HomeMy WebLinkAboutCFE minutes 031317Orange County Commission for the Environment
Meeting Summary
March 13, 2017
Richard Whitted Facility, West Tryon Street, Hillsborough
Present: Lynne Gronback (Chair), Bill Kaiser (Vice Chair), May Becker, Peter Cada, Jeanette
O'Connor, Alan Parry, Sheila Thomas-Ambat
Absent: Lydia Wegman, Rebecca Ray, Alex Nicodem, Jeremy Marzuola, William Newby
Staff: Tom Davis, Brennan Bouma
I. Call to Order – Gronback called the meeting to order at 7:30.
II. Additions or Changes to Agenda – New members Matt Crook and Marshall Gray introduced
themselves briefly.
III. Approval of Minutes from February 13, 2017. O’Connor motioned to approve the minutes as written.
Parry seconded. Minutes were approved unanimously.
IV. CFE Review of Outside Agency Funding Request – Members formed small groups and
reviewed different elements of the Piedmont Wildlife Center’s funding request. Staff compiled the scoring
and feedback of CFE members for submission to the BOCC.
V. State of the Environment 2019 - The last State of the Environment (SOE) report was completed
in late 2014. It took nearly two years and there were 14 draft versions before the final. Given the amount
of work that has gone into this in the past, the CFE discussed the general pros and cons of producing an
updated SOE report in the same model. Several questions were asked and some discussion followed
each. Because they were not fully answered, the CFE agreed to revisit these questions to guide future
discussions:
What are other Counties doing to track and report on the state of their natural environment?
Crook offered that private corporations are moving away from paper reports and towards
websites.
Who is the audience?
It has been Orange County residents and elected officials
What other large reports does the County produce?
State of the County Health Report, Community Health Assessment, The 2030 Comprehensive
Plan, Chapel Hill Carrboro Chamber of Commerce State of the Community Report, [added after
meeting Public Health Dashboards]
What is the purpose and how has it been used?
The purpose has been public education.
It was used in a high school science class as an overview of where the students live.
[added after meeting: cited in the Chapel Hill Carrboro Chamber of Commerce State of the
Community Report]
Is this just retrospective? Are goals stated?
It’s mostly retrospective based on a set of indicators and there are suggestions on how to
improve.
How many hard copies would we need? How many times has it been downloaded?
The schools got copies, the Commissioners got copies.
Staff offered to look into the number of times it was downloaded.
Will climate be addressed?
If we include it, it is a big question to answer.
Possible Options to Consider:
Move to a climate action plan. Look at Carrboro’s new plan as a model.
Just update the facts and leave the report context and formatting as-is.
After the last report, there was an interest in adding sections on the climate and environmental
justice.
Change analysis on a parcel level or using GIS telemetry
Planned land use going forward
Use the similar process currently being updated for the long range regional transportation plan.
VI. CFE Committee Meetings-
Matt Crook will join the Air and Energy Committee
Marshall Gray will join the Water Resources Committee
VII. Updates and Information Items-
Continuing Action Items from previous CFE meetings:
The series of public education articles produced by the CFE was discussed. Crook offered an idea
to offer articles and updates to the BOCC and ask them to get the word out. The news media
may be more interested in hearing from them.
Creek Week in Durham, March 18th - 25th, 2017
https://keepdurhambeautiful.org/our-events/durham-creek-week-events/
DEAPR Earth Evening event, April 28th, 2017
Triangle Land Conservancy’s Brumley Forest Preserve Grand Opening, April 22nd, 2017
PACE Financing (Attachment 9)
NC Science Festival, April 7th – 23rd, 2017 http://www.ncsciencefestival.org/
VIII. Adjournment- Cada motioned to adjourn, and Marzuola seconded. Meeting adjourned at 9:28 pm.
Summary by B. Bouma, AMS Staff
Next meeting: April 10, Solid Waste Admin Building, Chapel Hill