Most heat-related emergency calls do not stop at 5 p.m. When cooling centers close in the late afternoon, people who work daytime shifts, people without air conditioning and people living outside lose the only air-conditioned public space available to them.
This example petition asks the city to tie cooling center hours to the National Weather Service heat warning rather than to ordinary building hours, to fund transportation to the centers, and to publish a live map of which sites are open right now.
It is written as a model. Adapt the trigger, the hours and the sites to your own city’s heat plan, and cite your county health department’s heat mortality reporting.