Seniors do It more efficiently

On Monday, the Oregon League of Conservation Voters Education Fund (OLCV's sister organization) kicked off its Summer Conversation Series with the first of its statewide events. Monday's event took place in Clackamas County at Rose Villa (a retirement community) and was attended by state Sen. Martha Schrader. The topic of the event was growing our economy and creating jobs here in Oregon and centered around the energy industry.

As the OLCV EdFund staffer for the event my evening was to be pretty straight forward: make sure people signed in, hand out comment cards and take notes on the conversation. As we approached the start of the event I can't say that I was surprised the room was filling with residents of the retirement community. What quickly became evident though, was that they weren't there just to listen.

Once the conversation began, particiapnts really started to let us know what they thought. They talked about Oregon's renewable energy standard and wanted to know why the state only set 25% as the standard. Some wanted to talk about Boardman, Oregon's only coal plant, and why it was going to take so long to close down. Some wanted to know what we were doing to encourage and mandate efficiency in the things we build. Topic after topic it was clear that these seniors knew what was going on and that they wanted to see more action from our legislature on these issues. 

After the event, I was speaking to one of the residents about their knowledge and commitment to energy issues and she told me a story about a group of residents (most former engineers) who are dedicated to making Rose Villa a more efficient place to live and work. They look at everything from energy efficiency to water use. Among other things, their work led to the discovery of a leak in its four-inch water pipe that management had simply believed was a natural spring under the property.I have plans to go back and meet with this group to learn about all the projects they have worked on and what their future efficiency plans are.

In the meantime, I hope people from all generations and walks of life will catch up with the residents of Rose Villa. I also hope that legislators will stop trying to answer the  question that was eluded to in so many comments from Monday night's discussion-- "why aren't we doing more?" -- and just do more, like the seniors at Rose Villa are doing.