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minutes 01-15-00Page 3 of 59
<br />Unfinished Business: Committee Reports. Why don’t we, since Jay is here, deal with this Environmental Committee. John,
<br />you’re listed here as the presenter. You or Sue can speak to this issue.
<br />SANTANGELO: At this time, I’d like to call on Sue Irvine. And I think what we were talking about, just to bring you up to
<br />speed, is there was a suggestion that there be a committee or a Commission, and that sparked some thought here of what
<br />about a Department. And so, just trying to address the environmental concerns of the island, we are in an infancy compared
<br />to a lot of mainland cities, and so we can really get ahead of the thing and Sue did a lot of work on this.
<br />IRVINE: Unfortunately, I did a lot of work rather late so I don’t have anything very final.
<br />SANTANGELO: What you have is good.
<br />IRVINE: But, I did go out on the internet and actually spoke with some people on the phone, as well. And Portland, Oregon
<br />seems to have one of the most progressive systems for dealing with their solid waste. They have a Bureau of Water which is
<br />separate from their Department of Environmental Services, but Environmental Services does cover water quality protection,
<br />sewage treatment, wastewater collection, sewer installation, solid waste collection, and recycling services. They franchise
<br />out, I think, the solid waste and recycling, but it’s pretty much required, if you’re in the city, I think, to partake of all of these
<br />services.
<br />One of the other places I looked was San Luis Obispo where they have a Utilities Department, which is separate from Public
<br />Works. Public Works does the sort of things like trees on the streets, and street resurfacing, capital improvements. But the
<br />Utilities Division does water, wastewater, and administers, also, the refuse and recycling franchises.
<br />I think we need to look for some places that are more rural, which of course, we are. I don’t know anything about the
<br />statistics on our island, of how many people actually hire somebody to pick up their garbage vs. how many people bring in
<br />their own. I definitely feel we need to provide some kind of emphasis on global recycling before we get done with our
<br />Commission, but whether we can just assign a Commission to look into this, or whether we need to actually find a Division
<br />within our Public Works that would be headed by somebody from the professional environmental community, I’m not sure.
<br />RAY: Let me interject. We’re talking about Charter recommendations here, and a lot of these things would really be
<br />administrative initiatives, if the Mayor wants to, and the Mayor already has that authority to appoint a Committee or -
<br />HERKES: A department?
<br />RAY: Well -
<br />HERKES: He can’t create a department.
<br />IRVINE: No, he can’t create a department.
<br />RAY: No, that would be something significant to look at.
<br />SANTANGELO: What I wanted to add, John, is that if you look at the Charter, even if you look at the Department of Public
<br />Works, which is just a real little bit, in it’s duties and powers, as prescribed by ordinance. We’re not going to write that
<br />ordinance. As a Commission, as I understand it, could establish a Department of Environmental or Department of Utilities,
<br />but then that ordinance would then be written, or brought together, by whom? Would that be the Council?
<br />HERKES: Ordinances are written by the Council, right?
<br />SANTANGELO: Yes. So, whether it’s going to address recycling, this or that, or the other thing, would become a process
<br />unto itself. We would just simply make the decision whether we felt it was important to have a department. We can’t tell it
<br />that it’s going to recycle. We can’t tell it these other things, right?
<br />HERKES: We can say Environmental Services Department will manage solid waste, wastewater, recycling and sewers, or
<br />whatever we want to say. I mean, as an example, that might be the kind of wording that you can put in the Charter, and then
<br />you can put managed by an administrator, and you can actually describe. Some of them describe fairly well the kinds of
<br />things that they do, some of the descriptions that are in the Charter now, of the departments.
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