 Hi and welcome to What's Up Williston, the monthly program where we take a closer look at things going on in our community. I'm your host, Town Manager Eric Wells. Early this year, the Wilson Energy Committee started meeting to develop a work plan to advance the goals identified in the Towns Energy Plan that was adopted in 2019. Recently I caught up with Reed Parker, the Chair of the Energy Committee, to learn more about the committee's work. Where the Wilson Energy Committee was formed, it began its work to advance the goals of the Towns Energy Plan. Joining me now is Reed Parker, the Chair of the Committee. Welcome Reed to the show. Thank you. It's good to be here, Eric. So I thought the start out, if you could tell our viewers about the Wilson Energy Committee and the overall vision for its work. Sure. Well, enthusiasm and commitment are the best ways to describe the volunteer members of the Energy Committee. We are a group that truly has a vision that all of Williston, whether it's the town government, the schools, businesses, nonprofit citizens can realistically move to a more sustainable, vibrant way of life through the reduction of fossil fuels. And that's primarily through electrification of what we use today as opposed to using coal, gas, oil, et cetera. We're local activists helping all of Williston make informed decisions about how to heat and cool our homes, migrate towards electric vehicles, sustainably raise food and manage our land and help reduce the effects of this looming climate crisis that's in front of us. A lot of work's gone in to put the Energy Plan together and Reed was on that committee as well. And I helped staff that committee, which seems like a while ago, like it's not too far ago before the pandemic and the committee's really now being able to run with that addition to the town's coal plan and really get things moving here. Part of that Energy Plan was the appointment of a staff position to assist with the work on the administrative end. And earlier this year, the town appointed employee Melinda Scott to work for the town for just over five years as a conservation planner to step into the new role of energy and community development planner. And Reed, I want to touch base with you how that's assisted the committee in its work so far. Well, when we started out earlier this year, Melinda was assisting us, trying to get our, helping us get our committee together. And then when the select board made the decision to actually hire for the position and she interviewed for it and was ultimately hired, that was an outstanding decision. As you mentioned, the plan itself called for hiring an energy coordinator as a professional, and the group that put that plan together felt that it was needed to really pull the work forward. And early on, the volunteer group might have thought that they could have run on their own, but we really needed somebody who understood the inner workings of the town who had a very strong commitment to energy conservation and the regulatory environment. And Melinda has brought that expertise to bear. And it's been a great boom to our committee itself and the work we're doing. There's certainly a lot to work on ahead. And I was just meeting recently with our planning team to look at different things that are ahead here on a number of levels. And so that leads to my next question at the committee level. How's the work been going? What's the committee been up to since it came together earlier this year? And whenever you start a new committee first, just kind of forming and figuring out your way is a big lift to the work. And it was. And that took the first few meetings. But now we're really diving into what we'd like to do for the town itself. And our work falls into three major areas. One is community outreach, which is incredibly important, that we're a volunteer group, we're citizens. And we are trying to communicate information. The other is the energy plan itself, taking the very long list of projects that were outlined in that plan and prioritizing them. And then the third is educating ourselves. While we're enthusiastic, some of the members have incredible background knowledge of energy conservation and forward planning. We're constantly trying to learn. So for community outreach, we are writing articles in the Williston Observer on a monthly basis. We're putting announcements in front porch forum. We've participated on a number of Tuesday evenings at the Isham Farm Farmers Market along with Sustainable Williston to engage the public. And as part of a committee, we are obligated to put together an official work plan for the next fiscal year. And that right now is going through its initial assessment with probably 15 to 20 different items that we're trying to determine the time and effort needed, which will run between fiscal 2023 and 2024. But the amount of information that comes in daily is overwhelming. And we are relying on groups like Beacon, Efficiency, Vermont, the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission to end the number of training Zoom sessions that they offer to absorb all of this information so that we can then turn it around and pass it back out to the community. So that's been a very valuable resource to us. We meet twice a month and it's sometimes that we think, really, do we need to meet that often? We could meet weekly, but I think that might be a bit too much. But no lack of work to do and everything we do in local government. It's great to have community partners to assist us here. What you mentioned, quite a few that have been really helpful in trying to navigate, especially as things are changing on a weekly basis and more information is available. It's certainly very beneficial to us here at the local level. So I think folks out there, they might be wondering how could they get involved? What are some different things they could engage with the committee in this work at this point? Well, while we are working on public engagement, we would love to have the public engage us. Our meetings are open to the public twice a month. We put the announcements and the agendas in Front Porch Forum. And we have a standing item that the public can make comment. And we've had a few people attend over the last several months bringing items to our attention that have turned into work efforts. Additionally, when we publish an article in the Observer or post to Front Porch Forum, we would love to hear back from people that they are free to write to us. We will respond to everything that we receive. And we have gotten some comments back and we encourage more people. And the next thing is, as we start doing events, if they find it's of interest to them, for instance, the Isham Farm Farmers Market, and they say, oh, I didn't know this. How can I get involved? Or we hold another public event and they want to start working with us. Seven people in a committee can do so much. But some of these events will eventually get very large, potentially. And we could use workers to staff tables to help us put things together. And we would like to see more people in the community get involved. You mentioned events you've been involved with the farmers markets, the Sambo-Wilston group as well, engaging with them. What have some conversations been like during that engagement with the public out in the community so far? I think the Isham Farmers Market has been the best one where the public has engaged us, where we have a table with information provided by a number of different organizations, the folks from sustainable Williston or a grassroots organization that's been around for a number of years. And people have come up and said, oh, what do you offer? What do you have for information? And have had very good conversations with us there. We also participated in the Greenup Day event that the town had with the information tables. And in the morning session, there were a number of people who came up looking for information about energy conservation and great HR team. So it's been very good. So what's on the deck for this fall and we're hearing about an electric vehicle event that I think it's about? Yes. So last year there was an electric vehicle event sponsored by Sustainable Williston and Kevin Thorley, who is on both that team and ours, proposed doing a larger one this year. And we are now in the process of nailing down a location. We are trying to schedule this for Saturday, October 1st, which will coincide with a drive electric Vermont. In terms of public engagement, the electric vehicles will all be privately owned ones so that we will be asking owners of EVs to come show off their cars, explain to people how they operate, what the costs are, how you do charging, plus we're beginning to get vendors who are hearing about us asking us if they can participate. So we are going back to them and say, OK, if you provide electric charging stations and would you like to come and show people what they look like and what it would take to put one in and what are the costs associated with that? So we're hoping that we will have a pretty big event October 1st. And as soon as we get the location and permitting and all that in the whole town, we'll be putting out announcements on front porch forum and the observer and so that people can hear about it. Well, it sounds like a great way to get a community engaged. And as someone who has a car that is probably during the end of its useful life here, I've been paying particular attention to EVs or plug in hybrids. And I know certainly in the news last week with the inflation reduction act passed by Congress and signed by President Biden the other day. Additional incentives for EV purchases, whether new or used or plug in hybrids. So there will be a lot more information unpacked there in the months to come. And certainly the EV infrastructures on a lot of people's minds and transitioning to those vehicles. So very, very helpful event for our community. Yes. Well, thanks, Reid, for joining me today. Was there anything else we didn't chat about that? No, I'm very pleased to participate in this event. Because we'd like to hear the public hear about the work we're doing. This is not a short term committee. We'll be here for years with work to come. Beyond EVs, we're looking at home weatherization events. We will be publishing a home weatherization article this month in the observer, an EV article next month. And we're just hoping that people when they read them, it will be, you know, interested in ask more questions and feel free to write to us and and engage us. And that will help spread the word throughout the community. But I should mention there is currently one opening on the committee as well. So certainly if anyone watching this, the community is interested in being involved as part of the committee, reach out to the town manager's office and then submit an application to be considered for the committee by the select board here. Yes, we did lose one very enthusiastic member who happened to relocate out of town. So that was unfortunate, but we look for other folks to come in and join our group. But thanks a lot, Reed, for stopping by on Zoom, for what's up with us in this month. And thanks to you and the work of all our volunteers on the energy committee and certainly a lot of exciting things coming ahead here. Great. Thank you. Bye now. Thank you. The Town Energy Committee meets on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 6.30 p.m. and the Town Hall Annex. And meetings are also available to join over Zoom. So next this month, we'll shift gears and we'll bring back our community notebook segment. We take a look at things going on around town. So as I mentioned at the end of that last interview segment, we have a number of volunteer openings. The town's looking to fill. There's an opening on the Energy Committee, an opening on the Historic and Architectural Advisory Committee, the Development Review Board, two openings on the Old Brick Church Trustees, the Town Health Officer, opening on the Conservation Commission and the Lake Iroquois Recreation District. If you're interested in learning more about these positions or applying, please visit the town website or give us a call at the Town Manager's Office at 802-876-1168. We also will be standing up a new committee in town. It's a temporary committee. It's the Community Center and Library Assessment Steering Committee. This will be a seven-person committee, three of those positions will be filled by a member of the Select Board, member of the Library Trustees, member of the Recreation and Parks Committee. There'll be four openings for the public on this committee that the Select Board will appoint. The work of this committee will be to engage the community, champion community engagement, and advise a consultant in a study that would begin this fall. The study is gonna evaluate possible options for a community center and what features the community is interested in. It's also gonna assess the needs of the library for future space and conjunction. And as one of those options, explore whether a combined facility is feasible in the future. As a reminder, the first tax installment of the new fiscal year 2023 was due this past week on August 15th. Please contact a Treasurer's Office. We have any questions about tax payments for this year. And sharing on behalf of the Champlain Water District, they're holding a bond vote at a special meeting on Tuesday, September 13th. They'll have voting available from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. And with this particular bond article, the voting will just be available at its administrative offices in South Burlington on Queen City Parkway. You can also request an absentee ballot by calling the Champlain Water District directly. If you visit their website or also the Town of Wilson website, we have more information about this bond article being considered. Work is also continuing on the Village Bylaw Update. The planning department's working on a zoning bylaw revision for our Village Zoning District to promote historic preservation, adaptive reuse of historic buildings, and clarity for new project design. The Planning Commission is considering this and working through the initial draft. We have a website with more information and we featured this on last month's edition of What's Up, Williston. There's still time to take the virtual or in-person walking tour of the village and submit comments. The Planning Commission will be holding a public hearing continuing the work on this project this fall. As a reminder, we have at home COVID-19 antigen tests available in the Town Hall and the library. We've gotten another shipment in. There are boxes that have two tests each and the maximum per person is four boxes or eight tests total. So if you're interested in getting some tests, just stop by the Town Hall of the library. And as a disclaimer, the expiration date on these boxes, I believe is September of this year, but they're good into next year. We've been advised by the Health Department. Some news from Wilson Recreation. Soccer registration is now available for grades kindergarten through five. The fall program guide is also now available on the Recreation website. And there'll be an advertisement that Wilson observed this week. Some programs coming up this fall are Dog Training, Let's Go Fishing, Lifting for Bone Health, which is a 55 plus program. There'll be Pick Up Basketball and Volleyball for folks in our facilities and school facilities. And there'll also be Pickleball continues to be available. As a reminder, the Town of Wilson is on social media. You can follow us on Twitter at WilsonVT or also like us on Facebook. And we're always looking for feedback and segment ideas for this program. There's my contact information on the screen. If you wanna reach me with any comments or suggestions for future segments for this show. So that's gonna wrap it up this month on What's Up, Williston. Thanks for tuning in. I'm your host, Eric Wells, Wilson Town Manager, and I'll see you around town. Take care.