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The Green Infrastructure Working Group presented its final report to the Lexington Planning Commission on Jan. 12.
Commission member John Driscoll, who was a member of the working group, presented the report to the Commission on behalf on working group chair and Commission member Patrick Bradley, who was not in attendance at the meeting.
The updated report addressed some of the questions raised at the Commission’s Oct. 27 meeting, when the report was first presented, including more clearly defining the role of the proposed collective impact model, a more defined organizational structure for the model and a list of next steps for how to move the report and its proposals forward effectively.
The working group members met on Dec. 15 to address those issues and centered their discussions around seven topics, including priorities for the group, the collective impact model, forming a transition group, funding and the next steps. The group came up with a list of five priorities for the group to focus on: Getting citizens more active, expanding the city’s tree canopy program, stormwater management, sustainability and renewable energy, and wildlife.
With the collective impact model, the group proposed a potential structure for the model, with various partner organizations, including Boxerwood, Lexington City Council, Master gardeners, Washington and Lee University and Virginia Military Institute, forming the foundation for the model. Each partner organization would have representation on a steering committee, which would “provide strategic direction, develop a shared agenda, seek funding opportunities and monitor milestones” for the group, with a project coordinator serving as a liaison between the committee and the various partner organizations. There would also be a fiduciary organization which would be responsible for finding and applying for grant funding for the projects the group takes on, as well as smaller working groups for individual projects.
Commission member Matt Tuchler asked why the Planning Commission was not listed among the partner organizations, and Driscoll explained that the Commission had taken part in the working group as a catalyst project and had accomplished what they could with it, and that the means to implement the goals of the group fell to Council more than the Planning Commission.
“Really, the function and work streams that are in here, and the governance and all those things, are really within City Council’s purview, not ours,” he explained. “So that’s where rolling this to them and getting them involved in advising and recommendations [comes in], and moving it forward that’s for them to do and adopt it as a policy statement.”
A transition group would be formed of members of the working group to “help guide the initiative from the Planning Commission to the City Council” and to “support the initial efforts to organize the collective impact model.”
At the suggestion of Commission Chair Blake Shester, Driscoll said he would work with Bradley to come up with a way to integrate references to the original report into the summary report, to give a clear indication that the larger report contains more details about some of the proposed projects and focus areas. An updated summary will be presented to the Commission members for consideration at its meeting on Thursday, Jan. 26, at which point they plan to vote to present the report to the City Council at a joint work session. The report will be finalized based on input from Council and then the steering committee would be formed and potential funding sought out to begin working on green infrastructure projects.
Among the steps that will need to be taken along the way, Driscoll noted, is to come up with a new name for the initiative.
“We can’t keep calling ourselves the Green Infrastructure Working Group,” he said. “We tried to come up with a name [at the December meeting], but couldn’t do it in the time that we had.”
