Sustainability advocates show up to Rochester City Council meeting

(ABC 6 News) – It was a large turnout at the Olmsted County government center for tonight’s Rochester city council meeting.

Leaders from Faith in Minnesota and Sierra Club joined council members to make their voices heard.

They’re asking the city council to expand the annual budget for sustainability operations from $20,000 to $120,000.

They also want the city to hire at least one more full-time position on the sustainability staff.

As of now, the Rochester sustainability team is made up of just one staff member.

Even smaller cities like Duluth and Edina have more sustainability staff than Rochester.

Advocates said this puts the Med City at risk of falling behind.

“With the current staff and funding devoted to sustainability, we simply do not have the working hours to have these dreams of sustainability fully realized within our city,” vice chair of sustainability & resiliency commission Aaron Ress said.

The proposed extra staff member would help access funding from grants made available thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act.

In a letter to the council, they said sustainability investments today are how we set ourselves upon the path towards community resilience tomorrow.

Since this was during their open comment period per city council rules, they did not reply to any comments that were made.

It does give them something to think about before they have to approve next year’s budget on December 4th.