Planning Commission Meeting - Assignment Example

The issues at hand included pollution due to poor disposal of wastes, carbon gas emissions due to transportation and use of fossil fuel. Protection of water catchment areas from industrial pollution was also a major concern which prompted the constitution of the commission. The agenda for the meeting was set by Rebecca Devooght as the chairperson of the commission. It appears the issue on environmental sustainability through reducing pollution has been a concern and a point of discussion for the last 10 years or so since it emanated from the late 90’s, though major escalating factors arose in 2007 leading to the formation the commission to look into the green-house gas process (Birch and Wachter, 60).

Planning Commission members: The planning commission on environmental sustainability was composed of women and men in a manner to put into consideration gender balance. It had four males and four females. The males were Fred Bauries, Paul Cervenak, Bill Hartwig and Stephen Wooden while the females were Rebecca Devooght, Emily Fleury- vice Chair, Lynsey Clayton and Julie Jones-Fisk During the meeting every member contributed where others raised the contentious questions while the others provided the responses.

Suggestions provided were discussed with the opinion of the members well incorporated and therefore it was an all inclusive participation for all the members of the commission. This implies that the findings of the commission are a genuine representation of the views of all members representing the different groups. During the meeting, various aspects of planning were considered in reviewing the possibility of coming up with a practical plan for sustainable environment in the city. Questions came up on the comparison of how the recycling facilities were being applied in other citities.

This included practicability and efficiency of using such recycling facilities. The modalities and methods of making the recycling system more practical and applicable were explored and finally, it was concluded that it was better to use cans in collecting garbage and the cans should be colored differently to give the users an easy time in identifying which type of garbage should go in each can. This would make the cans easy to use and would provide room for easy recycling of the garbage as the materials will be sorted according to classes and the ability to be recycled or not.

The aspect of cost of such a system also came up as to whether it was possible to develop other means which were more efficient in terms of providing energy but at lower cost. The other challenge the commission encountered was in trying to establish who was responsible for what kind of planning among the various interest groups. It was difficult to establish this because the recycling of materials such as furniture and garbage was done at different times of the year by different groups (Birch and Wachter, 152).

Even if a recycling center was established, it was difficult to engage a constant and efficient recycling staff who could do this regularly without being underutilized. The students could be disposing their furniture or garbage at a particular time while businessmen and women would tend to dispose garbage on a regular basis. This is an activism commission which is trying to put checks on the city council of management. The issue of environmental sustainability is an issue that