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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClimate Council Meeting Summary - 7-16-2020 Orange County Climate Council Meeting Summary July 16, 2020 3:00pm - 4:30pm Online Meeting Attendees: Mark Marcoplos (Chair), Brennan Bouma (staff), Vik Agabekov Crystal Cavalier, Cathy Cole, Ray DuBose, Tyrone Fisher, Hongbin Gu, Laura Janway, Kathy Kaufman, Melissa McCullough, Jonas Monast, John Richardson, Donna Rubinoff, Sammy Slade, Mary Tiger, Stephanie Trueblood Public comments received by advertised deadline: None I. Call to Order, Additions or Changes to the Agenda - Marcoplos called the meeting to order at 3:06pm. Bouma asked the Council if the GoToMeeting platform was working well or if a conference call or other platform might be suggested? II. Approval of Meeting Minutes from June 18, 2020 Bouma said that the June meeting notes were not yet finalized and would be sent out ahead of the next meeting along with the minutes from this meeting. No action was taken. III. Update from Climate Action Reporting Committee Bouma reported that the committee had made further improvements to the navigation and categorization within the database, and recommended that everyone take a look and ensure their columns had been completed. Tiger added that the September event, in addition we wanted to attach key takeaway and summaries of all actions. Trueblood then asked about summary statistics and how to present the information in simpler ways. Marcoplos asked Bouma to send out link to CARD, and he did. IV. Update from Communications Committee Marcoplos said that the Communications Committee met a few weeks earlier and included Mary Parry local communications consultant who helped to focus on ways to conduct outreach. One idea that was discussed was to develop a common lexicon so that we reinforce a more uniform understanding of the terms and concepts around climate change. Another topic was how to get the word out to the most people, and Parry suggested that we think about which organizations we are already connected to and collaborate with them in helping us to get the word out. Rubinoff said that she had already reached out and pilot tested with some stakeholders of the Climate Council to get some information on communication methods and how we might support each other. She recommended that we continue to ask: • What can we do for you? • How can we align our communications? • What would you want of a September event? She heard from them that climate concerns are on the back burner right now due to the pandemic and would appreciate the Council’s help in making it more of a focus. She also heard that people don’t feel they are being heard, and are very interested in being a part of the dialogue. Rubinoff said that this something that all of us can do to begin creating and maintaining the networks of communications and trust. McCullough said that given the overlapping crises, it would be important to talk about intersectionality issues around climate change. Bouma offered that we also identified a structural issue that we need to work our way through. The letter to Governor Cooper was a good test case as our first official communication, and it highlighted a structural question about what authority do we have to communicate for ourselves. Kaufman then mentioned that the Council needs to think about framing climate issues around local issues of importance. Marcoplos offered to send out materials from the Communications Committee once they were ready. V. Update from Policy Committee Richardson offered that the committee broke up into two subcommittees and the carbon reduction strategies committee brought in Janway and Bouma. This group has begun looking at actions and is starting to apply racial equity and evaluation lenses. This group is taking inspiration from the criteria set up by the Board of Orange County Commissioners to assess proposals for the Climate Action Fund grant program. Trueblood added that the Policy Committee aims to bring the refined list forward at the public event in September. The other element of active work within the Policy Committee is the lower cost and easier items. These were pulled out into a new spreadsheet. They also plan to add the names of organizations who have put these policies into action in NC and beyond. She recommended Council members look it over. She added that the Southeast Sustainability Directors Network has provided a list of the climate actions of their members and they will be incorporating those ideas as well. Bouma offered to add the Policy Ideas list link to agendas in the future. VI. Discussion of Succession planning Bouma introduced the item in light of student members and leadership would soon be cycling off. Student member Owen Ryerson who represents UNC will not be moving on but Josh Van Mater who represents Orange County Schools will be. Bouma reiterated that he and Pitts would work together to contact teachers and identify a successor. Bouma continued reviewing the previous discussion saying that the initial idea for succession had been for the Vice-Chair to become the Chair, but then in the June meeting the idea shifted to having a new vote for both positions and creating co-chairs. Bouma then checked for agreement with that summary and heard no comments. He added that in the June discussion the Council agreed that having one of the two co- chairs be an elected official and one be a non-elected community leader would be ideal but not a requirement. The Council also discussed that it takes some time commitment for the Chair and Vice-chair, but we heard from Marcoplos that this time should not be a significant barrier. He summarized further that the Council decided to follow a similar process to electing the co-chairs of accepting nominations publicly in the meeting before and then a polling committee would reach out to members to tally up support. This committee would then bring back a recommendation based on the final tally for formal adoption by the overall Council. Cavalier made a motion to formalize the shift from a Chair/Vice-Chair hierarchal structure to one of equal Co-Chairs. Kaufman seconded. Marcoplos called the vote and it was unanimous. McCollough then motioned to formalize the idea of having staggered terms for the Co- Chairs, and this was seconded by Kaufman. Marcoplos called the vote and this was unanimous as well. Bouma then summarized saying that when the time came to vote on new leadership, we would vote for one of the two co-chairs. He asked for confirmation and received no comment. Based on our discussions so far, this voting would occur after the public facing event and during the regular September meeting. McCullough then proposed that since Mark is going to be rolling off as a Commissioner, the Council should offer him an emeritus position as a member of the Council. Marcoplos agreed that he would like to stay involved. McCullough clarified that this would be a voting member position and that it would have the same terms limits as other positions. McCullough made a motion to create this emeritus position. Kauffman seconded and the motion passed with 12 votes. Bouma then pivoted to asking whether it was worth talking about the number of emeritus positions we might want Marcoplos said that he thought the position would cycle off after 1 term, and also asked how long our terms are. Bouma reminded the Council that we do not yet have bylaws but we had been discussing 3 year terms based on the template bylaws for Orange County Advisory Boards. McCullough offered to table this discussion until we have draft bylaws, and asked for delay until after September event. Kaufman asked to look at other models as well. Trueblood offered to take a look at the model bylaws. Bouma said that he would send the bylaws template and the original description of the Climate Council to all sustainability staff members on the Council per Trueblood’s suggestion. Marcoplos then asked for any additional comments on the succession plan. No comments were made. Marcoplos then turned to a discussion of the September event. Bouma reminded the Council that the Council had decided that the Communications Committee would take the first pass at outlining the event and that Hansley –Mace had warned that online event participation is hard to predict. Marcoplos and Kaufman said that we could continue with that plan, and do so quickly. McCullough and Kaufman also provided some hope that we might be able to attract a speaker to a virtual event that we’d otherwise be able to pull in for a live event. Participation has been good. Rubinoff then commented that being on Zoom is not a problem for participation, and that she’d heard interested in having either an engaging speaker or a panel with a facilitated discussion. She then asked if we were tied to September. This could be a tense time with UNC students returning. Trueblood then asked whether the upcoming public event could be recorded, as this is an important element. Kaufman said that should be easy to do. Marcoplos then expressed a strong preference for a local focus rather than an outside speaker. We have a lot to talk about that is happening locally. Tiger added for consideration that the pandemic is a heavy time in the local community, and to some extent climate change is taking the back burner. We have an opportunity to show how climate change is still an important issue that intersects with current COVID concerns. McCullough and Kaufman agreed that climate change and clean air and public health concerns have a lot of overlap, and that ideas for the meeting should be sent to Marcoplos and Bouma for use by the Communications Committee. VII. Adjournment – Marcoplos asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting and this was provided by Bouma and seconded by DuBose. The Council voted unanimously to adjourn the meeting at 4:35pm.