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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 08/22/2006MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 200 WEST MOUNTAIN AVE. August 22, 2006 For Reference: Eric Levine, Chair 493-6341 David Roy, Council Liaison 407-7393 Lucinda Smith, Staff Liaison 224-6085 Board Members Present Kip Carrico, Jeff Engell, Nancy York, Dale Adamy, Eric Levine, Greg McMaster, Board Members Absent Bruce Macdonald, Cherie Trine Staff Present Natural Resources Department Lucinda Smith, Brian Woodruff, Tara McGibben Guests Mike Calhoun - City of Fort Collins Parks and Recreation, Mike Doyle - Larimer County Health Department, Tom Vosburg - City of Fort Collins Chief Technology Officer The meeting was called to order at 5:30pm. Minutes The board unanimously approved a motion to consider the minutes for July 25, 2006 at the next AQAB regular meeting scheduled for September 26, 2006. Public Comment • No public present. Aeenda Item 1— West Nile Virus Mike Doyle discussed Colorado Mosquito control hand-outs. Vosburg: This is the third or fourth year of Colorado's mosquito control program. 2003 was a nasty year. The city was funded in 2003 with very quick adulticiding and a mid -year larvaciding program. After 2003 we committed to being more pioactive to establish a larvaciding program that would start earlier in the spring to control mosquitoes throughout the year. There's also some work put into developing what's called risk -index. The risk index looks not just at the number of mosquitoes but also the number of infected ones, to try to get some indication of human risk. The idea was to come up with an indicator of when you start getting nervous and consider adulticiding. To date, the City's policy has been not to use adulticides and there's no money in the budget to support adulticiding. If we were to do that we'd need to have additional money. My understanding is that the board wanted to know about West Nile and how does it relate to the City's current budget situation. Mike Calhoun is with the city staff, Parks and Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 2 of 25 Recreation. He is pretty much the lead on managing the day to day program from the city side. Mike Doyle used to be with Colorado Mosquito Control but is now with Larimer County Health Department. The two Mikes will give an update as to what's going on in terms of the conditions and the experience and I can be available to answer questions with the budget. So with that I turn it over to either one of you to go first. Mike Calhoun referred the board to the packet material on Colorado Mosquito Control (CMC) monthly reports, matrix and maps that shows some of the densities of the culex mosquitoes. hi looking at the maps, every year has been different, that's the thing that I noticed. Being somebody that has a parks and recreation degree, suddenly I became a contract manager for biological control. You can see that every year has been different. Many of you were asking me why some things have gone up and some things have gone down; -it's like people look at me all the time before season starts and ask how bad is it going to be and I say I don't know, what's the weather going to be like; because that's really what's the important factor. We contract with a company, Colorado Mosquito Control out in Loveland, their home office is in Brighton. They are a pretty impressive company to work with because they are probably one of the easiest contractors that I've had to deal with in 15 years working. They are real professional; they do what they say they're going to do; they take good directions as far as the ethics that we have. For instance in Loveland, I consider their program a nuisance issue program. If I understand right, Loveland has part of their utility fee for mosquito control; every household is charged that. They have a mosquito control program and they have a trapping facility; it doesn't matter if there's any vexins, flood -waters, or things like that; they go out and just do this. The direction that the City of Fort Collins gives CMC is we want to be more of a disease management program. We're looking for (and we've been collecting data since 2003) which sites traditionally produce culex mosquitoes. That changes with weather also, but at least we've got some idea with the historical data. There are times when they call and say they're crunched for time and we've got a couple of different sites, over at Dixon Reservoir for instance which we're filling right now, may produce a lot of aedes vexin mosquitoes in floodwaters; but we have some hot culex sites, what should we do? Because we're disease management focused, we'll go with the culex sites. If you can get the aedes vexin sites great, but we're looking at culex to try to keep our biological disease down. That is the City's philosophy. Mike Doyle can fill in a lot more detail than I can. He's probably one of my main resources of information, as well as Rich Grossman at Larimer County. In terms of budget, the City gets about $10,000 from Utilities, $80,000 from Natural Areas and the reminder of the $240,000 contract comes from the city manager's office general fund money. • Vosburg: Just to make that a note on that in terms of budget. In doing budget management, we make the distinction between one-time money versus on -going money; that's how we do our budget models. This has all been funded year-to-year with one time money; meaning that's money that accumulates in reserves from either the un-expended previous year funds or other ways money gets into the one-time fund. The main thing is the difficulty the City is having right now, and the reason we're cutting budget, is that when we project on -going revenues, that's where we are falling short —our on -going projected expenses. All of the discussion at City Council this year regarding 2007 budget adjustments has all been focused on on -going moneys. The City Manager has given staff direction to propose budget cuts in the on -going pot. We literally have different programs tagged in our budget system as already being funded out of on -going one-time. There's been no discussion at the staff level Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 3 of 25 about whether or not to consider cutting this program because it's funded with one-time money. If we cut it, it doesn't help to solve our on -going problem. That doesn't mean there isn't a legitimate discussion about it. At a certain point, we'll get around to the one-time moneys too. • Doyle: (speaking to the 4 maps in the packet) I can give you a quick summary of what's happening as of today. It seems to change daily; as I was leaving the office at 5:1 Opm I got an email saying that CDC had just got another 16 mosquito pools. A pool is a sample of mosquitoes, from the Ft. Collins/Loveland area. We're still in the midst of the season. Presently, human cases in the country stand at 581. All of these are about 3 weeks to a month behind. Whatever cases you hear of today, people got sick somewhere towards the end of July. Here in Colorado we have 41 cases. They're clustered in Larimer County, Boulder County, and Weld County. The other clusters are out in Delta, Grand Junction area. They had a really bad year in 2004 and thought they were done. The mentality of a lot of folks is that is comes in waves through and then it's gone; unfortunately that hasn't been the case. It's very weather dependant. 2004 was a really bad year; and now two years later it's coming back again. It's been permeating agriculture because these counties have irrigation going through all of them. That's for human cases and that's about a month old so we won't know the real damage until late September, mid October. • Engell: This being the half -way point, essentially? • Doyle: Well, every year is different. The half -way point in 2003, which was a bad year, was somewhere in July; and we're about a month later this year. • Levine: I read in the packet something about higher temperatures and mosquitoes that had it done sooner in the cycles? • Doyle: Yes, the females lay eggs and they take a certain amount of time in the water to hatch. Depending on water temperature, it can range anywhere from 3 weeks in the spring to 4 or 5 days in mid -summer. The hotter it is the faster they develop; cold-blooded. Secondly, the virus also replicates that. Cold nights slow repetition of the virus in both birds and primarily mosquitoes so it takes longer for the virus to be transmitted; or to build up enough in the mosquito to become infected. And also gives it a chance to die which is a nice thing. If you look at human cases, on the sheet; there are a couple of things that we try to use to predict. Dead birds are one, but they've been disappointing because they are very media -dependent in a sense. People don't know they should send in dead -birds and they don't. 2003 there was huge West Nile coverage in the media; in 2003 118 dead -birds were turned in; about 40% of which were positive. 2004 had 36 birds turned in and in 2005 4 dead -birds were called in. So far there are 21 dead -birds called in so far and 14% of the birds turned in this year are positive. And in 2004 it was essentially zero. They're not good numbers to use because they go up and down. • Levine: If there were no birds there wouldn't be any West Nile Virus. • Doyle: That is correct. • Levine: So birds are the vector that is more necessary than humans; to some point. • Doyle: Yes it is and the National Wildlife Research Center is doing work in other animals such as squirrels, rabbits that may also be potential reservoirs. They are doing studies to see if they can get bitten and be given a vaccine. They are definitely positive; it's becoming a lot more complicated than we originally thought. It's not simply a bird/mosquito issue, there may be bird parasites that keep the virus over winter and infect the birds in the spring. Then mosquitoes bring it to birds and to people. Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 4 of 25 • Levine: Do corvids just have more of a concentration of the virus in it, or do all birds and corvids are just a better marker species. • Doyle: Corvids, we hope to be a good marker species because fortunately they die very quickly and they're big. Jays, they're very colorful; crows, jays, magpies are very big so they're easily seen and picked -up; and they die very fast. The idea was if you find the birds, it's the canary -in -a -coal -mine idea, if you find the dead birds you know something's wrong and you need to step up what ever you're trying to do to minimize the virus. Unfortunalty, they've not done a good job because we've been finding the birds in low numbers and secondly humans have been getting ill before we can get the birds. In 2003, there were 192 human cases of WNV at this point in the season; but again that was an early season so this is a little bit of apples and oranges. 2004 there were 25 cases at this time; in 2005 there were 5 and in 2006, right now there are 5 human cases, One foot -note with that is the number of doctors who are reporting is also decreasing. It's not a great end of season because people find there's no vaccine, you can't go to the doctor to get tested and get a pill or a shot or something to make you feel better, and many people won't go to the doctor. If it's not serious enough, and doctors are more hesitant to spend the patient's money to have a test done and do all the paperwork; they don't see the point. • Dietrich: Even in 2003, do you have any percentage of the human cases that were reported? In other words, only 18% of the human cases have been reported. • Doyle: No one really knows. The only thing we can do is ... well it's a little better than that. There's a sub -culture of people who donate blood. Of all the blood that was donated in 2003 was tested and in Fort Collins, of those that donated blood 4 to 7% were infected and have been exposed to the virus. Roughly 5% give or take; 1 out of 20 people in Fort Collins have been bitten; determined by giving blood. It's going to be a while before people start becoming immune. • Adamy: If you donate blood will you be able to find out if you have west Nile? • Doyle: Yes, in fact you will. In fact, one of these 5 west Nile cases is a blood donor. The man was ill; he was sick for a week and got basically better; went in, he was feeling pretty good at the time of blood donation; and when we checked it he had the active virus. They threw the blood away. • Adamy: So that's a good way to find out if you're immune. • Doyle: I don't think, I'm not certain, I don't think the blood test picks up the anti -body. I think it only picks up the live virus so if you've gotten it two years ago, you give blood then the anti -bodies will not be infected to a recipient. • Dietrich: You just said I in 20; that's not necessarily correct in what you're saying. • Doyle: 1 in 20 people had been infected with West Nile Virus. • Dietrich: That year. • Doyle: Yes, I think they may have been testing. I',il make a note on that and check on that and see if indeed it was people who are currently infected or if they were simply anti -body positive. • Levine: That could make a huge difference. • Doyle: Yes. • York: The media coverage has been much less this year. • Calhoun: One of the facets of the contract with CMC is education, that's one of our big pushes. We're always trying to get things in the paper when it starts to get hot and we try to get the city and CMC involved and try to push that as much as we can. At some of our city Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 5 of 25 events we brought out West Nile Virus information booths where we give out information about wearing your repellant and watching yourself at dawn and dusk and doing the personal protective stuff that you can do as individuals to keep yourself from being exposed to it. • Doyle: The one industry that seems to be most useful for us is mosquito collections and testing. We're very fortunate here in Ft. Collins and Loveland to have best surveillance in the country. The CDC is doing a study presently where they're testing literally every culex mosquito that's caught and secondly the city's mosquito program is extremely good in terms of density of trapped. There are traps almost every single square mile over the entire city surface; which is virtually not done outside of research projects; and that's been the standard of CMC historically. Their reason for doing it is to reduce adulticiding because the more traps you have the more you can narrow down where the hot spots are and the smaller the surface area of adulticiding is being done. That's what they've been doing for years and fortunately it's been turning out very nicely. • McMaster: Probably from a cost-effective stand point that also helps because if you can narrow it down and target it more. • Doyle: Precisely. Unfortunately, that's the one sheet I'm missing is mosquito population. In terms of an update, this is the one that's quite different. At this time in 2003, there were 29 samples from these traps that become positive at this point. 2004 there are 2.2005 there were 5. This year there's 39. Approximately the same number of traps was being sent; and approximately the same number of mosquitoes is being sent it. That's not a good foreboding to the future; in the next few weeks. What that means is there are a lot of strains of infected mosquitoes out there; not many mosquitoes; but a lot of them are infected. Which is actually a more dangerous situation because people aren't aware of mosquitoes being around them and might be less likely to wear repellent. • Dietrich: What percentage of culex mosquitoes do you catch that are infected? • Doyle: For mosquito borne disease, anything over 1% is considered to be an epidemic; or close to epidemic proportions. In 2003 we were getting up to 14% in Fort Collins / Loveland area. This year it's more in the half -a percent. • McMaster: In the packet we got in August it was .1 %; not close at all. • Engell: So why is this bar in 2006 so much? • Doyle: (referring to the map hand-outs) because each week approximately 200 pools are being sent in. For whatever reason, only 29 in 2003 have become positive at this point. Where this year there's a higher number. • McMaster: You need to be very careful, and you've said this in your reports but, you have to look at the axis, and look at the number of traps and just a small change in number of mosquitoes caught that are infected... • Doyle: Right, and there's quite a number of mosquitoes caught too. • McMaster: Usually it shows up as very different. • Doyle: Each pool is approximately 50 mosquitoes shaken up and tested. So, it's very odd to see such a high number. • Dietrich: Any change of the testing procedure? • Doyle: No. Unfortunalty this is very unusual; 4 years, almost the same number of traps, the same procedures; it's an ideal research project. • Levine: (referring to the map hand-outs) I see the numbers of percentage of infected mosquitoes are on page 3. The amount of weeks, are those Julian weeks. When is week one? Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 6 of 25 • Doyle: It should be the first week of the year. We're now in week 34. What this is, this is vector index, and essentially it's trying to find a way to quantify the risk. It's a guessing game at this point without a lot of data. The idea with the vector index is you can have a high infection rate with very few mosquitoes and hardly anyone being bitten with only 10 mosquitoes in the whole city and all of them are infected, well it's unlikely those 10 are going to bite anyone. But if you have a million mosquitoes with 100a' of a percent infection rate and many people becoming sick. So essentially it just multiplies those two numbers and gives you an index which has no units. Looking at the data from 2003, the .75 disease threshold was chosen because that is when it appeared that human infection began; when the risk index hit that point and then stayed above that. (referring to the hand-outs)This bar shows 2003 well over the charts, and decreases throughout the summer. This year, 2006, is increasing somewhat. • Levine: Do the confidence levels of the data you have suffer because of the low mosquito counts? • Doyle: If you collect for the whole city you can get a good confidence interval. That's why these are whole city indexes. I spent quite a bit of time last night doing vector indexes for different parts of Fort Collins because I was concerned the Fossil Creek area has a high number of mosquitoes and high infection rate so I was pulling them out but the confidence intervals started decreasing so fast that I had to get at least 10 traps to get a decent interval. I did find than anywhere within 2 miles of Poudre River the index goes up to about .4. It's probably higher along the Poudre River as you can see from the maps; that's exactly intuitive and mathematically it turns out the same way. So that's essentially what's happening this year with West Nile, but we're not done. Human cases we'll know mid -October, probably or a little bit later. • Levine: Last couple of years, lets say, serious human cases? Or how are those differentiated, obviously deaths, serious cases. • Doyle: Yes, they're broke down into three categories: Virus which can be anywhere from a headache to malaise and just feeling terrible for a few weeks. And then meningties/insephalitis and polio mellitus and then death. But virus, severe cases which can include those cases end in death. • Levine: So is the virus the one out of five that experience enough symptoms or is that every one? • Doyle: One out of; of people who are bitten by an infected mosquito, 1 out of 5 will show noticeable symptoms. That can range anywhere from taking a day off work because you feel bad to death. Some people say we shouldn't count simple cases and should only count serious cases because anyone who has a serious case will end up at a hospital; I think that's a valid argument. • Levine: When was the last serious case reported, 2004? • Doyle: No, so far this year there's been 2. • McMaster: How well do they track down where they most likely may have gotten it? Because people travel around. • Doyle: They're interviewed but it's very tough because the incubation period is anywhere from 3-14 days. So, where have you been bitten in the last 14 days, it's very tough. Many times it's not where people think. They've been way up in the mountains at 10,000 ft and I got chewed up. There's almost no West Nile there; it's much more likely they got bit in the back of the leg in the back yard or just going out to get mail and didn't even realize it. There's attempts made to find out but it's difficult. Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 7 of 25 • Dietrich: Have you tested yourselves? • Doyle: No, I haven't had time because I'm too busy setting out traps. I missed a day from work so I may have been bit. • Levine: What is the county's current program? • Doyle: The county program presently is a large number of acres, several 10s of miles are lavicided through Ft Collins/Loveland program; it's in the county but it's not funded by the county. They're looking at fusion there, it's called the buffer zone, that's larvaciding. For surveillance there's about a dozen traps that are set by the county, also by CMC that are collected and tested in outlying areas, Tinmath, Berthoud, Wellington, Estes Park places like that. In terms of adulticiding the county is using a similar approach as Ft Collins. No nuisance adulticiding, only if there is human cases and high mosquito counts, it's a combination of things and much more organic than a straight number because there's only two people making the decisions. They use a vector index. ' • Calhoun: Would Rich Grossman and Dr. Bailey make those recommendations? • Doyle: Yes, they have the final say. I collect the data and present that to them and they make the final decisions. • York: Who and Dr. Bailey? • Doyle: Rich Grossman, he was here in 1986 when western encephalitis was an issue. In Fort Collins, he actually drove one of the trucks. That's when the city of Loveland's program really began in response to that disease; and the nuisance issue too. Rich is in the environmental health program. He's been around for 30 years and seen a lot of these things come and go. Generally what happens, I'll just quickly summarize this; larvaciding, there was some in 2003, emergency larvaciding when West Nile first began. The following spring a full integrated pest management program started with 660 sites; sites being anything from bird bath to a 50 acre wetland. Those were mapped in 2004 and those and since that time about 30 new sites are found every week, that's about 5 day so now it's up to about 1,400 sites; it's more than doubled in terms of the work load and that type of thing. Surveillance is done by 44 weekly traps, all identified to species. 2003/2004 was the vector index; and was the primary trigger. Since 1992 at least. HOA's have been contracting to do adulticiding. So there is adulticiding being done within city limits. It's contracted by private home -owners associations. • McMaster: Is there any indication that's there's been any resistance to the larvicides? • Doyle: Certainly none here. In the bacteria that are being used, literally by the ton elsewhere in the country. Unfortunately the biology of the two bacterial species has shown some resistance in South America and a little bit in the Gulf Coast area. • Levine: What kind of oil is used? • Doyle: It's essentially mineral oil with a spreader in it. So it spreads one gallon per surface acre so it spreads amazingly thin. And that's used as a last ditch method. If it's too late to put the bacteria in the water. • Calhoun: They start becoming well -developed and they're not going to ingest the bacteria. • Doyle: They stop feeding right before they pubate; so it doesn't work. • Calhoun: That's the product they use when they find new sites. They historically go back to the same sites and produce culex; if they find a new site a lot of times they've got the last in - stars right there; and when they dip -test and id those, that's whenever they make that decision to use that mineral oil. And then hopefully, the next time they come back over there, they're using the BTI or BS. Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 8 of 25 • Doyle: A two minute summary of what happens: The mosquito technicians go out and find sites, it gets mapped, digitized and put on to an arch -view system. Those sites are checked either weekly, or using a prediction system that CMC is developing, they dip the site when they're there, look for mosquito larvae. Some technictions can id to genus in some cases depending on how good they are. They count the number of larvae and how old they are. And they make decisions on the what treatment they should use, based on what genus the mosquito is, how old the mosquitoes are, what the water level is doing, if it's stable they can use a long term biological control. If it's drying down quickly they'll have to use a very short term biological larvacide. There are local laws and policies, such as natural areas do not allow certain things; they look at the size of the site and the vegetation and then make a decision on what product should be used. The products that are used; the active ingredients one is BTI, which is one of the types of BTs. It's not the controversial type that you hear they use to genetically engineer corn. That's a different sub -species. There's 130 different types of sub -species of BT. Some of which effect mosquitoes only; some affect only certain types of moths and butterflies, which is the controversial one. Some only beetles and some are a combination. A few of these are commercially available for insect control. BTI is the only one near you; so if that's put in the water with monarch butterflies flying and other aquatic beetles it has no effect, or no noticeable effect at least. Second is a bacillus sphericus, which is a true biological live bacteria in spore form; so put into water it comes to life, so to speak. It's eaten by mosquitoes and circulates within system and lasts a few weeks to a few months depending on how the conditions are for it. The BTI is a dead bacteria. Methaprine is used less as it's an insect growth regulator. It's very species specific. Mineral oil is used when other products are not effective. Fish have been introduced. CMC is working with DOW; in fact the gentleman that works for CMC also works for DOW and he's a fishery specialist. I'm sure they work with Natural Areas. That's where the larvaciding is done. Treat by hand with a back pack -type leaf blower that blows granules. They spray in copters when things get real bad. • Levine: Some of my questions have to do with the city concerning what the long and short term plans are for the city especially in the budget crisis. • Vosburg: That's a legitimate question. The city is taking a hard look at a lot of things; what's the purpose of the city, what businesses are we in, what type of role. We're rethinking a lot of priorities. I know last year when we adopted the 06/07 budget there was discussion by council on what role and what priority should this program take and be reflected in the budget. I think at that time council's sense what that they felt it was appropriate to continue but this posture of funding it but not funding it with ongoing money is a pretty good characteristic of the tenor of council's attitude towards it. They recognize there is clearly some value from a public health perspective. There's a number of council people who know of people who have been sick and they're sensitive to the issue of adulticiding and the controversy surrounding that. But even without the adulticiding being on the table they're aware of issues of intervening in natural systems of any manner and also the economy; is this really our role or should this be the county's role, or the state's. Its health, the city is in the business of public safety, transportation, parks and rec, not public health, that's a county gig. • Doyle: In many areas, Boulder County being one, they have a mosquito control district. And they encompass several municipalities. There's 3 or 4 in Colorado. Districts of mosquito control may be a long term possibility that's being kicked around. Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 9 of 25 • Vosburg: When I was in the manager's office and dealing with this for the city, I put out some feelers as to should we start a regional conversation with all the other municipalities, Larimer County and other counties to talk about a district. Loveland is obviously a big player because they have a major program already established and they're the other big city in Larimer County and Loveland's posture in the city administration at that time said we're in a stable program, a stable funding source so there was no motivation and lot of brain damage to get a vote passed; they felt like it was covered between the two municipalities. • McMaster: Just out of curiosity, they recognize that mosquitoes can travel distances; but they don't get it? • Vosburg: I think it's more like, don't we have a solution cobbled together right now. What's the pressing need to change the governance process. They kind of felt like they have things covered and we were covering things and that between the two municipalities we had a pretty good buffer area. • McMaster: They have to think they're kidding themselves. • Vosburg: What it really comes down to is the question of leadership and who's going to own the issue and who's going to put the energy into creating regional conversation among the different bureaucracy and who's going to sponsor getting the district down on the ballot. In order to establish a taxing district is has to be passed by the voters who are in the infected area. • Doyle: In the county I get a lot of callers saying I just paid pest money on my tax bill so spray in my neighborhood. • Vosburg: What it comes down to is conversation, agenda setting and prioritizing discussion about how big a priority is this in terms of an issue that needs to be addressed. As a city staff person what I'm aware of right now is our limits; we don't have the same capacity we used to have as an organization to undertake either policy studies or initiate program changes. I know it sounds terrible but frankly it's kind of easy just to say well, we've got the one time money we'll do it another year. But I can't say that it's on anybody's priority to allocate the staff to say lead an effort, or even get a policy dialog with community to decide if they are in agreement with this and would they want to institutionalize this on a perminnate basis. • McMaster: The point of resurrecting the west nile virus task force, you're using citizen knowledge and input to help drive and provide guidance on the policy so you save staff and that; instead of having it completely driven by staff. • Vosburg: Actually working with those advisory task forces that constitutes the majority of the work, it's a big part it to run a major initiative. For instance, I'm the Chief Information Officer for the city so I manage the IT departments and since the city manager's office is extremely busy, they've asked that I still handle it. Mike Calhoun has taken on the day-to- day administration. I appreciate the fact that it's an issue that deserves work, but there's an awful lot of issues that deserve work right now at the city. It's a very different feeling in terms of ability to engage. For a while there it seemed like we had almost limitless energy to take on issues and try to process things with the public. • McMaster: Should I read into that then is that the west nile task force being resurrected isn't going to happen? • Vosburg: I can't predict, but what it would take is an element of the community making the case that it moves it up in the priority queue of competing priorities. It can vary in a status right now in the city where if we choose to do certain things it means something else does not get done. That whole budgeting for outcome thing, we're going to do this and that means this doesn't happen. There's a financial budget but there's also sort of a human capital capacity, i Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 10 of 25 there's a certain number of staff hours that we go off of that budget. There is a finite capacity. This is a city manager's office type of thing. If this board feels strongly about it and expresses that concern to council and council concurs and council gives direction to Darin he makes the decision to do this instead of that. In light of the information you see and the data, how big an issue do you think it is that it continue? Are we on the right track? Does it make sense to response to the threat the way we are? And one can say look, it hasn't gone away, there continues to be some human activity; it just didn't disappear and go off the radar screen. It's clearly not as serious as it was the first year. One can either say the activity is so low it's not a crises anymore, let's stop the program or you can say it is low because the program works and now our mosquito levels are comparable to Loveland's. One council member made the comment that we know we're doing this for disease control but it sure is nice there is a nuisance benefit. Maybe people appreciate the kind of side benefit of the nuisance control. • Levine: I have another question for Mike and Mike. That whole subject of nuisance versus public health. Within the current program, it is run for disease control absolutely and if it were run for nuisance as opposed to that, would it be run differently? Would it be a different program? • Calhoun: There would be much bigger staff if it was a nuisance program. • Doyle: And we'd adulticide; anytime you trap over 100 you'd go out and spray. The whole point is to try to keep those suckers from biting you. • Vosburg: You're saying it's better to kill them rather than us. • Doyle: You're less concerned about the exposure to adulticiding than you are with the mosquitoes. • Doyle: What's often found is the nuisance mosquitoes and the culex mosquitoes live in the same place often. Boulder and Jefferson county only kill disease ridden mosquitoes, they do not kill the nuisance types; and that's how they run the program. That works part of the time. I did a cost benefit analysis and it looked about only 30% of the acreage was to be treated if you only went after the culex mosquitoes. That doesn't mean a 30% reduction in cost though because you still have employees driving out to the sites looking and marking and then treating. There was a cost savings, but not huge. Many of the sites are found and mapped because of nuisance mosquitoes there and get the pattern going then a staff is put in place. In `03 when a huge spike in mosquitoes occurs you then shift all resources to culex only. And that happened in Loveland with the nuisance/disease program. I was managing that program. The week after that went up I said forget nuisance mosquitoes, skip it and go on. We went to disease only. When I ran it in Fort Collins it was pretty much the same thing. • York: Do we know the per capita cost for Loveland and Fort Collins? • Doyle: For Loveland it's about $7.50 per household per year. $240K total contract divided by 128K at $2 a person in Fort Collins. • McMaster: You asked a question, in a sense it's the Board's decision, and this is what we struggle with from 2003 on is you have to consider of all the issues ... we can't do them all, and then how much do you put into each one? I'd like to return to something that we've discussed a lot in the past, it's been stated that probably an effective strategy as good as anything has been public education and behavior. Larvaciding is very good in terms of knocking years down. It was also stated, by Dr. Adrian Bailey, I think, so we can go with this as a reasonable assumption. Then you look at the cost of education; what is it in order of magnitude - $10-15,000 a year? and then we have the larvaciding. How do we get to making as solid a decision on this especially when we're faced with things like no, there may not Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page I of25 even be the resources to have a task force to look at. What I'm kind of worried about is what we've said from the beginning was once you start a program it's hard for them to go away. That's what it seems like we're facing. Somewhere we have to come back and address what we got started and I don't know of any other way realistically other than the west nile task force. • Levine: What budget cycle are we looking at, is it 2007? So that would be 2008/2009? • Vosburg: Technically what the city does is we adopt a two year budget. Last year we adopted a 06/07 budget of one time money for west nile. One way to look at would be to say part of the budget for 08/09 would be to revisit the issue based on the history; should it be in the 08/09 budget? Realistically, the budget calendar for 08/09 would start in the spring of 07 in order for a document to be available in fall of 07 for adoption to be effective Spring of 08. If the board wants to have a task force revisit and make a formal decision/discussion about continuing it, it would be appropriate to set the agenda" and get the 'commitment from the manager to help get the resources to make it happen this fall/winter/spring. Now is the time to be talking about a task force or not. Do you want to get it on the official question list for the 08/09 budget. It seems there are three choices available the city --discontinue the program in light of other priorities, continue on a wait and see, year by year case by case basis, or commit to it and try to establish permanent funding either through the establishment of a district or by maintaining it as an on -going city program. There's pros and cons in the two different models. If we do it as a city program, we set the criteria about how it's managed. If You turn it over to another level of government like the county or the pest control commissioners, they are the guys calling the shots. That's the choice. The fundamental question being - is this the City's business and do citizens feel value derived from city involvement? It's your role to advice council on policy. We're not talking about adulticiding. I don't know where this really falls. • McMaster: Well mosquitoes fly in the air. • Vosburg: If we think that there's a high probability they're going to come down on it, but with a wait and see attitude, the strategy of keeping it going but with one time funding, if there's a high probability of that being the outcome then part of me would say well then let's cut to the chase. But if there's a high probability that people in the community feel strongly that it should be eliminated or institutionalized; I'm sure the HOAs would love to see the city take this over. I'd say where do you want to weigh in on it. • Levine: As you said the city's budgeting for outcome process now is looking at the permanent revenues concerning budgets. • Vosburg: We look at both. What we're doing right now is we've adopted a budget and then we were into it and realized we adopted a budget based on sales tax projections and it turns out our actuals aren't tracking the projections so unless we go in and revise the budget it's broken. So the work we're doing this year is damage control; we weren't supposed to spend as much time on the budget as we are and that's,.because of the problem with re -calibrating our sales tax. • Levine: It seems like the ongoing expenses are being looked at closely. This is not getting looked at as much, if every budget cycle this just gets the nod because no one really wants to, that doesn't seem fair to citizens. At one point this program should be looked at. • Vosburg: As the IT guy, we're slicing our one time -funding. So this program directly competes with what I'd like to propose for some cool technology. • McMaster: See, that's the problem we have as a board. If you take a holistic view and even just within a board, there's so many things out there. And if you're going to ask, in a sense if Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 12 of 25 the board has to advocate their own little piece, and you ask each board. This is a crazy way to do this. • Vosburg: I don't' know in talking to you whether you advocate institutionalizing this so that it preempts fogging, which is an air quality issue, or hey why are we wasting our money on this at all. The biggest bang for the buck is doing public education. I wonder which way folks are leaning. Is it my right to ask? There's energy around re -visiting this issue and that implies that the status -quo is not appropriate. So I'm curious about what is inappropriate about status -quo. • McMaster: As a board we have not even polled ourselves on it. When you discussed this last October, this was the first time a lot of us have heard about it. We've been struggling with knowing the budget is decreasing; what programs are we going to advocate as a board. • Levine: I think some of it is also the members of the task -force; some of like the city. Get some more historical numbers and wait and see because 2003 was terrible year for the city. After a shot like that we need a couple of years to try to settle into the likely future outcomes. • York: Another thing is also what CDC is doing, although I'm not real sure what they're doing. • Doyle: My sense is that they're monitoring and studying and gathering data and trying to understand what's going on with the data, they're not actively doing any interventions or controls. They're not larvaciding, right, they're just trapping? • Calhoun: Right. • York: They're benefiting from what you're doing. • Doyle: Yes, from what the city is receiving, and what the county is doing. • Calhoun: The nice thing about our partnership with the CDC is, the testing that goes on is not part of our contract, we don't pay for that, that's something the CDC is doing for us and providing us that information. It's a nice relationship we have going with those guys. • Doyle: That information is being used for possible prediction if you have an infection rate within the population, how many people and what do we expect to be infected in the next month. It's all really early frame stages if it's even possible in the long run, but that kind of data, considering the fact that Larimer County, Boulder, and Weld collectively are the three worse counties in the US, consistently. It's been a hot -spot and Fort Collins being so close we can set traps, collect data and we're motivated because it's our own back yard. The Fort Collins trapping program, the Loveland trapping program and the Latimer County Health Department all work together to provide good information. • York: There's some synergistic value in that. I do think we should check with the task force because there's some great people on that task force, very smart. • Carrico: What's the cost? I would assume it's pretty small, smaller that even public relations. • Vosburg: Yes, it's small. If it's a priority and Darin.gives me direction, if we do continue and do some study, I'm sure I'll be the project manager and that's fine. I believe in cross functional teams and working outside of your specific area. I'm not sure if it needs to be done, there's a different culture in the city and asking ourselves what really does need to be done. The outcome, seems like we have a well designed program, if we believe that it's appropriate to control mosquitoes for a combination of public health and residual nuisance control, if people like that, than I think the way we're doing it is very responsible environmentally and well -managed and clearly doing what we want; there are low mosquito levels. If that's the outcome, then maybe this means the task force reconvenes for an evening Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 13 of25 workshop where we go over all the numbers and we say yep, we're on -target, we did a good job just carry on as status -quo. But sorry, there's no on -going money, so if the city's going to do anything, it's going to be this one time stuff year-to-year and it will always be right down to the wire with the budget. Is there a couple hundred thousand? And it's always the general fund one time piece; is there an extra $150,000 to keep this alive? Probably every year it will come down to the last night of the budget as to whether it stays in there or not. That's one outcome. The other outcome is that we say we just want to kill this; and that may happen this year. I doubt if this will be institutionalized with city on -going money within the current climate. The only way to continue would be with one-time money from budget to budget. In order to establish a mosquito, district the leadership will have to come from the county rather than the city bringing everyone together. It's bigger than the city; it's getting regional players together. To do that it would really have to be something coming out of the county health department. The realistic alternatives, that would really happen I think, is to discontinue or continue with one time as we are. It could be that people check in with Council to see what they think and where there comfort level is. From staff I know we'll say it's your call on the priority list. • McMaster: I wouldn't want to take a position if I were you. • Vosburg: My department is going to be dependent on one time money. That's the strategy we're taking on IT. This program directly competes with my program so part of me wants to say no, bag it. • McMaster: There's almost no department that couldn't benefit from taking $240,000 say of one time the money to buy more buses, or buy more IT. • Levine: It's really a half -a -million we're looking at from budget cycle. • McMaster: What I'm saying is that's not trivial. • Vosburg: Some of it is from different funding sources such as utilities, natural areas. • Levine: From what you just said, it sounds like there's more need for an impartial group to look at it. • McMaster: It has to be holistic group. What if you eliminate the program then someone dies. You're always going to want to support the program that you're looking at. You can't go to the voters and say to them, do you like this program? They all would say yes, but you have to pay for it, exactly. You'll want to give voters something like a list. • Vosburg: That's what we're trying to do with the BFO process. We're going to try to do a better job with it in 08/09 like maybe having the offers out on the web and let the community score offers and say okay if you were spending the money where would it go. We did have a drilling platform for the one-time money; here are all the different competing requests for one-time money and here's the proposals. It's the same process with BFO. Hopefully we'll figure out how to make that more public so the decision to continue or cancel is a decision that the community has ownership of and is defensible. • Levine: To those ends, I'll ask the rest of the board. One option could be a study group or task force under AQAB to come back with recommendations to us or council. That's the no cost way of doing that. Vosburg: You're welcome to do that without staff support, it's awkward. The right way is get council to set priorities and give the manager direction as to how much of an issue is it. The decisions that have to be made at the city level are in the hundreds; this is small change compared to the other decisions being made without task -forces by show of hands. Carrico: Yes but do those decisions have as much human consequences as this potentially does in terms of sickness and death? Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 14 of 25 • Vosburg: I think about transit funding, and if we increase buses will that increase carbon monoxide and how does that relate to human health. What about the juvenile justice system and allocation of state money for resources to divert kids from detention. What stuns me is the whole on -going program for a two -county area, the budget we argue over is $5,000 to $10,000 and somehow the city can come up with $150,000 for mosquito control. Take that mosquito money and give it to the juvenile courts. This whole public resource allocation issue is strange. • McMaster: It's always messy. • Levine: I thought the west nile task force was done very well and the reason they did is because of the unique expertise that was tapped into. I would hate to loose that. I would feel not un-comfortable in putting if off if some of those folks were made still available to participate somehow. • Vosburg: Maybe the trick is a short workshop instead of a long drawn out process and focus group. By getting staff and back -ground materials and bringing people together for an evening or two to meet, talk and frame issues to make a recommendation. That may be less resource intensive and focus on a go/no-go kind of recommendation. • Levine: How does the rest of the board feel? • McMaster: We'll need to discuss all our priorities. • Levine: I'll put this on the agenda for next month. • McMaster: Like you were saying, with the BFO, it is now that we're going to have to start doing it if we want to provide guidance. • Levine: It's much less confrontational. Thanks for coming down. Aeenda Item 2: Brian Woodruff presented the board with the Mobility Management Report. • McMaster: I have some questions about that last draft. Where's the actual study, do you know how to get to it? • Woodruff: Yes. It is cited. • McMaster: Is that the Litton 2005? • Woodruff: No, it's 1999. It's a very valid question. It's an interesting result and worth looking at. • Levine: It's on page four under Miller, Robson & Lair. • McMaster: Can I just ask one question; if you went to the last bullet on institutional reforms, what are they actually trying to say when they say good policy on paper but are not being aggressively implemented because there's a lack of cooperation by stake holders. What are they really trying to tell us here, in your opinion. • Woodruff: The stake holders are the business community, CSU, Poudre school district, the North Front Range MPO. In other words, we're not able to do it alone. That's why they call out and urge us to seek cooperation with those steak holders to the extent we can. • McMaster: And that's what it kind of says, needed to achieve an A. I was just curious as to exactly what that meant. • Dietrich: The slide with the school transportation management. I don't understand what that means. What sort of programs are you talking about? Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 15 of25 • Woodruff: Walk and bike to school programs, car-pooling. Car pooling is declining because it's aimed at parents who drive their kids is going away with smart trips. • Dietrich: I understand. I just didn't know what was included in that category. • Levine: It seems like something this board's been discussing though. The county's only program that's listed here is walk a child to school. Yet it seems like if Poudre School District builds schools 8 miles away then it doesn't make any sense to walk a child to school. You need to confront the problem systemically. • York: There's no car pooling coordination. • Levine: The county would be better off educating the school district. That's just one of many many things in looking at this. • Woodruff: This is the summary of what's covered in more detail in the report. We can't go into it too deeply. • McMaster: It's all subjective, especially transit improvements and what we've seen lately; I'm wondering how we would ever get to call it stable, losing funding and reduced services. • Levine: Even if was staying still, without reduced services which it's not, with our population increase of 2.3% a year it's loosing ground. • Woodruff: The investment per-capida compared with other cities of our size, we're really not up there with the lead group at all. There's room for improvement there. Ride share is one program is one place that's doing very well. Vango is dealing with commute trips that go outside of community but it does have an effect on local traffic. • Levine: Aspen was mentioned. It said there was resistance at first but six months later the citizen re -voted by a 3-1 margin to support it. Are you saying the DBA is resistant to this? • Woodruff. Yes they are. • Engell: Did they identify the Mason Street project on their own or did somebody put a bug in their ear that that's identified as a project that Fort Collins has in the works? • Woodruff: We told them all about it. This would be a huge boost to transit picture. The transportation planners say that the total rider -ship in city will jump 50% just with that one line opening up so it will be a huge boost for transit. It will also be a huge boost for possibility of doing something at CSU that's a bit more advanced. That's one of the key things we can do to move ahead. • York: That comes up in text too. • Engel]: It would have been more compelling if they had not known about it and had identified that stigma is key to transportation. • York: Something that I found kind of interesting is this graph, there's a P then it goes down, its 2001 then later it says is when the city went to a more productive route, they only choose the routes that most people rode. Our board also supported that notion but I don't support it anymore. • Levine: One thing I haven't seen in here is distinction between number of trips and miles. Page 20, CSU is the city's greatest trip generator. Do we have the figures of the actual miles per trip and how important that is to air quality and also congestion? I'd be interested in that. • Woodruff: I think I understand what you're getting at but the report didn't look at stats like that. Except in the beginning we're put in a scatter diagram on page 5; this shows per capita vehicle travel compared with other communities of like size. We're shown as having over 2000 population and that's because we're lumped in with Loveland and parts of Berthoud. • Levine: All of us will do homework and present bullets next month. The city always concentrates on work related trips. And yet here work related trips are 15-18% no matter how Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 16 of 25 you look at it; and social / family trips equal 72% which is almost 3/4 of all trips. The family/social trips which are really not given much attention which I think they deserve. Also this is again number of trips; I'd like to see the vmt. • Woodruff: you mean a pie chart that shows vmt? That's not data that I have. • Levine: Obviously from an air quality standpoint, obviously for a very long trip for congestion and environmental health that's going to do more; but of course short trips probably cause more problems per trip not only per mile. • Woodruff: I think the reason why work trips get singled out because they are at peak times. That's when we're seeing capacity constraints on the road -way network. • York: To give you a little feedback; I thought maybe the addition to slide 3 the word cost- effective; that's one of the points in here. I don't know to whom this presentation is going to. • Woodruff: It's going to the NRAB, Planning and Zoning, and the Transportation Board. We're going to come up with a plan for rolling this out to others. The city council needs to hear about it too at some point, but I don't think there will be a presentation. • York: Another thing, the anti -car part is defensive. When you read the report it's not a car or bus or anything, it comes across clear to me is the lack of funding that we have for the alternatives and that we're way behind with our street maintenance too. I think it would be more interesting to go through the 9 things and talk about what's lacking and what's the potential as opposed to just to have everything else crisper; like the intention was to bench mark us compared to other cities. My bias is the organization of the city concerning transportation is appalling; to have so many different departments and have it so fractured with the exception of streets. To come into the more startling info like the economic savings potential you mentioned; to focus more on the really exciting stuff in here. I'm so sorry it's this thick; it's only going to take a few dedicated people. City council won't read it. Start with the grade; say this is the grade we received, then go look at them and say why the grade and then explain the potentials. • Dietrich: Slide 3 was economic social environmental topics. • Smith: Is that slide that you were thinking of for cost effectiveness? • York: It might have been 2. Nope, it must be 3, I know it was before 5. • Dietrich: Brian, on your economic/social/environmental slide you mentioned it later on. It might be good to put in an Economic total fee. I'm not sure how you would phrase it but the reduced cost of emergency response, that safety issue you brought up a couple slides later. If you have less traffic and you have less need for ambulance, fire, and all that stuff, that's what I meant. Then under environmental it would be nice to see a mention of climate. It really is a big issue. • McMaster: Nancy pointed out an important thing; it relates to the mosquito discussion. To achieve these benefits we've got so many stake holders and how to pull it all together, and that's when I asked about planning policy and lack of cooperation with stake holders. Well, within the city we have so many departments that we can't even get a reasonable coordination where we come up with an over all plan and how to implement it and get everybody working towards that. That's what the report really came out and said regarding city policy and lack of cooperation with stakeholders. In reality how do we get PSD and CSU to do anything different? • York: We can talk to them and individuals can go to the board meeting. • Levine: We're going to try to do some of that. This report is perfect; it identifies some of the important information that is absolutely completely relevant. For example page 12, just the r Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 17 of 25 organization of mobility management in the city. Obviously some of it is fairly compartmentalized. It almost seems like in the city that sometimes when the lower branch comes into play, maybe those departments don't get the support of the city. The city at the highest level needs to do that type of negotiation, not a lowly staff person. The city needs to call PSD and CSU and be of one mind I think. • Woodruff: Referring to page 43, without recommending any specifics for Fort Collins, it says below are examples of institutional reforms and the implementation activities. And the first bullet is to create a mobility management program with clearly established objectives and adequate resources. We haven't done that. The clearly establish objectives is lacking. We have a lot of activity and people working hard on these issues, but there's no one go -to person to ask how we're doing with PSD and CSU and how are we reaching out. Well that's the transportation planning department and they have a very long list of things that they're doing and this is somewhere on it. • McMaster: There's no coordination. • Levine: And as Tom said they've all got their own budget and they're own issues and they're in competition with other branches of the city. • York: And they have so much work they can't even look at everything. • McMaster: Theoretically, this should lay under the City Plan, that's the ultimate umbrella, right? That says how we want to develop as a city and sets the overall guidelines and then all the transportation master plan fits into that and all the other plans start to fit in but there's where it starts to get fragmentized and institutionalized. • Woodruff: There's a lot of interesting stuff in the institutional reform chapter such as least - cost planning, that's an idea that comes from electric utility management, it says don't build to capacity if it's cheaper to reduce demand. • York: It think it's a great report. • Levine: We need to come back, Brian are you available to come back? If I'm not pleased about something, I usually speak up, but I'm very pleased about this. The joint meeting I was not pleased about but I think no one was really. This is exactly the kind of report I expected, I'm really glad to see it. This is just off the top of my head, for next week some homework. How about 5 solutions that people see here and 5 of the biggest problems. Brian had another suggestion which was we each take a grade and bone up on the subject matter on one of these. But I want to do what I want to do and not get stuck with one... • McMaster: So you suggested the 5 biggest problems and 5 solutions? • Levine: Not to those problems. Possible solutions that look good in here. And then the 5 biggest problems. Our top 3 will be the same. • York: I favor Brian's suggestion from the standpoint of time. I can see the discussion to come up with the 5 solutions and the 5 problems. • Levine: We're going to just come up with them and present them. • McMaster: If we did that we could do it ahead of time and could collate a list and maybe do both. • Woodruff. If you wanted to work on the 5 problems and 5 solutions, there is a summary chapter 8 called implementation summary that breaks it down into the 5 categories about virtual things you can do to move ahead. Those are not recommendations. This is a place that you can look for summary information. I'm concerned that the report is too thick for people to really grapple with the whole thing all at once, that's why I suggested specializing a little bit. Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 18 of 25 • Levine: The problem I have with that, I'm fine with that if everyone else wants to do that. For instance the ride share program, the VANGO pool has grade A marks but if you look closely we have 400 commuters total. That's a little piece that's awarded. • McMaster: What do you think Brian? I'd like to hear what you guys think, Lucinda, Brian? • Woodruff: We can bring staff perspective to it concerning the various departments involved. • York: How are other staff members outside this department getting this information? • Woodruff: That's yet to be determined. I'll certainly make it available to them via email and web and a presentation to relevant staff and have discussion to the study and what we can do. • York: Is it currently on the web? I think the transportation board would be interested. Are we going to have a joint discussion? • Woodruff: No, a joint discussion is not in the cards but they will have a presentation on it in October. • Levine: Are they coming out with recommendations? • Woodruff: I don't know. • York: Are you going to present it? • Woodruff: Their September is crammed. They're asking for October and we'll provide the report to them and see where they go with it. • York: The score, and why the score is what it is should be discussed with the Transportation Board. • Woodruff: The score is going to be harder to assess because that's from the brain of our consultant. I think it's going to be more important to look at what's going to be the potential growth area that's called out. • Dietrich: Are you happy with this report Brian, did you get what you wanted out of this report? • Woodruff: Yes, we did. We ran out of money. So we stopped at the end and stopped doing research. I think we did get what we wanted, the issue now how do we use this information to advance the cause. It's not clear; we, the Natural Resources Department initiated the study. • Dietrich: It may be the start of a focus group. • York: You might send a copy to the chamber. And send it to a champion who will read it; that's the problem it takes hours days to read. • Woodruff: It's not meant for general public really. • York: The chapter on CSU parking if you took that one chapter out maybe the introduction so they can read it. • Dietrich: Send this to CSU; they should be involved. • York: And the sustainability committee with CSU. • Woodruff: That's on our wish list to bring this information to CSU and maybe they could use it to their advantage. Aaenda Item 3 Smoking Code Revision: Hookah bars • McMaster: The question is how would you grandfather in a business that started after a local ordinance, I mean what's even the rational for that? Because two of the three places, one opened in 12/05, and one opened in 2/06, they had the rules then even though there was uncertainty. Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 19 of 25 • Smith: They didn't actually have these rules because what they're proposing is more restrictions. I would say they're proposing a clarification that can be viewed as a restriction that the new places didn't bank on when they opened; such as a 20% or less limited seating area. They didn't open their business under that perception. • McMaster: As I understand this, there was confusion and grey areas. • Smith: Lack of clarity I think. • McMaster: But was it that much of a lack of clarity that they... • Smith: I don't think that the hookah bar issue was really under discussion at that time. There were no "smoking lounges" so going back to the real root of it which was council's intent, I don't know that they were explicitly clear about that. Now that the hookah bar concept has come up, it needs to be clarified. • McMaster: Wasn't the intention, it seemed to me the city set a pretty stringent thing; it seemed every public type of activity... • Levine: Bingo and bowling were the only two exceptions and they were granted under the separate smoking areas. • McMaster: I guess what I'm thinking is either A: they didn't plan their business model adequately or they're just trying to force a grey area. I can see the one that's been in business for 35 years -Edwards Pipe and Tobacco, that's fine. What where they thinking? • Levine: During the original smoking ordinance when that exception was granted for the tobacconist, council knew what they were getting into. It was a well established business, they kind of knew what would transpire, and I think there was a level of comfort. And a level of comfort as far as tobacco only shops in the city. The hookah bars are something that is completely unforeseen. • Smith: They did exist elsewhere but no requests had come up here. • Levine: I was pretty involved with it and it was on no one's radar screen that I remember. • McMaster: What about these two other businesses? • Smith: Nahila Nights there's a typo in there; it's spelled Nariagle or something like that. • McMaster: Now do you think they have a legitimate... • Smith: I'm not saying that I think they have a legitimate claim or not but I can say I listened to the council discussion about this and they did talk about grandfathering in these three businesses for the reason that they started without knowing about the proposed restrictions. So that would be one way to deal with it but then that brought up the business about fair access to trade and could you grandfather in some and prohibit new ones. Levine: I don't know if my concerns are so much what's on here. It's a slippery slope and can you predict how big this fad is going to be and what will happen in the fixture and are there any limits? It seems to me if we drop everything there are no limits. I think the intent of all the tobacco restrictions in legislation just in the last 20 years I think it's pretty clear to me. There's a health and safety issue side of it and the social side as well. They're both certainly valid. I tend to compartmentalize it into those two. In my opinion council needs some more direction. I thought on Tuesday night the quality of the discussion was very perfunctory and I was concerned that most of the voices were not there. It was basically the shop owners telling council that they needed Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 20 of 25 to do this and also spinning some rather creative yarns about the entire history of their business and hookah bars in general; some of which I didn't find very believable myself. There was no one to correct anything or repute anything. There are smoke -free kids groups, there are all sorts of tobacco organizations that have campaigned for decades and none of those forces were heard there. Council obviously has the upcoming budget issues on their minds so a lot of this falls through the cracks. • Carrico: If you're going to ban smoking in indoor public places you should ban it in all indoor places. If you start making these exceptions, it doesn't have a lot of consistency. • Dietrich: Once you start a hookah bar, then why not a cigar bar? • Carrico: Exactly. • Dietrich: Does the state ordinance allow huka.bars? • Levine: I think there's 6 of them. It came up in discussion and I thought they said there were 6 of them. • Smith: I believe that Steve Roy interpreted the state law as allowing hookah bars. But again, it's sort of grey because they do have some restrictions but they're not nearly as narrow as getting down to seating area and things like that. • Levine: Yeah, I didn't get it and it didn't seem incredibly clear. • Smith: It may not be. It may even be one of those areas even in state law that's not crystal clear because it hasn't been tested legally. • Dietrich: I don't see any difference between hookah bars and a bar where you can smoke. An enclosed area where everybody can smoke. • Smith: The difference is maybe what else is served there; whether there's food or alcohol. • Dietrich: I see what you're saying. • McMaster: The main argument of this ordinance is for the health safety of workers; then what's the difference? That's what was so bizarre about the bowling allies. For some reason we just couldn't go all the way. • Levine: It think the gambling establishment and casino's in Colorado that has something to do with a big business that generates lots of income that really felt it was necessary. • Dietrich: The entire county has banned smoking and it seems to have worked. I think someone being in business a year doesn't make it a grandfather issue. • Engell: I don't like the idea of the city giving concessions to two places in town and after that then saying no more. It creates monopolies. • Levine: And these two places have been in business a matter of months, which is even more trouble. • McMaster: There was a little bit more of an- issue. I remember the one about the nursing home. • York: Private residence nursing homes. • McMaster: I was hard pressed to think that, again you have the health professionals that might need to come in, but at what point to do you say... • York: Smoke leaves the room you know. • Smith: One technical point about that, not a conceptual point, is that nursing homes have already been provided an exception in the city administrative code; so this is just further strengthening that. But I know you're talking about the issue of allowing it. Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 21 of 25 • McMaster: I'm not really at all supportive of any kind of smoking. • Levine: Is there any difference between a private nursing home if it's private under the law or private hospital? • Smith: Maybe it's length of stay of someone there or whether you've made your address there, I don't know. • York: This number one thing that says bring the city code into compliance with the 2006 Colorado Smoking ban by removing local exemptions for private clubs, bingo, bowling, private functions, theatre performances, treatment rooms and other government buildings. Now does this mean they are not going to be receiving any exemptions? • Smith: Yes right. They will no longer be exempt. They were exempt under our city code and it's prohibited in state code so those exemptions are going away. • Levine: And if those businesses made costly improvements in good faith because the city did that then they're out of luck. I think this is proper and it's absolutely necessary because this is the state law now. In retrospect sometimes the city would send a wrong signal. I think the city would very much be sending the wrong signal if you said you can smoke only indoor places that are just geared to smoking because we feel as a city, local community that this is fine to promote. Ohlson talked about how he didn't feel this was a threat. I don't think he had any of us over 30 years old, a sense of what social threat is. He didn't feel threatened by it, in my opinion. He felt threatened by patio smoking. I told him after the meeting that I think it's a social component than a health component and it may be that I haven't seen really compelling figures to show that patio smoking and some types of smoking outdoors is equivalent health issue as smoking indoors; but the evidence of smoking indoors is really great. The owners of the hookah places, besides saying that this was a many century old tradition, I thought tobacco came from the new world not the Middle East. They said that there was only 5% nicotine and that there was absolutely no tar in the tobacco that you inhale. I found that very hard to believe and I don't think that they presented any scientific studies to show any of those things. It seems like the council people just took all of that information at face value, which concerned me. • McMaster: I think your big point was there was nobody there to speak against this proposal. • Levine: Council didn't request any scientific information on any of the possible, you know, any of the issues. • York: We should send forth a resolution • McMaster: I think the other thing we need to ask about is what's this about allowing ash trays to be placed within 20 feet of a no smoking perimeter? • Smith: As I understand it, the reason for that is that there's so many businesses in close proximity especially downtown, that if you start adding up the no 20 foot perimeter it puts you basically out in the street with no where nearby that you can put the cigarette butt that you've walked out with. There's a huge problem of cigarette butts all over, so they wanted to allow ashtrays in the 20 foot no smoking perimeter in certain cases that would help deal with that problem. • McMaster: But then what you're going to be doing is bringing the end of the butt, you now bring that within the smoking perimeter to put it out. • York: Instead of ashtray use a different term like receptacle. Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 22 of 25 • York: I think we should send forth a resolution that I would suggest that it were in consensus that we want to stick with the original no -smoking in indoor public places and conform to the Colorado State ordinance, wouldn't you say. And cigarette receptacles as opposed to ashtrays should be used. • Smith: Actually used or just use the term receptacle? • McMaster: I think it sends the wrong message if you have an ashtray, just that alone within an area you're not supposed to; a lot of people may easily be confused and they it's okay to smoke there, that makes no sense. If the intent is to stop litter then we need to be very careful about how we would address that problem; we're concerned it would send the wrong message, or could send the wrong message. • York: One thing I don't think we've really resolved is the private rooms in nursing homes. • Levine: Maybe we're not going to do that today. Maybe council may not get to that. • Dietrich: At the bottom of the page it says here options for recommendations; there's wording that we can consider, are they any of these that we can adopt? • Smith: It's an important point of distinction, it's conceptually a point to say to stick with the original no smoking intent, no smoking in public places. That was a little bit vague in terms of the code so the intent here is to clarify the code and I don't know if you want to go to the level of detail where you say that you do support the idea of the 20% perimeter and the 20% seating or not. Nancy did you mean you want to support no smoking? The original no smoking, what did you mean by that? • York: No smoking in public indoor places. Do you think it needs more clarification? • Smith: I guess not. I think that is a clear statement that you would not ... it actually suggests that you wouldn't support any of these; anything that would allow an exemption for a retail tobacco store even if it had only 20% or less seating. • McMaster: That would be saying the one place that doesn't have the 20% seating, it's too small, and they would be out of business so to speak? Do we need to present reasoning on why we say this. • Levine: I'm going to present to council as a citizen what I feel and present some statistics because they're making fast decisions on this issue. • York: Does the state law allow smoking in private rooms in nursing homes? • Smith: I'm sure they do. I'm sure the city attorney's office worked on this in detail. They wouldn't be allowing it now if it wasn't allowed under state law, I feel pretty sure about that. • McMaster: The difficulty, in part I have, is by they time you move to a private nursing home you're at the point where you have to. But the alternative just before that is you're in your own home and of course you're allowed to smoke but of course you've got that health care professional that comes into that environment. At what point do you say, you have compassion of course and you need to for the health employee, but how far do you carry this? • Levine: It's a social question and a health question rolled into one. • York: Have smoking and non-smoking wings. • McMaster: I was thinking that and had not thought about the idea of smoke moving out of the room; I'd forgotten that. Perhaps an idea would be if you're going to allow it, then there has to be the rooms that are specially ventilated and you can pay more to be i Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 23 of 25 in that if you want that privilege. There has to be a cost to the individual if they're going to this. • Carrico: The same applies for condos and apartment buildings, they have shared ventilation systems. A residence is a safe haven. • Levine: The social aspects go on and on. Do you allow parents to smoke with their kids in the house? What if the kid has asthma and has been hospitalized a number of times? • York: Perhaps we can state some of our concerns and you know. It's a health issue. • Engell: I think it's an all or nothing for me. I don't know if I need a hookah bar in town. I would like to see smoking banned in indoor public places; but I don't want to see council make exceptions that grant rights to certain businesses that then create a monopoly or restrictions for other businesses to come in. • York: That should be in the recommendation. • Carrico: I think you should state the demonstrable effects of indoor second hand smoke with no exceptions. • Smith: I'll make a stab at reading back what I think I heard. We recommend that council stick with the original approach to prohibit smoking in indoor public places; insure that city code conformed to state ordinance, use cigarette receptacles, or something that will not suggest smoking is allowed, as opposed to ashtrays and we do not support granting exceptions to grandfather certain businesses in, because? • Engell: Yes, because of creating monopolies. • Levine: The approach I don't think is correct of that, its original intent I think. • Smith: Should I read it again? • Levine: You have to. • Smith: We recommend that the city council stick with the original intent to prohibit smoking in indoor public places, that city code conform to the Colorado state ordinance, that the city use cigarette receptacles as opposed to ashtrays, and that the city not grant exceptions to certain businesses thereby creating a monopoly. • Carrico: You might add cigarette receptacles near outdoor smoking areas. • McMaster: Might I suggest putting ashtrays within smoking areas. They're trying to solve a certain problem, it was the littering of butts, but the proposed solution is to put ashtrays within the designated no smoking area. Which would do a couple things, it would bring the cigarette smoke into that area plus it could send a wrong message. So we think that the solution to the problem isn't a very good one, that's the problem. They need to think that one out a little bit more on how to do it. It makes no sense, they're attacking a legitimate problem but it's not a good solution. • York: Ashtrays aren't, but a receptacle is like a trash can. • McMaster: What's the difference because you're still going to bring it in to the smoking area? And if you have a receptacle, it's still the same thing as an ashtray, you would think that must be where I drop off my cigarette butts. • York: You are correct but an ashtray might give notion that they can stand there and take more puffs. • Dietrich: That's true, someone would take their last few there and that's where they'd put it out. • McMaster: Right, so you've brought it in. I guess the question is why would you put it within the 20 feet, you can have it on the edge. Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 24 of 25 • Levine: Obviously the intent is not to encourage people to smoke around this, it's for litter. It's a problem with litter downtown which I agree with that part of it for sure. This is not as big an issue for me; I have no great sense for these hookah bars but I would hate to see it become a giant fad over the next couple of years. I wouldn't think so, this is a social phenomenon; I have no good sense of what can happen. • McMaster: I think with the younger people today smoking is becoming so fashionable. • York: So let's go back to the resolution, the receptacle thing. • Dietrich: Why don't you say receptacle to control litter. I agree with you but you have to see the other, I mean you have to put the thing somewhere. • McMaster: Okay, you mean it's not a big enough deal to worry about. • Smith: Are you saying the motion says we recommend that you use a receptacle to control litter? • York: As opposed to ash tray. • McMaster: Yes, that works. • Smith: Okay. • McMaster: If we see it written I think it's a lot easier to do word-smithing at that point. • Smith: This has to go to council by September 5. • Levine: Do we have a second? • Carrico: I'll second. • Levine: All in favor of resolution. None opposed. The AQAB voted unanimously to approve the following motion: Due to the demonstrable health effects of secondhand smoke, the Air Quality Advisory Board recommends that City Council adhere to the original intent (of the 2002 Smoke -free Fort Collins law) by prohibiting smoking in all indoor public places. The Board further recommend that City Code conform to Colorado state law, that the City use "cigarette butt receptacles" rather than "ash trays" if needed within the 20' no smoking perimeter so as not to send the message that smoking is allowed in these areas, and that the City should not grant certain businesses exclusive rights (to operate smoking lounges) and thereby limit free trade." • Engell: Are you going to send it out? • Smith: I will send it to Eric. • Levine: I know what we came up with but don't know how to fix the verbiage. • Smith: I hope this will be helpful to council because they were going back and working on the grandfather issue and I don't know that they've had the opportunity to invest a lot of time thinking about it and this is a very fine thing for aqab to give them feedback on. • Levine: This is right within our purview and been historically what we've worked on. • York: Lucinda, what about car maintanence campaign? • Smith: We are gathering citizen input on out -reach ideas on slogans and graphics. Did anyone look at it and do you have notes? Do you want to spend more time at this point? Air Quality Advisory Board 8/22/2006 Page 25 of 25 • Levine: I would welcome a motion to adjourn at this point. • McMaster: Should we do anything about the minutes? • Levine: I think we should wait until the next meeting. • McMaster: I motion to adjourn. • Engell: Seconded. Meeting adjourned at 8:37 p.m. Updates None Committee Updates None Agenda Planning None Submitted by Tara McGibben Administrative Secretary I Approved by the Board on —_ t ,I 2006 Signed Tara McGibben Administrative Secretary I Extension: 6600 Date