Waltham Considers Hiring Full-Time Sustainability Manager

WALTHAM, MA — If Waltham is going to take itself seriously as a "green" city it's time the city hire a full time assistant planning director in charge of sustainability rather than attempt to coordinate here and there, Council Vice President Robert Logan told Patch in a phone interview.

Early last year the Department of Energy Resources designated Waltham as a "Green Community" and gave the city a $281,080 grant as Waltham pledged to cut municipal energy use by 20 percent over the next 5 years.

With that and other citywide efforts in mind, Logan brought forward a proposal to create a new position in the planning department as an assistant director of planning for a sustainability manager. He proposes the position be funded as part of the budget of Fiscal Year 2020.

"We'd want the person to handle all things regarding energy efficiency conservation, green community all those kinds of climate change initiatives," said Logan.

A lot of communities have someone in a similar role, he said.

"We thought that it was an important enough issue that we didn't just want it to be some part-time coordinator. It really has to be someone who has a higher level position and a strong voice to be able to have some effect," said Logan.

He and Diane LeBlanc worked on the proposal and the accompanying resolution and draft of a job description, he said.

Rules and Ordinance Committee will look at the proposal and it will head through the regular channels; discussed in committee come back to the full council for a first read before heading back to Rules and Ordinance, the Law Department and eventually back to the full council early next year for more discussion.

Related:

Waltham Is A Green City: It's Official

Subscribe to Waltham Patch for more local news and real-time alerts.

Got something to add?
Sign up to post to Patch and tell your neighbors what's going on in and around Waltham

Photo by Jenna Fisher/Patch Staff