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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 10/18/2006MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD Regular Meeting 200 W. Mountain, Suite A October 18, 2005 For Reference: Linda Knowlton;,NRAB Chair - 223-9328 Ben Manvel, Council Liaison - 217-1932 John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Alan Apt, Glen Colton, Nate Donovan, Linda Knowlton, Rob Petterson, Liz Pruessner, Clint Skutchan, Ryan Staychock, Joann Thomas Board Members Absent None Staff Present Natural Resources Dent: John Stokes, Judi Vos Utilities: Bob Smith, Susan Strong, Carol Webb, Marsha Hihnes-Robinson Guests Jack Chen, CSU Student Ann Hutchison, Chamber of Commerce Meeting called to order at 6:00 Agenda Review Donovan said he would like to discuss 2007 legislative policy to be considered by Council. Public Comment There were no public comments at this meeting. Approval of minutes: Staychock said he had sent comments which were not received by City staff. He stated that he would like to receive hard copies of the minutes as in the past. Knowlton suggested continuing for a few more months receiving the minutes electronically to conserve paper and for efficiency purposes. Corrections can be made to the minutes prior to the meeting saving time during the meeting. Staychock had the following changes to May 17, 2006: • Page eight on May 17's, 2006 the sixth bullet should read there are "four" issues, not "fore" issues. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 2 of 15 • Page eight, twelfth bullet should read solid waste that "Nate" chaired, not "Dave" chaired. A brief discussion followed over the types of corrections to be made to the minutes. It was agreed that the substance should be accurate, names correctly spelled and any omissions should be added. Staychock used an example of an omission from the September 2CP minutes. He had commented that he wanted to make sure there was a process in place for the Subarea Plan that people can go into the process and challenge issues, but that didn't make it into the minutes. Knowlton asked that staff respond to the person that sent comments saying they had been received and the changes would be made. If the person sending the original email does not receive this response, they need to follow up with it. Staychock made the following motion: Move that we approve the minutes from May, June, July and September, 2006. Apt seconded the motion. The minutes were unanimously approved. Update to Stormwater Master Plan by Bob Smith Smith gave a brief background on the scope of the project. When the City first adopted the Stormwater Master Plan in 2004, they identified two basins that needed additional work: Boxelder Creek and Upper Cooper Slough. An Alliance has been formed consisting of CDOT, City of Fort Collins, Wellington, Boxelder Sanitation, Timnath, Water Conservation Board, along with a few others. A Technical Advisory committee and Financial Advisory committee were also formed. There will be a two step process — one is the adoption of the master plan and an IGA once plan has been adopted. This project overtime would cost a total of approx $73 million over time. Boxelder Creek There were five alternative plans of which they have chosen #5-Optimized Storage and Conveyance. Alternative #5 includes optimizing the upstream storage to minimize the need for diversions below the I-25 culver crossing. There are three phases to this project. Phase 1 - The project would intercept flow coming out of Coal Creek and put it into Clark Reservoir. Purposely don't have any improvements along Boxelder itself in an attempt to keep the creek as natural as possible. We have kept the same amount of flow in Boxelder creek but they have eliminated the entire overflow. Wellington benefits from the work on Coal Creek and the City of Fort Collins and Larimer County benefit as well. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 3 of 15 Phase 2 — This work is left up to the local jurisdictions. Phase 3 — Funding The funding would consist of many sources: General Fund, Existing Stormwater Utility Funds, New Enterprise Funds, Grants, FEMA Pre -disaster Mitigation Grants, CWCB Low -interest Loans, and Bonds City plan supports the preservation of Boxelder corridor and keeping it as natural as possible. Upper Cooper Slough: This is the second basin in Master Plan Update but it is very different than Boxelder Creek. When the master plan was adopted, they adopted Lower Cooper Slough but did not adopt anything for Upper Cooper Slough. This is to provide guidance for new development. There is not an existing drainage pattern. There need to be some outlets. The area is north of the urban growth area and part of the County. The recommended plan of improvements was developed to provide cost-effective solutions to mitigate existing damages and to mitigate the potential for future damages caused by new development. The improvements include: • North Poudre #6 spillway modification; • Sod Farm detention storage; • No 8 Outlet Canal improvements • Colorado and Southern Railroad diversion structure; • Anheuser—Busch regional detention pond modification; • Black Hollow outfall channel and Barker detention pond; • Culverts at Vine Drive and Copper Slough; • Cooper Slough Bed/Bank Improvements Following a brief discussion Smith suggested that once the Board has had time to digest the material, he would be happy to come back and answer questions. • Knowlton: Would you be looking for a recommendation from us. • Smith: If you ,would like or if you want to offer comments. We are open to whatever you prefer. • Staychock: If we were to invite you back, if there are any other materials it would be helpful to have them ahead of time. • Knowlton: I think this is something that we should give advice to council. • Staychock: It's a huge issue. • Smith: We don't have anything scheduled with Council at this time. • Knowlton: Keep in mind we meet on the third Wednesday of the month; if you get something on Council's calendar we could need a month's lead time. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 4 of 15 Poudre River Floodplain Regulations by Bob Smith In 2000 the City adopted flood plain regulations for the Poudre River. Since that time regulations have been adopted for the rest of the City and the flood plains. As a follow up to the Poudre River, when the East Mulberry Corridor plan was being put together by the City and the County, one of the issues that came out of that were that the City and the County had different flood plain regulations. They would like to have the City and the County have the same regulations. Right now if a property gets approved in the County, is subdivided and platted, and then gets annexed into the City, they can't build on those lots. They sat down with the County and came up with eight criteria they would like to have the same. Smith showed the Board a presentation on the Poudre River Floodplain Regulations discussing at length those eight criteria: • Product Corridor • Dryland Access • Mobile Home Replacement • Elevation related to LOMR-Fill • Freeboard Level and Floodway Rise • Floodway Modification • Critical Facilities in 100-year floodplain • Critical Facilities in 500-year floodplain • Smith: We are scheduling an open house November le, talking to property owners on the East Mulberry corridor. Have a study session for November 28l' council to give update and expect some direction. We are tentatively on the Council planning calendar for Jan 16a` That's the Poudre River Flood plain regulations. I guess the question I have is following this discussion, after you've had time to digest this would you like me to come back and answer other questions you may have? • Skutchan and Staychock both asked that the materials be sent ahead of time. • Smith: What additional types of information would you like to see? I know there is a question about the demographics of the area inside the product corridor. We can break that out into public and private. • Skutchan: For me one of the key issues would be to show how these different regulations/identifications match up with the project area going away and the compromises being struck, how will all of the regulations fit into that? The transitions of the enforcement as you change the areas you are enforcing them on. A clear diagram on that? • Hilmes-Robinson. Looking for the zoning that the City has imposed. • Skutchan: Basically going back to the page with the differences, why are we wiping out that project area and what are we replacing it with? • Knowlton: The product corridor. • Skutchan: The impacts that it has overall in going back. • Hilmes-Robinson: Do you want the acreage? • Staychock: I would like that. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 5 of 15 • Skutchan: More of a corollary between what was in place and how those were being enforced to what is now in place and how those are being enforced. • Apt: Trade offs in number 5. • Knowlton: After the study session maybe we can get with Bob. You will probably know better what changes might have occurred. • Staychock: We need to advise council before items go to their study session. If they will advise council it should before study session. What does everyone think about that? • Smith: We basically use it to present topic and ask what they would like to see before you consider this. • Knowlton: I think there are too many unresolved issues. • Smith: We would come back and do another round of meeting with the Boards and Commissions so you can have your final recommendation. You really don't want to give your recommendation before a study session because Council may say we really don't like this, tell us about this one. • Staychock: That is our function to advise Council on issues so that they can be more educated at their study session. Am I right or wrong on this? • Knowlton: In some cases things go to a study session when they are worked out. This seems to have some unresolved issues left including the one about the 100 year flood plain. I think it would be premature for us after this meeting tonight to make a recommendation. • Staychock: I agree 100%. • Donovan: So the question is weather we address it here or in November. • Staychock: Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. I think we should try to ask council what they expect. • Donovan: The question is in this case if we can come up with a recommendation that makes sense. • Knowlton: Should Bob come back to see us in November and would he have anything different to tell us? • Smith: There are some questions here I would like to respond to. I would be happy to come back. • Staychock: That would be great, and then I can have time to read the material. • Skutchan: I think just a quick up date and we read through our packets with additional questions. If we can make recommendation, then go for it. If we don't feel we have enough at that time. • Petterson: To the extent we make a recommendation before the work session, it doesn't have to be a fully formed. We are okay with most of it but we have concerns in this area and we encourage you to ask a lot of detailed questions or whatever. I say put some time on our November agenda to discuss this. • Stokes: If the Natural Areas is going to go out and try to buy something from a land owner, and we take part of it out of a regulated flood plain or flood way changes the value of the property. Some of these pieces don't have any access as far as I can tell. It's hard for me to read the map but in a lot of areas it doesn't make a difference at all Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 6 of 15 because of the physical characteristics of the property they can't develop there anyway. • Donovan: Are you talking about the gravel pits. • Stokes: Yes, Bob what is that one called down south by the Resource Recovery? • Smith: The PIO pit? • Petterson: That is irrelevant to the.100 year flood plain. • Staychock: I hope there is some reason, some impetus that Smith and his staff are spending time on this. • Smith: The area that has not been done is along the Poudre. What came out of this is that we have different flood plain regulations and like the land use plan, can we come together. That is really why we are doing this. • Colton: I would like more information on the hazardous materials part of it. What is the danger, restriction, what kind of damage can occur? What is the potential danger, if not done by regulation, can land owners be required to carry some sort of liability insurance so the government doesn't have to pick it up the cost. That is always the balance, more regulation protects the public. But if the private party doesn't have to take care of the costs from the damage that caused, that's not fair either. • Petterson: There are the financial considerations and there are the health considerations. • Colton: And the Natural Resources implications. What if a bunch of stuff washes down the river into our natural areas? • Skutchan: That is where I was going with that also. I wouldn't mind if you have anything on that but also the flood plain modification standards and how that impacts those areas. Stormwater Quality Program — Susan Strong The City is doing their Annual review of the Stormwater Permit. We are currently in the 4s' year of 5 year permit. We will renew in 2008. We have a MS4-Muncipal Separate Storm Sewer System. This permit is City -Wide and is required by the State under the Clean water Act. CSU, Transfort, WWT Plants all have separate permits. Purpose: Falls in Line with Clean water Act to restore and maintain the integrity of water. CWA Goals & Policy o Eliminate the discharge of pollutants into navigable water. o Provide for the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and provide for recreation on the water. o Prohibit the discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts. o Provide Federal financial assistance to construct publicly owned waste treatment works. o Develop area -wide treatment management planning processes to assure adequate control of pollutant sources in each state. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 7 of 15 o Develop technology necessary -to eliminate the discharge of pollutants into navigable waters, waters of the contiguous zone and the oceans. o Develop programs for the control of nonpoint sources of pollution and implement these programs in an expeditious manner to enable the goals of the Act to be met through the control of point and nonpoint sources of pollution. Benefits of a Stormwater Program o Meet Regulatory Requirements o Reduce Flooding o Improve Water Quality o Prevent Erosion o Preserve Biological Populations o Reduce Infrastructure Maintenance Costs Six Minimum Measures o Public Education o Public Participation/Involvement o Illicit Discharge Detection & Elimination o Construction Site SW Runoff Control o Post -Construction SW Management o P2/Good Housekeeping Benefits of a Stormwater Program o Meet Regulatory Requirements o Reduce Flooding o Improve Water Quality o Prevent Erosion o Preserve Biological Populations o Reduce Infrastructure Maintenance Costs o Improve Aesthetics o Protect Riparian Areas o Increase Property Values o Educate the Community o Sustainable Infrastructure The mission is not only to comply with the permit but to ultimately pass the compliance to the environmental stewardship. We want to meet goals but we are looking at what we can do beyond that. NRAB Direction/Focus • Knowlton: Clint, you were the one that wanted to talk about... • Skutchan: First of all although I raised the question, I don't think it's just me. wanted to make it clear that it is not just me that mentioned this. • Knowlton: You are the one that mentioned it. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 8 of 15 • Skutchan: I'm not the only one that brought this up; I think it is for the good of the Board as a whole. • Staychock: I think you are right. I support you 100%. • Donovan: I guess I'm confused with what the goal of this conversation is because I thought we covered it thoroughly the last time. We came up with subcommittees. • Skutchan: Going back through my.records I don't know that we ever completed the subcommittees. I've tried to proceed forward with the Environmental Economics meeting but I can't get but two people to attend. It's hard to request an expert's time to come speak to two people. I would like to look at if they are doing the subcommittees, maybe we should have chairs or task force or whatever we are working at doing is that we include those educational pieces as shorter agenda items during the meeting. I would really like to think it is not just my opinion. We started talking about it one night, it got to warm and people wanted to leave. I've got notes hear that are incomplete so I don't know why people think they are complete. We had items on a meeting on April 5`" that we never completed. This is just a short list. • Staychock: I will take some of the credit. I have been disappointed with our actions/inactions for the last year. I don't think we are stepping up to the plate and I think we are failing the people of Fort Collins when it comes to advising City Council on Natural Resources matters. The first example was when certain Board members ask for items they would like to discuss we don't see them. For example, Nate brought up legislative agenda up last month; it was in the minutes but not on the agenda. Another example... • Skutchan: Policy plans for six months • Knowlton: I have no recollection of that. • Staychock: There was talk about the Mason Street Corridor trail. Maybe we are fitting things into regular meetings now but not taking action on them. Tonight was a typical study session meeting that would have been had on a Tuesday study session meeting. This year we aren't doing that. On other meetings we would do memos to Council. How many memos have we sent to council this year? • Knowlton: Three or four. We have half the program we had then. • Staychock: We have the full Board that we had last year. I don't think can defer to staff and say they aren't doing their thing because they are operating on a super limited budget. That leaves enough room for us to provide leadership on behalf of the people of the City of Fort Collins for Natural Resources issues. Whether they are on the agenda or not. I just don't see any action happening and it's really embarrassing. I'm sorry to be that frank about it. • Knowlton: We talk at every meeting about agenda items for upcoming meetings. We make lists and not every item we discuss is going to be an action item. Sometimes it's just going to be information and that is the way it should be. • Staychock: I disagree, we need to step up to the plate and start advising Council on Natural Resources matters. Even if they are not on the future planning agenda, it is our responsibility as a Board to provide leadership on items that Council is not aware of. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 9of15 • Apt: Maybe we should have a running list of things that we want to discuss with potential outcomes. • Knowlton: We pretty much do. I always write down at the bottom of every agenda. We put them on the list when it's appropriate. • Staychock: There is a step missing after the discussion. Maybe we should start writing and drafting our own resolutions and ordinances, something that facilitates Natural Resource leadership in the City of Fort Collins. • Apt: Why don't we get specific? We had the discussion on mercury having to do with US power plants. I would like to see the actual research data that proves that. There is energy in general. We had Phil Friedman for leadership at one point. • Staychock: Is it right for us to nudge Council... is it in our privilege as a Board to draft ordinances and resolutions? • Apt: We can draft memos recommending that they look at issues but we as a Board can't present one. • Donovan: If they agree with us, Council then directs staff. • Petterson: To the extent there are items likes this ... they need to be brought forth. Is it that we don't have a good understanding? It would be useful if we have a long term agenda. If you or I had an item that I would like to see on there then I could propose getting it on there. • Donovan: This Board used to have a running action item list that we would put things on and take things off as we dealt with them. • Petterson: We would want to identify the action items. We would all see that and could say that's not satisfactory. You said we had that previously; it was just a document that came in the packet? • Colton: We had a six month planning calendar like Council does? I guess I see two things, one ... there are some things that have slipped by us that have gone to council that we should have weighed in on like they are doing the Downtown River project next week at work session and we haven't seen anything on that. • Stokes: Kathleen Bracey did an hour long presentation on that. • Colton: I missed that. Did we send a memo? • Stokes: I don't remember if the Board did a memo on that but she did do an hour long presentation. • Colton: I can't give specific examples right now but there are some things that went to City Council that we missed. • Petterson: How difficult is it for support a website for our general use. I'm not necessarily asking staff to maintain it. • Knowlton: Why don't we start by putting a list the end of the minutes every month? We can start tonight. • Donovan: Need something we have access too. • Stokes: I think it would be hard for you to have access to the city server. • Knowlton: Okay, why doesn't a board member take that on to be responsible for the list? 0 Staychock: I will do that. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 10 of 15 • Apt: I like the idea if we attached -one of those to the end of the minutes. Any agenda items will have potential slot to go with it. Every time we have an agenda this will come with it. We can comment on it at the end of every meeting. Compare it to the City Council calendar. • Knowlton: Our agendas are always going to be a mix of looking at our own list of issues and seeing what is coming up on the Council planning calendar. • Petterson: I agree it needs to go out with minutes but it needs to have a life of its own. If someone brought something to Ryan, he would need to update that. • Stokes: Why don't you let us do that, Judi is taking the minutes now and is here all the time. Make it easier on yourselves; you can keep the running tally? • Staychock: How about I just do it and will forward to Judi each time. Let me run a draft by everybody. I'll be the point of contact. You guys can keep it in case I miss a meeting. I'll try to keep everybody up to date on it. • Apt: Let's start plugging things in to dates. If it is just a planning session, we can get the minutes and see what was discussed and if we have anything to add could we not then give them our input before it goes to Council. That is what we talked about with the item tonight was to do exactly that. • Petterson: So have we moved to what we think the content will be. Are there items we want on the agenda? • Knowlton: This I asked for last time. The North College Update coming up on November 28d' Action — 2nd item on our November Agenda. • Donovan: What about the Poudre Plan? Do we want that on our agenda so we can take action on, • Knowlton: We can take action on that like Alan says. • Stokes: By the way it has limited to no environmental impact. It is really a street scape design project. • Staychock: How about the Natural Resources Wildlife Management plan. • Stokes: Hopefully we will bring that to you guys in December. • Skutchan: My hope is that maybe it will address some of the questions I have. • Stokes: The one question you have about the fence, I don't think anybody has the answer to that. • Skutchan: That is just one minor question. Actually there are several components to that which I brought up. Wildlife interaction within the City, different corridors within the City, the interaction with wildlife around the City, impacts of disease between human and animals. • Stokes: It really helps me if you have specificity with your request in terms of your topic. If you can get really specific, hopefully I can find somebody with the expertise because we don't always have that expertise on our staff. • Apt: Energy issues, we have talked about mercury but what is going on with the Utility as far as planning for future power sources. There are rumors that they are going to do another unit of Rawhide. What about solar, wind? Are there things we can do to preclude us from having to build another coal powered plant? • Stokes: It is a gas fired unit they are going to put in. It is peak power. • Colton: Can we get around Fossil fuels. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 11 of 15 • Petterson: Do we want to get someone in here regarding to have the conversation about the tradeoff to adding more capacity or do we want a report on the peak gas fired thing. • Apt: We want to hear about the peak gas but also the long range plan. • Stokes: Can I go through this because I have a list. o Resolution of Phil Friedman has been pushed off at the request of council. There wasn't much data about where we are right now with respect to greenhouse gas emissions in relationship to the 2010 goal. Our staff agrees with that and we need to do some homework before getting back to the board. We are doing some data collecting on that right now. We would like to bring that back to the board probably in January. That would be coming from Lucinda Smith. • Donovan: If we do it in January, we will miss the Study session. • Stokes: I'm not so sure we are going to be ready by January 9a' but we can certainly do it in December if we are ready with the data. o Wildlife Management Plan — I would like to bring that in December. We are hoping to take that to Council in January. o North College Subarea Plan — we would need to do that November 15, we'll have Clark Mapes come in. o November — I got a phone call from Mark Easter who has been working on a small group of people working on Glade. They are critical of Glade. Mark would like to come in and talk about there perspective on Glade. It will take 30 minutes of your time to have him come in. o Also, we have delayed several times having John Phelan from Utilities come in and talk about Demand Side Management. I think that would be something the board would be keen on learning about. It's not an action item but he would talk about what the Utilities are trying to do not only about peak demand but overall energy demand. • Stokes: So for November we have: • North College Subarea Plan, Mark Easter, Bob Smith, • Staychock: Tonight what happened with this meeting was absolutely unacceptable for me to come into a meeting and try to have constructive feedback with somebody when I was given a packet the second we walked in here. I have brought it up in the past; I don't know how to take care of it. I don't know what it is. It really frustrates me. • Stokes: Ryan, I can tell you we did ask them. We ask everyone that comes here. • Staychock: I want my frustration to be in the minutes that that is unacceptable. • Donovan: We need to have a hard and fast rule that if they don't get it into us a week in advance they are off the agenda. • Staychock: I was going to say this today. We have had an agenda change; I don't want to here those items. • Knowlton: Why don't we put John Phelan on for December? • Colton: We are going to be talking about the legislative policy agenda. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 12 of 15 • Stokes: It is too late. That is an internal City document. I would be glad to bring it back to the board. There were very modest modifications having to do with Natural Resources issues that Lucinda did around Clean Air. • Donovan: After looking at it I am comfortable. I got it off the City website. • Petterson: One of the things that Randy brought up before he left the board was the budget as it relates to the general fund side of things and what the vision is for the Natural Resources department. I remember John you said you had some ideas but we never had that discussion. • Stokes: Council is going through budgetary throws. Every department was required to propose cuts. I don't sense that Natural Resources will have any general fund cuts. We've cut back a lot over the last three years. Not much left to shave/or save. I think we are probably status quo. We will have to start going through the budgeting process all over again in the spring using the BFO process. They want more public involvement so if you are interested as a citizen, you will have opportunities to be involved in that. • Petterson: I appreciate the short term update. I think the question that Randy raised and I would like to follow up on is a longer range vision thing. I would like to have that before the budgeting for outcomes and I would like the board to be involved in what kinds of offers are being made and maybe helping to shape those. I know you have some ideas and I would like to see that in Jan/Feb. • Stokes: The BFO will start cranking in March. • Donovan: Budget is a huge policy. Longer range vision includes policy. • Stokes: Vision is established by Council and budget is established by council. We are here to execute the vision of Council and the people of the community. So staff — we can tell you what we are doing and what the work plan is for the next year or two but then it's really up to you as to citizens and Council to decide what should be the long term prospects for Natural Resources, Streets, Utilities, Natural Areas or whomever. • Staychock: Specifically talking though, shouldn't our interest be policy development while advising City Council. To talk about the budget even, I don't know that's our role to be involved in the process. We need to be involved in the policy development of the Natural Resources in the City of Fort Collins. • Petterson: I understand but to the extent that the offers that go into the budget they reflect the policy that will be implemented. • Staychock: I guess my point is that there is a fine line where we have to distance ourselves from staff. Staff is doing there job then the Board should be playing a very different role than staff is. That is my whole take home point is that staff is doing their thing, then it becomes time for the Board to become active and do things and become proactive with City Council. • Petterson: When we dialogue with John about the long term vision that will help us arrive at what our input should be in the process. We don't necessarily have to agree with everything. • Staychock: I support that 100%. • Apt: Regional Transportation Authority that is coming down the pike. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 13 of 15 • Skutchan: MPO just finished compiling that data. That data was released last Thursday. I think that would be good to have. • Apt: Were those the results from the summit. • Staychock: In fact our Representative, Bob McClusky was just talking about that. • Knowlton: That's been on our list since April. It's not new. Another one that has been on our list since April is the status of Foothills Campus. • Stokes: We took it off, there is nothing happening. There was a move to annex campus in but that is all dead in the water. • Petterson: Back to the RTA thing which is not dead in the water. When can we schedule that discussion? • Staychock: I'm going to go home and start writing down an email by Friday. • Stokes: Greenhouse Gas — Dec or Jan • Apt: RTA is happening really fast. • Staychock: I'll do the list, if people can't be there, then we go down to the next item. • Stokes: Think twelve months. • Skutchan: Leads process... that's not time sensitive. I would like to see it addressed in the next six months. • Stokes: We are starting to do a green building initiative. Brian Woodruff is working on that. • Knowlton: Would like to see on all agenda items an indication if action is required. • Staychock: I think it would be a good idea to discuss at some point going back to two meetings a month. • Knowlton: You are talking about having an impact on staff. • Staychock: I don't think staff has to be at a work study session. • Stokes: We do have to be there. It is a requirement. • Knowlton: Isn't that where we do subcommittees. • Skutchan: That is my next point, I don't feel like we every finished this off. I want to get an Energy Sustainability. Those may be some of those areas where if we can do those work sessions, would staff have to be present? • Stokes: If there are three or more it is considered a public meeting and we need to have staff present. • Knowlton: My preference would be to not have a bunch of subcommittees. We already have solid waste. • Skutchan: That's the thing. I can't have people come present to just me and Ryan. It is an insult. • Knowlton: That's the problem we have always had with these committees. • Staychock. That means we have to bring them into a full meeting. • Skutchan: I don't know how you resolve that. • Knowlton: What I would like is to have a point person for all of the things we came up with in April. We already do for energy, that is Alan. We already do for solid waste, that's Ryan. For environmental, that is Clint. Rather than having a committee, I would like to have someone whose job it is to watch the news... Bring it up at every single meeting. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 14 of 15 • Skutchan: you can't all be watching the clock every meeting. I also won't be dragging people into a meeting for two people. Do we need to have a different committee meeting time? Can we rotate sustainability, solid waste? • Stokes: The thing is we have five staff, three Board meetings per month, multiple Council meetings. It's a lot of staff time. • Skutchan: I understand that. Can we rotate the three key ones? • Donovan: It is driven by the timing of when issues come up. I communicated with Susie this month and since there was nothing urgent we agreed it could wait. • Skutchan: Whoever is in charge of that subcommittee? • Petterson: As a procedural matter, any time three or more of us get together, it has to be posted and staff has to be there? • Stokes: I would like staff to be there. • Staychock: An additional meeting every other month. • Petterson: Can you support that we have a second meeting every other month. • Stokes: You have to make that decision; I can't make it for you. It is time consuming to get ready for these meetings. • Knowlton: I have not heard anything here or heard of anything coming down the pike that supports us having a second meeting. • Stokes: There are two types of meetings. There is the lecture discussion format and then the more formal meeting. For the lecture, discussion come in at 5:00 and then we go into the regular meetings. If it's a second meeting a month, that is a policy issue. • Petterson: Can we add the subcommittee pre -time to the Agenda? Get it on the agenda every month. And the other piece is would enough people show up for this. • Stokes: Work plans are due November 30a' this year. It would be helpful for the board to develop a clear work plan. There are so many issues that you could be involved in but we don't have the time to help you with these issues. Try to select a roster of issues for the next 6-12 months. Basically try to set out a plan for the year and stay with that. Otherwise, we could have four meetings a month. Set up a plan for the year and stay with it. • Skutchan: It's all about prioritization. We just don't want things to get lost in the shuffle. • Staychock: Another option is that we can also call special meetings if we are getting really bogged down. Another option is that the committee meetings happen at the same time in the same building in different rooms. • Knowlton asked for a volunteer to work on the Work Plan. • Staychock: I can help with that. I don't feel like I do enough. I am bitter. Put that in the minutes. I will take the dotted priority and work it into a framework. Staychock made a motion to adopt the Guest Presentation Rules as written and reviewed by everybody. Staychock was asked to go over the rules again: Natural Resources Advisory Board October 18, 2006 Page 15 of 15 Guest presentations are initiated by Board members. Intended for situations with pros and cons that we are not aware of. Not intended for every guest presentations. Basically, guest presenters are allowed 13 minutes for their presentation without interruption. They are given 17 minutes for questions from the board Do not apply to staff presentations Agenda item should read "Guest Presentation" Stokes asked Ryan to send the final version and asked what distinguishes between a guest presentation or an agenda item. Following discussion it was suggested that the Chair, Vice -chair or staff liaison make the call as to whether it should be considered a guest presentation or an agenda item. Staychock withdrew the motion. The board will test the idea at the next meeting with Mark Easter's presentation next meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 9:45 p.m. Submitted by Judi Vos Admin Support Supervisor