Hawai’i County Council chair Heather Kimball (left) and Danielle M. Bass, the state’s Sustainability Coordinator, will be guest speakers at the July 6 Waimea Community Association meeting.
The Waimea Community Association’s July 6 meeting will focus on two significant public policy initiatives to turn “talk” into ”walk.”
In Hawaiʻi County, Bill 48 would create an Office of Sustainability, Climate, Equity and Resilience that would be assigned to the Office of the Managing Director. It’s currently on the County Council agenda for its July 6, and could be approved by the time the community meeting is held, said Council Chair Heather Kimball, co-introducer of the bill.
At the State level, there’s the national merit award winning Hawai’i 2050 Sustainability Plan that includes a 2020-2030 decade of action strategic action plan that provides eight focus areas to work on, and 38 strategies with 262 specific Recommended Actions to help meet the state’s combined sustainability and climate goals by 2030, said Danielle M. Bass, the state’s Sustainability Coordinator with the Office of State Planning and Sustainable Development.
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Kimball and Bass will be featured presenters at the community meeting, helping to connect the dots between Hawai’i’s sustainability and climate resilience policies and practices for the federal, state and county governments, private sector interests, non-governmental organizations and individual citizens.
The new county sustainability office, co-introduced by Kimball and Council Member Rebecca Villegas, would be responsible for coordinating and managing policies to support the county’s response to the impacts of climate change and other natural and human-caused hazards.
The bill also seeks to promote environmental justice and equity by ensuring that all programs conducted by the office will consider the impacts on lower- and middle-income individuals and historically marginalized groups, to ensure that the benefits of such programs reach all residents of the county,” said Kimball.
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Bass, who is credited with publishing the Hawai’i 2050 Sustainability Plan, will review the plan’s development, which involved several dozen federal, state and county agencies, the Hawai’i State legislature, private sector interests, non-profits and citizen advocates.
An Omidyar Fellow, she has more than 18 years of experience in policy development, analysis, planning and management throughout Hawaiʻi State Government, including 13 years managing five legislative committees within the State House of Representatives as a legislative manager and chief of staff.
County Council Member Cindy Evans will provide a Council update; and representatives of the South Kōhala Community Policing will be at the meeting.
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The meeting runs from 5:30 to 7 p.m. It also will be streamed “live” to the association’s Facebook page and to the association’s YouTube channel. To log in via YouTube, go to www.WaimeaTown.org for a link. The meeting will be recorded to both Facebook and YouTube for later on-demand viewing.
Questions welcome in advance by emailing: WaimeaCommunityAssociation@gmail.com. Questions may also be submitted in writing in person at the meeting or typed into the Facebook chat to be addressed as time permits.
The association’s spotlighted not-for-profit will be the 62nd Waimea Christmas Twilight Parade with board member and parade co-chair Lani Olsen-Chong. Waimea Community Association town meeting attendees will be urged to support the parade with a tax-deductible contribution either at the in-person town meeting or via the group’s website: www.waimeatown.org/parade.
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