Cleveland Heights sustainability committee publishes 2024 annual report, urges tree commission, compost pilot and improved air-quality alerts

The Climate and Environmental Sustainability Committee of the City of Cleveland Heights presented its 2024 annual report at a March 18, 2025 meeting, outlining recommendations including formation of a tree commission, a pilot composting program, expanded air-quality alert messaging and a standardized measurement framework for the city’s Climate Forward plan.

“This report really is to provide our community with a window into what we're working on, what we have achieved, and just being transparent about our work,” said Catalina Wagers, a CESS member who presented the report.

The committee, which now has eight appointed members, said it spent the first year learning internal processes and working with consultants on the Climate Forward plan. Wagers said CESS members were comfortable with the final plan and are positioning the committee as a partner and sounding board to city staff for implementation.

Tree commission request

CESS members asked the city to consider creating a tree commission or a subcommittee to support urban canopy planning and to bring resident expertise into canopy decisions. Wagers said committee members “feel that there is a lot we can learn from the community from residents that are tree experts.”

City staff told the committee that the law department advised against committees creating formal subcommittees under current practice. Coordinator Andy Boateng confirmed the topic was discussed with the law director and then referred to the council’s administrative services for further consideration. Boateng said the committee can reopen the conversation with legal and administrative services if members want to pursue legislation to permit a tree commission.

Air-quality alerts and protective measures

The committee recommended expanding the content of air-quality alert messages to include concrete protective measures for residents and city operations, and to discourage actions that would worsen pollution on poor-air-quality days. Boateng outlined measures under consideration, such as advising residents to delay refilling gasoline, to mow lawns after advisories expire or after sunset, to reduce frequency of mowing, and to avoid two-stroke engine equipment on bad-air days.

Boateng said the city will host real-time alert information on its website, explore a widget or dashboard that visually flags air-quality status (for example, a green/yellow/red indicator), and consider placing alerts on screens in public buildings such as libraries. “We want to make sure that all of these avenues that we can communicate this are explored to make sure people see this,” Boateng said.

Composting pilot and budget pathway

CESS proposed a free composting pilot to test participation and potential municipal savings. Councilor Gail Larson said the compost pilot request will be tabled for the finance committee on April 2 and the council on April 7 as part of a council-requested package; it is not yet funded. Larson said she will present the request to finance and work with the law department to draft any necessary legislation.

Measurement and reporting

Committee member Mohammed Erfan recommended adopting environmental, social and governance (ESG) models to standardize measurement and reporting for the Climate Forward plan. Wagers said the committee sees regular measurement and public reporting as essential to demonstrating progress and maintaining community support during implementation.

Public access and records management

CESS asked for a city-hosted contact form on the committee web page to collect resident comments; coordinators reported the form is live and four submissions had been received by the March meeting. The committee also discussed migrating internal records from a Google workspace to the city’s planned Office 365/OneDrive environment and said staff will create a committee folder structure and provide public access links when appropriate.

Next steps

No formal council actions were taken at the March 18 meeting on the committee’s recommendations. CESS will add the tree-commission discussion to a future agenda, staff will continue drafting air-quality alert language and implementation options, and Larson will present the composting pilot at the finance committee meeting on April 2 with the goal of bringing legislation to council on April 7.

The committee said it intends to publish an annual report each year on the CESS page of the city website and to use the web contact form to respond to resident submissions.