##VIDEO ID:owRWk4v3Tpw## and we are now recording okay hello this is the uh July 31st meeting of the Amis energy and climate action committee which was organized to guide the town in meeting its climate mitigation and resilience goals um those goals and the plan for getting there were adopted from the climate action adaptation and resilience plan or the carp which was accepted by the Town Council in 2021 um it uses 2016 as a base year and calls for a 25% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025 and 50% by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050 so this committee has two primary functions one is to advise the Town Council and recommend or propose policies or actions that'll help us meet the goals and two to promote a just Equitable and Speedy climate response through Outreach and engagement of town and local stakeholders so with that in mind we will start with today's agenda the first Unwritten rule of which is to find a notetaker and I think Steve on yep yeah it looks like it the names got rearranged in the order but um oops I'm it's okay I'm ready okay thank you I'm on it um and then the first official thing on the agenda then is to review the minutes um I have them queued up if you want me to share yeah why you and put them up if you have them yep did look over them I didn't see anything that needed changing myself but why don't you go ahead and scroll through maybe make it a little bigger yeah I saw the press release for the CCA yay I think I saw something about Valley Bike too in The Gazette you did yes you did all right and with that anyone want to move that we accept the minutes that we accept the minutes yeah we need a motion that we accept them sorry a motion that we accept them yeah a motion in a second I can second okay now we have them okay so Laura I didn't hear what you said I guess you you moved and Tony seconded correct all right good yes so um we need uh don we will need you to be on camera for your official vote so in no particular order goldner yes Mikel reth yes ising Epstein rof yes drer yes Allison yes thank you so much minutes are approved okay the next agenda item is public comment but I don't see that we have any public here um so I think we should go on to education and Outreach um so the first item on that agenda is always Pace Don any any more news on Pace or Stephanie no there is no update on the PACE program okay um coordination with local groups Tony anything new no updates um I don't have anything new for heat pumps I think unless Stephanie does a little bit um just to say this could have been a stop update but I'll give it to you now um just that we uh have approved the the town manager today actually approved of the price proposal um we had received a revised price proposal and so we went with the original um and we have gotten in touch with the consultant and we are hoping to get a contract together and executed I'm really hoping by the end of next week at the latest is my fingers crossed hope um so that we can move forward but we cannot still can't announce who it is until we have a fully executed contract so my apologies for keeping you all in suspense okay looking forward to that same I'm tired of not being able to say who it is so y y sorry um I have a small if there's nothing else on heat pumps I've been on vacation so I haven't done anything else um with that uh I did have a small update on climate resilient schools just that I posted a link they haven't been active I checked the slack Channel and there's been nothing since May um probably since the end of the school year I guess my guess is they're just not doing much over the summer but I posted a link to the mass CC Green School works that Laura brought to our attention last time and I just did that a couple hours ago I've only this is my first day back from vacation so I just did it um not even like an hour ago um so uh I haven't heard back yet but at least they have that link now and perhaps somebody there will follow up on that if not I will PR them a little bit keep an eye on that channel every now and then and PR them a little bit um that's all I got it's been a slow couple of weeks so I did a lot of bicycling in the heat heat so pumping in the heat but no heat pumps um so going on from there uh you know what I'm not on the right page hold on a minute there we are now I'm on the right page uh going on from there um Steve anything more on the building rental building efficiency bylaw or on no updates okay or on solar also no there either I don't have I'm sorry not to interrupt I have something on the rental bylaw I think there was a question you're gonna have to give me a minute to just get on to my right right there was yep uh about regarding when I think or what was going to happen to the data and the information so you're gonna have to give me a minute hold on yes thank you for remembering that Stephanie actually if you want to go forward and then come back to me I'll I'll give you that information uh was there anything on solar Steve no I haven't been able to attend the CRC meetings in the last couple weeks so I don't know what the status is I suspect they're still slogging through trying to prepare a draft to bring back to the Town Council Stephanie may have more updates when she gets caught up okay yeah I do Transportation Tony anything else no updates okay Regional and state policy I have a little bit I um wrote I called this morning Mindy dome's office to find out what was going on with climate bill which was last I knew in committee being resolved between the House and Senate I got a urgent email this morning from rewiring America of all places uh asking us to call our Representatives so I called Mindy to find out what was going on and it was still in committee Mindy D of course supports it um but the problem is this is supposed to be the last day of the session and as far as I know it hasn't been um hasn't been what is it called when they work to resolve differences uh the conference committee hasn't come to a conclusion yet right so that's really bad and I gather from the rewiring America uh note that it's the chair of the house in Massachusetts who might be holding it up because the request was uh to ask us to let me get this right um if anyone else wants to do this the last minute maybe they're not maybe they'll move make the session last a little longer but this is a little scary if they don't pass anything um Jeffrey Roy please tell chairman Jeffrey Roy that Massachusetts residents are calling for a climate Bill to be passed before the end of the legislative session so that's supposed to be today and I don't know about you guys but I'm finding it much more difficult to figure out where a bill is and what's going on in Massachusetts than it is federally federally it's very easy to look up bills and know exactly what the status is in Massachusetts unless I get an email I have no clue or call my representative and ask so it might be a good idea this is a request for you know anyone who's interested to call M call your representative I assume we're all Mindy dome right it's amoris is Mindy Dome just call her and ask again to get uh chairman Jeff Roy to get that bill passed before the end of the legislative session so I don't know what the I don't know maybe it's out of conference into the house and they're just waiting to vote on it I just I don't know what the status is um but that was the request we got from rewiring America this morning actually that was yesterday end of the day yesterday um that's my only update so back to are you ready yet Stephanie to sure go ahead yep so um so I had reached out to um sorry Rob Mora and um oh I just had it and I just there it is um so my question you know to him was do we have you know do we know where the data will live um and that the inspectors will be gathering from their inspections and his response was we haven't figured that all out yet but I know we'll be using open open gov in some capacity to track inspections the intent is to have inspection reports available for public access and viewing which I expect will include the data collected during inspection we'll be building the inspection program this fallwinter so I would expect that you know starting in Winter I would anticipate it won't be before January if not even a little later that information will start being made available so it sounds like it's going to be in the individual data uh inspection reports and not in a spreadsheet somewhere which means that we're going to need another intern to go through and inventory look at all of the um reports and make some sort of a database for us right well there may be I mean there may be ways where we could access that with our internal um permitting apps so I I don't know that that's absolutely true Lori so you know we'll figure that out when they start right and I had meant to play with the Zillow search and I just completely forgot well also didn't I was on vacation so I didn't do anything I just bicycled um I will put that on my du list again for this week to see if I can if there's some way to slurp data off of Zillow in a way that makes it easy to figure out what the heating source is for some of the larger um for some of the rental units that have you know multiple housing units in them all right um uh Network geothermal I think we're probably done with that for the while but is there anything any more updates on that Laura oh wait sorry go ahead Steve I'm just going to ask if Stephanie had any updates on solar on this the CRC process yeah so at the last meeting they I think they touched on it at the end but neither Chris breast nor I were in attendance um they from my understanding they weren't going to talk about it at all and then they ended up touching base at the end and I think the chair requested that members um submit questions for staff uh or just question in general about the solar bylaw for discussion at the next meeting so my understanding is that the next meeting they're going to be entertaining questions that members have regarding the current draft but you know the but staff don't believe that it's even in a full draft form yet it seems like there's still a lot that needs to be addressed with what they did because they had some qu they had questions actually even on the the current draft and where some items belonged and some items that they wanted to flush out so I'm not really sure what the point of the questions were at this at this stage but I think we'll you know that'll that'll maybe be discussed at the next meeting so I'm hoping that we can sort of get them to focus on getting a full draft together so that it can be distributed it's just not there yet okay and um next there's nothing else on a through D we're at e which is Network geothermal I think we sort of dotted the eyes and crossed the te's on that one there's nothing more to be done on that at this point right because there's not another open competition right I think yeah I don't think there's anything I think it's to learn from oh no we talked about last time we we noted that Deerfield was one of the no that was something different Dearfield got something got a grant oh they did no they got the grant for a scoping study on network geothermal so I think um Stephanie was going to reach out to them and see if she can get any intel on what they're doing or how it's going um I don't think we need to keep it on the agenda per se but I think that would be the next step to learn what they're doing and then keep an eye out for future opportunities I did not follow up okay I haven't had a chance so but I will yeah I'm assuming they just recently got it so I don't know that there's much information yet but that's something just to leave on our list let's leave it on um a couple more weeks until we find out a little bit more about Deerfield we'll leave it as Network geothermal Deerfield right and so we just just to learn about what they're doing um and then maybe take it off uh the agenda for a while after that in that same vein I think um we're going to get step updates later but I think we probably need to put on the education Outreach to CCA um that's something we need to start talking about on a regular basis right now that it's there yeah I'll have more information I mean uh that's going to be coming up education and Outreach there's a specific plan that was put together and submitted as part of the application and it's not quite as simple as just I mean it is on some level going out there but you know we have to make sure that the information that's being um submitted to the public and shared with the public is you know consistent with what dpu approves um you know it has to be presented with specific information so um we'd want to make sure anything that goes out our consultant wants a copy of and they want to review it before it goes out to the public so it's not a simple matter of ecac can just do their own thing you need to actually work very closely with me so that I can work closely with a consultant but there's lots to do and there's lots of opportunity so we have materials they'll they'll actually the consultant will provide us with materials so I think you know that's um you know that's how we'll sort of approach that yeah and if they want to use this time to maybe talk to folks about about the CCA maybe we can let them do a webinar right as we've done in the past absolutely that this would be a great um opportunity for that there's going to we have to do a large scale public um Outreach effort um information session with all three communities we're going to be doing a a big one and then each Community is probably going to do more of their own so this would be great to have an opportunity to do our own right excuse me okay um I think if um the fellow isn't here yet it's quite early I think think what we should do let's see oh the community climate Workshop that's right we're going to have a um let's move on to uh number six while we're waiting for the um presentation on the fleet vehicle inventory so don asked that we do that at the next meeting he wasn't quite prepared for this one something came up with work so he's with us but he's not able to actually give any kind of a presentation tonight on so he'll do it at the next meeting yes okay all right um in that case we're at the Town manager goals discussion and I admit having done absolutely nothing with that because I was again on vacation um I had many many days on a bicycle just listening to music and pedaling um so let's just think about it a little bit and start the discussion I want to see if I can find last year's um report uh which I think I might reinvent because I wasn't crazy over the format I thought it was a bit hard to get through but I would like to ask I mean one of the easiest things for everyone to do is to maybe from your own perspective and the things that you were working on this last year like for example Tony you know interaction with other local groups um and you know Steve the solar bylaw um maybe write a you know just a paragraph or two um on what you have accomplished and what you see as what we need right what's needed next what do we need from the town what do we need from the town manager next um keeping in mind these two categories of uh you know advice and and policy versus Outreach um and education where you think that opportunities are for the town to step in um and for what we might do right so Stephanie did you have your hand up was there a okay let me see if I can find I know I have it here somewhere let me just look for it report annual report I just saw it Ann report final and there's also a synopsis which is here both of them so I this is Michael I wasn't here last time where we were talking about town manager goals and reports can can someone give just a quick background of the kind of purpose like um and kind of what I guess maybe sharing the report is probably the best thing uh yep okay just kind of catch me up real quick on this right I can share uh last year's report and I will also share the synopsis which is only a three pages so why don't I just put it up so um the report itself is is rather long um but let me share this hang on a minute where's the share thing there it is I want to share annual report synopsis this was a synopsis that I gave to the Town Council and I think this is the final version I hope it is uh let me make it a little bit bigger this out of the way come on here we go edit VI I do that and then make it a little bigger come on all right uh so last year um vasu had sort of divided us into five different uh and this was to some extent based on the carp if I remember right different uh areas that we were working in one was Regional and state policies building energy solar power transportation and pace and so he wrote a little report summarizing each of these areas and this was a summary that I gave after he moved on um and I became chair I took his report and summarized it and gave a little showed up at a town council meeting and gave a little report um and it was mostly just a for the first part of it was a recap of everything that had been done uh that we got the Zero Energy Municipal Building bylaw um we had done that many years earlier and we're then looking for uh at the point we were looking for us to be adopters of the new specialized code which which happened um so we advocated for amoris to join at then 19 communities who were adapt adopters of the new specialized code building code um in heat pumps we talked pretty much about the same sort of thing we were talking about now except we also did a couple of we last year we did a lot of um webinars I think we did something like five webinars in all uh and a couple of them were on heat pumps so we talked about that we talked about solar power the last year was when the long planned solar landfill project finally went online yay there was a lot of lot of exciting news in that front um and I think the solar bylaw was still very very early in the discussion stages at this point oh there it was s yeah the town created right that was underway in transportation we had hosted a webinar on electric vehicles um and we had uh members engaging with the transportation something committee Transportation what's the a I don't remember what it stands for um but this is advisory committee I advisory committee um or something reminding of the carp and just interacting with them as I think Tony is still doing right which is great um and there was also the installation of fast charging systems the reestablishment of the ebike network which is finally coming to fruition now and then uh Pace was just at that point and still is sort of an informational thing this program exists we were waiting at that point for the rules on it to be finalized hopefully this is the year where we'll actually get the word out and maybe you can get a first candidate to use the pace system to update their building um so with all of that in mind and with another further note that we really need to find more ways to get renters involved that was an issue that came up a lot last year um we put together what we hoped would be Town manager goals I don't remember which of these got adopted it got paired down to like a few I think the Town Council in the end right is what works with the town manager to put together goals is that how it works Stephanie well yeah they they work with I mean the town manager goals are really sort of proposed by the town manager with staff input But ultimately those are presented to the Town Council and they basically adopt right those so This Is Us reporting to the Town Council what we think and to the town manager what we think ought to be in his goals and then he goes from that and and you know picks and chooses and makes something that he thinks he can actually get done um so it's it's worth having our input right having him think about it makes him think about what's what's important to us right that we want him to be thinking about um so top of the list was still getting more staff and um still hope that can happen one of these days and maybe ought to stay on the list um we wanted to see the town manager take a more active role in promoting energy efficient retrofits um this new climate Bank uh turned out to be a little bit of a red herring um it came up but it hadn't actually been approved yet it's was sort of it's probably worth looking into again um it came up right at the end of the year as something that I think morah was pushing a a fund basically to uh to a way to fund retrofits and affordable housing and uh other projects um but the amount of money actually dedicated to it was pretty small and I think it was waiting for a bill that I don't think ever happened unless it's in this climate bill so I'm not sure how real this climate bank is but that's something to look into again so just just to clarify for a bit more so it's it's related to the IRA so for some of the money that's coming out of the federal government to be able to access this States had to develop Green Banks ah okay so the green Bank was developed and Massachusetts was one of the first ones to do it when the IR after the IRA was pass like Connecticut and others have had them in for longer um and we were the first ones to tie it to affordable housing to the affordable housing trust I think is where it lives maybe yeah it's in housing it's in Mass housing Mass housing okay so so yeah so I don't know if the IRA fund I haven't followed it since this like I have the IRA funds come through if they started using it or not um I just saw that there was a press release from May from April about it um but so I'm looking I'm on the page now that still pretty much only it has the press release from April 4th 2024 and then it has one additional latest news that says they've actually launched their first consumer loan product and that was April 29th so it was shortly after that oh no it's the same thing it just says that it's there so I don't know what it's actually funding if it's actually funding anything they haven't published it yet it looks like so I I don't know where this thing is they do have something they call an energy saver Home Loan program uh new $ million mission that looks new that looks like it might be under this so there does seem to be um low interest rate second mortgages to provide a variety of energy related Home Improvements no cash down blah blah blah so so there does seem to be at least one program and there are some people to contact now um it's being run by C so it does seem to actually be there so that might be something to look into um that you know we want to bring to their attention maybe we should put that on the agenda for next time just as a uh as a I I'm not sure if that's a policy or an Outreach thing but we should and we should educate ourselves a little bit about it um so maybe it's an education thing for educating ourselves and then eventually other people um so that was one of the goals you know just generally getting getting heat pumps getting folks to start doing the transition there's a lot I don't know about everyone else's neighborhoods but my neighborhood has been talking a lot about the energy transition there was a call recently I got a note from a neighbor asking do you think it'd be worth having a neighborhood meeting where we all uh exchange information on you know what contractors we used and what heat pump system we ended up with and etc etc and I was an enthusiastic yes on that I don't know if it's actually going to happen but there's a lot of Need For more information out there and so uh there were a number of goals that were sort of around um around heat pumps and retrofits generally um in regards to Transportation there were the DC fast charging stations that we were wanting to see installed that were on the way I think that was an easy goal I think that's been done now right um I'll report out okay um the implementation of the CCA and efforts to adopt the specialized code were priorities and those of course have happened and just pointing out there was some concern last year that perhaps the communication between different departments in the town wasn't always so great around sustainability that people were missing opportunities and so we asked for the town manager to be a little more diligent around that and that making sure that he coordinated with Stephanie um about using that climate lens in in every decision so those were the sorts of things we came up with last year and this is just sort of paraphrasing I think there was actually a bulleted list of about 20 goals and I was trying to paraphrase them a little bit here and connect them more directly to the things that eak had been working on higher up in the document do do we know know if since we made these as recommendations to the council do you know if the council adopted any of these to include in the in their Town manager goals I think all that really happens with this is you know the documents that we give them which included this little summary sheet and the report itself go to they hear about it and then it goes to the town manager and I imagine that the town manager then comes comes back with something there's discussion at the meeting I had a lot of questions right I spent a lot of time Fielding questions but I think that's the main thing it's mostly about if they do anything more with it I I didn't hear about it I don't know Stephanie is there sorry oh no I was just gonna say I do have open there's a I do have open the town manager goals for climate action that we can look at um ah go ahead share them okay here see what actually got in there um it's much smaller than what so if I remember correctly we also shared these draft goals with counselors separate from the the annual report but this is the final 2024 goals around climate can everybody read that yes okay and they just summarize some of what you said they're just not but they touch on almost all the areas yeah yeah so I do think we have influence to the extent that we can get our goals draft goals to the council ahead of when they start talking about them which I'm not sure the date is maybe we can ask Rea or someone else yeah yeah I think that's the important thing the other thing is I don't even remember who our liazon is this year but um do you remember her name Stephanie who it's Alicia Walker it's Alicia Walker was it somebody else no I thought it was frea now oh I'm sorry it is fra I apologize he was last year or she was last year he's now yeah right and he has he's copied on I do have him on the list on the distribution list so right he doesn't attend any of the meetings he did say earlier on that he was going to be uh watching the videos but um I I feel like I should probably reach out at some point and at least let him know this is coming and and what you know what to expect and if he has any suggestions for us as well and putting this together and Reporting it out so yeah maybe even just invite him to one meeting coming up and we can talk about it right right so let's put that on the agenda for sometime in uh I think late August or early September with the idea of finishing these things up by the end of September does that work I think last year I reported in October it wasn't until October that I got into the town meeting and at the same time we probably ought to try to get ourselves a slot in the town meeting because as I recall that took a lot of time we had asked for a slot in June and we ended up speaking I ended up speaking in October um so we might we might start working on both of those simultaneously on putting these goals together and then also reserving ourselves a spot to talk about them maybe in early October yeah and just a note too that most committees you know like when they do an annual report um don't present typically don't present to the council they just provide a report so you know you all specifically ask to be you know part of an agenda so that's partly why is because that you're not going to get a whole lot of time and they're gonna yeah squeeze it in AM Mi a million other things that they're doing and not because they don't care but because they just have a lot that they're covering and and it's not standard practice the Committees do this that's why yeah I think it's I do think it's important though um and it gives them a chance to ask questions um keeps us a little better connected so I would like to request that slot again um I mean it's a pain in the neck for me to put together too but uh you know I think it was my feeling was it was worthwhile yeah to be clear I'm not dissuading you I'm only stating because you said it took so long why oh I know it got worked in I just want to be clear for everybody so that people don't think it's y just because they don't care it's just not standard practice that's all I understand so meanwhile if I can please ask everyone um maybe in the next week so I can pull something together for the two weeks from now meeting by next a week from today on Wednesday if you could uh you know if there is something you've been working on in the last year uh maybe write a little note and just summarize a couple of paragraphs what you think the important things were and if you have any requests you know if there's anything you'd like to see added to a goal um definitely stick that in too and I'll try to synthesize something out of that and my own knowledge and maybe a little bit and adding some continuity from last year's report um all right so I think Honey's joined us and honey is here so um I think with that maybe if there's nothing else on Tom manager goals for now we'll have a deeper discussion next time let's go on to um Honey's report so Stephanie you want to do the introductions sure um so it's absolutely my pleasure to introduce honey Gala to the committee members um honey has worked with me for the last eight weeks or so on putting together uh fleet vehicle emissions greenhouse gas inventory uh as well as a timeline for transition and so tonight she's going to give you a summary but she is putting together an actual report that will be submitted at the end of her uh project time period which really extends for at least another week um so I will with that let honey take over and share her screen honey unless you need me to do it um just let me know um and she'll present her thank so much stepanie yeah I don't see the option to share this game if you don't mind doing it sure absolutely just give me one second and I will get that going okay sorry just give me a second okay can you see that okay yes okay I'm G to go to the slide show and hope that I don't lose the screen is this slideshow in our packet no it will be after it's not in yet but it will be it has to be um can you see this as a slideshow or are you still seeing my other like a present mode presenters mode okay um let's see I'm having a hard time with my sharing my screen it sort of goes away so I'm sorry you might have to just see it this way that's fine you could also try display settings at the top see it no oh yeah yep uh there we go all right great perfect okay excellent all right so honey take it away thank you so much San uh hello everyone uh this past summer I've been working on the municipal Fleet greenhouse gas emission and transition timeline for the town uh I am a un un sustainability Institute sustainability fellow uh in this summer I had a pleasure of working with Stephanie on this project uh next slide please for this project the goals were to collect the data on the fuel usage and calculate Municipal Fleet greenhouse gas submission for 2023 there is also a transition timeline to help reduce Municipal Fleet by 2025 uh sorry 2050 zero emission by 2050 and I've also evaluated some of the zero emission vehicle that are currently in the market and the charging infrastructure that will be needed uh for those Vehicles here is the breakdown of the current Fleet emission uh for 2023 and as you can see the fleet emission by Department DPW has one of the highest emission DPW is uh Department of Public works it has about 34% of emissions and Then followed by that is School uh police department and fire department or school is about 24% uh the reason even though the school has less vehicles in DPW it's because of the diesel usage uh same for the police department and the fire department all the other departments have one or less than one emission but they still do contribute to the overall Greenhouse emission uh further down on the right quick question are you looking just at vehic are all these vehicles owned by the town or are there some leased and if so are the owned by the town they are owned by the town okay do we lease Vehicles as well from the for the schools for example uh yes but they they are not included in this uh emission uh they are not included in the calculations all right uh on in the right uh the municipal Fleet GG emission is based on the vehicle type so there are basically two type on-road vehicles and off-road vehicles in onroad there is light duty vehicles and heavy duty Vehicles light duty Vehicles includes uh SUV sedans and the small school Vans and heavy duty vehicle includes the fire trucks sewage trucks and also the school buses for off-road emission is equipments that the town has uh like the construction equipments lawnmowers leaf blowers used by DPW so as you can see heavy duty has the highest of the emission which is about 52% and Then followed by light duty Vehicles which is 44% next slide please why do we have to choose zero V zero emission vehicle convention Vehicles because they have environmental and eon IC benefits environmental benefits are improve air quality reduces greenhouse gas emission and health benefits and economic benefits is lower fuel cost lower maintenance cost Regulatory compliances and government incentives the economic benefits will also vary depending on which vehicle type you choose there are a few different vehicle types are available in the market but some do not uh match with this criteria but some do next slide please uh so what qualifies a zero emission vehicle so as you can see the first one is the conventional vehicle uh these vehicles are uh these vehicles run on diesel and gasoline and have the highest of emission then comes the hybrid uh Vehicles which do use regenerative braking to produce electricity but still run major majorly on fossil f fuel then comes plug-in hybrid plug-in hybrid runs an electric energy until the battery runs out of charging but then switches to fossil fuel the 100% zero emission vehicle are considered one are the battery operated all electric vehicle and hydrogen fuel cell vehicle these have no emission next slide so this is a comparison of what is the difference between the lithium ion battery and the hydrogen fuel cell as you can see the lithium I ion battery uh cars have the lithium ion battery that converts uh the electric current by moving between negative to positive charge there is also an onboard charger that converts the EC electricity to the uh DC power and that helps the electric motor to run the propeller of the car to run and that generates energy and that helps the are moving when it comes to hydrogen fuel cell there is an added fuel tank which is hydrogen gas the hydrogen gas that is stored in the uh in the fuel tank is then transferred to the fuel stack and then that combines with hydrogen and oxygen from the outside to generate electricity which is then transferred to the electric motor which generates the energy for the car to run and there is also a battery stored in in there like how it's in hybrid vehicles that helps with regenerative braking uh electric energy uh hydrogen vehicles are like very po are not very popular these days because the technology is very new these vehicle are still being explored in California but haven't made their way here in New England or Massachusetts the most popular Vehicles zero zero emission vehicle today are electric vehicles the reason hydrogen fuel cell is not much explored is because there are some safety issues and also they are very expensive uh hydrogen Fu uh fuel cell also required a separate charging station uh which uh is an added cost to the vehicle's cost uh next slide please here is the charging infrastructure that is needed for hydrogen fuel cell and electrical vehicle the electrical vehicle you can see the electrical charging these days everywhere like around like even town of amus has about seven of the electrical Port but hydrogen fuel cell uh charging uh hydrogen fuel cell refueling stations haven't been explored much the electrical charging time is 4 to 6 hours on level two and level three is 30 minute to 1 hour but when it comes to hydrogen fuel cell it's only four to 5 minutes even though there are like benefits of of get uh having an hydrogen fuel vehicle than an electric vehicle uh the technology is still new and it's been explored and uh and it's not uh and and the electric vehicle has been with us for decades so we have had made good progress with those vehicle but hydrogen fuel is still new so uh there are safety issues that are uh uh it's it's also expensive to have hydrogen vehicle the refueling also cost about $36 per kilogram which is uh way more than what a which is three times more than what gasoline would cost or even the electric charging would cost due to its due to lack of infrastructure and let lack of techn Technology hasn't been explored yet um next slide please uh this is the charge since electric vehicles are priority for the town for the time being this is uh an example of how much electric electric charging infrastructure the town would need to support these vehicles when it comes to the small sedans and SUVs uh it it needs about 0.6 kilowatt hour per mile but when it comes to heavy duty vehicle like the fire trucks it will need about 3.6 kilowatt per mile so depending on that the charging infrastructure would need to be increased uh than what the town has today uh these are the uh incentives for zero emission vehicle which are currently available uh which are currently available when you purchase an electric vehicle so there are State incentives and federal incent State incentives are up to 7500 for purchase of an all electric vehicle and 5,000 if the electric vehicle is on lease and plug-in hybrids also have some benefits which is 5,000 up to purchase of of a plug-in hybrid vehicle and 3,000 for the lease these incentives have already been used by the town which which uh with the vehicles they have purchased before and and it it would be great to use them in the future as well um there have been Federal funding located to the town and three electric school buses will be uh given to Amherst as a part of a federal funding program which was uh done by Environmental Protection Agency so the town will have three electric school buses uh in the next few months there are also some incentives by Green communities which the town is already a part of next slide these are uh these incentives are specifically designed for the electric vehicle in uh in these are specifically designed for the electric charging infrastructure as you can see there are 60% of cost of level one or level two EV charging stations and up to 50,000 per street address there are uh also grants over 80% of the cost of level two charging stations there are some grants given by the utility companies as well like the town is getting two DC charger by the end of this summer and the utility uh company has provided with like most of its infrastructure cost which has helped the town a lot and then there will be soon two DC Chargers available for public use in by the end of the summer uh this is the vehicle transition timeline that that I have suggested for the town to be on track to reduce uh emission vehicle emission by 2050 if the town is following these transition timeline it will be EAS it it will be like simpler and smooth transition and uh will be able to reach its goal by 2015 for my recommendations and uh for my recommendation one of the recommendation would be if the town is planning to transition its vehicle next year I would recommend if the if there are 10 vehicles to be transitioned at least three of them should be zero V zero emission Vehicles when it comes to light duty Vehicles since the town has the infrastructure currently to support in the next year when it comes to heavy duty vehicles uh one of the another suggestion that I would like to give is to have battery swapping system there are companies which have uh the uh there there are companies which have a battery swapping system which actually works like if if the car's battery died you go there and then they'll just swap the battery which takes 10 to 15 minutes so you don't have to wait like four or five hours for your for your car to charge so I think this is also going to be beneficial spec specifically for heavy duty vehicle which sometimes take overnight to charge like some Vehicles like if they take if the sedans and the SUVs take four to six hours to charge as I mentioned before it takes about 3.6 uh kilowatt per hour per mile for a heavyduty vehicle charge so if they are going to take overnight to charge and it's uh sometimes it's not efficient for the town to have those vehicles in the need of emergency another one would be to plan the in charging infrastructure uh once the once uh the town has decided to buy those vehicle it would be better to plan the the charging infrastructure as I mentioned the heavy duty Vehicles required uh more uh charging time than the light duty Vehicles also to keep an eye for the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle uh in the next five or 10 years the technology is going to be expanding and popular and since the energy crisis is going to come uh like California right now is facing an energy crisis due to its electric uh heavy burden on the electric vehicles that is why they have slowly started to switch on hydrogen fuel cell there are about 59 hydrogen refueling stations but only 40 uh I me sorry and 42 of them are in California so I think uh that they had to M switch to the hydrogen fuel cell and I I'm sure that soon New England and Massachusetts will have to do uh it because there is a lot of pressure to switch to electric vehicles that uh there will be load on the utility companies to provide that much of energy to support those electric vehicles uh also for the equipments currently there are no equipments that are that efficient like the leaf blowers and lawnmowers but definitely there can be like one or two equipments that are that do operate from battery and then the others for the meantime until the technology evolves can operate on gasoline so at least there is like five or 10% of those equipments are uh zero emissions so I think these are my suggestions for the town and I and I really hope that uh the suggestion work and thank you thank you honey that was very informative um and interesting I I have to say I didn't know about battery swapping I didn't realize that was even an option I think it's brilliant I don't know why we're not doing that instead of uh instead of charging stations um seems to me that's that's the obvious right way to go right in the long run if you don't want to have to wait to recharge your car and it sort of mimics what we already do with our little propane outdoor barbecues and you know we yeah definitely yes and it also takes about 10 to 15 minutes for of course the the automobile or the or the vehicle has to be set up for that for it to be easy right um uh yes so there is a certain type of infrastructure that needs to be built but to build that infrastructure is about 10 to 15% cheaper than building a gas station yeah right so it's still a win-win situation uh but the technology uh the there are only few uh companies that are in the market and one of them which is US Bas is in San Francisco yeah interesting I have to say I'm also very skeptical about hydrogen um I just can't get images of the Hindenburg out of my head it's just um and there are other ways to do hydrogen vehicles of course that are not particularly green so um I'm glad we're talking just about hydrogen gas but I still I have been a hydrogen skeptic for some time um but we'll see all right Michael if you have a your hand up yeah well I I need to head out but I just want to say thank you honey for presenting um and and working hard on that on that inventory and kind of starting to create a road map for for the city and for the municipality to to achieve that Transportation goal that that we have so I mean this this is great um yeah I I do have some questions and maybe we somehow can um continue this conversation and we'll continue uh to look into the inventory and such but yeah thank you um for that hard work this summer in putting that together for us if I can jump in real quick Lori um Michael if you have specific questions feel free to send them to me okay yeah yeah no I appreciate it thanks other questions or comments yeah I want to have a look at the slides too because a lot of it went by a little faster than I could follow so um I may have I may have more questions um but it's great know where we are yeah if Stephanie you would like to share my email I would be happy to answer any questions that the group has yeah I if you um questions will have to go through me honey um we just have some certain requirements about how we communicate but just so um members can send me questions and I will work with you honey and to get the responses and get them back to folks would be happy today and Honey's presentation I will send it out following this uh meeting and it will be added to the online packet all right um thank you again honey is there no other questions with that I think we are on to staff updates right okay first of all before honey leaves I just want to say very quickly what a pleasure it's been to work with her um she's just brought such a great energy to the work and um it's just it's been a joy and I'm really going to miss having you around I think we all up here on the mezanine are going to miss miss you honey so thank you for everything you've done and um really looking forward to getting the final report so other than the slide presentation there is actually a final report that you will all receive a copy of when it's completed so thanks so much honey I just wanted to say that publicly thank you it was a pleasure working for the tour it was pleasure working with you stepanie thanks all right okay staff updates so I'm gonna give a quick summary just so it's in staff updates of some of the things we covered already um but I'm just going to go back so it's summarized in one place so first of all um heat pump program we are moving forward with drafting a contract with the provider so we are hoping to get that completed I'm hoping by the end of next week I can't guarantee it because if there's any changes then there's going to be a little bit of back and forth but I'm hoping we don't have to do much of that if any at all so that's moving forward as soon as it's fully executed I'll be able to announce who the provider is and hopefully we will be launching the pro program um I would say you know within a month or two of signing the contract because there are some things that need to be put pulled together before the program is officially launched so I would say September October would be around the time of official launch um the Valley Bike program really exciting um that launch is happening on August 12th there is an event that's happening in Northampton I think I announced it at the last meeting but if I didn't um public is invited uh there will be some of the new bikes from drop Mobility who is our um our con our consultant that we're working with um and they will bring some of their new bikes the the whole system will still be at least at this point is going to be kind of a mix of both um but the the new bikes will slowly be making their way and will be transitioning from any of the wegan bikes to all drop Mobility bikes and infrastructure so again August 12th at palaski Park in Northampton at noon if you're interested um there will be an opportunity to ride them as well and snacks will be provided so um so that's let's see Bike Share heat pumps and then our CCA also a really exciting time for that effort we will be sending um information out about about that program probably within a month or so uh we're just getting sort of finalizing some of the postcards and the notification that needs to go out because all three towns need to ensure that they approve uh what those look like and it also has to be in compliance with dpu requirements of what's being presented to the public so that's going to be happening uh soon as well there will be a large large community information session that will be via zoom and then each Community will be doing some of their own independent individual Outreach as well and I'll be coordinating with you all as we move along with that process so as far as the heat pump program and the CCA I'll be you know I'll be working closely with you all in terms of like you know maybe what's needed and what you all want to do and what fits in with both programs so we can stay on top of that um other than that I think that's pretty much the summary that I have for today okay thanks Stephanie any questions for Stephanie I want to say my daughter has become an enormous um follower or user of bike shares in Washington DC where they have a excellent program that I think might also be drop Mobility um don't remember but they uh she uses their Bike Share bikes to pretty much get everywhere so very inexpensive compared to any other sort of Transportation in in DC well in the fact that there are electric bikes you know makes all the difference yep yep you can get to work and not be a sweaty mess in 100 degree humid heat of Washington in the summer and here now too um eak member updates any other any updates I would like to give an update just to make sure everybody's aware of what is going on with the library project would that be okay please go ahead um so let me try to give like the shortest possible summary um off the top of my head but Tony for your sake this has been a long drawn out process of um potentially updating the Jones Library building um and in 20122 I think we had a um townwide so there's so the way it works for schools in Massachusetts like all of our tax money goes into big pools of money that then School com School commission and the library group I forget what it's called mblc or something um that then they Dole out to different towns on as kind of Grants so like we submit a proposal to get some grant money from the library commission and they decide whether which com which communities to give money to so we've been in the queue with them for several years um you submit a preliminary idea they tell you okay submit a more detailed idea kind of go back and forth it has to have some kind of programming benefit um so this Project's been going on probably for 10 years or more um we finally got to the final stage and the Town Council approved it in 2022 I believe and then there was a petition a a community petition it didn't get quite enough signatures but it was enough signatures that the Town Council put it to a community vote and so we had a community vote on whether we wanted to continue to pursue this project and the community voted 63% in favor of continuing the project the project would expand the Jones Library um and add more programming which I won't touch on because it's not as relevant to our conversation but um the relevant piece is that it would take the library off of natural gas it would make it more efficient it would put it on heat pumps and it would fix some of these there's heat vac there's HVAC plumbing and accessibility issues with the library that we need to fix regardless of whether we do the grant or not um it's not cheap it's about 15 I think it's 15.8 million that the town has committed to this project um and the rest of the money is coming from funding from uh the state that I talked about that's the big big chunk of it plus um some donations and some of the library trustee endowment money um there's been a couple other decision points that happen along the way like the council has to decide to authorize the money um where there's there's still a group of vocal opponents to the project that continue to try to get different to stop it basically um earlier this year we it finally went out for bid um and only one bid came out back and it was really over budget so we had to make the decision about whether to try to rebid it or not um we did decide to rebid it and we have and the town the library commission or the trustees have been making some changes to to the to the project to try to make the cost a little cheaper so when we rebid hopefully we'll get more than one bid and hopefully it won't be so far over budget um there's so they've they've done that project that process and there's two hearings coming up one tonight at 6:30 and one tomorrow at 6:30 so then t one tonight is with the planning board and the one tomorrow is with the Amor historic commission oh maybe tomorrow's not happening but um anyway there's the there's a petition going around to try to get these boards to disagree with the updates again to try to stop the project and one of the things they're saying is that they they've changed the environmental benefits of the project um so that's my very long rended reason of bringing this up with this group because I think it's important for us to be aware of what the actual changes are um so what they they have made no changes to the um use of heat pumps and the removal of natural gas on the project um so that continues to be a important part of the project um and in my opinion that's one of the most important parts like we have an opportunity to not only do make changes to the library that the library staff and the town support but that also gets it off fossil fuels and makes it a more efficient building which is really important to our our climate goals um um it will the new design has removed some of the Cross laminated Timber from the plans so that was um there was a a big push to make this building as sustainable as possible the library trustees formed a sustainability committee focused on this um really Innovative thinking went into it but at the end of the day um they decided to remove that piece because it will save money but also contractors have less experience working with CLT and so they're hoping that this will help get more bids um there's a Windows on the roof that we're going to add more sunlight um but actually that's better for sustainability because it will help put more solar panels on solar panels are not part of the initial design based on lots of different re reasons and rules but it's built to be solar um and it's in line with this with the stretch code so anyway I'm just sharing all this because um some of the some of the petitions that are going around are claiming that it's removed all the sustainability features of the building um and I just want us all to be aware that that's not the case um and if you feel passionate about it you should speak at one of these things yes Lori uh I just wanted to ask you said that the uh windows in the roof that they're going to remove those and that makes it more solar accessible is that what you were just saying or did you say that I didn't understand the comment about the windows in the yeah let me just read exactly what it is because I can't I'm I'm not able to um so so the feature the Fe the features of the project that are still there is that it eliminates natural gas usage it's Net Zero ready because it's ready for solar it's more efficient it uses less it will have less operating cost because of the natural gas particular definitely if we use solar um so I'm hoping that that'll be an immediate Next Step given all of the new tax credits and I've been speaking with them about how they can leverage that right um it create so that so there's other non sustainability related features like it provides a climate controlled space for the Civil War tablets it preserves the look and feel of the original historic building it creates teen space more Children's space um so yeah it was just the Sun the the the sunlight thing I didn't understand sound like they were taking away a a sunlight a what is it called a roof roof and I'll just read this out to you in the New Edition the roof monitor in quotes over the new Central stairwell has been removed roof roof monitors a skylight to architect SK that's okay all right so and that's fine because that probably makes it easier to put more solar in yes so it's um yeah so that's and then it says keeping with the state stretch building code metal roofing and brick exterior Remain the most affordable options for the new addition because of their insulating values so any plans to substit substitute those have been dropped good some of the Landscaping has been scaled back um but all shade trees remain as planned so those are the only changes that have been made and I think the historical commission and the planning board have to approve these changes so that then it can go back out to bid and then we'll see what happens if the bids still come back really high the town is not in my opinion the town is not going to spend any more money on this and we may end up having to drop the project um what I don't think makes sense is to try to drop the project earlier than that because renovating the project is also going to cost the town just as much if not more money it may not include any of these features and um and there's no guarantee of of when we'll be when we'll be able to do that and the library is in poor shape so anyway just wanted to flag this because I think the sustainab piece has been weaponized a bit on this Library project for quite a while um and we have our our voice is is useful in in clarifying cutting through some of that noise I guess right okay got it the planning board meeting is at 6:30 tonight right after this meeting yes yeah and then my husband just like pokes head in and said he thought the historical me commissions meeting was postponed but I don't know anything if that's that's true can't trust him so okay thanks that's very that's very useful Laura I have not been keeping up on that I have been keeping up on too many other things so I really appreciate updates like that um anything else anyone wants to add other updates I I will say one thing um I was contacted about uh an ad for uh we're short three members at the moment um so the town was it Amanda that who contacted me um I got contact Sam Samantha Sam Samantha Samantha she's our new Communications manager right I got contacted by her about an ad there it is Samantha for eak Recruitment and I gave them a blurb and a picture that I think may show up on Facebook sometime soon so we'll see but again we're still recruiting we're short three members so you know anybody please send them a note and send them to the uh uh town website where you can apply for Town um committees um in particular and we lost some pretty specific expertise it' be nice to find more of um as we grow the committee again all right so with that I think we still don't have any attendees so so public public comment um so there's no public comment meeting items for the next agenda I think we um I'm sort of going out of order here I'm sorry meeting next agenda we sort of discussing Stephanie go ahead um I just actually wanted to make sure that we talk about the next uh meetings and attendance for the next meetings um right I'm not clear who's going to be around and who's not and I'm going to be actually away for the meeting on the 14th so um should just wanted to check in and Don's going to be away for that meeting as well so I just wanted to double check with other people and Michael's not here unfortunately so I'm not exactly sure of what his schedule is well I'm pretty sure I will be around I don't have any other travel plans anyone else planning on being out of town good Steve yeah I will likely not be able who participate on the 14th I'll be transitioning from one place to another by boat so you won't have a quorum okay so then let's why don't we try to find another date for that meeting then um okay Merlin's down um let's just take a look quickly at the calendar here uh moment because I do want to talk about town manager goals I don't want it to wait too long um we could do the 7th or the 21st and have two meetings two weeks in a row to really we do the 21st and the 28th or the 7th and or the 7th and the 20 first give months because oh sorry in August um the four the 14th won't work I'm thinking to either move that meeting to the 7th or the 21st so um oh sorry Lori sorry I was gonna say I think I would prefer the 21st because I'd like to pull together statements for Town manager goals and I need you know you need guys need a few days to write something and I need a few more days to pull something together so sorry go ahead Laura yeah t two thoughts one I would not be able to join on the 21st um but I also I did text on a just to find out what's going on she said that her committee is in charge of the Town manager goals and they haven't put it on the agenda yet so it'll probably happen in September so all to say like I think if we cancelled and just met on the 28th and talked about it we would still be okay TimeWise right that what would happen in September that the committee which I'm not sure which committee it is one of the council committees is start will start to talk about town man Town manager goals in September it's probably go yeah so I think if we get them our thoughts by midt early like we'll be ahead of the game okay so then I really need folks to send me something and I'll try to pull together a draft report for the 28th I'll try to have something for us to discuss and Wordsmith um so that we can have it ready for shortly after that but I'll send reminders out if I don't get if I don't get some from Everybody by next week um and I'll try to actually work on it um pull together as much as I can ass sign I mean feel free to say Laura can you write this update this section like I I will okay let me see what I let me see what I can get I I think I'm going to organize it differently than last year but um but we'll see it um all right [Music] other so then we just skip them so the proposal is to skip the meeting on the 14th and just meet on the 28th what a folks think okay that works for me all right then I think that's what we'll do and everybody can be here on the 28th uh I think so sorry I'm just double checking something I may have a conflict on the 28th which is that meeting with um climate Chief Hofer Melissa Hofer hear from you about that I think yeah I'm sorry I don't I think the time the time that I understood was going to be like at 4 o'clock on one of the nights that we have a meeting and I think it might be that one on the 28th so let me double check um and I apologize I haven't received any kind of definitive link yet but I think it's likely to be that day on the 28th so I could either arrive late um I don't know how long that meeting is going to go I think it's probably only going to be an hour at the most so it would be like four to five so I might be just like a half hour late or we could start the meeting later so that I could give you an update that would later would be okay with me five to seven or even six to eight how do other people feel about that does that work okay why don't we go for let's say 5:30 to 7:30 and split the difference on the 28th okay that's great because then I can definitely be there so that's a zoom meeting you're going to with correct yep and then we get to hear about it yeah then I can give you an update that'd be great put that on this agenda too save okay I've just change that and on the 14th we will not be meeting but I'm going to leave it on my calendar as write the report Reserve that time to work on the report um okay anything else items for the agenda we've sort of been listing as we've gone along I think so if there's still no other participants nope um see you all in four weeks have a good August yeah thanks bye everybody thank you by