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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 01/20/2005FUT-11afy1*1 CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE AVE. January 20, 2005 For Reference: Linda Stanley, Chair 493-7225 Eric Hamrick, Council Liaison - 226-4824 Lucinda Smith, Staff Liaison - 224-6085 Board Members Present Jassen Bowman, Kip Carrico, Eric Levine, Ken Moore, Linda Stanley, Cherie Trine, Nancy York Board Members Absent John Long Staff Present Natural Resources Department: Lucinda Smith, Liz Skelton, John Stokes Guests None The meeting was called to order at 5:36 p.m. Minutes With the following changes, the minutes of the November 16, 2004 meeting were unanimously approved: • Stanley (Page 11: Last Bullet, BOB -Building on Basics): Change to "Does anybody have a problem with John's amendment?" With the following changes, the minutes of the December 16, 2004 meeting were unanimously approved: • York (Page 12, 25`h Bullet, I/M Alternatives): Replace "larvicides" with "insecticides". • Stanley (Page 2, 3`d Bullet, West Nile Virus): Replace "carries" with "carry" and replace "anyways" with "anyway". • Stanley (Page 2, 215` Bullet, West Nile Virus): Replace "and" with "an". • Stanley (Page 6, 8th Bullet, I/M Alternatives): Replace "flushed" with "fleshed". • Stanley (Page 7, Last Bullet, I/M Alternatives): Replace "legislative" with "legislation". • Stanley (Page 8, 5ch Bullet, I/M Alternatives): Change to: "You know, it just occurred to me, when we were talking about registration fees - it was on the City Manager's Transportation Funding Committee." • Stanley (Page 12, 2nd Bullet, I/M Alternatives): Replace "comments" with "E- comment". Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 2 of 16 • Stanley (Page 12, 20th Bullet, I/M Alternatives): Change to: "You could partner with Miles Blumhardt. He does the Saturday Home section. I think a lot of people read that." • Stanley (Page 13, 1 lth Bullet I/M Alternatives): Replace "Center" with "Series". • Stanley (Page 14, First Bullet, I/M Alternatives): Change to: "If your pilot program were to be implemented, the remote sensing one, and found to be effective, could it rival the effectiveness of the current program?" Introduction The board members and City staff introduced themselves and provided their background so that all members and staff are familiar with each other. • Jassen Bowman: I was interviewing with Bill Bertschy and Eric Hamrick for another board and they mentioned that there was an opening on the Air Quality Board and asked if I was interested. At the time I was working with Retec Groups, an environmental consulting program in town, as an air quality scientist. Literally a couple of weeks later I got laid off. So now I am working for Retec on a part-time consulting basis for air and water stuff on the Poudre River Mediation Project. My main interest in air quality is really a selfish and personal reason: I have to breathe to live, therefore I like breathing clean air. The majority of my background is actually in the nuclear power industry. I have a couple companies and I'm also a subcontractor to FEMA to do nuclear power plant emergency preparedness audits. • Nancy York: I'm Nancy York and I've been on the Air Quality Advisory Board, this is my second term, this time. But I was on it for probably seven years before. My educational background is as an occupational therapist. So health issues are one of my primary concerns. I am a native of Fort Collins so I care a lot about community. • Linda Stanley: I'm Linda Stanley, and I am the chair. I got on the board because my background is in environmental economics and I am a research scientist at CSU. So, I have studied price mechanisms and using economics and so on. I think we should be doing more of that in air quality, to account for some of the costs that are imposed on people. That was my main reason for getting on the board and I think clean air is extremely important. I've been on for four years and actually just had a reappointment. • Kip Carrico: My name is Kip Carrico and I am a research scientist at CSU as well, in atmospheric science. My background is in environmental engineering with. an air quality emphasis. I am heavily involved in the research and wanted to get more involved in the big picture — policy aspects and give back to the community. I share with Jassen; I have a bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering too. • Eric Levine: I am also a "new -old" member. I was the founding member and first vice - chair of this board. I was the second chair of the board after John Fooks. I've been off two years; I spent eight years on the board. I've got another three year appointment that is starting today. I totally agree with you Jassen when you said `eve all have to breathe." If I remember the number correctly, we all drink a liter or two of water a day, but we breathe 20,000 liters of air each day. If a little bit of that is dirty — multiply that by 20,000. I have some engineering background, but I am a professional violinist. I got involved in air quality in 1989. I've served on Governor Romer's Hazardous Waste Committee and State Representative Bob Schaffer's Hazardous Waste Committee; I've Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 3 of 16 been on the State Department of Health Critical Review Team for Regulation 6 and Regulation 3, and a couple others that I can't remember right now. • Ken Moore: I am Ken Moore and I am a native of Fort Collins. I am a diabetic and have had four angioplasties; I exercise and I like to breathe clean air when I do my exercise for my health. I happen to own an automotive shop, along with my wife, Nelson's Auto Tech Center. We do emissions tests as well. I've been doing emissions testing since 1980, when we started doing emissions tests. I've been involved in the community in a lot of different things. I sat on the Advisory Committee and most of the stuff that I bring to the table as far as my expertise, I can't use because I have a conflict of interest. So you will see me get up and leave when we talk about the emissions program. I spent eight years in the Navy, and the last four and a half of it was as a RADIAC technician and repairman. So I too share a certain amount of nuclear physics background. • John Stokes: Wow what an incredible board. Lucinda asked me to introduce myself to the board, especially to the new members. I am the Director of the Natural Resources Department. I started my position with the City a year and a half ago and I came from The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit conservation group. I worked a decade with them and before that I worked on the Appalachian Trail for several years. So I have been doing primarily land conservation for about fifteen years. I know that the old timers on this board will know this, but some of the new members may not -- that the Natural Resources Department is composed of two silos. One silo is the Natural Areas Program, and the other silo is the area that contains the air program, solid waste program, environmental compliance function as well as a development review function. There are about 8 FTEs on that side of the department, which is funded with the City's general fund. The Natural Areas Program has about 22 regular FTEs and then we hire the equivalent of about 10 FTEs that are seasonals. So we are up to about 32 people in the Natural Areas Program. That is funded by a variety of dedicated sales taxes, both from the City side and also the County has an open space tax that we share revenues on. What's interesting is as I've gotten more familiar with the City organization and this job, and the Fort Collins's community -- I don't think most people know much about the Natural Resources Department and they really don't understand that we have these multiple functions in what is an important, but relatively small department within the City organization. The City organization has about 1300 employees. We've got a total of about forty-ish. We are small, but we are pivotal. We seem to be engaged in a lot of issues that are really fundamental to the community, environmental issues and natural areas conservation issues, and so we always seem to be in the media somewhere; which is both good and bad. I will come back to this board in a couple of weeks and give you an overview of what we got done in 2004. We get a lot done for a relatively small department and I think we have a tremendous amount of value. My boss is Greg Byrne; he is the Director of a large service area within the City called Community Planning and Environmental Services (CPES). That group includes the Building Permit folks, Advanced Planning and then also Current Planning. We are housed within that department, CPES. There are a number of other large service areas within the City. Parks is housed within a group called CLRS, which is Cultural, Library and Recreation Services. So Parks is separate from us; sometimes people get confused about that. I serve at the pleasure of the City Manager, so I can be fired for any reason whatsoever, which is different for most employees; most do not have that classification. Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 4 of 16 So that is a quickie overview of our department and where I came from. I'm glad to answer any questions. • Levine: I was wondering, just a budgetary issue, I tried to get Council to take the larviciding portion of West Nile from the emergency funds or secondly the general fund. We're talking about $230,000; about $82,000 of last year's came from the Natural "Areas program. The callbacks and everything may not be used next year. It seems to me that there is even a bigger percentage of the total for Natural Areas Program. • Stokes: What Eric is referring to, is the City implemented a mosquito control program last year in response to West Nile Virus. Recently they had a study session to try to figure out how to pay for that program since there is no budgeted money for that function. And Eric, last year, did they use emergency funds solely for that? • Levine: I thought that most of it was that. I was on the West Nile Task Force and we worked with Tom on that. • Stokes: Natural Areas did not put any money into it last year at all. This year, Tom took this issue back to Council two weeks ago at a study session and said "Number one, should we continue a mosquito control program and number two, how are we going to pay for it?" He gave them different options ranging from "don't do it at all" to larviciding, and adulticiding if we need to. I think they went with that one. • Levine: No, no one said the adulticiding option. Everyone said option three, which was just larviciding and education. • Stokes: Oh, OK. In any case, they had to figure out a way to pay for it and so they allocated part of the cost to the Natural Areas Program because apparently, according to the company that has been trapping mosquitoes, a high percentage of the mosquitoes come from natural areas. This actually makes intuitive sense because we own most of the open water and wetlands in the City. They wanted to prorate the cost of controlling mosquitoes in those areas to the Natural Areas Program. Council's consensus was to allocate at least a portion of that cost to the Natural Areas Program, which would be about $85,000 in the next fiscal year and to allocate part of that cost also to Utilities because they own open water and ditch water. There are other sources too; mosquitoes come from all over. My sense is that for the long haul, we are going to have to have another conversation with Council about where is this money going to come from if they plan to indefinitely continue a mosquito control program. I know there is consternation about having Natural Areas to pay for that year after year. It's clearly legal to have us pay for it and it could be argued that it is appropriate, but it could also be argued that it is really not a core function of the Natural Areas Program. Most communities that have a mosquito control program tack that onto their utility bill through a dedicated tax. I wouldn't be surprised to see that come back as a recommendation from staff. Tom's really the manager on that particular policy issue. For 2005, we will spend the money assuming Tom will come back to Council next fall and have this dialogue. Of course money is at a premium in the City organization. So if there is an argument to be made that Natural Areas has this obligation, people will make it because there really isn't any money in the City organization to pay for it. With the sales tax issue looming, everybody is being extremely cautious. And it has been that way ever since I got here. It's been difficult for the general fund side of the City to manage its resources. Natural Areas is a little different because we have a dedicated sales tax. Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 5 of 16 • Bowman: You mentioned the sales tax initiative and it's been reported what some of the programs that are targeted for the $2,000,000 a year - has it been discussed what impact that initiative will have to the Air Quality Program? • Stokes: I can share what I know. If it passes, how those cuts will be made and where they will be made will be an enormous political process. However, what staff has done is they prepared four different budget cut scenarios, which are public record and are posted on the web. Two of those four scenarios include major cuts to the general - funded side of the Natural Resources Department. It would lop off 4.5 employees and we have 8 now. So we would be down to 3.5 employees in the department. Essentially, it would eviscerate the department. We would be able to do few things, but not nearly what we can do now. My salary, by the way, is paid half from general funds and half from the Natural Areas Program. I don't know what else to say, except it would cut 4.5 people out of the program and take away our discretionary money. We'd have three people left and we could only do some things. We probably would still continue to work on the Sustainability Action Plan, we would do some ad -hoc policy work for Council, we would still do some ClimateWise work, we'd have to do solid waste because we are required by code to do certain solid waste functions, and that would be about it. It is pretty profound. Those cuts are contemplated in two of the four scenarios. Who knows how it will work out. It really works out to you have to cut about 50-55 staff out from the organization. • Carrico: How many? • Stokes: There are 1300 staff, and 300 of those are in Utilities (they are a separate enterprise -funded organization), so there are about 1000 employees that are funded from different pots, and this is where I'm out of my realm of expertise, but from the general fund side you would lose 50-55 employees and also lop off a lot of discretionary money too. • Stanley: It's your turn Lucinda. • Lucinda Smith: I'm Lucinda Smith. I work in the Natural Resources Department. I've been there since 1996 working in air quality. Mostly I work on motor vehicle emissions and efforts to reduce those. I've also worked on greenhouse gas reduction efforts. I am right now the staff liaison for the Air Quality Board; I had been the staff liaison for about two years and then another staff person did it so now I am back. I enjoy doing this and working with the board. I have a degree from CSU in Air Resource Management and I also have a bachelor's degree in geology. • Liz Skelton: I'm Liz and I've been working with the City since September, 2003. I am a CSU student seeking a Business degree with a concentration in Computer Information Systems so I only work part-time in the afternoons. • Cherie Trine: I just came from Cheyenne, and I am doing this internship with the ACLU. It's my first day and I didn't realize how long it would take to get here. I'm in Law school. Action Plan for Sustainability Margit presented the Action Plan for Sustainability in November, and the board did not make a recommendation at that time. Lucinda Smith reviewed the air quality -related goals in the Action Plan and provided context on what will happen at the study session so that the board could make a recommendation. 0 Stanley: At the worksession, they will hear this? Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 6 of 16 • Smith: Not at this level of detail. They will hear the policy statement, how the nine priority areas were arrived at, they will hear about the structure of the plan, which was the goals were set and detailed targets and timelines were set for each goals and they will hear about the process of how it was developed and how the City plans to implement it. They have received this plan at least once before, but never had a presentation. • Stanley: I was wondering as far as the action by us, if this will be presented as if it is already accepted, or if City Council will adopt this at some point in time or if it is not a document to be adopted? • Smith: It is not a document to be adopted because it's within the administrative purview of the City. The only area where it might interact with Council decisions is the budget to implement the targets. I think it would be reasonable for the board to make a recommendation encouraging expedited implementation of the goals and appropriating enough budget, or something like that. • York: One of the things about the plan that I felt was lacking was measurements or indicators. It would be strengthened if there was a measurement component. I know you just said tracking, which is good, but like VMT reduction — it would be nice to know what it is now, to have indicators. • Levine: It usually gives a percentage and date of an action though... • Smith: One response to Nancy's comment is that the City started by doing a sustainability indicators inventory. It is much broader than this. There isn't necessarily a direct link between the sustainability indicators and the goals and targets here, but I do think the team was looking for something you could nail down and measure. For example, the one about employee commuting has some X's so those numbers aren't filled in, but the other goals and targets are explicit and what is missing is a baseline. They may have all that in the indicators inventory. • York: It's a great idea. I actually worry about its implementation, because it is like the City Plan. Although City Plan, parts of it are being implemented, there are ideas that don't ever see the light of day. • Smith: I can certainly make sure that Sandy and Margit get your comment. • York: It would be nice to have concrete measurements so that you can track the progression, because how else would you know if you are successful? • Stanley: There is a process for doing that. It's been months since I read the report but I remember there being a process. • Levine: A reduction by a certain date and by "X%" implies that there is a starting point. It's fairly well defined. • York: It's not mentioned on the other things like VMT reduction. There is not a measurement associated with that. • Smith: I think that's the only one where they had a placeholder. So, an example is: "Increase the number of City employees using alternative modes for work related trips by `some' percent, by `some' date". All the targets had to have a performance measure, a scope, a performance target and a completion date. They did try to get that. They were waiting for completion of a SmartTrips survey to fill in the numbers on the VMT employee commuting. When then team convenes, one of their first tasks is to clarify any goals and figure out which things to pursue first. I will pass on your comment that it is important to both do the reporting and have a process for it. Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 7 of 16 • Stanley: One of the good things I've heard about the Sustainability Action Plan is that the City Manager, Darin Atteberry, very much wants to implement it. That will be one of his things and they will find a budget to do it. • Smith: The other thing is the potential relationship for this and the EVSAG committee, in that they are both looking at sustainability. The scopes are different but I think there will be a strong effort to keep those two processes at least in the loop with each other so that they are going in same the direction and can complement each other. • Carrico: EVSAG is...? • Stanley: Economic Vitality and Sustainability Action Group. There are twelve of us, and I say "us" because I am one of them, and we are actually EVSAG2. EVSAGI was formed in February and there were 19 of us and we came up with report recommendations for the City concerning economics. It was supposed to be economic vitality and sustainability; sometimes it is pretty weak on the sustainability side of things. Now there is a new group and we are seeing what sort of action to take on each one of those items. It is nice that the City has done the Sustainability Action Plan because it gives people some idea of what sustainability means. • Bowman: I think it is great that the City is finally putting something together like this. The thing that I like about this is that there are components that are similar, in spirit at least, to some of the ISO 14001 processes for environmental management certification, particularly the P2 side of it. I was wondering, since this is going to be a presentation, and I'm assuming that members of Council aren't familiar with the cost -benefit side of P2, is there any way that we can get something across to them about the economic benefits of P2? Which are, I think, a fundamental part of implementing any P2 process. • Stanley: We needed you last year. It was hard to get that point across, that the economic benefits typically outweigh the cost. • Bowman: With pollution prevention, your source costs are .lower, and your waste disposal costs are lower. With P2 implementation your lifecycle costs go down. In these budget times, I think that is hugely important for City Council to realize when they are looking at any kind of adoption of a plan like this or future programs that go back to look at sustainability. • Smith: That's a great point, and I will pass that suggestion on to Sandy and Margit, who will be making the presentation jointly. Both have experience in P2 and with environmental management systems. • Bowman: Even if it is just a bullet point to Council. • Levine: I don't usually hesitate to speak up with criticisms. In this case it is quite the opposite. This is what I've been trying to get the City to do since I've started interacting with the City, which was fifteen years ago. • Stanley: You were just ahead of your time. • Levine: I wanted them to come up with a quantifiable metric and come up with the timeframe. I always wanted contingency plans, so I would maybe put that in. There may be one or two City plans that I have ever seen that are as ambitious, as visionary, as focused and as bold as this scope. I am more than pleased. • Levine: City plans, even the Air Quality Plan, there is lots of language and qualifying verbiage in there, but there are no numbers and no metrics. More than one Council member has said "if it doesn't get measured it doesn't get done." This not only has Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page g of 16 measurements and commitments to quantifiable percentages but it actually has a timeframe. What is the buy -in from the various departments? • Smith: That was a big part of the process. Conceptually, the buy -in is growing and is very strong in some departments, medium in others and there is still some questioning in others. As Linda said, having Darin Atteberry behind it really counts for a lot. He really is encouraging the City to implement this. So it will happen, the team will form, they will look at it and they will start implementing it. • Levine: Our City's Climate Protection, which Lucinda is the author of, I participated in all of that and got Council to make it autonomous and not within the total purview and privilege of the City Manager, which is what it initially was. I hope this is a very positive sign of change in styles of City Managers. I would definitely like to see a method for measuring - if we don't achieve this, a plan like this, you do have a measurement for pass or fail -_I think we need what happens if we fail: any mechanism to correct or move forward with another type of plan. I guess my last comment would be - Jassen you talked about cost effectiveness — some of these measure will have more of a budget impact than others. I'm wondering what the mechanism is within the departments for balancing that? How do budgets get weighed? • Smith: That's a good question, and a big one. One of the things that relates to that is that there was (and I think still is) discussion of adding either sustainability or compliance with this Action Plan for Sustainability as one of the metrics used to weigh capital projects. There is set of criteria that the City looks at big capital projects with. There is serious talk about adding sustainability as one of those criteria. That is one concrete way that it could make a difference in budget decision making. • Levine: If it is a sustainability project that has a very sizable health impact on the citizens, I would give that a higher priority, for instance. • Stanley: You're talking in terms of this, not in terms of any capital project? • Levine: No, just about this. • Bowman: You mean sustainability budget criteria? • Levine: Yes. How the budgets are allocated, what comes to the beginning of the line... • Smith: I think among other things it will be staff people raising up these issues into the budget. Hopefully it will rise up through the organization. Again, having Darin in support of this will help a lot. • Stanley: Because, ultimately he will present his recommendation to City Council on the budget. • Smith: The other thing is the team that put this together did go through a prioritization exercise to come up with these nine areas to begin with. So actually everything in here is a top priority. I know that within that, it still has to be broken down. • Stanley: So the assumption is that everything in here, because it's gone through this process, these are going to be funded - we won't take a couple of these out? • Smith: Correct. • Bowman: In Fort Collins, do we have one or more of the EPA monitoring stations for criteria pollutants? • Smith: Yes. We have two for carbon monoxide - one on CSU's campus and one down by Target on South College; there is also one on CSU's campus for ozone and two on CSU's campus for PM10 and PM2.5. • Bowman: Ok so we do have some metric. Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 9 of 16 • Smith: And every year we have an updated air quality trends report that show the trend of those ambient pollutants. We have that basic level, but there are many other criteria that could be tracked. • Levine: We have new monitors too. The old ones are a bit historical. We're looking at how they track each other. Eric Levine made thefollowing motion: Fn ake a motion that we issue a recommendation to City Council for the support of the Action an for Sustainability. Ken Moore seconded the motion • Stanley: I liked what Lucinda said about the expedited support... • Smith: Oh, right; "expedited implementation" and something about — I think you could consider a recommendation to provide adequate resources to implement it. Even though there is a plan here, I can't say that there is absolutely the budget for it now. • Bowman: There is plenty of stuff like this that sits on the shelf. • Smith: It's fumy that you mention that because one of our goals in the plan is to not let it sit on the shelf and to make it a living document. Nancy York made thefollowing amendment to the motion: I make a friendly amendment to add that it has the necessary funds to expedite its implementation. Eric Levine and Ken Moore approved the amendment • Carrico: A lot of these things can be revenue producing. They probably have prioritized these based partly on that. I just emphasize getting the low lying fruit first. • Stanley: When I write a memo I try to make all the points everyone has made into the memo. The motion, as amended, passed unanimously Inspection/Maintenance Update Lucinda Smith summarized the City's statement and position on the proposed termination of the emissions program and briefed the board on the positions of other stakeholders. A copy of information related to this issue was handed out. • Levine: Since I wrote the Sierra Club's position, I guess I can talk about it. I used to be the State Air Quality Chair, and instead of the current chair, I wrote this because I live in Northern Colorado. I didn't get in to any modeling because that would be very time intensive but there were a lot of human behavior and economics factors that I would probably bring into the mix. When you remove this, you've removed the only way that we know cars are in compliance, cars are getting fixed — people don't even know if the car's pollution control equipment is working. Sometimes there is a minor component that malfunctions, and if not repaired it can bring down other components. People do engage in black market activities where the cars do not have air quality control equipment and a fair amount of those could hit the used car market. In different economic times, people have different behaviors. We are in a college town; students may have less money and may engage in different driving and maintenance behaviors. None of these have been modeled, but yet these are very real world problems with doing away with the emissions program. The Sierra Club's position is that you need to take all of those factors into consideration and also come up with a program that has no Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 10 of 16 net deterioration of air quality — for many reasons, but for no other reason than that is the City's goal and that is what citizens have said they want in survey after survey. • Levine (Re: Pressure on Commission to continue program): It's usually the opposite. Issues before the Commission are various industries and industrial concerns wanting less regulation and petitioning the Commission to do away with present regulations. The State is doing away with a major clean air tool and the public interests are petitioning them not to do it. • Stanley: Sothis survey just took place? • Smith: Right. And they are the only results that we have back. I asked for them early; they are not even final and they are still tabulating. • Trine: I thought it would be higher than that, even. • Stanley: Really? Only 20% said "no — they don't want to continue paying the fee". • Trine: That is good. I just meant the 60% - I thought it would be 70%. • Smith: There was a higher number who said "I don't know" — on the order of 10%. • Stanley: The "Not Sure" was 14%, 16%, and 13%; which is fairly high. To some degree that means they are not even aware of the program. • Bowman: An interesting thing about those numbers — it seems to be along the lines of the political division of the population of the City. • York: Are you talking red/blue? • Trine: Are you talking North/South? • Bowman: However you want to label it. • Smith: One other thing, it is in line with the results from the City of Greeley too. • Bowman: Has anybody said "if it ain't broke don't fix it" about the program? • Levine: That was one of my points. What has it been, twenty years? • Stanley: That is a point the AQAB has made in recommendations. If you get rid of it now and we have to bring it back, it will be very difficult and costly. • Bowman: There is a definite public health benefit and people are used to it. • Levine: I'm heartened by the survey results because of the way it is phrased. It's phrased as, `will you continue to do this and spend time and pay money out of your pocket for it". If it said, "do you want all of your neighbors to have their cars inspected to make sure they are complying and not dirtying up the air you have to breathe?" I would opine that 98% would say everybody else should do it. • Stanley: Now, because we recommend things to City Council, it's not under our bylaws to make a recommendation to the Air Quality Control Commission. • Levine: Can we recommend that City Council recommend this? • Trine: Can we send a letter of support? • Smith: I do think that might be out of the purview. I will check the bylaws. • Bowman: Is that because of the relationship between the MPO and the City? • Stanley: No, it is because of the authority of the advisory board. We are advisory to Council, and are not supposed to be advisory to other... • Trine: Can we send a letter to Council and CC it? • Stanley: That's an excellent suggestion. A lot of times when we can't do something as a group, we say, as an individual you can. • Smith: I just want to remind you that the whole City Council has not seen this. One member, Kurt Kastein, who is the MPO representative and sits on the MPO, as well as Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 11 of 16 Dann Atteberry, City Manager, have seen it and given their approval. Clearly there is policy basis for this, but the whole Council is not familiar with this. • York: Not even Eric Hamrick, our liaison? • Smith: I don't think so. This was a long process and it was just really at the last minute that it got there. • Bowman: Will this be discussed by Council? • Smith: No. • Stanley: When does the Air Quality Commission hear this? • Smith: February 17u'. • York: Lucinda, where is Latimer County on this? • Smith: That's a good question, because Larimer County is the entity mentioned in the regulation. The staff at Latimer County is certainly aware and might support the commissioners making a request. To do anything official is too late. They cannot become a party. Anyone can send a letter though. • York: Is it beyond protocol for you to send a copy of this report to the commissioners? • Smith: We could post this on the website, although it is not common. • York: It could be that the commissioners would want to write a letter. I would expect them to want to. • Smith: I could send this to my counterpart there and see what he thinks about whether the commissioners would be interested. • Levine: Karen Wagner is the new County Commissioner designated to the MPO. • York: She would be very interested. • Levine: Doesn't the County lose money when this ends? • Smith: The County Clerk's would lose 70 cents per every vehicle registration when this program goes away. I have heard the County Clerks are fully aware of it and they aren't that concerned about losing it. They don't count on that revenue as much as I thought they might. • Bowman: How many vehicles do we have here? • York: I was thinking it is 130,000. • Smith: In Larimer County it is 360,000. I don't know precisely in Fort Collins; it could be anywhere from 150,000-175,000. • York: At 70 cents, that seems like a lot of money. • Stanley: If we feel strongly as citizens, we could contact the Air Quality Control Commission. • Trine: Maybe somebody could write a letter and we could sign it? • Stanley: If we all signed it, I think we could get in to trouble for trying to circumvent something. I would feel uncomfortable with that. • Smith: I'm inclined to agree, but I will check with the City Attorney. There is some risk involved and there are certain guidelines. • Bowman: Are there certain organizations or groups that are in support of this (program termination in 2005)? • Smith: There could be. I have not heard of them or from them. • Levine: I've not heard of one, except the Air Quality division of the Colorado Department of Health. At that meeting, one of the commissioners asked if there were any compromises or rewrites and they sat there stone -faced and said absolutely not. Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 12 of 16 That means they were being directed. They had no authority to do anything that would make sense or that they would want to do; the deal had already been done. • York: What about our elected representatives? Can we have that address so we can contact them as citizens? • Levine: What if we asked City Council to send something to our legislatures, telling them what the City position is and what we want to do? • Smith: The legislators are not directly involved in this process. It is the purview of the Commission to make regulation changes. • Levine: The legislature trumps the Commission. They appoint the Commissioners, they can not appoint them when their terms come up, they can remove them and legislation trumps anything that the Commission does. • Trine: I thought the Governor appointed them? • Levine: I'm sorry, the Governor, you're right. • Smith: I just want to offer my own opinion, and that is it might be useful to start doing some outreach to our legislatures on this issue to let them know where the City is and the value of programs and the citizen support of this, but where I think we need the support of the legislature is in any new program that we want to do. If we want to do something at the local level, we have to go through the legislature. We are so limited about what we can do on our own without tapping into the infrastructure and mechanism of the State. We would need the legislature to authorize a local emissions testing program. I'm not sure if this issue is the most optimum use of the legislature's input. • Bowman: Are you talking about changing the City Charter from the State to extend our home rule authority? • Smith: There is a general analysis that the home rule authority would be adequate, in most cases, for us to collect a fee. It's more the issue of using the motor vehicle registration to implement it. That is controlled by the legislature. • York: Do you not think that some early information will assist their buying -in and prepare them for that eventuality? What do you say about our recommending to City Council that they notify our representatives about Fort Collins's position? • Trine: Would you want to do it this year? • Smith: No. I believe the legislature already has some priorities established for bills and actions this year that have more to deal with Tabor and Amendment 23 and that other types of environmental initiatives would be better to target for next legislative session. • Stanley: It would seem to me that our legislatures should get this information. They should be kept abreast of what is going on. We could meet with them as individual citizens. That would be a good place to start. • Bowman: Is it appropriate to hand this to them? • Smith: This is public information, absolutely. • Bowman: At least there would be some communication open. • Smith: Yes. For me as a staff person, I can and will talk to Mark Radke. He is our legislative coordinator, and I will ask him about how we can get this to the legislatures. That doesn't limit what you, the board, can do with a recommendation. • Stanley: What do you guys want to do? • Moore: By what percentage are we within the EPA mandated levels? • Smith: We are 70% below the carbon monoxide standard. Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 13 of 16" • Moore: What is the standard? • Smith: It is 9 ppm and we are at 3.3 ppm. • Moore: I personally will be contacting my legislative representatives and sending a letter to the Air Quality Control Commission letting them know that I am a diabetic, I have had four angioplasties and I need to work out to maintain my health and I don't want my clean air increasing to the area near or above the EPA limit. I think that will be my only argument that I can put out there. • Trine: The EPA limits aren't safe. It doesn't mean anything. • Levine: The EPA limit is an absolute minimum standard, below which you are out of compliance and all Federal transportation and highway dollar funding is threatened to be cut off. This is not the type of minimum that we would find acceptable. • York: You will be sending the address of the Commission and our legislatures? • Smith: Yes. • Moore: I don't think there is a member of the Air Quality Control Commission that lives in Larimer or Weld County. • Stanley: Is that our plan of action? To contact as private citizens? • Levine: I would like to see follow-up on this issue. My main concern is some of the replacement programs that the City and State will sign off on will give us pennies for the dollar as far as clean air benefit. I really need to see any replacement programs or other measures that the City is considering taking — what the pie chart looks like. I know how various entities can make things look nice by not focusing in on that. • Stanley: A comparison of what we are going to lose in terms of air quality and how much of that can be made up with the replacement program? • Levine: Yes. Lucinda stated at the beginning that the relative percentage is relatively small. When Mason Street was coming on, I did a comparison of the air quality benefit for what would be 20 years from now and it was 3/< of 1%.. At that time, the State wasn't saying "cut out the program". So our CO benefit was maybe around 12%. When the State had different politics and was in a different place I heard our benefit was 30%. Depending on what the bureaucracy wants, the benefits numbers go down by orders of magnitude. • Stanley: We have been looking at possible alternatives to the program. Maybe once the white paper is revised, you can send that out. • Smith: Sure. One of the things mentioned in that paper is we will be working towards and trying to submit a CMAQ, Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality, funding application this March to do a pilot high emitter program in conjunction with Denver and the Health Department. I don't know if that project would be competitive in the CMAQ grant process but we are at least going to work towards that because I think that is one of our best avenues to exploring an alternative approach. • Levine: One thing I'm interested in: I'm a few years behind the times on on -board diagnostic technologies. I'm wondering if in some years that are not too far down the road, these presentations that I had claimed some whiz-bang OBD technologies were coming around 2006-2008 and I don't know the timeframes now. Maybe some of these gaps we need to fill in not forever. • Stanley: When we revisit this issue we can have Ken or somebody give a summary. Air Quality Advisory Board 1 /20/2005 Page 14 of 16 • York: I just want Latimer County to be covered with this so they know the situation and how much money they will lose, in hopes that they will write a letter of some support. • Moore: One of the comments that's always been made about the UM program is that it is not a jobs program and never will be, so the AQCC doesn't want to hear anything about money generated or lost or jobs generated or lost. • Stanley: I think that's a valid point. It's always too bad when technologies change and some people lose their business. I can see where they would be unsympathetic to that because that happens all the time. It is part of the market. • York: One last point of coverage is the MPO. • Smith: They are aware of this. They did pass a resolution and I can forward that to you. It is one page that acknowledges that there will be some air quality impacts from termination of the program, they are concerned about ozone and they recommend that the program be continued at least through 2005 and that the State form a multi - jurisdictional transition committee to look at air quality and economic impacts of program termination. They passed that in December and forwarded it to Council, but they did not choose to become a party to the hearing. • York: May I suggest that you send that to your counterpart at the County? • Smith: Sure, I will send it to the staff and ask them to include it in the packet. Review 2004 AQAB Annual report Linda Stanley reviewed the annual report memo for Council. The board unanimously approved the memo regarding the annual report for 2004 with no changes Elect Vice -Chair Katie Walters, Vice -Chair, resigned from the board due to her relocation. The board needs to elect a new vice chair. Formal elections for officers will be held in April or May. • Stanley: Are there any nominations? Nancy York made the following nomination: I nominate Eric Levine for vice -chair of the board. Cherie Trine seconded the nomination The nomination was unanimously approved Agenda Planning for 2005 • January • February o Public Health Advisory Board? o Air Quality Survey Results, Outreach ■ Levine: I've commented before. People are asked questions and their answer implies that they don't understand. ■ Smith: It is opinion, not informed opinion. • Levine: They should be designed to figure out a level of understanding. ■ Stanley: I'd like to do that too, to know the level of knowledge and misinformation and if the knowledge base of the public is in -tune to reality. Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 15 of 16 ■ Smith: OK 0 2004 NRD highlights ? o Marketing Plan ■ Incentive Programs lawnmower rebate (price mechanisms) SmartTrips, old refrigerator, • March o Wood smoke o CMAQ high emitter proposal ? o ClimateWise o (CCX) Chicago Climate Exchange ? • April o Elect Officers o Radon Study Design? o School Bus Idling Campaign? • May o Ozone Actions & Outreach plans o Price Mechanisms update — Brian Woodruff • Summer o Climate Status Report o Update on Action Plan for Sustainability o I/M Transition Committee • Fall o Transportation Demand Management Best Practices (previously "VMT Peer Cities") • November o 2006 Work plan • December o Radon Study summary ? • Other: o West Nile o Diesel Task Force — would the board like to form an ad hoc committee? o Mobility Index — no longer on Transportation staffs work plan o Outreach for air quality concepts education o Alternative Fuels & Low Emissions Vehicles o Department Updates o Disease level information & epidemiological statistics for City of Fort Collins (request from Cherie Trine) ■ Cancer ■ Birth Defects ■ Heart Attacks • Chronic Diseases Updates • Stanley: We are considering a change of board meeting times and looking at Tuesday night. Monday and Wednesday are out in terms of rooms. The fourth Tuesday night would be good. The board agreed to change the meeting time to the fourth Tuesday of the month at 5:30 PM Air Quality Advisory Board 1/20/2005 Page 16 of 16 • Levine: I don't know if everyone got this, but Lucinda did email everyone the West Nile Study Session that Council went through. I was reading the November minutes when Tom had the Q & A presentation. It seems to me that the City's recommendations to Council, which were published just a couple of days before, are so different than the conversations that Tom has had with this board and that we've had over the past couple of years. • Stanley: When Tom presented in November, he did not really have anything. He said, "I have not prepared anything, I don't know what the options are going to be, we're not really prepared to have this talk but I will answer questions". We asked him to come back in December and he couldn't make it. • Levine: But the recommendation for the $230,000 larvicide program, almost establishing it as a permanent program without any monitors to see if it is effective in West Nile and establishing permanent funding, which is what staff recommended, seems very different from the Q & A. • Stanley: But there was so much he didn't have at the time... • Levine: But there was a whole point of view that he had that, "this was very expensive, we're surprised at how many people wanted the funds in such a time of over -stretched budgets and that the press made a mess of things by incredibly exaggerating the risks this past year". I was surprised to see these recommendations. • Stanley: I think that it ended up being different than what we heard in November because that was long before he had formulated anything. So we made our recommendation based upon the information we were given at the time and obviously we didn't have any cost information. Hopefully that won't happen again. Meeting adjourned 8:08 PM Submitted by Liz Skelton Administrative Secretary I �,��� haa.�c2� 2-zz-os �, C1�-��� k6l�OD