May 29, 2018
Moving Your Community
by Ellen Cardone Banks
Niagara Group Climate and Energy Committee and Atlantic Chapter Conservation Chair
The first goal of the Sierra Club’s mission statement is “To achieve ambitious and just climate solutions.” While we work to implement these solutions statewide and nationally, local work is equally important. We will not reach our climate goals without local action. Sometimes local town and village governments appear to be stodgy and cliquish, and town board meetings can seem bogged down in minor and uninspiring matters. How do we bring awareness of energy efficiency, clean renewable energy and climate justice to the foreground in our towns?
In the Town of Amherst and other Buffalo suburbs, we have developed some strategies that work. Amherst has completed the first four steps for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) Clean Energy Community (CEC) certification and earned a CEC $250,000 grant, which will be used to put solar panels on a community center and increase electric vehicle charging stations. We continue to work on further steps in this program and the related Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Climate Smart Community certification. Erie County, the Village of Williamsville and several other local towns are in the CEC process.
Many towns have Conservation Advisory Councils, authorized by NY State municipal laws* that advise on land use, including development proposals, parks and conservation education. Towns may also have committees on energy, transportation and recycling / waste. Your town’s website may list contact information for committee chairpersons and indications of vacancies; these volunteer opportunities are not always well known so it may be easy to be appointed.
Typically, these committees also include town staff from the planning, building and other relevant departments, and meetings are open to the public. In our town, to get on a committee you attend a meeting or two and then, with the chairperson’s support, submit a statement of interest to a town board member, who will place your appointment on the board’s agenda. In my case, I volunteered to plant perennials in a newly repurposed town park, with no intention of anything more. I just wanted to learn some tips from garden experts. In decades of living in Amherst, I’d rarely set foot in our town hall.
The garden planner was also the Conservation Advisory Council chair. She asked me to join the council. Then several of our Niagara Group members joined the Energy Conservation committee. Together, with the help of one sympathetic town board member and advice from a staffer working with a regional planning institute on a NYSERDA grant, we formed an ad hoc Clean Energy Community committee. The CEC program appeals to elected officials because it starts with small steps that are easily implemented, provides 50 hours of technical support that addresses the excuse of limited staff time, and offers grants up to $250,000, with no matching requirements, for implementing further steps.
As in many endeavors, getting to know your town officials helps you and your organization to be heard.
Another way to influence local policy is to get involved in local politics. You can join a local party committee by contacting the party organization in your county for a petition and getting 25 signatures from registered party members. As a committee member, you’ll be expected to “carry” petitions for endorsed candidates. You can then bring climate and energy issues to the attention of the committee, have a voice in nominations and endorsements, and work within the organization to elect candidates who support energy efficiency and clean energy.
In our town, Sierra Club members worked on the November 2017 election. With many other volunteers, our ground game brought a high turnout in a local-only election year and elected a slate of a much more environmentally friendly supervisor and town board. If local party participation is not for you, consider starting or joining non-partisan voter registration drives.
The first year I was eligible to vote, I was in Tip O’Neill’s congressional district. Tip often said, “All politics is local.” As we move toward a crucial election season, let’s heed his advice.