Special Meeting Tomorrow Afternoon (4:30 pm), Visioning Saturday

Dear People: Tomorrow night (Friday, the 11th), Council will be holding a special meeting at 4:30 pm, in the Bryan Center, in order to discuss a proposal, from a local and a regional group, requiring the Village's participation, that might 1) bring in stimulus dollars and 2) help reduce our energy usage. We welcome your thoughts, input, and attendance at the meeting.

I would also remind everyone that the next round of Yellow Springs / Miami Township Vision is Saturday morning:

Goals and Values Workshop

Saturday, December 12 / 10:00am to 12:30pm / Yellow Springs High School Gym

Dreams were shared in the Round 1 Idea Gathering Workshops. Now Let’s build the ideas into goals for the future in Round 2.

(Obviously, I will be at this meeting, not in my normal office hours on Saturday!)

Here's Mark Cundiff's memo about the energy efficiency grant proposal, and below that is the agenda of the special meeting:

"One of the funding programs under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (AARA or “Stimulus Program”) is a grant program called the Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant (EECBG). The EECBG program’s goal is to develop and implement projects to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy use and fossil fuel emissions. An ETF member, Pat Murphy, who also is the Executive Director of Community Solutions, brought up the idea of the Village, in a partnership with Community Solutions and a private firm out of Miami County, submitting a grant application to the EECBG program at the ETF’s regular meeting on November 24^th. At that meeting, several questions were raised about the program. Subsequently, it was arranged for a representative of the private firm to come to Yellow Springs to meet with the ETF at their next regular meeting that was held on December 7^th.

The grant proposal, which is still being developed, calls for the development of a pilot program to make energy efficiency through retro-fits more affordable. The grant money would be used in the development of a replicable energy audit and retrofitting process that would efficiently evaluate a structure for energy inefficiencies and make the necessary retrofits in a very cost effective manner, and for some “on the ground” testing of the model. This system could then be transferred to communities all over the United States for implementation, providing opportunities for the start-up of new businesses to do the energy retrofits while reducing energy usage.

The grant application needs to be submitted by a unit of local government or by a non-for-profit organization authorized by and on behalf of the unit of local government. I made it clear in the meeting that the Village did not have the administrative capacity at this time to submit the grant application, let alone administer the program should the project get funded. Pat Murphy indicated that Community Solutions could provide this administrative capacity and would be willing to do so.

The deadline for submitting applications to the EECBG Program is December 14, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. There is $63.68 million available under this grant program, which is open to all Formula ineligible local units of government (municipalities under 35,000 in population and counties under 200,000 in population) in the United States. The maximum grant award is $5.0 million, and the minimum grant award is $1.0 million. The program is being administered through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and they anticipate awarding 15-60 grants. Communities receiving EECBG grants will be notified around March 15, 2010, with the grants being awarded around May 15, 2010. The performance period for these grants will be 36 months, but funds will need to be obligated within 18 months of the effective date of the award.

After hearing about the grant proposal and having the opportunity to have questions answered and have a dialogue about the proposal, the ETF passed a motion to recommend that Village Council authorize Community Solutions to submit on behalf of the Village an EECBG application.

The Village’s participation is needed since a unit of local government is needed to apply for the grant. This authorization is only for the submittal of a grant application. Future authorizations from Village Council will be required to enter into any grant agreements. It is anticipated that any in-kind Village contributions of staff time will be minimal and there will be no expenditure of Village funds on the development and submittal of this grant application."

Stay warm!
Lori

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Clerk of Council <clerk@yso.com>
Date: Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 11:42 AM
Subject: FW: Special Council Meeting Materials

COUNCIL OF THE VILLAGE OF YELLOW SPRINGS

SPECIAL MEETING AGENDA

IN COUNCIL CHAMBERS @ 4:30 pm December 11, 2009

CALL TO ORDER

ROLL CALL

PUBLIC HEARINGS/LEGISLATION

Resolution #2009-47 Authorizing Community Solutions to Submit an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Application

EXECUTIVE SESSION

Personnel

ADJOURNMENT

“The Village of Yellow Springs is committed providing reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. The Council meeting is wheelchair accessible. Any person requiring a disability accommodation should contact the City Clerk’s Office at 767-9126 or via e-mail at clerk@yso.com for more information.”

MON: Visioning Interview #1: Regenesis/KKG 7 pm, Bryan Ctr.

<--pic is from one of my favorite blogs, jafabrit's art

Dear People: I have been scrambling to get caught up after being out of town on a much needed spring break trip to see two old friends from grad school. So somehow I didn't even manage an email/blog update last week. Nevertheless, I was very pleased with the turn out at our meeting this past Monday where we discussed the budget and had our first vote on it. (Since it's an ordinance, we'll vote a second time at our next meeting on April 6).

The main thing I want to remind you of is our special meeting on Monday, 23 March, a public interview with Regenesis/KKG, at 7 pm in the Bryan Center. Their websites are here (Regenesis) and here (KKG). Regenesis gave a sample "charette" to a fairly large group of interested villagers last year in which they explained their "story of place" approach to working with communities; they would for the first time be working with the more local group, KKG associates, who are urban planners/architects from Cincinnati.

We'll then do the same thing with the second visioning candidate, ACP of Columbus, a firm with a long history of doing visioning work in the state and around the nation, NEXT Monday 30 March, 7 pm in the Bryan Center.

The format of both meetings should be identical: if I recall correctly, both have been asked to do a brief presentation of their proposed Visioning process, followed by Q&A. The Visioning subcommittee has created a list of specific questions that they plan to ask at the meeting, and Council will also have a chance to weigh in with questions about their work, approach, experience, and plans for us. Since this is being envisioned as a process for both village and the Miami township, Township representatives will also likely be present and engaged.

Villagers will also be encouraged to ask questions and engage with both groups, and your feedback, and experiences interacting with them will be vital for informing our decision on this process. Please plan to attend! We need variety of villagers--young, old, new and longer-term, all backgrounds, incomes and ethnicities, to give us the best sense of how to proceed.

Goals, Visioning, Cell Tower, Household Hazardous Waste Disposal

Dear People: Happy Valentine's Day weekend, villagers. At the end of this note is a little green valentine.

Another busy week ahead for Village Council, starting with our meeting on Tuesday evening (2/16), 7 pm. (Note changed night due to the Presidents' Day holiday). I must apologize that I wasn't in my office hours last week. (I had to meet with students and help with an interview at Wittenberg.) But I will be in the Emporium on Monday from 12-1.

Big things on this agenda!

LEGISLATION:

• RESOLUTIONS: Nature Works Grant, Glen Helen. There are two resolutions related to an exciting project of the Glen Helen Ecology Institute designed to increase wheelchair access, and improve indoor air quality and energy efficiency at the Trailside Museum in Glen Helen. GHEI is applying for a grant from the State of Ohio Nature Works program (part of the Ohio Dept of Natural Resources), but the grant application needs to be officially made by a municipality.
  

SPECIAL REPORT:

The YS Chamber of Commerce files its annual report with us.

OLD BUSINESS:

• 2009 Council Goals: I have attached what should be regarded as a tentative draft of the goals for the council (document entitled CouncilGOALS09Redux.doc). Kathryn Van der Heiden and I compiled them, and, of my own accord, I have tentatively labeled the items as "broadly shared" goals and ones that will require discussion to even get started. Other Council members need to weigh in on whether they agree that these are all the ideas we've thrown out there, and with my designation of the goals as either shared or to be discussed. I welcome your reactions, thoughts.
• Verizon Cell Tower Site: We were contacted well over a year ago about locating another cell phone tower on village property to better serve the downtown area and the Glen. Mark has communicated at length with Verizon about village needs and concerns. They have four possible sites for us to discuss.
• Budget/Levy/General Fund "Reserve" Balance: Mark has also provided us with a copy of the original flyer created for the last levy that designated how the monies would be spent, and also information from neighboring municipalities as to their policies regarding how much "cushion" they strive to keep in their general fund.

NEW BUSINESS:

• Visioning/Planning: The Visioning Task Force has selected 4 proposals of the 27 firms that originally submitted responses to our RFP. We will be hearing from the task force and discussing these final proposals, possibly moving toward interviews. The four finalists are:
  
• ACP visioning + planning (Columbus, OH)
• Bird Houk Collaborative: Architecture, Planning, Urban Design, Economics (Gahanna, OH) with marketing firm 42 Fish (Columbus OH)
  
• Regenesis Group (Santa Fe, NM) with Kinzelman Kline Gossman (Columbus OH)
• Studio Three LLC (Muncie IN) with JEO Consulting Group (Wahoo NE)
  
• There will probably be an HRC appointment made and we'll have a motion to approve Council meeting dates for the year.
• Then the Manager's report will include an Annual Report for the last year (presumeably this will cover the work of the office over the last year); there will be an update from Antioch University; and a petition from Time Warner claiming that there's effective competition (from satellite dishes, etc.) so that they should no longer have to pay a franchise fee to the village--this could mean the end of Channel 5!
  

Finally, A citizen asked in a letter to Council about how to dispose of hazardous household wastes. Vicki Hennessey, the newest member of our Environmental Commission, immediately passed on the attached information from Greene County Environmental Services in Xenia. (Thanks, Vicki!) Some things, like batteries and cell phones, are accepted every day during normal business hours; other things like appliances and pesticides are accepted one Saturday a month, and some restrictions apply.

This month's collection is NEXT SAT. FEBRUARY 21, from 9 am-1 pm, so it's a timely notice if you're doing some early spring cleaning. (And it's free to all Greene Co. residents!)

If you have questions about what's acceptable and what's not, you might also check out their website's Frequently Asked Questions. (Click on "Environmental Services")

And that's a little green valentine for all of us!

Thinking Spring--
Lori

Council Notes and Office Hours this week

1) OFFICE HOURS I have to move my office hours up an hour this week to accommodate meeting with my Wittenberg students Monday afternoon. So, Monday 10-11:30am is when I'll have coffee/brunch at the Emporium.

2) PLANNING COMM. MONDAY @ 7pm: We'll be considering, again, the Friends Care Center's proposal for the Barr property. In the Planning Commission packet there are several impassioned letters speaking against the current plan, largely but not exclusively from neighbors (we received none in favor of it this time). Also included in the package is a drawing indicating what looks to me like a fairly significant redesign. Please let me know your thoughts.

2) VISION / ECON DVPT: I've been reading Howard Zinn and several other historians today (see my new signature quotation below for a flavor!), and wrestling with the notion of a) what ARE the roots of our Council/manager form of government--both the truly progressive elements of its history and also its conservative, socialism-busting elements--and b) with envisioning our village's future. Basically, the conflicts we're experiencing today have long roots, and involve significant differences in political and economic philosophy.

I hope that you all had a chance to read the articles in the past two weeks of the Yellow Springs News about differing notions of economic development: first on the Shuman model adopted by St. Lawrence County NY, Ann Arbor MI, and Carborro NC and others (1/31), and, second, the vision being proposed by the YSA described in this past week's paper (2/7). Please do share your thoughts with Council on this important issue.

3) REGENESIS? The Regenesis group, from Santa Fe NM is another group that Ted Donnell and others have been working to bring to Yellow Springs:

"Ben Haggard of The Regenesis Group is visiting Yellow Springs next weekend. He will be giving a presentation to all interested community members on February 16 on the Regenesis approach to community planning. The specific time and location will be announced as soon as it is determined. Please share this with other community members you think might be interested.You might be interested in visiting their website http://www.regenesisgroup.com/index.php."

4) REVIEW OF VILLAGE MANAGER: The Council will be doing an annual review of the work of manager Eric Swansen, and we invite public input. Many positive letters were in our packet last week.

5) BUDGET: HELP? If any one out there is good at reading complex budgets, I'd really love some help when I finally see ours, with examining it and thinking through how to make it fit our community's values. Let me know if you can assist!

Peace!
Lori

Here's a fuller version of the quotation I'm now using as part of my email signature:

"There can be no doubt that democracy distrusts the expert . . . and there is no doubt also that much of this distrust is well grounded and thoroughly justified. This is due partly to the air of unwarranted superiority which the expert too frequently assumes and partly to the fact that history presents a long record of self-constituted experts who have been discredited. . . . In earlier times there was an expert class in theology that proposed to do the thinking for the human race in matters religious. There have been military castes, self-confessed experts who have succeeded more than once in imposing not only their professional but their class interests upon the civil population. The only kind of expert democracy ought to tolerate is the expert who admits his fallibility, retains an open mind, and is prepared to serve."

--Charles Beard, "Democracy and the Expert" 1916 (Charles Beard is one of the most respected historians of the early 20th century; he helped work out many progressive era public policy changes, including the development of the council-manager format. He went on to found the New School, in NYC).