Burlington Sustainable Development Advisory Committee Meeting

Minutes

Meeting #:
Date:
Time:
-
Location:
Room 247, Level 2, City Hall

1.
Members Present:
 

Jim Feilders, Tim Park, Susan Mattine, Hashem Hosseini-Mousavi, Katie Rauscher, Michelina Longo, Mitchell French, Peter Cookson, Dave Rokosh, Herb Sinnock and Councillor Paul Sharman

2.
Others Present:
 

Dave Bourns (alt), Lynn Robichaud (staff), Robbie MacGregor and Alex Senkowski (Recycling Revisited)

3.
Regrets:
 

Carolyn Barnes, Herb Lewington, Chris Maynard, Mathew McCauley, Sarah Burjaw, and Glenn Portch (alt)

4.
Declarations of Interest:
 

Katie declared a conflict of interest with the 1085 Clearview property and advised that she would not be participating in the discussion and vote to approve the comments.

5.
Video Presentation – Recycling Revisited
 

Robbie MacGregor provided some history of the grassroots community recycling initiative in Burlington, which started in Aldershot, Burlington in 1970 with a group of women at the local Presbyterian church talking about the future of the planet. It was the first community recycling program in Canada. It evolved into the Citizens’ Committee for Pollution Control (CCPC) with a depot system for residents to drop off items for recycling. Volunteers sorted the items and requested local companies to take the collected materials for recycling.

Mary Jane Boelhower and Robbie were the founders and they wanted to keep the memory alive of what the community achieved, which they have named Recycling Revisited. They plan to plant 500 trees in October to celebrate. They received some funding from the city’s Neighbourhood Matching Fund to create a website, brochure and database. They have also been named as a National Trust Historic Place.

Robbie and Alex showed a video presentation about the history of the community-based recycling program which is available on their website: www.recyclingrevisited.org. The presentation was following with a question and answer session.

6.
Approval of Minutes:
 

7.
Consent Agenda:
 

7.1
1085 Clearview Avenue – SDC Comments (Circulated)
 

7.2
2019 SDC Annual Report to Council (Circulated)
 

Action: Lynn to ask Carolyn if she can delegate to present the annual report.

7.3
Take Action Burlington: An update on our local environment (formerly the SOER)
 

Action: Lynn to provide a date for the committee to provide comments and endorse the document after confirming with Fleur.

7.4
SDC Recommendations to the Take Action Burlington environmental update report
 

Action: Committee to provide any amendments to Katie to the recommendations by Tuesday, April 23rd. Lynn to provide a date for the committee to approve the final version of the recommendations.

8.
Regular Items:
 

8.1
Updates from previous events
 

8.2
Upcoming events/news (All)
 

8.3
Council & Staff Updates
 

a.
Councillor Sharman
 

Spoke about the climate change workshop for council and thanked city staff for organizing it. Jim Cotton, a professor at McMaster University, spoke on his students’ work on what it would take to get the community to be net carbon zero. Councillor Sharman also noted that on Tuesday, April 23rd council would be considering a Climate Emergency Declaration to be presented by Councillor Nisan and seconded by Councillor Sharman. There will be a staff direction for staff to report back on a Climate Action Plan by December.

b.
Lynn Robichaud
 

2019 Budget - Action: Lynn to provide a copy of the committee’s budget at the next meeting.

8.4
Business arising from the minutes
 

Climate Emergency Declaration – it was decided that the committee would work on a written delegation for council to respond to the climate emergency declaration. Action: Jim to work with Carolyn and team to prepare the submission. Councillor Sharman’s assistant Rosemary circulate a copy of the declaration and Councillor Nisan’s memo to committee members.  

8.5
Awareness sub-committee update (Katie)
 

Katie asked if someone could attend the city’s information session on Thursday evening – Born to be Wild, since it is similar to the library session the Awareness sub-committee is considering for the fall. The SDC will be participating in the Community Clean up event just south of the No Frills plaza on Brant Street. Members should bring gloves but Katie will have bags to collect the litter. The 1 in 100 day event will involve the Yellow Fish Road program on the first Saturday in June in the Palmer neighbourhood to teach people not to pour hazardous waste down the storm drains and dispose of it properly.

8.6
Policy and Development subcommittee update (Tim or Mathew)
 

Tim noted that they have a new planner while Suzanne is off – Lauren Vraets. Hashem presented a proposal for P&D to use dropbox to share files and documents. The committee discussed comments for 1085 Clearview. Lauren will provide an update to the committee about Eagle Heights. Jim provided a presentation about the FCM net zero energy report.

Action: Lynn to set up a meeting with the city’s IT staff to discuss options with Tim, Mathew and Hashem if possible (depending on timing).

8.7
Reports from external groups and conferences
 

a.
Community Energy Plan (Lynn)
 

Lynn noted that the next meeting is on May 10th. Dave B will be attending to represent the SDC.

b.
Bay Area Climate Change Council (Carolyn)
 

Peter provided an update for the most recent BACCC meeting which was held at the Hamilton Conservation office. Lynn provided a presentation at the meeting about Burlington’s efforts to become a net zero carbon community. There was discussion about Burlington’s and Hamilton’s Climate Emergency Declaration. A representation of BACCC will be delegating at the Burlington council meeting. A strategy session is being planned for BACCC in May or June. Implementation teams for the workplan will start to be created.

c.
BurlingtonGreen (Jim)
 

Jim noted that the Clean-up event is being organized for Saturday, April 27th and the Green up event is on May 4th. Lynn noted that she will have a table of information at the May 4th event and invited SDC members to join her if they are available.

d.
Halton Climate Collective (Lynn)
 

Lynn advised that the collective is planning a youth summit in October to be hosted at Sheridan College. And that the collective is planning 10 pop ups across Halton Region to connect with people about climate change.

9.
Other Business:
 

10.
Adjournment:
 

Chair adjourned the meeting at 9:10 p.m.

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