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| | | | Please join this meeting from a computer, tablet or smartphone at https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/926591421.
You can also dial in using your phone by calling (872) 240-3412
Access Code: 926-591-421 | | | |
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| | 1. | | Roll call.
Minutes note: Meeting convened: 2:35 P.M.
Members present: Linda Frank, Ald. Nik Kovac, George Martin, Erick Shambarger, Ted Kraig, Pam Ritger, Pam Fendt, Janet Meissner Pritchard, Julie Kerksick, Rafael Smith and Sup. Supreme Moore Omokunde
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| | 2. | | Review and approval of the minutes of the September 23rd meeting.
Minutes note: Ms. Kerksick moved for approval of the minutes. There were no objections. | | | |
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| | 3. | | Presentation by the Milwaukee Water Commons.
Minutes note: Brenda Coley said the vision is to have a model water city and they organized MWC with community justice in mind and they are trying to remediate harm done in the past to disadvantaged communities. They work hard on involving the community in decisions. They have six initiatives and have programming under each of these initiatives. Joe Fitzgerald said Branch Out Milwaukee came from the water-quality initiative to talk about the tree canopy in the city. They have about 30 stakeholders working on this issue. They want to engage the community in the value of trees and the value of having them planted in neighborhoods in terms of mental and physical health. Ms.Coley noted it's easier to get funding for trees than for community engagement. The city has a canopy of 25% and their goal is 40%, with 23% of the current canopy being European Buckthorn, which is basically an invasive, nuisance tree and 17% being ash trees, which are susceptible to emerald ash borer. The city forestry staff has done an excellent job and tree jobs would be a good pathway to bring women and minorities into careers in urban forestry. City funds have been cut for forestry work and MWC would like increased funding for urban trees and have both the city and county focus on equity. Ms. Frank asked if there was any focus on other types of plants, such as perennials or grass land, but Ms. Coley thought they were all part of the ecosystem, but the focus needs to be on trees as being more weighted than other plantings. The city has been doing injections every 2-3 years to mitigate emerald ash borer.
Milwaukee Water Equity Task Force - this task force's focus is to create equitable jobs with living wages in the water sector and they also did a study of the current status of jobs and what individuals (race and gender)currently occupy positions. Ms. Coley noted there are a number of jobs coming in to fruition due to retirement, approximately 1,000 jobs in the next 3 years with Milwaukee Water Works and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewerage District. The approach must be different based upon potential employees: young adults just coming out of high school, individuals working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet, those individuals coming out of the penal system so they need to drill down to reach specific groups of individuals. Mr. Fitzgerald said the focus needs to be on collaboration and outreach. Ms. Coley said that is is what segregation looks like, that those folks aren't in the social networks to get access to jobs that don't require advanced degrees. They work with community resource organizations to address barriers of those trying to access employment.
The current focus is to ask water employers to examine their workplace culture and work at maximizing inclusion and anti-racism. One concern is that training pay is for little or no money and then there is no job at the end of training. Public contracts should be prioritized on community benefits, rather than just lowest bid. Ms. Frank was concerned that the forestry salaries tend to be on the low end. Ms. Coley said that community engagement is a skill and building relationships take time, particularly if one doesn't live in the area. MWC is willing to assist the Community Engagement Work Group on how to engage the community. Ms. Coley said San Francisco has a community benefits agreement, as does Seattle and the city/county needs to engage the community in what they feel they need. | | | |
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| | 4. | | Presentation by ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA on the greenhouse gas inventory study.
Minutes note: Mr. Tom Herrod said that ICLEI is a non-profit that works in the U.S. to provide technical assistance to governments and they developed the Green House Gas Inventory and created a forecast for climate action mitigation. Results from the 2018 emissions from the city of Milwaukee show we have a typical urban emissions pattern for the Midwest. WE Energies did provide data on its emissions and they will be working on being able to more correctly identify industrial emissions. They will be moving into Phase 2 and creating a forecast and planning scenario. They are hoping to prioritize minimizing emissions within projects and promote multi-modal transportation. He thinks that more agreements with utilities are shifting toward shared goals, rather than solely lease agreements. They will provide a final option that can be incorporated into a report from this group. Mr. Herrod said he is looking at creating a bigger list of options that can be referred to the community for their input. Mr. Shambarger hopes that we can learn from what other cities have already done and see if we can apply them locally as well as allow ICLEI to run some scenarios for community input and local preferences. | | | |
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| | 5. | | Communication from the Budget Office relating to the Promise amendment implementation.
Minutes note: Kate Pawasarat, Budget Office, said the Milwaukee Promise began as a budget amendment to the 2011 budget to alleviate poverty. The Legislative Reference Bureau put together a report that identified 211 line items relating to alleviating poverty and departments were asked to create metrics showing progress on these bigger-picture issues. In 2014, the Budget Office began doing the reports to the Council annually in the summer, prior to the budget process. A few years later, the focused changed to Milwaukee Promise Zones, which are place-based efforts to coordinate effort. One struggle is that there was a huge range of beliefs about what the Milwaukee Promise was and what it could do. It's hard to measure how the city is doing on an annual basis when the data that is needed isn't collected on an annual basis or it might be every five years. The city recently became involved with the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) and a shared ratio equity framework will be set in place across departments and, as part of the 2021 budget, a new office of Equity and Inclusion is being created. Mr. Dennis Yaccarino said that social equity is also impacted by how we deal with the climate. Mr. Shambarger thinks that he can do a lot of the final report in-house with his staff and the Budget Office is willing to assist as it can. | | | |
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| | 6. | | Report from the work groups and change to work group composition, creation and structure.
Minutes note: Ald. Kovac excused from the rest of the meeting at 4:30 P.M.
Mr. Pam Ritger discussed the document she was just added to the file and e-mailed to all members. The document is currently a draft, but was organized by topic, then a breakdown of which work group would work on that topic. The chapters were left broad and there are also over-arching topics that apply to a number of chapters. Ms. Ritger went through the document attached to file 191923. Mr. Kraig noted that 9 work groups is a lot and it seems a logical breakdown; not all work groups need to be operating at the same time. Mr. Martin thought this document was well-done and he thanked members of the Work Group Committee. Mr. Wiggins would like further discussion on this. Mr. Kraig would like a regular meeting scheduled, like the third Thursday. Ms. Frank would like to meet again in two weeks. Mr. Kraig would like to have a project manager, a deadline set and would also like to get some things nailed down. Ms. Frank thinks that Task Force would benefit from hiring an expert consultant to help them walk through the process, stake holder and community involvement. Mr. Gordie Bennett, with the county, is more than happy to assist with any of the work groups, as well as Mr. Shambarger and ECO.
Ms. Elmer will poll members about meeting a week from today (preferred) or two weeks, if one week does not work. | | | |
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| | 7. | | Budget calculations and requests for recommendations contained in the Preliminary Report.
Minutes note: Mr. Shambarger moved to move this item to the next meeting. There were no objections. | | | |
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| | 8. | | Next steps for the task force to take.
Minutes note: The first step is to meet again.
Sup. Moore Omokunde will resign from the County Board in 6 weeks, but still will serve as a citizen. The county board chair will appoint a supervisor to serve on this board.
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191923
| 0 | | Communication | Communication relating to the final report and activities of the City-County Task Force on Climate and Economic Equity. | | | |
Action details
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