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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 01/15/2004MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE AVE. January 15, 2004 For Reference: Linda Stanley, Chair 493-7225 Eric Hamrick, Council Liaison 226-4824 Sarah Fox, Staff Liaison 221-6312 Board Members Present Everett Bacon, John Long, Ken Moore, Linda Stanley, Cherie Trine, Katie Walters, Nancy York Board Members Absent Jim Dennison, Mandar Sunthankar Staff Present Natural Resources Department: Sarah Fox, Lucinda Smith, Liz Skelton, John Stokes, Brian Woodruff Guests Eric Levine The meeting was called to order at 5:07 p.m. Minutes With no changes, the minutes of the December 18, 2003 meeting were unanimously approved. 2003 Annual Report Linda Stanley handed out draft of 2003 Annual Report • Stanley: I went through the minutes and the agendas for the last year and Liz was kind enough to go through to see if we left anything off. We have another two more weeks to get this in; so please review it, and if you have any changes please email me. West Nile Task force report (not on agenda) Nancy York summarized the last West Nile Task Force meeting for the board's benefit. • Walters: It seems like people got really mad that they had to do normal stuff to prevent themselves from getting sick last year. It's really strange. • York: Another thing that came up is that you can buy larvicide over the counter. They are going to explore reduced -cost larvicide so that people can apply it. But, there is a big public education hurdle. People need to know that they fly in from beyond; chemicals aren't going to do the whole thing. The thing that I stumble on is DEET. I myself don't like the idea of wearing DEET. I wish that someone would evaluate DEET. • Moore: They have; it's not supposed to be used on children under a certain age. • Stanley: There is one type that you can get that is only 33%, but it is supposed to work better because it has some polymers that hold it out from the skin. I used it in the Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 2 of 12 jungles of Borneo and it was fabulous. Everyone else had 100% DEET and was getting bit, and I had on 33% DEET and I had one mosquito bite. According to the travel place I got it from, it is what they use in the military. Are you guys meeting again? • York: There is a conference that's happening the first week in February. We will meet after that. NRD Director John Stokes John Stokes, Director of the Natural Resources Department, updated the board on several key issues and projects that the department is engaged in. • Stanley: (re: 10-yr Land Conservation Plan) I thought that was already at worksession? • Stokes: Just the chapter having to do with land conservation. We wanted to break that out because we knew that was the part they were really going to care about, or not care about. They tend to be quite pleased with our approach to land conservation, so that's good news. • York: I was listening for the sustainability project. • Stokes: That's a great question. I should have included it; that list was pretty random. Sustainability is languishing right now. Partly it is because of our relationships internally with other City departments. A lot of departments feel somewhat threatened by the sustainability initiative. We had to go back and do some handholding and recalibrating to get it to move forward. There is an Executive Leadership Team meeting on the 2l't and we are hoping to get enough critical mass to reengage and get it back in gear. We've been stalled for a couple months on the sustainability initiative. • Trine: Who's threatened? • Stokes: There are a number of departments that are threatened: Transportation, Engineering, Water, Utilities. What people feel threatened by is they are anxious not to have another regulation affecting their work. There is a misconception about what sustainability is, or should be. We have been trying to overcome that misconception. And that's part of our job, to help people understand what sustainability is. I think it is a learning process, for both us and other departments. • York: One of the things that bums me out is, I work at the Lincoln Center, they have a pop machine and only two places to recycle. To recycle one can is like a 100-watt light bulb. • Stokes: Aluminum cans use a lot of energy and resources, there's no question about it. • York: If we were to put out information about the various fuel stuff that happened in the 60's, cans, turning out lights... people just aren't doing it anymore much. • Stokes: That reminds me that I should say there have been important successes in the City in terms of moving towards sustainability. The Purchasing Department is trying to incorporate that more into their thinking. Facilities has started to think about building materials. There are positive trends within the City organization. We could take it further and be more effective in sustainability practices. • Stanley: Does Council have any rule with the sustainability plan? • Stokes: No, it is internal. • Stanley: Could maybe some of them help push it along? • Stokes: We discussed that a little bit; whether or not we want a policy -basis for sustainability. One of our concerns about elevating it to a political level was that Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 3 of 12 people dig in their heels more. It is a good point, but right now we don't want to do that. • Stanley: Have you guys decided not to put together an Open Lands board, and just use the NRAB? • Stokes: No, we haven't put a lot of thought into that. I think we will form another board. We probably won't pay a lot of attention to that until midyear. Technically we won't have that board until January 1, 2006, so we will probably start with the charter and getting it to Council midyear. • Long: One thing the City will be able to do rather easily now is use biodiesel. We are working on getting a public pump here, and we are opening our P public pump in Aspen and then Fort Morgan on February 6 h, and Fort Collins later in February. That will be an easy way for the City to put at least 5-10 of their vehicles, if not their entire fleet, to try it out. I have numbers as far as what the cost premium would be: for every 100,000 gallons it would be about $12,000. It's not a huge expense, because that's quite a bit of your fuel that you would use within a year; about 20% of your fleet. Within a month, we should have that available. • Stokes: Good news. • York: Tom Frasier said that they were going to use biodiesel 20%-80% blend, and have the emissions tested in Denver. • Long: They haven't committed yet; it's been a cost issue. RTD Denver, they are running 5 of their buses on B20 for the next year, and sending the buses to NREL for monthly testing. Even though there is a cost premium per gallon, it is saving them money in the long run because of maintenance, increase in engine life, and length between oil changes. They are keeping their eye on that testing program to see the outcome. • York: It sounded like it was a done deal. Was I the only one that heard it that way? • Walters: I heard it that way too. • Stokes: I hate to interject, but I need to leave. Are there any other questions? • York: I just hope you spend more money on open spaces and community separators. • Stokes: We just spent $8 million dollars and we have done several thousands of acres this year. In fact, the problem we are going to have is next year we will be out of money. We have more opportunities than we can fund. One of the things that I will bring to the NRAB is that we need to start thinking about options for creating more revenues. We will put out a report soon that will itemize that. I'm not worried about not spending the money; I'm worried about not having enough money to spend. We have some really fabulous opportunities. • York: How hard would bonding be? • Stokes: We have to get a vote of the public. We have some other ideas too, that are rather complicated. But, we have to run a campaign, go back to the public, and Council would vote to put it on the ballot. We will work with the NRAB to see what it feels comfortable with, and we're also working internally on some financing mechanisms that could help us a lot without going to the people. It's all up in the air right now; it's all speculative and complicated. Anything we do will require the help from the financial people. The good news is that is a good problem to have. We just closed on 2,500 acres in Masonville, bought the Resource Recovery Farm; we've got a contract on 150 acres on the trail over by Michaud Lane. Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 4 of 12 • Stokes: Can't do it; don't have enough money. • Trine: Have you bought anything in the east? • Stokes: The Resource Recovery farm, but that's kind of an internal City transfer, although we had to buy it. It's actually on the west side; I'm thinking east Fort Collins. We have some projects for community separators that we are very involved in right now. The community separator is only about 1000 acres, but the problem is that it is very expensive land. We are struggling with: If we buy track A, and we lose all 9-15 other tracks, we have this tiny thing in the middle of a sea of development. Maybe we do 80%, but we spend $10 million dollars to preserve 600 acres that still have reserved home sites. What kind of value do you get back for that enormous investment of public money? • Trine: Is that what the Open Space Board will decide? • Stokes: We will work with NRAB right now. We are trying to devise some real estate strategies to help us understand if we can control more or less of that. If it's less, we may have to make the decision to not spend the money on that. • Stanley: Are their environmental values for that Timnath area other than just community separator? • Stokes: It's pretty limited. • York: There was a study that showed that children who lived close to heavily traveled roads got childhood cancer 6 times more than other children. Ideally, it would be nice if we could do 1500 ft; that's more than'/4 mile. Maybe we could buy easements. • Stokes: We are buying easements. Even buying easements is a lot of money. • Stanley: They are still 60% or more of the total price. • Stokes: We just went through a laborious appraisal process on an 80 acre tract, and there's three houses on that tract already, and for a conservation easement it has been appraised at $600,000. And, the land owner doesn't agree, he thinks it should be $1 million dollars for just the easement. So those are the things that we grapple with every day. • Bacon: Why do we care about the easements? From a separator stand point? Or is there another value in having an easement? • Stokes: The easements are just another conservation tool. We're not buying and owning the land, we are stripping development rights off that property forever. • Bacon: The 2,500 acres in Masonville, is that a community separator? • Stokes: No, that is a regional project. We have three categories: local, community separators and regional projects. If you have seen our planning map, it falls within one of our major bubbles. • Bacon: What the use and value of purchasing that? • Stokes: It's a pure conservation and recreation project. • Bacon: Those rangers that patrol it, are they in your department? How many are there? • Stokes: Yes, we are at 3.5. It will go to four shortly. • Bacon: 3.5? That's it? • Stanley: I called one of them on Sunday. It's hard; they can't make it. Kristin tried, but she was on her bike. We're lucky the animal shelter showed up and gave people with dogs off leash six tickets. • Stokes: Our land is so spread out, it's hard to get coverage. Maybe we can do a volunteer program like Poudre Wilderness Volunteers. It's really education outreach. Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 5 of 12 • Long: One other thought — Rocky Mountain Sustainability Living Association is trying to secure a piece of open space to have a sustainability living fair every year. Who would I talk to? • Stokes: Mark Sears, program manager for natural areas. I&M Lucinda Smith passed out a copy of her PowerPoint presentation. Update on I/M feasibility changes since last February. • Bacon: (re: Early Action Compact) Seems like it would put a lot of pressure on Denver to get other counties to join, but I don't see any incentive for the counties to join. • Moore: Denver is very powerful. • Stanley: What would they hold over Larimer County's head? • Moore: Just future cooperation in things. • Smith: The RAQC is very influential with the Air Quality Control Commission, and any change in regulations could affect us here. But you're right, maybe they don't have a lot of leverage. I understand that the County is under a lot of pressure not to go in from the Gas industry. These elected officials are being asked to make a very difficult decision and our MPO is not even in the picture. • Bacon: Where did Feb 9th deadline come from? • Smith: It came from the current Early Action Compact signatories wanting to know, because there is going to be a hearing in March that looks at several things. • Bacon: That is something the EPA will consider in setting the non -attainment area? • Smith: It said that EPA is seeking comment on the boundary. • Stanley: They are likely to pick Weld, at least. • Smith: I hear more and more that they will pick Larimer, Weld and Morgan. • Moore: The issue of the national park being in violation of ozone might throw Larimer County more into it than anything else. • Smith: You're right Ken; Rocky Mountain National Park has exceeded the standard. There are regional haze issues and other visibility concerns that factor in for Latimer County. Good point. • Moore: Don't the counties have representatives that are part of the MPO? • Smith: Yes. I don't think County staff has had a chance to make a presentation or recommendation to their Commissioners. I know that the Larimer County Environmental Advisory Board talked about that issue on Tuesday, and I think they recommended to the commissioners to join the Action Compact. I was hoping to get that confirmed today, but I didn't. There is not a lot of input on the this at the local level, and that is a concern. • York: What are flash emissions again? • Walters: When gas and oil companies do their production; when it comes through the line it is pressurized. When they come treat it to take out the things that they want to sell, one of those things are dehydrator towers that take out the water from the gas and then send some of the water that falls out on its own to tanks. It depressurizes really fast (400psi to atmosphere) and all the liquids vaporize into gas. Previously, many of these sources had no controls. For several years they have all been releasing these emissions without telling anyone. • Bacon: This is raw natural gas released into the atmosphere? Is that methane? Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 6 of 12 • Walters: It's everything. There is all sorts of stuff. • Bacon: Isn't the non -methane the most contributing? • Smith: In terms of reactivity, I think you are right. That is part of the comprehensive analysis that they did in the modeling effort. In summary, they were lead to these controls. If you go to the RAQC's website, all the documents related to the ozone issue are there. It is a good resource. • Moore: Who did that presentation here in October? • Smith: Steve Arnold from CDPHE. • Moore: My impression for why they went for this is it is the best bang for the buck. • Walters: It is worth it to control it. They could put a flare on those, destroy all of it, and it controls 95% of it. It would go almost to nothing by burning. All they do is stick a flare/flame on it. It is very simple, but there has been a lot of resistance from the gas and oil commissions. • Bacon: When I was in Texas, we were getting elevated monitoring data for ozone, and what they determined is the ozone would start on Monday and wouldn't fully dissipate at night; there would be some residual. There was some building of the residual amount of ozone over the week. By the time Saturday came around, activities added to it and kept those monitors high. • Smith: Is that a slightly different reason? Do you think that supports the conclusion that mobile sources play a role? • Bacon: I certainly agree mobile plays a role. I'm just making a statement that residual ozone plays a role too. • York: What was your explanation? • Smith: My explanation was that part of tailpipe emissions include Nitrogen Oxides. That can evolve into NO, and NO plays a role in the photochemical reaction that breaks down ozone. It combines with 03 and creates oxygen, which is 02 and Nitrogen Dioxide. There is some talk about efforts to not try and reduce NOx emissions, which has a lot of harmful repercussions. I still think it is appropriate to go for VOC control, but I think Doug Lawson feels that even the VOC control can be done through mobile sources. • York: He is advocating mobile sources? • Smith: Controls on mobile sources. • Bacon: What might be concluded from that statement is: We don't have enough automobile emissions to control the emissions from trees that are causing the ozone. I don't think that is the message that we want to be sending out there. • Smith: I was just trying to raise some points that are coming up with this issue. • Moore: There is another group that is trying to do something about the I/M program; they are trying to keep it from going away. They have hired RJ Hicks from the Department of Revenue. I have had several conversations with RJ. RJ gets the feeling from the petroleum industry that the State is going to have a real hard fight to put controls on those wells. I don't know if the State is going to be looking more favorably towards the I/M aspect of it because of the political pressure. • Walters: There is both ways. We have two people working on the enforcement. • Stanley: So there is already regulation? Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 7 of 12 • Walters: Just limits on the VOCs. The enforcement that we are working on is what they reported to us versus what actually happened. What they actually did was a lot more than what they recorded. We want specific controls on those tanks. • Stanley: To get some closure, the staff will be looking at what they believe the letter to...... • Smith: It will be the City's hearing position paper, and it goes to the Air Quality Control Commission. • Stanley: That may be something where the board will get involved in, depending on the role of Council in that. You will be finding that out in a week or so? • Smith: Right. We will make the request for party status, partially just as a place holder. We don't know what is going to be decided about the boundary and the participation in the Action Compact. It would be a much bigger and further step to recommend an additional control. Dr. Jerry Gallagher, who worked with us on I/M feasibility, he just worked with another consultant who did an analysis on evaporative emissions as it relates to ozone, and that group will be recommending further evaporative controls. Potentially we could support that recommendation. I don't know what role the board might play. Normally, we could rely on existing City policy to formulate the position. Air Quality Policies Lucinda Smith & Brian Woodruff updated on the progress of several Air Quality policies. • Bacon: The first sentence under Community Vision and Goals: "because most air pollution comes from motor vehicles". Based on your presentation it is 14% VOC and 20% NOx. We pick on motor vehicles because they are an easy target, but they are getting cleaner and cleaner. We are going to have to find something else to pick on. Off -road motor vehicles are a pretty high percent, and most of those are uncontrolled. The prevailing notion is that everyone thinks it's cars, and I'm not really sure it is anymore. • Trine: Do you have those figures? • Smith: It would be part of emissions inventory work. There will be large declines in mobile source emissions from a variety of controls. I think you have a good point. • Bacon: The pie chart you showed... • Smith: But that's for VOC. • Bacon: I understand, but when you look at NOx it looks like 25%, approximately. • Moore: But what about CO? That has always been our problem. I think the big emphasis on cars has been the CO. • Smith: And greenhouse emissions. Maybe we should look at using the broader term "mobile sources", than motor vehicles. I haven't had a chance to talk with Brian about that. Do you have thoughts about that Brian? • Woodruff: It's a fair question. That statement is consistent with what we were saying in 1993 when the first Air Quality Plan was adopted. We had an emissions inventory that bore that out; that it is mostly motor vehicles. We should look into making sure that this is still a good statement. • Stanley: Everett, they have added in the new policies, non -road emissions. The City is recognizing now that there are significant non -road emissions. • Smith: Cherie you were asking about the numbers too. We don't have thorough comprehensive emissions inventory for vehicles. We will try to get something for you. Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 8 of 12 • Moore: We have more efficient vehicles, but we probably have more VMT. • Bacon: I agree. I'd like to see the data. But when I think of our ability to control those emissions, it's not very good. I don't think that should be our focus. We should look at everything equal and say: What is best bang for the buck? • York: There is some inconsistency here, in the draft of Air Policies, on Policy 10/X: "because a majority of air pollution exposure occurs indoors...". • Smith: I still think that is true. We're talking about outdoor emissions, but the actual human exposure occurs indoors. • York: Maybe you need to say most OUTDOOR air pollution. • Trine: We don't have a lot of big industry in this area. Even though we may not have a lot of car air pollution, in your opinion, it still may be the majority. • Stanley: This will be included in the Air Quality Plan, once it's flushed out. • Smith: Yes. It would go into "Other Supporting Policies", once flushed out. • Bacon: (re: Idling campaign) Is there a sense that this will have an impact in reality? I was in a Taco Bell Line behind a big diesel truck and he kept turning it on and off. It seems like damage to the starter. • Moore: That is why you see that diesel delivery trucks don't want to turn off. Those starters draw a lot of current, and it is very expensive to replace them. Home Depot has a sign that says "no diesel idling". • Stanley: It is in the downtown plan to reduce delivery truck idling. • York: There are positives to be made about educating people about idling. • Smith: If someone is idling and they turn off for 5 minutes, that's not insignificant. • Stanley: (regarding the questions about whether municipal actions to improve air quality should be included in the list of strategies) I think that is a good idea: Being complete in the Air Quality Plan about what you are actually doing, and saying that we are doing our part, we are not just asking everyone else to take the burden. • Smith: Which is one of our policies - that we want to do that. Trying to illustrate ways that we are doing that was the thinking behind this. • Stanley: I did want to ask about the subcommittee. Are they getting together? • Smith: I think I wanted early February. I will catch up with you at the end. Board Radon Discussion Brian Woodruff answered questions; board continued discussion on Radon. • Stanley: Last time, there were a number of questions because when I went to the public hearing, there were a number of new options presented on radon that we had never seen before. I think we were looking for some explanation about those. • Woodruff: I believed we answered some questions in the memo in your packet. • York: Your cost changes were right on. Who put out this estimate: New Home Buyer Costs 2004? • Woodruff: Felix Lee and his colleagues in the Building Department. The main difference between the two cost estimates is in the cost of bringing sub -slate aggregate to the site. It is about $400. We had originally estimated $600 for a total passive system, but we assumed the sub -slate aggregate was already being brought to the site. • York: Because it is a standard practice, right? • Woodruff: It turns out not that not everybody does it. 90% do and the other 10% don't. Builders complained because they don't all do it, and it would cost $400. Felix wanted Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 9 of 12 to be conservative, so he said OK now it will be $1000. When this comes back to City Council, we will have a revised cost -estimate that takes into account that 9 out of 10 homes already have it. The way we will address this is by convening a group of builders to advise us about the costs. We will be meeting next week to talk about some of these issues so that we can get a consensus cost -estimate. • Trine: Aren't there costs on the EPA website and from other states? That would be helpful to include. • Stanley: The City had the independent cost analysis done. Why isn't that being used when presenting to Council? There is no conflict of interest. If builders don't want this to happen, they may try to inflate the cost. • York: Whoever wrote this has "plus builder markup". • Moore: Well, you have to make a profit. • York: Beyond the building of the house? • Moore: Yes. • Trine: At the top you say $310 to convert a passive to an active system, but then you go through with the two columns with the $310 on top of each thing. I can just imagine our mayor looking at that and adding up and saying that it is $1000 difference. • Woodruff. In the left hand column is the cost for the passive system, under three different alternatives. • Bacon: Those are mutually exclusive options. • Trine: Alternatives, Oh! OK well that's not very clear. • Stanley: At least two people had that same question last time, so maybe that is not clear. • Woodruff: OK, thank you. • Walters: I didn't realize that our estimate was so off from the EPA. Why is that? • Woodruff: I don't know why. We have more information about the costs, locally. We had all these line items and it was very detailed. I think it's only a little higher than the range. It's almost double, that's right. • Walters: I wonder, since it is a national average, if the inexpensive states bring it down. • Trine: I think the EPA average should also be in there. • Stanley: I assume the staff recommendation will remain the same? • Woodruff: At this point, yes. There is still some discussion of this, internally. Why does a reduction system in new construction cost more than mitigating after the fact? I think in truth, that is not the case. • Woodruff: At the hearing, many people spoke about choice, and how, by adopting a regulation, the government is removing choice from the marketplace. We are starting to develop an alternative that would guarantee a choice for the homebuyer. A choice that happens before the slab is poured. • Trine: Do we have choices in wiring? Should safety be a choice? Or should it be mandated? • Woodruff: We were talking about alternatives, the "passive white" system without caulking, literally came out of newspaper soapbox discussion. The decision was made to include that as an option in the presentation to Council. • York: There are energy conservation benefits from having that membrane down. Plus the moisture barrier. Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 10 of 12 • Woodruff: No, it turns out there are not any energy benefits. I called EPA and it turns out that the membrane is consistent with good energy building practices. In itself, it does not reduce energy use. • York: But the moisture control and radon mitigation are hand and glove? • Woodruff: On one type of building only, with the structural floor. That gives the soil a chance to heave and fall without the floor collapsing. Only about 10% are built that way now. • York: The building code isn't proposing that you do moisture control for the slab and gravel? • Woodruff: No. • York: Are town homes included in this? • Woodruff: I think yes. The IRCC covers all single-family and single -family -attached. And duplexes, but not condos. • York: We made a recommendation on active only. Do we want to consider a minimum standard? We all recognize that the best is active, but the minimum being passive tested and depending on test results, be made active. • Walters: I thought that was clear, because we were recommending active. We would rather have the passive system than nothing. • Stanley: Nancy's is one step above just passive, and is in line with the County's program. • Levine: Between 6-10 PicoCuries per liter, the County will send out a letter to the home purchaser urging them to activate their system. • York: What mine would suggest is that it would just be part of a healthy house. It would be part of the builders to just do it. • Trine: We had problems before because they can screw with the testing; it can be faked. • Stanley: My gut feel is that we were the only board to recommend active. NRAB recommended passive with testing. • Walters: We still all feel like active is the best, though right? The majority voted that? • Stanley: I'm a little concerned about stepping back too much. • Trine: Does it matter if we lose? Or should we stick with what we believe in? We had a lot of good reasons, maybe we should remind them of what those were. • Stanley: As long as the Council members know that there is a point where we don't want them to step back any further. • Walters: We need to get some personal contact. They need to go on the high end of the lower. I think that is a personal contact thing that needs to occur. • Trine: Can we submit our recommendation to the paper? Or could we be quoted? • Stanley: By charter you can say you are a member, but make sure you make clear that you are not representing the board. I would like to put an email/memo together to the Council with our concerns. • Levine: I have been following this issue since it started in 1995. What I am concerned about is the articles in newspapers that have such high costs. The Home Builders Association is taking out ads saying it will cost $2000. That is a larger concern as far as Council's decision of what the cost will be. The City put in Council packets, a recommendation that was outside of the process, and outside of the consultant that Natural Resources paid to have a good estimate. The price more than doubled and went into Council's packets right before the last work session. I question the timing of that Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 11 of 12 and I have done web searches for three weeks and have not found any price near there. Nationally, the price is exactly what Natural Resources said the price would be for radon systems when you build new. • Stanley: Eric, if you could give me a summary that would be great, so I have reference materials when I write the email. • Levine: I'm concerned that it has been misreported in every press piece so far. It has been misreported by a factor of 2, 3, 4, and in the case of the Bullhorn: 10. • Stanley: That's why I think it would be good to get in a letter of our own to the newspapers. • Trine: Yes, yes! Let's do that. • Levine: If the board drafted an advisory to Council, could the CC go out to the press? • Stanley: We will get a clarification on it tomorrow. • Levine: I am very concerned about the final work session on February loth. Who will be there, and who will not be there. When the Council did a work session on its original radon, I was invited to a sit at the table. • Stanley: I was invited as well last time, and am going to ask to be invited again. • Levine: What has not been mentioned in any newspaper is that the County has had their program, which involves testing and letters, as well as passive in every subdivision, for seven years. I'm concerned that there are no health professionals at the table with Council. • Stanley: I would talk to your Council member to get him to invite those people. It is Council's prerogative. • Levine: It is also City staff s prerogative. They can do that as well. • Woodruff: I would ask you to keep in mind that the Feb 1 Oh work session will be about the whole IRCC. Most of the controversy is about radon, but the session will include everything. One of the things I've asked for is how much time will we have to present about radon, and I have not received an answer yet. • Stanley: I'll put together an email, and send it out. I will point out things that might get lost in the shuffle. I would invite you to contact City Council members that you might know to sit down and have personal interactions with Council members. • Walters: Builders are doing that too. • Trine: A letter to the editor is invaluable. Even to mention that the AQAB supports active. Just to get it out there that there is support. • Stanley: I can turn my email into a soapbox too. • Trine: Can I request that Eric send information and links to us? Updates • Fox: The smoking ordinance: the Council is considering an amendment to the code that would redefine a private club. The Council will view the amendment on Feb 17th. The amendment will make changes to private club requirements and make is harder to become one. You will get copy of a letter that goes out to businesses. It is a first reading, so Council is asking people to come comment if they are concerned about it. • Stanley: Can you send us the letter and we can have a discussion via email? • Fox: Yes. Also, in the next week you will be receiving a letter from the manager and the deputy manager asking for, at our next meeting they want input on the 2005 Building Community Choices sales tax. It expires in 2005. The City is trying to decide Air Quality Advisory Board 11/15/2004 Page 12 of 12 whether or not to go to voters to extend it. There is a good chance that the City will go for one of the sales tax, renewing the Streets and Transportation pavement management plans. The other piece is for the Community Enhancement projects. What Council would like boards to do is to help them figure out what projects they should be funded through public approval. What they are asking this board to do is talk about themes. Think about some broad Air Quality themes that Council can address when making their decisions. • Moore: Certain situations have happened at my work, so I might not be attending some future meetings. • Stanley: Ken, would it help if we met later? • Moore: Yes. • Stanley: Do you want to start at 5:30? If that helps, then we can start on time. Let's try 5:30 next month. • Fox: We will officially post that — 5:30PM to 8:OOPM. Meeting adjourned 7.39 PM Submitted by Liz Skelton Administrative Secretary I A40PK ,e& b� tt2, board i