Willow Glen Resident
News
Council accepts 'green vision' hoping jobs follow environmental advances
By Stephen Baxter
Dozens of business leaders and residents stood and applauded in the city council chambers on Oct. 30 when the council unanimously approved Mayor Chuck Reed's Green Vision for San Jose.
The plan sets 10 bold environmental goals for the next 15 years, from planting 100,000 more trees to harnessing the city's entire power supply from renewable energy sources. The plan aims for San Jose to create 25,000 "clean tech" jobs through the project, and become a global hub for environmental innovation and technology.
"We're going to do the [research and development] to show the rest of the world how to be clean and green," Reed said.
The mayor said his vision to retool the region's economy came from a chat with U.S. Rep. Mike Honda in January, where Honda encouraged him to take a stand on the city's environmental goals.
Other goals to be reached in 15 years include:
* Halving San Jose's per capita energy use
* Recycling and diverting all the city's waste from its landfill, and converting some waste in to energy
* Recycling or reusing all of the city's wastewater, which has a daily flow of 100 million gallons
* Running San Jose's entire vehicle fleet on alternative fuels
* Building or retrofitting 50 million square feet of green buildings and
* Creating 100 miles of connected trails
Now that the council has approved the broad goals, it will vote in the coming months on new policies to support the vision.
"A lot of this is going to come down to painful votes," District 6 Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio said, "and I'm prepared vote yes now and later with the hard choices."
Jobs are expected to be generated through the program by helping San Jose green technology firms grow.
If they expand, the city's tax revenues may swell and allow it to provide more services such as maintaining parks.
San Jose firms that stand to gain from the city's investment in green technologies are installing solar panels on roofs, building cars that run on electricity and manufacturing more efficient light bulbs.
The Green Vision aims to provide incentives and services to established "clean tech" companies and to start-ups.
One goal is to install solar panels on 100,000 roofs in the city, and the city hopes to partner with schools such as San Jose City College to promote and perhaps help fund training programs.
"We are going to need people to install those roofs," said Michelle McGurk, spokeswoman for the mayor, adding that those jobs could not be outsourced overseas.
City officials also plan to partner with the Environmental Business Cluster, a 12-year-old San Jose nonprofit group that helps environmental technology companies develop and market products. From time to time, the city also intends to help show off green products such as the alternative fuel cars displayed outside City Hall on Oct. 30.
Councilman Sam Liccardo, whose District 3 covers parts of downtown and North Willow Glen, said the conservation aspects of the plan appealed to him most.
"This is going to be a great thing for the this city, and I think it will be a great example for the country," he said.
Amid the chorus of approval from business leaders at the council meeting, one of the only skeptics was Shannon O'Keefe of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is based in Willow Glen.
Some union workers have the unenviable task of sorting recyclable materials at garbage facilities, she said, and she hoped those employees would work in satisfactory conditions for fair wages.
Following the approval of the Green Vision, the council renewed its program to allow free parking for zero-emission vehicles at downtown parking meters and in some city parking lots and garages.
