At the Bagdad Theater tonight, two groups–the Future of Energy group (more about them after the cut) and the Oregon Environmental Council–are sponsoring a forum that was part campaign event, and part check in with already-elected leaders, on “Portland’s Future of Energy and Sustainability.”
City council candidates Charles Lewis and Amanda Fritz are on hand, as are Multnomah County Commissioner candidates Mike Delman and Judy Shiprack. City Commissioner Randy Leonard and Metro Councilmember Rex Burkholder round out the crowd.
LiveWire’s Sean McGrath is moderating the discussion, and wore a bowtie for the occasion. He’ll be running the Jeopardy-style format, filled with questions on the topics of transportation, green jobs, public sector energy use, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and “potpourri.” Folks will pick a category, answer the question, and potentially face a rebuttal by their opponent.
First, introductions:
“My name is Randy Leonard and I was re-elected to the council in May, so I don’t know exactly why I’m here,” Leonard says, introducing himself after Fritz and Delman gave their brief campaign stump introduction. He’s kidding–Leonard loves to talk about alternative energy, like his biofuels initiative that increased the availability of the fuel in the city (and enhanced the industry in Eastern Oregon).
More energy fun after the cut. Warning: I haven’t had dinner, yet I’m having a pint of IPA. Typos ahead!
First off, what’s the story with this new (to me, at least) Future of Energy group?
The Future of Energy’s mission is to provide a networking and educational forum for energy professionals. By utilizing the diverse expertise and leadership of its members, the group works to promote practical solutions for enhancing the role of energy efficiency and renewable energy in consumer choices, and market dynamics; and communicate how they relate to major global problems such as global climate change, peak energy, and sustainability.
Check ’em out at futureofenergypdx.org.
Delman stressed his bike credentials, commuting and participating in Cycle Oregon. Shiprack is the “proud owner of three compost piles,” and her family hasn’t thrown away food in their garbage cans for the past few years.
Fritz and Lewis stuck with their campaign basics–she’s a nurse who served on the Planning Commission, he started Ethos and the “biodiesel-powered amphibious bus” Duck Tours was his business (which he’s since sold).
Burkholder stressed that he helped found the Bicycle Transportation Alliance.
Fritz chose potpourri for 100, and got a question about the “best avenues” for educating Portlanders about environmental issues.
Fritz hopes to be assigned the Office of Neighborhood Involvement or the Bureau of Environmental Services, and plans to keep volunteering in neighborhoods doing things like pulling ivy, educating people as that happens. There are a “myriad of practical ways” Portlanders can address global warming, from growing food in their own yard to helping kids walk to school; she’ll be personally involved in seeing those happen.
Lewis gets to rebut: He applauds the effort Multnomah County has taken to install solar panels on their buildings, and says “we should have solar panels on city hall.”
Delman wants potpourri for 300 (skipping 200, btw): “Tell us something that you do that you know is wasting energy. Also tell us what you have done to reduce your personal carbon footprint,” the question asks, and it’ll go to everyone. Delman “has a particular parochialism toward red meat,” he confesses, noting that his eating carbon footprint isn’t great. His family uses a rain barrel and has for the last five years, his kids rode bikes to school, and they compost, too.
Leonard has a confession, too: He often bikes to work. Sometimes he busses. Sometimes, though, he drives down the hill to the bus stop out past 130th… and keeps going, until he’s parked at SE 12th and Hawthorne. People compliment him for taking the bus when they see him at the bus stop, but “they don’t realize I drove ten miles to get there.”
Shiprack says she drives her car to People’s Co-op, but is pro-bike.
Burkholder notes that he’s a Lutheran, not a Catholic, so this “confessing” thing is foreign to him. But his “guilty pleasure” is “traveling by air.” His family is vegetarian, ride bikes everywhere, live in inner SE Portland, etc–“we’re really lucky in Portland that I can ride my bike every day, but we need to get those conditions everywhere.”
Lewis notes that “campaigning, you’re just all over the city,” and he’s driving a lot more than usual. But his campaign took an abandoned building and restored it (with double pane windows and energy efficient appliances and a frog pond in the back, though raccoons attacked and ate the frog). Ethos also just put in a new big bike rack.
Fritz says “it’s just ridiculous” how much campaigning has you drive all around town. And she drives to work because she works swing shift and gets off at 11:30 pm. Biking from OHSU to her home near PCC Sylvania would be a “very long” seven miles. TriMet means a half hour wait, a long ride, then a mile long walk to her home “at 1 o’clock in the morning… we need reliable public transportation here so people do have choices.”
Leonard chooses transportation for 500! “It shows I’m not running against anybody, does it…” But that question is about how these folks get to work each day, which has already largely been answered. On to 400… Many employers do not subsidize transit passes for their employees; how can employers incentivize employers to offer transit pass programs to their employees?
I missed the beginning of Leonard’s question, because the guy next to me appears to have drained his beer, and the whispering he’s doing to his girlfriend, mulling whether “incentivize” is a real world, is VERY LOUD.
In short, yes, Leonard wants to encourage people to take the bus or light rail.
Shiprack picks energy efficiency for 500. The city is considering a proposal that would reward developers for exceeding state energy standards and penalize those who don’t. Is this an effective approach?
“I have some personal experience with this,” Shiprack says, referring to a building that had something that “no residential system had contained prior,” a water loop heat pump. “The total cost for natural gas is $1500 for 60 residents per month in January,” she says. (Is she referring to the Old Town Lofts, the project on which she apparently still owes taxpayers $1.8 million? I’m not sure.)
Delman says he “has a little different perspective,” saying he wants more info from other cities that have a similar program. He wants to build green buildings and create green jobs without handicapping economic development.
Burkholder is “going to get out of my comfort area” and choose energy efficiency for 100. Every city or county funded new or redeveloped building has to be LEED certified… is this possible? Burkholder points out that more than 80 percent of buildings built or developed are not government buildings, for starters, and LEED is very expensive to meet. “But we do have energy efficiency standards that are equivalent,” he points out. Meanwhile, this is a topic he used to avoid discussing around business (or, at least, was told that was what he should do), but now business is clamoring to be green.
Delman says “I certainly don’t have all the answers,” and wasn’t entirely clear on LEED certification, so he looked it up. “There’s a cost to all of LEED categories,” he says. “I look forward to learning more about it.”
Green jobs for 500, says Lewis, “considering the state of our economy.” Would he argue for the development of a “Green Job Index,” to track the number of existing green jobs and projected jobs over the next several years. Or, what would he do to “ensure that we continue to be a bastion for green collar industries”?
Lewis says tracking green jobs is “a way we can bolster our credibility as a sustainable community,” but at the same time, it’s just a bragging thing. “Let’s just do it,” he says, referring to simply creating the jobs.
Fritz gets to rebut: The Portland Development Commission has already identified green jobs as a targeted industry. She’s into that, but “we need benchmarks,” and “I will ask for follow up studies and follow up reports” to be sure the jobs are being created if public resources are going toward creating them. “Did that program work or not work?” she asks. As a nurse, she doesn’t give medication and walk away–she finds out if the headache was relieved or not. If programs aren’t working, “those taxes can be used for something else.”
Fritz picks potpourri for 500. How will Portland work with other cities on a global scale to make sure best practices are “applied to planning, transportation, education and building.” Fritz–born in England–knows there’s a larger world out there, but really hates to fly and won’t be heading off on junkets. But she will research what others are doing, as “we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.” She’ll also look toward state issues and “the well being of the entire state,” as well, “rather than Portland being at an economical disadvantage” by being the only spot with building regulations, for example.
Lewis rebuts: Germany produces more solar power than we do, but has less daylight, as one example of a place we can “learn a lot” from. “I would frankly love to visit and see these bike lanes where you can ride side by side instead of single file… there’s a lot we can learn from other countries and bring it home.”
Delman takes potpourri for 200. Some places charge “large GHG emitting companies, or even residences in the region to pay a fee relative to their emissions.” What’s his opinion? GHG is green house gas, FYI. “Yes, I would support a similar strategy here,” he says, but doesn’t know what a fee should be. He’d defer to those working on it, and wishes “I had a better answer. Can I have a lifeline please?” he jokes.
Shiprack rebuts, saying the penalty questions are difficult. But “emitting greenhouse gasses is the problem,” she says. She’s for fines for people who violate emission standards. “Let’s get serious about this.”
Leonard picks transportation for some amount… what has contributed to Portland’s high bike commute rate, and how can we encourage more? Leonard credits photos of him in spandez as inspiration to people. “If he can do it…” he jokes. He bought a bike three years ago, because he’s cheap and refused to pay so much for gas. “I also noticed the climb up the stairwells at city hall were becoming increasingly laborious.” Biking is a great thing for people who want to stay in shape but don’t have time for the gym. “The result has been, for me… people of my generation are recognizing that by doing what you have to do anyway – get to and from work – you can lose weight,” eat what you like, sleep better, and “improve your disposition and be as pleasant as possible,” something he’s totally known for.
Burkholder jumps in, adding that personal virtue is good, but it’s also been people organizing to demand facilities from local government.
Shiprack picks energy efficiency for 100. Energy prices are going up, and utilities are asking for bigger rate increases. Given that, how can local governments “implement a more aggressive retrofit program”? Shiprack loves the question, and notes that producing efficiency is “very attractive” as energy gets more expensive. “I propose we have energy efficiency districts like local improvement districts,” where people pay a tax that enables a bond to help weatherize homes in that district. Then the energy savings are the revenue source to repay the bond. It’s not her idea, but she “intends to promote it” if she’s elected.
Delman wants to use his rebuttal time to address the previous question, on biking. It’s about breaking down barriers and getting people “over their fears” of getting on a bike. “We have to address the safety and basic law enforcement,” around biking.
Burkholder wants transportation for 200: What’s his top priority initiative for reducing green house gas emission around transportation? First, Burkholder gives a shout out, saying “this is such a crowd of geeks,” and he loves it.
The Portland metro area is about the only one in the country meeting the Kyoto protocols, thanks to our land use planning, and jobs being close to people’s homes. The average commute is seven miles, when it used to be 10. That’s his top strategy–continue compact development and walkable communities, and things that help people “not take that trip” instead of coming up with “the fancy new car that doesn’t use as much energy.” (Hmm… funny, “fancy new cars”–electric ones–are Gov. Kulongoski’s argument to absolve a big new bridge across the Columbia River, which Burkholder supports.)
Lewis picks jobs for 400. What would he do to create a “workforce development initiative” for green collar jobs in the region? He’d work with academia, would create internship opportunities, and would help small businesses expand and create good paying jobs via small business loans.
Fritz rebuts: “We need to make sure the existing programs are well utilized,” she points out. There are programs at PCC and PSU that are providing an education in green technology; the city needs to lobby the state to make sure those programs continue to be funded. There are also union apprenticeship programs that “are undersubscribed.”
New game: We’re going to play “convince me,” says McGrath. Audience questions, directed at a specific candidate.
Jeff Smith has a question for Fritz. Portland is expected to double in size by 2025–how can we accommodate this growth without sacrificing livability? She points out that England is the same size as Oregon, but has an extra 56 million people. She’s not advocating for that kind of growth, but “we can grow smart, and we are growing smart… we can create livable communities,” she says, pointing to the Hawthorne district and downtown. “We need people on the city council who can prioritize which projects are worthy,” and should be done first, given the economy.
Ann, who’s last name I didn’t catch, is going to ask Lewis a question. “If Congress fails to pass the renewable energy tax credit,” how will that impact Portland’s economy? He says it will be terrible. Locally, we can do tax incentives to help offset some of the costs. He thinks it’s “critically important” that we have opportunities for green jobs here.
Bethany asks Leonard her question. “He’s not running for reelection, so he can be very honest,” she says. Cities like London have reduced congestion and pollution by creating fees to keep traffic out of the city center. What does he think of that? He’s been “quietly intrigued” by policies like that, and has been looking into them. “It makes some sense to me, having visited Copenhagen recently with David Bragdon from Metro, where they have done just that sort of thing,” opening parts of their city just to pedestrians. He’d like to “look into doing something to that end in the next four years,” he says, making quite the bold semi-promise.
John asks Burkholder, “because he was hiding his face… and this has a particular regional focus to it. Are you for or against new natural gas pipelines?” Burkholder says we don’t “just have a peak oil problem, we have a peak gas problem,” though it is a cleaner energy than others. There are environmental impacts to new pipelines, but he used to work to build them as a young guy. “If we want to live the life we lead, we have to make choices,” he says. “It’s a tough issue. You have to weigh all those issues out, and luckily I don’t have to make that decision, it’s a state decision.” He says he doesn’t know enough about the tradeoffs to make the call himself.
Another guy from the audience asks Delman to “talk about Portland implementing a carbon tax, and what are the pros and cons.” Delman says “we all have to take a better look at what our carbon footprint is,” and have a more “comprehensive inventory on what we’re doing before we implement a carbon tax.” He says the city and county are leaders in sustainability practices, and he’s proud to be joining, potentially, a county commission “that’s been a leader in those practices.” He wants to know more about the downside of a carbon tax. Also, as a region that’s already a green leader, he’s not sure what it would add.
For Shiprack, the last question – would she empower neighborhood associations by funding them to install neighborhood sustainable utilities (if I got that right). “As I’ve walked through District 3 and recognized differences between all the neighborhoods,” Shiprack says, she sees people unplugging their downspouts, using their rain barrels, using some solar arrays. “But I haven’t seen anything in the energy production field that would make me think we would be gaining efficiency by saying to the neighborhood association why don’t you disconnect yourself from the grid and turn this neighborhood into a solar array.” Maybe that’s in the future.
Wrap ups! Fritz says that when she got the questions ahead of time, she realized she didn’t know the answers to all of them. But, she says she realized she “knows people who know the answers,” and she’ll reach out and ask those questions as a city commissioner.
Lewis points out that he’s met a payroll and has created jobs, as a small business guy. He and Fritz disagree on the Eastside Streetcar and Leonard’s biofuels mandate, he points out.
Delman feels he can compliment Ted Wheeler and Jeff Cogen in restoring credibility to the commission (in the wake of the “mean girls” era). He’ll bring “a watchdog mentality,” and push for accountability and transparency. He wants to make the region a great place to live and “a great place to work.”
Shiprack says “really, I just want to comment to you how pleasant it’s been having a beer with you all. Well, I had some water. And having some pizza with you all. Well, I didn’t have any pizza. And talking about issues with you all.” Her role as a county commissioner would be “to help us move forward” as “we have tremendous challenges” to address.
Shiprack is a joke. Thanks Amy!