Minutes of SWANA Rocky Mountain Chapter Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

9:30 am, 20 February 2007, Waste Management Offices, 8310 S Valley Highway, Centennial, CO

ATTENDANCE:

Present: Kathy Andrew*, Debby Barton, Laurie Batchelder Adams*, John Briest, Leonard Butler**, Roger Doak*, Stephen Gillette**, Neil Nowak, Dick Sprague, Cathryn Stewart, Tom Strickland

Absent: Susie Gordon

Notations: * - Member arrived after meeting called to order

** - Member had to leave before meeting was completed.

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

CALL TO ORDER: Meeting called to order at 9:30 as 8 of 12 directors present for a quorum.

INTRODUCTIONS: Introductions made of all individuals present. Neil Nowak was welcomed to the Board having been approved by email vote by the Board of directors

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

MINUTES:

January meeting minutes previously approved via email.

TREASURER:

Gillette reported checking cash balance as of 31 January 2007of $14,802.01. Gillette reported that during his recent computer upgrade, the old Quicken program could not be fully imported. He recommended that the newest version of Quicken be obtained. Sprague/Strickland moved/seconded to authorize Gillette to purchase the newest version of Quicken. Motion passed.

Savings balance as of 9 January 2007 is $17,977.12, which includes a six-month interest payment of $411.21. 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 stated he has been able to find the promissory note for the e-loan due in 2007 but has been unable to locate the 2008 note. Sprague and Batchelder Adams will check with national on how to get a replacement note.

COMMITTEE REPORTS and ASSIGNMENTS:

Membership: The logjam at national has apparently broken loose as Andrew just received membership reports and access into the national website. Current statistics shows 145 members with 4 new members in January and only 1 unpaid member who has moved from Durango to Salida. Doak will get information to Andrew for follow-up. Stewart asked for clarification on out-of-state members. Discussion rose that some larger corporations may “divvy” out local state chapter memberships and designate such membership on national dues.

Technical Program/Meetings:

Annual Meeting: Gillette traveled to Rocky Ford to check on the meeting location and hotel potential. The meeting location is an addition to the train depot and also has a separate “baggage” room, which could be used for vendor displays. The only hotel in Rocky Ford has already blocked out the 30 rooms for the use of the association. Additional hotels are located in LaJuanta. Gillette will do more investigation there to find a hotel to block some rooms. Discussion held that board members should try to leave as many Rocky Ford rooms available for attendees. Barton volunteered to be designated driver to LaJuanta. The Rocky Ford Chamber will be assisting in obtaining necessary liquor and food licenses to allow for catering in the facility. Strickland/Batchelder Adams moved/seconded to authorize Stephen Gillette to act as the Board liaison to work with the local Chamber of Commerce to obtain necessary permits and licenses, to reserve needed hotel space in La Juanta and to sign contracts with the Chamber of Commerce to rent the facility for the annual meeting to be held October 4 & 5, 2007. Gillette commented that the room rental is usually $400 per day but the chamber is willing to rent the space for the two days for $400. Motion called and passed unanimously with no further discussion.

Meeting schedule for this year will change from past years. Pre-registration will begin at about 9 am on Thursday morning with a technical session in the morning, lunch, and technical session in the afternoon then tour the new Otero County Landfill. Banquet will be Thursday night and Friday morning will have the rest of the program followed by a luncheon program and the meeting will end after lunch to allow for attendees to travel home in the afternoon daylight hours. The first call for papers will go out by the end of February. Stewart will send draft to Board members to get comments back to her by Friday, 23 February. Additional suggestions for topics include Compost and Conversion Technologies (especially for Ag waste). One suggestion was made to add why a person should give consideration to make a presentation at the annual meeting. Stewart will also add that comment to her email notice. Andrew will send out to the email list.

Technical/Luncheon Programs:

February: Briest has the CEU forms for the luncheon workshop for today. Gillette reported that there were 39 pre-registered and he did not know the number of walk-ins to expect. Briest thanked Roger for developing the program.

April or May Hauler Technical Session: The program still needs developing depending on the input from Thornton in hosting the hauler specific event. More details will be worked on at the March Board meeting.

Educational Scholarship: Discussion was held on having a separate menu item on the front page for scholarship and awards so visitors don’t need to drill down to find the information. Erin Doak, webmaster, will develop a Beta version for the policy and qualifications presentation on the website for the Board to review. A question was raised about the impacts of Amendment 41 for government employees receiving scholarships to attend meeting and training. There is no clear-cut answer yet. The consensus of the Board was to still provide scholarship opportunities but leaving a caveat for withholding until final determination of limitations of Amendment 41 are known and published.

Nominations: Butler was not present to give additional comments. Briest noted that Butler had been able to find two new individuals to serve on the board: Tom Strickland and Neil Nowak.

Legislative: Gordon not present to give report on national issues. Batchelder Adams provided information on four current bills in the state legislature:

HB 7-1141: Representative Todd introduced. Bill is on commodity metals to try to control the stealing of copper and brass that has been a problem worldwide with impacts in the state.

HB7-1220: Representative Kafalas introduced. Bill involves Environmental Preference on Purchases by state agencies. Batchelder Adams commented that the bill needs some clarification on whether the bill is only for state agencies or if county and city agencies are included in the 5% overage allowed.

HB7-1288: Representative Solano introduced. Bill is a revision of one introduced last year and involves developing a new grants program for environmental (more than recycling) and economic development. The initial goal was to develop a $10 million grant fund based on a landfill tip fee surcharge, per household charge, or some source of income based on waste disposal versus waste diverted. This bill may also be addressing the funding needs of CDPHE to obtain additional full time employees for current workload as well as additional work.

HB7-1303: Representative Gagliardi introduced. Bill is addressing the junk mail problems in the State. As currently written, the intent of the bill is to develop a State-wide junk mail opt out list.

International Board: Sprague gave his report stating it was his first meeting to attend and asked for Batchelder Adams to fill in any material that was missed. The training and strategic plan for 2008 includes the need to update the 8 “books of knowledge for the 8 certification training courses. The goal is to have all 8 courses updated by 2009. This will depend in part on the success of the T-loans from chapters. The survey from WasteCon shows that more technical content is requested which is more than “Google search content”. The audit for national was completed and approved. The national office is healthy. There was a “financial windfall” from a 2005 insurance settlement for the Austin WasteCon problems resulting from Hurricane Katrina. Specific to the Charlotte WasteCon finances, the per floor space income increased though the total floor space used was down. Many of the large equipment dealers scaled their exhibits down and several new small exhibitors came to the convention. The national goal is to have 10,000 members by 2010 through emphasis on chapter development and training. National would like to see our research grant policy as well as proposed scholarship as we are one of the few chapters with a scholarship program and apparently the first to develop a policy for research grants. Briest thanked the committees for the development of the scholarship program and the research development grant.

Website/Webmaster: Contact list on the website will be updated as it was out of date and the new Board members will be added. January minutes will be posted and the invoices will be sent. A recommendation to post the current bylaws was made. Barton commented that the bylaws have not been updated since 2004 and the Board should consider a review of the bylaws for the annual meeting. Erin Doak, the chapter webmaster, has a proposal to update the web page since we have increased storage and capability. His proposal would cost about $500 for several features that may be of more benefit to advertisers as well as to members. A recommendation was made to invite Erin to the March Board meeting to demonstrate what additional items could be added to the website to include biographies of the Board members (one paragraph in length), web visitor numbers (advantageous to advertisers or sponsors), and improved menus, to mention a few.

Newsletter: Briest thanked Sprague for an excellent newsletter.

OLD BUSINESS:

Road-E-O: Further action tabled until the March meeting.

Monthly Planner: Action tabled until the March meeting.

National Training Loan (T-Loan): Batchelder Adams addressed some of the concerns brought up by the Board in previous meetings. In particular, the benefits for members would be new and improved training in core disciplines, upgrades to current technologies and hopefully ability to adapt more quickly to new technologies in the industry, and changing to meeting the needs and abilities of members. Penalties for calling in the t-loan before maturation would be similar to bank certificate of deposits with a 6-month loss of interest earned. The e-loan coming due in April can be rolled over to the t-loan with national paying the chapter the approximately $900 of interest and keeping the principal in a t-loan. Further discussion will be held at the March meeting.

NEW BUSINESS:

CDPHE Stakeholder Meetings: There is one more meeting planned March 1, 2007 for the Section 16, Residential Battery, Oil and Tire (R’BOT) regulatory rulemaking.

Next Board Meeting: The next Board meeting will be the third Tuesday, 20 March 2007 beginning at 7 am at The Egg and I, 6818 S Yosemite, Centennial in the back meeting room. If Erin Doak needs wireless access, meeting location may have to be changed. Briest will send out notice to verify location and time if a different location is needed to meet with Erin.

ADJOURNMENT:

With no further business, Sprague/Batchelder Adams moved/seconded to adjourn the meeting. The meeting adjourned at 11:05 am.

Respectfully submitted,
Deborah Barton
Secretary