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Committee reviews river cleanups, plantings and outreach; longtime DPW staffer Kurt Tribbett to retire
Summary
The Sustainable Battle Creek Committee presented photos and summaries of recent river cleanups, tree plantings and a DPW open house, announced a pending wellhead grant and a denied food-composting grant, and noted Kurt Tribbett’s upcoming retirement; the committee unanimously approved minutes from its July 28 meeting.
The Sustainable Battle Creek Committee used its Aug. 25 meeting to review recent volunteer-driven cleanups, tree plantings and outreach events and to convey administrative updates for the fall.
Bessie (last name not specified) of the city environmental staff showed a PowerPoint highlighting a Battle Creek River cleanup in which volunteers removed tires, a cooler and other debris from the river. Bessie said city staffers and interns from engineering participated and that volunteers covered multiple stretches of the river, reached Horseshoe Bend Park and unloaded collected debris there.
The committee also discussed recent plantings. Bessie said the department planted 25 pawpaw trees at the wastewater treatment plant in August and earlier plantings included roughly 50 fruit trees on Jackson Street. She showed photos of the planting work and volunteers, and noted volunteers used kayaks and mesh bags to collect river trash during a canoe cleanup event.
The committee reviewed outreach events including a Department of Public Works open house attended by city staff, Republic Services and local contractors; the open house included demonstrations, giveaways, an Enviroscape demonstration and a photo contest. Bessie said first-place entries in the contest will appear in the department calendar distributed later this year.
Kurt Tribbett, a long-serving city engineering administrator, is retiring; Bessie announced a retirement gathering scheduled for Sept. 26 at DPW. "I just wanted to share some pictures of Kurt and all the times that he has helped the environmental department out," she said. Committee members thanked Tribbett for his service; Tribbett said on the call that he has completed 26 years with the city.
On grant matters, staff said a wellhead protection grant decision is expected in October and that the committee did not receive a food-composting grant it had pursued. The committee also discussed an anticipated workshop with the city commission on Oct. 21 at 5 p.m. to introduce the group's sustainability work and greenhouse gas inventory findings; staff asked committee members to coordinate on presentation materials.
Public comment was not requested by any attendees during the meeting. The committee unanimously approved the minutes of its July 28 meeting; the motion was moved by Dee Chauvin and seconded by Kiona Ackley.
No formal policy ordinance or city commission action was taken at the Aug. 25 meeting; most items were informational or procedural and staff follow-up was requested for grants and the Oct. 21 workshop.
