SDCP - Steering Committee
Sheraton Tucson, 7pm to 9pm
Wednesday, November 7, 2001
Meeting Minutes
Participants: See attached sign-in sheet, David Steele, Maeveen Behan and SIMG staff.
Speaker: Mr. Chuck Huckelberry, Pima County Administrator
Goal: To have the Steering Committee organize itself in order to complete its duty to the County.
Meeting Commenced at 7:00 pm.
Meeting commenced with 42 Steering Committee members and 20 members of the general public. David Steele opened up the meeting by introducing himself and requesting a moment of silence in respect the passing of Steering Committee member Lance McVittie. David then provided a brief re-cap of the Ad-Hoc meeting on October 24, 2001.
Re-cap of the Ad-Hoc Organizational Steering Committee:
1. Create an Agenda for the November 7th Steering Committee meeting.
2. Draft letter of inquiry to those Steering Committee members that have attended less than 50% of the meetings.
3. Requesting an Economic Analysis from the County.
4. Steering Committee members to review and make changes on the draft of the Operating Guidelines and send to David Steele, who will make the revisions and return the draft to the Steering Committee for review.
5. Recommend that Facilitator present the report on behalf of the Steering Committee and bring back any questions, changes or concerns to the Steering Committee for answers, recommendations and reviews.
6. This information was provided in memo form, along with the agenda for the November 7th meeting, the power point presentation, Spreadsheet with member attendance, transcript of the Board of Supervisors' proceedings leading to October 9th letter from Chuck Huckelberry and minutes from the October 6th Steering Committee meeting, to the Steering Committee members via mail. A complete package was delivered to Maeveen Behan, of the Pima County Planning Department, in compliance with the Open Meeting Law.
Documents made available to the Steering Committee members at the meeting:
* Additional flow chart from Steering Committee member, Debbie Hecht.
* Meeting notes from the Ad-Hoc Sub-Committee.
* Letter from Steering Committee member, Carl Winters
* Proposal from Morrison Institute to the County.
* Extra Agendas and meeting packages.
Logistics for the next meeting:
Saturday, December 1, 2001 from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm. The members of the Steering Committee requested a central location for this meeting. SIMG Staff suggested the following location to the Steering Committee for their approval.
Randolph Golf Course Clubhouse
600 South Alvernon Way
9:30 am to 12:30 pm
Comments:
* None
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. Speak into the microphones
6. At appointed time, move to decision making or next topic
7. Start and end on time.
Comments:
* None.
Vote : Ground rules should apply to this agenda.
Revision of previous minutes:
Discussion:
· Page three under Consensus: Elements of proposals one and three were combined not the entire proposal.
· Pages of the minutes will be numbered.
· The minutes of the October 6th Executive Session were not attached. Those minutes are to be available at the December 1st meeting and will be approved at that time.
Call to the Public:
Comments:
* The Morrison Institute Proposal does not show cost of implementing this plan. Meaning, costs of purchasing land for parks, easements, etc. Why aren't those costs being studied?
* The agendas that are being posted at the County are not the same as the agendas handed out here. The agendas posted at the County should be more detailed.
Guest Speaker Chuck Huckelberry:
I don't know if there are any specific issues other than the items listed on the agenda, so let me try and go over those and kind of tell you where the county staff is and where we've been since we last talked in May out at the Desert Museum and said go forth and figure out what to do and govern yourselves. It sounds like we're still working on that and that's fine because it's within the timelines that we anticipated. The process has continued to move forward from mostly a staff and consulting perspective. You see, from time to time, things in the media that are reported on the plan and those are active and reactive to probably a lot of opinions that are being formulated, good and bad about the plan, and that's fine because discourse and debate will in fact improve the product. We had an update and we felt it was appropriate to update the Board in October of this year and I think that's what we included and sent to the Steering Committee in that update and what you can probably gather from that update is that much of the biological science component of the Plan has been completed. The issue with regard to the science technical advisory team the consultants of Recon have completed much of the very initial biological work on the Plan and that was reported in a series of documents. I understand, I hope, that you are going to have the consultants and the Science Technical Advisory Team here. Very quickly, to go over with you, probably in its abbreviated form, about a 200-hundred page document dealing with the Plan, the species, the designation and identification of areas of potential conservation and their differentiation of those conservation areas as opposed to what was released and reported on earlier that year in March and March 2001 and we commonly call that by folks who have attached a name to it in the media and others, the purple map. The purple map was identified originally in March of 2001. What it was, was the preliminary work of the science community with regards to the preferred biological area of conservation. It didn't talk about restrictions, it didn't talk about what was good or bad about the particular areas. It did not differentiate those. The work that's been completed today differentiates those into a series of categories ranging from linkages on one side and riparian areas down to areas called biological core and reserve core and a lot of other definitions that the consultants and science team are better able to define for you. The result of that was reported to the Board in October. Much of the science on the biological side is done. You probably also read about a peer review process that was conducted by two members with some fairly significant national reputations in conservation biology. One person couldn't attend, had his back go out and you can't force somebody to get on a plane when they're in pain. It was a two person peer review. And I think the peer review was relatively successful. It indicated that the purposes of the conservation Plan to date, and the focus of biology were met. That the science is probably significantly diverse and strong in a sense that it can withstand alternative opinions and obviously in the areas of biological sciences which are not mathematical sciences or physical sciences, there are areas for differences of opinion. It was important to get the Peer Review done, and that's done. We're also in the process with our consultant and this should not be of any significant surprise to you, in developing all the alternatives that obviously that when we get down in the agenda here, to the Scope of the Steering Committee and what you do. I can probably, if you would like, you all have received so much material from us, so often and it has been so voluminous that very often you may have missed the sentences in the cover letter that talks about your Scope. But it is in fact to review and comment and to help shape the alternatives that move forward in refining and developing the Section Ten Permit for the Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan. We can kind of go back in and pull everyone of those sentences or paragraphs from communications that have been sent in the past and if that helps kind of helps summarize Scope and Concept. Back to the issue of what we're having the consultants do now. The consultants now are actually defining, and again, as an alternative. Now we've talked about alternatives. And one of the alternatives will in fact be this differentiated biological reserve that you see as one of the maps in the attachment to the update to the Board. Another alternative will be, 'do nothing'. The No Action alternatives. We have heard from a number of folks that we have over reacted, that we've over conserved. That we have gone way beyond what is required by federal law and talking about 56 priority vulnerable species. We're actually producing some technical work now through the consultants that talk about what the reserve design would look like if all we did was protect the endangered species that exist today. That work should be done fairly quickly. Obviously it will be given to the Committee in full volume, so again you can decide whether or not to use that as one of the alternatives. What the staff has been doing is finishing the science. Science is basically done. We will have sufficient, different information with regard to species and species protection. As to allow the committee to make some decisions about which alternatives go forward. Those are the alternatives that get plugged into the Environmental Impact Statement and get discussed with regard to what their impacts are and I hope that you will invite the Federal agencies next month, I hope, I believe. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to talk about that process. That now that the science is done the alternatives can in fact be evaluated and what those alternatives mean with regard to this mythical Section Ten Permit for the Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan. That will then give you probably a little more insight to what occurs in the alternatives evaluation and how the Federal Government who ultimately has to give this permit believes that A) the Science meets the criteria which they can in fact give the permit on, and B) the alternative that you may consider are also viable alternatives on which to issue this permit. Another thing I think you heard about, you had a little trouble scheduling folks from Phoenix, which is the Morrison Institute. It looks like what you need to do is hear from them, I would assume, sometime in late January, February. Hopefully their work will be done in accordance with the Scope and Definition that I think you have all see and been given. It will give you some insight with regard to the impact Analysis particularly as it relates to the economics. It's not going to answer that age old question, because no one can answer it, about how much the Plan is going to cost. That's what we keep hearing from everyone, 'Is it going to cost $501,297,058 dollars?' and no one can give you that. No one will even be able to give you that even in the alternatives analysis. Once you then get through the Morrison Institute, probably in February, I think that then is when your real work begins and that is in fact forming series alternatives to take to final and formal EIS Public Review and Comment for adoption. Later on in the calendar year 2002. So that's kind of the schedule. I would hope that you could begin talking and evaluating alternatives in March, April, May, June, and come to some recommendation during the summer in which to forward that recommendation to the Board. Let me talk a little bit about the update and the recommendation adopted by the Board with regard to updates from the Steering Committee. I think the Board would like to hear from you. Would like to hear from you on a collective basis or an individual basis. They hear from you, many of you, individually, so don't feel bashful about writing down what you think and sending it to them because that is public input in review. But I think they also want to know collectively what the Body thinks with regard to the Plan. If you have issues, concerns its an appropriate mechanism and venue for which you can get those as a collective body put before the Board for review and discussion. Let me give you a 'For Example' One of the items here talks about Resources available to the Steering Committee. You have the same resources available to you that we have to us. For the most part all those resources are programmed into particular work elements or action items that are on-going now or are anticipated to be on-going through the balance and completion of this process. We have heard that some of you would like other studies. You want to check on the checkers, or whatever. If you want to do that, you know that is your collective opinion as a Steering Committee. You can make that request of the Board and the money that could be made available for that purpose would come from the Board's contingency fund. Which everybody gets to make a request for and the Board will decide the merits and determine what to fund and when to fund it, how to fund it and what to do. So I think that is your mechanism if you want to do more studies, if you want to re-do this, do this differently, if you want a Minerals Component to the Conservation Plan. Figure out what it is, figure out what it costs, make a recommendation, get the Steering Committee to approve the expenditure of those resources for that purpose and request the Board of Supervisors provide the funds through their contingency fund.
Let me finish a couple of other things here. Linkage; Preferred Alternatives Analysis, how does all that work? Well, it works by people sitting down and saying here is what we think is important or not important with regard to making some of this work. Here is what is important in this particular region or subregion or sub-area and we would like to see this either promoted in this area or ignored in this area. And again that is the per view of the Steering Committee. Those answers and linkages are obviously not easy and not direct. I think a lot of people think, 'lets answer a lot of basic and real fundamental questions and then the answer will obviously pop out and voila! We'll be done!' Well that's not going to happen. There are no easy answers or clear cut answers for every postulation, and I think this is what's important and I think that probably all of you know this, is that its however you frame an issue and frame a question and talk about the postulations about answers can give you about four or five different answers for say the same question depending upon the assumptions going in. I think that if you believe there are magic answers out there, we would be done, your hard work and tough work wouldn't be necessary. It is absolutely necessary because of collective wisdom. We also talk about, and I will talk a little bit about my bosses, which is always dangerous, I think that all of you have your own opinions and your own ideas and you can express them individually. You may be right, you may be wrong, that is exactly the way the Board of Supervisors works. As individuals they express their opinions, state their beliefs, and they may be right or wrong, but what is important is that collective wisdom of the body. And that is the governing body of Pima county called the Board of Supervisors. Their individual concepts and ideas usually and may not carry forward. What carries forward and what actually works is the collective wisdom of the body and that is in fact why the Steering Committee is formed. We're looking for the collective wisdom of the body, not the individual ideas of the individual folks who make up the body. Timelines, timelines we hope that you hear from the Feds as much as you want to hear or as little as you want to hear. You finish the deliberation and an important deliberation of how you express the collective wisdom of this body in governance. A lot of you probably have patience that has grown thin in the discussions but it is an important thing to reach a conclusion about. We hope that in January you will hear from the consultants. Our consultant is Recon and we will have probably have the extensive show, it's up to you. If you want to learn everything there is about reserve design and about how boundaries' exterior to the reserve design were finalized, how interior boundaries were differentiated, what's important, what's not important. We can probably arrange for a two hour slide show for you with a biologist and with a science technical advisory team. I think it's important they also come here and you get to see them, talk to them and quiz them about their science, particularly now that it has gone through independent nationally recognized expert conservation biologists. We hope then also then after that in February, hear from the Morrison Institute about the economic issues. I think it is important to call them issues and not necessarily consequences because everything is an opportunity how we view it is how it ultimately will be successful or unsuccessful. If we talk about specific amounts of dollars, specific time frames in action items, it ultimately will get people bogged down. We're looking for, again this kind of collective vision on conservation. It involves a Section Ten Permit, no question about it, but it also involves much longer term and broader vision that deals with the ultimate form and how Pima county treats its natural and cultural resources. Then I think the next thing you're off, hopefully in deliberations, with regard to alternatives. Whether all of you like the 'No Action' alternative that's fine. That states your collective wisdom and opinion. If you like anything in-between or any alterations in between, that's also how you will be basically able to provide input into this process. Depending upon publication, written comment, response to written comment and everything else that happens in an EIS process. We're probably talking another three months to six months for all that to shake down. Then ultimately a decision by the Board of Supervisors. We hope that long before the end of 2002. So that's timeframes, timelines, resources, where to get resources, where we are, what we're doing, etc. if you got some questions, I'll try to answer them.
Question: I need a clarification. When we started this process, we talked about cultural, historic resources as well as the Section Ten Permit. But tonight, if I understood you correctly, you say that our scope is limited to the Section Ten Permit. Could you clarify that?
Mr. Huckelberry: Yes, your purpose on the record and legally with regard to the Section Ten Permit as an EIS process on the Section Ten. Your scope, while we talk, is absolutely required on the Section Ten Permit, it is also obviously, permissible to participate in the balance of recommendations on the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. That includes any of the elements that might fall outside area of biology and the Section Ten Permit. We have never, I think, envisioned that your scope is directly and specifically limited to Section Ten. Your most important work is Section Ten, with regard to the EIS process formulation of alternatives and recommendations as a citizen participation process. You can make recommendations on the Conservation Plan itself over arching all day long, collectively, individually, everybody does, everybody has, and we expect everybody to continue to do so.
Question: I hope that in January when we hear from these other teams like the science team, that the ranch technical advisory team could also be part of that phase for this committee's benefit. My question is whether the sub-area planning aspect of putting together the SDCP is going to be part of the process. The county had initiated meetings about a year ago that were helpful and good at the time and I wondered whether that way of looking at things will be part of the process or no.
Mr. Huckelberry: Any team is welcome to come and present. Absolutely. If we need to get the Ranching Team here we'll do that. We need to get the Cultural Team here, we will do that. Again it's trying to be cognizant of your time and what you think are the most important issues. You will find that in many cases preservation of one set of resources will in fact help protect another. And that is the case with biological and cultural resources, particularly in the riparian areas, but we can absolutely invite the Ranch Team again consensus if you want to do that, fine. Same thing with the Cultural Team and anyone else you want to hear from. Second part was Sub area discussion. We had very early on, had the resource base broken down into sub regions and its fine if you want to proceed by the subregion, fine if you want to proceed by the whole. We received a little bit of criticism when we first went off into the subregion. Some thought we were trying to divide and conquer the Steering Committee and so we said, let's look at the big picture. We don't have any particular way in which we want to organize or control the information either regionally or sub-regionally.
Question: Regarding your October 9 memo, are the three conflicts mentioned going to be resolved by the County or are we as Steering Committee supposed to look at them?
Mr. Huckelberry: We took the differentiated biological core reserve design that forms this conservation land system and said, 'Obviously, if in fact we have planned land uses that require significant alteration of the surface area, then we have a conflict.' We found three areas of conflict that were pretty obvious and I think, known to a lot of people before we stumbled on to them. And that is the far flung reaches of the urban area. We said, 'Those need to be resolved by lightening the development footprint.' Meaning lowering the land use intensity that had been planned in the 1992 Comprehensive Land Use Plan for those areas. And yes we intend to make those recommendations to the Board, such that the Planned Land Uses in areas of direct and absolute conflict are more compatible with the concepts of preservation. Whether or not those survive the process that goes through land panels to planning and zoning commission to the Board of Supervisors, who knows, but you'll probably know by the end of December and in addition, I think one of the other things that everyone has to understand is that the Comprehensive Plan is a by statute and by code, a dynamic document. Once it is voted on in December, it is not case in stone. It can be amended in January 2002. So if there is a mistake, the Board can go in 60 days later and correct that mistake. We view this process as dynamic and interactive. That means we are going to proceed to send the Comprehensive Plan to the Board for adoption prior to the end of the year, pursuant to statute. Does that mean its not going to change in the future? No. It will be updated as best available information is before us and the Board and that applies to what we call both down planning, not down zoning, everybody understand that? As well as up-planning. We intend to proceed with insuring that the Comprehensive Plan Update is as compatible as possible with the present findings of the Conservation Plan.
Question: How soon can we expect to learn what the alternatives are for paying the costs of the plan, whatever the plan ends up being? Secondly, when and from what source can we expect to get information about the marginal benefits or costs of the next particular square mile of land.
Mr. Huckelberry: The actual cost of implementing the plan is highly variable because a) there are a lot of alternatives including the No Action alternative, that has no governmental costs, but has other costs associated with non-implementation. Payment sources; well we have the traditional, tax payers of Pima County, which have gone to the polls over the last 20 years and approved 125 million dollars in open space bonds for acquisition. Governmental entities have their general funds as well as other revenue sources available to them to implement components of the plan. Those components range from acquisition of particular property to probably very direct subsidies, to the ranching community through the payment of grazing fees. The sources of funds at the local level come from direct taxation. At the state level they come from a variety of sources that have been enacted by the Legislature to date. An act of the Legislature lasts as long as one year unless it's a Constitutional Amendment. Those can be variable also, Arizona Preserves Initiative is an example. The Federal government has at least three sources of revenue available for implementation once Multi-species or Habitat Conservation Plans are adopted through funding sources, Section Six of the Endangered Species Act, through land and water conservation funds, a number of direct appropriations, typically from the Federal Government. Those are a number of sources. You can go down an exhaustive source that might talk about new fees, new taxes, all sorts of things that get folks talking. So those are just examples, ways the actual monetary cost of the Plan gets paid for. We can give you the full range, but what you have to understand is that it is typically a Congressional Appropriation process where everybody is in the game. You can either be a huge success or a huge failure. Economics and the Morrison Institute. The Morrison Institute scope is one that I believe we felt was appropriate and reasonable given the kind of detail we're going to be able to understand out of the economics. I don't know if we have sent you, I hope we have sent the Committee in the past, some of the financial studies that the County has dealt with. Mostly from the area of property tax and property tax revenues. It's those kind of issues that Morrison will be struggling with. This whole issue of marginal costs. Do you go one more section out or do you come back one more section. Well the question then is you have to assume how will that section that is in this marginal discussion what is its development capability, what can it be developed as, what is the probable revenues generated from that property taxation, sales tax, gas tax, all of the various sources that government derives versus what are the service levels that have to go into those areas. We've got some models, they're not perfect models, but their about as good as we can get now from governmental revenues, and they deal with telling us that in some cases marginal costs we can't pay for sheriff services in some areas of the county that are lightly developed. So those are the kinds of things we'll be looking at. Are there any clear cut answers? No. Same thing I'm going to tell you is that there aren't any hard, fast answers, you aren't going to get yes or no. Whether the economic study is going to be adequate for decision makers is obviously something that you're going to have some input in, everybody else is. And there are folks around, probably in this room, who are not going to feel bashful about taking an issue to court if in fact the Economic Analysis is not adequate in addressing the issue there.
Question: Has anyone ever done a study that took all of the land that has been put into preserves, out of the tax rolls or down-zoned and projected how much in property tax revenue is being lost to the county over the next ten years, say per acre, or something like that. That is one thing that I think we can use. How much can we afford to save?
Mr. Huckelberry: What we have found, at least with most of the acquisitions to date, that we can afford because there are certain acquisitions that we cannot afford because it's too costly. I'll give you an example, of a fairly recent one, a fairly large one, a fairly complex one and a fairly controversial one, its called Canoa Ranch. 6000 acres, 5000 of it purchased by the county. The actual aggregate property taxes paid on Canoa Ranch is equivalent to five single family houses in Green Valley. I don't think we will ever talk about making decisions not to buy property based on future tax revenue as it was purchased. What you can do is then speculate and what would be the property's use if it wasn't purchased? Is it a master planned community? Well we can give you tax revenues that come out of master planned communities such as La Paloma. Per acre that's $250,000 per acre. We can give you tax revenue of Canoa Ranch if that is split up with no governmental regulation or not a regulated sub division, then its 1500 dollars an acre. That doesn't pay for sheriff calls to it. We can give you those kinds of alternatives. Our limiting factor on the land that we buy will not be the tax issue, it's going to be our ability to pay for it. In other words the Canoa Ranch cost the county six million dollars. Those kinds of things are what is going to limit the amount of property the county buys in the future. That's why I say, if you think the Conservation Plan is going to buy a lot of property in the county, I'm here to tell you that probably that won't happen.
Question: In the October memo it said that agreements have already been made with the Bureau of Rec., Fish and Wildlife, BLM Service. What were these agreements or where do we find out what these agreements are?
Mr. Huckelberry: Those are actual cooperative agreements executed between each agency and the county. What they say is that the agency, whether it be EPA, Bureau of Rec or all the federal agencies, is that they will participate in the Conservation Plan and to the extent that it does not conflict with their with their mission, they will in fact, probably, once its gone through a public process of vetting what the important management aspects of their particular land are, they will manage them in accordance with the goals of the Conservation Plan.
David: Your letter indicated that the Board wanted the report on November 20th. There was some questions whether you actually wanted the SC report and appearance on the 20th, or did you just want the written documentation and actually have the SC appearance on the 27th.
Mr. Huckelberry: I think whatever confusion we have the study session is November 27th. That is the date when someone, hopefully, would want to come and talk to the Board. The material if you'll write it down, because Thursday is the agenda cut-off date. Typically that's our rules. We have to get all the written materials that will be before the Board in on that Thursday. However, that Thursday is Thanksgiving. So Wednesday will be an appropriate time to have written material completed, prepared and for our Board meeting on the 27th.
David: So really our dead line is written material on Wednesday, November 21, 2001.
Mr. Huckelberry: Thank you very much, you have a tough job ahead of you. A lot of people from time to time get irritated with eachother, with us, don't worry about it, that's just the process. What's important is just keep moving forward, and making decisions and recommendations. One of the things you have to understand is that as this process continues life goes on. The county has to make decisions on zoning cases every week. We have to do what we think is prudent for the county week to week on implementing things that are our policy direction says. So I don't think anyone should get disconcerted if you see the Board going off and making a decision about a zoning case in Catalina. That some people may think its contradictory to the Plan, that's like I say, some people's opinion. The Board will continue the vision. And the implementation of the Conservation Plan is a long term strategic vision; its not for next year or five years from now, Conservation Plan implementation is for ten and fifty year horizons. So with that piece of information, think about it.
The Governance and Membership Issues :
David presented the questions and responses that have been discussed and answered since the June 27th meeting:
* Should there be general membership meetings, similar to what we've been doing now?
* Should we have a Chairperson and or other officers be elected? Is that an approach that you want to consider.
* Should a committee structure be established, if so, what kind of sub-committees.
* What role, if any, should the county staff play in the work of the Steering Committee.
In the responses, most favored the following:
* Some sort of Chair position
* General membership meeting with no Chair, but with a Facilitator.
* Some sort of committee/subcommittees structure
* All topics areas open and no subcommittee
David then presented the following options:
Option One:
· Ad-hoc organizational subcommittee
· fiscal Economic/Legal subcommittee
· plan, scope and boundaries subcommittee, to be formed after the Organizational phase of the Steering Committee is completed.
· Mediation subcommittee
· Community/Governmental Outreach Committee, to be formed after the Organizational phase of the Steering Committee is completed.
· Special subcommittees to be formed as needed
· Any member can volunteer for any subcommittee
Option Two:
* General membership meetings with small group breakouts during the same meeting that report back to the full committee for decision making by the entire Steering Committee.
Comments:
* Ad-hoc had a stronger preference for Option One.
* Option Two bests serves our purpose.
* Option Two bests serves those of us that have a long distance to travel in order to make it to these meetings.
* With respect to Option Two, it's best if we stay in the big group, but if there is a need at a certain time for a subcommittee, we decide as a group, and if people sign up for it and they are in a certain part of town we can meet there for it as a subcommittee, but there are no standing subcommittees. This is just for if we see some serious need to get together on that basis, then we do it.
Consensus:
General membership meetings will continue, during the meetings we'll have small group breakouts that will discuss an issue and then come back to the larger group and make decisions at that same meeting. Subcommittees will be determined by the whole body on an as-needed basis.
Membership:
David reiterated that the County requested specific recommendations regarding non-participating members of the Steering Committee and that is was in the best interest of the Steering Committee to address this issue before the December 1st meeting. He presented the following options and these were ranked by the Steering Committee members, then voted on by the Steering Committee members.
1. Status Quo Don't do anything on this issue and tell the Board of Supervisors that we don't see a problem This received 12 votes during the ranking process.
2. Recommend to the Board of Supervisors that they remove those that have attended less than 25% without replacements. This received 18 ranking votes.
3. Send a letter requiring a response to less than 50% encouraging interest and further participation in future meetings. This received 18 ranking votes.
4. Recommend to the Board of Supervisors that those that have less than 25% participation be removed and a letter will be send encouraging participation to those that have less than 50% participation. This received 22 votes during the ranking process.
5. Less than 25% get a letter, encouraging interest and further participation in future meetings. This received 8 ranking votes.
6. We send the letter noted in Option 3 to those that have less than 50% participation and if there is no response before the December 1st meeting, we recommend their removal to the Board of Supervisors. This option received 22 ranking votes.
7. Modified Status Quo - Letter to less than 50%. With the Steering Committee to re-visit within three months. This option received 16 ranking votes.
Comments:
* Option four and six should be combined.
* This recommendations should be after tonight's meeting.
* Call to vote for Option 4: This received 20 votes
* Call to vote for Option 6: This received 21 votes
Consensus:
David will send a letter on behalf of the Steering Committee to those Steering Committee members that have attended less than 50% of the meetings. If there is no response by the December 1st meeting, their removal will be recommended to the Board of Supervisors.
Remove the Alternate designation from the five members that are presently considered Alternates.
Major Organizations
Comments:
· We need clarification from the County on what they consider a major organization.
· Anybody that is representing a major organization has already been identified by the list given to us by the County.
· Let each person self-identify if they are a major organization.
· It is not about major organizations it is about any organization that has a major interest in the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
Consensus:
-The recommendation will be made to the Board of Supervisors that they identify a major organization.
-David Steele will be the Steering Committee spokesperson to the Board of Supervisors on November 20, 2001.
-Steering Committee members will make their comments on the Draft Letter Responding to Board of Supervisors directives in the October 9th letter from Chuck Huckelberry that was mailed to them in their packets.
-The Ad-Hoc will discuss the extension of the Steering Committee meetings when the Science and Technical Team will be present.
Meeting adjourned at 9:00 am