##VIDEO ID:MygGaIFBOC8## okay we are now recording all right he folks uh so we're here for the first um eak meeting post election post national election um we are still the Amorous energy and climate action committee and we're still planning on helping guide the town in meeting its climate mitigation and resilience goals um those goals and the plans for getting there were adopted are adopted from the karp the climate action adaptation and resilience plan which was accepted by the Town Council back in 2021 it took 2016 as a base year and calls for a 25% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025 50% by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050 um so this committee has two primary functions one to advise the Town Council and recommend or propose policies or actions that will help us meet the climate goals and two to promote a just Equitable and Speedy climate response through Outreach and engagement um so with that first thing we need to do today is uh get a note taker so looking at the minutes from last time which I have here um it looks like last time Andrew took notes for us um Steve so it's vacant turn huh it's vacant in the last row Bacon's not here maybe we should go to Steve um okay unless anybody else wants to yeah unless anyone else wants to do it I haven't taken notes yet I can take notes ah all right thank you Caitlyn we have to remember not to do Andrew next next time the the names always seem to be in random order but I always try to on the list somehow Steve keeps ending up as the next I know who keeps Steve's always a notaker I think Stephanie likes your notes Steve all right so um I can share the minutes we have our note note takers so the first thing is always minutes right then we do public comment if I remember right yes um all right hang on a minute am I sharing the right thing can you guys see the minutes yeah we see two screens a zoom screen on the left and your minutes are kind of small on the right something funny then hang on a minute let me try that again share EAP minutes share now it should be right yes good okay that's better um all right make them bigger yes that's what I'm trying to do right thank you minute um where's the view Zoom page width no because I put comments in I know why it's doing that hang on a minute um let's just make a bigger Zoom let's make it 150 I'll open this up and then they should be hold on whoops there we go all right there we go good good enough I had a couple of things um I'll just go through them slowly but there were just two things I wanted to clarify or or change um I have not I don't think I remembered to share that letter of support yet I got I don't know about everybody else but I've been feeling a little uh disoriented by the events at the national level these last couple of weeks and I just sort of couldn't really think straight to do anything for about two weeks so I still have to send in that letter I have it from last time solar bylaw review um this note here about Golden share that there are plans to install traffic circles Martha had brought that up at the beginning I brought it up under advisory and support just to have a little bit more discussion around it and I wanted to be careful because I didn't want to make it sound like this sounded like I was um brings up it says brings up hency around traffic circles when traffic stops let and traffic through traffic through I was a little I figured that's those are details that could be left out and I wasn't sure that represented quite what I it might be it might be read as misrepresenting what I said so I thought just take those sentences out and replace them with something like um goldner initiated discussion of traffic circles in front of the new Fort River school and just leave it out that that that I will reach out to Tac um which I haven't done yet unless Tony you'd like to do it um I haven't heard back from anyone in Tac but I have reached out um oh you did reach out about that the last time you brought it up I did yes okay all right all right that was that was the last meeting I think you were you were at the last meeting right was a a month ago I mean yeah last meeting there was no meeting yeah all right so and then there was one other thing here I wasn't sure this word to was correct the uh would be used to purchase an electric truck for the facilities Department which moves them towards all electric vehicles right it doesn't mean they're going to be all that it's all electric now it does it they only have two vehicles so yes they are all electric because okay then leave that I I I delete this comment and the associated um the highlighting we'll take that out later but at any rate um I can't move this there all right so then leave that so it is all electric now that's pretty cool so I sent this to you already Stephanie just ignore the second comment any other comments or suggestions if not and if those changes are okay then someone should make a move to accept the minutes Lori can you stop sharing the screen yes thank you I can move to accept the minutes second sorry who was the second I second thank you okay and in no particular order roof yes K yes Davis yes ising yes Allison stain goldner yes drer yes minutes are approved as amended okay so it doesn't look like we have any um public is that still the case yep if that's still the case then no public comment uh next thing on the agenda is waste related topics I don't think I have anything else to share on that except that I still haven't sent the letter that I think we finalized last time right I think I have it here so I won't even bring that up again I'm pretty sure I have the draft we worked on last time it was just a short simple sweet letter that was going to get sent in support of the pay as you throw um R the RFP for a um townwide waste hauler is there anything else on waste related topics that we should touch on recycling initiative in there anyone know what that was about I don't remember that I think that was just the uh black Plastics maybe yeah which doesn't seem to be anything we can do anything about do you want to take it off then for the next meeting yeah I think so I don't know that there's much to be done there so next thing on the agenda then is the solar bylaw review response where are we with that Steve I have not been to a CRC meeting I I'm not sure if there has been ones in the last couple of weeks I think the schedule was there were some non- meetings on their twoe cycle do you know Stephany if they've met yesc we did have a meeting on the 12th um oh I missed that okay well because what had happened there was a change in the um agenda so they were supposed to do the zoning you drive zoning overlay and then they ended up switching that to the 19th which was um I think that was oh actually I'm sorry I think the 26th I don't know the schedule got kind of messed up in any we did have a meeting um they just continued their review um honestly can I just give some feedback for this particular agenda item that I really feel like it's going to be a while before you have a draft that you can actually comment on um I think it it's still even after they finish going through the draft that they they currently have they're still going to have to go back and revisit certain things that they haven't worked out yet so I just think it's going to be a while so you know I mean I don't think you'll have anything to respond to in review for some time yeah I think that's reasonable um my preference would be to provide input when the plan is still somewhat malleable still under review being changed as opposed to you know later on it's just a little bit harder to change things if they are getting closer to being done so I will try to continue monitoring what's been going been going on with the CRC and um report back in Future meetings to us to ecac where things are and if I see anything that I think ecac could could provide advice on at the at this stage or at the upcoming stages do you happen to know Stephanie when the next CRC meeting that we'll be reviewing the solar bylaw I think it's on the 26th on okay so next next week next week oh oh yeah I do have one sitting there in my calendar for next week yes I had one for last night but it that there wasn't one last night there wasn't so last night was the one they skipped so they had one on the they moved it up and they had one on the 12th they SK skipped the one that was supposed to be last night because there was supposed to be one last night okay and then they um yeah and then they scheduled the next one for November 26 and I think the University Drive overlay District agenda item is going to be December 3rd okay yeah the other thing is that one of the things that's happened since the last meeting I you said was on the 12th I think is that we now have a climate bill that actually passed and large sections of that are devoted to issues around solar sighting for example so I don't know the details but um I was going to bring that up later in the member updates or in the regional stuff um so yeah I had the same thought to to bring that up and I don't know when laori you want to have that discussed um um well we can talk about that piece of it now if you have information about it um just wait till later and talk that in general I I don't but I'm going to give myself the homework assignment to try to learn more about it particularly in regards to solar sighting and how the state law might support or conflict with the trend that ammer is developing in the Solar bylaw do you want to put this on as an agenda item for I mean I know that you have the solar bylaw review but this seems more specific to The Climate Bill yes yeah that could be an genda item a review of the climate Bill and its implications for local energy for next time yeah hopefully I can get to it for next time okay well I'll put it in and you do what you can we'll try okay yeah and I believe that they're um separate from this bill the state is also updating the smart program which is solar incentives for um solar PV installation mostly rooftop I believe but I think it's all different sizes and I don't know the status of that either um I if if too bad we don't have Dwayne still he would be the one that would would know but oh but he's happily ignoring all of that now and probably um I don't know if I'll get to doing both of those but I'll I'll at least tried to look into the state law that passed that the governor signed just a couple of days ago I think um and see what I can find for implications for ammer on that I'm not even sure who's at the clean energy extension now who would know answers to that there was um River strong was that the name yep one person there but I don't know who else is still there or might know oh okay but that would be someone to ask too they would be keeping track of that I would think yeah Mar I think Zara might still be there okay I hope so I can always write an email to Dwayne and just say hey do you know of any sources that summarize the state Bill and um you he might have some information that there was I got sent a um there is a summary out of Senator Browns what's his name oh uh Senator brownsberger office put a summary out that uh well didn't go into specifics though you know it was it was pretty long summary but it wasn't nearly specific enough I think it might require actually digging into the bill I I I'll send a link for that to everyone later yeah if you could do that and if anybody else sees even news stories that summarize the bill if um you could share those I think that would be helpful um I did try to go through and read the bill this was back I think just before it got passed in the Senate the first chamber and boy these things are not hard to they're not easy to read because it's basically such and such section of the law will be replaced by this paragraph and this word will be substituted so you're getting bits and pieces yeah um but I wonder um does anybody know with when a bill like this passes is there like a legal Redline version that that shows the bill with the old stuff crossed out and the new stuff highlighted is that available typically publicly I I I can tell you that there are annotated laws um of Massachusetts just like there's annotated laws of the federal government how quickly this gets into the annotated laws um Steve I don't know okay but I'm also very very interested in that climate bill so I'll try to read it um um and I've read a lot of bills so maybe I'll be able to make a little bit more sense out of it okay yeah that'd be great yeah and if you do see a source then yes share the link um because I'd like to to try to take a look at it yeah that the the the treat us the volumes would be Mass general laws annotated oh okay but how how uh how soon it gets in there again I I just don't know I mean it's only it's only a week old so right yeah can I put you both down then for that particular item yes yeah do it alphabetically by last [Laughter] name I'll pull the bill and read the bill I promise you can do a reading at our next meeting Don and I'll um I I'm just messaging a few people from work right now that focus on Massachusetts and I'll see if they recommend any good summaries okay that'd be great thanks all right onward education and Outreach we start with h Pace Don anything new no I have nothing new anything new on that front I know that um Lea had I think they might have had a meeting this week I missed it maybe it's next week I've forgotten now where they're going to be this was actually not unrelated I think to Pace hang on a minute let me just find this announcement I don't know if this is Pace or not I probably got it to miss it yesterday dang but they were going to have someone named Bill Waldorf real estate project manager at Valley CDC on rehabilitating the former Northampton nursing home into to 60 all affordable apartments which sure sounds like a pace project to me yeah it sure does but I don't know I missed it I'm sorry um but I can touch base yeah um might be interesting to know what the heck they're doing there yeah remind me is that Darcy's group that's Darcy's group yeah yeah she I know I've got the email um so yeah I'll I'll run that down the renovation of what's the building in Northampton uh hang on I just head it up it's the renovation of I can forward this to you uh it's email well you got it it's I got it I'm sure I got it yeah yeah it's a um blah blah blah blah blah where to go um uh rebuilding the former Northampton nursing home into 60 all affordable apartments and the name is Bill wall W walor Waldorf w m e l d o RF Waldorf okay yeah so that was the um it it it must be something about like that the finance for it because normally something like a a 40b affordable project wouldn't necessarily in and of itself be something that Darcy's group would be interested in so yeah they um well Darcy tries to they try to tap into a lot of different things in the area and um help move them along um any rate uh okay so then there's all right so if we're done with that then there's coordination with local groups T um Tony not really an announcement it's a proposal um I've spoken with the administrative staff of elevate on um at UMass um about doing some kind of a workshop like a single day workshop SL joint event in the spring I've actually also received funding from oiee on campus um for about $800 to put towards the um functioning of this event um so whether we do it today or in the coming weeks it'd be nice to be able to kind of figure out what your schedules look like and also kind of topics for um what we could exchange at the event the event structure as required by the funding source um necessitates both like a workshop and a keynote so also the topic that we decide on will go towards helping me figure out um alongside Elevate the keynote to come and kind of lead the workshop in the event itself that sounds fun um there a couple other things going on on campus that I think people ought to know about um and this is probably the right place to mention them um there's nothing else Tony um no I don't know and I'll mention these two things um Bill McKibben is coming to campus to give the ellsburg lecture in old chapel next Tuesday at 7 o'cl that should be interesting I don't know if you guys know who bill mckibban is he's fantastic um he spoke last year too and he gave a very convincing and um inspiring speech I highly recommend everyone attend he also well embedded in the social side of climate action movements and it's a good way to kind of see what's going on in that sphere yeah it's called this talk is called back uh back to the wall face to the sun where we stand in the climate fight or something like that um and also there's uh Professor ramtin C Shan's talk on decarbonizing electricity systems which is being given uh this Thursday tomorrow from noon to 1 in the gunis center in the engineering quad at UMass and I think everybody's invited to that as well um those talks often have pizza so I don't know if they're going to do that tomorrow or not but it is a lunchtime talk so it wouldn't surprise me um I was going to try to go to that one I'm G to try to go to both of them so there's a lot of stuff on campus that that touches on what eak does do you know if either of those will be recorded I don't know I I'm guessing that bill McKibbon will be because it's an ellsburg lecture it's a big deal I'm not sure about the one on decarbonizing electricity systems um I can send links again I I can send links around to the group afterwards um or I can put this in a page to make part of a packet or something but um it's easy enough to Google them too just be careful when you Google McKibben that you're not looking at last year's talk there's often no year on the web page and you have to figure out that it's was last year's talk all right so other than that back to heat pumps um I'm more interested in hearing where the heat pump program is and anything else I've had a whole bunch of interesting things happen with neighbors again coming to me and asking about the amoris program and asking generally about teat pumps um it's nice to see my neighbors making changes the person who got the geothermal system that whole thing is coming online about now um so that's it's it's exciting to see so maybe I should just turn this one over to Stephanie if you want to do your update on that now rather than later um either or if you want to hear about it now I'm happy to i' love to hear about it what's going on with the heat pump program yeah so um I have been having regular meetings with C they've just been really slowly trying to develop it and flush it out so that you know they have a full um you know well planned laid out program so that it's kind of efficient once it hits the ground running um they should have the final draft of that planned probably by the end of uh December hopefully mid December but mid to the end of December um and then the uh Next Step would be to launch the pilot so thank you Lori for the few folks that you've sent forward um I know one person was a uh in a condominium and I don't think I had actual contact for that person so I forwarded it you know so I don't know what they're going to do with that but Lori if you have um Sam's contact info if you could get that to me that would be great so I it to them sorry I didn't have that um that's okay I I hadn't reached out to you yet because I think they're still they're not ready to contact him anyway but if you can get that to me that would be great yeah and I have a couple more neighbors who might be interested too who I haven't had time to follow up with one of them wanted to ask me some questions first and I just I've been overwhelmed the last couple weeks yep I don't know how many they'll do so I think if you send them to me they'll probably it would would be nice for them to actually have some options of who to start with um but they're going to be so they'll be launching in the first quarter of 2025 so that's first Pilots will get done right so that it'll launch with the pilots in the first quarter of 2025 and also um the and I've announced this before but the mass save updates uh will be also announced in February so that'll have relevance to the work that they're doing as well so and it will have an impact on our program so hopefully in a good way um good that's what's this so the status with them is that it's just it's it's it is moving they are working on it um it's not that they haven't been doing anything at all they are um it's just going to take some time and um and you know part of it is also because the changes with Mass Save it's going to have implications for this work and you're still looking for more um for more potential pilot folks if if anybody knows anyone who wants to you know serve as a pilot in this um send the name to Stephanie yes um like I said I have a I've been sending it just around my neighborhood and um got four responses um some that didn't quite want to be forward have their names forwarded yet but I I'm still working on them okay yeah I don't know how many like I said I don't know how many they want to start with so um you know I think two to three was a number that they had tossed out before but just if people are interested just send them to me and I'll let them sort of figure out who would be um you know they might want to have sort of a mix of different um you know Heist types and systems and so that might be good if they have options right um yeah good um all right is there any um one neighbor wanted to know something very specific which was they were concerned that um they might fall in a gap where they're not low enough income to get the additional monies from Mass Save um but they are retired on a fixed income and you know had to be very careful about what they did and we wondering if the they heard there might be additional money available through the town is there any ankling yet of how that's going to look are people going to get an extra Grant of so much or an extra you know do they do do folks know what to do we know what to expect yet in the way of financial aid for so I I think yeah so the goal is to actually provide some Financial incentive to people that was the whole Crux of the program you know is to give funding towards you know people um installing heat pumps um I think the the thing that will impact this is if Mass Save is covering 100% for lowincome hous holes um I think we we only touched on this just a little bit and this was more hypothetical not um exactly how the program will work but one of the things to cons we would consider or C would consider with the funding is if there are people in a situation similar to these folks where they don't have access to as many incentives as somebody else might um then they may be more inclined to give a little more towards that household you know I think there'll be sort of a maximum threshold but you know if somebody is getting 100% covered and the cost in the end to them is only $1,000 we're not going to be giving them $3,500 or $2,500 right so you know it's going to be it's going to be appropo to each household's situation and there'll be a Max maximum and then there'll be sort of a you know a range depending on what people have access to so and again this isn't you know it's still being developed but this was what we discussed as a potential approach yeah I get enough questions that I've personally been toying with the idea maybe this is something eak wants to be involved in or not or maybe there's some way I can do something with the c but I've been thinking of just holding a weekly coffee hour on Zoom or at my house for anyone who wants to chat about about how to convert their home um because I do get a lot of request now for people just just wanted to talk about it you know um well I mean you know we did say that there would be you know that there will be uh you know some component of coaching as part of this you know and it's kind of separate from what C is doing yeah so I you know and I in my update I have something else that's relevant to this and I'll just wait until I give my update to elaborate further but all right you know just say I think there's going to be some opportunities to do just that kind of thing and it would be nice to get some residents who might be interested y all right okay good um going on from there climate resilience schools I don't really have anything to add there so we can move on to advisory and support report if there's nothing else so long education Outreach anyone wants to bring up okay and back to the rental building efficiency bylaw anything new on there should that stay on the agenda what are we waiting for there the only minor thing was the group had a meeting the AE something something something something this is a network of community people many of the Municipal Employees had a meeting last week it was just an introductory meeting and they're scheduling meetings once a month for the next couple of months to help share ideas on how communities and municipalities can help help with rental um Energy Efficiency improvements and Stephanie you were there at that meeting as well um I got there a little bit late but it seemed like mostly an introduction in organization meeting it was yep it was very general so hopefully more to come on that as that gets going yeah I'm really interested in hearing how that goes and what comes out of that so thank you um draft solar bylaw we already sort of talked about that is there anything more to add there Steve no nothing more um transportation so that do that doesn't need to be on the agenda twice um Stephanie why don't we did we decide to take that off at the top of the agenda there for now yeah well I think last meeting you had asked about sort of taking it out but you always want to leave these items in so it was just a you wanted it as a separate item for discussion which is why I pulled out before right right if we pull it out there though we probably should take it out of the advisory and support one or the other doesn't really matter to me it's important enough that maybe it should be its own thing um well you tell me where you want to keep it and we we don't have to decide that right now we can later sure later um so Transportation Tony anything new there nothing local well not completely local one thing is that the I think it's the all of Mass DOT does like a name of snow snowplow competition that is active so that's kind of fun I thought that was cute um and also on the mk. website the P there's a public participation plan that is open for public comments I believe in this plan they also kind of address the the transition to cleaner energy sources um so if you guys have time and comments after reading through that that also be a good and I think that's all I had want to send that link along too that sounds like there's a link yes there is I can send that in the chat question you can't you just send it to Stephanie and she'll distribute it sounds good I'll send the link for both by the way the contest and the great great uh okay Transportation okay Regional anything okay Regional and state policy update so I have a few things there um mostly I wanted to mention that climate bill um if I can get this thing to open there we go the summary on will brownsberger state senator's website um I'll just talk about some of the things that it touches on Expediting sighting and permitting uh protecting residents from high costs uh by pairing rates for low and middle income consumers um building out electric vehicle infrastructure is addressed um something that I find a little puzzling but Fusion Energy and battery storage they want to make sure that Massachusetts is the very first n place in the St nation that uses Fusion Energy when it becomes available don't hold your breath this will not be how we solve the energy problem the energy transition problem offshore one to support the growing offshore wind industry um Advanced metering infrastructure this is exciting as Demand on local grid increases with the adoption of electric vehicles and heat pumps Advanced metering infrastructure includes Smart Meters communication networks and data management systems that would be great especially if it goes along with rates that change with demand that would be very cool um solar energy bill establishes new policies to facilitate the deployment of solar energy through updates to Historic District laws providing policy recommendations through a solar canopy working group and requiring dpu to explore expanding access to net crediting that should be interesting also expands affordability and access for lwi income customers in the Solar Massachusetts renewable Target smart program and authorizes the transfer of smart solar credits to customers in any electric utility territory dcard ionizing buildings is addressed um supporting lean technology and Innovation leading by example so those are the things he mentions there are some things that I know he left out um particular just find this oh there's a three-page executive summary as well maybe I should send that too but um where's the thing that was left out oh well I can't find it right now somebody commented on this oh there there it is summary this is an important piece of the bill addressing embodied carbon it establishes an embodied carbon intergovernmental coordinating Council that must develop an embodied carbon reduction plan by the 31st of July next year has to address embodied carbon state buildings and transportation projects Etc I won't read all of these but thought that was another interesting thing and I seem to recall there was also something in it somewhere about uh protecting workers in the gas industry by expanding on that Framingham pilot I think it was Framingham where they were converting uh gas lines into heat lines right doing uh Network geothermal heating um which would be cool so there's there was something about that in there too I think uh anyy anyway that's the that's what I wanted to mention there there are some other larger scale things that I just want to let people know about of course all of the various cops are happening in the last few weeks um and uh mostly as usual the news is bad but the biodiversity meeting that happened I think in Columbia um saw an interesting promise for the first time ever by leaders from the World Bank and the IMF and various large foundations to stop investing in subsidizing fossil fuels and to redirect those funds to Environmental Conservation efforts so that's huge and it didn't make any of the standard press I only know about it because my partner Glenn is a is a editor for Monga Bay um and they were jumping up and down about that there was a lot of excitement about that of course to counter that there had been a lot of excitement about the Plastics treaty that it almost looked like we were going to sign and that yesterday uh Biden pulled out of so apparently that was a stunt in an effort to try to get to help uh Harris get elected and they just pulled out of it so that was extremely disappointing um yesterday there was finally going to be a plastic streaty and now there isn't so on the larger and then finally there was an announcement that I thought people should know about from ever's Source I don't know if this is Brookshire gas and everyone I don't quite know how this works but the price of gas from ever source is increasing 27% this winter which I think is a pretty big hike um and that's sort of been expected now for a while that these prices would start going going up um so maybe that's the beginning of of increases in the natural gas methane natural gas Lori that was the price of gas for consumers or for heating for heating okay for heating if you heat with gas your heating bill is going to go up 27% this winter so did they list specific reasons or did they just say uh let's see that I think that's you know they have to go through a process where they an increase and so it's got to be related to they got to be they got to get it pro like or proed yeah yeah and I think if it's if it's eversource it's probably all of them but I I tried to figure that out just before the meeting and um but you know this has been expected for a while this is related to the to something we mentioned last time which is you know as we all go off of gas and convert to um to uh heat pumps um especially if a lot of people are converting to hybrid systems which they are the peak demand for gas in the middle of winter and the coldest days doesn't change much because people are still using gas on the coldest days but the rest of the year they're hardly using it at all if at all so the infrastructure still has to be be there but the amount of gas being sold goes way down so the price has to go up so it doesn't surprise me but um it does make getting heat pumps you know cold weather cold what is it called um you know cold weather heat pumps gives an advantage to that people are going to want to convert if electricity ends up being cheaper than right now the problem is that that you know heating with meth is cheaper than heating with a heat pump in our region but that's not going to be the case for long [Music] um all right so those are my regional things that have been going past my desk in the last bunch of days anyone have anything else to add staff updates Stephanie I think we're that brings us the staff updates yep uh it's been very very very very busy um so I can't remember the last time I spoke to you at the last meeting if we had already submitted our eecbg grant funding request which was for the purchase of the electric truck for the facilities department so that's been submitted I haven't heard anything back from that yet uh went from that to then having to submit the green community's annual report um there was a bunch of data that was um missing from a couple of years we had some staff changes and so some of the data hadn't been compiled um so that when I entered data I was missing some so I I actually was able to get that data so I updated um that information into mass energy Insight um so this last year in FY 24 I think last time I had reported out to you last year it looked like like we had met our 20% reduction goal so unfortunately with the updates we didn't however um we've progressively gone down each year with all of those updates uh We've progressively been um decreasing our energy usage and so we're down 15% below Baseline which is actually really good um and that's as far as I know that's like with the complete data set so that was really good news actually um so I was happy to to do that um the next thing I'm working on currently before you go on related to that um something I forgot to mention so faculty some faculty lately have been worried that umf seems to have been ignoring its climate goals that were put together under the previous administration and apparently according to one of my students who is involved in student government uh that was pretty much made official last week when one of the um she couldn't she didn't remember who it was but it was it was um somebody in the in the administration at UMass said that they are not going to try they had a goal to get to carbon neutrality by 20132 I think and they are not going to make that they're just not even going to try so um yeah there's well luckily our goal is 2050 yes 2050 we can so we still have some time um yeah I mean it's you know honestly as we all know this is not easy this is you know this is a hard thing to do um and for a lot of reasons so you know I try to just maintain a positive outlook and just keep plugging forward as best I can with what we're trying to do celebrate the successes that we can when we have them and I think we've had them I think we are for me doing this work over the time frame that I've been doing it we are so much further along than we were you know back in 2000 so I I am very thankful to all of you and all the work that you do and I am very thankful to sort of the shift in the mindset and the focus on this these efforts so I think we're in a good place I mean globally you know we are where we are globally but at least in amorist I think we can feel good about what we're doing Y no you know there's that so I that so getting back to the green communities report you know again we're 15 % below our Baseline of 2011 um energy usage and that's good that's actually good I know it's been a long time but that's still good some communities actually increased their energy usage so the fact that we're 15% below is pretty significant that's really great um um so part of the green communities report too I feel like we're seeing a lot more transition to either hybrid or all electric vehicles the police department just got four hybrid Cruisers which is really exciting and they they are intending to eventually uh convert to all electric you know they've talked to me about installing um EV charging and so I worked with the facilities manager and I am going to with sustainability funding um order two single port EV Chargers to go behind the police department so it's you know again we're we're moving in a Direction so I mean to me that's super exciting so I'm really happy about that um another thing that I very last minute wasn't planning on doing but got um encouraged to do was to apply for the Mass Save Community Partnership energy Advocate funding initiative and so I did pull it together managed to pull it together I haven't heard from them but um The Hope is that we will get an energy Advocate or we'll get so we'll get funding for an energy Advocate what we outlined we could get someone full-time but what we outlined because I think it's more realistic is someone to be 24 hours per week um and it it's a three-year funding period so this is a position with benefits so I'm really hopeful that we can you know find someone well I'm hopeful that we get the funding to create the position and then when we do if we do um that we can then find someone you know I think it's a really great opportunity part of what I wrote and this is what I wanted to elaborate more on when I was talking about the heat pump program earlier is that because this is a mass Safe program and this energy Advocate would be the one sort of doing more direct Outreach to community members it's a really nice partnership and collaboration and fit with the heat pump program so what I proposed in that proposal uh was to get community volunteers to work with the energy advocate so the energy Advocate could oversee the volunteer group but again you know this is about the mass safe program so it's not just about heat pumps but they're so interrelated yep they can really work you know off of each other so I think we have a good shot because we do have this program and because I mean they really I felt like they were really pursuing ammer to submit an application so I think they will consider it favorably so I'm really hopeful because I think that'll really be a great initiative working together so again I built in volunteers already had um a retired you uh amorist High School environmental science instructor who said he was interested in helping out I told him about the ecac but I think he wanted to do something a little more direct so I mentioned this energy Advocate opportunity and he would be interested in assisting and helping out an energy advocate so he might be like the first volunteer who's a very qualified and capable individual to sort of be part of that initiative so I'm just hoping this will kind of gather some momentum and we can get some really solid people to sort of participate in that so that's moving forward um the other thing do you have questions Lori yeah so just a comment that is the model that a lot of other other communities that have heat pump coach pro uh programs use right have somebody's working with the town and who oversees it so go ahead sorry I'm I'm excited about that that's great yeah yeah so I would be you know I would basically be supervising that effort I'd be the direct you know supervisor so you know they'd be working with me and you know and um I'd still be maintaining my collaboration with C but I'd be able to Le on the two efforts so yeah it's really exciting I'm I'm really um hopeful about that um other things is I there's just so much going on um it's like going from one report or application period to another this one right now is for the commun community uh climate leader Community program through Mass doer which is sort of like green communities 2.0 um so we have a lot of the requirements to apply for that designation under our belt the two things that we don't have are the adoption of a zero emission vehicle first policy and a decarbonization plan so as I told you months ago we did receive technical assistance to develop the decarbonization plan I only received it last week I apologize because I honestly don't know that I'm going to be able to get it before all of you and I think you're going to have to trust me um because I have to get it before the Town Council the application is due December 31st I only just got the you know this draft last week and they're going to make updates to it again so I'm still trying to juggle and you know fly with One Wing I feel like so um working on that decarbonization plan it also has to go before the school committee which that kind of um I knew about the fleet vehicle policy but I wasn't aware the decarbonization plan has to go before the school committee too so I've managed at least to reach out to the school committee chair Sarah Marshall um I think she said the meeting date was I think it's December December 17th or 19th I'm sorry I can't remember which um but I'm going to have to appear before them and I would really love some of you to um be able to come and support that presentation and and that initiative and I'll I'll give you more information as I as we go forward um but again I'm so I'm I'm working on that I think I'll be able to get it I'm hoping to get it done sooner than later certainly by early next week at the absolute latest because that decarbonization plan has to go into both the school committee packet and the town council's packet Town Council is going to be considering at their December 2nd meeting but they do have another meeting in December so that if it gets referred or it has to go um you know it it doesn't get voted on at the first meeting in December potentially it could get voted on at the next meeting in December so two documents the zero emission vehicle Fleet uh uh vehicle first policy and the decarbonization plan for both the Town Council and the school committee so um I did work on the Zero emission vehicle first policy we already have a green Fleet policy that was required to ad we were required to do adopt that to become a green Community initially um and so I basically just took that existing policy and updated it I don't know I mean it's a new name change and it's got significantly different guidelines But ultimately I think it's still the same idea so I'm not sure if they'll consider it an updated policy revised policy or if it's going to have to be like a whole new policy so I've just kind of put it out there and I don't know how it's going to be taken I think revising it is going to be easier than adopting a whole new policy so we'll see um I don't have any more information about that at this point so uh those are all the things going on um yeah I feel like honestly I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my fence right now if we can be of any help let us right if there's anything you need help with if I I appreciate that it's just like at this point it's just like I just have to get it done and I don't know that there's anything that I could like give you to do it's really I just have to do it you know so um so I mean if I had a staff person you know that would be helpful that I could just give you know this thing and say here run with this um so anyway I just it'll get done I'm I know I'm going to get it done you know the they already both the school committee and the town manager have the vehicle policy so at least that piece is done and I know that's already you know probably going to start getting looked at um the the uh decarbonization plan you know is going to take me a little bit longer but I should get it done like I said at the beginning of next week and get it out to to both groups and I will forward them um both to you uh as soon as I finish the plan I don't want to do one at a time I'm just going to get them both to you at the same time that's fine that's fine that is really exciting Stephanie and I think your plan is fine and like I say if there's anything we can do to help um you know let us let us know otherwise we'll stand back and yeah thanks well thank you and I um and and thanks for your trust that I'm doing you a solid so yeah yeah um cool so if that's it is there anything else um in the way of updates Stephanie if not we have items for the next agenda which I think we've been doing as we've gone along here right um and I think you can you know you can keep this as part of Staff updates from next time I don't think we need to add anything at this point anything else for the next agenda that we haven't touched on already I don't think this is necessarily for the next agenda because I don't know the timing but at some point we'll have some more information on what impacts the election will'll have on the inflation reduction act funding um and what that means for some of the work we're doing um it seems like so we may want to think about what we may just want to put that as a placeholder for some Future Point um I'm dreading that it's likely that there will be some I mean the the pulse that we're getting is that it's not going to be a full repeal but there may be some surgical cuts um although on on the other hand i' I've heard from folks that because there is a trifecta like the pay for requirement may be less needed and so maybe they won't do as much Cuts as we thought they would um meaning that they could still do their tax cuts they want to do without finding ways to save money elsewhere um but but money that's already in hand at the state level is is going to be hard for them to scrape back so and even at the agency level within the government and so there may be a push to get that money out as fast as possible so we should just keep an eye on that um to the extent that it may be useful as we think about different projects in town things of that nature um there is a question about whether the direct pay will stay and that's the thing that gives non taxpaying entities the direct tax credits versus having to go through a third party I can imagine that there's enough non- taxpaying entities that are also on the conservative side that may still want that as well that maybe that could stay um but time will tell so anyway I'll keep a pause on what I hear from work stuff and maybe we could get somebody to come in and speak to us about on the Massachusetts side what they're thinking is going to happen um at some point thanks flura Stephanie yeah just to um what you were saying Laura my understanding is that a lot of the funding has gone to actually Republican states um so which is why there's kind of a you know um a desire to maybe not cut as much of this as we may fear so I know that that's um something that I've heard um and then there was some something else oh the other thing I was going to ask you Laura is if your agency um is doing anything about preserving some data because the last time in 2016 uh there was Federal climate data that disappeared like whole databases were no longer accessible to folks and so I'm just wondering if you are I or you or other group groups that your organization may know are are doing what they can to preserve some of that information yeah that's a good question I mean series doesn't have that data but um I am actually talking to someone from the EPA tomorrow so I can ask I'm assuming they'll do the same thing they did last time um but um yeah that's a good question and yeah a lot of the IRA funding has gone to Red States and has gone to support manufacturing and job growth gr um so if that is the goal of this Administration it would be a little bit silly to cut that those sources of funding um so we'll see um but that's certainly the message we're trying to get across and we're trying to Advocate with staffers you know Republican staffers um and get business importantly get business voices in those communities in those states to speak to their politicians and say that they want to continue you know they've been making plans a steel plant's making a plan to update because they're supposed to be getting millions of dollars and they don't it's not in the business's best interest for them for us to be flip-flopping on that stuff so I'm cautiously optimistic that some things will remain yeah yep okay so with that and without any public comment I think we can adjourn any other I think is there a move to adjourn I'll move to adjourn oh wait thank you Steve so a second I'll second it all right on without any without any what's the what's the right word further Ado do voting all right see you all in two weeks all right have a nice holiday everybody have a good holiday have a good break y have a good break by