2022_0222_PWETCPacket - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

29 level of action that is on the City's plate for reducing greenhouse gases and all the 30 other environmental issues. It is an enormous topic so both for staff and the 31 Commission work itself, her feedback is that they should be asking for more. 32 33 Chair Wozniak thanked Ms. Morton for her comments. He stated the breadth of 34 sustainability issues before this Commission that they have been involved with is 35 daunting and for the last several years now the Commission has had discussions 36 with the City Council about perhaps branching off Commissions solely devoted to 37 environmental issues but the City Council is not there yet and he thought that day 38 may come and he hoped it does. He thought if they get more active in promoting 39 what they are doing and what they would like to do and engaging citizens in 40 learning more about what they want from this Commission or one aimed at 41 environmental and sustainability issues that they may see a separate commission 42 dedicated solely to sustainability and its relatives. He thought the City was on the 43 way. With respect to the City Council's discussion about the climate emergency at 44 last night's meeting, he did watch that online and his summary is that it was divided. 45 There were a couple of Councilmembers in support of it but the majority were not 46 so much in support of a resolution as they were wanting to point to the fact that the 47 City has taken many steps towards sustainability and is doing things in a sustainable 48 way and there was some sentiment that they would rather do things than discuss a 49 proposal saying that they are committed to doing things. 50 51 Chair Wozniak noted personally he was a little disappointed in that but this was a 52 vote to say whether or not they were going to discuss it at some future point and 53 the decision was no but it has not gone away and will still be out there. He thought 54 as the Commission talked about this more and do more things and recommend more 55 actions in sustainability, he thought this will come up again. 56 57 Mr. Culver appreciated Chair Wozniak's summary of the City Council meeting on 58 this topic. As stated, the question of the resolution that the PWETC reviewed in 59 November was brought to the Council as a part of the Council's process of 60 Councilmember initiated items. There was a quick conversation and he would 61 encourage Ms. Morton and others online, if interested, to watch that portion of the 62 meeting in order to understand what the Council is saying and they are certainly 63 supportive of taking steps to address and mitigate for climate change and such. The 64 Mayor brought up a really good point and how he addressed it. He stated when a 65 City declares an emergency, it is not just a random statement, it is not just declaring 66 it is really important to them and an emergency to them. The City actually has the 67 power to declare an emergency which then gives it emergency powers and authority 68 to do certain things. The Mayor indicated that people cannot confuse this with a 69 real emergency such as the Pandemic. He indicated maybe that is what people think 70 the City should do for this for the climate, declare a state of emergency for the 71 climate but it is not necessarily the same things because they are not trying to 72 circumvent normal processes in order to address the climate. The City is doing a 73 lot of things within the law and the normal way the City does things as far as 74 adopting the Energy Action Plan and being a Green Step City and also talking about Page 2 of 9