Dear Mayor Combs and City Council Members,
We greatly appreciate the effort in the proposed city budget for fiscal year 2020-21 to maintain services, incorporate City Council priorities, and restore and in some cases add services (proposed “enhancements” or staff additions).
In particular, the proposed additional staff person to assist in implementing core measures of the Climate Action Plan is a welcome and much needed step forward to help the City achieve its climate goals. It is worth noting that the Climate Action Plan adopted last year calls for at least six staff additions to successfully achieve our climate goals. We hope the City will monitor budget levels and assess the potential for additional staff as possible for this priority effort to safeguard residents and businesses from climate impacts.
Many mobility projects in the City’s Transportation Master Plan (TMP) are also key elements of the Climate Action Plan, as they provide safe alternatives to driving. A number of these projects may not currently have sufficient staffing to move forward under the current budget proposal. We urge City Council to fund Public Works staffing at a level that can reliably achieve these TMP mobility projects that improve safety and reduce traffic and associated pollution.
Menlo Park is fortunate to receive $6.53 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan. We support an approach similar to the City of Mountain View to use these funds to assist vulnerable residents and businesses that were most impacted by the pandemic. We also encourage you to consider using a portion of this funding (or other potential funding sources such as the utility user tax), to help residents cope with heat and hazardous air quality during wildfire season.
As we approach wildfire season, it will be important to make resources available to help residents stay safe during heat waves that coincide with smokey conditions. We recommend a Community Climate, Resilience & Equity Program allocating $1-2million in funding for air conditioning installations in low-income households. Many homes do not currently have air conditioning and were greatly impacted during the heatwaves and wildfires last year – especially when for weeks at a time it was sweltering and windows could not be opened due to bad air outside. This is a serious health and equity issue.
We recommend working with Peninsula Clean Energy to augment their new low-income home energy upgrade program to provide much needed relief to low-income households in Menlo Park that are in need of cooling and air filters. Such a program will provide additional benefits with new A/C installations in older homes that can provide cooling and heating in the same unit, replacing old, polluting gas furnaces. As the City evaluates the best use of the ARP funds to meet the needs of vulnerable residents, we hope this project to provide cooling and clean air relief could be considered.
Thank you for considering these comments.
Sincerely,
Diane Bailey
Diane Bailey, Climate Change Professional (CC-P) | Executive Director
MENLO SPARK
diane@menlospark.org | 650-281-7073
Visit us: www.MenloSpark.org & www.FossilFreeBuildings.org
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