Energy Task Force, LGBTQ rights, First Amendment rights...

The picture to the right is of a bronze sculpture, entitlted Continuum of a Dream, by 2008 Antioch College graduate MacLean Tiffany, commissioned by the Coretta Scott King Center for Intellectual and Cultural Freedom, located on the Antioch College campus (operations currently suspended). [Thanks to Alexandra for the corrections!]

Dear People: The agenda is pretty packed tomorrow night (Mon 4/20), but it's a lot of stuff that actually strikes at the core of my values: energy usage, human rights for all (especially focused on LGBTQ people) and questions about first amendment rights related to the banners on the poles downtown, employee blogging, and our policies regarding the Bryan Center. The meeting is at 7 pm in the Bryan Center; please come!

LEGISLATION: We have an ORDINANCE with some small changes to the budget to discuss; and then 5 RESOLUTIONS that would, if passed:

• Establish an Energy Task Force--This task force would have as its goals: reducing our usage, developing an energy conservation program; investigating opportunities for renewable energy generation and businesses related to energy, research funding opportunities (esp. TARP) and develop a plan for adequate base power.
• Release Maintenance Bond--Birch III
• Enter into a cooperative paving plan with Greene County
• Authorize the village manager to complete paperwork for engineering at the CBE (the Antioch-McGregor lot)
• Allow a a tap-in, outside village limits, of two water lines to the Kahoe property south of town (on Hyde Road), per the request of the current owner. This would not cost us anything, and the owner is concerned about the capacity of the current well on that property; they suggest that some wells in the area have ground water contamination. The village solicitor warns that there's no evidence of environmental contamination, so this would be against current policy and strongly recommends against our so doing.

After we hear annual reports from Cable Advisory, Village Mediation, and the Library Commission, JOHN CHAMBERS, village solicitor will then address questions regarding both new and old business. He proposes for our consideration:

• OLD BUSINESS: An analysis of Bryan Center guidelines with regard to religious services and non-profit status: can we honor the spirit of the original Bryan family deed, which requested that no worship services be performed on the premises, and still provide fair access to the space as a public forum? And, how do we make sure we treat all organizations equally?
• New: Domestic partnership registry: Mr. Chambers has drafted an ordinance whereby YS would allow same-sex or opposite-sex couples to register as partners. This can be helpful for couples in ensuring that they can visit one another in hospital or attain partner benefits from their employers.
• Updated language regarding 1) unlawful discrimination and 2) crimes of "intimidation" (i.e., "hate crimes"): these updated statutes would emphasize that all entities providing public accommodation--restaurants, apartments for rent, etc.--in YS cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, in addition to sex, race, color, religion, disability, national origin, etc., and making it unlawful to commit a crime against persons based on those characteristics, or perceived characteristics.
  
• Banner policy: We've received a complaint about the "Superman Obama" banner on a village-owned lamp-post on short street. What should be our policy with regard to art that may have political content?
• NEW BUSINESS: Village employee blogging policy: Someone purporting to be a village employee is reported to be anonymously posting on a social-network site "questionable and possibly obscene content." The solicitor has provided suggested language for a blogging policy. I am concerned that we protect free speech rights of employees--and make sure they understand their "whistleblower" rights.
  

Then there will be some brief discussion of liquor license renewals, the street-fair street closing request, and our Village Manager's request for an extension on the residency requirement, due to difficulties selling his home in Troy.

After standing reports from the Commission reps, we'll adjourn to EXECUTIVE SESSION where we'll be discussing:

• The situation at the village property currently leased to Stutzman's Gardening
• The Antioch Chiller agreement.

Peace-out!
Lori

Budget, Pool Fees, Econ Dev, Energy, and the Skate Park

Dear People: We have a pretty heavy agenda to get through tonight on Village Council (7 pm, Bryan Center). The main item is our annual appropriations ordinance,, i.e., the budget for this year, 2009.

BUDGET: This is perhaps our most important discussion of the year. Please come! We are set to pass what I believe to be a solid, responsible budget tonight--one that should still slightly increase our reserves and that gives appropriate moneys to long term values of the Village. There are still many letters showing up in the YS News about the budget, some of which I would say have actual misinformation: for example, one letter this week alleges that we have not spent the money from the levy as promised to street improvements. Let me be clear: the levy, crafted by a previous Council and approved by a narrow vote of the citizenry, was not designed to go 100% to street improvements.

If you look at the table on the first page of the YS News this week, you'll see that the previous Council and ours has actually overspent the percentage set aside for streets, and underspent on other promised areas--sometimes for good reasons. (For example: since we haven't been sure what is the best way forward on economic development, it hasn't seemed prudent to simply spend money for the sake of spending it; the pool, also, did not need some of the suggested changes, but may be reaching the end of its useful life. We are planning to look at whether it might make sense to start setting money aside and working towards building a new pool.). However, we'll seek to bring that spending back into alignment as we move through Visioning and the final two years of the current levy.

Our investment in the green space fund, energy efficiency, and the modest budget request from the Human Rights Commission (which is also a separate discussion item--see below) to help with programming will likely be seriously questioned. It's a lot easier to defend those spending priorities if people who care about them show up. I'd love to see your smiling faces out there.

We'll also discuss three other items of legislation:

• A new schedule of pool fees for residents and non-residents, already informally approved at an earlier meeting, including new, lower rates for seniors, and explicitly allowing for grandparents with live-in grandchildren over the summer to pay the resident rate for their family pass.
• Budget transfers to cover the next month while this new budget is still pending.
• A new, updated lease with the library (as recommended by the library commission and our village lawyer)

Special reports will be made:

• Human Relations Commission will offer their annual report and explain why they are requesting a $9,000 budget line to help with programming that they believe will encourage inclusiveness and justice in our village.
  
• Environmental Commission will make its annual report

Old business will include:

• Economic Development task force/ next steps
• Energy task force/next steps
• Visioning/Planning consultant selection: next steps
• The Skate Park--needs some repairs and there are suggestions that it needs some reconfiguring to avoid vandalism problems on nearby property. Please show up if you are concerned about youth recreation in our town!
  

New Business:

• Appointments will be made to the Environmental Commission and the Cable Advisory Panel.

Then there'll be reports and agenda planning before we adjourn for the evening. Hope to see you there!

Peace!
L.

New Year Goals and Coal

Dear People: I meant to get to this yesterday, but time slipped away. In this email, I discuss the agenda for tonight's meeting (7 pm, Bryan Ctr), and will reflect a little on this past year's work and my concerns about our electrical power sources. I'll be in my office hours TODAY (new time for spring!), in the Emporium, from 12-1 or so.

LEGISLATION:
1) Ordinance to approve a temporary budget as an emergency while we sort out our plans for this year's budget.
2 & 3) 2 Resolutions paying dues to Ohio Municipal League and the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission.
4) CBE Development and Funding agreement: This is an extension of a 2007 agreement with Community Resources to complete the infrastructure on the CBE, a project that we hope to complete very soon.

SPECIAL REPORT:
Code Enforcement/ Zoning: We received a list of all the properties in town that requested building permits, variance applications to the Board of Zoning Appeals, and the public hearings conducted by the Planning commission. I suspect Ed Amrhein will simply go over this report with us.

OLD BUSINESS:
1) Setting Budget Workshop dates.
2) Rescheduling our reception for new manager Mark Cundiff
3) An update from Visioning and Planning on the numerous responses to our RFP and their process of evaluating those responses.

NEW BUSINESS:
2008 Goal Report and scheduling goal sessions: Contact me and I'll be happy to email you an initial draft put together by Judith Hempfling and Karen Wintrow of all the things Council has accomplished this past year in relation to our 2008 goals--Karen will be doing a power point of this review tonight. Please take a moment to read the report over, and share any comments or concerns you have with me--better yet, plan to come to Council tonight to do so. Some of these items clearly need follow-up--e.g., especially, the sidewalk issue.

I think we will keep similar overarching goals for 2009, which can serve sort of like a mission statement for us, but will seek this year to be much more specific in our main objectives under each goal. We need to finish the improvements on the wastewater treatment plant, complete the infrastructure work on the CBE site, to deal with our sidewalk problems, etc.

Another issue that we are thinking carefully about is our electric system and this Council's decision to reject helping to build two new coal plants this past year, and how we will replace that lost power source.

A little history: The decision to vote against those plants was actually very challenging to me. Since the new plants would have had much lower emissions than our current base-power providers, there was a logic in supporting them that was hard to refute, and which kept me awake at night: if we reject these new coal-burning plants, will we just wind up buying more expensive and dirtier electricity, from older and less efficient plants, on the open market--and not reducing our actual carbon footprint at all, indeed possibly, arguably, raising it?

But when Elisa Young of Meigs County came and spoke about the farm she lives on that's been in her family since the Revolutionary War, how they already have 4 big coal-burning plants in view, the high cancer rates that already exist in the county, the ash they wipe off their cars every morning, and the effectiveness of big coal companies at keeping the problems with coal mining, burning, and dealing with the waste from public view, I was solidified in my decision. In addition to all the problems with committing to a 200-year old technology for burning coal, for yet another 50 years or so, during a time of global warming, I couldn't see approving coal plants as anything but a NIMBY move on our part.

In her power point presentation to the village shortly before our vote on the AMP-OH plant, Elisa pointed out that large piles of toxic ash were typically created, sometimes within yards of elementary schools, and that there have been problems with on-going leakage and major spills from these toxic ash piles in the past. Well, 3 days before Christmas,the worst ash spill in history happened at the ash-heap in Kingston, Tennessee, creating environmental devastation that was immediately quite visible by NASA satellites, as you can see in these pictures.

"Clean coal" is obviously a misnomer: coal is not clean at any stage of the process, from mining to burning to dealing with the ash heaps that remain long after the energy is used, not to mention the warming of our planet. But we need to be seriously thinking about what alternatives we can possibly tap into. We are in the process of re-commissioning an Electric System Task force to help us think about our future energy needs and how to move forward on this front. Now that the Antioch campus is closed, etc., do we need the same levels of electrical service as were being predicted? What electricity levels do we need, and can we find alternative energy sources to provide those needs?

Those are the questions I'm especially taking into this new year.

Peace,
Lori

Update: Antioch etc., Planning & Environmental Commission

Hi, all--It's been a busy week.

1) Village Council update: Our Village Council meeting, including a long executive session, on Monday went til midnight; we moved forward on three resolutions connected to the improvements to our waste-water treatment facilities, finalized our goals for the year (yes, in April!), briefly discussed the noise ordinance and concerns about Antioch College noise, had special reports on the King Street detention basin, our website & the visioning process, and, during Citizens' Concerns, heard from a lot of you on the Antioch College situation. (Exec. session focused on Village Manager employment agreement).

Re: Antioch crisis: We passed a resolution to write a letter urging the Antioch U Board of Trustees to meet with the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, face-to-face. It's now being reported to us that such a meeting will happen. Meanwhile, we're seeing plans move forward for a non-stop Antioch, regardless, which are intriguing and exciting, as reported by ACCC spokesperson Ellen Borgeson and student Jeanne Kay.

I am concerned about the College campus and what the University's plans are for securing it, given the announced layoffs. I am planning to ask our legal council to look into what rights we as a community have to expect that that campus be secured and maintained by the owners if it should be empty for any length of time. If others of you have thoughts about what our community interest is in regard to local consequences to this potential shuttering of the campus at the heart of our town, please let me know.

The Electric System Task Force will be making its Phase I report at our next meeting on the 21st, and we'll be reviewing our Sidewalk Policy.

2) Planning Commission: The proposed planned unit development of the Barr property (321 Xenia Ave) will again dominate our meeting tomorrow night (Mon. 4/14, 7 pm; Council Chambers). Our PC packet is thus thick this week again with letters and thoughts, positive and negative, about the FCC's plans for this property that lies in a key residential area adjacent to our downtown. Our village manager, Eric Swanson included a note in our packet that the PUD process is a two-step process: we are at this point looking at the "concept" stage, not the final plan: we will vote either that we like the concept (go forward with hammering out the details) or we say that the differences are too great to be worked out. But in either case, the plan will then go to the Village Council.

I have already stated that it is my intention to support this effort, although I recognize the plan is not perfect and that many of my supporters oppose the plan--my stance is posted in the previous entry on this blog. I respect all of you who disagree with my position on this issue. Please know that I am still listening to all the voices and reading the letters of folks on all sides of this public debate. In general, I believe that it's been a healthy debate and that people have engaged in it in good faith. I genuinely thank everyone for making me feel the complexities raised by this plan, which are not trivial.

3) No office hours tomorrow: I have to be at Wittenberg for an interview during my normal office hours, and also have to meet with students who are working on end-of-term projects. So I will be at Wittenberg all day.

4) Environmental Commission: We are also a busy group with several important events planned ahead of Earth Day. First, I hope you all received the notice about "green pricing" in your utility bill this month, which allows you--if you wish--to pay a little extra as a support for building and investing in greener energy resources. We need 10% of us to sign on for the project to fly, so let's do it.

Corrected costs: It costs only $0.015 (1 1/2 cents) per kilowatt hour to add this optional plan to your bill. So, if you use 500 kilowatts of energy, it would only cost you an extra $7.50 that month (that's 500 multiplied by .015--there is a typo on our original flyer). This is a great way to start on a path of greater energy efficiency, to put pressure on yourself to reduce your family's usage--and reduced, more efficient usage is the best source of energy we have. Given that our Council voted against coal, we need to move in this direction, right now.

"Spring Fling" Earth Day Events this coming weekend:

Friday night 7-9: Death to the Incandescent! That's our rallying cry. We'll be stationed at a table on Xenia Ave, in front of Living Green, with information about green pricing, the value of switching your regular bulbs to compact fluorescents (CFL), and how to recycle CFLs responsibly.
Saturday early afternoon 12-2:30: More death to the incandescent! Same as above.
Sat. late afternoon 3:30-5:
FREE Film Screening: "Garbage: The Revolution Starts at Home!" Little Art Theatre! Co-sponsored with other good people/groups. Bring friends! Bring family! Bring people you don't even really like! Here's the film's website: http://www.garbagerevolution.com/
Immediately following: SHORT Panel discussion of the issues raised by the film, with local experts Bob Brecha, Donna Haller, and others, centering on the plan of starting with the concrete, practical step of turning entirely to the CFL.

Should Yellow Springs Decide Right Now to Sign on to a 50-Year Commitment to a Pulverized Coal Power Plant?

THE SHORT ANSWER: No. The contract is of extremely long duration at this critical moment in our history, when the future costs of coal-fired power are virtually unknowable. It's the wrong time for more coal. But, most importantly, we have not had an adequate process to answer this vital question with democratic integrity.

What We've Done To Research This Issue So Far: We've invited three detailed lectures from Village Staff and AMP-OH Executives, all helpful, but all supporting the AMP-Ohio position
Important Things We Haven't Done Yet:

• We haven't heard from national and regional environmental groups opposing the plant, despite offer from the NRDC


• We haven't heard a clear rationale for the 50-year commitment being required of us


• We haven't had a detailed explanation of the potential cost effects of changing carbon taxes and regulations that may likely happen in the next 10 years, which may change the face of "cheap" coal


• We haven't heard anything about the cumulative effect of adding yet another coal-based industry to Meigs County, Ohio, which has some of the highest rates of asthma, heart, and lung disease in Ohio

Conclusion: We Need To Take More Time on This Question

WHAT WE'VE DONE TO RESEARCH THIS QUESTION: During the past month, I have listened carefully to three, helpful and extensive presentations sponsored by the Village Council, all of which have suggested that we have little choice but to support AMP-Ohio's plan to build another, new 1,000 MW pulverized-coal power plant in Meigs County, along the Ohio River. We've had two 45-minute powerpoint lectures by our village manager on the basics of baseload power, and he used his presentation to strongly advise the village to pursue the development of this plant and to do so without delay. Most recently, on Thursday the 27th, representatives of AMP-Ohio (the non-profit electric power cooperative that represents us and over a hundred other municipalities in our region) offered a nearly two-hour long powerpoint presentation aimed at building our support for the plant.

I have learned a great deal from these presentations. I appreciate the time and expertise involved in them. I do not claim to know everything yet that there is to know. From these presentations, and from doing my own research into the issues, I do understand that the issues are complex, and people of good will can and will disagree about them. We have to consider competing values of affordability and environmental responsibility, and the data are complex. I do not believe that the people who support this plant are all "bad" people or right-wingers.

But, I've sat on two juries in my life, and read a lot of complex arguments in my day. In court, especially, I've learned that prosecutors can make a very good case, making their client's view of things sound sound water-tight, a no-brainer! But then defense attorneys can still undermine that case by discussing things that the prosecutor may be deliberately avoiding. And vice versa. It's only by hearing advocates from at least two sides of any controversial issue that we really come to a decision that has integrity. Even if you "don't like lawyers," even if the narrow decision being focused on, e.g., whether to sign on to this contract, winds up being the same in the end, it's still the right thing to do. The learning process may help us shape better future policies, as we move to related issues.

We've heard from AMP-Ohio's attorneys, marketers, and engineers, and they are professionals. They've made a compelling case, and I believe them to be people of good will and fair intentions. It has been made quite clear that we may very well be dependent on coal for the next 15-20 years to provide some significant part of our baseload power needs. It is also clear that we will still be using coal-fired technology every time we switch the lights on or our furnaces or A/C units kick in whether we sign on or not, at least for awhile. I understand that we are a more vulnerable to market-pricing and profit-making companies when we are not buying direct from our non-profit electricity co-op, and that concerns me as we keep an eye on affordability. We also know there is no "pure" place in this debate, unless we work to get off the grid altogether, and we're not there yet as a people. We will always have some "footprint." All that is clear.

WHAT WE HAVE NOT DONE:

LET'S HEAR WHAT THE NRDC HAS TO SAY: As was noted in the Yellow Springs News, the Natural Resources Defense Council has offered to send environmental attorneys from its Chicago office to give a presention on the risks of this plant, yet the village council has not made time for them, or any comparable presentations from any of the people of good will who are opposed to this plan--including the local, state, regional and national environmental groups who are planning to fight this plant's construction, or from the local citizens in Meigs County who are concerned about the cumulative effects of having additional power plants constructed in their region.

WHY 50 YEARS?I am concerned that we are being pressured to commit to a 50-year contract to build and maintain a coal plant at this time, when we are every day coming to an awareness of just how calamitous human activities are becoming to our global environment. Even President Bush now finally accepts that human beings are changing the global climate in dramatic ways. We will be required to support this plant, even if it never gets built or it gets taken off line due early to new environmental policies that may develop as the situation becomes more chaotic. That could be very expensive, but we'll be stuck with a 50-year mortgage.

REGULATIONS ON COAL ARE IN A STATE OF FLUX: I am especially concerned that this is happening at a time when 1) laws and regulations around fossil-fuel energy are in a serious state of flux, and 2) our planet may, in fact, be reaching a crisis point in terms of its ability to sustain human life. AMP-Ohio admitted in its presentation that it hasn't done much, and could do a lot more to encourage conservation. Indeed, local resident Bob Brecha pointed out that California residents use 40% less energy per capita than do people in the rest of the United States, partly as a result of the devastating Enron scandal (see article and graph). This plant would provide only about 10% of our needs. We can do better. Imagine if AMP-Ohio invested $4 billion dollars into serious conservation measures? Would we still need such a huge, coal burning plant?

I and many other local residents are concerned about several issues that we feel have not been adequately explored, especially from perspectives besides those who are already committed to building the new plant. Residents of Yellow Springs deserve to hear directly from the environmental and citizens groups who are expressing legitimate concerns about the feasibility of the AMP-Ohio plan. We need to know whether its ultimate costs to ratepayers have been fully estimated, what its impact on the atmosphere at this critical juncture in our world's history will be (especially in terms of carbon emissions, which were basically simply not included in the otherwise very detailed discussion offered by AMP-Ohio), and whether alternatives for baseload power, coupled with serious conservation efforts, are really as unreliable and impractical as has been suggested for making up the difference that refusing to sign on for more coal would represent.

The presentations by both the village manager and AMP-Ohio all also seem to assume that the energy market will remain completely unregulated, when serious re-regulation efforts are clearly underway. While complex in the details, re-regulation is supported by virtually everyone on all sides of the question: Everyone in Ohio, Republicans and Democrats, environmentalists and industry leaders, all agree that energy deregulation has been a complete failure. The regulation landscape is going to change, and soon, and that will almost certainly take some of the pressures off our current exposure to the open market, as it will make the long-term contracts we're losing again desireable to energy vendors.



MEIGS COUNTY: Additionally, we have NOT been informed that there is opposition from at least some residents in Meigs County, where the plant is proposed. Yellow Springs residents should know that there are currently 4 major, coal-fired plants within a 20-mile radius of the Meigs sites being proposed for new coal plants by both AMP and AEP--the corporation that so contaminated the air, water, and soil of Cheshire, Ohio, that it was forced to buy out the homes of most of the residents there. And currently several more plants, including AMP-Ohio's, are now on the table for the same small area of Ohio/West Virginia, plus at least one new mining operation for Meigs County itself.

Immediately across the river from Meigs, in fact, are the scarred, dead landscapes left where West Virginia mountaintops used to be; mountaintops that have been blown off in the pursuit of the low-sulfur coal under them. The environmental devastation left behind has been incaculable. Currently, AMP-Ohio has admitted that it has no policy regarding Mountaintop coal. They are suggesting that by signing on, we could, as participants, be part of a process that might, or might not, demand that no mountaintop coal be used. But so far the process has been very focused on short-term economic cost analyses.

While, of course, some governmental officials and economic interests in the area of this proposed plant are clamouring for the jobs, other Meigs county residents like farmer Elisa Young (whose family has farmed in Meigs County for seven generations), point out that the cumulative effects and potentially devastating consequences of having so many coal plants and coal mining operations in and around Meigs County have not been fully explored or understood. Young says, "My view is if power plants create jobs, and we have four that you can throw a rock and hit, we should be rolling in prosperity." Instead, Meigs is one of the poorest counties in Ohio--with 26.30% of all children living below the poverty line and amongst the highest rates of asthma, heart disease, and lung diseases in the state. The people there are wiping grit off their windows every morning, and wondering if they're going to be the next Cheshire.

CONCLUSION: We cannot in good conscience decide to go forward with this project without taking the time to become fully aware of these issues, and facing head on the complex impact that such a plant may have on the lives of our neighbors and our grandchildren. We have not yet done so. We ourselves may not be directly "downwind" of this southeast Ohio plant and the 6-8 other coal related industries that may potentially be operating there in 10 years or so, but millions of other people are, and, because the gases in the atmosphere eventually spread to everyone, our grandchildren will all live "downwind" from these plants.

I cannot support the one-sided process we've seen so far. While clearly we must make a decision in a reasonably timely fashion, certainly before March 1, we have access to resources that can help us make a better decision by that time. At this point, those resources are not being adequately invited in. We can do better. We are small, but our decision still has global impact. We must be better informed than we currently are about our alternatives.

One thing that is clear to me, if these "cleaner" plants are built with or without our further support, it's clear that we have already been a part of that process and we have an obligation to remain aware of its developments. We are amongst those communities who supported AMP-Ohio's process of exploring and proposing this plant. At the bare minimum, then, it's our ethical duty to insist that the older and even dirtier plants are in fact actually shut down--which, despite promises, has not been the pattern that most coal-powered entities have followed. The process has, instead, been largely additive--with new plants simply adding their tons of carbon and their more carefully regulated but still significant emissions of NOx and SO2 to the mix, with very few of the older plants being really taken off-line. Our grandchildren deserve a liveable planet if it is in our power to provide it for them. We must do our best for them.