Operation of the Washougal Sustainability Task Force

Operation of the Washougal Sustainability Task Force

Every project proposed to the Washougal Sustainable City Task Force will need to pass a three-part process to proceed. The first part is called the “Preliminary Filter” and the second part is the “Project Description Filter.” Finally, the Washougal Sustainable City Task Force votes on the final proposal (i.e. the Project Description). Below is a description of the steps involved from Preliminary Filter to Project Description to Vote.

Preliminary Filter: Categories and Staffing.
Once a project has satisfied one of the three categories (above) and gained staffing, then the project will have authorization to prepare a Project Description (below). The project description will be presented to the Sustainability Task Force for final approval to proceed.

1. Project Categories

a. Educate: Use our expertise to clarify issues related to sustainability
i. City Council and/or advisors
1. E.g. Presentation to City Council about cottage zoning
ii. Community
1. E.g. Guest speaker about solar power

b. Encourage: Begin a program that encourages people to think about or try a more sustainable way of doing something. The emphasis here is to open people’s minds to something new.
i. Encourage changes in behavior
1. E.g. One hour with no use of power
2. E.g. Recycling improvement

c. Improve: Whatever we do, it should be an improvement in sustainability.
i. Metrics based: we’d like our projects or activities to be measurable in some way. This will help us gauge the success of our projects. The better we can measure our impact the easier it will be to share our success, to duplicate, to request support etc.
1. E.g. Neighborhood recycling increased from 58% participation to 76% participation.
2. E.g. After a lecture, Pre and Post survey revealed that . . .

2. Staffing
a. Each project will require at least two Sustainability Task Force (STF) participants to proceed to the Project Description stage.

i. This means a Task Force member may make a brief presentation about a prospective project and then someone else in the group must agree to join the original presenter in developing the project. If the presentation doesn’t generate an affiliate, the project is in effect, moribund.


Project Description Filter: The nascent project group will prepare a description of the activity. This description will be shared with the full Task Force for improvements, ideas and ultimately, endorsement.

1. Project Description Components

a. Project Title

b. Cost
i. Detail how many STF members will be working on the project and for how long.
ii. List any additional personnel from outside the STF.
iii. Describe any financing that will be required.

c. Scope
i. Describe what will be involved in the project; what is the breadth of the project.
ii. If necessary, describe what the end of the project will be (Does is last a week? Is it a one time event? Will it stop when a certain number of people are involved? Etc.).
iii. Endorsement Accountability: If there is any place in this project where the project seems to represent or speak for the entire task force, this must be noted in the project description. It is understood that prior to representing the views of the STF, those views must be explicitly vetted and approved by the STF.
1. We anticipate that many of the projects may invite people to join some new activity or idea. Or they may listen to a presentation of some sort. Those situations are not troublesome. But if an activity comes with a recommendation or sanction or a “signature” from the STF, then the sponsoring members need to get permission from the group beforehand.
2. NOTE: The idea of getting permission before members “sanction” something is a value we’d like to maintain wherever it might come up in the course of Sustainability Task Force work.

d. Include metrics
i. How will the project be measured; if we did the same project again later, how would we know if we were doing it better?

e. Schedule and dates.

Vote on the Project Description: The members pursuing the project share the completed Project Description with the STF. The STF votes on whether or not to proceed.


Sample Procedure for a Hypothetical Project:

a) First someone (the sponsor) gets an idea.
b) The sponsor assesses the project to see if it fits one of the three categories. The sponsor decides it fits both educate and improve, to the sponsor proceeds.
c) The sponsor of the idea makes a rough (revisable) plan of the project to share at the next meeting.
d) Pitch the plan to the group and have a discussion.
e) The sponsor asks if any members are interested in joining the project. If so . . .
f) Make a detailed Project Description including Title, Cost, Scope, Metrics and Schedule.
g) At our next meeting, the proposed project will be an agenda item. Discussion ensues; the group votes. The project begins.