KLA Perspectives

Concord. Devens. Dedham. Holliston. Holyoke. New Bedford. Milton. Northampton. Wakefield. Watertown. Wellesley.  Weston.  

To say we’ve been busy helping all of these clients with their Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) work is an understatement. We tap our experience working with cities of all shapes and sizes nationwide -  from Encinitas, CA, to San Antonio, TX, and West Palm Beach, FL - and bring to the table a range of innovative approaches to climate, resilience and overall sustainability with strong results for smaller Massachusetts communities.  

And with a new round of MVP funding just announced, we're ready to keep rolling. 

KLA's Summer Intern takes a look at our latest resource, a 4-step guidance document on adding "street teams" to your community engagement strategies.

By: Claire McCoy

We know that one of the most effective ways to effectively engage your community during a planning or similar process is to get out in the community. To be present at community events. To convene small get-togethers. To show up at the places where people live, work, play and commute. 

But for busy local government staff, that can be a time and resource intensive exercise. And you might not be in the best position to get honest feedback. 

That’s why a key ingredient for robust, equitable engagement is street teams. 

Given the questions about and interest in street teams on our recent Equitable Engagement webinar, we pulled together a resource on the topic. It includes:

• a detailed 4-step Recruit-Train-Coordinate-Evaluate process
• best practices for getting your municipality’s first street team up and running
• pro tips
• resources like job descriptions and contracts 

Guest post by Annie Suttle, KLA's Director of Marketing and Communications and Charlottesville, VA, resident.

Equity is a nut many cities are trying to crack, often creating new staff positions to get to the root of the problem. That includes Charlottesville, Virginia’s Youth Opportunity Coordinator, charged with outreach primarily to young African American men, who joined us for a recent episode of our Sustainability Action Series podcast. 

Equitable engagement has been a prime area of focus for KLA and our clients in recent years, as cities from Indianapolis, IN, to New Bedford, MA, have worked with us to bring to the table folks you don’t always hear from -- and often the most vulnerable and disenfranchised in our communities. 

So I took notice when my local community publication Charlottesville Tomorrow ran a piece about the city’s relatively new Youth Opportunity Coordinator, Daniel Fairley. The position and its charge seemed like a unique way to start tackling the problem in a place with a sullied reputation on this front. Let’s be honest, you hear “Charlottesville” and you probably think of it as the scene of the deadly white supremacist “Unite the Right” events of August 2017. Locals also know that just a year later the New York Times and Pro Publica ran a zinger of a story about the persistent racial divide and achievement gap in Charlottesville City Schools that led to, among other changes, a series of public forums, revamping of the gifted program, and the hiring of the first supervisor of equity and inclusion. 

In our latest podcast, Kim talks with Portland, Maine's Sustainability Coordinator and South Portland's Sustainability Director about breaking the mold with their joint climate action plan, One Climate Future. 

In the spirit of “we’re in this together,” countless neighboring cities and counties have worked side by side on climate and sustainability initiatives. True collaboration -- like developing a single climate action plan -- is rare, but Portland and South Portland, Maine, are breaking the mold of what is possible.  In fact, as we were writing this post we learned that two Florida cities -- Oakland Park and Wilton Manors -- released “what is thought to be the US’ first joint climate action plan [called Two Cities, One Sustainable Future] by neighboring municipalities” (according to Smart Cities World). 

KLA is lucky to have been involved with the Portland and South Portland One Climate Future initiative from the early stages, including helping to develop the name and branding. 

I recently talked to Portland’s Sustainability Coordinator, Troy Moon and South Portland’s Sustainability Director, Julie Rosenbach about the roots of this unique partnership and where these two cities are headed together. 

Today’s the day. Earth Overshoot Day. July 29, the earliest it has ever been. It marks the date when “humanity’s demand ecological resources (fish and forests, for example) and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.” 

From now until December 31, we’re living beyond our means. 

The KLA Team is joining the #MoveTheDate movement by posting our selfie photos and videos about why we need to move the date and the steps we’re taking to get there. 

Watch below! 

You can do the same (tips here) -- it’s easy just add #MoveTheDate!

What happens when KLA’s Director of Sustainability Planning walks her sustainability talk...right into a tiny house. 

By: Angela Cleveland, AICP

Tiny House. Big Hearts. 

I’ve always been committed to living within a small footprint. We buy local. I drive a small, fuel efficient car. We unplug devices in our home when not in use. We always live in repurposed buildings. I investigate the packaging options before purchasing something. 

So when my husband said he wanted to purchase 48 acres of land in New Hampshire to build a house, I immediately thought: “How can we make as little of an impact on this property as possible?”

What came next -- a tiny house -- actually happened by accident. 

Big news! KLA’s technical expertise and tools development bench just got deeper as we welcome Michael Steinhoff to our roster as Director of Tools & Technical Services!

Mike comes to KLA from ICLEI-USA where I hired him 10 years ago (WOW!) and where many of you have likely worked with him as their Program Manager for Tools & Innovation. He joins myself and 4 other KLA team members who all worked together previously at ICLEI. 

Mike is a known quantity for our local government clients, but his work on GHG emissions inventories is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what he brings to the table. Mike knows local governments inside and out, which will help KLA be more targeted and efficient in our services.

Mike will be involved in a number of initiatives, including: building out the functionality of our Community Dashboard; identifying data visualization opportunities; supporting our GHG emissions inventories; and identifying and developing new tools and services to support local climate and sustainability action. 

We had a packed house for our June 20 webinar “Equitable Engagement: A Deep Dive Into Approaches that Work.” Many attendees and folks who were not able to join us have requested a link to the presentation (which you can find here) and to the webinar recording (which you can watch here).

We are hard at work planning future webinars and resources related to Equitable Engagement, but we also want to know what other topics you’re interested in.

On the webinar, we talk through 4 key steps and offer best practices and tools for each. In this blog post, we've pulled out 21 nuggets to get the juices flowing!

School has just ended here in Boston, giving me time to reflect on all that my daughter, Charlotte, learned and accomplished in 3rd grade.

As a planner and sustainability professional working with local governments, I had a “proud mommy” moment visiting her class to check out Box City. A collaborative class project, Box City can tell cities a lot about what their future citizens want. 

It also got me thinking about the importance of two things we talk about with KLA clients often: youth engagement and regenerative thinking. 

The Kids are Alright

As these photos suggest, our kids are big thinkers. Here are some of the ways their ideas struck me forward-thinking: 

Register now for this deep dive into approaches that work.

Local government staff recognize the value of hearing from all members of their community -- or at least their responsibility to pursue it. Yet many of us struggle to effectively reach and/or keep the attention of anyone other than the usual suspects. Whether it's during a planning process, at the implementation stage, or getting feedback on projects and ideas, it can be a challenge to get the quantity and quality engagement that is representative of your community -- and that sets you up for long-term success.