Lake County hears climate action plan update, consultants recommend contracted sustainability coordinator

At a Lake County Board of County Commissioners work session, county staff and consultants from the Brendle Group presented the scope, timeline and early findings of a community climate action plan and recommended the county hire a contracted sustainability coordinator to help finalize the plan and lead initial implementation.

The presentation, led by Jillian Goulet and Imogen Ainsworth of the Brendle Group and introduced by Community Planning and Development Director Anne Schneider and County Manager Candace Bridal, described the CAP project deliverables, a risk and vulnerability assessment, a community greenhouse gas inventory based on 2023 data, public engagement plans and a proposed approach to staffing for implementation.

Why it matters: the consultants said a completed CAP and greenhouse gas inventory will allow Lake County to qualify for state funding and other competitive grants and to prioritize actions to reduce emissions and increase resilience to wildfire, extreme temperatures and heavy-precipitation flooding.

The Brendle presenters said the community-wide greenhouse gas inventory totals about 92,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e) for 2023. According to the consultants, transportation accounted for about 41 percent of those emissions while electricity, natural gas and propane used in buildings together made up about 51 percent. The consultants noted that protecting public forest lands matters for carbon storage but is not included in the inventory calculations.

Imogen Ainsworth summarized the risk and vulnerability assessment. She said the team identified three primary climate hazards for Lake County: wildfire, extreme temperatures and heavy rain/snow leading to flash flooding. She told the board that roughly one-third of Lake County residents live in high wildfire-risk areas and that wildfire frequency and intensity have increased since 2012. The assessment also highlighted local amplifiers of climate impacts, including projected population growth (about 1,500 people from 2020 to 2050 in the consultants' projection), housing affordability pressures, aging infrastructure and the local economy's dependence on climate-sensitive tourism.

The CAP scope described nine tasks: project management; a community and municipal greenhouse gas inventory (2023 baseline presented to the board); existing-conditions review; vulnerability and resilience assessment; community engagement (surveys, in-person events, targeted interviews and bilingual materials); greenhouse gas modeling of scenarios; cost analysis and prioritization; drafting the plan; and support for plan adoption. Consultants noted the contract start date was delayed and the timeline has been shifted by roughly three months.

On engagement, Brendle described two in-person community events, a bilingual survey available in English and Spanish, an engagement toolkit, and one-on-one or group interviews with staff and stakeholders to gather implementation details and to avoid overburdening county operations. Brendle said it is exploring subcontracting parts of public engagement to local nonprofit partners such as C4 because of that group's existing community trust and bilingual outreach capacity.

Board and staff discussion focused on measurement details and implementation constraints. Commissioner Elsa asked how airport emissions were measured; Goulet said the inventory includes fuel purchased at the local airport rather than estimating broader flight activity passing through the county. Commissioner Elsa also asked whether insurance carriers could use CAP data to raise rates; the consultants said they had not seen that occur and noted that much of the data (for example, floodplain maps) is already publicly available. The board asked about whether large industrial users (for example Climax) were included; consultants said large industrial process emissions were not included because those operators either did not voluntarily supply detailed data or fell below EPA reporting thresholds, and that some very large energy users were omitted from some datasets for confidentiality reasons.

Staffing recommendation: Anne Schneider and the steering committee proposed recruiting a contracted sustainability coordinator (a consultant on a multi-year contract) rather than hiring a new county FTE. The recommended contractor would serve as a dedicated point of contact to Brendle, help coordinate the steering committee, assist with community engagement and advance grant-readiness and implementation tasks. Schneider told the board staff could draft an RFQ/RFP quickly and send it to legal for posting; Brendle said it could adjust scope to subcontract some engagement tasks to C4 if funding allowed.

Next steps the presenters listed include tabling at upcoming community events, circulating the survey (already live on SurveyMonkey and to be posted on the county website), completing engagement, modeling emissions reductions tied to proposed actions, and returning to the board with a draft plan for adoption. Brendle emphasized that the CAP will include an externally facing executive summary and prioritized implementation steps in English and Spanish.

The board did not take a formal vote on adoption or on hiring; commissioners asked staff to post a solicitation for a contract sustainability coordinator quickly so the contractor could support the remaining CAP work and help position the county for available state funding opportunities.