DRAFT
SDCP - Steering Committee
Pima County Public Works Bldg. Rm 'C'
8:30am to 11:30am
Saturday, February 1, 2003
Meeting Notes
Participants: Maeveen Beham, David Steele. See attached sign in sheet.
Speakers: Ms. Judie Scalise, Principal, ESI Corp.; Brian Moore, Economist, ESI Corp.; Mr. Mike List, GIS Coordinator, SWCA Environmental Consultants, Inc.; Dr. Kenneth Kingsley, Senior Scientist, SWCA Environmental Consultants, Inc.
Documents made available to the Steering Committee members at the meeting:
* Agendas
* Key Decisions, Power Point Presentation
* Motion by Group 'X'
Meeting Commenced at 8:30 am
Meeting commenced with 35 Steering Committee members and 5 members of the general public. By 9:20 there were 49 Steering Committee members and 12 members of the general public. David Steele opened by introducing himself, reviewing the ground rules and reviewing the agenda.
Logistics for the next Steering Committee Meeting:
Saturday, February 15, 2003
8:30 am to 11:30 am
Pima County Public Works Bldg. Rm. 'C'
201 N. Stone
Logistics for the next Ad-Hoc Subcommittee meeting:
Wednesday, February 5, 2003
3:00pm to 5:00 pm
Red Sky Café Conference Rm
1661 N. Swan Road
Suite 118
Administrative Matters:
GIS Information/Request to County:
Based upon some conversations that the Steering Committee had about mapping and potential conflicts at the January 22nd meeting David Steele asked the county to put together maps, which show private property ownership in 3 categories: less than 10 acres, 10 to 100 acres, and more than 100 acres. The county provided acetate overlays on base maps, which are the Conservation Land System, the Comprehensive Plan and Pygmy owl habitat and recovery areas.
Old Business:
Approve meeting notes from January 8,2003 meeting:
* While the original verbatim transcripts cannot be changed, Lucy Vitale wants the meeting notes changed to read: Lucy Vitale requested that all individuals be identified by their first and last names when referenced for the first time in any written reports and meeting minutes.· Lucy Vitale wants that all motions include the numbers of "yes" votes and the numbers of "no" votes. She also wants unanimous vote to be noted as such.
· Lucy Vitale wants all members that are asking questions to be noted by their first and last name or not identified.
* Lucy Vitale noted that the spelling is incorrect of Sherry Barrett's name and Maeveen Behan's name.
* The meeting notes were approved with the noted changes.
Membership Issues
Member Resignations:
* Member Tim Terrill resigned, as he no longer lives in Arizona.
* Member Nancy Laney resigned, as she is no longer employed with the Sonoran Desert Museum. As the County Board of Supervisors wanted the Sonoran Desert Museum to be represented on the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan Steering Committee, a new designee will be appointed.
Member Absences:
* Some members requested that the names of the members that have not attended any meetings to be brought to the attention of the Board of Supervisors so those members could be removed from the Steering Committee.
* While some members felt that no more members should be removed and consideration should be given to those members that live in far rural areas of Pima County and cannot attend week day meetings, other members felt that no one person on the Steering Committee was making more of a sacrifice than any other and therefore the attendance policy agreed to should be followed.
* David reiterated that the Sign-In attendance lists are forwarded to the Clerk of the Board. He noted that any Steering Committee member could approach the Board of Supervisors with the request to remove members that have not attended any Steering Committee meetings.Call to the Public:
Pete Tesicone: Yeah, I don't know what the status of this stakeholder agreement thing is, but I'm not going to be able to talk when you guys talk about it so I wanted to just inform you that I've been trying to make a comparison between the maps for the 55 species or the 8 species. I've been more or less snowed under for the last couple months, but if this stakeholder thing addresses something like that, I would like at some future point, maybe within the next month, make some kind of presentation about the comparison between the maps for the 55 and 8 species alternatives. Thank you.
List of Key Decisions and Schedule for their consideration:
* At the January 8th meeting, Maeveen Behan brought an outline of a habitat conservation plan outline. Many of the Steering Committee members had questions regarding some of the issues.
* The Steering Committee directed David Steele to meet with Maeveen and Sherry Barrett to identify key decisions that the county said that they would like to have specifically from the Steering Committee by March 1st
* The county would like to have the Steering Committee address the following two issues: Duration and Species Covered.
* While the Steering Committee has had some discussion on duration, they have not resolved this issue.
* The Steering Committee had some discussion on species covered, but as yet have not come to a decision.
* The County would also like some recommendations regarding the implementation of the Conservation Plan.
* Maeveen and Sherry both said that it would be helpful if the Steering Committee could provide some criteria on how lands would be acquired, relative priority of lands within the basic core areas.
* The county feels it would be helpful to them for the Steering Committee to provide specific recommendations regarding mitigation ratios.
* Other issues that the Steering Committee has discussed are:1. Private property rights issues.
2. Regulatory streamlining, one of the benefits to the business community is in areas where they can move forward with a project with some dispatch.
3. There are a number of area specific issues that have been identified from the stakeholders.
Status of Stakeholder discussions:
Review of new Stakeholder Agreements/Resolutions:
* The Steering Committee recommended that David Steele write a letter to the Board of Supervisors on behalf of the Steering Committee saying that a vote was taken on January 8th regarding support of an open space bond in 2003. It was also recommended that the number of the Steering Committee members present and how they voted be noted in the letter.· Some members suggested that when the cost analysis was being done that the fact that properties in some areas are going to be enhanced in value in terms of their designation as suitable for the uses that the owners have decided to use them for, other properties in other places have been placed under greater restrictions and limitations of use. These members felt that a very much greater burden is placed on some people while a benefit is accrued to other people in order to benefit the community as a whole by preserving the environment. However, these members felt that if preserving the environment costs some people a great deal and costs others not only nothing but enhances their property value, then the differential impact needed to be re-examined more closely.
· One other factor that was brought up for consideration was mining for rock products, sand and gravel. The transport distance, hence the cost would be effected as would the riparian areas where most of this material is mined.
Development of Steering Committee Recommendations
Scope of Section 10 Permit Application:
Permit Duration:
While some members wanted the 10 year term recommendation to be eliminated because they felt it would be 'a useless timeframe', other members wanted the 10 year term to be included because this would not tie the community to something that was not working.
Number of Species to be covered: Paul Fromer, RECON Consultants joined via teleconference to answer any questions that arose. Sherry Barrett, US Fish and Wildlife Service was present to address any issues and questions from the Steering Committee. Steering Committee member, Larry Berlin made this presentation on behalf of a group that has been meeting for the past month and a half. The group is comprised of Bill Arnold, Carolyn Campbell, Michael Zimet, Patty Richardson, Rob Marshall, Gayle Hartmann, Chris McVie, Jonathan DuHamel, David Hogan, Ernie Cohen and Larry Berlin. Their meetings also included input from Paul Fromer and Sherry Barrett.
Larry Berlin: On behalf of the integrated group of Steering Committee members and stakeholders just described, I move the adoption of the following four-part resolution to several SDCP issues. First, with respect to adopting the ecosystem approach. Obviously we spent time both with Paul Fromer and with Sherry Barrett about this and there was what for me was a surprising degree of consensus. Although Paul and Sherry can't really be said to be on the same page with this completely, they do appear to me to be on separate parts of the same page. And what we are proposing here is completely consistent with what we heard from both of them. We were pleasantly surprised to hear that the ecosystem approach, because it has a more robust effect and because it captures more species, is also likely to provide us, and by us I guess I'm not talking about the county, with a little more flexibility and ability to negotiate and to work with Fish & Wildlife Service. Recognizing that the Service is going to evaluate the proposal on a species by species basis, to the extent that there are issues in that respect, the Service will do some weeding out for us. But the approach, everybody tends to agree, is sound. We have one dissenter in our group, and even he is not yet committed to an opposite approach but is wavering and still open-mindedly considering this position. It's also important to point out in this respect that the ecosystem approach provides more of an insurance policy effect, and think that this was meaningful to a number of the members in the "X Group".
The next bullet goes to the length of the permit going to 20 to 50 years. There was pretty much consensus within the group in that nobody advocates for any less than 20 years. Nobody. There is strong sentiment that the longer the better. But there is a dilemma. And that dilemma is the tension between the desire for greater certainty for a longer time and the risks of unforeseeable changes in circumstances or evolution in the science (no pun intended). You will notice that the next bullet is indented under the 20 to 50 year duration proposal, and that is because we believe that the success of the plan over any period of time is really dependent on the quality of the structure of the plan in terms of setting benchmarks and in terms of the strength of our adaptive management program. Adaptive management is the 4th bullet and we think that they actually go pretty, get tied pretty closely together. This is how we address the problem of not wanting to be stuck with our mistakes for too long. This is how we build a certain level of flexibility and adaptability, 'amendability', if you will, into the plan. It's not that we won't have to jump through almost the same series of hoops again if indeed we go for an amendment. But well conceived benchmarks and a well conceived program of adaptive management opens the door and sort of "greases the skids" if changes are needed. It also provides for pacing in the implementation here. We need to understand that both the implementation, the acquisition of the conservationof the acres to be conserved, and the build out for development happen gradually over the life of the permit. And so the benchmarks that we're talking about have the effect of phasing in the permit. We get to take sort of a step by step approach, with a good strong plan in advance of where those steps should lead us. And as we hit each benchmark, the doors remain open to head to the next.
It's important to recognize in this respect that the areas of conservation have to be aligned with the acres of development. And that the ability to fund our plan can also pace its implementation. The benchmarks, as noted on here, need to be thought of primarily in terms of acres not in terms of years. When we hit our acreage targets, we move on. It's also important to recognize that the earlier we take conservation measures, the sooner we get the acres, the more economical it is. And so we believe, that is one of the reasons that we believe there should be a particular emphasis on the first 5 years' benchmarks. Let's get this plan off to a good, solid, sound start. One last note with respect to the last bullet, an "adaptive management", that is a broad term and how it's defined for our purposes depends on how we structure the permit. Again, the byplay between the adaptive management system and the scheme of benchmarks can provide us with a great deal of safeguards for all of the interests around this table.
With that, unless anybody in this "X Group" thinks I'm missing something, I'll throw it open to questions and discussion. The way I think that we're going to try to proceed here is to recognize that what I have presented, as much as I have been able to, has been an objective presentation of the work of the group rather than my own opinions. To the extent that my own opinions snuck in there, I apologize. I will try to field questions on that basis. But recognize that we are a diverse group and a number of the members of this group may also chime in here with answers that may be a little different from mine, representing their own positions. The way we'd like to proceed on this is to move the motion as a whole, all four elements. If it passes, we're done with it. If it doesn't, we'd like to come back and move the elements one at a time. And see what works and what doesn't.
Questions from Steering Committee members:
Question: Are you saying that the group couldn't decide within that range? Or are you asking the Fish & Wildlife Service to give a permit that would be of that range?
Larry: Not quite either. We're saying that the group decided that it's premature to make a decision within that range at this time. We need to have a better sense of what the structure of benchmarks is going to be and what the outline of the adaptive management program is going to be. In order to get a sense of, frankly, how much at risk or on the other hand how safe we feel with the longer period of time. The more safeguards that are built in, the safer we feel carrying it out further. It's a delaying tact.
Question: Do you have any estimates of the difference in costs of monitoring and surveying the 55 species versus the 8?
Larry: Larry: No specific estimates on those costs that we considered here. What we did consider, though, was the general positions that we understood both from Paul and from Sherry to the effect that we actually, somewhat counter-intuitively, build in a greater ability to maneuver within the plan. These are my words, not theirs. Because of the more robust and more inclusive nature of the ecosystem approach. And you may notice that although the ecosystem approach and what we've put in this motion does reference the 55 priority vulnerable species, we're really more focused on it as an approach, as an ecosystem approach to the plan. And again, Fish & Wildlife will filter out those species for which we haven't made a case.
Paul Fromer: Yeah, I think actually Larry just characterized it, the discussions, very well and very fairly in terms of what we presented along the way. I do think that, just to answer the question more specifically, the concern with an 8 species plan focused on individual species, versus the 55 species plan focused on ecosystems, might in fact result in increased species focused survey work for those 8 species. Because the fundamental difference between those plans really is that the 8 species plan would be superimposing 8 single species conservation plans. And so we really have to make sure, for the Service, that we take care of each one of those species, more or less to the exclusion of other biological interests, if that's the focus of the plan. Whereas with the ecosystem based plan, we would be looking more at the general ecosystem characteristics, the habitat characteristics that support not only our covered species, the 55 covered species, but the rest of the biodiversity in the area. And from that is where the additional flexibility in decision making, and I think ultimately in management, will come. So I wouldn't even venture to guess the difference between the costs for implementing and surveying and monitoring and managing 8 versus 55. But I think that, this is just sort of a pragmatic response to that, I think that in the end, a lot of that comes down to how much money is made available through the process and how much benefit is accruing. I would say also, just as another comment on the term of the permit. That's an issue that every regional skill plan has grappled with and I think that your track of thinking is also correct on that. We may be premature to come to that conclusion and a lot of that will fall out as to how the structure and implementation of the plan unfolds. But the longer plan gives more assurances, but our ability to predict farther out into the future is much less able. So I think that there's a lot of discussion that we can have on that that will help to clarify that a little bit later on when we're a little bit farther down the way
Larry: Cindy, responding maybe even a little bit more directly to what I think is the point of your question. Some of the flexibility that we're talking about makes it reasonable to hope, without any guarantees, that it will actually be a more economical implementation. Because it gives us a little bit more room to work with Fish & Wildlife in terms of mitigation ratios, whether the same acreage can be used to mitigate for more than one species in certain limited circumstances for a wide number of variables that can come into play. In the interest of balance, I want to suggest, and I hope, Sherry, I'm not putting you on the spot, if you don't mind. If I'm out to lunch here or overstating things, this is probably a good time to straighten it out.
Sherry Barrett: I do want to express my, how impressed I am with Larry's ability to so accurately portray issues. It seems, Larry, you have a great ability to synthesize information and no, I think that what you've portrayed is accurate from what we discussed.
Question: A few of us that got together and suggested that we should go for 8 species, and if there were some other species that could get folded into that type of range and habitat, we could look at that. But that would be our position is to go for 8 species because it seemed like that would be the way to go for the Section 10, under the current guidelines of what we've heard about.
Larry: As I mentioned, I was actually pleasantly surprised to hear that Paul and Sherry were, again, not completely overlapping but pretty much on the same page with this. And to hear that from both standpoints, the ecosystem approach does hold out greater hope for greater flexibility and in the long run greater efficiency and to be more economical. Again, there's no guarantees on it. There's, you know, "the devil is in the details" and this is only one of a number of steps that we're all taking to start to move from the general to the specific.
Question: Why is it more economical or why do we have a reasonable hope that it will be more economical to implement an ecosystem approach?
Paul: Well, I think from that standpoint, and this would clearly be the hope and it's clearly the way I think that the biological community would prefer to see things done. If we focus on the 8 species as individual species, then for the most part I think we would really need to monitor and measure their habitat requirements and their status and trends individually. As compared with an ecosystem based approach where we would be more flexible probably in being able to look at other indicators in the environment which are habitat or ecosystem indicators that might cover one or more species. And those kinds of measurements are traditionally and, as we find out more and more, usually much less expensive and can be broader in their scope of coverage. So rather than have 8 individual species monitoring programs, which can be very costly, we would have a program which looked at a variety of different measures and as time develops through adaptive management and under the real theory and philosophy of adaptive management, we would be looking for the most appropriate measures in the environment that measure overall ecosystem health and well being. And the goal of that would be to make it as economical as possible. So I think that we have the hope of that economy of actually looking for economy in the future and that as time goes on that we would refine that. And we wouldn't be tied to specifically monitoring little detail ?? for 8 individual species or however many was covered by that individual species ?? plan.
Larry: To tease out one illustration, would it be fair to say that with an ecosystem approach we are more likely to be able to use, to negotiate with the Service touse one unit of a mitigation bank to mitigate for multiple species than we are if we take a species by species approach to the plan?
Paul: Yes, and I think that's the hope that we would be looking at. How the reserve and managed area system looks as a whole and how it deals with all of the species as a whole, and we would be able to make some tradeoffs in, not species versus species, but in overall benefit to the reserve system, as opposed to overall benefit to each individual species looked at separately and then adding one on top of the other.
Question: In conversations with Fish & Wildlife whenever topic arose regarding habitat conservation plan per species, the information has been that in order to get a protection for each of the species, whether it's 8 or 55, you have to look at each species individually. Could you address this?
Paul: Well, I'll answer that from the standpoint of a plan 'preparer', and this was clearly the issue in Clark County where we were trying to develop an ecosystem based plan. But what you're referring to is exactly correct. The Service has to take a look in the approval process for the plan as to how the implementation of the plan would result in take. That's in the NEPA analysis, the EIS portion and the biological opinions of service issues on the issuance of the permit. So they must evaluate within that context how the implementation of the plan would affect listed species. But that doesn't carry on necessarily into the implementation of the plan. They just have to evaluate it from that perspective to make sure that under their roles and responsibilities for being guardians of the listed species, that they don't do harm to those species. That's their mission. But that doesn't necessarily control the implementation of the plan and doesn't make it the focus of the plan.
Sherry: I agree with what Paul said. When you get to the implementation we have to have a monitoring program that ensures that these different species are, that they're doing fine. A lot of those species, however, can be looked at in a monitored approach from the habitat ecosystem standpoint. So we have to make sure each one is somehow encompassed into a monitoring scheme. But it may not be on an individual species by species basis. It may be that if you have the, a lot of species we know that if the community is there and it's functioning appropriately, we can be pretty sure that the species is doing fine.
Question: What kind of habitat are you describing for these 55 species?
Larry: For my purposes, and speaking more I think for myself at this point than for the group, that is an issue that goes to the question of how we're going to set up well reasoned and wise benchmarks and how we're going to link that to a strong adaptive management program. All of the acres don't get conserved at once. And all of the acres to be developed don't get developed at once. We get to set a pace and to hit certain targets. And so with respect to different levels of conservation, if you will, and the various habitats to be addressed, I think that's a matter of taste, timing and adaptability.
David Hogan: Just a point of clarification if you go and you look at the priority vulnerable species document, for example. All of those maps are the occupied habitat, potential habitats, those different layers you're talking about. I believe, from my perspective, and maybe, Paul, you can clarify this if it's different, that theConservation Land System map refined that into the biological core which has the highest potential for all of those species, be it occupied or not occupied. And then it goes down from there, biological core, recovery management areas, multiple use areas and areas outside the CLS. So that's why I look at this as it's written as actually addressing that concern because the Conservation Land System map is that summary.
Question: Are we treading legally uncharted ground by pursuing 55 species with this conservation plan that ignores or trades the habitat of the 8 listed species? And is there something that can be done to prepare for the legal challenges that are sure to arise?
Sherry: This is not uncharted waters. This is the same concept that has been implemented throughout southern California and in Clark County, Nevada, with regard to the multiple species concept, in addition to listed species. So that element is way out there and it would have been challenged already by the many, many lawyers that exist in southern California. With regard to the listed species and the unlisted species, we have to analyze each and every one in the NEPA document and in our biological opinion that we prepare on the issuance of the permit. And in that analysis we have to make sure that the conservation for each species is to measure it with the impact that would occur based on what the proposed action is. So that would address that challenge and that's part of our administrative record that goes into any court challenge, is our very detailed analysis. And Paul Fromer will be very involved in that analysis, even within the development of the Habitat Conservation Plan for each alternative.
Paul: That's exactly what I would have said. Hopefully even better stated. But I would like to reiterate that this clearly is not new ground that we are breaking with this plan. In fact, I think that we are much more conservative in what we are doing and in our approach than are some of the other plans that actually have been approved and haven't been challenged on that basis. So I think we're on very safe territory.
Question: Please address the following concerns-1) for every species you include in the habitat conservation plan, they will treat it as an endangered species. 2) According to the Fish & Wildlife Service website, there are actually 23 species listed as endangered, threatened or candidates species in the county, only 11 of which of those are in the 55 species. So as far as the insurance aspect of this, your plain risk, it depends on whether a new listed species is within the 55 or 11 or 8. 3) Perhaps an ecosystem approach will be more economical to the county, but because of the additional species, it would have a greater impact and a deleterious impact on individual property owners.
Larry: The other side of treating each species as endangered now is that first of all, again, it funnels through Fish & Wildlife Service and so if indeed we are not in a position to treat it that way now, it's likely to be filtered out. I think more important is that if we get that treatment now as part of this process that we're all paying for, one way or another, then when those species do become endangered, the property owners who are affected by that don't have to go through it and incur that significant expense again. That's the insurance aspect.
Paul: When you said that these species will be treated as if they are endangered, what that means is that the Fish & Wildlife Service must look at the plan and how it affects those species and look at each species that is proposed for coverage as if it were covered already. And that is in terms of the expected impacts of the plan and then the mitigation that is being proposed in the plan. But it does not affect how those species are treated from a Section 9 violation or constraints perspective. It only has to do with the analysis the Fish & Wildlife Service is making of how the plan affects those species. Nothing in terms of subsequent implementation or constraints on land where those species occur. They're not treated as if they were listed species on the ground. There are quite a few species that were not included in our list because for the most part they occur only in parts of the county that are not in our plan area or are completely on federal land. For example, species that occur only on the Nation were not included, and species that occur only within the boundaries of National Park Service lands or Forest Service lands. So that's why the list is shorter in that respect.
Question: Why should I as an individual property owner, vote to saddle myself with 55 species when only 11 really are listed?
Sherry: It's a risk analysis. And what you need to look at is the possibility that those species may become listed in the future. It will be cheaper to conserve today under one plan than to have to reopen that plan in the future to incorporate those listed species and to incorporate the conservation for those species. So it really does come down to a risk analysis on the part of the plan.
Paul: The ecosystem based approach and putting together some sort of management program that covers the areas or something similar to the areas that are in the Conservation Land System in reality covers most of the habitat that would be important for not just those 55 species, but a much longer list of species. So were species that we don't have on our list to become a topic of concern and a candidate for listing, it's most likely that we've already covered most of its habitat within our plan because we tried to encompass the full range of biodiversity within the county.
Question: If Fish & Wildlife were to agree to a plan with 55 species, I understand that they would be treated as species that would get full coverage under the ESA. Does that mean that all of these 55 species would have critical habitat assigned to them?
Sherry: No, that does not. What it means is that if we address those species as if they were listed, the day upon which they become listed, they are automatically amended and into the permit. So that's what it means is that the day that they're listed, they are on the permit. Because we've already addressed them as if they were listed. The whole question of whether or not those species will have critical habitat is a separate legal decision that would be made after they're listed determining, under the critical habitat rules.
Paul: And I would add to that that from a practical standpoint, a functioning HCP that's in place would, in fact, supercedes critical habitat, and the rules that are embodied in the terms and conditions of the permit would in fact have more force than critical habitat would have. So as a practical matter, you are establishing critical habitat. Unless there is some significant change in the information or understanding.
Question: What about the 12 additional or the 11 additional. Does that have critical habitat assigned to it?
Sherry: Some of those species do. A couple of the ?? of those species are, just a second. The species that were not included on the priority vulnerable species list include the Sonoran Pronghorn. That species does not have critical habitat. It includes the Mexican Spotted Owl. That species does have critical habitat. But those, like Paul said, are species that are not expected to occur within the area of Pima County development.
Question: If we take this opportunity to list the 55 species, there will be significant additional costs to the people who are asking for permits and so forth, and that's why I have so far asked that we're really doing an appraisal for the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
David Hogan: I think for clarification, this motion isn't about adopting 55 species as the covered species. This motion's about adopting the ecosystem approach using the map so that we can maximize the opportunity to go with 55 species. And say that because Fish & Wildlife Service hasn't done their species by species analysis based on the conservation conditions that are included in the plan. We don't know if it will be 55. It could be, for example, I don't remember if the Mexican Spotted Owl was a priority vulnerable species. It might be. But if it's not, there may be species that are so totally out of the range of unincorporated Pima County jurisdiction that it wouldn't make any sense to have them on the covered species list.
Larry: I'd like one of the property rights activists on the group that's bringing this motion to respond.
Mike Zimet: I'm very concerned with the cost to the individual property owners, dealing with 55 species versus 8. Seemed reasonable to me initially that the smaller number of species we had to deal with, the less costs and concerns for property owners. Now my understanding is simply that if there is going to be surveys necessary to create this ecosystem plan, that cost is not going to be borne by the property owner. It's going to be borne by the community. And if that's not the case, then I'm back to the 8 species, as others might be.
Question: Can somebody refresh our memory on the location of the Conservation Land System under the ecosystem approach versus the 8 speciesapproach? Particularly with respect to kind of the proximity of urban development and projected urban growth?
Paul: If you'll look down in the Tucson basis, down to the south and to the east, the difference between the two plans and where they cover is primarily in that area, in the southeast. The 8 species plan encompasses a lot of the lower, flatter lands down in that area, whereas the 55 species plan doesn't cover that area.
Question: What about land with respect to future projected growth?
Paul: Clearly, future projected growth, clearly a large part of that is in the southeastern portion of the basin, which is in the boundaries of the 8 species plan but not in the 55.
Question: What's being covered under the Section 10?
Larry: I believe the answer is that under this proposal the application would be based on the ecosystem approach that includes all of the biological core, the multiple use and recovery management areas.
Question: What exactly is "a strong program of adaptive management"? What is the definition of that?
Larry: That is a great question and that is one that I hope that this Steering Committee and the various subgroups will spend a good deal of time on. For the moment, the answer that I'm going to give you comes primarily from our group's conversations with Sherry, to some extent with Paul. It's a broad term. And what it means depends on how we structure the permit. And depending on how it's structured in that respect and in conjunction with the benchmarks that we should set up, it could also trigger or open the door to amend the processes when and as we need them.
Sherry Barrett: Adaptive management has been used widely in many different contexts, and I'll tell you that there's two main areas of adaptive management. One is the program adaptive management, which means that you, in this, how the permit is implemented may be able to change over time with new information. The other element of adaptive management is actually on the ground, how you're managing the land for the species. And in that case that ties it to the biological monitoring system. Which shows that is a species is declining, that you do something different to try and reverse that decline on the ground. So I think it's important in this regard that everybody kind of keeps those two separate because they're going to be developed separately.
Question: So it's not land use regulation or 80/20's or 70/30's or anything like that?
Sherry: Not usually, no. Not in this sense. It could be possibly the way you develop it, but there isn't something on paper right now on how this adaptive management would occur. But it's basically, with new information you change what you're doing.
Question: What are the regulatory consequences, what constraints, what requirements will I incur as the property owner if there are species on my land that become listed in the habitat conservation plan?
Sherry: The way this permit would operate is that we would grant a permit to the county and they would need to impose whatever constraints or whatever they have developed, that this group has developed, for those species when you go forth to develop your land. And by doing so, if they include, if we've included unlisted species, they're going to need to address them as if they were listed.
David Hogan: From our perspective, there will be more regulations because they would be covered under the HCP. However, I think the chances are that there would be far less and far less rigorous per species and more focused on ecosystem protections than if they were listed. And I believe that the HCP will provide those assurances for minimizing those regulations. It's the insurance policy and it is a game of risk, but traditionally there are far less rigorous rules and regulations around how to implement the HCP than when they are listed.
Question: On the 8 species map versus the 55 species map, I know that the 8 species map is smaller as far as growth acres. But I was wondering if Paul could clarify how that breaks down to private lands versus public lands on the 55 versus the 8.
Paul: In terms of the numbers, I don't know the specific numbers, I haven't looked at that, the report that we did for awhile. There is a substantial amount. It's probably on the order of 10,000 acres additional that are in private lands, I believe.
Question: Could the same 1.2 million acres presently in the federal land system be used for the SDCP when the 55 species are designated or does this land have to be within the county?
Sherry: It needs to be within, that the mitigation for the pygmy owl, according to the draft recovery plan, needs to be within the recovery unit for that species. And you need to increase the baseline. You can't take lands that already have some conservation. For mitigation you have to increase the baseline because it's already declining.
Comments from the Steering Committee members:
· I would like to make an amendment that you wait on this until the economic study has come through.
· Regarding the emphasis on the first 5 years and how that was somehow not a good thing to do. Now is the time that we can move cheaply. The more we do in 5 years, the cheaper it is for everybody. If we look at a bond issue, which is what we, this group has proposed and what we hope the county will move with, if that passes in a year or so, that will be our first pot of money to help implement this plan. And we need to look at other pots as well, but that's where we start. Doing it now is a lot cheaper than putting it off. Secondly, I feel like it is definitely the time to move on this motion. These are concepts. They are not mitigation ratios, they're not much more specific things that still need to be done. But they lead us in the direction we need to go. They don't preclude changes, but they address the major issues that allow us to then deal the 80/20 or other kinds of smaller scale issues we will have to address. We can't get to those if we don't adopt something like this. From what all I have been able to determine, and I have to tell you when I went into this I did not understand the difference between 8 and 55. I thought 8 sounded better as well. It's counter-intuitive that 55 actually makes more sense or an ecosystem approach makes more sense.
· The members of the Ranching community feel they have been ignored in this motion. Those species aren't uniformly in need of that whole area and they aren't uniformly endangered or uniformly present. We are saying, give us all the constraints of the Endangered Species Act on a species by species basis, but really we're looking at this on an ecosystem basis. The problem is that this motion is full of hooks that we cannot be the least bit certain what they mean except that they mean, take it from the folks in the Altar Valley and solve the problems in the urban area.
· We're getting a permit for the entire unincorporated Pima County. The reason that we are focusing on this CLS map was twofold. One is that those green areas and the blue areas are the places that we would like to see some kind of conservation occur, which the conservation community has not put those details together yet.
Summation by Larry Berlin:
What we're voting on is the ecosystem approach that has resulted in the 55 species map. With the understanding that as it goes through the balance of the process that it will be, there will be some filtering, particularly at Fish & Wildlife. It's the approach that we're buying into at this point. We're not at that level of detail where we address the restrictions that go with each area. If these decisions are made today, then we break that cycle that we have come to refer to as the chicken and egg cycle. We inform and to some extent even instruct the work of the economists. We don't hold it up, we get something that's more directed from them. Similarly, we inform the work that we're to do here, determining who to pay, who's going to pay for this, how to allocate the costs, etc., etc. If as we go down the road, dealing with these issues, fleshing out the details. Fleshing the devil out of the details. If we find the pieces of this aren't going to work and it needs to be revisited. If we experience some buyer's remorse, we can revisit it. as you get to where Paul Fromer and Sherry Barrett are pretty close to each other on the page and an integrated working group that has complied with both the letter and the spirit of this committee's adopted procedures, including property rights folks, two realtors, a half a dozen assorted environmentalists, a homeowner and tenants guy, and even a free agent, tell you that this is the best approach to get us rolling here, and even economically it's most likely to be the most feasible and affordable, folks, we invite you all to jump on board.
David Steele: The proponents of the motion have asked that the elements of this motion be voted en block, all in its entirety.
Motion: To adopt the following four-part resolution en block:
· Adopt the 'ecosystem' approach that has resulted in a Conservation
Land System map that protects the habitat of 55 'priority vulnerable
species.'
· Be permitted for 20-50 years, with the decision on the exact duration of the permit to be made after other details of the application are completed.
· Recognize that the successful implementation of the Plan over any extended period of years requires the inclusion of reasonable 'benchmarks':
a. Identify 'benchmarks' primarily in terms of acres to be conserved.
b. Place special emphasis on the 'benchmark(s)' to be reached in the first five years.
· Include a strong program of 'adaptive management.'
Action: Motion passed.
Members present: 45 Yes votes: 33 No votes: 12
New Business:
Coordinating Steering Committee Work with Economics Consultant
Speakers: Judie Scalise, Principal, ESI; Brian Moore, Economist, ESI; Dr. Ken Kingsley, Environmental Scientist, SWCA; Mike List, Associate, SWCA.
Judie Scalise: I'm happy to have the opportunity to be down here with you this morning to talk to you a little bit about who we are. I want to introduce you to some of the members of the project team and then just very briefly go through the scope of work that we're going to be undertaking. We just started work a couple of weeks ago so we don't have any of the findings or anything in a preliminary nature to present to you this morning, but look forward to the opportunity of coming back here and doing that at one of your next meetings.
ESI Corporation, we founded the firm in 1990, we've been around for 12 years. We work in two specific areas. We do a lot of strategic planning work for economic development organizations. And we also do predevelopment planning work for communities, non-profit corporations, private developers and so forth. And the nature of the work that we do as it relates to predevelopment planning includes market analysis and feasibility, economic and physical impact assessments and the like. With me today is our sub-consultant, SWCA. As we reviewed the RFP that came out, it became very clear to us that while we're economics and specialists on economic consulting, we're not specialists when it comes to the Endangered Species Act. And so we teamed up with SWCA who obviously has that experience on that side. I'd like to take a moment and introduce to you my associate, Brian Moore. Brian is an economist on staff and will be one of the principal economists researching and preparing this report. With here this morning also is Dr. Ken Kingsley, which I'm sure many of you know. He is very involved in helping us on the biological aspects of the proposal. And then his associate, Mike List. Mike is going to be working with us in preparing the GIS suitability analysis. Just to let you know that my firm also has GIS enhanced capabilities, so we're working very closely with Mike in putting that together and so we feel there's a lot of compatibilities between what we're doing and what they're doing and how we're operating.
What I'd like to do now, unless Ken you have something you want to get up and say? What I'd like to do now is introduce you again to Brian Moore and Brian will tell you briefly what it is that we're going to do. And then at some point I'm sure you're going to have some questions, so I don't want to belabor my getting up here and talking. We'll get to your questions as well.
Brian Moore, Economist, EIS: We're working on the economic analysis of the pursuit of the Section 10 permit. And what that's going to entail is documenting adaptive management, program costs that can be expected, examining fiscally advantageous phasing, as it was called. Identifying when and where and how the county should acquire land, in pursuit of the Section 10 permit or after it is adopted. And the way we will get there is by doing economic projections for three different scenarios. The first of which is a status quo where the county does not pursue the Section 10 permit and what are the implications to development in Pima County. Then the second scenario will be if Pima County does pursue and get the Section 10 permit and the implications there to different types of development under existing zoning constraints still. And then the third scenario is, the county gets the Section 10 permit and zoning constraints are lifted, for our model, and the implications there to economic development. The way those, those 3 scenarios also will work with the possibilities of the endangered species only alternative or also the preferred biological alternative, which you all are familiar with, and the different interactions that will occur because of that activity. And there are some other ?? things going into different levels of mitigation ratios, so there's some more details in each scenario. And for each scenario we'll also document the impacts to different constituency groups, Pima County government, the other jurisdictions, the ranching community, to name a few. The way this will all work is with a GIS suitability model that we will cast our development projections on. And I'm going to let Mike talk about that.
Mike List, Associate, SWCA: Hi. We're meeting with the county a week from Tuesday in 10 days to really flesh out some of our assumptions and methods in terms of the GIS analysis. But I can say now that the county's been very cooperative in providing us with any of the data that we've asked for. John provided a list of 600 potential coverages that we could use. We grabbed about 150 of them. And in terms of our suitability analysis, I think we've identified about 20 or 25 that will serve as factors or constraints that might influence development in eastern Pima County. The way we weight those and treat them and skill them, and I don't want to go into too much detail, technical detail, will be resolved at that meeting on February 11th hopefully. Our firm has made, I know a problem when this exercise was tried about a year and a half ago was (inaudible)economic analysis we're only going to deal with the GIS data. Our firm has made a profound investment in staff and hardware and software and we're really excited to get started on this project. John has done all the heavy duty work in terms of database construction and maintenance, so it's up to us to really run with it and perform a defensible analysis. With that, I'll hand it back to Judie.
Judie Scalise: Just to kind of give you a time horizon here in terms of the completion of our project. As Mike mentioned, our next step is to have a meeting on February 11th with the county staff, and again it's to present to them the assumptions that are going to be made for the suitability analysis. It's important that everybody get on the same page to agree with those assumptions before we take it to the next step, which is essentially do the economic modeling. It's simulating the development of Tucson for over 3 time horizons, 10 years, 20 years and then build-out. And we don't want to do that until we are all on the same page relative to the suitability analysis for the GIS component of this. And then we will be having a series of meetings with the county after that. We hope to have our work wrapped up the end of March. I understand that there is work that this committee is doing and we seem to be on parallel paths with what we're doing. I think that hopefully that at the end of everything that we can all come together and get our arms around that.
Questions from Steering Committee members:
Question: to what extent you are going to be looking at the economic consequences depending on the length and duration of the permit application?
Judie: We have 3 time horizons that we will be looking at. And the first one is the 10-year time horizon, and again it's the 3 scenarios that Brian articulated. Status quo, no Section 10 permit applied for. Section 10 permit applied for, zoning stays the same. And then the 3rd scenario is Section 10 permit applied for and zoning is allowed to be lifted, you can rezone and so forth. So we're looking at that at 10 years, we're looking at that again at 20 years, and then what is determined to be build-out. So I don't know how long it's going to take you to get your Section 10 permit. I don't know if it's going to take you 4 years, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, but those are the time horizons that were scoped out and that we were asked to do our analysis based on.
Question: What do you mean by build-up, build-out? San Diego, for example, applied for a 50-year permit, Section 10 permit. I don't know what we're going to apply for and I don't know what you mean by build-out and I don't know whether what you're doing is going to be useful to us if we don't address those timelines.
Judie: Okay, in terms of what we mean by build-out, obviously that's a very elusive scenario. And it looks at what your population projections are and the maximum ceiling that we've given, which is definitely a ceiling in terms of any build-out population, is the amount of water that would be available for any population for residential, commercial, industrial uses. So that presents that artificial ceiling for us to look at. Based on the land that's available today, based on the projected growth that is through the population projections that we were using from PAG and then spinning the type of activity that would result as a result of the population growth and then looking at the amount of water that would be available to support those uses. That becomes what build-out would be. I can't tell you what point in time that is and I don't think anybody can.
Question: It was my understanding that the Steering Committee was going to be able to present to the economic consultants its ideas of what it would like to see, what the Committee would like to see the report take. It sounds to me that if you and the county are going to be agreeing on these alternatives on February 11th, I beg your pardon, assumptions on February 11th, that the Steering Committee is going to be basically foreclosed from bringing that kind of input to you. And in my understanding of your methods of reaching your stated goals, those assumptions are critical. I think that it would be important that the Steering Committee have input as to those assumptions.
Judie: and there are actually two sets of assumptions. There are the assumptions that go into the suitability GIS model, and then there are also assumptions that need to be made that go into the economic model. And is there a problem with providing them with a copy of those assumptions as we go forward? And so we would be able to provide that to you. In terms of the, I mean, the difficulty is that you have, what? Monthly meetings? You know, we're on a pretty fast track to move this forward. So perhaps after our meeting on the 11th is that we could provide you with that information and then you can have the opportunity at your meeting on the 15th to provide us with some feedback. So I think there is opportunity here. We're not suggesting that the Steering Committee doesn't have the opportunity to provide us with your input along the way. We definitely are here and we're very open and want to get that from you as well.
Question: In regards to the water, are you making provision for conversion of, for instance, agricultural or mining water rights to residential rights? Is that flexibility built into the term build-out?
Judie: I couldn't answer the question at this point in time because we haven't gotten to that level of our analysis yet.
Question: I want to know if you're prosecuting a study that will do an economic appraisal of the Section 10 permit or if your study is more ambitious than that and will be an economic appraisal of the impact of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. I see those as two very different things.
Judie: They are two very different things. We were charged with the task of pursuing the study under the Section 10 permit.
Question: How are you going to quantify the benefits of open space and biological diversity?
Judie: Ken Kingsley is working on that piece of the project.
Ken Kingsley, Environmental Scientist, SWCA: The actual quantification of biological diversity and open space, as I'm sure most of you are well aware, is a very, very challenging and difficult thing to do. And I, right now at this stage, have no answers, but I'm certainly open to input from you and anyone else on the committee. We have available to us, and are carefully considering, the documents that were prepared that had to do with that that were handed out at one of these meetings about 5 or 6 months ago. And the standard literature on such a thing. There is some literature available. But it is a very challenging and difficult thing to do, so please give us your input if you have specific input on that.
David Steele: The Coalition had hired an economist from up in the northwest and he did that economic analysis that the Coalition gave out 4 or 5 months ago. So we'd most likely be able to give you him if you would like to talk to him.
Ken: That would be wonderful, thank you. And you know how to get a hold of me. Please do. The other part that I'm doing, two other parts that I'm doing, one is attempting to put a cost value on the adaptive management program and all of its bits and pieces. That includes what does it cost to go out and do surveys for the various species that we're concerned about. And what would it cost to adapt to the presence of such creatures, as we're concerned about. Also, the other role I've had is to be involved in bringing the staff of ESI up to speed on what's been going on here and giving them the support of my experience and knowledge of the biological issues in this area.
Question: One gentleman mentioned 25 development factors that had been identified. I'd like to know what they are and how you identify them.
Judie: The suitability analysis and the 25 factors, Mike can read you the whole list but in part it has to do with, you know, floodplains as a factor, slope, cultural resources, archeological resources, endangered species, infrastructure. Mike, if there are some others, maybe you can go through your list? I mean, not to be vague about it at all, but these are pretty much the layers that we have received from the county. So when you start to build the community through this GIS database, our starting point, obviously we have to look, okay, one, if this land is even developable. What can you develop, what do you eliminate right off the bat. So looking at this screening, using this as a screening method.
Mike List: Well, we're dividing the GIS layers that input into the analysis into two types: factors and constraints. Constraints are absolute impediments to development, they'll mask out geographic portions of the analysis. When I go down this list of factors and constraints, you won't hear 25 total factors and constraints. Keep in mind that some of these factors and constraints are amalgams of multiple layers. In terms of constraints, the first thing we're not going to consider is the existing built environment, for obvious reasons. We're looking at vacant land and land to be developed. Another constraint would be existing preserves, proposed preserves, 100-year flood events, areas of 100-year flood events, landfills. Again, that's an amalgam of various coverages. Mine footprints and then Indian lands within the geographic scope of analysis.
Now the factors are still a little bit up in the air, both internally and we haven't talked with the county staff yet, but we're talking about looking at transportation in a number of ways. We want to construct a street network cost surface, and the easiest way to explain that is we're going to use the county's street network GIS layer as well as a layer which is a subset of that which functionally classifies streets, and model ease and hardship of movement from the built environment to target parcels based upon whether a street is a major arterial or a rural built road and everything in between. We're looking at proximity to existing sewer infrastructure. Slope gradient, program CIP's transportation, program CIP's wastewater management, proximity to the built environment with regard to vacant land considerations. And we're still wrestling with how we're going to model water service. And we're going to model suitability based upon 6 kind of amalgamated land uses.
An important thing to note in terms of our analysis is that we are going to be modeling development suitability differently in terms of 6 condensed land uses: low density residential, high density residential, commercial retail, industrial, urban open space, parks and golf courses, and possibly agricultural, another thing we really need to talk with county staff about. So development suitability will be modeled for each of those 6 kind of amalgamated land uses. For low density residential, we have an additional factor, which is proximity to preserves, or basically proximity to constraints. The idea that low density residential, it would be nice to be backed up against a park or against a floodplain where you don't have any neighbors is the motivation. And all of these factors are weighted. So some are more important than the other in terms of constructing the maps.
Question: Will your work include projecting the effects of the plan on land and property values and projecting the effects of the plan on the county's revenues and expenses?
Judie: Yes, we are doing a cost benefit analysis and looking at the projected benefits as it relates to the economy and as it filters throughout the economy, that includes the property values.
Question: Whether the permit is for 50 years, 40 years, 30 years or 10 years, the important thing is that we provide Fish & Wildlife with an assured funding source. And to that end, my question to you is, will your report continue the costs of the plan as it progresses through its stages?
Judie: Yeah, at the end of the day, what we come back with definitely is that whole financing mechanism. What is it going to cost? And recommendations perhaps going forward on what the funding sources will be. We've been looking at under the laws in Arizona, what is allowed here. We'll be looking at other areas to see what other areas have done that perhaps might be introduced as a potential way to finance. And certainly under the scenario, whether you're phasing this acquisition or if you're able to purchase all at once, we don't know. Because we don't know what the number is at this point in time. But to answer your question, yes, we will be looking at that.
Question: In terms of your inventory of available land, how are you treating the state lands?
Judie: The state lands, the grid is placed on all of the land in Pima, you know, eastern Pima County. The state lands in terms of mitigation is not a part of this project. They would be responsible, as well the unincorporated communities. So they would be responsible for doing their own mitigation. We're not doing any cost analysis on that.
Question: are you including state land as available land for development or is that out of the analysis?
Judie: No, that is included as available land for development.
Question: How do you do that? It's not available.
Judie: The state land department has conceptual land use plans on some of the state lands that they have south of the city and their planning horizon could be 10, 20, 50 years out as well. So we have to make some assumptions as to when that land will come on the market and at what point in time will the state land department have a disposition of those parcels. Again, it's going back to some of the assumptions that we have to make as it pertains to the economic model.
Question: Are you doing a cost analysis on the local community? Or are you only doing it from Pima County's point of view?
Judie: What we're looking at, again it was mentioned on the vacant land. So it's a county-wide plan. I mean, we're looking at the entire eastern Pima County including the communities as part of this analysis in the GIS and the grid system that we're creating. But the cost for the, looking at the endangered species permit, Section 10 permit, is for the county. And the costs for what the county would have to do.
Question: I'm from rural Pima County and we have a little school district out there and you do not look at what removing some private land will do to the ability of that school to stay open?
Judie: What we're not doing is looking at individual parcels and saying, okay, this parcel, you know, is a parcel for mitigation, this parcel is not. We're not doing that level of analysis. It's not on a parcel basis like that.
Ken Kingsley: Several of the questions I've been hearing have, specifically we are following a scope of services that the county asked us to propose on and agree to. And it's a matter of public record and if you have more detailed questions than you have time for this morning, please get a copy of that scope of services and read it. And then if you see something that should have been in that scope of services or something that you believe that our team should take a look at, please make comment to the county. Part of the contract calls for additional services as needed. But we are committed to a very specific scope of services that unfortunately your question and some of the other questions were not included in that scope of services. We'd be happy, I think, to take a look at some of those things.
Question: The county identified growth areas where money, development funds, etc. could be focused for infill and accounting for larger population groups. It's counter productive to exclude those because those growth areas are areas where redevelopment funds, shared funding sources, etc. can be utilized where infrastructure already exists and where I think the community is looking to see further enhanced development where services don't cost more to provide, where they're already existent. The counter approach to that is basically a model for sprawl which says that you're going to take up all the vacant land and sprawl out to it and gauge the cost of those services. And I'd like to include in your model not the exclusion of the built environment but the potential for the built environment to handle these designated growth areas and infill. Because that's going to be a far more cost effective than the sprawl model. And it sounds like you're looking at a sprawl model.
Mike List: Okay. Well, I have a couple ideas. There's two things about your comment, and thank you, I think it's a good one. One is that a sprawl model, as you called it, is conservative in the sense that it is identifying the highest possible cost to all groups of this process. So we're setting the upper bound for the costs using that. And the other thing is that we are able to constrain our projections. We're doing a projection of overall new population, overall new jobs and the land that they need to absorb. We can certainly constrain those to say, gee, make assumptions that some of them wind up in the built environment. But at that point we don't need to know where, just as long as that land is available. So our model is looking at can be constrained in that way.
Question: When you said Pima County, that was incorporated and unincorporated Pima County?
Judie: Eastern incorporated and unincorporated Pima County.
Question: To what extent you're taking into account the PAG maps of future road development plans over extended periods of time?
Brian: We've been provided by Pima County with a series of coverages for 5 year capital improvements regarding transportation for Pima County and all the jurisdictions. But that we will compare those? Okay, we will contact PAG and we would like to have those. So that will be one of the first things we do on Monday is contact PAG for sure.
Questions from members of the public:
Harold Barnett: Clearly the cost of the program's going to include the cost of acquiring land for conservation. It's going to include the cost of acquiring development rights through TDR. There's also going to be a cost, though, to the extent that the county restricts development relative to existing zoning on vacant land. And it's either going to be a cost to the landowner or a cost to the county if the county compensates. Are you going to include that in your cost estimate regardless of whom the cost burden falls on?
Judie: You know, until we get to that point, we don't know what the magnitude of that scenario would be on what we're doing. If that's, I mean, at this point in time we can't even begin to answer how we're going to address the cost portion of this because we haven't gotten far enough along in our study process. But certainly I take your comments and we will look at that as we get to that point in time.
Pete Tescione: Oh, yeah, there we go. Your predecessors I think were on the job for 8 months or more and they were just at the preliminary stages of evolving their analysis. You mentioned at the top of your presentation, today's February 1st, you expect to be done by March 31st or whatever. You just in answering Mr. Barnett's questions said that we don't know where we're going with this yet, we're just getting started, there's a lot we have to find out. Do you realistically expect that you're going to have this done by the 31st, with all these variables and contingencies and do you expect that this is just going to be going through the motions, like a rudimentary or perfunctory kind of analysis? How can you possibly do this in less than 60 days?
Judie: I can't speak to what our, what the Morrison Institute did, I don't know what their scope of work was and what they were contracted to do. We certainly have the benefits of the report that they prepared and they've taken us up to the point where our piece of it essentially is the modeling. And we are well underway with creating the suitability model and getting some agreement on what the assumptions will be is February 11th. Now in terms of us being done by March 31st, that is definitely our goal. I will say to you that depending on how much review process there is in between, how much additional discussion at the Steering Committee level that there might be and discussions about assumptions, that certainly could delay the completion of this project. So if we didn't have anybody's input I'm sure we could be done by the end of the month, not the end of March. But I'm a realist, so that is our goal and we will work very hard to try to meet that goal. Because we know that you've been at this a long time and it's time to move on. And, you know, we're here and we're ready to help you move on. But we certainly respect the opportunity that you need in order to provide us with the input and we will allocate that into the timeframe that we have. And if we reach a point where it's being delayed, certainly we will sit down and talk to Maeveen and we'll go from there.
David Steele: If anyone has any further questions for Dr. Kingsley, Judie or their team, you can send them to me and I will pass them along to the correct person.
Future meeting schedules and issues for future meeting agendas and new business
The Steering Committee discussed keeping to a March deadline and the addition of more meetings and study sessions.
· Motion: Add a Study Session on Wednesday, February 26.
Action: Study Session -- Wednesday, February 26th from 6:00pm to 9:00pm
Motion Passed Unanimously.
· Motion: Add two more meetings:
Meeting Saturday, March 1st from 8:30am to 11:30am and if necessary, Wednesday, March 5th from 6:00pm to 9:00pm
Action: Motion Passed
Members present: 45 Yes votes: 27 No votes: 18
The Steering Committee decided to discuss, consider and take action at its February 1, 2003 meeting on the following issues:
Conservation Land System Acquisition Criteria
* Some stakeholder groups have been working on criteria that would be used in the acquisition of the core area. Discussion and action will take place at the February15th meeting and the Steering Committee will make a decision on the 15th.Mitigation Ratios
* Sherry Barrett, Field Supervisor with the US Fish and Wildlife Service will be addressing this issue at the February 15th meeting.Private Property Rights Issues
* This issue needs to be discussed at greater length in order to arrive at consensus by March 1st.Regulatory Streamlining
* This issue will be discussed at the February 26th Study Session and voted on at the March 1st meeting.Adaptive Management
* This issue will be discussed at the February 26th Study Session and voted on at the March 1st meeting.Area Specific Issues
* Any other issues that the Steering Committee brings up will be discussed at the February 26th Study Session and voted on at the March 1st meeting.
Call to the Public: None.
Adjourn:
Adjourned 11:30 am