Town of Manlius hearing set for climate action plan

TOWN OF MANLIUS – The Manlius Town Board will hold a public hearing on its climate action plan at its meeting on July 26. The town has been working with the CNY Regional Planning and Development Board for the past two years on the development of the plan, which calls for reducing emissions in line with New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
The subcommittee working on the plan has met monthly and sought feedback from the community on what climate action strategies residents of the town would embrace. More than 400 Manlius residents responded to a survey earlier this year on the town’s climate efforts.
In late June, Amanda Mazzoni of CNYRPDB presented the town board with the plan, which calls for the town to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from municipal operations by 30% and community-wide emissions by 40% by the year 2030.
The disparity between the municipal goal and the community-wide goal is primarily because the vast majority of the town’s carbon footprint comes from its fleet of heavy duty and police vehicles.
Currently, there aren’t cost-efficient options on the market for those types of electric vehicles, although Mazzoni said the first pursuit-rate electric vehicle will be released next year.
“The state obviously has a lot of these really aggressive climate and renewable energy efficiency goals,” Mazzoni said. With those goals will come mandates and incentives for municipalities to take climate action, she said.
By moving forward with the climate action plan, she said, the town will be setting itself up to take advantage of those incentives and will be prepared for the mandates.
The good news, Mazzoni said, is that if no action is taken by the town at all, there will still be a significant reduction in emissions in Manlius because of actions at the state and federal level to clean the electric grid and tougher emission standards for vehicles.
The plan includes a list of “priority actions” for the town to consider implementing to help it reach its goals (see graphic).
The full plan is available at townofmanlius.org/DocumentCenter/Index/290.
The public hearing is scheduled for 6:35 p.m.