HomeMy WebLinkAboutMarch 17Environmental Initiatives Committee
Minutes
DATE: Monday, March 17, 2008
TIME: 7:30pm
LOCATION: Parks & Recreation Building
26379 Fremont Road
Los Altos Hills
1.Roll Call: The following were present: John Harpootlian, Lew Jamison, Mark
Jensen, Steve Schmidt, Raj Reddy, Walt Wilson & Jay Shideler. Also present were
Debbie Pedro, Planning Director, Bill Carino, Building Inspector, Papia Gambelin of
PG&E and several builders and developers. Thanks to all of our guest for making
this a very interesting and productive meeting.
2.Committee acceptance of the minutes: All present acceptance the Feb 11, 2008
Minutes as-is.
3.Guest: I would like to welcome Papia Gambelin of PG&E who attended this meeting
and will be attending future EIC meetings.
4.Concept for establishing Goals and setting Priority: These minutes, henceforth,
shall follow this format of denoting priority as (Value-Time) until further notice.
“Value” and “Time” are expressed as one of three letters: “H” – high, “M”- medium
or “L” – low.
Energy:
1.Energy renewable & energy consumption reduction – (H-H) Steve:
•PG&E presentation - Papia has been assigned by PG&E to use the LAH’s EIC
effort to serve as a model for implementing residential energy conservation
programs. Her efforts will help the Town address high-energy users through
auditor programs, rebates, education and other (stick and carrot) approaches.
•LAH home square footage, lot size, pools and other detail data to
Papia (H-H) – Steve, John
•Establish a gameplan and establish goals (H-H) – Steve, Papia
•Kilo-O-Watt meters: Carl Cahill wrote an email discouraging the Town’s
purchase of these meters – needs follow-up (M-M) – Peter.
•Real-Time PG&E meters – PG&E has no plan to implement this type of
readout. PG&E plans to offer next-day energy usage visibility. – (H-M)
Papia, Peter
•Town Hall energy monitoring: FSI’s, Allan Pong, has set up monitors on
critical circuits – data to be analyzed in a couple of weeks. (H-H) Mark,Walt
•Regulations & Ordinances H-L Peter – no new activity
• Residential Smart Metering/Energy Simulation (H/M) Peter - no new activity
2. Solar Energy Generation – (M-M):
• Solar website monitoring (M-M) Breene/Jay – no new activity
• Town new solar permits (L-M) Jay/Breene
• Fuel consumption (LAH government) Breene – no new activity but
the new Green Waste contract will reduce fuel consumption from
garbage trucks significantly
Green Construction and Demolition (H-H):
1. Raj Reddy has volunteered to drive this new sub-committee of the EIC –
thanks Raj. Work closely with Steve on this project (H-H) - Raj
2. Build it Green presentation – Debbie Pedro gave a presentation on a proposal
for requiring new homes to comply to “green” concerns. This process rates a
new home on a point basis with a minimum points of 50 to qualify as a Build-
It-Green home, which includes among other things, exceeding the current
Title 24 requirement by 15%. The EIC gave its blessing for Debbie’s
proposal as a good starting point but with the understanding that the EIC
would like to see the requirements tightened up later. A sub chapter of Build-
It-Green, HERS, was also discussed. Luiz Yanez is currently building a
10,000 ft2 home, which will easily exceed the minimum 50 point requirement.
• Relay to Council the EIC approval (H-H) – Debbie, Jay
• Supply HERS details of proposed pool as and example for Build-It-
Green pools (H-H) – Liz Yanez, Steve, Raj
• Require Green Waste dumpsters be mandatory for all C&D work (M-
H) - Jay
Recycling:
1. Town Council unanimously accepted Green Waste Recovery’s proposal, to
commence October 1, 2008 for 8 years. Work out details of the GW contract
with ad Hoc committee (H-H) - Jay
2. Residential trash/garbage to the landfill (Jay) - (H-M): Recycling
reclamation by LAG Co. spiked up to about 64% in January but averaged 58%
last year.
Water Consumption:
1. Landscape Water & Conservation Guidelines (H-M) John - no updates
2. Mandatory Irrigation Ordinance (H-H) - (John). John expressed concern
about the Town drafted response to the California Water Resources
concerning our outright rejection of the irrigation audits for landscapes above
2,500 ft.2 for either new or existing homes. Consensus of the EIC - restrict
only new homes (landscapes greater than 2,500 ft2) with requirements yet to
be defined.
• Write email to Council requesting that the letter be rescinded and not sent.
(H-H) – Jay
• Solicit responses from the EIC for suggest modification of the letter (H-H)
– John
3. Little League Field (John) – (H-H) A meeting was held on Feb. 13 to review
irrigation plans for the LLF. Planned water usage was not much reduced
from present water usage – work with consultant to improve plan to reduce
water usage (H-H) John, Jay, Breene.
Miscellaneous:
1. EIC Website–Town Hall is contracting with Dave Snow to design generic
websites for all committees to utilize. Keep abreast and follow-up (H-H) Lew
2. Sustainability in the Hills:
• Jay downloaded various EIC documents for Anna to review for possible
uploading unto her website – needs follow-through (H-H) Jay.
• Invite Green Waste & LAGCo to set up booth at Earthday (M-M) Jay
3. Affiliations - Steve has attended two classes and is working with ICLEI team
to apply their software (M-H) (Steve).
4. Goals and Objectives – Each sub committee is to look at my sample goals and
come up with goals that match their own subgroup activities and objectives.
Goals should be measurable and state a time for achieving them.
Next Meeting: Monday, April 13, 2008 at 7:30PM (Parks and Recreation Building).
Note, due to attendance conflicts, this meeting will be held on the second Monday of
April instead of the third Monday.
JAS 3/18/08