Dear City Council Members. First and foremost, I am deeply grateful for your leadership on environmental issues and the climate crisis. I moved from Boston to Menlo Park to be with my only child and her family and I chose Menlo Park certainly because it is so beautiful but also because it is taking seriously its responsibility — our shared responsibility — for better stewardship of the planet before it is too late. I am involved with climate-oriented organizations at the grassroots level (Citizens Climate Lobby and others) and at the large institutional level (Stanford and MIT). I am a retired public health professor (Harvard University) and college president (Wellesley College). The vote you take tonight on the climate budget is about much more than EV charging stations. It is about our responsibility — we to whom so much has been given — to do everything in our power to stave off a planetary catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. The $400,000 allocation for EV charging stations can be reallocated to other critical improvements. I’m sure you have many ideas of things we should be doing to increase our resilience and inspire other municipalities to follow suit. Again, many thanks for your thoughtful leadership in such challenging and confusing times. My best regards, Diana Chapman Walsh 36 Mansion Court Menlo Park, CA 94025 617-833-8319 (cell) Received on Tue May 19 2020 - 09:42:44 PDT
