City of Seattle Commits to Working with Local SustainableWorks Pilot Project

At the Spring Assembly on June 7, the City of Seattle publicly announced their intention to pursue their goals of reducing building energy use and creating jobs through local efforts such as SustainableWorks. (The five Alliance clusters have been developing strategies to leverage municipal and local utilities' energy efficiency stimulus funding.)

(l-r) Tom Veatch, Dusty Hoerler, and Representative John McCoy-Snohomish.

Negotiations with the City of Seattle thus far have centered on the distribution of its federal Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funds; at the Assembly, Rich Feldman, Mayor Nickels' Senior Policy Advisor, announced a preliminary working agreement specific to spending for energy audits.

Reflections on the Meaning of This Legislative Victory

Sound Alliance leader Dusty Hoerler, Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 32, says this about initial skepticism of the Alliances' capacity to develop SustainableWorks:

"The Editorial Board [of a local paper] told us that we were a flash in the pan - that we would ultimately fail in our attempt to effect change in our communities on the Agenda for the Common Good issues.

But we did not fail.

We came together as mothers and fathers . . . sons and daughters . . . as neighbors.

We rolled up our sleeves and worked diligently to express our values.  Now we must join together once again to carry this difficult work forward."

Mothers March for Health Care Reform

On Saturday, May 30th, more than 180 organizations from across the state gathered in Seattle to support the goal of winning quality, affordable health care for everyone in 2009. States across the country held similar events that will culminate in a national action on June 25th in Washington, DC.