Also Present:  

Tia Hatton Tenny, Staff Liaison and Sustainability Specialist 

Jenna Ortega, Climate Program Manager 

Commissioner Carlson provided a summarized overview of the all-day community conversation on June 13 about the LASS/CAP Code Concepts, which he attended as a community member and not on behalf of the Commission. He provided a condensed version of the keynote presentation (see attached slideshow for full details) from Shane Phillips and city staff. Of note were data and statistics about what was working in other municipalities in terms of housing affordability, quality, density, and parking restrictions. He highlighted that they learned about the staff's current positions, recommendations, and reasoning on different topics in this presentation, which was an update since the staff last presented to the Commission. Chair Wolkowinsky also attended the meeting as a community member and shared a few brief takeaways. Commissioner Carlson shared that the city staff plan will be going to the August 26 city council meeting.

Commissioner Elijah Born reviewed the proposed update list with the Commission (see agenda attachment). The grant working group, city staff, and the equity climate advisory group created the list. Once approved, Mrs. Hatton Tenny will integrate them into all the grant materials that need the updates. Key updates included: the climate action category was removed, and objectives were redistributed to other categories. Second, the public health and resilience categories are now combined into a Community Health and Climate Resilience category. Commissioner Konkel asked if, through combining and getting rid of these categories, any projects that received funding in the past few years would not have received funding in this scenario. Ms. Hatton Tenny replied that they thought this through, and it was a goal to combine the categories so that the new categories would still allow for all types of projects.  

Discussing a possible process change to review projects and offering less than the requested amounts for the grants right on the funding line spurred robust discussion. Commissioner Konkel noted that previously, the review panel only did that if they were tied. The Commission ultimately decided that it is a practice that should continue. 

Commissioner Carlson suggested they consider a tiered system for grants of varying budgets. After some back-and-forth discussion, the Commission offered microgrants at $2,500. They said the language will state that at least three are guaranteed to be funded if they meet a certain points threshold (for example, 20; it should be comparable to what usually receives funding, but not too high). Additional microgrants can be funded if they reach the top scores, too. Another change was updated to the scoring rubric to ensure it aligns easily with the order of the application questions. The grant goals category is now the community goals category, and one of the three goals is more specifically related to those most impacted by climate change.  

The Commission chose to open the grant on August 15 of this year and voted for a new name for the grant program: the Flagstaff Sustainability Grant (FSG). They considered keeping the name Neighborhood Sustainability Grant and another option, Flagstaff Community Sustainability Grant. 

The working group decided not to touch the grant for the next three years to gather data on its effectiveness, unless something goes very wrong.

Chair Wolkowinsky introduced the proposed updates to the Sustainability Commission’s ordinance to the full Commission. She shared that the working group, Director Antonopoulos, and Mrs. Hatton Tenny met to discuss these updates. Mrs. Hatton Tenny completed research into other ordinance examples. The Commission reviewed each line together and emphasized the term "proactive." One change the Commission identified was adjusting the name of the sustainability grants since they had just chosen a new name.   

Chair Wolkowinsky asked for a motion to approve these proposed updates and send them on for next steps. Commissioner Born motioned to approve, and Chair Wolkowinsky seconded it.  All were in favor, and the motion to approve the ordinance updates passed. 

Jenna Ortega presented on the fiscal year 2026 Sustainability Division budget requests and approved funding. She highlighted the differences between ongoing and one-time funding, as well as partial funding. Mrs. Ortega also discussed the Environmental Management Fee (EMF), a fee on the city water bill. While the EMF was restructured in 2020 to be more equitable, this did not lead to an increase in funding for Sustainability, and only during the most recent water rate restructuring did sustainability see an increase in funding. Mrs. Ortega shared that both the Sustainability Division and the other Divisions need significant additional funding to carry out their climate action work and share possible opportunities. Mrs. Ortega noted that certain funding mechanisms are limited by state law, making it challenging to fund certain programs. She also shared about the possibility of a bond and the challenges there, as well as other city bond priorities. Commissioner Born asked what EV infrastructure the city had, and Mrs. Hatton Tenny said she would need to ask one of their Climate Program Managers for the full list and send it to him. 

She shared that Sustainability Director Nicole Antonopoulos would like to attend the next meeting and involve the Commission in brainstorming possible funding routes. The Commission discussed that there would be no July meeting, so the next option would be August.  

The attachments have additional detailed information.  

Mrs. Hatton Tenny introduced the priority commission work plan for the upcoming fiscal year 2026 (July 1, 2025 - June 30, 2026). She noted that the work plan included agenda items they knew would happen (for example, Sustainability Grant review) and items that staff have already requested for the upcoming year (for example, a discussion on funding and building codes updates). The commission discussed the importance of proactive advocacy and commission-to-commission collaboration. They discussed the need for better updates on the council's upcoming agenda, and this is a monthly agenda item that could be added. Mrs. Hatton Tenny and Mrs. Ortega led the Commission through a prioritization activity to prioritize and flesh out the list of future agenda item requests. Each commission or staff member gave a 15 to 30-second spiel about a topic and why they were interested in it. The Commission then ruled out a couple they felt were selected elsewhere already or do not need to be on the list (i.e., recycling in Flagstaff, since it was already included in the list).  

Commissioner Carlson spoke about two of the three emerging priorities: water pollution from emerging water pollutants and public health and rail pollution concerns. Chair Wolkowinsky introduced the tree cities topic, and the commission discussed the duality of trees for climate resilience, as well as fire safety and home hardening aspects. Staff mentioned that the Arizona Department of Forestry would be a possible collaborator. While other topics were discussed, such as J.W. Powell expansion, the commission thought perhaps the time to engage on that had passed. Staff will double-check and confirm this. The agenda items that received fewer votes included individual actions and the Carbon Neutrality Plan, growth in terms of fitting the needs of Flagstaff so they do not have to travel for goods, and commission-to-commission collaboration.  

The commission’s “homework” would be to answer Who (do they need/want to hear from on this topic), What (do they need/want to know on this topic), Why (does it matter, what are the objectives), When (do they want to hear about it). These answers would be discussed at one of the subsequent commission meetings. 

Commissioner Born shared that the Friends of Flagstaff Future is having an online auction fundraiser through the upcoming weekend.  

Commissioner Carlson shared more about the new Flagstaff-based chapter of Strong Towns, which is a nonprofit group advocating for community-centered towns. There are volunteer opportunities, and this group is getting involved in the code concepts work.  

The Commission discussed that three Commissioners will be absent and there will not be a July 2025 meeting.

Jenna Ortega, on behalf of Director Nicole Antonopoulos, would like to bring the topic of Sustainability Division funding to the next Commission meeting. 

Commissioner Carlson requested the topics of green infrastructure and people-centric infrastructure (as opposed to car-centric approaches).