WEST BRATTLEBORO — At the Dec. 11 Brattleboro Selectboard meeting, Tom Franks, a member of the Brattleboro Town Energy Committee, presented an important proposal - that the town create and fund a new position of sustainability coordinator.
He did so on behalf of a small group of like-minded individuals (myself included) and a number of local organizations that support the initiative or something close to it.
As one of his slides explained, a sustainability coordinator would:
• Focus on balancing social/equity, environmental, and local economic needs in all town decision-making
• Coordinate the efforts of municipal, business, and non-governmental organizations and residents
• Develop evidence-based recommendations
• Monitor/report on sustainability efforts
• Work on acquisition of grant funding.
Balancing social/equity, environmental, and local economic needs is a wide-ranging purview. Coordinating efforts of the municipality with business, nonprofit, and residential interests is also challenging, to say the least.
One model, Sustainability Tools for Assessing and Rating (STAR) Community Objectives, breaks down sustainability work into 49 tools within eight categories: built environment; climate and energy; economy and jobs; education, arts, and community; equity and empowerment; health and safety; natural systems; and innovation and process.
The Selectboard definitely seemed intrigued with the sustainability coordinator idea. So did Chloe Learey, executive director of the Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development, who spoke of the “glue” or “backbone” role a sustainability coordinator would play in bringing together various interests.
She knows that her own organization's role in providing day care enables parents to hold jobs, which, in turn, means employers can more readily find the people they need for their companies to be successful, and which also means those employees can more readily afford housing and improve their homes.
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What of the climate and energy category? As a former Energy Committee member who also firmly believes we need to make much, much more progress addressing climate change, I do worry that this area will get lost in the mix.
I helped round up a number of letters of support for the sustainability coordinator proposal, and I fear that some of those organizations were thinking in terms closer to an energy coordinator/environmental technology expert. Yet, it is clear that the other needs our community has - such as economy and jobs or education, arts, and community - are also crying out for an effective, integrated approach.
I believe through using a holistic strategy like this one, we will see recommendations - and, then, grant or loan funding - for the energy work, along with the other work.
Alex Wilson, of the Resilient Design Institute, in his letter of support for a sustainability and resilience coordinator, brings up the very real need to plan for flooding events and extended power outages.
He states that many larger cities have hired chief resilience officers. Such resilience work does integrate aspects of at least the built environment, climate and energy, health and safety, and natural systems categories above.
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The Selectboard - and town staff - do, however, have great concerns with how such a position could be funded. They are trying hard, as they should, to keep the rise in the fiscal year 2020 budget to an affordable size. Adding a new position like this at full-time might cost $60,000 in salary plus another $30,000 or $40,000 in benefits and other expenses.
Could such a position pay for itself through obtaining grants or finding effective and fair ways to cut costs? There is growing, though still anecdotal, data out there about other municipalities - including small towns like Brattleboro - that have made it work.
During public comment, local resident, landlord, and property manager Jason Cooper made a strong pitch to treat such a position as a profit center - that is, to hire a person who is already experienced in this field and in covering their own salary.
Doing so early on, he said, would make it more obvious whether this position could sustain itself without being a new burden on the budget. To get such an idea going, the town might still have to find some seed money to support the position as the person does the groundwork, making possible an eventual payoff.
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With Brattleboro strapped for funds, how would we get this started?
At the meeting the concluding sentiment was basically to send this proposal out for more study. That makes some sense, in that it would be great to get more than just anecdotal evidence that this has worked for some communities. (Burlington, Vt., and Northampton, Mass. are two of them.)
The idea that Jason Cooper broached - to have it be a profit center, needing to bring in more than it costs - seemed to be tabled as well.
I, for one, want to see this get started sooner rather than later. It was good to have the Selectboard very interested in the concept and wanting to hear back about it. The chances of the town being in any better fiscal situation a year from now, however, are iffy at best.
In my opinion, we are going to have to find a way to make this work.