Community Corner
Carbon Neutral City's Friday Night Secrets Revealed
The city unveils developments with environmental services company AECOM, cutting-edge software, and a sustainability conference in the near future.
This is the first time I can write about any of what's gone on at the Hermosa Beach Carbon Neutral City committee meetings, which I've actively participated in as a committee member since the first weekly meeting on a Friday night in April.
Since then our ad hoc group has gotten together in a nondescript conference room to kick off our weekends with two-to-three hours of exciting reports, discussions, updates and brainstorming. No one knows how to have a wildly wonky word workout like we do.
Four months later, not only are we still at it on Friday nights, but also on other nights, we've added subcommittee assignments.
Find out what's happening in Hermosa Beachwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Because I write this column for Patch as well as my own Creative Greenius blog, I've agreed to keep what I see and hear in our Carbon Neutral City committee meetings confidential and not write about them.
I'm part of the committee as an environmental advocate, subject matter expert and communications professional, and not operating as a journalist or opinion columnist.
Find out what's happening in Hermosa Beachwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
But last week Mayor Michael DiVirgilio gave a public presentation on our Carbon Neutral City efforts to the South Bay Cities Council of Governments (COG) Green Task Force.
Truth be told, I try to never miss one of the council's Green Task Force meetings and have been attending them for a few years now. I'm a pushover for PowerPoint.
Two pieces of news not previously made public were part of the Mayor's Green Task Force presentation.
On August 1o, at the City Council meeting, AECOM will be making a presentation on their progress in securing grants, and the company will be demonstrating a whiz-bang software tool the City will be employing that DiVirgilio said left his head spinning after he saw a sneak peek of it recently.
The software allows for a series of "what if" options to be selected to strikingly visualize the cost benefits of different methods for reaching carbon neutrality. I can't wait to see it and maybe get to play with it some day.
And at the end of August, or in early September, the Mayor announced that the City would be hosting a sustainability conference to bring potential partners together to discuss the carbon-neutral goal and how to best achieve it.
Details are still being finalized and I'll be as anxious to learn about them as you are. One thing's for sure – my propensity for PowerPoint is certain to be satisfied.
The Mayor praised our committee members' volunteer dedication to working on this ambitious goal and offered up our Friday night meeting schedule as proof of our commitment.
He explained that our group was made up of some city staff members, members of the Hermosa Beach School board, members of the Hermosa Beach Green Task Force, members of the business community, students and environmentalists.
Cautioning the audience not to assume that Hermosa Beach is headed down this path because it's filled with rabid environmentalists, DiVirgilio stressed the sustainable budget and economic motivations for his city's carbon-neutral goal.
Offering that Hermosa's annual energy expenses are about half a million dollars, the Mayor said that cutting that number in half would free up the money to hire three or four new police officers, for example.
He went on to stress that cutting energy costs didn't impact any constituency that would be in opposition to those cuts.
As a person whose day job is working on congresswoman Jane Harman's staff, the Mayor of Hermosa Beach understands very well that the absence of any group with their nose out of joint is a huge political plus on any issue.
On that same subject thread, DiVirgilio stressed the kitchen table dollars and sense approach our committee has recommended taking in reaching out to the community at large.
Global warming is an esoteric science issue for the average person on the average street in Hermosa, the Mayor told the Green Task Force.
But the County's home energy retrofit program (now called Energy Upgrade California) with its rebates, tax credits and big annual energy savings was something any Hermosa resident could understand and appreciate.
At the same time, the more Hermosans who participate in the County's program, the closer the city reaches it carbon-neutral goal.
What's not to like?
Joe Galliani is a member of the Hermosa Beach Carbon Neutral City Committee and writes a weekly column about local environmental issues for Hermosa Beach | Patch.
