News

The 2013 SGA Coalition Meeting and Lobby Day took place on March 20 and 21 in Washington, DC. Below are some follow up items drawn from various agenda topics along with contact info where relevant.

National, State and Local Work

All EPA Technical Assistance recipients for 2013

If you have questions, please contact Ella Krivitchenko, Leadership Institute Fellow, via email.

Stormwater rulemaking

Lee Epstein of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) shared information with the coalition about his organization’s work to influence EPA stormwater regulations. Along with other organizations, CBF has been working with EPA to expand or tweak their regulations on various issues, including requiring higher standards from greenfield development than from infill development. Lee circulated a letter of support to coalition members which several signed onto (including SGA).

Lobby Day

Our main asks were 1) support the Partnership for Sustainable Communities (House and Senate) and 2) support the BUILD Act (Senate). We provided one-pagers on the Brownfields BUILD Act and on the Partnership for Sustainable Communities at HUD . If you weren’t able to join us, we encourage you to ask your Senators to co-sponsor the BUILD Act by sending them this letter .

Countering Agenda 21 Push back

At the meeting, we heard from Christopher Coes about SGA’s efforts to counter Agenda 21 bills being introduced in state legislatures as well as organized opposition to local and regional planning efforts. This handout contains a list of places where bills have been introduced as well as a basic overview of SGA’s work on this topic. This handout describes how you can access SGA’s recently launched password-protected Basecamp site where we will upload all relevant materials and keep an updated list of ‘hot spots.’ Please remember that these materials are PRIVATE and not to be shared with anyone outside of your organizations. If you have questions about our work on this, contact Christopher directly.

Fiscal Benefits of Smart Growth Report

WealthEngine and Major Donor Fundraising

Moira Gillick shared SGA’s general strategy for major donor fundraising this year and talked through the ways SGA is using WealthEngine as a tool to aid in our fundraising. As a reminder, all coalition members have access to SGA’s WealthEngine license for free and have access to WealthEngine tools such as prospect generator and list screening at cost. Please read this memo carefully for more information on how to access WealthEngine tools. You can also review a description of WealthEngine data categories and what they mean; and a sample individual record downloaded off of WealthEngine.