March 23, 2021
Today the Environmental Council of Sacramento and 350 Sacramento submitted a joint comment letter regarding the County’s General Plan Annual Report, which is on the Board of Supervisors’ March 24 Meeting Agenda as Item No 6.
Click here to read the letter.
Photo by Emily Hopper from Pexels
The Draft Natural Resources Management Plan (NRMP) for the American River Parkway has been released for public comment by the Sacramento County Department of Regional Parks. Comments are due mid-May.
March 23, 2021 — Join ECOS for a presentation on the Natomas Basin Conservancy: Sacramento’s original Habitat Conservation Plan, with John Roberts, Executive Director of the Natomas Basin Conservancy. He will be discussing the accomplishments and challenges in the face of proposed major development in the Natomas Basin.
The Natomas Basin Conservancy is the entity responsible for implementing the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan. John Roberts is their first and only director. Roberts is an economist by training whose career has focused on managing non profits in the Sacramento region. He previously managed the California Rice Growers Association and the Metro Chamber of Commerce.
“In essence, the Conservancy provides refuge and sanctuary for wildlife displaced by urban activity in the Natomas Basin. Annual biological monitoring by independent third parties demonstrates wildlife is thriving on Conservancy-owned mitigation land.”
-John Roberts, Executive Director
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The Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) has been giving the Environmentalist of the Year Award to hard-working, local environmentalists since 1973. This award is a way to celebrate and recognize the past year’s regional champions and community sustainability successes. This year, because of the pandemic, we will be hosting the awards via a video you will be able to stream online, featuring our wonderful awardees and their inspiring environmental work. We are excited to honor our community and reflect on the work we still have in front of us in the year ahead.
Dr. Michelle Stevens, a professor in the Environmental Studies Department at CSUS, has been leading the Bushy Lake Restoration Project along the lower American River Parkway, which protects, studies, and restores Sacramento’s riparian ecosystem. Michelle was able to “sell” this idea to the local community, a myriad of stakeholders, regional professionals and experts, and fellow colleagues. Michelle started with planting a few plants that are important to native peoples in the region, and nurtured it until it grew into a grant-funded restoration plan involving CSUS students and volunteers. Her work is informed and guided in uplifting the historic indigenous practices and culture of traditional ecological knowledge, and provides a hands-on opportunity for college students through CSUS and volunteers. In 2019, this project won an award at the annual CSU-wide Student Research Competition.
Brandon Rose was ECOS President 2016-2017. During his tenure, ECOS put on a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) workshop, which helped to attract and train volunteers. ECOS supported Sacramento’s plastic bag ban and ethics reform ordinances. Under his leadership, ECOS also helped the City obtain a $44 million “Green City” grant to construct electric vehicle charging stations and acquire electric vehicle fleets for car sharing programs in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Also during Brandon’s board presidency, ECOS worked with Wilton Rancheria to locate their proposed casino within the County of Sacramento’s Urban Service Area, rather than a rural area. In 2017, ECOS sued Caltrans over its approval of extra lanes on US 50 without considering the environmental impacts of increased traffic, which led to a settlement providing funding for transit. Later that year, Brandon was elected to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) board, which has since committed to carbon neutrality by 2030.
Moiz Mir was the president of the Environmental Student Organization at CSUS, 2017–2019. As an intern at the Sacramento Mayor’s Office, he organized youth summits to include students’ voices in the Mayors’ Commission on Climate Change, and served on the Commission’s Community Health & Resiliency and Equity Technical Advisory Committees. He co-won a statewide “Best Practice in Student Sustainability Leadership Award” for organizing the CSUS Student Summit on Climate Change. As a student, Moiz worked with Michelle Stevens, supervising student plant experiments at Bushy Lake. With Sunrise Movement Sacramento, Moiz is engaging youth in climate justice action. Moiz recently became the first staff at 350 Sacramento, where he developed a new after-school student climate organizing program.
Anne Stausboll chaired the Mayors’ Commission on Climate Change, which presented its recommendations in June 2020. She obtained a unanimous vote on a very progressive set of recommendations, which took two years to develop. The goal is to achieve carbon neutrality in Sacramento and West Sacramento, by 2045. Anne made sure the Commission reviewed and considered everything through a lens of racial and income equity. She is inspiring us to be active with the City of Sacramento to ensure that these recommendations are incorporated into the Cities’ Climate Action Plans, and into appropriate ordinances and other city actions. As Anne says, “it is a crisis situation, and we need to act now. We want the city to start seriously adopting and acting on the recommendations. Now. It’s not something that can wait.”
We are seeking sponsors! Click the button below to learn more about sponsoring.
Learn more about the Environmentalist of the Year Awards, hosted by ECOS, by clicking the button below.
March 12, 2021
Sacramento County’s draft Communitywide Climate Action Plan (CAP), which addresses greenhouse gas reductions and climate change adaptation, is now available for public review.
An online workshop on the draft CAP will take place via Zoom at the Sacramento County Environmental Commission (SEC) meeting on Monday, March 15, at 6 p.m. The workshop will be an opportunity for the public and the SEC to provide feedback on the draft CAP.
Photo by Yulia from Pexels
On Monday, March 8 at 6:00 pm the ECOS Land Use Committee will host two guest speakers from the Urban Displacement Project UC Berkeley at its meeting. The Urban Displacement Project aims to understand the nature of gentrification and displacement in American cities. It focuses on creating tools to help communities identify the pressures surrounding them and take more effective action. Tim and Julia will discuss the ongoing research their team is doing in several major US cities, and how it can help guide public policy in Sacramento. We hope you will join us!
Tim Thomas is a postdoctoral scholar and research director at the Urban Displacement Project specializing in urban sociology, demography, and data science. His research focuses on how neighborhood change, housing, and displacement affects household socioeconomic stratification by race and gender in the United States. Tim is also the Principal Investigator for the Evictions Study, a multi-metropolitan analysis on the neighborhood drivers of eviction using census data and text mining court records. . . In 2019, his team’s work on evictions provided empirical evidence that helped pass several tenant protection laws in Washington State.
He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Washington and was a Moore/Sloan Data Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington’s eScience Institute.
Julia is a research manager at the Urban Displacement Project. She is interested in using geospatial and data analysis to understand the impacts of land use, housing policy, and climate change on housing vulnerability and displacement. Julia is committed to collaborating with community-based organizations, governments, and other stakeholders to promote strategies that increase equitable access to affordable housing.
Julia graduated from George Washington University with her Master’s in Public Policy and has a bachelor’s degree in Urban and Regional Studies from Cornell University.
Link to join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/543524123
To phone in: 1 669 900 6833 – Meeting ID: 543 524 123
Click here to learn more about the Land Use Committee.
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