Regional leaders voted Wednesday to accept Metro's proposed criteria for evaluating plans to curb the region's tailpipe emissions.
Under the criteria, to be used as part of evaluating the Climate Smart Communities scenarios, Metro staffers will look at how proposals for curbing tailpipe emissions would affect things like the economy, public health and social equity.
As part of the evaluation process, staffers will also look at the feasibility of various options for curbing emissions.
That was important to Washington County representatives to the Metro Policy Advisory Committee, who wondered how far the region should go to address the state's mandate to curb tailpipe emissions.
Hillsboro Mayor Jerry Willey said his community has gone far in trying to curb emissions, by placing homes near jobs and launching 37 electric vehicle charging stations.
"What's the real cost of getting over the finish line?" Willey said, "or is 97 percent (of the way) good enough?"
Willey also had concerns about social equity being used as a criteria for evaluating possible emissions-cutting strategies.
"How do we incorporate social equity in this whole process without implying it's the transfer of money from one county to another?" the Hillsboro mayor asked. "I think we're all in this for the overall good… but it does cause me some concern when I see the discussion of social equity and how much influence that's going to have on the overall discussion."
Willey went on to say he was concerned that Portland's street maintenance issue wouldn't become a regional street maintenance issue.
Maxine Fitzpatrick, the Multnomah County citizen representative on MPAC, said she thinks it would be good to define equity because of its different meaning to different people.
"For me, when I think about social equity, I think about the public investment into a community, and when that investment happens, that it would benefit all the residents of the community, as opposed to that 80 percent who responded to the survey who have a four-year degree," she said.
Fitzpatrick was referencing an Opt In survey on Climate Smart Communities; of the 2,835 people who took the survey, 80 percent were college graduates. Willey had earlier referenced the survey in an attempt to demonstrate that it wasn't reflective of the region's population; Metro staff, after the meeting, pointed out that it had more respondents from various sub-groups within the region than a statistically-valid phone survey would have.
It'll be up to policymakers to decide how to use the survey, and for that matter, the criteria as the project moves into its final 20 months.
Kim Ellis, Metro's Climate Smart Communities project manager, emphasized the latter part at the MPAC meeting.
"From your individual perspectives, you can use what's most important to you to help inform your decision," she said, "but we're not setting up any set of criteria that social equity is X percent, jobs is X percent – that's a decision you can make for yourself."
In an e-mail to Metro News, Washington County Chair Andy Duyck said he was pleased to hear that MPAC members can weigh the criteria as they see fit.
"(I) hope that MPAC members will remember that if the final outcome is not centered primarily on greenhouse gases, it has no real legitimacy," Duyck said. "The other criteria should be used only as the backdrop we gauge against."
The Metro Council is scheduled to vote on the proposed evaluation criteria at its June 6 meeting.