hey Isaac hey how's it going pretty good how you doing all right hanging tough hanging tough yeah yeah what's cooking with you oh not much I just drove back from Northampton so time nice nice minutes to spare how's your summer going pretty good things are starting to calm down with work a little bit which is nice so yeah so I'll have a little bit more time to actually get outside which is good co that is good have you gone away at all are you're planning to uh we were in Maine for a week that was like the end of June um and I think we'll probably take a couple days here and there but nothing nothing really long get I was just away last week at the beach which was good except it was a little rainy so that was a drag but and then we're we're going on a road trip later in August which I've been wanting do for a long time where you going um out to Colorado then maybe up to Wyoming or South Dakota but like oh wow how long like a couple weeks three weeks oh excellent yeah it's been forever since I've gone that that long so long overdue excellent go hi Stephen how are you thank you for joining us oh you're welcome I'm good thanks good I think we are all coming in here there's Nate Co in the Blue Mist yeah I'm not sure what's happening here but uh I'll work on that looks very it looks it looks very cool yeah well why don't they call us to order and we can start jumping in so I'll call us order 503 and Nate is going to take minutes for us this time and not Gail so thank you for doing that switch thank you thank you and I want to officially welcome Stephen to our discussion today it's greatly appreciated that you're joining us um looking forward to that um and I'm not sure Joseph I'm not sure who Joseph is um but I'm assuming how you doing good Joseph what's your last name Salvador okay um so this is the time for public comments I just wanted to offer up if you have public comments you wanted to share if you were just willing just wanted to listen in or well I've been trying to listen into some of the stuff I I've dealt with doing a stretch code lately okay and can give you my honest opinion I just don't see the value of how they figure out what they give you in incentives unless you go all electric that's only problem I see with dealing with the stretch codes is and that dealing with a couple houses I've done is one is if you go electric you get some really good incentives back you get good money but if you have to put any gas or anything a backup and being in chsb as we lose power more often than we would like um it's you got to have Alternative forms of heat and because of that you lose so much of the points on it that's um and then the other part of it let me just shut this thing off sorry about that the other part of it is um they make it so energy efficient that you're running a fan 247 in order order to justify having it so well insulated which I always found another thing that that c doesn't really work it doesn't seem like it balances out with air handlers um I've seen problems with some of the houses not mine but other houses where they make them so energy efficient they put an air handler in the person leaves and the air handler is running it draws cold air in the winter time and they come back to find their to find their Windows all Frozen it sounds like you're somewhat in the trades that you're familiar with this stuff I'm familiar with it and I the idea the idea is good I'm not saying the idea is bad but there's no really good money coming back to you for what you're trying to get out of it that's just what I see every okay cool well I appreciate the comments I know that so just for your info um later in the agenda we're going to start talking about the climate leader program of which the the optin stretch code is a part so I'm not sure if we're going to get into the nitty-gritty of that conversation we had let's see we're in we're in the end of July so probably in the spring leading up to town meeting we had a bunch of conversation about the opin stretch code um assuming that we're going to bring it to town meeting I'm pretty confident that we'll you know if not this meeting we'll have other meetings that we'll talk about the the detail because I think we want to be responsive to you know concerns and be able to either definitely understand it figure out if there's a way of making sure that you know people feel comfortable with it so um if we don't get to the conversation in the detail today which I sort of think we probably won't like it might be a little bit higher level about the the climate leader program I would say just follow you know we meet every month so follow the agenda because there'll be a time where we can sort of dig in more deeply but um you know Nate's taking notes and I think also has done a lot of research on this well I think a few of your members already know me okay and actually you're good you have a good crew on on your group there so it's a that's not that's not a problem I'm just giving you my opinion on it from someone who had to spend the money to make the code only to make if it a bad but to make it where it doesn't really you know do what it's supposed to do on my end it's I don't know yeah well I would say you know being that we're a town committee and we would be doing this for the town it's important to actually create the time so you know I it's great that you're mentioning it now but I I don't don't discount your input I think you know when we get to that point you know friends you know better to hear it now than later Stephen did you want to jump in yes um Joe and I know each other um and we built our house um was finished in 2018 and we're actually all electric uh except for our propane cooktop and so you know we have a HRV H heat recovery ventilator which initially was programmed to run um 247 essentially um we reprogrammed it to run 20 minutes out of an hour um you know and the intent is obviously so that you don't oxygen starve the house because it's now so tight and um you know I think what do you I want to hear what Joe thinks about this um if you go away for a period of time in my opinion there's no need for you to run the HRV because no one's living in there breathing the air and um actually we went away uh several weeks ago and you know I thought why run the HRV I mean it's only going to bring in hot humid air so turned it off while we were away turned it back on when we came home and I would see you know doing the same thing in the winter if you're not living there turn it off um and when you come back you know to use the property then you turn it on what do you think of that Joe I think that's a good idea but I'm not positive and not don't be quoted but I think they when you apply for it it's programmed to do it 247 it's like some people take their fans and they change them but if you to do the program I think it's designed that way we know somebody else who had went through the whole thing they energy their house when they burn their wood stove in their fireplace they have to open a window in order to draw enough air to feed the fireplace right so you're drawing all that coold there in order to burn it a fireplace to burn it out if you want to have a wood anything burning with a with wood which is another like okay it's energy efficient but I have to open a window now so drawing cold there so you make sure when you're sitting in the living room you don't sit on that corner yeah I will say not being an expert in this stuff in in many things you know living in a place like shutesbury where you know like we don't have reliable energy necessarily or we're small and Rural some of the designs and requirements don't always match um know the requirements so I think it's important to sort of go in with eyes open and understand what that really means um so well I'm gonna I'm going to move us along at the agenda but Joe stick around if you want to just listen and totally like pay attention to the agenda because we will dig in if not tonight another time but so I want to shift gear and just sort of Welcome Stephen I think the goal is to have a conversation um just to frame it um we've been trying to figure out how to advance clean energy for the town buildings for I think at two years at this point you know we've looked at solar we've not looked at solar we've gone back to solar we looked at heat pumps um and Gail I think coming off the alltown meeting but at some point said we should talk to the building committee um which is a you know a duh but brilliant at the same time and so I think Dale thank you for you know making the connection and and sort of I don't know do you want to share anything based on your thinking about this scale before we jump into a conversation well it just struck me that um as the energy committee we're looking for funding for Energy Efficiency in town and we went through solar and blah blah blah um but anything that goes for the buildings we would have to know status of the buildings well we don't know that the building committee on the other hand is looking at improving the status of all the municipal buildings and I would assume and Stephen correct me for that Energy Efficiency would be part of that future plan increasing Energy Efficiency and certainly the building committee knows more than we do about the status of individual buildings uh Stephen first of all we're talking about um Net Zero across the five municipal buildings not in any one given or in every one given building clearly there's impossible situations in some of those buildings but um one of the things that's up on the current green communities grant program is uh installation of heat pumps solar is not included this year year so that solves a whole bunch of problems that we were looking at um but heat pumps is something that is going to be varied by building and you all are going to know about that I wondered if we can get a collaboration of information that we could use in an application for Green community funding for installation of um heat pumps and I guess I'll just jump in with one of the thing Stephen and then you should just run with it share what you know but I think the other thing we've run across um in the last year year and a half you know because we've been struggling with trying to get grant money and we've also gone to the fincom and said can we have you know some kind of Reserve so we have enough money to be able to do a little research to apply and I think what's become clear is in order to get grant money we have to do the research we have to sort of have something in place whether we're going to the state for a grant the fin count to make a request put something in the queue for Capital you know plan all those things we sort of need people in town who know what the real deal is and it seems like if we're going to be doing stuff with buildings the building committee is probably that that entity so I think we're we're coming to you because um this is what you guys are paying attention to so I don't know if you want to give us a rundown or tell us what you think however you want to sort of start the conversation well I thought I'd uh just sort of introduce um what the building committee uh is doing has done and um you know I have to say I think you know collaboration between us and the uh energy and climate action committee is a good idea um so in the uh I think it was the fall of 2022 the building committee was reformed um I became chairman and our first charge um from the select board was to come up with condition reports on the buildings um because they had none and um I have a 40-year career in my past as a building inspector in the Baltimore metrop poon area so I was able to sort of lead the way to first develop a spreadsheet for us to use to uh inspect the buildings and then also because of my experience I've been primarily the inspector um and you know we're gradually moving through the buildings but you know emergencies come up and uh we've had two big projects you know last summer we had the uh roof replaced the asphalt shingle roof replaced on the elementary school and then this summer we're having um the building painted after having a considerable amount of rotted trim and siding replaced um in both those um projects you know we've had a consultant working with us to develop the contract which goes on for many many many many pages and last year with the school we actually had them also uh take care of progress meetings and inspections but this year we decided that uh we could handle the progress meetings and the inspections and um I and Jeff Quackenbush who is retired from UMass as uh I refer to it as staff architect you know for quite some time he and I have been doing most of that because we're both retired we can zip up there and look at things um so you know that project now is I guess I'd say good three quarters finished and you know that'll finish up um hopefully by the beginning of the school year as long as the weather permits and um then you know it can get back to inspecting more and we've done you know some small uh repair projects and I have a couple of volunteers who have helped in some and I don't know if you all have tried to coordinate any projects but one of the things I've learned is you know Finding finding somebody that can do the project and then you have to get other estimates and it's such a tangled mess in a lot of ways it takes forever um so it's been great having a volunteer for some of these projects um you know we're able to get some of these things done quickly and with very little expense and like you you know we have a budget we we are getting 40,000 this year um but we could very easily spend that once we finish the inspections and um identify what we feel are the real priority items um to deal with first then you know will just slowly continue um gaale had uh sent me um several weeks ago the uh Energy Efficiency checklist for municipal buildings which I think is a wonderful thing but you know at this point that's not something we're trying to deal with although at Town Hall you know when I did the inspection I was there in some of the warmer months and the boil ER the heating boiler was maintaining temperature and you know I asked Becky I said why is this maintaining temperature so um you know she then at some point had the contractor that has been taken care of it uh jamrog come out and the gentleman said oh no no there's a outside temperature sensor and yada yada y it's not going to run um you know when the temperature uh is too high well I don't think that's actually the case unfortunately I wasn't there because I think I would have had more questions for him um and I just need to verify that because again uh a month or so ago I was up there and you know the boilers at like 145 degrees so I said Becky we can turn this off you know you don't need heat you don't need to have this single and standby um so again I mean here the professional in my opinion isn't really uh aware of what the condition is and when you question them on it um you know they're saying that oh no it's it's fine um so you know some of these things might involve finding other contractors who um are more uh what Adept at what they're supposed to be doing responsive yes yes um so then um just jumping in a little Gail and I talked about you know heat pumps and um you know heat pumps are good um they have a lot of value I mean that's what we have for our house um but any heat pump you know when it gets down below 32 degrees outside temperature they start to lose efficiency so actually in say a case like uh Town Hall which has a oil fired hot water boiler you could marry a heat pump to that system and then have an outside controller that would switch from the heat pump to the boiler when you hit 32 degrees outside temperature um and probably I think the elementary school I think that's also we haven't inspected that at all but I think that's also an oil fired boiler you know much more complicated uh system but still it would be uh similar approach I think where you would marry the two and end up with say the best efficiency overall and the other thing about you know heat pumps in older buildings older buildings tend to be drafty and heat pumps uh the supply temperature is not a hot temperature like it would be with say hot water or Forest air so drafty buildings aren't the best candidates for heat pumps um but you know if you had a heat pump that was switching off at 32 degrees it would be less noticeable but you know the biggest bang for the buck is air sealing and insulation um sometimes you know retrofitting that in an existing building I mean air sealing in terms of exterior Caulking and things like that that is easy to do but you know within the wall cavity that's uh not an easy thing to do so sometimes there's a difficulty in that Stephen Stephen yes oh before we can make any application for a green Community grant for Energy Efficiency in these buildings we have to show that the weatherization steps that the auditor suggested two years ago have actually taken place and that's the report that that Becky is preparing now whether or not that included or as you and I talked about it in floor drafts yes I don't know if it included the uh what you just mentioned the ceiling and and overhead kind of insulation mean in the attic space yes is that something you can determine from the work done yeah I've I've been in the Attic of the um town hall and I'd have to look in the report but but there is a fair amount of um uh cellulose blown in cellulose the access Scuttle has been um insulated and weather stripped so the Scuttle is very tight um so there definitely been some past improvements in that attic and I want to say I'd have to I'd have to look but there's a sub substantial amount of blown in cellulose okay was it Mass Save for municipal ities or is it a different program the weatherization that was the uh we had the auditor come in and their recommendation what you do the weatherization that was done by it's a subgroup from uh National Electric uh National Grid yeah I mean there so like Mass Save is the state program and then they have vendors underneath that yes all and all of it's funded by the utilities but I was just wondering if like for residen is if you want to do weatherization and improvements and efficiencies you go through Mass Dave and then they up with the vendor so I'm just wondering is Mass Save also the program under which the municipal weatherization happens or is it a different program I got to think it's a different program okay we should we should probably figure that out okay that should be in the rubric of the uh audit report though okay we can look start to interject yeah I think Stephen one thing I'm sort of like to to frame this a little bit it in the conversations we've had you know like again it was initially solar and now heat pumps and Etc but it seems like some of the variables are what's the cost benefit you know like where would you start so if you can do weatherization and have good bang for your buck that's an easier sell to the town and we could get it done and we would see benefits and then there's also sort of the condition of the building like you know one of the things that Gail did some investigation on somewhere in the last year was could we put solar on you know some of the roofs you know like on the highway department and the question was the roof might need to get replaced you know so you wouldn't want to invest in solar on that roof and so there's understanding like where would based on the building where do we want to put large Investments or just sort of prior ize other buildings or you know it's a mixed and match approach and I think we're operating mostly blind at this point so I mean I think one of the goals would be to figure out what's the road map like if we were to go to the town sort of similar to like how Capital planning has a list a multi-year list that we could say well we should do weatherization on these two buildings because it's low cost and high impact you know we could do a big project if we get a grant for this thing um and then we should wait five years because the roof has to get replaced or whatever but you know some kind of strategy map we are totally deficient in having that as far as I can tell does the build committee Stephen does the building committee have future plannings for each of these five buildings um well since we haven't um completed you know all the inspections right we haven't tried to I'll say develop master plan right but I know we've talked about um both in um town hall and the Old Town Hall there are some I'll say reasonably significant deficiencies in the electrical components um both those buildings have still have a couple of fuse boxes um in town hall one of the electrical panel panels is quite Antiquated and then there's I'll say a certain amount of electrical house cleaning um you know we we're thinking that it would be prudent that all the buildings have a surge protector on the incoming electrical service you know because I think a few years ago when there was some electrical event some of the Mini Splits and other equipment got fried or components got fried um so we're thinking you know that when we're at a point where we can start Iden ifying where we want to spend money first some electrical improvements might be first fortunately you know the highway department got some money um and they just had their electrical panel improved um but you know a simple thing is so at the highway department every electrical receptacle in that building because it's a they have a concrete slab should be have ground fault protection you know what I'm talking about right um none of the receptacles maybe maybe in the bathroom but none of the ones in the say workspace uh where the uh dump trucks are stored none of those are ground faed you know so there there are numerous things like that that you know aren't in in the scheme of things that expensive but you know that's how you lose life but if those things have Energy Efficiency output are they applicable to the grant we could go back to the Grant application and see if that kind of beefing up bringing up to date it would even be part of a application for funding well I'm going to guess and say that adding or switching out to LED lighting um would certainly be something that would fall within the parameters getting grant for but as far as switching out from a standard three-prong ground receptacle to a GFCI I don't I wouldn't see that or any of the other electrical things um you know those are all more I'd say safety related um and not going to save you money that's not energy okay I mean the you know the surge protector could certainly save money uh in the right circumstances but again I don't think it's a energy saving right component there is a benefit I think in terms of the collaboration that if we just say for example one forward with the LED lighting that if there's a requirement to upgrade you know an opportunity where you have to upgrade the wiring in order to achieve the LED plan then we'd be remiss not to be coordinating right but I don't think I don't think switching out you know say a fluorescent tube fixture with an LED fixture requires any additional wiring improvements yeah but yeah it makes sense certainly if you were going to you know if you're going to put a heat pump in heat pump depending on the size that's needed that would have a uh a greater draw and might involve some electrical improvements um which maybe then you could piggyback for for that certainly you know putting something in at say Town Hall that would uh piggyback with the existing heating system um or say at the elementary school um you know somebody would have to do a load calculation of the existing building and then determine what the additional load requirements would be if you put in the um put in a heat pump okay do you Dale I don't know if you thought of this I mean if we would proceed with something um the load calculation sort of made me think about it like I'm wondering if we reached out to you Stephen and we said okay we actually see an opportunity to go after something um it seems like it would make sense to reach out and say does anyone on the building committee either have the expertise to do something like that or can you point us to a vendor that you feel comfortable with since like I think among the four of us it's just going to be personal knowledge um maybe not not professional at all right um I would I would defer to a knowledgeable licensed electrician um you know you can sometimes I mean for my experience inspecting homes and what I would see in terms of Total Service and the uh various large draw unit units uh throughout the house get a sense of oh you know you might have you may be undersized on your total electrical service and you should have this checked out further but that would be kind of the extent of it I don't know that I've never tried to educate myself on how to do a load calculation but I don't think it's actually that hard you know a lot of people think you see an electrical panel you open it up and you count um The Breakers in terms of you know if you have say five 15 amps so you Breakers you multiply five times 15 and you have 230s those are 60 well it doesn't work that way it's all percentage Yeah like there's square footage use the square footage to get your base of the of the building to get a basic uh amount needed for say lights and uh receptacles and then for larger components they each have a value and it's never what is on the breaker you know the breaker in a lot of cases a lot of things when they start up um there's a significant draw but then when they're running which is established very shortly after that it drops down a much lower level Isaac Nate do you guys have any questions or comments about this stuff you're muted yeah I just I think you know one of my Reflections um uh is that you know in when something breaks you know say it's uh you know your hot water supply for a municipal building um or you know a furnace uh reaches the the end of its life um you know your the clck starts ticking right I mean your your ability to utilize a a building um you might be compromised there so um uh what we've read about communities working towards swapping out fossil fuel Technologies to Greener um Technologies technologies that are going to bring us in line for this the states um 2015 at zero goals is that it really is important to have a plan in place uh and not be caught flat-footed uh you know when um when that that clock pressure is there because there may be a need for you know as we're talking about um you know the electrical systems that are in place uh if we're going to be doing electrical work are we setting the table uh such that uh you know that electrical panel is going to be powered to um uh to Electrify that building in the future right um and not just meet the the current needs so you know as you're talking um about you know finishing uh a review of the municipal buildings um conducting those inspections uh you know maybe really getting a better handle on what the needs are what the priorities are uh it seems like you know these other considerations um you know might graft on to that um that that review so um I think one of the things that we've struggled with a little bit is you know and Michael Michael I think articulated this while is uh you know where where do you start um so um yeah that was just my you know my one of my Reflections is uh it really is important to have have a plan so um yeah I think and that would have everything to do Stephen with priorities that you would the committee would be drawing up on these buildings right I mean I you know as the comment was being made I was thinking well that that would be a very good uh you know consideration when upgrading things or improving things at Town Hall and Old Town Hall I mean currently at Old Town Hall there's um the only main draw is there's a h heat pump for they have a vault where there are records that need to be kept locked up they have a uh very small mini split keeping that cooled and heated the rest of the building right now is not being heated or cooled because the Old Furnace as defective you know there's no water uh supply to the building now so it's not a concern so much that the rest of the building is not heated or cooled there is a dehumidifier you know and those those um eat up uh the the uh the dollars uh that runs constantly in the summer because there all these other records stored in Old Town Hall um so we had a whole demolding process yeah right well you know and earlier I think when Joe was talking about the other thing I had thought about is you know in town hall they had a mold problem number of years ago and one of the things that they did um in conjunction I think with having a dehumidifier back in the um sort of the storage room I'll call it behind the meeting room they also put in a uh heat recovery ventilator which runs 247 and again you know that building is a drafty building yeah so the question is does that need to be run uh say in the winter months when the humidity is typically low and you know maybe not so there's things like that that uh you know going through and talking about those from an energy use standpoint you know and possibly putting a mini split in the um in the old town hall to eliminate the need for the dehumidifier because the mini split's going to be a lot more economical to operate and it can keep the building you know at a cool temperature and keep it dehumidified um so that'll be a reason when we because the service there is 100 amps at the Old Town Hall and not knowing what's going to happen to town hall in the future um maybe having 200 amps would make sense you know and it's not it's not that much more expensive to when replacing a panel to go to 200 amp service over 100 amp service cool well I want to I want to sort of shift us to other agenda items but I want to end with a question which is it seems like we should be in communication going forward and I I don't know how often the building committee meets or what and therefore what the best way of doing that is I mean gaale if you if you're happy being sort of the liaison with Stephen that might be a good approach just to make sure but it it seems like we should be as you're discovering things or coming up with ideas or we are that we should just be checking with each other um but is that ring true to you yes I mean I think you know when um when the buildings are inspected to the point where we can start prioritizing and talking about where we want to spend money then I think it'd be good to have joint meeting um and everybody can chime in and hopefully we come up with the best uh most economical solution um for for the issues and so that you know they don't end up uh what biting us uh in the rear sometime time down the future because we didn't think of oh my God if we' only done this um we would have saved ourselves a lot of headaches yeah you have any guesstimate as to when that might be Stephen um hopefully I don't know about the elementary school but certainly by the end of the summer I think we'll have um the rest of the buildings finished I have to finish um I'm almost finished the fire department except for the attic um I'm waiting for cooler weather for that and I have to go through uh Old Town Hall and finish that up and hopefully get into the crawl space in there um so hopefully by you know because we're we're getting close to um the end of this painting project and I've spent along with Jeff quite a bit of time oh and for some reason I don't know why but we didn't have in our contract that the painters would paint the doors there are a number of doors like ex I think they're emergency doors from classrooms and they're they're solid metal and they're painted the same trim color um so Jeff and I are gonna paint the doors I'm sure the sixth graders would love to help you yeah we'll keep that in mind yeah creative yes well I I want to thank Gail you for sort of bringing it up and Stephen for you joining us because I think this is this is invaluable one thing I was going to say just before I forget when we come up with the plan um I think I could speak for us that we happily go hand inand to the fincom or the select board or whoever to sort of you know make the case from both perspectives that you know whatever the plan is um is the coordin coordinated message is just more powerful yeah yeah I think that's a good idea yeah so you're you're not aiming at the uh green communities application at all then Michael um you don't know enough yet to get there it feels like that I mean if there's something that you think we should consider that's low hanging fruit that requires less research and we can sort of jump into I think we can go for it but it's I I'm sort of it also seems like there's new programs that are sort of Over the Horizon um you know do and so because it seems like they're if I remember correctly the director of green communities at one of these webinars in the last month or two was talking about some new program that they were rolling out so I don't know I mean if do you have is there something that you think would be a reasonable scope well the um Becky has said that whatever gets proposed there's still that chunk of the LEDs at the school that that project has not been finished and Nate that was one thing that we thought you might be able to bring up to the and I forgot now the name of that organization that um yeah I'm not sure which which organization um it was a funding Grant opportunity yes through the school yes so I mean I I did attend a a webinar um on Green Schools it's a a new line of funding um and if you're it's a doe uh program though and I think the webinar might have been facilitated by okay uh you know more of an more of an NGO but um uh yeah I mean that that line of funding seems in extremely flexible in terms of how you might use it so um I can forward along to this group um and the building committee uh sort of the recorded webinar and and other resources that uh that were circulated after after that meeting that I attend that I think that'd be great you know the only thing I don't I'm assuming the principal is still getting her getting settled but maybe somewhere in the middle of the Fall after the school year starts we can invite her to a discussion um I have you met with her Nate at all uh I have not I have not but it you know any like if the the furnace goes out it's it's like a building committee's uh you know Court um so there's like coordination it's sort of like a little bit of three legs of a stool maybe but um but it's definitely as I understand it you squarely with with building committee so yeah when we've had furnace problems in the past the school it's the building committee that has showed up and you know Jamrock is the vendor for that as well um over the course of decades um I think I don't know his role I I feel like the owner of Jamrock is L and shs and West pum but someone someone with Jamrock lives on West pum um who stops by I know he he came to our house a few years ago for something but I think he's the one who Services the school probably Town Hall as well but I couldn't remember his name I think that's true so so Gail I think at this point unless there's something really obvious maybe we when's it when's the deadline for the the Grant I forgot October oh plenty of time but before that um October 16 but before that the report of completion of the weatherization has to have been made by August uh 16 26 around in there somewhere mid August and that's Becky's that's Becky's play okay so if that does not happen then we're not fee to proceed it sounds well and that's going to depend you know what whatever it is she reports on the weatherization is I don't know if if she's kept the the buildings committee appraised of that or not Stephen well um I think some of the um the application and funding for that took place maybe before I was involved with a committee and I do know that at some point I don't know if it was earlier this year or late last year I remember the work crew being at Town Hall I remember them being I think at the the elementary school and um also at the highway department and they could have easily been at the other Town buildings I mean I guess really the only other one would be the fire department um but there was evidence physical evidence that they had been there as well as I saw the workers once or twice on site so I would think that Becky has records for that but I don't have any direct information about it great we ready to shift years to CCA so we cover the CH for now I have one last question so with these uh grants I'm assuming that it's for say improvements upgrades new equipment like first time installation of a heat pump not a replacement of one that's old correct correct yeah um I think I sent you the narrative for the Grant application if not I can send it again um you you may have but I didn't um that I didn't print out I printed out the Energy Efficiency checklist because I think it's something that would be good after we finish the Bic inspections of the buildings trying to uh go through and and pay some attention to that it sounds like we'd be putting pressure on ourselves that we're aiming at a at a grant this this cycle with all these unknowns so we'd better be better off to develop a plan and and future steps based on what you're finding and the priorities your your committee is coming up with does that sound that makes sense to me yes yeah yeah I make us more competitive as well when we apply yeah you mean want know what we're talking about yeah exactly a minor point but yes how about that cool great well Stephen feel free to stick around but thank you very much for this it's you're welc you're welcome yeah and you know if you have a meeting where you think um be good for me to uh participate Leto and um you know I'll do the same great thank you sounds terrific I'm gonna sign off have a good night good night Nate you are up next for CCA great change the agenda no that's super um there are you know a couple uh there's movement on a couple of fronts um with regard to CCA so I think you know the first and maybe most exciting thing is that we've got a you know an executed contract uh with colonial power group um got all the signatures I I circulated um that to the committee yeah and um you know shortly after uh you know we were we were able to tie a bow on that Colonial um suggested that instead of rushing ahead through a process of formulating a um an aggregation plan that given what has been happening um at uh at dpu with regard to Municipal aggregation um that's something that that I've reported on in the past this sort of you know legislative movement and then you know how is dpu responding to that um Colonial suggested that we uh let some of that dust settle perhaps um so one of the things that I included in the U the message with the uh executed contract attached to it is a press release from dpu uh that that addresses this so they have uh issued an order um and it adopts uniform guidelines uh for approving future future Municipal aggregation plans um the press release also indicates that through the process of adopting these guidelines that they were able to clear a lot of the backlog uh that that had been in place which I think bodess well for us um in terms of the the timeline for our adoption of a of a plan um and uh so Colonial um they're actually going to be meeting on Friday with dpu and other um other agre aggregator um folks to talk about the template for submitting a plan so um one of the the sort of pieces of input uh from Colonial was that dpu was re receiving multiple plans from communities across the state that were effectively the same but with very very minor differences um and dpus seem to be approaching each document as though it were you did not exist in a context of you know for you know previously approved uh plans um you know other things that are that are being being reviewed and in their inbox so the the hope is that on Friday uh Colonial and others they'll have this conversation um that a very clear understanding of what dpu needs to be in a a standardized um plan that'll emerge um and that that'll benefit us um substantially as we put together our own own plan so um so I'm I'm very excited about that I think um you know one of the one of the main things to to highlight is the the 120 day turn around um that uh is in the the guidelines um and you know what just like to land to land the plane of this update um one of my uh what what I wanted to suggest is um I don't know it it would be great to have Colonial um kind of you know Join one of our our future meetings uh maybe our next one um so that they can kind of uh you know bring the whole committee like up to speed on kind of what the the latest is um and you know things that we might uh either like just actively discuss or um cue up for discussion amongst ourselves so that you know when it's when it's go time um you know we have a you know some sense of the of the committee like what direction to go what things we need to be ready for um if you will so yeah that that's my CCA update cool thank you Nate um anyone I have a question but does anyone else have any questions so I the one just on that last point you made it seems to me now that we've got Colonial on board the next task for us in conjunction with them is to sort of come up with what the menu of options might be you know so they can then ground truth it and also get some right information behind it is that sort of the next logical step for us um I think so it it may um it may not be too soon to um to provide that that feedback right so I mean I based on the experience of other towns I expect them to come with it's kind of like a matrix of um of options like X percent of this x percent of that um uh but you know we as a committee we've talked about uh you know maybe some bespoke elements that we might want to introduce um specifically with regards to the sourcing of some of the electricity I would love to know um like have questions I can ask them directly but you know just um you know what's what are the prospects for accessing um some of the offshore wind electrons um in our in our portfolio those kinds of things so um yeah I I think it it's probably not too soon to um to to have that dialogue with them for sure okay yeah then we also want to consider at some point the length of our uh contract given future thought about joining an existing uh CCA namely the Conway group or the pum yeah uh absolutely so there's um you they're the sort of the market considerations that affect like your the duration you know the sensible duration of a contract but then some of these other um uh possibility possible futures um for sure would be would be good to to to bring up um although I would I would like I would say like um you know we asked about you know is there value for an individual Community to um to join a larger group um and Colonial seemed a little not they weren't discouraging at all and that's kind of their overall approach is to uh um to respond that way but uh that they seem to advise that um the the value of your contract is highly dependent upon um just the timing just like Market timing things that you you can't really um necessarily no um you know energy policy could change you know radically in um in January you know like there's all kinds of like potential Market forces that uh you know they might have some insight into um so that would be great to you know similarly like are these the kinds of things we should worry about or should we be worrying about something else those are I think would' be great to me meet with some I'm not even worrying explore sure sure yeah yeah okay um welcome to Odin SLO could you identify yourself please thank you g i was GNA do that too welcome we can't hear you if you're talking the reason we need you to identify yourself is just we have to document who's in the meeting and Nate has to know who's the the public participants are so if you could just let us know your name that would be great and if you're a shsb resident that'd be great too and we don't have a a what you call it um where you can write notes to each other no chat no chat thank you I knew there was a word for it she's back he's back they're back we cannot hear you if you're trying to speak You're unmuted but now you're muted I mean if the maybe they have a speaker problem or a microphone problem they might be able to if if they want to be counted can email their name to ecac the ecac email address perhaps oh very smart Isaac good idea yeah that's the downside of not having chat activated which we can't control um so yeah if you wouldn't mind that would that would be helpful just we can get that on the record um and if your if your microphone kicks in at some point feel free to interrupt us um so so Nate I'm get it sounds like CCA update is complete we can move on cool um and Isaac you good with questions on CCA yeah yeah um I think just for Odin's law I think what is it ecac shutesbury doc.org yeah ecac shots.org cool thank you Isaac for that so I'm going to move us along to the climate uh leader program uh it feels like forever ago I think it was early jul uh it's June but um so Chris Mason had suggested that we talk to the Ashfield energy committee um because they succeeded in one almost um they succeeded in passing the climate action requirements are the leader requirements in one town meeting which I was not aware that one could do so um this woman Alex is the chair of the committee she presented on a webinar that mass Municipal Association um aired and the following week I met with her and we talked things through which is very helpful and I think just to sort of it's it is more straightforward than the documentation makes it seem like um so just to sort of recount there's um six things that one has to do as a requirement as a municipality some of them we already have so we have to be green Community good standing which I think we are um we have to have a local body that advises the municipality on clean energy and climate initiative so that's us um and then the other four are the things that we have to do and so those are we we have to have a commitment to eliminate on-site fossil fuel use by 2050 we have to create a municipal decarbonization road map we have to adopt a zero emission vehicle first policy and we have to adopt the specialized opin code build and code so those are the four things what was interesting when I sent you all um were things that Ashfield worked on and to cut to the chase really what they ended up doing was um do has templates that are recommended on their website and so basically what a Ashfield said was if these are the things that are going to pass must with do we'll just adopt the templates because all the language is there um and it it made a lot of sense to me as I told Alex like in many in many situations I hate using templates because they don't really resp they're not very responsive to the individual situation like when I was on school committee I hated adopting you know the mass Association school committee policies because they were just they're very generic um but I think in this case it's appropriate because one it's already been vetted by Do's Council and they're being recommended and there's generic is fine um so in terms of the first the first one the commitment for eliminating fossil fuel there's I what I sent to you was the sh bized version of it's basically a resolution and so they brought it to town meeting it's not binding just like any other resolution is not binding but it's basically stating all these whereases um which creates the context and then the the punchline is be it resolved that the members of shsb town meeting call on town government to commit to with appropriate support from the state and federal governments to bring Municipal net carbon emissions to zero as quickly as reasonably possible with a Target date of 2050 so there's lots of caveats um what Alex said is the whole idea of putting in there um with appropriate support from state and federal governments that you know if for some reason state and federal governments are not able to assist in this and the town can't afford it then even though the resolution is not binding we can step back from it you know so it's an easier cell to say this is our it's it's basically an aspirational statement of intent um and that passes muster so I think it's you know it will one second y I think it'll Foster conversation but in terms of the concerns that Alex raised which is people are saying the town can commit to something that it can fiscally you know we might get stuck in a corner and and this really sort of liberates us from that and sort of says this is where we're trying to go if all the pieces fall into place but Gale what were we going to say well the the trick about uh zero fossil fuels and this is what uh Steven brought up even if you have the heat pumps in the winter months you're going to have to have the the fossil fuel is a backup that's the whole point of the mixed uh thing in the in the in the doar graphic uh so we cannot in good conscience say we want to get rid of all fossil feel yeah well I think that's um my well we should let me just get I'm just going to share this because it' be easier uh and make it bigger so you can all see it actually um but Nate go ahead you gonna say something yeah I was just gonna say I I was I was on that uh that call where um you know Asheville Ashfield presented their experience and um I'm glad you you highlighted the templates um which you know simplifies things considerably um but I was especially struck uh by the parts of the presentation where they described kind of their strategic approach within the town to um I mean they were Staffing the public Library a couple hours you know several hours a week um to answer any questions sort of like can ask me anything about uh you know these these measures um they put together some very welld designed you just from a graphic design perspective handouts on each of these elements um and I just thought and that's I think they they probably did some some some inperson or you know hybrid meetings on the subject as well in preparation um in a way that like I was super impressed and um you know with the the effort that they went in to this um this process that delivered the the result um it sounded like you know with with a fairly wide margin um not unanimously but um uh uh I I I do Wonder like that's what I took inspiration from um was that that leg work that they did in advance uh to facilitate an easy town meeting you know relatively speaking um so I think I would I think we would do well to uh to learn to take that away from their experience in addition to um you know these points about the templates yeah thank you you would that in addition to public forums the way we've done before yeah I we G to get people to attend either one I guess as part of the question well I think you know their their situation was a little bit different um in the sense that they had a they had a very well attended and somewhat skeptical um public forum where they had they had you know and so Alex ended up going reaching out to local Builders to sort of get them to understand and get them on board um and you know I think based on our experience of having low attendance you know it's I think the first challenge would be just to get people's attention and then we could figure out if among the attendance There's issues but I I think there's probably a middle ground where they I mean they got more people and they have a bigger constituency base but they did some interesting things like one of the things that they did was in you know because it's a bigger town they have young people who are trying who grew up there who are trying to stay there and they were they were counterbalance to say the marginal cost of electrifying buildings is not the barrier it's the cost of the houses anyway regardless of what the source of you know fuel is and so the argument the younger homeowners or potential home owners were making is we support the electrification because that's not going to be the bump in the road it's affording the houses which is the bump in the road and so having different constituencies that can share is probably you know it's a healthy conversation to have for sure um but I think they they did this big push because I think in their Forum they realized that like there was vocal skepticism um which so far we haven't encountered and I think I do think the only other thing I would sayate is the fact that we had this aborted effort at town meeting was There's an opportunity to do some education inadvertently so um and and I think you know so with this one which what's easy about this I mean at first I was like how are we going to commit to it the fact that it's a resolution it's it really is a lower bar um so people will have opinions and we can get all animated about it but it's really not boxing anybody into anything if you really push it to the Limit um there's enough qualifications so let me I'm just going to run through them and then we get to pick up on the other ones if that's okay um let's see where's the next one uh so the next one I was going to just do is the vehicle policy sh again this one this is also a template and the big issue here which Alex pointed out is over to there we can hear you can you hear us yeah oh I don't know how we did that but we turned it on it's Justin aega okay all we've lost all sense of image we we can't see you guys anymore we can hear you talking but I don't know how I was able to get the mic to come back on but I did cool um who are you I be you pardon and who are you and are you in shutesbury yes we are yeah yeah residents of the of the community great wonderful well welcome it's nice to I I am somewhat computer illiterate and I'm desperately trying to I don't have an image of you guys anymore but um apparently you can hear us yes yeah that is true that's kind of disturbing all right so if I if I close everything out I'm going to try to log back into you guys and hopefully everything will be on point when we come back in okay good luck thank you so with the with the zero emission first vehicle policy the point of contention that Alex shared is for people saying there's things that we can't go electric on you know so we can't agree to that and the way it's set up in here is that there's exemptions so it has exempt Vehicles down here on the bottom and so if there's not an equivalent so you know a dump truck a a plow something like that which is not available in electric it's exempt and then there's also it's there's a pecking order um so the idea up here is you proba that you look for vehicle first but if you can't get it then you sort of you drop down so you could have mixed fuel hybrid if you if you can't get it you know so like the whole conversation that came up at town meeting about you know the police department saying that full electric doesn't meet the needs from a functional perspective you know that can be debated but what this policy basically says that the town determines that the functions they need can't be met with an all electric that you can go to the next level of priority um with fossil fuel being the absolute last unless there's you know no dump truck that is not fossil fuel um so again it's sort of knowing what it's really helpful talking to her besides knowing that there's templates that we can use is knowing what the points of objection are um and I think it all gets summarized as to people saying great to think aspirationally but don't lock us into something that we will trap the town and we can't do and and I don't think any of things these do it but it's good to be able to articulate what that what the out is so in this situation there's two outs one if there is no option for electric you don't have to do it and two if the electric option is not going to meet the needs then you're allowed to sort of go to something else and so that and this one is just a I I think this is yeah she said that based on the conversation with the this could be a select board vote but they wanted to go with the town meeting vote because obviously that's a a a better base of support um and buy in than just having the select board do it but this was not required to have a town meeting vote so regarding regarding the town's outs um you know one it doesn't exist two doesn't meets the town's needs now the definition of meeting the town's needs how how thoroughly is that articulated because I would think that like an undue financial burden on the town would be another consideration right like so say an all electric Fleet of police vehicles does exist a does meet the needs of the town but is not within the anywhere near the possible budget of the town like is that kind of articulated in there somewhere yeah it's this part right here so it says this policy shall not require a department to take action which conflicts with State local or federal requirements or man nor mandate the procurement of products that do not perform adequately for the intended use exclude adequate purchasing competition or require the purchase of vehicles that are not commercially available so the let or practical so I think we should we should parse this a little bit more Isaac but I think I'm wondering about the adequate purchasing competition if it's in there you know like maybe but I think you know and again this is our you know we can tweak it so this so if we feel like um it's important to call out the fact that it would be it would create a financial burden on the town yeah um we we should add that um I think getting ahead of what the potential objections are figuring out if we can meet them and then in addressing them just it makes her clear clear sailing because we we respond to them um and I I hearkened back to the CCA discussion at town meeting last year I mean Nate nailed it he like went through all the things in advance so all the questions that people were going to ask you already had answered um you know so I think I think it's a good model yeah just try to see the road bumps and I guess Michael if you're going to keep your eyes on the on the waiting room just to make sure because it sounded like they're try to get back in thank you thank you I totally let me here I'm G stop sharing this and then I can probably see it no they're not back yet okay thank you for Isaac so that was and then the last one was the specialized opt-in code which if you remember correct oh let's see no actually was commitment decarbonization ah road map I have to get to so the opin code if you remember we got tripped up one because we didn't do the public hearing but also because we realized that we had to do um or we thought we had to do a a bylaw um to that effect and let me get this big again oh come on I hate when the things that you need to click on are covered by something else um okay there we go so this is a bylaw um again it's a template and so it talks about the purpose it defines everything it talks about the applicability um so it's it's literally one page not very complex um and it lays it out um and the idea here just as a reminder was that by doing the bylaw and by referencing um the 225 CMR 22 and 23 it makes it adaptable so if the State updates anything that we're tied to automatically so we don't have to come back to town and have a revote um but it was it's pretty straight forward um and I mean it doesn't take away the education component because behind this is the substance but the thing that doer needs for us to do is to approve this in order to approve this we have to explain it again to the town which you've already done twice in the public Hearing in the town meeting but for just in terms of like I will say in the spring before talking to Alex and watching that webinar I thought it was really daunting but this is a discreet thing to do it's on the warrant article as a bylaw and we explain it if it gets voted um as a bylaw and it only requires because it's a a general bylaw it's only majority votes so it's not a it's not a big um lift in that regard and then the only other thing that's required is a municipal decarbonization road map and I was really confused by that and that was one that was a little daunting it's like how do we build a road map we don't have the information we haven't gotten the commitment it seems like a very cart before the horse kind of thing the way Alex explained it is that their do are and I think it's the green commun division has a grant program municipalities can apply for to get a consultant to do a decarbonization road maps so just like we did MVP where we applied you know we wrote the policy and then we applied for the grant and then the grant meant that um do are paid for the consultant um it'll be the same kind of thing where there's a prevented list of Consultants to do decarbonization road maps what Alex explained in Ashfield they applied for and got approved for this grant before they became a climate um leader program community so there's not a requirement that you get in because otherwise it's a catch 22 like if you had to meet the need meet all the requirements before you actually could apply it would make sense and that was that was like the light bulb of like we can be on road yeah so and we and we don't even have to complete it I think we just have to be approved like we have to there's taking the steps to do the road map that I think we would be approved for or if we approved everything else and then we're in the we're in Q to get the the Grant I think somewhere in that process they give us the check mark um or it could be that we have the road map and then they give us the check mark but we're allowed to go for the money and we get assistance professionally to do that so all of a sudden that became a doable thing so I'm feeling like we can go forward this fiscal year and the question is just in terms of I mean there like I saw maybe it's tonight that I I saw something the C board's having a meeting soon about some emergency special town meeting for something I don't know what yeah and I was like oh should we try to piggy back on that and I I sort of don't think so because yeah it's I think the Education buy and process is is going to require a little bit more time but objectively speaking we could we could roll out these templates in a week you know like it's actually not very hard it's it's all the stuff that you talked about Nate of like getting people on board and getting materials and explaining um and whether if we have a winter special time meeting we could probably plan for that if not we could do the the annual but it it seems quite doable hey um can we um I know we're like going over a little bit but um can we uh like develop a plan for um having a public hearing or meeting that does check the box um for this for these purposes like when when when should we try to try to do that that's I so I it's a good question I think it's part of the the broader time line so I think you know what I would say we could do is in the next month or so finalize these documents so they're you know like a finalized draft and then because I I know for zoning stuff there's a timeline between the public hearing and the town meeting that you can't exceed I don't know if that's true for General bylaws I'd have to check but even just practically speaking like you wouldn't want to do a public Hearing in September and then having vote to town meeting because no one will remember in the May um so if we do the work and we have it sort of queued up we could actually use the time to sort of figure out the education materials and just get it ready so that if there is a wintertown meeting then we say okay if it's going to be in January let's do the public hearing end of November or whatever it is and sort of go from there so I don't have an immediate question I think we we need to figure out but most certainly between the four of us we should remember that we have to do a public hearing now that we oh the other good update which is the only update is that the select board approved our new charge so thank you all for your input so we're now we're a solid quum because we only have five official members um which is great um but uh so I'm not sure how I got on to that one but I think if we do the work if we're agreed I didn't want to go forward but if we're agreed that this makes sense as a trajectory to sort of shoot for the climate leader program with these these parts we can you know I'm happy to finalize the documents and send them out and say here these are the drafts and then figure out a both an education plan um and in terms of materials and timing and stuff like that um and be ready to go when it makes sense um but what do you all think about that yeah I think that it would be great to prepare for this instead of kind of kicking the can down the road and not being ready for one meeting comes up yeah yeah looks like you're fading I am i' I'm I've had a tough two weeks and I got a positive covid test today wow you buried the lead there Gail I hope you're feeling better really you should have told us that at the beginning God so sorry to hear that you you and Penny can text each other yeah well that's a good reason to wrap up and do minutes and then call it a meeting yeah I just sent the updated minutes with uh to with the minor updates um that were were done um nothing Earth shattering um okay let me get open them now and uh so I do you do you all I remember the meeting it was very minor like you know more grammatical than substantive changes um yeah it was June 18th was the meeting so we can move to approve him and get him in the hopper or we can if people want to postpone it to next time any any strong feelings let's do it okay someone want to move to approved I move to approve the minutes from last meeting okay I'll second great any discussion hearing none Isaac how do you vote I I I I'm Anna I Isaac send either uh they're in the I just sent them to ecac the okay General email great so G I'm gonna give you the honors to move to adjourn I move we adjourn for this evening and want a second I second oh I'll third it then I'll third it uh Nate I will I oh sorry Nate I will send you do I think we need to figure out the next meeting right schedule the next meeting but then also I'll email you the names of the um Justin and Megan cool then so do you want I I always forget to figure out the next meeting thing do you want to do that now you want to do it on email oh Gail what's your preference in ter of I can do it now let me pull up my calendar okay cool uh so I when I would suggest just given where we're at is maybe do it in earlyish September after Labor Day sometime so to get since we're basically in August so to rather than do it the last week of August where and I won't be here um does that work for you all yeah and uh so so that's September 3D is that what you're saying um I'm thinking probably the 10th I think Monday is Labor Day that's that's yeah that's better yeah yeah that's the presidential debate allegedly oh really September 10th huh okay what time does it start we'll be we'll be early yeah yeah not a problem at least one of the particip can say up that we um okay so um our usual five o'clock time yeah this put perfect okay sounds great okay so I'm gonna call the role for a joury Nate hi Isaac hi yeah hi I'm and I we are officially adjourned thank you all for another fun meeting see you feel better G feel better G bye thank you good night everybody