[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 9-24-08

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,
Today was one of the more content rich council days we have had in a while. I'll try to do it justice here.
We started with Public Safety and a discussion with the Bike/Ped board.  Some highlights were that we (at least Stacy and I) would like them to continue to review subdivisions and submit comment encouraging complete streets. Developers are often trying to skimp on bike/ped improvements so it is good to have more eyes watching for that sort of stuff. We also want them to continue looking for infrastructure improvements and working with Public Works to get them done.
 
In Conservation we met with the Greenhouse Gas and conservation Team. They were putting forward an idea for the city to sell Green Tags. These are essentially a sort of carbon credit where a person can buy a unit of power from a green power production project. The whole system is audited and certified. They want the city to become a reseller of the credits. We get a cut which would go to fund city conservation programs.  There were a lot of questions like "Why would someone do this?"  The answer is that it is a voluntary way to support clean energy. If you want to have green power for your house this is an alternative for actually purchasing and installing a wind or solar system. Of course this takes the long term energy cost savings out of the picture. But if you want to do it for purely social responsibility sorts of reasons this is an option. In some ways it is more cost effective than installing your own system. A megawatt hour greentag costs something like $20. The average American home uses something like 10 megawatt hours per year. So it would cost $200/year to have your home use green power. It probably costs much more than that to actually install a system on your house.
Of course you don't really know where the 10 megawatts of electrons going to your house actually come from. But you can certify that 10 megawatts of green power going into the grid were the ones you paid for.

>From a business perspective it may be a little easier to understand. If you want to be able to say that your business is run on green power you can do it through green tags instead of actually investing in an alternative energy system. Besides the social conscience issues you get to use it in your advertising. When tied to some kind of capitalist motive it may make more sense. 

The committee was skeptical and had a number of questions. Personally I think it is a good idea. I could maybe see using it. I like to fly east to visit my family. The carbon footprint issues around this practice weigh on my conscience. Depending on how I'm feeling at the moment about my disposable income I could be persuaded to buy into some kind of offset scheme. Its possible there are enough people in Missoula that would get behind something like this to make it worth while. I was wanting more information on how the money gets applied by the producer. Is it really part of the balance sheet when developing these projects? Does it really influence the creation of more green energy? I also wanted to know how it plays out for the homeowner. Is it more or less expensive to just build your own green power solution?
 
The other issue we took up was a proposal to reduce the City's fuel and power consumption to 90% of the 2008 level by 2011.  The resolution didn't get into specifics but directed the Mayor to figure out how to get us there.  John Hendrickson seemed to argue there was no point to the thing since it had no teeth. A number of us agree with that and would like to amend it so it does have teeth. Possibly tie it to other aspects of department funding. Maybe have incentives and punishments figured in. Jack Stucky pointed out that sometimes it is hard to control. If we get a huge snow year the plows are out more than average and we use more fuel. So we would need some way to allow for that sort of thing. But that's all for the Mayor to figure out. We just set policy. Its his job to implement it.
Mr. Wilkins appeared to be objecting to it with a rant about older people needing the heat turned up and how they (greenhouse committee) just come back here with a thing for the city to do but they aren't doing anything to help the people. As usual after taking his stand he left the room for a smoke so he missed the rest of the discussion. In the end the vote was for setting a public hearing to discuss the resolution. It passed with Marilyn, Ed, Myself, Stacy, Pam, Jason, and Dave voting for it and Renee, Dick, Lynn, and John voting against. I think Jon was still out front.  I don't understand why they are apposed to a conservation effort when they also voted against the budget because the city wasn't doing enough to tighten its belt. At $4.00/gallon you would think energy conservation would have an appeal to the self styled budget hawks.
 
We covered a few items in PAz. (my z key is broken on this computer so I have to copy and paste them. I can't find a capped z right now) We did a historic preservation interview, We then considered the annexation for Flynn Ranch number 2. The mention of Flynn Ranch raised the council's hackles but in the end we voted for the resolution of intention to "consider" the annexation of the property. We would only do it with the word "consider" inserted just so everyone knew it was not a foregone conclusion that we would accept this thing.
 
Then we set a public hearing for the new park land dedication regulations. These went to planning board just last night. The planning board voted to postpone the decision until it could be rolled into the big zoning rewrite project. I'm withholding judgment on that until I read the minutes and hear the testimony at the public meeting but I'm not so inclined to push everything out into the big rewrite.  If we implement it now the rewrite will give us version two which should have the bugs worked out. Setting the public hearing also passed on non-partisan lines.
 
Our last item was the update on the townhouse rule. When we set that up a couple of years ago we asked for an update in 18 months. It has been about two years now but we looked at a number of projects that are in the process of being built under the rule which allows for attached housing on individual lots.  No one has tried to do more than a duplex so far and the prices looked pretty high to me. The MOR and MBIA were going to get back to us on how the prices compared to single family units in the same subdivision and what the difference in square foot cost is for these units.
 
After lunch we had a couple hours of public works.  We learned that work will begin on the section of Miller Creek from Briggs to 93. They will be changing the lane configurations to allow for a right turn lane and more multiple lane stacking at the intersection.  The work will be done at night to cut down on traffic delays. It should take three nights to get it done.
We also learned that there is some kind of snag in the right of way acquisition process for the Miller Creek Y project that may even push into construction delays next year. We will learn more about that one at a future meeting.
Then we talked about Rattlesnake valley speed limits. The public works department wants them faster. Most of the public wants them slower. The proposal is to set them to 25 for the full length of rattlesnake drive and Greenough. Currently there are portions set at 35. We have received quite a bit of public comment on this. A few saying 35 is good but the vast majority advocating for 25.
 
Next we heard a presentation from HKM on the 3rd and Russell project. We got to ask some questions. We further refined the peer review RFP but were not ready to advance it to council.  A new twist that came out today for me was that the preferred alternative defines the biggest thing we can build. It doesn't mean we actually have to build that. We could start out with smaller intersections and then expand them at some later date. To me this contradicts what we were told before that once there is a record of decision for a preferred alternative that is the only thing we can build with federal money.  
This phasing idea will most likely be the only way a council majority will support any actual work getting done on this project.  Work needs to be done to figure out how to incorporate this into the final EIS.
 
Thanks for your interest,
 
Bob Jaffe
 
 
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