• The Built Environment Atlas also shows Access to Trails and Parks and Tree Canopy coverage for Multnomah County. When we combine this data with the urban heat island data and then overlay a sample of 350 asthma cases in 2004, we find that the areas that get the hottest, also have the least tree canopy which also have the most asthma cases. Those include the Northwest industrial district, the airport and surrounding Columbia Corridor, along freeways and busy arterials such as 82nd Avenue, Sandy Boulevard, Foster Road and Killingsworth Street.
• The Health Department recently created a series of maps in a document called the Built Environment Atlas, which is intended to help demonstrate which areas are high in health-promoting resources and which areas are low. These resources include access to farmers markets, grocery stores, and parks. The intent was to help shape policy so that we can increase access to these resources so that folks have access to healthy foods and parks and safe streets to walk, play, and bike so we decrease obesity and diabetes. You can find the atlas here.
•  Oakland underwent a community-driven Climate Action planning process. They created a toolkit here.
•  Green for All and Pacific Institute were involved with Oakland’s community-driven CAP process and are good organizations to know more about if you are not familiar with them already:  http://www.pacinst.org/

Information on communities of color and heat maps

•  Article: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-minorities-urban-heat-islands-20130709,0,1868051.story 
• Study:  http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1205919/

•  We Minorities Care More About Climate Change 
•  Metropolitan Area Workforce Agreement (MAWE) group

City of Minneapolis EJ Report

The City of Minneapolis recently completed their Climate Action Plan and had convened an Environmental Justice workgroup, a partnership of local EJ organizations and City government. They produced a report to summarize their findings. That can be found here.

A Pilot Project: Integrating carbon and equity outcomes in an affordable housing reconstruction project.

The City of Portland received funds from the Bullitt Foundation and the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Cities to support several components of the Climate Action Update Project work. The City of Portland sub-granted a portion of those funds to Hacienda Community Development Corporation. Hacienda Community Development Corporation worked with tenants and technical experts to identify priority components to integrate equity and carbon reduction in the reconstruction of Villa de Clara Vista, an affordable housing property. Hacienda tenants participated in three hands-on, multi-lingual workshops (Spanish, Somali, and English) that resulted in articulating priorities around lighting, facilities, safety, transportation, unit and community design including landscaping and recreation. A second key component of the implementation plan is the establishment of a core group of tenant advisors who will remain engaged throughout the design, construction and evaluation process.

The final report from this effort can be found here. 

Members Absent: Demi, Amanda, Les, Duncan, Kristey

Staff: Desiree Williams-Rajee, Taren Evan, Michele Crim, Alex Howard, Tim Lynch

Guests: John MacArthur (CAP Steering Committee)

Welcome and Introductions:

Process update:

There will be a change in the schedule to accommodate the drafting of content and the schedule of the next Steering Committee meeting. Desiree is working on getting a guest speaker about some work done inCaliforniarelated to carbon cap-and-trade – Desiree will forward some more information about this. On October 9 there will be another phone call – which will include the proposed list of actions, follow-up by an in-person meeting on October 16. On October 23 there will be a similar meeting to review the narrative sections (by phone), and then meet in person on October 30. Desiree will send out an updated schedule after the meeting.

Discussion of Urban Form and Mobility:

• Which actions represent the biggest opportunities for historically disinvested areas?
  • Staff focused on both prioritizing investments inEast Portland, as well as design standards.
  • The youth transit pass is also another opportunity – that is a really big task.
  • The actions around local transportation (e.g. street design and development standards) improvements are also a big opportunity to create flexible design standards for streets that might be more affordable.
  • Until we address the broken street funding source, all options to address transportation disparities will be limited. There is a concern about the youth transit pass – why isn’t this part of the Safe Routes to School? Could this be needs tested (youth pass)?
  • Communities want some criteria to evaluate funding decisions and planning decisions.
  • Street connectivity, especially inEast Portlandis another opportunity area. This includes doing work internally (BPS) to dig deeper to evaluate opportunities to connect streets through private development.
  • Affordable housing and inclusionary zoning would definitely help in the inner neighborhoods.
  • The East Portland Action Plan has already identified this as a problem – the Comp Plan update creates an opportunity to implement many of the next steps to address those problems.
•  How will adopting orphan highways (e.g. 82^ndave, Lombard, Sandy) help communities?
  • OregonDept. of Transportation focuses on moving the highest number of people (throughput). ODOT tends to focus on the Interstate Highways, not these orphan highways.
  • If local agencies were able to manage them, they would be able to bring standards (sidewalks, speeds, crossings) in line with other streets and to improve walkability, safety, etc.
• Action 5/6 12: Is it worth keeping this action in place? This is a hold over from the 2009 Climate Action Plan. It might be worth keeping in there given that this is an existing mechanism for grant funds for land use and transportation under the current administration.
• Discuss the relationship between the CAP, the Comprehensive Plan and Transportation System Plan and how these plans relate to community goals?
  • The Transportation System Plan is part of the Comprehensive Plan. The Comprehensive Plan is the long-range land use and investment plan to accommodate housing and job growth.
  • Creating a community involvement manual is one of the first projects to be implemented for the Comp Plan update.
  • The Comp Plan is looking at ways to identify new industrial land and institutional (hospital, colleges, etc.).
  • The Comp Plan has a goal related to the entire city having walkable access to transit and services. This connects to similar goals in the Climate Action Plan that are more focused on reducing vehicle miles traveled. The Transportation Systems Plan will include, among other things, the street classification system.
• Discuss Metro policy/decision making around transportation funding criteria, regional mode share targets and Regional Transportation Plan.  
  • 5/6 8: There is a 30% goal for mode share in the CAP, but that doesn’t match the Bike Master Plan. Whatever goals are being set need to be realistic. Don’t be too myopic in our setting of goals (e.g. just be focused on bikes to reach our goals).
  • Do we want to look at mode share goals for each of the Comp Plan pattern areas differently? Where the transit mode share goal is higher in one area, where the bike mode share goal in another.
  • The presentation that Roger Geller with PBOT gave might help inform this – Desiree will scan the PPT and send to the group.
• Discuss low carbon transportation and access project (Actions 5/6 – 17, 18, 19)
  • One idea for raising revenue is speeding cameras in areas where there is a need to increase safety and raise revenue to be spent in the community where the tickets came from.
  • What are the types of programs being considered to address the funding issues – little less general, more specifics.
  • Through the Comp Plan there is an effort to make decision making more transparent with more clearly articulated criteria and transparency.
  • The County is including an action implementing at least one project applying criteria to a transportation project (STARS).
• Discuss the concept of master planning and area planning in the Comprehensive Plan and how this can be incorporated into the CAP update.
  • When the Comp Plan is updated, we will have a citywide plan – but there will be a need to do more specific area plans.
  • For the CAP, it may make sense to develop a series of outcomes that would be most ideal to achieve…and then we can figure out the best mechanisms and scales that make the most sense.

Process:

Committee members are asked to provide draft worksheet findings on top priority topics/issues/concerns/opportunities by Friday, with the rest of the findings by Wednesday of next week.

Members Absent: Rachael Hoy

Staff Present: Michele Crim, Taren Evans, Tim Lynch, Shoshannah Oppenheim, Lauren Norris

General Check-In

• Tim invited committee members to share any things from the prior week’s conversation that either didn’t come up or that folks wanted to highlight
• It was a rich discussion and the new format seems to be working well

Community Engagement Presentation

• Lauren Norris with BPS gave an overview of the outreach and education program work of the bureau.
• Much of the work has focused on behavior change – how people use the spaces, how they get around, what they buy, etc. Behavior change could result in a reduction of 1 Billion tons of carbon emissions – so it is a big opportunity.
• Most of the programs don’t look/feel/sound like a climate conversation – it’s about recycling, bike commuting, etc.
• There is value in talking about climate itself too – in part so people can see what the connections are between climate change and buildings, energy, transportation, etc.
• Portland’s primary focus on talking about climate in four categories – healthy home, food choices, getting around, your stuff. The program is called “Portland CAN” (Climate Action Now).
• It is a place of resources, information, positive stories, action oriented, etc.
• There have been grassroots approaches to connecting the public with this information – including tabling at community events, as well as a program called ReThink.
• ReThink was a pilot that focused on climate and sustainability education focused on serving low-income communities and communities of color. Community organizations would host the program, and received $1,000 to $1,500 for implementing a climate action.
• The City has learned a lot about talking about climate as well as consumption to the public, and have identified some opportunities for improvement. For example, the ReThink program was very meaningful and impactful, but only reached a few people.
• Another lesson has been that many Portlanders across a wide variety of communities understand what actions to take why it is it is a good thing to do them – the challenge is understanding where/how to do them and having the right resources in place. The new focus is about connecting individuals with the resources/information they need to take the action – less about why taking an action is important.
• The focus will be on helping people connect through their existing social groups (e.g. churches, etc.) to do projects within their community that would be supported with grant funds.
• The City is also looking at developing web-based tools that can make the project and behavior change into a game (recognition, competition, connections through social media, etc.).
• Key questions:
  • Is this approach appealing? 
  • How can the City better tie the community project to the individual actions (behavior change)?
  • Is it better to have a competing larger prize, or more smaller prizes or some other approach?

Group Discussion

• With respect to ReThink – did the City get any feedback? After each event there were evaluations after the classes and the event, as well as a follow-up several months later for the June Key Delta event. Generally, respondents were very positive about their experience and many were still taking actions. The shift the City is looking at taking is focused more on enabling people to take actions, rather than spending so much time being introspective.
• Often, people are of different mindsets – some like to go deep and understand the “whys”, while others are more interested in getting out there and doing something.
• The City is interested in quantifying the actions that people are taking so that progress can measure. The web interface (e.g. game) might help track that information.
• The amount attracts different types of organizations. $1,500 may not be too small – but it is an important question to ask. It might be a good amount for a smaller, less established – but it might not be enough to get a larger organization like the Urban League to engage.
• Is there value in the City coming in to support an existing effort or priority of an organization – what’s on their agenda that ties into climate action? How could the grant help drive their larger agenda. There is then a double incentive.
• One of the benefits of that approach is to help change the perception of who is involved and taking action in the climate discussion (e.g. the June Key Delta center project has helped to expand the perception that African Americans are working toward the solution too).
• For some larger organization – they might be interested in a larger grant that could be distributed through them to other smaller groups (e.g. a bigger pot of money, but with more partners coming together to work on smaller projects).
• There are several years of recent history related to small grants that were given out through the neighborhood coalitions – there might be some lessons learned there that could inform the process.
• Depending on funding possibilities, a long-term goal might be to make small grants with people competing for a larger prize based on the good outcomes from the smaller grants. Or alternatively – maybe individuals that participate in the small grant project compete for a prize through prolonged behavior change at an individual level.
• In terms of how the outreach is done to let people know about the grant opportunity is important – e.g. are the announcements, materials, grant contracts translated. This should be budgeted for in the roll out of the program.
• The City’s existing work likely as a general framework (healthy home, your stuff, food choices, getting around) so community groups wouldn’t need to completely start from scratch. The City would provide technical assistance and/or connect the communities with existing resources.
• For the action related to neighborhood metrics – how will that information be provided and used? The City hasn’t thought this through and would be very interested in ideas, or cautions committee members might have.
• Is resiliency and emergency preparedness part of the Fix-It Fairs? Yes, but they might not be explicitly talking about climate.
• Green Spot was piloted at the last Sunday Parkways, the evaluations were very favorable. However, it rained during the event so fewer people were engaged than was hoped for.
• The action related to Your Sustainable City – is it working? Are the City getting into underrepresented events? Yes, they do 6 events a year and generally attend diverse community events. These tabling events would be a good place to advertise the CAN! small grants.
• How would the County envision connecting existing outreach and services to the climate outreach? There is an active commitment to having a larger conversation, but no clear plans on how it would be accomplished. The County would welcome ideas and suggestions from the committee to help inform that work going forward. There is a need to better understand how to leverage the conversations and find messaging that works with the East County partners.

Staff: Michele Crim, Desiree Williams-Rajee, Lauren Norris, Arianne Sperry, Taren Evans, Tim Lynch

Call Summary Notes

Consumption and Solid Waste – Summary Presentation

• Arianne Sperry and Lauren Norris with the City’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability gave an overview of the topic of consumption of solid waste.
• The City of Portland doesn’t own any facilities like landfills or recycling stations; the City also doesn’t own any garbage trucks.
• What the City does do is regulate the garbage/recycling haulers and set the rates for residential collection of materials.
• The City has separate programs for residential (homes) and commercial (businesses and multi-family buildings with 5 or more units).
• The City has had a curbside recycling system since 1987.
• There are 18 garbage and recycling haulers in the City.
• The City has a plan for waste and recycling called the “Portland Recycles! Plan”
• The commercial sector produces the majority of the waste in Portland. The City regulates the collection in the commercial sector, but don’t set the rates. Businesses in Portland are required by law to recycle certain materials – and the City has an outreach program for businesses to help them recycle.
•  The Portland Recycles! Plan set the goal to recover 75% of the waste stream by 2015 and to reduce carbon emissions associated with waste management and collection in the City.
• The Portland Recycles! Plan is set to be updated soon – and will include a focus on consumption (more upstream than just waste management). Staff is very interested in ideas and feedback on how to do this work with an eye toward equity.
• The City’s program called Sustainability at Work is focused on supporting businesses in recycling and waste reduction efforts.
• The program is focusing on large waste generators that are not performing well in terms of the amounts of materials being recycled.
• The “Curbsider” is a publication done twice a year that goes out to 185,000 customers in Portland. Based on testing – a large number of people are actually reading and using the information presented, and the recall rate (e.g. remembering they got the Curbsider and what the content said) is very high (although there are some differences).
• The new curbside system (collecting food scraps, garbage collection every other week) was piloted before it was rolled out citywide. The City learned that there are three audiences that were struggling with the new system (renters, linguistically isolated and large families). Families wanted more options – and the haulers weren’t doing a good job of communicating the options. The outreach for the program focused on ethnic based events, media and leadership. The effort also included customer service training for the garbage haulers, door-to-door (20,000 doors) and working with community groups to conduct outreach (as a fundraiser - $2.00 per door conversation, $.50 for leaving a door hanger).
• Historically the City doesn’t serve small rental properties (e.g. houses and 2-4 plexes). In Portland, for these properties, the property owner is required to provide/pay for garbage/recycling service.  As such, the landlord doesn’t necessarily have the incentive to ensure the family in the rental unit has the best service to meet their needs. Also – the materials that are mailed to the customers often go to the landlords, not the people in the actual rental unit.
• The City is piloting a small renter project, and next year the effort will be expanded to renters across the City.
• The Be Resourceful campaign from the City is focused upstream to reduce the amount of waste generated – it is focused on buying smart, reuse, borrowing and sharing, and fixing and maintaining.
• Generally, Portlanders already know what to do – but often they don’t know where to go to do it (and/or don’t think it is available).

Consumption and Solid Waste - Questions:

• What is the “sharing economy”? The idea is to make it safe and convenient to share items that are otherwise sitting idle in the basement or garage.
• What manufacturers are we working with and/or targeted? The City will be collaborating with regional and state programs on product stewardship efforts  - not necessarily working directly with manufacturers. The focus would be on products that are the most problematic (e.g. toxic or expensive to manage because of size/weight). The goal is to shift the costs of managing the products to the manufacturer instead of the consumer or local government.
• What percentage of renters were surveyed? (24%) What about English Language Learner? The report is new and staff haven’t reviewed it yet but staff will report back to the equity workgroup.
• The PowerPoint with slides on the consumptions/solid waste was helpful, especially because of the notes. There is interest in better understanding the small renter program.

Climate Change Preparation – Summary:

• What emergency warning systems are in place – and is information available in multiple languages? Most of these systems in place are focused on heat events. When there are heat events, a system of cooling centers is in place to serve mostly socially isolated, older adults and people with disabilities that Multnomah County works with. Development of Climate Change Preparation Plan identified the importance of expanding these programs to serve broader community and be used for both heat events and poor air quality. Looking at reaching broader community, including addressing language barriers, is an important action in the Preparation Plan.
• Flooding – who is vulnerable? Drainage services – how does flooding impact communities that don’t have good drainage potentially – and how are these communities? Need to distinguish between large scale flooding and localized impacts that could disrupt mobility, promote vector/disease etc. Need to map this to understand who is impacted. Staff will try to find more information about localized flooding impacts for the next meeting.
• Could some of the actions around flood protection and addressing urban heat island through expanded greenspace and parks in also provide additional access to these resources for communities that are currently underserved? How can we layer in increasing access to greenspaces and addressing climate change impacts? Staff agreed that this was an important potential co-benefit of the climate preparation work. Identified the importance of how implementation is structured, which is still be worked out.
• Michele will forward the specific actions listed in the larger Climate Change Preparation Plan under institutionalize best practices.
• What does emergency preparedness look like for homeless populations? Tim will try to find some more information to share with the group.

Equity Working Group - Process Update:

• The City is still working with the conference call company to get the recordings of the call.
• Based on feedback from the group, some changes in the process are being recommended to help us create a learning environment that meets everyone’s needs (community members, staff, etc.).
• Process changes include:
  • Simplifying the spreadsheet to focus on the last three questions (how can action be improved, how to measure progress, any big questions or concerns).
  • Flip the order and purpose of the in-person meetings and the phone calls. The in-person meeting will focus on big picture creative ideas and brainstorming – and how the climate action area connects to community priorities.  The meetings will be much more open ended – thinking more creatively and not being restricted by programmatic and bureaucratic constraints.  This conversation will then be followed up by a conference call to dive into the proposed actions and worksheet, ask technical questions, etc.
  • The meetings will also be more actively facilitated to keep the conversation moving forward.
  • This shifts the timeline by one week.
  • It will take some time to close the loop on the feedback from the group in terms of being able to say what recommendations were incorporated into the updated actions. Most of this feedback will happen through sharing the 50% draft and the updated document narrative.
• With the members on the call – there was general agreement that this new approach sounds promising and there is interest in trying it out.

Michele Crim, Andria Jacob, Kyle Diesner, Bill Beamer, Rachael Hoy, Vinh Mason, Taren Evans, Amanda Lopez, Claudia Arana-Colen, Demi Espinoza, Vivian Satterfield, Kristey Nguyen.

Notes

• Tim Lynch welcomed everyone to the call and did the round of introductions.
• He reviewed the purpose of the call, which includes providing some additional context on buildings and energy, and to provide an opportunity for clarifying questions.
• Andria Jacob, the manager of clean energy programs with BPS, provided an introduction and overview for the topic are of buildings and energy. Highlights included:
  • Buildings are places where we live, work, play, worship, etc.
  • We want to focus on reducing electricity and natural gas that we use in those buildings, as well how dirty (e.g. carbon intensive) those fuels are.
  • We also need to pay attention to the buildings that exist today, as well as new buildings that we have yet to build.
  • Buildings are responsible for about 44% of the local carbon emissions.
  • People are often surprised by how much coal is used to generate the electricity we use in thePortlandarea.
  • Action areas focus on retrofitting existing buildings, ensuring new buildings are high performing, and that we increase the proportion of the energy that comes from renewable sources like solar.
• Vinh Mason described the process that was used to develop the proposed Buildings and Energy actions. Staff reviewed the 2009 CAP actions, developed at a list of potential actions for the update (a list of about 40 to 50 actions). Staff then held a series of meetings with technical advisors to review the full list of actions and help identify top priority actions to a shortened list that is being presented to the Equity Working Group.
• Tim Lynch talked about some of the County’s programs related to buildings and energy, including heating and weatherization (LIHEA – Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance program; and the Weatherization Assistance Program), as well as affordable housing retrofits. These programs are not included in the CAP because they are ongoing programs. The County is looking at ways to innovate around these programs, especially their grant programs. That work is ongoing.
• Discussion:
  • There is an Energy Performance Score methodology from the Energy Trust of Oregon. It is a voluntary program. Most of this work is happening in residential market.
    • How often is it being used? We don’t know – would need to check in with some other parties to see if we can get that information.
    • In terms of how it’s promoted to prospective buyers – is it presented as a “potential savings” versus other homes? What the score is intended to do is clarify energy use, and expenditures for energy, and a carbon score. In the short-term it will be hard to compare House A to House B – but that is the ultimate goal.
    • The EPS is for new homes, the action says “all homes” – why is this? Currently there are tools for both new and existing…so the City/County’s goal is that it would be used for both.
  • Is there a potential opportunity for the PHB or others to offer incentives to buy homes that have a higher EPS?
    • There is an incentive from the Energy Trust fromOregonto help offset the cost of getting the EPS. The PHB is more focused on basic weatherization services, and haven’t really been focusing on EPS so far.
  • Is there a plan to apply an EPS to rental units?
    • The EPS that has been developed by the Energy Trust of Oregon is just for single-family residential. It would be hard to translate the score to an individual unit in a multifamily building – an EPS would probably be for the whole building, not an individual unit. However, an EPS could be used to help renters of single-family home.
  • Could there be a baseline score for multifamily units?
    • The action focused on energy benchmarking is likely the best fit for accomplishing this.New Yorkis doing some interesting work to collect data to compare the median energy performance.
  • Why access to utility data has been a difficult?
    • One of keys to success is to get at least one utility on board. The utilities are generally reluctant to share data of users. There is also a need to get large property owners to participate and support the efforts to have more transparency with data.
  • What are the criteria for the financing incentives?
    • There are a variety of approaches, most focused on spreading out the costs of the retrofit investments over a long period of time. Some of the approaches are tied to property tax system (known as PACE) and may help to reduce some of the barriers of access. For Clean Energy Works Oregon, initially there were very low credit criteria – a very non-traditional underwriting process. One of the challenges is that as people take out loans for the work, the loan amounts got to be fairly large. Because of low energy prices and moderate climate…it turned out that participants were paying about $20 to $25 more a month. The program became concerned about increasing debt burden. There is a gap for moderate income and/or near-low income homes where a program like CEWO may not be a good fit, and they don’t qualify for the low-income programs. There is ongoing work to try to come up with a financing program to try to address this gap – so those homes are saving money on a net basis each month. CEWO has been more successful in the workforce development aspects of the program.
  • Is the local carbon pollution tax regressive?
    • That is one of the most important questions to be asked about this action. There is no question that this has the potential to be a regressive tax – and there is a need to be sure that relief is giving to vulnerable populations. To make this more of a tax shift – reducing a tax elsewhere to compensate. The effects of climate change tend to be significantly regressive as well.
    • If you’re creating a clean energy fee or tax, what’s the money for? The intent is to put that money into a special revenue fund that is devoted to tackling the issues of climate change, and also funding this idea of a tax shift (e.g. relieve of income tax). Tax the behavior you don’t want to see (e.g. carbon emission generation), and provide relief things we want (e.g. employment).
    • Is the action written so vaguely because the City/County aren’t sure how they plan to approach this? It’s hard to make helpful recommendations without specifics, etc.
  • What are the options for lobbyingSalemto improve energy codes (since the City/County can’t exceed state codes)?
    • This has been an ongoing challenge. There may be an opportunity to get an exemption to the State code. There is also a voluntary code that exceeds the minimum standard (known as the Oregon REACH code). Objective 2, Action I, is focused on making progress on this.
    • There may be some options to make progress through the zoning code (e.g. the solar code). As well as looking at some of the “bonuses” given for improved performance. Maybe, a baseline level of performance that would be required in order to qualify for the other bonuses (see Objective 2, letter J).
  • The “non-technical description” was very helpful to the group, the group would like those in the future. For staff, developing the non-technical descriptions helped identify opportunities to improve the wording of the actions themselves to make them more understandable and accessible.
  • Sending out the notes and the recording ASAP would be appreciated.

Staff: Desiree Williams-Rajee (BPS), Michele Crim (BPS), Steve Cohen (Food Policy Program Manager, BPS)

EQWG: Rose High Bear (Wisdom Council of the Elders), Linda Nettekoven (CAP Steering Committee, Claudia Arana-Colen (Upstream Public Health), Bill Beamer (BPS), Rachael Hoy (BPS).

Questions

• What is food waste? Any food that is not consumed. The EPA has a hierarchy of action to prevent food waste: http://www.epa.gov/foodrecovery/. It was noted that both objectives in the Food and Agriculture section (5) address consumption, but are separate from the Consumption and Solid Waste section (3). The actions within the food chapter are more focused on food waste prevention than diversion and management, but the separation of the two topics was acknowledged to be confusing.  
• Food caterers and food waste: are there are new strategies to address capturing food waste from catered events Metro is most likely to turn over the Fork it Over program to PSU.
• How much should the CAP Updates inform our analysis? The CAP Update documents are not comprehensive documents. They are highlights of information that have happened since the plan was adopted, but do not effectively tell the whole story. They can give some context in terms of what has been done in the past and the focus of policies and programs. This project is more focused on the future actions and whether or not we are setting ourselves up for success particularly around equity.
•  Where are we starting from with our current baseline metrics? For carbon metrics, some sections did a better job; like in buildings and energy, metrics were more explicit. In Urban Forestry and Food and Agriculture, metrics have not been clear in the past. Towards October, staff will bring the narratives to the group for review which will have new proposed ideas for metrics.
•  Can we review various geographies for which areas need support? Rentership, Low-income communities, density, and demographic maps will be made available to the group. We can create maps that currently show things like urban forest canopy. One of our challenges is to figure out where it’s ok to have a broad citywide statement versus a more specific statement to highlight addressing a specific a need within the plan. One option is considering how we can use the narratives to provide more specificity about how to implement the actions.
•  Can the City purchase specific properties for natural lands? Actions in the plan may not necessarily identify a specific plot of land, but may include an action that includes land acquisition. If there are priorities that we can identify, that can help to direct the implementation of the action.
•  Question for BES: How does equity currently factor into the acquisition of natural areas? Do Communities of Color/Low-income Populations have access to these areas, and is that a consideration?
•  Are we mapping what space for trees we are losing as we get more dense?Are there maps available that show trends of heat island and opportunity for tree planting? This may let us know if there needs to be a strategy focused on creating additional space for trees based on whether or not there is enough space available in areas of need. Some of this might be available from what was done in the creation of the tree code. Roberta Jortner and Morgan Tracy at BPS may have this information. (Michele and Desiree to follow-up). Can the updates include specific tracking of outcomes for equity related goals? Yes, looking for ideas from the EQWG on what are some things that we should be tracking, both at a high-level, but also at the implementation level.
•  Does 16,000 trees get us to the one-third goal?  Does it allow for some overplanting to improve success rates? Not sure. This will be a good question to ask BES.
•  Could there another action in Urban Forestry directed towards partnerships? This seems like a reasonable addition, and another good question to pose to BES in the next EQWG meeting.
•  Is there a need to add an action to review existing local gov't service locations?  While this section focuses on improving city/county operations to reduce carbon emissions, is there a risk of consolidating services that would require some communities to have to travel further to obtain necessary services?  This is currently not addressed and an important equity consideration.
• Are there structures in place to hold government accountable to fulfill these actions? What is the monitoring and accountability system? There is a system, but it doesn’t show up specifically in the actions. In the resolution that adopted the plan it directed the bureaus to fulfill their responsibilities in the plan, and then the progress report documents which actions have been completed or not yet completed. This report goes to council. So far this has been an effective tool to document what is and is not being done. This process will continue, but it will be important to consider whether or not there or other systems of accountability, particularly with additional partners and stakeholders that will need to be considered.