Green Island Ice Arena Negotiating Committee - Regular Meeting

Let's begin. It is Monday, 02/10/2025. It is 04:02PM. I will call to order this meeting of the climate action plan steering committee. Thank you all for being available online, and thank you to Lewis as well. The first item is approval of the minutes. I'll need a motion on that.

I will make a motion to approve last meeting's minutes.

Motion to approve last meeting's minutes. Second by?

I will second that.

Second by Steph Hanna. Of course, was motioned by Andrew Erickson. Any discussion of the minutes? Okay. All those in favor of the minutes, please say aye or thumbs up.

Thumbs up.

And that passes unanimously. Next is notices and discussion. Are there any items for notices and discussion? Can be from committee members as well as staff.

If nobody else has anything, I have a few things to share.

Go ahead, Louis.

The city of La Crosse participates in a number of federal programs. One of them is the Better Climate Challenge, which is a offshoot of the Better Buildings Challenge. That program partner where is where communities partner with the Department of Energy to reduce emissions by 50% within ten years. And the DOE provides technical assistance and opportunities to learn and share actionable best practices to increase operational efficiency. A few weeks ago, there was supposed to be a webinar, and the day of that webinar was canceled, and there hasn't been any communication from the, Better Climate Challenge staff.

The city also participates in the Department of Energy. Okay. Let me take a step back, though. That web page is still up. So betterbuildingsolutionscenter.energy.gov/climate-challenge, and I'll share that in a minute.

The DOE also has a campaign called the energy saving performance contract campaign or ESPC. That's, you know, something we do with Johnson Controls. But there's a, cohort that, you know, does similar things as the Better Climate Challenge. So it engages public sector building owners across municipal and state governments, universities and colleges, schools, and hospitals, also known as the MUSH market, to expand and enhance the use of energy saving performance contracts to achieve significant energy, environmental, and cost saving benefits. Last week, I had scheduled a check-in appointment with our, DOE staff, and that was canceled.

There's also a program that the not the city, but a company within the city participates in, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program or NEVI program. Recently, federal transportation officials have frozen funding for the installation of new electric vehicle charging stations across the state. In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, it mentioned the city of Milwaukee and their efforts, to use grant funding to install EV charging stations. Most significantly, though, for LaCrosse is that QuickTrip also had received received grant funding to install electric vehicle charging stations, most notably, the QuickTrip off of Exit 3. The QuickTrip was not or the article says it is unknown whether QuickTrip would install the charging stations if the funding doesn't come through.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Louis. So we all know what that is and why. Louis, are you anticipating I mean, we're not the only local government in this, but are you just going to wait to hear if programs have been restarted? Do you have any alternate means of communicating with staff that you were in contact with?

The urban sustainability directors network has given guidance on what communities can do to respond to this. The Sabin Center, is submitting an amicus brief along with the state attorneys general that are taking legal action against the federal government to release the funds. What the issue here is that there the court cases have shown that, the executive branch can't withhold congressionally allocated funds, which that's called impoundment. So state attorneys general, the, attorney general from Wisconsin are is suing the, administration to release those funds. So it's sort of up to the courts.

However Mhmm. Some state departments may have have already started adjusting their policies to align with, the executive orders.

Okay. Any other items or notices in discussion?

I can add a quick comment to Lewis' explanation on the funding freezes. There was another issue by a judge released today, this afternoon, to immediately restore the frozen funding, and that was issued by US district judge, John McConnell, stating that the administration has not complied with the previous court orders to lift the freeze. So, hopefully, we'll hear something soon on that, but I think as we have seen some of these court cases will take time. So there's not gonna be any immediate action on this, but there that is an update too, at least that they are in contempt of court, I guess.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Thanks, Erin. I appreciate that. I did also want to just acknowledge and thank Habitat.

I feel remiss to not acknowledge that although Natalie is gone. But Natalie and Habitat put forward a huge amount of effort for, grant, grant application over the last few months. And, of course, it was submitted and no responses were made and inauguration happened. So I wanna make sure that we, just acknowledge that. Although Natalie's not here, I'll definitely be sending my appreciation to the Habitat team for applying for millions of dollars and potentially all that work for nothing.

So okay. Let's move on to what we can control. Agenda item twenty five dash zero one seven one is the Grow Solar Lacrosse program participation request. You all know what this is. There are two attachments here. I will let Lewis, give any overview he wants with this item.

While this is a recommendation in our implementation plan in our top 10 actions, I just wanted to get a vote of approval from the committee before proceeding further. Earlier this year, we started working with La Crosse County to, and MREA to put together a solar group by program. We had reached out a number of times last year, and they were very busy. So I guess we were on the top of the one amongst the top of the list to participate in a program this year. So I I the interest form is live, so I think, ideally, we we try to gather as many people up front as possible.

But program, I will be keeping the committee or if you approve it, I will keep the be keeping the committee informed about any events. I would probably suggest having something at the Earth Fair.

Excellent. Questions on Grow Solar group by program. Steph?

Okay. If we share that information with anyone that we think might be interested? Yes. And I already signed up on the interest form.

Oh, you get a sticker stuff. Any other questions? Sure. Andrew.

Yeah. Well, first off, if there are stickers, I think that'd be great. It's a good catchy logo. I want one. You know, I'm wondering I can definitely send this out. I think people will be interested in it. Yep. Very good. Celebratory, emojis on the screen. That's good. But, like, you know, a pamphlet that I could drop off, is that something that's, you know, in the works? Some more marketing materials. I I have other printed materials from you, Lewis. So

I can bring that up, but I think there likely have been. I mean, this is the city's I'm sorry. It's, like, more of a county La Crosse area, La Crosse County, page is just is modeled after other stuff. So I'm pretty sure they have material that would be easily adaptable or adapted, for us. So, yes, I will I will try to get some pamphlets.

Great. Okay. So Lewis wants to have a motion on the floor. I need a motion to approve then.

I motion to approve.

And I'll second.

Okay. Motion by Andrew Erickson. Second. Dorothy Leonard. Any discussion?

Alright. No discussion. All those in favor, please give a thumbs up. That passes unanimously. Twenty five dash zero one seven two implementation plan update.

Louis, do you want to start us off? Otherwise, I think we had a number of items from last month.

Yeah. Sorry. Give me a moment. Yeah. So the I shared the working documents or the the working plans, for the actions to the committee members and highlighted the areas in green that we that I had questions on.

I've gotten a couple responses, but I think I can discuss with the the chair about how to get more participation. I think I when we spoke about sort of assigning actions, I think that's still well, I said it wasn't recommended. It's doable if we assign individuals as opposed to assigning groups. If we assign groups, then then we have to do agendas and minutes and all that stuff. But I think if individuals take on answering, responding to individual questions, then, it should be, above the board.

Thanks, Lewis. And just a quick clarification question in case others don't know. Wait. You said you sent the implementation documents to people. Do you by email or attached to the agenda?

It was the links are in the email message to on the agenda. So when I sent out an agenda items request, it is linked in that along with the minutes and so the last email I sent you. Good. The other thing I wanna mention and maybe I don't know if Aaron wants to share as well, but somewhat related to one of our actions about transit. A famous, well known urban planner died on Friday, Donald Shoop, who is known for the book, The High Cost of Free Parking.

And as I was scrolling through LinkedIn, looking at all the tributes to him. One of the, quotes or memories of of something he said was free parking is the enemy of transit. And I think we're making progress. The city is making progress on that area. So, hopefully, there we can continue improving the the transportation landscape for our bus system.

Thank you, Lewis. I had made a mental note in my mind for notices and discussion to note that the great Donald Shoup had passed, I believe, Friday. Many of you may have known about him. I can't imagine, Aaron Andrew, you don't have anything to say, so please.

Well, we were we were blessed that he actually joined a neighborhood revitalization commission meeting a couple of months ago, which was, like, incredible. So

Yeah.

He he played a role in in reforming parking in our community, which is is remarkable.

Absolutely. Aaron.

I am so sad that I didn't know he came to the neighborhood revitalization committee meeting. I would have absolutely died to see him in virtually over

It was totally

It was a surprise, I think.

There was something from the parking reform network, and he said, oh, yeah. Donald Schuh might show up, and then he did.

Yeah. That is amazing. I'm gonna go back and watch that video. That is awesome. Yeah. Donald Shoop is a he's an amazing planner, and I think that his legacy will definitely be cemented in the history of a lot of movements that we're trying to push forward still. I I just think back of learning about his efforts in some of my planning classes in college and how I was able to resonate so much with his teaching and the way that he is a storyteller through his writing. So, yes, he'll he'll definitely be missed.

Yeah. If any of you have not heard of him, please Google the high cost of free parking. It is absolutely incredible, and he is most definitely the Jane Jacobs of parking. So please reach out if there's anything any anyone that is a symbol of what we're doing here, it is definitely Donald Shoop. Okay.

So I am cast away and the thoughts of mister Shoop, and I have to pull my agenda back up to reorient myself. Yes. Implementation. So you would have received the implementation plan actions. Are there any updates? It sounds like Louis didn't get any updates.

I should maybe clarify a little bit too. And this goes along with sort of the next agenda item. Just administering grants is very time consuming and participating in different programs as well. So the the implementation plan is, you know, kind of taking a little bit of a a backseat to urgent funding reporting and, you know, the the sort of, responsibilities of, grant administration at the moment. Yeah.

And I'll talk more about that in the in the next agenda item. But, yeah, any I I think if if individuals can help answer individual questions, that would be ideal. Likely more likely than not, as you fill those in in the Google documents, someone will see that, and you won't be duplicating efforts. I would Mhmm. But even if that were the case, I would I would much rather have people do anything than than do nothing. So, however, however you you can can help between, meetings is greatly appreciated.

I I'm interested in helping with the identifying any active support networks in cases of extreme weather and what other communities are doing. And I don't know if anybody's done that before, but yet, but I'm going to be trying to do some of that.

Excellent. Steph, I am that's one that I am tasked with, so I'd be glad for your help. There are many examples of this. Part of my work network includes community resiliency hubs around The US. So I've been taking a peek at those.

It's part of my update, Lewis. And we'll be working with Molly in community risk management on that so I can loop you in there. If anyone does not have the climate action implementation plan documents, Google Drive, please send Lewis an email. I know sometimes links inside of emails get lost pretty quickly. Louis, one other update. Natalie and myself connected with Zach Harter, and we are working with him on investigating c and d recycling.

Thank you. I appreciate that. One thing I would say too is I have you know, there's a there's a history of of research on that subject even since I've been working at the city. So talking to Jad, sit well would also be, would also be helpful. I think there's there's some stuff already going on that I had started researching it, and there was some stuff going on that was like, we're already kinda doing a bunch.

So, but, yeah, I would be interested in where you know, filling the gaps where we're not doing stuffs. Like, for example, Matthew takes a lot of, you know, concrete and breaks it up and reuses it, I assume. So Yep. There's that. And so, like, mandating it may or may not be necessary. But, yeah, just a heads up that, you know, there's there have been past discussions on it, hopefully, we can all learn from them.

Thanks, Louis. And I can touch on this later in the lead for cities update, but the special waste streams portion of the rating system goes through c and d waste and other things. So we'll be using the rating system to sort of benchmark where we're at and what we can do to fill in the the blanks there. Alright. We have lots and lots to go over there.

If there's nothing else from you all for implementation, please do fill in questions in the Google Drive. That is not public, but it is our internal Google Drive where Lewis organizes implementation. Please go and do that. Next, we have 250054, a grant update. Lewis.

Thank you. On the subject of potentially potential grants to pursue, I think the after discussing it with Ted and his team, we're kinda focused on the municipal investment fund Mhmm. To do potentially to do a commercial solar group buy. You know, we had talked about doing a residential one, but also looking at commercial is is one of the actions recommended in the plan. I think the this should be safe from with well, I guess, I don't know.

I'll I will have to do some research. It's Mhmm. A partnership, or I heard about it from Ik Ikle, and then they're part of some other organization that got money from the federal government. So I think this could potentially be paused as well. Okay.

Yeah. In terms of, past grants, I wrapped up the AARP community challenge grant reporting. So there is the ADU, the accessory dwelling unit library is up and available on the lacrosseclimateactionplan.org page. And then I need to migrate that to the city's web page as well. The you were all here for the or many of you were able to attend the youth climate Action Fund celebratory event, and that was actually really, really insightful and and very rewarding compared to just reading it on paper, having the

Mhmm.

Young people speak about their projects and and share their pictures and was was a really great event. And, unfortunately, some of the some applicants were unable to spend all their funds by the deadline, So we have an an extension on that, which is kind of Bloomberg to do. So I'll I'll still have reporting to do coming up. And then we we're waiting on guidance for announcing the second round. I've also been doing some paperwork for the energy innovation grant, reporting that I'm confident will be safe.

It was from, the inflation reduction act. However, the grant started or the application window started in 2023. I'm feeling pause or, you know, a little bit confident about that. And then Green Homeowners United is in the process of hiring two technicians, for that program, and it's going a little bit slower than they had hoped, but, still still moving along. I'm still in touch with them, and we'll be meeting with them regularly, to talk about outreach and engagement on that.

Thanks, Louis. Yeah. Oops. Sorry. Louis.

Oh, no. Andrew can go ahead.

Sorry for interrupting. I just wanted if you could repeat that municipal fund. What was it

called? Mhmm. The municipal investment fund. Yeah.

Okay. Sounds good. Thank you.

Yeah. It's a pretty generic title.

Then

last year, the Department of Energy, had an energy efficiency and conservation block grant program or EECBG. And you all directed me to go after a blueprint for or follow the blueprint for an electrification campaign. The initial deadline was in in April, and then it was pushed back to October, which is when I applied. And then we got our grant agreement in or our application was approved in November. I was busy at the time and suggested that maybe we wait until January to start.

At the moment, I'm doubtful that we're gonna get this this voucher. It would have been for a $119,590, to do, technical assistance on an electrification campaign. There's also, these blueprint cohorts. So this is where, like, say, all the communities that wanna do the energy or, I'm sorry, electrification campaign could talk about what they're doing on it. And that those cohorts meetings have been canceled as well.

So the and they were used for grantees to meet with one another, ask questions, learn from experts, and troubleshoot challenges. And those are there were 13 blueprints, and I'm sure all of them had cohorts, and those are all canceled. Also related to this, I believe the Department of Energy's state and community energy program sort of was a factor in the EECBG program, and a staff member forwarded a memo that directed us to suspend activities involving diversity, equity, and inclusion, community benefits plans, and anything related to justice 40. Sorry. And that's all I have about grants.

Okay. It's hard to say thank you, Lewis, when that is what I'm hearing. I will say that my day job, we were communicated with on the, EJ screen tool with the federal government, and that has been transferred and stood up outside of the federal government. So that tool will remain, and many people are working on transferring data so we don't lose it, amidst all of the funding disruptions. Go ahead, Erin.

Yeah. Thanks. I was just going to add the climate and economic justice screening tool. Their maps that were previous previously owned, I believe, by the US census. Mhmm. And their layers on ESRI or ArcGIS, They are actually now owned by ArcGIS. So if you search for those layers, they're still live with all of the information and all of the data associated with each of those layers. So we have those layers also embedded in our climate impact analysis map. So I can drop that in the chat here. So if any of you still want to access the information specific to our area, you can still see some of those on our website. So

Fantastic. Thank you, Erin.

Yeah. And I have another thing to add. I mean, I'm I mentioned earlier that some programs that we're involved in where the websites are still up, there's the, the energy efficiency and conservation block grant pages are all, not no longer live, but they are archived, if you go if you go to or search for the way back machine, any sort of old page that you're looking for, that will help you find it. Beef once I once our, cohort meeting was canceled, I went into the site I went into the, existing pages and, downloaded the guides for the, blueprints that I was most interested in. So I do have, PDFs and of of that of them.

Okay. That's good. Okay. If there's nothing else with regard to the grants update, let's move on. I do have a presentation I wanna share with you all on the Lead for Cities bit, please stay engaged. But next is 25Dash0052.

Sure. I have been working with Paul, and he's he the the solution to getting our instant Instagram page back up and running was just to create a Facebook page. So now we have both a Facebook page and a Instagram page for the climate action plan, and those have been, posting now more regularly. We had been kind of offline since September, or since August, I should say. So that's nice to get those back on.

And then, Paul is continuing to, work on press releases, about yeah. We're kind of holding off on some stuff cause we need to get our ducks in a row for the youth climate action fund. And then with the Bright Action, they're going to be doing another challenge with Viterbo and also including UWL and Western in in that challenge. So I think it's gonna be a really big deal beginning, I'm guessing, in March. So, yeah, those are my outreach and engagement updates.

Thank you, Lewis. I believe you did or the consultant did an article on the school district recently. Right?

Yes.

Okay. That was a fantastic article. And I also wanted to just mention that the school district's climate action plan first draft will be done actually, I'm pretty sure it was submitted to the board today. It's not publicly visible yet. I've been on that committee, and Leo Strand did a lot of, well, he joined as a contributor from the city as well as myself, and then Travis Key with LAPC wrote that draft.

And so I'm very excited for the community to see that climate action plan. It could be an opportunity to write an article about that, which is heavily modeled off of the Denver k through 12 climate action plan, undaunted 12 k, as well as the La Crosse climate action plan. So a great example of how when the city has a climate action plan, organizations follow suit. So it could be a a great opportunity for an article. Alright.

Let me pull back my agenda. Alright. Let's move on then. We have twenty two minutes. We're gonna move on to twenty five dash zero one seven zero.

This is the leadership and energy and environmental design or lead for Citi's program update. I will be providing that update, and I have a slideshow for you all. So, Lewis, I just sent a request to share. There we go. And okay.

So as you all likely know, the city of La Crosse was accepted into the 2024 Lead for Cities Local Government Leadership, national cohort. Fun fact, La Crescent was in the 2022 cohort, which I don't even know if we knew when we submitted our application, but it it is proving to be fruitful for me as the employee of the program to be looking at La Crescent and Lacrosse side by side. I will just give a quick disclaimer. I was not an employee when we applied for this cohort. I got hired after the city was accepted.

That being said, the city you know, obviously, I am able to support the city of La Crosse as an employee as I do support all of the other national cohort participants. So just so you all are aware of that. So I've put together a presentation. Leo was going to put, forward a presentation with all of the work he had done for our lead for cities certification application, before he had left. And so I'm picking up where he left off to communicate updates with you all.

Last month, I believe, was the month you all supported the certification fees. As part of the 2024 cohort, the city receives membership to gain access to tens of thousands of, educational resources as well as one on one support with staff and advocacy and policy teams who are working on ordinances and then, get their certification fees waived because local governments have barriers to doing this work for all the reasons we just heard from Lewis as we see, major, federal government shifts in funding priorities. These are a list of all the 2024 these are all the list of the participants as of '24. There will be more in 2025. It's good to note I like to share this with our committee so you all know how many local governments around The US are working through certification, but there are hundreds across The US and, globally that have certified or working through certification that are not part of the cohort model.

So it's just one, component of the program. And so many of you have heard for LEED buildings. We know that UWL has some beautiful LEED certified buildings. Andrew is in one. Beautiful.

Beautiful. But most of you probably have not heard of LEED Cities certification. So USGBC, the US Green Building Council, certifies buildings, that are high performing buildings based on global standards in the rating system. But USGBC also works on, like, municipal solid waste, countywide waste, business waste, sustainable sites, outdoor spaces. You name it, USGBC is putting those global standards forward.

And so my job is in cities. So it is going beyond buildings to measure sustainability at the jurisdictional sale scale. So all of what we have in our climate action plan is in the rating system. And so you might be familiar with LEED certification. We have all the categories, to the bottom right.

So we measure global standards across natural systems and ecology, transportation land use, water efficiency, energy, greenhouse gas emissions, materials and resources, quality of life, and then there's innovation, which is strategies not been done before or not accounted for in the rating system. And then regional priority credits, which are based on latitude and longitudinal regional priorities in the credit library. All of these base performance, indicators, which are in our climate action plan, like water consumption or GHG inventory, metric tons per capita are rated against, global and national, cities so we can benchmark our performance on theirs. So I just give I just wanted to share that so you have, like, a high level overview of what in the world Lead for Cities is. Yeah.

Andrew. Oh, you're muted.

Yeah. Just explain more. Thanks. Good.

I heard you. If you wanna try and talk again.

Oh, okay. Can you hear me now? Yep. Okay. I might have muted myself, So I don't know. I was hoping for a little bit more clarity on what regional priority was. You'd mentioned briefly. But

Yeah. So without getting too far into the weeds, it is geographic priorities in the region. So, for example, a regional priority for California and LA will be wildfire mitigation, Whereas for us in The US, it'll be probably flood resiliency, same as with Florida. So you can, put in the latitude and longitude of your geographic, location, and USGBC's regional priority map will populate the most the highest priorities, if you will, of strategies that need to be occurring in those geographical areas. Good question.

Okay. So this is the rating system for lead for cities and communities. I will say it's not a perfect word. It's lead for cities, but we certify counties, villages, towns, anyone with a local government structure, like a mayoral or council system. So you'll see that there are performance based metrics.

These are the metrics that most people base their climate action plans on and benchmark against, and then you see all of the other items that are under the surface. So we also measure base conditions and then have a bunch of credit options that go above and beyond normal items, that are benchmark benchmarked. I will note too, that the Lead for Cities rating system is a global standards, whereas most, climate action plans are benchmark benchmarked against others in their state or region. So it's not necessarily, in accordance with global standards. So, we are going through this process, and I'm gonna bring you through high level overview because I think these will be some of the most important bits to take away from.

Also, I made this presentation. I I didn't have Louis make this presentation because, you know, staff capacity. So for our, performance prerequisites for the transportation category, we have to measure our daily VMT per capita. And in 2023, the daily VMT was 19.7, vehicle miles traveled per capita. I'll also mention if you go like Aaron at LAPC, LAPC will measure VMT differently than the city of La Crosse, one, because we're a city and LAPC covers a larger area.

But the LAPC data will also include inbound and data, and we are only measuring inbound data. The out boundary BMT will be showing up in a different part in the rating system. And then we also have the modal split so you can kind of get an idea of, what transport mechanisms people are using in our city. Obviously, you see a lot of driving that tracks. That's why our implementation plan wants to increase, other modes of transportation. For water efficiency I don't want

you to the VMT.

You were surprised, Louis?

Andrew wasn't in the chat.

I was nine 19 miles per person per day.

Yes. Was surprised too. 19 miles per day I'll also give a little caveat. You'll notice that the total population is larger here and the reason why is because this total population is based on a calculation that USGBC uses for consumptive emissions. And so that means that this number is everybody with addresses plus commuters who are coming to La Crosse and using our resources and, emitting resources here.

So this is a higher number per capita because of that. So if you took out commuters, our, VMT would be lower, but, also, we would have to look at that out boundary commuter number. So the water, consumption for the city of La Crosse, the performance prerequisite is only measuring residential data. This comes from the PSC, data if you wanna look at it online. Also, if you really wanna get into the, nitty gritty, I'll send you the the data as well.

But the performance calculation is based strictly on single family and multifamily. And so in 2023, 1,000,000,000 gallons of water was consumed, and, I broke that down into only City Of La Crosse, users because this is only domestic water. Right? So, like, we're not counting hospitals or businesses that are that are consuming water. It's only single and multifamily, and that amount of water, equates to 53.52 gallons of water per capita per day.

It's kind of interesting. Just a few years ago, the average per capita per day was a 100 gallons. Also, we shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back for fifty three, gallons per capita per day, but just so we have this baseline, this is the per capita amount, which is pretty good. I would say most of the Florida cities I work with have, like, 120, gallons per capita per day. This does include include residential irrigation, and so you'll know it increases because people in Florida like to water their lawn lawns a lot more than us.

Water calculations for the commercial, industrial, and so forth sectors will will come in later credits. Greenhouse gas emissions, this is in progress, but we do have preliminary data in, so the 2029 2019 per capita greenhouse gas emissions were eight point, four seven, and the 2023 is, 11.18 metric tons of, carbon equivalency. This does lower obviously, this lowers our points or our score because the per capita emissions has gone up. There's a number of reasons for that. Also, this was pandemic land.

So things have shifted. Not to say that we're not getting a pass. Obviously, it's an issue that our, emissions have increased, but there are a number of reasons for that as well. Materials and resources, this is in progress. This is using municipal solid waste generated.

This is a county number of tons. That's why this population is the entire county of La Crosse. It is also the total inflated population, so the county residents plus commuters that use and expend waste in in the the county of La Crosse. We're still waiting on our municipal solid waste diverted numbers. We have our recycling numbers for the city of La Crosse, but this is a county waste generated.

I will say two, we can kind of get into this later, but one interesting bit is we have data on how much how many tons of recycling, the city is collecting and how much what percentage of that recycling is contaminated and therefore residual waste, meaning that the recycling is contaminated and cannot be recycled. So there's some interesting bits of information we can glean from that as we work toward, reducing waste. Then we also measure quality of life indicators. This is kind of small. I'll read this for you.

But, so, you know, LEED buildings aren't just about energy and performance. A lot of times, people kind of just, like, reduce it to that. LEAD is measuring, quality of life, health, access. It is measuring equity. So the quality of life indicators that are measured that you have to pass these prerequisites in order to become LEED certified.

If you're failing so badly in one of these, you cannot certify. So we have, ninety five point three percent are high school graduates or higher, Thirty five point two percent are bachelor's degree, or higher. The median gross rent as a percentage of household income is 30.3%. That's right in line with sort of financial self finance best practices could be better. The Gini index is point four seven one two.

Prosperity, that measures median household income in the past twelve months, and that is 51 or 51,836. For unemployment over sixteen years, we have 3.5. The air quality index median is 41, and we had five days that were unhealthy for sensitive groups. And then the violent crime per capita is a 158, per 52,000. So we scored pretty well in quality of life.

And I'm almost done here. But to give sort of that high level overview, here's the scorecard, for the Citi's rating system. We, so far, are at 36. You need 40 to certify. Obviously, certification for cities is different than buildings.

When you have a building, you have kind of set your goal for what you want your building to be rated. But for cities, it's not about the certification level so much as it is your, benchmarking for each category across global, metrics. So we have the points that we've attained in here so far, and we'll be providing updates on those as well. So from a framework, position, you can see what we've accomplished, the data that we're collecting. And then there are some things that we don't have.

Like, we don't have, like, pollution reduction that goes into prioritization for implementation in in our gaps analysis. And, one last thing, from our natural systems and ecology ecosystem assessment. Leo did our ecosystem assessment before he left, and he did an absolutely fantastic job. It is, like, a 20 page document on our ecosystem and the city of La Crosse, and I wanted to share this with you all since one of our gaps was a light pollution reduction. But if you look in this map, you can see that the lights from the city of La Crosse really span quite far.

I mean, this is way over into Hoka and La Crescent, and so it's really fascinating to to see how far the light pollution spans our our city. Okay. That was a lot. Hopefully, I didn't make all of you fall asleep, but I'm happy to take questions. You know, we will be digging we'll be sharing updates with the climate action plan steering committee as data comes in. We hope to certify middle of this year.

That was excellent and super interesting. So I was captivated. I can't speak for my other members, but I was captivated.

Very well done. Very interesting. Thank you.

Fantastic. I'm so glad.

I mean, are there are we like, I would be interested to just look at that ecosystem review that Leo did. I mean, maybe that's something that could go in that Google Drive. Maybe.

I can, yeah, I can do a brief share right now.

But no. I think I think this will be useful.

Mhmm.

Yeah. Absolutely. And so, most people are not familiar with lead for cities. And so what the rating system does is it sets apart the global best standards for high performing urban environments. And, it's really hard to score really well because the global standards are the highest of the high.

What's really nice about, certification for cities, counties, towns, etcetera, is that the first step is seeing what you have for sure. Like, we have access to green spaces, which sets a threshold to be within a half mile of green space public green spaces in the city. We have that. What we don't have, you know, just the simple one, which almost no one has, honestly, is light pollution reduction. And so as part of the ecosystem assessment, you very quickly realize, like, what we could be working on in implementation and what we're doing well in or what items are connected that we can overlay into our cross cutting strategies for a climate action plan.

And so it is extremely helpful. And then, of course, Lewis and the city of La Crescent and all these other places are connected to each other and benchmarking against each other and then troubleshooting programs and strategies from there as well. So also, US Green Building Council is not government funded, so that's helpful.

Do you know if La Crescent has the credit for, lighting? I I know Jason Yep. Has been very has been a strong advocate that, La Crosse do something, but, yeah, I was just curious what what they've gotten. Question.

I met with Jason on Friday to go over his ordinance in accordance with the model ordinance for Dark Sky International, which is what, the standards we use in the rating system. And while they have some language sort of squeaked into their zoning code, it's not enough, I believe, to get credit. So it's not as stringent. However, it's actually okay because I have had constituents this week reach out to me about light over what did they call it? It was a real cute word.

Basically, they meant light trespass and we're interested in ordinance to control light trespass. So I am going to pull some ordinances to see if we can put something on the books for the city of La Crosse, but it's a great time because, I'm working on La Crescent's natural ecosystem assessment where we can look at our, like, pollution data in tandem and maybe push something forward together. We've also reconnected with La Crosse County who is considered joining the 2025 cohort. So it'd be pretty epic, I think, if all of the if, you know, La Crescent, La Crosse, and the county are all doing lead for cities could really be a great reach for, you know, regional collaboration. So, yeah, long story short, La Crescent doesn't pass the really stringent rating system requirements.

It's a it's a good step, though. And I think I think with the information and the data from the light pollution overlays, it could it could be a good push to get past the finish line. Dorothy?

Yeah. You mentioned that you think by summer, we might reach that certification level.

Mhmm.

Okay. So what steps are we taking, or is there something we need to be doing, or how can we help that? Or no. It's just the

porting out. Yep. It is done.

I mean, what's gonna change?

Staff internally. So the way that the rating system is set up is you collect all the data for submitting, different categories or credits, they call them, to see where you line up. And then whatever you don't achieve goes into your gap analysis in your implementation plan. So it basically sets up a prioritization for the next strategies that we need to go after in our implementation plan, and that overlays our climate action plan. So many cities use it in many different ways.

I foresee us being able to really use it for informing our implementation. And then, you know, you're connected with a group of national US and global cities who are working on the same same, stuff at the same time. So Lewis is connected with tons of of people across The US. In terms of certification, once we certify, you know, it's a two level review. But after it's all said and done, you know, a USGBC representative and also me will be here for a plaque certification, and we can design a ceremony around it, to talk about the findings of the the certification.

But it's not like a building where, you know, it just ends at the certification and you just know you have a high performing building. Leave for cities is much, you know, more, holistic in that way.

Thanks. No. It's it's a good pursuit.

Cool. Alright. Back to our agenda. We are at the end of our agenda. Of course, next, meetings agenda items. If anyone has items, can share them now. Otherwise, share them with Lewis and myself. Okay. Then if there are no objections, I will adjourn the meeting. It is 05:03PM. I see no objections. We are adjourned. Thank you all.