City of Bloomington, Indiana City Council, 14 Oct 2020

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From YouTube: Bloomington City Council Climate Action And Resilience Committee, October 14, 2020

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meeting packet: https://bloomington.in.gov/onboard/meetingFiles/download?meetingFile_id=7721

A

uh Daniel is in the waiting room and I'm going to go ahead and let him in now: okay, okay, all right.

B

There you go hi. How are you guys, hi hi daniel welcome.

B

Hi good morning well, thank you guys. I appreciate.

C

It yeah glad you could join us um just so we can do introductions, I'm matt.

C

Flaherty, I'm a council member at large for the city and.

C

A fellow spea slash, o'neill uh grad um and I'm the chair of the.

C

Council's climate action and resilience committee, which is the committee that.

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Conducts interviews and works with the environmental commission so well great.

C

Nice to meet you nice to meet you too, I'm kate, rosenberger city council,.

D

District one, I went to see you a long time ago as well.

B

Awesome, I'm isabel piedmont, smith, city, council, district, five.

A

I have never taken any classes at spea. Sorry.

D

I was hoping it would weigh in on spia, okay.

C

uh So so we have a we're on a relatively short timeline tonight, daniel just.

C

Because we have a council meeting coming up at 6 30 and probably need a few minutes in between, um but that's okay, this uh the.

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Interviews usually don't take too long. We've had a chance to review your resume.

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And your application um and if you don't mind, maybe just.

C

uh Starting out telling us a little bit about yourself and your interest in the commission and and then we'll, probably ask you a few questions and see if you have any questions for us yeah. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate.

B

The opportunity to speak about it um so just to introduce myself my name.

B

Is daniel gonzalez, I'm originally from highland park.

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Illinois, which is the north side of chicago, I went to miami university in ohio, so just over the border of indiana, where.

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I studied political science and sustainability and.

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um Now I'm attending o'neill getting my masters in public affairs, focusing in.

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Environmental policy and overall, my goal is to.

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Work on the policy teams that are taking the science that has been.

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Established and applying that to protecting our communities from climate.

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Change and overall, my interest in giving back to.

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The community derives from my baseline desire to be a.

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Public servant, that's all I've ever wanted to be my.

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Whole life is to be a public servant, and so I think.

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That um this is an amazing opportunity to.

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Apply the education that I've already gained and apply it to giving advice to city council in the city of.

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Bloomington about how I could um use my.

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Background or my personal experience and uh provide assistance in any policy.

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Decisions or uh program implementation for um environmental.

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Reasons or um all kinds of environmental reasons.

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Sorry, I was trying to admit it myself. Thank you um as a preliminary matter.

C

It's worth checking, I guess um the environmental commission.

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Typically meets on the third thursday of the month uh in the evening.

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And is that a time to generally be available to.

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Attend commission meetings occasionally there are attendance issues kind of over.

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Time with a lot of our um you know, volunteer boards and commissions, so making sure folks are available and committed to those.

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Is important um and then the other question we were kind of wondering.

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uh This this particular council appointment um actually expires in.

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January of next year, it's kind of filling out the end of a two-year term.

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That someone uh had left, though, generally.

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Speaking when someone serves for such a short period of time like that, uh it would be kind of normal course of business to.

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Reappoint them for a second, you know two year term uh and wondering.

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uh If you know much about, I think I saw your anticipated graduation date was may 21 and if you know much about longer term.

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Plans or um you know your ability to serve on the.

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Commission, um you know over the next year or two I.

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Would say uh yes, um I, yes, I I.

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My expected graduation is may of 2022. Actually, okay.

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Sorry, um the I'm fully prepared to make this time.

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Commitment and make this commitment to uh not only the commission but the.

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Community um I have already moved to bloomington, so I'm.

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Extremely um it's been exciting moving here. It's.

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Been very different, honestly from where I've lived before so um it's nice to explore, and so.

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Yeah, I'm I'm completely happy with um uh taking this as an opportunity if it.

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Expires in january to prove my um prove that I would make an impactful.

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Member to the commission and um have my um contributions.

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The determiner of um whether or not I'm invited back or anything, I'm very.

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Excited to just have this opportunity, if I'm given.

B

A

So what um what attracted you to the environmental commission in particular, I.

A

Know I mean you've studied sustainability and so that's definitely clearly a focus of yours. But do you know.

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Have you ever been to a meeting? Have you ever talked to anybody who's on the commission? What has your connection been.

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Fanny overall, with bloomington's environmental commission.

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All my exp background is reading the website and.

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Reading the uh types of activities that they.

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Are our advisor have an advisory position on.

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um But back in my last year with my americorps position, I was a.

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uh A um there are so many titles, a greenish region corps. Member for the.

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City of highland park, so I was a full-time advocate for municipal.

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Sustainability and sustainability, education and so.

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um The reason why I'm so interested in the environmental commission is, I.

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Feel, like the environment is very communications based. um Yes, we can.

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uh Support it with our funds and with our activities, however,.

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The reason bloomington does this stuff is so that the community can have a.

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Deeper connection to the environment around it and have a deeper appreciation and through my time at the city of highland.

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Park, I've really been able to develop my skills in being a resource for the community and communicating.

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With residents on sustainability- and so I think um that's something that really.

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Drew me to the environmental commission, not only because I love hiking, I love.

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Natural areas, I love getting a break from being indoors.

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But um I love teaching people and educating people on how they can do.

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That as well and have and kind of bridge that gap.

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Between just being outside and appreciating being outside.

D

Okay, thank you, and so I have a question. What issues or topics.

D

You know or problem areas, would you want to kind of.

D

Address or focus on in in the commission, I know you just talked about the.

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Communications problem, but you know what else do you see around bloomington that.

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You think maybe we could do better and you could help with that.

D

On the commission uh yeah um overall, I think that um I, without any.

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Prior knowledge on um things uh within the.

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City of bloomington, I think that um what everyone can strive towards.

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Is having a deeper education of employees.

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Of the city of bloomington, uh during my time at the city of highland park,.

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I really pushed for an hr initiative to take to um not only educate their.

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Employees on how to be more sustainable, so, let's say: there's maintenance workers, understanding that.

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They shouldn't be idling for too long or taking it upon themselves.

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To be more sustainable, but also hiring people that.

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Understand sustainability, it not only saves money for the city.

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But it also creates a baseline understanding of.

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Of a system of sustainability that needs to be implemented within a municipality.

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um And overall, I think um that's something that I've um held.

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Close to my heart is that we can all try to.

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Fix the um fix a natural area, but if we we also can be more sustainable in the.

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Way that we try about it, we don't have to send a bunch of lawn mowers to to cut grass when we can save money.

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By either doing electric lawn mowers or not lawn mowing at all.

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And trying to implement just this kind of.

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Constantly refreshing knowledge on how we can be more sustainable with our.

B

Natural areas and with land use in general.

C

Appreciate that go ahead as well- oh, I was just gonna.

A

Dive into that land use question yeah go for it because.

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That's one of the essential advisory duties of the environmental commission.

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When we have land use petitions to change zoning.

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Or to create a planned unit, development, the environmental commission.

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Always reviews the proposal and gives advice to the plan. Commission.

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And to the city council on those petitions, you know.

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To make sure that they meet the highest environmental standards.

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So that's that's an important part um and probably the most.

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The most frequent interaction we as the council have, with the environmental.

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Commission, but they advise on other things as well.

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uh As you know from their website, um so I don't know.

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uh Have you do you have any uh experience or.

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Opinions about land use in general as far as.

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Development in bloomington uh yeah, um so during my.

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Time at the city of highland parks, highland park is.

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On the coast of lake michigan, and so we had.

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A lot of um work working with uh people on ravines and moraine, so very.

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Steep slope, and so I had a lot of um tasks involving.

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Educating them on erosion and best practices for erosion.

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As well as it was the job of our sustainability advisory group,.

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To give input on their attempts to um uh what's the proper word for.

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Just ensuring that the shoreline didn't collapse, the cliffs didn't collapse.

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Creating those supports, so that's something that we are able to give.

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Input on, um in addition, with um more general land use of bloomington.

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I have a very strong, um I have a very strong emotions about not.

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Overwhelmingly taking economic value at heart.

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Such as addressing environmental value so.

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Let's say someone would like to buy a bunch of land.

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And knock it all down and um build on it uh just being that voice.

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For okay, we all understand that this could be.

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Economically profitable but let's also give the environment a voice and so.

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Having that reflection, when we are working on land use and.

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uh Zoning codes to ensure um habitats aren't lost or strategically.

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Allowing habitats to be lost or implementing policies to.

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Build habitats in other areas when it's necessary.

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To take away green area such as I live across from the hospital right.

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Now that's being built and if you go on google maps, that should all be a field right now. So of course.

B

We need a hospital. It will be incredible for the university to have that med.

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School campus, but thinking about.

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How the commission can be a voice for okay, but we did just take away a lot of.

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Green space, how can we um play? How have that be a factor.

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And kind of just have that voice for um protecting.

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Green space and being able to mitigate.

B

The loss of habitats, great thanks, um good, to hear more about.

C

That and yeah, like isabel, said, that's one of the kind of core ways we interact with the environmental commission. um In fact, they.

C

Have a like a committee uh among the commissioners who kind of work on these.

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Development and planning issues and uh we usually see their memos when we look.

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At materials and actually in in talking with the staff liaison today, uh city stafford is under the commission.

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We talked about whether it would even be useful to have the commission.

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Attend our like land use committee meetings and and represent that.

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Perspective, um which I think would be great uh since the commission is advisory to both the city staff and, of course, the council.

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um I'll uh touch on um just a little bit more about what they're doing at the.

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Moment um and just some logistic things.

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They're also kind of doing some following up and tracking on some of our plans like the sustainability action plan and the um bloomington environmental action plan, and we also have a climate action plan.

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Forthcoming uh so lots of kind of um plans and then.

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It's important to continue to monitor those and make sure we're.

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Highlighting you know how we're implementing them, where we're falling short, how we can do better and that's another task that they've been working on uh just kind of fyi and the one thing I the.

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Other thing I wanted to mention is just sort of some timelines and details. This committee will probably try to make a decision in the next.

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Week or two and and make a recommendation to the full council.

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Typically, the council uh takes the recommendations of committees and appoints uh members to the commission as.

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As recommended, um we didn't interview one other candidate for this round.

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There's one vacancy for a council appointed position, but there's also two.

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Vacancies at the moment for mayoral appointed positions and um again in.

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Discussing with the staff ways on today, uh we talked about how to.

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uh Try to try to be better as we go move forward and kind of.

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Sharing some synergies, so the fact that you know if we've interviewed multiple.

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Good candidates, you know letting the mayor's office know that as well. So even if the council doesn't appoint you.

C

um I think uh you know there's potentially other opportunities as well.

C

So I wanted to make you aware of those: are there any questions for us about the.

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Commission or how the commission works with council or anything else, we can answer at this time um overall.

B

um I just would like to thank you guys again.

B

I I am curious and given that, if there was um if the commission didn't.

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Elect me and if the mayor didn't elect me, um I.

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Just am curious in general on how connected the public.

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Is to um these meetings now I can just be a citizen and be an active citizen to.

B

um Best help out my community as well uh be engaged, so I'm just curious how.

B

Many opportunities you think um there are for that.

C

um I can speak to that or if someone else wants to either way.

E

Oh, hey um yeah. You can certainly attend commission meetings, but the.

C

Bloomington commission on sustainability and the environmental commission.

C

Are have public meetings and would probably be covering a lot of topics that are of interest to you um in particular. If you know we, we didn't appoint you at this time um attending some meetings as a member of the public, where you can also comment or or um add your input, uh it goes a long.

C

Way to demonstrate your interest and- and you know it's fairly irregular- that that opportunities pop up to um uh serve to serve the city in this way.

C

So uh yeah, if, if you didn't get appointed at this time, I think just continuing to stay engaged. um You know you'd probably find yourself with an opportunity in the very near future, so um yeah, I think we'll probably have to.

C

Wrap it up there since we're kind of on a tight timeline, but uh very much appreciate you uh interviewing. uh It was great to get to know a bit about you.

C

And and your interest in the commission and uh either way you should be hearing.

C

From us from the clerk's office um in uh the next week or two awesome, thank you guys so much um yeah.

B

Very privileged position, so thank you for the opportunity to apply to it.

B

um Thank you guys sure. Thank you, daniel thanks. Thank you.

C

Okay, um so we have to discuss an action memo. Should we just do.

C

uh Interview, no, we want to discuss what we're doing.

C

So we don't meet again. Yes, um I feel like daniel and bailey.

C

Are both uh qualified candidates to to serve on the commission? How do you.

C

All feel I just would like to make sure sofia.

D

That you know when someone logs off they're, like we, we check that they're all the way off or yes, okay,.

D

Sorry, it's just sometimes you'll be on the phone. Okay.

A

um Yeah, I agree they would both be. You know, they're both qualified.

A

I I worry a little that both of them are so young.

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And don't have much experience.

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I think daniel is certainly very enthusiastic.

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um I'm a little perturbed that he was late.

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To the meeting, I'm sorry to me that I should chime in and say that it was a.

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Technical glitch, oh okay, it wasn't yeah, I'm sorry! I should have.

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Mentioned that earlier.

A

Well, um I don't know, I think you know, I think they both have.

A

Something to offer bailey seemed a little more um a little more mature, maybe.

A

E

E