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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 11/06/2002I 0 MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE November 6, 2002 For Reference: Randy Fischer, NRAB Chair - 226-5383 Ray Martinez, Council Liaison - 416-2154 Michelle Pawar, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Kelly Ohlson, Nate Donovan, Arvind Panjabi, Randy Fischer, Reagan Waskom, Steve Ryder Board Members Absent Linda Knowlton, Phil Murphy, Don Rodriguez Staff Present Natural Resources Dent: Utilities: Mike Smith Guests K-Lynn Cameron Kari Trainer Meegan Fleeniken Mike Smith Jana McKennzie 3 CSU students Kristine Wyman Agenda Review No changes. Mark Sears, Michelle Pawar, Terry Klahn Minutes: October 2, 2002 Nate Donovan moved to adopt the minutes of October 2, 2002. Kelly Ohlson seconded the motion. • Ohlson: On page 4, change "don't focus", to "don't just focus on CO2". The minutes were unanimously approved. Fossil Creek Park Management Plan, Meegan Flenniken K-Lynn Cameron said this plan has already been adopted, and what we're looking at is amending it. Since both entities adopted this plan in 1998 we have added the Duck Lake Natural Resources Adv ry Board October 2, 2002 Page 2 of 9 property, and it needs to be included in the management plan. The changes are not big changes. The engineering department said we couldn't have access where we had proposed. • Ohlson: On a scale of one to ten, how much did the additional road impact the habitat? • McKennzie: Probably about 2. It's next to a high volume road already. My biggest complaint was the extra resources. • Ohlson: As you make the final tweaks, will City staff be involved? • Sears: Yes, we'll partner. • Flenniken: In the plan that was adopted there was a stipulation for an office building, now we're talking about adding a vehicle space. • Sears: Was the future visitor center and restroom part of the original plan? • Cameron: Yes. • Donovan: There's been great progress on the access. • McKennzie: It's an improvement all the way around. • Panjabi: I agree that this is the best place for access. I would be concerned about any other trails going around there. It's a small body of water. • Panjabi: What's the plan, a viewing blind in the berm? • McKennzie: We thought there could be two places. We might improve the vantage points if we come a little further down. • Panjabi: Again, I would stress the protection of the resources, rather than the user. • McKennzie: There is a potential future visitor center, the scale of which has not been defined. • Ohlson: No one is saying no trails or recreation. You have to be very careful. • Donovan: The ethics of buffer distances are one thing, the reality is another thing. • Fischer: These sites won't be manned all of the time by a manager. There will have to be a lot of design going into people management of this site, so the casual visitor doesn't go out and start walking around. It works best if that's established before you ever let the first person in. • Traynor: Regarding the education component the process was a site visit with staff, EDAW, and Marcella Wells. In September there was a meeting with other environmental educators in Larimer County. • Donovan: What is Marcella Wells' expertise and involvement? • Traynor: She managed the Environmental Learning Center, and has gone into private consulting. We brought her in to make sure we did the first one correctly. • Ohlson: I would suggest an emphasis on habitat, so that people connect the fact that they wont have wildlife if they don't have the habitat. The depletion of the bird species throughout the US is dramatic. • Traynor: We can accept comments on this until November 20`h. Please email any ideas to Meegan Flenniken. • Ohlson: I appreciate the fact that EDAW and staff pressed on the road issues. I also like the fact that we're involved and have a say on the education piece. I'm Natural Resources Advisory Board Is October 2, 2002 Page 3 of 9 comfortable with where this seems to heading. I would advocate the City to give more dollars on the educational stuff. • Cameron: The IGA with the City of Fort Collins says that we are joint owners. We have cost shared in the acquisition. What I want to propose is to cost share with us on the development of the property. We've been active in pursuing grant opportunities. It would be a great help to us to have the City of Fort Collins as a 50% partner in the development of the facility. • Ohlson: As one board member, I would urge the City of Fort Collins to come up with whatever dollars are needed. This is clearly a benefit to the citizens of the City. I'm not bound to the 50% either, the City of Fort Collins has benefited from the County residents and their tax dollars. • Donovan: I echo that. Does the cost of development include personnel for this project? • Cameron: If you're talking about fees paid to consultants, yes. We're not tracking the administrative costs. • Waskom: Would this include Duck Lake? What are you proposing? • Cameron: We're looking at phase 1, and phase 2. Duck Lake is phase 2. The Audubon Society, and other raptor groups are all looking for a home. We're putting that on the back burner. • Waksom: So you're not anticipating Fort Collins participating on that? • Fischer: This adds a new wrinkle, that the City would be a partner in the development of the park facilities. If it's going to be our money, do we want to re -look at some of the things that have been done by the County in the development of the park site? Are there some things we'd like to change? • Cameron: We're governed by the management plan that was developed by both entities. • Donovan: So the City has been involved along the way? • Cameron: The original one was a joint project. It's just this update of the amendment that we had to do before we could do construction. • Ohlson: I don't want to dismiss Randy's thought. Plans are altered all of the time. • Cameron: This project is an incredible partnership. We're sharing the same values, protecting the wildlife habitat, and visitor use. • Panjabi: I'm a little concerned about some of the pictures I've seen here, they show people walking to the lake. You're not going to have birds if there are people walking about. • Cameron: This is a dynamic ecosystem that we will manage adapt ably. We will do restoration and enhancement. If eagles start coming in and the trail is an impact, it gets closed. • Ohlson: What is the regional Audubon thing? • Donovan: The Audubon Society, Rocky Mountain Raptor, and the RMBO are having feasibility discussions about developing a nature center. One part of that is looking at the potential sites for it. I guess Duck Lake is a potential site, but there are many other sites. It's not being considered seriously. • Donovan: How will comments be submitted? Natural Resources Advisory Board • October 2, 2002 Page 4 of 9 Board members will send comments to Randy Fischer who will compile them and forward them on to Meegan Flenniken. Electric Energy Supply Policy, Mike Smith Smith reviewed the comments and suggestions provided by the Board at an earlier meeting. He explained which comments were and weren't incorporated into the plan, and why. • Ohlson: We need to expand on the usual definition of "cost of service". You won't always be here. It doesn't take into account the whole broad range of programs to encourage conservation. • Smith: We'll either define it, or leave it out. • Ohlson: Maybe we should start to define cost of service in a holistic manner instead of leaving it off. • Donovan: Do we want to take the boards comments and formalize those, rather than just be verbal at a meeting. If the boards comments get in there fine, but if they don't, it's a better process if they are written. Our comments are going to Council. • Smith: If we get to a sticky one I'll tell you when it probably won't get changed. • Donovan: This is no longer on for the November 22 study session. • Ohlson: Thank you for your role in delaying this. • Smith: There's no reason to rush something like this. • Ohlson: I need to understand something. We're not using the words block pricing. Where are we saying that without using the words block pricing? • Smith: It's very subtle, designing rates that encourage conservation. • Ohlson: If you retired tomorrow, how's your organization going to know that. I'm going to be easier to deal with if I know block pricing is heading down the path. • Smith We're comfortable putting in block pricing, or market based incentives. • Ohlson: As long as it's clear • Fischer: What about demand metering? • Smith: Demand meters for electric aren't actually real time. The large users are real time, but demand meters for electric homes aren't. • Donovan: We talked about that peak is due to residential air conditioning. It seems like we need to articulate in here something broadly worded getting at that peak. • Smith: Block pricing would be a good way to do that. Another thing we've looked at is basing pricing on customers average use during fall and springs, and then doing seasonal pricing for summer and winter. You get your base at one price, and when you start turning your air conditioner on, or your heat up, you have a seasonal rate. It doesn't take a special meter, and it looks at consumption. • Ohlson: Everyone in construction knows we're overbuilding air conditioning. Where in here does it say your resources will work to ensure we're not over building? • Smith: On the last page, number 9. • Ohlson: Can you work on more things to add, maybe flush out some examples so it gets focused on. • Ohlson: Under No. 2, it should be designing and implementation. A sentiment means nothing, what matters is implementation. Natural Resources Advisory Board • October 2, 2002 Page 5 of 9 • Smith: We'll add that. • Ohlson: It's appropriate to put in compliance. • Smith: In the regulation of the energy code it's a matter of Felix having enough staff. • Ohlson: I believe in public power, but what is the magic of the 25`h percentile? That makes it impossible to have environmentally provided power, and the block pricing that leads to conservation. Why can't you be competitive at 40%, or 50%? • Smith: There's no magic number. It's a number the Electric Board came up with. • Ohlson: You're losing the home team by putting in the 25`h percentile. Take that out and work with the general wording. • Donovan: When you look on the chart there's a fairly significant amount of room between where the City of Fort Collins and the competitors rates are. • Smith: I will go back and talk to them about that. The real issue for public power is No. 4. • Fischer: I've heard people saying that the 25`h percentile thing is a "fall on your sword" issue for some. • Smith: We have some staff who are married to the low rate. We have that discussion among our staff a lot. We're not all in agreement. • Ohlson: All of us need to adapt and evolve. The big one is No. 4, if we'll sign off on that why throw in any percentile? • Smith: XCEL was the key for us. We could say, maintain rates that are competitive and below.... • Donovan: Revenue neutral is something that either needs to be well defined, or better articulated. We can be revenue neutral, but we can build in money for the demand side programs. I want to be sure that this is articulated a little clearer. • Ohlson: I thought it was taken out. • Smith: It was eliminated. • Donovan: I'm concerned that the main rate structure incorporate this, under No. 6. I want to see us go toward rate structures where customers that want to chose an alternative rate structure can. But the programs that are driving the demand side management need to be reflected in the main rate structure. • Smith: We've had discussions about funding demand side management. The item on page 4 says identify programs and cost and come back to Council after that's done. We could say, here's a program, here's what it's going to cost, and here's what it's going to take. • Smith: On page 2, under environmental, where it said potential global climate change, we removed potential, and added more to environmental regarding habitat. • Ohlson: To me the environmental stuff needs to be fleshed out a little bit, using these energy sources will reduce the negative environmental impacts. • Smith: That's fine. • Panjabi: I would take it a step further, and also state that reducing demand, and consumption, in addition to using these alternative energy sources.... • Ohslon: I would prefer with the environmental impacts that we say what some of them are, wildlife population depletion, habitat destruction, air and water pollution. We should give examples of the negative environmental impacts. Natural Resources Advisory Board • October 2, 2002 Page 6 of 9 • Smith: We can do that. • Ohlson: Page 3, No. 5, why are we actively promoting DSM and renewable energy program? • Smith: That should be educating. • Donovan: As an organization we should be moving toward saying "will include without limitation". • Ohlson: Add block pricing in objectives for the future. • Smith: We could put it under No. 3. • Ohlson: I'd appreciate it if we could include implementing standardized approach for green buildings including regulatory requirements. We might be erring a bit on the side of brevity in this document. • Panjabi: I agree. I would like to see the building codes addressed. • Ryder: On items 1 and 2 could we change that to say current, or 2002, so there is some baseline data? • Fischer: Would there be any benefit to having intermediate goals? • Smith: We couldn't agree on how much and when. We're going to see how it goes. • Ohlson: I agree with Randy, but I'm comfortable with giving it a year. • Smith: We're working to get the timeframe down. Smith will be back at the December 4, 2002 meeting. Community Separators, Tom Vosburg Vosburg gave a brief presentation of the plan. • Ohlson: What is the process here, when does this go to Council? • Vosburg: We were hoping to wrap this up by the end of this year. That doesn't mean work would stop, this is a step in a longer process. • Ohlson: This doesn't talk about the fee simple purchase of property. • Ohlson: What is a ballpark figure of the vision of the plan? • Vosburg: It's dropped a lot, this isn't a vision, it's an assessment of reality. This has been framed as a study, not a plan. This is not about policy, it's about gathering data. Studies are informational, plans are policy documents. • Donovan: Does fee simple need to be in there for it to happen? • Vosburg: There are many tools. There's a lot of work. We should not look to this study to do those things. The policy work begins now. • Ohlson: It's not a small omission to not have fee simple purchases included. Why it's not in there is disturbing. You don't want to pay 80% of the cost of something and do huge givings. hi a nut shell, that's what I see this document doing. • Vosburg: I didn't mean to dismiss the issue as insignificant. My point is this is not a policy document. It's more providing the lay of the land. • Ohlson: We're going to pay 80%, and end up with something that isn't visually pleasing. I want the 100% acquisition on the table. • Pawar: We do want your input, it will be included. Your comments are valuable. The document is a study, but at the same time I understand your concerns • Ohlson: Council could pull out this study and say it's what we approved, we've seen that happen. Natural Resources Advisory Board r October 2, 2002 Page 7 of 9 • Donovan: I don't want that to happen. Could we use one sentence and say use all of the tools in the box? That doesn't get too specific for the purposes of this document. We may want to spend some money to prevent from happening what Kelly is saying. • Pawar: I hope you don't have the impression we don't want your input. We don't want you to think this document serves as the beginning of the policy for the community. • Donovan: We need to be able to communicate with you two about the process. And the board needs to understand the idea of the process. I went through a ton of stress trying to figure out how we were going to get the board involved in this. My mis- apprehension wasn't cured until I got this in my packet. I think we need a different way of communicating this other than staff to chair, or individual members. • Ohlson: There is so much emphasis in this study that we're going to get what we want by relying on the County's land use system. The County's land use policies are inadequate to protect community separators. • Vosburg: We need to re -read if it says it's the primary tool. We tried to describe all of the tools. It won't work if we rely on only those tools, but it's part of the process. • Vosburg: In terms of being equal partners, we must have a document that reads well. This isn't going to be a strong document that changes policy. It has changed Timnath's policy, they've adopted the separator in their plan. We really want to emphasize what this does, and what it doesn't do. It's done some good things. There's a clear picture of what can be done. • Fischer: How are you going to sell this to different entities? • Vosburg: We said what kind of outcome do we need from this document? We had this very specific discussion about do we need a policy project where we're partnering with the County. They said no, we don't want this to be a policy document. • Pawar: Rather than Tom and I trying to assert a schedule on you, what do you want? What do you think would be most effective? • Ohlson: My main concerns are that you're better off to spend 100% of the cost of the land to get what you want, than spending 80% of the cost and not getting the benefits. I'm also concerned that that there will be a reliance on land use policies that are inadequate to protect the separators. Those are very real concerns to me, there are going to be people who refer to this document. • Ryder: I don't think we need to debate the things we're debating. The separator will be done, it's already under way. This seems like a ridiculous amount of controversy for something that's almost a done deal. • Vosburg: This document won't establish that policy. We're not saying we prefer any one thing over another. It's not committing us. • Ohlson: Are we looking at a big enough picture there? • Vosburg: In this study area, this is it. If we don't get these, there's nothing left. • Fischer: Why is there so much space to the east of Fossil Creek Reservoir? • Vosburg: It's annexed by Windsor. • Fischer: It bothers me that adoption of the I-25 Corridor study will be one of the implementation steps. I felt there was a bit of coercion there. Natural Resources Advisory Board • October 2, 2002 Page 8 of 9 • Vosburg: It's a recommendation in that it calls for no development within a quarter miles of I-25. • Fischer: But it allows commercial development. • Vosburg: There are pros and cons. • Ohlson: It was clear throughout the I-25 policy that land use policies didn't have anything to do with the I-25 corridor. • Vosburg: That phrase polices should be edited out, it was land use design standards. • Fischer: I share a lot of Kelly's concerns. A lot of what you say does come through in this document. • Ohlson: There is a sentence in there that says that several indicators suggest this level of development is not consistent with community separators. That's a key phrase. • Fischer: What do we want to do as far as a recommendation? • Pawar: We're happy to ask for an extension. We can change the schedule • Vosburg: What about a virtual review process? I hate to slip the schedule with the State. • Donovan: This is the second time that we're jumping when GOCO says jump. We don't want our thirst for grant money to mean we're always going on their schedule, if the entities say this is not acceptable. • Vosburg: This is not GOCO, it's the Department of Local Affairs. • Ohlson: I would like to sit down and meet with you. • Vosburg: We need a process to receive edits from you. • Fischer: There's nothing in the acceptance of this plan that is going to preclude us from implementing separators? • Vosburg: We're not waiting. • Fischer: If that's the case I don't think there's any problem with letting the schedule slip. NRAB 2003 Work Plan, Randy Fischer Fischer asked for recommendations from the board about how to proceed with this. • Ohlson: I would like an answer to water testing; how often, what we test for. • Fischer: I don't have a problem with it staying on the work plan. Donovan: I would still like to figure out a process or agenda for a board retreat during the winter months. New Business • Ohslon: What's happening with the air quality monitor? • Ohlson: No one ever got back to me on the Oxbow thing. • Ohlson: There are fire hydrants, blue stakes, and big yellow things at Cathy Fromme Prairie. Is there something that can be done to camouflage them? Discuss/Review Action Log No changes. Future Agenda Items Natural Resources Advisory Board • October 2, 2002 Page 9 of 9 November 20, 2002: NRAB Conservation Easement Role Easements — Fossil Creek Wetland Private Developer Work Plan Pawar said she wants to give an update on the sustainability inventory, and sustainability in general. She will provide a draft copy as soon as possible. December 4, 2002: Fossil Creek Reservoir Open Space Management Plan Committee Reports Natural Areas: The committee will meet for a field trip on Thursday, November 14, at Riverbend Ponds to look at areas that will be affected by improvements to Prospect, and look at the Fossil Creek Wetland site. Solid Waste: Randy Fischer attended. The budget was discussed. • Fischer: An open space committee was appointed by Council. The first I heard about it was last week. It looks like it will be about three meetings. It would be good if staff was involved. • Ohlson: I consider all four members allies and friends. There's a problem with the process, it was horrific. • Donovan: If there is a representative appointed from the board the chair should be notified before it's done. We need to find out what's going on here. • Ohlson: It's not about the people appointed, they're four good people. But, the whole process is not good. Adjourn The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 p.m.