Home

Policy Committee Minutes, October 28, 2010

Posted in

Sustainability Alliance of Southwest Colorado

Policy Committee

 

Minutes of 28 October 2010
(Dick White)
 
Durango Coffee Company: 5:00-6:30 p.m.
Attending: John Lyle, Chris Paulson (until 5:20), Susan Robison, Dick White
 
Topics
  • Minutes
  • Ballot issue 3A
  • Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy
  • Neighborhood revitalization
  • La Plata Sustainability Dialogues
  • Next meeting
 
Minutes. The minutes from September 23 were approved.
 
Ballot Issue 3A. Pursuing a request from Julie Levy, former SASCO Board member and current 9-R School Board member, the Committee voted to recommend to the Executive Committee a note in the SASCO newsletter urging a favorable vote on the referendum to increase the 9-R mill levy.
 
Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy (CASSE). 
  • Dick is a CASSE member and has received an appeal to inform a wider audience of CASSE’s existence and work and to seek endorsements of the CASSE economic policy statement (http://steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/read-the-position-statement/).  (CASSE ED Rob Dietz was a keynote speaker at the 2009 Four Corners Green Living Expo.) 
  • The Committee agreed that including information about CASSE in the SASCO newsletter would be appropriate, but not until after the election. Dick will follow through on this. 
  • It was suggested that having a CASSE speaker for the Green Business Roundtable would be desirable.
 
Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative. 
  • Susan raised the issue of new federal funding that is coming available to pursue the successful model pioneered in Harlem of creating a “conveyor belt” for disadvantaged children from birth through higher education. [The Harlem project, at least in part, is the subject of the new documentary, “Waiting for Superman.”] 
  • First year $500,000 planning grants already have been distributed with narrow geographic focus, one to a reservation, others to cities. A new round of funding for Choice Neighborhoods with a particular focus on housing is forthcoming. 
  • The appeal for SASCO would be triple-bottom line outcomes. 
  • Possible local linkages could be the Children, Youth, and Family Master Plan, Housing Solutions of the Southwest, Habitat for Humanity, and Southwest Connect.  
  • Southwest Connect might be an organizational resource. Foundations might be enlisted to serve as conveners for a regional dialogue. 
  • Susan will continue listening to national dialogue on the issue and searching for potential local connections. 
  • Dick will bring the issue to the attention of the SASCO Board. 
 
La Plata Sustainability Dialogues. 
  • Upcoming dates are January 13 and March 17.
  • John proposed for January a video conference with former CIA Director James Woolsey on the Feed-In-Tariff as a mechanism for improving national security. This might be preceded by an Op-Ed piece in the Durango Herald the weekend before.
  • John will pursue the date with Woolsey.
  • Dick will explore co-sponsorship possibilities at Fort Lewis College.
 
Next meeting. 
  • We will need another meeting to flesh out the January event and to discuss the issue of a Policy Committee Chair for 2011.
  • Holidays and other meetings preclude Thursday evenings. Dick will explore possible meeting dates.