Green Island Ice Arena Negotiating Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. It is Monday, May 13 at 04:02PM. I'll call to order this meeting of the climate action plan steering committee. We have all members of the committee present either online or in person except for Andrew Erickson who is excused. First up, we have the approval of the minutes. I'll need a motion on the minutes unless you have questions.

I make a motion to approve.

Motion to approve the minutes by Casey Meehan. Second by can just do a hand raise for that second.

I'll second.

Second by Steph Hanna. Any discussion? Alright. All those in favor of the minutes, please, signify by saying aye or thumbs up. I. And that passes unanimously. Alright. Let's move right into our agenda. We have 26Dash020

oh,

I'm sorry. Do you wanna do notices and discussions? Okay.

Thank you. My apologies. I usually include notices and discussion on the agenda, but I omitted it this month. However, we have a a very important notice about our zoning code update, and I wanted to let Leslie, give that. For the committee members, I emailed you earlier this afternoon, with the draft, memo on the zoning code along with an appendix of references.

And before you all dig into that, I just wanted to let Leslie give an overview.

Awesome. Thank you, Lewis. And welcome, Leslie. I will shamelessly say that I, by surprise, got to spend a few days with Leslie in Cleveland the other weekend at the Midwest Climate Collaborative. So it was so fun to see Leslie in person. It's good to see you again. Welcome back.

Thanks. We're we I I I didn't hear everything.

Sure. So if you want to I believe you have the functionality to share your screen if you have something to share.

I I just have some I just have some notes, and so I'm just gonna talk talk at you. Okay. So you all you all should have received a draft of our memo that summarizes our model ordinance review. We reviewed over 40 different ordinances across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. And in the in the memo, we've provided recommendations on which of those ordinances we feel would be the best models for implementation with the city of La Crosse to align with your climate action plan goals.

We also completed eight different interviews with some of our top candidate model ordinance cities. And so we've summarized information from those interviews in the memo. The memo includes an appendix that includes the questionnaire that we used. We also have included a an Excel file that has all of the ordinances that we reviewed that are broken down by section. We will be providing even more detail, like, than that in our final draft, but just giving you a flavor of what we have so far.

So if you would like to provide any comments or recommendations for changes, we ask that you complete those recommendations by April 27, which is two weeks from today. You can send those comments to Lewis, and he will get those to me. And then our plan is to present the final recommendations and meet up with you in person at at the next committee meeting in May. Any questions?

Fantastic. Thank you, Leslie. Are there any questions? Or, Lewis, you're feel free to ask questions or add anything too.

One thing I wanted to add is that Bolton and Mink were working on, EV ready ordinances in the vein of our of of the charging smart program, which was, briefly defunded, but now it has its funding back. So we'll be getting technical assistance, I believe, from the Great Plains Institute on fulfilling the rest of the actions and points for that designation. So that'll build on the work we're doing here.

Great. Thanks, Lewis. Anybody else? Questions, comments?

I have a, another notification unrelated to the an unrelated to this, but if anybody has any questions about the zoning code update, I'll I can wait.

I don't see any. But, just to confirm, send Lewis any comments within two weeks from today. Okay. Got it. Right. Thank you, Leslie.

Alright. And then in other news, I wanted to follow-up on a topic of discussion from a few months ago. I got I reached out to US Solar Connor at US Solar to get information on how they're proceeding. They submitted three projects in response to a request for proposals from Xcel Energy. The projects are part of the portfolio that they've we've been discussing with the power purchase agreement, and Connor will let me know when he hears back about Xcel's proposal selection. So still in progress. But yeah.

Thanks, Lewis. Any question on the VPPA? I'm glad to hear it's still moving. Let us know if you need anything. Anybody else have items for notices and discussion?

There's housing week is coming up if Natalie wants to talk about that.

Sure. Go ahead, Natalie.

Thank you. Yeah. La Crosse housing week is coming back for year two. Last year was our first year of doing this full week of free events all about housing access and affordability and zoning in the community. So this is May.

If you head to lacrossehousingweek.org, the website is up to date with, a full slate of events. There's something every day that week, including two versions of the popular missing middle housing tour now rebranded as dude, where's my duplex? So, that should be fun. Mara Keyes from the city is is leading one version, and I'm leading another one on Saturday of that week. So check it out, and I hope you are able to participate.

Thanks, Natalie. I still love that name. It's so good, and it actually brings people out for real. Casey, did you wanna speak?

Yeah. You bet. Just reminding everyone that, the Cross Area Earth Fair is coming up on Sunday, April 26 from 11AM to 4PM. That's at Myrick. So send good thoughts for good weather. It should be great. We've got a, you know, a great lineup of vendors and activities for kids and all that. Totally free for everyone. So please come on down to the Myrick Park And Nature Place Center. And also sort of in relation is the Sustainability Institute Green Goose Chase, which starts on Friday.

This coming Friday is our kickoff event at the pump house. So if you're not familiar with it, you can find out a lot more at sustaininstitute.com. But it's a scavenger hunt meets mission based game for everybody. Again, totally free to play. It goes for ten days starting on Friday running through Earth Fare, and then we have a celebration at Earth Fare at, I believe, 03:00 the afternoon of Earth Fare down at the Nature Place. Chance to win lots of great free prizes. So please join. It's a lot of fun. We're looking to have about a 100 teams join this year.

What time on Friday, please, Casey?

Oh, the kickoff event. That's a good question. I believe it's at four, but I'm not positive. If you want to so anybody can download the app, the Goose Chase app for free. Just head to our website, sustaininstitute.com, and you can find out. I I can't think of the exact time at the pump house, but if you show up at at five, we'll be there. It's not like it's a sort of a drop in. So right after work, it will be around. I think we end things up at about six.

Awesome. Casey, how many do you usually have sign up? How many teams?

Well, every so this is our sixth year, and every year, we've had more. Last year, we had about 90 85 to 90. This year, we're looking to to top a hundred hundred teams.

Wow. Well done.

Team is anywhere from, you know, one person to eight people or more. Typically, the average size team is about four, though.

Very cool. Very cool. Excellent. Alright. Any other items for notices and discussion?

Alright. I see none. Let's move on to 26Dash0207, request for funding of portable bicycle and pedestrian counters. Jenna Dinkle is here, and you have an attachment before you. Jenna or Lewis, do you wanna introduce the item? Go straight to Jenna. Yeah. Excellent. If that's okay.

Alright. I'm sharing my screen as well. I wanna try to get into presentation mode. Right, there we go. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jenna Dinkle. I'm an associate planner for the City of La Crosse, and I'm also joined today with Sammy Meyer from our Parks and Recreation Department. And we have been discussing the possibility of program. So

there we go.

As I'm sure a lot of you know, transportation is a leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and in the city of La Crosse. And so the ability to measure, outcomes and track modes creates Current is that, half we are lacking consistent and reliable data on motorized, non motorized travel. And it's a primary recommendation from the League of to increase our status to a gold bikeable city, which was also one of the goals in the climate action plan. And our bike ped plan also points to this lack of data that we have in our city today. With this comes a challenge of securing funding, whether that's capital improvement plan or grants.

It's it's helpful to have a baseline when you're looking for grant funding, but also to prove that that ends up getting used by bicyclists and pedestrians. So a solution to that is having a count program. And this can help quantify emission reductions and help prove the usability for future grant opportunities. So some of the climate connections with our climate action plan. So one of them is one of the calls to action in our climate action plan is to improve the comfort and safety of walking and biking within the city of La Crosse.

And so one of those actions calls to explore approaches to measure walking and biking at key locations in the city. In addition to that, one of the goals is to decrease commuter and community wide vehicle miles traveled. And so counters will allow us to estimate vehicle miles reduced, track trends over time, and measure the impact of those infrastructure investments that we make. So the proposed program that Sammy and I have been talking about is to deploy portable counters for targeted studies of current and future infrastructure in the city. So that means mobile counters that can be moved around to different locations.

So we have some priority locations mapped out, but we're also looking for feedback and input as well. So some of those for especially commuter routes and on street routes is 2nd Street, King Street, Gillette Street, 17th Street, Greenway, some of those infrastructure some of the infrastructure that's already in our city and existing, but that can also look like Avon Street before we implement future projects. And I'll let Sammy touch on some of the park stuff as well.

Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Jenna. As Jenna mentioned, I'm Sammy from the parks department, if I've not had the pleasure meeting any of you yet. But I have I've been to this board before, so happy to be back. From a parks perspective, we're we have a shared interest in learning about how many people are commuting using our trails as commuter trails, just using, trails in general. So this program is a great partnership between us and the planning department to gather some mutually beneficial data. And so some of the trails that we have that are listed on our priority locations, we recognize them as recreational trails, but also very much so commuter trails. We know I've I've used them. I I live in the city of Onalaska, I've used the Bud Hendrickson to get down to the marsh trails, on bike to work.

And so noting how many people are utilizing those trails can help support the Parks Department as well for future maintenance projects, development projects of future commuter trails, and also supports many of efforts that we have made. We've secured grants in those areas, but it's always extremely helpful to have very reliable data to back up the grant requests and support any of the work and improvements we need to in those trail areas. So along with some of the paved trails that are listed, we also just have a general interest in noting how many users are in the natural surface trail use. So up in the Blufflands. Upper Hixson, Mathew Quarry Trails are all some of the secondary locations that we'd be interested in collecting data from.

We can we know those are very popular locations for residents, visitors to our community. So, unfortunately, we won't be able to gather the data of whether or not users are from the area or not, but we'll be able to gather very valuable data on exactly how many people are utilizing those trails. Alternatively, how many we could strategically place them eventually in, maybe non sanctioned trails to know the user count in trail areas, where people aren't technically supposed to be, but to support maybe some future trails, and connections that people are already using and maybe just back up the need to sanction those trails. So that's a little bit about our locations and interest in the Trail Crown program. So

I just wanted to touch on a couple case studies from other communities that use, specifically the company that we're looking at going with, EcoCounter, has some information on some of the case studies of communities that have used and successfully used their product. And so one of those is Vancouver, another is Stockholm. And it just there's interesting articles that I'd be happy to share with this group as well, but it touches on just the importance of having trail data, having not just trail data but commuter data, data about bike lanes and other areas. And it helps the communities pinpoint specific high risk locations and prioritize certain areas based on that and crash data, which we already have access to really wonderful crash data in the state of Wisconsin. And then in addition to that, Stockholm has used cycling data to help with their climate action goals as well.

And so just an overview of what Sammy and I have been looking at to operate and purchase four counters and have them in operation for the next five years. The total cost is $12,505, and this includes one mobile multi counter. So this counter would primarily be used on paved trails and on roadway networks and in bike lanes. It has a infrared monitor that monitors all forms of human traffic going by it, and then it also has tubes. So that's how it differentiates the bicycle bicycle usage versus just the normal walking, running, other modes of transportation usage.

And then three Pyro nano counters, which I'll let Sammy touch on quickly.

Yeah. So the the Pyro nano counters are very small discrete devices designed to blend into natural environments. So, say, attached to a tree surface somehow, and those are about the size of the palm of your hand, and those are similar and have infrared detection. And those would be able to count users in and users out. So the Pyro Nanos don't differentiate between foot traffic, bicycle traffic, scooter traffic, etcetera, but they are able to count the frequency of use. So those would be extremely helpful for just gathering large quantities of user data and helpful in some of those natural spaces like the Blufflands for us.

And then the other thing that this cost includes is five years of the EcoVizio software. So I made sure to include that in the whole package. So that's not an operating cost at least for the next five years. And then replacement tubes for our mobile multi counter. Those tubes just need to replace due to normal wear and tear.

And those can be used on we would have tubes for roadways so we can measure greenways, it's fine for normal traffic, vehicle traffic to go over it. But then we also can have tubes for paths that are a little more discreet for bicyclists going over it but still are better used for trails where regular traffic is not going over it. So what we would be asking from this committee is funding for half the project, which is 6,252.5 unless the committee feels so compelled that they want to fund our entire project. But otherwise, we'd be asking for funding for half the project. So you might be asking where we're able to get the other half.

So our goal would be to present to the Bluffland Coalition, which maybe Sammy can touch on a little bit more, in April and possibly get the other half of funding.

Yes. So the city of La Crosse, specifically the Parks Department, sits on the Bluffland Coalition, which is a coalition of 15 local municipalities and organizations who come together with the common goal of, Bluffland recreation and preservation. And so, that is a county. There's county funding specifically bookmarked for that coalition. And so we are able to submit requests to the coalition for, support of projects such as this that would benefit, Bluffland Recreation Trail use.

And as once that is approved, then it would go to the county board for official approval. And so we would be requesting the other half of this funding to the Bluffland Coalition next Tuesday. And once approval occurs, then we would go to the May County board meeting. And just gonna keep going if that's okay. Once approved by the county board, we would then have complete funding secured, get all of the operational equipment in hand, and then start our deployment in July. And we could rotate to different locations throughout the city on a two to four week basis to really get a full picture of community usage of trails.

So that's kind of all we have for

you guys today, but I'm happy to answer we're both happy to answer any questions anyone might have. Fantastic.

Very thoroughly put together. I appreciate the time.

I just have

a I

don't know if Dorothy can hear me.

I Did you say something?

Yes.

I just heard you just now. I didn't hear you before that. Okay. Just a quick question. So do you guys have any idea of what kind of grants are out there that we might be able to secure because of this information? Do you know, like, amounts or anything? Like, are they $50,000 or a 100,000 or you know? What kind of grants are out there nowadays?

Yeah. I would say it's kinda hard to put a a exact dollar amount on that, but I would say a lot of grants this can help bolster grants when we're looking at infrastructure for, our greenways, any kind of bicycling networks. It really helps your grant application to have some kind of baseline data, or to have even counts of a nearby street. Like, if we're applying for funding for Avon Street Greenway and I could include counts on King Street Greenway and show how much usage it is getting, then that can really help bolster those grants. What I would say, like, for what one of our grant sources that I am typically applying for is transportation alternative program funds.

And so those are typically used for any kind of transportation alternatives. One of the I'll just keep using Avon Street Greenway as an example. That's one of the grants I received with that program, and that I believe was maybe 600 funding or so. So it can those programs can fund up to 80% of the project costs of qualifying costs of the project.

Thank you. That helps a lot.

Thanks, Dorothy. Casey.

I was just gonna ask a first of all, just say that was awesome. Great presentation. Super clear. Like, I think it's really solid what you're looking for, and I think the data is is super important both to just recreation and the and and alternative transportation and also the climate plan. So thanks for taking the initiative to put this together. Just a point of clarification, the $6,000 and change that you're asking for, that is a onetime thing for like, so that that 12,000 total is all five years. Is that right?

That's correct.

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

Any other questions? Sure. Steph.

Are you concerned at all about vandalism of the meter, whatever it is, while it's there? And what about the little pyro nanos? Would there be signage close to those?

Yeah. That's a good question. And I actually have gotten the question already about vandalism. I would say that we I mean, we currently have a lot of the DOT has been putting up car counters when they're working on the 35 project. We currently do some counts like that, and I think that these kind of technologies are built with vandalism in mind. They're pretty sturdy looking boxes. The nanos are pretty discreet, and hopefully that would help with vandalism as well. We currently don't have anything any funding in here included for signage, especially since we're going to be moving them around so much. But, yeah, I don't know if you have anything to add.

And because we are moving them around so frequently and they'll be in accessible locations, it's, I venture to say, relatively easy, for us to get out and monitor them on a semi regular basis while they're in the count period, and then, obviously, going back out to see them once we're ready to move them as well. With the EcoVizio technology as well, we can have constant updates. Basically, we can log in to that software at any time and see that it's actively counting. So if at any point we do log in and see that there haven't been counts in an area that there's typically high traffic, we can kind of be alerted that something has occurred and investigate from there as well.

Thanks.

Any other questions online? I have a couple questions. I couldn't help thing. The does it include, like they're kinda big things that are is that what you're looking at? Let's see. They kind of stand up tall, or is it, like, smaller units that you're looking at? There is a they're smaller. Okay.

Oh, here. This is the Okay. Mobile multi. So there's those tubes that run on the ground, then the the stuff running down is just wires. So then the actual box is just on the post there.

And the box you foresee putting on existing posts? Okay. Because I know, like, you know, when the streets department runs traffic studies, they're, like, very rugged looking metal boxes, like a chained to a tree and whipped around sometimes. So that's a helpful visual to kind of see what we're we're looking at. Of course, you could probably talk to the streets department about any recommendations for how not to get your box stolen.

Other thoughts. Does this give us access to like, does the public have access to the reader platform? So, yeah, our goal would be to have that have a software available. I know the city of Madison has a it's pretty basic,

but they have that publicly accessible. And so our goal would be

to have something similar to that. Awesome. I love the idea of having that sort of available on a dashboard. And, certainly, I do get a lot of emails about, like, a lot of emails about how much our bike lanes or basically anything is used. So having the data from that standpoint is wonderful as well as being able to monitor our own benchmarks and see what strategies, increase usage would be excellent. So great proposal. Any other questions, comments? Lewis, do wanna add anything? Nope. Alright.

So the funding request is $6,252.50. Of course, they had mentioned, going to the coalition and the county board. I appreciate that option being floated. I would, like to see that funding request as half for now personally, but happy to hear what the committee says. Dorothy, do you wanna speak?

Yeah. I just wanna make a motion to approve the funding for the half.

I think

it's really good. We're gonna try to get other people involved too. So Perfect. But I'm sure you'll come back to us if anything fails. But at this point, I think funding half is a really good idea.

Alright. So that's a motion to approve the funding requested at $6,252.50. Do we have a second?

I will second.

Second by Stephana. Any questions or discussion? Thank you so much for bringing this forward and, putting this proposal together. I appreciate the work that you put into that, and I'm excited to see what happens. Alright. The motion on the floor is to prove. All those in favor, please say aye or thumbs up if you're online. Aye. Alright. That is unanimous.

Well done. This is great. Thank you both so much. Please do bring back progress reports as necessary. Alright. Twenty six dash zero three three five energy savings performance contract phase three year two measurement verification report. We have Doug Carlson online, I believe. Welcome, Doug.

Excuse me. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here to review the results so far. Wonderful. Let me see if I can share my screen. Okay. Okay. Is everyone can everyone see it?

We can see it. Thank you.

Fantastic. So, this is actually a great time to be presenting. We have just wrapped up the phase three of the project. So as of now, phases one, two, and three are complete, and phase four is still ongoing. Excuse me. So this report is gonna focus on phase three and then what the total has been for the entire three projects. So so far, phases three, the investments have been at city hall, libraries, municipal building, fire stations, parks, street lighting, and the cross center. There's been a a variety of different ECMs. Some of it has been building automation. Some of it has been HVAC.

The bulk of it has been lighting for streets and for buildings and this solar solar PV generation. Your total investment has been more than $9,000,000 with this. And total project benefits for for the estimated twenty years is gonna be 11,000,000. Then your annual savings as far as greenhouse gases, you you've saved 2,339 metric tons of c o two. And that that doesn't sound like a large number, but when you start thinking that it is a it's actually a gas, then that is a pretty substantial number.

Okay. So talking about phase three specifically. So you've reduced your energy costs, and this is energy only by 467,000. Your consumption was reduced by 4,500,000 kWh. And, again, that's a substantial number.

If you figure in the total energy rebates, the capital savings, and operational maintenance savings, you saved $744,110, and that is excess savings of $11,000 for you over the three year period. And how this breaks out is for solar generation, we had the 469,000 of kWh that you generated on-site. The facility lighting reduced your consumption by 332,000, and the street lighting was $3,600,000. And the this is all against a guarantee of 733,000. And this is just a a quick graph to summarize how your solar performed and where it was performing.

So you see the blue lines here. That is the guarantee, and then the bars are what we actually achieved. So we see in the in Copeland, which was the largest solar array, we substantially overperformed. And through the Fire Station 1, we did well. There were a couple months where we're close and slightly behind, but overall, we did really well.

And then, basically, the same thing at Fire Station 3, which is our smallest generation site. Okay. So to date now this is for all phases one, two, and three. We have reduced the energy cost by $1,300,000, the consumption by 12.6 kWh, And excuse me. And, you know, this really goes to your primary goals.

We wanted to reduce utility usage in the buildings, implement the city owned renewable energy. So you own your own sources of generation on-site. You wanna reduce the deferred capital and improve the environment for the for the building's occupants and then create positive impact on the environment. And you were have been very successful in every one of those points. Okay.

So, again, we reduced the energy consumption by 12,600,000. Out of that, the solar production for all three phases is 3,000,000 kWh. You've reduced the carbon emissions total by 10,000 metric tons of c o two. You've realized 223,000 in operational maintenance benefits. You received 364,000 of utility rebates, and there were 5,184 therms saved during this time period.

And here are the energy benefits. We've actually put phase four in this. So you can see the green on top is phase four, which is still ongoing. We've actually just completed the first year of phase four. And so you can just see the bulk of the savings came from phase one and two, and then phase three, and then just a smaller amount on phase four.

And this is gonna be very similar except instead of energy, these are the dollars saved. And you will see that the phase four and phase three have a little bit more of a dollar impact than they do on the energy impact. And that's just they're they're more focused on solar than on any other items. And this is just a breakdown. I do really like this slide because sometimes people are focused solely on the the financial side of it.

And, you know, obviously, your financial side, you did really well. You exceeded the savings on all the projects for all the years. But, you know, this is ultimately what we wanna get down to. This is what we're looking to say. This is how we're improving the environment.

This is how you're showing that you're good stewards of the community's money and and efforts. So you're for phases one, two, and three, you save 10,651 metric tons of c o two, and that is equivalent to to 23, 22 vehicles driven in one year, 1,100,000 gallons of gasoline consumed or planting a 176,000 trees. That's those are really large numbers and that that is pretty impressive. So that's the end of the presentation. I am very happy to answer any questions that you might have or provide any data.

Thank you so much, Doug. That was excellent. Really glad to see the updates and, of course, the big numbers. This has been a long project, and we have appreciated the success that we've had just continues to continues on. So that is excellent.

I think that's a reflection of we've got a very good quality staff that's, that's very diligent about all the items.

Absolutely. And I'll be sure to share this with other council members to see the energy savings and cost savings as well. It's pretty huge.

Yeah.

Any committee members, staff, questions, comments, highlights? Let's see. Lewis, do you wanna talk to phase four? How many phases are there? A lot of folks on the committee weren't here when this began.

Yeah. As a reminder, the phase we were talking about was solar panels on Copeland Park, Fire Station 1, Fire Station 3, and some LED lights for street lights, retrofits for the North And South Library, and also, I think, boiler replacement for the north library. So those are unfortunate casualties. So I I've already talked to Jeff and asked about how that'll factor into future savings versus sale price or of those facilities or whatever. But yeah.

So it's a bummer. And then for oh, Doug, did you have something to say?

Or Well, yeah. I was just gonna say, so the the measurement verification for the libraries was three years, which was completed. However, we've got a contract moving forward for phase four, which were two more years on it, and I'm more than happy to still stay involved with the libraries. If anything comes up, if you're selling them or leasing them or however you want, I can certainly help identify what the utility cost is for that. But as far as measurement verification, that has complete been completed for the library. It financially, it has no impact moving forward.

K. Great. And then for phase four, we did fire stations two and four since those were newly built and or solar panels on those two stations and an additional 200 kilowatt array on the lacrosse center to take advantage of new, I don't know, regulations that allow that size of of arrays. And then also a sort of unique chlor chlor I don't know. Salt salt chlorine system at the Ericsson Pool and some renovations there.

So that'll be really exciting to see that in action and and how that not necessarily well, probably will save us energy, but definitely will save us cost on chlorine. So that's a huge that yeah. So I'm I'm pretty excited about that even though it's a little bit out of our out of the realm, but that's that's cool. I'm gonna talk a little bit on the next agenda item about potential future work with Johnson Controls. But right now, we don't have anything planned for a next phase.

Thanks, Lewis. Since we've been in this community talking a lot about pools, I would love to hear more about the whatever you just said, salt to clarification thing. We just talked at our at our council meeting last Thursday about the cost of chemicals for pools is, like, enormous. And since we only operate our pools for two and a half months out of the year, spending millions of dollars on operating them when we don't make that much is really hard to do. And we have three pools right now.

So giving us ability to talk about what that is and the potential savings would be awesome. I also wanted to note while others are potentially thinking of questions or comments. I recently was flying for work, and when I flew home to La Crosse Airport, we flew right over a lot of city buildings. And I have seen a lot of the panels, but it was so cool to be up in the air and see how all of our buildings are just filled to the brim with solar panels, and it it made me very happy. You can't always see them up on top of those tall buildings.

Alright, you guys. That was great. I'm thinking of ways to share with our other council members. So this wraps up the full performance contract. Is that right?

We Where's what's yeah. Phase four was an extension for another four years, so we have a few more years we can Oh. Do projects. So yeah.

Excellent. And then, Doug, I'm wondering if you can put it in lay terms. A lot of times people get really confused about how this is funded. Can you explain, like, briefly, how did we get the money to pay for the infrastructure and and just, like, the basics?

Okay. I'll

If you can. I know that's probably a a heavy lift.

No. No. No. I I think it that's at a a basic level, it's pretty straightforward. So financing is is actually coming from your utility bills. So when we implement a project, you're there's gonna be energy savings and cost savings associated with that. So what happens is we guarantee the project. So you can pay us back out of the utility savings. And the guarantee comes in. So if we fail to meet the desired savings or the the guaranteed savings, then we will write you a check for the difference on it. So your project would be fully funded whether it is completely successful or if we missed the if we come up short on the savings, your project is fully funded for the term of the guarantee.

It's brilliant. It's brilliant. Why do more people not do this? I work with cities in my day job, and I'm always like, well, have you ever done these performance contracts? They're amazing.

So thank you so much.

They're amazing.

Great. Thank you. And if anyone has any additional questions, needs additional information, just have Lewis contact me, and I can get you whatever you need.

Wonderful. Thank you, Doug. We appreciate you being here.

Okay. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Alright. 260376. Youth Climate Action Fund, La Crosse's impact presentation.

I'll I'll I'll speak a little bit while I'm trying to pull the slides up, and we'll see how well can multitask. No worries. So we talked a little bit about the round three projects or round three funding. And the initial they were initially gonna announce that March and then it back to the April. And it's still technically the April, but I'm I'm not confident that or I'm not holding my breath that we'll be able to that will be announced as one of the recipients of the third round.

So that's that's a bit of a bummer. However, I I would say that there is I mean, in in talking with Casey and just looking at some of the projects we've done so far, I think there's some potential for, funding from this committee or even funding from the community foundation to, expand and build upon, some of the other projects. So for example, I've already talked to Jenna about expanding the bike rack parking downtown, and, you know, a d t had the the the small compact forest at Summit Elementary School and how that could be replicated at other schools or even other other locations beyond schools. So I think there there are some opportunities to to build on this even though we may not get funded for this for this third round.

And, Lewis, when you say we might not or you're not sure, do you have any, like, reason to think, well, we're not gonna get funded? Have they announced any? I haven't heard any.

I I'm gonna say that they that they're probably gonna announce it on Earth Day. Oh, okay. So the I would so I would guess that the they've probably notified the communities that have are going to receive it, and then yeah. And and then they'll announce it. So Okay. Yeah. That's my assumption. But yeah.

Okay. Thanks, Luis.

Alright. They put together this slide this brief slideshow. It it talks about the overall impact of the program. There were three areas around government innovate or three focus areas around government innovation, climate change, and young people. There were supposed to be a 100 cities, but 98 completed it, the program.

38 countries, 10,000 young people, 3,000 projects, 11,300,000 in funds distributed distributed, and, the average micro grant was $3,800. So here's some photos from La Crosse. Got our documentary, home insulation, pollinator gardens. We had four projects with community engagement and partnerships, 39 projects with, local youth leading local projects and events, and 29 youth led projects focused on climate action. We got a $150,000, and the average grant was 4,330.

Then they highlighted a few. This one was composting, so scraps to soil. Yeah. So there's five five youth participants, 30 compost bins distributed, and one compost workshop held. Roots to rise, a youth pocket force.

This was one I was mentioning earlier. So there are 13 participants, 200 plants and trees and shrubs, and 303 elementary students engaged in the project. And then, the last one was, for the farmers market. So EBT double dollars and youth vendors for the farmers market. So there are 27 youth participants, ten first time youth producers, 75 youth market hours, and $1,500 worth of produce distributed through match the match program.

Then we got some nice quotes from a participant and from the mayor. And then, yeah, just some summaries learned across cities across the world, and that's it. So, yeah, overall, it was a good experience. Challenging, you know, sometimes because of the time period that the grant was open and the when school is in session. So that made it interesting, but I'm it was it was really great working with all the community organizations and young people, and and, you know, they're still interested in working on projects.

I got a email from Carina Dunn asking, like, hey. When are we gonna hear about the when are we gonna hear about the next round? So, she was a very yeah. She's she did three projects. So yeah. Any questions?

Thank you, Lewis. It's a great program. We're so lucky to have had two rounds, and it was well executed. Of course, thanks to Lewis as well as Sustainability Institute helped a lot. Nature Place, I know you all helped in various ways and and more that I'm probably forgetting. Any comments on that? I

yeah. Sorry. I do just have a question. Just some background information, I guess, since I am newer. I actually, this is the first I'm hearing of this whole situation. So I was just wondering, is this something that, like, we just funded and these are the results, or is this something we directly put on our, like, as the committee or just a little bit of background would be great?

Yeah. The this was a program through the through Bloomberg Philanthropies. So when mayor Reynolds went to Dubai, he was talking to people from Bloomberg philanthropies, but this was on behalf of the Mississippi initiative no. Mississippi Rivers Cities and Towns Yeah. Initiative, MRCTI.

So he was there on behalf of them, not on behalf of the city. And but he learned about this program, immediately told me about it, and then so I was searching for it. And, yeah, we we were able to get the funded for the first round. And then the second round the first round was $50,000. The second round was a $100,000, and it was only open to first round awardees. Now this third round was open to everybody. So and it's another $100,000. So, I mean, assuming it continues to do well and grow, I mean, there could be around four that we could come back and try for.

Yeah. And not every I mean, it's only a select group of cities that were selected for these climate action funds. I think, like, the first round was, like, 50 cities worldwide.

Yeah. Yeah. It was and it where it's a worldwide competition, so that's pretty pretty special. The other communities in the area that received this funding were Dubuque and Madison, so we're not we're in good company.

Yeah. Pretty successful, and lots of amazing projects were proposed for sure. Good question. Alright. If there are no other comments that's a great presentation. Did they create it for us? That's awesome.

Yeah. It was pretty nice.

That's wonderful. We'll definitely be able to share that out. I should also say La Crosse Community Foundation helped too. So if you're listening out there, La Crosse Community Foundation, thank you so much. Alright. 26Dash0411 grant services update and request to pursue the energy innovation grant program.

Yeah. I want us to give a update about where we're at with our grant services. The mayor asked me to pursue, the mayor's climate protection awards, and so I'm working we're working on two submissions for that, and those are due April 28. So we're going to highlight our home energy assessment program that we're been doing with Green Homeowners United and then our latest round of energy saving performance contract projects. Yes.

Which we talked about. So there so that's one one thing that's in the works. The energy innovation grant has reopened now, and I don't I I didn't really have any ideas to go after. But if anybody has any suggest thoughts or suggestions, I'm I'm open to hearing them. But one sort of obvious pursuit would be the a follow-up to the microgrid study that we did.

So that was a a planning grant, and now we could go I think we would have a good chance for a an implementation grant since we got our planning grant for it. The ROI was the return on investment was pretty long for city in investments. So except for certain scales of certain certain length of battery storage, for the library. So that's kind of, I think, maybe the target for me. I talked to, well, Dylan's

out

of the office for the month, so I don't think he's gonna apply on behalf of the county. And then I talked to Casey, and and, since Western is in, is in transition leadership transition, he doesn't think that, they'll be going after it. Though I I do think Western would have a really good chance given the, report back we got from Slipstream. So, I'm I'm requesting from the committee just sort of go ahead to to go after this grant for with, for the library for battery it would be battery battery energy storage for the library, based on the recommendations from the, micro grid report. And I'd probably work with, both Slipstream and, Johnson Controls to get that done.

Awesome. Just to follow-up, you think it is not possible to collaborate with Western since they're in leadership leadership transition?

The recommendation for the in the report was more to focus on, like, a microgrids for each separate entity rather than a complete microgrid. So I don't think I could apply on behalf of Western for their microgrid. So Okay.

And then this is out of my expertise. Can those microgrids be created with interconnection ability for later down the road?

Do you know what I mean? Like, with solar panels?

Yeah. Like, can it be transitioned to one large microgrid, or are they all just, like, separate? Maybe that has more to do with the utility level. I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know. Okay. So the do you have a sense for what the ask would be for the grant level per battery? And it's if it's okay if you don't. I'm just curious.

Yeah. I don't. But I I would say that the it doesn't require any matching funds, so there wouldn't be Oh. A need for a contribution on the city's side. Assuming that Johnson Controls could show a return on investment, you know, through their methodology, we could probably get whatever financed through that, the remain the remainder financed through that. So, yeah, I think I think it could be good.

And then Slipstream and Johnson Controls would be able to help you write it or provide what you need to write it?

Yeah. I believe so.

And then do we have to pay them for that, or is it just leveraging funding from their study? I'm not I'm just not

familiar question. I think with Johnson Controls, the each phase that we've done in the past has been initiated by a project development agreement, which states that this cost, like, $60,000. But if you go ahead with the project, then that'll just get wrapped in there. That's just part of the cost. It's not an additional anything additional.

And then with Slipstream, when we did the planning, like, the the grant itself paid them. So I'm not sure in this round if what level Slipstream would advise would have other than, like, just kind of clarification and sort of advising on the plan. There might be some additional recommendations on top of the actual building out of the microgrid that we might have to that Slipstream could help out with. But, yeah, I'd have to look into that.

Okay.

Excellent. Sounds like a really good opportunity, and I'm excited that the energy innovation grant is open finally. Any comments, questions? Alright.

Yes. Maybe just a vote would

Yeah. I was just looking back up at my agenda. So is there a request to pursue? So that would be a vote to direct staff to pursue the energy innovation grant. Can I have a motion on that? Motion to direct staff to pursue the energy innovation grant.

I'll make a motion to direct staff to pursue the energy innovation grant.

Excellent. Thank you, Natalie, for that motion. Second by feel free to raise your hand for that second.

I'll second the motion.

Second by Lauren Fortin. Is that how you say your last name? Okay. Fortin. Any discussion? Lewis, do you know the timeline on approvals?

I It's pretty

standard every year.

Yeah. The window just opened at the beginning of the month slash the March. I feel like it's maybe a three month window

Okay. Typically. Looks like I just pulled it up. June 30 is when it closes. Okay. Perfect. Excellent. Thank you, Lewis. Motion on the floor is to direct staff pursue the energy innovation grant. All those in favor, please say aye or thumbs up if you're online. Aye. That is unanimous. And lastly, we have twenty six dash zero four one two climate action communication plan update.

Alright. Hopefully, you all most of you. I Laura Lauren, are you on the mailing list?

Did you

get the newsletter yet Friday?

I was gonna say, I think, yes. I good. I've gotten two emails from you in

the last couple days, so I think so.

Okay. Well, just in case, I'll I'll maybe send it to you again. But the Paul sent out the newsletter on Friday, and it was just kind of a reminder about about Earth Day and its origins, and then had a little bit about the climate action the climate action communications plan, and then a couple social media poet or, yeah, posts. Just make a quick quick side note. He in the article about Earth Day, he you know, Gaylord Nelson was one of the was the founder, but, also, he's the I believe he's the namesake of the Knowles Nelson stewardship grant, which I may have mentioned.

But if not, I will I will share again because it's been has been a huge impact for the city of La Crosse. Has not been funded this year and will run out of funding at the June, I believe, if not June. And both the assembly and the senate have are have ended their session. So unless something unless they can pull themselves together, it's likely gonna run out of money, or it's gonna be discontinued in in the summer. So that's a a huge loss, but, yeah, just a side note related to mister Nelson.

Okay. On the terms on the subject of the communications plan, I think I've brought up already that we've gotten some good data sources, and we are putting together a workshop, in May for staff people, that would be implementing the communications plan and, like, figuring out what resources they need and, what resources they can provide. So, typically, you know, staff is so, is, you know, typically at capacity with what they can handle. So the more help we can the the easier we can make it for them, the the more likely they'll be able to participate. So, yeah, we'll be working with the mayor to make sure it's a priority for him and then follow that down the the way.

We'll be developing a series of sort of mini posters, just letter size sort of posters highlighting the the different, goals that we have in our climate action plan, and we'll use those to highlight, tables at the Earth Fair. So that'll help, raise awareness about the, the action plan and or the, sorry, the communications plan and then also, the the the climate action plan itself. So, yeah, we're looking forward to putting together both both display, yeah, little mini posters for the for the booths, and then also a a handout sort of bingo card for the for the registration desk. So we'll have that ready for for Earth Fair.

That sounds great. I'm looking at the campaigns too, and I really appreciate seeing the different campaigns and then the department, the campaign, and the goals of those campaigns in the implementation rules slide, page eight. This is really well organized, and I think it'll be great for the community to be having these updates, like water use, annual water use, or diversion rates, tree canopy metrics. These are all things that people are really interested in. Don't always know where to get the information, so this will be great.

And it also just encourages engagement from staff across departments, many of whom probably want to be engaged, but, you know, staff are always just at capacity. So that's exciting. I'm excited about about this.

Yeah. I it's interesting that you brought up water use because that was really that data was really easy to find because it's in the mailer every year, but, you know, some people may ignore it. Else also, it's on page two in a little table, so it's not really the highlight of the of the document nor is it shown over time. So just in looking at the last few years of the water use, it's actually decreased at least over the last four years, I believe. So that's that's a pretty big deal.

However, when I inquired at the water department, I I didn't get a definitive answer about what what the cause was. So I think I'm gonna have to do a little bit more digging or at least, yeah, within the department and then maybe just there's something in in the in the tribune or some something in the news that we can attribute to the reduction in water use because, yeah, we wanna keep that going.

Yeah. For sure. And just starting with something as simple as water usage. Like, everybody talks about their water bill or, you know, how green their grass is, but just starting with the average water use can really gaining familiarity with that leads itself to easier conversations about other things. So when we look at storm water runoff or, you know, how much water it takes to fill pools. It all is like sorry. I know

I'm all

on I'm getting a lot of things on pools. But if we talk about how much it you know, I think it's, like, 10,000 tons of water is just being dumped from a leaking pool. So but we don't know that until we know it. So I think it's very interesting and relatable. Natalie.

Thanks. Thanks for, sharing this. I had a couple questions having I think now this is the second newsletter I've received. And my understanding is this is going out to a general public audience.

Correct?

Yes.

I I'm wondering, like, I think it's awesome that they were highlighting, like, upcoming events and relatable, like, you know, bite sized news pieces and things like that. But in terms of communicating the campaigns and the climate action plan goals, I was a little confused reading through because it read as sort of like a back end plan, like, what members of the steering committee would receive. Like, this is what we're going to do. This is what the campaign's, like, purpose is and, like, what elements of the campaign you are going to see rather than in, you know, coming months. Like, this is this is the campaign that's happening.

You know? And so I'm wondering if there was a purpose for that, aside from transparency perhaps, but, I think that the campaigns would be most effective if we, like, pick one for a time and and really, like, hammer that and and also have discrete actionable items that members of the community who are inevitably just going to be scanning this email can, like, easily click into and respond to. And I feel odd, like, saying this to to this group or or to you, Lewis, because I know we're we're working with this consultant, and these are my tips for for them. But, I also know we're paying them a lot of money to do this, and so I'm I'm hoping we can get the best out of these communication materials. I also noticed that the link to the climate action plan website is first linked at the very bottom.

So I would just encourage that to be in a button higher up or linking, like, the main banner image of the email, those sorts of things. But overall, excited to see this being rolled out. And I would also be happy to speak directly with the consultant about, some of these ideas to make these as punchy and informative as possible.

Thanks, Natalie. Natalie is excellent at marketing. I know you didn't create, dude, where's my duplex? But still, those sorts of things really do get people engaged. Louis, can you remind me, does Paul update the website, the climate action plan website?

No. He well, he he submits the website's managed by Ted. Yep. And then Paul submits, like, blog posts to it. Okay. But, yeah, we I think I I agree with what Natalie said. I just didn't I need needed more time to

Yeah. To

figure out figure it out.

I think the, like, button on the top is good too. And, also, like, as it gets going, trying to and I know we don't have totally have a dashboard really in the climate action plan website, but I'm just thinking at some point in the future, like, integrating, like, for example, the eco counter. If we could link to a public dashboard people love public dashboards. I know they're kind of a lot of work for cities in general. But if that is available or pointing to that, publicly accessible sort of data like that dashboard, I think would be good.

So not like a tomorrow thing, but just flagging for Paul and and Ted to think about as well. It's great. I'm excited. This is gonna be fantastic. Alright. If we have things to submit, is there a submission avenue? Like, if we have something to think about? Or, for example, I'm thinking about, like, time of year to talk about certain things. Of course, they're the experts, so they'll think of those too, but we're constantly learning.

Yeah. Well, I mean, April's pretty busy with Earth month.

And Mhmm.

And then you've got Arbor Day, so that would do some tree goals. But then even, like, water national worldwide water World Water Day or something like that. Mhmm. So, yes, there are there are times I think we can we've got a few. We can probably do another scour and then also kinda differentiate.

So to Natalie's point to just, like, having a consistent campaign Yeah. But if it's, like, Earth Day is the twenty second and Arbor Day is the twenty fourth, It's like I mean, I guess you could get tree messages both days. But Mhmm. Yeah. We'll have to do a little bit more be a little bit more thoughtful about that.

Yeah. For sure. And then last question for me, I see Cathy has her hand raised too. Do we have, like, QR codes anywhere for people to register? I'm just wondering about, like, we have all sorts of things in the city where we have pop ups. Like, we have pops pop ups on the website. We have pop ups to pay your utility bill. So thinking about creative places to add in, like, an opt in would be cool. On the bus. Right, Kathy? Go ahead.

Thank you for letting me speak. I just wanted to ask if in the newsletter or at the website or maybe both, there's a way for community groups or organizations that are doing related programming to get their stuff there. I'm thinking specifically of we're doing an ask me about my EV event at the Earth Fair, for example. Our transit advocates group does group bus rides to talk about the benefits of public transportation. The Sierra Club sometimes does programming.

So if there were a way for us to I it probably would have to be looked at by somebody. But if there were a way for us to share that material as part of the climate action plan, like, you can take action by doing this, that would be great. Thank you.

Thanks, Kathy. Yeah. Sort of in line with, like, my submission thought even if there's, like, a spot on the website where you could send in send in things happening in the community, something like that. Also knowing, like, everything takes a lot of staff time, and that would be up to Paul, but that would be a great addition. Alright, all.

We're at the end of our agenda. I'm just gonna peek at next month's calendar. It is the second Monday of the month, so our next meeting will be 4PM. May 11 is what I have. Alright. Thank you all for being here. If there's no objection, I will adjourn this meeting. Seeing and hearing none, we are adjourned. Thank you all. Take care.