Brian, of course you wouldn't know if 350 Salem OR was involved in support for the sustainability commission, or any other Salem issues because you're never there - not at 350 meetings or Salem Sustainability Network meetings. It seems that what you want us to do is get into some smackdown with the mayor and city council so when they smack us back (or more likely ignore us) you can snarl your snark some more. What exactly is the point? I'm tired of you picking on our 350 chapter here in Salem for not doing what you want done. We have a small core group of people that works hard on a lot of issues. I haven't seen you there. Some of those issues are here in Salem, some statewide and some beyond; what we don't do is butt our heads up against that brick wall that Jim Scheppke talked about over and over again. What exactly would be the point of that? Now that the tide has turned on the city council, we have a chance to make some progress (and that tide turned thanks to a lot of hard work by a lot of people, Jim being one of the hardest working.) As well as continuing to support the sustainability commission effort, I hope we can work on developing a Salem Climate Action Plan And here's the thing - it takes work, not snark, work - time, effort and commitment. You can rattle off a laundry list of Oregon cities that have programs on climate change. That was easy. I know several climate activists in those cities. I know they didn't get things done with snark. And, even though at times they ran into obstacles or slow-moving bureaucracies, they weren't battling hostile or apathetic city officials. In Eugene, Mayor Kitty Piercy led the charge for sustainability initiatives starting with a year-long fact-finding commission that reached out to literally hundreds of residents and businesses. The Corvallis city administration has a long history of engagement with sustainability and climate change issues both in its own operations and in coalition with community groups. We have a long way to go here in Salem; a lot of work to do; and too few people who get what it takes to organize and mobilize. To formulate a climate action plan to bring to the city council, 350 Corvallis was instrumental in pulling together a community task force that spent months developing and refining a set of criteria, goals and tasks for each of several topic areas (energy, land use, water, waste mangement, etc.) and more months educating and mobilizing the Corvallis community. (I'll email you some research I did for the Salem Sustainability Network on the history, structure and operations of climate and sustainability initiatives in Corvallis and Eugene. This is what it takes. Not an occasional slap on the wrists of recalcitrant public officials. It takes work and time and commitment.) When I first moved here in 2011, I googled Sustainable Salem, Try it. I got so excited - there's a whole section of the city website on this - that has not been updated in the five years since I first found it. One of our members came across it more recently and made inquiries to city staff - to no avail. I am real tired of hearing you carp about what we in 350 Salem OR do not do. Did I mention we have a small core group of committed people who work hard on a lot of things. Did I mention I never see you there? We meet on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday each month at 7 pm at the Ike Box at Cottage & Chemeketa Streets NE - EXCEPT PLEASE NOTE that the next meeting on Tuesday July 26 will be at 6:30 pm, a fresh air meeting in Bush Park on the SW side near Church and Laffell Streets S. You're welcome to come. Bring a picnic supper, and roll up your sleeves, but leave the snark at home. Laurie Dougherty, Coordinator 350 Salem OR