Minutes - 20081014 - Work Session

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Commissioner Foushee suggested changing the word "control" to "oversight." Tom Altieri said that he would change it to "oversight" and come back with a list of what is meant by "emergency assets." Tom Altieri said that the Planning Board discussed the description of the two school systems in the County. It seemed that there was some sort of competition in describing the two school systems. The Planning Board ended up going back and revising the descriptions and taking out the self-congratulatory language given by CHCCS. The amendment is provided as Attachment 8.4.6. Commissioner Gordon made reference to page 33, Services and Community Facilities Goal 1, and suggested adding, `joint planning agreements, and future agreements..." Commissioner Gordon made reference to page 35, #16, Objective L-5, "Provide additional library services to the people in the northwest area of the County centered on Cedar Grove Township." She would like to add, "and to the southwest part of the County centered on Carrboro and Bingham Township." Commissioner Gordon made reference to PS-T-6 and said that there are two of those. Chair Jacobs made reference to the summary on page 8-1 and asked that these be changed so that they are in alphabetical order and asked that Animal Control and Services be added as a function. On 8-2, line 6, Public Education, Durham Technical Community College should be mentioned. On 8-3, line 31, "efficient and effective public safety, including police, fire, telecommunications, emergency," and he suggested adding, "and animal services." Chair Jacobs asked about Orange-Alamance Water System. He did not realize that there was an adopted master plan where the service area was defined. He thought that Orange-Alamance had asked for money from Orange County to do this. This document refers to the master plan several times. Also, on page 8-11, Objectives WW-3 and WW-4 should mention Orange-Alamance in the existing plans or cooperative arrangements. He suggested adding language about coordination with Orange-Alamance to develop a master plan. On page 8-24, Objective SW-2 in line 22, Chair Jacobs suggested that this might be a good place to mention deconstruction. On page 8-36, line 14, it should mention Durham Technical Community College. On page 8-37, lines 46-47 and adequate public facilities, there is a memorandum of understanding with the two school districts and the Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Chair Jacobs pointed out that there is also an MOU with the Town of Hillsborough. On page 8-38, regarding the discussion of school merger, there were three other outcomes. One was the production of the Grumet Report detailing the strengths and weaknesses of both school systems, one was an efficiency study of both school systems, and one was the establishment of collaboration meetings between the chairs and the vice-chairs of the three respective boards. On page 8-46, regarding library services, there has also been discussion about better coordination between the two systems in terms of interoperability and other efficiencies. Chair Jacobs said that he had flagged the objective on page 23 about community building, which said, "Evaluate and consider the community building recommendations of the Shaping Orange County's Future Task Force." He said that he had made a pitch for calling this whole chapter something besides Service and Facilities Element and trying to create a framework for talking about sustainable government and that community building was more suited to talking about sustainable government. He thinks that one of the emerging issues is how to make government sustainable financially and better reflective of community needs and interests. He realizes that there are sustainable elements all through here, but there is no place in the document that puts it in a framework. There should be an overarching concept to the way