Resilience iCAP Team October Meeting
The Resilience iCAP Team met on Monday, October 4th to review the iCAP Objectives Assessment and discuss our team's assessment of progress of our 7 objectives. Meeting minutes are attached.
The Resilience iCAP Team met on Monday, October 4th to review the iCAP Objectives Assessment and discuss our team's assessment of progress of our 7 objectives. Meeting minutes are attached.
On Friday, September 24th the Resilience iCAP Team had their first meeting of the semester. The team reviewed the Resilience Charge Letter, discussed updates on the Hazard Mitigation Plan, Biodiversity Plan, and the Assessment of Progress. Meeting minutes are attached.
Resilience Work Weekly Check-In
09/23/2021, 2:00 PM
Attendees: Morgan White, Meredith Moore, Stacy Gloss
Updates
Stacy provided an overview of her activities for the previous week including
iCAP Portal
In this meeting we discussed additional functionality, the strategy and rationale on Resilience web page organization. Morgan provided insights on using the iCAP portal such as accessing projects through a table by using the Project Page and searching Projects by Status. Projects can be added to the iCAP portal by sending a proposal to add a project to Morgan and Meredith. There is an iCAP Portal Content template that should be used.
Community resilience and sustainability projects
We reflected that there are many community projects and programs related to sustainability and resilience that do not appear anywhere in the iCAP such as MTD projects, Sanitary District work, Stormwater partnerships, Recycling projects and programs, certain solar projects. We discussed that having a website or webpage dedicated to community partnerships, programs, and outreach about sustainability, environment, resilience, water, energy, land-use etc could be an excellent community resource. The idea bubbled to have a Community Supported Resilience Portal in parallel to the iCAP portal for tracking programs, resources, and projects. This could be a recommendation for meeting one or more of the iCAP objectives.
9/17/2021, 2:15 PM
Attendees: Morgan White, Meredith Moore, Stacy Gloss
Summary:
Stacy, Meredith and Morgan met for the first time together since Stacy was appointed and started work on 9/16/2021. The purpose of the meeting is to provide the information and resources needed for Stacy to start working on resilience activities in the scope work. We reviewed Stacy’s job description regarding activities for the next 6 months and related deliverables. See attached job description.
Agreements:
To-Do’s:
Stacy will re-read the objective in iCAP 2020 PDF about all resilience objectives. Review the resilience theme, scan the project list, and look at project history for specific objectives.
8.1 Check in when needed w/ Lisa Merrifield
8.2 Start with campus contacts. Email Betsy Liggett, Brent Lewis, & Morgan White and set up a call with Betsy. Betsy is liaison to community green infrastructure. The objectives are to find out who it is to talk to in Champaign-Urbana-Savoy for off-campus infrastructure locations. Eventually, ask resilience team what information should be included on the iCAP portal map. Note: There’s an Oct 20 conference about the Champaign County storm water partnership. With this objective, we will ultimately work towards planning a coordinated rainwater mgmt. plan, and what it might look like.
8.3. Review documentation that Kimmy provided as a report on the portal.
8.4. Request a call with Ximing to explain the concept behind 8.4 and report back. Further steps may be taken to include whole iSEE management team in a conversation.
8.5. Review 8.5 Discuss at meeting 2 weeks from now.
8.6. Morgan will connect Stacy with Sarthak Prasad. Review Vision zero website soon and request a meeting with Sarthak.
8.7. Review 8.7 Discuss at meeting 2 weeks from now. Review Current State of the Market, and review files in the box folder that students created about local off sets.
We had a great iCAP Team and iCAP Working Group Kickoff on 9/16/21! During the event, we heard from iSEE Interim Director, Dr. Madhu Khanna, went through the team rosters, iCAP Procedures, iCAP 2020 and progress made thus far, and lastly summarized other resources that sustainability advocates should be aware of.
The iCAP Teams and iCAP Working Group are instrumental in helping campus advance and achieve our sustainability goals and we look forward to a great year!
The presentation is attached and the recording is found here.
This is a list of projects that need students to work on. It will be updated periodically by sustainability staff members, the last update was 9/16/21:
This project is a collaboration with the Illinois State Section of the American Planning Association; we have been asked to create a community land use and revitalization plan for a small town in Kankakee County. It is a rural community, predominantly people of color, originally settled by folks leaving the South during the Great Migration. There are many layers to the story, but it is ultimately a story of environmental equity as The Nature Conservancy and Field Museum have been collaborating with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to acquire land to create the Black Oak Savana nature preserve. The majority of residents are opposed to this preserve, primarily because land has been purchased via tax sale and foreclosure, therefore taking land out of Black ownership. This also further burdens remaining property owners because the nature preserve land becomes tax exempt, shifting the property taxes that are no longer paid on nature preserve property to a smaller and smaller portion of land owners.
Students interested in this project could assist with GIS analysis and help identify opportunities to balance environmental sustainability goals and land preservation with social and economic sustainability goals and to identify economic opportunities that accomplish all three. Contact Lacey Rains Lowe at lacey.rains <at> champaignil.gov.
Expand on existing statistical analysis with ArcGIS and spreadsheets of potential race/income disparities in provision of street trees, sidewalks, urban heat, parks, bus stops, etc. Data sets provided. Contact is Scott Tess at srtess <at> urbanaillinois.us.
LIVESTOCK FACILITY DECOMMISSIONING at the Imported Swine Research Laboratory - The push to expand the UI Research Park will require decommissioning of the waste lagoons associated with the Imported Swine Research Laboratory (ISRL). This presents an nice opportunity for a class to develop and design a decommissioning plan with associated costs and timeline. Colleen Ruhter is the point of contact, cruhter <at> illinois.edu.
If you have a project idea, please contact us at sustainability@illinois.edu, or submit it through the iCAP Portal Suggestions page.
iSEE's Interim Director Madhu Khanna sent the Resilience iCAP Team a formal charge letter on Tuesday, September 14 detailing the team's responsibilities for the upcoming year. The letter is attached.
Throughout the summer of 2021, I (Kimmy Chuang, iSEE intern, supervised by Meredith Moore) accomplished the following tasks to further the Environmental Justice Plan. Relevant documents documents attached.
1. Compile contact information for focus groups
Number and type of contacts were organized into the following:
Contacts were primarily found through Internet searches. Many of the groups were identified as relevant during Environmental Justice Committee meetings. Where possible or necessary, I’ve included notes and additional links.
2. Research other EJ plans to draft focus group questions
I drafted possible questions for focus group interviews through what I learned from the following EJ or similar Climate Justice Plans:
City of Providence’s Climate Justice Plan
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO)
National City Health and Environmental Justice Element (San Diego County, CA)
3. Compile contact information of other municipalities with EJ plans
For the plans I reviewed above, I collected contact information for each municipality into a spreadsheet. The EJ Committee suggested that we reach out to other municipalities that had successfully written EJ plans to inform our process.
4. Review local engagement efforts to identify salient local environmental issues
Meredith and I’s original goal for the focus groups was to identify 4-5 of the most salient environmental issues in our community that our plan should address.These are issues that have been identified multiple times during EJ Committee discussions or through my research:
Through my research, I identified four local public engagement efforts that could be relevant for our EJ plan:
Champaign County Community Health Plan 2021-2023
Storm Water Management Plan
Champaign County Soil and Water Conservation District
Urbana Comprehensive Plan
Here are ideas from the iCAP as it was listed in the Appendix “Acknowledgements for future considerations” that may be relevant for EJ:
5. Start conversations with other community members about EJ
Other than the Resilience iCAP Team and the EJ Committee, Meredith and I met with the following community members about EJ:
Gabe Lewis (Planner at CCRPC)
Jessica Lehmkuhl, James Corbin II (Sustainability Advisory Commission)
Cassie Carroll
Met over Zoom about Cassie’s expertise in interviews/focus groups. The following are notes from our discussion:
In this section, I will summarize what I had hoped to accomplish this summer, why we weren’t able to do so, and questions to consider as the EJ Plan moves forward.
Initially, I had planned to conduct focus groups this summer and analyze the results. However, after discussions with Meredith and the EJ Committee, we decided to delay the focus groups until we had more thorough knowledge about the best way to conduct them. The following are questions we have in mind, but aren’t sure how to proceed.
1. Scope of the EJ Plan
2. Vulnerability Assessments
3. Possible funding
4. Ownership of the EJ Committee
This update is also attached as a report and was sent to Stacy Gloss, a member of the Resilience iCAP Team, who will be leading the EJ efforts this Fall.
Attached are the charge letters sent to each of the iCAP Team members, on September 10 by iSEE interim director, Dr. Madhu Khanna.
Madhu Khanna and Ehab Kamarah approved $18,025 of funding from the Carbon Credit Sales Fund for a Resilience Development Proposal.
"The Resilience Commitment, signed in 2016, was incorporated in the iCAP for the first time in the 2020 version, with a list of seven specific objectives. iSEE is the primary department responsible for helping campus achieve these ambitious goals. We request approval to fund a 20-hour/week contract with ARI to have Stacy Gloss work to develop the structure and plan for completing these objectives. The cost of a six-month agreement is $17,500" (the cost was updated with the new fiscal year due to a salary change) -Morgan White (08/13/2021)
An email of the approval is attached below.
Ehab Kamarah, interim Executive Director of F&S, responded to Morgan White and Sherry Wooten with the following message:
"The plan is signed and is being sent back to the County. My apology for the late response."
See transmittal of Res001 Champaign County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan here.
See iWG assessment of Res001 Champaign County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan here.
See recommendation and submittal of Res001 Champaign County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan here.
For future updates on this effort, visit Champaign County Hazard Mitigation Plan.
Kimmy Chuang sent the following email to the Environmental Justice Committee, requesting feedback on conducting focus group interviews. The draft questions and contact group documents are attached.
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Hello EJ Committee,
Meredith and I have compiled a draft list of interview questions for small focus groups and we’d like to hear your input. A large number of questions are adapted from the Providence RI Climate Justice Plan -- which you can read here -- as well as other local surveys I’ve researched.
As mentioned during our last meeting, if you could please (1) approve each question (2) suggest any edits and (3) rank them in terms of priority. The full set of standard questions will be asked to the focus group. On the second page, you’ll find some other questions that we’ve been considering but aren’t sure whether to include as part of this list or only ask if time permits. If you think there is a question missing, please leave a comment. The draft questions can be found here on Box and are attached.
As we’re finalizing these questions, Meredith and I were also thinking of starting to reach out to the people we’d like to interview. We propose hosting five focus groups for each of the constituency groups: Neighborhood Associations, Community Organizations, Government, Social Justice Groups, and Relevant UIUC Advisory Groups/Personnel. We plan to ask for one representative from each entity to attend the focus group interview (see contact list attached).
We’re thinking of sending a Zoom invite for 12-2pm, but do you all think there would be a better time to convene the focus groups? For example, if usually people involved in Social Justice Groups or Neighborhood Associations work during the day, would it make more sense to host their focus group later from 4-6pm? With the interviewee’s consent, we will record these meetings.
We would love your participation in the interview process as well. We propose two or three of us per focus group interview, though are open to your thoughts. Our suggested dates for the interviews, based on our schedules, are:
Monday, July 26
Tuesday, July 27 (afternoon only)
Wednesday, July 28
Thursday, July 29
Friday, July 30
Please send me and Meredith your feedback on our draft list or interview questions and your thoughts on how/when we should convene these focus groups. We request your feedback on the interview questions by next Wednesday, July 14. We would like to contact the groups and send out the Zoom invitations as soon as possible; please send us your availability/thoughts on participating in the interviews by Monday at the latest.
Following the completion of iWG assessment for Res001 Champaign County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan, the recommendation was transmitted to the Office of the Chancellor via Mike DeLorenzo on June 8, 2021.
See SWATeam recommendation Res001 Champaign County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan.
See attached iWG assessment.
Irene Lira-Andsager, Jason Webb, and Daniel Xu spent the spring 2021 semester researching local environmental vulnerability factors and conducted vulnerability assessments to be included in the Environmental Justice Plan. The recording of their presentation of findings is found here (download to view).
Sherry Nickols-Richardson, Director of University of Illinois Extension, sent Morgan White the following email in support of the Res002 recommendation.
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Dear Morgan,
Thank you for sharing the Urban Biodiversity Master Plan component noted below (iCAP 202 Objective 8.1). University of Illinois Extension supports the in-kind contribution of Lisa Merrifield toward this effort through FY24.
Please note that Illinois Extension does not have funding to support a formal master planning process. This would need to be established and developed by F&S. If there are other implications for financial support now or in the future, Illinois Extension requests that there be discussion about these implications before any expenses are incurred.
This will be an interesting, informative, and valuable process. I look forward to periodic reports about the progress.
Sincerely,
Shelly Nickols-Richardson
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See submittal and recommendation of Res002 Biodiversity Plan.
See transmittal of Res002 Biodiversity Plan.
See iWG assessment of Res002 Biodiversity Plan.
For future updates on this effort, visit Urban Biodiversity Master Plan.
The Resilience iCAP Team met on April 6th, 2021 to brainstorm ideas for public engagement for creating our first Environmental Justice Plan. Members identified important avenues for learning about local intutions on what are relevant barriers to equitable health and safety in our communities. Moving forward, the Biodiversity Plan and EJ Plan will look to possibly engage the Department of Urban Planning and other students who will work on focus group interviews over the summer. The meeting concluded with an overview of the current progress of all Resilience iCAP objectives and future steps.
Meeting minutes and chat log are attached!
Following the completion of iWG assessment for Res002 Biodiversity Plan, the recommendation was transmitted to Dr. Nickols-Richardson, Director of Extension, on April 12, 2021.
See iWG assessment of Res002 Biodiversity Plan attached.
See iCAP team recommendation Res002 Biodiversity Plan.
The Environmental Justice Plan working group met on 4-1-21 to brainstorm the next steps of the process. The next steps for the group are to review and provide feedback on the "public input form" draft (attached). This will then be circulated around various organizations within the campus and community to ensure that the appropriate questions are asked, in the right way, and involving the right people. The group will continue to review the resilience and environmental justice indicators to refine which indices we should focus on.
The Resilience iCAP Team met on March 2nd, 2021 with Vision Zero representative Stacey DeLorenzo to discuss how can the team can help accomplish zero fatalities from transportation in our communities. Updates were given on the Environmental Justice and Urban Biodiversity Plans, as well our ongoing collaboration with the Education Team to develop a sustainable communities paid internship program. The team also brainstormed ideas for how to move forward with identifying major local sustainability issues.
Meeting minutes, agenda, and chat log are attached!