All right, good evening and welcome to the January 14th meeting of the Sustainability Advisory Board.

Before we begin, I'd like to explain the various ways to participate in tonight's meeting.

First, you can join us here in person in the commission room, or you can join us remotely by going to Bozeman.net and clicking on the meetings tab where you'll find the agenda for the meeting.

Click the link on the agenda page to join.

You can provide public comment on an agenda item by using the raise your hand feature, and we take public comment in the room first and then move online.

Lastly, this board has decided to refer to one another on a first name basis for ease of communication.

With that, I call the January 14th meeting of the Sustainability Advisory Board to order.

Natalie, are there any changes to the agenda?

There are no changes to the agenda other than I just have a suggestion that since we have some new people in the room, we thought it might be helpful if everyone um introduced themselves, maybe just share a little bit about your background um and maybe what compelled you to um join the sustainability board, or if you've been serving for a while, what you enjoy about um the sustainability board.

And um, yeah, just a few minutes to help everyone get to know each other.

Um I I can start.

I'm Natalie Meyer, the staff liaison to the sustainability board.

I've worked with the the city for um approaching eighteen years now, um, mostly in the role of sustainability manager.

Um my educational background is um forest resource management and uh master's in um land resources and environmental studies.

And um it's been an honor to serve on this board, and um I'm always here to answer logistical questions or ethical questions or any any variety of questions that you might have, whether it's topical or administrative.

I can jump in.

Uh hi, all I'm Nick Fitz Morris.

Um I'm happy to join y'all.

Um I work with the Montana Environmental Information Center in my day job.

Um I'm our energy transition engineer.

Uh we do a lot of work based out of Helena on clean air, clean water, um, climate, and I do energy things, and that's a lot of things at the legislature and other topics.

Um but I got my degree in industrial engineering from Montana State University in town here.

Um, and happy to be back around.

I had a minor in sustainability and environmental studies and was pretty um involved in sustainability issues at the time.

Um and now that I'm back in town, I'm excited to kind of dip my toes in and be more involved at the local level here in Bozeman.

And um that's what brings me to this committee.

Hi everyone, I'm Aaron Jackson.

Uh my background's in sustainable food systems and pharmaceutical education for quite a few years, and now I'm um more on the research side of agroecology and soil science.

And I've been on the board for a couple of years now, and I'm excited to continue serving.

I love being able to keep up on what's happening in the city and then provide input that is often taken up to the higher levels, and hopefully we'll make some change here.

I'm Brooke, and I am I've been living in Bozeman for eight years.

I'm a professor at MSU in the College of Business.

Um, a research sustainable business as my expertise.

Um and I spend a lot of time thinking about um these topics very abstractly and teaching students um how to do it, so I'm pretty motivated to be involved at the local level and just kind of um you know make a difference in my community as a as to the extent that I can.

Um I've been on the board for two years, um, and so I'm just starting another two-year term and happy to be back.

Hi, I'm Isabel Friedman.

I'm an environmental health advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Um I'm based in Bozeman, but I've recently moved here in the last like two or so years.

Um, and a lot of my work is like state and local advocacy across the country in a myriad of states working on a whole bunch of issues, including water and climate resilience and data centers and many other things.

Um I've just been super excited to you know get to have a front-hand view of what's going on in our city and um hopefully be able to communicate this towards my own little community as well.

Um and I've been on the board for a year.

I'm Jesse Wees.

Um I've also been on the board for a year, and I'm a two-time alumni from Montana State University.

That's where I met Natalie actually.

Um have degrees in um land resources, environmental science there, from there, and since then um I've been involved in conservation of some sort for the last 20 plus years initially as a scientist, and now um I raise money for a national conservation organization called the Conservation Fund.

Um, and I helped form the Sustainability Committee or now Sustainability Board in Big Sky a few years ago while I was living up there, and so when I moved down here, I thought it would be um really wonderful to a wonderful way to re-engage with the Bozeman uh community by serving on the board.

So it's been really interesting, and I also really value um getting to provide feedback, valued feedback to the commissioners.

Um it's it's a it's a fun job.

Welcome.

Hi, I'm Kendra Calavig.

Um I'm a UM alum actually, and I've been back in Montana for about five years.

Um majority of my professional experience is in renewable energy.

So I work on the environmental assessment and environmental permitting side of things for a company that develops large-scale wind and solar projects.

Um as part of that work, I also often interface with local community governments.

Um, so I'm really excited about the opportunity to get to do a little work in my own local community with the expertise that I have from my professional life.

Hey everybody, um, I'm Kessley Carlson Ham.

Uh my educational background is from MSU, and uh it's in geospatial and environmental analysis.

I've worked with the City of Bozeman for almost six years now, um, three years with Natalie as the sustainability program analyst, and um I thoroughly enjoy my work um here in the department um and with this board.

I'm typically back here facilitating the meeting.

All right, thanks everybody.

Um there any disclosures board members would like to make on tonight's agenda.

Okay.

Would anyone like to approve the minutes from the November 12th meeting?

Please move it to a vote.

I can make a motion to approve the minutes.

I second.

All right, thank you.

Kesley, can you please facilitate the vote?

Uh Nicholas, do you go by Nicholas or Nick?

Nick is great.

Okay.

Nick?

I Kendra.

I.

Brooke.

I and Erin.

Hi.

Great.

Motion passes.

Are we not doing Isabel and Jesse?

Okay.

Sorry, sorry, Jesse.

Jesse.

Procedural.

I'm just feeding off of like a list back here, and I absolutely skip your name.

I'm so sorry.

I can add my name.

Yeah, Deze Bell.

You guys, I'm very dyslexic.

It's really tough.

I wasn't sure if the protocol had changed.

No worries.

Thank you.

Are there any FYIs anyone on the board would like to share?

I can make a quick FYI.

I joined a bunch of other folks in Bozeman to give a presentation on data centers last month.

And I believe we will be doing the same presentation next month in February at the library, and it'll be going through the environmental and grid and local community economic development implications of data center development, as well as a brief overview of what's going on here in Montana.

So as soon as I have that information, I will share it with the board in case any of you are interested in joining.

Thank you.

If this is relevant, Northwestern Energy has a public meeting in Bozeman on, I believe February 3rd to discuss its integrated resource plan, which is its 20-year plan.

And that's going to be at the public library from 5:30 to 7:30.

What date was that again?

I believe it's February 3rd.

Okay, thank you.

I will confirm that.

Um related to public things and local government.

And I should have the date in front of me.

There will be a screening of the movie City Hall, which apparently is four hours long.

But the thing to come for is the panel discussion at from 5:30 to 6:30 in the procrastinator theater.

And I believe that panel will have our mayor-elect Douglas Fisher on it, as well as county commissioner representation, state senator representation.

And then I'll update you on other events that are coming this spring.

We'll have Senator Tester in and former governor of Montana, among other things.

But January 22nd, 530 to 6:30.

I have a correction at my the IRP event is the fourth, Wednesday, the fourth, 5:30 to 7:30 at the library.

Thank you.

Any other FYIs?

Natalie, just to clarify, um if four or more board members show up to one of these public events without notice, is that okay?

Is because it's not an organized thing, or would we have to coordinate ahead of time to see if four or more of us are coming?

If there is a potential for a quorum, we should notice it as a quorum.

So it if, for example, the IRP event.

Um I would say if we if you know that you are interested in going, um, I would assume there's gonna be at least one person there.

Um it might be good just to shoot me a message, and if I start to see that there could be um more than three, it would probably be a good idea to notice.

Okay.

So that goes for any of these events.

If you think you'll attend, maybe just send Natalie a note.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Um where are we?

Okay.

Any more FYIs before you move on?

Okay.

Uh now I'll ask if there's any public comment on any non-agenda items in person.

Any online?

Okay.

Now on to the main agenda items.

Uh first, um, we'll have a special presentation by me on the uh wider water advisory committee for the integrated water resources plan update.

All right, hi everybody.

Um I'm here to present on the integrated water resource plan.

The City of Bozeman is undergoing.

So I am the liaison for this board to the city's update to that plan.

And it's called the IWERP.

It was last updated in 2013.

It's now undergoing its next round of updates.

It's mostly around water supply issues under the purview of the city of Bozeman, so not the county or beyond.

And that's just to differentiate it from like water quality issues.

So it's kind of volume of water, making sure we have enough water for the city's population now and projections into the future.

And that takes into account changes in population as well as projections for climate change and stuff like that.

So I am a part of the water advisory committee.

This the purpose is to bring together a diverse set of perspectives that reflect the community to help shape the future of the city's water resources.

So this committee is advisory to the Bozeman City Commission, much like this group is, providing insight and recommendations that support an updated IWERP grounded in community values and technical expertise, which I'll get into next.

So the responsibilities, and this is from the kind of packet that I was given.

Three main responsibilities.

Bring forward perspectives that reflect the views and values of their respective stakeholder groups.

Provide input on IWERP alternatives, including policy and infrastructure options and their potential community impacts.

And then the kind of end goal is to develop a formal recommendation.

Oh, to the Bozeman City Commission, is what that meant to say, or City of Bozeman.

So it's a temporary advisory board.

It's been convened for about 18 months.

Its role is to review, discuss, and recommend strategies and alternatives for water resource management based on the goals of this process and the charter that was made up around the IWERP.

And I should have put up here, but I forgot is that you can actually access there's an IWERP page on the Envision Bozeman page that has some of these materials on there.

All meetings are open to the public and public comment is welcome.

So if any of you would ever like to attend, as I'll talk about in at the end of the presentation, we don't actually have any meetings scheduled for spring, but I can share those as FYIs moving forward to this group.

I believe you can also attend online, and there are the sessions are recorded as well.

So we will give you know suggestions to the Bozeman City Commission.

They do uh retain the final decision-making authority.

So the WAC is made up of two subcommittees, the technical advisory subcommittee.

They are about six people based here in Bozeman that are experts on water supply, environmental stewardship, engineering, agriculture, and resource management.

They do this kind of thing as their primary um you know career or job.

They have um, you know, extensive training in this area and work on the ground here.

Um, the public advisory subcommittee, the PAC is what I'm a part of.

This represents community interests, business and development considerations, housing interests, and public engagement priorities.

So we have um, you know, that's what it meant by kind of the perspectives of these two subcommittees, kind of making sure we have the technical stuff, which is really important, but also um kind of diverse stakeholder perspectives as well.

The city of Bozeman leads the meetings.

Um the PAC is what we we met separately as the TAC and the uh PAC in the fall.

Um, and for the PAC, the City of Bozeman led the meeting, um, collaborating with two outside groups.

So um a stakeholder engagement consulting group that specializes in water and environmental issues.

They help with the stakeholder engagement process, sort of engaging with the public and running meetings, even.

Um, and then also an environmental engineering consulting group that specializes in water supply and infrastructure and really helping formulate but also explain to us on the PAC the nature of some of the alternatives that we're talking about.

Um the PAC has been formed by six representatives, um, myself from the sustainability board.

We have a representative from the city neighborhood board, uh, we have a representative I think she's the head of engineering at MSU, um, a representative who's a local developer who's been has a longstanding uh company in the valley.

Bozeman Health is represented as well as uh just kind of like a local resident who wanted to be um involved as well, offering that perspective.

So in the fall, as I mentioned, we met separately.

So I can talk about what we did in the PAC.

We've had four meetings in the fall.

So about we we started in August, and then we had about once a month meetings.

Basically, the first meeting were introductions, orientation to the process, an overview of water rights, which I never knew I'd have to know so much about water rights for this process, but I'm learning a lot because we are talking about water supply.

September 17th meeting, we then reviewed the last IWERP, which was in 2013, and we talked about what has been implemented from that, kind of what our progress has been on that, and then started to talk about remaining challenges.

In October, we started to actually review the screening criteria, which I'll review next.

And these were sort of the ways that like a rubric to kind of uh rate these different alternatives that we'll have.

We were also given the opportunity to ask questions about alternatives, like what does what is an irrigation ditch, or what do you mean by surface water versus groundwater?

Um, and many more specific questions than that.

In the November meeting, which was our last formal meeting, um, we then actually, as a group um took, so we had the the TAC kind of take the first charge on weighting categories as well as um considering alternatives.

Um and then we decided as the PAC collectively that we would review the tax you know, decisions or suggestions because we are not experts in this area, um, and discuss our how we would rank the same kind of screening criteria.

And that's where we left it for fall.

So, what do I mean by categories and screening criteria?

Um, there's technical criteria such as you know, um how what is the feasibility of constructing this, how hard is it, how challenging is it?

Um, you know, is there existing infrastructure compatibility, water rights complexity, how can we um reuse water?

There's environmental criteria such as um considerations for the watershed as a whole, permitting the Clean Water Act compliance, um, what is the carbon footprint look like for some of these infrastructure implementations and solutions, land act, what do we have to acquire land to accomplish some of these um alternatives, among others.

Um the social criteria was more about you know public health and equity, like making sure that our community has like equal access to the benefits that some of these alternatives would provide, um, economic resiliency as well, um, and then economic, you know, what is the capital investment to actually build this infrastructure, then what are the operational costs to run it over time, how easily scale is it, um, you know, what kind of return for you know increasing production would you get, et cetera.

And then water supply is its own criteria, um, you know, how much redundancy do we have in our water supply, storage, how resilient is it to climate change, um, including fire danger, um vulnerability of it, and then storage capacity, et cetera.

So those are sort of the categories, and then all of the alternatives, which are I think about 80.

So I didn't list them in a slide, um, but I'm happy to discuss those with you.

Um we have a lot to begin with.

Uh, they are then um rated according to these criteria.

And our goal is to, you know, try and find the most win-wins that we can among you know these five criteria and the alternatives that we put to the top of the list as high priorities.

So our first meeting this spring last week, um, the WAC combined WAC, because we're now going to be meeting as a combined WAC.

Um, the PAC and the TAC will meet as the WAC.

Um, and we toured the sourdough treatment water treatment plant, uh, which is drinking water treatment, and then also went to the Bozeman water reclamation facility, so that's the wastewater facility.

Um, and that was uh extremely informative.

Um, particularly the non-technical person in water to see the processes at work to meet the employees, you know, working at these facilities, uh, very, very informative, particularly when thinking about having thought about the alternatives suggested pretty abstractly and now being able to see what we're doing on the ground.

I learned that our drinking water is to the highest possible quality, I believe, and the facilities are being underutilized now because I think she said like they're idling a Porsche or something, like they have up to 20 capacity for like 22 million.

Um, I don't even know the units of what gallons per day, and they're only up to 11 at their even most maximum in the summertime.

So there's um there really are planning ahead already for increased capacity, and there are plans to build more storage.

Um so it's cool to see kind of these things in action.

So we will be starting to meet.

Um, I just got notice in March and probably until December 2026, but maybe stopping before then if we have reached conclusions.

Um the WAC will be forming concrete suggestions for the city commission that the city commission will then take on and make the final decisions about.

I believe we're looking at the next 10 years.

I mean, we're we're trying to look at the next 30 to 50 years, but this plan will be in place for 10 more years.

That's what I should say.

Okay.

Um I'd love to take your questions or clarification, like comments that you have.

I'd also love to take any comments or questions that you have that you'd like uh brought back to the water advisory committee.

And I forgot to get my phone to take notes.

Oh, okay, Natalie.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you so much, Brooke.

Um, I have two questions that I think are more questions to bring back.

Um, and this might already be public information that I just don't know where to find, but I'd love to know like who the largest water users are in city limits and both like water users specifically as well as just industries that use water.

Um, and then also like who the fastest growing users and industries are if that is changing and different.

Um and I'm also just really curious and how this will impact the county's water usage because my sense is there is a very different portfolio of water users in the county versus within city limits.

And I'd love to see if there's any sort of like overlap with the county users slash um how we can think of like the impacts of this um resource plan as it impacts the county.

Um I can speak a little bit to that, and I can get back to you on the others.

Sweet.

Um, the off the top of my head, residential users are the biggest users, and it's primarily summer months for irrigation.

Um, but we also obviously have some ag in the city limits, and of course, then um there's irrigation in the summer for that.

Um we have commercial footprint is actually pretty a lot smaller than I would have guessed.

And I can get, I'll come back to you with actual numbers in another update.

And then in terms of coordinating with the county, um, there absolutely is coordination going on, and in the alternatives, there's even consideration of like connecting water systems, municipal water systems.

I don't think that will rise to the top at this point, but who knows, maybe.

Um the count I can say that the county water is mostly on wells because um it's largely disconnected from a municipal water system, whereas in the city we're mostly connected to a municipal water system.

Um and so, yes, the considerations for how to um well deal with all kinds of different water challenges are different, but I know there is absolutely coordination happening and and very concretely in some of the suggestions.

So, what I can do is come back to you with numbers on the breakup of water users and uh some of the specific alternatives that that list that, uh the coordination with the county, um, and then I can also, if you'd like, bring up to the WAC the WAC that like some more clarification on how we're working with the county, so I could bring it back to this board.

Cool.

That'd be helpful.

Yeah, that sounds awesome.

Thank you.

Um if anyone else has questions, I can hold this.

Yeah, thank you, Brook.

Um, you mentioned something at 80 alternatives.

Could you give some examples of what those sorts of alternatives look like?

Yes.

So a lot of them have to do with um uh acquiring more water rights.

So we have a certain amount of water rights, and from what I understand, our um water volume is more restricted by for drinking water is more restricted by the amount of water rights we actually have than the water that exists in the environment.

Um we are not using all of the water rights that we have currently, the volume, uh, but with population growth and more demand, we might.

Um so there's also, for instance, talk about um lots of things to do to highlight dam.

We could dredge it out, remove sediment from the bottom to increase storage volume there.

Um we could raise the height of the dam.

We could build a new dam over at Mystic Lake.

Um there's talk about another storage facility over at Lyman Creek, which is our other source of drinking water in the value uh valley.

So we have the one storage facility, they might build a second.

Um, so to have just more storage available on both sides of the valley.

Supply.

Some more outlandish things that have been suggested are things like cloud seeding.

I mean, they're on the list.

You know, I don't know where these will rise in, that's what we're going to be doing this spring.

And trying to think, I mean, there's some talk about irrigation, the network of irrigation ditches and the valley provide irrigation for ag producers, also recharge groundwater.

There's some talk about lining those to create sort of different benefits.

So kind of a lot of along these lines.

Yeah.

Just based off of that, I'm curious: is your sense that there's a lot more interest in expanding our water supply versus like investing in more conservation measures of the water that we already had have, or is that more just like the lens that you guys are currently taking?

It's the latter.

Conservation measures are top priority and moving full steam ahead.

And so it's more like 30-year planning to make sure we have redundancy.

Also, if fire pressures become worse and we have to have our storage at particular minimum levels, particularly in summer, in case there's fire issues.

So just more storage will help with that redundancy, but conservation is absolutely top of mind.

And actually, when I visited the drinking water facility and the wastewater facility, um, really interesting to learn about how they're mitigating uh water loss and increasing efficiency and their plans for kind of improving their operations as well.

Um a couple of thoughts just on the climate change piece and how that will shift the hydrology of the watersheds, just having them keep that front of mind, of course, which I know that they will be.

And then this is a really random question, but something I've thought about a lot over the years.

We have these mandatory don't water days.

That would be maybe a question for Jessica Alstrom that I can bring to her.

Yeah.

Do you know Natalie off the top of your head?

They are monitored.

They are or they aren't.

They are.

Okay.

Um everybody has advanced metering infrastructure when they're a water meter.

So it is observable when people are likely irrigating.

I think it's enforcement is primarily related to reports of water misuse.

Um, but they do have the ability to track and monitor.

And I I think that their approach generally is um focused on warnings and conversation initially.

Yeah, and logistically, I think it would be challenging to do that any other way than having sort of citizens report it.

But knowing that that's the biggest water suck does make me wonder if there's an opportunity that maybe we haven't thought about to try to help minimize that in a new way.

I know we get flyers and those kinds of things, but any time I hear something that's like the number one thing, and it's pretty, it feels easily solvable somehow.

Um I don't know.

I want to try to think outside the box on that one.

Um, if you would like, um, and I should have thought about this before this meeting.

Um, I didn't want to inundate you, but if you'd like, I can just share the list of alternatives with you because you're jogging my memory.

There's a whole set on reuse of water for irrigation for um variety of you know iterations.

So one of them is like they call it purple pipe, um, you know, uh water from that's not uh potable, but um can water our parks, for instance.

That's one version, or another version is to be required for new developments to use it for their common space and landscaping.

Another version of that is both.

Another version of that is actually make you know, increase the quality of this the water coming out of the reclamation facility to be potable.

So there's a whole series of alternatives around that as well, which is being seriously considered.

So I can share that list of alternatives in addition to coming back to you with that information.

And I'll just say if you'd like, I can come back and present maybe after our next meeting.

So maybe we'll figure it out.

But April or May or something like that, I can come give you another update.

The only other thing I could think of that would be helpful, and this is more so just in case any of us like catch anything, but I'm really curious like the climate assumptions and the development and flash growth assumptions assumptions that they're using to make these.

Comments?

Okay, well, thank you for your time.

I will be back to you in the next week or two with the information that's been requested, and um, and then I'll be back to give you another update sometime this spring.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you, Brooke, for volunteering for that board and uh reporting back.

That's really informative.

Do you think I could control it from over there?

Um for this one, it would be helpful to have the information and have a little bit more of a conversation for the ethics training if if y'all don't mind.

Um go ahead, please go ahead.

We aren't doing public comment on special presentations, right?

Um you certainly can ask for it.

Um just wanted to just in public comment on the last agenda item.

Can I ask if you're taking public comment on the work plan?

Okay.

Yes.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, we have it listed as um uh a work session.

Yeah.

Okay, so um this is your annual ethics training.

Um we'll we'll get it out of the way here in January, but it does represent our 2025 um annual ethics training, which as you probably are aware is a requirement of all um city staff and boards.

And I'll just jump right into it.

But um for those of you who haven't gone through the the training, I'll just say broadly.

Um, this isn't about defining really basic black and white um items, it's it's really about having a conversation around difficult situations that become gray or maybe not that apparent.

And um, it's designed to help us all think through these scenarios and do it together in a more conversational way.

Um so I I'll just start with kind of the the golden rule of public um officials, and that is that we're not using our position um for our own private benefit.

And I think where it might get confusing for board members is you may not see yourself as a public official, but you absolutely are.

You've been appointed by um the commission.

Um public officials are not just elected officials.

So you have um influence and some decision-making authority, so really thinking about your your role in the community is important, and we'll talk through some possible scenarios.

Um but I'll let you guys kind of read read through this.

But we'll be talking about conflicts of interest, and really defining some of those separations, talk a little bit about gifts and disclosure.

And that will be a theme that we'll come back to.

It is through our board of ethics that is a requirement for the city manager to provide an annual training and education to boards, employees, and so forth.

Any questions right off the bat.

So these are some of the code references that you can come back to in the future if you need to.

But in short, the city is required to establish standards and guidance, guidelines for conduct and provide annual trainings, excuse me, for all representatives of the city to avoid the use of their public position for private benefit.

And again, the the in-person piece is rather than just doing this online.

The intent is that we have a conversation and dig a little bit deeper into some of these more complex scenarios, some resources for you that you may want to reference in the future, the code of ethics, the city of Bozeman's purchasing policy, which is found under the finance page.

Montano Code annotated, of course, prevails, and admin orders.

We have a thick employee handbook, and of course, um you can always communicate with City of Bozeman employees, the city manager, human resources, and our city attorney's office.

So you guys ready for the first scenario?

I think it's extremely something good.

Okay.

Okay.

So a member of the tax increment financing board owns a restaurant in a district and is very invested in improving the district for both their business and Bozeman in general.

They are diligent about filing or filling out their financial disclosure form each year and notes the business and property interests on the form.

A developer recently brought before the board a proposal for a hotel in the adjacent unused lot.

As they had some conversations with the owners and expect the two to share some parking facilities.

Staff can bring it up if they think it's a conflict.

The board member enthusiastically approves the hotel.

What are the ethical considerations?

And don't think too hard, just anything that kind of stands out to you as maybe being off.

A known benefit.

Yeah.

What's that?

A known benefit from the project.

They weren't disclosing.

Yeah.

He should have abstained his vote.

Two.

And disclose to the board.

Yeah.

Right.

So maybe the key there is disclosing on the form, but not enough.

Right.

Would need to disclose it during the meeting and if through conversation with the staff liaison and city attorney determines that there is a conflict, they would abstain.

And the point here is it's not wrong to have a conflict.

They'll come up, and the point is just disclosure and then making the correct decision around whether or not you can be involved with that particular vote.

So I think you guys touched on it.

Okay.

An active member of the Urban Parks and Forestry Board opposes a proposed change to the tree maintenance district.

The subject has been discussed at the board a number of times, and while a few members agree with them, the majority of the board supports the changes to the district.

The board member feels like their voice isn't being heard, so they submit a public comment to the city commission and writes a letter to the Chronicle expressing their concerns about the district, acknowledging the experience with the project given their membership on the UPF board.

They make sure to include on behalf of UPF in the letters to reinforce their legitimate opinion, and so that others will take their opinion seriously.

What are the ethical considerations here?

Well, it seems like they are not speaking on behalf of the board, and that should be very clear.

Because the board is on board.

Yeah, absolutely.

Isn't there an issue with them speaking at the city commission if they've already had an opportunity to address the issue on the board?

Most likely, yeah.

So I think that touches the the main issues here.

Um they're representing their individual opinion, but representing it as the board, and there is a resolution around one body, one voice speaking with with some unity and avoiding just the kind of two bites at the apple, so to speak, where you're on a board, you have an opportunity to share your perspective with the city commission and with the public, and sometimes you're the dissenting opinion, but ideally you're you're you're getting your perspective shared, and then to go and give public comment, especially representing yourself as a member as the board, um that's problematic.

Do you think that there's instances where it may be appropriate for a board member to give public comment where they might be serving on the board as an individual, but might have an organizational perspective to share.

From what I remember from the last discussion we had on ethics, you can speak in front of the commission so long as you make it clear that you're not a coming as a representative of the board, and you're either doing so in your like position as a citizen or either in like a different position, like for your professional job or something else.

Is that correct?

I I think I think that's a fair perspective, just being clear about who you're representing.

Okay.

The chair of the downtown urban renewal board handles setting the agendas.

They also own a hotel in the district.

Recently, the agendas have been pretty full of new activity in the district, so they want to prioritize retail and food service projects as they view that as a gap to fill with new development.

A proposed hotel has asked the board to be considered for financial incentives.

The chair knows that this level of request needs to be approved by the downtown urban renewal board and does not go before the city commission, but doesn't want to put it on an agenda as their hotel is covering the needs of the district at the moment.

They didn't get any incentives when building their hotel, so if they are in a time crunch, they can proceed without the incentives.

The chair informed the applicant the board is focusing on other priorities and that the require request will not be considered at this time.

Seems like maybe misuse of power in addition to not providing equitable opportunities for local groups and citizens.

Yeah, and potentially not disclosing a conflict of interest.

Right.

But this person is kind of acting like a gatekeeper and making the assessment that this meet is already being filled without really allowing the board to make that decision.

So yes, I think that lands in the category of misuse of a board position and even improper government action.

And I mean I think you might even recognize a little bit of retaliation around, well, I didn't get the incentive, so you shouldn't either.

So then, of course, his financial interest and kind of protectionism there.

In this situation, would it make sense for them to delegate to another board member to do the agenda?

I don't know.

What the criteria would be, but it seems like uh at least removing yourself from that.

Right.

Right.

Yeah, if you're not able to offer an equal opportunity to all applicants, then yeah, you should delegate it or share that responsibility to set the agenda.

Okay.

We're rolling right along here.

A member of the community development board also works for a local nonprofit that helps to coordinate placement of low-income individuals and affordable housing.

They are happy that their involvement on the board can help facilitate a community need their job also addresses.

Since they are an expert in the area, they make sure that developers coming before the CDB are fully aware of the different resources in the community and gets frustrated when someone asks for an incentive and when they when they haven't gone through all the steps to minimize development costs.

They vote no on these projects since there are so many local organizations that could also benefit from a developer utilizing their resources and only votes yes on projects that maximize these resources.

What are the ethical considerations?

I guess they should be basing their decision on what the community development board has determined as priorities, not what they personally determine as priorities.

So it's, you know, they're frustrated if somebody is not maximizing specific resources, but if those weren't resources that were decided upon by the group, then they're sort of acting on their own.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Where we think about financial conflicts of interest.

I think a point here is that financial conflict is not can be less tangible.

This person works for a non-profit, and they're involved with these resources.

So in a sense, this person might be sort of creating some job security for themselves.

So that there's just an additional piece to think about around what financial interest means.

But absolutely impartial decision making, making sure that they're discharging their duties equitably and using the published criteria for that decision making.

The transportation board is working to coordinate an expansion to the downtown parking garage.

This week the board is considering the construction contract for the garage, which includes a subcontractor and our uh as a subcontractor, an architecture firm for which a member of the board's daughter works.

The member wasn't sure if approving the contract would show favoritism to a relative.

So they emailed the chair of the board to let them know of the relationship.

The chair thanked the board member for letting them know.

When the board got to the item, the member did not disclose the conflict since they already did.

Since the relation was once removed from the contract before them, they voted to approve the contract.

What are the ethical considerations?

They disclosed to the chair, but not to the whole board.

So the whole board couldn't didn't know about the relationship or conflict.

And something about official city business needs to happen at a city meeting versus just through email channels.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Potentially making money off of his decision making.

Yeah, you could you guys are on it.

Um it's um definitely nepotism, and um it doesn't matter that it's a sub-contract, that person is still benefiting from it.

Um and yes, the disclosure needed to happen at the public meeting.

Um they should have aired that out and probably recused themselves from the the decision making process.

Um well, none of these scenarios are 100% real.

They do um reflect things that could easily happen during your your service on on the board, and um sometimes it can be difficult to discern what's happening in in the moment, and um yeah, hopefully just having these conversations helps um helps you think about it a little bit more, and also just be aware that our city attorney um is very much available to to help um sort through some of these topics.

You can always bounce something off me, and if I'm not sure, I would probably refer you to our city attorney, and um that's Greg Sullivan, and there's his contact information, and um we'll make sure this uh presentations are available and the sustainability board um laser fiche files, so you can always refer back to it if you want to.

Any questions or concerns?

Thank you.

You've officially graduated.

Thank you, Natalie, for leading that.

Okay.

Next, we're on to an FYI discussion point.

We'll have the 2024 to 2025 Sustainability Advisory Board work plan review that Natalie will share with us.

Good evening, members of the board.

Okay, so we've had a handful of conversations revolving around development of our two-year work plan.

We started a few months ago beginning to talk about well, what's what's in our work plan, what's in our climate plan, what are some of the major areas of need and what has and has not been addressed in in this long-range climate plan.

And some questions were generated around those initial work sessions or work sessions, and from that we had a handful of questions related to transportation, which we don't address very often with this group because we have a transportation advisory board.

And so we had Nick Ross and Sunshine Ross come and present to the board at our last meeting in November.

And so hopefully that gave the the board, at least existing members, a perspective on some of the things that are happening at the city.

And the city commission was recently new commissioners were appointed in January, and they've started setting goals and priorities for a two-year work plan.

From that boards are asked to develop a two-year work plan as well that corresponds or supports those priorities.

And so it's it's a bit of an iterative process.

And right now we're we're waiting for those goals to be established by the commission.

They had their first meeting about it on Monday.

And I don't have real substantial feedback from that meeting at this point.

But I thought it would be helpful to touch on our previous um work plan to just give you a sense of where we are with those priorities that we had identified and give you an opportunity to ask questions about well, what else should we be doing?

Um if we're not done with it, is this something we want to continue working on?

And it's an opportunity for you to share your thoughts on where the board should be heading with this new work plan.

So this isn't a tended to be the most beautiful presentation we've ever done, but it was meant to be efficient.

And so the first work plan item we had was around the local food system.

And that work really got underway with Allie Forter, our former sustainability specialist leading that education and outreach, really engagement in the community.

And from that, we developed a local food system preliminary mapping project, which this board had a big hand in shaping and giving feedback on.

And one of the action items from that plan is the development of a sustainable events guide, which Allie presented to this board.

He provided some feedback, and we're in a uh place with staffing right now that we have not implemented that plan yet.

Um it absolutely will be, but um, this is our team right now, and we're we're we're getting um closer to to filling a position.

But this is our team right now, and we're we're we're getting closer to filling a position.

So that's where we sit right now.

There's other conversations around the community gardens and how we can better support as a city those few facilities that we we have in the community.

And but I I don't have something concrete right now beyond beyond that.

But we made a lot of progress.

This is a topic that the city has not specifically taken up until the work of this board and the recognition of the need in the climate plan.

So number two, composting services and collection.

Pretty exciting that we have the pilot rolled out this season, and we had this board give a fair bit of feedback on the structure of that program.

And we recently had an update from Director Ross on progress.

So I think that's well underway.

Obviously, it's not done, it's a first year pilot, and there's going to be improvements and perhaps other conversations around organics management in the community, but that's that's well underway, and I I think we can all feel good about some substantial progress there.

Um talked about a developing a more comprehensive community plan around priorities for EV charging and prioritizing locations, coming up with strategies to facilitate charging, especially for those living in multifamily housing, just to make it more accessible as the price of driving an electric vehicle comes down.

Um are going to be limited and not able to charge their vehicles.

So we we talked about a more um holistic approach to it.

Uh we did have to pivot with the changes at the federal level where we knew incentives were going to be sunsetting a lot faster.

And we decided to shift and focus on getting some city infrastructure installed to serve our fleet to make sure we could capture those incentives.

That work is underway.

We've started with some installations at the public safety center, and those installations are serving multiple departments right now more every day.

And we're working on the planning for a DC fast charger at our shops complex to serve more of our city fleet.

So there may be an outstanding question there of whether this board would want to prioritize this topic, or if it's really just something that we deal with at the within city departments to try to advance charging as as much as we can as an organization.

The fourth one is the green power program.

This has been a long-standing priority in the sustainability division to advance a renewable rate option uh with Northwestern Energy to give customers, especially commercial customers the opportunity to access renewable energy that is located in Montana within Northwestern Service Territory.

And that project has experienced a lot of delays, admittedly, taking much longer than anyone had ever imagined.

Um we expect that this board will review the negotiated documents that come out of that planning process and give feedback and advice on stakeholder engagement.

Um I would expect that we will re-engage with the board on that topic in 2026.

Um extreme heat and wildfire smoke.

This is work that really we started with the board at the very beginning and in 2022, recognizing that that's probably one of the most significant um climate impacts that we may experience here in Bozeman, and it intersects really nicely with our building energy efficiency priorities, and it just is this area of both mitigation and resiliency that we can address together.

So effectively, five and six really do go together.

But we've identified that as a specific focus area, have developed outreach materials, have done some engagement with partners in the community, and I think there's certainly more messaging that could be timely.

So more work to be to be done there for sure.

Whether or not the board wants to engage on that topic is another another question on energy efficiency and electrification.

One was review and recommendation around a grant application to install solar at the library, which has been designed bid and is in the final design phase before installation this spring.

Some of our newer facilities, the sustainable and resilient design around fire station number two, and we've had work sessions on more engagement with the public around energy efficiency incentives and trainings.

We've talked about city solar PV projects such as the library and the water reclamation facility project that's under design and is incidentally nearly ready to go out to bid.

And we've talked about the need to, especially with these more advanced technologies like air source heat pumps, the need to really focus on contractor training within the Bozeman and really throughout Montana.

That's contractor training is a challenge, and the state is focused on it.

We have been focused on it and partnered with different organizations to offer those trainings and continuing education credits.

Something that I'll flag that we described in our work plan is the development of a high performance building standard for city facilities.

And I would offer that I think that this could be an important priority for the sustainability board over the next year, where I think there's an opportunity for collaboration and really thinking deeply about what that standard should be.

I would expect and it would just take some thoughtful consideration on how to design a standard that's applicable to a variety of different types of facilities, and something that will not be overly burdensome in terms of cost.

I think the city is willing, has demonstrated that we're willing to invest in long-term resilient buildings, but cost is always a real challenge.

So we need to be mindful about how we design any such standard to make sure that it really benefits the community over the long term.

This has been a project where the city forestry division and GIS and asset management have partnered with the Gallatin Watershed Council.

And the focus has really started around an equitable tree canopy in Bozeman and identifying areas where tree plantings are needed most.

And much of the work over the last two years, at least on the GIS and city asset management side has been focused on developing that land cover data set to serve as the baseline for Bozeman's urban tree canopy and estimating carbon storage and sequestration.

And that was really something Kesley worked a great deal on and incorporated into our last greenhouse gas emissions inventory, or at least reported on it.

We need that baseline in order to really incorporate it into the metrics in the future.

But the intention is to continue to get that land cover data set and be able to monitor tree canopy over time.

And I I would like to work with Forestry and the Gallatin Watershed Council to really come back to the board for a more comprehensive update on the work that's happening there.

And I referenced the website.

And it I it's it's it's all very positive.

And I I think there's a lot of opportunity there for ongoing engagement with the sustainability board, but I think establishing that baseline maybe just took a little more energy than maybe everyone in the city anticipated.

So the engineering design standards, this was a really big bucket kind of focused on water and resiliency.

And the board touched on a number of topics.

I don't know if anyone remembers the white paper on compact development represented uh shared by our engineering department, and we had several sessions on the stormwater facilities plan, which was adopted.

I think the board had some some good feedback on that as well as the wetland code project update more recently, and then the wetland and water course code regulations ultimately was the name of those regulations.

And then finally, the um cleanup day, the board that's sort of um has been a long-standing um priority for the sustainability division and the partnerships in the community to facilitate the Gallatin Um Valley Earth Day celebration.

So that will be something that will continue to be on your agendas over the years, and I think there's um it's always a positive um event in the community.

I also just wanted to draw attention to all the other topics that this board touched on.

I've listed out the the presentations below.

Um there's a lot.

The UDC was on the original work plan, so the board continued to engage on that.

Um the board touched on a lot of water topics from water efficient landscape and irrigation performance and design standards, um, just a general water conservation program update.

And Brooke shared on the National Alliance of Preservation and Commission's advisory board trainings, and um the landmark program, which is continuing.

And we had a CATS collaborative poster board presentation here.

Um parks uh planning came and presented on the Cattail Park and Anchor Route Master Plan.

So there is a transportation parks and connectivity piece that was shared with this board.

Um, and then within our division, we've shared the climate plan annual report as well as greenhouse gas emissions inventories, um, more on water with the integrated water resource plan update, legislative recaps, and um and then again I mentioned the UDC and sustainable transportation.

So I just want to bring back to your attention the scope and breadth of topics that have been discussed on this board.

It's realistically quite quite a bit.

And my only plan was to just ask you if you have questions about what has been covered, what's remaining within this work plan, and any um thoughts you have on subsequent work plans building from this and and perhaps what you know to be future priorities.

Yeah, thank you.

Um I have a question about the green power program.

Uh I would love to know if there's any background materials available for review.

Um just sort of about like how these sort of programs are structured and developed, and a little more about background of working with Northwestern on this.

I'm not sure if that exists or if if anybody could point me to that.

That would be great.

Certainly.

Um I think publicly we've had um some work sessions on why we chose this this avenue, and we had a um this board voted on the term sheet that was adopted by the commission two years ago, so I can point to that.

Um I I can absolutely provide some references to comparable programs across the the country, some um some examples and by necessity, a lot of the conversations um have to happen with with Northwestern.

Um they're really the the gatekeepers in the the conversation and what we negotiate will be um probably the best that we can bring back to the community.

So it's um I I think when we get to sharing that that information in more detail, um we want the board's perspective, um, but it will probably be largely an up or down vote.

Um just knowing how the conversation has gone for the last six years.

So I just wanted to follow up on that.

And I I guess I'm curious for context since the adoption of that term sheet.

Has there been continued conversations and developments with Northwestern or kind of what if what's what's happened since then?

Um there's been ongoing conversations, staff turnover at Northwestern, um, delays with other priorities and and filings, and uh I do feel like we've built some momentum in the last few months, and we're getting close to terms that that I think will be ready to share and discuss.

Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Natalie.

I had a couple of questions.

Um, first on the food systems.

Um, yeah, the local food system work plan item.

You mentioned the sustainable events guide is in holding because you don't have the staff.

I'm curious whether this board could help with any of these initiatives, something I'm not sure what all it would entail to kind of finish it, but whether part of the board responsibility could be a little bit more of like a work like action-oriented work component where you say, okay, we have this piece that you all have discussed, and we need help getting it to the finish line.

You know, could we spend an hour like editing it or whatever needs to be done?

And um I guess that would require a conversation with the board, but that's something I would be interested in if we could help move some of these priorities forward.

Great, great question.

Um in this case, we're the document is final.

Um we just have to put together a staff training and conduct those trainings and make sure that we have the facilities in place to support folks with composting and um procurement.

And I think there absolutely could be some feedback from the board on the final guide, especially around local food resources.

That's kind of a ever-moving target.

So from the point it was completed to now, there probably could be some additional review.

And I do think it's a resource that was designed to be shared with other organizations and entities to potentially use.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

And I'm looking forward to seeing it when it's ready.

And my other question was about the composting piece.

So you mentioned you completed the pilot program.

And I'm curious because I know the residential compost pickup has stopped for the winter.

And I'm curious whether that's a function, or as far as I know.

I don't have the is that true.

Or does it get it?

It's an option.

You can continue through the winter if you continue to pay for it, but you can also pause it for the winter.

Oh, okay.

So that's on the residential side.

That's an option.

Correct.

Okay, cool.

I thought it was on the other end, on the city end that it was pausing.

So I was not sure about that, but never mind.

Yeah, cool.

Thank you.

And I'm very excited to see that.

And I think the only other piece there is I know you marked it done, but I think more like marketing and just outreach about the composting, I think would never hurt because it's such a great program.

Absolutely.

And I marked it done as in the pilot has been rolled out.

Um, but for sure there's more work to be done.

There always is.

Um I just have a suggestion following your first comment, Erin.

Um I think it could be really exciting if maybe one of these next few sessions we spent like an hour or something talking through where there are like, I don't want to say capacity gaps, but like in light of you guys are currently missing a third team member right now, and also just you're tasked with like all of our work plan plus like a hundred times that.

I wonder if there's, and I know we've brought this up at the board before, but just ways that we can actually like quantitatively help and not just give feedback on things and help like move certain projects forward.

And I know that it kind of takes leg work from you guys to figure out where and how that could possibly go down, but I feel like there's at least appetite from certain people on the board to help out with that and to whether that's like occasional work sessions or like an hour of regular meetings is for working on a specific item, not just providing feedback on it.

That's just one um idea.

And then the second thing in terms of, I don't know if this is the right forum to give this, but in terms of like recommendations for future work plans, I would love to see an additional work plan or replacing one of these like completed work plans with something that touches on affordability, specifically like energy and housing affordability.

I know it's something that has been brought up to the board kind of tangentially, both through the UDC update and then also we had the presentation on the ballot initiative, and I feel like there's at least different perspectives here on like sustainable development and what that looks like, as well as like why housing and energy are climate resilience pieces that the community needs and needs to prioritize.

Um so I'd love to have like either a broader discussion of what the intersections are or at least strategize how we can be more of a voice in those conversations, even though they're typically resolved reserved for um like the housing preservation development board or the other ones.

Um agreed.

I think that's an excellent suggestion around the um housing and affordability and um yeah, in in terms of engagement with the the board on work plan items.

I I think there potentially are opportunities.

Um I think we need to have a broader city conversation around what that really looks like.

Um I will offer that um I've continued to hear comments about um sustainability recognition awards facilitated by the sustainability board and um if that is um an area of interest that would absolutely be um a real work item for for the the sustainability board.

I don't think laborious work, but it would entail soliciting nominations and making a selection among submittals and establishing the the criteria.

And so that is something that has has come up.

And I also think about what opportunities there are for MSU students to contribute to some of this work.

Again, it's it's facilitating the time to facilitate that type of structure.

But any suggestions are welcome.

Especially if there's a board interest in a specific topic.

Just one follow-up on that.

I'm wondering whether obviously you guys have to do so many background conversations, whether it's with Northwestern Energy or about like Bozeman within the county or Bozeman within the state.

And I'm wondering whether there's ever a need or at least a benefit for like additional sustainability stakeholders in those conversations, either to bring additional expertise or to bring different knowledge, or just as an additional voice, like if you guys I don't know, have certain conversations structured.

So kind of thinking about how the role that Bozeman plays outside of just the city of Bozeman and in the context of the county and the state and with our energy providers.

Okay, a couple a couple thoughts.

Um on the composting program.

I watched the city commissioner meeting from December, and it sounds like there's 1700 people that have signed up for that.

Um and I know that was a I believe a was that an EPA grant where okay.

Do we have enough composting bins to do like a more fleshed out community marketing plan for that?

Or are we limited in the number of actual composting bins that we have based on the size of that grant?

I I wouldn't view the number of bins as the the limitation.

Okay.

I would love to see that expand.

Um I think that given you know another thing that you mentioned in that uh in your presentation at that meeting was the outsized benefit of doing composting when it comes to um saving on carbon.

And I think that that to me there could be big impact there, I guess, from from our board.

Um the only other couple things I'm thinking about, and to Isabel's point, I'm not sure if this is the format for thinking about other things that would go on the agenda, but noise pollution um has become something that I've really started to notice a lot throughout the community.

Um similarly, air pollution, and I don't these are obviously like issues that are uh what is that non-point?

Is that makes sense?

Yeah, so well noise pollution is sourced to things, but um I think that it would be interesting for our board to at least ponder how we might be able to make an impact with noise and air pollution.

It's also complex because it's coming from all over the place, but like as the airport expands, for example, um, you know, the number of planes that are flying over the city of Bozeman has increased dramatically, and I know there's a lot of citizens that are living with a lot more noise now, and um just wondering if there's anything that can be done from a city perspective to help shift air traffic, moving another direction, for example, to a less populous area, so that the city itself is not just overrun with that sound um trains are running nearly constantly.

Um, is there anything that the city could do with city crossings for the trains to have those trains be quieter within city limits, those kinds of things might be outside of the box for our sustainability committee, but um just something that I've been thinking about as somebody that's lived in or around Bozeman for 25 years, massive changes to the noise and air pollution here.

I think that was the only other the only other thing that I'll say about our work plan too, and I'm not sure how this would play into our word plan, but another thing that I've noticed is that there's um a tremendous amount of garbage around the community and or way more so litter um than there used to be.

And I've also been wondering if there's something that we could do from an educational perspective that would help um have the kind of like a little bit more community pride around keeping our town beautiful, and I think there's been some initiatives on that, but anyway, I would just like to keep that alive if possible.

Oh, I I appreciate that.

Um of course we're we're not at like a regulatory um on environmental issues, but we touch on a lot of these topics, and I know, for example, um our transportation engineers and economic development um department have been working on railroad crossings.

Um that's a big topic that um it takes a long time to change um BNSF has been here for a long time, and making changes there is challenging, but there is interest and momentum, and I think the sustainability board potentially could weigh in on that topic.

Um airport is would be a bigger challenging topic to address locally, so it's there outside of our jurisdiction, and um yeah, that's but but but I hear you it's the busiest airport and in the state, and maybe there's some sort of collaborative conversation to be to be had on the topic um and cleanup.

That that's very much within the uh resolution of the the sustainability board, and we've host this annual cleanup day, but realistically um the city supports cleaning up any time of year, yeah.

You can access materials for that at any point in time.

So some education, additional education around that is absolutely something that that could be done and other ways to prevent waste and garbage in the community, probably.

I just second the um idea to look at like noise and air pollution.

I feel like that is a great idea, and one that I haven't seen a lot of discussion, honestly, generally in Montana outside of certain like handful of facilities.

And I feel like we are very lucky to have relatively clean air for and like such a gorgeous state, but I feel like having a conversation before it continues to get even worse is really important.

Um, and especially I know that the airport isn't within Bozeman, but I think it's less, at least from my perspective, I've seen a difference less in the commercial planes and more so in like the flying of military aircraft from the airports.

Um, and I spend a lot of boat time in Belgrade right by the airport, and like that has made the most significant impact, at least in the last like two years since I've been here.

Um, so I guess just thinking through like the role that Bozeman can have in those discussions and the role that we can have in presenting information to um the commission or whatever it is.

Um yeah, I wanted to touch on the electric mobility um piece, and I guess I was curious um with that pivot to focusing more on EV infrastructure for um the city fleet.

Is there a vision to take advantage of those tax credits while they're available and at some point broaden the scope again and um look at community-wide EV infrastructure as well as I think also it's important to be looking at other sustainable transportation, non-single occupancy vehicles that I think is probably falls separately from this.

Um yeah.

Um thank you.

And yeah, I I certainly see EVs as a way to reduce local air pollution and still very much interested in um a more comprehensive plan for the the community.

Um in addition to just that short-term pivot we had to make.

Um we've since hired a fleet manager who's really helping us um advance our our EV goals within our city fleet and our transportation um and engineering department is starting the process of developing a new transportation plan, and of that very much incorporates um transportation demand management and um incorporation of of active transportation solutions.

And you haven't had the benefit of hearing those conversations, so it's a very fair fair question.

But we have like a TDM coordinator, and I think we we should have more conversations about that.

I think we will have to rework the scope to make sure that we're fitting it within that transportation plan and making sure that we're engaging with some of these new roles and functions within the city.

So it might look a little different than what I had proposed two years ago.

But absolutely I hope we can meet that objective.

Great.

Yeah.

And one, I guess, last quick thing.

Is that we were awarded a contract and it's on a reimbursement basis.

So as soon as we're done with the project, we'll request funding and have no reason to believe that we shouldn't receive it.

Great.

All right.

Thank you, Natalie.

Oh sure.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I um I've been taking notes also I can give you.

Um I agree.

Um, and I had been meaning to bring up the we had had some public comment last year on the beautification award and thinking about that.

Um I would certainly support that.

I do think that like those sorts of things as public recognitions can go a long way for inspiring other people.

Um then I mean, I agree with a lot of the comments that I've heard.

Um, I do think marketing on composting, we could um be helpful in that.

And another thing I was thinking is um I think there's some events held at cleanup day around composting, like some demonstrations.

Um, and I wonder if we could um somehow as a board consider um suggesting other locations around the city, maybe as well, like that's mainly at the fairgrounds, right?

But maybe there's like a demonstration at the library.

I mean, these are sort of conversations that we can have about how to help with that marketing and show people that it's not as hard as um they may think it is.

Um I do think air pollution issues could be wrapped into the EV mobility and electrification topics potentially.

And then the last item um set of items that I wanted to suggest.

Um I think it's I mean, it's pretty clear to me.

Obviously, I'm on the IWERP update um uh whack.

And um, so I wanted to suggest to the board that we include a water-specific work item.

I think we had a lot of interest in that over the last couple of years, as evidenced by these other sort of presentations we've had around conservation and you know, a lot of water topics kind of touch on these other topics, but I think a water specific item could be really helpful.

Maybe that's a broad category like watershed resiliency that would touch on wetlands, uh you know, development code stuff, urban tree canopy, IWERP.

Um, and we have the IWERP still happening over the next year, so we would have a lot of potential for um you know activity from this board on that um as part of that kind of work um plan item.

So I just wanted to kind of uh suggest that we think about that as a standalone item coming up with the attention that it's getting anyway from the IWERP update and other things happening.

Okay, great.

I agree.

I think it was nestled under the um design standards a little bit too in our work plan, but I do think it would be a good idea to pull it out.

I also agree with that suggestion.

And the last suggestion I had is, and you just mentioned this with the transportation um update, but a piece on multimodal transportation and specifically bike infrastructure and safety, I think could be a really important topic, as I know we've had presentations and discussed that a bit, but um having that be a topic, I think could be really helpful as well.

Thanks.

Yeah, that that'll be something to just to navigate, being aware that there is a full transportation board with um decision making authority over that topic, but it is the second largest source of our emissions.

So there's there's an intersection, and we just have to manage and think about what actually goes into this board's work plan on that topic.

But of course, I agree with you that it should be there.

Um and just a tiny note.

Um, I do think that there are also composting workshops that happen at the water conservation garden party in the spring.

So just a secondary plug, but agreed that it could be something that we continue to facilitate and encourage throughout the year from different providers.

There's different ways to compost, right?

Any other comments or questions?

This is gonna be kind of random again.

I'm sorry.

Um that's what we're here for.

I'm thinking about the Engage Bozeman website, and I've been wondering if I'm sure the city is keeping track of like how many people are going to that website and if it's being utilized, but I've been trying to think of how to get more people to go to that website and see all the resources and the things that are going on within the community.

And I would just be very interested to kind of brainstorm and workshop what we could do to help drive more traffic there, whether it's I don't I don't know.

I don't know exactly what that would look like, but I think part of our job as a sustainability board is to help the community be more educated on what's taking place with sustainability right now and what they can be doing with our existing programs.

So that's a good website, and I know that people aren't sometimes they need to be they need to be shown it a hundred times before they'll actually approach it to look at it.

So yeah.

Thanks.

Yeah, we can't understate the importance of communication and yeah.

I'm not sure it would be a work item, but something like it sounds like a theme among some of these is communication and outreach.

So that would include the composting stuff we've talked about.

Um maybe some of the, you know, electrification opportunities.

Um, I don't know if that would be a work plan item alone, or if we would just weave that into the specific items that we want to improve outreach.

But I do think that that would be helpful.

Yeah, great.

Well, this is really helpful.

And I I think um for next month that gives me enough to come back to you with a structure.

I'll have more feedback from the city commission work plan, and um, I I think we can begin to craft something for discussion.

And um certainly if something occurs to you over the next um two to three weeks, don't hesitate to reach out to to Brooke or myself, and we can um talk about how to entertain it for for a work plan item.

So do you want to take public comment?

Yes.

Um okay.

If there's no further comments from the board, um, then any public comment on this agenda item in the room.

Good evening, everybody.

My name is Catherine Barry with the Gallatin Watershed Council.

Um, congrats to new board members.

Excited to be here and introduce myself.

Our mission is to gosh, I can't believe I have to look down at my paper phone.

Um, our mission is to guide collaborative water stewardship for a healthy and productive landscape.

So I think the sustainability board and Gallatin Watershed Council obviously have a lot of um overlapping priorities and always exciting when we can show up and engage and be great teammates.

Um so I wanted to be here to do some seed planting.

We submitted a public comment today, I think right at 12 o'clock.

So hopefully you got it.

But yeah, or we like to show a line.

Um but it was really outlining a lot of different cool city initiatives that are happening right now around water and ways that the sustainability board could add expertise or capacity um through your work plan development.

So excited about what Brooke was saying about those could be kind of larger scale.

Um maybe the work plan is watershed resiliency, or it's focusing on engaging more and having more capacity to review and add content or comments to the IWERP update.

Um, also at the Monday commission meeting.

Also at the Monday commission meeting, the commission already has some priorities outlined through follow-up from the UDC update, and some of those are from the wetland and water course code update.

One being the city is already directing staff to create an on site mitigation manual.

So like if you have your stream, and depending on the parcel, you have to impact that stream, how can you maintain the function of that on site?

So do a stream enhancement upstream or something like that.

So that creation could also be a really fun opportunity for the sustainability board to engage.

We also included some of our wishlist things that we also heard from sustainability board members through the wetland and water course code update that have a lot of momentum right now.

So one of them was uh wetland inventory and tracking.

Um I think as mentioned, the Gallatin Watershed Council and City are doing some carbon mapping, isn't the word, but uh a carbon inventory of trees, and there was some expression of interest from uh sustainability board members of okay, what does that also look like for for wetlands and also tracking the impacts to our wetlands as we're growing will just um you know help with all of these other plans that are looking at okay, what are uh what are the benefits to our wetlands?

Um the second one was updating wetland and watercourse setbacks to reflect the best available science.

Um, and that one was also somewhat taken up by the community development board.

They were really interested in updating to the best available science in greenfield development, so mainly any annexation land.

Um, so these those wish list things right now aren't being led by any city staff right now, but the board could help push to fill some of these data gaps that could inform multiple plans right now and um in the future.

So these are just the opportunities and momentum that we're seeing at the Gallatin Watershed Council and with a lot of our partners that we're really excited about.

And obviously, you all know your process for creating a work plan and your capacity and what brings you most excitement.

So excited to be here and hear that water excites you as well.

Um so yeah, hope that our comments can can help inspire some work plan agenda items.

And thanks so much.

Is there any public comment online?

Okay.

Um this meeting, thank you, everybody, and welcome new members, and this meeting is adjourned.