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1 <br /> ORANGE COUNTY <br /> NORTH CAROLINA <br /> Asset Management Services <br /> Date: December 15, 2020 <br /> To: Board of Orange County Commissioners <br /> From: Brennan Bouma, Sustainability Coordinator <br /> Steven Arndt, Director Asset Management Services <br /> RE: Update on First Round of Applications for the Orange County Community Climate Action Grant <br /> As part of the FY20 budget, the Board of Orange County Commissioners created the Orange County Climate <br /> Action Fund dedicated to accelerating climate change mitigation actions in Orange County.This decision was <br /> motivated in part to help the County meet the climate change mitigation goals set by the Commissioners in <br /> recent years: <br /> • Reduce greenhouse gas emissions community-wide by 26 percent by 2025 (from 2005 levels). <br /> • Transition to a 100% renewable energy based economy by 2050. <br /> The first round of Climate Action Fund projects were proposed by the Commission for the Environment last year <br /> and approved by the Commissioners.These include funding for solar projects for each of the school districts, a <br /> LED lighting campaign for lower-income residents, and additional funding to weatherize and preserve affordable <br /> housing. <br /> For the 2020-21 funding cycle, $478,657 in funding was budgeted to support climate action projects that will <br /> benefit Orange County residents both socially and financially. Following the direction of the Board of Orange <br /> County Commissioners,the process for soliciting and selecting projects to receive funding is being conducted <br /> through a formal grant program. <br /> The scoring and eligibility guidelines were created by the Board of County Commissioners and staff pulled <br /> together the remaining application elements borrowing from the successful model of the Outside Agency <br /> funding process.The application period for this first round of grant opened on September 18tn and closed on <br /> November 9tn <br /> The Community Climate Action grant program received 7 applications in this round from a variety of non-profit <br /> and public organizations whose total requests add up to more than $1.2 million. While staff fielded some <br /> questions from prospective applicants from the private sector, no private sector applications were received. <br /> At the time of writing, applications are being reviewed and scored by the Commission for the Environment (CFE) <br /> and the Human Relations Commission (HRC). Both of these commissions have their regular meetings on the <br /> second-Monday of the month, meaning that they will have met to discuss and harmonize their final scores and <br /> feedback on December 14tn <br /> In the interest of allowing the Board of County Commissioners more than 24 hours to review these scores and <br /> recommendations, staff will pass along the combined feedback and scores from the HRC and CFE and will look <br /> forward to discussing these proposed projects at the Board's next opportunity on January 19tn <br /> P.O. Box 8181 * Hillsborough, North Carolina 27278 <br /> Telephone: (919)245-2625 <br />