Sign up now to subscribe!
The Balancing Act Overcoming History Minefield of Issues And If She Loses... Stark Says Her Case is Clear Words with Weitzman Bill Mulrow Makes His Case Grannis to DEC Commissioner, Skirmish for his Seat Intensifies Grannis Begins Crafting Agenda Comptroller Bid Behind Him, Grannis Still Weighs In In Chancellor’s Proposal, Dollars Follow Students Lavelle on Himself, Staten Island politics Mayor Mike's Ambitious Plans Spitzer Searches on Google Lead to Cuomo Connor: Why I Want to Be Comptroller Spitzer Takes the Helm Grannis Pushing Comptroller Bid Now For the Count: How many kids are sleeping on our streets? Who Will Be the Latino Driving Force? The 20 — or Is It 21? — Powerful Latino Faces, Families and Future Leaders of New York City Duane-Casting Election Forecast 2009 – Commissioning the Comissioner Lactation Legislation on the Move Generals Picked, Battle Plans Made for Last Political Battleground Big Building Plans Raise Big Questions The Money Trail: Untangling the Campaign Finance Disclosures Tax Breaks Succeed in Reeling Movie Business to Big Apple As Bloomberg Crafts Anti-Poverty Specifics, Optimism and Worries Elsewhere: Counting and Discounting the Incarcerated In the Chair: James Gennaro Stewed Chicken and Carrot Juice with Yvette Clarke In the Trenches: Erin Drinkwater Au Revoir, Steve Kramer Editorial: Paying for Later, Playing Now? What Kind of Education Will New York Buy? By Billy Easton Out of State Plates Serve Up High Costs by Ivan Lafayette Cut Property Tax, But Increase Rebate Too by Vincent Gentile The Consequences of Ending Business as Usual by Alan Chartock
When he was pursuing his undergraduate degree in geology at SUNY Stonybrook in the 1970’s, most of Council Member James Gennaro’s (D-Queens) classmates in that field planned to work for oil companies. Gennaro, however, had a different career path in mind.
“I structured my whole education towards someday working on environmental issues in government,” he recalled.
In addition to geology, Gennaro studied biology and other sciences to round out his environmental education. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he enrolled in a master’s program in policy analysis and public management, also at Stonybrook. That program gave him the administrative training to apply his science background to public sector environmental work, he said.
In 1982, Gennaro went to work for the Office of Management and Budget, and then for the Commissioner of the Office of General Services. In 1990, he became a policy analyst for the Environmental Protection Committee, a job that allowed him to help craft early environmental legislation, including a 1991 alternative fuels bill. Gennaro held that position until 2001, when he was elected to City Council. Once there, he was appointed chair of the committee he spent more than a decade advising.
“My view of the room now is not that much different,” Gennaro said of his work heading the Environmental Protection Committee. “I’m now holding the gavel, but I used to sit right next to the guy who did.”
Despite his years working on the committee, Gennaro said his election to the Council had given him a new perspective on environmental issues in New York City. The biggest challenge over the next decade, he said, will be protecting the upstate reservoirs that supply the city’s water. Expanding development in areas around reservoirs is making it increasingly difficult to protect the water, but Gennaro gave the city high marks for its efforts.
“What we’ve done upstate to keep our drinking water clean is a model that will have a profound impact on watershed science and the management of water systems the world over,” he said.
Specifically, New York is the only city in the country that has been able to maintain a pristine water supply with a sizeable population living close to it, Gennaro said. Most cities are required by federal law to filter water coming from reservoirs. However, New York City is not required to filter water because the upstate reservoirs are so clean.
But protecting the water supply merely heads a long list of the city’s environmental concerns. New York needs to become a “sustainable” city, Gennaro said, by balancing development with environmental protection—two things which could ultimately complement one another.
“The old notions about environmental protection being at odds with economic development are gone,” he said. “People realize that environmental sustainability means not only a clean environment, but it means business, it means jobs.”
To promote sustainable development, the Environmental Protection Committee recently passed legislation that sets aside $12 billion in city construction over the next ten years to be contracted to environmentally conscious builders. Creating a demand for sustainable development could transform the city, Gennaro said.
“We could be the capital of the green products movement,” he said. “There’s no reason why that can’t happen.”
The move toward environmentally conscious building got a boost in September, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) created the Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability. While Gennaro said he was encouraged by the mayor’s announcement of an ambitious environmental agenda, he also recognized that limited resources forced him to be realistic about his goals as chair for 2007.
“You can’t get done everything you want to do,” he said. “Every year you ask yourself did you get as much done as you possibly could, and if you can say you did, you’ve got to be happy with that.”
= Print Only