The City of Evanston’s Healthy Buildings Accountability Board convened its first meeting to introduce appointed members and begin work on rules for implementing the city’s Healthy Buildings Ordinance, staff said. Cara Pratt, chief sustainability and resilience officer and interim chair, said the board will advise on rulemaking, recommend metrics and produce quarterly and annual reports for City Council.

Pratt told the board that the city received an Inflation Reduction Act Department of Energy grant award for $10,400,000 but that the city has not yet finalized receipt of those funds because of federal‑level uncertainties and limited substantive conversations with DOE staff. That uncertainty, Pratt said, affects how much staff can promise for incentives or technical assistance tied to the ordinance in the near term.

Why it matters: the board is charged with approving methods for prioritizing equitable decarbonization, establishing an equity‑prioritized buildings list, reviewing alternative compliance pathways, and recommending data and metrics to measure impacts on disinvested communities. Those deliverables will shape how and which buildings are supported or held to performance standards.

Board composition and staff roles were reviewed. Members include sustainability professionals, building owners and community equity advocates who emphasized balancing technical feasibility with affordability and equity. Staff identified Kirsten Dreyhobol Vega as the board’s main staff contact and said Cara Pratt will serve as interim chair until elections are held.

Next steps: staff will draft a workplan and materials for the board, including ordinance language clarifications, examples from other jurisdictions and proposed timelines for quarterly updates to Council. The board also asked staff to return with a prioritized subset of noncompliant benchmarking files to target outreach.

The meeting closed after members approved the meeting schedule and adjourned by voice vote.