City creates sustainability committee

SANDPOINT — City officials are seeking to bring increased financial and environmental security with the help of a new sustainability committee.

At Wednesday’s council meeting, members directed city staff to draft an ordinance that would establish a sustainability committee.

A governmental body consisting of mostly local individuals, the committee would advise city officials on methods to preserve the city’s financial and natural resources.  

According to Councilwoman Jamie Brunner, the initiative stems from a council decision made in August to hire a consultant for to craft a sustainability policy for the town. However, the money simply isn’t there for such a project, and so far, grant funding hasn’t been secured either. A more affordable route in the meantime is to establish a committee that will focus entirely on matters of sustainability.  

“There’s a lot of legwork that can be done on the grassroots level with local input and we have a lot of local area expertise that I think could come to the table,” Brunner said.  

Council members agreed that it was an excellent idea to start the effort on a local level. However, they also mentioned that it would be a good idea to define sustainability prior to the committee’s creation. Since the word can be a somewhat loaded term with a variety of assumed definitions, members said it would be wise to clear that up from the beginning. The entire council agreed that they wanted to focus on sustaining everything from financial systems to infrastructure to the natural environment.

“In terms of the city and sustainability, see that as being a much broader definition in terms of staffing levels, the level of service and all of that,” Councilwoman Carrie Logan said. “I’d like to see the purpose expanded.”

The committee will likely be made up of predominantly Sandpoint residents with some degree of expertise in the appropriate areas. However, City Attorney Scot Campbell advised the council to not be too restrictive in terms of area of residence.

“I’d hate to limit it because there’s so much talent in the county that could potentially serve on here,” he said.