City of Newberg

Sustainability Committee

Meeting Notes

Date:  Tuesday, 12/1/09

Time:  2:00 pm

Location:  Engineering Conference Room

Participants:   K’lyn Hann, Howard Hamilton, Michele Faber, Denise Bacon, Sonja Johnson, Paul Chiu, Jan Wolf, Annette de Paz, David Beam, Lisa McMinn(GFU), April Cataan

◦  Corrections to minutes: Noted

◦  Lisa McMinn and George Fox University:

Lisa came to sit in with us as a result of the students “march” on City Hall to bring attention to 350.org and the world wide crisis. Lisa wanted to express the interest in working on partnering opportunities between the City Sustainability Committee and their group, Creation Care. She also let us know that a group of students would be attending the 12/7 City Council meeting to speak to the Council. It was decided that we would have representatives of each group attend the other’s meetings. Paul Chiu accepted the responsibility, although others said that they would fill in if needed.

◦  Master Recycler Speaker:

K’lyn has been able to find someone from the Master Recycler program that would be willing to come to the January 6^th Lunch and Learn but she (K’lyn) is waiting for confirmation from Tami, who is the City Lunch and Learn Coordinator. K’lyn will get permission to send the Master Recycler information sheet to all employees.

◦  Bike Rack:

David presented his bike shelter plan with price estimates (see attachment). Estimated cost of moving “backyard” to accommodate bike rack and purchasing the rack and cover would be $2,087.00. Howard suggested that we wait until March and see where we are in with the budget and see if other departments might have extra money to help with the project.

◦  Toilet Rebate Program:

Sonja is still working on the program. She feels that since she doesn’t have enough money in her budget, she should wait until next year so it can be done right without disappointing citizens. The rebate would require that the toilets were recycled.

◦  Green Purchasing:

Annette brought some recycled products that she had found. She also brought a business card that had the recycled symbol on it and it was suggested that we use recycled cards and have the symbol on the cards to show the city commitment.

◦  Composting:

Group discussed the possibility of City Hall composting. Response was mixed since most felt that there really wasn’t that much compostable items being brought into the building and it would be hard to control it when items that shouldn’t have been composted got into the mix. Howard will talk to Dain about bringing compostable trash to the public works site to compost.

◦  Sustainable Cities Initiative:

David brought the University of Oregon’s Sustainable Cities Initiative up for discussion. The program is in its first year so we will be following the results. (see attachments) and it was mentioned that our partnership with GFU could work into something similar, as long as the resources were available.

Other business:

Next Meeting:

Date: Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Time: 2pm

Location: Engineering Conference Room