As the semester comes to a close, the Office of Sustainability hosted its last open forum of the year8212;with only a handful of people.
A community open house, welcoming the input of the surrounding U community on the U’s climate action plan, was held Thursday in the Crimson View restaurant.
The plan is to use public input to design the U’s approach to become climate neutral. U President Michael Young signed a commitment in April 2008 that he would present such a definitive plan by May. But the open houses8212;including Thursday’s8212;have not gone exactly as planned.
Even though the U sent out almost 1,000 e-mails asking the public to show up and share ideas, only four people came for the informational meeting, not including Myron Willson, director of the Office of Sustainability, other members of the office and the media.
No more than a handful showed up at the previous two meetings, where political debates or rehashing information about what the sustainability office does, rather than what it could be doing, often took time away from the sharing of new sustainable project ideas.
“We wanted to get ideas and thoughts and were hoping to get input from the community,” Willson said.
Willson had planned a presentation to community members on what the U has already done and what it is continuing to do in an effort to become more sustainable. Although few people attended, Willson gave the same presentation as the past two forums to the few Salt Lake City architects who came in late. He asked them from an administrative standpoint about what barriers they saw in developing sustainability on campus.
“We need to start thinking about this,” Willson said of the U’s sustainability efforts.
For example, energy is going to cost more with inflation, so the price of utilities is going to rise, Willson said.
“This money will have to come out of tuition or the budget,” Willson said. “We are looking for ways to avoid looming costs.”
Because of the U’s size, it benefits everyone to be sustainable, said U spokesman Remi Barron.
Barron said they want the community’s input, so they might consider holding another forum.
The information that would have been given out at last Thursday’s open house might be sent out in an e-mail to community members.
“We might just ask for comments through e-mails or phone calls,” Barron said.
The next sustainability forum is scheduled for sometime next semester.
Richard Payson/The Daily Utah ChronicleFaculty members in charge of the U?s climate action plan forum were suprised that only four people came to the event after they sent out almost 1,000 emails inviting people to the event.