I've had to pinch myself- and more than a few times recently.  There are some amazingly positive developments happening at both the City and the County these days.  It seems the "Green" revolution has finally arrived.

During a recent city council meeting on the new Fire Station, the discussion arose as to whether to make this building the City's first LEED certified municipal facility.  City Manager Steve Norwood observed towards the close of that discussion that there seemed to be consensus among the Council members to pursue LEED certification for this project. Was I dreaming?

I recently had dinner with Dan Fairbank, City of Prescott Building Department staffer, and a good friend of mine.  Dan excitedly shared with me the news that he is now the City of Prescott's "Green Building Program Coordinator" (and I didn't even know that we had a Green Building Program!)

Dan described to me the Building Department's recent commitments to going green.  Along the lines of his own appointment to head the City's fledgling Green Building Program, it seems that Dan's superior– Mike Baker, Chief Building Official has relayed his own intentions to see the City of Prescott adopt the IECC® (International Energy Conservation Code) by January of 2008.   Dan also went on to say that Mike believes the City will be going "completely green" by 2009.  What that means exactly remains to be seen–– but this could only be good news.

As our informal Local Code Initiative group begins its work with the County, I am encouraged by the receptivity being shown by our local officials to reconsider their current planning and building policies, in light of creating new guidelines which can support genuine sustainability. Considerations for water conservation, open space protection, mixed-use pedestrian oriented development, as well as public transportation are all part of the agenda items that our Sustainable Planning Committee will be looking into.

At the conclusion of our last working session with the County, I took the opportunity to ask some of the attending county officials how receptive they felt our County Supervisors might be to the suggestion of making their upcoming County Complex at Sundog Ranch Road a LEED certified project.  The answer I got back was that our County Supervisors were already "seriously considering the idea."

Somebody pinch me.