HomeMy WebLinkAboutOctober 13Environmental Initiatives Committee
Minutes
DATE: Monday, October 13, 2008
TIME: 7:30pm
LOCATION: Parks & Recreation Building
26379 Fremont Road
Los Altos Hills
Any writings or documents provided to a majority of the Environmental Initiatives Committee regarding any item of the open
session portion of this agenda will be made available for public inspection in the City Clerk’s office located at 26379 Fremont
Road, Los Altos Hills, California
during normal business hours.
Roll Call: The following were present: Mark Jensen, Peter Evans, John Harpootlan,
Lew Jameson, Steve Schmidt & Jay Shideler. Guest speaker: Debbie Mytels of
Acterra.
Committee acceptance of the minutes: All present acceptance the September 17,
2008 Minutes as is.
Energy:
1.Energy Renewable & Consumption Reduction Initiatives – (H-H) Steve:
•Debbie Mytels of Acterra gave a presentation of the Acterra program for
residential home audits that has been rolled out in Palo Alto. Home residents
who volunteer to have their home’s energy consumption audited give
permission for PG&E to disclose gas/electricity consumption to Acterra. For
a price of $250-$500/home (cost defrayed by grant money) a volunteer
specialist audits the home deciphering deficiencies in the home using a
comprehensive check-off list. A minimum of five items are selected mutually
by the auditor/homeowner for the homeowner to commit to rectify.
a.Working closely with Acterra, put together a home audit program
similar to Acterra’s for LAH. Send it out for review by the EIC. – (H-
H) – Steve, Peter
b.Submit LAH home audit program proposal to PG&E for funding – (H-
H) - Steve, Peter
c.Write an article about the LAH audit program for the next Town
Newsletter – (H-H) Steve.
•Refine the 15 minute presentation based on ICLEI data for the Town Council.
Send presentation out to EIC for review and comments. - (H-H) - Steve
2. Town Hall energy monitoring:
• FSI analysis report of energy consumption is lacking usefulness on specifics
of recommendations. However, the RFQ contract with FSI indicated that they
performed what they committed to do. Therefore, payment was released to
FSI. The committee feels that certain aspects of the report’s recommendations
should be done but is concerned that an effective energy management system
(EMS) of at least the building thermostats is not properly addressed:
1. Look into implementing a simple EMS (Energy Management
System) that would work for at least controlling the thermostats. -
(H-H) Peter
2. Town Hall Energy Star Certification or LEED certification – wait
until a more definitive program is defined for the EMS. – (M-H) –
Mark/Walt
3. Data room outside cooling and other changes – incorporate this into
the EMS program – (H-H) Mark/Walt/Peter
3. Solar Energy Generation:
• Solar website monitoring – make recommendations - (M-L) - Jay
• A PowerPoint report titled, P.V. Solar System Purchase Options, needs to
have incorporate into it AB811 CA, which allows funding of energy
sustainability projects, which are then recorded on property tax rolls - (H-
H) Jay.
Green Construction and Demolition (H-H) - Raj:
1. Build-it-Green proposal was placed on the October consent calendar which
passed without dissent. This regulation will go into effect in December but
will not be retroactive to any resident that has started the permit process. - (H-
H) – Raj.
Recycling:
1. Green Waste Recovery’s service – changeover from LAG Co. has gone smoothly
with majority of complaints concerning procedural questions and in some cases,
missed pickups. Refuse trucks for the driveways were inspected by Jay for size,
weight and maneuverability. Only concern was of possible damage to driveways
by the weight of a fully loaded truck in the middle of the rainy seasons. Continue
to monitor GreenWaste. - (H-H) - Jay
2. LAG Co. residential recycling/landfill data – LAG Co. will no longer be
supplying this data – work with GreenWaste to reestablish a monthly recycling
tally that fits the needs of LAH - (M-M) – Jay
3. Evidence exist that many landscape maintenance contractors are not recycling but
are instead, taking the trimmings directly to the landfill – ongoing (H-H) Jay
4. Green Waste needs to disclose what happens to recycled material sent to 3rd world
countries – investigation ongoing - (M-H) Jay
Water Consumption, S.O.D. and Fire Prevention:
• Landscape Water & Conservation Guidelines – the Environmental Design
Committee (EDC) guidelines lack detail of acceptable alternative plants for
potential resident permit applicants to choose from. Put together
recommendations and have EIC review prior to making recommendations to
the EDC. – (H-H) - John
• Purmissima’s water bill statement of resident water usage percentile is
confusing at best – contact Patrick of the water district and rectify (M-M) –
Walt
• “Gray water” utilization in LSH – permitting difficult and application
difficulties make it somewhat impractical at this time – investigate and make
recommendations to the EIC – (M-M) – Margie
• Pools, pool pumps, fountain, waterfall discussion – EIC made a
recommendation to the Town Council that non-binding guidelines be
recommended to residents installing pools, waterfalls or fountains. The Town
Council agreed that these guidelines should be voluntary and that educating an
applicant about how to conserve is the best approach. A brochure needs to be
distributed to these applicants making recommendations to achieve efficiency
and conservation of energy and water. Put together a guideline for design of
efficient pools including proper sizing of pool pumps to be submitted to
residents/contractors at time of permitting – (H-H) - Ian
Miscellaneous:
• EIC Website–Town – still waiting for Town staff to go-ahead (H-M) Lew
Next Meeting: Monday, November 17, 2008 at 7:30PM (Parks and Recreation
Building).
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.
JAS 10-13-08