Councilwoman

Evelyn Tolbert spearheaded the Sustainability Committee, which met for the

first time last year and presented its case to City Council in December.

The group

talked about a variety of future actions, including pushing the city to adopt

incentives to encourage green builders and ways for local teens to educate

their younger peers about how to recycle and save energy.

“They’re

just looking at global warming; those things are big on everyone’s horizon

now,” Councilman Steve Abercrombie said. “I hope this helps make future

development in our city more environmentally friendly, gets more people to

recycle and more people to carpool. You know, just that would be a push for all

these different ways to lessen our impact on the environment.”

The

committee’s first meeting late last year brought more than 30 participants,

mostly from local school districts, the city and nearby colleges. There were

also four or five developers.

Tolbert

recruited people from different walks of life to join the team, because it

would be less effective, she said, to single out one group to come up with

everything.

“We’re all

in this together, and we all have something to contribute, whether it’s

carpooling or constructing solar panels,” she said. “We have all got to do

something because we are all causing a problem.”  

Red Maple

shopping center is an example of development the committee would push for,

Abercrombie said.

“Red Maple

is trying to be as green as possible,” he said. “So we’re working with them and

encouraging them to move in that direction.”

Making the

shift to a green city makes economic sense, too, Tolbert said.

“Someday

these energy-saving technologies, recycling and other things included in green

development, it pays for itself,” she said. “It just makes sense to think about

heading in that direction.”

Other ideas

Tolbert suggested the committee think about are to place recycling bins in more

businesses and schools and to push for more residential solar panels.

Because the

group is all-volunteer, there should be no impact on the city budget, unless

the council approves a city staff member to act as adviser or liaison.

Acting City Manager Maria Hurtado suggested

that Andrew Malik of the city’s Development and Engineering Department attend

the sustainability committee’s meetings, but Councilwoman Suzanne Tucker and

Abercrombie worried about giving the group an open-ended commitment of staff

time, which some members guessed would be about two hours a month.

Mayor Brent

Ives offered at the meeting to support the group with city resources once it

developed more focus and came up with specific plans to help Tracy.

• We want to hear what you have to say.

To reach Tracy Press reporter Jennifer Wadsworth,

call 830-4225 or e-mail jwadsworth@tracypress.com.