Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Sustainability topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board hears overview of Littleton’s 2024 environmental stewardship efforts; members seek clearer 3A classification
Summary
Public works reviewed multiple environmental and stewardship activities undertaken in 2024 and the board discussed the difficulty of reliably quantifying how much 3A money supports sustainability projects. Staff recommended future reporting and the addition of an environmental-stewardship board member to the 3A oversight board.
The Capital Improvement Sales Tax Board received a summary of environmental-stewardship activities the city undertook in 2024 and discussed whether, and how, to quantify 3A (capital improvement sales tax) expenditures for sustainability.
Fred Sohra, public works director, outlined projects and programs he compiled from city work in 2024: participation in the Arapahoe County Regional Electric Vehicle Plan (adopted by that board in April 2024), adoption of a storm drainage master plan and a sanitary-sewer master plan, participation in a waste-diversion study funded by a roughly $700,000 grant run through the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (a multi-jurisdiction project with Englewood, Sheridan and Centennial), management of MS4 municipal stormwater permit responsibilities (including inspection of 358 detention and water-quality ponds and response to an illicit sanitary-sewer discharge), community gardens and a composting program, a tree subsidy program and spring tree sale, turf-replacement (“garden-in-a-box”) incentives, tree recycling and leaf recycling, conversion of electric landscape equipment to comply with state requirements for small engines, irrigation-controller replacements that run on soil-moisture sensors, and a hired sustainability coordinator and a green-business coordinator (paid from plastic bag recycling fees last year).
Board members said they valued the summary but raised concerns about assigning a single dollar figure to “environmental spending” inside 3A. Staff said much of the environmental work is funded from other sources (open-space funds, general fund maintenance accounts, specific grants) and that attempts to estimate a percentage of 3A spending devoted to sustainability produced uncertain or unreliable numbers. Sohra said staff did not feel confident publishing a single quantitative share because projects and funding sources are blended across departments.
The memo drafted by board member Julie noted the work and recommended (among other items) adding a member of the environmental-stewardship board to the 3A board; members endorsed that recommendation during discussion. Staff said the city’s new sustainability coordinator is completing a greenhouse-gas inventory and will work on a climate-action plan that could inform future, more transparent accounting of sustainability-related spending.
Ending: Board members asked staff to include references to sustainability pillars in future reports and to avoid presenting a single imprecise percentage for 3A’s sustainability spending until staff can produce a defensible methodology.
