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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 10/26/1999MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE AVE. October 26, 1999 For Reference: Eric Levine, Chair 229-5225 Scott Mason, Council Liaison 226-4824 Brian Woodruff, Staff Liaison - 221-6604 Board Members Present Eric Levine, Raymond Sons, Nancy York, Harry Edwards, John Schroeer, Jim Dennison Board Members Absent Chirs Kavanaugh, Mandar Sunthankar, Staff Present Natural Resources Department Brian Woodruff, Terry Klahn, Lucinda Smith, Aaron Fodge Guests Sonja Bisbee -Wulf The meeting was called to order at 7:04 Minutes September 28, 1999: • Schroeer: Page 3, next to the last paragraph: change; "It is happening, but he's not totally comfortable with the contract" to read " The Department of Health is working out the details of the contract". • Levine: Page 4, end of CO Redesignation discussion: Add discussion on which VMT numbers would be used. The minutes were unanimously approved as amended. Review and Update Action List 1. By November meeting 2. Completed 3. Will email to members (except Schroeer) if any material becomes available. Schroeer suggested the chair of the board attend that meeting. Levine will call Karen Weitkunat to see if he can get additional information. Review Council six-month olannine calendar • November 16 — Cities for Climate Protection • November 23 — Boards and Commissions; Campus West Subarea • January 11 - Mason Street Corridor Agenda Planning • November— Air quality criteria for development review TDM work plan revision 2000 Workplan • December - 2000 Air Quality education campaign Short Discussion Items Smoking Vehicle enforcement — pilot project Brian Woodruff told the board members that the City is are going to try to increase enforcement against smoking vehicles as part of a federal grant. It may work in the pattern as the City and County of Denver, where Health Department employees spot vehicles and write down license numbers and locations. The Health Department staff then looks up the name and address and sends a summons. The summons can be crossed out if they show up and make an appointment with an inspector for a free visibility inspection. If the vehicle shows clean, the summons is waived. We will probably use City employees as spotters. Discussion • Levine: John says the worse smoking vehicles aren't on the road very long. We're not necessarily looking for billowing smoke, we're looking for light emissions. • Schroeer: Did you get with the City of Denver to look at their codes? It would be a good idea to get with the folks who are actively involved to hear about pitfalls, and how to better manage the program. We've already made those contacts. • Dennison: Thought the City had a number you could call to report smoking vehicles, what do they do with the information when they get it? It goes to John Schroeer, then it's sent to Denver, to the Department of Revenue and then back to the Department of Health and they send out a letter. It's a friendly, informational letter, there's no follow-up. Is there any positive effect? We like to think so. Is there any way to make it enforceable? No, because there's not a trained investigator. Book Review — Union of Concerned Scientists Consumers Guide to Effective Environmental Choices Brian Woodruff said that in his opinion it's a very good book, and passed out some excerpts. He said he feels they've done a real service for people who are concerned and care about how their own activities affect the environment. They said there's too much energy wasted on trivia. They identified leading environmental problems affected by consumer choices, and prioritized actions that American consumers could take. Five of the top ten or eleven are related to transportation. They looked at the whole life cycle — driving and the impact of creating the car and disposing of the car at the end of its life. We're thinking about taking some of these actions and putting them into our marketing campaign for next year. Discussion • Levine: It's "do good" instead of "feel good". • York: Maybe we should prioritize our own work and not worry about the smaller things. When we work on our work plan, we can choose transportation. Packet item number 5 — Eric Levine Levine referred members to packet item 99-10-05, a memo from the NRAB to City Council reaffirming their budget priorities. The City Manager has finalized his recommendations to Council. Council has had one session on this and will probably have another one. Levine said that he feels that in the future if AQAB recommendations are cut, and members feel they are important, that another letter should be sent to Council. Raymond Sons made a motion to send a letter to Council reiterating that the AQAB feels these items are important and deserve to be funded. The motion passed unanimously. Brian Woodruff and Eric Levine will look at the previous letter and work together on this. Harry Edwards said that several months ago this board made a recommendation to Council supporting the northern by-pass route. Council has referred the issue to the voters. We may want to consider doing more, informing the voters about the position taken by this board. Discussion • Schroeer: Is it appropriate for the board to try to sway public opinion? It's consistent with the by-laws. • Levine: I would say do it. I feel that most of the original recommendation is good. What we voted on is a little different from what will be voted on in the election. • Sons: We're dealing with an election issues that's coming up right now. We should express an opinion, reaffirming our stand. If we wait, we miss the election. Sonja Bisbee -Wulff said that Kyle will be writing an article and suggested someone from the board call the Coloradoan. • Schroeer: This ordinance is strong. It specifically says we don't want the truck route in town, to figure out a way to do it far north of town. Our board position should remove the fine points, we agree with the concept, but not get embroiled in the fine details. Recruitment of potential board members John Schroeer asked where the recruitment of new board members is? Woodruff responded that the deadline is November 1, with appointments to be made in December. New member(s) would attend their first meetings in January, 2000. Eric Levine is going to call Chris Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh has been absent for three straight meetings. OLD BUSINESS Cities for Climate Protection Lucinda Smith said she is pleased to come back with the final draft plan and resolution. She said she will go over changes in the plan since the board last saw it, and will also review the resolution. She said the changes are summarized in the packet materials, and are a response to citizen and board comments Smith said there has been a reorganization of the plan into three categories; 1) Existing, 2) New, and 3) Pending. The plan has been reviewed by all City Service Area directors, and has received a green light to go to Council. The plan and resolution were taken to the City Manager, who requested some modifications to the resolutions. The City Manager requested the target reduction of green house gas be moved to a "whereas" clause. He felt Council was perhaps divided on the issue of a target. Discussion • Levine: The way this resolution is written, the language doesn't enable or adopt the plan we developed over the past year. It's two steps removed from any commitment what -so -ever. The City Manager has complete power, he's directed to "consider". After speaking with others, they felt they liked the plan, but wanted to see it enabled. We came up with language that is a little different. • York: We need it to be stated strongly. Our recommendation needs to be compelling, they can water it down later. • Sons: I agree, the language should direct the City Manager to implement, not just consider. • Dennison: The City Manager has been given flexibility in the measures. We're putting more money into transportation and roads, maybe we need to think about putting more money into reducing VMT and other measures. • Levine: According to the worlds climate scientists, this is the number one problem facing the next century. Nature will not be kind. • Dennison: There is more science to be learned about this subject. • York: I would like to see every management team set up a phasing in of the goals, an incremental implementation plan. • Levine: We worked hard and carefully on this project. Lucinda did an incredible job. We're left with an excellent start. Flexibility is fine, but if everything is "shall consider" or "may" we won't make necessary progress. Depending on what action the board takes tonight, I will let the City Manager know there are concerns, three out of the four boards who have looked at this think the resolution should be stronger, but I can't guarantee any change. • York: Move for adoption of Eric's version as our recommendation to Council. • Edwards: Point of order, this action is out of order. It's not appropriate to vote on something we haven't seen before this evening. • Levine: It's not out of order, we are to look at and discuss and vote on important issues. This is the City document with a couple of changes. Mainly, the word consider is changed to implement • Edwards: My objection stands, it should have been in the packet if you wish to have us vote on it tonight. • Levine: It got dropped off today and printed for distribution. • Edward: My objection stands. • Sons: We do have the resolution in the packet, and we are asked to consider whether we wish to make any additional comments prior to November 16. This is our last opportunity to do that, I suggest we have more to do than simply accept or reject as written. Modification should be within our bailiwick. • Dennison: I have read the previous version and this one. I feel comfortable with them. If someone objects with specifics let's talk about them, or lets have a vote. • Edwards: That's not reasonable. I will once again state my objection to the procedure. In order to override the careful work with a modified statement, it's appropriate to have it in advance and be able to study side -by -side. That courtesy was not provided and I would tell you I don't intend to support the motion. • Edwards: I'd like to ask Lucinda for her comments on the proposed changes. My personal preference would be to see changes along the lines of Eric's changes. I do have a concern, there will be some Council members, reluctant to approve. I would think the ideal situation would be to find a consensus. • Woodruff.• I hesitate to interpret the job of the City Manager, but he's in loose communication with the Council members. He's applying some judgment in making the changes. • Sons: We are the third board that has raised some misgivings about this document. The board voted on the following motion: Move that the AQAB adopt the version of the resolution passed out by Levine as it's recommendation to Council. The motion passed with five votes in favor, and one member abstaining. • Levine: We get the agendas of the various boards, but we don't get the most important things. The NRAB was carrying the flag for us. There are always good suggestions and things are brought up. This is a matter of connecting the boards, we receive a lot of the same presentations. We can try to make this happen. • York: I would like a copy of the AQAB statement to go to the NRAB, Transportation and Electric Board. • York: It would be great if the articles included in the packets have the date, source and page numbers on them. Eric Levine and Woodruff will work jointly to produce a cover letter to Council/City Manager stating the AQAB supports the concept of climate protection through green house reduction. The board met and reviewed the proposal and would like to see the suggested changes implemented. AIR QUALITY SURVEY UPDATE Aaron Fodge apologized to the board for getting this to them later than originally proposed. He stated that the board needs to understand some the limitations in doing these cross tabulations. The software is old and the majority of the cross -tabulations had to be done manually. I attempted to find a trend by grouping the majority of responses. We found that in some cases the years lived here impacted the trend, but I wouldn't call it something we would base decisions on. There were slight trends, but very rarely found one that was strong. Within zip codes, the 80521 zip code seemed to stand out more than others. Discussion • Edwards: What do you think are the main "take home" points of the study? The most powerful are the general questions. Also, the opinions that people find air quality is not improving. People recognize there is a problem and there will continue to be a problem in the future. • Sons: One compelling statement is that people overwhelmingly feel that air quality will be worse in five years. I feel the best bang for the buck is to focus on cars. It surprised me that people think industry is a minor cause of air pollution They know it's the car. • York: Hope we get a lot of exposure from this report. I'll definitely use this information. It will help with marketing and conducting surveys. • Edwards: Would like to thank Aaron and Lucinda for the study and the presentation. Adjournment: The meeting adjourned at 9:35 p.m.