Protect What You Love Grassroots Toolkit: South Florida

COMPILED BY JANICE T. BOOHER, MS

The purpose of this Toolkit is to give residents of Palm Beach County the background and communication tools needed to initiate meaningful dialogue with members of their communities and with their municipal government officials regarding policy changes to support adaptation. The goals are to have all municipalities in Palm Beach County sign the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Action Compact’s Mayors’ Climate Action Pledge to take advantage of technical assistance, and to engage in regional best practice sharing; and to promote the development of shovel ready projects that can be implemented after natural hazard events to rebuild more resilient structures. A current list of municipalities in South Florida that have signed the pledge is available.

In order to encourage your mayor to sign the pledge, in most municipalities your city commission will need to pass a resolution to sign it. This means that you must communicate with your mayor and city commissioners. In order to prepare citizens in your community to speak with their elected officials you will want to host an educational meeting:

To inform community members about the connections between observable climate change impacts and regional efforts to address them.
To document adaptation challenges in our communities by
o Obtaining contact information for people who are trying to find ways to address their climate change impacts and
o Determining the district in which the climate change impacts are occurring, and the elected officials responsible for that geography
To determine who is willing to phone or email the mayor’s office, or attend a meeting with the mayor.