One idea I've been kicking around that I think would be a useful attention-getting tool is to perform a greenhouse gas inventory of Springfield. This basically would be a pretty rudimentary way of figuring out what Springfield's carbon burden is--how much carbon we're putting into the air. (You can get the inventory for the State here.) It would also help us see where our biggest sources are, which gives us a starting point for figuring out where to cut. This is something we'll probably do eventually, but I'm impatient, so I think it would be useful to get started now.
Fortunately, the Rocky Mountain Institute has put together the Community Energy Finder, an online tool for doing something similar. The CEF is geared more toward identifying community-wide opportunities for energy efficiency and renewables. It takes a lot of detailed information, but it looks like they've done a good job of outlining exactly what they need and who we can likely talk to get each part. It's not something that you can do in a day, but with a couple of people breaking the work up, you could probably do it in a week or two. It mostly involves calling various city departments or organizations (like the Chamber of Commerce).
If anyone is interested in doing this, drop me an email.