Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:41:31 -0400
From: chathammatters
Subject: Response to Janet Abreu
Janet,
You have made several assertions about our new County Commissioners which are flat out false, it is one thing to express your opinion, but entirely another to present fiction as reality.
1) You state ” the mantra of the new Board of Commissioners majority as they work to curtail expert citizen review and eliminate relevant staff positions, regulations and other sensible safeguards of the environment while failing to provide any substantive replacements”.
The new commissioners have not eliminated, or changed, any environmental regulations. They are enforcing exactly the same regulations as before, to suggest or say otherwise is pure fiction.
The new commissioners have re-organized all relevant environmental protection staff to be more effective, and are now cross training staff so that all are aware of and capable of enforcing environmental regulations – this is an improvement in environmental protection, better management as well.
2) Leed Certification is not an “energy efficiency standard”, nor does it require energy efficiency, you can literally have a Leed Certified build with NO energy efficiency improvements whatsoever (see below).
Energy efficient design and construction is very well understood these days by both architects and builders, they are well aware of the tradeoffs between efficiency and cost. This allows our county to make well informed decisions so that we can strike a heathy balance between construction costs and longer term energy usage, “Leed Certification” does none of this.
Our new commissioners actually asked the architect to address both energy efficiency and cost, and provide us with options, not just pay double for a “Leed Certified” building (which may, or may not, be energy efficient), this is indeed a dramatic improvement.
3) The prior commissioners grew government at 6 times the rate of growth of our population, paid for that growth with tax increases and borrowing (obviously not sustainable). Not least of these costs is paying extravagant amounts for “Leed Certified” buildings. Our new commissioners have put us on a sustainable path, a dramatic improvement.
“Leed Certification” FYI
“Leed Certification” uses a “Points” system. There are many different categories in which you can earn “Points” including aesthetics like color of paint, or having bicycle racks, or having electric car re-charging stations, and they favor certain building materials over others without any relevance to energy efficiency. Heck, they award points for “creativity” but are quite subjective and arbitrary in determining what is “creative”, it is up to a “Certified” evaluator – and it can get extremely expensive satisfying the personal whims of a “Certified” evaluator. You can literally have a “Leed Certified” build with NO energy efficiency improvements whatsoever..