Mr. Garfunkel, city councilor,

I work for city council. I am head of the committee for Energy and the Environment. I was elected to council because of my experience in the community fighting to bring about a ban on pesticide use in the city. That was quite the fight, let me tell you. Recently I have been busy setting up tough building standards for energy conservation in the construction of new homes. It took a lot of work to convince people of the need until the energy costs sky-rocketed. Now everyone wants the new standards. I live with my family in a home that this year for the first time became a net producer of energy. Living on the edge of town we have installed a wind turbine on our property. Our house is a passive solar house. This means that it is built with windows facing south to absorb as much of the sun’s heat energy as is possible. It is also built with the highest insulation standards so as to reduce the transfer of heat energy through the walls and roof. My wife Linda enjoys being home in our cosy house with our young twins Tabatha and Maria. The girls are just two years old and are quite a hand full. In the summer Linda keeps a large vegetable garden on our green roof which is her pride and joy(and designed incidentally by Dr Carson). I am always happy to talk about the new energy conservation standards that I worked so hard to implement in this city. This Housing For Sustainable Living Project is an important new initiative of mine. The actual building codes are the constraining factor for this project e-mail me if don’t have a copy.