Mayor, commissioner.

This is uh should be a kind of work session.

It is a work session to essentially update uh you on the five-year progress report around our sustainability strategy.

Uh before I turn it over to Meg Malonia, you want to acknowledge and welcome Mark Charles, our first director of sustainability for our Office of Sustainability.

Yes.

So I'll turn it over to Meg for uh to start the presentation.

Good afternoon.

Um I'm excited to give you our five-year progress report.

Um, so today we're going to be focusing on that kind of green document.

I'm going to be walking you through that's a high-level overview of our plan.

Um, and I will say there is a much more detailed um spreadsheet with all of our projects and our progress report already available on the City of Dayton website.

Um, so this is just kind of a high-level overview to give you an update of what we've been working on.

So to get started, a lot of folks always ask me uh when you start a sustainability office in a city, kind of what is the plan moving forward?

And uh Mark did a great job laying out our sustainability plan, which I'll get into in a moment.

But I kind of have uh four areas that I encourage folks when they're thinking about a sustainability office and starting one to kind of hone in on.

Um, the first piece of that is identifying where your greenhouse gas emissions are.

Um, and again, we're in a climate emergency, we know the climate is warming.

That is driven by the increase of carbon emissions.

So identifying those emissions is important, then creating a policy around it to address those emissions is the second step.

Um, our policy was our sustainability strategy and our climate emergency, which identified projects that we implemented to help reduce our overall emissions and improving not only the environment but the health and well-being of our community.

So I'll keep coming back to this slide as I walk you through kind of what we've been doing.

We've been following this process over the past five years.

So on our website, we have a very complicated, deep version of this that you don't need to pay attention to any of these numbers.

But this is what a greenhouse gas inventory kind of looks like in a whole.

So there's two pieces of a greenhouse gas inventory.

You first look at the emissions from your city operation.

So, what is our municipal buildings contributing?

What is the uh transportation side of our usage of vehicles uh contributing, and then you also look at the community as a whole.

So our residents, our businesses.

So a greenhouse gas inventory for a city is usually split into these two areas.

Now, our uh study was from 2019, so right before we adopted our plan in 2020, we did this um inventory in 2020, but we used 2019 as kind of a base year before COVID.

Um, and for our city operations, what we found is most of our emissions were in three main sectors.

Um, the first is wastewater treatment.

Uh so methane is a natural byproduct of the wastewater process.

And as you remember, we did a very big project to reduce the emissions in that category, which I'll get into.

But 50% of all emissions coming from the city were just from wastewater treatment.

And again, that's a natural process.

It's these microbes, they they release that as they um break down the wastewater.

Um, and then the second two areas we see a lot of emissions in is electricity.

Um so a lot of our projects were focused on renewable energy and also solid waste.

So the waste that comes from our city facilities.

So a lot of the projects that we focused on, we're trying to reduce emissions in these sectors.

When we look at the community as a whole, it's a similar story.

You see a lot of um our emissions concentrated in the electricity sector again.

So 45% of our community's emissions are in electricity.

Another 22% is in stationary combustion, which is natural gas.

So again, mostly energy usage.

Um, and we've done a lot of projects again around natural gas usage as well.

And then the last one is mobile combustion or transportation of vehicles.

So when we look at a city again, we're kind of focused on wastewater operations and electricity, whereas at our community, we're focused on electricity and natural gas.

So more of our housing stock and also um yeah, the heating and cooling of buildings.

Great.

So we know where our emissions are, and so the next step of you know, working towards a more sustainable city is creating a policy that addresses these emissions.

Um, and so what we did as part of that is we adopted our sustainability strategy, but an important piece of that as well is identifying which neighborhoods were in the most need of investment.

Um, so we also conducted a climate vulnerability index, which we will also do again this year for our next plan that we will adopt.

If any of you want to nerd out later, I can tell you all the data analysis we did for this.

But essentially what we did is we looked at climate factors, so infrastructure investment, we looked at our like stormwater infrastructure, we looked at flood risk, we looked at urban heat island effects, we looked at health risks, so we looked at access to health insurance, we looked at their access to a vehicle or if they were close to a bus stop or walkability.

Um we also looked at uh various other things too, like employment, um education.

So we had over 25 different indicators, and then what we did is based on the national average, we prioritized which neighborhoods were the most vulnerable to least vulnerable.

So every neighborhood in red is our most vulnerable from again, climatic is kind of all-encompassing of not only like you know, environmental, but also again the health and education.

So red are our neighborhoods that are our first priority.

This is probably familiar to you because again, these are our historically disinvested red line neighborhoods as well.

There's a lot of overlap there.

Um, the second, the ones that are kind of in like a yellow beige are second priority neighborhoods, and then the green are a third priority.

I like to state that um that doesn't mean we don't invest in third or second priority neighborhoods, but when we came up with our sustainability plan, this was very helpful as well because when we thought about where we wanted to focus projects, we also want to think about how we're ensuring that we're putting investment into the neighborhoods that need it most.

So I will come back to this map at the end because um, in addition to looking at this part of our plan, each year we look back at our investments of how we spent our time and our money and how we were looking at those neighborhoods.

So I also like this too because I think that like certain neighborhoods kind of pop out a little bit more than others.

I we have a whole other presentation on kind of this piece as well for a different day.

Uh okay, so then goes into our sustainability framework.

So when we were shaping our sustainability plan, we kind of had five main areas that all projects are kind of um uh interfacing with.

So the first one is obviously climate mitigation.

We're trying to reduce emissions.

Um that one's a little bit more straightforward.

Uh, the second piece of this is infrastructure.

That one uh is important too because obviously we have a lot of aging infrastructure in the city.

We talk a lot about how do we make sure that not only that we're taking care of investments, but we're not adding new investments, it's gonna be like a lot of money and cost in the future.

So the infrastructure piece is important.

Um, the third piece is resilience.

Um, I always like to say we're not trying to bounce back to how we were, we're trying to build forward, so we're trying to build a more resilient city.

This is from a climatic standpoint, but also from a social and economic standpoint as well.

Um, the fourth point was economic development.

This one was um an interesting ad as well.

When we were initially doing the sustainability plan, there was like a lot of fear when we were doing some of our engagement that somehow sustainability would be a huge increase on cost or would somehow not be a job creator.

And so, as part of our project, too, aside from tracking the financials, we also kind of showcase how sustainability can also help be a creation for jobs, to be a career pathway for our youth.

Um, and last but not least, and probably our most important piece is equity.

So, again, going back to that climate vulnerability map, looking at which neighborhoods we're investing in, we're trying to ensure that those that are most at risk, our lowest income neighbors, um, you know, our immigrant neighbors, they're usually the ones that are also feeling a lot of these environmental injustices.

So, ensuring that we're also um having an equity lens when we look at all of our sustainability projects.

So, through that climate vulnerability index and our framework, we came up with this sustainability strategy that Mark wrote in 2020.

Um, and we adopted it in August 2020.

It was 102 projects across all city departments.

Um the overall goal of it was to improve energy efficiency, reduce emissions, and save money for departments.

Um, and then we also had a kind of that was we had a goal internal to the department of trying, you know, to help our department save money and reduce emissions, but we also wanted to promote the well-being of our residents.

So several of our projects were also focused on economic savings for residents and improved environmental health conditions, which I will also talk about.

And then not shortly after that, we adopted on Earth Day in 2021 a climate emergency.

This is the second policy document that also guides our sustainability office.

Um we set three additional goals in this document.

Um, the first was that we were going to convert our city light duty fleet vehicle to 100% electric, um, which we will give an update on shortly.

Uh, that we were going to supply residents with 100% renewable energy, so that kind of set the stage for our electric aggregation program, and that we were going to try and achieve carbon neutrality for dating facilities in the community through renewable energy.

So those were kind of three main goals that were also set in our climate emergency.

Um we were only the second city in Ohio to declare a climate emergency, and that is something I still get asked about a lot is how can we put our cities.

Cities are still doing that now, which is really great.

So we identified our emissions, and then we have our sustainability strategy and our climate emergency to be guiding us.

So now I'm going to dive into a little bit about the projects that we've been working on and how we've been implementing them.

And before I dive into all the projects, I should state that this work is not done in a silo.

It is done not only with my team and with Mark and Michelle Simmons, who also retired from our office, but this is really done across all city departments.

So a lot of the work I'm highlighting, departments were doing it completely on their own.

We have always been, I think, very innovative in the environment.

I still get asked about our source water protection program.

So I think that there is a lot of departments that are already doing a lot of this great work.

So I'd like to highlight that it's not just our office, it's all the city departments that are working on it with us as well as our community partners have been crucial in the implementation of these projects.

So our sustainability plan to give you a progress update.

Again, we uh if you read our plan, we have it kind of split into a couple main categories.

So we have ground and surface water, and again, our water department has been crucial in the implementation of a lot of those projects.

Air pollution reduction.

So a lot of that was focused on transportation and energy.

Um we work very closely with public works, water, airport on some large energy projects, renewable energy.

Um I'll get into shortly about a lot of our solar projects, climate change adaptation, uh, waste management, public works.

John Parker has been doing an amazing job in a lot of our waste programs as well.

Land use and community garden, um, our planning neighborhoods and development team have some really great programs that they partnered with water on that I'll discuss shortly.

Transportation and financial.

So I'll be going through the strategies broken up into just those categories.

If you also read the strategy strategy, it's also broken up by department too.

So you can kind of look at it in both things.

Um now for the implementation.

What have we been doing for the past five years?

Um, well, we had 102 projects, and we completed 80 of the 102 projects, which I thought was pretty impressive, especially we had a team of one for a long time.

Um, and now we are a team of six, but I think that um it really showcases again kind of how the city has been working as a whole together on these progress uh projects.

And we had 21% of them were incomplete, um, which I'll go through shortly.

Um 100% of our renewable energy projects were completed, which I think is really important because when I talked about those carbon emissions in the beginning, again, a lot of them are concentrated in the usage of electricity and natural gas.

So converting to renewable energy is very important.

Um we completed around uh 83% of our projects in air pollution, 82% in climate change adaptation, 77% of our water projects, 75% of our environmental awareness, 70% of our financial, 67% of transportation, 62% of waste management, and 92% of our land use and community garden.

So overall, that breakdown, I think was kind of important too because it helped us realize like where some for our next iteration of our plan, where are we going to be focusing more of our investment on?

But overall, I think all of our kind of categories I was pretty happy that they were at least over 60% completed, which is pretty great.

Um, for the uh 18 projects that we didn't complete, we also broke them down by uh what was the challenges associated with them.

Um, 33% of them were due to financial constraints.

So again, we are very creative with funding.

I people always ask me, like, you must have a big budget in sustainability by telephones and we only get 300,000 from the general fund.

So we are very creative with our funding of our projects, and most of them either fund themselves or through grant funding.

Um, so if we could not identify funding, um, or yeah, there was no feasibility for the financials of the project at the time that we didn't pursue them.

That doesn't mean they can't be pursued, that just means you know the timing isn't right.

Um, 28% was not prioritized, um, but we're still planning on moving them to our next plan.

Um, this is important too because as my team will tell you, I always say I don't like to bite off more than we can chew.

I think there's a million sustainability projects that you can do, and something that I think is hard for other cities is sometimes they try to take too much on, and by trying to take too much on, they don't get anything done.

And so we have a way that we prioritize our projects that I'll talk about shortly based on our emissions, our community impact, and financials.

And so we prioritize projects each year that we're gonna work on.

That shapes my staff's work plan.

Um, so some of our plans are just work prioritized.

It didn't mean they weren't important.

It was either a you know, not a big financial win or didn't have as much community impact, but we'll be using them in our next plan.

Uh 17% of them were outside of city control.

So either we started on a project and we're working with the partner in the community to do them, and the partner, you know, maybe didn't have the time or they couldn't prioritize it.

Um 11%, this these ones were fun.

We're from legal barriers.

Um, we had a couple that were banning things, like banning plastic bags, but the state of Ohio, for example, adopted a ban on bans.

So some of our projects we actually couldn't complete because, for example, our plastic bag ban that Mark and I first started working on was restricted by the Supreme Court of Ohio.

So some of them we could not pursue.

Some of them also, especially with the administration change we saw on the federal level, have has restricted us as well.

And then 11% were not just were not feasible.

So they just weren't ready yet for implementation and are something again that we can re-evaluate.

The breakdown of all 102 projects, Niani Brown on our team made like a really beautiful spreadsheet that's available on our website.

So you can actually look at all 102 projects, and we break them down by giving you a summary of each of the activities, the metric on how we tracked its performance, and we give you a link to information, additional information on it.

So any of these projects, both the ones that we completed or the ones that we didn't complete, is all available on a spreadsheet for the public to read and is currently on the City of Dayton website.

So if you have any more questions on that, but that also for my number of folks, there's a lot of metrics that Niani put together for all those projects as well.

So to highlight again, this report is highlighting.

We couldn't obviously highlight all 80 of our projects.

That's why I think the spreadsheet is nice for that.

Um so we just picked some ones that we thought really had a good story to kind of highlight in this report in front of you.

So again, how we prioritize our projects and kind of the way we bucket the success of our program are kind of three main areas, which I'm gonna walk through.

Um savings for the city and its residents, reduction in carbon emissions, and again, community engagement.

So when we're looking at projects to implement and trying to prioritize them, we're obviously residents love residents and businesses love when we can save them money.

So projects that help drive savings is important to us.

Projects that have large emission reductions to really drive down those greenhouse gas gases is important.

And then the last piece is community engagement.

So a lot of some of our projects, maybe they didn't have as much savings or emissions impact, but they were like a call by residents.

Either neighborhood presidents asked us to work on them, or we had partners in the community that we saw sustainability could help alleviate maybe some sort of problem that that neighborhood was having.

And so that's kind of how we broke down the prioritization of these projects.

Um the first one, and I'm sorry, the green's a little bright on the screen, but um the first one was saving for its residents.

So over the course of 2020 to 2025, we helped save 29 million dollars.

Um, this again is a kind of a mix between actual savings and cost avoidance.

So cost avoidance is things we were gonna have to pay, but we implemented projects so that we didn't have to do that.

Um, Matthew on my team behind me, he is like the data wizard, so he can give you a breakdown on any of those numbers if you're curious of how we got up to that 29 million dollars.

But that's collectively from city facilities and for our residents and businesses.

Some of those projects that um drove the savings included.

Uh, we had in our plan that um when we updated municipal buildings, but they had to be more energy efficient.

So we did various energy efficiency projects.

We got grants to install sensors and LED lighting in our safety building from Ohio Department of Development.

Um we also converted 1,500 streetlights to LED, which was a big savings.

Um, and that actually really drove down costs on our street lighting bills as well.

One of our largest, I think, successes was restarting the electric aggregation program.

Um, I know we talk about this one a lot, but we had paused the aggregation program in 2018 and restarted it in 2021.

Um, that program is again 100% renewable energy, which is meeting our target in our climate emergency to give residents renewable energy.

So over 30,000 households are participating, or yeah, 30,000 meters of households are in that program participating, getting 100% renewable energy.

And the total savings since we start that program is um after this year will be over 12 million dollars.

So we're about to announce our new price.

We are again below the standard service offer through AES, which is very exciting.

Um, through the Biden administration, we were able to secure 36 million dollars in grants.

I would be lying to you if I said that we received all that 36 million because some of them are currently caught up in court and other freezes.

Um, but we did secure a lot of funding, including um trying to put solar on low-income households.

We had a program that is currently paused where all the houses that have ventilation systems from the superfund sites, they pay around $300 extra in energy bills.

We were gonna put free solar on their house to offset those energy bills.

Um our hope is that money will eventually flow, but some of it still is.

Um, so we'll have over 40 new charging ports throughout the city of Dayton to fill all the charging gaps for EV chargers.

That money is still flowing down.

We have some money for small businesses and energy efficiency that um we recently found out is gonna come back, which is exciting.

So some of that money is still coming tonight on commission calendar.

Uh, we have 3.3 million dollars of our 7.8 million that we secured through an AES Ohio.

So we are doing a large weatherization and energy efficiency program.

So tonight's money that you all will see in front of you to vote on is to do between four to 500 houses will become weatherized, more energy efficient through our three home repair partners.

And again, our Dane Home Repair Network, they are amazing.

All of our partners involved in that.

But that is really helping drive down that only emissions, but also benefits to residents, which is great as well.

And then we also had added some funding for PACE Direct.

So PACE program was something that historically large developers could take advantage of to do energy efficiency upgrades.

But we really heard a need of smaller developers of projects around 250,000 that around that price range that like they were trying to invest, but they couldn't get access to funding.

And so we helped seed with Montgomery County and the Port Authority, a program to help small and medium-sized businesses get funding for energy efficiency.

And 301 homes now have rooftop solar.

So we've done various solar co-ops with Solar United Neighbors.

And again, we're trying to also assist with grant funding for solar as well.

In addition to the savings, again, a large part of our program is the reduction of carbon emissions.

So as of 2025, all city data buildings are supplied with renewable energy.

So we purchased renewable energy.

That also means that every time we charge an electric vehicle for the city, it's getting renewable energy as well.

That is something that I had a resident call me about the other day and ask.

But since we purchased renewable energy, the cars are actually getting charged with renewable energy as well.

We installed our first solar array on the West Pod Police Station, which is a carport.

It looks really great if you haven't driven by it yet.

And then in addition to that, we're also passed the contract for solar on the old Brownfield site next to the Miami water treatment plant.

And we just are currently in contract negotiations for the Dayton International Airport for another solar array on a old trap shoot site out there, which is also a brownfield site.

Our Dayton Fire is amazing.

They have equipped 41 of their vehicles with no smoke exhaust filtration systems.

So that helps reduce air pollution off the exhaust of their vehicles, but it's actually like a huge health benefit for our firefighters too, that they don't have to be breathing that exhaust, especially when the cars are parked within the station.

So that was a really great project.

We now have over 50 city vehicles that are fully electric.

And our gas, our savings on not purchasing gasoline is roughly around 21 to 28,000 a year.

I know we report on that each year to commission.

We also adopted an electric vehicle procurement policy.

So again, we look at total cost of ownership of vehicles.

So if an electric vehicle is not currently hitting, it's based on the year of the vehicle, the mileage, all these things kind of lead up to that.

So if the vehicle is not quite ready to go electric, we also have a procurement policy that encourages hybrids, so we're encouraging other sustainable vehicles as well.

A big emissions reduction for us was that renewable natural gas project.

So again, as a reminder, we're now capturing all the gas that we originally flaring at the water reclamation facility.

That is huge.

That was a 50% of our emissions for our city facilities that we're now reducing.

And the last time I checked to the ballpark estimate of savings, we thought there'd roughly be around $800,000 in revenue from that program, and we're roughly in that ballpark.

So that program is great.

And also we've been getting a lot of questions on it.

I think water has received some national awards for it too.

So that's something that other cities are now looking to do.

I just got a call from a pretty large city the other day asking kind of about that process.

And I wish Michelle Simmons was here because that was her baby that she kind of led through before she retired.

And then again, our plant uh public works team and planning neighborhoods development team are amazing.

They added 8.1 miles of new bike lane, and we achieved the uh silver level for the bicycle planning community award as well.

Um, and then lastly, talking over some of our engagement work.

Um, so we adopted a sustainable procurement plan.

So that was led um from Nicole Fox and her team.

Zach on a hurry team was really great in helping for the implementation of that.

Um, and the idea behind that is not only do we want to buy more sustainable products for the city because there's like potentially a cost benefit there, um, it's better for the environment, but it's also better for human health.

We're learning about more emerging chemicals that are you know in products that we use, and so that helps like our overall health and safety of our employees as well.

Um Ryan Urban team is great.

They planted over uh 1,265 new trees since this plan was adopted.

And Brian and I and Susan Vincent at the time worked on securing 2 million dollars to plant new trees, maintain our existing trees, and we're doing Dayton's first tree canopy survey since 1987.

Um for someone who's really nerdy like me, it's like so much fun to watch because every day they like they go through our street trees and they they put little dots on this calendar, and you can see like what kind of tree it is and how big and how much maintenance it needs and its ecological value to our residents.

So that is something that they'll show you at the end, but it has been very fun, and our um contractors that they've been working on has been really great.

Um the water department has been amazing doing their um river cleanup.

They've collected over 47 tons of trash with over 3,000 volunteers.

Um planning neighborhoods and development, specifically community engagement and um environmental management work very closely in an urban agriculture grant.

So they've uh supported over 31 community farms and getting them water access.

Um and then again, uh we do a lot of work on educating residents about the brown fields and super fund sites within the community, uh specifically how we can ensure that residents you know uh are informed about what's happening on these sites, thinking about potential reuse of the site at that place, but also for the homes that do have chemical contamination that's um maybe impacting a resident or business.

We do a lot of education and outreach for that.

Um, and then lastly, recreation has been amazing.

We've been working with them on our Dayton Sprouts program.

So we've had over 1,500 children participate in our summer camp program since we launched it.

Um my team has also been working with recreation on some additional events to educate the community on doing like workshops at our rec centers to educate them about ways to get compost at home and garden at home.

So uh recreation has been a really great partner, not only for um through the children's summer camp program, but for additional outreach for um residents and our youth.

So that was a lot of information, but again, that was just some of the highlights from our plan.

Um, and a lot more of that is again within our website that kind of goes through each plan specifically.

So we completed this process, but we're actually going to do it again.

Since this plan was a five-year plan, we are working to actually um uh adopt another plan.

This time I think we're gonna make it 10 years, and what we realized with that is some of the projects we started in 2020 we're still actually working on.

So having a slightly longer runway would be nice that we're gonna but have the opportunity to update it more often.

So we're gonna repeat this process again.

Um, so you'll get more information from me probably later this year to early next year, where we redo our greenhouse gas emissions, redo our climate vulnerability index.

I'll show you a before and after, so we'll have some more data on like kind of our progress that was made, but then that will also inform us on the projects that we're moving forward with in our next iteration of our plan.

Um, so some other highlights um based on this plan and talking about next steps.

Um, so again, I think especially with the change in the federal administration, we've been seeing in the community and just um on a national level, two people disinvesting from sustainability.

And so I always like to tell cities, residents, who is ever ear, I guess they can really have about the impact of our sustainability program.

So we have two staff on general that are funded through general fund, one from water, and then three from Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Um, but our small team has driven over again 29 million dollars in savings, that's a 20-time investment on the general fund.

Um, and we return each of our staff member returned 9.7 million dollars of impact.

So, in a time where I think a lot of people are saying, hey, I don't know if sustainability really works, I don't know why my organization should be investing.

I just think that's so silly because I think that like again, there's a lot of misinformation that sustainability um, you know, it's gonna cost money or it's a waste of time.

But we not only drive a lot of savings for our organization and and and community impact, but I think that we also, you know, are really helping improve like the health and well-being of our community.

So we're very proud of that.

We've also been recognized as a national leader in sustainability.

Um, I was just telling my team that I got a call from a consultant that we work with on a national um, or we work with them statewide on some initiatives, but they just went to a city that I will not name, but they have over a million residents.

And the consultant went in and they met with this uh the uh vice mayor and their chief of staff, and they just had like a document that was the Dayton sustainability achievements, and they were like, Dayton Ohio is just doing a lot.

We heard you work with them, and we want to mirror some of these projects.

And I think that just really showcases that like people are really respecting our work.

Um, and I think that uh I was honored because I was like, wow, a city of over a million people.

I thought they would, you know, have the resources, but they were like, no, we are we feel like we're behind and we see cities doing this.

Um and I think what makes us so unique in being a national leader is really the support like that I get from you all.

I talk about this all the time.

That like I was like, I have a very strong commission who really supports our work.

Like all five of you are so uh impactful in pushing forward for this.

We have a city management team who's very supportive of our work.

And honestly, I think that the reason that we've had such success and such a long runway to be this national leader is really because you all work so well together and really support the city manager in helping us implement our work.

So I'm very grateful for you all.

Um then I think that yeah, we've had a couple great wins from that.

So uh there's not a ton of ways that cities can compare their sustainability work, but the lead system is one of them.

You all may remember we received lead platinum, we were the first city in Ohio.

Um, again, we're like only in maybe a dozen cities that have ever received that uh recognition.

So I still get asked a lot and still like to brag that I, according to their system, we're one of the most sustainable uh cities in the country, which is really great.

Um the world, yes, because they're a global, they're a global system.

Um we've been recognized again by Ohio Mayor Alliance, Power Clean Future Ohio, Ohio EPA for our environmental work.

And I know that uh each year I'm just very honored that a lot of our programs get recognized on a national level too for the work that we're doing.

Um, again, I cannot claim credit for the Dayton Home Repair Network.

A lot of that was due to our partners, and some of them are here tonight.

Um, but that one recently I feel like we've been getting a lot of traction for a lot of people want to uh you know replicate the home repair network in their communities as well.

Um, and I cannot name all of our partners, it would take too long.

But again, I put our neighborhood presidents and community leaders first because at the end of the day, a lot of this work not only is driven internally but by our external partners who help us.

Um, and again, they make it almost easy for us.

A lot of the cool programs that we need to do in neighborhoods, um, it's because we have really strong leadership in our neighborhoods who are very supportive of this work.

But here are just a list of some of the partners who have really been driving some of these impactful projects, and we have many more.

Um, and again, I think one of our strengths as again a city and our office is that we really leverage our network.

I think the cities that do this in a silo just aren't cannot accomplish as much.

And the um gauge that I think our team has is that we really rely on these partners to accomplish a lot of this work.

Going through some of the challenges that we're hoping to address that were kind of challenging in this process, but also something that we're looking at in our next plan is again financial constraints, especially with the changing federal landscape.

Um, that's something that I think we're getting really creative on and was a focus area of our team this year, and like looking at other funding mechanisms that we can help to continue to do this work that doesn't rely maybe as much on a federal administration.

Um, it's a cancellation of a lot of those funds shifted a lot of the projects that we were focused on.

Um so we're kind of redirecting like where um you know, where we're going to start pushing um in the next couple of years.

Um project complexity and learning new processes.

When I talk about hiring my team and why I'm so proud of them, is like all of them are just really great at learning new things.

None of us are actually, I feel like maybe sustainability generalists would be better term for a lot we do is like uh, you know, we're constantly learning new things, and the way that we're innovating is I think again we're relying on partnerships to learn new things, but a lot of these projects are really complex.

Um, the Gem City Solar Project that we adopted in January was a very, very complex negotiation, but we had such great partners, and I think that that kind of helped alleviate some of the challenges there.

Um limited staffing time and resources.

Again, we're a nimble team, um, but this is something that we're always thinking through too as like we go through is like how to maximize our time.

Um, and then the last two are more kind of a comment on what we're trying to work with on with communities.

So the sustainability is still a word that a lot of people I think are getting used to.

We have a lot of partner organizations, for example, um, our i team um is working a lot, our innovation team is working a lot on workforce development.

And we talked to a lot of folks who are like, yeah, we work with kids, but we're not doing sustainability.

And it's like, well, you are like construction jobs or sustainability or car mechanics are sustainability.

And so we're trying to help partner organizations realize if they're working in a silo that it actually does intersect with this work.

Um, and again, I think that kind of goes into a broader understanding of sustainability.

So a lot of what I think we want to do in this next plan is also continue to promote what sustainability is because a lot of folks still don't totally know what it means.

I joke my parents still say that I'm a sub-sustainability manager.

Like, I don't they don't think they would know how to keep saying she does subsustainability.

I was like, No, it's just sustainability.

But I think a lot of people are still learning what that what that means.

And so um, I know for our next iteration of our plan, we're really going to be focusing on how we can do how we can explain sustainability, how we can take it out of a silo, how we can promote the is a thing that you know kind of intersects all pieces of our community and again promotes the well-being of our community as well.

So, coming up in 2026, um, we're working on more solar projects, more EVs, home repair, workforce developments.

Um, you'll have more updates from us on that sustainability plan.

So we'll redo our greenhouse gas inventory to set that 10-year vision.

Um, we're still exploring different funding strategies and ways that we can still continue programs even with a federal funding loss.

Um, and again, we're gonna continue to drive savings, emission reduction, and community education.

So, lastly, here's that map that I was mentioning.

So, this is just a sample of some of the projects that we're working on.

They're not in the exact location in each neighborhood, but just pilots again.

Each year we reflect back on this map, and I want to see that we're investing in again those those red and those yellow neighborhoods.

And so I think our office has done a good job of focusing our investments there.

Again, we we want to touch every piece of our our city.

So we're not just trying to do those neighborhoods only, but I think this really showcases that you know we're still really hitting our goal of trying to invest in our historically combusted areas.

And with that, all this information can be found on our website.

So our plan, our old plan for well, now it's whole plan.

Our our plan from 2020, our overall spreadsheet of all the projects and all the data you could want.

This pretty summary plan is also on there too.

And then our annual reports each year we did like a short annual report that you can also find.

So all that information is available for the public in case they have any questions.

And with that, I'll think any questions you all have.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um first of all, Meg, congratulations to you and your team.

This is um incredibly comprehensive.

Uh and you know almost unbelievable that you all got this much done in just five years.

Um so incredibly impressed.

Uh, you guys are truly small variety.

And I know the savings for residences and the city is particularly um huge for us.

Um kind of zoned in on the 1500 street flights, uh, the conversion to LED.

And I'm just curious like how does that compare to the actual comprehensive number uh that we have and is there going to be um an effort to maybe continue that transition?

Good question.

So that's actually a great question.

It's a little complicated.

So if you take all the street lights in the city, only 25% of them are owned by the city of Date.

I see.

75% are actually owned by like a subsidiary of AES Ohio, which um we had looked in the past of like the privatization of all city street lights, and actually like AES gives us a great deal, and part of our negotiations with them is trying to get competitive rates.

Um the 1500 street lights for the ones that we own is actually pretty significant.

Um, and in our negotiations with AES, they are also working to convert all of their street lights that they own.

Um and if you've noticed, we also put in our last settlement too that like it we wanted it to be like equitable across the city.

We didn't want it to just be like downtown or whatever.

So um I can provide you more information on like how they've been rolling that out.

But that's the 1500 is significant because that is uh I don't remember exactly how many of the that 25% we own, but I know that it's like over a majority.

Would that answer your question?

It does, it does.

Thank you.

And lastly, I don't I don't have any other questions except I really appreciate appreciate the climate vulnerability index map.

I think there's uh I mean you did an incredible job making sustainability digestible, right?

For not just us, but I think the public that's listening.

But this map definitely shows, I think where we have work to do.

And I just I look forward to receiving the updates on how we transition uh these right neighborhoods to to green, right?

I know you guys are doing that work, and of course, so many of the projects are located in the most vulnerable areas.

So thanks again.

Uh, congratulations.

Very happy uh to sell this work.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh I agree.

Great work.

Um, this is very comprehensive, and I I appreciate that.

Even someone like me can understand that's uh that's not a small feat.

Um, and you are recognized nasty wherever I go.

I mean, folks talk about you basically if it's your organization and what we've been able to do in Date.

So thank you for that.

I did have uh really one question that jumped out of me.

The river cleanup.

So 3300 people, um, 47 tons.

Is that just in Dayton?

Or is that yes?

I was gonna say, so Teresa in environmental management, who's a division manager of that program, her and her team of police grant, they help organize that, but that's just along in the city of Dayton limits.

Yeah.

So and it's been interesting.

Like I a couple years ago, I went out with them and they get great, like I went out with like all the worked wing staff.

And so worked wing did like a whole day where they brought in all their staff from all their different places across because you know they're outside of City Day Limits, and they brought everybody in to do river cleanup.

So they actually get a lot of good, not only residents who are participating, but a lot of businesses too.

So is that in addition to what the like the Great Miami Riverway folks do?

And yes, it's like part of it, like there's like the clean sweep where they're like starting at Indian Lake and going down.

So it's like part of that program, but then they also have like a DIY cleanup too.

So like all of their cleanups as a whole, you know, they they partner with Green Miami Riverway, but then some of them are our separate things that they organize as well.

And our folks work folks, obviously kind of pick up grass and all that stuff.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Yeah.

So water and public works, I was gonna say we they do most of the organizing on that one.

They do a great job.

So and then the outreach, um, you engaged with um young people with I know that there's a robust effort with the water department, the water what is that called?

The oh, yeah, they just had the water career fair.

Yeah.

So is that part of what you're the numbers that you're capturing, or is this yeah, I was gonna say the my team also attends the like water career conference and um, but uh especially with the Bloomberg Philanthropies funding that we got.

So Leela's team is working on that workforce component.

And so um the Ani Brown and our team is like one of her first part of her job is just working with data public schools.

Um, so we kind of are creating like a new sub-program of our sustainability office that is also just individually working with DPS um to try and help them because also a lot of these jobs, like if you talk to any of our home repair network partners, they always need folks.

And so, like working with youth build and trying to get uh we work with Sinclair Community College too.

They have a really great construction program.

So we're trying to get more um DPS students actually in those programs and participating in them as well.

I love it.

Yeah, and I I really appreciated the briefing um the other day.

Um really look forward to working with you all in that workforce space.

Um so thank you very much.

Oh, I know that uh is gonna have a lot, so I will share my time with them.

Thank you, Richard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh you know, you can measure cities performance a lot of ways, right?

Uh, and there are just probably as many ways to measure cities' performance overall as there are cities.

But one way to measure is how effective are we as a city.

Uh uh, how effective are we identifying the biggest threats and then putting together answers to those threats?

I think we as a commission over these last few years, uh, and you particularly you folks and the rest of our departments that are working that have answered that call and passed that test.

That's that's not an easy test to pass.

We identified a threat to all of us as our residents, particularly some particular residents, this commissioner pointed out.

And we've identified ways to combat that, and we've executed those ways.

So I think that's great.

I'm really proud of you all.

I'm proud of my colleagues for their steadfast support.

I'm proud of city manager for prioritizing this for these last few years in times that some cities just have not.

Proud of you all for doing great work, really exemplary work.

Uh I can say authoritatively, you all are known internationally for your work.

Internationally.

So uh what you've said already speaks for itself.

I don't have to repeat any any of it, except that uh be aggressive in your next tenure plan here.

As you put it together, uh things are not getting any better out there, and we need to be just as aggressive, if not more, in finding uh new and better solutions for our city and our residents.

So thank you very much.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

I was just wanted to all do remarkable work again, as many by commissioner back and mobile mighty, and I think that's a testament to your entire team, your leadership, Mark Charles, from the legacy that he was able to leave behind, as well as to uh again, the city manager, the city commission, their staff management team, as well as commissioner uh Joseph.

I know this is something that is very dear to you.

Um, and so again, just thank you so much for for really being very uh forward thinking, uh being very programming in all of the work that you are doing.

So I do want to pose a question.

The 31 urban farms that are noting, are they still active?

Good question.

So I would have to look at like the list of where we pulled that number from, because I will tell you that some of the places that we've given grants to to put water infrastructure on, they're no longer active.

Um so something that Mike Squire's team has done a really good job on is we get a lot of residents that will email us and are like, hey, I want I I have this vacant parcel that I want to put water infrastructure on.

And cheap to do that, like the grant really helps, but some of the sites are more complex.

And so his team has actually done a really good job of trying to like match sites that are no longer farmed on, but already have the infrastructure all there.

Sometimes they even still have beds on them to those residents to try and kind of do like a matchmaking.

Um so we've been focused on a little bit of that recently too.

But I was gonna say if I had to, I can probably get you an actual answer.

Um, but I I know for a fact that some of the ones that we've done in the past, since they were led by you know a neighborhood person who you know maybe got older and couldn't take care of it anymore.

So we do have some of them that are like no longer maintained.

Thank you.

And last comment that I will make again.

I'm just super super as mentioned by Commissioner Joseph of the work that you are doing.

And this is a comprehensive review.

It's easy to digest.

So great.

Great uh things are public affairs because they put the pretty report together.

Public affairs, because they put the pretty report together.

So we're very grateful for them.

Yeah.

And then the um the index map, I think it is ideal, which I'm probably sure that you are where we have this conversation with the other departments, public works as well as the housing to really match up in the C the whole or the alignment of the work that's being done from public works, from housing planning, so on and so forth.

Yeah, and actually I'm grateful for this.

Um this plan, we partnered with the consultants who's actually helping us because that plan um I did like by myself essentially.

Um, and so now we have a consultant who's actually being able to pull like dating deliverance data.

So that's been really nice too.

So I think that this next index is actually going to be more comprehensive because we're able to pull data from other departments that I just at the time when I was new to the city didn't have all the knowledge of what I needed to pull.

So it didn't exist.

Yeah, or it didn't exist.

So the last point um I know there are a number of efforts that are being made in sort of a little reduction.

But just a point that we could see that amplified, if you will, as you all move forward to your next plan, and we'll be trying to take a more rise of approach on how we are holding people accountable for any zombie or trash litter on the various different things because to your point, right?

That is a part of creating a healthy environment.

Yeah.

And I just think we're on the same wave on that one because I was gonna say we have um we have some exciting things that are coming to you all in the next few weeks about how we're trying to think creatively about waste and also Tim on my team has been great.

He he won a grant from 47,000 to do the German town uh cleanup, but um, we also just want a grant from the Ohio EPA to help with litter as well uh with recycling too.

So you we're on the same wavelength this year because I think that's where we're shifting, especially because when we talk to residents on the Dayton survey, waste is something that we're seeing.

So yeah, we're we're uh have some hopefully some exciting things coming to you soon.

And we'll work through because we're in conversation too on the county side, so we'll work through with Ms.

Dix team to see about how we can make sure that that work is aligned and yes, yes, because I agree.

I think the Swampsy are underutilized resources that uh we can definitely get some funding and resources through that.

So well, kudos to you and our staff of the entire team.

So and right online too, I believe this is public service week, is that right?

So it's and then as many things with the three um separatistic readings that we have on founder this evening.

So again, thank you very much.

Yeah, thank you.

And thank you all for your support.

We really couldn't have done it without your alignment awesome.

So thank you.