Sustainable Culver City

By Stephen Murray

I want help Culver City become a world class city. I also want to help increase the quality of life for all of us.

Sustainability is like the new conservatism. It's an old idea that's been around since towns had first been formed.

Sustainability is more than just an environmental directive, it is a means to create an economically dynamic and socially equitable future for all residents of Culver City, and for generations to come.

~Culver City: A Green City?

Becoming a green city would attract more green jobs, more clean jobs, more creative jobs, businesses and employment opportunities to Culver City. Los Angeles, our nearest neighbor, is committed to becoming a Sustainable City and we should not fall behind them and lose our creative workforce.

As a city our green initiatives have been piecemeal and scattered. We've a few stars like Recycling bins every week, our early adoption of Cal-green building standards and our CNG buses. But there have been missteps and lost opportunities too. Some of our green initiatives have been opportunistic, like the rain barrel grants, and we want to keep that organic growth but we need to build a plan and a systematic approach towards achieving sustainability in our community.

~Sustainability Committee

I'm proposing a new sustainability committee to provide a framework, organize our green activities, and guide our City through the remaining steps needed to become a sustainable city:

1.) Creating a Sustainability Charter.
2.) Adopting the principles of the Urban Environmental Accords.
3.) Formation of a Sustainability Commission.
4.) Creation of a Master Plan for Sustainability.

Our Sustainability Committee needs to harness the creative ideas that city staff, residents and businesses come up with. The ideas still belong to those who originate them but the Sustainability Committee will help organize them, create larger action plans, and incorporate them into a community master plan.

~Sustainable Culver City

Sustainable Culver City is a community of residents, neighbors, workers, and visitors who strive together to balance ecological, economic, and social needs to ensure a clean, healthy and safe environment for all members of society and for generations to come.

As a Sustainable City we will create an action plan and policies that encompass the 21 critical issues affecting our City's health and well being: energy, waste reduction, urban design, urban nature, transportation, environmental health, and water. Through the efficiencies of sustainability we will achieve:

• Reduced energy usage.
• Increased use of renewable energy.
• Reduced waste.
• Increased number of jobs.
• Increased public parks and recreational space.
• Better air quality.
• Reduced water consumption.
• Cleaner drinking water.

Other Cities such as Los Angeles, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Oakland, San Francisco have already made this commitment to be sustainable as a core goal. For our continued health and quality of life, Culver City needs to commit too.