Okay, good morning.

Um today is January 7th, 2006.

And um I'm gonna call the Lake County Board meeting to order at 1030 a.m.

Okay, thank you.

So if we could have John, could you uh member Wasick join us with the pledge?

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under value, individual with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, could we have roll call of the members, please?

Sure.

Chair Altenberg is absent.

Member Campos.

Member Frank is absent.

Member Kniesnik is absent.

Vice Chair Peterson present.

Member Schlick.

Here.

Member Wasick.

And ex-official member Hart.

Here.

Thank you.

All right, we have a quorum.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any addenda to the agenda?

No addenda to the agenda.

Any public comment?

No public comment.

Any chair's remarks?

I don't I don't have any chairs remarks this morning.

So let's move on to unfinished business.

No one finished business.

Okay.

Consent agenda 8.1 is uh approval of the minutes from the planning building zoning and environment committee minutes from December 3rd, 2025.

I need a motion.

Motion by Member Schlick, second by member Watsick.

All those in favor.

Okay.

Yeah, here meeting carries.

A regular agenda 8.2 is a resolution on ZBA case number 001126-2025 to rezone approximately 0.34 acres from the limited commercial LC zoning district to the residential uh R3 zoning district.

Motion by Hart, second by member Schlick.

And then we're gonna have uh we have VJ Gatti.

Um a manager with PB and D, and we have a principal planner Tom Shafalo here to present on the item.

Morning.

Yeah.

So I'll give you a quick summary, and Tom Shapato will provide the uh explanation for the PowerPoint presentation.

So the applicant, Justin Realty, is requesting the rezoning of the two parcels, what Tom would show on the screen shortly.

He's about 0.34 acres.

He's requesting to rezone from limited commercial to residential out three zoning to establish two single family homes with attached garages.

The subject properties associated with the applications are located at 36909 and 36895, North Stanton Point Road.

And these are lot two, lots two and three respectively in the subdivision.

These subject properties directly about existing residentially zoned.

Uh devolved properties in Thomas Stanton's subdivision, Ingle Crest subdivision, and Inglecrest Second Subdivision.

The applicant has acquired this property in 2020 23.

And they approved unanimously.

With that, I'll pass on to Tom.

Good morning.

As uh VJ said, this is uh a zoning request.

R Z O N126-2025.

Um to rezone approximately 0.34 acres of limited commercial zoning district to the residential zoning district.

You can switch to the next slide.

I'm sorry.

Oh, I have controlled the sorrier.

Sorry about that.

Um the property, the petitioner is uh Justin Realty Inc., the recorded owner.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with this.

Uh the subject parcels located on the east side of Stand Point Road in Grant Township.

The parcels have access from that road, and it is in Kevin Hunter's um county board district.

The subject parcels are zoned limited commercial, which is pink on this image, and they are occupied by a small garage.

The neighboring properties to the east-west south are zoned residential three, signified in the yellow shading.

And they are used as single family residential lots to the north.

The parcels are zoned limited commercial, signified by the pink shading and occupied by tavern use and parking.

Um the comprehensive plan indicates that the future land use of the subject parcels to be residential single family small lot.

And here are some photos of the existing conditions of the property.

Thank you.

So just real quick, and I I've seen the presentation online and it looks extremely thorough.

I just wanted to ask real quick.

I see ZBA approved it, and Kevin Hunter, has he given any opinion on this?

I spoke with Kevin Hunter prior to the ZBA hearing, and he had for my recollection of our conversation.

Okay, thank you.

I just um I think it looks good.

So I'm not sure.

Anyway, we'll kind of go through the presentation.

Okay, thank you.

Um approved the 1966 zoning map.

The subject prop parcel was originally within the community business zoning district, most likely due to the presence of the tavern uh uses associated with the property.

They're actually, according to a resident, and I can't confirm this, there was on the very northern parcel a small store at one point.

There had been a house there, maybe that was the store.

Um as you can see, the tavern's use uh session uses appear to have waned over time until the most recent era photo shows that the of Sand Volleyball carbon court was removed.

Um the uh the applicants have provided us with uh conceptual layout of the single family homes that they plan to build on the two lots.

Um the public hearing was held by the zoning board of appeals on November 18th, 2025.

Uh the zoning board you manus unanimously recommend approval of the request to rezone the property from limited commercial zoning to uh the residential three zoning district.

Um the zoning board of appeals found the application met the standards for the rezoning in the following manner, and uh they're on the the screen there.

Um the uh after the committee has made a recommendation, the final decision will be brought to the full county board for action on February 10th, 2026.

Uh, does anyone have any questions?

Go ahead, too.

Thank you, Chair.

So is the tavern still in operation?

Yes, and actually the applicants own that the tavern too.

Okay, seems unusual.

Someone would want to go to R3 next to a cabin.

Um that's just it wasn't a concern to the other residents or the developer.

I was just I says something that doesn't click in my mind here.

So I can't answer why the applicants would like to rezone it.

But uh the tavern is actually across the street on the water side of the um property.

Yeah, I mean, we do have the the applicant and uh his uh legal counsel is are they present today if um the committee wished to speak with them, but um my understanding that they they felt that the lots would be more suitable for um residential development rather than um establishing a secondary commercial development.

So I think that's that's that was the ZBA's finding as well, is given that it's surrounded by houses.

Okay, um, that it really would be um and and given the the need for housing, um, that this really would be a beneficial thing for everybody involved.

Okay, thank you, Chris.

Any other questions?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

8.3 is a director's report from uh PD Director Eric Wagner.

Good morning, Eric Wagner, planning building and development director.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

2026 is going to be very busy for uh PBND and this committee as it relates to a number of ordinance amendments that um we've been uh working on for the last several months.

2026 is going to be very busy for uh PBND and this committee as it relates to a number of ordinance amendments that we've been uh working on for the last several months, um, most of which you've already seen in their preliminary form.

Um, so I wanted to take just a couple minutes this morning to brief you on the timeline for these uh different amendment packets so that you're kind of aware of what's in store for the committee over the next few months.

Uh first we have the sustainable development incentives ordinance packet, which uh in Q1 of 2026 is going to be moving forward to the ZBA, and then we anticipate that this committee will uh take up the review of that um packet after the ZBA uh hearing is concluded in Q2 sometime in the spring.

The logistics centers amendments that uh you will recall um working on at the very preliminary stage is also going to the ZBA in the first quarter of this year, and uh PBNZ PBZE will be uh reviewing the results of that um of that uh process in the second quarter.

Um we also have um outdoor lighting amendments that are gonna be moving uh through the process uh starting with the committee in um in Q2 to the ZBA, as well as some landscaping amendments um uh related to parking lots that's gonna uh that's we're gonna be working through in Q2 of this of this year, as well as a uh set of comprehensive amendments to the ordinance that um we we are sort of mainly focusing on streamlining provisions, streamlining and simplification provisions for the development review process that you're gonna be looking at later this spring as well, um potentially into the summer.

And then finally, uh there's a um a set of amendments that we are really compelled to move forward with that are a result of changes to the solar, uh the county solar regulation statute that is that will require all counties to update their ordinances and conformance with that statutory amendment.

The focus of the amendments that we're gonna be looking at in the context of that statutory change have to do with these standalone uh battery energy storage systems or bests.

These are facilities that are essentially set up for the purpose of storing and retaining uh energy electricity that's been generated primarily from solar or wind facilities, uh, but they are apparently um difficult to cite um in counties throughout the state that could that essentially led the um the legislature to essentially require that counties have to have ordinances in place to accommodate these types of developments under certain circumstances, and so we will be amending our ordinance um accordingly to meet the state statute requirements.

And so before we go to the ZBA, obviously we're gonna be um briefing the committee on the highlights of those changes.

There's some also some fee-related provisions that have to be incorporated into our fee schedule related to battery battery energy storage systems and solar development as a whole.

Um, but that that uh that packet will begin with a committee review um a little bit uh later uh this this uh this late winter.

Um but finally um I would like to um remind the committee that um we are really two meetings away from concluding the um the the series of of meetings with the the housing coalition.

Um we have a meeting next Wednesday next week and the uh the last meeting of the series, the summit will happen in mid-February.

I would encourage all board members to register.

Uh we have put um holds on your respective calendars for the January and February events.

So um as soon as you have a chance to register, we'll have a better idea of uh head count before going into these final two meetings.

There will be a period of of sort of um strategy strategy development and so forth following the summit, which will lead to the implementation phase for the Lake County Coalition for Housing.

And we envision that that's going to be of a very involved process for both the county, its municipal partners, and other key stakeholders in the region that's going to bring us forward into 2026 for a very robust series of implementation focused conversations.

That's my report.

Any questions?

Member Lasek?

Yes.

So I believe in our last meeting, uh member Frank mentioned the possibility of doing regs for data centers.

Yes.

Do we have to formally vote on that to prove this process?

I'm just trying to get my head around what we need to do.

So our plan is to bring forward for a discussion item a sort of background to the committee in the February cycle, uh, round one or round two of uh sort of the the context for uh these these facilities, uh how they've been regulated in other areas of the country, um observed characteristics of these facilities, some uh potential impacts of these facilities, and how that may uh sort of you know may form the basis for regulations at the county level.

That's discussion for the committee's overall review uh with the intent of getting consensus of the committee as to whether or not to move forward with any corresponding changes.

Um right now, data centers would be simply classified without any specificity as an industrial use.

And so they'd be regulated accordingly under our current zoning regulations, but to the extent that they may have unique characteristics or impacts that might uh necessitate uh more tailored regulations, that's where an amendment would come in.

And so if the committee's direction at that discussion would be to formalize a formalize a packet, we would then move forward with with um team teeing up an action item for for the committee's review at a at the following cycle.

So let's say that the committee agrees to move forward.

How would how would the process work going forward?

Would you start writing um an amendment to UDO or how would that work exactly?

So the the regulations that we would be specifically looking at would be unified development orders regulations.

And so it would be that would be a uh much like the amendments that I just discussed it under my report.

This would be a packet, an amendment packet that would uh make changes to the existing ordinance um and would have to go through the full ZBA process to the committee to the full board for final action and would be incorporated into the county's code accordingly, if that's the if that's the consensus of the committee to move forward.

And that's typically correct me if I'm wrong about a year-long process to work that through, say if we all approve that we this is what we want to do and gets through ZBA.

So different regulations move at different speeds.

And as uh as you may all recall that we we had to move with particular haste when the first uh the first statutory changes occurred related to solar um at the state level.

That was a situation where we had to accelerate the timeline.

And so we've built our process around a streamlined uh zoning review.

Uh there are other sets of amendments that we feel are there's not the same degree of urgency where you we can take more time to refine those those drafts until we we think they're just right, and then we can move forward with those.

And so in those cases, it's a longer review process.

The question for data centers is what degree of urgency do we need to uh to do we need to look at this at with and and so that will get that'll really sort of drive how we go through the process.

Yeah, and the reason I asked is because they've already broken ground for a huge data center complex in in my district, and uh we could use some guidelines and if there is such a thing as an expedite process for this, I would urge it.

Thank you.

Member Schleck.

Thank you, Chair.

Eric, I'm just kind of getting some more research on these uh facilities, battery storage facilities.

Are they is there anything local that you've seen pop up, like in municipalities or anything?

Are these like mini facilities or these big big storage facilities, more for my education, not something I know it's something we probably haven't dealt with, but so I will say that uh we are familiar with um regional examples of battery storage systems directly associated with a solar project.

So you have a large, let's say a five five, you know, megawatt generating facility over 50 some acres.

In some cases, the provider will accommodate, in addition to the solar field, a battery storage facility on the same property.

And those tend to be not overly large.

You might you it might be, you know, um, you know, like a five, 10,000 square foot facility.

Um what this statute is really looking at are these sort of standalone facilities as well, where they could they could be significantly larger than that because it's essentially capturing storing uh electricity from large from a larger footprint from a larger area.

And so that um that we have not seen a lot of local examples of standalone battery storage systems.

Um, but with the statute changes, that could potentially open the door for more of that kind of development within the region.

Yeah, that's and that's what I think I was looking at because I haven't seen those either.

I've heard stories of you know battery storage issues, but those are usually decommissioned battery storage issues, or so this one kind of piqued my interest of some challenges that could be there as you're giving energy and then I imagine holding and then selling at advantageous times.

And we we've uh for those situations where we've looked at the potential for battery storage, you know, accessory to solar field in the in within the county, you know, the local fire protection districts have been part of that conversation to make sure that it's from uh from um a um fire suppression standpoint, you know, from a first responder standpoint, the facilities that both accessible but also outfitted with the right kind of equipment and fire suppression systems to ensure that there's minimal loss.

Right.

And those are usually easier because they're new buildings that they're putting on site.

It's now I'm thinking like this could be something retrofitting an industrial building.

Doubtful.

Doubtful.

Because they're very there, it's a very specific technology that's being uh that that's being in uh incorporated into the design.

And so they I think that you the tendency is gonna be to want to build from scratch.

Got it.

Is it possible that you could see one retrofitting a warehouse, for example?

I suppose, and if we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Sounds good.

But I'm I'm anticipating that more development is going to be on the new end.

Okay, perfect.

Thanks, Eric.

Member's question that I'm kind of getting between the lines that there was this new law, the Clean Grid Act.

I think the acronym was Surger or something like that.

Is that sort of triggering our need to write regs for Lake County, right?

Is am I right there?

So this was this particular uh amendment was essentially the it was the energy omnibus that passed this last year.

Um, and it governs a whole range of different policy topics within the energy ecosystem, if you will.

Um the the overall driving force for these changes to this the solar, the county solar regulations and wind regulations, which don't really apply in our area because of our geography, was the um the concern on the part of the legislature that solar wasn't moving fast enough in the state because of local barriers to regulate uh to development regulatory barriers that you know are you you're gonna see them more often in more downstate communities.

Um that's why the state decided to step in to facilitate more development of these of the of this industry to meet the the the state's clean energy goals.

And so this is simply a continuum of the work that the state has already done previous to this amendment, like three years ago when they adopted the first set of dramatic changes to um the regulatory environment for solar and wind um that affects counties specifically.

Okay, thanks.

Any other questions?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay, 8.4 is a resolution to support and endorse the 2026 switch together solar group by program organized by the Midwest Renewable Energy Association and the Citizens Utility Board.

Um this is going to be presented by Robin Hallgrim, the sustainability programs manager, and she'll be attending remotely.

We need a motion and a second.

I need a motion and a second.

Motion by member Wasick.

Second by Chair Hart.

Good morning, everyone.

Robin Hallgrim, Sustainability Programs Manager.

This is a resolution to support and endorse the 2026 switch together programs as facilitated by the nonprofit organization, Midwest Renewable Energy Association.

The Lake County Board has endorsed the switch together programs for the years 2024 and 2025, along with Cook and all of the other collar counties of DuPage, Will, and Kane.

This solar group by program has resulted in 71 finished and 190 planned installations of solar in Lake County on residential properties as of last Friday.

So this is a program that we've endorsed for as long as it's been going.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Chair.

So, Robin, uh, I was wondering if I think this is a great program to begin with, but is there any way we can do some enhanced uh outreach to tell people that this program is out there?

Um, I know we have like maybe one press release a year, but I I always get inquiries from my neighbors is like how can we find out about this?

And I vaguely remember we did something, and it's just kind of a one-off thing, but if we could do more, if there's anything planned or just trying to get the word out a little bit better.

Yeah, so we working with the iChooser team, who's another group that that works on this.

We do annual, uh, we do regular social media posts from our own account.

We have a scheduled uh posting schedule that they give us.

We have our own unique link that is always available about the program up on our sustainability page.

And the big push is doing the direct mailers, right?

So we allow Lake County's logo to be used on these direct mailers that go to all of our residents that give them information about the program.

Um the other things that we try to do is we host these educational sessions where we give those those solar power hours, the kind of the 101 class.

This is how this is how uh getting solar on your house works.

And um, then those are hosted by the Citizens Utility Board at the nonprofit organization.

And then at the end, there's no pressure to actually participate in the program, but it is folks are made aware at that time that this program exists.

Um, so if there are additional ideas for how to promote the program, happy to hear uh about it.

But there is regular communication that we try to do outreach for this program every year or several times a year, I should say.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

All those in favor?

Sorry, I opposed.

Okay, motion carries.

We'll move on to 8.5, which is a presentation and a baseline and subsequent implementation reports for the roadmap of decarbonization for 2025 and beyond.

Robin, you're gonna present this also.

Yes, thank you.

Good morning, Robin Hallgrim.

Today I'm reporting on the roadmap to decarbonization baseline implementation report.

Uh, the Lake County Board has set targets for decreasing emissions and achieving 100% renewable energy in Lake County operations.

And the roadmap to decarbonization is that internal staff tool for how this will be achieved by 2040.

2025 was the first year that all departments reported on the implementation of their strategies.

And this is the first of the annual reports that will be coming out, sharing progress and our next steps.

And so this is an informational presentation, and it doesn't require any action from the committee at this time.

Next slide, please.

So having a refresher on what a roadmap tool is.

A roadmap is a shareable tool which can allow all internal stakeholders to remain on the same page.

It assigns responsibilities, communicates timelines, and it measures the expected impact of actions and is a high level of detail for each strategy to achieve a goal.

A roadmap has an implementation checklist on it, and so it allows us to get into the specifics of when a strategy is complete, and it assigns responsibilities to many different parties to allow for a more holistic approach to decarbonization.

Next slide, please.

In 2017, we had our baseline emissions, and we produced 35,823 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

This is what we're trying to knock in half by 2030.

This graph comes from our ClearPath greenhouse gas emissions software, and it breaks up emissions by source.

Our buildings are far and away the largest producers of emissions, most of which comes from heating, cooling, and powering our facilities.

The next largest chunk is employee commute, showing how much gasoline is burned and electricity is used.

And then third is our vehicle fleet in orange, calculating our gasoline used, our diesel use, and our electricity used.

Next slide, please.

And here are our most recent numbers from 2024.

In 2024, Lake County produced 27,623 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

The greatest reductions were seen in our buildings and facilities, but they're still at number one, and employee is still employee commute is our second largest source but has gone down.

And our vehicle fleet is our third largest source but has gone up since 2017.

So this is how we're going to be directly measuring progress over time.

And by completing roadmap strategies, we hope to push these numbers down over time.

Next slide, please.

The roadmap to decarbonization has 22 goals and 175 strategies in 2025.

And the chart on this slide is a pie chart describing the responsibilities of different departments for reporting on the implementation of the strategies.

As you can see, facilities, county administration, and division of transportation have the lion's share of responsibility, but also finance, human resources, communications, planning, building development, public works, the health department, stormwater management, and community development are also in charge of implementing and reporting on these strategies.

And that doesn't mean that facilities, county administration, and DOT are completely acting alone.

Most strategies are going to have more than one department or group involved in implementation.

Those are just the parties responsible for reporting on annual progress, and we call them a head responsible party.

Next slide, please.

Now I'm going to walk through how the annual reporting process work and how are we going to get these implementation reports each year.

So every strategy in the roadmap has been assigned a head responsible party, and the role of those head responsible parties is to keep a record of progression and report strategy progress annually on behalf of all the groups that are working on that strategy through a survey.

So this is our baseline, right?

This is the very first time we went through this process and we got a lot of positive feedback for how the process was handled in each department that was assigned their strategies to report on, went and filled out a survey, letting us know how it was going and what else was needed to continue.

There was 30 days to be able to fill out all of those surveys, which was considered enough time, and everyone received training on how to report that also received positive feedback.

And so we plan to repeat this process every year.

Now that we have a method for collecting this data, we've figured out that there's going to be a quarterly process of reporting to you all and PBZE as the standing committee for the net zero goals.

In quarter one, we will have the roadmap to decarbonization implementation report.

I will let you know what is our completion rate for the strategies and how the roadmap will be updated for the coming year.

In quarter two, I will deliver my greenhouse gas inventory presentation.

This is the data that shows directly how our emissions are being impacted by the completion of these strategies.

In quarter three, I will be reporting on the financial strategies being used for decarbonization ahead of our budget season.

And in quarter four, I'll be working with our energy programs manager on an energy program report.

So four times throughout the year, we're going to be giving continuous progress and updates on our decarbonization.

Next slide, please.

So here is a look at the strategy completion rate for 2025.

Six of the 175 strategies, 16 all were already achieved.

31 were in progress.

One was planned for the next six months, 16 were planned for the next 12 to 18 months, and 63 were not planned.

Next slide, please.

Here it is in a pie chart that breaks it down into percentages.

So again, of those 175 strategies, that means 12% was already achieved, 24% was in progress, 1% was planned for the next six months, 13% was planned for the next 12 to 18 months, and 50% was not planned.

Over time, we want to see this orange slice grow smaller and the green slice grow bigger.

We want strategies to move from not being planned at all to being planned, then in progress, and then achieved.

Next slide, please.

The roadmap to decarbonization is meant to be a living document that's improved over time as we learn new techniques and gain access to new technologies for decarbonization, and therefore getting feedback and updating the roadmap is essential.

And so the 2026 roadmap will have some of its updates, uh, will have some of its strategies be updated based off of suggestions to reassign some head responsible parties to different teams, requesting narrowing the scope of some of the language, requesting clarification or updates to language, suggestions for combining a few strategies to adopt to avoid some redundancies, and requests to eliminate certain strategies based on need.

Next slide, please.

The 2026 roadmap to decarbonization will have still has those 22 goals and 170 strategies.

Based off of the feedback, we were able to eliminate six strategies and add one new one.

Come summer of this year, the staff members will go through the same process that they did last year and will be and we will be able to compare the numbers to this year.

Next slide, please.

Since we're in the earlier years of our implementation, a large number of strategies haven't begun yet, and or they haven't been planned for yet.

I wanted to share this encouraging piece of data that I found from our staff members, asking about why a strategy hasn't been planned yet.

For most staff members, a strategy hasn't been planned because there was a need for an example or some training, or they just needed a little bit more time rather than there rather than there being a real need for a lot of extra budget or financial support to begin that strategy.

And this says to me that the current state of the roadmap is feasible to complete given enough support to our staff members.

Next slide, please.

And I wanted to call out a couple examples of completed strategy of completed strategies.

So our first one is our buildings and facilities, strategy number 28.

Install smart metering technology that allows for real-time energy consumption for all county facilities.

By providing detailed real-time information on energy consumption, these meters allow us to find energy efficiency savings, reduce emissions, and support the integration of renewable energy sources to our buildings.

So it's really impressive and great that we have this finished already.

Next slide, please.

The second example is our employee commute strategy number 13.

Reintroduce public transit incentives by 2026.

And we do have public transit incentives for our employees.

And having these incentives directly impact our employee commute emissions because they shift people from high emission single occupancy vehicles to lower emission shared transport, and that directly cuts our greenhouse gases.

Next slide, please.

So looking ahead to this year in 2026, this is a list of decarbonization programs and projects currently in the roadmap to decarbonization that staff across all of those different teams are working on.

Progress on these should either be reducing our emissions directly or increasing our capacity to do so in the years to come.

So we're hoping to upload our first implementation report, development of an electric vehicle procurement policy, right sizing solar for available properties, installing our Waukegan rooftop solar array, seeking grant funding for public and commuter EV charging, increasing our participation in energy demand response programs, and the development of a work from home policy.

Thank you very much for listening to my first annual report, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Robin.

We'll go ahead and move on to 8.5, which is a presentation on a baseline and subsequent implementation reports.

8.6.

Oh, I'm sorry, 8.6.

Presentation on a new program design for the Lake County Green Business Program.

Staff prepared on informational presentation on a recognition and award program for green practices for Lake County businesses based on the design of comparative government programs.

And Robin will present that also.

Thank you all.

Robin Hallgram, Sustainability Programs Manager.

Today I am presenting for discussion an initial program design for a green business program for Lake County.

I'll be describing what constitutes a green business program, looking at some examples and presenting a draft program design to you all.

And then I'll look for direction for a final design to be approved at the next committee meeting.

Next slide, please.

A green business program is a recognition and award program for local businesses within our jurisdiction.

Private businesses can choose to incorporate environmental sustainability practices, and Lake County can support their efforts either overall or within specific categories of actions such as waste, energy, transportation, food, green space, water, etc.

Next slide, please.

The goal of having a green business program can include assisting our business community with lowering their costs and increasing efficiencies, connecting businesses with local green programs like compost collections or solar group buys, having these businesses do education and engagement with their own employees and community members like we do on sustainable practices and the benefits that they incur.

And finally, of course, having a program would encourage businesses to help reach the environmental sustainability goals that Lake County has stated in the strategic plan.

For example, the goal to expand and promote renewable energy opportunities through policies, operations, and programs.

Next slide, please.

So if a business was interested in being celebrated and recognized by the county, here are the steps that someone might take.

First, they would go on our website and they would fill out a free online application to apply for certification or award by documenting their sustainable features in their facilities and equipment, sustainable procedures and practices that are being conducted by their employees, and their future planning efforts to increase sustainability in operations.

Second, the county's county staff would review the application to make sure that a minimum number of actions have been completed to be eligible for an award.

And this might either include reviewing artifacts or evidence for completion of some actions, or if necessary, a site visit to verify the claims being made by the business.

Then, if the business is eligible, they are rewarded with recognition from the county, which I'll go into more on the next slide of what that could look like.

And fifth, a program can either be an ongoing certification process where a business has to reapply and recertify themselves on a regular basis, or it can be a one-time award and certification program for that year.

Next slide, please.

So now to share more about how a program like this can be worthwhile for a business to participate in.

Other communities that have created green business programs have developed a lot of free business promotion.

So for example, you design a logo that says you're a Lake County Green Business, and the business can put that logo on a window decal or on their social media, and you give the business a branding kit so that they can self-promote their own award or certification.

Also through our own website and our own social media or publication list, could also participate in celebrating the business.

So listing them on our website as an awardee of the green business program as an example.

We would hope that the business would incur direct cost savings through participation in the program through conserving water, energy, and transportation costs, as well as the secondary cost savings through general community benefits like air quality improvements.

And finally, most programs seek to host a kind of short award ceremony where the leadership in the business is welcomed to a public meeting where they're handed a physical certificate and have a photo opportunity with the county board chair.

And then in this way, the business can have a trustworthy credential, and it doesn't cost the county a lot of money to be able to give recognition to those local businesses for having made these substantial efforts.

Next slide, please.

As I've been referencing, a lot of different communities have come up with unique ways to run a green business program.

And on this slide, I want to go over some of the different designs that have been used.

So a program might award for overall sustainability or specific categories.

For example, the Sacramento County program awards in water conservation, energy conservation, pollution prevention, solid waste conservation, and transportation air quality awards.

A business might complete an extensive questionnaire or send a report in based off of a guide to claim their actions.

So the Lake Zurich Green Business Program awards certification for businesses that earn 15 points of eligible actions from their green purchasing guide.

And each green action gets assigned a point value, and the businesses need to earn 15 total to earn a certification.

Staff members sometimes schedule a site visit to all businesses, or they will remotely verify submitted evidence, like a photo or an invoice, and then different programs might allow certification to be delivered just the one time, or they might separately require businesses to resubmit and recertify every two years to remain valid.

Next slide, please.

Based on this research of comparable programs and available county resources, these are the recommendations from staff for what a Lake County green business program should look like.

Award the certification across these five categories water conservation, energy conservation, pollution prevention, solid waste conservation, and transportation and air quality.

Maybe one category of sustainability is a lot more important to a certain business.

And by awarding certification in categories, it can allow businesses to be as specific or as general as they want to be for their sector and for their own recognition.

Recommending that businesses must meet a minimum number of actions in any of those categories to be considered for an award, but not all categories are required.

And then having staff reach out to applicant applicants over the phone and over email to request to request additional evidence for completion of some actions.

So for example, if a business says that they have an electric fleet requesting a photo of their vehicles or of their charging stations.

And it would likely be myself who would be reviewing the applications for a green business program.

And I believe it would be most efficient to uh request photographs or other kinds of evidence over the phone rather than conducting site visits for every application.

And then after contact and confirmation for each of these businesses, the certification to be issued once and remain in place.

And so requiring businesses to resubmit their applications on a regular basis would definitely increase the workload associated with the program, creating additional need to upkeep records, create reporting periods, update marketing materials regularly, compared to allowing an awarded business to keep their certification based off of the year that it was earned, and then they can choose to reapply for additional years at their own discretion.

Next slide, please.

After feedback from the committee today, next steps will include the development of the application process on the public-facing county sustainability page, developing marketing materials to promote the program and reward participation with the communications department, and to begin collecting resources for businesses to provide guidance on how to achieve certification.

And now I am available for questions and discussion on the uh recommended design of the program.

If we could go back to the previous slide.

Thank you, Robin.

Um, Chair Hart has a question.

Thank you so much, Robin.

I really appreciate this.

I had read about uh the work that Sacramento County has done, and that it looks like this will essentially mirror their program, which is very successful, um, except for we don't need to really do a site visit.

And I I think that's fine uh providing photos or whatever, because depending upon the company, it might be very difficult to have a site visit around certain areas.

Um I did want to ask though, are there other significant changes versus the Sacramento program?

Other than the site visit.

The recommendation to award annually versus have them recertify.

Sacramento requires businesses to recertify themselves every two years.

Got it.

Okay.

Okay, great.

Well, thank you very much for your research on this.

And uh I know you had done uh something similar in a in a previous role.

So um I know you have a lot of expertise in this, and I really appreciate your work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

And thanks for this, Robin.

I think this is a great idea.

Um, I'm just curious.

Do we have the staff bandwidth to put this together?

And I had a few other follow-ups.

I would say this program as as it's being recommended, takes take staff time into account for what's what's feasible.

If there were a lot of additional uh like recertifications and and so on and so forth, that would be that would be a stretch.

But this this is providing recommendation based off of available resources.

Okay, and do we have any plans or part of this involves uh reaching out to the various chambers of commerce?

I would think that they would be interested in this and working with us.

Uh again, it's not I don't think it's encroaching on municipal authority, but if it's a countywide sort of program, uh I think that they probably should be involved.

Is this something you considered?

That is that is a question for uh how how do we want to manage like Lake Zurich, Hawthorne Woods, these other communities have their own certification programs currently, and how do we want to interact uh with them?

That will be uh that is direction I'm looking for currently.

I think if we had some sort of integration there, I know every municipality is different, some are more intense on this subject than others, then you know, I think that would be a good like question to answer.

Um, because if it just covers unincorporated Lake County, and I think it would have much more uh reach if we did involve the municipalities.

Yes.

And also, did you uh have a chance to talk with our our friends at Swalco?

I I see uh a solid waste conservation is an item on here.

And you know, uh Swalco's been working on composting legislation as long as I've been on that board.

And and I think it's something um that's really important to a lot of food service businesses in particular.

So I'm just wondering if you had a chance to talk to Walter over there.

Not yet, but as the program is coming coming together this month, and I'll be re-presenting the final design at the end of this month for adoption and approval.

Hopefully, um I'll make sure that Walter has been included, especially when it comes to those resource kits for providing to the businesses for how to become certified, they're going to be a fantastic resource.

And the reason I asked this, as you know, we already have a program to do composting at the jail, and if we could extend sort of our our model to businesses to help them with this, um and Swalco has certainly a lot of resources.

I I would think that would be a good thing for making this program as strong as it could be.

So thank you very much for this.

Member Schlick.

Thank you, Chair.

Robin, thanks for the presentation.

And I think I had some questions rolling into this.

I think you answered a lot of them.

Um, you know, I was when I was reading over the presentation on my own.

The the inspection was definitely something I was worried about, just staff time, resources, mission creep.

So the fact that you would kind of plan to not go forward with that.

I think I think that's a great direction.

So I'm I'm happy there.

And I'm always also worried about staff time with recertification and how much money we'd be spending.

And again, since you kind of went more on the the upfront, not recertification.

I think that's a you know, a smart move.

The only thing I just, you know, I want to see how it goes forward is just how this is going to be rolled out.

And you know, I I get a little uncomfortable with government starting to advertise for a business.

I like I don't mind the branding package, giving them a branding package.

Hey, you're certified, do your own advertisement.

You can use our name when we have certified you.

I just want to make sure whatever we do.

Award ceremonies are generally okay as long as it's not some active type of you know endorsements marketing that we do for a business where it looks like we're picking winners and losers, which I know is not the intent of the program, but just something to watch carefully that we we monitored as we roll it out.

But no, other than that, I think you know, some of the concerns I had rolling in, you answered, and I I appreciate it.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, member Campos.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, yeah, those are two of my questions.

Uh uh as well.

Um my question is what is the what is the threshold to uh receive this um uh green business uh uh certification?

Like if I know you had talked about the certain criteria that you are looking at.

If I have a green fleet, well, what is a green fleet?

Is it 40 percent?

Is it 60 percent?

Do we have that fleshed out or will we need to flush that out later?

We wanted to model our uh our actions.

Um so there would be like a variety a large variety of potential actions that a business could take, and if they meet a minimum number of those actions, then we would deliver the certification.

And so we want to use some of the models like Sacramento County, like Lake Zurich, um, and our our other communities that have already put together these programs and model it off of of their designs.

So it it has not been finalized yet.

We're still putting together, but the idea is to model it off of these other successful programs.

Okay, understood.

Thank you.

And cheer her.

Thank you very much.

And I think uh John uh well, member Wasick and Member Schlick brought up two good points.

Um, I think advertising that program through the chamber is uh is a great way to get the word out.

Um I was looking at the Sacramento County, it did not look to me like they delineate between unincorporated and um those businesses that operate within a municipality.

So I would be comfortable for it to be open to um wherever they're located.

Um and if they get an award from Hawthorn Woods and from Lake County, then I think that's I think that's great.

And and I appreciate Member Schlick, your thought about um sort of advertising, because I do see Sacramento County has like a directory of sustainable businesses, and like who's gonna go on that anyway.

I can see having, hey, these are the businesses that have received awards in the past, which they also have that.

Um, but I don't see why we would need to have some sort of a directory because I think that could serve as sort of a well, I think I think it could be a problem.

I I would see that.

So anyway, I think those are two good points.

So thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Robin, you're gonna be a very busy lady.

But we appreciate it.

Thank you.

I thank you.

Okay, is there consensus uh by the committee to move forward to the next few for another future meeting uh for approval?

Okay, alrighty.

Thanks, Robin.

Okay, do we have a county administrator's report?

No county administrators report.

Okay, do we have any executive session?

No need for executive session.

Uh remarks or requests from committee members.

I just want to thank Ruth and staff for her support in uh getting the um the Avon Primont uh drainage district um further along the dissolution process.

I'm happy to report at the last meeting which I attended, at least the Grays Lake Village Board.

They approve the dissolution um unanimously, and uh so we're on to the next step bringing up to circuit court.

Um in Ruth Ann, when is that gonna happen, roughly?

I have provided all of the resolutions that have been approved by the entities that were within the drainage district boundaries to the state's attorney's office, and they are the ones who are working towards um getting a court date for final dissolution.

I can provide an update once I receive that.

Yeah, if you have a timeline, that would be very helpful.

Thank you.

Any other questions or remarks?

Then I'm gonna adjourn them and if you guys nice job.

All right,