A group of Henderson citizens convened by the City Council to study issues of environmental concern has identified a five-point plan to engage the community in the coming years.

Council members convened the Citizens Advisory Committee in December and charged it with formulating a plan to encourage residents and businesses to embrace the principles of the city’s Sustainability Action Plan.

The Citizens Advisory Committee can be created, dissolved and reformed at the pleasure of the City Council to study and advise the council in a specific policy area. Past committees have advised on technological and urban planning issues.

The current committee’s chairman is Dr. Thomas Piechota, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UNLV and head of the university’s Office of the Urban Sustainability Initiative.

Councilwoman Debra March, the council’s designated point person on issues of environment and sustainability, said Piechota’s willingness to volunteer for the committee was a major victory for the city.

“I think we’re very fortunate to have a leader for this group like Dr. Piechota,” she said.

In a presentation to the Council at its March 1 meeting, Piechota identified five projects the committee has identified for its work plan: identifying and publicizing programs for residents and businesses to cut their utility bills, developing strategies that will require fewer residents to travel to City Hall, promoting community recycling, providing resident feedback on the city’s Sustainability Action Plan, and promoting environmentally friendly landscaping practices.

Committee members have chosen to tackle the utility savings and community recycling initiatives this year, Piechota said. He said the committee hopes to have a report ready by June that will detail available private, state and federal programs and how the city can encourage participation.

By November, he said, the committee hopes to have completed a survey of residents who are participating in the pilot curbside recycling program that the city and partner Republic Services are testing. Their report will also evaluate possible means of increasing participation rates and opportunities for expanded city recycling.

Republic Services has offered to fund the community survey, which the committee will design and conduct.

Mayor Andy Hafen expressed an enthusiastic endorsement for the committee’s proposed course of action.

“These issues … are exactly where I would have put the priorities if it were me (on the committee),” he said. “The economy aside, I think these issues that you’re tackling are probably on the forefront, or should be on the forefront, for all the citizens of Henderson.”

The City Council unanimously approved the committee’s report and authorized it to pursue its proposed course.
Council members have made establishing Henderson as a regional leader in issues of sustainability and the environment a priority. In 2009, the council adopted the Sustainability Action Plan, a planning document that identifies three measurable goals in each of seven areas: recycling and waste reduction, environmental health, transportation, urban nature, urban design, energy and water.

Notable efforts undertaken thus far include a citywide energy retrofit of municipal facilities, upgrading traffic lights to low-energy LED lights and replacing street lamps with energy efficient bulbs.