Sustainability Advisory Board January 14, 2026 Meeting: Introductions, IWERP Update, Ethics Training, Work Plan
Sustainability Advisory Board Meeting Summary - January 14, 2026
The Sustainability Advisory Board held its regular meeting on January 14, 2026. The meeting featured new member introductions, a detailed presentation on the City's Integrated Water Resource Plan (IWERP) update, the annual ethics training, and a comprehensive discussion on the board's future work plan.
Consent Calendar
- The board approved the minutes from the November 12, 2025 meeting. The motion carried with votes from members Nick, Kendra, Brooke, and Erin. The roll call inadvertently skipped Isabel and Jesse before being corrected.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items: None.
- Public Comment on Work Plan: Catherine Barry from the Gallatin Watershed Council addressed the board. She highlighted the shared priorities between the Council and the board regarding water stewardship.
- She recommended the board adopt a water-focused work plan item, such as watershed resiliency.
- She identified specific opportunities for board capacity and expertise, including providing input on the IWERP update, the creation of an on-site mitigation manual for stream impacts, the development of a wetland inventory and tracking system, and updating wetland and watercourse setbacks to reflect the best available science.
- She noted these items have current momentum and some are not yet formally led by city staff, presenting an opportunity for the board to push them forward.
- Online Public Comment: None.
Discussion Items
1. Special Presentation: Integrated Water Resource Plan (IWERP) Update
- Board member Brooke presented an update on the IWERP, for which she is the board's liaison to the Water Advisory Committee (WAC).
- Project Description: The IWERP update replaces the 2013 plan and focuses on securing enough water volume for Bozeman's future population under projected growth and climate change scenarios. It is a 10-year plan addressing 30-to-50-year needs.
- Process: The WAC consists of a Technical Advisory Subcommittee (TAC) and a Public Advisory Subcommittee (PAC). The PAC met four times in Fall 2025 to develop screening criteria and begin evaluating roughly 80 alternatives.
- Alternative Examples: Included acquiring more water rights, dredging Hyalite Reservoir, raising dam heights, building new storage, water reuse systems ("purple pipe"), and cloud seeding. Brooke emphasized conservation measures are the "top priority" while supply expansion provides long-term redundancy.
- Board Requests & Positions:
- Isabel Friedman requested data on the city's largest water users, fastest-growing sectors, and coordination with Gallatin County. Brooke replied that residential irrigation is the largest use and confirmed active county coordination.
- Jesse Wees requested specifics on the climate and development assumptions used.
- A discussion on enforcement of mandatory no-watering days followed. Natalie Meyer clarified the city has metering technology but enforcement relies primarily on citizen reports and warnings.
- Next Steps: Brooke will return with the requested data and present another update in the spring.
2. Annual Ethics Training
- Staff liaison Natalie Meyer led the annual mandatory ethics training, emphasizing that board members are public officials who must avoid using their positions for private benefit.
- Scenarios Exercised:
- Conflict of Interest: A member disclosed a conflict on a form but did not recuse from a vote. Conclusion: Must disclose at the meeting and abstain if a conflict exists.
- Speaking as a Board Member: A member wrote to the commission and media as a board representative against the majority. Conclusion: Must clarify they speak as an individual, not the board.
- Gatekeeping Power: A chair withheld a competitor's application from the agenda. Conclusion: This is misuse of position.
- Impartiality & Employment: A member only supported projects benefiting their employer's programs. Conclusion: Decisions must rely on published board criteria.
- Nepotism: A member disclosed a family relationship to the chair privately but not publicly, and voted. Conclusion: Disclosure must be made publicly at the meeting, and recusal is advised.
- Members were reminded they can consult the city attorney, Greg Sullivan, on ethical questions.
3. 2024-2025 Work Plan Review and Future Priorities
- Natalie Meyer reviewed progress on the existing two-year work plan:
- Local Food System: Sustainable events guide completed but not yet implemented due to staffing capacity.
- Composting Services: Pilot program rolled out successfully; approximately 1,700 participants have signed up.
- EV Charging: Project pivoted to installing city fleet infrastructure (Public Safety Center, shops complex) to capture expiring federal incentives; a community-wide plan remains a future goal.
- Green Power Program: Negotiations with Northwestern Energy for a renewable rate option are ongoing. The board will likely re-engage on this in 2026.
- Extreme Heat/Wildfire Smoke: Outreach materials developed.
- Energy Efficiency & Electrification: Solar projects at the library and water reclamation facility progressing; contractor training for heat pumps identified as a key need.
- Urban Tree Canopy: Baseline land cover dataset completed.
- Engineering/Water Standards: Stormwater plan adopted; wetland code updated.
- Board Discussion on Future Work Plan:
- Members expressed a desire for a more action-oriented role in implementing work items, potentially through dedicated work sessions.
- Isabel Friedman suggested prioritizing housing and energy affordability as a climate resilience topic, noting its intersection with previous board discussions.
- Jesse Wees raised the topics of growing noise and air pollution (airport, train traffic) and increased litter, asking if the board could take on an educational or advocacy role.
- Brooke recommended a standalone water resilience work plan item given the IWERP momentum.
- Members supported including multimodal transportation and bike infrastructure safety as a topic.
- Erin suggested revitalizing a sustainability recognition/awards program.
- Members broadly agreed on the need to enhance outreach and marketing for existing programs (e.g., composting, Engage Bozeman website).
- Natalie noted the City Commission is currently setting its goals, from which the board's work plan will be derived. She will bring a proposed structure for the new work plan to the next meeting.
Key Outcomes
- Meeting Opened: The January 14, 2026 meeting was called to order.
- Minutes Approved: The November 12, 2025 meeting minutes were approved.
- Ethics Training Completed: The board fulfilled its 2025 annual ethics training requirement.
- IWERP Follow-up Directed: Board member Brooke will provide requested data and a further update in the spring.
- Future Work Plan Direction: The board provided extensive guidance for its next two-year work plan. Staff will draft a proposal incorporating the new priorities for discussion at the next monthly meeting.
Meeting Transcript
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.
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