Sustainable Communities Network – September Meeting
Date: 9/7/17 Location: City of Neenah
Attendees: J. Conrad, L. Stoll, C. Kasimor, K. Thunes, R. Kanitz, R. Kasperek
Approval of September Meeting Minutes: Motion made.
SCN Website Updates: Kasperek updated the group about site updates; some of the pages have been reformatted in order to better display information while others such as Keeping of Fowl have been completed. This will continue as a project as time permits. A number of events were also added to the site calendar.
Kanitz pointed out that the SCN mission page is very out of date. Changes were proposed to be made in the future, including adding missing communities and businesses. Some groups have also been disbanded and need to be removed such as the Appleton group. Kanitz offered to tackle the changes.
Tackling Barriers to Green Infrastructure: A workbook was shared from the Wisconsin Seagrant institute. The workbook discusses how communities may be potentially hindering green infrastructure and includes a walk through of ways to assess access to these features. Thunes and Stoll believed there was merit in the audit and volunteered the City of Menasha to test it. Kasimor thought there may be interest to complete it for the City of Neenah. Kasperek said she would bring it to the Village of Fox Crossing and the Town of Greenville.
This topic will be brought to the next meeting to access progress and if it produced meaningful results. If it is useful, SCN will work to share it with more communities.
NEW Sustainable Leaders Group: Kasperek and Thunes updated the group on NEWSLG’s progress. NEWSLG is working to attract more businesses in 2018, and is having themed meetings for the year. A few SCN members are also apart of NEWSLG, so the connection will continue.
Tree Inventory: Stoll explained that the WI DNR has been updating their aerial maps and data points in order to do tree inventory and canopy assessments. A discussion of municipal tree planting and inventory practices followed; Greenville has an internal one that they manage, Sustainable Neenah is encouraging private and public tree planting, and Menasha is looking to green where there are no terraces.
It was suggested that SCN should promote tree canopy assessments so that all communities were properly addressing their forestry needs.
Earth Day: Kasperek continued the conversation about Earth Day from the June SCN meeting. The idea was brought up to plan big for 2020, such as connecting all of the community events and supporting local efforts instead of creating one SCN event.
There was a suggestion to ask the local municipalities to feature Earth Day on their utility bills, with SCN supplying a generic template if needed. It was decided to collect and promote a listing of local Earth Day events in order to show support, regardless if SCN promoted in other initiatives. Kasperek offered to create and maintain the list on the SCN website.
Adjourn. The next meeting will be held in March at Menasha.
Topics for the next agenda: Website updates, Earth Day events, Fox Cities Greenways seed money, and Barriers to Green Infrastructure.