By Katelyn Weisbrod
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With an impending city goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2030, the Iowa City City Council candidates unanimously agreed: the city needs to take environmental issues seriously.
Local environmental organizations coordinated a forum regarding environmental issues for council candidates.
The organizations collaborated to prepare questions for the candidates about such things as improving bicycle transportation, restoring water quality in the Iowa River, and curbside compost.
“A group of environmental organizations in town came together and thought it’d be good to have a candidates forum specifically on environmental issues that arise in the city,” said Tom Carsner, member of the Sierra Club and the forum moderator. “This is so that our questions don’t get lost like in more general forums. Here, candidates have to answer our questions.”
Several of the candidates expressed interest in “road diets” to accommodate for bike lanes. Iowa City is considered a “bike friendly community,” but candidate Pauline Taylor said it couldn’t be considered a bike-safe community. By reducing the number of lanes for cars on some streets, bike lanes can be put in just by repainting the pavement.
“If you look at the No. 1 thing we could do to reduce our carbon emissions, it is essentially using non-carbon means of transportation,” candidate Rockne Cole said. “In order to be able to do that, we need to make sure that our streets are safe.”
The candidates agreed for the most part that Iowa City had room to improve to make bicycling a more feasible way to get around.
Another big topic of discussion was the standard of energy efficiency new buildings should follow, especially if they are being paid for with city money.
Most of the candidates agreed that although it costs more upfront to build an energy efficient building, in the long run it can balance out to the same cost, while reducing energy consumption.
“Yes, it costs more to build that type of building. However it should cost less to operate it then as well,” candidate Scott McDonough said. “I’ll put it in residential terms. If you can think of your mortgage and your utility bill as one payment, then the extra cost for the extra insulation and upgrades on it completely make sense.”
Questions also involved improving the water quality of the Iowa River and starting curbside compost and recycling in apartment buildings.
Much of the discussion came back to collaborating with the community and especially the University of Iowa about methods to reduce carbon emissions in Iowa City.
“There are great students associated with the university. There are individuals who are very knowledgeable and active with regard to this particular topic. I think they should rightly be involved in the process of identifying steps that we can take,” Councilor Jim Throgmorton said. “I would hope that we can access their capacities.”
The forum was taped and will be replayed on Channel 4 until election day on Nov. 3.