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REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION <br /> Date: 4/23/2012 <br /> Item No.: <br />10.b <br />Department Approval City Manager Approval <br />Item Description: Presentation on Minnesota Green Step Cities <br />B <br />ACKGROUND <br />1 <br />As part of the Imagine Roseville 2025 process Roseville residents set a goal for the city to be an <br />2 <br />environmentally healthy community (Attachment A). Roseville has a number of programs and <br />3 <br />practices that meet the goal and strategies from the IR 2025 report. Roseville can do additional <br />4 <br />work on these goals and strategies and a relatively new program from the State of Minnesota can <br />5 <br />help. <br />6 <br />Minnesota Green Step Cities is a voluntary challenge, assistance and recognition program to help <br />7 <br />cities achieve their sustainability goals through implementation of 28 best practices (Attachment <br />8 <br />B). Each best practice can be implemented by completing one or more specific actions from a list <br />9 <br />of four to eight actions. These actions are tailored to all Minnesota cities, focus on cost savings <br />10 <br />and energy use reduction, and encourage innovation. <br />11 <br />Forty cities including Falcon Heights, Maplewood, Mahtomedi, St. Anthony, White Bear Lake <br />12 <br />have already achieved Green Step Cities recognition. <br />13 <br />Additionally the program can help flesh out how to follow-through on the U.S. Mayors Climate <br />14 <br />Protection Agreement, signed by Roseville, and the Minnesota Legislature's aggressive Next <br />15 <br />Generation Energy Act. <br />16 <br />This spring students in the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agriculture and Natural <br />17 <br />Resource Sciences approached Roseville about a class project to help Roseville become a Green <br />18 <br />Step City. Students including Lindsay Van Patten and Kiley Friedrich interviewed staff and <br />19 <br />identified completed best practices and possible best practices that could be completed. <br />20 <br />Diana McKeown from the Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERT) will present an overview of <br />21 <br />the Greeen Step Cities program and Lindsay Van Patten and Kiley Friedrich will present the <br />22 <br />results of their research. McKeown presented the Green Step Cities overview to the Public <br />23 <br />Works, Environment and Transportation Commission at its January 24, 2012 meeting. <br />24 <br />Commission members agreed that the Green Step Cities program was worth further <br />25 <br />investigation. <br />26 <br />Excerpt from January 24, 2012 PWET Commission meeting mintues: <br />27 <br />Member Stenlund moved, Member Vanderwall seconded, to look at this program <br />28 <br />more in depth for the City of Roseville; directing staff to include it on a future agenda <br />29 <br />once they were able to document current best practices in the City of Roseville, and <br />30 <br />prior to June of 2012. <br />31 <br />32 <br />Page 1 of 2 <br /> <br />