Environmental Forums for City of Austin Council Candidates 2018

Shades of Green hosted Environmental Forums for our City Council candidates to find out their positions on critical issues facing the City. Each candidate is asked to elaborate on their position on issues regarding climate change, transportation, water and other important environmental topics. Part 2 - includes candidates running for District 9.

In the studio we had candidates:

Linda O’Neal

Danielle Skidmore

(Other candidates Kathie Tovo and Isaiah Jones were invited but unable to attend)

Environmental Forums for City of Austin Council Candidates 2018

Shades of Green hosted Environmental Forums for our City Council candidates to find out their positions on critical issues facing the City. Each candidate is asked to elaborate on their position on issues regarding climate change, transportation, water and other important environmental topics. Part 1 today includes candidates running for District 8.

In the studio were candidates:

Rich DePalma

Bobby Levinski

(Other candidates Page Ellis and Frank Ward III were invited but unable to attend)

In Part 2 – We focused on propositions J and K

Our Guests were:

Bay Scoggin - Director of the Texas Public Interest Research Group (speaking against Prop J)

Prop J is the "CodeNEXT" proposition that if passed, would require a waiting period and a public vote before any other future comprehensive rewrite of our land development code is passed.

Fred Lewis - speaking in favor of Prop J

Michael Searle - treasurer of Yes PAC on Prop K

Prop K - “Without using the existing internal City Auditor or existing independent external auditor, shall the City Code be amended to require an efficiency study of the City’s operational and fiscal performance performed by a third-party audit consultant, at an estimated cost of $1 million to $5 million?”

On today's show covered nine ballot propositions that Austin residents will vote on in November!!

In Part 1 we covered propositions A thru G and our quest was:

Jovita Pardo, Finance Director of Austin Together (which supports Props A through G).

Props A through G are the bond propositions. They include:

• Proposition A: Affordable Housing, $250 million

• Proposition B: Libraries, Museums and Cultural Arts Facilities, $128 million

• Proposition C: Parks & Recreation, $149 million

• Proposition D: Flood Mitigation, Open Space and Water Quality Protection, $184 million

• Proposition E: Health & Human Services, $16 million

• Proposition F: Public Safety, $38 million

• Proposition G: Transportation Infrastructure, $160 million

Jenny Nazak's book sets out to popularize a low-footprint lifestyle by touting the great PERSONAL benefits of said lifestyle.  Practical sustainability for individuals, households & small businesses: workshops; presentations; consulting.

Here is what Jenny says about the book:   Want to take back your time? Want to enjoy more prosperity, or cut out irksome busy-work from your life, or create a nurturing community; all while improving your health and your connections with other people? What if you could do all that, while also helping to create a much greener society? Well, you can! Open this book and let's get started.

We spoke with Jenny Nazak, one of the three founders of our program “Shades of Green” in 2007. She is a long time green advocate for a low carbon lifestyle, a teacher, writer/editor, fine art; graphic design; marketing & public relations; social media; and of particular note an expert permaculture design consulting. She now lives in Florida.

Water issues in small central Texas towns can by highly contentious and political. Our topic for today was water in two towns outside of Austin: Dripping Springs and Wimberley, Texas.

Our guests were:

Angela Richter - Executive Director of the Save Barton Creek Association. 

She discussed their No Dripping Sewage campaign, aimed at preventing Dripping Springs from dumping treated wastewater into Onion Creek (a tributary of Barton Springs).

Steve Thurber – Former mayor and city councilmember of Wimberley.

The City of Wimberley as a community has been studying wastewater issues for decades. The problem is a high concentration of septic systems in the relatively small area of the Wimberley square that is causing pollution of Cypress Creek, an economic engine of Wimberley’s economy.

The City is planning to build a new wastewater plant funded by the City. The purpose of the project is twofold. One to provide a sewer system to the downtown area to alleviate the septic systems to stop pollution of Cypress Creek, and two, to reuse the effluent to irrigate Wimberley’s Blue Hole Regional Park.

The city began construction of the project earlier this year with 2 contractors, both of which are approximately 20% complete. However, the current city council has “paused” to construction of the plant to review the option of contracting with a private company to process the city’s waste. This pause is set to expire the end of August 2018. There are many objections for allowing a private water company to build the plant. Steve describes the issues.

Austin Transportation agency, Capital Metro has made a commitment to be zero emissions in the future. The agency began testing electric buses in Austin and over the next six weeks, they will test electric buses from three manufacturers. The future of electric buses is an exciting technology for Austin commuters that will help reduce emissions and fossil fuel consumption.

Capital Metro also is implementing an exciting pilot program to test an electric powered autonomous shuttle bus in downtown Austin. They will operate the pilot shuttle program, which has yet to be named, for 12 months, and rides will be free during that period. The agency will also be seeking bids from autonomous vehicle manufacturers to lease six vehicles for the program

Our guests were:

Karl Popham, Manager, Electric Vehicles and Emerging Technologies at Austin Energy. He is also a Department of Energy Principal Investigator on 3 separate initiatives that involve renewables, energy storage, and mobility.

Dottie Watkins, Capital Metro’s Vice President, Bus Operation Services. Dottie is leading the program to test and implement the bus electrification program.

We talked about some of the latest issues regarding electric vehicles; a new non-profit initiative to promote them, and the Drive Electric Week plans in September. Our guests were:

Janis Bookout - she is the incoming Executive Director for Earth Day Austin. Janis has helped produce the Earth Day ATX festival since 2016. She also leads climate events locally and is a founding member of 2020 or Bust, a growing global initiative on individual climate action, and recently joined the board of TxETRA (Texas Electric Transportation Resources Alliance), a new advocacy group focused on paving the way for electric transportation in Texas.

Jennifer Lasseter – she is a Sustainability and Solar Consultant based in Austin, Texas. She has been involved personally and professionally for at least 18 years in sustainability issues mostly focusing on pollution prevention/zero waste and energy issues. She moved to Austin from Kansas to accept her first real job with TCEQ (state environmental agency) in 2001. Jennifer has been an EV owner for 10 years and City Captain for Austin’s National Drive Electric Week event for 3 years.

Drive Electric Week will take place Sept 15th on Electric Drive.

Multiple groups are partnering to put on the event, including Austin Energy, TxETRA, Earth Day and Smart Charge America.

We have Roger Thompson, author of "No Word for Wilderness" (Ashland Creek), which details the plight of a certain rare bear as it faces down extinction. The so-called "Italian grizzlies" are facing a perfect storm of threats, from global warming, to genetic degradation, to most surprisingly, mafia incursion into their territory. Exploiting European Union subsidies for cattle grazing organized crime is converting bear territory into cattle pasture, and in doing so, bears are being forced out. Poisoning has been the top cause of bear deaths, and they now only number at most 50 individuals. Their greatest defender is a scientist who did much of his training in the US. Paolo Cuicci studied wolves in America before he returned to Italy to find ways to help preserve the bears.

We also have: Steve of "Steve's Weave", which is a new "all things green" classified website recently launched in Austin and a few other cities. The site is stevesweave.net.

We discussed two waste reduction initiatives in Austin, Texas.

For Julie Sondecker, every day is Earth Day… literally. When she noticed a bunch of trash while on a hike after the Memorial Day Weekend festivities, Julie picked up two giant handfuls and still couldn’t collect everything. So she decided to challenge herself to 365 days of hiking and picking up trash, and documenting what she found on Instagram (@365daysofhiking). The Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail is among Julie’s favorite places to hike and pick up trash in Austin. She has even done a few water clean-ups via kayak! But the best part is sharing her passion for the Trail with friends, who now pick up trash when they hike and run the Trail, too.

Maddie Morgan with Austin’s Resource Recovery (ARR). Maddie is the ARR Planner who first came up with the idea to put all the West Campus curbside discards ‘a.k.a. resources’ to a higher a better use. She’s responsible for bringing all of these partners together to help reuse, recycle and repurpose items that are usually discarded.