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level of action that is on the City's plate for reducing greenhouse gases and all the <br />other environmental issues. It is an enormous topic so both for staff and the <br />Commission work itself, her feedback is that they should be asking for more. <br />Chair Wozniak thanked Ms. Morton for her comments. He stated the breadth of <br />sustainability issues before this Commission that they have been involved with is <br />daunting and for the last several years now the Commission has had discussions <br />with the City Council about perhaps branching off Commissions solely devoted to <br />environmental issues but the City Council is not there yet and he thought that day <br />may come and he hoped it does. He thought if they get more active in promoting <br />what they are doing and what they would like to do and engaging citizens in <br />learning more about what they want from this Commission or one aimed at <br />environmental and sustainability issues that they may see a separate commission <br />dedicated solely to sustainability and its relatives. He thought the City was on the <br />way. With respect to the City Council's discussion about the climate emergency at <br />last night's meeting, he did watch that online and his summary is that it was divided. <br />There were a couple of Councilmembers in support of it but the majority were not <br />so much in support of a resolution as they were wanting to point to the fact that the <br />City has taken many steps towards sustainability and is doing things in a sustainable <br />way and there was some sentiment that they would rather do things than discuss a <br />proposal saying that they are committed to doing things. <br />Chair Wozniak noted personally he was a little disappointed in that but this was a <br />vote to say whether or not they were going to discuss it at some future point and <br />the decision was no but it has not gone away and will still be out there. He thought <br />as the Commission talked about this more and do more things and recommend more <br />actions in sustainability, he thought this will come up again. <br />Mr. Culver appreciated Chair Wozniak's summary of the City Council meeting on <br />this topic. As stated, the question of the resolution that the PWETC reviewed in <br />November was brought to the Council as a part of the Council's process of <br />Councilmember initiated items. There was a quick conversation and he would <br />encourage Ms. Morton and others online, if interested, to watch that portion of the <br />meeting in order to understand what the Council is saying and they are certainly <br />supportive of taking steps to address and mitigate for climate change and such. The <br />Mayor brought up a really good point and how he addressed it. He stated when a <br />City declares an emergency, it is not just a random statement, it is not just declaring <br />it is really important to them and an emergency to them. The City actually has the <br />power to declare an emergency which then gives it emergency powers and authority <br />to do certain things. The Mayor indicated that people cannot confuse this with a <br />real emergency such as the Pandemic. He indicated maybe that is what people think <br />the City should do for this for the climate, declare a state of emergency for the <br />climate but it is not necessarily the same things because they are not trying to <br />circumvent normal processes in order to address the climate. The City is doing a <br />lot of things within the law and the normal way the City does things as far as <br />adopting the Energy Action Plan and being a Green Step City and also talking about <br />Page 2 of 9 <br />