HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 11_ Updated Financial Plan - SLO Climate Coalition Comments
Christian, Kevin
From:Eric Veium <eric@carbonfreeslo.org>
Sent:Tuesday, June 2, 2020 1:55 PM
To:E-mail Council Website
Cc:Read, Chris; Hill, Robert; Quinn Brady; June Cochran; John Smigelski; SLO Climate
Coalition; Jon Griesser; Mike Horgan; jessica.otten@outlook.com; Lauren Bell; Kristen
Hazard
Subject:Item 11: Updated Financial Plan - SLO Climate Coalition Comments
Honorable Mayor and Council,
The SLO Climate Coalition would like to acknowledge and thank your staff for doing an extraordinary job in their work
developing this updated financial plan, particularly in such a challenging and uncertain economic environment.
We see it as crucial to evoke the context created by our current and ongoing health, social, and economic crises. In this
very moment we are experiencing the significant costs to our families and communities from crises not properly dealt
with. The conclusion that must be drawn from these experiences is that if we do not invest our relationships and
resources now to deal with these crises in conjunction with the climate crisis, we will continue to pay dearly in ways that
we can and can't possibly imagine.
The SLO Climate Coalition supports the transition from the city's current major city goal framework to a singular but
multifaceted Recovery, Resilience, and Redefinition model. Although staff has done an excellent job weaving climate,
equity, and resilience throughout the plan, we see several opportunities to enhance the language to further emphasize
these critical issues.
We request the following:
1. References to recovery, resilience, and redefinition should include additional language that emphasizes that any
action in support of these goals be approached with solutions that are clean, equitable, and innovative.
2. Add Climate Leadership as an Economic Recovery Strategy with specific language that expressly reaffirms SLO's
commitment to carbon neutrality by 2035 and acknowledges that, by its nature, implementation of the city's
forthcoming Climate Action Plan presents a unique and important opportunity to achieve the goals of recovery,
resilience, and redefinition.
3. More than ever, we need to call upon our community choice energy program to double its efforts to deliver on
its promise of climate equity and regional benefit. Update the Climate Action mcg related action item
(Attachment B-page 51) for Monterey Bay Community Power from "launch and support board participation" to
"actively engage to shape policies and programs that maximize climate equity and regional benefit".
Additionally, in response to this new framework of recovery, resilience, and redefinition, the SLO Climate Coalition is
working to redevelop its annual work plan in a way that directly supports these goals.
We appreciate our partnership with your council, staff, and community and look forward to continuing our work
together.
Highest regards,
Eric
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Eric Veium
Chair
SLO Climate Coalition
(805) 835-3669
eric@carbonfreeslo.org
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