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The city's new Task Force on Environmental Action met for the first time Oct. 21 in the community center to begin laying the groundwork for drafting a five-year action plan requested by the City Council.

After complaints surfaced last March over the former Committee on the Environment's lack of meeting minutes – all city-appointed committees are required to post notes of their meetings online – the City Council decided in a July 6 discussion that the group was not serving its purpose and needed to be restructured to get members back on track and recruit "new blood" for the advisory group.

However, the new task force seemed to show signs of slipping into the committee's old habits only a short way into the discussion of the council's requested five-year plan.

"Why don't we go around the room again and say a little bit more about ourselves and what we would like to see in the city without looking at what [the council] wants us to do?" member Alphie Fair suggested.

The larger discussion about the council's request for a five-year plan to improve the city's environmental sustainability quickly devolved into suggestions ranging from banning gas-powered leaf blowers or Styrofoam materials in the city to installing permeable streets with geothermal generators under them.

"[We] can't require all people to buy hybrids," said Steve Davies when it was his turn to speak. "But we can, at least in my opinion, ban them from using gas-powered leaf blowers."

At 19 members, the task force is easily twice the size of many other council-appointed boards, yet the question remains whether its size will allow for the broader consensus-reaching ability the council envisioned, or if it will instead lead to internal debate over which projects are best suited to present to the council. The Committee on the Environment had only six of the required seven members when it was suspension.

Another potential problem pertains to the council's goals for the new task force. Council members blamed themselves last March for failing to provide the committee with adequate oversight and feedback. The task force's new goals, including the vague call for a five-year plan, are far from specific.

"Some of the language could be a little more succinct," said new member Timothy Fox after the first meeting. "But I think we have a good language with the town, and it seems like we have a lot of motivated, talented members."

Councilman Dan Robinson (Ward 3) was certain the new task force will receive plenty of attention from the council this time around.

"We've given to them, in good faith, a task to do, and if they want more information, they can certainly ask for it," he said when reached for comment. "We'll try and take to heart any problems they may encounter. ... We need to work together in this."

Catherine Tunis, the former chair of the Committee on the Environment and current task force member, was cautiously optimistic about the size and focus of the new group.

"In any work project if you have a group of smart, dedicated people working together on these issues they're going to come up with better ideas, usually, than one person can," she said. "I'm hopeful that this format will work [but] we need solid communication between whatever form the committee takes and the council."

The committee is tentatively scheduled to make its first progress report to the council at the end of March.

Tune in periodically over the next few weeks for an occasional series on a number of different Takoma Park committees and how the council may decide to make changes to the way these groups operate.