complementing the story map, especially since I think it could be a good piece of publicity for what we're doing that would be generally available to the public. What are the chances of getting that translated into Spanish? It would be helpful in my community.

The story map is translated into Spanish. It is. Yes.

I already did it. Such effect I have. And in less than a second. Okay. Any more comments from the committee?

And... Do we have a response to... Yeah.

Oh. I don't know if you want... Yeah.

I'm sorry. I'm sure you want a response.

It was not a rhetorical question. Yes, please respond to Member Deasy's question.

yeah and I don't know if Eric can maybe support but like what each jurisdiction is responsible for if they adopt the plan. I mean, there is a matrix in the plan that says certain measures will only apply to certain jurisdictions. So it's either all jurisdictions or maybe possibly the city's incorporated jurisdictions or the county. So obviously forest health management might really kind of just focus on county. But building upgrades might really heavily focus on the cities, right? the responsibility would be to implement the measures that do focus on things within a jurisdiction's kind of zone of influence. So it is, you know, a big chunk of the plan would be the responsibility of each jurisdiction to implement. Now, there are 17 measures that are quantified. Those are the ones we've mentioned that kind of have these greenhouse gas emissions numbers that we want to meet in order to get as close as possible to zero emissions or zero carbon by 2045. So technically, if you really just wanted to focus on those, those 17 would be for sure what we're responsible for. the other ones are kind of like adaptation and yeah like carbon sequestration which are also really important to getting us to that goal and they kind of all can kind of mix but at this point it seems like for the plan to be secret certified and qualified each jurisdiction would be responsible to move as quickly and make as big of an effort to implement those quantified measures. Obviously, it would be great to try to implement as much of the plan as possible. But yeah, so if those quantified measures, like Eric mentioned earlier, if there's issues with those, we're going to have to figure out if we want to proceed with this with the arrangement in terms of like meeting the goals by 2045 or if it needs to be recalibrated on some sort. But, you know, I guess we'll get there when we get there.

But, yeah. So then my question becomes, well, what's the deadline? And I think that may be something that our council wants. Do we need to do it tomorrow? Do we need to do it next month? Do we need to do it next year? I think that will be something that will come up. And then one other thing that's come up is the sort of ability to – can we – Can we get extra credit here where we may be a little bit deficient? That's a question that I've had a hard time answering. And then now I'm going to get a little bit specific, but we do have this community forest that we don't own it. Do we own it? It's outside of our city limits, but we own the land. So anyway, just to be prepared for some technicalities that I still can't answer. So thank you. That is really helpful.

I have one more question. Yes. Member Gift.

Thank you. And I'm sorry. I wasn't as thorough as I should have been on this document. I mean, 211 pages outside of my scope. But it does bring me to one very important question. And somebody brought up grants. And I think what I'm really looking at in my position, it would be very imperative for us to bring on somebody full time as soon as possible to help us navigate this process and document in tandem with the county. Member Deasy brought up the point of timelines and deadlines. My concern, and again, it's just a concern, it's not any idea to not implement it, but if there is a lack of funding available or lack of grant resources available for us to begin implementing this plan, Would it take away our CEQA qualifications if we aren't meeting it by a certain deadline? And then what do we do if we don't have the funding for it? This is like a really pretty big concern.

Yeah, I can speak to that. It's really a good question. And I think that the detailed matrices we have and the appendices of the plan do outline specific responsibilities, identifies which jurisdictions are involved in the measure. And it also identifies timing. And some of those timings are pretty near term, so that's a really good point. We do also have an appendix I to the plan, a funding and financing roadmap where we did work with economic and planning systems to really look at the full breadth of both greenhouse gas production and adaptation measures and understand what a menu of options might be for supporting not just implementing the plan and the staffing needs to do that, but also the program costs, incentive costs, borrowing costs, even looking at things like infrastructure, you know, some of the capital improvement type implications. So that is outlined in both the cost analysis and the funding and financing roadmap. While it's not detailed enough to support implementation of any one measure, let's say it has 14 actions under it, it's not quite that granular, but it does set the table and gives us a signal for what the all jurisdiction working group will probably need to do on day one, which is really sit down, staff across jurisdictions, Think about those funding priorities on day one. Where do we need to leverage strategic hires? Look at existing work programs. You know, a lot of the implementation pathways for some of these measures are basically doing the work we already do a little bit differently. And some things are an entirely new program. So that detailed sifting and sorting is something that is better done in our experience in the first few months or to a half a year after plan adoption because you really need to dig in once you have the policy direction through plan adoption. to really now bring forward a near-term work program. So we believe, and we've talked this through with staff, that that is priority day one, and why that implementation framework that was discussed previously is really so critical.

Thank you. And thank you to our public commenters. Thank you to Ascent and a wonderful presentation. Thank you to staff. Thank you to our committee. And I think we're ready to move on to... Item B, to receive a presentation, discuss and provide guidance on future outreach and engagement strategies for the implementation phase of the NAPA RCAP. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, great discussion. I think a lot of, a few of the comments that we heard during that agenda item, I think are relevant here as well, in terms of like, how do we communicate this plan to the public, to partner stakeholders? So we'll kind of briefly go about over, you know, what we've already done, right? The fact that we have allocated some budget this year to community engagement, kind of why it's important. The insights that we've received from opening survey for the project two years ago, so it's been a while. And outreach discussions, kind of guiding questions that we as staff think might be helpful. to receive guidance from you all in terms of like what you see is important and what we're gonna need to do to really get this plan out there and get buy-in. So again, in April 2026, we did adopt the CAC's budget. And in that budget, we did have set aside $35,000 for Napa RCD to lead some outreach support for the plan. We also set aside $1,500 to continue to keep the Napa Climate Challenge platform available to us. And after adoption of the plan, we will be shifting our staff efforts to implementation, but also we're going to need outreach and engagement. So why is outreach and engagement important? It's successful to continue cooperation and coordination with local government leadership, staff, businesses, community organizations, trade groups, as we mentioned, advocacy organizations, and general partners. We're going to need to, and the story map would help with this, is really sharing updates on progress, funding opportunities, resources, and ways for people to participate and kind of receive community buy-in. Many of these strategies are very directly going to affect communities, but a lot of them are programs which agencies and the all-staff working group will need to work on. current and future incentives and really just kind of making communication on these plans will be essential. Engagement activities to date, as we mentioned earlier, there was an online survey to begin with back in May through August of 2024. We did have in-person meetings in the early stages and six stakeholder focus groups early on. And again, there was probably more of a general sense of what climate action, climate change, and sustainability means to these groups. And then from there, as work on the development of the plan progressed, in August and September of 2025, last year, we did release the draft RCAP. And during that time, we did have four open house workshops in Yonkville, American Canyon, Napa, and Calistoga, which is where we did receive a bulk of comments on the plan, the draft plan. We did have the public draft comment period open from August to September, and that's where we had the plan up on the project website. We also had kind of comments come in via kind of formal letters to us. And we've had ongoing CAC meetings advertised, and we do anticipate having public hearings soon. And it's not up on here, but the ISMND has been out for about a month for public review. So why is community input important and how has it helped us? It did help identify key priorities for climate action. It helped tailor the kind of development of the strategies both for GHG reductions and adaptations that are in the plan. It kind of helped ensure that the actions benefit the whole community. and highlighted the need to build support for implementation. And through the outreach process, we really kind of felt that we should prioritize or start emphasizing the need to really understand the cost to residents and businesses, hence why we talked about affordability earlier. So some survey insights, strong support for climate action. Hold on, let me look at my notes a little nicer. So widespread support. Most respondents believe that climate change will affect them and want government action, often across a broad suite of strategies. The sense of urgency and significant pressure to move faster. For economic development concerns, people worry about the impacts on individuals and small businesses, preference for incentives over bans, caution urged on new development relative to biodiversity, emphasis on vehicle miles traveled and electrification goals. The power grid was also something that was mentioned quite a bit and the desire for infrastructure and incentives to move off natural gas paired with assurance of grid stability. Plastic, strong interest in reducing plastic use and improving recycling. Education, many want public education and clear guidance on how to help. Ecosystem health around water management, forest health, biodiversity, and fire resiliency. And really demographic representation, getting a better representation of the diverse communities and perspectives in the region. So we put together a couple of discussion questions. And I can read through them first. And then we can go maybe round robin in terms of figuring out what guidance you might be able to help in terms of developing an outreach and engagement strategy, scope of work for this first year of implementation. So I'll read through them really quickly and then we can kind of open them up for discussion. So how do we build on the outreach and engagement that has taken place? How can outreach and engagement be improved? Should outreach and engagement be tailored for sustainability overall or for specific prioritized measures? What type of engagement will be needed during the first three years of our implementation? And how do we consider vulnerable populations, equity, and environmental justice in decision making? There's a few more. Should capacity building be a priority? How do we best build trust with stakeholders? Who are our strongest partners? Who do we need to build partnerships with? Are demonstration projects desirable? And which existing programs need more visibility and community engagement? And I'm happy to lead a discussion. I don't know, Chair, if you want to open it up to public comment first. And then I'll get back and I can kind of lead the discussion.

Okay, I suggested, are there public comments on the presentation?

Chris Benz with Napa Climate Now. Greetings, everyone. We have emphasized that the actual physical benefit of the RCAP measures isn't the amount of emissions that are reduced, but is how much additional heat is being avoided. It seems that the type and direction of outreach will depend on which of the RCAP measures are most effective in reducing heat for each jurisdiction. That information will come out of the analysis using the total climate accounting methodology. For example, the city of Napa, with its denser population, for their reducing methane emissions by increasing composting may be one of the measures that delivers the most near-term heat reduction. In that case, it would make... sense for outreach and resources to be directed there. In Calistoga, the greatest heat reduction per dollar spent might be an energy retrofit program. So outreach would be directed to owners of older, less energy efficient housing and local contractors. In the unincorporated county, the biggest bang for the buck might be decreasing nitrous oxide associated with fertilizers, reducing ag residue burning, and increasing carbon storage on natural and working lands. This means working closely with agricultural organizations. A clear way to address the needs of vulnerable populations is to adopt actions that have the greatest ability to slow global warming rapidly and to recognize that reducing short-lived climate pollutants like methane, black carbon, and ozone precursors like nitrous oxide has simultaneously positive co-benefits of reducing air pollution, thus benefiting the lives and pocketbooks of vulnerable populations as well as the rest of us. Which measures will be most effective at heat reduction will be shown by total climate accounting analysis, and this could help guide your outreach efforts. Thank you.

Thank you. Other public comments?

Thanks, Chair. Thank you, committee. A lot of good comments around how to make this happen locally and universally. It is a global warming problem and I think the solutions are global. And so we have to find ways to say incentivize the entire international community around first very rapid reductions. We can show the way. And then very, very rapid reductions in existing, say, legacy heat-trapping gases. We know about that. I have a one-year-old. For the last couple weeks, we take our walks to Solomon Park. He likes watching tractors and bulldozers. And I do too. It's a lot of noise and a lot of people working, and I enjoy crews, and I miss working with a crew. And it occurred to me that maybe all this work isn't necessary anyway. It is a good park. It has a nice lawn, beautiful redwoods. It's a lot of shade, benches, and some pretty good equipment for kids to play on. It's been very safe. We've been there for several years with our grandsons. And so this gets to maybe the working committee that you're talking about. I don't know much about it. You're all familiar with it. And we keep talking about implementation. We should have done this years ago. But here we are. We have some ideas on what the heat reduction benefits are with some of our target emissions reductions and how to prioritize those. I hear Linda Brown mentioned again. She's been a mentor for me. And I've learned a lot from you guys and from her. But strictly speaking, how do we get the community on board? Well, I think this working group might take a look at, say, parks. What are we doing? Does this little bit of earth project benefit the climate or does it degrade it further? I think we know the answer. And if it does degrade the climate further by replacing some pretty good equipment, no one's complaining about it, we've had no injuries, then is it legit? And that drives the conversation, I think. We do want this recreation center at Harvest. How does that plan help or degrade the climate? And then who are we to degrade the climate? Okay. With the kind of ambitious climate goals that we have. And so I would encourage this committee to start thinking about every project in terms of the climate benefit that it provides. One of our guiding principles in Napa Climate Now is in any reduction process, first ask, you know, does it degrade the climate or does it improve it? And so thank you.

Thank you. So any more public comments online? Yes. Yes.

We have two callers. Antoinette, you'll have three minutes.

Hi, Antoinette Freeman. I am on the Committee for Active Transportation and Sustainability with the City of St. Helena. My screen says City of Sonoma. I am not speaking on behalf of City of Sonoma, but I am their sustainability coordinator and using that account right now to talk. I did have a couple comments on these great questions. I think one of the first things that I have found that's important is really distinguishing between what is general climate education and what is engagement. And I feel like those are two different things that can kind of make things get fuzzy. The other item is identifying what implementation capacity each jurisdiction actually has at the start. So that roadmaps to increase that capacity can be made. I've seen that take place in Sonoma County, and it's been immensely helpful. And the way that I look at implementation capacity is jurisdiction staff, what are their roles, which staff are responsible for attending meetings or providing feedback. and then of the measures which are prioritized for each jurisdiction. And then most importantly, I found in Sonoma County is what funding and financing is available, not available or required. In Sonoma County, there's an exceptional organization that we're a part of, the SCTCA, love acronyms, Sonoma County Transportation and Climate Authority. We have monthly meetings with sustainability representatives from each jurisdiction that are focused on different topics. We have a funding bimonthly meeting, sometimes monthly, where all the jurisdictions get on and talk about what grants they're looking at, funding opportunities and funding challenges. And that really helps, especially with the smaller communities, identify if there's any funding that they should collaborate on for the application process or anything like that. Another item that's really important is having one kind of data regional backbone for data, resources, again, funding opportunity, and consistent messaging for all the jurisdictions. So one location that has assets, spreadsheets, and so everyone is using the same facts, figures, and marketing materials essentially for all the jurisdictions that really pulls a lot of that workload off of the jurisdiction so they can actually work on the implementation measures versus trying to reinvent the wheel that possibly is already created by another jurisdiction or the county. And so those things I think would be really important out the gate as far as beginning this engagement in outreach is really looking at those jurisdictions and identifying their capacities and where there are holes in those and then providing resources so the jurisdictions can actually do the things instead of spinning wheels.

Okay. Your time expired. Any quick wrap-up?

That was it. Thank you.

Okay. Great. Thank you. We have another online question.

David, you will have three minutes.

Thank you. David Graves again, NAPA. My admonition to all of you is remember what Voltaire said. The perfect is the enemy of the good. In this environment, action counts a lot more than perfection. Second observation I would make is that we're not in a vacuum. We're one of nine counties in the Bay Area. I don't know how many climate action plans have been written by all the counties and jurisdictions. I don't know how each CCA is carrying out its missions of decarbonizing and retrofitting. But I would argue there is a rich load of information of what has succeeded and what has failed and what needs to be improved in our neighboring jurisdictions. And to me, the idea that we're kind of seeing how we're going to do on our own without taking advantage of lessons learned all over the region is dereliction. And I realize that Ascent is not the consultant for the whole universe of jurisdictions. But I would argue that some effort by staff to start to reach out to other jurisdiction staffs and say, hey, what worked? What didn't? What's your rate of adoption of Bay Run measures? What have you learned that doesn't work? All that seems to be incredibly important at catalyzing the effectiveness of our efforts. Thank you.

Thank you. Any more comments online?

We have no other callers.

Okay. I know that Vice Chair Nevaez had a question or a comment. Comments. Go ahead.

Thank you. I got ahead of myself a little bit in the last one, but I just got kind of passionate on the topic and I really appreciate the questions because that gets me really thinking about my comments and how to move forward. Number one, when we talked about, there's a question about trust. Trust doesn't need to be that we always agree. You don't need agreement to build trust, but you surely need communication and transparency. And I know there might be some stakeholders that may not like the direction that we go into. That's OK. They're still engaged. Communicate and be transparent so we can build those bridges and continue to be effective. So I think that for us, trust, that's one way to put those lens on. I was thinking about a previous conversation about the energy audit. And I thought that possibly one of the ways that we can really get some data, because I think data is going to be really important as we look at funding and grants. Right now, the energy audit, I believe, is designed to be at the time of sale. But if we're able to do some kind of engagement where we can fund energy audits voluntarily to get the data and part of helping people be aware of opportunities to change their home is first is look at what you have. And if we can do some kind of outreach, for example, Naiba Climate Now was a great partner with electric leaf blowers and getting grants and educating and changing the view on how we use certain tools that provide, that have a lot of missions, and that was very effective. So I bring this up because that's one way to engage with the public. um to bring awareness and also uh get data to say for example like city of napa many homes over 50 years old right a lot of our our inventory is really old so i'm going to assume that many of those houses are not energy efficient but if we can engage with the public and say hey here we can do energy audit let you know how how much you're spending and what the um some issues are that they're going to be i think it's going to raise awareness and we build data also with the outreach and engagement i really want to make space for volunteers we have a lot of climate champions in our community they're willing to engage so we don't always need technical people that to be involved in the process there's certain times for that calls for that but there's going to be opportunities during engagement to reach out to working groups in our community that are passionate volunteers, that really care, that have a lot of skill set in communicating with the public, and have a lot of relationships and trust that we can work with to continue the effectiveness of what we're trying to approach. And I heard comments about each jurisdiction may have different areas that they can focus on. For example, the city of Napa, we talked a lot about building, but the large amount of our emissions are from transportation. And then breaking that down is what part of transportation? Is it commercial? Is it commuting? And if it's commercial, then how do we get the data also if we want to reduce it, again, to get funding? So we look at USDOT. CARB has done a lot of work with regulating heavy vehicles with continuous diagnostics and compliance. So that data from CARB could be very effective. So just ways of getting one to the granular detail and then use that data for additional funding is one way. I think there was a comment on, and I thought it was really interesting, what are the limits of each jurisdiction? I think understanding what the limits are is important. I haven't thought about that in that way because we all want, we're ambitious, we want to get things done, but we have to be realistic in where we're limited and where are the long-hanging fruits and what can we get done so we're not caught by, you know, and surprised and then take too big of a step back. So those limits are, I thought, was interesting. I don't know how that how that would work with discovering that. But, you know, being upfront, say, okay, this is what we can do now. This is where we need help. And there was some question about that with staff. So the partnership with NAPA comes is going to be really important in that aspect to raise those limits, the ceilings to be more effective. But as far as outreach, there's a lot of opportunity out there beyond what's in this room. So look forward to the broader engagement. Thank you. Thank you.

Instead of, I think, given the time consideration, we will not go through it round robin, but it would be better than if people could look at it more holistically in their responses. So, yes, Member Painter.

Yeah, these are really good questions, and I think to the Chair's point, if we each try to tackle this. We've only got 15 minutes left in the meeting, so I'm going to keep my comments brief, but also think about how we can really get you good information back on this. And if there's an opportunity for us as committee members and members of the public to have another chance to write some responses to these and get them to you they're really important questions and i don't think i don't want to not give it the time that it needs so that's one suggestion that we that we take a look at that because there were really good points here uh particularly thinking about how we prioritize outreach should we look at the reduction aspects, which we've talked about at previous meetings, and I really would like to see that. And again, back to the story map as a vehicle and a tool for outreach, I'd like to hear more about it. You know, in terms of getting this information out and the outreach, I mean, I'll just say I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. You know, we're looking at the technical piece of the RCAP and how to adopt it and what each community can do, all really good and very complicated questions in their own right. But my maybe suggestion at this point is that let's not just consider this done, but give us a chance to really dive in and get you some more robust comments and answers to your questions, really important questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Further comments? Oh, on the other side?

They have bigger hands over there.

We'll start yelling anyway.

I think one of the things, when we talk about engagement, what strikes me is you need to have something if you're going to engage. You can bring a crowd together, but you've got to have something. And that something should be some kind of... You know, the offer of a free energy audit, as Vice Chair Navarra has talked about, or rebates or discounts. Be able to demonstrate personal savings. If you retrofit your home, you'll save it, you know, in lower energy costs. So I think it's important that you have something that you can offer the audience when you're engaging them, primarily along the lines of saving them some money or increasing their comfort. The other element here is if we are going to implement this and engage and so forth, we're going to have to explore pooled staffing. Everybody, I mean, Napa County and Napa City have been able to have full-time people, and so we're all envious. We've got a part-timer, and we're very proud of her, but it's still just part-time. And other cities that are smaller just don't have anything. So I think one of the things this Climate Action Committee should look at is mechanisms by which we can pool staffing, either through the JPA, can hire full-time people that each jurisdiction then buys off as much as they can afford, and implement things in that manner. Because without a warm body, you really are limited to what you can do. And if you engage with nothing because you don't have anybody to follow up or whatever, it just loses its credibility. So I think we need to explore pooled staffing. I certainly agree that we need to develop as many local advocates as we can, not just because they can help get the word out, but again because they will lobby us and keep us keep our you know nose to the grindstone so i think those are the important elements pooled staffing encouraging and developing local advocates and then making sure you have something to offer when you engage the public thank you remember alicia

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Yeah, great questions. I agree that we need time with these. And I am thinking it might be helpful if we had a subcommittee from this board that worked on this specifically with staff. It doesn't have to be a large group. It could be one person from each jurisdiction potentially to get that a little bit more understanding of how outreach and engagement works for each area the best. But that might be a way that we can continue to do this work because it's going to be a very important step. That's really where the, you know, equity and justice element also can really rise for us to meet that. So I would, I'd be willing to be part of that if this is something the committee thinks would be helpful. Like, see, I know there's some other folks here that, like, oh, they'd be good, but it has to be, you know, it's just a thought of how we can continue to do this work. The other is, you know, we're tackling human behavior here. So not only climate change, but it's human behavior. And I think that when you look at that, we've addressed certain steps in terms of identifying and creating awareness. That's going to be ongoing in terms of what's the problem and what can be the solution and how we can empower people to feel like they can be part of the solution. Small moves, small measures, small changes can make a big difference when it's cumulative. And so I just want to throw that in. The other, when it comes to, this goes back a little bit to what I previously said, you know, what is the best way, what's consumer consumption of change, of creating awareness? Well, it's creating videos. It's working on social media platforms. But that, again, that could go to the subcommittee to talk about what the best approach is. What do we already have existing? in our jurisdictions in terms of how to do that outreach. We're really fortunate here in the county, and the county can help with this. There's Linda Reinreich, who is our public information officer, does a video called Through the Vine, and she posted it on social media. I mean, the storyboard that has been created would be great if that could be materialized into a video and put out. But again, I'm getting into the weeds. We don't have time for that. But just a suggestion is that maybe we bring some folks on there, recognize this is some behavioral changes. And also just remember, I remember back in the day where, and I've shared this before, but I remember back in the day where you didn't need to wear seat belts. where it wasn't against the law to have an open container of beer while you drive, where people smoked inside in the same restaurant. I mean, we have tackled big problems. This is the biggest one yet, but it's addressing the human behavior, and sometimes you just have to make the change, and human behavior has to catch up. So anyways, I'll end with that. Thank you.

I really just concur with everything. I think it needs to take more time and I actually had subcommittee on my notes so I really support that idea. I think it could be something that's evolving over time as the project evolves and I think yeah, that's a great idea.

I wanted to just directly kind of answer some of these. So at first I want to say that I agree very much with Ms. Benz in terms of how we go about this. I think that we should be focusing on the heat reduction and then using the methodology that we decided we would use through Linda Brown's group. that we look at those in terms of priorities by jurisdiction. I think that sounds like a really, really great idea. And then focus very much on those per the county, per each of the cities. The other thing that's very, very salient right now is the... the rule changes at the air district so that is something very tangible that we can be working on as a county in terms of doing that outreach and bringing in the stakeholders we need to be working directly with contractors we need to find those early adopters those contractors who are doing that work and um and work with them to do a lot of peer-to-peer work because other contractors are going to listen more to them than they are to us you know so we want people to understand uh that they there are long-term benefits to making these retrofits and changes in your home um they have to feel personally invested and feel like you know they the question what's in it for me has to be answered always when you do any kind of outreach or you try to engage somebody. Yes, you know, people care about a changing climate and what's to come globally, but they are way more likely to take action if you show them the personal benefit to them and their families. So working on that. But I think the issues around the rule changes for the water heaters and the furnaces I mean, it is right on the horizon. And so, you know, right now I'm fielding a lot of questions from the community, but the entire county needs to be involved in helping people understand where we're moving and how to do it. And I think that especially inviting in those really important stakeholders such as, you know, the people who are actually going to be doing the work. They have to feel confident they know how to do it. and that they are going to say, hey, to their customers, yeah, this is possible. Here's how we do it. Because there are people still out there saying, well, hurry up and change your water heater so that you don't fall under the rule. But that's really not what we want the message to be.

So anyway. Obviously, we're not going to complete this task in the next four minutes. So, you know, I'm a former educator, and I have nothing against assigning homework. I actually think it might be really nice if we took this back, talked with people in our jurisdictions, listened to the various other questions that came up during this discussion, bring it back, and we can put it as an agenda item on the next meeting. At the same time, we can decide, do we want to do it as a subcommittee? Because I think the outreach is as important as anything else we do, because that's what's going to make it happen. Staff comment?

Thank you. I'll be really quick. Jameson Crosby, Natural Resources Manager. I just wanted to offer an idea. I rarely suggest technology as a solution for anything. But in this case, with these discussion questions, I'm really glad to hear they're resonating with everybody. I was thinking that perhaps a mural board, an online mural board, which is the tool I was introduced to recently by the RCD, We're using it to work out ideas on a watershed symposium. But staff, we could put that together and put these questions on the mural boards and send it all to you. We invite you to comment, respond to any or as many, as few as you'd like. And the advantage, you can see each other's comments, of course. And you can thumbs up. And it'll save you all from, you know, It could allow us to see the things we've got, you know, multiple interest in and so forth. So anyway, I'll just put that out as an idea. We'll go ahead and get it up on a mural board and send it to you. If it resonates, great. If it doesn't, I absolutely agree we should also tackle it in another in-person CAC meeting. Right.

Mural board might be a really good way to open the discussion or to create. And that does not alleviate you from your homework assignment. It just means you have to fill out the mural board.

However, any way people want to do their homework assignment, they can turn it. If you want to send us an email instead, that's also perfectly fine. I just thought this would be particularly a good tool for you to see what each other says. We're not having to CC multiple people and then we get into Brown Act issues.

That's the other thing I was just thinking about the mural board. Would the mural board be a violation of the Brown Act if we're talking to each other, responding to each other?

dang yeah i think we're out council says yes we could do a survey maybe and then compile like themes and things like that yeah something that goes out to everybody but we don't we can't see each other's responses darn oh well sorry

Vice Chair Narvaez.

You know, on that note, I know the subcommittee was brought up. That might be a good idea. I just want to be cautious about adding more layers. And to Brown Act, we'll probably do a subcommittee. Right now we have a working group with staff that, you know, reports back to us. That might be a way. So when we think about a subcommittee, this compared to what staff in the working group can do versus what a subcommittee can do to make sure that we're still being efficient. I think both sides can get, I think, the same thing done. I just want to caution by adding more layers that will slow things down in conflict with the Brown Act. I think that's a great point. But let's compare both because if we're going to do engagement with the public, I think both of those elements can do that effectively.

Yeah, I'm glad that did come up, and I will consult with the county council afterward. But we had that happen on another committee where we formed an ad hoc committee and turned, nope, can't do it. So anyway, we'll find a way. We'll find a way.

If it's a subcommittee that's small enough, you can do it. But if it's larger than if it hits Brown Act.

If I can jump in really quick. So I'm on the Marin Clean Energy Committee, 34 members. We have several different subcommittees or ad hoc committees. It's working very, very well. They do work with staff. I'm on a couple of them. So that's why I'm saying I've seen it work, be effective. This might be an area where it's not an ongoing subcommittee. I don't see this being – but it could be one that can – come together, you know, maybe it can't break the Brown Act, so we can't do five. Yeah. But, you know, it can come together, it can work with a staff member, and then it can come back and provide information, presentation, if you will, to this greater committee. Yeah. And then we can go from there.

So, however you do it, go over these questions with your jurisdictions. We will work on the agenda for how this is going to be incorporated into our next meeting. And at that point, I would like to ask, are there any reports and announcements or future agenda items? Yes, Member Painter.

Yeah, I just have one announcement. Actually, a couple, but I'll try to keep it short. I just wanted to let this committee know that, again, sort of to the point of behind-the-scenes work, we have worked really hard with some of our local... folks in education and policymakers to create a green workforce coalition. I'm really excited about that. I want to thank Chris Benz, who's in the audience, and Mariella Herrick, who is with MCE. We have some really great team members, and that is one of the groups that helped try to foster and generate this October 9th workshop, which is really going to be all about the NOCs and trying to get contractors in the room. So I just want to mention that that is active. I want to thank both Jesse and Ryan for taking their time to help with that. Building a green workforce coalition, I think, is really, really important. We're involving other partners like the Workforce Alliance, Napa Valley College, Napa Valley Unified. I'd like to look at other school districts. There's a lot of work that we can do. So again, back to my point of let's walk and chew gum at the same time, I just wanted to let you know that that is actually getting legs to it, and folks are really excited about it. And just last plug, please tell folks, get contractors to the October 9th workshop. That is our opportunity to do exactly what we're talking about, and we need to fill that room. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Yes?

Yes, thank you, Member Painter, for that. And thank you for inviting me to that workforce coalition, being a part of it. We can make a lot of good changes there. My husband's a contractor. I've been saying here on the couple years that there's money being made as a contractor who's, you know, working and building green buildings. There is a whole area for that whole career in that area for a lot of young people too. You don't have to be a general contractor to convert certain appliances or water heaters. I also want to share that Member Painter and I are on the Moran MCE Board, and we're looking at community funds, community program funds. That's going to be coming up in the next couple months. I've talked to the acting CEO about this and how we can bring more community funds in the forefront to help with some of these incentives. So more to come on that.

Thank you. Further reports? Yes, Mr. Melendez.

Yeah, I'll just add a couple of little context points for the October 9th workshop that we are inviting a subject matter expert and another contractor. He is from another county, but he leads a lot of trainings throughout the Bay Area. So we're excited to bring in this expert to help educate and train the workforce here in Napa. And member Alessio, we will definitely lean on you and your husband's contacts to help with engagement and marketing for the event. One other report I will be presenting at the American Canyon Open Space Active Transportation and Sustainability Commission next Wednesday, September 2nd, regarding some of the Bay Run programs, particularly the residential programs and these workforce trainings that we are working on. And one great report that I think since the last time we've had a meeting, the Baron Ease Home Program, which is for single family homes up to four units. We have partnered with the Napa County Housing and Community Services Department to add affordable housing funds allocated from the state to offset the cost by residents and program participants. So and Barron will cover 80% of the cost of projects and now Napa County will cover the other 20%. So residents can receive home upgrade projects upwards of $6,000 to $12,000 is generally what we see at absolutely no cost for weatherization upgrades, energy efficiency upgrades. And I think we've had four or five projects since that partnership went into effect in June that have completed projects. And I'm happy to present at any commissions, committees, city council members about these programs as well.

Chair, may I ask really quick? Can you email that information to everybody, and can you also ask staff to send out invites? So let's have a calendar invite for both October 9th and for what you're working on. So that way it's on our calendars, and if we can be there, we'll show up kind of thing.

Okay, I'll double check with council on the calendar hold just from a Brown Act perspective as well. But absolutely happy to send out the report on the Bayron programs and the flyer for sure.

You can send all of us anything. We just can't respond where everyone else hears it. So I would like in general to have any kind of report or invitation to go out to the committee one way. Absolutely. All right. Yes.

I just have one more comment or question. Have we reached out to the unions and the trade schools to get them in the loop?

We just finalized the Eventbrite page a day or two ago, as well as the flyer was done last night. So we will, but we have not yet.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

And with that, yes, Mr. Gutierrez.

One final, final, and this is more of a congratulatory note. July 8th this year, Linda Brown and her team from Global Heat Reduction were named the winner of the 2026 Keeling Curve Prize, which carries a $50,000 cash award. And it's given each year by the non-profit Climate Curve to honor innovative, high impact climate solutions worldwide. GHR was selected as one of two winners in the finance category. That's great. Congratulations. All right, and at 11.35, meeting adjourned.