 Okay. Well, welcome everyone to this, um, the, um, the meeting of the energy and climate action committee in Amherst. Um, let's see, we're coming up on a retreat at which time I will put together some sort of a statement to say at the beginning of each of these meetings so that our purpose is a little more focused. But for now, let's just get started with the agenda. Um, and we need a note taker. And I think Don, I actually went back through the last half dozen or so. Michael and Tony need to do it at some point, but I think Don, we should ask you one more time first and then Michael or Tony next time. It's fine. Is that okay? That's fine. Cool. So, um, Don, if you take notes and the first thing on the agenda is always reviewing the minutes from last time. I found one. I'll bring them up in a second. Where'd they go? Here they are. You make this bigger. I found one thing to change. Jesse's name is Jesse in one place and Selman and others and needs to be used last names by. By convention here. So. Let me share this minutes chair. And this is the one place where I found an occurrence of Jesse's name. Okay. I thought I'd cut them all. So. Other than that, I thought they were very nice notes. Very useful reminded me of something that I needed to do that I forgot to do. Um, Any other here I can go back up here. That was the attendance for last time. Which I think is right. I'll go back to the. Um, Sustainability festival coming up in the retreat this Sunday. We'll have a grant announcement this week. We're lucky. Any other comments on the minutes. If not, if somebody would like to move to accept them as they are. The one change. Um, can we actually close them first before we do that? For the vote. Yeah. Anyone else need them open any longer? Oh no, this is the computer that loses the, I'll close the window and then it will go away. There we go. The stop share button has moved off to another screen and I can't get it to come back and that screen is currently detached. So I can't stop sharing without closing the window. So is there a motion to accept the minutes? Sure, yeah. Don moves. Anyone second? I second. Thanks, Tony. Stephanie, you want to do the vote? Yep. Just writing down who's second. Okay. And I just need your vote in no particular order. Allison? Yes. Roof? Yes. Goldner? Yes. Ising? Yes. McElvara? Yes. Okay. Minutes are approved. Now, one question. I know that Dwayne is not here today, but I don't remember hearing about Laura. Is Laura not here today? I just checked and I don't see anything from her. So I'm not sure she might, maybe she's just going to show up late. Jesse is going to be late. He's coming. Nobody's just arrived around five o'clock. Good. Good. Good. So we'll have, we'll have a couple more people coming. That's good. Yes. All right. So at this point, we open up for public comment. Any comments at the beginning of today's meeting? Raise your virtual hand. If so, and Julian, oh hi Julian and Sarah. Okay. Julian and Sarah will be speaking later. Or Julian will be speaking later. Okay. In that case, let's move on to updates. Tony, do you have anything for us yet for transportation? I don't have any updates. However, I am planning after the retreat to attend one of the transportation committee meetings and following on that, I'll explore some of the ways in which elevates the online, the on-campus energy transition fellows who are also working on transportation or clean energy initiatives around transportation can think about providing some educational series to push in for other initiatives. And then I'll also look at the uplift bike system more closely. I wanted to wait until after the retreat, just so I got caught up on everything you guys have been doing in the past before making any moves on my own. That's fine. And if you do go to attack meeting, it's nice just to get a report on, you know, what happened, what's what they're interested in, where the possible places for collaboration are. Yes. Nice to have a hand on the pulse of the other committees. Yeah. So I don't have much for heat pumps either. I have, you know, I'm still planning on, I've been following up on a number of different things with both rewiring America and Heat Smart. I actually went to a Heat Smart meeting last Friday, but it was at 730 in the morning. So I hardly remember what happened because I was still asleep, but they're both very involved. Heat Smart is very involved in heat pump coaching all over Massachusetts. So this is relevant. We can actually request, you can request to coach through them. For example, it's free service. They're they're just volunteers doing the work and they do trainings. Just like rewiring America does. So they're good to know about good to be involved in, but I don't have any other. I'm waiting still to hear about the RFP from Stephanie during staff updates unless you want to say something now. No, I'll just save it for staff updates. So if there's not anything else on transportation or heat pumps, anyone have anything they want to add? And if not, we go on to the fun stuff. Sustainability festival planning. Actually, you have the climate resilience schools first. Oh, oh. And how did that get? Am I looking at the right? Did I copy the wrong? I don't know, but I the one that I sent you with the one that was in my packet should be climate resilience schools is number four. Because we don't want to keep them waiting. Of course not. Of course not. But it's somehow it didn't copy when I copied it into my own notes. It's probably in the original. I just I copied this always into my notebook and sometimes no weird. Okay. Well, let's just go ahead and do it. Julian, I'm going to actually make you a presenter. So just hang on one second. Okay. Great. Oh, we got a hand up there too. Yeah, it's Julian's great that we can see you. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. So if you don't mind, I'm going to screen share a slide show. And if you want to bring a Sarah boss into the room, she'll definitely help answer questions or just confirming that you all can see that weekend. And Sarah is in the room now. Perfect. Thank you so much. Yeah. So my name is Julian Heinz for those who don't know me. I am the co hub lead of sunrise Amherst and one of the leaders on the climate resilience schools coalition. And we will be presenting to you about our coalition, why we think you should get involved ways you can get involved, all of that sort of thing. So I'll start off with our first slide here, which is who are we? So we are a coalition of multiple organizations, including sunrise Amherst that I represent mothers out front, which is a local community climate action group. Mass Audubon does a lot of preservation and community engagement work in the area, including like land preservation and that sort of thing. Mass Amherst climate justice alliance, which does climate justice work in the area and advocacy the Franklin County CPR, which is continuing the political revolution. They work on a variety of political and governmental issues, the Amherst Pellum Educated Association, otherwise known as the Amherst teachers union for those in our schools and undaunted cage 12, which is the organization Sarah Voss is the co founder and director of. And that organization is our main co sponsor, if you will. So they work with us on on organizing the meetings and answering questions and sending emails and all that sort of stuff and provided us with some really awesome sample resolutions as well as other resources and support from that adult perspective, which is great. So thank you to Sarah Voss for all that. So what is our purpose? Our purpose is to build a diverse coalition that empowers both educators, students and engaged community members, whether they be parents or climate activists or whoever to engage and catalyze a rigorous climate education curriculum and infrastructure improvements in the schools by passing and implementing climate action resolutions at the district level and advocating for climate policy at the state level. So what is the school board resolution? As you know, the Amherst has an Amherst school committee and a regional school committee. And so they sort of take charge of the different schools. But basically we would ideally bring a resolution forth that would basically an informal expression of the board's position on something and that can allow or guide the district when they look to change policies, budgets, staffing. I know there's been discussion of funds for a solar canopy and different funds for teaching staff and that sort of thing. So this would all make sure that a climate lens is applied to that and applied to our capital requests. Amherst has a great system for making sure climate lens is applied to our capital requests now. And this would only reinforce that at the school level. So basically an example of this is the Boulder School Board resolution in Boulder, Colorado, which was organized by a bunch of high schoolers from the Sunrise movement as well as other activist groups in Boulder. Boulder is similarly Amherst, a small to medium-sized college town that values open space and has the university and has really strong schools. And they did nine months of meetings and eight different board meetings pretty much spread across each month and ended up getting 1,300 signatures in support of this to get the school board to support it and pass it. So then schools, this isn't the only situation. Schools across America are passing these all the way from Texas to California, Denver modeled after Boulder, did that all the way even to Florida. Believe it or not, that is pretty impressive actually that they did that in Florida. So yeah, lots of places are doing it. Unfortunately, it has yet to be done in Massachusetts. We have not had a district in the state commit to comprehensive climate action resolution or program in the school. Of course, as many of you may know if you have kids in the schools, we do think about climate issues. Teachers incorporate it into their own curriculum and work with it that way. And I'm sure the custodial staff also tries their best to think about it as well. But there's no actual guide or district or statewide legislation to guide these folks and give them the exact knowledge to know what's best. Whether they be teachers or administrators or custodial staff, they're not also climate scientists. And we want to make sure they have the tools to get on board and make sure that our schools are as climate friendly and resilient as they can be. So Massachusetts is how we say behind the curve on this. And that's why we're trying to change stuff here in Amherst. So we're thinking about food production systems in our cafeteria. Amherst has fabulous school gardens at the elementary level. We don't have that as much at the middle and high school level and the farm to table type programs in the schools have been reduced over time. So that's sort of where we stand on food transportation. The district has invested in one electric bus and I believe is investing in a few more electric vehicles and electric maintenance van and possibly an electric disabled person's bus this year. So we're making some progress there. We still have a long way to go. There's still a lot of diesel buses on the road. Green school yards this can look like at the elementary level playgrounds that are blending blending in with the natural environment. I know there's been some discussion about that with the conservation commission recently in terms of we have a great opportunity with the new elementary school to build new green school yards as well as a matter of like how do we care for the grass outside the schools? Do we use toxic chemicals or do we use natural fertilizers? Do we plant trees around the schools? All those sort of questions and then also buildings. This is key. I know there's been discussion of solar panels at high school and it goes all the way from whether we want to and have the funds to put solar panels at the high school or at any other school to really the fundamentals of how we're building a net zero elementary school, which is pretty awesome. We're digging for geothermal as well as putting solar and so a lot's going into that as well and then it even goes down to just the regular day to day operations and maintenance. Are we leaving the lights on at night? Do we need to leave the lights on at night? Are we doing minimal heating during the right hours of the day when students aren't there? How are the trash and recycling handled? All those sort of day to day operations questions that are up to both the teachers and the maintenance people in our schools that we might not always have the resources to do about others of them are pretty straightforward where we can just turn the lights off or whatever. So then the other thing is curriculum and this is the last slide. So I will stop talking and ask for questions after this but the idea is we want to embody a curriculum that talks about climate education across all subjects. How can climate issues apply in math? How can climate issues apply in writing? How can scientists best communicate that climate change is happening and what solutions are to the public that involves science and also involves English and social studies skills, right? So involving it across the curriculum, making it a part of civic action projects. I was just on this Capitol Hill today in the state Beacon Hill to do some work around civic action and making sure kids have the resources they need for civic action projects and that sort of thing. So it's really important that we make sure that the resources are there for educators to provide that education on civics, on climate change, all that sort of thing and then delving deep into it from an environmental level in the sciences and learning all about how different greenhouse gases work and calculating gigatons of carbon and all that sort of stuff that I learned in my AP environmental science class and making sure that's not just accessible to students who want to take that class or have the resources to take that class but to make sure that all students can get some level of that education no matter what school they're in or what grade they're in and that sort of thing. So that and then also professional development for teachers making sure that the funds are there so that teachers can engage in the professional development, have the time to engage in the professional development and also are given the resources so they don't have to dig into their own pockets and then in addition career pathways work we have a office of guidance in college and career services at Amherst Regional High and trying to make sure kids know what green jobs are, what they do, how some jobs require a degree, some jobs don't, what degree do they want to get, all these types of questions that engage in how they can be awesome public servants and engage in green jobs even right here in the community. Stephanie is a great example. I know we have some awesome other folks in the sustainability conservation and public works departments who are also good models of this. So yeah, that's the end of my presentation and I will happily take questions and share them with Sarah Ross who's also here and if you want I'm just going to keep the slides open if we need to transition other slides for folks questions. Yeah, this is really interesting before I before we take questions. Let me just say that, you know, one of the things that if Dwayne is not here today, Dwayne Brezure, but one of the things that I'm sure he would point out is that one of the stumbling blocks to getting electrification done to doing the green energy transition is workforce. That there aren't enough people who know how to do HVAC stuff. There aren't enough skilled workers, skilled people who know how to do air conditioning. They do the number of we, let's see was this that was at HeatSmart last week. We learned that in order to get an HVAC license in order to get what you need to be a to install heat pumps, you need a number of different. There is no one HVAC certificate. You need to have separate sheet metal working certificates and plumbing and heat, you know, furnaces different. There are all these different certifications you need to have and they can take a decade to get them all. Yeah, no, I know my grandmother volunteers in the schools in Westfield with those types of programs. And one thing that Amherst could really work on is getting programs for kids who are interested in those trades, interested in green job pathways, whether it be solar technicians or wastewater technicians or all HVAC technicians, all these type of people who might not require a college degree, but it certainly requires specialized training and can be a good unionized job for folks and trying to get some resources so kids can explore that in their upperclassmen years of high school. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of really good opportunity there, you know, college degree or not. And it's something that I don't think we, we folks don't know about it. They don't know about the problem until you try to have a heat pump installed and find it's a six month wait to get someone in their house. There's even a problem or, you know, let's not even talk about wind and solar installations. There's all sorts of need for folks to do that. So are there questions? If folks would raise their hand, I can electronically I can unmute you. Yeah, I saw Steve. Yeah, I couldn't find the button on my phone. That's great work, Julian. This is I'm Steve Roof. I'm a climate researcher and professor down the road at Hampshire College. And just last semester I led a class of a bunch of students developing a new climate action plan for Hampshire College that encompasses many of the things that you've just described for the schools, which is wonderful. So somewhat I'd love that we could sit down and compare notes on the sort of things you guys are thinking about and the sort of things that we are trying to develop at the college is a lot of overlap. One of those areas is food systems. Food is recognized to be somewhere like 30 to 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food growing production, processing and then disposal. So we are looking into a particular program right now something called cool foods, which is sponsored by it's cool foods dot org and it's also sponsored by the World Resource Institute and they provide some tools to help assess the carbon footprint of food systems and then provide alternatives to lower carbon footprint food systems. That's one that I'm really excited about. I'm trying to see if we can implement at the college and I talked with a folk sustainability director over Amherst College and they are also interested in that and suggested, ooh, maybe there's a way we could use the collective purchasing of the colleges and maybe the schools, the K-12 schools too to get more local foods and reduce carbon in the carbon footprints that way. Yeah, no, I know. Yeah, good. I just got to add additional things. So say anything you have about the food aspect. Okay, yeah. No, I was going to say that there is two Sunrise members who are actually really interested in this topic in the Amherst schools and food service within the schools and I would most certainly be happy to meet with you and I'd imagine they would be too. So feel free to reach out. You have my email or the Sunrise movement at gmail.com email and someone will, myself or someone else will get back to you and we'd be happy to meet at school or have a cup of coffee or come over to Hampshire College, whatever works for you because I think that's a great idea. That's great. Have you guys tried to do a greenhouse gas inventory of your school? We have. Yeah, actually, that's a really good point. We did something like that. I did a report on it for specifically the greenhouse gas inventory for electricity consumption at our school and I did that as part of a group with four other Sunrise members for extra credit in my AP Environmental Science class. I have the research report and I would be happy to send it to you. Excellent. That's a wonderful exercise. And it's a great way to learn about a lot of things and develop some math skills along the way. Absolutely. You've done that. And that would be part of a curriculum if you're going to create a curriculum, a module on calculating a greenhouse gas inventory, not just from electric because that's fairly easy, but also gas and then maybe also the scope three things like transportation. Yeah, we didn't we didn't look into those scope three areas, but I can certainly send you the report. It's pretty, it's pretty interesting. I'd love to see it. Yeah. I think transportation would be a great place to look next. Good work. Thanks. Other questions? Input. So what else can, sorry, go ahead. Laura, just to say if Laura Drucker was here, she would probably have a lot of nice things to say. Oh, Laura's here. Oh, okay. Laura snuck in. She's here. Yes. Sorry to put you on the spot. Hold up on other work stuff. No, this sounds great. I missed the initial ask, I guess. So that would be my question. I did, but I didn't want to ask that because it's rude since I missed the beginning. No, don't, don't worry at all. Basically, we just wanted to educate you about what we're doing here and the ask is a would you consider joining our program and joining the climate resilient schools coalition and the other ask is if any individual members interested, you can join our slack to see exactly what we're doing and so on and so forth and you're welcome to chime in on that as well. Very cool. Yeah, thank you for sharing and great slides. Thanks. Yeah, so for joining the coalition, I'm not sure what that means in terms of who we are. We're advisory group to the town and we could certainly support, you know, if there's a particular petition or a report or a climate action plan that you want support for the way this would normally work as you would I think send that to us. We would look at it, maybe return some comments and then send a note to whoever, you know, to you saying that we support it and maybe to town council pointing out that we support this if needed. I think that's how how support would work. I'm not sure how what else I mean, maybe Stephanie can I don't think we usually join coalitions like the town. I don't think the the committee would be able to do that, but but but but again, you know, the support for specific initiatives for sure and even the town might be able to get behind some of that, but we can talk about that offline another time. Yeah, definitely. No individuals are totally welcome to join and we haven't drafted the resolution itself yet. We're having a meeting on it next week with the director of curriculum and a few school committee members if you guys would be welcome to come. We haven't scheduled it yet, but anyone who's interested is welcome to come to that and that would sort of be the first step there to once we get a resolution I could send it along and come back to one of your meetings. Yeah, so I think that's the thing to do keep us in the loop on all of that and maybe you know it sounds like Steve is definitely interested. I'm interested if we can show up at a meeting we will definitely find joining a slack channel. Great. If I know how to find it, I need to know how to get to you, but I've used slack on me a little bit. Sarah's had her hand up for a long time. Sorry. Yes, you have. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Sarah. I don't need to stop any of this beautiful conversation that's going on. Julian, thank you so much. That was like super impressive. It's easy to forget that you're a high school student, you know, hearing you talk, I'm having these conversations all the time and it's like you're just one of the adults doing this work. So it's really impressive how you just gotten such a mastery of this. So thank you so much for the presentation. Yeah, just a quick word to say, I think, you know, one of the keys here is to move this work from the like extra credit students do the greenhouse gas inventory to institutionalizing it in the work of the school, right? Cause that's that's one of the big missing links and you know, you all have done a ton of great work on the municipal side again, institutionalizing these commitments, sizing up the problem, thinking about pathways to get there in our nonprofit. We see over and over again that there's this huge disconnect between municipalities that are leading on this stuff and the schools just kind of get left behind in their own domain, right? We see this again and again and again. So really this would be about leveraging you all as leaders, domain experts in your own right that can help us shape a resolution and can really be trusted voices within the town to maybe to come to school committee member meeting to talk about how the town has this commitment and it only makes sense that we will be mirroring those commitments in our schools commitments because we're not going to get to where we need to go without schools being a part of and fully embracing what you all have laid out, you know, our charge in terms of, you know, needing our meeting our town goals. So we would really appreciate your support in that way of kind of like the voice of ECAC and and reflecting the town's commitments and then, you know, your thought partnership on the individual pieces. We think these resolutions can be really powerful. Basically the arc that we're trying to excite here is like you get a school board to pass a resolution. Typically those resolutions they make date certain commitments around you got to put together a committee to put together a plan by X date and report back to the school board about XYZ. So kind of embed some accountability so its resolution creates a plan plan then, you know, of course has implementation and deadlines for implementation. So that's the kind of chain of events that we're seeking to catalyze here with this resolution as the first step. And again, we've seen it be successful in these other cities across the country where they are now, you know, no kidding, spending money to electrify those buildings and there is no question about are we putting in a new gas boiler because, you know, the plan says no way know how. We don't have any of that teeth in our schools right now. We have aging HVAC systems and unless we really get serious about this, my concern is that we will just do a good old life for life replacement and we will miss the chance for the next 30 years to get our buildings off of fossil fuels. So we think this is urgent and we we thank you for your support to I have a question for Stephanie to what extent is so within the town, right? There is a process for for requisitions, right? That includes a climate lens and for the most part as things are replaced, they are not just replaced one for one, they're supposed to be, you know, upgraded to heat pumps to something that is more environmentally friendly. What is the situation with the schools when something happens in the school? Is that not coming from the town budget and the town process or is that coming from somewhere else? So it depends on if we're talking about the elementary schools or the regional schools. It's different for the regional schools. They they have a separate budget. Actually, the schools have a separate budget, but we are we do have our facilities manager who actually works more closely with the elementary schools because those kind of do somewhat fall more under our purview. So, you know, we we certainly have the schools identified as, you know, part of the municipal inventory like they're on our green communities inventory. The regional schools are not the high school and the middle school are not. Okay, that's interesting. So that's the difference. High school and middle school are the ones in particular that any resolution should address for sure. Yeah, and I yes, sorry. Go ahead, Julian. No, I was just going to say that it's also a little bit complicated just because our goal is to get the resolution to the regional school committee. So don't confuse that with the Amherst School Committee because we're going after the regional school committee where we think the biggest impact can be had and also don't be confused by the little trash containers with the stickers that say green community when you walk around the high school because the high school is not the same as the fields and all that that the town does that is part of green communities. So it's a little complicated. Okay. Okay, and Laura, you had something. Yeah. I guess I had a question about why we wouldn't try to do it for both the regional and the Amherst School Committees. I mean, I guess we would ideally like to do both. We just want to make the regional the priority because it's the place where a the most work needs to be done be where the savings from climate resilient infrastructure could be felt the most and also sort of where the town doesn't have as much influence through Stephanie and the sustainability department. So I don't want to say we're not doing the elementary schools. We're just prioritizing the regional schools for those reasons. I think Laura to some that's why I was just trying to get out with Stephanie to some extent the schools the elementary schools are already covered in the car, right? But but I don't know that this is happening. So just last week my understanding is at CGL or whatever one of those groups from the committee is called the council is called. There's a proposal to do an energy study on Crocker farm and I don't I believe they were the folks presenting were specifically asked, have you talked to Stephanie about this? And the answer was no, why would we do that? And then Sandy, the new finance or the new old finance person said, well, electric buildings are not cost effective. So we have a lot of work to do. I didn't hear so can I jump in real quick about that comment Laura? Because I don't want this to spin. Sandy is here to help through the budget season. He's not here through. He's not he's not the new replacement. He's just here temporarily and I don't think he may not be as aware of the initiatives that where we have underway. So I would not get too alarmed. I work very closely with the facilities director and I have something to announce later. So I'll you know, I just don't want this to to spin too far into something. But you know, I don't think that's going to I'm not trying to spread rumors. You have a good relationship with Roy. So Roy. So Rupert Roy Clark is the facilities person for the schools, but he and Jeremiah, I do have communication with him at times. So but the schools are like I said, they are on our green communities. They're part of our green communities inventory. So we do like we got the schools, their electric staff vehicle that came from us. That wasn't something that the schools did. So we do have some influence over that and I think it's just we're going to have to have more conversations if that comment was made, then we'll certainly have more conversations about the elementary schools. And I have, like I said, I have something to announce as part of my staff update. So this might actually cover some of that concern. That that's great, Stephanie. The other thing I was just going to say was that obviously I wasn't at the meeting, but that sounds concerning. What was said there, but the other thing I would say is I know we are doing a revamp of the energy systems at Crotter Farm, but there's also the capital requests that come in that when they're made in the region, it's different. They don't have the same requirements as my understanding. Whereas in the elementary school, every town department has to submit a fact sheet and ask, is this in alignment in alignment with the carp? And if not, why not if it's applicable? And I know some staff provide really good updates to it. Some don't as much, but the elementary schools are required to do that and have that list there. I don't think the regional schools are required to do the same thing or align it. If am I correct, Stephanie? That is correct. So it sounds like the immediate goal is to have a resolution pass that will set up a task force or committee whose job it will be to put together a climate action plan for the regional schools at least, right? Is that what I'm understanding? Yeah. Okay. One thing I just wanted to mention about the process here that sort of surprised me coming from Maryland, where every little community and county has development plans that are accepted and voted into place. They become virtually law. I mean, they're accepted by the board. They're hard and fast. That wasn't the process here. And it surprised me, but the more I look at the carp and all we've done, the more it doesn't seem to matter. The carp was never accepted as a plan. It was, what was the word? It was accepted, not adopted or something like that. It was never adopted as a plan. It was just heard by the council and then accepted. We accept this report, but it's been followed for the most part. So it was a strange process, but in the end, I think a good one. So I don't know what the fate of whatever, you know, whatever report or action plan you come up with, it'll be there regardless of, you know, what this school board does with it or the school committee, regional school committee does with it. If they see it and they hear it and it's there, they can't really ignore it. So I hope you, I hope this gets done. And we'll do what we can to help. Yeah, no, thank you so much. And I just want to also point out, use this time to say that I know the solar canopy over arts is another region is another reason we want to prioritize the regional schools is just because that's been in discussions for a way to use our funds, we might consider working with one of the outside partners with Amherst College or UMass or Hampshire, something like that. So we really want to get that installed and try to get some funding for it because it would be an expensive item in the town's capital budget. So we want to push for that as much as we can sort of in coinciding with this at the regional level. Yeah, and that is something that you can support. And I believe we sent a note. It fortunately didn't get funded, but we sent a note supporting the solar canopy idea. I don't think that decision has been finalized. It hasn't been finalized. I think it gets finalized by the January 1st, 2025. I could be wrong. The time is still now to keep the pressure on Mr. Buckleman to do as much as he can with that. Okay. So if there's more we can do there. Yes. He decides that's how to spend our for funds. That would be fabulous. Stephanie. Just a point of clarification. So funds have to be committed by the end of 24. So and that might be Julie in your reference to January of 2025. That's what I meant. Yeah. Yeah. By the end of 2024 funds need to be committed. So that's kind of the timeline. Got it. Okay. Yeah. So little bit sooner. I'm not sure if it's going to be a discussion, but I think it's going to be a discussion. Is there a meeting coming up about that, Stephanie? About the opera funds. I'm not sure I can find out. I have thought there was. Maybe on the 18th. Correct me if I'm wrong. I had heard something about it. I don't want to. It would be a committee council meeting then. Yeah. Could you let us know? Yes. I can find out. Okay. Yeah. I would probably plan to do the same. And if they're discussing it, yeah. This coalition and sunrise. To support as well. All right. Any other questions or comments? If not Julian and Sarah, thank you very much. Really appreciate you being here. And stay in touch. You know, we'll follow up. Yeah, thanks for having us. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having us. I really appreciate it. And I know the other members of sunrise. Do as well. And we thank Stephanie and you for facilitating and helping us with this. Yeah. And keep in touch, Steve, for that. Yep. Perfect. Thank you so much, Julie. Thanks, Sarah. Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So next on the, no, no, I think I copied the wrong agenda. Stephanie. So if I say the wrong thing, please correct me, but next I have sustainability festival and then ecac retreat. Right. Yes. I think the rest of it is. Correct. I think you might've just had the version that I. That we worked on prior to. Confirming. Possibly. I'm not going to go back and look. So, okay. So the next thing is sustainability festival. I think this is fairly straightforward. I just wanted to get quick. Input. Let me see if I can bring up my that everybody got the links I sent, right? I see people have signed up for dishes to bring to the. Retreat. And the other one was, let me just find it. Wrong. One moment please. I just want to see where we are for. Signing up for the festival. Okay. Okay. Good. So I see we've got Tony coming for quite a while in the morning. Yay. I'll be there for hours. He will be there a couple of hours. So there's still a few stops we need to fill. And I may end up staying the whole day. I put myself down for four hours, but I'll probably come earlier than nine. And help set up and I might stay later, depending on what's going on, how many people stop by the. I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. Booth. And I think we discussed last time who was going to bring what I don't think we need to spend a lot of time on this today. This will be more for the next meeting. When I think we'll be about two weeks out, right? Maybe three weeks out. So we'll try to pull everything together then, but from last time. Let's see if we have a list. And last time, which I closed. No, that's the wrong one. What was on that? Do you have the minutes in front of you, Stephanie? Just give me one second. I closed it. It's from 228. There it is. We had things like just as a reminder. I'm going to bring a couple of tables. I'm going to bring a bunch of table to tables. Jesse's going to bring a sign for the heat pump advice, five cents. The doctor is in. So Laura. QR code link to edu. Ask what folks want to learn. So what was, what is that? Can you remind us what that is? Laura. We're going to bring a couple of computers. We're going to bring a couple of computers. We're going to bring that YouTube channel for the educational series. Oh, that's right. That's right. Ask them what other educational series things. They'd be interested in learning about. Okay. That's right. Thank you for the reminder. That's a good idea. And we're going to bring a couple of computers to orient residents to the sustainability dashboard. Now, is that something who's going to provide the computers? Is that we should just bring our computers or is that something that town has a couple of laptops or. I mean, I mean, you probably don't need more than two with the most. Okay. I can bring a laptop. So I'll bring something if it's not raining, if it's raining out, I don't think I want my laptop out getting splashed and. If it's a nice day, we'll have laptops. And I think that's that we're set. I mean, we're going to have a lot of information there. We'll bring the usual. We're going to have a lot of information there. We're going to have a lot of information there. We're going to have some people what they want to learn about. Having heatpuff advice right there. And maybe having QR codes for the usual things. If anyone's interested, I don't see people using them a lot. But, you know, qr codes to, to. Last year. Things like mass save, you know, but massive will be there. Right. So. Hopefully I don't know for sure. Yeah. To the dashboard and to mass save to, you know, other, other things that I'm not sure. I don't know what that folks ought to know about. I can put a bunch of those together. I think I still have last years. But. We don't have a e-cac banner or anything like that. Do we? No. Okay. Well, I think the heat pump thing that the booth that you're putting together, Jesse will be enough of an eye catcher. That was the thing I felt was missing last year with some sort of a colorful something to get, you know, who the heck are these people. So maybe, maybe. Banner. I could try to incorporate that. Or I could just, you know, send a banner over to. Sun rays printing or whatever it's called. I use them for a lot of stuff and have them just printed. I can, I can just do that. I don't mind doing that. If there's a particular logo that I should use Stephanie, let me know or otherwise I'll just mix it up. I can take care of that. And you can note where to go. Right. Anything else on the sustainability festival? The only thing I have is to continue to ask folks if they know of students who might like to do a demonstration project. Steve, especially you might have some students that might be interested in doing some kind of demo. We have a demo area. And, you know, it can be agricultural students too. We had some pretty cool ag demonstrations in the past. We had a mycologist, we had someone put together pollinator bombs, which were just dirt with a bunch of seeds in them. We had some folks do a demonstration on. Having a home apiary. So we've had some really cool stuff. So it would really be great if we could get some of those types. I probably, I would say maybe we need, you know, some of the things that we need to do. We need to do a demonstration. We need to do a demonstration. We need to do a demonstration. We need to do a demonstration for five maximum through the day. They're just basically they get like an hour. To do something. We do have a few. Our DEI director wants to do something. Like a visioning sort of session. At the event. So that's going to be pretty cool. So we just need like maybe three or four more. You should ask playing. You may know. Students who can do this sort of thing too. I will also ask around. All right. So next we have the. EECAC retreat. So. Stephanie should have sent this. It did send a draft agenda for the retreat. Which is very drafty. Sort of deliberately so to leave time for things that might take more or less time than we thought they would. So I think it's going to take a little bit of time. So for example, Laura, you sent me quite a lot of slides, which will probably take more than 20 minutes to get through. But I was going to encourage you to get through the background and history a little quickly and maybe focus on it. I mean, what I've been noticing, I've been going through the cart myself the last few days. I feel like after a couple of years in this committee, I'm finally starting to. Figure out. What's been going on and where things are. It takes a while to get it all. Under your belt, right? And I'm actually sort of amazed to see all of the things that were in the carp that are in the car. That are being done or have been done or are being planned. We're really marching through it. You know, we're not. Yeah, the greenhouse gases aren't coming down as fast as we thought, but the carp even says. That we knew this was this 2025 goal was ambitious. Right. But we feel it's important to push. Because nothing gets started, right? You don't have to get started. And if you don't have that push, you don't get started. And we have been marching through a lot of these things. So I think what's really interesting to me. Is, you know, where those goals are. And what's been done. And what's left to do, you know, what are the important things that, that haven't been touched yet. And there are some of them. I think in transportation in, there's a bunch of things where we haven't really gotten started yet. So, you know, where, where are the things that, where are the things that we've pushed on next. And where are the opportunities for interacting with outside groups. So that's something that I forgot to put. I apologize. That was something that came up last time. I just saw it on the minutes that we needed a little section to talk about what is the lay of the land outside of. You know, who else is doing this work in the area. So I think what we should do is probably do that as part of the discussion of opportunities sort of after. After Laura talks a little bit about the background and goes through slides on, you know, the carp and what the goals were and where things are, where things stand. I think the idea is to have Stephanie then talk about what's been going on at the town level, get a little bit of insight there to how things work and what's going on. And then under the opportunities discussion, let's everybody try to bring with you, you know, what outside groups have you been participating with. Or, or what, what opportunities are you aware of, you know, over the, over the years I've also seen, I mean, I think the most recent one. Laura, you had a recent opportunity that you brought to eCAC and I'm drawing a blank on it right now. But it connected to one of the goals I noticed as I was reading through it connected to one of the carp goals pretty nicely. So, you know, if you know of outside either organizations that are working on something that shows up in the car that shows up that we need to be doing it. You know, that's the time I think this discussion of opportunities before lunch before the break rather is sort of the time to do that. Let's get all this stuff on the table and see what's out there. What are the outside organizations, what are the outside opportunities that we should be connecting to or knowing about. And then after we get everything out, try to try to focus it down again, try to shuffle the cards into some sort of piles and see where they land. Does that make sense? So I guess my ask is for everybody to think about what are the outside organizations you've been involved with and what are the outside opportunities you might know about? Go ahead, Laura. Can you give, what's the purpose of the outside organizations? Well, for example, I don't know until I know the organization, right? But Heat Smart provides heat pump coaching, right? So if we're going to have this RFP and this heat pump program, it's just one more thing that we should be aware of and maybe funneling people to. We should at least know about them. They also offer a heat pump coach training if anybody's interested in that, right? There's this, the school is the coalition that we just heard about today, right? That is something we should at least know about and keep our finger on the pulse of so that we can support them when they need it, you know, at the moment when they come to us with a proposal, right? So that's the sort of thing I'm thinking about. It may also be that, and this is something I wouldn't want to do without consulting Stephanie, but it may also be that there's a group that is in a position to apply for grants to maybe fill in some of the holes in the car, right? And maybe that's something we want to work more closely with, but that would have to, of course. Yeah, I guess what I'm thinking is that it's hard to, I think we need to, some of this stuff, I think we need to discuss during the retreat, right? Like it's hard. I think we need to know where, so we know where our focus has been over the past few years. And we need to kind of talk about where we think there are holes that aren't being filled that we could help fill, right? And then we need to figure out what organizations are. So like, it almost feels like we probably won't be able to get that information ahead. But that would be like a good action item after the retreat. I still think it doesn't hurt to hear about what else is out there because people might not know. I mean, there's a lot of organizations that I didn't know about coming into this that, I think it would just be good to get the names out. Just a few minutes of, you know, what other organizations have you been involved with and what do they do? Doesn't that make, we don't have to try to do anything with it. It just might, it might just give us some ideas, right? How are other places dealing with this, that or the other thing, you know, that's, that's all. I don't want to make a big deal out of it, but I do think it's worth going through that. I don't remember who suggested that last time, but I thought it was a good suggestion. Just to talk a little bit about that. I'm not in it. I see what you're saying, Laura. We should focus on our own. What do we want to be doing? And, and where are the opportunities there? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a bit chicken in it. I think we could go. It's a good chicken. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you, cause you don't really know who can help until you know they exist, right? So. Yeah. But that's just the overall discussion of opportunities. I'm just hoping come, come with your ideas, your, you know, where, where you think the opportunities are or one. One outside organization, one opportunity, one grant thing you've heard of, even if it's not something we're going to pursue, but it might be interesting, you know, it might be nice to know about all of these and sort of just, you know, how we're going to work together on the table somewhere. And then the second half of the meeting is going to be. Well, the, the way I envision it is the end of the first half of the meeting is going to be trying to narrow this down into a few categories, say four, right? And then, and then spend time in, in. In breakouts where, you know, for the first 20 minutes, we talk about, we break into two groups that talks about two of the categories and then two groups talk about two more of the categories. And then we come back and we all, you know, make some reason wrap up and I'll have some, if nothing else, right? If no, if no other categories come up, we'll use the car. Carp has, is it five sections or six? It's five, I think, right? With building it with governance. If we leave governance out, it's, it's, it's four, I think. Or did I miss one? No, you're right. It's, it's, it's without governance and communications, it's buildings, renewable energy, land use and transportation. And then there's governance and communication, which is sort of overarching. And does have the outreach and collaboration part of it with partners with external partners. So if nothing else will divide it up that way. But I think I may have other ideas too. And you may too, by the time Sunday rolls around, because like I say, I've been going through the carp and just trying to put some of the things I've been hearing about opportunities together with some of the things I see in the carp that haven't been approached yet. And you know, if, if anyone else does that or finds an opportunity or two that they think would work, then that's probably something we should focus on. You know, if you already have an idea for a project. And Stephanie, have you sent out the links to the, does everyone have access to the carp at this point? I think everybody has access to it or has it, but I haven't recent anything because I was waiting for this meeting to just finalize what it is. I'll send stuff out tomorrow. I was just waiting. All right. But the agenda had to be posted. So that's already. It's already done. Yeah. Does the town. Have any. Hard copies of the climate action. No, we tend not to print those things out anymore. We're really trying to go with much less paper. So it's all, everything's pretty much mostly electronic. Even our permitting and stuff is, it's all going digital. Yeah. Less paper is a good thing. More servers are not. It is a good thing, but it's much easier to get distracted with Facebook or Twitter if you're online. If you're looking at a, looking at a piece of paper. Yeah. All right. Let's see. So that's just what I was thinking. The question. Two part question about item number two, the ice breaker. Oh yeah. If I were to send. Out an assignment. Ahead of time. Am I the first question is, am I allowed to do that? Yeah, I was going to say, Jesse, I hope you'll do the ice breaker. And then Laura, of course, we didn't put names on this, but Laura, you're that section in the middle, right? You know where you go. And I'll leave it up to you how much of that you want to talk about. I just wanted to talk a little more about how I thought this was going to go so that we're all on the same page. But those slides are very thorough. There's a lot in there. Yeah. I mean, I think I'll go through them very quickly. There's nothing new here. Yeah. It's exactly what we presented to the town. Right. Two years ago. So I think. It's important for people to see what we presented to the town council. And then I'll turn it back over to Stephanie and you to talk about where we are. This presentation. Okay. And I asked Stephanie to Stephanie, when you send out the agenda, do send a link to the carp and also to the. The annual report that we presented just a few months ago that has the town manager goals in it. So I won't feel obliged to like go over the town manager goals or something like that, but we'll have them all. In front of us. I do think it would be helpful. Lori to summarize. What's in. I can do that report and put it in. Yeah. I can give the summary that I gave to the council. It's, it's like five minutes. Yeah, that would be great. And I think there's the town manager goals that we suggested. And then there's the actual. Town manager goals. That got approved, right? Those are different things. Just copy in the text from what the climate action. Goals were for the town manager just so we have it all in one place. I don't know where that I don't even have that. Do you have the final town manager goals? I don't think I have it. They're online. Yeah, I'm sure they are. I just, I haven't looked. Unfortunately. So I can, I can find them, I guess. No, I've already done it. Don't, you don't need to find it. I'm putting it in. Yeah. Or if you just want to send them to me so I can put everything out as a packet. Yeah. I'll send you these. And Lori, anything that you have, I just want to send everything at once. That's fine. That's just the, those three things. You can send that if you want, you can send the summary that I, that I also put in a packet at some point. I think I gave a. Summary to the town council a few months ago and wrote up a little, you know, paragraphs that I wouldn't get lost. Yep. I think I have it, but I just want to make sure I have the right one. Yeah. There's one change I need to make to it that was corrected. Dealing with the. I don't know what was it. There was a. Financial grant thing that didn't actually happen. Oh, the bank, the climate bank. Goal. Which we sort of retracted. Until such time as the state gets sacked together. Which they still haven't as far as I can tell. Highlight for myself here. Oops, that's not. Just, just to be clear, Stephanie. If I am, I am allowed to send out an assignment. I'm not allowed to do that. I'm not allowed to do that. I'm not allowed to do that. So far as for the, for the ice breaker, like a little thought exercise. Well, can you send it to me? Unless you. Have something specific, you need to say with it. Jesse, if you could send it to me so it could be part of the whole retreat packet. I mean, you can add something, you know, if there's language, you want me to include to everybody. Just when you send me the email with whatever it is, I can just cut and paste it into. No, it could just be a document. Okay. Yeah. Just so we have everything at once. Yeah, yeah. Good. Well, what are you going to have already? This is the question. Before I go to sleep tonight. Okay. Tomorrow's great. Knowing that you're sending something, I'll wait until I have it before I send everything out. Okay. You'll have it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Oh, one other question. Did Stephanie, do you know, I never, I think I was going to call and I never did. You don't know if Monson library has a projector or screen, right? No, I didn't ask. I thought you had something. So I do if I need to bring it, but I will call them and ask tomorrow morning. I'll call because I'll, I'll check in with our IT department. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I had it. So I. I do. You're going to paint to drag around. So if we need a projector and a screen, I'll bring the ones I have. But it's a big old clunky projector. It's, it's big. And I have a, I have a portable. A little one. Project. No, it's this big. It's just not, it's not as bright. I have a fantastic projector. I will provide and bring. Okay. I'll bring the screen then. Tony. No, I don't know. We should call, we should call to be sure. And if we don't need it, I'll, I'll let you know. No, just bring it. Just bring it. Usually they don't, usually it's IT provides these things and that's, it means I like it. And it's usually, you know, they're not always the smallest greatest. Tony, do you have a screen too? Or screen. Okay. So Lori, you'll bring the screen and Tony, you'll bring the projector. So I'll bring the adept. The adapters necessary for it for different computer types. I also have a collection of adapters that goes everywhere. My computer goes. Big baggie full of adapters. Okay. Okay. So I have that, I have that. Notes for myself. And I think that brings us back to the next. Anything else on that agenda item. Not the next thing is the ECAC education series planning. This was the request that we have a. Discussion of community solar and community. Own solar. And how that works. And is there somebody, does any, Stephanie, were you gonna. Did you have someone who knows about that or Dwayne actually does. And we might want to, I could reach out to him. Okay. I can reach out to him too. I'll do that. Okay. Great. Thank you. I'm also going to try to pick Steve Bright's brain about that a little bit because he's the one who. Seemed to think it works differently than my understanding. Any rate. I'll reach out to a couple of people. All right. So that leaves us to the next. Agenda item, which is the staff updates. And Stephanie's been sitting on her hands. I have a lot of, I have a lot of things, but I won't. So. I'm going to mention some things, but I'm going to save some of the conversations for Sunday. Okay. Because I think some of this is relevant for Sunday. Okay. So first thing, I just want to follow up from the conversation last time about the work that was going on. I'm going to talk about the work that was going on. And then at the Amherst police department with the roof work, I spoke to the building commissioner. I spoke to the facilities manager, Jeremiah. They were very cognizant of not putting the insulation on the roof because it was going to be a hundred thousand dollars to put an exterior. Nope. Don't roll your eyes yet. Not done. To put an exterior because it's a metal. There's a metal roofing. And then, so there's metal sheet thing then, and this is the exterior metal sheet thing, then the plywood. It was going to be a hundred thousand dollars to put in any kind of rigid insulation on the outside. What they decided was it would be easier and better to insulate it from the inside. So they're going to insulate it from the inside. So I just wanted to share that piece. So hopefully that will alleviate concerns. I think they, they knew what they were doing. They had discussed it. They had investigated it that they just came up to, it wasn't going to be worth another hundred thousand dollars for, it wasn't going to do a whole lot if they put it on the exterior. So there's that. Go ahead. Quick follow up. I'm not surprised that they had thought about it. It's, and I'm glad to hear that. Is that part of the project? Or that's a. That's going to be another project where, and this will be part of what I'm going to get to in a, in a little bit. So. So that, I just wanted to follow up about that. So, and then the grant that I couldn't announce last time is we got fifteen thousand dollars for a meta grant to do. A study on town hall to do. Engineering study where we're going to focus. Cause it's not a lot of money. We're going to focus as much as we can on the building, but we're really going to aim towards looking at the roof. And the attic space of town hall. That's just like, it's just like open space right now. There's no insulation up there. I mean, there's some insulation on the roof, you know, sort of at the lower portion, but it's not much. So it's a really challenging space. There's a lot of scaffolding in there. It's like not, it's not going to be easy for someone to just come in and lay in insulation. It's just a very, very complicated old. Structure and very, very challenging thing to do. It's going to be expensive. I think I've already told you that the roof needs to be replaced. So that is going to be upwards of a million dollars to replace the roof of town hall. So that's going to be, so what we're kind of focused on right now is. The Medigrant will do the study. Then we have some energy efficiency community block grant funds. If you recall, we got sort of a block grant of $76,444. That was just like a pot of funding that we didn't have to apply for. We're just getting it. We're going to be using that for the insulation of the attic space. Of town hall. So we're going to try to focus on this sort of, because this has always been one of the challenges. Because this has always been one of the challenges. I think the rest of the building will be easier once we get this piece done. This has always been the biggest challenge like for years I've been talking about insulating the roof and for years I've just been told it's too much. We can't do it. It's too complicated. But now we're going to really try to tackle it. So that's going to be hopefully moving forward or will be moving forward because we'll get the mega grant study and then we'll use the CBG funds for weatherization and insulation. The heat pump RFP real quick, I've sent it to procurement. They had sent it, asked me a few questions about getting time manager approval for something about its release. The details don't really totally matter, honestly. But that's all now sitting with procurement. She just has a whole, I mean, it's one person who deals with all the procurement for the entire town. So are all the municipal side of the town. And she is drowning in work and so she will get to it. She did tell me it's definitely in the queue. So it's coming. Could be even by the end of this week or early next week that RFP will get released. So that's coming. Let's see. I did interviews for a fellow for this summer position, a reminder we're going to have someone come in to do a fleet to greenhouse gas emissions inventory and transition timeline. So that's going to be done by the summer. What I love about getting fellows is I feel like I know I'll have a product by the end. So three candidates, one really particularly good one. They're all good, but there's one that I'm just crossing my fingers, really hoping that she will agree to work with us because another community wanted her. She's super sharp and she'd be fantastic. So waiting to hear whether we get her. Valley bike is relaunching the season. We've got a new vendor that we're working with. So that's moving forward. It is requiring me to ask for some operations funding. It is not inexpensive. Just the town's portion of operations for projecting out to next year, 25 and 26 is roughly going to be like $82,000. That's just the town's portion, but what will offset that will be some revenue. So memberships, advertising, sponsorships, those things will probably bring that cost down, but we just don't know what that is yet. So that's the full amount. So I've actually made a request in the budget for that full amount because I want to make sure it gets covered and we don't get caught. And then the last thing that I'm probably the most excited about is you may have heard that the Department of Energy Resources, the Mass Department of Energy Resources has come up with a new program, a climate leader communities program. And that program will allow us to have expanded funding beyond just the green communities funding. It's like we'll allow us to request more funding because green communities is actually very limited. I don't know if people are aware, but like the cap has been typically like 200,000, which sounds like a lot. And it gets us some work, but it doesn't get us to some of these really bigger things. It doesn't completely cover things. So this will get us expanded opportunities for funding, technical assistance and some other things. I don't know that we'll be able to apply. I'm going to a webinar about it tomorrow. So I don't know if we're going to be able to apply. There are I think six criteria. We have four out of the six and we're about to do the two last. So I don't know if they have to be completed before. So one of them is a zero emissions vehicle policy, a purchase policy. So I'm hoping that'll be part of when we do the GHG inventory. We'll be able to do some kind of an updated policy so that our purchases are for electric vehicles to replace, you know, as vehicles go out, electric vehicles come in. So I'm hoping to be able to sort of push that forward. The other thing though, is that there's a requirement for a decarbonization plan. This is like the big thing that we've been sort of needing to do, but it's kind of a monster and I'm really excited because I think I reported out and Duane might have as well that we had some students from UMass come out, Ben Wiles class, students came out and did some work on inventorying some of our HVAC systems. And this was part of the work that Miguel did. But they were specifically looking at very specific buildings and sort of creating an inventory as well for the town that would go on Mass Energy Insight, which is the state's data source for all of the municipalities to put in their energy information. So it's what I use for migraine communities reporting. I update it every year with, you know, all of our fuel use electricity uses automatically added, gas is automatically added. But this decarbonization plan, what I'm excited about is that UMass and Ben and Laura Madison are going to actually be working with us to develop our decarbonization plan. So the state was offering technical assistance, but you had to apply for it because UMass wanted to do this work. They've already done part of the work with us already. They offered to work with us and another community. So doing that technical assistance so we don't have to apply for it. And I can't tell you how happy it makes me not to have to apply for yet another thing. So we're just automatically going to be able to work with them. So it's great. Like I just so we can like I don't have to wait. I don't have to apply like we can just start working on that piece with in conjunction with UMass. So that's everything that I have. It's a lot. Wow. That's that's amazing. I'd love to help with that last one, too. If there's any way for me to do that, that's that's just great. Is there anything ECAC needs to do with that with any of those? I don't know. I think some of that we can save for the retreat. Like that's I think what I was talking about is like some of this stuff is more planning and we can. I don't I don't even know yet exactly what what that'll entail. So it may not be. I mean, I think right now the heat pump program is going to be one of the biggest things that if you all are going to help out, we're going to really need to help with that. You know, it really feels a little bit like we've been we've been and I'm sure Laura maybe even feels more like this and Steve, who've been on this committee and Don been on this committee a long time, right? That we've been pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and almost nothing has been happening. There's little things have been happening. And then you're right that this year it feels like everything's starting to give everything's starting to move. Is that is that just me or is that actually happening? Well, I will tell you, I will answer that for you, actually, because you all are coming to these meetings and we're talking about all these things. But behind the scenes, there's a whole lot of meetings and a whole lot of communication and a whole lot of things that have to come to come into place. This is actually stuff that I'm going to talk about. So I think that's a good segue again to the things that we can talk about at the retreat, because, you know, what and I think that's where you know, the community members may feel sit and feel frustrated, like nothing ever happens in town. I'm working. We're all working and we're doing a lot. But it's just that it I think, you know, government moves slowly. We all know this. It moves really, really slow. But then things come together and all of a sudden it's just, you know, it's not just government, right? It's changing the way people think about things and the way people think about what their future is going to look like. And it feels to me like in a lot of places that this is the year things are starting to move a little bit. So I'm hopeful, I'm more hopeful than I've been in a while. Still expecting the end of the world, but hopeful, hopeful to at least try. I don't know that Amherst is going to solve that, but no. I think Stephanie's been working her butt off. Yeah, everything that has happened is a result of Stephanie's extremely work. Yes, I still feel frustrated that I don't know if from my perspective, I still feel like she's not completely supported by the rest of the town hall staff, but I know that's not her perspective. That's my perspective. And I think our town staff as a whole are way overworked and understaffed. And there's lots of issues with that that are impacting this many, many, many other things. Yeah. That's not something we can say. I keep reminding myself that we are a very small town. I mean, we heard about Boulder, Colorado and being compared to Boulder, Colorado, Boulder, Colorado has 100,000 people. It has a national lab. It has it has, you know, it's on the outskirts of Denver. It is a much larger town than Amherst. It sounds like it's not much larger, but their population is more. It's not all students. I mean, we're mostly students. I think that's what people don't understand, that our population is 36,000 with students. Yeah. So we are we are a small town. Any rate. All right. What else is on the agenda? Let's see, where are we? ECM, ECAC member updates. Yes. Okay. Any updates? Go ahead, Steve. I just wanted to share that the there's a survey that the Massachusetts Commission on Energy Infrastructure Sighting and Permitting is a commission that was established by the governor back in September. They are conducting a public input survey and it closes on March 15. So if you want to read it and do it, it's the deadline is coming up pretty quick. What's interesting about it is this is so far the survey is sort of the only place that they have revealed the kinds of things that they are thinking about as possible changes. So they are looking at changes to starting to spring up my crib sheet here. Questions about how Massachusetts can balance the need to accelerate deployment of clean energy while protecting the environment and maintaining community input with a whole series of ideas that they're seeking feedback on. They emphasize over and over that none of these have been decided on, but they are throwing out providing some ideas and seeking comments. So I will send the links to Stephanie. And if people are interested, they can do the survey. One of the links is for a PDF document that simply lists all the prompts with these descriptions of ideas that are under consideration. So even if you don't do the survey, it's interesting to read about the kinds of things that they are considering. So I encourage people to take a look at that. And if you are so inclined, read it, get your thoughts submitted by March 15th, a couple of days from today. Thanks, Steve. That sounds great. That sounds great. Any other updates? No, it's not. I don't really have anything this week, but I didn't say last week. So items for the next meeting agenda. Hmm. Do that. Let's see. Well, we definitely want to circle around back to the education series. Hopefully they'll have some names. Otherwise, why don't we see what comes up at the retreat? And then Stephanie and I will hammer out the agenda the way we usually do. Is there anything that we should absolutely include that anyone can think of? If not, then let's let's Stephanie, you and I do that after the retreat and our usual meeting and public comments. But I think we have no attendees. So I think that brings us to a journey till Sunday. So see everyone on Sunday. Right. I just have a quick question. Go ahead. Go ahead. There's all sorts of things about food I saw on your list. Are there other categories that, you know, like drinks, something to drink? If you want to bring something to drink, just add it there. Food, that's a drink. That's a food. If you want to bring napkins and plates, you know what? I have a whole bag, a whole box of party supplies that are plastic and metal silverware so that I don't throw out a lot of paper. And being that this is EECAC, why don't I just bring it and then we'll just throw the dirties in a separate box and I'll take them all home and wash them at home. Sound good? All right, I will bring my party box. I bought that years ago for another group. I was participating in that was throwing out so much paper, I just couldn't stomach it. So I'll bring the party box. I'll have all the, so I'll have everything except possibly paper napkins. So if someone wants to bring napkins or a roll of paper towel is acceptable, I think. Some paper napkins or paper towels. Someone wants to bring that just to get on the list. And cups. If someone brings drinks, maybe you can. I don't think that's, yeah, party back. You're so prepared. I haven't had occasion to take it out in a long time and it's for like two dozen people at least. So there's a lot of stuff in there. All right, anything else in party supplies there? In that case, I will see you all on Sunday. Thank you all so much. Take care. See you Sunday. And thank you.