 attending. Okay. Yep, I got it. So, sorry, so we are now recording in my apologies that we started that late. Thanks for the mic. For the record, for the record, the minutes were approved at 910. Thank you, Tom. And for the record, the minutes are the record of the meeting, not the recording. Correct. Thank you, Caroline. Okay, so, alright, so we were, our last comment was that we are assuming or hoping that the executives will be able to stay for the entire meeting will certainly encourage them to do so. So it may be when we get some dates from Paul, I'll do a doodle poll for Paul and the executives. So, Tom, I'll be getting that to you as well. Okay. All right. Let's see what else. So is there anything else on CCA? I mean, that's kind of the big next step. Okay. All right, then moving on. So Adele, you had asked about putting these two legislative bills on the, on the docket for today. So yeah, though, to me, what's really important about these bills is number one, that Roy is the sole sponsor of the House bill, which amazes me because Roy always says he can't sign on to things because he's the speaker. But anyway, it would the good, the good things in the bills are that it provides deadlines for how fast DPU has to act on CCA applications. But also, it includes language on line 11 and 12 that could be interpreted to mean that CCAs can do other things besides just by Rex. And that really intrigues me. So anyway, so I'm hoping that our municipalities can officially go on record as endorsing these bills can therefore write to our legislators saying that. And also that we might look for other opportunities to support the bills. That's it. Thank you. Sure. All right. Anybody else of Darcy, go ahead. I just am wondering what what would this group have as a procedure to get our municipalities to do that? Would we have to go? Could we could we write a letter to our legislative bodies or whatever the processes seeks endorsers or whatever? How would we go about doing it other than sending? I mean, we can always send a letter supporting it to the legislature from this group, but we could also get our legislative bodies to do it. You mean no legislative reps for our region? So it's like how much further than? Yeah, well, what what I mean is we could go to our legislative tour city council and town council and select board with like a resolution that our communities support this. And you know, they always say the resolutions always say we support this bill. And we resolve to send our expression of support to all of our local reps, the speaker of the House and the Senate president and governor and everyone else. So yeah, I've seen many of those resolutions just supporting specific legislation. So in Northampton, we might bring it to the NESC for endorsement before the city council endorses. Right, that would help. That would be that's what occurs to me anyway. I don't know what Carolyn thinks about that. Yeah, I mean, that seems like the right path, but it doesn't preclude other constituent groups from contacting directly their legislative reps is all I'm sort of adding to the mix and that so that, you know, your your group could go directly to the legislative delegation in Western Mass and say, you know, separate from what the communities are doing. We also are on board. I think that having each municipality pass a resolution is really good way. And I think that there will be a move to do that across the state. And then, you know, that's a powerful statement. You know, we have, you know, 100 municipalities who have asked you this or whatever. Andra, would you encourage the ECAC to Yeah, and something to Paul that is actually on my legislative list that we didn't get to at the last meeting. OK, all right. So all right. So we're already sort of moving in that direction anyway, which is good. Tom, what about you? Is there could you work with your energy group to get something? Absolutely. OK, great. Are we nothing as impossible to the person who doesn't have to write the first draft? I think if there was a template that could be submitted, that would make it easier. But I like what you're saying. Andra, I'm totally behind the idea. I'm happy to get Pellum to get behind it as well. Adele, are you aware of any templates that are out there or any campaign or anything? Not yet. But I will look. But I'm traveling, so it's going to be hit or miss for a while. I'll do my best. So you reminded me, Adele, that we could, you know, Energy and Sustainability Commission meets next week. I haven't done the agenda yet. It needs to be posted by this afternoon at four. So I could put an item on the agenda as sort of a draft council resolution or discussion of a possible draft resolution that goes to city council for the Tuesday meeting. And then the commission could discuss it and determine, you know, that it could be sort of submitted to the mayor with support by the Energy and Sustainability Commission. Great. Do we need to have a draft resolution before the meeting on Tuesday? And is that necessary? It probably makes sense, but I can post it on the agenda without having the draft. So the draft can come later. Thanks. Roy's office might have something. I mean, we have so many resolutions. It's really a matter of just taking the format and plugging in why you think this is a good idea, taking pieces of the legislation. Yeah, Andrew, were you about to say something? I'm betting that the building electrification group is already on this. Yeah. If you're still on that, do you want to ask them if they have it? I know that network. Yeah, very active. I'll check. Okay. And if you yeah, if you find something, then you can just forward it to me and or just to the whole group is fine. Andrew, do you are you saying that they're working on a resolution specifically on this? I wouldn't be surprised if there was already language for draft resolutions. So I'll find out. Great. Okay, great. That's awesome. All right. And you can just let us all or let me know or send it out to everyone. If you get it, that'd be great. Thanks. Anything else? Sounds like we're all on board about having a resolution go before our various legislative boards. So, and let's see. So the next agenda item we have is the update on the Amherst solar assessment events. Just as a point of interest, Amherst did a community wide solar assessment and we have three opportunities for the public to one get information first through a zoom meeting, which is being held on Monday this coming Monday, the 13th at 7pm. And it'll just be a presentation by our consultant GZA environmental Inc. who did the solar assessment. So they'll sort of talk about that process and the resulting map that came from that. And then there'll be two opportunities for our community to engage at the Jones library. So we're going to have an event on Saturday, March 18 from noon to two. And then again at the Jones library on Thursday, March 23, that will be from 6 to 8pm. And they're going to be interactive workshops where people can come in, there'll be stations set up and people can just go around the room and sort of give their opinion on the solar mapping or on solar in general. And it's going to be sort of multiple different formats of how they can do that. Some will be like a pole, put a dot here, others will be like through pictures. So the idea is that it's a safe space, people can come and go with self paced. It's not going to be a big presentation at either of those workshops, but it'll be an opportunity for people to safely in a safe space give their opinions and there'll be ways for people to sort of express those even who might have some English literacy challenges will have some interpretation. So we'll also have children's activities. I think one of them is to make a sundial. So we have some fun activities for for kids happening at that event as well and also there'll be some food available for people so I know that's very Amherst specific but you know for the benefit of people who might be watching this later just wanted to make sure we got that out there. So the importance for that to really in for the for certainly us is that in identifying where solar goes as we move the CCA forward this gives us an opportunity sort of identify where solar the most feasible remaining in town so that's a good base map. It's a good place to start. So any general comments. Well that raises the question of the JPE because it's the JPE that will actually work on a solar array. So I'm assuming that you all receive the email that I sent and I don't know what if there is any follow up about your meeting with the chief executives of the various communities. Yeah, I think I think we want to make sure we just get this CCA started right now and get that moving and as soon as we can sort of get that like public session over. I think we'll you know when and that's sort of moving forward with the application will be able to have more time to devote to the JPE but I think we need to just sort of focus on getting the CCA out right now I that's at least my opinion. Carolyn or Tom you can jump in. But we're not giving up on the JPE it's just that we need to get this going. It's we really want to make sure it's it's launched sooner than later. Carolyn or Tom I will start Carolyn you can please go ahead. No, I mean I agree I think that we just this is the key component we can't I mean the JPE can't do anything really until aggregations completed, you know, officially, other than organizing so that organizing take place. You know, it doesn't have to be immediate. My earbuds just went dead. I really appreciate the work put into the letter. First, before I comment too much on that I would like to get the dates and the invite for the zoom on Monday night and share that with some of the energy committee people I think. You know, like Adele you pointed out that this legislation creates opportunities to do things beyond buying wrecks as wrecks. And I think knowing where the parcels are knowing that we've got this new inflation reduction act which has all kind of like the driving force of solar finance our tax credits like it or not. And municipalities, government schools, they they're just not tax paying entities so they're forced to go into deals and this new IRA bill creates ways to trade the tax credits so that projects can happen people who have tax appetite so I'm I'm liking the legislation and what what it may offer I do have to read on it more but I think it's a great idea to get it supported at the county level or the municipality level. I think that if we spend time on the JPE. We slow ourselves down on getting into the queue to get approved by the DPU with or without this legislation so I'm both an advocate for staying the course, but not giving up the, the goal, and part of what I don't fully understand is, like, there are financial commitments. I don't fully understand where the $39,000 if it's already spent if it's there. I think that that's, I think it's, at least for me, would be a valuable discussion to understand if any of that money is available to start a staff but beyond that I, I think it's really important to get this thing going with the construct that we already have given how difficult it is to get this thing going. Are you talking referring when you say get this thing going are you referring to the CCA. I sure am. Okay, just want to be clear. I know, I know. Okay, and I think, you know, just from, from me, totally on board about continuing in the course with the JPE. It's just, you know, we want to get the CCA going because that's such a key thing. So that's kind of the big focus right now. Tom, when you say you wanted dates for the zoom meeting on Monday night were you saying you want the dates for the community one meeting with Paul Groomer are you talking about Amherst's meeting that they're doing Monday night. The Amherst meeting. Okay, sure. Yeah. Yeah, so that, that the, the dates for the members to engage are later in the month but this is, I can send you the link to the, to the zoom meeting, or the to the posting I'm sorry it's in our community calendar but I'll, I'll send it to everybody so you can have the information if people want to log on. And GCA presentation we're talking about right. Correct. But yeah, it sounds great. Yeah, and so they're also so I'm really, yeah, I really like how the community engagement piece is happening too. I feel like it's very, you know, there's multiple ways for people to get comments they can go to the town has engaged Amherst, which is a website that people can go and leave comments so they're going to get comments that way. So, you know, doing stuff through the, through the two Jones library events, plus we're going to also have a survey that's going out that GCA worked on with input from our ECAC and our solar Rila working group. So there's multiple ways that people can get some feedback so there'll be a report that they're going to provide so in addition to that community engagement piece and the development of the mapping tool. And at the end there'll be a report where they're going to put all of this together with all the community feedback so we also have some general sense of where the community sort of lies on where they would like to see solar because you may or may not know about the Sheetsbury road project that straddles Amherst and Sheetsbury, which has been quite controversial. And no solar bylaw is going to address that right now because it won't be in place in time I think that project is kind of moving ahead. So, our legislation for the or zoning legislation won't be ready by the time that goes through. But for future development it will sort of address the solar bylaw will address large scale ground mounted solar so I think people have a lot of interest in that right now. So, okay, I'll send a link to that meeting. Community calendar. Sorry, I'm just taking notes I realized I didn't ask anybody to take minutes. So, I guess, are you. Okay, great. Thank you Darcy. Okay, let's see what else. So we have one member of the public. Would you like to make a comment or ask a question of the group. I can if you raise your hand I can unmute you. Okay. Yes, but fine. No comment from the public and so Darcy go ahead. I just on on the JPE issue, can we schedule another JPE meeting because, and I know it may not be able to be in March because we have so much going with the public comment and so on. But I, you know, I would like us to talk further about some of the issues that we brought up in the letter and and to try to see if we can get a firm commitment that we are moving forward with the JPE. Which I do generally hear from you all. Yeah, I think we're pretty solid that we're moving forward with it and Paul like I know I can just tell you right now that Paul, you know, we're we're moving it forward. When we talked about moving forward with the CCA under the MOU. As I said, his first response was yes and then it gives time to work on the JPE while that is, you know, while that's being reviewed by the DPU. So, I, there's a full, I know there's a full commitment. I'm at our last meeting. We left with the commitment to have a meeting with the chief executives about it. Remember. So, I'm just wondering what the status of that is. That was more about which community is going to take the lead. Right, because you all were, we had a discussion Amherst had said we were going to take the lead. Then we said there was discussion about you all were sort of supporting the idea that Northampton take the lead because they'll have more available staff. And I think what we ended up was saying was that really we can't make the decision in terms of who's taking the lead. It's got to be the executives. I don't want to necessarily rehash that last meeting but I think how we left it was that we would meet with the executives but we've had other a few other things come up that need to be addressed. And I think that's just going to have to just wait until we get the CCA meeting forward. And we sort of have that happen and then we can focus on the JPE. I just want to make it clear that we have never been proposing that we slow down the CCA process. We just want the JPE to be attended to as soon as the CCA is submitted. Right and it will be when we get it submitted and we know that's in the works then we have the time that sort of frees up some of that time to be able to focus on the JPE more. Yeah, and one other thing is that we would like. Once we've, we've gotten the CCA taken care of. Maybe in April to have on one of our first agendas maybe for the JPE committee. A presentation by local energy advocates just because at least I am feeling a little disconnected you know we set it up to support this effort and I think we're a little disconnected with each other and I would love to be able to provide a presentation just to show you all the work that we've done so far and and our aspirations for this whole project. So if we could, if we could do that, that would be great. I think that's a great idea. So, but yeah, we can schedule something for April. I think that's a more reasonable time frame for us right now. We've got some other things going on that we're dealing with too so you know. So it's just a lot so like, like right me for me right now it's just like what is the most pressing need right right in this moment and for me right now that CCA. And so JPE I feel like it's going to happen it's just that, you know, we have to sort of get this piece done. And I really feel like I want to give it my full attention and I don't want to be, you know, distracted by trying to do that at the same time right now I feel like this is going to, you know, this is going to be a really big effort really because we're going to have to do some community. We'll be doing community engagement I mean as much as Paul Gromer and his team will be doing it. It's going to involve staff helping with that too, obviously. Adele. Part of this whole discussion is about the JPE staffing. And I thought that was part of the conversation that you all were going to have with the chief executives was about financing and staffing. It's about all of it but right but the but the staffing piece, even if we use the 39,000 for staffing. That's an admin support person, but there's also all the other things that we talked about which is the bookkeeping and the legal piece and those other things. And the 39,000 is not going to cover everything. So we're trying what it means is until there's something coming in from the CCA if we're allowed at some point to do that. It means that one of the communities is going to have to have whatever existing accounting staff they have create the accounts and do some of that piece. So that's where the executives need to sort of iron that out. Who's doing what, where is this going to sit temporarily until we get that more established. So that's the conversations that need to happen. It involves other staff here. So, again, you know, we need to let them sort of determine who is more equipped to be able to handle that at this time, you know, in the interim. Understood. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. Any other comments about any of the above items we've addressed so far or anything anyone wants to announce or like to see on a future agenda. You know, I think for me, just in the context I do really appreciate the letter that you guys put together. And I, I am not clear. I agree with you, Stephanie that those costs are those activities and costs are real. I don't know. I'm not clear on how quickly we would gobble up the 39 K and if that would all go to the bookkeeping and legal and I know we put that budget together when Chris was here. And figure out a way to start to narrow down what our actual near term costs are and if there's nothing left over then there's nothing left over. I also, it feels like it feels like this could be bigger than we, we had into, I mean, it's, you know, what's the minimum amount of money we need to get somebody on board. And then that person's going to have to do the work to pay for themselves, which is always the way with government and not for profit activities in my experience. I mean, absent some kind of line item in the budget process, you know, you've got to come up with your own funding. So, and, and again going back to like trying to get ourselves started with the CCA. I think we're still going to ask for an adder so as far as revenue streams to support this, I, I, I'm just kind of looping back that keeping on the track that we're on will get us to the point where we can start generating, I think, generating a little bit of income through the adder, if it's a 10th of a penny or whatever it is. And then, well, I guess that's really the big thing, you know, beyond that, I don't know, like, I was thinking that we had, and when I say we basically mean Amherst and Northampton. And I want to part of is I want to go back to the film board and to the energy committee and find out like, is there anything there at all and, you know, I, well, I guess I'll end with this. If we were to take your request Adele and Andrew and Darcy, how much money would I be, you know, and your request is let's get this thing started there's already a financial commitment that's been outlined. I don't get the executives to sign off on it. I don't know. I know we came up with a number which was like ridiculously small for Pelham a few hundred dollars as I recall is that still the number and and just how to frame all that is like where I would like to see us go with the next conversation. And that's what we will be working towards in April. Absolutely. And that is exactly what, you know, those are all the questions really right that we have that we need to sort of address and I think I just, I mean, for me, I just to give it the sort of mental focus and space that it needs. I want to really be able to like just, you know, work on that and focus on those questions and sort of help with figuring them out, right, together. Absolutely. I think again, after we get this thing launched will be able to really like have I just, it's just going to feel good to have one thing sort of in the pipeline done so that we can focus on the next thing like, you know, sort of the simultaneous track was a little confusing even with the meetings it was getting a little sort of disjointed I think so we've we've got our we've got our plan. We'll be meeting in April, and we'll sort of pick it up then. But right now, until then, we're going to focus on the CCA. Can we ask Paul Groomer. You know, he had originally been very clear that he thought it would be more advantageous for us to have the JPE submitted along with the CCA if that's what we were eventually going to do. Yeah, change that. Right. Well, I think I'm not sure he's that has a different opinion but he could we ask him the question. You know if our if our CCA application is is projected to be in a queue for, you know, what we don't know how long now but maybe a year. You know, if we in June or July of this year can get the JPE done or sometime within the near future. So I actually so I did. So I did actually address this at that the last meeting that what Paul said was because we did ask him specifically that question. So the scenario is, he can submit under the MOU. He thinks it's fine to submit under the MOU. He said the only the only thing would be that while it's in the queue, if we complete the JPE, he could request an administrative amendment to the to the application. So they would amend the application to reflect the existence of the JPE. So that could happen while it's in process. So there is, there is a pathway there. And then if if the JPE gets approved or is created informed after the CCA goes through its whole approval process, then what they would do is submit a change to the to the CCA. And again, it would be a shorter process because everything is already sort of gone through the works. It's just basically amending that final approval. And he said that will take less time. So he he doesn't it's certainly easier to have it but he didn't say it's impossible or that he he felt it was fine. I think he feels like it's, I think he just wants to get it moving so I think he was fine to go forward with the MOU. He doesn't think it's going to be, I don't think he thinks it's going to be a problem. So a question would be, like, do we do we want to shoot to try to to get it done before it's actually in front of the DPU. No, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. He says it doesn't matter at what point you do it. You can do it after the CCA is approved by DPU. You can start the CCA, then do a minor amendment and get your JPE assigned or attached to that. There's absolutely no, there's no difference what time you do it. And what Paul did was because Cape Light Compact actually submitted theirs to the DPU under an MOU initially. He took their initial MOU and compared ours to theirs. And he said there are some differences but he that's why he thought it was fine to go forward with the MOU because he didn't see anything that would that would necessarily create any kind of a problem for moving ours forward. There are some language differences but nothing significant enough that it couldn't move forward under the MOU. So it doesn't matter when we have the JPE. Right, question of what we want to shoot for and do we want to get it done as soon as possible. So anyway, I guess that's a conversation for April. But obviously, we would like to have it done sooner. I'm really noted. Okay. So anything else. So what about our agenda? So I guess I mean the next, the agenda for this group will just be sort of our continuation with our next steps. I think because we're going to want to get this meeting happening in March. This is just for meeting's sake. I'd like to like if we just need to know like, this is the date that our executives are available. This is the date Paul Gromers available. I could just basically share that information via email. So that we can move forward with scheduling it rather than having to have a meeting to have all the conversations about the same thing. And so let me just reach out to Paul. Carolyn Tom and I will reach out to our executives and see when we get Paul's dates, what works for them with a doodle poll. And then we can work on getting the meeting scheduled for March. Right. And we're still on time because we said March. We did say we were going to do it in March. So we're not, you know, we haven't like, you know, shifted our timeframe for this. So. Well, in either way, the month, you know, there has to be a month. Public comment period. So we're going into April, no matter what for public comment. So even if we have our public zoom meeting in April, if we've set the date, say March 20th, it has to go to April 20th. So we have that time within which we can schedule that meeting. Yeah, I have a question about the website. Do we get a sneak preview? When does that launch. We can ask. I'll ask, because I don't know. I would imagine that has to be in place though when we open the public comment period. Yes. Oh yeah, absolutely. It would be nice to have that link for publicizing the event as well. Yeah. All the materials I think need to be available when we do that when we open the public comment period. All the materials need to be accessible. So they're going to have to be including the website. I don't know about the preview given the timeframe, but I can certainly ask. I mean, maybe they can just send us a link to the. You know, to the draft. Yeah, that would be good. I don't want to have the executive seeing it on the night of his public zoom meeting. That's all. That's how I was saying earlier. So, yeah, okay. Okay. I am making a note. All right. Anything else. All right, then. I think for this group, we'll sort of hold off on scheduling our next meeting. For right now. And I'll like maybe let's just get through this. These three weeks with, you know, scheduling this public event, and then we can schedule something in early April. Does that sound okay to folks? Yes. Okay. And I'll send out a, you know, a poll or something. I'll just, I'll just send an email asking when people can meet. I'm doing a lot of traveling in the last half of April, just for what it's worth. Okay. Okay. Making a note to myself. Okay. All right. Great. Well, thank you all so much. It's exciting. I mean, it's really exciting that we're at least moving the, the CCA forward soon. So, and we're scheduling the public meeting. That's very, that's big. So. All right, everyone. Thank you all. Yep. Have a great, have a great day and a good weekend. Thank you. Thanks. See you later.