Minutes of SWANA Rocky Mountain Chapter Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

20 January 2004, Waste Management Offices, 8310 S Valley Highway, Englewood, CO

ATTENDANCE

Present: Curt Ahrendsen, Debby Barton, Laurie Batchelder Adams, Leonard Butler, John Briest, Kathy Claes, Roger Doak, Stephen Gillette, Jim Kriss (left at 11 am) and Mark McMullen

Absent: Dick Sprague

Minutes are in the order of the agenda and not necessarily in order of discussions.

CALL TO ORDER: Meeting called to order at 10:37 am as 10 of 11 members were present.

ADOPTION OF AGENDA: Discussion on Road-E-O was added under committee reports.

MINUTES

Approval of December Board of Director Meetings: Batchelder Adams/Gillette moved/seconded to approve minutes of 16 December and 17 December 2003. Motion carried unanimously.

FINANCIAL

Treasurer's Report: Ahrendsen reported checking balance of $1,983.67, savings balance of $20,389.02 and the e-business loan balance of $10,000. He had checked the annual financial report prepared by Kriss due to SWANA by 31 December 2003. Discussion held that the income statement will have a note that $5,000 was transferred as a loan to the National SWANA and is not reflected in the expenses. Balance sheet shows e-business increase. Ahrendsen stated that signature transfers for checking and savings accounts are in process and require signature by Sprague to add Ahrendsen. Consensus reached that for now have only Ahrendsen and McMullen on signature cards. Next meeting discussion will be held to add a third member of the board. In the past the president was on the checking account to increase access capability. Discussion held on the $354.96 held out in December for the errors and omissions national liability insurance. This amount is held from member's dues reimbursed back to the chapter. Batchelder Adams believed this would decrease as this was up front to be paid in the first quarter of the year. We should see more income from member's dues in the next months. The amount for the insurance is taken out of the 20% of the dues reimbursed back to the chapter for revenue.

Budget: Ahrendsen and McMullen will bring back to board the completed budget for the year. Consensus discussion held that a quarterly status report against the budget would be beneficial especially as the programs have now begun in earnest for the year. A suggestion was made that the program chair be responsible for reporting income/expenses for programs as the part of the budget. Also reporting on attendance. No further discussion held or consensus reached on this suggestion.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Membership: Claes hopes to finish the delinquent member list by the end of the week and will begin emailing. She commented that she is receiving lots of returned email and needs to find some way to update the list. Butler gave her the updated emails from the registrations for today's program as that is a part of the registration form. Barton volunteered to begin calling west slope members to update information and report back to Claes.

Programs: Butler indicated he was expecting around 30 to 35 for today's program. Some attendees were coming that had not come for some time including Eagle County, Mesa County, Pitkin County and city of Longmont. Appears to be a good representation even with the snowstorm. There will be change in the March program. Doak and Barton are assisting in finding speaker for discussion on handling of infectious animal carcasses and byproducts. This may be a timely discussion because of concerns with BSE ("Mad Cow Disease"), CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) and Brucellosis. Facilities/operations impacted include collection, transfer stations, compost operations and landfills. May meeting has some interest from Glen Mallory (CDPHE) for the northeast corner of the state as a 1/2 day program on closure/post closure. There will be a need to work with the NE Colorado landfill operators as they only meet semi-annually. CDPHE would like to co-sponsor such a meeting with SWANA. The Annual meeting will be separate topic for future board meetings. Decision will need to be made next meeting on date and possible location(s). One topic that may be of interest is vehicle tarping off landfill site/control. This is an issue in Mesa County and may be resolved via legislation but will require some form of implementation. Discussion will be held with Bob Edmiston from Mesa County as a potential presenter. Barton will continue to follow up with Wano Urbanos of La Plata County on program for household hazardous wastes, which may be incorporated. Butler asked for guidance on registration charges. Consensus reached that if the membership was lapsed then registration rate would be as non member rate.

Legislative: Gillette reported on SB 91 which is a rehash of last year's SB 55 on allowing greater private sector competition in municipal service areas including annexed areas regulating municipalities and waste companies throughout the state when municipalities with trash service annex areas served by private haulers. The proponent for the bill is Steve Johnson and it appears to be pro private hauler. The bill sponsor is Sen Ron Reck (R-Garfield). Gillette is working with Sen Steve Johnson (R-Larimer), Bruce Philbrick ~~Gillette contacted by Bruce Fillbush~~ of Loveland and Richard Lee from Longmont to oppose the bill ~~research~~. Bill and language is complex and ~~appears~~ ambiguous. Butler commented that there are several issues related to service in non annexed areas, which become annexed. The concerns are predominantly from smaller haulers that have spent years building up their business and income only to have the areas served annexed and their business taken away by municipalities. Current laws do not allow municipalities to set collection ~~regulate~~ rates nor franchises. SB 110 is a second solid waste bill that is changing current law on the covering of aggregate loads (currently defined at 5/8 inch minus) to include uncovered trash loads. This will impact loads that are transported more than 2 miles. Such "open loads" will be required to be covered or secured so trash is not lost from the transport vehicle. On the federal side of legislation, Batchelder Adams reported that the energy bill is still alive and still has landfill gas tax credits. There is some tinkering going on with RCRA to include research and development issues. [Secretary's Note: underline is addition and strikethrough are deletions. The above are edits to draft minutes sent 28 Jan 04 to Colorado SWANA Board for their information]

Road-E-O: After the last board meeting, Adam Lovato has stepped up and is hosting a meeting on Thursday, 22 January to discuss holding a road-e-o this year on either 8 or 15 May. McMullen commented that the participants last year only represented 8% of membership and participation has been decreasing. There is no representation from outside metro area. This year's national road-e-o will be in Texas, date not known. McMullen and Briest will work with Adam Lovato on the committee. Discussion held on having scholarships available to assist with lodging and per diem. Concerns raised that only those that get scholarships will attend. Scholarships, if given, would be available only for current members in good standing. Adam Lovato prepared a one page handout of things that board might want to consider supporting the Road-E-O and haulers. Briest provided a copy to all members present. The handout will be an attachment to the formal minutes. Discussion held that perhaps a member committee of haulers could be formed to handle the road-e-o and then have a liaison with the board. Further discussion will be held at the February meeting to include results of this week's committee meeting.

OTHER BUSINESS/REPORTS:

International Board: The next regional meeting will be the first part of February. Nothing major is going on at this time. The e-vote for changing the bylaws to add another private sector to the national board should be coming out soon. Batchelder Adams requested a letter of support from the board as she is asking for consideration to be the next International Board Secretary. This would be a five year commitment. She has been serving on the international board since 1998. Currently the membership of the officer board is Texas, British Columbia, California, Illinois and New Mexico. Ahrendsen/Claes moved/seconded to support Laurie Batchelder Adams as the SWANA International Secretary. McMullen asked if the local chapter should reimburse for the three meetings currently attended by Batchelder Adams. She stated that in the past she has felt she should pay for the third trip as it is part of the recycling group, which she is very active in. At this time she is comfortable with the assistance for two of the trips but appreciates the consideration that if the need arises, she could come to the board asking for assistance on more than the two trips. Motion carried with one abstention (Butler was absent during the vote).

Website: Briest and Doak reported that the website has been activated. All information has been transferred from HDR. As soon as the final payment is made to Aaron Doak, the contractor, the website will be released for the membership. Aaron Doak made a list of recommendations for "housecleaning" on the site. Butler discussed the results of his surfing the National SWANA site with links to some of the chapters. Discussion held on whether national SWANA would have a link to the Colorado website from their web page. Follow-up will be required. Briest and Doak will work with the contractor to finalize the updating the web site. Consideration may be given in the future to transfer to the SWANA national webpage with state website. Initial setup fee would be $600 and no monthly fee required. National has 5 pages available per chapter and will do the updating as part of their support to the chapter. Chapter would be limited to National's templates.

Newsletter: Kriss had left the meeting so no report. Discussion held that any articles for the next newsletter should be presented at the February meeting.

SWANA Officer Conference Call: Briest commented that the officers were invited to participate in the national SWANA conference call. One was just completed on 15 January and was very informative. The next call schedule is for 15 April and 15 June for 11 am Mountain Time. The host is Todd Van Deak of National SWANA. Butler, Briest, Batchelder Adams and Barton all participated in the last call and were complimentary.

Miscellaneous: Briest thanks all members for all their work and commitment to the organization and for attending the meetings. His personal goal for the year will be to get the website up and running and he will assist Adam Lovato for the Road-E-O. Butler will be attending the CDPHE hearing tomorrow. Gillette will not be attending however Larimer County will have a representative. Batchelder Adams stated that Margie Griek would represent CAFR.

ADJOURNMENT

With no further business, meeting adjourned at 11:43. Next board meeting will be 7 am, Tuesday, 17 February 2004, at LaPeep's on Orchard. Consensus that back room will be requested.

NEXT BOARD MEETING(S)

Feb 17: 7:00 am, La Peep's, 8081 E Orchard, Englewood, CO
Mar 16: 10:30 to 11:45 am, Waste Management Office, 8310 S Valley Hwy, Ste 200, Englewood
Apr 20: TBD (Same time as the SWANA Training Center)

OTHER IMPORTANT DATES TO NOTE

February 7-8: IB meeting (Batchelder Adams)
February 19: CAFR Annual Meeting, Boulder, CO
March 16: Handling diseased animal carcasses and byproducts
April 19-22: SWANA Training Center, Denver, CO
May: TBD, Closure/Post Closure 1/2 day class
Sept 21-23: WASTECON, Phoenix, AZ
Aug/Sep/Oct: Colorado Chapter Annual Meeting (date and location to be determined)