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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCFE minutes 011419 Attachment 1 MEETING NOTES Orange County Commission for the Environment January 14th, 2019 West Campus Office Building, Room 302, 131 West Margaret Lane, Hillsborough Item Title In Attendance: CFE Members: Bradley Saul, Laura Doherty,Jim Eichel,Carrie Fletcher, Lynne Gronback,Jeremy Marzuola, Kim Piracci Staff:Tom Davis, Brennan Bouma I. Call to Order. Saul called the meeting to order at 7:40pm. II. Additions or Changes to Agenda Piracci suggested adding a discussion of the Chapel Hill Planning Board's upcoming vote to require solar for all development and the I-40 widening project. After some follow up questions, Piracci offered to do some more research on these topics and bring them to next meeting for discussion. Staff also reminded members that they had opportunities to send a liaison to several related boards and commissions. For the Solid Waste Advisory Group, Marzuola indicated an interest in attending one meeting to identify shared interests. For the Intergovernmental Parks Working Group, Gronback expressed interest in being the CFE liaison. For the Orange Unified Transportation Board, Marzuola and Saul said they would share the duties if allowable. Staff will investigate and report to the group. Saul suggested receiving regular updates on those meetings. III. Approval of Draft Minutes — November 12th 2018 The CFE considered approval of minutes from the last meeting. A motion to approve was made by Marzuola, seconded by Fletcher, and approved unanimously. IV. CFE Officer Election After Saul opened the floor for officer nominations Piracci nominated Saul to continue serving as chair. Saul accepted the nomination and no other nominations were made. Members voted unanimously to approve his election. Piracci then nominated Marzuola to serve as Vice-Chair. Marzuola accepted the nomination and no other nominations were made. Members voted unanimously to approve his election. V. BOCC Agenda Abstract Environmental Impact Bouma led a discussion concerning options to recommend to the BOCC for consideration of environmental impacts on BOCC agenda abstracts. Bouma reminded CFE members of the history of the BOCC's interest in exploring this and the CFE's discussion at the previous meeting in November. Bouma discussed examples of proposed abstract templates including several examples from the December 3rd BOCC meeting. Attachment 1 Marzuola and Saul both indicated a preference for the free response template option as it appeared to provide value without burdening staff preparing the abstract. For context, staff related a point of fact about an unforeseen environmental impact of one of the example abstracts. Staff had not been consulted about this agenda item. This highlighted the CFE members' interest in seeing if there was a way to encourage cross-departmental input on agenda abstracts effectively without overburdening staff. One possibility considered was to add a response option to the abstract indicating that staff lacks the information to accurately determine potential environmental impacts. This response could then potentially trigger a search for input. After Saul reminded members of the time, they agreed to continue this discussion at the following meeting. VI. Committee Meetings CFE Committees met to discuss issues and indicators for the 2019 State of the Environment report and make plans to finish a first draft. Staff noted that two months remain to create a final draft of the report content in order to stay on the schedule previously agreed to by the CFE members. Doherty volunteered to move to the Water Committee as it has lost members and the Air and Energy Committee is well represented. Staff will update the roster to reflect this change. VII. Updates and Information Items ➢ Continuing Action Items from previous CFE meetings: o Divestment Resolution Update o Idle Reduction Petition Update ➢ Updates: o Calendar of 2019 Meetings o Adopted Pollinator Resolution VIII. Adjournment Piracci motioned to adjourn and this was seconded by Saul. The meeting was adjourned at 9:10pm. • Next Meeting.February 11 th,Southern Human Services Center,2501 Homestead Road, Chapel Hill