Green Mountain View (GMV) was born in early 2009.

Its roots are recommendations in Chapter 11 of the final report of the Environmental Sustainability Task Force, a Council-appointed citizen advisory group that completed its work during eight months in 2008.

GMV is designed to be an independent, self-selecting, citizen-powered, open-membership group of city residents and workers that undertakes sustainability-oriented activities initiated by any MV-centric individuals who want to work on them. Some of these projects may involve continuing our public/private partnership with the City, but we are oriented toward grassroots activity.

Our first steps in early 2009 were to locate similar groups in neighboring cities and get advice on organization and procedures; set up a light (and expandable) administrative and meeting structure; establish electronic communications and a website; choose a unique name; and start encouraging Mountain View community members to use our networking facililties to decrease our community's carbon footprint and increase its sustainability.

Several monthly meetings later, we have several exciting projects in progress and look forward to the launch of many more. Our website contains workgroup-collaboration tools that enable anyone to sign up to lead, or just to work on, a project of his or her choosing.