Sustainable Communities Toolkit

 

LOCAL LEAGUE ACTIVITIES

Table of Contents:

LWV-Fresno: General Plan Update

Sustainable communities has been a priority for the Fresno League for the past year. We began right after the 1999 state convention first to educate our board and the rest of our membership about sustainable communities with articles in the Voter on specific sustainable topics. 

I outlined a plan for the first year of the project and took it to the board in August for approval. With the Board's commitment to making Sustainable Communities a priority for the year, we put together a steering committee composed of those Board members whose portfolios addressed the topic - Natural Resources, Land Use, Transportation, Air Quality, Water, Education, Housing and Health Care. This committee was a very action oriented group and desired to find some way to make a difference in the way development in our community was going. 

The steering committee wanted to involve other groups and individuals in the community who were not necessarily League members, but also realized that we needed a concrete plan of how we would proceed before trying to form a coalition with other groups. It was decided to hold a public forum in November to introduce the topic of sustainable communities to the general League membership as well as to others outside of League who were interested. The forum had ten speakers who discussed sustainable communities from their specific interest. A very lively question period followed. About 60 to 70 people attended the meeting, about half from outside of League.

From this meeting a group of 30 or more people indicated an interest in continuing to meet as a sustainable communities committee. Fifteen have continued more or less continuously to meet once a month for the past year.

The work of this committee began by deciding on goals and objectives and way to evaluate the results of action taken by the League on the topic. It was agreed that we would seek alliances with other groups at appropriate times when issues were surfacing.

Soon after the first of the year as the committee was attempting to define its role, it became apparent that immediate action would be needed first to address the update of the Fresno County General Plan and secondly to prepare to address the update of the Fresno City General Plan when it was expected to become before the public sometime later in the year. With one exception the committee at this time was entirely League members.

Using League positions including the new sustainable communities position, we made extensive comments on the County General Plan and many of these comments were incorporated into the draft plan. Each member of the committee developed the comments for his/her own area of expertise. We are now preparing to do the same for the City General Plan that will have hearings in September.

At the same time that this intensive work was going on, the committee at its regular monthly meetings worked on indicators of sustainability to use in evaluating in the future how the General Plans were accomplishing the goals of more compact growth, protection of ag land, economic development, etc. This work will continue into the coming year. One topic just emerging is development of a transit oriented alternative to the proposed City General Plan.

This approach to addressing community problems has had several advantages. First of all it has utilized a coordinated approach to public statements. The committee has not all been focused on a single topic, therefore, we could address many more issues comprehensively. Secondly, it has increased League membership. We have added at least six new members specifically for this topic. We are also beginning to work with some rather diverse groups we might not have realized otherwise that we had some interests in common.
 

Barbara Tokmakian, LWV-Fresno, email: haroldt@csufresno.edu
 

LWV-Bakersfield: Land use planning and growth

At its 1999 Annual Meeting the members of the Bakersfield League voted to continue to focus on land use and growth issues and to implement a community outreach effort that will enable the public and elected officials to make more informed decisions. They are dedicated to widening the scope of public participation in planning and land use decisions and, for that reason, they successfully worked for the return after 17 years absence of a Planning Commission to the growth management process in Kern County.

As its contribution to local sustainability efforts, many of LWV-Bakersfield's members have participated as community meeting facilitators in the Greater Bakersfield 2020 Vision Community Development planning process from its inception. They also sponsored one of the Phase 3 community meetings. "Three of us are serving as individuals among the five Vision Force task teams formed for the final phase," says president Lois Chaney. "It has been an exciting project from the beginning, and the League is sanguine about the influence the Vision 2020 recommendations will have upon our elected officials & planning agencies."

For more information on LWV-Bakersfield's positions and activities related to land use and growth issues, see http://www.kern.ca.lwv.org/lwvissue.html#planning . This web site is intended not just for members, but as a means for widening the scope of public understanding of land use issues.
 

LWV-Bakersfield contact: Lois Chaney, President, (661) 634-3773 (voicemail)
email: lchaney@onemain.com
 

LWV-Humboldt County: Action, Earth Day, Ecological footprint

During the 99/00 program year the LWV Humboldt County engaged in the following actions and educational project using the sustainability action policy: 

 

  • We reviewed our present policy positions and

    •  

    1. Identified and flagged those which speak to sustainability. (In the Annual Meeting kit, these positions are marked with a footprint.)
    2. Identified gaps in our present policy positions.
    3. Held a Unit Meeting at which the above findings were presented and where consensus was reached to recommend studies to strengthen our positions on Land Use and Transportation so that they more comprehensively speak to sustainability. The Unit Meeting also recommended a study to consider a new position for Solid Waste Management.
    4. The above recommended studies were approved at the last annual meeting.

     

  • The LWVHC shared a booth, at the April, 2000, Sustainable Living Fair (Earth Day), with elementary school students participating in NASA's EarthKAM space project which examines human impacts on the earth. LWVHC distributed information on the ecological footprint, and other fliers/booklets received from the New Road Map Foundation and the California Futures Network, and displayed the LWVC definition of sustainable communities.

    •  

  • LWVHC placed Leaving Shallow Footprints, an ecological footprint calculator, on its website, at http://www.lwvhc.org/vote/footprints.htm. A hard-copy version was included in the toolkit. This worksheet was created by Lamont C Hempel, Director of Environmental Programs at the University of Redlands, and author of several books on sustainability.

  LWV-Humboldt County contact: Rudy Ramp, 707-822-7790, email: rampturn@tidepool.com
 

LWV-Long Beach: Green Schools, Healthy Schools Forum and Sustainable Schools Web Page

The City of Long Beach recently passed a bond issue for school improvements and construction of new schools. LWV-Long Beach recognized that this was a unique opportunity to "green the schools". They co-sponsored a community forum in May, 2000, with prominent speakers, to educate school officials and interested citizens on the benefits of designing "green" schools. 

Resources on sustainable schools can be found on the LWV-Long Beach web site at http://www.ags.uci.edu/~colettem/sustainableschools/ .
 

LWV-Long Beach contact: Carol Churchill, 562-597-4534 or e-mail churchillca@earthlink.net
 

LWV-Sacramento: "State of the Community" Luncheon

This year, LWV-Sacramento's very successful annual fund-raising luncheon focused on sustainability. An important aspect of the meeting was to educate the speakers as well as the audience: A delegation of members briefed the speakers - local officials - to ensure that they understood the concepts of sustainable communities. 
 

OTHER LOCAL LEAGUE EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS

Field trips: "Seeing is believing." Several Leagues have done field trips related to their local sustainable or liveable community needs, and found them quite successful. ENACT has done Southern California Field trips to all sorts of places for about 10 years. One of their members observed, as they toured the Spadra Landfill, "Just look at us. Most women meet and play bridge, but we Leaguers meet and tour a garbage dump."

The San Diego League had a "treasure hunt" searching for treasures of neighborhood renewal, preservation, and restoration. Their Voter article describing the tour is enclosed.

Community Assessment: If your community has not yet developed indicators of sustainability or quality-of-life, you may wish to have a program to introduce members to these concepts. Life in My Community - a Survey is a special issue of the Population Press which would make an interesting unit meeting or workshop.

Regional or local Workshop: The San Diego County Leagues put on a regional workshop using case studies of current local development proposals which illustrated the trade-offs that arise when making decisions about land use planning. Kim Longworth and Linda Phillips would be happy to help you plan a similar workshop in your region.