The city and the city worked together on a contract worth nearly $40,000 Novak Consulting GroupThe Bloomington City Council recently received information on the topic city boards and commissions. The recommendations include standardizing procedures, designating staff members to oversee boards and Commissions, and creating an onboarding process that all new employees can use.
Former chair of the Bloomington Environmental CommissionNovak made one recommendation: the merging of theCommission on SustainabilityThe environmental commission.
I know how similar the work of these important commissions can appear to laypeople just by their names. People often think about sustainability when they think about the environment. For many reasons, I am opposed to the combination.
First, the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability’s work and the Bloomington Environmental Commission’s are sufficiently different to warrant two bodies. The purpose of the sustainability commission, as laid out in municipal code, is to promote sustainable socio-environmental-economic well-being of Bloomingtonians. Both sustainability and environmentalism can be considered separate academic concepts. Sustainability focuses on the economic and social well-being of residents while environmentalism focuses on wildlife, ecosystems, and pollution.
The environmental commission’s purpose is to maintain and improve environmental quality so that human health and safety are protected and that property and plant life are not damaged. The protection of wildlife and other natural resources is not mentioned in the commission on sustainable ordinance.
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Secondly, the work of both the commission on sustainability (and the environmental commission) has been very different over the years. You can check the city website and local news to see that the environmental committee has been working on the city’s unified development ordinance. They also regularly issue reports such as the Bloomington Habitat Connections Plan, and issues fact sheets for community engagement/knowledge. However, only a few reports have been published by the commission on sustainable. The majority of its work remains unviewed by the public.
The commission on environmental issues also performs real, tangible work. They evaluate building standards and construction methods for new developments in the Bloomington Plan Commission. This work is not done by the commission on sustainability, and takes up a lot of time for them. This is partly why the EC is located under the planning Department, while BCOS is under economic and sustainable.
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The existence of two commissions dedicated both to sustainability and environmentalism demonstrates the strength of Bloomington’s commitment to protecting our natural environment as well as citizens from the effects of climate change. This monumental task is no longer as important as it was once thought.
Normaly, I would be the first to advocate for eliminating redundancies from any bureaucracy. These two commissions are not a redundancy to me. I see them as a strength for our community in the never-ending fight to preserve, protect, and defend our community from harm from sociological or environmental damage. The BCOS resolution on ending homelessness is the most recent, while the EC resolution is on environmental justice. Both perspectives are welcome in our city government.
Both the Bloomington Environmental Commission (BEC) and the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability (BCS) must be preserved for the benefit of the city, the environment, and our residents.
Andrew Guenther was the former chair of the Bloomington Environmental Commission and is currently a graduate student in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.