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Town staff urges expanded outreach to move Irondequoit’s Climate Smart Communities ranking from bronze to silver
Summary
Town staff briefed the committee on steps to earn more Climate Smart Communities points — including public education, farmers-market tabling, tracking activities and pursuing grants that previously funded EV chargers and farmers-market solar panels.
Town staff told the Irondequoit advisory committee that the town should expand public-education and outreach efforts to move from bronze to silver in the New York Climate Smart Communities program.
At the meeting, the staff member said public-education activities — called PE9 in the program’s scoring — include energy-reduction campaigns, climate-related public events, a local climate-action web page and social-media outreach. “We do social media already and we definitely, you know, do outreach at the farmers market,” the staff member said, adding that the town coordinates with a DEC-contracted regional coordinator from the Finger Lakes for guidance and examples.
Why it matters: achieving silver would make the town more competitive for state and county grants, the staff member said. They flagged recent grant-funded projects as examples of what grant money can support: “The last grant we got…put the EV charger replacements out here…and also the solar panels on the farmers market,” the staff member said.
Committee members discussed several potential activities the town could document and submit for points, including monthly social-media features, a public presentation on household energy savings, street-tree planting, outdoor LED fixture retrofits and farmers-market tabling to collect resident input. The staff member emphasized the need to track each activity for submission: “The way we get points is yes…we have to come up with criteria…we’re uploading this information that’s reviewable.”
Members also noted a Monroe County municipal grant opportunity recently announced that could provide roughly $15,000 to help with climate-action planning; the staff member said the town will consider applying when the county application opens.
What’s next: the staff member will circulate the Climate Smart Communities scoring guidance and examples by email, and the committee agreed to brainstorm and begin tracking outreach activities so the town can document them for the silver-level application. The committee tentatively agreed to run climate outreach at farmers markets this summer and to follow up on tracking timelines at the next meeting.
