City of St Catharines Open Letter
January 23, 2020
Dear Mayor Sendzik,
cc City of St Catharines Councillors
We are writing you this open letter to request an update on what the City of St. Catharines is doing to address the Climate Emergency.
In an article published in Niagara This Week on January 6th, it stated that Climate change is one of your 5 priorities for 2020. It said:
"While the city has taken some steps to manage its own footprint, it’s focusing now on working with the community to move away from plastic water bottles, and plastic straws. The city hired a climate change co-ordinator and Sendzik said he was supportive of biweekly garbage pickup starting in 2021. “Those are pieces of sustainability around climate change,” he said. “We’ll see more of a focus from a lot of different places in the environmental side of things."
We would be interested to learn more specifics about these different pieces you mentioned. And while garbage collection and plastic reductions are worthwhile initiatives, we feel that they do not reflect the scale or urgency of our world climate crisis. It's simply not enough. We are out of time.
Since declaring a climate emergency on the 29 April 2019, what exactly has been done to enact policies and behaviours immediately in response to this emergency?
We are asking for you to hold a press conference/do a press release providing specific details regarding the climate actions that the city of St Catharines is undertaking.
Going forward, we would also like to see monthly updates that include details regarding both emissions and what actions are being taken to reduce them and replace our reliance on fossil fuels while transitioning, fairly and equitably, to a renewable, green economy.
If resistance is met at Provincial and other levels of government, we as citizens need to know so we can contact the appropriate representatives and erase whatever barriers exist to help St. Catharines achieve its goals during the Climate Emergency.
Thank you for your commitment to the future of our city and our kids.
Sincerely,
For Our Kids Niagara
Www.forourkidsniagara.ca
Source: https://www.niagarathisweek.com/news-story/9798480-sendzik-sees-bright-horizon-for-st-catharines-in-2020/
Reply from Julie Hughes, Admin assistant to mayor Sendzik
January 23, 2020
Good Afternoon Shannon,
Thank you for your interest in St. Catharines and the actions being taken to address Climate Change. As you are aware, the City did hire a Climate Change Co-ordinator who started in August 2019.
A webpage dedicated to Climate Change has been established on the City’s website by the Coordinator who regularly updates initiatives as they are introduced. I invite you to check in to keep up to date on postings.
Since St. Catharines declared an emergency April 29 2019 staff has been working on both adaptation and mitigation streams for climate change action.
Below are a few highlights that have taken place:
· The updated Strategic Plan now specifically includes climate change under the environmental pillar. This was approved in October of 2019.
· City council also pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 with the Energy Conservation and Demand Management Plan. This plan also includes details into the city emissions reduction plan to further information.
· St. Catharines, along with six other municipalities, joined a Brock University collaboration called Niagara Adapts. The partnership will support the development of a Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the City. Here is a year in review link
· Drafting a corporate specific Climate Change Adaptation Plan is currently underway. An interdepartmental senior staff team are collaborating to come up with department specific actions which will be incorporated into the Plan which is anticipated to be complete by the third quarter of 2020
· Councillor Greg Miller recently presented a motion at City Council (which passed unanimously) asking that each staff report presented to Council clearly define the environmental impacts of approving the staff recommendation. This information provides a valuable lens for Council when evaluating staff reports.
A report went to council in December to provide an update on climate change related items. Here is the link to the report.
Thank you for your interest and for your offer to advocate with other levels of government. Council and Staff appreciate all the community partners who are actively addressing climate change.
Please share this information with the For Our Kids Niagara membership.
Thank you,
Julie
Julie Hughes
Administrative Assistant - Mayor’s Office
Here is our reply back to the Mayor, Julie and the city Councillors
January 24, 2020
Dear Mayor Sendzik,
cc City Councillors and Julie Hughes
Thank you for your reply to our letter. We were aware that the city had hired a climate change coordinator through a grant from the federal government. Are there plans in place to make this a permanent position for the duration of the climate emergency?
Thank you also for the link to the city action page. We visited the St. Catharines Climate Change page, and have read through it, as well as the several lengthy hyperlinked documents. As a group of very busy families, with caregivers out of the house for often ten hours a day with work and commute times, kids’ extracurricular activities, daily household upkeep, etc., we found the information frankly overwhelming. The documents are long; the language is specialist.
We see no clear message regarding what is necessary to address the climate emergency based on the available science. The information provided is vague, and there are no dates given to tell us when the information was published. You mention that the Climate Change Co-ordinator has been providing “regular” updates: we have asked for monthly updates on any specific actions being taken to address this climate emergency.
The information on the page also does not specify how the City’s plans align with the current climate science, let alone what news agencies are reporting. Most of the news we read or hear is consistent with the science: that we need to be at net-zero emissions by 2050 (many say that even this is too late).
We found the forty-seven page Energy Conservation and Demand Management Plan to be long and confusing for non-specialists. Again, no date or update to it, no immediate strategies to reach net zero by 2050. And when reading this document we see that City-owned buildings make up the largest percentage of energy and emissions data; we could not, however, find any information on plans to retrofit these buildings in a sustainable manner. Are there plans right now to retrofit our existing buildings and ensure that all new developments meet certain standards related to the climate emergency?
The Energy Conservation and Demand Management Plan’s Conservation and Demand Management Measures touches on some initiatives to reduce our energy consumption, and there is much to like there. However, the language is also vague and non-committal. Yet it is, according to the website, “a ‘living document’, and is expected to grow, change and be updated over time.” We are running out of time. Updates need to be not just “regular” but often. A monthly update from our mayor does not seem unreasonable given the severity of the climate emergency. We feel a regular monthly update would help us understand the large amount of information that is on your webpage right now.
We are in a Climate Emergency, and as citizens all we can do is continue on with our daily routines. Many of us are barely surviving in our day to day lives; shortages of time and money consume us, but we come home at the end of the day and we all have this strange, vague worry about climate change, and we are scared. The web page is helpful, but will doubtless remain inaccessible to people. Time is always stretched thin for average individuals and families, and economic constraints prevent many from accessing this type of information, especially in its current format. This underscores the need for brief public updates that focus specifically on the city's plans for ACTION.
We were very happy to hear about the new motion councilor Greg Miller put forth and relieved to hear that it was passed unanimously. Perhaps a greater focus in Council will encourage the mayor to provide the citizens of St. Catharines with monthly updates on how each decision affects the City’s response to the climate emergency.
Right now it doesn't feel like we are acting urgently in this Climate Emergency, and when we come home at the end of the day, we are worried about what is being done, and we are confused about the information available. All we want is to put our kids to bed and know that we are doing what we need to do for their future.
Sincerely,
For Our Kids Niagara
www.forourkidsniagara.ca
Dear Mayor Sendzik,
cc City Councillors and Julie Hughes
Thank you for your reply to our letter. We were aware that the city had hired a climate change coordinator through a grant from the federal government. Are there plans in place to make this a permanent position for the duration of the climate emergency?
Thank you also for the link to the city action page. We visited the St. Catharines Climate Change page, and have read through it, as well as the several lengthy hyperlinked documents. As a group of very busy families, with caregivers out of the house for often ten hours a day with work and commute times, kids’ extracurricular activities, daily household upkeep, etc., we found the information frankly overwhelming. The documents are long; the language is specialist.
We see no clear message regarding what is necessary to address the climate emergency based on the available science. The information provided is vague, and there are no dates given to tell us when the information was published. You mention that the Climate Change Co-ordinator has been providing “regular” updates: we have asked for monthly updates on any specific actions being taken to address this climate emergency.
The information on the page also does not specify how the City’s plans align with the current climate science, let alone what news agencies are reporting. Most of the news we read or hear is consistent with the science: that we need to be at net-zero emissions by 2050 (many say that even this is too late).
We found the forty-seven page Energy Conservation and Demand Management Plan to be long and confusing for non-specialists. Again, no date or update to it, no immediate strategies to reach net zero by 2050. And when reading this document we see that City-owned buildings make up the largest percentage of energy and emissions data; we could not, however, find any information on plans to retrofit these buildings in a sustainable manner. Are there plans right now to retrofit our existing buildings and ensure that all new developments meet certain standards related to the climate emergency?
The Energy Conservation and Demand Management Plan’s Conservation and Demand Management Measures touches on some initiatives to reduce our energy consumption, and there is much to like there. However, the language is also vague and non-committal. Yet it is, according to the website, “a ‘living document’, and is expected to grow, change and be updated over time.” We are running out of time. Updates need to be not just “regular” but often. A monthly update from our mayor does not seem unreasonable given the severity of the climate emergency. We feel a regular monthly update would help us understand the large amount of information that is on your webpage right now.
We are in a Climate Emergency, and as citizens all we can do is continue on with our daily routines. Many of us are barely surviving in our day to day lives; shortages of time and money consume us, but we come home at the end of the day and we all have this strange, vague worry about climate change, and we are scared. The web page is helpful, but will doubtless remain inaccessible to people. Time is always stretched thin for average individuals and families, and economic constraints prevent many from accessing this type of information, especially in its current format. This underscores the need for brief public updates that focus specifically on the city's plans for ACTION.
We were very happy to hear about the new motion councilor Greg Miller put forth and relieved to hear that it was passed unanimously. Perhaps a greater focus in Council will encourage the mayor to provide the citizens of St. Catharines with monthly updates on how each decision affects the City’s response to the climate emergency.
Right now it doesn't feel like we are acting urgently in this Climate Emergency, and when we come home at the end of the day, we are worried about what is being done, and we are confused about the information available. All we want is to put our kids to bed and know that we are doing what we need to do for their future.
Sincerely,
For Our Kids Niagara
www.forourkidsniagara.ca
Councillor Greg Miller put forth a motion relating to emissions targets and updates for the public
We were really pleased that Councillor Miller seemed to hear our message, as he put together a motion relating to our concerns for the council meeting on February 10th. See it below:
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Council Meeting Feb 10th: a Positive Result
So of course Shannon went to speak at the meeting and gave a beautiful speech.
She gives a brief recap on what happened in the video below. But please consider watching the full feed at this link here: https://www.stcatharines.ca/en/governin/february10-2020-city-council-meeting.asp
She gives a brief recap on what happened in the video below. But please consider watching the full feed at this link here: https://www.stcatharines.ca/en/governin/february10-2020-city-council-meeting.asp
We have been contacted by several city councillors now and are excited to bring more updates to you soon. Lots more motions to come that will help change our city for the better.
