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Gaithersburg reviews climate action plan baseline, emphasizes community engagement and practical steps
Summary
City consultants presented a baseline greenhouse-gas inventory showing buildings and transportation each account for roughly half of community emissions while municipal operations are under 1%; council asked for emphasis on equity, tangible projects and practical prioritization.
Consultants working on Gaithersburg's climate action plan told the mayor and council on April 27 that the city's baseline shows buildings and transportation each produce roughly half of the community's greenhouse-gas emissions, while municipal operations account for just under 1 percent of the total.
"This year-long process is divided into four specific phases," said Akuma Kerimova, the city's sustainability administrator, introducing the consultant team and the baselining work that reviewed historical data across buildings, transportation, waste and land use. Kerimova said the next phase will focus on stakeholder engagement so strategies can be tailored to community needs.
"A climate action plan is a roadmap to prepare for climate impacts, strengthen resilience and reduce greenhouse gases," said Rich Swanson of the consultant team. He explained the project will produce emission targets, mitigation and resilience strategies, and an implementation toolkit for staff.
Consultants said their municipal inventory included scope 1 and scope 2 emissions and that scope 3 (supply-chain emissions) was not counted in the baseline. "We're counting scopes one and two in this particular analysis," Cisco Thomasino said when councilmembers asked how the study treated electricity sourcing and supply-chain emissions.
Councilmembers pushed for the plan to prioritize visible, implementable items. "I would like her and you to focus on implementable solutions and not just implementable solutions across the city, but also that concept of environmental justice," Councilmember Rob said, urging the team to capture voices of residents who are less likely to participate in standard outreach.
Several councilmembers suggested specific priorities for early action, including increased tree canopy to reduce urban heat-island effects, rooftop and municipal solar, EV charging infrastructure and curbside composting. Consultants described a draft prioritization framework that scores strategies on greenhouse-gas reduction potential, cost, staff capacity, community alignment and equity/resilience impact, and asked the council to weigh those factors.
The consultants outlined next steps: form internal working groups in Q2, conduct public outreach through summer, draft the plan in Q3 and target adoption in Q4 2026. Kerimova said input from the council and community will be used to classify solutions as short-, medium- and long-term and to develop a prioritized, implementable action roadmap.
The council and consultants also discussed how the CAP could feed into the city's five-year strategic plan so top actions have champions and do not remain shelved as an unwieldy document. "We'd rather have fewer, targeted actions that actually get completed than an enormous plan that sits on a shelf," one councilmember said.
The work session ended with the city inviting public testimony and the consultants thanking the council for guidance on criteria and community engagement.
