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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSWAB minutes 111402 Solid Waste Advisory Board ~- Regular Meeting November 14 , 2002 Government Services Center - Chapel Hill Approved January 9, 2003 In Attendance : James Arndt, Jacquie Gist, Bonnie Norwood, Bill Rehm, Jan Sassaman, Remus Smith and BJ Tipton . Staff : Rebecca Holdway, Blair Pollock, Mary Watkins, and Gayle Wilson . Others in Attendance : Joe Cook, Jeff Hughes, Vimalanand Prabhu, and Rod Visser . The meeting was called to order at 6 * 15 p . m . 1 . Adoption of Minutes from October 10 . Jan motioned to table the review of the minutes until next meeting, seconded by Bill Rehm, due to the fact that some members did not receive the e-mailed drafts . Prior to the next meeting, the October minutes will be re-distributed to those that did not receive them. 2 . Reports re : Feedback from Towns/County regarding process for proceeding with BOCC review and obtaining input from Towns and public . Jan stated that he would give a brief review on where we were and what we are doing with regard to alternative financing proposals and issues so that the stage could be set for the next two items on the agenda . Basically, we have started out with a series of work sessions and meetings addressing the financial needs for handling the solid waste enterprise for the next 10 years, based on a 10-year budget analysis . We have massaged that analysis and looked% at the assumptions . We are down to a point that if we make a specific change, it might affect the . final outcome a few hundred thousand dollars one way or a few hundred thousand dollars another way in any given year . A lot of these changes are within the noise of variability and some of the changes are probably smaller than the uncertainty that we will be faced with 9 years from now . We . have also looked, to some extent, . at an alternative . budget that assumes a continuation of the status quo with regard to programs . The primary budget we have been looking at is scenario ' A' , based on an aggressive attempt to try to. achieve the 61 % recycling goal by the year 2009 and that is based on a vote by this board to endorse the solid waste plan that called for a 61 % recycling goal . We have also been looking at scenario ' B ' as an alternative to ' A' . ' B ' assumes that we will keep the status quo in terms of recycling; we won' t try to do anything aggressive . Solid Waste Advisory Board -- Regular Meeting November 14, 2002 Government Services Center - Chapel Hill Approved January 9, 2003 Over the past 2 times we have met; we started looking at the availability of fiscal resources . What are various alternative ways to come up with the money to meet these needs that we have projected over the coming 10 years ? We have been looking at several service levels . Basically looking at general service fees , urban curbside service fees, rural curbside service fees, multifamily fees and commercial fees . These are the things that will impact the towns and the citizens . It is nice to sit back and say " well this is what its going to cost, and this is what we can do to raise the money" , but we all realize that each of us represent a group of stake holders represented by Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, and the county at large, t so we spent time at our last meeting talking about the need for us to go back and talk to the various town authorities (elected or otherwise) . If you have followed the correspondence that you have received from me and see the copy list, you will note that Jacquie [Gist] noted the need to send an update to the elected officials and you should have gotten a copy . We did send a memo to all the elected officials of the towns explaining where we were going and what we were struggling with. Al Vickers and I were invited to make a command appearance, last month at a Chapel Hill Town Council Meeting and I went over that with you at the last meeting and had a handout. Bill has a copy of the presentation and (with modifications) will share it with Carrboro . If anyone is interested, I will give you a copy of that presentation. We decided that we really needed to go back to the various jurisdictions and talk to them about how they wanted to have input into this process and the next item of business will be feedback from anybody who has gone to their respective authorities to discuss with them what we are doing . What we need to do next is continue our evaluation or our consideration of the various alternative4unding mechanisms and decide on what we want ' to recommend to the Board of Commissioners . Talking with Al, who is my Chapel Hill partner, we have felt that we were not comfortable with going to the. Board of Commissioners and saying 'you need ° to slap an _ 'x % tax rate on ' everybody to generate this kind of money' . We thought it more appropriate to go back and say ' these types of services probably should be covered by taxes and these types of services probably should be covered by service fees . ' ' If you did this you would generate this amount of money and if you did that you would generate that amount of money' ; but leave the political decisions up the politicians . Solid Waste Advisory Board- - Regular Meeting November 14, 2002 Government Services Center - Chapel Hill Approved January 9, 2003 Jan reported that he and Al Vickers and Cal Horton, Chapel Hill Town Manager, met on Monday and a part of that discussion was that the bottom line was that our [the SWAB ] mission was from the [County] Commissioners and we didri t think if was appropriate for us to tell the Chapel Hill elected officials and manager to give that report to them before we gave it to the County Commissioners . We could discuss what they are interested in, what Chapel Hill wanted us to consider, and [how] we wanted that dialogue to take place, but our report would not go to Chapel Hill before it went to the Board of County Commissioners and he was very comfortable with that . Jan stated that the Chapel Hill Town Council wanted two things : 1 . A breakout cost of recycling vs . disposal 2 . How much of the cost will be borne by Chapel Hill residents and by jurisdiction Jan, Blair and Gayle elaborated on these issues . The report was asked to be distributed to all board members . Remus stated that he did a mailing to the Hillsborough elected officials and has not gotten a response from his mailing . Bill Rehm and Jacquie Gist stated their discussions with the elected officials of Carrboro who stated that the proposal would take approximately two additional personnel to accomplish what the SWAB Board is wishing to accomplish. Bonnie Norwood raised a related cost question on whether it would better to use the drop off points within neighborhoods instead of curbside [where the recycling trucks cannot routinely get down some of the small private roads] . A discussion followed and it was determined that the costs would be the same because the streets would still be serviced by the trucks even with people bringing their recycling to the drop off points . 3 . Continuation of funding scenarios and customer group impacts discussion . Jeff Hughes [from the Environmental Finance Center] gave a detailed synopsis of this item and distributed a copy of the scenario summaries . Scenario 11 - Fund Solid Waste Services completely , through availability fees with . no property tax increase . Customers within the corporate limits of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough (recycling pickup every week) with _ general solid waste and recycling services [including HHW, drop -off sites and other administrative services] , but not solid waste collection, would be assessed $65 . 35 annually for 200M4 . Customers with curbside recycling service (unincorporated areas, pickup every two weeks) and general services would be assessed $38 . 20 . Customers with multifamily recycling service with general services would be assessed $30 . 82 . Commercial and institutional customers with general services Solid Waste Advisory Board-- Regular Meeting November 14, 2002 Government Services Center - Chapel Hill Approved January 9, 2003 and commercial / institutional services would be assessed [an average] of $ 124 . 15 (although the amount of the commercial availability fee would vary widely based on the size of the commercial and other non-residential customers . Customers with only access to the convenience centers with general services only would be assessed $ 11 . 23 . None of these alternative-funding mechanisms would generate any flow for the year 2002-2003 . Scenario 2 . Fund general services fee through property taxes and remaining areas through availability fees set at 2002-2003 levels with a General Fund Property Tax increase of $ 0 . 007 per one hundred dollars of assessed evaluation . Under this approach, customers with curbside . recycling service in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough (pickup every week) would be assessed a fee of $54 . 12 for that service . ' Customers with rural curbside recycling service (unincorporated areas, pickup every two weeks) with general services would be assessed a fee of $26 . 97, Each apartment unit in the multifamily buildings would would be assessed a fee of $19 . 59 although the fees would be collected from the property owners, just as taxes now are . Commercial and institutional customers with general services and commercial / institutional services would be assessed a fee of $112 . 92 and customers with only access to convenient centers with general services only would not be assessed any fees . [Their costs would all be covered by the general property tax increase . ] After a lengthy discussion on how these scenarios would be presented it was the that most of it would .be at the discretion of the overall agreement Commissioners . Remus asked that a list be started on what we need to do next . A list was generated with the following items . Resolutions : 1 . Average income revenue stream [from fees] to minimize fluctuations in annual service fees . 2 . Establish a restricted reserve for landfill closure [and add to the ' general service fee] . 3 . Tax-exempt entities will be included under an availability fee scenario 4 . Owners, not occupants, will be responsible for payment of fees . These resolutions were discussed in detail . Resolution # 1 was motioned by Sassaman and seconded by Smith. Resolution #2 was motioned by Gist, Solid Waste Advisory Board -- Regular Meeting November 14, 2002 Government Services Center - Chapel Hill Approved January 9, 2003 seconded by Rehm . Resolution # 3 was motioned by Sassaman, seconded by Rehm . Resolution #4 was motioned by Norwood, seconded by Gist . All resolutions passed unanimously and will be presented to the Commissioners as part of the SWAB ' s report in 2003 . Questions, which arose and have not been thoroughly addressed and will be addressed further at the December 12 meeting include : 1 . Should the system be financed by availability fees vs . taxes or a combination 2 . Commercial fees proportional to cost of collection, if proved by Orange County 3 . Implementation cost 4 . Education for cost issues 5 . Special Commercial implementation, [this could be phased in after the residential and multifamily fees are set . ] 4 . Programs/Services Update . Due to the lateness of the hour Jan asked Blair for a brief review of this subject . Blair asked that a speaker be invited to the next ilar problems and questions in localities meeting to update the Board on sim similar to ours . 5 . Other Business - Meeting will focus on non-residential/ commercial issues . Remus stated that since he was the only resident from Hillsborough at the meetings, it would be fine to have it in Chapel Hill instead of Hillsborough. The availability of rooms will be researched . It was motioned by Norwood, seconded by Rehm that the meeting adjourns . Adjournment was at 9410 pm . The next meeting will be at the Orange . County . Government Services Center in Hillsborough on December 12 at 6pm. A light supper will be provided .