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Orange County Commission for the Environment <br /> <br />Meeting Summary <br />March 13, 2017 <br />Richard Whitted Facility, West Tryon Street, Hillsborough <br /> <br />Present: Lynne Gronback (Chair), Bill Kaiser (Vice Chair), May Becker, Peter Cada, Jeanette <br />O'Connor, Alan Parry, Sheila Thomas-Ambat <br />Absent: Lydia Wegman, Rebecca Ray, Alex Nicodem, Jeremy Marzuola, William Newby <br /> <br />Staff: Tom Davis, Brennan Bouma <br /> I. Call to Order – Gronback called the meeting to order at 7:30. <br /> <br />II. Additions or Changes to Agenda – New members Matt Crook and Marshall Gray introduced <br />themselves briefly. <br /> <br />III. Approval of Minutes from February 13, 2017. O’Connor motioned to approve the minutes as written. <br />Parry seconded. Minutes were approved unanimously. <br /> <br />IV. CFE Review of Outside Agency Funding Request – Members formed small groups and <br />reviewed different elements of the Piedmont Wildlife Center’s funding request. Staff compiled the scoring <br />and feedback of CFE members for submission to the BOCC. <br /> <br />V. State of the Environment 2019 - The last State of the Environment (SOE) report was completed <br />in late 2014. It took nearly two years and there were 14 draft versions before the final. Given the amount <br />of work that has gone into this in the past, the CFE discussed the general pros and cons of producing an <br />updated SOE report in the same model. Several questions were asked and some discussion followed <br />each. Because they were not fully answered, the CFE agreed to revisit these questions to guide future <br />discussions: <br /> <br /> What are other Counties doing to track and report on the state of their natural environment? <br />Crook offered that private corporations are moving away from paper reports and towards <br />websites. <br /> <br /> Who is the audience? <br />It has been Orange County residents and elected officials <br /> <br /> What other large reports does the County produce? <br />State of the County Health Report, Community Health Assessment, The 2030 Comprehensive <br />Plan, Chapel Hill Carrboro Chamber of Commerce State of the Community Report, [added after <br />meeting Public Health Dashboards] <br /> <br /> What is the purpose and how has it been used? <br />The purpose has been public education. <br />It was used in a high school science class as an overview of where the students live. <br />[added after meeting: cited in the Chapel Hill Carrboro Chamber of Commerce State of the <br />Community Report] <br /> <br /> Is this just retrospective? Are goals stated?