Healthy Sustainable Food Systems Initiative — Portland, ME
Date: 2014-03-28

CITY OF PORTLAND, MAINE
Mayor’s Initiative for a Healthy and Sustainable Food System

DATE: 3/28/2014
TIME: 10:0 AM
LOCATION: City Hall - Room 209
AGENDA
 1. Welcome and Introductions
 2. Review and approve notes from February meeting
 3. Review & follow-up from 3/19 food policy council discussion with Mark Winne.
 4. Summer Meals for Kids
 a. Update on summer meal program organizing efforts.
 b. Status update of LD 1918 - Resolve, To Create the Task Force To End Student
 Hunger in Maine.
 http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/bills_126th/billtexts/SP072901.asp
 5. Update on school lunch marketing research project.
 6. New report released: New England Food Policy: Building a Sustainable Food System
 7. Update on Food Hub Bill LD 1431
 http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/bills_126th/billtexts/SP051701.asp
 8. Brief updates and announcements on other Food Initiative efforts.
 9. Adjourn - Next meeting: April 25th 10:00am
 Minutes
 Mayor’s Initiative for Healthy and Sustainable Food Systems
 Feb. 28, 2014
 10:00 – 11:30, City Hall, Room 209


1. Welcome and Introductions
In attendance: John Nailor, Phyllis Reames; Jeremy Bloom, Hazel Onsrud, Kristen Walker,
Mehe Quinn, Susan McCloskey, Craig Lapine, Christopher Papagni, Deborah Train, Laura
Maylander, Daniel Wallace, Troy Moon, Jeff Edelstein, Sarah Lakeman, Ben Tettlebaum,
Molly Sauvain, Ralph Carmona, Jonah Fertig, Mayor Michael Brennan

2. Workplan priorities review: Tim led an itemized review of the Mayor’s Food Initiative
priorities for 2014, making note of who is leading each. (priorities document attached)

 2a. Policy Subcommittee - This first item on the priorities list received immediate
 action: Ben and Ralph agreed to provide leadership for a Policy subcommittee. Mayor
 Brennan asked that the committee pay attention State and Federal policy issues
 relevant to the committee as well as to identify policy and ordinance changes at the
 City level that the Food Initiative may have interest in. Ben and Ralph will invite Food
 Initiative membership to convene as the Policy Subcommittee within the next few
 weeks.

 2b. Composting - Jonah asked noted that promotion of composting as absent from the
 priorities document and that the Food Initiative has taken significant interest in this
 topic. There were suggestions of incentives that the City might provide for people to
 compost at their homes and businesses. Craig and Laura announced a composting
 workshop that Cultivating Community will host on March 11th. Mayor Brennan asked
 that we find out what would be helpful to boost the efforts of Garbage to Garden.

3. Urban Agriculture Committee - Sheep grazing pilot plan
Jeremy Bloom shared a draft outline of a plan being developed by the Urban Agriculture
subcommittee. The subcommittee is currently researching workable options for this pilot.
DRAFT outline attached.

6. Gorman Foundation funded Project
Craig provided an update on Gorman Foundation funded project to study why kids are not
currently participating in the school lunch program, and what types of messaging or marketing
might get them to do so. This is one effort toward the Mayor’s Food Initiative goal to increase
the amount of locally produced food in Portland’s School Food Service Program. Cultivating
Community is managing this effort on behalf of the City. A summary of the project will be
provided by Cultivating Community soon.
Policy updates
LD ­ 1353 An Act to Further Reduce Student Hunger. This was a bill meant to require school
districts with 50% or more students who are eligible for free or reduced lunch. The Mayor’s Food
Initiative had supported this bill and provided testimony when originally heard in committee. After
passing with strong support it was vetoed by the Governor and very recently that veto was
overturned.

LD ­ 1431 An Act To Support School Nutrition and Expand the Local Foods Economy. Ben
Tettlebaum provided an update on this bills status. The bill would provide grants and loans for
food hub development and support training for school food service workers. At the time of this
meeting the bill had not been sent to the full legislature. But did have a majority of the Ag
Committee voting ought to pass. Ben will keep the group updated on the bills status and
suggested that if there it does pass in the legislature it may face a veto from the Governor.

Next Meeting Date ­ Meetings will now take place on the 4th Friday of each month. The next
meeting is scheduled for March 28th at 10 AM.


Attached:
Priorities for 2014
Sheep Grazing Pilot Outline
Priorities ­ 2.28.14

  ● Establish a more structured approach to policy­related efforts of the Mayor’s Food
 Initiative.
 ○ Establish food policy subcommittee with charge to identify, on a rolling basis,
 local, state, and federal policy issues relevant to the purpose and values of the
 Mayor’s Food initiative.

  ● Achieve significant progress toward 50% local food in Portland Public Schools.
 ○ Gorman Funded research and pilot project on increasing number of purchased
 school lunches.

  ● Increase the amount of edible landscaping (fruit and nut trees) in Portland.
 ○ Public Services introducing more new fruit trees

  ● Reduce the number of people on waiting list for community garden plots in the City and
 ensure the waiting list is managed with a perspective of equity.
 ○ Complete work of community garden task force reccomendations
 ○ Identify space and funding to expand plots
 ○ Research program and policy models other cities use to encourage and support
 home gardening

  ● Achieve higher rank as recognized by “Let’s Move! Cities and Towns”
 ○ Assess current guidelines and practices regarding healthy and sustainable food
 service for municipally owned or operated food service programs.

  ● Improve functions and communication between food businesses and City Hall.
 ○ Convene a meeting of Initiative members, Mayor Brennan, City Staff and local
 leaders in the food business sector.

  ● Improve access to and awareness of supports for diverse entrepreneurs in the food
 system.

  ● Explore ways to preserve existing facilities appropriate for food businesses.

  ● Organize partners in Portland to continue increased participation in Free Summer Meals
 Program.
 ○ Convene a planning meeting in Mid March to in conjuntion with Connect­Ed and
 other stakeholders to develop a collaborative approach to summer meal
 promotion this spring and summer.

  ● Adopt indicators to help track and address food security in Portland
● Take actions that lead to improved access to healthcare and increased compensation for
 food industry workers in Portland.

● Increase communications, outreach, and engagement and increase diversity of people
 involved
 ○ Hold public forums, educational events and meetings related to specific priority
 areas above
 ○ Create a facebook page for the food initiative
 ○ Initiate a monthly email newsletter for the food initiative
 ○ Create and distribute a short report that describes the initiative and achievements
 to date.
 ○ Maintain and grow connections with other groups and coalitions and networks.

● Ongoing attention to and assessment of assets potential threats opportunities etc.

● Ongoing attention and commitment to Mayor’s Food Initiative values expressed in the
 work of each priority area.

● Ongoing efforts to connect existing resources and programs.
 Sheep Mowing Pilot Proposal
Using sheep or other animals, we propose that maintaining city­owned property can be done at a
lower cost than the current method of gas­powered mowing, and generally reduce the use of
fossil fuel maintaining Portland’s landscape. Using animals, the land is also naturally fertilized
without any harmful chemicals or additional amendments.

Additionally, there is noise reduction in avoiding gas­powered mowers creating more peace
within city neighborhoods. Having animals in view can also improve our connection to nature
and provide plenty of natural entertainment.

 1. Case Studies
 a. DC congressional cemetery
 i. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/nation­july­dec13­goats_08­09/
 ● mentions sheep on the White House lawn during Woodrow Wilson
 b. Public park in Paris
 i. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/world/europe/sheep­tend­lawn­outsid
 e­city­archives­in­paris.html?_r=0
 c. Turin, Italy
 i. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/07/italy.wildlife
 d. Mentions of multiple projects in the US
 i. http://globalnews.ca/news/783459/going­to­the­sheep­barnyard­animals­r
 eplacing­lawn­mowers/
 2. Proposed Location for Pilot
 a. Troy Moon proposes western cemetery.
 3. The Animals
 a. Lisa Webster, a local sheep farmer and interested stakeholder, willing to meet
 with us and discuss.
 b. Likely contract with someone to provide and manage the sheep mowing for the
 pilot.
 4. Finance
 a. Contract to be negotiated
 b. Current cost to mow the cemetery with gas mowers?
 5. Timeline/Steps for 2014 Pilot
 a. March ­ meet with sheep owners about project
 b. April ­ confirm location of mowing pilot, report on meetings with sheep owners
 c. May ­ sign contract with sheep owner
 d. June ­ begin pilot
 e. November ­ end pilot
 f. December ­ report on pilot success and cost savings, explore future possibilities
 6. Measures of Success
 a. Dollars Saved
 b. Public comment
 c. Health of soil (test before / after pilot)
7. Challenges
 a. Transporting sheep is not ideal. We hope to explore ways to minimize potential
 trauma to the animals, and integrate them in to the city landscape.
 b. Liability for the city
 c. Animal activists
2014 Marketing Research and Promotional Campaign to Build Participation in School Lunch at Portland
Public Schools (PPS)

The City of Portland recognizes that the quality of meals we provide to our school children is a direct reflection
of how important our families and children are to the future of our City. The Food Service Department of
Portland Public Schools endeavors to provide a majority of meals cooked from scratch using fresh, local
ingredients. Research indicates that high quality meals such as these will result in lower rates of obesity,
higher levels of academic achievement, and a range of other community benefits.

The School Food Subcommittee of the Mayor’s Initiative for a Healthy, Sustainable Food System; Portland
Public Schools; and the USM School of Business are engaged in a partnership led by Cultivating Community
and funded by the John T. Gorman Foundation in order to achieve three goals:

 1. To promote awareness that eating a school lunch enriched with healthy, locally-sourced foods is good
 for students, their health, and their learning outcomes.
 2. To generate funds for increasing the proportion of local foods in school lunch by increasing overall
 participation in school lunch by 15% to 65% by 2016. This requires a little more than 30% of the 49% of
 students who do not participate to switch over to eating school lunch.
 3. To contribute to the effort to increase the proportion of local foods served in PPS school cafeterias to
 50% by 2016.

 Steps

 A. March 2014. PPS data indicates that students entitled to free/reduced-price lunch eat school lunch,
 while only 3% of other students do. With the support of marketing research students at USM, we will
 reach out to students who do not buy school lunch and their parents and identify causes of
 nonparticipation. We will conduct listening sessions at which we will probe for student desires
 pertaining to the lunchtime environment, the social experience of lunch (what kind of peer experiences
 do students want to have during lunchtime?), and lunch on the plate (what are current student and
 parent attitudes toward the lunches available?). We’ll also solicit teacher feedback.
 B. April 2014. We will engage in a second round of testing via a survey instrument and subsequently
 develop a strategy and promotional messages aimed at retaining current lunch buyers while also
 increasing overall school lunch participation by 15%.
 C. May 2014. We will analyze the results of the survey, and, beginning in May 2014, we will test new
 approaches and marketing messages at target schools.
 D. Fall 2014. We will pilot a new marketing program and measure increases in school lunch participation.

 FMI: Lesley Heiser (lesley@cultvatingcommunity.org) or Craig Lapine (craig@cultivatingcommunity.org)
 (207) 761-GROW

Minutes
 Mayor’s Initiative for Healthy and Sustainable Food Systems
 March 28, 2014
 10:00 – 11:30, City Hall, Room 209

1. Welcome introductions of meeting attendees

Tim welcomed meeting attendees. In attendance were Kathy Savoie, Sara Schwartz, Lesley
Heyl, Craig Lapine, Meghan Quinn, Jim Hanna, Jackie Potter, Jeff Edelstein, Kristen
Walker, Jeremy Bloom, Kendall Hinkley, Ralph Carmona, Phyllis Reams, Dave Seddon,
Cole Nadeau, Kyle Molton, Tina Fischer, Ron Adams, Susan McCleskey, Espahbad Dodd,
Stephanie Pooler and Mayor Brennan..

2. Review and approval of minutes from February 28, 2014 meeting

3. Follow-up from 3/19 food policy council discussion with Mark Winne
 The group shared their impressions from the Mark Winne presentation and discussed the
 major takeaways. Mark stressed the importance of policy making in addition to
 community organizing and got the group thinking about the relationship between food
 councils and government. Members feel as though the mayor’s initiative achieves
 grassroots membership as well as having political leadership, which makes it a sort of
 hybrid between two models. Looking forward, the mayor wants to review the
 organizational structure of the initiative, identify strategic initiatives as well as set
 benchmarks. During this discussion, Jeff Edelstein of the Greater Portland Sustainability
 Council gave highlights of his organizations work and drew attention to the idea of
 “serial advocacy”, a term that describes any number of community groups operating in a
 silo and independently trying to advance their initiatives. Jeff would like to see
 community groups coming together to support each other, integrating and connecting.
 The group briefly discussed the concept of creating a plan for the initiative, but feel as
 though the plans should reside in the appropriate city department while the initiative stays
 focused on outcomes. It also removes the burden of financing from the initiative and puts
 it back onto the city department that oversees the action.

4. Summer Meals for Kids
 Tim gave an update on the summer meal program organizing efforts with Connect Ed and
 Mark Dixon. There currently exists a need for the coordination of site activity and
 increased participation. From the recent meeting the group felt that participation can be
 improved by better organizing the efforts of community groups who are involved in the
 summer meals program, by better coordination of activities that occur at the sites, and by
 better communication. There was mention of creating a Google calendar that would show
 what events are happening where, but the calendar does not replace the overarching need
 for there to be an actual person to coordinate the summer meals program. Dave Seddon of
 the Maine Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics said that there is a feedback loop taskforce
 in place that might be able to help the strategic plan for summer meals. During the
 summer, Opportunity Alliance serves about 1200 meals a day, and the City of Portland
 serves about 300, which is less than half of those students that are eligible. On a slightly
 different topic, Ron Adams held a local food showcase which approximately 500 students
 attended. The funding in part came from the USDA Farm Bill Grant which
 Representative Chellie Pingree has been working hard to make available.

5. Status Update of LD 1819
 LD 1819 was approved unanimously before committee and now moves to the Senate. If it
 passes the Senate it then moves to the House.
 a. Policy subcommittee chairs are Ralph Carmona and Ben Tettlebaum and are
 tasked with monitoring policies in progress.

6. Update on school lunch marketing research project
 Craig informed the group that this project is still in the research stage and has enlisted the
 help of USM business students. The current percentage of locally grown foods in schools
 is between 14 and 17%, with the goal being 30% by 2015.

7. Summary of New England Food Policy Report and the Food Hub Bill
 These updates are forthcoming.

8. Food Initiative Updates
 Kyle Moulton gave the D.C. update saying that Congress is moving into appropriations
 hearings and Chellie will be attending 3-4 meetings per week. She is working to get the
 farm bill money out the door, and was successful at getting the senior farm share funds
 released.
 Jim Hanna announced that the Cumberland County Food Security Council is now
 housed at Good Shepherd and he will continue on as staff until the end of August.
 The Maine Nutrition Council has an upcoming meeting on April 2nd at UMaine
 Farmington. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has a meeting at Maine Med on
 May 15 and has been writing letters of support.
 Slim Peace is looking for new non-immigrant members and their new session begins
 April 2nd.
 People were urged to get their events to Jeff Edelstein to be put on the Sustainability
 Newsletter. The deadline is the Monday before the first of every month.
 Urban Agriculture subcommittee chair Jeremy Bloom said the sheep mowing contract
 is in discussion. There is a Permaculture conference July 4th, 5th and 6th. There is also a
 Cultivating Community Workshop on April 8th. Jeremy asked for help writing policies
 that would assist low income people who want a community garden plot and also help
 those who don’t have access to land.
 Garbage to Garden is doing a city-wide clean up on May 3rd and wants to raise
 awareness for Earth Day.


9. Confirm date for next meeting: The next meeting is scheduled for April 25th, 2014 at
 10:00am.

10. Adjourn.