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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 09/21/2005MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD Special Meeting/Work Session 200 W. Mountain, Suite A September 21, 2005 For Reference: Nate Donovan, NRAB Chair - 472-1599 Ben Manvel, Council Liaison - 217-1932 John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Clint Skutchan, Randy Fischer, Rob Petterson, Joann Thomas, Nate Donovan Board Members Absent Ryan Staychock, Glen Colton, Linda Knowlton, Gerry Hart Staff Present Natural Resources Dent: John Stokes, Mark Sears, Terry Klahn Guests Ann Hutchinson Agenda Review No change Public Comments None Review of City Managers Recommended Budget, John Stokes John Stokes presented a short overview of the recommended budget. • Skutchan: With regards to environmental compliance, if something came through that was large and pronounced, would Council allocate resources for it? • Stokes: Yes, if it was that big and critical we'd have to get the resources. It could be handled internally, or externally. On the Poudre River site we had several advisors to the City. • Skutchan: So, we're not saying it's not a possibility, it would just come through different mechanisms. • Stokes: We just haven't budgeted for it. Hopefully we wont have any more Brownfield sites. I don't know of any that we'll be dealing with. • Donovan: Outside of that project, was Margit's role in environmental compliance more in the nature of compliance of city operations? • Stokes: Yes. She would inspect the natural areas program in terms of how they handle hazardous materials storage. She kept us up to speed on the regulations. We ended up building a special building to house hazardous materials. Margit would inspect city facilities, and tell people how to comply with the laws. • Donovan: But not external to the City of Fort Collins? • Stokes: That's correct. It's funded by Risk Management, and will continue. It will make sense for it to be housed with the group in Utilities. It's kind of an experiment. • Stokes: Doug Moore will be shifted to Current Planning and not be in our budget anymore. Natural Resources Advisory Board September 21, 2005 Page 2 of 4 • Skutchan: Regarding the Solid Waste program and eliminating community outreach events. Your website is a valuable entity. There should be a possibility for trade value, in return for exposure. You can put a pretty penny on trade value, recognition. You could join events as a promotional partner. • Stokes: In the Clean Air Program there's a chunk of money for an outreach campaign around idling. We want to talk to people about that. SmartTrips will fund half of it. Marketing has schemed up an award program for people who fill out a form and participated in reducing vmt and idling. The grand prize is pretty cool, an eco friendly lodge in the Virgin Islands. We're hoping to get an airplane ticket. We found those sponsors, and we're looking for others. We're trying to stretch our bucks and partner with folks on those types of endeavors. • Skutchan: Brochures, and things like the Recyclone Times could be put in the Forum. • Stokes: We're putting the Clean Air ad in there. And, the Chamber has been great for environmental tips. There are a lot of venues like that. We'll be getting more creative. • Skutchan: It shouldn't be that hard. • Stokes: Thanks, those are good suggestions. • Donovan: I see you'll eliminate the computer roundup and compost bin sale. And, also the outreach, including booths. Is this due to the reduction of the recycling coordinator? • Stokes: The computer roundup we would have stopped, regardless. The County will now take them at the landfill center. We will direct people to go there. They're better equipped to handle it. The compost bin sale is a direct result of the reduction in force. • Fischer: What is the purpose? I see the rationale of moving people from general fund to Utilities, but I'm confused and puzzled of a reason for shifting people around that are in a general fund position already. • Stokes: I suppose you're referring to Doug Moore. Well, that was a business decision made in conjunction with Cameron Gloss, Pete and Greg. What Doug does every day is current planning. When he was in NRD I didn't feel like I was doing a great job of supervising him. That's what those people do. We, as an organization, felt he would be better served, and the public would be better served, being housed with the current planners. He comes every Thursday to Natural Areas Team meetings and talks about development. He asks the natural areas folks for advice, especially the biologists. We hope it will improve service. We'll have to see if it works. Its an organizational design change. Doug's supervisor will be Cameron Gloss, the director of Current Planning. • Fischer: Will he continue to attend Natural Areas meetings? • Stokes: Yes. Doug is constantly on the phone to people all over the city. Having him located in Current Planning won't change that. It will be more efficient to have him with the other planners. • Fischer: I have a concern that his direct supervisor is a person who doesn't know or care about the kinds of things that Doug is looking at. Currently he would get support from you, hopefully. The other question is what is the long term outlook for the Natural Resources Department? Have you sat down and thought about, long term, where this department is heading? Do we want to continue the downward slide toward oblivion, and dissolve the department? • Stokes: I would like to have that discussion at another meeting. It deserves a separate meeting, but if you would like to talk about it now we can. • Stokes: I have my own opinion and viewpoint. I've suggested some changes, fundamental organizational changes. The one thing I did suggest as a baby step was the Office of Environmental Services (OES). It did not get above the line. It didn't get funded. I would like to continue to have a dialogue publicly and internally about how we approach the future. Natural Resources Advisory Board September 21, 2005 Page 3 of 4 How do we organize this department to be successful? There are ways to do that. It will require a SDIC process to get there. • Fischer: As we farm more of our responsibilities out toward other departments I think one could make the argument that NRD is sort of irrelevant, maybe it should go away. • Stokes: It's not irrelevant, I'm just not sure its optimally designed for organizational success. The stuff we do matters, we need to keep doing it. I don't think there's anything to be upset about. I view it more as an opportunity to redesign the City organization a little bit. To do that is hard in bureaucracy, whether private or government. I would like to spend some time over the next year talking about that. I think it would be good to have the board engaged in the conversation. • Fischer: It appears some reorganization is implicit in the budget decisions being made. I don't know if its on purpose, or unplanned. • Stokes: I'm trying not to get ahead of myself here. The kinds of changes I'd like to see are more fundamental. Our budget is being reduced and we're moving some positions around. I think we ought to make some changes. The NRD might cease to exist. A different organizational structure that would combine a number of environmental services is worth consideration. Aggregating those services and functions into a single program would make the sum total of those activities more sustainable over the long haul. The presence of the larger organization would be a stronger model. • Fischer: I have another concern. As positions go away, they're not privy to citizen oversight. Doug's always been part of this department so he would fall under the NRAB. Now he wont be at all. We don't have any real say over Current Planning as we sit here in this board. Likewise the positions moving to Utilities. It basically adds to the lack of transparency in the city organization. • Skutchan; It seems to me we're more issue driven than department driven. I would disagree that he's now out of our purview. I hope that's not it. I would hope we would still be included and still have access as we would otherwise. • Stokes: I trying to think back over the past couple years. He was here talking about land use code changes. Other than that I'm not remembering anything. The board he goes to a lot is the P&Z board. He's there all of the time, but not the NRAB. • Skutchan: There needs to be a conversation about the board's roles. Is there something that should be done to address what Randy is talking about? It's important. • Stokes: If we had a different organizational structure, we'd have a different board structure. I don't know what's going to happen in the next six months. The NRAB will have to redefine itself a little bit. Thinking further, if we were to aggregate the environmental services we'd probably have anew board, or this board with anew vision statement. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud. • Skutchan: Are there conversations about moving different departments? • Stokes: In a pretty modest way. During the budgeting process we talked about the OES. We talked about putting all of the functions together in a new department. That was pretty complicated. So, I scaled it back to talk about a virtual OES. We wouldn't have to be co - located. There would be regular meetings and a web page. If you're a customer and you're looking for something about the environment its hard to navigate the city's web page and find what you're needing. My idea was to create a virtual team and experiment for two years. We'll keep talking about it. Frankly, we're just hoping we get through the budget cycle so we can work. Every day I still spend time on the budget. • Donovan: I understand the master planning for the Resource Recovery Farm. Are you envisioning the department will be out recruiting businesses? Natural Resources Advisory Board September 21, 2005 Page 4 of 4 Stokes: We will try to help in any way we can. That's John Armstrong's job. Donovan: Do you feel you're pretty well down the line with the study? Stokes: That was a great comprehensive first stab to gauge comfort levels. People seem to he pretty much in alignment. There's nothing prescriptive about the scenarios. We just have some buildings out there that could be used. We'd rather use them than have to tear them down, or sell them for salvage. It will take years for the site to unfold and become what its going to be. New Business Nate Donovan said he would like see how/if the board wants to address the issue of the DOW research facility for CWD being located next to the City's water treatment plant. Adjourn The board unanimously adjourned to a work session format at 7:00 p.m. Submitted by Terry Mahn Admin Support Supervisor