About 200 local residents came together Thursday night to brainstorm ways for Ashland to become more sustainable and to find out what efforts are already underway.

The Sustainable Community Leaders Dialogue at the Elks building downtown gave the public a chance to share ideas with each other and Mayor John Stromberg, several City Councilors and a number of city staff and members of city commissions. Stromberg took office this month after campaigning on a platform of sustainability.

Local author Jeff Golden said one of the simplest definitions of sustainability he's heard is to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

"What most people need is workable, real-world examples of other ways of doing things," he said.

Dominic Allamano, who helped organize the night's event, told audience members that they would not have to sit quietly and listen to experts, but would instead flesh out ideas with each other.

"You're what we need right now," he said before turning people loose to gather at tables in small groups.

At one table, Craig Comstock said he knows a local farmer who estimated that only about 1 percent of food eaten in the Rogue Valley is grown in the Rogue Valley. Another participant had heard an estimate of about 5 percent, but regardless of the exact figure, most people said it's not sustainable to rely on food that is grown far away and trucked to Ashland.

To address that issue, residents suggested a variety of actions, such as providing tax incentives for people who convert their lawns to gardens or charging higher city water rates for people who water lawns and ornamental landscaping instead of gardens. Others said a mechanism is needed for people to contribute their food and yard waste to a community composting system. The compost could then be distributed back out to home gardeners and farmers.

One neighborhood could commit to becoming a model where neighbors grow as much of their own food as possible.

Educating people to eat local, in-season produce and creating a land trust that could buy agricultural land were other ideas.

Jason Gallagher said restaurants could turn their food waste into compost and other forms of Ashland's garbage could be burned to generate energy.

"It could become an industry that could employ a lot of people locally," he said.

Other people said energy from burned trash could be used to power greenhouses that would grow produce year-round.

Creating energy locally from renewable sources was a hot topic.

Residents suggested streamlining city building codes to promote the installation of features like solar panels and water catchment systems. The city government could use acreage it owns across Interstate 5 from Ashland for food and solar and wind energy production. Federal economic stimulus money could be sought to cluster solar or wind energy systems in neighborhoods, people said.

Restaurant owner Ron Roth said one step restaurants can take right away is to install heat exchange units that cool restaurant kitchens and use the heat to warm water.

Many residents said Ashlanders need to focus on spending less, but when they do spend, to shop at local businesses first. Trading unwanted items, sharing items such as garden tools and cars and holding a community flea market could save people money.

"We used to be called citizens and now we're called consumers," said Donna Corso, advocating that people adopt simpler lifestyles.

Some suggested using community currency, founding an investment bank to support local businesses and projects or creating a pool of local investors.

Others said Ashland needs to diversify and become less reliant on tourism. To make existing tourism more green, the city could run shuttle buses to tourist attractions, ask restaurants to serve water only upon a patron's request and encourage hotels to have low-flow fixtures, they said.

Creating a list of volunteers willing to work on sustainability efforts, forming a sustainability think tank, gathering and sharing information about activities that are already taking place and identifying unmet needs also surfaced as ideas.

Organizers said they hope to continue community forums on sustainability on a quarterly basis.

"The beauty of these conversations is that they're never really over," Allamano said.

Staff writer Vickie Aldous can be reached at 479-8199 or vlaldous@yahoo.com.