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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 04/24/2007MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 200 WEST MOUNTAIN AVE. For Reference: Eric Levine, Chair 493-6341 David Roy, Council Liaison 407-7393 Brian Woodruff, Staff Liaison 221-6604 Board Members Present Nancy York, Dale Adamy, Eric Levine, Gregory McMaster, Kip Carrico, Deny Georg, Dave Dietrich Board Members Absent Jeff Engell (NE) Staff Present Natural Resources Department, Brian Woodruff, Tara McGibben, Lucinda Smith Guests None The meeting was called to order at 5:34pm. Minutes With the following changes, the minutes of the March 27, 2007 meeting were unanimously approved: Add Deny Georg to the attendance list. Public Comment Mary Smith comments on trash districting. I live on a street that's two blocks long and has 27 houses on it and is 2/10 of a mile long. I have four trash haulers on my street and four recycling trucks on my street. Three days a week there are trash haulers and recyclers on my street. One day there are four trucks; the other two days there are just two. Three days of the week there are trashcans sitting out on the street. These are the heaviest vehicles on our street, with the exception of an occasional moving van, that comes through every week. Somehow, it seems to us, that eight trucks to pick up 27 houses, there has to be waste somewhere. We're approaching this from several different angles. One of the most significant monetary one is street damage. We've talked with city engineers and discussed the fact that it's a significant problem to our streets. The Pollution factor is what's concerning us. Eight trucks on the street where you can have two; there must be more carbon dioxide being produced and other particulate matter going into the air. The city has addressed the issue. I've been here for 27 years and when I first moved here there was districting. I'm not sure why but districting was not allowed; they decided to have open competition. Even then there was 6 trash haulers and it got down to four or five on that street. I thought it was crazy. I'd come from a city where the Air Quality Advisory Board 4/24/2007 Page 2 of 11 city actually took care of trash hauling and it was picked up once a week. There just must be unnecessary waste. Trash hauling is a necessary problem that will have to happen in a city environment but with that many trucks and noise and safety issues. The trucks that pick up the majority drive slower. Some people have a neighborhood association but not everyone lives in an association. As soon as new people move in they don't want to change their hauler accounts so there are trash cans out from three different haulers. This is a city problem. There's opposition to districting and free enterprise believers and that competition keeps costs down. There's a fuel sur charge on our bills now. The haulers didn't have to raise rates but they were allowed to put this fuel sur charge on the bills now and that's never going to go away. For them they can say they haven't raised their rates; they just put the fuel sur charge to make even. The reason districting is the option is because the haulers would save money by going to one area instead of covering the entire city. We've been looking for various avenues and we don't know all the politics of it. We've approached city council and the boards with this issue. It's hard to get all the answers because the haulers aren't telling you the miles they travel each day. They have their own problems. Each hauler I think is doing a good job as far as their services go. I don't have any problems with any hauler and I don't want to cause people to loose their job but I don't see where we have to have businesses being run very inefficiently. If a single company had a point source of pollution equivalent to what these four trash haulers have, the city would do something. The city would say we have a right to say you can't just ... if it was waste and necessary. Whereas this is wide spread the city just looks away. We're trying to get information and it's hard to get. We're hoping for any help or suggestions. • McMaster: You mentioned the estimate of street maintained cost of $500K. I assume you got that from city engineers, do you know how they came up with that? • Mary Smith: That was the estimate then in 1998. One thing we hope to propose to council is that they update the study. The study however doesn't quantify anything but mentions pollution. • Georg: Are trash haulers licensed to operate in the city? • Woodruff: Yes they are. • Georg: Does that license specify areas of operation? • Woodruff: No. The staff would be pleased to present this issue. Susie Gordon and John Armstrong have a long history on this issue. They can fill you in on all those details and you can craft a recommendation to council if you wanted to. • McMaster: This is a topic on our work plan this year. • Georg: I suggest we put this issue on the agenda and understand what the variables are as it relates to the cities options. • York: And get a copy of the old study so we can read it before hand. Thank you for bringing this to council and our attention. • Mary Smith: I don't know all the politics involved and hope that the boards do. I don't want to speak for others. I just want to introduce the topic and I appreciate it, thank you. Agenda Item 1: Lucinda Smith: Climate Task Force • Smith: The Natural Resources Advisory Board has a solid waste sub committee that meets once a month before their meetings. I don't know if they have taken up the issue Air Quality Advisory Board 4/24/2007 Page 3 of 11 of trash districting; it's just a piece of information that you may want to know; that's the group to work with. • York: We should appoint an alternative on the Climate Task Force. • Smith: That is an excellent idea. • York: Who wants to be on it? • Carrico: I can be an alternate. • York: That means you can go to the meetings? • Carrico: Not from May 15 to June 15 but other than that I am happy to attend as an alternate. • Adamy: Are other board members allowed to attend? • Smith: Yes, these are public meetings. On a motion by Nancy York, Eric Levine was selected to represent AQAB on the Climate Task Force Committee, with Kip Carrico as the alternate. • Smith: Thank you. Eric the first meeting is scheduled May 24 from 5:30pm to 8:OOpm in conference rooms A and B at 281. Is that going to work for you? • Levine: Just barely. • McMaster: Is there any way to notify the board members about these meetings? • Smith: Definitely. We want to have as transparent a process as possible. The goal is to have a website that will have all the info available to the public about the meeting. • Georg: Why isn't there anyone from PSD on the task force? A lot of traffic in this community happens as a result of PSD busing policy and schools of choice policy. • Adamy: Good point. • Smith: It's possible someone from PSD might be on the committee although they may be representing the Chamber or the Climate Wise Steering Committee. • Georg: I think you should take one of the city people off. Three city people are listed. • Smith: There are only two city people on the task force. Climate Wise is not a staff person. That would be a member from the CW steering committee. • Georg: If I had to sacrifice somebody I'd sacrifice the power company. • Smith: Platte River? • Georg: Yes. I say put 14 on it and have a PSD representative. It's important to have someone from PSD on the task force. • York: Is there a health professional on that? • Smith: I only know of three names so far. Eric, Jeff Leibich from the electric board and Liz Prussner from the NRAB. • York: Is the transportation board represented? • Smith: They will have a representative, but they haven't selected the person yet. • Levine: There are no technology -solutions people on this. I thought there were originally three spots open. • York: Is there a city council liaison appointed? I read the 6-month calendar and read they were going to consider the liaison to the board, but I don't know that there will be one. • Smith: I don't think that they are planning to designate a liaison for the task force. • Levine: As far as the time frame, is it December? Air Quality Advisory Board 4/24/2007 Page 4 of 11 • Smith: The hope is to start in May and finish by November. The input and outreach process of the draft recommended plan would take some time after the task force is finished. • McMaster: If they meet May through November, do you really think that will be achieved? • Smith: It will be hard but not necessarily impossible. • Levine: We have two tasks still. One is the 2010 deadline of the old program and one is looking at the time horizon, which is so close — it's going to have to be a decade kind of thing. • Georg: One way they can be successful in this time frame is for them to farm out some of their queries to the other city boards. • Levine: The other city boards are charged with environmental quality and energy efficiency in the five boards that are represented on the task force; that's inclusive. • Georg: Exactly. But you would take things specifically from this composite board and ask each of the five or six boards that might have the impact and take specific items and recommend that. • Levine: That's how the resolution is interpreted. • Georg: The way they can make progress by the end of this calendar year is to leverage the boards that are represented as well as the other citizens groups. I like the composition with the exception of not including PSD. • Levine: For the task force to be successful, we have to start searching for best in class all over the place. I expect for them to have a couple of additional meetings later in the fall. • Smith: Yes, that's very possible. • Dietrich: What kind of staff support is there; is Judy Dorsey assigned to a contract? • Smith: It's a contract for $13,000. The staff support is going to come from our department and I'm unclear about utilities staff support. I'm not sure of my role yet, either as a coordinator or as a task force member. • Dietrich: I was thinking more along the lines of technical support? • Smith: There's not a lot of that support; that's why we look to what's being done at the state level. • Dietrich: PSD is a major driver of transportation and also a major driver of education. As they move this forward, the schools are a good place to begin. • Smith: We haven't had that conversation yet about the level of support that utilities can provide. They didn't budget it. • York: It seems to be that utilities should be represented rather than Platte River Power. • Dietrich: Can you describe why both should be on; or the difference between them; why utilities and Platte River Power? • Smith: While the city is almost a majority owner of PRPA, they still play important role in the ultimate ability to implement some of the energy supply actions. • Georg: If Darin is willing to accommodate incremental people; I think they bring a point of view to the table and you just have to think about it as a point of view and having all the points of view on the table is very important. • Carrico: There are so many stakeholders, it makes sense. • Adamy: Is there any intention to video -record the discussions? • Smith: Not yet, as there's no interest in it currently. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/24/2007 Page 5 of 1 I • Carrico: Do you know how other department reps, such as Utilities, will be selected? • Smith: Mike Smith is the Utilities GM and he will make the selection of the utilities representative. I'm guessing it would be one of the four energy services engineers. • McMaster: Is there a more formal way to expand the numbers on the task force? • Levine: It would be a recommendation to council. • York: My interest is that the task force represents the best thinkers, and representing an area, beyond the boards. More technological folks. • Carrico: Does it make sense to recommend Brian Willson. He's a CSU researcher who works on energy efficiency. • Adamy: As we craft this resolution should we offer our suggestions? • York: Let's hear the names or the classifications we'd like to include. Do you think a heath professional; or not so much? • Carrico: There are different issues involved with health effects. • Woodruff: The Board's appropriate role is to advise the Council. In this case the council has instructed the Manager to appoint the committee. In a way, you're already giving input to the City Manger, through Lucinda, just through this conversation. That's happening already. If you decide to recommend to council they'll have to consider it and decide whether to instruct Darin to do his job a certain way. • Levine: Has the city manager selected this task force from citizens, members of boards and commissions and city staff. • Woodruff: His letter sets forth the process to make that happen. • Levine: I'm looking at the list, and I'm not sure the selections qualify as "citizens." • Smith: Well probably the questionable word is citizens; and all these people are citizens as well as representatives. I think the Fort Collins Sustainability groups and the board groups are the best representatives of citizens. • Levine: And you can say that the business community with the chamber representing. PRPA doesn't fit in with citizens. • Georg: I think it's a good list; I think it's short, but it's a good list. • Levine: Is there one slot here that would actually be a citizen who's interested that's not connected to any formal organization? • Smith: In that I think the citizens really are represented through the Sustainability Group, whom I believe has the best interest of the citizenry at heart, and through the boards. Not to say that the other groups don't. • Dietrich: I agree. I don't see an issue with citizen representation. • Georg: We've given Lucinda some pretty good input. We feel like from here you should give consideration to putting technology expertise on the board, PSD, relating to environmental health on the board. • Levine: How does the County fit in? • Smith: The County is also one of the top 10 as well -- an important stakeholder. It's just so hard when you have to limit the committee size. • Dietrich: They manage the waste disposal too. We can't just keep it Fort Collins. • Smith: I think it's a good suggestion to possibly consider PVH system. I will be happy to carry this to Darin. I appreciate the input and your selection of a representative and alternate. I will let you know the outcome. Agenda Item 2: Air Quality Advisory Board 4/24/2007 Page 6 of 11 Public Forum Planning • Woodruff: I took the liberty of writing this up to summarize what we've talked about. Our job was to come up with a structure for the informational part of the program. There's going to be a break in the middle and a public forum to follow. And this is the piece that's specifically the air quality board will be in charge of. We were asked to come up with a structure for the earlier part of the meeting. A speaker of your choosing would lead off. We were thinking in terms of John Volckens, relating to health. The city staff would have its opportunity to present on the ozone season coming up and the air quality survey that will have come out at that point. Then we're allowing 10 minutes of questions and answers from the audience to the speakers. Then a substantial break of 20 minutes where people can mill around, eat, or record comments. We'll have these flip chart stations with four topics listed across the top where people can go and record their comments. • McMaster: Two of those topics would be ozone and survey -related and we pick the other two? • Adamy: Trash districting perhaps? • McMaster: Maybe. • Woodruff: Our brainstorm was not to ask for comments on specific topics such as ozone, but rather ask, e.g., what should the city/community be doing more of in the air quality arena? Is there something we should be doing less? What should businesses be doing? What can I do to help the air quality? That was just a brainstorm of ours; we're suggesting that that would elicit people's comments and get them thinking rather than direct them to specific issues. I should mention this is the 90-minute version of the meeting. We have an alternative that is 120 minutes. That would allow a second speaker with another 20 minutes. We were thinking, if speaker A was going to talk about health effects such as asthma, there may be people in the audience that may be concerned about that that the city would have no response to, and so we thought it might be useful to have speaker B be somebody who is knowledgeable about community resources dealing with respiratory issues. Rather than have city staff saying "well, we don't do asthma." That's an idea for you to consider. • McMaster: I like that idea, then the 10 minutes I say you put on the front, which you're not going to start exactly on time; you're going to have a person layout what's going on -- the introduction, you know, setting the pace. • York: Did you consider having the speakers come after the city presentation? • Woodruff: We didn't think about that. We just thought that the speakers would be what people are more interested in, and wanted to lead off with that, but this could be rearranged. • Levine: Is John Volckens the CSU guy that you recommended, the environmental health professor? • Carrico: That was whom I originally recommended. I talked to him and he said he's willing, and that we really need to talk to his colleague Jennifer Peel who is an epidemiologist and a master in public health and has been active in air pollution health effects. • Woodruff: John is saying that Jennifer is actually the better choice? • Carrico: Yes, I think he has some scheduling issues as well. • York: If it turns out that he's in town he'll be happy to part of it too. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/24/2007 Page 7 of 11 • Geog: The public forum that you're planning then would be what, just a listening session? • Woodruff: That would be for input from the public. Think about how you want to do this. Will you sit in the front, and are people going to speak to you as the board; that's up to you as to how you want to organize that. We presume the results of this meeting would be a summary or a transmission of these concerns to the council in some kind of a report committee. If so, you would want to make that statement upfront, e.g., we're the eyes and ears of the city council on air quality, and we're going to pass along what you say to them. • McMaster: Flip charts would provide a little bit more and a chance for that kind of comment. • Dietrich: How much time in the public forum per person do you recommend? • Woodruff: Let's assume that there is a separate Q&A period, so we're not getting questions during the comment period. A good facilitator might say I'd like a show of hands of people who already know they want to speak, and then gauge it to be 2, 3, 4 5 minutes depending on how many speakers there are. • Dietrich: So during the flip chart session can we have another flip chart position asking if they wish to comment during the forum. • McMaster: Good idea. We don't even know how many people are going to attend this. • Geog: I can see how this could eventually become an annual event. It's kind of an annual citizen input process, its part of our process but it's also part of our report to the city council so it's the citizen input on air quality in 2007 for 2008. • Levine: Is this going to be televised? • Woodruff: Yes, but not in real time. • York: If staff were to present the information on ozone, and the air quality survey, and the air quality trends? • Woodruff: We're backing away from presenting trend data, because the data won't be ready then. We'll have some handouts that can show monitored air quality trends. The air quality survey can be made into a summary, too, to give more speaking time. • York: Survey may give a reference from which our health professional can speak to; to have it be more meaningful to have a reference. • Woodruff. That works as long as you trust us to kick off the meeting with something interesting. • Levine: Has the survey been done now? • Woodruff: It's being compiled and it will be available for the event. • Georg: What are the date alternatives? • York: We don't have it nailed down to a date. • Woodruff: June, early or mid. • Geog: I think you've got a great outline. Based on what we talked about having it sounds very good. The next task is to find a good date and get communication and encourage people. • Levine: It's getting important to get a date at this point so we can proceed with some of the promos. Mid June is realistic. • Georg: I think you should find the date that works for the speakers and staff. Have as many of us that can be there but you should go for it. The speakers are probably going to set your schedule. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/24/2007 Page 8 of 11 • Woodruff: The committee could be empowered to select the date. UPDATES: West Nile Virus • Levine: I've put in three calls to the city and they really haven't gotten back with me. You said Chet would be available Greg? Should we do one without staff support? • McMaster: I think the only way, if we really wanted it out, is approaching Darin and saying this is the situation and what's your thoughts on it because if he doesn't want to do it basically it's not going to happen. • York: There is another way of doing it and that is just to gather Chet and some other people depending on the direction of that and what they feel and present it to Dann. • Levine: When I spoke to staff originally about 5 months ago, they said they didn't have the complete list of contact attendees. We'll have to do legwork as far as that goes. • McMaster: I have my old folder. We could proceed without Tom's involvement. • Georg: Does the city have a specific plan for what they're going to do this year? • York: Probably the same plan that they did last year. • Levine: I'm going with the larvicide program with a little bit of monitoring thrown in and a smidgen of education thrown in. It seems now that a mosquito nuisance program is being institutionalized within the city. That's not necessarily bad, if that's what it is, but people should know about it. • Dietrich: Which department in the city is managing that program? • York: City Manager's Office. Larimer County Health Department sends out the alarm that they'll be spraying. • McMaster: The County sets the overall tone for what each city should do. • Georg: So one of the things that might be worthwhile is to find out from CMO what the plan is this year; so we know what the plan is. • McMaster: The reason why we're doing it now is because they do the two-year budget cycle. They're finishing that up now with the BFO. • Georg: So you're not concerned with what they're doing now? • McMaster: It's all set. We're talking about the next 2-year budgeting cycle, because it's $250,000 for the two years. • Georg: This is a BFO issue then, that's what's driving this. • McMaster: And what's really driving a lot of this besides the money is the ever-present fear of the adulticiding. • Levine: The fear of the West Nile as well. • Georg: Maybe what we have here, as opposed to doing something immediately, is that we have an action item going into the May 7 budget meeting and propose the city put a task force to evaluate the alternatives. What we really need to be talking about is something to fit into the budging -for -outcomes cycle and recommend the city resources to support a citizen's review of how we deal with WNV. We need to get the city's commitment as part of BFO and using city staff and resources to support the citizen review of the policy and tactics as it relates to West Nile. • Georg: It seems like that's an action we can take. • Levine: There's no assigned point person at the city any more to deal with this. That's the reluctance, there's no one assigned to deal with this. This is a big budget item. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/24/2007 Page 9 of 11 • McMaster: I think we ought to really plan to address that on May 7. What if Eric and I sat down with Darin to prep him on this idea? • Levine: I'm gone after this week. • York: I think you should have a conversation with Chet just to feel him out about the direction, too. I spoke to Chet and he was willing to help. • Georg: The city could convene such a task force. Then they have to ask for people to commit, because [I don't know how the city charter works] you need volunteers to be on it, and the same people volunteered, it would be up to the city council members to choose. Discussion: May 7 BFO Process • McMaster: Whoever shows up at the meeting, I'm afraid that anything we have could just get lost. • Georg: Organized input from each advisory board so 200 people won't talk all at once. I'm for results. I think we should brainstorm on what it is we feel needs to be included as a set of line items in the BFO process as it relates to our areas of responsibility. • McMaster: This is the feedback I think we need to get, because Darin was really good at responding to our request of, How can we do this; next steps. • Georg: One of the things we talked about was the timing of update for air quality plan, and that's going to happen over the next two years, so we need to have funding to support the update to the air quality plan. The one thing that I was surprised at, and I want to understand more, was the lack of sustained investment not only measuring air quality components but also measuring and modeling our air quality. • Adamy: How would you write that into a recommendation? • Georg: The city would fund a program, and over the BFO period, would allow the city to measure and model the critical components of our air quality. • York: I wish that we could establish an air quality index with things like numbers of registered vehicles, gallons of gas consumed, diesel fuel, ethanol. • Georg: What you're adding there, Nancy is really important, which is to establish city indices, resources. • York: How would that fit with what you said? • Georg: It's incremental. I'm looking for relative measurement. The measurement technology is not as good as I was hoping it would be. I go back to the previous air quality report and they got a lot of interesting source data, I call them source indices. I'm just saying if we can complement that source data with the certain level of measurement, and I think the measurement does cost the equivalent of a city employee. I think what we have to do is make that trade off. We want to have better measurement. Rather than another city employee, I go for better measurement. • Levine: One thing that we can recommend is funding our commitment to lower VMT. York: And you're going to be our spokesperson, you're the vice chair? • McMaster: I had planned on going, but.... • Dietrich: The city better say, OK, here's what we need from you regarding BFO. So is it an informational meeting, or do we provide input? • York: I think we should be prepared for input, but I also think we ought to make a motion and send it forward. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/24/2007 Page 10 of 11 • McMaster: What I'm going to suggest is that we want to have a list compiled • York: One of the things that I recall from the Mobility Management study is they talked about a reorganization of transportation to be more inclusive of transit. • Georg: That was in that Brendle report? • York: Calling for dedicated funding for transit was one of the suggestions from that. • McMaster: That was one of the ideas that Marla Sitmer was going to propose. • Dietrich: It's a general statement as to what Deny was saying that we call it intuitional reorganization of mobility management planning in the city. • McMaster: I propose that Deny get this list sent out via email so we can work on the wording and all reply. • Georg: I like the institutional reorganization of mobility management planning. • McMaster: I think it's worthwhile to make it very specific. I was at the bike committee meeting last week, and they're pushing for really ramping up the bicycle component of transportation, and they're asking for more positions and funding. • Adamy: So we need to fund that from our standpoint — good point. • McMaster: This is on a larger scale, more than just bicycling. The whole idea is mobility management. • York: I asked Eric about LUTRAQ. Such a team could maybe answer that green building, sustainable design. • Georg: This is one of our Board priority items under climate sustainability. • York: It would be great if we could recommend something discussing the climate task force to go beyond November. • Dietrich: So a statement like, aggressively implement climate protection strategy set forth by the climate task force. • Adamy: Are we still talking funding, though? • York: They'd have to fund a team. • Adamy: I think we should put that in the wording, what are we funding then? Are we funding the team? • Dietrich: I'm not exactly sure how this process works. I guess what we're coming up with is outcomes. Isn't it implied, if a certain outcome were agreed upon, the City would determine a way to fund that outcome. Is that the way it works? • Georg: That's the way it's supposed to work. The intent is that you want to fund specific results. We have to make sure that we talk about the result we want to achieve. • Levine: The CMO has restructured most of the city departments. If we recommend any kind of staff person or mobility czar or anything like that we need to look at what structure's about to be implemented, because some major changes are happening now. • Georg: I'll take these ideas and write them up as a first draft and send them out, and people can add to it. • York: Something that we need more information on is Fort Collins Moves - A new mobility metric system for Fort Collins. • Levine: That's something new that they're initiating now, and I don't know what it is either. • York: Eric, would you put that on our agenda? • Georg: I think we should talk about mobility management next time. • Adamy: Could we talk about budgeting for the trash collection process. Wouldn't it require city funding if they took it over? Air Quality Advisory Board 4/24/2007 Page 11 of 11 McMaster: I think we have to support the idea of a task force for trash collection. Adamy: Keep that on the list, because that's very important. Georg: I can tell you why it'll be a difficult issue — trash collection is a very lucrative business. Read the quarterly statements on all these companies that are public and you'll find the cost of fuel is absolutely a minor part of their overhead. The overwhelming cost of their overhead is customer acquisition. Meeting adjourned 8. 11PM Approved by the Board on / % 2007 Signed // / l `Z _.LC�i{1 / 2007 Submitted by Tara McGibben Administrative Secretary I 221-6600