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Councilmember McGovern said having worked on the original Youth Master Plan <br />Implementation Committee, one part of the work plan was to develop a strategic plan, and she <br />asked if this would be done. Mr. Fialho said his preference would be a hybrid between 1 and 2; <br />five members and a maximum of 6 members for Item 1, and he likes Item 2 being specific in <br />terms of charge and responsibility and how that gets defined by way of an ordinance or <br />resolution. <br />Councilmember Cook-Kallio confirmed with the City Manager that if the Council started out with <br />5-6 members and put a definite timeline to achieve something, there is nothing to stop the <br />Council from altering it depending on needs. <br />Mayor Hosterman opened the item for public comment. <br />Tim Belcher said it was interesting in the report that there were 15 programs, 12 different water <br />conservation initiatives listed, yet the list was rather small. He felt 5 people would be too few to <br />represent all of the constituencies and the different disciplines and suggested rather a 7 <br />member committee. He also suggested task forces be contained with the committee, as <br />needed, and agreed to help. <br />Mayor Hosterman closed public comment. <br />Mayor Hosterman said she did not support a task force, other committees have been good at <br />advancing policies, and she would prefer a five member commission with an alternate and staff <br />liaison. She supports a work plan, but wants it to be expanded to be a committee on energy and <br />the environment because she wants to highlight that energy is foremost in the world. The City <br />has just completed its identification of greenhouse gas emissions, and she asked this group to <br />help in listening to the community and formulating policy to send to the Council. She believes <br />there will be a day where an Environmental/Energy Manager will be a position for the City. <br />Councilmember Sullivan agreed, but suggested calling it a Committee or Commission on <br />Sustainability because energy, water, the environment and climate change are all things that will <br />be encompassed. He said it needs to be a manageable number of people and he was okay with <br />5-9 people. To him, the reason for the committee is to drive all of the new programs and policies <br />in the General Plan surrounding sustainability. He would like a community group that will help <br />drive policies forward to the Planning Commission and Council and get them implemented. He <br />thinks this is a great start, it is a long time coming, and he supported getting something going. <br />Vice Mayor Thorne said he thinks environmental protection is something that should be more <br />institutionalized throughout all of our organizations, including commissions, staff and this <br />Council. He was afraid if a full blown commission is created whose sole purpose is <br />environmental, we will lose a lot of that institutionalization. His second concern is the <br />streamlining process. He thinks the Council should get some update on where we are with the <br />overall streamlining process. Over the next year, we have added two formal groups to the <br />review process; the EVC and the new downtown group. He said any citizen can be part of the <br />review, can request materials or comment on any project, but these are formal groups of the <br />review process. <br />He said he knows within the next five years, something will be held up waiting for one of the <br />groups to do its job, and this is more likely if we have a full blown environmental commission. <br />He said his third concern is economics and the need for more staff. He said we could leverage <br />our own staff people and not necessarily have additional staffing. He therefore, would support a <br />citizen's advisory committee with a two year sunset and allow the Council to review the progress <br />City Council Minutes 18 July 15, 2008 <br />