Good afternoon Stockton CSC,

We received the following message from CSC member Jeff Wingfield -

To the CSC,

What I tried to do at the last AB 617 meeting (and probably didn’t do a good job) was to verbalize that the Port had not fully been aware of community concerns regarding Port operations in the past.  I think that the AB 617 group has helped us to see that we have things to work on and relationships to develop in order to understand more thoroughly how we can cooperatively work together.

I personally am excited that the community wants to be involved and we are reacting by setting up a separate Community Outreach Group in order to provide a better platform for discussion and information sharing.  I want to hear your feedback and discuss Port programs and projects with the community and understand where you think we need to make improvements, set priorities, budget items, and develop programs.  We anticipate having our first meeting in the first two months of 2021 and we anticipate completion of our Emission Inventory in Feb 2021 which we feel will facilitate some discussion and prioritize decisions by the Community Group.  Please email me directly if you would like to be a part of this Community Outreach Group.

With that said we are already working to be better neighbors; we have implemented measures to remove traffic from the neighborhood roadways and dedicated significant resources to improve new access points to accomplish that goal.  We have also made great strides to retrofit and/or replace current cargo handling equipment and we are currently working through an Emission Inventory and developing an EV Blueprint to develop the roadmap to make additional improvements with all of the information required to make these important decisions.  We also joined Green Marine as a voluntary measure to have a third party review our environmental programs and provide feedback in order to identify weaknesses and strengths so that we could make improvements and make budget adjustments as needed.  As I previously mentioned we have already moved ahead with tree planting activities and we are currently working with tenants to look for opportunities to plant additional vegetation on Port leased areas. I am in no way saying that we have done everything possible to achieve our goals but we are currently working on many projects to continue to improve operations and reduce local impacts

To address another comment I want to mention that our Board is comprised of appointees from the Stockton City Council and the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors.  All of the training and requirements are established by those two governing bodies prior to the appointments.  Port staff frequently updates the Port Director on projects and meetings such as AB 617 and it is at his discretion to update our Board. I also address some of the comments and concerns in presentations that I provide to the Board frequently.  I assure you that the Board and Port staff take these concerns very seriously and that measures are in action to correct those concerns.

Unfortunately, I had to leave the last meeting a few minutes early due to a previously scheduled family commitment and in no way was I trying to avoid further questions or dialogue.  Again, feel free to let me know if you would like to join the Community Outreach Group by sending me an email, I hope you will join, and I am always available to meet and discuss any concern.

Sincerest regards,

Jeff

(209) 946-0246

jwingfield@stocktonport.com