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<br />Trueblood agreed and pointed out the overlap of all of the committees on this point, and <br />that many of these policy ideas might align with LEED for Cities applications. She offered <br />that she has been referring to this list as a menu of options and that the low-cost items are <br />“appetizers,” recognizing that they may be easy to implement but may not make the <br />biggest difference. The other list has more of the “entrée” items that could make a bigger <br />difference in emissions. <br /> <br />Trueblood then reiterated that their group is looking for more input before going further <br />and that they would be happy to wait until after the public event to incorporate feedback <br />on next steps. <br /> <br />Kaufman then said that we would likely want to have input into how the Climate Action Tax <br />funds are allocated. <br /> <br />Trueblood added that she’d had discussions with Richardson and Janway about being sure <br />to avoid competition for the use of funds. If one municipality had a good idea, then the <br />other members should support them. Coordination on project would help to get larger <br />projects completed and these would make a bigger impact than a series of smaller projects. <br /> <br />Cough then added that he likes the idea of choosing a few actions that we could focus on <br />together, and asked if any were already jumping out as good focus areas. Trueblood said <br />that investing in renewables, greening the grid, electrification, and electric vehicles are <br />likely to make the most difference locally in the short term. <br /> <br />McCullough wondered whether there was a possibility to create a recommended actions <br />committee to prioritize across the lists and bring back to the Council. <br /> <br />Bouma said that may make sense and align with a conversation of the Communications <br />Committee to use the opportunity to gather some feedback on priority actions during the <br />public event. He then referred to the Climate Action Tax saying that the notice of funding <br />availability is coming out soon announcing the formal grant program desired by the Board <br />of Orange County Commissioners. This will be the ongoing process by which climate action <br />tax fund projects are chosen. The Commission for the Environment and the Human <br />Relations Commission will be scoring submitted applications and then the Commissioners <br />will have the final say. That said, there may be opportunities for the Climate Council to <br />weigh in and suggest projects, it is just not currently on the table for the Climate Council to <br />have a formal role in allocating funding. Bouma added that there are other funding sources <br />that need to be aligned with climate actions. The County expects to see several smaller <br />projects come out of the grant program going forward, and this can be part of the overall <br />strategy to take advantage of opportunities where we find them. <br /> <br />Marcoplos added that he feels the Council will find a way to participate in the grant process, <br />if only by spreading the word and assisting applicants in creating projects. There may be <br />other ideas, and we should consider them. <br /> <br />Rubinoff then said that nearly each member has a climate action plan, so it will be useful to <br />compare across them to find areas of overlap in priority and action. Collaboration would be <br />an opportunity, and one of our original motivations in creating this council was to identify <br />actions that require the action of more than one jurisdiction. This will help us articulate how <br />we are adding value to the member organizations. <br />