Author: Dan Kunitz

Dan Kunitz is a Minnesota native interested in decarbonization. He is a business analyst at the University of Minnesota and volunteers his website and design skills to Citizens for Sustainability.

CFS Meeting Notes – February ’16

Introductions

Solar Happenings

  • Differences between solar gardens/home installations
    • First round of solar community garden projects are marketing for subscribers
    • Subscribing to a solar community garden is different from direct ownership of panels (either on your own property or other)
    • Owning panels allows you to start generating for free after the initial investment pays off.
    • There are options to help residents and companies with the initial investment
  • Faith has signed with the Department of Commerce to be able to sell 40 solar shares to the community by placing panels on their property
    • Using the Made in Minnesota credits
    • IPS, Sundial, or others participate in Made in Minnesota program
    • Made in Minnesota program’s deadline is Feb 28th [tweet this]
  • Is there a way to tell if your property/roof is appropriate for solar panels? Not everyone can put panels on their roof.
    • Perhaps send out U of M solar map
    • Or if the San Francisco neighborhood map is available here
  • Anthony Village city code now allows for solar panels
  • Interfaith Power and Light has worked with communities of faith to set up solar gardens
  • What background information is there for homeowners who are being marketed to put panels on their house?
    • Paul will put together some information
  • Subsidies are basically required for smaller installs
  • Solar Power Hours at Roseville library for roof installations
  • What can/should CFS do to bring this out to SAV citizens?
    • Perhaps tour a home solar installation
    • What determines viability
    • What financing is possible
    • CFS should be part of keeping citizens engaged with local gov’t and up
      • Perhaps a series of sponsored educational events with the city
        • Options for Hennepin, options for Ramsey
      • We have the interest, perhaps with the other churches
      • We could bring up Midwest Solar Expo (May 17-19)
    • Recommend contact Jim Busacker(sp?) can speak to home installations in SAV
    • Next steps
      • work with neighboring churches to show what Faith is doing
      • bring in someone to do an assessment for Wilshire Park with school board (In Forest Lake, they didn’t need subsidies to get to a 7 year return – 2 MW)
    • SAV City Council did not want to pursue putting solar on city hall
    • How do we go from activity to action?
      • Educate the city to bring them to do solar projects using Met Council plan
      • Citizens will come to a city council meeting we tell them
      • Next meeting we’ll have the events schedule for planning commission
      • How do we prioritize discussions within CFS
        • Maybe we need a solar sub group to keep from taking over time
          • Lona will connect us up
        • Vote on interest
          • Home installation
          • Large scale Solar Gardens
          • Get community to put them on the roof on public projects

 

Bike/walk planning update

  • The city wants bike/walk input from citizens, not to create a bike/walk plan
  • How could we approach the city to do a bike/walk plan when they don’t think there’s a benefit to doing it?
    • Educating city council outside of the comprehensive planning process
    • Most other cities have used a single external review company (CDG), but SAV isn’t interested in paying an outside party to help them
    • The bike/walk plan should go through the Parks Commission
  • Mary feels the city needs several plans in place, but how do we go through the Parks Commission to bring up all the federal requirements upon cities
    • LEP – Limited English Proficiency
    • ADA Transition Plan – improve city infrastructure for accessibility
    • Bike/walk plan – transportation plan
  • It sounds like the city wants to roll bike/ped into the transportation section of the comprehension plan instead of crafting a separate plan.
    • Becky wishes there to be more bike/walk detail in the comprehensive plan than in the current one.
    • Mark brought up that St. Anthony is a major connecting point for multiple cities and two counties
    • Ramsey and Hennepin will be presenting bike/walk at the March 7 meeting [[outreach to help get people to attend]]
    • Transit for Walkable Communities
    • SAV high school has a mountain bike team partnered with Spring Lake Park
    • The city’s perspective is very car-oriented when hearing bike/walk transportation needs.
    • Federal funding is at risk if the city council doesn’t develop these plans
    • CFS needs to improve its relationships with city council members
    • How do we get funding? We need a plan. How do we encourage the city to develop a separate bike/walk plan?
    • How much would going with WSB/CDG cost?
      • Oftentimes these are funded by CDC?
      • Met Council will often approach cities
    • There will be a sidewalk on 37th and 8 intersections will be updated
      • Why wait until a death to fix it?

 

City updates

  • How do we communicate with the city?
    • NextDoor
    • Village People FB group
    • Printed signage/fliers (translated to Spanish and Somali) for churches, community boards (Caribou, etc.)
    • CFS website/FB/Twitter
    • City website
    • Northeaster newspaper article/press release/opinion letter
    • Village Notes quarterly
    • Channel 16
    • Kids in the schools brainstorm these issues
    • Poster competition through the newspaper
    • SAV water/utility bill messaging quarterly
    • City bulletin board on Silver Lake Rd
    • Encourage Inland to allow a community message board
    • Listserv where emails from city where interested citizens can print or communicate out information
    • Senior housing contacts
    • church bulletins
    • Wilshire Park volunteer room
  • St Anthony residents can still buy a few rain barrels
  • Beyond the Barrel would welcome a cfs table
  • SAV will get $5000 for public pollinator gardens
    • Hennepin county has many signs for these gardens
  • Pollinators Plants and You 3/5 10-noon
    • CFS will need a seed packet assembly session before this
  • SAV Spring Cleanup Day 5/7 9-noon – Public Works Facility, 3801 Chandler Drive
    • Shredding
    • Light bulbs
    • Electronic
    • Furniture

 

Other notes

  • Kiwanis route signs in SAV. Do we have that history?
  • March 7th – Parks commission starts at 7, then there’s a time for community input afterward
    • Bring maps (safe routes to school, bike/walk map)
Published
Categorized as Discussions

CFS Leadership and Groups

Clifton Ware, Co-founder and organizer, has stepped down from this leadership role, as of October 2014. CFS is currently undergoing reorganization, as it continues evolving. Former action teams have evolved into special interest groups, including Bike Walk SAV and Wilshire Elementary Ecology Club.

The former Education-Outreach Team has been transformed into Sustainability Education Forum (SEF), and is responsible for sponsoring forums designed to encourage more participant involvement, as presenters, discussion leaders, and coordinators.  The emphasis is on study and discussion of a wide variety of topics and issues related to creating more resilient and sustainable communities. Forums, which are free and open to the public, will be held on Saturdays, 3-5 p.m., either at the St. Anthony Village Library or in local churches. For more information, please contact Clif Ware (warex001@umn.edu).

Another function of the Sustainability Education Forum group is to publish a weekly e-newsletter. Formerly known as the CFS News-Views Digest, it is now known as SEF Sustainability News-Views Digest. The most recent issues are available on this website.

Another active group is the Resources-Energy Team, which to date has assumed recycling of materials for the annual SAV Village Fest, which is held the first weekend in August. Solar installations on homes and buildings is another interest that is being studied.

The former Land-Food Team sponsored a Growing Groceries Program in 2013 that consisted of three workshops spread over the gardening season. Three U of MN Master Gardeners served as volunteer instructors, and 35 local gardeners participated in the three workshops.

Leaders of these groups form the leadership team for the reorganization of CFS. A strategic planning initiative is underway, and plans should be in place sometime in 2015.