St Paul Climate Justice Advisory Board, March 2022 Minutes  

March 10, 2022; 6pm-8pm MS Teams meeting Audio only: 612-315-7905; Conference ID: 999 671 592#  

Land Acknowledgement: The city of Saint Paul is located on traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of Indigenous Dakota people. CJAB is committed to ongoing efforts to recognize, support, and advocate for American Indian Nations and peoples.   

Board members present:  

  1. Adri Arquin *  

  2. Audel Shokohzadeh 

  3. Dominique Diaddigo-Cash   

  4. Kathleen Bacigalupi   

  5. Kristen Poppleton   

  6. Louis Offstein 

  7. May Yang-Lee 

  8. Melissa Wenzel 

  9. Nick Martin *  

  10. Paul Barral   

  11. Robert M Blake  

  12. Dean Gale 

* Executive Committee Member    

** Co-chair  

City staff:  

  • Russ Stark, Chief Resilience Officer  

  • Carlos Albornoz, Constituent Service Outreach Coordinator  

Minutes 

6:00-6:10: Introductions, welcome members of the public   

6:10-6:15: Review February 2022 meeting minutes, approve this month’s agenda  

6:20-6:30 Youth Member and future Co-Chair discussion 

  • Youth board members Adri and Kathleen will be leaving CJAB this August to go to college. Russ asked for the board to start looking for possible replacements for these two. He also highlighted that only one of these open positions will need to be filled by a youth board member, there are no restrictions on the other position. 

  • Nick asked about age requirements for youth position. Russ responded by saying individuals from the ages of 15-18 

  • Janiece will also be stepping back for a period of time due to the birth of her baby. Kristen will be taking her place as Co-Chair.  

 6:30-6:40 Annual Report Update 

  • Annual report will take place April 20th  

  • Overview of annual report: 

  • Group Picture 

  • CJAB Charter 

  • Connections to Council 

  • Daunte Wright statement 

  • Line 3 

  • Topics and speakers so far 

  • Accomplishments 

  • Looking ahead 

  • Invitation to Council to visit CJAB meeting 

  • Melissa asked about possibility of getting word out regarding annual report. Russ recommended we do as well as recording meeting 

6:40-7:45 CJAB Future Topics Discussion 

  • Russ opened discussion by highlighting five key fields related to CARP that CJAB could focus on.  

  • Relieving energy burden, that being reducing the percentage of people’s income that is spent on energy. 

  • Job career and wealth building opportunities related to climate action.  

  • Reducing emissions from transportation and walking, transit, and biking safety. 

  • Hazard mitigation (urban heat island, flooding air pollution) and how to combat this 

  • Community emergency preparedness 

  • CJAB then broke out into groups to discuss possible future topics. 

  • Breakout groups discussed two questions first being 

  • What piqued your interest as to possible future CJAB areas of work 

  • Group one talked about how current world events are pushing people towards greener lifestyles and how to prepare our community to be best suited for that. Also being holistic and planning future initiatives through a climate justice lens as well as education and preparation for green jobs. 

  • Group two focused on discussing the importance of relieving energy burden and creating green jobs. More specifically they spoke about the importance of retraining other jobs in similar field to transfer their skillsets towards green jobs. Paul also spoke as to the importance of an emergency preparedness plan. 

  • Group three spoke about what they can do to be best support the cities climate work and being proactive in that way. They also highlighted the importance of reducing energy burden and having a preparedness plan. 

  • How can CJAB support these options: 

  • Kristen opened discussion around the second question by asking Russ what he thinks works best. Russ responded that by speaking about these things in CJAB meetings and reaching out to him directly that would be a great starting point. 

  • Dominique then spoke to how CJAB members can use their specific organizations to support CJAB work and about the possibility of changing over to in person meetings. Audel commented that a two-hour meeting in person might need to be shortened. 

  • Louis suggested that CJAB figures out a consistent way for Russ to bring possible future topics to the CJAB ahead of meetings so they can prepare before the meeting. 

7:45-8:00pm: Updates  

  • From City Staff 

  • Climate Action dashboard is progressing quickly, and they are looking for support from CJAB members 

  • EV Carshare network is going above expectations. 300 new members in the first month and higher usage than anticipated. 

  • Hillcrest development process ongoing and there is a possibility of creating a net zero carbon community there. 

  • From Board Members 

  • Louis proposed his idea for a way to create more unity in the city and the possibility of discussing this at the April meeting. 

  • May commented reminding everyone that a city-wide cleanup will be occurring April 23rd 

8pm Adjourn