 Okay, great. So the first item is to review and vote on the minutes from last time. Darcy, I believe you were the minute taker, correct? Right. Okay. So Sarah, I think that puts you up next. Are you okay with that job tonight? Yeah. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Yes. Let me see if I can get the. There's Jesse. Sorry. Jesse. So we're just looking at the minutes. They look good. I moved to accept the minutes. The past meeting. I had, I had one comment about the minutes. There was quite a few acronyms in there. Brick CCA NEMS. I don't know what PACE stands for though. PACE is actually the only one I think that's out there. Property assessed clean energy. Yep. So other than capitalizing assessed clean energy, each letter, each word at that one was there, but GOL. So a couple of things in there just for the uninitiated, like some of us. I don't know what PACE stands for though. PACE is actually the only one I think that's out there. Property assessed clean energy. I don't know what PACE stands for. I don't know what PACE stands for. I don't know what PACE stands for. Some of us weren't entirely clear. But I had no. Substantial comments other than that. Okay. Would anyone like to. Second with those. A second. Changes. Okay. Great. Okay. So roll call. Dumont. Yes. Drucker. Yes. Breger. Yes. Rose. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you. Yes. That's okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Selman. Yes. Okay. And it's approved. Great. So next up public comment. Yeah. We have one. Sorry. I'm going to allow someone from sunrise. Franklin County to talk. Can you identify yourself, please? Oh, my name is Haven. I use your pronouns and I'm 16. Yeah. So I just wanted to talk about. Why it is so important to like put climate justice where it needs to be in your budget and really value it to the level that it needs to be cared about. Because I as a young person constantly terrified for my future. Because of the climate crisis and not only my future, but for the lives of my family selling for the lives of so many people in my own community who are currently going to be affected by the climate crisis and are affected by the climate crisis. We have the Palmer biomass plant is likely going to be built. And that is severely going to impact Springfield and the surrounding areas. As you can see, like Springfield already has some of the worst air in the country. Like. It's huge. It's affecting everyone now. We really do not have any option, but to put this as like. An urgent issue. It is a crisis as a pandemic is a crisis. And policing. Is another way that adds to this climate crisis. We are spending tons and tons of money on police is like gas money to patrol areas that do not just do not require that patrolling. That's absolutely ridiculous. It is completely plainly a waste of money that is actively hurting our communities. It is hurting low income people. And it is hurting black and brown people. Like actively. Therefore. Money needs to be taken away from the police. So that it is not funding environmental destruction. And it is actually caring for the black and brown people in our community. Yeah. Great. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you for that. Great. Great. Great. Thank you for that. I appreciate you joining. And sharing with us. I believe birdie also has their hand raised, Stephanie. Yeah. Okay. Hi, Birdie. Hi, I'm Birdie Newman. I'm a high school student in Amherst and. school student in Amherst. And last public commenter, I missed your name, but I just want to second what you said. The Amherst town employs almost 50 staff members for the Amherst police department, but we have one person focusing on sustainability almost, or exactly no one explicitly on environmental justice and if we move our money out of this racist institution and climate justice, we could do so much good for the future of our town. Great. Thank you, Bertie. I really appreciate both of you joining and providing your input, particularly as young people in our community. So thank you. I second that we don't typically do a formal response went to public comment but I want to thank both of you in exactly what Lawrence said young people your voice and your needs are so important so thank you. I would also say what I always say at my committees is that if you want to send your comments in and writing to the committee then we would have, we would have them for reference. Yeah, that's a good point too. You can send those to me and I'll make sure they are included in the packet. Thank you. I'm going to make sure to do that. Great. Wonderful. Okay, I believe that's, that's all the public that I was joined so we'll move on to staff updates. So a couple of things. I did submit the brick grant application for a solar study. So we're requesting funding to elaborate on what's been done, which was baseline study by niche engineering, which was part of the MVP funding. I do have that report I haven't sent to you sent it to you yet because you had so much in your packet. So I will forward it to you all. It's a very, very cursory baseline study that has a couple of recommendations for some solar development in town parking lot development and a few building sites. One being the middle school, which kind of supports the proposal that was resident request for solar. So I think the brick funding request was to kind of build off that, and to maybe go a little further to maybe lead us to project development. So we'll see. I did submit it so we'll, we'll find out hopefully within the next month or so I don't know how long they take to review these applications but hoping we'll find out sooner than later. Those are my two kind of most pressing updates. Stephanie, could we have a copy of the brick grant. That would help us in the, the myself and the students who put the resident capital request in for the solar study, you know, give us a context. Sure, I'll try. It's not. It's a form application. So I actually kind of do it online and then submit it so I don't actually have everything that was written up but I can, I can probably get it. I'll figure it out. I'll see if I can get it if not, you know, I can at least at the very least I can give you the statement of interest which kind of outlines pretty much what the proposal was. Yeah, Darcy. I just talk about parking lots other than the school parking lots. Um, I apologize because off the top of my head I can't remember. One was the one was the middle school and then I don't off the top of my head I don't remember what the second one was. There weren't many and I'm sorry I just, I didn't even read it like in depth so much because I sort of got it skimmed it and then was fairly focused on the application. So I haven't even had a chance to really do a deeper dive with it myself. But I asked because the North Common proposal is going to be in front of the town services committee tomorrow and that is a parking lot proposal. Um, and so I don't think anybody has ever brought up the possibility of canopies in that parking lot, which I'm probably going to bring up tomorrow, but because it just, you know, started back in 2013 and it just has never come up as part of the proposal so Right. Anyway, I don't. Yeah, I don't think that was one of them but. But they did, you know, they did look, you know, throughout the town at any kind of municipal property. And there, there were reasons why some of them were excluded and some of them weren't identified as being suitable locations. So, even, I would say even that parking lot it's, they'd have to do re grading of that parking lot to do it there. So the plan is to like level it, which I don't even know how that is done, but that would be resurfacing it. Then if they are doing that then yeah. So I'll again I haven't, I haven't given a deeper dive myself but you'll all be getting a copy so you can take a look. Do you know if the scope of work include is it limited to sort of the tech, technically, the feasibility of these sites, does it get into it all how the projects would be financed or owned. Nope. Okay. It's only for technical development. Okay, because that would be something of interest to us, I think in the CCA in terms of how the projects might actually be financed and known if it gets to that. Right, if it gets to that I, you know, they're there was very limited funding for this brick grant application. We originally kept it lower because we were advised that planning grants were were pretty limited. So I, I really actually kept it to be a fairly minimal request. So, you know, the idea was just to sort of build off what was already done as a baseline, and then bring at least a few things to sort of more technical specifications that can lead it to development. It didn't identify, you know, cost or anything that, you know, that maybe could be included but it wasn't specified in the scope. Great that you got that in. Yeah, we'll see. Fingers crossed. Okay, so if that's it Stephanie from your end can go to ecac member updates. I have a few things to share. One is that we have a community member who has reached out to Stephanie and I about addressing emissions from leaf gasoline powered leaf blowers. So just flagging that as something that will come up at a future meeting. They're going to send us a little write up that they've done about, I hope including I believe including some examples of other towns that have done similar things. And then we can decide what what to do with that information. The other thing that's coming up is, I was invited, along with chairs of several other committees to attend the CRC meeting yesterday which I think stands for Community Resources Committee and it's a committee of the council. They're developing a comprehensive housing policy. They're still in draft and draft form, but they're going to send us a draft with some information about what feedback they want from us I think from ecacs perspective. They've already included in the draft. So I think on sustainability and resiliency I think there's more that can be done there on particularly tying in some of the environmental justice and climate justice work that we've been doing a little bit more explicitly. So what we'll need to figure out is, and maybe it's worth a conversation with them about timing because what I'm sensing is going to happen is that policy is going to come out pretty close to when our reports going to come out. And I think we want to sort of be clear on which is the, or our plan, excuse me, kind of which is the is the most up to date. We obviously want to make sure there's no contradictions in the language, which I think there won't be but we just need to make sure, and then maybe which one is the more comprehensive. So just flagging this is something that we'll need to look into a little bit more at the early next year. Darcy I don't know if you have anything to add to that based on your view vantage point from the. Yes, I do. I think it's interesting that CRC asked for input from these organizations on the housing plan because at the same time that they proposed, they put in a, a proposed housing plan. So, had a first discussion of revamped zoning and planning priorities at the last meeting much faster than anyone expected that that would come forward. And we just today got an update about that. And so that is coming up potentially for its second reading on Monday. And there's some possibility that it would pass on Monday without our input. So I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen with that I think we should probably. I guess I think Andrew sent in our, our, our little, you know, our request that that we continue to be in discussion that we don't have our plan in place yet, but that we're assuming that we'll be developing these things in parallel, blah, blah, blah. And you sent that in right, Andrew. Yes, and I got no response back from Andy Joe chair of the CRC. Thank you for thanking me for it. And yeah, the zoning was not just, you know, superficial changes. They're really making recommendations that we should be a part of the discussion. They send you what they send, you know, the addendum, which it's very it's very wide ranging changes that are being proposed. Some for the next three months and then for between three months and months. And so, I don't know what we want to do about that they they affect. Probably our land use and zoning recommendations. I mean we might want to send a letter just saying, we would like to have input, we would like to have enough time so that we can digest these and have input, because, and I think I sent the initial ones to the whole group. But I can send you the agenda just came out, which, which is it refers to the initial proposal and what the changes are after the first discussion at the, at the, at the last town council meeting. But they, like I said, they're very wide ranging proposal. So I think that's a good point for the unlocking, unlocking development, basically, downtown and in the village centers and in the neighborhoods and, you know, refers to duplexes and triplexes and that, you know, accessory units and Did you say that they were providing the council with a proposal that the council might be voting on, or is it they're providing recommendations for the council to consider in a more general way. Well, in order to, to change the zoning bylaw, the town council has to vote with a two thirds vote on an actual ordinance in front of a bylaw. And this would be, you know, the CRC has put in front of us, a kind of like a whole slate of, of proposals that they would like us to vote on on mass, so that it would then tell the planning department, yes, go ahead. You can rewrite the zoning bylaw, because this looks like what we want you to do. So, um, it's, it's a lot. It came a lot sooner than what we were expecting. And like I said, I'm, I'm, there is a possibility it could be voted on on Monday. Even if the council votes on this, they're not creating bylaws that will be voted on right away, are they? I mean, we could still provide council with our perspectives on some of the issues that fall under our preview. And council could fold them in with the recommendations they've gotten from CRC. I guess it can they do that for them. They will have, you know, if the council votes yes, on the proposals in front of them on Monday, the planning department has to go ahead to put those forward. We would be, we would be able to put in our recommendations, but we'd be kind of behind the eight ball, you know, like we would, we wouldn't be in the same position as if our recommendations came in before the vote. So, I'm trying to understand though, um, this is just to allow, this is just to allow development to occur it is not specifying whether that development has to be net zero whether it has to be connected to transportation some way whether has to be low income. This is just about the zoning of where development can occur correct. No, no, it is, you know, it is with regard to whether or not we want inclusionary zoning. It has a lot to do with density. And, uh, yeah, there, there are, there are transportation there's a whole transportation piece of it interconnectivity to transportation. So, yeah, I, I, I, there's a lot more narrative in what was sent out today than there was in the proposal last week. So, I will send that out right away to everyone. Um, I, I think it's, it's up. I know it's sort of a drag to be constantly having to having to respond to what's going on in the town council but I guess that's partly what we're about right. We know what we're trying to get. Yeah, I'm just, I'm not comfortable with asking them to slow down unless I really understand that that's that this is a problem for ecac, I guess is where I'm coming from. Yeah, Andra. I was, I'm wondering if it would make sense to forward to them. Some of our initial ideas, you know, and I gave examples in our letter but I didn't know what our particular land use proposals would be. So, or maybe, maybe we need to respond directly to what the narrative says. I think we need to see that to know how to whether we need to respond. Okay, so Darcy you'll forward that to us. Stephanie, did you have a comment. Yeah. Okay. Is the, I sent to us Darcy on December five is the one is there newer version of that. Yeah, it just came out the the addendum to it. So, yeah, I can, I can send that right now. I'll be too. Let's see. Let's see if we can figure out how to do that. Well Darcy, I suggest you send that to us and I suggest everybody look at that. And I think I don't think it's realistic to think that we would come up with an ecac comment by Monday, but I would encourage everybody that wants to make a comment on their own as a member of ecac could do so. And I think that sounds like, and then maybe we can talk about it a little bit, see what happens Monday and have this as an agenda item for our next meeting. Laura, I do have a comment and more of a offer to reach out to the planning director, just to check in with her about how, you know, maybe comments could, you know, could certainly go to CRC, but, you know, might be helpful to get them to the planning staff too. And maybe I can just check in with her to see how that might best work. Maybe she has some guidance. You know, my understanding from her was that there were a lot of updates that had to happen, like that was my understanding. The whole scale reworking the zoning bylaw was something that was sort of up and coming, and that the first thing they were doing was sort of making like what seems like a lot of changes were just to be a lot of updates, because there was so much the hadn't that wasn't up to speed but I could be wrong and maybe they changed course I don't know, but I can check in with her about all of the above. Thanks Stephanie. I remember two more things I needed to say. One was that just letting everyone know and for my sake really that the pace. We had agreed last time that we were going to recommend that we join pace, and you have a note that I need to write that up so I still need to do that. The other thing I wanted to note, which leads into agenda item six on the annual report. Um, so Stephanie reached out to get on the agenda and I think the feedback that she received was that from was that we lots of committees are doing annual reports and none of them are presenting them. Um, so I think, maybe once we get to that agenda item and we talk about the annual report we can talk about whether we want to push to try to get to present at a meeting or whether we're happy just submitting the report. So just something to fly for that conversation. Any other ECAC member updates. I would just add that I sent out to all of you the, the budget, the finance committee's budget draft budget guidelines which did have a lot of climate related language in it, which was seem seem good. And I just sent you that addendum everybody so should be in your email. Okay, great. Okay, so I'm not seeing any other ECAC member updates so we'll move on to the electrification resolution from Felicia and Chris, and they're not joining us correct Stephanie. Um, so this is in our packet. It is titled a resolution calling for swift just building decarbonization in the Commonwealth. I don't know if Steve or Andre, you can speak to this at all based on your participation. Yes, we this is something that the Andre and I, along with the others and a representative from Rocky Mountain Institute, have been working on for a couple weeks, several weeks started with sort of a generic resolution that was modeled off of in one of the communities in eastern mass and perhaps with input from RMI, but during multiple meetings we worked it over to sort of make it appropriate for Amherst. We had various discussions on what to include what not to include. I guess the question that I have is I believe that they that group particularly Felicia and for we're bringing it to ECAC for ECAC to adopt endorse and then bring to town council. I'm not 100% on that so maybe Andre can confirm or correct that aspect. I'm sorry. Say what you wanted me to clarify. Okay. What do they want? What does ECAC supposed to do this? Well, the idea is that this would go to the town council asked them to pass this resolution. And we assume that the town council would say well, you should run it by the ECAC so might as well do it first. So, we are being asked for our endorsement. Okay. So, will it be presented to town council as a citizen petition with ECAC endorsement? Well, they'll probably ask some town councilors to bring it. Okay. But they are asking ECAC to endorse it, not to adopt it and present it to town council as if it was ours. So, going back, I don't think that that was the case. I think the idea was to, to have the ECAC support the resolution. So you're voting to support it, not to necessarily present it. Yeah, that was, that's what I think. It doesn't actually, you know, it's a, it's really about state level decision making. It's not actually asking the town to take any action except to ask our, you know, state representatives. And the, I think it also goes to the building. It's just some other, executive and, you know, parts of the government. But it's, it's focused on state policy with the, the request being give us local control over the industry of energy efficiency and other things that we can require. I'm guessing that people did not study it ahead of time and was may need some time. Waiting for questions to come. And then Dwayne and then Jesse. Oh, what go ahead, other people go ahead. I'll admit I'm just reading it for the first time now but it actually looks really interesting to me and good. I guess I just one question I had on the fourth to last resolution, which was to resolve that electrification and new construction codes do not increase rates or costs for low income residents. I'm wondering why that wouldn't be for all residents. Somebody's got to pay for it. Well, I'm not sure. I mean rates and costs are two different things. I don't see why it should, it should. It would be a shame for anybody, not just low income for anyone. It'd be quite a disincentive if it increased your rates. I agree. Somebody's got to pay for it. And maybe low income should be exempt from from that. But in terms of rates, I'm would imagine that it would be quite a disincentive for anybody if rates, if you were in a different rate class because you had an electrified. If you went through electrification your home. If that was the intent of the language, or the thought of the language. So without without knowing every detail about how rates might be impacted. There's probably stuff that we could look at and I'm happy to look into that a little bit more but without without knowing all those details. Having had some experience with, you know, pretty radical changes to how electric utilities work. I'm thinking about my time living in Boulder Colorado when we voted to build a public utility. Part of what we did and part of why I would argue there is no municipal utility that functions in Boulder 10 years later today was provided a ton of like off ramps in the language of the legislation, and most of that had to do with establishing rate parity at the time of launching the new utility. And that actually ended up opening the door to a lot of manipulation by the private utility to litigate against the city to reduce costs in various ways that would eventually be passed on to ratepayers, and also making us kind of more susceptible to larger market conditions for renewables that might not be directly under our under our control. But we could potentially find ways to be flexible about if we don't have a strong commitment to not increasing rates for anyone. I don't know what about this but that's just one reason that occurs to me to not commit in this language to know rate increases for anyone. I personally don't think that is the best that is not how I think the costs should be paid for is through rates I think that that should be decoupled as much as possible but I don't know that that's going to be feasible. Yeah. Jesse did you have a comment. On the same one. I don't know if it makes sense to add language to qualify electrification provided that it does not increase carbon emissions or greenhouse gas emissions electrification is not. I don't know if it is always going to do that and and I don't know if this would also be more palatable to particularly to the BBRS if if there was language in there that that limited this scope and it says that it you know what it won't do if it says it won't increase rates or whatever it says it won't do but it also won't compromise you know life safety or if there's a quick way to capture that it's not going to be in conflict that towns are not allowed to like electrify at the risk of of egress or something like that. I know it sounds obvious but the BBRS will and the fire department are going to this will not be palatable if they think that sustainability is going to override safety. People send Stephen myself and Stephanie any specific feedback I didn't catch what you were saying Jesse about so so if you could like write it down we could mull it over in in in the group that would be really helpful and I think we got the point about meeting to just say all rate payers should not be affected. That's not where the cost should be. Well I guess I'm let me read that quickly. I was reacting and maybe I was reading this incorrectly that it it should not impact like the rate class that you're in. So you move from from you know residential to you know a new rate class that might be for elective electrification residential or any rate payer low income or otherwise but to the extent that electrification over a broad population and the potential need for additional upgrades in distribution lines substantial upgrades in energy storage to accommodate everybody that needs to be heating at the same time on the off the utility grid that does need to be that cost does need to be born by some party or group groups of parties and to that extent then I would agree let's not burden the low income on that there are low income and I don't know how you define that if it's if it's people who are already on low income electric rates then let's then that's pretty straightforward for the DPU I think in terms of just not letting those rates go go up in any way based on electrification but I would agree that it needs to be born by somebody if it's a and I'm not sure if that's something we need to grapple with here or have a dog in that fight with regard to as long as it's not a low income whether it should be all other rate payers or whether it should be born by some other means of social social costs I'm not sure if we need to think through all that at this moment just so you know we have a meeting on Friday just letting people know that if you are going to get feedback to us make sure you get it to us within the next day or so if I can speak for a moment as a representative to the sort of more from the RMI committee from the electrification committee I would say that this document is intended to be a fairly broad view of what municipalities are asking the state to do and not intending to get into a lot of particular details and I might suggest that some of the questions that you raise are really great once the state gets into those particular details but maybe you're picking this apart too closely for this kind of a document this will be sent to the governor the governor will look at it and say yeah right okay sure somebody to deal with this I'm going to pick it apart at that detail and I guess I would ask the ECAC is this something you would feel comfortable endorsing as is or do these comments that you've raised just now do they make it so unpalatable that you would not endorse it from my perspective I think it might be helpful if there was like maybe just for us like a small written explanation of what you and Andrea said about like what the purpose of this is that would just be would otherwise I think this on its own without that background it's just a little bit confusing to me all the where as is doesn't remember where as is don't cover that maybe it's in there somewhere maybe a few to four so just a couple sentences you mean saying the goal of this is not to change policy at the local level but to show many municipalities are interested in effecting state policy on that I don't know if there's like a supporting statement you could add to just state that Darcy did you have a comment that's all I was going to say is that that is it's not unlike the you know the campaign a couple years ago to get municipalities to pass 100% renewable power and that's a good thing they were trying to get the message out to the state and just the comments that I had made on the rates is not I don't want that to derail our endorsement at all it's just more of a observation of some of the language but I would be in favor of it is it's not it's not carbon neutral at this point we got a ways to go before it's carbon neutral but it is the pathway to get there eventually there's not really many other options on the table but it concurrent and I think it gets into it in some of the ways that we need the continued build out aggressive build out of renewable electricity to not only replace what we have currently but replace even more as we add heating and transportation to it and I'm not sure if there's something I haven't read all the where as to get a sense of whether there should be some to really encourage renewable electricity support and incentives and commitments to make this all electrification really bear the fruit that we're looking for I think the big picture here is to the different communities in Massachusetts working with RMI is to try to get the state legislature to allow local communities to regulate gas natural gas and fuel oil connections in order to encourage electrification and the hope is that if enough communities make this request then legislatures will see that kind of unified request across the state and maybe act on it so while we are encouraged to make our own tweaks to it we are also reminded that the more uniform these requests coming from different communities are the more the clearer the message the legislatures will get really is about that can we have some local control to prohibit natural gas and or fuel oil connections in order to encourage electrification great alternatively if you don't want every municipality to have slightly different regulations then do it at the state level Wayne did you have a last thing I'm just going to concur with Steve as I was reading through this it does seem very focused or centered on gas allowing municipalities to have more control over gas what happens with gas hookups I'm not sure I don't have any I'm not sure I don't have any I'm all in favor of that okay great so I think there was some agreement that maybe a little preamble or supporting statement might be helpful if anybody else wants to submit any more specific comments after looking at it in more detail to do that before Friday when you all have your next agenda right stuff is that what you said Stephanie okay so we can put that on the agenda for the next time well that you yeah you'd endorse it okay so we'll plan on voting on that next time okay next up is the report I believe yes so there was a version in our packet but Stephanie or Andrew did we send out another version I didn't get to the put together version in time but could we bring it up so that people could look at it yeah so I have a really hard time because of how my setup is remotely it's hard for me to access the document so okay you have what I sent you it's marked up but people could look at it you could incorporate the except the track changes what is this we're looking at in your report so there's one in our packet but then there's a there's a slightly updated version that includes some feedback from Stephanie and input from right so I can bring that up on draw unless you have it there I do have it here sorry let me do that well while you she's doing that this is really impressive I think the only comment I would make at this point is if it's not being presented we should wonder about considering adding language about declaring it climate emergency I don't know at the beginning I don't know that's something like that it's just a potential I don't think you need to respond just a consideration basically supplanting a human presentation with maybe a slightly bolder cover statement otherwise it's really impressive piece of work I don't know I think 12 additional hours preparing for and in task group meetings that seems low wouldn't it be 12 times four since there were four different task groups or what was that meant to include there I was thinking of it as 12 meetings per individual not per you know 12 hours each individual spent 12 hours not the committee spent 12 hours it was just a little confusing so you're talking about full committee hours and then 12 couldn't come up with yeah I don't know it doesn't matter I just felt like we did more work than 12 12 hours 12 additional meetings not 12 hours 12 additional meetings and be right yeah because of all the task groups yeah each group there were four groups and each group had three meetings so it was 12 meetings additionally yeah I was just adding up like how many hours each spent in the task groups in the preliminary stuff in the you know talking to each other you know our co our co's outside of meeting that's what I came up with I think Jesse's sentence could fit right after the the sentence about despite the disruption of the pandemic we you know it's not you know it's the next that sentence is about how we still met with urgency and maybe a sentence could fit in there if Jesse could think of what to put there I like that idea of making it making it a little less bureaucratic and more about our bold you know trying making it sound a little more bold yeah yeah committee acted like it was an emergency right yeah yeah we can add that I'll add that I made variety of comments on the document that I received in the packet which is not this one and I'm happy to forward those to whoever is compiling comments but a couple of questions that I thought were the most important further in where it gets to be part on capital budget requests there were some sections in the again the document in the packet where buildings ECAC recommends and then one two three four recommendations and those struck me as not capital budget requests those struck me as previews of ideas that we are considering to put in the I have to say this that part wasn't fully digested you know what really we should have is you know here are the things that really need to happen right now and here's the things to seed for the following years budget and then I'll add that I asked you that question and you said there was a sense that you know it does say something like that somewhere but but it would be good if it were named each time it says ECAC recommends whether this is a long term question I guess part of my concern is putting these ideas into this request almost formalizes them and yet they are not ideas that we formally have adopted or even have fleshed out so I'm kind of hesitant to even mention them one because somebody might look at these and say oh my God that sounds horrible if they don't have the full justification in front of them but I'm not sure I don't know if we're ready to fully present it I think some of these things should wait to be included in the climate action plan not presented in little pieces here what we've done this past year Steve is this an example right here ECAC recommends bylaws for building over exactly that's not a capital budget request it might be in the climate action plan I hope it is but we haven't decided on that so I'm thinking it's probably not appropriate for a report of what we've done in the past year yeah I guess one I agree that this is not a capital request but if there was some way that we could get some of this stuff in to show that we need staffing because there's so much planning and preparation that's going to need to be done a lot of this tracks the carp outline that is in the packet and if you look at that there's no way that you can walk away saying we don't need additional staffing to do this so I haven't even agreed I mean I agree these are ideas that we've talked about or they've been presented or they're in other climate action plans that look good to us but they're just ideas at this point I was just going to say this report I think we took a structure that exists for reports but I don't know how locked into that we are because I agree that these are not really capital budget requests really what we're doing in this document is talking about what we did and then making a bunch of recommendations and I don't know if we just labeled this as recommendations I think that would help I also think we probably just need to be clear to I think to Steve's point you know we haven't I think we can be more conversational in this document to say we're working on a whole host of recommendations around buildings some of which may include these examples because we haven't finalized the report yet we don't know what's going to be in it completely and I agree Steve I think if someone saw this they would think this is a done deal and this is what we're recommending and I think to articulate too that these aren't our ideas necessarily we're just going to be talking about the residents of the town other groups this is not just what we think this is what we're hearing one piece of language that I imagine those people haven't seen that I added to the end it's currently under the equity section at the end but maybe that's not where it goes because I think it does maybe encapsulate some of this here but in the equity section at the bottom what I wrote is that the town needs to hire staff to implement the CARP we need staff who can deliver information about sustainability and provide people with access to programs that improve their well-being through activities ranging from accessing green spaces to growing food to sequestering carbon and soils and upgrading their homes and businesses for energy efficiency so that's what we're trying to do but at the bottom it's actually near the top okay I maybe I don't know where it is but anyway I feel that to me I put that in there because I think let's get it on the screen okay yeah it's kind of frustrating that we had one thing in the packet and now we're trying to discuss a different thing that is scrolling up and down and we're trying to stick to discussing what's in the packet not try to shift gears on the fly and discuss something different I think there was an attempt to avoid open meeting law problems yeah this is a consequence of complying with open meeting law on a tight schedule there yeah there we go yeah there's a message there about staffing I think if we can incorporate that into with some more specificity into the sections on buildings on transportation on land use on electricity and be a little specific about here are the types of things that we're likely to recommend and that we're thinking about in each of these areas and here's why we think it's important to hire folks to be able to bring this information to the constituencies that will actually implement and be affected by these recommendations I think that's a really good idea yeah that's the only thing we got in the budget was just money for staffing that would make me happy yeah and Steve I hear your point and I appreciate you going into the area that was in the packet and providing comments so please do share those because we can we can incorporate those yeah I think Steve could get it to me and I can add to the document that I forwarded to Andrew and I can just update it further and send it out to everybody okay I'll do that and yes I like where we're landing here with what Darcy and Ashwin have said I think provide some examples to support the notion that we need money for staff because many of these ideas are complex and will require quite a bit of time to flesh out and further develop so it sounds like it's going to need to be reorganized or else just take a lot of the stuff out of budget requests and put it into kind of rationale for why staffing is needed yeah I mean I think to Ashwin's point about the format I mean there are these four things right here or five things excuse me that are required from the charge I think we I guess I could see it being effective if we mention these really important things right up front and then even if we get down to the part where we're saying funding needs we just reiterate what we set up front and maybe put in a couple examples of why the staff thing is needed I think that should be fine I think we don't need to necessarily line item them quite as much as we can but I think we should just grab the capital budget request subheading because it really seems like that's but we're sort of tying ourselves into not to frame stuff as capital budget request so why don't we just do away with that subheading since it's not a top level heading anyway yeah I would support that so then everything almost is overarching concerns operating out overarching concerns from capital budget request let's just go straight into the content which is because there's also operating budget requests and ongoing funding for you see some of this is left over you know just from Darcy draft that was pulled right out of what we're getting for line item for 60,000 for the committee and I think that's one of the things that we're trying to do is to go through ongoing studies that are some specifics yeah there there are I mean I think we want to continue supporting the resident capital request for the solar study and that was in the capital budget and the other thing was having capital requests that that are taking us away from fossil fuel infrastructure and use and the resident capital request and then have the rest of it just be about why we need it added staffing because we have all these different requests in the different sector areas that at least at this stage looks like we want we're going to be asking for these things in these areas and that's why we need staffing okay so it could be simplified and take out a lot of this stuff under the capital budget that doesn't really shouldn't really be there yeah Laura did you talk to to Lynn about is it on the agenda for the 7th of January it is not on the agenda because we were told that that's not a typical thing that committees do for reports it's just gets in the packet as a as a agenda item that was what was in the last packet for the town council there were there were they were agenda items but they were I think that they were just passed on the consent agenda you know we just approved them you know in a rote way by putting them on the consent agenda they just weren't brought up they weren't you know they weren't discussed I was told Darcy that they could be submitted but there wasn't an expectation that there would be a formal presentation for it right and so exactly what you're saying they want they want us to submit it as part of the town council's packet but they don't want the committee to necessarily do a presentation because other committees do not do that so that's I think that's fine I mean I always prefer a presentation our agendas are totally packed we go to midnight every single meeting so it's it's very intense but I think probably having it in the packet is enough all it takes is one counselor by the way to raise their hand and say take it off the consent agenda so that's just FYI you know I won't do that but all it takes is one person to say oh I have a question about that take it off the consent agenda was there what would the expectation then be Darcy if that happens just would be that the council or whoever objects and wants to take it off the consent agenda would have to say why and then it would come up for a vote I guess it would just come up maybe it would we don't have to vote on it do we no they don't have to vote on it they're just accepting it but it would just come up for a question and someone would have to answer it and if none of us none of you were there then I would I would probably have to answer whatever the question was but yeah it probably would be good for Laura or you know if Laura is available if not at least be available in case there was a question that came up about it okay that seems doable their consent agenda items at the beginning yeah they're pretty they're usually you know within the first hour at least of the meeting that it comes up a whole long list of items that the council is trying very hard not to have on the agenda okay they assume will will you know just be automatically approved or that there's no issue about so I'm not sure that I caught every comment but I think I have the general idea and could I could just I could just draft it based on that and we could send it out again and people could just read through and say yeah you this is this is good and tell or tell Stephanie you know you just insert such and such here so unless there's any more specific questions or six specific questions that you wanted us to talk about as a group right now we covered what I wanted to ask about okay great so I would suggest that Steve submit his comment to Stephanie and Andra and anybody else who has comments please do note so I will also submit those to you both from this conversation and then yeah Andra if you want to update it and send it back out to the group I think that folks should review it now and if and provide plan on making right now be there I think that would be great I think that would be great I mean amount of feedback based on the most recent one which I don't think everybody has I forwarded it to you and Laura and I guess from what I'm seeing it looks like so why don't we do this if you've already made comments on the one that's in the packet please just submit those otherwise I will send this version out that I've added my two comments on from this meeting to everybody to add any additional comments Andra is going to thank you for addressing those and cleaning it up I think maybe it could go out for one more just email review from everybody and if there's no additional feedback it'll be ready to go that sounds good to folks the only other issue that I had a question that I had was the timeline presented in the for the climate action plan for the carp we are already I think about a month behind schedule and I'm wondering are we still confident in describing or stating a February timeframe for providing at least a draft car to council yes is that still yes the goal that's the goal then I guess in our next agenda item and agenda for next year we need to talk about how we're going to get that far that fast you've got the consultant working on the draft now so there should be something coming to you and I think my understanding was in January there should be like an initial initial draft for you all I don't know exactly when in January Lauren you know submitted the timeline and I know they're working on it so you know she's that's her focus now is doing the writing and pulling everything together and doing the writing so that's all she's doing right now I mean she's got other tasks obviously but for our work that's what she's focused on right now so as far as you know they are they think that they're going to get it to us enough time for us to have input and meet the deadline of February 19 those are the they're trying to meet those goals those targets is what they're shooting for I think we want to have input the first draft shouldn't be like just what they've done it's what you have an outline that they worked on and that they revised based on the feedback that you gave them at the last two meetings right and I sent you all the update to the revised time that revised outline and that's what they're going from so but the outline the actions integrated into them it's still well so let's close up the report conversation because we're sort of moving the next conversation so it sounds like everybody's okay with the plan for the report so moving into next step so thinking about next year maybe reflecting a little bit on what's working well what's you know and what we want our focus to be I think just to clarify what's written in the report I think there's two different questions here you know is this still a reasonable timeline which I think we have to what the timeline is listed here is that will be provided by February 19th I read that as a first draft of the plan provided to us eCAC will discuss amend and confirm the draft by March 10th so that's what's written in this plan and then we will present the draft card to the community by March 24th so I think we can what we're hearing from Stephanie is that I think we can I think we can even though it looks like we've been delayed a little bit Linnean hasn't expressed any concern about meeting this deadline for February so we should assume that they're on pathway to meet that correct Stephanie is I'm hearing I'm saying that there may be an opportunity I mean I know the first draft is for February so I think we can sort of do what's been formulated maybe maybe they're willing to do sort of an initial draft in January you know we can ask them if they'll give something then I'm meeting with them you know I we have weekly check-ins so I'm checking in with them tomorrow I can ask them about that do we have clarity on that draft is it a content draft or will it be visually assembled maybe in February there may be more there may be more you know sort of the layout but I think right now it's going to be mostly content so I can see if they'll do a rough draft a very initial rough draft in January I think it's going to be a more formalized draft in February 19th as they outlined already yeah just a question and it's not an urgent one but I think it's sort of related to the discussion about how to reorient towards kind of outward facing work from our committee but I feel like it might be useful for us to kind of plan to actually bring in public comment on this report as we provide feedback on it I don't know what exactly what that looks like but I wonder what you all think about that idea if we if we were somehow prepared to have more to actually call for more public comment about the plan in the meetings after February 19th and try to seek that out I wonder if that would be of interest to us to do yeah my understanding of the timeline is that we are planning to get feedback on that draft so I think that's a really good question how would we how do we do that and in what form and how do we be more proactive about it yeah and like to me one approach to that might be to explicitly have one of our meetings around that time actually dedicated with some outreach efforts before and to be almost in time to really try to get a lot of public in here to talk to respond to the plan or something like that I think that would be a really extended public comment with a much lighter if any agenda for the rest of the meeting I think one of the ideas is to make sure that it goes out to all of the community leaders that were involved in the engagement to begin with and even if they didn't necessarily participate in the meetings you know we do have a list of folks and we would just send it to all those people there's also I don't know at what stage this is going to happen but there's also in the scope of work there needs to be a translated version in Spanish for the final report so I don't know at what point how that's going to get developed I haven't really asked them about that that have to be the draft for the community what I'm saying is like I don't know if that draft is going to get translated or if they're just translating the final version I'm not sure I'll have to ask them about that tomorrow the timeline that they put out a while back said that the first meeting in December was the meeting when the plan was going to be presented to the public which I don't really know what that means but I don't think it happened that that was what was the revised timeline or an older timeline that was the most recently produced timeline I remember that it said that as I was wondering what was going to happen that day and nothing happened I'm looking at the report we got from Lenean on November 2 Amherst Karp ECAC post tax group PDF and one of the last pages is the timeline that lists a bunch of steps it's starting with November 20 December 20 into January 2021 and further that's the only timeline I have seen so that was early November does not have a presentation in December that you just described Darcy but it does show that the presentation of draft Karp to ECAC is the 18th of February I may have been looking at this wrong thinking about this or interpreting it incorrectly previously I thought the various actions that were going to be the evaluation and prioritization and research and strategy development I thought those were going to be involving us ECAC as I look at it now maybe I was mistaken on the Lenean side and really the first time we see things will be that February 18th presentation I think it's going to be very hesitant in our annual report to tell the council that the draft Karp will be available on the 18th I don't think it should be available after we've had a chance to look at it and discuss it and review it internally with Lenean I think that's a good point that we should make sure that's clear but I think we should be clear that the draft is coming to ECAC I'll make that comment as well The timeline that was the ECAC time line that has been sent out a few times to the town council that has different phases phase one, phase two, phase three and we're in phase three and it's phase three number six says on December 4th presentation of prioritized strategy rankings to task groups and community partners and then the next November and December the FY22 budget request and final report production February 19th 2021 and so on Who wrote that Darcy? The consultants and then we amended it a little bit to add that ECAC is involved in it and I think that's a good point because I can send that out again to people but it's called the ECAC time line for development of the town of Amherst Karp something that was provided in our packet at some point and then if you want me to Yeah, yes I guess you had MVP in the title name at least Yeah you could probably get it with just ECAC, C-A-A-R-P time one but we send it to people I think we've got I don't think we should necessarily dissect the timelines in detail I think we've got a goal here that they're going to provide a draft to ECAC so we should clarify that on February 19th or 18th I think there was a good point raised by Ashwin about what what this is saying is that we're going to review the draft and then we're going to present the draft to the community so I think we want to think about how we do that I think there's probably multiple prongs of an approach here sending it directly to the community leaders and the task group members having a meeting where we focus on this and inviting people to come and maybe asking them to register in advance so we can have a more open discussion or some sort and it may be that we pull out specific parts that we want more detailed feedback on instead of sending them a long report to review so all of that leads me to think that it would be helpful Stephanie in January to maybe just get an update on how it's going and are there sections that they're thinking would benefit from making sure we get community input on I think one thing that we've been clear about but that we probably need to make sure we're communicating well is this idea that we need to invest in more staff capacity around sustainability and that we're going to need to figure out how to relay effectively to the community and I'm looking back at my notes from our last meeting with Lenean and there was a couple things that they had noted that would be specifically useful for us to be focused on over the next month and a half before we have the draft and we're going to be looking at communication being one of them how do we mobilize our community members how do we get actual feedback on this and the other things I wrote down were some things around CCA what assumptions how fast and what level how are we going to implement it and like what key policies and how will they be implemented so those were the things I had jotted down as kind of things that for the next couple meetings while they're focused on doing this writing everything down and pulling everything together are things that ECAC needs to focus on doing community engagement is also part of what was identified in their scope as part of funding that's part of what they're getting paid to do as well so it's not just specifically only on you all there are resources being allocated to them to do some of that engagement so and that would be for like the translation services and that kind of thing probably engaging the community leaders again you know Gazikaya was paid for in the grant I don't know how much of that funding has been utilized already just in that initial process and if they will be coming back and again if they will be back in again to the process again I'm not sure but these are things that we can touch base tomorrow about and I can report back to you all on I would yes Stephanie you suggested that you could ask Lynanne to get us some sort of earlier versions of the draft I think that's great I would love to be more involved in this I think it's also important for us to go to some of the other town departments with some of these ideas so they're not hearing about them for the first time in the community they're not Steve they're going to be there actually that's a separate meeting that Lynanne and I are going to be scheduling with department heads so basically kind of the process that we did with the community leaders basically will be doing essentially with the department heads and they haven't scheduled it yet but if one of their ideas is asking for some kind of energy disclosure with properties that's something we need to talk about in January with folks in the assessor's office so that we can have some of the other proposals we may want to have conversations with different departments in January so that the feedback they provide can actually be meaningfully incorporated into a draft so I think the sooner we see these ideas further fleshed out the better yeah yeah I think co-chairs at meetings with staff discussing the parts of the action plan that's related to our sectors part of the reason for that is that the consultants are going away after the plan's done but we're not and we're going to have this ongoing relationship with department staff and I think that building trust is a part of it but also getting just building the relationship that we can go to them and ask questions they can come to us and know we're reasonable and useful yeah I think that makes sense reasonable and useful can we put that on the website well that does actually bring up another question which is how much of we've talked about this briefly but I think as we start entering into this next year I think the way we communicate on the website is going to be really important and so like what information can we highlight is not buried in packets like any of the task group summaries or anything that we want to do there I know that's hard because there's not a lot of flexibility but I think right now as far as the website goes that content is a lot of work and I know everybody wants this great website and so do I but right now the person doing that is me and I'm going to be the only one that's going to be able to work on that and who would work on developing that just like we did the initial sustainability site which was wonderful when we first got it and when we first unveiled it it was great but it's outdated the town is updating everything now so I think as much as that would be a wonderful thing to do I think that's a little ways down the road but I think it's a lot of work and we can focus on just getting the plan together and I think you also talked about maybe doing some other actions while this process of plan development was happening that there would be an opportunity to work on very specific things as well simultaneously so while that's happening that's what I understand at the last meeting too that wasn't specifically like the website but is there any way that we can support you in trying to find an intern to do that sorry hold on one second sorry we can watch your dog he's been requested to be out of the room so yeah I think a funding request for for an intern at least would be great I'd love to have one or semester or at least one a year and I don't know the NEMS network has fellows that are usually only available in the summertime so the application period happens in December then they're selected and then there's like a whole training program and then they do the work in the summertime and that's how we secure a tailor but the cost for the interns has actually gone up now it's like now around $5,000 so you know I would love to be able to secure some funding to do that but I think what I'd like to do with Stephanie's bigger point here is that something like website development I think that's got to wait until after we get the first draft of the carp released I think we need to focus our attention on one getting the annual report done and out of the way and then really clear the slate for January and February to really be us be working on those those strategies that we've done other organizations and really just focusing on getting that those strategies identified and written out once they're presented and we can kind of take a deep breath and assuming that they're received well then we can start translating them onto a web page but I think that web page development really on a wait until after the climate action plan is developed Yeah, Andra I'd like for us to look at the carp strategies version three if we could because I don't think we'll have version one or two and I feel like a lot of this might have been pulled from other places So you were sent versions one and two version three was the result of your last meetings and the input that you all gave about the outline not the outline I mean there's some good stuff on here I just don't feel like we've discussed them all or if everything that we have discussed is on here Yeah and some of the things well some of the things were pulled from and this is my understanding and some of the things were pulled from documents that you referenced and that you said you liked some of the strategies so we pulled from there also a lot of things came from the meetings and you weren't in all of them so there might be things that seem unfamiliar to you but I'm just talking about the renewables one that's the only one I know Yeah and some of that I think was pulled because you had referenced other plans and said you wanted like things that came from plans that you thought they identified as like a good thing to do you all asked them to do that you said what are things from other plans that you all think are good measures that we should pursue so that's what they did so if there are things that aren't familiar to you that's probably why I just feel like we need to go over the initial list which is why I question why it says B3 Yeah I had sort of the same reaction I did actually really like a lot of the suggestions but they seem a bunch of stuff seem brand new that was good but brand new and my other main comment is that as Steve had suggested I think a couple meetings ago and maybe it's just because they haven't gotten that far yet but all the different categories need you know action words and they actually need verbs like implement or develop almost every every category has like just a phrase following it that does not it's not like doesn't describe an action right I think I see a lot of great goals here wonderful goals but I don't see plans and steps but I don't see those goals and I was hoping we would see more of those step-by-step details by this point I agree it's a huge job and I don't want to heap too much blame on Linnaean I'm just anxious for us to pick what we are going to develop as something we can do in the first year or two but I don't want to go too far and talk about the cost talk about who's going to be responsible for what specific steps and what obstacles we can foresee and a timeline and get down to that level of detail as soon as possible so what you had asked before was what you wanted to do and those are the things they're going to flesh out in more detail like in a really specific detail everything in the plan is not going to be fleshed out in that kind of detail but that piece is and that's what you all asked before you wanted something very specific and that's what we're going to do and that's what we're going to do and they are going to promote as the ones that'll get us the 25 by 25 sorry so I don't have that in front of me that's a separate document that's the Linnaean five top strategies that was in the packet I think yes exactly action milestones and then immediate actions and then preparing for long term action and yeah I was a lot more than five things Stephanie did they explain what that document is for so we hadn't had a meeting since they submitted that so I apologize but I won't know until tomorrow okay so I don't think anybody knows what this document's meant to represent necessarily so let's pause on that Stephanie maybe you can ask them about that and reiterate these comments which I agree we've already made to them but not helpful to reiterate the action and we can talk to them more next time and then we'll get more information in January as you're asking the document that says Linnaean five top strategies so these were the things that Jim verbally talked about at our last meeting a few of you had asked for him to write them down so I relayed that message he wrote them down this is good I'm glad that we have them in writing what we might want to do probably not tonight but next time will be for us to decide if we like these top five strategies discuss if there's add some some facts on but then more importantly maybe we start dividing out responsibilities on fleshing these out further with each of us we're taking on some tasks working with Linnaean but also working with other folks in town to explore these how they've worked in other communities and how they could work in detail and create that step-by-step plan begin to begin to create that step-by-step plan yeah and I think sort of bringing it full circle you know I think if these are the kind of the top five things we're going to focus on for getting to our 2025 goal these will be the top five things that we're going to want to get community specific community input on so I think thinking about how this is I think there's a couple layers like the step-by-step process of how it's going to work who needs to make the decisions who's in charge how much you know what cost of any is associated with it what departments we need to engage specifically on these topics you know and what GHG reductions or would we anticipate from them are a couple of thoughts that I think we could dig into so I think that's a great idea Steve as a focus so we've got four minutes left and I don't want to run over I think we've started this conversation more to be had but I think for our next meeting we'll get an update from Stephanie based on our conversations with Lenean and maybe hear a little bit more about what we can expect from them in January and then we can start to dig into these actions and then we'll get a little bit more with all of those framings in mind there's something else I had written down as well I think and then we're also going to talk next time about the electrification endorsement and zoning if we have any comments there I'll put it in an email to folks I'll also make sure we circulate the report document for folks to add comments to I don't think my vote is that I don't think we should have a meeting in two weeks I'm not going to be able to attend and I don't think Stephanie is going to be able to attend I think we should provide feedback on the report and get that submitted and if you need any help with that I think we should provide that I think I need to take a break from work and I think others probably do as well that would be my proposal unless anyone feels strongly about that I think we should have a meeting on December 30 January 13 would there be any reason to shift that meeting a week earlier and have our next meeting on January 6 and then do bi-weekly from that I just have to change the calendar or perhaps a meeting January 6 and 13 then stay on bi-weekly from the 13th forward I just have to make sure that I advertise I have the agenda by January 4 which is the Monday I absolutely have to advertise it on that day I'm not looking at my calendar I'm on vacation so I'm not going to be working prior so I don't want to have to worry about posting agendas and getting things on the calendar that week that's perfectly reasonable I'm anxious to get working on this but I don't want to be having the next meeting be a month from now middle of January we're pushing closer and closer to those deadlines especially if we're going to be giving some more detailed feedback about the main strategies I'm worried that we'll be working across purposes but I don't know how are we going to implement those strategies how are they going to be implemented in Amherst we should confirm we don't want to be doing stuff they're also doing I would if the issue is just getting a meeting posted I could help with that it's just getting an agenda we're going to set up a one hour meeting on the 6th or we can set it up for a normal amount of time I don't think we should cancel next week's meetings just to have more meetings later I agree with Steve maybe spend that meeting just really focusing on what we're going to do for this next coming we're going to focus specifically on getting an update from Stephanie and then taking these five items and doing what we need to do to move them forward does that sound okay to folks I can send you the update on Friday I can type up an update that would be great so you're not waiting until the next meeting so I can do it that way my one suggestion would be that our January 6th meeting we affirm which top five or six or maybe four but we definitely affirm which of those are going to be our top strategies that we then pursue in more detail that's a good point I got to go to another meeting you guys have a great holiday rest I'll see you on the 6th I got to go to you bye everyone I think that's all everybody enjoy the snow and time with your immediate family and pods since alright I'll be following up over email thank you everybody