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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 199806151 APPROVED MAY 18. 1999 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS SPECIAL MEETING JUNE 15, 1998 The Orange County Board of Commissioners met in special session on Monday, June 15, 1998 at 7:30 p.m. at the Southern Human Services Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Margaret W. Brown, and Commissioners Moses Carey, Jr., William L. Crowther, Alice M. Gordon and Stephen H. Halkiotis. COUNTY ATTORNEY PRESENT: Geoffrey Gledhill COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager John M. Link, Jr., Assistant County Managers Rod Visser and Albert Kittrell and Clerk to the Board Beverly A. Blythe (All other staff members will be identified appropriately below) NOTE: ALL DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO IN THESE MINUTES ARE IN THE PERMANENT AGENDA FILE IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE. ALL RECORDINGS OF THE MEETING WILL BE KEPT FOR 5 YEARS. 1. SOLID WASTE PLANNING ISSUES/COMPREHENSIVE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN Chair Brown stated that the purpose of this work session is to provide an update on solid waste issues and to provide staff with some clear direction on these issues. Community Benefits County Engineer Paul Thames gave an update on community benefits. At the last LOG meeting, they specifically directed him to do ground work on running water lines into the historic Rogers Road area. He said that the main feature of determining community benefits is to do a survey which involves the hiring of an intern to do some 100 to 150 hours of work. This intern will take GIS maps and locate access ways on each property for the extension of the actual water lines. They would also do a survey to determine if there is going to be an income component in providing assistance to see who would qualify. The job description for this person has been sent to the Personnel Department. It will be sent out to individuals and the University of North Carolina who expressed an interest. The project should take 30 days. The LOG will pay for this person. This is the process that was outlined at the last LOG meeting. The intern would work directly under Paul Thames. At the end of July he expects to have two documents - one locating buildings that would be served and the second showing socioeconomic data. Chair Brown asked about the next step after this data is collected and Paul Thames said that the information will need to be reviewed and a decision made on how they are going to define the area that will be served. The County will need to decide to what extent they will pick up the various costs. The basic benefit is the provision of water. The second benefit would be paying for plumbing costs. These are decisions that the policy makers will need to make. Chair Brown said that the fencing benefit was included in the LOG budget. Commissioner Halkiotis said that he expects the fencing to be guaranteed to be animal proof. 2 Framework for a Comprehensive Plan for Solid Waste Management Chair Brown made reference to the one page outline in the agenda which is attachment #1. Geoffrey Gledhill said that the first issue to be decided is who is in charge, who will govern. The interlocal agreement would actually cross over some of the lines of the comprehensive plan, defining all the roles of the partners. Part of the interlocal agreement would be fees. Once the nature of solid waste in Orange County is determined, those decisions need to be folded into the plan which would be a living document. The plan will need to conform to the decisions that the governments make. The financial plan would essentially say how you would pay for solid waste management in Orange County and the two options are access fees and tipping fees. An access fee is a fee charged regardless if you use the landfill or not. The transportation plan would have two elements - getting waste to the facility and moving it out. Moving it in could be by road. Moving it out could be by road, by rail or by plane. Geoffrey Gledhill made reference to #6 and said that a Solid Waste Management Ordinance would have a lot of policy parts to it. If it is to become part of a comprehensive plan, it would need to be adopted by all governing boards. Regarding #7, this Ordinance Concerning Disposal of Solid Waste would be a separate ordinance that Orange County would adopt and a lot of this would be redundant. We may need to incorporate some of this into the Solid Waste Management Ordinance. Chair Margaret Brown made reference to the governance issue and said that Attachment #5 "Possible Solid Waste Management Scenarios" will give us some guidance on governance as well as the interlocal agreement. Regarding the points of consensus, John Link said that there is not a consensus on the use of the Greene Tract. His understanding is that Chapel Hill will respond to the Board's letter sent to them in April indicating their desires on certain issues. John Link said that one of the larger issues is governance. There were six scenarios presented in December as attachment 5. He asked the Board if they want to proceed with a landfill that has only 10 years left or spend their time to develop a new way to handle solid waste. The Town could continue operating the present landfill with the County proceeding with future initiatives on handling solid waste. Another area which there was not a consensus was treatment of present staff. This will probably take care of itself because they would continue to operate the landfill with the County developing a new structure with new staff. This is not to say that some of the present landfill staff would not continue in their jobs. Commissioner Gordon said that there is not a consensus on the use of the Greene Tract. Other governments do not agree. This is a major sticking point. She feels we need to have an integrated plan and present it as the County plan. Chair Brown said that she would like to do a pro and con paper on all aspects of solid waste management. Commissioner Carey said that he feels we need to decide what we want to do and for what we want to be responsible. He has no problem with the Town being responsible for the existing landfill with the County's focus on developing a new process and inviting the towns to participate. Whatever we do will probably need the participation of the Towns in order to be feasible. If we move ahead, maybe the future of the Greene Tract will become clear. None of us have the goal to use the Greene Tract for disposal of solid waste but it should be an asset of whoever is going to be responsible for the new process. 3 Chair Brown would like to see the County get back to waste reduction and recycling and make a decision on how we go about achieving this in an environmentally safe way. John Link said that C&D provides a revenue stream and noted that there are only 18 months left of this part of the landfill. He feels that we need to replace this revenue stream and does not feel it will be feasible to do this by ourselves without Chapel Hill participating. He feels we need to do our own proposal. Commissioner Halkiotis noted that he has taken five days vacation to visit other waste management sites. He feels we need to move ahead now. The time for discussion has come to an end. He doesn't feel that we need a C&D facility, but that we need a revenue stream. Commissioner Carey agrees we need to make a decision on what we want to do and move on Chair Brown agreed. She noted that the LOG has a subcommittee working on new financing. They have met three times. They have not made any decisions on a finance plan yet. She made reference to attachment 9 on "Alternative Funding Strategies for Solid Waste Management Programs." She feels we need a financing plan before we can move forward. Commissioner Crowther said that regarding the County operating a C&D site, if a municipality wanted to continue a C&D site, he sees nothing wrong with that. Chair Brown asked that the staff work on some of these options. John Link said that they will move ahead and hopefully have a report for the August 18th meeting. Commissioner Carey said that he has a problem with the elected leadership of the County not providing an option for disposal of waste that is generated in this County. We need to do whatever we can to reduce the volume that goes into the landfill. Commissioner Halkiotis feels we need to make a proposal with all the pieces including how to finance the plan. Commissioner Gordon mentioned that she feels we need to keep the Greene Tract for now and have our proposal address the use of the Greene Tract. The board agreed to have staff proceed with developing a plan for solid waste management. John Link said that on governance he heard a consensus to ask Chapel Hill to continue operating the present landfill. He will develop other options for creating revenue. Chair Brown said that it may be necessary to use only a portion of the Greene Tract but not all of it. John Link clarified that if the County did take over management of solid waste, that there would be an advisory group for the purpose of advising the County Commissioners -- not to make decisions. Chair Brown said that she would like for the advisory group to include citizens and not just elected officials. 4 Commissioner Gordon feels that the advisory group needs to be elected officials. There could be several options for the composition of this advisory group. CLOSED SESSION A motion was made by Commissioner Crowther, seconded by Commissioner Carey to adjourn into Closed Session "To establish the County's position and to instruct the County Manager and the County Attorney on the negotiating position regarding the terms of a contract to purchase real property. VOTE: UNANIMOUS ADJOURNMENT A motion was made by Commissioner Crowther, seconded by Commissioner Gordon to adjourn the meeting. The next scheduled meeting will be held on June 16, 1998 at 4:00 p.m. at the Southern Human Services Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Margaret W. Brown, Chair Beverly A. Blythe, Clerk