 Okay, and we are now recording. Okay, great. Thanks, Stephanie. And good afternoon everybody. Andra welcome back. I believe it's your turn. Oh, I can someone else start I won't be quite ready for another five minutes. I can fill in the gaps. So if you know, yeah, okay, under just let me know when you're ready to take over. Okay, under. He might have had to step away. Yeah, yeah. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Okay, so let's go over vision charge and some of our metrics here. So we do want to work cooperatively with the town and community to raise awareness and achieve results with a sense of urgency and Lori was talking, emailing me separately about the festival. I've also been thinking about the festival how do we make that a platform for us to launch so many initiatives that we have so more awareness that we create during that one day that we have with the community it's going to be very powerful I think to help us lead the charge on what we could do to address the climate change. Stephanie question on the goals because I had an action item last time to look at the town manager goals for 2024. And what I noticed, I struggled to find it. May I found it but it's, it has information that's in draft I don't know if there's an approved version. Stephanie, I have to find out. Okay. And I can ask, but I'm not going to know. Before the end of this meeting. Okay. So I'll just take an action item for me. Well, we want to have a discussion at the next meeting to review the town manager goals for 24. So, Stephanie, if you can take the action item to put that as part of the meeting packet, and we can review together. Thank you. So our five pillars continue to stay the same heat pump. Underlooking at region and state. Solar transportation and pace. For our metrics, we still continue to have pretty low participation and we talked about this last time as well. The transportation education series just have to make sure that we're when we have these flyers created, we send them out to the community. So we give them enough time to come to these meetings. And then Stephanie quarterly update on the expense report, probably the next meeting or the meeting after. Can I address this because so this is not a good year for me to be putting together an expense report because I am just getting included in the sort of whole budgetary process. So I feel like I'm being asked to sort of report out on something while I'm trying to learn something and to get information together and to move some projects ahead. So, and I don't think I mean I know what you're looking for is to know where system sustainability dollars are spent. So there's the sustainability account. Right, that's the funding that I'm sort of working with. But there are other initiatives that sort of pertain to sustainability that don't neatly fall right under that category. I'm not sure what you're looking for but I just really honestly feel like right now. I just, I'm just being honest, I can't take this on right now, like to gather all that information. I'm still trying to just get forward what I'm trying to deal with. There's a budget hearing in. March that I'll be presenting the sustainability budget there at that hearing so I just want to, I just want to be clear. It's like it's not that I don't ever want to do it. I just like right now. It's just, it's not very straightforward. And I'm still trying to get a handle on the funds that I even have right now, leftover from other accounts. So I'm just trying to get a handle on all of the sustainability funding. So I will be more able to do that. I think, you know, by, I don't know, you know, maybe in June, possibly like at the end of the fiscal year, it might be more possible for me, but I'm not going to be able to do that now. Okay, is this something that you will possibly bring Sean in as well. Yeah, yeah, I can talk to Sean too but I just think like right now. You know, this just doesn't seem like a good timing for us to be giving you this when we're trying to put forth the budgets and we're doing all kinds of work on that. I mean, unless it's something that you are specifically thinking you want to request funds for but I think community requests have already been made so can can I just say we hopefully could be helpful in your preparing the sustainability report. So is that something that as you're preparing for it, we could have input. I mean, I've already, it's not I've already, I've already put together a proposal for 24. I think what you're asking me is for where funds have been spent. And I don't think you can be helpful to me in that right now. So, it's only been, we've only had about a, you know, a year or two of specifically allocated sustainability funds and the first ones gone to the solar assessment. I took up that took up most of the funding for that first year, which we knew and I discussed, I gave you all at one point I gave you an Excel spreadsheet for the 2023 of what my recommendations were for sustainability funding and I gave it to you all a while ago. I honestly, it hasn't even been made clear to me that those items that that's where the funding went. So, again, it's a little bit I'm just trying to get up to speed. Part of the problem is that those first couple of years sustainability was sort of under the conservation it's not part of conservation funds specifically I mean it's in its own category but it does fall under the conservation department so we're trying to determine whether we want to break it out as it's completely own department funding, if that makes sense. So that's kind of what we're working on. So, I just, I just this, you know, I just want to be clear that, you know, I just don't know that I can do what you are wanting by the next meeting. Yeah, so Stephanie, when is the fiscal year end again. June 30. June. Okay, so you're saying you'll be able to prep something after June. Yeah, or around June, you know, I mean, it'll be clear because if you're asking me for where funds have been spent it'll probably be easier for me to get some of the expense reports, you know, the, you know, the the accounting logs and data. It'll be easier for me to get that information so that I can account for a fiscal year, because that's how we keep track of our friends are by the fiscal year not the calendar year. So, it's a little easier for me to do it that way. Yeah, I think maybe a post Martin report off the fiscal year gone by, and then what is the anticipated spend in what projects for the upcoming fiscal year. Would that be something that you can present Stephanie. Later, you know, after the fiscal year end so you know, I mean, please don't expect it July 1, because I have to accounting has to get all their information process everything. And that doesn't happen. You know, right away, like in the first week of July, they're working on it in June but sometimes there's things that don't get processed. As long as the work happened in June or happened in the previous fiscal year, it may not get processed to like mid July. Do you know what I'm saying so I will, I'm just again I'm trying to sort of get used to all of this myself and navigate it as well. And also to try to get clarity about how are we, how are we handling these funds are they going to stay separate from conservation are we going to have this sort of broken out and we just I haven't gotten a clear answer for that yet. So, do you want me to add last week of July first week of August. I would say first week of August would be a more realistic timeline. I think that would be good timing. I only asked because we also in August we need to start thinking about goals for the town manager for FY 25. I know that it was a little delayed this year, and we were rushing and making changes and it was a lot of back and forth so you know Anna's recommendation was also to start the process of so I think that will tie in well with understanding where we're going to spend time and also make updates to look at our carbon address the goals for the town manager. Does that work for everybody else. Does that make sense. Oh, Laura. Yeah, I would just maybe reiterate the point I made last week time which is that I think we need to make sure we have a clear sense of how we want to use this data. I'm not sure whatever time Stephanie does spend on it it's getting us what we need to use it in whatever way we are planning on using it so I think we need to have that conversation as ecac. As well, before Stephanie starts doing this. Laura, I think one was around a little bit more transparency around where the funds are going so I don't know if we'll be using the data at this point to do something I think it's an understanding of where the money is going. I wanted to think about, okay, here's the plan for the next fiscal year. We need to align our town manager goals because we're making recommendations for what the goals are for the town manager and based on that budget I think it'll help us understand what the goals need to be. Okay, I mean but we're making recommendations to the town council. The town council sets the town man goals. Correct. And those goals are on a calendar year basis. Yes. Okay. We just might want to think through that a little bit more. Because I'm a little confused, but. Stephanie, I'm taking notes again. Stephanie. Yeah, I really, I really appreciate that. You know, I feel like Laura, you're often the voice of reason that I appreciate because I do feel like, you know, I want to provide what you want and would like but I. I also I sometimes I find this a challenge because I'm also trying to do implementation. And there are so many projects that we're trying to move forward right now. And these things take time. And so if they're constantly pulling me away from doing the work that is the things that we wanted right you wanted these things in the previous year. So now we have to implement them this year and so I just sometimes it's just a matter of like struggling to sort of fulfill all the requests that everybody has, you know, I'm still one person. I'm trying to do a lot. And I think we are doing a lot. And I know this is why things, you know, do have a tendency to move slowly. And it's not just me. I find that everything in the town moves rather slowly. You know, again, I'm not trying to shirk from this or hide anything. I just am trying to make sure that it's going to be useful and that I'm not spinning my wheels when I have such a huge list. And, you know, what I could do I think is because I made a proposal for a budget for FY 24. So I've put that forward. That's what is going to be reviewed in the budget hearings. I'm, I don't see why I couldn't share that I don't know like at some point, the town manager has to look at things and approve them first so I think that's what happened last time I had to wait until he had at least reviewed it and approved to them as requests. So I can find out if I can share what I put forth for FY 24. I did as I said in one of your packets and I can send it again. I did share the FY 23 so I can share the FY 24 and as I mentioned to you at the last meeting I did put in for an energy officer position and for administrative support. Yeah, that's great to hear something. I can change this definitely to an annual request. I think that would be more reasonable, to be honest, because I think it's part of, you know, you, you know, there's, there's an ECAC report that happens and it might be good to sort of maybe time those somewhat together I know that happens and I think December, but, I mean we can figure out the timing that works best but I just I'm trying to still get this process under my belt so. I'll just say, I would like to get a mid year report. The fact that you aren't clear right now on what's been spent in fiscal year 23 is concerning. I'm clear on sustainability. What I'm not clear is, was there a building project or a vehicle purchase that I'm not aware of. Those are the things if you're asking me for sustainability related projects that goes beyond my funding. Well, what if it's just about the sustainability fund. Well, that's what I'm working on and as I told you like the first year's funding all went to the solar assessment or pretty much. Or most of it did. You know, I can I can certainly give you some of I can give you the sustainability funding like the funds that were specifically identified. I can get that but again, it would help me to be able to sort of get the accounting. I hear you. I'm just saying going forward. Rather than just annual I think a midstream check to see if things have been spent and are in process. Or if there's some, you know, hold up somewhere not because of anything you've done. Yeah, I lean towards that to under only because I mean if there's no funds available. Why should we be look mean spending time on pace for example if we don't have fun should can we be focused on something else where funding is available should we switch to a different program and channel our efforts towards one theme. Because otherwise everybody's going to be working on so many different things so I'm hoping understanding the finances will help us at least give us some direction. That was the intent Laura. Stephanie I don't know if you're what your thoughts are on happily instead of annual. If that's too much. Or maybe this can evolve. What are your thoughts. Well, I would like to at least make this first report in August and go from there and I can look back to the sustainability funding that's been spent to date. And I always report out on what we're working on so you know I'm not sure. And again like I said I can show you what were proposed the proposals that I've made so far a reflection of the carp and our meetings and what the committee has expressed as its interest so for instance the, like I said the f y 24 is requesting a position. That's at least half of the funding for a position for an energy officer and an admin support. I think that's a good chunk of funding, a big chunk of funding. And then the rest is identified for things that the committee has been interested in pursuing. Some of the money has been requested for community gardens. You know to continue with development of community gardens for food access. So it's there. I have it now. I just want to make sure I can share it, but I don't see why I couldn't if it's going to be reviewed in the meeting but you know the meeting is not happening till the hearing is not happening until March. So, I might just have to wait till then, but I'm happy like if I if someone says yeah of course you can share this then as soon as I can I will. Okay. Next step. Okay. Next open actions here. Stephanie and Don. This was to connect with mass development. Yep, I still, I personally haven't done that yet because Don and I had a meeting and I think we were going to try to find out what dates the chamber might potentially have breakfast so I haven't reached out to mass development yet because I'm not sure of what potential dates are available. Yeah, so that's the next action item here, Don. And I reached out to Claudia. And she said she'd get back to me and then I reminded her on Monday and got an email saying she's away this week. So I presume I'll hear from her when she gets back next. And what we're trying to put together is some sort of an event that both mass development would come on and we would make some sort of presentation to the group that the chamber was able to gather. So, that is in the works. And I have in fact reached out to Claudia. Okay, thanks, Don. And then pace flyer we're talking about that today. Yeah, I mean, I can do that now. Yeah, no, no, we'll talk about it. It's part of our agenda festival planning. We have that as part of the agenda as well. Stretch code. We discussed today. And then I added a new action item for myself for to review the point 24 tone my three goals. Okay, anything else action items. Okay. Move on to the next part of the agenda and vote on our minutes from the last meeting. I have a correction I was present for part of the meeting. Don't know how much I have to be present present for to be marked as present. I didn't watch the video I think, and just market when you showed up and put the time on the attendance list. You were in California driving on Kelvin on California one and you attended the meeting. I was, I was on the phone yeah. I forget, I think I was at the airport I forget where. I move to accept the minutes with the note that under was mostly there. And not worry about the time she arrived and say Stephanie one thing to do. Does anyone second. Yeah, I'll second. I'm sorry. You got you done. I'm happy to second. Okay. And in no particular order. By both boys vote. Ruth. Yes. Allison. Yes. Thelman. Yes. Ragavan. Yes. Beggar. Yes. Drucker. Yes. Rose. Yes. Goldner. Yes. D. Yes. Thank you. The minutes are approved. Thank you everyone. Okay. Anyone from the public is interested in making a comment or asking a question. Of the ECAC, please electronically raise your hand. I don't see anyone. Raise in their hands. All right. So before we move on to the stretch code, Laura, are you still planning on leaving at 530. Yes, I'm hoping to be able to stay online, but I'll be in transit. So probably won't be able to. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to jump in? And you had an agenda item. Yeah. Thanks to Sue. So last week, I think. Kathy shown reached out to me. Wondering if. Just about the school vote that's coming up in. In May, I believe. And wanted to know whether ECAC. I would like to know. I would like to know if you would like to comment. In. Communicating out about the net zero. Attributes of the building. And then I know Jesse and I got an approach by Rudy Perkins at the climate justice event. Alliance event Saturday with the similar question. So I suggested to Kathy. I would like to know if you would like to comment a little bit about informationally about the school and the net zero attributes. And then we can decide as an, as a. Committee, if we want to write a little memo of some sort, just explaining how we know, we, of course, as a committee can't. Provide input on how folks should vote on this. And then we can put on how this building will help us move towards meeting our goals. By taking two buildings that are running on fossil fuels and turning them into one building that does not. So. Just wanted to flag that for folks and see if anybody has any other thoughts. Otherwise maybe I'll just. Connect with Stephanie and Visu and Kathy and. Get her on the agenda. Yeah, I mean, offhand that sounds like a. Good idea. I guess I would do your. Point that I was going to make as well, Laura, but you just made it, but that it's not really so much about. This building itself being that zero because. I believe by policy, it needs to be net zero anyhow. But it's what we're taking offline. And so if we had some data. And maybe it's in the greenhouse gas inventory. You know, I would get a little bit over the broader section of our discussion. I think there's a little bit of a story about the. Was it Crocker farm and, and, and Fort River. That would. We're river school. Yeah. I think those are the two. Oh, and, and while it would write right all three. School. It's just wild wood and forever. Okay. Okay. Whatever it is if we had some data. In terms of the greenhouse gas. be coming offline would be helpful. Yeah, that's a good point. Andrea. Thanks for bringing it up. I was also going to bring it up, hoping that we might make some kind of communication. I see ECAC as a potential uniting force. And it would be a great thing for us to call for unity and forward looking to our clean energy future as a committee. Yeah, and I think maybe I wonder if there's some potential here to include that as part of the sustainability festival to say, hey, this is the benefits. And this is what's going offline. Is that some data that we want to add and present to the community. Yeah, so we can certainly talk. I mean, there's a whole group of folks vote yes for Amherst schools or whatever who have started meeting to talk about different ways to get the message out about the school and I believe, planning on participating in the sustainability festival, but that doesn't mean that we can also or support them in some way so yeah that's a great idea. Okay, let's add that to the agenda. If that group wants a table at the festival, Laura, they can somebody can just let me know if they want their own table as well as you having a table, they can have a presence. Okay, great, you know we support both all viewpoints. So if another group has a would like a table they would have to be allowed to have one too but just saying that there's an opportunity there. Great. Okay, thanks everybody. Jesse over to you. Okay, how much time do I have five minutes. We have more than that. Go for it. Two minutes. Okay. So Stephanie I had a really great meeting with David Skavitz and Rob Morris, who are the lead building inspector and the building commissioner respectively. We have a dedicated building department that has online permitting. And they are very much aware of the changes that are coming to the stretch code and that have come etc, etc. If there was no nothing going on if everyone just said, let's go back up a second. So what's on the table here what the discussion is right now, we're agreeing community town, that means we abide by the stretch code and every time the stretch code increases changes. We automatically are the, you know, the energy related aspects of the building code automatically go up with those changes. And that has the option to vote in what's called a specialized code, which essentially is kind of close to or akin to a kind of a net zero ish code. And if, if there was, let's imagine a world where everyone in the town thought it was a good idea. The process would essentially be right. I believe you write a warrant article, and then there is a bylaw vote which would be the town council would, you know, so bylaw is written town council votes it in, and then probably 12 months from that time. It would be enacted. So by that math, the earliest, this would happen would be, say January 24, maybe, could be and the advice is always do it at either January, not January 24, January, 2024, do it on January 1 or July 1. So that's when all of these changes happen in the building code and really helps and make sense to keep that schedule. So, the other thing that's happening is all of. So, as of January this year, the residential code has bumped up a little bit with the stretch code that's gotten better the, and the commercial code that will happen in July. All of those codes will also bump up again in a year from July, so July 2024. So that's the context. The question, I think, is how quickly could, would this town want to push, if at all, for the specialized code, not making the assumption. It's possible we, the town would not want to add the specialized code, but if it did how quickly would that happen so a couple of pieces of information to further contextualize that conversation one is for new construction where this has the biggest impact. There's about somewhere between eight and 10 new houses in Amherst per year. So this is so this is some feedback I got specific feedback I think about the challenges that I'm hearing from the building department. So one is that cost of electricity. Making some of these all electrification that is included in some of this code language is increasing the cost of living, as well as potential capital costs. There's been performance issues in town in that and resilience issues and that when you're all electric lose the grid. I'm not clarifying our comment or you want to say something. Yeah, I don't understand how that's possible the electricity is still not more expensive I mean, the only thing cheaper than electric, clearly cheaper is gas. And gas hookups aren't even allowed in Amherst. So I don't see how electric makes things any more expensive than they already are, even with the recently increased cost of electric. I think they're, yeah, they're just talking about people who are trying to change their houses over. Oh, I thought you're talking about new construction that it thank you for the clarification that I'm kind of piecemeal like summarizing some of the comments that I got. I think there's a little bit of a nervousness around the technology, because of the cost to operate the cost to install and the resilience. That's, that's a public, that's a public conversation that's that's the input that they're hearing yellow. But the building code in the stretch code isn't that just new. I mean, isn't there a separate code for renovations. The specialized code in this code I thought were for new construction. No, the all the building code is overseas all construction. Yeah, so it's large additions or renovations and new construction. Well, the building code covers all construction. So what the energy regs that kick in happen at larger project scales for renovation. I think, Laurie, if the point is that that this is a red herring and, and to say that we shouldn't talk about issues with the technology when it's simply required. That's not a bad point. I think it's a good point. It's, it's just something they've been hearing just a report back that they've been hearing from contractors and homeowners about some of these technologies. I mean, overall the big Mike at the end of this list of some of this feedback is, they're really excited to learn more about and be able to articulate and understand like the benefits to the to builders and homeowners. They're, that's not what they're hearing right now from everyone. Some people, you know, so I think it just for us to know that's part of the conversation that's happening out there. What Stephanie. No, that's okay. Jesse, go ahead. I'll, I'll wait. What's making these processes work well is early planning and that's actually tends to be what makes any process work well. So kind of getting this information early to people that are developing any type of project renovation new construction commercial residential whatever it is. And then bringing them aware of the requirements early in the process is helpful, not just the requirements but the incentives and the opportunities. And then one of the other challenges that they are seeing and we're actually seeing quite a bit of this as well. The need, the need to do electrical service upgrades as part of, you know, renovate, you know, so someone does a change over in a major renovation, or it just, we're seeing 400 amp sticks under damp 200 amp we're seeing huge electrical services going in so it's, it's the whole the, it's not without its challenges is I think the point. And because of that and because of the relatively small amount of new construction which is where and major renovation which is where the bulk of this would apply. The initial proposal was fish to target January 2025 as as a, which would mean we get through the codes, you know we get through the changes that came now in the summer. We'd have those for a year. The whole june, July 24. There's more. There's stringent requirements that automatically happen in Amherst, and take a year with that and be ready, sort of at that same pace, have the specialized code kick in January 25. Now, is not what I'm proposing. We're just trying to report back the highlights of the conversation. I do think it's a reasonable proposal, the pace of it. It could be even be kind of an exciting thing in the sense of like enacting this legislation, if you will, in concert with our 2025 goals. But obviously, the sooner you enact these things, one would think the less energy would be used. Anyway, that's so that's the big picture that's most what I have to report back. And so maybe now if there's more questions, I can do my best to answer them. So, Stephanie, and then done. So, I'm just actually covered what I was going to say, which was just that they were looking at sort of the incremental changes happening over the next year or so, and the 2025 adoption. So, Jesse covered it. Yeah, I'll be brief. I just want to make sure I understand the timing Jesse I mean I absolutely understand the timing of how long it takes to actually have a bylaw change take effect. And I completely agree with you that it's about it is about a year from the time that council would vote to do that. And this says to me and assuming I mean I presume by January 25 you're talking about it being enacted and effective January. That's right. So there's not that much of a lag between now and then for the ducks to get in a row. The presentation to be made or thought to be made to town council, the vote from town council. All would need to be accomplished. You know, by the end of this year to give you a year, you know for the state to do what the state has to do and what everybody has to do to actually have it become effective. So it doesn't doesn't sound like pushing stuff back. It sounds like it's a realistic timeline. So my take on it. A year to pass it a year to enact it is the. So, so this is the screenshot from the zoom call that was presented. This is a timeline. Yep. And I mean Jesse talked about the adoption process so yeah it's six months to 12 months is the recommendation. And I think it's, it's also, we could take a different approach of, let's just do this as quick as we can why would we do, and I see some nodding. You know, where is this coming from this six to 12 this, this six, where is this timeline coming from, I don't understand that's do er's. Yeah, also, it's also, it's also historic Amherst, what I'm hearing from everyone at the town is, it's a typical amount of time in this town. Amherst aside, the requirement is that there be six months. There that BBRS regulations require a six month concurrency period between adoption and implementation. Okay, so it only requires six months and Brookline has already adopted and a lot of other larger cities now have already adopted the new specialized stretch code on a six month timetable. Yeah, so why can't we do that we're tiny little town should be easy we have very few buildings going up. Yes, Steve and then under. Yeah, thanks. I was trying to look through the resources that I that you shared that I looked at for the difference between, I guess it's the stretch code that we already have versus the specialized code that the town could consider adopting. Do you have a chart or a document that sort of shows us what those additional energy efficiency features would be required under the specialized code as compared to the existing code. I can tell you. Okay. I mean, there are plenty of charts. Let's see. Yeah, I took some screenshots as well from the meeting. I mean, it's in the it's in the presentation I mean that that is it's in the presentation if you saw it and it's in the PowerPoint that goes with it. So we sent it out. Okay. I'm looking at that now. I mean it's essentially the difference. I mean, one way to put it be like it's the different will be end up being say the difference between like a hers 45 and a hers zero. Yeah, yeah, that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I don't understand it but it didn't really tell me too much. I guess, you know, it'd be great to know what the greenhouse gas reductions would be by adopting the specialized code beyond the existing stretch code. That's an interesting question. That's probably more. That depends on. So hers, hers zero is net zero. That right. That's right. Yeah. So this is from hers 40 which is what a little bit better than average to net zero. Yeah, so this is the. Steve this is the timeline stretch code hers 52 to 58. Going to hers 42 to 45 and 24, the specialized code. Well there's different categories and all the electric is 45 mixed fuels 42 and then zero energy. Yeah, so there's three different ways to do it. Yeah, so the one is so if it's an all electric house you're allowed a hers 45 or if it's mixed fuel, which would include fossil fuels that basically means you have to bring it down another three and have solar and be wired to transition to all electric or, or just simply a hers zero which they say they call a hers 42 plus solar. Yeah, and I think it's all also about being EV ready. I think it includes that as well as part of the specialized or Jesse. I think that's happening. I think, I think that's just going to be automatic. That's already automatic I think by by next summer. Okay, I guess what I'm thinking, you know, the, what you heard from the town was sort of the cost and the challenges of moving to the specialized code. What I'm interested in knowing more about is sort of what's the bang, or the benefit of doing so, so we can kind of do that cost benefit balancing. Interesting proposal. And I would say, Steve I might even call it the perceived cost. That's good versus and to be fair versus a perceived benefit. Yeah. Yeah. So, the loud voices that first are always going to be reactive to change. We can certainly make a strong pound wide pitch for, you know, why we're going to move forward quickly. I wouldn't want to start with the assumption that we should go slowly. I think we should start with the assumption that we should go as quickly as we can and figure out the advantages in particular. If we're going to try to include the saved admissions, you know, Okay, it's only 10 homes on average per years that would, they said, it's a 10, but it could include, I mean, both the stretch code and the specialized code now would now include much better regs for renovations, large renovations. Yeah, but but but also it includes every building. It includes commercial buildings. So, it could make a large difference, depending on what's cooking that we don't know about that that could be proposed in the next year while we're going slow. How much are we going to count on this to reduce our emissions, our potential emissions should we not do it sooner. How much is it going to raise our emissions to delay for a year that some data that we could get estimates on. That that's that would be really tricky. And we could do a back of the envelope but that's like that's a pretty. That's a pretty. Yeah, it could also I mean like honestly, if the code is so stringent that it causes people to build less. That's the way would have a mission. Well, well, we're going somewhere else. We're, we're assuming that they, you know, they want to build an Amherst they can't build somewhere else. It's, it's going to happen so let's grab it also don't think it's that I mean again, I'm not, I can't, I can't. From what I've heard it doesn't seem reasonable in this town that it would be that it could happen before January 24 as far as being enacted. It can't happen before January 24 because we've already missed the six month deadline for 24. So that is the earliest, we would have to, we'd have to adopt the specialized stretch code. This is not the kind of thing that takes a lot of back and forth writing. This is like a totally. It's already written. It's already written. Yeah, and I want to hear what Dwayne said but where I'm kind of where I've been headed with this is whenever it happens, there's no reason not to be ready as soon as possible. So sort of picking a, if we want to be ready, if we want to give ourselves the deadline, or we, this isn't something we do, or we could help push it along but the idea would be to have this to ask the council to have this ready by June, means the town can still choose. And then the town can choose January 24, January 24, July 24, or January 25. And I want to caution us, I agree, you can go fast it's written etc etc. I've watched a lot of people, a lot of groups, a lot of things in this town try to go fast and end up not even happening, because they didn't take the steps and didn't sort of play the field and I just, I'm, I'm, my pitch is not. It's, it's about being cautious and not pushing too hard in such a way that would make it take longer. Maybe that's naive that's just what I keep seeing over and over. Sorry, Dwayne. I agree with everything in terms of, let's move this as fast as we can but be cognizant and sensitive to how long things generally taken not to push people's buttons by trying to push it too hard and hope for as early as possible to be prepared for January 25. That being said, I do wonder whether there's a play to be had with regard to setting up, and whether this may take an act of the town council I don't know. But some early adoption incentives for, you know, maybe a few of those builders new builders or renovators that could be incentivized. I'm not exactly sure what that would take, but expedited permitting or something like that. That could be incentivized to be an early adopter and take on the this special code what did you call again extra extra stretch code specialized specialized code. Inacted yet, but it's it's available for people to work from and to utilize and maybe there's an advantage also of testing it out a bit, having some some experience with it if we could maybe make recommendations about incentivizing early adopters. One thing I will say is the opting into the specialized stretch code was a proposal that we made that we include that into the town manager's goals for the year. Once we look at it. Next week, the next meeting will know whether the town council is aligned. And that could also help with the timeline Jesse because that is part of the town manager schools. If the town council wants to do it tomorrow. Great. Under. So, we already have early adopters. We already have lots of net zero buildings in town. We have to ask for people to to try it and incentives for early adopters that would be a lot of work to get that into our bylaws, you know, or whatever the zoning. That would be huge. It's way easier for us to just take on the specialized stretch code. So, and the fact that they haven't been able to put in gas for the last eight years or something. That means we have already been an experiment in the specialized stretch code. There's nothing new in it. That isn't already being used all over the place, including an embers. So, I would not go down the incentives. Yeah, that's the, I don't think that's possible either. And just to be clear, it's not the specialized code doesn't mean these are net zero buildings. They're, they're some of them are net zero capable. But they can still have some amount of fossil fuels if it was allowed and there's plenty of sites that have no son. So it's just not, it's not a thing. So, but it's, it's good. It's, these are low energy buildings. These are much lower energy buildings than, than last year's code. So, so why don't we do this with sake of time here. If the town managers goals include set specialized search code. I mean, there's a more point we don't even need to have a discussion. It's, no, we do, we need them, we need to move. I want, I would like to move that we recommend to town council that they adopt the specialized stretch code. That we send the application before. No, before June. As soon as possible, because that way it'll go into effect in January when I decided the earliest it's going to go into effect is January one. So, as soon as possible means January one. Steve. Is this is a specialized code brand new, or have other communities already adopted it. It's been adopted by North Hampton by Brookline by a bunch of other communities it is fairly new as of January one, I believe. And it was a much improved specialized code, but it was a sketch code in there that we adopted into right we adopted into the old one we just have to opt into the new one we did the, we did this previously. If I could actually, so we voted to be a stretch code community. When the stretch code is updated, which it is, because we've already adopted the stretch code that automatically happens. The specialized code is an additional code. It's not a specialized stretch code. It's a specialized code. It's very well I'm just trying to like make the language clear because it's so super confusing. So just to be clear that we already have adopted the stretch code we already are that's what Jesse was alluding to, when he said there's going to be changes that are going to be made. And then there's going to be additional changes that will be made over the next course. Those are automatically happening because we're a stretch code community. The specialized code is like this above and beyond. And that's the piece we're talking about. We've already, we've already done this process once before with the special with the stretch code. Now we're doing it with specialized code. So it's a vote by the yes. It will automatically improve all projects, sort of every year, it seems like now, but certainly July 24. All residential and commercial projects are going to be kind of somewhere between this current stretch and the proposed specialized. They're not that different. And every town is going right where it's where everything is going. Yeah, so the move that we recommend this if there's anyone interested to second or have a vote. I'll leave it at that. Laura. Yeah, thanks, Laura. Yeah, I would second that. Did you hear me. Yeah, and upset. Okay. Stephanie, you had your hand raised. I did, but never mind it doesn't. It's, it's been covered. Okay, so we have a motion on the, on the floor. Yes. I do recommend that the town council adopt the specialized code. By Goldner. It's been seconded by Drucker. So now we have a vote. So by voice vote and no special order. Roof. Yes. Goldner. You're muted, Lori. Yes. Sorry. Allison. Yes. Yes, but provided. Is it too late to say that it shouldn't just say we're recommending. That you adopt it. We're recommending you adopt it. At. At the. It's, it's the timing. Yeah. The timing is going to be what the timing is if they move to do that now. It has to. It'll enact it. Immediately. We're recommending. Immediately. Yeah. We're recommending that they take whatever action is necessary such that. They can hit the earliest possible date. That's, I think it's. Yeah. Well, that's what I think that's what Lori meant. So I wanted to clarify. I know, but I think that's like the. There is certainly the, there's this timing process. So if they vote. If they vote. The timing is the timing, right? They will have to try to hit January of 24. We can't control the timing, but we can. We can recommend that they do this as soon as possible. And sorry to flog the horse. We can't control their timing, but if they see a recommendation from us, that includes some specificity around timing. Okay. That will. Might result in better timing. Okay. I'd be happy with amending it. So that it can be adopted by January 1 of 2024. Okay. Hold on. I'm just writing this down. So I've got it. Okay. Can I change adopted to effective. January. 2024. Lawyer's speak. January 1, 24. Okay. Laura, okay with that because she's second. Well, hold on. So. Well, we have an amendment. So we sort of start again. So. The original motion was you move to accept the specialized code as soon as possible. Selman's amendment so that it can be so that the code can be effective by January 1, 24. So now I need a second. I'll second. Oh, so Allison. Everybody wants to second. Okay. I'm sorry. I heard Dawn first. So I'm sorry. I'm going to go with that. Okay. All right. So now we have a vote again. So, so roof. Yes. Allison. Yes. Feldman. Yeah. Regevan. Yes. Breger. Yes. Rose. Yes. Goldner. Yes. D. Yes. Drucker. Yes. Excellent. Okay. So. Thank you. Vasu. I would assume you'll want to write. Something up. Right. The recommendation. To provide to the council president. So as a. Follow-up, I think. Maybe what I could try to do is put together a little. Pack it. Because I think. Because it's in the idea that it. There would be pushback or. Whatever it may be your challenges expressed. I wonder if I could, maybe I can try to pull from some of these. Documentation. Just a little kind of cheat sheet on the whole topic. So we all have that. At our fingertips. Yeah. Jesse, I'm pretty sure it made it to the town manager's call. So I don't. See it as a. Pushback that we'll be receiving from the town council. But yeah, thank you. Andra. So I was going to suggest that. We get that to the. Council with. The. Recommendation. Yeah. So Jesse, send it over to me when you get a chance. And Vasu, please make sure that you copy me on anything you send to the council. Yeah. And, and, um, actually. So I'm going to change that. You should actually be sending it to the town manager. You make a recommendation. That you. Recommend that the council do this, but you send it to the town manager, not to the council president. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Good discussion. Um, Next topic is on sea base. Yeah. So, um, rather late, um, Stephanie sent it over to the council. So it might get people's attention. Um, I also considered really strongly with what you said, Steve. Um, And, you know, this flyer, I, I, you know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, And, you know, this flyer, I thought was supposed to be a flyer. That's kind of available for anybody who kind of walks into, um, The building department or on the second floor town hall. Um, you know, who's going to make some sort of an application. Uh, you know, for a permit or, you know, for some sort of, uh, Zoning approval for, for a project. Um, I think there'd be a separate and different packet of information that would be put together. Um, if Stephanie and I are successful at. Um, At getting some sort of an educational event with the kind of developers, builders. Property owners. Um, who we want to specifically target. And I think that would be. Fleshed out a little bit after we've really had some conversations with, Um, Mass development, because I don't, I don't want to just be saying, yes, You're going to get more favorable terms. I mean, I, I want to make sure that, you know, the terms that, uh, The financing terms will in fact be more favorable. I mean, it's, It's easy to now say one of the more favorable things you'll get is. It's going to be an assessment on the property. The payback will be so, so that if you sell the property. There's an assessment on it that pays off the financing over time. Um, but there's, but there's more information. That we would need to get from mass development in order to put the money back into the property. And that would be a, a, a, a focused flyer, not flyer, a focused educational packet of information. For, um, for developers. And that's. That would be developed in the context of. This gathering, this educational gathering, if. If. You know, if, um, If you look at, um, Um, These breakfasts that they used to have. I mean, I'm trying to get information from them. Do they still have events and, and gathering. At which we could, at which we could. Make our pitch. So that's, that's where I am in that, but take a look at this flyer, which I. Which I understand is going to be available on the second floor. Um, on the, on the wall, uh, as, as you, um, File whatever it is you're going to file your application. So that's, that's where I am on that. Stephanie. Yeah. Thanks Don for that summary too. Um. You know, I think that any, anything that we do produce is going to have to be reviewed by mass development, including this flyer. Like we will definitely want to make sure that they take a look. Okay. Um, I mean, she certainly helped kind of direct. The local business to the program, but had very little to do with it. Once they signed on, they basically worked with mass development. Which is why again, developing materials or getting the word out. Don, do we want to look at the memo that you have, Flier? I mean, you can look at it. Stephanie sent it around to you. I'll share, I'll screen share. Sure. I've got it up. Sorry guys, I got to run downstairs for a minute and find the right adapter for this computer. I'm gonna run out of batteries. Of course. Stephanie, you said this goes to mass development, probably. Yeah, they administer the program, Jesse. So this, you're working with them to, to, I mean, it's possible. I'm not sure what the format is of the delivery method. Is it, when we say Flier, is this a piece of paper? Is it a web? It would be, it'll probably be all of the above. That we would want to make some copies available on the second floor, where contracts just typically come for permits and where the inspectors are. We'd probably want to have it available on our website. You know, and if we do, if we do kind of a targeted outreach, we'd probably even put it out on social media. You know, we would do our typical communications pathway, which is all kind of outlets and options for communicating. But again, that's, which is why it's important that we make sure that they're okay with this Flier as written. Yes, there's gonna be the Flier, Don, you're hopefully at the chamber of breakfast, talk to the businesses about this. Yeah, there'd be a lot more detailed information, Vassu, like, you know, it's bonds that get issued, a lot of the detail of how the financing works and how the financing would likely compare to conventional financing, you know, from a bank or other financial institutions. Yeah, is this Flier selling the property owner to look into this option at all? Is that something that we wanna highlight here that there's some potential financial benefits doing this? Well, that's what we need to communicate with DE. I mean, right now, I mean, that's what we need to get an understanding from mass development. Like, how does this financing compare? I mean, the one thing we do know is that the financing carries with it, if you will, in legalese, what I would call a security interest, and the security interest is essentially an assessment that gets collected, like taxes get collected, you know, from the owner of the property, which is slightly different than what a normal financing could do. I mean, a bank can't do that, but this financing can in terms of, you know, mechanisms for repayment, security interests that transfer with the property, which a normal mortgage wouldn't transfer when you sell the property. So there are advantages and there are ease to it, but in terms of the terms, in terms of the interest rate you'll get or how long, you know, the term in years, I'm not 100% sure yet, and that really involves a communication with mass development, because I don't think it's as simple as saying, yeah, you're going to get better financing. I'm not 100% there yet, I'm out. So are we saying that this will be the final flyer that you will have or this is TBD after the conversation with mass development center? Well, as Stephanie says, it clearly has to be sent to mass development to see if it's accurate as far as they are concerned. Okay. You know, so it's not about to be posted on the second floor, and certainly there's time if any more of you have things you would want to add to it in some way, recognizing that this is a basic flyer and it's not targeted as a presentation or an educational presentation to a particular group. It's an introduction to the program. Yeah, thanks, Tom. Jesse? I wonder if the mass development logo and the town of Amherst logo were at the top and maybe a nice picture at the bottom? It's a two-pager. If it ended up as a two-pager, I think those two things would make it evenly fill two pages. Maybe some people carrying a piece of heat pump on a brick building, do we have that picture? Jesse, I think that formatting will come. I mean, we have to include their logo if we're putting this out there and we would have ours as well. I mean, those kind of just have to happen. So I think right now we're just looking for content. This isn't like the formatted flyer. It's just kind of the content of the flyer. The formatting will come later. Okay, any other comments? Okay. So, Don, then the next step would be to connect with mass development, continue to work on and update the flyer and then you'll let us know when it's posted. Well, yeah, there's two different things that are gonna go on as far as this pace is concerned. Thing one is to get some response from mass development to this flyer. Thing two is working on an educational event with the chamber and developers before which more detailed information would be developed to be able to present either from mass development or from us working with mass development to be presented at that event, whatever that event turns out to be. Yeah, makes sense. Thanks, Don. Okay, any other questions for Don? Okay, Lori, over to you on heat pumps. Yeah, so honestly, I've been thinking mostly about the festival lately and not as much about heat pumps, but I know that there is one thing that I wanted to ask about before getting into the festival which is that Stephanie, you sent around the heat pump advocacy training and I think it was the very large price tag at the bottom of $800 a ped for four sessions, I think it was, which struck me as, ouch, I can get for a little bit more than that, I can get trained as a passive house consultant. So why would I pay 800 to be a, just to be an advocate for heat pumps? So I'm a little puzzled about that and wondering what to do with it. Do you have any suggestions? No, I mean, so Steve had reached out and asked if there was a way that the town could provide some funding for training, but I think it would be limited. I mean, I suggested that potentially two to three members could be trained, but if you're going to get, so what I would say is if that happens and I'm sort of envisioning the whole heat pump program because I know Lori, you and I are working on developing the RFQ, so envisioning how that would work, those members that get who want the training would have to be the ones committed to the heat pump program that would provide training to community members. So there would be a direct support of the programming that we're trying to implement here in town. And I think there could be sustainability funds used. So I did not get an affirmative. I got a, sure, let's have a discussion. So that was the response I got. So it's not a no. Okay, about that particular ad or about eventually trying to include this as part of the heat pump program? Just about getting training. Not only I'm only discussing the training. So this is for, if the town could potentially provide the funding for two to three members. I suggested two to three who would attend the training and the town could provide the funding to attend those training sessions. And then those members would then be required to work on doing the community outreach and training in creating the community captains. Like I feel like that's, I was sort of thinking what we had talked about and how that sort of structure might work. So in sort of building that heat pump program out a little more, it would start with ECAC members training community captains. So I think that's a nice logical progression and it would pay it forward because those people then wouldn't have to pay for the training, you know, you all would hopefully have been supported in doing that. The other, you know, I don't, I think it makes sense for you all to be the ones to sort of get this training. So that's what I'm advocating for. I had just haven't gotten a response yet. And we have to look at the sustainability funds and make sure I think we do have funds to do that. So I just want to make sure that they're available and can be used now. But if we're going to include this in some way, we talked about including this in the heat pump program as the last step in that whole thing, right? So maybe that's the better place for it. Maybe we get a better deal doing that as part of the larger program, right? I don't know what you mean by include that as part of the larger problem. Having the consultant do that training? Having it, yeah, wasn't one of the requirements in the RFP wasn't it to provide some sort of training for, I forget what you called it. It was the same thing, essentially heat pump advocates that they train, you know, before they wrap up there as a final phase of their heat pump program, whoever, whichever consultant we hire, provides training to Amherst residents to carry on the advocacy part of his work. Yep, and so I'm not saying, I think this is what we'd have to, I think this is a conversation we should have offline because I feel like, yes, that was a sort of proposal, but I'm also seeing this as an opportunity where if we could just sort of get the training right up front now and not have to wait and not have to rely on the consultant and to give them yet another thing, I sort of feel like it, to me, it would probably be more insure that we sort of have the information that we want to be distributed to the community and to make sure that it's the correct information. I feel like you have a very specific training. I don't, we're not guaranteed that the consultant is gonna do this kind of same training and have the same information as you're getting through the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, right, so we can talk more about it offline, but just for everyone's benefit, I wanted to say that. All right, yeah, that's a better recommendation too, I think, Stephanie. Okay, so I don't have anything else on, he comes up with that, I do have, it's the festival, the last thing that, the pace flyer was a good segue, actually into talking about the festival, because... Hey, Lauren, a question on heat pumps. I thought you were also gonna set up some sort of a panel discussion. Oh, yeah. I'd still like to do that in principle. I am a little, I'm wondering how to go about it. Maybe what I should do is put out feelers for folks to please send me suggestions for people who would sit on a panel to discuss heat pumps, presumably someone who's done the transition in their own home and will also know something about these systems or maybe just someone who's done the transition, somebody who knows about installation, somebody who knows about bigger picture items, just a group of people that would make good panelists for a discussion on heat pumps for the public to come in and just ask the questions. Right. So if you have suggestions for that, if you wanna send them to me, I'll start reaching out and seeing what folks think. What do you think about for a timeframe, maybe after the end of the, we're thinking early, I'm thinking not this semester in the slam, but maybe maybe like May or June. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we do have to put that out. Yeah. Laurie, I wanted to remind you, I'm in the middle of one of these transitions. So it's a little more complicated because it's a ground source heat pump. Oh, that's great. I am right in the middle of it. The wells are in, the trenching is gonna happen in March and the installation is gonna happen in March. So... You're one of our panelists, Don. Yeah, right. And as I was telling Laura, and I think Jesse, I'm also learning all sorts of stuff about MassSafe because I went online, they said, okay, you're eligible for a maximum $25,000 heat loan, which is an interest-free loan over seven years. So I made my application and they sent me back a piece of paper approving it for $50,000. And I said, but there's no $50,000. I don't, there's apparently an unadvertised extended heat loan program. And they sent me the check for $50,000 to give to the contractor. It's very strange. It's even more strange because you're also do rebates, right? And they usually subtract the rebates from that too. Yeah, they did. It was a per 65 and they subtracted $15,000 rebates. Okay, yeah, that was something that is not obvious from their website either. Right. But they didn't subtract the insulation they paid for to do the insulation in our attic. That was extra where they paid another $4,400 to put insulation in. So I know at least one person who would like to talk to you, Don and I might send him to you anyway, but I think for a panel, this would make a really good panelist. And Laura, you completed a, is Laura still here? She completed the heat pump transition, right? Yeah, she did too. I think it was last year. I think Stella did. I did about five, six years ago. I'm about to do mine next week, but it won't be a complete conversion, I'm afraid to say. Because of the cost problems that Jesse was talking about earlier. So Stella did one, Laura did one, Stella did. And then who else? I did. We had enough people right on the committee to just do it. I mean, I've also overseen many. So I'm wondering, Lori, if I could just throw this out there because it's like so many of you have done it. Why not just, you know, and Basu, you're the chair, but why not make this one of those evening presentations as part of a meeting and just each of you sort of tell your story. And it could be the entire meeting, you know, and our presentations, an hour of people that give, you know, ask questions. And we just talk about the transition we've done and why and or what we're doing. And then let, and then open up the questions. That'd be a great idea. I, it wouldn't hurt, in my opinion, to ask an installer and, and like I heard his writer, or someone who's someone who's one of these conduits for massive to be on a panel. I think that those two entities would offer a different level of expertise. And when it comes to these kinds of questions, picturing like if the questions get a little more car talky, I think it'd be great to have those entities on the panel. I could, I can send you some ideas. If this goes really well, we should maybe do it. If it goes, let's do it here. If it goes really well, I'll see about getting a radio show, right? Doing a broadcast one evening, it could even be in the evening, just broadcasting it out so people can call in. That'd be sort of cool. I don't know anything about that, but I have a friend who does this all the time. So I bet she would be willing to help out. Lori, I'm going to send you, there's a blog right now that is for a blog, no, not a blog, a podcast. That's the word I'm looking for. There's a podcast right now that's basically what we're talking about with different special guests. You're going to love it. Yes, sounds like I am. Lori, I just have to check out, you know, because it's a public meeting, I'm not sure how that all sort of works. So let's just, I mean, you've got... I could do that separately then outside of the, okay, good. You might get a set up to do that though sometime. Okay, so it's going to be an internal panel discussion? Is that what we want? Yeah, let's do that and maybe take Jesse's suggestion and ask maybe the guy who, so the guy who's doing my transition, it's Western Mass, the same one that did Laura, so I ended up going with you two. That's doing mine too. So the guy who runs that, yeah, people, they're good, then they talk to you and they're going to go back and forth. And the guy I've been talking to, the salesman, Lauren, is not the guy who knows stuff. I think Jesse, you gave me, someone gave me the name of the guy who runs the place who really knows what he's talking about. I haven't spoken with him, but Mark? Yeah, I'll send you some information. Yeah, I think you may have already. Maybe I'll send an email to both of you. Make the ask a little, let's talk offline. All right, OK. No, we're not. And then her is Raider, we can do that later. All right, we'll do it offline. OK. All right, so who's on the panel? We got Don, Jesse, Laurie, Laura, Stella. Stella. I have an install. Well, I actually was not the adult in this household who was like in charge of that, should be perfectly honest. OK. Was it that kid that keeps popping up? No, it was Frederick, my best. Would he be willing to be honest? Unlikely, because he has to play with Rosie. OK, all right, OK. So it'll be Don, Jesse, Laura, probably. When? Yeah, I'm happy to. I mean, I went through that. I mean, I'm not sure what you mean by conversion. I still do have a backup oil heat. And a wood pellet stove. Yeah, but but yeah, we definitely have did the transition. Yeah. And if you want to guys want to hear something funny, my transition is scheduled for next week. And on that cold day we had two weeks a week ago now, my old furnace decided to start short cycling and stopped warming them up. So my backup stove has come in really handy this last week. It sounds like you've got plenty of people. I just say you've got plenty of people. I have a recently installed heat pump water heater, which I've been collecting lots of data. That's great time forever on that if you let me. That's right. Yeah, that's great. That's great. So I think what we should do is each of us should prepare five minutes of our experience and then open it up. Cool. I make I might contact you separately just to make sure we're all on the same page. This is Laura. I'm going to drop off now. But yes, happy to participate. OK, cool. Bye, Laura. And when are we targeting Lord? That could be that could be in a month. I don't know. Let me make sure my calendars and let's not do it next week. But maybe in. Yeah, too soon. Yeah, OK. Soon. Would this be during one of our ECAC meeting time frame? Yeah. Yeah. OK, month is of March 15. That should be OK. I'm not shooting there somewhere. All right. If it's March 15, I won't be here. So that's OK if I'm not on the panel. I'm going to be out of the country from the 10th to the 26th. Don, you're doing the the ground source, though. Yeah. Probably to schedule it when you can be here. Yeah, I'm going from the 10th to the 26th. Let's do April then mid-April. That works fine. So I'm from March 17 to 21st. April 21st. March 17 and April 21st. So we want to do it after first first meeting in May. Sure. Yeah, OK. OK, OK. And so now are we on to the festival? Yeah. OK, so so my, you know, the I wrote to Vasu about this. I think that last time it was suggested we should keep it simple. So I'm thinking just getting a couple of easels like we had last time. Jesse, I understand those came from you, the easels. I have one rugged easel. OK, so one if you want the one if we can get a second one that might give us a place for people just to write their what they're interested in, you know, just free real freestyle what they're interested in. And then on the other one, there could be similar to what was at the at the what was it the street block party. So I was thinking, you know, either a big easel or a big easel and a big piece of paper or something for people to write on to make a to make a mural sort of thing on just to fill in what they think is important and writes right stuff, sort of like a the online version of that what's it called with the post it note thing. Post it note thing. Right. Jamboard. That's a good idea. Post it. Jamboard, jamboard, an actual jamboard. There you go. So do we, Laura, do we want to take the time to also collect any data that we might find useful? I don't know what it is, but I'm just throwing it out there instead of, you know, having the community write whatever they feel like, is there some metric that we want to collect that might be useful? Like, if they're not aware of some topic so we can channel our discussion in these meetings, just wondering if that might. Well, that's the sort of thing that I would put up. You know, I can, I can prompt, we can prompt them at the beginning of at the jamboard, right? What do you want to, you know, for the jamboard we could have some prompts like what should e-cac, you know, we'll explain who we are, be concerned with, right? What are you concerned with, right? Stephanie. It's also an opportunity to promote the heat pump program, which will hopefully be, if not happening, soon to be happening. And one of the questions could just be, do you have heat pumps? It would be a great way to get some information about some of the households. Yeah. And the other thing that I want, the other side of this is we want to take information in and take stuff in. We also, as Vasu keeps reminding us, want to get word out there that we're here and that we're doing stuff. So I was thinking of getting together a bunch of flyers. So we have the PACE flyer. We should put together a heat pump flyer, something about where you can get information for electric vehicles. You know, I could think of a whole, some of these things are probably available through things like Green Energy Consumers Alliance, but some of them are things we would make up, specific to e-cac and specific to the town. And you know, if you have ideas for that, send them, let's see what would be the ideas I had already were, where are they, they're here. The PACE flyer, where to go to find out about electric vehicles. Where to go to find out about heat pumps and decarbonizing your home. Tips to green your home. Climate legislation, you might want to support just a list of things that folks might that are politically active since there are a lot of us and members that do that. So my next meeting, you know, might want to call their state senators and the representatives to support certain legislation. If there are other pieces of information we need to get out, this would be a good place to do it. Just a table full of flyers, right? Stephanie? So my experience is that, especially nowadays, people don't typically like to take flyers. So if you're going to do a flyer, I would just do one with a lot of information, like links to things. Like if you want more information about with links. But then also it's fun if you can get, you know, do QR codes and bring people to things. Like, you know, so thinking a little more electronically and not just relying on a table full of flyers, because I can also tell you that historically our events are either rainy or windy. Very rarely do we get like a really nice sunny afternoon. OK. And the windy is almost worse because flyers will go everywhere and tends to get knocked over and, you know. All right, so QR codes, QR codes and one flyer. But as long as we have the paste flyer, I think we ought to include that too for any builders who happen to come by or people who do developers or developing or renovation. Just to have it there since we have it already. Lory, maybe some information on our carp. I think age 23 of our carp has the pie chart that shows percent contribution by sector. We should include that as well for education there. That might just be a poster or something. We could maybe have a poster to put on the table. Something for people to take a picture of. They can take a picture of it, right? They can have different things. They can take a picture of or take a QR code of, right? Jesse. Lory, if you had links for things, I could print on a large format printer like that image that Vasu is talking about. And we could surround it by QR codes. Say, come to one of our meetings, QR code. Read the carp, QR code. Learn more about this and just kind of take it to a table. I'd be happy to, if you want to tell me what you want on it, I'd be happy to format that out for you. OK, thanks. Yeah, the one problem that I found with QR codes in the block party is not a lot of people were actually scanning. So I mean, the flyer is nice because you could just give them, hand it to them, and they can look at it at some point. I'm all for saving paper, but it wasn't very powerful. And I hate to say this, but a lot of us oldsters really had to struggle to figure out what the hell to do with the QR code. I mean, I've had to now cry. It's really fun now that I figured it out. I see old people trying to take pictures of QR codes and wondering why their camera isn't taking them to the link. So you need an app to do this. So that was, you know, it's not always obvious. If you're not a kid and you haven't done it a million times, it's not really obvious what a QR code does. A link might be more useful in some cases. Well, we can also instruct. I was going to say, you could also, you know, have instructions available. And if you're all there or if, you know, some of you were there at certain times, help people through it. It's a nice way to engage with people too. But again, I think, you know, big flyers, they just, people don't take them. I've print, I've had so many events where I print, you know, information out and I've done this, I've had them at the table and no one takes them. And then I feel like either I'm bummed out because people are taking them and then I find them all over the common or, you know, they don't take them. And then I'm just like stuck recycling a whole stack of paper. Yeah, I was just thinking, Stephanie, maybe just one page with has all the information like Jesse was saying that we can, well, actually flyers that we can make multiple copies and hand it to people instead of multiple sheets per person. It could be, here's what you need to do for pace, here's what you need to do for mass save. And it's all in one page that we can just print out multiple copies. It just wasn't very useful, Stephanie, with the barcode and the blog party. Jesse, what are you saying? Yeah, Jesse had. Well, also, to me, a big piece of the value of this is just the human interaction, the conversations, just making sure we have one or two of us there throughout and being and with a couple cups of coffee in us and really ready to talk and listen and engage people and sort of like, we're kind of the face of this movement, I think getting our, getting slicked for that and being ready to hear, you know, picking people in and hear what they're thinking. That interaction is huge. So Jesse, that was actually my next action item here was I wanted, I already have a Google spreadsheet put together for people to sign up. Trying to get two people, it's from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. I'm gonna show up a half hour early at least to set up and I need someone at the end of the day, I think to do the cleanup. And then if we could take, you know, two hour shifts maybe, I think that'll cover the whole day for two at a time. So Lori, can I just jump in here? Setup is from eight to 10. Eight to 10. Don't wanna set up by half hour before because a lot of people tend to wait and then show up and then there's a scramble. So it's really better earlier. Plus I feel like I can tap you all for helping other people set up. So if you guys get up early, you know, set up early, then we can help other people get set up too. Okay, I'll be there as early as I can stand, but if somebody else wants to help with that, that'd be great. And then if we can get at least two hour shifts the rest of the day, two people at a time, that would be good. I'll underize their handle. Well, I didn't mean to, you can finish Lori. No, that's all. I just, I just wanna make sure it's okay for me to send that sign up sheet around outside of this meeting, right? Um, why don't you just, um... Can we just share it now and see if we can, or maybe we don't have time actually. That's fine. Lori, why don't you, yeah, why don't you just have me send it out and ask people to sign up? Okay, good. That's what I'll do. I'll send you the link Stephanie and then you can send it around. Um, okay. Do we still need to talk about specific topics or how things are gonna be Lori? Any support that you need? If we're talking pace, what information does Dawn need to give you? Let me see what I can pull together. And if I need anything, I know who the right person to contact is. And I think I'm allowed to do that as long as it's only one person, right? Yeah, okay. So let me see what I can come up with. I'll try to do that. If anyone has something they wanna see linked there, send it to me, same thing. You know, I'll start collecting stuff. The only other thing. Let's review it one time, Lori, before, or at least one time before the festival. Right. I can see that. Okay. Thank you. So what I wanted to suggest was that we have a climate order so that we're with the organizations that are also working for the same goals. And so the people who we want to refer, someone who wants to get involved are right over there. Go talk to them right now. And I think synchronicity will happen similar to what happened at the block party. I can certainly keep like a climate group. I've done that before about trying to keep certain groups like I've had UMass in the past, have a bunch of different groups and I've tried to keep them all together. So I can do that with climate groups, but... Unless they have a climate group, put them with us. We don't, yeah, we don't have a, I mean, other than mothers out front, I don't know that we tend to have a lot. Although I am trying to get the high school's environmental action club to see if I think they're going to sunrise. We want to have one and the Amherst Climate Justice Alliance. Well, people need to let me know. I need contacts for those groups and they need to do it sooner than later because I'm going to probably start to send information out and requests out. Yeah, what about local energy advocates? And if we can get electric, they could do an induction stove demo. We'll definitely do a demo. We were also talking about MassSafe, right? Being there potentially. Well, we can try. Usually there's like a CET, whoever it is that sort of, you know, one of their program consultants will show up. And I think I've reached out to CET. I don't know for sure if they've responded yet. They've been in the past, but I don't know if they have confirmed. And again, anybody, any of these things that you're thinking of? If anyone's going to do a demo, please let me know. You got to talk to me because I've got to start pulling this together. April comes so fast. So the sooner you let me know and the sooner I can sort of block things out, the better. Yeah, and another, just one comment to your comment about being together. I'm good with that. Last time at the block party, we had a prime spot and we moved to the corner. So I don't know, Stephanie, if you allocate spots for everybody. I do all of this. I do it all. So when you, but I'm very organized about, like if people, I will send an email to the entire distribution group. And I ask if people have requests for special placement that they send them to me. So at the time when I start mapping it all out, and I literally do this by hand on a big piece of paper with, you know, pencil and ruler. So, you know, I start mapping it out and trying to put people where they want to be. And I always try my best. I don't guarantee that I can always put everyone where they want to be, but I try my best. Stephanie, are there going to be any electric cars there? Any of them? Yes. So there's a group called Pioneer Valley Electric Automobile Association. They've been at every event. I've already talked to Kay, who is the organizer and representative for that group. And she's already told me they'll be there. And we have had, they always have vehicles there. We've, in the past, it was one year in particular where we were able to have people test out electric vehicles like to drive them on the road. We had car manufacturing companies represented there. But the, I know that the farmers market is starting that same Saturday. So that whole Spring Street location won't be available. So it's always a little bit of a challenge. It's like a great thing when they're there and kind of a challenge too, because it's like less parking in less space for us to do some cooler things. But the PVEAA is usually, they have the vehicles displayed in the center of the event. We have them drive them onto the common and park them in the center. Cool. So, that's they're always there. All right. Okay. Thanks, Stephanie. That's all I got. Yeah, thanks, Lori. Stephanie, any updates from you? I'm sort of tapped out. And I think given the time, I'm happy to, I don't think I have anything like off the top of my head right now. I'm sorry, I'm tired. It's been a week. So. No worries. Any number updates? I just report. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Andrew. I just want to mention that it's, you know, new legislation season on Beacon Hill and there's several bills that we might want to look at and recommend that the town say something about, you know, promote, ask our legislators to co-sponsor. They already are being asked, but, you know, there may be some things that we would like a resolution on. So, maybe that's a future agenda item. Yeah, I think some of those were specifically about getting the gas companies to stop overseeing mass-save. They're basically being asked to put themselves out of business, right? Is that what you're thinking of, Andrew? Oh, there's several I would point us to. There's some good bills coming up through the system right now. Hunter, do we want to talk about that at the next meeting or you need a little bit more time? No, sure. Next meeting's fine. Jesse? I'm already a minute. I just, it's nice to see there's a good showing of ECAC members at the Coalition Climate Justice Coalition event on Saturday at the Library. I think Don was there, Laura was there. Andrew was virtually there. And it was a really impressive, just an awesome reminder of sort of the youth movement. And I think my takeaway was there, they've got a unique ability to speak truth to power in a wonderful way. And I just, I found it to be, it was cool. The next day I went to a Celtics game and I will tell you 16,000 people in a stadium did kind of outshine the like 40 or 50 of us in the basement of the library. And I'm just sort of like, how do we get this? How do we get the 15,000 people to go to the local climate? How many people showed up, Jesse? I don't know, the room was full. I don't know if there's a way to know that, but a lot of people in all ages, it was a good, I found it to be a good event. Steve? I listened in to much as I could. I heard a lot of sort of general talk about good principles towards climate issues, but I did not hear a lot of, I didn't think I heard a lot of specifics. Did you have a sense or what kind of level of awareness was there of like the Massachusetts clean energy, clean climate plan and the roadmap for 2050 and the particular things that need to be done to reach that decarbonization plan? My sense was the role of this event was to say, here are the groups in town trying to do this work. We're trying to all come together and work together. It was entirely general, I would say. Anything on the panel discussion or any other highlights, Jesse? Well, Jesse was a highlight. He did a great job bringing in what he does well about the culture shift and we all are in this together. I tried to mix these points once, but I kind of fell. I gave myself a solid B minus. I only heard once, maybe I missed it, but only once that I hear a mention that we need to stop burning fossil fuels. And that was kind of disappointing to me that the one thing that we absolutely need to do, stop burning fossil fuels was not really much discussed. Yeah, and that was Laura's feedback to, I think that knows. This is okay, but there wasn't a lot of concrete. I don't think there was anyone in that room who would question that. This felt more like a networking event to me. And more of an event where like an anti-siloing activity. One other takeaway that I had was I'd left asking myself the question of what would it look like to have someone from the high school on this committee? I walked out of the library thinking about that because they're articulate, they're smart, they will push us, they're bold. Stan? I was just thinking, I was just sort of a semi-casual thought, but I've been driving around and in light of the concerns that somebody raised at our last meeting about tree canopy, I've been just driving around seeing a lot of trees on residential land coming down that like, I'm like, I don't really know why those are coming down. Obviously, people looked at them and so that's just like my drive-by thoughts, but it also came to my attention recently that Tampa, Florida now just put new ordinances in place where like any tree 24 inches or greater in diameter, you have to have a permit to prune and any tree five inches or greater in diameter, you have to have a permit to remove. So just food for thought, because we obviously don't have anything like that. As far as I know, all of our regulations apply to public trees, none apply to private trees, and there are many municipalities where private trees are more in the conversation as far as active retention. If they're in a wetland there, that would change. Oh, here, you mean? Yeah. And still a town trees extend a fair bit from the road right of way onto property, right? I think it's 10 feet or? Yeah, that's not like a, I wouldn't necessarily call that like a fair bit. It is a little bit. Well, what people might think is their tree along the side of the road is a protected town tree. Yeah, it's true. And I think people are normally aware of that. But still, there's like a lot of trees that aren't that. And when you said coming down, you meant like intentionally cut down as opposed to being downed by storm damage? Yeah, yeah, I meant removal. Yeah. So I wouldn't, this is maybe shooting from the hip a bit, but I don't think I'd want to see this committee try to take that up. There's already a feeling in Amherst that the rules are very, difficult to deal with. And people take down trees for all sorts of reasons. And in my neighborhood, you can't take down a tree over six inches in diameter without neighborhood association being involved. So, you know, there have been, there are different reasons why people do it. And I don't think we need to know all of them. And trees are not really our problem here. We have lots of trees. And the problem is we don't let our forest, as far as that we don't let grow for more than 60 years. If you want a real thing to dig your teeth into work on that, because that's when they be, you know, we, all the state forests are true, are cut every 60 years. And that's just at the point where they start to be good carbon sinks. And that's how we've been doing it. That's why we have forests at all. But it's sort of sad that it happens just as they start to become effective as carbon sinks. Well, Lori, I encourage you to come to the community tree conference on the 28th and see if we can change your mind about the value of urban canopy. Cause I do notice it's 631, but I would argue that it definitely, I'm not sure that regulation and like putting these ordinances in place is under, is part of something we should be talking about. But I do think, I do feel definitely think that residential canopy is something that we should be talking about for a lot of reasons. And I think the community wants us to be talking about it. So I thought it was maybe worth raising. Thanks Stella. And then 628. Yeah, we can talk about trees for two more minutes. Come on. Stephanie. Sorry, I do have a quick update that I wanted to share. Either, I think it was last week, the high school environmental action club invited me to speak to them just kind of in general about what I do and some of the things the town is doing about addressing climate change. And sort of future careers for them, that kind of thing. But one of the things that I did sort of want to impart to them and some of the things we've talked about and something I've been thinking a lot more lately too is that with all of these things and recommendations that we make to people about using alternative technology, driving alternative vehicles, all this reliance on technology, I feel like a lot of it is about lifestyle choices. And I encouraged them to really think about the choices that they make day to day like walking as much as they can or using public transportation or using a bicycle. You know, again, I feel like we're, to me, I just keep feeling like it's really about not using as much energy, not using the fossil fuels not wasting as much. You know, I just, I think we sort of need to really advocate for a sort of simpler lifestyle. And I just, I feel so strongly about that. But I just wanted to share that. And part of that came from having listened to a report on NPR on my way home from our last meeting that was about cobalt mining. And I won't get into it now because we don't really have the time. But it was truly upsetting to me. And I felt like it's, and it's related to rechargeable batteries. And I just wanted to sort of think about that and think about what we're advocating for and even the things that we're advocating for that might be the lesser of all the evils still has trade-offs and consequences. So really what's the best thing is to really get people to think about their lifestyle choices. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a behavioral change, right Stephanie? And Jesse, I don't know if a question came up during the ACJA around that on behaviors. Yeah, there was a great, someone, so well, the comment, there was a little bit, there was a comment about, first of all, just Stephanie. Yeah, big time. It's, it's huge. You know, there was a comment about, I might paraphrase to say like we, to be careful that we're not saying buy batteries or electrify or buy solar panels, like that's not the end goal. The end goal is to reduce emissions to lower carbon, to sequester carbon. And those may be tools, but they have to be, have to be, have to be coupled with load reduction, which means insulating and wearing sweaters and walking more like across changing the way we eat, the way we travel, the way we behave is part of that whole load reduction piece that the technology piece can only do, can pair with nicely, but it's, they need to go together. So. Stephanie, I have another meeting. These are also part of the load reduction, by the way. All right, we're actually. A beautiful, amazing part of the load reduction, I might add. All right, let's talk about the action items for our next meeting or agenda. So we have Andra, legislative updates, the new school building. We're going to have somebody, I can't remember the name, Stephanie, that Laura mentioned, maybe to the notes, Andra. Kathy Shown, I think. Kathy, okay. Is there anything else for next meeting? We don't need to talk about stretch code. So, John, did. Yeah, the solar panel update for next week and then transportation as well. John, did you have something for seabase? Can't remember. No, okay. But there was one more that we discussed at the start of the meeting, but that should be good. So it's, I mean, if I do connect with Claudia when she gets back, you know, I'm happy to just update that. Yes. That's good. Next time. I'll look through the notes and tag anything that is an active item. Yeah, that was the first 10 minutes of the conversation, Andra. I thought it was another one. Thank you. Okay, any public comments? Yeah, Marta, any comments? Go ahead, Marta, you can unmute yourself. Oh, I would just like to ask, when is the sustainability festival that you're all talking about? You kept talking about it and nobody ever mentioned the date. April 22nd, Saturday, April 22nd from 10 to four. It sounds good. So... Well, the League of Women Voters typically has a table, Marta. So, you know. Okay, I guess I'd better let them know than have not. Well, whoever is the contact from the last time should have received an email from me. But if not, then let's check in. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay, that's all we have the time for. Thank you all for everything that you do. Have a great evening. Thanks, everybody. Bye.