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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 05/22/2007May 22, 2007 MINUTES 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 Jeff Engell, Nancy York, Dale Adamy, Eric Levine, Gregory McMaster, Deny Georg, Dave Dietrich Board Members Absent Kip Carrico Staff Present Natural Resources Department: Brian Woodruff, Tara McGibben, Guests None The meeting was called to order at 5:41pm. Minutes With the following changes, the minutes of April 24, 2007 meeting were unanimously approved: Add Dave Dietrich Public Comment • No public present. Agenda Item 1 Review of May 7 BFO meeting for Boards & Commissions ■ Georg: The format was surprising at first. It was a group of 7 or 8 round tables set up in a large room, but after the meeting it worked very well. Several people were able to share and really looking for input. The process was good and I hope it was useful to the staff. ■ York: Any feedback from staff, Brian? ■ Woodruff. I don't know. The staff who heard your comments are members of "results teams" that will receive proposals, and I have not heard if the session was valuable to them. • McMaster: Council was the next day. Did you hear anything on how it was pulled together and if it was helpful? The Coloradoan wrote a good article on it and said it was positive. ■ Woodruff: I don't know how it was processed at the study session. Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 2 of 14 ■ York: I think we should work on it and the prioritizing and the trash districting. The 1994 figures state there were 200 streets and now there are 400. I don't believe a street lasts 20 years. There could be an update of that. • Levine: Streets are built to a higher specification and it costs more money. I'm not sure how the economics per year work out. The transportation staff attending the Council meeting tonight -- is there an issue this board should be interested in? ■ York: The 6-month planning calendar shows the item tonight is a Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) update. • Levine: That goes to council June 5, right? ■ York: May 20 the RTA proposal is going on; they were supposed to bring all the elected officials together to discuss it. The other thing on their agenda tonight is Glade Dam. ■ Levine: We should continue with the BFO discussion, since I missed the event. • Georg: The transportation team had a clear idea of what they wanted to present, and they weren't looking for input. ■ McMaster: They had a different structure on their diagrams and how they organized their approach. I couldn't figure out what they wanted. ■ York: The way they set it up is different pockets such as environment, community safety, finance, and transportation. "Capacity" was one within transportation. • McMaster: On the flip chart they were supposed to capture questions but they did a poor job at it. From the beginning we didn't even see environment on the charts. The presentation was hard to follow and I tuned out. • Georg: As the city takes the next steps, there will be more detailed proposals; it's easier to find out what they're really proposing to do. We should, as a board, take our lists for BFO and put some priority / structure that will be useful to staff. I thought they were listening and writing things down. I think they the written list we presented to them. We told them it was a first draft and not prioritized. We should put priorities around it and it will be useful. ■ Woodruff: Just to clarify, the BFO process is different than other budgeting processes that you may be used to. The council starts by choosing results areas -- over arching goals like safe community, clean environment, and good transportation. There are five or six of these, and they designate a funding pot for each goal and say here's how much money we're going to invest in each one. Results Committees are formed, who receive offers and evaluate the offers and choose how the money is doled out. It's a competitive thing in theory. Each committee knows how much money they have and they fund the highest priority offers until they run out of money. Offers come from staff departments and sometimes there are partnerships between departments to create offers. The folks you were talking to at the BFO work session were representatives from the committees who were going to receive offers. They had no offers or proposals, if you will, in hand. ■ Georg: They laid out the structures to receive offers. ■ Woodruff: Exactly — "Here's how we think about our area, and success looks like this." ■ Georg: They were pushing back on our comments — "we may not have enough money to do that." But there's nothing that says you can't move money from one bucket to another. Within each bucket, that results group is looking at a capped funding amount. ■ Woodruff. The manager and the Council can adjust the amount in each funding pot. ■ Georg: It's called objective -driven zero -based budgeting. The city has nine areas, it's got nine objectives; zero -based in the sense the funding gets spent in those areas based on the proposal. Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 3 of 14 • McMaster: Presumably things are more under discussion but I suspect there's institutional memory of it. ■ Woodruff. I'm pleased that you're so engaged in this issue. But I don't know how citizens and boards and commissions are to interact with the BFO process. • Georg: They would have received the input on our priorities. Two of the groups were honest; transportation was a `presentation.' There was no insightful categorization of where to invest money. The environmental area and neighborhood livability presentation was good with trade-offs. Neighborhood livability and transportation and how they both relate and how we need to retrofit yourself if they really want a mobile community without cars. ■ York: I felt there were gaps in between the proposals. They didn't want strategies, but just our thoughts on the general areas. It was good because it stimulated a lot of thinking. There should be some over -arching considerations over the whole thing such as human/environmental heath and material availability. With transportation, if they are working on the infrastructure, consideration of availability of oil/fuels/gas/asphalt. • Woodruff. Do you mean the transportation enterprise should look at the future of fuels? ■ York: I don't know. They should look at it. How are we going to replace asphalt? • McMaster: The first thing I said when I saw transportation's presentation was "where's environment?" We saw it all going on, but it seems to be stuck in the past. ■ Levine: Hence the Climate Task Force. • McMaster: I realized, wow; it seemed to lack vision and stonewalled input. • Georg: The process should work by itself. I was happy we had the opportunity to present and be optimistic and follow-up on it by prioritizing our input into it. Perhaps go further in terms of what we think is important within those categories to be funded and engage in a process of proposal evaluation that are going to be made in those categories from a strategy perspective. ■ York: Something that might be within our realm is to propose a transportation system based on human health and mobility. We should encourage bicycling and transit because that would be walking and cycling and environmentally sound. Personal health will help those without medical insurance and this could meet long-term goals. ■ Woodruff: There's a lot of buzz in the public health realm, that places where people walk and bike more have less obesity. It's not commonly looked at, but you'd think it would be. The City doesn't quantify that benefit in transportation planning. It's not valued in terms of dollars and cents. ■ York: Everyone uses roads. • Woodruff. It's important to remember that the transportation staff went though a time when the SmartTrips program was removed from the organization chart after the last round of budgeting, two years ago. They have heard Council say that street capacity is more important and the short falls in street construction are staggering. In that setting, how are the transportation staff supposed to promote alternative modes to council, when they've already spoken. It's important to realize where we are in the history of the City. • McMaster: Mason Street Corridor will factor in differently. The transportation department is for that. They still have to come up with the funding. ■ Levine: At most, the original proposal stated VMT would be affected at 1 % and not much more than that. Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 4 of 14 ■ Georg: The Mason Street campaign gave a neighborhood livability presentation and, of those there, they thought it was a bad idea due to the money and no impact. We'll vote again, and it will get voted down. ■ Levine: Funds are federal matching funds. • Georg: Look at the total cost. Is it a good investment but marginal? ■ York: UniverCity organization states a proposal to extend it north and build a bridge over the river. We're right at this big junction. They've already started grading RTD route to Longmont. In 2008 the Rocky Mountain Commuter rail project is asking for a vote. Perhaps we should consider a recommendation to council to consider health and making bicycling safer and putting more funds into the grid. ■ McMaster: council will review the bike plan July 10. That will come in and maybe we can piggyback on that. There's lots of discussion that Darrin is on board and taking cycling to the next level in this town. I disagree with you, Deny, regarding Mason Street, there's so much other money coming in that I don't think it will come to vote. They've already started it. ■ Woodruff: That's my understanding, too. State money earmarked for Fort Collins can be used as local match for federal grants. The stretch from CSU south may come to a vote, however. • Georg: I am not supporting the Mason Street Corridor. I pay all the taxes and you have to look at the return on that investment. There are other needs in the city and even though we won't have access to all the funds for other needs in the city, we might have access to other funds and be more creative. Other cities that have done this aren't successful. ■ Levine: The Lemay road project has $30M budgeted for interchange projects. It doesn't look that expensive based on other projects. ■ Georg: Where can we have a bigger impact with that money? ■ Levine: Mason Street will support that. ■ Woodruff: Mason Street will also support densification of land use. If this topic is of interest, we can have someone give you background on why the city is pursuing this. ■ Georg: My issue is prioritization. ■ Levine: The $20-$30M road projects have zero synergy. There's no future focus and never any kind of possibility. My BFO concerns are synergy with other projects and the long term vs. short-term goals. Synergy requires the departments working together such as transportation and air quality and land use. ■ York: The street sweepers create so much dust. ■ Levine: Any transportation projects without addressing land use is incredibly wasteful. This process needs a multi -departmental approach to it. How about strategies to get revenue for the outcomes that we want. Land use, development fees, and they should be looked at as a revenue -generating method. ■ Woodruff- The city manager is interested in enhancing the city's revenue base. It's a side conversation to BFO, and not part of the funding pots and offers and evaluations. ■ Levine: That's my second point, year to year. Short term won't give you a successful outcome. Address future needs now and too much is cut out of this. What is the time line for the BFO process? ■ Woodruff: The council adopts the final budget in December. The city manager presents his recommended budget in November. Staff departments are preparing their initial offers now, due the 25 of May to the results committees. Then the committees process and re- evaluate and may turn them back around to the authors to be fixed, such as scaling down Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 5 of 14 or up. There's a second round in which offers are fine-tuned or combined, in June I think. The manager has the following couple months to prepare his recommendations to council. ■ Levine: What are council's choices? Are they presented as Column A, B? ■ Woodruff: I don't know. ■ York: I knew it was moving fast, but not that fast. So, I think we should make some recommendations. I would like to see a recommendation about encouraging bicycling and safety and transit with the notion of the health and economic impacts. Gas prices are expensive and affordability for the community should be a concern. • Georg: I think it fits into the strategic mindset. We're supposed to be offering advise to the council on strategy. We gave input at the May 7 meeting to people who will evaluate proposals. Proposals are being made with regard to strategy and tactics to address council priorities, and they're being done in a way that fits the outline that the council has outlined. We can take a set of proposals and review the proposals that are being proposed to being included, and we would give feedback to the council in parallel with Darrin to what we think the priorities should be. Because our goals should be to advise council on strategy. I find this challenging because it's hard to separate the tactical, which is not our job, from the strategic, which is our job. Without the context of what's being presented to council, it's going to be hard for them to take our inputs in context. Because they've already come up with the categories and the proposals underneath those categories are being prepared. If something gets missed, then we need to make sure it gets included. We're too late to participate in the proposals. We have to participate by giving council feedback that is within our territory. ■ York: Darin reads it, when we make recommendations to Council? ■ Woodruff He reads council correspondence. ■ Adamy: Deny, are you asking staff to intervene on our behalf to get budget proposals presented to us in a fashion where we would play into it? ■ Georg: There's part of me that says, we should be careful to not be in a position where we present tactics to achieve a strategy. We should be careful to participate at the level of what the strateev should be. ■ Woodruff. You mean tactics like "spend $IOK on bikes and $IOM on streets." ■ Georg: Right. That to me is tactical and that's not our job; it's council's job to come up with what the priorities should be. Staff should come up with the implementation plans consistent with those strategies. We should be advising council on strategies. ■ McMaster: It depends on the situation. • Woodruff: I agree with Deny, that strategy is the main thing. ■ Georg: I'm not opposed to it; I'm saying we need to be careful. ■ Levine: I've seen the city has wonderful looking policies on paper, but when the rubber hits the road, totally inconsistent expenditures happen. We can comment on any of this any where down the line because it affects air quality. • Georg: In terms to think about our mission is to offer strategic advice and look at the recommendations for funding. Look at it holistically from an air quality perspective, and offer council strategic advice; this should be a priority. We have to review the proposals that come out of the seven areas. ■ McMaster: The little I get into the city budget, it becomes overwhelming to me. • Levine: What's the time frame again? The first round comes out the 25? Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 6 of 14 ■ Woodruff: The committees get them and they review and adjust them. I'm not sure when this surfaces to the public. ■ Levine: Can all boards comment on this within the given time line? Is there an opportunity to comment? ■ Woodruff: You asked me that question in February. I didn't know, so I conveyed your question to the city manager's office, and they then scheduled the May 7 meeting. I don't know what further steps are in mind for board participation. There is a formal public hearing when council adopts the budget. At the hearing two years ago, people often asked that such -and -such program be funded, and the council asked them to point out what should be de -funded at the same time. ■ Georg: They're doing target trade-offs. If we helped to motivate the May 7 meeting, can we do this again and be able to have the written proposals from each of the groups to be included in the budget? We could evaluate them from the air quality perspective and offer our advice to council. We should be able to list the priorities. ■ Levine: We have to know how the BFO process concluded when it went to council last time. We have to know council's choices at what level of specificity and weigh them. • Georg: Waiting to view Darin's proposal in November will be too late for us to have an impact in December. ■ Adamy: Is that something we can ask of staff? ■ Woodruff: We can ask the manager's office if there are proposals that the boards can look at. To pass along your request, Eric and Greg, I'll draft something for your review. ■ Georg: By the time Darin has it, it will be so massaged that we're not going to view the trade-offs. Which is why I want to see the input to Darin's so that we have a chance to look at the tactical components to council. If we understood the form that they were going to be put together later, that would help us focus our comments. ■ Levine: Earlier the better. After comments are ready to go to council, we need to find out what council is going to weigh and advise them to, e.g., take 2 from column A rather than 2 from column B. ■ McMaster: The draft should be in better shape and get that in early. ■ Dietrich: One way we can perhaps provide feedback to council and simplify them is to say, "here's our goals and objectives that we're most interested in" and put it in graph format. I don't know how many proposals there are. Each proposal will have a positive/neutral/negative impact on air quality. They have clean air goals for Fort Collins too. That's just from the air quality impact and other committees should do the same. ■ Georg: It's a way to bring in at a higher level that fits a couple of these things. ■ Levine: This could be an item for next month. • Woodruff: I think it's too soon for output at that stage — perhaps July? ■ York: Natural Resources made offers. It'd be good to know those offers because it'd be ones that would involve air quality. ■ Woodruff: I'll see if I can send them to you. I think you'll find it's extremely general, for your tastes. ■ York: It will give us an idea of how the process is being handled. ■ Dietrich: How many proposals does the department have? ■ Woodruff. We have one offer that combines air quality and solid waste. Staffing amounts to 1.75 people working on air quality; natural areas and climate wise makes the second and third offers. A forth one called sustainability, which will be for aiding the city's own Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 7 of 14 process of finding sustainable ways of doing business within our own operation, to be a model for how sustainable organizations should run. ■ Levine: We have the Climate Task force starting now, the BFO process is concluding in December, the Task Force charge is to meet our goals for 2010, the budget is a two-year process. Possibly some revenues may be involved in some of the strategies for achieving those goals set by the task force -- the time frames don't look too promising. ■ Georg: I feel good about the BFO timeframe. We should be able to review the proposals and council will appreciate it. If we can look at them and provide input as to how the city's goals on air quality will be impacted. ■ Woodruff: The manager's office will let us know. I suggest you contact David Roy and ask him how, as a board, you can do that. ■ Levine: I'll call David. ■ Levine: So, this will be an agenda item for June or July? ■ McMaster: We started by drafting a list of budget suggestions, and you have some good ways to structure that. We don't know enough but I think we should start in June or July or maybe every time for the next three months. • Georg: I look at this as an opportunity to provide strategic input. We aren't going to control how much money goes into the pot. We could influence the strategic priorities. ■ York: That's why I wanted a proposal. I'm not convinced that we still shouldn't offer the advice of the human health issue for reasons that we all know and they know too. • Dietrich: Wouldn't that be a part if the complete list? • York: It could be. I want to get in early -- as early as possible -- so that they think about it from a human health standpoint. ■ Woodruff: The mobility management report discusses the lack of consistent dedicated funding for transit/bike/pedestrian/ride-sharing/education & outreach, as called for in adopted city plans. The plans set forth the needs, and those plans are adopted, but when it comes time to allocate funds, they run short. It sounds like the recommendation that you're trying to make is to fund those plans that have been adopted, so no stretch to come to that kind of recommendation. • Levine: This will be an agenda item for our next meeting. Aeenda Item 2• Mobility Management ■ York: This is the next topic. We should consider a liaison committee with the transportation board. ■ Engel: What does having a liaison to the transportation board look like? ■ Woodruff. This is a way of moving forward with the Board's interest in mobility management (MM). When staff presented the MM Best Practices Report to the transportation board, several board members expressed interest in the report, "saying this is systematic thinking we've wanted; give us more of this." With such an interest in common, why not get together the AQAB with the Transportation Board? One idea is to invite the T-Board members; say we're forming a sub -committee to take the MM report to the next level. Start as a study group, because the report is extensive and has lots of information. Each person might take a chapter to review, follow all the web links, and review their findings at the following meeting. That way you start to form a basis and platform to do something with the information. ■ Adamy: I'm on board with the idea. Where has the report gone? Other board's thoughts? Objectives and goals we might have for this team? Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 8 of 14 ■ Woodruff: The Natural Resources Department role ended when we presented the MM report to various boards. We recognized we're out of our official sand box. If anything is to come from the report, the individual city departments involved will do it, and I'm not aware any one is using the information currently. The $17K of taxpayer money we spent on the report will hopefully not be wasted. ■ Levine: Exactly, this is a good study and we wanted to go forward with this. This is a leverage opportunity. • Dietrich: What did the manager's office think? • York: Has council heard it? • Woodruff: No it wasn't sent to council. This report was advisory to city departments. ■ Dietrich: Would you be willing to weigh in on goals and objectives for us? ■ Levine: We can recommend to council they discuss the mobility management report. • Adamy: Brian's process sounds better, with a joint committee to structure it, and then present it. • Woodruff: Deny pointed out this report has no "schmooze" and it's not there to present a program of action; it's raw data. ■ Adamy: Is there a facet that can fit into the BFO process? ■ Georg: This is a little late for the BFO process. If I were on council and I paid for this report, I wouldn't be very happy. There are 9 articulated strategies. You'd like to have something come out of this where goals are proposed to council. This committee could specify what the goals would do, how you'd measure the achievement, variables in making that measurement and some first steps. There are some reasonable things that are embedded in various parts of the program within the BFO. But a goal -oriented proposal to council is going to take work. Will the money follow the goals? Not always. You have to start with the goals. ■ Levine: Keep a close eye on those goals, and keep pushing until the funds are in place. ■ Georg: It's too late for this BFO, but not too late to identify with the transportation board what the goals could be within mobility management. ■ Levine: We did that on October 26, 2006, and came out with 24 areas that we wanted to look at. We've refined and kept our output to date on mobility management. Has the transportation board done the same? • Woodruff: No, you would need to invite them to work with you on that. ■ Levine: Why aren't they ruining with this study? ■ Adamy: Part of the problem is transportation; they're understaffed and not high priority at this point. ■ Levine: I mean the transportation board itself. ■ York: Staff s overwhelmed; the board's over whelmed. ■ Woodruff: Looking at the T-Board agenda from last week's meeting, the T-Board heard a demonstration on the traffic web site, pot -hole report, downtown river district, RTA, UniverCity update, and BFO. ■ York: The transportation results committee has a request map; maybe we can get their handout. • Woodruff: The request map is the poster that you saw at the BFO work session on May 7. It's referred to as a map. ■ York: I move we solicit the Transportation Boards' participation and form a sub- committee between the Transportation and Air Quality Advisory Boards. • Georg: I second. Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 9 of 14 • York: Who's interested in being on the sub -committee? • McMaster: What exactly are we committing to? Frequent or monthly meetings? ■ Woodruff: The could better understand mobility management, how it could change transportation in Ft. Collins, and get ready to advise Council on where to go with this. Leadership needs to hear more about these ideas. Many aspects of the transportation system working together can produce more improvement in traffic levels than any one thing alone, such as bicycling and walking. If you have a strategy of using MM as an integrated and synergistic program you can achieve a larger benefit for the community than programs done piece -meal. ■ McMaster: So keep MM alive. Short-term goal, as BFO is going forward, that we have a long-term liaison with the T-Board. The goal is to raise the awareness of mobility management ideas. The first part should be to get it going soon to see what impacts it can have during the BFO and the climate task force process and then we just keep going. ■ Georg: The way we're approaching the topics today can lead to a lot of inefficiency because we're not making the trade offs in a systems -oriented approach. The opportunity exists by adopting the right goals and strategic trade offs and increasing efficiency for the money we have to spend by looking at it more holistically. ■ Woodruff: Deny, with your interests, I think you would like least cost planning, because it creates a systematic planning methodology where you compare the effectiveness of alternative modes on an even playing field. Right now they're not on an even playing field. The street infrastructure needs are overwhelming, and by the time you finish funding the infrastructure needs list, it appears that you cannot afford things like transit and bikeways. Funding for infrastructure and MM are completely different conversations that do not arrive at the most cost-effective solution. For example, if you had two proposals, the first to widen a street to reduce congestion by 10% and the second for an integrated MM program to reduce congestion 10% by reducing the number of trips, then both should get equal consideration for funding. We don't do that, now. Least -cost planning is a planning methodology that we could implement over several years. ■ Georg: It comes back to the difference between wants and needs. Transportation "needs" in the city are really "wants." If people get to the long list of needs, it's easy to add to the list and call them needs and harder to make a trade off. • York: Dave has some wording for the motion amendment. ■ Dietrich: The AQAB would like to invite the Transportation Board to invite 3 members to join 3 members of the AQAB to form a sub -committee to further develop the concept of mobility management and develop recommendations based on these principals for board approval and presentation to council. That would be an amended motion. ■ Adamy: I second. ■ York: I accept it as a friendly amendment. ■ Levine: It doesn't establish a time frame. ■ Dietrich: That's up to the sub -committee. • Engel: If they're not committed to it, we need to know that. The invitation is a good first step. ■ York: Would you be on the committee Brian? • Woodruff: I would help out, but it would be your committee and the T-Board's, not staff s. • McMaster: Invite them and get more details as a sub -committee, but what if they don't have any interest. Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 10 of 14 ■ Engel: If they are over whelmed, then this is a good way to address the subject. On a motion by York, seconded by Georg, the Board voted unanimously to invite the Transportation Board to invite 3 members to join 3 members of the AQAB to form a sub- committee, to further develop the concept of mobility management and develop recommendations based on these principals for board approval and presentation to council. ■ Dietrich: Who are the three people? ■ York: Do we want to start right off tonight? ■ Dietrich: I volunteer to be on that. ■ Georg: I can be there in August. ■ Adamy: I'll volunteer. ■ York: I'll volunteer. ■ Georg: I'll be an alternate. ■ Levine: Climate task force is taking my time. ■ Dietrich: Keep it a workable size; remember this is going back to the boards so we're all going to have input. • Georg: Start with chapter 8 of the MM Best Practice Report and understand those 9 categories; and made a recommendation on the priorities from just that list; that would be a very good outcome. Agenda Item 3 Trash Hauling ■ York: I got out of the 1994 figures, is that annual street maintenance savings of S322K annually. That's enough to operate a bus route annually. • Engel: What is the background on this? • Georg: Why were the findings of the 1998 report not implemented? Was it a legal issue, or was some data found to be not sustainable under challenge? ■ Woodruff: I think the report is/was generally accepted as sound. But there was not the political will do to the proposal and create and district the city and bid out the districts competitively. ■ Engel: Right, no politician will want to take action on it. Was it opposition by the haulers or inaction by council to adopt the plan or strategy? ■ Adamy: Do we have barriers? ■ Dietrich: There were statements like "don't interfere with private enterprise." ■ Engel: This is huge can of worms. ■ Woodruff: Susie Gordon and I talked about this. She says staff awaits council's direction on whether to reactivate this issue. It's a huge effort. Not so much the technology or data collection -- Susie and John are on top of that. It's the political process of the haulers, the HOAs, the neighborhoods — hauling affects everyone. Private businesses have created personal relationships with customers over the years. The outreach process to bring such an item before the Council takes a lot of work, and we're not prepared to do that unless council wants it brought forward for decision. ■ Levine: The survey involved 831 residents. A question about what's important to me -- "Use same containers" was more important than "keeping same hauler." That says something. Being able to have a choice of hauler was the same as use the same containers; "no disruption of service" was below that. Not as much customer loyalty as you think. The report also said that cities with a trash utility have lower trash bills. Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 11 of 14 • York: I can see Waste Management is huge and they can probably out -bid everyone. I'm wondering if they were to do it by lottery. ■ Dietrich: Council discussed this not just in 1998, but also long back. The only way the city can carry forward is being a public utility. We always seem to fall back to this districting approach; if we're making a recommendation, then we should consider a public utility. ■ Georg: The discussions in the city since the 1970's have been more districting -like. You're going to hurt the haulers; there's no way not to impact some haulers. I studied the profitability of trash hauling and the margin of profitability for residential is almost 50% profit. It has to pay for their capital cost. The reality is, any districting/utility is going to have an economic impact on the haulers economically, one way or the other. The public benefit outweighs the trade-off for that economic impact. ■ Engel: That's easy. What's hard is having council regulate and district private enterprise. What if they do that to other private industries? ■ Dietrich: I agree; hence the public service as a utility. That's where I stand -- public utility or leave it alone. • Levine: It certainly removes a lot of complications. • Woodruff. The trash hauling issue is currently "on the table." Your recommendation, I gather, is to have Council take it off the table for review and study. Staff can put together alternatives for Council to review. I recall working on this issue in 1989. ■ Dietrich: Is council interested in it? ■ McMaster: Mary Smith felt council had 3 or 4 people favorable to this topic. It's not clear, but it doesn't appear as bad as it was. • Woodruff: Council rules require at least 3 members to initiate a policy investigation or a work -up of the alternatives. • Engel: We need to understand the level of work that would need to be done to have any change and be a consorted effort for a major change. ■ Levine: I see the long-term aspects, and it's an ongoing problem and a different problem for some -- recycling efforts, safety, air quality, nuisance, road damage, and climate change issue. None of those are going away, and everyone knows it can be addressed more efficiently such as in Loveland. • Engel: I think it's a problem if it was addressed appropriately and look at the triple bottom -line. Public utility addresses cost. The social aspect -- fewer trucks, making streets safer — also attacks environmental piece. If we can see more and more of the triple -bottom line of sustainability, then people will think more out of the box and have that balance. This would be a dogfight from different entities across the board. ■ Georg: You can do things to encourage, or stop, the dogfight. Disengage the dog by disorienting it. You would propose to implement it — ask for the plan not the study. ■ York: I really like your thinking. ■ Georg: It seems to me this doesn't take a lot. Either they want the implantation plan or not. And by a city utility is a good start. • Engel: You can make a political case rather than messing around with regulating private enterprise. • Dietrich: The government never guarantees you job, that's different than competing against others. Most haulers will end up working for the city and it is viable. ■ York: Lottery wouldn't work? Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 12 of 14 ■ Dietrich: When government tries to regulate private industry, they mess up. I wouldn't want to be working on the city staff having to deal with this. ■ Levine: hi 1995 council adopted a policy to reduce the average number of trucks, at least on 80 to 85% of the streets. What happened to that program? ■ Dietrich: What year? ■ Levine: 1995, 2 down from 6 trash trucks. ■ Dietrich: Volunteer, not mandate. ■ Georg: What's your question Dave? ■ Dietrich: Implementation. The city should investigate the implantation of a public utility for trash collecting benefiting Fort Collins. A motion or recommendation? • Georg: Whom are we recommending this to? ■ York: City Council. That's the only one we have to recommend to. ■ Dietrich: Has staff ever been asked to develop an implementation plan for a public utility? ■ Woodruff: I believe the answer is no. ■ Levine: A paragraph won't be effective. We need to send them points, rationale, and show that we thought both sides through and justify the recommendation. ■ Woodruff: Recall that you're not the only board who is thinking about this, not to mention Mary Smith. ■ York: I'm about action, and I think we should do the best we can; that's all. Citizens have come to our board concerned about trash hauling. ■ Levine: Let's write down the initial points now to give to council to go along with this recommendation. ■ McMaster: Two citizens outlined reasons for trash districting. There's health, safety, road damage concerns along with our discussions over a period of time, and the 1998 study; we are suggesting trash hauling through a public utility in the City of Fort Collins. ■ Levine: I wasn't suggesting a long document, just detailed points. Public utility vs. districting, as that can't be done fairly, along with listing other problems. ■ McMaster: Disruption for the public. ■ Engel: Inefficiency of the current system makes a case as to why are we subsidizing the inefficiencies in this current system? • McMaster: We are in BFO and they're looking at money. ■ York: Add the money saved. ■ Woodruff: Is your recommendation to fund the implementation of this public utility in the next budget? ■ Engel: How would go about funding this initially? Bonds? ■ Woodruff: If it were on the city's utility bill, then every household would be paying into a fund with regular revenues. We could ask a bonding agency for money, because they will see we can pay it back. ■ Levine: The survey concerns the disruption of service; how would that work going from private to a public utility? • Dietrich: That's part of the implementation plan. ■ York: More effective recycling program -- people don't participate in it, now. ■ Woodruff: I think that lack of a unified system is a major barrier to recycling participation rates. ■ Levine: Most wanted to recycle, but are not willing to pay for it. ■ York: Yard waste could be dealt with, too -- enormous environmental impacts. Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 13 of 14 • Levine: Let's have talking points that get them thinking about the benefits and problems. ■ Georg: Capital is a big cost. ■ Levine: Less cost for roads and customer savings, which is what the report found. Council does answer to the residents. • Engel: There's a fiscal, social, and environmental component. Asking council to examine the current situation needs to cover all three areas. ■ Georg: Address those impacts and outline the results. ■ Levine: Social impact being what? ■ Engel: Safety is the big one -- fewer trucks on the street. Ability to add recycling. ■ Dietrich: Trucks on the street one day a week -- aesthetically more pleasing. ■ Georg: Develop and adopt an implementation plan regarding trash hauling; that's the motion: On a motion by Deny Georg, the Board voted unanimously to recommend that Council develop and adopt an implementation plan for a City of Fort Collins public trash collection utility. ■ Engel: Develop and implement, there's no examination piece? ■ Georg: Develop and adopt an implementation plan. ■ Engel: That's fine. ■ Georg: No more studies are needed; it's time to develop it and adopt it. ■ Levine: I'll send out some of the bullets and everyone can edit -- we'll get this done and sent out before the next board meeting. ■ Adamy: Tighter time line? • Levine: A week, okay. • Georg: I don't think this is really hard for us. If it were last year's council, this wouldn't work. This has a chance this year. • Levine: The problem will still be there now and later. • Adamy: Opportunity for us to speak to our council liaison, to bring in council by informing them before hand, to prepare them. ■ York: Good suggestion. Announcements: • York: The Outreach event will be in early July. • Woodruff: It's going to be the second week of July. Council chambers are available all days except Tuesday that week. • York: Is there a particular day other than Monday? Does Monday sound good? • Georg: Monday or Wednesday would be good. • Levine: So there will be a report to the board by the next meeting? • York: It should be well planned by then. We don't have a facilitator, and we're thinking of having two health professionals, one who might know about local health resources and answer questions. I have a list from Brian -- American Lung Association, PVH respiratory care department, Anne Watson from Larimer County, Health educator. • Levine: 90 minutes or 2 hours? • York: A long 90 minutes. • Woodruff: That allows for one outside speaker. Air Quality Advisory Board 5/22/2007 Page 14 of 14 • York: One speaker hopefully Anne Watson. • Woodruff: Or Jennifer Peal. We talked about one or two speakers -- one is 90 minutes, two speakers will be two hours. • York: We'll have a 10-minute break and I'll speak with Anne as to her participation. • Adamy: Process/procedure regarding agenda items? I would like to suggest agenda items, what's the process to do that? • Levine: Send me email. • Woodruff: I wanted to acknowledge some Board requests. First, you asked us to get the minutes out earlier, so I will forward them to you when ready. Sometimes there's a follow-up item that requires having the minutes before the next meeting. • Levine: The minutes also relate to planning the next meeting with additional documents and such. • Woodruff: Second, you asked that the agenda describe the anticipated board action, whether it's a discussion item or possible recommendation to council -- we're happy to do that. And third, we'll put a regular report time on the agenda for reports from committees and individual members. • Levine: It seems to me committee reports would be best before the meeting. Around break time we can approve the minutes then continue with the rest of the agenda. • McMaster: I don't have any strong feelings either way. We can start that closer to the 5:30 time incase some arrive late. • York: The only disadvantage I see is if we have guest they will wait. • Levine: We can move that to after their presentation if there are guests. • Woodruff: Finally, there is a request from the staff. It's easier for us to take good meeting notes if we know where we are on the agenda. If you could give us clear cues when we transition from item to item, it will make our work easier. • York: And the minutes more coherent. Meeting adjourned 8. 00 PM Submitted by Tara McGibben Administrative Secretary I Approved by the Board on .Tune 26, 2007