Issues & Analyses: How Did Sitting Council Candidates Vote on Climate?

This column appeared previously in the Amherst Bulletin.

In August, I promised to size up incumbent Town Council candidates on their voting records on issues relating to climate action and climate justice. Voters can also access endorsements issued in the last week, including from Amherst Sunrise and the Progressive Coalition of Amherst, whose endorsements are in part based on candidates’ positions on climate action.

The Amherst Climate Justice Alliance also sent candidates a Climate Action/Climate Justice Candidate Survey on the topics of buildings, transportation, energy, land use, zero waste, and overarching budget and staffing issues to which 16 candidates responded. The alliance will be reporting further on the results of that survey in tandem with the voting records of incumbent candidates.

Let’s see what the incumbent councilor candidates have already voted on and how they voted.

A few climate-related issues have garnered unanimous support from Ccouncilors. These included the council’s authorization to seek a joint municipal electricity aggregation (November 2020), the acceptance of the town’s Climate Action, Adaptation and Resilience Plan (June 2021), and the adoption of the PACE program as a precursor to working with local landlords to provide energy efficiency upgrades in their buildings (June 2021).

On other votes, councilors differed. In the first session of the council from 2018 to 2021, they were setting up shop. The main non-unanimous, climate-related votes were on the creation of the Energy and Climate Action Committee (January 2019), the adoption of climate action goals for the town (November 2019 ), funding for a diesel vs. an electric school bus (September 2019), and the removal of town councilors as members of the Energy and Climate Action Committee (July 2021).

In the second session of the council from 2022 to 2023, the non-unanimous votes were on the proposed temporary moratorium on large-scale ground-mounted solar arrays (February 2022), the referral to committee of a waste hauler bylaw that would include universal curbside compost pickup and a pay-as-you-throw fee structure (August 2022), funding of artificial vs. natural turf on the high school track (Nove 2022), the referral to committee of adoption of a Specialized Building Code bylaw (June 2023); the FY24 budget guidelines newly deprioritizing climate action and funding (Nov 2022); 2023 Town Manager goals, newly deprioritizing climate action (Nov 2022); and support for the Sustainability Director request for 2 additional departmental staff (June 2023).

Contested candidates for current office who stood out from the crowd with their climate-helpful votes are Councilors Ellisha Walker, Jennifer Taub and Pam Rooney. They not only voted in support of specific climate actions but saw the big picture, supporting budget language to enable meeting climate action goals.

Candidates whose votes and actions were in general NOT climate-helpful include Councilors Lynn Greisemer, Andy Steinberg, Mandi Jo Hanneke and Anika Lopes. Councilors Pat DeAngelis and Cathy Schoen, both members of the Finance Committee, voted to support some of the climate initiatives, but they didn’t oppose the deprioritizing of climate action in the budget, in staffing, or in the 2023 Manager goals. Schoen and Ellisha Walker stand out, though, for championing the Zero Energy component of the new school building as Chair and member of the Elementary School Building Committee. George Ryan, a former Councilor in the first Council session who is running again to return to the Council, was generally not climate-helpful.

Climate-related non-unanimous votes of all incumbent candidates can be seen at tinyurl.com/4baunk5w.

Votes were also taken in council committees. One such vote was in the Community Resource Committee not to amend rental permit regulations to require landlords to provide an energy efficiency audit. Thanks goes to Councilor Ana Devlin Gauthier, who is running unopposed, for sponsoring that proposed amendment and the proposal to adopt the Specialized Building Code, both on behalf of the Energy and Climate Action Committee. Thanks to her also for often reminding the rest of the council of the existential crisis that is climate change.

Here’s hoping that readers will take this information under consideration, along with Amherst Sunrise and Progressive Coalition of Amherst endorsements and Amherst Climate Justice Alliance survey results, when voting on Noember. 7. Don’t take incumbents’ survey answers at face value without checking their voting records, though. How they’ve voted may tell us more than what they claim to support.

Darcy DuMont is a former town councilor and sponsor of the legislation creating the Amherst Energy and Climate Action Committee. She is a founding member of Zero Waste Amherst, Local Energy Advocates of Western MA, and the Amherst Climate Justice Alliance and can be contacted at dumint140@gmail.com.