Editor, The Beacon:
I would like to congratulate our new DeLand mayor, Chris Cloudman, and suggest his first order of business should be to appoint a resilience officer like our neighbor Jacksonville.
In a Daytona Beach News-Journal article, the nonprofit First Street Foundation says we will all be in the Extreme Heat Belt with temperatures soon exceeding 125 degrees.
To cope, Jacksonville’s Chief Resilience Officer Anne Coglianese says their plans include prioritizing public transit to decrease fossil fuels, planting more trees with wide canopies like oaks, incorporating more tree cover into commercial and industrial zoning requirements, repainting roadways and roofs to light colors to reflect sunlight, reducing requirements for parking lots and using that land for tree cover, and making “community cooling centers” such as libraries and playgrounds with splash pads widely available.
My only question now for Mayor Chris is how to move our beloved DeLand in this direction instead of the current “mow down every tree” development?
Joyce Palmer
DeLand
