The City of Portland is considering the idea of hiring a full time coordinator to help make the city “greener” and improve its efforts to become more earth friendly.
Please — where do these people come up with these ideas?
Is going green important?
Sure.
Would I like the city to explore new ideas and avenues for ways to promote energy efficiency, reduce waste and improve sustainablity?
Yes, I would.
Do I think the city should hire someone full-time to be a green coordinator?
No!
Come on people — aren’t you paying attention?
The economy is in the toilet, unemployment is rising, state and local budgets are being slashed, cities and towns are promoting reduced staff and no-tax-increase budgets to cope with the economic downturn. Major business, like GM just this week, are going through bankruptcy. The housing market still hasn’t bottomed out and foreclosures are commonplace.
And the city wants to hire another full-time employee to coordinate going green?
City Councilor David Marshall says that the city could hire the green coordinator for three years using part of some money from federal stimulus funds the city hopes to receive over the next few months. The City Council could then decide “whether to keep the position at the city's expense after three years.”
No way. Hire a person for three years and it’ll be next to impossible to let that person go. I say don’t do it.
Apparently students from the Muskie School of Public Service recently compared Portland’s environmental efforts to some other U.S. cities and found that Portland could do more.
Well, duh!
Of course there are other cities in the country that do more environmentally than we do.
But guess what? I bet if you did a study on crime, homelessness, poverty, road maintenance, access to public transportation, or any other topic you want to choose, there will be cities in the U.S. that do a better job than we do in Portland.
So what?
The Muskie School of Public Service found that a coordinator “could help make a long list of changes, from expanding community gardens to keeping dog waste and other pollutants out of Back Cove and Casco Bay.”
Here’s a thought.
Instead of hiring a coordinator to make that long list of changes, what if we asked City Councilors to consider those changes themselves each time they’re faced with making decisions that impact the environment?
I mean seriously — are our City Councilors so overworked that they can’t consider green options on their own without hiring someone to do that for them?
The Press Herald article talks about the many excellent envoromental things being done right now in Portland. It appears that we’re making great progress.
Before hiring someone to improve on something we’re already doing quite well, let’s consider putting our efforts to work in areas in the city that need substantial improvement.
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