John Jameson’s September Update

In September, organizing “Transportation Exploration” with Bike Pittsburgh, the Port Authority, ZipCar, Southwest Pennsylvania Commission, GASP, Mattress Factory and PCI was a big part of my month. I oversaw the solicitation of food and drink, managed publicity including writing a press release and communicating with media, and coorindated between the organizations. The event received media hits in the City Paper, Pop City, and Post Gazette and a radio and TV crew attended the event, which saw roughly 150 attendees. Speakers included the Exec. Director of BikePGH and Assistant Director of Transportation for Southwest PA Commission, and Director of Innovation from Green Building Alliance, as well as others from Port Authority and Sustainable Pittsburgh. In addition, further revisions were incorporated into the Climate Action Plan as we presented a close-to-finalized document to a city council member, where we discussed city council adoption. He approved of the document, and the adoption process will begin in January of 2012 and likely take 4-6 weeks with several hearings taking place before a final vote by council. The plan should encounter little resistance and is expected to pass easily. Another PCI newsletter was sent out, with further declining open and click rates. I will need to construct the language in next month’s newsletter more carefully to better navigate spam filters as that appears to be an issue. I submitted the materials for a Green Cities Fellow to work solely with HECC next year, and designed a flyer for the fall volunteer event with 9 Mile Run. I also organized and facilitated the September PCI Partners meeting where we discussed next year’s Green Cities Fellows, the Climate Action Plan finalization and adoption process, and ongoing programmatic activities.