Minutes 06-03-2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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taking the Chancellor on a tour of the County in the fall, to some of the places where there are joint projects and interests. He said this item was one of the topics planned for that meeting. Commissioner McKee noted, in response the Commissioner Price's question, that slot 10 and slot 12 are open. Dorosin proposed the addition of three more residents to the listing, to make it an even 15, with 5 Orange County residents. He feels the current proposal is weighted too heavily toward government representatives. He said the diverse interest and needs of the people around the County makes it reasonable to go up to 15. PUBLIC COMMENT: Bonnie Hauser thanked the Board for considering this work group. She loves the idea, but is confused by the purpose and scope. She thought the goal was to have a one year effort to clarify the current services and funding equity and to form the basis for a new interlocal agreement with the towns and an updated service and fee model. She said topics such as landfills, alternative technologies and handling bio solids are much more strategic and belong in a different group. She said these issues will take years to resolve and require specific skills and partnerships. She hoped this workgroup would work on services, costs, and funding for existing services, such as recycling, waste reduction, convenience centers, and possibly the siting of a local transfer station. She thought the goal was for a committed interlocal agreement with the towns and better service and equitable funding for the unincorporated parts of the County. She said recent testimony from residents revealed that services in the unincorporated area are broken. She said the County needs to clarify the needs of curbside users versus convenience center users. She said this suggests the need for at least 2 citizen participants from the unincorporated area to represent both types of users. She agrees with Commissioner porosin's comment regarding the inclusion of 5 citizens. She said residents remain concerned about the cost of service, transparency and equitable funding. She hopes the workgroup will be asked to benchmark services and costs versus other counties. She asked for a limited focus for the workgroup, to include a 5 year plan for current services. Commissioner Pelissier said she is not clear, looking at this list, what this group would actually accomplish. She said the Board has been asking the towns for years to be in this together. She would like to see a small group of elected officials come up with an interlocal agreement to define the process by which these issues are worked out. She suggested the inclusion of a focus on some of the immediate needs. She said the issue of how to pay for recycling has been deferred two times. She is afraid that a long list and a large group will prevent anything concrete from being accomplished by next budget cycle. Chair Jacobs clarified that this group is charged to come back to the Assembly of Governments (AOG) meeting in November, after sorting through these issues and prioritizing them into short and long term needs. He said the thinking was to allow the group to determine and define what was important in the short and long term plan. He said obviously the majority of these will not be resolved in a six month period, but it would be up to the group to make the decisions. He said there would be short stage and longer stage items, and these can be the same or different groups. Commissioner Pelissier said she is not sure that this can be done in the time frame of the AOG meeting. Commissioner McKee said he has the same concerns as Commissioner Pelissier. He said it is admirable to try and look at all of this, but it is overreaching to ask the group to do this on a short time basis. He said a group does need to be formed and the issues put into their hands, but this needs to be limited to the items that are really on the table — recycling, transfer station siting, and an interlocal agreement between the County and towns. He said the rest of