Tuesday night was big!
The Goshen City Council passed the ordinance with a 5-2 vote to create the new Department of Environmental Resilience.
In recent years, there are numerous ways that I have seen our community truly care for our environment, and I proposed this department as a way of organizing and promoting various green initiatives and efficiencies within the city. This includes plans for carbon neutrality by 2035 and the establishment of a 45% urban tree canopy by 2045. The department will focus on forestry, data collection, education, and finding environmental and financial efficiencies.
I want to thank everyone who voiced their support for this initiative. It made me proud to see the variety of folks coming out to say this was important to them and our community. We faced some obstacles, and looked at a few different ways of making this happen, including putting some of the duties of the new department within one that already existed. Inevitably we needed a new department to be free of the constraints that are on current departments.
Today we met to sign the ordinance to create the new Environmental Resilience Department. I again want to thank everyone for your involvement and support. You all make this such a great community to live in. I’m excited to see how this continues to improve our community and build a better Goshen for generations to come.
Sincerely,
Jeremy P. Stutsman