The LWV of Alachua County (LWVAC) Natural Resources Committee continues to follow the Climate Officer position and whether it remains as a direct report to the City Manager or is reassigned to another reporting entity. Whatever the assignment, Natural Resources will continue to advocate for the Climate Officer to have jurisdiction over climate mitigation and sustainable practices for Gainesville.

You may remember that one of the Natural Resources' main goals for the last few years was to have the City of Gainesville hire a Climate Officer. We wanted this position to report directly to the City Manager to maximize influence across all departments of the city. We were excited when, in January of this year, the city hired, Dr. Dan Zhu for this position. 

Now, as part of the extreme budget cuts the city is facing due to the State of Florida meddling in local issues, the Climate Officer position is being moved under the Department of Sustainable Development. We are concerned that this will weaken the position considerably and slow progress on the development of a comprehensive climate action plan. It is unclear how this change will have any positive impact on the budget.

While we realize that the city will have to make many hard decisions over the next few months, we are disappointed that this has been one of them and without any real explanation.