HomeMy WebLinkAboutEconomic Advisory Commission - Minutes - 04/19/20171 | Page
MINUTES
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION
Date: Wednesday, April 19, 2016
Location: Colorado River Room, 222 Laporte Ave.
Time: 11:00am–1:00pm
For Reference
Wade Troxell, Mayor & Council Liaison
Josh Birks, Staff Liaison 221-6324
Dianne Tjalkens, Minutes 221-6734
Commission Members Present Commission Members Absent
Sam Solt, Chair
Denny Otsuga
Alan Curtis
Ted Settle
Connor Barry
John Parks
Ann Hutchison
Linda Stanley
Craig Mueller
Staff Present
Dianne Tjalkens, Admin/Board Support
Josh Birks, Economic Health Director
Katie Ricketts, Economic Healthy Analyst
Caroline Mitchell, Senior Environmental Planner
Katy Bigner, Environmental Planner
Victoria Shaw, Senior Financial Analyst
Guests
Dale Adamy, citizen
Meeting called to order at 11:04am
Public Comment—Dale: Thanks to the board for supporting him getting social issues incorporated into
the Downtown Plan—he has studied the plan, RFP (request for proposals), and been to meetings.
Appreciate board carrying forward his comments to Council. Council has not yet responded. Pilot project
process on agenda today, and wondering about counterpart to social sustainability: does Social
Sustainability Department have competitive process to solve social issues? In process of studying
Downtown Plan, started looking at process for City Plan and Transportation Plan. Planning Department
put together RFP. What is EAC role in the process? There has been groundwork laid down that EAC
should have been involved in. How do we get triple bottom line (TBL) incorporated into the process?
Have included Center for Public Deliberation in City Plan—expands on old process, but doesn’t change
process—needs more emphasis on TBL.
• EAC activity led to including Center for Public Deliberation in City Plan process.
Review and Approval of Minutes:
March minutes approved as presented.
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Agenda Review—Added discussion of commission’s Periodic Review to Agenda Item 1.
Commission Member/Staff Updates—
• Connor: Would like to make sure tackling problems of housing affordability, transportation, etc.
Should be proactive to avoid problems. Visited Madison—similar city—has big university,
density issues, at 250K population, which is where Fort Collins is heading. They have more high
density development, but we have more space—have opportunity to preserve open space and
decide where to increase density.
• John: How was EAC conversation on Downtown Plan forwarded to Council?
o This group made an official statement, which went to project manager and was submitted
to Council with the project packet. Probably had 15–20 board statements included. Have
chance to get in at beginning of City Plan and be more influential.
• Sam: Style magazine article on growth in northern Colorado. Includes comments from various
communities and Northern Colorado Economic Alliance on strategies to tackle the issues. Looked
at RFP and selected vendor for City Plan—cream of the crop, in good hands.
• Josh: Innovation After Hours (IAH) funding was discussed in last month’s meeting. Have been
funding that activity out of cluster grant funding for 6–7 years. Used to hand out all funds without
competitive process. Have earmarked funds for board seats on clusters and IAH for many years;
however, have started receiving competitive grant applications for similar programming. Nothing
changed this year from historical process, but will be fully competitive process next year.
AGENDA ITEM 1— EAC’s role in City Plan and Schedule & Overview of Periodic Review
Process, Josh Birks
Periodic Review: Council has 27 boards and commissions to review. New process is a schedule to
engage with a handful each year. See how aligned with City Strategic Plan and key outcome areas, how
EAC work plan is aligned with EAC mission/charter, Council liaison appraises how things are going, etc.
Starts with self-assessment, then schedule time to invite Council liaison to meeting (June or July
meeting). 2018 Work Plan due September 30.
ACTION ITEMS: Josh will share self-assessment with commission via email. Members will submit
answers to Josh by first Wednesday in May. Will combine input into one document at May meeting.
EAC’s Role in City Plan: Center for Public Deliberation brought into engagement. Staff is interested in
getting good feedback from many boards and commissions. Need to be efficient. Discussing format
options such as steering committee including board members. Planning is interested in having member
from this group involved in refining scope of what outside consultants will do vs. what staff will do. Ted
can continue as EAC representative through this process.
AGENDA ITEM 2— CAP Pilot Project Competitive Process, Katie Ricketts & Katy Bigner
Fort Collins Innovation Challenge—new grant process that launched April 3. Coming out of Climate
Action work—community driven opportunity for community entities to apply for funding to help reach
climate action goals. Soliciting external projects to help with CAP goals. Focusing on energy, waste, and
transportation. Have about $400K total—awards ~$5–250K. Using letter of intent (LOI) as first screen
with full application by invitation. Eligibility includes clear alignment with target areas, quality of
plan/budget/schedule, reduction in GHGs, and impact in Fort Collins (does not have to be Fort Collins
based entity, but impact must be here). Prefer projects with matching funds, social equity, scalability,
inclusive project management (women and minorities in leadership roles), collaborations. LOIs are due
April 28, applications due May 26, June 28 public pitch night for finalists, awards announced mid-July.
Increasing community engagement in CAP—spur economic benefit and have autonomous projects that
the City is not responsible for administering. Intent to seed startups, technology, behavior change
projects, etc.
Discussion/Q & A:
• Who screens LOIs?
o Internal screening team, with outside citizen input after first screening.
• How getting word out?
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o CSU, City website, Facebook, etc. Have had calls already, including from out of state.
Great feedback so far.
• Concern about citizen engagement—should come before pitch night.
o CAP citizen advisory group will participate in application review. Speaking to them this
week.
o Need to know more about CAP citizen advisory group.
o TBL participation.
Chamber, Anheuser-Busch, advocacy groups, New Belgium, etc. Broad group.
• Thrilled to see action on the ground—this is hands on action to move the dial.
• Not a very big investment.
ACTION ITEMS: Katy will share roster of CAP citizen advisory group.
AGENDA ITEM 3—Talent 2.0 Overview & Implementation, Ann Hutchison
Full report available on Chamber website. Brought together variety of partners from Larimer County, to
City, Northern Colorado Economic Alliance, Loveland Chamber, City of Loveland, etc. Hired TIP
Strategies, who had already completed economic snapshot of Fort Collins in 2014. Understanding
workforce from employer perspective—interviewed 50 employers in variety of sectors. Updated data.
Identified 3 challenges:
1. Hiring Difficulty: Need right employees with right talent
a. Changing Community Patterns: Importing more workers, seeing higher percentage
leaving to find work as well, unemployment at record lows (ideal is 4%), high labor force
participation
b. Recruitment Challenges: Trouble attracting from Denver and coasts, C-level executives,
and young professionals, hard to fill high physical requirement jobs, workers that can’t
pass drug tests (marijuana), low wage services hard to fill too.
c. Underemployment continues to be a challenge: Larimer County has high level of
education in residents, but jobs don’t match. 45% of labor force has BA or higher, but
only 20% of jobs need BA. Pipeline challenges—not everyone needs a four year degree,
need education/training to match jobs. Liberal arts degrees are most popular, but not
matching available/needed jobs. Structural challenges—housing affordability at all
income levels, quality childcare at affordable prices, transportation. Looking at projected
shortfall of about 5K workers.
2. Continued Tightening of Labor Market: Supply of skilled workers not projected to meet demand.
3. Aging Workforce: In many occupations 25% of workers are over 55. Will see a lot of retirement.
a. Planning for succession due to aging workforce—can this be done in collaboration with
other entities? Lining up education with private employers. Working on sector
partnerships.
Labor market is strained—need plan to move ahead for thriving economy. Talent 2.0 sets out common
goals and strategies. Focuses on access, alignment (education to workforce), and removing barriers.
Talking about recruitment strategies, underemployment (can workers be redeployed?). Barriers—I-25
corridor improvements, advocacy for FRCC Allied Health School, affordable housing, affordable child
care. Implementation—education and training partners, industry, social issues, etc. Steering committee
will look at projects to determine who should do what.
Discussion/Q & A:
• Housing market challenging for young professionals.
• Have become a country where expect people to go to college. Need re-education on this issue.
• How much of current/available workforce is in areas where there will be high retirement? Need to
weight these based on percentage of workforce.
• Underemployment—people move to Fort Collins for many reasons—they make choices.
o True, but if want to make a different choice, should be able to redeploy skills.
o Market driven.
o If people want to make different choices but can’t, and we can help, that is one less
employee we have to bring in from outside.
Not City’s job.
Coalition effort—determining roles for implementation
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o Personal responsibility—can leave Fort Collins. Government should not be finding jobs
for people.
Identify system to use people who are already in our community to the best of
their skills.
• Timeline?
o Some efforts launched as soon as this fall. Working on timeline.
• Many identified trends are national, not just local.
o Very attractive place to live, exacerbates issues. People used to find good jobs, then move
to them. A lot of people move here without a job, or are willing to take a job that doesn’t
fit their ideal to live here.
• Big issue is where people will live. If we want to attract young people and get them to stay,
housing has to be a priority—and that is something the government can help with. Students have
access to financing, come here and jack up the price, low income people don’t have those same
resources.
AGENDA ITEM 4— Citywide Organics Composting, Caroline Mitchell
Council adopted goals around waste reduction. We throw away a lot of material that could be composted.
Study of Larimer County Landfill materials from Fort Collins—about ½ of materials coming from
residential, commercial and industrial could be composted. About 1/3 could be recycled. Only about 15%
of materials don’t have a diversion option yet. Over last two years worked on Community Recycling
Ordinance—adopted in September—options that were moved forward include yard trimming service for
single family homes (opt in service with all haulers), all multifamily complexes and businesses will have
recycling by 2020, and all grocers composting by end of 2017. Giving more review to other options and
taking them back to Council this year—includes curbside collection of food scraps and yard trimmings,
and collection of food scraps at restaurants. Doing series of waste sorts at restaurants in Fort Collins—65–
80% of waste is compostable food scraps. These generate a lot of methane in the landfill—very potent
GHG. Elements looking at: mandatory vs. voluntary, where materials would go (dependent on materials
collected), etc. Potential destinations: A1 Organics has location in Eaton (yard trimmings only) and
Keensburg (yard trimmings and food scraps). Other options: Build a transfer station at Larimer County
Landfill, composting facility at LCL, food scraps to Drake Water Reclamation facility (would require
additional facility), Heartland Biodigester in Kersey.
Cost model methodology—Collected input from peer communities and one private entity. Broke down
information into per mile cost (hauling cost, tipping fees, personnel, etc.). Base-case reflects average,
worst-case reflects most expensive input received. The more who participate, the lower the cost.
Calculated GHG reduction, job creation, monthly cost/person, and tons composted. Ex: Residential
bundled yard and food scraps=$10–20/mth. Still working on cost/mth for restaurants based on required
vs. opt-in models. Also rolling out this year a food waste reduction campaign—starting with residents,
then will build program for restaurants.
Public meeting May 2, Work Session May 23. Members can send comments to Caroline.
Discussion/Q & A:
• Infrastructure costs for restaurants—Where will they store scraps until picked up? Pest control?
Etc?
o Bins are calculated into cost, but pest control and training are not included. Incremental
marginal costs of collection itself. Haven’t yet looked at “right sizing” bins. Will
interview business and refine model.
o Talking about another bin, but not any new material. This waste is already being
generated and stored outside, collected, hauled, etc. Nothing about separating food scraps
that increases pests compared to having it mixed with other trash.
• How many people use yard trimming collection? Are people opting in?
o Nationwide, recycling programs that are opt-in get subscription rates of 10–20%. Rates
are about the same for organics when opt-in. When bundled, higher. Ex: 96% of Fort
Collins residents participate in recycling.
• Loveland has yard waste pick up? More integrated system.
o Municipal hauler—different rate structure.
• There are communities that require food waste recycling?
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o Many communities offer the service, either as bundled or opt-in. Cannot force people to
use it unless ban the materials from the landfill.
• Opportunity for CAP Pilot Project Competitive Process.
Meeting Adjourned: 1:07pm
Next Meeting: May 17