Council turns attention toward sustainability

The San Marcos City Council has formed a Sustainability Council Committee as part of the city’s overall sustainability plan.

“This is mandatory,” council member Mark Rockeymoore said. “This direction is something we absolutely must do.”

Council decided to create the committee at its Tuesday night meeting. The council members on the committee are Rockeymoore, Joca Marquez and Lisa Prewitt. Community members could be appointed to ex officio, non-voting positions on the council as the group decides.

“I think there’s a lot of stakeholder groups that we need to identify,” Prewitt said, noting that there are at least two local sustainability groups that would have ideas.

“I would think that the committee could bring in subject matter experts as needed,” Mayor Jane Hughson said, since it is a council committee and since too many members could lead to quorum issues down the line. 

Council agreed that the committee can meet with associated city staff and decide who should be on the committee as non-voting members. 

“I have a feeling this could be kind of intense,” Hughson said of the committee, “because this is really important and it’s a big issue.”

During its Tuesday afternoon work session, council heard a staff presentation on the city’s Sustainability and Clean Air Initiative. The city has already taken some steps, including signing on to the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Action Agreement in October 2017. The city has measured the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions created by city activities and taken steps to reduce GHGs, such as heating/air conditioning and lighting retrofits, streetlight retrofits, treatment plant upgrades, and using more foot and bike patrols and more hybrid vehicles. The city is now looking ahead to steps like a proposed solar power purchase agreement and using more wind power. 

In other business Tuesday night, council voted to postpone nominations to the 2020 Complete Count Committee to prepare for the upcoming U.S. Census. City Clerk Jamie Lee Case said she was still reaching out to different stakeholder groups to gather members for the committee. Case told council that the U.S. Census representatives said council could push the formation of the committee to April 16.