A Green City Manager for Sunnyvale

In numerous policy documents Sunnyvale government has stated the intent of becoming a sustainable city. The desire for a truly sustainable city was also expressed repeatedly by our citizens in the Visioning Festival, hosted by the city in the fall of 2006. Sustainability is important enough to our residents that a citizen group has established the Charles Street Community Gardens (organic) on City land and the Full Circle Farm (also organic) on school district land in Sunnyvale. There is also an active and growing Cool Cities Team of Sunnyvale resident volunteers advocating policies and practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and engaging with community groups. In addition to advocating greenhouse gas reduction initiatives to Council, the group put together a community discount program for PV solar installations and distributed over 2000 compact fluorescent bulbs to city residents.

Over the years, Sunnyvale's city leaders have adopted a multitude of sustainable practices. In fact, the greenhouse gas emissions from Sunnyvale municipal government operations and facilities are actually substantially below what they were in 1990, due to the foresight of our staff and council. Plans are underway to reduce the carbon footprint of city government even more. Yet, because of the enormous challenges facing our planet, it is a very high priority that all levels of government accelerate their efforts to protect it.

Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that our new city manager:

• understand the threats to the environment, especially the biggest threat of all, that of Global Climate Disruption, and that fundamental change is needed to address environmental threats;
• understand that it is a municipal responsibility to act aggressively to curb greenhouse gas emissions, just as it is a responsibility of city government to provide public safety and maintain public works;
• demonstrate familiarity with the help available, such as ICLEI http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=1120 for conducting a citywide carbon audit, setting a greenhouse gas reduction target and creating a plan to reach the goal;
• demonstrate knowledge regarding how to organize a city to protect the environment and especially reduce citywide greenhouse emissions.

We at SunnyvaleCool look forward to working with our new city manager as he/she works to create a truly sustainable city.