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2019-05-02 Citizens Climate Protection Committee MinCitizens Committee on U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement Mission: 1. Encourage citizens to be a part of the solution 2. Encourage City staff and citizens to conserve current resources 3. Work with the City Council to implement ideas 4. Effectively address the future impacts of climate change DRAFT Climate Protection Committee (CPC) May 3, 2019 - Meeting Minutes In Attendance: Cynthia Pruitt, Mark Johnson (Consultant), Steve Fisher, Hank Landau, Councilperson Diane Buckshnis, Lisa Herb, T. C. Richmond, Jenna Nand, Janice Freeman, Nancy Fleck, Lisa Conley, David Schaefer, Dawna Lahti, Kernen Lien, Pamela Van Swearingen, Rob Chave, Shane Hope Opening: The regular meeting of the CPC was called to order at 8:3o am on May 3, 2019 in the Fortner Conference Room of City Hall by Steve Fisher. Introductions & Minutes: Committee members introduced themselves stating their name and title. Changes were made to the April 4th minutes per Hank Landau. A motion was made and seconded to approve the April 4th minutes with changes and the February 7th minutes. The committee approved both sets of minutes. Housekeeping: Cynthia proposed spending a few minutes to clean-up the Agenda at the end of the meeting. In addition, a "Comment" section will be added to the Agenda for any audience comments. David inquired if the public is aware of our meetings —and we were informed that meetings are listed on the webpage so anyone can attend. Councilperson Buckshnis suggested we create a press release regarding the New Climate Tool including an invitation to the community to attend our meetings. It was noted that the Tool is still in draft form and would not be yet available to be used by community members. GHG Reduction Tool (the Tool) by Mark Johnson, consultant with ESA Mark: Updates were made to the Tool so the version being presented is more user friendly than the version the committee received prior to the meeting. The list of ten topic areas tracked by the Tool is not exhaustive. (the City has over 300 sustainability and GHG topics which are considered as they make decisions) After much discussion with City staff, these ten areas seemed to have the best chance of reducing the City's GHG more quickly. The areas also had the most reliable databases to pull from which provides more meaningful information. The committee will test the Tool to see which targets should be worked toward determining if the targets are realistic, acceptable to the community and aggressive enough to achieve change. :Z Cynthia: Where is the information from the Tool going to end up? In the Comprehensive Plan? In City Regulations? In the Climate Action Plan? Mark: The information from the Tool is to be used to recommend goals for the City. How to achieve the goals will be included in the updated Climate Action Plan. Following that the implementation process begins with regulations, etc. New State Legislation (such as the loo-percent Clean Energy Bill) will help the City achieve its goals. However, the City may still have to provide incentives to act and continue to celebrate success stories. Z Hank: Are the GHG goals set permanently or can they be modified? Mark: The goals are set to help the City with their decision -making then when the City's plans are updated in five years, the goals are revisited. At that time they are modified and revised higher or lower depending on the City's success in reaching their goals. T. C.: Is it possible for the CPC to recommend that the City revisit their goals more often than every five years if new information came to light? Councilperson Buckshnis: Yes, through a Resolution the goals could be revisited. :Z Mark: In the interest of time, let's turn to the tracking tool to see how it is used to set goals for 2035 and 2o50. We wanted to be sure we had the right metrics for Washington. This tool was originally used in California and the Washington metrics were difficult to create, hence the delay in presenting this tool to the committee. The Tool is an Excel spreadsheet used to determine what goals would be best for the City. The Green Cell is where you make changes in the Tool. The other cells have fixed numbers and formulas, so if you make any changes to them then the whole tool becomes unusable. Z Jenna: Can we lock all the other cells, so only the green cell can be changed? That way we won't break the Tool. Kernen: Yes, we can lock the cells so only the green cell can be changed. Z Mark: When you are inputting data try to select ambitious yet realistic/achievable numbers. We boiled down the table of 30o areas to these top ten. They will not get us all the way to our goal, but they provide the greatest opportunity for us to move closer to reducing GHG significantly. Some data we can easily gather for input, other things —like how to get each citizen to understand the importance of their role and then act —we cannot factor into the Tool. Z Councilperson Buckshnis: Can we put a footnote into the Tool explaining that we understand the citizen action is beyond our control? Mark: The theme of how to address Citizen Action will be discussed later in the presentation. Mark: As you move through the Tool with me REMEMBER THE CURRENT NUMBERS ARE ARBITRARY. We just put in some numbers so you could get a sense for how the Tool works. Eventually, you will be inputting your own numbers which you think are realistic for each area. We do NOT need to decide today on which numbers to use. Today we are only going to use the arbitrary numbers to help us understand how the table works. We also will give you some guidance on how you can determine which numbers you would like to see used as recommendations for the City. Cynthia: Are the numbers cumulative for 2050? Mark: The numbers are cumulative so the 2050 numbers will be greater than the 203o numbers. Mark: We used the 1.50 target in the Tool for today's demonstration. T. C.: We did not make an unanimous decision as a committee about using the 1.50 target. Can we change the target easily in the Tool? Mark: Once we determine the exact target we want to work toward we can recalibrate the Tool. We will NOT be discussing which target we want to use today. :Z Cynthia: Even with the suggested targets we do not reach l00% according to the last column in the Summary of GHG Reductions. Why is that? Mark: This is a preliminary demonstration of the Tool, so we do not need to include our final targets. :D Pamela: How did you frame the target for the chart? Mark: We framed the chart at three different targets. It generally provides the big picture to see where we are and inform us if our target is achievable or if we need to reduce it or enlarge it. Hank: It looks like the results in each of the ten categories is linear —can we revise them? Mark Yes they can be revised. Jenna: Why are the targets so far off? Mark. The numbers are arbitrary, so let's discuss any gaps when we come back to revisit it when the real numbers have been input. Z Councilperson Buckshnis: "Reduction Gap" —What is that? Mark: The top purple section is the effect of our goals in the ten areas; the bottom gray section of the bar is business as usual which equals population, growth and trends —what's likely to occur if we do nothing. (It does not include any assumptions about the State's Clean Energy Bill. The State's bill says by 2035 will have net zero GHG. The Utilities will have the burden of providing ways to meet that goal. State law will now require electricity to be GHG neutral. Councilperson Buckshnis: The utility companies are already moving in this direction buying solar farms, etc. T. C.: Does the Pink section represent reductions by others? Mark: That section is just a gap showing the uncertainties within our ability to reduce GHG. A lot of that will be made up by the State as it reduces its GHG. Jenna: What about under transportation? Does the gray section of the graph show private vehicle emissions? Mark: Yes that is fossil fuel run vehicles. But don't worry about the numbers yet since they are arbitrary. There are many factors and extrapolations rolled -up into the inventory. The specific break outs are in another document. We had to be very careful as we created this tool not to double count factors when they overlapped. Our ten areas of focus follow: TR-i Additional Commercial and Multi -Family Units at Centers - Reduce vehicle miles travelled (VMT) through more sustainable land use patterns. Mark: We evaluated the concentrated vs dispersed VMT by combining commercial and multi -family buildings which are labeled as Centers (e.g., Westgate, HWY 99, Five Corners). The strategy for calculations was to average the number of trips by vehicle miles then divide by units in existing developments. The Institute for Traffic Engineering has a lot of data for patterns around multi -family buildings. We used the most conservative assumptions possible. Land Capacity in the Centers is 8o% or 2,630 Units which is found in the Comprehensive Plan Growth Management Section. There is not much opportunity to change the growth numbers because so many people were involved in determining and approving them. Jenna: Are the vehicles which pass through our community as the result of the ferry and trains captured in these numbers? Mark: No because those vehicles are captured in the communities where they reside. Plus the VMT are broad numbers and not specific to Edmonds proper because we have no way to collect those numbers at this time. Rob: This Tool points you to things to explore further by way of what others have done in this area. Many have partnered with other agencies to address the gap. The National Data is based on research done in those communities who are ahead of the curve in this area. You can see what they have done to develop their numbers. Z Donna: Thanks to our staff who have sought out these community success stories and analyzed them for our use. Z Hank: Should we gage our data on per capita use? What happens when another area is annexed? :Z Mark: The timeline can be renewed if annexation takes place. For the Tool we based the metrics on easy to find data. We would not have a baseline for the un-annexed area, so it is not as simple as per capita. One annexation may be lo% commercial and go% residential or the other annexation could be 30% commercial and 7o% residential. Annexation is best dealt with when more information is available about the area being annexed. An update can be made when an annexation takes place. Z Rob: Per capita is a gross number only giving a thumbnail. Z Councilperson Buckshnis: The Council recently looked at the annexation of Woodway and Esperance and it is not cost effective for us to do that right now. Z Rob: Feel free to play with numbers using various annexation scenarios. Remember the Green Box in the spreadsheet is the box for making changes. Z Mark: In the event of an annexation the numbers would need to be recalculated. Z Cynthia: In the interest of time, we need Mark to explain how to use the Tool then we can play with the numbers and give more specific feedback at the next meeting. Z Mark: Go home and play around with numbers and determine which ones you think would be best for the City to pursue. Then we can discuss it further at the next meeting. Z Shane: Yes, give us feedback on the 6th. The key points today are to learn how to measure and select different choices so we can track our progress toward our goals using the Tool. Z Cynthia: As we move forward let's stick to only asking questions for clarification —so we can get through the remaining nine areas. Z Mark: Keep in mind the City's Comprehensive plan only goes through 2035, so the 205o numbers are less defined. TR-z Percent of Commuters Using Transit - Reduce VMT by improving transit systems. Z Mark: Here our goal is to get people to use transit more. In 2017 8.8% of our community used transit to commute. Tukwila has one of the strongest usage and they have 12% of their commuters using transit. Keep those numbers in mind when you input the goals you think would best to meet our need to reduce GHG. Z T. C.: A list of assumptions or FAA's would be helpful for this process. Z Mark. Transit is tough to nail down since light rail and increased community transit could be a game changer. There also could be an impact on transit if autonomous vehicles take off as expected. TR-3 Percent of Commuters Walking or Biking to Work - Reduce VMT by promoting active transportation (i.e., bike riding and walking). Mark: In 2017 2.5% of our commuters used bikes or walked. When you evaluate this area think about how technology could change (e.g., Electric Bikes could give a big boost to use). Increasing the size of our Centers could also have an impact on this. TR-4 Percent of Commuters Carpooling and/or Using an Alternate Work Week - Reduce VMT by promoting carpooling and vehicle sharing. Mark: Influences here include flex schedules (e.g., working 4 - io hour days or working from home 1 day a week) We've attached a table to help you get a sense of the possibilities and how that would affect the percentages. If you look at the table you can get a sense of what amount of carpooling and flex schedules would get us to say 3% reduction. Z Cynthia: Does the 3% in the 2030 column correlate to the 3% in the table? Z Mark: No, you would pick and choose from the options on the table to create your own 3% or whatever percent you'd like to accomplish. Z Lisa Conley: You could use the 3% on the table or you could pick and choose from the options to create your own, right? Mark: The table was created to give you a reasonable range of numbers to use. But the idea is to play around with them to suit your vision. There is not much hard data for this area. We do know that carpooling was 9.3% in 2017 from a community survey. TR-5 Percent of Electric Vehicles - Reduce GHG by promoting low -carbon vehicles. Mark explained that we know how many vehicles there are as well as how many electric vehicles (EV) through the State's vehicle license office. The estimate of EVs is probably conservative. Increasing the expected number of EVs would make significant progress towards GHG reductions. W-i Reduction in Solid Waste Generation - Reduce material consumption. Z Mark explained that the percent of reduction is arbitrary. There is a fair amount of diversion of waste from landfills already. Steve felt that the numbers were pretty aggressive. EY-1 Number of New Residential and Commercial Solar PV Systems Installed - Increase amount of electricity generation by solar power. Mark explained that the energy source of eighteen residences in the city is solar currently. City staff felt that there are more and will check to confirm. Mark explained that if we assume a higher proportion of residences using solar, (or who buy into community solar) we could make significant reductions in GHG. EY-z Percent of Residential and Commercial Area Retrofitted - Reduce electricity consumption and energy intensity of existing buildings by sector; improve efficiency of wastewater treatment plant. Mark explained that the residential square footage upgrade assumes i% of residences upgrade per year to 2035. He feels that is a safe assumption based on his experience with the City of Bellevue. EY-3 Percent of New, LEED-Certified Residential and Commercial Development - Improve efficiency of new building. Z Mark pointed out that the number of LEED-certified projects in the Tool is very aggressive. Most new buildings would be in centers. EY-4 Number of Trees Planted - increase carbon sequestration. Z Mark said that tree sequestration would probably not produce a large amount of GHG reduction. This is included because it is of interest to the community. Diane Buckshnis asked for a footnote regarding the Edmond's marsh ability to sequester GHG. Action Item Person Responsible Deadline Experiment with the GHG Reduction Tool to help recommend goals to the City. All Committee Members June 6 Announcements: Agenda for June 6, zoig Meeting: Adjournment: Meeting was adjourned at am by . The next general meeting will be on Thursday, June 6, 2019 beginning at 8:45 am in the Fourtner Conference Room at City Hall.