Sustainable Stockton Meeting Minutes

Thursday, May 1, 2008, at 7:00 pm, Stockton Municipal Building (Meeting #9) 

Attendees:  Sue Anderson; Eric Anderson; Donna Literski; Tom Literski; Kim Becken; Diane Sankey; Haley Sankey; Jamie Jacobs; and Sharon Reichert.

 Agenda Items: Meeting Minutes.

  Minutes of Meeting #8 were approved (Eric/Kim; all in favor).  

 Electing Committee Co-Chair.  Tabled for now. 

WEEB Grant/Lightbulb Projects.  Kim stated that we (along with our grant partners of Stevens Point and Marathon County) did receive the WEEB grant.   The grant is for just under $3,000 and will be available after 7/1/08 for one fiscal year.  Kim thought the grant money was probably to be used more for education than purchasing light bulbs.  Our group may want to do the research and put the footwork into obtaining the light bulbs ourselves--to help promote our group in a positive way and help show our commitment to our cause.  In addition, we may want to use KEEP as a resource and may be able to buy bulbs from them and sell them at our event.  Also, our committee may be able to obtain endorsements from MREA and the Fire Dept. to promote our light bulb giveaway (to each residence in the Town).  In addition, we may want to sell LED Christmas lights during our Election Day giveaway (as a fundraiser) or sell other bulbs for a discount price or with a rebate offer.  Our committee could provide food and coffee to attract folks to our event.  We’ll probably need a hauling trailer and an easy-up tent for the project.  Sharon will check with the Town Clerk to find out how many households there are in our Town and if address labels would be available for them.  Kim will be attending a meeting tomorrow with Public Service and others involved in the grant to find out more information and report back to our group.  A big thank you to Kim Becken, Tara Stormoen, and everyone else involved with obtaining the WEEB grant for us.  Next meeting we can discuss the formation of a subcommittee to work on the WEEB grant project.   As mentioned last meeting, Cindy Davis will have information on the residence light bulb study sometime after May.  Maybe we’ll have some results for next month’s meeting.   

Report on Website.  The next meeting for the Website Subcommittee and the university students will be May 6^th at 7 pm in Rm. B240 of the Science Building at UWSP.  We will get notice when our website is on-line, and we can fill information in many web page areas ourselves before the general public uses it.  In addition, we may want to make a website announcement in the July 08 Town of Stockton Newsletter. 

Discussion of Goals.  The current version of our goals is:1.        To Facilitate the Education of our Community on Sustainability.2.        To Promote and Support Sustainable Practices.3.       To Create a Long-Range Vision for Sustainability in our Town.4.       To Annually Re-Evaluate our Mission Statement, Description, Structure, Goals, etc. to ensure they follow the 4 Criteria of The Natural Step and are still pertinent to our local circumstancesSS Min 4-3-08Page 2  Group discussed how to make the goals better and clearer.  Committee will incorporate The Natural Step criteria into goal #4 and include links on website for The Natural Step and sustainability.  Sharon will revise goals and send to subcommittee members for improvements/changes and then to group for approval. 

Outreach Possibilities.  Group discussed possibly holding a potluck get-together this October.  Maybe a small meeting with limited agenda items (mostly for brainstorming ideas) could be held followed by the potluck.  This would provide a means to gather the Town’s people together, show our website, and just promote our cause in general.  If it fairs well, it could become an annual/seasonal event.  Haley Sankey may be willing to do a presentation on solar power for the gathering.  As another project, our group may want to participate in an “Adopt a Highway” program to get our name out there.  We could adopt part of a Town road.  Mostly the maintenance would include picking up garbage seasonally.  Also, eventually (maybe in a year or so) the committee will move forward to encourage the Town government to adopt an ecomunicipality resolution.  For next meeting, all attendees will try to think of at least one outreach event/project with a limited time period and sustainability-related them.     

Local Alerts.  Committee talked about providing some sort of local alert regarding community sustainability/environmental issues that come up.  Consensus was such an alert may dilute our purpose at the moment.  Maybe when our group is more established, we can provide such a service in the future.   

Next Meeting.  Next meeting will be Thursday, June 5, 2008, at 7:00 pm at the Stockton Municipal Building.  Agenda for that meeting will be sent at a later date.  

 Announcements.  On May 13, 2008, a bus will be going down to tour “Growing Power” in Milwaukee (leave about noon or 1 pm, back around 9 pm).  Contact Sue if you are interested in learning about this sustainable business.  On May 14, 2008 a meeting of several sustainability groups will be held at the Rec. Center at 7 pm (across from P.J. Jacobs) in Stevens Point.  The meeting is about creating some sort of sustainability umbrella for our local area. 

Respectfully Submitted, Sharon Reichert