Published: 2 years 2 days ago
Sacramento Bee: The carefully orchestrated kickoff for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's green initiative all sounded good. A crowd of 300 elected officials, business leaders and others applauded catchy slogans galore like "Emerald Valley" and "green IQ." Even the signs and balloons and Johnson's tie were shades of green.
But as for specifics of how this effort will transform Sacramento into a pre-eminent city for clean-energy technology, green-collar jobs and environmental consciousness?
Not so plentiful.
That's somewhat by design; Johnson says he didn't want to impose goals, but wants them to emerge from an inclusive, eight-month process culminating in a "big, bold" action plan he plans to unveil in his State of the City speech next year.
There are some encouraging signs all the buzz will produce something real. After promoting four different initiatives during his first year as mayor, Johnson is rightly focusing this year on this single one.
Johnson is also correctly stressing regional teamwork. He pledged to include officials and leaders from six counties and 20-plus cities. The city of Sacramento plans to partner with Valley Vision, a key player in the well-regarded Blueprint planning effort.
The mayor also seems to understand the head start he has, building on the burgeoning concentration of green-tech businesses already here and on the work already done by groups such as Valley Vision and the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance. It is promising as well that he has recruited key players from the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the University of California, Davis, to help lead the effort.
It's also auspicious that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger showed up to lend his "100 percent" support. As he and Johnson pointed out, California can't reach its clean-energy and carbon-emissions goals without help from cities – and Sacramento can't become a center for green jobs without the state's enthusiastic assistance.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/20/2763613/green-dream-must-grow-in-regional.html#ixzz0oS6BBFm8
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