Should Washington County Fund an Office of Sustainability?

Fri, 2007-11-16 06:32 — cfrjlr

Alas Washington County has no money to pay for such things. WASCo has one of the leanest budgets of any county in the state. Per head of population their budget is several times smaller than, say Multnomah County.

Every penny of the Wash Co budget is allocated, the general fund is tiny.

Sorry I do not have numbers at my fingertips, but I have attended meetings with various county commissioners over the years, including Tom Brian the chair.

Trying to get money out of Wash Co is an exercise in futility (been there, done that).

On the other hand, if state matching funds were available, possibly the county could act as a pass through. The state has a lot more money than the county, they have so much that they are refunding it with a record kicker this year.

What exactly do you have in mind for this office?

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plunsfo
November 16th, 2007

Actually, an Office of Sustainbability Might Be In The Works

Actually, the County has been investigating the issue of an Office of Sustainability, and has retained consultants to determine its cost, what the focus should truly be, best practices from around the country, and so on. See this article:
http://relocalize.net/washington_countys_sustainability_summit

My guess is that they won't have funding until well into 2008 or 2009 to actually act upon it, which will be a tremendous loss in terms of lost lead time. And of course, when one realizes that energy uncertainty is the single most crucial short-term issue for humanity, well, maybe funds from other projects will just need to be diverted.

Washington County Peak Oil is providing influence to the County officials along these lines.

Peter

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