From: E Lee
To: Clerk; Mayor and Council
Cc: Reena Brilliot
Subject: Public Comment on Agenda Item 1 (25-380), City Council Priority Setting Session 2025 on April 3, 2025 Date: Thursday, April 3, 2025 4:05:37 AM
Dear Mayor Gillmor and Councilmembers Gonzalez, Chahal, Hardy, Park, Jain, and Cox:
As a Santa Clara resident, I am writing to make recommendations on two topics for your consideration for the 2025 Priority Setting session.
The first topic relates to the City’s 2022 Climate Action Plan (CAP). I recommend that you support the creation and maintenance of a CAP dashboard and an update of the City’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory.
This falls under priority area #11 from 2024, Improve Communication to Residents about City Issues and Long-term Plans, which should continue to be a priority. The 2022 CAP itself is a priority that the City Council committed to.
The 2022 CAP explicitly includes plans for “creation of a City Sustainability & Climate Action Team to coordinate implementation and regular public updates and reporting on CAP progress through a Community Dashboard” for oversight and accountability (p. 6). The 2022 CAP also requires that staff will be responsible for “preparing annual progress reports” and updating “the City’s emissions inventory every three to five years” (p.65).
The Dashboard is critical for tracking each of the several dozen actions in the CAP. It is essential to be able to identify what areas need attention to ensure effective and timely implementation.
The GHG emissions inventory updates, in turn, are critical to assess if the various sources of GHG emissions within the City (power generation, energy use, transportation, waste management, industrial processes, agriculture, other land use, etc.) are going down as a result of carrying out the actions listed in the CAP. This data is needed to inform the next CAP update, to adjust the strategies and actions accordingly. This is essential to ensure that the City does what is needed to support California’s climate policies: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 (2016 SB-32) and achieve net carbon neutrality no later than 2045 (EO B-55-18).
My specific recommendations are as follows:
Allocate ongoing funding in the budget for a full-time sustainability manager. Many cities have a full-time sustainability manager whose sole focus is sustainability.
Have a CAP Dashboard in place by the end of 2025, with plans and resources to maintain it.
Plan and budget for the next GHG emissions inventory report in the timeframe needed to provide critical data for the next CAP update, which is planned for 2030.
These recommendations support one of the City’s 2024 Priority Areas of Focus, “Excellent City Government,” by improving communication to residents about City issues and long- term plans. Implementing these recommendations will help the City reach the Strategic Outcome of “Trusted Engaged City Government.”
The second topic where I’m offering recommendations relates to reach codes. At the City Council meeting on Jan. 14, 2025, the City Council passed a motion directing staff to look into additional ways to strengthen the city's reach code and/or Climate Action Plan (CAP).
With the suspension of the existing all-electric construction requirements, it is crucial for Santa Clara to explore alternate ways to meet our greenhouse gas emissions goals.
I recommend that the City consider adding air-quality requirements for cooking appliances and clothes dryers to have zero emissions of nitrogen oxides, or NOx. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has approved zero-NOx rules that are being phased in, starting 2027. However, they apply only to furnaces and water heaters. We need our own code to cover other gas appliances.
Zero-NOx requirements are important not only to reduce GHG emissions but also to eliminate a source of indoor air pollution that is unhealthy, especially for young children.
Many people are not aware of how toxic so-called “natural” gas actually is.
Finally, I recommend that in considering zero-NOx or other requirements, the reach codes should be crafted to avoid loopholes and unintended negative consequences. They should also be developed keeping in mind potential environmental justice and equity impacts.
Thank you for your consideration of my recommendations.
Sincerely,
Elaine Lee
Santa Clara, CA