News

4:00PM EST

Attendance
Rhonda Sincavage – National Trust for Historic Preservation
Stephanie Reyes – Greenbelt Alliance
Mary Kyle McCurdy – 1000 Friends of Oregon
Alison Van Gorp – Cascade Land Conservancy
Jennifer – Center for Planning Excellence
Gene Krebs – Greater Ohio
Mara D’Angelo, Jen Leonard, Rayla Bellis, Elisa Ortiz, John Sidler – SGA

Federal Policy Updates

Elisa Ortiz:

• SGA is working on the eight-state Transit Campaign. We are working with consultants and are putting together some resources on Transit and funding which will eventually be made available to the whole coalition.

Jen Leonard:

• Community Regeneration, Sustainability, and Innovation Act (Vacant Properties Bill): Currently the bill has forty-one co-sponsors in the House, and there was a very successful briefing on the hill a couple of weeks ago.  We are still looking for cosponsors and organizations who want to sign on to the letter of support.  What you can do: Sign on to the letter.  If you have questions, you can shoot Jen an email at jleonard@smartgrowthamerica.org.

Stephanie Potts:

• Talk of a new short-term ‘job creation’ or ‘Second Stimulus’ bill. T4 is taking the lead on this and is preparing some talking points.  It is unclear what the likelihood of the bill passing is, but T4 is coming up with key asks—focusing on fix-it-first and transit instead of new roads and arguing for a one-year time frame. We are trying to figure out the timeline, who’s putting this together, etc.  It may be introduced as early as December.  If you want more info contact T4 or join in on their regular updates.
• Climate: With the senate climate bill we were able to secure 2.4% of the funding.  We will be continuing to reach out to senators (in the short term, members of the finance committee) to make sure this amount gets maintained and hopefully increased.  We will keep coalition members updated on what they can do to help
• Livable Communities Act: We are getting closer to having the bill introduced on the House side.   There is a lot of interest in sponsoring it so we are trying to figure out who should take the lead.
  • Recently Representative Blumenauer introduced the Livable Communities Task Force—to find out who is involved, there is a link from Rep. Blumenauer’s website.
• Transportation Bill—It is currently extended until mid December and could be extended for up to six months.  There is conflict over how long the extension should be.  Oberstar is pushing for a shorter time frame.
• Complete Streets: Currently we are up to 11 senators and 42 house members—we are still really trying to make this a bi-partisan bill.  What you can do: If you have spoken to your representatives and they are supportive of this and republican, we want to get them involved.
• There was a meeting of the SGA Federal Policy Committee early today—take a look at the draft Kate sent out and let us know about additional 2010 legislation to keep our eye on.
• For more updates, look to our Washington update (these come out every two weeks and are also posted to our website)
• The Livable Communities Act support letter will be closing in the next couple of days—please let Stephanie Potts or Kate Rube know if you want to have your organization’s name put on the letter.
• Transform just released a report today on how transportation choices save people money: find the report on their website.

State Updates

• Greenbelt Alliance – Governor vetoed a bill funding planning that needs to happen under SB 375, now working to find alternate funding sources that the Governor can support.
• Rhonda: Federal rehabilitation Tax credit—they are looking for more co-sponsors to support it.
• Allison: In DC meeting with EPA staffers two weeks ago.  Since then they have been working to organize people in the region to think about how to use money from development programs and integrate federal funding sources.  They are also meeting with people in their governor’s office as well as other groups focused on smart-growth.
• Mary Kyle: Participating in task force to encourage MPO planning connecting land use with transportation with the goal of reducing GHG emissions. That task force will present a bill to the legislature during the off year session in February.
• Jennifer: They are working on education and outreach throughout the state, and are working with the Louisiana Recovery Authority.
• Gene: They are working with an Ohio MPO. The Compact with Cities task force has proved to be a great vehicle, and he will send us the report when it comes our on Dec. 8th. They also have two bills introduced dealing with Vacant Properties and they could be voted on in the House as early as the 19th of Dec.

Note: The Dec. call will be canceled—we will resume in January.  Let SGA (Elisa) know ahead of time if you want something discussed on the next call.