 to strike both this number six sewer main update and number seven directors report because there's no need for either of them having gotten them and having the director not being present and providing a report. So. I second that. No, we'll do better. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Okay, so we have our agenda. Next we have a roll of the minutes from a 627 meeting. I move to be a roll of the discussion. All those in favor? Aye. Next we have public forum. So first up tonight we have Jack Hansen. What is it doing us today? Is it better to do it now or on item? We're gonna do it now. It's because the item will get on really shortly. Okay, how long do I want me to go? I don't know. How much time do you need? I'll remember you wanted to get out of here. I want to have public forum. I just, if I'm going on too long, just sit around. Maybe, can you keep it to wrap it up? Report back? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I'll try one of us. Great, well yeah, thanks for the opportunity. And I think the two main pieces that I want to emphasize or hit on this. One is just what I was talking about last night as well, which is the timeliness piece is the importance of getting this framework in place quickly. My experience on council, a lot of these key climate policies are just simply taking far too much time and energy to get past. And there's a number of climate policies that we need to get past very quickly. So taking that urgency and finding ways to speed up this process. And if it doesn't leave the committee tonight and move into ordinance committee, I would schedule a meeting to complete the item rather than waiting another month because it's still gonna have to go through ordinance, back to council, et cetera. In terms of the policy itself, I think what I would emphasize that I think you all can and should change is around the renewable natural gas piece, particularly for new construction. I don't think it makes any sense to be building new construction with this fossil fuel infrastructure that if bill is largely gonna be pulling natural gas, not renewable natural gas from Vermont gas's infrastructure, that's largely what's gonna happen if a new building is built with gas infrastructure. That's what they're gonna be pulling bait and pay into this renewable natural gas system but in support potentially, if the program is run well, which I'm skeptical about, but if it is, they're potentially using their money to leverage and increase in renewable natural gas within the system, but they're also drawing crack natural gas, standard natural gas directly in the building and in that way, increasing that for them at the same time. So I think it's counterintuitive and counterproductive when we know that it is more cost-efficient and more sustainable to just simply build a lecture from the start. And a lot of developers are already just doing that because of the economics of it, because of the health impacts, et cetera. So I think we just need to be clear about this that for new buildings, let's just build it, right? We know the way to build it, let's mandate that. And the way that the valid item was written doesn't preclude you from that, it doesn't pin and hold you into accepting these alternative schemes. It talks about lots of fuel systems versus renewables. I think you all have the ability to find that in this and that's what you're doing. And the way it's written right now does lay out kind of what you define it, but you can write it differently, find it differently. The voters weren't pigeonholing you in any direction on that. So I think definitely for new buildings, I would not, I don't think you should allow renewable natural gas. And then for existing buildings, I get that it's harder politically, particularly because of conversations that have happened with some of these large buildings from the administration, from the city saying, you're gonna be able to use this pathway of renewable natural gas. And I get that at the same time, you are the policy makers, you are the elected officials. And the administration can't predict or control what the legislative branch does. Like you all are working across the people and our stakeholders, we are stakeholders and we are impacted by this policy. And I think many of us are telling you that what we wanna see is the stronger climate action. So I think it's totally reasonable to eliminate natural gas as well in existing buildings that are switching out their structure and move them away from the Vermont gas system. As we're on a different timeline and trajectory of the Vermont gas, we're trying to move more aggressively. And I think as policy makers in Burlington, we have to ensure that that's the path that we're on. And the final thing I'll say, and I'll be done, is basically with Vermont gases, renewable natural gas. They're essentially paying with the hopes or the best case scenario that by them paying this premium on their gas bill, Vermont gas will increase somewhere else within the system, the amount of renewable natural gas or bring a new RNG project online that will be useful. But to me, if they're gonna just pay a fee for something to happen elsewhere, I'd rather them just pay the car to be in the city. I trust the city more than I trust BGS to actually deliver on those dollars and deliver carbon reduction benefits for those extra dollars spent. So I think if they can't comply through actually going renewable, let's have the fee go to the city, not to, not gas. Thanks. Thanks, Jeff. Next we have Connor Woodins, cool. Hey, everybody. If you like reading while talking, there's like a quick little handout here. I know I, guys, please over where I just speak about that. Thanks for, you know, sitting through the marathon meeting last night and getting through it today. Hopefully you get some more vacation time because of that. But who knows? We're getting less according to Jack. But you like that, but. I mostly wanted to leave you back up with what Jack was saying and then just kind of add and speak a little bit specifically to hydrogen or green hydrogen. It wasn't an energy source I was really familiar with until a couple of months ago. And the more I learned about it, the more I realized that like, if natural gas and renewable natural gas is being called into question, it really makes a lot of sense to be eliminating hydrogen or green hydrogen as well. You know, I wasn't able to get a superstar scientist to come and testify today, but we did have one come and testify to the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee back when they were testifying for the report that he had. And I can send this over to you, but it's Professor Howard. And he has like a lot of experience and expertise on researching hydrogen and the literature around that. And basically like it's more dangerous than renewable natural gas. It's kind of called an invisible gas because you can't smell it like gas. So, you know, when you ever like leave the gas on, you smell it like, oh, I don't turn it off. You can't do that with hydrogen. So if you're blending gas in, like we're gonna get explosions. And as I testified last night, like my home town had a huge explosion back in 2019. I grew up in Northern American Valley and destroyed dozens of homes. And so I'm kind of sensitive to whatever we might be doing to put our city at risk here. So finally, just in terms of like, if I'm at peace soon, hydrogen, if I remember back to the periodic table of elements, it's the smallest like element there. And that means that it leaks a lot more. And so natural gas is a leaky substance, but if we add hydrogen, it's gonna be leaking way more through the pipes and also like into our homes' houses. So that's like, also not good. Anyways, if you have any questions about that, I'd be happy to like talk to you more and connect you with people who are more eloquent than I am. Always really happy to do that. And yeah, I hope for it to continue talking next. Next up is actually the elements. I first want to just thank you for supporting me today. That's what we've been trying to do. Really thrilled by that. But I'm here tonight to speak about the thermal energy or carbon heat ordinance, which ordinarily I'd be a very strong supporter of. However, thanks to the city's misguided definition of renewable, this ordinance manages to incentivize the use of every false climate solution available, all of which are more polluting than the fossil fuels that they would be replacing. This includes advanced wood heat, renewable natural gas, biodiesel and green hydrogen. It also incentivizes the so-called district heat, which we know we should not be investing in. We know this thanks to the June testimony of two world-class climate scientists who made clear that the plant needs to be shut down. As Dr. Mouma stressed, we do not need more renewables. We need zero carbon energy and heat. The decision that businesses and developers will make when they invest in heating systems will in no small measure be impacted by whether or not they have to pay an impact fee. These are capital investments to appreciate over a few decades. In other words, they'll be in place for many years, pouring pollution into both the atmosphere and the air that we breathe. This, when we have only a few short years to zero out carbon emissions. Please adopt the recommended changes to this ordinance provided by Nick Prasampieri so that we can move this city off harmful, including heating sources now. If you ever doubt the importance of the work that you're doing here, and I'm sure that you don't, there's an arresting example from today's New York Times of why we need to act quickly. And here it is. Warming could push the Atlantic past the tipping point this century. The system of ocean currents that regulates the climate for a swath of the planet could collapse sooner than expected a new analysis found. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you, Sash. Next is Nick Prasampieri. Hi, Nick. There you are. Go ahead. Thank you and thank you for all the hard work you've been bringing to these issues between last night and now coming back today. You're keeping all the business out of these issues. I just wanted to echo what Ashley had to say. Let me start off by saying that we fully support what I think is the city's main goal here. And that is to get people off of natural gas and onto electricity in particular heat pumps or heating homes, businesses. I fully support that. But the problem I have with this ordinance is that in addition to doing that, it also incentivizes the false climate solutions that Ashley mentioned. Advanced wood heating, green hydrogen, liquid biofuels, renewable gas, and fuel district heat. None of which will help the city to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, most if not all of them will actually result in increased greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, a lot, some of these also have other serious harmful issues. Advanced wood heating is just an awful thing to be incentivizing within an urban area. The American Lung Association just fly out where it demands that people not use wood to heat their homes. And that's because of the harmful emissions of particulate matter and other air pollutants so both the indoor air and the outdoor air. I'm not gonna spend too much time talking about these issues because I presented some position papers on them. I gave you a write up on advanced wood heating and why you shouldn't incentivize that as well as handouts on the renewable gas and green hydrogen. And we've talked at a length about making fuel district heat so I haven't given you any further on that. We haven't, I think, addressed liquid biofuels specifically maybe we can get you something that in the future I haven't had time to work on it. I did prepare a markup of the proposed ordinance amendments. I asked that to adopt the changes that I'm recommending. The key changes that I'm suggesting are that you go away from the concept of permitting renewable fuels which reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I think that's really confusing terminology because whether or not something as renewable says nothing about whether it reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable is capable of being renewed or not depleted when used and we shouldn't confuse that concept with the carbon intensity of a type of fuel. So I suggest that you change that instead of defining things as renewable fuel which reduce greenhouse gas emissions I suggest you refer to low carbon thermal energy systems. And then I suggested that you strike out the systems that are not in fact low carbon thermal energy systems. Finally, let me just mention it seems apparent that in drafting the ordinance some concepts from S5 have been adopted here. But there hasn't been a final decision on any of these in the context of S5. What S5 has done is it's listed a number of measures that are eligible for consideration as clean heat measures and public utility commission is going to decide whether and to what extent these various measures are entitled to credits and we shouldn't be getting ahead of public utility commission. And I really think the state has made serious mistakes and the things that's allowing to be considered for renewable energy credits. I think the legislative process was dominated by fossil fuel industry. Obviously, I think we can do better in the next 10 minutes. Thank you. Thank you very much. So I just wanna say that Nick sent these to us. Did they get into the record? They're not into the record yet, but we can certainly add any of the materials provided by. So you're running this meeting. I keep forward, Maddie, the three emails that I think were requested from Nick. We also, if you would like to include this other piece, we would have to do more talking real quick. You said that electronically. I'll just forward them. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes. Next to you is Bill Maher. Here's three. So there are three. Okay. And yeah. So I'm gonna go over. There was a door attachment. There were three. I was just surprised. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. So I mean, mainly I'm here to support Nick in his position, as you said. And you know, one of the things that I keep running over in my head is this access, the access, getting our information to you guys. And we always feel, I always feel behind. Like for instance, with the McNeil plant, we've got 30 years of information. We've got 30 years of material being presented to us. And you know, like anybody else, I was sitting there doing my job and running my business and I accepted the information until I got into it. And I just wanna be really clear here that we had that form. We had two experts that had no skin in the game tell us what was up. And I just wanna say, when I do my taxes, I don't hire a forester. I don't hire an engineer. When you account for greenhouse gas, you have to account for it by rules. You don't hire a forester to do that. That's not their training. You don't hire utility companies to tell us how it goes down. We hire the people that study greenhouse gas. And I just really wanna support Dr. Rooney Vargas and Dr. Muma's presentation. And if you forget what they said or if you feel like there was any argument about what they said, go back to it and listen to it again because they're telling the truth. This stuff doesn't work. A lot of these renewables are upside down and backwards from what we think they are. And I can show you anytime you guys have a question about greenhouse gas accounting, I'm not an expert on all of it. I haven't studied the biofuels. I have studied biomass. It is not green, that's all I'm gonna say. And I'd be glad to help you out with that accounting anytime, any questions. Because we're getting a lot of information. And I don't think Darren's giving us bad information intentionally, but he's not a greenhouse gas accountant. He's a utility operator, you know? And it just doesn't work that way. You need to go to your account to get your taxes done. Okay, so that's where I'm at tonight. Got a taco Tuesday to go to. Let me go to that. What do you do? Oh my God. You went from there like that. What do you do? I could put it back on the soil and bring it back. We live in the same neighborhood, I don't know. Thanks everybody. Thanks Phil. How do I do? I think Pike was next before captain signed up. So I'm gonna recognize Pike online next. I'm gonna be able to explain. Good evening. Sorry, I couldn't be there in person tonight. Ida, I'm also asking you to at least table this or even more remove any instance in this ordinance that includes combustion, because anything that you're burning is gonna create greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier this evening, I sent the three counselors a notice of intent to sue, signed by the attorney general of Vermont and nine other state's attorneys general that pretty much says that the certification process for advanced wood heating systems is junk. Even if the certification systems were not junk, there's nothing in the advanced wood heat system that actually removes carbon dioxide. They admit just as much carbon dioxide as a campfire or any other system that burns, such as McNeil, which is about a pound of carbon dioxide per four wood. So advanced wood heating should not be there. And if it is in there, it should not be in there until this case is resolved and there's a real certification process. Renewable natural gas needs to stay at the landfill or stay at the farm, not renewable national gas, the methane that would go into renewable natural gas. As soon as you transport it, you're subjecting the stuff to leaking and transportation and all kinds of things. And it too becomes worse than the natural gas that you're replacing. I'd like to point out line six, excuse me, line 76 specifically, where it calls out liquid or gaseous renewables, but it neglects to include solids. So I'd like you to suggest an amendment, either remove the words liquid and gaseous or add the word solids. So the solid fuels, such as wood are also included into this system. And finally, I'd like the tube to reconsider and ask whoever is doing the net zero roadmap to start considering and start accounting for all carbon dioxide and stop pretending that all we need to do is get rid of fossil fuels, because we need to get rid of all combustion systems. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Next is Katherine Block. Nice to see you again. Thank you for hearing me. I'm also speaking on the thermal energy system ordinance. And I basically think it's a really good idea. I agree that the Pheon burning fossil fuels that are used for heating will reduce the amount of fossil fuels we use, and that's a good thing. I also applaud the emphasis on electrification heat pumps utilization. The problem I see, which is what many others have said is that a Pheon fossil fuels will incentivize the other solutions that's still in the greenhouse gas, gaseous. And here I'm speaking of Brie Haider-Generes, which he RNG and lived with fire fuels. Last night at the city council meeting, someone near the end speaking on how they're burning biofuels in biomass in Europe for much of their energy use. I don't know if that was meant to convince us that fire fuels are better than fossil fuels, but it immediately took my mind to think of my son who began speed skating age three. And I remember his first race, this long-legged skinny little guy in a baggy speed skating suit. And he loved it. At age eight, the intergroup of friends decided they were gonna be on the Swedish Olympic team. And they spent their whole childhood training. Now in Sweden, they burn trash for energy. Sounds like a renewable resource. They just collect it, drive it to the burner, dump it. And you can imagine it does produce some strange smell sometimes when you're driving around in Gothenburg. I don't know where the burners were, but we smelled it. Then we learned that the energy to keep this 400 meter speed skating rink frozen they got from burning trash. So my son built asthma, which is very common in Swedish children, but he was determined to keep skating. And so we got the inhalers and the medications we kept on going and he got to be pretty good. And so after high school, they moved to Berlin and trained with the Swedish speed skating team. It was always easy to spot him. We conceived it as the skater wearing a big green what do they call it, a big fleece gaiter over his nose and mouth with formerly air because that would also sell as an attack. He did spend the year in Berlin, but it ended up that his asthma made it impossible for him to train often enough to get any better. So he was too slow and they sent him home. And he's now working in California without education, which personally I think is very useful then trying to be the fastest in the world going around a 400 meter ring. But there are many smoky days in California as there are here. And so he's often inside near the air purifier. I'm telling you the story because it may seem gross to burn trash and I admit that trash produces a lot more pollution than hydrogen and biofuels, but burning non-fossil fuels also produces greenhouse gases, even in Europe. That's what we've been saying. So this ordinance would be a great step in reducing greenhouse gases in Burlington if it was changed by adding green hydrogen advanced with renewable natural gas and biofuels to the same class as fossil fuels. So they'd also be charged a fee and they would be difficult for them to continue in the greenhouse classes. We do need laws to reduce burning of everything. To eventually make it financially impossible or impossible to emit greenhouse gases. Thank you very much for hearing me. Thank you. We have two orders to be pretty soon. I'm trying to expand. I think we'll go with Steve Bitcoin next. Yeah. I'm sorry. No, I'm not. Thanks. Well, I came back with Bernie Baxter. I just heard some of the other speakers. I know I missed some of it, but I think this committee still needs to get at the question of what does it mean when you say, what is renewable? And BD just dances around it. They can bring in the farcers. The question was that has to do with us posing and it needs to be answered. What is renewable means? Everyone's looking at clearing the eye. We know that when is renewable, say every day, solar every day, hydro maybe on an annual basis at best. But you don't have that answer. And I think you need it. It's pretty simple. A tree is cut down today. Some of it is burned and revealed. When does that tree get back to where it was to say it's been removed? And it's not a hard thing to show. And I think when you see it, you'll realize that renewable doesn't really even convince the equation when we're talking about, say 2030 or 2050 as the drop dead dates for dealing with climate change in the city. So it's an easy question to get. You should demand it and not have it obscured with some kind of graph or theory, but there's a number. Barsers will tell you how long it takes a tree to grow back in Vermont. And if you think that that period of time represents anything that is going to be helpful in the battle against climate change in the city, go with it. I think you're going to find that it's totally irrelevant in the battle against climate change because trees don't grow at a pace that's going to make any significant difference the next 20 years or 10 or 20 years when we're fighting climate change. And they may be renewable on some scale, but not the scale that you should be. I think you are concerned about. So I just ask you to demand of them to show you when a tree is truly renewed and use the same kind of just as you say, when is wind when it's over 100% replaced every day? Well, what a tree? It's probably on a scale of 100 to 200 years. And it's not helping at all in our fight against climate change. And by the way, as you know, choose grow an exponential rate. So in the first 50 years, let's say it's a hundred years to be fully grown. The first 50 years doesn't grow with 50%. It grows about 30% or so. And 20 years it grows to maybe 10%. So ask the questions and they may make informed decision on this because they're really trying to, but just think of where renewable can be different things. Coal is renewable on a million years schedule too. So I think it's an easy question to get the answer to and I think it'll make a big difference in how we look at the use of wood in the city. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. And our last speaker, it looks like is Peter Duvall's online. Actually, Dan Castragon was here. I want to wrap this section up soon. People, if Peter and Dan can make their comments in the next five minutes or so, you can allow them both to go. So Peter, keep that in mind please. Go ahead. Well, thank you for the opportunity to comment. And I am Peter Duvall, I live in Underhill, a town from which McNeil Generating Station receives many tons of wood chips. And when McNeil foresters and loggers come to town, they bring their skitters and whole tree chippers and tractor trailers and drive them into the forest for a noisy diesel burning party all day long. When that diesel burning party's over and the atmospheric river inevitably appears, rain drops instead of falling on tree leaves and deep forest duff fall on brambles and shrubbery and they unite in rivulets and streams and quickly join Stevensville Brook and Browns River which pass through Underhill Center and by the old Red Mill on the way to the Memorial River and Lake Champlain where they bring their phosphorus and sediment. So if you're disappointed in the beach closures during the summer, you can thank the city and BED for its, for McNeil's contribution to the lake's troubles. When I tell you that story to remind you that McNeil's effects are as BED is presented on the landscape and it's proudly proclaimed that the effects are on the landscape and not at the smokestack. But this is a utility decision-making and management problem, not a debate about biogenic commissions as the advocates relatively new to this are describing. BED, the McNeil joint owners, the city, Green Mountain Power, Department of Public Service, Public Utility Commission all been well aware of the problem of biogenic commissions. Mooma has been around forever. I remember reading his papers in 1992 when I participated in the public service boards, docket 5611, party to which all of the utilities were there's no excuse for not knowing that biogenic commissions are exactly the same as fossil fuel emissions. Indeed, in draft rule that was presented at the end of the investigation and negotiation included specific exclusion of biomass facilities from qualifying renewables. Because utility decision-making is unique, completely different from other types of business operations. It is the utilities responsibility to act in public interest and prepare the decision before getting even close to talking to the Burlington Electric Commission which has fallen down in its responsibility to expect good, prudent, diligent work from utility. You should not be receiving information from the advocates. It should be coming from utility, a complete profile of the situation with fair solicitations from all resources, careful study of all issues and risks. It is a huge risk to make an assumption about emissions as BED has done and the city. So what I would like to suggest to you is you start asking the questions that should have been asked much, much earlier, long before BED and the city committed rate payer and taxpayer funds to the STEAM project and expanding and continuing McNeil, which has always been a losing business operation. Thanks, Peter. Good. Let me just give you a couple of questions, okay? Yeah. Why is McNeil different than the Burgess biomass plant in Berlin, which is $150 million? Yeah. Peter, could you, and we want to have Peter excuse me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you. If you could submit the questions in writing, we'll make sure that we see them. You could ask that question of Mr. Springer right now. I just need to wrap up public forums so that we can move on to the other portion. You're gonna have a presentation from him pretty soon. And you could ask him some tough questions right now. Okay, thank you. You can send those on to us. I think we've heard some of the questions to post before and under forums as well. So we're aware of many of your concerns. Thank you for doing your duty as public officials, representing the public interest and ensuring that Mr. Springer and the electric department do their duty. Thank you. And our final speaker, and we're starting to run over now is Dan Castragana. So Dan, if you could keep us on grief so we can get on to the rest of our meeting tonight. Thanks. Listen to the science, listen to the people and don't listen to Darren Springer in the Burlington Greenwashing Department. Okay, thank you, Dan. And with that, I'm gonna close public forum and move on to our next agenda item, which is a discussion of city fleet and please don't lead us in that. Thanks for having us joining me tonight is Ashley Parker. We're representing the fleet committee. As you may remember, when we came to the Board of Finance and City Council for FY24 fleet purchases that was approved, we reached out to the committee to schedule some meetings to discuss how the city could move forward in creating a sustainable fleet funding strategy as you may have read in the memo, I have some quick bullets. I'll keep it quick for you all and we have a busy agenda. City owns over 400 fleet units at citywide. The general fund itself has 276 units, which is about 68% of the total fleet. It's about $2 to $3 million annually to create the sustainable fleet replacement strategy moving forward. And as you know, there's currently no funding available to purchase general fund vehicles going forward. In addition to the annual need, we still have leases to cover in FY25 and 26, about a million dollars each fiscal year. Correct me if I'm wrong, Ashley. Jump right in if you wanna add anything as well. I'm doing it. Okay. And if a replacement funding strategy isn't devised through these meetings, it could impact some of the services that we provide to residents. When I say general fund fleet, that's fire trucks, that's police vehicles, plow trucks, a lot of equipment that supports our infrastructure. But just keep that in mind. And we did outline some questions for the committee in the memo. I don't know if you had a chance to review them. Asking for direction and guidance and how we should proceed with this. We did have a study done back in 2018 prior to when I took over this position. I am familiar with the study moving forward. We actually created our fleet purchasing policy from that study, but there were recommendations in that study on possibilities of how we can take some portions of that study and contribute it to the annual fleet funding. It was more in efficiencies and right sizing the fleet and recommendations like that. And moving forward at upcoming meetings, we can provide you with that study if you would like to review it and list of recommendations that Ashley and the fleet committee has come up with. Some are stated in the memo. But yeah, we really like to get your input on some of these questions that we have outlined on page three. Yeah, I guess if it's okay Lee, I'll just add. So just to let you also know of some of the other work that we've been asked to do, I'm sure you'll remember during the budget process this year that the mayor has shown a desire to engage with a consultant to try to assist us with this issue or an issue. And so we have been working through these recommendations that were identified in these two studies to try to determine if there are opportunities to get more information or even dive further into a recommendation. Maybe implement something that was recommended in the study using the help of a consultant. And so we're working to put together some recommendations as well for an RFP that might go out to a consultant like this. And so that's something also to consider as you look through the bullets that we have highlighted for you in the memo tonight. The bullets that you'll see for both revenue and expense options are things that we've, the fleet committee, the finance work group felt might actually be worth considering in terms of moving forward and trying to come up with some long-term financial revenue strategies that will help us get to where we wanna be. So I think that's just some additional background when you're looking at these. And if you have ideas to something that's not on here or something that you think is not worth our time and energy, those are the kinds of things I think we'd really like to hear from you guys so that we can shape a recommendation for our consultant and future RFP. So I think that's all I have for now. No, I actually pretty much hit the nail on the head and kind of filled in the gaps in the memo. Well, thank you. Are there questions about the memo? I believe that you were asking for guidance. And I know this is the initial meeting, and we're planning our meetings and there's a lot of information to get. Yes, and I have to admit that I was focused on a few other things this morning after a long meeting last night. That being said, looking quickly and I think if other people fill space, I'll get through other bullets and be able to maybe give some more feedback. I think that your first bullet on revenue options is worthy of consideration, which for everybody else who's out there who doesn't have this built elite funding and for the general fund budget, either by requiring budget departments to budget but their own replacements are carving out a general fund wide fleet budget by reducing other expenses. I think that's always something to, that needs to be considered on this. I am not in favor personally of returning to a strategy of cash purchases that seems to be off. These are capital expenses and they should be treated as such and not as general operating expenses. The bonding bullet is the right one, but it's problematic with where we're at in bonding and so I don't know how to deal with it in the status quo that we have for raising them. The fourth budget, fourth bullet on revenues which I'm not sure is a revenue but what the heck, annually assess the existing fleet to determine whether there are any vehicles or equipment that can be sold. I guess that is a revenue thing. Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. Okay, so that's about as far as I quickly got on that if you'd let me just sort of march down. I think this is what you were looking for in terms of our feedback and sort of the bigger concepts, I think flow from much of these getting thrown in and then these spark other ideas. More discussion. Yeah, so anyway, if I can kick a can to you and I'll go and maybe look at the expense side a little bit while. Sure, my understanding, at least from before the finance meeting I tended that we were moving forward with the consultant is are we likely to or is there an inclination to and you're just asking us to sort of less it because I think it would be useful to have some outside expertise to help us understand the options, maybe someone who's worked with other entities municipalities that have done in similar places. But should it be another wholesale fleet? Yeah, I guess just for clarification. Yeah, I was just gonna say for clarification there is gonna be a consultant. I think when I was approached by the CAO to start looking at it coming up with an RFP, she had not been aware in the mayor, I think forgot that we have these existing studies. And so they were kind of pairing with what his initial take was and what he wanted to move with. So what we're trying to do is say, okay, we did these existing studies, we have these recommendations. Are there gaps that we need to further dive into? Are there opportunities to maybe throw in some of these more revenue focused ideas to help us have something that we could implement sooner rather than later. Because a lot of the times we do a study, they'll give you a bunch of recommendations, but it takes time to implement those. And because of where we are with the revenues, and it's truly something that we need to figure out sooner rather than later. It seems like if we had somebody we could bring on board to provide us some guidance and maybe help us actually have something to implement within the year, would be ideal. I think that would be something that I would love to incorporate into a recommendation where we can have an RFP with maybe a scope of work to show the mayor's office and see if that is something that they would also be interested in. That why we're not redoing the same kind of study with the same focus. I guess I'll say that I have not read the studies or seen the studies. I guess I would like to start there personally just to see what's been done. And that might inform some recommendation from me anyways. I don't know if you have anything to say. I think they would, but aren't just not done. Let me just start with that. Yeah, so all of the expense options seem worthy of continued discussion and review. I didn't see any of them that make no sense at all. And personally, not even the cash in, it makes some sense. I don't think we should go that way. So I don't need to be insulting them. I say it like that. I've been going to say things like that. In terms of the revenue picking up from where I was at, which I think was the annual assessment, the rest of them seem reasonable. I think that the new carbon fee bullet, which I think makes a lot of sense in terms of using the sources of funds. And we're talking about this now is nothing that's going to be in any near term. And I think that there are a lot of, there are gonna be a lot of demands for that just in the thorough sector, so not in the transportation sector. So I don't know that I would have that as being a high priority in terms of the timing for studies and banking on things. And both the franchise fee and all of the stuff related to the enterprise departments is sort of interesting. It's not quite clear in terms of franchise fees, what exactly it is you're talking about. We charge them, they get paid into the city. They're an alternative to the property tax. So why you couldn't be using them? But I think that all these things need to be rationalized within the concept of a capital program for the city's fleet, a fleet which is absolutely needed to function as a municipality that works. So, you know, yeah. And, you know, there's been a lot of what I consider to be like economic rationalization over a long time. And I mean, there's been a lot of progress. I know that because I worked on leases like 15 years ago for us. It's clear that we're doing stuff. And, you know, some of this is, you know, if utilizing credit cards to pay the vendors but to rebuy about paying money for the fleet, I mean, those are sort of like these small ideas that, you know, like they come and go as the rebates change and what have you. So I don't know that you need us to be trying to be micromanaging that level of, you know, like the daily, whatever it is, you know, moving money. There's not triage. What are people that arbitrage? That's it. The people that are like making a zillion dollars on one page being, you know, different in their trades, you know, like, you know, you need somebody. I mean, I think that's what Munir does at, you know, he's pretty, I think it is Munir that really understands the system and the purchase doesn't go down. James gives. Okay, James, sorry. But, you know, so there are people that are there that can do that or that we, you know, could move to bring on. So that is my feedback on that. So in terms of actions, I mean, they'll provide us with studies, what's the time, the sort of general timeline on this? I know that if we're gonna bring consultant in, if we're gonna make decisions based on previous studies and new recommendations, all that needs to sort of be done in time because then for next year's budgeting cycle, which will begin when we're back up to a little bit or so. Yeah, hopefully. Is that realistic, even, between now and now? Yeah, I think we should schedule, you know, another meeting or two between now and then. We'll get you the information. Have you looked it over and take, you know, your input from this meeting back to the entire fleet committee as a group and we have a meeting in August, August 17th. So bring that information back and some of your feedback. And if you come up with more questions or any other feedback or guidance, you can always email it to myself or Ashley or Chapin or all three of us. You can email whatever information you have or links to us and we'll send it electronically, both through study. The last thing is whether there's any connection that can or should be made with Regional Planning Commission and also with other municipalities. I mean, the whole regional dispatch is not really working and it may be that this cannot operate. But if, I mean, every Department of Public Works needs dump trucks, needs, you know, you have all these similar needs. Yeah, and so perhaps there is some both efficiencies and collaboration that can occur that the commission could be helping in terms of studying, but also that an inter-municipal agreement might be where the consideration that might be just a pipe drain, like, you know, Champlain Water District. So, you know, I don't know. And it may be that part of it is, if we have a vigorous program here, that might be a source of revenue. I don't, but you know what I'm getting? We're going to do that. So, I mean, we tend to look pretty myotically. There's not a, it's not necessary, I mean, in and of itself. Yeah, we can perhaps, personally. Okay, do you have any other questions, actually? No, I think, I think we're just, well, excited really to have you guys, you know, if there are any other ideas out there that, you know, we could throw in this mix. I think the group as a whole has acknowledged that this is going to take, you know, multiple sources of funding, I think, to make it sustainable. And it's going to take some time to build up any kind of reserve that ends up being the trajectory that we go in. But every little bit, any idea is not bad. And I just appreciate your time and thought on this topic. So, yeah. Can tell us, does attend the complete committee meeting? No, we can invite you. It would be interesting if I was here. I mean, I'd be interested in attending. Yeah, it's pretty much the department heads all within the general fund. By your parks and reactor representatives. Yeah. OK, next time, thank you for that. Thank you, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Next is the ordinance. We have there are many minutes for spring. I need to take this on. Thank you. I feel compelled and forgive me, but I feel compelled to say that on behalf of the hardworking employees at PDD, I can't agree with terms like greenwashing for the work that we do. And I feel like I need to say this to respond to some of the comments that were made. We may have disagreements within the community on policy. I respect that. Well, we have reports on our website that indicate from third parties that there are emissions benefits from McNeil. We have folks who have come to the forum who said differently, I respect that. We're municipal public power utility. We are not a fossil fuel company. We're not ExxonMobil. We work for the people of our own. And I just feel compelled to say that there's nothing that we do that fits with those terms. And so on behalf of the organization, the employees, the hardworking employees, I feel compelled to say that. That's really here to answer questions if you have them on the draft ordinance that I know was introduced yesterday evening. Happy to discuss some of the process that went into it. I know we've presented at the two previously on this. Happy to talk about some of the policy distinctions within the proposal. But one thing I would say is there has been a serious policy development at the state level with the clean heat standard becoming law. I know over the governor's signature going through a public utility commission process and subject to further confirmation by the state legislature. I think to the extent it's feasible, it's smart policy for the city to work within some of the constructs that will be happening at the state level. The state's created a process by which fuels can be looked at for carbon intensity, which is included in the draft, most of us will that we can use, recognize national models for evaluating life cycle emissions of various fuels, which is the appropriate way to evaluate any fuel, whether it's solar, wind, nuclear, fossil fuel, biomass, biofuels, life cycle basis and provides a process for the department of permitting and inspections to ask for analyses prior to qualifying or disqualifying fuels, provides a process for the city to be nimble in responding to developments at the state level. Obviously we act hopefully in leadership here on this policy, but we act within the state construct as well. And I think having some alignment with the state would be good practice. But really happy to speak to any pieces of this that are helpful or to answer questions that you might have. I think Bill Ward was intending to be online as well. I'm not sure if he is yet, but I know he was planning to join for the conversation and Jennifer Green, sustainability director is here as well. A little bit of questions. Sure. This is not so much of a question, but sort of a framework. We've got, this is an ordinance in our building code. Okay, so it's in our building code and it's authorized by a charter section that says that we can, I got it right here, that we can regulate thermal energy systems in residential and commercial buildings. Okay, so that's the framework. Leave the money part out of it. So that's what we're doing with this ordinance. It's in chapter, well, it's in section 48 and subsection 66 of them. You can get there in lots of different ways, but that's the charter section. So then we go to this ordinance and I want to thank you, right? I mean, for really good time that you've spent with me to work through this, I think that you have been clear and straightforward and helpful and I totally appreciate that and I'm very happy that you are a public servant and that this is a municipal utility. So I want to say that I believe that I am on the same team, even if I, and we have in the past, we won't always agree. Sure, it's just, of course, that's the way I am, as much as anybody else. So in this ordinance, we are, we're doing a couple of things. We're doing two things. One is that we are saying what can go in and then we're saying if we're gonna charge a fee for certain things. And that fee is now to flip to the second piece is the one, it is a fee that is authorized by the voters. And the charter section that I read says that we can assess carbon impact or alternative compliance payments for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions throughout the city, but we cannot do it just paraphrase the next question unless the people vote by a majority. And the people did vote by a majority to put a fee of up to $150 per ton adjusted annually at the rate of regional inflation for new construction buildings that install. And here's the thing which I'm sort of like in a way stuck on in relationship to this bigger question that people have raised. Install fossil fuel thermal energy systems instead of using renewable energy systems or renewable fluid fuels. So the key on the fee in my reading of this and unfortunately for everybody who I deal with now as a current relatively non-practicing attorney is that it is the fees are gonna be on fossil fuel thermal energy systems, right? Now it says instead of using renewables but if you had a fossil fuel energy system that would be subject to the fee. And what that means is that a non-fossil fuel or energy system is not subject to the fee. That's not been authorized. So here is my rub with how we're sort of looking at this, right, is that we're looking at this as you're putting these systems in these thermal energy systems and in either your panofi or you're not. But I'm not and for something like renewable gas, right? And I was, I've been pretty clear that I'm not a fan of that. That the question of whether it fits in the fossil fuel definition or not is I think an open one and I think is something that we can do differently within the authority that we've been given by the donors for the fee on that particular one. But I am confused at this point in time by how to deal with polluting what I'll say for yet polluting or emitting sources that are not fossil fuel but are not something that would be good for us to promote and whether we are promoting them is a live question and advanced wood heating system is an example of that. And what's interesting is that we don't avoid this conflict here because if an advanced wood heating system is not a fuel fossil. Now we've got in here that it's exempt from the fee if it meets the standards and if it doesn't meet the standards that means that it is subject to the fee but I'm not sure that we've got actually the authority in that realm which leads me parenthetically to say we should go back to the boarders in March and that should be another job from this committee to clean this up. But if there is a way that we can regulate things and I'm not saying that I've been convinced about it by the green hydrogen but for argument's sake, green hydrogen in a way that is, it takes it out of the fee part but still regulates it as part of a building heating system. That seems to be something that we should do in the interim. I have not worked through it. I was trying to grapple with this mind thing, sort of like plant three dimensional chest and mind. But pulling the things out besides the renewable gas which I think we should have a full conversation within this framework is something that I think we ought to consider. And I'm not sure what we do with them if we say, you could just say that they're not allowed, I think. We're just not going to permit them, right? And kick that can down the road, especially if the likelihood that there would be buildings that are going to install a green hydrogen source system is not very high. And I don't know that taking it down the road until we can figure out some stuff would be a bad thing. Okay, so I just sort of laid open my conundrum. I've gone a long time and I'm sorry, I'm a little afraid for that. But that's my thinking and just close it up. I think that I need to be more convinced that the renewable gas provision that we've got in here means that that gas that's being produced at a farm, say, at a site, is going to go to a building that we're going to put in the new South End Invasion District, right? That's going to be built because my good friend, Jack Hansen has, I think, convinced me that the likelihood of there being very much of the total volume of gas that would come into a pipe, into a building right here that we're just building from the farm, the renewable farm in Addison is really, really small. So 95% of it, it's 50% of it. Even 40 or 30% of it is coming from regular natural gas does not seem to be the direction that we should go. And I don't think that it should be subject to the exemption if there's basically any non-renewable gas in that mix. So, and I don't know how this, I understand what we're trying to do with this language, but I don't know that it actually does that, per se. So anyway, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. It's good. I mean, we've opened up some questions that I have as well, but did you have- I mean, it's an unpacking of what you've done. Okay, I mean, that's the problem with this, is this is pretty good. I had questions while we're unpacking and we need to re-pack, re-pack. I'm quite at the subsection C, it's at line 72, 76, where we talk about renewable fuels. The Department of Urban Data Inspection may disqualify any renewable fuel that reduces greenhouse gas emissions listed above the date how much it will satisfy the requirements of the section if the fuel is subsequently deemed by the Vermont Public Utility Commission not to satisfy the carbon intensity requirements that we need standard. Can you talk a little bit about whether or not, that's like, does the, we wanted to disqualify something that we take into the Vermont Public Utility Commission or are we just trying to, is this speaking more to trying to stay aligned with the state standards on this? Yeah, I can explain this. And there's a reason that it speaks and this language is very much in line with what we think we need standard. There's a reason it speaks to liquid or gaseous renewable fuels because those are fuels that are dropping into what would otherwise be a fossil fuel system that may be renewable fuels. So think about high-neutral going into an oil heating system or renewable gas going into a natural gas-based system. If it's wood energy, whether it's district heat or whether it's advanced wood energy, it's wood energy and it's essentially delivered in a way physically to the site. If you have a pellet boiler for some reason, you're gonna get your pellets delivered on site. If you're connected to district heat and you're part of the renewable credit system with district heat, you're getting the delivery of the fuel and the credits from the fuel. With this particular piece, it's intended to address, I think, some of the concerns that we're just discussing, which is how do I know if building that install a conventional natural gas boiler, let's say, and says they're gonna use renewable fuel is getting renewable fuel. And we don't track the molecule fuel in the system. You can't do that. Same way, I can't track an electron on the grid, but we have projects like Community Solar all across Vermont that everybody is generally supportive of. And the way we account for those is through renewable credits, where we say that solar project is putting out X number of megawatt hours of energy. Each megawatt hour of energy gets a renewable credit. Somebody gets to own that credit and claim that energy. And if I'm alone in Burlington and I don't have solar on my roof, but I'm connected to, let's say, a solar system that's in a field and I'm buying into that system and I'm getting renewable credits on my bill, then I'm able to say I have solar energy from that solar project. Similar concept with these fuels. Somebody says I'm purchasing renewable gas through a PUC-approved tariff. Then Vermont Gas has to ensure that they are getting the quantity of gas that's being purchased from that customer into their system. Now, the molecule, we cannot track, but that quantity of renewable fuels being brought online essentially in their name with their being able to make a legal claim to it. And that's, I think, what this language is intended to do. It's also intended to say if we figure out either we or the PUC, but it could be that the department asked for its own analysis separate from the PUC, that one of these fuels is not, in fact, reducing greenhouse gas emissions relative to the fossil fuel alternative. You could disqualify it, and then you would say, no, this fuel is not qualified. You have a fossil fuel system, and therefore you would be subject to it. How would you have to take it? I mean, so I'm trying to understand if that signal would come from us to the PUC. No. Or would we wait for the PUC, some action on a part of PUC? I think it's intended to try to future-proof the policy a little bit and provide for some flexibility in the future. We are operating under the assumption currently that these renewable fuels that were qualified in clean heat standard are going to be able to meet this barrier. If they cannot, if they are demonstrated not to either because the PUC determines it in their process or the department of permitting and inspections asks for analysis for a particular applicant and they can't produce credible analysis that says the fuel they're purchasing, whether tied to it or renewable gas, whatever it is, is reducing emissions using the models spelled out in clean heat standard degree or a similar model of rigor, then the department can say, I'm sorry, this does not count. We're not going to include it. And therefore, if you have a fossil fuel system and you're buying that fuel, we're saying it doesn't count and you're still subject to the PUC. I know the complexity of that, but that's the end time. I like the alignment with the state. I don't like us sort of working on that. Definitions. I think it can be problematic, especially when we're talking about, and I talk often about the plight of people and capital from the city. And we want to be as competitive regionally as other communities are for a minor to live in. So I like when we can align with the state regulation and policies so that we can not put ourselves in a disadvantage. And just to be clear, we're the electric utility. We love electrification. We promote and incentivize electrification. My expectation is in 90 plus percent of the cases where the supplies and new construction, we're going to see electrification as the preferred option in our experience. It's really important to have other options in order to ensure that not just new construction, but existing buildings that have existing distribution systems and maybe more limited in the ability to electrify their heating or thermal loads, have a way to comply with this because as Councilor Berman said, it's a carbon fee alternative compliance. It's not intended to be a tax. It's not intended to be the first option. It's going to be an option that you reach if you can't comply. And so by having several different ways for a building to comply, we hopefully are more cost effective. We are hopefully more able to help get more renewable energy that's reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the system, as opposed to just saying to somebody if you can't electrify, you pay the fee. Which as a city owning its own municipal electric utility might be seen as well as somewhat self-dealing. And we're conscious of that perception as well. My other comment, and I have one of them as I'm still sort of grappling with how we keep or exclude certainly renewable fuels in and around the policy. So I'll just say that I'm, I think there may be, there seems to be a mechanism here that's built in we just talked about, but I'm still not entirely clear how that would be reached, how we would do that. Like I think you said, if someone wanted to use a particular renewable fuel. Right, and really we're talking about an instance where you're using fossil fuel technology, not a renewable technology, not a heat pump, not a geothermal heat pump, not district energy or wood boiler. These are all non-fossil fuel systems. If you're using a fossil fuel system, the only way you don't get charged the fee is if you're using a qualified renewable fuel. Right, and that is to which qualified renewable fuel. Right, and we have a list here, but any of these could be liquid or gaseous drop in fuels subject to additional carbon modeling and intensity analysis either by us at the Department of Permitting as the enforcer of the both ordinance or potentially if we take notice of the fact that the PUC has taken on a similar analysis and reached a different conclusion. In either of those cases we could say, I'm sorry, we used the example of green hydrogen. I'm sorry, we determined that in your case where you're saying you're gonna have green hydrogen, we don't believe it actually reduces greenhouse gas emissions relative to the fossil fuels. You haven't been able to produce modeling at the rigor level required. So therefore if you're using a fossil fuel system that green hydrogen isn't gonna count, you're gonna have to pay a fee. So I like that mechanism. And I like the fact that future process and allows this flexibility. My only other comment was around, and you and I've had discussions around using this, essentially this ordinance is to help us tackle the challenges in the thermal sector and my preference has been if there is a fee and our hope is that we don't charge the fee, right? Because it means that people are using the technologies that we want them to use. But if we charge it fee, that fee should be used to offset other emissions in the thermal sector. And that would be my preference. That's just the way my mind works. This is a fee we're charging to thermal. I mean, we have these really difficult challenges there. So, but I also understand our challenges with fleet funding. And so I hope this is a really small pool of money we're talking about, but we know we have some larger commercial buildings that may not have any option but to pay. I expect from a revenue standpoint for the city, this will be an unpredictable and lumpy revenue source. And that it could be in a given year, depending on what's being developed or what permits are being pulled, you could see six figures of revenue come in. There could be other years where you see very little and it'll really just depend on the state of technology, what types of buildings are being permitted, what types of options they have. So I think it won't be something that will be easy to bank on in a predictable way, but certainly we're very supportive from the standpoint of wanting to support the city's efforts to reach net zero in the thermal sector and in the ground transportation sector, which are the two biggest sectors of emissions in the state of Vermont. Having it go towards emissions reductions and either of all of those sectors is something that we see value in. Right, and so I'm supportive but less supportive than I understood otherwise. Only because I understand that fiscal challenges in city happens as well. This is one of many tools we can use to solve. That's right. So those are my comments. So I'm looking at the Y in 72. This is in subsection B, which is in 8-77. And it's a subsection C of that. That's the definitions section. And on a very practical level, as I think about this, I am seeing some implementation issues. Somebody comes in to get their building permit engines here and they see they've got something that fits the above in the Obelisk church. And then they get a permit and they build. And then we subsequently find that there is an issue. That seems to be on an implementation basis for a permit, very problematic. Well, the fee being charged is at the time of permit. So we don't really have a mechanism in this policy outside of the permit context. So I would assume, although maybe you're suggesting it could be clarified that you operate under the rules that are in place at the time of your permit. It would be unfair, essentially, to go back to an album. Yeah, but the problem is that this builds in a look back in the future. In other words, that's where the subsequently deemed by the utility to not satisfy the current intensity requirements. I see. I think that I think that there's work that we need to do from the standpoint of looking at it from the permitting process. And that is a process which in any of these bigger buildings in this will will take a while. But this language, I think, will lead to problems in terms of its implementation. If we grant a permit, then stuff is happening. And it may be even that afterward somebody says, or then I ran the code enforcement office for almost two years. And it sort of said it and forget it. I give you the permit. I'll come and I'll look and I'll inspect. At the end, everything looks according to code. So let me just say that I think that this piece from that standpoint needs more work and to be able to build into this process a really clear thing, not just for the regulators, but also for the public. Yeah, to be crystal clear, I wasn't reading this in the way that if you had a permit and your renewable fuel was qualified at the time you were permitted, that the city would go back and retroactively change your condition. This was, I think, intended to be that each year, or more frequently, potentially, the department is able to update what is qualified based on any new analysis that's been done. But it would apply prospectively to new applicants. Now, that may not be the way you were thinking of it. And there could definitely be clarifying language added to ensure that it's implemented. So I think that we need to clarify this short because this compresses that whole thing. This is when I am advising my owner of the building that we're going to be doing this, and this is what the law says, or I'm advising the building inspector. I'm saying, OK, let's go and look at this short. We need to be really clear. And that sort of leads me to the reason that we've got green hydrogen sourced in here is what? Why is it listed as a fuel that? Two reasons, I would say. One, this list is intended to be, and if you read the clean heat legislation, you'll see this is intended to be very much in symmetry with the clean heat definitions. And so green hydrogen sourced exclusively from renewable energy sources, as I believe, consistent with where the clean heat standard is. Secondly, this is, again, we're future proofing a little bit here. There is not a significant supply of green hydrogen that I'm aware of at the moment. When we say exclusive from renewable energy sources, you're talking about something where somebody might produce hydrogen using solar electricity or wind electricity or hydroelectricity or something like that and be able to use it as a thermal energy resource. If it was produced from fossil fuels, it wouldn't count here. That's what we call blue hydrogen, as I understand the terminology. We're talking a year about green hydrogen. The Federal Inflation Reduction Act included significant incentives to try to drive towards production of green hydrogen. If it becomes a viable resource that people can look at, it would have potential applicability, as I understand it, in more industrial scale energy use situations where currently we have fewer options and electrification maybe less of an option. So it seems like we should have it on the table. But it consistent with the clean heat process, if it was determined at some point in the future that it wasn't reaching the environmental footprint that was intended, it could be excluded from the clean heat standard and excluded from growing in these policies. And this is a drop-in, so to speak fuel, so it's not gonna be a system on its own. I think it could be both potentially, but I think what we're talking about would be, it can be blended in with natural gas in a system. There's also discussions around fuel cell technology and other things that could be more of a campus-based approach. So I pay for the rest of that, sorry to interrupt. It can be blended in only in very small quantities. If you want to use a pure, new type lines, new appliances, it's almost there for us. So given this, I appreciate the reason to sort of future proof, so to speak, given the reality, I reminded of our zoning amendment process, where we're often, oh, this is a new thing, come on, we gotta think about it, we do a zoning amendment. That this seems to not be something that we need to put into this, and I would, and I'm not gonna make any amendments now, I'm just gonna say where I'm leaning is to take this out of this ordinance as it goes through now. The advanced wood heating system, which is the next thing, this is online, 54, 56, remind us of sort of why it is in the definition of a renewable fuel, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Certainly, so again, consistency with the state clean heat standard, it's included in the state clean heat standard and this incentive program from the state, which sets certain standards for making sure you have modern efficiency standards, pollution controls. To be clear, I don't see a large use of wood pellet or heating systems of similar characterization in Burlington, particularly in construction. If possible, there might be a use case somewhere. I know for a fact that there are some pokes that use wood heat in their homes, whether they have a fireplace or whether they have a pallet system. It is renewable, we could argue the debate, but at least in the state context, it's considered a fuel that on a life cycle basis reduces emissions compared to fossil fuels. And I would point out that online, this was something that we talked about, online 197 through 201, we're adding in here a requirement that is beyond what is just being talked about for the carbon fee policy, saying anybody, regardless of the carbon fee policy, who applies for a new or existing building, regardless of size, just would apply to any building that's sort of outside of the policy that we're debating here, seeking to use a wood chip or pallet heating system would have to demonstrate that it meets these standards or any subsequently issued standards by the state. So you're actually going above and beyond and saying from here on out, anyone using a new wood system in a building in Burlington has to be the most current state standards to be eligible for incentives, which means efficiency and air pollution, air emission standards. So it's included in both contexts, both the carbon fee context and outside of that context. And to just to be clear on this, it's in the section on the definitions up in the 40, in the line 54. Correct. Because that, because it's gonna have a relationship with the fee. Correct. Correct. How is it gonna have a relationship with the fee? What's the system that this is gonna be a part of, but it's gonna be a fossil fuel system? No, so there was. This will never be a fossil fuel system. This would be, if you were putting in a pallet boiler, for example, these can operate at fairly high efficiencies or a wood chip boiler, for example, you can use them in a residential context, but more often you're gonna be looking at a commercial context. Number of schools around Vermont have relatively high efficiency wood pallet or wood chip systems. They've been used in countries like Austria for a long period of time as a means of getting away from fossil fuels. And so these systems are not replacing fossil fuels in a fossil fuel system. They are a wood only technology. And being as such, they wouldn't be subject to the fee in any case. I think we're prescribing some standards to say, if you want this to be a part of your building, you're gonna have to meet the state's most modern efficiency standards and air emission standards. So it's given that we have put in 197 lines in 197 to 201, as you were saying, this exact thing, the exact requirement. So that we're regardless of who is gonna put it in and it's not a fossil fuel kind of but it would be subject to the fee anyway. But that I don't really see the efficacy of putting it under the one up top, so to speak. Well, I guess my only argument would be, you know, again, we would be consistent with the state but also effectively you don't pay the fee and it would be, regardless of whether you put it there or not, it's not something that would be subject to the fee. So for the benefit of the applicant who's gonna be looking through a list of what can I use to not have it there, it could create confusion. To not have it as a listed technology could create confusion potentially because it's not subject to the fee in any respect. And here we kind of have a list of things that are not subject to the fee. Yeah, I don't know that I would, although we do do that similarly for other things like the solar water unit or electric power. So, okay, so I see that I'm inclined to remove it. Let me, because I'm monopolizing and I'm sorry on this. On line 60, again, you were explaining 60 through 65, which is the renewable gas. You were explaining not the molecule, not following the melt molecule but following this process for certification or something like that. So are you saying, and I doubt that this language will require that all of the gas that would go to power a thermal system in a building in Burlington, even built under this requirement, all the renewable, all the gas would have to be renewable. Renewable, that amount of gas would consistently and continually have to be a renewable gas. Couldn't be a mixture, in other words, not like 50% of it is coming from the fireman. 50 of this is coming from the general Vermont gas system. So, just to be clear, the policy is a appliance by appliance heating system by heating system policy. So somebody could opt to comply for one appliance and pay the fee for another. So I just want to clarify that. Within that though, if somebody was using renewable gas to qualify, there's fairly clear language here that talks about the need for it to be either one of two things. Either they have a lifetime contract for the length of the lifetime expected of the system that they're putting in ahead of time for the renewable gas, which is unlikely, that doesn't typically exist, or more likely not. They have an annual certification that shows that they are purchasing the quantity of renewable gas that's needed for that appliance or system. If at any point they stop doing that, the fee then applies to them on a prorated basis for the remaining life of that system. So that's exactly right. As you kind of just described it, you would not be able to do that halfway. And I think I can point to the language here is on page, or sorry, line 145, which talks about for compliance purposes, for systems that are capable of using a fossil or renewable fuel that reduces emissions, that you have to have the contract demonstrating that it's fully sourced for the life of the system, which is unlikely. We're in annual compliance certification and it makes clear that if you use that option and you fail to provide the annual certification in any year, then you will immediately be assessed the alternative compliance fee for the prorated share of the remainder of the system. If you miss it just once, you're about, you're then gonna pay the fee for the remaining life of the system. You don't even get to come back in, essentially. So it's a strike, one strike, you're out in the policy of the year. So I'm just starting from one last, just last, it's not really this, it's just to say this system that we're building is very different than the other building ordinance system that we've got in place, which is a asset permit, build it, get it inspected, you got a permit, you're done, we don't look back and say we changed the rules. Well, there is an ongoing aspect of administration on this. And I'm glad we've got this here, I'm just the most that I've really, since I worked with you, but I'm not thinking, I wanna make sure, we need to make sure that in law and in structure, in bureaucracy, in administration, we are set up to do this because this is very different. This is not anything that permitting and inspections is looking at. This is almost more akin to it being a utility and having this ongoing obligations to look at. So I wanted to raise that as a flag that we need to make sure we're taking care of because the worst thing that we can do is to build something that does not work. So I just wanted to point out by meeting order, we have a tour that we've scheduled and now we're about at least a half an hour late on it, almost a half an hour late on this. So I'm, no, no, let me say this is important work. So my question to the committee is, do we wanna allow, do we wanna still do that tonight? As we're starting late, or do we wanna, at least Corey and anyone else who was going to accompany us on this tour? Okay, I got, depends on how long, how much longer we wanna deliberate on this ordinance tonight, and how much time we wanna take after this. It is productive for me to hear Darren answer if there are any questions that could settle. So I would be okay with scheduling another meeting. I mean, I have that. Or more for the tour? No, no, I think, you know, if we could set up another special meeting that would continue this. Would you be open? Of course, you know, schedule for a meeting, yeah, absolutely. Okay, I just, and I hate to interrupt the flow of the conversation, but just in terms of time keeping. I'm sorry. You didn't do anything wrong. There's nothing to be sorry about. We always back too much into our communities as it turns out. I should learn some better scheduling skills. So I don't want, I didn't mean to interrupt your train of thought. So if you want to discuss. I know I sort of got there and in the, this is helping me figure out how this thing works. And I mean, like, this is fairly revelatory as I'm thinking through the process. Do we want to try to schedule another meeting right now? I would be inclined to do that. And it would be just for the purposes of continuing this. So, shall we, I guess I should just do that. What is your preference next week? So I am gone the, and I have to stop in on a committee for June on the second. So I can't do the second through the night. That actually coincides with my problem. But I could do the first. I had meetings on the second and third. Why not have another purchase? Is that, is that Tuesday? Yeah, why not? I couldn't so we from now. So we come tonight. Is the meeting scheduled here? Here. Yeah, I don't know if we can move in the space or. I can confirm, but yeah, sure. You're gonna be able to do that. I would be open to doing it at a BED. And I don't, just for the public who may be critical, I don't find there to be a conflict with us meeting there. And we have a shortage of spaces. It's a nice room. It's a community space. Yeah. Are these shirts available? So this. I will make sure it's available. And it's not, we can find an alternative. It won't happen tonight though. Do you have one of these Magic Revector? We do. Okay, so. We do. Not quite that big, but yes. Okay. So it's gonna say, we also have a pusher if you didn't potentially. No, we certainly can. We can use that. We'll confirm, but we'll tentatively hold for Monday. First, sorry, Tuesday. Tuesday, Friday, you know. Friday, yes. The Chad-Russia company is open. So do you want me to just book that objectively? Or if it looks like it's open. And from what I can tell on my phone, it looks like Sparks, basically, yeah. It doesn't matter to me. It's easier for me to ride my bike to push it in the industry. That is the situation that's under this. Why is that? Just on the street. It's at City Hall. It's a city hall. City Hall company. Yeah, we took the pusher on the first act. Final call. To continue our discussion about it. Yay, Maddie. It's gonna be an ordeal. Thank you, everybody. Okay. But the public gets to come in and go for it. Of course, everybody. Oh, my thanks. We get to talk about it. I mean, we're just gonna, it's gonna be, I guess it's not. I guess, yeah. Well, if we recess that the answer is no, if we have a new meeting, we have to work. We have to board it. The answer is yes. Everyone. I am in favor of hearing, you know, like things to help us work through this myself. But you know, I am as well. I just, again, it's like we are trying to manage our work with also hearing from the public. So, yeah, let's just warn it as a new meeting because we still have some other things to do. I think that having a new meeting and having it, having public comment on this ordinance, which is allowed by law. Very good. We don't use it. You don't do that very often. Okay. So, no McNeil. With that in mind, we will recess this to all of it. No McNeil talk on this. Let's control ourselves. We're going to the next item on our agenda here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Of course. Okay. The next is comes up. Constable. Thanks. Hi there. I went on. I went on. I went on. I went on. I went on. I went on. I went on. I went on. You were on. It's a little. Who were you with? What's it? Wasn't it? That Friday you We will. You know, so. He's the chief accounting staff. Excellent. Really informative. I know gene, we're gonna do that tomorrow and I'm going to actually go to the same place because the roads up in Jefferson. It was important to me, one of the things that I might take away is the kind of sort of a very intentional forestry that's being done to, as one of the public commenters last night said, try to recreate conditions of old growth forest in like a very compressed time frame without waiting for it to happen. Sort of like keeping certain trees and keeping certain structure in the forest. So yeah, that was interesting. Plus, the other thing that was notable for me was that Ethan had this knack for identifying the birds that were around. It's very nice. Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to doing that tomorrow. Excellent. That was my only comment. So I think we need to, speaking of full, full agendas is how to follow up, you know, with the yard and put that in the, in the hopper. We're having the airport come next, not during our August meeting. Yes, we are. Yes, we are. Okay. And so I was going to, even though we hadn't had time to process everything from last night yet, that was on my, was going to be the outreach or collaboration with Maddie to see if we might be able to get Nick and or someone. I think and really had to be a money designer. Yeah. Have you made that connection with them? I mean, I made that connection. I've talked, I've talked to Major Smith in the garden before, and I think she's the person I would reach out to. Well, that would be great. I think that we need to, to follow up on that. And we also have also kind of follows. We still have a pending resolution council level on the roundabout commission. Yeah, I failed. No, no, you didn't. I'm just a pretty gentle reminder. You can absolutely, I am not going to do that. You can say that it's coming. Okay. So as Chris does, those are the, are there other councilor updates? So our next non-ordinates took meeting schedules for 822. Is that confirmed? That works for everybody still? Yep. Okay. Yep. So the next thing that is our Champlain Parkway walkthrough and we'll have to adjourn after that. Right. We can maybe adjourn there. We can adjourn there. We can. Okay. If you say so. We're taking, we're taking this out. Anybody in the public, you can, where are we going? We're going to go look at the Champlain Parkway and where are we meeting? So I have to, we have to find Corey. We might be waiting for their story. So where, where would we be going? Well, it's kind of up to, like I said, there's got to know where we want to talk about three things. Obviously we're at six 45 pines. We can start here and start walking south down the line. That's where most of the work is currently going and what's going to be getting finished in the construction contract. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Is there anything else we need to do, Mr. Schumann? I don't think so. I need to close up. I'm going to zoom. I guess, I guess we'll say goodbye to everybody watching remotely. And just to remind anybody who's watching, we'll be continuing our discussion of the ordinance that we were discussing tonight on August 1st at five p.m. in the Sharon Busher conference room at City Hall. Thanks. You said our meeting in August as the later one is the 22nd or the 29th. Just a second. One second. Thank you.