Committee Minutes

Municipal Buildings Subcommittee – March 5, 2008

Discussion on the Municipal Buildings and Facilities Priorities as written in the distributed document (attached):

There was overall discussion on thinking about who should have the task of carrying out or leading the recommendations. The committee agreed the first priority should be tasked to the City’s Green team.

The committee suggested adding a brief description of “Commissioning” to the recommendation to help clarify to those unfamiliar with the process.
Building commissioning is the systematic process of ensuring that a building’s complex array of systems is designed, installed, and tested to perform according to the design intent and the building owner’s operational needs. The commissioning of new buildings will be most effective when considered throughout the planning stages and as early as schematic design

The committee suggested adding another priority at this time to recommend the city adopt a “life cycle costing” budgeting system. This would be reflected in bid specs and would include most major building, infrastructure or equipment investments from vehicles to buildings to office equipment. Tasked to Green Team, including Finance Dept.
The term "Life-Cycle Costing" is quite broad and encompasses all those techniques that take into account both initial costs and future costs and benefits (savings) of an investment over some period of time.

The committee struggled with the membership of the City’s Green Team and decided that while there are some members who must be on – planning, inspections, . . . – the membership does not have to be listed in the recommendation and remain someone fluid. Tasked to Mayor’s Office.

There was some discussion of priority 4 regarding the audit of specific city facilities. It was decided there should be a phrase at the end of the current recommendation along the lines of, “and encourage other departments to proceed or take part in audits relative to their areas.” Tasked to Green Team/City Departments.

The committee suggested that instead of stating specific guidelines for building construction and retrofit that the inspections department would develop an informational sheet to be distributed with construction/permit materials that would highlight the advantages/disadvantages of specific energy saving methods.

The committee suggested expanding priority 6 from pumps for the wastewater and stormwater to a continued review of and an inventory of the city’s pumping systems to optimize performance.

Next meeting – Full Resource Committee – March 20

Adjourned.