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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLand Conservation And Stewardship Board - Minutes - 03/10/2010MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS LAND CONSERVATION & STEWARDSHIP BOARD Regular Meeting March 10, 2010 DATE: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 LOCATION: 215 N Mason Street, Conference Room 1-A TIME: 6:00 p.m. For Reference: Linsey DeBell - 217-7436 Aislinn Kottwitz - 692-9915 Mark Sears, Staff Liaison - 416-2096 Board Members Present Chris Gaughan, Michelle Grooms, Linda Knowlton, Paul Mills, Linda Stanley Board Members Excused Linsey DeBell, Lesli Ellis, Juli Germany, Trudy Haines Council Liaison Aislinn Kottwitz, Councilmember Staff Present Natural Resources / Natural Areas Department: Geri Kidawski, Karen Manci, Mark Sears, John Stokes Guests John Bartholow, Retired Fort Collins USGS Kevin Gertig, Utilities, Water Protection Division Brett Summers, CSU student Public Comments Agenda Review • Stokes: I would like to add the Regulations Proposed by the State of Colorado to this evening’s agenda. Review and Approval of Minutes Grooms approved the February 10, 2010 minutes as written. Gaughan second. It was unanimously approved. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Page 2 of 7 Memorial Bench Policy • Sears: At the January Board meeting the Board asked to review the memorial bench policy. This policy was adopted administratively by John Stokes in 2007. Karen Manci is here to discuss this with you. • Knowlton: What are the installation and 10 year maintenance fee costs? • Manci: Depending on the type of bench and the product of the pad the typical installation cost, not including crew labor is $30-$60 dollars each. It can be as low as nothing if a pad is not required. The highest cost was $296, because of the pad which needed to be built up. • Stanley: What is the labor cost? • Manci: The Company delivers the bench to our shop, and crew drives the bench to the site and installs it. The cost is minimal so we do not associate a cost with it since there isn’t much labor involved and the bench is placed in a location where we wanted a bench anyway. • Grooms: I don’t mind the benches; however with the engravings it has a headstone feel to it. I would prefer if there were a plaque next to the bench and the bench free of engravings. • Mills: Are the engravings approved by natural areas staff? • Manci: Yes, and it should be quotes on nature. We have not received any negative comments from the public regarding the memorial bench. • Knowlton: Have you ever had a disagreement with the donor regarding the engraving or where to place the bench? • Manci: Yes, the design was one that did not go with the original chosen natural area so we agreed on another location, which was in need of a bench anyway. • Stanley: The quote, scene or nature icon is fine, but having the person’s name in memoriam on the bench is what I find as an issue. This a big town and how many memorial benches will you have in our natural areas? Our natural areas are the wrong place for this type of memorial. • Mills: What is the cap per natural areas? • Sears: We will only put a bench where we feel there is a need for a bench. There will come a time when we will need to cap it. • Gaughan: I feel this is a very nice idea for those who choose not to take a cemetery plot and who have enjoyed the outdoors. When we reach the finite level, especially where there are folks who have donated time or resources to the natural areas program what happens then? • Manci: Several of the benches are a memorial for our former Master Naturalists. • Grooms: I’m not fond of this large type of format; it needs to be toned down. • Mills: There are benches which have a small plaque on the back part of the bench. These benches look more park-like. • Gaughan: These are all good comments. I think making the bench less obvious is fine. With a community like this with such influx and turnover of Land Conservation & Stewardship Board Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Page 3 of 7 people coming in from the outside, rather than a quote, if the person had a connection it should be include for instance as time served to the community. • Mills: I think we need design standards, which should include a smaller space used and smaller font. You can sandblast text very small. • Manci: We could limit the amount of text on a bench. • Knowlton: This is not an action item, but it seems like it should be for a future meeting to amend the policy. • Grooms: Personally I’d like to see it amended. I like the idea that the community can purchase these and I like the compromise of having smaller text. Is there anything in the policy regarding companies purchasing a bench in a Natural Area? • Mills: Is there a policy for commercialization. Can there be a prioritized list. Should the cost include installation costs? • Gaughan: It seems like we need to have a policy on this. • Stanley: How would we do this because this is an administrative policy? • Sears: We value your input. We will gather your input and make the changes we feel are appropriate then bring it back to this board for your review. • Stanley: The reason why I don’t like this type of policy is because we are going to run out of places to put one, it is difficult to narrow down the criteria and you run the chance of making someone resentful. • Manci: I understand, but the reason we wrote the policy was because we were receiving a number of requests. • Gaughan: Maybe without a policy change you can take our comments and tie them in with your digression. • Sears: From a staff perspective there may not be a very strong allegiance one way or the other. If this Board passed a motion not to have memorial benches in the natural areas, we would take it back, discuss it and it’s very likely that we would say that now we do not have a policy that allows memorial benches. Stanley asked that each Board member give a final brief summary as to why or why not there should be a memorial bench policy and what changes they feel should be made. Healthy River Initiative for the Poudre River Background – The flows in the Poudre River from the canyon mouth through Fort Collins have been significantly reduced from the river’s historic flows due to manmade diversions for municipal, industrial, and agricultural use. Currently in an average year, about 60 percent of the Poudre’s water has been diverted before the river reaches the Lincoln Street Gage in downtown Fort Collins. Both peak “June Rise” flows as well as base winter flows have been severely degraded by diversions, and flows during the irrigation season extending into October are severely altered and variable. • Stanley: John Bartholow, a retired U.S. Geological Survey ecologist and former Water Board vice-chair, has written a peer-reviewed scientific article that offers a quantifiable flow regime for a healthier Poudre River through Fort Collins. The Instream Flow Committee of the Water Board believes that improving the instream flows of the Poudre River through Fort Collins can have significant Land Conservation & Stewardship Board Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Page 4 of 7 benefits to the City’s residents and City Utility ratepayers, businesses, and to the City Water Utility. • Knowlton: What are we doing here this evening regarding this? Is it before City Council? Stanley: It’s for Plan Fort Collins. The Natural Resources Board, as part of there long term challenges, wrote in Plan Fort Collins, “Poudre river flow protection”. The Instream Flow Committee is requesting the Water Board study Bartholow’s economic benefits especially letter (d) and recommend to City Council that they adopt monthly quantifiable flows regime goals or targets and that they develop a City staff development action plan in order to meet the goals or targets. Secondly they are trying to put these goals or targets into Plan Fort Collins to make this action part of the new City Plan. I would like to have a discussion and hopefully come to an agreement that we incorporate this in our Plan Fort Collins process. • Gaughan: If we are talking about future diversions that’s one thing, but if we are talking about minimum flow that probably means looking for additional water rights to go through town, is that a reality? • Kevin: I think John is asking for the group to look at an action plan. The City is not the only stakeholder, we would have to work with a lot of individuals to try and maintain certain speed flows. • Stokes: This is not taking a position on NISP or Halligan Seamen. I think what John has done with this paper is to articulate a vision for a river that would have certain minimum mid-stream flows that would occasionally have a June rise. We would then have a river that functions in a way that will more closely approximate its ecological process, so there’s a vision. Kevin is talking about an enormously complicated vision to implement, because there are 26 diversions before the water gets to Fort Collins. • Stanley: This would be from where to where? • Stokes: This is sort of an unknown because it would re-engineered the way water is delivered in the system. The idea from the river advocates is that we try to get a system that is healthier through Fort Collins. • Stanley: What John Bartholow may be asking for is to support the vision, can this be done? • Kevin: The Colorado water law has interesting scenarios that are not typical, certainly in the West and in other parts of the U.S. We sequentially started to walk through why the river is the way it is, and what options the City staff has from our Water Resource Portfolio and then tried to understand what all these diversion are on the map. There are natural areas along the river corridor, and knowing all the great things this Board does, we would recommend to the Board that perhaps we need to get some outreach done with other groups within the City to start working on the vision. • Grooms: More water through the City of Fort Collins is a good thing. If Plan Fort Collins is about getting more water through the City of Fort Collins, how could we not support it. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Page 5 of 7 • Knowlton: Should we make this a long term goal? Is this going to City Council as a stand alone recommendation or do you want it integrated it into Plan Fort Collins. • Stokes: It would be helpful to know what the In Stream Committee is asking for. • Bartholow: The Water Board has a standing committee called the In Stream Flow Committee and they have taken it upon themselves to look for opportunities to establish more in stream flows than the City currently has. The Committee is looking for ways to add value to the River by using some of the resources that the City has, both in terms of staff and their knowledge, as well as the water rights that they control. • Stanley: Is your goal to get this into Plan Fort Collins? • Bartholow: I’ll speak for myself. I think is would be great if the various Environmental Advisory Boards could give some thought to this issue. What are the things about the Poudre River that your Board thinks are important, with respect to in stream flow. Would you feel comfortable making a recommendation to City Council to look for ways to get an inter-departmental group to explore how to do this institutionally, economically, and what the real goals and objective would be for a minimum flow? What are the impact and the costs? That’s what I’d like to see the Boards do, and make it clear to City Council or to the people that are shepherding Plan Fort Collins that there is a broad-based support for ecological values in the Poudre River. • Knowlton: You’re focused on Plan Fort Collins not on an independent stand alone recommendation to Council. • Bartholow: Just because that looks like the current vehicle. Regulations Proposed by the State of Colorado • Stokes: There is a series regulations proposed by the State that would heavily regulate the 500 year flood plain. Staff just became aware of this and the City is very likely to submit comments on these regulations by the end of April. There will be a presentation to the Water Board on March 25. We will have to go to the Legislative Review Committee of the City on April 13. The reason why we are bringing this to your attention is that this will have a significant impact to the City of Fort Collins. The regulations are stricter than FIMA regulations and the City’s regulations. This will have major impacts on communities all over the state. We may be able to do a presentation to board if the comment deadline gets extended. To get the Board’s engagement it will be necessary for a Board Member to attend the Water Board meeting on Thursday, March 25th from 3 p.m. – 5p.m., to listen to the presentation and make comments as an individual. When we get the staff report on this regulatory change we can send it to this Board. • Gaughan: I can attend the meeting, • Mills: I can be a backup. • Grooms: What kind of regulations would they change? • Stokes: I’m not the right person to ask, as I may be misrepresenting. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Page 6 of 7 Plan Fort Collins The Board collaborated on answering the following questions: What are short-term (1-5 Year) challenges that the city faces, related to your board’s focus area? • Acquiring conservation easements on farms especially ones producing local food. • Maintaining and enhancing native plant communities by removing exotic species (weed control). • Maintain adequate in stream water flows of the Cache la Poudre. • Plans for other communities for increased development that will significantly impact our opportunities for community separators and other open space protection. • The possibility of significantly less money than projected for Natural Areas funding, due to reduced sales tax revenues. • How will we address wildlife interface problems? What are long-term (5-30 years and beyond) challenges and opportunities that Plan Fort Collins should address related to your board’s focus area? • Public awareness of the benefits of the Natural Areas program. • How will we address wildlife interface problems? • Maintain more than minimum in stream water flows of the Cache la Poudre. • Have an adaptable staff that will continue to be willing to explore best management practices, from other communities. • Maintaining our natural resources under the pressure of more use and more people. • Plans for other communities for increased development that will significantly impact our opportunities for community separators and other open space protection. • Protect the remaining areas in and around Fort Collins. For example, the Bellvue area, along the Poudre River especially in terms of limited revenue. • Maintaining the Natural Areas that we have, under increased use and flattening or declining revenues. Do you know of other communities or organizations with “cool tools” or “best practices the city should explore related to your board’s focus area? Do you have other ideas unrelated to your board’s focus area? • Sustainability indicators for the Community. Executive Session - Discussion of Real Property Acquisitions or Sales. New Business: Land Conservation & Stewardship Board Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Page 7 of 7 Adjourn The meeting adjourned at 8:20 p.m. Submitted by Geri Kidawski Administrative Clerk II Approved_______________________________________________________________