Sustainability is a favorite topic of mine because it helps promote sound planning processes and it can be reflected in everything we do.  One perfect example is water.  Green Bay’s water utility has been recognized for water quality and system performance at the national level, and in a water taste contest through the US Conference of Mayors, Green Bay was in the top ten cities in the country.  Recently, I heard that about 90% of water bottles go straight to the landfill, which just astounded me. 

So we’re making efforts to reduce bottled water consumption in Green Bay.  This year, I’ve instructed our Water Department to construct three city water access taps in the downtown area.  It’s better for you, it tastes great, it costs significantly less, and we’re bringing it to a community event near you!  Starting this year with our International Bayfest celebration, we’ll be setting up City drinking water refill stations, with taps at Leicht Park, the Baylake Building lot, and the CityDeck where you can fill up your reusable water bottle during popular Green Bay events, like Art Street, the Prevea 3 on 3, the Fire Over the Fox and much more. 

Another sustainability project in our Public Works department is the installation of traffic signal LED timers, which by now have sprouted up all around the City in conjunction with our ongoing traffic light synchronization and idling reduction program.  This change has dramatically reduced maintenance costs and will achieve over $70,000 per year in energy cost savings.  We also computed, installed and tested new traffic signal timing plans for 16 groups of signals on 9 arterial corridors including 91 intersections in order to reduce idling and improve traffic flow.  Our efforts reduced fuel use and air pollution in the process.  Green Bay recently completed the final phase of our right-sized wattage streetlight program which also will substantially save on energy costs.  Even if we may not always think of them as such, these are all excellent examples of sustainability initiatives that make good ecological sense while helping the City’s bottom line.