Climate and Energy Action Plan (CEAP)

2 To attract attendees, open houses were promoted through communit y listservs, social media, community meetings, the local newspaper, and the Ci ty website. Attendance at these events ranged from 45 to 142 people. Eleven residents attended all three public open houses. Key themes from all three open houses included the following:  The public saw a strong need for ambitious action and wanted to see the community held accountable through an ordinance. Attendees at the open houses favored the most aggressive emission reduction scenario (8% emissions reduction per year) an d identified bold and ambitious targets as the elements of the draft CEAP they liked most.  The public identified buildings and energy and transportation and land use as the highest priority areas for addressing climate change . Popular actions included to support cleaner energy sources, support better publ ic transit and ride -sharing, and to support more climate -friendly development and land -use.  Attendees of the first open house were surprised that consumption -related emissions made up such a large proportion of city greenhouse gas emission s; public input at subsequent open houses indicated there was a desire for education and activities around consumption reduction , such as by buying less, eating less meat, and reducing utility use in their homes. Outcomes from each of the workshops are detailed in the accompanying open house public input summaries. Stakeholder Presentations and Interviews The consultant team worked with the City of Ashland to identify key stakeholders to interview. These stakeholders included broad community partners (such as Southern Oregon University and the Ashland Chamber of Commerce), technical partners (such as the Ge os Institute and South Oregon Climate Action Now), and experts on the each of the plan’s focus areas. These experts included but were not limited to representatives from Rogue Valley Transportation District, Recology Ashland, A shland Food Bank, and the Southern Oregon Land Conservancy. The project team completed over 10 stakeholder interviews . Interviews and presentations covered stakeholder questions such as:  How would you characterize Ashland with regards to climate and energy action? Do you see Ashland as a leader in the future, in line with what other cities are doing, or somewhere in between, and why?  Relative to other civic priorities and given the limitations of bu dget and other resources, how important is it that the city makes progress toward addressing climate change?  How do you perceive the roles of the public, City, and organizations in taking action to address climate change? What is the role of you or your or ganization?  What are you or your organization already doing to reduce emissions or prepare for climate impacts? What would you like to be doing more of or better?  What are the chal lenges businesses and organizations face in taking action? What challenges do you and/or your organization face? In addition , City staff gave presentations on the CEAP to local civic and service clubs, the City Planning and Transportation Commission, and C ity engineering staff.