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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 05/24/2005MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE AVE. May 24, 2005 For Reference: Eric Levine, Chair 493-6341 David Roy, Council Liaison 407-7393 Lucinda Smith, Staff Liaison 224-6085 Board Members Present Eric Levine, Ken Moore, Linda Stanley, Nancy York Board Members Absent Kip Carrico, Dave Dietrich, John Long, Cherie Trine Staff Present Natural Resources Department: Lucinda Smith, Liz Skelton Guests Rick Price The meeting was called to order at 5:27 p.m. Minutes The minutes of the April 26, 2005 meeting were not approved due to lack of quorum. Nancy York requested that the following changes be made to the minutes: • York (Page 11, 10"' Bullet, Radon): Change "was no consequence to that" to "were no consequences" • York (Page 12, 15th Bullet, Public Health Advisory Board): Change "legislatures" to "legislators" Public Comment The Board opened the floor to members of the public in attendance. Guest attendee Rick Price handed out a memo addressed to the Board. Price: We held a Fort Collins Bike Town Meeting a few weeks ago and we had 1'/z hours of brainstorming ideas from the bike community. One of the things that came out in that meeting was that communication among all of the groups that are interested in biking and walking policies and programs is not very good in this community. Law enforcement doesn't enforce the dismount zone downtown. Parks and Recreation does some funny things with detours during construction. We lost the Bike and Pedestrian Coordinator in Fort Collins about a year ago. I attended the Metropolitan Planning Organization of the North Front Range meeting and I asked them how they gather input from the public about bicycling and pedestrian issues. They did not have a response. I was told that one of the members goes out on January 9th of each year and counts how many bicyclists they see and that person bases their priorities on that count. They were Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 2 of 15 actually serious. They went on to explain that the bicycle is a recreational vehicle and recreational activities are the first thing to get cut when you're short on funds. The two federal guys who were there pointed out that alternative modes of transportation are included in the transportation funds and several years ago the Federal Transit Authority decided that the bicycle is a legitimate means of transportation. Someone said they think the City has a bicycle -pedestrian advisory board that advises SmartTrips — don't they? The answer from the SmartTrips person was "Yes; the Transportation Board". So I also attended the Transportation Board meeting. I asked them that same question and they all admitted that the information they get from the public is anecdotal; from person experience. So I've come to ask you the same question: how do you gather information from the public about air quality issues as they relate to bicycling and pedestrians in Fort Collins? • Moore: A lot of my information is from staff. We have a lot of things that we recommend to City Council relating to alternative transportation. There isn't a specific person that provides input to the board on bicycling. Of course, Nancy is our constant bicycling advocate. • York: We have the Air Quality survey. Every other year we do a survey and find out peoples' awareness about air quality issues and what they are willing to do to mitigate problems. • Smith: It also was just posted online. • Price: I'll give you my email. • York: The MPO used to do the Mobility Report Card. That's not happening anymore, is it? • Smith: Correct, that is not happening anymore. • Smith: The City's SmartTrips program does gather some information. It may not be in the vein you are seeking, but they work with businesses on alternative modes and for every business that they partner with on the Drive Less program they do a survey of the employees' commuting habits. There was a data collection effort related to the Mason Street Corridor project; there was a transportation survey that stopped people around town and asked about their commuting patterns. But again, that's a little different than asking about views on biking. • Price: I realize that the City is beginning the budgetary priority process. That will work its way through the system, and I'm not sure how much involvement the advisory boards will have... so I'm suggesting that this group recommend that the position of Bicycle -Pedestrian Coordinator be set at a high priority. I don't think it matters what department that position resides in. Suggestion two is to create a citizens' bicycle and pedestrian advisory board to gather input. It can be an informal group, a formal group or it could be associated with one of the standing boards. It just needs to be institutionalized. • Stanley: Do you mind if we give our input as you go along? • Price: I'd like to finish and then I'd like to stay and brainstorm with you if the chair thinks that is appropriate. What I really hope to do here is watch the conservation and discussion that you might cart' on and then I'm going to take this to other boards and then to City Council. Bike Town will have another meeting on June 9ch to discuss an action. My third suggestion is that you recommend helping improve air quality in Fort Collins by building existing programs for alternative transportation and linking the programs to have some synergy. I would end by saying that I personally don't belong Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 3 of 15 to boards because I don't have the time, my schedule is unpredictable and I feel a lot more comfortable on the outside looking in, but I highly respect the volunteer citizens who participate in these boards and I think we have some of the best City staff and technical people in the Country working on this stuff. It's not that I have any complaints about any of that — I'm worried that with the budget crunch and the growth we've seen in the past decade, that we might start to forget about these things. By institutionalizing a citizens' advisory board to address some the issues, we might help move along more parks, safer bicycling and more and better educational outreach; which I feel we have failed miserably at. Not just for the school kids, but for adults too — I don't think they realize that every lane, except South College, is a bike lane. As vehicles we are allowed to be in every lane in this town and it is not very comfortable sometimes. Outreach is needed to the motorists, as an educational component that bikes belong and that air quality would benefit if they rode for just a few days instead of driving. I'll leave this with you. I'd be glad to hear any comments. • Stanley: I think you're absolutely right that this could use more attention. I like this idea of a board but I think it would be very difficult to have a new City board. One way that it might work is if we had a representative from each of the existing boards and made an ad -hoc subcommittee or task -force with those representatives. That way it is involving all the aspects of the community. Something like that could happen without even having Council approval. • Levine: Absolutely, as long as we can find the time and interest from ourselves and the community, that can be done. • Price: Does it have to be limited to the existing board members? • Levine: No, it is only limited to residents in the urban growth area. • Stanley: If you could get a representative from all of these diverse boards, then you could have other people too from the community. It would be a worthwhile thing to do. The bicycle "path" for our future is not good right now. • York: About your first suggestion regarding making a recommendation to unfreeze the coordinator — we don't have a quorum right now. • Stanley: For me, I would have to see what some of the tradeoffs would be for that outcome. There are many unfilled positions. I'm not saying this is something that I would not favor, but I would like to see what the tradeoffs are. • Price: I'm not sure what the planning process is, but I can't imagine that this would cost very much money. There must be some matching money. If it were seen as a high priority by the boards — I know it would be up to the City Manager and Council to finalize these priorities — but what I'd like to ask this board to do is to set this as one of the highest priorities. • Stanley: There might be a way to do it, like what you said, where you would be pulling together aspects of peoples' jobs into something more centralized. Then we're not talking about hiring an entire full-time position. • Smith: I wonder if it would be helpful to get a hold of the description of what the Bike and Pedestrian Coordinator did. I don't know if they did just planning or just outreach. We could take a look at whether some of that is already happening. • York: That'd be great. • Price: I think what this job description is going to look like is going to depend on the ebb and flow of currents within the City departments. I don't think it's this board's responsibility to send a job description forward. I guess what I'm looking for is Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 4 of 15 enforcement of the concept and idea. I will tell you I'm a great fan of Google. If you Google "Bicycle Pedestrian Coordinator" you will come up with half a dozen models to spring forward on. The League of American Bicyclists designates 49 cities as "Bicycle Friendly Communities" and we are one of 13 that have the silver medal status. Just looking down the list of those cities and googling "Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator" I can get you a job description real easy. What I'm trying to do is launch the idea, see where people are going with it and see what comes out of the Bike Town Action Plan which will begin to take shape with the next meeting. I want you to be aware that this is happening, that there is some movement and interest, and when you get a quorum I'd like you to participate by possibly adopting some of these ideas. • Levine: I have a slightly different perspective on some of this. My perspective is personal; I am an avid bike rider. I am kind of a fair-weather, non -hobbyist bike rider. I'm a guy who likes to do my errands and shopping on my bike — it is a real transportation regime for me. The biggest lack that I see in Fort Collins is there is no product for transportation as far as someone who wants to do more than just go to the corner store. I have been going to the south end of town on my own and someone of my skill level needs to seek psychiatric help if they keep doing that because it is indicative of a death wish. It's very dangerous for riders like myself to use that as real transportation. I've scheduled the Public Outreach Brainstorming for tonight's meeting, which this is an excellent piece of. I've always believed with all of our programs that before you advertise something you need to deliver as far as a product goes because you don't get a second chance at making a good first impression. This is my ninth year on the board; I participated in the original City Plan; so much of what we did in the first five years of the board was alternative transportation modes and issues and this is eleven years later and I see that we still don't have a bike route that can safely get someone like myself from the North end of town to the South end of town and there are lots of other places where there is no connectivity. There are some excellent large stretches in town that you can bike, but those pieces really need to be filled in. I would love to invite people from the Transportation Department here to come before the board and present what they've done and what the timeframes are for what's on the drawing board and approach things from that end. The last time I made a trip to the south end of town I thought about bringing a video camera and taping what I had to do — I had to cut across fences, I had to climb — lift my bike manually over the railroad tracks and go up these dirt hills... • Price: I called Miles Blumhardt of the Coloradoan a couple years ago and said I had a great story for your explorer section on navigating south Fort Collins by bicycle. He told me to write it for him and I said forget it; I don't have time. I see it as a challenge and I find it interesting, but I am adventurous. • Levine: I was literally going back and forth within a half block radius looking for the place that I could cross — where the embankment wasn't too steep for me to carry my bicycle filled with items up this dirt embankment. • Price: You've described some elements to me that are part of the problem. Transportation and Traffic Planning probably can give you some answers to that or tell you what they are doing but they don't have focus in that direction. And yet, this committee is interested in parts of these issues, Transportation is interested in parts of these issues, Law Enforcement is not very interested even though some of these things are in their responsibility. What I see as a need is some body — whether an advisory Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 5 of 15 board or an ombudsmen — to gather all this together and represent the community, the motorists, and maybe reshuffle the deck so we can move to the next level on this. We have been recognized by LAB as being a bicycle friendly community, despite what you and I know. I will also tell you that there is an anti -League of American Bicyclists that object that the bicycle friendly communities that are being awarded are those that separate bicycles from vehicular traffic. They don't think that is a good idea. They use Fort Collins South College as an example of a bicycle friendly community that does not allow bicycling on one of its major arterials on which two of the primary bike shops in town were located. • Levine: We did an Air Quality survey about 5 years ago and it had the question, "What if any alternative modes have you used for a trip; how many times in the past year?" the entire south part of the town —1/3 of the respondents said zero. This included walking, TransFort, bicycling, rollerblading... every form of transportation except the car. • Rick: I honestly think there are more people who bicycle for errands than walk. People in this town don't walk. The game in the parking lot of the grocery store is to see how close you can park so you don't have to walk. I'm just trying to start a dialogue - I'm trying to figure out how we can cross these boards and departments because each one of these has an interest. • Stanley: This is the perfect thing for the new Budgeting for Outcomes because this is what they are supposed to do — they are supposed to cross department lines. • Smith: "Interdepartmental, bold and innovative". • York: One aspect of the whole thing is the benefits for public health. It's a physical activity. The City employees, because it is self -funded health insurance, there would be benefits from that. Just last week at the Lincoln Center the City had this Health and Wellness event. Lincoln Center is four blocks from City hall and almost everybody drove to the Lincoln Center for that. That is a direct cost -benefit not only to the employee but to the taxpayers. It's just a good idea, and it is also antiwar. Reduction of fossil fuel usage is antiwar. • Price: Just one final thought — for my tour company we have a "reading room" on our website. If you need to cut -and -paste anything from there, feel free to do that. • Levine: Rick thanks for coming. We're looking at the Public Outreach to start these kinds of conversations and I look at this very much as a start of continuing these conversations and doing something about it. 2005 Ozone Outreach Lucinda Smith handed out a memo to the Board regarding ozone and summarized its contents in a short presentation. • Stanley (re: Dollars of money spent per ton of hydrocarbon reduced): What are some of the projects that are the lowest? • Smith: The most cost-effective is the gap cap replacement. • Stanley (re: Ozone outreach projects): At one point in time we talked about targeting commercial. Smith: Right, I can give you a follow up. Since we last talked at the Board about this, I talked with two people in the City who are involved with lawn and garden equipment. One person is in Parks and the other person is in the Natural Areas Maintenance Program. They buy a lot of mowers and string trimmers. I wanted to get a sense of people who are involved using this equipment on daily basis and the replacement costs. Au Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 6 of 15 I also talked to one retailer. It seems that their equipment turns over fairly fast — at least every 3 years. The Board had talked about using a ZILCH loan approach or something like that to get them to upgrade to the newer -standard equipment. Some equipment was just too small for them to want to bother with that. The string trimmers are only a few hundred dollars, even for the heavy-duty grade. The riding mowers were too big and expensive for ZILCH to cover. What it appeared to me after doing a partial -degree of investigation is we might be better off promoting low -smoke oil. I've heard mixed reactions as I brought that idea forward. It is a product sold by STIHL, Inc. who sells equipment. They market it as being a mixture of gas and oil for the 2-stroke engines that reduces the emissions. Some people say it is really good and some say it is just marketing hype. That might be the most productive approach for the commercial sector rather than trying to incentive-ize the purchase of their equipment. Either the value of the equipment was too small or too large for ZILCH to work. • Stanley: You say they upgrade fairly quickly too? • Smith: At least every three years. It gets constant use during the whole growing season, which for us is at least six months. I had talked about having an environmental business program for the lawn and garden industry where we could partner with Laurie D'Audney who would be talking with them about water conservation. We were a little behind the curve because she said in her experience that needs to happen in the winter because they are already preparing for their busy season. That might still be an option; we could talk about environmental aspects of their work this late December. Beyond that, right now I'm not planning to do anything else with the commercial industry. •. Stanley (re: Gas cap program): One thing you can do at CSU is go by college. Each college tends to have a parking lot. • Smith: That's good to know. Maybe next summer we can just do CSU. Although, there might not be as many people on campus in the summer, I don't know. • Stanley: The staff is there, just not all the students. • Smith: CSU is one of the biggest employers. • York: What is involved in the test? • Smith: I have not gotten my hands on the equipment yet, but it looks like it is a portable device where you unscrew the gas cap from the car, you screw the gas cap onto this device, and it tests the cap's ability to hold pressure. • Moore: We have one and I haven't used it yet. The gauge is measured in inches of water — if the cap holds that pressure then it is OK. There are also smoke machines that pump in smoke to find the leak in the evaporative system. • York: CSU has this service component that they work in the community. If you had enough devices, maybe you could borrow some... • Smith: They are not too expensive; they are a few hundred dollars. • York: Well a few hundred dollars is a lot. You could have volunteers... • Stanley: Honestly, I wouldn't let any student near my car! No... I'm kidding. • Smith: That is part of it. We'd have to have reliable people. • York: I'm thinking that the more people, the more effect. There are environmental health programs at CSU. They also have a group of students who do service. • Smith: The Greek community also has students who are willing to do community service. • Stanley: Some classes have a service -learning component. Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 7 of 15 • York: There is also the element of educating the students. • Smith: It's a good suggestion. You're right; if we had more people we could do more. I just haven't talked to the City Attorney's office about what our liability is. Volunteers are looked at differently than employees that the City pays in terms of the amount of liability that they can take on. These are relatively small issues, but do need to be sorted out. • Moore: Are you going to be taking data or just doing the test? • Smith: We only record the type of gas cap given out. • Moore: Taking license plate, or make and model of the car would slow you down. • Smith: Actually, they fill out on the form what the make and model is and we keep the form, so we're not writing that down. • York: Even if you have some volunteers from the workplace... • Smith: I know this will change after mid -July, but it would be hard to get volunteers from the City organization because everybody is so wrapped up in the budgeting process. • York: Maybe Hewlett Packard could provide some people because they are a ClimateWise partner. You need to have enough of the analyzers. More can be done and it would lower the S601 per ton, and more tons would be reduced. • Stanley: Maybe you could try it out at new Belgium. • Smith: Yes. We're going to definitely start somewhere small. New Belgium is set for July 22nd. That is their employee environmental fair day. • Levine: I'm listening to this, but I'm wondering what kind of ozone precursors are emitted in the industry sector in Fort Collins and are we going to address some of that. • Smith: That's a good question. My hope has been that ClimateWise would have chosen to focus on a business sector to promote pollution -prevention activities focused on VOC reduction. Instead, and for a good reason, this year ClimateWise is focusing on partnering with Utilities on smaller -retail and restaurants to promote electricity use reduction, combined with the demand -reduction incentive program. There is a pretty conscious decision that while ClimateWise is growing by adding partners, when it chooses to focus on a sector that sector will be retail or restaurants because of the relationship to the Utility electricity incentive. It's not going to focus on the VOC- producing industry. It might next year. That would be one of my hopes and that would get at what you are suggesting. The City would still be working around the edges because we are not a regulatory agency and VOC emissions of any significance are permitted by the state. • Stanley: What are the VOC emissions that we see most frequently from industry? • Smith: I think I can look in the Action Plan. We don't have information on precisely what the VOCs are. We do have information on which businesses or organizations in Fort Collins are permitted emitters of VOCs and their levels. I do not know what the processes are that lead to that or what the specific compounds are- they are actually folded into a category called VOCs. • Stanley: What are some of the biggest emitters? • Smith: Maybe one thing that we could do is look more into the industry contribution to VOCs. • Stanley: It is a big piece — 45% is a lot. • Smith: It is possible that the industry category is mostly oil and natural gas wells. Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 8 of 15 • Stanley: In terms of Fort Collins... • Smith: We actually do have a few permitted gas wells up north. I don't have a detailed City inventory for VOCs. The closest level is Larimer County and the most accurate level is the State non -attainment area. I could get the emissions inventory from the Ozone Action Plan. That does get very detailed. • Stanley: The reason I'm asking is I often think about a couple of different industries that use solvents and may be VOC-producing, like painters, and I'm wondering what that contribution is. Printers... a lot of them use solvents for their machines. I didn't know if those are the sort of things we are talking about with VOCs? • Smith: I think it is going to be possible to figure out the Fort Collins' industrial contributions because most businesses register their emissions by SIC code. That is a process by which we could sort out which types of emissions there were. I've prepared that for input into the ClimateWise business plan and I can get that to you. • Stanley: That would be interesting to see. • Smith: Another part of the picture is: what are the pollution reduction or prevention strategies that can be embraced? They certainly exist for the industries you mentioned. • Moore: Any time the State is talking about reduction, they are concerned about the bang for the buck. They always emphasize the number of dollars per ton. The gas cap is a low dollar program. • Levine: The external costs are not figured in so it is not a real market — those are not fair costs because the externalities, like number of cancers caused or cleanup costs, are not being considered. The ozone was rated the highest ranking of priority pollutants. I looked up a little bit about the health effects. It says it causes acute respiratory problems, decreases lung capacity 15-20%, causes inflammation of the lung tissue, leads to hospital admissions and emergency room visits (in the east coast 10-20% of all summertime respiratory -related hospital visits are associated with ozone pollution), and it impairs the body immune system defenses. • Stanley: I know I've mentioned that I did my masters thesis on quantifying the health effects of reducing ozone. Those problems are costly. • Smith: This is not to minimize it at all, but we are fortunate that we don't have extremely high ozone levels like some other areas in the country do. It's true that healthy people can receive harmful impacts from ozone at certain levels and many people are impaired by ozone concentrations even below the standard. There were some places that had 184 days above the standard. • Levine: What is the standard? • Smith: It is .08, although compliance is determined at .085. • Levine: That's the closest violation that we have. • Smith: Yes, we exceeded the standard. Who knows what this summer will bring? I appreciate your suggestions. What I hear is you're suggesting that we focus more on the industry side. That has a lot of value. I'm not sure if we can do that this summer. In my view, the gas cap fairs are the big thing. This is an opportunity for ClimateWise, which wants to grow in a pollution -prevention direction to reach out to that sector. • Stanley: It would be great if next year they would pick some of these industries that use these solvents and pollutants. Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 9 of 15 • Smith: If not in ClimateWise, it doesn't mean that we can do it outside of ClimateWise too. There are a lot of environmental outreach programs to businesses that don't fall under that umbrella. • Stanley: I see on the back page you're talking about the "Stop at the Click" stickers. Most people don't have a clue about that. • York: The "Stop at the Click" is not that well known. • Smith: We did have our own campaign about five years ago where we had our own "Stop at the Click" stickers and cards that we left at the gas pump register. Maybe we could reinstitute that program. • Moore: I have seen the stickers on the pumps. • Stanley: I'm just wondering if there is a way to get volunteers to take on some of this campaigning aspect. We do campaigns on a lot of different things. If you could get somebody who is passionate about it, somebody could do Soapboxes in the newspapers or maybe some PSAs — there might be some already made up. • Moore: There is an economical benefit to stopping at the click. When the expansion area is overfilled it pushes liquid up to the carbon canister rather than vapor. • York: It just needs more attention. • Smith: One thing I know is that it may be difficult to get stickers put on the pumps. It's not impossible but when we did it last time we had to go through the corporate national offices. We can do that again. • Levine: My last comment is we don't know all the opportunities we have until we know what the sources are. • Smith: I can get that information to you via email. Emissions Testing Program Lucinda Smith handed out a memo to the board regarding the details of the project proposal that the City of Fort Collins submitted for possible CMAQ funding. • Levine: Are we a member of the ozone compact? • Smith: We are in the area but Fort Collins is not a signatory. Larimer County is the signatory. • Levine: I heard if you are a member you are not eligible for CMAQ funds? • Smith: That's true. We are only eligible for carbon monoxide CMAQ funds, not ozone. • Stanley: How much CMAQ money is there? • Smith: I believe $2.6 million for 2 year period (2006-2007) for Fort Collins. • Levine: I guess I don't understand the benefits of compact. You don't have CMAQ funds and if you flunk you automatically revert to a SIP situation. • Smith: I think the perceived benefits are to defer a non -attainment designation, the "penalty" that comes with stricter resource controls and also the way conformity is determined for transportation projects. Public Outreach Brainstorm The Board discussed their thoughts and ideas regarding current and possible future outreach methods of the Board and also City of Fort Collins Natural Resources Department. • York: Some notes that I had made to myself on the public outreach brainstorm is a report to the community. I have picked it up from reading the minutes — how ineffective fireplaces are would be one, the toxicity of wood smoke would be another. Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 10 of 15 • Stanley: Who would do that report? The board makes recommendations to City Council. • York: We can have public meetings too. The second part is to gather the concerns and information from the public. • Stanley: Can we have public meetings? • York: I think we can. • Smith: Certainly to promote citizen participation and public education on citywide air quality issues is part of your bylaws. To convene citizen ad -hoc task groups, like the bicycle idea is OK. I don't think it is specific as to holding a public meeting. • Moore: Can we invite public to the board meeting? • Smith: Yes. • Stanley: I'm not arguing that we shouldn't do it; I just want to make sure we can do it. • York: Tonight I wrote down about 2-stroke engines. There are a lot of 2-stroke engines about. CSU is modifying 2-stroke engines to a wonderful degree. They are a great resource. • Smith: Just today we got the Natural Areas report to the public. This is one model of what one program in the City does to report to the public. • Levine: I've looked at our Air Quality Action Plan and there is a ton of goals and commitments that involve the public and outreach to the public and outreach to media involving the public. We work for the public as their City Council. • Stanley: I don't put a lot of stock into holding public meetings. Too few people typically show up and it's often times the "usual suspects'; unless it is for the express purpose of getting those people involved in some sort of way, like to get them to volunteer. People are so overloaded with messages that it is so difficult to really reach them. I think we need to pick what we are most interested in. I could see it taking a lot of time and not having a lot of effect unless we're very specific -focused and bring in other people. • York: The public doesn't know, for instance, the toxicity of wood smoke isn't well known. Just that public information. I went to this bicycle advocacy meeting. Fifty people showed up and they had expected 5. You have to look at where we are at in time — there are more people who are concerned about global change, global warming. • Stanley: I think that may be true, but I think if we could specifically target some audiences that you want to show up, it would be able to leverage their time and effort. Like asthma support groups — they have a high stake in air quality, and it would be great to try to use their resources. I know people don't know all the information, but it takes a lot of hits to get a message across to groups of people. If there is a way to leverage our resources and then to target effectively I think it is worthwhile. • Smith: One of the ideas that we are going to try to bring forward through the BFO process — Brian was the one who brought this forward — is a program that exists in the American Lung Association called Master Home Environmentalists. The concept is you get a core of volunteers, the American Lung Association offers them training and they go out and do home assessments for health impacts in homes. It is a pollution - prevention home -based assessment. We know that air quality is an issue and we have more of a challenge trying to get at that. We are going to try to advance it for some funding. It shows a good association with the American Lung Association and it shows Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 11 of 15 commitment to public health and indoor air quality. It seems to me that if that core group of interested volunteers exists it fits with the concept you are talking about. • Stanley: Then you are getting those people to go out and volunteer and more people hear about it and it builds — it has a snowball effect. That's what we need to get going. • Levine: I agree with what you say, but I disagree too. You say you ran those PSAs a million times, looked at the results, and didn't like what you saw. Yourself and those ad agency people, you knew what the ad said, they were affected by that — what I'm suggesting is the buy -in is at different levels. Public outreach isn't just initially at the public level or you are completely lost. What I'm saying is if the City hosts programs and various activities, there is buy -in from the City and buy -in and awareness from very important decision makers. • Stanley: I agree and I think that is why you have to target very specifically who you are going after. For example, we also had a group of community peers doing presentations. It's a good way to get people who are interested and who can have an effect then on another group of people. It all goes back to targeting — and I would like to see us become very targeted in who we are trying to reach. • York: What if we were to build on this BFO process and have community input as to which of our programs we should sink money into? • Smith: Do you feel like air quality survey gets at that at all? It does have a series of limited questions that ask "what do you think the City should be doing?" • York: It gets at it somewhat. I want more from the survey, don't you? • Stanley: What about the Citizens' survey? I don't know how often it's done but it asks people to rank City programs in terms of importance and quality. • Smith: The last one was 2003 and I'm certain there will be periodic surveys now because BFO relies so heavily on how the public thinks you're doing. • Levine: I don't think there is just one audience for a lot of this. • Stanley: There definitely is more than one. • Levine: Let me make a point. There hasn't been a City -dedicated show on air quality or air quality issues period since I was on one with then -Mayor Ann Azari and that was in 1996. That's been almost 10 years. There were a bunch of panelists, and I of course was one of the panelists, but there were people from Transportation, there could be people from Land Use, there was the City TV production staff — all of those people are affected and educated and then come to look at that issue as an important one that the City is engaged in as well. • Stanley: I could see a great show being done that doesn't use panelists — that uses really interesting things where you are out the gas pump and showing people... • Levine: One reason I wanted the boards and commissions to comment on development projects is even if it is late in the game, getting that report card for various staff recommendations of development projects would completely change the way they go about looking at those projects in the very earliest phase. They know that report card is coming up so it changes their way of looking at things. The outreach is to change the way that everyone looks at things. It is the public, but it is also all of the participants. • Stanley: I guess I'm confused of who we are talking as doing the public outreach. From listening to Nancy it sounded as if we are talking about the AQAB doing outreach. Are we talking about the department's outreach as well? Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 12 of 15 • Levine: Of course, I'm talking about the City, absolutely. I'm talking about brainstorming these issues on a pretty wide perspective. The Natural Resources Department used to have environmental awards. • Smith: I don't think the department did. Latimer County maybe? • Levine: No, no, no. We used to have awards — I know because I have two of them that I received. • Smith: Okay. • Levine: Everyone that receives an award — of course you get buy -in forever from that person. I turned on Channel 27 and I saw an award breakfast and it was the Human Relations Commission. Once you start doing that kind of thing it is hard even to predict who you are reaching but it is a pretty wide blast I think. • Stanley: You guys could do a little show on Channel 27 like the "Real Word Rental" video that the City put together for students. They try to use humor and make it real — people in certain situations, and what they could have done differently or what their actions caused. • York: That's a budgetary item too. • Smith: There are a variety of options that are available. Using IT is about $1,000 per minute for an edited video. We've done that for radon and for global warming. • Stanley: How about using the technical journalism students? They have a whole Public Relations Masters program that's supposed to learn how to do all of this stuff. And they have all of that high-tech equipment. They are looking for projects. • Smith: That sounds like something that would really be worth exploring that is not as costly. There is also a 1/2-hour show about the City and the issues that it works on. It is low cost and more like a panel format. Kelly DiMartino moderates the show. They had one on sustainability. They could have of those one on air quality. That's very low cost, but I don't know how exciting it would be for the public. Or there is the "Showcase Fort Collins"; that is not as expensive as produced video but there is a cost to it and it is an issue of getting in line. But it is not a bad idea. I would think we would have to think about who the audience is and what the subject is and match the subject to the audience. If that's a better way than the TV commercials and radio commercials — it's just hard to know. • Stanley: It could be a "Day in the Life of..." thing, like a reality show. You could follow a person around during their everyday lives. They go to the gas station and stop at the railroad tracks or paint their house. • Levine: Is this a reality show? They're really hot now, right? • Stanley: That wouldn't be as high cost, but think of all of the things we do in our everyday lives that... • Smith: KRFC has the Green Reports, which are short, but are also another avenue that might be available. They've been very generous and have given us whatever clips are natural -resource related for us to put on our website. People can just click on it and listen to the audio for three minutes on various subjects. If they'd be willing, they could do one on air pollution or ozone. They haven't raised that as a priority issue yet but we could go ahead and ask. • Stanley: I still think this thing about targeting our audience is so important. Who do we want to hit? Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 13 of 15 • Levine: I'll tell you who I want to hit — quite frankly it is the movers and shakers of the City. Some of them work for the City, run the City, and some of the people are economic interests all over the place. • Stanley: How do we hit those people? I think that's different than how you hit the general public. • Levine: No, I think that anything aimed at the general public hits more than just the public. • Stanley: The Chamber of Commerce now has an Environmental Committee. One person who helped start that is Chris Wood. He might be one to get some ideas from. He does have an interest in sustainability and the movers and shakers really like him. If there was some way that we could work with him... • Levine: Another thing that I wanted that we used to have a lot of in the past and should have some more of now, is people coming to this board to present various policies and programs and things. Ron Phillips has come before; so have Greg Byme and Mike Smith. That's awareness of air quality and air quality issues if there is real interaction — direct interaction — we will all be more aware of what the other is doing. We should reinitiate that. • Smith: Do you recall if that level of people came at the board's request to make a presentation on something or because they working on a project plan that needed the board's input? • Levine: When Ron Phillips came it was specifically that they were moving forward with a plan and he wanted to make the presentation. • Smith: There's a lapse in major planning activity at the City right now while it's going through BFO. That's one reason why we aren't getting requests from the outside for presentations. That still doesn't mean that you couldn't invite anyone to come and speak on something. • Levine: It's been about four years since we had those semi -regular presentations. • Stanley: Ken, I wanted to ask you, one reason air quality is important to you is for health reasons, right? • Moore: I have heart problems and I have diabetes. It would be nice to make sure that the air that I am breathing deeply into my lungs while I'm exercising is not bad for me and contributing to my health problems. • Stanley: That's one group that it seems would be good to reach about air quality issues. • Moore: I got in touch with American Lung Association through email. I was more discouraged the more I communicated with him about auto emissions, I/M and that type of stuff. He was taking a lot of stock from Dr. Doug Lawson and it is my personal opinion that he does all he can to do away with any UM program. In our talking back and forth, he came across a report where carbon monoxide was given to patients who just had a stent and they actually improved. I'm sure it was a measured, minute amount. This is like talking to a wall. That's the American Lung and American Heart Association! It is so discouraging. • Stanley: Are there people, like support groups, for example at Poudre Valley Health District? • Moore: I know CSU has an adult physical fitness class for people who have had heart problems. That is one of the recommended programs to go to in order to get back into exercising. There used to be the "Attack Pack", which was associated with a lot of Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 14 of 15 cardiologists in town. They take a group of people who just had heart surgery and encourage them to join and do group exercise and stuff like that. For those folks to get involved would be nice. I've never seen any of our local doctors get in and say we need to cut pollution. • Smith: There is Dr. Janet Sealy who heads up a group called something like "Parents of Asthmatic Children". She is active at State level and might be an ally for air pollution reduction. • Moore: Could Staff build a survey for the board, that we could ask Council and City Manager, to find out their level of awareness and their opinions on different air pollution...? It would be good to get an idea of their feelings and knowledge. • Smith: That would be so valuable! • Moore: Could it be possible that we make a recommendation that we get a survey to them so we get an idea of the people that we are making recommendations to — what their level of interest is? • Stanley: It gives us some gauge of where they are at. • Moore: In our business we survey, survey, survey to find out what our potential customers want, what they need, and from that we can build our strategies. If we have an idea of what our Council's thoughts are and what their level of interest or knowledge of air quality - it might give us an idea of how to approach it all. • Smith: It's an interesting idea to use Council as a focus group. • Moore: They are elected by the public to represent the public and it would be nice to know what the representatives' thoughts are. • Smith: If you're interested I'd be happy to follow up on the feasibility of that. • Levine: Well we advise Council, so that would be hard to do. • Smith: It depends which way the request flows. • Levine: We would need a quorum. • Stanley: We should bring this up at the next meeting then. It's a great idea. • Levine: Yes, I envision this as an ongoing discussion. Hopefully we can put some strategies together. • Smith: I see that there could be strategies that the board wants to implement yourselves and there are strategies where you are giving advice to Staff for outreach that we should do. • Levine: And Council. • Smith: Yes, Council is the third area. • Stanley: I would be happy to talk with some folks in technical journalism. I'm supposed to go meet with them in a week or two. Maybe I can exact a price, because they want help with their research. Maybe there is a possibility of doing some short program on air quality. They have extremely state-of-the-art equipment. • Smith: That would be great. • York: I do know that health care costs are up 11% this past year and it seems like more and more people don't have health insurance and health issues are on the minds of a lot of people. The targeting makes a great deal of sense, but my own inclination is have it be a broad outreach with the target being health -preventative illness. I know a lot of people are interested in health. It should be a place where people can deposit their ideas and complaints. Air Quality Advisory Board 05/24/2005 Page 15 of 15 • Stanley One thing EVSAG did was a "bright idea" thing on the website. People could submit their ideas and that would be available for the City to look at. • Smith: That's a great idea. People would have to know about it for it to be effective. • Levine: The survey indicates that the web site is the lowest -used information source. • Stanley (re: New West Fest Quiz): I think that's great. You should do one for adults and one for kids. When you supply them with the answers, you need to make it interesting. • Smith: That's a good idea. Do you think people would look in the newspapers for the answers if they had to look to see if they won? • Stanley: I don't know if you would be able to do that. They have all those strict contest rules now. Updates Levine: I should announce that Jassen Bowman has moved to Boulder, and has a new job there and won't be on the board anymore. I spoke with our new Council Liaison David Roy and asked him to introduce a resolution to Council so we don't have to wait until the next selection cycle to select a new member to replace Jassen. Meeting adjourned 7.57 PM Submitted by Liz Skelton Administrative Secretary I Approved by the Board Signed Liz Skelton Administrative Secretary I Extension: 6600 2005 Date