Local Residents Go Green

The following is a reprint of an article in the Northbrook Tower, written by Dayna Fields.

August 20, 2013

Some things are best left to government, and other things are best left to the people.

That's the belief that Northbrook resident Doug Gerleman holds when it comes to the environment.

Gerleman recently formed a grassroots organization called Go Green Northbrook and recruited about 58 local residents to join in on an effort to make Northbrook more eco-conscious.

"What the idea is, we're trying to recreate the civil society again — grassroots [and] individuals instead of relying on the government — village, state or even federal," said Gerleman, who started collecting emails of interested parties at April's Earth Day event in downtown Northbrook. "We're going to rely on the locale of Northbrook and within the [area] to recreate that civil society."

Gerleman and other representatives of the grassroots group attended the July 18 meeting of the Village's Environmental Quality Commission in order to introduce themselves and some of their ideas.

One big initiative that Gerleman said Go Green Northbrook might tackle in conjunction with Go Green representatives from 14 other North Shore suburbs is an effort to reduce the use of plastic bags in the area. Gerleman said the new organization can instead make a bigger push for the use of non-disposable shopping bags.

"Again, these are just grassroots, private citizens, but we figured if we learn from each other, we can put together a coherent North Shore program that some of these Villages might be hesitant to tackle themselves," said Gerleman, who is on the group's steering committee along with local residents Barb Gerleman, John and Merilee Novinson, Linda Masters, Lou Cohen, Mary Bleeker and Lee and Nancy Goodman. Another project that the group talked about with the EQC is the construction of a recreational trail by the North Branch of the Chicago River, located near Willow Festival at Techny and Willow roads. Gerleman said a maintenance road that runs along the river can be converted into "some kind of a public trail" for bicycles or walkers.

Other initiatives on the group's ambitious agenda include the construction of more rain gardens in Northbrook to help curb flooding issues. They also want to help Glenbrook North High School implement a slew of energy-reduction recommendations that were recently offered up by students as a class project.

Gerleman said Go Green Northbrook also has one volunteer signed up who is an expert in energy efficiency. He said, once GBN takes the lead with those initiatives, Go Green Northbrook will have a template to show area elementary schools and help them get caught up with going green as well.

In addition, the group would also like to sponsor an educational program for parents and kids that would take place inside a local forest preserve in order to get families closer to the environment.

"We were [also] hoping to set up some kind of an environmental education program over at the [Northbrook] Public Library. The staff there is very interested in doing that," he said.

Members of the EQC were pleased that Go Green Northbrook has been created and that the two entities share an interest in many of the same programs, and they agreed to create an ongoing working relationship.

Gerleman said the local group is working on setting up a Facebook page to keep residents up to date on their projects. In addition, he is still looking for local volunteers who want to help with the green initiatives on a grassroots level.

"I'm always looking for people to get involved with Go Green Northbrook. We'll probably be meeting once a month," he said.