USGBC Louisiana Advocacy Committee

Meeting Minutes
3/06/08

Attendees
Charlie Chartier, Chartier & cchartier@speccai.com 985-626-
Chair Associates 7800
Grasshopper Latter & Blum info@commercial504.com 504-638-
Mendoza 0839
Chad Odom LA Thinks codom@louisianathinks.co 504-451-
m 7451
Steve Picou LSU Ag Center spicou@agcenter.lsu.edu 504-838-
1170
Tony Laska Conservation tony.laska@csgrp.com 504-
Services Group 579.3633
Linda Stone, Co- Global Green lstone@globalgreen.org 504-525-
Chair 2121 x186
Corey Schoff Schoff Design cs@schoffdesign.com 828-684-
0066
Anisa Baldwin USGBC abaldwinmetzger@usgbc.o 202-701-
Metzger rg 0681
Kelly Nicklas Montgomery Roth knicklas@montgomeryroth 504-568-
Architecture .com 1240
Kate Barkmann WDG Architecture Jkbarkmann@winkinc.com 225-907-
3752
Thomas G. Rush GNO Inc. thomasgr02@hotmail.com 651-343-
4168
Rachel Weber FutureProof rachel@futureproofnola.co
m
John Moore City of New jgmoore@cityofno.com 504-658-
Orleans 8423

The meeting began at 11:30am, introductions were made, and February meeting
minutes accepted. Updates, announcements and presentations were as follows:

• Steve Picou encouraged members to attend City Park’s Golf Master Plan Public
Hearing next Tuesday evening (March 10) because there is a lot of impermeable
concrete going in and not a lot of green elements. See
http://neworleanscitypark.com for more info on plan and meeting.

• Charlie Chartier said that he had been in contact with the State Office of Facility
Planning & Control (OFPC) and despite the fact that they have a new director,
John Davis, Mr. Davis is deferring to the prior director, Jerry Jones, on green
building policy. Jerry Jones has directed staff to include green building guidelines

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 in all requests for architectural services. Charlie has offered USGBC’s services to
review green language in any documents.

• Grasshopper Mendoza made two announcements:

o Next Tuesday (March 10) at noon there will be a meeting of the
Infrastructure Committee of the Horizon Initiative (City’s public/private
partnership) at Later & Blum, 430 Notre Dame, to discuss water
management issues, committee’s position on master plan, and economics
of water management. David Waggoner, co-chair of this committee with
Grasshopper, has done a lot of work in Holland. See
http://dutchdialogues.com for more information.
o Grasshopper’s own website, “Its About The Green,” is now up at
http://commercial504.com.
• Linda Stone reported that the February 28 Green Schools Workshop, held in the
Design Building at LSU Baton Rouge, went well, with over 100 people in
attendance.

• Thomas Rush announced two events:

o Loyola University’s National Law Society Conference to be held around
Mardi Gras in 2010
o The American Bar Association is hosting a Sustainability and Construction
Industry Conference this spring where both legislative and industry
perspectives will be discussed

• The annual Tulane Environmental Law Summit will be held April 3-4, 2009.

• Charlie asked how members had done with their assignments to start developing
relationships with their legislators. He got these responses:
o Steve Picou had a lengthy conversation with Louisiana Public Service
Commission Chair Lambert Boissiere after Boissiere visited the Solar Round
Table meeting Wednesday evening.
o Grasshopper mentioned that she is looking for industries and banks
interested in underwriting green development. She mentioned Rebirth
Capitol as one already doing this. Steve suggested inviting Stuart Weiss,
Whitney Bank’s environmental officer, to the Advocacy Committee
o Charlie mentioned that he had called three of his reps:
 Spoke to legislative assistant for State Sen. Jack Donahue
 Left message at State Rep. Tim Burns’ office
 Spoke to an administrator at Councilman Marty Gould’s office
o Steve also noted that JEDCO (Jefferson Parish Economic Development
Commission) called the Ag Center to talk about composting and that New
Orleans is also interested; he is drafting contract for regional program—
needs data on waste streams. John Moore said he had waste tonnage, but
not breakdown—had to get breakdown estimate from ICLEI software.

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  Charlie noted that recyclables take 64% of average landfill, yet we do
not include cost of new landfill when calculating cost benefit of
recycling.

• Tony Laska gave a comprehensive overview of the stimulus funds with a special
focus on Louisiana and energy efficiency funds. He spoke from a PowerPoint
presentation developed by CSG CEO Steve Cowell, and offered to e-mail the
document to those in attendance.
o Charlie mentioned that OFPC could tie into the stimulus funds to green
state buildings
o Corey Schoff mentioned that next Friday the Governor is supposed to
release his vision of how stimulus funds should be spent

 John Moore explained that the City of New Orleans is working on a proposal for a
Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance (SEEA) grant to create a public/private
partnership to run a citywide energy efficiency program. The City will be
competing with the state and governmental entities across the southeast for this
$500,000 seed funding. Whether or not New Orleans wins the grant, the
structure suggested in the SEA RFP will probably be the model DOE is looking for
when it gives the Energy Efficiency Community Development Block Grant
stimulus funds to cities. John’s office will be meeting with all city departments
and agencies that are eligible to utilize EE CDBG funds.

The meeting ran late and John and others continued discussion of stimulus funds
and the public/private partnership model.