Happy news! Thank you Sunnyvale staff!

At last night's sustainability workshop, our City Manager, Amy Chan, announced that Sunnyvale will hire our own full-time sustainability officer in September.  The budget adopted in June funded a part- time position.  The plan was to share a full-time sustainability coordinator with Cupertino.  However, when Cupertino decided at the last minute to hire their own full-time coordinator, we were left with just a part-time position.  The ability to conduct a community wide carbon inventory was in jeopardy.  However, staff has decided to redirect some marketing dollars (I believe from the recycling department and the water pollution control plant) to make the sustainability position full-time.
 
This change in plans enables us to go forward with the community carbon audit and put some accountability into the City's commitment to strive to reduce the Sunnyvale community's greenhouse gas emissions in line with Kyoto goals  (Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement).  We will soon be able to quantify our progress toward this goal.
 
Hiring a full-time, dedicated sustainability officer also demonstrates our city government's commitment to accelerating our progress toward truly sustainable city.
 
But the news from last night gets even better.  In her opening comments, Amy Chan and Coryn Campbell reminded Council and the community of numerous policy statements in support of sustainability.  Amy reminded us that our visioning statement says that Sunnyvale takes "environmental protection seriously," that we "consider how each action will affect Sunnyvale for future generations."  Coryn reminded us of our goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from city government sources 20% by 2010 (Sustainable Silicon Valley Partner goal) and  emissions from the entire community 7% by 2012.  Amy  reminded us that we are responsible for the world we pass on to our kids. 
 
I think it is fair to say that our Cool Cities Team members present last night were thrilled.  I think it is also fair to say that we were impressed by the long list of progress in environmental protection that our city government had made since the last sustainability workshop in January, 2007.  .  I just wish that more Sunnyvale residents could be aware of the breadth and depth of these actions.  As Amy Chan said, we have made a good start.