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City reports progress on its "10 big ideas" but warns federal funding cuts have put some initiatives at risk
Summary
City staff briefed the advisory board on implementation of the "10 big ideas" from the city-county plan, reporting wins on green jobs, healthy homes and solar projects but noting rescinded or delayed federal grants have reduced capacity for several programs.
City Environmental Collaboration Office staff summarized progress across the "10 big ideas" adopted in the city-county plan and identified several programs that are proceeding alongside others now at risk because of federal funding changes.
Eric Schomburger said the city has made progress on green jobs programming (including an Urban Forestry grant that funds a green-jobs coordinator and an arborist pre-apprenticeship), healthy home upgrades, commercial-building benchmarking and solar projects. He reported a Caledonia solar project now powers about 60 city buildings, and the city's PACE financing program has supported roughly $40 million in projects since 2010.
Schomburger said several federal grants are either in limbo or rescinded. He identified one EPA environmental-justice grant that was rescinded after the city had trained resilience ambassadors, and a separate HUD $2 million award for healthy home upgrades that the city has received and intends to deploy. He also noted a $9 million codes-related grant remains contractually conditional and that some larger federal transportation projects have had funds clawed back.
The city is moving ahead with community-oriented efforts such as green-congregation outreach, a Blue-Green Jobs career week for youth, food-recovery mini-grants and investments in urban forestry targeted to disadvantaged neighborhoods. Schomburger said the city has updated a greenhouse-gas inventory through 2022 showing a slight reduction in emissions overall (from roughly 7.7 million to about 7.6 million metric tons), and that many of the shorter-term reporting and program metrics remain tied to the availability of federal funds and staffing capacity.
