CitiesGoGreen - Promotional Issue - (Page 6)

Conversations with Mayors I think cities are really leading the charge in a lot of ways. — Mayor Dan Pike Dan Pike Bellingham, WA Dan Pike was sworn in as Mayor of Bellingham, WA on November 27, 2007 and soon announced his Chief Administrative Officer would also hold the title of Sustainability Officer. We wondered what else he had in mind and had this conversation just after the 100 day mark of his administration to find out. These are excerpts. C itiesGoGreen: What do you see as your opportunity to increase sustainability in Bellingham? Mayor Pike: First of all highlighting the issue, then thinking bigger picture and longer term about our decisions. I think we have the opportunity to change some of the mindset about how we make decisions. For example, one of the reasons I added the title “Sustainability Director” to the Chief Administrative Officer position is that that person is the number two person of the city. Giving that person that charge makes everyone aware that yes, this is important to this administration. The other reason is that because of where that person sits we can run every major decision made by the city through the prism of sustainability. What I mean by sustainability is the triple bottom line approach, economic sustainability, environmental sustainability and social sustainability. One of the weaknesses of the past model has been that we looked only at the short term economic costs, which doesn’t necessarily take in the full range of costs that decisions incur. some partners there to create the first of its kind handbook for assessing the impacts of alternatives to constructing new major investments in transportation. A state requirement was put in place saying that any time you do a major investment study you need to look at a no-build alternative, what transportation and land management could do to change patterns or reduce vehicle use in place of actually building capacity to deal with the projected increase in vehicle use. Nobody had ever done that so it was routinely ignored. A 220 acre Platinum opportunity This is on Bellingham Bay, right at the edge of the heart of downtown. Caption: Bellingham’s waterfront project) This is the redevelopment of a site that for a century was a timber plant, a paper mill. Most of that time it was owned by Georgia Pacific. It is a Superfund site, designated so by the Environmental Protection Agency. We’ve been talking about having a LEED Platinum requirement. We want to make sure it is developed in an environmentally sensitive way. We also want to make sure it is developed in a way that works in a community perspective and an economic perspective. By economic perspective I mean that we can afford to do what’s needed and also that we provide the kinds of jobs that let people live comfortably in Bellingham. And by that I mean a range of jobs, both jobs that require a college education but also jobs that don’t. Pike on overbuilding for peak use. Taking alternatives seriously I used to be a transportation guy. When I worked for the [Washington] State Department of Transportation, I worked with .com April 2008 http://www.citiesgogreen.com

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CitiesGoGreen - Promotional Issue Contents In Motion Conversations with Mayors Feature Article: How Can Cities Respond to the 2030 Challenge? Fast Forward

CitiesGoGreen - Promotional Issue

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