Detroit Green Task Force Minutes

October Green Task Force Minutes

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Zero Waste Subcommittee Update (beginning of the update missed – incomplete notes)

New developments in the city: discussion on the importance of new developments being configured to accommodate recycling. Should new buildings be required to have bins/systems to hold recycling and for haulers to easily pick it up? Detroit Environmental Agenda was worked on this idea a little bit, so the subject has been broached but it thus far hasn’t been explicitly focused on. Looking forward, perhaps the committee/Green Task Force and work with developers and the city to develop an ordinance on this. 

Banning plastic bags and/or polystyrene takeout containers: Discussion on banning these items in the city. However, there is legislation the prohibits the implementation of a ban on plastic bags. But perhaps the language allows room for a tax or other mechanism to recede use without a ban? Need to look into this more closely. Example that Chicago had a terrible time with a plastic bag ban, but had success with a tax. The policy protecting plastic bags in Detroit also protects polystyrene from a ban as well. However, several of the newest restaurants, especially in midtown, are using alternatives, so we can look more into alternatives and how we can make them more attractive to other businesses. 

Renewable Energy Subcommittee Update

Meetings are on the 2nd Thursday of the month at Socra Tea in Midtown. Current focus on solar, especially community solar. Also taking a look at bio-digesters 

Background: this is a relatively  young/new subcommittee. It was born from the Blue-Green Infrastructure subcommittee when they realized that energy wasn’t/couldn’t be focused on thoroughly enough when they had one group to cover so many topics. 

Mission: to increase awareness, dissemination of information, and outreach around renewable energy, provide policy suggestions, and be the 3rd party steward of the city ensuring that the best interest is upheld. 

The Challenge: the difficulty is that there isn’t any cookie-cutter policy to ramp up renewable energy implementation in cities. Another is the need to bring soft costs down. Biggest barrier in Detroit specifically is that there isn’t any ordinance to handle the permitting and process of installing solar. Setting simple system of requirements would streamline the process to make it easy for residents. 

Strategy: adoption of more solar friendly policy in Detroit. Increase the amount of renewable energy installed in Detroit. 

Goals:
– Identify organizations to share information with
– Identify organizations who reach different audiences to illustrate relevance of renewable energy to the community members they serve. 
– Create solar powered warming/cooling centers. 
– Challenge city council to be champions within their districts – challenge business to improve their own sustainability. 
– Help establish solar friendly solar policy in Detroit. 
– Before 2020 get into the megawatts of solar. 

Blue Green Infrastructure Subcommittee Update: representative not present… 

Composting Subcommittee Update

Have meetings on the first thursday of the month, rotating evenings and morning. 

Mission: Instigate and cultivate mindsets, will, conditions, and civic engagement, that lead to ever increasing diversion of Detroit produced compostable organic materials from landfills or incinerators. Also to ensure that we have some place to divert it too. On all scales, from large business to households. 

Strategy and goals:
– Support legislators and leaders in the communities in informing, influencing and supporting the development of sustainable city-wide decentralized organics recycling (composting) ecosystems and infrastructure. Looking to harness leverage and for natural affinities. 
– Shared vision and goals: Align national, state, city and community policy levels. Include composting in Detroit Environmental Agenda. 
– Regulatory conditions: Align local legislation (zoning and conditions) with state legislation.
– Two Systems processes: City-level (piggy-back on recycling in municipal buildings and public spaces) and  community/neighborhood level (closed loop food system).
– Leadership: Grow leadership and stewardship coalition through boundary spanning and networking (internalize societal, business, government, academic knoweldge/research on the topic). 
– Build capacity and competency through action based learning and collaborative work. 
– Culture, behavior and practice change: Public education and engagement (designed conversations). Establish management strategy and plans.  Establish reflective monitoring and feedforward/feedback methods. 

Discussion on how to inform and support market development (supply, demand) for compost products. We need to make sure there is a place to use/send composting products! Let demand help drive this change. How do we do this? 

Ideas for Resources: Us Compost Council 

Green Task Force June 15th 2017: Minutes

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I: Welcome 
Benson not in attendance today, so Kerwin leads the meeting this afternoon.  

II: Introductions 
Each person introduces themselves. 32 total people in attendance. 

III: Presentations: 
Presentation (A): Simone Lightfoot, National Wildlife Federation 
Simone heads the National Urban Initiatives department for NWF. The organization’s urban work is less known, but recently and they have doubled down on that work. Last September brought to national stage. Simone stresses how conservation work can be scientific and talk in terms of data, but it is a struggle getting “black and brown” perspectives on conservation and environmental issues. In an effort to incorporate some of these missing voices, NWF organized “GREEN TALK & CHEWS” focus group events in Detroit, Cleveland, and Toledo, where residents of color discussed their local knowledge and perception of issues relating to the environment and conservation. To support authenticity, the focus groups were held at familiar restaurants with parking, avoiding white sterile walls. Rather than focus on scientific data, the point of these meetings were to hear unfiltered grass roots perspectives from all levels, to receive raw feedback. Hence, the document outlining the results from the project does not include an executive summary. 

Water was a common thread and issue in the focus group discussions, relating to utility shutoffs/water privatization, lead poisoning, quality, degrading infrastructure, corruption, flooding, algal glooms, and recreation. In Detroit in particular several other themes emerged as well, including residential foreclosures, police brutality, public education being under assault, and Detroit’s community health overall. Simone stresses that it’s difficult to talk about “green” issues/things if kids in these communities are getting shot, so it is important to think and talk about guns and other issues more pressing to urban centers as well. Another issues brought up by participants was accessibility for the elderly. Things like the time length of cross-walk lights and the height of bus steps are issues. Open question of how we care for and look out for the elderly in bad situations. 

Simone mentions how NWF is struggling with budget issues since under the new Trump administration. In the past the organization has had to handle changes in budget by a few million here, or a few million there, but now entire agencies are being cut. 

Looking forward, while agriculture is always being pushed by cities, but there are more options than that in terms of “greenifying” a city. Infrastructure and greenways and other things are import ant too. Open question: how can green organizations help smaller local organizations? It’s important to understand shifting demographics. More and more foundations are demanding/requiring diversity in organizations, and Simone stresses that in general conservation has to become less “white”. However, it’s important to acknowledge that just putting people of color on boards and in management positions being it’s a requirement isn’t authentic and doesn’t help solve racism in institutions/organizations. Searching for authenticity and underrepresented voices is the goal of this program. Simone is trying to connected and help people, not have it all just be words. 

Presentation (B): Joel Howrani Heeres, Office of Sustainability 
Introduces himself. He worked at ecoworks for several years on climate change action plans, also worked at DTE for a while (private sector), now in government. 

The new sustainability office is a small office within the Mayor’s, so to get stuff done we need to leverage relationships with others.  

Joel is brand new on the job so things are in flux, but his current areas of focus include increasing walk and bike-ability in the city, increasing water/air quality, and increasing better quality of life.

We should think of Joel and the new office as a convener and engager with all the environmental/sustainability things already going on in the city. With the  rentable bikes downtown and the new q-line, we have an opportunity to start marketing ourselves with new transit. Biggest LED streetlight system in the country is something we can highlight as well. 

Open question: how do we establish and plan our common metrics to work toward together? Creating a sustainability action agenda for the city is one of Joel’s top priorities. Open question: in order rot establish the action plan, should we consider asking local people what are the issues they are facing in the neighborhoods. and what theirs ideas on solutions are? Joel wants to make it a really participatory thing, leveraging and working through established community organizations (including the task force!) to get this done. Let’s use our ears to collect valuable info to make this action plan Another goal is to create a website to track goals online and to make info easily accessible. 

Joel cares about this stuff in his daily life – he is a bike commuter, collects rain water, has a garden, and wants to share this with others. He wants to build community and make people feel better economically and environmentally. 

Question regarding the action plan: will you include all the work that has already been done? (Simone in regards to her work with the NWF). Answer: Absolutely. Non of this is reinventing the wheel, so they try to use everything they can. Leverage all the work that has been done. Focus on ways to measure the goals. 

Will Tiny homes be part of the plan? Leverage what’s been happening before. 

Open question: how to we institutionalize this work? How do we infuse this work into policy master plan? The long term plan is to make this automatic, have it fit right in. 

Open question: how do we create a constituency for this work? We need to think about ways to hold politicians and adminisation down the road accountable. 

Question: ought we require recycling ordinances in new developments?  Answer: Institutionalize it, so all new developments start with it. We should Divert as much as we can off the bat.  Another question about Incineration issue comes up, but Joel says it’s a big issue and he doesn’t have enough info or experience to answer those questions yet.

Question: In regards to green spaces, how can we/should we create accessibility for all users? Answer: this issue needs to be considered for every single new space we create. We must incorporate perspectives on diversity in the implementation of new spaces. 

Question: regarding the action plan, do you see certain priorities bubbling up? And  how do you prioritize them? Answer: the action plan will serve as a master plan. Collective decision making will be utilized. Some might be city goals, while others my be community based goals. Use different levels between community and city. 

IV: Sub-committee Updates 
Zero-Waste: Nattelie: met last month. Working on what the priorities are of the group. Create a zero waste plan for the group and how to implement that. They are trying to get municipal buildings on the recycling program. Working on policies for waste.July meeting at Depot yard. Reached goal of 20% recycling participation, so the new goal of 30% for NEXT august. Creating plans for event zero-waste and recycling.  (Kerwin) PSA went out, played on TV and a few radio spots. Open questionL: is the PSA on the website? 

Renee Wallace: composting sub-committee. She serves on the Michigan organics council. New legislation in process as it relates to composting. Recommendations being synthesized by DEQ to refine them to go into legislation. 29th of this month and also 29th of next month. Talk to her about joining the committee or learn more. Anyone interested in looking at these things from the DEQ, you can look at the two reports hosted on the DEQ website. 

Blue-Green: upcoming meeting this coming tuesday at 1pm. 2727 case avenue. Someone from UM SNRE presenting at 2pm.  

Renewable energy subcommittee: Exciting Benson has asked them to make a report for him on health and safety. Advisory group now for both sides of government between task force and sustainability office. Next meeting 71 Garfield on July 14th. Discussion about commitments to standards that building owners reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 and that all new buildings be carbon neutral by 2030. 

Can the city become 100% renewable? Joel discusses how it can be an issue of haves and have-nots, and that we need to be realistic about what we could be afford and what’s best for the city. But what’s really cheapest? Regardless, our decisions have to represent our environmental as well as social values. 

V: Closing 

 

Click here to be introduced to the Detroit Green Task Force 

Green Task Force Meeting Minutes for May 18, 2017

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Call to order: 3:08 pm 

I. Welcome 
Councilman Benson opens the meeting, welcoming everyone. 
Benson asks for a show of hands of who made it to the Earth Day Green Awards Ceremony. Only a few hands rise, and Benson calls on the task force for better attendance of next year’s event. Despite a lack of a attendance from the task force, Benson announces the event was very good, and that it was great to recognize lots of hardworking people. 

II. Introductions 
17 attendees present. 
Each attendee introduces themselves 

During Kerwin Wimberley’s introduction, he announces that the task force’s biggest win to date is that the recycling goal of 20% participation has been met. Benson adds on that a new recycling PSA going out soon that explains how easy recycling is. The video will include Benson talking about recycling with kids, should be fun, cute, and informative.  

To date the recycling program has been successful by removing barriers to entry with recycling. Now 1 out of every 5 homes is part of the recycling program. The task force should be proud of the fact that 20% was accomplished within only three years. Several partners have made this possible. Green Living Science has played a big part in the education on recycling in schools.

III. Presentations 
Presentation 1: Monica DeGarmo with DPSCD Office of School Nutrition regarding the Farm and Garden Program and student family engagement 

The Office of School Nutrition is a local food authority, so the program is funded by the USDA. Providing schools with food is the office’s number one priority. The office serves 141 total schools, 85 of which are DPSCD schools (additional schools come on because the Office of School Nutrition is federally obligated to provide resources when any public schools ask for support). In the DPSCD schools they provide 80,000 meals per day during the school year. During the summer the office also organizes the Meet Up and Eat Up program. Fresh fruits and veggies snack program from the USDA allows for purchase of fresh ingredients. 

Shareholders vs stakeholders: In 2008 the program shifted back to operating in-house, when they had been outsourced previously. Before 2008 37% of the budget was spent on food. When outsourced the program announced it would being in $25 million in funding over 5 years, but they ended up only bringing in $1.4 million. Since the program shifted back to in-house in 2008, 52% of budget is now spent on food. 35% of the total amount of food provided by the program is locally sourced, which is a lot compared to other school food programs. 

Revenue and Budget: CEP (Community Eligibility Provision) reimbursement of $3.24 per meal. It doesn’t matter now if you don’t “qualify” for a free meal; there are no more tokens so everyone in the schools get free meals without stigma. A little known fact is that the DPSCD Office of School Nutrition also provides district catering to generate additional revenue, which helps its programs. 

Vendor/supplier policy: the program prefers Michigan produce/ingredients. Contract language allows them to pick contracts with Michigan farms that are more expensive than out of state. The office works with Cultivate Michigan to make this happen. 

Nutrition: Partnership with Lifetime Fitness and their foundation. Zero tolerance of harmful and unhealthy ingredients, several of which are in addition to the USDA requirements. 

OSN food item highlights: No chocolate milk (parents still upset about this), Meatless Mondays, no deep fryers, increased salad bars, no carnival food, Russell street deli (trying to get that partnership happen), Detroit Made bread everyday, accessible fruits.  

Food Systems Change: Started in 2013, and the program provides school gardens. Students build the garden beds. Currently there are 76 school gardens. 6 raised 8X4 foot gardens per school. Monthly professional development trainings. STEAM curriculum resources. Academic aspect of running gardens is a place for growth perhaps? 

Drew Farm, a local Detroit area urban farm on reclaimed land, is where a lot of the program’s food is grown. They want to replicate this farm in additional DPSCD sites. Drew Farms provides over 20,000 pounds of food straight to schools. 

Improving youth connection to food: There are STEAM field trips to visit farms. Partnerships with local universities to get interns for instructors. Outdoor educational experiential learning college courses are an avenue to explore as well. In 2016 there were 38 field trips. 

Greening of Detroit: Green Core will hire 100 students in the summer as employees. But they need help on the farms, so they budgeted 15 students to work full-time on the farms June through august (applications available!).  

Farm stands sell the produce grown during the summer. There are 5 farm stand locations. 

Family and community engagement: Family Farm Days events happen through partnerships with Keep Growing Detroit and other organizations. Starry Nights events at Drew farm as well. They are looking to incorporate fitness events in as well to tie in with the health aspect of food. 

Catherine Ferguson Farm: Fall Harvest Festival. October 7th save the date! 

EPA Local Food, Local Places: awards local food places. Focused at Mackenzie Elementary. They help to repurpose land so we can use it better. Thank you to Detroit City council for helping make that happen. 

Presentation 2: Karl Kaebnick on DOIT city website 
Isn’t it hard to remember the days for curbside pickup of your garbage, recycling, and yard waste?  How can we get better and more easily accessible information to the public? Karl is here to present the reworked Public Works website that makes getting this info much easier.

(Link): Detroitmi.com/publicworks 

The change to the website is that you can look at a map of pick-up zones that is color coded, with the colors corresponding to certain pickup schedules listed at the top of the map. If you can’t locate your area visually on the map, you can type in your address to find exact place and it will tell you what day pickups are for you. You can also put phone number in to get text message reminders each week when you need to put your garbage/recycling out. Can look at the calendar to see, and sign up to get reminders for, advanced notice special days and general recycling information. The site includes a game you can play that tests you on where to put waste – either curbside recycling or trash, or items you can drop off at Recycle Here! At the end you can sign up for a free bin! The site also a ‘waste sorter’ search option, where you can search for specific terms and it will tell you how to handle them. Note that Recycle Here takes electronics from Detroit residents only. 

They are looking for feedback if you want to check it out. Feedback helpful since they still haven’t done the hard launch yet. Almost everything was done in house for this project and under budget! Kerwin looking to put the new Recycling PSA on the site as well once it’s up and running. In response to question about what old people/people who don’t/can’t use the internet should do to get information, Karl says that Green Living Science still does their Green Ambassador Program to try and connect elders who don’t use the internet. 

End of presentation. 

Benson excited about the new sustainability office that is currently launching for the city, so lots of exciting things happening. 

Going back to the discussion of recycling win, Benson mentions that San Francisco has a recycling program that is incredibly successful, but that that took them 30 years, and we’re trying to do this much faster and should be proud about reaching 20% participation in only 3 years. Benson also announces that he wants Detroit to be a Blue Ribbon sustainable city in the future, but will look into more what the requirements of that designation are. 

IV. Update on Committees 
Newest committee is The Renewable Energy Subcommittee: have met twice now. Represent a variety of community and organizations and solar businesses. Want to make Detroit a renewable energy city. Looking into neighborhood solar. The huge power outages in February made these goals seem like a necessity. One of the goals is, can Detroit be the same as Grand Rapids and become completely renewable (for buildings)? What does it take to do that? Social justice piece is important and we will need to work on that. They are grateful to Benson for getting this committee together. The next meeting is June 8th 12pm to 2pm at Hannan House. 

Benson mentions again how great the public private partnerships are within this task force. It’s great and really unique.  

Blue Green Infrastructure met last Tuesday: There were presentations by Detroit Design Collaborative Center. From these they saw a great matrix of all the organizations working on storm water management in the city. Asked if those documents can be shared. Question moving forward is – how do we share/organize/ house this type of information? Focus on non-residential level, and what activities people can do to offset drainage charges. Next month U of M will be coming to talk about new GI report. Next meeting is the third Tuesday the same week of this meeting June 20th at 1-3pm (Location?). 

Recycling update – not present 

For good of the group 

United States Green Building Council offer courses on LEED (Mondays from 6-8) Starting June 5th until the end of July. Classes focus on 7 different topics. Get continuing education credits if you are involved. 

Dona Wilkins with Green Door. Green Door’s Blue Green Core has youth summer programs where they hire youth to do things all related to water. Beach monitoring at Belle Isle Beach and also storm water management and how to test drinking water are a few of the project areas. Program is looking for people 16-19 year old. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources funds this in order to expose young people to careers in the natural resources.

Benson: If you want to make PSAs on TV talk to him and he can help you get connected to get your message out. 

How many people follow the Green Task Force on Facebook? Not many people, easiest and cheapest way to share information, so go like and follow the page!

The Sustainable Detroit Forum is looking for presentations in October. 

The Detroit Water Festival is moving to the fall. You can sign up with students. 

Michigan association of environmental professionals offers grants: apply to them based on education related programming for k-12 ages. 

Benson regarding the task force in general: in the first year nothing was getting done, just a lot of talking. However, the Task Force began seeing success when recycling became the focus. With that priority we moved forward and made meaningful changes. But what’s next for the council? What’s our next big thing? 

Litter suggested as the next issue we tackle, an idea that seems to be supported by many people in the room with a positive response. Another suggestion is to become a polystyrene-free city. The last suggestion is to “greenify the code”, or focus on initiatives to make Detroit’s public policies more environmentally friendly. 
V. Closing.

4:30 meeting adjourned.  

 

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