Janelle Peotter has made a mark on New Paltz as the first climate-smart coordinator in the community, making it possible for both town and village governments to receive bronze certification under the state’s climate-smart communities program. Intended to encourage local initiatives to get humans involved in fixing the problem that humans created, climate-smart certification makes it easier to secure state funding made available through a variety of competitive grants. Obtaining silver certification would provide more of those benefits, but Peotter is stepping down and won’t be coordinating that continuing effort. The outgoing coordinator reflected on progress and offered recommendations for the future at the May 18 town council meeting.
Humanity has blown past several tipping points, and as such the projections about New Paltz 80 years hence may be more likely to occur: five times the heat waves, with days over 100 degrees more common; twice the precipitation events; half the number of days below freezing; flooding that is more frequent and more severe. That said, the task force Peotter has overseen has secured flood mapping, developed a natural resources inventory, obtained a vulnerability assessment to help plan for the necessary resiliency, and launched a project to replace disposable take-out containers with reusable tiffins. There is now a baseline inventory of greenhouse gases generated in the community, allowing for a clearer sense of what must be done within and beyond government operations for New Paltz residents to do their part to save the species.
A replacement coordinator may soon be selected, and Peotter recommends that closer participation by town representatives on the task force could ensure success for that successor. That was an explicit suggestion during the review for the bronze certification, in fact; examiners noted that no staff member or elected official from the town government was a listed task force member, and made it clear that this could hamper progress toward the next level. The sense that Peotter gave was that regular participation would provide for free-flowing ideas; a liaison review minutes doesn’t offer that advantage. Task force members don’t know about all the initiatives occurring in municipal government; some of these might be worth points toward certification as is, and others might be creditable with some tweaks.
There’s also a question of focus. Peotter acknowledged after the meeting that given the number of issues, the precise actions needed by elected officials can be lost in a sea of information. The next coordinator may well be advised to stick with a single issue until that goal is accomplished, and then move on to the next. On a similar vein, Peotter offered that it might make sense for the two governments to have separate coordinators pushing forward a climate-smart agenda; these could both work with the same task force.
In addition to the ever-present challenge of communication, Peotter touched on some of the ways town officials may be able to secure a silver certification. One of these would be move the repair cafe into a municipal building, and thus get credit for its sponsorship — provided no fee is charged for the space. Another would be to take an inventory of the municipal vehicle fleet. A third would be to reduce human waste by providing compost bins in all municipal buildings. Others include adopting a vehicle procurement policy, installing solar panels on municipal buildings, and getting municipal operations out of the temporary trailers they were shunted into during the final months of the Zimet administration.
Beyond getting more points, Peotter would like to see some pride shown for the bronze certification; it was awarded early on in the pandemic, and was swallowed up in that news cycle, but Peotter encouraged council members to at least find a place to hang the plaque that was provided to show off that accomplishment.
County Waste for the win
Having received bids from both Royal Carting and County Waste, New Paltz town council members have approved the County Waste bid to become the single licensed residential waste hauler. The new rate for participants will be $31.46 per month, not including taxes and fees.
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