Hi,

I am a city councilor and this year brought such a resolution, which passed 9-0. Since you are a citizen, I suggest you try to find a councilor who will champion the resolution. My own resolution called for the city, together with our clean energy task force, to establish a comprehensive energy plan by a certain date. The task force did most of the work and we studied examples of other cities’ energy plans, such as Minneapolis, Cambridge, Portland, etc. The EPA has some template plans as well. If your council is not compelled by environmental causes, I strongly suggest you stress the tremendous opportunities to save money. That should engage every councilor and every citizen. Good luck!

Tulsa City Council passed a resolution to encourage more bicycling.

The recently launched Sustainable Jersey municipal government certification program in New Jersey has downloadable examples of municipal resolutions. Visit http://www.sustainablejersey.com and click on the register your community to download a sample resolution. While you are on the website make sure you review the list of 60+ municipal actions and their toolkits and resources that can help communities initiate their sustainable communities programs. Sustainable Jersey is a cooperative initiative of the NJ League of Municipalities- Mayors’ Committee for a Green Future, the Municipal Land Use Center at The College of NJ, NJ Sustainable State Institute, NJ Department of Environmental Protection and the NJ Board of Public Utilities along with 150 businesses, nonprofits and academic institutions. In less than 8 weeks since the program launch, 130 municipal governments -representing over 20% of the States local governments, have adopted a resolution to participate, established a Green Team and have started to working on achieving the minimum 100 points necessary for certification through Sustainable Jersey. The excitement this program has generated among local officials has been fantastic!!
Donna Drewes,
Municipal Land Use Center at The College of New Jersey

We started with recycling, then went to a statement on more green space, then we started putting more money into rehab and upgrade. Our Chamber building is the first LEED certified chamber office in the nation. This put businesses on notice. We also are working to bring more green jobs to the city which will change the business thinking.

I work in the City Manager’s office and we are in the process of educating City Council on green policies in order to pass a resolution. One of the tools that we have utilized, is the state of the current economy.

By starting small, such as changing out the light bulbs in city buildings to reduce electric bills, making sure all Council directives are printed on both sides of the paper, asking all city employees to turn off computers and offering incentives for carpooling, the city reduces operating costs and saves money. This is something that all Council Members can get behind.

Good luck with your resolution and I hope that these suggestions will work as well for you as they are for us.

There is no simple ,quick ,easy , or cheap way to answer this question. As noted above success begins with education of the Council , perhaps a work session where other regional communities share there work ,approach and strategies, offering an example(s) to follow. We have worked with a number of small to medium municipalities. We look for a champion(s) on Council or in community to provide leadership and support. Currently two issues offer leverage for local action. A) is ENERGY efficiency and conservation and B) is Climate Change. Note below a summary of a recent local Climate Change Resolution consistent with MD State action. For full text email me.

Summary Climate Change Resolution Goals
1, Inventory global warming greenhouse gas emissions from City operations
2. Achieve reductions in City greenhouse gas emissions of 10% by 2012, 15% by 2015 and 20% by 2020 and develop a long-term goal for carbon neutrality for all city buildings
3. Identify best practices to support reducing overall City energy use by 15 % by 2015
4. Establish measures of fleet average mileage based on appropriate vehicle classes and implement and report on a procurement vehicle program to achieve at least an overall 3% mileage improvement in the total fleet average annually for the next decade
5 Establish a municipal goal of 10% renewable energy purchase by 2010 and 20% by 2015 in cooperation with other local governments in the Washington Metro area through regional cooperative purchase
6. Ensure all new city facilities meet “LEED Silver” or higher standard; and make energy efficiency a priority through building code improvements
7. Promote a variety of transportation options to reduce vehicle miles traveled
8. Increase the community rate of recycling waste as a percentage of total waste at a rate of at least 2% per calendar year, for the next five years
9. Adoption of a community canopy goal in 2009 which commits to mitigate (through tree planting) the total number of trees removed as part of the current utility tree removal process and by adopting incentives to promote tree planting on private lands
10. Conduct public outreach through its web site, staff and the Environmental Advisory Committee
11. Actively pursue Federal, State, and other incentive and cooperative programs and grants to assist in achieving the goals
12. Report to the Council (each year) on progress toward these goals

Sustainable Pittsburgh assisted Cranberry Township (Butler County, PA) to craft a set of sustainability principles that were formally adopted by the Board of Supervisors. The principles were key to the municipality’s comprehensive land use planning process and were used as the guiding framework for public engagement, alternate scenerio review, and to launch a sustainability program including a sustainability assessment of facilities, operations, policies, and management. Key to success was focus on long term viability of the community, the business case for sustainable development, a focus on equity in provision of public services, and going beyond green. See the principles at:
http://www.twp.cranberry.pa.us/index.asp?nid=109

Harvesting Rainwater.
I am posting the link to Brad Lancaster’s web page. The difference he has brought to communities globaly is astounding. From a dirty, dry concrete jungle, they have helped transform such areas into lush, healthy and green neighborhoods.

Good Luck.

http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

The City Hastings is currently looking at a proposed “sustainability statement” that was recommended to the City Council by the Green City Task Force. The most prominent dilemma is making the statement defining enough to make an impact, yet not so detailed to curtail development.

The part of the statement that has been agreed upon by the majority of those that have reviewed it is:

The City of Hastings is committed to environmental sustainability and stewardship, by working to create a cleaner environment through the application of earth-friendly technology and practices and responsible development planning. Through education and community outreach, we seek to assure that our community has the knowledge and skills to be environmentally responsible and considers the global ramifications of all community actions. To that end, the City of Hastings is committed to continuous improvement in:

• Incorporation of environmentally responsible concerns in City decision making.
• Demonstration of institutional practices that promote sustainability, including energy savings measures, increasing the use of renewable resources, and decreasing production of waste materials.
• Encouraging educational programs and environmental inquiry concerning positive environmental practices.
• Establishment of sustainability indicators to enable monitoring, reporting and improvement measures.
• Enhancing the health of City ecosystems and increasing the diversity of native species whenever possible.
• Promotion of health, productivity and safety practices in our City through education, maintenance and design of our built environment.
• Consideration of the impacts of our urban life in the decision-making process involved in advancing that urban life, such as reducing energy usage, including energy efficient appliances; assuring building codes enable environmentally sound practices; use of water efficient systems; limitation of storm-water runoff and making productive use of storm-water runoff; reducing light pollution; and other environmental enhancing activities.

We started our “Green Team” over a year ago without making it political by going to council. I announced we were stating a “Green Team” and invited interested citizens to join us. I signed The Mayor’s Climate Protection agreement and our main focus so far has been improving our recycling rate and litter control. We have added commercial recycling for downtown businesses and several churches. Our school system has jumped on board too and now has a good recycling program. We now have 4 LEED certified buildings and we continue to work on being more energy efficient in all of our City Departments.

There are some good responses here so far, but I have a few other resources that may be of some help to you. As a citizen, seeking public champions such as a councilperson is fantastic advice as someone else mentioned. You may also want to contact city planners (if there are any present) and/or your regional planning commission; http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/projects/planorg/docs/map.pdf – it appears that you are located within the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

There is a very interesting system developed by the City of Ferndale, WA called the EAGLE Checklist (http://www.ci.ferndale.wa.us/userfiles/file/Retail%20Standards%20Docs/EAGLE%20Checklist%2006_24_08.pdf)for guiding more “green” retail and commercial development. Introducing discussion on LEED may be helpful, but in my experience (and graduate studies research) there are some potentially serious issues with this system when used without regard to truly “green” intentions (for example a LEED building constructed in a prime farmland outside of a city).

Finally, the State of Wisconsin has been taking steps to encourage and help green policies throughout the state. I would recommend starting with the Wisconsin chapter of the American Planning Association website; Eco-Municipalities (http://www.wisconsinplanners.org/Ecomunicipalities/index.htm). I was also told that the towns/cities of Necedah and Soldier’s Grove, both in Wisconsin, are taking rather interesting “green” steps.

Don,

I agree with Gary Allen that the answer is not quick or easy. I suggest you visit the Sierra Club’s Cool Cities website. They know a lot about how to conduct a grassroots campaign, and you can find there step-by-step instructions on how to proceed. They recommend a two-pronged approach of working to build community support for your proposal and working inside the city to gain support among staff and officials. That approach worked very well in my city, Creve Coeur, Missouri, where we were able to get our resolutions passed unanimously.

You have to understand your community, and you have to find answers to their objections. On Google Earth, I think I see in Port Washington a boat dock, a coal burning power plant, a sewage treatment facility, and a couple of commercial/industrial zones. How will your resolution affect them? Is the city correct about your resolution being too vague–can you even know how it will affect them? Can you cast what you want to do in a way that won’t be a hinderence to those interests, and perhaps even help them?

Most evidence suggests that support for the environment is broad, but shallow, and it routinely is prioritized below many other values. Whether you think that is appropriate or not, it is important to take that reality into consideration. City officials care about costs and durability. They want a solution that won’t hurt the budget, and that they won’t have to revisit. That means that it has to last, but also that it can’t be a headache to administer. Show them that what you want to do will save costs and be easy to do, and you’ve got a winner. Let them suspect that what you want to do is expensive and complex, and you’ve got a loser.

Good luck.

Here in Florida we have the Florida Green Building Coalition. Part of that coalition is that local governments can be certified as “green” after instituting and documenting certain changes. I don’t know if your state or county has such a program, or if there’s a national program for certifying municipalities as green. If you can’t find a program like the FGBC in your area, you could at least use the guidelines set forth by the FGBC in your resolution. The FGBC’s “Green Local Government Standard” is exactly the push the City of North Port, FL needed to get on the right track and get the support/direction from our city leaders.

In St. Petersburg, Florida, we started with a resolution to adopt the Green Cities resolution about 4 years ago. I would recommend that cities start with an energy audit of city buildings. This will give you a work list of projects that make economic sense and environmental sense. It is action, not words and can be funded by the stimulus money and your CIP budget. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant money is in pipeline.

I’m the Environmental Sustainability Manager for the city of Park City, Utah. In addition to all of the aforementioned great ideas, I’d suggest checking out ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability http://www.icleiusa.org/ They are a world-wide organization that supports local governments in doing work around environmental sustainability.

While our community has done a lot on the environmental sustainability front, through the efforts of non-profits, businesses, citzens and government, ICLEI really helped us with getting organized, measuring municipal & community carbon emissions, new ideas for programs and goal setting.

The City of Bellingham, WA has passed a variety of “green” resolutions, which can be found at this site: http://www.cob.org/services/environment/index.aspx Our Mayor and City Council are also very supportive. Part of this support is driven by the partnerships we have developed with several local non-profits in order to promote green building, energy conservation, smart growth and the city’s environmentally preferable purchasing program. This way the administration is hearing it from both staff and the community, which makes it a lot easier to vote in favor of “green” resolutions!

Our mayor and council indicated they wanted to make Rockville a “green” city, with environmentally-sensitive, well-built structures, infrastructure, parks and open space and a sustainable economy.

Staff followed up this vision statement with a comprehensive City sustainability strategy (a strategic planning tool) that crosses all departments and divisions of the City. We identified 65 specific actions to be taken over 2-3 years 9 and in less than 2 years we have fnished most of them. We are now ready to reset our to do list for the next few years.

For an actual example of a resolution, there’s one on the ICLEI website, on their Process Of Joining page. ICLEI requires potential municipal members to adopt such a resolution. This one has language specific to joining and supporting ICLEI goals, but it’s a good example and can easily be modified for a that suits your ciy’s sustainability commitment. Find it at http://www.icleiusa.org/join/process-of-joining

Last year the City of Delray Beach created a green task force made up of volunteers from the community. The task force was created via a resolution. It took us a year to write the recommendation report. Please see: http://www.sustainabledelray.org/ for our resolution, report, recommendations, public outreach, mission statement, etc.
Good Luck!!

I like Gary’s Summary Climate Change Resolution Goals for their specificity and the way objectives are presented as tasks. The Wisconsin Towns Association has taken a somewhat different approach, encouraging towns and villages interested in becoming “Green Communities” to start by enunciating a “vision.”

Article, by Tom Harnish, WTA Education Director, was printed in March WTA Report, 2009 and is provided here with permission from Wisconsin Towns Association. http://www.wisctowns.com/
—-
The President’s “stimuli” or jobs program bill is now complete in Congress in Washington, D.C. The program had a price tag of $789 billion. . For Towns and Villages of Wisconsin, one specific interest is the proposed “infrastructure” payments to the States for roads and bridges. Another Town or Village interest is the proposed “renewable energy, energy conservation and energy efficiency” payments that may be available to Towns and Villages. Finally, the “broadband internet” access program for rural America should be of direct interest to Town and Village officials to improve computer communication throughout the local Community.

In the nationwide discussion in Washington D.C. and in Madison, regarding energy production, energy conservation and energy efficiency, along with local community sustainability, there always comes up the term “Green Communities.” These Communities are not today in Wisconsin legally, or well defined, but are understood to be Communities where the public and private sector are attempting to be energy efficient, stress energy conservation and water conservation, attempt to seek and allow for alternative local energy production, and finally to produce and maintain locally sustainable communities for the future. I have great hope that leaders in Madison (or Washington, D.C.) will help better legally define in the near future what these “Green Communities” are. I would hope a voluntary certification program could be established where certain Towns or Villages could properly claim to be a Wisconsin “Green Community,” if they meet certain minimum “vision” criteria or standards.

Broadly speaking, in my opinion, any Town or Village official attempting to now create a “Green Community” must start with key “visions” that will identify standards or criteria for the Community. They might include:

1. A “vision” by these local Town or Village Municipal leaders and developers to prioritize the remediation and reuse of “unusable” land (e.g. Brown fields, dilapidated buildings).
2. A “vision” to prioritize transportation options for the Community that stress walking, biking, mass transit and travel for all types of persons, including children, the disabled, and the elderly leaders (public and private).
3. A “vision” that a “Green Community” needs a priority of including “green space” in the major developments of the Community, and stressing, where possible, the preservation of the local natural environment.
4. A “vision” by these “Green Community” leaders that reduces, composts, recycles, and attempts to eliminate unnecessary solid and other waste in the Community.
5. A “vision” that the Town leaders and their neighboring Villages and Cities together will take specific priority Municipal actions to prevent or limit rural and urban sprawl.
6. A “vision” that public and private leaders prioritize conservation of fresh water and conservation of key productive lands (e.g. prime farm land).
7. A “vision” that new residential development should be near retail, schools and existing residential development.
8. A “vision” that all residential structures in the Town or Village be offered a free or low cost residential energy audit.
9. A “vision” that every Town or Village will have a “Green Residential Subdivision Ordinance” and a “Green Building Code” that stresses energy conservation on new residential structures.
10. A “vision” that the Town or Village adopt a Solar Access Protection Ordinance.
11. A “vision” that all public and private development projects require recycling of demolition and construction works.
12. A “vision” that requires by building permit all new construction/reconstruction projects have water saving devices installed (dishwashers, toilets, washing machines).
13. A “vision” that requires that new developments not occur near environmentally, historically, or culturally sensitive areas.
14. A “vision” that all new development be constructed or installed to take full advantage of seasonal changes in the sun’s position.
15. A “vision” to promote and prioritize alternative energy facilities to be constructed or installed where the energy produced can be used locally.
16. A “vision” to promote and prioritize new or recent facilities that are constructed or installed with the use of recyclable, renewable and energy efficient materials that are locally found and free from harmful toxic chemicals.
17. A “vision” to promote and prioritize the construction or installation of residential structures that supplies their own energy (wind/solar).
18. A “vision to promote locally grown and marketed food stuffs (e.g. farmers’ markets).
19. A “vision” to limit storm water runoff and erosion caused by development.
20. A “vision” that promotes energy efficiency and energy conservation in new residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial structures.
21. A “vision” that creates and promotes local education projects, local planning, and local zoning focused on the sustainability of the Community.
22. A “vision” that promotes local “Green” industries that will produce “Green” products (e.g. wind turbine manufacturing) to be marketed internationally, nationally, and locally.
23. A “vision” that provides Municipal advantages to developers whose development projects are created for construction and installation as “Green” projects.
24. A “vision” that limits public nuisances, including aesthetically unattractive structures.
25. A “vision” that encourages cluster development and variable lot sizes.

The above noted are a few standards or criteria that could be used to determine a “Green Community.” A voluntary certification that would identify such Communities should be extremely helpful in creating vibrant rural and semi-urban Communities.

To Whom it may concern:
I am amazed that at a time when Americans are struggling for basic survival that elements within our society are trying to mandate methods of construction which will greatly increase the cost of construction for the basic dwelling unit and eventually drive industry out of America. The science which is being used for these decisions is questionable if not extremly flawed. It really wouldn’t hurt for these forks to take a little of their time to study history for climate change is not new and saving energy has been a personal mandate for all successful buildersfor quite some time; however, after all is said and done if one wished to persue the ‘green’ building practices then at least wait until the economy is doing a little better and of course do not allow laws to be put in place which will distroy our entire economic base. After all without a strong ecomomic base we will not be able to give every American a home whether they earn it or not.
Thank you
Robert James

Hi, just a quick note of appreciation to those who took the time to comment/suggest a way to get a resolution through the city council in my community.

I’ve passed these on to the alderperson who had made the initial attempt and he is now much more confident that he can get the matter initiated.

Don

Some great advice above. To reiterate what matches with my own experience: go slowly, pick small cheap visible measurable projects that build on familiar things you’ve already done successfully. In this case, people learn best by doing. Might be best at first to not even mention climate change or peak oil – just seems overwhelming to most. Back them into realizing it works. The Post Carbon Institute’s Post Carbon Cities program http://www.postcarboncities.net/ is the best source for what other goverments have passed in the way of resolutions. Their guidebook is good, too. It was the first specifically focused on helping local governments address the combined challenges of climate change and peak oil. We in Spokane WA were the first to use it. Lesson learned: be prepared for challenges related to organizational culture change.

Thanks for the plug, Susanne!

Don – We’ve made some changes to the website recently. You can find all the sample resolutions in our database at http://www.postcarboncities.net/peakoilresponses. The database is a few months out of date at the moment, but I have a Research Assistant starting next week who will start updating it again.

That database is specific to local and state governments responding to the global oil situation — which, I personally feel, is a very accessible way to get any local government thinking about sustainability issues (because the oil approach is ultimately an economic approach). As others have mentioned in this thread, you’ll find advice on more general ’sustainability’-minded responses at ICLEI.

Daniel

Hi Donna,
I’m interning with CitiesGoGreen and I’m interested in writing a piece about your certification program. It sounds like a structured program that could really help communities to go green, not to mention you give multiple suggestions for ways cities muncipalities can become certified. If you’re interested, I’d love the chance to talk to you about this program. If you go to the Contact us section on this webpage, there is a number you can call to reach me, or email CitiesGoGreen and I will ask Daimon to forward your information to me.

Thank you! I’m looking forward to hearing more about this program and what it can offer.

Thanks for all of the great input,

Don

Don,
I work for Centralina Council of Governments in the greater Charlotte bi-state region of NC and SC. We have been working for several years with local jurisdictions to promote actions which can be taken not only by government, but by business to improve the environment. Check our our website at http://www.seql.org. There are a lot of how-to’s. We also have some new actions which have not been posted to the website ($$$)
but I would be glad to share if you contact me at Centralina COG.
Carol Lewis