Meeting with the Local Council member

Meeting with Council man Smith of Lynnwood.

His interest is in creating a sustainability citizens advisory board. This will be connected with the the sustainability component of our cities comprehensive plan. The goal, in his view, is to have citizens give guidance to the city as they work towards implementing the plan.

On the 28th the sustainability plan gets submitted to the city council will receive the initial plan and then they will start the "Working meeting" process. that is the "hashing out" the details, to fit their vision.

Mark Smith wants to create this citizens group but not necessarily the other members. This is directly connected to some aspects of Lynnwood you should be aware of. Lynnwood is a large town 32,000 plus change. However, it is about 50% rentals and thus a community which is always in transition. We only have about 14,000 registered voters and as a result of this, we have a large population of people who do not have any vested stake in the community.

This then creates a civic mentality, or lack of civic mentality that does not foster a sense of place. We have a very large proportion of shopping, one of Washington's largest malls is about 2 miles from my house, so we have a very large number of people who pass through day to day with little to no regard for the location they pass through.

These are all barriers for the city to try to work around in fostering a feeling of community and or stability. So Marks' goal is to try and get together people who are actually part of the city, not an easy thing to define, and to move the city forward in some sustainable fashion.

I tried to nail him down on exactly what he fore saw as a sustainable path. I brought up the idea of distributive energy generation, small wind and solar. He was concerned that it might not be something that could be done, forced on Lynnwood. I agree but I pressed on that helping achieve these goals using changes in zoning, small wind requires about a 30 to 40 foot tower and he agreed that it would probably not be OK with current code.He continued through out all of my suggestions, I had a lot of ideals, that things would have to "work in Lynnwood".

This reflects the fact that many of the people who are residents can become very vocal when city officials try and enforce codes that are already on the books. Simple items like garbage piles in yard, cars parked in peoples front yards, "junk cars". I have heard it refereed to, in the city, as the tyranny of the vocal. These people are the people who will show up at a council meeting where they are discussing mandatory garbage pick up and scream like they are trying to take away their civil rights.

Mark pressed that any ideas would have to be able to move forward in Lynnwood one step at a time. I would point to some ideas, he would agree with some but then come back to the refrain of must work within the city, with its' residents. I understand this at it's roots but feel that bold actions must take place and want to put these into action.

All and all, I am guardedly hopeful. He wants me to come up with a handful of ideas incase he is successful in creating the Advisory Council. He would like my participation. I will participate. Having said that, I am also a little disappointed. I have a lot of hope and energy. I want to make big changes in the city. I want the city to be a regional model and distributive energy generation is one of the ways to do this. 8 months is a long time just to find out if this is maybe going to happen. This is the time table he stated.

I will continue to engage this part of the process. The city, my local first step has been taken. Next I will be working on the national congressman then with the state rep. My goal is to call his, my state rep, a Mr Marko Liias. We shall see what kind of vision he has and what we can do with him.

My letter to Mr. Inslee is passing its last changes, that you all you helped me. When done, by Wednesday night I promise, it will be faxed to his office and I will follow up with an attempt at setting an initial meeting. I will let you know.