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April 30, 2009 • By Erik Landers, The Breeze
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Harrisonburg mayor to hold May 30 summit for city to discuss sustainability, energy

HARRISONBURG, Va. — Mayor Kai Degner has caught on to a new trend: using summits to promote communication in a community. Now he has called for a summit on May 30 in Harrisonburg.

“The purpose is to explore many different issues related to the environment and energy,” Degner said. “The goal is to get people to meet each other and have conversations about things that interest them, possibly to form new partnerships and brainstorm new ideas.”

Degner has enlisted the aid of more than 40 partners to help put on the Mayor’s Sustainability Summit, including JMU, the Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence and JMU Outreach & Engagement.

“We need to create a culture of sustainability and nonviolence and I think that is what Kai is trying to do,” said Sushil Mittal, director of the Gandhi Center. “The center supports him because he is pursuing and supporting innovators and interdisciplinary approaches for the constructive use of science and technology for a peaceful and sustainable future.”

The event begins at 9 a.m. in downtown’s Court Square and will run until 5 p.m. Attendees will break into separate conference groups throughout the day to discuss various topics.

Local restaurants such as the Earth and Tea Café and other public spaces will serve as meeting places for these conference groups as needed. There is no set agenda or meeting times for the summit as of yet.

“It’s going to be designed in a way that lets the people that come create an agenda that is based on their own interests,” Degner said.

Degner is holding the summit because he has been approached on issues regarding the environment and sustainability more than any other topic.

“I feel like there are several mini-projects and there isn’t always a venue for relationships to be built between projects,” Degner said. “It’s an opportunity to build relationships between people who share interests.”

While the summit focuses on Sustainability, Mittal also wants to use the summit as a way to increase personal responsibility. He cites Degner sponsoring this summit, without the city, as an example.

“I find that unique that an individual is taking responsibility,” Mittal said. “Indirectly [Degner] is emphasizing the exercise of personal and social responsibility, that is very important. We do not talk about these issues of personal responsibility and social responsibility, if we want to leave a better organized and less violent world then we need to talk about these issues.”

Despite many JMU students leaving Harrisonburg after exams, Degner is not worried about attendance since the event has 78 confirmed guests on Facebook.

Degner currently has no plans to make this summit an annual event but is considering hosting summits on business development and cultural exchange as well as arts and creativity. Before he can plan those summits, Degner is committed to making this first summit a success.

“I’m excited about it,” Degner said. “I have a lot of energy going into it.”

Contact Erik Landers at landerea@jmu.edu

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