Energy Committee

Well, it's been a while! Over the past few months, I've wrapped up the projects I was working on at the Rockefeller Center and am in the midst of launching a new endeavor... working to send former astronaut and Dartmouth Medical School professor Jay Buckey to the US Senate. He's a great guy, and I am really looking forward to managing his campaign. To learn more about him and the campaign, visit our website.

I will try to keep this site updated with info about City Council happenings. The big update from this week is that the City of Lebanon now has an energy committee! Our charge reads:

The Lebanon Energy Advisory Committee identifies opportunities and makes recommendations to the City Council with regard to reducing energy use, increasing energy efficiency, exploring alternative energy usage, and reducing pollution, to the environmental and fiscal benefit of the City of Lebanon.

It will be composed of 9 members: 2 City Councilors, 1 Planning Board representative, 1 Lebanon High School student, 1 Thayer Engineering School faculty member or student, and 4 at-large residents.

The City Council formed this committee on Wednesday evening, and the vote was unanimous. It made me feel very proud, even though Pat Hayes says the language "reducing pollution" is very '60s. (Thank you to Steve Wood for adding that language in. I think it does make our charge that much clearer.) No matter what, it's a great thing that we're doing, and I think you can expect great things to come from it for Lebanon.

City Council Organizational Meeting

Tonight the City Council will formally say good-bye to Dan Nash, Bob Moses, and Dean Sorenson and seat the members of the "new" Council. We will also be electing one of ourselves to be Mayor and Assistant Mayor. And we will likely rubber stamp the Council rules. I believe we could be a more productive and effective City Council if we used this meeting as an opportunity to reflect on the coming year, identify how we would like to conduct our meetings, and determine priorities for the City Council.

A concern that I have heard raised by numerous citizens is that Lebanon is not proactive enough. We are too reactive. This is usually spoken about in relation to our physical development, e.g. Route 12A. However, it is as applicable to the City Council itself as it is to the City. The Council has the power to make sure that we address the issues that citizens have told us are important to them by managing our agenda more effectively. Individual City Councilors do have the ability to request specific agenda items, and we do take advantage of that. But we could accomplish even greater things if we agreed as a body on the goals we want to achieve over the coming year. We could use the organizational meeting to do precisely that: organize ourselves for the coming year. This could be a good time to review the strategic plan, to determine priorities for agenda items, and to proactively map out the issues we wish to address.

My experience with the two organizational meetings that I have participated in as a City Councilor lead me to believe that tonight will not break new ground in this area. But I believe we can move in this direction over time. Tonight each Councilor will receive the strategic plan and the goals adopted by the City Council at the March 7th meeting. I believe City Councilors have a shared responsibility in advancing the interests of our citizens, and I look forward to doing just that as we enter this new year for the Lebanon City Council.

Front Page News

Today's "D," Dartmouth's daily newspaper, ran a nice story about me on its front page today. Here is an excerpt. You can read more by following the link...

"Karen Liot Hill '00, programming coordinator of the Rockefeller Center, was re-elected to the Lebanon City Council by a landslide victory on March 12."

Read the full story.

Out of Town

I am in Washington, DC for the week conducting a training for college students embarking on public service internships. We're busy all day and late into the evening, but I am making good use of the meetings we've scheduled with Members of Congress and other leaders to advocate for Lebanon. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to this evening's Council meeting. I am looking forward to next week's first organizational meeting of the new City Council.

I do enjoy spending time with college students, though - they always offer food for thought! I will resume regular posts when I return this weekend...

Thank You!

I sincerely appreciate the vote of confidence from Ward 3 residents in the recent election. I will do my best to continue serving the best interests of our community as your City Councilor.

Last week, the City Council adopted goals for the City Manager and itself in 2007 that include: engaging residents in the zoning update, developing a plan for the airport, beginning a transportation master plan, adopting an open space plan, refining the landfill business plan, and pursuing public access television so that citizens can have more access to their government. In addition to supporting these efforts, I will work on the ideas I offered during my campaign, as well as those offered by many of you.

I will remain an advocate for engaging citizens in the decision-making process of our government and hope that many of you will work alongside me on these important issues. Thank you again to those who voted for me in Tuesday's election. (And if you didn't, that's ok too! I'm still working for you.) Please be sure to send me a note if you have something to share. Feedback is welcome...

Unofficial Results

It appears that I have won re-election to the City Council as the Ward 3 representative by a margin of 346 to 136.

I am grateful to the citizens who came out to vote today and sent me a message that they appreciate the work I've been doing, the way that I approach City Council business, and the ideas I offered for our community. We have a lot of work to do over the coming year, and I look forward to getting started!

I'll keep you posted on upcoming issues through this blog. I would welcome the opportunity to hear from you as well.

Sincerely,
karen

Please Vote - Tuesday, March 13!

It looks like we'll have nice weather for election day. I hope that will mean lots of people turn out to vote! The polls are open from 8am to 7pm. Ward 3 votes at Lebanon College. Hope to see you there...