Task Force Mission

Gathering Together

Ensure that everyone, regardless of mobility capacity, will be able to attend services and meetings at EUUC.

Living our Vision of  Just and Sustainable World

Add solar collectors and replace fossil-fuel powered equipment so that EUUC is powered without adding to global warming.

Nurturing the Spirit

Foster the joy of knowing we are living up to our values and inspiring us to fully support creating facilities that better support our values and mission.

News

3/7/2025

A friend reached shared that congregants did not know what projects “were on the short list” of the capital campaign to align our facilities with our values.

That makes sense.  There isn’t a short list yet.

So far, there is no long list.

The lists of projects don’t get decided by a committee or a person.  They are developed by the congregation.

I suggested that, when people express such concerns, it might work well to point people to the TWAE, where announcements of this project blog appear almost every week.

Ideas are listed here so we don’t lose track of them.

A bunch of new ideas came up during Aisha Hauser’s First Sunday seminar last week.  If you haven’t been coming to the First Sunday sessions, I strongly recommend you join in for the last two.  I’m afraid that the sessions have not been as well shared as they could have been, and it may be that most EUUC’ers don’t understand how crucial the sessions are for EUUC and for Unitarian Universalism.

NO BURNOUT

During her visit to EUUC weekend before last, Kay Crider referred over and over again to volunteer burnout.  A project like aligning our facilities with our mission is about as well designed to burn out volunteers and get people to quit the congregation as almost anything we do.

Let’s avoid that burnout.  Avoiding burnout requires dividing up the work so that no one ends up volunteered to do more than they want to do, and everyone can adjust what they are doing as things change in their lives.

NEXT STEP

As Kay Crider explained when she was here, the next step in the work of this project is to figure out what needs to be done, and line up volunteers for each part.

Here is what I see needs to be allocated to volunteers.  If you notice something is missing, let me know.  If something jumps out at you as what you would like to do, let me (or Charley, Rachel, Zoe, or Dan Ford) know.

Tasks

• Create and run a survey asking folks to make suggestions for how to better align our facilities with our values.
• Do more to let people know this aligning work is happening.
• Get bids and costs.
• Make a list of essential work that must be done (e.g., replacing aging furnace that is disintegrating on the West side of classrooms).
  • Notice the difference between must-do’s and might-do’s.
• Plan zoom meetings (two?) to collect more ideas.
  • When?
  • What happens?
  • Reserve zoom link
  • Attend/facilitate
  • Write up
• Plan congregational meeting after a Sunday service to collect more ideas and discuss ideas.
  • When?
  • What happens?
  • Line up volunteers for parts of the work
    • Facilitators
    • Childcare?
    • Write up results
    • Greeter
    • Put Chapman Hall back in order for service
  • Reserve Chapman Hall
  • Announcements
• Plan additional in-person small meeting (one? more?)
• Write up the results of surveys & meetings to share with congregation

2/27/2023

Back on January 28th, I listed our congregational “stands”.  (I’m sure we will replace that term with something less ablest.  “Covenants” or “Commitments”, maybe?)  Back then, I misread our website and omitted our commitment to reproductive healthcare justice.  Sorry about that!  I can imagine facility changes for supporting our commitment to reproductive justice.  We may soon find that we have a new congregational commitment to vaccination.  All commitments to medical treatment may lead us to hosting patients from other states.  We might want to host Seattle Visiting Nurses to provide COVID and flu vaccinations.  Who knows?  It’s up to us.

For another project I’m working on this week, I summarized our congregational commitments.  It might be helpful to share it here.

We [members of EUUC] talk about the differences in our religious beliefs.  We trust each other to consider honestly and responsibly what is good and what is true.  We have reached some conclusions we agree on.  We have covenanted to resist money’s corruption of U.S. elections; to resist white supremacy; to promote a low carbon economy; to advocate for reproductive health care, including abortion; and to promote acceptance, inclusion, and equity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer, and questioning people.

– Nick

2/26/2025

On Sunday, Kay Crider shared one approximate schedule for how we will do this project of better aligning our facilities with our mission and vision.  Her idea was that we would take most of 2025 to figure out what we want to do.  Do we want to replace our natural gas furnaces?  Do we want to install solar on the roof?  Do we want to show we welcome mobility-challenged teens?  And mobility-challenged grown ups?  Do we, as a congregation, feel that our facilities do not deserve any investment?  That’s a possibility too.

As ideas come to you about what ought to be done, email them to me, Nick Maxwell, and I’ll post them here.  This is not social media, so we’re not going to have toxic troll-fests writing nasty things.

Last week, Pam Iverson sent a proposal for making the giving garden on the west side of the parking lot accessible.  Pam wrote up her proposal and shared it with me, Charley, Zoe, and with Dan and Cynthia on the Board.  Pam’s proposal is below.

This is a very helpful proposal.  The Board might even decide to fund some of this right away.

Do not feel that you have to write up such a complete proposal.  For example, you could email me, “Add flaps on bathroom stall doors to cover up the peep crack.”  (Someday, if you’re curious, ask me about class and peep cracks in America.) That would work too.

Here’s what Pam sent:

Proposal to Expand/Enhance the EUUC Giving Garden

Goals:

• To produce crops that can be taken to local food banks
• To better use the space at EUUC for gardening (i.e., different crops in different places, taking advantage of light, water, etc. in conjunction with the plant’s needs)
• To introduce EUUC kids to healthy foods and where they come from
• To make an accessible garden
• To encourage stewardship for our land
• To provide activities for all ages, together and independently
• To provide activities that enhance people’s physical and mental health (research shows gardening improves the wellbeing of those with autism, depression, ADHD
• To increase the beauty of our grounds, including seating for gardening and other activities

Plans will:

• Increase the amount of food produced
• Make use of the different environments at EUUC with appropriate plants/interventions
• Lengthen the growing season
• Engage all ages
• Build community through activities in and about the garden
• Beautify EUUC grounds
• Provide people with limited mobility opportunities to be involved
• Introduce more members of our community to gardening and new plants
• Introduce pollinators tour grounds

Task that can be completed by members of the Congregation:

• Weed the garden and the playground.
• Patch landscaping cloth, especially under the playground.
• Add more bark.
• Make a root barrier along the fence line
• Chop a pathway along the fence line – this would:
  • Enable people to harvest blackberries in the area
  • Prevent plants from crowding and potentially damaging the fence line.
  • Allow the fence itself to be monitored and maintained.
• Straighten the logs along the parking lot so the garden footprint can be expanded.
• Prepare the space for the transfer of raspberries.

Plans:

• Our understanding is there is a plan to remove invasive plants from EUUC grounds. Include the area west of the garden for this undertaking.
• Expand the size of the garden.
• Salvage the quality soil in the garden as we prepare the area for pavers
• Lay a grid of PEX pipes (flexible, durable, will not freeze) for watering the garden and outlying planters (raspberries, new trees, and accessible beds).
• Create better edging for the beds.
• Make the garden more physically accessible (pavers between and around the beds, benches along the raised beds, wheelchair-friendly beds.) Thyme or other plants between the pavers.
• Fence in the garden (goat wire is an attractive material for this)
• Build several gates in the perimeter fence.
• Create a zonal watering system. Could timers be solar-powered??
• Plant additional blueberries to expand the time they can be harvested. We have an early variety — get middle and late-season varieties.
• Add more pollinators and perennial vegetables, e.g., rhubarb and kale.
• Move the shaded raspberries to a sunnier location, e.g., the east side of the shed.
• Make raised beds in the area where the shaded raspberries were. Plant salad greens there – they can be harvested for more of the year (using a greenhouse lid).
• Make wheelchair-accessible beds that could be placed over the storm drain/water rights of way. They can be moved if there is a need to access the pipes.
• Plant fruit trees to provide shade and fruit, e.g., by the picnic tables beside the playground. Tall figs are a good choice. Plan to prune annually, as fruit grows best on new wood.
• Learn if kumquats grow in this climate. If so, plant a kumquat tree (shade, crop).
• Make wood toppers for the fence, with rail tops which could support small garden boxes
• Encourage RE program to spend time in the garden. E.g., harvest brambleberries on slope south of old RE building. Container gardens for the children, e.g., for strawberries or salad greens. Ongoing conversations with Alanna will articulate plans and a timeline.
• Monthly garden gatherings – e.g., potlucks, invite relevant speakers.
• Consider planting in the parking lot dividers – rosemary??
• Plant sales to raise money for the garden.

Costs:

• We have not figured out itemized costs, but some things could be done over time.
• The biggest need is for more volunteers to help with both the creation and the maintenance of this garden. Perhaps food in exchange for worktime could help, e.g., pizza parties, potlucks, to honor volunteers.
• Fencing: Goat wire, wood for corner fence posts.
• Creation of trug beds and accessible beds – we have access to some raised beds we will need to assemble, also have access to good plywood, need additional supplies to create them.
• New perennial plants – blueberry bushes, rhubarb, new trees.
• New drip hoses, PVC or PEX pipes, landscaping cloth, timer system for watering the garden. This, and the fence, are the highest priorities.
• Can dedicated donations be made to EUUC for the garden (as is happening for the Car Camp, another project on our grounds)

Thank you, Pam!

– Nick

2/24/2025

A question came up in yesterday’s meeting about federal support for solar and energy efficiency improvements.  This would be support from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2022.  I have been watching both of those as part of my work for the last two years.  Neither of them were supporting non-profits until last year.  Last year, it became possible to participate in what was called, “Direct Pay”.  Direct Pay was like the Inflation Reduction Act for non-profits.  For taxpayers, the Inflation Reduction Act provided rebates that reduced their federal income taxes.  Non-profits don’t have such a thing.  Direct Pay filled in by promising to pay the non-profits what they would have gotten as a rebate if they were private citizens.

There were some concerning aspects to Direct Pay for EUUC:

• Direct Pay was supposed to support non-profits serving traditionally overburdened communities in census tracts whose citizens were at-risk or mostly overburdened.  EUUC does provide the car camp, but Edmonds and Esperance were not recognized as at-risk or overburdened geographies.
• The work that Direct Pay would help support had to be completed in one year and then documented and proposed to the federal government for support the following year.  That meant that, to obtain funds for work done in 2024, we would have had to get some sort of bridge loan to pay for the work, and then apply for Direct Pay in 2025.  (At least that’s what was presented at EPA seminars about Direct Pay.)  Guarantees of Direct Payment were not available, so the bridge loan had to be provided with the understanding that reimbursement might not be available later.

In January, the IRA and BIL were programs that Trump claimed to have shut down.  It may be that none of the possibilities of Direct Pay will now result in reimbursement.  If the Federal Government does not honor their suggestion that they might provide the reimbursement, it might be possible to sue the money out of them.  That seems unlikely, given that they never promised the money to begin with.  They only promised that you could apply for the money in 2025.

When will new money be available from the Federal Government?

Not until after Trump is no longer president with a very-supportive Congress and Supreme Court.

What else might be available?

Last year, with the help of EUUC, Washington State defended the Washington State Climate Commitment Act.  The Climate Commitment Act collects between $1 and $2 billion each year to fund the transition to renewable energy.  Washington State (specifically the Department of Commerce) is still working out how to use those funds.  Some projects have already been funded, but the planning is ongoing.  There is a good chance that Washington State will be leading supporter of renewable projects in the next 2 or 4 years.

So should we wait until someone offers us grants to do this work?

In my home, we put in a heat pump and solar nine years ago.  At the time, there was State funding to support that work.  From then up until last year, there was nothing much available for us.  My bet is that EUUC is in a similar situation.  If you want to wait until some government wants to chip in on renewable upgrades, I bet you’ll end up waiting a long time.  And it’s worth considering whether it makes the most ethical sense for us to use such funds when other communities and regions have fewer advantages than we have.

– Nick

2/23/2025

Today after the service and a wonderful Youth-Group lunch, we heard from our congregational consultant Kay Crider.  Kay shared that we are at the outset of a discernment process about making out facilities better support our mission, vision, and ethics.  In the next months, we will share a survey or two with everyone and have an in-person meeting for people to share what their dreams are for how EUUC could better support what we want to do and what we want to be in the world.  There will probably be zoom meetings as well: not everyone can make it to the site.

The discernment process will leave us with our vision for what we want to do.  The next step will be for Kay to come back and talk with people about how much they are willing to support the vision.  With that tentative commitment, we will review and revise our plans to fit our resources and then the actual fund raising will start.  Kay reports that it goes well to have the capital-campaign fund raising done at the same time as the annual stewardship campaign.  We can aim for doing a joint campaign in early 2026.

A benefit to collecting the funds in 2026, is that we’ve got everything wrapped up when our next settled minister shows up.  Kay reports it is really hard for a minister to juggle launching a new ministry at the same time as collecting pledges for a capital campaign.

2/9/2025

Last month, Charley Beltman and I accompanied Tom Balderston as he toured our facilities to see what our opportunities were for weatherization.  During the tour, I took some pictures to show what is happening above Chapman Hall.  There is a bit of an attic up there.  Here is what it looks like:

You can see that there is plenty of insulation up there.  The problem is how it is arranged.

Insulation works like a wall or roof for smoke.  Differences are that you can’t see heat as it flows up and that heat goes through other things like wallboard.  If your insulation is spread evenly everywhere, the heat can’t escape.  If you have insulation in one spot, and not in others, the heat will flow up and around the insulation, escaping out where the insulation is missing.

At one point, we had better spread insulation.  The insulation was never spread well (as you’ll see below), but things got worse as repairs were done.  There is a regular challenge that all home owners face: when a repair person fixes or updates electrical or plumbing, they have to pull the insulation out of the way.  Most repair people are not going to then put the insulation back, so they make a large hole for heat to escape out of, basically undoing all of the work putting in the insulation to begin with.  You can see that in the picture above with the bat of insulation upside down.

Here’s another picture probably over a light fixture.

And here is a large uncovered area.

Here is an area area with the sheet rock of the ceiling directly open to the air of the attic.

I mentioned above that the insulation was never well installed.  Here’s what went wrong.

Chapman Hall was built with paired ceiling joists.  Everywhere there is a joist, there is a two-inch gap and then another joist.  When the insulation was installed, it was not added to the gap between those joists.  The result is that the entire ceiling is a heat sieve: it slows the heat, but doesn’t hold as much in as you would expect, given how much insulation we bought.

Why does this matter for aligning our facilities with our values?  The better insulated we are, the less energy we spend heating our spaces.  That reduces the demand on our electricity utility.  Our utility is going to go through a tough transition from having cars and some heating handled by gasoline and natural gas to having everything run on electricity.  Not a big deal.  They know it’s coming and they have plenty of time to prepare, but our insulating makes things a bit easier for them.

AND CHEAPER for us.  We can buy less in the way of heat pumps and then we’ll buy less electricity.

So we probably want to fix the insulation.  That will take labor, but won’t require buying a ton more insulation.  We have a lot already.

– Nick

2/3/2025

This month and throughout 2025, we will be exploring what projects we want to do to align our facilities with what we believe in.

It can be easier to revise things than to start a first draft of a plan.  For that reason, the Aligning-our-facilities task force will provide a first draft of what might be done.  This first draft is the absolute opposite of written in stone.  It is what might be called a “discussion document”.   The expectation is that it will change, and maybe change completely.  It’s just to get the discussion going.

So far, the task force (Nick Maxwell, Charley Beltman, and Zoe Coolbaugh) has not created this first draft yet.

Here are some of the kinds of things that people have asked for.  They are the kinds of things that might go into such a first draft:

• Heat pumps and cancelling our natural gas
• Solar panels
• Parking lot revisions to allow for someone who uses a rollator to park and get into Chapman Hall
  • Currently, we have concrete paths between the parking spaces, but there is no handicap-accessible ramp at the end of the paths, or between cars, and pushing a rollator on the gravel does not work.
• Accessible bathrooms
• Something to deal with the inaccessibility of the loft
• A charging outlet or two in the back parking lot for members and for car campers; charging outlets for employee parking (something every employer should be providing)
• Better car camper facilities
  • Maybe a small heated emergency space to allow campers to get indoors in extremely cold weather
• Complete double pane windows
• Fixing and adding to the insulation
• Revised toilet stalls to upgrade away from the American style of needing to be able to peek in on people in the the stalls
• Heat recovery ventilators
• Some solution to the problem of groups meeting in the evening in a room away from the doors and not wanting the doors unlocked and unattended

Are there projects you hope we will consider as we settle on how we want to better align our facilities with our values?  If so, let Nick, Charley, or Zoe know about it.

2/1/2025

In addition to our congregational stands, EUUC shares documentation about our values and mission in three webpages:

• Our Values
• Our Mission & Vision
• UU Principles and Sources

The “Our Values” page starts with this:

Our principles, values, and beliefs are deeply intertwined, with much of our focus centered on living our social justice values. We encourage sustainability in our congregation and our personal lives.  We have divested our investments in fossil fuels, and moved our financial accounts to a community bank. Our congregation welcomes people of all races, ethnicities, sexual identities, and abilities. We believe that by living our values, we can transform both ourselves and the world.

1/28/2025

EUUC is considering what to do as we prepare our facilities to better support our values and our mission.  This is a time for you to share what you hope for.

Our mission is:

Gathering Together,

Nurturing the Spirit,

Living Our Vision

of a Just and Sustainable World

Some of our values (but not all) are documented in our congregational stands:

• LGBTQ+ Justice & Equity
• Global Warming and Climate Justice
• Racial Justice
• Money In Politics/Democracy

We expect to take 2025 for discernment to explore our thinking and commitments, to support a capital campaign in 2026, and to update our facilities in 2026-2027.

This page is a log what is happening with updates on our progress.

1/26/2025

Nick Maxwell shared this report with the EUUC Board of Trustees.

The report provided a copy of the Task for Charge that was approved by the 2024 Board of Trustees, and this update on steps so far and next steps:

Steps so far

• So far, the task force includes Nick Maxwell (primarily focused on getting natural gas out of the building), Charley Beltman, and Zoe Coolbaugh (primarily focused on ADA).
• Charley and Nick met with Tom Balderston to review the facilities. Tom is a building energy auditor. Tom has volunteered to provide a set of recommendations about what should be done.
  • A highlight was that the insulation of the ceiling above Chapman Hall and probably elsewhere is set up for holding heat like a sieve for holding water – slots and open spaces are provided for the heat to flow around the insulation.
  • The transformer that serves EUUC will need to be replaced.
  • Some of our natural gas appliances are getting close to, or past, their recommended lifetimes.
• Charley and Nick met with Kay Crider, and Kay is scheduled to come help EUUC get launched on this work.
• It would be ideal to have someone with architectural experience on the team. Nick has reached out to Nancy Gladow to ask whether any of the new members are architects.

Next Steps

• Get this log that you’re looking at right now going, and start sending updates to the TWAE.
• Kay Crider is coming and meeting with many people the weekend of February 22nd.
  • Kay is a congregational consultant who helps congregations as they think about capital campaigns, mission, vision, leadership, or values.