SDCP - Steering Committee
Tucson Estates Multi-Purpose Room
7:00pm to 9:00 pm
Wednesday, January 9, 2002
Meeting Notes
Participants: See attached sign-in sheet, Maeveen Behan, David Steele and SIMG staff.
Speaker: Rob Melnick, PhD, Director; Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Documents made available to the Steering Committee members at the meeting:
* Memorandum from Chuck Huckelberry regarding members that have attended less than 50% of Steering Committee meetings.
* Open Space Funding Options draft- Provided by Maeveen Behan of the County Administrator's Office
* Power Point presentation with all Decisions beginning with 7-28-01
* Extra Agendas
Meeting Commenced at 7:00 pm
Meeting commenced with 42 Steering Committee members and 40 members of the general public present. David Steele opened up the meeting by introducing himself, presenting the Ground Rules and reviewing the agenda.
Ground Rules, as they would apply to this meeting only:
1. Only Steering Committee members can participate in the discussion of issues on the agenda.
2. General public will participate at the Call to the Public.
3. One minute per person per agenda topic.
4. Can only speak a second minute if everyone else has spoken.
5. At appointed time, move to decision making or next topic
6. Start and end on time.
Discussion:
* None.Ground rules should apply to this agenda.
Revision of previous minutes:
Approval of the December 1st minutes was deferred pursuant to the County Attorney's letter, as a quorum was not achieved to do this.
Logistics for the next meeting:
A Centrally located venue will be researched and secured for the Saturday, February 2, 2002 meeting from 8:30 am to 12 noon.
Review of the Agenda:
Discussion:
* Extend the Call to the Public to more than five minutes.
* Consolidate the two five minute calls to the public into one ten minute segment.
* Hear Dr. Melnick first.
* Combine the two calls to the public into one ten minute segment after Dr. Melnick's presentation and take an additional five minutes off the meeting schedule so as to extend the total time to 15 minutes for a call to the public.
Course of Action: The two five minute calls to the public will be deferred until after Dr. Melnick's presentation. Any time remaining will be given to the public.
Guest Speaker Dr. Rob Melnick:
* The Morrison Institute for Public Policy is an Arizona State University resource for objective policy analysis and expertise. The Morrison Institute researches public policy issues, informs policy makers and residents, and advises leaders on choices and actions. The Morrison Institute's services include policy research and analysis, program evaluation, and support of community participation in public affairs. Our mission is very simple; it is to conduct public policy analysis and provide that information to the public decision makers in the community in the interest of making better decisions for the future of that community. This analysis will produce both quantitative and qualitative information on the prospective costs and benefits associated with various alternative plans.
* In conducting research, analysts draw upon a variety of disciplines and methods: collecting original data through public opinion surveys, interviews, and consultation with experts; and analyzing existing information through review of published research reports, current legislation, and statistical data.
Questions from Steering Committee Members: SEE ATTACHED
Question: Who makes the decision of the manner in which you output your data?
Dr. Melnick: The Morrison Institute does.
Question: What is the time frame associated with Question Five in your presentation?
Dr. Melnick: You are looking at three different lengths. We go out for about possibly fifty years. The problem is that the further out you go the data gets very questionable. So we are playing around with everything from twenty to fifty years at this point. We don't have an answer at this point. But we'll probably run several and look at different scenarios.
Question: When can we anticipate receiving information from you?
Dr. Melnick: Originally we had projected a time frame so we could deliver this report by the end of February. That is no longer the case because we have done a great deal of work on Questions One and Two. In order for us to crunch the numbers, we need specificity with regards to the Alternative Plans that are being considered. We can't do this for every conceivable scenario we can come up with. We anticipate getting data, and I am going to ask Maeveen to help out here, within the next couple of weeks, which will be sufficiently detailed. The GIS and other related data so that we'll be able to put that data through our models and produce output. I have reserved judgment as to what we'll be able to do time-wise. The condition of the data will determine the number of alternatives that are presented. In other words if twenty-seven alternatives are presented-we can't do all those. We're going to have to limit that number in order to make a report that is going to be useable and sensible when we bring it to the committee. That said, I think we are looking certainly into the spring, probably April, May timeframe.
Question: How will you handle additional questions we may have to your report.
Dr. Melnick: We will be happy, upon delivery of the report, to do whatever we can to create a report that is going to be useable for you. If additional questions are going to be asked; that are significant questions, that expands the scope of work, that's a whole different thing. We are working within the parameters of this scope right now, and if the Steering Committee or the County determines that they have another five questions, we have another study to do. Then the clock starts ticking. But regarding the refinement of these questions, and responding to your questions about this study and making it clear about this study, we'll do that. As long and as much as you want. We'll have that very readily available for you. We'll make all of our staff available.
Question: Under Question Three of your presentation: Are you looking at land where people want to live? Is one acre the same in all places in the County? Does it take into consideration the type of housing that people will have? How do you treat State land? Is that in play?
Dr. Melnick: State land is in play, I know that, but State land is a real question mark for us becauseI don't know the answer to that. That is my answer to that. Type of housing as I understand it is definitely court addressed. Portability price is, I believe. Where people want to live, I'm much less clear on and I have some doubt about that, because it's going to be based to some extent on what is subjection for where things are going to be developed. In the case where there was no activity, such as the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, part of the job is to figure out where the development is going to go. Given the whole bard where would development be and presumably developers know where people want to live. So that goes into the equation.
Question: Has 'lost opportunity costs' been factored into Question Four? Since some opportunities will be eliminated, it should be factored in. Have you come up with the cost of having no alternative? When you talked to the fifty some people, did you talk to any small landowners that will be affected?
Dr. Melnick: When we originally designed the interview matrix of who, and where and how, we were not only thinking of big business. We were thinking big business, small business, etc., so I am pretty sure the answer to your last question is yes. The lost opportunity cost, I believe is not calculatable in the way we are looking at this in number four. Because we are looking at the cost of doing business with and without, so it's not opportunities as much as it's going to be focusing primarily on carrying costs.
Question: Are you going to analyze the economic impact on each of the business sectors that you listed? Such as the economic impact on ranching or mining, and if you have not, why not?
Dr. Melnick: No, we have not, because it is beyond the scope of our study. This study doesn't encompass every known variable, because you are talking about an enormously complex, dynamic process of economic growth and development in this county affected by conservation. With one hundred years and an unlimited budget we could look at transportation, at each one of the business sectors out there, the effects on schooling, etc. The value of the study is something you have to decide. We were asked 'what is the economic impact' and we responded by saying: We can answer this question in this way, indeed by answering these five questions. I would submit to you that to answer that question for each of one of those sectors, is an enormous study onto itself. And we would not have been able to do that nor take on this work, simply because it is so detailed it would have taken much more time than we have available.
Question: Did you look at the fact that the housing stock in mid-town Tucson is aging? Also, did you consider the impact that the LightRail will have on the urban growth forum?
Dr. Melnick: We are looking at housing, certainly in Question Five and we are looking at it, to a certain extent, in Question Three. There is a separate housing study being conducted that we will bring into play as well. We have not, at all, factored in any Light-Rail into this. Because it's not there, and yet, of course, this could affect dramatically, the land performance sector. We are going to do the best we can with regard to the implications, especially in number three, for what form and density would result from the adoption of various alternatives.
Question: Have you factored in water supply? Also, you have factored in the public revenue generated by this plan?
Dr. Melnick: No, we have not factored in the water supply. The public revenues issue is really a separate issue from the economic impact study that we have done here.
Question: How are you going to rate the responses of the interviews?
Dr. Melnick: One person one response. The interviews, even though they were quantified, were expressed qualitatively, in other words, just for process, when you are doing these interviews you ask as many people as you are able to reasonably ask, and you try to get a good cross section, but you don't get half a vote because your business is half the size of another business. Each input is handled as separate input. When we have an expression of output, even though it will be based on numeric, we are not going to give you a specific number. We are going to tell you this is how it broke down, a large number of people felt this way, a smaller number felt that way.
Question: Are you aware of what the funding sources are that will support the Section Ten Permit? And if you are not, then how can you help us develop this plan?
Dr. Melnick: No, we are not. We have asked the County to provide us with estimates of the cost of implementing the plan. What the funding streams are, would be a sub-set of that question. Once alternatives have been collectively narrowed and we know where they are and what they are, presumably that allows the county to put a number on them. This is what it costs, this is where we get the money. That's input to particularly Question Five. Within the scope of this study we are not saying 'these should be your funding streams' or, 'this is how you could fund this' or ' looking at this plan this is what it is going to cost you to do whatever you have to do to implement this plan'. It's just the opposite, we're saying, 'given plan a, b, c alternative whatever they may be, the cost is x, y or z from these funding sources, we plugged that into our model and say how does that effect your economic future. We are doing what I believe you are getting at, but we are not waiting for input to calculate that.
Question: How is the Economic Analysis different from the Benefits Analysis?
Dr. Melnick: What we are doing here is basically answering these five questions. I would not characterize this as a Benefit Analysis. It's an economic impact study as defined by these questions. It's not just a Benefit Analysis, for example in Question Four, we don't have a hypothesis that says given Section Ten Permit there are going to be x number of benefits. We are simply asking the question, will there be any benefits? The answer could be yes, of this magnitude and this nature or no or something else, but it's not just a benefit analysis, it's an economic impact analysis.
Question: When you are looking at cost benefits are you looking at how it is going to affect the multi-cultural diversity of our community?
Dr. Melnick: We are not looking at SCS variables, that would be awfully complex for us. That said, in Question Five what we would be looking at is the question: 'what is the elasticity of labor supply and demand. The factor that we are going to get at, different strata economic earning capability. Now that is just an economic variable. We're not going to be dealing at all with social structure, race, ethnicity, and things like that. But what we look at is the cost of doing business, housing cost, earning, and supply and demand of labor that is going to be a kind of backboard for these issues.
Question: To what extent are you going to be addressing the economic externalities? To what extent will you address marginal costs for utilities? Or will you give us the tools so that we can analyze the variables once we know what the variables are and we can figure out what the marginal costs for utilities are?
Dr. Melnick: We are going to be given in the near future, alternatives. I don't know how many. I don't know where the lines are going to be drawn and what the characteristicswill be. What ever they may be, we're going to plug in a reasonable number, we're going to answer these questions based on alternative A, B or C which will be driven by where those lines are drawn. Now if your question is what is the marginal cost of moving a line one hundred yards in alternative A; I would presume that our model would that you could re-run the numbers. I would not want this to be an endless exercise in moving the lines and running the numbers for one hundred yards then another hundred yards.
Question: How many alternatives do you want?
Dr. Melnick: Ideally we will be managing three, possibly four. After that I have to be honest with you the report is going to become unyielding. I'm worried even with three. You have to have a 'No Action' alternative built in to figure in ground relationship and then perhaps two other scenarios. If the data are precise and clear, then we can address three. The original document called for five possible scenarios, and those have all changed in different ways and different times. We came back and said, we would be much more comfortable doing three, which is the baseline, or no action scenario and two others. Could we fit in a fourth, perhaps, but that will depend on the timeline. However, keep in mind that the more scenarios we run, the more alternatives we are asked to look at, the longer this is going to take to do. Very honestly this is not an overnight job. What you need to understand is that all five questions are interactive at some level.
Question: Isn't 51 persons interviewed a small number for a scientific study?
Dr. Melnick: We are not trying to create a scientific piece of evidence. That would be done through random sample surveying. However, I would submit that 51 people interviewed that represent sections of a community, is a fair number of interviews. We could interview 1000 people, but I am not so sure that we would get a different response because we went through a very deliberate process of trying to get people who by their very nature were representative of their communities. This has proven to be very viable. These are people focused on the business community. We are not interviewing people who are disassociated with the business community. The list of the 51 will be published with the report, but there will be no attribution in the report to the people we interviewed. They will be accurate responses, but the list will only have the names of the people we have spoken to.
Question: Where are you going to get the scenarios to run your questions on? Where do the alternatives come from?
Dr. Melnick: It doesn't matter to us where the alternatives come from. I understand that one of the charges of this committee is to select among certain alternatives which are the committee's preferred alternatives and recommend them back to the Board of Supervisors. We have no stake in this outcome. As long as it's what the existing are there for consideration, we can plug anything into the model. We have no stake in what those numbers are. You can draw the lines where ever you want. If these are being submitted to us by the County then I will defer your question to Maeveen.
Maeveen Behan: The alternatives have a range from "No Action" to well everything else. The way we can express it most simply for the County is that it is a set of decision points. So decision one would be we do nothing. Decision two would be we get a Section Ten Permit that covers just the County. Decision three would be that the Section Ten Permit would be County impact and the development community, who we issue permits to. If I could just make this point, it is the job of the Steering Committee to select a preferred alternative, we can give you the range, but ultimately you have to choose one, I think the sooner you can get the substantive discussions before you the sooner you will be able to make decisions on this.
Question: My question is for Maeveen. Can the County provide four alternatives to the Morrison Institute in time for them to have a completed document ready for us by the beginning of April?
Maeveen Behan: Yes.
Question: Are you going to assume that the housing will remain the same as the economy?
Dr. Melnick: One of the impacts we will be getting is a housing study. That is going to be one of the inputs to the study.
Call to the Public:
Question: How were the 51 interviewees chosen, that is what was your sampling procedure? What are the costs of each one of these plans?
Dr. Melnick: The cost of each one of the plans, needs to be provided to us. That is part of what goes into model number five, presumably that is going to be some aspect of the cost. With regard to the sampling procedure, keep in mind that the scope of question number two was not to ask the general public what they thought would be the economic impact. It was asked of the business community. We spoke with approximately 10-20 people and got candidates for who would be representative of their community to be interviewed.
Question: Who is going to be working on question number five?
Dr. Melnick: Kent Hill, will be directing the team working on question number five. Kent works with the Center for Business and Research at ASU.
Question: Who is going to be doing the science study? Are you planning on making conservancy areas around Tucson?
Dr. Melnick: The County is separately doing a study of natural sciences and biological sciences. We are not studying the science of biology. The closest we come to science is economics. We are going to be receiving information on what the proposed conservancy areas are and then using those as input to determine how that might affect various aspects of the economy in the area. We are not making up the boundaries of the conservancy areas, we are receiving them.
Question: Who is going to make up the boundaries for these conservancy areas?
David: The Steering Committee will make its recommendation for the boundaries to the County Board of Supervisors and they will make that final decision.
Question: Do you believe that the product you are going to submit will withstand court challenge? Have you ever testified in a court of law?
Dr. Melnick: I have never testified in court, but I cannot speak for the other members of the team. Typically when you get a challenge like this it's aspects of the study, not the entire study. It's that something was arguably at fault in the modeling or the inputs, in which case I would not want to speak for the other members of the team. I would like to think that our study would hold up under such scrutiny. Keeping in mind what the parameters of the study are. Whether it will withstand a court challenge all depends on the input we get on the alternatives. Once we get precise inputs, the answer is yes.
Question: What measures are you taking to insure the objectivity of the interviews?
Dr. Melnick: Five different people interview within the group. The same exact questions are asked in the same manner to each person being interviewed. As to their objectivity, I can personally vouch for the objectivity of my team.
Question: Does this study address what this conservation plan will do to property taxes?
Dr. Melnick: No, we are not dealing with the tax or governmental revenue side of this. Our focus has been on the economic development and the development landowner side.
Question: What is the economic impact of the loss of bio-diversity on future economies.
Dr. Melnick: We are not going to be able to quantify that, but that is going to be addressed in Question number One. There are other areas that have gone through these processes, they have put plans in place and there are result that will be recorded. So that will be part of what you see. We are not going to say this cost or added monies to the County. It will be more what changes in the economic patterns or fortunes were stimulated or oppressed by this.
Old Business:
* Report on Board of Supervisors MeetingMembership Issues:
Discussion:
* The County sent a letter to the 14 members that were indicated at the last meeting. Letter from the Board of Supervisors was handed out showing which members responded that they wish to remain on the Steering Committee, which members will be removed and the names of new appointees.· Quorum Issue:
Discussion:
We should ask the County to take care of our quorum issue as we are not able to handle this ourselves.
* Suggested course of action is that individual members contact the Board of Supervisors with these concerns and make their sentiments known
* Resources to implement plan:The County Administrator's office provided a draft of the Open Space Funding Options in response to the December 4th directive from the Board of Supervisors.
· Katarina Richter opinion:
Ms. Richter's opinion is that the Steering Committee could ratify all previous decisions on block. David Steele made the following suggestions before opening the floor for discussion:
1. The Steering Committee can argue with the County Attorney to get them to consider those other issues and modify their opinion.
2. The Steering Committee can go to the Board with a package to retain legal counsel to argue with the County Attorney on behalf of the Steering Committee.
3. Maybe there is a mechanism, that the Steering Committee can legally present to the Board of Supervisors so that the Steering Committee can move forward.
Discussion:
· We need to ask the Board to get the Steering Committee down to a number so we can have a quorum.
· Making a change in the status of those in regard to their attendance, would be useful.
· We are only here to make an unofficial recommendation to the Board. Does it really matter if we have a quorum?
· The Board should either resolve this issue for us or give us the resources so we can retain legal counsel and solve this problem for ourselves.
· We actually only need a quorum when we are voting on the final recommendation.
Develop meeting schedule beyond February 2nd meeting:
The Steering Committee established a meeting schedule for six months the sixth month being February. The Ad-Hoc Committee has made the following straw proposal for the following six months. Study sessions were added between Steering Committee meetings and the meeting were extended to three hours.
Wednesday January 9 6:00 to 9:00 pm Steering Committee Meeting
Saturday February 20 6:00 to 9:00 pm Study Session
Wednesday March 6 6:00 to 9:00 pm Steering Committee Meeting
Saturday March 16 8:30 to 11:30 am Study Session
Saturday April 6 8:30 to 11:30 am Steering Committee Meeting
Wednesday April 17 6:00 to 9:00 pm Study Session or Steering Committee
Meeting as needed.
Wednesday May 1 6:00 to 9:00 pm Steering Committee Meeting
Saturday May 18 8:30 to 11:30 am Steering Committee Meeting
Saturday June 1 8:30 to 11:30 am Steering Committee Meeting
Wednesday June 19 6:00 to 9:00 pm Steering Committee Meeting
July 1, 2002 Steering Committee Preferred Alternatives Recommendation forwarded to the Board of Supervisors.
Discussion:
* Saturday April 6th meeting should be with the Morrison Institute and Wednesday, June 19th should be the time for adopting our recommendation.
* We should focus on whether we want one meeting per month or two meetings per month.
* Will we have enough time if we have a study session between Steering Committee meetings to get this to the Board of Supervisors?
* Is there some mechanism for when we have technical questions about when the County is going to give information?
* We should discipline ourselves to fewer meetings and focus on the issues we need to solve.
Role of the Ad-Hoc organizational subcommittee:
Presentation by Ad-Hoc members, Carolyn Campbell and Patty Richardson:
There has been some talk about what the role of the Ad-Hoc Committee might be. The Ad-Hoc Organizational subcommittee is comprised of Environmentalists, Realtors, Developers and all kinds of people. It is not limited to any number of people. We don't make decisions for the Steering Committee. We try to set up some structure and straw proposals so that there is some direction to the Steering Committee meetings. The recommendations we make are only that- recommendations, they are not your only options. The meetings are open to all, Steering Committee member as well as the public. The meeting announcement is posted at the County.
Issues for future meeting agendas and new business:
* Jonathan DuHamel chose to defer his proposed agenda item until after the STAT presentation.
* The Ad-Hoc Committee should be charged with getting us those four alternatives on paper so that we can discuss them at a future meeting.
* We can ask the STAT provide us with alternatives. Maybe the County should be attending our Steering Committee meetings as an advisory.
* We should be thinking about the minimum number of endangered species.
* Questions that the Steering Committee has should be sent to SIMG so STAT is prepared to answer and address our concerns.
Additional Call to the Public:
* I would ask that the membership of the Steering Committee be reopened.
* I suggest that the entire Steering Committee be disbanded.
Meeting Adjourn: 9:00pm