Health Eating, Active Living (HEAL)  

Resolution for Vallejo

 Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities

Working in collaboration with Mayor Davis and the HEAL Cities Campaign, I've been developing a resolution that integrates several long range policies toward building a healthy and active community including:  

• Planning and constructing a built environment that encourages walking, biking and other forms of physical activity, including a pedestrian and bicycle master plan;

• Addressing walking and biking connectivity between residential neighborhoods and schools, parks, recreational resources, and retail;

• Establishing Universal Design guidelines for new development;

• Prioritizing public investment in parks, open space and recreational activities.

• Expanding community access to indoor and outdoor public facilities through joint use agreements with schools and/or other partners;

• Developing a community garden/urban farming ordinance to promote the production and sale of fresh produce.

• Conducting a community-wide Health Impact Assessment (HIA) to evaluate and recommend more implementation strategies to improve healthy eating and active living in the City of Vallejo.

• Promoting the establishment of new food outlets, especially in "food deserts" and historically under-served areas of the city.

• Evaluating the establishment of a Sugar-Sweetened Beverage tax to support city programs and services that support healthy eating and physical activity choices and behaviors.

• Supporting and encouraging Vallejo's Schools to make healthy eating choices available in the Vallejo Unified School District.

Check out San Francisco's "Healthy Development Measure Tool" intended to support the inclusion and consideration of health needs in urban land use plans and projects.

Public Health Law & Policy also has a "fact sheet" about the "intersections of public health and planning." 

Stay tuned: Final resolution to come before the Council later this summer.  

Building Livable Communities:  

2011 Ahwahnee Conference 

Celebrating the Past, Looking to the future 

In March of this year, I attended the 20th Anniversary celebration of the introduction of the Ahwahnee Principles at the  Local Government Commission's Yosemite Conference - Building Livable Communities. Check out the great conference video courtesy of Ken Kay  Associates--author of Vallejo's very own Downtown Design Guidelines!

Ahwahnee Hotel,   Yosemite Nat'l Park (Yes, it snowed!)

The conference focused on several local communities that have adopted the Ahwahnee Principles since they were first introduced and how they have influenced planning in local jurisdictions.  

As always, I looked for ideas and best practices that can be implemented on a shoe string and I found the following two presentations particularly interesting and relevant to Vallejo: 

• "Village Center on the Cheap" - The City of Hercules took a small one to two acre site that is primed for future development (but not today in this economy) and created a temporary vibrant sense of place with outdoor mobile vending, live music, and a farmer's market. It's called Hercules "Red Barn" Market Hall and features our very own Moschetti Coffee! With all the vacant parcels in Vallejo, couldn't we do something like that?

• "Revitalizing Downtown Santa Cruz While Promoting Innovation" - How about a business or non-profit incubator in Vallejo's Downtown? Working with the former Director of Economic Development of Santa Cruz, Ryan Coonerty, the Mayor of Santa Cruz, started Next Space in its downtown, a start up business incubator. They looked at the desired building features and characteristics that today's start ups want, such as: 

• 10,000 square feet of hip, vibrant, premium office space but...they only wants to pay for 150 square feet. 
• No lease term, with the ability to come and go as they please.
• No hassles from government (e.g., taxes, licenses).
• A really cool community of innovative people that reflect their values and work style.

Santa Cruz isn't the only city setting up incubators. Other cities are taking up the challenge and looking for creative ways to promote small business and innovation, especially in these challenging economic times. For more ideas, check out Sacramento's Urban Hive and Ventura Venture's Technology Center (V2TC).  

Reinventing City Government 

Regionalizing and Contracting for Public Safety Services

The "Reinventing City Government" speaker's series was a success in raising awareness about our need to conduct business differently in the City of Vallejo. If you were unable to attend the "Regionalizing and Contracting for Public Safety Services" session, please check out the video and learn more about what other local jurisdictions are doing.  

If you haven't already, please check out "Contract Cities"  and "Budgeting for Outcomes/Priority Based Budgeting" videos from earlier presentations in the series. There's also more information about these videos at www.martibrown.com. 

Stay tuned for future videos on the advantages of a Community Benefits District and Participatory Budgeting--the final two sessions in the "Reinventing City Government" Speaker's Series. 

Again, a very special thank you to the speakers who generously donated their time and effort to present on this very relevant and timely topic, as well as the volunteers who made it all possible: Marc Garman of Vallejo Independent Bulletin for videotaping, Katy Miessner, David Cates, Michelle Whitney, and the Mira Theatre Guild Board of Directors. Without their support and generosity, this event would not have been possible. 

Grab Bag

Policy Link

Policy Link is a national research and action institute advancing economic and social equity by Lifting Up What Works (registered trademark).   

Public Health, Law and Policy (PHLP)

PHLP is a team of attorneys, policy analysts, and urban planners dedicated to building healthy communities nationwide.