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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - MGG - 06-15-2010MiltonUA Date: June 15, 2010, 12:00 pm — 1.33 pm ORIGINAL Milton Grows Green Committee Minutes June 15, 2010 Place: City of Milton, City Hall Executive Meeting Room Attendees: Amy Peters, Jon McPhail, Jack Lindon, Francia Lindon, Lynn Tully, Michele McIntosh -Ross, and Mark Law. Agenda: The Agenda was posted on the City's web site prior to the meeting. I. Approval of Minutes and Announcements: No minutes were approved. II.Old Business: Jack and Jon passed out a very preliminary draft list of MGG projects developed at the May 131h MGG meeting. They were developed to give City Hall some idea of MGG activates and where our projects may interact with the City. There was some discussion of dates when individual projects are typically held. The next events "officially" on our list are the Milton Roundup (October 23' ) where MGG will have a booth and Rivers Alive also on a Saturday in October. MGG is developing a calendar to help in the planning process. Development of a volunteer database was set aside because is not part of MGG community outreach nor does it involve interaction with the City. It's strictly an internal administrative task, consolidation of lists of volunteers from various sources that MGG might call on for help with single events. Bruce Langston, who has knowledge of setting up a database, and Julie Pinckney are going to meet with Todd Harkleroad to work on this. On going projects/events. Storm Drain Marking — This has been going on in various Milton neighborhoods that have been marked for the past 2+ years. This is done to meet state requirements for NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System under the Clean Water Act). Briefly discussed was what form the marking should be, the current decal, a painted stencil or a concrete stamp. We have been told the new markers will be different. Mark will check to see how many markers are still available and see what information there is at Public Works on what's been done. GIS coordinates need to be added to what's been done as the volunteers who worked on this simply recorded street addresses. {Post -meeting notes: Some subdivisions where storm drains have been marked include: Hickory Crest, Waterside (54), Triple Crown, Highland Manor, Kensington Farms, White Columns (50) and the area around Hopewell M.S. MGG will continue with this project and anticipates doing probably 100 more before the end of the year.} Hazardous Waste Recycling Event — Research has been done on appropriate materials, companies that specialize in this area and associated costs. It would be limited to just people in Milton and would require some form of pre -registration. The educational component to this is instructing people on how to "solidify" latex paint eliminating it as one of the collected materials. Roswell web site actually has a video showing how to do this. Milton could pick and choose from a menu of hazardous items to limit costs. We may be able to get some financial or material help from some companies to do this, such as CVS with drug disposal and Home Depot for Paints. It requires having someone who knows the proper handling of these materials. Jack will make a proposal and budget request to do this in 2011 to pass on to Lynn. Milton Grows Green Committee Meeting Minutes, June 15, 2010 ALL MILTON GROWS GREEN DOCUMENTS ARE PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER WITH AT LEAST 35% POST -CONSUMER CONTENT. Adopt -A -Stream — This is a GA DNR, EPD program, (www.GeorgiaAdoytAStream.org), which monitors streams for chemical and bacterial content, Tom Sewell, a teacher at the Hopewell M.S., has trained some of his student on stream monitoring. They have been collecting data from local streams and submitting it to the State database. The database and participants can be viewed on line. Training sessions are also available to the general public and posted on the web sit. Stream Buffer Protection Pamphlet — The information is currently available on a single folded sheet. Carter Lucas contributed to it. Lynn suggested that we coordinate any mail out with another event such as Rivers Alive so that we get more publicity. MGG needs help from the city in developing a list, using GIS maps, of property owners and HOAs that abut local waterways. The plan is to send, either electronically or by the USPS, a copy of the pamphlet. We would need a postage budget. Protected areas include a 25-foot state buffer, another 25 feet city requirement and a third 25 feet that prohibits impervious surfaces. S❑ the City's is 50 feet for an undisturbed natural buffer. Green Communities Designation — Michele is leading the charge on this. She anticipates getting on the July 12d' City Council work session to apprise them of what's being proposed and what's been done, and get other City staff on board with the process. We need a graphic representation to track progress of the points completed. CPAC is working on its policy statement and is pursuing some of the green objectives. A draft of this will be available soon. Jon asked and it was confirmed that TDRs were still in it. Michele asked to meet with the Green Communities MGG subgroup before the meeting on the 12t' to go over what was being presented, what other near -by communities were doing and a proposed power point presentation. Keep America Beautiful 1 Deep Milton Beautiful Affiliation — KAB require one of two organizational structures for financial reporting. One is an independent group of volunteers with its own board that is a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3). The second is an in-house City department such as Alpharetta has. MGG is neither. We have talked to Ken Jerrard about appointing a City staff person as an ex officio member of our board who would enable the City to provide financial tracing of KAB grants. The money would become part of the city's general funds then distributed appropriately. A member of the City staff has not been assigned yet. This seems to be the model we're going to follow. KAB is particular about the experience people appointed to the board have to have. Although Keep North Fulton Beautiful proposed doing this for a fee, MGG was willing to do it for free. KNFB still owns the URL for Keep Milton Beautiful but hopefully the governing body will recognize it would be more appropriate if it were assigned to MGG. There's a lot to getting the affiliation. We have to get 6 to 8 people to take the training and then 6 to 8 months to complete their qualifications. Only part of what MGG does overlaps with KAB plans. For example Adapt -A -Road would fit but TDR's would not. So we're will need to identify and brand those MGG programs that fit with KAB's. Funding Certifications — as ongoing partners of national businesses with locations in Milton — is an outgrowth of Jack and Jon's efforts to get some funding for the Earth Day Festival. A number of these businesses have programs where they can contribute but certain criteria have to be met. In the abbreviated time frame of Earth Day, we were limited to what we could get but got the impression that with appropriate planning, there was a lot of money out there. We might have to be a 501(c)(3) to tap into it. We might get to the point where we could identify a corporate sponsor for each of our programs that would require funding. Zero Waste Zone and Green Food Service Alliance -- MGG is trying to get the hospitality industry, mostly restaurants in Milton, to recycle their organic waste. Specialty haulers take the food scraps to Greenco, the only food composting facility permitted in the state. There are a few restaurants and grocery -chains in Milton planning to participate in the program. Key to its success is in getting more than one restaurant in close proximity to commit so it is economically viable for the hauler. This type of waste hauling requires more frequent pickups and drip -proof trucks. The up side is that it keeps organic waste out of land fills and nutrient -rich compost is created for organic gardens. Some participating Atlanta restaurants then use the compost for their own "kitchen" gardens coming full circle in recycling. Costs for organic hauling is offset by reduced costs for regular trash hauling. There are people who also recycle grease. Milton Grows Green Committee Meeting Minutes, June 15, 2010 p. 2 Once we get the program up and running for restaurants, Kroger and Publix, we should look into a way to compost horse manure. There are areas where, because of the green movement, manure is becoming more valuable and thefts of it have been reported to the police. Milton might have a rich untapped revenue source here. Communications — Proposed electronic newsletter or e-mail management to notify those interested in MGG projects. We have talked about something going out quarterly. Constant Contact is the most widely used firm. We haven't researched the associated costs. Education & Community Outreach — This past year Kathy Johnson and Gina Schwendel worked on a pilot program developing lesson plans aimed at environmental awareness at Birmingham Falls E.S. Each month had a different theme, such as clean air or water conservation. We're trying to identify parents or P.T.A. members willing to be environmental assistants to each class. The Birmingham Falls P.T.A. was instrumental in providing monetary support. Eventually we'd like to have grade appropriate lesson plans available to any teachers in Milton from the City's web site. A number of corporations want to be identified as being environmental friendly. Kohl's, for example, wants to do things involving childhood and the environment. We should be able to get funding for this program. Land Use and Building Standards — American Planning Associations model statute provides a raw skeleton plan for making Transfer Development Rights (TDRs) work. There are areas where traffic and highways define the character of the neighborhoods. if you accept this concept, then areas with high traffic volume can become "receiving" areas, which can take denser development. Instead of a two-story building, a developer can "buy" a third story by buying the development rights for a more rural parcel (the "sending" areas). We were thinking about doing this by developing a list of parcels sorted by size. Lynn said she was familiar with the concept and CPAC was looking into it too. But it has to be a staff generated plan. Pending the completion of the CPAC plan, the City will be budgeting for that project. The City Council is behind it. Jon proposed that Prof. Allen from GA Tech, a known expert in the field of planning, find a planning class who will research this as a class project. What we can expect is an initial study, a starting point but not a deliverable product. The class project could point us in the right direction, give us more information and more detail than the American Planning Association's 3-page document. Community Development already has a land map listing the number of parcels by size in Milton. Energy Code — It's an aspirational idea at this time but if you had some monetary incentive for installing a standard above the state's minimum, such as not being taxed on the increased property valuation for going higher then the state standards, then City policy would actively promote energy conservation. Tax Incentives — Nobody's looked at all the federal and state tax incentives and manufacturer's rebates on energy efficient or environmental -friendly products out there. It would be really good to have in a central place like a newsletter or web page where citizen's can access this information. A good rebate example for water conservation is the Metro. N. GA Water Planning District's offer of a $50 to $100 rebate incentive to replace older, inefficient toilets. The rebate/tax incentive database would be an ongoing maintenance project. Reduce, Reuse, Refuse & Recycle (RRRR) — For Adopt -A -Road, Carter is working on mapping sections that have been adopted and making the program more efficient. Jason is working on getting the instructions, registration, legal forms, and safety list posted on the City's web page. Great American Cleanup — (takes place annually from March 1 through May 31) Earth Day and the Great American Cleanup Day occur in close proximity to each other. We might be able to do other cleanups at a different time then Earth Day by getting HOAs to sign up for a day and the City would just make a record of what's done. This program is another Keep America Beautiful sponsored event. Misc. Possible Projects — Programs to keep farms in this area like farmers markets and agricultural branding. Community Gardens didn't get "high marks" in the Parks and Recreation Survey. Tree Planting — The tree committee was mainly to develop a tree ordinance and to get the Tree City Designation. Any planting has to be coordinated with the City so projects can be prioritized like the Milton Grows Green Committee Meeting Minutes, .Lune 15, 2010 p. 3 landscaping of Hwy. 9. MGG could coordinate volunteer manpower. If Mark could assist in finding some resources, it could it be possible to sell seedling trees at Earth Day for Arbor Day to individuals. This could be a possible fundraiser for MGG or we could just give away one seedling free at Earth Day. I.I.I. New Business: Plans for Improved Communication — We're already doing it. Task Force for normalization of organizationlad ministration (By-laws, budgeting, membership and governance) — Good luck with that. It's like trying to herd cats. Continuity — We need someone to take over that role. The meeting adjourned at 1:33 pm. Jon B. McPhail, Co -Chair ATTEST: Cr�Cc. Francia Lindon, Secretary Milton Grows Green Committee Meeting Minutes, June 15, 2010 p. 4