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Board reviews Littleton environmental stewardship activities; staff wary of quantifying 3a share
Summary
Public works staff listed recent sustainability work — EV plan participation, stormwater and sewer master plans, waste diversion grant work, community gardens and tree programs — but said staff could not confidently allocate a single percentage of 3a funding to sustainability outcomes for the annual report.
Littleton public works staff summarized environmental stewardship efforts for the Capital Improvement Sales Tax Board but cautioned the board that quantifying a single dollar or percentage of 3a funds for sustainability in the annual report is not currently reliable.
The overview included participation in the Arapahoe County Regional Electric Vehicle Plan (adopted April 2024), adoption of storm drainage and sanitary sewer master plans, a $700,000 Front Range waste diversion grant administered through the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (a joint project with Englewood, Sheridan and Centennial), a community-garden and composting program, tree subsidy and seedling programs, turf replacement incentives and a forestry management plan. Staff also described the MS4 municipal stormwater permit responsibilities and a sanitary discharge response into Lee Gulch that required state notification and mitigation.
Why it matters: board members had asked staff to indicate how much 3a money supported sustainability activities. Staff said many environmental activities are supported by other revenue sources — general fund, open-space funds, plastic bag recycling fees (used to pay a green-business coordinator) and grants — and that tagging an accurate 3a percentage would be misleading. The sustainability coordinator recently hired is completing a greenhouse-gas inventory and will help develop a climate action plan and more rigorous future tracking.
Discussion and recommendation: the board continued to recommend adding an environmental-steardship-board representative to the Capital Improvement Sales Tax Board to strengthen cross-board coordination. Members also suggested adding narrative or visual references in the annual report and on the city's project webpages to highlight sustainability co-benefits of building-system upgrades (for example higher-efficiency HVAC or irrigation controllers tied to soil-moisture sensing).
Ending: staff said more detailed sustainability accounting is forthcoming as the sustainability coordinator finishes baseline work and that future memos can better describe the expected sustainability contribution of capital projects. The board asked staff to avoid inserting speculative percentages and to instead provide transparent methodology if a quantitative sustainability allocation is reported.
