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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 09/19/2016MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD Date: Monday, September 19, 2016 Location: Community Room, 215 N. Mason Street Time: 5:30–8:00pm For Reference Mark Houdashelt, Chair Ross Cunniff, Council Liaison 970-420-7398 Cassie Archuleta, Staff Liaison 970-416-2648 Board Members Present Board Members Absent Mark Houdashelt, Chair Jim Dennison Rich Fisher Tom Griggs Gregory Miller John Shenot Vara Vissa Chris Wood Robert Kirkpatrick Staff Present Cassie Archuleta, Environmental Planner/Staff Liaison Dianne Tjalkens, Admin/Board Support Guests None Call to order: 5:31pm Agenda Review: Work Plan moved to first item; BFO last. Public Comments: None. Review and Approval of Minutes: Greg moved and Rich seconded a motion to approve the July 2016 AQAB minutes as presented. Motion passed unanimously, 5-0-0. August minutes postponed AGENDA ITEM 1: 2017 Work Plan Mark Houdashelt led a discussion on finalizing the 2017 work plan for submittal to Council. Final work plan is due September 30. Comments/Q&A • Suggest adding concrete deliverables. o Have to go through Council if product will require staff time. • Communication is important part of this board. Would suggest one educational outreach forum during the year. Budget limited, but has happened in most recent years. Could be just board-to-board outreach/liaisonships. o Supposed to interact with other boards, but haven’t much. o Have had collaboration with Energy Board. Page 1 o We haven’t gone to talk to other boards. • Public open houses have had info on ozone, transportation, indoor air quality, bikes, radon, etc. Have also gotten together with other boards. o Have to get Council approval to form joint board project. o Martin Marietta was obligatory since it was so high profile. In case of open house, it was just educational. Much of that fell to City staff, but some are prepared by board members. o Some outreach planned already around the Air Quality Plan. County is interested in doing joint meeting regarding the Colorado Air Report. Also, the less specific the work plan is the better, to avoid unnecessary constraints. Already has a point about communicating and collaborating with other boards.  Can address non-GHG aspects of CAP. • Part on education is great. Does the City have one toolkit, manual, or presentation that public can take to schools boards, businesses, organizations, etc.? Need a general presentation that shows what can be done, that helps change behaviors. Need something practical. There are many opportunities for people to make different choices. o Healthy Homes program does a lot of the public education around air quality issues. o Sounds big enough to be a BFO offer. Clearing house that will need dedication of resources. • Suggest not adding any ideas unless willing to step up and take the lead on getting them done. Chair cannot do all of it. Education should be done, but perhaps not too heavily. o Work plan is general vision. Won’t get an F if don’t do everything on it. • Cassie made edits suggested by board members. Greg moved to approve the 2017 Work Plan as amended. Rob seconded. Motion passed, unanimously, 5-0-0. ACTION ITEMS: Cassie will send Work Plan to City Clerk’s Office AGENDA ITEM 2: Chair position discussion Cassie Archuleta led a discussion regarding the position of chair, Mark’s desire to step down due to increased work responsibilities, and the option to vote for an interim chair before the March 2017 regularly scheduled elections. Mark can continue as chair for the time being, with the understanding that he may have to step aside at any time should a work conflict arise that limits his ability to chair meetings. AGENDA ITEM 3: Board Recommendations Mark Houdashelt led a discussion on revisions to BFO offer recommendations to Council related to offers in the 2017-2018 BFO cycle. The City manager’s recommended budget was released September 1, and the offers are scheduled for several Council deliberations and periods of public comment before the budget is adopted in November 2016. Mark outlined updates he made to the BFO recommendations memo to Council using board member input. Members provided edits. Comments/Q&A • Have rough emphasis on energy production, based on those being listed first, which is appropriate for making progress on the Climate Action Plan. o Did not order by priority – ordered by offer number. • Would propose adding offers that have public involvement aspect or movement toward behavioral shift included—trip reduction efficiency, bike infrastructure enhancements, etc. The bicycle offers are low ticket items. o These don’t have a large GHG impact. Bicycle Advisory Committee is not recommending these either. FC Moves already has significant funding for Bicycle Master Plan. Seem to be asking for additional funding for lower priority items. Some overlap with work they are already doing. • Did not recommend some of the solar projects that have long payback period. The City pays a low rate for electricity. Page 2 o Heard public comment that businesses and other large entities pay very little for energy— hypocritical to put out emissions because can afford to pay for electricity.  Dollar savings is very little.  GHG emissions are the point. o If spending this much money, focus it where can get greater GHG reductions. With Police building, have co-benefit of mitigating safety issues with covered parking. Having issues with ice in the lot. o Lifespan of individual making this investment is finite, but City making the investment is unlimited. Bite the bullet and make the change. When the City has LEDs and solar, it is displaying its commitment and creating a motivational factor to citizens to make similar changes.  Will need stronger justification if suggesting moving something above the line. • Sunday transit service just below cut line, but has issues of ongoing significant cost. Did make a case for moving it above the line. Wonder if this could be coupled with a revenue generating idea, such as adding paid parking in Old Town. o Support moving this offer above the line. o Council can still move this up. Bicycle Advisory Committee is recommending it. Transportation Board is preparing their recommendations on Wednesday. • Distributed Energy Resource Management System—wonder if this could be accomplished through partnerships? o Would extend control of demand-response thermostats to other systems including EV chargers. Reduces peak demand. o In India have load shedding—get cut off of electricity, water, etc. without option. • Philosophically, justifications are around GHG reductions, immediacy of impact, economics, etc. However, some programs will have long term impacts that fulfill the overall vision and have a broader impact, such as the bicycle programs. • Some offers may be funded through reserves. Other issue is that funding for some offers has to come from specific pots of money, such as KFCG, general fund, etc. • Board may have opportunity to make additional comment on offers at a later date. Rich moved that memo be approved as amended. Greg seconded. Motion passed unanimously, 5-0-0. • Would love to recommend Council approve all of the offers, but must think politically as well. Dilute our comment if we recommend too many. The sixteen chosen are well focused on GHG reductions. • Sooner we send this in the better. Recommendation will have more power now, when there is more room for flexibility. • Trying to organize board chair meeting regarding the BFO process and whether they feel their recommendations are being followed/considered. • Is there an algorithm that Council uses to parse out outcomes vs. funding? o Have seven strategic outcome areas, and there is a group to discuss offers in each category. o Offers have layers of teams that they go through. There are many iterations. There will be an internal debrief about the process. Trying to organize a debrief for all boards as well.  Want to see how other boards determined priorities, what timing is best for submitting comments, how much time boards spend on this, etc. Online budgeting tool will probably get updated for the next cycle as well. • First time that Climate Action process and getting GHG reduction numbers included in offers has happened. • Would have been better to get our recommendations in before Council had its Work Session on Environmental Health and Economic Health. Other boards have had trouble getting comments in before relevant Work Sessions due to timing of board meetings. o Cassie will share struggles of the board with staff. • Would like a quick top-down of offers organized by large category, like transportation, then by for-City or for-public, GHG reduction, etc. Every offer looks great; hard to prioritize. Page 3 o Can look more at what support City staff can offer to the Boards. Could request offers that meet certain requirements be tagged for board scrutiny.  Trust staff to determine which offers are relevant. • Would also like to see more about how things progress from the initial, long list of offers. After staff have made ranking/cut, is it worthwhile for the board to have the rationale from staff? o May be appropriate to have more explanation of the process at the beginning. • Big budget process is complicated and large—hard for layman to understand and comment on the process. • If board input is not that critical, would be good to know. o Board members represent citizens. It’s like a vote on the internal operations of the City. Done in good faith. Question is whether we are giving input effectively. o Ex: Sunday transit is more likely to get funded because it’s an issue the citizens have gotten behind. ACTION ITEMS: Cassie will share with staff the struggles the board has had with the BFO process. Mark will finalize memo and provide to Cassie. AGENDA ITEM 4: Other Business Staff Updates Transportation Air Quality Impacts Manual (TAQIM) • Draft in October. Staff has written it in parts. Have outlined methods and have case studies. If helpful, Cassie can provide pieces that are complete, but may be easier to read the draft as a whole. o Does a board member need to read the whole manual, or will a presentation be sufficient? o Members can provide changes to staff after the presentation. Must be finalized by December, when training begins. Will invite Transportation Board to attend the meeting, or Cassie can present to them. Hoping to have draft a few weeks before the next meeting. Most important piece will be case studies. Martin Marietta Asphalt Plant • Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)—Continue to visit the plant quarterly. City is focused on items outside of state permit. Have completed the requested projects. Now discussing citizen concerns and complaints. Condition in MOU is that will do stack tests for toxics such as formaldehyde and benzene. Have done the tests but not sharing the data (MOU does not require them to share test results). o CAAT (Citizens Against Asphalt Toxins) group has not given up watch dog role. West Nile Virus Management • Would like to investigate whether/how the City can prevent the County from spraying. • There is also spraying for invasive plants in/near natural areas. CAP/Road to 2020 • Near-term CAP implementation is being rebranded as Road to 2020, Forging an Efficient Future— mobilizing around the actions that can be taken. • Other issue is items being double counted, like infrastructure upgrades and other investments that would happen regardless of CAP. o When separate items related to CAP that are new, it is a much smaller number. Implications to messaging. Should be focusing on benefits and co-benefits. County Board Joint-Meeting • Front Range Oil and Gas Characterization Study. • December 13 is presentation; AQAB meeting is December 19. Could cancel regular meeting and substitute going to County presentation/joint meeting. • Will finalize at October meeting. Page 4 Council Six-Month Agenda Planning Calendar • Safe Communities, Transportation and Culture & Recreation BFOs • Public hearing on City budget • Neighborhoods budget section • CAP related discussion • West Elizabeth travel corridor • CAP road map Potential Agenda Items for October and November October • Draft review of TAQIM • AQ Survey from Mary Pat • Radon discussion • Downtown Plan • Community Recycling Center November • 2017 meeting schedule—can discuss potential field trips • Landfill timeline forums debrief • Visibility • Plan for achieving 2020 CAP goals Visibility May be opportunity for partnership on visibility perception study—determining what level of haze is okay with population in urban environment. Cassie will provide more details if it materializes. Air quality survey asks general questions about brown cloud perceptions. Meeting Adjourned: 7:58pm Next Meeting: October 17 Page 5