City Council - Regular Meeting

Evening everyone. I'll call our meeting to order here in the name of the whole room at the pledge of allegiance please. To the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands under God and justice for all please Murphy present. No remote electronic attendance. Public comment.

No, your honor. Thank you. Any questions on the agenda? Adjustments. We'll begin with our roundt discussion 7.1 environmental resiliency plan progress update and discussion. Taking it over.

Well, good evening everybody. I'm just going to introduce Blue Strike um who is here visiting uh for the week doing um engagement, community engagement. Um we've done a steering committee meeting. We've done a public meeting. We had an environmental focus group today and we gave them a tour around Molen this afternoon. Um so I'm happy to have them here to present the update. Uh we have Anna Bugan Kova and Rich Swanson and they'll be giving you the update and discussion. Thank you.

Is there a mic? Is there a mic? Is there a microphone, David? Okay. You guys have to speak up, I guess.

All right, I'll do my best. Um, thanks for thank you for the introduction, Don. And good evening, everybody. Thank you so much for being here today. Um, as Lauren mentioned, we're here visiting this time for community engagement, for staff engagement, and we had a great city tour today. Thank you so much for the project team, Don, Denver, Jennifer, and Ashley showing us around. Um, we wanted to do a quick update on the environmental resiliency plan today and have have a couple of questions for discussion. So, quick introduction. My name is Anova. I've been working with Dhan and rest of my team for a couple of months on the environment plan and I'm here with Rich Swanson.

Hello. Nice to meet you everyone. So for today, for today's agenda, um we're going to start with the plan. I believe we gave a quick update earlier in the project, but wanted to remind everybody where we're at today. So we're going to remind everybody what environmental seal planning is. Then do a quick overview of greenhouse gas emissions inventories. Tell you what those inventories are, how they can be used in the future. Then talk about the project framework, give a recap of community and staff engagement, um mention vulnerability assessment and then dive into some of the discussion questions that we have prepared. So first is um environmental resiliency planning and you know what what it is and you know it's essentially balance between environment economy and society you can come up here and speak if you want to

it's okay I got the slides here the issues but anyway so like what is environmental resiliency planning so essentially one of the considerations that The name here is balancing environment, economy and society and taking into account all of the other such as economic development addressing various issues that you have for the city. Um it's responsible resource management. So essentially about that our resources are not finite. How do we manage resources in a responsible way while serving communities equally which is the next bullet point equity and inclusion? How do we distribute independents equally across all members of the community? Um it's reduction of emissions and environmental impacts which we're going to talk a little bit more when we talk about greenhouse gas inventories. But with initiatives such as renewable energy transportation, reduction of fossil fuels, energy efficiency programs, how can we reduce emissions and reduce environmental impacts as well? And lastly, it's, you know, it's more kind of like a vision bullet here is meeting today's needs while stewarding resources for future generations. How can we preserve the city? How can we make it better for future generations? Um, so here's an overview of deliverables of the plan and this is a kind of about a high level overview here. But first bullet is emissions inventory with baseline data and forecasts. So understanding what our biggest sources of emissions are, where they come in from, how can we address those sources of emissions. Um, next deliverable is a communitywide framework addressing local and regional challenges. So the framework is essentially what we're going to be using to build strategies for this plan and understanding what are the sectors that we need to address in this project. Vulnerability assessment, identifying

major threats and hazards. It's essentially an assessment that will also guide our development of the strategies understanding what are the biggest threats for your community environmental climate related stress nonclimate related stress stressors and how we can be mindful of those stressors while designing initiatives for this plan. The perhaps the biggest part of this of this plan and deliverables will be pollution reduction and resilience strategies for all of the sectors that we're going to be talking about today. It's essentially coming up with a road map, identifying first of all biggest issues that we want to address and then creating a road map to address those issues that will then be supplemented by a comprehensive plan with funding sources, identifying your sources. But we need various milestones and and timelines and and tracking metrics for us to be able to track success successes of the initiatives of the plan. Um and so here is a project progress overview. Uh so we wanted to give everybody a sense of the timeline. So the project started in July last year and for the first couple of months essentially what we've been doing is collecting data from your utilities collecting data um from different plans more lean based plans county plans statewide plans and understand what is being pursued at the moment and how we can integrate your existing initiatives in this plan to make sure that it's supplemental to the work that you're already doing and what kind of initiatives we can come up with in the future. And right now we are in the stage of community outreach and engagement. So we're hoping to end this phase at the end of March or at the end of February. And then starting from March that will be kind of like a you know a place where we put together all of the feedback that

we have gathered from community and stakeholder engagement, vulnerability assessments, greenhouse gas inventories, combining all of these findings and designing strategies for this plan. And the end goal for this plan is adoption at in June 2026. So, so here's a quick overview of the greenhouse gas inventories um that we talked about earlier. So, essentially what are greenhouse gas inventories? It's essentially like a framework and um a study to understand what are the biggest sources of emissions in your community, what sectors they're coming from and kind of understanding the scale of these emissions. And I want to highlight that this is still work in progress. We're still working on refining those inventories. So the results might not be final here. So we'll be potentially making changes to those, but I just want to highlight it before we uh jump ahead with those. But essentially that's a preliminary breakdown of what emissions will normally look like and what community scale inventory means. It means sources of emissions that come from all sectors residential, commercial, industrial, it accounts for everything that happens within the city boundaries. And like we see here on the screen is electricity is one of the primary sources of emissions. Um so this information will be used to to figure out what strategies we need to prioritize and want to prioritize strategies to address emission reduction in the electricity sector. Then it's followed by transportation and fossil fuel sectors. Fossil fuels in this case will be primarily natural gas. So what it can what it can tell us is do we want to focus on electrification? do some of energy efficiency initiatives to be able

to reduce some of this fossil fuel usage. Um and then we also have smaller sectors such as solid waste and water that you can see on the screen here. So essentially what it does this is an overview of emissions within one year. In this case it's 2024. And these emission studies can be done um every so often understanding what are the trajectories of the of the current city's initiatives, how emissions can be reduced down the road. Um and that essentially gives us a perspective and a baseline to start with so we can measure progress down the road. And then on this slide you can see another inventory which is specifically for municipal operations. and municipal operations includes all city- owned facilities. And um the breakdown here looks a little bit different. So you can see still energy electricity accounts for the biggest sector of emissions here followed by transportation, fossil fuels and and commuting. So again this inventory will be informing the strategies as well and also gives us a baseline to be able to track progress in the future. And this inventory is also preliminary. We are conducting further studies to understand the exact emission sources and understand exact emission amount. Um so these results might change because this is a preliminary metric so far that I'll pass to you.

Great. Thank you Anna. Um before I dive into this I just wanted to pause and see if anybody has any questions about what's already come or Yeah. I just thought of this. I didn't see the numbers on the back few slides. What percentage of the total emissions are generated by the city? About 3%. Okay, that's a small small amount. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh which is fairly typical for US communities. Um you know it's about you ranges between two and 4%.

Um they are significant. One of the reasons that we carve them out to measure them is because unlike the rest of emissions that happen within the city boundaries, you have some sort of direct control. So there are direct initiatives that government can put in place to kind of control its own or reduce its own. um you know sometimes there are uh pilots that can be done with municipal facilities and properties that help accelerate things into the community. So it is a it's a strategic segment but yeah a small segment. Yeah.

Um I just have a question um for the community um scale is there a breakdown between like residential and um business or manufacturing or is there a way to measure that or we get to that? Uh there is a way to measure that. Sometimes the utilities won't um they'll they'll usually give you big chunks. Sometimes they don't break it down between commercial and industrial. Uh but we do have data I think that is residential versus commercial. Yeah.

Yeah. James, so I was just looking at this and where like we have 70% of our emissions is coming from electricity. So if we were to make a change saying to something I mean wouldn't we be trying to push more into the electricity bucket like is even though that's the most of our emissions is like what's the best emissions because I don't believe it's zero it's going to be possible.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question. So, you know, if you're burning natural gas or any other fossil fuel, your emissions are going to be the same whether you you know, you're they're going to be the same today or tomorrow. The same natural gas is going to produce the same amount of emissions. That's not true for electricity. Uh because it is possible though difficult sometimes it's possible to remove carbon from the mix of generation activities that are producing that electricity. uh you can go from coal to hydropower, you can go from natural gas, you know, to wind and solar. And so because those moves are possible, uh there's a big push for electrification of natural gas equipment into electricity. So that's one part of the answer I think uh to your question. The other is there are substitutes, local substitutes for um grid level electricity where that might have a mix of coal and natural gas that's driving up emissions from your electricity. You can do rooftop solar. You can do local solar like the new plant that uh you have going in town. Um so things like that will also reduce that electricity number um in terms of overall emissions. Yeah. So there's a couple different ways that you kind of approach that. So part of my job is to sit on the B-state regional transportation commission and we review the exceedences in air quality like every year and they've been particularly sensitive recently because of the wildfires that keep happening to Canada and then all of that stuff coming here and impacting our numbers. How much of any of that kind of consideration of what's outside of our control is part of your meth?

Yeah, that's a great question. So that's none of that is reflected here. Okay. Um this would all be drivers of emissions from within city borders. Yeah. Um then but there is something now close that's proposed. I just saw a story this morning, a power plant in Scott County. Um is that that's just across the river something that would impact these numbers in some way? Uh possibly. So what kind of power plant is it? Not sure. Um, so wherever Mid American buys their power, those are impacting that electricity sector there. So if if they're I mean just looking at that percentage and as Anna mentioned, we're kind of

making sure that all these things are right and kind of vetting the results. But if that number stays true, that means that Mid-Americ is buying, you know, a lot of carbon in with their electricity. So, it's got a lot of natural gas, maybe some coal. Uh, and we're kind of digging into what their sources of generation are to kind of try to figure that out. But, but if if that plant is a Mid-Americ plant because that's who supplies boline, then yes, it would impact the these numbers. It's in the news today. Yeah. Yeah. That's uh that's interesting. Great.

Uh well, great. Thank uh thank you for those good questions. Um An mentioned this project framework and I want to orient you just a little bit to this because this is an important component of how the plan is structured and how uh ideas get filtered into and distributed throughout the the plan. So what we've done is we've worked with the project team Don and and uh the rest of the team to find categories into which strategies will be parsed. So you can see those strategies on the or those categories on the slide. Energy and buildings, transportation and mobility, resource management, resilience and adaptation has to do with that sort of resilience component uh of how the climate might be impacting Molen rather than the other way around. And then the innovative community column or uh category is things like engagement and education, equity and access. Um some perhaps partnerships, new partnerships that can be developed, those would tend to fall into that bucket. So um this is you could think of these as chapters in the plan. Um and within each one of these what we'll do is we'll develop uh very straightforward goals then strategies that will hopefully achieve those goals and then finally action steps that support those particular strategies. So they come in this kind of three tiered uh method um goals, strategies and actions. Uh so with increasing specificity as we move through that uh framework.

You guys are all pretty familiar with that, right? Yeah.

Yeah. We all went to the same consulting seminar probably. Um so I want to talk just a little bit about stakeholder engagement. Anna uh mentioned that uh we have been involved in that and are here uh even this week doing that. uh two community workshops, one in person and and one virtual. Uh the steering committee has been super helpful. Uh we met with them yesterday for I think either the second or third time and uh super helpful in giving us guard rails and and sort of keeping us on track. Um obviously these council presentations are a big part of it and getting feedback from you as leaders of the community. um that that's uh very pivotal uh opportunities for us. We met with the environmental committee focus group today. Um fantastic group, super engaged. Uh everybody talked and offered input and so that was uh a really good time. Then we're also doing a number of surveys there. You can see we have a community survey that's out right now and then a few other surveys that are coming. Um you may already know about this but the uh that logo over there on the right hand side this was developed through a competition that we did with your middle schools and high school and uh Lana R uh a freshman at Molen High School won the competition and so this was her design and then I think our graphic designer sort of worked with it a little bit and and got it into a reproducible format like that. Um but anyway, uh she did a great job and and so that's kind of part of of what we did. Um and then we also mentioned this vulnerability assessment. Wanted to dive in just a little bit to this. This would uh a lot of these activities would come in that resilience and adaptation uh chapter or category. So you can see

across the top there are three climate threats then climate stressors and then what we call nonclimate stressors those are are sort of the infrastructure that works with and uh you know goes back and forth with uh the climate impacts but flooding severe wind extreme temperature poor air quality we've identified some of those things from a city um some of the causes or things that can exacerbate those conditions are extreme preh precipitation heat, uh, temperature variability, and then, uh, Mary mentioned smoke from, you know, from even other countries. Uh, so that's part of it. And then finally, nonclimate stressors. These are some of the infrastructure that might be impacted and impact, uh, those climate events. So, uh, we've delivered a draft of this and and, um, you know, are iterating just a little bit with, uh, the project team on that. Uh, so, uh, the next slide here, we're going to get into a couple discussion questions. So, let me just pause once again and see if there are any questions about some of this stuff. And yeah,

so also in the news very recently was our inclusion basically smack dab in the new tornado alley. And so I've thought quite a bit about our, you know, suspended electricity and internet, all of that. Um, just wondering if you guys had thought about that yet as you're putting that draft together.

Um, so we have so we have read about sort of the new tornado alley and and what that means. We haven't gotten into much assessments in terms of redundancy for some of the major infrastructure which you know would include certainly electricity supply. Um you know we were at your water and wastewater treatment plants and of course you know if something were to happen there that would uh you know be a provide a big impact uh there as well. Uh those are probably not quite as susceptible but uh still um so yes we are taking a look at some of those things. um you know the in the the electricity uh hopefully Mid-Americ who I believe owns your distribution wires is that right um you know hopefully they're sort of on top of things uh but it would be interesting I think to look at where you are in the feeder system and and uh you know kind of where the distribution lines come in in terms of redundancy and at least just check those things out because a conversation with M with um I almost said Miss America with um uh mid mid America. Mid America see out there, right? Um a conversation with Mid America uh you know may be advantageous just to see what the city could do and how you could partner.

Thank you. Anyone else? Let's continue.

All right. So, we have a couple of questions. Uh the first one is just if you project to the future here, you know, June comes around and you hear you've been hearing about some of the specificity in the plan. What's uh what ideas have been bubbling up from the community? But when the environmental resiliency plan is successfully finished, what do you think will be different in Molen? Uh another way to ask this is if this is a very successful project, what will it change here in Molen? Are you asking about plan completion or plan implementation?

I'm just asking about what's different in the city as a result. So it could be either of those things, our whole like how we do infrastructure. Okay. Right. Great. I mean that's it's huge. The expense is huge when it has to be rebuilt. So are we using the right size pipes for the storm water etc. Right. for bigger storm events and all of that kind of thing. And obviously, we want to provide some kind of energy cost reduction if we can. It's not just about the cleanliness. I mean, I'll be practical about the money. Yeah.

You know, and all of those kinds of things is will people be able to feel it in some way making a difference in the play? Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's great. you know, can the community bounce back faster uh from these events? Uh you know, are there cost savings? Can we identify those benefits um for the city? Yeah, great. Maybe some uh landscaping, rain, um what are they called? Rainard.

Gardens. Thank you. Rain gardens. So, our downtown would look different. Um, could there be more solar panels and buildings? Um, just different types of gardens I guess thinking what it might look like.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, a a more sort of environmentally engaging uh downtown area and perhaps other areas as well. And um uh yeah, I like the clean energy reference as well. you know, perhaps uh solar powered municipal buildings and um I know you had a study done not too long ago that at least in theory provided, you know, uh supply that could equate to demand. So that was uh quite interesting. Yeah, Dan.

So I I see the city leading by example. If you look at like the fire station or other municipal buildings, if we're working on energy efficiency or if it's storm water, you know, best management practices, then, you know, we talked today about education and outreach that carries over to our residents um with the plan. So maybe they have rain gardens or maybe they want to start biking to work or, you know, any of the other things that our residents can do because that's the city that we are. Yeah, I like Yeah, I like that a lot. And and it kind of gets to the the demonstration or the lead by example that uh you know that the city can do pave the way or show the way for for residents.

I was just going to just say that um we're protecting the future really too. We are leaving a better place for you know residents children and making sure that they are left in a spot where they can you know kind of continue. So I think that that is big thing of what I'm hoping.

We drove around and saw your beautiful parks, your beautiful waterfront today and yeah, great to preserve that for uh for the next generation. So um that's great when it comes to implementation and perhaps even barriers to implementation. We did have a couple of questions uh here and the first one is just this um what recurring concerns might you hear most often from staff and residents? What do you hear that kind of bubbles up? Cost fixes. How much does this cost? How taxes and fees? Just the resistance to change even if it's good for you.

I would combine those. We talk about permeable uh surfaces for concrete. It's not cheap. It's better. It's better long-term. It's better for the environment, but we want quick and fast instead of good. Yeah. I think that's a human problem. But but this is a when we talk about infrastructure, why would we want one mile when we could have three at the same cost? Yeah, for sure. No, that's definitely a concern. And uh yeah something that you all and we are are certainly mindful of

you know I think one thing to be aware aware of in this question category is also it's not I I mentioned resistance to change it's that's normal too that's a human problem but it also it's the ability to accept that doing something a new way can be good

right that just because we're the first ones to try something doesn't make us crazy, right? It doesn't mean we shouldn't do it because no one else is doing it. It's that what does it get move us toward? And I was talking with staff who are involved in a special project with me and I'm pretty much now obsessed with a new way of um of grading a city's like justice and equity and all of these kinds of things it as the ability to thrive.

So that's what I really hope comes out of this is how do we move mindsets to understanding that thriving means x y and z for a city and the residents. Yeah, I love that. That's great. You need to do a lot of ad. You need to have a lot of videos that you know you do this, you do that wins to show success. Love that because people are less rational than emotional.

Yeah, D. So, it's hasn't been a recurring concern I've heard, but today what one of the things that stood out was a discussion around um our trees. We've done a great job of, you know, with planting more trees every year, but the we have a lot of older trees. Homeowners have a lot of dead trees in their yard. So, when we're talking about being in tornado alley, we know what happened during the great show that um that's something that with severe weather I think we need to keep an eye on, right? Yeah, I think that's that really goes into that resilience and adaptation component of uh you know and and there were a couple of interesting ideas I thought even this morning, you know, in terms of plans and city partnerships and financing arrangements that uh might help with removal of of some of those, you know, particularly ones that are in, you know, places where it might be very dangerous. But um yeah, I think that's I think that the discussion was around homeowners that the cost is so much and so um they've got dead trees in their yard that are waiting to fall on their neighbors.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so the idea was I think to like kind of for the city to maybe like hire somebody and then bill back via like the utility bill a certain percentage like over a period of time to pay that back. assessment formulas that I would welcome more discussion that because it's

I think it's likely concern. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Well, uh we've Yeah. Now made an additional note to that and I I think that you know it sounds like that is a pretty big concern. I I will point out too, I think the flip side of this and it talks about resiliency also is younger trees that can take on some of the water burden during floods. Um I as I post these old postcards of the city what it looked like then and now and there was a comment today on the old Elks Lodge just across the street from wherever we are. Yeah. And

I saw that was cool. Yeah. Oh, hey. Um, someone said, um, it's funny what is what a few wellplaced trees can do because we used to have uh elm trees all over the city. All these old pictures, trees abound and then Dutch elm came and just flattened the entire city of trees. And I think like that is a good uh uh strategy not only to prevent flooding issues, help clean the air and absorb a lot of that water and rainfall. Uh just to really focus on planting the right trees and a good diverse stock so that we're not wiped out with one.

Yeah. With one Yeah. with one light. Yeah. Uh well that that that's great. Uh those are fantastic ideas. Let me move to this second question. And it just says what conditions would set this plan up for successful implementation. So uh Abdur you mentioned you know sort of education and quick wins and you know publicizing things. Uh so that would certainly fall in that category. What other conditions do you think would help us set up for success? Yeah. I think bouncing off that it's just communication in general and explaining the why behind what we're actually doing and how it's going to benefit

the not just you know the city but how is it going to benefit you as a homeowner or you as a resident um of mulling I think sometimes a lot of times everyone's just worried about like themselves and how it's going to affect me personally um so yes it's going to help bullying but it's also going to help you in this these ways by increasing your property value or high, you know, you're going to be able to bounce back from a storm quicker or I think that just the education is really important. That's great. Yeah, that's that's great. Highlighting benefits that really are, you know, everybody can enjoy um they're they're enjoying it very broadly. Uh yeah,

I think something that will be important is making sure that staff and council have an understanding of how to sort of assess those tools and understanding how much of an impact is that making why are we picking this route versus others kind of weighing how to weigh that cost and the benefit against it. Um I think you know it's because we'll understand what that is and like the big picture right of course it's like okay more trees is good we know that but like saying oh if we can push this and this is the most cost effective way to do it versus this is the biggest impact or this is going after your biggest problem sort of being able to help frame that um from a process perspective that makes it easier for us to justify it here and explain it to the

yeah that's great thank you appreciate that I think when need to create buy in through groups that currently exist with younger generations. So the high school has a green mine club I believe um more than one club that could be connected with. The park board has a youth advisory board. The library has a youth advisory board. I mean

that is exactly what we want for them to have experiences and to make an impact and have their voices heard. they talk about all this environmental stuff in school. Like let's give them a chance to um see it in application, right? And and then also we're just creating um more of a vision for the future as opposed to just meeting the need right now. Yeah. Maybe maybe some of those action steps, you know, would be tied in with school activities where they could be the implementers and, you know, and that there could be sort of a steady diet of that over time.

Um, I I think one of the cool things about having students involved is, you know, students sort of they they can kind of affect their parents and kind of recruit them into the process. And uh, you know, I know that's happened to me in various, you know, various categories. So, uh, it definitely is. Yeah, it definitely happens. I think

partner organizations and um well, thanks staff. I think we had at the focus group today a lot of the right people at the table of partner organizations that were interested in supporting us whether that's like being stewards of Green Valley or soil and water participating in rain garden programs for homeowners. But um I think that would help set us up to be successful to have partner organizations that can help us implement elements of the plan. Yeah. Fantastic. And and they can recruit their friends and you know their networks into it and and that's a great avenue for education and everybody else seeing the benefits. Um uh yeah, fantastic. Um yeah,

I just have one last thing and I want to say it and I don't know if I should or not, but I think that um kind of along with council knowing um how to frame things. I think that we need to make sure that the message that we get to media is the same as well to make sure they're telling the story this the right story and telling the story the way we need them to instead of like having like maybe focusing on something completely different or having a different headline that doesn't happen. Right. I mean, sometimes the way that it's reported in the media or social media, it's different than what the actual is. So, just making sure that the messaging to them and that they're getting that right message out. How do we control that?

I know we can't control it, but just

about Yeah. Well, and we talk about education. the education could be in within uh say the rain gardens. I believe uh one of the best examples I saw was in DC where it showed you like little diagrams of how the water flows, where it goes, and what it actually does. Uh and nobody told me it was just right there. It had the pictures. Um and so anybody who walks by sees this thing and there's an explanation as to what it is. So um that right there you script the media you keep skip like groups or whatever whoever is in front of these u these things could be educated as to how they work. So

yeah same thing could be done with solar or uh where you plug in your car you know all these things so all those could be opportunities to educate people. Yeah, fantastic. Um, okay, great. Well, I will, um, I'm gonna, uh, ask this question. Is that my computer? No, someone joining. Okay, someone started the meeting. Um, sorry.

Uh, if you don't mind. Oh, yeah. Great. Or I guess I can control it here. Uh uh so the third one, and I'm going to turn this over to Anna to kind of facilitate this, but what barriers have historically made it difficult to move, uh resilience or sustainability projects forward? I mean, I think we've heard a couple of them. You know, kind of resistance to change, cost barriers, uh you know, things like that. But if there are other perhaps more nuanced or kind of deeper in the weeds items, um you know, we'd love to make note of those things as well, just to be aware. Um so yeah um you know in terms of the barriers that sort of made difficult to move resil project projects forward. I mean it could be you know some of the examples I think already came up during this discussion sounds like you know education maybe lack of knowledge is sounds like that could be one of the um the barriers in this case and you know that's something for us to know to address in this plan are there any other examples like that

I think money is always the biggest one but um I think staff development can be a piece of that puzzle too like there's been times and I had approached and talked about it and everyone's like, "We love that idea." But that's entirely different from the way we handle it now. And now I've got to get trained up and then I have to keep on enough staff to do it both ways because some infrastructure is one way and some isn't. So like it'd be really easy if it's just a new thing, but to transition like we talked about like reservoir kind of things trying to go into a using a prairie method instead of a big concrete slab, but that's just a whole different process. And so working through that and how to develop a staff that we could eventually that is challenging.

Local government regulations often time government. You'll hear in the private sector as much as you hear it in the public sector that impacts every project that we do, you know, and then there's the state regulations on top of that which sometimes prevent you from achieving what you're trying to do here. So, I mean, that's that's definitely a hint that's been out there and it's been out there forever. Locally, we might be able to make changes for smart growth purposes, right? We have an opportunity to do that with a comprehensive plan. That's certainly the time to be talking about smart growth and what we're going to do, you know, not only internally with the built environment that we have, but when the future environment we want to build south of the airport, whatever that might be, you know, and we're going to set a great example for down by the riverfront, you know, you know, with the geothermal that we're planning on putting in and, you know, not putting in concrete or asphalt or putting in the traditional old street surfaces down there. It's going to be a model actually of what's possible and it becomes the educational center.

Yeah. You know for future not just of Wayne but those people here in Guad cities and around us are beautiful. Yeah. But these are interconnected and like regulation could also create hurdles that that just becomes a loop. Well speaking of regulation I think the being brave enough to create a regulation that changes behavior is historically a barrier. I mean, five years ago, just about a a former older person um who's no longer with us uh wanted to just up and just ban plastic bags, right? That would change behavior.

But the inability to see what the replacement behavior could be and could it be equitable for everyone, right? Like, does everyone have enough money for the canvas bags they need? Do we give up enough other bags which sometimes are made of plastic as well, right? You know, at all these events where people could have enough like there those layers of bravery basically that you have to work through to actually create a regulation that actually changes behavior.

I think it's, you know, we haven't moved on that idea. This is when we talk about resilience and sustainability projects. For some reason in our culture, these are viewed through a culture war lens and either viewed as based on fake science or waste of money or just you're just doing this because you know corruption, right? Your friend is a bike lanes.

Give me bike lanes, right? Yeah. great example the um but so like the public I don't know what the percentage is but there isn't a big enough amount that are vocal against anything green because they don't believe it or they don't think it works or what's wrong with you know gas coal and gasoline because it's been working for a hundred years and so just and this comes back to resistance to change but also not trusting the education or the the the mouthpieces and so I think that trust might just it comes down to trust at that point. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's like trust and you know we talk about education lack of education is a barrier but then another barrier on top of that is like trust and I wonder the a potential solution and kind of a way to address that like what are the sources that these particular groups trust like are there sources like that and how can we find them how can we partner with those sources to be able to address these communication barriers and you know education barriers

so I mean that's you know something else to think about. But also, you know, you mentioned community could be against anything green and there are ways to communicate some initiatives related to sustainability in um in the same language like cost savings are interesting to everyone presumably. So there are ways to package it a little bit differently to not bring out the environmental side of things, right?

I think just generally the economy has an impact I keep coming back to the homeowners that if they were to implement projects to make their homes more energy efficient or if there to take care of their you know right now we're in a time where many families are struggling right to pay bill with groceries and all those things. So a lot of these things either at the municipal level or homeowners are they they come at a great cost. Yeah. So um that will matter. But if a tree crashes into their house also a great just like a medical emergency that you can't pay the insurance for and there it is. That's what so

the gamble they're gambling. Yeah. So, but I I did on that note, I wanted to point out somebody in the focus group pointed out the workshops CDC is doing that to help home own home six at their house or how that might piggy back on um education around upgrades to make homes more energy efficient, different practices. I thought that was a good idea.

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's definitely and I mean yeah, there are always tradeoffs and I guess that's why we're having these conversations to understand what tradeoffs are that make sense in certain context versus not. So I think that you know as a human being we are always interesting being and we are always want to have a immediate result for anything and immediately we think oh will it benefit me oh yeah even if it is penny I will go for that but as far environmental issue is concerned it has a longterm effect you have to you have to wait for long time to have a good result. That's why it is not easy to implement. It is not easy to make the people understand. That's the main issue.

Yeah, definitely. And and I think the even harder part of it is like different people have different languages they speak in terms of, you know, what resonates with them. And I think it's it's very different to everyone. in different groups. So that's definitely a barrier.

Another challenge I see is that the fact we're part of the plant cities. So there's multiple cities all around us. So anything we do might be all great here, but we're still surrounded by other cities that could be shine away from these kind of uh things. don't really if somebody say we do ban uh bags well somebody might just go to the rock highland or baseball to shop because they want the bags and they really need some or whatever and that's just one little example I think you do need to have a bigger buy in beyond just us um biggest cities in the world that like take they take big steps when they do this they implement big plans they'll do gardens up just bridges and all these things but they do a massive plan and it's a large area so it has a big effect. I just think our size um that's a challenge especially being around in like different counties the different state all of that and also they have a negative effect too.

Yeah. And they voice their opinion too even if they don't live here right. So challenge Are there any other notes about barriers or challenges?

I have one more discussion question here is um this is the last one for today is what are the top three initiatives you would like to see as a part of this plan? Doesn't have to be three. It also be four, five or less. So I encourage everybody to be you know, as ambitious or unambitious on you as we want because you were saying that sometimes you need to be brave and you know, propose something new or exciting. So, welcome initiatives like that or examples like you might have seen in other communities. Doesn't have to be feasible. We just want your input um on this one to understand what everybody's thinking about. just I have an idea where I want that initiative to be like I have an idea of what I want to accomplish and then I think the initiative itself will have to be coming from the plan but I would love to see us finding ways to incorporate more natural solutions into our infrastructure. I mean I gave the example of using um a prairie instead of a big basin u brought up the using like rain gardens to capture those. I would love to see us able to move something like that forward and having a way to build that plan. It has been complicated and hard to make happen.

We can put green space in the center of roundabouts and then we don't rely on electricity for traffic lights. All the benefits of that. Just saying we, you know, it's it's an idea. butterfly gardens, pollinator gardens in the south. If I if I say main water, is that too overarching? Like our rivers and water like that would be a tough.

Yeah, there's a lot of options there. Like I mean I think that's good to know like what you're thinking about in general as a priority, but if you have specific examples or bring projects you want to share with us. I'll leave it that big today. We'll have to think about that one. Yeah, I'd like to see more residential solar powering city the city using more solar going forward.

I'd like to see the resiliency piece since we know bad weather events are coming. I don't ever remember what they're called, but I brought it back to you from a US Conference of Mayors. like these like battery pack type places like where that they're storing energy whenever there's not a problem and then and then you can go there and like charge your phones and I mean resiliency center yes a resiliency hub resiliency hub

resilienc yeah something like what are we going to do we can't just depend on mid America to help us bounce back quickly and whatever their plans are. We can have resiliency hubs scattered throughout the city um where people can go and get some of what they need. I I would ambitious would love our city to be organized in such a way that we do not rely so much on fossil fuels to meet basic needs. Okay. And so that can be multimodal, it can be public transit, it can be bringing services closer to homes

so that we're not it it's a large contributor to greenhouse gas. And I think like building a city that is conducive to that would be ideal. Definitely. Um I wanted to follow up on something you said about resiliency hubs. Um something like the idea was circulated as you know cooling warming shelters uh which essentially like in various like know extreme weather events would serve as these kind of hubs but we didn't even think as far as having them as places where people can go and even charge their phones or you know in case of Colorado

I mean the economic devastation when people can't get on the internet and conduct their business from home right right or they have to drive maybe they maybe their cars total by a tree that fell on it, right? They have to go somewhere where there is the internet. Whatever we can do to get people back online faster, that's where I think those resiliency hubs are would be an essential component. Um, and of course, like you can't have the whole town descend on just a few hubs. Yeah. But but we can come up with systems where okay, you get to use it from this time to this time or whatever it is or we build enough of them at the right size in the right places that we can spread it out across the city. Well,

it's just something I came across that we haven't been able to explore yet because we didn't get to this place yet collectively.

Okay, is that it? got another presentation tonight. That's it from us. Thank you so much everybody. Appreciate your questions and and thank you very much. We'll move to our comprehensive plan progress update Johnson collaborative having to reach here. Okay. We've been having some connection issues. So, we're just going to try and get them to join here.

There you go. All right. There they are. So, we've got LJC on the line here. Um, thank you for having us here to give you an update on our comprehensive plan. Um, as you know, and Bob has said a couple times, our date that we're highlighting is November of this year to adopt this plan. So, LJC is here, uh, Leslie Roth with LJC to kind of give you an update on where we're at in the process. We're about a quarter of the way through. And like any planning process, it really starts with your existing conditions, right? Finding out what the um, current setting is and then you go. So, with that, I'm going to let Leslie take it away and thank you very much.

Awesome. Thank you so much for having us. Uh, good evening everyone. My name is Leslie Roth. I'm a principal with LJC Design and Engineering. I'm joined by Holly Nolan who is an associate with LJC and the project manager on this effort. Um, we're really excited to be the prime Holton um on this contract. We love the city of Molen and have experience there previously on the Illinois 92 corridor as well as Avenue of the Cities. Today I'm going to take you through a brief uh summary of the first deliverable that we recently submitted for staff review and comment which is the existing conditions report. As mentioned, our project schedule goes through um the end of fall of this year. We are currently in the second phase of the project um which is investigating. We're just beginning to create the vision and goals for the project. Um, we have a workshop planned later in March. Um, and a number of focus group um, one-on-one interviews with area stakeholders, leaders, and champions in the community to begin to gather community voice that will be added to that second document. In phase three, we will begin to compile um what we've heard through public engagement activities um the existing conditions report to create key recommendations which will form the basis and foundation of the comprehensive uh plan update draft plan and in the last phase of the project this last phase of the project this fall um we will finalize the comprehensive plan. Um as I've mentioned public engagement is not considered a phase by this consultant team. This is something that we will continue to build on throughout the process. We also have an advisory committee that Oh, I'm not sharing screen. Sorry about that.

No, you're welcome. Just talking away. You're easy to follow, Leslie. You're doing great. How about now? Yep, we're good.

Okay. Thank you, Hie. Sorry about that. It's better with visual. Um we as I mentioned public engagement will run throughout the duration of this process. We also have um an advisory or steering committee uh uh that will that uh will meet with our consultant team and review deliverables um at the end of each one of the phases to provide review and comment. So I'll give you a brief summary of the existing conditions report. um when we've uh set out to review the body of past planning um that the city has done as well as uh analyze a number of different data sets and on the ground conditions in the city of Molen. Um we really wanted to make sure that we were not making people repeat themselves or regurgitating information that you've seen before. We also wanted to make sure that we were not including information that was not useful to the city moving into the future. So the existing conditions report really begins to identify gaps in planning um reports, plans um and geographies within the city and it also looks at important data sets that will help shape the future of the city that we thought needed to bubble to the top to make sure that we um included as we move forward with this year-long process. So in chapter one, this is an introduction to the city. Um we did do a brief history. We thought that this was important in level setting what the city has accomplished. Um what the city is built on, what the city is really proud of the successes and also identifying what those challenges are. We also wanted to identify what some of the opportunities are. What is Molen doing really really well? What are areas that we want to highlight that we want to lift up and the direction that we want

to keep moving in? Um, but there's also opportunity for course correction in areas that this we recognize the city needs to address before moving into the future and fulfilling um its promise as a a strong city in the in the Quad Cities and in the region. So this chapter really begins to set the table for the planning contact and where Molen is today. We also have already started community engagements. I mentioned we have a workshop coming up um in March and um this part of the of this first deliverable talks about the kind of plan that we wanted to that we plan to implement in terms of public engagement. Um the city has done a lot of planning in the last few years. We understand that there could be a little bit of planning fatigue. So, this process is really uh focused on elevating voices that have not been elevated in previous planning processes. We're being really intentional about um having underrepresented participation, youth, um non-English speakers, as well as um helping people understand the status of the city um and identifying key themes um to make sure that we have thought leadership um and those that are interested, giving them a place to participate within this process. Chapter two is the community profile. Um this really begins to identify the city's um neighborhood features, community assets, um gathering places, um and identification of civic, historic, and institutional uh landmarks within the city. This chapter also talks a lot about Loline's um character, understanding the industrial heritage, as well as lifting up um citywide anchors that are really important to the city's future as well. If you squint

your eyes at this map on the right, um you'll see that not the entirety of the city is covered with community assets. That's the big takeaway from this chapter is beginning to understand where there are gaps in service or where there are gaps in quality of life amenities and beginning to address those later on down the line throughout the comprehensive planning process. Chapter 3 um an uh re reviewed dozens of past plans um and reports as well as a number of concurrent and ongoing plans. Um one of them you just heard uh earlier this evening. Um we think these are really important in shaping the future of the city as well as informing recommendations in the comprehensive plan. Um as I mentioned before, we really don't want this to be a waste of everyone's time. We want to make sure that relevant components, elements, recommendations, and strategies from those class past plans and reports are part of the comprehensive plan. This update will also give legs to those previous plans to make sure that um we're all pointed into the direction of the plans that are still relevant um so that we can breathe new life into some of those plans that may have sat on the shelf. There's also an opportunity in this chapter to uh review common themes across planning efforts so that again we're not duplicating uh past actions and planning processes but we're really identifying where that alignment exists. This timeline shows you um a brief snapshot of some of the plans that we reviewed. When we went through this presentation with the steering committee, we actually learned of about seven other plans that we will incorporate into this chapter as well. Many of the plans have already been adopted. Many of the plants are already in use by um city departments by NOS's um by partner or and sister

organizations in the city by other nonprofit organizations or others in the city that um find these plans to be useful even when they are not adopted. So this was a really important part of um identifying how we wanted to move forward and which direction we wanted to move forward thinking about the next phase of the project. uh envision and goals. Chapter 4 started to get into demographic and socioeconomic trends. We reviewed the existing population of Molen, what some of those key demographic trends were that we were seeing. We reviewed the existing labor force and understanding which market sectors are um where that workforce is distributed. Um we also looked at how city of Molen compared to its neighbors in the Quad City as well as the region as a whole. We reviewed population change within the city and as you can imagine Molen is um fairly similar to other cities in the region and in the country in the way that it's reflecting new population and demographic trends. Um we're excited to dig into this process to understand how moling can begin to um attract and retain residents as well as understanding why residents decide to live in moling. We believe that an attraction and retention strategy can help develop the kind of workforce that will move Molen into the future. Um what goes along with housing or or what goes along with workforce um and the rest of the population and employment trends is housing of course. So we did a lay of the land in terms of physical development looking at key housing trends and we looked at actually physical development by market sector which you'll see later in this summary. Um we also wanted to understand what types of housing were available in Molen the tenure the price points and how that

really related to uh the workforce and population of the city. What we noticed in Molina is that it's a fairly diversified workforce. um there is some opportunity for additional job growth through this process. We want to begin to understand how emerging technologies, industry and future f focused workforce trends can be um part of the strategies as molen continues to grow. um and being able to define what success metrics are for the city and preparing for that um when we start looking at the uh future future economic situation of president. Chapter five focused on a market analysis. So for this one we looked at as I mentioned a variety of real estate types. Um we also not only analyzed what was um what we were seeing on the ground and what we saw in data looking backwards but we also wanted to begin to understand what future market opportunities there were in the city. So within the retail market sector we looked at not only the corridors but also opportunity for retail and and retail and commercial growth within neighborhoods. Um, we did identify several commercial corridors. Many of those you're already familiar with, but we also wanted to look at the distribution of commercial and retail development and if there were opportunities for additional uh additional development or commercial and retail trends that could be more responsive to consumers today and tomorrow. With industrial trends, we looked at where industrial development was already happening in the city as well as identifying locations in the city that may be good candidates in the future. Um, of course, we've um at LJC, we do a lot of industrial work and we have a very good understanding of um what site

selectors are looking for. So bringing that real life experience to the city will help identify what the the best practices are moving forward and how to make decisions about which types of industrial could benefit um the city in the future. For office trends um Molen is not very different than many other cities that we're seeing in the nation. Um there has not been a lot of growth in the office market and part of it as you can guess is sustained post-pandemic work from home trends um or hybrid. This is something that we're finding is um pretty sticky in terms of work for the uh workforce that we're seeing enter the market. people like to have flexibility and so understanding what types of market um what types of office uh what types of office would be successful in the city of Molen um as well as you know looking at hospitality and hotel trends what does the tourism market mean for Molen is there a way to capture um more of the attention of folks coming to the Quad Cities area and preparing the city for what that means particularly in light of new riverfront development But there's a lot more to see in the city and making sure that people are um aware of all the the places to go um and identifying if there could be new tourist destinations within the city. Chapter six of the existing conditions report focused on multimodal mobility. Um we looked at um all different types of mobility from pedestrians and bikes, trail connections, um sidewalk gaps. We looked at the bus network, transit, um, train, as well as understanding what the specific conditions of these, um, networks were that needed to be improved.

Um, safety was a big part of that analysis and beginning to understand where there's intersectionality between these modes, how we can make it more make the system more functional, efficient, and safer for all modes. Um this particular map um shows where crashes happen and you can begin to notice some patterns of where faster moving traffic along along major corridors um results in conflicts particularly with heads and bikes. Understanding this analysis will help us begin to create recommendations to improve safety throughout the network, um the roadway network, um as well as create opportunities for folks to um be able to have better connections when changing modes within the bike and transit networks. there. Um we did an analysis of uh surface frequency as well as location. Um looking at where bike facilities are. Um the next phase of the project will really begin to look at origin and destination. Where are people trying to get to? Um where would they like to go? Uh the frequency of um we know that there's a very avid bike community in the city. And so beginning to understand how to make either commuting or leisurely um just leisurely bike rides um more safe and enjoyable for everyone.

Chapter 7 focuses on land use in the city of Molen. We looked at existing land use patterns um how they were functioning. We did an overview of the zoning um the zoning ordinance. We know that you're going through an update now. Uh part of the exercise of this comprehensive plan will ensure that there is alignment and coordination between the new zoning ordinance. We also are looking at key opportunity areas. There's several areas in the city that um have a lot of potential that could potentially um that we want to look at to make sure that when we're thinking about development patterns that both land use and zoning are aligned. Throughout the course of this project, we'll be looking at a number of different sub area opportunities. These were identified with staff and the steering committee to make sure that um we were looking at areas that did have a lot of opportunity and that could be pilot or test cases for other areas of the city. Some of the elements can be shared between these sub areas and other neighborhoods, corridors or areas with similar characteristics in the city. So this will give you a very good sense of what some of the conceptual design direction could be um in in these different sub areas. Um there are several of them as you can see and many of them well all of them will have key recommendations and strategies. We will also develop a series of visualizations and renderings to visualize what the opportunities um in terms of physical environments could be um in each one of these sub areas. Chapter 8 focuses on housing. We know this is a hot topic in Boline and we're excited about digging into it more um throughout the course of this project. Um in this chapter we analyze the existing conditions of housing stock tenure, current and future housing

needs. We looked at the cost of housing. Um, we looked at the owner renter mix as well as all of the different types of units that are um, available in the market in the city of Molen as well as building permits. Um, what we notice here is that there's quite a bit of aging housing stock. Um, the city has a lot of really beautiful neighborhoods. Um, but we we know that there is not equal distribution of new construction. Um we also notice that there is an overabundance of certain types of housing and underabundance of other types of housing based on the existing conditions um of the population including household incomes in the city. So building on the data in this particular chapter, we needed to have a lay of the land to understand which direction, what questions to ask and which direction we wanted to move in to take a nuanced approach to making recommendations for housing in the city. Um we did look at affordability in terms of um based on household income. We looked at rental trends um and we looked at the rental burden cost burden as well. Again trying to understand what attainable housing means for the city. What types of housing are desired based on the demand that we're seeing in this data as well as how do we move forward and what location should that new should housing be proposed in um home value trends um was another aspect of this of the existing condition analysis. This is the home ownership um slide that we're looking at here. This is looking at how much homeowners can how much house homeowners can afford in the city of Molen as well as what their burden is um when they decide to enter the home ownership market. So understanding this helps us begin to extrapolate what reasonable price points

of housing could be in the city of Molen that could be marketable um as well as matching that to location and housing type. The third side in the housing chapter that you're seeing now just in terms of key observations looks at affordability. So now we're looking at generally subsidized housing um the location of those units um and and uh the number of those units. This is something that we always like to look at because we know different slices of the population um in communities need different things. Um so beginning to understand what the distribution of subsidized units are helps us understand um what the need is moving forward with housing recommendations. Chapter 9 focuses on parks, open space and natural systems. Um one of the things that the team loves about Molen is the ravine system and the topography. And so beginning to look at what that ecological context means for development, for recreation, and for tourism. Um, we also wanted to make sure that we're setting Molen up for a fruitful future. You we're going through the ERP process now. And so recommendations in this chapter will be coordinated with other sustainability and climate resiliency goals. We did look at topography and slope analysis. We know that all of this is related to storm events. Um the rivers, both rivers are definitely contributors to the way that the city is experienced, but also the way that um that potentially flooding and storm water events are managed. So beginning to understand that topography will help us give uh provide recommendations for appropriately responsive infrastructure.

We did look at flood risk along the rivers. Um, as you can imagine, they're they're um, you know, this those are the areas of the city that have the highest flood risk. There are some higher areas that are um less endangered, but beginning to understand how to make recommendations for development um in concert with uh what possibilities there are for um flooding within the city will help um begin to identify opportunities for green infrastructure and other other uh resiliency related measures. We also looked at parks and open space. Um there Molen is fairly well covered in parks. There are opportunities to propose new areas of gathering outside um and areas of recreation. We also want to investigate throughout the course of this project how these park areas are connected um and how each how neighborhoods are served by public parks. So this gives us a baseline to understand um where existing parks are located, what the amenities are in each one of those parks um and from a systemwide perspective if there are any gaps, what opportunities there are to ensure that all residents of Molen are able to take advantage of outside. That's the existing conditions report. I realized I went fairly quickly. Um I'm happy to answer any questions. Um we do have a workshop coming up um in March. We just secured the event. So flyers will be going out um in the coming weeks. Over the next phase of the project, which we're calling investigate, we'll be developing um vision statements for each one of the key topic areas that you saw um in the ECR as well as associated goals for each one of those. The start of that process

um will be at our public workshop. We will crowdsource some of those vision statements and goals to better understand what the priority of res of residents of Molen are and then we will um share those statements with the steering committee um and get their ideas also to make sure that as we're working through this process that we're incorporating as many voices as possible to make sure that this document is reflective of the direction that the city wants to go in. Our next steering committee meeting will be in person um in April and we will begin to investigate vision and goals at that point. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Questions from the council was very thorough. Thank you for those of you that are serving on I think that's it. Unless Fantastic. Well, we encourage you all to take a peek at the ECR. Um, you should have been uh I think a link uh was shared for that document. It's great nighttime reading. So, if you have any other thoughts about this document as we move through this process or anything else, always feel free to reach out to us. Thank you very much. Um, so we Thank you, Leslie. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Is there any further public comment this evening? Hearing none miscellaneous business. Uh just a thank you to those of you that hover for me while I've been at um mayor related duties. Uh I was a lot US conference of of mayors. Um got to present on our child care program and answer good questions from communities that haven't been able to invest like we were able to. Um and then also was able to present uh on the great river trail because the rails to trail conservancy was one of the sponsors of the mayor's innovation project and they asked me to do their little spiel so that they didn't have to do their little spiel but it was nice to be able to connect with visit cities on some of that information and with staff that had information. So thank you for going to events and um I did put up there the just city index. This is part of the program that Mr. Matias and Mr. Davies are involved with me in and the just city mayor's fellowship that I was at last week. Although those are it's like a bunch of alphabet soup that I would like to work through with folks so that um we can work on the East End revitalization project together with this common vocabulary.

I don't know how long it'll be there but there for as long as you would like it. Okay. All right. Fine. All right. So to my right, you are last. So I have nothing. Um thank you honor. Just um we Bob and I attended the um Indiana. Is it Indiana? Indiana federation. Fair contract. Thank you. Thank you. Awards and um we were given the award for best project uh for our south slope. And um so so I where it's right behind you. Open the door. You can reach it. I'll bring it out.

Bring it out. Yeah. It's supposed to go over to our uh utilities director. I haven't seen yet. I see her. She gets it.

Wastewater treatment plant. It was a project of the year. So, um I accepted on behalf of council, the staff, mayor and uh yeah, but it was a good event. We got to um hear also from the other projects that got awards and uh meet the the groups that's uh working on this massive huge project. It kind of put into perspective being around folks who do major construction projects how big of a project it was. So, that's it. Just wanted to share that. No, nothing you don't mind. Nothing new today. Nothing. All right. I'm good. Okay.

We have executive session. Very briefly. Yes. Your honor, I make a motion that the council convene an executive session for the purpose of discussion of pending, probable, or imminent litigation-5s120/2C11. Second. Oh, apologies. I