Quote by: Jane Brautigam, City Manager, Boulder, Colorado

Jane S. Brautigam was appointed City Manager of Boulder, Colorado, in October 2008 and is the city’s first woman manager. Before joining the city, Jane was City Manager for Dublin, Ohio. Previously she worked as the City Manager and City Attorney for Loveland, Colorado, and as Assistant County Attorney for Boulder County from 1983 to 1985. From 2013–2016, she served as a member of the ICMA Executive Board, one of three regional vice presidents representing the Mountain Plains region. She is currently the ICMA President-elect.

Prediction

In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a dramatic report stating that the world is completely off track to limit global temperature rise. Declaring that we have only 12 years to stabilize the climate, this report was a dire warning from scientists to act urgently and at a much broader scale and scope.

In addition to replacing fossil fuels with clean renewables, we must make dramatic changes to food consumption and production and find ways to pull carbon out of the atmosphere, a process called carbon sequestration. Local governments must plan and prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change, such as increased frequency and severity of extreme weather and wildfires. This preparation must focus on marginalized populations who often experience the worst effects of climate change, despite having the smallest carbon footprints. Governments must find a way to hear these underrepresented voices and ensure that policies and programs address this inequity.

2019 Tip

Partnerships and networking! One of the most powerful, and sometimes unrecognized, public goods a local government can provide is environmental sustainability. A stable environment greatly affects the quality of life in our communities, but our actions to preserve the environment have global benefits. Local governments have significant power to create sustainable or unsustainable conditions, so local governments should prioritize protecting public health in response to a changing climate.

As we accelerate our efforts at the local level, local government cannot, nor should it try to “go it alone.” Strategic partnerships with the private sector, universities, and other jurisdictions allow each entity to lend its expertise to solve complex community challenges. By shifting to a facilitator role, local governments can unlock the transformative power of cross-sector partnerships to create communities that are more prosperous, inclusive, sustainable, and resilient.

Learn More

Visit the Sustainable Communities topic area on the ICMA website for information and resources.

Access the Full 19 on 2019 E-Book

In 2017, Puerto Rico was stricken by two hurricanes—Irma and Maria—that wiped out much of the island’s power, water, and communications infrastructure, hampering the coordination of recovery efforts and the delivery of basic municipal services.

Through funding provided to the RAND Corporation by the U.S Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), ICMA helped assemble a team of ICMA Members and partners as pro-bono volunteers to conduct service and governance assessments of Puerto Rico’s 78 municipalities as they recovered from Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Together with FEMA planners and students and faculty from the University of Puerto Rico, the volunteers conducted research and interviewed mayors, emergency managers, finance directors, public works officials, and other department heads and staff to develop a road map to strengthen municipal disaster resilience in the future. Assessment of municipalities proved difficult given road closures, rolling blackouts and emotional and mental drain that many of the municipal staff were dealing with post-hurricanes, something noted as part of the report and need for additional social services to municipal staff.

Despite the challenges, the team gathered information about the municipal leaders’ long-term priorities to improve the resilience of their communities. The findings informed recommendations for technical assistance and long-term strategies that were reflected in the project’s final report, published by the Government of Puerto Rico, entitled “Transformation and Innovation in the Wake of Devastation: An Economic and Disaster Recovery Plan for Puerto Rico.” Included in the report were recommendations and suggested strategies for providing longer term technical assistance to Puerto Rico’s municipalities in topics like shared services and mutual aid, public private partnerships, and ways to improve capacity building expertise, including through strengthening local associations. This report in turn helped to inform the Governor’s  Congressional Disaster Recovery plan mandated by Congress.