Pages

Saturday, July 3, 2010

10-Year Plan: Focus on urban agriculture

By Wayne Clingman

1.) Use unused areas of Racine like the old Danish Home for urban agriculture/farmer's markets. Have these locations be outreach points for the Health Department, Gateway and Racine Unified programs.

For example, every Monday a public health nurse could be at a site to offer advice and immunizations, while every Thursday someone from Gateway or Racine Unified could be there to provide information about programs. I believe it is critcal that the inner city sees more of the City of Racine then police officers. We need to build trust between the city and the poor. 

2.) Start a city/county composting operation at one of the large brownfield sites. Not only sell the compost but use it to restore the brownfield.
Right now the city/county does not have a site for composting. When one understands that over 50% of garbage can be composted, this would go a long way to extending the land fill. The resulting compost, which is very easy to start, could be sold to home owners for gardens as could the worms. The jobs here would be entry-type jobs great, say, for folks just getting back into society from prison.


3.) Increase the number of UNIT (Unified Neighborhood Inspection Team) inspectors, however, change the law to provide court review of tickets. There are lots of slum lords in the city; we just need to be sure they get a day in court.

4.) Using funds from Focus on Energy and resources from RPL, start promoting solar/wind power use.

5.) Explore creating a public utility like Bright Public Power. (Wind around the lake makes this very practical.) The amount of available power estimated in this area from RENEW is 50 MW. That's a lot of power.

6.) Sign a pledge not to sell Lake Michigan Water to other cities. We are going to trust a city to return the water to the lake as clean as they got it? Does MMSD mean anything?
7.) Partnering with UW to start a Fresh Water science program in the city.
8.) With No. 1 above, provide the option of better foods to the Inner City. We all know the link between good food and healthy kids. Be nice to see this put into practice. A few dollars in building heather food choices saves us tons of money every where from health care to education. 

4 comments:

  1. Lots of "feel good" stuff but not much substance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 3:09

    Would you like the links to the studies on what I say?
    Do you need to talk to the owner of The Kenosha Compost operation and see his books?

    Its not "Feel good" its a lot of hard outdoor work, that could create by a small business 10 jobs vs the BS jobs of the Goverment and do far more good in extending the land fill then your chiped recycling bin

    ReplyDelete
  3. Where did you mention schools, jobs, crime, gangs? I have plenty of power.

    ReplyDelete
  4. doesnt matter, noone reads the post anyway. Get rid of Obama now!

    ReplyDelete