Last Thursday, I helped Clean Power Lake County with their luncheon at the Waukegan Public Library. There was a strong turn out of county and city officials as our CPLC group continues to push for a transition from the coal energy to cleaner energy like solar power. The two major speakers for our event was Andrew Baumann, vice-president of Global Strategy Group, and Sarah Wochos, co-legislative director for the Environmental Law & Policy Center.
The Global Strategy Group is a company that conducts polling for numerous groups. In December 2015, they conducted a poll of 300 Waukegan residents about their opinion on the coal plant and the desire of people for clean power. Baumann showed that there is a strong desire that goes across political lines and demographics for moving to clean power. He even went so far as to say that some of the numbers were actually quite surprising in comparison to some polls his company has conducted.
Wochos's presentation showed that clean power is the future of power. We are continuing to see more and more states using clean power. She also suggested a few different areas in Waukegan that that could potentially be redeveloped into solar fields. She also provided other places in Chicago and Detroit that have found new life after being converted to solar fields.
The closing remarks of the luncheon were from my alderman, David Villalobos. He continues to be a strong proponent for our group as we try to bring clean power to Waukegan and making out city green town once again. He also had a call to action for our group's trip down to Springfield on April 21. We are going to be lobbying the politicians to pass a bill for clean energy jobs in Illinois.
