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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 04/06/2005MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD Special Meeting 281 N. COLLEGE April 6, 2005 For Reference: Nate Donovan, NRAB Chair - 472-1599 Eric Hamrick, Council Liaison - 225-2343 John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Joann Thomas, Linda Knowlton, Gerry Hart, Glen Colton, Nate Donovan, Randy Fischer Board Members Absent Rob Petterson, Clint Skutchan, Ryan Staychock Staff Present Natural Resources Dept: Mark Sears, Terry Klahn, John Stokes, Susie Gordon, Daylan Figgs Guests CSU Students Anne Hutchison Public Comments None Review and Approval of Minutes: February 2, 2005: The minutes of the February 2, 2005 regular meeting were unanimously approved as written. March 16, 2005: The minutes of the March 16, 2005 meeting were unanimously approved as written. John Stokes introduced Daylan Figgs, the new Senior Environmental Planner in the Natural Areas Program. Figgs will focus on land management issues. He worked for Game & Parks in Nebraska and has a strong biology background. Agenda Review Mark Sears would like to add an agenda item regarding a land transaction for a farm lease. Budget Discussion John Stokes said we're in the planning process for 2006/2007, and reviewed the background budget information included in the packets. He said we're not planning to Natural Resources Advisory Board April 6, 2005 Page 2 of 7 ask for increases to the general fund budget. Even without the passage of the grocery tax initiative the City has budget and fiscal issues. We'll have to see how that plays out. • Colton: I would like more information on ZILCH. Where are the credits showing up? You should get the credit back, or it should go back into the general fund. You show the expense, but not the credits. • Stokes: We have 8 FTE's, when Sandy Hicks leaves we'll be down to 7.5. I'm not sure what will happen to the .5 FTE. • Donovan: Was her role Climate Wise? • Stokes: Yes, and she was doing some contractual work on sustainability. • Hart: Fifty percent of the director's salary comes out of the general fund, but 80% of the budget is natural areas. Whey doesn't it reflect the breakdown better? • Stokes: The theory is that I work'/2 time on general fund and time in natural areas. That's why its split 50150. In reality it could be closer to 60-70% in natural areas. • Hart: It seems it will probably continue to go that way, it should be in the mix. • Donovan: Has there been any thought about reflecting that truer? • Stokes: I hadn't considered it. • Colton: The development review planner, is any of that time funded through development review fees? • Stokes: No, that's all general fund. It's Doug Moore. His salary is all general fund. I'm not sure if somehow indirectly that might be the case. Current planning generates revenue from development review. • Colton: With new council members, and the scrutiny of this department we need to reflect who benefits from some of this, like ZILCH and an environmental planner who supports development review. I wouldn't be so adamant about this if there weren't so many attacks on the department. You need to show people what you're doing. • Donovan: On the general fund side, is there a way to determine what portion is program versus salary, like Rivendell? • Stokes: We can get a precise breakdown on that. • Donovan: Of the eight FTE's, it's important for Council to know the kinds of things done with the program funds. It would interesting to see, with two of those scenarios closing down Rivendell, if it really would have closed down. It's hard to determine the relative value of something like that. • Colton: Do we get revenue from the recycling? • Gordon: We get a 30% rebate. It goes back into the fund, and gets reappropirated. • Colton: Will that change with the new operation at the landfill. • Gordon: That remains to be seen. • Stokes: We think over some period of time we may see a diminishing return. • Fischer: One of the main reasons for Rivendell was for the multi -family people to have a convenient place to recycle. Apparently we've decided we wont require haulers to provide service to multi -family. The need will always be there. • Colton: When you try to get the diversion rate up, do you do calculations on how long that will extend the life of the landfill. • Gordon: The county doesn't know when they will close the land fill. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 6, 2005 Page 3 of 7 • Colton: It might be good information when we're trying to justify stuff. • Fischer: So, the department is saying we don't need any more money in the budget? • Stokes: We'd like to keep the money that we have. • Donovan: Are you keeping your head down? • Stokes: No, I don't think we need any more money. If we can keep our staff, there is only one area we'd want to grow over time. That would be Climate Wise and Green Building. We have Kathy Collier. She came from Smart Trips and is a marketing guru. Kathy is going full bore. Sandy was doing the technical work. We'll have to replace the technical skill. We'd like to spend more time on our green building initiative. It could grow over time, but we're not ready yet. We need to scope what we want to do, foundational questions. These questions tie into the identity of this department. We may need another meeting about that. To give you a glimpse of what I'm thinking about, we might want to split this department in half so that natural areas stands on its own. It would be helpful to break out the departments so they stood alone and people knew what they did. It's all in a visioning stage. Where will that go, maybe nowhere, but it all goes back to some of the questions you're asking me. • Stokes: The other thing we need to find help on is sustainability. If we can hire back Sandy's position we'll have enough horsepower. I personally think Climate Wise is critical to Clean Air endeavors. • Fischer: It's hard to see from looking at a pie chart what level of service we're providing now compared to previous years, to know if we should be asking for more money. We had one person on a''/z time grant, now we don't. I find it hard to imagine that we would go into a biennial budget cycle requesting nothing essentially. • Stokes: That's the reason Darin is asking the board to weigh in. If you think we should have a more robust green building program that would be a plausible recommendation to make. • Fischer: For Solid Waste Reduction, Council gave us a little bit of money to do things, to implement recommendations by a consultant. They gave us about 20% of what was needed to do those things, and as a result I don't know if we've really ever seriously addressed the things that were recommended. Do we have enough resources to keep Rivendell operating? What is the growth in salary and benefits doing to our ability to provide services? • Stokes: On the whole salary and benefits thing; that may be something the board has influence on, but I don't. That's something for the City Manager, ELT and Council. The impacts will certainly trickle down to our bottom line. • Fischer: In the past, the way we approached the budget, we worked collaboratively with staff to see what their needs are. It's not like the board can see something you need in your budget. I don't think initiating new programs is a smart idea, but on the other hand, other departments are not going to go in requesting nothing. Everyone will request increases, some large and some small. P&R always has millions of dollars. If you don't request anything, they'll look at NRD and say lets take some more money out of their budget. This department has never been very aggressive looking after their financial well-being. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 6, 2005 Page 4 of 7 • Stokes: Are you saying its hard to evaluate this because you don't have enough detail? The board has suggested a subcommittee. I think this memo from Darin is a little premature. We haven't begun to dig into those questions. We're waiting for direction. • Colton: Is there enough information for the budget committee to meet and look at? • Colton: We should talk in terms of program areas. • Stokes: Air quality has been pretty thoroughly addressed. The AQAB delved in and did a good job. It boils down to themes that are occurring in solid waste and environmental planning. • Colton: Increasing the diversion rate would be an important goal for solid waste. What do we need to do that? • Stokes: You could strongly encourage the City to make aggressive efforts. There's solid waste, development review, Green Building, Climate Wise. • Hart: What's the school bus idling campaign? • Stokes: We're working with the school district to see if we can reduce the idling somewhat. The school district has a pretty good program in place, but it's a problem for kids. It's a pretty major air quality issue. • Colton: The department should get a financial payback for the City going from 26% to a 50% diversion rate. • Knowlton: We need to come up with something the AQAB did. • Hart: This month we could identify the program priorities. • Stokes: We could do that in a short meeting. • Donovan: We'll set a budget committee meeting at the end of this meeting. Soapstone Naming Stokes briefly reviewed the naming policy. Knwolton: I like Soapstone Prairie Natural Area a lot. There's a benefit of it being known. People know exactly where it is. On the other hand there might be benefits to renaming it. In the press and in certain circles in town it's become a lightening rod. Thomas: I strongly prefer Soapstone. You're right, it has a nice alliterative quality. But, the main reason is the historic and cultural reason. With keeping the name Soapstone you honor the association that held the land for you be able to achieve what you did The historical, cultural and human element is important. I know most natural areas are named for what is there, but this one if different, it's special. I agree it's a bit of a lightening rod, but I really like the name Soapstone. Colton: I put in a suggestion that isn't on this list. The City needs to have a Kelly Ohlson Open Space. There hasn't been one person who has done more for open space. If we don't recognize him we'll be doing a disservice to someone who has done exceptional things. Other groups recognize those who have made contributions. Stokes: We had several serious suggestions from people that we name it after Kelly. We considered that. Nevertheless, the bottom line is we like Soapstone better. At some point in the future, maybe can name some feature. We didn't discount those suggestions. In the end we decided we'd like to keep Soapstone for the name. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 6, 2005 Page 5 of 7 • Fischer: My only problem is there is no soapstone. It was a misconception. Actually it's emblematic of people's lack of understanding of the resource there. • Stokes: That is the strongest argument against the name Soapstone. • Donovan:l thought we updated this naming policy after the Hazaleus naming. • Fischer: The City Manager never updated the naming policy despite numerous pledges. It would have gone to Council. • Stokes: I know there were big problems with Hazaleus. But, since I've been here we've used this process, and people seem happy with the names. • Donovan: I'm a little concerned that we will get a request to name a natural area after a person, and we'll have the same trauma again. I'd like to see if we can get what we worked on officially adopted, even if it's administratively adopted. • Stokes: I don't know if there is a product. • Donovan: We need to try to get ahead of that. • Knowlton: Wasn't this an issue with Bobcat Ridge? • Sears: The Pulliam's were going to require it, but we said no. • Hart: If Soapstone is still a lightening road, maybe we're not getting the word out. Maybe we need to do it on a periodic basis. We need to get the new Council people up to speed. • Stokes: We've hired an interpretive guide. She will be starting a program to take people to Soapstone and Bobcat. • Colton: What is the process if you want to bring forth a different name. • Stokes: Staff has a lot of power. If you don t like the name we're suggesting you can ask us about it. • Colton: Sometime I want to go to the mat for Kelly Ohlson Open Space. • Stokes: This property, or some property? • Colton: This would be the best. • Sears: I don't think there's anyone who doesn't want to name something after Kelly. We have talked about this at length, looking for something that would be appropriate. If we were to suggest Kelly Ohlson Natural Area as the name for Soapstone do you think we would get support from Council? I'm afraid it would become an embarrassment for Kelly. And we could make this more of a lightening rod. • Colton: You could be right for now, but other folks get things named after people they highly admire. • Donovan: It complicates things now that he's on Council. • Fischer: Kelly has frequently said he wouldn't accept a natural area named after him. • Knowlton: He is adamant that no natural area should be named after a person ever. • Sears: I would love to find something of significance to permanently recognize Kelly Ohlson for his efforts. We certainly recognize the value. We recognize we might not be here if it wasn't for him. Andrijeski Farm Mark Sears said this is 130 acre farm we purchased. The Amey's would like to continue leasing it. This is a one year lease with a one year option. They will lease approximately half of the farm. A small part has been cultivated. We may allow them to graze in a part Natural Resources Advisory Board April 6, 2005 Page 6 of 7 that is not included in the lease, prescriptive grazing. We do not own irrigation, they're renting dry land. Its in our best interest to keep a presence until we're ready to restore it to native grasses and plants. • Hart: What do you do with the money you get? • Sears: It gets appropriated back into the natural areas program. • Donovan: Will you be going through a naming process for this? • Sears: Right now its FH0104. We all still call it Andrijeski, but it wont be officially named that. Linda Knowlton made the following motion: Move that the NRAB recommend that Council approved the lease of 75 acres of the Andrijeski farm to the Amey's. The motion was seconded by Jerry Hart and passed unanimously. Other Business Stokes Stokes said there's an item on the Six Month Planning Calendar at the Study Session on May 10`h. It's a discussion of the Timnath Community Separator. The Town of Timnath has been really unhappy with our implementation of the community separators. The Town Board wrote a resolution and sent it to Council. Things are pretty stirred up in Timnath. We've decided that we'll have a study session with Coucil to talk about different issues, including Timanth's desire to grow its GMA. We need clear direction. • Knowlton: Did Darin request this, or did you? • Stokes: Both of us. Darin is concerned we made a big investment and wants clear direction from Council on how they want us to proceed. • Fischer: I'm astounded we don't have an IGA. The main reason we went through what Tom did was to get an IGA. • Stokes: It never got done. • Fischer: Do we have an IGA with Wellington? • Sears: No, there was never any discussion with Wellington, they weren't interested. • Donovan: I don't think we'd want to proceed with a divergence of thinking between staff and Council. • Fischer: This will be the third time we've gone to Council for direction. How many times do we have to go back to them? • Fischer: If you're having problems getting people to agree to conservation easements, lets buy the land. • Stokes: We will do that, but no one has bit on that either. • Cotlon: Can we see this at our next meeting? Three of us were on the City Plan Advisory Committee. We can provide some wisdom on how to act on this. • Stokes: I can roll out maps and show you the proposed GMA expansion. I don't want to talk in a public meeting about transactions we're trying to arrange. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 6, 2005 Page 7 of 7 Donovan Nate Donovan said there are posts going up south of the Spring Creek Trail between the trail, and the Gardens at Spring Creek. Mark Sears will follow up. Sears Mark Sears said there will be a Trails Committee meeting on Tuesday, April 19. Mark Sears said there will be a Natural Areas Committee meeting on Thursday, April 28. The meeting on April 20 has been changed to a special meeting so the board can make a formal recommendation on the Timnath Separator issue. Stokes said we'll have to come back and talk about the long range plan for Natural Areas. When Open Space, Yes! kicks in our accounting gets very complicated. We have to come up with an administratively adopted definition of restoration. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 8:10 p.m. Submitted by Terry Klahn Admin Support Supervisor