Presentation to Board of Selectmen
By Kent Lawson and Joyce Lillis
January 23, 2023
The Golden Bridge Project was initiated to provide people with a variety of political beliefs a forum to share perspectives critical issues facing our society. We discussed issues such as problems with the media and social media, guns, immigration and climate change. It was frustrating that little could be done on a local level about most of these issues.
But climate change and environmental issues were different. While they are clearly world-wide issues, we realized that there are many things that can be done locally.
Our initiative, which we are calling “Greening Sherman”, will focus energy conservation and carbon emissions. We are a group of volunteers, and we would like Sherman to become a model community in addressing various environmental concerns, such as climate change, waste recycling, and pollution.
This is our project Mission Statement
We seek to facilitate and encourage “Greening Sherman”,
especially through a reduction of our carbon footprint,
in cooperation with other community members and town organizations.
The “Greening Sherman” project will focus initially on providing town homeowners and families with information about costs, benefits and potential sources for home energy conservation options such as solar panels, heat pumps, insulation, efficient appliances, and the like.
In addition, we will encourage families to be thoughtful about household consumption and how to reduce and recycle waste.
We intend to gather information and disseminate it through public meetings, a website, a public blog, mailings, library resources and other means in order provide useful information among the Sherman townspeople.
In these efforts, we will seek to involve other town organizations, such as the Conservation Commission, Library, Boy/Girl Scouts and Veterans. We have already had preliminary conversations with several organization sabout their either partnering with us on home energy conservation or pursuing other “green” initiatives on their own. If they wish, they can use the “Greening Sherman” nomenclature and logo.
We are hoping that the “Greening Sherman” will evolve into a community-wide, collaborative effort.
We would welcome any questions you might have about our plans. We would welcome any thoughts regarding environmental priorities for the town and suggestions about how we might effectively work with other town organizations and mobilize civic participation.
We would like to see this develop into a town-wide project.
We envision various organizations in Sherman as each having a role, contributing to the overall effort. In that regard, we have initiated preliminary discussions with:
Conservation Commission, notably about their Earth Day “Energy Fair” in April
Planning and Zoning, regarding including it in the POCD.
Library, as a source of information on conservation
JCC
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
Both Republican and Democratic Town Committees
We have also been in contact with a similar, very successful project started several years ago in Bedford, NY, in order to learn from their experiences.
Our role, as Golden Bridge project, is simply to initiate the project, create some awareness throughout the community and enlist other organizations around Town in the objective. There should be a web site as a central source of information, which will include a public blog sit were individuals can ask questions and share experiences.
Here is what we ask of the Board of Selectmen:
- Endorse the concept of a Town-wide initiative to become a model community in support of reducing carbon emissions throughout the town in support of the environment.
- Include the “Greening Sherman” nomenclature and the proposed logo, which other organizations can use if they chose to do so.
- Various assistance, such as access to town facilities.
