Jack Christie, At – Large Position 5 City Councilmember gave a lone no for the vote on a million dollar purchase due to his stance on air quality. Council approved $1,408,900.00 for refuse trucks through the Houston- Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) and the Texas Local Government Purchasing Cooperative for the Solid Waste Department.

The co-venture between the cities will allow for new trucks to be used citywide by personnel to collect trash. But Councilmember Christie quickly spoke up to say he would vote no and why he would do so.

“I will vote no because they are diesel and not using natural gas,” said Christie.

He went on to tell of a conference he will hold on March 27th to get the ball rolling on bringing in capital from the private sector and collecting data from the municipal side to see how the infrastructure can be put in to get trucks on natural gas. Christie is talking about a large scale move as he wants to pull in places such as Houston Independent School District (HISD) and the Port of Houston; which faces much scrutiny from Pleasantville for their air quality woes.

“I’m tying in the county, city, airport and METRO. Those groups are just starting to look at the infrastructure and I’m inviting some public private partnerships,” said Christie. We have been talking about the infrastructure where the city wouldn’t have to advance and that’s the most delaying of the challenges to get going on natural gas but you’re saving about a dollar a gallon at least and your cutting pollution by 70 percent.”

Mayor Parker answered the councilmember fully aware of his desire be a little more environmental conscious.

Parker said, “We appreciate your interest in this issue as you are well aware it is the upfront infrastructure cost that are the challenge and as you rightly note the best way to deal with that is to have the local public entities as a committed market for the private sector to come in and actually build the infrastructure.”

Councilmember for District B, Jerry Davis, who represents the residents of Pleasantville, weighed in on the discussion as he too battles air pollution issues heavily in his district.
“Is this an initiative we are going to support Councilmember Christie,” said Davis? “What are the steps to move forward on acquiring or attracting private sector dollars for this?”
The challenge of cost and the city constantly monitoring their allotted budgets for every department, the push to jump on building natural gas stations and buying equipment is falling to the private sector to want it more.

“We are all moving in the same direction and as I laid it out that the challenge is an significant upfront cost the city doesn’t want to bear but if there are enough public fleets that would be interested in providing a guaranteed market or combining investment in the infrastructure then we will be able to make it happen. It doesn’t hurt to have conversation on all fronts,” said Mayor Parker.

The topic of natural gas is becoming more of the norm now that climate change can no longer be ignored or denied. Councilmember Pennington spoke up that he too has been having conversations with people who are in the business of building refueling stations and they are interested.

“ I know they are interested and they say that some of the public institutions don’t have the same attitude as you do and they want to build their own, which is fine if they have the ability to do it but I was wondering if we can have someone on your staff to make a report of where we are on that so we can know what needs to be done so we can get where I think everyone wants to go which is natural gas and the ball seems to be bouncing around,” said Pennington.

The city is interested in going towards natural gas. Mayor Parker emphasized her approval of natural gas but the remained firm that the private sector is going to have to step up and build the infrastructure.