May 30, 2023 Council Sustainability Committee

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Transcript

[00:00:01] Member Alison Hicks: Okay,

[00:00:02] Member Alison Hicks: so I'm gonna, it is 6 o'clock. I'm going to call the meeting to order. Uh, this meeting is being conducted with a virtual component. Anyone wishing to address the council sustainability committee virtually may join the meeting on Zoom. Um, and I think there's a link and phone number and webinar ID that are going to be shown on the screen in a moment. for um, joining us and uh, and speaking. That might be shown. Okay, in a moment. Um, and when the chair announces the item on which you wish to speak, click on the raised hand feature in Zoom or dial star 9 on your phone. Uh, when the chair calls your name, provide public comment, if you're participating via phone, please press star 6 to unmute yourself. There, you should be seeing the Zoom link and dial in for in information now, um, in case you're just listening on your phone, the dial in information is, uh, 669-9128. And the webinar ID is 826-636-19345. For in-person attendees. Please fill out a speaker card. Would you find on the sign in table to the left of the door? We will now move to item 2 on our agenda, which is roll call. Ms. Lee, can you please take roll? Cher Hicks? Here. Remember I've coke up here?

[00:01:40] Ms. Lee: Sure, Walter. Well,

[00:01:43] Member Alison Hicks: now move to item 3, which is approving our minutes. Uh, these would be the council sustainability committing minutes from April 18th of 2023. Do any committee members have any questions or comments about the meeting minutes? None. Um, And also, uh, do any members of the public have, um, comments or quest comments on the maps. Seeing none. Would anyone like to make a motion to approve the meeting? Salute. Okay, all those in favor, I, And so, okay, the minutes pass. Unanimously, we are now on item number four, oral communications. Um, item 4 is oral communications from the public. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the committee on any matter, not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to 3 minutes during this section. State law prohibits the CSC from acting on non-agendized items. Would any member of the public like to provide comment on an item that is not on the agenda. So please click the raised hand button in Zoom or press star 9 on your phone. Those attending in person may turn in completed speaker cards at this time. So. We have any speaker cards at this time. Do we have any raised hands? Okay, so we will now move on to item 5 on our agenda, unfinished business, and there's no unfinished business. So that's done. Now we move to item 6, which is new business, discussions and action items. We'll start with 6.one, which is the final 2020 and preliminary 2021 community greenhouse gas emissions inventories. This item will be presented by sustainability deficient staff. This label commence the presentation. Thank

[00:04:10] Ms. Lee: you, Chair Hicks and Members of the Committee, and them's in public. Um, this evening, we'd like to start off our discussions with a presentation of the final 2020 and preliminary 2021 community greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2017, we've been conducting a community greenhouse gas inventory on an annual basis. The inventory calculates, quantifies and assesses community associated emissions and their sources. This helps us to identify emission sources and prioritize projects with the highest emissions reduction potential within our sphere of influence. As you'll see in the next item, results from our greenhouse gas emissions inventory help shape the policies that the city pursues on how to achieve our carbon neutrality goals.als To some extent, the inventory allows us to see the impacts of our projects on a year to year, emissions basis, however, much of it is modeled. And so we can't see a direct impact clearly in all times, in all circumstances. Before we delve into the results of the inventory. I just wanted to point out that this is the 2020 final emissions inventory in 2021 preliminary, which is you all know, um, reflect emissions from really the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. And so, There are dampened travel emissions. There are trends that were still, working our way through. And so we may see shifts rather larger shifts than we have in years past. And that's just because it's still within the throes of the pandemic. Um, So we just wanted to point that out. For example, between 2020 and 2021. vehicle miles traveled, increased 22% reflecting a partial return of employees to the workplaces. So this was as we were starting to emerge from the pandemic. Um, I will remind you that on December 1st, 2021, and on June 22nd, 2022, staff from public works, presented an analysis of pandemic travel patterns to CSC. And they found the traffic volumes. had dropped to 60% of typical levels in 2020 and rebounded to about 80% in 2021. So um, They are expecting that we will approach pre-pandemic levels as we fully swing into recovery. And then just a final comment on the service population, which is employees plus residents, there was a decrease between 2019 and 2020. So, even though the overall emissions decreased on a per capita basis, um, that that decrease was damn it. It wasn't as strong because the number of people that we were dividing by was also decreased. And I would like to hand it over to Ms. Anderson to present this portion of the presentation. Thank you, Miss Lee. So

[00:07:28] Ms. Anderson: Mountain View has adopted ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2009, city council adopted Mountain View's 1st set of production targets to reduce emissions 80% below 2005 levels by the year 2050. In 2019, the targets for the years 2025 to 2050 were amended to decline by a constant annual percentage rather than a constant amount of carbon dioxide. The city council then passed a resolution for Mountain View to become a carbon neutral city by 2045. And this resolution was passed in 2020. This means that this Mountain View will either need to adjust its targets to reflect the school or in the future, will need to identify carbon sequestration projects or carbon offsets. Staff plans to bring a deparbonization strategy to CSC within the coming year. Thank you. So Mountain View Community Emissions inventories are prepared using a national standard called the U.S. Community Protocol. Although the protocol provides a common framework for calculating emissions, Any inventory is an estimate, and it's subject to change as we get better data and better methodology. So our inventory measures energy, water, solid waste, and wastewater, and it estimates on-road transportation and off-road mobile equipment activities. So these estimates for transportation and off-road mobile equipment, they're made by downscaling countywide data. Per the protocol, our inventories do not account for lifecycle emissions, food, air travel, or goods and services. And in response to community interest, staff have analyzed the possibility of conducting such an inventory, which is often referred to as a consumption-based inventory. And this analysis was presented to the council in 2019. And as we stated on that report, staff does not recommend conducting a regular consumption-based inventory, largely because there's challenges in obtaining the data and it requires a lot of staff time and expense. And that being said, we continue to pursue emission reductions in those areas. Examples of that include our plant-based eating program and our economic development initiatives that promote patronizing local services. Among others. So this line shows the overall results of the final 2020 and preliminary 2021 community inventories. And the main takeaway from these results is that we are below our reduction target levels for 2020 and 2021. This means we generated fewer missions than what we were aiming for. But we still have a lot of work remaining to reach our future targets like 2025 and 2030 showing up there. So, as Miss Lee pointed out, previously, these emission declines were likely caused by reduced activity levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. And they are unlikely to continue long term. So, I do want to point out that the percentages in the 3rd column, which is the percentage above and below the target level, are slightly different on the slide than in the memo. We identified a small calculation error in the memo and corrected it for the presentation and it'll be corrected when the report goes to council in June as well. This slide illustrates the results of the community inventories compared to the reduction targets through 2030. As stated previously, 2020 and 2021 emissions were both significantly below adopted targets, but Mountain View will need to reduce its emissions, another 22% to reach the 2030 reduction target. These reduction targets also haven't been updated to reflect decarbonization by 2035 or 2045. With that, I'm going to pass it to Mr. Escobetto, who will discuss emissions per sector. Pie

[00:11:26] Mr. Escobedo: charts show the breakdown of emissions by sector. And as we can see, transportation and energy, have made up the vast majority of the emissions for the years 2020 and 2021. And on the other hand, off-road transportation, solid waste and water, are a much smaller portion of the community wide emissions. So given that energy and transportation make up so much of the emissions, the city's decarbonization efforts are really focused on these 2 sectors. But still, the city continues to pursue projects that address the other sustainability priorities and reduce emissions in the other sectors, including the adoption of the 0 waste planet. But now we'll dive into these top 2 sectors, energy and transportation, a little more. On this graph of on-real transportation emissions. We can see that at 2020 emissions drop significantly. due to the shelter and place orders and decreased activity associated with COVID-19. This continued into 2021, but to a lesser extent, as there was that far forward to the workplace and an increase in activity. And as stated, uh, the city's estimates do show traffic levels returning to pre-pandemic levels. So we expect this upward trend in emissions to continue into the year 2022. So looking at this graph, we can see that it breaks down emissions by vehicle type and as you can see passenger and light duty gasoline vehicles. continue to make up the majority of on-road transportation emissions. We also wanted to point out here that carbs tool, which we use to estimate these emissions, does also take into account fuel type, including electricity, which doesn't show up on the graph here, but we wanted to note that, for example, if electric vehicles, the proportion of electric vehicles on the road are increased, that would show up with lower overall emissions. on this graph. So as you'll hear in the SAP 4 presentation later, The city continues to pursue projects that address these emissions from passenger and my duty vehicles directly through projects that support active transportation, solid waste, active transportation, public transit, and building the electric vehicles, charging infrastructure, and supporting a transition to clean vehicles. And so now I'll pass it off to Miss Forgy Jen to talk more about the energy sector. Thank you. Energy

[00:14:09] Ms. Forgy Jen: sector emissions are emissions that are associated with both residential and commercial energy use in Mountain View, and this sector makes up around 32% of total community emissions. What's most notable about energy emissions over the years is that natural gas emissions have remained pretty constant over time and make up the majority of energy sector emissions at about 70%. To combat this, the city is focusing on encouraging electrification of both residential and commercial buildings to move away from natural gas use, to use Silicon Valley clean energies, carbon free electricity. And from the chart, you can see that in 2017, emissions associated with electricity dropped significantly, which is when Silicon Valley Clean Energy began providing carbon free electricity to most Mountain View residents and businesses. And this also shows that electrification of homes and businesses should be a main focus, for the city in order to reach our decarbonization and carbon neutral goals. And with that, I just have to send this leave, shoes are already cozy.

[00:15:25] Ms. Lee: We'd be happy to take any questions, but before doing that, I just wanted to take a moment. It's okay with the committee to, to acknowledge Ms. Forty John and Mr. Escobedo, where both climate core fellows with the same mountain view. And they've been with us since the fall and we'll be coming to the close of their fellowships. over the course of this summer while council is in recess. So we just wanted to thank them for their service to the city. Yes, welcome. Thank you for coming to the meeting and presenting. With that, I think we'd be happy to take any questions.

[00:15:59] Member Alison Hicks: So, do committee members have questions? Yeah,

[00:16:06] Member Pat Showalter: I don't cope with questions. One is, We are expecting to, to have quite a bit of conversion from gasroid, gas, and you call us to eat. And that should produce production of emissions. what percentage or how much of that production of what we need to do in the next 5 or 10 years. expect to attribute to this. to the slide that shows the on the emissions. Thank you for the question,

[00:16:46] Ms. Lee: council member. And I should have asked you some of these earlier, but oh, it's fine. We're able to move between the slides. As you can see on this graph, the blue section of the of the graph represents passenger vehicles, which is really the biggest opportunity around electrification of our of our transportation systems. Um, So, there, therein lies the potential. So, you know, right now, the 200,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent, that looks like approximately the amount of emissions from passenger vehicles in 2021. So that's the opportunity there. Um, Do

[00:17:27] Member Pat Showalter: we have any knowledge of how many people currently have electric force? I mean, what's the, you know, what's the mix in our community? It's still

[00:17:35] Ms. Lee: at a very low rate. Miss Lynn, do you remember? I know we looked this number up recently. Tell

[00:17:43] Member Pat Showalter: us about 10%. Yeah, that's

[00:17:45] Ms. Lee: a 3rd ballpark. About 10% or less than 10%? Oh, okay. Mountain View does have one of the higher adoption rates for electric vehicles. This is rather typical of an adoption curve. You know, you really only have to get to, below double digits before you see the curve bend upwards significantly. So, We are moving towards mass adoption and we're not there yet. We'd be happy

[00:18:14] Member Pat Showalter: to follow up with the exact numbers. But I'm just wondering, you know, and think about things that we can do that make a difference. And there's there are things that are built in because, you know, we're expecting them to change and then there are things that we have to take care of. And I guess that's my my question is, you know, what's the significance of what's built in for the EV in our, you know, So

[00:18:38] Ms. Lee: this year we are in the process of finishing a series of electric vehicle charging and uh, station postgrades and installations. By the end, our last batch is going in, the permits have been approved. And when that project is complete, we'll have 67 charging stations for electric vehicles, they'll be available for the public. Public works is undergoing a fleet assessment and developing an electrification plan for all of the city-owned vehicles. So we will have another scope of work to electrify our own fleet. And then we've just begun the discussions with PG&E around grid capacity. So that as we project out future demand on the grid relative to electric vehicle needs that we will have the capacity to meet that. So we had a 3rd discussion with them today and another one scheduled for 2 weeks out where they plan to give us more information about the actual capacity constraints that exist right now. Okay. And then another

[00:19:38] Member Pat Showalter: question I have related to this is just, um, you know, use of an individual TV charger in a parking lot. If you go into one of our parking lots, is there a limit of time and how long you can be there? I mean, the reason I'm asking this is, you know, we have a lot of people who live in apartments that are within walking distance up downtown. And can they, I mean, are can they use? I mean, they can actually abuse those chargers. But do they have, um, can they depend on them sort of this as a major part of their supply? Because they can leave it there for, you know, several hours or even half a day? How's that gonna work? We

[00:20:17] Ms. Lee: do have the rates posted on our website, and I believe after 4 hours, we have an overstay fee that is applied. So it's a reasonable amount of time. Well, that is a reasonable amount. Okay. And we have installed in this last batch of installations, a fast charger. So, It's more than enough time to fully charge it. Right.

[00:20:35] Member Pat Showalter: Okay. So I hope we'll be advertising that as what we can use this one. Great. Okay. Somebody else ask a question. I have some more.

[00:20:44] Member Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, and I had similar questions on the, like, actually, and I just looked up the EV grade, it's 9.5% and not 2. Oh, okay. This is from the SVCE study they did on EV. So um, which is good. We're actually doing quite well. Um, but I've been asking this for a while and um, I think maybe it's plain energy stuff working on it, but do you know, in terms of like the chargers, um, What is the optimum number of chargers our city should have? So, like, I know San Jose, their goal is 1500, I believe, and we're 10th of the size. I'm thinking maybe 150, but do we have that kind of, um, you know, that kind of information as to, like, what do we need to that to be? That's

[00:21:34] Ms. Lee: a great question. Robert Koga. I think our fleet electrification study will be a helpful tool in this because they're looking at the size of the fleet and then they're going to help us right size the charging infrastructure. So, um, I'm wondering if we'll be able to kind of extrapolate across the city, like this is the general number of vehicles that we see in the city and therefore, you know, um, it is slightly different because people aren't planning in their homes as well. But we can certainly reach out to transportation experts. They're sort of the ones that have this.

[00:22:10] Member Alison Hicks: I have a question about your question. Sure. If it's 1500 in San Jose public charging stations. Yes. Just in grocery stores. Uh-huh. And I know does that include the ones that the city has helped put in apartments

[00:22:28] Member Margaret Abe-Koga: or no? It's purely public. Purely public. Yeah, and I don't know how they came up with that number, but I remember hearing that a few years back at the mayor's conference. So I just said, you know, that's the 150 would probably be what we should just strive for. But the other part too, I was gonna ask us later, but they come to the funding piece, but, um, the difference between like level 2 and, um, DC and, you know, we're trying to make it more convenient, right, for folks to be able to charge or if they're go longer range or whatnot. So have we thought about, and I know the cost is much more, but, um, again, going back to like what is the optimum number, um, versus the L2 versus DC chargers. Yeah, are we looking into that? Certainly.

[00:23:23] Ms. Lee: And we were prioritizing L2 and of course there is the DC Fast Charger. It is different for public spaces because you want a higher percentage of faster charging than in a residential setting. So I'm thinking that there must be kind of best practice metrics around both the overall number of chargers and the makeup of those chargers for the different kinds of spaces. So, um, we'd be happy to circle back and actually connect with Silicon Valley clean energy staff and you mentioned they're working on it.

[00:23:52] Member Margaret Abe-Koga: I've asked them a few times. sure they are. I'm sure they are.

[00:23:56] Ms. Lee: Well, we'll find out. I'm like, no, great.

[00:23:59] Member Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Oh, and then the last question was, Caltrain electrification. Do we have a sense of how that will affect our numbers? in terms of the writership for Mount View and um, And maybe that's just like, beyond, but given that it's coming in a year, which is exciting. I would hope that I

[00:24:24] Ms. Lee: don't have a projection for what that impact could look like. Um, We can reach out to Caltrain because if anyone should have should be thinking about what that looks like for cities. It should be then.

[00:24:40] Member Pat Showalter: All right. I have a couple worse questions about, um, well, imagine we'll get talk talk to us about the status of the lawsuit, sort of separate, but that's, we're all very interested in that. But, um, from my environmental justice point of view, I think one of the things that's really the most important, although it isn't that important from a emissions point of view, is the conversion of, um, gardening equipment to, um, electricity. And so I, um, You know, I wondered and how that's going. I know that he had a pilot project with the, um, you know, at a pilot project with the parks department, but all I know is a 2000 foot level office. I don't know anything more. So I just wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about that pilot project and how it's going and when we think it'll, we can roll it out better. I know, I'm saying, can Valley, I mean, it's also working on it. Yeah. But I think that's, you know, when I, I think we all, we always want to look at things in terms of, you know, missions, but with everything we want to look at it in terms of environmental justice point of view and that's, that's the one that jumps out at me, everyone else, there aren't undoubtedly others, but. Certainly,

[00:25:56] Ms. Lee: thank you for the question. Um, There actually, there's actually activity at many levels with electric landscaping equipment. The state has released rebates available to both residents as well as small business owners. So those that are interested in pursuing electric gardening tools, now have access to rebates to help offset the costs. Uh, the city did a mailing to all of the registered small businesses and we're, are from the English and Spanish to let them know about these rebates. And then we've also engaged in discussions with the Bayworker Center and have a draft contract that's being reviewed right now to supply them with electric landscaping equipment as well for their clients so that anybody involved in the landscaping industry, whether on

[00:26:50] Member Pat Showalter: a day, day by day job

[00:26:52] Ms. Lee: basis or a small business owner can have access to these cleaner tools. And then in terms of our own city operations, the sainability action plan for did fund, conversion, earlier conversion, of many of our landscaping tools that the community services department utilizes to maintain our beautiful parks. So we've been switching over and training staff in these electric landscaping tools. And so many of our public spaces are now being maintained with all electric tools. And in fact, one of the changes in the SAP for budget that you'll see in the next item, allocates additional funds to further that conversion.

[00:27:34] Member Pat Showalter: That's great. Okay. All right. Then I also wondered about the waste characterization. On page 12, it mentions that the waste characterization that was used, um, states from 2017, I believe. And I know they do review those from time to time. Do you know when the next one's planned? Oh,

[00:27:56] Ms. Lee: I don't know. Okay, you know, it's, Waste is something that doesn't change optics. I will say that having started my career in ways you redo these every 5 or 10 years because we throw away the same things. overwhelmingly. But

[00:28:12] Member Pat Showalter: yes, I don't know. We could find out something. Well, I just keep hoping that the answer is going to be. We're getting a lot more people to compost. Yes. And so what's actually going to the landfill, it's going to be produced. But anyway, okay, those were my questions. Thank you very much. I

[00:28:27] Member Alison Hicks: love you. And then, if other committee members remember a few, they forgot, you can have them jam. Um, so one thing I've never quite understood about this fan as if the carbon foot kind of vehicles is calculated based on estimates from countywide data, then how do we know if improvements we're making, like bike lanes, TDM measures, uh, more electric chargers, et cetera, are effective in, um, cutting down that that carbon footprint of vehicles. Um, I

[00:29:02] Ms. Lee: guess the the, my sort of initial response to this is that, um, We recognize that an emissions inventory is an imperfect way to capture, um, every source of emissions. And so when it comes to, uh, some of these TDM measures, um, this emissions process doesn't capture it perfectly. There are many other ways that the city does evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies, go through our own our TDM program in general, but also public works does things like bike counts or bike pet safety evaluations. Um, Because they're both trying to address our emissions reduction schools, but also, um, address other goals above, you know, across the city around quality of life and, um,

[00:29:53] Member Alison Hicks: Basically, are we basically for these figures using unadulterated estimates from the county so that doesn't capture changes we've made at all in these particular figures. We're just going along with whatever the average in the county is. It's

[00:30:07] Ms. Lee: the answer is somewhere in between. Um, So we do, we, it is difficult to, to kind of look at, um, regional travel patterns and data and to be able to downscale it to mountain view. We do have a, a travel model that attempts to address this. But again, It's all imperfect and it's not updated. Um, constantly. Um, and then, you know, there are, There are things that the city has control. To control. So, um, you know, we may influence the mode of transit that individuals choose, but ultimately they, you know, they're going to be making these decisions one by one. So it's difficult to isolate the sort of specific impact of each individual city led initiative. So

[00:30:58] Member Alison Hicks: how do we know we're trying to reach goal of a certain amount of reduction? How do we know if we've reached it? If we're just looking at what the county is doing in general. It's not really telling us whether we've reached our goal or whether we're halfway there or it's telling us whether the county is there, right? And

[00:31:19] Ms. Lee: the challenge of this is really that, you know, even if we have all of the, um, TDM strategies in place, the overall economy is such a driver in the transportation patterns that occur across our communities, that, you know, we will never have complete control in the dial for the transportation emissions. There are things that happen at the regional level. around economic growth and the larger transportation patterns that are created that we won't be able to do kind of a one-for-one measurement. Um, I wanted to recognize that uh, as a city manager, Shrivasa was here and I wonder, maybe... Well, add to that. Sure,

[00:32:02] Shrivasa: happy to add, um, I, I imagine you're asking this question because we, you would like to know, um, How does the city uh, develop practices and programs? Um, that are effective. People can't measure. Well,

[00:32:23] Member Alison Hicks: we're saying we're going to meet a goal. But we can't tell whether we've met the goal because we're, because if the county lags behind us, then the data shows what the county does, not what we do. So we never know how close we are to our goal or whatever we've reached it or not. Yeah,

[00:32:41] Shrivasa: we discussed this very preliminarily and recognized that it's not easy to look at each program that the city might implement and has control over and some of those include an electrification, um, you know, charging stations or it might be, you know, bike pad or creating complete communities, for example, through land use. Um, however, um, If we had a plan, we would focus on programs that are most effective. And really what we want to do is, is drug and best practices, and see, regionally, where these have, well, and implement them at a local level. And at some point, when we do our entire carbon emissions, we will be able to measure them, even though we won't be able to measure the, um, the effect of each and every, um, specific item. So really what we were working towards is, let's work on developing best practices that work for regions such as ours and incorporate them into our programs. And a lot of them, I think we have, and we could go further on. And then when we are actually able to measure, We know that we would have made an impact in some way, because regionally these have been developed to be best practices. Um, you know, that's kind of our best approach at this point. It's not easy to say, oh, we added so many miles of bike lanes, and this has directly resulted in a reduction by so much. But you will see it reduced over time. Maybe in um, in these line items, in on road transportation.

[00:34:18] Member Alison Hicks: That would be because countywide people were adopting bicycle use? Um,

[00:34:22] Shrivasa: and again, I think, I don't quite know how this, how this, are we taking county wider extrapolating the city? Yeah. Um, you know, so much of this is related to county wide transportation, congestion. I think it's really hard. Um, So, um, yeah, we will continue using whatever we can use to to the best extent, feasible, but really our plans will include programs that, um, do meet these best practices.

[00:34:51] Member Alison Hicks: Okay, best practices are good. I, um, I, when I was 1st elected, I talked to, um, standability staff. different people, but so maybe you'll give me different answers, but they said there were, um, new practices based on, I think it was some kind of photography of actual, or tracking actual cars that was more specific to the city. I don't know if anybody knows anything about that as a as a better

[00:35:20] Ms. Anderson: practice. So we did explore using something called the Google environmental insights explorer, which might be one of those. And I think the tracking is mainly around a number of devices in a vehicle, and they're tracking that way. Um, We explored using that for a few different inventories over the years, but from comparing that data to local city data. It was really different and um, stuff was not comfortable that that it was accurate for, um, the purpose of our inventory, but it's something we continue to track and I'm in communication with people staff about that tool and um, whenever they release the new data, we look at it and see how it compares to ours. And so I think they're continually trying to approve it. So there is potential there. Yeah, something more locally accurate

[00:36:08] Member Alison Hicks: would be fabulous. in my opinion. Um, I had more questions. Do I have another idea? Well, I just had a comment about that.

[00:36:16] Member Pat Showalter: I think that, you know, it is important, uh, to compare year to year, to use the same system for a while, because then you, you know, then you can see that the numbers have changed or not changed with the same system. But I can posit that, you know, in 10 years, when we get much closer to our goal, there will be a new system. And hope because this technology is, is, um, you know, kind of evolving. And when that happens, we'll want to, um, you know, we'll probably want to use the better system. But right now, you know, for our purposes. Um, this is, this is sort of accepted. And, um, uh, by the industry. And, you know, and I, and I think it's, um, It's a very reasonable thing for us to do. We just have to be cognizant that you're right. It's not exactly what we do. It's a model of it. And, um, and it's based on, um, the county and, um, And you might, we might posit that our emissions are actually, for instance, if we have more EVs, then the average city, then maybe ours is actually a little smaller. We don't have any idea how much. So, so, um, you can, you know, you can, we can make some comparisons like that. But I think at this point, it's really important to have

[00:37:38] Ms. Lee: some consistency between yours. Yeah. And if I may just add briefly that there is one additional detail that I can share, you know, we do take this county wide data and we downscale it. Um, but there is a travel demand model that was created by the city in 2018. And we apply that as well in the downscaling process. However, we recognize that even that model is out of date and travel. It's, um, a way to downscale more accurately based on more localized information. But even that is imperfect and staff is already planning to update that model because they see that that too is out of date. So, even if we try to tailor it, it is difficult to to measure in real time, the impacts of our decisions. So

[00:38:31] Member Alison Hicks: I basically, I guess wrong questions, not comments, but I basically echo what pass that I think makes sense to continue using the same level, but the closer we get to our goals, the less sense it makes. So adopting other models and that are more accurate for what we're actually doing, I think, would be increasingly important. Um, let's see. I also had a question on, um, why you think, So, uh, The staff report says that construction and industrial equipment emissions went down dramatically in 2019. So I'm wondering why that might be true. I would have said the pandemic, but 2019 wasn't during the pandemic. So why that happened because it was really dramatic. And then also, I'm curious about the sort of the carbon footprint of construction in general, what that is and how it changes. Yeah,

[00:39:31] Ms. Lee: we actually looked into this a little bit further. Um, the industrial equipment and construction equipment, um, emissions were, you know, it was lower in 2019, the 2018, and typically job counts and the number of building purpose permits are used as the downscaling metric for the countywide down to local. But those numbers didn't change terribly much in mountain view between those 2 years. However, carb also has the general modeling data that they apply each year, like the number to start with. And so, um, that's where the change occurred in in their modeling. And so we don't know the exact cause of the change, but at the local context. Not much changed. It might be more related to the emissions factors. associated with how they calculate. Yes, exactly. So, but we did look and the job counts and number of building products didn't change drastically, so. No local conditions were driving. Okay. And

[00:40:31] Member Alison Hicks: the staff report also says, this is a quote in 2020, the RWQCP transition to trucking biosolids, offsite to processing facilities, where they're converted into fertilizers and other beneficial products, and that appears to have produced our DHD emissions related to biosolid processing quite a bit. But I don't know whether it, that would mean, um, that it's reduced or that those emissions were just shifted to the facilities in other cities where they're converted into products. So that's an issue I'm kind of interested into. Are we really reducing things or just giving the emissions to somebody else? Thank

[00:41:15] Ms. Lee: you for the question. The answer is a little bit of both. It's true that if we, um, our protocol doesn't include emissions from composting biosolids or trucking them to be outside of our jurisdictional boundaries, since the trips happen outside of our borders, they would end up getting included in other cities, inventories. That being said, the emissions from the composting and trucking would be very low in comparison to the incineration itself that was happening previously. So there is a real reduction that's occurring and then a slight shifting of emissions outside of our course. Are

[00:41:55] Member Alison Hicks: there other questions for the committee members? Okay, so now uh, with no more questions from the committee numbers, uh, it's time for comments from the audience on this item. Are there comments? Okay. Would

[00:42:17] Mr. Corey: you mind putting slide 11 up on the most recent presentation? And, um, I'd like to direct, uh, attention to the 2nd page of attachment too. Where this percent of total dishes by sector and subsector, I'm gonna talk about, um, non-residential electricity. So you might ask yourself, looking at this chart, why is there so much greed? Didn't we decarbonize our electricity supply 4 or 5 years ago? And in fact, if you look at the residential portion of electricity emissions on this 2nd page of attachment to, you'll see that residential electricity makes up between 0 and 0.3% of our emissions depending on which year, which recent year you're looking at. And so the answer to this question is something called direct access electricity. Which means electricity that's purchased by a commercial firm, not from Silicon Valley Clean Energy, not from PG&E, but from some other provider. And those providers are required to meet California's RPS renewable portfolio standards. But they don't have to do more than that. And the RPS now is about 38 or 40%. Compared to Silicon Valley, Clean Energy, which is 99% clean and PG&E, which is about 96% clean, I believe, in the years that we're talking about. So who are the big employers in Mountain View and where do they get their electricity from? Well, Google and Microsoft. Both say that 100% of their electricity is carbon free. Um, But these numbers would tend to make you think that something is wrong. So what's wrong, I think, is the county downscaling issue that we've talked about with respect to automobiles. that, um, We know who our biggest employers are and, you know, they claim, and I believe them, that they get their electricity not from the average direct access provider, but from specific carbon free sources. But I don't believe that that's taken into account in the numbers that are presented. And I think it's important as part of the general question with respect to electricity, which is what I'm talking about, you can, if, If those 2 big companies would tell you, yes, it's really all clean, and if you had access to their usage in terms of kilowatt hours, you could rescale this to be more accurate. In fact, in Cupertino, where I used to go to the environmental commission meetings pre-pandemic, they do that. In Cupertino, they know that Apple buys all their electricity from carbon free sources. And the report that they give to their community takes that into account. Given that this is 9% of the total emissions in Mountain View. I think it's really important to get that right. Um, So, um, and I will also mention that uh, 5 years ago in the sustainability test force too, We did have a recommendation that basically said, The city could impose a carbon tax like fee on businesses that chose not to use clean electricity when it is so easily available. And the format that we proposed was essentially a 2 tiered business license fee. If you get 95% of your electricity from clean sources, your business license is the same as it's always been. But if you don't sign up or if you don't prove that you do that, you have this very large penalty added to your annual business license fee, which, you know, would drive the right behavior almost instantly, I think. Just wanted to bring that attempt to your attention and also to support the notion that if the committee asks staff to, you know, be a little bit bolder in identifying how mountain view is different from the rest of the county, I think you'd be happy with the results, the fact that we have more electric, more EVs than the average community, should be able to be modeled into this when you, you know, take a car that goes 10,000 miles, so you turn it into an EV that goes 10,000 miles, the impact on emissions is quite easy to calculate the challenge is estimating how many EVs there are in a community versus the average on the county level. you.

[00:46:45] Member Alison Hicks: Do we have any more in-person speakers on this item? Do we have virtual speakers on this side? No. Okay. So now we bring it back to, uh, it's time for committee discussion, do committee members have, um, things they want to say that are questions, but discussion items. And just to, um, Remind you, we are, uh, What we're working on is recommending the city council accept the final 2020 and preliminary 2021 community greenhouse gas emissions in Victoria.

[00:47:35] Member Pat Showalter: Well, I'm wondering how much, um, well, wait is this supposed to come to cancel. It seems to me it's coming pretty quickly. Um, and if it would be, so I'm not sure that there would be time between now and when it comes to council, for, um, these changes that, um, that, um, Mr. Corey suggested to me. But I think that would be very interesting. I wonder if they had to be incorporated in the final, um, GHG mission, which children is, with that, available all the south. And also I would really like to explore or to learn a little bit more going forward about the carbon tax. I think not only would it be an interesting way to change behavior. I think would also be a good way to get data. usage. Um,

[00:48:40] Member Margaret Abe-Koga: it's just when, um, in response to Mr. Carney, um, direct access and I like this up again, because I remember if we talked about set clean energy, that Google and SVC have come do an agreement that Google would use clean energy, SVC energy. So that was last year to see that, so we won't see that really for a while, but hopefully that will lower that that bar. So, um, That was, that was just my one comment, I think, you know, as we see, and we've known this for a long, long time, that transportation was such a good chunk of this, um, this pie and, um, you know, my concerns is, you know, working at a transportation area is just the issue of, um, a physical cliff that we keep hearing about and, you know, the state of public transit. And, um, Yeah, how. There it is, but it's on the verge of, you know, falling off the cliff, unfortunately, and, um, just so you know, it's just a commentary, but disappointed that, um, from the transportation side, we should advocate for more funding from the state and we're not getting that, um, response. So, um, you know, my hope is that if we look at the numbers and people returning to work, I hope that that will shift as more people do become more comfortable writing a transit again. Um, but of course, that's all 2018. And that's what we're discussing in the transportation realm is, you know, how do we get phones back onto transit? What are the short term improvements that we can make, more on safety and cleanliness to attract riders, but there is this longer term issue of how do we connect to public transit? Long enough, so we probably can stop off with our event. more stable funding source for transmit. Um, so yeah, the, this, uh, appreciate status work on all this. I I think it's, I'm, I'm very encouraged by the numbers and the emissions or the options. Yes, it looked like if we were pretty close in 21, 2021, was it? To our target. So, um, and then I was really also encouraged to read that even with population growth. not increasing initial, but it's not very, um, promising given that we are planning to grow so much in the city. Thanks. So

[00:51:22] Member Alison Hicks: my comments are that, um, I guess we're gonna, we're gonna have a resolution to, or make a motion. somebody will make a motion to accept. Um, these, uh, the, uh, community greenhouse gas emissions inventories. I am, and I don't think there's enough time to change them a lot in this round, but I'm extremely interested in making them more locally accurate over time. I mean, I think one of the assignments we've given ourselves is to offsets if we don't need it, yet if we're just measuring whether the county met it or not, that's not going to make any sense. So I think I would like them to become increasingly accurate. And I think some of the comments that there's currently made around. around, uh, looking at our, um, adjusting for EV ownership and also, um, whether corporations are buying clean energy. I think those are 2 that we can use on maybe pretty quickly. Um, and I'd also like to keep track of otherwise monitoring transportation and SOVs in general. And I guess mass transit abuse as well. Um, and electrification. And then just any other emerging best practices around making, um, making up, you know, assessing our greenhouse gas emission more locally, I'd like to hear continuing feedback on that. Um, and I also am, uh, very interested in any kind of carbon tax like fee for, um, on my dirty energy, essentially. Those are my comments. I want to make emotions. that we, um, accept

[00:53:13] Member Pat Showalter: the staff recommendation. Okay, all those in favor? Some other questions, a comment from the public after the public comment period. Was closed? closed

[00:53:28] Member Alison Hicks: out. Um, usually don't accept those after they're closed, but maybe during the next, um, the person can speak during the next segment. Hopefully it's not too inappropriate. Okay. So, um, all those in favor. Bye. Passes unanimously. Um, we will now move. On to 6.2, which is the sustainability action plan for progress update and recommended product patients. This item will be presented by sustainability division staff and mislead or commence the presentation. Thank you, parents. We're just going to...

[00:54:17] Ms. Lee: Thank you. As you mentioned, this item provides a progress update on our sustainability action plan for, we call it SAP 4 and seeks input from CSC on the recommended modifications to the remaining actions and budget. Do these modifications. What we're trying to do is really align actions and prioritize the highest impact opportunities, focus on decarbonization, resilience, and community engagement. Just to provide a beef, a brief background on SAP for, um, as the committee knows, SAP 4 was originally adopted in 2019 for fiscal years, 201920 through 2122. As you can imagine, the pandemic slowed our progress on a safety form implementation. And it has continued through the 2223 fiscal year. SAP 4 included 81 new and 79 already approved actions across various sectors. And a $750000000 sustainability fund. Cheminal improvement program was also created. In 2021, staff came to council, and 5 actions were approved for removal, and some funding was moved across projects similar to what we are proposing this evening. And just to start off, we have been making progress, as you can see on this chart. Um, The majority of actions have been completed or are ongoing, or are in progress and we expect their completion in the coming fiscal year with a few exceptions. Staff is recommending removal or consolidation of some actions as either they're no longer needed because of the larger context or that they can be combined with other actions to help make more effective programs. The status of each individual project and anticipate collection date, completion date are included in attachment work, so you can have a detailed status update of every single measure. Well, that I'd like to hand it over to Miss Anderson, who will be giving us a high-level summary of some of the major changes. Thank you. So,

[00:56:44] Ms. Anderson: um, I'll provide a brief update on some key SAP 4 actions that are in progress or completed. Um, and there are some staff that are here as well on both on Zoom and in person that can also help answer any questions about them afterwards related to their departments. So, 1st off, I'll start with the transportation actions. So the 1st key action is the vision 0 policy and implementation plan. So the vision 0 policy was adopted in 2019 and the development of joint vision 0 action plan in local road safety plan is underway. SAP 4 is providing funds to leverage a health trans grant for this work, and it's anticipated to be completed by the end of 2023. The 2nd project is the Transportation Management Association programs in spring 2022. The TMA implemented a new mobility program, which will provide, where it will reimburse transit and carpool users for expenses related to midday trips. The 3rd project is about all the different EV charger installations that Miss Lee actually talked about earlier. So there are new chargers that have been installed in defunct chargers that have been replaced. Uh, multiple downtown parking garages. And, um, Another installation is underway for additional chargers, including the city's 1st, um, city owned, uh, level 3 DC fast charger that will go at the 850 California Street parking garage next to CVS. And the new o'clock aquatic center at Ringster Park will also have EV charging infrastructure when it's completed. Um, the last transfer or actually 2 more. The 4th transportation project is transportation demand management program. So we have a few different actions within SAB4 related to TDM. And the city is working on developing a TDM ordinance that will support standardizing TDM requirements city wide. The last project for transportation is the fleet electrification plan, which I think obviously you talked a little bit about in the last item as well. And this is, um, The preparation of the plan is in progress. It will identify your replacement candidates of various classes of vehicles and it will also estimate costs for charging infrastructure at 3 different city sites and it should be completed by the end of 2023. That's like... So we also have a couple of key energy actions that have advanced since the last update. Um, the 1st one is um, the 2022 reach codes. So in December 2022, council readopted and expanded the 2019 reach codes to require all electric construction for new residential and commercial buildings, and this reach code removed an exception for fire bits and fireplaces for all building types, and it also increased EV charging requirements for certain building types. Um, the other action we'd like to um, discuss is um, be 2.4, which um, is actually um, one of the modifications we're recommending is to consolidate a few related actions that were related to energy efficiency um, decorbonization, electrification. And through this action, we're exploring a building decarbonization pilot program and other residential and small business facing decarbonization initiatives, like those that were talked about at the CSC meeting in April. Next side, please. Within the, um, tree canopy section of SAP 4, um, P 2.2, which is the new urban forest plan within the biodiversity strategy has advanced. So this was originally worded to be a community tree master plan and we're recommending modifying that to reflect the work that he's doing. And this work will be completed by springtime. Um, There are also some chorus sustainability and outreach actions within SAP 4 that are advanced. Um, the 1st um, is allocate funds or um, for community or municipal pilot projects for training. And for this project, the city app appropriated funds for a project to electrify water heating and kitchen appliances at the senior center, and that, you know, just happened. earlier. I think it was about a week ago. And the next action is the electrify Mountain View website. So this was launched in spring 2022, and as of spring 2023, we have 311 Mountain View residents that are registered with the site, and there's been a lot of interest specifically in solar, battery storage, and electric people technologies. And outreach campaigns are already planned to increase registration and engagement. We also have a plant-based eating program. So, you know, there was a resolution in support of a plant-based diet that was adopted in May 2022 and um, analysis is in progress, um, for a program to support plant-based options in the rest local restaurants. The sustainability dashboard is also published on the city's website. It was fuller slash year and it displays metrics related to climate. 0 waste, transportation, building modification and housing. And we have annual updates scheduled over the next couple months. The last, um, project I'll discuss is, um, uh, communication action. So, this is another recommended modification through this update, it would expand an action that was originally focused specifically on the cool block program to more general engagement on decalculization and resiliency just to reflect the greater scope work that staff has been working on. But we do also have updates on, you know, how cool block has advanced. So the 2nd court, cohort of cool block act was completed in 2022. And staff is also exploring opportunities to further integrate electrification and natural gas pruning into cool block engagement. This was also something discussed in the April CSC meeting. So, um, as you know, um, council also approved 7 new positions as part of adopting SAP 4 and, um, all the positions have been filled except for one, which is the deputy building official position. The city has contracted with a consultant to recruit this position because they've been a few unsuccessful different. With that, I will pass the presentation. Thank you.

[01:03:37] Ms. Lee: So all of that work, um, has resulted in 34% of the funds being spent. Um, I would like to mention that we have been accelerating as we've been coming out of the pandemic. So we've been filling these positions. And so the drawdown is starting to go faster. It essentially paused during the middle of the pandemic. Um, So now staff is implementing many of the delay, major dirt actions, and as was mentioned by Miss Anderson, all of the hiring, is complete with the exception of that one last position, and that's underway. Um, on several occasions, and this was mentioned in the staff report, uh, the city has been able to leverage SAP fund for funding for to draw in many additional resources to support this work in general. Um, Through the implementation of SAP for the city has been able to secure over $27.6000000 in additional funding by leveraging what was allocated in SAP 4. There's a detailed table that provides an itemized accounting of that. Many of the recommended modifications are focused around these 5 areas. Um, The decarbonization strategy, which is really the point of SAP 4, we're just kind of applying new language to the same efforts to get to carbon neutrality. And we're trying to think very deliberately about the levers that the city has control over, how we can most effectively invest our resources to actually achieving emissions reductions. Um, We will be bringing a decarbonization strategy to cancel in the coming fiscal year. Um, and many um, actions related to electrification studies or different kind of adjacent activities have been consolidated into this decarbonization work. Energy efficiency and electrification, similarly to the planning around it. We have tried to consolidate some of the funds for actual implementation. Some of the potential initiatives that we're evaluating are things that were discussed at the last CSC meeting, but, you know, of note really looking at how to get to scale on electrification. Right now, we're really stuck at one home at a time. And we really need to be able to have models to understand how to go faster. So, We're really looking at this neighborhood scale. How can we electrify a whole block at once, a whole multifamily apartment building. so that we can envision how we can get Apple City electrified. Um, Next week, we talked a little bit about this, but you'll see that there has been a theme of consolidating work around transportation demand management. I think SAP 4, in its original form, recognized the transportation is an issue that crosses all of the departments and much of our work. But that being said, what we'd like to recommend is consolidating that under the leadership of public works because it falls most squarely in their arena, but with active participation, both from community development. and from the city manager's office. So that's another area that you'll see in our recommendations. And then we have this climate vulnerability assessment and resiliency plan. This was always included in our, um, original SAP4, but it was called something different. There was a development SAP 5. And then there was a vulnerability assessment. So, you know, now we have a decarbonization plan and then this vulnerability assessment and resiliency plan. So we've increased the funding to really start to engage in this work. It is a lengthy process to really understand the impacts of climate change and how we as a city can prepare for them. It will entail looking at countywide modeling of the impacts of climate change, not just sea level rise, but extreme heat, extreme rain, precipitation events, about rivering, flooding, air quality, from fires, although not locally in all likelihood, but would still potentially impact the city. And then the resiliency measures that we can implement this community that would help us be prepared for those. So, There's quite a bit of work contained in that and we're happy to report that that's underway. And this modification would help to accelerate that. And then finally, Ms. Anderson already touched on this, but we are trying to think more holistically about community engagement. And, um, We have the cool block program. We have electrifying mountain view. So there's many different ways that we're trying to reach the community, you know. Maybe you just want to come in and learn a little bit more about how to electrify your home and we'll send you to electrify mountain view. Um, Maybe you're ready to start and what we could do is connect you to Silicon Valley Clean Energies, um, electrification concierge, which we hope will be coming online later this year. Um, maybe you live in a multifamily apartment building and there is a more appropriate engagement through a direct install program that we hope to be lunching as well this coming year with block power. Or you want to talk to your neighbors and really build community and think about this neighborhood scale. And so perhaps the cool block program could be the right fit. So we're thinking about community engagement at all of these levels. Um, so that we can reach all of the community. And you'll see some of the changes reflected in the recommendations in this space as well. So just to walk you through what the next steps are, uh, or at least the proposed ones, what we'd like to do is incorporate feedback from the CSC this evening and then, um, include these budget modifications through to the full council for action, um, via the 2324 recommended budget, which is going to cancel our next month. Um, After that, sometime, most likely in the in the coming fiscal year, we'd like to provide a final closeout update on SAP for. There will be a few measures that maybe continue on. I can imagine the TDM work, for example, will be an ever evolving area for the city. But we would like to formally close out SAP for in anticipation of the decarbonization strategy. which we would then be bringing to council. First, a strategy and then an implementation plan for government operations and then for community wide. So, um, that is how we envision the next steps happening. And then I would be happy to. Hand it back over to you to the chair for discussion and we'd be happy to answer any questions.

[01:10:57] Member Alison Hicks: Do members of the committee have any questions. Um,

[01:11:10] Member Margaret Abe-Koga: Attachment to the fund spending plan. So just so I have this, right? This is the recommendation of Facebook, you consolidation of the items, and that's why you would do the, the, the, the, and other categories that, right? Exactly.

[01:11:32] Ms. Lee: In some cases, there are a few things that are recommended for removal and the funding would be reallocated. In many of the cases, it's simply a matter of aligning many measures into a single category that captures them. And

[01:11:46] Member Margaret Abe-Koga: if you can remind me, the 7,50000000 that we said is, is that fully funded now? I've never really seen it over a few years, but is that all? Okay, great. Um, and then finally, um, illegal not do an SAT 5, but instead, I think of it with UD. Adding these to the council work clinic council work.

[01:12:15] Ms. Lee: Some of the some of the items are already identified as, um, proposed for inclusion in the work plan. And many of the things, for example, electrifying the full community, we won't be done with just yet, and they would be in the decarbonization strategy and implementation plan. So it's, um, we're thinking of that as being your plan in lieu of an SAV fucking. Just holding in on the purpose of that plan.

[01:12:48] Member Pat Showalter: Thank you. I have a couple of questions. Um, one is related to a community engagement. And, um, You mentioned a number. Well, uh, you mentioned a number of programs that would, and I think that's great. But I'm also wondering about using community volunteers or some of the monitoring. You know, for instance, we don't have very much monitoring about how many people are about, but. And I think all of us would really like to know if all that infrastructure we're building is being used in that. So, So I'm wondering if there's, if given had a chance to give any thought to, to, um, confusing volunteers for monitoring. for particularly for active transportation.

[01:13:38] Ms. Lee: Can I ask, um, Ms. Ramos, is Ms. Lowe on, We have staff. Okay, good. Maybe if we could unmute Miss Lowe, thank you. Hello,

[01:13:52] Rhea Hutch Barrett Lowe: thank you so much for your question. This is Rhea Hutarot Low, transportation manager. Um, in terms of um, monitoring for active transportation, we would not recommend using volunteers for that because we need to ensure the accuracy of the of the information. Um, But we do have a plan for installing bike counters around the city. And um, they're looking at technologies at the moment, we've been approached by a couple of different companies. Um, and so that is our plan to install permanent bike counters in a number of different locations. And we also take bicycle and pedestrian counts with many of our projects. Um, and so that also um, is the way that we can gather that data. Well,

[01:14:41] Member Pat Showalter: I know there's always this question about the accuracy, but there's also the example in the Christmas bird counts that's been going on for over a 100 years. That's probably questions about the data, but at the same time, um, I think having volunteers, um, involved not only provides you with some numbers, it raises awareness. It provides, um, some sort of ownership in the process that you don't get if you, you know, if you do it with a kid. So it's just a moment. And then the other question I, it was about the, um, the staff. What? We establish the green team of city employees. What was the green team? And, um, Well, what was it? And why hasn't it been successful? That's the last one, or page 10 of 10. That's 6.2.

[01:15:44] Ms. Lee: Thank you for the question. The green team of city employees actually predates. Okay. Nearly all of us with the city, with the exception of... I don't even think it's been active in my time high,

[01:16:00] Member Margaret Abe-Koga: Audrey Seymour, Ramp, assistant city manager. It was one of the early initiatives when the city began a sustainability program and it was, um, I think,

[01:16:12] Ms. Lee: uh, effective at the time, but it's time consuming effort, and I think the cost benefit, um, of it did not warrant it kind of warranted being continued, um,

[01:16:26] Member Pat Showalter: as we're focused on things that have the higher leverage. What reminded me of it is because, um, at the water district, we've had things called affinity groups. And you got your friends together, made an affinity group, you could get, you know, several $1000 a year that, you know, have lunches together and stuff, which was kind of fun. And we had, you know, a woman engineer, affinity group, and we had a veterans affinity group, and we had an Asians affiliate group, and we had a Latino one and a black one and we had an environmental one. And they were really, um, they were really good for, um, just building camaraderie. And, um, uh, so that's why I, you know, reminded me of this and they, and then the environmental one, we used to put on a, a, um, uh, Earth day fair just for employees. Of course, it's different in the city than in a water district, because we, you know, we didn't really have, I mean, having public, I suppose the public could have come to our birthday favor, but, but, um, it was really designed for employees and to help with, you know, um, in our systems, um, recycling, getting people knowledgeable about sleep things, you know, all that stuff. Okay. So I just thought I'd bring it up. Thank you. Oh, then another one I wondered about is partnering with Kennedy. That's on page 8 of 16 of this. Stanford. And I think it says it's complete. And, um, the reason I remember now is because, you know, this year, we had that, that incredibly destructive, um, storm at that, that does not go for so many trees. So I think that one of the things we want to do to help overcome that damage is get more trees planted this year in the next year than we would otherwise. And I do understand that there's a, there's a report on the damage that's coming out, but I think, you know, I mean, it's just part of the cross, bringing it up because it's sort of part of the cross, um, from the dension between, appropriate, sustain a different appropriate. And...

[01:18:46] Ms. Lee: I may comment briefly. Many of the measures and including this one regarding the partnership with canopy, um, we've either marked as complete, but it's sort of a, actually what we'd like to say is that we've incorporated these strategies into our ongoing operations. Oh, good. For example, the partnership with canopy is ongoing and every year, you know, the community services department engages with them to do treatment. Okay. So this one... Congratulations.

[01:19:24] Member Alison Hicks: Do you have another question or should I go on? Thank you. Okay. A couple of questions. Um, so a member of the public brought this up to me and I, and, um, may not be able to be with us tonight. So I thought I would ask the question. Um, this question was about with the uh, vehicle electrification plan, whether vehicle width and sizes can also be incorporated into that. And I think what he's talking about is with emergency vehicles, particularly fire trucks. They're big. Um, and I know that when I worked as a planner, it was one of, it was like a major thing with a lot of the projects that we had to, and I've seen it here on council as well. We have to cover a lot of the site with concrete in order to cater to something that we hope never happens, which is that there's a fire and an emergency vehicle has to come in. Whereas in, you know, in other countries, they don't do that. They have much narrower fire trucks. So, um, I would not have brought that up myself, but a member of the public brought that up and it's actually, um, that on the table asking, whether you've ever thought of doing that or ever would think of doing that because it actually could make a difference in terms of green spaces and so forth. So that's something we've ever talked about

[01:20:48] Ms. Lee: in any way. I was actually going to put Miss Lynn on the spot. She has been sitting as one of the participants on the fleet electrification plan project with public works. Do you have any thoughts of, has that come up in the discussions? Yeah,

[01:21:02] Member Alison Hicks: the, um, it's come up in the sense that the fleet electrification plan right now is looking at a like for like replacement. So it's likely that the vehicles being recommended are of a similar size to the existing vehicles in the fleet. So, to that extent, it's come up, but um, Not more specific than that. That was my question and I may bring it up during comments as well.

[01:21:27] Ms. Lee: We also have director Cameron and Mr. Skinner online from public works, and I don't know if either of them has anything to add to that question relative to the fleet electrification. Um,

[01:21:42] Don Cameron: good evening. Um, chairperson and committee members, Don Cameron, public works director. I'll just note that, um, coming up with the specification. For emergency. Including fire vehicles, they have to meet a lot of needs and, you know, any changes to the vehicle sizes may also affect, um, the different features of the vehicles that our fire personnel depend upon. So, and also just depends upon what's available in the market. As was mentioned, I believe the fleet of electrification plan is really focused on like for like. And what, and it has to take into consideration what's actually available, uh, in the marketplace, what's tried and true, and will serve the needs of our emergency personnel. So it's certainly something that can be continuously looked at. But there are a lot of different pieces that have to be looked at in terms of putting together specifications for vehicle procurement. Okay,

[01:22:45] Member Alison Hicks: thank you. I thought that's the answer I would get, but I, but this is something I've seen over and over again. I thought, and I was pushed by the public. I thought I would bring it up. Um, Another is, um, The staff report mentions developing a climate vulnerability and resilience plan. Can you tell me just a little bit more about what's going to go into that, certain my level. So I, Yes,

[01:23:12] Ms. Lee: right now, the city has access to countywide data relative to climate risks. The county has modeled what extreme heat might look like in the future. You know, right now we have X number of days and in the future in 2070 or 2100. We may have Y number of dates. You know, might go from 5 to 15 or 20 extreme heat days. So we have this data and what we'd like to do is downscale it to mountain view, wherever that's possible, wherever the science allows it and it can be done cost effectively. So we would be engaging in this more detailed vulnerability assessment. Looking at mountain view and the climate risks that we face as a community that are the most dominant ones. Um, and then it would be working with community partners to develop a resiliency strategy that would flow from the risks that were identified. So, For example, we've been in discussions with the community services agency. with the day worker center. So some of the people who are vulnerable now will also be quite vulnerable to climate shocks in the future. So what we would like to do is engage those partners in particular, but also the full community. How should we as a community plan for resilients and what kinds of measures can we put into place? So, the plan would it sort of incorporate the risks and then develop strategies. And

[01:24:41] Member Alison Hicks: will it include electric outages like the outages that, you know, sustained ones, not ones that are just a couple of hours, like the ones we, many residents experienced during the, the, um, the rains.

[01:24:56] Ms. Lee: It would, in the sense of, um, well, this is an interesting question because it wasn't the flooding. Right now our model is really focused on the flooding that would occur. And it was the wind that was driving the downing of power lines. We haven't done any modeling in this space to begin to look at it, but I have had some preliminary discussions with the county, in particular about this issue, having just come through the winter. Um, So I don't have an answer. We don't know how to do that. Um, But it's something that we've started to talk about. Okay,

[01:25:28] Member Alison Hicks: good, because I've gotten several, several community members have been extremely interested in us, as you can imagine after what we experience different from the beginning of this year. Um, And I think it links to our, our efforts to electrify, we kind of have to have an answer to what happens, but, uh, with an electricity is now. I guess I can say, I'm moving into comments so I won't do that now. Um, And then, uh, benchmarking and disclosure ordinance. Thank

[01:26:03] Ms. Lee: you. Um, a benchmarking and disclosure ordinance would essentially be a requirement that the city would impose on, um, building owners to assess their building's energy use to understand their building's performance compared to other buildings. Um, So the disclosure of the data could either be voluntary or mandatory depending on the way that the city would have structured such an ordinance. Um, mandatory disclosure would allow potential buyers or tenants to consider building's energy efficiency, um, in either buying or renting decisions. Um, we've recommended not pursuing this because the, the kind of staff burden to enforce such an ordinance and also the burden on all of our building owners across the city, um, in comparison to the change that could actually be achieved through it. It's just not the highest return on investment, if you will. Um, And, you know, we had similar discussions with Silicon Valley clean energy, the kind of county wide level, and they too are recommending

[01:27:08] Member Alison Hicks: this be a top priority. Um, And then my last question is about the content of sort of the evolving TDM policy. Um, Are we, I think we can, I would just say I think we could get more from it than we're, we're now getting. Um, so I'm wondering whether any of the TDM measures involve, uh, cutting carbon, targeted hybrid work schedules, um, or some of the, you know, some of the big changes we've seen in transportation since the pandemic. That would be a fun question. I

[01:27:48] Ms. Lee: wonder if, um, stuff from public works, perhaps Miss Lowe, you'd like to. Yep.

[01:27:56] Rhea Hutch Barrett Lowe: Hi, I'm Rhea Hutch Barrett Lowe, transportation manager again. Um, so the, um, by addressing transportation demand for single occupant vehicles. Um, all of the TDM strategies that are, you know, would involve cutting carbon emissions, um, by helping to facilitate mode shift to more sustainable and active mode, uh, active choices. Um, the, what the work that we're doing currently includes a, um, a TDM ordinance for those who submit applications for development projects. And so, um, we're working on, we have a consultant who's being brought on board. We're working on that now and it includes various steps, including the background assessment and a comprehensive review of PDM conditions and then also, um, trying to, trying to create something that is more consistent across the city. In terms of TDM requirements.

[01:28:56] Don Cameron: If I may add on, um, one of your questions also was how does, how do we use TDM to promote hybrid work, options, which, um, you know, having some work from home option avoids a trip to the office? So, that's a trip reduction strategy. So a great example is what's um, being proposed as part of the Google master plan, TDM plan. Which is, um, to have a, uh, requirement for 35% single occupancy vehicle rate. And the way that's going to be measured is on a given day, uh, counting the number of trips taken to a work site. And we know how many total trips they could have if everybody drove alone. And they and be able to show then that they meet the targeted goal of no more, no more trips than you would see with 35% single, which is a vehicle rate, plus some carpooling rate. So if employees are working for a certain percentage of employees are working from home on any given day. Those are going to be trips avoided and it counts towards achieving your 35% single accuracy vehicle rate because you've reduced overall the number of car trips going to the work site. So these are ways by using outcome based measures that are in terms of the number, a trip cap, mode split requirements that, um, you know, hybrid work situations can help demonstrate meeting some of those trip reduction targets.

[01:30:35] Member Alison Hicks: Thank you. That's very helpful. So you do have ways of incorporating. Yeah, reducing days going into work. It's great to hear. I think that's all my questions at this point. Do other committee members have questions? Not? Um, We're moving into the time where members of the audience, uh, in person and, uh, and virtually can comment. And, uh, people will be given 3 minutes, is there, is somebody. Hello,

[01:31:20] Pala Alshawani: good evening, everyone. Uh, my name is Pala Alshawani. I am a long time resident of Mountain View. Um, I want to thank the committee, uh, and the staff for their great work on sustainability issues. Um, made great progress that I have a few things I'd like to point out. The staff memo, uh, touched very briefly on resilience plan. And one thing I felt that was not touched on, uh, clearly was the, the loss of tree canopy that uh, we are experiencing in mountain view due to huge amount of development since 2015. And they are in the thousands. I think last time I counted was, uh, the list that the city actually published in their project list. It comes up every 2 months, and last time I counted was almost a year ago in April of 2022. It was 1791 mature heritage trees that were approved to be removed. And these are for developments that were approved, not the ones that will be coming through. So it's not counting North Bay Shore, for example. I know you talked about resilience plan and increasing canopy is really important, but If we replace these trees with saplings. It will take 15 to 20 years before they can give us the benefits that the heritage trees that we have now will do. The scientists now are saying, most likely we may reach the one. 5 degrees Celsius. degree increase in the uh, climate, uh, on Earth in 5 years. It's much sooner than we think. So getting rid of 1000s of heritage trees, will be a catastrophe, I think. They are our assets. They're here now, and we're not doing anything to protect them. There's no policy and there's no really advocacy for, uh, trying to force the developers to include these trees and their in their design and their projects. So I urge you to do something because putting that in the biodiversity plan, which will be coming a year from now. And that's what they said a year ago. That's going to be too late. in my opinion. Losing the 1000s of trees, well, um, it will just be too late. So that's, please consider doing something about that. Not just, you know, pushing it to other departments and other places to be dealt with. Uh, multifamily charging stations, very, very important people. My brother and my son live in a nature way, kind of multifamily, dwelling on Cypress Point drive. They would love to have chargers in there. The HOA said we cannot. So, sorry, did I, okay. Um, that's that would be really great. And one last thing is getting rid of single use plastics. I still see them in all the restaurants, all the coffee shops. And they're everywhere. Please put a ban on that. That was one of our recommendations. on the task force many years ago. Again, thank you so much for your old hard work.

[01:34:49] Member Alison Hicks: I appreciate it. Thank you. We have virtual. First England, 1st England.

[01:34:59] Public Speaker: Thank you. And hello committee members. I was the person who made the, uh, raised the question about the size of the vehicles like the emergency vehicles. I didn't think I'd be able to make it tonight, but I did, so here I am. Um, so, Mayor Hicks. Um, relay the information that I hope would be raised very well, so I won't repeat that. I want to echo the comments made by the last speaker on tree preservation and on EV charging stations for multifamily developments and for reduction of single use plastics. I have noted that when I go to various retail places in Mountain View, that, um, serving staff still pretty much hands out all the extra stuff, the straws, the stirs, the gaps on cups without asking if the person wants those things and, um, somehow some additional training needs to be put in place, I think. And that's what I'd like to see more of there. Um, I also like to see some cross-coordination established for the biodiversity strategy in urban forest plant and the active transportation plan. I believe that's ongoing, but the more that I can know about the details, that would be great. That can include the consultants talking with each other too, without necessarily having to go through staff. On the counting question that came up earlier, um, I missed some of the details on that, but if that has to do with counting of active transportation, riders, walkers, and things like that or trail users, I know that our local organizations like Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning, Green Spaces Mountain View, and Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, Mountain View Team, would be more than happy to help with that. So whoever is handling outreach on that, please consider us. And lastly, there's a list of community organizations on sustainability page. I think that list actually came from me. Um, when the old site was still active. It seems to really be buried now on that sustainability page. It's not really the right place for it, and it's way down at the bottom of the page. So it's very important that community groups are highlighted. There are some really great ones. You've talked about canopy. We have, um, Green Spaces Mountain Views working on the Cuesta and Heritage Park, pollinator gardens, then soil and water, has their garden in the back of Heritage Park too. These really need to be, um, noted because this is part of what contributes to making Mountain View a more sustainable place as well. Thank you. I

[01:37:37] Stagel: mean, uh, for Snagel. Stagel. Can you hear me now? You can. Okay,

[01:37:47] Stagel: great. First, I want to thank the committees for the work that they've been putting on us and as a small point. There was a, a, uh, a, uh, law SB 379 that talked about uh, permitting uh, facilities with uh, uh, Voltec and you guys passed it. And so there's an example of some of the work that you're doing. Um, one of the things that that uh, came up, which it'll be the 3rd person to talk about this, is the apartment buildings and EV Charger. The real concern is, is there are, you know, 40% of the, um, Pos in, in, um, Mountain View are multifamily. And if you can't charge in the car in your garage, it's going to be very difficult to really get the transition to a fully electric transportation. So it's definitely something to look at and it's, it also shows that there are pieces that interact with each other because that definitely has an effect in regards to how you'd address doing new buildings. I mean, if you want to make sure you have enough energy to support both the normal things that go in on an apartment complex, there's a new one, and you be charging, you have to plan for that. And, you know, you have to plan for as you, as you're, uh, upgrading existing buildings, how do you, you know, do you have opportunities to fit within the building envelope? So it's something that needs to really be looked at. Um, one of the other things that I think was good that you kind of talked about is, is how do you really measure things? And one of the things that I think would suggest to was look for the proxies that'll help. One of the things that was true for town I used to live in 15, you know, a number of years ago was they used to register bicycles, and maybe that's a, you know, you could come up with a fun bicycle sticker to have registered, so it was cool to have it, and then you might start to get account for how many people are getting active transportation. So it's worthy looking at these things that may not be intuitive the 1st time in order to address the things that you want to accomplish. But again, I thank you for all the work that you've done and, you know, let's figure out how we can get some of these things to create the most benefit. And I heard some discussion about that as to how to consolidate and really focus on that. We've got goals to get to. We need to get through certain limits. And I know it's what I heard tonight, was it tough to get there? I understand that, but we have to start figuring out if there are proxies that can get us there that are local to what we have here in Mountain View. Thanks for the opportunity.

[01:40:23] Member Alison Hicks: Okay, so this is last call for public speakers because we lost one last time. Anybody still want to speak? Okay, so now we're back to committing members making comments. We're not looking for emotion on this one, just comets. Yeah.

[01:40:43] Member Pat Showalter: Well, basically, I'm very supportive with your suggestions. But, um, uh, I think that that one thing that's really, um, important to me, uh, to be accomplishments is celebrated. And, um, So I know certainly Earth Day was a big celebration that you, you all pulled it off beautifully. Thank you for doing that. I think we had twice as many people in the end before. So, you know, that was good. But, um, I think we, you know, as part of our public outreach and I would really love us too, um, to think a little more creatively or not. You know, what are things we can celebrate as a community. And one that, that, Dumped out of me is a T 8.5. We're getting an electric bookmobile. So it's going to be driving all over town. And, um, I hope that there are some, uh, you know, something we could do to celebrate that and, and, and make people aware of why we're doing this. you know, how much energy is saving, it just, you know, all that sort of thing. Um, And um, So, um, I think that's really, uh, That's a comfortable. Also, I do, um, you know, many of the questions that that, uh, Mayor Hicks brought up. I think are really relevant for pursuing. Sure. Thank you.

[01:42:27] Member Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Do you have to, just, um, thank you to staff for all of the hard work. This is really, really quite impressive. Nice to see. Um, how much has been accomplished and, um, I really want to just highlight it applaud, um, The uh, the leveraging of other funds. Um, or noir, especially in the transportation world, we see that there's an expectation of a local match. And, um, you know, we've been able to see that in Mountain Beach, like successfully, and um, I see that it's not very common, frankly. Um, so, um, and that's what I would like continue the aspect we look for. Um, I see like at the air district. There are quite a few grand opportunities, um, especially bearing that I'm kind of interested in is, um, fleet replacement and, um, like electric, uh, police cars and I think we're not quite there with fire and things that, um, there's, um, a lot of grant funding available for for that. Um, so I hope, and I know in the past we've, it's been a challenge to go after grant funding because especially just staff resources were, um, limited. Uh, but as I, as we grow and always been able to fill these positions, which is great, um, that we can, um, even more just aggressive and that's just more opportunities because I do see quite a bit. And so, yeah, these days, they tend to be really good at getting grant money. Um, so, uh, yeah, I, I hope that we, that, far, far out efforts there. So

[01:44:22] Member Alison Hicks: I have several comments. Um, I'll start with uh, sort of piggybacking off that comment. Um, Although I did expect your response to the vehicle with some sizes that you're doing replacement of what we already have. I'd love for you to keep an eye on what might be out there in a smaller size because, um, if we never, you know, we're always replacing what we already have and we never get anything smaller. And maybe with what, uh, council member Rabbit Koko said, maybe there's grant for doing something, you know, a smaller emergency vehicle would be really something different. So, um, I did hear, not locally, but in Wisconsin, of a grant given for a fully electric, um, fire vehicle. So if you, if you see anything out there, I just like, To not be the main thing you do, but keep it on your radar. Um, I also would like to encourage the council neighborhood committee for community engagement on this subject. I, you must do it to some degree, but I've been on that committee and I would love it to be here. whether it means tabling or having a poster or handouts, about electrification and other things that people can do. I think that's because we touch every neighborhood and, um, I would be more enthusiastic about serving on that committee if that were a part of what we were doing. We're having a meeting on Thursday. Yeah. Um, so that's the 2nd one. I think it's a real opportunity that I'm sure we've taken advantage of a little, but I'd like to do it more. Uh, 3rd comment is I was very happy to hear about the bike and pedestrian counters and I hope we can use that to customize our greenhouse guests inventory to our local situation. Um, and then my last comment is about, um, the climate vulnerability and resilience plan, as I said, in my questions, I got quite a number of pretty intense comments from residents who went for several days without electricity. And what, some of them were wondering, I ended up through the conversations they were wondering about, um, if they were to electrify, fully electrify energy use in their house. Could they do something where they would, um, have one particular room, probably the kitchen, that could be sort of their, I don't know, mini resiliency room, so that they would have a battery that would allow them to keep their refrigerator running, you know, have an electric, like an induction stovetop, maybe be able to keep electricity running for, you know, plugging in their computers or an electric space theater or something so that they would feel comfortable, fully electrifying, and they would be better off than people who would not because they have this very resilient kitchen. So I just wanted to pass that on as a comment because I've talked to several residents. Those are all my comments. So my, uh, last, my ground for comments. Yes.

[01:47:34] Member Pat Showalter: I too was really impressed with his table 6 SAP for funds leverage to secure grants. Wow, that was that really woke up when I was really bad. It's very, very impressive. Thank you for doing all that. And I know having been on both sides of the granny situation, you know, you don't, you know, you don't want to go for a grant that isn't large enough to make up for the administrative that's involved because there always is administrative effort, but, um, that said, you know, there's a lot out there. And then I wanted to, along those lines, mention the National League of City's local infrastructure hub. Um, where, you know, we're, we're member, probably as a member of the National League of Cities, and the last year or so, they've really been focusing on how to get their member agencies to get as much of the money as is available to them as they possibly care. So I just urge us to, you know, to take advantage of that. I know I've, you know, forwarded you a few revenues and stuff. But, um, I, there's, um, I do think this is valuable. And it will be really interesting to see what changes, um, with the, um, that, you know, we'll have to stay tuned for that.

[01:48:55] Member Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, it's just, uh, in terms of the TDM, uh, measures, I, during the pandemic, I, I was part of a working route to, um, try to encourage, or we had a pledge drive going where we were trying to get, um, agencies and companies to pledge to reduce, um, It's like 25% of, I think that, it's like 25% reduction, I think, based on working from home, so encouraging agencies to allow work from home, um, having policies. And so, I mean, I know we signed it as a city. And I'm wondering how we can incorporate that into the TDM. policy that we're creating. I mean, that may not even be enough anymore if we're trying to hit the 35% SOB, but I would like to at least do that as a baseline so that we can have some kind of integration. Actually,

[01:50:02] Member Pat Showalter: that brings up one more question for

[01:50:04] Member Alison Hicks: me. Do you talk with, um, corporate leaders about their greenhouse gas reduction goals? and ways of interest. So it seems to me there are several ways of working with employers that are based in our city. One is through TDM measures, but the other would be, um, you know, the other would be just this larger question of, um, This is, for example, after we've already entitled the building or whatever. We don't have so much leverage, just entering into that discussion. If you've done that to any degree and do you think that would be a hopeful thing to incorporate into our GHVG reduction

[01:50:44] Ms. Lee: strategies? Certainly, um, mostly of our corporate um, community members. I personally have met most with Google because they have a full sustainability team. And so our last meeting was actually focused on their internal departmentization strategies, both for their facilities in Mountain View, but actually they were giving me a kind of snapshot of their global activities, um, around electrifying their energy, uh, their, all of their facilities uh, worldwide. So, um, we do have those conversations and I I am planning to um, continue to reach out to other large partners after the community. And a lot of times it's really a matter of information sharing and learning from each other. Many of them have very ambitious goals that they've already set, which is very exciting. But yes, we can, we can certainly look at, um, expanding those efforts, um, you know, whether or not they're in SAP 4 or they're included in the decarbonization strategy that would be coming to cancel next, um,

[01:51:48] Member Alison Hicks: Yeah, I'd love you to continue and expand those efforts and, um, in particular, and this is a reach also. But in particular, I think that, uh, you know, a lot of our employers have their own shuttles and to integrate those with our shuttle program, uh, or to just, uh, pay for for all of them to be combined. If we were to do that, I think we would have a real show network, a real bus network in the city and I think really productive. So any, if that would help them meet their GHG reduction goals, that would be awful. I don't know. During the camera. It's just a little bit. I

[01:52:37] Ms. Lee: wondered if Dr. Cameron might want to just comment on that as well.

[01:52:41] Don Cameron: I'm happy to do so. Um, but, um, transportation manager low. Uh, had a response ready. If you want to make it. Hello,

[01:52:58] Rhea Hutch Barrett Lowe: thank you for the question. Um, so, uh, in terms of um, integrating shuttles into the city's uh, shuttle program, actually, the MV Go service, which is operated by the Mountain View, um, Transportation Management Association of TMA, um, actually was devised to consolidate about 40 shuttles that used to operate between Mountain View Transit Centre and the North Bay Shore area. Um, And, and, and well, and not just North Bay, actually other corporate locations are depleting places outside of Mountain View. Um, and so other shuttle programs that are operated by the private corporations, are the long haul services. So they're between the corporate locations and other parts, other cities within the Bay Area. Um, We have been talking uh, with the TMA about eventually consolidating the community shuttle and the MV Go service. So that's kind of what we're doing in terms of integration at this stage. Uh, the other thing that we do is we work with, um, with the transit agencies, uh, council passed in 2021, I think in August 2021, the seamless, the seamless transit principles. And so we do work with transit agencies to try and get you

[01:54:12] Ms. Anderson: know, to pursue those strategies as well. Thank you very much. Any

[01:54:18] Member Alison Hicks: last comments? Hey. So we close off uh item 6.2 and move to item 7, which is committee staff comments questions and committee reports. No action will be taken on any questions raised by the CSC at this time. Do any CSC members or staff have comments or questions? Now, seeing none. Um, we'll move to item number 8, which is adjournment, and we are adjourning this meeting at 7.5 p.m. So

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