Boise staff unveil "Keep Boise Cool" program with January website and personalized action plans

City of Boise staff on Tuesday presented a new community climate program called Keep Boise Cool that will centralize local resources, provide personalized climate-action plans and roll out quarterly challenges starting with waste-reduction pilots this winter.

Brie Brush of the mayor’s office framed the effort as community-driven: "Work with the community to create a climate action guide that reflects what residents care about and how they choose to engage," she said. Staff described the program as an umbrella for existing city and partner efforts and as a way to reduce barriers to resident participation.

Lindsey Mosier, public engagement senior manager, said the city recruited a 23-member resident committee from about 194 applicants and collected more than 1,900 survey responses. The committee and survey recommended flexible, low-barrier entry points such as monthly or quarterly events, localized Boise-specific content, a centralized hub for resources, recognition or incentive structures, and future metrics tracking.

Alex Rooks of the Climate Action Division said the first public product will be a January website launch and marketing campaign. "The title of the program is Keep Boise Cool," he said. The site will let residents answer simple demographic questions (for example, renter vs. homeowner or whether someone drives) and receive a personalized list of actions scaled from no-cost options to longer-term steps such as installing rooftop solar.

Staff outlined a quarterly theme schedule tied to existing programs: an ongoing pilot for waste and consumption through December; water-focused programming at launch in January; transportation challenges in spring; and buildings and energy in the fall. The team plans to highlight existing partner work — including the Kerbit waste-reduction awards — and to invite business partners to expand participation.

On business engagement, staff noted the Idaho Sustainability Directors Group, which includes local firms and institutions, meets quarterly and will be a channel for outreach. The Kerbit Awards will be featured in December as part of the program’s first-year recognition efforts.

Commissioners pressed staff on outreach and measurement. Mosier said outreach will be twofold: marketing and communications to drive traffic to the hub and programmatic partnerships with neighborhood groups, schools and community partners to act as messengers. Staff said they declined prepackaged sustainability-tracking apps because they were not sufficiently Boise-specific; instead the city will track participation by program and by challenge and correlate participation over time with the Climate Action Roadmap’s metric targets.

Staff also said neighborhood investment grants can be used with a climate lens; neighborhoods may apply for grants of up to $50,000 to fund local projects that align with quarterly themes. As an early incentive pilot, staff distributed a Kerbit “bingo” card of roughly 20 actions residents can complete and submit for a chance to win a zero-waste kit.

The program is in a pilot phase and staff asked the commission for feedback ahead of the January launch. Next steps include finalizing participation goals, publishing the website, launching the marketing campaign and reporting back to the commission on early participation metrics and program refinements.