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HomeMy WebLinkAboutcoa.cclc.min.03192008COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES MARCH 19.2008 Chairperson Terry Butler called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m. Commissioners in attendance: Bill Dinsmoor, Mark Goodman, Don Sheeley, Roger Haneman. Shae Singer, Fred Ayarza and John Starr where excused. Aspen ZGreen Sally Spalding, Public relations communications officer for the City of Aspen. Presented. ZG developed and is a program designed to reach businesses, citizens, visitors etc. on environmental issues. It is a check list and is on-line. Newsletters about environmental events will also be sent out. Business program - As a business owner you can go into the web and check off from the list and once you join you get a decal for your business and all the benefits that are associated with it. It is our intent to make all city events green. We are also working with the special events committee. Maps will be distributed that should all the different shops that have been ZGreen approved. If you are a citizen coming in to town you will know if the business is ZGreen approved. Once the on-line program is completed a site visit will occur from staff. Sally said ACES, Blue Green Planning and Community Banks of Colorado are members in the ZGreen program. Terry said her hotel uses green detergent etc. It would be great if any official decal etc. could be put in the suites to make customers aware that they are a member. Sarah Laverty said there will be different constraints that a hotel can't do but there will be things around the scenes that will help hotels. Bill said part of being green would be to get the farms involved. Part of our goal is to keep the farms sustainable in the market. If one is raising stock you have to travel a distance to have them slaughtered. There is a USDA portable slaughter plant that drives to the farms insead of a farmer driving to Salt Lake. Taking your stock to salt late is a huge carbon issue. Sarah and Sally they would look into the portable plant. COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES MARCH 19, 2008 Don pointed out that the paking meter solar panels are pointed north instead of south. Don asked Sally to check into the solar panels. Andrew said he noticed that and they get enough solar to make them work. They work at maximum capacity. Don said people have no place to park after 5: 00 and it seems that city council isn't doing anything to resolve the issue. Sally said staff is trying to resolve and implement something. Terry said Fred is working with the parking department and can give the report to Sally in April. There are some quick fixes. Mark asked about retail businesses being involved with ZGreen. Sarah some qualification would be the boiler, lighting, landscape areas and employee transportation etc. There are a lot of conservation measures regarding lighting. They all don't have to be compact floresents. Mark pointed out that he is working on a lighting program for the downtown but nothing is coming forth. Kathy said she will follow-up with Jeff Woods. Andrew Kole said the affordable housing should be retrofitted with energy efficiency lighting. Roger inquired about the benefit to reduced water. Sally said it is on a consumption and how the water is leaving and what you are putting into it. Car Sharing: Andrew Kole said he was asked by Terry to report on the car sharing program. There are 8 vehicles, 7 cars and one truck. The truck is used by two people. Two of the 7 cars accumulate under 60% of all the usage. There area 120 members and 75 really use the program. It costs around $25,000 to operate the program and basically it is a wash. 1.8 hours is the average car us used in the program. March and July are the two most used months. Usage is 30,000 miles for the 7 cars per year. Andrew said some of the cars are a waste. Andrew said a survey should be done to see when the cars are used by the members. A lot of people do not know about the program. It needs advertised. 2 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES MARCH 19, 2008 Don said tourists can't use the program. Andrew said the biggest problem is insurance. If there was a way for tourist to use the car you could expand the program. You also have to have a Colo. drivers license. No one has spent the time to research what we need to achieve the program and letting tourist use the car share program. Los Angeles uses the Smart car program. If the city really wants to reduce cars and traffic the car share program would be an excellent start. Erich is great what he does but the program needs marketed. Possibly a bike share program could be incorporated with the program. Bill said the city should fund a business plan to get them off the dime. Find out what is out there and get creative with the program would be a great start. I would use the car sharing program if it was easier to use. Sally said if you stuck with the locals you would get more people to use the program. Andrew said the survey could be done by the phone with the 75 people that belong to the program. Andrew said the Smart car stands for: Swatch who owned it, Mercedes who is what the Smart car is and art because it is consider a piece of art. Comments: Don mentioned that he got a parking meter for Xmas and the meter machine was down for a month. It is very difficult to get to the meters with all of the snow and someone show shovel the snow from in front of the meters. Don also said 70% of the tourist in Snowmass come to Aspen but with the new base village and the new 600 units at base village that might change. The ACRA is going to do a survey and start a data base. Mark said real estate is running this town and we need to do something to get tourist into down. MOTION: Terry moved to adjourn, second by Bill. All in favor, motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 10:15 a.m. J. Strickland, Chief Deputy City Clerk