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Minutes of SWANA Rocky Mountain Chapter Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

7 am, 19 December 2006, Dozen’s Restaurant, 236 W 13th St, Denver, CO

ATTENDANCE:

Present: Debby Barton, John Briest, Roger Doak (a few minutes late), Stephen Gillette, Susie Gordon, Dick Sprague, Cathryn Stewart

Absent: Kathy Andrew (formerly Claes), Laurie Batchelder Adams, Leonard Butler

Other Present: Tom Strickland, City and County Denver

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

CALL TO ORDER: Meeting called to order at 7:04 as 6 of 10 directors present for a quorum.

INTRODUCTIONS: Individuals present introduced themselves to Tom Strickland, who had been invited by Leonard Butler to attend and consider becoming a board member.

ADOPTION OF AGENDA: Sprague/Doak moved/seconded to adopt the agenda. Motion carried unanimously.

MINUTES:

November meeting minutes previously approved via email.

TREASURER:

Gillette reported checking cash balance as of last statement date of $15,190.95 and a current balance of $14,630.01 as expense checks had been written. Savings balance is $17,565.91 with next interest payment due on or about 9 January 2007. The current interest rate is 4.64% with anticipated raise to 4.88%. The two e-loans of $10,000 have the following due dates: E-loan #1 due 1 April 07 with an interest rate of 4.5% and E-loan #2 due 1 July 08 with an interest rate of 4.59%. Gillette presented a draft budget for the year. Discussion held on moving the scholarships to professional development and lumping all scholarships and awards in one category. Comments were made that the Road-E-O was budgeted as break-even at this time as budget projections not yet received from Villalobos. Sprague/Gordon moved/seconded to approve the 2006-2007 budget as presented with the change of combining the scholarship and professional development line item into one category for a total of $2,250. Motion carried unanimously.

COMMITTEE REPORTS and ASSIGNMENTS:

Membership: Andrew (formerly Claes) was not present to give a membership update. She is willing to continue as the chair.

Technical Program/Meetings:

• Annual Meeting: Stewart has agreed to co-chair the annual meeting committee with Gillette. Discussion held on when and where to hold the annual meeting. One suggestion was Rocky Ford and the Otero County location. A second location was suggested as Steamboat Springs. Gillette will follow up for the Otero County/Rocky Ford location and Barton will follow up for the Steamboat Springs location to include possible tours and activities and speakers. Dates are tentatively October 4-5, 2007 or September 27-28, 2007. Discussion held on format with a general consensus to consider having tour Thursday afternoon, banquet Thursday evening and technical sessions on Thursday morning and Friday morning and ending the meeting by noon on Friday. More discussion will be held next month.
• Technical/Luncheon Programs: There is still a need to have a chair for the technical session committee. Based on last month’s meeting, the February technical session would be on ground water. Doak will check with Ken Niswonger to see if he can make his presentation on 20 February which is the day after President’s Day and is the third Tuesday which is the regular Board meeting. Discussion held that an alternate date of 13 February would be considered. Doak will also check on available meeting rooms for luncheon workshop at CDPHE’s office. Discussion held on charges being $15 and $25 with an additional $5 for walk-ins. Discussion held that this makes it an expensive lunch when considered with a box lunch; however cost for catering has either broken even or been a bit over the income. The meeting will start at 11:30 for registration, lunch at noon and then the presentation itself. January meeting will finalize the registration info – Briest will use the format developed by Butler and change registration address once room and date is finalized. The next technical meeting in the spring will be involving collection issues with a tentative decision to look at Thornton as a possible location.

Educational Scholarship: Gordon and Doak will work on this issue. Recommendation was made to include a check mark or something similar for people to use to request for a “scholarship” or reduced fees for attendance at professional meetings. Gordon and Doak will develop some ideas and prepare a newsletter article to cover the scholarship/professional development issue. Question was raised about the money set aside for the WasteCon in the budget. This is a specific target amount to help defray costs for a member or members to attend the WasteCon. To date, no one has requested the funds.

Nominations: Butler not present, however he has been in contact with two individuals of which one, Tom Strickland was able to attend. He is interested but has to get final approval from various supervisory levels. He gave a brief synopsis of his experience from Florida to Colorado. He will keep the board informed of his availability. Further board discussion will be held via e-mail.

Legislative: Batchelder Adams not present, however Gordon has agreed to work as representing the public sector. She gave a brief overview of federal activities from a quarterly telephone conference call she attended. There were four specific issues addressed:

1. Renewal Energy Tax Credit: Congress extended the Section 45 renewal energy production tax credit for one year which was included in the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006. This is a first step to securing long term tax extensions in the next Congress which shows a growing support for renewable energy.
2. Flow Control: This issue is coming up again and will have to be watched.
3. Surface Transportation Board Preemption: Concerns have been raised at some misuse of the preemption authority as pertains to solid waste transfer stations at rail facilities. Court petitions and congressional action will be forthcoming in the future, though not necessarily in the next year.
4. Climate Change: Regulations on carbon credits and emissions is making news with various states and regions involved with credits. This may affect Landfill to Gas and Waste to Energy activities in the solid waste field. With a Democratic congress and the issues of global warming, this topic may be very volatile in the next year. This topic may be considered for an annual meeting presentation.

International Board: Batchelder Adams not present. Sprague had forwarded an interest in serving on the IB Board and has full support of his employer, HDR. He often attends the conferences where the IB meets. The term of service is a minimum of 2 years and he is willing to consider longer than two years if the board and membership wishes. Stewart/Gordon moved/seconded to appoint Dick Sprague to serve as the IB board member for the next two years. Motion carried unanimously. Batchelder Adams and Sprague will work together on a transition plan for representation from Colorado.

OTHER/NEW BUSINESS/REPORTS:

Website/Webmaster: All 2006 presentations have been updated to the web. Because of the size of some of the documents as well as increased information, Erin increased our data storage capability from 500 MB to 1500 MB. The hosting cost increased from $9.95 per month to $17.95 per month with a one time upgrade fee of $5. Consensus was this was a necessary and acceptable increase – no formal motion was made. Discussion held on how long to hold presentations or how to archive and would archiving free up space. Further discussion held on costs to archive versus deleting the old material. The upgrade provides numerous services such as Ad Tracker which allow advertisers to check on how many times their advertising is clicked on by viewers, membership “chat rooms” where members could have their own blogs, web site search feature, and automatic update notices sent to the chapter membership. Doak will get information on the archiving costs and options. Discussion held to invite Erin to a board meeting to discuss current and future trends and options for the web page. Advertising income is due the first quarter of next year. Discussion held to invite annual meeting sponsors and displayers to also advertise on the website.

Newsletter: Sprague set a goal of 31 January to get the newsletter out and requested that all draft articles be completed by 16 January which is the next board meeting. The following assignments were given:

• Annual Meeting Summary: Butler
• Scholarships/Awards Program: Gordon
• February Technical Session: Gillette/Doak
• April/May Technical Session (Save the Date): Briest
• President’s Corner: Briest Annual Meeting 2007
• Forecast: Stewart
• Budget 2006-2007: Gillette
• Laurie’s upcoming presidency and IB work: Gordon/Sprague
• Director Introductions and New IB: Briest/Sprague
• Road-E-O Update: Villalobos (Briest will continue trying to contact)
• Regulation Update: Doak

OLD BUSINESS:

Standards and Policies for supporting non-SWANA initiatives (Research Projects): Sprague provided a draft Research Program procedures document prepared by Batchelder Adams and had his editorial comments. Discussion held that comments should be sent back to Sprague by 9 January 2007 so Batchelder Adams, Barton and he can incorporate and present to the Board at the January meeting.

Road-E-O: No report to date. Still awaiting draft budget, dates and plans.

Monthly Planner: Briest had forwarded a draft monthly planner for the Board to use in determining goals and objectives for the next year. Changes will be made to reflect February and May technical programs and the spring Road-E-O. Consensus was the planner was an excellent tool and should prove useful for the Board members.

Audit/Annual Progress Report: The report was sent by the end of November, no word back on whether National had received or not.

Future Planning: Briest handed out the updated monthly planner list.

NEW BUSINESS:

CDPHE Stakeholder Meetings: Gillette and Barton informed the board of the ongoing nature of the funding/fee structure meetings with CDPHE as well as the residentially generated Battery, Oil and Tires (BOT) regulation stakeholder meetings. The next meeting on the funding stakeholders is 4 January 2007. This is on a “fast track” because of possible impact on legislation this year. The next meetings for the BOT stakeholders are 12 January 2007 and 31 January 2007.

T-Loan: Discussion held on the training loans and comparing to the e-loans. One benefit that would make this more attractive would be sponsoring chapter members receiving a discount for training or attendance at SWANA meetings. Question was raised as to how many chapters supported the e-loan project (percent participation) and what is the projection for this project. As one of the existing e-loans comes due in April 2007 and as the chapter has a fairly good savings account, the chapter is financially able to support the T-loan concept. Final discussion and decision will be made at the next Board meeting.

WasteCon 2007 Hospitality Room/Reception: Briest has made calls to the hotel but has not received any call backs to date. He will keep trying and will report back to the board next meeting.

Next Board Meeting: The next Board meeting will be the third Tuesday, 16 January 07 at 7 am at the LaPeep’s Restaurant at I-25 and Orchard (8081 E Orchard, Englewood, CO).

ADJOURNMENT:

With no further business, Gordon/Doak moved/seconded to adjourn the meeting. The meeting adjourned at 9:10 am.

Respectfully submitted,
Deborah Barton
Secretary