Climate Action Team Begins Work

Envisioning the Future of Davis is a Brainstormer's Dream

Our fair city has long been a bastion of forward thinking environmentalists.  We have a stellar (for America) bicycle infrastructure.  We tax ourselves to protect open space around our community.  Our urban density is one of the highest in the nation for our population.

But, many of our citizens (including your author) believe that, as of late, we have been resting on our green laurels.  Earlier this year, the City Council directed city staff to investigate how our People's Republic could go about reducing its carbon footprint.

One part of that solution was the formation of a citizen's advisory board, the Climate Action Team (CAT).  Your author is honored to serve on that commission as a representative from the Open Space & Habitat Commission.

After the jump, learn more about the CAT and it's efforts to convince the citizenry of Davis to get back on the bleeding edge of the green movement.

The Climate Action Team is made up of local individuals, groups, businesses, and organizations who are being asked to engage with the community and assist in the development of a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan (Plan) for the City of Davis and the community as a whole. The CAT will develop and implement with the active involvement of designated city staff a process to facilitate community input and comment designed to increase overall awareness of the efforts as well as to generate innovative approaches and comprehensive strategies to address the City’s goal of significantly reducing the GHG emissions of the City and the community as a whole.

The makeup of the CAT is indeed a diverse group of old Davis hands, activists, fresh faced community volunteers, and students.  The five citizens were appointed by City Councilmembers.

Mark Braly  Planning Commission
James Morante  Pacific Gas and Electric 
James C. Cramer  Care for God’s Creation 
John Mott-Smith  Yolo County 
Bill Dakin  The Davis Energy Group 
Dean Newberry  Natural Resources Commission 
Sid England  UCD Sustainability Committee 
Julie Partansky  Citizen (appointed by Lamar Heystek)
Stacie Frerichs  Sierra Club, Yolano Chapter 
Kemble Pope  Open Space & Habitat Commission 
Monica Haymond  Associated Students of UCD 
Dorothy Rosenberg  Citizen  (appointed by Stephen Souza)
Jack Kenward  Bicycle Advisory Commission 
Mark Rutheiser  Davis Chamber of Commerce 
Bill Kopper  Citizen (appointed by Sue Greenwald)
Jenifer Segar  Citizen (appointed by Ruth Asmundson)
Charlotte Krovoza  DHS Student Government 
Ruth Williams  Citizen (appointed by Don Saylor) 
Rachel Milbrodt  Davis Joint Unified School District

The first portion of the meeting was spent dealing with group goals and expectations.  Then, the City Greenhouse Gas Inventory (pdf) was further reviewed.  A particularly interesting exercise was a visioning process of what Davis would be like in 2050 if all of the CAT's ideas came to fruition.

For those of you that have served on committees of any nature, you'll know that trying to organize 19 people to create a work product is like herding cats.  Or perhaps we should say CATs.  So, on the first night of actually working together, this group of people decided that it would be best if a majority of their time was spent in smaller working groups... ok, I'm going to go there... perhaps the small CAT groups should be called KITTENS (free ticket to the Emerson Carnival for the first person to come up with an appropriate acronym.)

The four working groups will be centered under the following umbrellas: Land Use, Waste, Transportation, and Energy.  All of the groups will consider social justice as part of their charge.  At the next meeting, the commissioners will brainstorm all of the possible areas of interest and ideas for consideration that could fall under these umbrella terms.  Then, they will divide themselves into these four KITTENS. 

Regular meetings of the CAT will be the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month from 6:30pm - 8:30pm at various locations. 

Stay tuned for all of the ideas that the CAT pulls out of it's hat... somebody stop me, please.

Comments

[Mark Braly]

Very nice piece Kemble. This is something like what I had in mind for CAT except: (1) it should be only about CAT, (2) it should be easier to comment. You almost lost me before I got through. In the prototype I put up at http://www.daviscat.blogspot.com I concentrated more on tactics -- having a conversation about that. Of course, no one has found the site. Goggle found you right away.