On July 24th, River North Alderman Brendan Reilly was joined by 11 of his colleagues when he employed a procedural tactic in the City Council Rules (called “Defer and Publish”) to delay a full City Council vote on “Building Energy Use Benchmarking” ordinance until the next City Council Meeting scheduled for September 11, 2013.
Mayor Emanuel’s proposed “Building Energy Use Benchmarking” ordinance would require all commercial and residential buildings over 50,000 square feet to provide their energy consumption data to the City of Chicago on an annual basis. The proposal would require each building’s energy consumption data to be posted on a public website; and each building’s energy consumption would be rated and assigned an energy performance score.
Alderman Reilly hopes with help from residents, “we can work cooperatively with Mayor Emanuel to craft a responsible Energy Use Benchmarking ordinance that provides property owners with the valuable data they need to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings, without burdening them with additional costly government mandates.”
To share your concerns with Mayor Emanuel and request an opportunity to make reasonable changes to the proposal that would protect condominium and co-op owners from additional costly mandates, e-mail: letterforthemayor@cityofchicago.org
and cc: mayor.emanuel@cityofchicago.org. For more information about the proposed ordinance, please visit the Alderman Reilly’s “virtual office” at www.ward42chicago.com.
