Green Island Ice Arena Negotiating Committee - Regular Meeting

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the 12/12/2025 meeting of the climate action plan steering committee. I am Andrew Erickson, your vice chair taking over again, back by popular demand, I guess, to run this meeting. Hopefully, it goes out okay. I will call this meeting to order at 04:02. Roll call. I see Casey, Dorothy, and I know that Natalie Hennigan is on her way, but will be late. And I think Mackenzie Mendell is the only one who's not here and she's excused. K. So then I will move to notices and discussion.

Any notices and discussion from members of the committee? Never mind. Our great Tim Acklin has reminded me that we need to approve the minutes because I just jumped ship on that. Going back one one thing. Approval of the minutes. Any

Motion to approve.

We have a motion from Dorothy.

And I'll second that.

Second from Casey. Any discussion on the minutes? Alright. All those in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. Aye. Okay. Those are approved. Thank you so much. Now we can move on to notices and discussions.

Or notices and discussion. Anyone from the committee? Not hearing anything. Alrighty. We'll move to the next item on the agenda, which is agenda item 25 dash one four two zero, proposal for technical assistance on zoning ordinance changes recommended in the climate action plan.

And you can see an attached proposal from Bolton and Mank. As I've learned from from Lewis, I mean, the general idea here is that there are all these items in the in the climate action plan steering commit or in the climate action plan that referenced various ordinances or zoning changes. And this, at least as I understand it, is a supplement to what is already going on with the forward lacrosse update to the zoning plan. And I'll turn it over to Tim in a second to kind of explain his understanding of this. But, really, you know, there are all these things that were maybe mentioned and reviewed by the the current team working on this, but these are effectively going above and beyond to ensure that those action items are included in this update.

Tim, can I turn it over to you to provide any other background that you think is relevant?

Sure. Thank you, Andrew. And I don't know whether everybody is aware of the larger project that's going on here. We're updating our zoning code for the city of La Crosse chapter one fifteen. And our zoning code is really on the section of our our our municipal code that regulates zoning and what zoning can do and all the parameters associated with our zoning district.

So every parcel in the state of La Crosse has a classification on it, which is called zoning, and it defines what you can and can't do with your property. So zoning defines that. It also then defines the parameters of which what you can do on your property in terms of setbacks, how far your building can be away from your property lines, the height, the size of your lot. There's many other things as well. And so our current existing zoning code is written largely in the eighties.

It is very outdated, and hard to use. It has a lot of outdated terms, and the use or lack thereof of different types of punctuation can leave many much of the language to be interpreted ten ten million different ways. So it's very hard for staff to enforce. It's very hard for the public to understand by reading it on their own, and it also makes it very hard to update and amend from a staff point of view. And so, typically, most communities will update the section of their code after they have adopted their comprehensive plan, which we did in the 2003 2023.

Excuse me. And then also part of it's to include recommendation and strategies that come other out of other relevant plans, one of which was the climate action plan, which we did give to our consultants that we hired for this project. I think the intent here with Lewis and reading everything about this was to ensure that the experts who know how to write and draft language, sustainability type language, and model ordinances that we can ensure it gets into our zoning code the correct way. The intent was to hire a consultant to help him do that and take what's out of the the I think what we had assessed was, and based on the scope that we wrote for our current consultants was, yes, they can reference the climate action plan, but do they have the ability, which I think we didn't really assess until later, do they have the ability to write code or the expertise to write this type of code to reflect the goals and strategies and recommendations on the climate action plan? And Lewis is pretty bright and sharp, but I think wanted assistance in making sure that we had done that the right way.

And so he's looking to get assistance from these consultants with the proposal to see attached to help create those model ordinances and that language that we can get into the larger project. So, hopefully, that's it. If that's that wraps the helper. It summarizes that pretty well. Yes, Tim.

That was great. That was great. And if, you know, if you look through the actions within the climate action plan, you will see all sorts of mentions towards zoning or ordinance things. So, you know, you look at the buildings and energy. You know, there's there's, you know, references to if a city if a project is receiving city finance that it you know, that we they should be required to meet a certain energy efficiency standard, things related to bike parking ordinances or preservation of riparian zones. So really across the different sectors of the climate action plan, you see callouts to to this. And I think that, yeah, Lewis really trying to make sure that we're we've got the expertise we need.

Yeah. I I think it's also not to miss something. Right? Because I think not everything in your plan is relevant to the zoning code. Now it doesn't mean we can't create ordinances, but they don't all go into the zoning chapter. And so it's it's making sure we don't miss the things that we can incorporate in there and then making sure they're written correctly to make them effective.

And I think the other thing to mention here. So the total cost of Bolton and Mank's proposal is $24,855. And it's my understanding that at the beginning of this year in the operating budget, the planning department had $20,000 earmarked for basically matching funds for grant proposals. But as we all know, lots of the federal grants that were available to us at the beginning of this year have gone away, we'll say. And so I think that that has left an opportunity here to use mostly that operating money that was set aside for these grants and then some, I guess, the difference would be the Climate Action Plan Steering Committee CIP funding.

I will also note that Natalie Hennigan has joined us, 04/2006. I'll open the floor to questions on this agenda item.

Well, I'll ask a question just so Andrew doesn't sit there totally waiting for something that doesn't come. So, Tim, is there anything that's going on that you would consider a debatable topic, like, where there's a lot of opinion kind of equally on both sides on how to apply some of the new new ideas towards zoning and that would directly affect climate?

I'm not sure I understand your question, Dorothy. Sorry.

I'm sorry. Yeah. It's I'm kinda I know it's in my head. Well, always when we're going to change any kind of zoning. Right? Usually, there's thoughts on both sides of an issue. I'm just asking, are there any issues right now that are being heavily discussed that like, you know, parking used to be a huge one. You know, having to provide parking with any kind of a new structure. Are there any things that you think we should be really working on or aware of that this committee could help towards in bringing information towards that topic?

Yeah. So So No. Go ahead. Sorry.

No. No. I was just gonna say, know you know, you and I both know that parking was a huge always been a huge deal.

The biggest thing that I think has recently come up has been the installation of car charging stations. I know there's been some places that wanted to have them in their parking lots. And just due to the current way our code's written, we classify those as so if they're not designed to just serve, like, whatever the primary so here's a good example. Somebody came to us and said, we wanna put one of these in the parking lot of an existing hotel. We're like, okay.

Is that for the guests, or can they be used by anybody who, you know, if they're not even guests at the hotel? And they said, well, we want it to be because it was an independent person. It wasn't the hotel doing it. The hotel is just looking to have, I don't know, at least some other parking space out so these charging stations can go in. And where our code is written then, if it's gonna be for anybody who has a electric vehicle, then we don't permit that because we it's considered then a primary use, and we don't allow two primary uses on one lot.

And the primary uses would be that charging station and that hotel. If it was just for the guests of the hotel, then it'd be considered secondary, like a detached garage would be, and then it would be permitted. And so that was been an issue with trying to figure out, you know, what you might have to carve out a parcel so that it's on its own parcel, but then, you know, the hotels aren't gonna wanna do that. And then it just became much more of a red tape sort of bureaucratic. This isn't really fitting in to, you know, make it easy to this to do or not.

And so those sorts of instances have been coming up. I think some of the proposals we had too were these charging stations had these massive screens where I don't know if they were looking to show ads. I I mean, picture QuickTrip where they have the screens that you can watch a commercial for themselves about, you know, getting a fresh pizza or something like that, and they had these massive screens. And to me, I'm I was questioning that because I said no one is standing by their car like they do a quick trip waiting for their car to get charged with gas to watch these ads. So who are these ads for?

And so it was sort of maybe the design and and that and design standards associated with such charging stations as well, where we don't really want them to become billboards, like, you know, electronic advertising signs either. And so those sorts of things have come up that I can think of that we've had more discussions about recently and how we're going to incorporate those into our code. So that might be helpful. There's always the discussion about incorporating or requiring specific, sustainability design features like solar panels and stuff into our our buildings, and new design. That's what I can think on top of my head. I I don't know much else. I'm sure there's things that I'm not thinking about.

If if I may jump in. I mean, one thing I'm thinking about is some of the discussion from the Friends of the Marsh and their desire to, you know, look at, one, the the zoning of the parcels in the marsh, but also the the the edge, the riparian zone as being something that's come up a lot and maybe hasn't been the right point in the discussion with the consultants. But

Yes. The friends of the marsh are all over those topics. Chuck Lee is very persistent. Persistent. I for don't foresee an issue with the rezoning of parcels for the most part, to our more protective zoning district that we have.

They have what I've charged them with doing is looking to see if whatever the requirements or the parameters within our existing, like, sort of conservancy district that we have are enough for them, and to bring to the table additional things that they feel. One one solution or one, request that they've had is parcels that are adjacent to the marsh that can be developed, do have a larger setback away from the marsh for buildings than normal. So if a building look like a commercial building, let's just say, let's say this example, we have a marsh zone conservancy, the parcel next to it, and somebody wants to put a McDonald's there. They could theoretically build it, like, literally, you know, unless the flood wetland or something comes into it, they could build it probably feet away from where the marsh is. And their request is to require, like, a 20 foot setback or something much larger than what you normally would find in in any sort of zoning district.

And so that's already been presented and that we're considering as well as part of this process. But other than that, I'm not quite sure. I think, like I said, friends of the Marsh are pretty you know, anything to help, you know, help them, I guess, would be great, but they're been pretty Chuck Lee has been pretty on top of following up with me quite a bit on that every month, twice a month, probably. So but I don't know. I don't know if that answers your question, Dorothy. I can't quite think everything off top of my head, but hopefully, that gives you a good example of of sort of the things we're talking about or those

Yeah. That helps a lot, Tim. You know, just trying to get the discussion going on how our committee can help this effort and where you think we maybe need to look at it ourselves or you know?

Yeah. And I must apologize. I'm not as familiar with your plan as I should be. Lewis knows more of what's in there than I do, but I I do know a few of those things we've discussed. Usually, it's gonna be design standards. Is there a specific design standards with new construction, whether it's for the building itself, whether it's for, like, storm water management, more green space. That could be something too. We don't really have a green space requirement right now for,

like gonna ask about that if whether, you know, they can just take it down as many trees as they if they as they want, that kind of thing, if they so desire or if there are some limitations. Used to be they used to have to have rain gardens. Yeah. We do You know?

We do require stormwater management on-site, but that can be and that's really, though, to address the amount of water that falls on on the impervious surface surface on a site. There's no requirement, though. There is some minimum minimal requirements for landscaping and and and green space buffers for our parking lots and buildings, but there isn't sort of a percent of your lot should be green space. The other thing that's being considered is and we don't require that for every new development too. So a lot of a lot of discussion has been to include new industrial developments into this process so that they would be subjected to having a more green space and meeting requirements and and landscaping and things of that nature.

And so that might be something as well. And I'm welcome to come to a future meeting to discuss this more along with Lewis if if that if you guys just kinda wanna know more about what what's going on with that whole project. And we could even arrange to have our consultants come as well and talk with these consultants. So just to kinda discuss a little bit more about how that would work. But I do envision that whoever like, you do go with this group that they're just gonna need to have a conversation with our consultants as well, which is totally fine, and we can arrange that. I don't know if that answered your question either, Dorothy. But okay.

I'm gonna pass it over to Natalie.

Tim, I apologize that I was late and missed your the context that you provided for this proposal. But I did review it earlier today. So I have a bad tendency of looking at consultants' proposals and thinking that they are overpriced for what we are getting. And so I am picking this apart a little bit, understanding, of course, Lewis' limited time and the value of this work. I think the content and the purpose of this is really important.

What I am curious about, though Okay, so with the resulting project is we have a list of model ordinances that matches with our climate action plan. I would love to see if we are spending $25,000 on a team to help us with this, how do we get these across the finish line? We have model ordinances. And a lot of these databases that are listed that they reference, Green Step Cities, Great Plains Institute, they already have lists of model ordinances and language. It's our job then to pick which ones are relevant to lacrosse.

How do we see them through? How do we get community buy in, city council buy in, city staff buy in to actually implement these? So I'm wondering maybe, Tim, if you're unable to answer it, understandable. I'm wondering, have we received other proposals, or is this the one that rose to the top? And have we worked with these consultants in the past? Do we know what kind of work they can help us with once that list is established? How do we actually see it to fruition?

Good questions. Good questions. And again, I don't think you missed too much at the beginning. If anybody here, you know more about this whole effort anyway from your Habitat work, which, again, as I'm looking at Natalie here, if you're asking about what other things you can look at, I think there's a lot of just sustainability aspects related to the building of housing that you guys can look at to see I mean, just on its own, building construction and specifically housing, you know, what initiatives in your plan are related to housing that we can then incorporate into this whole effort and project in terms of standards. Not necessarily building code, but I'm certain that's something that Natalie can help give a lot of input onto as well.

Okay. So then backing up to your other questions. I am uncertain if we've worked with them before. This is the only proposal that Lewis has regarding this aspect. My my understanding, I believe, is that he has seen what the work that this group has done in other communities through either webinars or just being at conferences.

He he is very up to speed on a lot of those things, and I've seen the work that these people have done in other communities through model ordinances and this kind of work, and he just outright reached out to them to get assistance. So I'm willing to bet that they do have a track record of successful sort of work being done in other communities. In terms of making sure that this would get like, what is created gets implemented into, That's a good question. I think I guess it just depends on what comes out what comes out of this work. Right?

If there's things that we feel are realistic that we can get into this into this process, and, then I I guess it's gonna just depend on what comes out of it. I we've done a lot of community engagement. We're continually doing community engagement for this entire process. We have a very large community engagement plan, and we have like, right now, we're just going through all the neighborhoods for the second time to talk about where we're at and what we're doing. I think that's something I don't I don't know how I don't know how to go into how we get this through.

I I kind of see it in my head that I I my my my initial thought is wanting to say, I don't see an issue of getting this through. But to explain why I feel that way, I don't know if I can do that in words. I think it is gonna come down to what is being proposed and what's being asked. I think there's always a desire by our department to implement all of our plans. So if what's being proposed is an implementation of our climate action plan, then it'll be seriously considered in putting in here as long as it fits into the zoning code and where it goes.

And, you know, otherwise, I don't and, again, it's not like, there's always a desire for people like, oh, we need to require that's this is an extreme example. We need require that solar panels are in every house. Well, I mean, that's unrealistic. I don't think we can really require that that's done. So what else can we do to still maybe achieve something, but maybe not through that means? I I don't know. And that's probably a really maybe a really bad example. But I feel confident that we can work together in making sure what comes out of this committee and this project can get into the final out final product in some way. I'm sorry. I don't know if that answered your question, Natalie.

No. That's helpful. And I think the the piece that I feel most going to be most valuable of this proposal is the community interviews. And in reading this, I'm wondering because I'm always wondering, like, how can member I don't mean to speak for other members of the steering committee, but I'm always like, how can we do more to help move our plan forward? And if we could, if I could, or other if members are interested, participate in some of those interviews with other communities and learn not just, Okay, what did you implement, but how did you do it?

How did you overcome barriers or opposition? I think that would be a really interesting opportunity for us to learn and how climate action has been interwoven into other people's zoning codes, comp plans, etcetera, I think that would be a really interesting process and something I would like to elevate of this proposal.

Yeah. That's great. And I think too then what I would do is if whoever's interested should be then providing questions that they wanna have answered by these communities by this consulting firm. So, like, that's something I think Lewis should be working to with all of you to if you have questions and with this group, if you should you hire them to be like, we wanna participate or provide questions that we want answered as part of this process. Yeah. There should be that should that's no. I don't see any reason why that can't be done, which I will make a note of.

I've got a question. And, actually, Natalie, it's a question for you. I'm just trying to get a little bit more clarity. So I see in the final packet the task number four for this group, final package and presentation, they're going to, what, summarize key findings from the ordinance review and recommended next steps for the city of La Crosse. Is that does that get sort of, Natalie, at what you're looking for? Like, what are the next steps to to take, or are you looking really for, like, sort of help implementing those?

Yeah. I guess I guess my my concern with with all of this is is the development of something else that is, you a document that we sit with. And not a criticism or anything. It's just we have so many good ideas and compiled plans and things like this that all of us, because we're here, we're very eager to see move forward. And so that's what I would hope for is support modeling ideas and suggestions for the implementation of it.

And you're right, that next steps, that gets at that. You're right. I would just maybe, like, in ideal world, the proposal would be shifted to that. We've got 10,000 noted for the model ordinance review. But to me, that seems like a simpler task. Maybe I'm again, maybe I'm being overly simplistic about this. But I would like to see that emphasis on next steps. So many communities have been going through this. There are so many resources available for some of this ordinance drafting that maybe I would just like to see the emphasis shift to the implementation rather than the planning.

Got it. Got it. So, like, spell that part out a little bit more. Yep. Cool. I I would also like to know how they determine some of those numbers. Right? So 10,500 for model ordinance review. I guess I would like to know a little bit more about where those where that comes from, how that money is actually being allocated towards that. Because, Natalie, you're right. The Those ordinances are out there. Like, they're not not that they're easy to find, but they're they're they're findable for sure. And so I I'm just curious why it would take that much labor to to come up with those.

So I guess I'm looking for with the, desire of the committee as a motion perhaps. I know that that at least some of the funding set aside that would go towards this is related to an operating budget, and so there is some consideration of the timing. There 20,000 of it came from is coming from, I think, the planning operating budget. And I maybe you missed this. But No. We can't. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Is the will of the committee? We can bask in silence for a little bit if we need to.

What needs to be decided? Do we need to decide if we actually are going to go ahead with this? Or and if and if so, how much time do we have to wait given budgeting decisions are coming up?

Well, as an insider on how an operating bur budget works for the city, I'm gonna defer to Tim here.

But the easiest the easiest in terms of budgeting is that we currently have a lot of the funding sitting in our operating budget under our contracted services line item. And so if we the best thing the what's the right word I'm thinking of? The most easiest thing from administrative point of view would be to go with this person, hire them so that we can use that money before the end of the year, or else we lose that funding source. I think Lewis had said in a different email I had that if that doesn't work out, there may be some other funding through our capital budget money that he has, but, that might be a little more of a process to then use for this. So it just makes it easier from our point of view to just use the funding that's already in contracted services before the end of the year.

Now it sounds to me, though, like, you have some questions or some additional, like, maybe revisions or just general inquiries to this group about their proposal and some things that you might wanna change. So I wrote all that down. And so there's a possibility here that perhaps we can get answers to those questions. And then if you wanted to be agreeable to maybe a special meeting of this group later this month to hear the answers to those questions and, then make a decision, that would probably maybe the best thing just to see if we wanted to still move forward with it or not and still have the time to do that. That that's one solution that we have.

I, you know, I don't wanna wait too long, though, before it gets to Christmas. And but maybe I can work on helping getting these answers right away, and we could maybe schedule. Even if it's just an all virtual special meeting, that's always a possibility as well. Dorothy, do you wanna say something?

I just wanna ask a question. So just to be really clear on this, is this a use this money or lose it by the end of the year?

This particular $20,000 that we have sitting there that Lewis identified, if we don't use that, it goes back into the general fund. Yeah. We don't get to carry we don't get to carry that over to be used. It goes back into the larger pot. And I don't think we have it sitting in our budget for next year to use. The the second the next option is there is I think Lewis has some funding in this capital budget that we could use, but I do believe that that might take that might take, like, a resolution to get it reallocated to this specific project rather than other it's it'd also be taking it away from some

of your other

environmental sustainability projects that you have capital budget money for.

So and you were quick you know, with Lewis. Is it reasonable to think that he's thought this through pretty carefully before presenting it to us?

Think I think I think so. Yeah. We we're not always being able to think of every question that our committees have, but I do think I do think he has. Yeah.

Well, I I think given that it's December 8 and it only gets busier and it's gonna be hard to get a quorum before the end of the year, I and given that Lewis usually is on top of these things, I'd like to make a motion to approve.

K. We have a motion

to to approve. Is there a second? I will second that.

We have a second from Steph. Discussion on the motion.

If it does go if if this is approved, do we still have the ability to to, I guess, work with this company to maybe adjust some of their you know, the the direction that they're going or, you know, to Natalie's point, maybe have them focus a little bit more on implementation? Or once this is approved, is that it as it stands on the, you know, on their proposal?

No. It's not it. I think you still have the ability to reword some of the language in their proposal for your final because there has to be a contract that gets signed still. And so I think if you wanted to massage some of the language to reflect more of what product you wanna see be completed, then you could very easily make the motion to approve with conditions or with the revisions of this language or that you wanna see these things. That's perfectly perfectly appropriate as well.

And I would make that, you know, correction to my motion or addition to my motion.

And and what would be the the precise language that you wanna adjust? Is that yeah.

And I realize I'm making that motion, but, Tim, could you help us with the language you think would be necessary in that motion to ensure this?

Well, I mean, I guess I guess whatever was re would reflect what Natalie's concerns were, and I think Casey had had also stated the same thing. And I don't know. I don't wanna state something incorrectly, but, I mean, I what I wrote down more was just you had questions more than more than anything else. And so what I had was more was a desire to have more emphasis or attention paid to the final product rather than research of model ordinances. Or, like, what's that difference?

So there's a question I had asked. And then I also asked why also, in addition to that was why it was so much on ordinance review rather than community interviews and the final product, which is sort of the same thing. So I just really had that at this point. I didn't know because that's what I had heard. You know, whether how I would put that into your motion, I I don't know how to put that into your motion. I just mostly had questions or inquiries that you just wanted to have clarified. But, I mean, if you were to say

possible to ask for some clarifications before the final product or, you know, approve it now, but, you know, with that opportunity for some additional information and clarifications.

What might be helpful too is if if you like, I think and I don't correct me if I'm wrong, Natalie, but you had questions on, like, what is that final product then? Like, if you have an idea of what you think that final product should be, then that's helpful too. Like, what is the scope of this to me, which is it seems to be model ordinances, and the final product could be model ordinances that then can be immediately incorporated into the larger zoning code update process. Now what that is, I don't know. But I think that's part of the effort.

Right? It's trying to evaluate what is in the climate action plan, which to me, I feel is what your model ordinance review is. It's also going through your plan and then pulling out those strategies and recommendations to then determine what ordinances can be created. And what may come out of this too isn't just ordinances that go into the zoning code because I don't foresee that all of them may end up doing that. It could be ordinances that are created or drafted that could go in other parts of the city's municipal code that we can just go forward with at that point as well.

So I do I I'm not saying that is the appropriate amount of funding, but I do feel like a lot of the background research and reading does take hours of going through, like, the plan. That's not a small plan you have. So just sort of assessing and pulling out all of your recommendations and strategies and then looking at what model ordinances would pertain to I you mean, have a lot of recommendations and strategies in that plan. It does take time. Again, I'm not justifying the amount.

I'm just saying I think there is a lot of labor intensive research and background analysis that is done as part of that project, part of it, my opinion. Like, we had our current consultants had to go through that plan, our highway 53 plan, our comp plan. They did research of, like, the last ten years of all of our requests for rezoning and variance requests. I mean, they spent months and a lot of time just doing a background research on everything. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that a lot of man hours are paid or person hours are are attributed to that component.

Okay. So just just to just to clarify, we we have a motion and a second. We haven't really made an amendment yet. That's it. Yeah. Okay.

Could the amendment be something like, we approve this motion, but we'd like clarification on what exactly will be done in task two with the model ordinance review. So we have more detail of what's actually going to be done there.

With nonverbals, it seems like there's a nod. Yeah. I

think it's more than just task two, though. I mean, to me, it's it's also sort of the process. Right? So it's, you know, further discussion on how this committee can play a role in some of that. Right? So, you know, as Natalie was discussing, you know, can we be part of those comp those those interviews? And so I I guess I'd like to see some more specifics just in general of how this committee can help forward that work as as part of the I don't know. It's it's part of the approval.

To me then, what I would say is that your motion would include not if, but yes. Say it. We move to approve, but we want to be part of the process with the condition that this committee is part of the community interview process that includes developing questions, sitting on the interviews. If those who are are interested in doing so, it includes that or, you know, if you have specifics on what your ordinance review or detail it is, it includes maybe it includes that we get to have final review of what the ordinance review entails, final product, need more you know, it's condition that we get more of a detailed description. I mean, make it more, like, finality type things, not just like, we move to approve with the following conditions.

We will be a part of the committee committee review process. We will get a more detailed breakdown of what ordinance review tasks mean, what the final product table of contents or whatever that is is. That's maybe how I would define it more so than leave it sort of vague. Make specific that this is going to happen as a condition of our approval.

That sounds good to me.

And and if that helps and satisfies everyone else, I would add that to the additional motion. And then if Steph is willing to

Yes. I will second that as well.

And do you have enough of this written down so that we can make it legal?

It's being recorded. So what I what

I have done is that we will be involved in community interview step. We will get more details on the model ordinance review. And we will approve on the condition that more emphasis be made to ensure the model ordinances be implemented. That gets at Natalie's question. One thing

that I

would talk to Lewis on, too, is just if it what it seems to me is that we're moving forward with this group, and then I tell Lewis that they need to come to the January meeting and have these conversations with you so that you can have these conversations and everything is finalized at the beginning.

Okay.

Yes, Natalie. I have one more clarifying question. You said that $20,000 is coming from the Planning Department's operating budget. Where does the remaining $4,800

come from? Climate action RIP. RIP is my understanding.

Right. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay. So we have a motion, a second, and then we have amended motion, which touches on the community interview portion, details on the model ordinance review, and emphasis implementation, with the hope that they will come in January. We can have a good discussion. Any more discussion on that motion? I'm not hearing any. All those in favor, please raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Okay.

That passes unanimously. Thank you. Unfortunately, Stephan Hanna needs to leave. That's okay. We will move along in our agenda. That was a great discussion, folks.

Alright.

The next item on the agenda is twenty five twenty five dash one four two one, a proposal to fund roughly 20 bike racks. And so a little bit of background on this item. Lewis has been working with Jenna Dinkle, another person in the planning department, to install additional bike racks in downtown. Now you may remember that I received a grant in the past to install some. They've been a big hit.

And so they they realized that that there are still limited bike parking options in downtown with many areas where there still are not. And so Lewis was hoping to work with Jenna to provide some additional funding in a similar kind of style at $5,000 as a microgrant to put additional racks around downtown and along the 2nd Street cycle track. It's my understanding this money would come from the CIP, climate action plan steering committee funds. Any questions on that? Okay.

Guess we'd be looking for a motion on this as well.

I'll make a motion to approve the proposal. Motion from Natalie.

I'll second that.

Second from Casey. So we have a motion to approve. Discussion on the motion.

Just so that I think it is much needed, and it's a good investment.

Agreed.

It feels really good to put money towards tangible outcomes. So it's exciting.

And this is something that's in the climate action plan already, so I think that's in alignment. So anything else? Are we ready to vote? All those in favor please say unanimous. That is approved.

The next item on the agenda is 25 dash one four two two, celebrating climate action wins from committee members and the community. I don't have a lot of background as to what the intention was here, but I guess in some ways, it's maybe similar to notices and discussions of good things that have happened. Maybe, Casey, if you could review how the YCAF event went.

Sure. You bet. So, actually, a couple of things I'd like to bring up. First of all, just as far as climate wins for the for the year, I can't remember if the last meeting we talked about this or not, but the sustainability institute inspiring sustainability awards twenty twenty five happened at the distilling company in late October, and we recognized one individual and one organization for their for their climate work over the years. So the individual was Carina Dunn, who is a a high school student who's led multiple climate action projects through the the Youth Climate Action Fund, which I'll talk about it in a minute.

And then the organization that we recognized was the Nature Place just for their outstanding environmental education and work on inclusivity and overall sustainability in in our community. But then, yeah, an update on the youth climate action fund. So, again, this was a Bloomberg Philanthropies fund that or or grants that Lewis put in for, and it's it's awarded to a 100 different cities around the world. This was the second time LaCrosse got those those funds. So this, again, was all Lewis is doing as far as getting those funds.

And then the sustainability institute worked with the community foundation and the city to get those funds distributed, get projects up and running, get, you know, a lot of publicity and recognition around it. So we had our recognition event for the 19 different youth climate action fund projects that happened this past year. That happened at the Nature Place a couple of weeks ago. It was a it was a fantastic recognition event where we had, oh, I think about 60 people or so. Tom, during the course of the evening, we had appetizers.

We had, you know, just good vibes of of people being able to walk around and talk to the youth that put these different projects on. And we are hoping so so Bloomberg, I believe, just announced that they are going to do a third round. And so I think Lewis is going to be in the process of applying for that. I don't know what the requirements are gonna be through Bloomberg if if they're going to allow cities to get a you know, that have already won that grant to to get it again. I'm not sure. But if they do, we are the Sustainability Institute and the Community Foundation stand ready to help the city make this really successful again.

Thank you so much, Casey, for that. Sounds like a great event. I'm sorry that I could not join. I was on a train. But yeah.

It was fantastic. It was it was just really good energy. What we one of the things that we realized is there's a lot of you know, a number of youth there that had never really had the opportunity to be recognized or had the opportunity to do, like, the networking or things like that. So, you know, this this recognition event was was a real win in the sense of, you know, having press there and actually recognizing the good work that these students did, but or these youth, but but also giving the youth good practice, right, and and good just a good experience of of communicating with and networking with community members around good work. Right?

And so it was it was really, just good vibes and sort of a a win win all around.

Great.

And I would just add to that, Casey, because, such a good thing. All the youth that were involved, the far reaching impact we're having that we don't even know what it is. You know, a lot of these. At well, Andrew, you were involved, and, you know, now we're doing more bike racks. The far reaching impact of these opportunities for young people and developing them is fantastic.

I went to MEGs. There was a young woman from Mongolia who, Casey, of course, knew really well because she was at the sustainability institute, but she did a, program that was very well attended at the co op on compost bins. And, you know, she's gonna take that back to the different countries that she's living in and take those experiences and that information with her. And I just think that you know, I'm I'm hoping we can get the grants again because I just think this is something, our committee has been supporting that, and and other groups within the community that's definitely heading in the positive direction. Think we want our climate action plan to be doing.

And I should say if anyone is interested in seeing you know, learning more about the Youth Climate Action Fund, what the celebration looked like, the different projects that that students did or that youth did, go to our website, sustaininstitute.com, and check out the the spotlight blog. It's the latest post on there from November 21. Has all the different posters that that were created about youth projects. It's got lots of great pictures from the events, some videos from the event. So if you're interested in learning more and and just seeing what a cool event that was, check it out. Sustaininstitute.com backslash blog.

Great. Anything good in the habitat world?

Of course. Actually, now that we're talking about this, I remember Lewis had asked me to provide an update on Renew the Block at an upcoming meeting, which I actually feel underprepared to do because I know we've sort of wrapped up the year with a new batch of planting and home repairs and things like that up on Avon Street. And our pave the way fundraiser is underway. We have community members buying permeable pavers that will be installed outside the school for stormwater mitigation purposes, but also for fundraising and community awareness and engagement outside Logan. So probably at a January meeting, I'll have better sense of what our 2026, the final push of Renew the Block, will entail.

But looking ahead, too, Habitat is about to start two homes in the Washburn neighborhood on the 10th And Division Street on the edge of three sixty Real Estate's new CNC Residences development. And this is the block where the Washburn Community Gardens existed. And as part of the community engagement and feedback process, obviously, there was a lot of desire for the gardens to be retained. And so once the townhomes are done, three sixty will be reinstalling plots for community gardens, and Habitat will help facilitate the management of those gardens. So really excited to bring that back and institute some or involve some renew the block elements, some stormwater mitigation in the boulevards perhaps, and then kind of, again, based on what we hear from community and the immediate blocks around the project.

So that's starting in 2026, two new Habitat homes and some sustainable landscaping in Washburn.

Wonderful. And then a little update from UWL. We are this close, and it's intentionally very small, this close to approving a new strategic plan, and sustainability is in it. And so that is very exciting that it's being elevated to that level. And I'm I think that that is gonna bring a wave of of good stuff coming from campus.

So alright. Anything else? Otherwise, we can move to I've lost my my place. I believe it's the end of the agenda. I think it's the next meeting.

There it is. Yes. Next meeting and agenda items. And so if anyone has anything they wanna bring up at our next meeting, now would be a time to mention it. But I believe our next meeting will probably be is it gonna be January 9, perhaps?

No. I believe it would be January 12, but we will wait for a confirmation on that. Alright. Council member Newberry, do you wanna do you have anything that you wanna say or just hanging out? Nope? Okay. Cool beans. Alright. Well, if I'm not hearing anything, then I think we're good to adjourn. Kept it right right under an hour. I think that was pretty good. Alright. Thanks.

Done, Andrew.

Yep. Thank you. Good holidays, everybody.

Yeah. Happy holidays.

Thank you, Sam. Yep.