“Is an environmental leader in the state and is gaining national attention as a sustainability sustainability champion in mayor. Gordon. Just outlined a 17 point plan designed to make phoenix s first carbon neutral city america greenest city. In a moment.
You ll get a brief overview of the city s plan for sustainability. You also meet a family who has made their entire home eco friendly and see firsthand how an apartment. Complex. In south phoenix.
Was totally revitalized and retrofitted as a green building also will show you why other city buildings and fire stations are being recognized as leed buildings leadership in energy and environmental design. Certified and finally see how asu s downtown campus shows true green colors when it comes to sustainability. The city s model is living like it matters phoenix is committed to reduced air pollution greenhouse gases conserve energy and water resources this is a tall order but the good news is the city is working to reach these goals tammy perkins is the executive assistant to the city manager and is coordinating the city s sustainability policy tammy. It s great seeing you thank you deb it straight to be here well let s tell her let s start off with tell our viewers a little bit about yourself.
And what you ve done with the city. Oh. My goodness a lot of that s ancient history..
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I i was lucky to get a job with the city in 1982. Spent some time in the water department neighborhood services government relations budget and research office of the mayor and now back up in the city manager s office well we re so excited that you are the lead person for the sustainability policy here for the city. How are the other positions really prepared you to what you re doing now and talk about the many many programs that privacy is involved in well. This is a great fit for me in my career right now in that i ve had a lot of experience in field departments.
Got the technical experience in the water department and really i see my job is a weaver to kind of listen and learn from what all the departments are doing and try and tie that all together to support the principles of sustainability in our service delivery activities and i want to point out to and maybe you can do could focus a little bit on that this is not new to the city sustainability. We re not jumping on the bandwagon to being green. I mean this is something we pioneered and have been part of for many many years. We are fortunate to belong to an organization that really has been an environmental pioneer back in the 1960s.
Some of our traffic engineers are the guys that had the idea about putting recycling rubberized tires into asphalt to make the ride quieter and a little cooler. Our water conservation problem program has been around since the 1980s. We have our recycling program. That s been around for more than 15 years.
So really the city of phoenix is a pioneer and has been a pioneer and a leader both here in the state of arizona and nationally for a long time well talk about and you just gave us some highlights of some of the programs. Too but talk talk about some of the ones you re really most proud of it or really making an impact on how we do business and out in residents. Today..
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You know one of the things that our public works department has done is looked at our fuel. Efficiencies we have over 3000. Vehicles in our city of phoenix fleet that right now are out there on the streets of phoenix delivering services using alternative fuels in our buildings. We ve had an energy conservation program for over 30 years and have saved in the last probably 15 years 75 million dollars alone in energy costs because of the retrofitting.
We ve done to our buildings. All new city facilities are now beat built to meet leed standards. We have a gold in the google rosa service center. We have a leed certified building with the west building of the phoenix convention center.
Every department is doing their part to help make us green. It explained the lead program for our viewers to get should be plain actually going to do a story a little later on on some fire houses about their buildings. But real quickly what we did leed certification represents. A series of criteria developed by the industry that help make people decide what makes a building green.
So water conservation kinds of materials used in building use of waste materials. After the construction. Those kind of things oh that sounds excellent to thank..
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You we are truly making a stamp and making a difference and as i mentioned before we re looked on is it s kind of a national city being green. How do we break and compared to some of the other cities well you know sometimes we get frustrated with those national rankings. Because they look at things outside of a desert environment. A couple of examples of ways that we really do lead.
Though when you look at desert environment cities. We ve got programs all over our organization that are making a difference for instance just as spring. We hosted the national brownfields conference called the big deal and people came from all over the country to see what s going on in phoenix and brownfield redevelopment. This coming fall we get to.
Host the united states green building council national conference over 30000. People from all over the country will be coming to phoenix to learn about what do we do in green building. That makes our environment. Better and you d said something to that really makes you an excel unique is our deserts and our lands girl let our landscapes.
Our parks. Our prison and can you talk a little bit about that because that s again. What makes phoenix..
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Oh. So special you can work downtown and enjoy five minutes ten minutes and guilty hiking pants topeak or south mountain i don t know if people know it or not but south mountain park is the largest municipal park in the country and since the 1930s. Our residents have expected us as the city of phoenix to be very aggressive in the acquisition of mountain park. Preserve land just last year in 2008 over eighty percent of the voters in phoenix.
Supported the next set of acquisitions allocating over a hundred and fifty million dollars to future park preserve acquisition. Well you know this is all the time we have and i know you want to to thank a lot of people because i know you re leading the task. But there s a lot of people behind you as well i m just real proud of all the staff and all of our departments who really work hard to make sure we re doing the right thing by the environment every day and of course without the leadership of the mayor council and city manager. None of this would be possible.
We really appreciate their help well we re so great we re so proud to be residents of the city of enoch and to be part of public servants on for the city of thing. So keep up the great work. Thank you very much okay. Thanks tammy that here is another living like it matters.
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“Everything Phoenix, Going Green show, host Deborah Sedillo Dugan interviews Assistant to the City Manager Tammy Perkins.”,
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Green, City of Phoenix, Everything Phoenix, Tammy Perkins, Deborah Sedillo Dugan
