City Council, February 14th - Climate Delay or Climate Action?

Also at Council are a couple of items on the Climate Action Plan. A seemingly benign "update" on next steps had already been on the agenda, but many have noted the adoption of the plan itself was not on the agenda.

Councilor Andersen finds it necessary to intervene with a motion to hold a Public Hearing and formal deliberation:

A report to the Council on December 6th stated that “the final draft CAP will come to Council for consideration after the beginning of 2022,” but no such action has been scheduled. The current proposed plan is completely backward. It does not consider the actual final draft but rather proposes to move forward on some selected aspects of the plan. Why is the CAP, a policy plan, being rolled out this administrative way as opposed to first adopting the plan and then phasing in its recommendations, exactly as contemplated in the plan?....We need a public hearing to receive any additional staff report, public testimony on the proposed plan and then to deliberate on the proposed plan as a whole.

He is right.

With the "update" item there's a raft of form letters in opposition. (In fairness, there are also form letters in support.) The boilerplate on gas reads:

Banning Natural Gas Increases Housing Costs & May Risk Lives Requiring all-electric new construction raises housing costs significantly. The ban on natural gas could put lives at risk as natural gas provides a resilient source of heating and cooking during power outages and will negatively impact low-income populations least able to afford alternatives. Property owners should have the choice to use natural gas or electricity.

One thing that would help in the debate is more accurate framing in language. We should insist on this.

Banning mixtures of Methane gas for home use could increase housing costs & may risk lives. Requiring all-electric new construction [could] raise housing costs significantly. The ban on mixtures of Methane gas for home use could put lives at risk as mixtures of Methane gas for home use provide a resilient source of heating and cooking during power outages and [could] negatively impact low-income populations least able to afford alternatives. Property owners should have the choice to use mixtures of Methane gas or electricity.

With revised rhetoric we are at least clear about what we would be banning and what people are arguing against: Methane is potent greenhouse gas itself, and when combusted is the source of another greenhouse gas in Carbon Dioxide.

Additionally, the impact on low-income people is a red herring. What we are really talking about is convenience for higher-income households. 

Claims about cost are also testable with resort to empirical data, and we should balance and make explicit notions of costs today vs. future costs of inaction.

Still, there is a point that needs more discussion and analysis. Across many domains we have identified ways that monoculture is harmful and less resilient. We clearly need to electrify everything, but when the wires with electricity can come down easily and interrupt the delivery of electricity, we need to talk more about redundancy and resilience. An all-electric monoculture brings its own problems, and advocates for this change need to face that more squarely. 

Just like batteries for our EV mania require cobalt and lithium, and the mining for those introduces other environmental problems also. Electrification has real, structural disadvantages and costs. As we electrify, as we must, we have to give more attention to the mitigation it also requires.

With the adoption of the Climate Action Plan we will have a better set of high-level goals. Under that framework we can still continue to debate details, and revise the implementation as useful or necessary. The Plan will evolve.

Even in Nebraska, 117 was remarkable

As others have pointed out, in the Mayor's "State of the City" address the silence on climate was astonishing. 117 degrees isn't worth mentioning? The ice storm of a year ago was extreme, and yet remained "on the chart," even if on the edge of the chart. The 117 degrees was literally off the charts! It mapped a totally new edge for the chart! How does any credible speech about the year just elide that?

Somewhat related to Climate is an item setting the Policy Agenda Priorities for 2022.

The Staff Report contains six instances of the word "climate." So it's not like it's wholly ignored, but it is sidelined more than a little. Climate action should have a more central place.

Again, 117 degrees, anyone???

Other Items

In addition to Councilor Stapleton's motion for a Twenty is Plenty plan, City Staff are requesting authorization for five project applications seeking funding the 2024-2029 cycle at the MPO. (See previous discussions at SKATS during the pre-app phase here and on the preliminary scoring here.)

First off, here are projects the City is not advancing, ones that either the City does not prioritize or that in preliminary assessment at SKATS were not ranked highly (the descriptions are from the pre-app phase, and may not be wholly current):

• 25th Street SE Multi-Use Path $3,768,660
• Commercial Street SE: Promontory to Sunnyside $3,589,200
• Orchard Heights Rd. NW Pedestrian Improvements $897,300
• Pedestrian Crossings Salem $897,300
• Pringle Creek Multi-use Path, Phase II $4,988,988
• Cherry Avenue NE - Bicycle Facility and Intersection Improvements $3,320,010
• Winter St NE: Winter-Maple Greenway Improvements $8,973,000 
• Salem Industrial Drive Extension $12,113,550  
• State St.: 14th St NE to 17th St NE $5,363,260
  
• Broadway Street NE: Hood to Pine $11,126,520

Here are the five at Council the City proposes to advance, one old and four new:

• Completion funding (a project already approved and in progress) for Commercial Street SE: Vista to Ratcliff $1,615,140
  
• McGilchrist Street SE: East end $6,117,230
  
• McGilchrist Street SE: West end $5,533,847
  
• State Street: 46th Avenue to Cordon Road $5.3 million
  
• Center St. NE North Side Improvements: 45th Pl. NE to Cordon Rd NE $3.7 million
  

Even though the four new projects represent modernization to current urban standards with sidewalks and bike lanes and center turn pockets, they also ease car travel, and may not help as much with our climate needs as other projects.

As we noted before, it's disappointing that the State Street Corridor plan doesn't get more love. Passing on more crosswalk safety project is also disappointing.

Additionally, the half-street projects with the County for State and Center Streets are talked about in some contexts for a final build-out to five auto travel lanes. The current proposal is for three auto lanes only, but open in the future to those additional two auto lanes. (See this note from last month for a little bit on an adjacent section of Center Street.) Five lanes, and the induced travel, is not consistent with our need to reduce emissions. Even though our Climate Action Plan is not formally adopted, it's time to start discussing emissions in our transportation planning.

It would be helpful for the Staff Report also to discuss projects not being advanced. The tone of the Staff Report is like these five were the only projects being considered. But there is no formal discussion of why they are rising to the top, and the others are falling. What factors are most important to City Staff?

In several ways the Staff Report here is thin.

Bullets for the rest:

• The Planning Commission approvals for initial zoning of a development just east of the new Costco, "Kuebler Village," is at Council as an Information Report. The neighborhood association has appealed it, the appeal will be at Council, and there will be more. (Previously see, "Another Contested Development Proposal at 27th and Kuebler" and "Losing our Way on Climate: Casino and Kuebler Village Move Forward.")
• And a proposal for a new City flag. It's not clear which design is being recommended, however. The poll results don't line up obviously with the Planning Commission recommendation. The current flag is bad. A new flag might be better. It's also an opportunity to "bikeshed" small details; there are larger, more important things to consider, however.
  

I hope it's this one!

(The code amendments on the Fairview project deserved more space and time, and they will be in a third post on the Council agenda.)