Council embraces ‘green’ agenda

The city of Tacoma is preparing to drastically alter how it goes about its daily functions in an effort to reduce carbon emissions and take other steps to reduce its negative impact on the environment.

Green Ribbon Climate Action Task Force delivered its report on recommended steps the city should take to Tacoma City Council July 1. The group included representatives from business, labor, education, transportation, government and environmental organizations. They spent 15 months holding meetings and gathering public input in assembling the final report.

If things go according to the plan, the city would cut carbon emissions from the 1990 level by 80 percent by 2050, despite having a considerably larger population then.

Joanne Buselmeier, one of two co-chairs of the task force, said achieving such a goal will require the support of government and business leaders.

“If you don’t get a lot of people buying into it, this is going to be hard to implement,” she told the council during its weekly study session.

Recommendations include: creating an Office of Sustainability within city government; establishing a “Tacoma Green Team” to coordinate the city’s efforts with other local government entities, and establishing a citizen oversight committee to hold government officials accountable for carrying out the ambitious plan.

“These are local solutions for a very disturbing global problem,” said Ryan Mello from the Cascade Land Conservancy, the other co-chair.

Achieving the goals will require city employees to re-think how they purchase paper, ink, vehicles and everything in between.

Buselmeier said that as gasoline prices continue to rise, there will be fewer big cars and sports utility vehicles.

People will do more walking, and denser neighborhoods in the future will require a better mass transit system, Mello told the council. Businesses that promote vanpools for their employees should receive tax incentives, he added.

Mayor Bill Baarsma endorsed the idea of an Office of Sustainability, and said the staff should be appointed by the city manager and the director of Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU).

Buselmeier said the proposals could provide new opportunities for the local economy. “We can grow green jobs and green businesses.”

Councilmember Jake Fey said he is enthusiastic about the potential for jobs focused on the environment. Tacoma needs to set itself apart from other cities chasing the same thing, he noted. “We want to distinguish ourselves from other green economies.”

Fey noted that the city’s 1990 emission levels reflect the fact that at the time TPU owned the Centralia Steam Plant, a coal-fired power plant that he described as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the state. The city has since sold the plant. Fey said it might be inappropriate to take this into account in achieving the 80 percent reduction goal, for the simple fact the city sold it long before the task force presented this as a target to aim for.

The council is expected to vote on policies based on the recommendations in the near future.

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