Meeting Minutes
January 26, 2015

Attendees

Staff and Guests

Open Discussion

Nate opened the meeting and welcomed everyone to the City of Star.

Trauma Intervention Program

Tammy mentioned they got their initial training completed for the Trauma Intervention Program. They had 47 people start the program and 37 graduated. The TIP program will be starting on February 4.

She gave kudo’s to the Ada jurisdictions for getting the program started. It is citizens helping citizens and it gets resources back on the street.

They learned that the total cost to Canyon County jurisdictions for adding to the TIP program is $26,000. Broken up among all the jurisdictions, this program should be fairly affordable. She feels you cannot get a better bang for your buck. She mentioned they met with the Canyon County recently and she is hopeful the Canyon County jurisdictions take this on to make this TIP program a valley-wide effort.

Garret stated they had 30-35 people at the Canyon County meeting. They had representation from Middleton, Caldwell, Nampa, Wilder and the County. He added that Nampa, Caldwell, and Middleton had a little conversation after the meeting and feels that at least these three jurisdictions are interested in participating in this program.

Darin said the City of Middleton is extremely interested in supporting this program and would like to bring it to the City as soon as possible. He added that he has approached the Middleton Stake President of the LDS Church to see if they could organize some sort of orientation discussion with them about arranging for a systematic way of identifying volunteers and incorporating them into the training for the TIP program. The Stake Presidency is amenable to a discussion in this regard.

SAUSA Program

Garret mentioned that he met with the Governor and Director Kempf in regard to the SAUSA Program. It was a typical meeting with the Governor in that he showed interest but did not give anything firm. The Governor directed Director Kempf to include it in the budget for next year and wanted to see a cost benefit analysis for the program.

Director Kempf and Garret have met twice since this meeting. The Director is excited about this program and has included $35,000 for all three regions. However their goal is to include the entire amount in the following year. The Governor told the Director to include it in his budget and to conduct the cost/benefit analysis for the program.

Tammy indicated she has been talking with Mayor’s across the State. Mayor Loomis from Blackfoot is extremely animated about the whole thing and is starting to put a campaign for the following year. She mentioned that the program idea has a lot of traction in northern Idaho as well.

Garret said the Director indicated his budget is $200 + million and the cost of this program constitutes nothing more than a rounding error in this size of budget. He had relayed that if you think about the message this sends that the State is willing to have this program and fund it, the relationship building among cities and the State would be unprecedented.

Air and Water Quality Updates

Pete Wagner stated, as far as an air quality update, the valley is really close to violating the ozone standard. EPA has initiated rulemaking to reduce that standard. One of the main things about ozone is it is a mixture of VOC’s and NOX in sunlight it creates ozone.

Pete showed a chart on where the Treasure Valley’s design value for ozone is. Right now, our design value is right at 69. The EPA is proposing reducing the standard from 75 to anywhere in the range of 65-70. If the standard gets set at 65, we would be in non-attainment if the standard gets set at 70, we would just be under the requirement.

If we go into non-attainment, medium sized businesses would have to get air-quality permits, and we do not want to go there.

John E. asked what the timeline would be if they lower the standard. Pete indicated they believe the standard will be set at 70. If this is the case, the Treasure Valley would be close to violating. If we go into non-attainment, the area would include Ontario to Mountain Home.

John E. asked if the EPA would retroactively apply the average, or would you get to start fresh. Pete said, usually when standard is promulgated, it is the last three years. So we are looking at data from 2012-2014.

Kelly said the whole thing about this is wrong. You are setting standards through rulemaking not by law and he has a hard time with this. We need to get to our congressmen and let them it is their responsibility to set the law and it is their responsibility to make sure this rulemaking is done in manner that it makes sense to citizens that live out here and have to pay for the costs incurred by the rulemaking.

Kelly stated that Owyhee County is dealing with some pretty strict things because of the EPA. The way they are going, and if we allow these things to continue to go on, we are going to be a country ran by rules not law.

John B. said we had talked earlier that we are in essence removing the older vehicles from the street. Shouldn’t this improve our standing? Pete said EPA’s strategy for the new ozone standard is the new vehicle emission standard the President has signed into law a couple years ago. He can’t remember all the dates, but by 2015, manufacturers of automobiles have to meet a certain standard and by 2022 they have to meet a stricter standard.

Darin asked if emission testing is effective. If it is effective, then part of the problem is all the exempt vehicles. Through the rulemaking process, is there any effort to look at the exempt vehicle emissions?

Pete said they have compiled this data. If you look at 2012 data, we are looking at reductions from the vehicle emissions testing program of around 630 tons of ozone precursors in Ada County and reductions of about 376 tons of ozone precursors in Canyon County. This is significant and is the probably the one thing that has kept us below the non-attainment issue.

Pete said he had sent an email to the Canyon County jurisdictions and Kuna. They have a new vendor for this program. The test has been $10 and is going up to $11. People are not going to be happy about the increase; however, you will not find a cost for an emission test this low anywhere in the nation. The other good news is they have a station down in Parma to test vehicles so people don’t have to drive very far to get their vehicle tested.

Steve asked if Ada and Canyon county residents pay the same rate. Pete said they do not. In Ada County, they charge up to the $20.00 and in Canyon it is going to $11.

Pete said the other issue is particulate matter, PM 2.5 and we have actually violated the standard. He said they do want to put together a Treasure Valley group to help DEQ look at issues in the valley. Tammy asked if this group is going to have a budget as this was the frustrating thing from being on this group before.

Bill indicated he wanted a couple TVP members to be part of a group to write a response to the EPA. Jim had indicated he wanted to be involved. Tammy suggested that Kelly be part of this process.

Darkness to Light – Stewards of Children Training

The members participated in a 2-hour training on this program.

Director’s Report

Darin moved and Tammy seconded to approve the minutes and financial statement.

Bill indicated that over the next several months he will be spending time down at the Statehouse attending committee meetings and chatting with legislators when appropriate in regards to the Statewide SAUSA Proposal. He will be attempting to press the members of the House Judiciary and Rules Committee in regard to funding for the proposal. He then pointed out the local members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.

Tammy said that her youth council is working with Representative Wills on a seatbelt law for those 19 and under. They are hoping to get youth around the State to add their voice to it. She asked members to let her know if other youth councils want to participate as well.

Bill mentioned that the next TVP meeting is being hosted by the City of Eagle on February 23rd.

John E. asked that we draft a letter along the lines of Kelly’s concerns to go to our congressional representatives in regard to this rulemaking issue. Bill said he would work with Jim and we will begin a discussion around rulemaking.

Meeting Adjourned.