Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 12/19/2006NIINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 200 WEST MOUNTAIN AVE. December 19, 2006 For Reference: Eric Levine, Chair 493-6341 David Roy, Council Liaison - 407-7393 Lucinda Smith, Staff Liaison - 224-6085 Board Members Present Jeff Engell, Nancy York, Dale Adamy, Eric Levine, Gregory McMaster, Kip Carrico Board Members Absent Dave Dietrich Staff Present Natural Resources Department: Lucinda Smith, Tara McGibben Guests None The meeting was called to order at 5:38pm. Minutes With the following changes, the minutes of October 24, 2006 meeting were unanimously approved: Adamy: Page 8: Addition of the following: What, it should, I also object to (and) the; which, and quotes to easy to do ... end quote at impact. Misquote of Adamy, change to Dietrich. McMaster: Remove Bruce MacDonald. Correct excising to existing; correct understanding to understand. Levine: Correct budging to budgeting. With the following changes, the minutes of November 28, 2006 meeting were unanimously approved: Adamy: Page 24: Correction of in things to things into. Page 25 spelling error: measurable. Page 8: Correct Adamy to McMaster mid -page. Levine: Page 14: change below to above. Remove sentence beginning Within... ending below 4. York: Page 23: Remove the word be mone. Public Comment • No public present. Agenda Item 1 Climate Protection presentation by Lucinda Smith. Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 2 of 13 Lucinda focuses on the sources of our emissions and where our reduction benefits are coming from. Lucinda presented some projections of where we might be in the future and briefly discusses what other cities are doing regarding studies that have indicated the benefits of climate protection. Handouts of Lucinda's presentation are given to the board. • Levine: I have a question about the last slide regarding energy conservation reduction. Some of these are not reductions, they're slow downs in growth that was projected, right? • Smith: The way these are calculated are actual savings from demand side management programs like energy efficient appliances and types of programs such as the lighting rebates from utilities. • Levine: What does the actual energy use look like? We can't be u�ii►g 21% less energy per capita. • Smith: That only means of all the greenhouse gas emissions avoided that we quantified, energy conservation is 21 % of the reductions. • Levine: It would seem to me there are new energy uses that people are doing that weren't projected then. • Smith: We can look at the electric use for the city and do a per -capita kilo -watt hour total usage and we would probably see that it's going up. You're getting at the way that these benefits are calculated which is compared to some base line. That's the way the whole Cities for Climate Protection Campaign model is worked by comparing the benefits of what's happened since 1990 to what was the norm in 1990. • Levine: You need the total energy consumption and especially the total energy consumption per captita. • Smith: Directs board to slide listing total greenhouse gas emissions which reflect energy use among other things are still going up. The status report lists a per capita emissions that has gone up somewhat but we're taking about .03% so there's not a lot of change. We might be able to call it an improvement but our per capita energy use hasn't gone up dramatically. We're still not bringing down the net emissions yet. • Levine: At the end of the day the planet is going to care about the total emissions that humanity has made not specific calculations looking at it. • Smith: You're right. • Adamy: What's vegetation? • Smith: That is the carbon sequestration from the trees in Fort Collins. We've worked with the city forester and CSU researchers to come up with some factors. That's an area there is less certainty in the quantification. • Adamy: Has the City of Fort Collins initiated any plans to plant more trees? • Smith: There is a tree planting program and there's a lot of landscaping standards and requirements. In the original greenhouse gas plan there's recognition that it is important to maintain the health and integrity of the urban forest. We don't have a new plan to plant trees, but the city and businesses do plant,trees. • Carrico: Maybe you should point out where the Kyoto protocol put us on here. (Referring to the screen). • Smith: That's an excellent point. Kyoto puts us at 7% BELOW 1990 levels. • McMaster: May I suggest drafting a letter before the January 9 meeting. My guess is that's where we want to go. We can use Kip's letter as a draft. What we want the council to do is to create a task force. We want to draft council a letter that encourages Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 3 of 13 them to create the task force. Concentrating on the benefits is a good way to approach council. • Carrico: We want to bring in potential local impacts like drought, wild -fire, and those issues which are projected outcomes for climate change in this region and how it impacts us locally. • Levine: I am wondering how Fort Collins develops its baseline projections and projected increases. Some of the numbers were way off especially the CAFE number and growth VMT and some of the projected lowerings of VMT. The original climate protection plan had us going from 7.5 or 8% annual VMT growth, down to 2.2. I'm curious to know what the other cities numbers are for various projections. • Smith: I can't answer that in terms of what they use for projections. • Levine: That's really important if you really want to do something and not just have it on paper. It's important to really do something meaningful in the air rather than have it look meaningful on various charts and projections. The way I would go about sending this to council would be making a list of what we want to include such as the economic benefits. • McMaster: The goal is to have them to create the task force so we would want to draft the letter that encourages that as much as possible and gives them the points that they would want. • Levine: We've already done that in the memo to support the task force initiative. If we go beyond what council is considering and what other cities are considering even in Colorado I don't see how that would hurt that process. • McMaster: When I first read what Lucinda handed out my first thought was that we failed miserably at modest goals. We're clearly not on target with what we had said and we need to get the task force going and get concrete things and get back on track immediately. • York: I would think our communication to city council should convey a sense of urgency so that everything else will follow behind it. • Smith: I think it's true there are more opportunities now to make a difference. There are more incentives, collaboration; especially technological development with algae based bio fuels and some of the other research. It's not the same playing field as in 1998 and 1999. • Levine: We've listed urgency, economic benefits, the communities nationwide or in Colorado that have already committed themselves. • Carrico: You might mention the number nationwide then point out the ones in Colorado just to make a local tangible connection. • McMaster: Stating initially that we've been on the leading edge and a leader at the local level and in order to maintain that role this is "What needs to be done. • York: Kip's statement about what is projected to happen to our region in terms of water and fires and weather should be listed. • McMaster: It would not just be economic impacts but environmental impacts as well. • York: Yes, the threat. • Carrico: So are we okay with recommending Kyoto as the goal? • Engell: It seems like we're talking about two separate things. One is recommending the task force and the other is recommending your draft. I would like to see the city adopt Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 4 of 13 Kip's letter and if they appoint a task force to do that then that's great too. The letter needs to be the cause and what ever comes out of that is the effect. • Levine: You should remember that we've already made a positive recommendation to council for the task force. We can recommend that again. • Smith: August 12 is when you sent that memo to council. • McMaster: The task force could recommend whatever but there has to be a real buy in by council that this is significant and we're going to use the task force so I guess I would merge the two. • Engell: I think they go hand -in -hand but I'd hate to see council spend too much time focusing on the task force rather than address this issue of Kip's handout. • York: We can still include the threat on Kip's letter. I believe if we, wait it's going to be more costly. • Carrico: Pay now or pay a lot more later. • York: I don't know the Stem Report, I haven't read it. • Carrico: It's by England's head of commerce so it's not Greenpeace. It's looking at the economic impacts. • McMaster: Given what we assume would be a government conservative approach still indicates you would know it's going to be better. • York: I think we can reference the Stem report and it will be included in Lucinda's report. You're making a report aren't you? • Smith: Yes, with input from the engery management team and I plan to include a specific reference about what it said. • Carrico: We can also mention the IPCC report in terms of the scientific basis too. • Levine: Is the board agreed this is the basic direction we want to go that's saying let's try to commit as close to Kyoto? Since they have an agenda coming before them we want to prioritize what's here in the best way possible to sell council on both of these. • McMaster: Is it Kyoto that we want to commit to? • Smith: That's one clause in the resolution; to discuss where the city should go after 2010 and should it be as far as climate neutral • Levine: It's seeing what we would have to do to be climate neutural. • York: We need to get it done at this meeting because it needs to be in the packet. • Carrico: I can take this discussion and work it into what I've already done. I can send the final version by email if everyone's fine with that. • McMaster: It worked last time by email pretty well. • Engell: Do you want to add action items"to this as to how it would become achieavalbe? • Carrico: That would certainly expand the scope of it. • Levine: I wanted to remove some of the detail and I have a lot of little edits. • Engell: I just want the message to be clear when it's read and not muddy it with too many details. • York: Can it be re -worked and complete by email to save time? • Levine: Some things have worked horribly by email but this is one that should work. • Smith: Would it be possible to vote now and work out the details by email? • Levine: Yes, that's what I am suggesting. Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 5 of 13 Kip Carrico moved to accept the recommendation to council that the City adopt the Kyoto protocol, pending minor edits to the text that will be made by email. Jeff Engell seconded the motion and there was no discussion. The motions passes unanimously. • Carrico: I'll revise this and send out for comments and then send to Eric so he can send it to council. • Levine: I will suggest a cut off date for making suggestions. I'm not sure when that would be but let me make some judgement calls. • McMaster: What's the last date to have it in the council packet? • Smith: January 4 at noon is the cut off date. Agenda Item 2 Air Quality Survey Input • Smith: Would it help to give a little background on the survey? • Engell: Talk about how it's going to be distributed. • Smith: We have done some form of air quality survey over the years. We've done 4 separate surveys covering Radon, Wood smoke, Indoor Air, and Outdoor Air. Then they got melded into two surveys: Indoor Air and Outdoor Air. Then they've melded into one survey that we've done every other year for the last 3 or 4 times which would be 6 years. The benefits of that are some of the questions remained the same so we have a good history of results. The last three times the survey has been done by the same consultant who uses a certain methodology where there have been 1500 randomly selected names provided by a private business that does that. Surveys are mailed out with a letter signed by the City Manager. Responses come back and after two weeks a reminder is sent out to please fill out the survey. A third mailing is sent asking them to send the survey therefore mailings are sent in three instances. This gives us a 60% response rate. That's the methodology that we will follow again. We have objectives that include assessment of knowledge of city air quality programs, where do they get their air quality information, and to predict likeliness of taking action by asking certain questions. We also ask where citizens think the city should focus its efforts. We ask about the negative impacts of air pollution on them. The brown cloud negatively impacts the most people followed by health -based responses. The other thing we use the survey for is to calculate wood smoke emissions. This isn't perfect but it's what we've used over time. We plan to do it again and modify it a little bit. Most likely add a few more questions about climate and waste reduction that will help us with prepare for the BFO process. That's predicated on what the citizens want the city to do. • McMaster: What if we offered an incentive to increase return and is it worth it? • Smith: We haven't done that before on these types of surveys. • York: I think the follow up letter is good. • Smith: That seems to work. I have a sense that people are still getting more information in their mailboxes. I hope that we would still get the 60% response rate. In the past, the respondent demographics reasonably match the city. We were low on young people responding but otherwise we had a good economic and geographic distribution. Eric has brought up is the question of are we getting an informed opinion and is it possible Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 6 of 13 to get an informed opinion. How much information can you provide and is that a deterrent to people taking the survey? It becomes longer when you provide background information. Do you have opionions on that? • Levine: You can ask trick questions that lead to a correct answer such as the radon mitigation system installation in new homes. • Smith: Are you saying it would be helpful to ask that specific question? • Levine: Yes. Any no would be an incorrect answer. • McMaster: The question being, 60% out of 1500, how many people would have bought a new home? • Adamy: A well informed survey person might recognize the trick question and suspect the whole survey. . • Levine: Actual wood fire places without inserts, there are none certified, is that correct? • Smith: Yes. You're talking about an open fireplace right? I don't think that's actually possible for that to be certified. • Levine: It is possible according to the county. There's a Rumsford type fireplace that would meet certification if EPA certified that. That would be trick question #2. • Smith: Past results indicated people don't know if their wood burning device is certified or not. Even though we told them where to find the certification on the unit or their owner's manual. • Levine: They answer that they know it is certified. • York: Could you ask a question about the age of the stove? • Smith: We could but they don't really know. We can think about it if it would provide more information • Levine: The reason I am suggesting these questions is not to trick people but to gauge these people answer the questions and how much information is this based on and what they think. For educational out reach these are important questions to answer. • Smith: Are there other areas that you feel the survey should focus on? Such as carbon, global warming, climate? • Levine: I don't see anything about land use policies to encourage more efficient transportation. I don't see any green building and various energy efficiency programs to encouraging builders and citizens. More systemic kinds of policies rather than, addressing transportation after the fact. • Carrico: Have you given any thought to what climate questions you might ask? • Smith: We need the help of the consultant to word it correctly. • York: Have you considered having them rank their areas of concern? Previous surveys gave us a better notion of whether people were willing to take buses or walk. • Levine: You've looked at this Lucinda. We have some suggestions of what we like on. What can be removed? • Smith: There is a limit to how long it can be and still be practical for people to take. Some things can come off. • Levine: Certain questions need to be on due to valuable historic trends and history. • Smith: The outdated questions that no longer pertain can be removed. • Levine: I'd like to see educational data in it. • York: Regarding greenhouse gas emissions, ask: Are you concerned about global warming, if so what have you done about it to reduce it? Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 7 of 13 • Smith: We would have to ask the question what is the most important info to get? Is it their willingness to act or the information they think should be made available to them that would help them to act? I'd like to know what they think the city should do rather than what they will do. • York: It may register a certain priority and understanding and that priority may help. • Smith: I recall, in the last survey, the decision not to include willingness to bike/walk due to the Smart Trips program survey. And we were trying to keep it short. • York: It gave us actual information to go to council and say 70% of the people said this to help emphasis the direction. • McMaster: They say they are concerned but doing something about it goes down. • York: We found out people didn't walk. • Smith: The bus was another one that was pretty low. • York: They were willing to take action if you can get a true response then we could push for action. • Smith: How important do you think the general questions are? About air quality now and the future; can/will/should anything be done to improve air quality. Any thoughts about the value of those questions? • Levine: I would like to continue those questions because of historical value. Perceptions are important and air quality survey should ask broad general picture. • Engell: Do you think anything can be done verses should be done. It seems like the same questions. • McMaster: If they don't think it can be done? We don't need that one. • Levine: I think the perception of where we're heading is important. • McMaster: Would it help if we eliminated some questions, and looked at some give- and-take questions and what we can consider adding? • Levine: Some of the boxes at the end are a little big. • Smith: So that could be more compact? • Levine: Yes, there's a lot of white space. • Smith: That's a good point; it can be set up horizontally. • Levine: We can put more questions there. • Smith: As an example about the can/will/should question, in 2004, 71% said something can be done, and 74% said something should be done. Only 28% said something will be done; there's a big difference. • Engell: I don't see how people would answer those differently. • Smith: It makes sense to remove the "can be done" question. • McMaster: The question about the wood burning stove/insert, if you own one, you go down to some extensive detailed questions. If we've been following people that have wood -burning devices, I assume all new construction people are putting in gas, is that correct? • Smith: They can put in certified wood stoves. • McMaster: If they are putting in woodstoves, it would have to be certified. How many people have replaced their old woodstove with a certified one? • Smith: Maybe we can pair some of that down. I would like to find out how much wood people are burning due to the increase in natural gas prices. • McMaster: Say, if you've had it for a period of time, are you burning more or less? • Smith: You feel this is too onerous? Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 8 of 13 • McMaster: I feel it's an intense part of the survey. • Levine. This is the main source of the city's wood burning information. Some of it could be shortened or skip entirely if you don't have a device. We're not getting good data out of some of these questions. • York: In addition, some questions could be added on alternative heating, solar and passive solar to see if we're moving toward more efficient energy use. • McMaster: Do we have records on things like the hot water heating. It would be nice to know if they have an alternative system and the age if it. • Smith: There was a more comprehensive survey on source of heat that Utilities now has. That's why we dropped out of that part. • York: Another question is what they have bought, be it new, pellet or wood burning stove. • Smith: That's a good point, a new action. Do you think we should keep the question about indoor air pollutants? It's evaluating how important it is to people. Indoor air pollution is so important but we're not working on it other than radon, and second hand smoke. • Levine: What about the inspection of stoves and inserts, is that necessary? • Smith: Do you mean the building inspector inspections? • Levine: How often have you had it inspected, checked or cleaned? • Smith: It's important for safe burning practices. That's one to look at. • Levine: I'm hoping for some accuracy in answering how many cords of wood they've used. • Smith: If it's bundles at Safeway they wouldn't know. • Levine: I think this is important but if we don't have confidence in the answer why ask the question. Would getting incorrect answers provide us with anything else. • McMaster: What is the information that you want out of the survey and are these questions getting you that? • Smith: For example the question on certification of wood -burning devices is directly related to the policy of reducing the number of non -certified stoves. That's the weakest area of the survey. • Levine: Maybe it can be re -worded such as asking if it's a safe unit and is it installed correctly. • Smith: We could ask if they know how old the stove is. • York: Are they going to scan this and make it more difficult to scan? • Smith: Yes they scan it. • York: Ask how much wood did you burn this past winter and add it to the second line as it would be easier to read. • Smith: Certainly. • Levine: Is this the first survey after the radon policy? We need some data on that and this is a big thing to see how it's getting off the ground. What Greg said is valid: Out of so many responses how many people are going to have new homes within the past year? Would the statistician person know how large a sample would make it significant? • Smith: I think so. • York: The question: Have you had your house mitigated for radon? Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 9 of 13 • Levine: One question is: Have you had the system tested? Is it activated if it tested high? • York: And for those who don't have a new house have you tested and mitigated? • Levine: Those are all questions that should be put in there. • Smith: It might be simpler to ask when was your house built, have you tested, do you have a radon system, have you tested, have you mitigated. • Levine: How do you put that in the format? • Smith: It could be they fill in numbers 1 through whatever. • McMaster: They must have some way of scanning when you enter your zip code. • Levine: We want to track how old and track since the radon requirement. • Smith: Although if the home is 2005 then we know that met the radon requirement. • Levine: Absolutely. • Smith: These are useful suggestions and I will email you with a reminder for additional ideas/comments deadline and send a revised draft including all questions/comments. • Levine: Do we need the electric fireplace question? • McMaster: What's the percentage for your heating question mean? How do you estimate that? • Smith: We were looking for how much do you use these things to supplement your heat. If it's more than 50% then it's your predominate heat source. If it's less than 50%, then it's only supplemented a little. • York: Ask which actions have you taken to reduce greenhouse gases such as drive less, insulate, new appliances, CFLs. It would judge the effectiveness of some programs too. • McMaster: It would give people ideas and possibilities they may not have thought of. • Smith: Thank you for that input. • Carrico: Have you considered an on-line survey? • Smith: No. We considered doing it by phone but call screening doesn't help that effort. I'll bring up the on-line survey suggestion. Agenda Item 3 Mobility Management Best Practices Continuing Discussion • York: I'd like to see metrics and have information come to us every year. • Smith: Routinely reported metrics that relate to transportation, is that right? • York: Yes, and number of vehicles registered, main miles, ridership on Transfort. • Levine: That should not be very difficult to do. That is if we use VMT. • Smith: To get an actual VMT, that will be difficult to do. • McMaster: How hard is it to collect that kind of information from fuel distributors? • Smith: Brian would know better. It takes a little work but it's not impossible. The issue is getting it down to the Fort Collins area. • York: I asked David Roy to find out how much gas was used in the city and the answer came from Mark Radke. • Smith: Mark may have asked someone in transportation. • York: He calculated the number of gallons of gasoline consumed in a state and Ft. Collins is 42% of the state. • Smith: Per population proportioned. The main use for that data is to see what's happening. Fuel consumption would be easier to document. Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 10 of 13 • York: It will be interesting to see how it changes by more efficient vehicles and people choosing alternative transportation and vehicles. • Smith: Next year we will give a more detailed report to council based on the metrics identified in the air quality plan which include most of the things you've mentioned. It doesn't have fuel consumed but we can try to get that. • York: One gallon of gasoline produces 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, right? • Smith: I think that's right. • York: In a way it would fit into that. • Smith: There's a methodology for estimating carbon dioxide emissions from transportation that is based on VMT. • York: It'd be easier by doing it by gallons of gasoline. • Smith: Right, but it wasn't that easy to get in Fort Collins. • Levine: Is the NRAB getting the same Mobility Management presentation we are? • Smith: Yes, it's completing the board circuit. • Levine: I would like the minutes that addresses the mobility management portion. • Smith: Not a problem. • Levine: We don't want to loose the mobility management best practices item. Could we do a check list of accomplishments and where would we like to go and prioritization as well as the city budget cycle is happening. • Smith: Next year is an important opportunity. • Levine: We have opportunities to focus on some of these and get some funds committed. • York: On question #6, it's CU not CSU. • Levine: It is. That's a typo. • York: How do other cities fund projects? What are the mechanisms for funding anything? I know there is tax incremental financing, but it would be great to list the mechanisms of funding. • Smith: Lack of funding seems to be one of the major issues. • York: I like the PSD presentation. In reading over the minutes there's things that I picked up that I didn't connect with the meeting. Such as the different regulations between the city and school district like the insurance barriers. We should try to digest what Tom said and put it in perspective. Aren't we going to have someone from CSU present? • Smith: Yes, CSU isn't sure who yet and it's a matter of scheduling it in. The other item is hearing from Tracy Ochsner or Dave Leister about the same kind of issues that Tom brought up concerning emissions from vehicles. • York: The idling and route problems gave me a feel for action. One of the things he said was that 8500 students in the school of choice come by their own basis. If we had a grid -transit system how many of them could ride transit? 8500 kids at 2 trips a day is a lot. • Levine: Is that an institutional barrier that the school of choice is not allowed to bus those kids? • York: They do, they bus 1500 of them but the parent has to get the kid to the closest bus stop and then they can go to that school. There has to be many different routes. Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 11 of 13 • McMaster: You can get to a school by a bus that will get you there but you have to get to a certain place first; if you're not within the busing regulations within your neighborhood school then you have to figure out how to get there. • Levine: Every school kid should be provided transportation to get to and from public school. • McMaster: The school of choice program scrambled with the alternative transportation programs but there is simply no money and that's the best they can do. • York: We gleaned information that we'd hope the city would. pass to transfort. PSD pays $70-80K for their buses and Transfort pays $300K, is that correct? • Smith: It seems low, $70K for a school bus, but maybe it's right. • York: Is it subsidized? • Levine: Not to mention the pollution control equipment that's already on those. • York: And they're safer. I think we should pull out the information from the minutes and get clarification on the $80K buses. • Smith: Did you want to check to make sure if it was right? • York: I heard him say that. • Smith: It seemed like Tom presented correct facts. • York: Now that we met with Tom, what is it that we got from that meeting? • McMaster: There was things we got that we could follow-up on like idle policy. • York: At least have the information to ask Transfort and explore the idling policy. • Levine: I'd like to explore the emissions per mile per vehicle. Fort Collins uses 20/80 mix and PSD has pollution control equipment and I'd like to compare the tail pipe emissions. Tom had the cost of those things too. The city fleet used to have that information. • Smith: Noted, the two things you'd like to hear from Transfort/Tracy are about idling practices both of Transfort and other fleet vehicles and emissions control devices and costs. • York: And heaters. • Levine: Ft. Collins has advantages by not parking in barns exposed to the elements. Parking indoors at a dedicated facility is much easier. • McMaster: Dale pointed out the inconsistency in ridership number of trips in Transfort. PSD calculates it differently. Dale had the stats and looking at the buses you don't see that many people. • York: That's how they do the trip counts. If you do three stops along the way you're doing three trips. • Levine: We're focusing in on the city and CSUs presentation on the topic. I wanted to break down of the costs of operator of the bus versus the cost of the fuel versus the bus cost versus maintenance. If we're considering adding more vehicles and expanding length of routes we need to know how it breaks down because the budget would look different. Tom got an EPA grant, what are we pursuing? They are operating such a larger entity than the City of Ft. Collins and it's unaffordable for us to have more than 25 buses after 20 years of trying to encourage alternative transportation? PSD has a fleet of 12,000. We need breakdowns of the cost to have 25 buses. • Smith: I'll make request but I can't promise they'll provide it. • York: I'll pull other points from the minutes. • Levine: Rural is way beyond our Transfort and that's probably most cost ineffective. Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 12 of 13 • York: Is this something everyone is interested in? Maybe we can find out more information such as the budget and the information that Eric just said • Smith: I wrote it down. Next month we can have three presentations: city fleet, Transfort ridership, and CSU. Do you want all those presentations at the same time? • Levine: The city and CSU. • Smith: It'd be good to do them both together because there is some relation between the transfort planning and implementation and the operations side. There will be two presentations from the city. One from Judith with Transfort. Dave and Tracy from the operational side can present as well. • Levine: That sounds reasonable. • Smith: They could both discuss their expertises. • Levine: We're trying to identify barriers and find opportunities. • York: Someone could work on the barriers. Actually the school has federal regulations he pointed out when he stops traffic has to stop. • Smith: Yes, there are safety issues. • Levine: I'll make a list once I have the answers, I have the questions. • Smith: Are you interested in prioritizing the work plan items? Council will approve this year and that takes time. How soon would you like to do that? Towards the beginning of the year is important. • York: I agree. We should prioritize it. • Smith: There should be some time dedicated to that in January or February. • McMaster: We have the workplan so it would be a question of'ranking the top 10 by bullets. • Levine: There could be discretionary funds in the budget or other groups vying for budget dollars that we could positively weigh in on if we knew that. • McMaster: It's a living document so we can revisit what we do. Committee Updates Greg McMaster presented an update on the Bike Advisory Committee. • McMaster: We had three meetings so far. It's a great group of people, a lot of fun. They are focusing on health and safety of bicycling and specific issues. • Levine: We have a budget cycle and bicycling would be the easiest way to go. We're more than half way there anyway. • McMaster: They're looking at connectivity and routes. We need to encourage that as our mobility plan and think of how to do that effectively. • Levine: Are they going after any specific funds towards that end? • McMaster: It's low budget. David Averill overseas it and has good ideas. He and David Kemp are running ragged just doing what they can. • Levine: Bicycling is low budget compared to the Lemay project. • McMaster: There's lots of interesting things that are coming along that are improving. They've done a number of things that will lead to further greenhouse gas reductions but more can be done with the bicycling program. • Levine: Can minutes be posted to the web site? • McMaster: There aren't any minutes taken. It's very informal. • Levine: What if they were part of the city web site encouraging people to comment why couldn't that work? Air Quality Advisory Board 12/19/2006 Page 13 of 13 • McMaster: There's nothing that I'm aware of that's structured in that manor. I'm not sure what that would involve. • Smith: Are they aiming to have the plan updated by a certain time? • McMaster: It was slow going in the beginning, but the spring is when it's supposed to be done. Mark Jackson attended the second meeting. • Smith: I can ask David Averill what their plan is for public outreach. • Levine: This is one of the alternative modes of transportation for the city, we need to do this. Thanks Greg, it needs some reinforcement from the city. Meeting adjourned 8.16 PM Submitted by Tara McGibben Administrative Secretary I Approved by the Board o2006 Signed rl Tara McGibben Administrative Secretary I Extension: 6600 Date