Coal Blooded Action Toolkit - Climate Access

for the local ordinance. For more information on Building a Coalition, go to Part Four: Infrastructure, page53. A local ordinance is going to impact the community as a whole so having a well-representedcoalition will help further the support for a local ordinance. The representation in your coalition maybe other environmental organizations, parents, students, church leaders, business owners, healthproviders, lawyers, teachers and more.Draft an Ordinance: The ordinance must be well put together and researched and should consist of: Fair language that represents the community at large and the intent of the policy.o The ordinance identifies clear implementation and enforcement, stands up to legalchallenges and achieves the goal of protecting public health.o The language that will be used in the ordinance will be written in a different format thatreflects legal terms and possibly previous regulations. The ordinance should reflectdefinitions and terms applicable to your town or state. And lastly, in your ordinance the coalition should identify the ‘deal breakers’ or provisions that areseen as not achieving the goal of your campaign.Build Your Campaign: Before an ordinance is proposed setting a strong foundation of public support hasto be in place. First, start with identifying your supporters. This entails collecting their contact informationand putting together a database. This database can be shared and kept for further use later. When itcomes to showing support to shut down a coal plant or supporting stronger emissions control regulationsyou can call on them to do so. For more information on building a campaign, go to Section Two:Awareness-Raising and Education, page 20. Also, develop a strategy that will assist you and your community to achieve said goal. Once youhave sought out your supporters it is time to begin your campaign and educate the community onthe issues that need to be addressed.Executing Your Ordinance Campaign: Your supporters may be a part of your strategy to target certaingroups. Outreach to the public is essential to broadening support. Educating members of the communityand elected officials, on why the ordinance is needed such as, the impacts of a coal plant on public healthwill be a part of your outreach. Hold public meetings or give public presentations for the community to get information about theordinance and its purpose. Find allies in professional organizations, civic clubs, health agencies and other community groupsthat would support or work on your campaign. Work to help the community identify with how the ordinance will be for the public good. As a part ofyour campaign consider opportunities to use media. Use your local paper to publish an opinioneditorial or having the local news station cover an event associated with the campaign. Recruit a number of people who could be spokespersons to represent the campaign. Know what to expect from the opposition. Though the cause is worthy, there will be opposition.Remember that opposition may seek to weaken your ordinance. Always keep in mind what the ordinance is set out to accomplish. Even though a lot of time andeffort will go into educating members of the community it is only part of the process. Most importantto note is that the network of people that form the coalition of supporters will be working to makethe ordinance a reality.NAACP Coal Blooded Action Toolkit66 | P a g e