2 - Draft Minutes - Environmental Advisory - March 5,2008CyIT~' OF BOLTLDER, COLORaDO
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NA111TE OF BO~RD/C0111INTISSION: Environmental Ad~~isory Board
DATE OF MEETING: March ~, 2008
NANIE/TELEPHONE OF PER~ON PREPaRING SUlbIAZARY: Kelle Karp, 3(~3-441-1940
N~MES OF NZEMBERS, ST~1FF AND INti ITED GUESTS PRESENT:
Envirorunental t~dvisoi•y Board Me~nbers Present: Francoise Poinsatte, Susan Iott, Bill Roettker,
~1d Suzanne Jones
Board NTembers Absent: Leah Kukowski
~taff 117embers Present: Jonathan Koehn, Office of Environmental Affairs; Andrew Bascue, C~ff'ice of
Environmental Affairs; Randall Rutsch, Transportation
Public Present: none.
OLITLINE OF ~GENDA
1. CALL TO ORDER. The meeting t~~~as called to order at 6:15 p.m. Uy acting chair Francoise
Poinsatte
2. t~PPROV~L QF 112INLJTES. Minutes for the February meeting were approved.
3. PLJBLIC PARTICIPATI4N. None
4. UPDATE. Jonathan Koelul updated the board on the Climate _~ction Plan (C_~P) and the
Residential Cn•een Points program. For CAP, he highlighted that staff ~~~ill p7•esent to Council
at the ~pril 8th study session to discuss long tei7n goals, being more aggressive, the potential of raising
the CaP tax, and incorporating more renewables for the city oi•ganization into C~P to become 100%
energyr independent as desired by Frank Bruno, City Manager. Jonathan also informed the boai~d that
they will receive copies of the 2UU7 CAP progress report at the April board meeting for their review
and commentary of CAP's trajectory. He reaff~irmed for the board that staff feels they are currently on
the right traj ectory foi• meeting many of the goals laid out in CAP, and they understand that evaluating
longer term goals is necessaiy as 2012 is only a benchma~•k. Jonath~n reminded the board that the city
just past the one month mark for the implementation of the ne«~ Residential Green Points code. So far,
the feedback from the trainings and workshops is positi~~e and the building community is finding the
code relatively easy to comply to. Jonathan noted that he recently met ~~ith Boulder Tomor~ow and
exchanged ideas for establishing the commercial code to the Green Points program. He mentioned that
he ri~ill soon be meeting ~~•ith rental housing representatives to discuss RECO, and is already~ a~~vare that
the ideal path is to provide incentives and options as opposed to regulations. Staff anticipates
pY•esenting this side of the Green Points pro,~-am to Council in ~ugust.
5. 1~~IAIN AGENDA ITEl~ZS. Randall Rutsch ~rith Transportation along with Andrew Bascue from
C?ftice of Environmental Affairs presented ~hat Transportation is working on for mass transit, and
ho«° it overlaps and assists ~~~ith achieving C~P goals. Randall began by informing the board that the
Fast Ti•acks project is to be cornpleted by 2016, ~~~hich will provide rail service along the High~~~ay 36
cor~•idor. The project is facing many ol~stacles with the increased costs of constt-uction and materials,
as well as receiving fi~ll cooperation from the community and businesses. Aside from the obstacles,
the project has the potential to be a first in its kind for western cities. Transportation is currently
evaluating what it ~~ill take to prepare the community and trying to learn from other corridors such as
T-reY do~~=~n Inter•state 2~ as they know they «~ill have to deal ~~~ith issues related to noise and eminent
do~nain. Transportation also put together a stakeholder group comprised of 35 people from
organizations such as C-Dot, University of Colorado and tnore. Randall presented flow diagrams to
the board to illustrating that all the conununities along the High~~ly 36 coi7•idor will ha~%e access to the
mass transit system. Randall indicated to the board that Transportation is a~~are that making this
~pproved:
Leah Kuko«ski, Chair
Date
project work for our community goes beyond the construction of the corridor, requiring Boulder to
build a Transit Village and provide the community with access to the Transit Village. As a result of
the rising costs in construction materials, Transportation is evaluating their budget and determining the
most essentials items to keep moving forward. Attachment D in the memo provided to the board
illustrates Transportation's efforts to refining priorities for the investments required to keep moving
forward. Next, Randall directed the boards' attention to a graph in the memo depicting ~Tehicle h•Iiles
Traveled (VMT) in Boulder, noting that if Transportation is able to accomplish all of the transit goals
they will be able to reduce VMTs back down to the 1990 level. Reducing and maintaining VMTs is
where Transportation and CAP begin to overlap. In moving forward, Transportation is aware that they
do not have all the funding necessary to meet all of the transportation needs of the community to
reduce and/or maintain VMT. Therefore, Transportation put together an array of packages, ranging
from least to most aggressive, that they will present to Council that propose actions such as the use of
side line incentives and removing some of the hidden enticements that encourage people to drive. The
board asked if getting community wide Eco Passes is an option in any of Transportation's packages
and Randall indicated that it is not but there are tasks forces working on the issue. The board requests
an update from the Transportation staff member working on obtaining region wide Eco Passes. In
conclusion, the board indicated that they would like to see a focus on the short term goals resulting in
instant benefits, identify the types of vehicles being driven and addressing a trend towards hybrids,
work on a region wide Eco Pass, unbundling parking from leases and places of business, car sharing
and car pooling programs, and more paid parking and parking cash-out options as items to be
amplified in the memo presented at Council's study session.
6. MATTERS FROM STAFF. Jonathan revisited Xcel's Smart Grid City proposal and indicated
that city staff is currently in discussion with Xcel to be named the Smart Grid City. Given that the
current analog grid is so antiquated, it lirnits Boulder fiom being as progressive and aggressive ~~~ith its
renewable strategy goals. The new technology would accotn~nodate Boulder's rene«~able strategy
goals as well as provide live grid power, rerouting of power during outages, and give consumers a
digital read out of their energy use and price at any time. Philadelphia, Portland, and a few cities in
California piloted pieces of the new technology, but Xcel's Smart Grid City will be the first time all
the technology is combined to one grid. The system will cost $100 million and should be completely
built into the city by 2009. At a Council meeting on March 18, council will be presented with the RW
Beck analysis on municipalization and franchising and with another analysis on the merits of the smart
grid, at which point they can determine the best path for Boulder to take. Suzanne Jones participated
in the task force, and informed the rest of the board that Boulder will still have to work with Xcel to
agree to incorporate more renewables. She also indicated that the task force evaluated the risks of
being the pilot and decided it would be necessary to couple the changes with educating the community
on decreasing their energy usage to avoid higher energy bills. Although is it an exciting opportunity,
there are still a lot of details to work out.
7. MATTERS FROM THE BOARD. None
8. ADJOURNMENT. The meeting adjourned at 8:15 p.m.
9. TIME & LOCATION OF NEXT MEETING: Wednesday, Apri12, 2008, 1300 Canyon Blvd, 6
p. m.
Approved:
Leah Kukowski, Chair Date
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